Search results for: least absolute shrinkage and selection operator

Authors: Veena Nair, Srikanth Prakash, Mayuri Wijayasundara

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Globally, the textile industry is a key contributor to the generation of solid waste which gets landfilled. Textile waste generation generally occurs in three stages, namely: producer waste, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. However, the different processes adopted in textile material extraction, manufacturing, and use have their respective impact in terms of the quantity of waste being diverted to landfills. The study is focused on assessing the value chains of the two most common textile fibres: cotton and polyester, catering to a broad categories of apparel products. This study attempts to identify and evaluate the key processes adopted by the textile industry at each of the stages in their value chain in terms of waste generation. The different processes identified in each of the stages in the textile value chains are mapped to their respective contribution in generating fibre waste which eventually gets diverted to landfill. The results of the study are beneficial for the overall industry in terms of improving the traceability of waste in the value chains and the selection of processes and behaviours facilitating the reduction of environmental impacts associated with landfills.

Keywords: textile waste, textile value chains, landfill waste, waste mapping

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Authors: Kiana Zeighami, Morteza Ozlati Moghadam

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Designing a high accuracy and high precision motion controller is one of the important issues in today’s industry. There are effective solutions available in the industry but the real-time performance, smoothness and accuracy of the movement can be further improved. This paper discusses a complete solution to carry out the movement of three stepper motors in three dimensions. The objective is to provide a method to design a fully integrated System-on-Chip (SOC)-based motion controller to reduce the cost and complexity of production by incorporating Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) into the design. In the proposed method the FPGA receives its commands from a host computer via wireless internet communication and calculates the motion trajectory for three axes. A profile generator module is designed to realize the interpolation algorithm by translating the position data to the real-time pulses. This paper discusses an approach to implement the linear interpolation algorithm, since it is one of the fundamentals of robots’ movements and it is highly applicable in motion control industries. Along with full profile trajectory, the triangular drive is implemented to eliminate the existence of error at small distances. To integrate the parallelism and real-time performance of FPGA with the power of Central Processing Unit (CPU) in executing complex and sequential algorithms, the NIOS II soft-core processor was added into the design. This paper presents different operating modes such as absolute, relative positioning, reset and velocity modes to fulfill the user requirements. The proposed approach was evaluated by designing a custom-made FPGA board along with a mechanical structure. As a result, a precise and smooth movement of stepper motors was observed which proved the effectiveness of this approach.

Keywords: 3-axis linear interpolation, FPGA, motion controller, micro-stepping

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Authors: Ese Urhie, Bosede Olopade, Muyiwa Oladosun, Henry Okodua

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In the past three and half decades, aside from the fact that the contribution of the industrial sector to gross domestic product in Nigeria has nose-dived, its performance has also been highly unstable. Investment funds needed to develop the industrial sector usually come from both internal and external sources. The internal sources include surplus generated within the industrial sector and surplus diverted from other sectors of the economy. It has been observed that due to the small size of the industrial sector in developing countries, very limited funds could be raised for further investment. External sources of funds which many currently industrialized and some ‘newly industrializing countries’ have benefited from including direct and indirect investment by foreign capitalists; foreign aid and loans; and investments by nationals living abroad. Foreign direct investment inflow in Nigeria has been declining since 2009 in both absolute and relative terms. High level of human capital has been identified as one of the crucial factors that explain the miraculous growth of the ‘Asian Tigers’. Its low level has also been identified as the major cause for the low level of FDI flow to Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. There has been positive, but slow improvement in human capital indicators in Nigeria in the past three decades. In spite of this, foreign direct investment inflow has not only been low; it has declined drastically in recent years. i) Why has the improvement in human capital in Nigeria failed to attract more FDI inflow? ii) To what extent does the level of human capital influence FDI inflow in Nigeria? iii) Is there a threshold of human capital stock that guarantees sustained inflow of FDI? iv) Does the quality of human capital matter? v) Does the influence of other (negative) factors outweigh the benefits of human capital? Using time series secondary data, a system of equations is employed to evaluate the effect of human capital on FDI inflow in Nigeria on one hand and the effect of FDI on the level of industrialization on the other. A weak relationship between human capital and FDI is expected, while a strong relationship between FDI and industrial growth is expected from the result.

