Search results for: position specific scoring matrix.
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 3437

Search results for: position specific scoring matrix.

2477 Analysing the Renewable Energy Integration Paradigm in the Post-COVID-19 Era: An Examination of the Upcoming Energy Law of China

Authors: Lan Wu

Abstract:

China’s declared transformation towards a ‘new electricity system dominated by renewable energy’ requires a cleaner electricity consumption mix with high shares of renewable energy sourced-electricity (RES-E). Unfortunately, integration of RES-E into Chinese electricity markets remains a problem pending more robust legal support, evidenced by the curtailment of wind and solar power due to integration constraints. The upcoming Energy Law of the PRC (Energy Law) is expected to provide such long-awaiting support and coordinate the existing diverse sector-specific laws to deal with the weak implementation that dampening the delivery of their desired regulatory effects. However, in the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis, it remains uncertain how this new Energy Law brings synergies to RES-E integration, mindful of the significant impacts of the pandemic. Through the theoretical lens of the interplay between China’s electricity market reform and legislative development, this paper investigates whether there is a paradigm shift in Energy Law regarding renewable energy integration compared with the existing sector-specific energy laws. It examines the 2020 Draft for Comments on the Energy Law and analyses its relationship with sector-specific energy laws focusing on RES-E integration. The comparison is drawn upon five critical aspects of the RES-E integration issue, including the status of renewables, marketisation, incentive schemes, consumption mechanisms, access to power grids and dispatching. The analysis shows that it is reasonable to expect a more open and well-organised electricity market, enabling the absorption of high shares of RES-E. The present paper concludes that a period of prosperous development of RES-E in the post-COVID-19 era can be anticipated with the legal support by the upcoming Energy Law. It contributes to understanding the signals China is sending regarding the transition towards a cleaner energy future.

Keywords: energy law, energy transition, electricity market reform, renewable energy integration

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2476 Forward Kinematics Analysis of a 3-PRS Parallel Manipulator

Authors: Ghasem Abbasnejad, Soheil Zarkandi, Misagh Imani

Abstract:

In this article the homotopy continuation method (HCM) to solve the forward kinematic problem of the 3-PRS parallel manipulator is used. Since there are many difficulties in solving the system of nonlinear equations in kinematics of manipulators, the numerical solutions like Newton-Raphson are inevitably used. When dealing with any numerical solution, there are two troublesome problems. One is that good initial guesses are not easy to detect and another is related to whether the used method will converge to useful solutions. Results of this paper reveal that the homotopy continuation method can alleviate the drawbacks of traditional numerical techniques.

Keywords: Forward kinematics, Homotopy continuationmethod, Parallel manipulators, Rotation matrix

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2475 A New Criterion Pose and Shape of Objects for Collision Risk Estimation

Authors: Do Hyeung Kim, Dae Hee Seo, Byung Doo Kim, Byung Gil Lee

Abstract:

As many recent researches being implemented in aviation and maritime aspects, strong doubts have been raised concerning the reliability of the estimation of collision risk. It is shown that using position and velocity of objects can lead to imprecise results. In this paper, therefore, a new approach to the estimation of collision risks using pose and shape of objects is proposed. Simulation results are presented validating the accuracy of the new criterion to adapt to collision risk algorithm based on fuzzy logic.

Keywords: Collision risk, Pose and shape, Fuzzy logic.

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2474 Spatial Abilities, Memory and Intellect of Drivers with Different Level of Professional Experience

Authors: N. Khon, A. Kim, T. Mukhitdinova

Abstract:

The aim of this research was to reveal the link between mental variables, such as spatial abilities, memory, intellect and professional experience of drivers. Participants were allocated to four groups: no experience, inexperienced, skilled and professionals (total 85 participants). The level of ability for spatial navigation and indicator of nonverbal memory grow along the process of accumulation of driving experience. At high levels of driving experience, this tendency is especially noticeable. The professionals having personal achievements in driving (racing) differ from skilled drivers in better feeling of direction, which is specific for them not just in a short-term situation of an experimental task, but also in life-size perspective. The level of ability of mental rotation does not grow with the growth of driving experience, which confirms the multiple intelligence theory according to which spatial abilities represent specific, other than logical intelligence type of intellect. The link between spatial abilities, memory, intellect and professional experience of drivers seems to be different relating spatial navigation or mental rotation as different kinds of spatial abilities.

