Search results for: Agent Development Framework

Authors: Ali Ghiaseddin , Akram Nemati

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In a pilot plant scale of a fluidized bed reactor, a reduction reaction of sodium sulfate by natural gas has been investigated. Natural gas is applied in this study as a reductant. Feed density, feed mass flow rate, natural gas and air flow rate (independent parameters)and temperature of bed and CO concentration in inlet and outlet of reactor (dependent parameters) were monitored and recorded at steady state. The residence time was adjusted close to value of traditional reaction [1]. An artificial neural network (ANN) was established to study dependency of yield and carbon gradient on operating parameters. Resultant 97% accuracy of applied ANN is a good prove that natural gas can be used as a reducing agent. Predicted ANN model for relation between other sources carbon gradient (accuracy 74%) indicates there is not a meaningful relation between other sources carbon variation and reduction process which means carbon in granule does not have significant effect on the reaction yield.

Keywords: reduction by natural gas, fluidized bed, sulfate, sulfide, artificial neural network

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Authors: Gonçalo G. Aleixo, Alexandra B. Tenera

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This work will provide a new perspective of exploring innovation thematic. It will reveal that radical and incremental innovations are complementary during the innovation life cycle and accomplished through distinct ways of developing new products. Each new product development process will be constructed according to the nature of each innovation and the state of the product development. This paper proposes the inclusion of the organizational function areas that influence new product's development on the new product development process.

Keywords: Cross-functional, Incremental Innovation, New Product development Process, Radical Innovation

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Authors: Jun Hee Lee, Young Kyu Kim, Seong Jae Hong, Chamroeun Chhorn, Seung Woo Lee

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Roller-compacted concrete pavement (RCCP), an environmental friendly pavement of which load carry capacity benefitted from both hydration and aggregate interlock from roller compacting, demonstrated a superb structural performance for a relatively small amount of water and cement content. Even though an excellent structural performance can be secured, it is required to investigate roller-compacted concrete (RCC) under environmental loading and its long-term durability under critical conditions. In order to secure long-term durability, an appropriate internal air-void structure is required for this concrete. In this study, a method for improving the long-term durability of RCCP is suggested by analyzing the internal air-void structure and corresponding durability of RCC. The method of improving the long-term durability involves measurements of air content, air voids, and air-spacing factors in RCC that experiences changes in terms of type of air-entraining agent and its usage amount. This test is conducted according to the testing criteria in ASTM C 457, 672, and KS F 2456. It was found that the freezing-thawing and scaling resistances of RCC without any chemical admixture was quite low. Interestingly, an improvement of freezing-thawing and scaling resistances was observed for RCC with appropriate the air entraining (AE) agent content; Relative dynamic elastic modulus was found to be more than 80% for those mixtures. In RCC with AE agent mixtures, large amount of air was distributed within a range of 2% to 3%, and an air void spacing factor ranging between 200 and 300 μm (close to 250 μm, recommended by PCA) was secured. The long-term durability of RCC has a direct relationship with air-void spacing factor, and thus it can only be secured by ensuring the air void spacing factor through the inclusion of the AE in the mixture.

Keywords: RCCP, durability, air spacing factor, surface scaling resistance test, freezing and thawing resistance test.

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Authors: Philip Doganis, Eleni Aggelogiannaki, Haralambos Sarimveis

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Model Predictive Control has been previously applied to supply chain problems with promising results; however hitherto proposed systems possessed no information on future demand. A forecasting methodology will surely promote the efficiency of control actions by providing insight on the future. A complete supply chain management framework that is based on Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Time Series Forecasting will be presented in this paper. The proposed framework will be tested on industrial data in order to assess the efficiency of the method and the impact of forecast accuracy on overall control performance of the supply chain. To this end, forecasting methodologies with different characteristics will be implemented on test data to generate forecasts that will serve as input to the Model Predictive Control module.

Keywords: Forecasting, Model predictive control, production planning.

