Search results for: interior point method

Authors: Do Thi Ha, Khanitta Nuntaboot

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Background: Competency of nurses is vital to safe nursing practice as well as essential component to drive quality of nursing services. There exists little up to date information concerning actual competency among Vietnamese nurses. Purposes: The purpose of this study is to identify the actual nursing competency among nurses in clinical settings in Vietnam. Methods: A qualitative study, ethnographic method, comprised of the participant-observation, in-depth interview, and focus group discussion with multidisciplinary groups of nurses employing in Cho Ray hospital, Vietnam, managers/administrators, nurse teachers, medical doctors, other health care providers, patients and family members which derived from purposeful sampling technique. Content analysis was used for data analysis. Results: Five essential themes of nursing competencies among nurses were identified include (1) knowledge, (2) skills, (3) attitude and value-based nursing practice, (4) legal and ethical competencies, and (5) transcultural competencies. Basic and advanced knowledge were identified as further two dimensions of knowledge. There were five sub themes identified as further dimensions of skills include technical skills, communication skills, organizing and management skills, teamwork and interrelationship, and critical thinking skills. Conclusions: The findings from this study provide valuable information and understanding of the actual competency among nurses in clinical settings in Vietnam. It is expected that this understanding would assist in developing a guide to nursing education and training, nursing practice and relevant policy regulation used for promoting nursing competency among nurses.

Keywords: Nursing competency, qualitative design, ethnographic method, Vietnam.

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Authors: Y. V. Kim

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This article presents an approach with regards to the Functional Testing of Space System (SS) that could be a space vehicle (spacecraft-S/C) and/or its equipment and components – S/C subsystems. This test should finalize the Space Qualification Tests (SQT) campaign. It could be considered as a generic test and used for a wide class of SS that, from the point of view of System Dynamics and Control Theory, may be described by the ordinary differential equations. The suggested methodology is based on using semi-natural experiment laboratory stand that does not require complicated, precise and expensive technological control-verification equipment. However, it allows for testing totally assembled system during Assembling, Integration and Testing (AIT) activities at the final phase of SQT, involving system hardware (HW) and software (SW). The test physically activates system input (sensors) and output (actuators) and requires recording their outputs in real time. The data are then inserted in a laboratory computer, where it is post-experiment processed by the MATLAB/Simulink Identification Toolbox. It allows for estimating the system dynamics in the form of estimation of its differential equation coefficients through the verification experimental test and comparing them with expected mathematical model, prematurely verified by mathematical simulation during the design process. Mathematical simulation results presented in the article show that this approach could be applicable and helpful in SQT practice. Further semi-natural experiments should specify detail requirements for the test laboratory equipment and test-procedures.

Keywords: system dynamics, space system ground tests, space qualification, system dynamics identification, satellite attitude control, assembling integration and testing

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Authors: N. Chegeni, M. J. Tahmasebi Birgani

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Nowadays, in most radiotherapy departments, the commercial treatment planning systems (TPS) used to calculate dose distributions needs to be verified; therefore, quick, easy-to-use and low cost dose distribution algorithms are desirable to test and verify the performance of the TPS. In this paper, we put forth an analytical method to calculate the phantom scatter contribution and depth dose on the central axis based on the equivalent square concept. Then, this method was generalized to calculate the profiles at any depth and for several field shapes regular or irregular fields under symmetry and asymmetry photon beam conditions. Varian 2100 C/D and Siemens Primus Plus Linacs with 6 and 18 MV photon beam were used for irradiations. Percentage depth doses (PDDs) were measured for a large number of square fields for both energies, and for 45^º wedges which were employed to obtain the profiles in any depth. To assess the accuracy of the calculated profiles, several profile measurements were carried out for some treatment fields. The calculated and measured profiles were compared by gamma-index calculation. All γ–index calculations were based on a 3% dose criterion and a 3 mm dose-to-agreement (DTA) acceptance criterion. The γ values were less than 1 at most points. However, the maximum γ observed was about 1.10 in the penumbra region in most fields and in the central area for the asymmetric fields. This analytical approach provides a generally quick and fairly accurate algorithm to calculate dose distribution for some treatment fields in conventional radiotherapy.

Keywords: Dose distribution, equivalent field, asymmetric field, irregular field.

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Authors: J. Dutta, Narendranath S.

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In this research article a comprehensive investigation has been carried out to determine the effect of thermal cycle on temperature dependent process parameters developed during gas tungsten arc (GTA) welding of high carbon (AISI 1090) steel butt joints. An experiment based thermal analysis has been performed to obtain the thermal history. We have focused on different thermophysical properties such as thermal conductivity, heat transfer coefficient and cooling rate. Angular torch model has been utilized to find out the surface heat flux and its variation along the fusion zone as well as along the longitudinal direction from fusion boundary. After welding and formation of weld pool, heat transfer coefficient varies rapidly in the vicinity of molten weld bead and heat affected zone. To evaluate the heat transfer coefficient near the fusion line and near the rear end of the plate (low temperature region), established correlation has been implemented and has been compared with empirical correlation which is noted as coupled convective and radiation heat transfer coefficient. Change in thermal conductivity has been visualized by analytical model of moving point heat source. Rate of cooling has been estimated by using 2-dimensional mathematical expression of cooling rate and it has shown good agreement with experimental temperature cycle. Thermophysical properties have been varied randomly within 0 -10s time span.

