Search results for: share of electricity generation

Authors: Miriam Sosa, Edgar Ortiz, Alejandra Cabello

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This paper examines the volatility changes and leverage effects of the MILA stock markets and their changes since the 2007 global financial crisis. This group integrates the stock markets from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Volatility changes and leverage effects are tested with a symmetric GARCH (1,1) and asymmetric TARCH (1,1) models with a dummy variable in the variance equation. Daily closing prices of the stock indexes of Chile (IPSA), Colombia (COLCAP), Mexico (IPC) and Peru (IGBVL) are examined for the period 2003:01 to 2015:02. The evidence confirms the presence of an overall increase in asymmetric market volatility in the Peruvian share market since the 2007 crisis.

Keywords: financial crisis, Latin American Integrated Market, TARCH, GARCH

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Authors: Atif Zafar Khan, Swarnendra Singh, Imrana Naseem

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Breast cancer is one of the most frequent malignancies in women worldwide and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Therefore, there is a need to identify new chemotherapeutic strategies for cancer treatment. Unlike normal cells, cancer cells contain elevated copper levels which play an integral role in angiogenesis. Copper is an important metal ion associated with the chromatin DNA, particularly with guanine. Thus, targeting copper via copper-specific chelators in cancer cells can serve as effective anticancer strategy. Keeping in view these facts, we evaluated the anticancer activity and copper-dependent cytotoxic effect of coumestrol (phytoestrogen in soybean products) in breast cancer MCF-7 cells. Coumestrol inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis in MCF-7 cells, which was prevented by copper chelator neocuproine and ROS scavengers. Coumestrol treatment induced ROS generation coupled to DNA fragmentation, up-regulation of p53/p21, cell cycle arrest at G1/S phase, mitochondrial membrane depolarization and caspases 9/3 activation. All these effects were suppressed by ROS scavengers and neocuproine. These results suggest that coumestrol targets elevated copper for redox cycling to generate ROS leading to DNA fragmentation. DNA damage leads to p53 up-regulation which directs the cell cycle arrest at G1/S phase and promotes caspase-dependent apoptosis of MCF-7 cells. In conclusion, coumestrol induces pro-oxidant cell death by chelating cellular copper to produce copper-coumestrol complexes that engages in redox cycling in breast cancer cells. Thus, targeting elevated copper levels might be a potential therapeutic strategy for selective cytotoxic action against malignant cells.

Keywords: apoptosis, breast cancer, copper chelation, coumestrol, reactive oxygens species, redox cycling

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Authors: Sunil Sangwan, Narayan Chandra Nayak

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Over the last few decades, Indian banking system has achieved remarkable growth in its credit volume. However, one of the most disturbing facts about this growth is the uneven distribution of financial services across regions. Having witnessed limited success from all the earlier efforts towards financial inclusion targeting the rural poor and the underprivileged, provision of microfinance, of late, has emerged as a supplementary mechanism. There are two prominent modes of microfinance distribution in India namely Bank-SHG linkage (SBLP) and private Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Ironically, such efforts also seem to have failed to achieve the desired targets as the microfinance services have witnessed skewed distribution across the states of the country. This study attempts to make a comparative analysis of the geographical skew of the SBLP and MFI in India and examine the factors influencing their regional distribution. The results indicate that microfinance services are largely concentrated in the southern region, accounting for about 50% of all microfinance clients and 49% of all microfinance loan portfolios. This is distantly followed by an eastern region where client outreach is close to 25% only. The north-eastern, northern, central, and western regions lag far behind in microfinance sectors, accounting for only 4%, 4%, 10%, and 7 % client outreach respectively. The penetration of SHGs is equally skewed, with the southern region accounting for 46% of client outreach and 70% of loan portfolios followed by an eastern region with 21% of client outreach and 13% of the loan portfolio. Contrarily, north-eastern, northern, central, western and eastern regions account for 5%, 5%, 10%, and 13% of client outreach and 3%, 3%, 7%, and 4% of loan portfolios respectively. The study examines the impact of literacy rate, rural poverty, population density, primary sector share, non-farm activities, loan default behavior and bank penetration on the microfinance penetration. The study is limited to 17 major states of the country over the period 2008-2014. The results of the GMM estimation indicate the significant positive impact of literacy rate, non-farm activities and population density on microfinance penetration across the states, while the rise in loan default seems to deter it. Rural poverty shows the significant negative impact on the spread of SBLP, while it has a positive impact on MFI penetration, hence indicating the policy of exclusion being adhered to by the formal financial system especially towards the poor. However, MFIs seem to be working as substitute mechanisms to banks to fill the gap. The findings of the study are a pointer towards enhancing financial literacy, non-farm activities, rural bank penetration and containing loan default for achieving greater microfinance prevalence.

Keywords: bank penetration, literacy rate, microfinance, primary sector share, rural non-farm activities, rural poverty

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Authors: A. A. A. Aboalnour, Ahmed M. Amasaib, Mohammed-Almujtaba A. Mohammed-Farah, Abdelhakam, A. Noreldien

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This paper presents a design and study of Parabolic Trough Solar Collector (PTC). Mathematical models were used in this work to find the direct and reflected solar radiation from the air layer on the surface of the earth per hour based on the total daily solar radiation on a horizontal surface. Also mathematical models had been used to calculate the radiation of the tilted surfaces. Most of the ingredients used in this project as previews data required on several solar energy applications, thermal simulation, and solar power systems. In addition, mathematical models had been used to study the flow of the fluid inside the tube (receiver), and study the effect of direct and reflected solar radiation on the pressure, temperature, speed, kinetic energy and forces of fluid inside the tube. Finally, the mathematical models had been used to study the (PTC) performances and estimate its thermal efficiency.

