Search results for: Major and Minor Strain

Authors: Ayesha Batool, Saghir Ahmad, Abid Hussain Ch.

Abstract:

The art of the examination is probably the most difficult one in the whole range of educational practices. Semester system is the system of examination, which is set with an institute by its own teachers. Annual system is the system of examination, which is constructed and administrated by some agency outside the institute, it enables the teacher to estimate the effectiveness of the instruction, and students to estimate the progress made by them. On the other hand, semester system of examinations requires following the curriculum strictly and methods of teaching are to be employed by the choice of teachers. The main purpose of the study was to investigate university students’ perceptions regarding the effectiveness of semester system and annual system. The study was quantitative in nature. The sample consisted of 200 students. A five point Likert type scale was used to collect the data. The statistical measures like frequencies, mean, standard deviation, and One Way ANOVA test were applied to analyze the data. The major findings of the study indicated that in semester system students do not spend much time in political activities and develop their study habits. It also revealed that annual system of examination does not satisfy the educational aspirations of the students.

Keywords: Effectiveness, semester system, annual system.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 922

Authors: Alaa H. J. Al-Rkaby, A. Chegenizadeh, H. R. Nikraz

Abstract:

Anisotropy is one of the major aspects that affect soil behavior, and extensive efforts have investigated its effect on the mechanical properties of soil. However, very little attention has been given to the combined effect of anisotropy and fine contents. Therefore, in this paper, the anisotropic strength of sand containing different fine content (F) of 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%, was investigated using hollow cylinder tests under different principal stress directions of α = 0° and α = 90°. For a given principal stress direction (α), it was found that increasing fine content resulted in decreasing deviator stress (q). Moreover, results revealed that all fine contents showed anisotropic strength where there is a clear difference between the strength under 0° and the strength under 90°. This anisotropy was greatest under F = 5% while it decreased with increasing fine contents, particularly at F = 10%. Mixtures with low fine content show low contractive behavior and tended to show more dilation. Moreover, all sand-clay mixtures exhibited less dilation and more compression at α = 90° compared with that at α = 0°.

Keywords: Anisotropy, principal stress direction, fine content, hollow cylinder sample.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1067

Authors: C. Thongsopa, P. Sukphongchirakul, A. Intarapanich, P. Jarataku

Abstract:

Radio wave propagation on the road surface is a major problem on wireless sensor network for traffic monitoring. In this paper, we compare receiving signal strength on two scenarios 1) an empty road and 2) a road with a vehicle. We investigate the effect of antenna polarization and antenna height to the receiving signal strength. The transmitting antenna is installed on the road surface. The receiving signal is measured 360 degrees around the transmitting antenna with the radius of 2.5 meters. Measurement results show the receiving signal fluctuation around the transmitting antenna in both scenarios. Receiving signal with vertical polarization antenna results in higher signal strength than horizontal polarization antenna. The optimum antenna elevation is 1 meter for both horizon and vertical polarizations with the vehicle on the road. In the empty road, the receiving signal level is unvarying with the elevation when the elevation is greater than 1.5 meters.

Keywords: Wave propagation, wireless sensor network.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1743

Authors: Aqsa Akbar, Waheed Akhter

Abstract:

Job stress is one of the most important concepts for the today-s corporate as well as institutional world. The current study is conducted to identify the causes of faculty stress at Higher Education in Pakistan. For the purpose, Public & Private Business Schools of Punjab is selected as representative of Pakistan. A sample of 300 faculty members (214 males, 86 females) responded to the survey. Regression analysis shows that the Workload, Student Related issues and Role Conflicts are the major sources contributing significantly towards producing stress. The study also revealed that Private sector faculty members experienced more stress as compared to faculty in Public sector Business Schools. Moreover, females, younger ages, lower designation & low qualification faculty members experience more stress as compared to males, older ages, higher designation and high qualification. The study yield many significant results for the policy makers of Business Institutions.

