Search results for: Conceptual analysis

Authors: Cheng Seong Khor, Xiao Qi Yeoh

Abstract:

This work concerns the topological optimization problem for determining the optimal petroleum refinery configuration. We are interested in further investigating and hopefully advancing the existing optimization approaches and strategies employing logic propositions to conceptual process synthesis problems. In particular, we seek to contribute to this increasingly exciting area of chemical process modeling by addressing the following potentially important issues: (a) how the formulation of design specifications in a mixed-logical-and-integer optimization model can be employed in a synthesis problem to enrich the problem representation by incorporating past design experience, engineering knowledge, and heuristics; and (b) how structural specifications on the interconnectivity relationships by space (states) and by function (tasks) in a superstructure should be properly formulated within a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. The proposed modeling technique is illustrated on a case study involving the alternative processing routes of naphtha, in which significant improvement in the solution quality is obtained.

Keywords: Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), petroleum refinery, process synthesis, superstructure.

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Authors: Muhammad Waseem Ashraf, Shahzadi Tayyaba, Nitin Afzulpurkar, Asim Nisar, Adisorn Tuantranont, Erik L J Bohez

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In this paper, design, fabrication and coupled multifield analysis of hollow out-of-plane silicon microneedle array with piezoelectrically actuated microfluidic device for transdermal drug delivery (TDD) applications is presented. The fabrication process of silicon microneedle array is first done by series of combined isotropic and anisotropic etching processes using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching technology. Then coupled multifield analysis of MEMS based piezoelectrically actuated device with integrated 2×2 silicon microneedle array is presented. To predict the stress distribution and model fluid flow in coupled field analysis, finite element (FE) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis using ANSYS rather than analytical systems has been performed. Static analysis and transient CFD analysis were performed to predict the fluid flow through the microneedle array. The inlet pressure from 10 kPa to 150 kPa was considered for static CFD analysis. In the lumen region fluid flow rate 3.2946 μL/min is obtained at 150 V for 2×2 microneedle array. In the present study the authors have performed simulation of structural, piezoelectric and CFD analysis on three dimensional model of the piezoelectrically actuated mcirofluidic device integrated with 2×2 microneedle array.

Keywords: Coupled multifield, finite element analysis, hollow silicon microneedle, transdermal drug delivery.

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Authors: Miquel Colobran, Josep M. Basart

Abstract:

One of the most ancient humankind concerns is knowledge formalization i.e. what a concept is. Concept Analysis, a branch of analytical philosophy, relies on the purpose of decompose the elements, relations and meanings of a concept. This paper aims at presenting a method to make a concept analysis obtaining a knowledge representation suitable to be processed by a computer system using either object-oriented or ontology technologies. Security notion is, usually, known as a set of different concepts related to “some kind of protection". Our method concludes that a more general framework for the concept, despite it is dynamic, is possible and any particular definition (instantiation) depends on the elements used by its construction instead of the concept itself.

Keywords: Concept analysis, Knowledge representation, Security, UML.

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Authors: Atefeh Heydari, Mohammadali Tavakoli, Zuriati Ismail, Naomie Salim

Abstract:

Seeking and sharing knowledge on online forums have made them popular in recent years. Although online forums are valuable sources of information, due to variety of sources of messages, retrieving reliable threads with high quality content is an issue. Majority of the existing information retrieval systems ignore the quality of retrieved documents, particularly, in the field of thread retrieval. In this research, we present an approach that employs various quality features in order to investigate the quality of retrieved threads. Different aspects of content quality, including completeness, comprehensiveness, and politeness, are assessed using these features, which lead to finding not only textual, but also conceptual relevant threads for a user query within a forum. To analyse the influence of the features, we used an adopted version of voting model thread search as a retrieval system. We equipped it with each feature solely and also various combinations of features in turn during multiple runs. The results show that incorporating the quality features enhances the effectiveness of the utilised retrieval system significantly.

