Search results for: internal and external carotid arteries
588 Correlates of Coping in Individuals with Tinnitus
Authors: Vasco de Oliveira, Rute F. Meneses, Nuno Trigueiros-Cunha
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Tinnitus is commonly defined as an aberrant perception of sound without external stimulus. It’s a chronic condition with consequences on the QOL. The coping strategies used were not always effective and coping was identified as a predictor of QOL in individuals with tinnitus, which reinforces the idea that in health the use of effective coping styles should be promoted. This work intend to verify relations between coping strategies assessed by BriefCope in subjects with tinnitus and variables such as gender, age and severity of tinnitus measured by THI and the Visual Analogue Scale and also hearing and hyperacusis. The results indicate that there are any statistically significant relationships between the variables assessed in relation to the results of BriefCope except in the Visual Analogue Scale.These results, indicating no relationship between almost all variables, reinforce the need for further study of coping strategies use by these patients.
Keywords: BriefCope, Coping strategies, Quality of Live, THI, Tinnitus.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1806587 Changes of Power-Velocity Relationship in Female Volleyball Players during an Annual Training Cycle
Authors: K. Busko
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The aim of the study was to follow changes of powervelocity relationship in female volleyball players during an annual training cycle. The study was conducted on eleven female volleyball players: age 21.6±1.7 years, body height 177.9±4.7 cm, body mass 71.3±6.6 kg and training experience 8.6±3.3 years. Power–velocity relationship was determined from five maximal 10-second cycloergometer efforts with external loads equal: 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10.0 and 12.5% of body weight (BW) before (I) and after (II) the preparatory period, after the first (III) and second (IV) competitive season. The maximal power output increased from 9.30±0.85 W•kg–1 (I) to 9.50±0.96 W•kg–1 (II), 9.77±0.96 W•kg–1 (III) and 9.95±1.13 W•kg–1 (IV, p<0,05). The power output at the load of 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10.0% BW were statistically significant increased after the first and second competitive season. Power output at load of 12.5% BW was insignificant increased.Keywords: Female, Force-velocity relationship, Power output, Volleyball
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1708586 Process-based Business Transformation through Services Computing
Authors: Sinnakkrishnan Perumal, Nitish Pandey
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Business transformation initiatives are required by any organization to jump from its normal mode of operation to the one that is suitable for the change in the environment such as competitive pressures, regulatory requirements, changes in labor market, etc., or internal such as changes in strategy/vision, changes in the capability, change in the management, etc. Recent advances in information technology in automating the business processes have the potential to transform an organization to provide it with a sustained competitive advantage. Process constitutes the skeleton of a business. Thus, for a business to exist and compete well, it is essential for the skeleton to be robust and agile. This paper details “transformation" from a business perspective, methodologies to bring about an effective transformation, process-based transformation, and the role of services computing in this. Further, it details the benefits that could be achieved through services computing.Keywords: Business Transformation, Services Oriented Architecture, Business Processes, Process-based Transformation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2126585 Model Predictive Fuzzy Control of Air-ratio for Automotive Engines
Authors: Hang-cheong Wong, Pak-kin Wong, Chi-man Vong, Zhengchao Xie, Shaojia Huang
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Automotive engine air-ratio plays an important role of emissions and fuel consumption reduction while maintains satisfactory engine power among all of the engine control variables. In order to effectively control the air-ratio, this paper presents a model predictive fuzzy control algorithm based on online least-squares support vector machines prediction model and fuzzy logic optimizer. The proposed control algorithm was also implemented on a real car for testing and the results are highly satisfactory. Experimental results show that the proposed control algorithm can regulate the engine air-ratio to the stoichiometric value, 1.0, under external disturbance with less than 5% tolerance.Keywords: Air-ratio, Fuzzy logic, online least-squares support vector machine, model predictive control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1796584 Environmental Management System According to ISO 14001 as a Source of Eco-Innovations in Enterprises - A Case of Podkarpackie Voivodeship
Authors: M. Hajduk-Stelmachowicz
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This paper presents results of empirical studies that were conducted in enterprises from Podkarpackie Voivodeship (Poland). It shows the experiences of those enterprises resulting from implementing and improving the eco-innovativeness management that is formal Environmental Management System (EMS). This study shows the expected and obtained internal benefits which are the effects of a functioning EMS. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the information included in international theoretical studies concerning the benefits of implementing, functioning and improving formal EMS (which is based on the international standard ISO 14001) are confirmed by the effects of the enterprises- activities.