Keywords: Memory, spatial abilities, intellect, drivers.

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2473 Numerical Modeling of the Depth-Averaged Flow Over a Hill

Authors: Anna Avramenko, Heikki Haario

Abstract:

This paper reports the development and application of a 2D1 depth-averaged model. The main goal of this contribution is to apply the depth averaged equations to a wind park model in which the treatment of the geometry, introduced on the mathematical model by the mass and momentum source terms. The depth-averaged model will be used in future to find the optimal position of wind turbines in the wind park. κ − ε and 2D LES turbulence models were consider in this article. 2D CFD2 simulations for one hill was done to check the depth-averaged model in practise.

Keywords: Depth-averaged equations, numerical modeling, CFD

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2472 Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Gas-Liquid Phase Stirred Tank

Authors: Thiyam Tamphasana Devi, Bimlesh Kumar

Abstract:

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique has been applied to simulate the gas-liquid phase in double stirred tank of Rushton impeller. Eulerian-Eulerian model was adopted to simulate the multiphase with standard correlation of Schiller and Naumann for drag co-efficient. The turbulence was modeled by using standard k-ε turbulence model. The present CFD model predicts flow pattern, local gas hold-up, and local specific area. It also predicts local kLa (mass transfer rate) for single impeller. The predicted results were compared with experimental and CFD results of published literature. The predicted results are slightly over predicted with the experimental results; however, it is in reasonable agreement with other simulated results of published literature.

Keywords: Eulerian-Eulerian, gas-hold up, gas-liquid phase, local mass transfer rate, local specific area, Rushton Impeller.

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2471 Application of Particle Swarm Optimization Technique for an Optical Fiber Alignment System

Authors: Marc Landry, Azeddine Kaddouri, Yassine Bouslimani, Mohsen Ghribi

Abstract:

In this paper, a new alignment method based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique is presented. The PSO algorithm is used for locating the optimal coupling position with the highest optical power with three-degrees of freedom alignment. This algorithm gives an interesting results without a need to go thru the complex mathematical modeling of the alignment system. The proposed algorithm is validated considering practical tests considering the alignment of two Single Mode Fibers (SMF) and the alignment of SMF and PCF fibers.

Keywords: Particle-swarm optimization, optical fiber, automatic alignment.

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2470 Training Undergraduate Engineering Students in Robotics and Automation through Model-Based Design Training: A Case Study at Assumption University of Thailand

Authors: Sajed A. Habib

Abstract:

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy that originated in the medical field and has also been used extensively in other knowledge disciplines with recognized advantages and limitations. PBL has been used in various undergraduate engineering programs with mixed outcomes. The current fourth industrial revolution (digital era or Industry 4.0) has made it essential for many science and engineering students to receive effective training in advanced courses such as industrial automation and robotics. This paper presents a case study at Assumption University of Thailand, where a PBL-like approach was used to teach some aspects of automation and robotics to selected groups of undergraduate engineering students. These students were given some basic level training in automation prior to participating in a subsequent training session in order to solve technical problems with increased complexity. The participating students’ evaluation of the training sessions in terms of learning effectiveness, skills enhancement, and incremental knowledge following the problem-solving session was captured through a follow-up survey consisting of 14 questions and a 5-point scoring system. From the most recent training event, an overall 70% of the respondents indicated that their skill levels were enhanced to a much greater level than they had had before the training, whereas 60.4% of the respondents from the same event indicated that their incremental knowledge following the session was much greater than what they had prior to the training. The instructor-facilitator involved in the training events suggested that this method of learning was more suitable for senior/advanced level students than those at the freshmen level as certain skills to effectively participate in such problem-solving sessions are acquired over a period of time, and not instantly.

Keywords: Automation, industry 4.0, model-based design training, problem-based learning.

