Search results for: decision making trial and evaluation laboratory

Authors: Xu Tao, Yilun Xu, Dingwei Xiang, Yaofei Sun

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The practice of urban planning and construction based on the concept of the “low carbon eco-city” has been universally accepted by the academic community in response to urban issues such as population, resources, environment, and social development. Based on this, the current article first analyzes the concepts of low carbon eco-city, then builds a complex adaptive system (CAS) theory based on Chinese traditional philosophical thinking, and analyzes the adaptive relationship between material and non-material elements. A three-dimensional evaluation model of natural ecology, economic low carbon, and social harmony was constructed. Finally, the construction of a low carbon eco-city index system in Hexi Newtown of Nanjing was used as an example to verify the effectiveness of the research results; this paradigm provides a new way to achieve a low carbon eco-city system.

Keywords: Complex adaptive system, low carbon ecology, index system, model.

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Authors: N. S. El-Mougy, M. M. Abdel-Kader, H. M. Abouelnasr

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The efficacy of two essential oils applied as a bean seed dressing followed by seedlings foliar spray with four commercial disinfectants against root rot and wilt incidence was evaluated under field conditions. The essential oils, grape seed and peppermint oils and the disinfectants, Gold, Revarest, Klenva, Malva were applied. Chitosan and the fungicide Topsin-M were used as comparison treatment. Essential oils individually or combined with disinfectants were applied as a bean seed dressing. Furthermore, emerged bean plants were sprayed with the same treatments. Under laboratory conditions, growth inhibition effect was observed for the isolated, tested fungi R. solani and F. oxysporum when exposed to essential oils individually or combined with disinfectants. A high inhibitor effect was recorded for peppermint followed by grape seed oils. Concentrations of 1% and 2% of chitosan as well as Topsin M at 400 ppm showed complete reduction (100%) in the two fungal growths. Under field conditions, the obtained results showed that the applied treatments of chitosan had a superior effect on root rot and wilt disease incidence compared with other tested treatments. It was found that seed coating treatment provides good protection of emerged green bean seeds against the root pathogens attack compared with the fungicide and control treatments. Also, the application of seed dressing with essential oils accompanied by seedling spray demonstrated similar results. It was observed that essential oils had an enhancing effect against disease incidence when combined with disinfectants compared with their application. The obvious yield increase was significantly higher in all applied treatments than in fungicide and control.

Keywords: Bean, disinfectants, essential oils, root rot, wilt.

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Authors: Wang Qian, Bian Cheng Xiang

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In recent years, with the improvement of China's urbanization level, the number of urban motor vehicles has grown rapidly. As residents' daily commuting necessities, cars cause a lot of exhaust emissions and urban traffic congestion. In the "Fourteenth Five Year Plan" of China, it is proposed to strive to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Urban transport accounts for a high proportion of carbon emission sources. It is an important driving force for the realization of China's carbon peak strategy. Some cities have introduced and implemented the policy of "car restriction" to solve the related urban problems by reducing the use of cars. This paper analyzes the implementation of the "automobile restriction" policy, evaluates the relevant effects of the automobile restriction policy, and discusses how to better optimize the "automobile restriction" policy in the process of urban governance.

Keywords: Carbon emission, traffic jam, vehicle restriction, policy evaluation.

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Authors: Soo-young Ye, Jun-mo Park, Jae-hyung Kim, Jae-hee Jung, Ah-young Jeon, In-cheol Kim, Jung-man Son, Ki-gon Nam, Seong-wan Baik, Jung-hoon Ro, Gye-rok Jeon

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The linear SEF (Spectral Edge Frequency) parameter and spectrum analysis method can not reflect the non-linear of EEG. This method can not contribute to acquire real time analysis and obtain a high confidence in the clinic due to low discrimination. To solve the problems, the development of a new index is carried out using the bispectrum analyzing the EEG(electroencephalogram) including the non-linear characteristic. After analyzing the bispectrum of the 2 dimension, the most significant power spectrum density peaks appeared abundantly at the specific area in awakening and anesthesia state. These points are utilized to create the new index since many peaks appeared at the specific area in the frequency coordinate. The measured range of an index was 0-100. An index is 20-50 at an anesthesia, while the index is 90-60 at the awake. New index could afford to effectively discriminate the awake and anesthesia state.