Keywords: Thermal history, Gas tungsten arc welding, Butt joint, High carbon steel.

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Authors: Achela K. Fernando, Xiujuan Zhang, Peter F. Kinley

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A feed-forward, back-propagation Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model has been used to forecast the occurrences of wastewater overflows in a combined sewerage reticulation system. This approach was tested to evaluate its applicability as a method alternative to the common practice of developing a complete conceptual, mathematical hydrological-hydraulic model for the sewerage system to enable such forecasts. The ANN approach obviates the need for a-priori understanding and representation of the underlying hydrological hydraulic phenomena in mathematical terms but enables learning the characteristics of a sewer overflow from the historical data. The performance of the standard feed-forward, back-propagation of error algorithm was enhanced by a modified data normalizing technique that enabled the ANN model to extrapolate into the territory that was unseen by the training data. The algorithm and the data normalizing method are presented along with the ANN model output results that indicate a good accuracy in the forecasted sewer overflow rates. However, it was revealed that the accurate forecasting of the overflow rates are heavily dependent on the availability of a real-time flow monitoring at the overflow structure to provide antecedent flow rate data. The ability of the ANN to forecast the overflow rates without the antecedent flow rates (as is the case with traditional conceptual reticulation models) was found to be quite poor.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, Back-propagationlearning, Combined sewer overflows, Forecasting.

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Authors: Guanglin Song

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Situated within the context of China's tiered medical treatment system, this study aims to analyze spatial causes of urban healthcare access difficulties from the perspective of the configuration of healthcare facilities. A social network analysis approach is employed to construct a healthcare demand and supply flow network between major residential clusters and various tiers of hospitals in the city. The findings reveal that: 1) There exists overall maldistribution and over-concentration of healthcare resources in the study area, characterized by structural imbalance. 2) The low rate of primary care utilization in the study area is a key factor contributing to congestion at higher-tier hospitals, as excessive reliance on these institutions by neighboring communities exacerbates the problem. 3) Gradual optimization of the healthcare facility layout in the study area, encompassing holistic, local, and individual institutional levels, can enhance systemic efficiency and resource balance. This research proposes a method for evaluating urban healthcare resource distribution structures based on service flows within hierarchical networks. It offers spatially targeted optimization suggestions for promoting the implementation of the tiered healthcare system and alleviating challenges related to accessibility and congestion in seeking medical care. In addition, the study provides some new ideas for researchers and healthcare managers in countries, cities, and healthcare management around the world with similar challenges.

Keywords: Flow of public services, healthcare facilities, spatial planning, urban networks.

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Authors: Juan-Gabriel Cegarra-Navarro, Alexeis Garcia-Perez, Denise Bedford

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This paper provides guidelines for what constitutes a knowledge worker. Many graduates from non-managerial domains adopt, at some point in their professional careers, management roles at different levels, ranging from team leaders through to executive leadership. This is particularly relevant for professionals from an engineering background. Moving from a technical to an executive-level requires an understanding of those behaviour management techniques that can motivate and support individuals and their performance. Further, the transition to management also demands a shift of contextual enablers from tangible to intangible resources, which allows individuals to create new capacities, competencies, and capabilities. In this dynamic process, the knowledge worker becomes that key individual who can help members of the management board to transform information into relevant knowledge. However, despite its relevance in shaping the future of the organization in its transition to the knowledge economy, the role of a knowledge worker has not yet been studied to an appropriate level in the current literature. In this study, the authors review both the contextual enablers and behaviour outputs related to the role of the knowledge worker and relate these to their ability to deal with everyday management issues such as knowledge heterogeneity, varying motivations, information overload, or outdated information. This study highlights that the aggregate of capacities, competences and capabilities (CCCs) can be defined as knowledge structures, the study proposes several contextual enablers and behaviour outputs that knowledge workers can use to work cooperatively, acquire, distribute and knowledge. Therefore, this study contributes to a better comprehension of how CCCs can be managed at different levels through their contextual enablers and behaviour outputs.

Keywords: Knowledge workers, capacities, competences, capabilities, knowledge structures.

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Authors: Mannan Mridha, Usama Gazay, Kosovare V. Aslani, Hugo Linder, Alice Ravizza, Carmelo de Maria

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In most developing countries, although the vast majority of the people are living in the rural areas, the qualified medical doctors are not available there. Health care workers and paramedics, called village doctors, informal healthcare providers, are largely responsible for the rural medical care. Mishaps due to wrong diagnosis and inappropriate medication have been causing serious suffering that is preventable. While innovators have created many devices, the vast majority of these technologies do not find applications to address the needs and conditions in low-resource settings. The primary motive is to address the acute lack of affordable medical technologies for the poor people in low-resource settings. A low cost smart medical device that is portable, battery operated and can be used at any point of care has been developed to detect breathing rate, electrocardiogram (ECG) and arterial pulse rate to improve diagnosis and monitoring of patients and thus improve care and safety. This simple and easy to use smart medical device can be used, managed and maintained effectively and safely by any health worker with some training. In order to empower the health workers and village doctors, our device is being further developed to integrate with ICT tools like smart phones and connect to the medical experts wherever available, to manage the serious health problems.

