Search results for: design patterns

Authors: Olimpia Matarazzo, Lucia Abbamonte

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In two studies we challenged the well consolidated position in regret literature according to which the necessary condition for the emergence of regret is a bad outcome ensuing from free decisions. Without free choice, and, consequently, personal responsibility, other emotions, such as disappointment, but not regret, are supposed to be elicited. In our opinion, a main source of regret is being obliged by circumstance out of our control to chose an undesired option. We tested the hypothesis that regret resulting from a forced choice is more intense than regret derived from a free choice and that the outcome affects the latter, not the former. Besides, we investigated whether two other variables – the perception of the level of freedom of the choice and the choice justifiability – mediated the relationships between choice and regret, as well as the other four emotions we examined: satisfaction, anger toward oneself, disappointment, anger towards circumstances. The two studies were based on the scenario methodology and implied a 2 x 2 (choice x outcome) between design. In the first study the foreseen short-term effects of the choice were assessed; in the second study the experienced long-term effects of the choice were assessed. In each study 160 students of the Second University of Naples participated. Results largely corroborated our hypotheses. They were discussed in the light of the main theories on regret and decision making.

Keywords: Choice, outcome, regret.

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Authors: Amit Kohli, Aashim Wadhwa, Tapan Virmani, Ujjwal Jain

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The objective of present work is to stimulate the machining of material by electrical discharge machining (EDM) to give effect of input parameters like discharge current (Ip), pulse on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff) which can bring about changes in the output parameter, i.e. material removal rate. Experimental data was gathered from die sinking EDM process using copper electrode and Medium Carbon Steel (AISI 1040) as work-piece. The rules of membership function (MF) and the degree of closeness to the optimum value of the MMR are within the upper and lower range of the process parameters. It was found that proposed fuzzy model is in close agreement with the experimental results. By Intelligent, model based design and control of EDM process parameters in this study will help to enable dramatically decreased product and process development cycle times.

Keywords: Electrical discharge Machining (EDM), Fuzzy Logic, Material removal rate (MRR), Membership functions (MF).

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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: Bubaker F. Shareia

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Much of the literature on research design has focused on research conducted in developed, uni-cultural or primarily English speaking countries. Studies of qualitative case study research, the challenges, and prospects have been embedded in Western/Eurocentric society and social theories. Although there have been some theoretical studies, few empirical studies have been conducted to explore the nature of the challenges of qualitative case study in developing countries. These challenges include accessibility to organizations, conducting interviews in developing countries, accessing documents and observing official meetings, language and cultural challenges, the use of consent forms, issues affecting access to companies, respondent issues, and data analysis. The author, while conducting qualitative case study research in Libya, faced all these issues. The discussion in this paper examines these issues in order to make a contribution toward the literature in this area.

Keywords: Accounting, Libya, culture, language, developing countries, qualitative case study.

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Authors: Leehter Yao, Chin-Chin Lin

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An adaptive fuzzy PID controller with gain scheduling is proposed in this paper. The structure of the proposed gain scheduled fuzzy PID (GS_FPID) controller consists of both fuzzy PI-like controller and fuzzy PD-like controller. Both of fuzzy PI-like and PD-like controllers are weighted through adaptive gain scheduling, which are also determined by fuzzy logic inference. A modified genetic algorithm called accumulated genetic algorithm is designed to learn the parameters of fuzzy inference system. In order to learn the number of fuzzy rules required for the TSK model, the fuzzy rules are learned in an accumulated way. In other words, the parameters learned in the previous rules are accumulated and updated along with the parameters in the current rule. It will be shown that the proposed GS_FPID controllers learned by the accumulated GA perform well for not only the regular linear systems but also the higher order and time-delayed systems.

Keywords: Gain scheduling, fuzzy PID controller, adaptive control, genetic algorithm.

