Search results for: High-quality polymeric article

Authors: A. J. Al-Shareef, E. A. Mohamed, E. Al-Judaibi

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Load forecasting has become in recent years one of the major areas of research in electrical engineering. Most traditional forecasting models and artificial intelligence neural network techniques have been tried out in this task. Artificial neural networks (ANN) have lately received much attention, and a great number of papers have reported successful experiments and practical tests. This article presents the development of an ANN-based short-term load forecasting model with improved generalization technique for the Regional Power Control Center of Saudi Electricity Company, Western Operation Area (SEC-WOA). The proposed ANN is trained with weather-related data and historical electric load-related data using the data from the calendar years 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 for training. The model tested for one week at five different seasons, typically, winter, spring, summer, Ramadan and fall seasons, and the mean absolute average error for one hour-ahead load forecasting found 1.12%.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, short-term load forecasting, back propagation.

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Authors: Annika Barzen

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In this article, the collection and analysis of drawings are implemented and discussed as a methodological approach to reconstruct children's perspective on horse-assisted interventions. For this purpose, drawings of three children (8-10 years old) were included in the research process in order to clarify the question of what insights can be derived from the drawings about the child's perspective on the intervention. The children were asked to draw a picture of themselves at the horse stable. Practical implementation considerations are disclosed. The developed analysis steps consider the work of two art historians (Erwin Panofsky and Max Imdahl) to capture the visual sense and to interpret the children's drawings. Relevant topics about the children's perspective can be inferred from the drawings. In the drawings, the following topics are important for the children: Overcoming challenges and fears in handling the horse, support from an adult in handling the horse and feeling self-confident and competent to act after completing tasks with the horse. The drawings show the main topics which are relevant for the children and can be used as a basis for conversation. All in all, the child's drawing offers a useful addition to other survey methods in order to gain further insights into the experiences of children in a horse-assisted setting.

Keywords: Children’s perspective, interpret children’s drawings, equine-assisted-intervention, methodical analysis.

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Authors: Masoud Saeedi, Mansour Tavakoli, Shirin Rahimi Kazerooni, Vahid Parvaresh

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This article investigated the validity of C-test and Cloze test which purport to measure general English proficiency. To provide empirical evidence pertaining to the validity of the interpretations based on the results of these integrative language tests, their criterion-related validity was investigated. In doing so, the test of English as a foreign language (TOEFL) which is an established, standardized, and internationally administered test of general English proficiency was used as the criterion measure. Some 90 Iranian English majors participated in this study. They were seniors studying English at a university in Tehran, Iran. The results of analyses showed that there is a statistically significant correlation among participants- scores on Cloze test, C-test, and the TOEFL. Building on the findings of the study and considering criterion-related validity as the evidential basis of the validity argument, it was cautiously deducted that these tests measure the same underlying trait. However, considering the limitations of using criterion measures to validate tests, no absolute claims can be made as to the construct validity of these integrative tests.

Keywords: Integrative testing, C-test, Cloze test, theTOEFL, Validity.

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Authors: A.H.M.A.Rahim

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The impact of fixed speed squirrel cage type as well as variable speed doubly fed induction generators (DFIG) on dynamic performance of a multimachine power system has been investigated. Detailed models of the various components have been presented and the integration of asynchronous and synchronous generators has been carried out through a rotor angle based transform. Simulation studies carried out considering the conventional dynamic model of squirrel cage asynchronous generators show that integration, as such, could degrade to the AC system performance transiently. This article proposes a frequency or power controller which can effectively control the transients and restore normal operation of fixed speed induction generator quickly. Comparison of simulation results between classical cage and doubly-fed induction generators indicate that the doubly fed induction machine is more adaptable to multimachine AC system. Frequency controller installed in the DFIG system can also improve its transient profile.

Keywords: Doubly-fed generator, Induction generator, Multimachine system modeling, Wind energy systems

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Authors: N. Hatraf, L. Merabeti, Z. Neffeh, W. Taane

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The excessive consumption of fossil energies (electrical energy) during summer caused by the technological development involves more and more climate warming.

In order to reduce the worst impact of gas emissions produced from classical air conditioning, heat driven solar absorption chiller is pretty promising; it consists on using solar as motive energy which is clean and environmentally friendly to provide cold.