Keywords: Content quality, Forum search, Thread retrieval, Voting techniques.

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Authors: Jose A. Romero-Navarrete, Frank Otremba, Gerardo Hurtado-Hurtado

Abstract:

Turning maneuvers originate higher forces exerted on the rail and the loss of locomotive energy, at a rate that is function of several parameters that influence the magnitude of the developed horizontal wheel-rail forces, including the friction at the centre plate and the bogie´s yaw stiffness. However, such a friction at the contact surfaces of the centre plate is needed to mitigate the hunting phenomenon when the train moves on straight track segments. In this paper, a self-centering centre plate is proposed, consisting of a lubricated centre plate, equipped with a spring- and damper-based self-centering mechanism. Simulation results of the proposed mechanism suggest that the energy performance in turns of a train car equipped with such self-centering centre plate is comparatively better, as the peak friction forces linked to the dry friction at the contact surfaces of current centre plate designs, are avoided. The assessment of the hunting performance of the proposed device in straight track segments is proposed as the continuation of this work.

Keywords: Bogie´s yaw stiffness, bogie´s yaw friction, centre plate, self-centering mechanism, turning.

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Authors: Ashiquer Rahman

Abstract:

The paper focuses on the significance of the university's sustainability strategic plan and emphasizes the usefulness of the collaborative platform-based deliberation matrix. It will equip the university's leadership to handle impending tactics and challenges with the sustainability of the university’s strategic plan. The study addresses the significance of a set of reference points that will precede operational activities for multi-stakeholder multi-criteria evaluation on the optimal standards of Sustainable University, as well as potential action for the strategic blueprint of Sustainable University. It makes reference to the university’s sustainability strategy plan’s effectiveness through a collaborative platform and deliberation matrix. The paper outlines the conceptual framing of a sustainable university by implementing a strategic plan over the collaborative platform and deliberation matrix. Optimistically, these will be a milestone in higher education; a pathway to prepare for the University’s upcoming implementation of its sustainability strategy. In fact, the collaborative platform and deliberation matrix both are enhancement needles for institutional cooperation to the completive world.

Keywords: Sustainable strategies, institutional cooperation, multi-stakeholder multi-criteria assessment, collaborative platform, innovative method and tools.

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Authors: Liliana M. Marinelli, Cristina T. Varanese

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In the last few years, students from higher education have difficulties in grasping mathematical concepts which support physical matters, especially those in the first years of this education. Classical Physics teaching turns to be complex when students are not able to make use of mathematical tools which lead to the conceptual structure of Physics. When derivation and integration rules are not used or developed in parallel with other disciplines, the physical meaning that we attempt to convey turns to be complicated. Due to this fact, it could be of great use to see the Classical Mechanics from an axiomatic approach, where the correspondence rules give physical meaning, if we expect students to understand concepts clearly and accurately. Using the Minkowski point of view adapted to a two-dimensional space and time where vectors, matrices, and straight lines (worked from an affine space) give mathematical and physical rigorosity even when it is more abstract. An interesting option would be to develop the disciplinary contents from an axiomatic version which embraces the Classical Mechanics as a particular case of Relativistic Mechanics. The observation about the increase in the difficulties stated by students in the first years of education allows this idea to grow as a possible option to improve performance and understanding of the concepts of this subject.

Keywords: Axiom, classical physics, physical concepts, relativity.

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Authors: Qurban A Memon, Mohammad S. Laghari

Abstract:

Integration of system process information obtained through an image processing system with an evolving knowledge database to improve the accuracy and predictability of wear debris analysis is the main focus of the paper. The objective is to automate intelligently the analysis process of wear particle using classification via self-organizing maps. This is achieved using relationship measurements among corresponding attributes of various measurements for wear debris. Finally, visualization technique is proposed that helps the viewer in understanding and utilizing these relationships that enable accurate diagnostics.

