Search results for: quantitative performance measurement

Authors: Salete Martins Alves, José Josemar de Oliveira Junior

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The current efforts on design of lubricants are based in attending the new requirement of modern equipment with the focus on the choice of base oil and additives. Nowadays, there are different types of lubricant oils’ bases, such as mineral oils, synthetic oils, re-refined oils and vegetable oils. The lubrication in the boundary condition is controlled mainly by EP additives that interact with the surface forming very thin films. Therefore, the study’s goal is to evaluate the action of three EP additives, with different percentage of sulfur, on friction and wear reduction. They were evaluated in mineral and synthetic oils. Lubricants were prepared with synthetic and mineral oils and added 3 % and 5 % of EP additives. The friction and wear characteristics were studied using HFRR test. In this test, a normal load of 10 N was applied at a frequency of 20 Hz. The analysis of results has appointed that the percentage of sulfur in mineral oil has influenced on wear reduction. However, synthetic oil had good performance with low sulfur content.

Keywords: boundary lubrication, EP additives, sulfur, wear

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Authors: Saeed Rahjoo, Babak H. Mamaqani

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Concentric bracing systems have been in practice for many years because of their effectiveness in reducing seismic response. Depending on concept, seismic design codes provide various response modification factors (R), which itself consists of different terms, for different types of lateral load bearing systems but configuration of these systems are often ignored in the proposed values. This study aims at considering the effect of different x-bracing diagonal configuration on values of ductility dependent term in R computation. 51 models were created and nonlinear push over analysis has been performed. The main variables of this study were the suitable location of X–bracing diagonal configurations, which establishes better nonlinear behavior in concentric braced steel frames. Results show that some x-bracing diagonal configurations improve the seismic performance of CBF significantly and explicit consideration of lateral load bearing systems seems necessary.

Keywords: bracing configuration, concentrically braced frame (CBF), push over analyses, response reduction factor

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Authors: Sherif Ismail

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Degradation of phenol-contaminated wastewater using Photocatalytic oxidation process was investigated in batch experiments using Fe doped TiO₂. Moreover, the effect of oxygen aeration on the performance of photocatalytic oxidation process by iron (Fe⁺²) doped titanium dioxide (TiO₂) was assessed. Photocatalytic oxidation using Fe doped TiO₂ effectively reduce the phenol concentration in wastewater with optimum condition of light intensity, pH, catalyst-dosing and initial concentration of phenol were 50 W/m2, 5.3, 600 mg/l and 10 mg/l respectively. The results obtained that removal efficiency of phenol was 88% after 180 min in case of N₂ addition. However, aeration by oxygen resulted in a 99% removal efficiency in 120 min. The results of photo-catalysis oxidation experiments fitted the pseudo-first-order kinetic equation with high correlation. Costs estimation of 30 m3/d full-scale photo-catalysis oxidation plant was assessed.

Keywords: phenol degradation, Fe-doped TiO2, AOPs, cost analysis

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Authors: Benjamin Legros, Jan Fransoo, Oualid Jouini

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This study aims to evaluate street-turn strategies for empty container repositioning in the hinterland. Containers arrive over time at the (importer) consignee, while the demand for containers arises from the (exporter) shipper. A match can be operated between an empty container from the consignee and the load from the shipper. Therefore, we model the system as a double-ended queue with non-zero matching time and a limited number of resources in order to optimize the reposition- ing decisions. We determine the performance measures when the consignee operates using a fixed withholding threshold policy. We show that the matching time mainly plays a role in the matching proportion, while under a certain duration, it only marginally impacts the consignee’s inventory policy and cost per container. Also, the withholding level is mainly determined by the shipper’s production rate.

Keywords: container, double-ended queue, inventory, Markov decision process, non-zero matching time, street-turn

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Authors: Marike Venter de Villiers, Jessica Ramoshaba

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In recent years, the fashion industry has been associated with the exploitation of both people and resources. This is largely due to the emergence of the fast fashion concept, which entails rapid and continual style changes where clothes quickly lose their appeal, become out-of-fashion, and are then disposed of. This cycle often entails appalling working conditions in sweatshops with low wages, child labor, and a significant amount of textile waste that ends up in landfills. Although the awareness of the negative implications of ‘mindless fashion production and consumption’ is growing, fast fashion remains to be a popular choice among the youth. This is especially prevalent in South Africa, a poverty-stricken country where a vast number of young adults are unemployed and living in poverty. Despite being in poverty, the celebrity conscious culture and fashion products frequently portrayed on the growing intrusive social media platforms in South Africa pressurizes the consumers to purchase fashion and luxury products. Young adults are therefore more vulnerable to the temptation to purchase fast fashion products. A possible solution to the detrimental effects that the fast fashion industry has on the environment is the revival of the secondhand clothing trend. Although the popularity of secondhand clothing has gained momentum among selected consumer segments, the adoption rate of such remains slow. The main purpose of this study was to explore consumers’ perceptions of the secondhand clothing trend and to gain insight into factors that inhibit the adoption of secondhand clothing. This study also aimed to investigate whether consumers are aware of the negative implications of the fast fashion industry and their likelihood to shift their clothing purchases to that of secondhand clothing. By means of a quantitative study, fifty young females were asked to complete a semi-structured questionnaire. The researcher approached females between the ages of 18 and 35 in a face-to-face setting. The results indicated that although they had an awareness of the negative consequences of fast fashion, they lacked detailed insight into the pertinent effects of fast fashion on the environment. Further, a number of factors inhibit their decision to buy from secondhand stores: firstly, the accessibility to the latest trends was not always available in secondhand stores; secondly, the convenience of shopping from a chain store outweighs the inconvenience of searching for and finding a secondhand store; and lastly, they perceived secondhand clothing to pose a hygiene risk. The findings of this study provide fashion marketers, and secondhand clothing stores, with insight into how they can incorporate the secondhand clothing trend into their strategies and marketing campaigns in an attempt to make the fashion industry more sustainable.

