Search results for: Comparison of political issue dimensions

Authors: Yanqun Li, Hong Geng

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The occurrence of Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 has led to severe damage to the rural areas of Chengdu city, such as the rupture of the social network, the stagnation of economic production and the rupture of living space. The post-disaster reconstruction has become a sustainable issue. As an important link to maintain the order of rural social development, social network should be an important content of post-disaster reconstruction. Therefore, this paper takes rural reconstruction communities in earthquake-stricken areas of Chengdu as the research object and adopts sociological research methods such as field survey, observation and interview to try to understand the transformation of rural social relations network under the influence of earthquake and its impact on rural space. It has found that rural societies under the earthquake generally experienced three phases: the break of stable social relations, the transition of temporary non-normal state, and the reorganization of social networks. The connotation of phased rural social relations also changed accordingly: turn to a new division of labor on the social orientation, turn to a capital flow and redistribution in new production mode on the capital orientation, and turn to relative decentralization after concentration on the spatial dimension. Along with such changes, rural areas have emerged some social issues such as the alienation of competition in the new industry division, the low social connection, the significant redistribution of capital, and the lack of public space. Based on a comprehensive review of these issues, this paper proposes the corresponding response mechanism. First of all, a reasonable division of labor should be established within the villages to realize diversified commodity supply. Secondly, the villages should adjust the industrial type to promote the equitable participation of capital allocation groups. Finally, external public spaces should be added to strengthen the field of social interaction within the communities.

Keywords: Social relations, social support networks, industrial division, capital allocation, public space.

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Authors: Letizia Marchetti, Federica Annunzi, Federico Fiorini, Cristiano Nicolella

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Automotive shredder residue (ASR) is a mixture of waste that makes up 20-25% of end-of-life vehicles. For many years, ASR was commonly disposed of in landfills or incinerated, causing serious environmental problems. Nowadays, thermochemical treatments are a promising alternative, although the heterogeneity of ASR still poses some challenges. One of the emerging thermochemical treatments for ASR is pyrolysis, which promotes the decomposition of long polymeric chains by providing heat in the absence of an oxidizing agent. In this way, pyrolysis promotes the conversion of ASR into solid, liquid, and gaseous phases. This work aims to improve the performance of a two-step pyrolysis process. After the characterization of the analysed ASR, the focus is on determining the effects of residence time on product yields and gas composition. A batch experimental setup that reproduces the entire process was used. The setup consists of three sections: the pyrolysis section (made of two reactors), the separation section, and the analysis section. Two different residence times were investigated to find suitable conditions for the first sample of ASR. These first tests showed that the products obtained were more sensitive to residence time in the second reactor. Indeed, slightly increasing residence time in the second reactor managed to raise the yield of gas and carbon residue and decrease the yield of liquid fraction. Then, to test the versatility of the setup, the same conditions were applied to a different sample of ASR coming from a different chemical plant. The comparison between the two ASR samples shows that similar product yields and compositions are obtained using the same setup.

Keywords: Automotive shredder residue, experimental tests, heterogeneity, product yields, two-step pyrolysis.

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Authors: C. Ardil

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This paper presents a software product quality evaluation model based on the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model. The evaluation characteristics and sub characteristics were identified from the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model. The multidimensional structure of the quality model is based on characteristics such as functional suitability, performance efficiency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security, maintainability, and portability, and associated sub characteristics. Random numbers are generated to establish the decision maker’s importance weights for each sub characteristics. Also, random numbers are generated to establish the decision matrix of the decision maker’s final scores for each software product against each sub characteristics. Thus, objective criteria importance weights and index scores for datasets were obtained from the random numbers. In the proposed model, five different software product quality evaluation datasets under three different weight vectors were applied to multiple criteria decision analysis method, preference analysis for reference ideal solution (PARIS) for comparison, and sensitivity analysis procedure. This study contributes to provide a better understanding of the application of MCDMA methods and ISO/IEC 25010 quality model guidelines in software product quality evaluation process.

Keywords: ISO/IEC 25010 quality model, multiple criteria decisions making, multiple criteria decision making analysis, MCDMA, PARIS, Software Product Quality Evaluation Model, Software Product Quality Evaluation, Software Evaluation, Software Selection, Software

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Authors: G. Feletti, D. Tedesco, P. Trucco

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The present study aims to develop a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to enhance information and predictive capabilities in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems, supporting both operational and strategic decisions of different actors. The employed research methodology consists of a first phase of revision of the technical-scientific literature concerning the indicators currently in use for the performance measurement of EMS. It emerges that current studies focus on two distinct areas and independent objectives: the ambulance service, a fundamental component of pre-hospital health treatment, and the patient care in the Emergency Department (ED). Conversely, the perspective proposed by this study is to consider an integrated view of the ambulance service process and the ED process, both essential to ensure high quality of care and patient safety. Thus, the proposal covers the end-to-end healthcare service process and, as such, allows considering the interconnection between the two EMS processes, the pre-hospital and hospital ones, connected by the assignment of the patient to a specific ED. In this way, it is possible to optimize the entire patient management. Therefore, attention is paid even to EMS aspects that in current literature tend to be neglected or underestimated. In particular, the integration of the two processes enables to evaluate the advantage of an ED selection decision having visibility on EDs’ saturation status and therefore considering, besides the distance, the available resources and the expected waiting times. Starting from a critical review of the KPIs proposed in extant literature, the design of the dashboard was carried out: the high number of analyzed KPIs was reduced by eliminating firstly the ones not in line with the aim of the study and then the ones supporting a similar functionality. The KPIs finally selected were tested on a realistic dataset, which draw us to exclude additional indicators due to unavailability of data required for their computation. The final dashboard, that was discussed and validated by experts in the field, includes a variety of KPIs able to support operational and planning decisions, early warning, and citizens’ awareness on EDs accessibility in real time. The association of each KPI to the EMS phase it refers to enabled the design of a well-balanced dashboard, covering both efficiency and effectiveness performance objectives of the entire EMS process. Indeed, just the initial phases related to the interconnection between ambulance service and patient care are covered by traditional KPIs. Future developments could be directed to building a hierarchical dashboard, composed by a high-level minimal set of KPIs for measuring the basic performance of the EMS system, at an aggregate level, and lower levels of KPIs that bring additional and more detailed information on specific performance dimensions or EMS phases.

