Search results for: temporary price reduction

Authors: Barbara Vojvodikova, Katerina Jupova, Iva Ticha

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Cities in their historical evolution have always adapted their internal structure to the needs of society (for example protective city walls during classicism era lost their defense function, became unnecessary, were demolished and gave space for new features such as roads, museums or parks). Today it is necessary to modify the internal structure of the city in order to minimize the impact of climate changes on the environment of the population. This article discusses the results of the Urban Climate model owned by VITO, which was carried out as part of a project from the European Union's Horizon grant agreement No 730004 Pan-European Urban Climate Services Climate-Fit city. The use of the model was aimed at changes in land use and land cover in cities related to urban heat islands (UHI). The task of the application was to evaluate possible land use change scenarios in connection with city requirements and ideas. Two pilot areas in the Czech Republic were selected. One is Ostrava and the other Hodonín. The paper provides a demonstration of the application of the model for various possible future development scenarios. It contains an assessment of the suitability or inappropriateness of scenarios of future development depending on the temperature increase. Cities that are preparing to reconstruct the public space are interested in eliminating proposals that would lead to an increase in temperature stress as early as in the assignment phase. If they have evaluation on the unsuitability of some type of design, they can limit it into the proposal phases. Therefore, especially in the application of models on Local level - in 1 m spatial resolution, it was necessary to show which type of proposals would create a significant temperature island in its implementation. Such a type of proposal is considered unsuitable. The model shows that the building itself can create a shady place and thus contribute to the reduction of the UHI. If it sensitively approaches the protection of existing greenery, this new construction may not pose a significant problem. More massive interventions leading to the reduction of existing greenery create a new heat island space.

Keywords: Heat islands, land use, urban climate model.

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Authors: Elza Jurun, Damir Piplica, Tea Poklepović

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Numerous studies carried out in the developed  western democratic countries have shown that the ideological  framework of the governing party has a significant influence on the  monetary policy. The executive authority consisting of a left-wing  party gives a higher weight to unemployment suppression and central  bank implements a more expansionary monetary policy. On the other  hand, right-wing governing party considers the monetary stability to  be more important than unemployment suppression and in such a  political framework the main macroeconomic objective becomes the  inflation rate reduction. The political framework conditions in the  transition countries which are new European Union (EU) members  are still highly specific in relation to the other EU member countries.  In the focus of this paper is the question whether the same  monetary policy principles are valid in these transitional countries as  well as they apply in developed western democratic EU member  countries. The data base consists of inflation rate and unemployment  rate for 11 transitional EU member countries covering the period  from 2001 to 2012. The essential information for each of these 11  countries and for each year of the observed period is right or left  political orientation of the ruling party.  In this paper we use t-statistics to test our hypothesis that there are  differences in inflation and unemployment between right and left  political orientation of the governing party. To explore the influence  of different countries, through years and different political  orientations descriptive statistics is used. Inflation and unemployment  should be strongly negatively correlated through time, which is tested  using Pearson correlation coefficient.  Regarding the fact whether the governing authority is consisted  from left or right politically oriented parties, monetary authorities  will adjust its policy setting the higher priority on lower inflation or  unemployment reduction. 

Keywords: Inflation rate, monetary policy orientation, transition EU countries, unemployment rate.

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Authors: Dyah Iswantini, Trivadila, Novik Nurhidayat, Waras Nurcholis

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The antioxidant compounds are needed for the food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals industry. For this purpose, an appropriate method is required to measure the antioxidant properties in various types of samples. Spectrophotometric method usually used has some weaknesses, including the high price, long sample preparation time, and less sensitivity. Among the alternative methods developed to overcome these weaknesses is antioxidant biosensor based on superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme. Therefore, this study was carried out to measure the SOD activity originating from Deinococcus radiodurans and to determine its kinetics properties. Carbon paste electrode modified with ferrocene and immobilized SOD exhibited anode and cathode current peak at potential of +400 and +300mv respectively, in both pure SOD and SOD of D. radiodurans. This indicated that the current generated was from superoxide catalytic dismutation reaction by SOD. Optimum conditions for SOD activity was at pH 9 and temperature of 27.50C for D. radiodurans SOD, and pH 11 and temperature of 200C for pure SOD. Dismutation reaction kinetics of superoxide catalyzed by SOD followed the Lineweaver-Burk kinetics with D. radiodurans SOD KMapp value was smaller than pure SOD. The result showed that D. radiodurans SOD had higher enzyme-substrate affinity and specificity than pure SOD. It concluded that D. radiodurans SOD had a great potential as biological recognition component for antioxidant biosensor.

