Search results for: fuzzy boundary value problems

Authors: Lihui Ma, Kunlun Xin, Suiqing Liu

Abstract:

Modern managements of water distribution system (WDS) need water quality models that are able to accurately predict the dynamics of water quality variations within the distribution system environment. Before water quality models can be applied to solve system problems, they should be calibrated. Although former researchers use GA solver to calibrate relative parameters, it is difficult to apply on the large-scale or medium-scale real system for long computational time. In this paper a new method is designed which combines both macro and detailed model to optimize the water quality parameters. This new combinational algorithm uses radial basis function (RBF) metamodeling as a surrogate to be optimized for the purpose of decreasing the times of time-consuming water quality simulation and can realize rapidly the calibration of pipe wall reaction coefficients of chlorine model of large-scaled WDS. After two cases study this method is testified to be more efficient and promising, and deserve to generalize in the future.

Keywords: Metamodeling, model calibration, radial basisfunction, water distribution system, water quality model.

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Authors: Michael Ajide Oyinloye

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Generally the natural environment is made up of air, water and soil. The release of emission of industrial waste into anyone of the components of the environment causes pollution. Industrial pollution significantly threatens the inherent right of people, to the enjoyment of a safe and secure environment. The aim of this paper is to assess the effect of environmental pollution and health risks of residents living near Ewekoro cement factory. The research made use of IKONOS imagery for Geographical Information System (GIS) to buffer and extract buildings that are less than 1km to the factory, within 1km to 5km and above 5km to the factory. Also questionnaire was used to elicit information on the socio-economic factors, effect of environmental pollution on residents and measures adopted to control industrial pollution on the residents. Findings show that most buildings that fall between less than 1km and 1km to 5km to the factory have high health risk in the study area. The study recommended total relocation for the residents of the study area to reduce health risk problems.

Keywords: Environmental pollution, Ewekoro, GIS, Health risk, Satellite imagery.

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Authors: V.R Gannapathy, S.K Subramaniam, A.B Mohamad Diah, M.K Suaidi, A.H Hamidon

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The picture of a perfect road construction site is the one that utilizes conventional vertical road signs and a flagman to optimize the traffic flow with minimum hazel to the public. Former research has been carried out by Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) and Ministry of Works to further enhance smoothness in traffic operations and particularly in safety issues within work zones. This paper highlights on hazardous zones in a certain road construction or road maintenance site. Most cases show that the flagman falls into high risk of fatal accidents within work zone. Various measures have been taken by both the authorities and contractors to overcome such miseries, yet it-s impossible to eliminate the usage of a flagman since it is considered the best practice. With the implementation of new technologies in automating the traffic flow in road construction site, it is possible to eliminate the usage of a flagman. The intelligent traffic light system is designed to solve problems which contribute hazardous at road construction site and to be inline with the road safety regulation which is taken into granted.

Keywords: Intelligent Traffic Light, Critical Zones, Safety Regulation, Flagman

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Authors: Abdulqader M. Mohsen, Ahamad Tajudin Khader, Dhanesh Ramachandram, Abdullatif Ghallab

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The physical methods for RNA secondary structure prediction are time consuming and expensive, thus methods for computational prediction will be a proper alternative. Various algorithms have been used for RNA structure prediction including dynamic programming and metaheuristic algorithms. Musician's behaviorinspired harmony search is a recently developed metaheuristic algorithm which has been successful in a wide variety of complex optimization problems. This paper proposes a harmony search algorithm (HSRNAFold) to find RNA secondary structure with minimum free energy and similar to the native structure. HSRNAFold is compared with dynamic programming benchmark mfold and metaheuristic algorithms (RnaPredict, SetPSO and HelixPSO). The results showed that HSRNAFold is comparable to mfold and better than metaheuristics in finding the minimum free energies and the number of correct base pairs.

Keywords: Metaheuristic algorithms, dynamic programming algorithms, harmony search optimization, RNA folding, Minimum free energy.

