Search results for: Work station design
4465 Employee Aggression, Labeling and Emotional Intelligence
Authors: Martin Popescu D. Dana Maria
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The aims of this research are to broaden the study on the relationship between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). The study sample consisted in 441 Romanian employees from companies all over the country. Data has been collected through web surveys and processed with SPSS. The results indicated an average correlation between the two constructs and their sub variables, employees with a high level of emotional intelligence tend to be less aggressive. In addition, labeling was considered an individual difference which has the power to influence the level of employee aggression. A regression model was used to underline the importance of emotional intelligence together with labeling as predictors of CWB. Results have shown that this regression model enforces the assumption that labeling and emotional intelligence, taken together, predict CWB. Employees, who label themselves as victims and have a low degree of emotional intelligence, have a higher level of CWB.
Keywords: Aggression, CWB, emotional intelligence, labeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20634464 Directivity and Gain Improvement for Microstrip Array Antenna with Directors
Authors: Hassan M. Elkamchouchi, Samy H. Darwish, Yasser H. Elkamchouchi, M. E. Morsy
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Methodology is suggested to design a linear rectangular microstrip array antenna based on Yagi antenna theory. The antenna with different directors' lengths as parasitic elements were designed, simulated, and analyzed using HFSS. The calculus and results illustrate the effectiveness of using specific parasitic elements to improve the directivity and gain for microstrip array antenna. The results have shown that the suggested methodology has the potential to be applied for improving the antenna performance. Maximum radiation intensity (Umax) of the order of 0.47w/st was recorded, directivity of 6.58dB, and gain better than 6.07dB are readily achievable for the antenna that working.Keywords: Directivity, director, gain improvement, microstrip antenna.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16094463 Plants as Alternative Covers at Contaminated Sites
Authors: M. Grifoni, G. Petruzzelli, M. Barbafieri, I. Rosellini, B. Pezzarossa, F. Pedron
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Evapotranspiration (ET) covers are an alternative cover system that utilizes water balance approach to maximize the ET process to reduce the contaminants leaching through the soil profile. Microcosm tests allow to identify in a short time the most suitable plant species to be used as alternative covers, their survival capacity, and simultaneously the transpiration and evaporation rate of the cover in a specific contaminated soil. This work shows the soil characterization and ET results of microcosm tests carried out on two contaminated soils by using Triticum durum and Helianthus annuus species. The data indicated that transpiration was higher than evaporation, supporting the use of plants as alternative cover at this contaminated site.
Keywords: Contaminated sites, ET cover, evapotranspiration, microcosm experiments.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12534462 A Preliminary Study on Effects of Community Structures on Epidemic Spreading and Detection in Complex Networks
Authors: Yi Yu, Gaoxi Xiao
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Community structures widely exist in almost all real-life networks. Extensive researches have been carried out on detecting community structures in complex networks. However, many aspects of how community structures may affect the dynamics and properties of complex networks still remain unclear. In this work, we examine the impacts of community structures on the epidemic spreading and detection in complex networks. Extensive simulation results show that community structures may not help decrease the infection size at steady state, yet they could indeed help slow down the infection spreading. Also, networks with strong community structures may expect to have a smaller average infection size when equipped with a number of sparsely deployed monitors.
Keywords: Complex network, epidemic spreading, infection size, infection monitoring.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15994461 Network Analysis in a Natural Perturbed Ecosystem
Authors: Nelson F.F. Ebecken, Gilberto C. Pereira
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The objective of this work is to explicit knowledge on the interactions between the chlorophyll-a and nine meroplankton larvae of epibenthonic fauna. The studied case is the Arraial do Cabo upwelling system, Southeastern of Brazil, which provides different environmental conditions. To assess this information a network approach based in probability estimative was used. Comparisons among the generated graphs are made in the light of different water masses, application of Shannon biodiversity index, and the closeness and betweenness centralities measurements. Our results show the main pattern among different water masses and how the core organisms belonging to the network skeleton are correlated to the main environmental variable. We conclude that the approach of complex networks is a promising tool for environmental diagnostic.
