Search results for: production chains in the Arctic region

Authors: Marc Veillette, Mostafa Chamoumi, Nathalie Faucheux, Michèle Heitz

Abstract:

Biodiesel is traditionally produced from oleaginous plants. On the other hand, increasing biodiesel production from these raw materials could create problems of food supply. Producing biodiesel from microalgae could help to overcome this difficulty, because microalgae are rich in lipids and do not compete for arable lands. However, no studies had compared vegetable and microalgae oil-based biodiesel in terms of yield, viscosity and heat of combustion. In the present study, commercial canola and microalgae oil were therefore transesterified with methanol under a homogenous alkali catalyst (potassium hydroxide) at 100oC for 1h. The result showed that microalgae-based oil has a higher yield in biodiesel with 89.7% (g biodiesel/g oil) and a lower kinematic viscosity (22oC) of 4.31 mm/s2 than canola oil.

Keywords: Biodiesel, microalgae, canola, alkalitransesterification

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Authors: Isabela Romanha de Alcantara, José Eustáquio Ribeiro Vieira Filho, José Garcia Gasques

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Innovation and technology can be determinant factors to ensure agricultural and sustainable growth, as well as productivity gains. Technical change has contributed considerably to supply agricultural expansion in Brazil. This agricultural growth could be achieved by incorporating more land or capital. If capital is the main source of agricultural growth, it is possible to increase production per unit of land. The objective of this paper is to estimate: 1) total factor productivity (TFP), which is measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input; and 2) the land-saving effect (LSE) that is the amount of land required in the case that yield rate is constant over time. According to this study, from 1990 to 2019, it appears that 87% of Brazilian agriculture product growth comes from the gains of productivity; the remaining 13% comes from input growth. In the same period, the total LSE was roughly 400 Mha, which corresponds to 47% of the national territory. These effects reflect the greater efficiency of using productive factors, whose technical change has allowed an increase in the agricultural production based on productivity gains.

Keywords: agriculture, land-saving effect, livestock, productivity

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Authors: Mourad Moussa, Ali Douik, Hassani Messaoud

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In this paper, we present a comparative study between two computer vision systems for objects recognition and tracking, these algorithms describe two different approach based on regions constituted by a set of pixels which parameterized objects in shot sequences. For the image segmentation and objects detection, the FCM technique is used, the overlapping between cluster's distribution is minimized by the use of suitable color space (other that the RGB one). The first technique takes into account a priori probabilities governing the computation of various clusters to track objects. A Parzen kernel method is described and allows identifying the players in each frame, we also show the importance of standard deviation value research of the Gaussian probability density function. Region matching is carried out by an algorithm that operates on the Mahalanobis distance between region descriptors in two subsequent frames and uses singular value decomposition to compute a set of correspondences satisfying both the principle of proximity and the principle of exclusion.

Keywords: Image segmentation, objects tracking, Parzen window, singular value decomposition, target recognition.

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Authors: Karim Hamidi Machekposhti, Hossein Sedghi

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This study was designed to find the best-fit probability distribution of annual rainfall based on 50 years sample (1966-2015) in the Karkheh river basin at Iran using six probability distributions: Normal, 2-Parameter Log Normal, 3-Parameter Log Normal, Pearson Type 3, Log Pearson Type 3 and Gumbel distribution. The best fit probability distribution was selected using Stormwater Management and Design Aid (SMADA) software and based on the Residual Sum of Squares (R.S.S) between observed and estimated values Based on the R.S.S values of fit tests, the Log Pearson Type 3 and then Pearson Type 3 distributions were found to be the best-fit probability distribution at the Jelogir Majin and Pole Zal rainfall gauging station. The annual values of expected rainfall were calculated using the best fit probability distributions and can be used by hydrologists and design engineers in future research at studied region and other region in the world.

Keywords: Log Pearson Type 3, SMADA, rainfall, Karkheh River.

