Search results for: storm events.

Authors: Anil Ranjitbhai Patel, Clement John Shaji, Peter Liggesmeyer

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Safety and security of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) is a growing concern, first, due to the increased number of safety-critical functions taken over by automotive embedded systems; second, due to the increased exposure of the software-intensive systems to potential attackers; third, due to dynamic interaction in an uncertain and unknown environment at runtime which results in changed functional and non-functional properties of the system. Frequently occurring environmental uncertainties, random component failures, and compromise security of the AVs might result in hazardous events, sometimes even in an accident, if left undetected. Beyond these technical issues, we argue that the safety and security of AVs against accidental and deliberate faults are poorly understood and rarely implemented. One possible way to overcome this is through a well-known diversity approach. As an effective approach to increase safety and security, diversity has been widely used in the aviation, railway, and aerospace industries. Thus, paper proposes fault-tolerance by diversity model taking into consideration the mitigation of accidental and deliberate faults by application of structure and variant redundancy. The model can be used to design the AVs with various types of diversity in hardware and software-based multi-version system. The paper evaluates the presented approach by employing an example from adaptive cruise control, followed by discussing the case study with initial findings.

Keywords: Autonomous vehicles, diversity, fault-tolerance, adaptive cruise control, safety, security.

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Authors: Md Abdullah Al Faruque, Ram Balachandar

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Sudden change of bed condition is frequent in open channel flow. Change of bed condition affects the turbulence characteristics in both streamwise and wall-normal direction. Understanding the turbulence intensity in open channel flow is of vital importance to the modeling of sediment transport and resuspension, bed formation, entrainment, and the exchange of energy and momentum. A comprehensive study was carried out to understand the extent of the effect of Reynolds number and bed roughness on different turbulence characteristics in an open channel flow. Four different bed conditions (impervious smooth bed, impervious continuous rough bed, pervious rough sand bed, and impervious distributed roughness) and two different Reynolds numbers were adopted for this cause. The effect of bed roughness on different turbulence characteristics is seen to be prevalent for most of the flow depth. Effect of Reynolds number on different turbulence characteristics is also evident for flow over different bed, but the extent varies on bed condition. Although the same sand grain is used to create the different rough bed conditions, the difference in turbulence characteristics is an indication that specific geometry of the roughness has an influence on turbulence characteristics. Roughness increases the contribution of the extreme turbulent events which produces very large instantaneous Reynolds shear stress and can potentially influence the sediment transport, resuspension of pollutant from bed and alter the nutrient composition, which eventually affect the sustainability of benthic organisms.

Keywords: Open channel flow, Reynolds Number, roughness, turbulence.

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Authors: Anis S. Shuib, Peter R. Hoskins, William J. Easson

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Cardiovascular diseases, principally atherosclerosis, are responsible for 30% of world deaths. Atherosclerosis is due to the formation of plaque. The fatty plaque may be at risk of rupture, leading typically to stroke and heart attack. The plaque is usually associated with a high degree of lumen reduction, called a stenosis.It is increasingly recognized that the initiation and progression of disease and the occurrence of clinical events is a complex interplay between the local biomechanical environment and the local vascular biology. The aim of this study is to investigate the flow behavior through a stenosed artery. A physical experiment was performed using an artery model and blood analogue fluid. An axisymmetric model constructed consists of contraction and expansion region that follow a mathematical form of cosine function. A 30% diameter reduction was used in this study. The flow field was measured using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Spherical particles with 20μm diameter were seeded in a water-glycerol-NaCl mixture. Steady flow Reynolds numbers are 250. The area of interest is the region after the stenosis where the flow separation occurs. The velocity field was measured and the velocity gradient was investigated. There was high particle concentration in the recirculation zone. High velocity gradient formed immediately after the stenosis throat created a lift force that enhanced particle migration to the flow separation area.

Keywords: Stenosis artery, Biofluid mechanics, PIV

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Authors: Matías Micheletto, Rodrigo Santos, Sergio F. Ochoa

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In developing countries, most roads in rural areas are dirt road. They require frequent maintenance since they are affected by erosive events, such as rain or wind, and the transit of heavy-weight trucks and machinery. Early detection of damages on the road condition is a key aspect, since it allows to reduce the maintenance time and cost, and also the limitations for other vehicles to travel through. Most proposals that help address this problem require the explicit participation of drivers, a permanent internet connection, or important instrumentation in vehicles or roads. These constraints limit the suitability of these proposals when applied into developing regions, like Latin America. This paper proposes an alternative method, based on unattended crowdsensing, to determine the quality of dirt roads in rural areas. This method involves the use of a mobile application that complements the road condition surveys carried out by organizations in charge of the road network maintenance, giving them early warnings about road areas that could be requiring maintenance. Drivers can also take advantage of the early warnings while they move through these roads. The method was evaluated using information from a public dataset. Although they are preliminary, the results indicate the proposal is potentially suitable to provide awareness about dirt roads condition to drivers, transportation authority and road maintenance companies.

Keywords: Dirt roads automatic quality assessment, collaborative system, unattended crowdsensing method, roads quality awareness provision.

