Search results for: commercial banks

Authors: Josip Arneric, Antonio Sostaric

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Crikvenica is one of the favourite tourist destinations at the Adriatic Sea in Croatia which attracts guests with its natural beauties and is one of the top destinations with the highest number of overnights stays. The main purpose of this research is to determine which elements of tourist offer should be improved to achieve sustainable development of the town of Crikvenica. Namely, the survey results from a random sample have shown that the most common reason of the visits is relaxation and vacation, and that more attention should be given to the following categories: restaurants and the working hours of stores and banks. We have also examined whether or not there is a correlation between an average daily expenditure and the overnight stay. The paper ends with the conclusion and the recommendations on how to improve the tourist offer of Crikvenica in order to increase guest satisfaction and to keep its reputation at a high level.

Keywords: tourism development, survey, Crikvenica, management sciences

Procedia PDF Downloads 372

Authors: Tiffany Baetens, Sophie Halliez, Luc Buée, Emiliano Pallecchi, Vincent Thomy, Steve Arscott

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We demonstrate here a viable stretchable bio-microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS) technology for use with biological studies concerned with the effect of high mechanical strains on living cells. An example of this is traumatic brain injury (TBI) where neurons are damaged with physical force to the brain during, e.g., accidents and sports. Robust, miniaturized integrated systems are needed by biologists to be able to study the effect of TBI on neuron cells in vitro. The major challenges in this area are (i) to develop micro, and nanofabrication processes which are based on stretchable substrates and to (ii) create systems which are robust and performant at very high mechanical strain values—sometimes as high as 100%. At the time of writing, such processes and systems were rapidly evolving subject of research and development. The BioMEMS which we present here is composed of an elastomer substrate (low Young’s modulus ~1 MPa) onto which is patterned robust electrodes and insulators. The patterning of the thin films is achieved using standard photolithography techniques directly on the elastomer substrate—thus making the process generic and applicable to many materials’ in based systems. The chosen elastomer used is commercial ‘Sylgard 184’ polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). It is spin-coated onto a silicon wafer. Multistep ultra-violet based photolithography involving commercial photoresists are then used to pattern robust thin film metallic electrodes (chromium/gold) and insulating layers (parylene) on the top of the PDMS substrate. The thin film metals are deposited using thermal evaporation and shaped using lift-off techniques The BioMEMS has been characterized mechanically using an in-house strain-applicator tool. The system is composed of 12 electrodes with one reference electrode transversally-orientated to the uniaxial longitudinal straining of the system. The electrical resistance of the electrodes is observed to remain very stable with applied strain—with a resistivity approaching that of evaporated gold—up to an interline strain of ~50%. The mechanical characterization revealed some interesting original properties of such stretchable BioMEMS. For example, a Poisson effect induced electrical ‘self-healing’ of cracking was identified. Biocompatibility of the commercial photoresist has been studied and is conclusive. We will present the results of the BioMEMS, which has also characterized living cells with a commercial Multi Electrode Array (MEA) characterization tool (Multi Channel Systems, USA). The BioMEMS enables the cells to be strained up to 50% and then characterized electrically and optically.

Keywords: BioMEMS, elastomer, electrical impedance measurements of living cells, high mechanical strain, microfabrication, stretchable systems, thin films, traumatic brain injury

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Muhammad Abdullahi Mago

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Islamic Banking began in Nigeria last three years and the sector has shown the sign of bright future for the sector and the Nigerian economy, within this very short time it is important to know the perception of the customers particularly learned or educated individuals for immediate evaluation and adjustment. This study investigates into the perception, awareness and attitudes of the academicians in the most populous state/place in Nigeria with more than 90% muslims, and the results has shown a relatively low levels results in all the variables of the study.The study recommends aggressive marketing strategy for the Banks operating within the sector.

Keywords: Islamic Banking Products, Islamic Financial Products, academicians, Islamic finance industry, perception, awareness and attitude

Procedia PDF Downloads 441

Authors: John Abraham, Ramesh Saravana Kumar, Francis, Xavier, Deepak Mathew

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Broiler slaughter waste has become a major source of pollution throughout the world. Utilization of broiler slaughter waste by dry rendering process produced Rendered Chicken Oil (RCO) a cheap raw material for biodiesel production and Carcass Meal a feed ingredient for pets and fishes. Conversion of RCO into biodiesel may open new vistas for generating wealth from waste besides controlling the major havoc of environmental pollution. A two-step process to convert RCO to good quality Biodiesel was invented. Acid catalysed esterification of FFA followed by base catalysed transesterification of triglycerides was carried out after meticulously standardising the methanol molar ratio, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature and reaction time to obtain the maximum biodiesel yield of 97.62% and lowest glycerol yield of 6.96%. RCO biodiesel blended was tested in a Mahindra Scorpio CRDI engine. The results revealed that the blending of commercial diesel with 20% RCO biodiesel lead to less engine wear, a quieter engine and better fuel economy. The better lubricating qualities of RCO B20 prevented over heating of engine, which prolongs the engine life. The blending of biodiesel at 20% to commercial diesel can reduce the import of costly crude oil and simultaneously, substantially reduce the engine emissions as proved by significantly lower smoke levels, thus mitigating climatic changes.

