Search results for: continuous delivery

Authors: K. Buyana, S. Lwasa, L. Schiebinger

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Although urbanization in Africa has been characterized by fragile socio-economic successes, the sustainability of city infrastructure is now central to planning processes as a pathway to closing the deficit in terms of coverage and access. This paper builds on survey and interview data from Kampala city, to demonstrate how the principle gender responsiveness can inform improvements in urban infrastructure and service delivery. We discovered that women prefer infrastructure that combines living and working spaces for reduced labour and travel burdens between homes, markets, schools, and other urban spaces. Men’s conception of infrastructure needs on the other hand, mirrored public security and connectivity concerns along city streets and work places. However, the urban planning approach at city-level is guided by mainstream engineering and architectural designs that do not necessarily reflect the social context within which urban infrastructure influences gender roles and the attendant mobility needs. To address the challenge across cities of similar context, the paper concludes with a set of analytic steps on how the gendered influences on infrastructure-use can be considered in urban planning cycles.

Keywords: African cities, gender responsiveness, city infrastructure, urban planning.

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Authors: M. Fette, J. P. Wulfsberg, A. Herrmann, R.-H. Ladstaetter

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Lightweight design represents an important key to successful implementation of energy-saving, fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly means of transport in the aerospace and automotive industry. In this context the use of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) which are distinguished by their outstanding mechanical properties at relatively low weight, promise significant improvements. Due to the reduction of the total mass, with the resulting lowered fuel or energy consumption and CO2 emissions during the operational phase, commercial aircraft will increasingly be made of CFRP. An auspicious technology for the efficient and economic production of high performance thermoset composites and hybrid structures for future lightweight applications is the combination of carbon fibre sheet moulding compound, tailored continuous carbon fibre reinforcements and metallic components in a one-shot pressing and curing process. This paper deals with a hybrid composite technology for aerospace industries, which was developed with the help of a special innovation and development system.

Keywords: Composite, development, hybrid, innovation, system.

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Authors: Abdullah Y. Al-Hossain

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This paper considers inference under progressive type II censoring with a compound Rayleigh failure time distribution. The maximum likelihood (ML), and Bayes methods are used for estimating the unknown parameters as well as some lifetime parameters, namely reliability and hazard functions. We obtained Bayes estimators using the conjugate priors for two shape and scale parameters. When the two parameters are unknown, the closed-form expressions of the Bayes estimators cannot be obtained. We use Lindley.s approximation to compute the Bayes estimates. Another Bayes estimator has been obtained based on continuous-discrete joint prior for the unknown parameters. An example with the real data is discussed to illustrate the proposed method. Finally, we made comparisons between these estimators and the maximum likelihood estimators using a Monte Carlo simulation study.

Keywords: Progressive type II censoring, compound Rayleigh failure time distribution, maximum likelihood estimation, Bayes estimation, Lindley's approximation method, Monte Carlo simulation.

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Authors: Bhausaheb L. Pangarkar, M.G. Sane

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Membrane distillation (MD) is a rising technology for seawater or brine desalination process. In this work, an air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) performance was investigated for aqueous NaCl solution along with natural ground water and seawater. In order to enhance the performance of the AGMD process in desalination, that is, to get more flux, it is necessary to study the effect of operating parameters on the yield of distillate water. The influence of operational parameters such as feed flow rate, feed temperature, feed salt concentration, coolant temperature and air gap thickness on the membrane distillation (MD) permeation flux have been investigated for low and high salt solution. the natural application of ground water and seawater over 90 h continuous operation, scale deposits observed on the membrane surface and reduction in flux represents 23% for ground water and 60% for seawater, in 90 h. This reduction was eliminated (less than 14 %) by acidification of feed water. Hence, promote the research attention in apply of AGMD for the ground water as well as seawater desalination over today-s conventional RO operation.

Keywords: MD, ground water, seawater, AGMD.