Keywords: human capital, foreign direct investment, industrialization, gross domestic product

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Authors: Humaira Athar, Brajeshwar Singh

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Generally, the brightness of the indoor environment of buildings is entirely maintained by the artificial lighting which has consumed a large amount of resources. It is reported that lighting consumes about 19% of the total generated electricity which accounts for about 30-40% of total energy consumption. One possible way is to reduce the lighting energy by exploiting sunlight either through the use of suitable devices or energy efficient materials like translucent concrete. Translucent concrete is one such architectural concrete which allows the passage of natural light as well as artificial light through it. Several attempts have been made on different aspects of translucent concrete such as light guiding materials (glass fibers, plastic fibers, cylinder etc.), concrete mix design and manufacturing methods for use as building elements. Concerns are, however, raised on various related issues such as poor compatibility between the optical fibers and cement paste, unaesthetic appearance due to disturbance occurred in the arrangement of fibers during vibration and high shrinkage in flowable concrete due to its high water/cement ratio. Need is felt to develop translucent concrete to meet the requirement of structural safety as OPC concrete with the maximized saving in energy towards the power of illumination and thermal load in buildings. Translucent concrete was produced using pre-treated plastic optical fibers (POF, 2mm dia.) and high slump white concrete. The concrete mix was proportioned in the ratio of 1:1.9:2.1 with a w/c ratio of 0.40. The POF was varied from 0.8-9 vol.%. The mechanical properties and light transmission of this concrete were determined. Thermal conductivity of samples was measured by a transient plate source technique. Daylight illumination was measured by a lux grid method as per BIS:SP-41. It was found that the compressive strength of translucent concrete increased with decreasing optical fiber content. An increase of ~28% in the compressive strength of concrete was noticed when fiber was pre-treated. FE-SEM images showed little-debonded zone between the fibers and cement paste which was well supported with pull-out bond strength test results (~187% improvement over untreated). The light transmission of concrete was in the range of 3-7% depending on fiber spacing (5-20 mm). The average daylight illuminance (~75 lux) was nearly equivalent to the criteria specified for illumination for circulation (80 lux). The thermal conductivity of translucent concrete was reduced by 28-40% with respect to plain concrete. The thermal load calculated by heat conduction equation was ~16% more than the plain concrete. Based on Design-Builder software, the total annual illumination energy load of a room using one side translucent concrete was 162.36 kW compared with the energy load of 249.75 kW for a room without concrete. The calculated energy saving on an account of the power of illumination was ~25%. A marginal improvement towards thermal comfort was also noticed. It is concluded that the translucent concrete has the advantages of the existing concrete (load bearing) with translucency and insulation characteristics. It saves a significant amount of energy by providing natural daylight instead of artificial power consumption of illumination.

Keywords: energy saving, light transmission, microstructure, plastic optical fibers, translucent concrete

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Authors: A. Karasek

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Rapid growth of Information Technologies (IT) has had huge influence on enterprises, and it has contributed to its promotion and increasingly extensive use in enterprises. Information Technologies have to a large extent determined the processes taking place in a enterprise; what is more, IT development has brought the need to adopt a brand new approach to human resources management in an enterprise. The use of IT in Human Resource Management (HRM) is of high importance due to the growing role of information and information technologies. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the use of information technologies in human resources management in enterprises. These practices will be presented in the following areas: Recruitment and selection, development and training, employee assessment, motivation, talent management, personnel service. Results of conducted survey show diversity of solutions applied in particular areas of human resource management. In the future, further development in this area should be expected, as well as integration of individual HRM areas, growing mobile-enabled HR processes and their transfer into the cloud. Presented IT solutions applied in HRM are highly innovative, which is of great significance due to their possible implementation in other enterprises.

Keywords: e-HR, human resources management, HRM practices, HRMS, information technologies

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Authors: Gangmin Li, Fan Yang

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Personalized recommendation is crucial for any recommendation system. One of the techniques for personalized recommendation is to identify the intention. Traditional user intention identification uses the user’s selection when facing multiple items. This modeling relies primarily on historical behaviour data resulting in challenges such as the cold start, unintended choice, and failure to capture intention when items are new. Motivated by recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, we present an approach for user intention identification by embracing LLMs with Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting. We use the initial user profile as input to LLMs and design a collection of prompts to align the LLM's response through various recommendation tasks encompassing rating prediction, search and browse history, user clarification, etc. Our tests on real-world datasets demonstrate the improvements in recommendation by explicit user intention identification and, with that intention, merged into a user model.

Keywords: personalized recommendation, generative user modelling, user intention identification, large language models, chain-of-thought prompting

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Authors: Zahra Abdolkarimi, Naser Zouri

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The actual purpose of RoboCup is creating independent team of robots in 2050 based of FiFa roles to bring the victory in compare of world star team. There is unbelievable growing of Robots created a collection of complex and motivate subject in robotic and intellectual ornate, also it made a mechatronics style base of theoretical and technical way in Robocop. Decision making of robots depends to environment reaction, self-player and rival player with using inductive Fuzzy system valuation subsidiary to solve issue of robots in land game. The measure of selection in compare with other methods depends to amount of victories percentage in the same team that plays accidentally.

