Search results for: Power System Stability

Authors: Marco Antonio Lara De la Calleja, María Catalina Ovando Chico, Eduardo Lopez Ruiz

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Community empowerment has been proved to be a key element in the solution of the food security problem. As a result of a conceptual analysis, it was found that agricultural production, economic development and governance, are the traditional basis of food security models. Although the literature points to social inclusion as an important factor for food security, no model has considered it as the basis of it. The aim of this research is to identify different dimensions that make an integral model for food security, with emphasis on community empowerment. A diagnosis was made in the study community (Tatoxcac, Zacapoaxtla, Puebla), to know the aspects that impact the level of food insecurity. With a statistical sample integrated by 200 families, the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale (ELCSA) was applied, finding that: in households composed by adults and children, have moderated food insecurity, (ELCSA scale has three levels, low, moderated and high); that result is produced mainly by the economic income capacity and the diversity of the diet on its food. With that being said, a model was developed to promote food security through five dimensions: 1. Regional context of the community; 2. Structure and system of local food; 3. Health and nutrition; 4. Information and technology access; and 5. Self-awareness and empowerment. The specific actions on each axis of the model, allowed a systemic approach needed to attend food security in the community, through the empowerment of society. It is concluded that the self-awareness of local communities is an area of extreme importance, which must be taken into account for participatory schemes to improve food security. In the long term, the model requires the integrated participation of different actors, such as government, companies and universities, to solve something such vital as food security.

Keywords: Community empowerment, food security, model, systemic approach.

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Authors: Jazaul Ikhsan, Masaharu Fujita

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Safety, river environment, and sediment utilization are the elements of the target of sediment management. As a change in an element by sediment management, may affect the other two elements, and the priority among three elements depends on stakeholders. It is necessary to develop a method to evaluate the effect of sediment management on each element and an integrated evaluation method for socio-economic effect. In this study, taking Mount Merapi basin as an investigation field, the method for an active volcanic basin was developed. An integrated evaluation method for sediment management was discussed from a socio-economic point on safety, environment, and sediment utilization and a case study of sediment management was evaluated by means of this method. To evaluate the effect of sediment management, some parameters on safety, utilization, and environment have been introduced. From a utilization point of view, job opportunity, additional income of local people, and tax income to local government were used to evaluate the effectiveness of sediment management. The risk degree of river infrastructure was used to describe the effect of sediment management on a safety aspect. To evaluate the effects of sediment management on environment, the mean diameter of grain size distribution of riverbed surface was used. On the coordinate system designating these elements, the direction of change in basin condition by sediment management can be predicted, so that the most preferable sediment management can be decided. The results indicate that the cases of sediment management tend to give the negative impacts on sediment utilization. However, these sediment managements will give positive impacts on safety and environment condition. Evaluation result from a social-economic point of view shows that the case study of sediment management reduces job opportunity and additional income for inhabitants as well as tax income for government. Therefore, it is necessary to make another policy for creating job opportunity for inhabitants to support these sediment managements.

Keywords: Merapi, sediment, management, evaluation

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Authors: Morteza Elsa, Amirhossein Moghanian

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The major aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of CaO content on in vitro hydroxyapatite formation, MC3T3 cells cytotoxicity and proliferation as well as antibacterial efficiency of sol-gel derived SiO₂–CaO–P₂O₅ ternary system. For this purpose, first two grades of bioactive glass (BG); BG-58s (mol%: 60%SiO₂–36%CaO–4%P₂O₅) and BG-68s (mol%: 70%SiO₂–26%CaO–4%P₂O₅)) were synthesized by sol-gel method. Second, the effect of CaO content in their composition on in vitro bioactivity was investigated by soaking the BG-58s and BG-68s powders in simulated body fluid (SBF) for time periods up to 14 days and followed by characterization inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. Additionally, live/dead staining, 3-(4,5dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity assays were conducted respectively, as qualitatively and quantitatively assess for cell viability, proliferation and differentiations of MC3T3 cells in presence of 58s and 68s BGs. Results showed that BG-58s with higher CaO content showed higher in vitro bioactivity with respect to BG-68s. Moreover, the dissolution rate was inversely proportional to oxygen density of the BG. Live/dead assay revealed that both 58s and 68s increased the mean number live cells which were in good accordance with MTT assay. Furthermore, BG-58s showed more potential antibacterial activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. Taken together, BG-58s with enhanced MC3T3 cells proliferation and ALP activity, acceptable bioactivity and significant high antibacterial effect against MRSA bacteria is suggested as a suitable candidate in order to further functionalizing for delivery of therapeutic ions and growth factors in bone tissue engineering.

Keywords: Antibacterial, bioactive glass, hydroxyapatite, proliferation, sol-gel processes.

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Authors: Prasad Senadheera, Younousse Saidi, Frans JM Maathuis

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Rice seed expression (cDNA) library in the Lambda Zap 11® phage constructed from the developing grain 10-20 days after flowering was transformed into yeast for functional complementation assays in three salt sensitive yeast mutants S. cerevisiae strain CY162, G19 and Axt3K. Transformed cells of G19 and Axt3K with pYES vector with cDNA inserts showed enhance tolerance than those with empty pYes vector. Sequencing of the cDNA inserts revealed that they encode for the putative proteins with the sequence homologous to rice putative protein PROLM24 (Os06g31070), a prolamin precursor. Expression of this cDNA did not affect yeast growth in absence of salt. Axt3k and G19 strains expressing the PROLM24 were able to grow upto 400 mM and 600 mM of NaCl respectively. Similarly, Axt3k mutant with PROLM24 expression showed comparatively higher growth rate in the medium with excess LiCl (50 mM). The observation that expression of PROLM24 rescued the salt sensitive phenotypes of G19 and Axt3k indicates the existence of a regulatory system that ameliorates the effect of salt stress in the transformed yeast mutants. However, the exact function of the cDNA sequence, which shows partial sequence homology to yeast UTR1 is not clear. Although UTR1 involved in ferrous uptake and iron homeostasis in yeast cells, there is no evidence to prove its role in Na+ homeostasis in yeast cells. Absence of transmembrane regions in Os06g31070 protein indicates that salt tolerance is achieved not through the direct functional complementation of the mutant genes but through an alternative mechanism.

