Search results for: Process Quality.

Authors: Atisthan Wuttimanop, Suchada Rianmora

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To support design process for launching the product on time, reverse engineering (RE) process has been introduced for quickly generating 3D CAD model from its physical object. The accuracy of the 3D CAD model depends upon the data acquisition technique selected, contact or non-contact methods. In order to reduce times used for acquiring surface and eliminating noises, the automated selective acquisition system has been developed and presented in this research as the alternative channel for non-contact acquisition technique where the data is selectively and locally scanned contour by contour without performing data reduction process. The results present as the organized contour points which are directly used to generate 3D virtual model. The comparison between the proposed technique and another non-contact scanning technique has been presented and discussed.

Keywords: Automated selective acquisition system, Non-contact acquisition, Reverse engineering, 3D scanners.

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Authors: P. Fazel

Abstract:

These days we face with so many advertisements in magazines, those mentioned coaching is pragmatic specialties which help people make change in their lives. Up to know Specialty coaches are not necessarily therapists, consultants or psychologist, thus they may not know psychological theories. The International Coach Federation identifies "facilitating learning and results" as one of its four core coach competencies, without understanding learning theories coaching practice hangs in theoretical abyss. Thus the aim of this article is investigating learning theories within coaching process. Therefore, I reviewed some cognitive and behavioral learning theories and analyzed their contribution with coaching process which has been introduced in mentor coaches and ICF certified coaches' papers and books. The result demonstrated that coaching profession is strongly grounded in learning theories, and it will be strengthened by the validation of theories and evidence-based research as we move forward. Thus, it needs more research in order to applying effective theoretical frameworks.

Keywords: Coaching, Learning theories. Cognitive learning theories, behavioral learning theories.

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Authors: D. Geringswald, B. Hintze

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The miniaturization of circuits is advancing. During chip manufacturing, structures are filled for example by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Since this process reaches its limits in case of very high aspect ratios, the use of alternatives such as the atomic layer deposition (ALD) is possible, requiring the extension of existing coating systems. However, it is an unsolved question to what extent MOCVD can achieve results similar as an ALD process. In this context, this work addresses the characterization of a metal organic vapor deposition of titanium nitride. Based on the current state of the art, the film properties coating thickness, sheet resistance, resistivity, stress and chemical composition are considered. The used setting parameters are temperature, plasma gas ratio, plasma power, plasma treatment time, deposition time, deposition pressure, number of cycles and TDMAT flow. The derived process instructions for unstructured wafers and inside a structure with high aspect ratio include lowering the process temperature and increasing the number of cycles, the deposition and the plasma treatment time as well as the plasma gas ratio of hydrogen to nitrogen (H₂:N₂). In contrast to the current process configuration, the deposited titanium nitride (TiN) layer is more uniform inside the entire test structure. Consequently, this paper provides approaches to employ the MOCVD for structures with increasing aspect ratios.

Keywords: ALD, high aspect ratio, PE-MOCVD, TiN.

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Authors: A. Uchaipichat

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The hydro-mechanical model for unsaturated soils has been presented based on the effective stress principle taking into account effects of drying-wetting process. The elasto-plastic constitutive equations for stress-strain relations of the soil skeleton have been established. A plasticity model is modified from modified Cam-Clay model. The hardening rule has been established by considering the isotropic consolidation paths. The effect of dryingwetting process is introduced through the ¤ç parameter. All model coefficients are identified in terms of measurable parameters. The simulations from the proposed model are compared with the experimental results. The model calibration was performed to extract the model parameter from the experimental results. Good agreement between the results predicted using proposed model and the experimental results was obtained.

Keywords: Drying-wetting process, Effective stress, Elastoplasticmodel, Unsaturated soils

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Authors: S. Onder, Z. Kocbeker

Abstract:

