Environmentally responsive design in the vernacular architecture of mountainous regions. The case of Kang village,Iran

Vernacular architecture is highly compatible with local conditions and is often referred to as environmentally friendly and sustainable architecture. Today, due to issues that threaten the environment, re-paying attention to these compatibility methods and their application in contemporary architecture can be one of the priorities of architectural planning. This research seeks to answer the question of how vernacular architecture in mountainous regions is formed in order to adapt to local characteristics and particularly the role of semi-open spaces in this coordination. The article is a case study of the residential units in Kang village, Torqabeh city, Khorasan Razavi province, Iran. For this purpose, the physical variables of the village, including how the village texture and its thoroughfares were established and formed, mass and space structure, the configuration of residential units and the formation of closed, open, and semi-open spaces, material types, building techniques, and construction details, and issues related to the openings of residential units are studied in 35 house samples of the village. The result shows that the physical planning of the village, in accordance with the principles proposed in the Mahoney table for cold semi-arid climates, causes the most passive heating. Examination of the physical characteristics of the semi-open spaces in relation to the residential unit shows that these spaces play a major role in coordinating the building with the coldness of the region.

     

Methods of determining the rheological characteristics of clayey soils

Various methods of determining the rheological properties of clayey soils are discussed. It is demonstrated that all stages of the development of the deformation process in clayey soils can be described using equations derived on the basis of creep theory. Various testing methods can be used to determine the rheological characteristics.Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 5, pp. 2–5, September–October, 1992.     

Nitrogen doping of ZnSe by OMVPE using a novel organometallic precursor

We have investigated phenylhydrazine (PhHz) as a potential nitrogen dopant source in organometallic vapor phase epitaxial growth of ZnSe. Dimethylzinc and dimethylselenide were the zinc and selenium precursors, respectively. Photoluminescence and secondary ion mass spectroscopy measurements indicate that high incorporation efficiency compared to ammonia can be achieved using this dopant source. For example, nitrogen incorporation in the 2.5 x 10¹⁸/cm^-3 level was achieved at 350°C under ultraviolet excitation when the PhHz partial pressure was 1 x 10^-8 atm. These layers had 1-2 x lO¹⁵cm^-3 electrically active acceptors. Films grown at higher partial pressures of PhHz were highly compensated.     

Reach a nonlinear consensus for MAS via doubly stochastic quadratic operators

This technical note addresses the new nonlinear protocol class of doubly stochastic quadratic operators (DSQOs) for coordination of consensus problem in multi-agent systems (MAS). We derive the conditions for ensuring that every agent reaches consensus on a desired rate of the group's decision where the group decision value in its agent's initial statuses varies. Besides that, we investigate a nonlinear protocol sub-class of extreme DSQO (EDSQO) to reach a consensus for MAS to a common value with nonlinear low-complexity rules and fast time convergence if the interactions for each agent are not selfish. In addition, to extend the results to reach a consensus and to avoid the selfish case we specify a general class of DSQO for reaching a consensus under any given case of initial states. The case that MAS reach a consensus by DSQO is if each member of the agent group has positive interactions of DSQO (PDSQO) with the others. The convergence of both EDSQO and PDSQO classes is found to be directed towards the centre point. Finally, experimental simulations are given to support the analysis from theoretical aspect.     

Blind watermarking algorithm based on spiral scanning method and error-correcting codes

This work is a connecting link between the field of digital transmission and (3 Dimension) 3D watermarking. In fact, we propose in this paper a blind and robust watermarking algorithm for 3D multiresolution meshes. This data type, before being watermarked, is divided into GOTs (Group Of Triangles) using a spiral scanning method. At every instant, only one GOT is loaded into memory. It undergoes a wavelet transform. Embedding modifies the wavelet coefficients vector thus generated after being presented in a cylindrical coordinate system. After being watermarked, the current GOT will be released from memory to upload the next GOT. Information is coded using a turbo encoder to generate the codeword to be inserted. Once the entire mesh is scanned, the watermarked mesh is reconstructed. During extraction, the same steps are applied only on the watermarked mesh: our algorithm is then blind. Extracted data are decoded using Error-Correcting Code (turbocode) to correct errors that occurred. The results show that our algorithm preserves mesh quality even with a very large insertion rate while significantly minimizing used memory. Data extraction was done correctly despite the application of various attacks. Our algorithm is robust against most popular attacks such as similarity transformation, noise addition, smoothing, coordinate quantization, simplification and compression.     