Keywords: Faculty Stress, Higher Education, Stress Coping Strategies, Work Load

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2713

Authors: Seyyed Yasser Hashemi

Abstract:

Skew detection and correction (SDC) has a direct effect in efficiency and exactitude of documents’ segmentation and analysis and thus is considered as a very important step in documents’ analysis field. Skew is a major problem in documents’ analysis for every language. For Arabic/Persian document scripts this problem is more severe because of special features of these languages. In this paper an efficient and fast algorithm for Document Skew Detection (DSD) based on the concept of segmentation and Center of Gravity (COG) is proposed. This algorithm is examined for 150 Arabic/Persian and English documents and SDC process are done successfully for 93 percent of documents with error rate of less than 1°. This algorithm shows better results for English documents compared to Arabic/Persian documents. The proposed method is also represents favorable results for handwritten, printed and also complicated documents such as newspapers and journals even with very low quality and resolution.

Keywords: Arabic/Persian document, Baseline, Centre of gravity, Document segmentation, Skew detection and correction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1888

Authors: Y. Laaroussi, Z. Guennoun, A. Amar

Abstract:

Modeling and forecasting dynamics of rainfall occurrences constitute one of the major topics, which have been largely treated by statisticians, hydrologists, climatologists and many other groups of scientists. In the same issue, we propose, in the present paper, a new hybrid method, which combines Extreme Values and fractal theories. We illustrate the use of our methodology for transformed Emberger Index series, constructed basing on data recorded in Oujda (Morocco). The index is treated at first by Peaks Over Threshold (POT) approach, to identify excess observations over an optimal threshold u. In the second step, we consider the resulting excess as a fractal object included in one dimensional space of time. We identify fractal dimension by the box counting. We discuss the prospect descriptions of rainfall data sets under Generalized Pareto Distribution, assured by Extreme Values Theory (EVT). We show that, despite of the appropriateness of return periods given by POT approach, the introduction of fractal dimension provides accurate interpretation results, which can ameliorate apprehension of rainfall occurrences.

Keywords: Extreme values theory, Fractals dimensions, Peaks Over Threshold, Rainfall occurrences.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2085

Authors: Nattida Wannaruk, Wasawat Nakkiew

Abstract:

This research aims to study the factors that affect the performance of green supply chain management in the Lampang ceramics industry. The data investigation of this research was questionnaires which were gathered from 20 factories in the Lampang ceramics industry. The research factors are divided into five major groups which are green design, green purchasing, green manufacturing, green logistics and reverse logistics. The questionnaire has consisted of four parts that related to factors green supply chain management and general information of the Lampang ceramics industry. Then, the data were analyzed using descriptive statistic and priority of each factor by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The understanding of factors affecting the green supply chain management of Lampang ceramics industry was indicated in the summary result along with each factor weight. The result of this research could be contributed to the development of indicators or performance evaluation in the future.

Keywords: Lampang ceramics industry, green supply chain management, analytic hierarchy process, factors affecting.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1535

Authors: P. O. Angienda, B. O. Aketch, E. N. Waindi

Abstract:

Juvenile Nile tilapia subjected to heat treatment at temperatures ranging from 260C to 370C showed positive correlation (P<0.01) between treatment temperatures and resultant sex ratios, while, survival rate of the fry showed a negative correlation against temperature (P<0.01). The optimal temperature for both sex shift towards males and survival rates was 36±0.5°C, producing male percentage of 86.31 and a fry survival of 65.25. To determine the genetic basis of temperature sex-determination in Nile tilapia, we employed three microsatellite markers (Abur36, Abur100 and UNH846). Abur36 predicted the sex of 95% of the heat induced individuals, suggesting that the locus influence sex ratio and its interaction with temperature result in male biased sex ratio. This locus could turn out to be the major sex determining gene operating in Nile tilapia. These markers could be used in marker-assisted selection to select genotypes that give a higher percentage of males for commercial production.

Keywords: Heat treatment, Microsatellite, Nile tilapia, sex-determination.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3658

Authors: Yahya A. Sadiq, Grace F. Balogun, Olufemi J. Anjorin

Abstract:

This study analyzed the spatial distribution of socio-economic factors in Kogi state with a view to examining its implications on the development of the state. Consequently, questionnaires were administered on both the selected individual respondents (784) in the state and on the administrative offices (local council offices, 21) to solicit relevant information on the spatial distribution of socio-economic factors in their areas. The collected data were tabulated and analyzed using percentages. The study revealed commerce/trade, education, and health care, etc. as the major socio-economic factors in the state but with marked variation/imbalance in their spatial distribution across the study area. The rural-based local government areas have far less of such important facilities. Conclusively, it was recommended that there is need for socio-economic transformation of living conditions of people in the study area especially by positively redistributing local political power and the resources that are abound in the state will be felt by everybody including the commoners.

