Search results for: Accounting information quality

Authors: Laima Silina, Ilze Gramatina, Liga Skudra, Tatjana Rakcejeva

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The aim of the current research was to determine quality parameters changes of dried venison during storage. Protein, fat and moisture content dynamics as well microbiological quality was analyzed. For the experiments the meat (0.02×4.00×7.00 cm) pieces were marinated in “teriyaki sauce” marinade (composition: teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce, taco sauce, soy sauce, American BBQ sauce hickory, sesame oil, garlic, garlic salt, tabasco red pepper sauce) at 4±2°C temperature for 48±1h. Sodium monophosphate (E339) was also added in part of marinade to improve the meat textural properties. After marinating, meat samples were dried in microwave-vacuum drier MUSSON–1, packaged in vacuum pouches made from polymer film (PA/PE) with barrier properties and storage for 4 months at 18±1°C temperature in dark place. Dried venison samples were analyzed after 0, 35, 91 and 112 days of storage. During the storage total plate counts of dried venison samples significantly (p<0.05) increased. No significant differences in the content of protein, fat and moisture were detected when analyzing dried meat samples during storage and comparing them with the chemical parameters of just dried meat.

Keywords: Drying, microwave-vacuum drier, quality, venison.

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Authors: Saleh Alumaran, Giampaolo Bella, Feng Chen

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The study of organisations’ information security cultures has attracted scholars as well as healthcare services industry to research the topic and find appropriate tools and approaches to develop a positive culture. The vast majority of studies in Saudi national health services are on the use of technology to protect and secure health services information. On the other hand, there is a lack of research on the role and impact of an organisation’s cultural dimensions on information security. This research investigated and analysed the role and impact of cultural dimensions on information security in Saudi Arabia health service. Hypotheses were tested and two surveys were carried out in order to collect data and information from three major hospitals in Saudi Arabia (SA). The first survey identified the main cultural-dimension problems in SA health services and developed an initial information security culture framework model. The second survey evaluated and tested the developed framework model to test its usefulness, reliability and applicability. The model is based on human behaviour theory, where the individual’s attitude is the key element of the individual’s intention to behave as well as of his or her actual behaviour. The research identified a set of cultural and sub-cultural dimensions in SA health information security and services.

Keywords: Behaviour theory, Culture dimensions, Electronic health records, Information security.

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Authors: Sašo Pečnik, Borut Žalik

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This paper presents a real-time visualization technique and filtering of classified LiDAR point clouds. The visualization is capable of displaying filtered information organized in layers by the classification attribute saved within LiDAR datasets. We explain the used data structure and data management, which enables real-time presentation of layered LiDAR data. Real-time visualization is achieved with LOD optimization based on the distance from the observer without loss of quality. The filtering process is done in two steps and is entirely executed on the GPU and implemented using programmable shaders.

Keywords: Filtering, graphics, level-of-details, LiDAR, realtime visualization.

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Authors: Norazah Mohd Suki, Norbayah Mohd Suki

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This study proposes a conceptual model and empirically tests the relationships between customers and librarians (i.e. tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, reliability and empathy) with a dependent variable (customer satisfaction) regarding library services. The SERVQUAL instrument was administered to 100 respondents which comprises of staff and students at a public higher learning institution in the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia. They were public university library users. Results revealed that all service quality dimensions tested were significant and influenced customer satisfaction of visitors to a public university library. Assurance is the most important factor that influences customer satisfaction with the services rendered by the librarian. It is imperative for the library management to take note that the top five service attributes that gained greatest attention from library visitors- perspective includes employee willingness to help customers, availability of customer representatives online for response to queries, library staff actively and promptly provide services, signs in the building are clear and library staff are friendly and courteous. This study provides valuable results concerning the determinants of the service quality and customer satisfaction of public university library services from the users' perspective.

Keywords: Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, SERVQUAL Model, Multiple Regression Analysis

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Authors: F. Lhafiane, A. Elbyed, M. Bouchoum

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Reverse Logistics (RL) Network is considered as complex and dynamic network that involves many stakeholders such as: suppliers, manufactures, warehouse, retails and costumers, this complexity is inherent in such process due to lack of perfect knowledge or conflicting information. Ontologies on the other hand can be considered as an approach to overcome the problem of sharing knowledge and communication among the various reverse logistics partners. In this paper we propose a semantic representation based on hybrid architecture for building the Ontologies in ascendant way, this method facilitates the semantic reconciliation between the heterogeneous information systems that support reverse logistics processes and product data.