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2469 Measured versus Default Interstate Traffic Data in New Mexico, USA

Authors: M. A. Hasan, M. R. Islam, R. A. Tarefder

Abstract:

This study investigates how the site specific traffic data differs from the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Software default values. Two Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) stations were installed in Interstate-40 (I-40) and Interstate-25 (I-25) to developed site specific data. A computer program named WIM Data Analysis Software (WIMDAS) was developed using Microsoft C-Sharp (.Net) for quality checking and processing of raw WIM data. A complete year data from November 2013 to October 2014 was analyzed using the developed WIM Data Analysis Program. After that, the vehicle class distribution, directional distribution, lane distribution, monthly adjustment factor, hourly distribution, axle load spectra, average number of axle per vehicle, axle spacing, lateral wander distribution, and wheelbase distribution were calculated. Then a comparative study was done between measured data and AASHTOWare default values. It was found that the measured general traffic inputs for I-40 and I-25 significantly differ from the default values.

Keywords: AASHTOWare, Traffic, Weigh-in-Motion, Axle load Distribution.

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2468 Exploring the Relationships between Job Satisfaction, Work Engagement and Loyalty of Academic Staff

Authors: I. Ludviga, A. Kalvina

Abstract:

This paper aims to link together the concepts of job satisfaction, work engagement, trust, job meaningfulness and loyalty to the organisation focusing on specific type of employment – academic jobs. The research investigates the relationships between job satisfaction, work engagement and loyalty as well as the impact of trust and job meaningfulness on the work engagement and loyalty. The survey was conducted in one of the largest Latvian higher education institutions and the sample was drawn from academic staff (n=326). Structured questionnaire with 44 reflective type questions was developed to measure the constructs. Data was analysed using SPSS and Smart-PLS software. Variance based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to test the model and to predict the most important factors relevant to employee engagement and loyalty. The first order model included two endogenous constructs (loyalty and intention to stay and recommend to work in this organisation, and employee engagement), as well as six exogenous constructs (feeling of fair treatment and trust in management; career growth opportunities; compensation, pay and benefits; management; colleagues and teamwork; and finally job meaningfulness). Job satisfaction was developed as second order construct and both: first and second order models were designed for data analysis. It was found that academics are more engaged than satisfied with their work and main reason for that was found to be job meaningfulness, which is significant predictor for work engagement, but not for job satisfaction. Compensation is not significantly related to work engagement, but only to job satisfaction. Trust was not significantly related neither to engagement, nor to satisfaction, however, it appeared to be significant predictor of loyalty and intentions to stay with the University. Paper revealed academic jobs as specific kind of employment where employees can be more engaged than satisfied and highlighted the specific role of job meaningfulness in the University settings.

Keywords: Job satisfaction, job meaningfulness, higher education, work engagement.

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2467 A Novel Strategy for Oriented Protein Immobilization

Authors: Ching-Wei Tsai, Chih-I Liu, Ruoh-Chyu Ruaana

Abstract:

A new strategy for oriented immobilization of proteins was proposed. The strategy contains two steps. The first step is to search for a docking site away from the active site on the protein surface. The second step is trying to find a ligand that is able to grasp the targeted site of the protein. To avoid ligand binding to the active site of protein, the targeted docking site is selected to own opposite charges to those near the active site. To enhance the ligand-protein binding, both hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions need to be included. The targeted docking site should therefore contain hydrophobic amino acids. The ligand is then selected through the help of molecular docking simulations. The enzyme α-amylase derived from Aspergillus oryzae (TAKA) was taken as an example for oriented immobilization. The active site of TAKA is surrounded by negatively charged amino acids. All the possible hydrophobic sites on the surface of TAKA were evaluated by the free energy estimation through benzene docking. A hydrophobic site on the opposite side of TAKA-s active site was found to be positive in net charges. A possible ligand, 3,3-,4,4- – Biphenyltetra- carboxylic acid (BPTA), was found to catch TAKA by the designated docking site. Then, the BPTA molecules were grafted onto silica gels and measured the affinity of TAKA adsorption and the specific activity of thereby immobilized enzymes. It was found that TAKA had a dissociation constant as low as 7.0×10-6 M toward the ligand BPTA on silica gel. The increase in ionic strength has little effect on the adsorption of TAKA, which indicated the existence of hydrophobic interaction between ligands and proteins. The specific activity of the immobilized TAKA was compared with the randomly adsorbed TAKA on primary amine containing silica gel. It was found that the orderly immobilized TAKA owns a specific activity twice as high as the one randomly adsorbed by ionic interaction.