Keywords: Development, local government areas, socio-economic factors, spatial distribution.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1777

Authors: Shreyash Sinai Kunde, Siddhang Tendulkar, Shiv Prakash Gupta, Gaurav Kumar, Suresh Mikkili

Abstract:

One of the major power quality concerns in modern times is the problem of current harmonics. The current harmonics is caused due to the increase in non-linear loads which is largely dominated by power electronics devices. The Shunt active filtering is one of the best solutions for mitigating current harmonics. This paper describes a fuzzy logic controller based (FLC) based three Phase Shunt active Filter to achieve low current harmonic distortion (THD) and Reactive power compensation. The performance of fuzzy logic controller is analysed under both balanced sinusoidal and unbalanced sinusoidal source condition. The above controller serves the purpose of maintaining DC Capacitor Voltage constant. The proposed shunt active filter uses hysteresis current controller for current control of IGBT based PWM inverter. The simulation results of model in Simulink MATLAB reveals satisfying results.

Keywords: Shunt active filter, Current harmonics, Fuzzy logic controller, Hysteresis current controller.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2706

Authors: Wala A. Bagunaid, Maram Meccawy, Arwa Allinjawi, Zilal Meccawy

Abstract:

Continuous self-assessment becomes crucial in self-paced online learning environments. Students often depend on themselves to assess their progress; which is considered an essential requirement for any successful learning process. Today’s education institutions face major problems around student motivation and engagement. Thus, personalized e-learning systems aim to help and guide the students. Gamification provides an opportunity to help students for self-assessment and social comparison with other students through attempting to harness the motivational power of games and apply it to the learning environment. Furthermore, Open Social Student Modeling (OSSM) as considered as the latest user modeling technologies is believed to improve students’ self-assessment and to allow them to social comparison with other students. This research integrates OSSM approach and gamification concepts in order to provide self-assessment for English language learners at King Abdulaziz University (KAU). This is achieved through an interactive visual representation of their learning progress.

Keywords: E-learning system, gamification, motivation, social comparison, visualization.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1484

Authors: Nael Y. Zabel, Maged E. Georgy, Moheeb E. Ibrahim

Abstract:

A knowledge-based expert system with the acronym RASPE is developed as an application tool to help decision makers in construction companies make informed decisions about managing risks in pipeline construction projects. Choosing to use expert systems from all available artificial intelligence techniques is due to the fact that an expert system is more suited to representing a domain’s knowledge and the reasoning behind domain-specific decisions. The knowledge-based expert system can capture the knowledge in the form of conditional rules which represent various project scenarios and potential risk mitigation/response actions. The built knowledge in RASPE is utilized through the underlying inference engine that allows the firing of rules relevant to a project scenario into consideration. Paper provides an overview of the knowledge acquisition process and goes about describing the knowledge structure which is divided up into four major modules. The paper shows one module in full detail for illustration purposes and concludes with insightful remarks.

Keywords: Expert System, Knowledge Management, Pipeline Projects, Risk Mismanagement.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2276

Authors: Tahar Ezzedine, Mohamed Miladi, Ridha Bouallegue

Abstract:

Because nodes are usually battery-powered, the energy presents a very scarce resource in wireless sensor networks. For this reason, the design of medium access control had to take energy efficiency as one of its hottest concerns. Accordingly, in order to improve the energy performance of MAC schemes in wireless sensor networks, several ways can be followed. In fact, some researchers try to limit idle listening while others focus on mitigating overhearing (i.e. a node can hear a packet which is destined to another node) or reducing the number of the used control packets. We, in this paper, propose a new hybrid MAC protocol termed ELE-MAC (i.e. Energy Latency Efficient MAC). The ELE-MAC major design goals are energy and latency efficiencies. It adopts less control packets than SMAC in order to preserve energy. We carried out ns- 2 simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol. Thus, our simulation-s results prove the ELE-MAC energy efficiency. Additionally, our solution performs statistically the same or better latency characteristic compared to adaptive SMAC.

