Search results for: block linear multistep methods

Authors: Yemane Tadesse Gebreslassie, Henok Gidey Gebretnsae

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Nanotechnology has emerged as a highly promising field of research with wide-ranging applications across various scientific disciplines. In recent years, tin oxide has garnered significant attention due to its intriguing properties, particularly when synthesized in the nanoscale range. While numerous physical and chemical methods exist for producing tin oxide nanoparticles, these approaches tend to be costly, energy-intensive, and involve the use of toxic chemicals. Given the growing concerns regarding human health and environmental impact, there has been a shift towards developing cost-effective and environmentally friendly processes for tin oxide nanoparticle synthesis. Green synthesis methods utilizing biological entities such as plant extracts, bacteria, and natural biomolecules have shown promise in successfully producing tin oxide nanoparticles. However, scaling up the production to an industrial level using green synthesis approaches remains challenging due to the complexity of biological substrates, which hinders the elucidation of reaction mechanisms and formation processes. Thus, this review aims to provide an overview of the various sources of biological entities and methodologies employed in the green synthesis of tin oxide nanoparticles, as well as their impact on nanoparticle properties. Furthermore, this research delves into the strides made in comprehending the mechanisms behind the formation of nanoparticles as documented in existing literature. It also sheds light on the array of analytical techniques employed to investigate and elucidate the characteristics of these minuscule particles.

Keywords: nanotechnology, tin oxide, green synthesis, formation mechanisms

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Authors: Shima Naderi, Abbas Abbaszadeh Shahri

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Energy resources are reachable and affordable in Iran, thus surplus access to fossil fuels besides high level of economic growth leads to serious environmental critical such as pollutants and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, increase in average degrease and lack of water sources specially in Tehran as a capital city of Iran. As building sector consumes a huge portion of energy, taking actions towards alternative sources of energy as well as conserving non-renewable energy resources and architectural energy saving methods are the fundamental basis for achieving sustainability`s goals. This study tries to explore implantation of both high technologies and traditional issues for reduction of energy demands in buildings of Tehran and introduce some factors and instructions for achieving this purpose. Green and energy efficient buildings such as ZEBs make it possible to preserve natural resources for the next generations by reducing pollution and increasing ecosystem self-recovery. However ZEB is not widely spread in Iran because of its low economic efficiency, it is not viable for a private entrepreneur without the governmental supports. Therefore executing of Architectural Energy Efficiency can be a better option. It is necessary to experience a substructure expansion with respect to traditional residential building style. Renewable energies and passive design which are the substantial part of the history of architecture in Iran can be regenerated and employed as an essential part of designing energy efficient buildings.

Keywords: architectural energy efficiency, passive design, renewable energies, zero energy buildings

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Authors: Livy Febria Tedjamulia, Aas Nurasyiah, Ivana Josephin Purnama, Monika Diah Maharani Kusumastuti, Achmad Ridwan Ariyantoro

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Papua's candy is one of Indonesia’s indigenous consumption consisting of areca nut (Areca catechu), forest betel fruit (Piper aduncum), and CaCO3. This research aims to determine the concentration of tannins in areca nut, alkaloids in areca nut, flavonoids in forest betel fruit; detect their interaction and CaCO3; also toform a standardize consumption recommendation. The research methodwas includingDPPH assay for papua’s candy mixture, which resulted in IC50 value. Data analysis used is mathematical linear regression for each experiment. The test result of alkaloid is a Rf value of 0.773, while concentration of tannin and flavonoidare 0.603 mgGAE/g and 125.402 gQE/g, respectively. The IC50 value shows number of 3.0403, showing high antioxidant capacity.Other antioxidant assays were being studied using literature review, namely trolox and oxygen radical absorbance capacity, to figure out interaction among the bioactive compounds. It turned out that the interaction detected is antagonistic, which means the compound that is joined already has a stable molecular structure so that could reduce free radicals by donating hydrogen atoms. The recommendation consumptions given are 4 areca nuts, 5 forest betels, and 1 gram of lime betel. Therefore, papua's candy has its potential to be developed into functional food.

Keywords: antioxidant, bioactive compounds interaction, free radical, papua’s candy

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Authors: Revoti Prasad Bora, Nikita Katyal

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Promotion is a key element in the retail business. Thus, analysis of promotions to quantify their effectiveness in terms of Revenue and/or Margin is an essential activity in the retail industry. However, measuring the sales/revenue uplift is based on estimations, as the actual sales/revenue without the promotion is not present. Further, the presence of Halo and Cannibalization in a multiple parallel promotions’ scenario complicates the problem. Calculating Baseline by considering inter-brand/competitor items or using Halo and Cannibalization's impact on Revenue calculations by considering Baseline as an interpretation of items’ unit sales in neighboring nonpromotional weeks individually may not capture the overall Revenue uplift in the case of multiple parallel promotions. Hence, this paper proposes a Machine Learning based method for calculating the Revenue uplift by considering the Halo and Cannibalization impact on the Baseline and the Revenue. In the first section of the proposed methodology, Baseline of an item is calculated by incorporating the impact of the promotions on its related items. In the later section, the Revenue of an item is calculated by considering both Halo and Cannibalization impacts. Hence, this methodology enables correct calculation of the overall Revenue uplift due a given promotion.

