Search results for: life cycle based analysis

Authors: M. S. Reza, M. Hamdi, S. H. Tomadi, A. R. Ismail

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The operating control parameters of injection flushing type of electrical discharge machining process on stainless steel 304 workpiece using copper tools are being optimized according to its individual machining characteristic i.e. Electrode Wear Ratio (EWR). Higher EWR would give bad dimensional precision for the EDM machined workpiece because of high electrode wear. Hence, the quality characteristic for EWR is set to lower-the-better to achieve the optimum dimensional precision for the machined workpiece. Taguchi method has been used for the construction, layout and analysis of the experiment for EWR machining characteristic. The use of Taguchi method in the experiment saves a lot of time and cost of preparing and machining the experiment samples. Therefore, an L18 Orthogonal array which was the fundamental component in the statistical design of experiments has been used to plan the experiments and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to determine the optimum machining parameters for this machining characteristic. The control parameters selected for this optimization experiments are polarity, pulse on duration, discharge current, discharge voltage, machining depth, machining diameter and dielectric liquid pressure. The result had shown that negative polarity machining parameter setting will decreases EWR.

Keywords: ANOVA, EDM, Injection Flushing, L18Orthogonal Array, EWR, Stainless Steel 304

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Authors: Mufutau Ayinla Abdul-Yakeen

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An analysis of the five most used numerals and a proposal for the adoption of a Universally Acceptable Numerals (UAN), came up as a result of the researchers inquisitiveses of the need for a set of numerals that is universally accepted. The researcher sought for the meaning of the first letter, “Nun”, “ن”, of the first verse of Suratul-Kalam (Chapter of the Pen), the Sixty-Eighth Chapter of the Holy Qur'an. It was observed that there was no universally accepted, economical, explainable, linkable and consistent set of numerals used by all scientists up till the moment of making this enquiry. As a theoretical paper, explanatory method is used to review five of the most used numerals (Tally Marks, Roman Figure, Hindu-Arabic, Arabic, and Chinese) and the urgent need for a universally accepted, economical, explainable, linkable and consistent set of numerals arises. The study discovers: ^., I, \, _, L, U, =, C, O, 9, and 1.; to be used as numeral 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 respectively; as a set of universally acceptable, economical, explainable, linkable, sustainable, convertible and consistent set of numerals that originates from Islam. They can be called Islameconumerals or UAN. With UAN, everything dropped, written, drawn and/or scribbled has meaning(s) as postulated by the first verse of Qur'an 68 and everyone can easily document all figures within the shortest period. It is suggested that there should be a discipline called Numeralnomics (Study of optimum utilization of Numerals) and everybody should start using the UAN, now, in order in know their strengths and weaknesses so as to suggest a better and acceptable set of numerals for the interested readers. Similarly study can be conducted for the alphabets.

Keywords: Islameconumerals, economical, Universally Acceptable Numerals (UAN), numeralnomics.

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Authors: Yang Xu, Felix Bruns, Elizabeth Gonzalez, Shadi Traboulsi, Klaus Mott, Attila Bilgic

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Emergence of smartphones brings to live the concept of converged devices with the availability of web amenities. Such trend also challenges the mobile devices manufactures and service providers in many aspects, such as security on mobile phones, complex and long time design flow, as well as higher development cost. Among these aspects, security on mobile phones is getting more and more attention. Microkernel based virtualization technology will play a critical role in addressing these challenges and meeting mobile market needs and preferences, since virtualization provides essential isolation for security reasons and it allows multiple operating systems to run on one processor accelerating development and cutting development cost. However, virtualization benefits do not come for free. As an additional software layer, it adds some inevitable virtualization overhead to the system, which may decrease the system performance. In this paper we evaluate and analyze the virtualization performance cost of L4 microkernel based virtualization on a competitive mobile phone by comparing the L4Linux, a para-virtualized Linux on top of L4 microkernel, with the native Linux performance using lmbench and a set of typical mobile phone applications.

Keywords: L4 microkernel, virtualization overhead, mobilephone.

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Authors: Yuzman Yusoff, Siti Noor Harun, Noor Shelida Sallehand Tan Kong Yew

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This paper presents the design and characterization of analog readout interface circuits for ion sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET) and ion selective electrode (ISE) based sensor. These interface circuits are implemented using MIMOS’s 0.35um CMOS technology and experimentally characterized under 24-leads QFN package. The characterization evaluates the circuit’s functionality, output sensitivity and output linearity. Commercial sensors for both ISFET and ISE are employed together with glass reference electrode during testing. The test result shows that the designed interface circuits manage to readout signals produced by both sensors with measured sensitivity of ISFET and ISE sensor are 54mV/pH and 62mV/decade, respectively. The characterized output linearity for both circuits achieves above 0.999 rsquare. The readout also has demonstrated reliable operation by passing all qualifications in reliability test plan.