Keywords: Reverse Logistics, information management, heterogeneity, Ontologies, semantic web.

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Authors: T. M. Al Muhareb, J. Graham-Jones

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The service quality is a significant element in aviation industry especially in the international airports. Through this paper, the researchers built a model based on Lean six sigma methodologies and applied it in the departure area at KKIA (King Khalid International Airport) in order to assess it. This model characterized with many special features that can become over the cultural differences in aviation industry since it is considered the most critical circumstance in this field. Applying the model of this study is depending on following the DMAIC procedure systemized in lean thinking aspects. This model of Lean-six-sigma as a managerial procedure is mostly focused on the change management culture that requires high level of planning, organizing, modifying, and controlling in order to benefit from strengths as well as revoke weaknesses.

Keywords: Lean-six-sigma, Service quality, Aviation industry, KKIA (King Khalid International Airport), SERVQUAL.

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Authors: C. A. Alves, A. I. Calvo, A. Castro, R. Fraile, M. Evtyugina, E. F. Bate-Epey

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In July 2012, an indoor/outdoor monitoring programme was undertaken in two university sports facilities: a fronton and a gymnasium. Comfort parameters (temperature, relative humidity, CO and CO2) and total volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were continuously monitored. Concentrations of NO2, carbonyl compounds and individual VOCs were obtained. Low volume samplers were used to collect particulate matter (PM10). The minimum ventilation rates stipulated for acceptable indoor air quality were observed in both sports facilities. It was found that cleaning activities may have a large influence on the VOC levels. Acrolein was one of the most abundant carbonyl compounds, showing concentrations above the recommended limit. Formaldehyde was detected at levels lower than those commonly reported for other indoor environments. The PM10 concentrations obtained during the occupancy periods ranged between 38 and 43μgm-3 in the fronton and from 154 to 198μgm-3 in the gymnasium.

Keywords: Air exchange rates, carbonyls, gymnasiums, indoor air quality, PM10, VOCs.

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Authors: H. L. Chan, T. M. Choi, C. L. Hui, S. F. Ng

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In this study, we explore the use of information for inventory decision in the healthcare organization (HO). We consider the scenario when the HO can make use of the information collected from some correlated products to enhance its inventory planning. Motivated by our real world observations that HOs adopt RFID and bar-coding system for information collection purpose, we examine the effectiveness of these systems for inventory planning with Bayesian information updating. We derive the optimal ordering decision and study the issue of Pareto improvement in the supply chain. Our analysis demonstrates that RFID system will outperform the bar-coding system when the RFID system installation cost and the tag cost reduce to a level that is comparable with that of the barcoding system. We also show how an appropriately set wholesale pricing contract can achieve Pareto improvement in the HO supply chain.

Keywords: Efficient consumer response program, healthcare, inventory management, RFID system, bar-coding system.

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Authors: Y. S. Liew, K. A. Puteh Ariffin, M. A. Mohd Nor

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One of the Best Management Practices (BMPs) promoted in Urban Stormwater Management Manual for Malaysia (MSMA) published by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) in 2001 is through the construction of wet ponds in new development projects for water quantity and quality control. Therefore, this paper aims to demonstrate a case study on evaluation of a constructed mini wet pond located at Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Seksyen 2, Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia in both stormwater quantity and quality aspect particularly to reduce the peak discharge by temporary storing and gradual release of stormwater runoff from an outlet structure or other release mechanism. The evaluation technique will be using InfoWorks Collection System (CS) as the numerical modeling approach for water quantity aspect. Statistical test by comparing the correlation coefficient (R²), mean error (ME), mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) were used to evaluate the model in simulating the peak discharge changes. Results demonstrated that there will be a reduction in peak flow at 11 % to 15% and time to peak flow is slower by 5 minutes through a wet pond. For water quality aspect, a survey on biological indicator of water quality carried out depicts that the pond is within the range of rather clean to clean water with the score of 5.3. This study indicates that a constructed wet pond with wetland facilities is able to help in managing water quantity and stormwater generated pollution at source, towards achieving ecologically sustainable development in urban areas.