Keywords: CFD, experimental, mathematical models, parabolic trough, radiation

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Authors: Sudha Subramani, Hua Wang

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Domestic Violence (DV) against women is now recognized to be a serious and widespread problem worldwide. There is a growing concern that violence against women has a global public health impact, as well as a violation of human rights. From the existing statistical surveys, it is revealed that there exists a strong relationship between DV and health issues of women like bruising, lacerations, depression, anxiety, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, hyper-arousal, emotional distress, sexually transmitted diseases and so on. This social problem is still considered as behind the closed doors issue and stigmatized topic. Women conceal their sufferings from family and friends, as they experience a lack of trust in others, feelings of shame and embarrassment among the society. Hence, women survivors of DV experience some barriers in seeking the support of specialized services such as health care access, crisis support, and legal guidance. Fortunately, with the popularity of social media like Facebook and Twitter, people share their opinions and emotional feelings to seek the social and emotional support, for sympathetic encouragement, to show compassion and empathy among the public. Considering the DV, social media plays a predominant role in creating the awareness and promoting the support services to the public, as we live in the golden era of social media. The various professional people like the public health researchers, clinicians, psychologists, social workers, national family health organizations, lawyers, and victims or their family and friends share the unprecedentedly valuable information (personal opinions and experiences) in a single platform to improve the social welfare of the community. Though each tweet or post contains a less informational value, the consolidation of millions of messages can generate actionable knowledge and provide valuable insights about the public opinion in general. Hence, this paper reports on an exploratory analysis of the effectiveness of social media for unobtrusive assessment of attitudes and awareness towards DV. In this paper, mixed methods such as qualitative analysis and text mining approaches are used to understand the social media disclosures of DV through the lenses of opinion sharing, anonymity, and support seeking. The results of this study could be helpful to avoid the cost of wide scale surveys, while still maintaining appropriate research conditions is to leverage the abundance of data publicly available on the web. Also, this analysis with data enrichment and consolidation would be useful in assisting advocacy and national family health organizations to provide information about resources and support, raise awareness and counter common stigmatizing attitudes about DV.

Keywords: domestic violence, social media, social stigma and support, women health

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Authors: Vijay Vir Singh

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In this paper, we focus on the reliability and performance analysis of Computer Centre (CC) at Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. The CC consists of three servers: one database mail server, one redundant and one for sharing with the client computers in the CC (called as local server). Observing the different possibilities of functioning of the CC, analysis has been done to evaluate the various reliability characteristics of the system. The system can completely fail due to failure of router, redundant server before repairing the mail server, and switch failure. The system can also partially fail when local server fails. The system can also fail completely due to a cooling failure, electricity failure or some natural calamity like earthquake, fire etc. All the failure rates are assumed to be constant while repair follows two types of distributions: general and Gumbel-Hougaard family copula.

Keywords: reliability, availability Gumbel-Hougaard family copula, MTTF, internet data centre

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Authors: Szu-Chieh Yu, Pei-Chin Chiand, Chih-Yi Lin, Yi-Wen Chien

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UV radiation from sunlight cause numbers of acute and chronic skin damage which can result in inflammation, immune changes, physical changes and DNA damage that facilitates skin aging and the development of skin carcinogenesis. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated by excessive solar UV radiation, resulting in oxidative damage to cellar components, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. Thus, antioxidation plays an important role that protects skin against ROS-induced injury. Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is an important Chinese medicine contained abundance flavones and hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA) which is main active ingredient. HSYA is part of quinochalcone and has unique structures of hydroxy groups that provided the antioxidant effect. In this study, the aim was to investigate the protective role of HYSA in human keratinocytes (HaCaT) against UVA-induced oxidative damage and the possible mechanism. The HaCaT cells were UVA-irradiated and the effects of HYSA on cell viability, reactive oxygen species generation, DNA fragmentation and lipid peroxidation were measured. The mRNA expression of matrix metalloproteinase Ι (MMP Ι), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) were determined by RT-PCR. In this study, UVA exposure lead to decrease in cell viability and increase in reactive oxygen species generation in HaCaT cells. HYSA could effectively increase the viability of HaCaT cells after UVA exposure and protect them from UVA-induced oxidative stress. Moreover, HYSA can reduce inflammation through inhibition the mRNA expression of MMP Ι and COX-2. Our results suggest that HSYA can act as a free radical scavenger while keratinocytes were photodamaged. HYSA could be a useful natural medicine for the protection of epidermal cells from UVA-induced damage and will be developed into products for skin care.