Keywords: Control packet, energy efficiency, medium access control, wireless sensor networks.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1680

Authors: Ravi P. Agrahari

Abstract:

The present study was undertaken with the objective of evaluating kitchen waste as an alternative organic material for biogas production in community level biogas plant. The field study was carried out for one month (January 19, 2012– February 17, 2012) at Centre for Energy Studies, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India.

This study involves the uses of greenhouse canopy to increase the temperature for the production of biogas in winter period. In continuation, a semi-continuous study was conducted for one month with the retention time of 30 days under batch system. The gas generated from the biogas plant was utilized for cooking (burner) and lighting (lamp) purposes. Gas productions in the winter season registered lower than other months. It can be concluded that the solar greenhouse assisted biogas plant can be efficiently adopted in colder region or in winter season because temperature plays a major role in biogas production. 

Keywords: Biogas, Green house chamber, organic material, solar intensity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2023

Authors: Ong Sing Goh, C. Ardil, Wilson Wong, Chun Che Fung

Abstract:

The evaluation of conversational agents or chatterbots question answering systems is a major research area that needs much attention. Before the rise of domain-oriented conversational agents based on natural language understanding and reasoning, evaluation is never a problem as information retrieval-based metrics are readily available for use. However, when chatterbots began to become more domain specific, evaluation becomes a real issue. This is especially true when understanding and reasoning is required to cater for a wider variety of questions and at the same time to achieve high quality responses. This paper discusses the inappropriateness of the existing measures for response quality evaluation and the call for new standard measures and related considerations are brought forward. As a short-term solution for evaluating response quality of conversational agents, and to demonstrate the challenges in evaluating systems of different nature, this research proposes a blackbox approach using observation, classification scheme and a scoring mechanism to assess and rank three example systems, AnswerBus, START and AINI.

Keywords: Evaluation, conversational agents, Response Quality, chatterbots

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1911

Authors: Andreas Körtge, Susanne Stählke, Regina Lange, Mario Birkholz, Mirko Fraschke, Katrin Schulz, Barbara Nebe, Patrick Elter

Abstract:

A major challenge in biomaterials research is the regulation of protein adsorption which is a key factor for controlling the subsequent cell adhesion at implant surfaces. The aim of the present study was to control the adsorption of fibronectin (FN) and the attachment of MG-63 osteoblasts with an electronic nanostructure. Shallow doping line lattices with a period of 260 nm were produced for this purpose by implantation of phosphorous in silicon wafers. Protein coverage was determined after incubating the substrate with FN by means of an immunostaining procedure and the measurement of the fluorescence intensity with a TECAN analyzer. We observed an increased amount of adsorbed FN on the nanostructure compared to control substrates. MG-63 osteoblasts were cultivated for 24h on FN-incubated substrates and their morphology was assessed by SEM. Preferred orientation and elongation of the cells in direction of the doping lattice lines was observed on FN-coated nanostructures.

Keywords: Cell adhesion, electronic nanostructures, doping lattice, fibronectin, MG-63 osteoblasts, protein adsorption.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2016

Authors: Siyanee Hirunsalee, Paola Rizziand Hidehiko Kanegae

Abstract:

The fundamental objective of the university is to genuinely provide a higher education to mankind and society. Higher education institutions earn billions of dollars in research funds, granted by national government or related institutions, which literally came from taxpayers. Everyday universities consume those grants; in return, provide society with a human resource and research developments. However, not all taxpayers have their major concerns on those researches, other than that they are more curiously to see the project being build tangibly and evidently to certify what they pay for. This paper introduces the concept of University – Community Business Continuity Management for Disaster – Resilient City, which modified the concept of Business Continuity Management (BCM) toward university community to create advancing collaboration leading to the disaster – resilient community and city. This paper focuses on describing in details the backgrounds and principles of the concept and discussing the advantages and limitations of the concept.