Keywords: Wet pond, Retention Facilities, Best Management Practices (BMP), Urban Stormwater Management Manual for Malaysia (MSMA).

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Authors: Tsietsi J. Pilusa, Tumisang G. Seodigeng

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This study evaluates the benefits of advanced waste management practices in unlocking waste-to-energy opportunities within the solid waste industry. The key drivers of sustainable waste management practices, specifically with respect to packaging waste-to-energy technology options are discussed. The success of a waste-to-energy system depends significantly on the appropriateness of available technologies, including those that are well established as well as those that are less so. There are hard and soft interventions to be considered when packaging an integrated waste treatment solution. Technology compatibility with variation in feedstock (waste) quality and quantities remains a key factor. These factors influence the technology reliability in terms of production efficiencies and product consistency, which in turn, drives the supply and demand network. Waste treatment technologies rely on the waste material as feedstock; the feedstock varies in quality and quantities depending on several factors; hence, the technology fails, as a result. It is critical to design an advanced waste treatment technology in an integrated approach to minimize the possibility of technology failure due to unpredictable feedstock quality, quantities, conversion efficiencies, and inconsistent product yield or quality. An integrated waste-to-energy approach offers a secure system design that considers sustainable waste management practices.

Keywords: Emerging markets, evaluation tool, interventions, waste treatment technologies.

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Authors: Ahmed Arara

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Information sharing and exchange, rather than information processing, is what characterizes information technology in the 21st century. Ontologies, as shared common understanding, gain increasing attention, as they appear as the most promising solution to enable information sharing both at a semantic level and in a machine-processable way. Domain Ontology-based modeling has been exploited to provide shareability and information exchange among diversified, heterogeneous applications of enterprises. Contextual ontologies are “an explicit specification of contextual conceptualization". That is: ontology is characterized by concepts that have multiple representations and they may exist in several contexts. Hence, contextual ontologies are a set of concepts and relationships, which are seen from different perspectives. Contextualization is to allow for ontologies to be partitioned according to their contexts. The need for contextual ontologies in enterprise modeling has become crucial due to the nature of today's competitive market. Information resources in enterprise is distributed and diversified and is in need to be shared and communicated locally through the intranet and globally though the internet. This paper discusses the roles that ontologies play in an enterprise modeling, and how ontologies assist in building a conceptual model in order to provide communicative and interoperable information systems. The issue of enterprise modeling based on contextual domain ontology is also investigated, and a framework is proposed for an enterprise model that consists of various applications.

Keywords: Contextual ontologies, Enterprise model, domainontology.

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Authors: Hassan Noureddine, Maria Sokhn, Iman Jarkass, Elena Mugellini, Omar Abou Khaled

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From the importance of the conference and its constructive role in the studies discussion, there must be a strong organization that allows the exploitation of the discussions in opening new horizons. The vast amount of information scattered across the web, make it difficult to find experts, who can play a prominent role in organizing conferences. In this paper we proposed a new approach of extracting researchers- information from various Web resources and correlating them in order to confirm their correctness. As a validator of this approach, we propose a service that will be useful to set up a conference. Its main objective is to find appropriate experts, as well as the social events for a conference. For this application we us Semantic Web technologies like RDF and ontology to represent the confirmed information, which are linked to another ontology (skills ontology) that are used to present and compute the expertise.

Keywords: Expert finding, Information extraction, Ontologies, Semantic web, Social events.

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Authors: Pasquale Verde, Giuseppe Lamanna

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A two-parameter fatigue model explicitly accounting for the cyclic as well as the mean stress was used to fit static and fatigue data available in literature concerning carbon fiber reinforced composite laminates subjected tension-tension fatigue. The model confirms the strength–life equal rank assumption and predicts reasonably the probability of failure under cyclic loading. The model parameters were found by best fitting procedures and required a minimum of experimental tests.

Keywords: Fatigue life, strength, composites, Weibull distribution.

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Authors: Bahr Eldin S. M, K. S. Rama Rao, N. Perumal

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A generalized unified power quality conditioner (GUPQC) by using three single-phase three-level voltage source converters (VSCs) connected back-to-back through a common dc link is proposed in this paper as a new custom power device for a three-feeder distribution system. One of the converters is connected in shunt with one feeder for mitigation of current harmonics and reactive power compensation, while the other two VSCs are connected in series with the other two feeders to maintain the load voltage sinusoidal and at constant level. A new control scheme based on synchronous reference frame is proposed for series converters. The simulation analysis on compensation performance of GUPQC based on PSCAD/EMTDC is reported.

