Search results for: policy optimization

Authors: Paulino V. Tavares, Ana L. Romao

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Public governance represents an articulated arrangement, dynamic and interactive, present in the exercise of authority aimed at strengthening the decision-making procedure in public administration with transparency, accountability, responsiveness and capable of to emerge control and social empowerment, to pursue and achieve the objectives efficiently and with the effectiveness desired by the collective, respecting laws and providing social, institutional and economic equility in society. With this, using a multidimensional approach with the application of three questionnaires to a universe of twenty Counselors of the Courts of Auditors (Brazil), twenty professionals of public administration (Brazil), twenty Government/Provincial Counselors (South Africa), and twenty South African professionals of public administration, the present work aims to capture what is the perception about the efficiency and equility of public policies in Brazil and South Africa. With this, up until now, 30 responses have been obtained, and the results indicate that, in Brazil, 65% affirm due to the inefficiency of public policies, 70% point out that they do not believe in the equility of these same policies. In South Africa, the results indicate that 45% believe in government efficiency, and, with regard to the equility of public policies, 65% do not believe. In Brazil, the research reveals at least three reasons for this result, that is, lack of planning, lack of clear objectives of public policies, and lack of information on the part of society, while in South Africa, so far, research has not identified a specific reason for this result.

Keywords: efficiency, equility, governance, public policy

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Authors: Ahmed Noor Al-qayyim, Barlas Özden Çağlayan

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Structural failure is caused mainly by damage that often occurs on structures. Many researchers focus on obtaining very efficient tools to detect the damage in structures in the early state. In the past decades, a subject that has received considerable attention in literature is the damage detection as determined by variations in the dynamic characteristics or response of structures. This study presents a new damage identification technique. The technique detects the damage location for the incomplete structure system using output data only. The method indicates the damage based on the free vibration test data by using “Two Points - Condensation (TPC) technique”. This method creates a set of matrices by reducing the structural system to two degrees of freedom systems. The current stiffness matrices are obtained from optimization of the equation of motion using the measured test data. The current stiffness matrices are compared with original (undamaged) stiffness matrices. High percentage changes in matrices’ coefficients lead to the location of the damage. TPC technique is applied to the experimental data of a simply supported steel beam model structure after inducing thickness change in one element. Where two cases are considered, the method detects the damage and determines its location accurately in both cases. In addition, the results illustrate that these changes in stiffness matrix can be a useful tool for continuous monitoring of structural safety using ambient vibration data. Furthermore, its efficiency proves that this technique can also be used for big structures.

Keywords: damage detection, optimization, signals processing, structural health monitoring, two points–condensation

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Authors: Debasis Sengupta, Sudipta Das

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The class of life distributions with decreasing mean residual life (DMRL) is well known in the field of reliability modeling. It contains the IFR class of distributions and is contained in the NBUE class of distributions. While upper and lower bounds of the reliability distribution function of aging classes such as IFR, IFRA, NBU, NBUE, and HNBUE have discussed in the literature for a long time, there is no analogous result available for the DMRL class. We obtain the upper and lower bounds for the reliability function of the DMRL class in terms of first order finite moment. The lower bound is obtained by showing that for any fixed time, the minimization of the reliability function over the class of all DMRL distributions with a fixed mean is equivalent to its minimization over a smaller class of distribution with a special form. Optimization over this restricted set can be made algebraically. Likewise, the maximization of the reliability function over the class of all DMRL distributions with a fixed mean turns out to be a parametric optimization problem over the class of DMRL distributions of a special form. The constructive proofs also establish that both the upper and lower bounds are sharp. Further, the DMRL upper bound coincides with the HNBUE upper bound and the lower bound coincides with the IFR lower bound. We also prove that a pair of sharp upper and lower bounds for the reliability function when the distribution is increasing mean residual life (IMRL) with a fixed mean. This result is proved in a similar way. These inequalities fill a long-standing void in the literature of the life distribution modeling.

Keywords: DMRL, IMRL, reliability bounds, hazard functions

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Authors: Diana Reckien

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Vulnerability assessments are increasingly used to support policy-making in complex environments, like urban areas. Usually, vulnerability studies include the construction of aggregate (sub-) indices and the subsequent mapping of indices across an area of interest. Vulnerability studies show a couple of advantages: they are great communication tools, can inform a wider general debate about environmental issues, and can help allocating and efficiently targeting scarce resources for adaptation policy and planning. However, they also have a number of challenges: Vulnerability assessments are constructed on the basis of a wide range of methodologies and there is no single framework or methodology that has proven to serve best in certain environments, indicators vary highly according to the spatial scale used, different variables and metrics produce different results, and aggregate or composite vulnerability indicators that are mapped easily distort or bias the picture of vulnerability as they hide the underlying causes of vulnerability and level out conflicting reasons of vulnerability in space. So, there is urgent need to further develop the methodology of vulnerability studies towards a common framework, which is one reason of the paper. We introduce a social vulnerability approach, which is compared with other approaches of bio-physical or sectoral vulnerability studies relatively developed in terms of a common methodology for index construction, guidelines for mapping, assessment of sensitivity, and verification of variables. Two approaches are commonly pursued in the literature. The first one is an additive approach, in which all potentially influential variables are weighted according to their importance for the vulnerability aspect, and then added to form a composite vulnerability index per unit area. The second approach includes variable reduction, mostly Principal Component Analysis (PCA) that reduces the number of variables that are interrelated into a smaller number of less correlating components, which are also added to form a composite index. We test these two approaches of constructing indices on the area of New York City as well as two different metrics of variables used as input and compare the outcome for the 5 boroughs of NY. Our analysis yields that the mapping exercise yields particularly different results in the outer regions and parts of the boroughs, such as Outer Queens and Staten Island. However, some of these parts, particularly the coastal areas receive the highest attention in the current adaptation policy. We imply from this that the current adaptation policy and practice in NY might need to be discussed, as these outer urban areas show relatively low social vulnerability as compared with the more central parts, i.e. the high dense areas of Manhattan, Central Brooklyn, Central Queens and the Southern Bronx. The inner urban parts receive lesser adaptation attention, but bear a higher risk of damage in case of hazards in those areas. This is conceivable, e.g., during large heatwaves, which would more affect more the inner and poorer parts of the city as compared with the outer urban areas. In light of the recent planning practice of NY one needs to question and discuss who in NY makes adaptation policy for whom, but the presented analyses points towards an under representation of the needs of the socially vulnerable population, such as the poor, the elderly, and ethnic minorities, in the current adaptation practice in New York City.