Solar absorption machine is composed by four components using Lithium Bromide /water as a refrigerating couple. LiBr- water is the most promising in chiller applications due to high safety, high volatility ratio, high affinity, high stability and its high latent heat. The lithium bromide solution is constitute by the salt lithium bromide which absorbs water under certain conditions of pressure and temperature however if the concentration of the solution is high in the absorption chillers; which exceed 70%, the solution will crystallize.

The main aim of this article is to study the phenomena of the crystallization and to evaluate how the dependence between the electric conductivity and the concentration which should be controlled.

Keywords: Absorption chillers, crystallization, experimental results, Lithium Bromide solution.

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Authors: Ç. Erdoğan, T. Turan

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Pediatric cancer patients experience multiple distressing, challenges, physical symptom such as fatigue, pain, sleep disturbance, and balance impairment that continue years after treatment completion. In recent years, yoga is often used in children with cancer to cope with these symptoms. Yoga practice is defined as a unique physical activity that combines physical practice, breath work and mindfulness/meditation. Yoga is an increasingly popular mind-body practice also characterized as a mindfulness mode of exercise. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of yoga intervention of children with cancer. This article planned searching the literature in this field. It has been determined that individualized yoga is feasible and provides benefits for inpatient children, improves health-related quality of life, physical activity levels, physical fitness. After yoga program, children anxiety score decreases significantly. Additionally, individualized yoga is feasible for inpatient children receiving intensive chemotherapy. As a result, yoga is an alternative and complementary medicine that can be safely used in children with cancer.

Keywords: Cancer treatment, children, nursing, yoga.

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Authors: Bhawat Chiamjinnawat

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The agri-food market transformation has implied market growth for the fruit industry in Thailand. This article focuses on analysis of farmer competence and farm resources which affect market strategies used by fruit farmers in Chanthaburi province of Thailand. The survey data were collected through the use of face-to-face interviews with structured questionnaires. This study identified 14 drivers related to farmer competence and farm resources of which some had significant effect on the decision to use either high-value markets or traditional markets. The results suggest that farmers who used high-value markets were better educated and they had longer experience and larger sized business. Identifying the important factors that match with the market transformation provides policy with opportunities to support the fruit farmers to increase their market power. Policies that promote business expansion of agricultural cooperatives and knowledge sharing among farmers are recommended to reduce limitations due to limited knowledge, low experience, and small business sizes.

Keywords: Farmer competence, farm resources, fruit industry, high-value markets, Thailand.

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Authors: Irina Pyrlina

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This article presents the results of a study conducted to identify operational risks for information systems (IS) with service-oriented architecture (SOA). Analysis of current approaches to risk and system error classifications revealed that the system error classes were never used for SOA risk estimation. Additionally system error classes are not normallyexperimentally supported with realenterprise error data. Through the study several categories of various existing error classifications systems are applied and three new error categories with sub-categories are identified. As a part of operational risks a new error classification scheme is proposed for SOA applications. It is based on errors of real information systems which are service providers for application with service-oriented architecture. The proposed classification approach has been used to classify SOA system errors for two different enterprises (oil and gas industry, metal and mining industry). In addition we have conducted a research to identify possible losses from operational risks.

Keywords: Enterprise architecture, Error classification, Oil&Gas and Metal&Mining industries, Operational risks, Serviceoriented architecture

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Authors: Angel Pérez Sánchez

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In 1929, a light redshift was discovered in distant galaxies and was interpreted as produced by galaxies moving away from each other at high speed. This interpretation led to the consideration of a new source of energy, which was called Dark Energy. Redshift is a loss of light wave frequency produced by galaxies moving away at high speed, but the loss of frequency can also be produced by the friction of light waves on their way to Earth. This friction is impossible because outer space is empty, but if it were not empty and a medium existed in this empty space, then friction would be possible. The consequences would be extraordinary because Universe acceleration and Dark Energy would be in doubt. This article presents evidence that empty space is actually a medium occupied by different particles, among them the most significant would be Graviton or Higgs Boson. If gravity is produced by Higgs Boson particle according to Standard Model and gravity affects empty space, then Vacuum space is full of Higgs bosons.

Keywords: Big Bang, dark energy, doppler effect, redshift, starlight frequency reduction, universe acceleration.

