The carbon nanorods (CNR's) were synthesized using flame reactor with diffusion burner. The growth of carbon nanorods in presence and absence of catalyst has been studied. The role of ferrocene as catalyst in the synthesis of carbon nanorods was investigated using a Flame Reactor at different oxygen to fuel ratios. The fuel used over here is acetylene. The fuel i.e., acetylene to oxygen ratio is also optimized to produce the carbon nanorods in presence of cataylst. The carbon nanorods showed a very good result with increasing yield and decreasing diameter with the use of catalyst. The morphology, purity and crystal structural characterization of CNR's was carried out using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. From the analysis it was observed that in the presence of ferrocene, the density of CNR's increased with variable lengths between 10
Handwriting is considered as one of the most delicate and complex human activities. This habit requires a certain level of evolution of the language, the control of the graphic space and a certain degree of affective and praxis development. The production of a meaningful and readable writing involves a variety of motor commands generated by the brain and sent to the muscles to define, with an extreme precision, the motion of each joint at a given time. In this paper, two models characterizing the handwriting process are proposed. Using the activities of the forearm muscles, called the ElectroMyoGraphic signals (EMG), the first model is based on the coordinates of the pen-tip moving on (x,y) plan and the second model is defined from the velocity of the pen-tip. The parameters' estimation of both models is determined from the Recursive Least Square algorithm (RLS). The comparison of responses of two proposed structures shows the interest of the velocity to model the complex biological process. Indeed, the model based on the velocity shows best results then the model bases on the coordinates of the pen-tip.
This paper presents the comparison of various Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) strategies for the three phase Diode Clamped Multi Level Inverter (DCMLI). The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of new modulation schemes with Variable Amplitude (VA) and various new schemes adopting the constant switching frequency and also variable switching frequency multicarrier control freedom degree combination concepts are developed and simulated for the chosen three phase DCMLI. The three phase DCMLI, is controlled in this paper with Sinusoidal PWM (SPWM) reference along with triangular carriers and analysis is made among both without carrier overlapping and with Carrier Overlapping (CO) techniques to choose the better strategy by performing simulation using MATLAB-SIMULINK. The variation of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and fundamental RMS output voltage is observed for various modulation indices. It is observed that among the various equal amplitude PWM strategies, COPWM-C provides less THD and higher RMS voltage. It is recognized that among the various variable amplitude PWM strategies, VACOPWM-C provides less THD and VACOPWM-B provides higher RMS voltage. By comparing the equal amplitude PWM strategies with the variable amplitude PWM strategies it is inferred that VACOPWM-C provides less THD and VACOPWM-B provides higher RMS voltage. It is also inferred that carrier overlapping techniques provides better results compared to the without carrier overlapping techniques.
The aim of this paper is to identify the key factors that permit the gradual development of an innovative social culture which, in turn, influences the innovation process. After decades of theory development and empirical research into innovation, researchers still know surprisingly little about how the innovation process works. In this paper the capabilities, values and relationships that people, organizations and territories need to work on and develop to achieve innovation-oriented behaviour are identified. Thus, it is conducted qualitative research focused on a literature review, a workshop with 35 participants and 32 in-depth interviews with experts in different fields seeking to achieve a consensus on what values, capabilities and relationships enable people, organizations and territories to develop a propensity to become more innovative. As a result it is proposed a theoretical model which seeks to orient organizations, institutions and politicians about the factors to which they should pay attention to create and expand an innovative culture in people and/or organizations in a specific territory. That model also seeks to serve as a platform on which researchers can base future empirical analysis and approximate the level of innovative social culture in different territories. This study provides with a more dynamic, more complete view of the innovation process. However, this is only the first step in the identification of key factors for driving an innovative social culture and, therefore, encouraging innovation.