Keywords: Antioxidant biosensor, Deinococcus radiodurans, enzyme kinetic, superoxide dismutase (SOD).

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Authors: Lei Zhao, Yi Song, Tim Dunne, Jiaxiang (Jason) Ren, Wenhan Yue, Lei Yang, Li Wen, Yu Liu

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Fasting dissolving magnesium (DM) alloy technology has contributed significantly to the “Shale Revolution” in oil and gas industry. This application requires DM downhole tools dissolving initially at a slow rate, rapidly accelerating to a high rate after certain period of operation time (typically 8 h to 2 days), a contradicting requirement that can hardly be addressed by traditional Mg alloying or processing itself. Premature disintegration has been broadly reported in downhole DM tool from field trials. To address this issue, “temporary” thin polymers of various formulations are currently coated onto DM surface to delay its initial dissolving. Due to conveying parts, harsh downhole condition, and high dissolving rate of the base material, the current delay coatings relying on pure polymers are found to perform well only at low temperature (typical < 100 ℃) and parts without sharp edges or corners, as severe geometries prevent high quality thin film coatings from forming effectively. In this study, a coating technology combining Plasma Electrolytic Oxide (PEO) coatings with advanced thin film deposition has been developed, which can delay DM complex parts (with sharp corners) in corrosive fluid at 150 ℃ for over 2 days. Synergistic effects between porous hard PEO coating and chemical inert elastic-polymer sealing leads to its delaying dissolution improvement, and strong chemical/physical bonding between these two layers has been found to play essential role. Microstructure of this advanced coating and compatibility between PEO and various polymer selections has been thoroughly investigated and a model is also proposed to explain its delaying performance. This study could not only benefit oil and gas industry to unplug their High Temperature High Pressure (HTHP) unconventional resources inaccessible before, but also potentially provides a technical route for other industries (e.g., bio-medical, automobile, aerospace) where primer anti-corrosive protection on light Mg alloy is highly demanded.

Keywords: Dissolvable magnesium, coating, plasma electrolytic oxide, sealer.

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Authors: Berna Ulutas

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Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) mainly focuses on recognition of internal and external activities. It is concerned particularly with transferring internal activities into external ones in as many numbers as possible, by also minimizing the internal ones. The validity of the method and procedures are verified by an application a Styrofoam manufacturing process where setup times are critical for time reduction. Significant time savings have been achieved with minimum investment. Further, the issues related with employer safety and ergonomics principles during die exchange are noted.

Keywords: Die exchange, internal-external set-up, lean manufacturing, single minute die exchange.

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Authors: S. H. Sabzpoushan

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In this research we show that the dynamics of an action potential in a cell can be modeled with a linear combination of the dynamics of the gating state variables. It is shown that the modeling error is negligible. Our findings can be used for simplifying cell models and reduction of computational burden i.e. it is useful for simulating action potential propagation in large scale computations like tissue modeling. We have verified our finding with the use of several cell models.

Keywords: Linear model, Action potential, gating dynamics.

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Authors: U. Pangnakorn, S. Chuenchooklin