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Authors: Ahmad Luthfi

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One of the main goals of a computer forensic analyst is to determine the cause and effect of the acquisition of a digital evidence in order to obtain relevant information on the case is being handled. In order to get fast and accurate results, this paper will discuss the approach known as Ontology Framework. This model uses a structured hierarchy of layers that create connectivity between the variant and searching investigation of activity that a computer forensic analysis activities can be carried out automatically. There are two main layers are used, namely Analysis Tools and Operating System. By using the concept of Ontology, the second layer is automatically designed to help investigator to perform the acquisition of digital evidence. The methodology of automation approach of this research is by utilizing Forward Chaining where the system will perform a search against investigative steps and atomically structured in accordance with the rules of the Ontology.

Keywords: Ontology, Framework, Automation, Forensics.

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Authors: Hamed Fawareh

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The recent development in learning technologies leads to emerge many learning management systems (LMS). In this study, we concentrate on the specifications and characteristics of LMSs. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes on the feature of e-learning management systems. The features take on the account main indicators to assist and evaluate the quality of e-learning systems. The proposed indicators based of ten dimensions.

Keywords: E-Learning, System Requirement, Social Requirement, Learning Management System.

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Authors: Emel Kızılkaya Aydogan, Mihrimah Ozmen, Yılmaz Delice

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In recent days, there is a change and the ongoing development of the telecommunications sector in the global market. In this sector, churn analysis techniques are commonly used for analysing why some customers terminate their service subscriptions prematurely. In addition, customer churn is utmost significant in this sector since it causes to important business loss. Many companies make various researches in order to prevent losses while increasing customer loyalty. Although a large quantity of accumulated data is available in this sector, their usefulness is limited by data quality and relevance. In this paper, a cost-sensitive feature selection framework is developed aiming to obtain the feature reducts to predict customer churn. The framework is a cost based optional pre-processing stage to remove redundant features for churn management. In addition, this cost-based feature selection algorithm is applied in a telecommunication company in Turkey and the results obtained with this algorithm.

Keywords: Churn prediction, data mining, decision-theoretic rough set, feature selection.

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Authors: Slavka Zeković

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A preliminary evaluation of the urban land system is presented in the article together with the instruments of land policy in Serbia. The main reason for the analysis is demand for definition of reform framework for urban land management in Serbia in the period of transition towards market-led system. It is concluded that due to the limitations of the current regulation it will be impossible in the future to apply market principles in the urban land policy (supply and demand of land, land capitalization, investment efficiency, et al.). Based on the estimation that the urban land system and land policy are key factors of competitiveness between regions and towns in Serbia, it is necessary to initiate changes in this field. There are indicated on an option of privatization of urban public land and possible establishment of leasehold land. A comparative analysis of the possibilities of the reform urban land system in Serbia has been carried out in relation to two approaches of market systems: (a) with dominant private ownership of urban land (neo/liberal approach) and (b) with dominant public ownership of urban land (system of leasehold)whose findings can be a basis for further study of the new system in Serbia.. The attanied results are part of studies matter for the making of Strategy of territorial development of Serbia.

Keywords: Urban Land System, Urban Land Management, Instruments of Land Policy, Evaluation, Market.

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Authors: Ákos Cserny

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The unequivocal increase of the area of operation of the executive power can happen with the appearance of new areas to be influenced and its integration in the power, or at the expense of the scopes of other organs with public authority. The extension of the executive can only be accepted within the framework of the rule of law if parallel with this process we get constitutional guarantees that the exercise of power is kept within constitutional framework. Failure to do so, however, may result in the lack, deficit of democracy and democratic sense, and may cause an overwhelming dominance of the executive power. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present executive power and responsibility in the context of different dimensions.

Keywords: Confidence, constitution, executive power, liability, parliamentarism.

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Authors: Viola Hubačová Pirová

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The assessment of psychomotor development allows us to identify children with motor delays, helps us to monitor progress in time and prepare suitable intervention programs. The foundation of psychomotor development lies in pre-school age and is crucial for child´s further cognitive and social development. Many assessment tools of psychomotor development have been developed over the years. Some of them are easy screening tools; others are more complex and sophisticated. The purpose of this review is to describe the history of psychomotor assessment, specify preschool children´s psychomotor evaluation and review eight psychomotor development assessment tools for preschool children (Denver II., DEMOST-PRE, TGMD -2/3, BOT-2, MABC-2, PDMS-2, KTK, MOT 4-6). The selection of test depends on purpose and context in which is the assessment planned.