Keywords: eco-friendly fashion, fast fashion, secondhand clothing, eco-friendly fashion

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Authors: Savas Yildiz

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The article assesses the performance of international aid donors to determine the sub-national distribution of their aid projects dependent on recipient countries’ governance. The present paper extends the scope from a cross-country perspective to a more detailed analysis by looking at the effects of institutional qualities on the sub-national distribution of foreign aid. The analysis examines geo-referenced aid project in 37 countries and 404 regions at the first administrative division level in Sub-Saharan Africa from the World Bank (WB) and the African Development Bank (ADB) that were approved between the years 2000 and 2011. To measure the influence of institutional qualities on the distribution of aid the following measures are used: control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law from the World Governance Indicators (WGI) and the corruption perception index from Transparency International. Furthermore, to assess the importance of ethnic heterogeneity on the sub-national distribution of aid projects, the study also includes interaction terms measuring ethnic fragmentation. The regression results indicate a general skew of aid projects towards regions which hold capital cities, however, being incumbent presidents’ birth region does not increase the allocation of aid projects significantly. Nevertheless, with increasing quality of institutions aid projects are less skewed towards capital regions and the previously estimated coefficients loose significance in most cases. Higher ethnic fragmentation also seems to impede the possibility to allocate aid projects mainly in capital city regions and presidents’ birth places. Additionally, to assess the performance of the WB based on its own proclaimed goal to aim the poor in a country, the study also includes sub-national wealth data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DSH), and finds that, even with better institutional qualities, regions with a larger share from the richest quintile receive significantly more aid than regions with a larger share of poor people. With increasing ethnic diversity, the allocation of aid projects towards regions where the richest citizens reside diminishes, but still remains high and significant. However, regions with a larger share of poor people still do not receive significantly more aid. This might imply that the sub-national distribution of aid projects increases in general with higher ethnic fragmentation, independent of the diverse regional needs. The results provide evidence that institutional qualities matter to undermine the influence of incumbent presidents on the allocation of aid projects towards their birth regions and capital regions. Moreover, even for countries with better institutional qualities the WB and the ADB do not seem to be able to aim the poor in a country with their aid projects. Even, if one considers need-based variables, such as infant mortality and child mortality rates, aid projects do not seem to be allocated in districts with a larger share of people in need. Therefore, the study provides further evidence using more detailed information on the sub-national distribution of aid projects that aid is not being allocated effectively towards regions with a larger share of poor people to alleviate poverty in recipient countries directly. Institutions do not have any significant influence on the sub-national distribution of aid towards the poor.

Keywords: aid allocation, georeferenced data, institutions, spatial analysis

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Authors: Li̇zan Mahmood Khorsheed Zangana

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Experimental and numerical investigations have been carried out to study the mechanism of separation energy and flow phenomena in the counter-flow vortex tube. This manuscript presents a complete comparison between the experimental investigation and CFD analysis. The experimental model tested under different inlet pressures. Three-dimensional numerical modelling using the k-ε model. The results show any increase in both cold mass fraction and inlet pressure caused to increase ΔTc, and the maximum ΔTc value occurs at P = 6 bar. The coefficient of performance (COP) of two important factors in the vortex tube have been evaluated, which ranged from 0.25 to 0.74. The maximum axial velocity is 93, where it occurs at the tube axis close the inlet exit (Z/L=0.2). The results showed a good agreement for experimental and numerical analysis.

Keywords: counter flow, vortex tube, computational fluid dynamics analysis, energy separation, experimental study

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Authors: Jarrod Haar, David Brougham, Azka Ghafoor

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Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and have a unique perspective called Te Ao Māori (the Māori worldview) and important cultural values around utu (reciprocation), collectivism, long-term orientation, and whanaungatanga (networking, relationships). The present research conducts two studies to better understand how Māori businesses might have similarities and differences to New Zealand businesses. In study 1, we conducted 50 interviews with 25 Māori business owners and 25 New Zealand (non-Māori) owners. For the indigenous population, we used a kaupapa Māori research approach using Māori protocols. This ensured the research is culturally safe. Interviews were conducted around semi-structured questions tapping into the existing business challenges, the role of innovation, and business values and approaches. Transcripts were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analytic techniques. We identified several themes shared across all business owners: (1) the critical challenge around staff attraction and retention; (2) cost pressures including inflation; (3) and a focus on human resource (HR) practices to address issues including retention. Amongst the Māori businesses, the analysis also identified (4) a unique cultural approach to business relationships. Specifically, amongst the indigenous businesses we find a strong Te Ao Māori perspective amongst Māori business towards innovation. Analysis within this group only identified, within the following sub-themes: (a) whanaungatanga, around the development of strong relationships as a way to aid recruitment and retention, and business fluctuations; (b) mātauranga (knowledge) whereby Māori businesses seek to access advanced knowledge via universities; (c) taking a long-term orientation to business relationships – including with universities. The findings suggest people practices might be a way that firms address workforce retention issues, and we also acknowledge that Māori businesses might also leverage cultural practices to achieve better gains. Thus, in study 2, we survey 606 New Zealand private sector firms including 85 who self-identify as Māori Firms. We test the benefits of high-performance work-systems (HPWS), which represent bundle of human-resource practices designed to bolster workforce productivity through enhancing knowledge, skills, abilities, and commitment of the workforce. We test these on workforce retention and include Māori firm status and cultural capital (reflecting workforce knowledge around Māori cultural values) as moderators. Overall, we find all firms achieve superior workforce retention when they have high levels of HPWS, but Māori firms with high cultural capital are better able to leverage these HR practices to achieve superior workforce retention. In summary, the present study highlights how indigenous businesses in New Zealand might achieve superior performance by leveraging their unique cultural values. The study provides unique insights into established literatures around retention and HR practices and highlights the lessons around indigenous cultural values that appear to aid businesses.