Keywords: Readout interface circuit (ROIC), analog interface circuit, ion sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET), ion selective electrode (ISE), and ion sensor electronics.

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Authors: Yuzman Yusoff, Siti Noor Harun, Noor Shelida Sallehand, Tan Kong Yew

Abstract:

This paper presents the design and characterization of analog readout interface circuits for ion sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET) and ion selective electrode (ISE) based sensor. These interface circuits are implemented using MIMOS’s 0.35um CMOS technology and experimentally characterized under 24-leads QFN package. The characterization evaluates the circuit’s functionality, output sensitivity and output linearity. Commercial sensors for both ISFET and ISE are employed together with glass reference electrode during testing. The test result shows that the designed interface circuits manage to readout signals produced by both sensors with measured sensitivity of ISFET and ISE sensor are 54mV/pH and 62mV/decade, respectively. The characterized output linearity for both circuits achieves above 0.999 Rsquare. The readout also has demonstrated reliable operation by passing all qualifications in reliability test plan.

Keywords: Readout interface circuit (ROIC), analog interface circuit, ion sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET), ion selective electrode (ISE), ion sensor electronics.

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Authors: Hossam Shalabi, George Hadjisophocleous

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The Canadian Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) use some portions of NUREG/CR-6850 in carrying out Fire Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). An assessment for the applicability of NUREG/CR-6850 to CANDU reactors was performed and a CANDU Fire PRA was introduced. There are 19 operating CANDU reactors in Canada at five sites (Bruce A, Bruce B, Darlington, Pickering and Point Lepreau). A fire load density survey was done for all Fire Safe Shutdown Analysis (FSSA) fire zones in all CANDU sites in Canada. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 557 proposes that a fire load survey must be conducted by either the weighing method or the inventory method or a combination of both. The combination method results in the most accurate values for fire loads. An updated CANDU Fire PRA model is demonstrated in this paper that includes the fuel survey in all Canadian CANDU stations. A qualitative screening step for the CANDU fire PRA is illustrated in this paper to include any fire events that can damage any part of the emergency power supply in addition to FSSA cables.

Keywords: Fire safety, CANDU, nuclear, fuel densities, FDS, qualitative analysis, fire probabilistic risk assessment.

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Authors: Kaveh Mollazade, Hojat Ahmadi, Mahmoud Omid, Reza Alimardani

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Recently, the issue of machine condition monitoring and fault diagnosis as a part of maintenance system became global due to the potential advantages to be gained from reduced maintenance costs, improved productivity and increased machine availability. The aim of this work is to investigate the effectiveness of a new fault diagnosis method based on power spectral density (PSD) of vibration signals in combination with decision trees and fuzzy inference system (FIS). To this end, a series of studies was conducted on an external gear hydraulic pump. After a test under normal condition, a number of different machine defect conditions were introduced for three working levels of pump speed (1000, 1500, and 2000 rpm), corresponding to (i) Journal-bearing with inner face wear (BIFW), (ii) Gear with tooth face wear (GTFW), and (iii) Journal-bearing with inner face wear plus Gear with tooth face wear (B&GW). The features of PSD values of vibration signal were extracted using descriptive statistical parameters. J48 algorithm is used as a feature selection procedure to select pertinent features from data set. The output of J48 algorithm was employed to produce the crisp if-then rule and membership function sets. The structure of FIS classifier was then defined based on the crisp sets. In order to evaluate the proposed PSD-J48-FIS model, the data sets obtained from vibration signals of the pump were used. Results showed that the total classification accuracy for 1000, 1500, and 2000 rpm conditions were 96.42%, 100%, and 96.42% respectively. The results indicate that the combined PSD-J48-FIS model has the potential for fault diagnosis of hydraulic pumps.

Keywords: Power Spectral Density, Machine ConditionMonitoring, Hydraulic Pump, Fuzzy Logic.

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Authors: Rifah Ediati, Jajang

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The quality of Ribbed Smoked Sheets (RSS) primarily based on color, dryness, and the presence or absence of fungus and bubbles. This quality is strongly influenced by the drying and fumigation process namely smoking process. Smoking that is held in high temperature long time will result scorched dark brown sheets, whereas if the temperature is too low or slow drying rate would resulted in less mature sheets and growth of fungus. Therefore need to find the time and temperature for optimum quality of sheets. Enhance, unmonitored heat and mass transfer during smoking process lead to high losses of energy balance. This research aims to generate simple empirical mathematical model describing the effect of smoking time and temperature to RSS quality of color, water content, fungus and bubbles. The second goal of study was to analyze energy balance during smoking process. Experimental study was conducted by measuring temperature, residence time and quality parameters of 16 sheets sample in smoking rooms. Data for energy consumption balance such as mass of fuel wood, mass of sheets being smoked, construction temperature, ambient temperature and relative humidity were taken directly along the smoking process. It was found that mathematical model correlating smoking temperature and time with color is Color = -169 - 0.184 T4 - 0.193 T3 - 0.160 0.405 T1 + T2 + 0.388 t1 +3.11 t2 + 3.92t3 + 0.215 t4 with R square 50.8% and with moisture is Moisture = -1.40-0.00123 T4 + 0.00032 T3 + 0.00260 T2 - 0.00292 T1 - 0.0105 t1 + 0.0290 t2 + 0.0452 t3 + 0.00061 t4 with R square of 49.9%. Smoking room energy analysis found useful energy was 27.8%. The energy stored in the material construction 7.3%. Lost of energy in conversion of wood combustion, ventilation and others were 16.6%. The energy flowed out through the contact of material construction with the ambient air was found to be the highest contribution to energy losses, it reached 48.3%.