Keywords: Protein Oriented immobilization, Molecular docking, ligand design, surface modification.

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2466 Fatigue Analysis of Spread Mooring Line

Authors: Chanhoe Kang, Changhyun Lee, Seock-Hee Jun, Yeong-Tae Oh

Abstract:

Offshore floating structure under the various environmental conditions maintains a fixed position by mooring system. Environmental conditions, vessel motions and mooring loads are applied to mooring lines as the dynamic tension. Because global responses of mooring system in deep water are specified as wave frequency and low frequency response, they should be calculated from the time-domain analysis due to non-linear dynamic characteristics. To take into account all mooring loads, environmental conditions, added mass and damping terms at each time step, a lot of computation time and capacities are required. Thus, under the premise that reliable fatigue damage could be derived through reasonable analysis method, it is necessary to reduce the analysis cases through the sensitivity studies and appropriate assumptions. In this paper, effects in fatigue are studied for spread mooring system connected with oil FPSO which is positioned in deep water of West Africa offshore. The target FPSO with two Mbbls storage has 16 spread mooring lines (4 bundles x 4 lines). The various sensitivity studies are performed for environmental loads, type of responses, vessel offsets, mooring position, loading conditions and riser behavior. Each parameter applied to the sensitivity studies is investigated from the effects of fatigue damage through fatigue analysis. Based on the sensitivity studies, the following results are presented: Wave loads are more dominant in terms of fatigue than other environment conditions. Wave frequency response causes the higher fatigue damage than low frequency response. The larger vessel offset increases the mean tension and so it results in the increased fatigue damage. The external line of each bundle shows the highest fatigue damage by the governed vessel pitch motion due to swell wave conditions. Among three kinds of loading conditions, ballast condition has the highest fatigue damage due to higher tension. The riser damping occurred by riser behavior tends to reduce the fatigue damage. The various analysis results obtained from these sensitivity studies can be used for a simplified fatigue analysis of spread mooring line as the reference.

Keywords: Mooring system, fatigue analysis, time domain, non-linear dynamic characteristics.

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2465 Use of Nanoclay in Various Modified Polyolefins

Authors: Michael Tupý, Alice Tesaříková-Svobodová, Dagmar Měřínská, Vít Petránek

Abstract:

Polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene (vinyl acetate) (EVA) and PE-ionomer nanocomposite samples were prepared by mixing of the polymer with organofilized montmorillonite fillers Cloisite 93A and Dellite 67G. The amount of each modified montmorillonite (MMT) was fixed to 5% (w/w). The twin-screw kneader was used for the compounding of polymer matrix and chosen nanofillers. The level of MMT exfoliation was studied by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations. The mechanical properties of prepared materials were evaluated by dynamical mechanical analysis at 30°C and by the measurement of tensile properties (stress and strain at break).

Keywords: Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polyethylene (vinyl acetate), Clay, Nanocomposite, Montmorillonite.

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2464 Evaluation Rabbit Serum of the Immunodominant Proteins of Mycobacterium Avium Paratuberculosis Extracts

Authors: M. Hashemi, R. Madani, N. Razmi

Abstract:

M. paratuberculosis is a slow growing mycobactin dependent mycobacterial species known to be the causative agent of Johne’s disease in all species of domestic ruminants worldwide. JD is characterized by gradual weight loss; decreased milk production. Excretion of the organism may occur for prolonged periods (1 to 2.5 years) before the onset of clinical disease. In recent years researchers focus on identification a specific antigen of MAP to use in diagnosis test and preparation of effective vaccine. In this paper, for production of polyclonal antibody against proteins of Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis cell well a rabbit immunization at a certain time period with antigen. After immunization of the animal, rabbit was bleeded for producing enriched serum. Antibodies were purification with ion exchange chromatography. For exact measurement of interaction, western blotting test was used that this study demonstrated sharp bands appears in nitrocellulose paper and specific bands were 50 and 150 KD molecular weight. These were indicating immunodominant proteins.