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Authors: Woo Young Jung, Min Ho Kwon, Bu Seog Ju

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A failure of the non-structural component can cause  significant damages in critical facilities such as nuclear power plants  and hospitals. Historically, it was reported that the damage from the  leakage of sprinkler systems, resulted in the shutdown of hospitals for  several weeks by the 1971 San Fernando and 1994 North Ridge  earthquakes. In most cases, water leakages were observed at the cross  joints, sprinkler heads, and T-joint connections in piping systems  during and after the seismic events. Hence, the primary objective of  this study was to understand the seismic performance of T-joint  connections and to develop an analytical Finite Element (FE) model  for the T-joint systems of 2-inch fire protection piping system in  hospitals subjected to seismic ground motions. In order to evaluate the  FE models of the piping systems using OpenSees, two types of  materials were used: 1) Steel02 materials and 2) Pinching4 materials.  Results of the current study revealed that the nonlinear  moment-rotation FE models for the threaded T-joint reconciled well  with the experimental results in both FE material models. However,  the system-level fragility determined from multiple nonlinear time  history analyses at the threaded T-joint was slightly different. The  system-level fragility at the T-joint, determined by Pinching4 material  was more conservative than that of using Steel02 material in the piping  system.

Keywords: Fragility, T-joint, Piping, Leakage, Sprinkler.

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Authors: Alireza Sadrmomtaz

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Positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) is a technique in which a single radioactive tracer particle can be accurately tracked as it moves. A limitation of PET is that in order to reconstruct a tomographic image it is necessary to acquire a large volume of data (millions of events), so it is difficult to study rapidly changing systems. By considering this fact, PEPT is a very fast process compared with PET. In PEPT detecting both photons defines a line and the annihilation is assumed to have occurred somewhere along this line. The location of the tracer can be determined to within a few mm from coincident detection of a small number of pairs of back-to-back gamma rays and using triangulation. This can be achieved many times per second and the track of a moving particle can be reliably followed. This technique was invented at the University of Birmingham [1]. The attempt in PEPT is not to form an image of the tracer particle but simply to determine its location with time. If this tracer is followed for a long enough period within a closed, circulating system it explores all possible types of motion. The application of PEPT to industrial process systems carried out at the University of Birmingham is categorized in two subjects: the behaviour of granular materials and viscous fluids. Granular materials are processed in industry for example in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, ceramics, food, polymers and PEPT has been used in a number of ways to study the behaviour of these systems [2]. PEPT allows the possibility of tracking a single particle within the bed [3]. Also PEPT has been used for studying systems such as: fluid flow, viscous fluids in mixers [4], using a neutrally-buoyant tracer particle [5].

Keywords: PET, BGO, Particle Tracking, ECAT 931, List mode, PEPT.

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Authors: Zviad Ghadua, Biswa Bhattacharya

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The Flash Flood Guidance (FFG) provides the rainfall amount of a given duration necessary to cause flooding. The approach is based on the development of rainfall-runoff curves, which helps us to find out the rainfall amount that would cause flooding. An alternative approach, mostly experimented with Italian Alpine catchments, is based on determining threshold discharges from past events and on finding whether or not an oncoming flood has its magnitude more than some critical discharge thresholds found beforehand. Both approaches suffer from large uncertainties in forecasting flash floods as, due to the simplistic approach followed, the same rainfall amount may or may not cause flooding. This uncertainty leads to the question whether a probabilistic model is preferable over a deterministic one in forecasting flash floods. We propose the use of a Bayesian probabilistic approach in flash flood forecasting. A prior probability of flooding is derived based on historical data. Additional information, such as antecedent moisture condition (AMC) and rainfall amount over any rainfall thresholds are used in computing the likelihood of observing these conditions given a flash flood has occurred. Finally, the posterior probability of flooding is computed using the prior probability and the likelihood. The variation of the computed posterior probability with rainfall amount and AMC presents the suitability of the approach in decision making in an uncertain environment. The methodology has been applied to the Posina basin in Italy. From the promising results obtained, we can conclude that the Bayesian approach in flash flood forecasting provides more realistic forecasting over the FFG.

Keywords: Flash flood, Bayesian, flash flood guidance, FFG, forecasting, Posina.

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Authors: Mehmet Balci, Sakir Tasdemir, Mustafa Altin, Ozlem Bozok

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Our globalizing world has become almost a small village and everyone can access any information at any time. Everyone lets each other know who does whatever in which place. We can learn which social events occur in which place in the world. From the perspective of education, the course notes that a lecturer use in lessons in a university in any state of America can be examined by a student studying in a city of Africa or the Far East. This dizzying communication we have mentioned happened thanks to fast developments in computer and internet technologies. While these developments occur in the world, Turkey that has a very large young population and whose electronic infrastructure rapidly improves has also been affected by these developments. Nowadays, mobile devices have become common and thus, it causes to increase data traffic in social networks. This study was carried out on students in the different age groups in Selcuk University Vocational School of Technical Sciences, the Department of Computer Technology. Students’ opinions about the use of internet and social media were obtained. The features such as using the Internet and social media skills, purposes, operating frequency, accessing facilities and tools, social life and effects on vocational education and so forth were explored. The positive effects and negative effects of both internet and social media use on the students in this department and findings are evaluated from different perspectives and results are obtained. In addition, relations and differences were found out statistically.