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Authors: J. Suwanprateeb, F. Thammarakcharoen

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Calcium phosphate coating (CaP) has been employed for protein delivery, but the typical direct protein adsorption on the coating led to low incorporation content and fast release of the protein from the coating. By using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model protein, rapid biomimetic co-precipitation between calcium phosphate and BSA was employed to control the distribution of BSA within calcium phosphate coating during biomimetic formation on titanium surface for only 6 h at 50oC in an accelerated calcium phosphate solution. As a result, the amount of BSA incorporation and release duration could be increased by using a rapid biomimetic coprecipitation technique. Up to 43 fold increases in the BSA incorporation content and the increase from 6 h to more than 360 h in release duration compared to typical direct adsorption technique were observed depending on the initial BSA concentration used during coprecipitation (1, 10 and 100 μg.ml-1). From x-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies, the coating composition was not altered with the incorporation of BSA by this rapid biomimetic co-precipitation and mainly comprised octacalcium phosphate and hydroxyapatite. However, the microstructure of calcium phosphate crystals changed from straight, plate-like units to curved, plate-like units with increasing BSA content.

Keywords: Biomimetic, Calcium Phosphate Coating, Protein, Titanium.

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Authors: Rafat Alshorman, Walter Hussak

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In mobile environments, unspecified numbers of transactions arrive in continuous streams. To prove correctness of their concurrent execution a method of modelling an infinite number of transactions is needed. Standard database techniques model fixed finite schedules of transactions. Lately, techniques based on temporal logic have been proposed as suitable for modelling infinite schedules. The drawback of these techniques is that proving the basic serializability correctness condition is impractical, as encoding (the absence of) conflict cyclicity within large sets of transactions results in prohibitively large temporal logic formulae. In this paper, we show that, under certain common assumptions on the graph structure of data items accessed by the transactions, conflict cyclicity need only be checked within all possible pairs of transactions. This results in formulae of considerably reduced size in any temporal-logic-based approach to proving serializability, and scales to arbitrary numbers of transactions.

Keywords: multi-step transactions, serializability, directed graph.

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Authors: Wala A. Bagunaid, Maram Meccawy, Arwa Allinjawi, Zilal Meccawy

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Continuous self-assessment becomes crucial in self-paced online learning environments. Students often depend on themselves to assess their progress; which is considered an essential requirement for any successful learning process. Today’s education institutions face major problems around student motivation and engagement. Thus, personalized e-learning systems aim to help and guide the students. Gamification provides an opportunity to help students for self-assessment and social comparison with other students through attempting to harness the motivational power of games and apply it to the learning environment. Furthermore, Open Social Student Modeling (OSSM) as considered as the latest user modeling technologies is believed to improve students’ self-assessment and to allow them to social comparison with other students. This research integrates OSSM approach and gamification concepts in order to provide self-assessment for English language learners at King Abdulaziz University (KAU). This is achieved through an interactive visual representation of their learning progress.

Keywords: E-learning system, gamification, motivation, social comparison, visualization.

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Authors: M. Maleki, M. Latifi, M. Amani-Tehran

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Nano fibers produced by electrospinning are of industrial and scientific attention due to their special characteristics such as long length, small diameter and high surface area. Applications of electrospun structures in nanotechnology are included tissue scaffolds, fibers for drug delivery, composite reinforcement, chemical sensing, enzyme immobilization, membrane-based filtration, protective clothing, catalysis, solar cells, electronic devices and others. Many polymer and ceramic precursor nano fibers have been successfully electrospun with diameters in the range from 1 nm to several microns. The process is complex so that fiber diameter is influenced by various material, design and operating parameters. The objective of this work is to apply genetic algorithm on the parameters of electrospinning which have the most significant effect on the nano fiber diameter to determine the optimum parameter values before doing experimental set up. Effective factors including initial polymer concentration, initial jet radius, electrical potential, relaxation time, initial elongation, viscosity and distance between nozzle and collector are considered to determine finest diameter which is selected by user.

Keywords: Electrospinning, genetic algorithm, nano fiber diameter, optimization.

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Authors: Ravi P. Agrahari

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The present study was undertaken with the objective of evaluating kitchen waste as an alternative organic material for biogas production in community level biogas plant. The field study was carried out for one month (January 19, 2012– February 17, 2012) at Centre for Energy Studies, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India.

This study involves the uses of greenhouse canopy to increase the temperature for the production of biogas in winter period. In continuation, a semi-continuous study was conducted for one month with the retention time of 30 days under batch system. The gas generated from the biogas plant was utilized for cooking (burner) and lighting (lamp) purposes. Gas productions in the winter season registered lower than other months. It can be concluded that the solar greenhouse assisted biogas plant can be efficiently adopted in colder region or in winter season because temperature plays a major role in biogas production. 

Keywords: Biogas, Green house chamber, organic material, solar intensity.