Keywords: Assessment of psychomotor development, preschool children, psychomotor development, review of assessment tools.

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Authors: S. Nandagopalan, N. Pradeep

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The aim of this paper is to propose a general framework for storing, analyzing, and extracting knowledge from two-dimensional echocardiographic images, color Doppler images, non-medical images, and general data sets. A number of high performance data mining algorithms have been used to carry out this task. Our framework encompasses four layers namely physical storage, object identification, knowledge discovery, user level. Techniques such as active contour model to identify the cardiac chambers, pixel classification to segment the color Doppler echo image, universal model for image retrieval, Bayesian method for classification, parallel algorithms for image segmentation, etc., were employed. Using the feature vector database that have been efficiently constructed, one can perform various data mining tasks like clustering, classification, etc. with efficient algorithms along with image mining given a query image. All these facilities are included in the framework that is supported by state-of-the-art user interface (UI). The algorithms were tested with actual patient data and Coral image database and the results show that their performance is better than the results reported already.

Keywords: Active Contour, Bayesian, Echocardiographic image, Feature vector.

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Authors: Duangkamol Thitivesa

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This paper explores the use of project work in a content-based instruction in a Rajabhat University, Thailand. The use of project is to promote kinds of learning expected of student teachers as stated by Thailand Quality Framework: TQF. The kinds of learning are grouped into five domains: Ethical and moral development, knowledge, cognitive skill, interpersonal skills and responsibility, and analytical and communication skills. The content taught in class is used to lead the student teachers to relate their previously-acquired linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in passages of immediate relevance to their professional interests, teaching methods in particular. Two research questions are formulate to guide this study: 1) To what degree are the five domains of learning expected of student teachers after the use of project in a content class?, and 2) What is the academic achievement of the students’ writing skills, as part of the learning domains stated by TQF, against the 70% attainment target after the use of project to enhance the skill? The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of a summative achievement test, student writing works, an observation checklist, and project diary. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and t-test. Project diary serves as students’ record of the language acquired during the project. List of structures and vocabulary noted in the diary has shown students’ ability to attend to, recognize, and focus on meaningful patterns of language forms.

Keywords: Thailand Quality Framework, Project Work, Writing skill.

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Authors: Shaza Melies, Abeer Refky, Nihad Mansoor

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Multimodality involves the communication between verbal and visual components in various discourses. A painting represents a form of communication between the artist and the viewer in terms of colors, shades, objects, and the title. This paper aims to present how multimodality can be used to decode the verbal and visual dimensions a painting holds. For that purpose, this study uses Kress and van Leeuwen’s theoretical framework of visual grammar for the analysis of the multimodal semiotic resources of selected paintings of Salvador Dali. This study investigates the visual decoding of the selected paintings of Salvador Dali and analyzing their social and political meanings using Kress and van Leeuwen’s framework of visual grammar. The paper attempts to answer the following questions: 1. How far can multimodality decode the verbal and non-verbal meanings of surrealistic art? 2. How can Kress and van Leeuwen’s theoretical framework of visual grammar be applied to analyze Dali’s paintings? 3. To what extent is Kress and van Leeuwen’s theoretical framework of visual grammar apt to deliver political and social messages of Dali? The paper reached the following findings: the framework’s descriptive tools (representational, interactive, and compositional meanings) can be used to analyze the paintings’ title and their visual elements. Social and political messages were delivered by appropriate usage of color, gesture, vectors, modality, and the way social actors were represented.

Keywords: Multimodality, multimodal analysis, paintings analysis, Salvador Dali, visual grammar.

