March 2011
Cork oak (Quercus suber L.) forest decline in Tunisia: A linkage between physiological adaptation and stress
In the past, several decades, the decline of Quercus suber forests has been observed over wide areas of the Mediterranean basin. Mediterranean-climate sclerophyllous trees are known to typically possess anatomical and morphological structures in their leaves, or other vegetative organs, which provide high resistance to desiccation induced damage during substantial water stress. Long-term exposure of cork...
March 2011
Review of mobile short message service security issues and techniques towards the solution
The short message service (SMS) is one of the highly used and well-tried mobile services with global availability within all GSM networks. The existing SMS is limited to the transmission of secure plain text between different mobile phone subscribers. SMS does not have any built-in procedure to authenticate the text and offer security for the text transmitted as data, because most of the applications for mobile devices...
March 2011
Evaluation of farmers’ response to extension services on ginger production in Kagarko local government area of Kaduna State
The study was conducted to evaluate farmers’ response to extension services on ginger production in Kagarko local government area of Kaduna State. One hundred and ten respondents were randomly selected for the study. Only 2.7% of the respondents pointed out that extension worker visited them monthly while 72.7% claimed they had never seen the extension agents on their farm. Only 9.1% of the respondents adopted...
March 2011
Strengthening with carbon fiber reinforced polymer and glass fiber reinforced polymer of insufficient bending rigidity simple rectangular beams
The reinforcement of rectangular sectioned and simple supported beams, with carbon and glass fibers against the bending strength was examined in this study. Reinforcement of the reinforced concrete beams with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) and Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) were applied with the wrapping method on the entire tensile zone, and a bit enfolded on the side...
March 2011
Nonlinear analysis of cable systems with point based iterative procedure
Geometric nonlinear static analysis of structural systems with cable elements is carried out using point based iterative procedure. In all sub systems as cable systems, constituted for each node having at least one degree of freedom that is idealized by finite elements, successive calculations are performed. In the analysis part, based on finite element displacement method, to the maximum number of unknown displacements...
March 2011
Long term rainfall forecasting by integrated artificial neural network-fuzzy logic-wavelet model in Karoon basin
Physical, mathematical models and statistical distribution are applied to forecasting, whereas in natural resources, it is difficult to choose models that are closed to reality. Rainfall forecasting as an important dynamic process is ever favored by the researchers. Analyzing the behavior of these phenomena by intelligent systems is completely better than classical methods, because of high non-linear dynamic atmospheric...
March 2011
Estimation of specific absorption rate and temperature increases in the human head due to portable telephones
The bioheat equation is solved for an anatomically based model of the human head with a resolution of 2.5 × 2.5 × 2.5 mm to study the thermal implications of exposure to electromagnetic (EM) fields typical of cellular telephones at 900 MHz.Attention has first been posed on a particular phone model, and a comparison between the absorbed power distribution and steady-state temperature increases has been...
March 2011
Sand mining effects, causes and concerns: A case study from Bestari Jaya, Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia
The mining of sand resources from rivers and ex-mining areas in Selangor state is a common practice and may lead to destruction of public assets as well as impacts or increase stress on commercial and noncommercial living resources that utilize these areas. Hydraulic and sediment transport modeling study were carried out to determine possible sand deposition and their flow towards Selangor river. The Hydrologic...
March 2011
Health-related quality of life in Chinese patients with coronary heart disease after percutaneous coronary intervention with stent
Previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of stent in the treatment of coronary heart diseases (CHD), but the impact of stent on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) still remains unclear. Our study aimed to examine the HRQOL of CHD patients before and 6 months after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with stent. A total of 223 consecutive CHD patients undergoing PCI with stent from November 2006 to August...
March 2011
Micro-hydropower: A promising decentralized renewable technology and its impact on rural livelihoods
Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, is characterized by very low per capita energy consumption. Due to lack of access to other commercial sources of energy, the country relies heavily on traditional biomass energy sources including firewood, agricultural residues, and animal dung. In recent years, Nepal’s government has initiated the production and distribution of several renewable energy...
March 2011
Using Landsat data to determine land use/land cover changes in Gümüşhane, Turkey
Sustainable land use and development require timely, accurate and detailed information of land resources as well as changes in the land resource. 'What is changing in where' question is answered by multiple observations over a period of time. Remote sensing technology provides such a monitoring requirement. The aim of this study was to analyze land use/ land cover (LU/LC) changes between 1975 and 2000 in...