Keywords: Eco-innovations, Environmental Management System (EMS), ISO 14001, Podkarpackie Voivodeship (Poland).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2161583 Fast Prototyping for Atmospheric Plasma Sources Integration into Air Hand Dryers
Authors: Abdel Majid Kassir, Joël Sonnard, Ludovic Roulin, Martine Baudin, Gilles Courret, Wolfram Manuel Brück
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Motivated by the current COVID-19 pandemic and the need to find alternative methods to contain and battle it, the purpose of this innovative project is to conceive a disinfection module equipped with a cold atmospheric plasma source. Such a plasma source was developed for a potential integration into pulsed air hand dryers. This type of plasma is known for its ability to generate reactive oxygen and nitrogen species that initiate bio-molecular reactions involved in bacterial and viral deactivation mechanisms. This study shows how additive manufacturing helped accelerate the prototyping of a nozzle allowing the preservation of the plasma flow from circulation cells and external interferences in the discharge’s surrounding.
Keywords: Cold atmospheric plasma, hand disinfection, hand sanitization, bacterial and viral deactivation, plasma chemistry.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 434582 Electrophoretic Motion of a Liquid Droplet within an Uncharged Cylindrical Pore
Authors: Cheng-Hsuan Huang, Eric Lee
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Electrophoretic motion of a liquid droplet within an uncharged cylindrical pore is investigated theoretically in this study. It is found that the boundary effect in terms of the reduction of droplet mobility (droplet velocity per unit strength of the applied electric field) is very significant when the double layer surrounding the droplet is thick, and diminishes as it gets very thin. Moreover, the viscosity ratio of the ambient fluid to the internal one, σ, is a crucial factor in determining its electrophoretic behavior. The boundary effect is less significant as the viscosity ratio gets high. Up to 70% mobility reduction is observed when this ratio is low (σ = 0.01), whereas only 40% reduction when it is high (σ = 100). The results of this study can be utilized in various fields of biotechnology, such as a biosensor or a lab-on-a-chip device.Keywords: Cylindrical pore, Electrophoresis, Lab-on-a-chip, Liquid droplet
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1480581 Two-dimensional Heat Conduction of Direct Cooling in the Rotor of an Electrical Generator(Numerical Analysis)
Authors: A. Kargar, A. Kianifar, H. Mohammadiun
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Two-dimensional heat conduction within a composed solid material with a constant internal heat generation has been investigated numerically in a sector of the rotor a generator. The heat transfer between two adjacent materials is assumed to be purely conduction. Boundary conditions are assumed to be forced convection on the fluid side and adiabatic on symmetry lines. The control volume method is applied for the diffusion energy equation. Physical coordinates are transformed to the general curvilinear coordinates. Then by using a line-by-line method, the temperature distribution in a sector of the rotor has been determined. Finally, the results are normalized and the effect of cooling fluid on the maximum temperature of insulation is investigated.
Keywords: general curvilinear coordinates , jacobian, controlvolume.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1805580 Detection and Analysis of Deficiencies in Groundnut Plant using Geometric Moments
Authors: Sumeet S. Nisale, Chandan J. Bharambe, Vidya N.More
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We propose our genuine research of geometric moments which detects the mineral inadequacy in the frail groundnut plant. This plant is prone to many deficiencies as a result of the variance in the soil nutrients. By analyzing the leaves of the plant, we detect the visual symptoms that are not recognizable to the naked eyes. We have collected about 160 samples of leaves from the nearby fields. The images have been taken by keeping every leaf into a black box to avoid the external interference. For the first time, it has been possible to provide the farmer with the stages of deficiencies. This paper has applied the algorithms successfully to many other plants like Lady-s finger, Green Bean, Lablab Bean, Chilli and Tomato. But we submit the results of the groundnut predominantly. The accuracy of our algorithm and method is almost 93%. This will again pioneer a kind of green revolution in the field of agriculture and will be a boon to that field.Keywords: Component image, geometric moments, average intensity, average affected area, black box
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2121579 Construction Procedures Evaluation of Three Adjacent Tunnels and Excavation Step Effects
Authors: M. Mahdi, N. Shariatmadari
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Since, both the relative position of tunnels and the construction procedure affect the soil movement and internal forces in the lining, it is of major concern to study the influence of these factors on the tunnel design. Construction procedures of tunnels have considerable effects on the magnitude of surface movements and lining stresses. This paper describes numerical analysis of construction procedure of a three adjacent shallow tunnels at high groundwater levels using the commercial finite difference software (FLAC-3D). The aim of this study is to determinate the most suitable construction procedure for the three tunnels and the optimum excavation step in Tehran Metro tunnels in order to optimize the surface settlements and lining stresses.
