Search results for: Nonlinear critical systems

Authors: Ponshano Kaselekela, Simooya O. Oscar, Lunshano Boyd

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The Copperbelt University Health Services (CBUHS) was designated by the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA), formally the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority (PRA) as a regional pharmacovigilance centre to carryout activities of drug safety monitoring in four provinces in Zambia. CBUHS’s mandate included stimulating the reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs), as well as collecting and collating ADR reports from health institutions in the four provinces. This report covers the researchers’ experiences from May 2008 to September, 2016. The main objectives are 1) to monitor ADRs in the Zambian population, 2) to disseminate information to all health professionals in the region advising that the CBU health was a centre for reporting ADRs in the region, 3) to monitor polypharmacy as well as the benefit-risk profile of medicines, 4) to generate independent, evidence based recommendations on the safety of medicines, 5) to support ZAMRA in formulating safety related regulatory decisions for medicines, and 6) to communicate findings with all key stakeholders. The methodology involved monthly visits, beginning in early May 2008 to September, 2016, by the CBUHS to health institutions in the programme areas. Activities included holding discussions with health workers, distribution of ADR forms and collection of ADRs reports. These reports, once collected, were documented and assessed at the CBUHS. A report was then prepared for ZAMRA on quarterly basis. At ZAMRA, serious ADRs were noted and recommendations made to the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Zambia. The results show that 2,600 ADRs reports were received at the pharmacovigilance regional centre. Most of the ADRs reports that received were due to antiretroviral drugs, as well as a few from anti-malarial drugs like Artemether/Lumefantrine – Coartem®. Three hundred and twelve ADRs were entered in the Uppsala Monitoring Centre WHO Vigiflow for further analysis. It was concluded that in general, 2008-16 were exciting years for the pharmacovigilance group at CBUHS. From a very tentative beginning, a lot of strides were made and contacts established with healthcare facilities in the region. The researchers were encouraged by the support received from the Copperbelt University management, the motivation provided by ZAMRA and most importantly the enthusiasm of health workers in all the health care facilities visited. As a centre for drug safety in Zambia, the results show it achieves its objectives for monitoring ADRs, Pharmacovigilance (drug safety monitoring), and activities of monitoring ADRs as well as preventing them. However, the centre faces critical challenges caused by erratic funding that prevents the smooth running of the programme.

Keywords: Assessments, evaluation, monitoring, pharmacovigilance.

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Authors: P. van Tonder, C. C. Kruger

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Concrete structures deteriorate over time and degradation escalates due to various factors. The rate of deterioration can be complex and unpredictable in nature. Such deteriorations may be located beneath the surface of the concrete at high elevations. This emphasizes the need for an efficient method of finding such defects to be able to assess the severity thereof. Current methods using thermography to find defects require equipment to reach higher elevations. This could become costly and time consuming not to mention the risks involved in having personnel scaffold or abseiling at such heights. Accordingly, by combining the thermal camera needed for thermography and a remotely piloted aerial system (Drone/RPAS), it could be used to alleviate some of the issues mentioned. Images can be translated into a 3D temperature model to aid concrete diagnostics and with further research can relate back to the mechanical properties of the structure but will not be dealt with in this paper. Such diagnostics includes finding delamination, similar to finding delamination on concrete decks, which resides beneath the surface of the concrete before spalling can occur. Delamination can be caused by reinforcement eroding and causing expansion beneath the concrete surface. This could lead to spalling, where concrete pieces start breaking off from the main concrete structure.

Keywords: Concrete, diagnostic, infrared thermography, 3D thermal models.

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Authors: Akshoy R. Paul, Pritanshu Ranjan, Ravi R. Upadhyay, Anuj Jain

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Aircraft propulsion systems often use Y-shaped subsonic diffusing ducts as twin air-intakes to supply the ambient air into the engine compressor for thrust generation. Due to space constraint, the diffusers need to be curved, which causes severe flow non-uniformity at the engine face. The present study attempt to control flow in a mild-curved Y-duct diffuser using trapezoidalshaped vortex generators (VG) attached on either both the sidewalls or top and bottom walls of the diffuser at the inflexion plane. A commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code is modified and is used to simulate the effects of SVG in flow of a Y-duct diffuser. A few experiments are conducted for CFD code validation, while the rest are done computationally. The best combination of Yduct diffuser is found with VG-2 arranged in co-rotating sequence and attached to both the sidewalls, which ensures highest static pressure recovery, lowest total pressure loss, minimum flow distortion and less flow separation in Y-duct diffuser. The decrease in VG height while attached to top and bottom walls further improves axial flow uniformity at the diffuser outlet by a great margin as compared to the bare duct.

