Search results for: scale analysis

Authors: Anca E. Gurzau, Alexandru Coman, Eugen S. Gurzau, Marinela Penes, Daniela Dumitrescu, DorinMarchean, Ioan Chera

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The environment pollution with pesticides and heavy metals is a recognized problem nowadays, with extension to the global scale the tendency of amplification. Even with all the progress in the environmental field, both in the emphasize of the effect of the pollutants upon health, the linked studies environment-health are insufficient, not only in Romania but all over the world also. We aim to describe the particular situation in Romania regarding the uncontrolled use of pesticides, to identify and evaluate the risk zones for health and the environment in Romania, with the final goal of designing adequate programs for reduction and control of the risk sources. An exploratory study was conducted to determine the magnitude of the pesticide use problem in a population living in Saliste, a rural setting in Transylvania, Romania. The significant stakeholders in Saliste region were interviewed and a sample from the population living in Saliste area was selected to fill in a designed questionnaire. All the selected participants declared that they used pesticides in their activities for more than one purpose. They declared they annually applied pesticides for a period of time between 11 and 30 years, from 5 to 9 days per year on average, mainly on crops situated at some distance from the houses but high risk behavior was identified as the volunteers declared the use of pesticides in the backyard gardens, near their homes, where children were playing. The pesticide applicators did not have the necessary knowledge about safety and exposure. The health data must be correlated with exposure biomarkers in attempt to identify the possible health effects of the pesticides exposure. Future plans include educational campaigns to raise the awareness of the population on the danger of uncontrolled use of pesticides.

Keywords: Pesticides, health effects, Romania, Saliste.

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Authors: Osman Samancı, Ramazan Kaya

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The purpose of this study is to determine the circumstances affecting elementary school students in their family and school lives and what kind of emotions children may feel because of these circumstances. The study was carried out according to the survey model. Four Turkish elementary schools provided 123 fourth grade students for participation in the study. The study-s data were collected by using worksheets for the activity titled “Important Days in Our Lives", which was part of the Elementary School Social Sciences Course 4th Grade Education Program. Data analysis was carried out according to the content analysis technique used in qualitative research. The study detected that circumstances of their family and school lives caused children to feel emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear and jealousy. The circumstances and the emotions caused by these circumstances were analyzed according to gender and interpreted by presenting them with their frequencies.

Keywords: Elementary school students, emotional development, family and school, social development.

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Authors: Z. Pavlík, J. Žumár, M. Pavlíková, R. Černý

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Interaction of inorganic water-soluble salts and building stones is studied in the paper. Two types of sandstone and one type of spongillite as representatives of materials used in historical masonry are subjected to experimental testing. Within the performed experiments, measurement of moisture and chloride concentration profiles is done in order to get input data for computational inverse analysis. Using the inverse analysis, moisture diffusivity and chloride diffusion coefficient of investigated materials are accessed. Additionally, the effect of salt presence on water vapor storage is investigated using dynamic vapor sorption device. The obtained data represents valuable information for restoration of historical masonry and give evidence on the performance of studied stones in contact with water soluble salts.

Keywords: Moisture and chloride transport, sandstone, spongillite, moisture diffusivity, chloride diffusion coefficient.

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Authors: M. S. Salimi, H. Kiamanesh, N. Hedayat

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In this survey the process of crack propagation at the toe of concrete gravity dam is investigated by applying principals and criteria of linear elastic fracture mechanic. Simulating process of earthquake conditions for three models of dam with different geometrical condition, in empty reservoir under plain stress is calculated through special fracture mechanic software FRANNC2D [1] for determining fracture mechanic criteria. The outcomes showed that in spite of the primary expectations, the simultaneous existence of fillet in both toe and heel area (model 3), the rate of maximum principal stress has not been decreased; however, even the maximum principal stress has increased, so it caused stress intensity factors increase which is undesirable. On the other hand, the dam with heel fillet has shown the best attitude and it is because of items like decreasing the rates of maximum and minimum principal stresses and also is related to decreasing the rates of stress intensity factors for 1st & 2nd modes of the model.

Keywords: Stress intensity factor, concrete gravity dam, numerical analysis, geometry of toe.