The impact of noise upon live quality has become an important aspect to make both urban and environmental policythroughout Europe and in Turkey. Concern over the quality of urban environments, including noise levels and declining quality of green space, is over the past decade with increasing emphasis on designing livable and sustainable communities. According to the World Health Organization, noise pollution is the third most hazardous environmental type of pollution which proceeded by only air (gas emission) and water pollution. The research carried out in two phases, the first stage of the research noise and plant types providing the suction of noise was evaluated through literature study and at the second stage, definite types (Juniperus horizontalis L., Spirea vanhouetti Briot., Cotoneaster dammerii C.K., Berberis thunbergii D.C., Pyracantha coccinea M. etc.) were selected for the city of Konya. Trials were conducted on the highway of Konya. The biggest value of noise reduction was 6.3 dB(A), 4.9 dB(A), 6.2 dB(A) value with compared to the control which includes the group that formed by the bushes at the distance of 7m, 11m, 20m from the source and 5m, 9m, 20m of plant width, respectively. In this paper, definitions regarding to noise and its sources were made and the precautions were taken against to noise that mentioned earlier with the adverse effects of noise. Plantation design approaches and suggestions concerning to the diversity to be used, which are peculiar to roadside, were developed to discuss the role and the function of plant material to reduce the noise of the traffic.

Keywords: Bushes, noise, road, Konya

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Authors: Mujahid S. Alharbi

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The construction of process plants in oil and gas-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, necessitates substantial investment in design and building. Each new plant, while unique, includes common building types, suggesting an opportunity for design standardization. This study investigates the adoption of standardized Issue for Construction (IFC) packages for non-process buildings in Saudi Aramco. A SWOT analysis presents the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of this approach. The approach's benefits are illustrated using the Hawiyah Unayzah Gas Reservoir Storage Program (HUGRSP) as a case study. Standardization not only offers significant cost savings and operational efficiencies, but also expedites project timelines, reduces the potential for change orders, and fosters local economic growth by allocating building tasks to local contractors. Standardization also improves project management by easing interface constraints between different contractors and promoting adaptability to future industry changes. This research underscores the standardization of non-process buildings as a powerful strategy for cost optimization, efficiency enhancement, and local economic development in process plant construction within the oil and gas sector.

Keywords: Building, construction, management, project, standardization.

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Authors: V. Komarova

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The main purpose of this research is the calculation of implicit prices of the environmental level of air quality in the city of Moscow on the basis of housing property prices. The database used contains records of approximately 20 thousand apartments and has been provided by a leading real estate agency operating in Russia. The explanatory variables include physical characteristics of the houses, environmental (industry emissions), neighbourhood sociodemographic and geographic data: GPS coordinates of each house. The hedonic regression results for ecological variables show «negative» prices while increasing the level of air contamination from such substances as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and particles (CO, NO2, SO2, TSP). The marginal willingness to pay for higher environmental quality is presented for linear and log-log models.

Keywords: Air pollution, environment, hedonic prices, real estate, willingness to pay.

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Authors: Beata Czarnacka-Chrobot

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Unsatisfactory effectiveness of software systems development and enhancement projects is one of the main reasons why in software engineering there are attempts being made to use experiences coming from other engineering disciplines. In spite of specificity of software product and process a belief had come out that the execution of software could be more effective if these objects were subject to measurement – as it is true in other engineering disciplines for which measurement is an immanent feature. Thus objective and reliable approaches to the measurement of software processes and products have been sought in software engineering for several dozens of years already. This may be proved, among others, by the current version of CMMI for Development model. This paper is aimed at analyzing the approach to the software processes and products measurement proposed in the latest version of this very model, indicating growing acceptance for this issue in software engineering.

Keywords: CMMI for Development (1.3), ISO/IEC standards, measurement and analysis process area, software process measurement, software product measurement.

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Authors: T. Manzur

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Concrete is the predominant construction material in Bangladesh. In large projects, stringent quality control procedures are usually followed under the supervision of experienced engineers and skilled labors. However, in the case of small projects and particularly at distant locations from major cities, proper quality control is often an issue. It has been found from experience that such quality related issues mainly arise from inappropriate proportioning of concrete mixes and improper curing conditions. In most cases external curing method is followed which requires supply of adequate quantity of water along with proper protection against evaporation. Often these conditions are found missing in the general construction sites and eventually lead to production of weaker concrete both in terms of strength and durability. In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate the performance of general concreting works of the country when subjected to several adverse curing conditions that are quite common in various small to medium construction sites. A total of six different types of adverse curing conditions were simulated in the laboratory and samples were kept under those conditions for several days. A set of samples was also submerged in normal curing condition having proper supply of curing water. Performance of concrete was evaluated in terms of compressive strength, tensile strength, chloride permeability and drying shrinkage. About 37% and 25% reduction in 28-day compressive and tensile strength were observed respectively, for samples subjected to most adverse curing condition as compared to the samples under normal curing conditions. Normal curing concrete exhibited moderate permeability (close to low permeability) whereas concrete under adverse curing conditions showed very high permeability values. Similar results were also obtained for shrinkage tests. This study, thus, will assist concerned engineers and supervisors to understand the importance of quality assurance during the curing period of concrete.

