Search results for: quality labeling system

Authors: Christian Neunzig, Simon Fahle, Jürgen Schulz, Matthias Möller, Bernd Kuhlenkötter

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Due to increasing cost pressure in global markets, artificial intelligence is becoming a technology that is decisive for competition. Predictive quality enables machinery and plant manufacturers to ensure product quality by using data-driven forecasts via machine learning models as a decision-making basis for test results. The use of cross-process Bosch production data along the value chain of hydraulic valves is a promising approach to classifying the quality characteristics of workpieces.

Keywords: predictive quality, hydraulics, machine learning, classification, supervised learning

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Authors: Yutaro Kyuma, Sung-Jun Yoo, Kazuhide Ito

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A commuter bus remains important as a means to network public transportation between railway stations and terminals within cities. In some cases, the boarding time becomes longer, and the boarding rate tends to be higher corresponding to the development of urban cities. The interior environmental quality, e.g. temperature and air quality, in a commuter bus is relatively heterogeneous and complex compared to that of an indoor environment in buildings due to several factors: solar radiative heat – which comes from large-area windows –, inadequate ventilation rate caused by high density of commuters, and metabolic heat generation from travelers themselves. In addition to this, under conditions where many passengers ride in the enclosed space, contact and airborne infectious risk have attracted considerable attention in terms of public health. From this point of view, it is essential to develop the prediction method for assessment of interior environmental quality and infection risk in commuter bus cabins. In this study, we developed a numerical commuter bus model integrated with computer simulated persons to reproduce realistic indoor environment conditions with high occupancy during commuting. Here, computer simulated persons were newly designed considering different types of geometries, e.g., standing position, seating position, and individual differences. Here we conducted coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis with radiative heat transfer analysis under steady state condition. Distributions of heterogeneous air flow patterns, temperature, and moisture surrounding the human body under some different ventilation system were analyzed by using CFD technique, and skin surface temperature distributions were analyzed using thermoregulation model that integrated into computer simulated person. Through these analyses, we discussed the interior environmental quality in specific commuter bus cabins. Further, inhaled air quality of each passenger was also analyzed. This study may have possibility to design the ventilation system in bus for improving thermal comfort of occupants.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, CFD, computer simulated person, CSP, contaminant, indoor environment, public health, ventilation

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Authors: Jingxian An, Wei Yu

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The commercial value (retail price) of wine is mostly determined by the wine quality, ageing potential, and oak influence. This paper reveals that wine quality, ageing potential, and oak influence are favourably correlated, hence positively influencing the commercial value of Pinot noir wines. Oak influence is the most influential of these three sensory attributes on the price set by wine traders and estimated by experienced customers. In the meanwhile, this study gives winemakers with chemical instructions for raising total phenolics, which can improve wine quality, ageing potential, and oak influence, all of which can increase a wine’s economic worth.

Keywords: retail price, ageing potential, wine quality, oak influence

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Authors: Marlene Kuhn, Franziska Schäfer, Heiner Otten

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Today´s production processes experience a constant increase in complexity paving new ways for progressive forms of leadership. In the customized production, individual customer requirements drive companies to adapt their manufacturing processes constantly while the pressure for smaller lot sizes, lower costs and faster lead times grows simultaneously. When production processes are becoming more dynamic and complex, the conventional quality management approaches show certain limitations. This paper gives an introduction to complexity science from a quality management perspective. By analyzing and evaluating different characteristics of complexity, the critical complexity parameters are identified and assessed. We found that the quality of leadership plays a crucial role when dealing with increasing complexity. Therefore, we developed a concept for qualitative leadership customized for the management within complex processes based on a maturity model. The maturity model was then applied in the industry to assess the leadership quality of several shop floor managers with a positive evaluation feedback. In result, the maturity model proved to be a sustainable approach to leverage the rising complexity in production processes more effectively.

Keywords: maturity model, process complexity, quality of leadership, quality management

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Authors: Samaneh Abolli, Mahmood Alimohammadi

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The survey analyzed 71 bottled water brands in Tehran, Iran, examining 10 physicochemical parameters and 16 heavy metals. The water quality index (WQI) approach was used to assess water quality, and methods such as carcinogen risk (CR) and hazard index (HI) were employed to evaluate health risks. The results indicated that the bottled water had good quality overall, but some brands were of poor or very poor quality. The study also revealed significant human health risks, especially for children, due to the presence of minerals and heavy metals in bottled water. Correlation analyses and risk assessments for various substances were conducted, providing valuable insights into the potential health impacts of the analyzed bottled water.