Keywords: Emergency Medical Services, Key Performance Indicators, Dashboard, Decision Support.

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Authors: Shutchapol Chopvitayakun

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Internship program is a compulsory course of many undergraduate programs in Thailand. It gives opportunities to a lot of senior students as interns to practice their working skills in the real organizations and also gives chances for interns to face real-world working problems. Interns also learn how to solve those problems by direct and indirect experiences. This program in many schools is a well-structured course with a contract or agreement made with real business organizations. Moreover, this program also offers opportunities for interns to get jobs after completing it from where the internship program takes place. Interns also learn how to work as a team and how to associate with other colleagues, trainers, and superiors of each organization in term of social hierarchy, self-responsibility, and self-disciplinary. This research focuses on senior students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand whose studying major is information technology program. They practiced their working skills or took internship programs in the real business sector or real operating organizations in 2015-2016. Interns are categorized in to two types: normal program and special program. For special program, students study in weekday evening from Monday to Friday or Weekend and most of them work full-time or part-time job. For normal program, students study in weekday working hours and most of them do not work. The differences of these characters and the outcomes of internship performance were studied and analyzed in this research. This work applied some statistical analytics to find out whether the internship performance of each intern type has different performances statistically or not.

Keywords: Internship, intern, senior student, information technology program.

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Authors: M. Y. Ismail, Arslan Kiyani

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Narrow bandwidth and high loss performance limits the use of reflectarray antennas in some applications. This article reports on the feasibility of employing strategic reflectarray resonant elements to characterize the reflectivity performance of reflectarrays in X-band frequency range. Strategic reflectarray resonant elements incorporating variable substrate thicknesses ranging from 0.016λ to 0.052λ have been analyzed in terms of reflection loss and reflection phase performance. The effect of substrate thickness has been validated by using waveguide scattering parameter technique. It has been demonstrated that as the substrate thickness is increased from 0.508mm to 1.57mm the measured reflection loss of dipole element decreased from 5.66dB to 3.70dB with increment in 10% bandwidth of 39MHz to 64MHz. Similarly the measured reflection loss of triangular loop element is decreased from 20.25dB to 7.02dB with an increment in 10% bandwidth of 12MHz to 23MHz. The results also show a significant decrease in the slope of reflection phase curve as well. A Figure of Merit (FoM) has also been defined for the comparison of static phase range of resonant elements under consideration. Moreover, a novel numerical model based on analytical equations has been established incorporating the material properties of dielectric substrate and electrical properties of different reflectarray resonant elements to obtain the progressive phase distribution for each individual reflectarray resonant element.

Keywords: Numerical model, Reflectarray resonant elements, Scattering parameter measurements, Variable substrate thickness.

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Authors: Giulia I. Pintea

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The Roma people are a nomadic ethnic group native to India, and they are one of the most prevalent minorities in Europe. In the past, Roma were enslaved and they were imprisoned in concentration camps during the Holocaust; today, Roma are subject to hate crimes and are denied access to healthcare, education, and proper housing. The aim of this project is to analyze how the public perception of the Roma people may be influenced by antiziganist and pro-Roma institutions in Europe. In order to carry out this project, we used social network analysis to build two large social networks: The antiziganist network, which is composed of institutions that oppress and racialize Roma, and the pro-Roma network, which is composed of institutions that advocate for and protect Roma rights. Measures of centrality, density, and modularity were obtained to determine which of the two social networks is exerting the greatest influence on the public’s perception of Roma in European societies. Furthermore, data on hate crimes on Roma were gathered from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). We analyzed the trends in hate crimes on Roma for several European countries for 2009-2015 in order to see whether or not there have been changes in the public’s perception of Roma, thus helping us evaluate which of the two social networks has been more influential. Overall, the results suggest that there is a greater and faster exchange of information in the pro-Roma network. However, when taking the hate crimes into account, the impact of the pro-Roma institutions is ambiguous, due to differing patterns among European countries, suggesting that the impact of the pro-Roma network is inconsistent. Despite antiziganist institutions having a slower flow of information, the hate crime patterns also suggest that the antiziganist network has a higher impact on certain countries, which may be due to institutions outside the political sphere boosting the spread of antiziganist ideas and information to the European public.

Keywords: Applied mathematics, oppression, Roma people, social network analysis.