Keywords: Shallow tunnel, multiple tunnels, construction procedure, surface movement, numerical modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2416578 Automated Stereophotogrammetry Data Cleansing
Authors: Stuart Henry, Philip Morrow, John Winder, Bryan Scotney
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The stereophotogrammetry modality is gaining more widespread use in the clinical setting. Registration and visualization of this data, in conjunction with conventional 3D volumetric image modalities, provides virtual human data with textured soft tissue and internal anatomical and structural information. In this investigation computed tomography (CT) and stereophotogrammetry data is acquired from 4 anatomical phantoms and registered using the trimmed iterative closest point (TrICP) algorithm. This paper fully addresses the issue of imaging artifacts around the stereophotogrammetry surface edge using the registered CT data as a reference. Several iterative algorithms are implemented to automatically identify and remove stereophotogrammetry surface edge outliers, improving the overall visualization of the combined stereophotogrammetry and CT data. This paper shows that outliers at the surface edge of stereophotogrammetry data can be successfully removed automatically.
Keywords: Data cleansing, stereophotogrammetry.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1828577 Sliding Mode Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
Authors: Ahmad Forouzan Tabar, Mohammad Azadi, Alireza Alesaadi
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This paper describes a sliding mode controller for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The dynamic of AUV model is highly nonlinear because of many factors, such as hydrodynamic drag, damping, and lift forces, Coriolis and centripetal forces, gravity and buoyancy forces, as well as forces from thruster. To address these difficulties, a nonlinear sliding mode controller is designed to approximate the nonlinear dynamics of AUV and improve trajectory tracking. Moreover, the proposed controller can profoundly attenuate the effects of uncertainties and external disturbances in the closed-loop system. Using the Lyapunov theory the boundedness of AUV tracking errors and the stability of the proposed control system are also guaranteed. Numerical simulation studies of an AUV are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the presented approach.
Keywords: Lyapunov stability, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), sliding mode controller, electronics engineering.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2581576 High-Voltage Resonant Converter with Extreme Load Variation: Design Criteria and Applications
Authors: Jose A. Pomilio, Olavo Bet, Mateus P. Vieira
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The power converter that feeds high-frequency, highvoltage transformers must be carefully designed due to parasitic components, mainly the secondary winding capacitance and the leakage inductance, that introduces resonances in relatively lowfrequency range, next to the switching frequency. This paper considers applications in which the load (resistive) has an unpredictable behavior, changing from open to short-circuit condition faster than the output voltage control loop could react. In this context, to avoid overvoltage and over current situations, that could damage the converter, the transformer or the load, it is necessary to find an operation point that assure the desired output voltage in spite of the load condition. This can done adjusting the frequency response of the transformer adding an external inductance, together with selecting the switching frequency to get stable output voltage independently of the load.
Keywords: High-voltage transformer, Resonant converter, Softcommutation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3054575 Banking Crisis and Economic Effects of the Banking Crisis in Turkey
Authors: Sevilay Konya, Sadife Güngör, Zeynep Karaçor
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Turkish economy is occurred depending on different factors from time to time and the banking crises of different magnitudes. Foremost among the factors which hinder the development of countries and societies- crises in the country's economy. Countries' economic growth rates affect inflation, unemployment and external trade. In this study, effect of November 2000, February 2001 and 2008 banking crisis on Turkey's economy and banking crisis will be examined and announced as conceptual. In this context, this study is investigates Turkey's GDP, inflation, unemployment and foreign trade figures. Turkey's economy affected have been identified from 2000 November 2001 February and 2008 banking crisis.
Keywords: Banking crises, Turkey’s economy, economic effects, Turkey.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1276574 Magneto-Optical Properties in Transparent Region of Implanted Garnet Films
Authors: Lali Kalanadzde
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We investigated magneto-optical Kerr effect in transparent region of implanted ferrite-garnet films for the (YBiCa)3(FeGe)5O12. The implantation process was carried out at room temperature by Ne+ ions with energy of 100 KeV and with various doses (0.5-2.5) 1014 ion/cm2. We discovered that slight deviation of the plane of external alternating magnetic field from plane of sample leads to appearance intensive magneto-optical maximum in transparent region of garnet films ħω=0.5-2.0 eV. In the proceeding, we have also found that the deviation of polarization plane from P- component of incident light leads to the appearance of the similar magneto-optical effects in this region. The research of magnetization processes in transparent region of garnet films showed that the formation of magneto-optical effects in region ħω=0.5-2.3 eV has a rather complex character.
