Search results for: Order of model reduction

Authors: Abir Touati, Syed Jawad Hussain, Farid Touati, Ammar Bouallegue

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Although there has been a growing interest in the hybrid free-space optical link and radio frequency FSO/RF communication system, the current literature is limited to results obtained in moderate or cold environment. In this paper, using a soft switching approach, we investigate the effect of weather inhomogeneities on the strength of turbulence hence the channel refractive index under Qatar harsh environment and their influence on the hybrid FSO/RF availability. In this approach, either FSO/RF or simultaneous or none of them can be active. Based on soft switching approach and a finite state Markov Chain (FSMC) process, we model the channel fading for the two links and derive a mathematical expression for the outage probability of the hybrid system. Then, we evaluate the behavior of the hybrid FSO/RF under hazy and harsh weather. Results show that the FSO/RF soft switching renders the system outage probability less than that of each link individually. A soft switching algorithm is being implemented on FPGAs using Raptor code interfaced to the two terminals of a 1Gbps/100 Mbps FSO/RF hybrid system, the first being implemented in the region. Experimental results are compared to the above simulation results.

Keywords: Atmospheric turbulence, haze, soft switching, Raptor codes, refractive index.

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Authors: B. Janani, S. Thiruvenkadam

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In this work, the system evaluates the impact of considering a stochastic approach on the day ahead basis Unit Commitment. Comparisons between stochastic and deterministic Unit Commitment solutions are provided. The Unit Commitment model consists in the minimization of the total operation costs considering unit’s technical constraints like ramping rates, minimum up and down time. Load shedding and wind power spilling is acceptable, but at inflated operational costs. The evaluation process consists in the calculation of the optimal unit commitment and in verifying the fulfillment of the considered constraints. For the calculation of the optimal unit commitment, an algorithm based on the Benders Decomposition, namely on the Dual Dynamic Programming, was developed. Two approaches were considered on the construction of stochastic solutions. Data related to wind power outputs from two different operational days are considered on the analysis. Stochastic and deterministic solutions are compared based on the actual measured wind power output at the operational day. Through a technique capability of finding representative wind power scenarios and its probabilities, the system can analyze a more detailed process about the expected final operational cost.

Keywords: Benders’ decomposition, network constrained AC unit commitment, stochastic programming, wind power uncertainty.

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Authors: Meet Shah, Ankita Aditya, Dhruv Bindra, V. S. Omkar, Aashruti Seervi

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In today's world, we need documents everywhere for a smooth workflow in the identification process or any other security aspects. The current system and techniques which are used for identification need one thing, that is ‘proof of existence’, which involves valid documents, for example, educational, financial, etc. The main issue with the current identity access management system and digital identification process is that the system is centralized in their network, which makes it inefficient. The paper presents the system which resolves all these cited issues. It is based on ‘blockchain’ technology, which is a 'decentralized system'. It allows transactions in a decentralized and immutable manner. The primary notion of the model is to ‘have everything with nothing’. It involves inter-linking required documents of a person with a single identity card so that a person can go anywhere without having the required documents with him/her. The person just needs to be physically present at a place wherein documents are necessary, and using a fingerprint impression and an iris scan print, the rest of the verification will progress. Furthermore, some technical overheads and advancements are listed. This paper also aims to layout its far-vision scenario of blockchain and its impact on future trends.

Keywords: Blockchain, decentralized system, fingerprint impression, identity management, iris scan.

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Authors: Edikan E. Akpanibah, Okwigbedi Oghen’Oro

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In this paper, we studied the optimal portfolio selection in a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme with multiple contributors under constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model and the impact of stochastic additional voluntary contribution on the investment strategies. We assume that the voluntary contributions are stochastic and also consider investments in a risk free asset and a risky asset to increase the expected returns of the contributing members. We derived a stochastic differential equation which consists of the members’ monthly contributions and the invested fund and obtained an optimized problem with the help of Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equation. Furthermore, we find an explicit solution for the optimal investment strategy with stochastic voluntary contribution using power transformation and change of variables method and the corresponding optimal fund size was obtained. We discussed the impact of the voluntary contribution on the optimal investment strategy with numerical simulations and observed that the voluntary contribution reduces the optimal investment strategy of the risky asset.

Keywords: DC pension fund, Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman, optimal investment strategies, power transformation method, stochastic, voluntary contribution.