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Authors: Durga C. Dalal, Swapan K. Pandit

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In this paper, a numerical study has been made to analyze the transient 2-D flows of a viscous incompressible fluid through channels with forward or backward constriction. Problems addressed include flow through sudden contraction and sudden expansion channel geometries with rounded and increasingly sharp reentrant corner. In both the cases, numerical results are presented for the separation and reattachment points, streamlines, vorticity and flow patterns. A fourth order accurate compact scheme has been employed to efficiently capture steady state solutions of the governing equations. It appears from our study that sharpness of the throat in the channel is one of the important parameters to control the strength and size of the separation zone without modifying the general flow patterns. The comparison between the two cases shows that the upstream geometry plays a significant role on vortex growth dynamics.

Keywords: Forward and backward constriction, HOC scheme, Incompressible viscous flows, Separation and reattachment points.

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Authors: L. Haddad, Z. Aouachria

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The development of transport systems has negative impacts on the environment although it has beneficial effects on society. The car policy caused many problems such as: - the spectacular growth of fuel consumption hence the very vast increase in urban pollution, traffic congestion in certain places and at certain times, the increase in the number of accidents. The exhaust emissions from cars and weather conditions are the main factors that determine the level of pollution in urban atmosphere. These conditions lead to the phenomenon of heat transfer and radiation occurring between the air and the soil surface of any town. These exchanges give rise, in urban areas, to the effects of heat islands that correspond to the appearance of excess air temperature between the city and its surrounding space. In this object, we perform a numerical simulation of the plume generated by the cars exhaust gases and show that these gases form a screening effect above the urban city which cause the heat island in the presence of wind flow. This study allows us: 1. To understand the different mechanisms of interactions between these phenomena.2. To consider appropriate technical solutions to mitigate the effects of the heat island.

Keywords: Atmospheric pollution, impact on the health, urban transport, heat island.

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Authors: Murugan. A., Jerlin Nirmala. F .

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Life is beautiful. But, it is decided by genes, environment and the individual and shattered by the natural and / or the invited problems. Most of the global rural helpless masses are struggling for their survival since; they are neglected in all aspects of life including health. Amidst a countless number of miserable diseases in man, diabetes is becoming a dreaded killer and ramifying the entire globe in a jet speed. Diabetes control continues as a Herculean task to the scientific community and the modern society in the 21st century also. T2DM is not pertaining to any age and it can develop even during the childhood. This multifactorial disease abruptly changes the activities of certain vital biomarkers in the present rural T2DM cases. A remarkable variation in the levels of biomarkers like AST, ALT, GGT, ALP, LDH, HbA1C, C- peptide, fasting sugar, post-prandial sugar, sodium, potassium, BUN, creatinine and insulin show the rampant nature of T2DM in this physically active rural agrarian community.

Keywords: Alanine aminotransferase, Aspartate aminotransferase, Blood urea nitrogen, Glycated haemoglobin, Thyroid stimulating hormone

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Authors: Siddegowda, Y. A. Sathish, G. Krishnegowda, T. M. Mohan Kumar

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Road accidents are a human tragedy. They involve high human suffering and monetary costs in terms of untimely death, injuries and social problems. India had earned the dubious distinction of having more number of fatalities due to road accidents in the world. Road safety is emerging as a major social concern around the world especially in India because of infrastructure project works. A case study was taken on NH – 07 which connects to various major cities and industries. The study shows that major cases of fatalities are due to bus, trucks and high speed vehicles. The main causes of accidents are due to high density, non-restriction of speed, use of mobile phones, lack of board signs on road parking, visibility restriction, improper geometric design, road use characteristics, environmental aspects, social aspects etc. Data analysis and preventive measures are enlightened in this paper.

Keywords: Accidents, environmental aspects, fatalities, geometric design, road user characteristics.