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Authors: Frank Emmert-Streib, Matthias Dehmer

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Inferring the network structure from time series data is a hard problem, especially if the time series is short and noisy. DNA microarray is a technology allowing to monitor the mRNA concentration of thousands of genes simultaneously that produces data of these characteristics. In this study we try to investigate the influence of the experimental design on the quality of the result. More precisely, we investigate the influence of two different types of random single gene perturbations on the inference of genetic networks from time series data. To obtain an objective quality measure for this influence we simulate gene expression values with a biologically plausible model of a known network structure. Within this framework we study the influence of single gene knock-outs in opposite to linearly controlled expression for single genes on the quality of the infered network structure.

Keywords: Dynamic Bayesian networks, microarray data, structure learning, Markov chain Monte Carlo.

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Authors: M. Daskolia, C. Kynigos, N. Yiannoutsou

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Teaching and learning about sustainability is a pedagogical endeavour with various innate difficulties and increased demands. Higher education has a dual role to play in addressing this challenge: to identify and explore innovative approaches and tools for addressing the complex and value-laden nature of sustainability in more meaningful ways, and to help teachers to integrate these approaches into their practice through appropriate professional development programs. The study reported here was designed and carried out within the context of a Masters course in Environmental Education. Eight teachers were collaboratively engaged in reconstructing a digital game microworld which was deliberately designed by the researchers to be questioned and evoke critical discussion on the idea of ‘sustainable city’. The study was based on the design-based research method. The findings indicate that the teachers’ involvement in processes of co-constructing the microworld initiated discussion and reflection upon the concepts of sustainability and sustainable lifestyles.

Keywords: sustainability, sustainable lifestyles, constructionism, environmental education, digital games, teacher training

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Authors: Sheroz Khan, I. Adam, A. H. M. Zahirul Alam, Mohd Rafiqul Islam, Othman O. Khalifa

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This paper attempts to model and design a simple fuzzy logic controller with Variable Reference. The Variable Reference (VR) is featured as an adaptability element which is obtained from two known variables – desired system-input and actual system-output. A simple fuzzy rule-based technique is simulated to show how the actual system-input is gradually tuned in to a value that closely matches the desired input. The designed controller is implemented and verified on a simple heater which is controlled by PIC Microcontroller harnessed by a code developed in embedded C. The output response of the PIC-controlled heater is analyzed and compared to the performances by conventional fuzzy logic controllers. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that it gives better performance by using less number of rules compared to conventional fuzzy logic controllers.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic controller, Variable reference, Adaptability, Rule-based.

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Authors: L. B. Jayasinghe, D. P. Thambiratnam, N. Perera, J. H. A. R. Jayasooriya

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Due to increased number of terrorist attacks in recent years, loads induced by explosions need to be incorporated in building designs. For safer performance of a structure, its foundation should have sufficient strength and stability. Therefore, prior to any reconstruction or rehabilitation of a building subjected to blast, it is important to examine adverse effects on the foundation caused by blast induced ground shocks. This paper evaluates the effects of a buried explosion on a pile foundation. It treats the dynamic response of the pile in saturated sand, using explicit dynamic nonlinear finite element software LS-DYNA. The blast induced wave propagation in the soil and the horizontal deformation of pile are presented and the results are discussed. Further, a parametric study is carried out to evaluate the effect of varying the explosive shape on the pile response. This information can be used to evaluate the vulnerability of piled foundations to credible blast events as well as develop guidance for their design.

Keywords: Underground explosion, numerical simulation, pilefoundation, saturated soil.

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Authors: Azam Beg, P. W. Chandana Prasad, S.M.N.A Senenayake

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When binary decision diagrams are formed from uniformly distributed Monte Carlo data for a large number of variables, the complexity of the decision diagrams exhibits a predictable relationship to the number of variables and minterms. In the present work, a neural network model has been used to analyze the pattern of shortest path length for larger number of Monte Carlo data points. The neural model shows a strong descriptive power for the ISCAS benchmark data with an RMS error of 0.102 for the shortest path length complexity. Therefore, the model can be considered as a method of predicting path length complexities; this is expected to lead to minimum time complexity of very large-scale integrated circuitries and related computer-aided design tools that use binary decision diagrams.