Keywords: RSS quality, temperature, time, smoking room, energy

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Authors: M. Sivakumar, D. Chamundeeswari

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Glycosmis pentaphylla is one of the medicinally important plants belonging to the family Rutaceae, commonly known as “Anam or Panal” in Tamil. Traditionally, leaves are useful in fever, hepatopathy, eczema, skin disease, helminthiasis, wounds, and erysipelas. The fruits are sweet and are useful in vitiated conditions of vata, kapha, cough, and bronchitis. The roots are good for facial inflammations, rheumatism, jaundice, and anemia. The preliminary phytochemical investigations indicated the presence of alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, tannins, sugar, glycoside, and phenolic compounds. In the present study, the root part of Glycosmis pentaphylla was used, and the root was collected from Western Ghats of South India. The root was sun/shade dried and pulverized to powder in a mechanical grinder. The powder was successively extracted with various solvents, and the ethyl acetate extract of Glycosmis pentaphylla has been subjected to the GC-MS analysis. Amongst the 46 chemical constituents identified from this plant, three major phytoconstituents were reported for the first time. Marmesin, a furanocumarin compound with the chemical structure 7H-Furo (3,2-G) (1)Benzopyran-7-one,2,3–dihydro–2 - (1-Hydroxy-1methylethyl)-(s) is one of the three compounds identified for the first time at the concentration of 11-60% in ethyl acetate extract of Glycosmis pentaphylla. Others include, Beta.-Fagarine (4.71%) and Paverine (13.08%).

Keywords: Ethyl acetate extract, Glycosmis pentaphylla, GC-MS analysis, phytochemicals.

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Authors: Z. Asadi-Shekari, M. Moeinaddini, M. Zaly Shah, A. Hamzah

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Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS) is a measure for evaluating street conditions for cyclists. Currently, various methods are proposed for BLOS. These analytical methods however have some drawbacks: they usually assume cyclists as users that can share street facilities with motorized vehicles, it is not easy to link them to design process and they are not easy to follow. In addition, they only support a narrow range of cycling facilities and may not be applicable for all situations. Along this, the current paper introduces various effective design factors for bicycle-friendly streets. This study considers cyclists as users of streets who have special needs and facilities. Therefore, the key factors that influence BLOS based on different cycling facilities that are proposed by developed guidelines and literature are identified. The combination of these factors presents a complete set of effective design factors for bicycle-friendly streets. In addition, the weight of each factor in existing BLOS models is estimated and these effective factors are ranked based on these weights. These factors and their weights can be used in further studies to propose special bicycle-friendly street design model.

Keywords: Bicycle level of service, bicycle-friendly streets, cycling facilities, rating system, urban streets.

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Authors: Shoujia Fang, Guoqing Ding, Xin Chen

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The quality of press-fit assembly is closely related to reliability and safety of product. The paper proposed a keypoint detection method based on convolutional neural network to improve the accuracy of keypoint detection in press-fit curve. It would provide an auxiliary basis for judging quality of press-fit assembly. The press-fit curve is a curve of press-fit force and displacement. Both force data and distance data are time-series data. Therefore, one-dimensional convolutional neural network is used to process the press-fit curve. After the obtained press-fit data is filtered, the multi-layer one-dimensional convolutional neural network is used to perform the automatic learning of press-fit curve features, and then sent to the multi-layer perceptron to finally output keypoint of the curve. We used the data of press-fit assembly equipment in the actual production process to train CNN model, and we used different data from the same equipment to evaluate the performance of detection. Compared with the existing research result, the performance of detection was significantly improved. This method can provide a reliable basis for the judgment of press-fit quality.

Keywords: Keypoint detection, curve feature, convolutional neural network, press-fit assembly.