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Authors: Guojian Cheng, Tianshi Liu, Jiaxin Han, Zheng Wang

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The competitive learning is an adaptive process in which the neurons in a neural network gradually become sensitive to different input pattern clusters. The basic idea behind the Kohonen-s Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOFM) is competitive learning. SOFM can generate mappings from high-dimensional signal spaces to lower dimensional topological structures. The main features of this kind of mappings are topology preserving, feature mappings and probability distribution approximation of input patterns. To overcome some limitations of SOFM, e.g., a fixed number of neural units and a topology of fixed dimensionality, Growing Self-Organizing Neural Network (GSONN) can be used. GSONN can change its topological structure during learning. It grows by learning and shrinks by forgetting. To speed up the training and convergence, a new variant of GSONN, twin growing cell structures (TGCS) is presented here. This paper first gives an introduction to competitive learning, SOFM and its variants. Then, we discuss some GSONN with fixed dimensionality, which include growing cell structures, its variants and the author-s model: TGCS. It is ended with some testing results comparison and conclusions.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Competitive learning, Growing cell structures, Self-organizing feature maps.

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Authors: Po-Jen Su, Huann-Ming Chou

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In this article, we used the residual correction method to deal with transient thermoelastic problems with a hollow spherical region when the continuum medium possesses spherically isotropic thermoelastic properties. Based on linear thermoelastic theory, the equations of hyperbolic heat conduction and thermoelastic motion were combined to establish the thermoelastic dynamic model with consideration of the deformation acceleration effect and non-Fourier effect under the condition of transient thermal shock. The approximate solutions of temperature and displacement distributions are obtained using the residual correction method based on the maximum principle in combination with the finite difference method, making it easier and faster to obtain upper and lower approximations of exact solutions. The proposed method is found to be an effective numerical method with satisfactory accuracy. Moreover, the result shows that the effect of transient thermal shock induced by deformation acceleration is enhanced by non-Fourier heat conduction with increased peak stress. The influence on the stress increases with the thermal relaxation time.

Keywords: Maximum principle, non-Fourier heat conduction, residual correction method, thermo-elastic response.

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Authors: Dorota Habrat

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The aim of study was to analyze the functioning the new model of criminal corporate responsibility in Poland. The need to introduce into the Polish legal system liability of corporate (collective entities) has resulted, among others, from the Polish Republic's international commitments, in particular related to membership in the European Union. The study showed that responsibility of collective entities under the Act has a criminal nature. The main question concerns the ability of the collective entity to be brought to guilt under criminal law sense. Polish criminal law knows only the responsibility of individual persons. So far, guilt as a personal feature of action, based on the ability of the offender to feel in his psyche, could be considered only in relation to the individual person, while the said Act destroyed this conviction. Guilt of collective entity must be proven under at least one of the three possible forms: the guilt in the selection or supervision and so called organizational guilt. In addition, research in article has resolved the issue how the principle of proportionality in relation to criminal measures in response of collective entities should be considered. It should be remembered that the legal subjectivity of collective entities, including their rights and freedoms, is an emanation of the rights and freedoms of individual persons which create collective entities and through these entities implement their rights and freedoms. The whole study was proved that the adopted Act largely reflects the international legal regulations but also contains the unknown and original legislative solutions.

Keywords: Criminal corporate responsibility, Polish criminal law.

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Authors: Badiossadat Hassanpour, Nangkula Utaberta, Azami Zaharim, Nurakmal Goh Abdullah

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Architecture education was based on apprenticeship models and its nature has not changed much during long period but the Source of changes was its evaluation process and system. It is undeniable that art and architecture education is completely based on transmitting knowledge from instructor to students. In contrast to other majors this transmitting is by iteration and practice and studio masters try to control the design process and improving skills in the form of supervision and criticizing. Also the evaluation will end by giving marks to students- achievements. Therefore the importance of the evaluation and assessment role is obvious and it is not irrelevant to say that if we want to know about the architecture education system, we must first study its assessment procedures. The evolution of these changes in western countries has literate and documented well. However it seems that this procedure has unregarded in Malaysia and there is a severe lack of research and documentation in this area. Malaysia as an under developing and multicultural country which is involved different races and cultures is a proper origin for scrutinizing and understanding the evaluation systems and acceptability amount of current implemented models to keep the evaluation and assessment procedure abreast with needs of different generations, cultures and even genders. This paper attempts to answer the questions of how evaluation and assessments are performed and how students perceive this evaluation system in the context Malaysia. The main advantage of this work is that it contributes in international debate on evaluation model.