Keywords: Monte Carlo circuit simulation data, binary decision diagrams, neural network modeling, shortest path length estimation

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Authors: C. Pacheco, A. Cipriano

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A new concept of response system is proposed for filling the gap that exists in reducing vulnerability during immediate response to natural disasters. Real Time Early Response Systems (RTERSs) incorporate real time information as feedback data for closing control loop and for generating real time situation assessment. A review of the state of the art on works that fit the concept of RTERS is presented, and it is found that they are mainly focused on manmade disasters. At the same time, in response phase of natural disaster management many works are involved in creating early warning systems, but just few efforts have been put on deciding what to do once an alarm is activated. In this context a RTERS arises as a useful tool for supporting people in their decision making process during natural disasters after an event is detected, and also as an innovative context for applying well-known automation technologies and automatic control concepts and tools.

Keywords: Disaster management, emergency response system, natural disasters, real time.

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Authors: K. E. Oyetade, S. D. Eyono Obono

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One of the fundamental characteristics of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been the ever-changing nature of continuous release and models of ICTs with its impact on the academic, social, and psychological benefits of its introduction in schools. However, there seems to be a growing concern about its negative impact on students when introduced early in schools for teaching and learning. This study aims to design a model of child development factors affecting the early introduction of ICTs in schools in an attempt to improve the understanding of child development and introduction of ICTs in schools. The proposed model is based on a sound theoretical framework. It was designed following a literature review of child development theories and child development factors. The child development theoretical framework that fitted to the best of all child development factors was then chosen as the basis for the proposed model. This study hence found that the Jean Piaget cognitive developmental theory is the most adequate theoretical frameworks for modeling child development factors for ICT introduction in schools.

Keywords: Child development factors, child development theories, ICTs, theory.

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Authors: Popoola, C. F., Akinsanya, K., Babarinde, S. B., Farinde, D. A.

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This study investigated published financial statement as correlate of investment decision among commercial bank stakeholders in Nigeria. A correlation research design was used in the study. 180 users of published financial statement were purposively sampled from Lagos and Ibadan. Data generated were analyzed using Pearson correlation and regression. The findings of the study revealed that, balance sheet is negatively related with investment decision (r= -.483; p<.01) while income statement (r= .249; p<.001), notes on the account (r= .230; p<.001), cash flow statement (r= .202; p<.001), value added statement (r= .328; p<.001) and five-year financial summary (r= .191; p<.01) are positively related with investment decision. Findings also revealed that components of published financial statement significantly predicted good investment decision (R²= .983; F_(5,175)=284.5; p<.05) for commercial bank stakeholders. Therefore, it was suggested that Nigeria banks and professional bodies should instigate programs that will increase the knowledge of stakeholders on published financial statement.

Keywords: Commercial banks, Financial statement, Income Statement, Investment decision, Stakeholders.

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Authors: Zuraini Hanim Zaini, Wan Fatimah Wan Ahmad

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Multimedia courseware has been accepted as a tool that can support teaching and learning process. 'Li2D' courseware was developed to assist student-s visualization on the topic of Loci in Two Dimension. This paper describes an evaluation on the effectiveness and usability of a 'Li2D' courseware. The quasi experiment was used for the effectiveness evaluation. Usability evaluation was accomplished based on four constructs of usability, namely: efficiency, learnability, screen design and satisfaction. An evaluation on the multimedia elements was also conducted. A total of 63 students of Form Two are involved in the study. The students are divided into two groups: control and experimental. The experimental group had to interact with 'Li2D' courseware as part of the learning activities while the control group used the conventional learning methods. The results indicate that the experimental group performed better than the control group in understanding the Loci in Two Dimensions topic. In terms of usability, the results showed that the students agreed on the usability in multimedia elements in the 'Li2D' courseware.

Keywords: Effectiveness, usability and multimedia elements, Loci in Two Dimensions.

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Authors: A. Al-Rifaie, Z. W. Guan, S. W. Jones

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Beam to column connection can be considered as the most important structural part that affects the response of buildings to progressive collapse. However, many studies were conducted to investigate the beam to column connection under accidental loads such as fire, blast and impact load to investigate the connection response. The study is a part of a PhD plan to investigate different types of connections under lateral impact load. The conventional test setups, such as cruciform setup, were designed to apply shear forces and bending moment on the connection, whilst, in the lateral impact case, the connection is subjected to combined tension and moment. Hence, a review is presented to introduce the previous test setup that is used to investigate the connection behaviour. Then, the design and fabrication of the novel test setup is presented. Finally, some trial test results to investigate the efficiency of the proposed setup are discussed. The final results indicate that the setup was efficient in terms of the simplicity and strength.