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Acute and chronic effects of biopesticide from entomopathogenic nematode (Steinernema thailandensis n. sp.), bacteria ISR (Pseudomonas fluorescens), wood vinegar and fermented organic substances from plants: (neem Azadirachta indica + citronella grass Cymbopogon nardus Rendle + bitter bush Chromolaena odorata L.) were tested on culantro (Eryngium foetidum L.). The biopesticide was investigated for infestation reduction of the major insect pest whitefly (Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius)). The experimental plots were located at a farm in Nakhon Sawan Province, Thailand. This study was undertaken during the drought season (late November to May). Effectiveness of the treatment was evaluated in terms of acute and chronic effect. The populations of whitefly were observed and recorded every hour up to 3 hours with insect nets and yellow sticky traps after the treatments were applied for the acute effect. The results showed that bacteria ISR had the highest effectiveness for controlling whitefly infestation on culantro; the whitefly numbers on insect nets were 12.5, 10.0 and 7.5 after 1 hr, 2 hr, and 3 hr, respectively while the whitefly on yellow sticky traps showed 15.0, 10.0 and 10.0 after 1 hr, 2 hr, and 3 hr, respectively. For chronic effect, the whitefly was continuously collected and recorded at weekly intervals; the result showed that treatment of bacteria ISR found the average whitefly numbers only 8.06 and 11.0 on insect nets and sticky traps respectively, followed by treatment of nematode where the average whitefly was 9.87 and 11.43 on the insect nets and sticky traps, respectively. In addition, the minor insect pests were also observed and collected. The biopesticide influenced the reduction number of minor insect pests (red spider mites, beet armyworm, short-horned grasshopper, pygmy locusts, etc.) with only a few found on the culantro cultivation.

Keywords: Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius), Culantro (Eryngium foetidum L.), Entomopathogenic nematode (Steinernema thailandensis n. sp.), Bacteria ISR (Pseudomonas fluorescens), wood vinegar, fermented organic substances.

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Authors: Mayuresh Thombre, Prajyot Borkar, Mangirish Bhobe

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New advancement of technology and never satisfying demands of the civilization are putting huge pressure on the natural fuel resources and these resources are at a constant threat to its sustainability. To get the best out of the automobile, the optimum balance between performance and fuel economy is important. In the present state of art, either of the above two aspects are taken into mind while designing and development process which puts the other in the loss as increase in fuel economy leads to decrement in performance and vice-versa. In-depth observation of the vehicle dynamics apparently shows that large amount of energy is lost during braking and likewise large amount of fuel is consumed to reclaim the initial state, this leads to lower fuel efficiency to gain the same performance. Current use of Kinetic Energy Recovery System is only limited to sports vehicles only because of the higher cost of this system. They are also temporary in nature as power can be squeezed only during a small time duration and use of superior parts leads to high cost, which results on concentration on performance only and neglecting the fuel economy. In this paper Kinetic Energy Recovery System for storing the power and then using the same while accelerating has been discussed. The major storing element in this system is a Flat Spiral Spring that will store energy by compression and torsion.

The use of spring ensure the permanent storage of energy until used by the driver unlike present mechanical regeneration system in which the energy stored decreases with time and is eventually lost. A combination of internal gears and spur gears will be used in order to make the energy release uniform which will lead to safe usage. The system can be used to improve the fuel efficiency by assisting in overcoming the vehicle’s inertia after braking or to provide instant acceleration whenever required by the driver. The performance characteristics of the system including response time, mechanical efficiency and overall increase in efficiency are demonstrated. This technology makes the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) more flexible and economical allowing specific application while at the same time increasing the time frame and ease of usage.

Keywords: Electric control unit, Energy, Mechanical KERS, Planetary Gear system, Power, Smart braking, Spiral Spring.

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Authors: Emad Hazbkhah. Abdolreza Zahiri, Hossein Ghorbanizade Kharazi

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Reducing river sediments through path correction and preservation of river walls leads to considerable reduction of sedimentation at the pumping stations. Path correction and preservation of walls is not limited to one particular method but, depending on various conditions, a combination of several methods can be employed. In this article, we try to review and evaluate methods for preservation of river banks in order to reduce sediments.

Keywords: Erosion , River Banks , Sediments

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Authors: Majid Amidpour, Parisa Karimi, Marzieh Joda

