Search results for: energy management system

Authors: Rasim M. Alguliyev, Alovsat G. Aliyev

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In the paper, information on economic development trends in developed countries are analyzed. The current status of information society and economy of the country is reviewed and some recommendations are given for future development. The problems of Information Society and establishment of its innovative economy are studied. In this turn, development trends information economy in developed countries are analyzed.

Keywords: Information economy, ICT sector, ICT infrastructure, innovation, innovation system hi-tech products, antimonopoly policy.

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Authors: Tero Halme, Juho Kanniainen, Markus Nordberg

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According to the existing literature, companies manage analysts’ expectations of their future earnings by issuing pessimistic earnings guidance to meet the expectations. Consequently, one could expect that markets price this pessimistic bias in advance and penalize companies more for lowering the guidance than reward for beating the guidance. In this paper we confirm this empirically. In addition we show that although guidance revisions have a statistically significant relation to stock returns, that is not the case with the actual earnings surprise. Reason for this could be that, after the annual earnings report also information on future earnings power is given at the same time.

Keywords: Management guidance, earnings guidance, pessimistic bias

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Authors: Fuyang Peng, Bo Deng, Chao Qi

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This paper presents the design and implementation of CASTE, a Cloud-based automatic software test environment. We first present the architecture of CASTE, then the main packages and classes of it are described in detail. CASTE is built upon a private Infrastructure as a Service platform. Through concentrated resource management of virtualized testing environment and automatic execution control of test scripts, we get a better solution to the testing resource utilization and test automation problem. Experiments on CASTE give very appealing results.

Keywords: Software testing, test environment, test script, cloud computing, IaaS, test automation.

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Authors: S. B. Tende, H. L. Abubakar

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It is acknowledged that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) may encounter different ethical issues and pressures that could affect the way in which they strategize or make decisions concerning the outcome of their business. Therefore, this research aimed at assessing entrepreneurial ethics in the business of SMEs in Nigeria. Secondary data were adopted as source of corpus for the analysis. The findings conclude that a sound entrepreneurial ethics system has a significant effect on the level of performance of SMEs in Nigeria. The Nigerian Government needs to provide both guiding and physical structures; as well as learning systems that could inculcate these entrepreneurial ethics.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial ethics, culture, performance, SME.

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Authors: S.M. Lee, J.H. Koo, J.H. Park, S.C. Won

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In this paper, we propose synchronization of an array of nonlinear systems with time delays. The array of systems is decomposed into isolated systems to establish appropriate Lyapunov¬Krasovskii functional. Using the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, a sufficient condition for the synchronization is derived in terms of LMIs(Linear Matrix Inequalities). Delayed feedback control gains are obtained by solving the sufficient condition. Numerical examples are given to show the validity the proposed method.

Keywords: Synchronization, Delay, Lyapunov method, LMI.

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Authors: G. Sadashivappa, K. V. S. AnandaBabu

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The aim of this paper to characterize a larger set of wavelet functions for implementation in a still image compression system using SPIHT algorithm. This paper discusses important features of wavelet functions and filters used in sub band coding to convert image into wavelet coefficients in MATLAB. Image quality is measured objectively using peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and its variation with bit rate (bpp). The effect of different parameters is studied on different wavelet functions. Our results provide a good reference for application designers of wavelet based coder.

Keywords: Wavelet, image compression, sub band, SPIHT, PSNR.

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Authors: Ihor Trots, Yuriy Tasinkevych, Andrzej Nowicki, Marcin Lewandowski

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In the paper the study of synthetic transmit aperture method applying the Golay coded transmission for medical ultrasound imaging is presented. Longer coded excitation allows to increase the total energy of the transmitted signal without increasing the peak pressure. Moreover signal-to-noise ratio and penetration depth are improved while maintaining high ultrasound image resolution. In the work the 128-element linear transducer array with 0.3 mm inter-element spacing excited by one cycle and the 8 and 16- bit Golay coded sequences at nominal frequency 4 MHz was used. To generate a spherical wave covering the full image region a single element transmission aperture was used and all the elements received the echo signals. The comparison of 2D ultrasound images of the tissue mimicking phantom and in vitro measurements of the beef liver is presented to illustrate the benefits of the coded transmission. The results were obtained using the synthetic aperture algorithm with transmit and receive signals correction based on a single element directivity function.