Keywords: Relationship Network, Relationship Measurement, Self-organizing Clusters, Wear Debris Analysis, Kohonen Network

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Authors: Khelood A. Mkalaf, Peter Gibson, John Flanagan

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This study investigates the relationship between the reliability of critical medical equipment (CME) and the effectiveness of CME maintenance management strategies in relation to patient outcomes in 84 public hospitals of a top 20 OECD country. The work has examined the effectiveness of CME maintenance management strategies used by the public hospital system of a large state run health organization. The conceptual framework was designed to examine the significance of the relationship between six variables: (1) types of maintenance management strategies, (2) maintenance services, (3) maintenance practice, (4) medical equipment reliability, (5) maintenance costs and (6) patient outcomes. The results provide interesting insights into the effectiveness of the maintenance strategies used. For example, there appears to be about a 1 in 10 000 probability of failure of anesthesia equipment, but these seem to be confined to specific maintenance situations. There are also some findings in relation to outsourcing of maintenance. For each of the variables listed, results are reported in relation to the various types of maintenance strategies and services. Decision-makers may use these results to evaluate more effective maintenance strategies for their CME and generate more effective patient outcomes.

Keywords: Critical medical equipment, maintenance strategy, patient outcomes, reliability.

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Authors: P. Deepak Kumar, Aishwarya Alok, P. R. Maiti

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Liquid storage tanks have become widespread during the recent decades due to their extensive usage. Analysis of liquid containing tanks is known to be complex due to hydrodynamic force exerted on tank which makes the analysis a complex one. The objective of this research is to carry out analysis of liquid domain along with structural interaction for various geometries of circular tanks considering seismic effects. An attempt has been made to determine hydrodynamic pressure distribution on the tank wall considering impulsive and convective components of liquid mass. To get a better picture, a comparative study of Draft IS 1893 Part 2, ACI 350.3 and Eurocode 8 for Circular Shaped Tank has been performed. Further, the differences in the magnitude of shear and moment at base as obtained from static (IS 3370 IV) and dynamic (Draft IS 1892 Part 2) analysis of ground supported circular tank highlight the need for us to mature from the old code to a newer code, which is more accurate and reliable.

Keywords: Liquid filled containers, Circular Tanks, IS 1893 (Part 2), Seismic analysis, Sloshing.

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Authors: Naoki Yamamoto, Jun Murakami, Chiharu Okuma, Yutaro Shigeto, Satoko Saito, Takashi Izumi, Nozomi Hayashida

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Multi-dimensional principal component analysis (PCA) is the extension of the PCA, which is used widely as the dimensionality reduction technique in multivariate data analysis, to handle multi-dimensional data. To calculate the PCA the singular value decomposition (SVD) is commonly employed by the reason of its numerical stability. The multi-dimensional PCA can be calculated by using the higher-order SVD (HOSVD), which is proposed by Lathauwer et al., similarly with the case of ordinary PCA. In this paper, we apply the multi-dimensional PCA to the multi-dimensional medical data including the functional independence measure (FIM) score, and describe the results of experimental analysis.

Keywords: multi-dimensional principal component analysis, higher-order SVD (HOSVD), functional independence measure (FIM), medical data, tensor decomposition

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Authors: Yiannis Smirlis, Dimitris K. Despotis

Abstract:

This study performs a comparative analysis of the 21 Greek Universities in terms of their public funding, awarded for covering their operating expenditure. First it introduces a DEA/MCDM model that allocates the fund into four expenditure factors in the most favorable way for each university. Then, it presents a common, consensual assessment model to reallocate the amounts, remaining in the same level of total public budget. From the analysis it derives that a number of universities cannot justify the public funding in terms of their size and operational workload. For them, the sufficient reduction of their public funding amount is estimated as a future target. Due to the lack of precise data for a number of expenditure criteria, the analysis is based on a mixed crisp-ordinal data set.

Keywords: Data envelopment analysis, Greek universities, operating expenditures, ordinal data.