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Authors: K. Nirmala Devi, V. Murali Bhaskaran

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Traditional document representation for classification follows Bag of Words (BoW) approach to represent the term weights. The conventional method uses the Vector Space Model (VSM) to exploit the statistical information of terms in the documents and they fail to address the semantic information as well as order of the terms present in the documents. Although, the phrase based approach follows the order of the terms present in the documents rather than semantics behind the word. Therefore, a semantic concept based approach is used in this paper for enhancing the semantics by incorporating the ontology information. In this paper a novel method is proposed to forecast the intraday stock market price directional movement based on the sentiments from Twitter and money control news articles. The stock market forecasting is a very difficult and highly complicated task because it is affected by many factors such as economic conditions, political events and investor’s sentiment etc. The stock market series are generally dynamic, nonparametric, noisy and chaotic by nature. The sentiment analysis along with wisdom of crowds can automatically compute the collective intelligence of future performance in many areas like stock market, box office sales and election outcomes. The proposed method utilizes collective sentiments for stock market to predict the stock price directional movements. The collective sentiments in the above social media have powerful prediction on the stock price directional movements as up/down by using Granger Causality test.

Keywords: Bag of Words, Collective Sentiments, Ontology, Semantic relations, Sentiments, Social media, Stock Prediction, Twitter, Vector Space Model and wisdom of crowds.

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Authors: Paisarn Larpsomboonchai

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Agro-industry is one of major industries that have strong impacts on national economic incomes, growth, stability, and sustainable development. Moreover, this industry also has strong influences on social, cultural and political issues. Furthermore, this industry, as producing primary and secondary products, is facing challenges from such diverse factors such as demand inconsistency, intense international competition, technological advancements and new competitors. In order to maintain and to improve industry’s competitiveness in both domestics and international markets, science and technology are key factors. Besides hard sciences and technologies, modern industrial engineering concepts such as Just in Time (JIT) Total Quality Management (TQM), Quick Response (QR), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Lean can be very effective to support to increase efficiency and effectiveness of these agricultural products on world stage. Onion is one of Thailand’s major export products which bring back national incomes. But, it is also facing challenges in many ways. This paper focused its interests in onion packing process and its related activities such as storage and shipment from one of major packing plant and storage in Mae Wang District, Chiang Mai, Thailand, by applying Toyota Production System (TPS) or Lean concepts, to improve process capability throughout the entire packing and distribution process which will be profitable for the whole onion supply chain. And it will be beneficial to other related agricultural products in Thailand and other ASEAN countries.

Keywords: Lean Concepts, Lean in Agro-industries Activities, Packing Process, Toyota Production System (TPS), Waste Reduction.

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Authors: Kheireddine El-Boubbou

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Drug delivery to target human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) using a nanoparticulate chemotherapeutic formulation that can deliver drugs selectively to AML cancer is hugely needed. In this work, we report the development of a nanoformulation made of polymeric-stabilized multifunctional magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (PMNP) loaded with the anticancer drug Doxorubicin (Dox) as a promising drug carrier to treat AML. Dox@PMNP conjugates simultaneously exhibited high drug content, maximized fluorescence, and excellent release properties. Nanoparticulate uptake and cell death following addition of Dox@PMNPs were then evaluated in different types of human AML target cells, as well as on normal human cells. While the unloaded MNPs were not toxic to any of the cells, Dox@PMNPs were found to be highly toxic to the different AML cell lines, albeit at different inhibitory concentrations (IC₅₀ values), but showed very little toxicity towards the normal cells. In comparison, free Dox showed significant potency concurrently to all the cell lines, suggesting huge potentials for the use of Dox@PMNPs as selective AML anticancer cargos. Live confocal imaging, fluorescence and electron microscopy confirmed that Dox is indeed delivered to the nucleus in relatively short periods of time, causing apoptotic cell death. Importantly, this targeted payload may potentially enhance the effectiveness of the drug in AML patients and may further allow physicians to image leukemic cells exposed to Dox@PMNPs using MRI.

Keywords: Magnetic nanoparticles, drug delivery, acute myeloid leukemia, iron oxide, cancer nanotherapy.

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Authors: Y. Abdelrazig, R. Moses

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Roadway planning and design is a very complex process involving five key phases before a project is completed; planning, project development, final design, right-of-way, and construction. The planning phase for a new roadway transportation project is a very critical phase as it greatly affects all latter phases of the project. A location study is usually performed during the preliminary planning phase in a new roadway project. The objective of the location study is to develop alignment alternatives that are cost efficient considering land acquisition and construction costs. This paper describes a methodology to develop optimal preliminary roadway alignments utilizing spatial-data. Four optimization criteria are taken into consideration; roadway length, land cost, land slope, and environmental impacts. The basic concept of the methodology is to convert the proposed project area into a grid, which represents the search space for an optimal alignment. The aforementioned optimization criteria are represented in each of the grid’s cells. A spatial-data optimization technique is utilized to find the optimal alignment in the search space based on the four optimization criteria. Two case studies for new roadway projects in Duval County in the State of Florida are presented to illustrate the methodology. The optimization output alignments are compared to the proposed Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) alignments. The comparison is based on right-of-way costs for the alignments. For both case studies, the right-of-way costs for the developed optimal alignments were found to be significantly lower than the FDOT alignments.

Keywords: Optimization, planning, roadway alignment, FDOT.