Keywords: Custom power device, generalized unified power quality conditioner, PSCAD/ETMDC, voltage source converter

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Authors: N. Soussi, M. Bahaj

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The enormous amount of information stored on the web increases from one day to the next, exposing the web currently faced with the inevitable difficulties of research pertinent information that users really want. The problem today is not limited to expanding the size of the information highways, but to design a system for intelligent search. The vast majority of this information is stored in relational databases, which in turn represent a backend for managing RDF data of the semantic web. This problem has motivated us to write this paper in order to establish an effective approach to support semantic transformation algorithm for SPARQL queries to SQL queries, more precisely SPARQL SELECT queries; by adopting this method, the relational database can be questioned easily with SPARQL queries maintaining the same performance.

Keywords: RDF, Semantic Web, SPARQL, SPARQL Query Transformation, SQL.

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Authors: Rajeshkumar U. Sambhe

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Large scale Indian manufacturers started implementing Six Sigma to their supply core to fulfill the endless need of high quality products. As well, they initiated encouraging their suppliers to apply the well-ascertain SS management practice and kept no resource for supplier enterprises, generally small midsized enterprises to think for the admittance of Six Sigma as a quality promotion drive. There are many issues to study for requisite changes before the introduction of Six Sigma in auto SMEs. This paper converges on impeding factors while implementing SS drive and also pinpoints the gains achieved through successful implementation. The result of this study suggest some operational guidelines for effective implementation of Six Sigma from evidences acquired through research questionnaire and interviews with industrial professionals, apportioned to assort auto sector mid-sized enterprises (MSEs) in India.

Keywords: Indian automotive SMEs, quality management practices, six sigma imperatives, problems faced in six sigma implementation, benefits, some guidelines for implementation.

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Authors: Hendry Muljadi, Hideaki Takeda, Koichi Ando

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A manufacturing feature can be defined simply as a geometric shape and its manufacturing information to create the shape. In a feature-based process planning system, feature library that consists of pre-defined manufacturing features and the manufacturing information to create the shape of the features, plays an important role in the extraction of manufacturing features with their proper manufacturing information. However, to manage the manufacturing information flexibly, it is important to build a feature library that can be easily modified. In this paper, the implementation of Semantic Wiki for the development of the feature library is proposed.

Keywords: Manufacturing feature, feature library, feature ontology, process planning, Wiki, MediaWiki, Semantic Wiki.

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Authors: Zeki Kara, Kevser Yazar

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Table grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) are an important crop worldwide. Postharvest problems like berry shattering, decay and stem dehydration are some of the important factors that limit the marketing of table grapes. Edible coatings are an alternative for increasing shelf-life of fruits, protecting fruits from humidity and oxygen effects, thus retarding their deterioration. This study aimed to compare different grape seed oil applications (GSO, 0.5 g L^-1, 1 g L^-1, 2 g L^-1) and SO₂ generating pads effects (SO₂-1, SO₂-2). Treated grapes with GSO and generating pads were packaged into polyethylene trays and stored at 0 ± 1°C and 85-95% moisture. Effects of the applications were investigated by some quality and sensory evaluations with intervals of 15 days. SO₂ applications were determined the most effective treatments for minimizing weight loss and changes in TA, pH, color and appearance value. Grape seed oil applications were determined as a good alternative for grape preservation, improving weight losses and °Brix, TA, the color values and sensory analysis. Commercially, ‘Alphonse Lavallée’ clusters were stored for 75 days and ‘Antep Karası’ clusters for 60 days. The data obtained from GSO indicated that it had a similar quality result to SO₂ for up to 40 days storage.

Keywords: Postharvest, quality, sensory analyses, Vitis vinifera L.

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Authors: Ai Cheo Yeo, Md. Mahbubur Rahim, Yin Ying Ren

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Persuasive technology has been applied in marketing, health, environmental conservation, safety and other domains and is found to be quite effective in changing people-s attitude and behaviours. This research extends the application domains of persuasive technology to information security awareness and uses a theory-driven approach to evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based program developed based on the principles of persuasive technology to improve the information security awareness of end users. The findings confirm the existence of a very strong effect of the webbased program in raising users- attitude towards information security aware behavior. This finding is useful to the IT researchers and practitioners in developing appropriate and effective education strategies for improving the information security attitudes for endusers.