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Authors: P. Bhramara, V. D. Rao, K. V. Sharma , T. K. K. Reddy

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In designing of condensers, the prediction of pressure drop is as important as the prediction of heat transfer coefficient. Modeling of two phase flow, particularly liquid – vapor flow under diabatic conditions inside a horizontal tube using CFD analysis is difficult with the available two phase models in FLUENT due to continuously changing flow patterns. In the present analysis, CFD analysis of two phase flow of refrigerants inside a horizontal tube of inner diameter, 0.0085 m and 1.2 m length is carried out using homogeneous model under adiabatic conditions. The refrigerants considered are R22, R134a and R407C. The analysis is performed at different saturation temperatures and at different flow rates to evaluate the local frictional pressure drop. Using Homogeneous model, average properties are obtained for each of the refrigerants that is considered as single phase pseudo fluid. The so obtained pressure drop data is compared with the separated flow models available in literature.

Keywords: Adiabatic conditions, CFD analysis, Homogeneousmodel and Liquid – Vapor flow.

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Authors: Ahmed Arara

Abstract:

Information sharing and exchange, rather than information processing, is what characterizes information technology in the 21st century. Ontologies, as shared common understanding, gain increasing attention, as they appear as the most promising solution to enable information sharing both at a semantic level and in a machine-processable way. Domain Ontology-based modeling has been exploited to provide shareability and information exchange among diversified, heterogeneous applications of enterprises. Contextual ontologies are “an explicit specification of contextual conceptualization". That is: ontology is characterized by concepts that have multiple representations and they may exist in several contexts. Hence, contextual ontologies are a set of concepts and relationships, which are seen from different perspectives. Contextualization is to allow for ontologies to be partitioned according to their contexts. The need for contextual ontologies in enterprise modeling has become crucial due to the nature of today's competitive market. Information resources in enterprise is distributed and diversified and is in need to be shared and communicated locally through the intranet and globally though the internet. This paper discusses the roles that ontologies play in an enterprise modeling, and how ontologies assist in building a conceptual model in order to provide communicative and interoperable information systems. The issue of enterprise modeling based on contextual domain ontology is also investigated, and a framework is proposed for an enterprise model that consists of various applications.

Keywords: Contextual ontologies, Enterprise model, domainontology.

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Authors: Hyeondal Jeong, Yoonjung Baek

Abstract:

This research examines the effects of positive psychological capital (or PsyCap) on employee’s outcomes (satisfaction, commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, innovation behavior and individual creativity). This study conducted a meta-analysis of articles published in the Republic of Korea. As a result, positive psychological capital has a positive effect on the behavior of employees. Heterogeneity was identified among the studies included in the analysis and the context factors were analyzed; the study proposes contextual factors such as team tenure. The moderating effect of team tenure was not statistically significant. The implications were discussed based on the analysis results.

Keywords: Positive psychological capital, satisfaction, commitment, OCB, creativity, meta-analysis.

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Authors: J. R. Wang, S. W. Chen, Y. Chiang, W. S. Hsu, J. H. Yang, Y. S. Tseng, C. Shih

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In this research, the HABIT analysis methodology was established for Maanshan nuclear power plant (NPP). The Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR), reports, and other data were used in this study. To evaluate the control room habitability under the CO₂ storage burst, the HABIT methodology was used to perform this analysis. The HABIT result was below the R.G. 1.78 failure criteria. This indicates that Maanshan NPP habitability can be maintained. Additionally, the sensitivity study of the parameters (wind speed, atmospheric stability classification, air temperature, and control room intake flow rate) was also performed in this research.

Keywords: PWR, HABIT, habitability, Maanshan.