Keywords: HaCaT keratinocytes, hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA), MMP Ι, oxidative stress

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Authors: Same Noel Ngando, Yakub Abdulfatai Olatunji

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Renewable energy micro-grids, such as those powered by solar or wind energy, are often intermittent in nature. This means that the amount of energy generated by these systems can vary depending on weather conditions or other factors, which can make it difficult to ensure a steady supply of power. To address this issue, energy storage systems have been developed to increase the reliability of renewable energy micro-grids. Battery systems have been the dominant energy storage technology for renewable energy micro-grids. Batteries can store large amounts of energy in a relatively small and compact package, making them easy to install and maintain in a micro-grid setting. Additionally, batteries can be quickly charged and discharged, allowing them to respond quickly to changes in energy demand. However, the process involved in recycling batteries is quite costly and difficult. An alternative energy storage system that is gaining popularity is hydrogen storage. Hydrogen is a versatile energy carrier that can be produced from renewable energy sources such as solar or wind. It can be stored in large quantities at low cost, making it suitable for long-distance mass storage. Unlike batteries, hydrogen does not degrade over time, so it can be stored for extended periods without the need for frequent maintenance or replacement, allowing it to be used as a backup power source when the micro-grid is not generating enough energy to meet demand. When hydrogen is needed, it can be converted back into electricity through a fuel cell. Energy consumption data is got from a particular residential area in Daegu, South Korea, and the data is processed and analyzed. From the analysis, the total energy demand is calculated, and different hybrid energy system configurations are designed using HOMER Pro (Hybrid Optimization for Multiple Energy Resources) and MATLAB software. A techno-economic and environmental comparison and life cycle assessment (LCA) of the different configurations using battery and hydrogen as storage systems are carried out. The various scenarios included PV-hydrogen-grid system, PV-hydrogen-grid-wind, PV-hydrogen-grid-biomass, PV-hydrogen-wind, PV-hydrogen-biomass, biomass-hydrogen, wind-hydrogen, PV-battery-grid-wind, PV- battery -grid-biomass, PV- battery -wind, PV- battery -biomass, and biomass- battery. From the analysis, the least cost system for the location was the PV-hydrogen-grid system, with a net present cost of about USD 9,529,161. Even though all scenarios were environmentally friendly, taking into account the recycling cost and pollution involved in battery systems, all systems with hydrogen as a storage system produced better results. In conclusion, hydrogen is becoming a very prominent energy storage solution for renewable energy micro-grids. It is easier to store compared with electric power, so it is suitable for long-distance mass storage. Hydrogen storage systems have several advantages over battery systems, including flexibility, long-term stability, and low environmental impact. The cost of hydrogen storage is still relatively high, but it is expected to decrease as more hydrogen production, and storage infrastructure is built. With the growing focus on renewable energy and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen is expected to play an increasingly important role in the energy storage landscape.

Keywords: renewable energy systems, microgrid, hydrogen production, energy storage systems

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Authors: H. M. Farghally, N. M. Ahmed, H. T. El-Madany, D. M. Atia, F. H. Fahmy

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Energy is required in almost every aspect of human activities and development of any nation in this world. Increasing fossil fuel price, energy security and climate change have important bearings on sustainable development of any nation. The renewable energy technology is considered one of the drastic approaches taken over the world to reduce the energy problem. The preservation of vegetables by freezing is one of the most important methods of retaining quality in agricultural products over long-term storage periods. Freezing factories show high demand of energy for both heat and electricity; the hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) systems could be used in order to meet this requirement. This paper presents PV/T system design for freezing factory. Also, the complete mathematical modeling and Matlab Simulink of PV/T collector is introduced. The sensitivity analysis for the manufacturing parameters of PV/T collector is carried out to study their effect on the thermal and electrical efficiency.

Keywords: renewable energy, hybrid PV/T system, sensitivity analysis, ecological sciences

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Authors: Djamel Saba, Fatima Zohra Laallam, Brahim Berbaoui

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This paper presents a contribution to the design of a multi-agent for the energy management system in a hybrid energy system (SEH). The multi-agent-based energy-coordination management system (MA-ECMS) is based mainly on coordination between agents. The agents share the tasks and exchange information through communications protocols to achieve the main goal. This intelligent system can fully manage the consumption and production or simply to make proposals for action he thinks is best. The initial step is to give a presentation for the system that we want to model in order to understand all the details as much as possible. In our case, it is to implement a system for simulating a process control of energy management.

Keywords: communications protocols, control process, energy management, hybrid energy system, modelization, multi-agents system, simulation

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Authors: Qiuying Li

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It is a shared opinion that sustainable development requires a system discontinuity, meaning that radical changes in the way we produce and consume are needed. Within this framework there is an emerging understanding that an important contribution to this change can be directly linked to decisions taken in the design phase of products, services and systems. Design schools have therefore to be able to provide design students with a broad knowledge and effective Design for Sustainability tools, in order to enable a new generation of designers in playing an active role in reorienting our consumption and production patterns.

Keywords: design for sustainability, services, systems, materials, ecomaterials

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Authors: Habib Gorine, Rabia Saleh

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Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks are the special type of wireless networks which share common security requirements with other networks such as confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and availability, which need to be addressed in order to secure data transfer through the network. Their routing protocols are vulnerable to various malicious attacks which could have a devastating consequence on data security. In this paper, three types of attacks such as selfish, gray hole, and black hole attacks have been applied to the two most important routing protocols in MANET named dynamic source routing and ad-hoc on demand distance vector in order to analyse and compare the impact of these attacks on the Network performance in terms of throughput, average delay, packet loss, and consumption of energy using NS2 simulator.