Keywords: Māori business, cultural values, employee retention, human resource practices

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Authors: Afshin J. Ghajar, Swanand M. Bhagwat

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The main purpose of this work is to experimentally investigate the effect of pipe orientation on two phase flow phenomenon. Flow pattern, void fraction and two phase pressure drop is measured in a polycarbonate pipe with an inside diameter of 12.7mm for inclination angles ranging from -20° to +20° using air-water fluid combination. The experimental data covers all flow patterns and the entire range of void fraction typically observed in two phase flow. The effect of pipe orientation on void fraction and two phase pressure drop is justified with reference to the change in flow structure and two phase flow behavior. In addition to this, the top performing void fraction and two phase pressure drop correlations available in the literature are presented and their performance is assessed against the experimental data in the present study and that available in the literature.

Keywords: flow patterns, inclined two phase flow, pressure drop, void fraction

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Authors: V. V. Singh

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We have studied the reliability measures of a system, which consists of two subsystems i.e. subsystem-1 and subsystem-2 in series configuration under different types of failure. The subsystem-1 has three identical units in parallel configuration and operating under 2-out-of-3: G policy and connected to subsystem-2 in series configuration. Each subsystem has different types of failure and repair rates. An important cause for failure of system is unsuitability of the environmental conditions, like overheating, weather conditions, heavy rainfall, storm etc. The environmental failure is taken into account in the proposed repairable system. Supplementary variable technique is used to study of system and some traditional measures such as; availability, reliability, MTTF and profit function are obtained for different values of parameters. In the proposed model, some particular cases of failure rates are explicitly studied.

Keywords: environmental failure, human failure, availability, MTTF, reliability, profit analysis, Gumbel-Hougaard family copula

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Authors: Sylvain Perrin, Thomas Saillour

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The Grande-Motte port and seafront development project on the French Mediterranean coastline entailed evaluating wave impact loads (pressures and forces) on the new beach seawall and comparing the resulting scour potential at the base of the existing and new seawall. A physical model was built at ARTELIA’s hydraulics laboratory in Grenoble (France) to provide insight into the evolution of scouring overtime at the front of the wall, quasi-static and impulsive wave force intensity and distribution on the wall, and water and sand overtopping discharges over the wall. The beach was constituted of fine sand and approximately 50 m wide above mean sea level (MSL). Seabed slopes were in the range of 0.5% offshore to 1.5% closer to the beach. A smooth concrete structure will replace the existing concrete seawall with an elevated curved crown wall. Prior the start of breaking (at -7 m MSL contour), storm-driven maximum spectral significant wave heights of 2.8 m and 3.2 m were estimated for the benchmark historical storm event dated of 1997 and the 50-year return period storms respectively, resulting in 1 m high waves at the beach. For the wave load assessment, a tensor scale measured wave forces and moments and five piezo / piezo-resistive pressure sensors were placed on the wall. Light-weight sediment physical model and pressure and force measurements were performed with scale 1:18. The polyvinyl chloride light-weight particles used to model the prototype silty sand had a density of approximately 1 400 kg/m3 and a median diameter (d50) of 0.3 mm. Quantitative assessments of the seabed evolution were made using a measuring rod and also a laser scan survey. Testing demonstrated the occurrence of numerous impulsive wave impacts on the reflector (22%), induced not by direct wave breaking but mostly by wave run-up slamming on the top curved part of the wall. Wave forces of up to 264 kilonewtons and impulsive pressure spikes of up to 127 kilonewtons were measured. Maximum scour of -0.9 m was measured for the new seawall versus -0.6 m for the existing seawall, which is imputable to increased wave reflection (coefficient was 25.7 - 30.4% vs 23.4 - 28.6%). This paper presents a methodology for the setup and operation of a physical model in order to assess the hydrodynamic and morphodynamic processes at a beach seawall during storms events. It discusses the pros and cons of such methodology versus others, notably regarding structures peculiarities and model effects.

Keywords: beach, impacts, scour, seawall, waves

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Authors: Kristine Demilou Santiago