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Authors: Mohamed Dbouk, Ihab Sbeity

Abstract:

Spatial and mobile computing evolves. This paper describes a smart modeling platform called “GeoSEMA". This approach tends to model multidimensional GeoSpatial Evolutionary and Mobile Agents. Instead of 3D and location-based issues, there are some other dimensions that may characterize spatial agents, e.g. discrete-continuous time, agent behaviors. GeoSEMA is seen as a devoted design pattern motivating temporal geographic-based applications; it is a firm foundation for multipurpose and multidimensional special-based applications. It deals with multipurpose smart objects (buildings, shapes, missiles, etc.) by stimulating geospatial agents. Formally, GeoSEMA refers to geospatial, spatio-evolutive and mobile space constituents where a conceptual geospatial space model is given in this paper. In addition to modeling and categorizing geospatial agents, the model incorporates the concept of inter-agents event-based protocols. Finally, a rapid software-architecture prototyping GeoSEMA platform is also given. It will be implemented/ validated in the next phase of our work.

Keywords: Location-Trajectory management, GIS, Mobile- Moving Objects/Agents, Multipurpose/Spatiotemporal data, Multi- Agent Systems.

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Authors: Srikanth L., Neelima Satyam D.

Abstract:

The transmission line towers are one of the important life line structures in the distribution of power from the source to the various places for several purposes. The predominant external loads which act on these towers are wind and earthquake loads. In this present study tower is analyzed using Indian Standards IS: 875:1987(Wind Load), IS: 802:1995(Structural steel), IS:1893:2002 (Earthquake) and dynamic analysis of tower has been performed considering ground motion of 2001 Bhuj Earthquake (India). The dynamic analysis was performed considering a tower system consisting two towers spaced 800m apart and 35m height each. This analysis has been performed using numerical time stepping finite difference method which is central difference method were employed by a developed MATLAB program to get the normalized ground motion parameters includes acceleration, frequency, velocity which are important in designing the tower. The tower is analyzed using response spectrum analysis.

Keywords: Response Spectra, Dynamic Analysis, Central Difference Method, Transmission Tower.

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Authors: Iveta Řepková

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to estimate the efficiency of the Slovak commercial banks employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) window analysis approach during the period 2003-2012. The research is based on unbalanced panel data of the Slovak commercial banks. Undesirable output was included into analysis of banking efficiency. It was found that most efficient banks were Postovabanka, UniCredit Bank and Istrobanka in CCR model and the most efficient banks were Slovenskasporitelna, Istrobanka and UniCredit Bank in BCC model. On contrary, the lowest efficient banks were found Privatbanka and CitiBank. We found that the largest banks in the Slovak banking market were lower efficient than medium-size and small banks. Results of the paper is that during the period 2003-2008 the average efficiency was increasing and then during the period 2010-2011 the average efficiency decreased as a result of financial crisis.

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis, efficiency, Slovak banking sector, window analysis.

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Authors: Zhang Yan, Yu Bin

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Principle component analysis is often combined with the state-of-art classification algorithms to recognize human faces. However, principle component analysis can only capture these features contributing to the global characteristics of data because it is a global feature selection algorithm. It misses those features contributing to the local characteristics of data because each principal component only contains some levels of global characteristics of data. In this study, we present a novel face recognition approach using non-negative principal component analysis which is added with the constraint of non-negative to improve data locality and contribute to elucidating latent data structures. Experiments are performed on the Cambridge ORL face database. We demonstrate the strong performances of the algorithm in recognizing human faces in comparison with PCA and NREMF approaches.

Keywords: classification, face recognition, non-negativeprinciple component analysis (NPCA)

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Authors: H. Z. Ulukan, E. Demircioğlu, M. Erol Genevois

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The scope of this paper and the aim of proposed model were to apply monetary Input –Output (I-O) analysis to point out the importance of reusing know-how and other requirements in order to reduce the production costs in a manufacturing process for a laptop computer. I-O approach using the monetary input-output model is employed to demonstrate the impacts of different factors in a manufacturing process. A sensitivity analysis showing the correlation between these different factors is also presented. It is expected that the recommended model would have an advantageous effect in the cost minimization process.

