Search results for: process design model

Authors: Yuko Hiramatsu, Fumihiro Sato, Atsushi Ito, Hiroyuki Hatano, Mie Sato, Yu Watanabe, Akira Sasaki

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This paper presents a mobile phone application developed for sightseeing in Nikko, one of the cultural world heritages in Japan, using the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon. Based on our pre-research, we decided to design our application for young people who walk around the area actively, but know little about the tradition and culture of Nikko. One solution is to construct many information boards to explain; however, it is difficult to construct new guide plates in cultural world heritage sites. The smartphone is a good solution to send such information to such visitors. This application was designed using a combination of the smartphone and beacons, set in the area, so that when a tourist passes near a beacon, the application displays information about the area including a map, historical or cultural information about the temples and shrines, and local shops nearby as well as a bus timetable. It is useful for foreigners, too. In addition, we developed quizzes relating to the culture and tradition of Nikko to provide information based on the Zeigarnik effect, a psychological effect. According to the results of our trials, tourists positively evaluated the basic information and young people who used the quiz function were able to learn the historical and cultural points. This application helped young visitors at Nikko to understand the cultural elements of the site. In addition, this application has a function to send notifications. This function is designed to provide information about the local community such as shops, local transportation companies and information office. The application hopes to also encourage people living in the area, and such cooperation from the local people will make this application vivid and inspire young visitors to feel that the cultural heritage site is still alive today. This is a gateway for young people to learn about a traditional place and understand the gravity of preserving such areas.

Keywords: BLE beacon, smartphone application, Zeigarnik effect, world heritage site, school trip.

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Authors: Win Win Tun, Han Su Yin, Ohn Zin Lin

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Transmission networks are an important part of an electric power system. The transmission lines not only have high power transmission capacity but also they are prone of larger magnitudes. Different types of faults occur in transmission lines such as single line to ground (L-G) fault, double line to ground (L-L-G) fault, line to line (L-L) fault and three phases (L-L-L) fault. These faults are needed to be cleared quickly in order to reduce damage caused to the system and they have high impact on the electrical power system equipment’s which are connected in transmission line. The main fault in transmission line is L-G fault. Therefore, protection relays are needed to protect transmission line. Overcurrent and earth fault relay is an important relay used to protect transmission lines, distribution feeders, transformers and bus couplers etc. Sometimes these relays can be used as main protection or backup protection. The modeling of protection relays is important to indicate the effects of network parameters and configurations on the operation of relays. Therefore, the modeling of overcurrent and earth fault relay is described in this paper. The overcurrent and earth fault relays with standard inverse definite minimum time are modeled and simulated by using MATLAB/Simulink software. The developed model was tested with L-G, L-L-G, L-L and L-L-L faults with various fault locations and fault resistance (0.001Ω). The simulation results are obtained by MATLAB software which shows the feasibility of analysis of transmission line protection with overcurrent and earth fault relay.

Keywords: Transmission line, overcurrent and earth fault relay, standard inverse definite minimum time, various faults, MATLAB Software.

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Authors: F. A. Gdhaidh, K. Hussain, H. S. Qi

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A numerical study of natural convection heat transfer in water filled cavity has been examined in 3-Dfor single phase liquid cooling system by using an array of parallel plate fins mounted to one wall of a cavity. The heat generated by a heat source represents a computer CPU with dimensions of 37.5∗37.5mm mounted on substrate. A cold plate is used as a heat sink installed on the opposite vertical end of the enclosure. The air flow inside the computer case is created by an exhaust fan. A turbulent air flow is assumed and k-ε model is applied. The fins are installed on the substrate to enhance the heat transfer. The applied power energy range used is between 15 - 40W. In order to determine the thermal behaviour of the cooling system, the effect of the heat input and the number of the parallel plate fins are investigated. The results illustrate that as the fin number increases the maximum heat source temperature decreases. However, when the fin number increases to critical value the temperature start to increase due to the fins are too closely spaced and that cause the obstruction of water flow. The introduction of parallel plate fins reduces the maximum heat source temperature by 10% compared to the case without fins. The cooling system maintains the maximum chip temperature at 64.68°C when the heat input was at 40W that is much lower than the recommended computer chips limit temperature of no more than 85°C and hence the performance of the CPU is enhanced.

Keywords: Chips limit temperature, closed enclosure, natural convection, parallel plate, single phase liquid.

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Authors: Abdelhalim. N. Mohammed, Mohammed. Y. Esmail

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In the course of recent decades, medical imaging has been dominated by the use of costly film media for review and archival of medical investigation, however due to developments in networks technologies and common acceptance of a standard digital imaging and communication in medicine (DICOM) another approach in light of World Wide Web was produced. Web technologies successfully used in telemedicine applications, the combination of web technologies together with DICOM used to design a web-based and open source DICOM viewer. The Web server allowance to inquiry and recovery of images and the images viewed/manipulated inside a Web browser without need for any preinstalling software. The dynamic site page for medical images visualization and processing created by using JavaScript and HTML5 advancements. The XAMPP ‘apache server’ is used to create a local web server for testing and deployment of the dynamic site. The web-based viewer connected to multiples devices through local area network (LAN) to distribute the images inside healthcare facilities. The system offers a few focal points over ordinary picture archiving and communication systems (PACS): easy to introduce, maintain and independently platforms that allow images to display and manipulated efficiently, the system also user-friendly and easy to integrate with an existing system that have already been making use of web technologies. The wavelet-based image compression technique on which 2-D discrete wavelet transform used to decompose the image then wavelet coefficients are transmitted by entropy encoding after threshold to decrease transmission time, stockpiling cost and capacity. The performance of compression was estimated by using images quality metrics such as mean square error ‘MSE’, peak signal to noise ratio ‘PSNR’ and compression ratio ‘CR’ that achieved (83.86%) when ‘coif3’ wavelet filter is used.

