Search results for: Power flow analysis

Authors: Tausif A. Ishtiaque, Zarrin T. Tasin, Kazi S. Akter

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Current trend of urban expansion, especially in the developing countries has caused significant changes in land cover, which is generating great concern due to its widespread environmental degradation. Energy consumption of the cities is also increasing with the aggravated heat island effect. Distribution of land surface temperature (LST) is one of the most significant climatic parameters affected by urban land cover change. Recent increasing trend of LST is causing elevated temperature profile of the built up area with less vegetative cover. Gradual change in land cover, especially decrease in vegetative cover is enhancing the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in the developing cities around the world. Increase in the amount of urban vegetation cover can be a useful solution for the reduction of UHI intensity. LST and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) have widely been accepted as reliable indicators of UHI and vegetation abundance respectively. Chittagong, the second largest city of Bangladesh, has been a growth center due to rapid urbanization over the last several decades. This study assesses the intensity of UHI in Chittagong city by analyzing the relationship between LST and NDVI based on the type of land use/land cover (LULC) in the study area applying an integrated approach of Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing (RS), and regression analysis. Land cover map is prepared through an interactive supervised classification using remotely sensed data from Landsat ETM+ image along with NDVI differencing using ArcGIS. LST and NDVI values are extracted from the same image. The regression analysis between LST and NDVI indicates that within the study area, UHI is directly correlated with LST while negatively correlated with NDVI. It interprets that surface temperature reduces with increase in vegetation cover along with reduction in UHI intensity. Moreover, there are noticeable differences in the relationship between LST and NDVI based on the type of LULC. In other words, depending on the type of land usage, increase in vegetation cover has a varying impact on the UHI intensity. This analysis will contribute to the formulation of sustainable urban land use planning decisions as well as suggesting suitable actions for mitigation of UHI intensity within the study area.

Keywords: Land cover change, land surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, urban heat island.

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Authors: Y. Duvarci, S. Mizokami

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Today, the preferences and participation of the TD groups such as the elderly and disabled is still lacking in decision-making of transportation planning, and their reactions to certain type of policies are not well known. Thus, a clear methodology is needed. This study aimed to develop a method to extract the preferences of the disabled to be used in the policy-making stage that can also guide to future estimations. The method utilizes the combination of cluster analysis and data filtering using the data of the Arao city (Japan). The method is a process that follows: defining the TD group by the cluster analysis tool, their travel preferences in tabular form from the household surveys by policy variableimpact pairs, zones, and by trip purposes, and the final outcome is the preference probabilities of the disabled. The preferences vary by trip purpose; for the work trips, accessibility and transit system quality policies with the accompanying impacts of modal shifts towards public mode use as well as the decreasing travel costs, and the trip rate increase; for the social trips, the same accessibility and transit system policies leading to the same mode shift impact, together with the travel quality policy area leading to trip rate increase. These results explain the policies to focus and can be used in scenario generation in models, or any other planning purpose as decision support tool.

Keywords: Transportation Disadvantaged, Disabled, Mixed Preference, Stated Preference Data.

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Authors: A. Sivakumar, S. S. Darun Prakash, P. Navaneethakrishnan

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In and around Erode District, it is estimated that more than 1250 chemical and allied textile processing fabric industries are affected, partially closed and shut off for various reasons such as poor management, poor supplier performance, lack of planning for productivity, fluctuation of output, poor investment, waste analysis, labor problems, capital/labor ratio, accumulation of stocks, poor maintenance of resources, deficiencies in the quality of fabric, low capacity utilization, age of plant and equipment, high investment and input but low throughput, poor research and development, lack of energy, workers’ fear of loss of jobs, work force mix and work ethic. The main objective of this work is to analyze the existing conditions in textile fabric sector, validate the break even of Total Productivity (TP), analyze, design and implement fuzzy sets and mathematical programming for improvement of productivity and quality dimensions in the fabric processing industry. It needs to be compatible with the reality of textile and fabric processing industries. The highly risk events from productivity and quality dimension were found by fuzzy systems and results are wrapped up among the textile fabric processing industry.

Keywords: Break Even Point, Fuzzy Crisp Data, Fuzzy Sets, Productivity, Productivity Cycle, Total Productive Maintenance.

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Authors: Chan Eang Teng, Tang Mui Joo

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With the viral factor on social media, the sense of persuasion is generated by repetition and popularity. When users’ interest is captured, political awareness increases to spark political enthusiasm, but, the level of user’s political participation and political attitude of those active users is still questionable. An online survey on 250 youth and in-depth interview on two politicians are conducted to answer the main question in this paper. The result shows that Facebook significantly increases political awareness among youths. Social media may not be the major trigger to political activism among youths as most respondents opined that they would still vote without Facebook. Other factors could be political campaigning, political climate, age, peer pressure or others. Finding also shows that majority of respondents did not participate in online political debates or political groups. Many also wondered if the social media was the main power switch that triggers the political influx among young voters. The research finding is significant to understand how the new media, Facebook, has reshaped the political landscape in Malaysia, creating the Social Media Election that changed the rules of the political game. However, research finding does not support the ideal notion that the social media is the major trigger to youth’s political activism. This research outcome has exposed the flaws of the Social Media Election. It has revealed the less optimistic side of youth political activism. Unfortunately, results fall short of the idealistic belief that the social media have given rise to political activism among youths in the 13^th General Election in Malaysia. The research outcome also highlights an important lesson for the democratic discourse of Malaysia which is making informed and educated decisions takes more commitment, proactive and objective attitude.