Keywords: vulnerability mapping, social vulnerability, additive approach, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), New York City, United States, adaptation, social sensitivity

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Authors: Ekin Nurbaş

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One of the essential challenges in array signal processing, which has drawn enormous research interest over the past several decades, is estimating the direction of arrival (DOA) of plane waves impinging on an array of sensors. In recent years, the Compressive Sensing based DoA estimation methods have been proposed by researchers, and it has been discovered that the Compressive Sensing (CS)-based algorithms achieved significant performances for DoA estimation even in scenarios where there are multiple coherent sources. On the other hand, the Genetic Algorithm, which is a method that provides a solution strategy inspired by natural selection, has been used in sparse representation problems in recent years and provides significant improvements in performance. With all of those in consideration, in this paper, a method that combines the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approaches for Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation in the Compressive Sensing (CS) framework is proposed. In this method, we generate a multi-objective optimization problem by splitting the norm minimization and reconstruction loss minimization parts of the Compressive Sensing algorithm. With the help of the Genetic Algorithm, multiple non-dominated solutions are achieved for the defined multi-objective optimization problem. Among the pareto-frontier solutions, the final solution is obtained with the multiple MCDM methods. Moreover, the performance of the proposed method is compared with the CS-based methods in the literature.

Keywords: genetic algorithm, direction of arrival esitmation, multi criteria decision making, compressive sensing

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Authors: Derjew Ayele Ejigu, Houde Song, Xiaojing Liu

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This work presents the particle swarm optimization trained neural network (PSO-NN) supervisory proportional integral derivative (PID) control method to monitor the pressurized water reactor (PWR) core power for safe operation. The proposed control approach is implemented on the transfer function of the PWR core, which is computed from the state-space model. The PWR core state-space model is designed from the neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, and reactivity models using perturbation around the equilibrium value. The proposed control approach computes the control rod speed to maneuver the core power to track the reference in a closed-loop scheme. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to train the neural network (NN) and to tune the PID simultaneously. The controller performance is examined using integral absolute error, integral time absolute error, integral square error, and integral time square error functions, and the stability of the system is analyzed by using the Bode diagram. The simulation results indicated that the controller shows satisfactory performance to control and track the load power effectively and smoothly as compared to the PSO-PID control technique. This study will give benefit to design a supervisory controller for nuclear engineering research fields for control application.

Keywords: machine learning, neural network, pressurized water reactor, supervisory controller

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Authors: Pradipta Risang Ratna Sambawa, Driya Herseta, Mahendra Fajri Nugraha

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In 2020, PT Petrokimia Gresik implemented a program to increase the ROP (Run Of Pile) production rate at the Phosphate Fertilizer 1 plant, causing an increase in scrubbing water consumption in the 100/200 area unit. This increase in water consumption causes a higher discharge of wastewater, which can further cause local flooding, especially during the rainy season. The 100/200 area of the Phosphate Fertilizer 1 plant is close to the warehouse and is often a passing area for trucks transporting raw materials. This causes the pH in the wastewater to become acidic (the worst point is up to pH 1). The problem of flooding and exposure to acidic wastewater in the 100/200 area of Phosphate Fertilizer Plant 1 was then resolved by PT Petrokimia Gresik through wastewater optimization steps called the 3R program (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle). The 3R (Reduce, reuse, and recycle) program consists of an air consumption reduction program by considering the liquid/gas ratio in scrubbing unit of 100/200 Phosphate Fertilizer 1 plant, creating a wastewater interconnection line so that wastewater from unit 100/200 can be used as scrubbing water in the Phonska 1, Phonska 2, Phonska 3 and unit 300 Phosphate Fertilizer 1 plant and increasing scrubbing effectiveness through scrubbing effectiveness simulations. Through a series of wastewater optimization programs, PT Petrokimia Gresik has succeeded in reducing NaOH consumption for neutralization up to 2,880 kg/day or equivalent in saving up to 314,359.76 dollars/year and reducing process water consumption up to 600 m3/day or equivalent in saving up to 63,739.62 dollars/year.

Keywords: fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer, wastewater, wastewater treatment, water management

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Authors: Hosein Ghahremani, MohammadReza Khoshchehre, Pejman Hakemi

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This study involves numerical simulations of a vertical plate-type photo-bioreactor to investigate the performance of Microalgae Spirulina and Control and optimization of parameters for the digital controller by Taguchi method that MATLAB software and Qualitek-4 has been made. Since the addition of parameters such as temperature, dissolved carbon dioxide, biomass, and ... Some new physical parameters such as light intensity and physiological conditions like photosynthetic efficiency and light inhibitors are involved in biological processes, control is facing many challenges. Not only facilitate the commercial production photo-bioreactor Microalgae as feed for aquaculture and food supplements are efficient systems but also as a possible platform for the production of active molecules such as antibiotics or innovative anti-tumor agents, carbon dioxide removal and removal of heavy metals from wastewater is used. Digital controller is designed for controlling the light bioreactor until Microalgae growth rate and carbon dioxide concentration inside the bioreactor is investigated. The optimal values of the controller parameters of the S/N and ANOVA analysis software Qualitek-4 obtained With Reaction curve, Cohen-Con and Ziegler-Nichols method were compared. The sum of the squared error obtained for each of the control methods mentioned, the Taguchi method as the best method for controlling the light intensity was selected photo-bioreactor. This method compared to control methods listed the higher stability and a shorter interval to be answered.