Keywords: bottled wate, rwater quality index, health risk assessment, contamination degree, heavy metal evaluation index

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Authors: Brent McKenzie, Victoria Taylor

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The use of QR (Quick Response Codes) codes for customer scanning with mobile phones is a rapidly growing trend. The QR code can provide the consumer with product information, user guides, product use, competitive pricing, etc. One sector for QR use has been in retail, through the use of Electronic Shelf Labeling (henceforth, ESL). In Europe, the use of ESL for pricing has been in practice for a number of years but continues to lag in acceptance in North America. Stated concerns include costs as a key constraint, but there is also evidence that consumer acceptance represents a limitation as well. The purpose of this study is to present the findings of a consumer based study to gage the impact on their use in the retail food sector.

Keywords: electronic price labels, consumer behaviour, grocery shopping, mixed methods research

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Authors: Niyom Suwandej

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This research paper investigated the opinions of small and micro community enterprises from Jom Pluak Subdistrict, Bangkhontee District, Samut Songkram Province towards product quality control, and the findings are aimed to disseminate knowledge on quality control for upgrading product standards for small and micro community enterprises. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods, in which there were 23 samples in the study. The study was divided into 2 steps which were (1) studying the opinions of the respondents towards the community’s product quality control and upgrading product standards; (2) creating development guidance for product quality control and upgrading product standards for small and micro community enterprise. The demographic findings revealed female respondents as the majority, with most above 50 years of age and married. Most had more than 15 years of working experience. The education level reported by most respondents was primary school or lower followed by secondary school or lower with most respondents was vocational certificate level. Most respondents had the highest level of satisfaction with the existing condition of product quality control knowledge management. Pertaining to opinions on the guidance of knowledge creation for product quality control for small and micro community enterprise, the respondents were willing to apply the knowledge in upgrading their product standards. For the opinions of knowledge creation for product quality control and product standards, the respondents had the highest level of satisfaction. Guidance of knowledge creation for product quality control and product standards for small and micro community enterprises received the highest level of satisfaction from the respondents. Furthermore they had knowledge and comprehension in product quality control and product standards and could apply the knowledge in improving the quality of their production and product standards for small and micro community enterprises.

Keywords: product quality control, product standards, community enterprise, marketing management

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Authors: Youru Zhou

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This paper seeks to unveil the quality assurance practices in the Chinese translation industry. Since China’s reform and opening up, the Chinese language service industry has enjoyed impressively rapid growth. However, while still in its early stage of professionalization, the Chinese translation industry is also facing many challenges, such as the lack of clear admission requirements, a powerful regulation authority and a great number of qualified professionals. ‘How quality is assured’ means a great deal to translation in China at this stage. In order to examine the mechanisms in which quality is assured, this paper studied four international and national standards that have gained widespread adoption by Chinese translation companies and examined the content that is relevant to translation quality assurance. Case studies with six selected Chinese translation companies of different sizes were conducted to confirm and exemplify the descriptions on the standards. It has been found that quality in the industry is a relative concept which is mainly determined by the demand of clients. Furthermore, the procedures of translation can vary from task to task dependent on the agreement made between the service provider and clients. Finally, there are companies relying on expert-oriented mechanisms to assure the quality of translation, while other companies and standards insist on process-oriented ones.

Keywords: case study, Chinese translation industry, professional practice, translation quality assurance, translation standards

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Authors: A. Jawahar

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In this paper, the dependence of soliton pulses with respect to phase in a 10 Gbps, single channel, dispersion uncompensated telecommunication system was studied. The characteristic feature of periodic soliton interaction was noted at the Interaction point (I=6202.5Km) in one collision length of L=12405.1 Km. The interaction point is located for 10Gbps system with an initial relative spacing (qo) of soliton as 5.28 using Perturbation theory. It is shown that, when two in-phase solitons are launched, they interact at the point I=6202.5 Km, but the interaction could be restricted with introduction of different phase initially. When the phase of the input solitons increases, the deviation of soliton pulses at the I also increases. We have successfully demonstrated this effect in a telecommunication set-up in terms of Quality factor (Q), where the Q=0 for in-phase soliton. The Q was noted to be 125.9, 38.63, 47.53, 59.60, 161.37, and 78.04 for different phases such as 10o, 20o, 30o, 45o, 60o and 90o degrees respectively at Interaction point I.