Keywords: Rice seed expression, salt stress, prolamin, salinitytolerance, Oryza sativa

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Authors: Sadegh Lotfieblisofla, Arash Khodabakhshi

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Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) as a serine protease plays an important role in the fibrinolytic system and the dissolution of fibrin clots in human body. The production of this drug in plants such as tobacco could reduce its production costs. In this study, expression of tPA gene and protein targeting to different plant cell compartments, using various signal peptides has been investigated. For high level of expression, Kozak sequence was used after CaMV35S in the beginning of the gene. In order to design the final construction, Extensin, KDEL (amino acid sequence including Lys-Asp-Glu-Leu) and SP (γ-zein signal peptide coding sequence) were used as leader signals to conduct this protein into apoplast, endoplasmic reticulum and cytosol spaces, respectively. Cloned human tPA gene under the CaMV (Cauliflower mosaic virus) 35S promoter and NOS (Nopaline Synthase) terminator into pBI121 plasmid was transferred into tobacco explants by Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA₄₄₀₄. The presence and copy number of genes in transgenic tobacco was proved by Southern blotting. Enzymatic activity of the rt-PA protein in transgenic plants compared to non-transgenic plants was confirmed by Zymography assay. The presence and amount of rt-PA recombinant protein in plants was estimated by ELISA analysis on crude protein extract of transgenic tobacco using a specific antibody. The yield of recombinant tPA in transgenic tobacco for SP, KDEL, Extensin signals were counted 0.50, 0.68, 0.69 microgram per milligram of total soluble proteins.

Keywords: Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, plant cell comportment, leader signals, transgenic tobacco.

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Authors: Yongxin Yuan

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The problem of updating damped gyroscopic systems using measured modal data can be mathematically formulated as following two problems. Problem I: Given Ma ∈ Rn×n, Λ = diag{λ1, ··· , λp} ∈ Cp×p, X = [x1, ··· , xp] ∈ Cn×p, where p<n and both Λ and X are closed under complex conjugation in the sense that λ2j = λ¯2j−1 ∈ C, x2j = ¯x2j−1 ∈ Cn for j = 1, ··· , l, and λk ∈ R, xk ∈ Rn for k = 2l + 1, ··· , p, find real-valued symmetric matrices D,K and a real-valued skew-symmetric matrix G (that is, GT = −G) such that MaXΛ2 + (D + G)XΛ + KX = 0. Problem II: Given real-valued symmetric matrices Da, Ka ∈ Rn×n and a real-valued skew-symmetric matrix Ga, find (D, ˆ G, ˆ Kˆ ) ∈ SE such that Dˆ −Da2+Gˆ−Ga2+Kˆ −Ka2 = min(D,G,K)∈SE (D− Da2 + G − Ga2 + K − Ka2), where SE is the solution set of Problem I and · is the Frobenius norm. This paper presents an iterative algorithm to solve Problem I and Problem II. By using the proposed iterative method, a solution of Problem I can be obtained within finite iteration steps in the absence of roundoff errors, and the minimum Frobenius norm solution of Problem I can be obtained by choosing a special kind of initial matrices. Moreover, the optimal approximation solution (D, ˆ G, ˆ Kˆ ) of Problem II can be obtained by finding the minimum Frobenius norm solution of a changed Problem I. A numerical example shows that the introduced iterative algorithm is quite efficient.

Keywords: Model updating, iterative algorithm, gyroscopic system, partially prescribed spectral data, optimal approximation.

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Authors: H. Benjamin Fredrick David, R. Balasubramanian, A. Anbarasa Pandian

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Image retrieval is the most interesting technique which is being used today in our digital world. CBIR, commonly expanded as Content Based Image Retrieval is an image processing technique which identifies the relevant images and retrieves them based on the patterns that are extracted from the digital images. In this paper, two research works have been presented using CBIR. The first work provides an automated and interactive approach to the analysis of CBIR techniques. CBIR works on the principle of supervised machine learning which involves feature selection followed by training and testing phase applied on a classifier in order to perform prediction. By using feature extraction, the image transforms such as Contourlet, Ridgelet and Shearlet could be utilized to retrieve the texture features from the images. The features extracted are used to train and build a classifier using the classification algorithms such as Naïve Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbour and Multi-class Support Vector Machine. Further the testing phase involves prediction which predicts the new input image using the trained classifier and label them from one of the four classes namely 1- Normal brain, 2- Benign tumour, 3- Malignant tumour and 4- Severe tumour. The second research work includes developing a tool which is used for tumour stage identification using the best feature extraction and classifier identified from the first work. Finally, the tool will be used to predict tumour stage and provide suggestions based on the stage of tumour identified by the system. This paper presents these two approaches which is a contribution to the medical field for giving better retrieval performance and for tumour stages identification.

Keywords: Brain tumour detection, content based image retrieval, classification of tumours, image retrieval.