Keywords: photo-bioreactor, control and optimization, Light intensity, Taguchi method

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Authors: Zeev Wiesman, Paula Berman, Nitzan Meiri, Charles Linder

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Supramolecular chemistry refers to the domain of chemistry beyond that of molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular sub units or components. Biodiesel components self arrangements is closely related/affect their physical properties in combustion systems and emission. Due to technological difficulties, knowledge regarding the molecular packing of FAMEs (biodiesel) in the liquid phase is limited. Spectral tools such as X-ray and NMR are known to provide evidences related to molecular structure organization. Recently, it was reported by our research group that using 1H Time Domain NMR methodology based on relaxation time and self diffusion coefficients, FAMEs clusters with different motilities can be accurately studied in the liquid phase. Head to head dimarization with quasi-smectic clusters organization, based on molecular motion analysis, was clearly demonstrated. These findings about the assembly/packing of the FAME components are directly associated with fluidity/viscosity of the biodiesel. Furthermore, these findings may provide information of micro/nano-particles that are formed in the delivery and injection system of various combustion systems (affected by thermodynamic conditions). Various relevant parameters to combustion such as: distillation/Liquid Gas phase transition, cetane number/ignition delay, shoot, oxidation/NOX emission maybe predicted. These data may open the window for further optimization of FAME/diesel mixture in terms of combustion and emission.

Keywords: supermolecular chemistry, FAMEs, liquid phase, fluidity, LF-NMR

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Authors: Ema Septaria, Muhammad Yamani, N. S. B. Ambarini

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The problem begins with the imposition of fine penalties by Ipuh small fishermen for customary fishing vessels encroaching catchment area in the Ipuh, a village in Muko-Muko, Bengkulu, Indonesia. Two main reasons for that are fishermen from out of Ipuh came and fished in Ipuh water using trawl as the gear and the number of fish decrease time by time as a result of irresponsible fishing practice. Such conflict has lasted since long ago. Indonesia Governing laws do not rule the utilization of sea territory by small fishermen that when the conflict appears there is a rechtvacuum on how to solve the conflict and this leads to a chaos in society. In Ipuh itself, there has been a local law in fisheries which they still adhere up to present because they believe holding to the law will keep the fish sustain. This is an empirical legal research with socio legal approach. The results of this study show even though laws do not regulate in detail about the utilization of sea territory by small fishermen, there is an article in Fisheries Act stating fisheries activity has to put attention to local law and community participation. Furthermore, constitution governs that the land, the waters and the natural resources within shall be under the powers of the State and shall be used to the greatest benefit of the people. With the power, Government has to make a policy that reinforces what has been ruled in Ipuh local law. Besides, Bengkulu Governor has to involve Ipuh community directly in managing their fisheries to ensure the fisheries sustainability therein.

Keywords: local law, reinforcement, conflict, sea utilization, small fishermen

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Authors: Renata Konadu

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In Ghana, electricity has become the main form of energy which all sectors of the economy rely on for their businesses. Therefore, as the economy grows, the demand and consumption of electricity also grow alongside due to the heavy dependence on it. However, since the supply of electricity has not increased to match the demand, there has been frequent power outages and load shedding affecting business performances. To solve this problem and advance policies to secure electricity in Ghana, it is imperative that those factors that cause consumption to increase be analysed by considering the three classes of consumers; residential, industrial and non-residential. The main argument, however, is that, export of electricity to other neighbouring countries should be included in the electricity consumption model and considered as one of the significant factors which can decrease or increase consumption. The author made use of multivariate time series data from 1980-2010 and econometric models such as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Vector Error Correction Model. Findings show that GDP growth, urban population growth, electricity exports and industry value added to GDP were cointegrated. The results also showed that there is unidirectional causality from electricity export and GDP growth and Industry value added to GDP to electricity consumption in the long run. However, in the short run, there was found to be a directional causality among all the variables and electricity consumption. The results have useful implication for energy policy makers especially with regards to electricity consumption, demand, and supply.

Keywords: electricity consumption, energy policy, GDP growth, vector error correction model

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Authors: Misook Ahn

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This study examined the Digital Curriculum Repository (DCR) project initiated at Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). The purpose of the DCR is to build a centralized curriculum infrastructure, preserve all curriculum materials, and provide academic service to users (faculty, students, or other agencies). The DCR collection includes core language curriculum materials developed by each language school—foreign language textbooks, language survival kits, and audio files currently in or not in use at the schools. All core curriculum materials with audio and video files have been coded, collected, and preserved at the DCR. The DCR website was designed with MS SharePoint for easy accessibility by the DLIFLC’s faculty and students. All metadata for the collected curriculum materials have been input by language, code, year, book type, level, user, version, and current status (in use/not in use). The study documents digital curriculum preservation planning, actions, and challenges, including collecting, coding, collaborating, designing DCR SharePoint, and policymaking. DCR Survey data is also collected and analyzed for this research. Based on the finding, the study concludes that the mandatory policy for the DCR system and collaboration with school leadership are critical elements of a successful repository system. The sample collected items, metadata, and DCR SharePoint site are presented in the evaluation section.