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Authors: Jesus Orbe, Vicente Nunez-Anton

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This paper studies the duration or survival time of commercial banks active in the Moscovian three month Rouble deposits market, during the 1994-1997 period. The privatization process of the Russian commercial banking industry, after the 1988 banking reform, caused a massive entry of new banks followed by a period of high rates of exit. As a consequence, many firms went bankrupt without refunding their deposits. Therefore, both for the banks and for the banks- depositors, it is of interest to analyze which are the significant characteristics that motivate the exit or the closing of the bank. We propose a different methodology based on penalized weighted least squares which represents a very general, flexible and innovative approach for this type of analysis. The more relevant results are that smaller banks exit sooner, banks that enter the market in the last part of the study have shorter durations. As expected, the more experienced banks have a longer duration in the market. In addition, the mean survival time is lower for banks which offer extreme interest rates.

Keywords: Banking, censored, duration, Kaplan-Meier.

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Authors: G. Rezai, Z. Mohamed, M. N. Shamsudin, M. Z. Zahran

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The availability of broadband internet and increased access to computers has been instrumental in the rise of internet literacy in Malaysia. This development has led to the adoption of online shopping by many Malaysians. On another note, the Government has supported the development and production of local herbal products. This has resulted in an increase in the production and diversity of products by SMEs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of the Malaysian demographic factors and selected attitudinal characteristics in relation to the online purchasing of herbal products. In total, 1054 internet users were interviewed online and Chi-square analysis was used to determine the relationship between demographic variables and different aspects of online shopping for herbal products. The overall results show that the demographic variables such as age, gender, education level, income and ethnicity were significant when considering the online shopping antecedents of trust, quality of herbal products, perceived risks and perceived benefits.

Keywords: Demographic factors, herbal products, Malaysian consumers, online shopping, Chi-square analysis

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Authors: Leslie J.C.Bluck, Sarah J.Jackson, Georgios Vlasakakis, Adrian Mander

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The use of a Bayesian Hierarchical Model (BHM) to interpret breath measurements obtained during a 13C Octanoic Breath Test (13COBT) is demonstrated. The statistical analysis was implemented using WinBUGS, a commercially available computer package for Bayesian inference. A hierarchical setting was adopted where poorly defined parameters associated with a delayed Gastric Emptying (GE) were able to "borrow" strength from global distributions. This is proved to be a sufficient tool to correct model's failures and data inconsistencies apparent in conventional analyses employing a Non-linear least squares technique (NLS). Direct comparison of two parameters describing gastric emptying ng ( tlag -lag phase, t1/ 2 -half emptying time) revealed a strong correlation between the two methods. Despite our large dataset ( n = 164 ), Bayesian modeling was fast and provided a successful fitting for all subjects. On the contrary, NLS failed to return acceptable estimates in cases where GE was delayed.

Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical analysis, 13COBT, Gastricemptying, WinBUGS.

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Authors: I. Gokasar, G. Bakioglu

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With the unprecedented rates of technological improvements, people start to solve their problems with the help of technological tools. According to application stores and websites in which people evaluate and comment on the traffic apps, there are more than 100 traffic applications which have different features with respect to their purpose of usage ranging from the features of traffic apps for public transit modes to the features of traffic apps for private cars. This study focuses on the top 30 traffic applications which were chosen with respect to their download counts. All data about the traffic applications were obtained from related websites. The purpose of this study is to analyze traffic applications in terms of their categorical attributes with the help of developing a regression model. The analysis results suggest that negative interpretations (e.g., being deficient) does not lead to lower star ratings of the applications. However, those negative interpretations result in a smaller increase in star rate. In addition, women use higher star rates than men for the evaluation of traffic applications.

Keywords: Traffic App, real–time information, traffic congestion, regression analysis, dummy variables.

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Authors: Guo Yanru, Zhu Xiaobo, Lee Chu Keong

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This paper maps the structure of the social network of the 2011 class ofsixty graduate students of the Masters of Science (Knowledge Management) programme at the Nanyang Technological University, based on their friending relationships on Facebook. To ensure anonymity, actual names were not used. Instead, they were replaced with codes constructed from their gender, nationality, mode of study, year of enrollment and a unique number. The relationships between friends within the class, and among the seniors and alumni of the programme wereplotted. UCINet and Pajek were used to plot the sociogram, to compute the density, inclusivity, and degree, global, betweenness, and Bonacich centralities, to partition the students into two groups, namely, active and peripheral, and to identify the cut-points. Homophily was investigated, and it was observed for nationality and study mode. The groups students formed on Facebook were also studied, and of fifteen groups, eight were classified as dead, which we defined as those that have been inactive for over two months.