Keywords: Connections, impact load, drop hammer, testing methods.

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Authors: M. Ektesabi

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In this paper the problems associated with immunity of embedded systems used in Motor-Drive systems are investigated and appropriate solutions are presented. Integration of VSD motor systems (Integral Motor) while partially reducing some of these effects, adds to immunity problem of their embedded systems. Fail safe operation of an Integral Motor in arduous industrial environments is considered. In this paper an integral motor with a unique design is proposed to overcome critical issues such as heat, vibration and electromagnetic interference which are damaging to sensitive electronics without requirement of any additional cooling system. Advantages of the proposed Integral motor are compactness of combo motor and drive system with no external cabling/wiring. This motor provides a perfect shielding for least amount of radiated emission. It has an inbuilt filter for EMC compliance and has been designed to provide lower EMC noise for immunity of the internal electronics as well as the other neighbouring systems.

Keywords: Electromagnetic Interference, Immunity, IntegralMotor, Radiated & Conducted Emission, Sensitive Electronics, Variable Speed Drive

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Authors: S. Daneshmand, C. Aghanajafi, A. Bahrami

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In this paper the supersonic ejectors are experimentally and analytically studied. Ejector is a device that uses the energy of a fluid to move another fluid. This device works like a vacuum pump without usage of piston, rotor or any other moving component. An ejector contains an active nozzle, a passive nozzle, a mixing chamber and a diffuser. Since the fluid viscosity is large, and the flow is turbulent and three dimensional in the mixing chamber, the numerical methods consume long time and high cost to analyze the flow in ejectors. Therefore this paper presents a simple analytical method that is based on the precise governing equations in fluid mechanics. According to achieved analytical relations, a computer code has been prepared to analyze the flow in different components of the ejector. An experiment has been performed in supersonic regime 1.5Keywords: Ejector, Wind Tunnel, Supersonic, Diffuser, Machnumber, Mixing Chamber

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Authors: Barenten Suciu, Yoshiki Tsuji

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In this paper, a theoretical investigation on the dynamic characteristics of one degree of freedom vibration system equipped with inerter of variable inertance, is presented. Differential equation of movement was solved under proper initial conditions in the case of free undamped/damped vibration, considered in the absence/presence of the inerter in the mechanical system. Influence of inertance on the amplitude of vibration, phase angle, natural frequency, damping ratio, and logarithmic decrement was clarified. It was mainly found that the inerter decreases the natural frequency of the undamped system and also of the damped system if the damping ratio is below 0.707. On the other hand, the inerter increases the natural frequency of the damped system if the damping ratio exceeds 0.707. Results obtained in this work are useful for the adequate design of inerters.

Keywords: One degree of freedom vibration system, inerter, parallel connection, variable inertance, frequency control, damping.

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Authors: Jasraj Meena, Malay Kumar, Manu Vardhan

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Cloud computing is a new technology in industry and academia. The technology has grown and matured in last half decade and proven their significant role in changing environment of IT infrastructure where cloud services and resources are offered over the network. Cloud technology enables users to use services and resources without being concerned about the technical implications of technology. There are substantial research work has been performed for the usage of cloud computing in educational institutes and majority of them provides cloud services over high-end blade servers or other high-end CPUs. However, this paper proposes a new stack called “CiCKAStack” which provide cloud services over unutilized computing resources, named as commodity computers. “CiCKAStack” provides IaaS and PaaS using underlying commodity computers. This will not only increasing the utilization of existing computing resources but also provide organize file system, on demand computing resource and design and development environment.

Keywords: Commodity Computers, Cloud Computing, KVM, Cloudstack, Appscale.

