Search results for: flexible solar panel.

Authors: Ahmed A. A. Radwan, Bahgat A. Abdel Latef, Abdel Mgeid A. Ali, Osman A. Sadek

Abstract:

This study investigates the use of genetic algorithms in information retrieval. The method is shown to be applicable to three well-known documents collections, where more relevant documents are presented to users in the genetic modification. In this paper we present a new fitness function for approximate information retrieval which is very fast and very flexible, than cosine similarity fitness function.

Keywords: Cosine similarity, Fitness function, Genetic Algorithm, Information Retrieval, Query learning.

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Authors: Arkady Bolotin

Abstract:

If a possibility distribution and a probability distribution are describing values x of one and the same system or process x(t), can they relate to each other? Though in general the possibility and probability distributions might be not connected at all, we can assume that in some particular cases there is an association linked them. In the presented paper, we consider distributions of bloodstream concentrations of physiologically active substances and propose that the probability to observe a concentration x of a substance X can be produced from the possibility of the event X = x . The proposed assumptions and resulted theoretical distributions are tested against the data obtained from various panel studies of the bloodstream concentrations of the different physiologically active substances in patients and healthy adults as well.

Keywords: Possibility distributions, possibility-probability relationship.

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Authors: Thomas Meier

Abstract:

One of the major challenges for sustainable smart building systems is to support device interoperability, i.e. connecting sensor or actuator devices from different vendors, and present their functionality to the external applications. Furthermore, smart building systems are supposed to connect with devices that are not available yet, i.e. devices that become available on the market sometime later. It is of vital importance that a sustainable smart building platform provides an appropriate external interface that can be leveraged by external applications and smart services. An external platform interface must be stable and independent of specific devices and should support flexible and scalable usage scenarios. A typical approach applied in smart home systems is based on a generic device interface used within the smart building platform. Device functions, even of rather complex devices, are mapped to that generic base type interface by means of specific device drivers. Our new approach, presented in this work, extends that approach by using the smart building system’s rule engine to create complex virtual devices that can represent the most diverse properties of real devices. We examined and evaluated both approaches by means of a practical case study using a smart building system that we have developed. We show that the solution we present allows the highest degree of flexibility without affecting external application interface stability and scalability. In contrast to other systems our approach supports complex virtual device configuration on application layer (e.g. by administration users) instead of device configuration at platform layer (e.g. platform operators). Based on our work, we can show that our approach supports almost arbitrarily flexible use case scenarios without affecting the external application interface stability. However, the cost of this approach is additional appropriate configuration overhead and additional resource consumption at the IoT platform level that must be considered by platform operators. We conclude that the concept of complex virtual devices presented in this work can be applied to improve the usability and device interoperability of sustainable intelligent building systems significantly.

Keywords: Complex virtual devices, device integration, device interoperability, Internet of Things, smart building platform.

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Authors: Dennis Gossmann, Habil Peter Nyhuis

Abstract:

Amongst the consistently fluctuating conditions prevailing today, changeability represents a strategic key factor for a manufacturing company to achieve success on the international markets. In order to cope with turbulences and the increasing level of incalculability, not only the flexible design of production systems but in particular the employee as enabler of change provide the focus here. It is important to enable employees from manufacturing companies to participate actively in change events and in change decisions. To this end, the learning factory has been created, which is intended to serve the development of change-promoting competences and the sensitization of employees for the necessity of changes.

Keywords: Changeability, human resources, learning factory.