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Authors: Chan-Sik Kim, Jong-Seong Kim, Se Won Lee, Hoo-Gon Choi

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In rapidly changing market environment, firms are investing a lot of time and resources into new product development (NPD) projects to make profit and to obtain competitive advantage. However, failure rate of NPD projects is becoming high due to various internal and external risks which hinder successful NPD projects. To reduce the failure rate, it is critical that risks have to be managed effectively and efficiently through good strategy, and treated by optimal responses to minimize risk cost. Four strategies are adopted to handle the risks in this study. The optimal responses are characterized by high reduction of risk costs with high efficiency. This study suggests a framework to decide the optimal responses considering the core risks, risk costs, response efficiency and response costs for successful NPD projects. Both binary particles warm optimization (BPSO) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) methods are mainly used in the framework. Although several limitations exist in use for real industries, the frame work shows good strength for handling the risks with highly scientific ways through an example.

Keywords: NPD projects, risk cost, strategy, optimal responses, Particle Swarm Optimization.

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Authors: Z. Goosen, E. J. Cilliers

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Social sustainability, as an independent perspective of sustainable development, has gained some acknowledgement, becoming an important aspect in sustainable urban planning internationally. However, limited research aiming at promoting social sustainability within urban areas exists within the South African context. This is mainly due to the different perspectives of sustainable development (e.g., Environmental, Economic, and Social) not being equally prioritized by policy makers and supported by implementation strategies, guidelines, and planning frameworks. The enhancement of social sustainability within urban areas relies on urban dweller satisfaction and the quality of urban life. Inclusive cities with high-quality public spaces are proposed within this research through implementing the third place theory. Third places are introduced as any place other than our homes (first place) and work (second place) and have become an integrated part of sustainable urban planning. As Third Places consist of every place 'in between', the approach has taken on a large role of the everyday life of city residents, and the importance of planning for such places can only be measured through identifying and highlighting the social sustainability benefits thereof. The aim of this research paper is to introduce third place planning within the urban area to ultimately enhance social sustainability. Selected background planning approaches influencing the planning of third places will briefly be touched on, as the focus will be placed on the social sustainability benefits provided through third place planning within an urban setting. The study will commence by defining and introducing the concept of third places within urban areas as well as a discussion on social sustainability, acting as one of the three perspectives of sustainable development. This will gain the researcher an improved understanding on social sustainability in order for the study to flow into an integrated discussion of the benefits Third places provide in terms of social sustainability and the impact it has on improved quality of life within urban areas. Finally, a visual case study comparison of local and international examples of third places identified will be illustrated. These international case studies will contribute towards the conclusion of this study where a local gap analysis will be formulated, based on local third place evidence and international best practices in order to formulate a strategic planning framework on improving social sustainability through third place planning within the local South African context.

Keywords: Planning benefits, social sustainability, third places, urban area.

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Authors: Xizhi Li

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Both software applications and their development environment are becoming more and more distributed. This trend impacts not only the way software computes, but also how it looks. This article proposes a Human Computer Interface (HCI) template from three representative applications we have developed. These applications include a Multi-Agent System based software, a 3D Internet computer game with distributed game world logic, and a programming language environment used in constructing distributed neural network and its visualizations. HCI concepts that are common to these applications are described in abstract terms in the template. These include off-line presentation of global entities, entities inside a hierarchical namespace, communication and languages, reconfiguration of entity references in a graph, impersonation and access right, etc. We believe the metaphor that underlies an HCI concept as well as the relationships between a bunch of HCI concepts are crucial to the design of software systems and vice versa.

Keywords: HCI, MAS, computer game, programming language

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Authors: Amado, M. P., Amado, A., Poggi, F., Correia de Freitas, J.

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Today is widely understood that global energy consumption patterns are directly related to the urban expansion and development process. This expansion is based on the natural growth of human activities and has left most urban areas totally dependent on fossil fuel derived external energy inputs. This status-quo of production, transportation, storage and consumption of energy has become inefficient and is set to become even more so when the continuous increases in energy demand are factored in. The territorial management of land use and related activities is a central component in the search for more efficient models of energy use, models that can meet current and future regional, national and European goals.