Keywords: broiler waste, rendered chicken oil, biodiesel, engine testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 435

Authors: Rajat Kapoor

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Indian Real Estate sector is the second largest employer after agriculture and is slated to grow at 30 percent over the next decade. Indian cities have shown tumultuous growth since last two decades. With the growing need of infrastructure, it has become inevitable for real estate sector to adopt more organized and transparent system of investment. SPVs such as REITs ensure transparency facilitating accessibility to invest in real estate for those who find it difficult to purchase real estate as an investment option with a realistic income expectation from their investment. RIETs or real estate investment trusts is an instrument of pooling funds similar to that of mutual funds. In a simpler term REIT is an Investment Vehicle in the form a trust which holds & manages large commercial rent¬ earning properties on behalf of investors and distributes most of its profit as dividends. REIT enables individual investors to invest their money in commercial real estate assets in a diversified portfolio and on the other hand provides fiscal liquidity to developers as easy exit option and channel funds for new projects. However, the success REIT is very much dependent on the taxation structure making such models attractive and adaptive enough for both developers and investors to opt for such investment option. This paper is intended to capture an overview of REITs with context to Indian real estate scenario.

Keywords: Indian real estate, real estate infrastructure trusts, urban finance, infrastructure investment trusts

Procedia PDF Downloads 467

Authors: Roghieh A. Biroon, Zoleikha Abdollahi

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The recent growth of renewables, e.g., solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs) in residential and small commercial sectors, has potential impacts on the stability and operation of power grids. Considering approximately 50 percent share of the residential and the commercial sectors in the electricity demand market, the significance of these impacts, and the necessity of addressing them are more highlighted. Utilities and power system operators should manage the renewable electricity sources integration with power systems in such a way to extract the most possible advantages for the power systems. The most common effect of high penetration level of the renewables is the reverse power flow in the distribution feeders when the customers generate more power than their needs. The reverse power flow causes voltage rise and thermal issues in the power grids. To overcome the voltage rise issues in the distribution system, several techniques have been proposed including reducing transformers short circuit resistance and feeder impedance, installing autotransformers/voltage regulators along the line, absorbing the reactive power by distributed generators (DGs), and limiting the PV and battery sizes. In this study, we consider a medium-scale battery energy storage to manage the power energy and address the aforementioned issues on voltage deviation and power loss increase. We propose an optimization algorithm to find the optimum size and location for the battery. The optimization for the battery location and size is so that the battery maintains the feeder voltage deviation and power loss at a certain desired level. Moreover, the proposed optimization algorithm controls the charging/discharging profile of the battery to absorb the negative power flow from residential and commercial customers in the feeder during the peak time and sell the power back to the system during the off-peak time. The proposed battery regulates the voltage problem in the distribution system while it also can play frequency regulation role in islanded microgrids. This battery can be regulated and controlled by the utilities or a third-party ancillary service provider for the utilities to reduce the power system loss and regulate the distribution feeder voltage and frequency in standard level.

Keywords: ancillary services, battery, distribution system and optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 131

Authors: K. M. Ngbea, F. Ugwu, J. M. Uwouku, P. Atsehe, A. Ucho, P. N. Achakpa-Ikyo, P. Azende

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This study examined occupational stress, perceived fairness and organizational citizenship behavior among bank workers. The participants were 198 (118) males and (80) female's bank employees from selected banks within Makurdi metropolis and questionnaire were used for data collection. Three hypotheses were tested and it was found that employees with high perception of occupational stress differ significantly from their counterparts at perceived fairness also influenced organizational citizenship behavior.On the other hand, there is no interaction effect of occupational stress and perceived fairness on organizational citizenship behavior. The implication of findings, limitations, recommendations and conclusions were discussed.

Keywords: occupational stress, perceived fairness, organizational citizenship, behavior

Procedia PDF Downloads 748

Authors: Anthony Proschka, Deepak Mishra, Merlyn Ramanan, Zurab Baratashvili

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Small and medium-sized businesses receive over 160 billion invoices every year. Since these documents exhibit many subtle differences in layout and text, extracting structured fields such as sender name, amount, and VAT rate from them automatically is an open research question. In this paper, existing work in template-based document extraction is extended, and a system is devised that is able to reliably extract all required fields for up to 70% of all documents in the data set, more than any other previously reported method. The approaches are described for 1) detecting through visual features which template a given document belongs to, 2) automatically generating extraction rules for a given new template by composing regular expressions from multiple components, and 3) computing confidence scores that indicate the accuracy of the automatic extractions. The system can generate templates with as little as one training sample and only requires the ground truth field values instead of detailed annotations such as bounding boxes that are hard to obtain. The system is deployed and used inside a commercial accounting software.