Keywords: Soliton interaction, Initial relative spacing, phase, Perturbation theory and telecommunication system

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Authors: Ya-Chuan Tseng, Hsin-Yi Liu, Meei-Fang Lou, Guey-Shiun Huang

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Purpose: Sensory impairments are common in older adults. Hearing and visual impairments affect their physical and mental health and quality of life (QOL) adversely. However, systematic reviews of the relationship between hearing impairment, visual impairment, dual sensory impairment and quality of life are scarce. The purpose of this systematic review was to determine the relationship between hearing impairment, visual impairment, dual sensory impairment and quality of life. Methods: Searches of EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library and Airiti Library were conducted between January 2006 and December 2017 using the keywords ‘quality of life,’ ‘life satisfaction,’ ‘well-being,’ ‘hearing impairment’ and ‘visual impairment’ Two authors independently assessed methodologic quality using a modified Downs and Black tool. Data were extracted by the first author and then cross-checked by the second author. Results: Twenty-three studies consisting mostly of community-dwelling older adults were included in our review. Sensory impairment was found to be in significant association with quality of life, with an increase in hearing impairment or visual impairment severity resulting in a lower quality of life. Quality of life for dual sensory impairment was worse than for hearing impairment or visual impairment individually. Conclusions: A significant association was confirmed between hearing impairment, visual impairment, dual sensory impairment and quality of life. Our review can be used to enhance health care personnel’s understanding of sensory impairment in older adults and enable healthcare personnel to actively assess older adults’ sensory functions so that they can help alleviate the negative impact of sensory impairments on QOL in older adults.

Keywords: nursing, older adults, quality of life, systematic review, hearing impairment, visual impairment

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Authors: Ifeoluwapo Oluwafunke Kolawole, Prisca Olabisi Adejumo

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Background/Objectives: A healthy work environment increases the well-being of nurses, quality of patient care, and that of the institution. This study assessed the perceived effects of the work environment on the quality of nursing outcomes. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study utilized consecutive sampling techniques to recruit 192 nurses. An online questionnaire was used with the aid of QuestionPro software. This software allows only one response per participant. The link to the survey was sent to them via WhatsApp, and Facebook respectively.  The data were analyzed with SPSS 23. Descriptive and inferential analyses were done. Results: From the study, only about 58% of them were satisfied with the work environment, and 10% perceived nursing care to be of high quality. Workload (93%), communication practices, and culture (90%) constitute the leading factors that affect nurses' work environment. Nurses' work environment affects the perception of care quality (p<0.05). Participants' perceived quality of nursing care was found to be influenced by their age, rank, and years spent in the hospital (p<0.05) respectively. Conclusion: Nurses' participation in decision-making, appropriate recognition, staffing, and equipment adequacy will enhance satisfaction and retention.

Keywords: work environment, quality of care, nursing outcomes, satisfaction

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Authors: M. S. V. K. V. Prasad, G. Siva Praveena, P. V. V. Prasada Rao

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It is known that the groundwater quality is very important parameter because it is the main factor determining its suitability for drinking, agricultural and industrial purposes. Water Quality Index (WQI) has been calculated for ground water samples taken from Narsapur-Mogalthur mandals, West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, India, from 10 different locations in the pre-monsoon season as well as post monsoon. The water samples were analyzed for pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Total Hardness (TH), major cations like calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and anions like chloride, nitrate and sulphate in the laboratory using the standard methods given by the American Public Health Association (APHA). The overall quality of water in the study area is somewhat good for all constituents. Drinking water at almost all the locations was found to be slightly contaminated, except a few locations during the year 2014. It was found that some effective measures are urgently required for water quality management in this region.

Keywords: Water Quality Index, Physico-chemical parameters, Quality rating, monsoon

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Authors: Hesheng Wang, Haoyu Wang, Chungang Zhuang

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Estimating the 6D pose of objects is a core step for robot bin-picking tasks. The problem is that various objects are usually randomly stacked with heavy occlusion in real applications. In this work, we propose a method to regress 6D poses by predicting three points for each object in the 3D point cloud through deep learning. To solve the ambiguity of symmetric pose, we propose a labeling method to help the network converge better. Based on the predicted pose, an iterative method is employed for pose optimization. In real-world experiments, our method outperforms the classical approach in both precision and recall.

