Search results for: damage level.

Authors: Muhammad Tariq A. Chaudhary

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The tremendous loss of life that resulted in the aftermath of recent earthquakes in developing countries is mostly due to the collapse of non-engineered and semi-engineered building structures. Such structures are used as houses, schools, primary healthcare centers and government offices. These building are classified structurally into two categories viz. non-engineered and semi-engineered. Non-engineered structures include: adobe, unreinforced masonry (URM) and wood buildings. Semi-engineered buildings are mostly low-rise (up to 3 story) light concrete frame structures or masonry bearing walls with reinforced concrete slab. This paper presents an overview of the typical damage observed in non-engineered structures and their most likely causes in the past earthquakes with specific emphasis on the performance of such structures in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. It is demonstrated that seismic performance of these structures can be improved from life-safety viewpoint by adopting simple low-cost modifications to the existing construction practices. Incorporation of some of these practices in the reconstruction efforts after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake are examined in the last section for mitigating seismic risk hazard.

Keywords: Kashmir earthquake, non-engineered buildings, seismic hazard, structural details, structural strengthening.

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Authors: Danesh Nourzadeh, Sepideh Khorshid, Shiro Takada, Khosrow Bargi

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In this paper, transversal vibration of buried pipelines during loading induced by underground explosions is analyzed. The pipeline is modeled as an infinite beam on an elastic foundation, so that soil-structure interaction is considered by means of transverse linear springs along the pipeline. The pipeline behavior is assumed to be ideal elasto-plastic which an ultimate strain value limits the plastic behavior. The blast loading is considered as a point load, considering the affected length at some point of the pipeline, in which the magnitude decreases exponentially with time. A closed-form solution for the quasi-static problem is carried out for both elastic and elasticperfect plastic behaviors of pipe materials. At the end, a comparative study on steel and polyethylene pipes with different sizes buried in various soil conditions, affected by a predefined underground explosion is conducted, in which effect of each parameter is discussed.

Keywords: Beam on elastic foundation, Buried pipelines, External explosion, Non-linear quasi-static solution.

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Authors: M. E. Soto-López, I. Gaxiola-Avendaño, A. Reyes-Salazar, E. Bojórquez, S. E. Ruiz

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The seismic responses of steel buildings with semirigid post-tensioned connections (PC) are estimated and compared with those of steel buildings with typical rigid (welded) connections (RC). The comparison is made in terms of global and local response parameters. The results indicate that the seismic responses in terms of interstory shears, roof displacements, axial load and bending moments are smaller for the buildings with PC connection. The difference is larger for global than for local parameters, which in turn varies from one column location to another. The reason for this improved behavior is that the buildings with PC dissipate more hysteretic energy than those with RC. In addition, unlike the case of buildings with WC, for the PC structures the hysteretic energy is mostly dissipated at the connections, which implies that structural damage in beams and columns is not significant. According to these results, steel buildings with PC are a viable option in high seismicity areas because of their smaller response and self-centering connection capacity as well as the fact that brittle failure is avoided.

Keywords: Inter-story drift, Nonlinear time-history analysis, Post-tensioned connections, Steel buildings.

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Authors: Emad Amar, Tawfik Khattab, Fatma Zada

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Predicting earthquakes is an important issue in the study of geography. Accurate prediction of earthquakes can help people to take effective measures to minimize the loss of personal and economic damage, such as large casualties, destruction of buildings and broken of traffic, occurred within a few seconds. United States Geological Survey (USGS) science organization provides reliable scientific information about Earthquake Existed throughout history & the Preliminary database from the National Center Earthquake Information (NEIC) show some useful factors to predict an earthquake in a seismic area like Aleutian Arc in the U.S. state of Alaska. The main advantage of this prediction method that it does not require any assumption, it makes prediction according to the future evolution of the object's time series. The article compares between simulation data result from trained BP and RBF neural network versus actual output result from the system calculations. Therefore, this article focuses on analysis of data relating to real earthquakes. Evaluation results show better accuracy and higher speed by using radial basis functions (RBF) neural network.

Keywords: BP neural network, Prediction, RBF neural network.