Keywords: Halo, Cannibalization, promotion, Baseline, temporary price reduction, retail, elasticity, cross price elasticity, machine learning, random forest, linear regression

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Authors: Najib Belhadj Messaoud, Slim Souissi

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The non-linear dynamic behavior of a single stage spur gear reducer is studied in this paper in transient regime. Driving and driver rotors are, respectively, powered by a motor torque Cm and loaded by a resistive torque Cr. They are supported by two identical Active Magnetic Bearings (AMBs). Gear excitation is induced by the motor torque and load variation in addition to the fluctuation of meshing stiff-ness due to the variation of input rotational speed. Three models of AMBs were used with four, six and eight magnets. They are operated by P.D controller and powered by control and bias currents. The dynamic parameters of the AMBs are modeled by stiffness and damping matrices computed by the derivation of the electromagnetic forces. The equations of motion are solved iteratively using Newmark time integration method. In the first part of the study, the model is powered by an electric motor and by a four strokes four cylinders diesel engine in the second part. The numerical results of the dynamic responses of the system come to confirm the significant effect of the transient regime on the dynamic behavior of a gear set, particularly in the case of engine acyclism condition. Results also confirm the influence of the magnet number by AMBs on the dynamic behavior of the system. Indeed, vibrations were more important in the case of gear reducer supported by AMBs with four magnets.

Keywords: motor, stiffness, gear, acyclism, fluctuation, torque

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Authors: Lise P. Labéjof, Ivna Mororó, Raquel G. Bastos, Maria Isabel G. Severo, Arno H. de Oliveira

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This work presents an alternative mode of intestine mucosa renewal that may allow to better understand the total loss of villi after irradiation. It was tested a morphological method of 3d reconstruction using micrographs of serial sections of rat duodenum. We used hundreds of sections of each specimen of duodenum placed on glass slides and examined under a light microscope. Those containing the detachment, approximately a dozen, were chosen for observation under a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Each of these sections was glued on a block of epon resin and recut into a hundred of 60 nm-thick sections. Ribbons of these ultrathin sections were distributed on a series of copper grids in the same order of appearance than during the process of microstomia. They were then stained by solutions of uranyl and lead salts and observed under a TEM. The sections were pictured and the electron micrographs showing signs of cells detachment were transferred into two softwares, ImageJ to align the cellular structures and Reconstruct to realize the 3d reconstruction. It has been detected epithelial cells that exhibited all signs of programmed cell death and localized at the villus-crypt junction. Their nucleus was irregular in shape with a condensed chromatin in clumps. Their cytoplasm was darker than that of neighboring cells, containing many swollen mitochondria. In some places of the sections, we could see intercellular spaces enlarged by the presence of shrunk cells which displayed a plasma membrane with an irregular shape in thermowell as if the cell interdigitations would distant from each other. The three-dimensional reconstruction of the crypts has allowed observe gradual loss of intercellular contacts of crypt cells in the longitudinal plan of the duodenal mucosa. In the transverse direction, there was a gradual increase of the intercellular space as if these cells moved away from one another. This observation allows assume that the gradual remoteness of the cells at the villus-crypt junction is the beginning of the mucosa detachment. Thus, the shrinking of cells due to apoptosis is the way that they detach from the mucosa and progressively the villi also. These results are in agreement with our initial hypothesis and thus have demonstrated that the villi become detached from the mucosa at the villus-crypt junction by the programmed cell death process. This type of loss of entire villus helps explain the rapid denudation of the intestinal mucosa in case of irradiation.

Keywords: 3dr, transmission electron microscopy, ionizing radiations, rat small intestine, apoptosis

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Authors: AlHanoof A. Alharbi, Fatima M. Alamoudi, Razan A. Albrahim, Sarah F. Alharbi, Abdullah M Almuhaideb, Norah A. Almubairik, Abdulrahman Alharby, Naya M. Nagy

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Recently, drones received a rapid interest in different industries worldwide due to its powerful impact. However, limitations still exist in this emerging technology, especially privacy violation. These aircrafts consistently threaten the security of entities by entering restricted areas accidentally or deliberately. Therefore, this research project aims to develop drone detection and prevention mechanism to protect the restricted area. Until now, none of the solutions have met the optimal requirements of detection which are cost-effectiveness, high accuracy, long range, convenience, unaffected by noise and generalization. In terms of prevention, the existing methods are focusing on impractical solutions such as catching a drone by a larger drone, training an eagle or a gun. In addition, the practical solutions have limitations, such as the No-Fly Zone and PITBULL jammers. According to our study and analysis of previous related works, none of the solutions includes detection and prevention at the same time. The proposed solution is a combination of detection and prevention methods. To implement the detection system, a passive radar will be used to properly identify the drone against any possible flying objects. As for the prevention, jamming signals and forceful safe landing of the drone integrated together to stop the drone’s operation. We believe that applying this mechanism will limit the drone’s invasion of privacy incidents against highly restricted properties. Consequently, it effectively accelerates drones‘ usages at personal and governmental levels.

Keywords: detection, drone, jamming, prevention, privacy, RF, radar, UAV

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Authors: Mohd Aftar Abu Bakar, Noratiqah Mohd Ariff, Abdul Aziz Jemain

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Storm Event Analysis (SEA) provides a method to define rainfalls events as storms where each storm has its own amount and duration. By modelling daily probability of different types of storms, the onset, offset and cycle of rainfall seasons can be determined and investigated. Furthermore, researchers from the field of meteorology will be able to study the dynamical characteristics of rainfalls and make predictions for future reference. In this study, four categories of storms; short, intermediate, long and very long storms; are introduced based on the length of storm duration. Daily probability models of storms are built for these four categories of storms in Peninsular Malaysia. The models are constructed by using Bernoulli distribution and by applying linear regression on the first Fourier harmonic equation. From the models obtained, it is found that daily probability of storms at the Eastern part of Peninsular Malaysia shows a unimodal pattern with high probability of rain beginning at the end of the year and lasting until early the next year. This is very likely due to the Northeast monsoon season which occurs from November to March every year. Meanwhile, short and intermediate storms at other regions of Peninsular Malaysia experience a bimodal cycle due to the two inter-monsoon seasons. Overall, these models indicate that Peninsular Malaysia can be divided into four distinct regions based on the daily pattern for the probability of various storm events.