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Authors: M. Stewart, Ameer Al-Khaykan, J. M. Counsell

Abstract:

Emissions are a consequence of electricity generation. A major option for low carbon generation, local energy systems featuring Combined Heat and Power with solar PV (CHPV) has significant potential to increase energy performance, increase resilience, and offer greater control of local energy prices while complementing the UK’s emissions standards and targets. Recent advances in dynamic modelling and simulation of buildings and clusters of buildings using the IDEAS framework have successfully validated a novel multi-vector (simultaneous control of both heat and electricity) approach to integrating the wide range of primary and secondary plant typical of local energy systems designs including CHP, solar PV, gas boilers, absorption chillers and thermal energy storage, and associated electrical and hot water networks, all operating under a single unified control strategy. Results from this work indicate through simulation that integrated control of thermal storage can have a pivotal role in optimizing system performance well beyond the present expectations. Environmental impact analysis and reporting of all energy systems including CHPV LES presently employ a static annual average carbon emissions intensity for grid supplied electricity. This paper focuses on establishing and validating CHPV environmental performance against conventional emissions values and assessment benchmarks to analyze emissions performance without and with an active thermal store in a notional group of non-domestic buildings. Results of this analysis are presented and discussed in context of performance validation and quantifying the reduced environmental impact of CHPV systems with active energy storage in comparison with conventional LES designs.

Keywords: CHPV, thermal storage, control, dynamic simulation.

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Authors: Toshihiko Matsuka

Abstract:

One problem in evaluating recent computational models of human category learning is that there is no standardized method for systematically comparing the models' assumptions or hypotheses. In the present study, a flexible general model (called GECLE) is introduced that can be used as a framework to systematically manipulate and compare the effects and descriptive validities of a limited number of assumptions at a time. Two example simulation studies are presented to show how the GECLE framework can be useful in the field of human high-order cognition research.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, category learning, cognitive modeling, radial basis functions.

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Authors: Jamil Hijazi, Stirling Howieson

Abstract:

Reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are probably the greatest challenge now facing mankind. From considerations surrounding global warming and CO₂ production, it has to be recognized that oil is a finite resource and the KSA like many other oil-rich countries will have to start to consider a horizon where hydro-carbons are not the dominant energy resource. The employment of hybrid ground-cooling pipes in combination with the black body solar collection and radiant night cooling systems may have the potential to displace a significant proportion of oil currently used to run conventional air conditioning plant. This paper presents an investigation into the viability of such hybrid systems with the specific aim of reducing cooling load and carbon emissions while providing all year-round thermal comfort in a typical Saudi Arabian urban housing block. Soil temperatures were measured in the city of Jeddah. A parametric study then was carried out by computational simulation software (DesignBuilder) that utilized the field measurements and predicted the cooling energy consumption of both a base case and an ideal scenario (typical block retro-fitted with insulation, solar shading, ground pipes integrated with hypocaust floor slabs/stack ventilation and radiant cooling pipes embed in floor). Initial simulation results suggest that careful ‘ecological design’ combined with hybrid radiant and ground pipe cooling techniques can displace air conditioning systems, producing significant cost and carbon savings (both capital and running) without appreciable deprivation of amenity.

Keywords: Cooling load, energy efficiency, ground pipe cooling, hybrid cooling strategy, hydronic radiant systems, low carbon emission, passive designs, thermal comfort.

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Authors: Karanjeet Singh Kahlon, Gurvinder Singh, Arjan Singh

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In the past few years there is a change in the view of high performance applications and parallel computing. Initially such applications were targeted towards dedicated parallel machines. Recently trend is changing towards building meta-applications composed of several modules that exploit heterogeneous platforms and employ hybrid forms of parallelism. The aim of this paper is to propose a model of virtual parallel computing. Virtual parallel computing system provides a flexible object oriented software framework that makes it easy for programmers to write various parallel applications.

Keywords: Applet, Efficiency, Java, LAN

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Authors: Sayeed Salam

Abstract:

An effort to develop a unit commitment approach capable of handling large power systems consisting of both thermal and hydro generating units offers a large profitable return. In order to be feasible, the method to be developed must be flexible, efficient and reliable. In this paper, various proposed methods have been described along with their strengths and weaknesses. As all of these methods have some sort of weaknesses, a comprehensive algorithm that combines the strengths of different methods and overcomes each other-s weaknesses would be a suitable approach for solving industry-grade unit commitment problem.

