Search results for: Philips mathematical model

Authors: Nathan Moran, Robert Hanser, Attapol Kuanliang

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The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between personal and social resources and burnout for police officers. Current conceptualizations of the condition of burnout are challenged as being too phenomenological and ambiguous, and consequently, not given to direct empirical testing. The conservation of resources model is based on the supposition that people strive to retain, protect, and build resources as a means to protect them from the impacts of burnout. The model proposes that the effects of stress (i.e. burnout) can be manifested in personal and professional attitudes and attributes, which can measure burnout using self-reports to provide strong support for the conservation of resources model, in that, personal and professional demands are related to the exhaustion component of burnout, whereas personal and professional resources can be compiled to counteract the negative impact of the burnout condition. Highly similar patterns of burnout resistance factors were witnessed in police officers in two department precincts (N:81). In addition, results confirmed the positive influence of key demographic variables in burnout resistance using the conservation of resources model. Participants in this study are all sheriff’s deputies with a populous county in a Pacific Northwestern state (N = 274). Four instruments will be used in this quantitative study for data collection (a) a series of demographic questions, (b) the Organizational Citizenship Behavior, (c) the PANAS-X Scale (OCB: Watson& Clark, 1994), and (d) The Maslach Burnout Inventory.

Keywords: behavioral, burnout, law enforcement, quantitative

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Authors: J. R. Wang, Y. Chiang, W. Y. Li, H. T. Lin, H. C. Chen, C. Shih, S. W. Chen

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The dry-storage systems of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Taiwan have become one of the major safety concerns. There are two steps considered in this study. The first step is the verification of the TRACE by using VSC-17 experimental data. The results of TRACE were similar to the VSC-17 data. It indicates that TRACE has the respectable accuracy in the simulation and analysis of the dry-storage systems. The next step is the application of TRACE in the dry-storage system of Kuosheng NPP (BWR/6). Kuosheng NPP is the second BWR NPP of Taiwan Power Company. In order to solve the storage of the spent fuels, Taiwan Power Company developed the new dry-storage system for Kuosheng NPP. In this step, the dry-storage system model of Kuosheng NPP was established by TRACE. Then, the steady state simulation of this model was performed and the results of TRACE were compared with the Kuosheng NPP data. Finally, this model was used to perform the safety analysis of Kuosheng NPP dry-storage system. Besides, FRAPTRAN was used tocalculate the transient performance of fuel rods.

Keywords: BWR, TRACE, FRAPTRAN, dry-storage

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Authors: Corazon Virtudazo-Ligaray, Mark Daniel G. de Luna, Meng-Wei Wan, Ming-Chun Lu

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A series of ternary compound catalyst with nanocomposites of ceria, tungsten trioxide and titania (CeO2-WOx-TiO2) with different WOx mole fraction (10, 20, 30, 40) have been synthesized by sol-gel method. These nanocomposite catalysts were used for oxidative extractive desulfurization of model fuel oil, which were composed of dibenzothiophene (DBT) dissolved in toluene. The 30% hydrogen peroxide, H2O2 was used as oxidant and acetonitrile as extractant. These catalysts were characterized by SEM-EDS to determine the morphology. Catalytic oxidation results show that the catalysts have high selectivity in refractory fuel oil with organo sulfur contents. The oxidative removal of DBT increases as the HPW content increases. The nanocomposites CeO2-WOx-TiO2 also shows high selectivity for DBT oxidation in the DBT–toluene acetonitrile system. The catalytic oxidative desulfurization ratio of model fuel reached to 100% with nanocomposites CeO2-WOx-TiO2 (35-30-35) mol percent catalyst nanocomposition under 333 K in 30 minutes.

Keywords: ceria, oxidative desulfurization, titania, phosphotungstic acid

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Authors: Shih-Pin Chen, Shih-Syuan You

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This study proposes a regression model with flexible spreads for fuzzy input-output data to cope with the situation that the existing measures cannot reflect the actual estimation error. The main idea is that a dissemblance index (DI) is carefully identified and defined for precisely measuring the actual estimation error. Moreover, the graded mean integration (GMI) representation is adopted for determining more representative numeric regression coefficients. Notably, to comprehensively compare the performance of the proposed model with other ones, three different criteria are adopted. The results from commonly used test numerical examples and an application to Taiwan's business monitoring indicator illustrate that the proposed dissemblance index method not only produces valid fuzzy regression models for fuzzy input-output data, but also has satisfactory and stable performance in terms of the total estimation error based on these three criteria.