Keywords: Twin air-intake, Vortex generator (VG), Turbulence model, Pressure recovery, Distortion coefficient

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Authors: Sidharth Talan, Sanjay Kumar Sharma, Eoin Joseph Wallace, Nikita Agrawal

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Underground mining is at the core of rapidly evolving metals and minerals sector due to the increasing mineral consumption globally. Even though the surface mines are still more abundant on earth, the scales of industry are slowly tipping towards underground mining due to rising depth and complexities of orebodies. Thus, the efficient and productive functioning of underground operations depends significantly on the synchronized performance of key elements such as operating site, mining equipment, manpower and mine services. Production drilling is the process of conducting long hole drilling for the purpose of charging and blasting these holes for the production of ore in underground metal mines. Thus, production drilling is the crucial segment in the underground metal mining value chain. This paper presents the process mapping tool to evaluate the production drilling process in the underground metal mining operation by dividing the given process into three segments namely Input, Process and Output. The three segments are further segregated into factors and sub-factors. As per the study, the major input factors crucial for the efficient functioning of production drilling process are power, drilling water, geotechnical support of the drilling site, skilled drilling operators, services installation crew, oils and drill accessories for drilling machine, survey markings at drill site, proper housekeeping, regular maintenance of drill machine, suitable transportation for reaching the drilling site and finally proper ventilation. The major outputs for the production drilling process are ore, waste as a result of dilution, timely reporting and investigation of unsafe practices, optimized process time and finally well fragmented blasted material within specifications set by the mining company. The paper also exhibits the drilling loss matrix, which is utilized to appraise the loss in planned production meters per day in a mine on account of availability loss in the machine due to breakdowns, underutilization of the machine and productivity loss in the machine measured in drilling meters per unit of percussion hour with respect to its planned productivity for the day. The given three losses would be essential to detect the bottlenecks in the process map of production drilling operation so as to instigate the action plan to suppress or prevent the causes leading to the operational performance deficiency. The given tool is beneficial to mine management to focus on the critical factors negatively impacting the production drilling operation and design necessary operational and maintenance strategies to mitigate them. 

Keywords: Process map, drilling loss matrix, availability, utilization, productivity, percussion rate.

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Authors: Raed EL-Khalil, Hussein Zeaiter

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Managing and improving efficiency in the current highly competitive global automotive industry demands that those companies adopt leaner and more flexible systems. During the past 20 years the domestic automotive industry in North America has been focusing on establishing new management strategies in order to meet market demands. The lean management process also known as Toyota Manufacturing Process (TPS) or lean manufacturing encompasses tools and techniques that were established in order to provide the best quality product with the fastest lead time at the lowest cost. The following paper presents a study that focused on improving labor efficiency at one of the Big Three (Ford, GM, Chrysler LLC) domestic automotive facility in North America. The objective of the study was to utilize several lean management tools in order to optimize the efficiency and utilization levels at the “Pre- Marriage” chassis area in a truck manufacturing and assembly facility. Utilizing three different lean tools (i.e. Standardization of work, 7 Wastes, and 5S) this research was able to improve efficiency by 51%, utilization by 246%, and reduce operations by 14%. The return on investment calculated based on the improvements made was 284%.

Keywords: Lean Manufacturing, Standardized Work, Operation Efficiency and Utilization, Operations Management.

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Authors: Levan Sabauri

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Audit is an independent inspection of the financial statement of the audited person and expresses the opinion of an auditor on the reliability of this statement. The auditor’s activity (auditor’s service) is realized by auditing organizations, individual auditors in connection to conduction of an audit and rendering of audit accompanying services. The profession of auditor means a high level of responsibility for rendered service. Results of decisions made by information users depend on the quality of the auditor’s conclusion. Owners, investors, creditors, and society rely on the opinion of the auditor under the condition that inspection was conducted with good quality. Therefore, the existence of the well-functioning audit quality control system for the administering of the audit is an important issue. An efficient audit quality control system is a substantial challenge that many countries face worldwide, especially those states where these systems are being formed within the respective reform program. The presented article reflects on the best practices of the leading countries, the assumptions and recommendations for the financial accounting, reporting and audit; current reforms in Georgia are made based on this comparative analysis.

Keywords: Audit quality control, audit program, financial statement, perspective analysis.