Keywords: Unit commitment, Solution methods, and Comprehensive algorithm.

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Authors: Abdelrahman Ahmed Mohamed Osman

Abstract:

Over the past few years, a number of efforts have been exerted to build parallel processing systems that utilize the idle power of LAN-s and PC-s available in many homes and corporations. The main advantage of these approaches is that they provide cheap parallel processing environments for those who cannot afford the expenses of supercomputers and parallel processing hardware. However, most of the solutions provided are not very flexible in the use of available resources and very difficult to install and setup. In this paper, a multi-level web-based parallel processing system (MWPS) is designed (appendix). MWPS is based on the idea of volunteer computing, very flexible, easy to setup and easy to use. MWPS allows three types of subscribers: simple volunteers (single computers), super volunteers (full networks) and end users. All of these entities are coordinated transparently through a secure web site. Volunteer nodes provide the required processing power needed by the system end users. There is no limit on the number of volunteer nodes, and accordingly the system can grow indefinitely. Both volunteer and system users must register and subscribe. Once, they subscribe, each entity is provided with the appropriate MWPS components. These components are very easy to install. Super volunteer nodes are provided with special components that make it possible to delegate some of the load to their inner nodes. These inner nodes may also delegate some of the load to some other lower level inner nodes .... and so on. It is the responsibility of the parent super nodes to coordinate the delegation process and deliver the results back to the user. MWPS uses a simple behavior-based scheduler that takes into consideration the current load and previous behavior of processing nodes. Nodes that fulfill their contracts within the expected time get a high degree of trust. Nodes that fail to satisfy their contract get a lower degree of trust. MWPS is based on the .NET framework and provides the minimal level of security expected in distributed processing environments. Users and processing nodes are fully authenticated. Communications and messages between nodes are very secure. The system has been implemented using C#. MWPS may be used by any group of people or companies to establish a parallel processing or grid environment.

Keywords: Volunteer computing, Parallel Processing, XMLWebServices, .NET Remoting, Tuplespace.

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Authors: Mohammad Ehson Rangiha, Bill Karakostas

Abstract:

Social Business Process Management (SBPM) promises to overcome limitations of traditional BPM by allowing flexible process design and enactment through the involvement of users from a social community. This paper proposes a meta-model and architecture for socially driven business process management systems. It discusses the main facets of the architecture such as goalbased role assignment that combines social recommendations with user profile, and process recommendation, through a real example of a charity organization.

Keywords: Business Process Management, Goal-Based Modelling, Process Recommendation Social Collaboration, Social BPM.

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Authors: Mario Gianni, Manuel A. Ruiz Garcia, Fiora Pirri

Abstract:

In this work, we present a Bayesian non-parametric approach to model the motion control of ATVs. The motion control model is based on a Dirichlet Process-Gaussian Process (DP-GP) mixture model. The DP-GP mixture model provides a flexible representation of patterns of control manoeuvres along trajectories of different lengths and discretizations. The model also estimates the number of patterns, sufficient for modeling the dynamics of the ATV.

Keywords: Dirichlet processes, Gaussian processes, robot control learning, tracked vehicles.

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Authors: Ahmet Ay, Hakan Acet, Ceyhun Can Özcan

Abstract:

Economic freedoms, most emphasized issue in the recent years, are considered to affect economic growth and performance via institutional structure. In this context, a model that includes Turkey and Middle East Countries, and where the effects of economic freedom on growth are examined, was formed. For the groups of countries determined, in the study carried out by using the dataset belonging the period of 2004 - 2009, between economic freedoms and growth, a negative relationship was observed as group. In the sense of individual effects, it was identified that there was a positive relationship in terms of some Middle East Countries and Turkey.

Keywords: Economic Freedoms, Economic Growth, Freedoms.