Keywords: Healthcare for low resources settings, health awareness education, improve patient care and safety, smart and affordable medical device.

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Authors: Fadi Eleiwi, Taous Meriem Laleg-Kirati

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This paper presents a complete dynamic modeling of a membrane distillation process. The model contains two consistent dynamic models. A 2D advection-diffusion equation for modeling the whole process and a modified heat equation for modeling the membrane itself. The complete model describes the temperature diffusion phenomenon across the feed, membrane, permeate containers and boundary layers of the membrane. It gives an online and complete temperature profile for each point in the domain. It explains heat conduction and convection mechanisms that take place inside the process in terms of mathematical parameters, and justify process behavior during transient and steady state phases. The process is monitored for any sudden change in the performance at any instance of time. In addition, it assists maintaining production rates as desired, and gives recommendations during membrane fabrication stages. System performance and parameters can be optimized and controlled using this complete dynamic model. Evolution of membrane boundary temperature with time, vapor mass transfer along the process, and temperature difference between membrane boundary layers are depicted and included. Simulations were performed over the complete model with real membrane specifications. The plots show consistency between 2D advection-diffusion model and the expected behavior of the systems as well as literature. Evolution of heat inside the membrane starting from transient response till reaching steady state response for fixed and varying times is illustrated.

Keywords: Membrane distillation, Dynamical modeling, Advection-diffusion equation, Thermal equilibrium, Heat equation.

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Authors: Mliki Bouchmel, Belgacem Nabil, Abbassi Mohamed Ammar, Geudri Kamel, Omri Ahmed

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In this numerical work, mixed convection and entropy generation of Cu–water nanofluid in a lid-driven square cavity have been investigated numerically using the Lattice Boltzmann Method. Horizontal walls of the cavity are adiabatic and vertical walls have constant temperature but different values. The top wall has been considered as moving from left to right at a constant speed, U0. The effects of different parameters such as nanoparticle volume concentration (0–0.05), Rayleigh number (104–106) and Reynolds numbers (1, 10 and 100) on the entropy generation, flow and temperature fields are studied. The results have shown that addition of nanoparticles to the base fluid affects the entropy generation, flow pattern and thermal behavior especially at higher Rayleigh and low Reynolds numbers. For pure fluid as well as nanofluid, the increase of Reynolds number increases the average Nusselt number and the total entropy generation, linearly. The maximum entropy generation occurs in nanofluid at low Rayleigh number and at high Reynolds number. The minimum entropy generation occurs in pure fluid at low Rayleigh and Reynolds numbers. Also at higher Reynolds number, the effect of Cu nanoparticles on enhancement of heat transfer was decreased because the effect of lid-driven cavity was increased. The present results are validated by favorable comparisons with previously published results. The results of the problem are presented in graphical and tabular forms and discussed.

Keywords: Entropy generation, mixed convection, nanofluid, lattice Boltzmann method.

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Authors: A. Badoud, M. Khemliche, S. Latreche

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The main objective developed in this paper is to find a graphic technique for modeling, simulation and diagnosis of the industrial systems. This importance is much apparent when it is about a complex system such as the nuclear reactor with pressurized water of several form with various several non-linearity and time scales. In this case the analytical approach is heavy and does not give a fast idea on the evolution of the system. The tool Bond Graph enabled us to transform the analytical model into graphic model and the software of simulation SYMBOLS 2000 specific to the Bond Graphs made it possible to validate and have the results given by the technical specifications. We introduce the analysis of the problem involved in the faults localization and identification in the complex industrial processes. We propose a method of fault detection applied to the diagnosis and to determine the gravity of a detected fault. We show the possibilities of application of the new diagnosis approaches to the complex system control. The industrial systems became increasingly complex with the faults diagnosis procedures in the physical systems prove to become very complex as soon as the systems considered are not elementary any more. Indeed, in front of this complexity, we chose to make recourse to Fault Detection and Isolation method (FDI) by the analysis of the problem of its control and to conceive a reliable system of diagnosis making it possible to apprehend the complex dynamic systems spatially distributed applied to the standard pressurized water nuclear reactor.

Keywords: Bond Graph, Modeling, Simulation, Monitoring, Analytical Redundancy Relations, Pressurized Water Reactor, Directed Graph.

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Authors: Moustafa Osman Mohammed

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This paper will explore formation of HCl aerosol at atmospheric boundary layers and encourages the uptake of environmental modeling systems (EMSs) as a practice evaluation of gaseous emissions (“framework measures”) from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The conceptual model predicts greenhouse gas emissions to ecological points beyond landfill site operations. It focuses on incorporation traditional knowledge into baseline information for both measurement data and the mathematical results, regarding parameters influence model variable inputs. The paper has simplified parameters of aerosol processes based on the more complex aerosol process computations. The simple model can be implemented to both Gaussian and Eulerian rural dispersion models. Aerosol processes considered in this study were (i) the coagulation of particles, (ii) the condensation and evaporation of organic vapors, and (iii) dry deposition. The chemical transformation of gas-phase compounds is taken into account photochemical formulation with exposure effects according to HCl concentrations as starting point of risk assessment. The discussion set out distinctly aspect of sustainability in reflection inputs, outputs, and modes of impact on the environment. Thereby, models incorporate abiotic and biotic species to broaden the scope of integration for both quantification impact and assessment risks. The later environmental obligations suggest either a recommendation or a decision of what is a legislative should be achieved for mitigation measures of landfill gas (LFG) ultimately.