Keywords: data mining, information retrieval, business, feature extraction, layout, business data processing, document handling, end-user trained information extraction, document archiving, scanned business documents, automated document processing, F1-measure, commercial accounting software

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Authors: M. M. Nor, H. I. Sheikh, M. F. H. Hassan, S. Mokhtar, A. Suganthi, A. Fadhlina

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Black grass jelly (BGJ) is a popular black jelly used in preparing various drinks and desserts. Food industries often use preservatives to maintain the physicochemical properties of foods, such as color and texture. These preservatives (e.g., phosphoric acid) are linked with deleterious health effects such as kidney disease. Using gelling agents, carrageenan, and gelatin to make BGJ could improve its physiochemical and textural properties. This study was designed to optimize BGJ-selected physicochemical and textural properties using carrageenan and gelatin. Various black grass jelly formulations (BGJF) were designed using an I-optimal mixture design in Design Expert® software. Data from commercial BGJ were used as a reference during the optimization process. The combination of carrageenan and gelatin added to the formulations was up to 14.38g (~5%), respectively. The results showed that adding 2.5g carrageenan and 2.5g gelatin at approximately 5g (~5%) effectively maintained most of the physiochemical properties with an overall desirability function of 0.81. This formulation was selected as the optimum black grass jelly formulation (OBGJF). The leaching properties and floating duration were measured on the OBGJF and commercial grass jelly for 20 min and 40 min, respectively. The results indicated that OBGJF showed significantly (p<0.0001) lower leaching rate and floating time (p<0.05). Hence, further optimization is needed to increase the floating duration of carrageenan and gelatin-based BGJ.

Keywords: cincau, Mesona chinensis, black grass jelly, carrageenan, gelatin

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Authors: Huu Hue Van

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The Mekong Delta is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and flow into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Climate Change Research Institute at University of Can Tho, in studying the possible consequences of climate change, has predicted that, many provinces in the Mekong Delta will be flooded by the year 2030. The Mekong Delta lacks fresh water in the dry season. Being served for daily life, industry and agriculture in the dry season, the water is mainly taken from layers of soil contained water under the ground (aquifers) depleted water; the water level in aquifers have decreased. Previously, the Mekong Delta can withstand two bad scenarios in the future: 1) The Mekong Delta will be submerged into the sea again: Due to subsidence of the ground (over-exploitation of groundwater), subsidence of constructions because of the low groundwater level (10 years ago, some of constructions were built on the foundation of Melaleuca poles planted in Mekong Delta, Melaleuca poles have to stay in saturated soil layer fully, if not, they decay easyly; due to the top of Melaleuca poles are higher than the groundwater level, the top of Melaleuca poles will decay and cause subsidence); erosion the river banks (because of the hydroelectric dams in the upstream of the Mekong River is blocking the flow, reducing the concentration of suspended substances in the flow caused erosion the river banks) and the delta will be flooded because of sea level rise (climate change). 2) The Mekong Delta will be deserted: People will migrate to other places to make a living because of no planting due to alum capillary (In Mekong Delta, there is a layer of alum soil under the ground, the elevation of groundwater level is lower than the the elevation of layer of alum soil, alum will be capillary to the arable soil layer); there is no fresh water for cultivation and daily life (because of saline intrusion and groundwater depletion in the aquifers below). Mekong Delta currently has about seven aquifers below with a total depth about 500 m. The water mainly has exploited in the middle - upper Pleistocene aquifer (qp2-3). The major cause of two bad scenarios in the future is over-exploitation of water in aquifers. Therefore, studying and building water reservoirs in seven aquifers will solve many pressing problems such as preventing subsidence, providing water for the whole delta, especially in coastal provinces, favorable to nature, saving land ( if we build the water lake on the surface of the delta, we will need a lot of land), pollution limitation (because when building some hydraulic structures for preventing the salt instrutions and for storing water in the lake on the surface, we cause polluted in the lake)..., It is necessary to build a reservoir under the ground in aquifers in the Mekong Delta. The super-sized reservoir will contribute to the existence and development of the Mekong Delta.

Keywords: aquifers, aquifers storage, groundwater, land subsidence, underground reservoir

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Authors: Ammar Maziz, Prateek Gupta, Thiago Vasconcellos Birro, Benoit Gely

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Hydrogen as a sustainable fuel has the highest energy density per mass as compared to conventional non-renewable sources. As the world looks to move towards sustainability, especially in the sectors of aviation and automotive, it becomes important to address the issue of storage of hydrogen as compressed gas in high-pressure tanks. To improve the design for the efficient storage and transportation of Hydrogen, this paper presents the design and stress analysis of Dome Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs) using the geodesic trajectory approach. The geodesic trajectory approach is used to optimize the dome design, resulting in a lightweight and efficient structure. Python scripting is employed to implement the mathematical modeling of the COPV, and after validating the model by comparison to the published paper, stress analysis is conducted using Abaqus commercial code. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the geodesic trajectory approach in achieving a lightweight and structurally sound dome design, as well as the accuracy and reliability of the stress analysis using Abaqus commercial code. This study provides insights into the design and analysis of COPVs for aerospace applications, with the potential for further optimization and application in other industries.

Keywords: composite overwrapped pressure vessels, carbon fiber, geodesic trajectory approach, dome design, stress analysis, plugin python

Procedia PDF Downloads 92

Authors: Aderonke A. Okoya, Oluwaseun A. Somoye, Omotayo S. Amuda, Ifeanyi E. Ofoezie

