Search results for: continuous improvement

Authors: Fakhruddin Esa, Yusri Yusof

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The confirmatory of Total Quality Management (TQM) implementation is most vital in quality management. This paper focuses on employees' perceptions towards TQM implementation in a local automotive company supplier. The objectives of this study are first and foremost to determine the perception of TQM implementation among the staff, and secondly to ascertain the correlation between the variables, and lastly to identify the relative influence of the 10 TQM variables on the cost of poor quality (COPQ). The TQM implementation is perceived to be moderate. All correlation is found to be significant and five variables having positively moderate to high correlation. Out of 10 variables, quality system improvement, reward and recognition and customer focus influence the perceived COPQ. This study extended a discussion on these three variables contribution to TQM in general and the human resource development in the organization. A significant recommendation to lowering costs of internal error, such as trouble shooting and scraps are also discussed. Certain components of further research that would add value to this study have also been suggested and perhaps could be implemented at policy-level initiatives.

Keywords: Cost of poor quality, correlation, total quality management, variables.

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Authors: Ho-Jung Ryu, Seung-Yong Lee, Young Cheol Park, Moon-Hee Park

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Two-interconnected fluidized bed systems are widely used in various processes such as Fisher-Tropsch, hot gas desulfurization, CO2 capture-regeneration with dry sorbent, chemical-looping combustion, sorption enhanced steam methane reforming, chemical-looping hydrogen generation system, and so on. However, most of two-interconnected fluidized beds systems require riser and/or pneumatic transport line for solid conveying and loopseals or seal-pots for gas sealing, recirculation of solids to the riser, and maintaining of pressure balance. The riser (transport bed) is operated at the high velocity fluidization condition and residence times of gas and solid in the riser are very short. If the reaction rate of catalyst or sorbent is slow, the riser can not ensure sufficient contact time between gas and solid and we have to use two bubbling beds for each reaction to ensure sufficient contact time. In this case, additional riser must be installed for solid circulation. Consequently, conventional two-interconnected fluidized bed systems are very complex, large, and difficult to operate. To solve these problems, a novel two-interconnected fluidized bed system has been developed. This system has two bubbling beds, solid injection nozzles, solid conveying lines, and downcomers. In this study, effects of operating variables on solid circulation rate, gas leakage between two beds have been investigated in a cold mode two-interconnected fluidized bed system. Moreover, long-term operation of continuous solid circulation up to 60 hours has been performed to check feasibility of stable operation.

Keywords: Fluidized bed, Gas leakage, Long-term operation, Solid circulation.

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Authors: U. Datta

Abstract:

The main objective of this study is to find a suitable approach to monitor the land infrastructure growth over a period of time using multispectral satellite images. Bi-temporal change detection method is unable to indicate the continuous change occurring over a long period of time. To achieve this objective, the approach used here estimates a statistical model from series of multispectral image data over a long period of time, assuming there is no considerable change during that time period and then compare it with the multispectral image data obtained at a later time. The change is estimated pixel-wise. Statistical composite hypothesis technique is used for estimating pixel based change detection in a defined region. The generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) is used to detect the changed pixel from probabilistic estimated model of the corresponding pixel. The changed pixel is detected assuming that the images have been co-registered prior to estimation. To minimize error due to co-registration, 8-neighborhood pixels around the pixel under test are also considered. The multispectral images from Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 from 2015 to 2018 are used for this purpose. There are different challenges in this method. First and foremost challenge is to get quite a large number of datasets for multivariate distribution modelling. A large number of images are always discarded due to cloud coverage. Due to imperfect modelling there will be high probability of false alarm. Overall conclusion that can be drawn from this work is that the probabilistic method described in this paper has given some promising results, which need to be pursued further.

Keywords: Co-registration, GLRT, infrastructure growth, multispectral, multitemporal, pixel-based change detection.

