Search results for: development potential

Authors: Zhipeng Dong, Jing Guo

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Graphene-semiconductor contacts have been extensively studied recently, both as a stand-alone diode device for potential applications in photodetectors and solar cells, and as a building block to vertical transistors. Graphene is a two-dimensional nanomaterial with vanishing density-of-states at the Dirac point, which differs from conventional metal. In this work, image-charge-induced barrier lowering (BL) in graphene-semiconductor contacts is studied and compared to that in metal Schottky contacts. The results show that despite of being a semimetal with vanishing density-of-states at the Dirac point, the image-charge-induced BL is significant. The BL value can be over 50% of that of metal contacts even in an intrinsic graphene contacted to an organic semiconductor, and it increases as the graphene doping increases. The dependences of the BL on the electric field and semiconductor dielectric constant are examined, and an empirical expression for estimating the image-charge-induced BL in graphene-semiconductor contacts is provided.

Keywords: graphene, semiconductor materials, schottky barrier, image charge, contacts

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Authors: Mladen Dragičević, Mirjana Pejić Bach, Vanja Šimičević

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The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. These models could improve allocation of students among colleges and optimize the newly introduced model of government subsidies for higher education. For the purpose of collecting data, an anonymous survey was carried out in the last year of undergraduate degree student population using random sampling method. Decision trees were created of which two have been chosen that were most successful in predicting student success based on two criteria: Grade Point Average (GPA) and time that a student needs to finish the undergraduate program (time-to-degree). Decision trees have been shown as a good method of classification student success and they could be even more improved by increasing survey sample and developing specialized decision trees for each type of college. These types of methods have a big potential for use in decision support systems.

Keywords: data mining, knowledge discovery in databases, prediction models, student success

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Authors: Bhargavi G., Arathi R. Shankar

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Transmitter and receiver closer to every other, which creates the twin benefits of better-nice links and more spatial reuse. In a network with nomadic customers, this inevitably includes deploying greater infrastructure, normally in the form of microcells, hot spots, disbursed antennas, or relays. A less pricey alternative is the recent concept of femtocells, additionally known as domestic base stations that are facts get admission to points installed by means of domestic users to get higher indoor voice and records insurance. Femtocells have the potential to offer excessive exceptional community get entry to indoor customers at low cost, even as concurrently reducing the load. gift femtocells that perform in 4G can also be extended for 5G sub-6 GHz band. Designing the femtocell in mmWave band of 5G may have many blessings in terms of bandwidth availability and coverage. Multiband microstrip patch antennas can be considered as a low value and prominent antennas in designing the femtocells because the single antenna helps multiple frequency.

Keywords: 5G, mmWave, antennas, wireless communications, femtocell

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Authors: Fahed Alrshoudi

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Saudi Arabia is ranked the third of the largest suppliers of Dates worldwide (about 28.5 million palm trees), producing more than 2 million tons of dates yearly. These trees produce large quantity of dates palm seeds (DPS) which can be considered literally as a waste. The date seeds are stiff, therefore, it is possible to utilize DPS as coarse aggregates in lightweight concrete for certain structural applications and to participate at reusing the waste. The use of DPS as coarse aggregate in concrete can be an alternative choice as a partial replacement of the stone aggregates (SA). This paper reports the influence of partially replaced stone aggregates with DPS on the hardened properties of concrete performance. Based on the experimental results, the DPS has the potential use as an acceptable alternative aggregates in producing structural lightweight concrete members, instead of stone aggregates.

Keywords: compressive strength, tensile Strength, date palm seeds, aggregate

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Authors: A. Sgobba, C. Meskell

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The feasibility of on-site electricity production from solar and wind and the resulting load management for a specific manufacturing plant in Ireland are assessed. The industry sector accounts directly and indirectly for a high percentage of electricity consumption and global greenhouse gas emissions; therefore, it will play a key role in emission reduction and control. Manufacturing plants, in particular, are often located in non-residential areas since they require open spaces for production machinery, parking facilities for the employees, appropriate routes for supply and delivery, special connections to the national grid and other environmental impacts. Since they have larger spaces compared to commercial sites in urban areas, they represent an appropriate case study for evaluating the technical and economic viability of energy system integration with low power density technologies, such as solar and wind, for on-site electricity generation. The available open space surrounding the analysed manufacturing plant can be efficiently used to produce a discrete quantity of energy, instantaneously and locally consumed. Therefore, transmission and distribution losses can be reduced. The usage of storage is not required due to the high and almost constant electricity consumption profile. The energy load of the plant is identified through the analysis of gas and electricity consumption, both internally monitored and reported on the bills. These data are not often recorded and available to third parties since manufacturing companies usually keep track only of the overall energy expenditures. The solar potential is modelled for a period of 21 years based on global horizontal irradiation data; the hourly direct and diffuse radiation and the energy produced by the system at the optimum pitch angle are calculated. The model is validated using PVWatts and SAM tools. Wind speed data are available for the same period within one-hour step at a height of 10m. Since the hub of a typical wind turbine reaches a higher altitude, complementary data for a different location at 50m have been compared, and a model for the estimate of wind speed at the required height in the right location is defined. Weibull Statistical Distribution is used to evaluate the wind energy potential of the site. The results show that solar and wind energy are, as expected, generally decoupled. Based on the real case study, the percentage of load covered every hour by on-site generation (Level of Autonomy LA) and the resulting electricity bought from the grid (Expected Energy Not Supplied EENS) are calculated. The economic viability of the project is assessed through Net Present Value, and the influence the main technical and economic parameters have on NPV is presented. Since the results show that the analysed renewable sources can not provide enough electricity, the integration with a cogeneration technology is studied. Finally, the benefit to energy system integration of wind, solar and a cogeneration technology is evaluated and discussed.