Keywords: Architecture, assessment, design studio, learning

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Authors: Wehash, F. E., Ismail I. Abo-Ghanema, Rasha Mohamed Saleh

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This study was conducted to evaluate the anti-diabetic properties of ethanolic extract of two plants commonly used in folk medicine, Mormodica charantia (bitter melon) and Trigonella foenum-graecum (fenugreek). The study was performed on STZinduced diabetic rats (DM type-I). Plant extracts of these two plants were given to STZ diabetic rats at the concentration of 500 mg/kg body weight ,50 mg/kg body weight respectively. Cidophage® (metformin HCl) were administered to another group to support the results at a dose of 500 mg/kg body weight, the ethanolic extracts and Cidophage administered orally once a day for four weeks using a stomach tube and; serum samples were obtained for biochemical analysis. The extracts caused significant decreases in glucose levels compared with diabetic control rats. Insulin secretions were increased after 4 weeks of treatment with Cidophage® compared with the control non-diabetic rats. Levels of AST and ALT liver enzymes were normalized by all treatments. Decreases in liver cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL in diabetic rats were observed with all treatments. HDL levels were increased by the treatments in the following order: bitter melon, Cidophage®, and fenugreek. Creatinine levels were reduced by all treatments. Serum nitric oxide and malonaldehyde levels were reduced by all extracts. GSH levels were increased by all extracts. Extravasation as measured by the Evans Blue test increased significantly in STZ-induced diabetic animals. This effect was reversed by ethanolic extracts of bitter melon or fenugreek.

Keywords: Cidophage®, Diabetic rats, Mormodica charantia, Trigonella foenum-graecum

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Authors: Mohammed Salahat, Steve Wade

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This paper presents and compares the SSDDD “Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” to DDD “Domain Driven Design Framework” as a soft system approach of information systems development. The framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects framework. This framework has been used in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to develop the domain model using UML for the given business domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous works, a comparison between SSDDD and DDD is presented in this paper, to show how SSDDD improved DDD as an approach to modelling and implementing business domain perspectives for Information Systems Development. The comparison process, the results, and the improvements are presented in the following sections of this paper.

Keywords: SSM, UML, domain-driven design, soft domain-driven design, naked objects, soft language, information retrieval, multimethodology.

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Authors: Azza Taha Zaki

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The position Eugene O’Neill occupies in the history of American drama is undisputable. Critics have agreed that the American theatre was waiting for O’Neill to give it substance, character, and value. The American dramatist continues to be considered as a major influence on the body of dramatic repertoire across the globe. The American theatre before O’Neill knew playwrights who were mostly viewed as entertainers. The serious drama had to wait until O’Neill started his career with expressionistic and social drama. His breakthrough, however, came in 1925 when he published Desire Under the Elms, described as the first important tragedy to be written in America. Mourning Becomes Electra, published in 1931, further reinforced the reputation of Eugene O’Neill and was described as his 'magnum opus'. Aspiring to portray the essence of life and man’s innermost conflicts, O’Neill turned to the classical model, rather than to social realistic drama, to create modern tragedies with the aid of the then-new science of psychology. The present paper aims to undertake an in-depth study of how overtones from classical tragedies by the classical masters Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides resonate through O’Neill’s two plays. The paper shows how leaning on classical themes and concepts interpreted in terms of psychological forces have added depth and tragic substance to a modern milieu and produced masterpieces of dramaturgy.

Keywords: classical, drama, O'Neill, modern, tragic

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Authors: H. Bentarzi, A. Zitouni

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The reliability of the power grid depends on the successful operation of thousands of protective relays. The failure of one relay to operate as intended may lead the entire power grid to blackout. In fact, major power system failures during transient disturbances may be caused by unnecessary protective relay tripping rather than by the failure of a relay to operate. Adequate relay testing provides a first defense against false trips of the relay and hence improves power grid stability and prevents catastrophic bulk power system failures. The goal of this research project is to design and enhance the relay tester using a technology such as Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) card NI 7851. A PC based tester framework has been developed using Simulink power system model for generating signals under different conditions (faults or transient disturbances) and LabVIEW for developing the graphical user interface and configuring the FPGA. Besides, the interface system has been developed for outputting and amplifying the signals without distortion. These signals should be like the generated ones by the real power system and large enough for testing the relay’s functionality. The signals generated that have been displayed on the scope are satisfactory. Furthermore, the proposed testing system can be used for improving the performance of protective relay.

Keywords: Amplifier class D, FPGA, protective relay, tester.

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Authors: John Kabuba, Antoine Mulaba-Bafubiandi, Kim Battle

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This paper presents a critical study about the application of Neural Networks to ion-exchange process. Ionexchange is a complex non-linear process involving many factors influencing the ions uptake mechanisms from the pregnant solution. The following step includes the elution. Published data presents empirical isotherm equations with definite shortcomings resulting in unreliable predictions. Although Neural Network simulation technique encounters a number of disadvantages including its “black box", and a limited ability to explicitly identify possible causal relationships, it has the advantage to implicitly handle complex nonlinear relationships between dependent and independent variables. In the present paper, the Neural Network model based on the back-propagation algorithm Levenberg-Marquardt was developed using a three layer approach with a tangent sigmoid transfer function (tansig) at hidden layer with 11 neurons and linear transfer function (purelin) at out layer. The above mentioned approach has been used to test the effectiveness in simulating ion exchange processes. The modeling results showed that there is an excellent agreement between the experimental data and the predicted values of copper ions removed from aqueous solutions.

