Critical gap analysis of merging sections at Kuala Lumpur middle ring road

At merging sections, drivers normally slow down and sometimes need to stop while seeking a suitable gap before merging with the mainstream. Thus, there will always be several observed rejected gaps and an accepted gap which can be used to determine the smallest average gap, so-called critical gap. This study was carried out to determine critical gap values at selected merging sections at the Jalan Tun Razak and the DUKE Expressway uses the Maximum Likelihood method. Data were collected by using videotaping method and the gap acceptance data were extracted for analysis. A gap acceptance event at highway merging sections in this study was redefined due to unavailability of stopping vehicles at the ramp junction. Therefore, the gap data were estimated starting from a ramp’s vehicle passing the end of gore marking to where it merges with the mainstream. The analysis of the critical gap takes into consideration accepted gaps greater than 5 seconds to avoid forced entry due to lead impedance of successive vehicles on mainstream. The critical gap values obtained in this study, according to vehicle classification were ranged between 4.5 to 5.0 seconds, which are slightly smaller if compared to critical gap values for particularly left turn from minor movement at priority junction of the Arahan Teknik (Jalan) 11/87 and the United States Highway Capacity Manual 2000. The findings shall help to study driving behavior of local drivers, especially at priority control facilities such as merging sections

Task-Projected Hyperdimensional Computing for Multi-Task Learning

Brain-inspired Hyperdimensional (HD) computing is an emerging technique for cognitive tasks in the field of low-power design. As a fast-learning and energy-efficient computational paradigm, HD computing has shown great success in many real-world applications. However, an HD model incrementally trained on multiple tasks suffers from the negative impacts of catastrophic forgetting. The model forgets the knowledge learned from previous tasks and only focuses on the current one. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been conducted to investigate the feasibility of applying multi-task learning to HD computing. In this paper, we propose Task-Projected Hyperdimensional Computing (TP-HDC) to make the HD model simultaneously support multiple tasks by exploiting the redundant dimensionality in the hyperspace. To mitigate the interferences between different tasks, we project each task into a separate subspace for learning. Compared with the baseline method, our approach efficiently utilizes the unused capacity in the hyperspace and shows a 12.8% improvement in averaged accuracy with negligible memory overhead.Comment: To be published in 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovation

The effect of hydroalcoholic Ziziphus spina-christi leaf extract on viability of breast cancer cell line (MCF7) and evaluation of Bax and Bcl2 genes expression level

Background: Studies have revealed that the Sidr (Ziziphus spina-christi) leaf has anticancer effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of hydroalcoholic Sidr leaf extract on MCF7 cell line viability and evaluation of Bax and Bcl2 genes expression level. Materials and Methods: In this laboratory-experimental study, MCF cells were randomly divided into control group and groups exposed to 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10 mg/mL of the Sidr leaf hydroalcoholic extract. The cytotoxic effect of the extract was measured using the MTT assay method. Also, the real-time polymerase chain reaction method was used to evaluate Bax and Bcl2 genes expression levels. Results: Viability of the MCF7 cells did not significantly change in group exposed to 0.001 mg/mL of the extract; however, it was significantly decreased in groups exposed to 0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10 mg/mL of the extract (P<0.01, P<0.05, P<0.001 and P<0.001, respectively). The expression levels of Bcl2 and Bax genes were significantly decreased and increased respectively in MCF7 cells exposed to 1mg/mL of the extract (P<0.01 and P<0.001, respectively). Conclusion: The appropriate doses of the hydroalcoholic Sidr leaf extract have cytotoxic effects on MCF7 cells by inducing apoptosis. So, further research on the anticancer effects of Sidr on breast cancer has a significant place in breast cancer treatment

A Combined Crisp and Fuzzy Approach for Handwriting Analysis

This paper presents an off-line writer-independent handwriting analysis system which utilizes both classical crisp and fuzzy methodologies to output possible personality traits of the writer. The design deploys an analytical handwriting analysis approach based on two primitives, the baseline and the slant angle of the characters. The objective of the design strategy is to present a group of parameters for handwriting analysis based on the text. These parameters allow for the classification of writing into different categories which could be used as a preliminary step for outputting the personality traits of the writer. Two parameters, the baseline and the slant-angle, are the inputs to a rule-base which outputs the personality trait category. The evaluation of the baseline is non-fuzzy (crisp) whereas the evaluation of the slant-angle utilizes the fuzzy paradigm. The approach is based on a combination of classical geometric arithmetic evaluation and fuzzy control designs. For determination of the base line angle two methodologies are explored: the geometric-features based segmentation method and a method based on biologically inspired generation theories or the low pass filtering method. We utilize the geometric features evaluation for the baseline extraction since it proves more robust with respect to the variations of the handwriting in an off-line environment. For determination of the slant type a fuzzy technique is adopted to determine the contributions of the slant-type angle to each of the five variations of the slant-type categories. The uncertainties in the system model are expressed by fuzzy-valued model parameters with their membership functions derived from experimental data. In total five variations of slant type are considered. These include extreme left, controlled left, vertical, controlled right and extreme right. Fifteen personality traits PT1 - PT15 were identified and sets of rules formulation were created, (e.g., If Input1 is level and Input2 is Controlled Left then Output is PTx.) The proposed approach takes advantage of two differing methodologies that have clear outputs to evaluate two attributes of handwriting. The outputs are utilized to determine a personality trait. The system can be further enhanced by including more parameters such as size of letters, spacing between letters and other attributes of handwriting as part of the inputs for trait determination

The effect of education on parental perception of obesity in their 6-12 year old children

Child obesity is considered a major health problem, in the prevention and treatment of which parents can play a key role. However, some parents belive obese children to be healthy, and do not really feel the need to participate in any preventive and treat-ment programs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine parental perception of obesity in their 6-12 year old children to assess what effect educa-tion could have on their concept. Materials and Methods: This study has been done in two stages (stage 1, descriptive and second stage, ..