Keywords: Computer technologies, internet use, social network, higher vocational school.

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Authors: Houda Najeh, Mahendra Pratap Singh, Stéphane Ploix, Antoine Caucheteux, Karim Chabir, Mohamed Naceur Abdelkrim

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Building system is highly vulnerable to different kinds of faults and human misbehaviors. Energy efficiency and user comfort are directly targeted due to abnormalities in building operation. The available fault diagnosis tools and methodologies particularly rely on rules or pure model-based approaches. It is assumed that model or rule-based test could be applied to any situation without taking into account actual testing contexts. Contextual tests with validity domain could reduce a lot of the design of detection tests. The main objective of this paper is to consider fault validity when validate the test model considering the non-modeled events such as occupancy, weather conditions, door and window openings and the integration of the knowledge of the expert on the state of the system. The concept of heterogeneous tests is combined with test validity to generate fault diagnoses. A combination of rules, range and model-based tests known as heterogeneous tests are proposed to reduce the modeling complexity. Calculation of logical diagnoses coming from artificial intelligence provides a global explanation consistent with the test result. An application example shows the efficiency of the proposed technique: an office setting at Grenoble Institute of Technology.

Keywords: Heterogeneous tests, validity, building system, sensor grids, sensor fault, diagnosis, fault detection and isolation.

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Authors: A. Sivakumar, S. S. Darun Prakash, P. Navaneethakrishnan

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In and around Erode District, it is estimated that more than 1250 chemical and allied textile processing fabric industries are affected, partially closed and shut off for various reasons such as poor management, poor supplier performance, lack of planning for productivity, fluctuation of output, poor investment, waste analysis, labor problems, capital/labor ratio, accumulation of stocks, poor maintenance of resources, deficiencies in the quality of fabric, low capacity utilization, age of plant and equipment, high investment and input but low throughput, poor research and development, lack of energy, workers’ fear of loss of jobs, work force mix and work ethic. The main objective of this work is to analyze the existing conditions in textile fabric sector, validate the break even of Total Productivity (TP), analyze, design and implement fuzzy sets and mathematical programming for improvement of productivity and quality dimensions in the fabric processing industry. It needs to be compatible with the reality of textile and fabric processing industries. The highly risk events from productivity and quality dimension were found by fuzzy systems and results are wrapped up among the textile fabric processing industry.

Keywords: Break Even Point, Fuzzy Crisp Data, Fuzzy Sets, Productivity, Productivity Cycle, Total Productive Maintenance.

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Authors: Pegah Farshadmanesh, Jamshid Mohammadi, Mehdi Modares

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In nearly all earthquakes of the past century that resulted in moderate to significant damage, the occurrence of postearthquake fire ignition (PEFI) has imposed a serious hazard and caused severe damage, especially in urban areas. In order to reduce the loss of life and property caused by post-earthquake fires, there is a crucial need for predictive models to estimate the PEFI risk. The parameters affecting PEFI risk can be categorized as: 1) factors influencing fire ignition in normal (non-earthquake) condition, including floor area, building category, ignitability, type of appliance, and prevention devices, and 2) earthquake related factors contributing to the PEFI risk, including building vulnerability and earthquake characteristics such as intensity, peak ground acceleration, and peak ground velocity. State-of-the-art statistical PEFI risk models are solely based on limited available earthquake data, and therefore they cannot predict the PEFI risk for areas with insufficient earthquake records since such records are needed in estimating the PEFI model parameters. In this paper, the correlation between normal condition ignition risk, peak ground acceleration, and PEFI risk is examined in an effort to offer a means for predicting post-earthquake ignition events. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate how such correlation can be employed in a seismic area to predict PEFI hazard.

Keywords: Fire risk, post-earthquake fire ignition (PEFI), risk management, seismicity.

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Authors: Manop Aorpimai, Ponthep Navakitkanok

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In this paper, the development of the ephemeris generation module used for the Thaichote satellite operations is presented. It is a vital part of the flight dynamics system, which comprises, the orbit determination, orbit propagation, event prediction and station-keeping maneouvre modules. In the generation of the spacecraft ephemeris data, the estimated orbital state vector from the orbit determination module is used as an initial condition. The equations of motion are then integrated forward in time to predict the satellite states. The higher geopotential harmonics, as well as other disturbing forces, are taken into account to resemble the environment in low-earth orbit. Using a highly accurate numerical integrator based on the Burlish-Stoer algorithm the ephemeris data can be generated for long-term predictions, by using a relatively small computation burden and short calculation time. Some events occurring during the prediction course that are related to the mission operations, such as the satellite’s rise/set viewed from the ground station, Earth and Moon eclipses, the drift in groundtrack as well as the drift in the local solar time of the orbital plane are all detected and reported. When combined with other modules to form a flight dynamics system, this application is aimed to be applied for the Thaichote satellite and successive Thailand’s Earth-observation missions. 