Keywords: particle swarm optimization, chaos theory, inference fuzzy system, simulation environment rational fuzzy system, mamdani and assilian, deffuzify

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Authors: H. Erbiyik, A. Bal, M. Sirakaya, Ö. Yesildal, E. Yolcu

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The emergence of many environmental issues began with the Industrial Revolution. The depletion of natural resources and emerging environmental challenges over time requires enterprises and managers to take into consideration environmental factors while managing business. If we take notice of these causes; the design and implementation of environmentally friendly green purchasing, production and waste management systems become very important at green logistics systems. Companies can adopt green supply chain with the awareness of these facts. The concept of green supply chain constitutes from green purchasing, green production, green logistics, waste management and reverse logistics. In this study, we wanted to identify the concept of green supply chain and why green supply chain should be applied. In the practice part of the study an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) study is conducted on an aluminum production company to evaluate suppliers.

Keywords: aluminum sector, analytic hierarchy process, decision making, green logistics

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Authors: Merve Aygün Esastürk, Deren Ataç Yılmaz, Görkem Oğur, Emre Özgen Kuzu, Sadık Ödemiş

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Hydrocracker plants are one of the most complicated and most profitable units in the refinery process. It takes long chain paraffinic hydrocarbons as feed and turns them into smaller and more valuable products, mainly kerosene and diesel under high pressure with the excess amount of hydrogen. Controlling the product qualities well directly contributes to the unit profit. Control of a plant is mainly based on PID and MPC controllers. Controlling the reaction section is important in terms of reaction severity. However, controlling the fractionation section is more crucial since the end products are separated in fractionation section. In this paper, the importance of well-configured base layer control mechanism, composed of PID controllers, is highlighted. For this purpose, two different base layer control scheme is applied in a hydrocracker fractionator column performances of schemes, which is a direct contribution to better product quality, are compared.

Keywords: controller, distillation, configuration selection, hydrocracker, model predictive controller, proportional-integral-derivative controller

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Authors: Mai A. Ibrahim, Mohammed El-Beltagy, Motaz Khorshid

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Emerging Markets return distributions have shown significance departure from normality were they are characterized by fatter tails relative to the normal distribution and exhibit levels of skewness and kurtosis that constitute a significant departure from normality. Therefore, the classical Markowitz Mean-Variance is not applicable for emerging markets since it assumes normally-distributed returns (with zero skewness and kurtosis) and a quadratic utility function. Moreover, the Markowitz mean-variance analysis can be used in cases of moderate non-normality and it still provides a good approximation of the expected utility, but it may be ineffective under large departure from normality. Higher moments models and median models have been suggested in the literature for asset allocation in this case. Higher moments models have been introduced to account for the insufficiency of the description of a portfolio by only its first two moments while the median model has been introduced as a robust statistic which is less affected by outliers than the mean. Tail risk measures such as Value-at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) have been introduced instead of Variance to capture the effect of risk. In this research, higher moment models including the Mean-Variance-Skewness (MVS) and Mean-Variance-Skewness-Kurtosis (MVSK) are formulated as single-objective non-linear programming problems (NLP) and median models including the Median-Value at Risk (MedVaR) and Median-Mean Absolute Deviation (MedMAD) are formulated as a single-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problems. The higher moment models and median models are compared to some benchmark portfolios and tested on real financial data in the Egyptian main Index EGX30. The results show that all the median models outperform the higher moment models were they provide higher final wealth for the investor over the entire period of study. In addition, the results have confirmed the inapplicability of the classical Markowitz Mean-Variance to the Egyptian stock market as it resulted in very low realized profits.

Keywords: Egyptian stock exchange, emerging markets, higher moment models, median models, mixed-integer linear programming, non-linear programming

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Authors: Phakamas Rachamontree, Theerawut Phusantisampan, Natthakorn Woravutthikul, Peerapong Pornwongthong, Malinee Sriariyanun

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A total of 115 yeast strains isolated from local cassava processing wastes were measured for crude protein content. Among these strains, the strain MSY-2 possessed the highest protein concentration (>3.5 mg protein/mL). By using molecular identification tools, it was identified to be a strain of Pichia kudriavzevii based on similarity of D1/D2 domain of 26S rDNA region. In this study, to optimize the protein production by MSY-2 strain, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied. The tested parameters were the carbon content, nitrogen content, and incubation time. Here, the value of regression coefficient (R2) = 0.7194 could be explained by the model, which is high to support the significance of the model. Under the optimal condition, the protein content was produced up to 3.77 g per L of the culture and MSY-2 strain contain 66.8 g protein per 100 g of cell dry weight. These results revealed the plausibility of applying the novel strain of yeast in single-cell protein production.