Keywords: Facebook, friending relationships, Social network analysis, social network sites, structural position

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Authors: Bernardo Cedano, Ahmed H. Eltom, Bob Hay, Jim Glass, Raga Ahmed

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The deployment of smart grid devices such as smart meters and smart switches (SS) supported by a reliable and fast communications system makes automated distribution possible, and thus, provides great benefits to electric power consumers and providers alike. However, more research is needed before the full utility of smart switch data is realized. This paper presents new automated switching techniques using SS within the electric power grid. A concise background of the SS is provided, and operational examples are shown. Organization and presentation of data obtained from SS are shown in the context of the future goal of total automation of the distribution network. The description of application techniques, the examples of success with SS, and the vision outlined in this paper serve to motivate future research pertinent to disturbance analysis automation.

Keywords: Disturbance automation, electric power grid, smart grid, smart switch.

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Authors: A. Natsir, M. Nadir, S. Syahrir, A. Mujnisa, N. Purnomo, A. R. Egan, B. J. Leury

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Rumen degradation characteristic of feedstuff is one of the prominent factors affecting microbial population in rumen of animal. High rumen degradation rate of faba bean protein may lead to inconstant rumen conditions that could have a prominent impact on rumen microbial diversity. Amplified Ribosomal DNA Restriction Analysis (ARDRA) is utilized to monitor diversity of rumen microbes on sheep fed low quality forage supplemented by faba beans. Four mature merino sheep with existing rumen cannula were used in this study according to 4 x 4 Latin square design. The results of study indicated that there were 37 different ARDRA types identified out of 136 clones examined. Among those clones, five main clone types existed across the treatments with different percentages. In conclusion, the ARDRA method is potential to be used as a routine tool to assess the temporary changes in the rumen community as a result of different feeding strategies.

Keywords: ARDRA method, clones, microbial diversity, ribotypes, ruminants.

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Authors: Cristian P. Topa, Esteban A. Valencia, Victor H. Hidalgo, Marco A. Martinez

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Wind tunnel experiments for aerodynamic profiles display numerous advantages, such as: clean steady laminar flow, controlled environmental conditions, streamlines visualization, and real data acquisition. However, the experiment instrumentation usually is expensive, and hence, each test implies a incremented in design cost. The aim of this work is to select and implement a low-cost static pressure data acquisition system for a NACA 2412 airfoil in an open cycle wind tunnel. This work compares wind tunnel experiment with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation and parametric analysis. The experiment was evaluated at Reynolds of 1.65 e⁵, with increasing angles from -5° to 15°. The comparison between the approaches show good enough accuracy, between the experiment and CFD, additional parametric analysis results differ widely from the other methods, which complies with the lack of accuracy of the lateral approach due its simplicity.

Keywords: Wind tunnel, low cost instrumentation, experimental testing, CFD simulation.

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Authors: Altab Hossain, Ataur Rahman, A.K.M. P. Iqbal, M. Ariffin, M. Mazian

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This work describes the aerodynamic characteristic for aircraft wing model with and without bird feather like winglet. The aerofoil used to construct the whole structure is NACA 653-218 Rectangular wing and this aerofoil has been used to compare the result with previous research using winglet. The model of the rectangular wing with bird feather like winglet has been fabricated using polystyrene before design using CATIA P3 V5R13 software and finally fabricated in wood. The experimental analysis for the aerodynamic characteristic for rectangular wing without winglet, wing with horizontal winglet and wing with 60 degree inclination winglet for Reynolds number 1.66×105, 2.08×105 and 2.50×105 have been carried out in open loop low speed wind tunnel at the Aerodynamics laboratory in Universiti Putra Malaysia. The experimental result shows 25-30 % reduction in drag coefficient and 10-20 % increase in lift coefficient by using bird feather like winglet for angle of attack of 8 degree.

Keywords: Aerofoil, Wind tunnel, Winglet, Drag Coefficient.