Keywords: Flight Dynamics System, Orbit Propagation, Satellite Ephemeris, Thailand’s Earth Observation Satellite.

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Authors: Nadezhda Kvatashidze

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The International Accounting Standards Board updated the conceptual framework for financial reporting. The main reason behind it is to resolve the tasks of the accounting, which are caused by the market development and business-transactions of a new economic content. Also, the investors call for higher transparency of information and responsibility for the results in order to make a more accurate risk assessment and forecast. All these make it necessary to further develop the conceptual framework for financial reporting so that the users get useful information. The market development and certain shortcomings of the conceptual framework revealed in practice require its reconsideration and finding new solutions. Some issues and concepts, such as disclosure and supply of information, its qualitative characteristics, assessment, and measurement uncertainty had to be supplemented and perfected. The criteria of recognition of certain elements (assets and liabilities) of reporting had to be updated, too and all this is set out in the updated edition of the conceptual framework for financial reporting, a comprehensive collection of concepts underlying preparation of the financial statement. The main objective of conceptual framework revision is to improve financial reporting and development of clear concepts package. This will support International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to set common “Approach & Reflection” for similar transactions on the basis of mutually accepted concepts. As a result, companies will be able to develop coherent accounting policies for those transactions or events that are occurred from particular deals to which no standard is used or when standard allows choice of accounting policy.

Keywords: Conceptual framework, measurement basis, measurement uncertainty, neutrality, prudence, stewardship.

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Authors: H. Florianová, J. Nešleha

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Financial derivatives are considered to be risky investment instruments which could possibly bring another financial crisis. As prevention, European Union and its member states have released new legal acts adjusting this area of law in recent years. There have been several cases in history of capital markets worldwide where it was shown that legislature may affect behavior of subjects on capital markets. In our paper we analyze main events on selected European stock exchanges in order to apply them on three chosen markets - Czech capital market represented by Prague Stock Exchange, German capital market represented by Deutsche Börse and Polish capital market represented by Warsaw Stock Exchange. We follow time series of development of the sum of listed derivatives on these three stock exchanges in order to evaluate popularity of those exchanges. Afterwards we compare newly listed derivatives in relation to the speed of development of these exchanges. We also make a comparison between trends in derivatives and shares development. We explain how a legal regulation may affect situation on capital markets. If the regulation is too strict, potential investors or traders are not willing to undertake it and move to other markets. On the other hand, if the regulation is too vague, trading scandals occur and the market is not reliable from the prospect of potential investors or issuers. We see that making the regulation stricter usually discourages subjects to stay on the market immediately although making the regulation vaguer to interest more subjects is usually much slower process.

Keywords: Capital markets, financial derivatives, investors' behavior, regulation.

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Authors: A. Gandomkar, R. Dehghani

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Climate change is a phenomenon has been based on the available evidence from a very long time ago and now its existence is very probable. The speed and nature of climate parameters changes at the middle of twentieth century has been different and its quickness more than the before and its trend changed to some extent comparing to the past. Climate change issue now regarded as not only one of the most common scientific topic but also a social political one, is not a new issue. Climate change is a complicated atmospheric oceanic phenomenon on a global scale and long-term. Precipitation pattern change, fast decrease of snowcovered resources and its rapid melting, increased evaporation, the occurrence of destroying floods, water shortage crisis, severe reduction at the rate of harvesting agricultural products and, so on are all the significant of climate change. To cope with this phenomenon, its consequences and events in which public instruction is the most important but it may be climate that no significant cant and effective action has been done so far. The present article is included a part of one surrey about climate change in Fars. The study area having annually mean temperature 14 and precipitation 320 mm .23 stations inside the basin with a common 37 year statistical period have been applied to the meteorology data (1974-2010). Man-kendal and change factor methods are two statistical methods, applying them, the trend of changes and the annual mean average temperature and the annual minimum mean temperature were studied by using them. Based on time series for each parameter, the annual mean average temperature and the mean of annual maximum temperature have a rising trend so that this trend is clearer to the mean of annual maximum temperature.

Keywords: Climate change, Coefficient Variation, Fars province, Man-Kendal method.

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Authors: Claudineia Brazil, Elison Eduardo Bierhals, Francisco Pereira, José Leandro Néris, Matheus Rippel, Luciane Salvi

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The global concern about climate change has been increasing, since the emission of gases from human activities contributes to the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, indicating significant impacts to the planet in the coming years. The study of precipitation regime is fundamental for the development of research in several areas. Among them are hydrology, agriculture, and electric sector. Using the climatic projections of the models belonging to the CMIP5, the main objective of the paper was to present an analysis of the impacts of climate change without rainfall in the Uruguay River basin. After an analysis of the results, it can be observed that for the future climate, there is a tendency, in relation to the present climate, for larger numbers of dry events, mainly in the winter months, changing the pluviometric regime for wet summers and drier winters. Given this projected framework, it is important to note the importance of adequate management of the existing water sources in the river basin, since the value of rainfall is reduced for the next years, it may compromise the dynamics of the ecosystems in the region. Facing climate change is fundamental issue for regions and cities all around the world. Society must improve its resilience to phenomenon impacts, and spreading the knowledge among decision makers and citizens is also essential. So, these research results can be subsidies for the decision-making in planning and management of mitigation measures and/or adaptation in south Brazil.