Keywords: Golay coded sequences, radiation pattern, signal processing, synthetic aperture, ultrasound imaging.

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Authors: Jozef Šesták, Zbyněk Večeřa, Vladislav Kahle, Dana Moravcová, Pavel Mikuška, Josef Kellner, František Božek

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Construction of portable device for fast analysis of energetic materials is described in this paper. The developed analytical system consists of two main parts: a miniaturized microcolumn liquid chromatograph of unique construction and original chemiluminescence detector. This novel portable device is able to determine selectively most of nitramine- and nitroester-based explosives as well as inorganic nitrates at trace concentrations in water or soil extracts in less than 8 minutes.

Keywords: Portable device, uLC, chemiluminescence, nitramines, nitroesters.

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Authors: Ekin Kıpçak, Yağmur Karakuş, Mesut Akgün

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Hydrogen is an important chemical in many industries and it is expected to become one of the major fuels for energy generation in the future. Unfortunately, hydrogen does not exist in its elemental form in nature and therefore has to be produced from hydrocarbons, hydrogen-containing compounds or water.

Above its critical point (374.8^oC and 22.1MPa), water has lower density and viscosity, and a higher heat capacity than those of ambient water. Mass transfer in supercritical water (SCW) is enhanced due to its increased diffusivity and transport ability. The reduced dielectric constant makes supercritical water a better solvent for organic compounds and gases. Hence, due to the aforementioned desirable properties, there is a growing interest toward studies regarding the gasification of organic matter containing biomass or model biomass solutions in supercritical water.

In this study, hydrogen and biofuel production by the catalytic gasification of 2-Propanol in supercritical conditions of water was investigated. Ru/Al₂O₃ was the catalyst used in the gasification reactions. All of the experiments were performed under a constant pressure of 25 MPa. The effects of five reaction temperatures (400, 450, 500, 550 and 600^oC) and five reaction times (10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 s) on the gasification yield and flammable component content were investigated.

Keywords: 2-Propanol, Gasification, Ru/Al2O3, Supercritical water.

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Authors: Omid Adibi, Nategheh Najafpour, Bijan Farhanieh, Hossein Afshin

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Energy transmission pipelines are one of the most vital parts of each country which several strict laws have been conducted to enhance the safety of these lines and their vicinity. One of these laws is the safety distance around high pressure gas pipelines. Safety distance refers to the minimum distance from the pipeline where people and equipment do not confront with serious damages. In the present study, safety distance around high pressure gas transmission pipelines were determined by using numerical methods. For this purpose, gas leakages from cracked pipeline and created jet fires were simulated as continuous ignition, three dimensional, unsteady and turbulent cases. Numerical simulations were based on finite volume method and turbulence of flow was considered using k-ω SST model. Also, the combustion of natural gas and air mixture was applied using the eddy dissipation method. The results show that, due to the high pressure difference between pipeline and environment, flow chocks in the cracked area and velocity of the exhausted gas reaches to sound speed. Also, analysis of the incident radiation results shows that safety distances around 42 inches high pressure natural gas pipeline based on 5 and 15 kW/m² criteria are 205 and 272 meters, respectively.

Keywords: Gas pipelines, incident radiation, numerical simulation, safety distance.

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Authors: Jamal Fathi Abu Hasna

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There are two common methodologies to verify signatures: the functional approach and the parametric approach. This paper presents a new approach for dynamic handwritten signature verification (HSV) using the Neural Network with verification by the Conjugate Gradient Neural Network (NN). It is yet another avenue in the approach to HSV that is found to produce excellent results when compared with other methods of dynamic. Experimental results show the system is insensitive to the order of base-classifiers and gets a high verification ratio.

Keywords: Signature Verification, MATLAB Software, Conjugate Gradient, Segmentation, Skilled Forgery, and Genuine.