The academic research on e-learning effectiveness becomes one of the current themes. In this perspective, many efforts have been made to give more comprehension to learning effectiveness determinants. In fact, researchers focus frequently on the variables that maximize the reaction, learning and behaviour changes of trainees. Despite these efforts that aim at giving more comprehension to learning effectiveness determinants, researchers have not reached a consensus on the "nomological network" of learning results, ruling distinctness over how to explain them and queries as how could they make training experience more effective and interesting in education and corporation area as well. These divergent perspectives suggest that a conceptual and quantitative review of nomological network of learning outcomes antecedents is justified and necessary. The present study addresses the limitation of understanding regarding learning outcomes antecedents by reviewing the empirical results of literature. In this case, a review and Meta
Power system is becoming more complex with the passage of time, as non-linearity of the system invite major dynamic kind of problems. One of major problems in power system is the acquisition of electricity data. Energy meter reading is a tiresome and pricey concern. Planned system of energy meter data reading will allow to control room to access the customer's energy meter and also allow the service provider to monitor and control the whole energy consumption, acquisition of energy data and fault or energy theft case in its zone. Digital wireless meter is technological enhanced and improved version of meter reading with safe prestigious time of energy providing company employees as there is no need of manpower for manual meter reading while visiting home to home. Radio frequency is proposed source of wireless communication for data integration. Online monitoring of electricity is being addressed first time in this research paper for Pakistan's Distribution system using radio frequency (RF). Telemetry will really be helpful for safety purposes for both utility and consumers. This Microcontroller Based Electricity Data Acquisition and Wireless Transmission system is established in Rachna College of Engineering & Technology, Joura-sian in Region of 220KV Ghakar Grid station, Gujranwala under the control of National Transmission and Dispatch Company Pakistan.
The present survey aims at establishing the influence of the dynamic of two arborescent Legumes trees of the Mimosaceae family (Albizia adiathifolia and Albizia zygia) on the woody forest, their evolution during the reconstitution of post-cultural flora. It was conducted at Oum
In the last decade, the web has known a major evolution with the appearance of web 2.0 and its applications. One of those popular tools is the Online Video Social Networks (OVSN). Video content is becoming a predominant part of the daily life of users on the Web. Henceforth the study and modeling this kind of platforms, emerge as necessity. In this paper, we study the interaction of user community with videos shared and viewed in online video social networks. The concept of freedom giving to users in these platforms allows them to express their opinion toward those videos. Based on the analysis of the mechanisms of interaction in OVSN, we developed a personal opinion model for online users in this case. To deal with this problem we constructed a Petri Net model and we use it to derive a payoff function, these bring us to the Game theory field. Although our model is inspired from earlier studies, at the heart of our whole approach is abstracting the complex mechanism of interactions by the solution concept of Nash equilibrium, which allowed us to deal with richer problem instances. We conclude this paper by outlining several interesting lines of future work.
Industrial policy is a microeconomic form of state intervention in industry. It monitors the performance of the secondary sector with stimulating the competitiveness of firms, overcoming market failures and adjusting its structure to economic, organizational and technological changing. Although this state intervention creates much debate, it regains interest in university research, in political discourse and economic practices. In this work, the experiences of France, Japan and the four dragons were analyzed in terms of objectives, instruments and conditions for success. The purpose behind is to learn from their actions and to try to form recommendations for others country. We also presented the state measures implemented in favor of Tunisian industry emphasizing their evolution over time, their effectiveness in achieving the goals and their impact on the evolution of the industry. We have shown that these measures are ineffective since they did not realize most of the time the objectives associated with it such as improving the competitiveness of industrial firms, increase technological content in production cycle and decreasing regional imbalance. We tried so to understand the causes behind the inefficacity of the Tunisian effort for its industry. Finally we conclude that these state efforts cannot build a genuine industrial policy.
The aim of this paper is to represent the results from the conducted research, based on the number of injuries in all of the real organizations that gravitates in the Bitola's region, Republic Macedonia in the period frame January 2012-December 2012. The basic aim of the conducted research is to represent relevant information for the number of injuries in Bitola's region, no ether of the type of the organization, the basic field of action, the size of the same and the number of employees. Actually, this paper is a representation of the conducted research based on the number of injuries, conduced as a part of every year activity of the Safety and Health organization NGO Bitola from Bitola. The paper represents the relevant information about the number of injuries in real enterprises; information's given by the enterprises that are working in the Bitola's region. The given information's are analyzed from several aspects such as: the gender of the person that is injured, the education of the injured person, the work period of the day when the injury is spotted, the body part that is injured, number of work days that are lost as a result of the injury, etc. The paper represents some of the main criteria's that were under research in 2012.