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Authors: Behzad Moeini Sam, Sara Mohammadi Avandi

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Ancient scribes usually wrote an Akkadian word in Akkadian, spelling it out syllable by syllable. Sometimes, however, they wrote down the equivalent word in Sumerian for the Akkadians held Sumerian culture, from which they had inherited the cuneiform script, in high esteem. ‘Syllabic’ vs. ‘Sumerographic’ are the two forms of cuneiform writing. The Assyrian language was a branch of the Akkadian one that used the script and language of Aramaic throughout the whole of the empire. It caused the Aramaic language to apply as an Interlingua until the following periods. This paper aims to compare Sumerograms in Akkadian texts and Arameograms in Middle Persian texts to find a continuous written system that continued to apply from Akkadian to the Middle Persian. It will firstly introduce Sumerograms which are the earliest Akkadian texts, and will finally explain the Aramaic language, which continues its use by the Parthians and Sasanians as Arameograms. Thus, the main conclusion to be drawn is that just as the Akkadians who applied Sumerograms, Parthian and Pahlavi (including the inscriptions and the Psalter), too, employed a large number of, and more or less faithfully rendered, Aramaic words, also called Arameograms.

Keywords: Sumerogram, Mesopotamian, Akkadian. Aramaic, Middle Persian.

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Authors: Muhammad Javid Qadir, Abdul Hameed

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The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of ICT training workshop of tutors of Allama Iqbal Open University Pakistan. The study was delimited to tutors of Multan region. The total sample comprised of 100 tutors. All the tutors who participated in ICT training workshop in Multan region were taken as sample in the study. A questionnaire having two parts, based on five point rating scale was developed by the researcher. Part one was about the competency level of computer skills while Part two was based on items related to training delivery, structure and content. Part One of questionnaire had five levels of competency about computer skills. The questionnaire was personally administered and collected back by the researcher himself on the last day of workshop. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Through this study it was found that majority of the tutors strongly agreed that training enhanced their computer skills. Majority of the respondents consider themselves to be generally competent in the use of computer. They also agreed that there was appropriate infrastructure and technical support in lab during training workshop. Moreover, it was found that the training imparted the knowledge of pedagogy of using computers for distance education.

Keywords: ICT, Tutors, AIOU.

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Authors: António J. R. Neves, Rui Garcia, Paulo Dias, Alina Trifan

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With the aging of the world population and the continuous growth in technology, service robots are more and more explored nowadays as alternatives to healthcare givers or personal assistants for the elderly or disabled people. Any service robot should be capable of interacting with the human companion, receive commands, navigate through the environment, either known or unknown, and recognize objects. This paper proposes an approach for object recognition based on the use of depth information and color images for a service robot. We present a study on two of the most used methods for object detection, where 3D data is used to detect the position of objects to classify that are found on horizontal surfaces. Since most of the objects of interest accessible for service robots are on these surfaces, the proposed 3D segmentation reduces the processing time and simplifies the scene for object recognition. The first approach for object recognition is based on color histograms, while the second is based on the use of the SIFT and SURF feature descriptors. We present comparative experimental results obtained with a real service robot.

Keywords: Service Robot, Object Recognition, 3D Sensors, Plane Segmentation.

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Authors: Othman Belgassim, Krzysztof Jemielniak

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The analysis of Acoustic Emission (AE) signal generated from metal cutting processes has often approached statistically. This is due to the stochastic nature of the emission signal as a result of factors effecting the signal from its generation through transmission and sensing. Different techniques are applied in this manner, each of which is suitable for certain processes. In metal cutting where the emission generated by the deformation process is rather continuous, an appropriate method for analysing the AE signal based on the root mean square (RMS) of the signal is often used and is suitable for use with the conventional signal processing systems. The aim of this paper is to set a strategy in tool failure detection in turning processes via the statistic analysis of the AE generated from the cutting zone. The strategy is based on the investigation of the distribution moments of the AE signal at predetermined sampling. The skews and kurtosis of these distributions are the key elements in the detection. A normal (Gaussian) distribution has first been suggested then this was eliminated due to insufficiency. The so called Beta distribution was then considered, this has been used with an assumed β density function and has given promising results with regard to chipping and tool breakage detection.