Keywords: Social media, political participation, political activism, democracy, political communication.

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Authors: Xiaoshu Lu, Päivi Leino-Arjas, Kustaa Piha, Akseli Aittomäki, Peppiina Saastamoinen, Ossi Rahkonen, Eero Lahelma

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Sickness absence represents a major economic and social issue. Analysis of sick leave data is a recurrent challenge to analysts because of the complexity of the data structure which is often time dependent, highly skewed and clumped at zero. Ignoring these features to make statistical inference is likely to be inefficient and misguided. Traditional approaches do not address these problems. In this study, we discuss model methodologies in terms of statistical techniques for addressing the difficulties with sick leave data. We also introduce and demonstrate a new method by performing a longitudinal assessment of long-term absenteeism using a large registration dataset as a working example available from the Helsinki Health Study for municipal employees from Finland during the period of 1990-1999. We present a comparative study on model selection and a critical analysis of the temporal trends, the occurrence and degree of long-term sickness absences among municipal employees. The strengths of this working example include the large sample size over a long follow-up period providing strong evidence in supporting of the new model. Our main goal is to propose a way to select an appropriate model and to introduce a new methodology for analysing sickness absence data as well as to demonstrate model applicability to complicated longitudinal data.

Keywords: Sickness absence, longitudinal data, methodologies, mix-distribution model.

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Authors: Karuppsamy K., Eswara Prasad C. R.

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In this paper analysis of an infinite beam resting on tensionless extensible geosynthetic reinforced granular bed overlying soft soil strata under moving load with constant velocity is presented. The beam is subjected to a concentrated load moving with constant velocity. The upper reinforced granular bed is modeled by a rough elastic membrane embedded in Pasternak shear layer overlying a series of compressible nonlinear Winkler springs representing the under-lied very poor soil. The tensionless extensible geosynthetic layer has been assumed to deform such that at interface the geosynthetic and the soil have some deformation. Nonlinear behavior of granular fill and the very poor soil has been considered in the analysis by means of hyperbolic constitutive relationships. Detailed parametric study has been conducted to study the influence of various parameters on the response of soil foundation system under consideration by means of deflection and bending moment in the beam and tension mobilized in the geosynthetic layer. This study clearly observed that the comparisons of tension and tensionless foundation and magnitude of applied load, relative compressibility of granular fill and ultimate resistance of poor soil has significant influence on the response of soil foundation system.

Keywords: Infinite Beams, Tensionless Extensible Geosynthetic, Granular layer, Moving Load and Nonlinear behavior of poor soil

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Authors: J. P. Chica Cano, G. Cabot, S. de Persis, F. Foucher

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Among all possibilities to combat global warming, CO₂ capture and sequestration (CCS) is presented as a great alternative to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Several strategies for CCS from industrial and power plants are being considered. The concept of combined oxy-fuel combustion has been the most alternative solution. Nevertheless, due to the high cost of pure O₂ production, additional ways recently emerged. In this paper, an innovative combustion process for a gas turbine cycle was studied: it was composed of methane combustion with oxygen enhanced air (OEA), exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and H₂O issuing from STIG (Steam Injection Gas Turbine), and the CO₂ capture was realized by membrane separator. The effect on this combustion process was emphasized, and it was shown that a study of the influence of H₂O dilution on the combustion parameters by experimental and numerical approaches had to be carried out. As a consequence, the laminar burning velocities measurements were performed in a stainless steel spherical combustion from atmospheric pressure to high pressure (up to 0.5 MPa), at 473 K for an equivalence ratio at 1. These experimental results were satisfactorily compared with Chemical Workbench v.4.1 package in conjunction with GRIMech 3.0 reaction mechanism. The good correlations so obtained between experimental and calculated flame speed velocities showed the validity of the GRIMech 3.0 mechanism in this domain of combustion: high H₂O dilution, low N₂, medium pressure. Finally, good estimations of flame speed and pollutant emissions were determined in other conditions compatible with real gas turbine. In particular, mixtures (composed of CH₄/O₂/N₂/H₂O/ or CO₂) leading to the same adiabatic temperature were investigated. Influences of oxygen enrichment and H₂O dilution (compared to CO₂) were disused.

Keywords: CO2 capture, oxygen enrichment, water dilution, laminar burning velocity, pollutants emissions.

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Authors: Daniel M. Muntean, Viorel Ungureanu

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More than half of the urban population in Romania lives today in residential buildings made out of large prefabricated reinforced concrete panels. Since their initial design was made in the 1960’s, these housing units are now being technically and morally outdated, consuming large amounts of energy for heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, while failing to meet the needs of the contemporary life-style. Due to their widespread use, the design of a system that improves their energy efficiency would have a real impact, not only on the energy consumption of the residential sector, but also on the quality of life that it offers. Furthermore, with the transition of today’s existing power grid to a “smart grid”, buildings could become an active element for future electricity networks by contributing in micro-generation and energy storage. One of the most addressed issues today is to find locally adapted strategies that can be applied considering the 20-20-20 EU policy criteria and to offer sustainable and innovative solutions for the cost-optimal energy performance of buildings adapted on the existing local market. This paper presents a possible adaptive design scenario towards sustainable retrofitting of these housing units. The apartments are transformed in order to meet the current living requirements and additional extensions are placed on top of the building, replacing the unused roof space, acting not only as housing units, but as active solar energy collection systems. An adaptive building envelope is ensured in order to achieve overall air-tightness and an elevator system is introduced to facilitate access to the upper levels.