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Authors: Yang-Keun Ahn, Kwang-Soon Choi, Young-Choong Park, Kwang-Mo Jung

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This paper proposes a method to recognize the tip of a finger and space touch hand gesture using an infrared camera in a smart device environment. The proposed method estimates the tip of a finger with a curvature-based ellipse fitting algorithm, and verifies that the estimated object is indeed a finger with an ellipse fitting rectangular area. The feature extracted from the verified finger tip is used to implement the movement of a mouse and clicking gesture. The proposed algorithm was implemented with an actual smart device to test the proposed method. Empirical parameters were obtained from the keypad software and an image analysis tool for the performance optimization, and a comparative analysis with conventional research showed improved performance with the proposed method.

Keywords: Infrared camera, Hand gesture, Smart device, Space touch.

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Authors: D. Krishnaveni, M. Geetha Priya

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Application of reversible logic in integrated circuits results in the improved optimization of power consumption. This technology can be put into use in a variety of low power applications such as quantum computing, optical computing, nano-technology, and Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) design etc. Logic gates are the basic building blocks in the design of any logic network and thus integrated circuits. In this paper, reversible Dual Key Gate (DKG) and Dual key Gate Pair (DKGP) gates that work singly as full adder/full subtractor are used to realize the basic building blocks of logic circuits. Reversible full adder/subtractor and parallel adder/ subtractor are designed using other reversible gates available in the literature and compared with that of DKG & DKGP gates. Efficient performance of reversible logic circuits relies on the optimization of the key parameters viz number of constant inputs, garbage outputs and number of reversible gates. The full adder/subtractor and parallel adder/subtractor design with reversible DKGP and DKG gates results in least number of constant inputs, garbage outputs, and number of reversible gates compared to the other designs. Thus, this paper provides a threshold to build more complex arithmetic systems using these reversible logic gates, leading to the enhanced performance of computing systems.

Keywords: Low power CMOS, quantum computing, reversible logic gates, full adder, full subtractor, parallel adder/subtractor, basic gates, universal gates.

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Authors: A. Armin, R. Fotouhi, W. Szyszkowski

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In this paper a 3-D finite element (FE) investigation of soil-blade interaction is described. The effects of blade’s shape and rake angle are examined both numerically and experimentally. The soil is considered as an elastic-plastic granular material with non-associated Drucker-Prager material model. Contact elements with different properties are used to mimic soil-blade sliding and soil-soil cutting phenomena. A separation criterion is presented and a procedure to evaluate the forces acting on the blade is given and discussed in detail. Experimental results were derived from tests using soil bin facility and instruments at the University of Saskatchewan. During motion of the blade, load cells collect data and send them to a computer. The measured forces using load cells had noisy signals which are needed to be filtered. The FE results are compared with experimental results for verification. This technique can be used in blade shape optimization and design of more complicated blade’s shape.

Keywords: Finite element analysis, soil-blade contact modeling, blade force, experimental results.

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Authors: I. Algul, G. Akgun, H. Kurtaran

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Dynamic analysis of composite doubly curved panels with variable thickness subjected to different pulse types using Generalized Differential Quadrature method (GDQ) is presented in this study. Panels with variable thickness are used in the construction of aerospace and marine industry. Giving variable thickness to panels can allow the designer to get optimum structural efficiency. For this reason, estimating the response of variable thickness panels is very important to design more reliable structures under dynamic loads. Dynamic equations for composite panels with variable thickness are obtained using virtual work principle. Partial derivatives in the equation of motion are expressed with GDQ and Newmark average acceleration scheme is used for temporal discretization. Several examples are used to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed method. Results are compared with finite element method. Effects of taper ratios, boundary conditions and loading type on the response of composite panel are investigated.

Keywords: Generalized differential quadrature method, doubly curved panels, laminated composite materials, small displacement.

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Authors: Hamioud Saida, Khalfallah Salah

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In this study, a spectral element method (SEM) is employed to predict the free vibration of a Euler-Bernoulli beam resting on a Winkler foundation with elastically restrained ends. The formulation of the dynamic stiffness matrix has been established by solving the differential equation of motion which was transformed to frequency domain. Non-dimensional natural frequencies and shape modes are obtained by solving the partial differential equations, numerically. Numerical comparisons and examples are performed to show the effectiveness of the SEM and to investigate the effects of various parameters, such as the springs at the boundaries and the elastic foundation parameter on the vibration frequencies. The obtained results demonstrate that the present method can also be applied to solve the more general problem of the dynamic analysis of structures with higher order precision.

Keywords: Elastically supported Euler-Bernoulli beam, free-vibration, spectral element method, Winkler foundation.

