Search results for: Model of community management

Authors: F. Stazi, C. Di Perna, C. Filiaci, A. Stazi

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Passive systems were born with the purpose of the greatest exploitation of solar energy in cold climates and high altitudes. They spread themselves until the 80-s all over the world without any attention to the specific climate and the summer behavior; this caused the deactivation of the systems due to a series of problems connected to the summer overheating, the complex management and the rising of the dust. Until today the European regulation limits only the winter consumptions without any attention to the summer behavior but, the recent European EN 15251 underlines the relevance of the indoor comfort, and the necessity of the analytic studies validation by monitoring case studies. In the porpose paper we demonstrate that the solar wall is an efficient system both from thermal comfort and energy saving point of view and it is the most suitable for our temperate climates because it can be used as a passive cooling sistem too. In particular the paper present an experimental and numerical analisys carried out on a case study with nine different solar passive systems in Ancona, Italy. We carried out a detailed study of the lodging provided by the solar wall by the monitoring and the evaluation of the indoor conditions. Analyzing the monitored data, on the base of recognized models of comfort (ISO, ASHRAE, Givoni-s BBCC), is emerged that the solar wall has an optimal behavior in the middle seasons. In winter phase this passive system gives more advantages in terms of energy consumptions than the other systems, because it gives greater heat gain and therefore smaller consumptions. In summer, when outside air temperature return in the mean seasonal value, the indoor comfort is optimal thanks to an efficient transversal ventilation activated from the same wall.

Keywords: Building envelope, energy saving, passive solarwall, thermal comfort.

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Authors: Francis Bukola Dada, Samuel Ojo Ajayi, Babatunde Sunday Ewulo, Kehinde Oseni Saani

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A key element in the sustainability of the soil-plant relationship in crop yield and performance is the soil's capacity to support tree crops prior to establishment. With the intention of determining the suitability and limitations of the soils of the locations, the northern and southern portions of Akure, a rainforest in Nigeria, were chosen for the suitability evaluation of land for tree crops. In the study area, 16 pedons were established with the help of the Global Positioning System (GPS), the locations were georeferenced and samples were taken from the pedons. The samples were subjected to standard physical and chemical testing. The findings revealed that soils in the research locations were deep to extremely deep, with pH ranging from highly acidic to slightly acidic (4.94 to 6.71). and that sand predominated. The soils had low levels of organic carbon, effective cation exchange capacity (ECEC), total nitrogen, and available phosphorus, whereas exchangeable cations were evaluated as low to moderate. The suitability result indicated that only Pedon 2 and Pedon 14 are currently highly suitable (S1) for the production of oil palms, while others ranged from moderately suitable to marginally suitable. Pedons 4, 12, and 16 were not suitable (N1), respectively, but other Pedons were moderately suitable (S2) and marginally suitable (S3) for the cultivation of cocoa. None of the study areas are currently highly suitable for the production of oil palms. The poor soil texture and low fertility status were the two main drawbacks found. Finally, sound management practices and soil conservation are essential for fertility sustainability.

Keywords: Cashew, cocoa, land evaluation, oil palm, soil fertility suitability.

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Authors: Ana Paula P. dos Santos, Claudia R. Andrade, Edson L. Zaparoli

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Gas turbine air inlet cooling is a useful method for increasing output for regions where significant power demand and highest electricity prices occur during the warm months. Inlet air cooling increases the power output by taking advantage of the gas turbine-s feature of higher mass flow rate when the compressor inlet temperature decreases. Different methods are available for reducing gas turbine inlet temperature. There are two basic systems currently available for inlet cooling. The first and most cost-effective system is evaporative cooling. Evaporative coolers make use of the evaporation of water to reduce the gas turbine-s inlet air temperature. The second system employs various ways to chill the inlet air. In this method, the cooling medium flows through a heat exchanger located in the inlet duct to remove heat from the inlet air. However, the evaporative cooling is limited by wet-bulb temperature while the chilling can cool the inlet air to temperatures that are lower than the wet bulb temperature. In the present work, a thermodynamic model of a gas turbine is built to calculate heat rate, power output and thermal efficiency at different inlet air temperature conditions. Computational results are compared with ISO conditions herein called "base-case". Therefore, the two cooling methods are implemented and solved for different inlet conditions (inlet temperature and relative humidity). Evaporative cooler and absorption chiller systems results show that when the ambient temperature is extremely high with low relative humidity (requiring a large temperature reduction) the chiller is the more suitable cooling solution. The net increment in the power output as a function of the temperature decrease for each cooling method is also obtained.

Keywords: Absorption chiller, evaporative cooling, gas turbine, turbine inlet cooling.