Keywords: Bispectrum, anesthesia depth, EEG, SEF.

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Authors: Klementina Puto, Ermelinda Nexhipi, Evi Llaka

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Dairy by-products are a fairly good environment for microorganisms due to their composition for their growth. Microbial populations have a significant impact in the production of cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. in terms of their organoleptic quality and at the same time some also cause their breakdown. In this paper, the microbiological contamination of soft cheese, butter and yogurt produced in the country (domestic) and imported is assessed, as an indicator of hygiene with impact on public health. The study was extended during September 2018-June 2019 and was divided into three periods, September-December, January-March, and April-June. During this study, a total of 120 samples were analyzed, of which 60 samples of cheese and butter locally produced, and 60 samples of imported soft cheese and butter productions. The microbial indicators analyzed are Staphylococcus aureus and E. coli. Analyzes have been conducted at the Food Safety Laboratory (FSIV) in Tirana in accordance with EU Regulation 2073/2005. Sampling was performed according to the specific international standards for these products (ISO 6887 and ISO 8261). Sampling and transport of samples were done under sterile conditions. Also, coding of samples was done to preserve the anonymity of subjects. After the analysis, the country's soft cheese products compared to imports were more contaminated with S. aureus and E. coli. Meanwhile, the imported butter samples that were analyzed, resulted within norms compared to domestic ones. Based on the results, it was concluded that the microbial quality of samples of cheese, butter and yogurt analyzed remains a real problem for hygiene in Albania. The study will also serve business operators in Albania to improve their work to ensure good hygiene on the basis of the HACCP plan and to provide a guarantee of consumer health.

Keywords: Consumer, health, dairy, by-products, microbial.

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Authors: Toan Vu Duc, Son Ha Viet

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An evaluation of the PCBs residues in the surface soils from Bacninh, Vietnam was carried out. Sixty representative soil samples were collected from the centre of Bacninh and three surrounding districts. The analyzed results indicated the wide extent of contamination of total PCBs in Bacninh. In industrial and urban zones, total PCBs concentrations ranged from ranged from <0.02 to 32.68ng g-1 (mean 19.89 ±15.64ng g-1) dry weight, while those in agricultural zones ranged from <0.02 to 13.26ng g-1 (mean 8.14 ± 4.89ng g-1) dry weight. The mean percentages of PCB28, PCB52, PCB101, PCB138, PCB153 and PCB180 compared with Σ6PCBs in the analyzed soil samples are 3.1%, 13.9%, 21.7%, 30.7%, 25.8% and 4.8%, respectively. These values can be explained by the chemical properties as well as the compositions of PCBs mixture which probably escaped from dielectric oil. An increasing trend and the long-time release of PCBs are observed.

Keywords: Contamination, PCBs, soil, temporal trend.

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Authors: M. Ramachandra, G. Dilip Maruthi, R. Rashmi

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This paper aims to study the corrosion property of aluminum matrix nanocomposite of an aluminum alloy (Al-6061) reinforced with zirconium dioxide (ZrO₂) particles. The zirconium dioxide particles are synthesized by solution combustion method. The nanocomposite materials are prepared by mechanical stir casting method, varying the percentage of n-ZrO₂ (2.5%, 5% and 7.5% by weight). The corrosion behavior of base metal (Al-6061) and Al/ZrO₂ nanocomposite in seawater (3.5% NaCl solution) is measured using the potential control method. The corrosion rate is evaluated by Tafel extrapolation technique. The corrosion potential increases with the increase in wt.% of n-ZrO₂ in the nanocomposite which means the decrease in corrosion rate. It is found that on addition of n-ZrO2 particles to the aluminum matrix, the corrosion rate has decreased compared to the base metal.

Keywords: Al6061 alloy, corrosion, solution combustion, stir casting, Potentiostat, Zirconium Dioxide.