Keywords: dissemblance index, forecasting, fuzzy sets, linear regression

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Authors: Nishtha Madaan, Prateek Chaudhury, Nishant Kumar, Srikanta Bedathur

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In modern NLP applications, word embeddings are a crucial backbone that can be readily shared across a number of tasks. However, as the text distributions change and word semantics evolve over time, the downstream applications using the embeddings can suffer if the word representations do not conform to the data drift. Thus, maintaining word embeddings to be consistent with the underlying data distribution is a key problem. In this work, we tackle this problem and propose TransDrift, a transformer-based prediction model for word embeddings. Leveraging the flexibility of the transformer, our model accurately learns the dynamics of the embedding drift and predicts future embedding. In experiments, we compare with existing methods and show that our model makes significantly more accurate predictions of the word embedding than the baselines. Crucially, by applying the predicted embeddings as a backbone for downstream classification tasks, we show that our embeddings lead to superior performance compared to the previous methods.

Keywords: NLP applications, transformers, Word2vec, drift, word embeddings

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Authors: Dojoon Jung, Kiwoong Moon, Joong Lee

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The height of criminals is one of the important clues that can determine the scope of the suspect's search or exclude the suspect from the search target. Although measuring the height of criminals by video alone is limited by various reasons, the 3D data of the scene and the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage are matched, the height of the criminal can be measured. However, it is still difficult to measure the height of CCTV footage in the non-contact type measurement method because of variables such as position, posture, and head shape of criminals. In this paper, we propose a method of matching the CCTV footage with the 3D data on the crime scene and measuring the height of the person using the 3D human body model in the matched data. In the proposed method, the height is measured by using 3D human model in various scenes of the person in the CCTV footage, and the measurement value of the target person is corrected by the measurement error of the replay CCTV footage of the reference person. We tested for 20 people's walking CCTV footage captured from an indoor and an outdoor and corrected the measurement values with 5 reference persons. Experimental results show that the measurement error (true value-measured value) average is 0.45 cm, and this method is effective for the measurement of the person's height in CCTV footage.

Keywords: human height, CCTV footage, 2D/3D matching, 3D human body model

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Authors: Krisada Lekdee, Sunee Sammatat, Nittaya Boonsit

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This paper proposes a GLMM with spatial and temporal effects for malaria data in Thailand. A Bayesian method is used for parameter estimation via Gibbs sampling MCMC. A conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is assumed to present the spatial effects. The temporal correlation is presented through the covariance matrix of the random effects. The malaria quarterly data have been extracted from the Bureau of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health of Thailand. The factors considered are rainfall and temperature. The result shows that rainfall and temperature are positively related to the malaria morbidity rate. The posterior means of the estimated morbidity rates are used to construct the malaria maps. The top 5 highest morbidity rates (per 100,000 population) are in Trat (Q3, 111.70), Chiang Mai (Q3, 104.70), Narathiwat (Q4, 97.69), Chiang Mai (Q2, 88.51), and Chanthaburi (Q3, 86.82). According to the DIC criterion, the proposed model has a better performance than the GLMM with spatial effects but without temporal terms.

Keywords: Bayesian method, generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), malaria, spatial effects, temporal correlation

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Authors: Sy, Melecio Jr

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The decision to adopt vertical integration (VI) is firm-specific, but there is a common practice among businesses in an industry to maximize the massive potential benefits of VI. This study aims to determine VI adoption in the restaurant industry in Davao City. Using a two-step sampling process, the study used a validated survey questionnaire among 264 restaurant owners and managers randomly selected and geographically classified. It is a quantitative study where the data were subjected to a structural equation model (SEM). The results revealed that VI is present but limited to procurement, production, restaurant services, and online marketing. Raw materials were outsourced while delivery to customers through third-party delivery services. VI slowly increased over ten years except for online marketing, which has grown significantly in a few years. The endogenous and exogenous variables were correlated and established the linear regression model. The SEM's best fit model revealed that strategic motives (SMOT) and market factors (MFAC) influenced VI adoption while MFAC is the best predictor. Favorable market factors may lead restaurants to adopt VI. It is, thus, recommended for restaurants to institutionalize strategic management, quantify the impact of double marginalization in future studies as a reason for VI and conduct this study during the new normal to see the influence of business efficiencies and firm economies on VI adoption.

Keywords: business efficiencies, business management, davao city, firm economies, market factors, philippines, strategic motives, structural equation model, supply chain, vertical integration adoption

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Authors: Kumaresh Selvakumar, Man Young Kim

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Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) converts the nitrogen oxides with the aid of a catalyst by adding aqueous urea into the exhaust stream. In this work, the urea water droplets are sprayed over the exhaust gases by treating with Lagrangian particle tracking. The evaporation of ammonia from a single droplet of urea water solution is investigated computationally by convection-diffusion controlled model. The conversion to ammonia due to thermolysis of urea water droplets is measured downstream at different sections using finite rate/eddy dissipation model. In this paper, the mixer installed at the upstream enhances the distribution of ammonia over the entire domain which is calculated for different time steps. Calculations are made within the respective duration such that the complete decomposition of urea is possible at a much shorter residence time.