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For the last few years, release of burned undesirable by-products has become a challenging issue in oil industries. Flaring, as one of the main sources of air contamination, involves detrimental and long-lasting effects on human health and is considered a substantial reason for energy losses worldwide. This research involves studying the implications of two main flare gas recovery methods at three oil refineries, all in Iran as the case I, case II, and case III in which the production capacities are increasing respectively. In the proposed methods, flare gases are converted into more valuable products, before combustion by the flare networks. The first approach involves collecting, compressing and converting the flare gas to smokeless fuel which can be used in the fuel gas system of the refineries. The other scenario includes utilizing the flare gas as a feed into liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) production unit already established in the refineries. The processes of these scenarios are simulated, and the capital investment is calculated for each procedure. The cumulative profits of the scenarios are evaluated using Net Present Value method. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis based on total propane and butane mole fraction is carried out to make a rational comparison for LPG production approach, and the results are illustrated for different mole fractions of propane and butane. As the mole fraction of propane and butane contained in LPG differs in summer and winter seasons, the results corresponding to LPG scenario are demonstrated for each season. The results of the simulations show that cumulative profit in fuel gas production scenario and LPG production rate increase with the capacity of the refineries. Moreover, the investment return time in LPG production method experiences a decline, followed by a rising trend with an increase in C₃ and C₄ content. The minimum value of time return occurs at propane and butane sum concentration values of 0.7, 0.6, and 0.7 in case I, II, and III, respectively. Based on comparison of the time of investment return and cumulative profit, fuel gas production is the superior scenario for three case studies.

Keywords: Flare gas reduction, liquefied petroleum gas, fuel gas, net present value method, sensitivity analysis.

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Authors: Jian Yao, Chengwen Yan

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The principle concern of this paper is to determine the impact of solar absorption coefficient of external wall on building energy consumption. Simulations were carried out on a typical residential building by using the simulation Toolkit DeST-h. Results show that reducing solar absorption coefficient leads to a great reduction in building energy consumption and thus light-colored materials are suitable.

Keywords: Solar absorption coefficient, External wall, Buildingenergy consumption.

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Authors: Yoshio Kurosawa

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The applications of soundproof materials for reduction of high frequency automobile interior noise have been researched. This paper presents a sound pressure prediction technique including wind noise by Hybrid Statistical Energy Analysis (HSEA) in order to reduce weight of acoustic insulations. HSEA uses both analytical SEA and experimental SEA. As a result of chassis dynamo test and road test, the validity of SEA modeling was shown, and utility of the method was confirmed.

Keywords: Vibration, noise, car, statistical energy analysis.

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Authors: Robert Gold

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Control flow graphs are a well-known representation of the sequential control flow structure of programs with a multitude of applications. Not only single functions but also sets of functions or complete programs can be modeled by control flow graphs. In this case the size of the graphs can grow considerably and thus makes it difficult for software engineers to analyze the control flow. Graph reductions are helpful in this situation. In this paper we define reductions to subsets of nodes. Since executions of programs are represented by paths through the control flow graphs, paths should be preserved. Furthermore, the composition of reductions makes a stepwise analysis approach possible.

Keywords: Control flow graph, graph reduction.

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Authors: Ahmed Usman Egye, Hamza Muhammad

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Poverty alleviation is one of the most difficult challenges facing third world countries in their development efforts. Evidences in Nigeria showed that the number of those in poverty has continued to increase. This paper is aimed at analyzing the performance of poverty alleviation measures undertaken by successive administrations in Nigeria with a view to addressing the quagmire. The study identified the whole gamut of factors that served as stumbling blocks to the implementation of each of the strategies and recommended the involvement of local people in the identification and design of projects so that sufficient participation could be achieved.

Keywords: Poverty, development, strategies, Nigeria.

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Authors: Saeed Sedighizadeh, Abbas Mansoori, Mohammad Reza Pirestani, Davoud Sedighizadeh

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The usual method of river flow diversion involves construction of tunnels and cofferdams. Given the fact that the cost of diversion works could be as high as 10-20% of the total dam construction cost, due attention should be paid to optimum design of the diversion works. The cost of diversion works depends, on factors, such as: the tunnel dimensions and the intended tunneling support measures during and after excavation; quality and characterizes of the rock through which the tunnel should be excavated; the dimensions of the upstream (and downstream) cofferdams; and the magnitude of river flood the system is designed to divert. In this paper by use of the cost of unit prices for tunnel excavation, tunnel lining, tunnel support (rock bolt + shotcrete) and cofferdam fill the cost function was determined. The function is then minimized by the aid of PSO Algorithm (particle swarm optimization). It is found that the optimum diameter and the total diversion cost are directly related to the river flood discharge (Q). It has also shown that in addition to optimum diameter design discharge (Q), river length, tunnel length, is mainly a function of the ratios (not the absolute values) of the unit prices and does not depend on the overall price levels in the respective country. The results of optimization use in some of the case study lead us to significant changes in the cost.