Keywords: Paratuberculosis, Immunodominant, Western blotting, Ion exchange choromatography.

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2463 Towards Real-Time Classification of Finger Movement Direction Using Encephalography Independent Components

Authors: Mohamed Mounir Tellache, Hiroyuki Kambara, Yasuharu Koike, Makoto Miyakoshi, Natsue Yoshimura

Abstract:

This study explores the practicality of using electroencephalographic (EEG) independent components to predict eight-direction finger movements in pseudo-real-time. Six healthy participants with individual-head MRI images performed finger movements in eight directions with two different arm configurations. The analysis was performed in two stages. The first stage consisted of using independent component analysis (ICA) to separate the signals representing brain activity from non-brain activity signals and to obtain the unmixing matrix. The resulting independent components (ICs) were checked, and those reflecting brain-activity were selected. Finally, the time series of the selected ICs were used to predict eight finger-movement directions using Sparse Logistic Regression (SLR). The second stage consisted of using the previously obtained unmixing matrix, the selected ICs, and the model obtained by applying SLR to classify a different EEG dataset. This method was applied to two different settings, namely the single-participant level and the group-level. For the single-participant level, the EEG dataset used in the first stage and the EEG dataset used in the second stage originated from the same participant. For the group-level, the EEG datasets used in the first stage were constructed by temporally concatenating each combination without repetition of the EEG datasets of five participants out of six, whereas the EEG dataset used in the second stage originated from the remaining participants. The average test classification results across datasets (mean ± S.D.) were 38.62 ± 8.36% for the single-participant, which was significantly higher than the chance level (12.50 ± 0.01%), and 27.26 ± 4.39% for the group-level which was also significantly higher than the chance level (12.49% ± 0.01%). The classification accuracy within [–45°, 45°] of the true direction is 70.03 ± 8.14% for single-participant and 62.63 ± 6.07% for group-level which may be promising for some real-life applications. Clustering and contribution analyses further revealed the brain regions involved in finger movement and the temporal aspect of their contribution to the classification. These results showed the possibility of using the ICA-based method in combination with other methods to build a real-time system to control prostheses.

Keywords: Brain-computer interface, BCI, electroencephalography, EEG, finger motion decoding, independent component analysis, pseudo-real-time motion decoding.

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2462 Numerical Analysis of Plate Heat Exchanger Performance in Co-Current Fluid Flow Configuration

Authors: H. Dardour, S. Mazouz, A. Bellagi

Abstract:

For many industrial applications plate heat exchangers are demonstrating a large superiority over the other types of heat exchangers. The efficiency of such a device depends on numerous factors the effect of which needs to be analysed and accurately evaluated. In this paper we present a theoretical analysis of a cocurrent plate heat exchanger and the results of its numerical simulation. Knowing the hot and the cold fluid streams inlet temperatures, the respective heat capacities mCp and the value of the overall heat transfer coefficient, a 1-D mathematical model based on the steady flow energy balance for a differential length of the device is developed resulting in a set of N first order differential equations with boundary conditions where N is the number of channels.For specific heat exchanger geometry and operational parameters, the problem is numerically solved using the shooting method. The simulation allows the prediction of the temperature map in the heat exchanger and hence, the evaluation of its performances. A parametric analysis is performed to evaluate the influence of the R-parameter on the e-NTU values. For practical purposes effectiveness-NTU graphs are elaborated for specific heat exchanger geometry and different operating conditions.

Keywords: Plate heat exchanger, thermal performance, NTU, effectiveness.

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2461 Strategic Maintenance Management of Built Facilities in an Organisation

Authors: Anita D. Adamu, Winston M. W. Shakantu

Abstract:

Maintenance management is no longer a stand-alone activity. It has now assumed a strategic position in many organisations that have recognised its importance in achieving primary goals and a key aspect of effective management of facilities. This paper aims at providing an understanding of the role and function of strategic management in creating and sustaining an effective maintenance management system in an organisation. The background provides an articulated concept and principles of strategic management. The theoretical concepts paved way for a conceptual framework for which strategic management can be integrated into the maintenance management system of an organisation to improve effectiveness in the maintenance of facilities.