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In a context of a developing nation, how important is the role of Corporate Social Responsibility health programs? Is there a possibility that this will render a large impact in a society where health benefits are insufficient? The Philippine government has been in an unceasing battle to provide its citizens competitive health benefits through launching various health programs. As the efforts are being claimed by the government, the numbers just show that all the health benefits being offered such as PhilHealth health cards, medical missions and other subsidized government health benefits are not effective and sufficient at the minimum level. This is a major characteristic of a developing nation which the Philippine government is focusing on addressing as it becomes a national concern under the effects of poverty. Industrial companies, through Corporate Social Responsibility, are playing an important role in the aspiration to resolve this problem on health programs as supposed to be basic services to citizens of the Philippine government. The rise of commitment by these industrial companies to render health programs to communities as part of their corporate citizenship has covered a large portion of the basic health services that the Filipino citizens are supposed to be receiving. This is the most salient subject that a developing nation should focus on determining the important contribution of industrial companies present in their country as part of the citizens’ access to basic health services. The use of survey forms containing quantitative and qualitative questions which aim to give numerical figures and support answers as to the role of CSR Health programs in helping the communities receive the basic health services they need was the methodological procedure followed in this research. A sample population in a community where the largest industrial company in a province of the Philippines was taken through simple random sampling. The assumption is that this sample population which represents the whole of the community has the highest opportunities to access both the government health services and the CSR health program services of the industrial company located in their community. Results of the research have shown a significant level of participation by industrial companies through their CSR health programs in the attainment of basic health services that should be rendered by the Philippine government to its citizens as part of the state’s health benefits. In a context of a developing nation such as the Philippines, the role of Corporate Social Responsibility is beyond the expectation of initiating to resolve environmental and social issues. It is moving deeper in the concept of the corporate industries being a pillar of the government in catering the support needed by the individuals in the community for its development. As such, the concept of the presence of an industrial company in a community is said to be a parallel progress: by which when an industrial company expands because it is becoming more profitable, so is the community gaining the same step of progress in terms of socioeconomic development.

Keywords: basic health services, CSR health program, health services in a developing nation, Philippines health benefits

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Authors: Belloui Bouzid

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In this paper, broadband design of erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is demonstrated and proved experimentally. High and broad gain is covered in C and L bands. The used technique combines, in one configuration, two double passes with split band structure for the amplification of two traveled signals one for the C band and the other for L band. This new topology is to investigate the trends of high gain and wide amplification at different status of pumping power, input wavelength, and input signal power. The presented paper is to explore the performance of EDFA gain using what it can be called double pass double branch wide band amplification configuration. The obtained results show high gain and wide broadening range of 44.24 dB and 80 nm amplification respectively.

Keywords: erbium doped fiber amplifier, erbium doped fiber laser, optical amplification, fiber laser

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Authors: Biswaranjan D. Mohapatra, Ipsha Hota, Swarna P. Mantry, Nibedita Behera, Kumar S. K. Varadwaj

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Designing highly active and low-cost oxygen evolution (2H₂O → 4H⁺ + 4e⁻ + O₂) electrocatalyst is one of the most active areas of advanced energy research. Some precious metal-based electrocatalysts, such as IrO₂ and RuO₂, have shown excellent performance for oxygen evolution reaction (OER); however, they suffer from high-cost and low abundance which limits their applications. Recently, layered double hydroxides (LDHs), composed of layers of divalent and trivalent transition metal cations coordinated to hydroxide anions, have gathered attention as an alternative OER catalyst. However, LDHs are insulators and coupled with carbon materials for the electrocatalytic applications. Graphene covalently doped with nitrogen has been demonstrated to be an excellent electrocatalyst for energy conversion technologies such as; oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER) & hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, they operate at high overpotentials, significantly above the thermodynamic standard potentials. Recently, we reported remarkably enhanced catalytic activity of benzoate or 1-pyrenebutyrate functionalized N-doped graphene towards the ORR in alkaline medium. The molecular and heteroatom co-doping on graphene is expected to tune the electronic structure of graphene. Therefore, an innovative catalyst architecture, in which LDHs are anchored on aromatic acid functionalized ‘N’ doped graphene may presumably boost the OER activity to a new benchmark. Herein, we report fabrication of Co₂Fe-LDH on aromatic acid (AA) functionalized ‘N’ doped reduced graphene oxide (NG) and studied their OER activities in alkaline medium. In the first step, a novel polyol method is applied for synthesis of AA functionalized NG, which is well dispersed in aqueous medium. In the second step, Co₂Fe LDH were grown on AA functionalized NG by co-precipitation method. The hybrid samples are abbreviated as Co₂Fe LDH/AA-NG, where AA is either Benzoic acid or 1, 3-Benzene dicarboxylic acid (BDA) or 1, 3, 5 Benzene tricarboxylic acid (BTA). The crystal structure and morphology of the samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). These studies confirmed the growth of layered single phase LDH. The electrocatalytic OER activity of these hybrid materials was investigated by rotating disc electrode (RDE) technique on a glassy carbon electrode. The linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) on these catalyst samples were taken at 1600rpm. We observed significant OER performance enhancement in terms of onset potential and current density on Co₂Fe LDH/BTA-NG hybrid, indicating the synergic effect. This exploration of molecular functionalization effect in doped graphene and LDH system may provide an excellent platform for innovative design of OER catalysts.

Keywords: π-π functionalization, layered double hydroxide, oxygen evolution reaction, reduced graphene oxide

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Authors: Wentian Shi, Daming Shi, Maysam Orouskhani, Feng Tian

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Whereas currently the most prevalent deep learning methods require a large amount of data for training, few-shot learning tries to learn a model from limited data without extensive retraining. In this paper, we present a loss function based on triplet loss for solving few-shot problem using metric based learning. Instead of setting the margin distance in triplet loss as a constant number empirically, we propose an adaptive margin distance strategy to obtain the appropriate margin distance automatically. We implement the strategy in the deep siamese network for deep metric embedding, by utilizing an optimization approach by penalizing the worst case and rewarding the best. Our experiments on image recognition and co-segmentation model demonstrate that using our proposed triplet loss with adaptive margin distance can significantly improve the performance.