Keywords: Copper, ion-exchange process, neural networks, simulation

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Authors: E. C. Mattos, V. S. M. G. Daros, R. Dal Col, A. L. Nascimento

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The aim of this study is to present the results of a retrospective survey on the foreign matter found in foods analyzed at the Adolfo Lutz Institute, from July 2001 to July 2015. All the analyses were conducted according to the official methods described on Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (AOAC) for the micro analytical procedures and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the macro analytical procedures. The results showed flours, cereals and derivatives such as baking and pasta products were the types of food where foreign matters were found more frequently followed by condiments and teas. Fragments of stored grains insects, its larvae, nets, excrement, dead mites and rodent excrement were the most foreign matter found in food. Besides, foreign matters that can cause a physical risk to the consumer’s health such as metal, stones, glass, wood were found but rarely. Miscellaneous (shell, sand, dirt and seeds) were also reported. There are a lot of extraneous materials that are considered unavoidable since are something inherent to the product itself, such as insect fragments in grains. In contrast, there are avoidable extraneous materials that are less tolerated because it is preventable with the Good Manufacturing Practice. The conclusion of this work is that although most extraneous materials found in food are considered unavoidable it is necessary to keep the Good Manufacturing Practice throughout the food processing as well as maintaining a constant surveillance of the production process in order to avoid accidents that may lead to occurrence of these extraneous materials in food.

Keywords: Food contamination, extraneous materials, foreign matter, surveillance.

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Authors: R. Bhargava, Sonam Singh

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In the present study, a numerical analysis is carried out to investigate unsteady MHD (magneto-hydrodynamic) flow and heat transfer of a non-Newtonian second grade viscoelastic fluid over an oscillatory stretching sheet. The flow is induced due to an infinite elastic sheet which is stretched oscillatory (back and forth) in its own plane. Effect of viscous dissipation and joule heating are taken into account. The non-linear differential equations governing the problem are transformed into system of non-dimensional differential equations using similarity transformations. A newly developed meshfree numerical technique Element free Galerkin method (EFGM) is employed to solve the coupled non linear differential equations. The results illustrating the effect of various parameters like viscoelastic parameter, Hartman number, relative frequency amplitude of the oscillatory sheet to the stretching rate and Eckert number on velocity and temperature field are reported in terms of graphs and tables. The present model finds its application in polymer extrusion, drawing of plastic films and wires, glass, fiber and paper production etc.

Keywords: EFGM, MHD, Oscillatory stretching sheet, Unsteady, Viscoelastic

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Authors: Sarunyoo Songkro, Naranut Rajatasereekul, Nipapat Cheewasrirungrueng

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The aim of the present study was to evaluate the mucoadhesion and the release of nicotinamide gel formulations using in vitro methods. An agar plate technique was used to investigate the adhesiveness of the gels whereas a diffusion apparatus was employed to determine the release of nicotinamide from the gels. In this respect, 10% w/w nicotinamide gels containing bioadhesive polymers: Carbopol 934P (0.5-2% w/w), hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose (HPMC) (4-10% w/w), sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (SCMC) (4-6% w/w) and methylcellulose 4000 (MC) (3-5% w/w) were prepared. The gel formulations had pH values in the range of 7.14 - 8.17, which were considered appropriate to oral mucosa application. In general, the rank order of pH values appeared to be SCMC > MC4000 > HPMC > Carbopol 934P. Types and concentrations of polymers used somewhat affected the adhesiveness. It was found that anionic polymers (Carbopol 934 and SCMC) adhered more firmly to the agar plate than the neutral polymers (HPMC and MC 4000). The formulation containing 0.5% Carbopol 934P (F1) showed the highest release rate. With the exception of the formulation F1, the neutral polymers tended to give higher relate rates than the anionic polymers. For oral tissue treatment, the optimum has to be balanced between the residence time (adhesiveness) of the formulations and the release rate of the drug. The formulations containing the anionic polymers: Carbopol 934P or SCMC possessed suitable physical properties (appearance, pH and viscosity). In addition, for anionic polymer formulations, justifiable mucoadhesive properties and reasonable release rates of nicotinamide were achieved. Accordingly, these gel formulations may be applied for the treatment of oral mucosal lesions.

Keywords: Nicotinamide, bioadhesive polymer, mucoadhesiveness, release rate, gel.

