Search results for: Product metrics
883 Studying the Value-Added Chain for the Fish Distribution Process at Quang Binh Fishing Port in Vietnam
Authors: Van Chung Nguyen
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The purpose of this research is to study the current status of the value chain for fish distribution at Quang Binh Fishing Port with 360 research samples, in which the research subjects are fishermen, traders, retailers, and businesses. The research uses the approach of applying the value chain theoretical framework of Kaplinsky and Morris to quantify and describe market channels and actors participating in the value chain and analyze the value-added process of these companies according to market channels. The analysis results show that fishermen directly catch fish with high economic efficiency, but processing enterprises and, especially retailers, are the agents to obtain higher added value. Processing enterprises play a role that is not really clear due to outdated processing technology; in contrast, retailers have the highest added value. This shows that the added value of the fish supply chain at Quang Binh fishing port is still limited, leading to low output quality. Therefore, the selling price of fish to the market is still high compared to the abundant fish resources, leading to low consumption and limiting exports due to the quality of processing enterprises. This reduces demand and fishing capacity, and productivity is lower than potential. To improve the fish value chain at fishing ports, it is necessary to focus on improving product quality, strengthening linkages between actors, building brands and product consumption markets at the same time, improving the capacity of export processing enterprises.
Keywords: Quang Binh fishing port, value chain, fish market, distributions channel.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 73882 Response Quality Evaluation in Heterogeneous Question Answering System: A Black-box Approach
Authors: Goh Ong Sing, C. Ardil, Wilson Wong, Shahrin Sahib
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The evaluation of the question answering system is a major research area that needs much attention. Before the rise of domain-oriented question answering systems based on natural language understanding and reasoning, evaluation is never a problem as information retrieval-based metrics are readily available for use. However, when question answering systems began to be more domains specific, evaluation becomes a real issue. This is especially true when understanding and reasoning is required to cater for a wider variety of questions and at the same time achieve higher quality responses The research in this paper discusses the inappropriateness of the existing measure for response quality evaluation and in a later part, the call for new standard measures and the related considerations are brought forward. As a short-term solution for evaluating response quality of heterogeneous systems, and to demonstrate the challenges in evaluating systems of different nature, this research presents a black-box approach using observation, classification scheme and a scoring mechanism to assess and rank three example systems (i.e. AnswerBus, START and NaLURI).
Keywords: Evaluation, question answering, response quality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1859881 User-Based Cannibalization Mitigation in an Online Marketplace
Authors: Vivian Guo, Yan Qu
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Online marketplaces are not only digital places where consumers buy and sell merchandise, and they are also destinations for brands to connect with real consumers at the moment when customers are in the shopping mindset. For many marketplaces, brands have been important partners through advertising. There can be, however, a risk of advertising impacting a consumer’s shopping journey if it hurts the use experience or takes the user away from the site. Both could lead to the loss of transaction revenue for the marketplace. In this paper, we present user-based methods for cannibalization control by selectively turning off ads to users who are likely to be cannibalized by ads subject to business objectives. We present ways of measuring cannibalization of advertising in the context of an online marketplace and propose novel ways of measuring cannibalization through purchase propensity and uplift modeling. A/B testing has shown that our methods can significantly improve user purchase and engagement metrics while operating within business objectives. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that addresses cannibalization mitigation at the user-level in the context of advertising.