Keywords: single cell protein, response surface methodology, yeast, cassava processing waste

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Authors: Elvan Ender, Murat Zencirkıran

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One of the most important criteria that increase the success of design in landscape architecture is the visual effect. The characteristics that affect visual appearance in plant design vary depending on the phenological periods of the plants. In plants, although different effects are observed in different periods of the year, this effect is felt most prominently in flowering periods. For this reason, knowing the flowering time, duration and flower characteristics should be considered as a factor increasing the success of plant design. In this study, flower characteristics of natural woody plants with attractive flowers have been examined. Because of the variability of these characteristics of plants in the region, consideration of these criteria in the planting design processes in the region may increase the success of the design. At the same time, when species selection is made considering the obtained data, visuality and sustainability of natural species can be possible in Bursa city with planting design.

Keywords: Bursa, flower characteristics, natural plants, planting design

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Authors: Milica Karadzic, Lidija Jevric, Sanja Podunavac-Kuzmanovic, Strahinja Kovacevic, Aleksandra Tepic-Horecki, Zdravko Sumic

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In this paper, the influence of six different phytochemical content (phenols, carotenoids, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, chlorophyll a + b and vitamin C) on antioxidant potential of Murai and Levistro lettuce varieties was evaluated. Variable selection was made by generalized pair correlation method (GPCM) as a novel ranking method. This method is used for the discrimination between two variables that almost equal correlate to a dependent variable. Fisher’s conditional exact and McNemar’s test were carried out. Established multiple linear (MLR) models were statistically evaluated. As the best phytochemicals for the antioxidant potential prediction, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll a + b and total carotenoids content stand out. This was confirmed through both GPCM and MLR, predictive ability of obtained MLR can be used for antioxidant potential estimation for similar lettuce samples. This article is based upon work from the project of the Provincial Secretariat for Science and Technological Development of Vojvodina (No. 114-451-347/2015-02).

Keywords: antioxidant activity, generalized pair correlation method, lettuce, regression analysis

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Authors: Seyed-Yaser Nabavi-Chashmi, Davood Asadi, Karim Ahmadi, Eren Demir

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The landing phase of a UAV is very critical as there are many uncertainties in this phase, which can easily entail a hard landing or even a crash. In this paper, the estimation of relative distance and velocity to the ground, as one of the most important processes during the landing phase, is studied. Using accurate measurement sensors as an alternative approach can be very expensive for sensors like LIDAR, or with a limited operational range, for sensors like ultrasonic sensors. Additionally, absolute positioning systems like GPS or IMU cannot provide distance to the ground independently. The focus of this paper is to determine whether we can measure the relative distance and velocity of UAV and ground in the landing phase using just low-resolution images taken by a monocular camera. The Lucas-Konda feature detection technique is employed to extract the most suitable feature in a series of images taken during the UAV landing. Two different approaches based on Extended Kalman Filters (EKF) have been proposed, and their performance in estimation of the relative distance and velocity are compared. The first approach uses the kinematics of the UAV as the process and the calculated optical flow as the measurement; On the other hand, the second approach uses the feature’s projection on the camera plane (pixel position) as the measurement while employing both the kinematics of the UAV and the dynamics of variation of projected point as the process to estimate both relative distance and relative velocity. To verify the results, a sequence of low-quality images taken by a camera that is moving on a specifically developed testbed has been used to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm. The case studies show that the quality of images results in considerable noise, which reduces the performance of the first approach. On the other hand, using the projected feature position is much less sensitive to the noise and estimates the distance and velocity with relatively high accuracy. This approach also can be used to predict the future projected feature position, which can drastically decrease the computational workload, as an important criterion for real-time applications.

Keywords: altitude estimation, drone, image processing, trajectory planning

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Authors: Yusuke Sugaya

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Our research conducts a cross-linguistic experimental investigation into the cognitive processes involved in distance judgment necessary for selecting demonstratives in deictic usage. Speakers may consider the addressee's judgment or apply certain criteria for distance judgment when they produce demonstratives. While it can be assumed that there are language and cultural differences, it remains unclear how these differences manifest across languages. This research conducted online experiments involving speakers of six languages—Japanese, Spanish, Irish, English, Italian, and French—in which a wide variety of drawings were presented on a screen, varying conditions from three perspectives: addressee, comparisons, and standard. The results of the experiments revealed various distinct features associated with demonstratives in each language, highlighting differences from a comparative standpoint. For one thing, there was an influence of a specific reference point (i.e., Standard) on the selection in Japanese and Spanish, whereas there was relatively an influence of competitors in English and Italian.