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Authors: Wala A. Bagunaid, Maram Meccawy, Arwa Allinjawi, Zilal Meccawy

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Continuous self-assessment becomes crucial in self-paced online learning environments. Students often depend on themselves to assess their progress; which is considered an essential requirement for any successful learning process. Today’s education institutions face major problems around student motivation and engagement. Thus, personalized e-learning systems aim to help and guide the students. Gamification provides an opportunity to help students for self-assessment and social comparison with other students through attempting to harness the motivational power of games and apply it to the learning environment. Furthermore, Open Social Student Modeling (OSSM) as considered as the latest user modeling technologies is believed to improve students’ self-assessment and to allow them to social comparison with other students. This research integrates OSSM approach and gamification concepts in order to provide self-assessment for English language learners at King Abdulaziz University (KAU). This is achieved through an interactive visual representation of their learning progress.

Keywords: E-learning system, gamification, motivation, social comparison, visualization.

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Authors: Iskandar Ishak, Naomie Salim

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Unstructured peer-to-peer networks are popular due to its robustness and scalability. Query schemes that are being used in unstructured peer-to-peer such as the flooding and interest-based shortcuts suffer various problems such as using large communication overhead long delay response. The use of routing indices has been a popular approach for peer-to-peer query routing. It helps the query routing processes to learn the routing based on the feedbacks collected. In an unstructured network where there is no global information available, efficient and low cost routing approach is needed for routing efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism for query-feedback oriented routing indices to achieve routing efficiency in unstructured network at a minimal cost. The approach also applied information retrieval technique to make sure the content of the query is understandable and will make the routing process not just based to the query hits but also related to the query content. Experiments have shown that the proposed mechanism performs more efficient than flood-based routing.

Keywords: Unstructured peer-to-peer, Searching, Retrieval, Internet.

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Authors: Farnaz Nazem

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The aim of sustainable architecture is to design buildings with the least adverse effects on the environment and provide better conditions for people. What building forms make the best use of land? This question was addressed in the late 1960s at the center of Land Use and Built Form Studies in Cambridge. This led to a number of influential papers which had a great influence on the practice of urban design. This paper concentrates on the results of sustainability caused by climatic conditions in Iranian traditional architecture in hot-arid regions. As people spent a significant amount of their time in houses, it was very important to have such houses to fulfill their needs physically and spiritually as well as satisfying their cultural and religious aspects of their lifestyles. In a vast country such as Iran with different climatic zones, traditional builders have presented series of logical solutions for human comfort. These solutions have been able to response to the environmental problems for a long period of time. As a result, by considering the experience in traditional architecture of hot–arid climate in Iran, it is possible to attain sustainable architecture.

Keywords: Hot-arid climate, Iran, sustainable traditional architecture, urban planning.

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Authors: Maisam Rafiee, Chikashi Deguchi, Akio Odake, Minoru Matsui, Takanori Sata