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Authors: M. Tufekci, C. Guven

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In Automotive Industry, sliding door systems that are also used as body closures are safety members. Extreme product tests are realized to prevent failures in design process, but these tests realized experimentally result in high costs. Finite element analysis is an effective tool used for design process. These analyses are used before production of prototype for validation of design according to customer requirement. In result of this, substantial amount of time and cost is saved. Finite element model is created for geometries that are designed in 3D CAD programs. Different element types as bar, shell and solid, can be used for creating mesh model. Cheaper model can be created by selection of element type, but combination of element type that was used in model, number and geometry of element and degrees of freedom affects the analysis result. Sliding door system is a good example which used these methods for this study. Structural analysis was realized for sliding door mechanism by using FE models. As well, physical tests that have same boundary conditions with FE models were realized. Comparison study for these element types, were done regarding test and analyses results then optimum combination was achieved.

Keywords: Finite Element Analysis, Sliding Door Mechanism, Element Type, Structural Analysis.

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Authors: M. Abdollahi, S. N. Moghaddas Tafreshi

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Expanded polystyrene (EPS) geofoam is often used in below ground applications in geotechnical engineering. A most recent configuration system implemented in roadways to protect lifelines such as buried pipes, electrical cables and culvert systems could be consisted of two EPS geofoam blocks, “posts” placed on each side of the structure, an EPS block capping, “beam” put atop two posts, and soil cover on the beam. In this configuration, a rectangular void space will be built atop the lifeline. EPS blocks will stand all the imposed vertical forces due to their strength and deformability, thus the lifeline will experience no vertical stress. The present paper describes the results of a numerical study on the post and beam configuration subjected to the static loading. Three-dimensional finite element analysis using ABAQUS software is carried out to investigate the effect of different parameters such as beam thickness, soil thickness over the beam, post height to width ratio, EPS density, and free span between two posts, on the stress distribution and the deflection of the beam. The results show favorable performance of EPS geofoam for protecting sensitive infrastructures.

Keywords: Beam, EPS block, numerical analysis, post, stress distribution.

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Authors: Kittipong Tissayakorn, Fumio Akagi, Yu Song

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Manufacturers have been exploring innovative strategies to achieve and sustain competitive advantages as they face a new era of intensive global competition. Such strategy is known as Supply Chain Management (SCM), which has gained a tremendous amount of attention from both researchers and practitioners over the last decade. Supply chain management (SCM) is considered as the most popular operating strategy for improving organizational competitiveness in the twenty-first century. It has attracted a lot of attention recently due to its role involving all of the activities in industrial organizations, ranging from raw material procurement to final product delivery to customers. Well-designed supply chain systems can substantially improve efficiency and product quality, and eventually enhance customer satisfaction and profitability. In this paper, a manufacturing engineering perspective on supply chain integration is presented. Research issues discussed include the product and process design for the supply chain, design evaluation of manufacturing in the supply chain, agent-based techniques for supply chain integration, intelligent information for sharing across the supply chain, and a development of standards for product, process, and production data exchange to facilitate electronic commerce. The objective is to provide guidelines and references for manufacturing engineers and researchers interested in supply chain integration.

Keywords: Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Integration, Manufacturing Industries.

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Authors: Qasem Qananwah, Ahmad Dagamseh, Hiam AlQuran, Khalid Shaker Ibrahim

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Blood pressure helps the physicians greatly to have a deep insight into the cardiovascular system. The determination of individual blood pressure is a standard clinical procedure considered for cardiovascular system problems. The conventional techniques to measure blood pressure (e.g. cuff method) allows a limited number of readings for a certain period (e.g. every 5-10 minutes). Additionally, these systems cause turbulence to blood flow; impeding continuous blood pressure monitoring, especially in emergency cases or critically ill persons. In this paper, the most important statistical features in the photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals were extracted to estimate the blood pressure noninvasively. PPG signals from more than 40 subjects were measured and analyzed and 12 features were extracted. The features were fed to principal component analysis (PCA) to find the most important independent features that have the highest correlation with blood pressure. The results show that the stiffness index means and standard deviation for the beat-to-beat heart rate were the most important features. A model representing both features for Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) was obtained using a statistical regression technique. Surface fitting is used to best fit the series of data and the results show that the error value in estimating the SBP is 4.95% and in estimating the DBP is 3.99%.

Keywords: Blood pressure, noninvasive optical system, PCA, continuous monitoring.

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Authors: Mahmoud Tarek Mohamed Hammad

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Despite the importance of the role and efforts made by the universities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in reviving and preserving heritage architecture as an important cultural heritage in the Kingdom, The idea revolves around restoration and conservation processes and neglects the architectural heritage values, whose content can be used in sustainable contemporary architectural works. Educational values based on heritage architecture and how to integrate with the contemporary requirements were investigated in this research. For this purpose, by understanding the heritage architectural values as well as educational, academic process, the researcher presented an educational model of questionnaire forms for architecture students and the staff at the Architecture Department at Al-Baha University as a case study that serves the aims of the research. The results of the research show that heritage values especially those interview results are considered as a positive indicator of the importance of these values. The students and the staff need both to gain an understanding of heritage values as well as an understanding of theories of incorporating those values into the design process of contemporary local architecture. The research concludes that a correct understanding of the heritage values, its performance, and its reintegration with modern architecture technology should be focused on architectural education.

