Search results for: model order formulation

Authors: A. Kourou, A. Ioakeimidou, E. Bafa, C. Fassoulas, M. Panoutsopoulou

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The role of volunteers in disaster management is of decisive importance and the need of their involvement is well recognized, both for prevention measures and for disaster management. During major catastrophes, whereas professional personnel are outsourced, the role of volunteers is crucial. In Greece experience has shown that various groups operating in the civil protection mechanism like local administration staff or volunteers, in many cases do not have the necessary knowledge and information on best practices to act against natural disasters. One of the major problems is the lack of volunteers’ education and training. In the above given framework, this paper presents the results of a survey aimed to identify the level of education and preparedness of civil protection volunteers in Greece. Furthermore, the implementation of earthquake protection measures at individual, family and working level, are explored. More specifically, the survey questionnaire investigates issues regarding pre-earthquake protection actions, appropriate attitudes and behaviors during an earthquake and existence of contingency plans in the workplace. The questionnaires were administered to citizens from different regions of the country and who attend the civil protection training program: “Protect Myself and Others”. A closed-form questionnaire was developed for the survey, which contained questions regarding the following: a) knowledge of self-protective actions; b) existence of emergency planning at home; c) existence of emergency planning at workplace (hazard mitigation actions, evacuation plan, and performance of drills); and, d) respondents` perception about their level of earthquake preparedness. The results revealed a serious lack of knowledge and preparedness among respondents. Taking into consideration the aforementioned gap and in order to raise awareness and improve preparedness and effective response of volunteers acting in civil protection, the EVANDE project was submitted and approved by the European Commission (EC). The aim of that project is to educate and train civil protection volunteers on the most serious natural disasters, such as forest fires, floods, and earthquakes, and thus, increase their performance.

Keywords: Civil protection, earthquake preparedness, volunteers.

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

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

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

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Authors: Javid Iqbal, Zhu Shifan

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

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

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

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

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

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Authors: Khairul Bariah Sulaiman, Tajul Aris Yang

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

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

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

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

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

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Authors: A. Juhász, M. Fogarasi

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Those causing fatal traffic accidents are traumatized, which negatively influences their cognitive functions and their personality. In order to clarify how much the trauma of causing a fatal accident effects their driving skills and personality traits, the results of a psychological aptitude and a personality test of drivers carelessly causing fatal accidents and of drivers not causing any accidents were compared separately. The sample (N = 354) consists of randomly selected drivers from the Transportation Aptitude and Examination Centre database who caused fatal accidents (Fatal group, n = 177) or did not cause accidents (Control group, n = 177). The aptitude tests were taken between 2014 and 2019. The comparison of the 2 groups was done according to 3 aspects: 1. Categories of aptitude (suitable, restricted, unsuited); 2. Categories of causes (ability, personality, ability and personality) within the restricted or unsuited (altogether: non-suitable subgroups); 3. Categories of ability and personality within the non-suitable subgroups regardless of the cause-category. Within ability deficiency, the two groups include those, whose ability factor is impaired or limited. This is also true in case of personality failure. Compared to the control group, the number of restricted drivers causing fatal accidents is significantly higher (p < .000) and the number of unsuited drivers is higher on a tendency-level (p = .06). Compared to the control group in the fatal non-suitable subgroup, the ratio of restricted suitability and the unsuitability due to ability factors is exclusively significantly lower (p < .000). The restricted suitability and the unsuitability due to personality factors are more significant in the fatal non-suitable subgroup (p < .000). Incapacity due to combination of ability and personality is also significantly higher in the fatal group (p = .002). Compared to the control group both ability and personality factors are also significantly higher in the fatal non-suitable subgroup (p < .000). Overall, the control group is more eligible for driving than drivers who have caused fatalities. The ability and personality factors are significantly higher in the case of fatal accident causers who are non-suitable for driving. Moreover the concomitance of ability and personality factors occur almost exclusively to drivers who caused fatal accidents. Further investigation is needed to understand the causes and how the aptitude test results for the fatal group could improve over time.

Keywords: Aptitude, unsuited, fatal accident, ability, personality.