Keywords: Cannibalization, machine learning, online marketplace, revenue optimization, yield optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 902880 Production of Biocomposites Using Chars Obtained by Co-Pyrolysis of Olive Pomace with Plastic Wastes
Authors: Esra Yel, Tabriz Aslanov, Merve Sogancioglu, Suheyla Kocaman, Gulnare Ahmetli
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The disposal of waste plastics has become a major worldwide environmental problem. Pyrolysis of waste plastics is one of the routes to waste minimization and recycling that has been gaining interest. In pyrolysis, the pyrolysed material is separated into gas, liquid (both are fuel) and solid (char) products. All fractions have utilities and economical value depending upon their characteristics. The first objective of this study is to determine the co-pyrolysis product fractions of waste HDPE- (high density polyethylene) and LDPE (low density polyethylene)-olive pomace (OP) and to determine the qualities of the solid product char. Chars obtained at 700 °C pyrolysis were used in biocomposite preparation as additive. As the second objective, the effects of char on biocomposite quality were investigated. Pyrolysis runs were performed at temperature 700 °C with heating rates of 5 °C/min. Biocomposites were prepared by mixing of chars with bisphenol-F type epoxy resin in various wt%. Biocomposite properties were determined by measuring electrical conductivity, surface hardness, Young’s modulus and tensile strength of the composites. The best electrical conductivity results were obtained with HDPE-OP char. For HDPE-OP char and LDPE-OP char, compared to neat epoxy, the tensile strength values of the composites increased by 102% and 78%, respectively, at 10% char dose. The hardness measurements showed similar results to the tensile tests, since there is a correlation between the hardness and the tensile strength.Keywords: Pyrolysis, olive pomace, char, biocomposite, PE plastics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1906879 A Bi-Objective Model for Location-Allocation Problem within Queuing Framework
Authors: Amirhossein Chambari, Seyed Habib Rahmaty, Vahid Hajipour, Aida Karimi
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This paper proposes a bi-objective model for the facility location problem under a congestion system. The idea of the model is motivated by applications of locating servers in bank automated teller machines (ATMS), communication networks, and so on. This model can be specifically considered for situations in which fixed service facilities are congested by stochastic demand within queueing framework. We formulate this model with two perspectives simultaneously: (i) customers and (ii) service provider. The objectives of the model are to minimize (i) the total expected travelling and waiting time and (ii) the average facility idle-time. This model represents a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem which belongs to the class of NP-hard problems. In addition, to solve the model, two metaheuristic algorithms including nondominated sorting genetic algorithms (NSGA-II) and non-dominated ranking genetic algorithms (NRGA) are proposed. Besides, to evaluate the performance of the two algorithms some numerical examples are produced and analyzed with some metrics to determine which algorithm works better.Keywords: Queuing, Location, Bi-objective, NSGA-II, NRGA
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2276878 Flexible Cities: A Multisided Spatial Application of Tracking Livability of Urban Environment
Authors: Maria Christofi, George Plastiras, Rafaella Elia, Vaggelis Tsiourtis, Theocharis Theocharides, Miltiadis Katsaros
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The rapidly expanding urban areas of the world constitute a challenge of how we need to make the transition to "the next urbanization", which will be defined by new analytical tools and new sources of data. This paper is about the production of a spatial application, the ‘FUMapp’, where space and its initiative will be available literally, in meters, but also abstractly, at a sensed level. While existing spatial applications typically focus on illustrations of the urban infrastructure, the suggested application goes beyond the existing: It investigates how our environment's perception adapts to the alterations of the built environment through a dataset construction of biophysical measurements (eye-tracking, heart beating), and physical metrics (spatial characteristics, size of stimuli, rhythm of mobility). It explores the intersections between architecture, cognition, and computing where future design can be improved and identifies the flexibility and livability of the ‘available space’ of specific examined urban paths.
Keywords: Biophysical data, flexibility of urban, livability, next urbanization, spatial application.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1034877 The Effects of Sodium Chloride in the Formation of Size and Shape of Gold (Au)Nanoparticles by Microwave-Polyol Method for Mercury Adsorption
Authors: Mawarni F. Mohamad, Khairul S.N. Kamarudin, Nik N.F.N.M. Fathilah, Mohamad M. Salleh
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Mercury is a natural occurring element and present in various concentrations in the environment. Due to its toxic effects, it is desirable to research mercury sensitive materials to adsorb mercury. This paper describes the preparation of Au nanoparticles for mercury adsorption by using a microwave (MW)-polyol method in the presence of three different Sodium Chloride (NaCl) concentrations (10, 20 and 30 mM). Mixtures of spherical, triangular, octahedral, decahedral particles and 1-D product were obtained using this rapid method. Sizes and shapes was found strongly depend on the concentrations of NaCl. Without NaCl concentration, spherical, triangular plates, octahedral, decahedral nanoparticles and 1D product were produced. At the lower NaCl concentration (10 mM), spherical, octahedral and decahedral nanoparticles were present, while spherical and decahedral nanoparticles were preferentially form by using 20 mM of NaCl concentration. Spherical, triangular plates, octahedral and decahedral nanoparticles were obtained at the highest NaCl concentration (30 mM). The amount of mercury adsorbed using 20 ppm mercury solution is the highest (67.5 %) for NaCl concentration of 30 mM. The high yield of polygonal particles will increase the mercury adsorption. In addition, the adsorption of mercury is also due to the sizes of the particles. The sizes of particles become smaller with increasing NaCl concentrations (size ranges, 5- 16 nm) than those synthesized without addition of NaCl (size ranges 11-32 nm). It is concluded that NaCl concentrations affects the formation of sizes and shapes of Au nanoparticles thus affects the mercury adsorption.Keywords: Adsorption, Au Nanoparticles, Mercury, SodiumChloride.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3645876 Semantic Spatial Objects Data Structure for Spatial Access Method
Authors: Kalum Priyanath Udagepola, Zuo Decheng, Wu Zhibo, Yang Xiaozong
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Modern spatial database management systems require a unique Spatial Access Method (SAM) in order solve complex spatial quires efficiently. In this case the spatial data structure takes a prominent place in the SAM. Inadequate data structure leads forming poor algorithmic choices and forging deficient understandings of algorithm behavior on the spatial database. A key step in developing a better semantic spatial object data structure is to quantify the performance effects of semantic and outlier detections that are not reflected in the previous tree structures (R-Tree and its variants). This paper explores a novel SSRO-Tree on SAM to the Topo-Semantic approach. The paper shows how to identify and handle the semantic spatial objects with outlier objects during page overflow/underflow, using gain/loss metrics. We introduce a new SSRO-Tree algorithm which facilitates the achievement of better performance in practice over algorithms that are superior in the R*-Tree and RO-Tree by considering selection queries.