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Authors: P. Pasomboon, P. Chumnanpuen, T. E-kobon

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Hyaluronic acid (HA) consists of linear heteropolysaccharides repeat of D-glucuronic acid and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. HA has various useful properties to maintain skin elasticity and moisture, reduce inflammation, and lubricate the movement of various body parts without causing immunogenic allergy. HA can be found in several animal tissues as well as in the capsule component of some bacteria including Pasteurella multocida. This study aimed to modify a genome-scale metabolic model of Escherichia coli using computational simulation and flux analysis methods to predict HA productivity under different carbon sources and nitrogen supplement by the addition of two enzymes (GLMU2 and HYAD) from P. multocida to improve the HA production under the specified amount of carbon sources and nitrogen supplements. Result revealed that threonine and aspartate supplement raised the HA production by 12.186%. Our analyses proposed the genome-scale metabolic model is useful for improving the HA production and narrows the number of conditions to be tested further.

Keywords: Pasteurella multocida, Escherichia coli, hyaluronic acid, genome-scale metabolic model, bioinformatics.

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Authors: S. E. Oraby, A.M. Alaskari

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The stochastic nature of tool life using conventional discrete-wear data from experimental tests usually exists due to many individual and interacting parameters. It is a common practice in batch production to continually use the same tool to machine different parts, using disparate machining parameters. In such an environment, the optimal points at which tools have to be changed, while achieving minimum production cost and maximum production rate within the surface roughness specifications, have not been adequately studied. In the current study, two relevant aspects are investigated using coated and uncoated inserts in turning operations: (i) the accuracy of using machinability information, from fixed parameters testing procedures, when variable parameters situations are emerged, and (ii) the credibility of tool life machinability data from prior discrete testing procedures in a non-stop machining. A novel technique is proposed and verified to normalize the conventional fixed parameters machinability data to suit the cases when parameters have to be changed for the same tool. Also, an experimental investigation has been established to evaluate the error in the tool life assessment when machinability from discrete testing procedures is employed in uninterrupted practical machining.

Keywords: Machinability, tool life, tool wear, wear variability

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Authors: Sarbjot Singh Sandhu

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This paper presents the experimental results of a single cylinder Enfield engine using an electronically controlled fuel injection system which was developed to carry out exhaustive tests using neat CNG, and mixtures of hydrogen in compressed natural gas (HCNG) as 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% by energy. Experiments were performed at 2000 and 2400 rpm with wide open throttle and varying the equivalence ratio. Hydrogen which has fast burning rate, when added to compressed natural gas, enhances its flame propagation rate. The emissions of HC, CO, decreased with increasing percentage of hydrogen but NOx was found to increase. The results indicated a marked improvement in the brake thermal efficiency with the increase in percentage of hydrogen added. The improved thermal efficiency was clearly observed to be more in lean region as compared to rich region. This study is expected to reduce vehicular emissions along with increase in thermal efficiency and thus help in reduction of further environmental degradation.

Keywords: Hydrogen, CNG, HCNG, Emissions.

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Authors: Sheng-Ming Huang, Nan-Chyuan Tsai, Chih-Che Lin, Chun-Chi Lin

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An innovative design for intelligent Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) system is proposed and verified by experiments in this report. On-line measurement and real-time feedback are integrated to eliminate the shortcomings of traditional approaches, e.g., the batch-to-batch discrepancy of required polishing time, over consumption of chemical slurry, and non-uniformity across the wafer. The major advantage of the proposed method is that the finish of local surface roughness can be consistent, no matter where the inner-ring region or outer-ring region is concerned. Secondly, it is able to eliminate the Edge effect. Conventionally, the interfacial induced stress near the wafer edge is generally much higher than that near the wafer center. At last, by using the proposed intelligent chemical mechanical polishing strategy, the cost of the entire machining cycle can be much reduced while the quality of the finished goods certainly upgraded.

Keywords: Chemical Mechanical Polishing, Active Magnetic Actuator, On-Line Measurement.