Keywords: pose estimation, deep learning, point cloud, bin-picking, 3D computer vision

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Authors: A. Ali, V. Strezov, P. Davies, I. Wright, T. Kan

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The environmental impacts arising from mining activities affect the air, water, and soil quality. Impacts may result in unexpected and adverse environmental outcomes. This study reports on the impact of coal production on sediment in Sydney region of Australia. The sediment samples upstream and downstream from the discharge points from three mines were taken, and 80 parameters were tested. The results were assessed against sediment quality based on presence of metals. The study revealed the increment of metal content in the sediment downstream of the reference locations. In many cases, the sediment was above the Australia and New Zealand Environment Conservation Council and international sediment quality guidelines value (SQGV). The major outliers to the guidelines were nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn).

Keywords: coal mine, environmental impact, produced water, sediment quality guidelines value (SQGV)

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Authors: Ibrahim Abdel Gadir Malik, Dafalla Siddig Dafalla, Osama Abdelgadir El-Bushra

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Geological and engineering characteristics of intact rock and the discontinuity surfaces was used to describe and classify rock mass into zones based on mechanical and physical properties. Many conditions terms that affect the rock mas; such as Rock strength, Rock Quality Designation (RQD) value, joint spacing, and condition of joint, water condition with block size, joint roughness, separation, joint hardness, friction angle and weathering were used to classify the rock mass into: Good quality (class II) (RMR values range between 75% and 56%), Good to fair quality (class II to III) (RMR values range between 70% and 55%), Fair quality (class III) (RMR values range between 60% and 50%) and Fair to poor quality (Class III to IV) (RMR values, range between (50% and 35%).

Keywords: rock strength, RQD, joints, weathering

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Authors: Dina L. DiSantis

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Strengthening a sense of responsibility while relating global sustainability concepts such as water quality and pollution to a local water system can be achieved by teaching students to conduct and interpret water quality monitoring tests. When students conduct their own research, they become better stewards of the environment. Providing outdoor learning and place-based opportunities for students helps connect them to the natural world. By conducting stream studies and collecting data, students are able to better understand how the natural environment is a place where everything is connected. Students have been collecting physical, chemical and biological data along the West and East Branches of the Brandywine River, in Pennsylvania for over ten years. The stream studies are part of the advanced placement environmental science and aquatic science courses that are offered as electives to juniors and seniors at the Downingtown High School West Campus in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Physical data collected includes: temperature, turbidity, width, depth, velocity, and volume of flow or discharge. The chemical tests conducted are: dissolved oxygen, carbon dioxide, pH, nitrates, alkalinity and phosphates. Macroinvertebrates are collected with a kick net, identified and then released. Students collect the data from several locations while traveling by canoe. In the classroom, students prepare a water quality data analysis and interpretation report based on their collected data. The summary of the results from longitudinal water quality data collection by students, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of student data collection will be presented.

Keywords: place-based, student data collection, sustainability, water quality monitoring

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Authors: Rodrigo Guimarães Santos

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The quality of public transport services has been considered as a critical factor by their users and also by users of individual transport. Thus, this dissertation aims to adapt a model that assesses the quality of public transport and determines its level of service based on the views of its users. The methodology is widely used by marketers and allows measuring the quality of services by assessing the perceptions and expectations of users. The adapted SERVQUAL was tested with users of public transport service users and car in Brasília-DF, city of Brazil. This research involved 241 questionnaires answered by people living in the various administrative regions of Brasília-DF. The analysis of the determinants pointed out that the quality of the public transport service offered in the city is low and users of public transport and cars have a high degree of expectations for improvement in all tested determinants. This method enabled the identification of the most critical determinants and those needing strategic actions for continuous improvement of quality. Adapting the SERVQUAL for a public transport service was satisfactory and demonstrated applicability to internal and external services, including measuring the public transport services in other cities with the opinion of the users.