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Authors: S. Golmohammadi, M. Noorian Bidgoli

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Because the status and mechanical parameters of discontinuities in the rock mass are included in the calculations, various methods of rock engineering classification are often used as a starting point for the design of different types of structures. The Q-system is one of the most frequently used methods for stability analysis and determination of support systems of underground structures in rock, including tunnel. In this method, six main parameters of the rock mass, namely, the Rock Quality Designation (RQD), joint set number (Jn), joint roughness number (Jr), joint alteration number (Ja), joint water parameter (Jw) and Stress Reduction Factor (SRF) are required. In this regard, in order to achieve a reasonable and optimal design, identifying the effective parameters for the stability of the mentioned structures is one of the most important goals and the most necessary actions in rock engineering. Therefore, it is necessary to study the relationships between the parameters of a system and how they interact with each other and, ultimately, the whole system. In this research, it has been attempted to determine the most effective parameters (key parameters) from the six parameters of rock mass in the Q-system using the Rock Engineering System (RES) method to improve the relationships between the parameters in the calculation of the Q value. The RES system is, in fact, a method by which one can determine the degree of cause and effect of a system's parameters by making an interaction matrix. In this research, the geomechanical data collected from the water conveyor tunnel of Azad Dam were used to make the interaction matrix of the Q-system. For this purpose, instead of using the conventional methods that are always accompanied by defects such as uncertainty, the Q-system interaction matrix is coded using a technique that is actually a statistical analysis of the data and determining the correlation coefficient between them. So, the effect of each parameter on the system is evaluated with greater certainty. The results of this study show that the formed interaction matrix provides a reasonable estimate of the effective parameters in the Q-system. Among the six parameters of the Q-system, the SRF and Jr parameters have the maximum and minimum impact on the system, respectively, and also the RQD and Jw parameters have the maximum and minimum impact on the system, respectively. Therefore, by developing this method, we can obtain a more accurate relation to the rock mass classification by weighting the required parameters in the Q-system.

Keywords: Q-system, Rock Engineering System, statistical analysis, rock mass, tunnel.

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

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

Keywords: Climate Change, Downscaling, GCM, RCM.

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Authors: Ellen A. Kalinga, R. B. Bagile Burchard, Lena Trojer

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Tanzania secondary schools in rural areas are geographically and socially isolated, hence face a number of problems in getting learning materials resulting in poor performance in National examinations. E-learning as defined to be the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for supporting the educational processes has motivated Tanzania to apply ICT in its education system. There has been effort to improve secondary school education using ICT through several projects. ICT for e-learning to Tanzania rural secondary school is one of the research projects conceived by the University of Dar-es-Salaam through its College of Engineering and Technology. The main objective of the project is to develop a tool to enable ICT support rural secondary school. The project is comprehensive with a number of components, one being development of e-learning management system (e-LMS) for Tanzania secondary schools. This paper presents strategies of developing e-LMS. It shows the importance of integrating action research methodology with the modeling methods as presented by model driven architecture (MDA) and the usefulness of Unified Modeling Language (UML) on the issue of modeling. The benefit of MDA will go along with the development based on software development life cycle (SDLC) process, from analysis and requirement phase through design and implementation stages as employed by object oriented system analysis and design approach. The paper also explains the employment of open source code reuse from open source learning platforms for the context sensitive development of the e-LMS for Tanzania secondary schools.

Keywords: Action Research Methodology, OOSA&D, MDA, UML, Open Source LMS.

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Authors: Aniela Pop, Ianina Birsan, Corina Orha, Rodica Pode, Florica Manea

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Carbon nanofiber-epoxy composite electrode has been investigated through voltammetric and amperometric techniques in order to detect parabens from aqueous solutions. The occurrence into environment as emerging pollutants of these preservative compounds has been extensively studied in the last decades, and consequently, a rapid and reliable method for their quantitative quantification is required. In this study, methylparaben (MP) and propylparaben (PP) were chosen as representatives for paraben class. The individual electrochemical detection of each paraben has been successfully performed. Their electrochemical oxidation occurred at the same potential value. Their simultaneous quantification should be assessed electrochemically only as general index of paraben class as a cumulative signal corresponding to both MP and PP from solution. The influence of pH on the electrochemical signal was studied. pH ranged between 1.3 and 9.0 allowed shifting the detection potential value to smaller value, which is very desired for the electroanalysis. Also, the signal is better-defined and higher sensitivity is achieved. Differential-pulsed voltammetry and square-wave voltammetry were exploited under the optimum pH conditions to improve the electroanalytical performance for the paraben detection. Also, the operation conditions were selected, i.e., the step potential, modulation amplitude and the frequency. Chronomaprometry application as the easiest electrochemical detection method led to worse sensitivity, probably due to a possible fouling effect of the electrode surface. The best electroanalytical performance was achieved by pulsed voltammetric technique but the selection of the electrochemical technique is related to the concrete practical application. A good reproducibility of the voltammetric-based method using carbon nanofiber-epoxy composite electrode was determined and no interference effect was found for the cation and anion species that are common in the water matrix. Besides these characteristics, the long life-time of the electrode give to carbon nanofiber-epoxy composite electrode a great potential for practical applications.

Keywords: Carbon nanofiber-epoxy composite electrode, electroanalysis, methylparaben, propylparaben.