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Authors: Paul W. Murray, Marco Barajas

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Recent changes in supply chains, especially globalization and collaboration, have created new risks for enterprises of all sizes. A variety of complex frameworks, often based on enterprise risk management strategies have been presented under the heading of Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM). The literature on promotes the benefits of a robust SCRM strategy; however, implementing SCRM is difficult and resource demanding for Large Enterprises (LEs), and essentially out of reach for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This research debunks the idea that SCRM is necessary for all enterprises and instead proposes a simple and effective Vendor Selection Template (VST). Empirical testing and a survey of supply chain practitioners provide a measure of validation to the VST. The resulting VSTis a valuable contribution because is easy to use, provides practical results, and is sufficiently flexible to be universally applied to SMEs.

Keywords: Multiple Regression Analysis, Supply Chain Management, Risk Assessment, Vendor Selection.

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Authors: Hassan Masoumi, Rashed Alavi

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Wheat is one of the strategic crops in Iran, on which the household food basket is highly dependent. Although this crop is cultivated and produced in almost all provinces of the country, its production efficiency is lower than the global and regional averages due to the lack of optimal use of allocated resources. In this research, which was carried out with a documentary and library method, first, the total and partial productivity indices of irrigated wheat production were calculated in large, medium and small exploitation scales in different provinces of the country, and then the provinces were clustered in terms of these indices. The results showed that the total productivity of production factors had a direct correlation with the scale of exploitation, so that with the increase in the size of exploitations, the total productivity index increased. On the scale of small exploitations, North Khorasan, Zanjan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, on a medium scale, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province and on the scale of large exploitations, Zanjan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces, Kohkiloyeh and Boyer Ahmad and North Khorasan, with better use of production resources compared to other provinces, were placed in the best cluster in terms of total productivity index. The high total productivity index in Zanjan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province is related to the higher productivity of factors such as mechanization and land in these provinces. Finally, the methods of using these factors in productive provinces, along with technical and specialized regional guidelines, can facilitate the improvement of productivity in less productive provinces.

Keywords: Clustering, Irrigated wheat, Iran, total productivity.

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Authors: N. Boontian

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Biological conversion of biomass to methane has received increasing attention in recent years. Grasses have been explored for their potential anaerobic digestion to methane. In this review, extensive literature data have been tabulated and classified. The influences of several parameters on the potential of these feedstocks to produce methane are presented. Lignocellulosic biomass represents a mostly unused source for biogas and ethanol production. Many factors, including lignin content, crystallinity of cellulose, and particle size, limit the digestibility of the hemicellulose and cellulose present in the lignocellulosic biomass. Pretreatments have used to improve the digestibility of the lignocellulosic biomass. Each pretreatment has its own effects on cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, the three main components of lignocellulosic biomass. Solidstate anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) generally occurs at solid concentrations higher than 15%. In contrast, liquid anaerobic digestion (AD) handles feedstocks with solid concentrations between 0.5% and 15%. Animal manure, sewage sludge, and food waste are generally treated by liquid AD, while organic fractions of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and lignocellulosic biomass such as crop residues and energy crops can be processed through SS-AD. An increase in operating temperature can improve both the biogas yield and the production efficiency, other practices such as using AD digestate or leachate as an inoculant or decreasing the solid content may increase biogas yield but have negative impact on production efficiency. Focus is placed on substrate pretreatment in anaerobic digestion (AD) as a means of increasing biogas yields using today’s diversified substrate sources.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion, Lignocellulosic biomass, Methane production, Optimization, Pretreatment.

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Authors: Abdelouahab Errida, Bouchra Lotfi, Elalami Semma

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In this paper, we try to address the topic of multiple change management by adopting an engineered research methodology, conducted within a Moroccan company during its implementation of several change projects that aim at improving its supply chain management performance. Firstly, we present the key concepts related to our research, namely change management, multiproject management and supply chain management. Then, we try to assess how the change management and multi-project management are applied in this company. Finally, we try to propose an approach that will help managers in dealing with multiple change projects. This approach proposes to integrate change management, project management and multi-project management for managing change projects according to three organizational levels: executive level, project portfolio level and change project level.