Keywords: Adverse, concrete, curing, compressive strength, drying shrinkage, permeability, tensile strength.

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Authors: I. Oikonomou, I. Lappa, D. Daferera, C. Kanakis, L. Kiokakis, K. Skordilis, A. Avramouli, E. Kalli, C. Pappas, P. A. Tarantilis, E. Skotti

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Grape seeds are waste products of wineries and often referred to as an important agricultural and industrial waste product with the potential to be used in pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic applications. In this study, grape seed oil from traditional Ionian varieties was examined for the determination of the quality and the characteristics of each variety. Initially, the fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profiles were analyzed using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, after transesterification. Furthermore, other quality parameters of the grape seed oils were determined by Spectroscopy techniques, UV-Vis and Raman included. Moreover, the antioxidant capacity of the oil was measured by 2,2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) and 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assays and their antioxidant capacity expressed in Trolox equivalents. K and ΔΚ indices were measured in 232, 268, 270 nm, as an oil quality index. The results indicate that the air-dried grape seed total oil content ranged from 5.26 to 8.77% w/w, which is in accordance with the other grape seed varieties tested in similar studies. The composition of grape seed oil is predominated with linoleic and oleic fatty acids, with the linoleic fatty acid ranging from 53.68 to 69.95% and both the linoleic and oleic fatty acids totaling 78-82% of FAMEs, which is analogous to the fatty acid composition of safflower oil. The antioxidant assays ABTS and DPPH scored high, exhibiting that the oils have potential in the cosmetic and culinary businesses. Above that, our results demonstrate that Ionian grape seed oils have prospects that can go further than cosmetic or culinary use, into the pharmaceuticals industry. Finally, the reclamation of grape seeds from wineries waste stream is in accordance with the bio-economy strategic framework and contributes to environmental protection.

Keywords: Antioxidant capacity, fatty acid methyl esters, grape seed oil, GC-MS.

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Authors: S. Güzin Mazman, Yasemin Koçak Usluel, Vildan Çevik

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The purpose of this study is to determine in what ways elementary education prospective teachers are being informed about innovations and to explain the role of social influence in the usage process of a technological innovation in terms of genders. The study group consisted of 300 prospective teachers, including 234 females and 66 males. Data have been collected by a questionnaire developed by the researchers. The result of the study showed that, while prospective teachers are being informed about innovations most frequently by mass media, they rarely seek to take expert advice. In addition, analysis of results showed that the social influence on females were significantly higher than males in usage process of a technological innovation.

Keywords: Gender differences, social influence, adoption, innovation.

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Authors: Esmeralda Hysenbelliu

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The aim of this paper is to present the QoE (Quality of Experience) IPTV SDN-based media streaming server enhanced architecture for configuring, controlling, management and provisioning the improved delivery of IPTV service application with low cost, low bandwidth, and high security. Furthermore, it is given a virtual QoE IPTV SDN-based topology to provide an improved IPTV service based on QoE Control and Management of multimedia services functionalities. Inside OpenFlow SDN Controller there are enabled in high flexibility and efficiency Service Load-Balancing Systems; based on the Loading-Balance module and based on GeoIP Service. This two Load-balancing system improve IPTV end-users Quality of Experience (QoE) with optimal management of resources greatly. Through the key functionalities of OpenFlow SDN controller, this approach produced several important features, opportunities for overcoming the critical QoE metrics for IPTV Service like achieving incredible Fast Zapping time (Channel Switching time) < 0.1 seconds. This approach enabled Easy and Powerful Transcoding system via FFMPEG encoder. It has the ability to customize streaming dimensions bitrates, latency management and maximum transfer rates ensuring delivering of IPTV streaming services (Audio and Video) in high flexibility, low bandwidth and required performance. This QoE IPTV SDN-based media streaming architecture unlike other architectures provides the possibility of Channel Exchanging between several IPTV service providers all over the word. This new functionality brings many benefits as increasing the number of TV channels received by end –users with low cost, decreasing stream failure time (Channel Failure time < 0.1 seconds) and improving the quality of streaming services.