Keywords: Adaptive building, energy efficiency, retrofitting, residential buildings, smart grid.

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Authors: Masoud Nasri, Sadat Feiznia, Mohammad Jafari, Hasan Ahmadi

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Today, incorrect use of lands and land use changes, excessive grazing, no suitable using of agricultural farms, plowing on steep slopes, road construct, building construct, mine excavation etc have been caused increasing of soil erosion and sediment yield. For erosion and sediment estimation one can use statistical and empirical methods. This needs to identify land unit map and the map of effective factors. However, these empirical methods are usually time consuming and do not give accurate estimation of erosion. In this study, we applied GIS techniques to estimate erosion and sediment of Menderjan watershed at upstream Zayandehrud river in center of Iran. Erosion faces at each land unit were defined on the basis of land use, geology and land unit map using GIS. The UTM coordinates of each erosion type that showed more erosion amounts such as rills and gullies were inserted in GIS using GPS data. The frequency of erosion indicators at each land unit, land use and their sediment yield of these indices were calculated. Also using tendency analysis of sediment yield changes in watershed outlet (Menderjan hydrometric gauge station), was calculated related parameters and estimation errors. The results of this study according to implemented watershed management projects can be used for more rapid and more accurate estimation of erosion than traditional methods. These results can also be used for regional erosion assessment and can be used for remote sensing image processing.

Keywords: Erosion and sedimentation, Gully, Rill, GIS, GPS, Menderjan Watershed

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Authors: Won-Pil Park, Seung-Kwan Cho, Jai-Young Ko, Anders Kristensson, S.T.S. Al-Hassani, Han-Sung Kim, Dohyung Lim

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A number of previous studies were rarely considered the effects of transient non-uniform balloon expansion on evaluation of the properties and behaviors of stents during stent expansion, nor did they determine parameters to maximize the performances driven by mechanical characteristics. Therefore, in order to fully understand the mechanical characteristics and behaviors of stent, it is necessary to consider a realistic modeling of transient non-uniform balloon-stent expansion. The aim of the study is to propose design parameters capable of improving the ability of vascular stent through a comparative study of seven commercial stents using finite element analyses of a realistic transient non-uniform balloon-stent expansion process. In this study, seven representative commercialized stents were evaluated by finite element (FE) analysis in terms of the criteria based on the itemized list of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Standards (prEN). The results indicate that using stents composed of opened unit cells connected by bend-shaped link structures and controlling the geometrical and morphological features of the unit cell strut or the link structure at the distal ends of stent may improve mechanical characteristics of stent. This study provides a better method at the realistic transient non-uniform balloon-stent expansion by investigating the characteristics, behaviors, and parameters capable of improving the ability of vascular stent.

Keywords: Finite Element Analysis, Mechanical Characteristic, Transient Non-uniform Balloon-Stent Expansion, Vascular Stent.

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Authors: Mohammad Bakhshandeh

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Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a crucial and necessary practice that plays a vital role in ensuring the safety and integrity of critical structures, and in particular, bridges. The continuous monitoring of bridges for signs of damage or degradation through Bridge Health Monitoring (BHM) enables early detection of potential problems, allowing for prompt corrective action to be taken before significant damage occurs. Although all monitoring techniques aim to provide accurate and decisive information regarding the remaining useful life, safety, integrity, and serviceability of bridges, understanding the development and propagation of damage is vital for maintaining uninterrupted bridge operation. Over the years, extensive research has been conducted on BHM methods, and experts in the field have increasingly adopted new methodologies. In this article, we provide a comprehensive exploration of the various BHM approaches, including sensor-based, non-destructive testing (NDT), model-based, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods. We also discuss the challenges associated with BHM, including sensor placement and data acquisition, data analysis and interpretation, cost and complexity, and environmental effects, through an extensive review of relevant literature and research studies. Additionally, we examine potential solutions to these challenges and propose future research ideas to address critical gaps in BHM.

Keywords: Structural health monitoring, bridge health monitoring, sensor-based methods, machine-learning algorithms, model-based techniques, sensor placement, data acquisition, data analysis.

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Authors: Bua Srikos, Phusit Phukamchanoad, Suwaree Yordchim

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The purpose is to study the model and characteristic of participation of the suitable community to lead to develop permanent water marketing in Bang Noi Floating Market, Bangkonti District, Samutsongkhram Province. A total of 342 survey questionnaire was administered to potential respondents. The researchers interviewed the leader of the community. Appreciation Influence Control (AIC) was used to talk with 20 villagers on arena. The findings revealed that overall, most people had the middle level of the participation in developing the durable Bang Noi Floating Market, Bangkonti, Samutsongkhram Province and in aspects of gaining benefits from developing it with atmosphere and a beautiful view for tourism. For example, the landscape is beautiful with public utilities. The participation in preserving and developing Bang Noi Floating Market remains in the former way of life. The basic factor of person affects to the participation of people such as age, level of education, career, and income per month. Most participants are the original hosts that have houses and shops located in the marketing and neighbor. These people involve with the benefits and have the power to make a water marketing strategy, the major role to set the information database. It also found that the leader and the villagers play the important role in setting a five-physical database. Data include level of information such as position of village, territory of village, road, river, and premises. Information of culture consists of a two-level of information, interesting point, and Itinerary. The information occurs from presenting and practicing by the leader and villagers in the community.All of phases are presented for listening and investigating database together in both the leader and villagers in the process of participation.