Keywords: daily probability model, monsoon seasons, regions, storm events

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Authors: Camila Amin-Puello, Lina Vasco-Diaz, Juan Ramirez-Arias, Claudia Munoz, Carlos Gonzalez-Calderon

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Operational flexibility is a fundamental aspect in the field of airlines because although demand is constantly changing, it is the duty of companies to provide a service to users that satisfies their needs in an efficient manner without sacrificing factors such as comfort, safety and other perception variables. The objective of this research is to understand the factors that describe and explain operational flexibility by implementing advanced analytical methods such as exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, examining multiple levels of operational flexibility and understanding how these variable influences users' decision-making when choosing an airline and in turn how it affects the airlines themselves. The use of a hybrid model and latent variables improves the efficiency and accuracy of airline performance prediction in the unpredictable Colombian market. This pioneering study delves into traveler motivations and their impact on domestic flight demand, offering valuable insights to optimize resources and improve the overall traveler experience. Applying the methods, it was identified that low-cost airlines are not useful for flexibility, while users, especially women, found airlines with greater flexibility in terms of ticket costs and flight schedules to be more useful. All of this allows airlines to anticipate and adapt to their customers' needs efficiently: to plan flight capacity appropriately, adjust pricing strategies and improve the overall passenger experience.

Keywords: hybrid choice model, airline, business travelers, domestic flights

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Authors: Samuel Munaf, Kevin Swingler, Franz Brülisauer, Anthony O’Hare, George Gunn, Aaron Reeves

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Background: Avian influenza, more commonly known as Bird flu, is a viral zoonotic respiratory disease stemming from various species of poultry, including pets and migratory birds. Researchers have purported that the accessibility of health information online, in addition to the low-cost data collection methods the internet provides, has revolutionized the methods in which epidemiological and disease surveillance data is utilized. This paper examines the feasibility of using internet data sources, such as Twitter and livestock forums, for the early detection of the avian flu outbreak, through the use of text mining algorithms and social network analysis. Methods: Social media mining was conducted on Twitter between the period of 01/01/2021 to 31/12/2021 via the Twitter API in Python. The results were filtered firstly by hashtags (#avianflu, #birdflu), word occurrences (avian flu, bird flu, H5N1), and then refined further by location to include only those results from within the UK. Analysis was conducted on this text in a time-series manner to determine keyword frequencies and topic modeling to uncover insights in the text prior to a confirmed outbreak. Further analysis was performed by examining clinical signs (e.g., swollen head, blue comb, dullness) within the time series prior to the confirmed avian flu outbreak by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). Results: The increased search results in Google and avian flu-related tweets showed a correlation in time with the confirmed cases. Topic modeling uncovered clusters of word occurrences relating to livestock biosecurity, disposal of dead birds, and prevention measures. Conclusions: Text mining social media data can prove to be useful in relation to analysing discussed topics for epidemiological surveillance purposes, especially given the lack of applied research in the veterinary domain. The small sample size of tweets for certain weekly time periods makes it difficult to provide statistically plausible results, in addition to a great amount of textual noise in the data.

Keywords: veterinary epidemiology, disease surveillance, infodemiology, infoveillance, avian influenza, social media

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Authors: A. G. Gashua, T. T. Bello, I. Alhassan, K. K. Gwiokura

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Weeds are known to interfere seriously with crop growth, thereby affecting the productivity and quality of crops. Crops are also known to compete for natural growth resources if they are not adequately spaced, also affecting the performance of the growing crop. Farmers grow cowpea in mixtures with cereals and this is known to affect its yield. For this reason, a field experiment was conducted at Yobe State College of Agriculture Gujba, Damaturu station in the 2014 and 2015 rainy seasons to determine the appropriate intra row spacing and weeding regime for optimum growth and yield of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) in pure stand in Sudan Savanna ecology. The treatments consist of three levels of spacing within rows (20 cm, 30 cm and 40 cm) and four weeding regimes (none, once at 3 weeks after sowing (WAS), twice at 3 and 6WAS, thrice at 3WAS, 6WAS and 9WAS); arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and replicated three times. The variety used was the local cowpea variety (white, early and spreading) commonly grown by farmers. The growth and yield data were collected and subjected to analysis of variance using SAS software, and the significant means were ranked by Students Newman Keul’s test (SNK). The findings of this study revealed better crop performance in 2015 than in 2014 despite poor soil condition. Intra row spacing significantly influenced vegetative growth especially the number of main branches, leaves and canopy spread at 6WAS and 9WAS with the highest values obtained at wider spacing (40 cm). The values obtained in 2015 doubled those obtained in 2014 in most cases. Spacing also significantly affected the number of pods in 2015, seed weight in both years and grain yield in 2014 with the highest values obtained when the crop was spaced at 30-40 cm. Similarly, weeding regime significantly influenced almost all the growth attributes of cowpea with higher values obtained from where cowpea was weeded three times at 3-week intervals, though statistically similar results were obtained even from where cowpea was weeded twice. Weeding also affected the entire yield and yield components in 2015 with the highest values obtained with increase weeding. Based on these findings, it is recommended that spreading cowpea varieties should be grown at 40 cm (or wider spacing) within rows and be weeded twice at three-week intervals for better crop performance in related ecologies.

Keywords: intra-row spacing, local cowpea, Nigeria, weeding

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Authors: Tijjani Bashir Musa

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The recent global crisis which suddenly results to Nigerian stock market crash revealed some peculiarities of Nigerian firms. Some firms in Nigeria are performing but their stock prices are not increasing while some firms are at the brink of collapse but their stock prices are increasing. Thus, this study examines the relationship between firm performance and stock price in Nigeria. The study covered the period of 2005 to 2009. This period is the period of stock boom and also marked the period of stock market crash as a result of global financial meltdown. The study is a panel study. A total of 140 firms were sampled from 216 firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Data were collected from secondary source. These data were divided into four strata comprising the most performing stock, the least performing stock, most performing firms and the least performing firms. Each stratum contains 35 firms with characteristic of most performing stock, most performing firms, least performing stock and least performing firms. Multiple linear regression models were used to analyse the data while statistical/econometrics package of Stata 11.0 version was used to run the data. The study found that, relationship exists between selected firm performance parameters (operating efficiency, firm profit, earning per share and working capital) and stock price. As such firm performance gave sufficient information or has predictive power on stock prices movements in Nigeria for all the years under study.. The study recommends among others that Managers of firms in Nigeria should formulate policies and exert effort geared towards improving firm performance that will enhance stock prices movements.