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Authors: Sh. Derakhshan, A. Mostafavi

Abstract:

Nowadays, the challenge in hydraulic turbine design is the multi-objective design of turbine runner to reach higher efficiency. The hydraulic performance of a turbine is strictly depends on runner blades shape. The present paper focuses on the application of the multi-objective optimization algorithm to the design of a small Francis turbine runner. The optimization exercise focuses on the efficiency improvement at the best efficiency operating point (BEP) of the GAMM Francis turbine. A global optimization method based on artificial neural networks (ANN) and genetic algorithms (GA) coupled by 3D Navier-Stokes flow solver has been used to improve the performance of an initial geometry of a Francis runner. The results show the good ability of optimization algorithm and the final geometry has better efficiency with initial geometry. The goal was to optimize the geometry of the blades of GAMM turbine runner which leads to maximum total efficiency by changing the design parameters of camber line in at least 5 sections of a blade. The efficiency of the optimized geometry is improved from 90.7% to 92.5%. Finally, design parameters and the way of selection have been considered and discussed.

Keywords: Francis Turbine, Runner, Optimization, CFD

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Authors: M. S. Hosseini, M. Tazzoli-Shadpour, I. Amjadi, A. A. Katbab, E. Jaefargholi-Rangraz

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Bionanotechnology deals with nanoscopic interactions between nanostructured materials and biological systems. Polymer nanocomposites with optimized biological activity have attracted great attention. Nanoclay is considered as reinforcing nanofiller in manufacturing of high performance nanocomposites. In current study, organomodified-nanoclay with negatively charged silicate layers was incorporated into biomedical grade silicone rubber. Nanoparticle loading has been tailored to enhance cell behavior. Addition of nanoparticles led to improved mechanical properties of substrate with enhanced strength and stiffness while no toxic effects was observed. Results indicated improved viability and proliferation of cells by addition of nanofillers. The improved mechanical properties of the matrix result in proper cell response through adjustment and arrangement of cytoskeletal fibers. Results can be applied in tissue engineering when enhanced substrates are required for improvement of cell behavior for in vivo applications.

Keywords: Biocompatibility, Composite, Organomodified- Nanoclay, Proliferation

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Authors: Lei Guo, Xu Zhang, Weigang Hou

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Since the traditional network is closed and it has no architecture to create applications, it has been unable to evolve with changing demands under the rapid innovation in services. Additionally, due to the lack of the whole network profile, the quality of service cannot be well guaranteed in the traditional network. The Software Defined Network (SDN) utilizes global resources to support on-demand applications/services via open, standardized and programmable interfaces. In this paper, we implement the traffic grooming application under a real SDN environment, and the corresponding analysis is made. In our SDN: 1) we use OpenFlow protocol to control the entire network by using software applications running on the network operating system; 2) several virtual switches are combined into the data forwarding plane through Open vSwitch; 3) An OpenFlow controller, NOX, is involved as a logically centralized control plane that dynamically configures the data forwarding plane; 4) The traffic grooming based on SDN is demonstrated through dynamically modifying the idle time of flow entries. The experimental results demonstrate that the SDN-based traffic grooming effectively reduces the end-to-end delay, and the improvement ratio arrives to 99%.

Keywords: NOX, OpenFlow, software defined network, traffic grooming.

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Authors: Mohsen Maadani, Seyed Ahmad Motamedi

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The use of wireless technology in industrial networks has gained vast attraction in recent years. In this paper, we have thoroughly analyzed the effect of contention window (CW) size on the performance of IEEE 802.11-based industrial wireless networks (IWN), from delay and reliability perspective. Results show that the default values of CWmin, CWmax, and retry limit (RL) are far from the optimum performance due to the industrial application characteristics, including short packet and noisy environment. In this paper, an adaptive CW algorithm (payload-dependent) has been proposed to minimize the average delay. Finally a simple, but effective CW and RL setting has been proposed for industrial applications which outperforms the minimum-average-delay solution from maximum delay and jitter perspective, at the cost of a little higher average delay. Simulation results show an improvement of up to 20%, 25%, and 30% in average delay, maximum delay and jitter respectively.

Keywords: Average Delay, Contention Window, Distributed Coordination Function (DCF), Jitter, Industrial Wireless Network (IWN), Maximum Delay, Reliability, Retry Limit.