Keywords: Climate change, hydrological potential, precipitation, mitigation.

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Authors: Kifah Tout, Nisrine Sinno, Mohamad Mikati

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Many studies have focused on the nonlinear analysis of electroencephalography (EEG) mainly for the characterization of epileptic brain states. It is assumed that at least two states of the epileptic brain are possible: the interictal state characterized by a normal apparently random, steady-state EEG ongoing activity; and the ictal state that is characterized by paroxysmal occurrence of synchronous oscillations and is generally called in neurology, a seizure. The spatial and temporal dynamics of the epileptogenic process is still not clear completely especially the most challenging aspects of epileptology which is the anticipation of the seizure. Despite all the efforts we still don-t know how and when and why the seizure occurs. However actual studies bring strong evidence that the interictal-ictal state transition is not an abrupt phenomena. Findings also indicate that it is possible to detect a preseizure phase. Our approach is to use the neural network tool to detect interictal states and to predict from those states the upcoming seizure ( ictal state). Analysis of the EEG signal based on neural networks is used for the classification of EEG as either seizure or non-seizure. By applying prediction methods it will be possible to predict the upcoming seizure from non-seizure EEG. We will study the patients admitted to the epilepsy monitoring unit for the purpose of recording their seizures. Preictal, ictal, and post ictal EEG recordings are available on such patients for analysis The system will be induced by taking a body of samples then validate it using another. Distinct from the two first ones a third body of samples is taken to test the network for the achievement of optimum prediction. Several methods will be tried 'Backpropagation ANN' and 'RBF'.

Keywords: Artificial neural network (ANN), automatic prediction, epileptic seizures analysis, genetic algorithm.

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Authors: J. C. Cabanillas-Noris, M. I. Martínez-Hernández, I. León-Monzón

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The selection of diffractive events in the ALICE experiment during the first data taking period (RUN-I) of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was limited by the range over which rapidity gaps occur. It would be possible to achieve better measurements by expanding the range in which the production of particles can be detected. For this purpose, the ALICE Diffractive (AD0) detector has been installed and commissioned for the second phase (RUN-II). Any new detector should be able to take the data synchronously with all other detectors and be operated through the ALICE central systems. One of the key elements that must be developed for the AD0 detector is the Detector Control System (DCS). The DCS must be designed to operate safely and correctly this detector. Furthermore, the DCS must also provide optimum operating conditions for the acquisition and storage of physics data and ensure these are of the highest quality. The operation of AD0 implies the configuration of about 200 parameters, from electronics settings and power supply levels to the archiving of operating conditions data and the generation of safety alerts. It also includes the automation of procedures to get the AD0 detector ready for taking data in the appropriate conditions for the different run types in ALICE. The performance of AD0 detector depends on a certain number of parameters such as the nominal voltages for each photomultiplier tube (PMT), their threshold levels to accept or reject the incoming pulses, the definition of triggers, etc. All these parameters define the efficiency of AD0 and they have to be monitored and controlled through AD0 DCS. Finally, AD0 DCS provides the operator with multiple interfaces to execute these tasks. They are realized as operating panels and scripts running in the background. These features are implemented on a SCADA software platform as a distributed control system which integrates to the global control system of the ALICE experiment.

Keywords: AD0, ALICE, DCS, LHC.

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Authors: K. C. Iyer, T. Gupta, Y. M. Bindal

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Head office overhead (HOOH) is an indirect cost and is recovered through individual project billings by the contractor. Delay in a project impacts the absorption of HOOH cost allocated to that particular project and thus diminishes the expected profit of the contractor. This unabsorbed HOOH cost is later claimed by contractors as damages. The subjective nature of the available formulae to compute unabsorbed HOOH is the difficulty that contractors and owners face and thus dispute it. The paper attempts to bring together the rationale of various HOOH formulae by gathering contractor’s HOOH cost data on all of its project, using case study approach and comparing variations in values of HOOH using scenario analysis. The case study approach uses project data collected from four construction projects of a contractor in India to calculate unabsorbed HOOH costs from various available formulae. Scenario analysis provides further variations in HOOH values after considering two independent situations mainly scope changes and new projects during the delay period. Interestingly, one of the findings in this study reveals that, in spite of HOOH getting absorbed by additional works available during the period of delay, a few formulae depict an increase in the value of unabsorbed HOOH, neglecting any absorption by the increase in scope. This indicates that these formulae are inappropriate for use in case of a change to the scope of work. Results of this study can help both parties in deciding on an appropriate formula more objectively, considering the events on a project causing the delay and contractor's position in respect of obtaining new projects.

