Search results for: Medical equipment maintenance

Authors: Yasuo Obikane, Sofiane Khelladi

Abstract:

In the upstream we place a piece of ring and rotate it with 83Hz, 166Hz, 333Hz,and 666H to find the effect of the periodic distortion.In the experiment this type of the perturbation will not allow since the mechanical failure of any parts of the equipment in the upstream will destroy the blade system. This type of study will be only possible by CFD. We use two pumps NS32 (ENSAM) and three blades pump (Tamagawa Univ). The benchmark computations were performed without perturbation parts, and confirm the computational results well agreement in head-flow rate. We obtained the pressure fluctuation growth rate that is representing the global instability of the turbo-system. The fluctuating torque components were 0.01Nm(5000rpm), 0.1Nm(10000rmp), 0.04Nm(20000rmp), 0.15Nm( 40000rmp) respectively. Only for 10000rpm(166Hz) the output toque was random, and it implies that it creates unsteady flow by separations on the blades, and will reduce the pressure loss significantly

Keywords: inlet distorsion, perturbation, turbo-machine

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Authors: C. Senanayake, S. Veera Ragavan

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Warehousing is commonly used in factories for the storage of products until delivery of orders. As the amount of products stored increases it becomes tedious to be carried out manually. In recent years, the manual storing has converted into fully or partially computer controlled systems, also known as Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS). This paper discusses an ASRS system, which was designed such that the best storage location for the products is determined by utilizing a fuzzy control system. The design maintains the records of the products to be/already in store and the storage/retrieval times along with the availability status of the storage locations. This paper discusses on the maintenance of the above mentioned records and the utilization of the concept of fuzzy logic in order to determine the optimum storage location for the products. The paper will further discuss on the dynamic splitting and merging of the storage locations depending on the product sizes.

Keywords: ASRS, fuzzy control systems, MySQL database, dynamic splitting and merging.

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Authors: Whee Yen Wong, Chan Wai Lee, Kim Yeow Tshai

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Producing IT products/services required carefully designed. IT development process is intangible and labour intensive. Making optimal use of available resources, both soft (knowledge, skill-set etc.) and hard (computer system, ancillary equipment etc.), is vital if IT development is to achieve sensible economical advantages. Apart from the norm of Project Life Cycle and System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), there is an urgent need to establish a general yet widely acceptable guideline on the most effective and efficient way to precede an IT project in the broader view of Product Life Cycle. The current paper proposes such a framework with two major areas of concern: (1) an integration of IT Products and IT Services within an existing IT Process architecture and; (2) how IT Product and IT Services are built into the framework of Product Life Cycle, Project Life Cycle and SDLC.

Keywords: Mapping of Quality Relationship, IT Processes/IT Products/IT Services, Product Life Cycle, System Development Life Cycle.

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Authors: J. G. Batista, L. J. de Bessa Neto, M. A. F. B. Lima, J. R. Leite, J. I. de Andrade Nunes

Abstract:

The robot manipulator is an equipment that stands out for two reasons: Firstly because of its characteristics of movement and reprogramming, resembling the arm; secondly, by adding several areas of knowledge of science and engineering. The present work shows the development of the prototype of a robotic manipulator driven by a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), having two degrees of freedom, which allows the movement and displacement of mechanical parts, tools, and objects in general of small size, through an electronic system. The aim is to study direct and inverse kinematics of the robotic manipulator to describe the translation and rotation between two adjacent links of the robot through the Denavit-Hartenberg parameters. Currently, due to the many resources that microcomputer systems offer us, robotics is going through a period of continuous growth that will allow, in a short time, the development of intelligent robots with the capacity to perform operations that require flexibility, speed and precision.

Keywords: Direct and inverse kinematics, Denavit-Hartenberg, microcontrollers, robotic manipulator.