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Authors: Emrah Bulut, Okan Duru, Shigeru Yoshida

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In this study, a fuzzy integrated logical forecasting method (FILF) is extended for multi-variate systems by using a vector autoregressive model. Fuzzy time series forecasting (FTSF) method was recently introduced by Song and Chissom [1]-[2] after that Chen improved the FTSF method. Rather than the existing literature, the proposed model is not only compared with the previous FTS models, but also with the conventional time series methods such as the classical vector autoregressive model. The cluster optimization is based on the C-means clustering method. An empirical study is performed for the prediction of the chartering rates of a group of dry bulk cargo ships. The root mean squared error (RMSE) metric is used for the comparing of results of methods and the proposed method has superiority than both traditional FTS methods and also the classical time series methods.

Keywords: C-means clustering, Fuzzy time series, Multi-variate design

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Authors: Meghna Maiti, Utpal Roy

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In India, till today, malaria is considered to be one of the significant infectious diseases. Most of the cases regional geographical factors are the principal elements to let the places a unique identity. The incidence and intensity of infectious diseases are quite common and affect different places differently across the nation. The present study aims to identify spatial clusters of hot spots and cold spots of malaria incidence and their seasonal variation during the three periods of 2012-2014, 2015-2017 and 2018-20 in the state of West Bengal in India. As malaria is a vector-borne disease, numbers of positive test results are to be reported by the laboratories to the Department of Health, West Bengal (through the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme). Data on block-wise monthly malaria positive cases are collected from Health Management Information System (HMIS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Moran’s I statistic is performed to assess the spatial autocorrelation of malaria incidence. The spatial statistical analysis mainly Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA) cluster and Local Geary Cluster are applied to find the spatial clusters of hot spots and cold spots and seasonal variability of malaria incidence over the three periods. The result indicates that the spatial distribution of malaria is clustered during each of the three periods of 2012-2014, 2015-2017 and 2018-20. The analysis shows that in all the cases, high-high clusters are primarily concentrated in the western (Purulia, Paschim Medinipur districts), central (Maldah, Murshidabad districts) and the northern parts (Jalpaiguri, Kochbihar districts) and low-low clusters are found in the lower Gangetic plain (central-south) mainly and northern parts of West Bengal during the stipulated period. Apart from this seasonal variability inter-year variation is also visible. The results from different methods of this study indicate significant variation in the spatial distribution of malaria incidence in West Bengal and high incidence clusters are primarily persistently concentrated over the western part during 2012-2020 along with a strong seasonal pattern with a peak in rainy and autumn. By applying the different techniques in identifying the different degrees of incidence zones of malaria across West Bengal, some specific pockets or malaria hotspots are marked and identified where the incidence rates are quite harmonious over the different periods. From this analysis, it is clear that malaria is not a disease that is distributed uniformly across the state; some specific pockets are more prone to be affected in particular seasons of each year. Disease ecology and spatial patterns must be the factors in explaining the real factors for the higher incidence of this issue within those affected districts. The further study mainly by applying empirical approach is needed for discerning the strong relationship between communicable disease and other associated affecting factors.

Keywords: Malaria, infectious diseases, spatial statistics, spatial autocorrelation, LISA.

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Authors: Seni Karnchanawong, Wachara Phajee

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The effects of upflow liquid velocity (ULV) on performance of expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) system were investigated. The EGSB reactor, made from galvanized steel pipe 0.10 m diameter and 5 m height, had been used to treat piggery wastewater, after passing through acidification tank. It consisted of 39.3 l working volume in reaction zone and 122 l working volume in sedimentation zone, at the upper part. The reactor was seeded with anaerobically digested sludge and operated at the ULVs of 4, 8, 12 and 16 m/h, consecutively, corresponding to organic loading rates of 9.6 – 13.0 kg COD/ (m3.d). The average COD concentrations in the influent were 9,601 – 13,050 mg/l. The COD removal was not significantly different, i.e. 93.0% - 94.0%, except at ULV 12 m/h where SS in the influent was exceptionally high so that VSS washout had occurred, leading to low COD removal. The FCOD and VFA concentrations in the effluent of all experiments were not much different, indicating the same range of treatment performance. The biogas production decreased at higher ULV and ULV of 4 m/h is suggested as design criterion for EGSB system.