Keywords: Air dispersion model, landfill management, spatial analysis, environmental impact and risk assessment.

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Authors: M. L. Arias, J. D’Adamo, M. N. Novosad, P. A. Raffo, H. P. Burbridge, G. O. Artana

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Shale oils are highly paraffinic and, consequently, can create wax deposits that foul pipelines during transportation. Several factors must be considered when designing pipelines or treatment programs that prevent wax deposition: including chemical species in crude oils, flowrates, pipes diameters and temperature. This paper describes the wax deposition study carried out within the framework of YPF Tecnolgía S.A. (Y-TEC) flow assurance projects, as part of the process to achieve a better understanding on wax deposition issues. Laboratory experiments were performed on a medium size, 1 inch diameter, wax deposition loop of 15 meters long equipped with a solid detector system, online microscope to visualize crystals, temperature, and pressure sensors along the loop pipe. A baseline test was performed with diesel with no added paraffin or additive content. Tests were undertaken with different temperatures of circulating and cooling fluid at different flow conditions. Then, a solution formed with a paraffin incorporated to the diesel was considered. Tests varying flowrate and cooling rate were again run. Viscosity, density, WAT (Wax Appearance Temperature) with DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry), pour point and cold finger measurements were carried out to determine physical properties of the working fluids. The results obtained in the loop were analyzed through momentum balance and heat transfer models. To determine possible paraffin deposition scenarios temperature and pressure loop output signals were studied. They were compared with WAT static laboratory methods.

Keywords: Paraffin deposition, wax, oil pipelines, experimental pipe loop.

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Authors: P. Thepnarintra, S. Nikorn

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Agricultural machinery industry plays an important role in the industrial development especially the production industry of the country. There has been continuing development responding to the higher demand of the production. However, the problem in agricultural machinery production still exists. Thus, the purpose of this research is to investigate problems on fundamental factors of industry based on the entrepreneurs’ point of view. The focus was on the small and medium size industry receiving factory license type number 0660 from the Department of Industrial Works. The investigation was on the comparison between the management of the small and medium size agricultural industry in 3 provinces in the central region of Thailand. Population in this study consisted of 189 company managers or managing directors, of which 101 were from the small size and 88 were from the medium size industry. The data were analyzed to find percentage, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation with independent sample T-test at the statistical significance .05. The results showed that the small and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers in the central region of Thailand reported high problems in every aspect. When compared the problems on basic factors in running the business, it was found that there was no statistically difference at .05 in managing of the small and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the small and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers on the aspect of policy and services of the government. The problems reported by the small and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers were the services on public tap water and the problem on politic and stability of the country.

Keywords: Agricultural machinery, manufacturers, problems, on running the business.

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Authors: Bita Payami-Shabestari, Dariush Eslami

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The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-product economic production quantity model under vendor management inventory policy and restrictions including limited warehouse space, budget, and number of orders, average shortage time and maximum permissible shortage. Since the “costs” cannot be predicted with certainty, it is assumed that data behave under uncertain environment. The problem is first formulated into the framework of a bi-objective of multi-product economic production quantity model. Then, the problem is solved with three multi-objective decision-making (MODM) methods. Then following this, three methods had been compared on information on the optimal value of the two objective functions and the central processing unit (CPU) time with the statistical analysis method and the multi-attribute decision-making (MADM). The results are compared with statistical analysis method and the MADM. The results of the study demonstrate that augmented-constraint in terms of optimal value of the two objective functions and the CPU time perform better than global criteria, and goal programming. Sensitivity analysis is done to illustrate the effect of parameter variations on the optimal solution. The contribution of this research is the use of random costs data in developing a multi-product economic production quantity model under vendor management inventory policy with several constraints.

Keywords: Economic production quantity, random cost, supply chain management, vendor-managed inventory.

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Authors: W. Ketren, J. Wannapeera, Z. Heishun, A. Ryuichi, K. Toshiteru, M. Kouichi, O. Hideaki

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Degradative solvent extraction is the method developed for biomass upgrading by dewatering and fractionation of biomass under the mild condition. However, the conversion mechanism of the degradative solvent extraction method has not been fully understood so far. The rice straw was treated in 1-methylnaphthalene (1-MN) at a different solvent-treatment temperature varied from 250 to 350 ^oC with the residence time for 60 min. The liquid membrane-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) technique is applied to study the processing mechanism in-depth without separation of the solvent. It has been found that the strength of the oxygen-hydrogen stretching  (3600-3100 cm^-1) decreased slightly with increasing temperature in the range of 300-350 ^oC. The decrease of the hydroxyl group in the solvent soluble suggested dehydration reaction taking place between 300 and 350 ^oC. FTIR spectra in the carbonyl stretching region (1800-1600 cm^-1) revealed the presence of esters groups, carboxylic acid and ketonic groups in the solvent-soluble of biomass. The carboxylic acid increased in the range of 200 to 250 ^oC and then decreased. The prevailing of aromatic groups showed that the aromatization took place during extraction at above 250 ^oC. From 300 to 350 ^oC, the carbonyl functional groups in the solvent-soluble noticeably decreased. The removal of the carboxylic acid and the decrease of esters into the form of carbon dioxide indicated that the decarboxylation reaction occurred during the extraction process.