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Cities in Afghanistan have been rapidly urbanized; however, many parts of these cities have been developed with no detailed land use plan or infrastructure. In other words, they have been informally developed without any government leadership. The new government started the In-situ Upgrading Project in Kabul to upgrade roads, the water supply network system, and the surface water drainage system on the existing street layout in 2002, with the financial support of international agencies. This project is an appropriate emergency improvement for living life, but not an essential improvement of living conditions and infrastructure problems because the life expectancies of the improved facilities are as short as 10–15 years, and residents cannot obtain land tenure in the unplanned areas. The Land Readjustment System (LRS) conducted in Japan has good advantages that rearrange irregularly shaped land lots and develop the infrastructure effectively. This study investigates the effects of the In-situ Upgrading Project on private investment, land prices, and residents’ satisfaction with projects in Kart-e-Char, where properties are registered, and in Afshar-e-Silo Lot 1, where properties are unregistered. These projects are located 5 km and 7 km from the CBD area of Kabul, respectively. This study discusses whether LRS should be applied to the unplanned area based on the questionnaire and interview responses of experts experienced in the In-situ Upgrading Project who have knowledge of LRS. The analysis results reveal that, in Kart-e-Char, a lot of private investment has been made in the construction of medium-rise (five- to nine-story) buildings for commercial and residential purposes. Land values have also incrementally increased since the project, and residents are commonly satisfied with the road pavement, drainage systems, and water supplies, but dissatisfied with the poor delivery of electricity as well as the lack of public facilities (e.g., parks and sport facilities). In Afshar-e-Silo Lot 1, basic infrastructures like paved roads and surface water drainage systems have improved from the project. After the project, a few four- and five-story residential buildings were built with very low-level private investments, but significant increases in land prices were not evident. The residents are satisfied with the contribution ratio, drainage system, and small increase in land price, but there is still no drinking water supply system or tenure security; moreover, there are substandard paved roads and a lack of public facilities, such as parks, sport facilities, mosques, and schools. The results of the questionnaire and interviews with the four engineers highlight the problems that remain to be solved in the unplanned areas if LRS is applied—namely, land use differences, types and conditions of the infrastructure still to be installed by the project, and time spent for positive consensus building among the residents, given the project’s budget limitation.

Keywords: In-Situ Upgrading, Kabul, Land Readjustment, Land value, Planned areas, Private investment, Resident satisfaction, Unplanned areas.

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Authors: Reza Mokhtari Malekabadi, Leila Jalalabadi, Zahra Kiyani Ghaleh No

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Today, systems of management and urban planning, attempt to reach more sustainable development through monitoring developments, urban development and development plans. Monitoring of changes in the urban places and sustainable urban development accounted a base for the realization of worthy goals urban sustainable development. The importance of women in environmental protection programs is high enough that in 21 agenda has been requested from all countries to allocate more shares to women in their policies. On the other hand, urban waste landfill has become one of the environmental concerns in modern cities. This research assumes that the impact of women on recycling, reduction and proper waste landfill is much more than men. For this reason, three districts; Yousef Abad, Heshmatieh & Nezam Abad are gauged through questionnaire and using the analytical research hypothesis model. This research will be categorized as functional research. The results have shown that noticing the power of women, their participation towards realization of the development objectives and programs can be used in solving their problems.

Keywords: Citizens (Urban), Environmental, Sustainability, Solid waste, Tehran.

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Authors: André M. Senna, Mary L. G. S. Senna, Rosa M. Machado-de-Sena

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One of the great challenges presented in educational practice is how to ensure the students not only acquire knowledge of training courses throughout their academic life, but also how to apply it in their current professional activities. Consequently, aiming to incite changes in the education system of healthcare professionals noticed the inadequacy of the training providers to solve the social problems related to health, the education related to these procedures should initiate in the earliest years of process. Following that idea, there is another question that needs an answer: If the change in the education should start sooner, in the period of basic training of healthcare professionals, what guidelines should a permanent education program incorporate to promote changes in an already established system? For this reason, the objective of this paper is to present different views of the teaching-learning process, with the purpose of better understanding the behavior adopted by healthcare professionals, through bibliographic study. The conclusion was that more than imparting knowledge to the individual, a larger approach is necessary on permanent education programs concerning the performance of professional health services in order to foment significant changes in education.

Keywords: Health education, continuing education, training, behavior.

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Authors: A. M. N. El-Khoja, A. F. Ashour, J. Abdalhmid, X. Dai, A. Khan

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In recent years, waste tyre problem is considered as one of the most crucial environmental pollution problems facing the world. Thus, reusing waste rubber crumb from recycled tyres to develop highly damping concrete is technically feasible and a viable alternative to landfill or incineration. The utilization of waste rubber in concrete generally enhances the ductility, toughness, thermal insulation, and impact resistance. However, the mechanical properties decrease with the amount of rubber used in concrete. The aim of this paper is to develop artificial neural network (ANN) models to predict the compressive strength of rubberised concrete (RuC). A trained and tested ANN was developed using a comprehensive database collected from different sources in the literature. The ANN model developed used 5 input parameters that include: coarse aggregate (CA), fine aggregate (FA), w/c ratio, fine rubber (Fr), and coarse rubber (Cr), whereas the ANN outputs were the corresponding compressive strengths. A parametric study was also conducted to study the trend of various RuC constituents on the compressive strength of RuC.