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This study assessed the efficiency of Hydroxyapatite Powder (HAP) in the removal of dyes in wastewater in comparison with Commercial Activated Carbon (CAC). This was with a view to developing cost effective method that could be more environment friendly. The HAP and CAC were used as adsorbent while Indigo dye was used as the adsorbate. The batch adsorption experiment was carried out by varying initial concentrations of the indigo dye, contact time and adsorbent dosage. Adsorption efficiency was classified by adsorption Isotherms using Langmuir, Freundlich and D-R isotherm models. Physicochemical parameters of a textile industry wastewater were determined before and after treatment with the adsorbents. The results from the batch experiments showed that at initial concentration of 125 mg/L of adsorbate in simulated wastewater, 0.9276 ± 0.004618 mg/g and 3.121 ± 0.006928 mg/g of indigo adsorbed per unit time (qt) of HAP and CAC respectively. The ratio of HAP to CAC required for the removal of indigo dye in simulated wastewater was 2:1. The isotherm model of the simulated wastewater fitted well to Freundlich model, the adsorption intensity (1/n) presented 1.399 and 0.564 for HAP and CAC, respectively. This revealed that the HAP had weaker bond than the electrostatic interactions which were present in CAC. The values of some physicochemical parameters (acidity, COD, Cr, Cd) of textile wastewater when treated with HAP decreased. The study concluded that HAP, an environment-friendly adsorbent, could be effectively used to remove dye from textile industrial wastewater with added advantage of being regenerated.

Keywords: adsorption isotherm, commercial activated carbon, hydroxyapatite powder, indigo dye, textile wastewater

Procedia PDF Downloads 242

Authors: Nilanthi Ratnayake, Wen-Ling Liu

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Prior research indicates an increasing gap between the skills and capabilities of graduates in the contemporary workplace across the globe. The challenge of addressing this issue primarily lies on the hands of higher education institutes/universities. In particular, surveys of UK employers and retailers found that soft skills including communication, numeracy, teamwork, confidence, analytical ability, digital/IT skills, business sense, language, and social skills are highly valued by graduate employers, and in achieving this, there are various assessed and non-assessed learning exercises have already been embedded into the university curriculum. To this end, this research study aims to explore the reflections of postgraduate student participation in a live commercial project (i.e. designing an advertising campaign for open days, summer school etc.) implemented with the intention of offering a transformative experience by deploying this project. Qualitative research methodology has been followed in this study, collecting data from three types of target audiences; students, academics and employers via a series of personal interviews and focus group discussions. Recorded data were transcribed, entered into NVIVO, and analysed using meaning condensation and content analysis. Students reported that they had a very positive impact towards improving self-efficacy, especially in relation to soft skills and confidence in seeking employment opportunities. In addition, this project has reduced cultural barriers for international students in general communications. Academic staff and potential employers who attended on the presentation day expressed their gratitude for offering a lifelong experience for students, and indeed believed that these type of projects contribute significantly to enhance skills and capabilities of students to cater the demands of employers. In essence, key findings demonstrate that an integration of knowledge-based skills into a live commercial project facilitate individuals to make the transition from education to employment in terms of skills, abilities and work behaviours more effectively in comparison to some other activities/assuagements that are currently in place in higher education institutions/universities.

Keywords: soft skills, commercially live project, higher education, student participation

Procedia PDF Downloads 360

Authors: Renata Adriana Labanca, Gabriela Rezende Costa, Nilton de Oliveira Couto e Silva, José Marcos Gontijo Mandarino, Rodrigo Santos Leite, Nilson César Castanheira Guimarães, Roberto Gonçalves Junqueira

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The objective of this study was to evaluate the differences in composition between six brands of conventional soybean and six genetically modified cultivars (GM), all of them from Minas Gerais State, Brazil. We focused on the isoflavones profile and mineral content questioning the substantial equivalence between conventional and GM organisms. The statement of compliance label for conventional grains was verified for the presence of genetic modified genes by real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We did not detect the presence of the 35S promoter in commercial samples, indicating the absence of transgene insertion. For mineral analysis, we used the method of inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Isoflavones quantification was performed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed no statistical difference between the conventional and transgenic soybean groups concerning isoflavone content and mineral composition. The concentration of potassium, the main mineral component of soy, was the highest in conventional soybeans compared to that in GM soy, while GM samples presented the highest concentrations of iron.

Keywords: glycine max, genetically modified organism, bioactive compounds, ICP-OES, HPLC

Procedia PDF Downloads 457

Authors: Lawrence Ngalim

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The paucity of entrepreneurial finance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can plausibly be tied to her comparatively less-developed capital markets, which potentially hurts entrepreneurial activities. The high rate of informality in SSA worsens information asymmetry, which restricts the supply of funds in a heavily bank-led environment. In this paper, we ask whether the adoption of recent technological improvements in delivering financial services, such as crowdfunding, assists the financially excluded within Africa. Secondly, we investigate the individual determinants of crowdfunding, such as income, level of education, demographics, culture/trust, and the effects of crowdfunding on households’ usage of formal financial services. The paper discusses the long-term policy implications of this particular type of fintech in achieving financial inclusion within the regional bloc and its advantage for Africa-Agenda-2063.