Keywords: Input-Output Analysis, Monetary Input-Output Model, Manufacturing Process, Laptop Computer.

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Authors: Jeeeun Kim, Sungjoo Lee

Abstract:

This research proposes a methodology for patent-citation-based technology input-output analysis by applying the patent information to input-output analysis developed for the dependencies among different industries. For this analysis, a technology relationship matrix and its components, as well as input and technology inducement coefficients, are constructed using patent information. Then, a technology inducement coefficient is calculated by normalizing the degree of citation from certain IPCs to the different IPCs (International patent classification) or to the same IPCs. Finally, we construct a Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) based on the technology inducement coefficient to suggest a useful application for this methodology.

Keywords: Technology spillover effect, technology relationship, IO table, technology inducement coefficients, patent analysis, patent citation.

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Authors: Chunling Cong, Chris.P.Tsokos

Abstract:

The objective of the present research manuscript is to perform parametric, nonparametric, and decision tree analysis to evaluate two treatments that are being used for breast cancer patients. Our study is based on utilizing real data which was initially used in “Tamoxifen with or without breast irradiation in women of 50 years of age or older with early breast cancer" [1], and the data is supplied to us by N.A. Ibrahim “Decision tree for competing risks survival probability in breast cancer study" [2]. We agree upon certain aspects of our findings with the published results. However, in this manuscript, we focus on relapse time of breast cancer patients instead of survival time and parametric analysis instead of semi-parametric decision tree analysis is applied to provide more precise recommendations of effectiveness of the two treatments with respect to reoccurrence of breast cancer.

Keywords: decision tree, breast cancer treatments, parametricanalysis, non-parametric analysis

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Authors: Mevlüt Burak Dalmış, Kemal Yaman

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In this study, flutter characteristics of cantilever rectangular plate structure under incompressible flow regime are investigated by comparing the results of commercial flutter analysis program ZAERO^© with wind tunnel tests conducted in Ankara Wind Tunnel (ART). A rectangular polycarbonate (PC) plate, 5x125x1000 mm in dimensions, is used for both numerical and experimental investigations. Analysis and test results are very compatible with each other. A comparison between two different solution methods (g and k-method) of ZAERO^© is also done. It is seen that, k-method gives closer result than the other one. However, g-method results are on conservative side and it is better to use conservative results namely g-method results. Even if the modal analysis results are used for the flutter analysis for this simple structure, a modal test should be conducted in order to validate the modal analysis results to have accurate flutter analysis results for more complicated structures.

Keywords: Flutter, plate, subsonic flow, wind tunnel.

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Authors: R. Schweighoffer, N. Nagy, E. Reeves, B. Liebig

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Due to aging populations, the need for seamless palliative care provision is of central interest for western societies. An essential aspect of palliative care delivery is the quality of collaboration amongst palliative care providers. Therefore, the current research is based on Bainbridge’s conceptual framework, which provides an outline for the evaluation of palliative care provision. This study is the first one to investigate the predictive validity of spatial distribution on the quantity of interaction amongst various palliative care providers. Furthermore, based on the familiarity principle, we examine whether the extent of collaboration influences the perceived quality of collaboration among palliative care providers in urban versus rural areas of Switzerland. Based on a population-representative survey of Swiss palliative care providers, the results of the current study show that professionals in densely populated areas report higher absolute numbers of interactions and are more satisfied with their collaborative practice. This indicates that palliative care providers who work in urban areas are better embedded into networks than their counterparts in more rural areas. The findings are especially important, considering that efficient collaboration is a prerequisite to achieve satisfactory patient outcomes. Conclusively, measures should be taken to foster collaboration in weakly interconnected palliative care networks.

Keywords: Collaboration, healthcare networks, palliative care, Switzerland.