Keywords: AE signal, skew, kurtosis, tool failure

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Authors: Kien Tsong Chau, Zarina Samsudin, Wan Ahmad Jaafar Wan Yahaya

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The paper examined the capability of a prototype of a tangible multimedia system that was augmented with tangible objects in motivating young preschoolers in learning. Preschoolers’ learning behaviour is highly captivated and motivated by external physical stimuli. Hence, conventional multimedia which solely dependent on digital visual and auditory formats for knowledge delivery could potentially place them in inappropriate state of circumstances that are frustrating, boring, or worse, impede overall learning motivations. This paper begins by discussion with the objectives of the research, followed by research questions, hypotheses, ARCS model of motivation adopted in the process of macro-design, and the research instrumentation, Persuasive Multimedia Motivational Scale was deployed for measuring the level of motivation of subjects towards the experimental tangible multimedia. At the close, a succinct description of the findings of a relevant research is provided. In the research, a total of 248 preschoolers recruited from seven Malaysian kindergartens were examined. Analyses revealed that the tangible multimedia system improved preschoolers’ learning motivation significantly more than conventional multimedia. Overall, the findings led to the conclusion that the tangible multimedia system is a motivation conducive multimedia for preschoolers.

Keywords: Tangible multimedia, preschooler, motivation, multimedia.

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Authors: Nader A. Al Theeb, Zaid Abu Manneh, Ibrahim Al-Qadi

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Traveling salesman problem (TSP) is a combinatorial integer optimization problem that asks "What is the optimal route for a vehicle to traverse in order to deliver requests to a given set of customers?”. It is widely used by the package carrier companies’ distribution centers. The main goal of applying the TSP in courier organizations is to minimize the time that it takes for the courier in each trip to deliver or pick up the shipments during a day. In this article, an optimization model is constructed to create a new TSP variant to optimize the routing in a courier organization with a consideration of congestion in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Real data were collected by different methods and analyzed. Then, concert technology - CPLEX was used to solve the proposed model for some random generated data instances and for the real collected data. At the end, results have shown a great improvement in time compared with the current trip times, and an economic study was conducted afterwards to figure out the impact of using such models.

Keywords: Travel salesman problem, congestions, pick-up, integer programming, package carriers, service engineering.

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Authors: Chun-Ying Lee, Mei-Wen Wu, Van Cuong Nguyen, Hung-Wei Chuang

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In this study, a nickel film with nano-crystalline grains, high hardness and smooth surface was electrodeposited using a post supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) mixed Watts electrolyte. Although the hardness was not as high as its Sc-CO2 counterpart, the thin coating contained significantly less number of nano-sized pinholes. By measuring the escape concentration of the dissolved CO2 in post Sc-CO2 mixed electrolyte with the elapsed time, it was believed that the residue of dissolved CO2 bubbles should closely relate to the improvement in hardness and surface roughness over its conventional plating counterpart. Therefore, shortening the duration of electroplating with the raise of current density up to 0.5 A/cm2 could effectively retain more post Sc-CO2 mixing effect. This study not only confirms the roles of dissolved CO2 bubbles in electrolyte but also provides a potential process to overcome most issues associated with the cost in building high-pressure chamber for large size products and continuous plating using supercritical method.

Keywords: Additive-free electrolyte, electroplating, nickel, supercritical CO2.

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Authors: Arii Bowo Yudhaprasetya, Ario Guritno, Agus Setiawan, Recky Tehupuring, Cosmas Supriatna

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The offshore facilities condition of Pertamina Hulu Energi Offshore North West Java (PHE ONWJ) varies greatly from place to place, depending on the characteristics of the presently installed facilities. In some locations, such as ESA platform, gas trap is mainly caused by the occurrence of flash gas phenomenon which is known as mechanical-physical separation process of multiphase flow. Consequently, the presence of gas trap at main oil line would accumulate on certain areas result in a reduced oil stream throughout the pipeline. Any presence of discrete gaseous along continuous oil flow represents a unique flow condition under certain specific volume fraction and velocity field. From gas lift source, a benefit line is used as a motive flow for ejector which is designed to generate a syphon effect to minimize the gas trap phenomenon. Therefore, the ejector’s exhaust stream will flow to the designated point without interfering other systems.

Keywords: Ejector, diffuser, multiphase flow, syphon effects.