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Authors: A. Bahar Ganiyeva, M. Sabuhi Tanriverdiyev

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The article analyzes state support and policy mechanisms aimed at driving tourism as one of the vibrant and rapidly developing economies. State programs and long-range strategic roadmaps and previous programs execution, results and their impact on the particular countries economy have been raised during the research. This theme provides a useful framework for discussions with a wider range of stakeholders as the implications arising are of importance both for academics and practitioners engaged in hospitality and tourism development and research. The impact that tourism has on sustainable regional development in emerging markets is highly substantial. For Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, and Russia, with their rich natural resources and cultural heritage, tourism can be an important basis for economic expansion, and a way to form an acceptable image of the countries as safe, open, hospitable, and complex.

Keywords: Sustainable tourism, hospitality, destination, strategic roadmap, tourism, economy, growth, state support, mechanism, policy formation, state program.

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Authors: Shireen Simon

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This study explores the interactions between primary school parents-teachers in Malaysia. Schools in the country are organized to promote participation between parents and teachers. Exchanges of dialogue are most valued between parents and teachers because teachers are in daily contact with pupils’ and the first line of communication with parents. Teachers are considered by parents as the most important connection to improve children learning and well-being. Without a good communication, interaction or involvement between parent-teacher might tarnish a pupils’ performance in school. This study tries to find out multiple emotions among primary school parents-teachers, either estranged or cordial, when they communicate in a multi-cultured society in Malaysia. Important issues related to parent-teacher interactions are discussed further. Parents’ involvement in an effort to boost better education in school is significantly more effective with parents’ involvement. Lastly, this article proposes some suggestions for parents and teachers to build a positive relationship with effective communication and establish more democratic open door policy.

Keywords: Multi-cultured society, parental involvement, parent-teacher relationships, parents’ interaction.

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Authors: Farzan Namvari, Panam Zarfam

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Nowadays use of a new structural bracing system called 'Knee Bracing System' have taken the specialists attention too much. On the other hand nonlinear static analysis procedures in estimate structures performance in earthquake time have taken attention too much. One of these procedure is modal pushover analysis (MPA) procedure. The accuracy of MPA procedure for simple steel moment resisting frame has been verified and considered in Chintanapakdee and Chopra-s article in 2003. Since the accuracy of MPA procedure has not verified for semi-rigid steel frames with knee bracing, we are going to get through with this matter in this study. For this purpose, the selected structures are four frames with different heights, 5 to 20 stories, will be designed according to AISC criteria. Then MPA procedure is used for the same frames with different rigidity percentiles of connections. The results of seismic responses are compared with dynamic nonlinear response history analysis as exact procedure and accuracy of MPA procedure is evaluated. It seems that MPA procedure accuracy will come down by reduction of the rigidity percentiles of semi-rigid connections.

Keywords: Knee Bracing, Modal Pushover Analysis, SeismicBehavior, Semi-Rigid Connections.

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Authors: Fattah Alizadeh, Saeed Nalousi, Chiman Savari

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Because of increasing demands for security in today-s society and also due to paying much more attention to machine vision, biometric researches, pattern recognition and data retrieval in color images, face detection has got more application. In this article we present a scientific approach for modeling human skin color, and also offer an algorithm that tries to detect faces within color images by combination of skin features and determined threshold in the model. Proposed model is based on statistical data in different color spaces. Offered algorithm, using some specified color threshold, first, divides image pixels into two groups: skin pixel group and non-skin pixel group and then based on some geometric features of face decides which area belongs to face. Two main results that we received from this research are as follow: first, proposed model can be applied easily on different databases and color spaces to establish proper threshold. Second, our algorithm can adapt itself with runtime condition and its results demonstrate desirable progress in comparison with similar cases.

Keywords: face detection, skin color modeling, color, colorfulimages, face recognition.

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Authors: Thanh-Duoc Phan, Saden H. Zahiri, S. H. Masood, Mahnaz Jahedi

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In this article, using finite element analysis (FEA) and an X-ray diffractometer (XRD), cold-sprayed titanium particles on a steel substrate is investigated in term of cooling time and the development of residual strains. Three cooling-down models of sprayed particles after deposition stage are simulated and discussed: the first model (m1) considers conduction effect to the substrate only, the second model (m2) considers both conduction as well as convection effect to the environment, and the third model (m3) which is the same as the second model but with the substrate heated to a near particle temperature before spraying. Thereafter, residual strains developed in the third model is compared with the experimental measurement of residual strains, which involved a Bruker D8 Advance Diffractometer using CuKa radiation (40kV, 40mA) monochromatised with a graphite sample monochromator. For deposition conditions of this study, a good correlation was found to exist between the FEA results and XRD measurements of residual strains.