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Authors: Seunghee Park, Junkyeong Kim, Eun-Seok Shin, Sang-Hun Han

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In this study, two kinds of nondestructive evaluation  (NDE) techniques (rebound hardness and ultrasonic pulse velocity  methods) are investigated for the effective maintenance of underwater  concrete structures. A new methodology to estimate the underwater  concrete strengths more effectively, named “artificial neural network  (ANN) – based concrete strength estimation with the combination of  rebound hardness and ultrasonic pulse velocity methods” is proposed  and verified throughout a series of experimental works.

 

Keywords: Underwater Concrete, Rebound Hardness, Schmidt hammer, Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity, Ultrasonic Sensor, Artificial Neural Networks, ANN.

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Authors: Saseyi Olaitan Olaoluwa, Osifeko Olalekan Remigious

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The study was meant to identify the impediments to female sports management and participation in the selected colleges. Seven colleges of education in the south west parts of the country were selected for the study. A total of one hundred and five subjects were sampled to supply data. Only one hundred adequately completed and returned, copies of the questionnaire were used for data analysis. The collected data were analysed descriptively. The result of the study showed that inadequate fund, personnel, facilities equipment, supplies, management of sports, supervision and coaching were some of the impediments to female sports management and participation. Athletes were not encouraged to participate. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the government should come to the aid of the colleges by providing fund and other needs that will make sports attractive for enhanced participation.

Keywords: Female sports, impediments, management, Nigeria, south west, colleges.

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Authors: Toshiaki Yanada, Kazumi Ishikawa

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The present paper deals with the analysis and development of noise-reduction transformer that has a filter function for conductive noise transmission. Two types of prototype noise-reduction transformers with two different output voltages are proposed. To determine an optimum design for the noise-reduction transformer, noise attenuation characteristics are discussed based on the experiments and the equivalent circuit analysis. The analysis gives a relation between the circuit parameters and the noise attenuation. High performance step-down noise-reduction transformer for direct power supply to electronics equipment is developed. The input voltage of the transformer is 100 V and the output voltage is 5 V. Frequency characteristics of noise attenuation are discussed, and prevention of pulse noise transmission is demonstrated. Normal mode noise attenuation of this transformer is –80 dB, and common mode exceeds –90 dB. The step-down noise-reduction transformer eliminates pulse noise efficiently.

Keywords: conductive noise, EMC, EMI, noise attenuation, transformer.

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Authors: J. H. Lv, W. Z. Wang, S.W. Liu

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The major concern in the aviation industry is the flight safety. Although great effort has been put onto the development of material and system reliability, the failure cases of fatal accidents still occur nowadays. Due to the complexity of the aviation system, and the interaction among the failure components, the failure analysis of the related equipment is a little difficult. This study focuses on surveying the failure cases in aviation, which are extracted from failure analysis journals, including Engineering Failure Analysis and Case studies in Engineering Failure Analysis, in order to obtain the failure sensitive factors or failure sensitive parts. The analytical results show that, among the failure cases, fatigue failure is the largest in number of occurrence. The most failed components are the disk, blade, landing gear, bearing, and fastener. The frequently failed materials consist of steel, aluminum alloy, superalloy, and titanium alloy. Therefore, in order to assure the safety in aviation, more attention should be paid to the fatigue failures.

Keywords: Aviation industry, failure analysis, failure component, fatigue.

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Authors: N. A. Muhamad, S.A.M. Ali

Abstract:

Condition monitoring of electrical power equipment has attracted considerable attention for many years. The aim of this paper is to use Labview with Fuzzy Logic controller to build a simulation system to diagnose transformer faults and monitor its condition. The front panel of the system was designed using LabVIEW to enable computer to act as customer-designed instrument. The dissolved gas-in-oil analysis (DGA) method was used as technique for oil type transformer diagnosis; meanwhile terminal voltages and currents analysis method was used for dry type transformer. Fuzzy Logic was used as expert system that assesses all information keyed in at the front panel to diagnose and predict the condition of the transformer. The outcome of the Fuzzy Logic interpretation will be displayed at front panel of LabVIEW to show the user the conditions of the transformer at any time.

Keywords: LabVIEW, Fuzzy Logic, condition monitoring, oiltransformer, dry transformer, DGA, terminal values.