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Authors: Othman Maklouf, Abdurazag Ghila, Ahmed Abdulla, Ameer Yousef

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Land vehicle navigation system technology is a subject of great interest today. Global Positioning System (GPS) is a common choice for positioning in such systems. However, GPS alone is incapable of providing continuous and reliable positioning, because of its inherent dependency on external electromagnetic signals. Inertial Navigation is the implementation of inertial sensors to determine the position and orientation of a vehicle. As such, inertial navigation has unbounded error growth since the error accumulates at each step. Thus in order to contain these errors some form of external aiding is required. The availability of low cost Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) inertial sensors is now making it feasible to develop Inertial Navigation System (INS) using an inertial measurement unit (IMU), in conjunction with GPS to fulfill the demands of such systems. Typically IMU’s are very expensive systems; however this INS will use “low cost” components. Unfortunately with low cost also comes low performance and is the main reason for the inclusion of GPS and Kalman filtering into the system. The aim of this paper is to develop a GPS/MEMS INS integrated system, which is able to provide a navigation solution with accuracy levels appropriate for land vehicle navigation. The primary piece of equipment used was a MEMS-based Crista IMU (from Cloud Cap Technology Inc.) and a Garmin GPS 18 PC (which is both a receiver and antenna). The integration of GPS with INS can be implemented using a Kalman filter in loosely coupled mode. In this integration mode the INS error states, together with any navigation state (position, velocity, and attitude) and other unknown parameters of interest, are estimated using GPS measurements. All important equations regarding navigation are presented along with discussion.

Keywords: GPS, IMU, Kalman Filter.

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Authors: Rao Fu, Jie Chen, Shutian Zeng, Yiping Zhuang, Agus Sudjianto

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Generative Adversarial Net (GAN) has proved to be a powerful machine learning tool in image data analysis and generation. In this paper, we propose to use Conditional Generative Adversarial Net (CGAN) to learn and simulate time series data. The conditions include both categorical and continuous variables with different auxiliary information. Our simulation studies show that CGAN has the capability to learn different types of normal and heavy-tailed distributions, as well as dependent structures of different time series. It also has the capability to generate conditional predictive distributions consistent with training data distributions. We also provide an in-depth discussion on the rationale behind GAN and the neural networks as hierarchical splines to establish a clear connection with existing statistical methods of distribution generation. In practice, CGAN has a wide range of applications in market risk and counterparty risk analysis: it can be applied to learn historical data and generate scenarios for the calculation of Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES), and it can also predict the movement of the market risk factors. We present a real data analysis including a backtesting to demonstrate that CGAN can outperform Historical Simulation (HS), a popular method in market risk analysis to calculate VaR. CGAN can also be applied in economic time series modeling and forecasting. In this regard, we have included an example of hypothetical shock analysis for economic models and the generation of potential CCAR scenarios by CGAN at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Conditional Generative Adversarial Net, market and credit risk management, neural network, time series.

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Authors: Sri Ratna Rahayu, Oktia Woro Kasmini Handayani, Lourensiana Y. S. Ngaga, Imade Sudana, Irwan Budiono

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Malaria is an infectious disease that still cannot be solved in Kori village, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, where the most of people live in rumah panggung (Stilts House). The purpose of this study was to know whether there were the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture, and behavior on malaria incidence in the Kori village. A cross-sectional study was performed to explore the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture and behavior on malaria incidence. This study recruited 280 respondents, who live in the rumah panggung, permanent residents in Kori village, were age above 17 years old, and suffered from malaria in the past year. The collected data were analyzed with path analysis. The results of this study showed that the environment of rumah panggung and behavior have a direct effect on the incidence of malaria (p < 0.05). It could be concluded that improvement of environmental conditions of rumah panggung, sociocultural, and behavioral changes to maintain a healthy environment are needed to reduce the malaria incidence.

Keywords: Rumah panggung, socio cultural, behavior, malaria.