Keywords: Business Continuity Management, Disaster ResilientCity, Disaster Management, University – Community Collaboration.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1747

Authors: C. Arunachalaperumal, B. Chandru, J. M. Mathana

Abstract:

In recent years parasitic antenna play major role in MIMO systems because of their gain and spectral efficiency. In this paper, single RF chain MIMO transmitter is designed using reconfigurable parasitic antenna. The Spatial Modulation (SM) is a recently proposed scheme in MIMO scenario which activates only one antenna at a time. The SM entirely avoids ICI and IAS, and only requires a single RF chain at the transmitter. This would switch ON a single transmit-antenna for data transmission while all the other antennas are kept silent. The purpose of the parasitic elements is to change the radiation pattern of the radio waves which is emitted from the driven element and directing them in one direction and hence introduces transmit diversity. Diode is connect between the patch and ground by changing its state (ON and OFF) the parasitic element act as reflector and director and also capable of steering azimuth and elevation angle. This can be achieved by changing the input impedance of each parasitic element through single RF chain. The switching of diode would select the single parasitic antenna for spatial modulation. This antenna is expected to achieve maximum gain with desired efficiency.

Keywords: MIMO system, single RF chain, Parasitic Antenna.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2060

Authors: A. Alkattib, M. Boumaza

Abstract:

Steam reforming is industrially important as it is  incorporated in several major chemical processes including the  production of ammonia, methanol, hydrogen and ox alcohols. Due to  the strongly endothermic nature of the process, a large amount of heat  is supplied by fuel burning (commonly natural gas) in the furnace  chamber. Reaction conversions, tube catalyst life, energy  consumption and CO2 emission represent the principal factors  affecting the performance of this unit and are directly influenced by  the high operating temperatures and pressures.  This study presents a simulation of the performance of the  reforming of methane in a primary reformer, through a developed  empirical relation which enables to investigate the effects of  operating parameters such as the pressure, temperature, steam to  carbon ratio on the production of hydrogen, as well as the fraction of  non converted methane.  It appears from this analysis that the exit temperature Te, the  operating pressure as well the steam to carbon ratio has an important  effect on the reforming of methane.

 

Keywords: Reforming, methane, performance, hydrogen, parameters.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2452

Authors: Clemens Pizzinini, Philipp Rosner, David Ziegler, Markus Lienkamp

Abstract:

Transportation is a constitutional part of most supply and value chains in modern economies. Smallholder farmers in rural Ethiopia face severe challenges along their supply and value chains. In particular, suitable, affordable, and available transport services are in high demand. To develop context-specific technical solutions, a problem-to-solution methodology based on the interaction with technology is developed. With this approach, we fill the gap between proven transportation assessment frameworks and general user-centered techniques. Central to our approach is an electric test vehicle that is implemented in rural supply and value chains for research, development, and testing. Based on our objective and the derived methodological requirements, a set of existing methods is  selected. Local partners are integrated in an organizational framework that executes major parts of this research endeavour in Arsi Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia.

Keywords: Agricultural value chain, participatory methods, agile methods, sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia, electric vehicle, transport service.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 129

Authors: Chinmay Soman, Hrishikesh Pathak, Vishal Shah, Aniket Padhye, Amey Inamdar

Abstract:

Phishing, or stealing of sensitive information on the web, has dealt a major blow to Internet Security in recent times. Most of the existing anti-phishing solutions fail to handle the fuzziness involved in phish detection, thus leading to a large number of false positives. This fuzziness is attributed to the use of highly flexible and at the same time, highly ambiguous HTML language. We introduce a new perspective against phishing, that tries to systematically prove, whether a given page is phished or not, using the corresponding original page as the basis of the comparison. It analyzes the layout of the pages under consideration to determine the percentage distortion between them, indicative of any form of malicious alteration. The system design represents an intelligent system, employing dynamic assessment which accurately identifies brand new phishing attacks and will prove effective in reducing the number of false positives. This framework could potentially be used as a knowledge base, in educating the internet users against phishing.

Keywords: World Wide Web, Phishing, Internet security, data mining.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1812

Authors: Siphiwe P. Mandina, Tinashe Shamuyashe

Abstract:

Tourism has become a topical issue amongst academics and practitioners due to its potential to contribute significantly towards an economy’s GDP. The problem underpinning this research is the fact that the major attraction, Victoria Falls, is being marketed in neighboring countries like South Africa, Botswana and Zambia with tour operators providing just day trips to the Victoria Falls. This has deprived Zimbabwe of income from tourism with tourists making day trips and actually not spending nights in Zimbabwe. This therefore calls for cutting edge marketing strategies that are superior to or inimitable by competing nations such as South Africa and Zambia. This study proposes a shift towards an experience management paradigm in the tourism sector. A qualitative research was adopted for this study, and findings of this study were generalized across different tourism contexts, therefore making the survey based research design more appropriate. The target population for this study is tourists visiting Zimbabwe over the period 2016 and ZTA visitor database acquired from the Department of Immigration will form the sampling frame for the purposes of this study.