Keywords: firm, Nigeria, performance, stock price

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Authors: Hasan Basaran, Emre Unal

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Formation flying of satellites is a mission that involves a relative position keeping of different satellites in the constellation. In this study, different control algorithms are compared with one another in terms of ΔV, velocity increment, and tracking error. Various control methods, covering continuous and impulsive approaches are implemented and tested for satellites flying in low Earth orbit. Feedback linearization, sliding mode control, and model predictive control are designed and compared with an impulsive feedback law, which is based on mean orbital elements. Feedback linearization and sliding mode control approaches have identical mathematical models that include second order Earth oblateness effects. The model predictive control, on the other hand, does not include any perturbations and assumes circular chief orbit. The comparison is done with 4 different initial errors and achieved with velocity increment, root mean square error, maximum steady state error, and settling time. It was observed that impulsive law consumed the least ΔV, while produced the highest maximum error in the steady state. The continuous control laws, however, consumed higher velocity increments and produced lower amounts of tracking errors. Finally, the inversely proportional relationship between tracking error and velocity increment was established.

Keywords: chief-deputy satellites, feedback linearization, follower-leader satellites, formation flight, fuel consumption, model predictive control, rendezvous, sliding mode

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Authors: Charles Q. Yu, Victoria H. Fan, Ahmed F. Al-Qahtani, Ibraim Viera

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Introduction: Over 12 million people are blind due to opacity of the cornea, the clear tissue forming the front of the eye. Current methods use plastic implants to produce a clear optical pathway into the eye but are limited by a high rate of complications. New implants utilizing completely inside-the-eye projection technology can overcome blindness due to scarring of the eye by producing images on the retina without need for a clear optical pathway into the eye and may be free of the complications of traditional treatments. However, the interior of the eye is a challenging location for the design of optical focusing systems which can produce a sufficiently high quality image. No optical focusing systems have previously been characterized for this purpose. Methods: 3 optical focusing systems for intraocular (inside the eye) projection were designed and then modeled with ray tracing software, including a pinhole system, a planoconvex, and an achromatic system. These were then constructed using off-the-shelf components and tested in the laboratory. Weight, size, magnification, depth of focus, image quality and brightness were characterized. Results: Image quality increased with complexity of system design, as did weight and size. A dual achromatic doublet optical system produced the highest image quality. The visual acuity equivalent achieved with this system was better than 20/200. Its weight was less than that of the natural human crystalline lens. Conclusions: We demonstrate for the first time that high quality images can be produced by optical systems sufficiently small and light to be implanted within the eye.

Keywords: focusing, projection, blindness, cornea , achromatic, pinhole

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Authors: Kyungsuk Cho, H. Y. Kim, S. U. Chae, J. H. Choi

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Technological development has led to the construction of super-tall buildings and insulators are increasingly used as exterior finishing materials to save energy. However, insulators are usually combustible and vulnerable to fire. Fires like that at Wooshin Golden Suite Building in Busan, Korea in 2010 and that at CCTV Building in Beijing, China are the major examples of fire spread accelerated by combustible insulators. The exterior finishing materials of a high-rise building are not made of insulators only, but they are integrated with the building’s external cladding system. There is a limit in evaluating the fire safety of a cladding system with a single small-unit material such as a cone calorimeter. Therefore, countries provide codes to evaluate the fire safety of exterior finishing materials using full-scale tests. This study compares and to examine the applicability of the methods to Korea. Standard analysis showed differences in the type and size of fire sources and duration and exterior finishing materials also differed in size. In order to confirm the differences, fire tests were conducted on identical external cladding systems to compare fire safety. Although the exterior finishing materials were identical, varying degrees of fire spread were observed, which could be considered as differences in the type and size of the fire sources and duration. Therefore, it is deduced that extended studies should be conducted before the evaluation methods and standards are employed in Korea. The two standards for evaluating fire safety provided different results. Peak heat release rate was 5.5MW in ISO method and 3.0±0.5MW in BS method. Peak heat release rate in ISO method continued for 15 minutes. Fire ignition, growth, full development and decay evolved for 30 minutes in BS method where wood cribs were used as fire sources. Therefore, follow-up studies should be conducted to determine which of the two standards provides fire sources that approximate the size of flames coming out from the openings or those spreading to the outside when a fire occurs at a high-rise building.

Keywords: external cladding systems, fire safety evaluation, ISO 13785-2, BS 8414

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Authors: Pamir Gogoi, Ratree Wayland

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This study investigates the acoustic measures of breathiness when coarticulated with nasality. The acoustic correlates of breathiness and nasality that has already been well established after years of empirical research. Some of these acoustic parameters - like low frequency peaks and wider bandwidths- are common for both nasal and breathy voice. Therefore, it is likely that these parameters interact when a sound is coarticulated with breathiness and nasality. This leads to the hypothesis that the acoustic parameters, which usually act as robust cues in differentiating between breathy and modal voice, might not be reliable cues for differentiating between breathy and modal voice when breathiness is coarticulated with nasality. The effect of nasality on the perception of breathiness has been explored in earlier studies using synthesized speech. The results showed that perceptually, nasality and breathiness do interact. The current study investigates if a similar pattern is observed in natural speech. The study is conducted on Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language which has a three-way contrast between nasality and breathiness. That is, there is a phonemic distinction between nasals, breathy voice and breathy-nasals. Voice quality parameters like – H1-H2 (Difference between the amplitude of first and second harmonic), H1-A3 (Difference between the amplitude of first harmonic and third formant, CPP (Cepstral Peak Prominence), HNR (Harmonics to Noise ratio) and B1 (Bandwidth of first formant) were extracted. Statistical models like linear mixed effects regression and Random Forest classifiers show that measures that capture the noise component in the signal- like CPP and HNR- can classify breathy voice from modal voice better than spectral measures when breathy voice is coarticulated with nasality.