Keywords: cold gas dynamic spray, X-ray diffraction, explicit finite element analysis, residual strain, titanium, particle impact, deformation behavior.

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Authors: E. Kharaishvili, M. Chavleishvili, M. Natsvaladze

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The article presents the trends in Georgian wine market development and evaluates the competitive advantages of Georgia to enter the wine market based on its customs, traditions and historical practices combined with modern technologies. In order to analyze the supply of wine, dynamics of vineyard land area and grape varieties are discussed, trends in wine production are presented, trends in export and import are evaluated, local wine market, its micro and macro environments are studied and analyzed based on the interviews with experts and analysis of initial recording materials. For strengthening its position on the international market, the level of competitiveness of Georgian wine is defined, which is evaluated by “ex-ante” and “ex-post” methods, as well as by four basic and two additional factors of the Porter’s diamond method; potential advantages and disadvantages of Georgian wine are revealed. Conclusions are made by identifying the factors that hinder the development of Georgian wine market. Based on the conclusions, relevant recommendations are developed.

Keywords: Georgian wine market, competitive advantage, bio wine, export-import, Porter's diamond model.

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Authors: Luan Mavriqi, Ilma Robo, Emin Kuzimi, Egresa Baca

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The process of skeletal growth in an adolescent significantly affects the displacement of implants placed in the palatine suture. The problems caused by this process have an impact on the dental function and aesthetics of the affected data. If fixed prostheses are placed based on implants, the whole structure would impede maxillary growth. This is the significant difference between the maxilla and the mandible, as the lower jaw has no growth process that affects the movement of the implants or the latter to inhibit the growth of the jaw. In a teenager patient an accident occurred accompanied by loss of maxillary central incisors. The main complaint of patients is aesthetics and phonetics. Dental history of patients refers to the presence of a Maryland bridge that was accompanied by dissatisfaction on the part of the patient. Implant placement is not indicated as jaw augmentation may lead to displacement of the implant. The treatment plan includes the placement of implants in the palatum where this bone thickness allows as a procedure.in this article only the first stage of treatment is presented. Implant treatment is ongoing, will be followed by the second phase of treatment when the patient has reached the age of 18 years.

Keywords: Implants, palatum, adolescent, primary incisor teeth.

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Authors: L. Mirtskhulava, M. Khunjgurua, N. Lomineishvili, K. Bakuria

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Software reliability prediction gives a great opportunity to measure the software failure rate at any point throughout system test. A software reliability prediction model provides with the technique for improving reliability. Software reliability is very important factor for estimating overall system reliability, which depends on the individual component reliabilities. It differs from hardware reliability in that it reflects the design perfection. Main reason of software reliability problems is high complexity of software. Various approaches can be used to improve the reliability of software. We focus on software reliability model in this article, assuming that there is a time redundancy, the value of which (the number of repeated transmission of basic blocks) can be an optimization parameter. We consider given mathematical model in the assumption that in the system may occur not only irreversible failures, but also a failure that can be taken as self-repairing failures that significantly affect the reliability and accuracy of information transfer. Main task of the given paper is to find a time distribution function (DF) of instructions sequence transmission, which consists of random number of basic blocks. We consider the system software unreliable; the time between adjacent failures has exponential distribution.

Keywords: Exponential distribution, conditional mean time to failure, distribution function, mathematical model, software reliability.

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Authors: Yaser Rezapour, Armin Jabbarieh, Fatemeh Behfar, Ahadollah Azami, Aidin Shamsalghorayi

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Social ideology, cultural values and principles shaping environment are inferred by environment and structural characteristics of construction site. In other words, this inference manifestation also indicates ideology and culture of its foundation and also applies its principles and values and somehow plays an important role in Cultural Revolution. All human behaviors and artifacts are affected and being influenced by culture. Culture is not abstract concept, it is a spiritual domain that an individual and society grow and develop in it. Social behaviors are affected by environmental comprehension, so the architecture work influences on its audience and it is the environment that fosters social behaviors. Indeed, sustainable architecture should be considered as background of culture for establishing optimal sustainable culture. Since unidentified architecture roots in cultural non identity and abnormalities, so the society possesses identity characteristics and life and as a consequence, the society and architecture are changed by transformation of life style. This article aims to investigate the interaction of architecture, society, environment and sustainable architecture formation in its cultural basis and analyzes the results approaching behavior and sustainable culture in recent era.