Keywords: Rubberized concrete, compressive strength, artificial neural network, prediction.

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Authors: Banashree N. P., R. Vasanta

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Recognition of Indian languages scripts is challenging problems. In Optical Character Recognition [OCR], a character or symbol to be recognized can be machine printed or handwritten characters/numerals. There are several approaches that deal with problem of recognition of numerals/character depending on the type of feature extracted and different way of extracting them. This paper proposes a recognition scheme for handwritten Hindi (devnagiri) numerals; most admired one in Indian subcontinent. Our work focused on a technique in feature extraction i.e. global based approach using end-points information, which is extracted from images of isolated numerals. These feature vectors are fed to neuro-memetic model [18] that has been trained to recognize a Hindi numeral. The archetype of system has been tested on varieties of image of numerals. . In proposed scheme data sets are fed to neuro-memetic algorithm, which identifies the rule with highest fitness value of nearly 100 % & template associates with this rule is nothing but identified numerals. Experimentation result shows that recognition rate is 92-97 % compared to other models.

Keywords: OCR, Global Feature, End-Points, Neuro-Memetic model.

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Authors: Siriporn Poolsuwan, Kanyarat Bussaban

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This research aims to investigate and analyze user’s behaviour towards the utilization of the online news clipping database at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand. Data is gathered from 214 lecturers and 380 undergraduate students by using questionnaires. Findings show that most users knew the online news clipping service from their friends, library’s website and their teachers. The users learned how to use it by themselves and others learned by training of SSRU library. Most users used the online news clipping database one time per month at home and always used the service for general knowledge, up-to-date academic knowledge and assignment reference. Moreover, the results of using the online news clipping service problems include the users themselves, service management, service device- computer and tools – and the network, service provider, and publicity. This research would be benefit for librarians and teachers for planning and designing library services in their works and organization

Keywords: Online Database, User Behaviour.

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Authors: Su Jin Kim, Ji Yeon Cho, Bong Gyou Lee

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The purpose of this study is to suggest energy efficient routing for ad hoc networks which are composed of nodes with limited energy. There are diverse problems including limitation of energy supply of node, and the node energy management problem has been presented. And a number of protocols have been proposed for energy conservation and energy efficiency. In this study, the critical point of the EA-MPDSR, that is the type of energy efficient routing using only two paths, is improved and developed. The proposed TP-MESR uses multi-path routing technique and traffic prediction function to increase number of path more than 2. It also verifies its efficiency compared to EA-MPDSR using network simulator (NS-2). Also, To give a academic value and explain protocol systematically, research guidelines which the Hevner(2004) suggests are applied. This proposed TP-MESR solved the existing multi-path routing problem related to overhead, radio interference, packet reassembly and it confirmed its contribution to effective use of energy in ad hoc networks.

Keywords: Ad hoc, energy-aware, multi-path, routing protocol, traffic prediction.

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Authors: Megumi Shibuya, Tomohiko Ogishi

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Recently, content delivery services have grown rapidly over the Internet. For ASPs (Application Service Provider) providing content delivery services, P2P architecture is beneficial to reduce outgoing traffic from content servers. On the other hand, ISPs are suffering from the increase in P2P traffic. The P2P traffic is unnecessarily redundant because the same content or the same fractions of content are transferred through an inter-ISP link several times. Subscriber ISPs have to pay a transit fee to upstream ISPs based on the volume of inter-ISP traffic. In order to solve such problems, several works have been done for the purpose of P2P traffic reduction. However, these existing works cannot control the traffic volume of a certain link. In order to solve such an ISP-s operational requirement, we propose a method to control traffic volume for a link within a preconfigured upper bound value. We evaluated that the proposed method works well by conducting a simulation on a 1,000-user scale. We confirm that the traffic volume could be controlled at a lower level than the upper bound for all evaluated conditions. Moreover, our method could control the traffic volume at 98.95% link usage against the target value.