Keywords: DICOM, discrete wavelet transform, PACS, HIS, LAN.

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Authors: Sahar S. Tabrizi, Dogan Ibrahim

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Cloud Computing is a convenient model for on-demand networks that uses shared pools of virtual configurable computing resources, such as servers, networks, storage devices, applications, etc. The cloud serves as an environment for companies and organizations to use infrastructure resources without making any purchases and they can access such resources wherever and whenever they need. Cloud computing is useful to overcome a number of problems in various Information Technology (IT) domains such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Scientific Research, e-Governance Systems, Decision Support Systems, ERP, Web Application Development, Mobile Technology, etc. Companies can use Cloud Computing services to store large amounts of data that can be accessed from anywhere on Earth and also at any time. Such services are rented by the client companies where the actual rent depends upon the amount of data stored on the cloud and also the amount of processing power used in a given time period. The resources offered by the cloud service companies are flexible in the sense that the user companies can increase or decrease their storage requirements or the processing power requirements at any time, thus minimizing the overall rental cost of the service they receive. In addition, the Cloud Computing service providers offer fast processors and applications software that can be shared by their clients. This is especially important for small companies with limited budgets which cannot afford to purchase their own expensive hardware and software. This paper is an overview of the Cloud Computing, giving its types, principles, advantages, and disadvantages. In addition, the paper gives some example engineering applications of Cloud Computing and makes suggestions for possible future applications in the field of engineering.

Keywords: Cloud computing, cloud services, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, IoT.

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Authors: Rupali, Anil Kumar Jaiswal

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Cloud computing can be defined as one of the prominent technologies that lets a user change, configure and access the services online. it can be said that this is a prototype of computing that helps in saving cost and time of a user practically the use of cloud computing can be found in various fields like education, health, banking etc.  Cloud computing is an internet dependent technology thus it is the major responsibility of Cloud Service Providers(CSPs) to care of data stored by user at data centers. Scheduling in cloud computing environment plays a vital role as to achieve maximum utilization and user satisfaction cloud providers need to schedule resources effectively.  Job scheduling for cloud computing is analyzed in the following work. To complete, recreate the task calculation, and conveyed scheduling methods CloudSim3.0.3 is utilized. This research work discusses the job scheduling for circulated processing condition also by exploring on this issue we find it works with minimum time and less cost. In this work two load balancing techniques have been employed: ‘Throttled stack adjustment policy’ and ‘Active VM load balancing policy’ with two brokerage services ‘Advanced Response Time’ and ‘Reconfigure Dynamically’ to evaluate the VM_Cost, DC_Cost, Response Time, and Data Processing Time. The proposed techniques are compared with Round Robin scheduling policy.

Keywords: Physical machines, virtual machines, support for repetition, self-healing, highly scalable programming model.

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Authors: Jeong-Woo Seo, Jin-Seung Choi, Dong-Won Kang, Jae-Hyuk Bae, Gye-Rae Tack

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To achieve accurate and precise results of finite element analysis (FEA) of bones, it is important to represent the load/boundary conditions as identical as possible to the human body such as the bone properties, the type and force of the muscles, the contact force of the joints, and the location of the muscle attachment. In this study, the difference in the Von-Mises stress and the total deformation was compared by classifying them into Case 1, which shows the actual anatomical form of the muscle attached to the femur when the same muscle force was applied, and Case 2, which gives a simplified representation of the attached location. An inverse dynamical musculoskeletal model was simulated using data from an actual walking experiment to complement the accuracy of the muscular force, the input value of FEA. The FEA method using the results of the muscular force that were calculated through the simulation showed that the maximum Von-Mises stress and the maximum total deformation in Case 2 were underestimated by 8.42% and 6.29%, respectively, compared to Case 1. The torsion energy and bending moment at each location of the femur occurred via the stress ingredient. Due to the geometrical/morphological feature of the femur of having a long bone shape when the stress distribution is wide, as shown in Case 1, a greater Von-Mises stress and total deformation are expected from the sum of the stress ingredients. More accurate results can be achieved only when the muscular strength and the attachment location in the FEA of the bones and the attachment form are the same as those in the actual anatomical condition under the various moving conditions of the human body.

Keywords: Musculoskeletal modeling, Finite element analysis, Von-Mises stress, Deformation, Muscle attachment.

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Authors: Zhaocheng Shang

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In order to study the topic of cities crossing rivers, a Four-Dimensional Analysis Method consisting of timeline, X-axis, Y-axis, and Z-axis is proposed. Policies, plans, and their implications are summarized and researched along with the timeline. The X-axis is the direction which is parallel to the river. The research area was chosen because of its important connection function. It is proposed that more surface water network should be built because of the ecological orientation of the research area. And the analysis of groundwater makes it for sure that the proposal is feasible. After the blue water network is settled, the green landscape network which is surrounded by it could be planned. The direction which is transversal to the river (Y-axis) should run through the transportation axis so that the urban texture could stretch in an ecological way. Therefore, it is suggested that the work of the planning bureau and river bureau should be coordinated. The Z-axis research is on the section view of the river, especially on the Yellow River’s special feature of being a perched river. Based on water control safety demands, river parks could be constructed on the embankment buffer zone, whereas many kinds of ornamental trees could be used to build the buffer zone. City Crossing River is a typical case where we make use of landscaping to build a symbiotic relationship between the urban landscape architecture and the environment. The local environment should be respected in the process of city expansion. The planning order of "Benefit- Flood Control Safety" should be replaced by "Flood Control Safety - Landscape Architecture- People - Benefit".