Keywords: Outlier, semantic spatial object, spatial objects, SSRO-Tree, topo-semantic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1695875 Development of a Robust Supply Chain for Dynamic Operating Environment
Authors: Shilan Li, Ivan Arokiam, Peter Jarvis, Wendy Garner, Gazelleh Moradi, Stuart Wakefield
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Development of a Robust Supply Chain for Dynamic Operating Environment as we move further into the twenty first century, organisations are under increasing pressure to deliver a high product variation at a reasonable cost without compromise in quality. In a number of cases this will take the form of a customised or high variety low volume manufacturing system that requires prudent management of resources, among a number of functions, to achieve competitive advantage. Purchasing and Supply Chain management is one of such function and due to the substantial interaction with external elements needs to be strategically managed. This requires a number of primary and supporting tools that will enable the appropriate decisions to be made rapidly. This capability is especially vital in a dynamic environment as it provides a pivotal role in increasing the profit margin of the product. The management of this function can be challenging by itself and even more for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) due to the limited resources and expertise available at their disposal. This paper discusses the development of tools and concepts towards effectively managing the purchasing and supply chain function. The developed tools and concepts will provide a cost effective way of managing this function within SMEs. The paper further shows the use of these tools within Contechs, a manufacturer of luxury boat interiors, and the associated benefits achieved as a result of this implementation. Finally a generic framework towards use in such environments is presented.Keywords: Lean, Supply Chain, High variety Low volume, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1460874 Automated Algorithm for Removing Continuous Flame Spectrum Based On Sampled Linear Bases
Authors: Luis Arias, Jorge E. Pezoa, Daniel Sbárbaro
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In this paper, an automated algorithm to estimate and remove the continuous baseline from measured spectra containing both continuous and discontinuous bands is proposed. The algorithm uses previous information contained in a Continuous Database Spectra (CDBS) to obtain a linear basis, with minimum number of sampled vectors, capable of representing a continuous baseline. The proposed algorithm was tested by using a CDBS of flame spectra where Principal Components Analysis and Non-negative Matrix Factorization were used to obtain linear bases. Thus, the radical emissions of natural gas, oil and bio-oil flames spectra at different combustion conditions were obtained. In order to validate the performance in the baseline estimation process, the Goodness-of-fit Coefficient and the Root Mean-squared Error quality metrics were evaluated between the estimated and the real spectra in absence of discontinuous emission. The achieved results make the proposed method a key element in the development of automatic monitoring processes strategies involving discontinuous spectral bands.
Keywords: Flame spectra, removing baseline, recovering spectrum.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1752873 Drivers of Customer Satisfaction in an Industrial Company from Marketing Aspect
Authors: M. Arefi, A.M. Amini, K. Fallahi
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One of the basic concepts in marketing is the concept of meeting customers- needs. Since customer satisfaction is essential for lasting survival and development of a business, screening and observing customer satisfaction and recognizing its underlying factors must be one of the key activities of every business. The purpose of this study is to recognize the drivers that effect customer satisfaction in a business-to-business situation in order to improve marketing activities. We conducted a survey in which 93 business customers of a manufacturer of Diesel Generator in Iran participated and they talked about their ideas and satisfaction of supplier-s services related to its products. We developed the measures for drivers of satisfaction first by as investigative research (by means of feedback from executives and customers of sponsoring firm). Then based on these measures, we created a mail survey, and asked the respondents to explain their opinion about the sponsoring firm which was a supplier of diesel generator and similar products. Furthermore, the survey required the participants to mention their functional areas and their company features. In Conclusion we found that there are three drivers for customer satisfaction, which are reliability, information about product, and commercial features. Buyers/users from different functional areas attribute different degree of importance to the last two drivers. For instance, people from buying and management areas believe that commercial features are more important than information about products. But people in engineering, maintenance and production areas believe that having information about products is more important than commercial aspects. Marketing experts should consider the attribute of customers regarding information about the product and commercial features to improve market share.Keywords: B2B, Customer satisfaction, Commercial, Industry.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2683872 Cost Valuation Method for Development Concurrent Phase Appropriate Requirement Valuation Using the Example of Load Carrier Development in the Lithium-Ion-Battery Production
Authors: Achim Kampker, Christoph Deutskens, Heiner Hans Heimes, Mathias Ordung, Felix Optehostert