Keywords: fintech, banks, entrepreneurship, regional integration

Procedia PDF Downloads 79

Authors: Abtehal Y. Anaas, Mohd. Nazmi Bin Abd. Manap

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Meat Tenderness is one of the most important factors affecting consumers' assessment of meat quality. Variation in meat tenderness is genetically controlled and varies among breeds, and it is also influenced by environmental factors that can affect its creation during rigor mortis and postmortem. The final postmortem meat tenderization relies on the extent of proteolysis of myofibrillar proteins caused by the endogenous activity of the proteolytic calpain system. This calpain system includes different calcium-dependent cysteine proteases, and an inhibitor, calpastatin. It is widely accepted that in farm animals including chickens, the μ-calpain gene (CAPN1) is a physiological candidate gene for meat tenderness. This study aimed to identify the association of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in the CAPN1 gene with the tenderness of chicken breast meat from two Malaysian native and commercial broiler breed crosses. Ten, five months old native chickens and ten, 42 days commercial broilers were collected from the local market and breast muscles were removed two hours after slaughter, packed separately in plastic bags and kept at -20ºC for 24 h. The tenderness phenotype for all chickens’ breast meats was determined by Warner-Bratzler Shear Force (WBSF). Thawing and cooking losses were also measured in the same breast samples before using in WBSF determination. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to identify the previously reported C7198A and G9950A SNPs in the CAPN1 gene and assess their associations with meat tenderness in the two breeds. The broiler breast meat showed lower shear force values and lower thawing loss rates than the native chickens (p<0.05), whereas there were similar in the rates of cooking loss. The study confirms some previous results that the markers CAPN1 C7198A and G9950A were not significantly associated with the variation in meat tenderness in chickens. Therefore, further study is needed to confirm the functional molecular mechanism of these SNPs and evaluate their associations in different chicken populations.

Keywords: CAPNl, chicken, meat tenderness, meat quality, SNPs

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Authors: A. Aravind, M. Vetrivel, P. Abhimanyu, C. A. Akaash Emmanuel Raj, K. Sundararaj, V. R. S. Kumar

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The choice of high-speed, low budget hatchback car with diversified options is increasing for meeting the new generation buyers trend. This paper is aimed to augment the current speed of the hatchback cars through the aerodynamic drag reduction technique. The inverted airfoils are facilitated at the bottom of the car for generating the downward force for negating the lift while increasing the current speed range for achieving a better road performance. The numerical simulations have been carried out using a 2D steady pressure-based    k-ɛ realizable model with enhanced wall treatment. In our numerical studies, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes model and its code of solution are used. The code is calibrated and validated using the exact solution of the 2D boundary layer displacement thickness at the Sanal flow choking condition for adiabatic flows. We observed through the parametric analytical studies that the inverted airfoil integrated with the bottom surface at various predesigned locations of Hatchback cars can improve its overall aerodynamic efficiency through drag reduction, which obviously decreases the fuel consumption significantly and ensure an optimum road performance lucratively with maximum permissible speed within the framework of the manufactures constraints.

Keywords: aerodynamics of commercial cars, downward force, hatchback car, inverted airfoil

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Authors: Arunas Burinskas, Aurelija Burinskiene

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On average, ten percent of drugs - commercial products are not available in pharmacies due to shortage. The shortage event disbalance sales and requires a recovery period, which is too long. Therefore, one of the critical issues that pharmacies do not record potential sales transactions during shortage and recovery periods. The authors suggest estimating outliers during shortage and recovery periods. To shorten the recovery period, the authors suggest using average sales per sales day prediction, which helps to protect the data from being downwards or upwards. Authors use the outlier’s visualization method across different drugs and apply the Grubbs test for significance evaluation. The researched sample is 100 drugs in a one-month time frame. The authors detected that high demand variability products had outliers. Among analyzed drugs, which are commercial products i) High demand variability drugs have a one-week shortage period, and the probability of facing a shortage is equal to 69.23%. ii) Mid demand variability drugs have three days shortage period, and the likelihood to fall into deficit is equal to 34.62%. To avoid shortage events and minimize the recovery period, real data must be set up. Even though there are some outlier detection methods for drug data cleaning, they have not been used for the minimization of recovery period once a shortage has occurred. The authors use Grubbs’ test real-life data cleaning method for outliers’ adjustment. In the paper, the outliers’ adjustment method is applied with a confidence level of 99%. In practice, the Grubbs’ test was used to detect outliers for cancer drugs and reported positive results. The application of the Grubbs’ test is used to detect outliers which exceed boundaries of normal distribution. The result is a probability that indicates the core data of actual sales. The application of the outliers’ test method helps to represent the difference of the mean of the sample and the most extreme data considering the standard deviation. The test detects one outlier at a time with different probabilities from a data set with an assumed normal distribution. Based on approximation data, the authors constructed a framework for scaling potential sales and estimating outliers with Grubbs’ test method. The suggested framework is applicable during the shortage event and recovery periods. The proposed framework has practical value and could be used for the minimization of the recovery period required after the shortage of event occurrence.

Keywords: drugs, Grubbs' test, outlier, shortage event

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Authors: Clement Leroy, Guillaume Boitel

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This paper presents a comparative benchmarking review of a steady and transient three-dimensional (3D) flow computations in centrifugal pump using commercial (AnsysCFX) and open source (OpenFOAM) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. In centrifugal rotor-dynamic pump, the fluid enters in the impeller along to the rotating axis to be accelerated in order to increase the pressure, flowing radially outward into another stage, vaned diffuser or volute casing, from where it finally exits into a downstream pipe. Simulations are carried out at the best efficiency point (BEP) and part load, for single-phase flow with several turbulence models. The results are compared with overall performance report from experimental data. The use of CFD technology in industry is still limited by the high computational costs, and even more by the high cost of commercial CFD software and high-performance computing (HPC) licenses. The main objectives of the present study are to define OpenFOAM methodology for high-quality 3D steady and transient turbomachinery CFD simulation to conduct a thorough time-accurate performance analysis. On the other hand a detailed comparisons between computational methods, features on latest Ansys release 18 and OpenFOAM is investigated to assess the accuracy and industrial applications of those solvers. Finally an automated connected workflow (IoT) for turbine blade applications is presented.