Keywords: few-shot learning, triplet network, adaptive margin, deep learning

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Authors: Tosin Osasona

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The Nigeria Police Force bears the constitutional mandate as the primary policing agency for the protection of life and property within Nigeria; however, the police have an historical ill-reputation for corruption, ineptitude and impunity. Using the institutional theory of police as the framework of analysis, the paper argues that the performance of the police in Nigeria mirrors the dominant political, social and economic institutions and the structural environment of the Nigerian state. The article puts in perspective the deliberate political decision to underfund the police, leaving officers of the force the extra task of foraging for funds to undertake the duty that the Nigeria state primarily exists for; the article further explores the nexus between corruption in the police in Nigeria and the issue of funding. The article finds that the Nigerian state, by deliberately under-funding the police, while expecting the agency to perform its duties, has indirectly sanctioned the corruption of the force and approved the cooption of the institution of police and policing for private use in Nigeria.

Keywords: Police Corruption, Funding , Informal Taxation, POlice Checkpoint

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Authors: A. T. Al-Isawi, P. E. F. Collins

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The behaviour of structures exposed to fire after an earthquake is not a new area of engineering research, but there remain a number of areas where further work is required. Such areas relate to the way in which seismic excitation is applied to a structure, taking into account the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) and the method of analysis, in addition to identifying the excitation load properties. The selection of earthquake data input for use in nonlinear analysis and the method of analysis are still challenging issues. Thus, realistic artificial ground motion input data must be developed to certify that site properties parameters adequately describe the effects of the nonlinear inelastic behaviour of the system and that the characteristics of these parameters are coherent with the characteristics of the target parameters. Conversely, ignoring the significance of some attributes, such as frequency content, soil site properties and earthquake parameters may lead to misleading results, due to the misinterpretation of required input data and the incorrect synthesise of analysis hypothesis. This paper presents a study of the post-earthquake fire (PEF) performance of a multi-storey steel-framed building resting on soft clay, taking into account the effects of the nonlinear inelastic behaviour of the structure and soil, and the soil-structure interaction (SSI). Structures subjected to an earthquake may experience various levels of damage; the geometrical damage, which indicates the change in the initial structure’s geometry due to the residual deformation as a result of plastic behaviour, and the mechanical damage which identifies the degradation of the mechanical properties of the structural elements involved in the plastic range of deformation. Consequently, the structure presumably experiences partial structural damage but is then exposed to fire under its new residual material properties, which may result in building failure caused by a decrease in fire resistance. This scenario would be more complicated if SSI was also considered. Indeed, most earthquake design codes ignore the probability of PEF as well as the effect that SSI has on the behaviour of structures, in order to simplify the analysis procedure. Therefore, the design of structures based on existing codes which neglect the importance of PEF and SSI can create a significant risk of structural failure. In order to examine the criteria for the behaviour of a structure under PEF conditions, a two-dimensional nonlinear elasto-plastic model is developed using ABAQUS software; the effects of SSI are included. Both geometrical and mechanical damages have been taken into account after the earthquake analysis step. For comparison, an identical model is also created, which does not include the effects of soil-structure interaction. It is shown that damage to structural elements is underestimated if SSI is not included in the analysis, and the maximum percentage reduction in fire resistance is detected in the case when SSI is included in the scenario. The results are validated using the literature.

Keywords: Abaqus Software, Finite Element Analysis, post-earthquake fire, seismic analysis, soil-structure interaction

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Authors: Nasser S. Shebka

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Fuzzy logic is used in complex adaptive systems where classical tools of representing knowledge are unproductive. Nevertheless, the incorporation of fuzzy logic, as it’s the case with all artificial intelligence tools, raised some inconsistencies and limitations in dealing with increased complexity systems and rules that apply to real-life situations and hinders the ability of the inference process of such systems, but it also faces some inconsistencies between inferences generated fuzzy rules of complex or imprecise knowledge-based systems. The use of fuzzy logic enhanced the capability of knowledge representation in such applications that requires fuzzy representation of truth values or similar multi-value constant parameters derived from multi-valued logic, which set the basis for the three t-norms and their based connectives which are actually continuous functions and any other continuous t-norm can be described as an ordinal sum of these three basic ones. However, some of the attempts to solve this dilemma were an alteration to fuzzy logic by means of non-monotonic logic, which is used to deal with the defeasible inference of expert systems reasoning, for example, to allow for inference retraction upon additional data. However, even the introduction of non-monotonic fuzzy reasoning faces a major issue of conflict resolution for which many principles were introduced, such as; the specificity principle and the weakest link principle. The aim of our work is to improve the logical representation and functional modelling of AI systems by presenting a method of resolving existing and potential rule conflicts by representing temporal modalities within defeasible inference rule-based systems. Our paper investigates the possibility of resolving fuzzy rules conflict in a non-monotonic fuzzy reasoning-based system by introducing temporal modalities and Kripke's general weak modal logic operators in order to expand its knowledge representation capabilities by means of flexibility in classifying newly generated rules, and hence, resolving potential conflicts between these fuzzy rules. We were able to address the aforementioned problem of our investigation by restructuring the inference process of the fuzzy rule-based system. This is achieved by using time-branching temporal logic in combination with restricted first-order logic quantifiers, as well as propositional logic to represent classical temporal modality operators. The resulting findings not only enhance the flexibility of complex rule-base systems inference process but contributes to the fundamental methods of building rule bases in such a manner that will allow for a wider range of applicable real-life situations derived from a quantitative and qualitative knowledge representational perspective.