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Authors: Paweł Żur, Alicja Żur, Andrzej Baier

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Modal analysis is a crucial tool in the field of engineering for understanding the dynamic behavior of structures. In this study, numerical modal analysis was conducted on a multi-material 3D-printed composite bushing, which comprised a polylactic acid (PLA) outer shell and a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) flexible filling. The objective was to investigate the modal characteristics of the bushing and assess its potential for practical applications. The analysis involved the development of a finite element model of the bushing, which was subsequently subjected to modal analysis techniques. Natural frequencies, mode shapes, and damping ratios were determined to identify the dominant vibration modes and their corresponding responses. The numerical modal analysis provided valuable insights into the dynamic behavior of the bushing, enabling a comprehensive understanding of its structural integrity and performance. Furthermore, the study expanded its scope by investigating the entire shaft mounting of a small electric car, incorporating the 3D-printed composite bushing. The shaft mounting system was subjected to numerical modal analysis to evaluate its dynamic characteristics and potential vibrational issues. The results of the modal analysis highlighted the effectiveness of the 3D-printed composite bushing in minimizing vibrations and optimizing the performance of the shaft mounting system. The findings contribute to the broader field of composite material applications in automotive engineering and provide valuable insights for the design and optimization of similar components.

Keywords: 3D printing, composite bushing, modal analysis, multi-material.

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Authors: Wiem Daoud Ben Amor, Luis Martínez López, Jr., Hela Moalla Frikha

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Most of the multi-criteria group decision making (MCGDM) problems dealing with qualitative criteria require consideration of the large background of expert information. It is common that experts have different degrees of knowledge for giving their alternative assessments according to criteria. So, it seems logical that they use different evaluation scales to express their judgment, i.e., multi granular linguistic scales. In this context, we propose the extension of the classical additive ratio assessment (ARAS) method to the case of a hierarchical linguistics term for managing multi granular linguistic scales in uncertain context where uncertainty is modeled by means in linguistic information. The proposed approach is called the extended hierarchical linguistics-ARAS method (ELH-ARAS). Within the ELH-ARAS approach, the decision maker (DMs) can diagnose the results (the ranking of the alternatives) in a decomposed style i.e., not only at one level of the hierarchy but also at the intermediate ones. Also, the developed approach allows a feedback transformation i.e., the collective final results of all experts are able to be transformed at any level of the extended linguistic hierarchy that each expert has previously used. Therefore, the ELH-ARAS technique makes it easier for decision-makers to understand the results. Finally, an MCGDM case study is given to illustrate the proposed approach.

Keywords: Additive ratio assessment, extended hierarchical linguistic, multi-criteria group decision making problems, multi granular linguistic contexts.

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Authors: Junjie Chen, Deguang Xu

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Transient simulation of the hydrogen-assisted self-ignition of propane-air mixtures were carried out in platinum-coated micro-channels from ambient cold-start conditions, using a two-dimensional model with reduced-order reaction schemes, heat conduction in the solid walls, convection and surface radiation heat transfer. The self-ignition behavior of hydrogen-propane mixed fuel is analyzed and compared with the heated feed case. Simulations indicate that hydrogen can successfully cause self-ignition of propane-air mixtures in catalytic micro-channels with a 0.2 mm gap size, eliminating the need for startup devices. The minimum hydrogen composition for propane self-ignition is found to be in the range of 0.8-2.8% (on a molar basis), and increases with increasing wall thermal conductivity, and decreasing inlet velocity or propane composition. Higher propane-air ratio results in earlier ignition. The ignition characteristics of hydrogen-assisted propane qualitatively resemble the selectively inlet feed preheating mode. Transient response of the mixed hydrogen- propane fuel reveals sequential ignition of propane followed by hydrogen. Front-end propane ignition is observed in all cases. Low wall thermal conductivities cause earlier ignition of the mixed hydrogen-propane fuel, subsequently resulting in low exit temperatures. The transient-state behavior of this micro-scale system is described, and the startup time and minimization of hydrogen usage are discussed.

Keywords: Micro-combustion, Self-ignition, Hydrogen addition, Heat transfer, Catalytic combustion, Transient simulation.

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Authors: Saeid Eshghi, Neeraj Saxena, Abdulmajeed Alsultan

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Carbon dioxide (CO₂) alongside other gas emissions in the atmosphere cause a greenhouse effect, resulting in an increase of the average temperature of the planet. Transportation vehicles are among the main contributors of CO₂ emission. Stationary vehicles with initiated motors produce more emissions than mobile ones. Intersections with traffic lights that force the vehicles to become stationary for a period of time produce more CO₂ pollution than other parts of the road. This paper focuses on analyzing the CO₂ produced by the traffic flow at Anzac Parade Road - Barker Street intersection in Sydney, Australia, before and after the implementation of Light rail transport (LRT). The data are gathered during the construction phase of the LRT by collecting the number of vehicles on each path of the intersection for 15 minutes during the evening rush hour of 1 week (6-7 pm, July 04-31, 2018) and then multiplied by 4 to calculate the flow of vehicles in 1 hour. For analyzing the data, the microscopic simulation software “VISSIM” has been used. Through the analysis, the traffic flow was processed in three stages: before and after implementation of light rail train, and one during the construction phase. Finally, the traffic results were input into another software called “EnViVer”, to calculate the amount of CO₂ during 1 h. The results showed that after the implementation of the light rail, CO₂ will drop by a minimum of 13%. This finding provides an evidence that light rail is a sustainable mode of transport.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide, emission modeling, light rail, microscopic model, traffic flow.