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Authors: Lavanya Srinivasan

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Biometric identification is to identify unique features in a person like fingerprints, iris, ear, and voice recognition that need the subject's permission and physical contact. Gait biometric is used to identify the unique gait of the person by extracting moving features. The main advantage of gait biometric to identify the gait of a person at a distance, without any physical contact. In this work, the gait biometric is used for person re-identification. The person walking naturally compared with the same person walking with bag, coat and case recorded using long wave infrared, short wave infrared, medium wave infrared and visible cameras. The videos are recorded in rural and in urban environments. The pre-processing technique includes human identified using You Only Look Once, background subtraction, silhouettes extraction and synthesis Gait Entropy Image by averaging the silhouettes. The moving features are extracted from the Gait Entropy Energy Image. The extracted features are dimensionality reduced by the Principal Component Analysis and recognized using different classifiers. The comparative results with the different classifier show that Linear Discriminant Analysis outperform other classifiers with 95.8% for visible in the rural dataset and 94.8% for longwave infrared in the urban dataset.

Keywords: biometric, gait, silhouettes, You Only Look Once

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Authors: N. Siva Shanmugam, G. Buvanashekaran, K. Sankaranarayanasamy

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In this research work, investigations are carried out on Continuous Wave (CW) Nd:YAG laser welding system after preliminary experimentation to understand the influencing parameters associated with laser welding of AISI 304. The experimental procedure involves a series of laser welding trials on AISI 304 stainless steel sheets with various combinations of process parameters like beam power, beam incident angle and beam incident angle. An industrial 2 kW CW Nd:YAG laser system, available at Welding Research Institute (WRI), BHEL Tiruchirappalli, is used for conducting the welding trials for this research. After proper tuning of laser beam, laser welding experiments are conducted on AISI 304 grade sheets to evaluate the influence of various input parameters on weld bead geometry i.e. bead width (BW) and depth of penetration (DOP). From the laser welding results, it is noticed that the beam power and welding speed are the two influencing parameters on depth and width of the bead. Three dimensional finite element simulation of high density heat source have been performed for laser welding technique using finite element code ANSYS for predicting the temperature profile of laser beam heat source on AISI 304 stainless steel sheets. The temperature dependent material properties for AISI 304 stainless steel are taken into account in the simulation, which has a great influence in computing the temperature profiles. The latent heat of fusion is considered by the thermal enthalpy of material for calculation of phase transition problem. A Gaussian distribution of heat flux using a moving heat source with a conical shape is used for analyzing the temperature profiles. Experimental and simulated values for weld bead profiles are analyzed for stainless steel material for different beam power, welding speed and beam incident angle. The results obtained from the simulation are compared with those from the experimental data and it is observed that the results of numerical analysis (FEM) are in good agreement with experimental results, with an overall percentage of error estimated to be within ±6%.

Keywords: Laser welding, Butt weld, 304 SS, FEM.

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Authors: B. Sir, M. Podhoranyi, S. Kuchar, T. Kocyan

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Rainfall runoff models play important role in hydrological predictions. However, the model is only one part of the process for creation of flood prediction. The aim of this paper is to show the process of successful prediction for flood event (May 15 – May 18 2014). Prediction was performed by rainfall runoff model HEC–HMS, one of the models computed within Floreon+ system. The paper briefly evaluates the results of automatic hydrologic prediction on the river Olše catchment and its gages Český Těšín and Věřňovice.

Keywords: Flood, HEC-HMS, Prediction, Rainfall – Runoff.

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Authors: Samah. G. Babiker, Shuai Yong, Mohamed Osman Sid-Ahmed Xie Ming, A.M. Abdelbagi

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In this paper, a one - dimensional microstructure tungsten grating (pyramids) is optimized for potential application as thermophotovoltaic (TPV) emitter. The influence of gratings geometric parameters on the spectral emittance are studied by using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA).The results show that the spectral emittance is affected by the gratings geometrical parameters. The optimum parameters are grating period of 0.5µm, a filling ratio of 0.8 and grating height of h=0.2µm. A broad peak of high emittance is obtained at wavelengths between 0.5 and 1.8µm. The emittance drops below 0.2 at wavelengths above 1.8µm. This can be explained by the surface plasmon polaritons excitation coupled with the grating microstructures. At longer wavelengths, the emittance remains low and this is highly desired for thermophotovoltaic applications to reduce the thermal leakage due to low-energy photons that do not produce any photocurrent. The proposed structure can be used as a selective emitter for a narrow band gap cell such as GaSb. The performance of this simple 1-D emitter proved to be superior to that from more complicated structures. Almost all the radiation from the emitter incident, at angles up to 40°, on the cell, could be utilized to produce a photocurrent. There is no need for a filter.