Keywords: MANET, wireless networks, routing protocols, malicious attacks, wireless networks simulation

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Authors: Tayyaba Azim, Bibi Amina

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The increase in the popularity of opinion mining with the rapid growth in the availability of social networks has attracted a lot of opportunities for research in the various domains of Sentiment Analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP) using Artificial Intelligence approaches. The latest trend allows the public to actively use the internet for analyzing an individual’s opinion and explore the effectiveness of published facts. The main theme of this research is to account the public opinion on the most crucial and extensively discussed development projects, China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), considered as a game changer due to its promise of bringing economic prosperity to the region. So far, to the best of our knowledge, the theme of CPEC has not been analyzed for sentiment determination through the ML approach. This research aims to demonstrate the use of ML approaches to spontaneously analyze the public sentiment on Twitter tweets particularly about CPEC. Support Vector Machine SVM is used for classification task classifying tweets into positive, negative and neutral classes. Word2vec and TF-IDF features are used with the SVM model, a comparison of the trained model on manually labelled tweets and automatically generated lexicon is performed. The contributions of this work are: Development of a sentiment analysis system for public tweets on CPEC subject, construction of an automatic generation of the lexicon of public tweets on CPEC, different themes are identified among tweets and sentiments are assigned to each theme. It is worth noting that the applications of web mining that empower e-democracy by improving political transparency and public participation in decision making via social media have not been explored and practised in Pakistan region on CPEC yet.

Keywords: machine learning, natural language processing, sentiment analysis, support vector machine, Word2vec

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Authors: Loai Abdallah, Malik Yousef

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A domain space for the data should reflect the actual similarity between objects. Since objects belonging to the same cluster usually share some common traits even though their geometric distance might be relatively large. In general, the Euclidean distance of data points that represented by large number of features is not capturing the actual relation between those points. In this study, we propose a new method to construct a different space that is based on clustering to form a new distance metric. The new distance space is based on ensemble clustering (EC). The EC distance space is defined by tracking the membership of the points over multiple runs of clustering algorithm metric. Over this distance, we train the decision trees classifier (DT-EC). The results obtained by applying DT-EC on 10 datasets confirm our hypotheses that embedding the EC space as a distance metric would improve the performance.

Keywords: ensemble clustering, decision trees, classification, K nearest neighbors

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Authors: Mark Salisbury

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The arrival of artificially intelligent avatars and the automation they bring is worrying many of us, not only for our livelihood but for the jobs that may be lost to our kids. We worry about what our place will be as human beings in this new economy where much of it will be conducted online in the metaverse – in a network of 3D virtual worlds – working with intelligent machines. The Future of Leadership was written to address these fears and show what our place will be – the right place – in this new economy of AI avatars, automation, and 3D virtual worlds. But to be successful in this new economy, our job will be to bring wisdom to our workplace and the marketplace. And we will use AI avatars and 3D virtual worlds to do it. However, this book is about more than AI and the avatars that we will work with in the metaverse. It’s about building Organizational intelligence (OI) -- the capability of an organization to comprehend and create knowledge relevant to its purpose; in other words, it is the intellectual capacity of the entire organization. To increase organizational intelligence requires a new kind of knowledge worker, a wisdom worker, that requires a new kind of leadership. This book begins your story for how to become a leader of wisdom workers and be successful in the emerging wisdom economy. After this presentation, conference participants will be able to do the following: Recognize the characteristics of the new generation of wisdom workers and how they differ from their predecessors. Recognize that new leadership methods and techniques are needed to lead this new generation of wisdom workers. Apply personal and professional values – personal integrity, belief in something larger than yourself, and keeping the best interest of others in mind – to improve your work performance and lead others. Exhibit an attitude of confidence, courage, and reciprocity of sharing knowledge to increase your productivity and influence others. Leverage artificial intelligence to accelerate your ability to learn, augment your decision-making, and influence others.Utilize new technologies to communicate with human colleagues and intelligent machines to develop better solutions more quickly.

Keywords: metaverse, generative artificial intelligence, automation, leadership, organizational intelligence, wisdom worker

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Authors: Rob Waddle

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We study an economy with weak justice and security systems and with weak public policy and regulation or little capacity to implement them, and with high barriers to profitable sectors. We look at growth and development opportunities based on the derived demand. We show that there is hope for such an economy to grow up and to generate a win-win situation for all stakeholders if the derived demand is supplied. We then investigate conditions that could stimulate the derived demand supply. We show that little knowledge of public, private and international expenditures in the economy and academic tools are enough to trigger the derived demand supply. Our model can serve as guidance to donor and NGO working in developing countries, and show to media the best way to help is to share information about existing and accessible opportunities. It can also provide direction to vocational schools and universities that could focus more on providing tools to seize existing opportunities.