Keywords: demand, energy system integration, load, manufacturing, national grid, renewable energy sources

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Authors: Georgios A. Fragkiadakis, Antonia Psaroudaki, Theodora Mouratidou, Eirini Sfakianaki

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Research: Within the project "Actions for the optimal utilization of the potential of carob in the Region of Crete" which is financed-supervised by the Region, with collaboration of Crete University and Hellenic Mediterranean University, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) survey was carried out, to evaluate the prospects of carob in human nutrition, in Crete. Results and conclusions: 1). Strengths: There exists a local production of carob for human consumption, based on international reports, and local-product reports. The data on products in the market (over 100 brands of carob food), indicates a sufficiency of carob materials offered in Crete. The variety of carob food products retailed in Crete indicates a strong demand-production-consumption trend. There is a stable number (core) of businesses that invest significantly (Creta carob, Cretan mills, etc.). The great majority of the relevant food stores (bakery, confectionary etc.) do offer carob products. The presence of carob products produced in Crete is strong on the internet (over 20 main professionally designed websites). The promotion of the carob food-products is based on their variety and on a few historical elements connected with the Cretan diet. 2). Weaknesses: The international prices for carob seed affect the sector; the seed had an international price of €20 per kg in 2021-22 and fell to €8 in 2022, causing losses to carob traders. The local producers do not sort the carobs they deliver for processing, causing 30-40% losses of the product in the industry. The occasional high price triggers the collection of degraded raw material; large losses may emerge due to the action of insects. There are many carob trees whose fruits are not collected, e.g. in Apokoronas, Chania. The nutritional and commercial value of the wild carob fruits is very low. Carob trees-production is recorded by Greek statistical services as "other cultures" in combination with prickly pear i.e., creating difficulties in retrieving data. The percentage of carob used for human nutrition, in contrast to animal feeding, is not known. The exact imports of carob are not closely monitored. We have no data on the recycling of carob by-products in Crete. 3). Opportunities: The development of a culture of respect for carob trade may improve professional relations in the sector. Monitoring carob market and connecting production with retailing-industry needs may allow better market-stability. Raw material evaluation procedures may be implemented to maintain carob value-chain. The state agricultural services may be further involved in carob-health protection. The education of farmers on carob cultivation/management, can improve the quality of the product. The selection of local productive varieties, may improve the sustainability of the culture. Connecting the consumption of carob with health-food products, may create added value in the sector. The presence and extent of wild carob threes in Crete, represents, potentially, a target for grafting. 4). Threats: The annual fluctuation of carob yield challenges the programming of local food industry activities. Carob is a forest species also - there is danger of wrong classification of crops as forest areas, where land ownership is not clear.

Keywords: human nutrition, carob food, SWOT analysis, crete, greece

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Authors: Viana Hassan

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Each year, 600 million tourists travelled abroad to practice several types of tourism. Nowadays, whatever is the type of tourism practiced it considered as a real public health problem which can contribute the spread of several diseases such as AIDS, H1N1, NDM1 With regard to HIV/AIDS, Lebanon is always considered as a low HIV prevalence country. However, the potential risks associated with the mobility of the population, migration and tourism. The total number of cases reported by the ministry of health since 1989 until the end of 2011 is of 1455 cases, with an average of 85 new cases per year over the last three years. The main reason of the increased number is Travel and migration which represent 50% of the risks reported by cumulative cases. Given the interest of this kind of epidemic it would be interesting to study the Evolution of HIV/ AIDS and its relation with travel and tourism The main aim of this research is to study in general the relation between tourism and health, more specific to understand the relation between Tourism and AIDS, the problem of the transmission of HIV in Lebanon, the ways of contamination and the countries in which these people are contaminated.