Keywords: Biomass upgrading, liquid membrane-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, FTIR, degradative solvent extraction, mechanism.

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Authors: Jagadish H. Pujar, Pallavi S. Gurjal, Shambhavi D. S, Kiran S. Kunnur

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Medical image segmentation based on image smoothing followed by edge detection assumes a great degree of importance in the field of Image Processing. In this regard, this paper proposes a novel algorithm for medical image segmentation based on vigorous smoothening by identifying the type of noise and edge diction ideology which seems to be a boom in medical image diagnosis. The main objective of this algorithm is to consider a particular medical image as input and make the preprocessing to remove the noise content by employing suitable filter after identifying the type of noise and finally carrying out edge detection for image segmentation. The algorithm consists of three parts. First, identifying the type of noise present in the medical image as additive, multiplicative or impulsive by analysis of local histograms and denoising it by employing Median, Gaussian or Frost filter. Second, edge detection of the filtered medical image is carried out using Canny edge detection technique. And third part is about the segmentation of edge detected medical image by the method of Normalized Cut Eigen Vectors. The method is validated through experiments on real images. The proposed algorithm has been simulated on MATLAB platform. The results obtained by the simulation shows that the proposed algorithm is very effective which can deal with low quality or marginal vague images which has high spatial redundancy, low contrast and biggish noise, and has a potential of certain practical use of medical image diagnosis.

Keywords: Image Segmentation, Image smoothing, Edge Detection, Impulsive noise, Gaussian noise, Median filter, Canny edge, Eigen values, Eigen vector.

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Authors: G. Gokceli, O. Eksik, E. Ozkan Zayim, N. Karatepe

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Alternative electrode materials for optoelectronic devices have been widely investigated in recent years. Since indium tin oxide (ITO) is the most preferred transparent conductive electrode, producing ITO films by simple and cost-effective solution-based techniques with enhanced optical and electrical properties has great importance. In this study, single- and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT and MWCNT) incorporated into the ITO structure to increase electrical conductivity, mechanical strength, and chemical stability. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were firstly functionalized by acid treatment (HNO₃:H₂SO₄), and the thermal resistance of CNTs after functionalization was determined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Thin films were then prepared by spin coating technique and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), four-point probe measurement system and UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The effects of process parameters were compared for ITO, MWCNT-ITO, and SWCNT-ITO films. Two factors including CNT concentration and annealing temperature were considered. The UV-Vis measurements demonstrated that the transmittance of ITO films was 83.58% at 550 nm, which was decreased depending on the concentration of CNT dopant. On the other hand, both CNT dopants provided an enhancement in the crystalline structure and electrical conductivity. Due to compatible diameter and better dispersibility of SWCNTs in the ITO solution, the best result in terms of electrical conductivity was obtained by SWCNT-ITO films with the 0.1 g/L SWCNT dopant concentration and heat-treatment at 550 °C for 1 hour.

Keywords: CNT incorporation, ITO electrode, spin coating, thin film.

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Authors: D. Jayalakshmi, S. Bhosale

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This paper, in its first part, presents the state-of-the-art literature of design approaches for geosynthetic reinforced unpaved roads. The literature starting since 1970 and the critical appraisal of flexible pavement design by Giroud and Han (2004) and Jonathan Fannin (2006) is presented. The design example is illustrated for Indian conditions. The example emphasizes the results computed by Giroud and Han's (2004) design method with the Indian road congress guidelines by IRC SP 72 -2015. The input data considered are related to the subgrade soil condition of Maharashtra State in India. The unified soil classification of the subgrade soil is inorganic clay with high plasticity (CH), which is expansive with a California bearing ratio (CBR) of 2% to 3%. The example exhibits the unreinforced case and geotextile as reinforcement by varying the rut depth from 25 mm to 100 mm. The present result reveals the base thickness for the unreinforced case from the IRC design catalogs is in good agreement with Giroud and Han (2004) approach for a range of 75 mm to 100 mm rut depth. Since Giroud and Han (2004) method is applicable for both reinforced and unreinforced cases, for the same data with appropriate Nc factor, for the same rut depth, the base thickness for the reinforced case has arrived for the Indian condition. From this trial, for the CBR of 2%, the base thickness reduction due to geotextile inclusion is 35%. For the CBR range of 2% to 5% with different stiffness in geosynthetics, the reduction in base course thickness will be evaluated, and the validation will be executed by the full-scale accelerated pavement testing set up at the College of Engineering Pune (COE), India.

Keywords: Base thickness, design approach, equation, full scale accelerated pavement set up, Indian condition.