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Authors: Zeeshan Ahmed, Ajinkya Sarode, Pratik Basarkar, Atul Bhargav, Debjyoti Banerjee

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The use of CO₂ in oil recovery and in CO₂ capture and storage is gaining traction in recent years. These applications involve heat transfer between CO₂ and the base fluid, and hence, there arises a need to improve the thermal conductivity of CO₂ to increase the process efficiency and reduce cost. One way to improve the thermal conductivity is through nanoparticle addition in the base fluid. The nanofluid model in this study consisted of copper (Cu) nanoparticles in varying concentrations with CO₂ as a base fluid. No experimental data are available on thermal conductivity of CO₂ based nanofluid. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are an increasingly adopted tool to perform preliminary assessments of nanoparticle (NP) fluid interactions. In this study, the effect of the formation of a nanolayer (or molecular layering) at the gas-solid interface on thermal conductivity is investigated using equilibrium MD simulations by varying NP diameter and keeping the volume fraction (1.413%) of nanofluid constant to check the diameter effect of NP on the nanolayer and thermal conductivity. A dense semi-solid fluid layer was seen to be formed at the NP-gas interface, and the thickness increases with increase in particle diameter, which also moves with the NP Brownian motion. Density distribution has been done to see the effect of nanolayer, and its thickness around the NP. These findings are extremely beneficial, especially to industries employed in oil recovery as increased thermal conductivity of CO₂ will lead to enhanced oil recovery and thermal energy storage.

Keywords: Copper-CO2 nanofluid, molecular interfacial layer, thermal conductivity, molecular dynamic simulation.

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Authors: Madhu Aneja, Sapna Sharma

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The water-based bioconvection of a nanofluid containing motile gyrotactic micro-organisms over nonlinear inclined stretching sheet has been investigated. The governing nonlinear boundary layer equations of the model are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations via Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation and similarity transformations. Further, the modified set of equations with associated boundary conditions are solved using Finite Element Method. The impact of various pertinent parameters on the velocity, temperature, nanoparticles concentration, density of motile micro-organisms profiles are obtained and analyzed in details. The results show that with the increase in angle of inclination δ, velocity decreases while temperature, nanoparticles concentration, a density of motile micro-organisms increases. Additionally, the skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number, Sherwood number, density number are computed for various thermophysical parameters. It is noticed that increasing Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter leads to an increase in temperature of fluid which results in a reduction in Nusselt number. On the contrary, Sherwood number rises with an increase in Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter. The findings have been validated by comparing the results of special cases with existing studies.

Keywords: Bioconvection, inclined stretching sheet, Gyrotactic micro-organisms, Brownian motion, thermophoresis, finite element method.

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Authors: A.L. Seetharam, B.L. Udaya Simha

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The Bangalore City is facing the acute problem of pollution in the atmosphere due to the heavy increase in the traffic and developmental activities in recent years. The present study is an attempt in the direction to assess trend of the ambient air quality status of three stations, viz., AMCO Batteries Factory, Mysore Road, GRAPHITE INDIA FACTORY, KHB Industrial Area, Whitefield and Ananda Rao Circle, Gandhinagar with respect to some of the major criteria pollutants such as Total Suspended particular matter (SPM), Oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and Oxides of sulphur (SO2). The sites are representative of various kinds of growths viz., commercial, residential and industrial, prevailing in Bangalore, which are contributing to air pollution. The concentration of Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) at all locations showed a falling trend due to use of refined petrol and diesel in the recent years. The concentration of Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) showed an increasing trend but was within the permissible limits. The concentration of the Suspended particular matter (SPM) showed the mixed trend. The correlation between model and observed values is found to vary from 0.4 to 0.7 for SO2, 0.45 to 0.65 for NOx and 0.4 to 0.6 for SPM. About 80% of data is observed to fall within the error band of ±50%. Forecast test for the best fit models showed the same trend as actual values in most of the cases. However, the deviation observed in few cases could be attributed to change in quality of petro products, increase in the volume of traffic, introduction of LPG as fuel in many types of automobiles, poor condition of roads, prevailing meteorological conditions, etc.

Keywords: Bangalore, urban air pollution, time series analysis.

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Authors: Qiong He, S. Thomas Ng

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Upgrading the thermal performance of building envelope of existing residential buildings is an effective way to reduce heat gain or heat loss. Overhang device is a common solution for building envelope improvement as it can cut down solar heat gain and thereby can reduce the energy used for space cooling in summer time. Despite that, overhang can increase the demand for indoor heating in winter due to its function of lowering the solar heat gain. Obviously, overhang has different impacts on energy use in different climatic zones which have different energy demand. To evaluate the impact of overhang device on building energy performance under different climates of China, an energy analysis model is built up in a computer-based simulation program known as DesignBuilder based on the data of a typical high-rise residential building. The energy simulation results show that single overhang is able to cut down around 5% of the energy consumption of the case building in the stand-alone situation or about 2% when the building is surrounded by other buildings in regions which predominantly rely on space cooling though it has no contribution to energy reduction in cold region. In regions with cold summer and cold winter, adding overhang over windows can cut down around 4% and 1.8% energy use with and without adjoining buildings, respectively. The results indicate that overhang might not an effective shading device to reduce the energy consumption in the mixed climate or cold regions.

Keywords: Overhang, energy analysis, computer-based simulation, high-rise residential building, mutual shading, climate.