Keywords: Facilities, maintenance management, organisations, strategic management.

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2460 Leader-following Consensus Criterion for Multi-agent Systems with Probabilistic Self-delay

Authors: M.J. Park, K.H. Kim, O.M. Kwon

Abstract:

This paper proposes a delay-dependent leader-following consensus condition of multi-agent systems with both communication delay and probabilistic self-delay. The proposed methods employ a suitable piecewise Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and the average dwell time approach. New consensus criterion for the systems are established in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which can be easily solved by various effective optimization algorithms. Numerical example showed that the proposed method is effective.

Keywords: Multi-agent systems, probabilistic self-delay, consensus, Lyapunov method, LMI.

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2459 Conditions on Blind Source Separability of Linear FIR-MIMO Systems with Binary Inputs

Authors: Jiashan Tang

Abstract:

In this note, we investigate the blind source separability of linear FIR-MIMO systems. The concept of semi-reversibility of a system is presented. It is shown that for a semi-reversible system, if the input signals belong to a binary alphabet, then the source data can be blindly separated. One sufficient condition for a system to be semi-reversible is obtained. It is also shown that the proposed criteria is weaker than that in the literature which requires that the channel matrix is irreducible/invertible or reversible.

Keywords: Blind source separable, FIR-MIMO system, Binary input, Bezout equality.

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2458 Associations among Fetuin A, Cortisol and Thyroid Hormones in Children with Morbid Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome

Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

Abstract:

Obesity is a disease with an ever-increasing prevalence throughout the world. The metabolic network associated with obesity is very complicated. In metabolic syndrome (MetS), it becomes even more difficult to understand. Within this context, hormones, cytokines, and many others participate in this complex matrix. The collaboration among all of these parameters is a matter of great wonder. Cortisol, as a stress hormone, is closely associated with obesity. Thyroid hormones are involved in the regulation of energy as well as glucose metabolism with all of its associates. Fetuin A has been known for years; however, the involvement of this parameter in obesity discussions is rather new. Recently, it has been defined as one of the new generation markers of obesity. In this study, the aim was to introduce complex interactions among all to be able to make clear comparisons, at least for a part of this complicated matter. Morbid obese (MO) children participated in the study. Two groups with 46 MO children and 43 with MetS were constituted. All children included in the study were above 99th age- and sex-adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentiles according to World Health Organization criteria. Forty-three morbid obese children in the second group also had MetS components. Informed consent forms were filled by the parents of the participants. The institutional ethics committee has given approval for the study protocol. Data as well as the findings of the study were evaluated from a statistical point of view. Two groups were matched for their age and gender compositions. Significantly higher body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, thyrotropin, and insulin values were observed in the MetS group. Triiodothyronine concentrations did not differ between the groups. Elevated levels for thyroxin, cortisol, and fetuin-A were detected in the MetS group compared to the first group (p > 0.05). In MO MetS- group, cortisol was correlated with thyroxin and fetuin-A (p < 0.05). In the MO MetS+ group, none of these correlations were present. Instead, a correlation between cortisol and thyrotropin was found (p < 0.05). In conclusion, findings have shown that cortisol was the key player in severely obese children. The association of this hormone with the participants of thyroid hormone metabolism was quite important. The lack of association with fetuin A in the morbid obese MetS+ group has suggested the possible interference of MetS components in the behavior of this new generation obesity marker. The most remarkable finding of the study was the unique correlation between cortisol and thyrotropin in the morbid obese MetS+ group, suggesting that thyrotropin may serve as a target along with cortisol in the morbid obese MetS+ group. This association may deserve specific attention during the development of remedies against MetS in the pediatric population.

Keywords: children, cortisol, fetuin A, morbid obesity, thyrotropin

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2457 Using the Polynomial Approximation Algorithm in the Algorithm 2 for Manipulator's Control in an Unknown Environment

Authors: Pavel K. Lopatin, Artyom S. Yegorov

Abstract:

The Algorithm 2 for a n-link manipulator movement amidst arbitrary unknown static obstacles for a case when a sensor system supplies information about local neighborhoods of different points in the configuration space is presented. The Algorithm 2 guarantees the reaching of a target position in a finite number of steps. The Algorithm 2 is reduced to a finite number of calls of a subroutine for planning a trajectory in the presence of known forbidden states. The polynomial approximation algorithm which is used as the subroutine is presented. The results of the Algorithm2 implementation are given.