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In the past years electric mobility became part of a public discussion. The trend to fully electrified vehicles instead of vehicles fueled with fossil energy has notably gained momentum. Today nearly every big car manufacturer produces and sells fully electrified vehicles, but electrified vehicles are still not as competitive as conventional powered vehicles. As the traction battery states the largest cost driver, lowering its price is a crucial objective. In addition to improvements in product and production processes a nonnegligible, but widely underestimated cost driver of production can be found in logistics, since the production technology is not continuous yet and neither are the logistics systems. This paper presents an approach to evaluate cost factors on different designs of load carrier systems. Due to numerous interdependencies, the combination of costs factors for a particular scenario is not transparent. This is effecting actions for cost reduction negatively, but still cost reduction is one of the major goals for simultaneous engineering processes. Therefore a concurrent and phase appropriate cost valuation method is necessary to serve cost transparency. In this paper the four phases of this cost valuation method are defined and explained, which based upon a new approach integrating the logistics development process in to the integrated product and process development.Keywords: Research and development, technology and Innovation, lithium-ion-battery production, load carrier development process, cost valuation method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2277871 Application Reliability Method for Concrete Dams
Authors: Mustapha Kamel Mihoubi, Mohamed Essadik Kerkar
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Probabilistic risk analysis models are used to provide a better understanding of the reliability and structural failure of works, including when calculating the stability of large structures to a major risk in the event of an accident or breakdown. This work is interested in the study of the probability of failure of concrete dams through the application of reliability analysis methods including the methods used in engineering. It is in our case, the use of level 2 methods via the study limit state. Hence, the probability of product failures is estimated by analytical methods of the type first order risk method (FORM) and the second order risk method (SORM). By way of comparison, a level three method was used which generates a full analysis of the problem and involves an integration of the probability density function of random variables extended to the field of security using the Monte Carlo simulation method. Taking into account the change in stress following load combinations: normal, exceptional and extreme acting on the dam, calculation of the results obtained have provided acceptable failure probability values which largely corroborate the theory, in fact, the probability of failure tends to increase with increasing load intensities, thus causing a significant decrease in strength, shear forces then induce a shift that threatens the reliability of the structure by intolerable values of the probability of product failures. Especially, in case the increase of uplift in a hypothetical default of the drainage system.
Keywords: Dam, failure, limit-state, Monte Carlo simulation, reliability, probability, simulation, sliding, Taylor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1225870 Simulation of Lean Principles Impact in a Multi-Product Supply Chain
Authors: M. Rossini, A. Portioli Studacher
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The market competition is moving from the single firm to the whole supply chain because of increasing competition and growing need for operational efficiencies and customer orientation. Supply chain management allows companies to look beyond their organizational boundaries to develop and leverage resources and capabilities of their supply chain partners. This creates competitive advantages in the marketplace and because of this SCM has acquired strategic importance. Lean Approach is a management strategy that focuses on reducing every type of waste present in an organization. This approach is becoming more and more popular among supply chain managers. The supply chain application of lean approach is not frequent. In particular, it is not well studied which are the impacts of lean approach principles in a supply chain context. In literature there are only few studies aimed at understanding the qualitative impact of the lean approach in supply chains. Therefore, the goal of this research work is to study the impacts of lean principles implementation along a supply chain. To achieve this, a simulation model of a threeechelon multi-product supply chain has been built. Kanban system (and several priority policies) and setup time reduction degrees are implemented in the lean-configured supply chain to apply pull and lot-sizing decrease principles respectively. To evaluate the benefits of lean approach, lean supply chain is compared with an EOQ-configured supply chain. The simulation results show that Kanban system and setup-time reduction improve inventory stock level. They also show that logistics efforts are affected to lean implementation degree. The paper concludes describing performances of lean supply chain in different contexts.Keywords: Inventory policy, Kanban, lean supply chain, simulation study, supply chain management, planning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2130869 Malaria Parasite Detection Using Deep Learning Methods
Authors: Kaustubh Chakradeo, Michael Delves, Sofya Titarenko
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Malaria is a serious disease which affects hundreds of millions of people around the world, each year. If not treated in time, it can be fatal. Despite recent developments in malaria diagnostics, the microscopy method to detect malaria remains the most common. Unfortunately, the accuracy of microscopic diagnostics is dependent on the skill of the microscopist and limits the throughput of malaria diagnosis. With the development of Artificial Intelligence tools and Deep Learning techniques in particular, it is possible to lower the cost, while achieving an overall higher accuracy. In this paper, we present a VGG-based model and compare it with previously developed models for identifying infected cells. Our model surpasses most previously developed models in a range of the accuracy metrics. The model has an advantage of being constructed from a relatively small number of layers. This reduces the computer resources and computational time. Moreover, we test our model on two types of datasets and argue that the currently developed deep-learning-based methods cannot efficiently distinguish between infected and contaminated cells. A more precise study of suspicious regions is required.Keywords: Malaria, deep learning, DL, convolution neural network, CNN, thin blood smears.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 655868 A Similarity Function for Global Quality Assessment of Retinal Vessel Segmentations
Authors: Arturo Aquino, Manuel Emilio Gegundez, Jose Manuel Bravo, Diego Marin
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Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.