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Authors: Aya Maher

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The growing problem of youth unemployment in Egypt after the 25th January Revolution has directed the attention of some human resource experts towards considering remote employment as a partial remedy for the unemployed youth instead of the unavailable traditional jobs, a trend which will also help with the congested offices and unsolved traffic problem in Cairo and spread a flexible work culture, but despite of that, the main issue remains unresolved for these organizations to deal with the system challenges. In the past few years, in developed countries, there has been a growing trend for many companies to shift to remote employment instead of the traditional office employment for many reasons: due to the growing technological advances that helped some employees do their work from home on a part time basis, the need for achieving an employee-s work balance in the middle of unbalanced complicated life, top management focus on employee-s productivity rather their time spent at work. The objective of this paper is to study and analyze the advantages and challenges that Egypt-s labor force will be facing in their implementation of remote or virtual employment in both government and private organizations after the 25th January revolution. Therefore, the research question will be: What are the advantages and different challenges that Egyptian organizations might face in their implementation for remote employment system and how can they manage these challenges for the system to work effectively? The study is divided into six main parts: the introduction, objective and importance of the study, research problem, methodology, experience of some countries that implemented remote employment, advantages and challenges of implementing remote employment in Egypt and then the conclusion which discuses the results and recommendations of the study.

Keywords: 25th January Revolution, Egypt, Remote Employment, Telework, Work From Home (WFH).

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Authors: F. M. Hady, A. Mahdy, R. A. Mohamed, Omima A. Abo Zaid

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A numerical approach of the effectiveness of numerous parameters on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) natural convection heat and mass transfer problem of a dusty micropolar fluid in a non-Darcy porous regime is prepared in the current paper. In addition, a convective boundary condition is scrutinized into the micropolar dusty fluid model. The governing boundary layer equations are converted utilizing similarity transformations to a system of dimensionless equations to be convenient for numerical treatment. The resulting equations for fluid phase and dust phases of momentum, angular momentum, energy, and concentration with the appropriate boundary conditions are solved numerically applying the Runge-Kutta method of fourth-order. In accordance with the numerical study, it is obtained that the magnitude of the velocity of both fluid phase and particle phase reduces with an increasing magnetic parameter, the mass concentration of the dust particles, and Forchheimer number. While rises due to an increment in convective parameter and Darcy number. Also, the results refer that high values of the magnetic parameter, convective parameter, and Forchheimer number support the temperature distributions. However, deterioration occurs as the mass concentration of the dust particles and Darcy number increases. The angular velocity behavior is described by progress when studying the effect of the magnetic parameter and microrotation parameter.

Keywords: Micropolar dusty fluid, convective heating, natural convection, MHD, porous media.

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Authors: Ahmed Noor Al-Qayyim, Barlas Ozden Caglayan

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Structural failure is caused mainly by damage that often occurs on structures. Many researchers focus on to obtain very efficient tools to detect the damage in structures in the early state. In the past decades, a subject that has received considerable attention in literature is the damage detection as determined by variations in the dynamic characteristics or response of structures. The study presents a new damage identification technique. The technique detects the damage location for the incomplete structure system using output data only. The method indicates the damage based on the free vibration test data by using ‘Two Points Condensation (TPC) technique’. This method creates a set of matrices by reducing the structural system to two degrees of freedom systems. The current stiffness matrices obtain from optimization the equation of motion using the measured test data. The current stiffness matrices compare with original (undamaged) stiffness matrices. The large percentage changes in matrices’ coefficients lead to the location of the damage. TPC technique is applied to the experimental data of a simply supported steel beam model structure after inducing thickness change in one element, where two cases consider. The method detects the damage and determines its location accurately in both cases. In addition, the results illustrate these changes in stiffness matrix can be a useful tool for continuous monitoring of structural safety using ambient vibration data. Furthermore, its efficiency proves that this technique can be used also for big structures.

Keywords: Damage detection, two points–condensation, structural health monitoring, signals processing, optimization.

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Authors: M. A. Askari, M. A. Nazari, P. Perrier, Y. Payan

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Growth and remodeling of biological structures have gained lots of attention over the past decades. Determining the response of living tissues to mechanical loads is necessary for a wide range of developing fields such as prosthetics design or computerassisted surgical interventions. It is a well-known fact that biological structures are never stress-free, even when externally unloaded. The exact origin of these residual stresses is not clear, but theoretically, growth is one of the main sources. Extracting body organ’s shapes from medical imaging does not produce any information regarding the existing residual stresses in that organ. The simplest cause of such stresses is gravity since an organ grows under its influence from birth. Ignoring such residual stresses might cause erroneous results in numerical simulations. Accounting for residual stresses due to tissue growth can improve the accuracy of mechanical analysis results. This paper presents an original computational framework based on gradual growth to determine the residual stresses due to growth. To illustrate the method, we apply it to a finite element model of a healthy human face reconstructed from medical images. The distribution of residual stress in facial tissues is computed, which can overcome the effect of gravity and maintain tissues firmness. Our assumption is that tissue wrinkles caused by aging could be a consequence of decreasing residual stress and thus not counteracting gravity. Taking into account these stresses seems therefore extremely important in maxillofacial surgery. It would indeed help surgeons to estimate tissues changes after surgery.