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Authors: R. Estrada, A. Henriquez, R. Becerra, C. Laguna

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Spatial Augmented Reality is a variation of Augmented Reality where the Head-Mounted Display is not required. This variation of Augmented Reality is useful in cases where the need for a Head-Mounted Display itself is a limitation. To achieve this, Spatial Augmented Reality techniques substitute the technological elements of Augmented Reality; the virtual world is projected onto a physical surface. To create an interactive spatial augmented experience, the application must be aware of the spatial relations that exist between its core elements. In this case, the core elements are referred to as a projection system and an input system, and the process to achieve this spatial awareness is called system calibration. The Spatial Augmented Reality system is considered calibrated if the projected virtual world scale is similar to the real-world scale, meaning that a virtual object will maintain its perceived dimensions when projected to the real world. Also, the input system is calibrated if the application knows the relative position of a point in the projection plane and the RGB-depth sensor origin point. Any kind of projection technology can be used, light-based projectors, close-range projectors, and screens, as long as it complies with the defined constraints; the method was tested on different configurations. The proposed procedure does not rely on a physical marker, minimizing the human intervention on the process. The tests are made using a Kinect V2 as an input sensor and several projection devices. In order to test the method, the constraints defined were applied to a variety of physical configurations; once the method was executed, some variables were obtained to measure the method performance. It was demonstrated that the method obtained can solve different arrangements, giving the user a wide range of setup possibilities.

Keywords: Color depth sensor, human computer interface, interactive surface, spatial augmented reality.

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Authors: Sarah Motiee, Azadeh Nematzadeh, Mehrnoush Shamsfard

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Increasing growth of information volume in the internet causes an increasing need to develop new (semi)automatic methods for retrieval of documents and ranking them according to their relevance to the user query. In this paper, after a brief review on ranking models, a new ontology based approach for ranking HTML documents is proposed and evaluated in various circumstances. Our approach is a combination of conceptual, statistical and linguistic methods. This combination reserves the precision of ranking without loosing the speed. Our approach exploits natural language processing techniques to extract phrases from documents and the query and doing stemming on words. Then an ontology based conceptual method will be used to annotate documents and expand the query. To expand a query the spread activation algorithm is improved so that the expansion can be done flexible and in various aspects. The annotated documents and the expanded query will be processed to compute the relevance degree exploiting statistical methods. The outstanding features of our approach are (1) combining conceptual, statistical and linguistic features of documents, (2) expanding the query with its related concepts before comparing to documents, (3) extracting and using both words and phrases to compute relevance degree, (4) improving the spread activation algorithm to do the expansion based on weighted combination of different conceptual relationships and (5) allowing variable document vector dimensions. A ranking system called ORank is developed to implement and test the proposed model. The test results will be included at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Document ranking, Ontology, Spread activation algorithm, Annotation.

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Authors: Omer S. Mughieda

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Two-dimensional finite element model was created in this work to investigate the stresses distribution within rock-like samples with offset open non-persistent joints under biaxial loading. The results of this study have explained the fracture mechanisms observed in tests on rock-like material with open non-persistent offset joints [1]. Finite element code SAP2000 was used to study the stresses distribution within the specimens. Four-nodded isoperimetric plain strain element with two degree of freedom per node, and the three-nodded constant strain triangular element with two degree of freedom per node were used in the present study.The results of the present study explained the formation of wing cracks at the tip of the joints for low confining stress as well as the formation of wing cracks at the middle of the joint for the higher confining stress. High shear stresses found in the numerical study at the tip of the joints explained the formation of secondary cracks at the tip of the joints in the experimental study. The study results coincide with the experimental observations which showed that for bridge inclination of 0o, the coalescence occurred due to shear failure and for bridge inclination of 90o the coalescence occurred due to tensile failure while for the other bridge inclinations coalescence occurred due to mixed tensile and shear failure.

Keywords: Finite element, open offset rock joint, SAP2000, biaxial loading.

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Authors: K. A. Weidenmann, M. Grigo, B. Brylka, P. Elsner, T. Böhlke

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In order to reduce fuel consumption, the weight of automobiles has to be reduced. Fiber reinforced polymers offer the potential to reach this aim because of their high stiffness to weight ratio. Additionally, the use of fiber reinforced polymers in automotive applications has to allow for an economic large-scale production. In this regard, long fiber reinforced thermoplastics made by direct processing offer both mechanical performance and processability in injection moulding and compression moulding. The work presented in this contribution deals with long glass fiber reinforced polypropylene directly processed in compression moulding (D-LFT). For the use in automotive applications both the temperature and the time dependency of the materials properties have to be investigated to fulfill performance requirements during crash or the demands of service temperatures ranging from -40 °C to 80 °C. To consider both the influence of temperature and time, quasistatic tensile tests have been carried out at different temperatures. These tests have been complemented by high speed tensile tests at different strain rates. As expected, the increase in strain rate results in an increase of the elastic modulus which correlates to an increase of the stiffness with decreasing service temperature. The results are in good accordance with results determined by dynamic mechanical analysis within the range of 0.1 to 100 Hz. The experimental results from different testing methods were grouped and interpreted by using different time temperature shift approaches. In this regard, Williams-Landel-Ferry and Arrhenius approach based on kinetics have been used. As the theoretical shift factor follows an arctan function, an empirical approach was also taken into consideration. It could be shown that this approach describes best the time and temperature superposition for glass fiber reinforced polypropylene manufactured by D-LFT processing.