Keywords: Expanded granular sludge bed system, piggery wastewater, upflow liquid velocity

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Authors: Jawad Al Khaburi, Abbas A. Dehghani-Sanij, E. Andrea Nelson, Jerry Hutchinson

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Medical compression bandages are widely used in the treatment of chronic venous disorder. In order to design effective compression bandages, researchers have attempted to describe the interface pressure applied by multi-layer bandages using mathematical models. This paper reports on the work carried out to compare and validate the mathematical models used to describe the interface pressure applied by multi-layer bandages. Both analytical and experimental results showed that using simple multiplication of a number of bandage layers with the pressure applied by one layer of bandage or ignoring the increase in the limb radius due to former layers of bandage will result in overestimating the pressure. Experimental results showed that the mathematical models, which take into consideration the increase in the limb radius due to former bandage layers, are more accurate than the one which does not.

Keywords: Compression bandages, FlexiForce, interface pressure, venous ulcer

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Authors: Cynthia Sau Chun Yip, Richard Fielding

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High meat and especially red meat intakes are significantly and positively associated with a multiple burden of diseases and also high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study investigated population meat intake patterns in Hong Kong. It quantified the burden of disease and GHG emission outcomes by modeling to adjust Hong Kong population meat intakes to recommended healthy levels. It compared age- and sex-specific population meat, fruit and vegetable intakes obtained from a population survey among adults aged 20 years and over in Hong Kong in 2005-2007, against intake recommendations suggested in the Modelling System to Inform the Revision of the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (AGHE-2011-MS) technical document. This study found that meat and meat alternatives, especially red meat intakes among Hong Kong males aged 20+ years and over are significantly higher than recommended. Red meat intakes among females aged 50-69 years and other meat and alternatives intakes among aged 20-59 years are also higher than recommended. Taking the 2005-07 age- and sex-specific population meat intake as baselines, three counterfactual scenarios of adjusting Hong Kong adult population meat intakes to AGHE-2011-MS and Pre-2011 AGHE recommendations by the year 2030 were established. Consequent energy intake gaps were substituted with additional legume, fruit and vegetable intakes. To quantify the consequent GHG emission outcomes associated with Hong Kong meat intakes, Cradle-to-ready-to-eat lifecycle assessment emission outcome modelling was used. Comparative risk assessment of burden of disease model was used to quantify the health outcomes. This study found adjusting meat intakes to recommended levels could reduce Hong Kong GHG emission by 17%-44% when compared against baseline meat intake emissions, and prevent 2,519 to 7,012 premature deaths in males and 53 to 1,342 in females, as well as multiple burden of diseases when compared to the baseline meat intake scenario. Comparing lump sum meat intake reduction and outcome measures across the entire population, and using emission factors, and relative risks from individual studies in previous co-benefit studies, this study used age- and sex-specific input and output measures, emission factors and relative risks obtained from high quality meta-analysis and meta-review respectively, and has taken government dietary recommendations into account. Hence evaluations in this study are of better quality and more reflective of real life practices. Further to previous co-benefit studies, this study pinpointed age- and sex-specific population and meat-type-specific intervention points and leverages. When compared with similar studies in Australia, this study also showed that intervention points and leverages among populations in different geographic and cultural background could be different, and that globalization also globalizes meat consumption emission effects. More regional and cultural specific evaluations are recommended to promote more sustainable meat consumption and enhance global food security.

Keywords: Burden of diseases, greenhouse gas emissions, Hong Kong diet, sustainable meat consumption.

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Authors: V. Chitra, R. S. Prabhakar

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Because of the low maintenance and robustness induction motors have many applications in the industries. The speed control of induction motor is more important to achieve maximum torque and efficiency. Various speed control techniques like, Direct Torque Control, Sensorless Vector Control and Field Oriented Control are discussed in this paper. Soft computing technique – Fuzzy logic is applied in this paper for the speed control of induction motor to achieve maximum torque with minimum loss. The fuzzy logic controller is implemented using the Field Oriented Control technique as it provides better control of motor torque with high dynamic performance. The motor model is designed and membership functions are chosen according to the parameters of the motor model. The simulated design is tested using various tool boxes in MATLAB. The result concludes that the efficiency and reliability of the proposed speed controller is good.