Keywords: Finite element method, growth, residual stress, soft tissue.

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Authors: Gordana Kordić, Petra Palić

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The European countries that during the past two decades based their exchange rate regimes on currency board arrangement (CBA) are usually analysed from the perspective of corner solution choice’s stabilisation effects. There is an open discussion on the positive and negative background of a strict exchange rate regime choice, although it should be seen as part of the transition process towards the monetary union membership. The focus of the paper is on the Baltic countries that after two decades of a rigid exchange rate arrangement and strongly influenced by global crisis are finishing their path towards the euro zone. Besides the stabilising capacity, the CBA is highly vulnerable regime, with limited developing potential. The rigidity of the exchange rate (and monetary) system, despite the ensured credibility, do not leave enough (or any) space for the adjustment and/or active crisis management. Still, the Baltics are in a process of recovery, with fiscal consolidation measures combined with (painful and politically unpopular) measures of internal devaluation. Today, two of them (Estonia and Latvia) are members of euro zone, fulfilling their ultimate transition targets, but de facto exchanging one fixed regime with another. The paper analyses the challenges for the CBA in unstable environment since the fixed regimes rely on imported stability and are sensitive to external shocks. With limited monetary instruments, these countries were oriented to the fiscal policies and used a combination of internal devaluation and tax policy measures. Despite their rather quick recovery, our second goal is to analyse the long term influence that the measures had on the national economy.

Keywords: Currency Board Arrangement, internal devaluation, exchange rate regime, Great recession.

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Authors: JeongJu Kim, Heeyoon Chung, DongHo Rhee, HyungHee Cho

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There is a gap at combustor-turbine interface where leakage flow comes out to prevent hot gas ingestion into the gas turbine nozzle platform. The leakage flow protects the nozzle endwall surface from the hot gas coming from combustor exit. For controlling flow’s stream, the gap’s geometry is transformed by changing fillet radius size. During the operation, step configuration is occurred that was unintended between combustor-turbine platform interface caused by thermal expansion or mismatched assembly. In this study, CFD simulations were performed to investigate the effect of the fillet and step on heat transfer and film cooling effectiveness on the nozzle platform. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-stokes equation was solved with turbulence model, SST k-omega. With the fillet configuration, predicted film cooling effectiveness results indicated that fillet radius size influences to enhance film cooling effectiveness. Predicted film cooling effectiveness results at forward facing step configuration indicated that step height influences to enhance film cooling effectiveness. We suggested that designer change a combustor-turbine interface configuration which was varied by fillet radius size near endwall gap when there was a step at combustor-turbine interface. Gap shape was modified by increasing fillet radius size near nozzle endwall. Also, fillet radius and step height were interacted with the film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer on endwall surface.

Keywords: Gas turbine, film cooling effectiveness, endwall, fillet.

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Authors: Mohamed Fathy Heweage, Xiao Wen, Ayman Mokhtar, Ahmed Eldamarawy

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In this paper, we are interested in modeling, simulation, and measurement of the laser spot position with a quadrant detector. We enhance detection and tracking of semi-laser weapon decoding system based on microcontroller. The system receives the reflected pulse through quadrant detector and processes the laser pulses through a processing circuit, a microcontroller decoding laser pulse reflected by the target. The seeker accuracy will be enhanced by the decoding system, the laser detection time based on the receiving pulses number is reduced, a gate is used to limit the laser pulse width. The model is implemented based on Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) technique with two microcontroller units (MCU). MCU1 generates laser pulses with different codes. MCU2 decodes the laser code and locks the system at the specific code. The codes EW selected based on the two selector switches. The system is implemented and tested in Proteus ISIS software. The implementation of the full position determination circuit with the detector is produced. General system for the spot position determination was performed with the laser PRF for incident radiation and the mechanical system for adjusting system at different angles. The system test results show that the system can detect the laser code with only three received pulses based on the narrow gate signal, and good agreement between simulation and measured system performance is obtained.

Keywords: 4-quadrant detector, pulse code detection, laser guided weapons, pulse repetition frequency, ATmega 32 microcontrollers.

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Authors: Elnaz Afshari, Siamak Najarian, Naser Simforoosh, Siamak Hajizadeh Farkoush

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Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is now being widely used as a preferred choice for various types of operations. The need to detect various tactile properties, justifies the key role of tactile sensing that is currently missing in MIS. In this regard, Laparoscopy is one of the methods of minimally invasive surgery that can be used in kidney stone removal surgeries. At this moment, determination of the exact location of stone during laparoscopy is one of the limitations of this method that no scientific solution has been found for so far. Artificial tactile sensing is a new method for obtaining the characteristics of a hard object embedded in a soft tissue. Artificial palpation is an important application of artificial tactile sensing that can be used in different types of surgeries. In this study, a new method for determining the exact location of stone during laparoscopy is presented. In the present study, the effects of stone existence on the surface of kidney were investigated using conceptual 3D model of kidney containing a simulated stone. Having imitated palpation and modeled it conceptually, indications of stone existence that appear on the surface of kidney were determined. A number of different cases were created and solved by the software and using stress distribution contours and stress graphs, it is illustrated that the created stress patterns on the surface of kidney show not only the existence of stone inside, but also its exact location. So three-dimensional analysis leads to a novel method of predicting the exact location of stone and can be directly applied to the incorporation of tactile sensing in artificial palpation, helping surgeons in non-invasive procedures.