Keywords: Culture, Sustainable Architecture, Environment, Development

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Authors: Agnieszka Misztal

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The popularity of quality management system models continues to grow despite the transitional crisis in 2008. Their development is associated with demands of the new requirements for entrepreneurs, such as risk analysis projects and more emphasis on supervision of outsourced processes. In parallel, it is appropriate to focus attention on the selection of companies aspiring to a quality management system. This is particularly important in the automotive supplier industry, where requirements transferred to the levels in the supply chain should be clear, transparent and fairly satisfied. The author has carried out a series of researches aimed at finding the factors that allow for the effective implementation of the quality management system in automotive companies. The research was focused on four groups of companies: 1) manufacturing (parts and assemblies for the purpose of sale or for vehicle manufacturers), 2) service (repair and maintenance of the car) 3) services for the transport of goods or people, 4) commercial (auto parts and vehicles). The identified determinants were divided into two types of criteria: internal and external, as well as hard and soft. The article presents the hard – technical factors that an automotive company must meet in order to achieve the goal of the quality management system implementation.

Keywords: Automotive industry, quality management system.

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Authors: Alireza Tavakolinia

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In order to understand the role of the injured party's fault in dividing liability, we studied its historical background. In common law, the traditional contributory negligence rule was a complete defense. Then the legislature and judicial procedure modified that rule to one of apportionment. In Islamic law, too, the Action rule was at first used when the injured party was the sole cause, but jurists expanded the scope of this rule, so this rule was used in cases where both the injured party's fault and that of the other party are involved. There are some popular approaches for apportionment of damages. Some common law countries like Britain had chosen ‘the causal potency approach’ and ‘fixed apportionment’. Islamic countries like Iran have chosen both ‘the relative blameworthiness’ and ‘equal apportionment’ approaches. The article concludes that both common law and Islamic law believe in the division of responsibility between a wrongdoer claimant and the defendant. In contrast, in the apportionment of responsibility, Islamic law mostly believes in equal apportionment that is way easier and saves time and money, but common law legal systems have chosen the causal potency approach which is more complicated than the rival approach but is fairer.

Keywords: Contributory negligence, common law, Islamic Law, Tort Law.

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Authors: Ali Alzaabi, Georges Alquié, Hussain Tassadaq, Ali Seba

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This article presents the developments of efficient algorithms for tablet copies comparison. Image recognition has specialized use in digital systems such as medical imaging, computer vision, defense, communication etc. Comparison between two images that look indistinguishable is a formidable task. Two images taken from different sources might look identical but due to different digitizing properties they are not. Whereas small variation in image information such as cropping, rotation, and slight photometric alteration are unsuitable for based matching techniques. In this paper we introduce different matching algorithms designed to facilitate, for art centers, identifying real painting images from fake ones. Different vision algorithms for local image features are implemented using MATLAB. In this framework a Table Comparison Computer Tool “TCCT" is designed to facilitate our research. The TCCT is a Graphical Unit Interface (GUI) tool used to identify images by its shapes and objects. Parameter of vision system is fully accessible to user through this graphical unit interface. And then for matching, it applies different description technique that can identify exact figures of objects.

Keywords: Harris Extraction and SIFT Matching

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Authors: F. Ahwide, Y. Aldali

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This article presents a current and future energy situation in Libya. The electric power efficiency and operating hours in power plants are evaluated from 2005 to 2010. Carbon dioxide emissions in most of power plants are estimated. In 2005, the efficiency of steam power plants achieved a range of 20% to 28%. While, the gas turbine power plants efficiency ranged between 9% and 25%, this can be considered as low efficiency. However, the efficiency improvement has clearly observed in some power plants from 2008 to 2010, especially in the power plant of North Benghazi and west Tripoli. In fact, these power plants have modified to combine cycle. The efficiency of North Benghazi power plant has increased from 25% to 46.6%, while in Tripoli it is increased from 22% to 34%. On the other hand, the efficiency improvement is not observed in the gas turbine power plants. When compared to the quantity of fuel used, the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from electricity generation plants were very high. Finally, an estimation of the energy demand has been done to the maximum load and the annual load factor (i.e., the ratio between the output power and installed power).