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Authors: Eun Mi Ryu, Ah Young An, Ji Yeon Kang, Yeong Soo Shin, Hee Sun Kim

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When high strength reinforced concrete is exposed to high temperature due to a fire, deteriorations occur such as loss in strength and elastic modulus, cracking and spalling of the concrete. Therefore, it is important to understand risk of structural safety in building structures by studying structural behaviors and rehabilitation of fire damaged high strength concrete structures. This paper aims at investigating rehabilitation effect on fire damaged high strength concrete beams using experimental and analytical methods. In the experiments, flexural specimens with high strength concrete are exposed to high temperatures according to ISO 834 standard time temperature curve. From four-point loading test, results show that maximum loads of the rehabilitated beams are similar to or higher than those of the non-fire damaged RC beam. In addition, structural analyses are performed using ABAQUS 6.10-3 with same conditions as experiments to provide accurate predictions on structural and mechanical behaviors of rehabilitated RC beams. The parameters are the fire cover thickness and strengths of repairing mortar. Analytical results show good rehabilitation effects, when the results predicted from the rehabilitated models are compared to structural behaviors of the non-damaged RC beams. In this study, fire damaged high strength concrete beams are rehabilitated using polymeric cement mortar. The predictions from the finite element (FE) models show good agreements with the experimental results and the modeling approaches can be used to investigate applicability of various rehabilitation methods for further study.

Keywords: Fire, High strength concrete, Rehabilitation, Reinforced concrete beam.

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Authors: Meenal Surawar, Rajashree Kotharkar

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Urban Heat Island (UHI) is found more pronounced as a prominent urban environmental concern in developing cities. To study the UHI effect in the Indian context, the Nagpur urban area has been explored in this paper using Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite images through Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. This paper intends to study the effect of LU/LC pattern on daytime Land Surface Temperature (LST) variation, contributing UHI formation within the Nagpur Urban area. Supervised LU/LC area classification was carried to study urban Change detection using ENVI 5. Change detection has been studied by carrying Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to understand the proportion of vegetative cover with respect to built-up ratio. Detection of spectral radiance from the thermal band of satellite images was processed to calibrate LST. Specific representative areas on the basis of urban built-up and vegetation classification were selected for observation of point LST. The entire Nagpur urban area shows that, as building density increases with decrease in vegetation cover, LST increases, thereby causing the UHI effect. UHI intensity has gradually increased by 0.7°C from 2000 to 2006; however, a drastic increase has been observed with difference of 1.8°C during the period 2006 to 2013. Within the Nagpur urban area, the UHI effect was formed due to increase in building density and decrease in vegetative cover.

Keywords: Land use, land cover, land surface temperature, remote sensing, urban heat island.

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Authors: Jing Wu, Wei Lv, Yibing Li, Yuanfan You

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The separation of speech signals has become a research hotspot in the field of signal processing in recent years. It has many applications and influences in teleconferencing, hearing aids, speech recognition of machines and so on. The sounds received are usually noisy. The issue of identifying the sounds of interest and obtaining clear sounds in such an environment becomes a problem worth exploring, that is, the problem of blind source separation. This paper focuses on the under-determined blind source separation (UBSS). Sparse component analysis is generally used for the problem of under-determined blind source separation. The method is mainly divided into two parts. Firstly, the clustering algorithm is used to estimate the mixing matrix according to the observed signals. Then the signal is separated based on the known mixing matrix. In this paper, the problem of mixing matrix estimation is studied. This paper proposes an improved algorithm to estimate the mixing matrix for speech signals in the UBSS model. The traditional potential algorithm is not accurate for the mixing matrix estimation, especially for low signal-to noise ratio (SNR).In response to this problem, this paper considers the idea of an improved potential function method to estimate the mixing matrix. The algorithm not only avoids the inuence of insufficient prior information in traditional clustering algorithm, but also improves the estimation accuracy of mixing matrix. This paper takes the mixing of four speech signals into two channels as an example. The results of simulations show that the approach in this paper not only improves the accuracy of estimation, but also applies to any mixing matrix.

Keywords: Clustering algorithm, potential function, speech signal, the UBSS model.

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Authors: H K Lakshminarayana, J S Bhat, H M Mahesh

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A new estimator for evolutionary spectrum (ES) based on short time Fourier transform (STFT) and modified group delay function (MGDF) by signal decomposition (SD) is proposed. The STFT due to its built-in averaging, suppresses the cross terms and the MGDF preserves the frequency resolution of the rectangular window with the reduction in the Gibbs ripple. The present work overcomes the magnitude distortion observed in multi-component non-stationary signals with STFT and MGDF estimation of ES using SD. The SD is achieved either through discrete cosine transform based harmonic wavelet transform (DCTHWT) or perfect reconstruction filter banks (PRFB). The MGDF also improves the signal to noise ratio by removing associated noise. The performance of the present method is illustrated for cross chirp and frequency shift keying (FSK) signals, which indicates that its performance is better than STFT-MGDF (STFT-GD) alone. Further its noise immunity is better than STFT. The SD based methods, however cannot bring out the frequency transition path from band to band clearly, as there will be gap in the contour plot at the transition. The PRFB based STFT-SD shows good performance than DCTHWT decomposition method for STFT-GD.

Keywords: Evolutionary Spectrum, Modified Group Delay, Discrete Cosine Transform, Harmonic Wavelet Transform, Perfect Reconstruction Filter Banks, Short Time Fourier Transform.