Keywords: Thermophotovoltaic, RCWA, Grating, Emittance, Surface plasmon polaritons

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Authors: Karanjeet Singh Kahlon, Gurvinder Singh, Arjan Singh

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

Keywords: Applet, Efficiency, Java, LAN

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Authors: G. Reinhart, J. Pohl

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Manufacturing companies are facing a broad variety of challenges caused by a dynamic production environment. To succeed in such an environment, it is crucial to minimize the loss of time required to trigger the adaptation process of a company-s production structures. This paper presents an approach for the continuous monitoring of production structures by neurologic principles. It enhances classical monitoring concepts, which are principally focused on reactive strategies, and enables companies to act proactively. Thereby, strategic aspects regarding the harmonization of certain life cycles are integrated into the decision making process for triggering the reconfiguration process of the production structure.

Keywords: Continuous Factory Planning, Production Structure, Production Management.

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Authors: Hee Suk Seo, Tae Kyung Kim

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As network components grow larger and more diverse, and as securing them on a host-by-host basis grow more difficult, more sites are turning to a network security model. We concentrate on controlling network access to various hosts and the services they offer, rather than on securing them one by one with a network security model. We present how the policy rules from vulnerabilities stored in SVDB (Simulation based Vulnerability Data Base) are inducted, and how to be used in PBN. In the network security environment, each simulation model is hierarchically designed by DEVS (Discrete EVent system Specification) formalism.

Keywords: SVDB, PBN, DEVS, Network security.

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Authors: Tao Yin, Zeqiang Zhang, Wei Liang, Yanqing Zeng, Yu Zhang

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To accelerate the remanufacturing process of electronic waste products, this study designs a partial disassembly line with the multi-robotic station to effectively dispose of excessive wastes. The multi-robotic partial disassembly line is a technical upgrade to the existing manual disassembly line. Balancing optimization can make the disassembly line smoother and more efficient. For partial disassembly line balancing with the multi-robotic station (PDLBMRS), a mixed-integer programming model (MIPM) considering the robotic efficiency differences is established to minimize cycle time, energy consumption and hazard index and to calculate their optimal global values. Besides, an enhanced NSGA-II algorithm (HNSGA-II) is proposed to optimize PDLBMRS efficiently. Finally, MIPM and HNSGA-II are applied to an actual mixed disassembly case of two types of computers, the comparison of the results solved by GUROBI and HNSGA-II verifies the correctness of the model and excellent performance of the algorithm, and the obtained Pareto solution set provides multiple options for decision-makers.

Keywords: Waste disposal, disassembly line balancing, multi-robot station, robotic efficiency difference, HNSGA-II.