Keywords: fuzzy rule-based systems, fuzzy tense inference, intelligent systems, temporal modalities

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Authors: Alicia Ettlin

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Amid the rise of neoliberalism to the leading economic policy model in Western societies in the 1980s, people have started to internalise a neoliberal way of thinking, whereby the human body has become an entity that can and needs to be precisely managed through free yet rational decision-making processes. The neoliberal citizen has consequently become an entrepreneur of the self who is free, independent, rational, productive and responsible for themselves, their health and wellbeing as well as their appearance. The focus on individuals as entrepreneurs who manage their bodies through the rationally thinking mind has, however, become increasingly criticised for viewing the social actor as ‘disembodied’, as a detached, social actor whose powerful mind governs over the passive body. On the other hand, the discourse around embodiment seeks to connect rational decision-making processes to the dominant neoliberal discourse which creates an embodied understanding that the body, just as other areas of people’s lives, can and should be shaped, monitored and managed through cognitive and rational thinking. This perspective offers an understanding of the body regarding its connections with the social environment that reaches beyond the debates around mind-body binary thinking. Hence, following this argument, body management should not be thought of as either solely guided by embodied discourses nor as merely falling into a mind-body dualism, but rather, simultaneously and inseparably as both at once. The descriptive, qualitative analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with young Australian amateur athletes between the age of 18 and 24 has shown that most participants are interested in measuring and managing their body to create self-knowledge and self-improvement. The participants thereby connected self-improvement to weight loss, muscle gain or simply staying fit and healthy. Self-knowledge refers to body measurements including weight, BMI or body fat percentage. Self-management and self-knowledge that are reliant on one another to take rational and well-thought-out decisions, are both characteristic values of the neoliberal doctrine. A neoliberal way of thinking and looking after the body has also by many been connected to rewarding themselves for their discipline, hard work or achievement of specific body management goals (e.g. eating chocolate for reaching the daily step count goal). A few participants, however, have shown resistance against these neoliberal values, and in particular, against the precise monitoring and management of the body with the help of self-tracking devices. Ultimately, however, it seems that most participants have internalised the dominant discourses around self-responsibility, and by association, a sense of duty to discipline their body in normative ways. Even those who have indicated their resistance against body work and body management practices that follow neoliberal thinking and measurement systems, are aware and have internalised the concept of the rational operating mind that needs or should decide how to look after the body in terms of health but also appearance ideals. The discussion around the collected data thereby shows that embodiment and the mind/body dualism constitute two connected, rather than two separate or opposing concepts.

Keywords: dualism, embodiment, mind, neoliberalism

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Authors: Jamuna Konda, Umamaheswara Reddy Karumuri, Sriramya Muthugi, Varun Pishati, Ravi Shakya,

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This paper investigates the challenges involved in mathematical modeling of plant simulation models ensuring the performance of the plant models much closer to the real time physical model. The paper includes the analysis performed and investigation on different methods of modeling, design and development for plant model. Issues which impact the design time, model accuracy as real time model, tool dependence are analyzed. The real time hardware plant would be a combination of multiple physical models. It is more challenging to test the complete system with all possible test scenarios. There are possibilities of failure or damage of the system due to any unwanted test execution on real time.

Keywords: model based design (MBD), MATLAB, Simulink, stateflow, plant model, real time model, real-time workshop (RTW), target language compiler (TLC)

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Authors: Qiang Guo, Ruying Qi

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This project aims to trace the developmental patterns of a child's Mandarin and English from China to Australia from age 3; 03 till 5; 06. In childhood bilingual studies, there is an assumption that age 3 is the dividing line between simultaneous bilinguals and sequential bilinguals. Determining similarities and differences between Bilingual First Language Acquisition, Early Second Language Acquisition, and Second Language Acquisition is of great theoretical significance. Studies on Bilingual First Language Acquisition, hereafter, BFLA in the past three decades have shown that the grammatical development of bilingual children progresses through the same developmental trajectories as their monolingual counterparts. Cross-linguistic interaction does not show changes of the basic grammatical knowledge, even in the weaker language. While BFLA studies show consistent results under the conditions of adequate input and meaningful interactional context, the research findings of Early Second Language Acquisition (ESLA) have demonstrated that this cohort proceeds their early English differently from both BFLA and SLA. The different development could be attributed to the age of migration, input pattern, and their Environmental Languages (Lε). In the meantime, the dynamic relationship between the two languages is an issue to invite further attention. The present study attempts to fill this gap. The child in this case study started acquiring L1 Mandarin from birth in China, where the environmental language (Lε) coincided with L1 Mandarin. When she migrated to Australia at 3;06, where the environmental language (Lε) was L2 English, her Mandarin exposure was reduced. On the other hand, she received limited English input starting from 1; 02 in China, where the environmental language (Lε) was L1 Mandarin, a non-English environment. When she relocated to Australia at 3; 06, where the environmental language (Lε) coincided with L2 English, her English exposure significantly increased. The child’s linguistic profile provides an opportunity to explore: (1) What does the child’s English developmental route look like? (2) What does the L1 Mandarin developmental pattern look like in different environmental languages? (3) How do input and environmental language interact in shaping the bilingual child’s linguistic repertoire? In order to answer these questions, two linguistic areas are selected as the focus of the investigation, namely, subject realization and wh-questions. The chosen areas are contrastive in structure but perform the same semantic functions in the two linguistically distant languages and can serve as an ideal testing ground for exploring the developmental path in the two languages. The longitudinal case study adopts a combined approach of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Two years’ Mandarin and English data are examined, and comparisons are made with age-matched monolinguals in each language in CHILDES. To the author’s best knowledge, this study is the first of this kind examining a Mandarin-English bilingual child's bilingual development at a critical age, in different input patterns, and in different environmental languages (Lε). It also expands the scope of the theory of Lε, adding empirical evidence on the relationship between input and Lε in bilingual acquisition.