Keywords: Improved QoE, OpenFlow SDN controller, IPTV service application, softwarization.

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Authors: Mehdi Modabberifar, Behrouz Raad, Bahman Mirzakhani

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Flanges are widely used for connecting valves, pipes and other industrial devices such as gearboxes. Method of producing a flange has a considerable impact on the manner of their involvement with the industrial engines and gearboxes. By Using die casting instead of sand casting and machining for manufacturing flanges, production speed and dimensional accuracy of the parts increases. Also, in die casting, obtained dimensions are close to final dimensions and hence the need for machining flanges after die casting process decreases which makes a significant savings in raw materials and improves the mechanical properties of flanges. In this paper, a typical die of an industrial helical gearbox flange (size ISO 50) was designed and die casting process for producing this type of flange was simulated using ProCAST software. The results of simulation were used for optimizing die design. Finally, using the results of the analysis, optimized die was built.

Keywords: Die casting, finite element, flange.

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Authors: Mohammed Agbali, Claudia Trillo, Yusuf Arayici, Terrence Fernando

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The wide-spread adoption of the Smart City concept has introduced a new era of computing paradigm with opportunities for city administrators and stakeholders in various sectors to re-think the concept of urbanization and development of healthy cities. With the world population rapidly becoming urban-centric especially amongst the emerging economies, social innovation will assist greatly in deploying emerging technologies to address the development challenges in core sectors of the future cities. In this context, sustainable health-care delivery and improved quality of life of the people is considered at the heart of the healthy city agenda. This paper examines the Boston innovation landscape from the perspective of smart services and innovation ecosystem for sustainable development, especially in transportation and healthcare. It investigates the policy implementation process of the Healthy City agenda and eHealth economy innovation based on the experience of Massachusetts’s City of Boston initiatives. For this purpose, three emerging areas are emphasized, namely the eHealth concept, the innovation hubs, and the emerging technologies that drive innovation. This was carried out through empirical analysis on results of public sector and industry-wide interviews/survey about Boston’s current initiatives and the enabling environment. The paper highlights few potential research directions for service integration and social innovation for deploying emerging technologies in the healthy city agenda. The study therefore suggests the need to prioritize social innovation as an overarching strategy to build sustainable Smart Cities in order to avoid technology lock-in. Finally, it concludes that the Boston example of innovation economy is unique in view of the existing platforms for innovation and proper understanding of its dynamics, which is imperative in building smart and healthy cities where quality of life of the citizenry can be improved.

Keywords: Smart city, social innovation, eHealth, innovation hubs, emerging technologies, equitable healthcare, healthy cities.

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Authors: H.A. Gasim, S.R.M. Kutty, M.H. Isa, M.P.M. Isa

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Petroleum refineries discharged large amount of wastewater -during the refining process- that contains hazardous constituents that is hard to degrade. Anaerobic treatment process is well known as an efficient method to degrade high strength wastewaters. Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanker (UASB) is a common process used for various wastewater treatments. Two UASB reactors were set up and operated in parallel to evaluate the treatment efficiency of petroleum refinery wastewater. In this study four organic volumetric loading rates were applied (i.e. 0.58, 0.89, 1.21 and 2.34 kg/m3·d), two loads to each reactor. Each load was applied for a period of 60 days for the reactor to acclimatize and reach steady state, and then the second load applied. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removals were satisfactory with the removal efficiencies at the loadings applied were 78, 82, 83 and 81 % respectively.

Keywords: Petroleum refinery wastewater, anaerobic treatment, UASB, organic volumetric loading rate

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Authors: Shujun Fu, Qiuqi Ruan, Wenqia Wang

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Image interpolation is a common problem in imaging applications. However, most interpolation algorithms in existence suffer visually the effects of blurred edges and jagged artifacts in the image to some extent. This paper presents an adaptive feature preserving bidirectional flow process, where an inverse diffusion is performed to sharpen edges along the normal directions to the isophote lines (edges), while a normal diffusion is done to remove artifacts (“jaggies") along the tangent directions. In order to preserve image features such as edges, corners and textures, the nonlinear diffusion coefficients are locally adjusted according to the directional derivatives of the image. Experimental results on synthetic images and nature images demonstrate that our interpolation algorithm substantially improves the subjective quality of the interpolated images over conventional interpolations.

Keywords: anisotropic diffusion, bidirectional flow, directional derivatives, edge enhancement, image interpolation, inverse flow, shock filter.