Keywords: transportation services, quality services, servqual scale and marketing services

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Authors: Aklilu Alemu, Tak Cheung Chan

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Following the intensification of secondary education in the developing world, the attention of Ethiopia has currently shifted to its quality education and its management. This study is aimed to explore experts’ perceptions of quality management challenges in secondary education in Ethiopia. The researchers employed a case study design recruiting participating supervisors from the Ministry of Education, region, zone, wereda, and cluster by using a purposeful sampling technique. Twenty-six interviewees took part in this study. The researchers employed NVivo 8 versions together with a thematic analysis process to analyze the data. This study revealed that major problems that affected quality management practices in Ethiopia were: lack of qualified experts at all levels; lack of accountability in every echelon; the changing nature of teacher education; the ineffectiveness of teacher-licensing programs; and lack of educational budget and the problem of utilizing this limited budget. The study concluded that the experts at different levels were not genuinely fulfilling their roles and responsibilities. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, together with the concerned parties, needs to reconsider budget allocation for secondary education.

Keywords: education quality, Ethiopia, quality challenge, quality management, secondary education

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Authors: Hanen Filali, Mohamed Hachicha

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Treated grey water (TGW) reuse emerged as an alternative resource to meet the growing demand for water for agricultural irrigation and reduce the pressure on limited existing fresh water. However, this reuse needs adapted management in order to avoid environmental and health risks. In this work, the treatment of grey water (GW) was studied from a cyclic treatment system that we designed and implemented in the greenhouse of National Research Institute for Rural Engineering, Water and Forests (INRGREF). This system is composed of three levels for treatment (TGW 1, TGW 2, and TGW 3). Each level includes a sandy soil box. The use of grey water was moderated depending on the chemical and microbiological quality obtained. Different samples of soils and treated grey water were performed and analyzed for 14 irrigation cycles. TGW through cyclic treatment showed physicochemical parameters like pH, electrical conductivity (EC), chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD5) in the range of 7,35-7,91, 1,69-5,03 dS/m, 102,6-54,2 mgO2/l, and 31,33-15,74 mgO2/l, respectively. Results showed a reduction in the pollutant load with a significant effect on the three treatment levels; however, an increase in salinity was observed during all irrigation cycles. Microbiological results showed good grey water treatment with low health risk on irrigated soil. Treated water quality was below permissible Tunisian standards (NT106.03), and treated water is suitable for non-potable options.

Keywords: treated grey water, irrigation, cyclic treatment, soils, physico-chemical parameters, microbiological parameters

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Authors: Olu Ale, Olugbenga Aribisala, Sanmi Awopetu

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Groundwater (Wells) is obtained from several well-defined and different water-bearing geological layers or strata. The physical, chemical and bacteriological quality of the water contributed from each of these water-bearing formations and resultant effects of indiscriminate wastes disposal will be dependent on the dissolution of material within the formation. Therefore, water withdrawn from any ground water source will be a composite of these individual aquifers. The water quality was determined by actual sampling and analysis of the completed wells. This study attempted to examine the physicochemical and bacteriological water quality of twenty five selected wells comprising twenty boreholes (deep wells) and five hand dug wells (shallow wells). The twenty five wells cut across the entire Ado Ekiti Metropolitan area. The water samples collected using standard method was promptly taken to water laboratory at the Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti for analysis, physical, chemical and bacteriological tests were carried out. Quality characteristics tested were found to meet WHO’s standard and generally acceptable, making it potable for drinking in most situations, thus encouraging the use of groundwater. Possible improvement strategies to groundwater exploitation were highlighted while remedies to poor quality water were suggested.

Keywords: bacteriological, physicochemical, quality, wells, Ado Ekiti

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Authors: Zainab Khalifah, Wong Chiet Bing, Noor Hazarina Hashim

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The evolution of customer behavior in purchasing products or services through the Internet leads to airline companies engaging in the e-ticketing process in order to maintain their business. A well-designed website is vitally significant for the airline companies to provide effective communication, support, and competitive advantage. This study was conducted to identify the dimensions of website quality for low cost airline and to investigate the relationship between the website quality and customer e-satisfaction at low cost airline. A total of 381 responses were conveniently collected among local passengers at Low Cost Carrier Terminal, Kuala Lumpur via questionnaire distribution. This study found that the five determinant factors of website quality for AirAsia were Information Content, Navigation, Responsiveness, Personalization, and Security and Privacy. The results of this study revealed that there is a positive relationship between the five dimensions of website quality and customer e-satisfaction, and also information content was the most significant contributor to customer e-satisfaction.