The financial goal of a firm is to maximise the economic welfare of the owners. Owners' economic welfare could be maximised by maximising the shareholders wealth as reflected in the market value of shares. The value of shares is represented by their market price which is a reflection of the firm's financial decisions that include investment or long-term asset-mix decision, financing or capital-mix decision and dividend or profit allocation decision. Among the critical decisions, decision relating to dividend is the most crucial as the financial manager must decide whether the firm should distribute all profits or retain them or distribute a portion and retain the balance. However, the preachers of shareholders value theory have discouraged payment of dividend as it implies inefficiency on the part of the management towards shareholder's wealth maximisation. Taking this argument into account, this paper attempts to study the relationship between dividend payout and economic value added (EVA), an indicator to shareholders wealth creation, introduced by United States based consultants Stern Stewart and Company, New York, in 1990, using data of Square Pharmaceutical Limited (SPL), one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh, for the periods 2004-05 to 2010-11. Using simple regression equation method, the study comes to the conclusion that there is an inverse relationship between dividend payout and EVA and recommends SPL to continue the existing dividend policy of retaining a bulky portion of earnings rather than high payout ratio.
In this paper, generalizations Mittag-Leffler function method is applied to solve approximate and analytical solutions of nonlinear fractional differential equation systems such as lorenz system of fractional oreder, and compared the results with the results of Homotopy perturbation method (HPM) and Variational iteration method (VIM) in the standard integer order form. The reason of using fractional order differential equations (FOD) is that fractional order differential equations are naturally related to systems with memory which exists in most systems. Also they are closely related to fractals which are abundant in systems. The results derived of the fractional system are of a more general nature. Respectively, solutions of fractional order differential equations spread at a faster rate than the classical differential equations, and may exhibit asymmetry. A few numerical methods for fractional differential equations models have been presented in the literature. However many of these methods are used for very specific types of differential equations, often just linear equations or even smaller classes put the results generalizations Mittag-Leffler function method show the high accuracy and efficiency of the approach. A new solution is constructed in power series. The fractional derivatives are described by Caputo's sense.
Cloud is the major obstacle to analyze data in the satellite images. The various approaches are used to remove the cloud from the satellite image for further processing. The approaches are in-painting and multi-temporal. But, the algorithm working for these approaches cannot produce the accurate results. So, that the accuracy assessment helps to motivate the increased accuracy result. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the accuracy of in-paint and multi-temporal approach and produce the pros and cons of those approaches. Accuracy assessment helps to obtain degree of truthfulness of the results. There are 'n' numbers of metrics are available to find the accuracy of the result such as analyzing variance, spatial error, probabilistic error etc. In this paper, two approaches are implemented and the results are applied to the segmentation algorithm. Then, the segmentation results are analyzed by using the error matrix. The error matrix have constructed based on the difference between the clusters of the image result. For segmentation the K-Means algorithm is used and for simplicity only two clusters are segmented. Segmentation result will clearly show that the accuracy of the in-paint and multi-temporal approaches. From the result it is evident that the multi-temporal approach produces a better result when compared to the in-painting. Especially, in that multi-temporal the Averaging method produces better accuracy result.
Diabetes is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar. Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is caused by the abnormalities in the retina due to insufficient insulin in the body. Diabetic Retinopathy affects 80% of all patients who had diabetes for 10 years or more, which can also lead to vision loss. The most primitive sign of Diabetic Retinopathy is Exudates. Exudates in the retina are opacities that result from the escape of plasma and white blood cells from defective blood vessels. Detecting the exudates in an earlier stage can prevent the vision loss. In this paper, an automated algorithm has demonstrated to detect and localize the presence of exudates from low-contrast digital images of retinopathy patients with non-dilated pupils. In this method, first the retinal fundus image is pre-processed. Then, Mask Technique and Score Computation technique is used for segmenting the exudates in the retinal fundus images. This method does not require supervised learning which requires labeled set, may cause human error and it is time consuming process. It can effectively identify the lesions because exudates were clearly distinguished from optic disc and blood vessels. It helps the ophthalmologists apply proper treatments that might eliminate the disease or decrease the severity of it.