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Authors: Desmond B. Keenan, Paul Grossman

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In order to provide accurate heart rate variability indices of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, the low frequency and high frequency components of an RR heart rate signal must be adequately separated. This is not always possible by just applying spectral analysis, as power from the high and low frequency components often leak into their adjacent bands. Furthermore, without the respiratory spectra it is not obvious that the low frequency component is not another respiratory component, which can appear in the lower band. This paper describes an adaptive filter, which aids the separation of the low frequency sympathetic and high frequency parasympathetic components from an ECG R-R interval signal, enabling the attainment of more accurate heart rate variability measures. The algorithm is applied to simulated signals and heart rate and respiratory signals acquired from an ambulatory monitor incorporating single lead ECG and inductive plethysmography sensors embedded in a garment. The results show an improvement over standard heart rate variability spectral measurements.

Keywords: Heart rate variability, vagal tone, sympathetic, parasympathetic, spectral analysis, adaptive filter.

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Authors: Dib Djalel, Haddouche Ali, Chellali Benachiba

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When a lightning strike falls near an overhead power line, the intense electromagnetic field radiated by the current of the lightning return stroke coupled with power lines and there induced transient overvoltages, which can cause a back-flashover in electrical network. The indirect lightning represents a major danger owing to the fact that it is more frequent than that which results from the direct strikes. In this paper we present an analysis of the electromagnetic coupling between an external electromagnetic field generated by the lightning and an electrical overhead lines, so we give an important and original contribution: We are based on our experimental measurements which we carried in the high voltage laboratories of EPFL in Switzerland during the last trimester of 2005, on the recent works of other authors and with our mathematical improvement a new particular analytical expression of the electromagnetic field generated by the lightning return stroke was developed and presented in this paper. The results obtained by this new electromagnetic field formulation were compared with experimental results and give a reasonable approach.

Keywords: Lightning, overhead lines, electromagneticcoupling, return stroke, models, induced overvoltages.

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Authors: Marianna I. Triantou, Konstantina I. Stathi, Petroula A. Tarantili

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In the present study, the incorporation of graphene into blends of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene terpolymer with polypropylene (ABS/PP) was investigated focusing on the improvement of their thermomechanical characteristics and the effect on their rheological behavior. The blends were prepared by melt mixing in a twin-screw extruder and were characterized by measuring the MFI as well as by performing DSC, TGA and mechanical tests. The addition of graphene to ABS/PP blends tends to increase their melt viscosity, due to the confinement of polymer chains motion. Also, graphene causes an increment of the crystallization temperature (Tc), especially in blends with higher PP content, because of the reduction of surface energy of PP nucleation, which is a consequence of the attachment of PP chains to the surface of graphene through the intermolecular CH-π interaction. Moreover, the above nanofiller improves the thermal stability of PP and increases the residue of thermal degradation at all the investigated compositions of blends, due to the thermal isolation effect and the mass transport barrier effect. Regarding the mechanical properties, the addition of graphene improves the elastic modulus, because of its intrinsic mechanical characteristics and its rigidity, and this effect is particularly strong in the case of pure PP.

Keywords: Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene terpolymer, blends, graphene, polypropylene.

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Authors: Wei Yan, Wei Dong

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Facing the understanding problem of update and preservation of urban history space under background of rapid Chinese urbanization, so at first there is a need to dig the philosophic principles of “antithesis” and “unification” which are contained in the traditional Chinese literature known as “antithesis” and do the job of planning translation by personal understanding in order to form understanding and value systems of dialectical urban history space under the foundation of “antithesis”. Then we could put forward a “context” concept for urban history space under the foregoing basis. After that, we will take the update and preservation of Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion’s historical district as an example to discuss problems related to understanding of urban history area under the basis of Chinese tradition culture, improvement of value system, construction of urban trait space and Chinese “localization” of planning theory.

Keywords: Antithesis, traditional values, City renewal and conservation, the “context” of city history space.