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Authors: Harshit Vallecha, Prabha Bhola

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‘Energy for all’, is a global issue of concern for the past many years. Despite the number of technological advancements and innovations, significant numbers of people are living without access to electricity around the world. India, an emerging economy, tops the list of nations having the maximum number of residents living off the grid, thus raising global attention in past few years to provide clean and sustainable energy access solutions to all of its residents. It is evident from developed economies that centralized planning and electrification alone is not sufficient for meeting energy security. Implementation of off-grid and consumer-driven energy models like Decentralized Renewable Energy (DRE) systems have played a significant role in meeting the national energy demand in developed nations. Cases of DRE systems have been reported in developing countries like India for the past few years. This paper attempts to profile the status of DRE projects in the Indian context with their scope and relevance to ensure universal electrification. Diversified cases of DRE projects, particularly solar, biomass and micro hydro are identified in different Indian states. Critical factors affecting the sustainability of DRE projects are extracted with their interlinkages in the context of developers, beneficiaries and promoters involved in such projects. Socio-techno-economic indicators are identified through similar cases in the context of DRE projects. Exploratory factor analysis is performed to evaluate the critical sustainability factors followed by regression analysis to establish the relationship between the dependent and independent factors. The generated EFA-Regression model provides a basis to develop the sustainability and replicability framework for broader coverage of DRE projects in developing nations in order to attain the goal of universal electrification with least carbon emissions.

Keywords: Climate change, decentralized generation, electricity access, renewable energy.

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Authors: Wanda Luen-Wun Siu, Xiaowen Zhang

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This paper offered the primary methodical proof on how director remuneration related to enterprise earnings in listed firms in China in light of most evidence focusing on cross-sectional data or data in a short span of time. Using full economic and business panel data on China’s publicly listed enterprise from 1999 to 2020 over two decades in the China Stock Market & Accounting Research database, we found statistically significant positive associations between director pay and firm performance in privately owned firms over this period, supporting the agency theory. In contrast, among the state-owned enterprises, there was a reverse relation between director compensation and firm financial performance, contributing to the existing literature. But the results also revealed that state-owned enterprises financially performed as well as private enterprises. Such findings suggested that state ownership might line up officials’ career incentives with party prime concern rather than pecuniary incentives. Also, CEO duality enhanced firm performance. As such, allegiance to the party and possible advancement to an upper-level political position would motivate company directors in state-owned enterprises. On the other hand, directors in privately owned enterprises might be motivated by monetary incentives. In addition, a statistical regression model was proposed and tested to get the results of the performance of state-owned enterprises. Finally, some suggestions were made about how to improve the institutional management of government-owned corporations in China.

Keywords: China’s listed Firm, director compensation, CEO duality, firm performance, panel analysis.

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Authors: Xiaocong Liu, Huazhen Wang, Ting He, Xiaozheng Li, Weihan Zhang, Jian Chen

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The utilization of electronic medical record (EMR) data to establish the disease diagnosis model has become an important research content of biomedical informatics. Deep learning can automatically extract features from the massive data, which brings about breakthroughs in the study of EMR data. The challenge is that deep learning lacks semantic knowledge, which leads to impracticability in medical science. This research proposes a method of incorporating lexical-semantic knowledge from abundant entities into a convolutional neural network (CNN) framework for pediatric disease diagnosis. Firstly, medical terms are vectorized into Lexical Semantic Vectors (LSV), which are concatenated with the embedded word vectors of word2vec to enrich the feature representation. Secondly, the semantic distribution of medical terms serves as Semantic Decision Guide (SDG) for the optimization of deep learning models. The study evaluates the performance of LSV-SDG-CNN model on four kinds of Chinese EMR datasets. Additionally, CNN, LSV-CNN, and SDG-CNN are designed as baseline models for comparison. The experimental results show that LSV-SDG-CNN model outperforms baseline models on four kinds of Chinese EMR datasets. The best configuration of the model yielded an F1 score of 86.20%. The results clearly demonstrate that CNN has been effectively guided and optimized by lexical-semantic knowledge, and LSV-SDG-CNN model improves the disease classification accuracy with a clear margin.

Keywords: lexical semantics, feature representation, semantic decision, convolutional neural network, electronic medical record

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Authors: Steve Fish, Chris Lambert

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Cumbria is a geo-political county in Northwest England within which the Lake District National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site is located. Whilst the area has a formidable reputation for natural beauty and historic assets, the innovation ecosystem is described as ‘patchy’ for a number of reasons. The county is one of the largest in England by area and is sparsely populated. This paper describes the needs, development and delivery of an SME business-support programme funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Lancaster University and the University of Cumbria. The Cumbria Innovations Platform (CUSP) Project has been designed to respond to the nuanced needs of SMEs in this locale, whilst promoting the adoption of research and innovation. CUSP utilizes a funnel method to support rural businesses with access to university innovation intervention. CUSP has been built on a three-tier model: Communicate, Collaborate and Create. The paper describes this project in detail and presents results in terms of output indicators achieved, a beneficiary telephone survey and wider economic forecasts. From a pragmatic point-of-view, the paper provides experiences and reflections of those people who are delivering and evaluating knowledge exchange. The authors discuss some of the benefits, challenges and implications for both policy makers and practitioners. Finally, the paper aims to serve as an invitation to others who may consider adopting a similar method of university-industry collaboration in their own region.

Keywords: Regional business support, rural business support, university-industry collaboration, collaborative R&D, SMEs, knowledge exchange.