For the blessing of World Wide Web, the corpus of online information is gigantic in its volume. Search engines have been developed such as Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, etc., to retrieve specific information from this huge amount of data. But the outcome of search engine is unable to provide expected result as the quantity of information is increasing enormously day by day and the findings are abundant. So, the automatic text summarization is demanded for salient information retrieval. Automatic text summarization is a system of summarizing text by computer where a text is given to the computer as input and the output is a shorter and less redundant form of the original text. An informative pr
This paper analyzes different analytical techniques to evaluate the expected cost at the load points and the system. The analytical techniques vary in their complexity and the data utilized during the evaluation. The information obtained by using those techniques which is useful to utilities for the better investment in the system. The collection of the additional data may result in higher investment and operational costs for the utilities. The variation in the expected cost value using these different techniques may be used in determining the level of accuracy the utility may want and hence invest in the system. The variation in the results using these techniques may provide some indication of whether the application of more complex techniques and hence the additional investment costs can be justified.This paper estimates the variations in ECOST which is obtained from the results using the various analytical techniques. In this paper the techniques are divided into seven separate cases. The data requirement of the events and interruption costs increases with the increase in complexity of these techniques. This results in more accurate evaluation of ECOST. However, utilities may face huge investment and operation costs to collect the additional data. The variation in the results using these techniques may give indication of whether the application of complex techniques and hence additional investment costs can be justified.
As modern process industries become more complex, the importance to detect and identify the faulty operation of pneumatic process control valves is increasing rapidly. The prior detection of faults leads to avoiding the system shutdown, breakdown, raw material damage and etc. The proposed approach for fault diagnosis comprises of two processes such as fault detection and fault isolation. In fault diagnosis, the difference between the system outputs and model outputs called as residuals are used to detect and isolate the faults. But in the control valve it is not an easy process due to inherent nonlinearity. The particular values of five measurable quantities from the valve are depend on the commonly occurring faults such as Incorrect supply pressure, Diaphragm leakage and Actuator vent blockage. The correlations between these parameters from the fault values for each operating condition are learned by a multilayer BP Neural Network. The parameter consideration is done through the committee of Development and Application of Methods for Actuator Diagnosis in Industrial Control Systems (DAMADICS). The simulation results using MATLab prove that BP neural network has the ability to detect and identify various magnitudes of the faults and can isolate multiple faults. In addition, it is observed that the network has the ability to estimate fault levels not seen by the network during training.
An artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm has been developed using Mathematical formula to diagnose heart disease from Phonocardiogram (PCG) signals. Auscultation, the technique of listening to heart sounds with a stethoscope can be used as a primary detection technique for detecting heart disorders for the past years. But now the Phonocardiogram, the digital recording of heart sounds is becoming very popular technique as it is relatively inexpensive. Four amplitude parameters of the PCG signal are extracted by using filter technique and are used as input. PCG signals for three types of heart diseases such as Tachycardia, Bradycardia and Atrial fibrillation were used in this paper to test the accuracy. These disease types that affect the electrical system of heart are known as arrhythmias, cause the heart to beat very fast (Tachycardia) or very slow (Bradycardia), or unexpectedly (Atrial fibrillation). After the signals are filtered and the parameters are extracted, the parameters are fed to the AI algorithm. Classifications of heart diseases are carried using the AI algorithm by comparing the extracted parameters. Here comparison is done using Min Max method. The developed mathematical artificial intelligence algorithm is implemented in MATLab using Simulink and the simulation results proved that the developed algorithm has been shown to be a powerful technique in detection of heart diseases using PCG signals.