Keywords: breathiness, marathi, nasality, voice quality

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Authors: Jiraporn Prommaha

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The purpose of this research is to study the development of Thailand Brand Identity and the perception of its image in order to find any guidelines for the identity development and the image perception of Thailand Brand in Health and Wellness Tourism. The paper is conducted through mixed methods research, both the qualitative and quantitative researches. The qualitative focuses on the in-depth interview of executive administrations from public and private sectors involved scholars and experts in identity and image issue, main 11 people. The quantitative research was done by the questionnaires to collect data from foreign tourists 800; Chinese tourists 400 and UK tourists 400. The technique used for this was the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), this was to determine the relation between the structures of the variables by categorizing the variables into group by applying the Varimax rotation technique. This technique showed recognition the Thailand brand image related to the 2 countries, China and UK. The results found that guidelines for brand identity development and image perception of health and wellness tourism in Thailand; as following (1) Develop communication in order to understanding of the meaning of the word 'Health and beauty tourism' throughout the country, (2) Develop human resources as a national agenda, (3) Develop awareness rising in the conservation and preservation of natural resources of the country, (4) Develop the cooperation of all stakeholders in Health and Wellness Businesses, (5) Develop digital communication throughout the country and (6) Develop safety in Tourism.

Keywords: brand identity, image perception, nation branding, health and wellness tourism, mixed methods research

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Authors: Byomakesh Debata, Jitendra Mahakud

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The recent financial crisis has been characterized by massive monetary policy interventions by the Central bank, and it has amplified the importance of liquidity for the stability of the stock market. This paper empirically elucidates the actual impact of monetary policy interventions on stock market liquidity covering all National Stock Exchange (NSE) Stocks, which have been traded continuously from 2002 to 2015. The present study employs a multivariate VAR model along with VAR-granger causality test, impulse response functions, block exogeneity test, and variance decomposition to analyze the direction as well as the magnitude of the relationship between monetary policy and market liquidity. Our analysis posits a unidirectional relationship between monetary policy (call money rate, base money growth rate) and aggregate market liquidity (traded value, turnover ratio, Amihud illiquidity ratio, turnover price impact, high-low spread). The impulse response function analysis clearly depicts the influence of monetary policy on stock liquidity for every unit innovation in monetary policy variables. Our results suggest that an expansionary monetary policy increases aggregate stock market liquidity and the reverse is documented during the tightening of monetary policy. To ascertain whether our findings are consistent across all periods, we divided the period of study as pre-crisis (2002 to 2007) and post-crisis period (2007-2015) and ran the same set of models. Interestingly, all liquidity variables are highly significant in the post-crisis period. However, the pre-crisis period has witnessed a moderate predictability of monetary policy. To check the robustness of our results we ran the same set of VAR models with different monetary policy variables and found the similar results. Unlike previous studies, we found most of the liquidity variables are significant throughout the sample period. This reveals the predictability of monetary policy on aggregate market liquidity. This study contributes to the existing body of literature by documenting a strong predictability of monetary policy on stock liquidity in an emerging economy with an order driven market making system like India. Most of the previous studies have been carried out in developing economies with quote driven or hybrid market making system and their results are ambiguous across different periods. From an eclectic sense, this study may be considered as a baseline study to further find out the macroeconomic determinants of liquidity of stocks at individual as well as aggregate level.

Keywords: market liquidity, monetary policy, order driven market, VAR, vector autoregressive model

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Authors: Michio Kurosu

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Alterations in glycosylation not only directly impact cell growth and survival but also facilitate tumor-induced immunomodulation and eventual metastasis. Identification of cell type-specific glycoconjugates (tumor markers) has led to the discovery of new assay systems for certain cancers via immunodetection reagents. N- and O-linked glycans are the most abundant forms of glycoproteins. Recent studies of cancer immunotherapy are based on the immunogenicity of truncated O-glycan chains (e.g., Tn, sTn, T, and sLea/x). The prevalence of N-linked glycan changes in the development of tumor cells is known; however, therapeutic antibodies against N-glycans have not yet been developed. This is due to the lack of specificity of N-linked glycans between normal/healthy and cancer cells. Abnormal branching of N-linked glycans has been observed, particularly in solid cancer cells. While the discovery of drug-like glycosyltransferase inhibitors that block the biosynthesis of specific branching has a very low likelihood of success, altered glycosylation levels can be exploited by suppressing N-glycan biosynthesis through the inhibition of dolichyl-phosphate N-acetylglucosaminephosphotransferase1 (DPAGT1) activity. Inhibition of DPAGT1 function leads to changes of O-glycosylation on proteins associated with mitochondria and zinc finger binding proteins (indirect effects). On the basis of dynamic crosstalk between DPAGT1 and Snail/Slung/ZEB1 (a family of transcription factors that promote the repression of the adhesion molecules), we have developed pharmacologically acceptable selective DPAGT1 inhibitors. Tunicamycin kills a wide range of cancer and healthy cells in a non-selective manner. In sharp contrast, our DPAGT1 inhibitors display strong cytostatic effects against 16 solid cancers, which require the overexpression of DPAGT1 in their progression but do not affect the cell viability of healthy cells. The identified DPAGT1 inhibitors possess impressive anti-metastatic ability in various solid cancer cell lines and induce their mitochondrial structural changes, resulting in apoptosis. A prototype DPAGT1 inhibitor, APPB has already been proven to shrink solid tumors (e.g., pancreatic cancers, triple-negative breast cancers) in vivo while suppressing metastases and has strong synergistic effects when combined with current cytotoxic drugs (e.g., paclitaxel). At this conference, our discovery of selective DPAGT1 inhibitors with drug-like properties and proof-of-pharmaceutical concept studies of a novel DPAGT1 inhibitor are presented.