Keywords: Ferrite-garnet films, ion implantation, magneto-optical, thin films.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1300573 On Enhancing Robustness of an Evolutionary Fuzzy Tracking Controller
Authors: H. Megherbi, A. C. Megherbi, N. Megherbi, K. Benmahamed
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This paper presents three-phase evolution search methodology to automatically design fuzzy logic controllers (FLCs) that can work in a wide range of operating conditions. These include varying load, parameter variations, and unknown external disturbances. The three-phase scheme consists of an exploration phase, an exploitation phase and a robustness phase. The first two phases search for FLC with high accuracy performances while the last phase aims at obtaining FLC providing the best compromise between the accuracy and robustness performances. Simulations were performed for direct-drive two-axis robot arm. The evolved FLC with the proposed design technique found to provide a very satisfactory performance under the wide range of operation conditions and to overcome problem associated with coupling and nonlinearities characteristics inherent to robot arms.
Keywords: Fuzzy logic control, evolutionary algorithms, robustness, exploration/exploitation phase.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1438572 Influence of Orientation in Complex Building Architecture in Various Climatic Regions in Winter
Authors: M. Alwetaishi, Giulia Sonetti
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It is architecturally accepted that building form and design is considered as one of the most important aspects in affecting indoor temperature. The total area of building plan might be identical, but the design will have a major influence on the total area of external walls. This will have a clear impact on the amount of heat exchange with outdoor. Moreover, it will affect the position and area of glazing system. This has not received enough consideration in research by the specialists, since most of the publications are highlighting the impact of building envelope in terms of physical heat transfer in buildings. This research will investigate the impact of orientation of various building forms in various climatic regions. It will be concluded that orientation and glazing to wall ratio were recognized to be the most effective variables despite the shape of the building. However, linear ad radial forms were found more appropriate shapes almost across the continent.
Keywords: Architectural building design, building form, indoor air temperature, building design in different climate.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1130571 The Interaction between Human and Environment on the Perspective of Environmental Ethics
Authors: Mella Ismelina Farma Rahayu
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Environmental problems could not be separated from unethical human perspectives and behaviors toward the environment. There is a fundamental error in the philosophy of people’s perspective about human and nature and their relationship with the environment, which in turn will create an inappropriate behavior in relation to the environment. The aim of this study is to investigate and to understand the ethics of the environment in the context of humans interacting with the environment by using the hermeneutic approach. The related theories and concepts collected from literature review are used as data, which were analyzed by using interpretation, critical evaluation, internal coherence, comparisons, and heuristic techniques. As a result of this study, there will be a picture related to the interaction of human and environment in the perspective of environmental ethics, as well as the problems of the value of ecological justice in the interaction of humans and environment. We suggest that the interaction between humans and environment need to be based on environmental ethics, in a spirit of mutual respect between humans and the natural world.
Keywords: The environment, environmental ethics, the interaction, value.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1583570 External Effects on Dynamic Competitive Model of Domestic Airline and High Speed Rail
Authors: Shih-Ching Lo, Yu-Ping Liao
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Social-economic variables influence transportation demand largely. Analyses of discrete choice model consider social-economic variables to study traveler-s mode choice and demand. However, to calibrate the discrete choice model needs to have plenty of questionnaire survey. Also, an aggregative model is proposed. The historical data of passenger volumes for high speed rail and domestic civil aviation are employed to calibrate and validate the model. In this study, models with different social-economic variables, which are oil price, GDP per capita, CPI and economic growth rate, are compared. From the results, the model with the oil price is better than models with the other social-economic variables.Keywords: forecasting, passenger volume, dynamic competitive model, social-economic variables, oil price.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1575569 Supporting Technology Transfer with Communities and Social Software Solutions
Authors: G. Schuh, S. Aghassi
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In order to bridge the gap between research and industry, promoting technology and knowledge transfer becomes increasingly important. Especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, having only little R&D resources themselves, depend on external technology development activities for remaining innovative. Academia research on the other hand needs potential industrial partners, who are capable and willing to commercialize their technologies as most public funding programs require some sort of technology transfer or dissemination activities. Modern web technologies offer more and more “social” functionalities and open up new ways of user interaction. In the past years several technology transfer platforms were developed, making use of modern web technologies in order to enable and support technology transfer. In this paper we report on the results of a state-of-the art analyses of existing technology transfer platforms, point out their advantages and deficits and give a perspective to the development of an improved technology transfer platform.