Keywords: Heritage architecture, academic work, heritage values, sustainable contemporary local architectural.

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Authors: Sally Naji, Julie Gwilliam

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Climate change remains a challenging matter for the human and the built environment in the 21st century, where the need to consider adaptation to climate change in the development process is paramount. However, there remains a lack of information regarding how we should prepare responses to this issue, such as through developing organized and sophisticated tools enabling the adaptation process. This study aims to build a systematic framework approach to investigate the potentials that Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment tools (NSA) might offer in enabling both the analysis of the emerging adaptive capacity to climate change. The analysis of the framework presented in this paper aims to discuss this issue in three main phases. The first part attempts to link sustainability and climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity. It is argued that in deciding to promote sustainability in the context of climate change, both the resilience and vulnerability processes become central. However, there is still a gap in the current literature regarding how the sustainable development process can respond to climate change. As well as how the resilience of practical strategies might be evaluated. It is suggested that the integration of the sustainability assessment processes with both the resilience thinking process, and vulnerability might provide important components for addressing the adaptive capacity to climate change. A critical review of existing literature is presented illustrating the current lack of work in this field, integrating these three concepts in the context of addressing the adaptive capacity to climate change. The second part aims to identify the most appropriate scale at which to address the built environment for the climate change adaptation. It is suggested that the neighborhood scale can be considered as more suitable than either the building or urban scales. It then presents the example of NSAs, and discusses the need to explore their potential role in promoting the adaptive capacity to climate change. The third part of the framework presents a comparison among three example NSAs, BREEAM Communities, LEED-ND, and CASBEE-UD. These three tools have been selected as the most developed and comprehensive assessment tools that are currently available for the neighborhood scale. This study concludes that NSAs are likely to present the basis for an organized framework to address the practical process for analyzing and yet promoting Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change. It is further argued that vulnerability (exposure & sensitivity) and resilience (Interdependence & Recovery) form essential aspects to be addressed in the future assessment of NSA’s capability to adapt to both short and long term climate change impacts. Finally, it is acknowledged that further work is now required to understand impact assessment in terms of the range of physical sectors (Water, Energy, Transportation, Building, Land Use and Ecosystems), Actor and stakeholder engagement as well as a detailed evaluation of the NSA indicators, together with a barriers diagnosis process.

Keywords: Adaptive capacity, climate change, NSA tools, resilience, vulnerability.

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Authors: Kalthoum Riahi, Max T. Rietberg, Javier Perez y Perez, Corné Dijkstra, Bennie ten Haken, Lejla Alic

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Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are widely used to facilitate magnetic particle imaging (MPI) which has the potential to become the leading diagnostic instrument for biomedical imaging. This comparative study assesses the effects of changing iron content and excitation frequency on point-spread function (PSF) representing the effect of magnetization reversal. PSF is quantified by features of interest for MPI: i.e., drive field amplitude and full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM). A superparamagnetic quantifier (SPaQ) is used to assess differential magnetic susceptibility of two commercially available MNPs: Synomag®-D50 and Synomag®-D70. For both MNPs, the signal output depends on increase in drive field frequency and amount of iron-oxide, which might be hampering the sensitivity of MPI systems that perform on higher frequencies. Nevertheless, there is a clear potential of Synomag®-D for a stable MPI resolution, especially in case of 70 nm version, that is independent of either drive field frequency or amount of iron-oxide.

Keywords: Magnetic nanoparticles, MNPs, Differential magnetic susceptibility, DMS, Magnetic particle imaging, MPI, magnetic relaxation, Synomag®-D.

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Authors: Siti Mutmainah, Slamet Sugiri

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Organizations are increasingly relying upon teamwork; however, little is known about the best fit among incentive system, team composition, and group performance. To further explore this issue this study examines whether the congruence between incentive system and locus of control (LoC) affects team performance. To reconcile opposite lines of argument in literature regarding the best incentive system for a team, this paper uses the social identity perspective and person-environment (P-E) fit theory to understand behavior in a group process. A laboratory experiment with postgraduate students is conducted to test the hypotheses. One hundred and five accounting students were assigned to three-person work groups, where they completed an independent task under one of two types of incentive—individual and group incentive systems—after their LoC was measured. The findings confirm the hypothesis. Group incentive results in an enhanced team performance. Team performance is better when there is congruence between incentive system and LoC. Group incentive system combined with external LoC results in the best performance, while individual incentive system results in a better team performance when combined with internal LoC. The result suggests that a cooperative process enables ‘ordinary people’ to obtain extraordinary results.