Keywords: Composite, long fiber reinforced thermoplastics, mechanical properties, dynamic mechanical analysis, time temperature superposition.

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Authors: Phusit Phukamchanoad, Chutchai Ditchareon, Suwaree Yordchim

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This research was to study on background and social and cultural context of Kamchanoad community for sustainable tourism management. All data was collected through in-depth interview with village headmen, community committees, teacher, monks, Kamchanoad forest field officers and respected senior citizen above 60 years old in the community who have lived there for more than 40 years. Altogether there were 30 participants for this research. After analyzing the data, content from interview and discussion, Kamchanoad has both high land and low land in the region as well as swamps that are very capable of freshwater animals’ conservation. Kamchanoad is also good for agriculture and animal farming. 80% of Kamchanoad’s land are forest, freshwater and rice farms. Kamchanoad was officially set up as community in 1994 as “Baan Nonmuang”. Inhabitants in Kamchanoad make a living by farming based on sufficiency economy. They have rice farm, eucalyptus farm, cassava farm and rubber tree farm. Local people in Kamchanoad still believe in the myth of Srisutto Naga. They are still religious and love to preserve their traditional way of life. In order to understand how to create successful tourism business in Kamchanoad, we have to study closely on local culture and traditions. Outstanding event in Kamchanoad is the worship of Grand Srisutto, which is on the fullmoon day of 6th month or Visakhabucha Day. Other big events are also celebration at the end of Buddhist lent, Naga firework, New Year celebration, Boon Mahachart, Songkran, Buddhist Lent, Boon Katin and Loy Kratong. Buddhism is the main religion in Kamchanoad. The promotion of tourism in Kamchanoad is expected to help spreading more income for this region. More infrastructures will be provided for local people as well as funding for youth support and people activities.

Keywords: Social and Culture Area, Tourism Management, Kamchanoad Community.

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Authors: Khosro Mohammadi, Amir Ghalavand, Majid Aghaalikhani

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In order to Study the efficacy application of green manure as chickpea pre plant, field experiments were carried out in 2007 and 2008 growing seasons. In this research the effects of different strategies for soil fertilization were investigated on grain yield and yield component, minerals, organic compounds and cooking time of chickpea. Experimental units were arranged in splitsplit plots based on randomized complete blocks with three replications. Main plots consisted of (G1): establishing a mixed vegetation of Vicia panunica and Hordeum vulgare and (G2): control, as green manure levels. Also, five strategies for obtaining the base fertilizer requirement including (N1): 20 t.ha-1 farmyard manure; (N2): 10 t.ha-1 compost; (N3): 75 kg.ha-1 triple super phosphate; (N4): 10 t.ha-1 farmyard manure + 5 t.ha-1 compost and (N5): 10 t.ha-1 farmyard manure + 5 t.ha-1 compost + 50 kg.ha-1 triple super phosphate were considered in sub plots. Furthermoree four levels of biofertilizers consisted of (B1): Bacillus lentus + Pseudomonas putida; (B2): Trichoderma harzianum; (B3): Bacillus lentus + Pseudomonas putida + Trichoderma harzianum; and (B4): control (without biofertilizers) were arranged in sub-sub plots. Results showed that integrating biofertilizers (B3) and green manure (G1) produced the highest grain yield. The highest amounts of yield were obtained in G1×N5 interaction. Comparison of all 2-way and 3-way interactions showed that G1N5B3 was determined as the superior treatment. Significant increasing of N, P2O5, K2O, Fe and Mg content in leaves and grains emphasized on superiority of mentioned treatment because each one of these nutrients has an approved role in chlorophyll synthesis and photosynthesis abilities of the crops. The combined application of compost, farmyard manure and chemical phosphorus (N5) in addition to having the highest yield, had the best grain quality due to high protein, starch and total sugar contents, low crude fiber and reduced cooking time.

Keywords: chickpea, biofertilizer, nitrogen fixation.