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Authors: S. Zolghadri, H. Yousefnia, A. R. Jalilian

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Bone metastases are observed in a wide range of cancers leading to intolerable pain. While early detection can help the physicians in the decision of the type of treatment, various radiopharmaceuticals using phosphonates like ⁶⁸Ga-EDTMP have been developed. In this work, due to the importance of absorbed dose, human absorbed dose of this new agent was calculated for the first time based on biodistribution data in Wild-type rats. ⁶⁸Ga was obtained from ⁶⁸Ge/⁶⁸Ga generator with radionuclidic purity and radiochemical purity of higher than 99%. The radiolabeled complex was prepared in the optimized conditions. Radiochemical purity of the radiolabeled complex was checked by instant thin layer chromatography (ITLC) method using Whatman No. 2 paper and saline. The results indicated the radiochemical purity of higher than 99%. The radiolabelled complex was injected into the Wild-type rats and its biodistribution was studied up to 120 min. As expected, major accumulation was observed in the bone. Absorbed dose of each human organ was calculated based on biodistribution in the rats using RADAR method. Bone surface and bone marrow with 0.112 and 0.053 mSv/MBq, respectively, received the highest absorbed dose. According to these results, the radiolabeled complex is a suitable and safe option for PET bone imaging.

Keywords: Absorbed dose, EDTMP, 68Ga, rats.

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Authors: M. Arabghahestani, A. Darwish Ahmad, N. K. Akafuah

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In this work, small-scale experiments of fire whirl were conducted to study the spinning fire phenomenon and to gain comprehensive understandings of fire tornadoes and the factors that affect their behavior. High speed imaging was used to track the flames at both temporal and spatial scales. This allowed us to better understand the role of the near-ground height in creating a boundary layer flow profile that, in turn contributes to formation of vortices around the fire, and consequent fire whirls. Based on the results obtained from these observations, we were able to spot the differences in the fuel burning rate of the fire itself as a function of a newly defined specific non-dimensional near-ground height. Based on our observations, there is a cutoff non-dimensional height, beyond which a normal fire can be turned into a fire whirl. Additionally, the results showed that the fire burning rate decreases by moving the fire to a height higher than the ground level. These effects were justified by the interactions between vortices formed by, the back pressure and the boundary layer velocity profile, and the vortices generated by the fire itself.

Keywords: Boundary layer profile, fire whirls, near-ground height, vortex interactions.

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Authors: G. V. Novikov, V. S. Sivozhelezov, S. S. Kolesnikov, K. V. Shaitan

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The study reports about the influence of binding of orthosteric ligands as well as point mutations on the conformational dynamics of β-2-adrenoreceptor. Using molecular dynamics simulation we found that there was a little fraction of active states of the receptor in its apo (ligand free) ensemble corresponded to its constitutive activity. Analysis of MD trajectories indicated that such spontaneous activation of the receptor is accompanied by the motion in intracellular part of its alpha-helices. Thus receptor’s constitutive activity directly results from its conformational dynamics. On the other hand the binding of a full agonist resulted in a significant shift of the initial equilibrium towards its active state. Finally, the binding of the inverse agonist stabilized the receptor in its inactive state. It is likely that the binding of inverse agonists might be a universal way of constitutive activity inhibition in vivo. Our results indicate that ligand binding redistribute pre-existing conformational degrees of freedom (in accordance to the Monod-Wyman-Changeux-Model) of the receptor rather than cause induced fit in it. Therefore, the ensemble of biologically relevant receptor conformations is encoded in its spatial structure, and individual conformations from that ensemble might be used by the cell in conformity with the physiological behavior.

Keywords: Seven-transmembrane receptors, constitutive activity, activation, x-ray crystallography, principal component analysis, molecular dynamics simulation.

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Authors: Souvik Das, Janak Lal, Arthita Dey, Goutam Mukhopadhyay, Sandip Bhattacharya

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Telescopic Front Fork (TFF) used in two wheelers, mainly motorcycle, is made from high strength steel, and is manufactured by high frequency induction welding process wherein hot rolled and pickled coils are used as input raw material for rolling of hollow tubes followed by heat treatment, surface treatment, cold drawing, tempering, etc. The final application demands superior quality TFF tubes w.r.t. surface finish and dimensional tolerances. This paper presents the investigation of two different types of failure of fork during operation. The investigation consists of visual inspection, chemical analysis, characterization of microstructure, and energy dispersive spectroscopy. In this paper, comprehensive investigations of two failed tube samples were investigated. In case of Sample #1, the result revealed that there was a pre-existing crack, known as hook crack, which leads to the cracking of the tube. Metallographic examination exhibited that during field operation the pre-existing hook crack was surfaced out leading to crack in the pipe. In case of Sample #2, presence of internal oxidation with decarburised grains inside the material indicates origin of the defect from slab stage.

Keywords: Telescopic front fork, induction welding, hook crack, internal oxidation.