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Authors: N. Rugthaicharoencheep, A. Charlangsut, B. Ainsuk, A. Phayomhom

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This paper presents the significant factor and give some suggestion that should know before design. The main objective of this paper is guide the first step for someone who attends to design of grounding system before study in details later. The overview of grounding system can protect damage from fault such as can save a human life and power system equipment. The unsafe conditions have three cases. Case 1) maximum touch voltage exceeds the safety criteria. In this case, the conductor compression ratio of the ground gird should be first adjusted to have optimal spacing of ground grid conductors. If it still over limit, earth resistivity should be consider afterward. Case 2) maximum step voltage exceeds the safety criteria. In this case, increasing the number of ground grid conductors around the boundary can solve this problem. Case 3) both of maximum touch and step voltage exceed the safety criteria. In this case, follow the solutions explained in case 1 and case 2. Another suggestion, vary depth of ground grid until maximum step and touch voltage do not exceed the safety criteria.

Keywords: Grounding System, Touch Voltage, Step Voltage, Safety Criteria.

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Authors: Wan-Yu Liu

Abstract:

To respond to the Kyoto Protocol, the policy of Payment for Environmental Service (PES), which was entitled “Plain Landscape Afforestation Program (PLAP)", was certified by Executive Yuan in Taiwan on 31 August 2001 and has been implementing for six years since 1 January 2002. Although the PLAP has received a lot of positive comments, there are still many difficulties during the process of implementation, such as insufficient technology for afforestation, private landowners- low interests in participating in PLAP, insufficient subsidies, and so on, which are potential threats that hinder the PLAP from moving forward in future. In this paper, selecting Ping-Tung County in Taiwan as a sample region and targeting those private landowners with and without intention to participate in the PLAP, respectively, we conduct an empirical analysis based on the Logit model to investigate the factors that determine whether those private landowners join the PLAP, so as to realize the incentive effects of the PLAP upon the personal decision on afforestation. The possible factors that might determine private landowner-s participation in the PLAP include landowner-s characteristics, cropland characteristics, as well as policy factors. Among them, the policy factors include afforestation subsidy amount (+), duration of afforestation subsidy (+), the rules on adjoining and adjacent areas (+), and so on, which do not reach the remarkable level in statistics though, but the directions of variable signs are consistent with the intuition behind the policy. As for the landowners- characteristics, each of age (+), education level (–), and annual household income (+) variables reaches 10% of the remarkable level in statistics; as for the cropland characteristics, each of cropland area (+), cropland price (–), and the number of cropland parcels (–) reaches 1% of the remarkable level in statistics. In light of the above, the cropland characteristics are the dominate factor that determines the probability of landowner-s participation in the PLAP. In the Logit model established by this paper, the probability of correctly estimating nonparticipants is 98%, the probability of correctly estimating the participants is 71.8%, and the probability for the overall estimation is 95%. In addition, Hosmer-Lemeshow test and omnibus test also revealed that the Logit model in this paper may provide fine goodness of fit and good predictive power in forecasting private landowners- participation in this program. The empirical result of this paper expects to help the implementation of the afforestation programs in Taiwan.

Keywords: Forestry policy, logit, afforestation subsidy, afforestation policy.

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Authors: Tao Shun, Xiao Xiangning, HadjSaid, N.

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In a liberalized electricity market, it is not surprising that different customers require different power quality (PQ) levels at different price. Power quality related to several power disturbances is described by many parameters, so how to define a comprehensive hierarchy evaluation system of power quality (PQCHES) has become a concerned issue. In this paper, based on four electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) levels, the numerical range of each power disturbance is divided into five grades (Grade I –Grade V), and the “barrel principle" of power quality is used for the assessment of overall PQ performance with only one grade indicator. A case study based on actual monitored data of PQ shows that the site PQ grade indicates the electromagnetic environment level and also expresses the characteristics of loads served by the site. The shortest plank principle of PQ barrel is an incentive mechanism, which can combine with the rewards/penalty mechanism (RPM) of consumed energy “on quality demand", to stimulate utilities to improve the overall PQ level and also stimulate end-user more “smart" under the infrastructure of future SmartGrid..