Keywords: Incentive system, locus of control, person-environment fit, social identity perspective, team performance.

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Authors: Olatinwo M. O., Oyeleke Olaosebikan, David Henry O.

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Rain attenuation plays a lot of roles in the design of satellite and terrestrial microwave radio links, hence a good knowledge of its effect is of great interest to Engineers and scientists in that it is often required to give a high level of accuracy of the rainrate distribution that expresses rainrate from the lowest value to the highest. This study proposes a model to express rainrate parameters alpha (α) and beta (β) as a function of geographical location at 0.01% of the time. The tropical locations used in the development of the effect were Ilorin, Ile-Ife, Douala, Dar-es-Selam, Nairobi, Lusaka, and Brazilia.

This expression clearly confirms the variability of rainfall from place to place. When consistency test was carried out using the expression to generate rainrate for each location examined, the result obtained was reliable for rain intensities between 5mm/h and 200mm/h. The variability of α and β with latitude also shows that different latitudes have different cumulative rain distribution. The model proposed in this study would be one of the useful tools to Radio Engineers since the precipitation effect in the design of satellite and terrestrial microwave radio links is among the factors to consider when designing communication systems.

Keywords: Rain rate, attenuation, geographical location.

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Authors: Riza Muhida, Maisarah Ali, Puteri Shireen Jahn Kassim, Muhammad Abu Eusuf, Agus G.E. Sutjipto, Afzeri

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Over recent years, the number of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) installations for home systems have been increasing in Malaysia. The paper concerns an analysis - as part of current Research and Development (R&D) efforts - to integrate photovoltaics as an architectural feature of a detached house in the new satellite township of Putrajaya, Malaysia. The analysis was undertaken using calculation and simulation tools to optimize performance of BIPV home system. In this study, a the simulation analysis was undertaken for selected bungalow units based on a long term recorded weather data for city of Kuala Lumpur. The simulation and calculation was done with consideration of a PV panels' tilt and direction, shading effect and economical considerations. A simulation of the performance of a grid connected BIPV house in Kuala Lumpur was undertaken. This case study uses a 60 PV modules with power output of 2.7 kW giving an average of PV electricity output is 255 kWh/month..

Keywords: Building integrated photovoltaic, Malaysia, Simulation, panels' tilt and direction.

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Authors: Paolo Pilloni, Fabrizio Mulas, Salvatore Carta

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Nowadays, several research studies point up that an active lifestyle is essential for physical and mental health benefits. Mobile phones have greatly influenced people’s habits and attitudes also in the way they exercise. Our research work is mainly focused on investigating how to exploit mobile technologies to favour people’s exertion experience. To this end, we developed an exertion framework users can exploit through a real world mobile application, called EverywhereSport Run (EWRun), designed to act as a virtual personal trainer to support runners during their trainings. In this work, inspired by both previous findings in the field of interaction design for people with visual impairments, feedback gathered from real users of our framework, and positive results obtained from two experimentations, we present some new interaction facilities we designed to enhance the interaction experience during a training. The positive obtained results helped us to derive some interaction design recommendations we believe will be a valid support for designers of future mobile systems conceived to be used in circumstances where there are limited possibilities of interaction.

Keywords: Human Computer Interaction, Interaction Design Guidelines, Persuasive Mobile Technologies for Sport and Health.

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Authors: R. Vedhapriya Vadhana, Ruba Soundar, K. G. Jothi Shalini

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We address the problem of interference over all the channels in multiuser MIMO-OFDM systems. This paper contributes three beamforming strategies designed for multiuser multiple-input and multiple-output by way of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, in which the transmit and receive beamformers are acquired repetitious by secure-form stages. In the principal case, the transmit (TX) beamformers remain fixed then the receive (RX) beamformers are computed. This eradicates one interference span for every user by means of extruding the transmit beamformers into a null space of relevant channels. Formerly, by gratifying the orthogonality condition to exclude the residual interferences in RX beamformer for every user is done by maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The second case comprises mutually optimizing the TX and RX beamformers from controlled SNR maximization. The outcomes of first case is used here. The third case also includes combined optimization of TX-RX beamformers; however, uses the both controlled SNR and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio maximization (SINR). By the standardized channel model for IEEE 802.11n, the proposed simulation experiments offer rapid beamforming and enhanced error performance.

Keywords: Beamforming, interference channels, MIMO-OFDM, multi-objective optimization.