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Authors: Duangkamol Thitivesa, Abigail Melad Essien

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This paper explores the use of project work in a content-based instruction in a Rajabhat University, a teacher college, where student teachers are instructed to perform teaching roles mainly in basic education level. Its aim is to link theory to practice, and to help language teachers maximize the full potential of project work for genuine communication and give real meaning to writing activity. Two research questions are formulated to guide this study: a) What is the academic achievement of the students- writing skill against the 70% attainment target after the use of project to enhance the skill? and b) To what degree is the development of the students- writing skills during the course of project to enhance the skill? The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of achievement test, student writing works, and project diary. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and t-test. Project diary serves as students- record of the language acquired during the project. List of structures and vocabulary noted in the diary has shown students- ability to attend to, recognize, and focus on meaningful patterns of language forms.

Keywords: EFL classroom, Project-Based Learning, project work, writing skill.

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Authors: Ammar Anwar Khan, Nissar R. Wani, Nazar Malik, Abdulrehman Al-Arainy, and Saad Alghuwainem

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Power cables are vulnerable to failure due to aging or defects that occur with the passage of time under continuous operation and loading stresses. PD detection and characterization provide information on the location, nature, form and extent of the degradation. As a result, PD monitoring has become an important part of condition based maintenance (CBM) program among power utilities. Online partial discharge (PD) localization of defect sources in power cable system is possible using the time of flight method. The information regarding the time difference between the main and reflected pulses and cable length can help in locating the partial discharge source along the cable length. However, if the length of the cable is not known and the defect source is located at the extreme ends of the cable or in the middle of the cable, then double ended measurement is required to indicate the location of PD source. Use of multiple sensors can also help in discriminating the cable PD or local/ external PD. This paper presents the experience and results from online partial discharge measurements conducted in the laboratory and the challenges in partial discharge source localization.

Keywords: Power cables, partial discharge localization, HFCT, condition based monitoring.

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Authors: Sokkhey Phauk, Takeo Okazaki

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The challenging task in educational institutions is to maximize the high performance of students and minimize the failure rate of poor-performing students. An effective method to leverage this task is to know student learning patterns with highly influencing factors and get an early prediction of student learning outcomes at the timely stage for setting up policies for improvement. Educational data mining (EDM) is an emerging disciplinary field of data mining, statistics, and machine learning concerned with extracting useful knowledge and information for the sake of improvement and development in the education environment. The study is of this work is to propose techniques in EDM and integrate it into a web-based system for predicting poor-performing students. A comparative study of prediction models is conducted. Subsequently, high performing models are developed to get higher performance. The hybrid random forest (Hybrid RF) produces the most successful classification. For the context of intervention and improving the learning outcomes, a feature selection method MICHI, which is the combination of mutual information (MI) and chi-square (CHI) algorithms based on the ranked feature scores, is introduced to select a dominant feature set that improves the performance of prediction and uses the obtained dominant set as information for intervention. By using the proposed techniques of EDM, an academic performance prediction system (APPS) is subsequently developed for educational stockholders to get an early prediction of student learning outcomes for timely intervention. Experimental outcomes and evaluation surveys report the effectiveness and usefulness of the developed system. The system is used to help educational stakeholders and related individuals for intervening and improving student performance.

Keywords: Academic performance prediction system, prediction model, educational data mining, dominant factors, feature selection methods, student performance.

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Authors: Klementina Puto, Ermelinda Nexhipi, Evi Llaka

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Dairy by-products are a fairly good environment for microorganisms due to their composition for their growth. Microbial populations have a significant impact in the production of cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. in terms of their organoleptic quality and at the same time some also cause their breakdown. In this paper, the microbiological contamination of soft cheese, butter and yogurt produced in the country (domestic) and imported is assessed, as an indicator of hygiene with impact on public health. The study was extended during September 2018-June 2019 and was divided into three periods, September-December, January-March, and April-June. During this study, a total of 120 samples were analyzed, of which 60 samples of cheese and butter locally produced, and 60 samples of imported soft cheese and butter productions. The microbial indicators analyzed are Staphylococcus aureus and E. coli. Analyzes have been conducted at the Food Safety Laboratory (FSIV) in Tirana in accordance with EU Regulation 2073/2005. Sampling was performed according to the specific international standards for these products (ISO 6887 and ISO 8261). Sampling and transport of samples were done under sterile conditions. Also, coding of samples was done to preserve the anonymity of subjects. After the analysis, the country's soft cheese products compared to imports were more contaminated with S. aureus and E. coli. Meanwhile, the imported butter samples that were analyzed, resulted within norms compared to domestic ones. Based on the results, it was concluded that the microbial quality of samples of cheese, butter and yogurt analyzed remains a real problem for hygiene in Albania. The study will also serve business operators in Albania to improve their work to ensure good hygiene on the basis of the HACCP plan and to provide a guarantee of consumer health.

Keywords: Consumer, health, dairy, by-products, microbial.