Keywords: Retinal vessel segmentation, quality assessment, performanceevaluation, similarity function.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1500867 Level of Acceptability of Moringa oleifera Diversified Products among Rural and Urban Dwellers in Nigeria
Authors: Mojisola F. Oyewole, Franscisca T. Adetoro, Nkiru T. Meludu
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Moringa oleifera is a nutritious vegetable tree with varieties of potential uses, as almost every part of the Moringa oleifera tree can be used for food. This study was conducted in Oyo State, Nigeria, to find out the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified products among rural and urban dwellers. Purposive sampling was used to select two local governments’ areas. Stratified sampling technique was also used to select one community each from rural and urban areas while snowball sampling technique was used to select ten respondents each from the two communities, making a total number of forty respondents. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, Chi-square, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and regression analysis. Result from the study revealed that majority of the respondents (80%) fell within the age range of 20-49 years and 55% of them were male, 55% were married, 70% of them were Christians, 80% of them had tertiary education. The result also showed that 85% were aware of the Moringa plant and (65%) of them have consumed Moringa oleifera and the perception statements on the benefits of Moringa oleifera indicated that (52.5%) of the respondents rated Moringa oleifera to be favorable, most of them had high acceptability for Moringa egusi soup, Moringa tea, Moringa pap and yam pottage with Moringa. The result of the hypotheses testing showed that there is a significant relationship between sex of the respondents and acceptability of the diversified Moringa oleifera products (x2=6.465, p = 0.011). There is also a significant relationship between family size of the respondents level of acceptability of the Moringa oleifera products (r = 0.327, p = 0.040). Based on the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified products; the plant is of great economic importance to the populace. Therefore, there should be more public awareness through the media to enlighten people on the beneficial effects of Moringa oleifera.Keywords: Acceptability, Moringa oleifera, Diversified, Product, Dwellers.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2612866 A General Segmentation Scheme for Contouring Kidney Region in Ultrasound Kidney Images using Improved Higher Order Spline Interpolation
Authors: K. Bommanna Raja, M.Madheswaran, K.Thyagarajah
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A higher order spline interpolated contour obtained with up-sampling of homogenously distributed coordinates for segmentation of kidney region in different classes of ultrasound kidney images has been developed and presented in this paper. The performance of the proposed method is measured and compared with modified snake model contour, Markov random field contour and expert outlined contour. The validation of the method is made in correspondence with expert outlined contour using maximum coordinate distance, Hausdorff distance and mean radial distance metrics. The results obtained reveal that proposed scheme provides optimum contour that agrees well with expert outlined contour. Moreover this technique helps to preserve the pixels-of-interest which in specific defines the functional characteristic of kidney. This explores various possibilities in implementing computer-aided diagnosis system exclusively for US kidney images. Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1747865 Life Cycle Assessment Comparison between Methanol and Ethanol Feedstock for the Biodiesel from Soybean Oil
Authors: Pawit Tangviroon, Apichit Svang-Ariyaskul
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As the limited availability of petroleum-based fuel has been a major concern, biodiesel is one of the most attractive alternative fuels because it is renewable and it also has advantages over the conventional petroleum-base diesel. At Present, productions of biodiesel generally perform by transesterification of vegetable oils with low molecular weight alcohol, mainly methanol, using chemical catalysts. Methanol is petrochemical product that makes biodiesel producing from methanol to be not pure renewable energy source. Therefore, ethanol as a product produced by fermentation processes. It appears as a potential feed stock that makes biodiesel to be pure renewable alternative fuel. The research is conducted based on two biodiesel production processes by reacting soybean oils with methanol and ethanol. Life cycle assessment was carried out in order to evaluate the environmental impacts and to identify the process alternative. Nine mid-point impact categories are investigated. The results indicate that better performance on abiotic depletion potential (ADP) and acidification potential (AP) are observed in biodiesel production from methanol when compared with biodiesel production from ethanol due to less energy consumption during the production processes. Except for ADP and AP, using methanol as feed stock does not show any advantages over biodiesel from ethanol. The single score method is also included in this study in order to identify the best option between two processes of biodiesel production. The global normalization and weighting factor based on ecotaxes are used and it shows that producing biodiesel form ethanol has less environmental load compare to biodiesel from methanol.