Keywords: Kidney Stone, Laparoscopic Surgery, Artificial Tactile Sensing, Finite Element Method.

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Authors: Yehjune Heo

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Fingerprint Anti-Spoofing approaches have been actively developed and applied in real-world applications. One of the main problems for Fingerprint Anti-Spoofing is not robust to unseen samples, especially in real-world scenarios. A possible solution will be to generate artificial, but realistic fingerprint samples and use them for training in order to achieve good generalization. This paper contains experimental and comparative results with currently popular GAN based methods and uses realistic synthesis of fingerprints in training in order to increase the performance. Among various GAN models, the most popular StyleGAN is used for the experiments. The CNN models were first trained with the dataset that did not contain generated fake images and the accuracy along with the mean average error rate were recorded. Then, the fake generated images (fake images of live fingerprints and fake images of spoof fingerprints) were each combined with the original images (real images of live fingerprints and real images of spoof fingerprints), and various CNN models were trained. The best performances for each CNN model, trained with the dataset of generated fake images and each time the accuracy and the mean average error rate, were recorded. We observe that current GAN based approaches need significant improvements for the Anti-Spoofing performance, although the overall quality of the synthesized fingerprints seems to be reasonable. We include the analysis of this performance degradation, especially with a small number of samples. In addition, we suggest several approaches towards improved generalization with a small number of samples, by focusing on what GAN based approaches should learn and should not learn.

Keywords: Anti-spoofing, CNN, fingerprint recognition, GAN.

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Authors: Mohammad Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, Tania Taharima Chowdhary, Hasan Sarwar

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The challenge for software development house in Bangladesh is to find a path of using minimum process rather than CMMI or ISO type gigantic practice and process area. The small and medium size organization in Bangladesh wants to ensure minimum basic Software Process Improvement (SPI) in day to day operational activities. Perhaps, the basic practices will ensure to realize their company's improvement goals. This paper focuses on the key issues in basic software practices for small and medium size software organizations, who are unable to effort the CMMI, ISO, ITIL etc. compliance certifications. This research also suggests a basic software process practices model for Bangladesh and it will show the mapping of our suggestions with international best practice. In this IT competitive world for software process improvement, Small and medium size software companies that require collaboration and strengthening to transform their current perspective into inseparable global IT scenario. This research performed some investigations and analysis on some projects- life cycle, current good practice, effective approach, reality and pain area of practitioners, etc. We did some reasoning, root cause analysis, comparative analysis of various approach, method, practice and justifications of CMMI and real life. We did avoid reinventing the wheel, where our focus is for minimal practice, which will ensure a dignified satisfaction between organizations and software customer.

Keywords: Compare with CMMI practices, Key success factors, Small and medium software house, Software process improvement; Software process optimization.

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Authors: Abdulfatah Al-Jaradi, Marzoq Ali Odhah, Abdulnasser A. Haza’a

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Background: Antenatal care can be defined as the care provided by skilled healthcare professionals to pregnant women and adolescent girls to ensure the best health conditions for both mother and baby during pregnancy. The components of Antenatal Care (ANC) include risk identification; prevention and management of pregnancy-related or concurrent diseases; and health education and health promotion. The aim of this study: to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant women regarding ANC. Methodology: A descriptive knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) study was conducted in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. The study population included all pregnant women that intended to the prenatal department and clinical outpatient department; the final sample size was 371 pregnant women. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data, statistical package for social sciences SPSS was used to data analysis. The results: Most (79%) of pregnant women had correct answers in total knowledge regarding ANC, and about two-thirds (67%) of pregnant women had performance practice regarding ANC and two-third (68%) of pregnant women had a positive attitude. Conclusions: More than three quarter of pregnant women had good knowledge level, most of pregnant women had moderate practice level, and more than two-thirds of pregnant women had a positive attitude regarding antenatal care. There was a statistically significant association between overall knowledge and practice level toward ANC and demographic characteristics of pregnant women, at P-value ≤ 0.05. Recommendations: we recommended more education and training courses, lecturers, and education sessions in clinical facilitators focused on ANC, which relies on evidence-based interventions provided to women during pregnancy by skilled healthcare providers such as midwives, doctors, and nurses.

Keywords: Antenatal care, knowledge, practice, attitude, pregnant women.

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Authors: Javid Iqbal, Zhu Shifan

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The development in the construction of unconventional ships and the implementation of lightweight materials have shown a large impulse towards finite element (FE) method, making it a general tool for ship design. This paper briefly presents the modeling and analysis techniques of ship structures using FE method for complex boundary conditions which are difficult to analyze by existing Ship Classification Societies rules. During operation, all ships experience complex loading conditions. These loads are general categories into thermal loads, linear static, dynamic and non-linear loads. General strength of the ship structure is analyzed using static FE analysis. FE method is also suitable to consider the local loads generated by ballast tanks and cargo in addition to hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads. Vibration analysis of a ship structure and its components can be performed using FE method which helps in obtaining the dynamic stability of the ship. FE method has developed better techniques for calculation of natural frequencies and different mode shapes of ship structure to avoid resonance both globally and locally. There is a lot of development towards the ideal design in ship industry over the past few years for solving complex engineering problems by employing the data stored in the FE model. This paper provides an overview of ship modeling methodology for FE analysis and its general application. Historical background, the basic concept of FE, advantages, and disadvantages of FE analysis are also reported along with examples related to hull strength and structural components.