Keywords: Competitiveness, tourist arrivals, tourist experience, Zimbabwe.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1083

Authors: Farshad Mehrabi, Ali kheirodin, Mohsen Gerami

Abstract:

Ambiguities in effects of earthquake on various structures in all earthquake codes would necessitate more study and research concerning influential factors on dynamic behavior. Previous studies which were done on different features in different buildings play a major role in the type of response a structure makes to lateral vibrations. Diagnosing each of these irregularities can help structure designers in choosing appropriate setbacks for decreasing possible damages. Therefore vertical setback is one of the irregularity factors in the height of the building where can be seen in skyscrapers and hotels. Previous researches reveal notable changes in the place of these setbacks showing dynamic response of the structure. Consequently analyzing 48 models of concrete frames for 3, 6 and 9 stories heights with three different bays in general shape of a surface decline by height have been constructed in ETABS2000 software, and then the shape effect of each and every one of these frames in period scale has been discussed. The result of this study reveals that not only mass, stiffness and height but also shape of the frame is influential.

Keywords: period, concrete frame, irregularity in height, decrease in plan surface, dynamic behavior

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1388

Authors: Isa Nakhai Kamal Abadi, Esmaeel Saberi, Ehsan Mirjafari

Abstract:

While financial institutions have faced difficulties over the years for a multitude of reasons, the major cause of serious banking problems continues to be directly related to lax credit standards for borrowers and counterparties, poor portfolio risk management, or a lack of attention to changes in economic or other circumstances that can lead to a deterioration in the credit standing of a bank's counterparties. Credit risk is most simply defined as the potential that a bank borrower or counterparty will fail to meet its obligations in accordance with agreed terms. The goal of credit risk management is to maximize a bank's risk-adjusted rate of return by maintaining credit risk exposure within acceptable parameters. Banks need to manage the credit risk inherent in the entire portfolio as well as the risk in individual credits or transactions. Banks should also consider the relationships between credit risk and other risks. The effective management of credit risk is a critical component of a comprehensive approach to risk management and essential to the long-term success of any banking organization. In this research we also study the relationship between credit risk indices and borrower-s timely payback in Karafarin bank.

Keywords: Financial Ratios; Spearman Test; Bank OperationsRisk

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1755

Authors: Sotirios Raptis

Abstract:

Bayesian reasoning (BR) or Linear (Auto) Regression (AR/LR) can predict different sources of data using priors or other data, and can link social service demands in cohorts, while their consideration in isolation (self-prediction) may lead to service misuse ignoring the context. The paper advocates that BR with Binomial (BD), or Normal (ND) models or raw data (.D) as probabilistic updates can be compared to AR/LR to link services in Scotland and reduce cost by sharing healthcare (HC) resources. Clustering, cross-correlation, along with BR, LR, AR can better predict demand. Insurance companies and policymakers can link such services, and examples include those offered to the elderly, and low-income people, smoking-related services linked to mental health services, or epidemiological weight in children. 22 service packs are used that are published by Public Health Services (PHS) Scotland and Scottish Government (SG) from 1981 to 2019, broken into 110 year series (factors), joined using LR, AR, BR. The Primary component analysis found 11 significant factors, while C-Means (CM) clustering gave five major clusters.

Keywords: Bayesian probability, cohorts, data frames, regression, services, prediction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 186

Authors: Orhan Feyzioğlu, Gülçin Büyüközkan

Abstract:

As a vital activity for companies, new product development (NPD) is also a very risky process due to the high uncertainty degree encountered at every development stage and the inevitable dependence on how previous steps are successfully accomplished. Hence, there is an apparent need to evaluate new product initiatives systematically and make accurate decisions under uncertainty. Another major concern is the time pressure to launch a significant number of new products to preserve and increase the competitive power of the company. In this work, we propose an integrated decision-making framework based on neural networks and fuzzy logic to make appropriate decisions and accelerate the evaluation process. We are especially interested in the two initial stages where new product ideas are selected (go/no go decision) and the implementation order of the corresponding projects are determined. We show that this two-staged intelligent approach allows practitioners to roughly and quickly separate good and bad product ideas by making use of previous experiences, and then, analyze a more shortened list rigorously.