Keywords: AIDS, tourism, health, Lebanon

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Authors: Ghazi Faisal Najmuldeen, Noridah Abdullah, Mimi Sakinah

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Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermentation, mostly from carbohydrates, Cellulosic biomass, derived from non-food sources, such as castor shell waste, is also being developed as a feedstock for ethanol production Cellulose extracted from biomass sources is considered the future feedstock for many products due to the availability and eco-friendly nature of cellulose. In this study, castor shell (CS) biowaste resulted from the extraction of Castor oil from castor seeds was evaluated as a potential source of cellulose. The cellulose was extracted after pretreatment process was done on the CS. The pretreatment process began with the removal of other extractives from CS, then an alkaline treatment, bleaching process with hydrogen peroxide, and followed by a mixture of acetic and nitric acids. CS cellulose was analysed by infrared absorption spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The result showed that the overall process was adequate to produce cellulose with high purity and crystallinity from CS waste. The cellulose was then hydrolyzed to produce glucose and then fermented to bioethanol.

Keywords: bioethanol, castor shell, cellulose, biowaste

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Authors: Krzysztof Malczewski

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reconstruction algorithm using compressed sensing is presented in this paper. It is exhibited that the offered approach improves MR images spatial resolution in circumstances when highly undersampled k-space trajectories are applied. Compressed Sensing (CS) aims at signal and images reconstructing from significantly fewer measurements than were conventionally assumed necessary. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a fundamental medical imaging method struggles with an inherently slow data acquisition process. The use of CS to MRI has the potential for significant scan time reductions, with visible benefits for patients and health care economics. In this study the objective is to combine super-resolution image enhancement algorithm with CS framework benefits to achieve high resolution MR output image. Both methods emphasize on maximizing image sparsity on known sparse transform domain and minimizing fidelity. The presented algorithm considers the cardiac and respiratory movements.

Keywords: super-resolution, MRI, compressed sensing, sparse-sense, image enhancement

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Authors: Adriano Valdes-Gomez, Francisco Javier Sevilla

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We devise a numerical algorithm to simulate the diffusion of a Brownian particle restricted to the surface of a three-dimensional sphere when the particle is under the effects of an external potential that is coupled linearly. It is obtained using elementary geometry, yet, it converges, in the weak sense, to the solutions to the Smoluchowski equation. Rotations on the sphere, which are the analogs of linear displacements in euclidean spaces, are calculated using algebraic operations and then by a proper scaling, which makes the algorithm efficient and quite simple, especially to what may be the short-time propagator approach. Our findings prove that the global effects of curvature are taken into account in both dynamic and stationary processes, and it is not restricted to work in configuration space, neither restricted to the overdamped limit. We have generalized it successfully to simulate the Kramers or the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, where it is necessary to work directly in phase space, and it may be adapted to other two dimensional surfaces with non-constant curvature.

Keywords: diffusion on the sphere, Fokker-Planck equation on the sphere, non equilibrium processes on the sphere, numerical methods for diffusion on the sphere

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Authors: J. P. Makwana, A. K. Joshi, Rajesh N. Patel, Darshil Patel

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Recently, fluidized bed gasification becomes an attractive technology for power generation due to its higher efficiency. The main objective pursued in this work is to investigate the producer gas production potential from sized biomass (sawdust and pigeon pea) by applying the air gasification technique. The size of the biomass selected for the study was in the range of 0.40-0.84 mm. An experimental study was conducted using a fluidized bed gasifier with 210 mm diameter and 1600 mm height. During the experiments, the fuel properties and the effects of operating parameters such as gasification temperatures 700 to 900 °C, equivalence ratio 0.16 to 0.46 were studied. It was concluded that substantial amounts of producer gas (up to 1110 kcal/m3) could be produced utilizing biomass such as sawdust and pigeon pea by applying this fluidization technique. For both samples, the rise of temperature till 900 °C and equivalence ratio of 0.4 favored further gasification reactions and resulted into producer gas with calorific value 1110 kcal/m3.

Keywords: sized biomass, fluidized bed gasifier, equivalence ratio, temperature profile, gas composition

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Authors: Cherity A. Ysquierdo, Pia U. Olafson, Donald B. Thomas

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Musca domestica L. were collected from cattle diagnosed with bovine ringworm to evaluate the potential of the house fly to disseminate Trichophyton verrucosum E. Bodin, a fungal dermatophyte that is the causative agent for ringworm in cattle. Fungal isolates were cultured from 45 individual flies on supplemented Sabouraud dextrose agar, and isolates were identified using morphological and microscopic approaches. Each isolate was further identified by PCR amplification of the ribosomal DNA locus with fungal specific primers and subsequent amplicon sequencing. No T. verrucosum were identified using these approaches. However, 36 different fungal species representing 17 genera were cultured from these flies, including several allergenic and pathogenic species. Several species within the fungal orders Hypocreales, Microascales, Onygenales, Saccharomycetales, Xylaniales, and Agaricales were observed for the first time on house flies. The most frequent fungus recovered was Cladosporium cladosporoides, which is known to be a ubiquitous, airborne allergen.