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Authors: Ajay Mandal, Achinta Bera

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Nanoemulsions are a class of emulsions with a droplet size in the range of 50–500 nm and have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years because it is unique characteristics. The physicochemical properties of nanoemulsion suggests that it can be successfully used to recover the residual oil which is trapped in the fine pore of reservoir rock by capillary forces after primary and secondary recovery. Oil-in-water nanoemulsion which can be formed by high-energy emulsification techniques using specific surfactants can reduce oil-water interfacial tension (IFT) by 3-4 orders of magnitude. The present work is aimed on characterization of oil-inwater nanoemulsion in terms of its phase behavior, morphological studies; interfacial energy; ability to reduce the interfacial tension and understanding the mechanisms of mobilization and displacement of entrapped oil blobs by lowering interfacial tension both at the macroscopic and microscopic level. In order to investigate the efficiency of oil-water nanoemulsion in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), experiments were performed to characterize the emulsion in terms of their physicochemical properties and size distribution of the dispersed oil droplet in water phase. Synthetic mineral oil and a series of surfactants were used to prepare oil-in-water emulsions. Characterization of emulsion shows that it follows pseudo-plastic behaviour and drop size of dispersed oil phase follows lognormal distribution. Flooding experiments were also carried out in a sandpack system to evaluate the effectiveness of the nanoemulsion as displacing fluid for enhanced oil recovery. Substantial additional recoveries (more than 25% of original oil in place) over conventional water flooding were obtained in the present investigation.

Keywords: Nanoemulsion, Characterization, Enhanced Oil Recovery, Particle Size Distribution

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Authors: García López

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The Government Departments of Health have the task of informing and educating citizens about public health issues. For this, they use channels like Twitter, key in the search for health information and the propagation of content. The tweets, important in the virality of the content, may contain emotions that influence the contagion and exchange of knowledge. The goal of this study is to perform an analysis of the emotional projection of health information shared on Twitter by official American accounts: the disease control account CDCgov, National Institutes of Health, NIH, the government agency HHSGov, and the professional organization PublicHealth. For this, we used Tone Analyzer, an International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) tool specialized in emotion detection in text, corresponding to the categorical model of emotion representation. For 15 days, all tweets from these accounts were analyzed with the emotional analysis tool in text. The results showed that their tweets contain an important emotional load, a determining factor in the success of their communications. This exposes that official accounts also use subjective language and contain emotions. The predominance of emotion joy over sadness and the strong presence of emotions in their tweets stimulate the virality of content, a key in the work of informing that government health departments have.

Keywords: Emotions in tweets emotion detection in text, health information on Twitter, American health official accounts, emotions on Twitter, emotions and content.

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Authors: R. E. Masto, L. C. Ram, S. K. Verma, V. A. Selvi, J. George, R. C. Tripathi, N. K. Srivastava, D. Mohanty, S. K.Jha, A. K. Sinha, A. Sinha

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There are many sources trough which the soil get enriched and contaminated with REEs. The determination of REEs in environmental samples has been limited because of the lack of sensitive analytical techniques. Soil samples were collected from four sites including open cast coal mine, natural coal burning, coal washery and control in the coal field located in Dhanbad, India. Total concentrations of rare earth elements (REEs) were determined using the inductively coupled plasma atomic absorption spectrometry in order to assess enrichment status in the coal field. Results showed that the mean concentrations of La, Pr, Eu, Tb, Ho, and Tm in open cast mine and natural coal burning sites were elevated compared to the reference concentrations, while Ce, Nd, Sm, and Gd were elevated in coal washery site. When compared to reference soil, heavy REEs (HREEs) were enriched in open cast mines and natural coal burning affected soils, however, the HREEs were depleted in the coal washery sites. But, the Chondrite-normalization diagram showed significant enrichment for light REEs (LREEs) in all the soils. High concentration of Pr, Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm, and Lu in coal mining and coal burning sites may pose human health risks. Factor analysis showed that distribution and relative abundance of REEs of the coal washery site is comparable with the control. Eventually washing or cleaning of coal could significantly decrease the emission of REEs from coal into the environment.