Keywords: convection-diffusion controlled model, lagrangian particle tracking, selective catalytic reduction, thermolysis

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Authors: Abdisalam Hassan Muse, Samuel Mwalili, Oscar Ngesa

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A generalized log-logistic distribution with variable shapes of the hazard rate was introduced and studied, extending the log-logistic distribution by adding an extra parameter to the classical distribution, leading to greater flexibility in analysing and modeling various data types. The proposed distribution has a large number of well-known lifetime special sub-models such as; Weibull, log-logistic, exponential, and Burr XII distributions. Its basic mathematical and statistical properties were derived. The method of maximum likelihood was adopted for estimating the unknown parameters of the proposed distribution, and a Monte Carlo simulation study is carried out to assess the behavior of the estimators. The importance of this distribution is that its tendency to model both monotone (increasing and decreasing) and non-monotone (unimodal and bathtub shape) or reversed “bathtub” shape hazard rate functions which are quite common in survival and reliability data analysis. Furthermore, the flexibility and usefulness of the proposed distribution are illustrated in a real-life data set and compared to its sub-models; Weibull, log-logistic, and BurrXII distributions and other parametric survival distributions with 3-parmaeters; like the exponentiated Weibull distribution, the 3-parameter lognormal distribution, the 3- parameter gamma distribution, the 3-parameter Weibull distribution, and the 3-parameter log-logistic (also known as shifted log-logistic) distribution. The proposed distribution provided a better fit than all of the competitive distributions based on the goodness-of-fit tests, the log-likelihood, and information criterion values. Finally, Bayesian analysis and performance of Gibbs sampling for the data set are also carried out.

Keywords: hazard rate function, log-logistic distribution, maximum likelihood estimation, generalized log-logistic distribution, survival data, Monte Carlo simulation

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Authors: Shittu Ahmed Tajudeen

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This study examines student-teachers’ attitude and intention towards cell-phone use for learning. The study involves one hundred and ninety (190) trainee teachers in one of the Institutes of Education in Nigeria. The data of the study was collected through a questionnaire on a rating of seven point likert-type Scale. The data collected was used to test the hypothesized model of the study using Structural Equation Modeling approach. The finding of the study revealed that Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), Subjective Norm (SN) and Attitude significantly influence students’ intention towards adoption of cell-phone for learning. The study showed that perceived ease of use stands to be the strongest predictor of cell-phone use. The model of the study exhibits a good-fit with the data and provides an explanation on student- teachers’ attitude and intention towards cell-phone for learning.

Keywords: cell-phone, adoption, structural equation modeling, technology acceptance model

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Authors: Ariyaratna Athugala

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Mass media play a significant role in democratic societies. The Political Economy of the Mass Media postulates that elite media interlock with other institutional sectors in ownership, and editorial management effectively circumscribing their ability to remain analytically detached from other dominant institutional sectors. The production of meaning in news discourse is not valued neutral, but part of a larger process of presenting a hegemonic understanding of the world to audiences as the “production of consent.” The horse race model argues that “the raw material of news” pressures six bands that ultimately shape the news audiences receive. The six bands are as follows: Crown piece (raw material), brow band (professionalism), throat latch (gatekeeper), a bit (construction), nose band (perception), and reins (ownership). dThe horse race model suggests that media ultimately serve to “manufacture consent” for a range of self-serving elite opinion options. These bands determine what events are deemed newsworthy, how they are covered, where they are placed within the media and how much coverage they receive. Highly descriptive in nature, the horse race model of communication is concerned with the question of whether media can be seen to play a hegemonic role in the society oriented towards legitimization, hegemonic pressures and ideological construction.

Keywords: hegemonic pressures, horse race, ideological construction, six bands

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Authors: Saleh Gareh, B. C. Kok, H. H. Goh

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Piezoelectric energy harvesting has advantages over other alternative sources due to its large power density, ease of applications, and capability to be fabricated at different scales: macro, micro, and nano. This paper presents an electromechanical-traffic model for roadway compression-based piezoelectric energy harvesting system. A two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) electromechanical model has been developed for the piezoelectric energy harvesting unit to define its performance in power generation under a number of external excitations on road surface. Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT-5H) is selected as the piezoelectric material to be used in this paper due to its high Piezoelectric Charge Constant (d) and Piezoelectric Voltage Constant (g) values. The main source of vibration energy that has been considered in this paper is the moving vehicle on the road. The effect of various frequencies on possible generated power caused by different vibration characteristics of moving vehicle has been studied. A single unit of circle-shape Piezoelectric Cymbal Transducer (PCT) with diameter of 32 mm and thickness of 0.3 mm be able to generate about 0.8 mW and 3 mW of electric power under 4 Hz and 20 Hz of excitation, respectively. The estimated power to be generated for multiple arrays of PCT is approximately 150 kW/ km. Thus, the developed electromechanical-traffic model has enormous potential to be used in estimating the macro scale of roadway power generation system.