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Authors: G. Meyer, M. Klewer, P. Nyhuis

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Constantly changing economic conditions require companies to design their production to be more economical, innovative, and flexible. Since workers have a decisive influence on cost, time, and quality, e.g. by monitoring indicators that determine quality, by developing processes more resistant to disturbances, or by monitoring environmental standards, a focus on personnel as a production factor is needed. This presupposes the efficient use and systematic enhancement of employees’ existing competences since greater consideration of these aspects in work planning will help to enhance competitiveness. The aim of the research project ‘Integrated Technology- and Competence-based Work Planning in Socio-Technical Systems’ is to develop a new work planning method that combines technology with work science by incorporating employees’ skills as a quality indicator. For employee competences to increase competitiveness, it is first of all necessary to assess how competences affect cost, time, and quality. A model for deriving predictions about the effects of competence-based parameters on these strategic business objectives is developed in this paper.

Keywords: Competence management, education and training, employee competences, one-factor-at-a-time method, work planning.

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Authors: Abdellatif Kasbi, Abderrafii Rahali

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During the recent years, much interest has been devoted to fractional order control that has appeared as a very eligible control approach for the systems experiencing parametric uncertainty and outer disturbances. The main purpose of this paper is to design and evaluate the performance of a fractional order proportional integral (FOPI) controller applied to control prototype variable speed wind generation system (WGS) that uses a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG). In this paper, the DFIG-machine is controlled according to the stator field-oriented control (FOC) strategy, which makes it possible to regulate separately the reactive and active powers exchanged between the WGS and the grid. The considered system is modeled and simulated using MATLAB-Simulink, and the performance of FOPI controller applied to the back-to-back power converter control of DFIG based grid connected variable speed wind turbine are evaluated and compared to the ones obtained with a conventional PI controller.

Keywords: Design, fractional order PI controller, wind generation system, doubly fed induction generator, wind turbine, field-oriented control.

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Authors: M. Mojaddam, M. Araei, T. Saki Nejad, M. Soltani Howyzeh

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In order to study the effect of different levels of triple super phosphate chemical fertilizer and biological phosphate fertilizer (fertile 2) on some morphological traits of corn this research was carried out in Ahvaz in 2002 as a factorial experiment in randomized complete block design with 4 replications). The experiment included two factors: first, biological phosphate fertilizer (fertile 2) at three levels of 0, 100, 200 g/ha; second, triple super phosphate chemical fertilizer at three levels of 0, 60, 90 kg/ha of pure phosphorus (P2O5). The obtained results indicated that fertilizer treatments had a significant effect on some morphological traits at 1% probability level. In this regard, P2B2 treatment (100 g/ha biological phosphate fertilizer (fertile 2) and 60 kg/ha triple super phosphate fertilizer) had the greatest plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves and ear length. It seems that in Ahvaz weather conditions, decrease of consumption of triple superphosphate chemical fertilizer to less than a half along with the consumption of biological phosphate fertilizer (fertile 2) is highly important in order to achieve optimal results. Therefore, it can be concluded that biological fertilizers can be used as a suitable substitute for some of the chemical fertilizers in sustainable agricultural systems.

Keywords: Biological phosphate fertilizer, corn (SC704), morphological, triple super phosphate.

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Authors: P. Abhishesh, B. S. Ryuh, Y. S. Oh, H. J. Moon, R. Akanksha

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This paper discusses about the conceptual design and development of the control system software using Programmable logic controller (PLC) for autonomous driving and agricultural operations of Multipurpose Agricultural Robot Platform (MARP). Based on given initial conditions by field analysis and desired agricultural operations, the structural design development of MARP is done using modelling and analysis tool. PLC, being robust and easy to use, has been used to design the autonomous control system of robot platform for desired parameters. The robot is capable of performing autonomous driving and three automatic agricultural operations, viz. hilling, mulching, and sowing of seeds in the respective order. The input received from various sensors on the field is later transmitted to the controller via ZigBee network to make the changes in the control program to get desired field output. The research is conducted to provide assistance to farmers by reducing labor hours for agricultural activities by implementing automation. This study will provide an alternative to the existing systems with machineries attached behind tractors and rigorous manual operations on agricultural field at effective cost.

Keywords: Agricultural operations, autonomous driving, MARP, PLC.

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Authors: Alexandra Aslanidou

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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), concerning the protection of natural persons within the European Union with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, became applicable in the European Union (EU) on 25 May 2018 and transformed the way personal data were being treated under the Data Protection Directive (DPD) regime, generating sweeping organizational changes to both public sector and business. A social practice that is considerably influenced in the way of its day-to-day operations is Human Resource (HR) management, for which the importance of GDPR cannot be underestimated. That is because HR processes personal data coming in all shapes and sizes from many different systems and sources. The significance of the proper functioning of an HR department, specifically in human-centered, service-oriented environments such as the education field, is decisive due to the fact that HR operations in schools, conducted effectively, determine the quality of the provided services and consequently have a considerable impact on the success of the educational system. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the decisive role that GDPR plays in HR departments that operate in schools and in order to practically evaluate the aftermath of the Regulation during the first months of its applicability; a comparative use cases analysis in five highly dynamic schools, across three EU Member States, was attempted.