Keywords: Change management, multi-project management, project management, change portfolio, supply chain management.

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Authors: Mawloud Mosbah, Bachir Boucheham

Abstract:

Color Histogram is considered as the oldest method used by CBIR systems for indexing images. In turn, the global histograms do not include the spatial information; this is why the other techniques coming later have attempted to encounter this limitation by involving the segmentation task as a preprocessing step. The weak segmentation is employed by the local histograms while other methods as CCV (Color Coherent Vector) are based on strong segmentation. The indexation based on local histograms consists of splitting the image into N overlapping blocks or sub-regions, and then the histogram of each block is computed. The dissimilarity between two images is reduced, as consequence, to compute the distance between the N local histograms of the both images resulting then in N*N values; generally, the lowest value is taken into account to rank images, that means that the lowest value is that which helps to designate which sub-region utilized to index images of the collection being asked. In this paper, we make under light the local histogram indexation method in the hope to compare the results obtained against those given by the global histogram. We address also another noteworthy issue when Relying on local histograms namely which value, among N*N values, to trust on when comparing images, in other words, which sub-region among the N*N sub-regions on which we base to index images. Based on the results achieved here, it seems that relying on the local histograms, which needs to pose an extra overhead on the system by involving another preprocessing step naming segmentation, does not necessary mean that it produces better results. In addition to that, we have proposed here some ideas to select the local histogram on which we rely on to encode the image rather than relying on the local histogram having lowest distance with the query histograms.

Keywords: CBIR, Color Global Histogram, Color Local Histogram, Weak Segmentation, Euclidean Distance.

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Authors: Kamal K.Bharadwaj, Rekha Kandwal

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An important structuring mechanism for knowledge bases is building clusters based on the content of their knowledge objects. The objects are clustered based on the principle of maximizing the intraclass similarity and minimizing the interclass similarity. Clustering can also facilitate taxonomy formation, that is, the organization of observations into a hierarchy of classes that group similar events together. Hierarchical representation allows us to easily manage the complexity of knowledge, to view the knowledge at different levels of details, and to focus our attention on the interesting aspects only. One of such efficient and easy to understand systems is Hierarchical Production rule (HPRs) system. A HPR, a standard production rule augmented with generality and specificity information, is of the following form Decision If < condition> Generality Specificity . HPRs systems are capable of handling taxonomical structures inherent in the knowledge about the real world. In this paper, a set of related HPRs is called a cluster and is represented by a HPR-tree. This paper discusses an algorithm based on cumulative learning scenario for dynamic structuring of clusters. The proposed scheme incrementally incorporates new knowledge into the set of clusters from the previous episodes and also maintains summary of clusters as Synopsis to be used in the future episodes. Examples are given to demonstrate the behaviour of the proposed scheme. The suggested incremental structuring of clusters would be useful in mining data streams.

Keywords: Cumulative learning, clustering, data mining, hierarchical production rules.

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Authors: A. Zidani, M. Yahia K. Belhadi, S. Benbia

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Hepatitis C is an infectious disease transmitted by blood and due to hepatitis C virus (HCV), which attacks the liver. The infection is characterized by liver inflammation (hepatitis) that is often asymptomatic but can progress to chronic hepatitis and later cirrhosis and liver cancer. Our problem tends to highlight on the one hand the prevalence of infectious disease in the population of the region of Batna and on other hand the biological characteristics of this disease by a screening and a specific diagnosis based on serological tests, liver checkup (measurement of haematological and biochemical parameters). The results showed: The serology of hepatitis C establishes the diagnosis of infection with hepatitis C. In this study and with the serological test, 24 cases of the disease of hepatitis C were found in 1000 suspected cases (7 cases with normal transaminases and 17 cases with elevated transaminases). The prevalence of this disease in this study population was 2.4%. The presence of hepatitis C disrupts liver function including the onset of cytolysis, cholestasis, jaundice, thrombocytopenia, and coagulation disorders.