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Authors: Lowai Abed

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The differences in languages play a big role in cross-cultural communication. If meanings are not translated accurately, the risk can be crucial not only on an interpersonal level, but also on the international and political levels. The use of metaphorical language by politicians can cause great confusion, often leading to statements being misconstrued. In these situations, it is the translators who struggle to put forward the intended meaning with clarity and this makes translation an important field to study and analyze when it comes to cross-cultural communication. Owing to the growing importance of language and the power of translation in politics, this research analyzes part of President Bush’s speech in 2001 in which he used the word “Crusade” which caused his statement to be misconstrued. The research uses a discourse analysis of cross-cultural communication literature which provides answers supported by historical, linguistic, and communicative perspectives. The first finding indicates that the word ‘crusade’ carries different meaning and significance in the narratives of the Western world when compared to the Middle East. The second one is that, linguistically, maintaining cultural meanings through translation is quite difficult and challenging. Third, when it comes to the cross-cultural communication perspective, the common and frequent usage of literal translation is a sign of poor strategies being followed in translation training. Based on the example of Bush’s speech, this paper hopes to highlight the weak practices in translation in cross-cultural communication which are still commonly used across the world. Translation studies have to take issues such as this seriously and attempt to find a solution. In every language, there are words and phrases that have cultural, historical and social meanings that are woven into the language. Literal translation is not the solution for this problem because that strategy is unable to convey these meanings in the target language.

Keywords: Crusade, metaphor, mistranslation, war in terror.

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Authors: U. Pangnakorn, P. Tayamanont, R. Kurubunjerdjit

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The effect of wood vinegar, entomopathogenic nematodes ((Steinernema thailandensis n. sp.) and fermented organic substances from four plants such as: Derris elliptica Roxb, Stemona tuberosa Lour, Tinospora crispa Mier and Azadirachta indica J. were tested on the five varieties of sweetpotato with potential for bioethanol production ie. Taiwan, China, PROC No.65-16, Phichit 166-5, and Phichit 129-6. The experimental plots were located at Faculty of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand. The aim of this study was to compare the efficiency of the five treatments for growth, yield and insect infestation on the five varieties of sweetpotato. Treatment with entomopathogenic nematodes gave the highest average weight of sweetpotato tubers (1.3 kg/tuber), followed by wood vinegar, fermented organic substances and mixed treatment with yields of 0.88, 0.46 and 0.43 kg/tuber, respectively. Also the entomopathogenic nematode treatment gave significantly higher average width and length of sweet potato (9.82 cm and 9.45 cm, respectively). Additionally, the entomopathogenic nematode provided the best control of insect infestation on sweetpotato leaves and tubers. Comparison among the varieties of sweetpotato, PROC NO.65-16 showed the highest weight and length. However, Phichit 129-6 gave significantly higher weight of 0.94 kg/tuber. Lastly, the lowest sweet potato weevil infestation on leaves and tubers occurred on Taiwan and Phichit 129-6.

Keywords: Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas), sweetpotato weevil (Cylas formicarius Fabr), wood vinegar, Entomopathogenic nematode (Steinernema thailandensis n. sp.), fermented organic substances.

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Authors: Lars A. L. Giske, Ola J. Mork, Emil Bjoerlykhaug

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The design of fish processing equipment greatly impacts how easy the cleaning process for the equipment is. This is a critical issue in fish processing, as cleaning of fish processing equipment is a task that is both costly and time consuming, in addition to being very important with regards to product quality. Even more, poorly cleaned equipment could in the worst case lead to contaminated product from which consumers could get ill. This paper will elucidate how equipment design changes could improve the work for the cleaners and saving money for the fish processing facilities by looking at a case for product design improvements. The design of fish processing equipment largely determines how easy it is to clean. “Design for cleaning” is the new hype in the industry and equipment where the ease of cleaning is prioritized gets a competitive advantage over equipment in which design for cleaning has not been prioritized. Design for cleaning is an important research area for equipment manufacturers. SeaSide AS is doing continuously improvements in the design of their products in order to gain a competitive advantage. The focus in this paper will be conveyors for internal logistic and a product called the “electro stunner” will be studied with regards to “Design for cleaning”. Often together with SeaSide’s customers, ideas for new products or product improvements are sketched out, 3D-modelled, discussed, revised, built and delivered. Feedback from the customers is taken into consideration, and the product design is revised once again. This loop was repeated multiple times, and led to new product designs. The new designs sometimes also cause the manufacturing processes to change (as in going from bolted to welded connections). Customers report back that the concrete changes applied to products by SeaSide has resulted in overall more easily cleaned equipment. These changes include, but are not limited to; welded connections (opposed to bolted connections), gaps between contact faces, opening up structures to allow cleaning “inside” equipment, and generally avoiding areas in which humidity and water may gather and build up. This is important, as there will always be bacteria in the water which will grow if the area never dries up. The work of creating more cleanable design is still ongoing, and will “never” be finished as new designs and new equipment will have their own challenges.

Keywords: Cleaning, design, equipment, fish processing, innovation.

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Authors: Patricia B. Cruz, Catrina Jean G. Valenzuela, Analyn N. Yumang

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Nearly a hundred per million of the Filipino population is diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). The early stage of CKD has no symptoms and can only be discovered once the patient undergoes urinalysis. Over the years, different methods were discovered and used for the quantification of the urinary albumin such as the immunochemical assays where most of these methods require large machinery that has a high cost in maintenance and resources, and a dipstick test which is yet to be proven and is still debated as a reliable method in detecting early stages of microalbuminuria. This research study involves the use of the liquid chromatography concept in microfluidic instruments with biosensor as a means of separation and detection respectively, and linear regression to quantify human urinary albumin. The researchers’ main objective was to create a miniature system that quantifies and detect patients’ urinary albumin while reducing the amount of volume used per five test samples. For this study, 30 urine samples of unknown albumin concentrations were tested using VITROS Analyzer and the microfluidic system for comparison. Based on the data shared by both methods, the actual vs. predicted regression were able to create a positive linear relationship with an R² of 0.9995 and a linear equation of y = 1.09x + 0.07, indicating that the predicted values and actual values are approximately equal. Furthermore, the microfluidic instrument uses 75% less in total volume – sample and reagents combined, compared to the VITROS Analyzer per five test samples.

