Search results for: Damage evaluation

Authors: Gizelle K. Vianna, Gustavo S. Oliveira, Gabriel V. Cunha

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The use of decision support systems in agriculture may help monitoring large fields of crops by automatically detecting the symptoms of foliage diseases. In our work, we designed and implemented a decision support system for small tomatoes producers. This work investigates ways to recognize the late blight disease from the analysis of digital images of tomatoes, using a pair of multilayer perceptron neural networks. The networks outputs are used to generate repainted tomato images in which the injuries on the plant are highlighted, and to calculate the damage level of each plant. Those levels are then used to construct a situation map of a farm where a cellular automata simulates the outbreak evolution over the fields. The simulator can test different pesticides actions, helping in the decision on when to start the spraying and in the analysis of losses and gains of each choice of action.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, cellular automata, decision support system, pattern recognition.

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Authors: Rui Yu, Huiqing Ying

Abstract:

To enhance installation security, a LNG storage in Rudong of Jiangsu province was adopted as a practical work, and it was analyzed by nonlinear finite element method to research overall and local stability performance, as well as the stress and deformation under the action of wind load and self-weight. Results indicate that deformation is tiny when steel mesh maintains as an overall ring, and stress caused by vertical bending moment and tension of bottom tie wire are also in the safe range. However, axial forces of lap reinforcement in adjacent steel mesh exceed the ultimate bearing capacity of tie wire. Hence, tie wires are ruptured; single mesh loses lateral connection and turns into monolithic status as the destruction of overall structure. Further more, monolithic steel mesh is led to collapse by the damage of bottom connection. So, in order to prevent connection failure and enhance installation security, the overlapping parts of steel mesh should be taken more reliable measures.

Keywords: low temperature steel mesh, installation stability, nonlinear finite element, tie wire.

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Authors: C. Hönnscheidt, R. Krull

Abstract:

Oxidative stress makes up common incidents in eukaryotic metabolism. The presence of diverse components disturbing the equilibrium during oxygen metabolism increases oxidative damage unspecifically in living cells. Body´s own ubiquinone (Q10) seems to be a promising drug in defending the heightened appearance of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Though, its lipophilic properties require a new strategy in drug formulation to overcome their low bioavailability. Consequently, the manufacture of heterogeneous nanodispersions is in focus for medical applications. The composition of conventional nanodispersions is made up of a drug-consisting core and a surfactive agent, also named as surfactant. Long-termed encapsulation of the surfactive components into tissues might be the consequence of the use during medical therapeutics. The potential of provoking side-effects is given by their nonbiodegradable properties. Further improvements during fabrication process use the incorporation of biodegradable components such as modified γ-polyglutamic acid which decreases the potential of prospective side-effects.

Keywords: Biopolymers, γ-Polyglutamic acid, Oxidative stress, Ubiquinone.

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Authors: Hocine Hammoum, Karima Bouzelha, Lounis Ziani, Lounis Hamitouche

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In this paper, we study a complex structure which is an apartment building surmounted by a reinforced concrete water tank. The tank located on the top floor of the building is a container with capacity of 1000 m³. The building is complex in its design, its calculation and by its behavior under earthquake effect. This structure located in Algiers and aged of 53 years has been subjected to several earthquakes, but the earthquake of May 21^st, 2003 with a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale that struck Boumerdes region at 40 Kms East of Algiers was fatal for it. It was downgraded after an investigation study because the central core sustained serious damage. In this paper, to estimate the degree of its damages, the seismic performance of the structure will be evaluated taking into account the hydrodynamic effect, using a static equivalent nonlinear analysis called pushover.

Keywords: Performance analysis, building, reinforced concrete tank, seismic analysis, nonlinear analysis, hydrodynamic, pushover.