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Authors: Hamidullah Binol, Abdullah Bal

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Nowadays, food safety is a great public concern; therefore, robust and effective techniques are required for detecting the safety situation of goods. Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) is an attractive material for researchers to inspect food quality and safety estimation such as meat quality assessment, automated poultry carcass inspection, quality evaluation of fish, bruise detection of apples, quality analysis and grading of citrus fruits, bruise detection of strawberry, visualization of sugar distribution of melons, measuring ripening of tomatoes, defect detection of pickling cucumber, and classification of wheat kernels. HSI can be used to concurrently collect large amounts of spatial and spectral data on the objects being observed. This technique yields with exceptional detection skills, which otherwise cannot be achieved with either imaging or spectroscopy alone. This paper presents a nonlinear technique based on kernel Fukunaga-Koontz transform (KFKT) for detection of fat content in ground meat using HSI. The KFKT which is the nonlinear version of FKT is one of the most effective techniques for solving problems involving two-pattern nature. The conventional FKT method has been improved with kernel machines for increasing the nonlinear discrimination ability and capturing higher order of statistics of data. The proposed approach in this paper aims to segment the fat content of the ground meat by regarding the fat as target class which is tried to be separated from the remaining classes (as clutter). We have applied the KFKT on visible and nearinfrared (VNIR) hyperspectral images of ground meat to determine fat percentage. The experimental studies indicate that the proposed technique produces high detection performance for fat ratio in ground meat.

Keywords: Food (Ground meat) inspection, Fukunaga-Koontz transform, hyperspectral imaging, kernel methods.

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Authors: Chun-Yao Lee, Hung-Chi Lin

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This paper presents a signal analysis process for improving energy completeness based on the Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT). Firstly, the vibration signal of a DC Motor obtained by employing an accelerometer is the model used to analyze the signal. Secondly, the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and Hilbert spectrum of the decomposed signal are obtained by applying HHT. The results of the IMFs constituent and the original signal are compared and the process of energy loss is discussed. Finally, the differences between Wavelet Transform (WT) and HHT in analyzing the signal are compared. The simulated results reveal the analysis process based on HHT is advantageous for the enhancement of energy completeness.

Keywords: Hilbert-Huang transform, Hilbert spectrum, Wavelettransform, Wavelet spectrum, DC Motor.

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Authors: S. S. Bendib, L. W. Mouss, S. Kalla

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This paper proposes a self-organization-based approach for real-time systems design. The addressed issue is the mapping of an application onto an architecture of heterogeneous processors while optimizing both makespan and reliability. Since this problem is NP-hard, a heuristic algorithm is used to obtain efficiently approximate solutions. The proposed approach takes into consideration the quality as well as the diversity of solutions. Indeed, an alternate treatment of the two objectives allows to produce solutions of good quality while a self-organization approach based on the neighborhood structure is used to reorganize solutions and consequently to enhance their diversity. Produced solutions make different compromises between the makespan and the reliability giving the user the possibility to select the solution suited to his (her) needs.

Keywords: Embedded real-time systems design, makespan, reliability, self-organization, compromises.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim

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A thermodynamic analysis of a partial evaporating Rankine cycle with regeneration using zeotropic ammonia-water mixture as a working fluid is presented in this paper. The thermodynamic laws were applied to evaluate the system performance. Based on the thermodynamic model, the effects of the vapor quality and the ammonia mass fraction on the system performance were extensively investigated. The results showed that thermal efficiency has a peak value with respect to the vapor quality as well as the ammonia mass fraction. The partial evaporating ammonia based Rankine cycle has a potential to improve recovery of low-grade finite heat source.

Keywords: Ammonia-water, Rankine cycle, partial evaporating, thermodynamic performance.

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Authors: Ammal M. Metwally, Ghada A. Abdel-Latif, Walaa A. Fouad, Thanaa M. Rabah, Amira Mohsen, Fatma A. Shaaban, Iman I. Salama

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The study aimed at determining the impact of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection on patients’ Quality of Life (QoL), its relation to geographical characteristics of patients, awareness of the disease, treatment regimen, co-morbid psychiatric or other diseases. 457 patients were randomly selected from ten National Treatment Reference Centers of Ministry of Health hospitals from four community locations representing Egypt. Health related QoL assessment questionnaire with the 36-item Short Form used for assessment of the enrolled patients. The study showed no significant difference between HCV patients in different governorates as regards total QoL. Females, illiterate patients and those had bilharziasis, diabetes mellitus, hypertension or were depressed had significantly the lowest QoL score. HCV patients who knew the danger of the disease had significant lower mean score of physical and mental health components. Optimal care of overall well-being of HCV patients requires adequate knowledge of their neurological and psychological status. It is important to know how to cope with having a family member with hepatitis C and more importantly to know what should you say and what shouldn’t you say as a positive hopeful attitude is essential for combating HCV chronic infection.