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Authors: Young-Jin Baik, Minsung Kim, Young-Soo Lee, Ki-Chang Chang, Seong-Ryong Park

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The compression-absorption heat pump (C-A HP), one of the promising heat recovery equipments that make process hot water using low temperature heat of wastewater, was evaluated by computer simulation. A simulation program was developed based on the continuity and the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Both the absorber and desorber were modeled using UA-LMTD method. In order to prevent an unfeasible temperature profile and to reduce calculation errors from the curved temperature profile of a mixture, heat loads were divided into lots of segments. A single-stage compressor was considered. A compressor cooling load was also taken into account. An isentropic efficiency was computed from the map data. Simulation conditions were given based on the system consisting of ordinarily designed components. The simulation results show that most of the total entropy generation occurs during the compression and cooling process, thus suggesting the possibility that system performance can be enhanced if a rectifier is introduced.

Keywords: Waste heat recovery, Heat Pump.

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Authors: Wipada Chiawchan

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This study found that most corporate personnel are using social media to communicate with colleagues to make the process of working more efficient. Complete satisfaction occurred on the use of security within the University’s computer network. The social network usage for communication, collaboration, entertainment and demonstrating concerns accounted for fifty percent of variance to predict interpersonal relationships of corporate personnel. This evaluation on the effectiveness of social networking involved 213 corporate personnel’s. The data was collected by questionnaires. This data was analyzed by using percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results from the analysis and the effectiveness of using online social networks were derived from the attitude of private users and safety data within the security system. The results showed that the effectiveness on the use of an online social network for corporate personnel of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University was specifically at a good level, and the overall effects of each aspect was (Ẋ=3.11).

Keywords: Behaviors, Social Media, Social Network.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

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Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, ParetoOptimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: Khalid Alnafjan, Tazar Hussain, Hanif Ullah, Zia ul haq Paracha

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Software and applications are subjected to serious and damaging security threats, these threats are increasing as a result of increased number of potential vulnerabilities. Security testing is an indispensable process to validate software security requirements and to identify security related vulnerabilities. In this paper we analyze and compare different available vulnerabilities testing techniques based on a pre defined criteria using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). We have selected five testing techniques which includes Source code analysis, Fault code injection, Robustness, Stress and Penetration testing techniques. These testing techniques have been evaluated against five criteria which include cost, thoroughness, Ease of use, effectiveness and efficiency. The outcome of the study is helpful for researchers, testers and developers to understand effectiveness of each technique in its respective domain. Also the study helps to compare the inner working of testing techniques against a selected criterion to achieve optimum testing results.

Keywords: Software Security, Security Testing, Testing techniques, vulnerability, AHP.

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Authors: Shu-Ning Liou

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The main purpose of this study was to establish Professional Competency Contents for International Marketer in Taiwan. To establish these contents a set of interviews with international marketing managers and three rounds of Delphi Technique surveys were employed. Five international marketing managers were interviewed for discussions on definitions, framework, and items of international marketing competency. A questionnaire for the " Delphi Technique Survey " was developed based on the results acquired from the interviews. The resulting questionnaire was distributed to another group of 30 international marketer of trading companies in Taiwan. After three rounds of Delphi Technique Survey with these participants, the "Contents of Professional Competency for International Marketer " was established. Five dimensions and thirty indicators were identified. It is hoped that the proposed contents could be served as a self-evaluation tool for international marketer as well as the basis for staffing and training programs for international marketer in Taiwan.

Keywords: Professional competency, International marketer, Delphi technique

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Authors: Purnomo Yustianto, Robin Doss

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As a process of developing a service system, the term ‘service engineering’ evolves in scope and definition. To achieve an integrated understanding of the process, a general framework and an ontology are required. This paper extends a previously built service engineering framework by exploring metamodels for the framework artefacts based on a foundational ontology and a metamodel landscape. The first part of this paper presents a correlation map between the proposed framework with the ontology as a form of evaluation for the conceptual coverage of the framework. The mapping also serves to characterize the artefacts to be produced for each activity in the framework. The second part describes potential metamodels to be used, from the metamodel landscape, as alternative formats of the framework artefacts. The results suggest that the framework sufficiently covers the ontological concepts, both from general service context and software service context. The metamodel exploration enriches the suggested artefact format from the original eighteen formats to thirty metamodel alternatives.