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Authors: M. Rossini, A. Portioli Studacher

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The market competition is moving from the single firm to the whole supply chain because of increasing competition and growing need for operational efficiencies and customer orientation. Supply chain management allows companies to look beyond their organizational boundaries to develop and leverage resources and capabilities of their supply chain partners. This creates competitive advantages in the marketplace and because of this SCM has acquired strategic importance. Lean Approach is a management strategy that focuses on reducing every type of waste present in an organization. This approach is becoming more and more popular among supply chain managers. The supply chain application of lean approach is not frequent. In particular, it is not well studied which are the impacts of lean approach principles in a supply chain context. In literature there are only few studies aimed at understanding the qualitative impact of the lean approach in supply chains. Therefore, the goal of this research work is to study the impacts of lean principles implementation along a supply chain. To achieve this, a simulation model of a threeechelon multi-product supply chain has been built. Kanban system (and several priority policies) and setup time reduction degrees are implemented in the lean-configured supply chain to apply pull and lot-sizing decrease principles respectively. To evaluate the benefits of lean approach, lean supply chain is compared with an EOQ-configured supply chain. The simulation results show that Kanban system and setup-time reduction improve inventory stock level. They also show that logistics efforts are affected to lean implementation degree. The paper concludes describing performances of lean supply chain in different contexts.

Keywords: Inventory policy, Kanban, lean supply chain, simulation study, supply chain management, planning.

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Authors: Young-Tae Lee, Hee-Chang Lim

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This paper presents the performance characteristics of Darrieus-type vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) with NACA airfoil blades. The performance of Darrieus-type VAWT can be characterized by torque and power. There are various parameters affecting the performance such as chord length, helical angle, pitch angle and rotor diameter. To estimate the optimum shape of Darrieustype wind turbine in accordance with various design parameters, we examined aerodynamic characteristics and separated flow occurring in the vicinity of blade, interaction between flow and blade, and torque and power characteristics derived from it. For flow analysis, flow variations were investigated based on the unsteady RANS (Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes) equation. Sliding mesh algorithm was employed in order to consider rotational effect of blade. To obtain more realistic results we conducted experiment and numerical analysis at the same time for three-dimensional shape. In addition, several parameters (chord length, rotor diameter, pitch angle, and helical angle) were considered to find out optimum shape design and characteristics of interaction with ambient flow. Since the NACA airfoil used in this study showed significant changes in magnitude of lift and drag depending on an angle of attack, the rotor with low drag, long cord length and short diameter shows high power coefficient in low tip speed ratio (TSR) range. On the contrary, in high TSR range, drag becomes high. Hence, the short-chord and long-diameter rotor produces high power coefficient. When a pitch angle at which airfoil directs toward inside equals to -2° and helical angle equals to 0°, Darrieus-type VAWT generates maximum power.

Keywords: Darrieus wind turbine, VAWT, NACA airfoil, performance.

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Authors: P. Luangpaiboon

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Various intelligences and inspirations have been adopted into the iterative searching process called as meta-heuristics. They intelligently perform the exploration and exploitation in the solution domain space aiming to efficiently seek near optimal solutions. In this work, the bee algorithm, inspired by the natural foraging behaviour of honey bees, was adapted to find the near optimal solutions of the transportation management system, dynamic multi-zone dispatching. This problem prepares for an uncertainty and changing customers- demand. In striving to remain competitive, transportation system should therefore be flexible in order to cope with the changes of customers- demand in terms of in-bound and outbound goods and technological innovations. To remain higher service level but lower cost management via the minimal imbalance scenario, the rearrangement penalty of the area, in each zone, including time periods are also included. However, the performance of the algorithm depends on the appropriate parameters- setting and need to be determined and analysed before its implementation. BEE parameters are determined through the linear constrained response surface optimisation or LCRSOM and weighted centroid modified simplex methods or WCMSM. Experimental results were analysed in terms of best solutions found so far, mean and standard deviation on the imbalance values including the convergence of the solutions obtained. It was found that the results obtained from the LCRSOM were better than those using the WCMSM. However, the average execution time of experimental run using the LCRSOM was longer than those using the WCMSM. Finally a recommendation of proper level settings of BEE parameters for some selected problem sizes is given as a guideline for future applications.

Keywords: Meta-heuristic, Bee Algorithm, Dynamic Multi-Zone Dispatching, Linear Constrained Response SurfaceOptimisation Method, Weighted Centroid Modified Simplex Method

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Authors: Zita I. Šereš, Ljubica P. Dokić, Dragana M. Šoronja Simović, Cecilia Hodur, Zsuzsanna Laszlo, Ivana Nikolić, Nikola Maravić