Keywords: Coastal upwelling, Ecological networks, Plankton - interactions, Environmental analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16364460 A Linear Use Case Based Software Cost Estimation Model
Authors: Hasan.O. Farahneh, Ayman A. Issa
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Software development is moving towards agility with use cases and scenarios being used for requirements stories. Estimates of software costs are becoming even more important than before as effects of delays is much larger in successive short releases context of agile development. Thus, this paper reports on the development of new linear use case based software cost estimation model applicable in the very early stages of software development being based on simple metric. Evaluation showed that accuracy of estimates varies between 43% and 55% of actual effort of historical test projects. These results outperformed those of wellknown models when applied in the same context. Further work is being carried out to improve the performance of the proposed model when considering the effect of non-functional requirements.
Keywords: Metrics, Software Cost Estimation, Use Cases
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20144459 An Engineering Approach to Forecast Volatility of Financial Indices
Authors: Irwin Ma, Tony Wong, Thiagas Sankar
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By systematically applying different engineering methods, difficult financial problems become approachable. Using a combination of theory and techniques such as wavelet transform, time series data mining, Markov chain based discrete stochastic optimization, and evolutionary algorithms, this work formulated a strategy to characterize and forecast non-linear time series. It attempted to extract typical features from the volatility data sets of S&P100 and S&P500 indices that include abrupt drops, jumps and other non-linearity. As a result, accuracy of forecasting has reached an average of over 75% surpassing any other publicly available results on the forecast of any financial index.Keywords: Discrete stochastic optimization, genetic algorithms, genetic programming, volatility forecast
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16304458 Promoting Innovation Pedagogy in a Capacity Building Project in Indonesia
Authors: Juha Kettunen
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This study presents a project that tests and adjusts active European learning and teaching methods in Indonesian universities to increase their external impact on enterprises and other organizations; it also assesses the implementation of the Erasmus+ projects funded by the European Union. The project is based on the approach of innovation pedagogy that responds to regional development needs and integrates applied research and development projects into education to create capabilities for students to participate in development work after graduation. The assessment of the Erasmus+ project resulted in many improvements that can be made to achieve higher quality and innovativeness. The results of this study are useful for those who want to improve the applied research and development projects of higher education institutions.
Keywords: Higher education, innovations, project management, networks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18424457 Advances on the Understanding of Sequence Convergence Seen from the Perspective of Mathematical Working Spaces
Authors: Paula Verdugo-Hernández, Patricio Cumsille
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We analyze a first-class on the convergence of real number sequences, named hereafter sequences, to foster exploration and discovery of concepts through graphical representations before engaging students in proving. The main goal was to differentiate between sequences and continuous functions-of-a-real-variable and better understand concepts at an initial stage. We applied the analytic frame of Mathematical Working Spaces, which we expect to contribute to extending to sequences since, as far as we know, it has only developed for other objects, and which is relevant to analyze how mathematical work is built systematically by connecting the epistemological and cognitive perspectives, and involving the semiotic, instrumental, and discursive dimensions.
Keywords: Convergence, graphical representations, Mathematical Working Spaces, paradigms of real analysis, real number sequences.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5074456 Development a Recommendation Library System Based On Android Application
Authors: Kunyanuth Kularbphettong, Kunnika Tenprakhon, Pattarapan Roonrakwit
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In this paper, we present a recommendation library application on Android system. The objective of this system is to support and advice user to use library resources based on mobile application. We describe the design approaches and functional components of this system. The system was developed based on under association rules, Apriori algorithm. In this project, it was divided the result by the research purposes into 2 parts: developing the Mobile application for online library service and testing and evaluating the system. Questionnaires were used to measure user satisfaction with system usability by specialists and users. The results were satisfactory both specialists and users.