Keywords: P2P, traffic control, traffic localization, ALTO.

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Authors: K.K. Sharma, K.M.K. Sinha, T.G. Charan, D.D. Haldar

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An attempt has been made to beneficiate the Indian coking coal fines by a combination of Spiral, flotation and Oleo Flotation processes. Beneficiation studies were also carried out on - 0.5mm coal fines using flotation and oleo flotation by splitting at size 0.063mm.Size fraction of 0.5mm-0.063mm and -0.063mm size were treated in flotation and Oleo flotation respectively. The washability studies on the fraction 3-0.5 mm indicated that good separation may be achieved when it is fed in a spiral. Combined product of Spiral, Flotation and Oleo Flotation has given a significant yield at acceptable ash%. Studies were also conducted to see the dewatering of combined product by batch type centrifuge. It may further be suggested that combination of different processes may be used to treat the -3 mm fraction in an integrated manner to achieve the yield at the desired ash level. The treatment of the 3/1 mm -0.5 mm size fraction by spiral,-0.5-0.63 mm by conventional froth flotation and - 0.063 fractions by oleo flotation may provide a complete solution of beneficiation and dewatering of coal fines, and can effectively address the environmental problems caused by coal fines.

Keywords: coal fines, dewatering, environment, flotation, oleoflotation, spiral

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Authors: Jeffrey L. Duffany

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Graph coloring is an important problem in computer science and many algorithms are known for obtaining reasonably good solutions in polynomial time. One method of comparing different algorithms is to test them on a set of standard graphs where the optimal solution is already known. This investigation analyzes a set of 50 well known graph coloring instances according to a set of complexity measures. These instances come from a variety of sources some representing actual applications of graph coloring (register allocation) and others (mycieleski and leighton graphs) that are theoretically designed to be difficult to solve. The size of the graphs ranged from ranged from a low of 11 variables to a high of 864 variables. The method used to solve the coloring problem was the square of the adjacency (i.e., correlation) matrix. The results show that the most difficult graphs to solve were the leighton and the queen graphs. Complexity measures such as density, mobility, deviation from uniform color class size and number of block diagonal zeros are calculated for each graph. The results showed that the most difficult problems have low mobility (in the range of .2-.5) and relatively little deviation from uniform color class size.

Keywords: graph coloring, complexity, algorithm.

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Authors: Atefeh Saljooghi Khoshkar, Jafar Hassanpour

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One of the main problems of design stage relating to many tunneling projects is the lack of an appropriate standard for the provision of engineering geological data in a predefined format. In particular, this is more reflected in highway and railroad tunnels projects in which there is a number of tunnels and different professional teams involved. In this regard, a comprehensive software needs to be designed using the accepted methods in order to help engineering geologists to prepare standard reports, which contain sufficient input data for the design stage. Regarding this necessity, an applied software has been designed using macro capabilities and Visual Basic programming language (VBA) through Microsoft Excel. In this software, all of the engineering geological input data, which are required for designing different parts of tunnels such as discontinuities properties, rock mass strength parameters, rock mass classification systems, boreability classification, the penetration rate and so forth can be calculated and reported in a standard format.

Keywords: Engineering geology, rock mass classification, rock mechanic, tunnel.