The hydraulic properties of the soil are important parameters in hydrogeology. They allow knowing the characteristics and functioning of aquifers. But their determination is costly and difficult on large sites such as the quaternary aquifer of Abidjan. The objective is to know the hydraulic properties of the aquifer of Abidjan through the study of the porosity and the prediction of saturated hydraulic conductivity by the modified Kozeny Carman's model. The predicted conductivities are compared to those measured in situ by the double rings infiltrability method. The work showed that the porosities ranging from 0.25 to 0.42 while the hydraulic conductivities from 2.10-5 to 5.10-5 m/s. The quaternary aquifer of Abidjan is composed of coarse sand of the marine cordon and medium sand of the lagoon depressions. The coarse sands are found in the southern part of the aquifer while the medium sands in the north part.The application of the modified Kozeny Carman model showed that the predicted conductivities are close to those measured in situ. This model can be used to predict the hydraulic conductivity of the sands of the quaternary aquifer. The model has the merit of using the basic physical properties of the soil easily accessible. It could therefore be applied to other sandy aquifers along of whole eburneo basin of the West Africa.
Inverse interpolation is the process of finding the values of the argument corresponding to a given value of the function when the latter is intermediate between two tabulated values. The finite differences are differences between the values of the function or the difference between the past differences. Finite differences are forward difference, backward difference and divide difference. Temperature, concentration of substrate, concentration of enzyme and other factors are affected the rate of enzymatic reaction. The concentration of substrate is the limiting factor, as the substrate concentration increases, the Enzyme reaction rate increases. Assuming a sufficient concentration of substrate is available, increasing Enzyme concentration will increase the rate of enzymatic reaction. Temperature, concentration of substrate and concentration of enzyme are increased the rate of enzymatic reaction at a limit which is called optimum limit. On the basis of this concept mathematical functions are defined. These mathematical functions are worked in "n" limit. Take the rate of enzymatic reaction is independent variable for finite differences, formulas and their estimation of errors. These formulas are used to obtaining intermediate values of Temperature, substrate concentration and enzyme concentration. If the point lies in the upper half then used forward difference interpolation. If the point lies in the lower half then used backward difference interpolation. When the interval is not equally spaced then used divide difference interpolation.
Phytoecological observations made in agro-ecosystems in the Chaouia region revealed that the tufts of wild jujube "Ziziphus lotus (L.) Desf." enclaved in the hedges of Barbary fig "Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill. " slow their biological activity and their growth and ends by being eliminated completely. The hypothesis that put into play the phenomenon of allelopathy as a mechanism of interference between the two species has been verified in this study. Thus, bioassays were conducted in vitro in the laboratory in order to test the effects of aqueous and hydro-ethanolic extracts of aerial and belowground parts of Barbary fig on seed germination and seedling growth of wild jujube. A dosage of total phenols by Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and a subsequent identification of these phenols compounds have been made. The results showed that these phenols are present in both stems and roots of Barbary fig, with varying concentrations (6.91 to 42.75 mg EAG/g of dry weight) according organ of the plant and the solvent used in the extraction. Very significant inhibitory effects up to 100% were observed on the kinetics and the final rate of jujube seed germination as well as its growth. These results allowed us to infer the existence of a strong correlation between allelopathic effects of Barbary fig on jujube and the concentration of total phenols content in different parts of this species of cactus.
The correct evaluation of skin burn depth in order to make the appropriate choice of treatment is a serious concern in clinical practice. There is no difficulty in classifying first and third degree burns correctly. However, differentiation between the IIa (superficial dermal) and IIb (deep dermal) of second degree burn wounds is problematic even for experienced practitioners. An analytical solution of the three-dimensional Penne's steady-state equation has been obtained assuming a small burn-depth-to-extension ratio. The inverse problem has been posed in a search space consisting of geometrical parameters associated with the burned region. This space has been searched to minimize the error between the analytical and experimental skin surface temperatures. The technique has been greatly improved by using local one-dimensionality to provide the shape of the burned region. Heat transfer in the skin tissue was assumed to be transient and one-dimensional. Thermo physical parameters of successive skin layers are different, at the same time in sub domains of dermis and subcutaneous region the internal heating resulting from blood perfusion and metabolism is taken into account. The feasibility of using this technique and thermographs to determine skin burn depth has been analyzed. In this work the use of surface skin temperature for the determination of the depth of second-degree burns has been explored. Depth of the burn has been optimised numerically for different burning conditions.