Keywords: bilingual development, age, input, environmental language (Le)

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Salimpour, Amir Dehshiri

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In the present article, we investigate experimental laminar forced convective heat transfer specifications of TiO2/water nanofluids through conduits with different cross sections. We check the effects of different parameters such as cross sectional shape, Reynolds number and concentration of nanoparticles in stable suspension on increasing convective heat transfer by designing and assembling of an experimental apparatus. The results demonstrate adding a little amount of nanoparticles to the base fluid improves heat transfer behavior in conduits. Moreover, conduit with circular cross-section has better performance compared to the square and triangular cross sections. However, conduits with square and triangular cross sections have more relative heat transfer enhancement than conduit with circular cross section.

Keywords: nanofluid, cross-sectional shape, TiO2, convection

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Authors: Beriache Abderazik

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It is clear that the psychological effects of noise and physiological eloquent on the workers, what will inevitably affect the performance of both productivity and efficiency in all its aspects, industrial noise became among the most prominent modern professional problems, That require study and analysis in order to arrive at solutions and ways that you can reduce the effects of industrial noise. These factors, in addition to other reasons, made us try in this research to know the real impact of industrial noise on the professional satisfaction of workers. In light of this title we have identified the following general problem: - Is the professional satisfaction factor varies depending on the noise level in the work environment? For the purpose of ascertaining the veracity of the assumptions, we have a comparative study between two samples of equal workers, the first sample is working under the influence of industrial noise severe about (100 Db), and the second sample is working under the influence of industrial noise is low (about 63 Db), and applied them test the professional satisfaction. The results support the hypotheses and confirm all sincerity.

Keywords: industrial noise, job satisfaction, the psychological effects of noise, work environment

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Authors: Maryam Abata, Moulhime El Bekkali, Said Mazer, Catherine Algani, Mahmoud Mehdi

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One major problem of most electronic systems operating in the millimeter wave band is the signal generation with a high purity and a stable carrier frequency. This problem is overcome by using the combination of a signal with a low frequency local oscillator (LO) and several stages of frequency multipliers. The use of these frequency multipliers to create millimeter-wave signals is an attractive alternative to direct generation signal. Therefore, the isolation problem of the local oscillator from the other stages is always present, which leads to have various mechanisms that can disturb the oscillator performance, thus a buffer amplifier is often included in oscillator outputs. In this paper, we present the study and design of a buffer amplifier in the mm-wave band using a 0.15μm pHEMT from UMS foundry. This amplifier will be used as a part of a frequency quadrupler at 60 GHz.

Keywords: Mm-wave band, local oscillator, frequency quadrupler, buffer amplifier

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Authors: Marcelo Franzkowiak Stahlschmidt

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This paper discusses the experiments carried out based on the wire drawing process analysis and later annealing on lead furnace on a galvanizing line. Using Design of Experiments methodology, the aim of this work is to understand the occurrence of lead entrainment originating from the annealed wires in order to decrease this problem. Wire samples were collected from wire drawing machines and galvanizing line and submitted to surface roughness analysis and its implications on lead drag out based on wire speed, wire diameter, lead bath temperature, thermal capacity of the lead kettle, wire surface condition, wire roughness and wire superficial cleanliness. Proposals to decrease lead drag out were made in order to increase wire drawing machines and galvanizing line performance.

Keywords: wire drawing process, galvanizing, heat treatment, lead

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Authors: Byung Ho Jung, Ji Eun Shin, Dong Hoon Lim

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Rhipe that integrates R and Hadoop environment made it possible to process and analyze massive amounts of data using a distributed processing environment. In this paper, we implemented multiple regression analysis using Rhipe with various data sizes of actual data. Experimental results for comparing the performance of our Rhipe with stats and biglm packages available on bigmemory, showed that our Rhipe was more fast than other packages owing to paralleling processing with increasing the number of map tasks as the size of data increases. We also compared the computing speeds of pseudo-distributed and fully-distributed modes for configuring Hadoop cluster. The results showed that fully-distributed mode was faster than pseudo-distributed mode, and computing speeds of fully-distributed mode were faster as the number of data nodes increases.

Keywords: big data, Hadoop, Parallel regression analysis, R, Rhipe

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Authors: Paola Molteni, Luigi d’Alonzo

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Background: Sensory issues are now considered one of the key aspects in defining and diagnosing autism, changing the perspectives on behavioural analysis and intervention in mainstream educational services. However, Italian teachers’ training is yet not specific on the topic of autism and its sensory-related effects and this research investigates the teacher’s capability in understanding the student’s needs and his/her challenging behaviours considering sensory perceptions. Objectives: The research aims to analyse mainstream schools teachers’ awareness on students’ sensory perceptions and how this affects classroom inclusion and learning process. The research questions are: i) Are teachers able to identify student’s sensory issues?; ii) Are trained teachers more able to identify sensory problems then untrained ones?; iii) What is the impact of sensory issues on inclusion in mainstream classrooms?; iv) What should teachers know about autistic sensory dimensions? Methods: This research was designed as a pilot study that involves a multi-methods approach, including action and collaborative research methodology. The designed research allows the researcher to catch the complexity of a province school district (from kindergarten to high school) through a deep detailed analysis of selected aspects. The researcher explored the questions described above through 133 questionnaires and 6 focus groups. The qualitative and quantitative data collected during the research were analysed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results: Mainstream schools teachers are not able to confidently recognise sensory issues of children included in the classroom. The research underlines: how professionals with no specific training on autism are not able to recognise sensory problems in students on the spectrum; how hearing and sight issues have higher impact on classroom inclusion and student’s learning process; how a lack of understanding is often followed by misinterpretations of the impact of sensory issues and challenging behaviours. Conclusions: As this research has shown, promoting and enhancing the importance of understanding sensory issues related to autism is fundamental to enable mainstream schools teachers to define educational and life-long plans able to properly answer the student’s needs and support his/her real inclusion in the classroom. This study is a good example of how the educational research can meet and help the daily practice in working with people on the autism spectrum and support the training design for mainstream school teachers: the emerging need of designed preparation on sensory issues is fundamental to be considered when planning school district in-service training programmes, specifically declined for inclusive services.