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Authors: Frodouard Minani

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Since last decade, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been used in many areas like health care, agriculture, defense, military, disaster hit areas and so on. Wireless Sensor Networks consist of a Base Station (BS) and more number of wireless sensors in order to monitor temperature, pressure, motion in different environment conditions. The key parameter that plays a major role in designing a protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks is energy efficiency which is a scarcest resource of sensor nodes and it determines the lifetime of sensor nodes. Maximizing sensor node’s lifetime is an important issue in the design of applications and protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks. Clustering sensor nodes mechanism is an effective topology control approach for helping to achieve the goal of this research. In this paper, the researcher presents an energy efficiency protocol to prolong the network lifetime based on Energy efficient clustering algorithm. The Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is a routing protocol for clusters which is used to lower the energy consumption and also to improve the lifetime of the Wireless Sensor Networks. Maximizing energy dissipation and network lifetime are important matters in the design of applications and protocols for wireless sensor networks. Proposed system is to maximize the lifetime of the Wireless Sensor Networks by choosing the farthest cluster head (CH) instead of the closest CH and forming the cluster by considering the following parameter metrics such as Node’s density, residual-energy and distance between clusters (inter-cluster distance). In this paper, comparisons between the proposed protocol and comparative protocols in different scenarios have been done and the simulation results showed that the proposed protocol performs well over other comparative protocols in various scenarios.

Keywords: Base station, clustering algorithm, energy efficient, wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: B. Sadepovich Maikanov, Z. Shabanbayevich Adilbekov, R. Husainovna Mustafina, L. Tyulegenovna Auteleyeva

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This study involves detailed information about contaminants of honey in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The requirements of the technical regulation ‘Requirements to safety of honey and bee products’ and GOST 19792-2001 were taken into account in this research. Contamination of honey by antibiotics wqs determined by the IEA (immune-enzyme analysis), Ridder analyzer and Tecna produced test systems. Voltammetry (TaLab device) was used to define contamination by salts of heavy metals and gamma-beta spectrometry, ‘Progress BG’ system, with preliminary ashing of the sample of honey was used to define radioactive contamination. This article pointed out that residues of chloramphenicol were detected in 24% of investigated products, in 22% of them –streptomycin, in 7.3% - sulfanilamide, in 2.4% - tylosin, and in 12% - combined contamination was noted. Geographically, the greatest degree of contamination of honey with antibiotics occurs in the Northern Kazakhstan – 54.4%, and Southern Kazakhstan - 50%, and the lowest in Central and Eastern Kazakhstan with 30% and 25%, respectively. Generally, pollution by heavy metals is within acceptable limits, but the contamination from lead is highest in the Akmola region. The level of radioactive cesium and strontium is also within acceptable concentrations. The highest radioactivity in terms of cesium was observed in the East Kazakhstan region - 49.00±10 Bq/kg, in Akmola, North Kazakhstan and Almaty - 12.00±5, 11.05±3 and 19.0±8 Bq/kg, respectively, while the norm is 100 Bq/kg. In terms of strontium, the radioactivity in the East Kazakhstan region is 25.03±15 Bq/kg, while in Akmola, North Kazakhstan and Almaty regions it is 12.00±3, 10.2±4 and 1.0±2 Bq/kg, respectively, with the norm of 80 Bq/kg. This accumulation is mainly associated with the environmental degradation, feeding and treating of bees. Moreover, in the process of collecting nectar, external substances can penetrate honey. Overall, this research determines factors and reasons of honey contamination.

Keywords: Antibiotics, contamination of honey, honey, radionuclides.

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Authors: Faiza Belbachir, Thibault Schienhinski

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The massive development of online social networks allows users to post and share their opinions on various topics. With this huge volume of opinion, it is interesting to extract and interpret these information for different domains, e.g., product and service benchmarking, politic, system of recommendation. This is why opinion detection is one of the most important research tasks. It consists on differentiating between opinion data and factual data. The difficulty of this task is to determine an approach which returns opinionated document. Generally, there are two approaches used for opinion detection i.e. Lexical based approaches and Machine Learning based approaches. In Lexical based approaches, a dictionary of sentimental words is used, words are associated with weights. The opinion score of document is derived by the occurrence of words from this dictionary. In Machine learning approaches, usually a classifier is trained using a set of annotated document containing sentiment, and features such as n-grams of words, part-of-speech tags, and logical forms. Majority of these works are based on documents text to determine opinion score but dont take into account if these texts are really correct. Thus, it is interesting to exploit other information to improve opinion detection. In our work, we will develop a new way to consider the opinion score. We introduce the notion of trust score. We determine opinionated documents but also if these opinions are really trustable information in relation with topics. For that we use lexical SentiWordNet to calculate opinion and trust scores, we compute different features about users like (numbers of their comments, numbers of their useful comments, Average useful review). After that, we combine opinion score and trust score to obtain a final score. We applied our method to detect trust opinions in TRIPADVISOR collection. Our experimental results report that the combination between opinion score and trust score improves opinion detection.

Keywords: Tripadvisor, Opinion detection, SentiWordNet, trust score.

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Authors: Kiriaki-Maria Fameli, Vasiliki D. Assimakopoulos, Vasiliki Kotroni

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The Greater Athens Area (GAA) faces photochemical and particulate pollution episodes as a result of the combined effects of local pollutant emissions, regional pollution transport, synoptic circulation and topographic characteristics. The area has undergone significant changes since the Athens 2004 Olympic Games because of large scale infrastructure works that lead to the shift of population to areas previously characterized as rural, the increase of the traffic fleet and the operation of highways. However, few recent modelling studies have been performed due to the lack of an accurate, updated emission inventory. The photochemical modelling system MM5/CAMx was applied in order to study the photochemical and particulate pollution characteristics above the GAA for two distinct ten-day periods in the summer of 2006 and 2010, where air pollution episodes occurred. A new updated emission inventory was used based on official data. Comparison of modeled results with measurements revealed the importance and accuracy of the new Athens emission inventory as compared to previous modeling studies. The model managed to reproduce the local meteorological conditions, the daily ozone and particulates fluctuations at different locations across the GAA. Higher ozone levels were found at suburban and rural areas as well as over the sea at the south of the basin. Concerning PM10, high concentrations were computed at the city centre and the southeastern suburbs in agreement with measured data. Source apportionment analysis showed that different sources contribute to the ozone levels, the local sources (traffic, port activities) affecting its formation.

Keywords: Photochemical modelling, urban pollution, greater Athens area, MM5/CAMx.