Keywords: Blue-Green landscape network, city crossing river, four-dimensional analysis method, planning order.

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Authors: Anahita Dalmia

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There has been a recent rise in ‘audience-centric’ and immersive storytelling. This indicates audiences are gaining interest in experiencing real adventure with everything that encompasses the struggle, the new friendships, skill development, and growth. This paper examines two themed alternate reality games created by a group of students at the University of Southern California as an experiment in how to design an adventure and to evaluate its impact on participants. The experiences combined immersive improvisational theatre and live-action roleplaying to create socially aware experiences within the timespan of four hours, using Harry Potter and mythology as themes. In each experiment, over 500 players simultaneously embarked on quests -a series of challenges including puzzle-solving, scavenger-hunting, and character interactions- to join a narrative faction. While playing, the participants were asked to choose faction alignments based on the characters they interacted with, as well as their own backgrounds and moral values. During the narrative finale, the impact of their individual choices on the larger story and game were revealed. After the conclusion of each experience, participants filled out questionnaires and were interviewed. Through this, it was discovered that participants developed transferable problem-solving, team-work, and persuasion skills. They also learned about the theme of the experience and reflected on their own moral values and judgment-making abilities after they realized the consequences of their actions in the game-world, inspiring some participants to make changes outside of it. This reveals that alternative reality games can lead to socialization, educational development, and real-world change in a variety of contexts when implemented correctly. This experiment has begun to discover the value of alternate reality games in a real-world context and to develop a reproducible format to continue to create such an impact.

Keywords: Adventure, alternate reality games, education, immersive entertainment, interactive entertainment.

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Authors: Takashi Kaburagi, Masashi Takenaka, Yosuke Kurihara, Takashi Matsumoto

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common mental illnesses today. It is believed to be caused by a combination of several factors, including stress. Stress can be quantitatively evaluated using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), one of the best indices to evaluate anxiety. Although STAI scores are widely used in applications ranging from clinical diagnosis to basic research, the scores are calculated based on a self-reported questionnaire. An objective evaluation is required because the subject may intentionally change his/her answers if multiple tests are carried out. In this article, we present a modified index called the “multi-channel Laterality Index at Rest (mc-LIR)” by recording the brain activity from a wider area of the frontal lobe using multi-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The presented index aims to measure multiple positions near the F_pz defined by the international 10-20 system positioning. Using 24 subjects, the dependencies on the number of measuring points used to calculate the mc-LIR and its correlation coefficients with the STAI scores are reported. Furthermore, a simple linear regression was performed to estimate the STAI scores from mc-LIR. The cross-validation error is also reported. The experimental results show that using multiple positions near the Fpz will improve the correlation coefficients and estimation than those using only two positions.

Keywords: Stress, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, frontal lobe, state-trait anxiety inventory score.

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Authors: Paula A. Cruise, Carvell McLeary

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Employee turnover leads to lowered productivity, decreased morale and work quality, and psychological effects associated with employee separation and replacement. Yet, it remains unknown why talented employees willingly withdraw from organizations. This uncertainty is worsened as studies; a) priorities organizational over individual predictors resulting in restriction in range in turnover measurement; b) focus on actual rather than intended turnover thereby limiting conceptual understanding of the turnover construct and its relationship with other variables and; c) produce inconsistent findings across cultures, contexts and industries despite a clear need for a unified perspective. The current study addressed these gaps by adopting the theory of planned behavior (TPB) framework to examine socio-cognitive factors in organizational trust and individual turnover intentions among bankers and energy employees in Jamaica. In a comparative study of n=369 [n_bank= 264; male=57 (22.73%); n_energy =105; male =45 (42.86)], it was hypothesized that organizational trust was a predictor of employee turnover intention, and the effect of individual, group, cognitive and socio-affective variables varied across industry. Findings from structural equation modelling confirmed the hypothesis, with a model of both cognitive and socio-affective variables being a better fit [CMIN (χ²) = 800.067, df = 364, p ≤ .000; CFI = 0.950; RMSEA = 0.057 with 90% C.I. (0.052 - 0.062); PCLOSE = 0.016; PNFI = 0.818 in predicting turnover intention. The findings are discussed in relation to socio-cognitive components of trust models and predicting negative employee behaviors across cultures and industries.

Keywords: Context-specific organizational trust, cross-cultural psychology, theory of planned behavior, employee turnover intention.

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Authors: Muhammad Imran, Iqra Basit, Mobushir Riaz Khan, Sajid Rasheed Ahmad

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The present study investigates the space-time impact of climate change on the rice crop calendar in tropical Gujranwala, Pakistan. The climate change impact was quantified through the climatic variables, whereas the existing calendar of the rice crop was compared with the phonological stages of the crop, depicted through the time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Landsat data for the decade 2005-2015. Local maxima were applied on the time series of NDVI to compute the rice phonological stages. Panel models with fixed and cross-section fixed effects were used to establish the relation between the climatic parameters and the time-series of NDVI across villages and across rice growing periods. Results show that the climatic parameters have significant impact on the rice crop calendar. Moreover, the fixed effect model is a significant improvement over cross-sectional fixed effect models (R-squared equal to 0.673 vs. 0.0338). We conclude that high inter-annual variability of climatic variables cause high variability of NDVI, and thus, a shift in the rice crop calendar. Moreover, inter-annual (temporal) variability of the rice crop calendar is high compared to the inter-village (spatial) variability. We suggest the local rice farmers to adapt this change in the rice crop calendar.

Keywords: Landsat NDVI, panel models, temperature, rainfall.