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Authors: Lim Chen Kim, Tan Kian Lam, Chan Yi Chee

Abstract:

This research presents a multi-modal simulation in the reconstruction of the past and the construction of present in digital cultural heritage on mobile platform. In bringing the present life, the virtual environment is generated through a presented scheme for rapid and efficient construction of 360° panoramic view. Then, acoustical heritage model and crowd model are presented and improvised into the 360° panoramic view. For the reconstruction of past life, the crowd is simulated and rendered in an old trading port. However, the keystone of this research is in a virtual walkthrough that shows the virtual present life in 2D and virtual past life in 3D, both in an environment of virtual heritage sites in George Town through mobile device. Firstly, the 2D crowd is modelled and simulated using OpenGL ES 1.1 on mobile platform. The 2D crowd is used to portray the present life in 360° panoramic view of a virtual heritage environment based on the extension of Newtonian Laws. Secondly, the 2D crowd is animated and rendered into 3D with improved variety and incorporated into the virtual past life using Unity3D Game Engine. The behaviours of the 3D models are then simulated based on the enhancement of the classical model of Boid algorithm. Finally, a demonstration system is developed and integrated with the models, techniques and algorithms of this research. The virtual walkthrough is demonstrated to a group of respondents and is evaluated through the user-centred evaluation by navigating around the demonstration system. The results of the evaluation based on the questionnaires have shown that the presented virtual walkthrough has been successfully deployed through a multi-modal simulation and such a virtual walkthrough would be particularly useful in a virtual tour and virtual museum applications.

Keywords: Boid algorithm, crowd simulation, mobile platform, Newtonian laws, virtual heritage.

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Authors: J. Menčík, B. Culek, Jr., L. Beran, J. Mareš

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Large metal and concrete structures suffer by various kinds of deterioration, and accurate prediction of the remaining life is important. This paper informs about two methods for its assessment. One method, suitable for steel bridges and other constructions exposed to fatigue, monitors the loads and damage accumulation using information systems for the operation and the finite element model of the construction. In addition to the operation load, the dead weight of the construction and thermal stresses can be included into the model. The second method is suitable for concrete bridges and other structures, which suffer by carbonatation and other degradation processes, driven by diffusion. The diffusion constant, important for the prediction of future development, can be determined from the depth-profile of pH, obtained by pH measurement at various depths. Comparison with measurements on real objects illustrates the suitability of both methods.

Keywords: Bridges, carbonatation, concrete, diagnostics, fatigue, life prediction, monitoring, railway, simulation, structures.

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Authors: C. S. Mammas, A. Lazaris, A. S. Mamma-Graham, G. Kostopanagiotou, C. Lemonidou, J. Mantas, E. Patsouris

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Introduction: The process to build a better safety culture, methods of error analysis, and preventive measures, starts with an understanding of the effects when human factors engineering refer to remote microscopic diagnosis in surgery and specially in organ transplantation for the remote evaluation of the grafts. It has been estimated that even in well-organized transplant systems an average of 8% to 14% of the grafts (G) that arrive at the recipient hospitals may be considered as diseased, injured, damaged or improper for transplantation. Digital microscopy adds information on a microscopic level about the grafts in Organ Transplant (OT), and may lead to a change in their management. Such a method will reduce the possibility that a diseased G, will arrive at the recipient hospital for implantation. Aim: Ergonomics of Digital Microscopy (DM) based on virtual slides, on Telemedicine Systems (TS) for Tele-Pathological (TPE) evaluation of the grafts (G) in organ transplantation (OT). Material and Methods: By experimental simulation, the ergonomics of DM for microscopic TPE of Renal Graft (RG), Liver Graft (LG) and Pancreatic Graft (PG) tissues is analyzed. In fact, this corresponded to the ergonomics of digital microscopy for TPE in OT by applying Virtual Slide (VS) system for graft tissue image capture, for remote diagnoses of possible microscopic inflammatory and/or neoplastic lesions. Experimentation included: a. Development of an OTE-TS similar Experimental Telemedicine System (Exp.-TS), b. Simulation of the integration of TS with the VS based microscopic TPE of RG, LG and PG applying DM. Simulation of the DM based TPE was performed by 2 specialists on a total of 238 human Renal Graft (RG), 172 Liver Graft (LG) and 108 Pancreatic Graft (PG) tissues digital microscopic images for inflammatory and neoplastic lesions on four electronic spaces of the four used TS. Results: Statistical analysis of specialist‘s answers about the ability to diagnose accurately the diseased RG, LG and PG tissues on the electronic space among four TS (A,B,C,D) showed that DM on TS for TPE in OT is elaborated perfectly on the ES of a Desktop, followed by the ES of the applied Exp.-TS. Tablet and Mobile-Phone ES seem significantly risky for the application of DM in OT (p<.001). Conclusion: To make the largest reduction in errors and adverse events referring to the quality of the grafts, it will take application of human factors engineering to procurement, design, audit, and aware ness-raising activities. Consequently, it will take an investment in new training, people, and other changes to management activities for DM in OT. The simulating VS based TPE with DM of RG, LG and PG tissues after retrieval; seem feasible and reliable and dependable on the size of the electronic space of the applied TS, for remote prevention of diseased grafts from being retrieved and/or sent to the recipient hospital and for post-grafting and pre-transplant planning.