Keywords: Induction motor, Field Oriented Control, Fuzzy logic controller, Maximum torque, Membership function.

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Authors: Salaheddin Odeh, Ibrahim O. Adwan

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This interdisciplinary study is an investigation to evaluate user-interfaces in business administration. The study is going to be implemented on two computerized business administration systems with two distinctive user-interfaces, so that differences between the two systems can be determined. Both systems, a commercial and a prototype developed for the purpose of this study, deal with ordering of supplies, tendering procedures, issuing purchase orders, controlling the movement of the stocks against their actual balances on the shelves and editing them on their tabulations. In the second suggested system, modern computer graphics and multimedia issues were taken into consideration to cover the drawbacks of the first system. To highlight differences between the two investigated systems regarding some chosen standard quality criteria, the study employs various statistical techniques and methods to evaluate the users- interaction with both systems. The study variables are divided into two divisions: independent representing the interfaces of the two systems, and dependent embracing efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction, error rate etc.

Keywords: Evaluation and usability testing, software prototyping, statistical methods, user-interface design.

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Authors: D. Bhaskar, N. R. Wadehra, M. Gulati, A. Narula, R. Vishnu, G. Katyal

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With drug resistance becoming widespread in Plasmodium falciparum infections, the development of the alternative drugs is the desired strategy for prevention and cure of malaria. Three drug targets were selected to screen promising drug molecules from the GSK library of 13469 molecules. Using an in silico structure-based drug designing approach, the differences in binding energies of the substrate and inhibitor were exploited between target sites of parasite and human to design a drug molecule against Plasmodium. The docking studies have shown several promising molecules from GSK library with more effective binding as compared to the already known inhibitors for the drug targets. Though stronger interaction has been shown by several molecules as compared to the reference, few molecules have shown the potential as drug candidates though in vitro studies are required to validate the results. In case of thymidylate synthase-dihydrofolatereductase (TS-DHFR), three compounds have shown promise for future studies as potential drugs.

Keywords: Drug resistance, Drug targets, In silico studies, Plasmodium falciparum.

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Authors: Areej M. Abduldaim, Nadia M. G. Al-Saidi

Abstract:

Algebra is one of the important fields of mathematics. It concerns with the study and manipulation of mathematical symbols. It also concerns with the study of abstractions such as groups, rings, and fields. Due to the development of these abstractions, it is extended to consider other structures, such as vectors, matrices, and polynomials, which are non-numerical objects. Computer algebra is the implementation of algebraic methods as algorithms and computer programs. Recently, many algebraic cryptosystem protocols are based on non-commutative algebraic structures, such as authentication, key exchange, and encryption-decryption processes are adopted. Cryptography is the science that aimed at sending the information through public channels in such a way that only an authorized recipient can read it. Ring theory is the most attractive category of algebra in the area of cryptography. In this paper, we employ the algebraic structure called skew -Armendariz rings to design a neoteric algorithm for zero knowledge proof. The proposed protocol is established and illustrated through numerical example, and its soundness and completeness are proved.

Keywords: Cryptosystem, identification, skew π-Armendariz rings, skew polynomial rings, zero knowledge protocol.

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Authors: M. M. Abutaleb, A. Hamdy, M. E. Abuelwafa, E. M. Saad

Abstract:

Optical flow is a research topic of interest for many years. It has, until recently, been largely inapplicable to real-time applications due to its computationally expensive nature. This paper presents a new reliable flow technique which is combined with a motion detection algorithm, from stationary camera image streams, to allow flow-based analyses of moving entities, such as rigidity, in real-time. The combination of the optical flow analysis with motion detection technique greatly reduces the expensive computation of flow vectors as compared with standard approaches, rendering the method to be applicable in real-time implementation. This paper describes also the hardware implementation of a proposed pipelined system to estimate the flow vectors from image sequences in real time. This design can process 768 x 576 images at a very high frame rate that reaches to 156 fps in a single low cost FPGA chip, which is adequate for most real-time vision applications.

Keywords: Optical flow, motion detection, real-time systems, FPGA.

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