Keywords: Community Participation, Sustainable Development, Encouragement Tourism.

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Authors: Fatema Akram, Mohammad G. Rasul, M. Masud K. Khan, M. Sharif I. I. Amir

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Australia is a country of some 7,700 million square kilometers with a population of about 22.6 million. At present water security is a major challenge for Australia. In some areas the use of water resources is approaching and in some parts it is exceeding the limits of sustainability. A focal point of proposed national water conservation programs is the recycling of both urban stormwater and treated wastewater. But till now it is not widely practiced in Australia, and particularly stormwater is neglected. In Australia, only 4% of stormwater and rainwater is recycled, whereas less than 1% of reclaimed wastewater is reused within urban areas. Therefore, accurately monitoring, assessing and predicting the availability, quality and use of this precious resource are required for better management. As stormwater is usually of better quality than untreated sewage or industrial discharge, it has better public acceptance for recycling and reuse, particularly for non-potable use such as irrigation, watering lawns, gardens, etc. Existing stormwater recycling practice is far behind of research and no robust technologies developed for this purpose. Therefore, there is a clear need for using modern technologies for assessing feasibility of stormwater harvesting and reuse. Numerical modeling has, in recent times, become a popular tool for doing this job. It includes complex hydrological and hydraulic processes of the study area. The hydrologic model computes stormwater quantity to design the system components, and the hydraulic model helps to route the flow through stormwater infrastructures. Nowadays water quality module is incorporated with these models. Integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) with these models provides extra advantage of managing spatial information. However for the overall management of a stormwater harvesting project, Decision Support System (DSS) plays an important role incorporating database with model and GIS for the proper management of temporal information. Additionally DSS includes evaluation tools and Graphical user interface. This research aims to critically review and discuss all the aspects of stormwater harvesting and reuse such as available guidelines of stormwater harvesting and reuse, public acceptance of water reuse, the scopes and recommendation for future studies. In addition to these, this paper identifies, understand and address the importance of modern technologies capable of proper management of stormwater harvesting and reuse.

Keywords: Stormwater Management, Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse, Numerical Modeling, Geographic Information System (GIS), Decision Support System (DSS), Database.

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Authors: Sajith Sajeev

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The application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is widespread in engineering and industry, including aerospace, automotive, and energy. CFD simulations necessitate the use of intricate mathematical models and a substantial amount of computational power to accurately describe the behavior of fluids. The implementation of CFD projects can be difficult, and a well-structured approach to project management is required to assure the timely and cost-effective delivery of high-quality results. This paper's objective is to provide an overview of project management in CFD, including its problems, methodologies, and best practices. The study opens with a discussion of the difficulties connected with CFD project management, such as the complexity of the mathematical models, the need for extensive computational resources, and the difficulties associated with validating and verifying the results. In addition, the study examines the project management methodologies typically employed in CFD, such as the Traditional/Waterfall model, Agile and Scrum. Comparisons are made between the advantages and disadvantages of each technique, and suggestions are made for their effective implementation in CFD projects. The study concludes with a discussion of the best practices for project management in CFD, including the utilization of a well-defined project scope, a clear project plan, and effective teamwork. In addition, it highlights the significance of continuous process improvement and the utilization of metrics to monitor progress and discover improvement opportunities. This article is a resource for project managers, researchers, and practitioners in the field of CFD. It can aid in enhancing project outcomes, reducing risks, and enhancing the productivity of CFD projects. This paper provides a complete overview of project management in CFD and is a great resource for individuals who wish to implement efficient project management methods in CFD projects.

Keywords: Project management, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Traditional/Waterfall methodology, agile methodology, scrum methodology.

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Authors: S. Shakibaei, P. Alpkokin

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The railway network is one of the major components of a transportation system in a country which may be an indicator of the country’s level of economic improvement. Since 2000s on, revival of national railways and development of High Speed Rail (HSR) lines are one of the most remarkable policies of Turkish government in railway sector. Within this trend, the railway age is to be revived and coming decades will be a golden opportunity. Indubitably, major infrastructures such as road and railway networks require sizeable investment capital, precise maintenance and reparation. Traditionally, governments are held responsible for funding, operating and maintaining these infrastructures. However, lack or shortage of financial resources, risk responsibilities (particularly cost and time overrun), and in some cases inefficacy in constructional, operational and management phases persuade governments to find alternative options. Financial power, efficient experiences and background of private sector are the factors convincing the governments to make a collaboration with private parties to develop infrastructures. Public-Private Partnerships (PPP or 3P or P3) and related regulatory issues are born considering these collaborations. In Turkey, PPP approaches have attracted attention particularly during last decade and these types of investments have been accelerated by government to overcome budget limitations and cope with inefficacy of public sector in improving transportation network and its operation. This study mainly tends to present a comprehensive overview of PPP concept, evaluate the regulatory procedure in Europe and propose a general framework for Turkish State Railways (TCDD) as an outlook on privatization, liberalization and deregulation of railway network.

Keywords: Deregulation, high-speed rail, liberalization, privatization, public-private partnership.