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Authors: Ayman El Sabagh, Sobhy Sorour, Abd Elhamid Omar, Adel Ragab, Mohammad Sohidul Islam, Celaleddin Barutçular, Akihiro Ueda, Hirofumi Saneoka

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Salinity is one of the major factors limiting crop production in an arid environment. Despite its global importance soybean production suffer the problems of salinity stress causing damages at plant development. So it is implacable to either search for salinity enhancement of soybean plants. Therefore, in the current study we try to clarify the mechanism that might be involved in the ameliorating effects of osmo-protectants such as proline and glycine betaine as well as, compost application on soybean plants grown under salinity stress. The experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions at the Graduate School of Biosphere Science Laboratory of Hiroshima University, Japan in 2011. The experiment was designed as a spilt-split plot based on randomized complete block design with four replications. The treatments could be summarized as follows; (i) salinity concentrations (0 and 15 mM), (ii) compost treatments (0 and 24 t ha-1) and (iii) the exogenous, proline and glycine betaine concentrations (0 mM and 25 mM) for each. Results indicated that salinity stress induced reduction in growth and physiological aspects (dry weight per plant, chlorophyll content, N and K+ content) of soybean plant compared with those of the unstressed plants. On the other hand, salinity stress led to increases in the electrolyte leakage ratio, Na and proline contents. Special attention was paid to, the tolerance against salt stress was observed, the improvement of salt tolerance resulted from proline, glycine betaine and compost were accompanied with improved K+, and proline accumulation. While, significantly decreased electrolyte leakage ratio and Na+ content. These results clearly demonstrate that harmful effect of salinity could reduce on growth aspects of soybean. Consequently, exogenous osmoprotectants combine with compost will effectively solve seasonal salinity stress problem and are a good strategy to increase salinity resistance of soybean in the drylands.

Keywords: Compost, glycine betaine, growth, proline, salinity tolerance, soybean.

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Authors: Ahmad Fahim Nasiry, Shigeo Honma

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We examine two-dimensional oil displacement by water in a petroleum reservoir. The pore fluid is immiscible, and the porous media is homogenous and isotropic in the horizontal direction. Buckley-Leverett theory and a combination of Laplacian and Darcy’s law are used to study the fluid flow through porous media, and the Laplacian that defines the dispersion and diffusion of fluid in the sand using heavy oil is discussed. The reservoir is homogenous in the horizontal direction, as expressed by the partial differential equation. Two main factors which are observed are the water saturation and pressure distribution in the reservoir, and they are evaluated for predicting oil recovery in two dimensions by a physical and mathematical simulation model. We review the numerical simulation that solves difficult partial differential reservoir equations. Based on the numerical simulations, the saturation and pressure equations are calculated by the iterative alternating direction implicit method and the iterative alternating direction explicit method, respectively, according to the finite difference assumption. However, to understand the displacement of oil by water and the amount of water dispersion in the reservoir better, an interpolated contour line of the water distribution of the five-spot pattern, that provides an approximate solution which agrees well with the experimental results, is also presented. Finally, a computer program is developed to calculate the equation for pressure and water saturation and to draw the pressure contour line and water distribution contour line for the reservoir.

Keywords: Numerical simulation, immiscible, finite difference, IADI, IADE, waterflooding.

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Authors: Pankaj Singh Rawat, Rajeew Kumar, Pradeep Ram, Priyanka Pandey

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Wheat is an important cereal crop for food security. Boosting the wheat production and productivity is the major challenge across the nation. Good quality of seed is required for maintaining optimum plant stand which ultimately increases grain yield. Ensuring a good germination is one of the key steps to ensure proper plant stand and moisture assurance during seed germination may help to speed up the germination. The tiny size of nanoparticles may help in entry of water into seed without disturbing their internal structure. Considering above, a laboratory experiment was conducted during 2012-13 at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, India. The completely randomized design was used for statistical analysis. The experiment was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the appropriate concentration of nanoparticles for seed treatment was screened. In second phase seed soaking hours of nanoparticles for better seed germination were standardized. Wheat variety UP2526 was taken as test crop. Four nanoparticles (TiO₂, ZnO, nickel and chitosan) were taken for study. The crop germination studies were done in petri dishes and standard package and practices were used to raise the seedlings. The germination studies were done by following standard procedure. In first phase of the experiment, seeds were treated with 50 and 300 ppm of nanoparticles and control was also maintained for comparison. In the second phase of experiment, seeds were soaked for 4 hours, 6 hours and 8 hours with 50 ppm nanoparticles of TiO₂, ZnO, nickel and chitosan along with control treatment to identify the soaking time for better seed germination. Experiment revealed that the application of nanoparticles help to enhance seed germination. The study revealed that seed treatment with  nanoparticles at 50 ppm concentration increases root length, shoot length, seedling length, shoot dry weight, seedling dry weight, seedling vigour index I and seedling vigour index II as compared to seed soaking at 300 ppm concentration. This experiment showed that seed soaking up to 4 hr was better as compared to 6 and 8 hrs. Seed soaking with nanoparticles specially TiO₂, ZnO, and chitosan proved to enhance germination and seedling growth indices of wheat crop.

Keywords: Nanoparticles, seed germination, seed soaking, wheat.