Keywords: Artefact, framework, service, metamodel.

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Authors: G. Settanni, A. Panarese, R. Vaira, A. Galiano

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Nowadays, artificial intelligence is used successfully in the field of e-commerce for its ability to learn from a large amount of data. In this research study, a prototype software platform was designed and implemented in order to suggest to users the most suitable products for their needs. The platform includes a recommender system based on artificial intelligence algorithms that provide suggestions and decision support to the customer. Specifically, support vector machine algorithms have been implemented combined with natural language processing techniques that allow the user to interact with the system, express their requests and receive suggestions. The interested user can access the web platform on the internet using a computer, tablet or mobile phone, register, provide the necessary information and view the products that the system deems them the most appropriate. The platform also integrates a dashboard that allows the use of the various functions, which the platform is equipped with, in an intuitive and simple way. Also, Long Short-Term Memory algorithms have been implemented and trained on historical data in order to predict customer scores of the different items. Items with the highest scores are recommended to customers.

Keywords: Deep Learning, Long Short-Term Memory, Machine Learning, Recommender Systems, Support Vector Machine.

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Authors: Omer Mahmood, Selvakennedy Selvadurai

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“Web of Trust" is one of the recognized goals for Web 2.0. It aims to make it possible for the people to take responsibility for what they publish on the web, including organizations, businesses and individual users. These objectives, among others, drive most of the technologies and protocols recently standardized by the governing bodies. One of the great advantages of Web infrastructure is decentralization of publication. The primary motivation behind Web 2.0 is to assist the people to add contents for Collective Intelligence (CI) while providing mechanisms to link content with people for evaluations and accountability of information. Such structure of contents will interconnect users and contents so that users can use contents to find participants and vice versa. This paper proposes conceptual information storage and linking model, based on decentralized information structure, that links contents and people together. The model uses FOAF, Atom, RDF and RDFS and can be used as a blueprint to develop Web 2.0 applications for any e-domain. However, primary target for this paper is online trust evaluation domain. The proposed model targets to assist the individuals to establish “Web of Trust" in online trust domain.

Keywords: Web of Trust, Semantic Web, Electronic SocialNetworks, Information Management

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Authors: Claudia Camargo, Enrique J. de la Vega, Jesús E. Olguín, Juan A. López, Sandra K. Enríquez

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This study focuses on the application of sensory thermography, as a non-invasive method to evaluate the musculoskeletal injuries that industry workers performing Highly Repetitive Movements (HRM) may acquire. It was made at a wireless company having the target of analyze temperatures in worker’s wrists, elbows and shoulders in workstations during their activities, this thru sensorial thermography with the goal of detecting maximum temperatures (Tmax) that could indicate possible injuries. The tests were applied during 3 hours for only 2 workers that work in workstations where there’s been the highest index of injuries and accidents. We were made comparisons for each part of the body that were study for both because of the similitude between the activities of the workstations; they were requiring both an immediate evaluation. The Tmax was recorder during the test of the worker 2, in the left wrist, reaching a temperature of 35.088ºC and with a maximum increase of 1.856°C

Keywords: Highly Repetitive Movements (HRM), Maximum temperatures (Tmax), Worker.

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Authors: Tayebeh Saghapour, Sara Moridpour, Russell George Thompson

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One of the common aims of transport policy makers is to switch people’s travel to active transport. For this purpose, a variety of transport goals and investments should be programmed to increase the propensity towards active transport mode choice. This paper aims to investigate whether built environment features in neighbourhoods could enhance the odds of active transportation. The present study introduces an index measuring public transport accessibility (PTAI), and a walkability index along with socioeconomic variables to investigate mode choice behaviour. Using travel behaviour data, an ordered logit regression model is applied to examine the impacts of explanatory variables on walking trips. The findings indicated that high rates of active travel are consistently associated with higher levels of walking and public transport accessibility.

Keywords: Active transport, public transport accessibility, walkability, ordered logit model.