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Authors: Cherryl Lowe

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Background - The TrendCare Patient Dependency System is currently used by a large number of maternity Services across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. In 2012, 2013 and 2014 validation studies were initiated in all three countries to validate the acuity tools used for women in labour, and postnatal mothers and babies. This paper will present the findings of the validation study. Aim - The aim of this study was to; identify if the care hours provided by the TrendCare acuity system was an accurate reflection of the care required by women and babies; obtain evidence of changes required to acuity indicators and/or category timings to ensure the TrendCare acuity system remains reliable and valid across a range of maternity care models in three countries. Method - A non-experimental action research methodology was used across maternity services in four District Health Boards in New Zealand, a large tertiary and a large secondary maternity service in Singapore and a large public maternity service in Australia. Standardised data collection forms and timing devices were used to collect midwife contact times, with women and babies included in the study. Rejection processes excluded samples when care was not completed/rationed, and contact timing forms were incomplete. The variances between actual timed midwife/mother/baby contact and the TrendCare acuity category times were identified and investigated. Results - Thirty two (88.9%) of the 36 TrendCare acuity category timings, fell within the variance tolerance levels when compared to the actual timings recorded for midwifery care. Four (11.1%) TrendCare categories provided less minutes of care than the actual timings and exceeded the variance tolerance level. These were all night shift category timings. Nine postnatal categories were not able to be compared as the sample size for these categories was statistically insignificant. 100% of labour ward TrendCare categories matched actual timings for midwifery care, all falling within the variance tolerance levels. The actual time provided by core midwifery staff to assist lead maternity carer (LMC) midwives in New Zealand labour wards showed a significant deviation to previous studies. The findings of the study demonstrated the need for additional time allocations in TrendCare to accommodate an increased level of assistance given to LMC midwives. Conclusion - The results demonstrated the importance of regularly validating the TrendCare category timings with actual timings of the care hours provided. It was evident from the findings that variances to models of care and length of stay in maternity units have increased midwifery workloads on the night shift. The level of assistance provided by the core labour ward staff to the LMC midwife has increased substantially. Outcomes - As a consequence of this study, changes were made to the night duty TrendCare maternity categories, additional acuity indicators were developed and times for assisting LMC midwives in labour ward increased. The updated TrendCare version was delivered to maternity services in 2014.

Keywords: Maternity, acuity, midwifery research, midwifery workloads.

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Authors: Chimaobi V. Okolo, Afamefuna J. Ani, Ebere U. Okolo

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This paper seeks to assess the implications of insurance to foreign direct investment inflow in Nigeria. Multiple linear regression technique and correlation matrix test were employed to measure the extent to which foreign direct investment was influenced. The result showed that insurance premium (IP), asset size of insurance industry (AS), and total investment of the industry (TI) impacted significantly and positively on foreign direct investment inflow in Nigeria. There should be effective risk transfer mechanism and financial intermediation, which gives the investor confidence in the risk management strength of the host country.

Keywords: Foreign direct investment, insurance.

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Authors: Alexander Y. Vaninsky

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Importance of environmental efficiency of electric power industry stems from high demand for energy combined with global warming concerns. It is especially essential for the world largest economies like that of the United States. The paper introduces a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model of environmental efficiency using indicators of fossil fuels utilization, emissions rate, and electric power losses. Using DEA is advantageous in this situation over other approaches due to its nonparametric nature. The paper analyzes data for the period of 1990 - 2006 by comparing actual yearly levels in each dimension with the best values of partial indicators for the period. As positive factors of efficiency, tendency to the decline in emissions rates starting 2000, and in electric power losses starting 2004 may be mentioned together with increasing trend of fuel utilization starting 1999. As a result, dynamics of environmental efficiency is positive starting 2002. The main concern is the decline in fossil fuels utilization in 2006. This negative change should be reversed to comply with ecological and economic requirements.

Keywords: Environmental efficiency, electric power industry, DEA, United States.

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Authors: Boutahar Lhoucine, El Bikri Khalid, Benamar Rhali

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In this paper, the non-linear free axisymmetric vibration of a thin annular plate made of functionally graded material (FGM) has been studied by using the energy method and a multimode approach. FGM properties vary continuously as well as non-homogeneity through the thickness direction of the plate. The theoretical model is based on the classical plate theory and the Von Kármán geometrical non-linearity assumptions. An approximation has been adopted in the present work consisting of neglecting the in-plane deformation in the formulation. Hamilton’s principle is used to derive the governing equation of motion. The problem is solved by a numerical iterative procedure in order to obtain more accurate results for vibration amplitudes up to 1.5 times the plate thickness. The numerical results are given for the first axisymmetric non-linear mode shape for a wide range of vibration amplitudes and they are presented either in tabular form or in graphical form to show the effect that the vibration amplitude and the variation in material properties have significant effects on the frequencies and the bending stresses in large amplitude vibration of the functionally graded annular plate.

Keywords: Non-linear vibrations, Annular plates, Large amplitudes, FGM.