Keywords: Biodiesel, Ethanol, Life Cycle Assessment, Methanol, Soybean Oil.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3401864 Artificial Neural Network Model Based Setup Period Estimation for Polymer Cutting
Authors: Zsolt János Viharos, Krisztián Balázs Kis, Imre Paniti, Gábor Belső, Péter Németh, János Farkas
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The paper presents the results and industrial applications in the production setup period estimation based on industrial data inherited from the field of polymer cutting. The literature of polymer cutting is very limited considering the number of publications. The first polymer cutting machine is known since the second half of the 20th century; however, the production of polymer parts with this kind of technology is still a challenging research topic. The products of the applying industrial partner must met high technical requirements, as they are used in medical, measurement instrumentation and painting industry branches. Typically, 20% of these parts are new work, which means every five years almost the entire product portfolio is replaced in their low series manufacturing environment. Consequently, it requires a flexible production system, where the estimation of the frequent setup periods' lengths is one of the key success factors. In the investigation, several (input) parameters have been studied and grouped to create an adequate training information set for an artificial neural network as a base for the estimation of the individual setup periods. In the first group, product information is collected such as the product name and number of items. The second group contains material data like material type and colour. In the third group, surface quality and tolerance information are collected including the finest surface and tightest (or narrowest) tolerance. The fourth group contains the setup data like machine type and work shift. One source of these parameters is the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) but some data were also collected from Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawings. The number of the applied tools is one of the key factors on which the industrial partners’ estimations were based previously. The artificial neural network model was trained on several thousands of real industrial data. The mean estimation accuracy of the setup periods' lengths was improved by 30%, and in the same time the deviation of the prognosis was also improved by 50%. Furthermore, an investigation on the mentioned parameter groups considering the manufacturing order was also researched. The paper also highlights the manufacturing introduction experiences and further improvements of the proposed methods, both on the shop floor and on the quotation preparation fields. Every week more than 100 real industrial setup events are given and the related data are collected.Keywords: Artificial neural network, low series manufacturing, polymer cutting, setup period estimation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 975863 Evaluating Hourly Sulphur Dioxide and Ground Ozone Simulated with the Air Quality Model in Lima, Peru
Authors: Odón R. Sánchez-Ccoyllo, Elizabeth Ayma-Choque, Alan Llacza
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Sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and surface-ozone (O₃) concentrations are associated with diseases. The objective of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the air-quality Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled to Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model with a horizontal resolution of 5 km x 5 km. For this purpose, the measurements of the hourly SO₂ and O₃ concentrations available in three air quality monitoring stations in Lima, Peru were used for the purpose of validating the simulations of the SO₂ and O₃ concentrations obtained with the WRF-Chem model in February 2018. For the quantitative evaluation of the simulations of these gases, statistical techniques were implemented, such as the average of the simulations; the average of the measurements; the Mean Bias (MeB); the Mean Error (MeE); and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The results of these statistical metrics indicated that the simulated SO₂ and O₃ values over-predicted the SO₂ and O₃ measurements. For the SO₂ concentration, the MeB values varied from 0.58 to 26.35 µg/m³; the MeE values varied from 8.75 to 26.5 µg/m³; the RMSE values varied from 13.3 to 31.79 µg/m³; while for O₃ concentrations the statistical values of the MeB varied from 37.52 to 56.29 µg/m³; the MeE values varied from 37.54 to 56.70 µg/m³; the RMSE values varied from 43.05 to 69.56 µg/m³.
Keywords: Ground-ozone, Lima, Sulphur dioxide, WRF-Chem.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 364862 Rapid Discharge of Solid-State Hydrogen Storage Using Porous Silicon and Metal Foam
Authors: Loralee P. Potter, Peter J. Schubert
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Solid-state hydrogen storage using catalytically-modified porous silicon can be rapidly charged at moderate pressures (8 bar) without exothermic runaway. Discharge requires temperatures of approximately 110oC, so for larger storage vessels a means is required for thermal energy to penetrate bulk storage media. This can be realized with low-density metal foams, such as Celmet™. This study explores several material and dimensional choices of the metal foam to produce rapid heating of bulk silicon particulates. Experiments run under vacuum and in a pressurized hydrogen environment bracket conditions of empty and full hydrogen storage vessels, respectively. Curve-fitting of the heating profiles at various distances from an external heat source is used to derive both a time delay and a characteristic time constant. System performance metrics of a hydrogen storage subsystem are derived from the experimental results. A techno-economic analysis of the silicon and metal foam provides comparison with other methods of storing hydrogen for mobile and portable applications.