Keywords: Online library, Apriori algorithm, android application, black box.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 40134455 Artificial Neural Network Approach for Short Term Load Forecasting for Illam Region
Authors: Mohsen Hayati, Yazdan Shirvany
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In this paper, the application of neural networks to study the design of short-term load forecasting (STLF) Systems for Illam state located in west of Iran was explored. One important architecture of neural networks named Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) to model STLF systems was used. Our study based on MLP was trained and tested using three years (2004-2006) data. The results show that MLP network has the minimum forecasting error and can be considered as a good method to model the STLF systems.Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Forecasting, Multi-layer perceptron.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27764454 Object Tracking System Using Camshift, Meanshift and Kalman Filter
Authors: Afef Salhi, Ameni Yengui Jammaoussi
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This paper presents a implementation of an object tracking system in a video sequence. This object tracking is an important task in many vision applications. The main steps in video analysis are two: detection of interesting moving objects and tracking of such objects from frame to frame. In a similar vein, most tracking algorithms use pre-specified methods for preprocessing. In our work, we have implemented several object tracking algorithms (Meanshift, Camshift, Kalman filter) with different preprocessing methods. Then, we have evaluated the performance of these algorithms for different video sequences. The obtained results have shown good performances according to the degree of applicability and evaluation criteria.
Keywords: Tracking, meanshift, camshift, Kalman filter, evaluation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 82504453 Influence of Some Technological Parameters on the Content of Voids in Composite during On-Line Consolidation with Filament Winding Technology
Authors: M. Stefanovska, B. Samakoski, S. Risteska, G. Maneski
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In this study was performed in situ consolidation of polypropylene matrix/glass reinforced roving by combining heating systems and roll pressing. The commingled roving during hoop winding was winded on a cylindrical mandrel. The work also presents the advances made in the processing of these materials into composites by conventional technique filament winding. Experimental studies were performed with changing parameters – temperature, pressure and speed. Finally, it describes the investigation of the optimal processing conditions that maximize the mechanical properties of the composites. These properties are good enough for composites to be used as engineering materials in many structural applications.
Keywords: Commingled fiber, consolidation heat, filament winding, voids.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23714452 Integrating Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques in E-learning Environments
Authors: Konstantinos C. Giotopoulos, Christos E. Alexakos, Grigorios N. Beligiannis, Spiridon D.Likothanassis
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In this contribution a newly developed elearning environment is presented, which incorporates Intelligent Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques. The new e-learning environment is constituted by three parts, the E-learning platform Front-End, the Student Questioner Reasoning and the Student Model Agent. These parts are distributed geographically in dispersed computer servers, with main focus on the design and development of these subsystems through the use of new and emerging technologies. These parts are interconnected in an interoperable way, using web services for the integration of the subsystems, in order to enhance the user modelling procedure and achieve the goals of the learning process.
Keywords: E-learning environments, intelligent agents, user modeling, Bayesian Networks, computational intelligence.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18804451 Diagnostics of Fatigue Damage of Gas Turbine Engine Blades by Acoustic Emission Method
Authors: A.Urbach, M. Banov, V. Turko, Y.Feshchuk
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the work contains the results of complex investigation related to the evaluation of condition of working blades of gas turbine engines during fatigue tests by applying the acoustic emission method. It demonstrates the possibility of estimating the fatigue damage of blades in the process of factory tests. The acoustic emission criteria for detecting and testing the kinetics of fatigue crack distribution were detected. It also shows the high effectiveness of the method for non-destructive testing of condition of solid and cooled working blades for high-temperature gas turbine engines.Keywords: acoustic emission, blades for gas turbine engines, fatigue damage, diagnostics
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23584450 Approximate Solution to Non-Linear Schrödinger Equation with Harmonic Oscillator by Elzaki Decomposition Method
Authors: Emad K. Jaradat, Ala’a Al-Faqih
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Nonlinear Schrödinger equations are regularly experienced in numerous parts of science and designing. Varieties of analytical methods have been proposed for solving these equations. In this work, we construct an approximate solution for the nonlinear Schrodinger equations, with harmonic oscillator potential, by Elzaki Decomposition Method (EDM). To illustrate the effects of harmonic oscillator on the behavior wave function, nonlinear Schrodinger equation in one and two dimensions is provided. The results show that, it is more perfectly convenient and easy to apply the EDM in one- and two-dimensional Schrodinger equation.