Keywords: Dynamic analysis, finite element methods, ship structure, vibration analysis.

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Authors: Mannan Mridha, Mohammad S. Islam

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Innovative medical technologies offer more effective medical care, with less risk to patient and healthcare personnel. Medical technology and devices when properly used provide better data, precise monitoring and less invasive treatments and can be more targeted and often less costly. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipped with patient monitoring, respiratory and cardiac support, pain management, emergency resuscitation and life support devices is particularly prone to medical errors for various reasons. Many people in the developing countries now wonder whether their visit to hospital might harm rather than help them. This is because; clinicians in the developing countries are required to maintain an increasing workload with limited resources and absence of well-functioning safety system. A team of experts from the medical, biomedical and clinical engineering in Sweden and Bangladesh have worked together to study the incidents, adverse events at the ICU in Bangladesh. The study included both public and private hospitals to provide a better understanding for physical structure, organization and practice in operating processes of care, and the occurrence of adverse outcomes the errors, risks and accidents related to medical devices at the ICU, and to develop a ICT based support system in order to reduce hazards and errors and thus improve the quality of performance, care and cost effectiveness at the ICU. Concrete recommendations and guidelines have been made for preparing appropriate ICT related tools and methods for improving the routine for use of medical devices, reporting and analyzing of the incidents at the ICU in order to reduce the number of undetected and unsolved incidents and thus improve the patient safety.

Keywords: Accidents reporting system, patient car and safety, safe medical devices.

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Authors: M. S. Ahmed, F. A. Mohammad

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This paper focuses on the dynamic behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) slabs. Therefore, the theoretical modal analysis was performed using two different types of boundary conditions. Modal analysis method is the most important dynamic analyses. The analysis would be modal case when there is no external force on the structure. By using this method in this paper, the effects of freely and simply supported boundary conditions on the frequencies and mode shapes of RC square slabs are studied. ANSYS software was employed to derive the finite element model to determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the slabs. Then, the obtained results through numerical analysis (finite element analysis) would be compared with the exact solution. The main goal of the research study is to predict how the boundary conditions change the behavior of the slab structures prior to performing experimental modal analysis. Based on the results, it is concluded that simply support boundary condition has obvious influence to increase the natural frequencies and change the shape of the mode when it is compared with freely supported boundary condition of slabs. This means that such support conditions have the direct influence on the dynamic behavior of the slabs. Thus, it is suggested to use free-free boundary condition in experimental modal analysis to precisely reflect the properties of the structure. By using free-free boundary conditions, the influence of poorly defined supports is interrupted.

Keywords: Natural frequencies, Mode shapes, Modal analysis, ANSYS software, RC slabs.

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Authors: Khairul Bariah Sulaiman, Tajul Aris Yang

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Fermentation is well known as an essential process to develop chocolate flavor in dried cocoa beans. Besides developing the precursor of cocoa flavor, it also induces the color changes in the beans. The fermentation process is influenced by various factors such as planting material, preconditioning of cocoa pod and fermentation technique. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate color of Malaysian cocoa beans and how the duration of pods storage and fermentation technique using shallow box will effect on its color characteristics. There are two factors being studied i.e. duration of cocoa pod storage (0, 2, 4 and 6 days) and duration of cocoa fermentation (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 days). The experiment is arranged in 4 x 6 factorial designs with 24 treatments and arrangement is in a Completely Randomised Design (CRD). The produced beans are inspected for color changes under artificial light during cut test and divided into four groups of color namely fully brown, purple brown, fully purple and slaty. Cut tests indicated that cocoa beans which are directly dried without undergone fermentation has the highest slaty percentage. However, application of pods storage before fermentation process is found to decrease the slaty percentage. In contrast, the percentages of fully brown beans start to dominate after two days of fermentation, especially from four and six days of pods storage batch. Whereas, almost all batches of cocoa beans have a percentage of fully purple less than 20%. Interestingly, the percentage of purple brown beans are scattered in the entire beans batch regardless any specific trend. Meanwhile, statistical analysis using General Linear Model showed that the pods storage has a significant effect on the color characteristic of the Malaysian dried beans compared to fermentation duration.

Keywords: Cocoa beans, color, fermentation, shallow box.