Keywords: conduction, convection, kinetics, fuel cell
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 695861 Combined Automatic Speech Recognition and Machine Translation in Business Correspondence Domain for English-Croatian
Authors: Sanja Seljan, Ivan Dunđer
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The paper presents combined automatic speech recognition (ASR) of English and machine translation (MT) for English and Croatian and Croatian-English language pairs in the domain of business correspondence. The first part presents results of training the ASR commercial system on English data sets, enriched by error analysis. The second part presents results of machine translation performed by free online tool for English and Croatian and Croatian-English language pairs. Human evaluation in terms of usability is conducted and internal consistency calculated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, enriched by error analysis. Automatic evaluation is performed by WER (Word Error Rate) and PER (Position-independent word Error Rate) metrics, followed by investigation of Pearson’s correlation with human evaluation.
Keywords: Automatic machine translation, integrated language technologies, quality evaluation, speech recognition.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2912860 Case Study of the Roma Tomato Distribution Chain: A Dynamic Interface for an Agricultural Enterprise in Mexico
Authors: Ernesto A. Lagarda-Leyva, Manuel A. Valenzuela L., José G. Oshima C., Arnulfo A. Naranjo-Flores
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From August to December of 2016, a diagnostic and strategic planning study was carried out on the supply chain of the company Agropecuaria GABO S.A. de C.V. The final product of the study was the development of the strategic plan and a project portfolio to meet the demands of the three links in the supply chain of the Roma tomato exported annually to the United States of America. In this project, the strategic objective of ensuring the proper handling of the product was selected and one of the goals associated with this was the employment of quantitative methods to support decision making. Considering the antecedents, the objective of this case study was to develop a model to analyze the behavioral dynamics in the distribution chain, from the logistics of storage and shipment of Roma tomato in 81-case pallets (11.5 kg per case), to the two pre-cooling rooms and eventual loading onto transports, seeking to reduce the bottleneck and the associated costs by means of a dynamic interface. The methodology used was that of system dynamics, considering four phases that were adapted to the purpose of the study: 1) the conceptualization phase; 2) the formulation phase; 3) the evaluation phase; and 4) the communication phase. The main practical conclusions lead to the possibility of reducing both the bottlenecks in the cooling rooms and the costs by simulating scenarios and modifying certain policies. Furthermore, the creation of the dynamic interface between the model and the stakeholders was achieved by generating interaction with buttons and simple instructions that allow making modifications and observing diverse behaviors.
Keywords: Agrilogistics, distribution, scenarios, system dynamics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 829859 Estimation of Buffer Size of Internet Gateway Server via G/M/1 Queuing Model
Authors: Dr. L.K. Singh, Dr. R. M. L, Riktesh Srivastava
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How to efficiently assign system resource to route the Client demand by Gateway servers is a tricky predicament. In this paper, we tender an enhanced proposal for autonomous recital of Gateway servers under highly vibrant traffic loads. We devise a methodology to calculate Queue Length and Waiting Time utilizing Gateway Server information to reduce response time variance in presence of bursty traffic. The most widespread contemplation is performance, because Gateway Servers must offer cost-effective and high-availability services in the elongated period, thus they have to be scaled to meet the expected load. Performance measurements can be the base for performance modeling and prediction. With the help of performance models, the performance metrics (like buffer estimation, waiting time) can be determined at the development process. This paper describes the possible queue models those can be applied in the estimation of queue length to estimate the final value of the memory size. Both simulation and experimental studies using synthesized workloads and analysis of real-world Gateway Servers demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system.Keywords: Gateway Server, G/M/1 Queuing Model.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1594858 Attribute Weighted Class Complexity: A New Metric for Measuring Cognitive Complexity of OO Systems
Authors: Dr. L. Arockiam, A. Aloysius
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In general, class complexity is measured based on any one of these factors such as Line of Codes (LOC), Functional points (FP), Number of Methods (NOM), Number of Attributes (NOA) and so on. There are several new techniques, methods and metrics with the different factors that are to be developed by the researchers for calculating the complexity of the class in Object Oriented (OO) software. Earlier, Arockiam et.al has proposed a new complexity measure namely Extended Weighted Class Complexity (EWCC) which is an extension of Weighted Class Complexity which is proposed by Mishra et.al. EWCC is the sum of cognitive weights of attributes and methods of the class and that of the classes derived. In EWCC, a cognitive weight of each attribute is considered to be 1. The main problem in EWCC metric is that, every attribute holds the same value but in general, cognitive load in understanding the different types of attributes cannot be the same. So here, we are proposing a new metric namely Attribute Weighted Class Complexity (AWCC). In AWCC, the cognitive weights have to be assigned for the attributes which are derived from the effort needed to understand their data types. The proposed metric has been proved to be a better measure of complexity of class with attributes through the case studies and experimentsKeywords: Software Complexity, Attribute Weighted Class Complexity, Weighted Class Complexity, Data Type