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Authors: Diky Mudhakir, M. Fauzi Bostanudin, Fiki Firmawan, Rachmat Mauludin

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In the present study, development of salbutamol sulphate nanoparticles that adhere to gastric mucus was investigated. Salbutamol sulphate has low bioavailability due to short transit time in gastric. It also has a positive surface charge that provides hurdles to be encapsulated by the positively strong mucoadhesive polymer of chitosan. To overcome the difficulties, the surface charge of active ingredient was modified using several nonionic and anionic stomach-specific polymers. The nanoparticles were prepared using ionotropic gelation technique. The evaluation involved determination of particle size, zeta potential, entrapment efficiency, in vitro drug release and in vitro mucoadhesion test. Results exhibited that the use of anionic alginate polymer was more satisfactory than that of nonionic polymer. Characteristics of the particles was nano-size, high encapsulation efficiency, fulfilled the drug release requirements and adhesive towards stomach for around 11 hours. This result shows that the salbutamol sulphate nanoparticles can be utilized for improvement its delivery.

Keywords: Mucoadhesive, salbutamol sulphate, nanosize, anionic polymer.

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Authors: Nardine El Bardisy, Wolf Reuter, Ayat Ismail

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In Egypt, there is continuous housing demand as a result of rapid population growth. In 1979, this forced the government to establish new urban communities in order to decrease stress around delta. New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) was formulated to take the responsibly of this new policy. These communities suffer from social life deficiency due to their typology, which is separated island with barriers. New urban communities’ typology results from the influence of neoliberalism movement and modern city planning forms. The lack of social interaction in these communities at present should be enhanced in the future. On a global perspective, sustainable development calls for creating more sustainable communities which include social, economic and environmental aspects. From 1960, planners were highly focusing on the promotion of the social dimension in urban development plans. The research hypothesis states: “It is possible to promote social interaction in new urban communities through a set of socio-spatial recommended strategies that are tailored for Greater Cairo Region context”. In order to test this hypothesis, the case of El-Sherouk city is selected, which represents the typical NUCA development plans. Social interaction indicators were derived from literature and used to explore different social dynamics in the selected case. The tools used for exploring case study are online questionnaires, face to face questionnaires, interviews, and observations. These investigations were analyzed, conclusions and recommendations were set to improve social interaction.

Keywords: New urban communities, modern planning, social Interaction, Social life.

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Authors: Benjapol Auprasert, Yachai Limpiyakorn

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Measuring the complexity of software has been an insoluble problem in software engineering. Complexity measures can be used to predict critical information about testability, reliability, and maintainability of software systems from automatic analysis of the source code. During the past few years, many complexity measures have been invented based on the emerging Cognitive Informatics discipline. These software complexity measures, including cognitive functional size, lend themselves to the approach of the total cognitive weights of basic control structures such as loops and branches. This paper shows that the current existing calculation method can generate different results that are algebraically equivalence. However, analysis of the combinatorial meanings of this calculation method shows significant flaw of the measure, which also explains why it does not satisfy Weyuker's properties. Based on the findings, improvement directions, such as measures fusion, and cumulative variable counting scheme are suggested to enhance the effectiveness of cognitive complexity measures.

Keywords: Cognitive Complexity Measure, Cognitive Weight of Basic Control Structure, Counting Rules, Cumulative Variable Counting Scheme.

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Authors: Thair Sh. Mahmoud, Tang Sai Hong, Mohammed H. Marhaban

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In this paper, Neuro-Fuzzy based Fuzzy Subtractive Clustering Method (FSCM) and Self Tuning Fuzzy PD-like Controller (STFPDC) were used to solve non-linearity and trajectory problems of pitch AND yaw angles of Twin Rotor MIMO system (TRMS). The control objective is to make the beams of TRMS reach a desired position quickly and accurately. The proposed method could achieve control objectives with simpler controller. To simplify the complexity of STFPDC, ANFIS based FSCM was used to simplify the controller and improve the response. The proposed controllers could achieve satisfactory objectives under different input signals. Simulation results under MATLAB/Simulink® proved the improvement of response and superiority of simplified STFPDC on Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC).

Keywords: Fuzzy Subtractive Clustering Method, Neuro Fuzzy, Self Tuning Fuzzy Controller, and Twin Rotor MIMO System.

