Soft Computing Methods to Support Inclusive Design for Speech-Language Impaired Individuals

神奈川大

Analysis of Travel Behavior in Khulna Metropolitan City, Bangladesh

In modeling travel demand and analyzing travel behavior, it is important to know the behavior of a large number of individuals. How the individuals choose an alternative among others given in the choice set, and how they assess and consider the different alternatives, must be a function of several factors including their need, task, socio-economic, environmental and the level of service offered by the various alternatives. A qualitative analysis of travel behavior was done with a number of individuals as the samples. To provide the required data, a field survey as direct home interview survey and travel time survey were conducted and given a number of 233 households and 871 respondents obtained as the samples. Meanwhile, the socio-economic data were obtained directly from the institution concerned. . The collected data were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Software.The results of the analysis show that people with higher income and more automobile availability make more travel than people with low income and less automobile availability. The home-based trips take the largest percentage (50%) of people in the study area. The result also indicates that the shopping trips (15%) contribute higher among different trip purpose. The results also show that about 57% of individuals are between 20-50 years. The number of trips generated from each zone is strongly related to the amount of households, population, active workers and students of that zone. By considering a significant level of 5% four trip generation models have been developed. By using these models future trip generation from each zone can be determined. By applying the Gravity Model and the Fratar Method, the trip distribution models have been developed. Three basic models have been introduced by using travel time, road distance and straight distance as the resistance index. From these models the future travel pattern of Khulna Metropolitan city, Bangladesh can be predicted. Keywords: Khulna Metropolitan City, Household survey, Travel behavior, Trip Distribution Models, Trip Generation Models

Environmental effects on the stable carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions and skeletal density banding pattern of Porites coral from Khang Khao Island, Thailand

The timing of band formation and linear skeletal growth rate based on environmental changes were investigated using alizarin red S (ARS) in Porites lutea coral at Khang Khao Island, the Gulf of Thailand from November 10, 1999 to March 15, 2001. The X-radiograph of the vertical section of the Porites coral skeleton was examined and three pairs of density bandings including intermediate bandings were observed in one year, suggesting that additional factors other than sea surface temperature (SST) were associated during the process of band formation. We assumed that variation of salinity variations, nutrition/sedimentation load and light intensity may control the process of density band formation which may be influenced by the river run-off due to heavy rainfall. The coral skeleton was analyzed and measured from top to a depth of 47 mm by mass spectrometry and three cyclic changes in both oxygen and carbon isotopic values which reveal the abrupt changes of aquatic environment was observed. By using isotopic compositions, X-radiography and analyzing ARS line, the average annual growth rate of the Porites coral was inferred at ~17.91 mm/year. Our results demonstrate that the density bands of coral and perhaps a useful proxy of extension rate could also be a potential indicator for reconstructing the past SSTs in rain-infested areas like the upper Gulf of Thailand.Keywords: Oxygen isotopes, carbon isotopes, Porites coral, density bands, skeletal growth, sea surface temperature, salinity, Khang Khao, Gulf of ThailandAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(33), pp. 5373-5382, 16 August, 201

Factors that Affect the Academic Results: A Case Study of Islamic University, Kushtia, Bangladesh

The main objective of this study is to examine the existing situation of results of the graduate students at Islamic University in Kushtia Bangladesh as well as to identify the factors associated behind this issue An analysis has been performed by using the primary data which collected form the graduate students of Islamic University under simple random sampling technique Chi-square test for dependency checking has been performed as Bivariate analysis After performing Bivariate analysis Multinomial logistic regression analysis has been performed The result of the study has revealed that the factors like SSC and HSC results of the student Parental academic qualification Higher family income residential in hall student s class attendance study time without class period have a positive impact and the factors like students internet use for non-academic purpose political status mobile phone using for non academic purpose in the University have a negative impact of students academic result

Factors that Affect the Academic Results: A Case Study of Islamic University, Kushtia, Bangladesh

The main objective of this study is to examine the existing situation of results of the graduate students at Islamic University in Kushtia Bangladesh as well as to identify the factors associated behind this issue An analysis has been performed by using the primary data which collected form the graduate students of Islamic University under simple random sampling technique Chi-square test for dependency checking has been performed as Bivariate analysis After performing Bivariate analysis Multinomial logistic regression analysis has been performed The result of the study has revealed that the factors like SSC and HSC results of the student Parental academic qualification Higher family income residential in hall student s class attendance study time without class period have a positive impact and the factors like students internet use for non-academic purpose political status mobile phone using for non academic purpose in the University have a negative impact of students academic result

Quality of life of workers with disabilities in readymade garments factories in Bangladesh

Background: Bangladesh's readymade garment (RMG) sector has developed as a major employer for individuals with disabilities. The number of workers with disabilities in Bangladesh's RMG industry has grown over the past few years. In Bangladesh, there has no statistics about the quality of life of workers with disabilities after their employment, especially after training-based employment support. Therefore, the researcher is interested to find out the quality of life of workers with disabilities in readymade garments factories in Bangladesh that will determine satisfaction over their life in different aspects. The objectives of this paper were to find out the health-related quality of life and overall satisfaction with life among workers with disabilities in the readymade garment sector in Bangladesh. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design and recruited 102 participants with disabilities from various Bangladeshi garment factories who ranged up to 18 years by convenient sampling. The WHOQOL questionnaires were used for data collection through a combination of telephone and in-person interviews. Descriptive statistics were used for the data analysis. Results: Among the total participants 63% of them were women and 37% were men. The results revealed that education and job status significantly impacted on QOL. The majority of participants did not need any assistive devices; most of the participants resided in semi-urban areas, and physical disabilities predominated among them. On the other hand, most of the participants reported their quality of life as neither poor nor good but they were satisfied with health-related QOL. Conclusions: QOL is a vast aspect of every human being. This study finally concluded the overall QOL of maximum Workers with Disabilities in Readymade Garments Factories in Bangladesh was just average and most of them were satisfied with their health-related QOL

A vision-based machine learning method for barrier access control using vehicle license plate authentication

Automatic vehicle license plate recognition is an essential part of intelligent vehicle access control and monitoring systems. With the increasing number of vehicles, it is important that an effective real-time system for automated license plate recognition is developed. Computer vision techniques are typically used for this task. However, it remains a challenging problem, as both high accuracy and low processing time are required in such a system. Here, we propose a method for license plate recognition that seeks to find a balance between these two requirements. The proposed method consists of two stages: detection and recognition. In the detection stage, the image is processed so that a region of interest is identified. In the recognition stage, features are extracted from the region of interest using the histogram of oriented gradients method. These features are then used to train an artificial neural network to identify characters in the license plate. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves a high level of accuracy as well as low processing time when compared to existing methods, indicating that it is suitable for real-time applications

Artificial neural networks for vibration based inverse parametric identifications: A review

Vibration behavior of any solid structure reveals certain dynamic characteristics and property parameters of that structure. Inverse problems dealing with vibration response utilize the response signals to find out input factors and/or certain structural properties. Due to certain drawbacks of traditional solutions to inverse problems, ANNs have gained a major popularity in this field. This paper reviews some earlier researches where ANNs were applied to solve different vibration-based inverse parametric identification problems. The adoption of different ANN algorithms, input-output schemes and required signal processing were denoted in considerable detail. In addition, a number of issues have been reported, including the factors that affect ANNs’ prediction, as well as the advantage and disadvantage of ANN approaches with respect to general inverse methods Based on the critical analysis, suggestions to potential researchers have also been provided for future scopes