Keywords: General data protection regulation, human resource management, educational system.

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Authors: L. Krpalkova, N. O' Mahony, A. Carvalho, S. Campbell, S. Harapanahalli, J. Walsh

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The objective of this study was to determine the effects of environmental stressors on the performance of lactating dairy cows and discuss some future trends. There exists a relationship between the meteorological data and milk yield prediction accuracy in pasture-based dairy systems. New precision technologies are available and are being developed to improve the sustainability of the dairy industry. Some of these technologies focus on welfare of individual animals on dairy farms. These technologies allow the automatic identification of animal behaviour and health events, greatly increasing overall herd health and yield while reducing animal health inspection demands and long-term animal healthcare costs. The data set consisted of records from 489 dairy cows at two dairy farms and temperature measured from the nearest meteorological weather station in 2018. The effects of temperature on milk production and behaviour of animals were analyzed. The statistical results indicate different effects of temperature on milk yield and behaviour. The “comfort zone” for animals is in the range 10 °C to 20 °C. Dairy cows out of this zone had to decrease or increase their metabolic heat production, and it affected their milk production and behaviour.

Keywords: Behaviour, milk yield, temperature, precision technologies.

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Authors: Van-Quang Trinh, Gi-Soo Chung, Hee-Cheol Kim

Abstract:

The increasing number of senior population gradually causes to demand the use of information and communication technology for their satisfactory lives. This paper presents the development of an integrated TV based system which offers an opportunity to provide value added services to a large number of elderly citizens, and thus helps improve their quality of life. The design philosophy underlying this paper is to fulfill both technological and human aspects. The balance between these two dimensions has been currently stressed as a crucial element for the design of usable systems in real use, particularly to the elderly who have physical and mental decline. As the first step to achieve it, we have identified human and social factors that affect the elder-s quality of life by a literature review, and based on them, build four fundamental services: information, healthcare, learning and social network services. Secondly, the system architecture, employed technologies and the elderly-friendly system design considerations are presented. This reflects technological and human perspectives in terms of the system design. Finally, we describe some scenarios that illustrate the potentiality of the proposed system to improve elderly people-s quality of life.

Keywords: Elderly people, human computer interaction, quality of life, smart television, user-centered system design

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Authors: Diako Azizi, Ahmad Gholami, Vahid Abbasi

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Optimal selection of electrical insulations in electrical machinery insures reliability during operation. From the insulation studies of view for electrical machines, stator is the most important part. This fact reveals the requirement for inspection of the electrical machine insulation along with the electro-thermal stresses. In the first step of the study, a part of the whole structure of machine in which covers the general characteristics of the machine is chosen, then based on the electromagnetic analysis (finite element method), the machine operation is simulated. In the simulation results, the temperature distribution of the total structure is presented simultaneously by using electro-thermal analysis. The results of electro-thermal analysis can be used for designing an optimal cooling system. In order to design, review and comparing the cooling systems, four wiring structures in the slots of Stator are presented. The structures are compared to each other in terms of electrical, thermal distribution and remaining life of insulation by using Finite Element analysis. According to the steps of the study, an optimization algorithm has been presented for selection of appropriate structure.

Keywords: Electrical field, field distribution, insulation, winding, finite element method, electro thermal

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Authors: S. H. Mohades Kasaei, S. M. Mohades Kasaei, S. A. Mohades Kasaei, M. Taheri, M. Rahimi, H. Vahiddastgerdi, M. Saeidinezhad

Abstract:

Omni directional mobile robots have been popularly employed in several applications especially in soccer player robots considered in Robocup competitions. However, Omni directional navigation system, Omni-vision system and solenoid kicking mechanism in such mobile robots have not ever been combined. This situation brings the idea of a robot with no head direction into existence, a comprehensive Omni directional mobile robot. Such a robot can respond more quickly and it would be capable for more sophisticated behaviors with multi-sensor data fusion algorithm for global localization base on the data fusion. This paper has tried to focus on the research improvements in the mechanical, electrical and software design of the robots of team ADRO Iran. The main improvements are the world model, the new strategy framework, mechanical structure, Omni-vision sensor for object detection, robot path planning, active ball handling mechanism and the new kicker design, , and other subjects related to mobile robot

Keywords: Mobile robot, Machine vision, Omni directional movement, Autonomous Systems, Robot path planning, Object Localization.