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Authors: Reza Sedaghati, Mojtaba Hakimzadeh, Abdolmohamad Davodi, Navid Javidtash

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The advent of Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) is giving rise to a new family of power electronic equipment emerging for controlling and optimizing the performance of power system, e.g. STATCOM. Static synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) is a commonly used FACTS device and has been successfully applied in power systems. In this sense, superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) in integration with a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is capable of supplying power systems with both active and reactive powers simultaneously and very rapidly, and thus is able to enhance the security dramatically. In this paper the structure and characteristics of the STATCOM/SMES is proposed. In addition, using a proper control scheme, STATCOM/ SMES is tested on an IEEE 3-bus system and more effective performance of the presented STATCOM/SMES compensator is evaluated with alone STATCOM through the dynamic simulation by using PSCAD/EMTDC software.

Keywords: STATCOM/SMES, Oscillation Damping, Control, Power System.

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Authors: Nisar Ahmed Memon, Anwar Majid Mirza, S.A.M. Gilani

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Segmentation is an important step in medical image analysis and classification for radiological evaluation or computer aided diagnosis. The CAD (Computer Aided Diagnosis ) of lung CT generally first segment the area of interest (lung) and then analyze the separately obtained area for nodule detection in order to diagnosis the disease. For normal lung, segmentation can be performed by making use of excellent contrast between air and surrounding tissues. However this approach fails when lung is affected by high density pathology. Dense pathologies are present in approximately a fifth of clinical scans, and for computer analysis such as detection and quantification of abnormal areas it is vital that the entire and perfectly lung part of the image is provided and no part, as present in the original image be eradicated. In this paper we have proposed a lung segmentation technique which accurately segment the lung parenchyma from lung CT Scan images. The algorithm was tested against the 25 datasets of different patients received from Ackron Univeristy, USA and AGA Khan Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Keywords: Computer Aided Diagnosis, Medical ImageProcessing, Region Growing, Segmentation, Thresholding,

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Authors: Wai Yee Lin, Masahiro Yamao

Abstract:

Food control measures are critical in fostering food safety management of a nation. However, no academic study has been undertaken to assess the food control system of Myanmar up to now. The objective of this research paper was to assess the food control system with in depth examination of five key components using desktop analysis and short survey from related food safety program organizations including regulators and inspectors. Study showed that the existing food control system is conventional, mainly focusing on primary health care approach while relying on reactive measures. The achievements of food control work have been limited to a certain extent due to insufficienttechnical capacity that is needed to upgrade staffs, laboratory equipment and technical assistance etc. associated with various sectors. Assessing food control measures is the first step in the integration of food safety management, this paper could assist policy makers in providing information for enhancing the safety and quality of food produced and consumed in Myanmar.

Keywords: Food Control, Food Policy, Legislation, Management

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Sijeong Jeong, Jaehyouk Choi

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The use of eccentrically braced frame (EBF) is increasing day by day as EBF possesses high elastic stiffness, stable inelastic response under cyclic lateral loading, and excellent ductility and energy dissipation capacity. The ductility and energy dissipation capacity of EBF depends on the active link beams. Recently, there are two types EBFs; these are conventional EBFs and EBFs with replaceable links. The conventional EBF has a disadvantage during maintenance in post-earthquake. The concept of removable active link beam in EBF is developed to overcome the limitation of the conventional EBF in post-earthquake. In this study, a replaceable link with reduced web section is introduced and design equations are suggested. In addition, nonlinear finite element analysis was conducted in order to evaluate the proposed links.

Keywords: EBFs, replaceable link, earthquake disaster, reduced section.