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Authors: M.Nafar, A.H.Gheisari, A.Alesaadi

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Since large power transformers are the most expensive and strategically important components of any power generator and transmission system, their reliability is crucially important for the energy system operation. Also, Circuit breakers are very important elements in the power transmission line so monitoring the events gives a knowledgebase to determine time to the next maintenance. This paper deals with the introduction of the comparative method of the state estimation of transformers and Circuit breakers using continuous monitoring of voltage, current. This paper gives details a new method based on wavelet to apparatus insulation monitoring. In this paper to insulation monitoring of transformer, a new method based on wavelet transformation and neutral point analysis is proposed. Using the EMTP tools, fault in transformer winding and the detailed transformer winding model were simulated. The current of neutral point of winding was analyzed by wavelet transformation. It is shown that the neutral current of the transformer winding has useful information about fault in insulation of the transformer.

Keywords: Wavelet, Power Transformer, EMTP, CircuitBreaker, Monitoring

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Authors: Stefan V. Stefanescu

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We intend to point out the differences which exist between the classical Gini concentration coefficient and a proposed bipolarization index defined for an arbitrary random variable which have a finite support. In fact Gini's index measures only the "poverty degree" for the individuals from a given population taking into consideration their wages. The Gini coefficient is not so sensitive to the significant income variations in the "rich people class" . In practice there are multiple interdependent relations between the pauperization and the socio-economical polarization phenomena. The presence of a strong pauperization aspect inside the population induces often a polarization effect in this society. But the pauperization and the polarization phenomena are not identical. For this reason it isn't always adequate to use a Gini type coefficient, based on the Lorenz order, to estimate the bipolarization level of the individuals from the studied population. The present paper emphasizes these ideas by considering two families of random variables which have a linear or a triangular type distributions. In addition, the continuous variation, depending on the parameter "time" of the chosen distributions, could simulate a real dynamical evolution of the population.

Keywords: Bipolarization phenomenon, Gini coefficient, income distribution, poverty measure.

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Authors: Olga Długosz, Jolanta Pulit-Prociak, Marcin Banach

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The paper presents a process to obtain glutathione-modified titanium oxide nanoparticles. The processes were carried out in a microwave radiation field. The influence of the molar ratio of glutathione to titanium oxide and the effect of the fold of NaOH vs. stoichiometric amount on the size of the formed TiO2 nanoparticles was determined. The physicochemical properties of the obtained products were evaluated using dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscope- energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (TEM-EDS), low-temperature nitrogen adsorption method (BET), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) microscopy methods. The size of TiO2 nanoparticles was characterized from 30 nm to 336 nm. The release of titanium ions from the prepared products was evaluated. These studies were carried out using different media in which the powders were incubated for a specific time. These were: water, SBF and Ringer's solution. The release of titanium ions from modified products is weaker compared to unmodified titanium oxide nanoparticles. The reduced release of titanium ions may allow the use of such modified materials as substances in drug delivery systems.

Keywords: titanium dioxide, nanoparticles, drug carrier, glutathione

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Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan

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Diabetes disease that arises from the higher glucose level due to insulin shortage or insulin opposition in the human body has become a common disease in the world. No medicine can cure it completely. However, by taking medicine, maintaining diets, and having exercises regularly, a diabetes patient can keep his glucose level within the specified limits and in this way, he/she can lead a normal life like a healthy person. But to control glucose levels, a patient needs to monitor them regularly. Various techniques are being used over the last four decades. This modern review article aims to provide a comparative study report on various blood glucose monitoring techniques in a very concise and organized manner. The review mainly emphasizes working principles, cost, technology, sensors, measurement types, measurement accuracy, advantages, and disadvantages, etc. of various techniques and then compares among each other. Besides, the use of algorithms and simulators for the growth of this technology is also presented. Finally, current research trends of this measurement technology have also been discussed.

Keywords: blood glucose measurement, sensors, measurement devices, invasive and non-invasive techniques

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Authors: R. Schweighoffer, N. Nagy, E. Reeves, B. Liebig

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Due to aging populations, the need for seamless palliative care provision is of central interest for western societies. An essential aspect of palliative care delivery is the quality of collaboration amongst palliative care providers. Therefore, the current research is based on Bainbridge’s conceptual framework, which provides an outline for the evaluation of palliative care provision. This study is the first one to investigate the predictive validity of spatial distribution on the quantity of interaction amongst various palliative care providers. Furthermore, based on the familiarity principle, we examine whether the extent of collaboration influences the perceived quality of collaboration among palliative care providers in urban versus rural areas of Switzerland. Based on a population-representative survey of Swiss palliative care providers, the results of the current study show that professionals in densely populated areas report higher absolute numbers of interactions and are more satisfied with their collaborative practice. This indicates that palliative care providers who work in urban areas are better embedded into networks than their counterparts in more rural areas. The findings are especially important, considering that efficient collaboration is a prerequisite to achieve satisfactory patient outcomes. Conclusively, measures should be taken to foster collaboration in weakly interconnected palliative care networks.