Keywords: Power quality, electromagnetic compatibility, SmartGrid, comprehensive evaluation, barrel principle, electricitymarket

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Authors: S. S. Panda, Arkesh Chouhan, Yogesh Deshpande

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The present paper deals with designing and fabricating an apparatus for the speedy and accurate manufacturing of fiber reinforced composite lamina of different orientation, thickness and stacking sequences for testing. Properties derived through an analytical approach are verified through measuring the elastic modulus, ultimate tensile strength, flexural modulus and flexural strength of the samples. The 0⁰ orientation ply looks stiffer compared to the 90⁰ ply. Similarly, the flexural strength of 0⁰ ply is higher than to the 90⁰ ply. Sample machinability has been studied by conducting numbers of drilling based on Taguchi Design experiments. Multi Responses (Delamination and Damage grading) is obtained using the desirability approach and optimum cutting condition (spindle speed, feed and drill diameter), at which responses are minimized is obtained thereafter. Delamination increases nonlinearly with the increase in spindle speed. Similarly, the influence of the drill diameter on delamination is higher than the spindle speed and feed rate.

Keywords: Delamination, FRP composite, multi response optimization, Taguchi design.

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Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan

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Diabetes disease that arises from the higher glucose level due to insulin shortage or insulin opposition in the human body has become a common disease in the world. No medicine can cure it completely. However, by taking medicine, maintaining diets, and having exercises regularly, a diabetes patient can keep his glucose level within the specified limits and in this way, he/she can lead a normal life like a healthy person. But to control glucose levels, a patient needs to monitor them regularly. Various techniques are being used over the last four decades. This modern review article aims to provide a comparative study report on various blood glucose monitoring techniques in a very concise and organized manner. The review mainly emphasizes working principles, cost, technology, sensors, measurement types, measurement accuracy, advantages, and disadvantages, etc. of various techniques and then compares among each other. Besides, the use of algorithms and simulators for the growth of this technology is also presented. Finally, current research trends of this measurement technology have also been discussed.

Keywords: blood glucose measurement, sensors, measurement devices, invasive and non-invasive techniques

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Authors: T. Motsima, K. Zuma, E Rapoo

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Childhood mortality is a key sign of the coverage of child survival interventions, social and economic progressions. Although the level of under-five mortality has been declining, it is still unacceptably high. The primary aim of this paper is to establish and analyse the levels and trends of under-five mortality for the periods 1998, 2003 and 2012 in South Africa. Methods: The data used for analysis came from the 1998 SADHS, the 2003 SADHS and the 2012 SABSSM which collected information on the survival status of children. The Kaplan-Meier estimate of the survival function method was used to determine the probabilities of failure (death) from birth up to 59 months. Results and Conclusion: The overall U5MR declined by 28.2% from 53.1 in 1998 to 38.1 in 2012. The U5MR of male children declined from 59.2 in 1998 to 46.2 in 2003 and dropped further to 41.4 in 2012. The U5MR of children of mothers aged 40 years and older increased from 64.0 in 1998 to 89.0 in 2003 and rose further to 129.9 in 2012. The U5MR of children of mothers with education level of 12 years or more increased from 32.2 in 1998 to 35.2 in 2003 and declined substantially to 17.5 in 2012.

Keywords: Demographic and health survey, Kaplan-Meier, levels and trends, under-five mortality.

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Authors: Gomes C. C. Izabel, Lanzotti B. Rafaela, Orlandi S. Fabiana

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Chronic Kidney Disease is considered a serious public health problem. The exploitation of resilience has been guided by studies conducted in various contexts, especially in hemodialysis, since the impact of diagnosis and restrictions produced during the treatment process because, despite advances in treatment, remains the stigma of the disease and the feeling of pain, hopelessness, low self-esteem and disability. The objective was to evaluate the level of resilience of patients in chronic renal dialysis. This is a descriptive, correlational, cross and quantitative research. The sample consisted of 100 patients from a Renal Replacement Therapy Unit in the countryside of São Paulo. For data collection were used the characterization instrument of Participants and the Resilience Scale. There was a predominance of males (70.0%) were Caucasian (45.0%) and had completed elementary education (34.0%). The average score obtained through the Resilience Scale was 131.3 (± 20.06) points. The resiliency level submitted may be considered satisfactory. It is expected that this study will assist in the preparation of programs and actions in order to avoid possible situations of crises faced by chronic renal patients.