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Authors: S. Priyanto, E.P Friandi

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Yogyakarta, as the capital city of Yogyakarta Province, has important roles in various sectors that require good provision of public transportation system. Ideally, a good transportation system should be able to accommodate the amount of travel demand. This research attempts to develop a trip generation model to predict the number of public transport passenger in Yogyakarta city. The model is built by using multiple linear regression analysis, which establishes relationship between trip number and socioeconomic attributes. The data consist of primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected by conducting household surveys which randomly selected. The resulted model is further applied to evaluate the existing TransJogja, a new Bus Rapid Transit system serves Yogyakarta and surrounding cities, shelters.

Keywords: Multiple linear regression, shelter evaluation, travel demand, trip generation.

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Authors: Seong-Bae Park, Hee-Geun Yoon

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It is an important task in Korean-English machine translation to classify the gender of names correctly. When a sentence is composed of two or more clauses and only one subject is given as a proper noun, it is important to find the gender of the proper noun for correct translation of the sentence. This is because a singular pronoun has a gender in English while it does not in Korean. Thus, in Korean-English machine translation, the gender of a proper noun should be determined. More generally, this task can be expanded into the classification of the general Korean names. This paper proposes a statistical method for this problem. By considering a name as just a sequence of syllables, it is possible to get a statistics for each name from a collection of names. An evaluation of the proposed method yields the improvement in accuracy over the simple looking-up of the collection. While the accuracy of the looking-up method is 64.11%, that of the proposed method is 81.49%. This implies that the proposed method is more plausible for the gender classification of the Korean names.

Keywords: machine translation, natural language processing, gender of proper nouns, statistical method

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Authors: Bharat Raj Singh, Onkar Singh

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This paper details a new concept of using compressed air as a potential zero pollution power source for motorbikes. In place of an internal combustion engine, the motorbike is equipped with an air turbine transforms the energy of the compressed air into shaft work. The mathematical modeling and performance evaluation of a small capacity compressed air driven vaned type novel air turbine is presented in this paper. The effect of isobaric admission and adiabatic expansion of high pressure air for different rotor diameters, casing diameters and ratio of rotor to casing diameters of the turbine have been considered and analyzed. It is concluded that the work output is found optimum for some typical values of rotor / casing diameter ratios. In this study, the maximum power works out to 3.825 kW (5.20 HP) for casing diameter of 200 mm and rotor to casing diameter ratio of 0.65 to 0.60 which is sufficient to run motorbike.

Keywords: zero pollution, compressed air, air turbine, injectionangle, rotor / casing diameter ratio.

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Authors: Emmanuel O.O. Ojakominor, Tian F. Lai

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A handful of propagation textbooks that discuss radio frequency (RF) propagation models merely list out the models and perhaps discuss them rather briefly; this may well be frustrating for the potential first time modeller who's got no idea on how these models could have been derived. This paper fundamentally provides an overture in modelling the radio channel. Explicitly, for the modelling practice discussed here, signal strength field measurements had to be conducted beforehand (this was done at 469 MHz); to be precise, this paper primarily concerns empirically/statistically modelling the radio channel, and thus provides results obtained from empirically modelling the environments in question. This paper, on the whole, proposes three propagation models, corresponding to three experimented environments. Perceptibly, the models have been derived by way of making the most use of statistical measures. Generally speaking, the first two models were derived via simple linear regression analysis, whereas the third have been originated using multiple regression analysis (with five various predictors). Additionally, as implied by the title of this paper, both indoor and outdoor environments have been experimented; however, (somewhat) two of the environments are neither entirely indoor nor entirely outdoor. The other environment, however, is completely indoor.

Keywords: RF propagation, radio channel modelling, statistical methods.

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Authors: José Neves, M. Rosário Martins, Fátima Candeias, Diana Ferreira, Sílvia Arantes, Júlio Cruz-Morais, Guida Gomes, Joaquim Macedo, António Abelha, Henrique Vicente

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Some plants of genus Schinus have been used in the folk medicine as topical antiseptic, digestive, purgative, diuretic, analgesic or antidepressant, and also for respiratory and urinary infections. Chemical composition of essential oils of S. molle and S. terebinthifolius had been evaluated and presented high variability according with the part of the plant studied and with the geographic and climatic regions. The pharmacological properties, namely antimicrobial, anti-tumoural and anti-inflammatory activities are conditioned by chemical composition of essential oils. Taking into account the difficulty to infer the pharmacological properties of Schinus essential oils without hard experimental approach, this work will focus on the development of a decision support system, in terms of its knowledge representation and reasoning procedures, under a formal framework based on Logic Programming, complemented with an approach to computing centered on Artificial Neural Networks and the respective Degree-of-Confidence that one has on such an occurrence.