Keywords: benchmarking, CFX, internet of things, openFOAM, time-accurate, turbomachinery

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Authors: Sareh Rajabi, Salwa Bheiry

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In general, Covid-19 created many financial and non-financial damages to the economy and community. Level and severity of covid-19 as pandemic case varies over the region and due to different types of the projects. Covid-19 virus emerged as one of the most imperative risk management factors word-wide recently. Therefore, as part of portfolio management assessment, it is essential to evaluate severity of such risk on the project and program in portfolio management level to avoid any risky portfolio. Covid-19 appeared very effectively in South America, part of Europe and Middle East. Such pandemic infection affected the whole universe, due to lock down, interruption in supply chain management, health and safety requirements, transportations and commercial impacts. Therefore, this research proposes Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze and assess such pandemic case like Covid-19 and its impacts on the construction projects. The AHP technique uses four sub-criteria: Health and safety, commercial risk, completion risk and contractual risk to evaluate the project and program. The result will provide the decision makers with information which project has higher or lower risk in case of Covid-19 and pandemic scenario. Therefore, the decision makers can have most feasible solution based on effective weighted criteria for project selection within their portfolio to match with the organization’s strategies.

Keywords: portfolio management, risk management, COVID-19, analytical hierarchy process technique

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Authors: Branimir Skoric

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Over the past two decades, number of international travels rose significantly in the United Kingdom and Worldwide in the shape of business travels and holiday travels as well. The fact that elderly people travel a lot, more than ever before increased the needs for medical evacuations (repatriations) back home if they fell ill abroad or had any kind of accident. This paper concerns medical evacuations of patients on the way back home to the United Kingdom (United Kingdom Residents) and their specific medical needs during short-haul or long-haul commercial scheduled flight and ground transportation to the final destination regardless whether it was hospital or usual place of residence. Particular medical need during medical evacuations is oxygen supply and it can be supplied via portable oxygen concentrator, pulse flow oxygenator or continuous free flow oxygenator depending on the main diagnosis and patient’s comorbidities. In this retrospective study, patients were divided into two groups. One group was consisted of patients suffering from cardio-respiratory diagnoses as primary illness. Another Group consisted of patients suffering from noncardiac illnesses who have other problems including any kind of physical injury. Needs for oxygen and type of supply were carefully considered in regards of duration of the flight, standard airline cabin pressure and results described in this retrospective study.

Keywords: commercial flight, elderly travellers, medical evacuations, oxygen

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Authors: Iyad M. Muslih, Yehya Abdellatif, Sara Qutishat

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Renewable energy and in particular solar photovoltaic energy is emerging as a reasonable power generation source. The intermittent and unpredictable nature of solar energy can represent a serious challenge to the utility grids, specifically at relatively high penetration. To minimize the impact of PV power systems on the grid, self-consumption is encouraged. Self-consumption can be improved by matching the PV power generation with the electrical load consumption profile. This study will focus in studying different load profiles and comparing them to typical solar PV power generation at the selected sites with the purpose of analyzing the mismatch in consumption load profile for different users; residential, commercial, and industrial versus the solar photovoltaic output generation. The PV array orientation can be adjusted to reduce the mismatch effects. The orientation shift produces a corresponding shift in the energy production curve. This shift has a little effect on the mismatch for residential loads due to the fact the peak load occurs at night due to lighting loads. This minor gain does not justify the power production loss associated with the orientation shift. The orientation shift for both commercial and industrial cases lead to valuable decrease in the mismatch effects. Such a design is worth considering for reducing grid penetration. Furthermore, the proposed orientation shift yielded better results during the summer time due to the extended daylight hours.

Keywords: grid impact, HOMER, power mismatch, solar PV energy

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Authors: Ismail Kimuli

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With a steadfast economic development, the Greater Kampala metropolitan area (GKMA) faces increasing pressures to increasetheshare of low-carbon electricity in the energy balance, abate CO2 emissions and also restructure the transportation sector for a sustainable 2050. GKMA, is Uganda’s commercial, political, social, and industrial hub with a population of 4.1 million, contributing 60% tothe nation’s GDP and accounts for 80% of Uganda’s industrial sector.However, with the rampant anthropogenic interference that causes climate change, CO2 emissions in the metropolitan are contributing to global warming. Many economies across the globe are addressing this challengethrough development and analysis of sustainable energy portfolios.A sustainable energy portfolio is a low-carbon scenario. The study reviews the literature to establish the current energy management situation of GKMA and finds it wanting in addressing the immediate challenges associated with energy management of the metropolitan. Then, the study develops and examines a sustainable energy portfolio for GKMA using TIMES-VEDA and then presents it as an investigative low-carbon energy scenario that could propel the metropolitan sustainably towards 2050.Sustainability is plausible by optimizing the total primary energy supply, generating low-carbon electricity from hydropower and PV-solar renewables, improving heating technologies for residential & commercial sectors, and switching 90% of land passengers from road to a Kampala metro for a sustainable mid-century.