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Authors: Thea Freese

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Environmental legislation to protect North and Baltic Sea areas from harmful vessel-source emissions has received increased political attention in recent years. Legislative measures are expected to show positive effects on the health of the marine environment and society. At the same time, compliance might increase the costs to industry and have effects on freight rates and volumes shipped with potential negative repercussions on the environment. Building on an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach, this research project will study the economic effects of maritime environmental legislation in two phases. In Phase I, exploratory in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 experts from various stakeholder groups aiming at identifying variables influencing the relationship between environmental legislation, freight rates and volumes shipped. Influencing factors like compliance, enforcement and modal shift were identified and studied. Phase II will comprise of a quantitative study conducted with the aim of verifying the theory build in Phase I and quantifying economic effects of rules on shipping pollution. Research in this field might inform policy-makers about determinants of behaviour of ship operators in the face of the law and might further the development of a comprehensive legal system for marine environmental protection. At the present stage of research, first tentative results from the qualitative phase may be examined and open research questions to be addressed in the quantitative phase as well as possible research designs for phase II may be discussed. Input from other researchers will be highly valuable at this point.

Keywords: Clean shipping operations, compliance, maritime environmental legislation, maritime law and economics, mixed methods research, North and Baltic Sea area.

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Authors: Mohsen Masoomi, Fazel Asadi Amjad, Monireh Arvin

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According to Naturalistic principles, human destiny in the form of blind chance and determinism, entraps the individual, so man is a defenceless creature unable to escape from the ruthless paws of a stoical universe. In Naturalism; nonetheless, melodrama mirrors a conscious alternative with a peculiar function. A typical American Naturalistic character thus cannot be a subject for social criticism of American society since they are not victims of the ongoing virtual slavery, capitalist system, nor of a ruined milieu, but of their own volition, and more importantly, their character frailty. Through a Postmodern viewpoint, each Naturalistic work can encompass some entropic trends and changes culminating in an entire failure and devastation. Frank Norris in McTeague displays the futile struggles of ordinary men and how they end up brutes. McTeague encompasses intoxication, abuse, violation, and ruthless homicides. Norris’ depictions of the falling individual as a demon represent the entropic dimension of Naturalistic novels. McTeague’s defeat is somewhat his own fault, the result of his own blunders and resolution, not the result of sheer accident. Throughout the novel, each character is a kind of insane quester indicating McTeague’s decadence and, by inference, the decadence of Western civilisation. McTeague seems to designate Norris’ solicitude for a community fabricated by the elements of human negative demeanours and conducts hauling acute symptoms of infectious dehumanisation. The aim of this article is to illustrate how one specific negative human disposition gradually, like a running fire, can spread everywhere and burn everything in itself. The author applies the concept of entropy metaphorically to describe the individual devolutions that necessarily comprise community entropy in McTeague, a dying universe.

Keywords: Animal imagery, entropy, Gypsy, melodrama.

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Authors: S. M. Abdul Khader, Anurag Ayachit, Raghuvir Pai, K. A. Ahmed, V. R. K. Rao, S. Ganesh Kamath

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The numerical simulation has made tremendous advances in investigating the blood flow phenomenon through elastic arteries. Such study can be useful in demonstrating the disease progression and hemodynamics of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. In the present study, patient specific case diagnosed with partially stenosed complete right ICA and normal left carotid bifurcation without any atherosclerotic plaque formation is considered. 3D patient specific carotid bifurcation model is generated based on CT scan data using MIMICS-4.0 and numerical analysis is performed using FSI solver in ANSYS-14.5. The blood flow is assumed to be incompressible, homogenous and Newtonian, while the artery wall is assumed to be linearly elastic. The two-way sequentially coupled transient FSI analysis is performed using FSI solver for three pulse cycles. The hemodynamic parameters such as flow pattern, Wall Shear Stress, pressure contours and arterial wall deformation are studied at the bifurcation and critical zones such as stenosis. The variation in flow behavior is studied throughout the pulse cycle. Also, the simulation results reveal that there is a considerable increase in the flow behavior in stenosed carotid in contrast to the normal carotid bifurcation system. The investigation also demonstrates the disturbed flow pattern especially at the bifurcation and stenosed zone elevating the hemodynamics, particularly during peak systole and later part of the pulse cycle. The results obtained agree well with the clinical observation and demonstrates the potential of patient specific numerical studies in prognosis of disease progression and plaque rupture.

Keywords: Fluid-Structure Interaction, arterial stenosis, Wall Shear Stress, Carotid Artery Bifurcation.

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Authors: Anand B. Desamala, Ashok Kumar Dasamahapatra, Tapas K. Mandal

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In the present work, detailed analysis on flow characteristics of a pair of immiscible liquids through horizontal pipeline is simulated by using ANSYS FLUENT 6.2. Moderately viscous oil and water (viscosity ratio = 107, density ratio = 0.89 and interfacial tension = 0.024 N/m) have been taken as system fluids for the study. Volume of Fluid (VOF) method has been employed by assuming unsteady flow, immiscible liquid pair, constant liquid properties, and co-axial flow. Meshing has been done using GAMBIT. Quadrilateral mesh type has been chosen to account for the surface tension effect more accurately. From the grid independent study, we have selected 47037 number of mesh elements for the entire geometry. Simulation successfully predicts slug, stratified wavy, stratified mixed and annular flow, except dispersion of oil in water, and dispersion of water in oil. Simulation results are validated with horizontal literature data and good conformity is observed. Subsequently, we have simulated the hydrodynamics (viz., velocity profile, area average pressure across a cross section and volume fraction profile along the radius) of stratified wavy and annular flow at different phase velocities. The simulation results show that in the annular flow, total pressure of the mixture decreases with increase in oil velocity due to the fact that pipe cross section is completely wetted with water. Simulated oil volume fraction shows maximum at the centre in core annular flow, whereas, in stratified flow, maximum value appears at upper side of the pipeline. These results are in accord with the actual flow configuration. Our findings could be useful in designing pipeline for transportation of crude oil.