Keywords: Non-linear Schrodinger equation, Elzaki decomposition method, harmonic oscillator, one and two- dimensional Schrodinger equation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9044449 Collaborative Team Work in Higher Education: A Case Study
Authors: Swapna Bhargavi Gantasala
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If teamwork is the key to organizational learning, productivity and growth, then, why do some teams succeed in achieving these, while others falter at different stages? Building teams in higher education institutions has been a challenge and an open-ended constructivist approach was considered on an experimental basis for this study to address this challenge. For this research, teams of students from the MBA program were chosen to study the effect of teamwork in learning, the motivation levels among student team members, and the effect of collaboration in achieving team goals. The teams were built on shared vision and goals, cohesion was ensured, positive induction in the form of faculty mentoring was provided for each participating team and the results have been presented with conclusions and suggestions.
Keywords: Collaboration, Leadership, Motivation, Reinforcement Teamwork.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30234448 A Study of Classification Models to Predict Drill-Bit Breakage Using Degradation Signals
Authors: Bharatendra Rai
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Cutting tools are widely used in manufacturing processes and drilling is the most commonly used machining process. Although drill-bits used in drilling may not be expensive, their breakage can cause damage to expensive work piece being drilled and at the same time has major impact on productivity. Predicting drill-bit breakage, therefore, is important in reducing cost and improving productivity. This study uses twenty features extracted from two degradation signals viz., thrust force and torque. The methodology used involves developing and comparing decision tree, random forest, and multinomial logistic regression models for classifying and predicting drill-bit breakage using degradation signals.
Keywords: Degradation signal, drill-bit breakage, random forest, multinomial logistic regression.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22434447 Harnessing Replication in Object Allocation
Authors: H. T. Barney, G. C. Low
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The design of distributed systems involves the partitioning of the system into components or partitions and the allocation of these components to physical nodes. Techniques have been proposed for both the partitioning and allocation process. However these techniques suffer from a number of limitations. For instance object replication has the potential to greatly improve the performance of an object orientated distributed system but can be difficult to use effectively and there are few techniques that support the developer in harnessing object replication. This paper presents a methodological technique that helps developers decide how objects should be allocated in order to improve performance in a distributed system that supports replication. The performance of the proposed technique is demonstrated and tested on an example system.Keywords: Allocation, Distributed Systems, Replication.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14404446 Deadline Missing Prediction for Mobile Robots through the Use of Historical Data
Authors: Edwaldo R. B. Monteiro, Patricia D. M. Plentz, Edson R. De Pieri
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Mobile robotics is gaining an increasingly important role in modern society. Several potentially dangerous or laborious tasks for human are assigned to mobile robots, which are increasingly capable. Many of these tasks need to be performed within a specified period, i.e, meet a deadline. Missing the deadline can result in financial and/or material losses. Mechanisms for predicting the missing of deadlines are fundamental because corrective actions can be taken to avoid or minimize the losses resulting from missing the deadline. In this work we propose a simple but reliable deadline missing prediction mechanism for mobile robots through the use of historical data and we use the Pioneer 3-DX robot for experiments and simulations, one of the most popular robots in academia.
Keywords: Deadline missing, historical data, mobile robots, prediction mechanism.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18094445 Navigation and Self Alignment of Inertial Systems using Nonlinear H∞ Filters
Authors: Saman M. Siddiqui, Fang Jiancheng
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Micro electromechanical sensors (MEMS) play a vital role along with global positioning devices in navigation of autonomous vehicles .These sensors are low cost ,easily available but depict colored noises and unpredictable discontinuities .Conventional filters like Kalman filters and Sigma point filters are not able to cope with nonwhite noises. This research has utilized H∞ filter in nonlinear frame work both with Kalman filter and Unscented filter for navigation and self alignment of an airborne vehicle. The system is simulated for colored noises and discontinuities and results are compared with not robust nonlinear filters. The results are found 40%-70% more robust against colored noises and discontinuities.Keywords: filtering, integrated navigation, MEMS, nonlinearfiltering, self alignment
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17954444 Application of a Novel Audio Compression Scheme in Automatic Music Recommendation, Digital Rights Management and Audio Fingerprinting
Authors: Anindya Roy, Goutam Saha
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Rapid progress in audio compression technology has contributed to the explosive growth of music available in digital form today. In a reversal of ideas, this work makes use of a recently proposed efficient audio compression scheme to develop three important applications in the context of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) for the effective manipulation of large music databases, namely automatic music recommendation (AMR), digital rights management (DRM) and audio finger-printing for song identification. The performance of these three applications has been evaluated with respect to a database of songs collected from a diverse set of genres.