Keywords: growth, development, monopoly, oligopoly, inequality

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Authors: Belkacem Benadda, Adil Benabdellah, Boutheyna Souna

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The Internet of Things (IoT) is an unprecedented creation. Electronics objects are now able to interact, share, respond and adapt to their environment on a much larger basis. Actual spread of these modern means of connectivity and solutions with high data volume exchange are affecting our ways of life. Accommodation is becoming an intelligent living space, not only suited to the people circumstances and desires, but also to systems constraints to make daily life simpler, cheaper, increase possibilities and achieve a higher level of services and luxury. In this paper we are as Internet access, teleworking, consumption monitoring, information search, etc.). This paper addresses the design and integration of a smart home, it also purposes an IoT solution that allows smart power consumption based on measurements from power-grid and deep learning analysis.

Keywords: array sensors, IoT, power grid, FPGA, embedded

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Authors: Klaus Peter Scherer, Daniel Knöll, Constantin Rieder

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Problem and Purpose: Intelligent systems are available and helpful to support the human being decision process, especially when complex surgical eye interventions are necessary and must be performed. Normally, such a decision support system consists of a knowledge-based module, which is responsible for the real assistance power, given by an explanation and logical reasoning processes. The interview based acquisition and generation of the complex knowledge itself is very crucial, because there are different correlations between the complex parameters. So, in this project (semi)automated self-learning methods are researched and developed for an enhancement of the quality of such a decision support system. Methods: For ophthalmic data sets of real patients in a hospital, advanced data mining procedures seem to be very helpful. Especially subgroup analysis methods are developed, extended and used to analyze and find out the correlations and conditional dependencies between the structured patient data. After finding causal dependencies, a ranking must be performed for the generation of rule-based representations. For this, anonymous patient data are transformed into a special machine language format. The imported data are used as input for algorithms of conditioned probability methods to calculate the parameter distributions concerning a special given goal parameter. Results: In the field of knowledge discovery advanced methods and applications could be performed to produce operation and patient related correlations. So, new knowledge was generated by finding causal relations between the operational equipment, the medical instances and patient specific history by a dependency ranking process. After transformation in association rules logically based representations were available for the clinical experts to evaluate the new knowledge. The structured data sets take account of about 80 parameters as special characteristic features per patient. For different extended patient groups (100, 300, 500), as well one target value as well multi-target values were set for the subgroup analysis. So the newly generated hypotheses could be interpreted regarding the dependency or independency of patient number. Conclusions: The aim and the advantage of such a semi-automatically self-learning process are the extensions of the knowledge base by finding new parameter correlations. The discovered knowledge is transformed into association rules and serves as rule-based representation of the knowledge in the knowledge base. Even more, than one goal parameter of interest can be considered by the semi-automated learning process. With ranking procedures, the most strong premises and also conjunctive associated conditions can be found to conclude the interested goal parameter. So the knowledge, hidden in structured tables or lists can be extracted as rule-based representation. This is a real assistance power for the communication with the clinical experts.

Keywords: an expert system, knowledge-based support, ophthalmic decision support, self-learning methods

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Authors: Zair Mohammed El Amine, Chemouri Hafida, Derbal Habak Hassina

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Organic photovoltaic cells are electronic devices that convert sunlight into electricity. To this end, the number of studies on organic photovoltaic cells (OVCs) is growing, and this trend is expected to continue. Computational studies are still needed to verify and prove the capability of CVOs, specifically the nanometer molecule PCBM, based on successful experimental results. In this paper, we present a theoretical and computational investigation of PCBM and PC71BM derivatives using the DFT method. On this basis, we employ independent and time-dependent density theories. HOMO, LUMO and GAPH-L energies, ionization potentials and electronic affinity are determined and found to be in agreement with experiments. Using DFT theory based on B3LYP and M062X methods with bases 6-31G (d,p) and 6-311G (d), calculations show that the most efficient acceptors are presented in the group of PC71BM derivatives and are in substantial agreement with experiments. The geometries of the structures are optimized by Gaussian 09.

Keywords: PCBM, P3HT, organic cell solar, DFT, TD-DFT

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Authors: Warda Khan, Remo Lachmann, Adarsh S. Garakahally

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The increasing complexity of software and its applicability in a wide range of industries, e.g., automotive, call for enhanced quality assurance techniques. Test automation is one option to tackle the prevailing challenges by supporting test engineers with fast, parallel, and repetitive test executions. A high degree of test automation allows for a shift from mundane (manual) testing tasks to a more analytical assessment of the software under test. However, a high initial investment of test resources is required to establish test automation, which is, in most cases, a limitation to the time constraints provided for quality assurance of complex software systems. Hence, a computer-aided creation of automated test cases is crucial to increase the benefit of test automation. This paper proposes the application of machine learning for the generation of automated test cases. It is based on supervised learning to analyze test specifications and existing test implementations. The analysis facilitates the identification of patterns between test steps and their implementation with test automation components. For the test case generation, this approach exploits historical data of test automation projects. The identified patterns are the foundation to predict the implementation of unknown test case specifications. Based on this support, a test engineer solely has to review and parameterize the test automation components instead of writing them manually, resulting in a significant time reduction for establishing test automation. Compared to other generation approaches, this ML-based solution can handle different writing styles, authors, application domains, and even languages. Furthermore, test automation tools require expert knowledge by means of programming skills, whereas this approach only requires historical data to generate test cases. The proposed solution is evaluated using various multi-label evaluation criteria (EC) and two small-sized real-world systems. The most prominent EC is ‘Subset Accuracy’. The promising results show an accuracy of at least 86% for test cases, where a 1:1 relationship (Multi-Class) between test step specification and test automation component exists. For complex multi-label problems, i.e., one test step can be implemented by several components, the prediction accuracy is still at 60%. It is better than the current state-of-the-art results. It is expected the prediction quality to increase for larger systems with respective historical data. Consequently, this technique facilitates the time reduction for establishing test automation and is thereby independent of the application domain and project. As a work in progress, the next steps are to investigate incremental and active learning as additions to increase the usability of this approach, e.g., in case labelled historical data is scarce.