Keywords: DPAGT1 inhibitors, anti-metastatic drugs, natural product based drug designs, cytostatic effects

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Authors: Alvaro Javier Ortega

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A large number of companies face the challenge of matching highly-skilled professionals to high-end positions by human resource deployment professionals. However, when the professional list and tasks to be matched are larger than a few dozens, this process result is far from optimal and takes a long time to be made. Therefore, an automated assignment algorithm for this workforce management problem is needed. The majority of companies are divided into several sectors or departments, where trained employees with different experience levels deal with a large number of tasks daily. Also, the execution order of all tasks is of mater consequence, due to some of these tasks just can be run it if the result of another task is provided. Thus, a wrong execution order leads to large waiting times between consecutive tasks. The desired goal is, therefore, creating accurate matches and a near-optimal execution order that maximizes the number of tasks performed and minimizes the idle time of the expensive skilled employees. The problem described before can be model as a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) as it will be shown in detail through this paper. A large number of MINLP algorithms have been proposed in the literature. Here, genetic algorithm solutions are considered and a comparison between two different mutation approaches is presented. The simulated results considering different complexity levels of assignment decisions show the appropriateness of the proposed model.

Keywords: employees, genetic algorithm, industry management, workforce

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Authors: T. Manesh, Abdalla A. Alameen, M. Mohemmed Sha, A. Mohamed Mustaq Ahmed

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Email and instant messaging applications are foremost and extensively used electronic communication methods in this era of information explosion. These applications are generally used for exchange of information using several frontend applications from various service providers by its users. Almost all such communications are now secured using SSL or TLS security over HTTP communication. At the same time, it is also noted that cyber criminals and terrorists have started exchanging information using these methods. Since communication is encrypted end-to-end, tracing significant forensic details and actual content of messages are found to be unattended and severe challenges by available forensic tools. These challenges seriously affect in procuring substantial evidences against such criminals from their working environments. This paper presents a vibrant forensic exploration and architectural framework which not only decrypts any communication or network session but also reconstructs actual message contents of email as well as instant messaging applications. The framework can be effectively used in proxy servers and individual computers and it aims to perform forensic reconstruction followed by analysis of webmail and ICQ messaging applications. This forensic framework exhibits a versatile nature as it is equipped with high speed packet capturing hardware, a well-designed packet manipulating algorithm. It regenerates message contents over regular as well as SSL encrypted SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols and catalyzes forensic presentation procedure for prosecution of cyber criminals by producing solid evidences of their actual communication as per court of law of specific countries.

Keywords: forensics, network sessions, packet reconstruction, packet reordering

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Authors: Ng Ziyi Zoe, Yow Wei Quin

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Humor plays a pivotal role in our interaction with people. According to the age-related positivity effect, older adults (OA) demonstrate more positive emotions and are better able to modulate negative emotional states than younger adults (YA), suggesting an increase in humor appreciation with age. However, different types of humor might show different patterns of change in appreciation with age (e.g., incongruity-resolution humor, aggressive humor, self-vs.-other-deprecating humor). Thus, we aim to explore age-related effects in the perception of different types of humor in a single study, including the impact of local slang in humor appreciation. Twenty OA aged 60-and-above and 24 YA aged 13-20 were watched four short videos (i.e., benign, violent, satire+local slang, and others-deprecating humor) and rated how funny the videos were (from a scale of 1-not funny-at-all to 5-very funny). Participants were also asked to rank the videos in the order of most- to least-entertaining. Repeated measures of ANOVA found significant main effects of age, F(3,39)=12,88, p < .001, where OA gave higher ratings than YA (M=3.20 vs. 2.63), and humor type, F(3,123)=19.66, p < .001. Post-hoc analyses revealed a significant linear contrast where benign and violent humor had the lowest ratings while others-deprecating humor had the highest ratings. No significant interaction effect was found. The distribution of ranking ratings also differed between OA and YA (e.g., preferred satire+local slang and others-deprecating humor vs. overwhelmingly preferred other-deprecating humor, respectively). Overall, OA displayed a greater appreciation across various types of humor than YA. Humor perception will be discussed in the larger context of cognitive, societal, and cultural implications.

Keywords: humor, older adults, perception, age differences

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Authors: Kolela J Nyembwe, Darlington C. Ashiegbu, Herman J. Potgieter

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Over the past few decades, the demand for metals has increased significantly. This has led to a decrease and decline of high-grade ore over time and an increase in mineral complexity and matrix heterogeneity. In addition to that, there are rising concerns about greener processes and a sustainable environment. Due to these challenges, the mining and metal industry has been forced to develop new technologies that are able to economically process and recover metallic values from low-grade ores, materials having a metal content locked up in industrially processed residues (tailings and slag), and complex matrix mineral deposits. Several methods to address these issues have been developed, among which are ionic liquids (IL), heap leaching, and bioleaching. Recently, the gas phase extraction technique has been gaining interest because it eliminates many of the problems encountered in conventional mineral processing methods. The technique relies on the formation of volatile metal complexes, which can be removed from the residual solids by a carrier gas. The complexes can then be reduced using the appropriate method to obtain the metal and regenerate-recover the organic extractant. Laboratory work on the gas phase have been conducted for the extraction and recovery of aluminium (Al), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), chrome (Cr), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and vanadium V. In all cases the extraction revealed to depend of temperature and mineral surface area. The process technology appears very promising, offers the feasibility of recirculation, organic reagent regeneration, and has the potential to deliver on all promises of a “greener” process.