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Authors: M. Aghili, S. Tabarestani, C. Freytes, M. Shojaie, M. Cabrerizo, A. Barreto, N. Rishe, R. E. Curiel, D. Loewenstein, R. Duara, M. Adjouadi

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A major challenge in medical studies, especially those that are longitudinal, is the problem of missing measurements which hinders the effective application of many machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, recent Alzheimer's Disease studies have focused on the delineation of Early Mild Cognitive Impairment (EMCI) and Late Mild Cognitive Impairment (LMCI) from cognitively normal controls (CN) which is essential for developing effective and early treatment methods. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper explores the potential of using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm in handling missing values in multiclass classification. We seek a generalized classification scheme where all prodromal stages of the disease are considered simultaneously in the classification and decision-making processes. Given the large number of subjects (1631) included in this study and in the presence of almost 28% missing values, we investigated the performance of XGBoost on the classification of the four classes of AD, NC, EMCI, and LMCI. Using 10-fold cross validation technique, XGBoost is shown to outperform other state-of-the-art classification algorithms by 3% in terms of accuracy and F-score. Our model achieved an accuracy of 80.52%, a precision of 80.62% and recall of 80.51%, supporting the more natural and promising multiclass classification.

Keywords: eXtreme Gradient Boosting, missing data, Alzheimer disease, early mild cognitive impairment, late mild cognitive impairment, multiclass classification, ADNI, support vector machine, random forest.

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Authors: Jimeng Shi, Mahek Jain, Giri Narasimhan

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Time Series Forecasting (TSF) is used to predict the target variables at a future time point based on the learning from previous time points. To keep the problem tractable, learning methods use data from a fixed length window in the past as an explicit input. In this paper, we study how the performance of predictive models change as a function of different look-back window sizes and different amounts of time to predict into the future. We also consider the performance of the recent attention-based transformer models, which had good success in the image processing and natural language processing domains. In all, we compare four different deep learning methods (Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Long Short-term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Units (GRU), and Transformer) along with a baseline method. The dataset (hourly) we used is the Beijing Air Quality Dataset from the website of University of California, Irvine (UCI), which includes a multivariate time series of many factors measured on an hourly basis for a period of 5 years (2010-14). For each model, we also report on the relationship between the performance and the look-back window sizes and the number of predicted time points into the future. Our experiments suggest that Transformer models have the best performance with the lowest Mean   Absolute Errors (MAE = 14.599, 23.273) and Root Mean Square Errors (RSME = 23.573, 38.131) for most of our single-step and multi-steps predictions. The best size for the look-back window to predict 1 hour into the future appears to be one day, while 2 or 4 days perform the best to predict 3 hours into the future.

Keywords: Air quality prediction, deep learning algorithms, time series forecasting, look-back window.

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Authors: Ahmed Aljudaya, Derek Ingham, Lin Ma, Kevin Hughes, Mohammed Pourkashanian

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Researchers, power companies, and state politicians have given concentrated solar power (CSP) much attention due to its capacity to generate large amounts of electricity whereas overcoming the intermittent nature of solar resources. The Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) is a well-known CSP technology type for being inexpensive, having a low land use factor, and suffering from low optical efficiency. The LFR was considered a cost-effective alternative option to the Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) because of its simplistic design, and this often outweighs its lower efficiency. The LFR power plants commercially generate steam directly and indirectly in order to produce electricity with high technical efficiency and lower its costs. The purpose of this important analysis is to compare the annual performance of the Direct Steam Generation (DSG) and Indirect Steam Generation (ISG) of LFR power plants using molten salt and other different Heat Transfer Fluids (HTF) to investigate their technical and economic effects. A 50 MWe solar-only system is examined as a case study for both steam production methods in extreme weather conditions. In addition, a parametric analysis is carried out to determine the optimal solar field size that provides the lowest Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) while achieving the highest technical performance. As a result of optimizing the optimum solar field size, the solar multiple (SM) is found to be between 1.2 – 1.5 in order to achieve as low as 9 Cent/KWh for the DSG of the LFR. In addition, the power plant is capable of producing around 141 GWh annually and up to 36% of the capacity factor, whereas the ISG produces less energy at a higher cost. The optimization results show that the DSG’s performance overcomes the ISG in producing around 3% more annual energy, 2% lower LCOE, and 28% less capital cost.

Keywords: Concentrated Solar Power, Levelized cost of electricity, Linear Fresnel reflectors, Steam generation.

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Authors: Anuoluwapo S. Taiwo, David S. Ayre, Morteza Khorami, Sameer S. Rahatekar

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This investigation aims to characterize the effect of corncob (CC), an agricultural waste, for potential use as a filler material, reducing cement in natural fibre-reinforced cement composite boards used for building applications in low-cost housing estates in developing countries. The CC is readily and abundantly available in many West African States. However, this agricultural waste product has not been put to any effective use. Hence, the objective of the current research is to convert this massive agro-waste resource into a potential material for use as filler materials reducing cement contents in fibre-cement board production. Kraft pulp fibre-reinforced cement composite boards were developed with the incorporation of the CC powder at varying percentages of 1-4% as filler materials to reduce the cement content, using a laboratory-simulated vacuum de-watering process. The mechanical properties of the developed cement boards were characterized through a three-point bending test, while the fractured morphology of the cement boards was examined through a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Results revealed that the flexural strength of the composite board improved significantly with an optimum enhancement of 39% when compared to the reference sample without CC replacement, however, the flexural behaviour (ductility) of the composite board was slightly affected by the addition of the CC powder at higher percentage. SEM observation of the fractured surfaces revealed good bonding at the fibre-matrix interface as well as a ductile-to-brittle fracture mechanism. Overall, the composite board incorporated with 2% CC powder as filler materials had the optimum properties, satisfying the minimum requirements of relevant standards for fibre cement flat sheets.

Keywords: Kraft pulp fibre, fibre-cement board, agricultural waste, sustainability, building applications.

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Authors: Disciglio G., Lops F., Carlucci A., Gatta G., Tarantino A., Frabboni L., Carriero F., Cibelli F., Raimondo M. L., Tarantino E.