Keywords: machine learning, multi-class, multi-label, supervised learning, test automation

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Authors: Christelle Rabbat, Carole Vouebou, Sary Awad, Alan Jean-Marie

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Hydrogen has been proven to be a viable alternative to standard fuels as it is easy to produce and only generates water vapour and zero carbon emissions. However, despite the hydrogen benefits, the widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles is impeded by several challenges. The lack of refueling infrastructures remains one of the main hindering factors due to the high costs associated with their design, construction, and operation. Besides, the lack of hydrogen vehicles on the road diminishes the economic viability of investing in refueling infrastructure. Simultaneously, the absence of accessible refueling stations discourages consumers from adopting hydrogen vehicles, perpetuating a cycle of limited market uptake. To address these challenges, the implementation of adequate policies incentivizing the use of hydrogen vehicles and the reduction of the investment and operation costs of hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) are essential to put both investors and customers at ease. Even though the transition to hydrogen cars has been rather slow, public transportation companies have shown a keen interest in this highly promising fuel. Besides, their hydrogen demand is easier to predict and regulate than personal vehicles. Due to the reduced complexity of designing a suitable hydrogen supply chain for public vehicles, this sub-sector could be a great starting point to facilitate the adoption of hydrogen vehicles. Consequently, this study will focus on designing a chain of on-site green HRS for the public transportation network in Nantes Metropole leveraging the latest relevant technological advances aiming to reduce the costs while ensuring reliability, safety, and ease of access. To reduce the cost of HRS and encourage their widespread adoption, a network of 7 H35-T40 HRS has been designed, replacing the conventional J-T valves with turbo-expanders. Each station in the network has a daily capacity of 1,920 kg. Thus, the HRS network can produce up to 12.5 tH2 per day. The detailed cost analysis has revealed a CAPEX per station of 16.6 M euros leading to a network CAPEX of 116.2 M euros. The proposed station siting prioritized Nantes metropole’s 5 bus depots and included 2 city-centre locations. Thanks to the turbo-expander technology, the cooling capacity of the proposed HRS is 19% lower than that of a conventional station equipped with J-T valves, resulting in significant CAPEX savings estimated at 708,560 € per station, thus nearly 5 million euros for the whole HRS network. Besides, the turbo-expander power generation ranges from 7.7 to 112 kW. Thus, the power produced can be used within the station or sold as electricity to the main grid, which would, in turn, maximize the station’s profit. Despite the substantial initial investment required, the environmental benefits, cost savings, and energy efficiencies realized through the transition to hydrogen fuel cell buses and the deployment of HRS equipped with turbo-expanders offer considerable advantages for both TAN and Nantes Metropole. These initiatives underscore their enduring commitment to fostering green mobility and combatting climate change in the long term.

Keywords: green hydrogen, refueling stations, turbo-expander, heavy-duty vehicles

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Authors: Mohammad Samarah, Benjamin Stark, Jennifer Kindle, Langley Payton

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Innovation is a key driver for companies, society, and economic growth. However, assessing and measuring innovation for individuals as well as organizations remains difficult. Our i5-Score presented in this study will help to overcome this difficulty and facilitate measuring the innovation potential. The score is based on a framework we call the 5Gs of innovation which defines specific innovation attributes. Those are 1) the drive for long-term goals 2) the audacity to generate new ideas, 3) the openness to share ideas with others, 4) the ability to grow, and 5) the ability to maintain high levels of optimism. To validate the i5-Score, we conducted a study at Florida Polytechnic University. The results show that the i5-Score is a good measure reflecting the innovative mindset of an individual or a group. Thus, the score can be utilized for evaluating, refining and enhancing innovation capabilities.

Keywords: Change Management, Innovation Attributes, Organizational Development, STEM and Venture Creation

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Authors: N. Chérif, T. Allaoui, M. Benasla, H. Chaib

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Industrialization and population growth are the prime factors for which the consumption of electricity is steadily increasing. Thus, to have a balance between production and consumption, it is necessary at first to increase the number of power plants, lines and transformers, which implies an increase in cost and environmental degradation. As a result, it is now important to have mesh networks and working close to the limits of stability in order to meet these new requirements. The transient stability studies involve large disturbances such as short circuits, loss of work or production group. The consequence of these defects can be very serious, and can even lead to the complete collapse of the network. This work focuses on the regulation means that networks can help to keep their stability when submitted to strong disturbances. The magnetic energy storage-based superconductor (SMES) comprises a superconducting coil short-circuited on it self. When such a system is connected to a power grid is able to inject or absorb the active and reactive power. This system can be used to improve the stability of power systems.