Keywords: Organ Transplantation, Tele-Pathology, Digital Microscopy, Virtual Slides.

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Authors: Deepak Mohan, Sushma Sharma

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Diclofenac sodium, a member of the acetic acid family of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, is used to retard inflammation, arthritis pain and ankylosing spondylitis. The drug is known to cause severe injury in different tissues due to formation of reactive oxygen species. The present study is focused on the effect of different doses of diclofenac (4 mg/kg/body weight and 14 mg/kg/body weight on histoarchitecture of the liver from 7-28 days of the investigation. Diclofenac administration resulted in distorted hepatic degeneration and formation of wide areas in the form of sinusoidal gaps. Hepatic fibrosis noticed in different stages of investigation could be attributed to chronic inflammation and reactive oxygen species which results in deposition of extracellular matrix proteins. The abrupt degenerative changes observed during later stages of the experiment showed maximum damage to the liver, and there was enlargement of sinusoidal gaps accompanied by maximum necrosis in the tissues.

Keywords: Arthritis, diclofenac, histoarchitecture, sinusoidal.

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

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

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

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Authors: R. O. Santos, L. P. Moreira, M. C. Cardoso

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Spacer grid assembly supporting the nuclear fuel rods is an important concern in the design of structural components of a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). The spacer grid is composed by springs and dimples which are formed from a strip sheet by means of blanking and stamping processes. In this paper, the blanking process and tooling parameters are evaluated by means of a 2D plane-strain finite element model in order to evaluate the punch load and quality of the sheared edges of Inconel 718 strips used for nuclear spacer grids. A 3D finite element model is also proposed to predict the tooling loads resulting from the stamping process of a preformed Inconel 718 strip and to analyse the residual stress effects upon the spring and dimple design geometries of a nuclear spacer grid.

Keywords: Blanking process, damage model, finite element modelling, Inconel 718, spacer grids, stamping process.

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Authors: Insaf Mehani, Bachir Bouchekima

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The fight against climate change and the replacement of fossil energies nearing exhaustion gradually emerge as major societal and economic challenges. It is possible to develop common dates of low commercial value, and put on the local and international market a new generation of products with high added values such as bio ethanol. Besides its use in chemical synthesis, bio ethanol can be blended with gasoline to produce a clean fuel while improving the octane.

Keywords: Bio energy, waste dates, bio ethanol.

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Authors: Jayanth Jacob, C. V. Hariharakrishnan, Suganthi L.

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The rapid urbanization of cities has a bane in the form road accidents that cause extensive damage to life and limbs. A number of location based factors are enablers of road accidents in the city. The speed of travel of vehicles is non-uniform among locations within a city. In this study, the perception of vehicle users is captured on a 10-point rating scale regarding the degree of variation in speed of travel at chosen locations in the city. The average rating is used to cluster locations using fuzzy c-means clustering and classify them as low, moderate and high speed of travel locations. The high speed of travel locations can be classified proactively to ensure that accidents do not occur due to the speeding of vehicles at such locations. The advantage of fuzzy c-means clustering is that a location may be a part of more than one cluster to a varying degree and this gives a better picture about the location with respect to the characteristic (speed of travel) being studied.

Keywords: C-means clustering, Location Specific, Road Accidents.