Keywords: Manipulator, trajectory planning, unknown obstacles.

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2456 Cognitive eTransformation Framework for Education Sector

Authors: A. Hol

Abstract:

21st century brought waves of business and industry eTransformations. The impact of change is also being seen in education. To identify the extent of this, scenario analysis methodology was utilised with the aim to assess business transformations across industry sectors ranging from craftsmanship, medicine, finance and manufacture to innovations and adoptions of new technologies and business models. Firstly, scenarios were drafted based on the current eTransformation models and its dimensions. Following this, eTransformation framework was utilised with the aim to derive the key eTransformation parameters, the essential characteristics that have enabled eTransformations across the sectors. Following this, identified key parameters were mapped to the transforming domain-education. The mapping assisted in deriving a cognitive eTransformation framework for education sector. The framework highlights the importance of context and the notion that education today needs not only to deliver content to students but it also needs to be able to meet the dynamically changing demands of specific student and industry groups. Furthermore, it pinpoints that for such processes to be supported, specific technology is required, so that instant, on demand and periodic feedback as well as flexible, dynamically expanding study content can be sought and received via multiple education mediums.

Keywords: Education sector, business transformation, eTransformation model, cognitive model, cognitive systems, eTransformation.

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2455 Automatic Building an Extensive Arabic FA Terms Dictionary

Authors: El-Sayed Atlam, Masao Fuketa, Kazuhiro Morita, Jun-ichi Aoe

Abstract:

Field Association (FA) terms are a limited set of discriminating terms that give us the knowledge to identify document fields which are effective in document classification, similar file retrieval and passage retrieval. But the problem lies in the lack of an effective method to extract automatically relevant Arabic FA Terms to build a comprehensive dictionary. Moreover, all previous studies are based on FA terms in English and Japanese, and the extension of FA terms to other language such Arabic could be definitely strengthen further researches. This paper presents a new method to extract, Arabic FA Terms from domain-specific corpora using part-of-speech (POS) pattern rules and corpora comparison. Experimental evaluation is carried out for 14 different fields using 251 MB of domain-specific corpora obtained from Arabic Wikipedia dumps and Alhyah news selected average of 2,825 FA Terms (single and compound) per field. From the experimental results, recall and precision are 84% and 79% respectively. Therefore, this method selects higher number of relevant Arabic FA Terms at high precision and recall.

Keywords: Arabic Field Association Terms, information extraction, document classification, information retrieval.

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2454 Modeling and Simulation of Switched Reluctance Motor with Three-Phase and Four- Phase Configurations

Authors: Abdolamir Nekoubin

Abstract:

The reluctance motor is an electric motor in which torque is produced by the tendency of its moveable part to move to a position where the inductance of the excited winding is maximized. In this paper switched reluctance motors (SRMs) with two different configurations(3-phase SRM with 4rotor poles and 6 stator poles, 4- phase SRM with 6rotor poles and 8 stator poles) is designed by RMxprt, and performance of them is analyzed. Efficiency and torque of SRM for different configurations in full-load condition have been presented. The results indicate that with correct choosing of motor applications, maximum efficiency can be found.

Keywords: reluctance motor, maximum efficiency, rotor

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2453 BIBD-s for (13, 5, 5), (16, 6, 5) and (21, 6, 4) Possessing Possibly an Automorphism of Order 3

Authors: Ivica Martinjak, Mario-Osvin Pavcevic

Abstract:

When trying to enumerate all BIBD-s for given parameters, their natural solution space appears to be huge and grows extremely with the number of points of the design. Therefore, constructive enumerations are often carried out by assuming additional constraints on design-s structure, automorphisms being mostly used ones. It remains a hard task to construct designs with trivial automorphism group – those with no additional symmetry – although it is believed that most of the BIBD-s belong to that case. In this paper, very many new designs with parameters 2-(13, 5, 5), 2-(16, 6, 5) and 2-(21, 6, 4) are constructed, assuming an action of an automorphism of order 3. Even more, it was possible to construct millions of such designs with no non-trivial automorphisms.