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The tomato is a very important crop, whose cultivation in the Mediterranean basin is severely affected by the phytoparasitic weed Phelipanche ramosa. The semiarid regions of the world are considered the main areas where this parasitic weed is established causing heavy infestation as it is able to produce high numbers of seeds (up to 500,000 per plant), which remain viable for extended period (more than 20 years). In this paper the results obtained from eleven treatments in order to control this parasitic weed including chemical, agronomic, biological and biotechnological methods compared with the untreated test under two plowing depths (30 and 50 cm) are reported. The split-plot design with 3 replicates was adopted. In 2014 a trial was performed in Foggia province (southern Italy) on processing tomato (cv Docet) grown in the field infested by Phelipanche ramosa. Tomato seedlings were transplant on May 5, on a clay-loam soil. During the growing cycle of the tomato crop, at 56-78 and 92 days after transplantation, the number of parasitic shoots emerged in each plot was detected. At tomato harvesting, on August 18, the major quantity-quality yield parameters were determined (marketable yield, mean weight, dry matter, pH, soluble solids and color of fruits). All data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the means were compared by Tukey's test. Each treatment studied did not provide complete control against Phelipanche ramosa. However, among the different methods tested, some of them which Fusarium, gliphosate, radicon biostimulant and Red Setter tomato cv (improved genotypes obtained by Tilling technology) under deeper plowing (50 cm depth) proved to mitigate the virulence of the Phelipanche ramose attacks. It is assumed that these effects can be improved combining some of these treatments each other, especially for a gradual and continuing reduction of the “seed bank” of the parasite in the soil.

Keywords: Control methods, Phelipanche ramosa, tomato crop.

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Authors: Jakub Elbl, Lukas Plošek, Antonín Kintl, Jaroslav Záhora, Jitka Přichystalová, Jaroslav Hynšt

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Application of compost in agriculture is very desirable worldwide. In the Czech Republic, compost is the most often used to improve soil structure and increase the content of soil organic matter, but the effects of compost addition on the fate of mineral nitrogen are only scarcely described. This paper deals with possibility of using combined application of compost, mineral and organic fertilizers to reduce the leaching of mineral nitrogen from arable land. To demonstrate the effect of compost addition on leaching of mineral nitrogen, we performed the pot experiment. As a model crop, Lactuca sativa L. was used and cultivated for 35 days in climate chamber in thoroughly homogenized arable soil. Ten variants of the experiment were prepared; two control variants (pure arable soil and arable soil with added compost), four variants with different doses of mineral and organic fertilizers and four variants of the same doses of mineral and organic fertilizers with the addition of compos. The highest decrease of mineral nitrogen leaching was observed by the simultaneous applications of soluble humic substances and compost to soil samples, about 417% in comparison with the control variant. Application of these organic compounds also supported microbial activity and nitrogen immobilization documented by the highest soil respiration and by the highest value of the index of nitrogen availability. The production of plant biomass after this application was not the highest due to microbial competition for the nutrients in soil, but was 24% higher in comparison with the control variant. To support these promising results the experiment should be repeated in field conditions.

Keywords: Nitrogen, Compost, Salad, Arable land.

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Authors: Aseel Hatif Jassam, Hadeel Hatif Jassam

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The paper discusses the phallocentric discourse that is challenged by women in general and women of color in particular in spite of the simultaneity of oppression due to race, class, and gender in the diaspora. Therefore, the paper gives a brief account of women's experience in the light of postcolonial feminist theory. The paper also casts light on the theories of Luce Irigaray and Helen Cixous, two feminist theorists who support and advise women to have their own discourse to challenge the infectious patriarchal sentence advocated by Sigmund Freud and Harold Bloom's model of literary history. Black women authors like Buchi Emecheta as well as her alter ego Adah, a Nigerian-born girl and the protagonist of her semi-autobiographical novel, Second Class Citizen, suffer from this phallocentric and oppressive sentence and displacement as they migrate from Nigeria, a former British colony where they feel marginalized, to North London with the hope of realizing their dreams. Yet in the British diaspora, they get culturally shocked and continue to suffer from further marginalization due to class and race and are insulted and inferiorized ironically by their patriarchal husbands who try to put an end to their dreams of authorship. With the phallocentric belief that women are not capable of self-representation in the background of their mindsets, the violent Sylvester Onwordi and Francis Obi, the husbands of both Emecheta and Adah respectively have practiced oppression on them by burning their own authoritative voices, represented by the novels they write while they are struggling with their economically atrocious living experiences in the British diaspora.

Keywords: Authorship, British diaspora, discourse, phallocentric, patriarchy.

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Authors: Walsh Joe, Climstein Mike, Heazlewood Ian Timothy, Burke Stephen, Kettunen Jyrki, Adams Kent, DeBeliso Mark

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Whilst there is growing evidence that activity across the lifespan is beneficial for improved health, there are also many changes involved with the aging process and subsequently the potential for reduced indices of health. The nexus between health, physical activity and aging is complex and has raised much interest in recent times due to the realization that a multifaceted approached is necessary in order to counteract a growing obesity epidemic. By investigating age based trends within a population adhering to competitive sport at older ages, further insight might be gleaned to assist in understanding one of many factors influencing this relationship. BMI was derived using data gathered on a total of 6,071 masters athletes (51.9% male, 48.1% female) aged 25 to 91 years ( =51.5, s =±9.7), competing at the Sydney World Masters Games (2009). Using linear and loess regression it was demonstrated that the usual tendency for prevalence of higher BMI increasing with age was reversed in the sample. This trend in reversal was repeated for both male and female only sub-sets of the sample participants, indicating the possibility of improved prevalence of BMI with increasing age for both the sample as a whole and these individual subgroups. This evidence of improved classification in one index of health (reduced BMI) for masters athletes (when compared to the general population) implies there are either improved levels of this index of health with aging due to adherence to sport or possibly the reduced BMI is advantageous and contributes to this cohort adhering (or being attracted) to masters sport at older ages. Demonstration of this proportionately under-investigated World Masters Games population having an improved relationship between BMI and increasing age over the general population is of particular interest in the context of the measures being taken globally to curb an obesity epidemic.