Keywords: demonstratives, cross-linguistic experiment, distance judgment, social cognition

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Authors: Divya Raghunandanan, Bhavesh D. Gajbhiye, C. S. Sona, Channamallikarjun S. Mathpati

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Molten fluoride salts are considered as potential coolants for next generation nuclear plants where the heat can be utilized for production of hydrogen and electricity. Among molten fluoride salts, FLiNaK (LiF-NaF-KF: 46.5-11.5-42 mol %) is a potential candidate for the coolant due to its superior thermophysical properties such as high temperature stability, boiling point, volumetric heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Major technical challenge in implementation is the selection of structural material which can withstand corrosive nature of FLiNaK. Corrosion study of alloys SS 316L, Hastelloy B, Ni-201 was performed in molten FLiNaK at 650°C. Nickel was found to be more resistant to corrosive attack in molten fluoride medium. Corrosion experiments were performed to study the effect of nickel coating on corrosion of alloys SS 316L and Hastelloy B. Weight loss of the alloys due to corrosion was measured and corrosion rate was estimated. The surface morphology of the alloys was analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscopy.

Keywords: corrosion, FLiNaK, hastelloy, weight loss

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Authors: Nemanja Kidzin, Danka Puric

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Recently, the field of personality change has received an increasing amount of attention. Previously under-researched variables, such as the intention to change or taking on new social roles (in a working environment, education, family, etc.), have been shown to be relevant for personality change. Following this line of research, our study aimed to determine whether the process of acting can bring about personality changes in students of acting and, if yes, in which way. We hypothesized that there will be a significant difference between self-reported personality traits of students acting at the beginning and the end of preparing for a role. Additionally, as potential moderator variables, we measured the reported personality traits of the roles the students were acting, as well as empathy, disintegration, and years of formal education. The sample (N = 47) was composed of students of acting from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (first- to fourth-year) and the Faculty of Modern Arts (first-year students only). Participants' mean age was 20.2 (SD = 1.47), and there were 64% of females. The procedure included two waves of testing (T1 at the beginning and T2 at the end of the semester), and students’ acting exercises and character immersion comprised the pseudo-experimental procedure. Students’ personality traits (HEXACO-60, self-report version), empathy (Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy, QCAE), and disintegration (DELTA9, 10-item version) were measured at both T1 and T2, while the personality of the role (HEXACO-60 observer version) was measured at T2. Responses to all instruments were given on a 5-point Likert scale. A series of repeated-measures T-tests showed significant differences in emotionality (t(46) = 2.56, p = 0.014) and conscientiousness (t(46) = -2.39, p = 0.021) between T1 and T2. Moreover, an index of absolute personality change was significantly different from 0 for all traits (range .53 to .34, t(46) = 4.20, p < .001 for the lowest index. The average test-retest correlation for HEXACO traits was 0.57, which is lower than proposed by other similar researches. As for moderator variables, neither the personality of the role nor empathy or disintegration explained the change in students’ personality traits. The magnitude of personality change was the highest in fourth-year students, with no significant differences between the remaining three years of studying. Overall, our results seem to indicate some personality changes in students of acting. However, these changes cannot be unequivocally related to the process of preparing for a role. Further and methodologically stricter research is needed to unravel the role of acting in personality change.

Keywords: theater, personality change, acting, HEXACO

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Authors: Chao Jen-Chih, Kuo-Wei Hsu

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Many venues and spaces in cities gradually become old and decayed as time goes by and develops. Urban regeneration is the critical strategy to promote local development, but the method of spatial reconstruction which is emphasized in the issue of urban regeneration is questioned for bringing cultural, social and economic impacts on old city areas. The idea of “Urban Regeneration Station (URS)” is proposed for Taipei City Government to introduce the entry and disturbance of communities and related groups with the concept of creative city. This study explored how an URS promotes local development again through the strength of communities and the energy of local residence community, and it established the Platform Strategy for URS. The research results are as follows: URS through the promotion of government agencies, experts, scholars and the third sector, to the selection of different types of units stationed in business, through exhibitions, seminars, and other activities to explore local development issues, vetting each stationed execution efficiency units, and different units stationed by URS establish URS overall network platform strategy.

Keywords: urban regeneration, platform strategy, creative city, Taipei city

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Authors: Jenny Lee

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Fat Studies is emerging as an interdisciplinary area of study, intersecting with Gender Studies, Sociology, Human Development and the Creative Arts. A focus on weight loss, and, therefore, fat hatred, has resulted in a form of discriminatory institutional practice that impacts women in the Western world. This focus is sanctioned by a large dieting industry, medical associations, the media, and at times, government initiatives. This paper will discuss the emergence of the so-called ‘Obesity Epidemic’ in Australia and the Western world and the stereotypes that thin equals healthy and fat equals unhealthy. This paper will argue that, for those with a health focus, ‘Health at every size’ is a more effective principle, which involves striving for healthy living, without a focus on weight loss. This discussion will contextualise an autoethnographic exploration of how fat acceptance and Health at Every Size can be encouraged through fat activism and fat political art. As part of this paper, a selection of the recent performance, writing and art in Australia will be presented, including Aquaporko, the fat femme synchronised swim team and VaVaBoomBah, the Melbourne fat burlesque performances.