Keywords: Knowledge transfer, social software, technology management, technology transfer.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1689568 Heat Transfer Analysis of Rectangular Channel Plate Heat Sink
Authors: Zhang Lei, Liu Min, Liu Botao
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In order to improve the simulation effects of space cold black environment, this paper described a rectangular channel plate heat sink. By using fluid mechanics theory and finite element method, the internal fluid flow and heat transfer in heat sink was numerically simulated to analyze the impact of channel structural on fluid flow and heat transfer. The result showed that heat sink temperature uniformity is well, and the impact of channel structural on the heat sink temperature uniformity is not significant. The channel depth and spacing are important factors which affect the fluid flow and heat transfer in the heat sink. The two factors of heat transfer and resistance need to be considered comprehensively to determine the optimal flow structure parameters.Keywords: heat transfer, heat sink, numerical simulation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1831567 A New Edit Distance Method for Finding Similarity in Dna Sequence
Authors: Patsaraporn Somboonsak, Mud-Armeen Munlin
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The P-Bigram method is a string comparison methods base on an internal two characters-based similarity measure. The edit distance between two strings is the minimal number of elementary editing operations required to transform one string into the other. The elementary editing operations include deletion, insertion, substitution two characters. In this paper, we address the P-Bigram method to sole the similarity problem in DNA sequence. This method provided an efficient algorithm that locates all minimum operation in a string. We have been implemented algorithm and found that our program calculated that smaller distance than one string. We develop PBigram edit distance and show that edit distance or the similarity and implementation using dynamic programming. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated using number edit and percentage similarity measures.Keywords: Edit distance, String Matching, String Similarity
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3302566 Investigation on Ship Collision Phenomena by Analytical and Finite Element Methods
Authors: Abuzar.Abazari, Saeed. Ziaei-Rad, Hoseein. Dalayeli
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Collision is considered as a time-depended nonlinear dynamic phenomenon. The majority of researchers have focused on deriving the resultant damage of the ship collisions via analytical, experimental, and finite element methods.In this paper, first, the force-penetration curve of a head collision on a container ship with rigid barrier based on Yang and Pedersen-s methods for internal mechanic section is studied. Next, the obtained results from different analytical methods are compared with each others. Then, through a simulation of the container ship collision in Ansys Ls-Dyna, results from finite element approach are compared with analytical methods and the source of errors is discussed. Finally, the effects of parameters such as velocity, and angle of collision on the forcepenetration curve are investigated.Keywords: Ship collision, Force-penetration curve, Damage
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2114565 Chua’s Circuit Regulation Using a Nonlinear Adaptive Feedback Technique
Authors: Abolhassan Razminia, Mohammad-Ali Sadrnia
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Chua’s circuit is one of the most important electronic devices that are used for Chaos and Bifurcation studies. A central role of secure communication is devoted to it. Since the adaptive control is used vastly in the linear systems control, here we introduce a new trend of application of adaptive method in the chaos controlling field. In this paper, we try to derive a new adaptive control scheme for Chua’s circuit controlling because control of chaos is often very important in practical operations. The novelty of this approach is for sake of its robustness against the external perturbations which is simulated as an additive noise in all measured states and can be generalized to other chaotic systems. Our approach is based on Lyapunov analysis and the adaptation law is considered for the feedback gain. Because of this, we have named it NAFT (Nonlinear Adaptive Feedback Technique). At last, simulations show the capability of the presented technique for Chua’s circuit.
Keywords: Chaos, adaptive control, nonlinear control, Chua's circuit.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2053564 Geometrical Structure and Layer Orientation Effects on Strength, Material Consumption and Building Time of FDM Rapid Prototyped Samples
Authors: Ahmed A. D. Sarhan, Chong Feng Duan, Mum Wai Yip, M. Sayuti
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Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies enable physical parts to be produced from various materials without depending on the conventional tooling. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of the famous RP processes used at present. Tensile strength and compressive strength resistance will be identified for different sample structures and different layer orientations of ABS rapid prototype solid models. The samples will be fabricated by a FDM rapid prototyping machine in different layer orientations with variations in internal geometrical structure. The 0° orientation where layers were deposited along the length of the samples displayed superior strength and impact resistance over all the other orientations. The anisotropic properties were probably caused by weak interlayer bonding and interlayer porosity.Keywords: Building orientation, compression strength, rapid prototyping, tensile strength.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1699563 Opposition Parties and the Politics of Opposition in Africa: A Critical Analysis
Authors: Wondwosen Teshome B.