Keywords: MS share point, digital preservation, repository, policy

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Authors: Iulia E. Falcan

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The transition of the European power sector towards a clean, renewable energy (RE) system faces the challenge of meeting power demand in times of low wind speed and low solar radiation, at a reasonable cost. This is likely to be achieved through a combination of 1) energy storage technologies, 2) development of the cross-border power grid, 3) installed overcapacity of RE and 4) dispatchable power sources – such as biomass. This paper uses NASA; derived hourly data on weather patterns of sixteen European countries for the past twenty-five years, and load data from the European Network of Transmission System Operators-Electricity (ENTSO-E), to develop a stochastic optimization model. This model aims to understand the synergies between the four classes of technologies mentioned above and to determine the optimal configuration of the energy technologies portfolio. While this issue has been addressed before, it was done so using deterministic models that extrapolated historic data on weather patterns and power demand, as well as ignoring the risk of an unbalanced grid-risk stemming from both the supply and the demand side. This paper aims to explicitly account for the inherent uncertainty in the energy system transition. It articulates two levels of uncertainty: a) the inherent uncertainty in future weather patterns and b) the uncertainty of fully meeting power demand. The first level of uncertainty is addressed by developing probability distributions for future weather data and thus expected power output from RE technologies, rather than known future power output. The latter level of uncertainty is operationalized by introducing a Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) constraint in the portfolio optimization problem. By setting the risk threshold at different levels – 1%, 5% and 10%, important insights are revealed regarding the synergies of the different energy technologies, i.e., the circumstances under which they behave as either complements or substitutes to each other. The paper concludes that allowing for uncertainty in expected power output - rather than extrapolating historic data - paints a more realistic picture and reveals important departures from results of deterministic models. In addition, explicitly acknowledging the risk of an unbalanced grid - and assigning it different thresholds - reveals non-linearity in the cost functions of different technology portfolio configurations. This finding has significant implications for the design of the European energy mix.

Keywords: cross-border grid extension, energy storage technologies, energy system transition, stochastic portfolio optimization

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Authors: Wenjuan Lu

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China and Hungary have risen from a friendly and comprehensive cooperative relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in recent years, and the economic and trade relations between the two countries have developed smoothly. As an important country along the ‘Belt and Road’, Hungary and China have strong economic complementarities and have unique advantages in carrying China's industrial transfer and economic transformation and development. The construction of the China-Hungary Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, which was initiated by the ‘Sino-Hungarian Borsod Industrial Zone’ and the ‘Hungarian Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Park’ has promoted infrastructure construction, optimized production capacity, promoted industrial restructuring, and formed brand and agglomeration effects. Enhancing the influence of Chinese companies in the European market has also promoted economic development in Hungary and even in Central and Eastern Europe. However, as the China-Hungary Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone is still in its infancy, there are still shortcomings such as small scale, single function, and no prominent platform. In the future, based on the needs of China's cooperation with ‘17+1’ and China-Hungary cooperation, on the basis of appropriately expanding the scale of economic and trade cooperation zones and appropriately increasing the number of economic and trade cooperation zones, it is better to focus on optimizing and adjusting its functions and highlighting different economic and trade cooperation. The differentiated function of the trade zones strengthens the multi-faceted cooperation of economic and trade cooperation zones and highlights its role as a platform for cooperation in information, capital, and services.

Keywords: ‘One Belt, One Road’ Initiative, China-Hungary economic and trade cooperation zone, function optimization, Central and Eastern Europe

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Authors: Eashan Hatti

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In software development, programmers often must make a choice between high-level programming and high-performance programs. High-level programming encourages the use of complex, pervasive abstractions. However, the use of these abstractions degrades performance-high performance demands that programs be low-level. In a compiler, the optimizer attempts to let the user have both. The optimizer takes high-level, abstract code as an input and produces low-level, performant code as an output. However, there is a problem with having the optimizer be a built-in part of the compiler. Domain-specific abstractions implemented as libraries are common in high-level languages. As a language’s library ecosystem grows, so does the number of abstractions that programmers will use. If these abstractions are to be performant, the optimizer must be extended with new optimizations to target them, or these abstractions must rely on existing general-purpose optimizations. The latter is often not as effective as needed. The former presents too significant of an effort for the compiler developers, as they are the only ones who can extend the language with new optimizations. Thus, the language becomes more high-level, yet the optimizer – and, in turn, program performance – falls behind. Programmers are again confronted with a choice between high-level programming and high-performance programs. To investigate a potential solution to this problem, we developed Peridot, a prototype programming language. Peridot’s main contribution is that it enables library developers to easily extend the language with new optimizations themselves. This allows the optimization workload to be taken off the compiler developers’ hands and given to a much larger set of people who can specialize in each problem domain. Because of this, optimizations can be much more effective while also being much more numerous. To enable this, Peridot supports metaprogramming designed for implementing program transformations. The language is split into two fragments or “levels”, one for metaprogramming, the other for high-level general-purpose programming. The metaprogramming level supports logic programming. Peridot’s key idea is that optimizations are simply implemented as metaprograms. The meta level supports several specific features which make it particularly suited to implementing optimizers. For instance, metaprograms can automatically deduce equalities between the programs they are optimizing via unification, deal with variable binding declaratively via higher-order abstract syntax, and avoid the phase-ordering problem via non-determinism. We have found that this design centered around logic programming makes optimizers concise and easy to write compared to their equivalents in functional or imperative languages. Overall, implementing Peridot has shown that its design is a viable solution to the problem of writing code which is both high-level and performant.