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Authors: R. A. Harun, N. M. Ishak, N. Yusoff, S. Amat

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This quantitative research is aimed to identify the level of leadership quality and emotional intelligence for members of Students' Representatives Council (SRC) of Malaysian Public Universities (MPU). The variables include the leadership quality and emotional quotient (EQ). 238 SRC members in MPU were selected as subjects of the study. Data were collected using two instruments i.e. Malaysian Emotional Quotient Inventory (MEQI) and Ayu-Noriah Leadership Audit Trail Inventory (Ayu-Noriah, LATI). Data were analyzed using descriptive (mean and percentage). Research findings showed that the subjects scored highly in four out of five EQ domains (Self-Regulations, Self-Motivation, Empathy and Social Skills). However, the subjects scored medium to low in Self-Awareness. Analysis on the sub domains (a total of 28 sub domains) showed that the subjects scored high in 17 sub domains for EQ, whilst another 11 were at medium level. The overall analysis indicates that the subjects have high level of EQ. Findings on their leadership qualities showed that they obtained high scores in all seven factors that were measured i.e. Strategy and Leadership Model, Recruit, Review Performance and Honor, Deploy Strategically, Developing, Engage and Retain and Built HR Capabilities/Line Ownership. The overall score for leadership qualities was found to be high.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, leadership, students.

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Authors: Nesapriya. P., S. Rajalaxmi

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This paper is based on the bridgeless single-phase Ac–Dc Power Factor Correction (PFC) converters with Fuzzy Logic Controller. High frequency isolated Cuk converters are used as a modular dc-dc converter in Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) of operation of Power Factor Correction. The aim of this paper is to simplify the program complexity of the controller by reducing the number of fuzzy sets of the Membership Functions (MFs) and to improve the efficiency and to eliminate the power quality problems. The output of Fuzzy controller is compared with High frequency triangular wave to generate PWM gating signals of Cuk converter. The proposed topologies are designed to work in Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) to achieve a unity power factor and low total harmonic distortion of the input current. The Fuzzy Logic Controller gives additional advantages such as accurate result, uncertainty and imprecision and automatic control circuitry. Performance comparisons between the proposed and conventional controllers and circuits are performed based on circuit simulations.

Keywords: Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC), Bridgeless rectifier, Cuk converter, Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), Power Factor Correction, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD).

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Authors: Azadeh Maroufmashat, Sourena Sattari Khavas, Halle Bakhteeyar

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Multi-energy systems will enhance the system reliability and power quality. This paper presents an integrated approach for the design and operation of distributed energy resources (DER) systems, based on energy hub modeling. A multi-objective optimization model is developed by considering an integrated view of electricity and natural gas network to analyze the optimal design and operating condition of DER systems, by considering two conflicting objectives, namely, minimization of total cost and the minimization of environmental impact which is assessed in terms of CO2 emissions. The mathematical model considers energy demands of the site, local climate data, and utility tariff structure, as well as technical and financial characteristics of the candidate DER technologies. To provide energy demands, energy systems including photovoltaic, and co-generation systems, boiler, central power grid are considered. As an illustrative example, a hotel in Iran demonstrates potential applications of the proposed method. The results prove that increasing the satisfaction degree of environmental objective leads to increased total cost.

Keywords: Multi objective optimization, DER systems, Energy hub, Cost, CO2 emission.

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Authors: Addin Osman, Anwar Ali Yahya, Mohammed Basit Kamal

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Datasets or collections are becoming important assets by themselves and now they can be accepted as a primary intellectual output of a research. The quality and usage of the datasets depend mainly on the context under which they have been collected, processed, analyzed, validated, and interpreted. This paper aims to present a collection of program educational objectives mapped to student’s outcomes collected from self-study reports prepared by 32 engineering programs accredited by ABET. The manual mapping (classification) of this data is a notoriously tedious, time consuming process. In addition, it requires experts in the area, which are mostly not available. It has been shown the operational settings under which the collection has been produced. The collection has been cleansed, preprocessed, some features have been selected and preliminary exploratory data analysis has been performed so as to illustrate the properties and usefulness of the collection. At the end, the collection has been benchmarked using nine of the most widely used supervised multiclass classification techniques (Binary Relevance, Label Powerset, Classifier Chains, Pruned Sets, Random k-label sets, Ensemble of Classifier Chains, Ensemble of Pruned Sets, Multi-Label k-Nearest Neighbors and Back-Propagation Multi-Label Learning). The techniques have been compared to each other using five well-known measurements (Accuracy, Hamming Loss, Micro-F, Macro-F, and Macro-F). The Ensemble of Classifier Chains and Ensemble of Pruned Sets have achieved encouraging performance compared to other experimented multi-label classification methods. The Classifier Chains method has shown the worst performance. To recap, the benchmark has achieved promising results by utilizing preliminary exploratory data analysis performed on the collection, proposing new trends for research and providing a baseline for future studies.