Keywords: website quality, customer e-satisfaction, low cost airline, e-ticketing

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Authors: Hend Albassam, Nouf Alrumaih

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Nowadays we are in the age of technologies and communication and there is no doubt that technologies such as the Internet can offer many advantages for many business fields, and the health field is no execution. In fact, using the Internet provide us with a new path to improve the quality of health care throughout the world. The e-healthcare offers many advantages such as: efficiency by reducing the cost and avoiding duplicate diagnostics, empowerment of patients by enabling them to access their medical records, enhancing the quality of healthcare and enabling information exchange and communication between healthcare organizations. There are many problems that result from using papers as a way of communication, for example, paper-based prescriptions. Usually, the doctor writes a prescription and gives it to the patient who in turn carries it to the pharmacy. After that, the pharmacist takes the prescription to fill it and give it to the patient. Sometimes the pharmacist might find difficulty in reading the doctor’s handwriting; the patient could change and counterfeit the prescription. These existing problems and many others heighten the need to improve the quality of the healthcare. This project is set out to develop a distributed e-healthcare system that offers some features of e-health and addresses some of the above-mentioned problems. The developed system provides an electronic health record (EHR) and enables communication between separate health care organizations such as the clinic, pharmacy and laboratory. To develop this system, the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is adopted as a design approach, which helps to design several independent modules that communicate by using web services. The layering design pattern is used in designing each module as it provides reusability that allows the business logic layer to be reused by different higher layers such as the web service or the website in our system. The experimental analysis has shown that the project has successfully achieved its aims toward solving the problems related to the paper-based healthcare systems and it enables different health organization to communicate effectively. It implements four independent modules including healthcare provider, pharmacy, laboratory and medication information provider. Each module provides different functionalities and is used by a different type of user. These modules interoperate with each other using a set of web services.

Keywords: e-health, services oriented architecture (SOA), web services, interoperability

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Authors: Marcin Zieliński, Marcin Dębowski, Mirosław Krzemieniewski

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The purpose of the present work was to assess the impact of using electromagnetic microwave radiation as a means of stimulating the thermal conditions in anaerobic reactors on biomethanation efficiency of different plant substrates, as measured by the quantity and quality of the resultant biogas. Using electromagnetic microwave radiation to maintain optimal thermal conditions during biomethanation allows for achievement of much higher technological effects in comparison with a conventional heating system. After subjecting different plant substrates to fermentation in the model fermentation chambers, the largest improvements in regard to biogas production efficiency and biogas quality were recorded in the series with corn silage and grass silage. In the first case, the quantity of methane produced in the microwave-stimulated technological system exceeded by 15.26% the quantities produced in reactors heated conventionally. When grass silage was utilized as the organic substrate in the process of biomethanation, anaerobic reactors treated with microwave radiation produced 12.62% more methane.

Keywords: microwave radiation, biogas, methane fermentation, biomass

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Authors: Dong-Hyun Ha, Young-Min Ko, Chang-Bin Ha, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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In Heterogeneous network (HetNet) can provide high quality of a service in a wireless communication system by composition of small cell networks. The composition of small cell networks improves cell coverage and capacity to the mobile users.Recently, various techniques using small cell networks have been researched in the wireless communication system. In this paper, the cooperative scheme obtaining high reliability is proposed in the small cell networks. The proposed scheme suggests a cooperative small cell system and the new signal transmission technique in the proposed system model. The new signal transmission technique applies a cyclic delay diversity (CDD) scheme based on the multiple input multiple output-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system to obtain improved performance. The improved performance of the proposed scheme is confirmed by the simulation results.

Keywords: adaptive transmission, cooperative communication, diversity gain, OFDM

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Authors: M. G. Dirodi, G. Gugliotta, C. Leonardi

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The member states shall establish zones and agglomerations throughout their territory to assess and manage air quality in order to comply with European directives. In Italy decree 155/2010, transposing Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe, merged into a single act the previous provisions on ambient air quality assessment and management, including those resulting from the implementation of Directive 2004/107/EC relating to arsenic, cadmium, nickel, mercury, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air. Decree 155/2010 introduced stricter rules for identifying zones on the basis of the characteristics of the territory in spite of considering pollution levels, as it was in the past. The implementation of such new criteria has reduced the great variability of the previous zoning, leading to a significant reduction of the total number of zones and to a complete and uniform ambient air quality assessment and management throughout the Country. The present document is related to the new zones definition in Italy according to Decree 155/2010. In particular, the paper contains the description and the analysis of the outcome of zoning and classification.