Keywords: Rare earth elements, coal, soil, factor analysis

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Authors: Soofiyan Atar, Adil Shaikh, Sahil Rajpurkar, Pragnesh Bhalala, Aniket Desai, Irfan Siddavatam

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Deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) algorithms leverage the symbolic power of complex controllers by automating it by mapping sensory inputs to low-level actions. Deep RL eliminates the complex robot dynamics with minimal engineering. Deep RL provides high-risk involvement by directly implementing it in real-world scenarios and also high sensitivity towards hyperparameters. Tuning of hyperparameters on a pneumatic quadruped robot becomes very expensive through trial-and-error learning. This paper presents an automated learning control for a pneumatic quadruped robot using sample efficient deep Q learning, enabling minimal tuning and very few trials to learn the neural network. Long training hours may degrade the pneumatic cylinder due to jerk actions originated through stochastic weights. We applied this method to the pneumatic quadruped robot, which resulted in a hopping gait. In our process, we eliminated the use of a simulator and acquired a stable gait. This approach evolves so that the resultant gait matures more sturdy towards any stochastic changes in the environment. We further show that our algorithm performed very well as compared to programmed gait using robot dynamics.

Keywords: model-based reinforcement learning, gait stability, supervised learning, pneumatic quadruped

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Authors: Y. Suranindyah, A. Astuti

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Twelve lactating Etawah Crossedbred goats were used in this study. Goat feed consisted of Cally andra callothyrsus, Pennisetum purpureum, wheat bran and dried fermented cassava peel. The cassava peels were fermented with a traditional culture called “ragi tape" (mixed culture of Saccharomyces cerevisae, Aspergillus sp, Candida, Hasnula and Acetobacter). The goats were divided into 2 groups (Control and Treated) of six does. The experimental diet of the Control group consisted of 70% of roughage (fresh Callyandra callothyrsus and Pennisetum purpureum 60:40) and 30% of wheat bran on dry matter (DM) base. In the Treated group 30% of wheat bran was replaced with dried fermented cassava peels. Data were statistically analyzed using analysis of variance followed SPSS program. The concentration of HCN in fermented cassava peel decreased to non toxic level. Nutrient composition of dried fermented cassava peel consisted of 85.75% dry matter; 5.80% crude protein and 82.51% total digestible nutrien (TDN). Substitution of 30% of wheat bran with dried fermented cassava peel in the diet had no effect on dry matter and organic matter intake but significantly (P< 0.05) decreased crude protein and TDN consumption as well as milk yields and milk composition. The study recommended to reduced the level of substitution to less than 30% of concentrates in the diet in order to avoid low nutrient intake and milk production of goats.

Keywords: Fermented Cassava Peel, Milk Production, Composition, Etawah Crossedbred Goat.

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Authors: S. Deswal, M. Pal

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The paper aims to compare the performance of vertical and inclined multiple plunging jets and to model and predict their mass transfer capacity by multi-linear regression based approach. The multiple vertical plunging jets have jet impact angle of θ = 90^O; whereas, multiple inclined plunging jets have jet impact angle of θ = 60^O. The results of the study suggests that mass transfer is higher for multiple jets, and inclined multiple plunging jets have up to 1.6 times higher mass transfer than vertical multiple plunging jets under similar conditions. The derived relationship, based on multi-linear regression approach, has successfully predicted the volumetric mass transfer coefficient (K_La) from operational parameters of multiple plunging jets with a correlation coefficient of 0.973, root mean square error of 0.002 and coefficient of determination of 0.946. The results suggests that predicted overall mass transfer coefficient is in good agreement with actual experimental values; thereby, suggesting the utility of derived relationship based on multi-linear regression based approach and can be successfully employed in modeling mass transfer by multiple plunging jets.

Keywords: Mass transfer, multiple plunging jets, multi-linear regression.

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Authors: Muhammad Liaquat Ali, Nasir-uddin Khan, Mushtaq Hussain, Asif Mansoor, Muhammad Shahid

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Population in rural areas are scattered in the form of different villages or settlements. The proper selection of land to launch any educational or health activities to equally facilitate both the genders is the sticky situation, both for Govt. and Private organizations. Govt. spends substantial funds for the establishment of education institution/health centre at the place which is feasible and accessible to general public. However for specific gender, the gender population is also considered so that both the gender may be benefited equally. In this research, efforts have been made to illustrate how one can choose or locate the best central place/ area in Taluka Kunri of district Umerkot Sindh Pakistan where the Educational or Health activity is to be initiated. For the purpose the concept of centre of mass theorem is used as a tool to develop mathematical model, subsequently utilize in achieving the objectives.

Keywords: Centre of mass theorem, Establishment of technical/ vocational/ health care centre, Gender population of taluka Kunri of District Umerkot, Graphical interpretation of town committee/villages.