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Authors: Indunil Jayatilake, Warna Karunasena, Weena Lokuge

Abstract:

An Australian manufacturer has fabricated an innovative GFRP sandwich panel made from E-glass fiber skin and a modified phenolic core for structural applications. Debonding, which refers to separation of skin from the core material in composite sandwiches, is one of the most common types of damage in composites. The presence of debonding is of great concern because it not only severely affects the stiffness but also modifies the dynamic behaviour of the structure. Generally it is seen that the majority of research carried out has been concerned about the delamination of laminated structures whereas skin-core debonding has received relatively minor attention. Furthermore it is observed that research done on composite slabs having multiple skin-core debonding is very limited. To address this gap, a comprehensive research investigating dynamic behaviour of composite panels with single and multiple debonding is presented. The study uses finite-element modelling and analyses for investigating the influence of debonding on free vibration behaviour of single and multilayer composite sandwich panels. A broad parametric investigation has been carried out by varying debonding locations, debonding sizes and support conditions of the panels in view of both single and multiple debonding. Numerical models were developed with Strand7 finite element package by innovatively selecting the suitable elements to diligently represent their actual behavior. Three-dimensional finite element models were employed to simulate the physically real situation as close as possible, with the use of an experimentally and numerically validated finite element model. Comparative results and conclusions based on the analyses are presented. For similar extents and locations of debonding, the effect of debonding on natural frequencies appears greatly dependent on the end conditions of the panel, giving greater decrease in natural frequency when the panels are more restrained. Some modes are more sensitive to debonding and this sensitivity seems to be related to their vibration mode shapes. The fundamental mode seems generally the least sensitive mode to debonding with respect to the variation in free vibration characteristics. The results indicate the effectiveness of the developed three dimensional finite element models in assessing debonding damage in composite sandwich panels.

Keywords: Debonding, free vibration behaviour, GFRP sandwich panels, three dimensional finite element modelling.

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Authors: Mohammad Shoyaib, M. Abdullah-Al-Wadud, Oksam Chae

Abstract:

In this paper an effective approach for segmenting human skin regions in images taken at different environment is proposed. The proposed method uses a color distance map that is flexible enough to reliably detect the skin regions even if the illumination conditions of the image vary. Local image conditions is also focused, which help the technique to adaptively detect differently illuminated skin regions of an image. Moreover, usage of local information also helps the skin detection process to get rid of picking up much noisy pixels.

Keywords: Color Distance map, Reference skin color, Regiongrowing, Skin segmentation.

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Authors: S.F. Tsen, M. Zamin Jumaat

Abstract:

The characteristic bending strength (MOR) and mean modulus of elasticity (MOE) of tropical hardwood red seraya (Shorea spp.) plywood were determined using European Standard EN310 and EN789. The thickness of the test specimen was 4.0mm, 7.0mm, 9.0mm, 12.0mm and 15.0mm. The experiment found that the MOR of red seraya plywood in EN310 is about 12% to 20% and 7% to 24% higher than EN789 whereas MOE were about 28% to 41% and 30% to 36% lower than those obtained from EN 789 for test specimens parallel and perpendicular to the grain direction. The linear regression shows that MOR and MOE for EN789 is about 0.8 times less and 1.5 times more than EN310. The experiment also found that the MOR and MOE of EN310 and EN789 also depend on the wood species that used in the experiment.

Keywords: Bending strength, Modulus of elasticity, EN310, EN789

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Authors: Yazhi Huang, Jing Yang, Dingge Ying, Yan Zhang, Vorasuk Shotelersuk, Nattiya Hirankarn, Pak Chung Sham, Yu Lung Lau, Wanling Yang

Abstract:

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing from next generation sequencing (NGS) data has the potential for applications in clinical laboratories and population genetic studies. Here we introduce a novel technique for HLA typing from NGS data based on read-mapping using a comprehensive reference panel containing all known HLA alleles and de novo assembly of the gene-specific short reads. An accurate HLA typing at high-digit resolution was achieved when it was tested on publicly available NGS data, outperforming other newly-developed tools such as HLAminer and PHLAT.