Keywords: bovine ringworm, Cladosporium, dermatophyte, Musca domestica

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Authors: Anahita Dalmia

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There has been a recent rise in ‘audience-centric’ and immersive storytelling. This indicates audiences are gaining interest in experiencing real adventure with everything that encompasses the struggle, the new friendships, skill development, and growth. This paper examines two themed alternate reality games created by a group of students at the University of Southern California as an experiment in how to design an adventure and to evaluate its impact on participants. The experiences combined immersive improvisational theatre and live-action roleplaying to create socially aware experiences within the timespan of four hours, using Harry Potter and mythology as themes. In each experiment, over 500 players simultaneously embarked on quests -a series of challenges including puzzle-solving, scavenger-hunting, and character interactions- to join a narrative faction. While playing, the participants were asked to choose faction alignments based on the characters they interacted with, as well as their own backgrounds and moral values. During the narrative finale, the impact of their individual choices on the larger story and game were revealed. After the conclusion of each experience, participants filled out questionnaires and were interviewed. Through this, it was discovered that participants developed transferable problem-solving, team-work, and persuasion skills. They also learned about the theme of the experience and reflected on their own moral values and judgment-making abilities after they realized the consequences of their actions in the game-world, inspiring some participants to make changes outside of it. This reveals that alternative reality games can lead to socialization, educational development, and real-world change in a variety of contexts when implemented correctly. This experiment has begun to discover the value of alternate reality games in a real-world context and to develop a reproducible format to continue to create such an impact.

Keywords: adventure, alternate reality games, education, immersive entertainment, interactive entertainment

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Authors: Zeynep Yazicioglu

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Project development is a complex process where many stakeholders work together. Employers and main contractors are the base stakeholders, whereas designers, engineers, sub-contractors, suppliers, supervisors, and consultants are other stakeholders. A combination of the complexity of the building process with a large number of stakeholders often leads to time and cost overruns and irregular resource utilization. Failure to comply with the work schedule and inefficient use of resources in the construction processes indicate that it is necessary to accelerate production and increase productivity. The development of computer software called Building Information Modeling, abbreviated as BIM, is a major technological breakthrough in this area. The use of BIM enables architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical projects to be drawn in coordination. BIM is a tool that should be considered by every stakeholder with the opportunities it offers, such as minimizing construction errors, reducing construction time, forecasting, and determination of the final construction cost. It is a process spreading over the years, enabling all stakeholders associated with the project and construction to use it. The main goal of this paper is to explore the problems associated with the adoption of BIM in multi-stakeholder projects. The paper is a conceptual study, summarizing the author’s practical experience with design offices and construction firms working with BIM. In the transition period to BIM, three of the challenges will be examined in this paper: 1. The compatibility of supplier companies with BIM, 2. The need for two-dimensional drawings, 3. Contractual issues related to BIM. The paper reviews the literature on BIM usage and reviews the challenges in the transition stage to BIM. Even on an international scale, the supplier that can work in harmony with BIM is not very common, which means that BIM's transition is continuing. In parallel, employers, local approval authorities, and material suppliers still need a 2-D drawing. In the BIM environment, different stakeholders can work on the same project simultaneously, giving rise to design ownership issues. Practical applications and problems encountered are also discussed, providing a number of suggestions for the future.

Keywords: BIM opportunities, collaboration, contract issues about BIM, stakeholders of project

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Authors: Toleen Alaqqad, Kadi Alshabramiy, Suad Zaafarany, Basma Musallam

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CADmapper is a significant tool of software for transforming geographic data into realistic CAD drawings. It speeds up and simplifies the conversion process by automating it. This allows architects, urban planners, engineers, and geographic information system (GIS) experts to solely concentrate on the imaginative and scientific parts of their projects. While the future incorporation of AI has the potential for further improvements, CADmapper's current capabilities make it an indispensable asset in the business. It covers a combination of 2D and 3D city and urban area models. The user can select a specific square section of the map to view, and the fee is based on the dimensions of the area being viewed. The procedure is straightforward: you choose the area you want, then pick whether or not to include topography. 3D architectural data (if available), followed by selecting whatever design program or CAD style you want to publish the document which contains more than 200 free broad town plans in DXF format. If you desire to specify a bespoke area, it's free up to 1 km2.