Keywords: Aging, masters athlete, Quetelet Index, sport.

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Authors: Roya Morad, W. Eirik Heintz

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The identity of a neighborhood is inevitably shaped by the architecture and the people of that place. Conventionally the streets within each neighborhood served as a semi-public-private extension of the private living spaces. The street as a design element formed a hybrid condition that was neither totally public nor private, and it encouraged social interactions. Thus through creating a sense of community, one of the most basic human needs of belonging was achieved. Similar to major global cities, Tehran has undergone serious urbanization. Developing into a capital city of high rises has resulted in an increase in urban density. Although allocating more residential units in each neighborhood was a critical response to the population boom and the limited land area of the city, it also created a crisis in terms of social communication and place attachment. District 10 in Tehran is a neighborhood that has undergone the most urban transformation among the other 22 districts in the capital and currently has the highest population density. This paper will explore how the active streets in district 10 have changed into their current condition of high rises with a lack of meaningful social interactions amongst its inhabitants. A residential building can be thought of as a large group of people. One would think that as the number of people increases, the opportunities for social communications would increase as well. However, according to the survey, there is an indirect relationship between the two. As the number of people of a residential building increases, the quality of each acquaintance reduces, and the depth of relationships between people tends to decrease. This comes from the anonymity of being part of a crowd and the lack of social spaces characterized by most high-rise apartment buildings. Without a sense of community, the attachment to a neighborhood is decreased. This paper further explores how the neighborhood participates to fulfill ones need for social interaction and focuses on the qualitative aspects of alternative spaces that can redevelop the sense of place attachment within the community.

Keywords: High density, place attachment, social communication, street life, urban transformation.

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Authors: Philip T. Broughton, Mark P. Bettney, Isla L. Smail

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Effective treatment of ground instability is essential when managing the impacts associated with historic mining. A field trial was undertaken by the Coal Authority to investigate the geotechnical performance and potential use of composite materials comprising resin and fill or stone to safely treat surface collapses, such as crown-holes, associated with shallow mining. Test pits were loosely filled with various granular fill materials. The fill material was injected with commercially available silicate and polyurethane resin foam products. In situ and laboratory testing was undertaken to assess the geotechnical properties of the resultant composite materials. The test pits were subsequently excavated to assess resin permeation. Drilling and resin injection was easiest through clean limestone fill materials. Recycled building waste fill material proved difficult to inject with resin; this material is thus considered unsuitable for use in resin composites. Incomplete resin permeation in several of the test pits created irregular ‘blocks’ of composite. Injected resin foams significantly improve the stiffness and resistance (strength) of the un-compacted fill material. The stiffness of the treated fill material appears to be a function of the stone particle size, its associated compaction characteristics (under loose tipping) and the proportion of resin foam matrix. The type of fill material is more critical than the type of resin to the geotechnical properties of the composite materials. Resin composites can effectively support typical design imposed loads. Compared to other traditional treatment options, such as cement grouting, the use of resin composites is potentially less disruptive, particularly for sites with limited access, and thus likely to achieve significant reinstatement cost savings. The use of resin composites is considered a suitable option for the future treatment of shallow mining collapses.

Keywords: Composite material, ground improvement, mining legacy, resin.

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Authors: O. I. H. Dimitry, N. A. Mansour, A. L. G. Saad

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Natural sodium montmorillonite (NaMMT), Cloisite Na⁺ and two organophilic montmorillonites (OMMTs), Cloisites 20A and 15A were used. Polycaprolactone (PCL)/MMT composites containing 1, 3, 5, and 10 wt% of Cloisite Na⁺ and PCL/OMMT nanocomposites containing 5 and 10 wt% of Cloisites 20A and 15A were prepared via solution intercalation technique to study the influence of organic modifier loading on particle dispersion of PCL/ NaMMT composites. Thermal stabilities of the obtained composites were characterized by thermal analysis using the thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) which showed that in the presence of nitrogen flow the incorporation of 5 and 10 wt% of filler brings some decrease in PCL thermal stability in the sequence: Cloisite Na+>Cloisite 15A > Cloisite 20A, while in the presence of air flow these fillers scarcely influenced the thermoxidative stability of PCL by slightly accelerating the process. The interaction between PCL and silicate layers was studied by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy which confirmed moderate interactions between nanometric silicate layers and PCL segments. The electrical conductivity (σ) which describes the ionic mobility of the systems was studied as a function of temperature and showed that σ of PCL was enhanced on increasing the modifier loading at filler content of 5 wt%, especially at higher temperatures in the sequence: Cloisite Na⁺<Cloisite 20A<Cloisite 15A, and was then decreased to some extent with a further increase to 10 wt%. The activation energy E_σ obtained from the dependency of σ on temperature using Arrhenius equation was found to be lowest for the nanocomposite containing 5 wt% of Cloisite 15A. The dispersed behavior of clay in PCL matrix was evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses which revealed partial intercalated structures in PCL/NaMMT composites and semi-intercalated/semi-exfoliated structures in PCL/OMMT nanocomposites containing 5 wt% of Cloisite 20A or Cloisite 15A.

Keywords: Polycaprolactone, organoclay, nanocomposite, montmorillonite, electrical conductivity, activation energy, exfoliation, intercalation.