Keywords: zones, agglomerations, air quality assessment, classification

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Authors: Mehrnoosh Askarizadeh

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People, process and IT are the most important assets of any organization. Optimal utilization of these resources has been the question of research in business for many decades. The business world have responded by inventing various methodologies that can be used for addressing problems of quality improvement, efficiency of processes, continuous improvement, reduction of waste, automation, strategy alignments etc. Some of these methodologies can be commonly called as Business Process Quality Management methodologies (BPQM). In essence, the first references to the process management can be traced back to Frederick Taylor and scientific management. Time and motion study was addressed to improvement of manufacturing process efficiency. The ideas of scientific management were in use for quite a long period until more advanced quality management techniques were developed in Japan and USA. One of the first prominent methods had been Total Quality Management (TQM) which evolved during 1980’s. About the same time, Six Sigma (SS) originated at Motorola as a separate method. SS spread and evolved; and later joined with ideas of Lean manufacturing to form Lean Six Sigma. In 1990’s due to emerging IT technologies, beginning of globalization, and strengthening of competition, companies recognized the need for better process and quality management. Business Process Management (BPM) emerged as a novel methodology that has taken all this into account and helped to align IT technologies with business processes and quality management. In this article we will study various aspects of above mentioned methods and identified their relations.

Keywords: e-process, quality, TQM, BPM, lean, six sigma, CPI, information technology, management

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Authors: Manea Viorel, Puscoci Sorin, Stoichescu Dan Alexandru

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Free Space Optics (FSO) is an optical telecommunication system that uses laser beam to transmit data at high bit rates via terrestrial atmosphere. This article describes a method to obtain higher bit rates, under unfavorable weather conditions using multiple optical beams, which carry information with low optical power. Optical link quality assessment is given by the attenuation on different weather conditions. The goal of this paper is to compare two transmission techniques: mono and multi beam, both affected by atmospheric attenuation, using OOK and L-PPM modulation. Link availability is evaluated using eye-diagram that provides information about the overall bit error rate of the system.

Keywords: free space optics, wireless optic, laser communication, spatial diversity

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Authors: Marlon B. Espedillon

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This qualitative study examines practice teaching as an important component of teacher education and its entanglement with the teacher quality discourse. How the key actors -student teachers, supervising instructors, cooperating teachers, and school principals- construe teacher quality is essential in understanding how the student teachers articulate their voices and challenge the cultural myths in teacher education. The ethnographic method of research was used to provide an ecological picture of field experiences. Three cultural myths were uncovered based on the thematic analysis of the interview transcripts, observations, and documents.

Keywords: teacher quality, practice teaching, student teacher agency, cultural myths

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Authors: Bruno S. Soria, Mauricio R. Policena, Andre J. Souza

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The state of the cutting tool is an important factor to consider during machining to achieve a good surface quality. The vibration generated during material cutting can also directly affect the surface quality and life of the cutting tool. In this work, the effect of mechanical broken failure (MBF) on carbide insert tools during face milling of AISI 304 stainless steel was evaluated using three levels of feed rate and two spindle speeds for each tool condition: three carbide inserts have perfect geometry, and three other carbide inserts have MBF. The axial and radial depths remained constant. The cutting forces were determined through a sensory system that consists of a piezoelectric dynamometer and data acquisition system. Discrete Wavelet Transform was used to separate the static part of the signals of force and vibration. The roughness of the machined surface was analyzed for each machining condition. The MBF of the tool increased the intensity and force of vibration and worsened the roughness factors.

Keywords: face milling, stainless steel, tool condition monitoring, wavelet discrete transform

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Authors: Zheming Cao

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Control loops are the most important components in the wind turbine system. Product quality, operation safety, and the economic performance are directly or indirectly connected to the performance of control systems. This paper proposed a performance evaluation method based on minimum-variance for wind turbine control system. This method can be applied on PID controller for pitch control system in the wind turbine. The good performance result demonstrated in the paper was achieved by retuning and optimizing the controller settings based on the evaluation result. The concepts presented in this paper are illustrated with the actual data of the industrial wind farm.

Keywords: control performance, evaluation, minimum-variance, wind turbine

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