Keywords: CFD, Horizontal pipeline, Oil-water flow, VOF technique.

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Authors: Muhammad Yasir Wadood, Fatemeh Babaeian

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By developing ultra-wideband (UWB) systems, there is a high demand for UWB filters with low insertion loss, wide bandwidth, and having a planar structure which is compatible with other components of the UWB system. A microstrip interdigital filter is a great option for designing UWB filters. However, the presence of via holes in this structure creates difficulties in the fabrication procedure of the filter. Especially in the higher frequency band, any misalignment of the drilled via hole with the Microstrip stubs causes large errors in the measurement results compared to the desired results. Moreover, in this case (high-frequency designs), the line width of the stubs are very narrow, so highly precise small via holes are required to be implemented, which increases the cost of fabrication significantly. Also, in this case, there is a risk of having fabrication errors. To combat this issue, in this paper, a via-less UWB microstrip filter is proposed which is designed based on a modification of a conventional inter-digital bandpass filter. The novel approaches in this filter design are 1) replacement of each via hole with a quarter-wavelength open circuit stub to avoid the complexity of manufacturing, 2) using a bend structure to reduce the unwanted coupling effects and 3) minimising the size. Using the proposed structure, a UWB filter operating in the frequency band of 3.9-6.6 GHz (1-dB bandwidth) is designed and fabricated. The promising results of the simulation and measurement are presented in this paper. The selected substrate for these designs was Rogers RO4003 with a thickness of 20 mils. This is a common substrate in most of the industrial projects. The compact size of the proposed filter is highly beneficial for applications which require a very miniature size of hardware.

Keywords: Band-pass filters, inter-digital filter, microstrip, via-less.

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Authors: Magdi Elmessiry, Adel Elmessiry

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The fashion industry represents a significant portion of the global gross domestic product, however, it is plagued by cheap imitators that infringe on the trademarks which destroys the fashion industry's hard work and investment. While eventually the copycats would be found and stopped, the damage has already been done, sales are missed and direct and indirect jobs are lost. The infringer thrives on two main facts: the time it takes to discover them and the lack of tracking technologies that can help the consumer distinguish them. Blockchain technology is a new emerging technology that provides a distributed encrypted immutable and fault resistant ledger. Blockchain presents a ripe technology to resolve the infringement epidemic facing the fashion industry. The significance of the study is that a new approach leveraging the state of the art blockchain technology coupled with artificial intelligence is used to create a framework addressing the fashion infringement problem. It transforms the current focus on legal enforcement, which is difficult at best, to consumer awareness that is far more effective. The framework, Crypto CopyCat, creates an immutable digital asset representing the actual product to empower the customer with a near real time query system. This combination emphasizes the consumer's awareness and appreciation of the product's authenticity, while provides real time feedback to the producer regarding the fake replicas. The main findings of this study are that implementing this approach can delay the fake product penetration of the original product market, thus allowing the original product the time to take advantage of the market. The shift in the fake adoption results in reduced returns, which impedes the copycat market and moves the emphasis to the original product innovation.

Keywords: Fashion, infringement, Blockchain, artificial intelligence, textiles supply.

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Authors: Svetlana Cojocaru, Mircea Petic, Inga Titchiev

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Humanity faces more and more often with different social disasters, which in turn can generate new accidents and catastrophes. To mitigate their consequences, it is important to obtain early possible signals about the events which are or can occur and to prepare the corresponding scenarios that could be applied. Our research is focused on solving two problems in this domain: identifying signals related that an accident occurred or may occur and mitigation of some consequences of disasters. To solve the first problem, methods of selecting and processing texts from global network Internet are developed. Information in Romanian is of special interest for us. In order to obtain the mentioned tools, we should follow several steps, divided into preparatory stage and processing stage. Throughout the first stage, we manually collected over 724 news articles and classified them into 10 categories of social disasters. It constitutes more than 150 thousand words. Using this information, a controlled vocabulary of more than 300 keywords was elaborated, that will help in the process of classification and identification of the texts related to the field of social disasters. To solve the second problem, the formalism of Petri net has been used. We deal with the problem of inhabitants’ evacuation in useful time. The analysis methods such as reachability or coverability tree and invariants technique to determine dynamic properties of the modeled systems will be used. To perform a case study of properties of extended evacuation system by adding time, the analysis modules of PIPE such as Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPN) Analysis, Simulation, State Space Analysis, and Invariant Analysis have been used. These modules helped us to obtain the average number of persons situated in the rooms and the other quantitative properties and characteristics related to its dynamics.

Keywords: Lexicon of disasters, modelling, Petri nets, text annotation, social disasters.

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Authors: Hachaichi Mohamed Nour El-Islem, Baouni Tahar

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Environmental sustainability rather than a trans-disciplinary and a scientific issue, is the main problem that characterizes all modern cities nowadays. In developing countries, this concern is expressed in a plethora of critical urban ills: traffic congestion, air pollution, noise, urban decay, increase in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions which blemish cities’ landscape and might threaten citizens’ health and welfare. As in the same manner as developing world cities, the rapid growth of Algiers’ human population and increasing in city scale phenomena lead eventually to increase in daily trips, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. In addition, the lack of proper and sustainable planning of the city’s infrastructure is one of the most relevant issues from which Algiers suffers. The aim of this contribution is to estimate the carbon deficit of the City of Algiers, Algeria, using the Ecological Footprint Model (carbon footprint). In order to achieve this goal, the amount of CO₂ from fuel combustion has been calculated and aggregated into five sectors (agriculture, industry, residential, tertiary and transportation); as well, Algiers’ biocapacity (CO₂ uptake land) has been calculated to determine the ecological overshoot. This study shows that Algiers’ transport system is not sustainable and is generating more than 50% of Algiers total carbon footprint which cannot be sequestered by the local forest land. The aim of this research is to show that the Carbon Footprint Assessment might be a relevant indicator to design sustainable strategies/policies striving to reduce CO₂ by setting in motion the energy consumption in the transportation sector and reducing the use of fossil fuels as the main energy input.