Keywords: Diversion Tunnel, Optimization, PSO Algorithm

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Authors: Pirom Thangchitpianpol, Suttipong Jumroonrut

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This research investigates the distribution of food demand for animal food and the optimum amount of that food production at minimum cost. The data consist of customer purchase orders for the food of laying hens, price of food for laying hens, cost per unit for the food inventory, cost related to food of laying hens in which the food is out of stock, such as fine, overtime, urgent purchase for material. They were collected from January, 1990 to December, 2013 from a factory in Nakhonratchasima province. The collected data are analyzed in order to explore the distribution of the monthly food demand for the laying hens and to see the rate of inventory per unit. The results are used in a stochastic linear programming model for aggregate planning in which the optimum production or minimum cost could be obtained. Programming algorithms in MATLAB and tools in Linprog software are used to get the solution. The distribution of the food demand for laying hens and the random numbers are used in the model. The study shows that the distribution of monthly food demand for laying has a normal distribution, the monthly average amount (unit: 30 kg) of production from January to December. The minimum total cost average for 12 months is Baht 62,329,181.77. Therefore, the production planning can reduce the cost by 14.64% from real cost.

Keywords: Animal food, Stochastic linear programming, Production planning, Demand Uncertainty.

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Authors: Taylan Kabbani, Ekrem Duman

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Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms can scale to previously intractable problems. The automation of profit generation in the stock market is possible using DRL, by combining  the financial assets price ”prediction” step and the ”allocation” step of the portfolio in one unified process to produce fully autonomous systems capable of interacting with its environment to make optimal decisions through trial and error. This work represents a DRL model to generate profitable trades in the stock market, effectively overcoming the limitations of supervised learning approaches. We formulate the trading problem as a Partially observed Markov Decision Process (POMDP) model, considering the constraints imposed by the stock market, such as liquidity and transaction costs. We then solved the formulated POMDP problem using the Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) algorithm and achieved a 2.68 Sharpe ratio on the test dataset. From the point of view of stock market forecasting and the intelligent decision-making mechanism, this paper demonstrates the superiority of DRL in financial markets over other types of machine learning and proves its credibility and advantages of strategic decision-making.

Keywords: Autonomous agent, deep reinforcement learning, MDP, sentiment analysis, stock market, technical indicators, twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient.

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Authors: Nagmani Lnu

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Test automation is a vital requirement of any organization to release products faster to their customers. In most cases, an organization has an approach to developing automation but struggles to maintain it. It results in an increased number of flaky tests, reducing return on investments and stakeholders’ confidence. Challenges grow in multiple folds when automation is for User Interface (UI) behaviors. This paper describes the approaches taken to identify the root cause of automation instability in an extensive payments application and the best practices to address that using processes, tools, and technologies, resulting in a 75% reduction of effort.

Keywords: Automation stability, test stability, flaky test, test quality, test automation quality.

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Authors: Mehdi Modabberifar, Milad Roodi, Ehsan Souri

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In recent years, honeycomb fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) sandwich panels have been increasingly used in various industries. Low weight, low price and high mechanical strength are the benefits of these structures. However, their mechanical properties and behavior have not been fully explored. The objective of this study is to conduct a combined numerical-statistical investigation of honeycomb FRP sandwich beams subject to torsion load. In this paper, the effect of geometric parameters of sandwich panel on maximum shear strain in both face and core and angle of torsion in a honeycomb FRP sandwich structures in torsion is investigated. The effect of Parameters including core thickness, face skin thickness, cell shape, cell size, and cell thickness on mechanical behavior of the structure were numerically investigated. Main effects of factors were considered in this paper and regression equations were derived. Taguchi method was employed as experimental design and an optimum parameter combination for the maximum structure stiffness has been obtained. The results showed that cell size and face skin thickness have the most significant impacts on torsion angle, maximum shear strain in face and core.

Keywords: Finite element, honeycomb FRP sandwich panel, torsion, civil engineering.