Keywords: Hemodialysis units, hospital, renal dialysis, renal insufficiency chronic, resilience psychological.

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Authors: S. Venkateshwarlu, B. P. Muni, A. D. Rajkumar, J. Praveen

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Custom power is a technology driven product and service solution which embraces a family devices such as Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR), Distributed Shunt Compensator (DSTATCOM), Solid State Breaker (SSB) etc which will provide power quality functions at distribution voltages. The rapid response of these devices enables them to operate in real time, providing continuous and dynamic control of the supply including voltage and reactive power regulation, harmonic reduction and elimination of voltage dips. This paper presents the benefits of multilevel inverters when they are used for DPC based custom power devices. Power flow control mechanism, salient features, advantages and disadvantages of direct power control (DPC) using lookup table, SVM, predictive voltage vector and hybrid DPC strategies are discussed in this paper. Simulation results of three level inverter based STATCOM, harmonic analysis of multi level inverters are presented at the end.

Keywords: DPC, DPC-SVM, Dynamic voltage restorer, DSTATCOM, Multilevel inverter, PWM Converter, PDPC, VF-DPC.

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Authors: Wilailuk Meepracha

Abstract:

The results of the study on the project evaluation to  develop the competencies, capabilities, and skills in repairing  computers of people in Jompluak Local Municipality, Bang Khonthi  District, Samut Songkram Province showed that the overall result  was good (4.33). When considering on each aspect, it was found that  the highest one was on process evaluation (4.60) followed by product  evaluation (4.50) and the least one was on feeding factor (3.97).  When considering in details, it was found that: 1) the context aspect  was high (4.23) with the highest item on the arrangement of the  training situation (4.67) followed by the appropriateness of the target  (4.30) and the least aspect was on the project cooperation (3.73). 2)  The evaluation of average overall primary factor or feeding factor  showed high value (4.23) while the highest aspect was on the  capability of the trainers (4.47) followed by the suitable venue (4.33)  while the least aspect was on the insufficient budget (3.47). 3) The  average result of process evaluation was very high (4.60). The  highest aspect was on the follow-op supervision (4.70) followed by  responsibility of each project staffs (4.50) while the least aspect was  on the present situation and the problems of the community (4.40). 4)  The overall result of the product evaluation was very high (4.50). The  highest aspect was on the diversity of the activities and the  community integration (4.67) followed by project target achievement  (4.63) while the least aspect was on continuation and regularity of the  activities (4.33). The trainees reported high satisfaction on the project  management at very high level (43.33%) while 40% reported high  level and 16.67% reported moderate level. Suggestions for the project  were on the additional number of the computer sets (37.78%)  followed by longer training period especially on computer skills  (43.48%).

 

Keywords: Project evaluation, competency development, the capability on computer repairing and computer skills.

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Authors: Parchami A., Fatahian Dehkordi RF.

Abstract:

The aim of the present investigation was to compare sex differences in thyroid gland structure of rabbits. Five adult male and five adult female (3.1-3.5 kg body weight) New Zealand white rabbits were used in the experiment. Results showed that at light microscopic level, there was no sex difference in microscopic appearance of the thyroid glands. At electron microscopic level, however, the mitochondria and the microvilli of the follicular cells are more numerous and the Golgi complex is also more extensive in male rabbits in comparison to females. Results obtained from micrometric measurements showed that the volume density of the follicles is higher in males than in females, but the differences are not statistically significant .The volume density of epithelium and the height of follicular cells are significantly greater in males than in females and reverse is true about the volume density of interstitium (p<0.05). The volume density of colloid is also greater in females (66±6) than in males (60±7) but the differences are not statistically significant .It was concluded that sex has limited effects on histomorphometric properties of thyroid gland in rabbits.