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The major aim of this paper is to investigate the opposition politics in Africa. The paper also examines the status and the role, the contributions and the weaknesses of opposition1 political parties in Africa, particularly in transitional democracies that emerged in the 1990s. In Africa, many of the opposition parties appear or become active only during an election, and disappear when the election is over. It is found out that most of the opposition parties in Africa are established around the personalities of individuals, lack internal democracy, suffer from inter-party and intra-party conflicts, have severe shortage of finance, and lack strong base and experience. Their weaknesses also include bad organization and weak connection with the popular constituencies. The paper concludes that most of the weaknesses of the African opposition parties emanate from the incumbents- hostile policies, which are mostly aimed at fragmenting and weakening the opposition groups.
Keywords: Africa, Hybrid regime, Incumbent party, Neopatrimonialsim, Opposition party, Political party, Pseudo-democracy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4697562 Methods of Estimating the Equilibrium Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER)
Authors: Pavla Ruzickova, Petr Teply
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There are many debates now regarding undervalued and overvalued currencies currently traded on the world financial market. This paper contributes to these debates from a theoretical point of view. We present the three most commonly used methods of estimating the equilibrium real effective exchange rate (REER): macroeconomic balance approach, external sustainability approach and equilibrium real effective exchange rate approach in the reduced form. Moreover, we discuss key concepts of the calculation of the real exchange rate (RER) based on applied explanatory variables: nominal exchange rates, terms of trade and tradable and non-tradable goods. Last but not least, we discuss the three main driving forces behind real exchange rates movements which include terms of trade, relative productivity growth and the interest rate differential.Keywords: real exchange rate, real effective exchange rate, foreign exchange, terms of trade
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2476561 Choice of Efficient Information System with Service-Oriented Architecture using Multiple Criteria Threshold Algorithms (With Practical Example)
Authors: Irina Pyrlina
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Author presents the results of a study conducted to identify criteria of efficient information system (IS) with serviceoriented architecture (SOA) realization and proposes a ranking method to evaluate SOA information systems using a set of architecture quality criteria before the systems are implemented. The method is used to compare 7 SOA projects and ranking result for SOA efficiency of the projects is provided. The choice of SOA realization project depends on following criteria categories: IS internal work and organization, SOA policies, guidelines and change management, processes and business services readiness, risk management and mitigation. The last criteria category was analyzed on the basis of projects statistics.
Keywords: multiple criteria threshold algorithm, serviceoriented architecture, SOA operational risks, efficiency criteria for IS architecture, projects ranking.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1385560 Electromagnetic Field Modeling in Human Tissue
Authors: Iliana Marinova, Valentin Mateev
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For investigations of electromagnetic field distributions in biological structures by Finite Element Method (FEM), a method for automatic 3D model building of human anatomical objects is developed. Models are made by meshed structures and specific electromagnetic material properties for each tissue type. Mesh is built according to specific FEM criteria for achieving good solution accuracy. Several FEM models of anatomical objects are built. Formulation using magnetic vector potential and scalar electric potential (A-V, A) is used for modeling of electromagnetic fields in human tissue objects. The developed models are suitable for investigations of electromagnetic field distributions in human tissues exposed in external fields during magnetic stimulation, defibrillation, impedance tomography etc.Keywords: electromagnetic field, finite element method, humantissue.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5286559 A Novel Model for Simultaneously Minimising Costs and Risks in Just-in-Time Systems Using Multi-Backup Suppliers: Part 2- Results
Authors: Faraj El Dabee, Romeo Marian, Yousef Amer
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This paper implements the inventory model developed in the first part of this paper in a simplified problem to simultaneously reduce costs and risks in JIT systems. This model is developed to ascertain an optimal ordering strategy for procuring raw materials by using regular multi-external and local backup suppliers to reduce the total cost of the products, and at the same time to reduce the risks arising from this cost reduction within production systems. A comparison between the cost of using the JIT system and using the proposed inventory model shows the superiority of the use of the inventory model.
Keywords: Lean manufacturing, Just-in-Time (JIT), production system, cost-risk reduction, inventory model, eternal supplier, local backup supplier.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1536