Keywords: BIBD, incidence matrix, automorphism group, tactical decomposition, deterministic algorithm.

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2452 Spectral Analysis of Speech: A New Technique

Authors: Neeta Awasthy, J.P.Saini, D.S.Chauhan

Abstract:

ICA which is generally used for blind source separation problem has been tested for feature extraction in Speech recognition system to replace the phoneme based approach of MFCC. Applying the Cepstral coefficients generated to ICA as preprocessing has developed a new signal processing approach. This gives much better results against MFCC and ICA separately, both for word and speaker recognition. The mixing matrix A is different before and after MFCC as expected. As Mel is a nonlinear scale. However, cepstrals generated from Linear Predictive Coefficient being independent prove to be the right candidate for ICA. Matlab is the tool used for all comparisons. The database used is samples of ISOLET.

Keywords: Cepstral Coefficient, Distance measures, Independent Component Analysis, Linear Predictive Coefficients.

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2451 Mobility Analysis of the Population of Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer

Authors: F. Ghaiti

Abstract:

In this paper, we present the 2006 survey study origin destination and price that we carried out during 2006 fall in the area in the Moroccan region of Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer. The survey concerns the people-s characteristics, their displacements behavior and the price that they will be able to pay for a tramway ticket. The main objective is to study a set of relative features to the households and to their displacement's habits and to their choices among public and privet transport modes. A comparison between this survey results and that of the 1996's is made. A pricing scheme is also given according to the tram capacity. (The Rabat-Salé tramway is under construction right now and it will be operational beginning 2010).

Keywords: Matrix O/D, Theory of pricing, Urban transport survey.

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2450 The Conceptual Design Model of an Automated Supermarket

Authors: Sathya Narayanan V., Sidharth P., Sanal Kumar. V. R.

Abstract:

The success of any retail business is predisposed by its swift response and its knack in understanding the constraints and the requirements of customers. In this paper a conceptual design model of an automated customer-friendly supermarket has been proposed. In this model a 10-sided, space benefited, regular polygon shaped gravity shelves have been designed for goods storage and effective customer-specific algorithms have been built-in for quick automatic delivery of the randomly listed goods. The algorithm is developed with two main objectives, viz., delivery time and priority. For meeting these objectives the randomly listed items are reorganized according to the critical-path of the robotic arm specific to the identified shop and its layout and the items are categorized according to the demand, shape, size, similarity and nature of the product for an efficient pick-up, packing and delivery process. We conjectured that the proposed automated supermarket model reduces business operating costs with much customer satisfaction warranting a winwin situation.

Keywords: Automated Supermarket, Electronic Shopping, Polygon-shaped Rack, Shortest Path Algorithm for Shopping.

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2449 Absorption Spectra of Artificial Atoms in Presence of THz Fields

Authors: B. Dahiya, K.Batra, V.Prasad

Abstract:

Artificial atoms are growing fields of interest due to their physical and optoelectronicapplications. The absorption spectra of the proposed artificial atom inpresence of Tera-Hertz field is investigated theoretically. We use the non-perturbativeFloquet theory and finite difference method to study the electronic structure of ArtificialAtom. The effect of static electric field on the energy levels of artificial atom is studied.The effect of orientation of static electric field on energy levels and diploe matrix elementsis also highlighted.

Keywords: Absorption spectra, Artificial atom, Floquet Theory, THz fields

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2448 Energy Efficiency: An Engineering Pathway towards Sustainability

Authors: A. M. Hasna

Abstract:

Today global warming, climate change and energy supply are of greater concern as it is widely realized that the planet earth does not provide an infinite capacity for absorbing human industrialization in the 21st century. The aim of this paper is to analyze upstream and downstream electricity production in selected case studies: a coal power plant, a pump system and a microwave oven covering and consumption to explore the position of energy efficiency in engineering sustainability. Collectively, the analysis presents energy efficiency as a major pathway towards sustainability that requires an inclusive and a holistic supply chain response in the engineering design process.

Keywords: Sustainability, technology, efficiency, engineering, energy.

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