Keywords: Rabbit, Thyroid Gland, Sex difference, Electron microscope

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Authors: Antonis Skouloudis, Georgios Deligiannakis, Panagiotis Vouros, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Ioannis Nikolaou

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On November 15th, 2017, a catastrophic flash flood devastated the city of Mandra in Central Greece, resulting in 24 fatalities and extensive damages to the built environment and infrastructure. It was Greece’s deadliest and most destructive flood event for the past 40 years. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this event to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Mandra during the flood event, which were affected by the floodwaters to varying extents. In this context, we conducted semi-structured interviews with business owners-managers of 45 SMEs located in flood inundated areas and are still active nowadays, based on an interview guide that spanned 27 topics. The topics pertained to the disaster experience of the business and business owners-managers, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and extreme weather, aspects of disaster preparedness and related assistance needs. Our findings reveal that the vast majority of the affected businesses experienced heavy damages in equipment and infrastructure or total destruction, which resulted in business interruption from several weeks up to several months. Assistance from relatives or friends helped for the damage repairs and business recovery, while state compensations were deemed insufficient compared to the extent of the damages. Most interviewees pinpoint flooding as one of the most critical risks, and many connect it with the climate crisis. However, they are either not willing or unable to apply property-level prevention measures in their businesses due to cost considerations or complex and cumbersome bureaucratic processes. In all cases, the business owners are fully aware of the flood hazard implications, and since the recovery from the event, they have engaged in basic mitigation measures and contingency plans in case of future flood events. Such plans include insurance contracts whenever possible (as the vast majority of the affected SMEs were uninsured at the time of the 2017 event) as well as simple relocations of critical equipment within their property. The study offers fruitful insights on latent drivers and barriers of SMEs’ resilience capacity to flash flooding. In this respect, findings such as ours, highlighting tensions that underpin behavioural responses and experiences, can feed into: a) bottom-up approaches for devising actionable and practical guidelines, manuals and/or standards on business preparedness to flooding, and, ultimately, b) policy-making for an enabling environment towards a flood-resilient SME sector.

Keywords: Flash flood, small and medium-sized enterprises, organisational resilience capacity, disaster preparedness, qualitative study.

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Authors: Wen W. Zhang, Qian Chen

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Electron multiplying charge coupled devices (EMCCDs) have revolutionized the world of low light imaging by introducing on-chip multiplication gain based on the impact ionization effect in the silicon. They combine the sub-electron readout noise with high frame rates. Signal-to-noise Ratio (SNR) is an important performance parameter for low-light-level imaging systems. This work investigates the SNR performance of an EMCCD operated in Non-inverted Mode (NIMO) and Inverted Mode (IMO). The theory of noise characteristics and operation modes is presented. The results show that the SNR of is determined by dark current and clock induced charge at high gain level. The optimum SNR performance is provided by an EMCCD operated in NIMO in short exposure and strong cooling applications. In contrast, an IMO EMCCD is preferable.

Keywords: electron multiplying charge coupled devices, noise characteristics, operation modes, signal-to-noise ratioperformance

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

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

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

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Authors: Dongliang Wang, Jun Han, Dianfu Ma, Xianqi Zhao

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Avionics software is safe-critical embedded software and its architecture is evolving from traditional federated architectures to Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) to improve resource usability. ARINC 653 (Avionics Application Standard Software Interface) is a software specification for space and time partitioning in Safety-critical avionics Real-time operating systems. Arinc653 uses two-level scheduling strategies, but current modeling tools only apply to simple problems of Arinc653 two-level scheduling, which only contain time property. In avionics industry, we are always manually allocating tasks and calculating the timing table of a real-time system to ensure it-s running as we design. In this paper we represent an automatically generating strategy which applies to the two scheduling problems with dependent constraints in Arinc653 partition run-time environment. It provides the functionality of automatic generation from the task and partition models to scheduling policy through allocating the tasks to the partitions while following the constraints, and then we design a simulating mechanism to check whether our policy is schedulable or not

Keywords: Arinc653, scheduling, task allocation, simulation.