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Authors: Zhipeng Chen, Peng Zhang, Qingyun Liu, Li Guo

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With the Internet becoming the dominant channel for business and life, many IPs are increasingly masked using web proxies for illegal purposes such as propagating malware, impersonate phishing pages to steal sensitive data or redirect victims to other malicious targets. Moreover, as Internet traffic continues to grow in size and complexity, it has become an increasingly challenging task to detect the proxy service due to their dynamic update and high anonymity. In this paper, we present an approach based on behavioral graph analysis to study the behavior similarity of web proxy users. Specifically, we use bipartite graphs to model host communications from network traffic and build one-mode projections of bipartite graphs for discovering social-behavior similarity of web proxy users. Based on the similarity matrices of end-users from the derived one-mode projection graphs, we apply a simple yet effective spectral clustering algorithm to discover the inherent web proxy users behavior clusters. The web proxy URL may vary from time to time. Still, the inherent interest would not. So, based on the intuition, by dint of our private tools implemented by WebDriver, we examine whether the top URLs visited by the web proxy users are web proxies. Our experiment results based on real datasets show that the behavior clusters not only reduce the number of URLs analysis but also provide an effective way to detect the web proxies, especially for the unknown web proxies.

Keywords: Bipartite graph, clustering, one-mode projection, web proxy detection.

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Authors: S. B. Rushayati, R. Meilani, R. Hermawan

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A biosphere reserve is developed to create harmony amongst economic development, community development, and environmental protection, through partnership between human and nature. Giam Siak Kecil Bukit Batu Biosphere Reserve (GSKBB BR) in Riau Province, Indonesia, is unique in that it has peat soil dominating the area, many springs essential for human livelihood, high biodiversity. Furthermore, it is the only biosphere reserve covering privately managed production forest areas. In this research, we aimed at analyzing the threat of deforestation and forest fire, and the potential of CO2 emission at GSKBB BR. We used Landsat image, arcView software, and ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5 Software to conduct spatial analysis of land cover and land use changes, calculated CO2 emission based on emission potential from each land cover and land use type, and exercised simple linear regression to demonstrate the relation between CO2 emission potential and deforestation. The result showed that, beside in the buffer zone and transition area, deforestation also occurred in the core area. Spatial analysis of land cover and land use changes from years 2010, 2012, and 2014 revealed that there were changes of land cover and land use from natural forest and industrial plantation forest to other land use types, such as garden, mixed garden, settlement, paddy fields, burnt areas, and dry agricultural land. Deforestation in core area, particularly at the Giam Siak Kecil Wildlife Reserve and Bukit Batu Wildlife Reserve, occurred in the form of changes from natural forest in to garden, mixed garden, shrubs, swamp shrubs, dry agricultural land, open area, and burnt area. In the buffer zone and transition area, changes also happened, what once swamp forest changed into garden, mixed garden, open area, shrubs, swamp shrubs, and dry agricultural land. Spatial analysis on land cover and land use changes indicated that deforestation rate in the biosphere reserve from 2010 to 2014 had reached 16 119 ha/year. Beside deforestation, threat toward the biosphere reserve area also came from forest fire. The occurrence of forest fire in 2014 had burned 101 723 ha of the area, in which 9 355 ha of core area, and 92 368 ha of buffer zone and transition area. Deforestation and forest fire had increased CO2 emission as much as 24 903 855 ton/year.

Keywords: Biosphere reserve, CO2 emission, deforestation, forest fire.

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Authors: Indiramma M., K. R. Anandakumar

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Trust management and Reputation models are becoming integral part of Internet based applications such as CSCW, E-commerce and Grid Computing. Also the trust dimension is a significant social structure and key to social relations within a collaborative community. Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is a difficult task in the context of distributed environment (information across different geographical locations) and multidisciplinary decisions are involved such as Virtual Organization (VO). To aid team decision making in VO, Decision Support System and social network analysis approaches are integrated. In such situations social learning helps an organization in terms of relationship, team formation, partner selection etc. In this paper we focus on trust learning. Trust learning is an important activity in terms of information exchange, negotiation, collaboration and trust assessment for cooperation among virtual team members. In this paper we have proposed a reinforcement learning which enhances the trust decision making capability of interacting agents during collaboration in problem solving activity. Trust computational model with learning that we present is adapted for best alternate selection of new project in the organization. We verify our model in a multi-agent simulation where the agents in the community learn to identify trustworthy members, inconsistent behavior and conflicting behavior of agents.

Keywords: Collaborative Decision making, Trust, Multi Agent System (MAS), Bayesian Network, Reinforcement Learning.

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Authors: Gitanjali Devi, Kandarpa Kumar Sarma, Pranayee Datta, Anjana Kakoti Mahanta

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Cosmic showers, during the transit through space, produce sub - products as a result of interactions with the intergalactic or interstellar medium which after entering earth generate secondary particles called Extensive Air Shower (EAS). Detection and analysis of High Energy Particle Showers involve a plethora of theoretical and experimental works with a host of constraints resulting in inaccuracies in measurements. Therefore, there exist a necessity to develop a readily available system based on soft-computational approaches which can be used for EAS analysis. This is due to the fact that soft computational tools such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN)s can be trained as classifiers to adapt and learn the surrounding variations. But single classifiers fail to reach optimality of decision making in many situations for which Multiple Classifier System (MCS) are preferred to enhance the ability of the system to make decisions adjusting to finer variations. This work describes the formation of an MCS using Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) with data inputs from correlation mapping Self Organizing Map (SOM) blocks and the output optimized by another SOM. The results show that the setup can be adopted for real time practical applications for prediction of primary energy and location of EAS from density values captured using detectors in a circular grid.