Keywords: activism, fat, health, obesity, performance

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Authors: Margaret Ryan, Linda Cupples, Lyndsey Nickels, Paul Sowman

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The current investigation explored the thematic roles of the nouns specified in the lexical entries of experiencer verbs. While prior experimental research assumes experiencer and theme roles for both subject-experiencer (SE) and object-experiencer (OE) verbs, syntactic theorists have posited additional agent and causer roles. Experiment 1 provided evidence for an agent as participants assigned a high degree of intentionality to the logical subject of a subset of SE and OE actives and passives. Experiment 2 provided evidence for a causer as participants assigned high levels of causality to the logical subjects of experiencer sentences generally. However, the presence of an agent, but not a causer, coincided with processing ease. Causality may be an aspect rather than a thematic role. The varying thematic roles amongst experiencer-verb sentences have important implications for stimulus selection because we cannot presume processing is similar across differing sentence subtypes.

Keywords: sentence comprehension, lexicon, canonicity, processing, thematic roles, syntax

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Authors: Nguyen Trong Nghia, Nguyen Huu Uy Vu, Dang Huu Phuoc, Sanjay Kumar Shukla, Le Gia Lam, Nguyen Van Cuong

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This paper introduces a matching scheme for selection of soil/drain properties in analytical solution and numerical modelling (axisymmetric and plane strain conditions) of a ground improvement project by using Prefabricated Vertical Drains (PVD) in combination with vacuum and surcharge preloading. In-situ monitoring data from a case history of a road construction project in Vietnam was adopted in the back-analysis. Analytical solution and axisymmetric analysis can approximate well the field data meanwhile the horizontal permeability need to be adjusted in plane strain scenario to achieve good agreement. In addition, the influence zone of the ground treatment was examined. The residual settlement was investigated to justify the long-term settlement in compliance with the design code. Moreover, the degree of consolidation of non-PVD sub-layers was also studied by means of two different approaches.

Keywords: numerical modelling, prefabricated vertical drains, vacuum consolidation, soft soil

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Authors: Abhimanyu Behera

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Over the past few years, energy security and sustainable development have moved rapidly into the global agenda. There are two main reasons: first, the impact of high and often volatile energy prices; second, concerns over environmental sustainability particularly about the global climate. Both issues are critically important in which impressive economic growth has boosted the demand for energy and put corresponding strains on the environment. Energy security is a broad concept that focuses on energy availability and pricing. Specifically, it refers to the ability of the energy supply system i.e. suppliers, transporters, distributors and regulatory, financial and R&D institutions to deliver the amount of competitively priced energy that customers demand, within accepted standards of reliability, timeliness, quality, safety. Traditionally, energy security has been defined in the context of the geopolitical risks to external oil supplies but today it is encompassing all energy forms, all the external and internal links bringing the energy to the final consumer, and all the many ways energy supplies can be disrupted including equipment malfunctions, system design flaws, operator errors, malicious computer activities, deficient market and regulatory frameworks, corporate financial problems, labour actions, severe weather and natural events, aggressive acts (e.g. war, terrorism and sabotage), and geopolitical disruptions. In practice, the most challenging disruptions are those linked to: 1) extreme weather events; 2) mismatched electricity supply and demand; 3) regulatory failures; and 4) concentration of oil and gas resources in certain regions of the world. However, insecure energy supplies inhibit development by raising energy costs and imposing expensive cuts in services when disruptions actually occur. The energy supply sector can best advance sustainable development by producing and delivering secure and environmentally-friendly sources of energy and by increasing the efficiency of energy use. With this objective, this paper seeks to highlight the significance of energy security and sustainable development in today’s world. Moreover, it critically overhauls the major challenges towards sustainability of energy security and what are the major policies are taken to overcome these challenges by Government is lucidly explicated in this paper.

Keywords: energy, policies, security, sustainability

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Authors: Alan Wan

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In recent years, the body of literature on frequentist model averaging in statistics has grown significantly. Most of this work focuses on models with different mean structures but leaves out the variance consideration. In this paper, we consider a regression model with multiplicative heteroscedasticity and develop a model averaging method that combines maximum likelihood estimators of unknown parameters in both the mean and variance functions of the model. Our weight choice criterion is based on a minimisation of a plug-in estimator of the model average estimator's squared prediction risk. We prove that the new estimator possesses an asymptotic optimality property. Our investigation of finite-sample performance by simulations demonstrates that the new estimator frequently exhibits very favourable properties compared to some existing heteroscedasticity-robust model average estimators. The model averaging method hedges against the selection of very bad models and serves as a remedy to variance function misspecification, which often discourages practitioners from modeling heteroscedasticity altogether. The proposed model average estimator is applied to the analysis of two real data sets.