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Authors: A. S. Gorobtsov, A. S. Polyanina, A. E. Andreev

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The movement of points feet of the anthropomorphous robot in space occurs along some stable trajectory of a known form. A large number of modifications to the methods of control of biped robots indicate the fundamental complexity of the problem of stability of the program trajectory and, consequently, the stability of the control for the deviation for this trajectory. Existing gait generators use piecewise interpolation of program trajectories. This leads to jumps in the acceleration at the boundaries of sites. Another interpolation can be realized using differential equations with fractional derivatives. In work, the approach to synthesis of generators of program trajectories is considered. The resulting system of nonlinear differential equations describes a smooth trajectory of movement having rectilinear sites. The method is based on the theory of an asymptotic stability of invariant sets. The stability of such systems in the area of localization of oscillatory processes is investigated. The boundary of the area is a bounded closed surface. In the corresponding subspaces of the oscillatory circuits, the resulting stable limit cycles are curves having rectilinear sites. The solution of the problem is carried out by means of synthesis of a set of the continuous smooth controls with feedback. The necessary geometry of closed trajectories of movement is obtained due to the introduction of high-order nonlinearities in the control of stabilization systems. The offered method was used for the generation of trajectories of movement of point’s feet of the anthropomorphous robot. The synthesis of the robot's program movement was carried out by means of the inverse method.

Keywords: Control, limits cycle, robot, stability.

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Authors: Ingy A. El-Khouly, Khaled S. El-Kilany, Aziz E. El-Sayed

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The process of wafer fabrication is arguably the most technologically complex and capital intensive stage in semiconductor manufacturing. This large-scale discrete-event process is highly reentrant, and involves hundreds of machines, restrictions, and processing steps. Therefore, production control of wafer fabrication facilities (fab), specifically scheduling, is one of the most challenging problems that this industry faces. Dispatching rules have been extensively applied to the scheduling problems in semiconductor manufacturing. Moreover, lot release policies are commonly used in this manufacturing setting to further improve the performance of such systems and reduce its inherent variability. In this work, simulation is used in the scheduling of re-entrant flow shop manufacturing systems with an application in semiconductor wafer fabrication; where, a simulation model has been developed for the Intel Five-Machine Six Step Mini-Fab using the ExtendTM simulation environment. The Mini-Fab has been selected as it captures the challenges involved in scheduling the highly re-entrant semiconductor manufacturing lines. A number of scenarios have been developed and have been used to evaluate the effect of different dispatching rules and lot release policies on the selected performance measures. Results of simulation showed that the performance of the Mini-Fab can be drastically improved using a combination of dispatching rules and lot release policy.

Keywords: Dispatching rules, lot release policy, re-entrant flowshop, semiconductor manufacturing.

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Authors: A. van Onselen, C. M. Walsh, F. J. Veldman, C. Brand

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Objectives: To determine the nutritional status and risk factors associated with women practicing geophagia in QwaQwa, South Africa. Materials and Methods: An observational epidemiological study design was adopted which included an exposed (geophagia) and nonexposed (control) group. A food frequency questionnaire, anthropometric measurements and blood sampling were applied to determine nutritional status of participants. Logistic regression analysis was performed in order to identify factors that were likely to be associated with the practice of geophagia. Results: The mean total energy intake for the geophagia group (G) and control group (C) were 10324.31 ± 2755.00 kJ and 10763.94 ± 2556.30 kJ respectively. Both groups fell within the overweight category according to the mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of each group (G= 25.59 kg/m2; C= 25.14 kg/m2). The mean serum iron levels of the geophagia group (6.929 μmol/l) were significantly lower than that of the control group (13.75 μmol/l) (p = 0.000). Serum transferrin (G=3.23g/l; C=2.7054g/l) and serum transferrin saturation (G=8.05%; C=18.74%) levels also differed significantly between groups (p=0.00). Factors that were associated with the practice of geophagia included haemoglobin (Odds ratio (OR):14.50), serumiron (OR: 9.80), serum-ferritin (OR: 3.75), serum-transferrin (OR: 6.92) and transferrin saturation (OR: 14.50). A significant negative association (p=0.014) was found between women who were wageearners and those who were not wage-earners and the practice of geophagia (OR: 0.143; CI: 0.027; 0.755). These findings seem to indicate that a permanent income may decrease the likelihood of practising geophagia. Key Findings: Geophagia was confirmed to be a risk factor for iron deficiency in this community. The significantly strong association between geophagia and iron deficiency emphasizes the importance of identifying the practice of geophagia in women, especially during their child bearing years.

Keywords: Anaemia, anthropometry, dietary intake, geophagia, iron deficiency.