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Authors: Noda L. M., Salvador I. C, C. M. L. G. Parada, Fonseca C. R. B.

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In Brazil, neonatal mortality rate is considered incompatible with the country development conditions, and has been a Public Health concern. Reduction in infant mortality rates has also been part of the Millennium Development Goals, a commitment made by countries, members of the Organization of United Nations (OUN), including Brazil. Fetal mortality rate is considered a highly sensitive indicator of health care quality. Suitable actions, such as good quality and access to health services may contribute positively towards reduction in these fetal and neonatal rates. With appropriate antenatal follow-up and health care during gestation and delivery, some death causes could be reduced or even prevented by means of early diagnosis and intervention, as well as changes in risk factors and interventions. Objectives: To study the quality of maternal and infant health care based on fetal and neonatal mortality, as well as the possible actions to prevent those deaths in Botucatu (Brazil). Methods: Classification of prevention according to the International Classification of Diseases and the modified Wigglesworth´s classification. In order to evaluate adequacy, indicators of quality of antenatal and delivery care were established by the authors. Results: Considering fetal deaths, 56.7% of them occurred before delivery, which reveals possible shortcomings in antenatal care, and 38.2% of them were a result of intra- labor changes, which could be prevented or reduced by adequate obstetric management. These findings were different from those in the group of early neonatal deaths which were also studied. Adequacy of health services showed that antenatal and childbirth care was appropriate for 24% and 33.3% of pregnant women, respectively, which corroborates the results of prevention. These results revealed that shortcomings in obstetric and antenatal care could be the causes of deaths in the study. Early and late neonatal deaths have similar characteristics: 76% could be prevented or reduced mainly by adequate newborn care (52.9%) and adequate health care for gestational women (11.7%). When adequacy of care was evaluated, childbirth and newborn care was adequate in 25.8% and antenatal care was adequate in 16.1%. In conclusion, direct relationship was found between adequacy and quality of care rendered to pregnant women and newborns, and fetal and infant mortality. Moreover, our findings highlight that deaths could be prevented by an adequate obstetric and neonatal management.

Keywords: Fetal Mortality, Infant Mortality, Maternal-Child Health Services, Program Evaluation.

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Authors: Sadegh Masoudi, Ali Asghar Yousefi, Somayeh Nourollahi, Fatemeh Noughani

Abstract:

Two different testicular tissues have to be distinguished in regard to radiation damage: first the seminiferous tubules, corresponding to the sites of spermatogenesis, which are extremely radiosensitive. Second the testosterone secreting Leydig cells, which are considered to be less radiosensitive. This study aims to estimate testicular dose and the associated risks for infertility and hereditary effects from Abdominal and pelvic irradiation. Radiotherapy was simulated on a humanoid phantom using a 15 MV photon beam. Testicular dose was measured for various field sizes and tissue thicknesses along beam axis using an ionization chamber and TLD. For transmission Factor Also common method of measuring the absorbed dose distribution and electron contamination in the build-up region of high-energy beams for radiation therapy is by means of parallel-plate Ionisation chambers. Gonadal dose was reduced by placing lead cups around the testes supplemented by a field edge block. For a tumor dose of 100 cGy, testicular dose was 2.96-8.12 cGy depending upon the field size and the distance from the inferior field edge. The treatment at parameters, the presence of gonad shield and the somatometric characteristics determine whether testicular dose can exceed 1 Gy which allows a complete recovery of spermatogenesis.

Keywords: Absorbed Dose, Abdominal and pelvic, gonads men, Radiotherapy.

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Authors: Lina Yan, Shiheng Wang, Ke Wang

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A preconditioned Jacobi (PJ) method is provided for solving fuzzy linear systems whose coefficient matrices are crisp Mmatrices and the right-hand side columns are arbitrary fuzzy number vectors. The iterative algorithm is given for the preconditioned Jacobi method. The convergence is analyzed with convergence theorems. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the procedure and show the effectiveness and efficiency of the method.

Keywords: preconditioning, M-matrix, Jacobi method, fuzzy linear system (FLS).