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Authors: Bilgehan Gültekin, Tuba Gültekin

Abstract:

It is quite essential to form dialogue mechanisms and dialogue channels to solve intercultural communication issues. Therefore, every country should develop a intercultural education project which aims to resolve international communication issues. For proper mediation training, the first step is to reach an agreement on the actors to run the project. The strongest mediation mechanisms in the world should be analyzed and initiated within the educational policies. A communication-based mediation model should be developed for international mediation training. Mediators can use their convincing communication skills as a part of this model. At the first, fundamental stages of the mediation training should be specified within the scope of the model. Another important topic at this point is common sence and peace leaders to act as an ombudsman in this process. Especially for solving some social issues and conflicts, common sense leaders acting as an ombudsman would lead to effective communication. In mediation training that is run by universities and non-governmental organizations, another phase is to focus on conducting the meetings. In intercultural mediation training, one of the most critical topics is to conduct the meeting traffic and performing a shuttle diplomacy. Meeting traffic is where the mediator organizes meetings with the parties with initiative powers, in order to contribute to the solution of the issue, and schedule these meetings. In this notice titled “ Intercultural mediation training and the training process of common sense leaders by the leadership of universities communication and artistic campaigns" , communication models and strategies about this topic will be constructed and an intercultural art activities and perspectives will be presented.

Keywords: Intercultural communication, mediation education, common sense leaders, artistic sensitivity

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Authors: A. Bajit, M. Nahid, A. Tamtaoui, E. H. Bouyakhf

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a Perceptually Optimized Foveation based Embedded ZeroTree Image Coder (POEFIC) that introduces a perceptual weighting to wavelet coefficients prior to control SPIHT encoding algorithm in order to reach a targeted bit rate with a perceptual quality improvement with respect to a given bit rate a fixation point which determines the region of interest ROI. The paper also, introduces a new objective quality metric based on a Psychovisual model that integrates the properties of the HVS that plays an important role in our POEFIC quality assessment. Our POEFIC coder is based on a vision model that incorporates various masking effects of human visual system HVS perception. Thus, our coder weights the wavelet coefficients based on that model and attempts to increase the perceptual quality for a given bit rate and observation distance. The perceptual weights for all wavelet subbands are computed based on 1) foveation masking to remove or reduce considerable high frequencies from peripheral regions 2) luminance and Contrast masking, 3) the contrast sensitivity function CSF to achieve the perceptual decomposition weighting. The new perceptually optimized codec has the same complexity as the original SPIHT techniques. However, the experiments results show that our coder demonstrates very good performance in terms of quality measurement.

Keywords: DWT, linear-phase 9/7 filter, Foveation Filtering, CSF implementation approaches, 9/7 Wavelet JND Thresholds and Wavelet Error Sensitivity WES, Luminance and Contrast masking, standard SPIHT, Objective Quality Measure, Probability Score PS.

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Authors: Seyed Sina Khamesi, Rana Rafiei

Abstract:

The extensive aeration process is widely used for wastewater treatment. However, due to the high energy consumption of this process, which is closely related to the issues of environmental sustainability and global climate change, this article presents a simple solution to reduce energy consumption in this process. The amount of required energy is one of the critical considerations for various wastewater treatment techniques. For this purpose, an industrial wastewater treatment plant and all energy-consumer equipment in terms of energy consumption have been analyzed. The investigations and measurements revealed that the aeration unit has the highest energy consumption rate. To address this, an innovative approach is proposed to reduce energy consumption in the identified high-consumer unit. The proposed solution involves introducing baffles to divide the tank into multiple parts and using a tank with a small width and long length to enhance the mixing process. This approach reduces the need for additional equipment and significantly lowers energy consumption. To thoroughly scrutinize the proposed solution and analyze the behavior of the multi-phase fluid inside the tank, the sewage flow has been modeled using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The study presents an optimal design for the aeration unit based on these findings. The results indicate that implementing the technique suggested in this article can decrease total energy consumption by 33.15% and can be applied to all types of biological treatment plants.

Keywords: Wastewater treatment, aeration, energy consumption, Computational Fluid Dynamics, activated sludge.

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Authors: Tang Mui Joo, Chan Eang Teng

Abstract:

The use of social media has become more defined. It has been widely used for the purpose of business. More marketers are now using social media as tools to enhance their businesses. Whereas on the other hand, there are more and more people spending their time through mobile apps to be engaged in the social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others. Social media has even become common in Public Relations (PR). It has become number one platform for creating and sharing content. In view to this, social media has changed the rules in PR where it brings new challenges and opportunities to the profession. Although corporate websites, chat-rooms, email customer response facilities and electronic news release distribution are now viewed as standard aspects of PR practice, many PR practitioners are still struggling with the impact of new media though the implementation of social media is potentially reducing the cost of communication. It is to the point that PR practitioners are not fully embracing new media, they are ill-equipped to do so and they have a fear of the technology. Somehow that social media has become a new style of communication that is characterized by conversation and community. It has become a platform that allows individuals to interact with one another and build relationship among each other. Therefore, in the use of business world, consumers are able to interact with those companies that have joined any social media. Based on their experiences with social networking site interactions, they are also exposed to personal interaction while communicating. This paper is to study the impact of social media to PR. This paper discovers the potential changes of PR practices in a developing country like Malaysia. Eventually the study reflects on how PR practitioners are actually using social media in the country. This paper is based on two theories in its development of this research foundation. Media Ecology Theory is to support the impact and changes to PR. Social Penetration Theory is to reflect on how the use of social media is among PRs. This research is using survey with PR practitioners in its data collection. The results have shown that PR professionals value social media more than they actually use it and the way of organizations communicate had been changed due to the transformation of social media.