Keywords: Hepatitis C virus chronic infection, physical health component and mental health component of QoL, total quality of life.

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Authors: Imran Sarwar Bajwa, Rafaqut Kazmi, Shahzad Mumtaz, M. Abbas Choudhary, M. Shahid Naweed

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Business Process Management (BPM) helps in optimizing the business processes inside an enterprise. But BPM architecture does not provide any help for extending the enterprise. Modern business environments and rapidly changing technologies are asking for brisk changes in the business processes. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can help in enabling the success of enterprise-wide BPM. SOA supports agility in software development that is directly related to achieve loose coupling of interacting software agents. Agility is a premium concern of the current software designing architectures. Together, BPM and SOA provide a perfect combination for enterprise computing. SOA provides the capabilities for services to be combined together and to support and create an agile, flexible enterprise. But there are still many questions to answer; BPM is better or SOA? and what is the future track of BPM and SOA? This paper tries to answer some of these important questions.

Keywords: Information Systems, BPM, SOA, Process management, IT management.

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Authors: T. Utarasakul

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Khao Yai National Park is the First National Park in Thailand and approximately 800,000 tourists visited Khao Yai yearly. This study aimed to identify the perception of tourists in Khao Yai National Park according to the implementation of eco-friendly cleansers along their leisure in the campsites. Due to tourist’s activities in the park were affected on quality of environment; especially on water resource. Therefore, eco-friendly cleansers were used in campsites for tourists and restaurants during high tourist season. The results indicated positive effects of environmental friendly cleansers on water quality in Lam Ta Khong River, as well as the tourist’s perception on eco-friendly cleansers.

Keywords: Eco-friendly cleansers, Campsite, Khao Yai National Park.

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Authors: Dariush Jafari, Seyed Ali Jafari

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The recommended limit for cadmium concentration in potable water is less than 0.005 mg/L. A continuous biosorption process using indigenous red seaweed, Gracilaria corticata, was performed to remove cadmium from the potable water. The process was conducted under fixed conditions and the breakthrough curves were achieved for three consecutive sorption-desorption cycles. A modeling based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was employed to fit the experimental breakthrough data. In addition, a simplified semi empirical model, Thomas, was employed for this purpose. It was found that ANN well described the experimental data (R2>0.99) while the Thomas prediction were a bit less successful with R2>0.97. The adjusted design parameters using the nonlinear form of Thomas model was in a good agreement with the experimentally obtained ones. The results approve the capability of ANN to predict the cadmium concentration in potable water.

Keywords: ANN, biosorption, cadmium, packed-bed, potable water.

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Authors: So Jeong Nam, Seung Woo Lee, Jai-Kyung Lee

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With the globalized production and logistics environment, the need for reducing the product development interval and lead time, having a faster response to orders, conforming to quality standards, fair tracking, and boosting information exchanging activities with customers and partners, and coping with changes in the management environment, manufacturers are in dire need of an information management system in their manufacturing environments. There are lots of information systems that have been designed to manage the condition or operation of equipment in the field but existing systems have a decentralized architecture, which is not unified. Also, these systems cannot effectively handle the status data extraction process upon encountering a problem related to protocols or changes in the equipment or the setting. In this regard, this paper will introduce a system for processing and saving the status info of production equipment, which uses standard representation formats, to enable flexible responses to and support for variables in the field equipment. This system can be used for a variety of manufacturing and equipment settings and is capable of interacting with higher-tier systems such as MES.