Keywords: GKMA, sustainability, TIMES-VEDA, low-carbon scenario

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Authors: Su Chul Han, Seungwoo Park

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As the increasing incidence of cancer, the technology and modality of radiotherapy have advanced and the importance of preclinical model is increasing in the cancer research. Furthermore, the small animal dosimetry is an essential part of the evaluation of the relationship between the absorbed dose in preclinical small animal and biological effect in preclinical study. In this study, we carried out realistic modeling of the preclinical small animal phantom possible to verify irradiated dose using commercial software. The small animal phantom was modeling from 4D Digital Mouse whole body phantom. To manipulate Moby phantom in commercial software (Mimics, Materialise, Leuven, Belgium), we converted Moby phantom to DICOM image file of CT by Matlab and two- dimensional of CT images were converted to the three-dimensional image and it is possible to segment and crop CT image in Sagittal, Coronal and axial view). The CT images of small animals were modeling following process. Based on the profile line value, the thresholding was carried out to make a mask that was connection of all the regions of the equal threshold range. Using thresholding method, we segmented into three part (bone, body (tissue). lung), to separate neighboring pixels between lung and body (tissue), we used region growing function of Mimics software. We acquired 3D object by 3D calculation in the segmented images. The generated 3D object was smoothing by remeshing operation and smoothing operation factor was 0.4, iteration value was 5. The edge mode was selected to perform triangle reduction. The parameters were that tolerance (0.1mm), edge angle (15 degrees) and the number of iteration (5). The image processing 3D object file was converted to an STL file to output with 3D printer. We modified 3D small animal file using 3- Matic research (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) to make space for radiation dosimetry chips. We acquired 3D object of realistic small animal phantom. The width of small animal phantom was 2.631 cm, thickness was 2.361 cm, and length was 10.817. Mimics software supported efficiency about 3D object generation and usability of conversion to STL file for user. The development of small preclinical animal phantom would increase reliability of verification of absorbed dose in small animal for preclinical study.

Keywords: mimics, preclinical small animal, segmentation, 3D printer

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Authors: Josif Figueroa, Kush Bubbar, Greg Young-Morris

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The reliability evaluation of composite generation and bulk transmission systems is crucial for ensuring a reliable supply of electrical energy to significant system load points. However, evaluating adequacy indices using probabilistic methods like sequential Monte Carlo Simulation can be computationally expensive. Despite this, it is necessary when time-varying and interdependent resources, such as renewables and energy storage systems, are involved. Recent advances in solving power network optimization problems and parallel computing have improved runtime performance while maintaining solution accuracy. This work introduces CompositeSystems, an open-source Composite System Reliability Evaluation tool developed in Julia™, to address the current deficiencies of commercial and non-commercial tools. This work introduces its design, validation, and effectiveness, which includes analyzing two different formulations of the Optimal Power Flow problem. The simulations demonstrate excellent agreement with existing published studies while improving replicability and reproducibility. Overall, the proposed tool can provide valuable insights into the performance of transmission systems, making it an important addition to the existing toolbox for power system planning.

Keywords: open-source software, composite system reliability, optimization methods, Monte Carlo methods, optimal power flow

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Authors: Masud Ibrahim

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in Ghana. The sample of the study comprised 450 bank customers from universal banks operating in Ghana. A conceptual framework was framed from a revised TAM model. A total of nine hypotheses were developed and tested using Structural Equation Modeling Technique. Findings from this study revealed that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are influenced positively by design and perceived security. Also, perceived ease of use, social influence and perceived security risk were found to have a strong influence on mobile banking app adoption intention. This study provides significant insights and implications for banking organizations on how to ensure the adoption and usage of their mobile banking apps.

Keywords: mobile banking app, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, technology acceptance model

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Authors: Sarthak Mishra, Astha Sinha

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There’s no doubt about the convenience of making commercial and business transactions over the Internet under the new business model known as the e-Commerce. The term 'Electronic commerce' or e-Commerce refers to the use of an electronic medium to carry out commercial transactions. E-Commerce is one of the parts of Information Science framework and its uses are gradually becoming popular. Thus, the threat of security issues in Information Science has now become an important subject of discussion amongst the concerned users. These two issues i.e. security and privacy are required to be looked into through social, organizational, technical and economic perspectives. The current paper analyses the effect of these two issues in the arena of e-commerce. Here, no specification has been discussed rather an attempt has been made to provide a general overview. Further, attempts have been made to discuss the security and privacy issues in relation to the E-Commerce financial transactions. We shall also discuss in particular different steps required to be taken before online shopping and also shall discuss the purpose of security and privacy in E-Commerce and why it has currently become the need of the present hour. Lastly, an attempt has been made to discuss the plausible future course of development of this practice and its impact upon the global economy and if any changes should be bought about to ensure a smooth evolution of the practice. This paper has adopted a descriptive methodology to undertake its major area of study, wherein the major source of information has been via the secondary resources. Also, the study is of a comparative nature wherein the position of the various national regimes have compared with regards to the research question.