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Authors: W. Kaowumpai, D. Koolpiruck, K. Viravaidya

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Female breast cancer is the second in frequency after cervical cancer. Surgery is the most common treatment for breast cancer, followed by chemotherapy as a treatment of choice. Although effective, it causes serious side effects. Controlled-release drug delivery is an alternative method to improve the efficacy and safety of the treatment. It can release the dosage of drug between the minimum effect concentration (MEC) and minimum toxic concentration (MTC) within tumor tissue and reduce the damage of normal tissue and the side effect. Because an in vivo experiment of this system can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, a mathematical model is desired to study the effects of important parameters before the experiments are performed. Here, we describe a 3D mathematical model to predict the release of doxorubicin from pluronic gel to treat human breast cancer. This model can, ultimately, be used to effectively design the in vivo experiments.

Keywords: Breast Cancer, Doxorubicin, Controlled ReleaseSystem, Diffusion and Convection Equation.

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Authors: B. Al-Naami, N. Gharaibeh, A. AlRazzaq Kheshman

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Alzheimer is known as the loss of mental functions such as thinking, memory, and reasoning that is severe enough to interfere with a person's daily functioning. The appearance of Alzheimer Disease symptoms (AD) are resulted based on which part of the brain has a variety of infection or damage. In this case, the MRI is the best biomedical instrumentation can be ever used to discover the AD existence. Therefore, this paper proposed a fusion method to distinguish between the normal and (AD) MRIs. In this combined method around 27 MRIs collected from Jordanian Hospitals are analyzed based on the use of Low pass -morphological filters to get the extracted statistical outputs through intensity histogram to be employed by the descriptive box plot. Also, the artificial neural network (ANN) is applied to test the performance of this approach. Finally, the obtained result of t-test with confidence accuracy (95%) has compared with classification accuracy of ANN (100 %). The robust of the developed method can be considered effectively to diagnose and determine the type of AD image.

Keywords: Alzheimer disease, Brain MRI analysis, Morphological filter, Box plot, Intensity histogram, ANN.

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Authors: S. A. M. Elshourbagy

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This paper investigates the effects of lubrication on the quantity of heat emission of two spur gear. System with and without lubrication effected on the quantity of heat induced on the gear box (oil - bearings – gears). Both of lubrication and speed of motor are affected on the performance of gears. Research investigated the lubrication on the system with and without loading as well as the wear of gears and bearing's conditions. Gear box investigated includes the motor, pump, two spur gears, two shafts; speed change used pulleys and belts. Load used equal one weight ones of gear. Lubrication mechanism used jet system (upper and lower jet). Gear box we used system of jet lubrication is perpendicular direction of the contact line between two teeth. Results appeared in this work that the lubrication is the vital parameter which is affected on the performance and durability of gears and bearings. In macroscopic observation, we noted that damage of bearings happened during the absence of lubrication as well as abrasive of wear of teeth. Higher speed of motor without lubrication increased the noise, but in the presence of lubrication was decreased.

Keywords: Lubrication, jet, laser gun, spur gear, temperature

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Authors: M. Balestrieri, C. Pusceddu

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Issues relating to the destructive phenomena that can damage people and goods have returned to the centre of debate in Italy with the increase in catastrophic episodes in recent years in a country which is highly vulnerable to hydrological risk. Environmental factors and geological and geomorphological territorial characteristics play an important role in determining the level of vulnerability and the natural tendency to risk. However, a territory has also been subjected to the requirements of and transformations of society and this brings other relevant factors. The reasons for the increase in destructive phenomena are often to be found in the territorial development models adopted. Stewardship of the landscape and management of risk are related issues. This study aims to summarize the most relevant elements about this connection and at the same time to clarify the role of environmental risk assessment as a tool to aid in the sustainable management of landscape. Finally, the study reflects on how regional and urban planners deal with environmental risk and which aspects should be monitored in order to adopt responsible and useful interventions.

Keywords: Assessment, landscape, risk, planning.