Keywords: Information security, persuasive technology, ITsecurity-aware behaviour, theory of planned behaviour survey.

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Authors: Shuhana Shamsuddin, Nur Rasyiqah Abu Hassan, Ahmad Bashri Sulaiman

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Liveable city is referred to as the quality of life in an area that contributes towards a safe, healthy and enjoyable place. This paper discusses the role of the streets- activities in making Kuala Lumpur a liveable city and the happiness level of the residents towards the city-s street activities. The study was conducted using the residents of Kuala Lumpur. A mixed method technique is used with the quantitative data as a main data and supported by the qualitative data. Data were collected using questionnaires, observation and also an interview session with a sample of residents of Kuala Lumpur. The sampling technique is based on multistage cluster data sampling. The findings revealed that, there is still no significant relationship between the length of stay of the resident in Kuala Lumpur with the happiness level towards the street activities that occurred in the city.

Keywords: Liveable city, activities, urban design quality, quality of life, happiness level.

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Authors: Edison Muzenda

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A study was carried out to determine the effect of water quality on flotation performance. The experimental test work comprised of batch flotation tests using Denver lab cell for a period of 10 minutes. Nine different test runs were carried out in triplicates to ensure reproducibility using different water types from different thickener overflows, return and sewage effluent water (process water) and portable water. The water sources differed in pH, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids and conductivity. Process water was found to reduce the concentrate recovery and mass pull, while portable water increased the concentrate recovery and mass pull. Portable water reduced the concentrate grade while process water increased the concentrate grade. It is proposed that a combination of process water and portable water supply be used in flotation circuits to balance the different effects that the different water types have on the flotation efficiency.

Keywords: Flotation, mass pull, process water, thickeneroverflows, water quality.

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Authors: Zaza Tabagari, Zaza Sanikidze, George Giorgobiani

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Abovepresented work deals with the new scope of application of information and communication technologies for the improvement of the election process in the biased environment. We are introducing a new concept of construction of the information-communication system for the election participant. It consists of four main components: Software, Physical Infrastructure, Structured Information and the Trained Stuff. The Structured Information is the bases of the whole system and is the collection of all possible events (irregularities among them) at the polling stations, which are structured in special templates, forms and integrated in mobile devices.The software represents a package of analytic modules, which operates with the dynamic database. The application of modern communication technologies facilities the immediate exchange of information and of relevant documents between the polling stations and the Server of the participant. No less important is the training of the staff for the proper functioning of the system. The e-training system with various modules should be applied in this respect. The presented methodology is primarily focused on the election processes in the countries of emerging democracies.It can be regarded as the tool for the monitoring of elections process by the political organization(s) and as one of the instruments to foster the spread of democracy in these countries.

Keywords: ICT, elections, structured information, dynamic databases, e-training.

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Authors: Dariush Semnani, Hossein Ghayoor

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In this paper a novel method was presented for evaluating the fabric pills using digital image processing techniques. This work provides a novel technique for detecting pills and also measuring their heights, surfaces and volumes. Surely, measuring the intensity of defects by human vision is an inaccurate method for quality control; as a result, this problem became a motivation for employing digital image processing techniques for detection of defects of fabric surface. In the former works, the systems were just limited to measuring of the surface of defects, but in the presented method the height and the volume of defects were also measured, which leads to a more accurate quality control. An algorithm was developed to first, find pills and then measure their average intensity by using three criteria of height, surface and volume. The results showed a meaningful relation between the number of rotations and the quality of pilled fabrics.