Keywords: cadmaper, gdata, 2d and 3d data conversion, automated cad drawing, urban planning software

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Authors: Hoyoung Lee, Dong-Kyu Kim, Seung-Young Kho, R. Eddie Wilson

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This study quantifies a decrement in freeway capacity during rainfall. Traffic and rainfall data were gathered from Highway Agencies and Wunderground weather service. Three inter-urban freeway sections and its nearest weather stations were selected as experimental sites. Capacity analysis found reductions of maximum and mean pre-breakdown flow rates due to rainfall. The Kruskal-Wallis test also provided some evidence to suggest that the variance in the pre-breakdown flow rate is statistically insignificant. Potential application of this study lies in the operation of real time traffic management schemes such as Variable Speed Limits (VSL), Hard Shoulder Running (HSR), and Ramp Metering System (RMS), where speed or flow limits could be set based on a number of factors, including rainfall events and their intensities.

Keywords: capacity randomness, flow breakdown, freeway capacity, rainfall

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Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh

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Rapid urbanization, rising population, changing lifestyles and in-migration, Lucknow is groundwater over-exploited area, with an abstract rate of 1968 m3/day/km2 in Gomti Nagar. The groundwater situation in Gomti Nagar is deteriorating day-by-day. According to the work, the calculated annual water deficiency in Gomti Nagar area will be 28061 Million Litre (ML) in 2022. Within 30 yrs., the water deficiency will be 735570 ML (till 2051). The calculated groundwater recharge in Gomti Nagar was 10813 ML/y (in 2022). The annual groundwater abstraction from Gomti Nagar area was 35332 ML/yr. (in 2022). Bye-laws (≥ 300 sq.m) existing RTRWHs can recharge 17.71 ML/yr. in Gomti Nagar area. The existing RTRWHs are contributing 0.07% for recharging groundwater table. In Gomti Nagar, the water level is dropping at a rate of 1.0 metre per year, and the depth of the water table is less than 30 metre below ground level (mbgl). Natural groundwater recharge is affected by the geomorphological conditions of the surrounding area. Gomti Nagar is located on the erosional terrace (Te) and depositional terrace (d) of the Gomti River. The flood plain in Lucknow city is less active due to the embankments on the both sides of the Gomti River. The alluvium is composed of clay sandy up to a depth of 30m, and the alignment of the Gomti River reveals the presence of sandy soil at shallow depths. Aquifer depth 120 metre. Recharge as in Gomti Nagar (it may vary) 0 – 150 metre. Infiltration rates in alluvial floodplains range from 0.8 to 74 cm/hr. Geologically and Geomorphologically support rapid percolation of rainwater through alluvium in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow city, Uttar Pradesh. Over-exploitation of groundwater causes natural hazards viz. land subsidence, development of cracks on roads and buildings, development of vacuum and compactness of soil/clay which leads towards land subsidence, devastating effects on natural stream flow. Gomti River already transitioning phase from ‘effluent’ to ‘influent’, and saline intrusion in Aquifer –II (among Five aquifers in Lucknow city). A 250 m long crack developed in 2007 due to groundwater depletion in Dullu Khera and Vader Khera village of Kakori, Uttar Pradesh. The groundwater table of Lucknow is declining and water table imbalance occurs due to 17 times less recharge than groundwater exploitation. Uttar Pradesh along with four states have extracted 49% of groundwater in the entire country. In Gomti Nagar area, 27305 no of houses are present and available build up area 3.8 sq. km (60% of plot area) based on Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) Master plan 2031. If RTRWHs would install in all the houses, then 12% harvested rainwater contribute to the water table in Gomti Nagar area. Till 2051, Gomti Nagar area will harvest 91110 ML of rainwater. There are minimalistic chances that any incidence of flood can occur due to RTRWH. Thus, it can conclud that RTRWH is not related to flood happening in urban areas viz. Gomti Nagar.

Keywords: RTRWH, aquifer, groundwater table, rainwater, infiltration

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Authors: Suleyman Kizil, Tahsin Sogut, Khalid M. Khawar