Keywords: Biocapacity, carbon footprint, ecological footprint assessment, energy consumption.

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Authors: Dabyltayeva R. Y., Smatova K.B., Кabekenov G., Toleshova U., Shagyrbayeva M.

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In recent years in Kazakhstan, as well as in all countries, we have been talking not only about the professional stress, but also professional Burnout Syndrome of employees. Burnout is essentially a response to chronic emotional stress – manifests itself in the form of chronic fatigue, despondency, unmotivated aggression, anger, and others. This condition is due to mental fatigue among teachers as a sort of payment for overstrain when professional commitments include the impact of “heat your soul", emotional investment. The emergence of professional Burnout among teachers is due to the system of interrelated and mutually reinforcing factors relating to the various levels of the personality: individually-psychological level is psychodynamic special subject characteristics of valuemotivational sphere and formation of skills and habits of selfregulation; the socio-psychological level includes especially the Organization and interpersonal interaction of a teacher. Signs of the Burnout were observed in 15 testees, and virtually a symptom could be observed in every teacher. As a result of the diagnosis 48% of teachers had the signs of stress (phase syndrome), resulting in a sense of anxiety, mood, heightened emotional susceptibility. The following results have also been got:-the fall of General energy potential – 14 pers. -Psychosomatic and psycho vegetative syndrome – 26 pers. -emotional deficit-34 pers. -emotional Burnout Syndrome-6 pers. The problem of professional Burnout of teachers in the current conditions should become not only meaningful, but particularly relevant. The quality of education of the younger generation depends on professional development; teachers- training level, and how “healthy" teachers are. That is why the systematic maintenance of pedagogic-professional development for teachers (including disclosure of professional Burnout Syndrome factors) takes on a special meaning.

Keywords: Professional burnout syndrome, adaptive syndrome, stage of depletion syndrome, symptoms and characteristics of burnout, prophylactic of professional destruction techniques.

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Authors: Gaurav Bhanjana, Ganga Ram Chaudhary, Sandeep Kumar, Neeraj Dilbaghi

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Main sources of endocrine disrupting compounds in the ecosystem are hormones, pesticides, phthalates, flame retardants, dioxins, personal-care products, coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), bisphenol A, and parabens. These endocrine disrupting compounds are responsible for learning disabilities, brain development problems, deformations of the body, cancer, reproductive abnormalities in females and decreased sperm count in human males. Although discharge of these chemical compounds into the environment cannot be stopped, yet their amount can be retarded through proper evaluation and detection techniques. The available techniques for determination of these endocrine disrupting compounds mainly include high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectroscopy (MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). These techniques are accurate and reliable but have certain limitations like need of skilled personnel, time consuming, interference and requirement of pretreatment steps. Moreover, these techniques are laboratory bound and sample is required in large amount for analysis. In view of above facts, new methods for detection of endocrine disrupting compounds should be devised that promise high specificity, ultra sensitivity, cost effective, efficient and easy-to-operate procedure. Nowadays, electrochemical sensors/biosensors modified with nanomaterials are gaining high attention among researchers. Bioelement present in this system makes the developed sensors selective towards analyte of interest. Nanomaterials provide large surface area, high electron communication feature, enhanced catalytic activity and possibilities of chemical modifications. In most of the cases, nanomaterials also serve as an electron mediator or electrocatalyst for some analytes.

Keywords: Sensors, endocrine disruptors, nanoparticles, electrochemical, microscopy.

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Authors: Majid Yazdandoust

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This study, tries to suggest a design method based on displacement using finite difference numerical modeling in reinforcing soil retaining wall with steel strip. In this case, dynamic loading characteristics such as duration, frequency, peak ground acceleration, geometrical characteristics of reinforced soil structure and type of the site are considered to correct the pseudo static method and finally introduce the pseudo static coefficient as a function of seismic performance level and peak ground acceleration. For this purpose, the influence of dynamic loading characteristics, reinforcement length, height of reinforced system and type of the site are investigated on seismic behavior of reinforcing soil retaining wall with steel strip. Numerical results illustrate that the seismic response of this type of wall is highly dependent to cumulative absolute velocity, maximum acceleration, and height and reinforcement length so that the reinforcement length can be introduced as the main factor in shape of failure. Considering the loading parameters, geometric parameters of the wall and type of the site showed that the used method in this study leads to efficient designs in comparison with other methods, which are usually based on limit-equilibrium concept. The outputs show the over-estimation of equilibrium design methods in comparison with proposed displacement based methods here.

Keywords: Pseudo static coefficient, seismic performance design, numerical modeling, steel strip reinforcement, retaining walls, cumulative absolute velocity, failure shape.

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Authors: Johan Wall, Johan Fredin, Anders Jönsson, Göran Broman

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Designing modern machine tools is a complex task. A simulation tool to aid the design work, a virtual machine, has therefore been developed in earlier work. The virtual machine considers the interaction between the mechanics of the machine (including structural flexibility) and the control system. This paper exemplifies the usefulness of the virtual machine as a tool for product development. An optimisation study is conducted aiming at improving the existing design of a machine tool regarding weight and manufacturing accuracy at maintained manufacturing speed. The problem can be categorised as constrained multidisciplinary multiobjective multivariable optimisation. Parameters of the control and geometric quantities of the machine are used as design variables. This results in a mix of continuous and discrete variables and an optimisation approach using a genetic algorithm is therefore deployed. The accuracy objective is evaluated according to international standards. The complete systems model shows nondeterministic behaviour. A strategy to handle this based on statistical analysis is suggested. The weight of the main moving parts is reduced by more than 30 per cent and the manufacturing accuracy is improvement by more than 60 per cent compared to the original design, with no reduction in manufacturing speed. It is also shown that interaction effects exist between the mechanics and the control, i.e. this improvement would most likely not been possible with a conventional sequential design approach within the same time, cost and general resource frame. This indicates the potential of the virtual machine concept for contributing to improved efficiency of both complex products and the development process for such products. Companies incorporating such advanced simulation tools in their product development could thus improve its own competitiveness as well as contribute to improved resource efficiency of society at large.