Keywords: optimization, metaprogramming, logic programming, abstraction

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Authors: Durri Andriani, Irsan Tahar, Lilian Sarah Hiariey

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Every institution has to develop, implement, and control its policies to ensure the effectiveness of the institution. In doing so, all related stakeholders have to be involved to maximize the benefit of the policies and minimize the potential constraints and resistances. Open and distance education (ODE) institution is no different. As an education institution, ODE institution has to focus their attention to fulfilling academic needs of their students through open and distance measures. One of them is quality learning support system. Significant stakeholders in learning support system are tutors since they are the ones who directly communicate with students. Tutors are commonly seen as objects whose main responsibility is limited to implementing policies decided by management in ODE institutions. Nonetheless, tutors’ perceptions of tutorials are believed to influence tutors’ performances in facilitating learning support. It is therefore important to analyze tutors’ perception on various aspects of learning support. This paper presents analysis of tutors’ perceptions on policies of tutoriala in ODE institution using Policy Analysis Framework (PAF) modified by King, Nugent, Russell, and Lacy. Focus of this paper is on on-line tutors, those who provide tutorials via Internet. On-line tutors were chosen to stress the increasingly important used of Internet in ODE system. The research was conducted in Universitas Terbuka (UT), Indonesia. UT is purposely selected because of its large number (1,234) of courses offered and large area coverage (6000 inhabited islands). These posed UT in a unique position where learning support system has, to some extent, to be standardized while at the same time it has to be able to cater the needs of different courses in different places for students with different backgrounds. All 598 listed on-line tutors were sent the research questionnaires. Around 20% of the email addresses could not be reached. Tutors were asked to fill out open-ended questionnaires on their perceptions on definition of on-line tutorial, roles of tutors and students in on-line tutorials, requirement for on-line tutors, learning materials, and student evaluation in on-line tutorial. Data analyzed was gathered from 40 on-line tutors who sent back filled-out questionnaires. Data were analyzed qualitatively using content analysis from all 40 tutors. The results showed that using PAF as entry point in choosing learning support services as area of policy with delivery learning materials as the issue at UT has been able to provide new insights of aspects need to be consider in formulating policies in online tutorial and in learning support services. Involving tutors as source of information could be proven to be productive. In general, tutors had clear understanding about definition of online tutorial, roles of tutors and roles of students, and requirement of tutor. Tutors just need to be more involved in the policy formulation since they could provide data on students and problem faced in online tutorial. However, tutors need an adjustment in student evaluation which according tutors too focus on administrative aspects and subjective.

Keywords: distance education, on-line tutorial, tutorial policy, tutors’ perspectives

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Authors: Izani Uzair Zubair, Mohd Ismail Ibrahim, Mohd Nazri Shafei, Hassan Merican Omar Naina Merican, Mohamad Sabri Othman, Mohd Izmi Ahmad Ibrahim, Rasilah Ramli, Rajpal Singh Karam Singh

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Nurses experience a higher prevalence of low back pain (LBP) and musculoskeletal complaints as compared to other hospital workers. Due to no proper policy related to LBP, the job has exposed them to the problem. Thus, the current study aims to look at the intensity of the problem and factors associated with development of LBP. Method and Tools: A cross sectional study was carried out among 1292 nurses from six public hospitals in Penang. They were randomly selected and those who were pregnant and have been diagnosed to have LBP were excluded. A Malay validated BACK Questionnaire was used. The associated factors were determined by using multiple logistic regression from SPSS version 20.0. Result: Most of the respondents were at mean age 30 years old and had mean working experience 86 months. The prevalence of LBP was identified as 76% (95% CI 74, 82). Factors that were associated with LBP among nurses include lifting a heavy object (OR2.626 (95% CI 1.978, 3.486) p =0.001 and the estimation weight of the lifted object (OR1.443 (95% CI 1.056, 1.970) p =0.021. Conclusion: Nurses who practice lifting heavy object and weight of the object lifted give a significant contribution to the development of LBP. The prevalence of the problem is significantly high. Thus, a proper no weight lifting policy should be considered.

Keywords: low back pain, nurses, Penang public hospital, Penang

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Authors: A. E. Obayelu, S. O. Olubiyo

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Food is different from other commodities because everybody needs food for survival. This has led to a shift in focus to food security in the global policy arena. However, there is paucity of studies on the interactions between food security, migration, urbanization and population rise. This paper therefore look at the linkages between migration and food security in the context of rapid urbanization and population rise of Nigeria. The study obtained data and information from both secondary sources and primary method through the voice of some selected Nigerians through telephone interview. The findings revealed that, the primary factor for the rapid urbanization in Nigeria is migration; most foods are still produced by peasant farmers who are scattered all over the rural areas and not multinational companies who produce on large scale. The country is still characterized with inadequate infrastructural facilities and services to cater for growing population. There are no protective policies enforced by the Nigeria government. In most cases, the migrants are left entirely on mercy of what they can find to due for survival. The most common coping mechanisms by migrants from rural to urban areas are changing food intake in terms of quantity, quality, diversity and frequency and prioritizing children. Policies that address urban food security need to consider the complex relationship between rapid population rise and migration and appropriate transformations that will be able to manage urbanization. With increasing rate of urbanization, the focus of food security should no longer be that of rural only

Keywords: agricultural commercialization, agricultural transformation, food security, urban, urbanization

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Authors: Aliaa M. El-Borai, Ehab A. Beltagy, Eman E. Gadallah, Samy A. ElAssar

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Bioremediation technology is now used for treatment instead of traditional metal removal methods. A strain was isolated from Marsa Alam, Red sea, Egypt showed high resistance to high lead concentration and was identified by the 16S rRNA gene sequencing technique as Halomonas sp. ES015. Medium optimization was carried out using Plackett-Burman design, and the most significant factors were yeast extract, casamino acid and inoculums size. The optimized media obtained by the statistical design raised the removal efficiency from 84% to 99% from initial concentration 250 ppm of lead. Moreover, Box-Behnken experimental design was applied to study the relationship between yeast extract concentration, casamino acid concentration and inoculums size. The optimized medium increased removal efficiency to 97% from initial concentration 500 ppm of lead. Immobilized Halomonas sp. ES015 cells on sponge cubes, using optimized medium in loop bioremediation column, showed relatively constant lead removal efficiency when reused six successive cycles over the range of time interval. Also metal removal efficiency was not affected by flow rate changes. Finally, the results of this research refer to the possibility of lead bioremediation by free or immobilized cells of Halomonas sp. ES015. Also, bioremediation can be done in batch cultures and semicontinuous cultures using column technology.