Keywords: Absorbed and unabsorbed overheads, head office overheads, scenario analysis, scope variation

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Authors: K. Qonono

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Despite the significance and economic benefits of petrol stations in South Africa, these still pose a huge risk of fire and explosion threatening public safety. This research paper examines the extent to which land-use planning in Stellenbosch, South Africa, considers the fire risk posed by petrol stations and the implications for public safety as well as preparedness for large fires or explosions. To achieve this, the research identified the land-use types around petrol stations in Stellenbosch and determined the extent to which their locations comply with the local, national, and international land-use planning regulations. A mixed research method consisting of the collection and analysis of geospatial data and qualitative data was applied, where petrol stations within a six-kilometre radius of Stellenbosch’s town centre were utilised as study sites. The research examined the risk of fires/explosions at these petrol stations. The research investigated Stellenbosch Municipality’s institutional preparedness to respond in the event of a fire/explosion at these petrol stations. The research observed that siting of petrol stations does not comply with local, national, and international good practices, thus exposing the surrounding developments to fires and explosions. Land-use planning practice does not consider hazards created by petrol stations. Despite the potential for major fires at petrol stations, Stellenbosch Municipality’s level of preparedness to respond to petrol station fires appears low due to the prioritisation of more frequent events.

Keywords: Petrol stations, technological hazard, DRR, land-use planning, risk analysis.

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Authors: Hossam el-ddin Mostafa, Pavel Čičak

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In IETF RFC 2002, Mobile-IP was developed to enable Laptobs to maintain Internet connectivity while moving between subnets. However, the packet loss that comes from switching subnets arises because network connectivity is lost while the mobile host registers with the foreign agent and this encounters large end-to-end packet delays. The criterion to initiate a simple and fast full-duplex connection between the home agent and foreign agent, to reduce the roaming duration, is a very important issue to be considered by a work in this paper. State-transition Petri-Nets of the modeling scenario-based CIA: communication inter-agents procedure as an extension to the basic Mobile-IP registration process was designed and manipulated to describe the system in discrete events. The heuristic of configuration file during practical Setup session for registration parameters, on Cisco platform Router-1760 using IOS 12.3 (15)T and TFTP server S/W is created. Finally, stand-alone performance simulations from Simulink Matlab, within each subnet and also between subnets, are illustrated for reporting better end-toend packet delays. Results verified the effectiveness of our Mathcad analytical manipulation and experimental implementation. It showed lower values of end-to-end packet delay for Mobile-IP using CIA procedure-based early registration. Furthermore, it reported packets flow between subnets to improve losses between subnets.

Keywords: Cisco configuration, handoff, Mobile-IP, packetdelay, Petri-Nets, registration process, Simulink

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Authors: Zana Llonçari Osmani, Nita Llonçari

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The paper delves into the significance of the Prekaz Memorial in Kosovo's national identity formation, particularly regarding the traumatic events of the 1998-99 War. The spatial layout and architectural features of the Memorial are analysed, focusing on its role as a place of remembrance and hope. Through qualitative surveys and critical discourse analysis, the essay explores visitor perceptions of the Memorial's narrative and design elements. Factors such as geographical, emotional, and temporal proximity to the war influence visitors' interpretations, with varying degrees of emphasis on loss, sacrifice, and patriotism. It highlights the Memorial's ability to evoke emotions of pride and sadness among visitors, underscoring the power of authentic artefacts in shaping collective memory. However, the paper also criticizes the Memorial's dominant discourse and advocates for a more inclusive approach to memorialization, one that acknowledges all facets of history and ensures that no story is left untold or forgotten. Despite its success in solidifying its place in society, the essay calls for the Memorial's evolution towards a more comprehensive and dynamic dialogue to resonate with future generations. The essay stresses the importance of memorialization efforts in honouring the past, fostering healing, and promoting inclusive dialogue. It argues for a broader narrative scope that encompasses diverse perspectives, thus ensuring the vitality and relevance of historical memory for generations to come.

Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, memorialisation, national discourse, public rhetoric, war tourism.

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Authors: A. Idawaty, O. Mohamed, A. Z. Zuriati

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This paper presents the development of an event based Discrete Event Simulation (DES) for a recovery algorithm known Backward Recovery Global Preemptive Utility Accrual Scheduling (BR_GPUAS). This algorithm implements the Backward Recovery (BR) mechanism as a fault recovery solution under the existing Time/Utility Function/ Utility Accrual (TUF/UA) scheduling domain for multiprocessor environment. The BR mechanism attempts to take the faulty tasks back to its initial safe state and then proceeds to re-execute the affected section of the faulty tasks to enable recovery. Considering that faults may occur in the components of any system; a fault tolerance system that can nullify the erroneous effect is necessary to be developed. Current TUF/UA scheduling algorithm uses the abortion recovery mechanism and it simply aborts the erroneous task as their fault recovery solution. None of the existing algorithm in TUF/UA scheduling domain in multiprocessor scheduling environment have considered the transient fault and implement the BR mechanism as a fault recovery mechanism to nullify the erroneous effect and solve the recovery problem in this domain. The developed BR_GPUAS simulator has derived the set of parameter, events and performance metrics according to a detailed analysis of the base model. Simulation results revealed that BR_GPUAS algorithm can saved almost 20-30% of the accumulated utilities making it reliable and efficient for the real-time application in the multiprocessor scheduling environment.