Keywords: gas-phase extraction, hydrometallurgy, low-grade ore, sustainable environment

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Authors: Hosein Ghahremani, MohammadReza Khoshchehre, Pejman Hakemi

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This study involves numerical simulations of a vertical plate-type photo-bioreactor to investigate the performance of Microalgae Spirulina and Control and optimization of parameters for the digital controller by Taguchi method that MATLAB software and Qualitek-4 has been made. Since the addition of parameters such as temperature, dissolved carbon dioxide, biomass, and ... Some new physical parameters such as light intensity and physiological conditions like photosynthetic efficiency and light inhibitors are involved in biological processes, control is facing many challenges. Not only facilitate the commercial production photo-bioreactor Microalgae as feed for aquaculture and food supplements are efficient systems but also as a possible platform for the production of active molecules such as antibiotics or innovative anti-tumor agents, carbon dioxide removal and removal of heavy metals from wastewater is used. Digital controller is designed for controlling the light bioreactor until Microalgae growth rate and carbon dioxide concentration inside the bioreactor is investigated. The optimal values of the controller parameters of the S/N and ANOVA analysis software Qualitek-4 obtained With Reaction curve, Cohen-Con and Ziegler-Nichols method were compared. The sum of the squared error obtained for each of the control methods mentioned, the Taguchi method as the best method for controlling the light intensity was selected photo-bioreactor. This method compared to control methods listed the higher stability and a shorter interval to be answered.

Keywords: photo-bioreactor, control and optimization, Light intensity, Taguchi method

Procedia PDF Downloads 388

Authors: Luz Stella Cadavid-Rodriguez, Viviana E. Castro-Lopez

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Fish waste (FW) has a high content of potentially biodegradable components, so it is amenable to be digested anaerobically. In this line, anaerobic digestion (AD) of FW has been studied for biogas production. Nevertheless, intermediate products such as volatile fatty acids (VFA), generated during the acidogenic stage, have been scarce investigated, even though they have a high potential as a renewable source of carbon. In the literature, there are few studies about the Inoculum-Substrate (I/S) ratio on acidogenesis. On the other hand, it is well known that pH is a critical factor in the production of VFA. The optimum pH for the production of VFA seems to change depending on the substrate and can vary in a range between 5.25 and 11. Nonetheless, the literature about VFA production from protein-rich waste, such as FW, is scarce. In this context, it is necessary to deepen on the determination of the optimal operating conditions of acidogenic fermentation for VFA production from protein-rich waste. Therefore, the aim of this research was to optimize the volatile fatty acid production from artisanal fishing waste, studying the effect of pH and the I/S ratio on the acidogenic process. For this research, the inoculum used was a methanogenic sludge (MS) obtained from a UASB reactor treating wastewater of a slaughterhouse plant, and the FW was collected in the port of Tumaco (Colombia) from the local artisanal fishers. The acidogenic fermentation experiments were conducted in batch mode, in 500 mL glass bottles as anaerobic reactors, equipped with rubber stoppers provided with a valve to release biogas. The effective volume used was 300 mL. The experiments were carried out for 15 days at a mesophilic temperature of 37± 2 °C and constant agitation of 200 rpm. The effect of 3 pH levels: 5, 7, 9, coupled with five I/S ratios, corresponding to 0.20, 0.15, 0.10, 0.05, 0.00 was evaluated taking as a response variable the production of VFA. A complete randomized block design was selected for the experiments in a 5x3 factorial arrangement, with two repetitions per treatment. At the beginning and during the process, pH in the experimental reactors was adjusted to the corresponding values of 5, 7, and 9 using 1M NaOH or 1M H2SO4, as was appropriated. In addition, once the optimum I/S ratio was determined, the process was evaluated at this condition without pH control. The results indicated that pH is the main factor in the production of VFA, obtaining the highest concentration with neutral pH. By reducing the I/S ratio, as low as 0.05, it was possible to maximize VFA production. Thus, the optimum conditions found were natural pH (6.6-7.7) and I/S ratio of 0.05, with which it was possible to reach a maximum total VFA concentration of 70.3 g Ac/L, whose major components were acetic acid (35%) and butyric acid (32%). The findings showed that the acidogenic fermentation of FW is an efficient way of producing VFA and that the operating conditions can be simple and economical.

Keywords: acidogenesis, artisanal fishing waste, inoculum to substrate ratio, volatile fatty acids

Procedia PDF Downloads 114

Authors: Fotios Spyropoulos, Evangelia Androulaki, Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, Aristotelis Kompothrekas, Nikolaos Karagiannis

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The problem of 'fake news' and 'hoaxes' has dominated in recent years the field of news, politics, economy, safety, and security as dissemination of false information can intensively affect and mislead public discourse and public opinion. The widespread use of internet and social media platforms can substantially intensify these effects, which often include public fear and insecurity. Misinformation, malinformation, and disinformation have also been blamed for affecting election results in multiple countries, and since then, there have been efforts to tackle the phenomenon both on national and international level. The presentation will focus on methods of prevention of disseminating false information on social media and on the internet and will discuss relevant criminological views. The challenges that have arisen for criminal law will be covered, taking into account the potential need for a multi-national approach required in order to mitigate the extent and negative impact of the fake news phenomenon. Finally, the analysis will include a discussion on the potential usefulness of non-legal modalities of regulation and crime prevention, especially situational and social measures of prevention and the possibility of combining an array of methods to achieve better results on national and international level. This project has received funding from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT), under grant agreement No 80529.