Keywords: piezoelectric energy harvesting, cymbal transducer, PZT (lead zirconate titanate), 2-DOF

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Authors: Dchieche Amina, Aboulaich Rajae

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In this work, we will modelize Waad Bil Mourabaha contract. This islamic contract provides the right to buy goods at a future date with a Mourabaha. Waad is a promise of sale or purchase of goods, declared in a unilateral way. In spite of the divergence between some schools of Islamic law about the Waad, this contract will allow us to study sophisticated and interesting contract: Waad Bil Mourabaha that can be used for hedging. In order to price Waad Bil Mourabaha contract, we will use an adapted Black and Scholes model using the Shariah compliant assumptions.

Keywords: Islamic finance, Black-Scholes model, call option, risks, hedging

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Authors: Fatima Achouri, Kaddour Chouicha, Abdelwahab Khatir

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It is clear that concrete of quality must be made with selected materials chosen in optimum proportions that remain after implementation, a minimum of voids in the material produced. The different methods of formulations what we use, are based for the most part on a granular curve which describes an ‘optimal granularity’. Many authors have engaged in fundamental research on granular arrangements. A comparison of mathematical models reproducing these granular arrangements with experimental measurements of compactness have to verify that the minimum porosity P according to the following extent granular exactly a power law. So the best compactness in the finite medium are obtained with power laws, such as Furnas, Fuller or Talbot, each preferring a particular setting between 0.20 and 0.50. These considerations converge on the assumption that the optimal granularity Caquot approximates by a power law. By analogy, it can then be analyzed as a granular structure of fractal-type since the properties that characterize the internal similarity fractal objects are reflected also by a power law. Optimized mixtures may be described as a series of installments falling granular stuff to better the tank on a regular hierarchical distribution which would give at different scales, by cascading effects, the same structure to the mix. Likely this model may be appropriate for the entire extent of the size distribution of the components, since the cement particles (and silica fume) correctly deflocculated, micrometric dimensions, to chippings sometimes several tens of millimeters. As part of this research, the aim is to give an illustration of the application of fractal analysis to characterize the granular concrete mixtures optimized for a so-called fractal dimension where different concretes were studying that we proved a fractal structure of their granular mixtures regardless of the method of formulation or the type of concrete.

Keywords: concrete formulation, fractal character, granular packing, method of formulation

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Authors: Aid Asma, Dahdouh Nadjib, Amokrane Samira, Ladjali Samir, Nibou Djamel

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The present work has for main objective the elimination of the textile dye Maxilon Red (MR) by two processes, adsorption on activated clay followed by photocatalysis in presence of ZnO as a photocatalyst. The influence of the physical parameters like the initial pH, adsorbent dose of the activated clay, the MR concentration and temperature has been studied. The best adsorption yield occurs at neutral pH ~ 7 within 60 min with an uptake percentage of 97% for a concentration of 25 mg L⁻¹ and a dose of 0.5 g L⁻¹. The adsorption data were suitably fitted by the Langmuir model with a maximum capacity of 176 mg g⁻¹. The MR adsorption is well described by the pseudo second order kinetic. The second part of this work was dedicated to the photocatalytic degradation onto ZnO under solar irradiation of the residual MR concentration, remained after adsorption. The effect of ZnO dose and MR concentration has also been investigated. The parametric study showed that the elimination is very effective by this process, based essentially on the in situ generation of free radicals *OH which are non-selective and very reactive. The photodegradation process follows a first order kinetic model according to the Langmuir-Hinshelwood model.

Keywords: maxilon red, adsorption, photodegradation, ZnO, coupling

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Authors: Haffaf Hafid

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Hypergraphs, after being used to model the structural organization of System of Sytems (SoS) at macroscopic level, has recent trends towards generalizing this powerful representation at different stages of complex system modelling. In this paper, we first describe different applications of hypergraph theory, and step by step, introduce multilevel modeling of SoS by means of integrating Constraint Programming Langages (CSP) dealing with engineering system reconfiguration strategy. As an application, we give an A.C.T Terminal controlled by a set of Intelligent Automated Vehicle.