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Authors: Loke Mun Sei

Abstract:

Software testing has become a mandatory process in assuring the software product quality. Hence, test management is needed in order to manage the test activities conducted in the software test life cycle. This paper discusses on the challenges faced in the software test life cycle, and how the test processes and test activities, mainly on test cases creation, test execution, and test reporting is being managed and automated using several test automation tools, i.e. Jira, Robot Framework, and Jenkins.

Keywords: Test automation tools, test case, test execution, test reporting.

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Authors: Lillian Gungat, Meor Othman Hamzah, Mohd Rosli Mohd Hasan, Jan Valentin

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Utilization of a high percentage of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) requires higher production temperatures and consumes more energy. High production temperature expedites the aging of bitumen in RAP, which could affect the mixture performance. Warm mix asphalt (WMA) additive enables reduced production temperatures as a result of viscosity reduction. This paper evaluates the integration of a high percentage of RAP with a WMA additive known as RH-WMA. The optimum dosage of RH-WMA was determined from basic properties tests. A total of 0%, 30% and 50% RAP contents from two roads sources were modified with RH-WMA. The modified RAP bitumen were examined for viscosity, stiffness, rutting resistance and greenhouse gas emissions. The addition of RH-WMA improved the flow of bitumen by reducing the viscosity, and thus, decreased the construction temperature. The stiffness of the RAP modified bitumen reduced with the incorporation of RH-WMA. The positive improvement in rutting resistance was observed on bitumen with the addition of RAP and RH-WMA in comparison with control. It was estimated that the addition of RH-WMA could potentially reduce fuel usage and GHG emissions by 22 %. Hence, the synergy of RAP and WMA technology can be an alternative in green road construction.

Keywords: Reclaimed asphalt pavement, WMA additive, viscosity, stiffness, emissions.

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Authors: M. J. Shivaram, Shashi Bhushan Arya, Jagannath Nayak, Bharat Bhooshan Panigrahi

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Titanium and its alloys have become more significant implant materials due to their mechanical properties, excellent biocompatibility and high corrosion resistance. Biomaterials can be produce by using the powder metallurgy (PM) methods and required properties can tailored by varying the processing parameters, such as ball milling time, space holder particles, and sintering temperature. The desired properties such as, structural and mechanical properties can be obtained by powder metallurgy method.  In the present study, deals with fabrication of solid and porous Ti-20Nb-5Ag alloy using high energy ball milling for different times (5 and 20 h). The resultant powder particles were used to fabricate solid and porous Ti-20Nb-5Ag alloy by adding space holder particles (NH₄HCO₃). The resultant powder particles, fabricated solid and porous samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The compressive strength, elastic modulus and microhardness properties were investigated. Solid and porous Ti-20Nb-5Ag alloy samples showed good mechanical properties for 20 h ball milling time as compare to 5 h ball milling.

Keywords: Ball Milling, compressive strengths, microstructure, porous Titanium alloy.

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Authors: Abu S.M. Junaid, Wei Wang, Christopher Street, Moshfiqur Rahman, Matt Gersbach, Sarah Zhou, William McCaffrey, Steven M. Kuznicki

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Oilsands bitumen is an extremely important source of energy for North America. However, due to the presence of large molecules such as asphaltenes, the density and viscosity of the bitumen recovered from these sands are much higher than those of conventional crude oil. As a result the extracted bitumen has to be diluted with expensive solvents, or thermochemically upgraded in large, capital-intensive conventional upgrading facilities prior to pipeline transport. This study demonstrates that globally abundant natural zeolites such as clinoptilolite from Saint Clouds, New Mexico and Ca-chabazite from Bowie, Arizona can be used as very effective reagents for cracking and visbreaking of oilsands bitumen. Natural zeolite cracked oilsands bitumen products are highly recoverable (up to ~ 83%) using light hydrocarbons such as pentane, which indicates substantial conversion of heavier fractions to lighter components. The resultant liquid products are much less viscous, and have lighter product distribution compared to those produced from pure thermal treatment. These natural minerals impart similar effect on industrially extracted Athabasca bitumen.

Keywords: Natural Zeolites, Oilsands Bitumen, Cracking, Viscosity Reduction, Upgrading.

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