Keywords: autism spectrum condition, scholastic inclusion, sensory overload, teacher's training

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Authors: Gadinga Walter Forje, Martin Ngankam Tchamba, Nyong Princely Awazi, Barnabas Neba Nfornka

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Ecotourism is viewed as a double edge sword for the enhancement of conservation and local livelihood within a protected landscape. The Campo Ma’an National Park (CMNP) adopted ecotourism in its management plan as a strategic axis for better management of the park. The growing importance of ecotourism as a strategy for the sustainable management of CMNP and its environs requires adequate information to bolster the sector. This study was carried out between November 2018 and September 2021, with the main objective to contribute to the sustainable management of the CMNP through suggestions for enhancing the capacity of ecotourism in and around the park. More specifically, the study aimed at; 1) Analyse the governance of ecotourism in the CMNP and its surrounding; 2) Assessing the impact of ecotourism on local livelihood around the CMNP; 3) Evaluating the contribution of ecotourism to biodiversity conservation in and around the CMNP; 4) Evaluate the determinants of ecotourism possibilities in achieving sustainable livelihood and biodiversity conservation in and around the CMNP. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were obtained from household surveys (N=124), focus group discussions (N=8), and key informant interviews (N=16). Data collected were coded and imputed into SPSS (version 19.0) software and Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Findings from the Chi-square test revealed overall poor ecotourism governance in and around the CMNP, with benefit sharing (X2 = 122.774, p <0.01) and conflict management (X2 = 90.839, p<0.01) viewed to be very poor. For the majority of the local population sampled, 65% think ecotourism does not contribute to local livelihood around CMNP. The main factors influencing the impact of ecotourism around the CMNP on the local population’s livelihood were gender (logistic regression (β) = 1.218; p = 0.000); and level of education (logistic regression (β) = 0.442; p = 0.000). Furthermore, 55.6% of the local population investigated believed ecotourism activities do not contribute to the biodiversity conservation of CMNP. Spearman correlation between socio-economic variables and ecotourism impact on biodiversity conservation indicated relationships with gender (r = 0.200, p = 0.032), main occupation (r = 0.300 p = 0.012), time spent in the community (r = 0.287 p = 0.017), and number of children (r =-0.286 p = 0.018). Variables affecting ecotourism impact on biodiversity conservation were age (logistic regression (β) = -0.683; p = 0.037) and gender (logistic regression (β) = 0.917; p = 0.045). This study recommends the development of ecotourism-friendly policies that can accelerate Public Private Partnership for the sustainable management of the CMNP as a commitment toward good governance. It also recommends the development of gender-sensitive ecotourism packages, with fair opportunities for rural women and more parity in benefit sharing to improve livelihood and contribute more to biodiversity conservation in and around the Park.

Keywords: biodiversity conservation, Campo Ma’an national park, ecotourism, ecotourism governance, rural livelihoods, protected area management

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Authors: Mina Zaky Sarofim Zaky

Abstract:

Experiential marketing is a form of marketing that offers a unique integration of experiential and entertainment elements into a product or service. Experiential marketing is defined as an unforgettable experience that penetrates the customer's mind. Customer satisfaction is also defined as the emotional response to the experience provided with the purchased product or service. Experiential marketing activities can, therefore, affect the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this context, the study aims to determine the relationship between experiential marketing, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in cosmetic products in Konya. The least squares method (PLS) was used to analyze the research data. Existing research has shown that experiential marketing is a significant predictor of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and that experiential marketing has a positive impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Keywords: internet, marketing, tourism, tourism management corporate responsibility, employee organizational performance, internal marketing, internal customer experiential marketing, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, social sciences

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Authors: Rama Bhargava

Abstract:

In the current paper, numerical simulation has been performed for the two-dimensional time dependent Pennes’ heat transfer model which is solved for irregular diseased tumor cells. An elliptic cryoprobe of varying sizes is taken at the center of the computational domain in such a manner that the location of the probe is fixed throughout the computation. The phase transition occurs due to the effect of probe with infusion of different nanoparticles Au, Al₂O₃, Fe₃O₄. The cooling performance of these nanoparticles injected at very low temperature, has been studied by implementing a hybrid FEM/EFGM method in which the whole domain is decomposed into two subdomains. The results are shown in terms of temperature profile inside the computational domain. Rate of cooling is obtained for various nanoparticles and it is observed that infusion of Au nanoparticles is very much efficient in increasing the heating rate than other nanoparticles. Such numerical scheme has direct applications where the domain is irregular.

Keywords: cryosurgery, hybrid EFGM/FEM, nanoparticles, simulation

Procedia PDF Downloads 235