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Authors: Nyambayar Davaadorj, Ichiro Koshijima

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Safety or the state of being safe can be described as a condition of being not dangerous or not harmful. It is necessary for an individual to avoid dangerous situations every day. Also, an organization is subject to legal requirements for the health and safety of persons inside and around the immediate workplace, or who are exposed to the workplace activities. Although it might be difficult to keep a situation where complete safety is ensured, efforts must nonetheless be made to consider ways of removing any potential danger within an organization. In order to ensure a safe working environment, the capability of responding (i.e., resilience) to signals (i.e., information concerning events that could pose future problems that must be taken into account) that occur in and around corporations is necessary. The ability to evaluate this essential point is thus one way in which safety and security can be managed. This study focuses on OHSAS18001, an internationally applied standard for the construction and operation of occupational health and safety management systems, by using IDEF0 for Function Modeling (IDEF0) and the Resilience Matrix originally made by Bracco. Further, this study discusses a method for evaluating a manner in which Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) systematically functions within corporations. Based on the findings, this study clarifies the potential structural objection for corporations when implementing and operating the OHSAS standard.

Keywords: OHSAS18001, IDEF0, safety culture, resilience engineering.

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Authors: Nickolay Jelev, Andy Keane, Carren Holden, András Sóbester

Abstract:

In aircraft design, the jump from the conceptual to preliminary design stage introduces a level of complexity which cannot be realistically handled by a single optimiser, be that a human (chief engineer) or an algorithm. The design process is often partitioned along disciplinary lines, with each discipline given a level of autonomy. This introduces a number of challenges including, but not limited to: coupling of design variables; coordinating disciplinary teams; handling of large amounts of analysis data; reaching an acceptable design within time constraints. A number of classical Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) architectures exist in academia specifically designed to address these challenges. Their limited use in the industrial aircraft design process has inspired the authors of this paper to develop an alternative strategy based on well established ideas from Decision Support Systems. The proposed rule based architecture sacrifices possibly elusive guarantees of convergence for an attractive return in simplicity. The method is demonstrated on analytical and aircraft design test cases and its performance is compared to a number of classical distributed MDO architectures.

Keywords: Multidisciplinary design optimisation, rule based architecture, aircraft design, decision support system.

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Authors: Bishnupriya Sahoo, Prasad K. Bhaskaran

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Tropical cyclone is one among the worst natural hazards that results in a trail of destruction causing enormous damage to life, property, and coastal infrastructures. In a global perspective, the Indian Ocean is considered as one of the cyclone prone basins in the world. Specifically, the frequency of cyclogenesis in the Bay of Bengal is higher compared to the Arabian Sea. Out of the four maritime states in the East coast of India, Odisha is highly susceptible to tropical cyclone landfall. Historical records clearly decipher the fact that the frequency of cyclones have reduced in this basin. However, in the recent decades, the intensity and size of tropical cyclones have increased. This is a matter of concern as the risk and vulnerability level of Odisha coast exposed to high wind speed and gusts during cyclone landfall have increased. In this context, there is a need to assess and evaluate the severity of coastal risk, area of exposure under risk, and associated vulnerability with a higher dimension in a multi-risk perspective. Changing climate can result in the emergence of a new hazard and vulnerability over a region with differential spatial and socio-economic impact. Hence there is a need to have coastal vulnerability projections in a changing climate scenario. With this motivation, the present study attempts to estimate the destructiveness of tropical cyclones based on Power Dissipation Index (PDI) for those cyclones that made landfall along Odisha coast that exhibits an increasing trend based on historical data. The study also covers the futuristic scenarios of integral coastal vulnerability based on the trends in PDI for the Odisha coast. This study considers 11 essential and important parameters; the cyclone intensity, storm surge, onshore inundation, mean tidal range, continental shelf slope, topo-graphic elevation onshore, rate of shoreline change, maximum wave height, relative sea level rise, rainfall distribution, and coastal geomorphology. The study signifies that over a decadal scale, the coastal vulnerability index (CVI) depends largely on the incremental change in variables such as cyclone intensity, storm surge, and associated inundation. In addition, the study also performs a critical analysis on the modulation of PDI on storm surge and inundation characteristics for the entire coastal belt of Odisha State. Interestingly, the study brings to light that a linear correlation exists between the storm-tide with PDI. The trend analysis of PDI and its projection for coastal Odisha have direct practical applications in effective coastal zone management and vulnerability assessment.

Keywords: Bay of Bengal, coastal vulnerability index, power dissipation index, tropical cyclone.

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