Keywords: Audio compression, Music Information Retrieval, Digital Rights Management, Audio Fingerprinting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15404443 Cloud Computing Initiative using Modified Ant Colony Framework
Authors: Soumya Banerjee, Indrajit Mukherjee, P.K. Mahanti
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Scheduling of diversified service requests in distributed computing is a critical design issue. Cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of interconnected and virtual computers. It is not only the clusters and grid but also it comprises of next generation data centers. The paper proposes an initial heuristic algorithm to apply modified ant colony optimization approach for the diversified service allocation and scheduling mechanism in cloud paradigm. The proposed optimization method is aimed to minimize the scheduling throughput to service all the diversified requests according to the different resource allocator available under cloud computing environment.Keywords: Ant Colony, Cloud Computing, Grid, Resource allocator, Service Request.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27684442 Project and Module Based Teaching and Learning
Authors: Jingyu Hou
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This paper proposes a new teaching and learning approach-project and module based teaching and learning (PMBTL). The PMBTL approach incorporates the merits of project/problem based and module based learning methods, and overcomes the limitations of these methods. The correlation between teaching, learning, practice and assessment is emphasized in this approach, and new methods have been proposed accordingly. The distinct features of these new methods differentiate the PMBTL approach from conventional teaching approaches. Evaluation of this approach on practical teaching and learning activities demonstrates the effectiveness and stability of the approach in improving the performance and quality of teaching and learning. The approach proposed in this paper is also intuitive to the design of other teaching units.
Keywords: Computer science education, project and module based, software engineering.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34534441 Evaluation Using a Bidirectional Microphone as a Pressure Pulse Wave Meter
Authors: S. Fujiwara, T. Kaburagi, K. Kobayashi, K. Watanabe, Y. Kurihara
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This paper describes a novel sensor device, a pressure pulse wave meter, which uses a bidirectional condenser microphone. The microphone work as a microphone as well as a sensor with high gain over a wide frequency range; they are also highly reliable and economic. Currently aging is becoming a serious social issue in Japan causing increased medical expenses in the country. Hence, it is important for elderly citizens to check health condition at home, and to care the health conditions through daily monitoring. Given this circumstances, we developed a novel pressure pulse wave meter based on a bidirectional condenser microphone: this device is used as a measuring instrument of health conditions.Keywords: Bidirectional microphone, pressure pulse wave meter, health condition.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15824440 Device Discover: A Component for Network Management System using Simple Network Management Protocol
Authors: Garima Gupta, Daya Gupta
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Virtually all existing networked system management tools use a Manager/Agent paradigm. That is, distributed agents are deployed on managed devices to collect local information and report it back to some management unit. Even those that use standard protocols such as SNMP fall into this model. Using standard protocol has the advantage of interoperability among devices from different vendors. However, it may not be able to provide customized information that is of interest to satisfy specific management needs. In this dissertation work, different approaches are used to collect information regarding the devices attached to a Local Area Network. An SNMP aware application is being developed that will manage the discovery procedure and will be used as data collector.Keywords: ICMP Scanner, Network Discovery, NetworkManagement, SNMP Scanner.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16664439 An Iterative Algorithm for Inverse Kinematics of 5-DOF Manipulator with Offset Wrist
Authors: Juyi Park, Jung-Min Kim, Hee-Hwan Park, Jin-Wook Kim, Gye-Hyung Kang, Soo-Ho Kim
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This paper presents an iterative algorithm to find a inverse kinematic solution of 5-DOF robot. The algorithm is to minimize the iteration number. Since the 5-DOF robot cannot give full orientation of tool. Only z-direction of tool is satisfied while rotation of tool is determined by kinematic constraint. This work therefore described how to specify the tool direction and let the tool rotation free. The simulation results show that this algorithm effectively worked. Using the proposed iteration algorithm, error due to inverse kinematics converged to zero rapidly in 5 iterations. This algorithm was applied in real welding robot and verified through various practical works.Keywords: 5-DOF manipulator, Inverse kinematics, Iterative algorithm, Wrist offset.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 41414438 Performance Appraisal System using Multifactorial Evaluation Model