Keywords: Time Utility Function/ Utility Accrual (TUF/UA) scheduling, Real-time system (RTS), Backward Recovery, Multiprocessor, Discrete Event Simulation (DES).

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Authors: M. Javid, R. Hassan, J. DeSilva

Abstract:

In this exploratory case study, a 37-year-old male patient who previously terminated treatment after four months of therapy with a different therapist begins anew with a 38-year-old female therapist and undergoes a similar cycle of premature termination, with added discourse caused by erotic transference. Process notes and records of the therapy treatment indicate that during the short course of treatment, the patient explored his difficulties navigating personal relationships, both current and past, and his difficulties coping with hypochondriasis. The therapist becomes tasked with not only navigating the patient’s inner conflict but also how she relates to the patient in the countertransference process while maintaining professional boundaries. This includes empathizing with the patient while also experiencing discomfort in the erotic transference from a professional standpoint. When the patient terminates once more, the therapist reflects on the possible reasons for termination. This includes the patient’s difficulties with tolerating interpretations, which cause him to blame himself for past events. These interpretations were also very frequent, contributing to the emotional burden the patient experienced. The therapist reflected on the use of interpretation versus exploration of the patient’s feelings and how exploring his feelings, including his feelings towards her, would have allowed for an opportunity to explore the emotions that troubled him more deeply. This includes exploring the patient’s anger and fear, which stem from unresolved conflicts from his childhood. Moreover, the erotic transference served as an enactment of previous experiences in which the patient feared losing what he loved, leading him to opt for premature termination instead of losing his ability to control the relationship and experience loss.

Keywords: Countertransference, erotic transference, premature termination, therapist-client boundaries, transference.

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Authors: Kamal K.Bharadwaj, Rekha Kandwal

Abstract:

An important structuring mechanism for knowledge bases is building clusters based on the content of their knowledge objects. The objects are clustered based on the principle of maximizing the intraclass similarity and minimizing the interclass similarity. Clustering can also facilitate taxonomy formation, that is, the organization of observations into a hierarchy of classes that group similar events together. Hierarchical representation allows us to easily manage the complexity of knowledge, to view the knowledge at different levels of details, and to focus our attention on the interesting aspects only. One of such efficient and easy to understand systems is Hierarchical Production rule (HPRs) system. A HPR, a standard production rule augmented with generality and specificity information, is of the following form Decision If < condition> Generality Specificity . HPRs systems are capable of handling taxonomical structures inherent in the knowledge about the real world. In this paper, a set of related HPRs is called a cluster and is represented by a HPR-tree. This paper discusses an algorithm based on cumulative learning scenario for dynamic structuring of clusters. The proposed scheme incrementally incorporates new knowledge into the set of clusters from the previous episodes and also maintains summary of clusters as Synopsis to be used in the future episodes. Examples are given to demonstrate the behaviour of the proposed scheme. The suggested incremental structuring of clusters would be useful in mining data streams.

Keywords: Cumulative learning, clustering, data mining, hierarchical production rules.

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Authors: Mahmood Reza Shakarami, Reza Sedaghati

Abstract:

Electricity market activities and a growing demand for electricity have led to heavily stressed power systems. This requires operation of the networks closer to their stability limits. Power system operation is affected by stability related problems, leading to unpredictable system behavior. Voltage stability refers to the ability of a power system to sustain appropriate voltage levels through large and small disturbances. Steady-state voltage stability is concerned with limits on the existence of steady-state operating points for the network. FACTS devices can be utilized to increase the transmission capacity, the stability margin and dynamic behavior or serve to ensure improved power quality. Their main capabilities are reactive power compensation, voltage control and power flow control. Among the FACTS controllers, Static Var Compensator (SVC) provides fast acting dynamic reactive compensation for voltage support during contingency events. In this paper, voltage stability assessment with appropriate representations of tap-changer transformers and SVC is investigated. Integrating both of these devices is the main topic of this paper. Effect of the presence of tap-changing transformers on static VAR compensator controller parameters and ratings necessary to stabilize load voltages at certain values are highlighted. The interrelation between transformer off nominal tap ratios and the SVC controller gains and droop slopes and the SVC rating are found. P-V curves are constructed to calculate loadability margins.

Keywords: SVC, voltage stability, P-V curve, reactive power, tap changing transformer.