Keywords: Human leukocyte antigens, next generation sequencing, whole exome sequencing, HLA typing.

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Authors: Panhathai Buasri

Abstract:

Hydrogen that used as fuel in fuel cell vehicles can be produced from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydro technologies. PV-electrolyzer is one of the promising methods to produce hydrogen with zero pollution emission. Hydrogen production from a PV-electrolyzer system depends on the efficiency of the electrolyzer and photovoltaic array, and sun irradiance at that site. In this study, the amount of hydrogen is obtained using mathematical equations for difference driving distance and sun peak hours. The results show that the minimum of 99 PV modules are used to generate 1.75 kgH2 per day for two vehicles.

Keywords: About four key words or phrases in alphabetical order, separated by commas.

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Authors: Kyrre M Begnum, Matthew Disney

Abstract:

Virtualization and high performance computing have been discussed from a performance perspective in recent publications. We present and discuss a flexible and efficient approach to the management of virtual clusters. A virtual machine management tool is extended to function as a fabric for cluster deployment and management. We show how features such as saving the state of a running cluster can be used to avoid disruption. We also compare our approach to the traditional methods of cluster deployment and present benchmarks which illustrate the efficiency of our approach.

Keywords: Cluster management, clusters, high-performance, virtual machines, Xen

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Authors: Rosita Suhaimi, Firdaus Abdullah, Chong Fen Nee, Nurhani Aba Ibrahim

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This paper attempts to identify the significance of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and competitiveness to the profit efficiency of commercial banks in Malaysia. The profit efficiency of commercial banks in Malaysia, the dependent variable, was estimated using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) on a sample of unbalanced panel data, covering 23 commercial banks, between 1995 to 2007. Based on the empirical results, ICT was not found to exert a significant impact on profit efficiency, whereas competitiveness, non ICT stock expenditure and ownership were significant contributors. On the other hand, the size of banks was found to have significantly reduced profit efficiency, opening up for various interpretations of the interrelated role of ICT and competition.

Keywords: Competitiveness, Profit Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Analysis

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Authors: Chen Wu, Komal Narejo, Dandan Li

Abstract:

Some extended rough set models in incomplete information system cannot distinguish the two objects that have few known attributes and more unknown attributes; some cannot make a flexible and accurate discrimination. In order to solve this problem, this paper suggests an improved limited tolerance rough set model using two thresholds to control what two objects have a relationship between them in limited tolerance relation and to classify objects. Our practical study case shows the model can get fine and reasonable decision results.

Keywords: Decision rule, incomplete information system, limited tolerance relation, rough set model.

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Authors: Mustafa Engin Başoğlu, Bekir Çakir

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Since large part of electricity is generated by using fossil based resources, energy is an important agenda for countries. In this context, renewable energy sources are alternative to conventional sources due to the depletion of fossil resources, increasing awareness of climate change and global warming concerns. Solar, wind and hydropower energy are the main renewable energy sources. Among of them, since installed capacity of wind power has increased approximately eight times between 2008 - November of 2014, wind energy is a promising source for Turkey. Furthermore, signing of Kyoto Protocol can be accepted as a milestone for Turkey's energy policy. Turkish Government has announced Vision 2023 (energy targets by 2023) in 2010-2014 Strategic Plan prepared by Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR). Energy targets in this plan can be summarized as follows: Share of renewable energy sources in electricity generation is 30% of total electricity generation by 2023. Installed capacity of wind energy will be 20 GW by 2023. Other renewable energy sources such as solar, hydropower and geothermal are encouraged with new incentive mechanisms. Dependence on foreign energy is reduced for sustainability and energy security. On the other hand, since Turkey is surrounded by three coastal areas, wind energy potential is convenient for wind power application. As of November of 2014, total installed capacity of wind power plants is 3.51 GW and a lot of wind power plants are under construction with capacity 1.16 GW. Turkish government also encourages the locally manufactured equipments. In this context, one of the projects funded by private sector, universities and TUBİTAK names as MILRES is an important project aimed to promote the use wind energy in electricity generation. Within this project, wind turbine with 500 kW power has been produced and will be installed at the beginning of the 2015. After that, by using the experience obtained from the first phase of the project, a wind turbine with 2.5 MW power will be manufactured in an industrial scale.