Keywords: hypergraph model, structural analysis, bipartite graph, monitoring, system of systems, reconfiguration analysis, hypernetwork

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Authors: A. K. M. Kamrul Islam, Abdelhamid Bouchachia, Suang Cang, Hongnian Yu

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Forecasting model has a great impact in terms of prediction and continues to do so into the future. Although many forecasting models have been studied in recent years, most researchers focus on different forecasting methods based on fuzzy time series to solve forecasting problems. The forecasted models accuracy fully depends on the two terms that are the length of the interval in the universe of discourse and the content of the forecast rules. Moreover, a hybrid forecasting method can be an effective and efficient way to improve forecasts rather than an individual forecasting model. There are different hybrids forecasting models which combined fuzzy time series with evolutionary algorithms, but the performances are not quite satisfactory. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid forecasting model which deals with the first order as well as high order fuzzy time series and particle swarm optimization to improve the forecasted accuracy. The proposed method used the historical enrollments of the University of Alabama as dataset in the forecasting process. Firstly, we considered an automatic clustering algorithm to calculate the appropriate interval for the historical enrollments. Then particle swarm optimization and fuzzy time series are combined that shows better forecasting accuracy than other existing forecasting models.

Keywords: fuzzy time series (fts), particle swarm optimization, clustering algorithm, hybrid forecasting model

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Authors: Mukesh Khadka, Alexander Paz, Hanns de la Fuente-Mella

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Typically, pavement performance models are developed in two steps: (i) pavement segments with similar characteristics are grouped together to form a cluster, and (ii) the corresponding performance models are developed using statistical techniques. A challenge is to select the characteristics that define clusters and the segments associated with them. If inappropriate characteristics are used, clusters may include homogeneous segments with different performance behavior or heterogeneous segments with similar performance behavior. Prediction accuracy of performance models can be improved by grouping the pavement segments into more uniform clusters by including both characteristics and a performance measure. This grouping is not always possible due to limited information. It is impractical to include all the potential significant factors because some of them are potentially unobserved or difficult to measure. Historical performance of pavement segments could be used as a proxy to incorporate the effect of the missing potential significant factors in clustering process. The current state-of-the-art proposes Clusterwise Linear Regression (CLR) to determine the pavement clusters and the associated performance models simultaneously. CLR incorporates the effect of significant factors as well as a performance measure. In this study, a mathematical program was formulated for CLR models including multiple explanatory variables. Pavement data collected recently over the entire state of Nevada were used. International Roughness Index (IRI) was used as a pavement performance measure because it serves as a unified standard that is widely accepted for evaluating pavement performance, especially in terms of riding quality. Results illustrate the advantage of the using CLR. Previous studies have used CLR along with experimental data. This study uses actual field data collected across a variety of environmental, traffic, design, and construction and maintenance conditions.

Keywords: clusterwise regression, pavement management system, performance model, optimization

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Authors: K. B. Rajasekarababu, J. Karthik, G. Vinayagamurthy

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This paper is intended to explain the influence of major axis on aerodynamic characteristics of elliptical section. Many engineering applications such as off shore structures, bridge piers, civil structures and pipelines can be modelled as a circular cylinder but flow over complex bodies like, submarines, Elliptical wing, fuselage, missiles, and rotor blades, in which the parameters such as axis ratio can influence the flow characteristics of the wake and nature of separation. Influence of Major axis in Flow characteristics of elliptical sections are examined both experimentally and computationally in this study. For this research, four elliptical models with varying major axis [*AR=1, 4, 6, 10] are analysed. Experimental works have been conducted in a subsonic wind tunnel. Furthermore, flow characteristics on elliptical model are predicted from k-ε turbulence model using the commercial CFD packages by pressure based transient solver with Standard wall conditions.The analysis can be extended to estimation and comparison of Drag coefficient and Fatigue analysis of elliptical sections.

Keywords: elliptical section, major axis, aerodynamic characteristics, k-ε turbulence model

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Authors: Deepshikha Shukla, C. H. Solanki, Mayank Desai

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In the last few years, it has been observed that earthquake is proving a threat to the scientist across the world. With a large number of earthquakes occurring in day to day life, the threat to life and property has increased manifolds which call for an urgent attention of all the researchers globally to carry out the research in the field of Earthquake Engineering. Any hazard related to the earthquake and seismicity is considered to be seismic hazards. The common forms of seismic hazards are Ground Shaking, Structure Damage, Structural Hazards, Liquefaction, Landslides, Tsunami to name a few. Among all the natural hazards, the most devastating and damaging is the earthquake as all other hazards are triggered only after the occurrence of an earthquake. In order to quantify and estimate the seismicity and seismic hazards, many methods and approaches have been proposed in the past few years. Such approaches are Mathematical, Conventional and Computational. Convex Set Theory, Empirical Green’s Function are some of the Mathematical Approaches whereas the Deterministic and Probabilistic Approaches are the Conventional Approach for the estimation of the seismic Hazards. Ground response and Ground Shaking of a particular area or region plays an important role in the damage caused due to the earthquake. In this paper, seismic study using Deterministic Approach and 1 D Ground Response Analysis has been carried out for Madhya Pradesh Tourism Office in Indore Region in Madhya Pradesh in Central India. Indore lies in the seismic zone III (IS: 1893, 2002) in the Seismic Zoning map of India. There are various faults and lineament in this area and Narmada Some Fault and Gavilgadh fault are the active sources of earthquake in the study area. Deepsoil v6.1.7 has been used to perform the 1 D Linear Ground Response Analysis for the study area. The Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) of the city ranges from 0.1g to 0.56g.