Keywords: Disease hepatitis C, serology, liver checkup

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Authors: Dharell B. Siano, Wendy C. Mateo, Victorino T. Taylan, Francisco D. Cuaresma

Abstract:

Biofuel is one of the renewable energy sources adapted by the Philippine government in order to lessen the dependency on foreign fuel and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Rain tree pods were seen to be a promising source of bioethanol since it contains significant amount of fermentable sugars. The study was conducted to establish the complete procedure in processing rain tree pods for village level hydrous bioethanol production. Production processes were done for village level hydrous bioethanol production from collection, drying, storage, shredding, dilution, extraction, fermentation, and distillation. The feedstock was sundried, and moisture content was determined at a range of 20% to 26% prior to storage. Dilution ratio was 1:1.25 (1 kg of pods = 1.25 L of water) and after extraction process yielded a sugar concentration of 22 ⁰Bx to 24 ⁰Bx. The dilution period was three hours. After three hours of diluting the samples, the juice was extracted using extractor with a capacity of 64.10 L/hour. 150 L of rain tree pods juice was extracted and subjected to fermentation process using a village level anaerobic bioreactor. Fermentation with yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) can fasten up the process, thus producing more ethanol at a shorter period of time; however, without yeast fermentation, it also produces ethanol at lower volume with slower fermentation process. Distillation of 150 L of fermented broth was done for six hours at 85 °C to 95 °C temperature (feedstock) and 74 °C to 95 °C temperature of the column head (vapor state of ethanol). The highest volume of ethanol recovered was established at with yeast fermentation at five-day duration with a value of 14.89 L and lowest actual ethanol content was found at without yeast fermentation at three-day duration having a value of 11.63 L. In general, the results suggested that rain tree pods had a very good potential as feedstock for bioethanol production. Fermentation of rain tree pods juice can be done with yeast and without yeast.

Keywords: Fermentation, hydrous bioethanol, rain tree pods, village level.

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Authors: Ahtesham Javaid, Costin S. Bildea

Abstract:

The design and plantwide control of an integrated plant where the endothermic 1,4-butanediol dehydrogenation and the exothermic furfural hydrogenation is simultaneously performed in a single reactor is studied. The reactions can be carried out in an adiabatic reactor using small hydrogen excess and with reduced parameter sensitivity. The plant is robust and flexible enough to allow different production rates of γ-butyrolactone and 2-methyl furan, keeping high product purities. Rigorous steady state and dynamic simulations performed in AspenPlus and AspenDynamics to support the conclusions.

Keywords: Dehydrogenation and hydrogenation, Reaction coupling, Design and control, Process integration.

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Authors: Ibrahim A. Akasha, Lydia Campbell, Stephen R. Euston

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Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) seeds are waste streams which are considered a major problem to the food industry. They contain potentially useful protein (10-15% of the whole date-s weight). Global production, industrialisation and utilisation of dates are increasing steadily. The worldwide production of date palm fruit has increased from 1.8 million tons in 1961 to 6.9 million tons in 2005, thus from the global production of dates are almost 800.000 tonnes of date palm seeds are not currently used [1]. The current study was carried out to convert the date palm seeds into useful protein powder. Compositional analysis showed that the seeds were rich in protein and fat 5.64 and 8.14% respectively. We used several laboratory scale methods to extract proteins from seed to produce a high protein powder. These methods included simple acid or alkali extraction, with or without ultrafiltration and phenol trichloroacetic acid with acetone precipitation (Ph/TCA method). The highest protein content powder (68%) was obtained by Ph/TCA method with yield of material (44%) whereas; the use of just alkali extraction gave the lowest protein content of 8%, and a yield of 32%.