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Authors: N. H. Hamid, N. M. Mohamed, S. A. Anuar

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Precast residential houses are normally constructed in Malaysia using precast shear-key wall panel and this panel is designed using BS8110 where there is no provision for earthquake. However, the safety of this house under moderate and strong earthquake is still questionable. Consequently, the full-scale of residential house are designed, constructed, tested and analyzed under in-plane lateral quasi-static cyclic loading. Hysteresis loops are plotted based on the experimental work and compared with modeling of hysteresis loops using HYSTERES in RUAUMOKO 2D program. Modified Takeda hysteresis model is chosen to behave a similar pattern with experimental work. This program will display the earthquake excitations, spectral displacements, pseudo spectral acceleration, mode shape and deformation of the structure. It can be concluded that this building is suffering severe cracks and damage under moderate and severe earthquake.

Keywords: Deformation shape, hysteresis loops, precast shear-key, spectral displacement.

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Authors: Rômulo Volpato, Filipe Ramos, Paulo Crepaldi, Michel Santana, Tales C Pimenta

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This work presents an approach for the measurement of mutual inductance on near field inductive coupling. The mutual inductance between inductive circuits allows the simulation of energy transfer from reader to tag, that can be used in RFID and powerless implantable devices. It also allows one to predict the maximum voltage in the tag of the radio-frequency system.

Keywords: RFID, Inductive Coupling, Energy Transfer, Implantable Device

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Authors: Hoai-Vu Nguyen, Yongsun Choi

Abstract:

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks pose a serious threat to network security. There have been a lot of methodologies and tools devised to detect DDoS attacks and reduce the damage they cause. Still, most of the methods cannot simultaneously achieve (1) efficient detection with a small number of false alarms and (2) real-time transfer of packets. Here, we introduce a method for proactive detection of DDoS attacks, by classifying the network status, to be utilized in the detection stage of the proposed anti-DDoS framework. Initially, we analyse the DDoS architecture and obtain details of its phases. Then, we investigate the procedures of DDoS attacks and select variables based on these features. Finally, we apply the k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) method to classify the network status into each phase of DDoS attack. The simulation result showed that each phase of the attack scenario is classified well and we could detect DDoS attack in the early stage.

Keywords: distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), k-nearestneighbor classifier (k-NN), anti-DDoS framework, DDoS detection.

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Authors: Wang Xu, Yao Yangyang, Lin Ying, Wang Zhenzhen

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Intelligent Transportation System integrates various modern advanced technologies into the ground transportation system, and it will be the goal of urban transport system in the future because of its comprehensive effects. However, it also brings some problems, such as project performance assessment, fairness of benefiting groups, fund management, which are directly related to its operation and implementation. Wuhan has difficulties in organizing transportation because of its nature feature (river and lake), therefore, calling Service of Taxi plays an important role in transportation. This paper researches on calling Service of Taxi in Wuhan, based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. It analyzes its operations management systematically, including business model, finance, usage analysis and users evaluation. As for business model, it is that the government leads the operation at the initial stage, and the third part dominates the operation at the mature stage, which not only eases the pressure of the third part and benefits the spread of the calling service at the initial stage, but also alleviates financial pressure of government and improve the efficiency of the operation at the mature stage. As for finance, it draws that this service will bring heavy financial burden of equipments, but it will be alleviated in the future because of its spread. As for usage analysis, through data comparison, this service can bring some benefits for taxi drivers, and time and spatial distribution of usage have certain features. As for user evaluation, it analyzes using group and the reason why choosing it. At last, according to the analysis above, the paper puts forward the potentials, limitations, and future development strategies for it.

Keywords: Assessment, Calling service of taxi, Operations management, Strategies, Using groups.

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Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Cheng-Wu Chen, Ken Yeh, Han-Hsi Liang

Abstract:

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a procedure tool of environmental management for identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the adverse effects of development proposals. EIA reports usually analyze how the amounts or concentrations of pollutants obey the relevant standards. Actually, many analytical tools can deepen the analysis of environmental impacts in EIA reports, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental risk assessment (ERA). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is one of steps in LCA to introduce the causal relationships among environmental hazards and damage. Incorporating the LCIA concept into ERA as an integrated tool for EIA can extend the focus of the regulatory compliance of environmental impacts to determine of the significance of environmental impacts. Sometimes, when using integrated tools, it is necessary to consider fuzzy situations due to insufficient information; therefore, ERA should be generalized to fuzzy risk assessment (FRA). Finally, the use of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through the study case of the expansion plan of the world-s largest plastics processing factory.