Keywords: Machine tools, Mechatronics, Non-deterministic, Optimisation, Product development, Virtual machine

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Authors: Tse-Yu Hsieh, Jyh-Jian Chen

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Since polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been invented, it has emerged as a powerful tool in genetic analysis. The PCR products are closely linked with thermal cycles. Therefore, to reduce the reaction time and make temperature distribution uniform in the reaction chamber, a novel oscillatory thermal cycler is designed. The sample is placed in a fixed chamber, and three constant isothermal zones are established and lined in the system. The sample is oscillated and contacted with three different isothermal zones to complete thermal cycles. This study presents the design of the geometric characteristics of the chamber. The commercial software CFD-ACE+TM is utilized to investigate the influences of various materials, heating times, chamber volumes, and moving speed of the chamber on the temperature distributions inside the chamber. The chamber moves at a specific velocity and the boundary conditions with time variations are related to the moving speed. Whereas the chamber moves, the boundary is specified at the conditions of the convection or the uniform temperature. The user subroutines compiled by the FORTRAN language are used to make the numerical results realistically. Results show that the reaction chamber with a rectangular prism is heated on six faces; the effects of various moving speeds of the chamber on the temperature distributions are examined. Regarding to the temperature profiles and the standard deviation of the temperature at the Y-cut cross section, the non-uniform temperature inside chamber is found as the moving speed is larger than 0.01 m/s. By reducing the heating faces to four, the standard deviation of the temperature of the reaction chamber is under 1.4×10-3K with the range of velocities between 0.0001 m/s and 1 m/s. The nature convective boundary conditions are set at all boundaries while the chamber moves between two heaters, the effects of various moving velocities of the chamber on the temperature distributions are negligible at the assigned time duration.

Keywords: Polymerase chain reaction, oscillatory thermal cycler, standard deviation of temperature, nature convective.

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Authors: T. Chaiechi, N. Stoeckl

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Scarcity of resources for biodiversity conservation gives rise to the need of strategic investment with priorities given to the cost of conservation. While the literature provides abundant methodological options for biodiversity conservation; estimating true cost of conservation remains abstract and simplistic, without recognising dynamic nature of the cost. Some recent works demonstrate the prominence of economic theory to inform biodiversity decisions, particularly on the costs and benefits of biodiversity however, the integration of the concept of true cost into biodiversity actions and planning are very slow to come by, and specially on a farm level. Conservation planning studies often use area as a proxy for costs neglecting different land values as well as protected areas. These literature consider only heterogeneous benefits while land costs are considered homogenous. Analysis with the assumption of cost homogeneity results in biased estimation; since not only it doesn’t address the true total cost of biodiversity actions and plans, but also it fails to screen out lands that are more (or less) expensive and/or difficult (or more suitable) for biodiversity conservation purposes, hindering validity and comparability of the results. Economies of scope” is one of the other most neglected aspects in conservation literature. The concept of economies of scope introduces the existence of cost complementarities within a multiple output production system and it suggests a lower cost during the concurrent production of multiple outputs by a given farm. If there are, indeed, economies of scope then simplistic representation of costs will tend to overestimate the true cost of conservation leading to suboptimal outcomes. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide first road review of the various theoretical ways in which economies of scope are likely to occur of how they might occur in conservation. Consequently, the paper addresses gaps that have to be filled in future analysis.

Keywords: Cost, biodiversity conservation, Multi-output production systems, Empirical techniques.

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Authors: N. I. Bazid, I. N. Umar

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Due to the advancement of Internet technology, online learning is widely used in higher education institutions. Online learning offers several means of communication, including online forum. Through online forum, students and instructors are able to discuss and share their knowledge and expertise without having a need to attend the face-to-face, ordinary classroom session. The purposes of this study are to analyze the students’ levels of participation and critical thinking, types of action and factors influencing their participation in online forum. A total of 41 postgraduate students undertaking a course in educational technology from a public university in Malaysia were involved in this study. In this course, the students participated in a weekly online forum as part of the course requirement. Based on the log data file extracted from the online forum, the students’ type of actions (view, add, update, delete posts) and their levels of participation (passive, moderate or active) were identified. In addition, the messages posted in the forum were analyzed to gauge their level of critical thinking. Meanwhile, the factors that might influence their online forum participation were measured using a 24-items questionnaire. Based on the log data, a total of 105 posts were sent by the participants. In addition, the findings show that (i) majority of the students are moderate participants, with an average of two to three posts per person, (ii) viewing posts are the most frequent type of action (85.1%), and followed by adding post (9.7%). Furthermore, based on the posts they made, the most frequent type of critical thinking observed was justification (50 input or 19.0%), followed by linking ideas and interpretation (47 input or 18%), and novelty (38 input or 14.4%). The findings indicate that online forum allows for social interaction and can be used to measure the students’ critical thinking skills. In order to achieve this, monitoring students’ activities in the online forum is recommended.

Keywords: Critical thinking, learning management system, level of online participation, online forum.