Keywords: bioremediation, lead, Box–Behnken, Halomonas sp. ES015, loop bioremediation, Plackett-Burman

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Authors: Adrianna D. Hendricks

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This paper examines the factors that contribute to the re-traumatization of victims of sex trafficking within the Canadian context. Sex trafficking occurring domestically in Canada is severely under-researched, stigmatized, and under-prosecuted, leading to the re-traumatization of victims by various levels of government. This is in part due to the Canadian criminal justice system unethically utilizing prostitution laws in cases of sex trafficking and partially due to the unaddressed stigmatization victims face within the justice system itself. Utilizing evidence from a current literature review, personal correspondence, and personal life experiences, this paper will demonstrate the need for victim involvement in policy reform. The current literature review was done through an academic database search using the terms: “Sex Trafficking, Exploitation, Canada”, with the limitation of articles written within the last 5 years and written within the Canadian context. Overall, from the results, only eight articles precisely matched the criteria. The current literature argues strongly and unanimously for more research and education of professionals who have close contact with high-risk populations (doctors, police officers, social workers, etc.) to protect both minors and adults from being sexually trafficked. Additionally, for women and girls who do not have Canadian citizenship, the fear of deportation becomes a barrier to disclosing exploitation experiences to professionals. There is a desperate need for more research done in tandem with survivors and victims to inform policymaking in a meaningful way. The researcher is a survivor of sex trafficking both as a youth and as an adult, giving the researcher a unique insight into the realities of the criminal justice system for victims of sex trafficking. There is a clear need for professionals in positions of power to be re-educated about the realities of sex-trafficking, and what it means for the victims. Congruent to the current research the author calls for: standardized professional training for people in healthcare, police officers, court officials, and victim services; with the additional layers of victim involvement in creation of professional education training, and victim involvement in research. Justice for victims/survivors can only be obtained if they have been consulted and believed. Without meaningful consultation with survivors, victims who are both minors and adults will continue to fall through the cracks in policy.

Keywords: Canadian policy, re-traumatization, sex-trafficking, stigmatization

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Authors: Charles P. Mukumba, Kahilu K. Shakantu

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Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] is a key to achieving transformational results that support Zambia’s development. Public procurement is an integral to the government’s mission to deliver goods and services, in a timely and economic manner beyond the value of money spent. This study explores the link between sustainable public procurement and the SDG targets in Zambia. And to validate the established links with the public sector procurement in Zambia. The study employed qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with 18 public procurement officials. The collected data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that public procurement plays a fundamental role in achieving the sustainable development goals [SDGs] by helping to deliver core public services that support SDGs and also by systematising and co-delivering added value along the way. The study further established the importance of sustainable public procurement within the context of development. The interviews were limited to mainstream public sector procurement entities in Lusaka, Zambia. Sustainable public procurement actions have the potential to impact SDG goals. Promoting sustainable public procurement will enhance sustainable development and significantly improve supply chain that would benefit the economy, society and environment. Findings will inform policy-makers how to strategically design sustainable public procurement policy by attuning it to procuring entities objectives and priorities in order to contribute to the attainment of SDGs.

Keywords: sustainable public procurement, sustainable development goals, target, Zambia

Procedia PDF Downloads 135

Authors: Hyun Seop Uhm, Yong Ho Choi, Ji Eun Kim, Young Hoon Lee

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Weapon-target assignment (WTA) is a problem that assigns available launchers to appropriate targets in order to defend assets. Various algorithms for WTA have been developed over past years for both in the static and dynamic environment (denoted by SWTA and DWTA respectively). Due to the problem requirement to be solved in a relevant computational time, WTA has suffered from the solution efficiency. As a result, SWTA and DWTA problems have been solved in the limited situation of the battlefield. In this paper, the general situation under continuous time is considered by Time based Weapon Target Assignment (TWTA) problem. TWTA are studied using the mixed integer programming model, and three heuristic algorithms; decomposed opt-opt, decomposed opt-greedy, and greedy algorithms are suggested. Although the TWTA optimization model works inefficiently when it is characterized by a large size, the decomposed opt-opt algorithm based on the linearization and decomposition method extracted efficient solutions in a reasonable computation time. Because the computation time of the scheduling part is too long to solve by the optimization model, several algorithms based on greedy is proposed. The models show lower performance value than that of the decomposed opt-opt algorithm, but very short time is needed to compute. Hence, this paper proposes an improved method by applying decomposition to TWTA, and more practical and effectual methods can be developed for using TWTA on the battlefield.