A comparative study on energy use and cost analysis of potato production under different farming technologies in Hamadan province of Iran

The aim of this study was to determine the amount of input–output energy used in potato production and to make an economic analysis of potato production in Hamadan province, Iran. Data for the production of potatoes were collected from 100 producers by using a face to face questionnaire method. The population investigated was divided into two groups. Group I was consisted of 68 farmers (owner of machinery and high level of farming technology) and Group II of 32 farmers (non-owner of machinery and low level of farming technology). The results revealed that 153071.40 MJ ha⁻¹ energy consumed by Group I and 157151.12 MJ ha⁻¹ energy consumed by Group II. The energy ratio, energy productivity, specific energy, net energy gain and energy intensiveness were calculated. The net energy of potato production in Group I and Group II was 4110.95 MJ ha⁻¹ and −21744.67 MJ ha⁻¹, respectively. Cost analysis showed that total cost of potato production in Groups I and II were 4784.68 and 4172.64 $ ha⁻¹, respectively. The corresponding, benefit to cost ratio from potato production in the surveyed groups were 1.09 and 0.96, respectively. It was concluded that extension activities are needed to improve the efficiency of energy consumption in potato production.     

Human action recognition: a framework of statistical weighted segmentation and rank correlation-based selection

Pattern Analysis and Applications - Human action recognition from a video sequence has received much attention lately in the field of computer vision due to its range of applications in...     

Multilayered thresholding-based blood vessel segmentation for screening of diabetic retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy screening involves assessment of the retina with attention to a series of indicative features, i.e., blood vessels, optic disk and macula etc. The detection of changes in blood vessel structure and flow due to either vessel narrowing, complete occlusions or neovascularization is of great importance. Blood vessel segmentation is the basic foundation while developing retinal screening systems since vessels serve as one of the main retinal landmark features. This article presents an automated method for enhancement and segmentation of blood vessels in retinal images. We present a method that uses 2-D Gabor wavelet for vessel enhancement due to their ability to enhance directional structures and a new multilayered thresholding technique for accurate vessel segmentation. The strength of proposed segmentation technique is that it performs well for large variations in illumination and even for capturing the thinnest vessels. The system is tested on publicly available retinal images databases of manually labeled images, i.e., DRIVE and STARE. The proposed method for blood vessel segmentation achieves an average accuracy of 94.85% and an average area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.9669. We compare our method with recently published methods and experimental results show that proposed method gives better results.     

Low-cost synthesis of nano-hydroxyapatite from carp bone waste: Effect of calcination time and temperature

The aim of this study was to synthesize Hydroxyapatite (HA) from carp bone waste by calcination treatment. The effects of calcination temperature and time on crystallite size, crystallinity%, powder size and morphology, formed phases, and Ca/P ratio were analyzed. The XRD analyses indicated that for 1 h calcination time, HA was the only phase produced at all temperatures. However, for 5 h calcination time, temperatures other than 700ºC resulted in formation of TCP+HA. The HA obtained at 700ºC at both times had less crystallinity compared to other temperatures. Crystallite size increased by increase in temperature at 1 h calcination time. The smallest and largest particulate sizes were obtained at 800ºC for 1 h and 900ºC for 5 h, respectively. The Ca/P ratio close to theoretical value (1.67) was obtained for 5 h calcination time. Finally, the results showed the usefulness of the methodology used in natural HA production that can be used in orthopedics and dentistry.