Keywords: Decision Making, Neural Networks, Fuzzy Theory and Systems, Choquet Integral, New Product Development.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2818

Authors: Young Nam Chun, Mun Sup Lim

Abstract:

Carbon dioxide and methane, the major components of biomass pyrolysis/gasification gas and biogas, top the list of substances that cause climate change, but they are also among the most important renewable energy sources in modern society. The purpose of this study is to convert carbon dioxide and methane into high-quality energy using char and commercial activated carbon obtained from biomass pyrolysis as a microwave receptor. The methane reforming process produces hydrogen and carbon. This carbon is deposited in the pores of the microwave receptor and lowers catalytic activity, thereby reducing the methane conversion rate. The deposited carbon was removed by carbon gasification due to the supply of carbon dioxide, which solved the problem of microwave receptor inactivity. In particular, the conversion rate remained stable at over 90% when the ratio of carbon dioxide to methane was 1:1. When the reforming results of carbon dioxide and methane were compared after fabricating nickel and iron catalysts using commercial activated carbon as a carrier, the conversion rate was higher in the iron catalyst than in the nickel catalyst and when no catalyst was used. 

Keywords: Microwave, gas reforming, greenhouse gas, microwave receptor, catalyst.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1035

Authors: Anish H. Gandhi, Harit K. Raval

Abstract:

Carbon steel is used in boilers, pressure vessels, heat exchangers, piping, structural elements and other moderatetemperature service systems in which good strength and ductility are desired. ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Section II Part A (2004) provides specifications of ferrous materials for construction of pressure equipment, covering wide range of mechanical properties including high strength materials for power plants application. However, increased level of springback is one of the major problems in fabricating components of high strength steel using bending. Presented work discuss the springback simulations for five different steels (i.e. SA-36, SA-299, SA-515 grade 70, SA-612 and SA-724 grade B) using finite element analysis of air V-bending. Analytical springback simulations of hypothetical layered materials are presented. Result shows that; (i) combination of the material property parameters controls the springback, (ii) layer of the high ductility steel on the high strength steel greatly suppresses the springback.

Keywords: Carbon steel, Finite element analysis, Layeredmaterial, Springback

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2215

Authors: R. Samsudin, Yogendra, Hairil Satar, Y.Zaidey

Abstract:

Power transformer consists of components which are under consistent thermal and electrical stresses. The major component which degrades under these stresses is the paper insulation of the power transformer. At site, lightning impulses and cable faults may cause the winding deformation. In addition, the winding may deform due to impact during transportation. A deformed winding will excite more stress to its insulating paper thus will degrade it. Insulation degradation will shorten the life-span of the transformer. Currently there are two methods of detecting the winding deformation which are Sweep Frequency Response Analysis (SFRA) and Low Voltage Impulse Test (LVI). The latter injects current pulses to the winding and capture the admittance plot. In this paper, a transformer which experienced overheating and arcing was identified, and both SFRA and LVI were performed. Next, the transformer was brought to the factory for untanking. The untanking results revealed that the LVI is more accurate than the SFRA method for this case study.

Keywords: Winding Deformation, Arcing, Dissolved GasAnalysis, Sweep Frequency Response Analysis, Low VoltageImpulse Method

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2824

Authors: XianYu Zhao, JinXu Guo

Abstract:

Recently, low-dose computed tomography (CT) has become highly desirable due to increasing attention to the potential risks of excessive radiation. For low-dose CT imaging, ensuring image quality while reducing radiation dose is a major challenge. To facilitate low-dose CT imaging, we propose an improved statistical iterative reconstruction scheme based on the Penalized Weighted Least Squares (PWLS) standard combined with total variation (TV) minimization and sparse dictionary learning (DL) to improve reconstruction performance. We call this method "PWLS-TV-DL". In order to evaluate the PWLS-TV-DL method, we performed experiments on digital phantoms and physical phantoms, respectively. The experimental results show that our method is in image quality and calculation. The efficiency is superior to other methods, which confirms the potential of its low-dose CT imaging.

Keywords: Low dose computed tomography, penalized weighted least squares, total variation, dictionary learning.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 811