Keywords: EAS, Shower, Core, ANN, Location.

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Authors: Laor Boongasame, Veera Boonjing, Ho-fung Leung

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Buyer coalition with a combination of items is a group of buyers joining together to purchase a combination of items with a larger discount. The primary aim of existing buyer coalition with a combination of items research is to generate a large total discount. However, the aim is hard to achieve because this research is based on the assumption that each buyer completely knows other buyers- information or at least one buyer knows other buyers- information in a coalition by exchange of information. These assumption contrast with the real world environment where buyers join a coalition with incomplete information, i.e., they concerned only with their expected discounts. Therefore, this paper proposes a new buyer community coalition formation with a combination of items scheme, called the Community Compromised Combinatorial Coalition scheme, under such an environment of incomplete information. In order to generate a larger total discount, after buyers who want to join a coalition propose their minimum required saving, a coalition structure that gives a maximum total retail prices is formed. Then, the total discount division of the coalition is divided among buyers in the coalition depending on their minimum required saving and is a Pareto optimal. In mathematical analysis, we compare concepts of this scheme with concepts of the existing buyer coalition scheme. Our mathematical analysis results show that the total discount of the coalition in this scheme is larger than that in the existing buyer coalition scheme.

Keywords: group decision and negotiations, group buying, gametheory, combinatorial coalition formation, Pareto optimality

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Authors: Vallabha Hampiholi

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A lot of research has been done in the past decade in the field of audio content analysis for extracting various information from audio signal. One such significant information is the "perceived mood" or the "emotions" related to a music or audio clip. This information is extremely useful in applications like creating or adapting the play-list based on the mood of the listener. This information could also be helpful in better classification of the music database. In this paper we have presented a method to classify music not just based on the meta-data of the audio clip but also include the "mood" factor to help improve the music classification. We propose an automated and efficient way of classifying music samples based on the mood detection from the audio data. We in particular try to classify the music based on mood for Indian bollywood music. The proposed method tries to address the following problem statement: Genre information (usually part of the audio meta-data) alone does not help in better music classification. For example the acoustic version of the song "nothing else matters by Metallica" can be classified as melody music and thereby a person in relaxing or chill out mood might want to listen to this track. But more often than not this track is associated with metal / heavy rock genre and if a listener classified his play-list based on the genre information alone for his current mood, the user shall miss out on listening to this track. Currently methods exist to detect mood in western or similar kind of music. Our paper tries to solve the issue for Indian bollywood music from an Indian cultural context

Keywords: Mood, music classification, music genre, rhythm, music analysis.

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Authors: M. C. Pardo-Ferreira, J. C. Rubio-Romero, M. Martínez-Rojas

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Resilience Engineering is a new paradigm of safety management that proposes to change the way of managing the safety to focus on the things that go well instead of the things that go wrong. Many complex and high-risk sectors such as air traffic control, health care, nuclear power plants, railways or emergencies, have applied this new vision of safety and have obtained very positive results. In the construction sector, safety management continues to be a problem as indicated by the statistics of occupational injuries worldwide. Therefore, it is important to improve safety management in this sector. For this reason, it is proposed to apply Resilience Engineering to the construction sector. The Construction Phase Health and Safety Plan emerges as a key element for the planning of safety management. One of the key tools of Resilience Engineering is the Resilience Assessment Grid that allows measuring the four essential abilities (respond, monitor, learn and anticipate) for resilient performance. The purpose of this paper is to develop a questionnaire based on the Resilience Assessment Grid, specifically on the ability to learn, to assess whether a Construction Phase Health and Safety Plans helps companies in a construction site to implement this ability. The research process was divided into four stages: (i) initial design of a questionnaire, (ii) validation of the content of the questionnaire, (iii) redesign of the questionnaire and (iii) application of the Delphi method. The questionnaire obtained could be used as a tool to help construction companies to evolve from Safety-I to Safety-II. In this way, companies could begin to develop the ability to learn, which will serve as a basis for the development of the other abilities necessary for resilient performance. The following steps in this research are intended to develop other questions that allow evaluating the rest of abilities for resilient performance such as monitoring, learning and anticipating.

Keywords: Resilience engineering, construction sector, resilience assessment grid, construction phase health and safety plan.

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Authors: Zoi Konsoula

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Antioxidant-rich extracts were prepared from pomegranate peels, seeds and juice using methanol and ethanol and their antioxidant activity was evaluated by the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazine (DPPH) radical scavenging and Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) method. Both analytical methods indicated a higher antioxidant activity in extracts prepared from peels, which was comparable to that of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Furthermore, the antioxidant activity was correlated to the phenolic and flavonoid content of the various extracts. The antioxidant effectiveness of the extracts was also assessed using corn oil as the oxidation substrate. More specifically, preheated corn oil samples stabilized with extracts at a concentration of 250 ppm, 500 ppm or 1,000 ppm were subjected to accelerated aging (100 oC, 10 days) and the extent of oxidative alteration was followed by the measurement of the peroxide, conjugated dienes and trienes, as well as p-aniside value. BHT at its legal limit (200 ppm) served as standard besides the control sample. Results from the different parameters were in agreement with each other suggesting that pomegranate extracts can stabilize corn oil effectively under accelerated conditions, at all concentrations tested. However, the magnitude of oil stabilization depended strongly on the amount of extract added and this was positively correlated with their phenolic content. Pomegranate peel extracts, which exhibited the highest not only phenolic and flavonoid content but also antioxidant activity, were more potent in inhibiting oxidative deterioration. Both methanolic and ethanolic peel extracts at a concentration of 500 ppm exerted a stabilizing effect comparable to that of BHT, while at a concentration of 1000 ppm they exhibited higher stabilization efficiency in comparison to BHT. Finally, heating oil samples resulted in a time dependent decrease in their antioxidant capacity. Samples containing peel extracts appeared to retain their antioxidant capacity for a longer period, indicating that these extracts contained active compounds that offered superior antioxidant protection to corn oil.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity, corn oil, oxidative deterioration, pomegranate.