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Genus Allium includes 600 to 750 species and most of these including Allium tuncelianum (Kollman) N. Ozhatay, B. Mathew & Siraneci; Syn; A. macrochaetum Boiss. and Hausskn. subsp. tuncelianum Kollman] or Tunceli garlic is endemic to Eastern Turkish Province of Tunceli and Munzur mountains. They are edible, bear attractive white-to-purple flowers and fertile black seeds with deep seed dormancy. This study aimed to break seed dormancy of Tunceli garlic and determine the conditions for induction of bulblets on these seeds and increase their diameter by culturing them on MS medium supplemented different strengths of KNO3. Tunceli garlic seeds were collected from field grown plants. They were germinated on MS medium with or without 20 g/l sucrose followed by their culture on 1 × 1900 mg/l, 2 × 1900 mg/l, 4 ×1900 mg/l and 6 × 1900 mg/l mg/l KNO3 supplemented with 20 g/l sucrose to increase bulb diameter. Improved seeds germination was noted on MS medium with and without sucrose but with variation compared to previous reports. The bulb development percentage on each of the sprouted seeds was not parallel to the percentage of seed germination. The results showed 34% and 28.5% bulb induction was noted on germinated seeds after 150 and 158 days on MS medium containing 20 g l-1 sucrose and no sucrose respectively showing a delay of 8 days on the latter compared to the former. The results emphatically noted role of cold stratification on agar solidified MS medium supplemented with sucrose to improve seed germination. The best increase in bulb diameter was noted on MS medium containing 1 × 1900 mg/l KNO3 after 178 days with bulblet diameter and bulblet weight of 0.54 cm and 0.048 g, respectively. Consequently, the bulbs induced on sucrose containing MS medium could be transferred to pots earlier. Increased (>1 × 1900 mg/l KNO3) strengths of KNO3 induced negative effect on growth and development of Tunceli garlic bulbs. The strategy of seed germination and bulblet induction reported in this study could be positively used for conservation of this endemic plant species.

Keywords: Tunceli garlic, seed, dormancy, bulblets, bulb growth

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Authors: W. Sun, W. Wen, J. Lu, A. A. Becker

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In this work, methods for determining creep properties which can be used to represent the full life until failure from miniature specimen creep tests based on analytical solutions are presented. Examples used to demonstrate the application of the methods include a miniature rectangular thin beam specimen creep test under three-point bending and a miniature two-material tensile specimen creep test subjected to a steady load. Mathematical expressions for deflection and creep strain rate of the two specimens were presented for the Kachanov-Rabotnov creep damage model. On this basis, an inverse procedure was developed which has potential applications for deriving the full life creep damage constitutive properties from a very small volume of material, in particular, for various microstructure constitutive  regions, e.g. within heat-affected zones of power plant pipe weldments. Further work on validation and improvement of the method is addressed.

Keywords: creep damage property, miniature specimen, inverse approach, finite element modeling

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Authors: Analise Borg, Paul Micallef

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Over the past few years, the online multimedia collection has grown at a fast pace. Several companies showed interest to study the different ways to organize the amount of audio information without the need of human intervention to generate metadata. In the past few years, many applications have emerged on the market which are capable of identifying a piece of music in a short time. Different audio effects and degradation make it much harder to identify the unknown piece. In this paper, an audio fingerprinting system which makes use of a non-parametric based algorithm is presented. Parametric analysis is also performed using Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs). The feature extraction methods employed are the Mel Spectrum Coefficients and the MPEG-7 basic descriptors. Bin numbers replaced the extracted feature coefficients during the non-parametric modelling. The results show that non-parametric analysis offer potential results as the ones mentioned in the literature.

Keywords: audio fingerprinting, mapping algorithm, Gaussian Mixture Models, MFCC, MPEG-7

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Authors: Anastasis D. Petrou

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Innovation and strategy discussions do highlight open innovation as a new paradigm in business. Yet, a number of stumbling blocks in the form of closed innovation principles weaved into the fabric of a traditional business model stand in the way of the new paradigm’s momentum to increase value in various business contexts. The paper argues that businesses considering an engagement with the open innovation paradigm would need to take steps to improve their multiplicative, absorptive and relational capabilities, respectively. The needed improvements would amount to a business model evolutionary transformation and eventually bring about a paradigm overhaul in business. The transformation is worth staging over time to ensure that open innovation is developed across interconnected and partnered areas of strategic importance. This article develops an open innovation strategy (OIS) capabilities model, and employs examples from different industries to briefly discuss OIS’s potential to augment business value in a number of suggested areas for future research.

Keywords: close innovation, open innovation paradigm, open innovation strategy (OIS) paradigm, OIS capabilities model, multiplicative capability, absorptive capability, relational capability

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Authors: Matthieu-P. Schapranow

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Recruitment of participants for clinical trials requires the screening of a big number of potential candidates, i.e. the testing for trial-specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, which is a time-consuming and complex task. Today, a significant amount of time is spent on identification of adequate trial participants as their selection may affect the overall study results. We introduce a unique patient eligibility metric, which allows systematic ranking and classification of candidates based on trial-specific filter criteria. Our web application enables real-time analysis of patient data and assessment of candidates using freely definable inclusion and exclusion criteria. As a result, the overall time required for identifying eligible candidates is tremendously reduced whilst additional degrees of freedom for evaluating the relevance of individual candidates are introduced by our contribution.