Keywords: Wind energy, wind speed, Vision 2023, MILRES (national wind energy system), wind energy potential, Turkey.

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Authors: Sunglim Lee, Susumu Fujii, Koji Okamura

Abstract:

Smart grid is a new approach for electric power grid that uses information and communications technology to control the electric power grid. Smart grid provides real-time control of the electric power grid, controlling the direction of power flow or time of the flow. Control devices are installed on the power lines of the electric power grid to implement smart grid. The number of the control devices should be determined, in relation with the area one control device covers and the cost associated with the control devices. One approach to determine the number of the control devices is to use the data on the surplus power generated by home solar generators. In current implementations, the surplus power is sent all the way to the power plant, which may cause power loss. To reduce the power loss, the surplus power may be sent to a control device and sent to where the power is needed from the control device. Under assumption that the control devices are installed on a lattice of equal size squares, our goal is to figure out the optimal spacing between the control devices, where the power sharing area (the area covered by one control device) is kept small to avoid power loss, and at the same time the power sharing area is big enough to have no surplus power wasted. To achieve this goal, a simulation using landscape ecology method is conducted on a sample area. First an aerial photograph of the land of interest is turned into a mosaic map where each area is colored according to the ratio of the amount of power production to the amount of power consumption in the area. The amount of power consumption is estimated according to the characteristics of the buildings in the area. The power production is calculated by the sum of the area of the roofs shown in the aerial photograph and assuming that solar panels are installed on all the roofs. The mosaic map is colored in three colors, each color representing producer, consumer, and neither. We started with a mosaic map with 100 m grid size, and the grid size is grown until there is no red grid. One control device is installed on each grid, so that the grid is the area which the control device covers. As the result of this simulation we got 350m as the optimal spacing between the control devices that makes effective use of the surplus power for the sample area.

Keywords: Landscape ecology, IT, smart grid, aerial photograph, simulation.

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Authors: Guarry Montrose, Ted Soubdhan

Abstract:

In the context of sustainable development and climate change, the adaptation of buildings to the climatic context in hot climates is a necessity if we want to improve living conditions in housing and reduce the risks to the health and productivity of occupants due to thermal discomfort in buildings. One can find a wide variety of efficient solutions but with high costs. In developing countries, especially tropical countries, we need to appreciate a technology with a very limited cost that is affordable for everyone, energy efficient and protects the environment. Biosourced insulation is a product based on plant fibers, animal products or products from recyclable paper or clothing. Their development meets the objectives of maintaining biodiversity, reducing waste and protecting the environment. In tropical or hot countries, the aim is to protect the building from solar thermal radiation, a source of discomfort. The aim of this work is in line with the logic of energy control and environmental protection, the approach is to make the occupants of buildings comfortable, reduce their carbon dioxide emissions (CO₂) and decrease their energy consumption (energy efficiency). We have chosen to study the thermo-physical properties of banana leaves and sawdust, especially their thermal conductivities, direct measurements were made using the flash method and the hot plate method. We also measured the heat flow on both sides of each sample by the hot box method. The results from these different experiences show that these materials are very efficient used as insulation. We have also conducted a building thermal simulation using banana leaves as one of the materials under Design Builder software. Air-conditioning load as well as CO₂ release was used as performance indicator. When the air-conditioned building cell is protected on the roof by banana leaves and integrated into the walls with solar protection of the glazing, it saves up to 64.3% of energy and avoids 57% of CO₂ emissions.

Keywords: Plant fibers, tropical climates, sustainable development, waste reduction.