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Authors: Alexander Hendricks, Sean Nevin, Clayton Wikoff, Melissa Dougherty, Jacob Orlita, Rafiqul Noorani

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Knee orthotics play an important role in aiding in the recovery of those with knee injuries, especially athletes. However, structural knee orthotics is often very expensive, ranging between $300 and $800. The primary reason for this project was to answer the question: can 3D printed orthotics represent a viable and cost-effective alternative to present structural knee orthotics? The primary objective for this research project was to design a knee orthotic for athletes with knee injuries for a low-cost under $100 and evaluate its effectiveness. The initial design for the orthotic was done in SolidWorks, a computer-aided design (CAD) software available at Loyola Marymount University. After this design was completed, finite element analysis (FEA) was utilized to understand how normal stresses placed upon the knee affected the orthotic. The knee orthotic was then adjusted and redesigned to meet a specified factor-of-safety of 3.25 based on the data gathered during FEA and literature sources. Once the FEA was completed and the orthotic was redesigned based from the data gathered, the next step was to move on to 3D-printing the first design of the knee brace. Subsequently, physical therapy movement trials were used to evaluate physical performance. Using the data from these movement trials, the CAD design of the brace was refined to accommodate the design requirements. The final goal of this research means to explore the possibility of replacing high-cost, outsourced knee orthotics with a readily available low-cost alternative.

Keywords: Knee Orthotics, 3D printing, finite element analysis.

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Authors: Eleni Giouli

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Distance learning provides a flexible approach to education, enabling busy learners to complete their coursework at their own pace, on their own schedule, and from a convenient location. This flexibility combined with a series of other issues; make the benefits of lifelong distance learning numerous. The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether distance education can contribute to the improvement of adult skills in Greece, highlighting in this way the necessity of the lifelong distance learning. To investigate this goal, a questionnaire is constructed and analyzed based on responses from 3,016 attendees of lifelong distance learning programs in the e-learning of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. In order to do so, a series of relationships is examined including the effects of a) the gender, b) the previous educational level, c) the current employment status, and d) the method used in the distance learning program, on the development of new general, technical, administrative, social, cultural, entrepreneurial and green skills. The basic conclusions that emerge after using a binary logistic framework are that the following factors are critical in order to develop new skills: the gender, the education level and the educational method used in the lifelong distance learning program. The skills more significantly affected by those factors are the acquiring new skills in general, as well as acquiring general, language and cultural, entrepreneurial and green skills, while for technical and social skills only gender and educational method play a crucial role. Moreover, routine skills and social skills are not affected by the four factors included in the analysis.

Keywords: Adult skills, distance learning, education, lifelong learning.

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Authors: Sultan Alharby, Nick Harris, Alex Weddell, Jeff Reeve

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The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has received much attention over the last five years. It is predicted that the IoT will influence every aspect of our lifestyles in the near future. Wireless Sensor Networks are one of the key enablers of the operation of IoTs, allowing data to be collected from the surrounding environment. However, due to limited resources, nature of deployment and unattended operation, a WSN is vulnerable to various types of attack. Security is paramount for reliable and safe communication between IoT embedded devices, but it does, however, come at a cost to resources. Nodes are usually equipped with small batteries, which makes energy conservation crucial to IoT devices. Nevertheless, security cost in terms of energy consumption has not been studied sufficiently. Previous research has used a security specification of 802.15.4 for IoT applications, but the energy cost of each security level and the impact on quality of services (QoS) parameters remain unknown. This research focuses on the cost of security at the IoT media access control (MAC) layer. It begins by studying the energy consumption of IEEE 802.15.4 security levels, which is followed by an evaluation for the impact of security on data latency and throughput, and then presents the impact of transmission power on security overhead, and finally shows the effects of security on memory footprint. The results show that security overhead in terms of energy consumption with a payload of 24 bytes fluctuates between 31.5% at minimum level over non-secure packets and 60.4% at the top security level of 802.15.4 security specification. Also, it shows that security cost has less impact at longer packet lengths, and more with smaller packet size. In addition, the results depicts a significant impact on data latency and throughput. Overall, maximum authentication length decreases throughput by almost 53%, and encryption and authentication together by almost 62%.

Keywords: Internet of Things, IEEE 802.15.4, security cost evaluation, wireless sensor network, energy consumption.