Keywords: Benchmark collection, program educational objectives, student outcomes, ABET, Accreditation, machine learning, supervised multiclass classification, text mining.

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Authors: Andreas Theissler, Ian Dear

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In the automotive industry test drives are being conducted during the development of new vehicle models or as a part of quality assurance of series-production vehicles. The communication on the in-vehicle network, data from external sensors, or internal data from the electronic control units is recorded by automotive data loggers during the test drives. The recordings are used for fault analysis. Since the resulting data volume is tremendous, manually analysing each recording in great detail is not feasible. This paper proposes to use machine learning to support domainexperts by preventing them from contemplating irrelevant data and rather pointing them to the relevant parts in the recordings. The underlying idea is to learn the normal behaviour from available recordings, i.e. a training set, and then to autonomously detect unexpected deviations and report them as anomalies. The one-class support vector machine “support vector data description” is utilised to calculate distances of feature vectors. SVDDSUBSEQ is proposed as a novel approach, allowing to classify subsequences in multivariate time series data. The approach allows to detect unexpected faults without modelling effort as is shown with experimental results on recordings from test drives.

Keywords: Anomaly detection, fault detection, test drive analysis, machine learning.

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Authors: Mafarja Majdi, Salwani Abdullah, Najmeh S. Jaddi

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One of the global combinatorial optimization problems in machine learning is feature selection. It concerned with removing the irrelevant, noisy, and redundant data, along with keeping the original meaning of the original data. Attribute reduction in rough set theory is an important feature selection method. Since attribute reduction is an NP-hard problem, it is necessary to investigate fast and effective approximate algorithms. In this paper, we proposed two feature selection mechanisms based on memetic algorithms (MAs) which combine the genetic algorithm with a fuzzy record to record travel algorithm and a fuzzy controlled great deluge algorithm, to identify a good balance between local search and genetic search. In order to verify the proposed approaches, numerical experiments are carried out on thirteen datasets. The results show that the MAs approaches are efficient in solving attribute reduction problems when compared with other meta-heuristic approaches.

Keywords: Rough Set Theory, Attribute Reduction, Fuzzy Logic, Memetic Algorithms, Record to Record Algorithm, Great Deluge Algorithm.

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Authors: P. D. Pastuszak

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The present work is devoted to thermographic studies of curved composite panels (unidirectional GFRP) with subsurface defects. Various artificial defects, created by inserting PTFE stripe between individual layers of a laminate during manufacturing stage are studied. The analysis is conducted both with the use finite element method and experiments. To simulate transient heat transfer in 3D model with embedded various defect sizes, the ANSYS package is used. Pulsed Thermography combined with optical excitation source provides good results for flat surfaces. Composite structures are mostly used in complex components, e.g., pipes, corners and stiffeners. Local decrease of mechanical properties in these regions can have significant influence on strength decrease of the entire structure. Application of active procedures of thermography to defect detection and evaluation in this type of elements seems to be more appropriate that other NDT techniques. Nevertheless, there are various uncertainties connected with correct interpretation of acquired data. In this paper, important factors concerning Infrared Thermography measurements of curved surfaces in the form of cylindrical panels are considered. In addition, temperature effects on the surface resulting from complex geometry and embedded and real defect are also presented.

Keywords: Active thermography, finite element analysis, composite, curved structures, defects.

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Authors: Jude A. Mbanasor, Chigozirim N. Onwusiribe

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The enigma climate change is no longer an illusion but a reality. In the recent years, the Nigeria climate has changed and the changes are shown by the changing patterns of rainfall, the sunshine, increasing level carbon and nitrous emission as well as deforestation. This study analyzed the behavioural response of bee keepers to variations in the climate and the adaptation techniques developed in response to the climate variation. Beekeeping is a viable economic activity for the alleviation of poverty as the products include honey, wax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, venom, queens, bees and their larvae and are all marketable. The study adopted the multistage sampling technique to select 120 beekeepers from the five states of Southeast Nigeria. Well-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were adopted to collect the required data. Statistical tools like the Principal component analysis, data envelopment models, graphs, and charts were used for the data analysis. Changing patterns of rainfall and sunshine with the increasing rate of deforestation had a negative effect on the habitat of the bees. The bee keepers have adopted the Kenya Top bar and Langstroth hives and they establish the bee hives on fallow farmland close to the cultivated communal farms with more flowering crops.

Keywords: Climate, smart, smallholder, farmer, socioeconomic, response.