Keywords: Chronic kidney disease, microfluidics, linear regression, VITROS analyzer, urinary albumin.

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Authors: Ashwini V. Chavan, Sukhanand S. Bhosale

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Challenges of weak soil subgrade are often resolved either by stabilization or reinforcing it. However, it is also practiced to reinforce the granular fill to improve the load-settlement behavior of it over weak soil strata. The inclusion of reinforcement in the engineered granular fill provided a new impetus for the development of enhanced Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) models, also known as mechanical foundation models or lumped parameter models. Several researchers have been working in this direction to understand the mechanism of granular fill-reinforcement interaction and the response of weak soil under the application of load. These models have been developed by extending available SSI models such as the Winkler Model, Pasternak Model, Hetenyi Model, Kerr Model etc., and are helpful to visualize the load-settlement behavior of a physical system through 1-D and 2-D analysis considering beam and plate resting on the foundation, respectively. Based on the literature survey, these models are categorized as ‘Reinforced Pasternak Model,’ ‘Double Beam Model,’ ‘Reinforced Timoshenko Beam Model,’ and ‘Reinforced Kerr Model’. The present work reviews the past 30+ years of research in the field of SSI models for reinforced foundation systems, presenting the conceptual development of these models systematically and discussing their limitations. A flow-chart showing procedure for compution of deformation and mobilized tension is also incorporated in the paper. Special efforts are taken to tabulate the parameters and their significance in the load-settlement analysis, which may be helpful in future studies for the comparison and enhancement of results and findings of physical models. 

Keywords: geosynthetics, mathematical modeling, reinforced foundation, soil-structure interaction, ground improvement, soft soil

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Authors: Brian Considine, Aonghus McNabola, John Gallagher, Prashant Kumar

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Passive air pollution control devices known as aspiration efficiency reducers (AER) have been developed using aspiration efficiency (AE) concepts. Their purpose is to reduce the concentration of particulate matter (PM) drawn into a building air handling unit (AHU) through alterations in the inlet design improving energy consumption. In this paper an examination is conducted into the effect of installing a deflector system around an AER-AHU inlet for both a forward and rear-facing orientations relative to the wind. The results of the study found that these deflectors are an effective passive control method for reducing AE at various ambient wind speeds over a range of microparticles of varying diameter. The deflector system was found to induce a large wake zone at low ambient wind speeds for a rear-facing AER-AHU, resulting in significantly lower AE in comparison to without. As the wind speed increased, both contained a wake zone but have much lower concentration gradients with the deflectors. For the forward-facing models, the deflector system at low ambient wind speed was preferred at higher Stokes numbers but there was negligible difference as the Stokes number decreased. Similarly, there was no significant difference at higher wind speeds across the Stokes number range tested. The results demonstrate that a deflector system is a viable passive control method for the reduction of ventilation energy consumption.

Keywords: Aspiration efficiency, energy, particulate matter, ventilation.

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Authors: Van Thang Nguyen, Amelie Danlos, Richard Paridaens, Farid Bakir

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This article presents a study of the effect of a contra-rotating component on the efficiency of centrifugal compressors. A contra-rotating centrifugal compressor (CRCC) is constructed using two independent rotors, rotating in the opposite direction and replacing the single rotor of a conventional centrifugal compressor (REF). To respect the geometrical parameters of the REF one, two rotors of the CRCC are designed, based on a single rotor geometry, using the hub and shroud length ratio parameter of the meridional contour. Firstly, the first rotor is designed by choosing a value of length ratio. Then, the second rotor is calculated to be adapted to the fluid flow of the first rotor according aerodynamics principles. In this study, four values of length ratios 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6 are used to create four configurations CF1, CF2, CF3, and CF4 respectively. For comparison purpose, the circumferential velocity at the outlet of the REF and the CRCC are preserved, which means that the single rotor of the REF and the second rotor of the CRCC rotate with the same speed of 16000rpm. The speed of the first rotor in this case is chosen to be equal to the speed of the second rotor. The CFD simulation is conducted to compare the performance of the CRCC and the REF with the same boundary conditions. The results show that the configuration with a higher length ratio gives higher pressure rise. However, its efficiency is lower. An investigation over the entire operating range shows that the CF1 is the best configuration in this case. In addition, the CRCC can improve the pressure rise as well as the efficiency by changing the speed of each rotor independently. The results of changing the first rotor speed show with a 130% speed increase, the pressure ratio rises of 8.7% while the efficiency remains stable at the flow rate of the design operating point.

Keywords: Centrifugal compressor, contra-rotating, interaction rotor, vacuum.

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Authors: R .Lassoued, M. Guenfoud

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An accurate procedure to determine free vibrations of beams and plates is presented. The natural frequencies are exact solutions of governing vibration equations witch load to a nonlinear homogeny system. The bilinear and linear structures considered simulate a bridge. The dynamic behavior of this one is analyzed by using the theory of the orthotropic plate simply supported on two sides and free on the two others. The plate can be excited by a convoy of constant or harmonic loads. The determination of the dynamic response of the structures considered requires knowledge of the free frequencies and the shape modes of vibrations. Our work is in this context. Indeed, we are interested to develop a self-consistent calculation of the Eigen frequencies. The formulation is based on the determination of the solution of the differential equations of vibrations. The boundary conditions corresponding to the shape modes permit to lead to a homogeneous system. Determination of the noncommonplace solutions of this system led to a nonlinear problem in Eigen frequencies. We thus, develop a computer code for the determination of the eigenvalues. It is based on a method of bisection with interpolation whose precision reaches 10 -12. Moreover, to determine the corresponding modes, the calculation algorithm that we develop uses the method of Gauss with a partial optimization of the "pivots" combined with an inverse power procedure. The Eigen frequencies of a plate simply supported along two opposite sides while considering the two other free sides are thus analyzed. The results could be generalized with the case of a beam by regarding it as a plate with low width. We give, in this paper, some examples of treated cases. The comparison with results presented in the literature is completely satisfactory.