Keywords: short-circuit, power oscillations, multiband PSS, power system, SMES, transient stability

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Authors: Mai Maitiaili Tuerdi

Abstract:

Turkey is one of the countries in which fast food service is growing increasingly in the world. The emergence of KFC and McDonald's to Turkish market is affecting every aspects of local fast-food services. The Turkey's famous catering companies named "Simit Sarayi" and "Güllüoğlu" are famous for accepting the Western fast food management service and skills in order to increase their market share. Also, they have created their unique management skills in this field. In this paper, through empirical and comparative study method we will analyze the famous Turkish local fast-food companies and western human resource management. We will argue how to create and adapt the human resource management while the company is economically and socially growing.

Keywords: human resources management, Turkey, fast food, management

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Authors: P. Hajek, J. Stejskal

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The aim of this paper is to analyze the ability to identify and acquire knowledge from external sources at the regional level in the Czech Republic. The results show that the most important sources of knowledge for innovative activities are sources within the businesses themselves, followed by customers and suppliers. Furthermore, the analysis of relationships between the objective of the innovative activity and the ability to identify and acquire knowledge implies that knowledge obtained from a) customers aims at replacing outdated products and increasing product quality; b) suppliers aims at increasing capacity and flexibility of production; and c) competing businesses aims at growing market share and increasing the flexibility of production and services. Regions should therefore direct their support especially into development and strengthening of networks within the value chain.

Keywords: knowledge, acquisition, innovative business, Czech republic, region

Procedia PDF Downloads 372

Authors: Min Koo Choi

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The paper will examine Im Sun-dŭk’s two short stories, 'Iryoil' (Sunday, 1937) and 'Nazuoya' (A Godmother, 1942), which illuminate the subjects of Korean intellectuals going through the later period of a harsh and oppressive Japanese colonial rule. When Japan went to war against China in 1937, Korea, a colony of Japan since 1910, became an outpost for Japanese expansionism into China, and the Korean people were mobilized into the war effort. Nationalist movements and radical ideas that posed a threat and opposition to Japanese colonial rule in Korea and its colonial expansionism were ruthlessly suppressed, and Koreans were forcibly assimilated into becoming Japanese citizens without political rights. Racial discrimination between Koreans and Japanese was prevalent. Im Sun-dŭk, who participated in the Socialist movement in the 1930s, had his debut as a literary writer and a critic in the late 1930s, when Korean literary society was reincorporated in order to collaborate with the Japanese war effort through writing and public speech. Sun-duk's writing illuminates the unique internal landscape of a female subject who strives to live on while preserving her commitment and dignity under the circumstances that force Korean intellectuals either to collaborate with or acquiesce to Japanese colonial rule. 'Iryoil' (Sunday, 1937) foregrounds an educated intellectual, Hyeyŏng, who supplies her fiancé in prison for political involvement in resistance against Japan. On Sundays, she turns down her friends’ suggestion for enjoying holidays outside, due to her indebtedness to her fiancé. Her fiancé's imprisonment indicates the social conscience that still remains, and she seeks to share the commitment and suffering with her fiancé. The short story 'Nazuoya' (A Godmother, 1942), written in Japanese due to the suppression of Korean language publications at the time, also problematizes Japanese policy that forces Koreans to change their names into Japanese. Through the narrator I, who struggles to find a meaningful name for her cousin brother’s baby, she highlights how meaningful one’s name is for one’s life and identity. What makes her two stories unique is that her writing draws other people’s confessions into its own narrative through fragmentary forms, such as part of letter or reflection. The voices of others are intersected with the main character in 'Iryoil' (Sunday, 1937) and a narrator in 'Nazuoya' (A Godmother, 1942). In many ways, the narrator and main character provide the confessional voices who display the characters' gloomy interiorities. Even though these confessional voices do not share the commitment and values, both the main character and I in the stories reveal a more open set of viewpoints to them. In this way, they seek to form bonds and encouragement and acquire a more resilient sensibility that embraces those who strive to survive and endure in the gloomy days of the later period of Japanese colonial rule.

Keywords: Im Sun-dŭk, Japanese colonial rule, Korean literature, socialist movement

Procedia PDF Downloads 279

Authors: Vladislav Grigorovitch, Marina Grigorovitch, David Pearlmutter, Erez Gal