Keywords: Fuzzy risk analysis, life cycle impact assessment, fuzzy logic, environmental impact assessment

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Authors: C. S. Tsai, Yung-Chang Lin

Abstract:

In order to upgrade the seismic resistibility of structures and enhance the functionality of an isolator, a new base isolator called the multiple trench friction pendulum system (MTFPS) is proposed in this study. The proposed MTFPS isolator is composed of a trench concave surface and several intermediate sliding plates in two orthogonal directions. Mathematical formulations have been derived to examine the characteristics of the proposed MTFPS isolator possessing multiple intermediate sliding plates. By means of mathematical formulations, it can be inferred that the natural period and damping effect of the MTFPS isolator with several intermediate sliding plates can be altered continually and controllably during earthquakes. Furthermore, results obtained from shaking table tests demonstrate that the proposed isolator provides good protection to structures for prevention of damage from strong earthquakes.

Keywords: Friction Pendulum System, Multiple Friction Pendulum System, Base Isolation, Earthquake Engineering

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Authors: Yukiko Sasaki Alam

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This research aims at finding out the causes that led to wrong lexical selections in machine translation (MT) rather than categorizing lexical errors, which has been a main practice in error analysis. By manually examining and analyzing lexical errors outputted by a MT system, it suggests what knowledge would help the system reduce lexical errors.

Keywords: Error analysis, causes of errors, machine translation, outputs evaluation.

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Authors: Ho Jae Lee, Do Gyeum Kim, Jang Hwa Lee, Myoung Suk Cho

Abstract:

A concrete structure is designed and constructed for its purpose of use, and is expected to maintain its function for the target durable years from when it was planned. Nevertheless, as time elapses the structure gradually deteriorates and then eventually degrades to the point where the structure cannot exert the function for which it was planned. The performance of concrete that is able to maintain the level of the performance required over the designed period of use as it has less deterioration caused by the elapse of time under the designed condition is referred to as Durability. There are a number of causes of durability degradation, but especially chloride damage, carbonation, freeze-thaw, etc are the main causes. In this study, carbonation, one of the main causes of deterioration of the durability of a concrete structure, was investigated via a microstructure analysis technique. The method for the measurement of carbonation was studied using the existing indicator method, and the method of measuring the progress of carbonation in a quantitative manner was simultaneously studied using a FT-IR (Fourier-Transform Infrared) Spectrometer along with the microstructure analysis technique.

Keywords: Concrete, Carbonation, Microsturcture, FT-IR

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Authors: Alfred Kamate Siviri, Angelus Mafikiri Tsongo, Jean Robert Kala Kamdjoug

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Well organized digitalization and information systems have been selected as relevant measures to mitigate operational risks within organizations. Unfortunately, information system comes with new threats that can cause severe damage and quick organization lockout. This study aims to measure perceived information system risks and their effects on operational risks within the microfinance institution in D.R. Congo. Also, the factors influencing the operational risk are to be identified, and the link between operational risk with other risks and performance is to be assessed. The study proposes a research model drawn on the combination of Resources-Based-View, dynamic capabilities, the agency theory, the Information System Security Model, and social theories of risk. Therefore, we suggest adopting a mixed methods research with the sole aim of increasing the literature that already exists on perceived operational risk assessment and its link with other risk and performance, with a focus on information system risks.