Keywords: Free frequencies, beams, rectangular plates.

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Authors: Mohammad Talha, B. N. Singh

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This paper deals with the thermo-mechanical deformation behavior of shear deformable functionally graded ceramicmetal (FGM) plates. Theoretical formulations are based on higher order shear deformation theory with a considerable amendment in the transverse displacement using finite element method (FEM). The mechanical properties of the plate are assumed to be temperaturedependent and graded in the thickness direction according to a powerlaw distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The temperature field is supposed to be a uniform distribution over the plate surface (XY plane) and varied in the thickness direction only. The fundamental equations for the FGM plates are obtained using variational approach by considering traction free boundary conditions on the top and bottom faces of the plate. A C0 continuous isoparametric Lagrangian finite element with thirteen degrees of freedom per node have been employed to accomplish the results. Convergence and comparison studies have been performed to demonstrate the efficiency of the present model. The numerical results are obtained for different thickness ratios, aspect ratios, volume fraction index and temperature rise with different loading and boundary conditions. Numerical results for the FGM plates are provided in dimensionless tabular and graphical forms. The results proclaim that the temperature field and the gradient in the material properties have significant role on the thermo-mechanical deformation behavior of the FGM plates.

Keywords: Functionally graded material, higher order shear deformation theory, finite element method, independent field variables.

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Authors: Sara Zamani, Mojtaba Fazeli, Abdollah Rashidi Mehrabadi

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In a world worried about water resources with the shadow of drought and famine looming all around, the quality of water is as important as its quantity. The source of all concerns is the constant reduction of per capita quality water for different uses. Iran With an average annual precipitation of 250 mm compared to the 800 mm world average, Iran is considered a water scarce country and the disparity in the rainfall distribution, the limitations of renewable resources and the population concentration in the margins of desert and water scarce areas have intensified the problem. The shortage of per capita renewable freshwater and its poor quality in large areas of the country, which have saline, brackish or hard water resources, and the profusion of natural and artificial pollutant have caused the deterioration of water quality. Among methods of treatment and use of these waters one can refer to the application of membrane technologies, which have come into focus in recent years due to their great advantages. This process is quite efficient in eliminating multi-capacity ions; and due to the possibilities of production at different capacities, application as treatment process in points of use, and the need for less energy in comparison to Reverse Osmosis processes, it can revolutionize the water and wastewater sector in years to come. The article studied the different capacities of water resources in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea watershed basins, and processes the possibility of using nanofiltration process to treat brackish and non-conventional waters in these basins.

Keywords: Membrane processes, saline waters, brackish waters, hard waters, zoning water quality in the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea Watershed area, nanofiltration.

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Authors: Michaela Wang

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Since British established colonial settlements across the East Coast, Native Americans have suffered stark socio economic disparities in comparison to their neighboring communities. This paper employs the 1990, 2000, and 2010 United States Decennial Census to assess whether and to what extent the casino economy helped to close this socioeconomic gap between the Mohegan tribe and its surrounding community. These three Decennial Censuses cover two decades, from six years prior to the erection of Mohegan Sun casino to 14 years afterwards, including the Great Recession 2007-2009. Income, employment, education and housing parameters are selected as socio economic indicators. The profitable advent of the Mohegan Sun in 1996 dramatically improved the socio economic status of the Mohegan Tribe between 1990 and 2000. In fact, for most of these indicators––poverty, median household income, employment, home ownership, and car ownership––disparities shifted; tribal socioeconomic parameters improved from well below the level of New London County in 1990, to the same level or above the county rates in 2000. However, economic downturn in 2007-2009 Great Recession impacted Mohegan people remarkably. By 2010, disparities for household income, employment, home ownership, and car ownership returned. The casino bridged socio economic inequalities, but at the face of economic crises, the mono-product economy grew vulnerable.

Keywords: Indigenous tribe, socio economic inequalities, casino, native American.

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Authors: L. Moussaoui, L. Rahmani

Abstract:

This paper deals with the direct torque control (DTC) of the induction motor. This type of control allows decoupling control between the flux and the torque without the need for a transformation of coordinates. However, as with other hysteresis-based systems, the classical DTC scheme represents a high ripple, in both the electromagnetic torque and the stator flux and a distortion in the stator current. As well, it suffers from variable switching frequency. To solve these problems various modifications, in conventional DTC scheme, have been made during the last decade. Indeed the DTC based on space vector modulation (SVM) has proved to generate very low ripples in torque and flux with constant switching frequency. It also shows almost the same dynamic performances as the classical DTC system. On the other hand, fuzzy logic is considered as an interesting alternative approach for its advantages: Analysis close to the exigencies of user, ability of nonlinear systems control, best dynamic performances and inherent quality of robustness.