Keywords: seismicity, seismic hazards, deterministic, probabilistic methods, ground response analysis

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Authors: Akella Amarendra Babu, Rama Devi Yellasiri, Natukula Sainath

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Where human beings can easily learn and adopt pronunciation variations, machines need training before put into use. Also humans keep minimum vocabulary and their pronunciation variations are stored in front-end of their memory for ready reference, while machines keep the entire pronunciation dictionary for ready reference. Supervised methods are used for preparation of pronunciation dictionaries which take large amounts of manual effort, cost, time and are not suitable for real time use. This paper presents an unsupervised adaptation model for building agile and dynamic pronunciation dictionaries online. These methods mimic human approach in learning the new pronunciations in real time. A new algorithm for measuring sound distances called Dynamic Phone Warping is presented and tested. Performance of the system is measured using an adaptation model and the precision metrics is found to be better than 86 percent.

Keywords: pronunciation variations, dynamic programming, machine learning, natural language processing

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Authors: R. Velvarska, A. Vrablik, M. Fiedlerova, R. Cerny

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Near-infrared spectrometry (NIR) was tested as a rapid and alternative tool for determination of biodiesel oxidation stability. A PetroOxy method is standardly used for the determination, but this method is hazardous due to the possibility of explosion and ignition of flammable fuels. The second disadvantage is time consuming. The near-infrared spectrometry served for the development of the calibration model which was composed of 133 real samples (calibration standards). The reference values of these standards were obtained by PetroOxy method. Many chemometric diagnostics were used for the development of the final NIR model with the aim to have accurate prediction of the oxidation stability. The final NIR model was validated by 30 validation standards. The repeatability was determined as well with the acceptable residual standard deviation (8.59 %). The NIR spectrometry has proved to be an accurate alternative method for the determination of biodiesel oxidation stability with advantages as the time and cost saving, non-destructive character of analyzing and the possibility of online monitoring in safe mode.

Keywords: biodiesel, fatty acid methyl ester, NIR, oxidation stability

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Authors: Mohammed Alanazi, Dimitrios Tsagdis

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Established Business Excellence Models (BEMs), like the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) model and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model, have been adopted by firms all over the world. They exist alongside more recent country-specific BEMs; e.g. the Australian, Canadian, China, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan quality awards that although not as widespread as MBNQA and EFQM have nonetheless strong national followings. Regardless of any differences in their following or prestige, the emergence and development of all BEMs have been shaped both by their local context (e.g. underlying socio-economic dynamics) as well as by global best practices. Besides such similarities, that render them into objects (i.e. models) of the same class (i.e. BEMs), BEMs exhibit non-trivial differences in their criteria, relations, and emphasis. Given the evolution of BEMs (e.g. the MBNQA underwent seven evolutions since its inception in 1987 while the EFQM five since 1993), it is unsurprising that comparative studies of their validity are few and far in between. This poses challenges for practitioners and policy makers alike; as it is not always clear which BEM is to be preferred or better fitting to a particular context. Especially, in contexts that differ substantially from the original context of BEM development. This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting a research design and measurement model for comparing BEMs using quantitative methods (e.g. structural equations). Three BEMs will be focused upon in particular for illustration purposes; the MBNQA, the EFQM, and the King Abdul Aziz Quality Award (KAQA) model. They have been selected so to reflect the two established and widely spread traditions as well as a more recent context-specific arrival promising a better fit.