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Authors: G. S. Dangayach

Abstract:

For any country the project management has been a vital part for its development. The highly competitive business world has created tremendous pressure on the project managers to achieve success. The pressure is derived from survival and profit building in business organizations which compels the project managers to pursue unethical practices. As a result unethical activities in business projects can be found easily where situations or issues arise due to dubious business practice, high corruption, or absolute violation of the law. The recent spur on Commonwealth games to be organized in New Delhi indicates towards the same. It has been seen that the project managers mainly focus on cost, time, and quality rather than social impact and long term effects of the project. Surprisingly the literature as well as the practitioner-s perspective also does not identify the role of ethics in project success. This paper identifies ethics as the fourth most important dimension in the project based organizations. The paper predicts that the approach of considering ethics will result in sustainability of the project. It will increase satisfaction and loyalty of the customers as well as create harmony, trust, brotherhood, values and morality among the team members. This paper is conceptual in nature as inadequate literature exists linking the project success with an ethical approach.

Keywords: Ethics, Loyalty, Morality, Project success

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Authors: Zeinab Ghasemi, S. Amirhassan Monadjemi, Abbas Vafaei

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This paper presents a comparative analysis of a new unsupervised PCA-based technique for steel plates texture segmentation towards defect detection. The proposed scheme called Variance Based Component Analysis or VBCA employs PCA for feature extraction, applies a feature reduction algorithm based on variance of eigenpictures and classifies the pixels as defective and normal. While the classic PCA uses a clusterer like Kmeans for pixel clustering, VBCA employs thresholding and some post processing operations to label pixels as defective and normal. The experimental results show that proposed algorithm called VBCA is 12.46% more accurate and 78.85% faster than the classic PCA.

Keywords: Principal Component Analysis; Variance Based Component Analysis; Defect Detection; Texture Segmentation.

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Authors: Vitalice K. Oduol

Abstract:

The paper considers a single-server queue with fixedsize batch Poisson arrivals and exponential service times, a model that is useful for a buffer that accepts messages arriving as fixed size batches of packets and releases them one packet at time. Transient performance measures for queues have long been recognized as being complementary to the steady-state analysis. The focus of the paper is on the use of the functions that arise in the analysis of the transient behaviour of the queuing system. The paper exploits practical modelling to obtain a solution to the integral equation encountered in the analysis. Results obtained indicate that under heavy load conditions, there is significant disparity in the statistics between the transient and steady state values.

Keywords: batch arrivals, modelling, single-server queue, time-varying probabilities, transient analysis.

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Authors: C. M. De Marco Muscat-Fenech, A. M. Grech La Rosa

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Although a lot of importance has been given to resistance analysis for various vessel types, explicit guidelines applied to multihull vessels have not been clearly defined.  The purpose of this investigation is to highlight the importance of the vessel’s layout in terms of three axes, the transverse (separation), the longitudinal (stagger) and the vertical (draught) with respect to resistance analysis. When a vessel has the potential to experience less resistance at a particular range of speeds a vast selection of opportunities are made available for both the commercial and leisure market.

Keywords: Multihull, Reistance, Trimaran.

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Authors: Lorenzo Putzu, Cecilia Di Ruberto

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The counting and analysis of blood cells allows the evaluation and diagnosis of a vast number of diseases. In particular, the analysis of white blood cells (WBCs) is a topic of great interest to hematologists. Nowadays the morphological analysis of blood cells is performed manually by skilled operators. This involves numerous drawbacks, such as slowness of the analysis and a nonstandard accuracy, dependent on the operator skills. In literature there are only few examples of automated systems in order to analyze the white blood cells, most of which only partial. This paper presents a complete and fully automatic method for white blood cells identification from microscopic images. The proposed method firstly individuates white blood cells from which, subsequently, nucleus and cytoplasm are extracted. The whole work has been developed using MATLAB environment, in particular the Image Processing Toolbox.

Keywords: Automatic detection, Biomedical image processing, Segmentation, White blood cell analysis.

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