Keywords: New media, social media, PR.

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Authors: Kohtaroh Miyamoto

Abstract:

As enterprise computing becomes more and more complex, the costs and technical challenges of IT system maintenance and support are increasing rapidly. One popular approach to managing IT system maintenance is to prepare and use a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) system to manage and reuse systems knowledge. Such a FAQ system can help reduce the resolution time for each service incident ticket. However, there is a major problem where over time the knowledge in such FAQs tends to become outdated. Much of the knowledge captured in the FAQ requires periodic updates in response to new insights or new trends in the problems addressed in order to maintain its usefulness for problem resolution. These updates require a systematic approach to define the exact portion of the FAQ and its content. Therefore, we are working on a novel method to hierarchically structure the FAQ and automate the updates of its structure and content. We use structured information and the unstructured text information with the timelines of the information in the service incident tickets. We cluster the tickets by structured category information, by keywords, and by keyword modifiers for the unstructured text information. We also calculate an urgency score based on trends, resolution times, and priorities. We carefully studied the tickets of one of our projects over a 2.5-year time period. After the first 6 months we started to create FAQs and confirmed they improved the resolution times. We continued observing over the next 2 years to assess the ongoing effectiveness of our method for the automatic FAQ updates. We improved the ratio of tickets covered by the FAQ from 32.3% to 68.9% during this time. Also, the average time reduction of ticket resolution was between 31.6% and 43.9%. Subjective analysis showed more than 75% reported that the FAQ system was useful in reducing ticket resolution times.

Keywords: FAQ System, Resolution Time, Service Incident Tickets, IT System Maintenance.

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Authors: Geng Xiangren, Liu Lei, Gui Ye-Wei, Tang Wei, Wang An-ling

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The malfunction of thermal protection system (TPS) caused by aerodynamic heating is a latent trouble to aircraft structure safety. Accurately predicting the structure temperature field is quite important for the TPS design of hypersonic vehicle. Since Thornton’s work in 1988, the coupled method of aerodynamic heating and heat transfer has developed rapidly. However, little attention has been paid to the influence of structural deformation on aerodynamic heating and structural temperature field. In the flight, especially the long-endurance flight, the structural deformation, caused by the aerodynamic heating and temperature rise, has a direct impact on the aerodynamic heating and structural temperature field. Thus, the coupled interaction cannot be neglected. In this paper, based on the method of static aero-thermo-elasticity, considering the influence of aero-thermo-elasticity deformation, the aerodynamic heating and heat transfer coupled results of hypersonic vehicle wing model were calculated. The results show that, for the low-curvature region, such as fuselage or center-section wing, structure deformation has little effect on temperature field. However, for the stagnation region with high curvature, the coupled effect is not negligible. Thus, it is quite important for the structure temperature prediction to take into account the effect of elastic deformation. This work has laid a solid foundation for improving the prediction accuracy of the temperature distribution of aircraft structures and the evaluation capacity of structural performance.

Keywords: Aero-thermo-elasticity, elastic deformation, structural temperature, multi-field coupling.

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Authors: Ashish R. Tanna, Hiren H. Joshi

Abstract:

The mineral having chemical compositional formula MgAl2O4 is called “spinel". The ferrites crystallize in spinel structure are known as spinel-ferrites or ferro-spinels. The spinel structure has a fcc cage of oxygen ions and the metallic cations are distributed among tetrahedral (A) and octahedral (B) interstitial voids (sites). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) intensity of each Bragg plane is sensitive to the distribution of cations in the interstitial voids of the spinel lattice. This leads to the method of determination of distribution of cations in the spinel oxides through XRD intensity analysis. The computer program for XRD intensity analysis has been developed in C language and also tested for the real experimental situation by synthesizing the spinel ferrite materials Mg0.6Zn0.4AlxFe2- xO4 and characterized them by X-ray diffractometry. The compositions of Mg0.6Zn0.4AlxFe2-xO4(x = 0.0 to 0.6) ferrites have been prepared by ceramic method and powder X-ray diffraction patterns were recorded. Thus, the authenticity of the program is checked by comparing the theoretically calculated data using computer simulation with the experimental ones. Further, the deduced cation distributions were used to fit the magnetization data using Localized canting of spins approach to explain the “recovery" of collinear spin structure due to Al3+ - substitution in Mg-Zn ferrites which is the case if A-site magnetic dilution and non-collinear spin structure. Since the distribution of cations in the spinel ferrites plays a very important role with regard to their electrical and magnetic properties, it is essential to determine the cation distribution in spinel lattice.

Keywords: Spinel ferrites, Localized canting of spins, X-ray diffraction, Programming in Borland C.

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