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Authors: A. Almaneea, N. Kapur, J. L. Summers, H. M. Thompson

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Meeting the growth in demand for digital services such as social media, telecommunications, and business and cloud services requires large scale data centres, which has led to an increase in their end use energy demand. Generally, over 30% of data centre power is consumed by the necessary cooling overhead. Thus energy can be reduced by improving the cooling efficiency. Air and liquid can both be used as cooling media for the data centre. Traditional data centre cooling systems use air, however liquid is recognised as a promising method that can handle the more densely packed data centres. Liquid cooling can be classified into three methods; rack heat exchanger, on-chip heat exchanger and full immersion of the microelectronics. This study quantifies the improvements of heat transfer specifically for the case of immersed microelectronics by varying the CPU and heat sink location. Immersion of the server is achieved by filling the gap between the microelectronics and a water jacket with a dielectric liquid which convects the heat from the CPU to the water jacket on the opposite side. Heat transfer is governed by two physical mechanisms, which is natural convection for the fixed enclosure filled with dielectric liquid and forced convection for the water that is pumped through the water jacket. The model in this study is validated with published numerical and experimental work and shows good agreement with previous work. The results show that the heat transfer performance and Nusselt number (Nu) is improved by 89% by placing the CPU and heat sink on the bottom of the microelectronics enclosure.

Keywords: CPU location, data centre cooling, heat sink in enclosures, Immersed microelectronics, turbulent natural convection in enclosures.

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Authors: Anas M. Fares

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The lateral stiffness of buildings is one of the most important properties which define resistance to displacements under lateral loads. Moreover, it has a great impact on the natural period of the structures. Different stiffness’s values can ultimately affect the behavior of the structure under the seismic load and the lateral forces that will be applied to it. In this study the effect of cracking is studied on 2D shell thin cantilever shear wall by using ETABS. Multi linear elastic analysis is conducted with the ACI stiffness modifiers for each analysis step. The results showed that the cracks affect the value of the drift especially at the top of the high rise buildings and this will change the lateral stiffness and so change the fundamental period of the structures which lead to change in the applied shear force that comes from the earthquake. Finally, this study emphasizes that the finite element method can be considered as a good tool to predict the tensile stresses in the elements.

Keywords: Lateral loads, lateral displacement, reinforced concrete, shear wall, Cracks, ETABS, ACI code, stiffness.

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Authors: A. Alrasheed, I. Connerton

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Daily provision of high quality food and hygiene to patients is a challenging goal of the healthcare. In Saudi Arabia, matters related to food safety and hygiene are regulated by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Saudi Food and Drugs Authority (SFDA). The purpose of this research is to discuss the food safety management inconsistencies and flaws, in particular the ones related to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) in Riyadh’s MOH hospitals. As required by law, written HACCP regulations must be implemented, and food handlers need to receive the training accordingly. However, in Saudi hospitals, this is not a requirement, and the food handlers do not need to hold training certificates in food safety or HACCP. Nowadays, the matter of food safety and hygiene have become increasingly important since the decision makers want to align these regulations with the majority of the world and to implement HACCP fully and for this purpose, the SFDA was established. 

Keywords: Food safety, patients, hospitals, HACCP, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Maatoug Hassine, Mourad Hrizi

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In this paper, we consider a geometric inverse source problem for the heat equation with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary data. We will reconstruct the exact form of the unknown source term from additional boundary conditions. Our motivation is to detect the location, the size and the shape of source support. We present a one-shot algorithm based on the Kohn-Vogelius formulation and the topological gradient method. The geometric inverse source problem is formulated as a topology optimization one. A topological sensitivity analysis is derived from a source function. Then, we present a non-iterative numerical method for the geometric reconstruction of the source term with unknown support using a level curve of the topological gradient. Finally, we give several examples to show the viability of our presented method.

Keywords: Geometric inverse source problem, heat equation, topological sensitivity, topological optimization, Kohn-Vogelius formulation.