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In this work the concentration of steepwater from corn starch industry is monitored using ultrafiltration membrane. The aim was to examine the conditions of ultrafiltration of steepwater by applying the membrane of 2.5nm. The parameters that vary during the course of ultrafiltration, were the transmembrane pressure, flow rate, while the permeate flux and the dry matter content of permeate and retentate were the dependent parameter constantly monitored during the process. Experiments of ultrafiltration are conducted on the samples of steepwater, which were obtained from the starch wet milling plant „Jabuka“ Pancevo. The procedure of ultrafiltration on a single-channel 250mm lenght, with inner diameter of 6.8mm and outer diameter of 10mm membrane were carried on. The membrane is made of a-Al₂O₃ with TiO₂ layer obtained from GEA (Germany). The experiments are carried out at a flow rate ranging from 100 to 200lh^-1 and transmembrane pressure of 1-3 bars. During the experiments of steepwater ultrafiltration, the change of permeate flux, dry matter content of permeate and retentate, as well as the absorbance changes of the permeate and retentate were monitored. The experimental results showed that the maximum flux reaches about 40lm^-2h^-1. For responses obtained after experiments, a polynomial model of the second degree is established to evaluate and quantify the influence of the variables. The quadratic equitation fits with the experimental values, where the coefficient of determination for flux is 0.96. The dry matter content of the retentate is increased for about 6%, while the dry matter content of permeate was reduced for about 35-40%, respectively. During steepwater ultrafiltration in permeate stays 40% less dry matter compared to the feed.

Keywords: Ultrafiltration, steepwater, starch industry, ceramic membrane.

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Authors: Manoochehr Gholipoor

Abstract:

The response of growth and yield of rainfed-chickpea to population density should be evaluated based on long-term experiments to include the climate variability. This is achievable just by simulation. In this simulation study, this evaluation was done by running the CYRUS model for long-term daily weather data of five locations in Iran. The tested population densities were 7 to 59 (with interval of 2) stands per square meter. Various functions, including quadratic, segmented, beta, broken linear, and dent-like functions, were tested. Considering root mean square of deviations and linear regression statistics [intercept (a), slope (b), and correlation coefficient (r)] for predicted versus observed variables, the quadratic and broken linear functions appeared to be appropriate for describing the changes in biomass and grain yield, and in harvest index, respectively. Results indicated that in all locations, grain yield tends to show increasing trend with crowding the population, but subsequently decreases. This was also true for biomass in five locations. The harvest index appeared to have plateau state across low population densities, but decreasing trend with more increasing density. The turning point (optimum population density) for grain yield was 30.68 stands per square meter in Isfahan, 30.54 in Shiraz, 31.47 in Kermanshah, 34.85 in Tabriz, and 32.00 in Mashhad. The optimum population density for biomass ranged from 24.6 (in Tabriz) to 35.3 stands per square meter (Mashhad). For harvest index it varied between 35.87 and 40.12 stands per square meter.

Keywords: Rainfed-chickpea, biomass, harvest index, grain yield, simulation.

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Authors: Aliakbar Golshani, Seyyed Mehdi Poorhashemi, Mahsa Gharizadeh

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The under passing tunnels are strongly influenced by the soils around. There are some complexities in the specification of real soil behavior, owing to the fact that lots of uncertainties exist in soil properties, and additionally, inappropriate soil constitutive models. Such mentioned factors may cause incompatible settlements in numerical analysis with the obtained values in actual construction. This paper aims to report a case study on a specific tunnel constructed by NATM. The tunnel has a depth of 11.4 m, height of 12.2 m, and width of 14.4 m with 2.5 lanes. The numerical modeling was based on a 2D finite element program. The soil material behavior was modeled by hardening soil model. According to the field observations, the numerical estimated settlement at the ground surface was approximately four times more than the measured one, after the entire installation of the initial lining, indicating that some unknown factors affect the values. Consequently, the geotechnical parameters are accurately revised by a numerical back-analysis using laboratory and field test data and based on the obtained monitoring data. The obtained result confirms that typically, the soil parameters are conservatively low-estimated. And additionally, the constitutive models cannot be applied properly for all soil conditions.

Keywords: NATM tunnel, initial lining, field test data, laboratory test data, monitoring data, numerical back-analysis.

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Authors: A. Kumar, V. Devadas

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Energy is the basic element for any country’s economic development. India is one of the most populated countries, and is dependent on fossil fuel and nuclear-based energy generation. The energy sector faces huge challenges and is dependent on the import of energy from neighboring countries to fulfill the gap in demand and supply. India has huge setbacks for efficient energy generation, distribution, and consumption, therefore they consume more quantity of energy to produce the same amount of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compared to the developed countries. Technology and technique use, availability, and affordability in the various sectors are varying according to their economic status. In this paper, an attempt is made to quantify the domestic electrical energy consumption in Jodhpur, India. Survey research methods have been employed and stratified sampling technique-based households were chosen for conducting the investigation. Pre-tested survey schedules are used to investigate the grassroots level study. The collected data are analyzed by employing statistical techniques. Thereafter, a multiple regression model is developed to understand the functions of total electricity consumption in the domestic sector corresponding to other independent variables including electrical appliances, age of the building, household size, education, etc. The study resulted in identifying the governing variable in energy consumption at the household level and their relationship with the efficiency of household-based electrical and energy appliances. The analysis is concluded with the recommendation for optimizing the gap in peak electrical demand and supply in the domestic sector.