Keywords: Date palm seed, Phoenix dactylifera L., extraction of date palm seed protein

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Authors: S. S. Dol, M. S. Chan, S. F. Wong, J. S. Lim

Abstract:

Emulsion formation is unavoidable and can be detrimental to an oil field production. The presence of stable emulsions also reduces the quality of crude oil and causes more problems in the downstream refinery operations, such as corrosion and pipeline pressure drop. Hence, it is important to know the effects of emulsions in the pipeline. Light crude oil was used for the continuous phase in the W/O emulsions where the emulsions pass through a flow loop to test the pressure drop across the pipeline. The results obtained shows that pressure drop increases as water cut is increased until it peaks at the phase inversion of the W/O emulsion between 30% to 40% water cut. Emulsions produced by gradual constrictions show a lower stability as compared to sudden constrictions. Lower stability of emulsions in gradual constriction has the higher influence of pressure drop compared to a sudden sharp decrease in diameter in sudden constriction. Generally, sudden constriction experiences pressure drop of 0.013% to 0.067% higher than gradual constriction of the same ratio. Lower constriction ratio cases cause larger pressure drop ranging from 0.061% to 0.241%. Considering the higher profitability in lower emulsion stability and lower pressure drop at the developed flow region of different constrictions, an optimum design of constriction is found to be gradual constriction with a ratio of 0.5.

Keywords: Constriction, pressure drop, turbulence, water cut, water-in-oil emulsions.

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Authors: P. Tej, P. Kněž, M. Blank

Abstract:

The paper presents design and production of thin-walled U-profile footbridge made of UHPFRC. The main structure of the bridge is one prefabricated shell structure made of UHPFRC with dispersed steel fibers without any conventional reinforcement. The span of the bridge structure is 10 m and the clear width of 1.5 m. The thickness of the UHPFRC shell structure oscillated in an interval of 30-45 mm. Several calculations were made during the bridge design and compared with the experiments. For the purpose of verifying the calculations, a segment of 1.5 m was first produced, followed by the whole footbridge for testing. After the load tests were done, the design was optimized to cast the final footbridge.

Keywords: Footbridge, UHPFRC, non-linear analysis, shell structure.

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Authors: Bita Payami-Shabestari, Dariush Eslami

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-product economic production quantity model under vendor management inventory policy and restrictions including limited warehouse space, budget, and number of orders, average shortage time and maximum permissible shortage. Since the “costs” cannot be predicted with certainty, it is assumed that data behave under uncertain environment. The problem is first formulated into the framework of a bi-objective of multi-product economic production quantity model. Then, the problem is solved with three multi-objective decision-making (MODM) methods. Then following this, three methods had been compared on information on the optimal value of the two objective functions and the central processing unit (CPU) time with the statistical analysis method and the multi-attribute decision-making (MADM). The results are compared with statistical analysis method and the MADM. The results of the study demonstrate that augmented-constraint in terms of optimal value of the two objective functions and the CPU time perform better than global criteria, and goal programming. Sensitivity analysis is done to illustrate the effect of parameter variations on the optimal solution. The contribution of this research is the use of random costs data in developing a multi-product economic production quantity model under vendor management inventory policy with several constraints.

Keywords: Economic production quantity, random cost, supply chain management, vendor-managed inventory.

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Authors: Nurbanu Guzey, S. Jagannathan

Abstract:

Locating Radio Controlled (RC) devices using their unintended emissions has a great interest considering security concerns. Weak nature of these emissions requires near field localization approach since it is hard to detect these signals in far field region of array. Instead of only angle estimation, near field localization also requires range estimation of the source which makes this method more complicated than far field models. Challenges of locating such devices in a near field region and real time environment are analyzed in this paper. An ESPRIT like near field localization scheme is utilized for both angle and range estimation. 1-D search with symmetric subarrays is provided. Two 7 element uniform linear antenna arrays (ULA) are employed for locating RC source. Experiment results of location estimation for one unintended emitting walkie-talkie for different positions are given.

Keywords: Localization, angle of arrival (AoA), range estimation, array signal processing, ESPRIT, uniform linear array (ULA).