Keywords: air and missile defense, weapon target assignment, mixed integer programming, piecewise linearization, decomposition algorithm, military operations research

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Authors: Terefe Alemu

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This study is intended to examine Ethiopia’s trade flow determinants and trade potential with G20 countries whether it was overtraded or there is/are trade potential by using trade gravity model. The sources of panel data used were IMF, WDI, United Nations population division, The Heritage Foundation, Washington's No. 1 think tank online website database, online distance calculator, and others for the duration of 2010 to 2019 for 10 consecutive years. The empirical data analyzing tool used was Random effect model (REM), which is effective in estimation of time-invariant data. The empirical data analyzed using STATA software result indicates that Ethiopia has a trade potential with seven countries of G20, whereas Ethiopia overtrade with 12 countries and EU region. The Ethiopia’s and G20 countries/region bilateral trade flow statistically significant/ p<0.05/determinants were the population of G20 countries, growth domestic products of G20 countries, growth domestic products of Ethiopia, geographical distance between Ethiopia and G20 countries. The top five G20 countries exported to Ethiopia were china, United State of America, European Union, India, and South Africa, whereas the top five G20 countries imported from Ethiopia were EU, China, United State of America, Saudi Arabia, and Germany, respectively. Finally, the policy implication were Ethiopia has to Keep the consistence of trade flow with overtraded countries and improve with under traded countries through trade policy revision, and secondly, focusing on the trade determinants to improve trade flow is recommended.

Keywords: trade gravity model, trade determinants, G20, international trade, trade potential

Procedia PDF Downloads 210

Authors: Iqraq Kamal, Akmal Razif, Sivadas Chandra Sekaran, Ahmad Syazwan Hisaburi

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Painting plays a crucial role in the aerospace manufacturing industry, serving both protective and cosmetic purposes for components. However, the traditional manual painting method is time-consuming and labor-intensive, posing challenges for the sector in achieving higher efficiency. Additionally, the current automated robot path planning has been a bottleneck for spray painting processes, as typical manual teaching methods are time-consuming, error-prone, and skill-dependent. Therefore, it is essential to develop automated tool path planning methods to replace manual ones, reducing costs and improving product quality. Focusing on flat panel painting in aerospace manufacturing, this study aims to address issues related to unreliable part identification techniques caused by the high-mixture, low-volume nature of the industry. The proposed solution involves using a spray gun and a UR10 robotic arm with a vision system that utilizes one-shot object detection (OS2D) to identify parts accurately. Additionally, the research optimizes path planning by concentrating on the region of interest—specifically, the identified part, rather than uniformly covering the entire painting tray.

Keywords: aerospace manufacturing, one-shot object detection, automated spray painting, vision-based path optimization, deep learning, automation, robotic arm

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Authors: Parth Mehta, Vedasri Bai Khavala, Prabhu Rajagopal, Tiju Thomas

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There is an increasing need for alternative clean fuels, and hydrogen (H₂) has long been considered a promising solution with a high calorific value (142MJ/kg). However, the storage of H₂ and expensive processes for its generation have hindered its usage. Sodium borohydride (NaBH₄) can potentially be used as an economically viable means of H₂ storage. Thus far, there have been attempts to optimize the life of NaBH₄ (half-life) in aqueous media by stabilizing it with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for various pH values. Other reports have shown that H₂ yield and reaction kinetics remained constant for all ratios of H₂O to NaBH₄ > 30:1, without any acidic catalysts. Here we highlight the importance of pH and H₂O: NaBH₄ ratio (80:1, 40:1, 20:1 and 10:1 by weight), for NaBH₄ stabilization (half-life reaction time at room temperature) and corrosion minimization of H₂ reactor components. It is interesting to observe that at any particular pH>10 (e.g., pH = 10, 11 and 12), the H₂O: NaBH₄ ratio does not have the expected linear dependence with stability. On the contrary, high stability was observed at the ratio of 10:1 H₂O: NaBH₄ across all pH>10. When the H₂O: NaBH₄ ratio is increased from 10:1 to 20:1 and beyond (till 80:1), constant stability (% degradation) is observed with respect to time. For practical usage (consumption within 6 hours of making NaBH₄ solution), 15% degradation at pH 11 and NaBH₄: H₂O ratio of 10:1 is recommended. Increasing this ratio demands higher NaOH concentration at the same pH, thus requiring a higher concentration or volume of acid (e.g., HCl) for H₂ generation. The reactions are done with tap water to render the results useful from an industrial standpoint. The observed stability regimes are rationalized based on complexes associated with NaBH₄ when solvated in water, which depend sensitively on both pH and NaBH₄: H₂O ratio.

Keywords: hydrogen, sodium borohydride, stability optimization, H₂O:NaBH₄ ratio

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Authors: Rubin Dan, Xingcai Wang, Ziyang Chen

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A chaotic time series noise reduction method based on the fusion of the local projection method, wavelet transform, and particle swarm algorithm (referred to as the LW-PSO method) is proposed to address the problem of false recognition due to noise in the recognition process of chaotic time series containing noise. The method first uses phase space reconstruction to recover the original dynamical system characteristics and removes the noise subspace by selecting the neighborhood radius; then it uses wavelet transform to remove D1-D3 high-frequency components to maximize the retention of signal information while least-squares optimization is performed by the particle swarm algorithm. The Lorenz system containing 30% Gaussian white noise is simulated and verified, and the phase space, SNR value, RMSE value, and K value of the 0-1 test method before and after noise reduction of the Schreiber method, local projection method, wavelet transform method, and LW-PSO method are compared and analyzed, which proves that the LW-PSO method has a better noise reduction effect compared with the other three common methods. The method is also applied to the classical system to evaluate the noise reduction effect of the four methods and the original system identification effect, which further verifies the superiority of the LW-PSO method. Finally, it is applied to the Chengdu rainfall chaotic sequence for research, and the results prove that the LW-PSO method can effectively reduce the noise and improve the chaos recognition rate.