Keywords: Artificial neuronal networks, essential oils, knowledge representation and reasoning, logic programming, Schinus molle L, Schinus terebinthifolius raddi.

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Authors: Shang-Ping Lin, Shi-Hwa Lo, Ho-Li Yang

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Company mergers and acquisitions reached their peak in the twenty-first century. Mergers and acquisitions have become one of the competitive strategies for external growth. In general, it is believed that mergers and acquisitions can create synergies. However, they require complete information technology system and service integration, especially in the banking industry. Much of the research has focused on performance evaluation, shareholder equity allocation, or even the increase of company market value after the merger and acquisition, whereas few scholars have focused on information system integration post merger and acquisition. This study indicates the role of information systems after a merger and acquisition, explaining the benefits of information system integration using a merger and acquisition case in the banking industry as an example. In addition, we discuss factors that affect the performance of information system integration, and utilize system dynamics to interpret the relationship among factors that affect information system integration performance in the banking industry after a merger and acquisition.

Keywords: Merger and Acquisition, Information SystemIntegration, System Dynamics

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Authors: Ali Ganoun

Abstract:

This paper proposes evaluation of sound parameterization methods in recognizing some spoken Arabic words, namely digits from zero to nine. Each isolated spoken word is represented by a single template based on a specific recognition feature, and the recognition is based on the Euclidean distance from those templates. The performance analysis of recognition is based on four parameterization features: the Burg Spectrum Analysis, the Walsh Spectrum Analysis, the Thomson Multitaper Spectrum Analysis and the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) features. The main aim of this paper was to compare, analyze, and discuss the outcomes of spoken Arabic digits recognition systems based on the selected recognition features. The results acqired confirm that the use of MFCC features is a very promising method in recognizing Spoken Arabic digits.

Keywords: Speech Recognition, Spectrum Analysis, Burg Spectrum, Walsh Spectrum Analysis, Thomson Multitaper Spectrum, MFCC.

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Authors: M. Capocelli, A. Caputo, M. De Falco, D. Mazzei, V. Piemonte

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This paper presents the experimental results and the related modeling of a thermal energy storage (TES) facility, ideated and realized by ENEA and realizing the thermocline with an innovative geometry. Firstly, the thermal energy exchange model of an equivalent shell & tube heat exchanger is described and tested to reproduce the performance of the spiral exchanger installed in the TES. Through the regression of the experimental data, a first-order thermocline model was also validated to provide an analytical function of the thermocline, useful for the performance evaluation and the comparison with other systems and implementation in simulations of integrated systems (e.g. power plants). The experimental data obtained from the plant start-up and the short-cut modeling of the system can be useful for the process analysis, for the scale-up of the thermal storage system and to investigate the feasibility of its implementation in actual case-studies.

Keywords: Thermocline, modelling, heat exchange, spiral, shell, tube.

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Authors: O. Lasaga

Abstract:

Defining professional objectives and the search for work are some of the greatest stress factors for final year university students and recent graduates. To manage correctly the stress brought about by the uncertainty, confusion and frustration this process often generates, a course to control stress based on mindfulness has been designed and taught. This course provides tools based on relaxation, mindfulness and meditation that enable students to address personal and professional challenges in the transition to the job market, eliminating or easing the anxiety involved. The course is extremely practical and experiential, combining theory classes and practical classes of relaxation, meditation and mindfulness, group dynamics, reflection, application protocols and session integration. The evaluation of the courses highlighted on the one hand the high degree of satisfaction and, on the other, the usefulness for the students in becoming aware of stressful situations and how these affect them and learning new coping techniques that enable them to reach their goals more easily and with greater satisfaction and well-being.

Keywords: Employability, meditation, mindfulness, relaxation techniques, stress.