March 2011
Comparative study between the performance of proactive and reactive mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) routing protocols with varying mobility
Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) are collections of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary network without the use of any pre-defined network infrastructure or centralized administration. In this paper, performance evaluation of both proactive wireless routing protocol destination sequenced distance vector (DSDV) and reactive protocols ad-hoc on demand distance vector(AODV) with continuous...
March 2011
Comparative study between the performance of proactive and reactive mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) routing protocols with varying mobility
Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) are collections of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary network without the use of any pre-defined network infrastructure or centralized administration. In this paper, performance evaluation of both proactive wireless routing protocol destination sequenced distance vector (DSDV) and reactive protocols ad-hoc on demand distance vector(AODV) with continuous...
March 2011
A word sequence kernels used in spam-filtering
Support vector machines have been widely used in the field of spam filtering, however the majority of used kernels are generally distance-based kernels. Those kernels neglect the structure of the text, and lead to a mass of semantic information lost. This paper proposes the use of word sequence kernel which can mine the information of text structure fully for spam filtering, and propose a word sequence kernel based on...
March 2011
High ligation of internal spermatic vein under single-portTransumbilical laparoscopy in young patients
In the present study, our clinical experience of high ligation of internal spermatic vein in single-port transumbilical laparoscopy was reviewed and summarized. Eleven patients with varicocele on the left side received high ligation of the internal spermatic vein in single-port transumbilical laparoscopy in our department. All operations succeeded and mean operation time was 26 min. None suffered from complications and...
March 2011
An investigation into the hook dynamics and effect of hook parameters on the sway angles in hydraulic cranes
Influence of the hook parameters including the mass and length on the sway angles in a hydraulic crane was investigated using the Lagrange’s equation to attain the equations of motion for a seven-degrees-of-freedom system. Variations in angular acceleration of sway angles due to the changes of the hook parameters have been the criterion to this consideration. Based on the outcomes, an automatic anti-sway control...
March 2011
Subsidence occurring in mining regions and a case study of Zonguldak-Kozlu basin
Mining conducted underground causes displacements and deformations in the ground and on the surface, also called mining subsidence, depending upon mining methods and geological factors, and can eventually bring about damages and destruction on buildings and amenities on the surface. These damages and destructions can adversely affect the development of cities and city life, and can emerge as a result of on-going mining...
March 2011
An adaptive approach for Malay cheque words recognition using support vector machine
Support vector machines (SVMs) have played a significant role in the field of pattern recognition. This study utilizes the SVM as a classifier for the analysis of Malay cheque word recognition using Malay lexical database (Ahmad et al., 2007). The SVM system was used for individual character recognition and then lexical verification was applied for word level. Several pre-processing steps were taken such as noise...
March 2011
The effect of graded maximal aerobic exercise on some metabolic hormones, muscle damage and some metabolic end products in sportsmen
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of graded maximal aerobic exercise on some metabolic hormones, muscle damage and some metabolic end products in professional sportsmen. Twelve young professional football players participated in the study. Subjects performed shuttle run test. Blood samples were collected before, immediately after and one hour after the single exercise. The levels of testosterone (T)...
March 2011
Variational iteration technique for finding multiple roots of nonlinear equations
In this paper, we suggest and analyze some new iterative methods for finding multiple roots of nonlinear equations by using the variational iteration technique. The technique generates the methods of higher order. Here, the new methods are of second and third order convergence. We also give several examples to illustrate the efficiency of these methods. Comparison with other similar methods is also...
March 2011
An automated height transformation using precise geoid models
In most of the countries, national height systems are referenced to the mean sea level (geoid) whereas using GPS technique in positioning provides ellipsoidal heights. However, these GPS ellipsoidal heights h can be transformed into the orthometric heights from the geoid H depending on a simple relation among the heights, and this transformation requires to know the geoid...
March 2011
Department of Geomatics Engineering, Civil Engineering Faculty, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak 34469, Istanbul, Turkey
To explore the biological characteristics of an injectable chondrocytes-alginate hydrogel, constructs in the presence of glucan HBP-A as well as its role in cartilage tissue engineering, chondrocytes were isolated from rabbit knee cartilage and verified by immunocytochemistry for type II collagen. The constructs were embedded with HBP-A and then injected to nude mice subcutaneously. Six weeks after transplantaiton,...
March 2011
Effects of cold pressing and extrusion on the microstructures and mechanical properties of SiC and B4C reinforced Alumix-231 alloys
In this research, mechanical and microstructure properties of cold pressing (CP) and extrusion (EXTR) specimens produced via powder metallurgy were investigated and compared. For this comparison, EXTR specimens were hot extruded at 565°C with an extrusion ratio of 4:1. Likewise, CP specimens were compacted under a pressure of 600 MPa and sintered at 565°C. Then, the effects of volume fraction on SiC and B4C...