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Authors: Samir Abdelhamid, Noureddine Bouguechal

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We report in this paper the model adopted by our system of continuous speech recognition in Arab language SySRA and the results obtained until now. This system uses the database Arabdic-10 which is a corpus of word for the Arab language and which was manually segmented. Phonetic decoding is represented by an expert system where the knowledge base is translated in the form of production rules. This expert system transforms a vocal signal into a phonetic lattice. The higher level of the system takes care of the recognition of the lattice thus obtained by deferring it in the form of written sentences (orthographical Form). This level contains initially the lexical analyzer which is not other than the module of recognition. We subjected this analyzer to a set of spectrograms obtained by dictating a score of sentences in Arab language. The rate of recognition of these sentences is about 70% which is, to our knowledge, the best result for the recognition of the Arab language. The test set consists of twenty sentences from four speakers not having taken part in the training.

Keywords: Continuous speech recognition, lexical analyzer, phonetic decoding, phonetic lattice, vocal signal.

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Authors: H. Akbari Khorami, P. Wild, N. Djilali

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This paper reports on the response of a fiber-optic sensing probe to small concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) vapor at room temperature. H2O2 has extensive applications in industrial and medical environments. Conversely, H2O2 can be a health hazard by itself. For example, H2O2 induces cellular damage in human cells and its presence can be used to diagnose illnesses such as asthma and human breast cancer. Hence, development of reliable H2O2 sensor is of vital importance to detect and measure this species. Ferric ferrocyanide, referred to as Prussian Blue (PB), was deposited on the tip of a multimode optical fiber through the single source precursor technique and served as an indicator of H2O2 in a spectroscopic manner. Sensing tests were performed in H2O2-H2O vapor mixtures with different concentrations of H2O2. The results of sensing tests show the sensor is able to detect H2O2 concentrations in the range of 50.6 ppm to 229.5 ppm. Furthermore, the sensor response to H2O2 concentrations is linear in a log-log scale with the adjacent R-square of 0.93. This sensing behavior allows us to detect and quantify the concentration of H2O2 in the vapor phase.

Keywords: Chemical deposition, fiber-optic sensors, hydrogen peroxide vapor, prussian blue.

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Authors: Anunya Thanasrisuebwong

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This research paper aimed to find out how was the ethical climate in an organization and job performance satisfaction of employees affected employees’ engagement and commitment by using the case study of PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited, Thailand. The population of this research was 4,383 Thai employees of PTTEP, Thailand. From a total of 420 questionnaires sent out, 345 respondents replied. The statistics utilized was mean score and Multiple Regression Analysis. The findings revealed that the respondents had opinion towards ethical climate of their organization, job performance satisfaction and organization engagement and commitment at a high level. The test of hypothesis disclosed the determinant attributes of job performance satisfaction that affected the respondents’ overall level of organization engagement and commitment. The set of these determinant attributes consisted of employees’ responsibilities for duties, organization’s policies and practice, relationship with organization’s commanders, work security and stability, job description, career path and relationship with colleagues. These variables were able to predict the employees’ organization engagement and commitment at 50.6 percent.

Keywords: Ethical Climate in Organization, Job Performance Satisfaction, Organization Engagement and Commitment.

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Authors: Wook-Won Kim, Je-Seok Shin, Jin-O Kim

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As the penetration of Energy Storage System (ESS) increases in the power system due to higher performance and lower cost than ever, ESS is expanding its role to the ancillary service as well as the storage of extra energy from the intermittent renewable energy resources. For multi-ESS with different capacity and SOC level each other, it is required to make the optimal schedule of SOC level use the multi-ESS effectively. This paper proposes the energy allocation method for the multiple battery ESS with reliability constraint, in order to make the ESS discharge the required energy as long as possible. A simple but effective method is proposed in this paper, to satisfy the power for the spinning reserve requirement while improving the system reliability. Modelling of ESS is also proposed, and reliability is evaluated by using the combined reliability model which includes the proposed ESS model and conventional generation one. In the case study, it can be observed that the required power is distributed to each ESS adequately and accordingly, the SOC is scheduled to improve the reliability indices such as Loss of Load Probability (LOLP) and Loss of Load Expectation (LOLE).