An improved but simple four band octagonal patch with new slotting technique of making a compact patch antenna is presented, which is suitable for C-band, X-band, Ku-band and K-band applications. This compact microstrip antenna realized by changing the geometric shape, obtained by inserting small circular slots in a new way. The simulation has been performed by simulation software GEMS version 7.71.01 and using Taconic TLY-5 dielectric substrate with relative permittivity 2.2 and height 1.588mm. The simulated return losses are obtained -16.50dB, -17.25dB, -39.22dB and -30.75dB at 7.49GHz, 10.89GHz, 15.70GHz and 20.10GHz respectively. Therefore, this antenna can be applicable for C-band, X-band, Ku-band and K-band applications respectively.
The Ourzirha area located in the north-western of the Meknes City is an important agricultural region. This region is one of the principal suppliers of agricultural products to the Meknes citizens. However, the cultivated areas in the Ourzirha region are irrigated by a raw wastewater in major part. To explain and to predict the principal supports of the Trace Elements retention in these soils, two profiles subject to a sewage spreading are taken, a calcareous soil and a vertisol. Based on the vertical evolution of different studied parameters and the selective affinities of Trace Elements to the active soil fractions present in our profiles, we are tried to determine the various interactions between the considered Trace Elements and the clay, calcite and organic matter contents in studied profiles. The results of this study showed the importance of clay and organic matter as a dominant supports of these pollutants, especially in surface soil. In the calcareous soil, the calcite content influences strongly the distribution of Trace Elements along this profile. The mechanisms of the Trace Elements retention on studied profiles are considered as a selective adsorption on organic matter, clay and on calcite essentially. In fact, the possibility of a weak co-precipitation with calcite and organic matter in the calcareous soil isn't excluding. Also, in the vertisol probably, the Trace Elements contents are strongly influenced by the particular entering, favoured by a macro-porosity of this profile.
This paper presents a simple and computationally good method for plant species recognition using leaf images. Recognition of plant images is one of the research topics of computer vision. The use of shape for recognizing objects has been actively studied since the beginning of object recognition in 1950s. Several authors suggest that object shape is more informative than its appearance properties such as texture and color vary between object instances more than the shape. Initially we have scanned leaf images which are two dimensional in nature and segmented the images by mathematical morphological segmentation and then extracted the high frequency feature of image. For removing the noise, the image has been converted into binary, than complemented and multiplied by filtered image. We quantitatively establish the use of texture for detection various leaf images of same tree that are difficult by other classical methods of image processing. Further we use Nearest Neighborhood classification method to classify plant leaf. In this paper we focuses mainly on image enhancement, image segmentation, high frequency feature extraction, noise remove from background, volume fraction, inverse difference moment, moment invariant and morphological feature such as area convexity.
This paper aims to present the main lines of the Extreme Value Theory applied to the operational risk. The idea is to present a methodology which allows to identify a threshold by type of risk, and to feign the losses below the threshold with the classical laws, and the losses above with a Generalized Pareto Distribution (GPD). The adequacy of the data to the law GPD allows to consider an extreme quantile, as minimal strategy, sensitive to the size of samples, and to plan random costs whose probability of occurrence is very low, but the choice of the threshold beyond of which the observation will be judged extreme, is a point to be handled with precaution, even if we propose a technique to quantify this threshold. Furthermore, the costs of extreme losses do not lend themselves to modeling ; by definition this type of costs is rare, and the forecasts or the estimations must be often established with a big distrust, and outside the available data. The models must be used in a supple way, without believing completely to the limit. The adoption of this method could allow the risk managers to observe the extreme events with a certain objectivity, to check the hierarchical organization of the classes of operational risks, and in the other hand, establish reserves to face these risks.