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Authors: John Justo Ambuchi, Zhaohan Zhang, Yujie Feng

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Quick development and usage of nanotechnology have resulted to massive use of various nanoparticles, such as iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) and multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Thus, this study investigated the role of IONPs and MWCNTs in enhancing bioenergy recovery. Results show that IONPs at a concentration of 750 mg/L and MWCNTs at a concentration of 1500 mg/L induced faster substrate utilization and biogas production rates than the control. IONPs exhibited higher carbon oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency than MWCNTs while on the contrary, MWCNT performance on biogas generation was remarkable than IONPs. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigation revealed extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) excretion from AGS had an interaction with nanoparticles. This interaction created a protective barrier to microbial consortia hence reducing their cytotoxicity. Microbial community analyses revealed genus predominance of bacteria of Anaerolineaceae and Longilinea. Their role in biodegradation of the substrate could have highly been boosted by nanoparticles. The archaea predominance of the genus level of Methanosaeta and Methanobacterium enhanced methanation process. The presence of bacteria of genus Geobacter was also reported. Their presence might have significantly contributed to direct interspecies electron transfer in the system. Exposure of AGS to nanoparticles promoted direct interspecies electron transfer among the anaerobic fermenting bacteria and their counterpart methanogens during the anaerobic digestion process. This results provide useful insightful information in understanding the response of microorganisms to IONPs and MWCNTs in the complex natural environment.

Keywords: Anaerobic granular sludge, extracellular polymeric substances, iron oxide nanoparticles, multi-wall carbon nanotubes.

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Authors: Muhammad Tufail, Jawad Hussain, Hammad Hussain, Imran Hafeez, Naveed Ahmad

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Road safety performance index is a composite index which combines various indicators of road safety into single number. Development of a road safety performance index using appropriate safety performance indicators is essential to enhance road safety. However, a road safety performance index in developing countries has not been given as much priority as needed. The primary objective of this research is to develop a general Road Safety Performance Index (RSPI) for developing countries based on the facility as well as behavior of road user. The secondary objectives include finding the critical inputs in the RSPI and finding the better method of making the index. In this study, the RSPI is developed by selecting four main safety performance indicators i.e., protective system (seat belt, helmet etc.), road (road width, signalized intersections, number of lanes, speed limit), number of pedestrians, and number of vehicles. Data on these four safety performance indicators were collected using observation survey on a 20 km road section of the National Highway N-125 road Taxila, Pakistan. For the development of this composite index, two methods are used: a) Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and b) Equal Weighting (EW) method. PCA is used for extraction, weighting, and linear aggregation of indicators to obtain a single value. An individual index score was calculated for each road section by multiplication of weights and standardized values of each safety performance indicator. However, Simple Average technique was used for weighting and linear aggregation of indicators to develop a RSPI. The road sections are ranked according to RSPI scores using both methods. The two weighting methods are compared, and the PCA method is found to be much more reliable than the Simple Average Technique.

Keywords: Aggregation, index score, indicators, principal component analysis, weighting.

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Authors: Muhammad Safi, Abdul Manan

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In recent years, research in aircraft avionics systems (i.e., radars and antennas) has grown revolutionary. Aircraft technology is experiencing an increasing inclination from all mechanical to all electrical aircraft, with the introduction of inhabitant air vehicles and drone taxis over the last few years. This develops an overriding need to summarize the history, latest trends, and future development in aircraft avionics research for a better understanding and development of new technologies in the domain of avionics systems. This paper focuses on the future trends in antennas and phased arrays for avionics systems. Along with the general overview of the future avionics trend, this work describes the review of around 50 high-quality research papers on aircraft communication systems. Electric-powered aircrafts have been a hot topic in the modern aircraft world. Electric aircrafts have supremacy over their conventional counterparts. Due to increased drone taxi and urban air mobility, fast and reliable communication is very important, so concepts of Broadband Integrated Digital Avionics Information Exchange Networks (B-IDAIENs) and Modular Avionics are being researched for better communication of future aircraft. A Ku-band phased array antenna based on a modular design can be used in a modular avionics system. Furthermore, integrated avionics is also emerging research in future avionics. The main focus of work in future avionics will be using integrated modular avionics and infra-red phased array antennas, which are discussed in detail in this paper. Other work such as reconfigurable antennas and optical communication, are also discussed in this paper. The future of modern aircraft avionics would be based on integrated modulated avionics and small artificial intelligence-based antennas. Optical and infrared communication will also replace microwave frequencies.

Keywords: AI, avionics systems, communication, electric aircrafts, Infra-red, integrated avionics, modular avionics, phased array, reconfigurable antenna, UAVs.

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Authors: Mahdiyeh Zafaranchi

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With rapid development of urbanization and improvement of living standards in the world, energy consumption and carbon emissions of the building sector are expected to increase in the near future; because of that, energy-saving issues have become more important among the engineers. Besides, the building sector is a major contributor to energy consumption and carbon emissions. The concept of efficient building appeared as a response to the need for reducing energy demand in this sector which has the main purpose of shifting from standard buildings to low-energy buildings. Although energy-saving should happen in all steps of a building during the life cycle (material production, construction, demolition), the main concept of efficient energy building is saving energy during the life expectancy of a building by using passive and active systems, and should not sacrifice comfort and quality to reach these goals. The main aim of this study is to investigate passive strategies (do not need energy consumption or use renewable energy) to achieve energy-efficient buildings. Energy retrofit measures were explored by eQuest software using a case study as a base model. The study investigates predictive accuracy for the major factors like thermal transmittance (U-value) of the material, windows, shading devices, thermal insulation, rate of the exposed envelope, window/wall ration, lighting system in the energy consumption of the building. The base model was located in Istanbul, Turkey. The impact of eight passive parameters on energy consumption had been indicated. After analyzing the base model by eQuest, a final scenario was suggested which had a good energy performance. The results showed a decrease in the U-values of materials, the rate of exposing buildings, and windows had a significant effect on energy consumption. Finally, savings in electric consumption of about 10.5%, and gas consumption by about 8.37% in the suggested model were achieved annually.

Keywords: Efficient building, electric and gas consumption, eQuest, passive parameters.

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