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Authors: Ali Eltayeb Muhsin, Mohamed Elhadi Elsari

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The substrate heater designed for this investigation is a front side substrate heating system. It consists of 10 conventional tungsten halogen lamps and an aluminum reflector, total input electrical power of 5 kW. The substrate is heated by means of a radiation from conventional tungsten halogen lamps directed to the substrate through a glass window. This design allows easy replacement of the lamps and maintenance of the system. Within 2 to 6 minutes the substrate temperature reaches 500 to 830 C by varying the vertical distance between the glass window and the substrate holder. Moreover, the substrate temperature can be easily controlled by controlling the input power to the system. This design gives excellent opportunity to deposit many deferent films at deferent temperatures in the same deposition time. This substrate heater was successfully used for Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) of many thin films, such as Silicon, iron, etc.

Keywords: CVD, Halogen Lamp, Substrate Heater, Thin Films.

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Authors: Yousra Zakaria Ahmed, Ahmed El Gendy, Salah El Haggar

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In this paper, our methodology to assess sustainability of wastewater treatment technologies in Egypt is presented. The preliminary list of factors to be considered, as well as their ranking listed. The factors include, but are not limited to pollutants removal efficiency and energy consumption under the environmental dimension, construction cost, operation and maintenance costs and required land area cost under the economic dimension and public acceptance, noise and generating job opportunities for local residents. This methodology is intended to be a user-friendly screening tool to support the decision making process when investigating different wastewater treatment technologies in Egypt. Based on the research work results presented in this paper, it can be generally concluded that the categorization of some of the social and environmental aspects of sustainability is subjective and highly dependent on the local conditions and researchers’ background.

Keywords: Sustainability, wastewater treatment, sustainability assessment, Egypt.

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Authors: I. Abuiziah, A. Oulhaj, K. Sebari, D. Ouazar

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The primary objectives of transient analysis are to determine the values of transient pressures that can result from flow control operations and to establish the design criteria for system equipment and devices (such as control devices and pipe wall thickness) so as to provide an acceptable level of protection against system failure due to pipe collapse or bursting. Because of the complexity of the equations needed to describe transients, numerical computer models are used to analyze transient flow hydraulics. An effective numerical model allows the hydraulic engineer to analyze potential transient events and to identify and evaluate alternative solutions for controlling hydraulic transients, thereby protecting the integrity of the hydraulic system. This paper presents the influence of using the protection devices to control the adverse effects due to excessive and low pressure occurs in the transient.

Keywords: Flow Transient, Water hammer, Pipeline System, Surge Tank, Simulation Model, Protection Devices.

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Authors: Selma Sbit, Mohamed Bechir Dadi, Belgacem Chibani Rhaimi

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This work aims to compare various techniques used in order to mitigate Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced systems. For that, we will evaluate the performance of each one. In mobile communication networks, systems are limited by ICI particularly caused by deployment of small cells in conventional cell’s implementation. Therefore, various mitigation techniques, named Inter-Cell Interference Coordination techniques (ICIC), enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC) techniques and Coordinated Multi-Point transmission and reception (CoMP) are proposed. This paper presents a comparative study of these strategies. It can be concluded that CoMP techniques can ameliorate SINR and capacity system compared to ICIC and eICIC. In fact, SINR value reaches 15 dB for a distance of 0.5 km between user equipment and servant base station if we use CoMP technology whereas it cannot exceed 12 dB and 9 dB for eICIC and ICIC approaches respectively as reflected in simulations.

Keywords: 4th generation, interference, coordination, ICIC.

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Authors: Su Thet Mon Than, Khin Aung Lin, Mi Sandar Mon

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This paper is intended to assist anyone with some general technical experience, but perhaps limited specific knowledge of heat transfer equipment. A characteristic of heat exchanger design is the procedure of specifying a design, heat transfer area and pressure drops and checking whether the assumed design satisfies all requirements or not. The purpose of this paper is how to design the oil cooler (heat exchanger) especially for shell-and-tube heat exchanger which is the majority type of liquid-to-liquid heat exchanger. General design considerations and design procedure are also illustrated in this paper and a flow diagram is provided as an aid of design procedure. In design calculation, the MatLAB and AutoCAD software are used. Fundamental heat transfer concepts and complex relationships involved in such exchanger are also presented in this paper. The primary aim of this design is to obtain a high heat transfer rate without exceeding the allowable pressure drop. This computer program is highly useful to design the shell-and-tube type heat exchanger and to modify existing deign.