Therefore, two fuzzy direct torque control approaches, for the induction motor fed by SVM-voltage source inverter, are proposed in this paper. By using these two approaches of DTC, the advantages of fuzzy logic control, space vector modulation, and direct torque control method are combined. The performances of these DTC schemes are evaluated through digital simulation using Matlab/Simulink platform and fuzzy logic tools. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and the superiority of the proposed Fuzzy DTC-SVM schemes in comparison to the classical DTC.

Keywords: Direct torque control, Fuzzy logic control, Induction motor, Switching frequency, Space vector modulation, Torque and flux ripples.

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Authors: Faraidoon Rahmanzai, Mizuki Takigawa, Yu Bomura, Shigeyuki Date

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To obtain the high quality and essential workability of mortar, different types of superplasticizers are used. The superplasticizers are the chemical admixture used in the mix to improve the fluidity of mortar. Many factors influenced the superplasticizer to disperse the cement particle in the mortar. Nature and amount of replaced cement by slag, mixing procedure, delayed addition time, and heat stimulation technique of superplasticizer cause the varied effect on the fluidity of the cementitious material. In this experiment, the superplasticizers were heated for 1 hour under 60 °C in a thermostatic chamber. Furthermore, the effect of delayed addition time of heat stimulated superplasticizers (SP) was also analyzed. This method was applied to two types of polycarboxylic acid based ether SP (precast type superplasticizer (SP2) and ready-mix type superplasticizer (SP1)) in combination with a partial replacement of normal Portland cement with blast furnace slag (BFS) with 30% w/c ratio. On the other hands, the fluidity, air content, fresh density, and compressive strength for 7 and 28 days were studied. The results indicate that the addition time and heat stimulation technique improved the flow and air content, decreased the density, and slightly decreased the compressive strength of mortar. Moreover, the slag improved the flow of mortar by increasing the amount of slag, and the effect of external temperature of SP on the flow of mortar was decreased. In comparison, the flow of mortar was improved on 5-minute delay for both kinds of SP, but SP1 has improved the flow in all conditions. Most importantly, the transition points in both types of SP appear to be the same, at about 5±1 min.  In addition, the optimum addition time of SP to mortar should be in this period.

Keywords: Combined effect, delayed addition, heat stimulation, flow of mortar.

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Authors: Shahram Naghizadeh Raeisi, Ali Alghooneh

Abstract:

Using membrane technology and modification of milk protein structural properties, a lactose free yogurt was developed. The functional, textural and structural properties of the sample were evaluated and compared with the commercial ones. Results showed that the modification of protein in high fat set yogurt resulted in 11.55%, 18%, 20.21% and 7.08% higher hardness, consistency, water holding capacity, and shininess values compared with the control one. Furthermore, these indices of modified low fat set yogurt were 21.40%, 25.41%, 28.15% & 10.58% higher than the control one, which could be related to the gel network microstructural properties in yogurt formulated with modified protein. In this way, in comparison with the control one, the index of linkage strength (A), the number of linkages (z), and time scale of linkages (λrel) of the high fat modified yogurt were 22.10%, 50.68%, 21.82% higher than the control one; whereas, the average linear distance between two adjacent crosslinks (ξ), was 16.77% lower than the control one. For low fat modified yogurt, A, z, λrel, and ξ indices were 34.30%, 61.70% and 42.60% higher and 19.20% lower than the control one, respectively. The shelf life of modified yogurt was extended to 10 weeks in the refrigerator, while, the control set yogurt had a 3 weeks shelf life. The acidity of high fat and low fat modified yogurts increased from 76 to 84 and 72 to 80 Dornic degrees during 10 weeks of storage, respectively, whereas for control high fat and low fat yogurts they increased from 82 to 122 and 77 to 112 Dornic degrees, respectively. This behavior could be due to the elimination of microorganism’s source of energy in modified yogurt. Furthermore, the calories of high fat and low fat lactose free yogurts were 25% and 40% lower than their control samples, respectively. Generally, results showed that the lactose free yogurt with modified protein, despite of 1% lower protein content than the control one, showed better functional properties, nutritional properties, network parameters, and shelf stability, which could be promising in the set yogurt industry.

Keywords: Lactose free, low calorie, network properties, protein modification.

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Authors: Jiri Plocek, Petr Holec, Simona Kubickova, Barbara Pacakova, Irena Matulkova, Alice Mantlikova, Ivan Nemec, Daniel Niznansky, Jana Vejpravova

Abstract:

This article presents summary on preparation and characterization of zinc, copper, cadmium and cobalt chromite nanocrystals, embedded in an amorphous silica matrix. The ZnCr2O4/SiO2, CuCr2O4/SiO2, CdCr2O4/SiO2 and CoCr2O4/SiO2 nanocomposites were prepared by a conventional sol-gel method under acid catalysis. Final heat treatment of the samples was carried out at temperatures in the range of 900−1200 ◦C to adjust the phase composition and the crystallite size, respectively. The resulting samples were characterized by Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM), Raman/FTIR spectroscopy and magnetic measurements. Formation of the spinel phase was confirmed in all samples. The average size of the nanocrystals was determined from the PXRD data and by direct particle size observation on HRTEM; both results were correlated. The mean particle size (reviewed by HRTEM) was in the range from ∼4 to 46 nm. The results showed that the sol-gel method can be effectively used for preparation of the spinel chromite nanoparticles embedded in the silica matrix and the particle size is driven by the type of the cation A2+ in the spinel structure and the temperature of the final heat treatment. Magnetic properties of the nanocrystals were found to be just moderately modified in comparison to the bulk phases.

Keywords: Chromite, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, agnetic properties, nanocomposites, Raman spectroscopy, Rietveld refinement, sol-gel method, spinel.

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