In this paper a methodology is developed and discussed with the aim of improving energy efficiency at the municipal level. The development of this methodology is based on the monitoring of energy consumption and its use patterns resulting from the natural dynamism of human activities in the territory and can be utilized to assess sustainability at the local scale. A set of parameters and indicators are defined with the objective of constructing a systemic model based on the optimization, adaptation and innovation of the current energy framework and the associated energy consumption patterns. The use of the model will enable local governments to strike the necessary balance between human activities and economic development and the local and global environment while safeguarding fairness in the energy sector.

Keywords: Solar urban planning, solar smart city, urban development, energy efficiency.

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Authors: Eric P. Jiang

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As the Internet continues to grow at a rapid pace as the primary medium for communications and commerce and as telecommunication networks and systems continue to expand their global reach, digital information has become the most popular and important information resource and our dependence upon the underlying cyber infrastructure has been increasing significantly. Unfortunately, as our dependency has grown, so has the threat to the cyber infrastructure from spammers, attackers and criminal enterprises. In this paper, we propose a new machine learning based network intrusion detection framework for cyber security. The detection process of the framework consists of two stages: model construction and intrusion detection. In the model construction stage, a semi-supervised machine learning algorithm is applied to a collected set of network audit data to generate a profile of normal network behavior and in the intrusion detection stage, input network events are analyzed and compared with the patterns gathered in the profile, and some of them are then flagged as anomalies should these events are sufficiently far from the expected normal behavior. The proposed framework is particularly applicable to the situations where there is only a small amount of labeled network training data available, which is very typical in real world network environments.

Keywords: classification, data analysis and mining, network intrusion detection, semi-supervised learning.

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Authors: Manal Rayes

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In its efforts to utilize the information and communication technology to enhance the quality of public service delivery, national and local governments around the world are competing to introduce more ICT applications as tools to automate processes related to law enforcement or policy execution, increase citizen orientation, trust, and satisfaction, and create one-stop-shops for public services. In its implementation, e-Government ICTs need to maintain transparency, participation, and collaboration. Due to this diverse of mixed goals and requirements, e-Government systems need to be designed based on special design considerations in order to eliminate the risks of failure to compliance to government regulations, citizen dissatisfaction, or market repulsion. In this article we suggest a framework with guidelines for designing government information systems that takes into consideration the special requirements of the public sector. Then we introduce two case studies and show how applying those guidelines would result in a more solid system design.

Keywords: e-government, framework, guidelines, system design.

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Authors: Craig Comstock, Zhizhong Jiang, Peter Naudé

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Productivity has been one of the major concerns with the increasingly high cost of software development. Choosing the right development language with high productivity is one approach to reduce development costs. Working on the large database with 4106 projects ever developed, we found the factors significant to productivity. After the removal of the effects of other factors on productivity, we compare the productivity differences of the ten general development programs. The study supports the fact that fourth-generation languages are more productive than thirdgeneration languages.

Keywords: Functional point, language, productivity, software engineering.

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Authors: Zhiping Wu, Meiqin Chen, Haikuan Yang, Yunchu Hu

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Fire disaster is the major factor to endanger the public and environmental safety. People lost their life during fire disaster mainly be attributed to the dense smoke and toxic gas under combustion, which hinder the escape of people and the rescue of firefighters under fire disaster. The smoke suppression effect of several transitional metals oxide on the epoxy resin treated with intumescent flame retardant and titanate couple agent (EP/IFR/Titanate) system have been investigated. The results showed manganese dioxide has great effect on reducing the smoke density rate (SDR) of EP/IFR/Titanate system; however it has little effect to reduce the maximum smoke density (MSD) of EP/IFR/Titanate system. Copper oxide can decrease the maximum smoke density (MSD) and smoke density rate of EP/IFR/Titanate system substantially. The MSD and SDR of EP/IFR/Titanate system can reduce 20.3% and 39.1% respectively when 2% of copper oxide is introduced.

Keywords: copper oxide, epoxy resin, intumescent flameretardant, smoke suppression.