Keywords: Power plant, Efficiency improvement, Carbon dioxide Emissions.

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Authors: Antonio Espingardeiro

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It is likely that robots will cross the boundaries of industry into households over the next decades. With demographic challenges worldwide, the future ageing populations will require the introduction of assistive technologies capable of providing, care, human dignity and quality of life through the aging process. Robotics technology has a high potential for being used in the areas of social and healthcare by promoting a wide range of activities such as entertainment, companionship, supervision or cognitive and physical assistance. However such close Human Robotics Interaction (HRI) encompass a rich set of ethical scenarios that need to be addressed before Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) reach the global markets. Such interactions with robots may seem a worthy goal for many technical/financial reasons but inevitably require close attention to the ethical dimensions of such interactions. This article investigates the current HRI benchmark of social success. It revises it according to the ethical principles of beneficence, non-maleficence and justice aligned with social care ethos. An extension of such benchmark is proposed based on an empirical study of HRIs conducted with elderly groups.

Keywords: HRI, SARs, Social Success, Benchmark, Elderly care.

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Authors: M. Madiajagan, B. Vijayakumar

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The ability of information systems to operate in conjunction with each other encompassing communication protocols, hardware, software, application, and data compatibility layers. There has been considerable work in industry on the development of component interoperability models, such as CORBA, (D)COM and JavaBeans. These models are intended to reduce the complexity of software development and to facilitate reuse of off-the-shelf components. The focus of these models is syntactic interface specification, component packaging, inter-component communications, and bindings to a runtime environment. What these models lack is a consideration of architectural concerns – specifying systems of communicating components, explicitly representing loci of component interaction, and exploiting architectural styles that provide well-understood global design solutions. The development of complex business applications is now focused on an assembly of components available on a local area network or on the net. These components must be localized and identified in terms of available services and communication protocol before any request. The first part of the article introduces the base concepts of components and middleware while the following sections describe the different up-todate models of communication and interaction and the last section shows how different models can communicate among themselves.

Keywords: Interoperability, component packaging, communication technology, heterogeneous platform, component interface, middleware.

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Authors: Jesús A. Pérez, Sam Coppieters, Dimitri Debruyne

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In the past decade, the use of digital image correlation (DIC) techniques has increased significantly in the area of experimental mechanics, especially for materials behavior characterization. This non-contact tool enables full field displacement and strain measurements over a complete region of interest. The DIC algorithm requires a random contrast pattern on the surface of the specimen in order to perform properly. To create this pattern, the specimen is usually first coated using a white matt paint. Next, a black random speckle pattern is applied using any suitable method. If the applied paint coating is too thick, its top surface may not be able to exactly follow the deformation of the specimen, and consequently, the strain measurement might be underestimated. In the present article, a study of the influence of the paint thickness on the strain underestimation is performed for different strain levels. The results are then compared to typical paint coating thicknesses applied by experienced DIC users. A slight strain underestimation was observed for paint coatings thicker than about 30μm. On the other hand, this value was found to be uncommonly high compared to coating thicknesses applied by DIC users.

Keywords: Digital Image Correlation, paint coating thickness, strain.

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Authors: A. R. Seifi

Abstract:

This work presents a new algorithm based on a combination of fuzzy (FUZ), Dynamic Programming (DP), and Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach for capacitor allocation in distribution feeders. The problem formulation considers two distinct objectives related to total cost of power loss and total cost of capacitors including the purchase and installation costs. The novel formulation is a multi-objective and non-differentiable optimization problem. The proposed method of this article uses fuzzy reasoning for sitting of capacitors in radial distribution feeders, DP for sizing and finally GA for finding the optimum shape of membership functions which are used in fuzzy reasoning stage. The proposed method has been implemented in a software package and its effectiveness has been verified through a 9-bus radial distribution feeder for the sake of conclusions supports. A comparison has been done among the proposed method of this paper and similar methods in other research works that shows the effectiveness of the proposed method of this paper for solving optimum capacitor planning problem.