Keywords: 3D analysis, computer vision, fabric, pile, surface evaluation

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Authors: Sara Zamani, Mojtaba Fazeli, Abdollah Rashidi Mehrabadi

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In a world worried about water resources with the shadow of drought and famine looming all around, the quality of water is as important as its quantity. The source of all concerns is the constant reduction of per capita quality water for different uses. Iran With an average annual precipitation of 250 mm compared to the 800 mm world average, Iran is considered a water scarce country and the disparity in the rainfall distribution, the limitations of renewable resources and the population concentration in the margins of desert and water scarce areas have intensified the problem. The shortage of per capita renewable freshwater and its poor quality in large areas of the country, which have saline, brackish or hard water resources, and the profusion of natural and artificial pollutant have caused the deterioration of water quality. Among methods of treatment and use of these waters one can refer to the application of membrane technologies, which have come into focus in recent years due to their great advantages. This process is quite efficient in eliminating multi-capacity ions; and due to the possibilities of production at different capacities, application as treatment process in points of use, and the need for less energy in comparison to Reverse Osmosis processes, it can revolutionize the water and wastewater sector in years to come. The article studied the different capacities of water resources in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea watershed basins, and processes the possibility of using nanofiltration process to treat brackish and non-conventional waters in these basins.

Keywords: Membrane processes, saline waters, brackish waters, hard waters, zoning water quality in the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea Watershed area, nanofiltration.

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Authors: H. S. Huang, J. C. Jao, K. L. Yen, C. T. Tsai

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The purpose of this article applies the monthly final energy yield and failure data of 202 PV systems installed in Taiwan to analyze the PV operational performance and system availability. This data is collected by Industrial Technology Research Institute through manual records. Bad data detection and failure data estimation approaches are proposed to guarantee the quality of the received information. The performance ratio value and system availability are then calculated and compared with those of other countries. It is indicated that the average performance ratio of Taiwan-s PV systems is 0.74 and the availability is 95.7%. These results are similar with those of Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Japan.

Keywords: availability, performance ratio, PV system, Taiwan

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Authors: N. Kannan, Sabu Joseph

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Groundwater is an essential and vital component of our life support system. The groundwater resources are being utilized for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes. There is growing concern on deterioration of groundwater quality due to geogenic and anthropogenic activities. Groundwater, being a fragile must be carefully managed to maintain its purity within standard limits. So, quality assessment and management are to be carried out hand-in-hand to have a pollution free environment and for a sustainable use. In order to assess the quality for consumption by human beings and for use in agriculture, the groundwater from the shallow aquifers (dug well) in the Palakkad and Chittur taluks of Bharathapuzha river basin - a paddy dominated agricultural basin (order=8th; L= 209 Km; Area = 6186 Km2), Kerala, India, has been selected. The water samples (n= 120) collected for various seasons, viz., monsoon-MON (August, 2005), postmonsoon-POM (December, 2005) and premonsoon-PRM (April, 2006), were analyzed for important physico-chemical attributes. Spatial and temporal variation of attributes do exist in the study area, and based on major cations and anions, different hydrochemical facies have been identified. Using Gibbs'diagram, rock dominance has been identified as the mechanism controlling groundwater chemistry. Further, the suitability of water for irrigation was determined by analyzing salinity hazard indicated by sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and sodium percent (%Na). Finally, stress zones in the study area were delineated using Arc GIS spatial analysis and various management options were recommended to restore the ecosystem.

Keywords: Groundwater quality, agricultural basin, Kerala, India.

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Authors: Valentina Obradović, Josip Mesić, Maja Ergović Ravančić, Kamila Mijowska, Brankica Svitlica

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French oak and American oak barrels are most famous all over the world, but barrels of different origin can also be used for obtaining high quality wines. The aim of this research was to compare the influence of different Slovenian (Croatian) and French oak barrels on the quality of Chardonnay wine. Grapes were grown in the Croatian wine growing region of Kutjevo in 2015. Chardonnay wines were tested for basic oenological parameters (alcohol, extract, reducing sugar, SO₂, acidity), total polyphenols content (Folin-Ciocalteu method), antioxidant activity (ABTS and DPPH method) and colour density. Sensory evaluation was performed by students of viticulture/oenology. Samples produced by classical fermentation and ageing in French oak barrels had better results for polyphenols and sensory evaluation (especially low toasting level) than samples in Slovenian barrels. All tested samples were scored as a “quality” or “premium quality” wines. Sur lie method of fermentation and ageing in Slovenian oak barrel had very good extraction of polyphenols and high antioxidant activity with the usage of authentic yeasts, while commercial yeast strain resulted in worse chemical and sensory parameters.

Keywords: Chardonnay, French oak, Slovenian oak, sur lie.