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Authors: Enrique Claver Cortés, Bartolomé Marco Lajara, Eduardo Sánchez García, Pedro Seva Larrosa, Encarnación Manresa Marhuenda, Lorena Ruiz Fernández, Esther Poveda Pareja

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In recent decades, the analysis of the effects of clustering as an essential factor for the development of innovations and the competitiveness of enterprises has raised great interest in different areas. Nowadays, companies have access to almost all tangible and intangible resources located and/or developed in any country in the world. However, despite the obvious advantages that this situation entails for companies, their geographical location has shown itself, increasingly clearly, to be a fundamental factor that positively influences their innovative performance and competitiveness. Industrial clusters could represent a unique level of analysis, positioned between the individual company and the industry, which makes them an ideal unit of analysis to determine the effects derived from company membership of a cluster. Also, the absorptive capacity (hereinafter 'AC') can mediate the process of innovation development by companies located in a cluster. The transformation and exploitation of knowledge could have a mediating effect between knowledge acquisition and innovative performance. The main objective of this work is to determine the key factors that affect the degree of generation and use of knowledge from the environment by companies and, consequently, their innovative performance and competitiveness. The elements analyzed are the companies' membership of a cluster and the AC. To this end, 30 most relevant papers published on this subject in the "Web of Science" database have been reviewed. Our findings show that, within a cluster, the knowledge coming from the companies' environment can significantly influence their innovative performance and competitiveness, although in this relationship, the degree of access and exploitation of the companies to this knowledge plays a fundamental role, which depends on a series of elements both internal and external to the company.

Keywords: Absorptive capacity, clusters, innovation, knowledge.

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Authors: A. Yanik, U. Aldemir

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This study investigates the benefits of implementing the semi-active devices in relation to passive viscous damping in the context of seismically isolated bridge structures. Since the intrinsically nonlinear nature of semi-active devices prevents the direct evaluation of Laplace transforms, frequency response functions are compiled from the computed time history response to sinusoidal and pulse-like seismic excitation. A simple semi-active control policy is used in regard to passive linear viscous damping and an optimal non-causal semi-active control strategy. The control strategy requires optimization. Euler-Lagrange equations are solved numerically during this procedure. The optimal closed-loop performance is evaluated for an idealized controllable dash-pot. A simplified single-degree-of-freedom model of an isolated bridge is used as numerical example. Two bridge cases are investigated. These cases are; bridge deck without the isolation bearing and bridge deck with the isolation bearing. To compare the performances of the passive and semi-active control cases, frequency dependent acceleration, velocity and displacement response transmissibility ratios T_a(w), T_v(w), and T_d(w) are defined. To fully investigate the behavior of the structure subjected to the sinusoidal and pulse type excitations, different damping levels are considered. Numerical results showed that, under the effect of external excitation, bridge deck with semi-active control showed better structural performance than the passive bridge deck case.

Keywords: Bridge structures, passive control, seismic, semi-active control, viscous damping.

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Authors: John Michael Russo

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Honeybees are important to our food system and continue to suffer from high rates of colony loss. Precision feed has brought many benefits to livestock cultivation and these should transfer to apiculture. However, apiculture has unique challenges. The objective of this research is to understand how principles of precision agriculture, applied to apiculture and feed specifically, might effectively improve state-of-the-art cultivation. The methodology surveys apicultural practice to build a model for assessment. First, a review of apicultural motivators is made. Feed method is then evaluated. Finally, precision feed methods are examined as accelerants with potential to advance the effectiveness of feed practice. Six important motivators emerge: colony loss, disease, climate change, site variance, operational costs, and competition. Feed practice itself is used to compensate for environmental variables. The research finds that the current state-of-the-art in apiculture feed focuses on critical challenges in the management of feed schedules which satisfy requirements of the bees, preserve potency, optimize environmental variables, and manage costs. Many of the challenges are most acute when feed is used to dispense medication. Technology such as RNA treatments have even more rigorous demands. Precision feed solutions focus on strategies which accommodate specific needs of individual livestock. A major component is data; they integrate precise data with methods that respond to individual needs. There is enormous opportunity for precision feed to improve apiculture through the integration of precision data with policies to translate data into optimized action in the apiary, particularly through automation.

Keywords: Apiculture, precision apiculture, RNA varroa treatment, honeybee feed applications.

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Authors: Eleftheria Tzamali, Panayiota Poirazi, Ioannis G. Tollis, Martin Reczko

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Stable bacterial polymorphism on a single limiting resource may appear if between the evolved strains metabolic interactions take place that allow the exchange of essential nutrients [8]. Towards an attempt to predict the possible outcome of longrunning evolution experiments, a network based on the metabolic capabilities of homogeneous populations of every single gene knockout strain (nodes) of the bacterium E. coli is reconstructed. Potential metabolic interactions (edges) are allowed only between strains of different metabolic capabilities. Bacterial communities are determined by finding cliques in this network. Growth of the emerged hypothetical bacterial communities is simulated by extending the metabolic flux balance analysis model of Varma et al [2] to embody heterogeneous cell population growth in a mutual environment. Results from aerobic growth on 10 different carbon sources are presented. The upper bounds of the diversity that can emerge from single-cloned populations of E. coli such as the number of strains that appears to metabolically differ from most strains (highly connected nodes), the maximum clique size as well as the number of all the possible communities are determined. Certain single gene deletions are identified to consistently participate in our hypothetical bacterial communities under most environmental conditions implying a pattern of growth-condition- invariant strains with similar metabolic effects. Moreover, evaluation of all the hypothetical bacterial communities under growth on pyruvate reveals heterogeneous populations that can exhibit superior growth performance when compared to the performance of the homogeneous wild-type population.

Keywords: Bacterial polymorphism, clique identification, dynamic FBA, evolution, metabolic interactions.

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