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Authors: S. N. Moghaddas Tafreshi, S. M. Amin Ghotbi

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This paper presents a numerical study for investigating the effectiveness of geocell reinforcement in reducing pressure and settlement over EPS geofoam blocks in road embankments. A 3-D FEM model of soil and geofoam was created in ABAQUS, and geocell was also modeled realistically using membrane elements. The accuracy of the model was tested by comparing its results with previous works. Sensitivity analyses showed that reinforcing the soil cover with geocell has a significant influence on the reduction of imposed stresses over geofoam and consequently decreasing its deformation.

Keywords: EPS geofoam, road embankments, geocell, reinforcement, lightweight fill.

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Authors: Janak Raj Sharma, Rajni Sharma

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Based on Traub-s methods for solving nonlinear equation f(x) = 0, we develop two families of third-order methods for solving system of nonlinear equations F(x) = 0. The families include well-known existing methods as special cases. The stability is corroborated by numerical results. Comparison with well-known methods shows that the present methods are robust. These higher order methods may be very useful in the numerical applications requiring high precision in their computations because these methods yield a clear reduction in number of iterations.

Keywords: Nonlinear equations and systems, Newton's method, fixed point iteration, order of convergence.

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Authors: Kenza Aida Amara, Bachir Djebbar

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We treat the two-dimensional bin packing problem which involves packing a given set of rectangles into a minimum number of larger identical rectangles called bins. This combinatorial problem is NP-hard. We propose a pretreatment for the oriented version of the problem that allows the valorization of the lost areas in the bins and the reduction of the size problem. A heuristic method based on the strategy first-fit adapted to this problem is presented. We present an approach of resolution by bee colony optimization. Computational results express a comparison of the number of bins used with and without pretreatment.

Keywords: Bee colony optimization, bin packing, heuristic algorithm, pretreatment.

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Authors: Elham S. Hasham, Anthony S. Hasham

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The construction industry is one of Australia’s fastest growing industries and its success is a result of a firm’s client satisfaction with focus on product determinants such as price and quality. Ensuring quality at every phase is a must and building rapport with the client will go a long way. To capitalize on the growing demand for Engineering Consulting Firms (ECFs), it is imperative to stress the implication of customer satisfaction and excellence in standards and performance. Consequently, the emphasis should be on improving employee skills through various training provisions. Clients seek consistency and thus expect that all services should be similar in respect to quality and the ability of the service to meet their needs. This calls for empowerment and comfortable work conditions to motivate employees and give them incentive to deliver quality and excellent output. The methodology utilized is triangulation - a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research. The case study - Australian Consulting Engineers (ACE) - was established in Australia in 1995 and has operations throughout Australia, the Philippines, Europe, UAE, KSA, and with a branch in Lebanon. ACE is affiliated with key agencies and support organizations in the engineering industry with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certifications in Safety and Quality Management. The objective of this study, conducted in Australia, is significant as it sheds light on employee motivation and client satisfaction as imperative determinants of the success of an organization.

Keywords: Organizational behaviour, leadership, satisfaction, motivation, quality service.

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Authors: Rita U. Onolemhemhen, Saheed L. Bello, Akin P. Iwayemi

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The effectiveness of energy demand policy depends on identifying the key drivers of energy demand both in the short-run and the long-run. This paper examines the influence of regional differences on the link between energy demand and other explanatory variables for Nigeria, China and USA using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) approach. This study employed annual time series data on energy consumption (ED), real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (RGDP), real energy prices (P) and urbanization (N) for a thirty-six-year sample period. The utilized time-series data are sourced from World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI, 2016) and US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Results from the study, shows that all the independent variables (income, urbanization, and price) substantially affect the long-run energy consumption in Nigeria, USA and China, whereas, income has no significant effect on short-run energy demand in USA and Nigeria. In addition, the long-run effect of urbanization is relatively stronger in China. Urbanization is a key factor in energy demand, it therefore recommended that more attention should be given to the development of rural communities to reduce the inflow of migrants into urban communities which causes the increase in energy demand and energy excesses should be penalized while energy management should be incentivized.

Keywords: Economic growth, energy demand, income, real GDP, urbanization, VECM.