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Authors: A. Seham A. Elgamal, Reham H. Saleh

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Chronic kidney disease became a global health problem worldwide. Therefore, in order to maintain a patient’s life and improve the survival rate, hemodialysis is essential to replace the function of their kidneys. However, those patients may complain about multiple physical and psychological stressors due to the nature of the disease and the need for frequent hemodialysis sessions. So, those patients use various strategies to cope with the stressors related to their disease and the treatment procedures. Cross-sectional, descriptive study was carried out to achieve the aim of the study. A convenient sample including all adult patients was recruited for this study. Hemodialysis Stressors Scale (HSS) and Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS) were used to investigate the stressors and coping strategies of 89 hemodialysis patients, at a governmental hospital (King Khalid Hospital-Jeddah). Results of the study revealed that 50.7% experienced physiological stressors and 38% experienced psychosocial stressors. Also, optimistic, fatalistic, and supportive coping strategies were the most common coping strategies used by the patients with mean scores (2.88 + 0.75, 2.87 + 0.75, and 1.82 + 0.71), respectively. In conclusion, being familiar with the types of stressors and the effective coping strategies of hemodialysis patients and their families are important in order to enhance their adaptation with chronic kidney diseases.

Keywords: Coping strategies, hemodialysis, physiological stressors, psychological stressors.

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Authors: Şt. Creangâ, V. Maciuc, A.V. Bâlteanu, S.S. Chelmu

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The paper presents a part of the results obtained in a complex research project on Romanian Grey Steppe breed, owner of some remarkable qualities such as hardiness, longevity, adaptability, special resistance to ban weather and diseases and included in the genetic fund (G.D. no. 822/2008.) from Romania. Following the researches effectuated, we identified alleles of six loci, codifying the six types of major milk proteins: alpha-casein S1 (α S1-cz); beta-casein (β-cz); kappa-casein (K-cz); beta-lactoglobulin (β-lg); alpha-lactalbumin (α-la) and alpha-casein S2 (α S2-cz). In system αS1-cz allele αs1-Cn B has the highest frequency (0.700), in system β-cz allele β-Cn A2 ( 0.550 ), in system K-cz allele k-CnA2 ( 0.583 ) and heterozygote genotype AB ( 0.416 ) and BB (0.375), in system β-lg allele β-lgA1 has the highest frequency (0.542 ) and heterozygote genotype AB ( 0.500 ), in system α-la there is monomorphism for allele α-la B and similarly in system αS2-cz for allele αs2-Cn A. The milk analysis by the isoelectric focalization technique (I.E.F.) allowed the identification of a new allele for locus αS1-casein, for two of the individuals under analysis, namely allele called αS1-casein IRV. When experiments were repeated, we noticed that this is not a proteolysis band and it really was a new allele that has not been registered in the specialized literature so far. We identified two heterozygote individuals, carriers of this allele, namely: BIRV and CIRV. This discovery is extremely important if focus is laid on the national genetic patrimony.

Keywords: allele, breed, genetic preservation, lactoproteins, Romanian Grey Steppe

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Authors: Muritala Babatunde Hassan

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In the contemporary global political economy, foreign direct investment (FDI) is gaining currency on daily basis. Notably, the end of the Cold War has brought about the dominance of neoliberal ideology with its mantra of private-sector-led economy. As such, nation-states now see FDI attraction as an important element in their approach to national development. Governments and policy makers are preoccupying themselves with unraveling the best strategies to not only attract more FDI but also to attain the desired socio-economic development status. In Nigeria, the perceived development potentials of FDI have brought about aggressive hunt for foreign investors, most especially since transition to civilian rule in May 1999. Series of liberal and market oriented strategies are being adopted not only to attract foreign investors but largely to stimulate private sector participation in the economy. It is on this premise that this study interrogates the politics of FDI attraction for domestic development in Nigeria between 1999 and 2014, with the ultimate aim of examining the nexus between regime type and the ability of a state to attract and benefit from FDI. Building its analysis within the framework of institutional utilitarianism, the study posits that the essential FDI strategies for achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of Nigerians are political not economic. Both content analysis and descriptive survey methodology were employed in carrying out the study. Content analysis involves desk review of literatures that culminated in the development of the study’s conceptual and theoretical framework of analysis. The study finds no significant relationship between transition to democracy and FDI inflows in Nigeria, as most of the attracted investments during the period of the study were market and resource seeking as was the case during the military regime, thereby contributing minimally to the socio-economic development of the country. It is also found that the country placed much emphasis on liberalization and incentives for FDI attraction at the neglect of improving the domestic investment environment. Consequently, poor state of infrastructure, weak institutional capability and insecurity were identified as the major factors seriously hindering the success of Nigeria in exploiting FDI for domestic development. Given the reality of the currency of FDI as a vector of economic globalization and that Nigeria is trailing the line of private-sector-led approach to development, it is recommended that emphasis should be placed on those measures aimed at improving the infrastructural facilities, building solid institutional framework, enhancing skill and technological transfer and coordinating FDI promotion activities by different agencies and at different levels of government.

Keywords: Foreign capital, politics, socio-economic development, FDI attraction strategies, Redemocratization.

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