Keywords: Multiple energy storage system, energy allocation method, SOC schedule, reliability constraints.

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Authors: Jatin Kumar Choudhary, Naren Rayala, Abbas Eslami Kiasari, Fahimeh Jafari

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Great Britain has one of the safest road networks in the world. However, the consequences of any death or serious injury are devastating for loved ones, as well as for those who help the severely injured. This paper aims to analyse Great Britain's road safety situation and show the response measures for areas where the total damage caused by accidents can be significantly and quickly reduced. For the past 30 years, the UK has had a good record in reducing fatalities over the past 30 years, there is still a considerable number of road deaths. The government continues to scale back road deaths empowering responsible road users by identifying and prosecuting the parameters that make the roads less safe. This study represents an exploratory analysis with deep insights which could provide policy makers with invaluable insights into how accidents happen and how they can be mitigated. We use STATS19 data published by the UK government. Since we need more information about locations which is not provided in STATA19, we first expand the features of the dataset using OpenStreetMap and Visual Crossing. This paper also provides a discussion regarding new road safety methods.

Keywords: Road safety, data analysis, OpenStreetMap, feature expanding.

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Authors: Ubaidillah Zuhdi, Shunsuke Mori, Kazuhisa Kamegai

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The purpose of this study is to forecast the influences of information and communication technology (ICT) on the structural changes of Japanese economies. In this study, input-output (IO) and statistical approaches are used as analysis instruments. More specifically, this study employs Leontief IO coefficients and constrained multivariate regression (CMR) model in order to achieve the purpose. The periods of initial and forecast in this study are 2005 and 2015, respectively. In this study, ICT is represented by ICT capital stocks. This study conducts two levels of analysis, namely macro and micro. The results of macro level analysis show that the dynamics of Japanese economies on the forecast period, relative to the initial period, are not so high. We focus on (1) commerce, (2) business services and office supplies, and (3) personal services sectors when conducting the analysis of the micro level. Further, we analyze its specific IO coefficients when doing this analysis. The results of the analysis explain that ICT gives a strong influence on the changes of these coefficients from initial to forecast periods.

Keywords: Forecast, ICT, Structural changes, Japanese economies.

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

Abstract:

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: Vishal Awasthi, Krishna Raj

Abstract:

Unwanted side effects because of spectral aliasing and spectral imaging during signal processing would be the major concern over the sampling rate alteration. Multirate-multistage implementation of digital filter could come about a large computational saving than single rate filter suitable for sample rate conversion. This implementation can further improve through high-level architectural transformation in circuit level. Reallocating registers and  relocating flip-flops across logic gates through retiming certainly a prominent sequential transformation technology, that optimize hardware circuits to achieve faster clocking speed without affecting the functionality. In this paper, we proposed an efficient compensated cascade Integrator comb (CIC) decimation filter structure that analyze the consequence of filter order variation which has a retimed FIR filter being compensator while using the cutset retiming technique and achieved an improvement in the passband droop by 14% to 39%, in computation time by 38.04%, 25.78%, 12.21%, 6.69% and 4.44% and reduction in path delay by 62.27%, 72%, 86.63%, 91.56% and 94.42% of 3, 6, 8, 12 and 24 order filter respectively than the non-retimed CIC compensation filter.

Keywords: Multirate Filtering, CIC decimation filter, Compensation theory, Retiming, Retiming algorithm, Filter order, Synchronous dataflow graph.

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Authors: Mohd Zahari, M. S, Salleh, N. K., Kamaruddin, M. S. Y, Kutut, M. Z.

Abstract:

Service quality has become a centerpiece for airline companies in vying with one another and keeps their image in the minds of passengers. Many airlines have pushed service quality through service personalization which includes both ground and on board especially from the viewpoint of retaining satisfied passengers and attracting new ones. Besides those, in-flight meals/food service is another important aspect of the airline operation. The in flight meals/food services now are seen as part of marketing strategies in attracting business or leisure travelers. This study reports the outcomes of the investigation on in-flight meals/food attributes toward passengers- level of satisfaction and re-flying intention. Taste, freshness, appearance of in-flight meals/food served and menu choices are important to the airlines passengers especially for the long haul flight. Food not only contributes to the prediction of the airline passengers- levels of satisfaction but besides other factors slightly influence passengers- re- flying intention. Airline companies therefore should not ignore this element but take the opportunity to create more attractive and acceptable in-flight meals/food along with other matter as marketing tools in attracting passengers to re-flying with them.