Keywords: heteroscedasticity-robust, model averaging, multiplicative heteroscedasticity, plug-in, squared prediction risk

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Authors: Emine Laarouchi, Daniela Cancila, Laurent Soulier, Hakima Chaouchi

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Cyber-Physical Systems as drones proved their efficiency for supporting emergency applications. For these particular applications, travel time and autonomous navigation algorithms are of paramount importance, especially when missions are performed in urban environments with high obstacle density. In this context, however, safety properties are not properly addressed. Our ambition is to optimize the system safety level under autonomous navigation systems, by preserving performance of the CPS. At this aim, we introduce genetic algorithms in the autonomous navigation process of the drone to better infer its trajectory considering the possible obstacles. We first model the wished safety requirements through a cost function and then seek to optimize it though genetics algorithms (GA). The main advantage in the use of GA is to consider different parameters together, for example, the level of battery for navigation system selection. Our tests show that the GA introduction in the autonomous navigation systems minimize the risk of safety lossless. Finally, although our simulation has been tested for autonomous drones, our approach and results could be extended for other autonomous navigation systems such as autonomous cars, robots, etc.

Keywords: safety, unmanned aerial vehicles , CPS, ACPS, drones, path planning, genetic algorithms

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Authors: R. B. Knudsen, O. T. Rasmussen, R. A. Alphinas

Abstract:

The reason for conducting this research is to develop an algorithm that is capable of classifying news articles from the automobile industry, according to the competitive actions that they entail, with the use of Text Mining (TM) methods. It is needed to test how to properly preprocess the data for this research by preparing pipelines which fits each algorithm the best. The pipelines are tested along with nine different classification algorithms in the realm of regression, support vector machines, and neural networks. Preliminary testing for identifying the optimal pipelines and algorithms resulted in the selection of two algorithms with two different pipelines. The two algorithms are Logistic Regression (LR) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). These algorithms are optimized further, where several parameters of each algorithm are tested. The best result is achieved with the ANN. The final model yields an accuracy of 0.79, a precision of 0.80, a recall of 0.78, and an F1 score of 0.76. By removing three of the classes that created noise, the final algorithm is capable of reaching an accuracy of 94%.

Keywords: Artificial Neural network, Competitive dynamics, Logistic Regression, Text classification, Text mining

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Authors: S. Wiak, L. Szymanski, Z. Kolacinski, G. Raniszewski, L. Pietrzak, Z. Staniszewska

Abstract:

The term ‘cancer’ is given to a collection of related diseases that may affect any part of the human body. It is a pathological behaviour of cells with the potential to undergo abnormal breakdown in the processes that control cell proliferation, differentiation, and death of particular cells. Although cancer is commonly considered as modern disease, there are beliefs that drastically growing number of new cases can be linked to the extensively prolonged life expectancy and enhanced techniques for cancer diagnosis. Magnetic hyperthermia therapy is a novel approach to cancer treatment, which may greatly contribute to higher efficiency of the therapy. Employing carbon nanotubes as nanocarriers for magnetic particles, it is possible to decrease toxicity and invasiveness of the treatment by surface functionalisation. Despite appearing in recent years, magnetic particle hyperthermia has already become of the highest interest in the scientific and medical environment. The reason why hyperthermia therapy brings so much hope for future treatment of cancer lays in the effect that it produces in malignant cells. Subjecting them to thermal shock results in activation of numerous degradation processes inside and outside the cell. The heating process initiates mechanisms of DNA destruction, protein denaturation and induction of cell apoptosis, which may lead to tumour shrinkage, and in some cases, it may even cause complete disappearance of cancer. The factors which have the major impact on the final efficiency of the treatment include temperatures generated inside the tissues, time of exposure to the heating process, and the character of an individual cancer cell type. The vast majority of cancer cells is characterised by lower pH, persistent hypoxia and lack of nutrients, which can be associated to abnormal microvasculature. Since in healthy tissues we cannot observe presence of these conditions, they should not be seriously affected by elevation of the temperature. The aim of this work is to investigate the influence of iron content in iron filled Carbon Nanotubes on the desired nanoparticles for cancer therapy. In the article, the development and demonstration of the method and the model device for hyperthermic selective destruction of cancer cells are presented. This method was based on the synthesis and functionalization of carbon nanotubes serving as ferromagnetic material nanocontainers. The methodology of the production carbon- ferromagnetic nanocontainers (FNCs) includes the synthesis of carbon nanotubes, chemical, and physical characterization, increasing the content of a ferromagnetic material and biochemical functionalization involving the attachment of the key addresses. The ferromagnetic nanocontainers were synthesised in CVD and microwave plasma system. The research work has been financed from the budget of science as a research project No. PBS2/A5/31/2013.