Keywords: cybercrime, disinformation, fake news, prevention

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Authors: Ali Mashayekh, Mahdiye Khorasani, Thomas Weyh

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The tendency to use the Battery-Electric vehicle (BEV) for the low and medium driving range or even high driving range has been growing more and more. As a result, higher safety, reliability, and durability of the battery pack as a component of electric vehicles, which has a great share of cost and weight of the final product, are the topics to be considered and investigated. Battery aging can be considered as the predominant factor regarding the reliability and durability of BEV. To better understand the aging process, offline battery characterization has been widely used, which is time-consuming and needs very expensive infrastructures. This paper presents the substitute method for the conventional battery characterization methods, which is based on battery Modular Multilevel Management (BM3). According to this Topology, the battery cells can be drained and charged concerning their capacity, which allows varying battery pack structures. Due to the integration of the power electronics, the output voltage of the battery pack is no longer fixed but can be dynamically adjusted in small steps. In other words, each cell can have three different states, namely series, parallel, and bypass in connection with the neighbor cells. With the help of MATLAB/Simulink and by using the BM3 modules, the battery string model is created. This model allows us to switch two cells with the different SoC as parallel, which results in the internal balancing of the cells. But if the parallel switching lasts just for a couple of ms, we can have a perturbation pulse which can stimulate the cells out of the relaxation phase. With the help of modeling the voltage response pulse of the battery, it would be possible to characterize the cell. The Online EIS method, which is discussed in this paper, can be a robust substitute for the conventional battery characterization methods.

Keywords: battery characterization, SoH estimation, RLS, BEV

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Chokri Slim

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The relative failure of simultaneous equation models in the seventies has led researchers to turn to other approaches that take into account the dynamics of economic and financial systems. In this paper, we use an approach based on vector autoregressive model that is widely used in recent years. Their popularity is due to their flexible nature and ease of use to produce models with useful descriptive characteristics. It is also easy to use them to test economic hypotheses. The standard econometric techniques assume that the series studied are stable over time (stationary hypothesis). Most economic series do not verify this hypothesis, which assumes, when one wishes to study the relationships that bind them to implement specific techniques. This is cointegration which characterizes non-stationary series (integrated) with a linear combination is stationary, will also be presented in this paper. Since the work of Johansen, this approach is generally presented as part of a multivariate analysis and to specify long-term stable relationships while at the same time analyzing the short-term dynamics of the variables considered. In the empirical part, we have applied these concepts to study the dynamics of of the exchange rate in Tunisia, which is one of the most important economic policy of a country open to the outside. According to the results of the empirical study by the cointegration method, there is a cointegration relationship between the exchange rate and its determinants. This relationship shows that the variables have a significant influence in determining the exchange rate in Tunisia.

Keywords: stationarity, cointegration, dynamic models, causality, VECM models

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Authors: Johannes Gantner, Michael Held, Matthias Fischer

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The refurbishment of the building stock in terms of energy supply and efficiency is one of the major challenges of the German turnaround in energy policy. As the building sector accounts for 40% of Germany’s total energy demand, additional insulation is key for energy efficient refurbished buildings. Nevertheless the energetic benefits often the environmental and economic performances of insulation materials are questioned. The methods Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as well as Life Cycle Costing (LCC) can form the standardized basis for answering this doubts and more and more become important for material producers due efforts such as Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) or Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). Due to increasing use of LCA and LCC information for decision support the robustness and resilience of the results become crucial especially for support of decision and policy makers. LCA and LCC results are based on respective models which depend on technical parameters like efficiencies, material and energy demand, product output, etc.. Nevertheless, the influence of parameter uncertainties on lifecycle results are usually not considered or just studied superficially. Anyhow the effect of parameter uncertainties cannot be neglected. Based on the example of an exterior wall the overall lifecycle results are varying by a magnitude of more than three. As a result simple best case worst case analyses used in practice are not sufficient. These analyses allow for a first rude view on the results but are not taking effects into account such as error propagation. Thereby LCA practitioners cannot provide further guidance for decision makers. Probabilistic analyses enable LCA practitioners to gain deeper understanding of the LCA and LCC results and provide a better decision support. Within this study, the environmental and economic impacts of an exterior wall system over its whole lifecycle are illustrated, and the effect of different uncertainty analysis on the interpretation in terms of resilience and robustness are shown. Hereby the approaches of error propagation and Monte Carlo Simulations are applied and combined with statistical methods in order to allow for a deeper understanding and interpretation. All in all this study emphasis the need for a deeper and more detailed probabilistic evaluation based on statistical methods. Just by this, misleading interpretations can be avoided, and the results can be used for resilient and robust decisions.

Keywords: uncertainty, life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, Monte Carlo simulation

Procedia PDF Downloads 281

Authors: Md Masihuddin Siddiqui, Abdul Haakim Mohammed

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Earthquakes are the most unpredictable and devastating of all natural disasters. The behaviour of a building during an earthquake depends on several factors such as stiffness, adequate lateral strength, ductility, and configurations. The experience from the performance of buildings during past earthquakes has shown that the buildings with regular geometry, uniformly distributed mass and stiffness in plan as well as in elevation suffer much less damage compared to irregular configurations. The three centers namely- centre of mass, centre of strength, centre of stiffness are the torsional parameters which contribute to the strength of the building in case of an earthquake. Inertial forces and resistive forces in a structural system act through the center of mass and center of rigidity respectively which together oppose the forces that are produced during seismic excitation. So these centers of a structural system should be positioned where the structural system is the strongest so that the effects produced due to the earthquake may have a minimal effect on the structure. In this paper, the effects of variation of strength eccentricity and stiffness eccentricity in reducing the torsional responses of the asymmetrical buildings by using pushover analysis are studied. The maximum reduction of base torsion was observed in the case of minimum strength eccentricity, and the least reduction was observed in the case of minimum stiffness eccentricity.

Keywords: strength eccentricity, stiffness eccentricity, asymmetric structure, base torsion, push over analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 287