Keywords: DAS, Equipment Status, Regular Expression

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Authors: Victor Abioye Akinbinu

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This work is intended to study the post-failure characteristic behaviour of rocks and the techniques of controlling the post-failure regime based on the mechanism of rocks deformation process. It is impossible to determine the post-failure regime of rocks using conventional laboratory testing equipment. This is because most testing machines are soft and therefore no information can be obtained after the peak load. Stress-strain deformation tests were conducted using both conventional and unconventional method (i.e. the closed loop servo-controlled testing machine) in accordance to ISRM standard. Normalised pre-failure curves were constructed to show the stages in the deformation process. The first type contains the Class I and progress to Class II with low strength soft brittle rocks. The second type shows entirely Class II characteristic behaviour. The third type is extremely brittle under axial loading, resulted in explosive failure, so its class could not be determined. The difficulty in obtaining the post-failure curves increases as the total volumetric strain approaches a positive value. The author’s use of normalised pre-failure curves enables identification of additional type of deformation process with very brittle response under axial loading. Testing the third type without confinement could cause equipment damage. Identification of the deformation process with the rock classes using conventional test could guide the personnel conducting tests using closed-loop servo-controlled system, to avoid equipment damage when testing rocks with third type deformation process so that testing is performed safely. It has also improved our understanding on total specimen failure and brittleness of rocks (e.g. brittle for Class II and less brittle or ductile for Class I).

Keywords: Closed-loop servo-controlled system, conventional testing equipment, deformation process, post-failure, pre-failure normalised curves, rock classes.

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Authors: Herminio Martínez-García, Juan Gámiz, Yolanda Bolea, Antoni Grau

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This article presents an interactive system for data acquisition in vehicle testing according to the test process defined in automotive directive 2004/104/EC. The project has been designed and developed by authors for the Spanish company Applus-LGAI. The developed project will result in a new process, which will involve the creation of braking cycle test defined in the aforementioned automotive directive. It will also allow the analysis of new vehicle features that was not feasible, allowing an increasing interaction with the vehicle. Potential users of this system in the short term will be vehicle manufacturers and in a medium term the system can be extended to testing other automotive components and EMC tests.

Keywords: Automotive process, data acquisition system, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing, European Directive 2004/104/EC.

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Authors: Khaled Elbehiery, Hussam Elbehiery

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Smart cities are a framework of technologies along with sustainable infrastructure to provide their citizens an improved quality of life, safer environment, affordability, and more, which in turn helps with the society's economic growth. The proposed research will focus on the primary building block of the smart city; the infrastructure of the house itself. The traditional method of building houses has been, for a long time, nothing but a costly manufacturing process, and consequently, buying a house becomes not an option for everyone anymore. The smart cities' Modular Houses are not using traditional building construction materials; the design reduces the common lengthy construction times and associated high costs. The Modular Houses are technological homes, low-cost and customizable based on a family's requirements. In addition, the Modular Houses are environmentally friendly and healthy enough to assist with the pandemic situation.

Keywords: Smart cities, modular houses, single-unit property, multi-unit property, mobility features, chain-supply, livable environment, carbon footprint.

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Authors: Yani Rahmawati, Nadjadji Anwar, Christiono Utomo

Abstract:

Development in construction industry is leading to involve complexities in engineering systems; whereas it also required to its sustainability towards social, environmental, and economical aspects. Experts with requisite background and expertise are involved in order to integrate knowledge in achieving whole criteria through design process. Collaborative design is needed in order to attain optimum design through shared solution and goal from experts. This study is conducted to explore issues and approaches development of collaborative design research in construction and its influence to sustainability of the development. Literature review method is used in order to conceptually figure future research direction of collaborative design research. This research is a part of beginning process in doctoral research program, and will be used to support dissertation’s conceptual definition.

Keywords: Collaborative design, multi-discipline design, design process, sustainability of project development.

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Authors: Shorena Tsiklauri

Abstract:

Out-migration is an important issue for Georgia as well as since independence has loosed due to emigration one fifth of its population. During Soviet time out-migration from USSR was almost impossible and one of the most important instruments in regulating population movement within the Soviet Union was the system of compulsory residential registrations, so-called “propiska”. Since independent here was not any regulation for migration from Georgia. The majorities of Georgian migrants go abroad by tourist visa and then overstay, becoming the irregular labor migrants. The official statistics on migration published for this period was based on the administrative system of population registration, were insignificant in terms of numbers and did not represent the real scope of these migration movements. This paper discusses the data quality and methodology of migration statistics in Georgia and we are going to answer the questions: what is the real reason of increasing immigration flows according to the official numbers since 2000s?

Keywords: Data quality, Georgia, methodology, out-migration, policy.

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