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Authors: Kezia Amanda Kurniadi, Emre Islamoglu, Kwangyeol Ryu

Abstract:

As there has been a recognizable transition in automotive industry from mass production to mass customization, automobile manufacturers and their suppliers have been seeking ways for more flexible and efficient processes. Eventually, modular production is currently being applied to manage the changing orders of the industry. In this paper, two different modular assembly line concepts were studied: conveyor line and box assembly line. Mathematical model for two assembly line concepts were developed and their production line efficiency were compared as a performance measure to improve their assembly line balancing.

Keywords: Line Efficiency, Box assembly line, Conventional conveyor line

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Authors: Le Thanh Ha, Hye-Soo Kim, Chun-Su Park, Seung-Won Jung, Sung-Jea Ko

Abstract:

Flexible macroblock ordering (FMO), adopted in the H.264 standard, allows to partition all macroblocks (MBs) in a frame into separate groups of MBs called Slice Groups (SGs). FMO can not only support error-resilience, but also control the size of video packets for different network types. However, it is well-known that the number of bits required for encoding the frame is increased by adopting FMO. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm that can reduce the bitrate overhead caused by utilizing FMO. In the proposed algorithm, all MBs are grouped in SGs based on the similarity of the transform coefficients. Experimental results show that our algorithm can reduce the bitrate as compared with conventional FMO.

Keywords: Data Partition, Entropy Coding, Greedy Algorithm, H.264/AVC, Slice Group.

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Authors: F. Kalantari, M. Barzegar, Z. Hamidi-Esfahani

Abstract:

This study was conducted to evaluate the antifungal activities of Cinnamomum zeylanicum and Origanum vulgare L. essential oil against Aspergillus flavus in culture media and tomato paste. 200 ppm of cinnamon and 500 ppm of oregano completely inhibited A. flavus growth in culture media, while in tomato paste 300 ppm of cinnamon and 200 ppm of oregano had the same effect. Test panel evaluations revealed that samples with 100 and 200 ppm cinnamon were acceptable. The results may suggest the potential use of Cinnamomum zeylanicum essential oil as natural preservative in tomato paste.

Keywords: Antimicrobial, Food safety, GC/MS, Natural preservative

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Authors: L. Ludovic, R. Daniel, S-E Tbahriti

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Database management systems that integrate user preferences promise better solution for personalization, greater flexibility and higher quality of query responses. This paper presents a tentative work that studies and investigates approaches to express user preferences in queries. We sketch an extend capabilities of SQLf language that uses the fuzzy set theory in order to define the user preferences. For that, two essential points are considered: the first concerns the expression of user preferences in SQLf by so-called fuzzy commensurable predicates set. The second concerns the bipolar way in which these user preferences are expressed on mandatory and/or optional preferences.

Keywords: Flexible query language, relational database, userpreference.

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Authors: Birol Yildiz, Abdullah Yalama, Metin Coskun

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Many studies have shown that Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been widely used for forecasting financial markets, because of many financial and economic variables are nonlinear, and an ANN can model flexible linear or non-linear relationship among variables. The purpose of the study was to employ an ANN models to predict the direction of the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 Indices (ISE National-100). As a result of this study, the model forecast the direction of the ISE National-100 to an accuracy of 74, 51%.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, Istanbul StockExchange, Non-linear Modeling.

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Authors: Karolína Vozková, Matěj Kuc

Abstract:

This paper deals with the impact of decrease in interest rates on the performance of commercial and cooperative banks in the Eurozone measured by net interest margin. The analysis was performed on balanced dataset of 268 commercial and 726 cooperative banks spanning the 2008-2015 period. We employed Fixed Effects estimation panel method. As expected, we found a negative relationship between market rates and net interest margin. Our results suggest that the impact of negative interest income differs across individual banking business models. More precisely, those cooperative banks were much more hit by the decrease of market interest rates which might be due to their ownership structure and more restrictive business regulation.

Keywords: Cooperative banks, performance, negative interest rates, risk management.

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