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2121857 Leveraging Quality Metrics in Voting Model Based Thread Retrieval
Authors: Atefeh Heydari, Mohammadali Tavakoli, Zuriati Ismail, Naomie Salim
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Seeking and sharing knowledge on online forums have made them popular in recent years. Although online forums are valuable sources of information, due to variety of sources of messages, retrieving reliable threads with high quality content is an issue. Majority of the existing information retrieval systems ignore the quality of retrieved documents, particularly, in the field of thread retrieval. In this research, we present an approach that employs various quality features in order to investigate the quality of retrieved threads. Different aspects of content quality, including completeness, comprehensiveness, and politeness, are assessed using these features, which lead to finding not only textual, but also conceptual relevant threads for a user query within a forum. To analyse the influence of the features, we used an adopted version of voting model thread search as a retrieval system. We equipped it with each feature solely and also various combinations of features in turn during multiple runs. The results show that incorporating the quality features enhances the effectiveness of the utilised retrieval system significantly.Keywords: Content quality, Forum search, Thread retrieval, Voting techniques.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1762856 Integrated Grey Rational Analysis-Standard Deviation Method for Handover in Heterogeneous Networks
Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Naveed Nawaz, Mahmoud Al-Faris
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The dense deployment of small cells is a promising solution to enhance the coverage and capacity of the heterogeneous networks (HetNets). However, the unplanned deployment could bring new challenges to the network ranging from interference, unnecessary handovers and handover failures. This will cause a degradation in the quality of service (QoS) delivered to the end user. In this paper, we propose an integrated Grey Rational Analysis Standard Deviation based handover method (GRA-SD) for HetNet. The proposed method integrates the Standard Deviation (SD) technique to acquire the weight of the handover metrics and the GRA method to select the best handover base station. The performance of the GRA-SD method is evaluated and compared with the traditional Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) methods including Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) and VIKOR methods. Results reveal that the proposed method has outperformed the other methods in terms of minimizing the number of frequent unnecessary handovers and handover failures, in addition to improving the energy efficiency.Keywords: Energy efficiency, handover, HetNets, MADM, small cells.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 496855 Influence of Dilution and Lean-premixed on Mild Combustion in an Industrial Burner
Authors: Sh.Khalilarya, H.Oryani, S.Jafarmadar, H.Khatamnezhad, A.Nemati
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Understanding of how and where NOx formation occurs in industrial burner is very important for efficient and clean operation of utility burners. Also the importance of this problem is mainly due to its relation to the pollutants produced by more burners used widely of gas turbine in thermal power plants and glass and steel industry. In this article, a numerical model of an industrial burner operating in MILD combustion is validated with experimental data.. Then influence of air flow rate and air temperature on combustor temperature profiles and NOX product are investigated. In order to modification this study reports on the effects of fuel and air dilution (with inert gases H2O, CO2, N2), and also influence of lean-premixed of fuel, on the temperature profiles and NOX emission. Conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy, and transport equations of species concentrations, turbulence, combustion and radiation modeling in addition to NO modeling equations were solved together to present temperature and NO distribution inside the burner. The results shows that dilution, cause to a reduction in value of temperature and NOX emission, and suppresses any flame propagation inside the furnace and made the flame inside the furnace invisible. Dilution with H2O rather than N2 and CO2 decreases further the value of the NOX. Also with raise of lean-premix level, local temperature of burner and the value of NOX product are decreases because of premixing prevents local “hot spots" within the combustor volume that can lead to significant NOx formation. Also leanpremixing of fuel with air cause to amount of air in reaction zone is reach more than amount that supplied as is actually needed to burn the fuel and this act lead to limiting NOx formationKeywords: Mild combustion, Flameless, Numerical simulation, Burner, CFD.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1776854 Ionic Liquid Promoted One-pot Synthesis of Benzo[b][1,4]oxazines
Authors: Ebrahim Soleimani, Afsaneh Taheri Kal koshvandi
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benzo[b][1,4]oxazines have been synthesized in good to excellent yields in the presence of the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3- methylimidazolium bromide [bmim]Br under relatively mild conditions without any added catalyst, the reaction workup is simple and the ionic liquid can be easily separated from the product and reused.Keywords: Isocyanide, Benzo[b][1, 4]oxazines, Multi-componentreactions, [bmim]Br, Ionic Liquid.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1853