Innovation process is one of crucial activity in the innovation implementation of an organization. It is the heart in managing the whole process innovation management. Numerous studies have been conducted and this indirectly established reliable measurement for innovation research. In simple terms, innovation process would describe the 'how' innovation is undertaken into organization which involved the management, employees and also collaboration between organization with suppliers and customers. Some may refer it as process, activities, phases, stages, creative circle, cyclic, or technical progress. Nevertheless, it is indeed strategic and highly integrated process. Due to the complexity, researcher is required to determine suitable measurement. Previous studies have produced various measures which is independent and complex. Therefore, in order to confront with this issue, innovation process requires a balance set of innovation metrics. These metrics would assist research process turn out to be systematic. This paper has proposed two kinds of measurements: objective and subjective innovation process measures. The objectives measures establish result oriented style while subjective measures refer to the how to manage each process in innovation. Some reviews on innovation process definitions, characteristics and activities are presented so that it would be easy for management, practitioners as well as academicians to tailor with their innovation management and research objective.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play significant roles in the improvement of patient care and the reduction of healthcare cost by facilitating the seamless exchange of vital information among healthcare providers. Thus, clinicians can have easy access to patients' information in a timely manner, medical errors are reduced, and health related records are easily integrated. However, as beneficial as data interoperability is to healthcare, at present, it is largely an unreached goal. This is chiefly because electronic Health Information Systems used within the healthcare organizations have been developed independently with diverse and heterogeneous ICT tools, methods, processes and procedures which result in a large number of heterogeneous and distributed proprietary models for representing and recording patients' information. Consequently, the seamless, effective and meaningful exchange of patients' information is yet to be achieved across healthcare systems. This paper therefore appraises the concepts of interoperability in the context of healthcare, its benefits and its attendant challenges. The paper suggests that the adoption of a standardized healthcare terminology, education strategy, design of useable interfaces for ICT tools, privacy and security issues as well as the connection of legacy systems to the health network are ways of achieving complete interoperability of electronic based Health Information Systems in healthcare.
Following the failure of monetary targeting theory in the eighties, several authors have proposed alternatives. The Taylor rule is commonly accepted in recent years for the determination of interest rates in order to achieve the final goal of the central bank. The present study tends to lead an analysis of the compatibility of behavior of central bank of Tunisia (CBT) in the monetary policy conduct with the Taylor rule. The results obtained from quarterly data ranging from 1997 to 2011 showed that the original Taylor rule has a low explicative power of the monetary authorities' behavior in Tunisia. The proposed forward-looking rule describes plausibly interest rates dynamics. In this rule, the money market rate (MMR) is dependent on its past level, the output gap between current and potential output, the deviation of expected inflation from the implicit target, the differential of money market rate between Tunisia and the euro area and the inflation differential between Tunisia and France. Therefore, the Tunisian monetary policy can follow a rule based on two main aggregates taken as targets, whose names are inflation and economic growth. The reaction function can be considered as a proposal for a new reform of the monetary policy of the Central Bank.
The aim of the study was to investigate heavy metal accumulation in wheat (Triticum aestivum) and oat (Avena sativa), and other physiological and biochemical parameters affected by these heavy metals. The data revealed that maximum plant fresh weight and plant dry weight was recorded for oat and minimum plant fresh weight and plant dry weight was noted for wheat (Triticum aestivum). The data also indicated that higher concentration of proline and DNA concentration was noted in wheat (Triticum aestivum) while lowest in oat (Avena sativa) plant. While DNA purity was highest in wheat (Triticum aestivum) and found lowest in oat (Avena sativa). Highest concentration of protein was recorded by wheat (Triticum aestivum) while lowest protein concentration was noted for oat (Avena sativa). The data further showed that wheat (Triticum aestivum) recorded maximum Cd concentration while minimum Cd concentration was noted in oat (Avena sativa). Highest concentration of Cr was noted in oat while minimum Cr concentration was recorded by wheat (Triticum aestivum). A maximum level of Pb was shown by oat (Avena sativa) while minimum levels of Pb were noted in wheat (Triticum aestivum). So oat (Avena sativa) plant is the higher accumulator of heavy metals i-e Cr and Pb while wheat (Triticum aestivum) accumulates Cd in highest concentrations.