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Authors: Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde, Andrea Trevisi, Paolo Basso, Danilo Bardaro

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Heat transfer through multiple pane windows can be reduced by creating a vacuum pressure less than 0.1 Pa between the glass panes, with low emittance coatings on one or more of the internal surfaces. Fabrication of vacuum glazing (VG) requires the formation of a hermetic seal around the periphery of the glass panes together with an array of support pillars between the panes to prevent them from touching under atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure and temperature differentials induce stress which can affect the integrity of the glazing. Several parameters define the stresses in VG including the glass thickness, pillar specifications, glazing dimensions and edge seal configuration. Inherent stresses in VG can result in fractures in the glass panes and failure of the edge seal. In this study, stress in VG with different glass thicknesses is theoretically studied using Finite Element Modelling (FEM). Based on the finding in this study, suggestions are made to address problems resulting from the use of thinner glass panes in the fabrication of VG. This can lead to the development of high performance, light and thin VG.

Keywords: ABAQUS, glazing, stress, vacuum glazing, vacuum insulation.

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Authors: Amin Almasi

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Design and evaluation of reciprocating compressors should include a pulsation study. The object is to ensure that predicted pulsation levels meet guidelines to limit vibration, shaking forces, noise, associated pressure drops, horsepower losses and fabrication cost and time to acceptable levels. This paper explains procedures and recommendations to select and size pulsation suppression devices to obtain optimum arrangement in terms of pulsation, vibration, shaking forces, performance, reliability, safety, operation, maintenance and commercial conditions. Model and advanced formulations for pulsation study are presented. The effect of the full fluid dynamic model on the prediction of pulsation waves and resulting frequency spectrum distributions are discussed. Advanced and optimum methods of controlling pulsations are highlighted. Useful recommendations and guidelines for pulsation control, piping pulsation analysis, pulsation vessel design, shaking forces, low pressure drop orifices, pulsation study report and devices to mitigate pulsation and shaking problems are discussed.

Keywords: Pulsation, Reciprocating Compressor.

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Authors: Junjie Gao, Guishi Deng

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In order to integrate knowledge in heterogeneous case-based reasoning (CBR) systems, ontology-based CBR system has become a hot topic. To solve the facing problems of ontology-based CBR system, for example, its architecture is nonstandard, reusing knowledge in legacy CBR is deficient, ontology construction is difficult, etc, we propose a novel approach for semi-automatically construct ontology-based CBR system whose architecture is based on two-layer ontology. Domain knowledge implied in legacy case bases can be mapped from relational database schema and knowledge items to relevant OWL local ontology automatically by a mapping algorithm with low time-complexity. By concept clustering based on formal concept analysis, computing concept equation measure and concept inclusion measure, some suggestions about enriching or amending concept hierarchy of OWL local ontologies are made automatically that can aid designers to achieve semi-automatic construction of OWL domain ontology. Validation of the approach is done by an application example.

Keywords: OWL ontology, Case-based Reasoning, FormalConcept Analysis, Knowledge Integration

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Authors: H. Alkhatib, J. Duveau

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Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been widely used for global optimization problems. The GA performance depends highly on the choice of the search space for each parameter to be optimized. Often, this choice is a problem-based experience. The search space being a set of potential solutions may contain the global optimum and/or other local optimums. A bad choice of this search space results in poor solutions. In this paper, our approach consists in extending the search space boundaries during the GA optimization, only when it is required. This leads to more diversification of GA population by new solutions that were not available with fixed search space boundaries. So, these dynamic search spaces can improve the GA optimization performances. The proposed approach is applied to power system stabilizer optimization for multimachine power system (16-generator and 68-bus). The obtained results are evaluated and compared with those obtained by ordinary GAs. Eigenvalue analysis and nonlinear system simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach to damp out the electromechanical oscillation and enhance the global system stability.

Keywords: Genetic Algorithms, Multiobjective Optimization, Power System Stabilizer, Small Signal Stability.