Keywords: Collaboration, healthcare networks, palliative care, Switzerland.

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Authors: Mohamed R. Mhereeg

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The paper investigates the feasibility of constructing a software multi-agent based monitoring and classification system and utilizing it to provide an automated and accurate classification of end users developing applications in the spreadsheet domain. The agents function autonomously to provide continuous and periodic monitoring of excels spreadsheet workbooks. Resulting in, the development of the MultiAgent classification System (MACS) that is in compliance with the specifications of the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA). However, different technologies have been brought together to build MACS. The strength of the system is the integration of the agent technology with the FIPA specifications together with other technologies that are Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Oracle Data Mining (ODM). The Microsoft's .NET widows service based agents were utilized to develop the monitoring agents of MACS, the .NET WCF services together with SOA approach allowed the distribution and communication between agents over the WWW that is in order to satisfy the monitoring and classification of the multiple developer aspect. ODM was used to automate the classification phase of MACS.

Keywords: Autonomous, Classification, MACS, Multi-Agent, SOA, WCF.

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Authors: S. Venkateshwarlu, B. P. Muni, A. D. Rajkumar, J. Praveen

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Custom power is a technology driven product and service solution which embraces a family devices such as Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR), Distributed Shunt Compensator (DSTATCOM), Solid State Breaker (SSB) etc which will provide power quality functions at distribution voltages. The rapid response of these devices enables them to operate in real time, providing continuous and dynamic control of the supply including voltage and reactive power regulation, harmonic reduction and elimination of voltage dips. This paper presents the benefits of multilevel inverters when they are used for DPC based custom power devices. Power flow control mechanism, salient features, advantages and disadvantages of direct power control (DPC) using lookup table, SVM, predictive voltage vector and hybrid DPC strategies are discussed in this paper. Simulation results of three level inverter based STATCOM, harmonic analysis of multi level inverters are presented at the end.

Keywords: DPC, DPC-SVM, Dynamic voltage restorer, DSTATCOM, Multilevel inverter, PWM Converter, PDPC, VF-DPC.

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Authors: Sanjeev Gupta, Mayank Dave

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The issue of real-time and reliable report delivery is extremely important for taking effective decision in a real world mission critical Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based application. The sensor data behaves differently in many ways from the data in traditional databases. WSNs need a mechanism to register, process queries, and disseminate data. In this paper we propose an architectural framework for data placement and management. We propose a reliable and real time approach for data placement and achieving data integrity using self organized sensor clusters. Instead of storing information in individual cluster heads as suggested in some protocols, in our architecture we suggest storing of information of all clusters within a cell in the corresponding base station. For data dissemination and action in the wireless sensor network we propose to use Action and Relay Stations (ARS). To reduce average energy dissipation of sensor nodes, the data is sent to the nearest ARS rather than base station. We have designed our architecture in such a way so as to achieve greater energy savings, enhanced availability and reliability.

Keywords: Cluster head, data reliability, real time communication, wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: M. H. M. Rusli, A. Jaffar, M. T. Ali, S. Muhamud @ Kayat

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Lean manufacturing is a production philosophy made popular by Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). It is globally known as the Toyota Production System (TPS) and has the ultimate aim of reducing cost by thoroughly eliminating wastes or muda. TPS embraces the Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing; achieving cost reduction through lead time reduction. JIT manufacturing can be achieved by implementing Pull system in the production. Furthermore, TPS aims to improve productivity and creating continuous flow in the production by arranging the machines and processes in cellular configurations. This is called as Cellular Manufacturing Systems (CMS). This paper studies on integrating the CMS with the Pull system to establish a Big Island-Pull system production for High Mix Low Volume (HMLV) products in an automotive component industry. The paper will use the build-in JIT system steps adapted from TMC to create the Pull system production and also create a shojinka line which, according to takt time, has the flexibility to adapt to demand changes simply by adding and taking out manpower. This will lead to optimization in production.

Keywords: Big Island layout, Lean manufacturing, Material and Information Flow Chart, Pull system production, TPS.