Keywords: in-memory technology, clinical trials, screening, eligibility metric, data analysis, clustering

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Authors: Sujosh Nandi, Proshanta Guha

Abstract:

Synthetic plastics are preferred for food packaging due to high strength, stretch-ability, good water vapor and gas barrier properties, transparency and low cost. However, environmental pollution generated by these synthetic plastics is a major concern of modern human civilization. Therefore, use of biodegradable polymers as a substitute for synthetic non-biodegradable polymers are encouraged to be used even after considering drawbacks related to mechanical and barrier properties of the films. Starch is considered one of the potential raw material for the biodegradable polymer, encounters poor water barrier property and mechanical properties due to its hydrophilic nature. That apart, recrystallization of starch molecules occurs during aging which decreases flexibility and increases elastic modulus of the film. The recrystallization process can be minimized by blending of other hydrocolloids having similar structural compatibility, into the starch matrix. Therefore, incorporation of guar gum having a similar structural backbone, into the starch matrix can introduce a potential film into the realm of biodegradable polymer. However, hydrophilic nature of both starch and guar gum, water barrier property of the film is low. One of the prospective solution to enhance this could be modification of the potato starch/guar gum (PSGG) composite film using cross-linker. Over the years, several cross-linking agents such as phosphorus oxychloride, sodium trimetaphosphate, etc. have been used to improve water vapor permeability (WVP) of the films. However, these chemical cross-linking agents are toxic, expensive and take longer time to degrade. Therefore, naturally available carboxylic acid (tartaric acid, malonic acid, succinic acid, etc.) had been used as a cross-linker and found that water barrier property enhanced substantially. As per our knowledge, no works have been reported with tartaric acid and succinic acid as a cross-linking agent blended with the PSGG films. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to examine the changes in water vapor barrier property and mechanical properties of the PSGG films after cross-linked with tartaric acid (TA) and succinic acid (SA). The cross-linkers were blended with PSGG film-forming solution at four different concentrations (4, 8, 12 & 16%) and cast on teflon plate at 37°C for 20 h. From the fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) study of the developed films, a band at 1720cm-1 was observed which is attributed to the formation of ester group in the developed films. On the other hand, it was observed that tensile strength (TS) of the cross-linked film decreased compared to non-cross linked films, whereas strain at break increased by several folds. Moreover, the results depicted that tensile strength diminished with increasing the concentration of TA or SA and lowest TS (1.62 MPa) was observed for 16% SA. That apart, maximum strain at break was also observed for TA at 16% and the reason behind this could be a lesser degree of crystallinity of the TA cross-linked films compared to SA. However, water vapor permeability of succinic acid cross-linked film was reduced significantly, but it was enhanced significantly by addition of tartaric acid.

Keywords: cross linking agent, guar gum, organic acids, potato starch

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Authors: Saad Alkentar, Abdulkareem Assalem

Abstract:

Recognizing small targets has always posed a significant challenge in image analysis. Over long distances, the image signal-to-noise ratio tends to be low, limiting the amount of useful information available to detection systems. Consequently, visual target recognition becomes an intricate task to tackle. In this study, we introduce a Track Before Detect (TBD) approach that leverages target trajectory information (coordinates) to effectively distinguish between noise and potential targets. By reframing the problem as a multivariate time series classification, we have achieved remarkable results. Specifically, our TBD method achieves an impressive 97% accuracy in separating target signals from noise within a mere half-second time span (consisting of 10 data points). Furthermore, when classifying the identified targets into our predefined categories—airplane, drone, and bird—we achieve an outstanding classification accuracy of 96% over a more extended period of 1.5 seconds (comprising 30 data points).

Keywords: small targets, drones, trajectory information, TBD, multivariate time series

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Authors: Figen Kadirgan, M. A. Neset Kadirgan, Gokcen A. Ciftcioglu

Abstract:

Addressing food security and climate change challenges have to be done in an integrated manner. To increase food production and to reduce emissions intensity, thus contributing to mitigate climate change, food systems have to be more efficient in the use of resources. To ensure food security and adapt to climate change they have to become more resilient. The changes required in agricultural and food systems will require the creation of supporting institutions and enterprises to provide services and inputs to smallholders, fishermen and pastoralists, and transform and commercialize their production more efficiently. Thus there is continously growing need to switch to green economy where simultaneously causes reduction in carbon emissions and pollution, enhances energy and resource-use efficiency; and prevents the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Smart Agriculture takes into account the four dimensions of food security, availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability. It is well known that, the increase in world population will strengthen the population-food imbalance. The emphasis on reduction of food losses makes a point on production, on farmers, on increasing productivity and income ensuring food security. Where also small farmers enhance their income and stabilize their budget. The use of solar drying for agricultural, marine or meat products is very important for preservation. Traditional sun drying is a relatively slow process where poor food quality is seen due to an infestation of insects, enzymatic reactions, microorganism growth and micotoxin development. In contrast, solar drying has a sound solution to all these negative effects of natural drying and artificial mechanical drying. The technical directions in the development of solar drying systems for agricultural products are compact collector design with high efficiency and low cost. In this study, using solar selective surface produced in Selektif Teknoloji Co. Inc. Ltd., solar dryers with high efficiency will be developed and a feasibility study will be realized.