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Authors: Anita Kéri

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Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in teaching methodologies and practices. Gamification is fast becoming a key instrument in the education of new generations and besides other methods, serious games have become the center of attention. Ready-built serious games are available for most higher education institutions to buy and implement. However, monetary restraints and the unalterable nature of the games might deter most higher education institutions from the application of these serious games. Therefore, there is a continuously growing need for a customizable serious game that has been developed based on a concrete need analysis and experts’ opinion. There has been little evidence so far of serious games that have been created based on relevant and current need analysis from higher education institution teachers, professional practitioners and students themselves. Therefore, the aim of this current paper is to analyze the needs of higher education institution educators with special emphasis on their needs, the applicability of serious games in their classrooms, and exploring options for the development of a customizable serious game framework. The paper undertakes to analyze workshop discussions on implementing serious games in education and propose a customizable serious game framework applicable in the education of the new generation. Research results show that the most important feature of a serious game is its customizability. The fact that practitioners are able to manage different scenarios and upload their own content to a game seems to be a key to the increasingly widespread application of serious games in the classroom.

Keywords: Education, gamification, game-based learning, serious games.

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Authors: Kyonghoon Kim, Wonyoung Park, Taeil Park

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Aging infrastructures became a serious social problem. This brought out the increased need for the legislation of a new strict guideline for infrastructure management. Although existing guidelines provided basics of how to evaluate and manage the condition of infrastructures, they needed improvements for their evaluation procedures. Most guidelines mainly focused on the structural condition of infrastructures and did not properly reflect service aspects of infrastructures such as performance, public demand, capacity, etc., which were significantly valuable to public. Regardless of the importance, these factors were often neglected in infrastructure evaluations, because they were quite subjective and difficult to quantify in rational manner. Thus, this study proposed a framework to properly identify and evaluate the service indicators. This study showed that service indicators could be grouped into two categories and properly evaluated using AHP and Fuzzy. Overall, proposed framework is expected to assist governmental agency in establishing effective investment strategies for infrastructure improvements.

Keywords: Infrastructure, evaluation, serviceability, fuzzy.

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Authors: Tebogo Phetla, Edison Muzenda, M Belaid

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This study investigated possible ways to improve the efficiency of the platinum precipitation process using ammonium chloride by reducing the platinum content reporting to the effluent. The ore treated consist of five platinum group metals namely, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, platinum, palladium and a precious metal gold. Gold, ruthenium, rhodium and iridium were extracted prior the platinum precipitation process. Temperature, reducing agent, flow rate and potential difference were the variables controlled to determine the operation conditions for optimum platinum precipitation efficiency. Hydrogen peroxide was added as the oxidizing agent at the temperature of 85-90oC and potential difference of 700-850mV was the variable used to check the oxidizing state of platinum. The platinum was further purified at temperature between 60-65oC, potential difference above 700 mV, ammonium chloride of 200 l, and at these conditions the platinum content reporting to the effluent was reduced to less than 300ppm, resulting in optimum platinum precipitation efficiency and purity of 99.9%.

Keywords: Platinum Group Metals (PGM), Potential difference, Precipitation, Redox reactions.

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Authors: Masatora Daito, Noriyuki Tanida

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The underground shopping mall has the constructional problem of the fire evacuation. Also, the people sometimes lose their direction and information of current time in the mall. If the emergencies such as terrorist explosions or gas explosions are happened, they have to go out soon. Under such circumstances, inside of the mall has high risk for life. In this research, the authors propose a way that he/she can go out from the underground shopping mall quickly. If the narrow exits are discovered by using active RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags and using cellular phones, they can evacuate as soon as possible. To verify this hypothesis, the authors design the model and carry out the agent-based simulation. They treat, as a case study, the Tenjin mall in Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan. The result of the simulation is that the case of the pedestrian with using active RFID tags and cellular phones reduced the amount of time to spend on the evacuation. Even if the diffusion of RFID tags and cellular phones was not perfect, they could show the effectiveness of reducing the time of evacuation.

Keywords: Evacuation, active RFID tag and cellular phone, underground shopping mall, agent-based simulation.