Keywords: Appliance, consumption, electricity, households.

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Authors: A. Abdulkadir, A. A. Okhimamhe, Y. M. Bello, H. Ibrahim, D. H. Makun, M. T. Usman

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Household waste form a larger proportion of waste generated across the state, accumulation of organic waste is an apparent problem and the existing dump sites could be overstress. Niger state has abundant arable land and water resources thus should be one of the highest producers of agricultural crops in the country. However, the major challenge to agricultural sector today is loss of soil nutrient coupled with high cost of fertilizer. These have continued to increase the use of fertilizer and decomposed solid waste for enhance agricultural yield, which have varying effects on the soil as well a threat to human livelihood. Consequently, vegetable yield samples from poultry droppings, decomposed household waste manure, NPK treatments and control from each replication were subjected to proximate analysis to determine the nutritional and antinutritional component as well as heavy metal concentration. Data collected was analyzed using SPSS software and Randomized complete Block Design means were compared. The result shows that the treatments do not devoid the concentrations of any nutritional components while the anti-nutritional analysis proved that NPK had higher oxalate content than control and organic treats. The concentration of lead and cadmium are within safe permissible level while the mercury level exceeded the FAO/WHO maximum permissible limit for the entire treatments depicts the need for urgent intervention to minimize mercury levels in soil and manure in order to mitigate its toxic effect. Thus, eco-agriculture should be widely accepted and promoted by the stakeholders for soil amendment, higher yield, strategies for sustainable environmental protection, food security, poverty eradication, attainment of sustainable development and healthy livelihood.

Keywords: Anti-nutritional, healthy livelihood, nutritional waste, organic waste.

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Authors: Mustafa Al Sukar, Azzam Sleit, Abdullatif Abu-Dalhoum, Bassam Al-Kasasbeh

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Use and abuse of drugs by teens is very common and can have dangerous consequences. The drugs contribute to physical and sexual aggression such as assault or rape. Some teenagers regularly use drugs to compensate for depression, anxiety or a lack of positive social skills. Teen resort to smoking should not be minimized because it can be "gateway drugs" for other drugs (marijuana, cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants, and heroin). The combination of teenagers' curiosity, risk taking behavior, and social pressure make it very difficult to say no. This leads most teenagers to the questions: "Will it hurt to try once?" Nowadays, technological advances are changing our lives very rapidly and adding a lot of technologies that help us to track the risk of drug abuse such as smart phones, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Internet of Things (IoT), etc. This technique may help us to early discovery of drug abuse in order to prevent an aggravation of the influence of drugs on the abuser. In this paper, we have developed a Decision Support System (DSS) for detecting the drug abuse using Artificial Neural Network (ANN); we used a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) feed-forward neural network in developing the system. The input layer includes 50 variables while the output layer contains one neuron which indicates whether the person is a drug addict. An iterative process is used to determine the number of hidden layers and the number of neurons in each one. We used multiple experiment models that have been completed with Log-Sigmoid transfer function. Particularly, 10-fold cross validation schemes are used to access the generalization of the proposed system. The experiment results have obtained 98.42% classification accuracy for correct diagnosis in our system. The data had been taken from 184 cases in Jordan according to a set of questions compiled from Specialists, and data have been obtained through the families of drug abusers.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Decision Support System, drug abuse, drug addiction, Multilayer Perceptron.

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Authors: Saimir Heta, Ilma Robo, Rialda Xhizdari, Kers Kapaj

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The stability of an ideal disinfectant should be constant regardless of the change in the atmospheric conditions of the environment where it is kept. If the conditions such as temperature or humidity change, it is understood that it will also be necessary to approach possible changes in the holding materials such as plastic or glass bottles with the aim of protecting the disinfectant, for example, from the excessive lighting of the environment, which can also be translated as an increase in the temperature of disinfectant as a fluid. In this study, an attempt was made to find the most recent published data about the best possible combination of disinfectants indicated for use after dental procedures. This purpose of the study was realized by comparing the basic literature that is studied in the field of dentistry by students with the most published data in the literature of recent years about this topic. Each disinfectant is represented by a number called the disinfectant count, in which different factors can influence the increase or reduction of variables whose production remains a specific statistic for a specific disinfectant. The changes in the atmospheric conditions where the disinfectant is deposited and stored in the environment are known to affect the stability of the disinfectant as a fluid; this fact is known and even cited in the leaflets accompanying the manufactured boxes of disinfectants. It is these cares, in the form of advice, which are based not only on the preservation of the disinfectant but also on the application in order to have the desired clinical result. Aldehydes have the highest constant among the types of disinfectants, followed by acids. The lowest value of the constant belongs to the class of glycols, the predecessors of which were the halogens, in which class there are some representatives with disinfection applications. The class of phenols and acids have almost the same intervals of constants. If the goal were to find the ideal disinfectant among the large variety of disinfectants produced, a good starting point would be to find something unchanging or a fixed, unchanging element on the basis of which the comparison can be made properties of different disinfectants. Precisely based on the results of this study, the role of the specific constant according to the specific disinfectant is highlighted. Finding an ideal disinfectant, like finding a medication or the ideal antibiotic, is an ongoing but unattainable goal.