March 2011
Detection and parameters interception of a radar pulse signal based on interrupt driven algorithm
This paper presents the development of a new algorithm for radar pulse signal acquisition and parameters interception. The parameters are measured based on digitizing intermediate frequency input stream and signal storing only on signal presence. In this framework, two activities are implemented. Firstly, the data acquisition and preprocessing activity, which reads incoming data stream, converts it into video signal,...
March 2011
Monitoring and assessing of changes in soil and groundwater salinity of Yemisli Irrigation District of Turkey using low quality irrigation water
Low irrigation efficiency, high saline irrigation water, heavy soil texture, lack of adequate field drainage systems may cause soil salinity and drainage problems in irrigated agriculture. The mentioned problems are major treats for the sustainability of irrigated agriculture. This study carried out in 2007 was undertaken in 7,110 ha of area under the directive of Yemisli Irrigation Association (YIA) in Lower Seyhan...
March 2011
Line as a means of conceptual expression in design education
In this paper, the role of line as a means of reflecting mental processes of the designer in architecture will be discussed based on repeated research. Its significance will be underlined as an element of composition. The hypothesis of this paper is that line is a tool for expressing and developing thought in design education. Thus, in this paper the ways it is interpreted by the students will be discussed in order to...
March 2011
The problem of tightening computable overestimation error bounds arising from the solution of linear interval system of equations by some interval methods is considered
The problem of tightening computable overestimation error bounds arising from the solution of linear interval system of equations by some interval methods is considered. This study describes the quality of enclosure of these methods with a view of diminishing the overestimation bounds due to excessive use of interval operations. In particular, two different interval multiplication operations are examined and...
March 2011
Tef (Eragrostis tef) based cropping systems in the hot to warm moist valleys of North Shewa, Ethiopia
Research on tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) in the hot to warm moist valleys of North Shewa of the Amhara regional state has been meager. However, tef is the second most important cereal crop in area coverage in these sub agro-ecologies. Cereal Crops Research Program of Debre Birhan Agricultural Research Center launched informal survey in 2006 while the crops were in the field so as to identify the major...
March 2011
A comparative study on activity selection with multi-criteria decision-making techniques in ecotourism planning
Ecotourism is a nature- and culture-based type of tourism. Ecotourists demand more environmentally aimed tourism experiences. Ecotourism practices should result in a non-consumptive use of natural and cultural resources. However, while ecotourism activities contribute to the visited area by generating economic benefits and educational opportunities, they may affect some resources negatively. For this reason, ecotourism...
March 2011
Energetic and exergetic assessments of a cement rotary kiln system
The cement production is one of the most energy consuming processes, typically accounting for 50 to 60% of the production costs. However, there are several ways of heat recovery opportunities to achieve better energetic and exergetic efficiencies for the whole system. In this paper, energetic and exergetic analyses of an existing rotary kiln system are presented, and first and second law efficiencies are calculated. Two...
March 2011
The effective intervention in reducing the renal diseases risks: Cases of residents in Taitung, Taiwan
Taiwan suffered as the highest incurrence and the second of prevalence of the uremia diseases in the world. The government data showed that in the period of 2004 and 2007, residents of Taitung County suffered the highest rate of nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis than the rest of the country. Specifically, patients in this county appeared to have less knowledge on diabetes-caused kidney-related diseases. The...
March 2011
Lateral torsional buckling of rectangular beams using variational iteration method
Lateral torsional buckling is the main failure mode that controls the design of “slender” beams; that is, the beams which have greater major axis bending stiffness than minor axis bending stiffness or the beams which have considerably large laterally unsupported lengths. Since the buckling equations for beams are usually much more complex than those for columns, most of the analytical studies in literature...
March 2011
Frequency of haemophilus somnus in the semen of bulls in Iran as determined by polymerase chain reaction
Haemophilus somnus is a small, pleomorphic, gram-negative and coccobacillusbacterium that has been identified as a common inhabitant of the sheath in bulls and the vagina and major vestibular gland in cows. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of H. somnus infection in the semen samples of bullsin Iran. H. somnus was isolated from 40 of 185...
March 2011
Finite time blow up of solutions for wave equations with two non-linear source terms of different sign in critical energy case
We study the initial boundary value problem of wave equations with two nonlinear source terms of different sign in the critical energy case. By the standard convex method, it is proven that the solution of the problem does not exist globally in time. And it is pointed out that the solution blows up in finite time under some assumption regarding the initial data. Key word: Wave equation, finite time...
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