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Authors: Porntipa Taksin, Jutamas Wongchan, Amornrat Karamee

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The researchers’ experience of student affairs in 2011-2013, we found that few undergraduate nursing students become student association members who participated in co-curricular activities, they have limited skill of self-directed-learning and leadership. We developed “A Leadership Promoting Program” using Self-Directed Learning concept. The program included six activities: 1) Breaking the ice, Decoding time, Creative SMO, Know me-Understand you, Positive thinking, and Creative dialogue, which include four aspects of these activities: decision-making, implementation, benefits, and evaluation. The one-group, pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research was designed to examine the effects of the program on participation in co-curricular activities. Thirty five students participated in the program. All were members of the board of undergraduate nursing student association of Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Chonburi. All subjects completed the questionnaire about participation in the activities at beginning and at the end of the program. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and dependent t-test. The results showed that the posttest scores of all four aspects mean were significantly higher than the pretest scores (t=3.30, p<.01). Three aspects had high mean scores, Benefits (Mean = 3.24, S.D. = 0.83), Decision-making (Mean = 3.21, S.D. = 0.59), and Implementation (Mean=3.06, S.D.=0.52). However, scores on evaluation falls in moderate scale (Mean = 2.68, S.D. = 1.13). Therefore, the Leadership Promoting Program based on Self-Directed Learning Approach could be a method to improve students’ participation in co-curricular activities and leadership.

Keywords: Participation in co-curricular activities, undergraduate nursing students, leadership promoting program, self-directed learning.

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Authors: Yunus Doğan, Ahmet Durap

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Coastal regions are the one of the most commonly used places by the natural balance and the growing population. In coastal engineering, the most valuable data is wave behaviors. The amount of this data becomes very big because of observations that take place for periods of hours, days and months. In this study, some statistical methods such as the wave spectrum analysis methods and the standard statistical methods have been used. The goal of this study is the discovery profiles of the different coast areas by using these statistical methods, and thus, obtaining an instance based data set from the big data to analysis by using data mining algorithms. In the experimental studies, the six sample data sets about the wave behaviors obtained by 20 minutes of observations from Mersin Bay in Turkey and converted to an instance based form, while different clustering techniques in data mining algorithms were used to discover similar coastal places. Moreover, this study discusses that this summarization approach can be used in other branches collecting big data such as medicine.

Keywords: Clustering algorithms, coastal engineering, data mining, data summarization, statistical methods.

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Authors: Yasmin Yahya, Roslan Ismail, Samreth Vanna, Khorn Saret

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The study on the tree growth for four species groups of commercial timber in Koh Kong province, Cambodia-s tropical rainforest is described. The simulation for these four groups had been successfully developed in the 5-year interval through year-60. Data were obtained from twenty permanent sample plots in the duration of thirteen years. The aim for this study was to develop stand table simulation system of tree growth by the species group. There were five steps involved in the development of the tree growth simulation: aggregate the tree species into meaningful groups by using cluster analysis; allocate the trees in the diameter classes by the species group; observe the diameter movement of the species group. The diameter growth rate, mortality rate and recruitment rate were calculated by using some mathematical formula. Simulation equation had been created by combining those parameters. Result showed the dissimilarity of the diameter growth among species groups.

Keywords: cluster analysis, diameter growth, simulation

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Authors: Fang Yao, Minglei Chen

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City shrinkage is one of the thorny problems that many European cities have to face with nowadays. It is mainly expressed as the decrease of population in these cities. Eastern Germany is one of the pioneers of European shrinking cities with long shrinking history. The paper selects one representative shrinking city Halle (Saale) in eastern Germany as research objective, collecting and investigating nearly 20 years (1993-2010) municipal data after the reunification of Germany. These data based on five dimensions, which are demographic, economic, social, spatial and environmental and total 16 eligible variables. Factor Analysis is used to deal with these variables in order to assess the most important factors affecting shrinking Halle. The results show that there are three main factors determine the shrinkage of Halle, respectively named “demographical and economical factor”, “social stability factor”, and “city vitality factor”. The three factors act at different time period of Halle’s shrinkage: from 1993 to 1997 the demographical and economical factor played an important role; from 1997 to 2004 the social stability factor is significant to city shrinkage; since 2005 city vitality factor determines the shrinkage of Halle. In recent years, the shrinkage in Halle mitigates that shows the sign of growing population. Thus the city Halle should focus on attaching more importance on the city vitality factor to prevent the city from shrinkage. Meanwhile, the city should possess a positive perspective to shift the growth-oriented development to tap the potential of shrinking cities. This method is expected to apply to further research and other shrinking cities

Keywords: Demography, Factor analysis, Halle, Shrinking cities.