Keywords: information system risk, operational risk, microfinance performance, DR Congo

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Authors: Won Taek Oh, Adin Richard

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Workers are often required to enter unsupported trenches during the construction process, which may present serious risks. Trench failures can result in death or damage to adjacent properties, therefore trenches should be excavated with extreme precaution. Excavation work is often done in unsaturated soils, where the critical height (i.e. maximum depth that can be excavated without failure) of unsupported trenches can be more reliably estimated by considering the influence of matric suction. In this study, coupled stress/pore-water pressure analyses are conducted to investigate the critical height of sloped unsupported trenches considering the influence of pore-water pressure redistribution caused by excavating. Four different wall slopes (1.5V:1H, 2V:1H, 3V:1H, and 90°) and a vertical trench with the top 0.3 m sloped 1:1 were considered in the analyses with multiple depths of the ground water table in a sand. For comparison, the critical heights were also estimated using the limit equilibrium method for the same excavation scenarios used in the coupled analyses.

Keywords: Critical height, matric suction, unsaturated soil, unsupported trench.

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Authors: Do-Hwan Kim, Roberto Leon

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Probabilistic characteristics of seismic responses of the Partially Restrained connection rotation (PRCR) and panel zone deformation (PZD) installed in older steel moment frames were investigated in accordance with statistical inference in decision-making process. The 4, 6 and 8 story older steel moment frames with clip angle and T-stub connections were designed and analyzed using 2%/50yrs ground motions in four cities of the Mid-America earthquake region. The probability density function and cumulative distribution function of PRCR and PZD were determined by the goodness-of-fit tests based on probabilistic parameters measured from the results of the nonlinear time-history analyses. The obtained probabilistic parameters and distributions can be used to find out what performance level mainly PR connections and panel zones satisfy and how many PR connections and panel zones experience a serious damage under the Mid-America ground motions.

Keywords: Mid-America earthquake, Panel zone, PR connection, Probabilistic characteristics, seismic performance

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Authors: K. Mahmoud, T. Shalahmetova, Sh. Deraz

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The objective of the present study was to examine the dose-response relationships between antioxidant parameters and liver contaminant levels of Kazakhstan light crude oil (KLCO) in albino rats. The animals were repeatedly exposed, by intraperitoneal injection, to low dosages (0.5–1.5 ml/kg) of KLCO. Rats exposed to these doses levels did not show any apparent symptoms of intoxication. Serum aminotransferases increased significantly (p<0.05) while after 8-d recovered to control level. hepatic superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity significantly increased after 1 and 3-d except with 0.5 ml while with increased exposure time it deceased insignificantly after 5-d and significantly after 8-d. Dose and time-dependent increases were observed in the levels of hepatic glutathione-S-transeferase (GST) and conjugated diene (CD) while malondialdehyde (MDA) was evolved after 8 with the dose of 1.5 ml. the data obtained indicate impaired liver function in the rats intoxicated with KLCO as manifested by elevated liver enzymes.

Keywords: Crude oil; superoxide dismutase, glutathione-Stranseferase, malondialdehyde, conjugated diene, aminotransferases.

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Authors: Christian Rathgeber, Franz Winkler, Xiaoyu Kang, Steffen Müller

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In this contribution two approaches for calculating optimal trajectories for highly automated vehicles are presented and compared. The first one is based on a non-linear vehicle model, used for evaluation. The second one is based on a simplified model and can be implemented on a current ECU. In usual driving situations both approaches show very similar results.

Keywords: Trajectory planning, direct method, indirect method, highly automated driving.

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Authors: Sajjad Dehghanpour, Ali Yousefi

Abstract:

Impact is one of very important subjects which always have been considered in mechanical science. Nature of impact is such that which makes its control a hard task. Therefore it is required to present the transfer of impact to other vulnerable part of a structure, when it is necessary, one of the best method of absorbing energy of impact, is by using Thin-walled tubes these tubes collapses under impact and with absorption of energy, it prevents the damage to other parts.Purpose of recent study is to survey the deformation and energy absorption of tubes with different type of cross section (rectangular or square) and with similar volumes, height, mean cross section thickness, and material under loading with different speeds. Lateral loading of tubes are quasi-static type and beside as numerical analysis, also experimental experiences has been performed to evaluate the accuracy of the results. Results from the surveys is indicates that in a same conditions which mentioned above, samples with square cross section ,absorb more energy compare to rectangular cross section, and also by increscent in speed of loading, energy absorption would be more.

Keywords: absorbed energy, lateral loading, quasi-static.

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