Keywords: Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchanger, MatLAB and AutoCAD

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Authors: Anupam Bhatia

Abstract:

Upon reviewing the literature and the pragmatic work done in the field of E- textiles, it is observed that the applications of wearable technologies have found a steady growth in the field of military, medical, industrial, sports; whereas fashion is at a loss to know how to treat this technology and bring it to market. The purpose of this paper is to understand the practical issues of integration of electronics in garments; cutting patterns for mass production, maintaining the basic properties of textiles and daily maintenance of garments that hinder the wide adoption of interactive fabric technology within Fashion and leisure wear. To understand the practical hindrances an experimental and laboratory approach is taken. “Techno Meets Fashion” has been an interactive fashion project where sensor technologies have been embedded with textiles that result in set of ensembles that are light emitting garments, sound sensing garments, proximity garments, shape memory garments etc. Smart textiles, especially in the form of textile interfaces, are drastically underused in fashion and other lifestyle product design. Clothing and some other textile products must be washable, which subjects to the interactive elements to water and chemical immersion, physical stress, and extreme temperature. The current state of the art tends to be too fragile for this treatment. The process for mass producing traditional textiles becomes difficult in interactive textiles. As cutting patterns from larger rolls of cloth and sewing them together to make garments breaks and reforms electronic connections in an uncontrolled manner. Because of this, interactive fabric elements are integrated by hand into textiles produced by standard methods. The Arduino has surely made embedding electronics into textiles much easier than before; even then electronics are not integral to the daily wear garments. Soft and flexible interfaces of MEMS (micro sensors and Micro actuators) can be an option to make this possible by blending electronics within E-textiles in a way that’s seamless and still retains functions of the circuits as well as the garment. Smart clothes, which offer simultaneously a challenging design and utility value, can be only mass produced if the demands of the body are taken care of i.e. protection, anthropometry, ergonomics of human movement, thermo- physiological regulation.

Keywords: Ambient Intelligence, Proximity Sensors, Shape Memory Materials, Sound sensing garments, Wearable Technology.

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Authors: Zhou Yingkun, Xu Guorui, Wei Siming, Huang Yongzhang

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With the increasing of the penetration of renewable energy in power system, the whole inertia of the power system is declining, which will endanger the frequency stability of the power system. In order to enhance the inertia, virtual synchronous generator (VSG) has been proposed. In addition, the motor-generator pair (MGP) system is proposed to enhance grid inertia. Both of them need additional equipment to provide instantaneous energy, so the economic problem should be considered. In this paper, the basic working principle of MGP system and VSG are introduced firstly. Then, the technical characteristics and economic investment of MGP/VSG are compared by calculation and simulation. The results show that the MGP system can provide same inertia with less cost than VSG.

Keywords: High renewable energy penetration, inertia of power system, virtual synchronous generator, motor-generator pair system, techno-economic analysis.

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Authors: Antonis Skouloudis, Georgios Deligiannakis, Panagiotis Vouros, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Ioannis Nikolaou