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Authors: Amin Almasi

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Composite laminates are relatively weak in out of plane loading, inter-laminar stress, stress concentration near the edge and stress singularities. This paper develops a new analytical formulation for laminated composite rotating disc fabricated from symmetric sequential quasi isotropic layers to predict three dimensional stress and deformation. This analysis is necessary to evaluate mechanical integrity of fiber reinforced multi-layer laminates used for high speed rotating applications such as high speed impellers. Three dimensional governing equations are written for rotating composite disc. Explicit solution is obtained with "Frobenius" expansion series. Based on analytical results, there are two separate zones of three dimensional stress fields in centre and edge of rotating disc. For thin discs, out of plane deformations and stresses are small in comparison with plane ones. For relatively thick discs deformation and stress fields are three dimensional.

Keywords: Composite Disc, Rotating Machine.

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Authors: Miyako Oulevey, Kaori Tsutsui, David Lavallee, Naohiko Kohtake

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The Japan Sports Agency has made efforts to unify several career support programs for Olympic athletes prior to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. One of the programs, the Japan Olympic Committee Career Academy (JCA) was established in 2008 for Olympic athletes at their retirement. Research focusing on the service content of sport career support programs can help athletes experience a more positive transition. This study was designed to investigate the service content of the JCA program in relation to athletes’ career transition needs, including any differences of the reasons for retirement between Summer/Winter and Male/Female Olympic athletes, and to suggest the directions of how to unify the career support programs in Japan after hosting the Olympic Games using sport career transition models. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed the JCA director who started and managed the program since its inception, and a total of 15 conceptual categories were generated by the analysis. Four conceptual categories were in the result of “JCA situation”, 4 conceptual categories were in the result of “Athletes using JCA”, and 7 conceptual categories were in the result of “JCA current difficulties”. Through the analysis it was revealed that: the JCA had occupational supports for both current and retired Olympic athletes; other supports such as psychological support were unclear due to the lack of psychological professionals in JCA and the difficulties collaborating with other sports organizations; and there are differences in tendencies of visiting JCA, financial situations, and career choices depending on Summer/Winter and Male/Female athletes.

Keywords: Career support programs, causes of career termination, Olympic athlete, Olympic committee.

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Authors: Azza A. Al-Ghamdi, Abir S. Abdel-Naby

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Cellulose acetate (CA) is a natural biodegradable polymer. It forms transparent films by the casting technique. CA suffers from high degree of water permeability as well as the low thermal stability at high temperatures. To adjust the CA polymeric films to the manufacture of food packaging, its thermal and mechanical properties should be improved. The modification of CA by grafting it with N-Amino phenyl maleimide (N-APhM) led to the construction of hydrophobic branches throughout the polymeric matrix which reduced its wettability as compared to the parent CA. The branches built onto the polymeric chains had been characterized by UV/Vis, ¹³C-NMR and ESEM. The improvement of the thermal properties was investigated and compared to the parent CA using thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), differential thermal analysis (DTA), contact angle and mechanical testing measurements. The results revealed that the water-uptake was reduced by increasing the graft percentage. The thermal and mechanical properties were also improved.

Keywords: Cellulose acetate, food packaging, graft copolymerization.

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Authors: S. Pushkar, O. Verbitsky

Abstract:

Currently, green rating systems are mainly utilized for correctly sizing mechanical and electrical systems, which have short lifetime expectancies. In these systems, passive solar and bio-climatic architecture, which have long lifetime expectancies, are neglected. Urban rating systems consider buildings and services in addition to neighborhoods and public transportation as integral parts of the built environment. The main goal of this study was to develop a more consistent point allocation system for urban building standards by using six different lifetime shearing layers: Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space, and Stuff, each reflecting distinct environmental damages. This shearing-layer concept was applied to internationally well-known rating systems: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development, BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) for Communities and Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE) for Urban Development. The results showed that LEED for Neighborhood Development and BREEAM for Communities focused on long-lifetime-expectancy building designs, whereas CASBEE for Urban Development gave equal importance to the Building and Service Layers. Moreover, although this rating system was applied using a building-scale assessment, “Urban Area + Buildings” focuses on a short-lifetime-expectancy system design, neglecting to improve the architectural design by considering bioclimatic and passive solar aspects.

Keywords: Green rating system, passive solar architecture, shearing-layer concept, urban community.

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