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Authors: Refaat H. Abd El Razek, Ahmed M. Diab, Sherif M. Hafez, Remon F. Aziz

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Time-Cost Optimization "TCO" is one of the greatest challenges in construction project planning and control, since the optimization of either time or cost, would usually be at the expense of the other. Since there is a hidden trade-off relationship between project and cost, it might be difficult to predict whether the total cost would increase or decrease as a result of the schedule compression. Recently third dimension in trade-off analysis is taken into consideration that is quality of the projects. Few of the existing algorithms are applied in a case of construction project with threedimensional trade-off analysis, Time-Cost-Quality relationships. The objective of this paper is to presents the development of a practical software system; that named Automatic Multi-objective Typical Construction Resource Optimization System "AMTCROS". This system incorporates the basic concepts of Line Of Balance "LOB" and Critical Path Method "CPM" in a multi-objective Genetic Algorithms "GAs" model. The main objective of this system is to provide a practical support for typical construction planners who need to optimize resource utilization in order to minimize project cost and duration while maximizing its quality simultaneously. The application of these research developments in planning the typical construction projects holds a strong promise to: 1) Increase the efficiency of resource use in typical construction projects; 2) Reduce construction duration period; 3) Minimize construction cost (direct cost plus indirect cost); and 4) Improve the quality of newly construction projects. A general description of the proposed software for the Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off "TCQTO" is presented. The main inputs and outputs of the proposed software are outlined. The main subroutines and the inference engine of this software are detailed. The complexity analysis of the software is discussed. In addition, the verification, and complexity of the proposed software are proved and tested using a real case study.

Keywords: Project management, typical (repetitive) large scale projects, line of balance, multi-objective optimization, genetic algorithms, time-cost-quality trade-offs.

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Authors: Jianwei Ma, Diriba Gemechu

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In seismic data processing, attenuation of random noise is the basic step to improve quality of data for further application of seismic data in exploration and development in different gas and oil industries. The signal-to-noise ratio of the data also highly determines quality of seismic data. This factor affects the reliability as well as the accuracy of seismic signal during interpretation for different purposes in different companies. To use seismic data for further application and interpretation, we need to improve the signal-to-noise ration while attenuating random noise effectively. To improve the signal-to-noise ration and attenuating seismic random noise by preserving important features and information about seismic signals, we introduce the concept of anisotropic total fractional order denoising algorithm. The anisotropic total fractional order variation model defined in fractional order bounded variation is proposed as a regularization in seismic denoising. The split Bregman algorithm is employed to solve the minimization problem of the anisotropic total fractional order variation model and the corresponding denoising algorithm for the proposed method is derived. We test the effectiveness of theproposed method for synthetic and real seismic data sets and the denoised result is compared with F-X deconvolution and non-local means denoising algorithm.

Keywords: Anisotropic total fractional order variation, fractional order bounded variation, seismic random noise attenuation, Split Bregman Algorithm.

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Authors: SunWoo Lee, TaeBum Lee, YoonHwa Park, YooJeong Kim

Abstract:

Solar lentigines appear predominantly on chronically sun-exposed areas of skin, such as the face and the back of the hands. Among the several ways to lentigines treatment, quality-switched lasers are well-known effective treatment for removing solar lentigines. The present pilot study was therefore designed to assess the efficacy of quality-switched ruby laser treatment of such lentigines compare between pretreatment and posttreatment of skin brightness. Twenty-two adults with chronic sun-damaged skin (mean age 52.8 years, range 37–74 years) were treated at the Korean site. A 694 nm Q-switched ruby laser was used, with the energy density set from 1.4 to 12.5 J/cm2, to treat solar lentigines. Average brightness of skin color before ruby laser treatment was 137.3 and its skin color was brightened after ruby laser treatment by 150.5. Also, standard deviation of skin color was decreased from 17.8 to 16.4. Regarding the multivariate model, age and energy were identified as significant factors for skin color brightness change in lentigo depigmentation by ruby laser treatment. Their respective odds ratios were 1.082 (95% CI, 1.007–1.163), and 1.431 (95% CI, 1.051–1.946). Lentigo depigmentation treatment using ruby lasers resulted in a high performance in skin color brightness. Among the relative factors involve with ruby laser treatment, age and energy were the most effective factors which skin color change to brighter than pretreatment.

Keywords: Depigmentation, lentigo, quality switched ruby laser, skin color.

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