Keywords: Baldrige, business excellence, European Foundation for Quality Management, Structural Equation Model, total quality management

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Authors: Leoni Van Der Merwe

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Historically, in South Africa, disability has been viewed as a dilemma of the individual. The discourse surrounding the definition of disability and applicable theories are as fluid as the differing needs of persons with disabilities within society. In 1997, the Office of the Deputy President published the White Paper on the Integrated National Disability Strategy (WPINDS) which sought to integrate disability issues in all governmental development strategies, planning and programs as well as to solidify the South African government’s stance that disability was to be considered according to the social model and not the, previously utilized, medical model of disability. The models of disability are conceptual frameworks for understanding disability and can provide some insight into why certain attitudes exist and how they are reinforced in society. Although the WPINDS was regarded as a critical milestone in the history of the disability rights struggle in South Africa; it has taken approximately twenty years for the publication of a similar document taking into account South Africa’s changing social, economic, political and technological dispensation. December 2015 marked the approval of the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (WPRPD) which seeks to update the WPINDS, integrate principles contained in international law instruments and endorse a mainstreaming trajectory for realizing the rights of persons with disabilities. While the WPINDS and the WPRPD were published two decades apart, both documents contain an emphasis on a transition from the medical model to the social model. Whereas, the medical model presupposes that disability is mainly a health and welfare matter and is focused on an individualistic and dependency-based approach; the social model requires a paradigm shift in the manner in which disability is constructed so as to highlight the shortcomings of society in respect of disability and to bring to the fore the capabilities of persons with disabilities. The social model has led to unmatched success in changing the perceptions surrounding disability. This article seeks to investigate the progress made in the implementation of the social model in South Africa by taking into account the effect of the diverse political and cultural landscape in promoting the historically entrenched medical model and the rise of disability activism prior to the new democratic dispensation as well as legislation, case law, policy documents and barriers in respect of persons with disabilities that are pervasive in South African society. The research paper will conclude that although numerous interventions have been identified and implemented to promote the consideration of disability within a social construct in South Africa, such interventions require increased national and international collaboration, resources and pace to ensure that the efforts made lead to sustainable results. For persons with disabilities, what remains to be seen is whether the proliferation of activism by interest groups, social awareness as well as the development of policy documents, legislation and case law will serve as the impetus to dissipate the view that disability is burden to be carried solely on the shoulders of the person with the disability.

Keywords: disability, medical model, social model, societal barriers, South Africa

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Authors: Ebtissem Sassi, Abdellatif Benabdelhafid, Sami Hammami

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Congestion, pollution and space misuse are the major risks in the hinterland. Management of these risks is a major issue for all the actors intervening in territory management. A good mastery of these risks is based on the consideration of environmental and physical constraints since the implementation of a policy integrates simultaneously an efficient use, territorial resources, and financial resources which become increasingly rare. Yet, this balance can be difficult to establish simultaneously by all the actors. Indeed, every actor has often the tendency to favor these objectives in detriment to others. In this framework, we have fixed the objective of designing and achieving a model which will centralize multidisciplinary data and serve the analysis tool as well as a decision support tool. In this article, we will elaborate some methodological axes allowing the good management of the territory system through (i) determination of the structural factors of the decision support system, (ii) integration of methods tools favoring the territorial decisional process. Logistics territory geographic information system is a model dealing with this issue. The objective of this model is to facilitate the exchanges between the actors around a common question which was the research subject of human sciences researchers (geography, economy), nature sciences (ecology) as well as finding an optimal solution for simultaneous responses to all these objectives.

Keywords: complexity, territory, logistics, territory planning, conceptual model, GIS, MCA

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Authors: Abdulqader Almasabe, Stephanie Ludi, Mohammed Alenazi

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Governments around the world have been increasingly introducing e-government services in order to make processes more efficient and accessible for their citizens. The government of Saudi Arabia has adopted E-Government for the effective delivery of services. However, the adoption rate of these services remains low in many countries. This paper aims to explore the determinants of citizens' intention to adopt and use e-government services, focusing on a model of factors influencing the adoption and utilization of e-government services (MFIAUEGS) that has been specially developed for this purpose. By analyzing the factors that influence citizens' decisions to use e-government services we hope to provide insights that help to increase adoption rates and improve the overall effectiveness of these services. In this paper, 562 valid responses were collected and analyzed to shed light on the issue. The results of the research showed that each of the proposed factors in the MFIAUEGS model played a significant role in influencing citizens' intentions to adopt and use e-government services.

Keywords: e-government, model acceptance, influencing factors, TAM

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Authors: Janne Engblom, Elias Oikarinen

Abstract:

The understanding of housing price dynamics is of importance to a great number of agents: to portfolio investors, banks, real estate brokers and construction companies as well as to policy makers and households. A panel dataset is one that follows a given sample of individuals over time, and thus provides multiple observations on each individual in the sample. Panel data models include a variety of fixed and random effects models which form a wide range of linear models. A special case of panel data models is dynamic in nature. A complication regarding a dynamic panel data model that includes the lagged dependent variable is endogeneity bias of estimates. Several approaches have been developed to account for this problem. In this paper, the panel models were estimated using the Common Correlated Effects estimator (CCE) of dynamic panel data which also accounts for cross-sectional dependence which is caused by common structures of the economy. In presence of cross-sectional dependence standard OLS gives biased estimates. In this study, U.S housing price dynamics were examined empirically using the dynamic CCE estimator with first-difference of housing price as the dependent and first-differences of per capita income, interest rate, housing stock and lagged price together with deviation of housing prices from their long-run equilibrium level as independents. These deviations were also estimated from the data. The aim of the analysis was to provide estimates with comparisons of estimates between 1980-1999 and 2000-2012. Based on data of 50 U.S cities over 1980-2012 differences of short-run housing price dynamics estimates were mostly significant when two time periods were compared. Significance tests of differences were provided by the model containing interaction terms of independents and time dummy variable. Residual analysis showed very low cross-sectional correlation of the model residuals compared with the standard OLS approach. This means a good fit of CCE estimator model. Estimates of the dynamic panel data model were in line with the theory of housing price dynamics. Results also suggest that dynamics of a housing market is evolving over time.

Keywords: dynamic model, panel data, cross-sectional dependence, interaction model

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Authors: Saeed Khandan Siar, Stefan Tenbohlen, Christian Breuer, Raphael Lebreton

Abstract:

The goal of this article is to investigate the detailed temperature distribution and the fluid flow of an oil cooled winding of a power transformer by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The experimental setup consists of three passes of a zig-zag cooled disc type winding, in which losses are modeled by heating cartridges in each winding segment. A precise temperature sensor measures the temperature of each turn. The laboratory setup allows the exact control of the boundary conditions, e.g. the oil flow rate and the inlet temperature. Furthermore, a simulation model is solved using the open source computational fluid dynamics solver OpenFOAM and validated with the experimental results. The model utilizes the laminar and turbulent flow for the different mass flow rate of the oil. The good agreement of the simulation results with experimental measurements validates the model.

Keywords: CFD, conjugated heat transfer, power transformers, temperature distribution

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Authors: Caixia Gao, Chuanrong Li, Lingli Tang, Lingling Ma, Yonggang Qian, Ning Wang

Abstract:

Knowledge of land surface temperature (LST) is of crucial important in energy balance studies and environment modeling. Satellite thermal infrared (TIR) imagery is the primary source for retrieving LST at the regional and global scales. Due to the combination of atmosphere and land surface of received radiance by TIR sensors, atmospheric effect correction has to be performed to remove the atmospheric transmittance and upwelling radiance. Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) onboard Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) provides measurements every 15 minutes in 12 spectral channels covering from visible to infrared spectrum at fixed view angles with 3km pixel size at nadir, offering new and unique capabilities for LST, LSE measurements. However, due to its high temporal resolution, the atmosphere correction could not be performed with radiosonde profiles or reanalysis data since these profiles are not available at all SEVIRI TIR image acquisition times. To solve this problem, a two-part six-parameter semi-empirical diurnal temperature cycle (DTC) model has been applied to the temporal interpolation of ECMWF reanalysis data. Due to the fact that the DTC model is underdetermined with ECMWF data at four synoptic times (UTC times: 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00) in one day for each location, some approaches are adopted in this study. It is well known that the atmospheric transmittance and upwelling radiance has a relationship with water vapour content (WVC). With the aid of simulated data, the relationship could be determined under each viewing zenith angle for each SEVIRI TIR channel. Thus, the atmospheric transmittance and upwelling radiance are preliminary removed with the aid of instantaneous WVC, which is retrieved from the brightness temperature in the SEVIRI channels 5, 9 and 10, and a group of the brightness temperatures for surface leaving radiance (Tg) are acquired. Subsequently, a group of the six parameters of the DTC model is fitted with these Tg by a Levenberg-Marquardt least squares algorithm (denoted as DTC model 1). Although the retrieval error of WVC and the approximate relationships between WVC and atmospheric parameters would induce some uncertainties, this would not significantly affect the determination of the three parameters, td, ts and β (β is the angular frequency, td is the time where the Tg reaches its maximum, ts is the starting time of attenuation) in DTC model. Furthermore, due to the large fluctuation in temperature and the inaccuracy of the DTC model around sunrise, SEVIRI measurements from two hours before sunrise to two hours after sunrise are excluded. With the knowledge of td , ts, and β, a new DTC model (denoted as DTC model 2) is accurately fitted again with these Tg at UTC times: 05:57, 11:57, 17:57 and 23:57, which is atmospherically corrected with ECMWF data. And then a new group of the six parameters of the DTC model is generated and subsequently, the Tg at any given times are acquired. Finally, this method is applied to SEVIRI data in channel 9 successfully. The result shows that the proposed method could be performed reasonably without assumption and the Tg derived with the improved method is much more consistent with that from radiosonde measurements.

Keywords: atmosphere correction, diurnal temperature cycle model, land surface temperature, SEVIRI

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