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Authors: Elena C. Tamaş, Grațiela M. Țârlea, Gianni Flamaropol, Dragoș Hera

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This article is referring to a comparative study regarding the electrical energy consumption for lighting on diverse types of big sizes commercial buildings built in Romania after 2007, having 3, 4, 5 versus 8, 9, 10 operational years. Some buildings have installed building management systems (BMS) to monitor also the lighting performances starting with the opening days till the present days but some have chosen only local meters to implement. Firstly, for each analyzed building, the total required energy power and the energy power consumption for lighting were calculated depending on the lamps number, the unit power and the average daily running hours. All objects and installations were chosen depending on the destination/location of the lighting (exterior parking or access, interior or covering parking, building interior and building perimeter). Secondly, to all lighting objects and installations, mechanical counters were installed, and to the ones linked to BMS there were installed the digital meters as well for a better monitoring. Some efficient solutions are proposed to improve the power consumption, for example the 1/3 lighting functioning for the covered and exterior parking lighting to those buildings if can be done. This type of lighting share can be performed on each level, especially on the night shifts. Another example is to use the dimmers to reduce the light level, depending on the executed work in the respective area, and a 30% power energy saving can be achieved. Using the right BMS to monitor, the energy consumption depending on the average operational daily hours and changing the non-performant unit lights with the ones having LED technology or economical ones might increase significantly the energy performances and reduce the energy consumption of the buildings.

Keywords: Lighting consumption, commercial buildings, maintenance, energy performances.

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Authors: A. Idawaty, O. Mohamed, A. Z. Zuriati

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This paper presents the development of an event based Discrete Event Simulation (DES) for a recovery algorithm known Backward Recovery Global Preemptive Utility Accrual Scheduling (BR_GPUAS). This algorithm implements the Backward Recovery (BR) mechanism as a fault recovery solution under the existing Time/Utility Function/ Utility Accrual (TUF/UA) scheduling domain for multiprocessor environment. The BR mechanism attempts to take the faulty tasks back to its initial safe state and then proceeds to re-execute the affected section of the faulty tasks to enable recovery. Considering that faults may occur in the components of any system; a fault tolerance system that can nullify the erroneous effect is necessary to be developed. Current TUF/UA scheduling algorithm uses the abortion recovery mechanism and it simply aborts the erroneous task as their fault recovery solution. None of the existing algorithm in TUF/UA scheduling domain in multiprocessor scheduling environment have considered the transient fault and implement the BR mechanism as a fault recovery mechanism to nullify the erroneous effect and solve the recovery problem in this domain. The developed BR_GPUAS simulator has derived the set of parameter, events and performance metrics according to a detailed analysis of the base model. Simulation results revealed that BR_GPUAS algorithm can saved almost 20-30% of the accumulated utilities making it reliable and efficient for the real-time application in the multiprocessor scheduling environment.

Keywords: Time Utility Function/ Utility Accrual (TUF/UA) scheduling, Real-time system (RTS), Backward Recovery, Multiprocessor, Discrete Event Simulation (DES).

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Authors: Nishi Bhuvandas, P. V. Timbadiya, P. L. Patel, P. D. Porey

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Recent perceived climate variability raises concerns with unprecedented hydrological phenomena and extremes. Distribution and circulation of the waters of the Earth become increasingly difficult to determine because of additional uncertainty related to anthropogenic emissions. The world wide observed changes in the large-scale hydrological cycle have been related to an increase in the observed temperature over several decades. Although the effect of change in climate on hydrology provides a general picture of possible hydrological global change, new tools and frameworks for modelling hydrological series with nonstationary characteristics at finer scales, are required for assessing climate change impacts. Of the downscaling techniques, dynamic downscaling is usually based on the use of Regional Climate Models (RCMs), which generate finer resolution output based on atmospheric physics over a region using General Circulation Model (GCM) fields as boundary conditions. However, RCMs are not expected to capture the observed spatial precipitation extremes at a fine cell scale or at a basin scale. Statistical downscaling derives a statistical or empirical relationship between the variables simulated by the GCMs, called predictors, and station-scale hydrologic variables, called predictands. The main focus of the paper is on the need for using statistical downscaling techniques for projection of local hydrometeorological variables under climate change scenarios. The projections can be then served as a means of input source to various hydrologic models to obtain streamflow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and other hydrological variables of interest.

Keywords: Climate Change, Downscaling, GCM, RCM.

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Authors: Mohammed-Aminu Sanda, Emmanuel K. Mawuena

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Frontline workers performing client service duties in finance-oriented firms in most sub-Saharan African countries, such as Ghana, are known to be challenged in the conduct of their activities. The challenge is attributed to clients’ continued demand for real-time services from such workers, despite the introduction of technological interventions to offset the situation. This has caused such frontline workers to experience increases in their work-induced emotions with consequential effects on their work-induced happiness. This study, therefore, explored the effect of frontline workers’ work-induced emotions on their worked-induced happiness when providing tellering services to clients. A cross-sectional design and quantitative technique were used. Data were collected from a sample of 280 frontline workers using questionnaire. Based on the analysis, it was found that an increase in the frontline workers’ work-induced emotions, caused by their feelings of strain, burnout, frustration, and hard work, had consequential effect on their work-induced happiness. This consequential effect was also found to be aggravated by the workers’ senses of being stretched beyond limit, being emotionally drained, and being used up by their work activities. It is concluded that frontline workers in finance-oriented firms can provide quality real-time services to clients without increases in their work-induced emotions, but with enhanced work-induced happiness, when the psychological and physiological emotional factors associated with the challenged work activities are understood and remedied. Management of the firms can use such understanding to redesign the activities of their frontline workers and improve the quality of their service delivery interactivity with clients.

Keywords: Client-service activity, finance industrial sector, frontline workers, work-induced emotion, work-induced happiness.

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