Keywords: In-flight meal, passengers, satisfaction, re-flying and intention

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Authors: Ying-Ming Su, Mei-Shu Huang

Abstract:

To mitigate the urban heat island effect has become a global issue when we are faced with the challenge of climate change. Through literature review, plant photosynthesis can reduce the carbon dioxide and mitigate the urban heat island effect to a degree. Because there are not enough open space and parks, green roof has become an important policy in Taiwan. We selected elementary school buildings in northern New Taipei City as research subjects since elementary schools are asked with priority to build green roof and important educational place to promote green roof concept. Testo175-H1 recording device was used to record the temperature and humidity differences between roof surface and interior space below roof with and without green roof in the long-term. We also use questionnaires to investigate the awareness of comfort level of green roof and sensation of teachers and students of the elementary schools. The results indicated that the temperature of roof without greening was higher than that with greening by about 2°C. But sometimes during noontime, the temperature of green roof was higher than that of non-green roof probably because of the character of the accumulation and dissipation of heat of greening. The temperature of the interior space below green roof was normally lower than that without green roof by about 1°C, showing that green roof could lower the temperature. The humidity of the green roof was higher than the one without greening also indicated that green roof retained water better. Teachers liked to combine green roof concept in the curriculum, and students wished all classes can take turns to maintain the green roof. Teachers and students whose school had integrated green roof concept in the curriculum were more willing to participate in the maintenance work of green roof. Teachers and students who may have access to and touch the green roof can be more aware of the green roof benefit. We suggest architects to increase the accessibility and visibility of green roof, such as use it as a part of the activity space. This idea can be a reference to the green roof curriculum design.

Keywords: Comfort level, elementary school, green roof, heat island effect.

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Authors: Solyman Sharifi, Naghdali Choupani

Abstract:

Adhesively bonded joints are preferred over the conventional methods of joining such as riveting, welding, bolting and soldering. Some of the main advantages of adhesive joints compared to conventional joints are the ability to join dissimilar materials and damage-sensitive materials, better stress distribution, weight reduction, fabrication of complicated shapes, excellent thermal and insulation properties, vibration response and enhanced damping control, smoother aerodynamic surfaces and an improvement in corrosion and fatigue resistance. This paper presents the behavior of adhesively bonded joints subjected to combined thermal loadings, using the numerical methods. The joint configuration considers aluminum as central adherend with six different outer adherends including aluminum, steel, titanium, boronepoxy, unidirectional graphite-epoxy and cross-ply graphite-epoxy and epoxy-based adhesives. Free expansion of the joint in x direction was permitted and stresses in adhesive layer and interfaces calculated for different adherends.

Keywords: Thermal stress, patch repair, Adhesive joint, Finiteelement analysis.

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Authors: Mukhtar H. Hassan, Muhammed A. Basher, Elhadi E. Saad, Almahdi M. Almahdi

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the possible effect of some variables such as age, gender, blood sugar level, and duration of diabetes on the serum level of zinc in diabetic individuals from Murzuk area. Serum zinc (Zn), Fasting blood sugar (FBS), hemoglobin HbA1c (HbA1c) were evaluated in 46 type I diabetic subjects (group 1), 48 type II diabetic subjects (group 2) and 43 healthy individuals (control) of both genders aged (30-81) years. Data showed that both diabetic groups have significantly higher (P<0.05) serum levels of Zn, FBS and HbA1c compared with controls. No significant (p>0.05) differences in serum Zn levels were observed between Males and Females. Serum Zn levels were non-significantly decreased with increasing age. In type II diabetic subjects, serum Zn levels were non-significantly decreased with increasing duration of disease whereas those in type I were non-significantly increased.

Keywords: Blood sugar, diabetes, HbA1c, zinc.

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