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Authors: M. Boukhrouk, R. Ed-Dali

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Outbound tourism in Morocco, as in the majority of developing countries, reveals some of the aspects of inequality between the north and the south. Considered by some researchers as one of the facets of the development crisis, access to tourism and especially international tourism is a chance for a small minority with financial means, while the vast portions of the population dream rather of immigrating to a developed country for the sake of improving their standard of living. The right to travel is also limited by visa requirements, procedures in host countries, security and technical measures and creates discrimination in the practice of tourism. These conditions do not seem to be favorable to the democratization of the practice of international tourism for the populations of the southern countries. This paper is a contribution to the reading of the trends of outbound tourism in developing countries through the example of Morocco. It highlights the different aspects of Moroccan outbound tourism, destinations and the behavior of tourists through an analysis of the offer of a sample of 50 travel agencies. In the same vein, it offers a reading grid of the possibilities offered for the development of outbound tourism and the various existing obstacles to the democratization of international outbound tourism in the southern countries. This reading reveals the transformation in the behavior of Moroccan international tourists as well as the profound changes in Moroccan society, through a model of statistical analysis.

Keywords: Demand, Hajj, Morocco, outbound tourism, tendency, Umrah.

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Authors: Jeries J. Abou-Hanna

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Several techniques exist for determining stress-intensity factors in linear elastic fracture mechanics analysis. These techniques are based on analytical, numerical, and empirical approaches that have been well documented in literature and engineering handbooks. However, not all techniques share the same merit. In addition to overly-conservative results, the numerical methods that require extensive computational effort, and those requiring copious user parameters hinder practicing engineers from efficiently evaluating stress-intensity factors. This paper investigates the prospects of reducing the complexity and required variables to determine stress-intensity factors through the utilization of the stress gradient and a weighting function. The heart of this work resides in the understanding that fracture emanating from stress concentration locations cannot be explained by a single maximum stress value approach, but requires use of a critical volume in which the crack exists. In order to understand the effectiveness of this technique, this study investigated components of different notch geometry and varying levels of stress gradients. Two forms of weighting functions were employed to determine stress-intensity factors and results were compared to analytical exact methods. The results indicated that the “exponential” weighting function was superior to the “absolute” weighting function. An error band +/- 10% was met for cases ranging from a steep stress gradient in a sharp v-notch to the less severe stress transitions of a large circular notch. The incorporation of the proposed method has shown to be a worthwhile consideration.

Keywords: Fracture mechanics, finite element method, stress intensity factor, stress gradient.

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Authors: Hosein Hamisheh Bahar, Mohammad Hossein Fazel Zarandi, Akbar Esfahanipour

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In this paper, a hybrid expert system is developed by using fuzzy genetic network programming with reinforcement learning (GNP-RL). In this system, the frame-based structure of the system uses the trading rules extracted by GNP. These rules are extracted by using technical indices of the stock prices in the training time period. For developing this system, we applied fuzzy node transition and decision making in both processing and judgment nodes of GNP-RL. Consequently, using these method not only did increase the accuracy of node transition and decision making in GNP's nodes, but also extended the GNP's binary signals to ternary trading signals. In the other words, in our proposed Fuzzy GNP-RL model, a No Trade signal is added to conventional Buy or Sell signals. Finally, the obtained rules are used in a frame-based system implemented in Kappa-PC software. This developed trading system has been used to generate trading signals for ten companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The simulation results in the testing time period shows that the developed system has more favorable performance in comparison with the Buy and Hold strategy.

Keywords: Fuzzy genetic network programming, hybrid expert system, technical trading signal, Tehran stock exchange.

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Authors: Haruo Okabayashi

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The mutual understanding in conversation is very important for human relations. This study investigates the mental function of the formation of mutual understanding between two people in conversation using the embodied approach. Forty people participated in this study. They are divided into pairs randomly. Four conversation situations between two (make/listen to fun or pleasant talk, make/listen to regrettable talk) are set for four minutes each, and the finger plethysmogram (200 Hz) of each participant is measured. As a result, the attractors of the participants who reported “I did not understand my partner” show the collapsed shape, which means the fluctuation of their rhythm is too small to match their partner’s rhythm, and their cross correlation is low. The autonomic balance of both persons tends to resonate during conversation, and both LLEs tend to resonate, too. In human history, in order for human beings as weak mammals to live, they may have been with others; that is, they have brought about resonating characteristics, which is called self-organization. However, the resonant feature sometimes collapses, depending on the lifestyle that the person was formed by himself after birth. It is difficult for people who do not have a lifestyle of mutual gaze to resonate their biological signal waves with others’. These people have features such as anxiety, fatigue, and confusion tendency. Mutual understanding is thought to be formed as a result of cooperation between the features of self-organization of the persons who are talking and the lifestyle indicated by mutual gaze. Such an entanglement phenomenon is called a nonlinear relation. By this research, it is found that the formation of mutual understanding is expressed by the rhythm of a biological signal showing a nonlinear relationship.

Keywords: Embodied approach, finger plethysmogram, mutual understanding, nonlinear phenomenon.

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