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Authors: Aishwarya Shekhar, Devesh Kumar Srivastava

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Cloud computing has emerged as a promising direction for cost efficient and reliable service delivery across data communication networks. The dynamic location of service facilities and the virtualization of hardware and software elements are stressing the communication networks and protocols, especially when data centres are interconnected through the internet. Although the computing aspects of cloud technologies have been largely investigated, lower attention has been devoted to the networking services without involving IT operating overhead. Cloud computing has enabled elastic and transparent access to infrastructure services without involving IT operating overhead. Virtualization has been a key enabler for cloud computing. While resource virtualization and service abstraction have been widely investigated, networking in cloud remains a difficult puzzle. Even though network has significant role in facilitating hybrid cloud scenarios, it hasn't received much attention in research community until recently. We propose Network as a Service (NaaS), which forms the basis of unifying public and private clouds. In this paper, we identify various challenges in adoption of hybrid cloud. We discuss the design and implementation of a cloud platform.

Keywords: Cloud computing, networking, infrastructure, hybrid cloud, open stack, Naas.

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Authors: Vahhab Attar Olyaee, Fouad Attar Olyaee

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Many IT projects come to failure because of having technical approach, focusing on the final product and lack of proper attention to strategic alignment. Project management models quite often have technical management view [4], [8], [13], [14]. These models focus greatly on the finalization of the project product and the delivery of the product to the customer. However, many project problems are due to lack of attention to the needs and capabilities of the organizations or disregarding how to deploy and use the product in the organization. In this regard, in the current research we are trying to present a solution with the purpose of raising the value of the project in an organization. This way, the project outputs will be properly deployed in the organization. Therefore, a comprehensive model is presented which takes into account the whole processes from initial step of project definition to the deployment of the final outputs in the organization and then the definition of all roles and responsibilities to put the model into practice. Taking into account the opinions of experts and project managers, to prove the performance of the model, the project problems were recognized and based on the model, categorized and analyzed. And at the end it is made clear that ignoring the proper definition of the project and not having a proper understanding of the expected value on the one hand and not supervising the emerged value in the process of production and installment are among the most important factors that bring a project to failure.

Keywords: IT Governance, Project Model, Roles and Responsibilities of Project

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Authors: Helena Costa Oliveira, Carmem Oliveira, Rita Moutinho

Abstract:

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a continuous strategic monitoring model focused not only on financial issues but also on internal processes, patients/users, and learning and growth. Initially dedicated to business management, it currently serves organizations of other natures - such as hospitals. This paper presents a BSC designed for a Portuguese Acute Pain Unit (APU). This study is qualitative and based on the experience of collaborators at the APU. The management of APU is based on four perspectives – users, internal processes, learning and growth, and financial and legal. For each perspective, there were identified strategic objectives, critical factors, lead indicators and initiatives. The strategic map of the APU outlining sustained strategic relations among strategic objectives. This study contributes to the development of research in the health management area as it explores how organizational insufficiencies and inconsistencies in this particular case can be addressed, through the identification of critical factors, to clearly establish core outcomes and initiatives to set up.

Keywords: Acute pain unit, balanced scorecard, hospital management, organizational performance, Portugal.

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Authors: N. Marzban, J. K. Heydarzadeh M. Pourmohammadbagher, M. H. Hatami, A. Samia

Abstract:

A nano-alumina-zirconia composite catalyst was synthesized by a simple aqueous sol-gel method using AlCl₃.6H₂O and ZrCl₄ as precursors. Thermal decomposition of the precursor and subsequent formation of γ-Al₂O₃ and t-Zr were investigated by thermal analysis. XRD analysis showed that γ-Al₂O₃ and t-ZrO₂ phases were formed at 700 °C. FT-IR analysis also indicated that the phase transition to γ-Al₂O₃ occurred in corroboration with X-ray studies. TEM analysis of the calcined powder revealed that spherical particles were in the range of 8-12 nm. The nano-alumina-zirconia composite particles were mesoporous and uniformly distributed in their crystalline phase. In order to measure the catalytic activity, esterification reaction was carried out. Biodiesel, as a renewable fuel, was formed in a continuous packed column reactor. Free fatty acid (FFA) was esterified with ethanol in a heterogeneous catalytic reactor. It was found that the synthesized γ-Al₂O₃/ZrO₂ composite had the potential to be used as a heterogeneous base catalyst for biodiesel production processes.

Keywords: Nano-alumina-zirconia, composite catalyst, thin film, biodiesel.

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