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Authors: M. Israil Hossain, T. P. Tiwari, Ashrafuzzaman Gulandaz, Nusrat Jahan

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Two-wheel tractor (power tiller) is a common tillage tool in Bangladesh agriculture for easy access in fragmented land with affordable price of small farmers. Traditional maize sheller needs to be carried from place to place by hooking with two-wheel tractor (2WT) and set up again for shelling operation which takes longer time for preparation of maize shelling. The mobile maize sheller eliminates the transportation problem and can start shelling operation instantly any place as it is attached together with 2WT. It is counterclockwise rotating cylinder, axial flow type sheller, and grain separated with a frictional force between spike tooth and concave. The maize sheller is attached with nuts and bolts in front of the engine base of 2WT. The operating power of the sheller comes from the fly wheel of the engine of the tractor through ‘V” belt pulley arrangement. The average shelling capacity of the mobile sheller is 2.0 t/hr, broken kernel 2.2%, and shelling efficiency 97%. The average maize shelling cost is Tk. 0.22/kg and traditional custom hire rate is Tk.1.0/kg, respectively (1 US$=Tk.78.0). The service provider of the 2WT can transport the mobile maize sheller long distance in operator’s seating position. The manufacturers started the fabrication of mobile maize sheller. This mobile maize sheller is also compatible for the other countries where 2WT is available for farming operation.

Keywords: Cost effective, mobile maize sheller, maize shelling capacity, small farmers, two-wheel tractor.

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Authors: A. Dandapat, S. Ghosal, P. Sarkar, D. Mukhopadhyay

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For higher order multiplications, a huge number of adders or compressors are to be used to perform the partial product addition. We have reduced the number of adders by introducing special kind of adders that are capable to add five/six/seven bits per decade. These adders are called compressors. Binary counter property has been merged with the compressor property to develop high order compressors. Uses of these compressors permit the reduction of the vertical critical paths. A 16×16 bit multiplier has been developed using these compressors. These compressors make the multipliers faster as compared to the conventional design that have been used 4-2 compressors and 3-2 compressors.

Keywords: Binary multiplier, Compressors, Counter, Column adder, Low power.

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Authors: M. A. Masnadi-Shirazi, S. A. Banani

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In this paper a comprehensive algorithm is presented to alleviate the undesired simultaneous effects of target maneuvering, observed glint noise distribution, and colored noise spectrum using online colored glint noise parameter estimation. The simulation results illustrate a significant reduction in the root mean square error (RMSE) produced by the proposed algorithm compared to the algorithms that do not compensate all the above effects simultaneously.

Keywords: Glint noise, IMM, Kalman Filter, Kinematics, Target Tracking.

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Authors: Qiu Dong-Fang, Li Bao-bao, Min Xing

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Low-carbon economy means the energy conservation and emission reduction. How to measure and evaluate the regional low-carbon economy is an important problem which should be solved immediately. This paper proposed the eco-efficiency ratio based on the ecological efficiency to evaluate the current situation of the low-carbon economy in Jiangsu province and to analyze the efficiency of the low-carbon economy in Jiangsu and other provinces, compared both advantages and disadvantages. And then this paper put forward some advices for the government to formulate the correct development policy of low-carbon economy, to improve the technology innovation capacity and the efficiency of resource allocation.

Keywords: Eco-efficiency ratio, Jiangsu, China, low-carbon economy.

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Authors: Mohammad Rajabalinejad

Abstract:

Safety is often seen as a requirement or a performance indicator through the design process, and this does not always result in optimally safe products or systems. This paper suggests integrating the best safety practices with the design process to enrich the exploration experience for designers and add extra values for customers. For this purpose, the commonly practiced safety standards and design methods have been reviewed and their common blocks have been merged forming Safety Cube. Safety Cube combines common blocks for design, hazard identification, risk assessment and risk reduction through an integral approach. An example application presents the use of Safety Cube for design of machinery.

Keywords: Safety, safety cube, design, product, system, machinery.

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Authors: Insaf Ajili, Malik Mallem, Jean-Yves Didier

Abstract:

Motion recognition from videos is actually a very complex task due to the high variability of motions. This paper describes the challenges of human motion recognition, especially motion representation step with relevant features. Our descriptor vector is inspired from Laban Movement Analysis method. We propose discriminative features using the Random Forest algorithm in order to remove redundant features and make learning algorithms operate faster and more effectively. We validate our method on MSRC-12 and UTKinect datasets.

Keywords: Human motion recognition, Discriminative LMA features, random forest, features reduction.

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