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The concept of “electric island” is involved with achieving the balance between the self-power generation ability of each educational institution and energy consumption demand. Photo-Voltaic (PV) solar system installed on the roofs of educational buildings is a common way to absorb the available solar energy and generate electricity for self-consumption and even for returning to the grid. The main objective of this research is to develop and implement an “electric island” monitoring infrastructure for promoting energy efficiency in educational buildings. A microscale monitoring methodology will be developed to provide a platform to estimate energy consumption performance classified by rooms and subspaces rather than the more common macroscale monitoring of the whole building. The monitoring platform will be established on the experimental sites, enabling an estimation and further analysis of the variety of environmental and physical conditions. For each building, separate measurement configurations will be applied taking into account the specific requirements, restrictions, location and infrastructure issues. The direct results of the measurements will be analyzed to provide deeper understanding of the impact of environmental conditions and sustainability construction standards, not only on the energy demand of public building, but also on the energy consumption habits of the children that study in those schools and the educational and administrative staff that is responsible for providing the thermal comfort conditions and healthy studying atmosphere for the children. A monitoring methodology being developed in this research is providing online access to real-time data of Interferential Therapy (IFTs) from any mobile phone or computer by simply browsing the dedicated website, providing powerful tools for policy makers for better decision making while developing PV production infrastructure to achieve “electric islands” in educational buildings. A detailed measurement configuration was technically designed based on the specific conditions and restriction of each of the pilot buildings. A monitoring and analysis methodology includes a large variety of environmental parameters inside and outside the schools to investigate the impact of environmental conditions both on the energy performance of the school and educational abilities of the children. Indoor measurements are mandatory to acquire the energy consumption data, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and other air quality conditions in different parts of the building. In addition to that, we aim to study the awareness of the users to the energy consideration and thus the impact on their energy consumption habits. The monitoring of outdoor conditions is vital for proper design of the off-grid energy supply system and validation of its sufficient capacity. The suggested outcomes of this research include: 1. both experimental sites are designed to have PV production and storage capabilities; 2. Developing an online information feedback platform. The platform will provide consumer dedicated information to academic researchers, municipality officials and educational staff and students; 3. Designing an environmental work path for educational staff regarding optimal conditions and efficient hours for operating air conditioning, natural ventilation, closing of blinds, etc.

Keywords: sustainability, electric island, IOT, smart building

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Authors: Susanna Graziano, Lydia Krstic Ward

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The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate the steps of using multimedia and collaborative platforms in project-based learning. The presentation will demonstrate the stages of the learning project with various components of independent and collaborative learning, where students research the topic, share information, prepare a survey, use social media (Facebook, Instagram, WhasApp) and collaborative platforms (wikispaces.com and Google docs) to collect, analyze and process data, then produce reports and logos to be displayed as a final product. At the beginning of the presentation participants will answer a questionnaire about project based learning and share their experience on using social media, real–world project work and collaborative learning. Using a PPP, the presentation will walk participants through the steps of a completed project where tertiary education students are involved in putting together a multimedia campaign for safe driving in Kuwait. The research component of the project entails taking a holistic view on the problem of the high death rate in traffic accidents. The final goal of the project is to lead students to raise public awareness about the importance of safe driving. The project steps involve using the social media and collaborative platforms for collecting data and sharing the required materials to be used in the final product – a display of written reports, slogans and videos, as well as oral presentations. The same structure can be used to organize a multimedia campaign focusing on other issues, whilst scaffolding on students’ ability to brainstorm, retrieve information, organize it and engage in collaborative/ cooperative learning whilst being immersed in content-based learning as well as in authentic tasks. More specifically, the project we carried out at Box Hill College was a real-world one and involved a multimedia Campaign for Safe Driving since reckless driving is one of the major problems in the country. The idea for the whole project started by a presentation given by a board member of the Kuwaiti Society for Traffic Safety who was invited to college and spoke about: • Driving laws in the country, • What causes car accidents, • Driving safety tips. The principal goal of this project was to let students consider problems of traffic in Kuwait from different points of view. They also had to address the number and causes of accidents, evaluate the effectiveness of the local traffic law in order to send a warning about the importance of safe driving and, finally, suggest ways of its improvement. Benefits included: • Engagement, • Autonomy, • Motivation, • Content knowledge, • Language mastery, • Enhanced critical thinking, • Increased metacognitive awareness, • Improved social skills, • Authentic experience.

Keywords: social media, online learning platforms, collaborative platforms, project based learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 425

Authors: G. B. M. Carvalho, V. A. C. Vale, E. T. L. Cöuras Ford

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A heated pool makes it possible to use it during all hours of the day and in the seasons, especially in physiotherapies and sports centers. However, the cost of installation, operation and maintenance often makes it difficult to deploy. In addition, the current global policy for the use of natural resources from energy sources contradicts the most common means of heating swimming pools, such as the use of gas (Natural Gas and Liquefied Petroleum Gas), the use of firewood or oil and the use of electricity (heat pumps and electrical resistances). In this sense, this work focuses on the use of solar water heaters to be used in swimming pools of physiotherapy centers, in order to analyze their viability for this purpose in view of the costs linked to the medium and/or long term heating. For this, materials of low cost, low weight, easy commercial acquisition were used besides easy manufacture. Parameters such as flow, temperature distribution, efficiency and technical-economic feasibility were evaluated.

Keywords: heating, water, pool, solar energy, solar collectors, temperature, efficiency

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Authors: Mohamed Edesy, Carlo Cecere

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This paper is a part of an ongoing research that proposes energy strategies for residential buildings in hot arid climates. In Egypt, the residential sector is dominated by increase in consumption rates annually. A building energy efficiency code was introduced by the government in 2005; it indicates minimum design and application requirements for residential buildings. Submission is mandatory and should lead to about 20% energy savings with an increase in comfort levels. However, compliance is almost nonexistent, electricity is subsidized and incentives to adopt energy efficient patterns are very low. This work presents an overview of the code and analyzes the impact of its introduction on different sectors. It analyses compliance barriers and indicates challenges that stand in the way of a realistic enforcement. It proposes an action plan for immediate code enforcement, updating current code to include retrofit, and development of rating systems for buildings. This work presents a broad national plan for energy efficiency empowerment in the residential sector.

Keywords: energy efficiency, housing, energy policies, code enforcement

Procedia PDF Downloads 347