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Authors: Asma Mehan

Abstract:

Under the thrust of technological changes, population growth and vehicular traffic, Iranian historical squares have lost their significance and they are no longer the main social nodes of the society. This research focuses on how historical public squares can inspire designers to enhance social interactions among citizens in Iranian urban context. Moreover, the recent master plan of Tehran demonstrates the lack of public spaces designed for the purpose of people’s social gatherings. For filling this gap, first the current situation of 7 selected primary historical public squares in Tehran including Sabze Meydan, Arg, Topkhaneh, Baherstan, Mokhber-al-dole, Rah Ahan and Hassan Abad have been compared. Later, the influencing elements on social interactions of the public squares such as subjective factors (human relationships and memories) and objective factors (natural and built environment) have been investigated. As a conclusion, some strategies are proposed for improving social interactions in historical public squares like; holding cultural, national, athletic and religious events, defining different and new functions in public squares’ surrounding, increasing pedestrian routs, reviving the collective memory, demonstrating the historical importance of square, eliminating visual obstacles across the square, organization the natural elements of the square, appropriate pavement for social activities. Finally, it is argued that the combination of all influencing factors which are: human interactions, natural elements and built environment criteria will lead to enhance the historical public squares’ potential for social interaction.

Keywords: Historical Square, Iranian Public Square, Social Interaction, Tehran.

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Authors: Arvind Srivastav, Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya

Abstract:

The north-eastern, Himalayan, and Eastern Ghats Belt of India comprise of earthquake-prone, remote, and hilly terrains. Earthquakes have caused enormous damages in these regions in the past. A wireless sensor network based earthquake early warning system (EEWS) is being developed to mitigate the damages caused by earthquakes. It consists of sensor nodes, distributed over the region, that perform majority voting of the output of the seismic sensors in the vicinity, and relay a message to a base station to alert the residents when an earthquake is detected. At the heart of the EEWS is a low-power two-stage seismic sensor that continuously tracks seismic events from incoming three-axis accelerometer signal at the first-stage, and, in the presence of a seismic event, triggers the second-stage P-wave detector that detects the onset of P-wave in an earthquake event. The parameters of the P-wave detector have been optimized for minimizing detection time and maximizing the accuracy of detection.Working of the sensor scheme has been verified with seven earthquakes data retrieved from IRIS. In all test cases, the scheme detected the onset of P-wave accurately. Also, it has been established that the P-wave onset detection time reduces linearly with the sampling rate. It has been verified with test data; the detection time for data sampled at 10Hz was around 2 seconds which reduced to 0.3 second for the data sampled at 100Hz.

Keywords: Earthquake early warning system, EEWS, STA/LTA, polarization, wavelet, event detector, P-wave detector.

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Authors: Moheb R. Girgis, Tarek M. Mahmoud, Tarek Abd-El-Hafeez

Abstract:

This paper proposes a system to extract images from web pages and then detect the skin color regions of these images. As part of the proposed system, using BandObject control, we built a Tool bar named 'Filter Tool Bar (FTB)' by modifying the Pavel Zolnikov implementation. The Yahoo! Team provides us with the Yahoo! SDK API, which also supports image search and is really useful. In the proposed system, we introduced three new methods for extracting images from the web pages (after loading the web page by using the proposed FTB, before loading the web page physically from the localhost, and before loading the web page from any server). These methods overcome the drawback of the regular expressions method for extracting images suggested by Ilan Assayag. The second part of the proposed system is concerned with the detection of the skin color regions of the extracted images. So, we studied two famous skin color detection techniques. The first technique is based on the RGB color space and the second technique is based on YUV and YIQ color spaces. We modified the second technique to overcome the failure of detecting complex image's background by using the saturation parameter to obtain an accurate skin detection results. The performance evaluation of the efficiency of the proposed system in extracting images before and after loading the web page from localhost or any server in terms of the number of extracted images is presented. Finally, the results of comparing the two skin detection techniques in terms of the number of pixels detected are presented.

Keywords: Browser Helper Object, Color spaces, Image and URL extraction, Skin detection, Web Browser events.

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Authors: Abid I. Abu-Tair, Gavin M. Wilde, John M. Kinuthia

Abstract:

Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) is a functional capability that has been developed to allow the United Kingdom Fire and Rescue Service to deal with ‘major incidents’ primarily involving structural collapse. The nature of the work undertaken by USAR means that staying out of a damaged or collapsed building structure is not usually an option for search and rescue personnel. As a result there is always a risk that they themselves could become victims. For this paper, a systematic and investigative review using desk research was undertaken to explore the role which structural engineering can play in assisting search and rescue personnel to conduct structural assessments when in the field. The focus is on how search and rescue personnel can assess damaged and collapsed building structures, not just in terms of structural damage that may been countered, but also in relation to structural stability. Natural disasters, accidental emergencies, acts of terrorism and other extreme events can vary significantly in nature and ferocity, and can cause a wide variety of damage to building structures. It is not possible or, even realistic, to provide search and rescue personnel with definitive guidelines and procedures to assess damaged and collapsed building structures as there are too many variables to consider. However, understanding what implications damage may have upon the structural stability of a building structure will enable search and rescue personnel to better judge and quantify risk from a life-safety standpoint. It is intended that this will allow search and rescue personnel to make informed decisions and ensure every effort is made to mitigate risk, so that they themselves do not become victims.

Keywords: Damaged and collapsed building structures, life safety, quantifying risk, search and rescue personnel, structural assessments in the field.

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