Keywords: Capacitor planning, Fuzzy logic method, Genetic Algorithm, Dynamic programming, Radial Distribution feeder

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Authors: E. A. Tkachenko, E. M. Rogova, V. V. Klimov

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One of the basic issues of development management is connected with performance measurement as a prerequisite for identifying the achievement of development objectives. The aim of our research is to develop an improved model of assessing a company’s development results. The model should take into account the cyclical nature of development and the high degree of uncertainty in dealing with numerous management tasks. Our hypotheses may be formulated as follows: Hypothesis 1. The cycle of a company’s development may be studied from the standpoint of a project cycle. To do that, methods and tools of project analysis are to be used. Hypothesis 2. The problem of the uncertainty when justifying managerial decisions within the framework of a company’s development cycle can be solved through the use of the mathematical apparatus of fuzzy logic. The reasoned justification of the validity of the hypotheses made is given in the suggested article. The fuzzy logic toolkit applies to the case of technology shift within an enterprise. It is proven that some restrictions in performance measurement that are incurred to conventional methods could be eliminated by implementation of the fuzzy logic apparatus in performance measurement models.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, fuzzy sets, performance measurement, project analysis.

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Authors: Marius Mosoarca, Victor Gioncu, Ovidiu Cosma

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Historic religious buildings located in seismic areas have developed different failure mechanisms. Simulation of failure modes is done with computer programs through a nonlinear dynamic analysis or simplified using the method of failure blocks. Currently there are simulation methodologies of failure modes based on the failure rigid blocks method only for Roman Catholic churches type. Due to differences of shape in plan, elevation and construction systems between Orthodox churches and Catholic churches, for the first time there were initiated researches in the development of this simulation methodology for Orthodox churches. In this article are presented the first results from the researches. The theoretical results were compared with real failure modes recorded at an Orthodox church from Banat region, severely damaged by earthquakes in 1991. Simulated seismic response, using a computer program based on finite element method was confirmed by cracks after earthquakes. The consolidation of the church was made according to these theoretical results, realizing a rigid floor connecting all the failure blocks.

Keywords: Dinamic analysis, failure mechanism, rigid blocks seismic simulation.

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Authors: Arūnas Burinskas

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Although Europe is on the threshold of a new industrial revolution called Industry 4.0, many believe that this will increase the flexibility of production, the mass adaptation of products to consumers and the speed of their service; it will also improve product quality and dramatically increase productivity. However, as expected, all the benefits of Industry 4.0 face many of the inevitable changes and challenges they pose. One of them is the inevitable transformation of current competition and business models. This article examines the possible results of competitive conversion from the classic Bertrand and Cournot models to qualitatively new competition based on innovation. Ability to deliver a new product quickly and the possibility to produce the individual design (through flexible and quickly configurable factories) by reducing equipment failures and increasing process automation and control is highly important. This study shows that the ongoing transformation of the competition model is changing the game. This, together with the creation of complex value networks, means huge investments that make it particularly difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, the ongoing digitalization of data raises new concerns regarding legal obligations, intellectual property, and security.

Keywords: Bertrand and Cournot Competition, competition model, Industry 4.0, industrial organization, monopolistic competition.

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Authors: S. Rezaei, Z. Mirzaei, M. Khalighi, J. Bahrami

Abstract:

Bridges, as an essential part of road infrastructures, are affected by various deterioration mechanisms over time due to the changes in their performance. As changes in performance can have many negative impacts on society, it is essential to be able to evaluate and measure the performance of bridges throughout their life. This evaluation includes the development or the choice of the appropriate performance indicators, which, in turn, are measured based on the selection of appropriate models for the existing deterioration mechanism. The purpose of this article is a statistical study of indicators and deterioration mechanisms of bridges in order to discover further research capacities in bridges performance assessment. For this purpose, some of the most common indicators of bridge performance, including reliability, risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience, were selected. The researches performed on each index based on the desired deterioration mechanisms and hazards were comprehensively reviewed. In addition, the formulation of the indicators and their relationship with each other were studied. The research conducted on the mentioned indicators were classified from the point of view of deterministic or probabilistic method, the level of study (element level, object level, etc.), and the type of hazard and the deterioration mechanism of interest. For each of the indicators, a number of challenges and recommendations were presented according to the review of previous studies.

Keywords: Bridge, deterioration mechanism, lifecycle, performance indicator.

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