Keywords: business-business transaction (B2B), business-consumer transaction (B2C), e-commerce, online transaction, privacy and security threats

Procedia PDF Downloads 232

Authors: Jin Ho Kim, Yujeong Shin, Seong-Jin Cho, Dong-Jin Kim, U-Syn Ha

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Due to the development of the information industry and technologies, cellular phones have must not only function to communicate, but also have functions such as the Internet, e-banking, entertainment, etc. These phones are called smartphones. The performance of smartphones has improved, because of the various functions of smartphones, and the capacity of the battery has been increased gradually. Recently, linear generators have been embedded in smartphones in order to recharge the smartphone's battery. In this study, optimization is performed and an array change of permanent magnets is examined in order to increase efficiency. We propose an optimal design using design of experiments (DOE) to maximize the generated induced voltage. The thickness of the poleshoe and permanent magnet (PM), the height of the poleshoe and PM, and the thickness of the coil are determined to be design variables. We made 25 sampling points using an orthogonal array according to four design variables. We performed electromagnetic finite element analysis to predict the generated induced voltage using the commercial electromagnetic analysis software ANSYS Maxwell. Then, we made an approximate model using the Kriging algorithm, and derived optimal values of the design variables using an evolutionary algorithm. The commercial optimization software PIAnO (Process Integration, Automation, and Optimization) was used with these algorithms. The result of the optimization shows that the generated induced voltage is improved.

Keywords: smartphone, linear generator, design of experiment, approximate model, optimal design

Procedia PDF Downloads 345

Authors: Jaturong Matidtor, Krisna R. Torrissen, Saengtong Pongjareankit, Sudaporn Tongsiri, Jiraporn Rojtinnakorn

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Low survival rate has being particular problem in nursery of marble goby juvenile. The aim of this study was to investigate effect of garlic extract on protein digestive pancreatic enzymes, trypsin (T) and chymotrypsin (C). The marble goby were reared with commercial feed mixed garlic extract at concentration of 0 (control), 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0% (w/w) for 6 weeks. Analysis of the digestive enzymes at 2 and 6 weeks was performed. Growth parameters; weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR) and feed efficiency (FE), were identified. For T, C and T/C at 2 weeks, values of T and T/C ratio of 0.3% (w/w) group showed significant difference (p < 0.05) with the highest values of 17685.64± 11981.77 U/mg protein and of 51.64 ± 27.46 U/mg protein, respectively. For C at 2 weeks, 0% (w/w) group showed the highest values of 16191.76± 2225.56 U/mg protein. Whereas value of T, C and T/C ratio at 6 weeks, there was no significant difference (p > 0.05). For growth performance, it significantly increased in all garlic extract fed groups (0.3-5.0%, w/w), both at 2 and 6 weeks. At 2 weeks, values of WG and SGR of 0.5% (w/w) group showed the highest values of 71.51 ± 1.60%, and 3.85 ± 0.07%, respectively. For FE, 0.3% (w/w) group showed the highest value of 60.21 ± 6.51%. At 6 weeks, it illustrated that all growth parameters of 5.0% (w/w) group were the highest values; WG = 35.06 ± 5.66%, SGR = 2.14 ± 0.30%, and FE = 5.86 ± 0.68%. We suggested that garlic extract could be available for protein digestive enzyme and growth enhancement in marble goby nursery with artificial feed. This result will be high benefit for commercial aquaculture of marble goby.

Keywords: marble goby, nursery, garlic extract, digestive enzyme, growth

Procedia PDF Downloads 324

Authors: B. Gepts, E. Meex, E. Nuyts, E. Knaepen, G. Verbeeck

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The importance of resource efficiency and environmental impact assessment has raised the interest in knowing the amount of materials used in buildings. If no BIM model or energy performance certificate is available, material quantities can be obtained through an estimation or time-consuming calculation. For the interior wall area, no validated estimation method exists. However, in the case of environmental impact assessment or evaluating the existing building stock as future material banks, knowledge of the material quantities used in interior walls is indispensable. This paper presents a validated method for the estimation of the interior wall area for dwellings based on easy-to-collect building characteristics. A database of 4963 residential buildings spread all over Belgium is used. The data are collected through onsite measurements of the buildings during the construction phase (between mid-2010 and mid-2017). The interior wall area refers to the area of all interior walls in the building, including the inner leaf of exterior (party) walls, minus the area of windows and doors, unless mentioned otherwise. The two predictive modelling techniques used are 1) a (stepwise) linear regression and 2) a decision tree. The best estimation method is selected based on the best R² k-fold (5) fit. The research shows that the building volume is by far the most important variable to estimate the interior wall area. A stepwise regression based on building volume per building, building typology, and type of house provides the best fit, with R² k-fold (5) = 0.88. Although the best R² k-fold value is obtained when the other parameters ‘building typology’ and ‘type of house’ are included, the contribution of these variables can be seen as statistically significant but practically irrelevant. Thus, if these parameters are not available, a simplified estimation method based on only the volume of the building can also be applied (R² k-fold = 0.87). The robustness and precision of the method (output) are validated three times. Firstly, the prediction of the interior wall area is checked by means of alternative calculations of the building volume and of the interior wall area; thus, other definitions are applied to the same data. Secondly, the output is tested on an extension of the database, so it has the same definitions but on other data. Thirdly, the output is checked on an unrelated database with other definitions and other data. The validation of the estimation methods demonstrates that the methods remain accurate when underlying data are changed. The method can support environmental as well as economic dimensions of impact assessment, as it can be used in early design. As it allows the prediction of the amount of interior wall materials to be produced in the future or that might become available after demolition, the presented estimation method can be part of material flow analyses on input and on output.

Keywords: buildings as material banks, building stock, estimation method, interior wall area

Procedia PDF Downloads 30