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Authors: Ali Nadi, Ali Edrissi

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Relief demand and transportation links availability is the essential information that is needed for every natural disaster operation. This information is not in hand once a disaster strikes. Relief demand and network condition has been evaluated based on prediction method in related works. Nevertheless, prediction seems to be over or under estimated due to uncertainties and may lead to a failure operation. Therefore, in this paper a stochastic programming model is proposed to evaluate real-time relief demand and network condition at the onset of a natural disaster. To address the time sensitivity of the emergency response, the proposed model uses reinforcement learning for optimization of the total relief assessment time. The proposed model is tested on a real size network problem. The simulation results indicate that the proposed model performs well in the case of collecting real-time information.

Keywords: Disaster management, real-time demand, reinforcement learning, relief demand.

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Authors: M. Javid Asad, M. Zafrullah, Mian Shahzad Iqbal

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In this research paper, a slotted coaxial line fed cross dipole excitation structure for short backfire antenna is proposed and developed to achieve reconfigurable circular polarization. The cross dipole, which is fed by the slotted coaxial line, consists of two orthogonal dipoles. The dipoles are mounted on the outer conductor of the coaxial line. A unique technique is developed to generate reconfigurable circular polarization using cross dipole configuration. The sub-reflector is supported by the feed line, thus requiring no extra support. The antenna is developed on elliptical ground plane with dielectric rim making antenna compact. It is demonstrated that cross dipole excited short backfire antenna can achieve voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) bandwidth of 14.28% for 2:1 VSWR, axial ratio of 0.2 dB with axial ratio (≤ 3dB) bandwidth of 2.14% and a gain of more than 12 dBi. The experimental results for the designed antenna structure are in close agreement with computer simulations.

Keywords: Circularly polarized, compact, short backfireantenna.

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Authors: Aicha Rima Cheniti, Hatem Besbes, Joseph Haggege, Christophe Sintes

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In this paper, we are interested to determine the carbon dioxide pressure in the arterial blood through radial velocity difference. The blood was modeled as a two phase mixture (an aqueous carbon dioxide solution with carbon dioxide gas) by Drift flux model and the Young-Laplace equation. The distributions of mixture velocities determined from the considered model permitted the calculation of the radial velocity distributions with different values of mean mixture pressure and the calculation of the mean carbon dioxide pressure knowing the mean mixture pressure. The radial velocity distributions are used to deduce a calculation method of the mean mixture pressure through the radial velocity difference between two positions which is measured by ultrasound. The mean carbon dioxide pressure is then deduced from the mean mixture pressure.

Keywords: Mean carbon dioxide pressure, mean mixture pressure, mixture velocity, radial velocity difference.

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Authors: T. Manzur

Abstract:

Concrete is the predominant construction material in Bangladesh. In large projects, stringent quality control procedures are usually followed under the supervision of experienced engineers and skilled labors. However, in the case of small projects and particularly at distant locations from major cities, proper quality control is often an issue. It has been found from experience that such quality related issues mainly arise from inappropriate proportioning of concrete mixes and improper curing conditions. In most cases external curing method is followed which requires supply of adequate quantity of water along with proper protection against evaporation. Often these conditions are found missing in the general construction sites and eventually lead to production of weaker concrete both in terms of strength and durability. In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate the performance of general concreting works of the country when subjected to several adverse curing conditions that are quite common in various small to medium construction sites. A total of six different types of adverse curing conditions were simulated in the laboratory and samples were kept under those conditions for several days. A set of samples was also submerged in normal curing condition having proper supply of curing water. Performance of concrete was evaluated in terms of compressive strength, tensile strength, chloride permeability and drying shrinkage. About 37% and 25% reduction in 28-day compressive and tensile strength were observed respectively, for samples subjected to most adverse curing condition as compared to the samples under normal curing conditions. Normal curing concrete exhibited moderate permeability (close to low permeability) whereas concrete under adverse curing conditions showed very high permeability values. Similar results were also obtained for shrinkage tests. This study, thus, will assist concerned engineers and supervisors to understand the importance of quality assurance during the curing period of concrete.

Keywords: Adverse, concrete, curing, compressive strength, drying shrinkage, permeability, tensile strength.

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