Keywords: Different disinfectants, phenols, aldehydes, specific constant, dental procedures.

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Authors: Mehrnoush Shamsfard, Azadeh Nematzadeh, Sarah Motiee

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Increasing growth of information volume in the internet causes an increasing need to develop new (semi)automatic methods for retrieval of documents and ranking them according to their relevance to the user query. In this paper, after a brief review on ranking models, a new ontology based approach for ranking HTML documents is proposed and evaluated in various circumstances. Our approach is a combination of conceptual, statistical and linguistic methods. This combination reserves the precision of ranking without loosing the speed. Our approach exploits natural language processing techniques for extracting phrases and stemming words. Then an ontology based conceptual method will be used to annotate documents and expand the query. To expand a query the spread activation algorithm is improved so that the expansion can be done in various aspects. The annotated documents and the expanded query will be processed to compute the relevance degree exploiting statistical methods. The outstanding features of our approach are (1) combining conceptual, statistical and linguistic features of documents, (2) expanding the query with its related concepts before comparing to documents, (3) extracting and using both words and phrases to compute relevance degree, (4) improving the spread activation algorithm to do the expansion based on weighted combination of different conceptual relationships and (5) allowing variable document vector dimensions. A ranking system called ORank is developed to implement and test the proposed model. The test results will be included at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Document ranking, Ontology, Spread activation algorithm, Annotation.

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Authors: Y. V. Kim

Abstract:

This article presents an approach with regards to the Functional Testing of Space System (SS) that could be a space vehicle (spacecraft-S/C) and/or its equipment and components – S/C subsystems. This test should finalize the Space Qualification Tests (SQT) campaign. It could be considered as a generic test and used for a wide class of SS that, from the point of view of System Dynamics and Control Theory, may be described by the ordinary differential equations. The suggested methodology is based on using semi-natural experiment laboratory stand that does not require complicated, precise and expensive technological control-verification equipment. However, it allows for testing totally assembled system during Assembling, Integration and Testing (AIT) activities at the final phase of SQT, involving system hardware (HW) and software (SW). The test physically activates system input (sensors) and output (actuators) and requires recording their outputs in real time. The data are then inserted in a laboratory computer, where it is post-experiment processed by the MATLAB/Simulink Identification Toolbox. It allows for estimating the system dynamics in the form of estimation of its differential equation coefficients through the verification experimental test and comparing them with expected mathematical model, prematurely verified by mathematical simulation during the design process. Mathematical simulation results presented in the article show that this approach could be applicable and helpful in SQT practice. Further semi-natural experiments should specify detail requirements for the test laboratory equipment and test-procedures.

Keywords: system dynamics, space system ground tests, space qualification, system dynamics identification, satellite attitude control, assembling integration and testing

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Authors: Kamand Bagherian, Nariman Niknejad

Abstract:

A vibration isolation technology for precise position control of a rotary system powered by two permanent magnet DC (PMDC) motors is proposed, where this system is mounted on an oscillatory frame. To achieve vibration isolation for this system, active damping and disturbance rejection (ADDR) technology is presented which introduces a cooperation of a main and an auxiliary PMDC, controlled by discrete-time sliding mode control (DTSMC) based schemes. The controller of the main actuator tracks a desired position and the auxiliary actuator simultaneously isolates the induced vibration, as its controller follows a torque trend. To determine this torque trend, a combination of two algorithms is introduced by the ADDR technology. The first torque-trend producing algorithm rejects the disturbance by counteracting the perturbation, estimated using a model-based observer. The second torque trend applies active variable damping to minimize the oscillation of the output shaft. In this practice, the presented technology is implemented on a rotary system with a pendulum attached, mounted on a linear actuator simulating an oscillation-transmitting structure. In addition, the obtained results illustrate the functionality of the proposed technology.

Keywords: Vibration isolation, position control, discrete-time nonlinear controller, active damping, disturbance tracking algorithm, oscillation transmitting support, stability robustness.

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