The main characteristic of intelligent devices that compose our environment is their capability to perceive and collect relevant information (context awareness) in order to assist users in their daily tasks. However, these tasks evolve frequently and require dynamic and evolutionary systems (context-aware systems) to improve intelligent devices skills according to user's context. Some context-aware systems are described in the literature, but most of them have extremely tight coupling between the semantic used in the application and sensors used to obtained the data for this semantic interpretation. The objective of our research is to study and implement a proactive approach able to use existing sensors and to create dynamically human-machine conversational situations when needed. The system presented in this paper is named X-CAMPUS (eXtensible Conversational Agent for Multichannel Proactive Ubiquitous Services). It aims to assist user in his/her daily tasks thanks to its ability to perceive the state of the environment and interact effectively according to the user's needs. In this paper we describe our approach for proactive intelligent assistance and we illustrate it through some scenarios showing that according to a given multi-parameters context, our X-CAMPUS agent notifies the user via personalized messages (e.g., suggestion of restaurants according to menus and users' preferences) across the most appropriate channel (instant messaging, e-mail or SMS) and the most appropriate modality (text, gesture or voice). Then, we discuss our quantitative results, based on four principal hypotheses in order to evaluate our system's capability to manage many users simultaneously with different contextual information. We argue and we show that the proactive assistance is very relevant in complex situations with various criteria to take into account (user's profile, location, task, etc.).
The proposed method is efficient where it is new, simple, fast, accurate so it is used in this research for recognizing Hindi numerals (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), that are usually used by Arabic population. The method is effective with handwritten numerals. This method is simply depends on determining number of terminal points and its positions for each digit in its different shapes, that represent the main feature for recognition. Only five features are added when there are similarity between digits (have the same number of terminals and position), the additional features was: less pixels number to recognize digit zero, intersection point position to recognize digit (2,3,6,7) that have three terminal points, image width to recognize digit one, curve number to recognize digit (2,4) that have two terminal points finally closed shape feature is added to recognize special cases of digit five and nine that have irregular shapes. Hence the proposed method is based on structural primitives such as curve, line, point type and etc. in a manner similar to that in which human beings describe characters geometrically. This work deals with noisy object by removed them from the original image to ensure that the noise pixels not merge with the original digit pixels. Encouraged recognition results are obtained for handwritten numerals samples written by different persons, different ages, different pens type, also different size, digits with rotation state are tested that gave an excellent recognition results. Some of problems with digit 9,5 are solved.
Hundred percent reliability is the utmost desire of every electricity operator, therefore a good designer will always aim at giving the optimum reliable conditions. This requires choosing the best and suitable materials according to the required regulations. The Niger Delta environment, due to its peculiar terrain and harsh climatic conditions requires special attention in terms of choosing the materials in construction. Therefore, a good protective device is necessary not only for equipment but also for personnel. The climate of Niger Delta is known to have heavy rainfall, high humidity and high Isokeraunic level, therefore proper selection of Surge Absorber (diverter) is necessary for a reliable protection from travelling waves and switching surges in lines and substations. The aim of the paper is to study the performance of surge diverters and identify the diverter that is best suited for both performance and construction in this harsh environment. From the records ZnO (linear) arrester has better performance but the type and place of usage determines the reliability (life span) of the diverter. Due to dust and rainfall, the external material is also a major factor in determining erosion of material and watt losses. It is therefore necessary to suggest some maintenance procedure that may help extend the life span of the diverter.
Effective conservation of African ape populations that have dramatically declined over the last decades requires updated information on the population status and habitat. However, at many sites, the densities and the spatial distribution of chimpanzees as well as the threats faced by the species are poorly described and not updated. To contribute towards filling these gaps, we conducted a survey along a total of 701.5km line transects to collect signs of chimpanzee and human activities over two years in the Ta? National Park, C