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Performance appraisal of employee is important in managing the human resource of an organization. With the change towards knowledge-based capitalism, maintaining talented knowledge workers is critical. However, management classification of “outstanding", “poor" and “average" performance may not be an easy decision. Besides that, superior might also tend to judge the work performance of their subordinates informally and arbitrarily especially without the existence of a system of appraisal. In this paper, we propose a performance appraisal system using multifactorial evaluation model in dealing with appraisal grades which are often express vaguely in linguistic terms. The proposed model is for evaluating staff performance based on specific performance appraisal criteria. The project was collaboration with one of the Information and Communication Technology company in Malaysia with reference to its performance appraisal process.Keywords: Multifactorial Evaluation Model, performance appraisal system, decision support system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 42684437 Generating Normally Distributed Clusters by Means of a Self-organizing Growing Neural Network– An Application to Market Segmentation –
Authors: Reinhold Decker, Christian Holsing, Sascha Lerke
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This paper presents a new growing neural network for cluster analysis and market segmentation, which optimizes the size and structure of clusters by iteratively checking them for multivariate normality. We combine the recently published SGNN approach [8] with the basic principle underlying the Gaussian-means algorithm [13] and the Mardia test for multivariate normality [18, 19]. The new approach distinguishes from existing ones by its holistic design and its great autonomy regarding the clustering process as a whole. Its performance is demonstrated by means of synthetic 2D data and by real lifestyle survey data usable for market segmentation.Keywords: Artificial neural network, clustering, multivariatenormality, market segmentation, self-organization
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12004436 Disability Diversity Management: A Case Study of the Banking Sector in the KSA
Authors: Nada Azhar
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This paper is drawn from a wider study of the management of gender, age and disability diversity in the banking sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which aims to develop a framework for diversity management (DM) in this sector. The paper focuses on the management of disability diversity. The purpose of the paper is to assist in understanding disability DM in the banking sector in KSA and to make suggestions for its enhancement. Hence, it contributes to filling a research gap, as there is a dearth of literature on disability DM, in KSA in general, and in the banking sector specifically. Discrimination against people with disabilities is a social issue that has not been entirely overcome in any society. However, in KSA, Islam informs almost every aspect of daily life including work, and Islam is against discrimination. Hence, in KSA, there are regulations to accommodate people with disabilities; however, employers are still free not to hire job applicants with disabilities specifically because of their condition. Indeed, disabled people are almost entirely absent from the labour market. There are 12 Saudi-owned or part-Saudi-owned banks in KSA and two managers from each of these were interviewed, making a total of 24. The interviews aimed to investigate empirically the understanding of managers in the banking sector in KSA of diversity management, including disability DM, in the banking sector. The interview data were analysed using thematic analysis. Two interviewees stated that banks used the employment of people with disabilities to enhance their corporate image, while five expressed the opinion that disabled employees could contribute to the bank provided they did not have to deal with customers face-to-face. Nine of the interviewees perceived that disabled employees could be of value to the bank for their own sake, not only in ‘behind the scenes’ roles. Another two interviewees mentioned that employing disabled people could be part of the bank’s community service programme and one thought it would be part of the bank’s Saudisation efforts. The remaining five interviewees did not know how disabled people could contribute to the bank. The findings show that disability DM in the banking sector in KSA is a relatively new concept, and is not yet well understood. In the light of the findings, in order to achieve the purpose of the paper, the following suggestions were made for the enhancement of disability DM in the banking sector in KSA. A change in attitudes towards disabled people is necessary. Such a change in the workplace can only be achieved if a top-down approach is taken to the integration of disabled people. Hence, it is suggested that management and employees follow a course in disability awareness. Further, a diversity officer in the HR department could enhance the integration of disabled people into the banking workforce. It is also suggested that greater government support is required through closely monitored and enforced anti-discrimination legislation. Moreover, flexible working arrangements such as part-time work would facilitate the employment of disabled people and benefit other groups of employees.
Keywords: Banking, disability, diversity management, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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