Keywords: energy, renewable energy, solar collector, solar drying

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Authors: Samaneh Abolli, Mahmood Alimohammadi

Abstract:

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: Kashish Sareen, Jatinder Singh Bal

Abstract:

The use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has grown vastly in the last era, pointing out the crucial need for scalable and energy-efficient routing and data gathering and aggregation protocols in corresponding large-scale environments. Wireless Sensor Networks have now recently emerged as a most important computing platform and continue to grow in diverse areas to provide new opportunities for networking and services. However, the energy constrained and limited computing resources of the sensor nodes present major challenges in gathering data. The sensors collect data about their surrounding and forward it to a command centre through a base station. The past few years have witnessed increased interest in the potential use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) as they are very useful in target detecting and other applications. However, hierarchical clustering protocols have maximum been used in to overall system lifetime, scalability and energy efficiency. In this paper, the state of the art in corresponding hierarchical clustering approaches for large-scale WSN environments is shown.

Keywords: clustering, DLCC, MLCC, wireless sensor networks

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Authors: Florian Gschösser, Walter Purrer

Abstract:

The paper shows examples for the (environmental) optimization of production processes for asphalt mixtures applied for typical road pavements in Austria and Switzerland. The conducted “from-cradle-to-gate” LCA firstly analyzes the production one cubic meter of asphalt and secondly all material production processes for exemplary highway pavements applied in Austria and Switzerland. It is shown that environmental impacts can be reduced by the application of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and by the optimization of specific production characteristics, e.g. the reduction of the initial moisture of the mineral aggregate and the reduction of the mixing temperature by the application of low-viscosity and foam bitumen. The results of the LCA study demonstrate reduction potentials per cubic meter asphalt of up to 57 % (Global Warming Potential–GWP) and 77 % (Ozone depletion–ODP). The analysis per square meter of asphalt pavement determined environmental potentials of up to 40 % (GWP) and 56 % (ODP).

Keywords: asphalt mixtures, environmental potentials, life cycle assessment, material production

Procedia PDF Downloads 532

Authors: Masese Chuma Benard, Martin Onsiro Ronald

Abstract:

Businesses have been using cloud computing more frequently recently because they wish to take advantage of its advantages. However, employing cloud computing also introduces new security concerns, particularly with regard to data security, potential risks and weaknesses that could be exploited by attackers, and various tactics and strategies that could be used to lessen these risks. This study examines data security issues on cloud computing amongst sme’s in Nairobi county, Kenya. The study used the sample size of 48, the research approach was mixed methods, The findings show that data owner has no control over the cloud merchant's data management procedures, there is no way to ensure that data is handled legally. This implies that you will lose control over the data stored in the cloud. Data and information stored in the cloud may face a range of availability issues due to internet outages; this can represent a significant risk to data kept in shared clouds. Integrity, availability, and secrecy are all mentioned.

Keywords: data security, cloud computing, information, information security, small and medium-sized firms (SMEs)

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Authors: Michael Campbell, Malaz Elsaddig, Kevin Jones

Abstract:

Background: Despite encouraging progress, global maternal mortality has remained stubbornly high since the declaration of the Millennium development goals. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for well over half of maternal deaths with Post-Partum Haemorrhage (PPH) being the lead cause. ‘In house’ simulation training delivered by local doctors may be a sustainable approach for improving emergency obstetric care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of a Train-the-Trainer (TtT) model in a rural Ugandan hospital to ascertain whether it can feasibly improve practitioners’ management of PPH. Methods: Three Ugandan doctors underwent a training course to enable them to design and deliver simulation training. These doctors used MamaNatalie® models to simulate PPH scenarios for midwives, nurses and medical students. The main outcome was improvement in participants’ knowledge and confidence, assessed using self-reported scores on a 10-point scale. Results: The TtT model produced significant improvements in the confidence and knowledge scores of the ten participants. The mean confidence score rose significantly (p=0.0005) from 6.4 to 8.6 following the simulation training. There was also a significant increase in the mean knowledge score from 7.2 to 9.0 (p=0.04). Medical students demonstrated the greatest overall increase in confidence scores whilst increases in knowledge scores were largest amongst nurses. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that a TtT model can be used in a low resource setting to improve healthcare professionals’ confidence and knowledge in managing obstetric emergencies. This Train-the-Trainer model represents a sustainable approach to addressing skill deficits in low resource settings. We believe that its expansion across healthcare institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa will help to reduce the region’s high maternal mortality rate and step closer to achieving the ambitions of the Millennium development goals.

Keywords: low resource setting, post-partum haemorrhage, simulation training, train the trainer

Procedia PDF Downloads 177