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Authors: Wai Phyo Aung

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Wheeled Mobile Robots (WMRs) are built with their Wheels- drive machine, Motors. Depend on their desire design of WMR, Technicians made used of DC Motors for motion control. In this paper, the author would like to analyze how to choose DC motor to be balance with their applications of especially for WMR. Specification of DC Motor that can be used with desire WMR is to be determined by using MATLAB Simulink model. Therefore, this paper is mainly focus on software application of MATLAB and Control Technology. As the driving system of DC motor, a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) based control system is designed including the assembly software technology and H-bridge control circuit. This Driving system is used to drive two DC gear motors which are used to control the motion of WMR. In this analyzing process, the author mainly focus the drive system on driving two DC gear motors that will control with Differential Drive technique to the Wheeled Mobile Robot . For the design analysis of Motor Driving System, PIC16F84A is used and five inputs of sensors detected data are tested with five ON/OFF switches. The outputs of PIC are the commands to drive two DC gear motors, inputs of Hbridge circuit .In this paper, Control techniques of PIC microcontroller and H-bridge circuit, Mechanism assignments of WMR are combined and analyzed by mainly focusing with the “Modeling and Simulink of DC Motor using MATLAB".

Keywords: Control System Design, DC Motors, DifferentialDrive, H-bridge control circuit, MATLAB Simulink model, Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC), Wheeled Mobile Robots.

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Authors: Moustafa Osman Mohammed

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Integration sustainability outcomes give attention to construction ecology in the design review of urban environments to comply with Earth’s System that is composed of integral parts of the (i.e., physical, chemical and biological components). Naturally, exchange patterns of industrial ecology have consistent and periodic cycles to preserve energy flows and materials in Earth’s System. When engineering topology is affecting internal and external processes in system networks, it postulated the valence of the first-level spatial outcome (i.e., project compatibility success). These instrumentalities are dependent on relating the second-level outcome (i.e., participant security satisfaction). The construction ecology-based topology (i.e., as feedback energy system) flows from biotic and abiotic resources in the entire Earth’s ecosystems. These spatial outcomes are providing an innovation, as entails a wide range of interactions to state, regulate and feedback “topology” to flow as “interdisciplinary equilibrium” of ecosystems. The interrelation dynamics of ecosystems are performing a process in a certain location within an appropriate time for characterizing their unique structure in “equilibrium patterns”, such as biosphere and collecting a composite structure of many distributed feedback flows. These interdisciplinary systems regulate their dynamics within complex structures. These dynamic mechanisms of the ecosystem regulate physical and chemical properties to enable a gradual and prolonged incremental pattern to develop a stable structure. The engineering topology of construction ecology for integration sustainability outcomes offers an interesting tool for ecologists and engineers in the simulation paradigm as an initial form of development structure within compatible computer software. This approach argues from ecology, resource savings, static load design, financial other pragmatic reasons, while an artistic/architectural perspective, these are not decisive. The paper described an attempt to unify analytic and analogical spatial modeling in developing urban environments as a relational setting, using optimization software and applied as an example of integrated industrial ecology where the construction process is based on a topology optimization approach.

Keywords: Construction ecology, industrial ecology, urban topology, environmental planning.

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Authors: Seda Sahin, Emin Akata

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Obturator Foramen is a specific structure in Pelvic bone images and recognition of it is a new concept in medical image processing. Moreover, segmentation of bone structures such as Obturator Foramen plays an essential role for clinical research in orthopedics. In this paper, we present a novel method to analyze the similarity between the substructures of the imaged region and a hand drawn template as a preprocessing step for computation of Pelvic bone rotation on hip radiographs. This method consists of integrated usage of Marker-controlled Watershed segmentation and Zernike moment feature descriptor and it is used to detect Obturator Foramen accurately. Marker-controlled Watershed segmentation is applied to separate Obturator Foramen from the background effectively. Then, Zernike moment feature descriptor is used to provide matching between binary template image and the segmented binary image for final extraction of Obturator Foramens. Finally, Pelvic bone rotation rate calculation for each hip radiograph is performed automatically to select and eliminate hip radiographs for further studies which depend on Pelvic bone angle measurements. The proposed method is tested on randomly selected 100 hip radiographs. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method is able to segment Obturator Foramen with 96% accuracy.

Keywords: Medical image analysis, marker-controlled watershed segmentation, segmentation of bone structures on hip radiographs, pelvic bone rotation rate, zernike moment feature descriptor.

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Authors: Chien-Yeh Hsu, Yuan-Ching Chiang, Zi-Jie Chien, Sih-Li Chen

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In this study, a field experiment and performance analysis of air-tunnel heat exchanger integrated with water-filled raft foundation of residential building were performed. In order to obtain better performance, conventional applications of air-tunnel inevitably have high initial cost or issues about insufficient installation space. To improve the feasibility of air tunnel heat exchanger in high-density housing, an integrated system consisting of air pipes immersed in the water-filled raft foundation was presented, taking advantage of immense amount of water and relatively stable temperature in raft foundation of building. The foundation-integrated air tunnel was applied to a residential building located in Yilan, Taiwan, and its thermal performance was measured in the field experiment. The results indicated that the cooling potential of integrated system was close to the potential of soil-based EAHE at 2 m depth or deeper. An analytical model based on thermal resistance method was validated by measurement results, and was used to carry out the dimensioning of foundation-integrated air tunnel. The discrepancies between calculated value and measured data were less than 2.7%. In addition, the return-on-investment with regard to thermal performance and economics of the application was evaluated. Because the installation for air tunnel is scheduled in the building foundation construction, the utilization of integrated system spends less construction cost compare to the conventional earth-air tunnel.

Keywords: Air tunnel, ground heat exchanger, raft foundation, residential building.

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