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On November 15th, 2017, a catastrophic flash flood devastated the city of Mandra in Central Greece, resulting in 24 fatalities and extensive damages to the built environment and infrastructure. It was Greece’s deadliest and most destructive flood event for the past 40 years. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this event to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Mandra during the flood event, which were affected by the floodwaters to varying extents. In this context, we conducted semi-structured interviews with business owners-managers of 45 SMEs located in flood inundated areas and are still active nowadays, based on an interview guide that spanned 27 topics. The topics pertained to the disaster experience of the business and business owners-managers, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and extreme weather, aspects of disaster preparedness and related assistance needs. Our findings reveal that the vast majority of the affected businesses experienced heavy damages in equipment and infrastructure or total destruction, which resulted in business interruption from several weeks up to several months. Assistance from relatives or friends helped for the damage repairs and business recovery, while state compensations were deemed insufficient compared to the extent of the damages. Most interviewees pinpoint flooding as one of the most critical risks, and many connect it with the climate crisis. However, they are either not willing or unable to apply property-level prevention measures in their businesses due to cost considerations or complex and cumbersome bureaucratic processes. In all cases, the business owners are fully aware of the flood hazard implications, and since the recovery from the event, they have engaged in basic mitigation measures and contingency plans in case of future flood events. Such plans include insurance contracts whenever possible (as the vast majority of the affected SMEs were uninsured at the time of the 2017 event) as well as simple relocations of critical equipment within their property. The study offers fruitful insights on latent drivers and barriers of SMEs’ resilience capacity to flash flooding. In this respect, findings such as ours, highlighting tensions that underpin behavioural responses and experiences, can feed into: a) bottom-up approaches for devising actionable and practical guidelines, manuals and/or standards on business preparedness to flooding, and, ultimately, b) policy-making for an enabling environment towards a flood-resilient SME sector.

Keywords: Flash flood, small and medium-sized enterprises, organisational resilience capacity, disaster preparedness, qualitative study.

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Naghavi, Farzad Alaeimoghadam, Hossein Ghafoori

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Artemisia species, which are medically beneficial, are widespread in temperate regions of both Northern and Southern hemispheres among which Iran is located. About 35 species of Artemisia are indigenous in Iran among them some are widespread in all or most provinces, yet some are restricted to some specific regions. In this review paper, initially, GC-Mass results of some experiments done in different provinces of Iran are mentioned among them some compounds are common among species, some others are mostly restricted to other species; after that, medical advantages based on some researches on species of this genus are reviewed; different qualities such as anti-leishmania, anti-bacteria, antiviral as well as anti-proliferative could be mentioned.

Keywords: Artemisia, GC-Mass analysis, medical advantage.

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Authors: N. Singh, N. Sharma, J. K. Katnoria

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Water a vital component for all living forms is derived from variety of sources, including surface water (rivers, lakes, reservoirs and ponds) and ground water (aquifers). Over the years of time, water bodies are subjected to human interference regularly resulting in deterioration of water quality. Therefore, pollution of water bodies has become matter of global concern. As the water quality closely relate to human health, water analysis before usage is of immense importance. Improper management of water bodies can cause serious problems in availability and quality of water. The quality of water may be described according to their physico-chemical and microbiological characteristics. For effective maintenance of water quality through appropriate control measures, continuous monitoring of metals, physico-chemical and biological parameter is essential for the establishment of baseline data for the water quality in any study area. The present study has focused on to explore the status of water pollution in various areas and to estimate the magnitude of its toxicity using different bioassay.

Keywords: Genotoxicity, Heavy metals, Mutagenicity, Physico-chemical analysis.

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Authors: Kati Skarp, Keijo Varis, Juha Kettunen

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The purpose of this paper is to examine and evaluate the top-down and bottom-up leadership development programs focused on human capital that improve the performance of a company. This study reports on the external top-down leadership development program supported by a consulting company and the internal participatory action research of the bottom-up program. The sickness rate and the lost time incident failure rate decreased and the ideas produced for cost savings improved, leading to increased earnings during the top-down program. The estimated cost savings potential of the bottom-up program was 3.8 million euro based on the cost savings of meeting habits, maintenance practices and the way of working in production. The results of this study are useful for those who plan and evaluate leadership development and human capital productivity consultation programs to improve the performance of a company.

Keywords: Leadership, development, human resources, company, indicators, evaluation.

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Authors: Gupta Rajesh, Paudel Sagar, Sharma Utkarsh, Singh Amit Kumar

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Thermal stratification has drawn much attention because of the malfunctions at various nuclear plants in U.S.A that raised significant safety concerns. The concerns due to this phenomenon relate to thermal stresses in branch pipes connected to the reactor coolant system piping. This stress limits the lifetime of the piping system, and even leading to penetrating cracks. To assess origin of valve damage in the pipeline, it is essential to determine the effect of turbulence penetration on valve leakage; since stratified flow is generally generated by turbulent penetration or valve leakage. As a result, we concluded with the help of coupled fluent-structural analysis that the pipe with less turbulence has less chance of failure there by requiring less maintenance.