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Authors: Sergei Yendiyarov, Sergei Petrushenko

Abstract:

In this article we present a change point detection algorithm based on the continuous wavelet transform. At the beginning of the article we describe a necessary transformation of a signal which has to be made for the purpose of change detection. Then case study related to iron ore sinter production which can be solved using our proposed technique is discussed. After that we describe a probabilistic algorithm which can be used to find changes using our transformed signal. It is shown that our algorithm works well with the presence of some noise and abnormal random bursts.

Keywords: Change detection, sinter production, wavelet transform.

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Authors: Eman. K. Ramadan, Abdelgawad. S. El-Tahawy

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of calving season on the production and economic efficiency of dairy farms in Egypt. Our study was performed at dairy production farms in the Alexandria, Behera, and Kafr El-Sheikh provinces of Egypt from summer 2010 to winter 2013. The randomly selected dairy farms had herds consisting of Baladi, Holstein-Friesian, or cross-bred (Baladi × Holstein-Friesian) cows. The data were collected from production records and responses to a structured questionnaire. The average total return differed significantly (P < 0.05) between the different cattle breeds and calving seasons. The average total return was highest for the Holstein- Friesian cows that calved in the winter (29106.42 EGP/cow/year), and it was lowest for Baladi cows that calved in the summer (12489.79 EGP/cow/year). Differences in total returns between the cows that calved in the winter or summer or between the foreign and native breeds, as well as variations in calf prices, might have contributed to the differences in milk yield. The average net profit per cow differed significantly (P < 0.05) between the cattle breeds and calving seasons. The average net profit values for the Baladi cows that calved in the winter or summer were 2413 and 2994.96 EGP/cow/year, respectively, and those for the Holstein- Friesian cows were 10744.17 and 7860.56 EGP/cow/year, respectively, whereas those for the cross-bred cows were 10174.86 and 7571.33 EGP/cow/year, respectively. The variations in net profit might have resulted from variation in the availability or price of feed materials, milk prices, or sales volumes. Our results show that the breed and calving season of dairy cows significantly affected the economic efficiency of dairy farms in Egypt. The cows that calved in the winter produced more milk than those that calved in the summer, which may have been the result of seasonal influences, such as temperature, humidity, management practices, and the type of feed or green fodder available.

Keywords:

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Authors: Michal Mardiak, Jaroslav Polec

Abstract:

In this paper we proposed comparison of four content based objective metrics with results of subjective tests from 80 video sequences. We also include two objective metrics VQM and SSIM to our comparison to serve as “reference” objective metrics because their pros and cons have already been published. Each of the video sequence was preprocessed by the region recognition algorithm and then the particular objective video quality metric were calculated i.e. mutual information, angular distance, moment of angle and normalized cross-correlation measure. The Pearson coefficient was calculated to express metrics relationship to accuracy of the model and the Spearman rank order correlation coefficient to represent the metrics relationship to monotonicity. The results show that model with the mutual information as objective metric provides best result and it is suitable for evaluating quality of video sequences.

Keywords: Objective quality metrics, mutual information, region recognition, content based metrics

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Authors: Baisa L. Gunjal, Suresh N. Mali

Abstract:

Medical images require special safety and confidentiality because critical judgment is done on the information provided by medical images. Transmission of medical image via internet or mobile phones demands strong security and copyright protection in telemedicine applications. Here, highly secured and robust watermarking technique is proposed for transmission of image data via internet and mobile phones. The Region of Interest (ROI) and Non Region of Interest (RONI) of medical image are separated. Only RONI is used for watermark embedding. This technique results in exact recovery of watermark with standard medical database images of size 512x512, giving 'correlation factor' equals to 1. The correlation factor for different attacks like noise addition, filtering, rotation and compression ranges from 0.90 to 0.95. The PSNR with weighting factor 0.02 is up to 48.53 dBs. The presented scheme is non blind and embeds hospital logo of 64x64 size.