Keywords: hyperthermia, carbon nanotubes, cancer colon cells, radio frequency field

Procedia PDF Downloads 115

Authors: Syed Hamid Farooq Bukhari

Abstract:

This study intends to clarify the Friday sermon by evaluating the formation of its discourse, the composition, and selection of its subject matters, the structure, and functions of its rules as well as the outline of its communication proceeds, and the distinctiveness of its words along with definite provisions. In this research, a qualitative and descriptive method is used to draw out conclusions. This paper considers the sermon mechanism of the speech and advances it contextually. The information was composed in Pakistan and several of its mosques supposing the imams of the city and the location of the mosques. The presentation and analysis of the facts have directed to the subsequent conclusions: (1) the Friday sermon holds verbal discussion that has habitual and classic formation, (2) the approaches of the formation of the subjects consist of storytelling, quotation as well as the use of accepted terms, (3) the composition of the codes involves Arabic, English, Urdu, and many other local languages, (4) the expressions of the speech include all types of sermon acts, (5) different requisites emerge in the sermons demonstrating that the Friday sermon functions as an index or usage of verbal communication in an exacting field.

Keywords: Friday, sermons, Pakistan, social

Procedia PDF Downloads 151

Authors: A. Mohammed, R. Lewis, M. Marshall

Abstract:

Commonly used coatings to protect tools in die casting were used. A heat treatment and then surface coating can have a large effect on erosion damage. Samples have been tested to evaluate their resistances to erosive wear and to assess how this compares with behaviour seen for untreated material. Five commercial (PN + TiN), (PN + TiAlCN), (TiN X 2), (TiN), and (TiAlCN) coatings have been evaluated for their wear resistance. The objective was to permit an optimized selection of coatings to be used to give good resistance to erosive wear. A test-Rig has been developed to study the erosive wear in aluminium die casting and provide an environment similar to industrial operation that is more practical than using actual machines. These surfaces were analysed using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Optical Microscopes each with a different level of resolution. Examination of coating materials revealed an important parameter associated with the failure of the coating materials.This was adhesion of the coating material to the substrate surface. A well-adhered coating withstands wear much better compared to the poorest-adhering coating.

Keywords: solid particle erosion, PVD-coatings, steel, erosion testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 230

Authors: M. Meftahi, M. Hoseinzadeh, S. A. Naeini

Abstract:

Selection of soil bearing capacity is an important issue that should be investigated under different conditions. The bearing capacity of foundation around of soil slope is based on the active and passive forces. On the other hand, due to extension of urban structures, it is inevitable to put the foundations together. Concerning the two cases mentioned above, investigating the behavior of adjacent foundations which are constructed besides soil slope is essential. It should be noted that, according to the conditions, the bearing capacity of adjacent foundations can be less or more than mat foundations. Also, soil reinforcement increases the bearing capacity of adjacent foundations, and the amount of its increase depends on the distance between foundations. In this research, based on numerical studies, a method is presented for evaluating ultimate bearing capacity of adjacent foundations at different intervals. In the present study, the effect of foundation width, the center to center distance of adjacent foundations and reinforced soil has been investigated on the bearing capacity of adjacent foundations beside soil slope. The results indicate that, due to interference of failure surfaces created under foundation, it depends on their intervals and the ultimate bearing capacity of foundation varies.

Keywords: adjacent foundation, bearing capacity, reinforcements, settlement, numerical analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Kamran Rashid, Tashfeen M. Azhar, Asad-ur-Rahman Wahla

Abstract:

Current research aims to understand the role of successful buyer-supplier relationship in achieving supply chain competitiveness in a developing country perspective. Five hypotheses are developed to test structural model. Survey data is collected from the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. Analysis is conducted using Partial Least Squares (PLS) Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through Smart PLS version 2.0 M3. Results demonstrate positive impact of effective supplier selection, buyer-supplier engagement, and information sharing capability on success of buyer supplier relationship. This successful buyer supplier relationship drives the supply chain firm financial and market performance. Additional analyses with large sample sizes are required in other developing countries to cross validate the results. Current study provides empirical evidence of the role of successful buyer supplier relationship in achieving supply chain competitiveness.

Keywords: supply chain management, successful buyer-supplier relationship, supply chain competitiveness, developing country

Procedia PDF Downloads 640