Keywords: Reactor coolant system, thermal stratification, turbulent penetration, coupled fluent-structural analysis, Von Mises stress.

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Authors: George Karkavitsas, Maria Rangoussi

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We present a genetic algorithm application to the problem of object registration (i.e., object detection, localization and recognition) in a class of medical images containing various types of blood cells. The genetic algorithm approach taken here is seen to be most appropriate for this type of image, due to the characteristics of the objects. Successful cell registration results on real life microscope images of blood cells show the potential of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Genetic algorithms, object registration, pattern recognition, blood cell microscope images.

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Authors: K. N. Dinesh Babu, G. R. Manjunatha, R. Ramaprabha, V. Rajini, M. V. Gopalan

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In this paper, monitoring and control of tap changer mechanism of a transformer implementation in an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) is discussed. It has been a custom for decades to provide a separate panel for on load tap changer control for monitoring the tap position. However, this facility cannot either record or transfer the information to remote control centers. As there is a technology shift towards the smart grid protection and control standards, the need for implementing remote control and monitoring has necessitated the implementation of this feature in numerical relays. This paper deals with the programming, settings and logic implementation which is applicable to both IEC 61850 compatible and non-compatible IEDs thereby eliminating the need for separate tap changer control equipment. The monitoring mechanism has been implemented in a 28MVA, 110 /6.9kV transformer with 16 tap position with GE make T60 IED at Ultratech cement limited Gulbarga, Karnataka and is in successful service.

Keywords: Transformer protection, tap changer control, tap position monitoring, on load tap changer, intelligent electronic device (IED).

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Authors: Juan L. Castro, Maria I. NavarroVictor Lopez, Eduardo M. Eisman, Jose M. Zurita

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This paper describes the Multilingual Virtual Simulated Patient framework. It has been created to train the social skills and testing the knowledge of primary health care medical students. The framework generates conversational agents which perform in serveral languages as virtual simulated patients that help to improve the communication and diagnosis skills of the students complementing their training process.

Keywords: Medical training, conversational agents, patient modeling.

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Authors: Pekka Makkonen, Georgios Lampropoulos, Kerstin Siakas

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This paper examines the impact of social media on knowledge work. It discloses and highlights which specific aspects, areas and tasks of knowledge work can be improved by the use of social media. Moreover, the study includes a survey about higher education students’ viewpoints in regard to the use of social media as a means to enhance knowledge work and knowledge sharing. The analysis has been conducted based both on empirical data and on discussions about the sources dealing with knowledge work and how it can be enhanced by using social media. The results show that social media can improve knowledge work, knowledge building and maintenance tasks in which communication, information sharing and collaboration play a vital role. Additionally, by using social media, personal, collaborative and supplementary work activities can be enhanced. Based on the results of the study, we suggest how knowledge work can be enhanced when using the contemporary information and communications technologies (ICTs) of the 21^st century and recommend future directions towards improving knowledge work.

Keywords: Knowledge work, social media, social media services, improving work performance.

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Authors: Kati Kõrbe Kaare, Ott Koppel

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Transport and logistics are the lifeblood of societies. There is a strong correlation between overall growth in economic activity and growth of transport. The movement of people and goods has the potential for creating wealth and prosperity, therefore the state of transportation infrastructure and especially the condition of road networks is often a governmental priority. The design, building and maintenance of national roads constitute a substantial share of government budgets. Taking into account the magnitude and importance of these investments, the expedience, efficiency and sustainability of these projects are of great public interest. This paper provides an overview of supply chain management principles applied to road construction. In addition, road construction performance measurement systems and ICT solutions are discussed. Road construction in Estonia is analyzed. The authors propose the development of a national performance measurement system for road construction.

Keywords: ICT in road construction, key performance indicators, quality performance measurement, road construction supply chain.

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