Keywords: Compression, DWT, ROI, Scrambling, Vertices

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Authors: Kenji Suyama, Masahiro Oshida, Noboru Owada

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In this paper, an estimation accuracy of multiple moving talker tracking using a microphone array is improved. The tracking can be achieved by the adaptive method in which two algorithms are integrated, namely, the PAST (Projection Approximation Subspace Tracking) algorithm and the IPLS (Interior Point Least Square) algorithm. When either talker begins to speak again after a silent period, an appropriate feasible region for an evaluation function of the IPLS algorithm might not be set. Then, the tracking fails due to the incorrect updating. Therefore, if an increment of the number of active talkers is detected, the feasible region must be reset. Then, a low cost realization is required for the high speed tracking and a high accuracy realization is desired for the precise tracking. In this paper, the directions roughly estimated using the delayed-sum-array method are used for the resetting. Several results of experiments performed in an actual room environment show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: moving talkers tracking, microphone array, signal subspace

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Authors: Kamalendu Pal

Abstract:

Supply chains are the backbone of trade and commerce. Their logistics use different transport corridors on regular basis for operational purpose. The international supply chain transport corridors include different infrastructure elements (e.g. weighbridge, package handling equipments, border clearance authorities, and so on). This paper presents the use of multi-agent systems (MAS) to model and simulate some aspects of transportation corridors, and in particular the area of weighbridge resource optimization for operational profit. An underlying multi-agent model provides a means of modeling the relationships among stakeholders in order to enable coordination in a transport corridor environment. Simulations of the costs of container unloading, reloading, and waiting time for queuing up tracks have been carried out using data sets. Results of the simulation provide the potential guidance in making decisions about optimal service resource allocation in a trade corridor.

Keywords: Multi-agent systems, simulation, supply chain, transport corridor, weighbridge.

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Authors: Muhammet M. Erdem, Erdoğan Özbay, Ibrahim H. Durmuş, Mustafa Erdemir, Murat Bikçe, Müzeyyen Balçıkanlı

Abstract:

In this paper, rheological behavior of alkali activated slag concretes were investigated depending on the sodium concentration (SC), waiting time (WT) after production, and constituents’ temperature (CT) parameters. For this purpose, an experimental program was conducted with four different SCs of 1.85, 3.0, 4.15, and 5.30%, three different WT of 0 (just after production), 15, and 30 minutes and three different CT of 18, 30, and 40 °C. Solid precursors are activated by water glass and sodium hydroxide solutions with silicate modulus (Ms = SiO₂/Na₂O) of 1. Slag content and (water + activator solution)/slag ratio were kept constant in all mixtures. Yield stress and plastic viscosity values were defined for each mixture by using the ICAR rheometer. Test results were demonstrated that all of the three studied parameters have tremendous effect on the yield stress and plastic viscosity values of the alkali activated slag concretes. Increasing the SC, WT, and CT drastically augmented the rheological parameters. At the 15 and 30 minutes WT after production, most of the alkali activated slag concretes were set instantaneously, and rheological measurements were not performed.

Keywords: Alkali activation, slag, rheology, yield stress, plastic viscosity.

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Authors: Rayeheh Khatami, Toktam Hanaei, Mohammad Reza Mansouri Daneshvar

Abstract:

Today, many local and national governments are developing urban agriculture as an effective tool in responding to challenges such as food security, poverty and environmental problems. In fact, urban agriculture plays an important role in food system, which can provide citizens' income and become one of the components of economic, social and environmental systems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the urban agriculture and urban food systems in order to understand the impact of urban foods production on environmental planning in non-western city region context. To achieve such objective, we carry out a case study in Mashhad city of Iran by using qualitative approaches. A survey on documentary studies and planning tools integrate with face to face interview with experts which explain the role of food system in environmental planning process. The paper extends the use of food in the environmental planning, specifically to examine this role to create agricultural garden as a mean to improve agricultural system in non-western country. The paper is concluded with a set of recommendations for researchers and policymakers who seek to create spaces in order to implement urban agriculture in cities for food justice.

Keywords: Urban agriculture, food system, environmental planning, agricultural garden, Mashhad.

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