Keywords: Schreiber noise reduction, wavelet transform, particle swarm optimization, 0-1 test method, chaotic sequence denoising

Procedia PDF Downloads 193

Authors: Julie Ann L. Gadin, Andrearose C. Igano, Carl Joseph S. Ignacio, Christopher C. Bacungan

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Corn production has become an important and pervasive industry in the Visayas for many years. Its role as a substitute commodity to rice heightens demand for health-particular consumers. Unfortunately, the corn industry is confronted with several challenges, such as weak institutions. Considering these issues, the paper examined the factors that influence corn production in the three administrative regions in the Visayas, namely, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, and Eastern Visayas. The data used was retrieved from a variety of publicly available data sources such as the Philippine Statistics Authority, the Department of Agriculture, the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation, and the International Disaster Database. Utilizing a dataset from 2002 to 2019, the indicators were tested using three multiple linear regression (MLR) models. Results showed that the land area harvested (p=0.02), and the value of corn production (p=0.00) are statistically significant variables that influence corn production in the Visayas. Given these findings, it is suggested that the policy of forest conversion and sustainable land management should be effective in enabling farmworkers to obtain land to grow corn crops, especially in rural regions. Furthermore, the Biofuels Act of 2006, the Livestock Industry Restructuring and Rationalization Act, and supported policy, Senate Bill No. 225, or an Act Establishing the Philippine Corn Research Institute and Appropriating Funds, should be enforced inclusively in order to improve the demand for the corn-allied industries which may lead to an increase in the value and volume of corn production in the Visayas.

Keywords: corn, industry, production, MLR, Visayas

Procedia PDF Downloads 200

Authors: Viktorija Mano

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The objective of my research is to critique the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stance on foreign investment and the benefits for small, open economies of allowing the free movement of capital. In my research as a whole I will explore the extent to which this stance impacted upon and influenced the economic policies of Macedonia. This will involve providing a contextualized, critical account of the policy of the IMF focusing on a comparison of its policies during the early 2000s through policy documents, political discourse and enacted policies in Macedonia. The conditionality associated with these policies, such as the enforcement of austerity measures (including cutting public spending and reducing debt) and the privatization of public institutions has provoked strong reactions in countries which receive such loans. My main focus in my research is on exploring how the process of Financial Liberalization (FL) of the Macedonian economy affected capital flows in the form of foreign direct investments (FDI) in the private sector and how the recent Greek crisis of 2008 has impacted on this. In the case of Macedonia, the reality of FL was tested by the collapse of the Greek economy. However, this paper will highlight the main duties of the IMF and the goals of the FL process implemented in various countries.Additionally, I will undertake a rhetorical documentary analysis on the IMF reports regarding the process of FL in Macedonia since its independence until today.

Keywords: FDI, financial liberalization, Greece, IMF, Macedonia

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Authors: Hanwei Gao, Louis Jezequel, Eric Cabrol, Bernard Vitry

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The chassis system is composed of complex elements that take up all the loads from the tire-ground contact area and thus it plays an important role in numerous specifications such as durability, comfort, crash, etc. During the development of new vehicle projects in Renault, durability validation is always the main focus while deployment of comfort comes later in the project. Therefore, sometimes design choices have to be reconsidered because of the natural incompatibility between these two specifications. Besides, robustness is also an important point of concern as it is related to manufacturing costs as well as the performance after the ageing of components like shock absorbers. In this paper an approach is proposed aiming to realize a multi-objective optimization between chassis endurance and comfort while taking the random factors into consideration. The adaptive-sparse polynomial chaos expansion method (PCE) with Chebyshev polynomial series has been applied to predict responses’ uncertainty intervals of a system according to its uncertain-but-bounded parameters. The approach can be divided into three steps. First an initial design of experiments is realized to build the response surfaces which represent statistically a black-box system. Secondly within several iterations an optimum set is proposed and validated which will form a Pareto front. At the same time the robustness of each response, served as additional objectives, is calculated from the pre-defined parameter intervals and the response surfaces obtained in the first step. Finally an inverse strategy is carried out to determine the parameters’ tolerance combination with a maximally acceptable degradation of the responses in terms of manufacturing costs. A quarter car model has been tested as an example by applying the road excitations from the actual road measurements for both endurance and comfort calculations. One indicator based on the Basquin’s law is defined to compare the global chassis durability of different parameter settings. Another indicator related to comfort is obtained from the vertical acceleration of the sprung mass. An optimum set with best robustness has been finally obtained and the reference tests prove a good robustness prediction of Chebyshev PCE method. This example demonstrates the effectiveness and reliability of the approach, in particular its ability to save computational costs for a complex system.

Keywords: chassis durability, Chebyshev polynomials, multi-objective optimization, polynomial chaos expansion, ride comfort, robust design

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Xin-Yu Li, Dung-Ying Lin

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Fleet availability is a crucial indicator for an aircraft fleet. However, in practice, fleet planning involves many resource and safety constraints, such as annual and monthly flight training targets and maximum engine usage limits. Due to safety considerations, engines must be removed for mandatory maintenance and replacement of key components. This situation is known as the "threshold." The annual number of thresholds is a key factor in maintaining fleet availability. However, the traditional method heavily relies on experience and manual planning, which may result in ineffective engine usage and affect the flight missions. This study aims to address the challenges of fleet planning and availability maintenance in aircraft fleets with resource and safety constraints. The goal is to effectively optimize engine usage and maintenance tasks. This study has four objectives: minimizing the number of engine thresholds, minimizing the monthly lack of flight hours, minimizing the monthly excess of flight hours, and minimizing engine disassembly frequency. To solve the resulting formulation, this study uses parametric programming techniques and ϵ-constraint method to reformulate multi-objective problems into single-objective problems, efficiently generating Pareto fronts. This method is advantageous when handling multiple conflicting objectives. It allows for an effective trade-off between these competing objectives. Empirical results and managerial insights will be provided.

Keywords: aircraft fleet, engine utilization planning, multi-objective optimization, parametric method, Pareto optimality

Procedia PDF Downloads 14