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Authors: Rebecca Angeles

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Radio frequency identification (RFID) has been recognized as a key enabler of efficient and effective supply chains. Recently, with increasing concern for environmental sustainability, researchers and practitioners have been exploring the role of RFID in supporting “green supply chains.” This qualitative study uses the technology-organization-environment framework of Tornatzky and Fleischer, and Zuboff’s concepts of automating-informating-transformating in analyzing two case studies involving RFID use: the recycling of Hewlett Packard inkjet printers and the garbage and recycling program of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Keywords: Environmental sustainability, green supply chain management, radio frequency identification, technology-organization-environment framework, Zuboff’automate-informate-transformate concepts.

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Authors: Ljubomir Nikolic, Larisa Trichtchenko

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The connection between solar activity and adverse phenomena in the Earth’s environment that can affect space and ground based technologies has spurred interest in Space Weather (SW) research. A great effort has been put on the development of suitable models that can provide advanced forecast of SW events. With the progress in computational technology, it is becoming possible to develop operational large scale physics based models which can incorporate the most important physical processes and domains of the Sun-Earth system. In order to enhance our SW prediction capabilities we are developing advanced numerical tools. With operational requirements in mind, our goal is to develop a modular simulation framework of propagation of the disturbances from the Sun through interplanetary space to the Earth. Here, we report and discuss on the development of coronal field and solar wind components for a large scale MHD code. The model for these components is based on a potential field source surface model and an empirical Wang-Sheeley-Arge solar wind relation. 

Keywords: Space weather, numerical modeling, coronal field, solar wind.

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Authors: A. N. Nambiar

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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) initially introduced during WW-II, has revolutionized the world with its numerous benefits and plethora of implementations in diverse areas ranging from manufacturing to agriculture to healthcare to hotel management. This work reviews the current research in this area with emphasis on applications for supply chain management and to develop a taxonomic framework to classify literature which will enable swift and easy content analysis and also help identify areas for future research.

Keywords: RFID, supply chain, applications, classification framework.

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Authors: Narasimhaiah Gorla, Annibal Scavarda

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Nowadays, where most of the leading economies are service oriented and e-business is being widely used for their management, supply chain management has become one of the most studied and practiced fields. Quality has an important role on today-s business processes, so it is important to understand the impact of IT service quality on the performance of supply chains. This paper will start by analyzing the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model and each of its five activities: Plan, Source, Make, Delivery, and Return. This article proposes a framework for analyzing Effect of IT Service Quality on Supply Chain Performance. Using the proposed framework, hypotheses are framed for the direct effect of IT service quality on Supply Chain Performance and its indirect effect through effective Supply Chain Management. The framework will be validated empirically based on the surveys of executives of various organizations and statistical analyses of the data collected.

Keywords: IT service quality, SCOR model, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Performance

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Authors: J. O. Akinyele, R. W. Salim, K. O. Oikelome, O. T. Olateju

Abstract:

Rice Husk (RH) is the major byproduct in the processing of paddy rice. The management of this waste has become a big challenge to some of the rice producers, some of these wastes are left in open dumps while some are burn in the open space, and these two actions have been contributing to environmental pollution. This study evaluates an alternative waste management of this agricultural product for use as a civil engineering material. The RH was burn in a controlled environment to form Rice Husk Ash (RHA). The RHA was mix with lateritic clay at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10% proportion by weight. Chemical test was conducted on the open burn and controlled burn RHA with the lateritic clay. Physical test such as particle size distribution, Atterberg limits test, and density test were carried out on the mix material. The chemical composition obtained for the RHA showed that the total percentage compositions of Fe2O3, SiO2 and Al2O3 were found to be above 70% (class “F” pozzolan) which qualifies it as a very good pozzolan. The coefficient of uniformity (Cu) was 8 and coefficient of curvature (Cc) was 2 for the soil sample. The Plasticity Index (PI) for the 0, 2, 4, 6, 8. 10% was 21.0, 18.8, 16.7, 14.4, 12.4 and 10.7 respectively. The work concluded that RHA can be effectively used in hydraulic barriers and as a stabilizing agent in soil stabilization.

Keywords: Rice husk ash, pozzolans, paddy rice, lateritic clay.

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