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Authors: Lorenzo Maiorino, Fabio Fortuna, Giovanni Panebianco, Marco Sanzari, Gabriella Arcese, Valerio Maria Paolozzi

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It is well known that sport is a factor of social cohesion and the breaking down of barriers between people. From this point of view, the aim is to demonstrate how, through the (re)generation of sustainable structures, it is possible to give life to a new social, cultural and economic pathway, where possible, in peripheral areas with problems of abandonment and degradation. The aim of this paper is therefore to study realities such as European programs and funds and to highlight the ways in which planning can be used to respond to critical issues such as urban decay, abandonment, and the mitigation of social differences. For this reason, the analysis will be carried out through the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) package, the next generation EU, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the Cohesion Fund, the European Social Fund, and other managed funds. The procedure will rely on sources and data of unquestionable origin, and the relation to the object of study in question will be highlighted. The project lends itself to be ambitious and explore a further aspect of the sports theme, which as we know, is one of the foundations for a healthy society

.

Keywords: Sport, social inclusion, urban regeneration, sport facilities, European funds.

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Authors: Isa Nakhai Kamal Abadi, Esmaeel Saberi, Ehsan Mirjafari

Abstract:

While financial institutions have faced difficulties over the years for a multitude of reasons, the major cause of serious banking problems continues to be directly related to lax credit standards for borrowers and counterparties, poor portfolio risk management, or a lack of attention to changes in economic or other circumstances that can lead to a deterioration in the credit standing of a bank's counterparties. Credit risk is most simply defined as the potential that a bank borrower or counterparty will fail to meet its obligations in accordance with agreed terms. The goal of credit risk management is to maximize a bank's risk-adjusted rate of return by maintaining credit risk exposure within acceptable parameters. Banks need to manage the credit risk inherent in the entire portfolio as well as the risk in individual credits or transactions. Banks should also consider the relationships between credit risk and other risks. The effective management of credit risk is a critical component of a comprehensive approach to risk management and essential to the long-term success of any banking organization. In this research we also study the relationship between credit risk indices and borrower-s timely payback in Karafarin bank.

Keywords: Financial Ratios; Spearman Test; Bank OperationsRisk

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Authors: D.Venkatesan, K.Kannan, S. Raja Balachandar

Abstract:

In this paper a new Genetic Algorithm based on a heuristic operator and Centre of Mass selection operator (CMGA) is designed for the unbounded knapsack problem(UKP), which is NP-Hard combinatorial optimization problem. The proposed genetic algorithm is based on a heuristic operator, which utilizes problem specific knowledge. This center of mass operator when combined with other Genetic Operators forms a competitive algorithm to the existing ones. Computational results show that the proposed algorithm is capable of obtaining high quality solutions for problems of standard randomly generated knapsack instances. Comparative study of CMGA with simple GA in terms of results for unbounded knapsack instances of size up to 200 show the superiority of CMGA. Thus CMGA is an efficient tool of solving UKP and this algorithm is competitive with other Genetic Algorithms also.

Keywords: Genetic Algorithm, Unbounded Knapsack Problem, Combinatorial Optimization, Meta-Heuristic, Center of Mass

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Authors: Predrag B. Petrović

Abstract:

The paper deals with the estimation of amplitude and phase of an analogue multi-harmonic band-limited signal from irregularly spaced sampling values. To this end, assuming the signal fundamental frequency is known in advance (i.e., estimated at an independent stage), a complexity-reduced algorithm for signal reconstruction in time domain is proposed. The reduction in complexity is achieved owing to completely new analytical and summarized expressions that enable a quick estimation at a low numerical error. The proposed algorithm for the calculation of the unknown parameters requires O((2M+1)2) flops, while the straightforward solution of the obtained equations takes O((2M+1)3) flops (M is the number of the harmonic components). It is applied in signal reconstruction, spectral estimation, system identification, as well as in other important signal processing problems. The proposed method of processing can be used for precise RMS measurements (for power and energy) of a periodic signal based on the presented signal reconstruction. The paper investigates the errors related to the signal parameter estimation, and there is a computer simulation that demonstrates the accuracy of these algorithms.

Keywords: Band-limited signals, Fourier coefficient estimation, analytical solutions, signal reconstruction, time.

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