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Authors: Khaled Hamdan, Abid Amorri, Fatima Hamdan

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Involving students in English language learning process and achieving an adequate English language proficiency in the target language can be a great challenge for both teachers and students. This can prove even a far greater challenge to engage students with special needs (Dyslexia) if they have physical impairment and inadequate mastery of basic communicative language competence/proficiency in the target language. From this perspective, technology like robots can probably be used to enhance learning process for the special needs students who have extensive communication needs, who face continuous struggle to interact with their peers and teachers and meet academic requirements. Robots, precisely NAO, can probably provide them with the perfect opportunity to practice social and communication skills, and meet their English academic requirements. This research paper aims to identify to what extent robots can be used to improve students’ social interaction and communication skills and to understand the potential for robotics-based education in motivating and engaging UAEU dyslexic students to meet university requirements. To reach this end, the paper will explore several factors that come into play – Motion Level-involving cognitive activities, Interaction Level-involving language processing, Behavior Level -establishing a close relationship with the robot and Appraisal Level- focusing on dyslexia students’ achievement in the target language.

Keywords: Dyslexia, robot technology, motion, interaction, behavior and appraisal levels, social and communication skills.

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Authors: Vicki Cowley, Michael J. Hamlin, Michael Grimley

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Concerns about low levels of children-s physical activity and motor skill development, prompted the Ministry of Education to trial a physical activity pilot project (PAPP) in 16 New Zealand primary schools. The project comprised professional development and training in physical education for lead teachers and introduced four physical activity coordinators to liaise with and increase physical activity opportunities in the pilot schools. A survey of generalist teachers (128 baseline, 155 post-intervention) from these schools looked at timetabled physical activity sessions and issues related to teaching physical education. The authors calculated means and standard deviations of data relating to timetabled PE sessions and used a one-way analysis of variance to determine significant differences. Results indicated time devoted to physical activity related subjects significantly increased over the course of the intervention. Teacher-s reported improved confidence and competence, which resulted in an improvement in quality physical education delivered more often.

Keywords: children, physical education, primary school, teaching

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Authors: N. Z. A. Hamid, M. S. M. Noorani

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This study is focused on the development of prediction models of the Ozone concentration time series. Prediction model is built based on chaotic approach. Firstly, the chaotic nature of the time series is detected by means of phase space plot and the Cao method. Then, the prediction model is built and the local linear approximation method is used for the forecasting purposes. Traditional prediction of autoregressive linear model is also built. Moreover, an improvement in local linear approximation method is also performed. Prediction models are applied to the hourly Ozone time series observed at the benchmark station in Malaysia. Comparison of all models through the calculation of mean absolute error, root mean squared error and correlation coefficient shows that the one with improved prediction method is the best. Thus, chaotic approach is a good approach to be used to develop a prediction model for the Ozone concentration time series.

Keywords: Chaotic approach, phase space, Cao method, local linear approximation method.

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Authors: S. W. Liu, J. H. Lv, W. Z. Wang

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In recent years, the failure accidents in petrochemical industry have been frequent, and have posed great security problems in personnel and property. The improvement of petrochemical safety is highly requested in order to prevent re-occurrence of severe accident. This study focuses on surveying the failure cases occurred in petrochemical field, which were extracted from journals of engineering failure, including engineering failure analysis and case studies in engineering failure analysis. The relation of failure mode, failure mechanism, type of components, and type of materials was analyzed in this study. And the analytical results showed that failures occurred more frequently in vessels and piping among the petrochemical equipment. Moreover, equipment made of carbon steel and stainless steel accounts for the majority of failures compared to other materials. This may be related to the application of the equipment and the performance of the material. In addition, corrosion failures were the largest in number of occurrence in the failure of petrochemical equipment, in which stress corrosion cracking accounts for a large proportion. This may have a lot to do with the service environment of the petrochemical equipment. Therefore, it can be concluded that the corrosion prevention of petrochemical equipment is particularly important.

Keywords: Cases analysis, corrosion, failure, petrochemical industry.

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Authors: Kohtaroh Miyamoto

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As enterprise computing becomes more and more complex, the costs and technical challenges of IT system maintenance and support are increasing rapidly. One popular approach to managing IT system maintenance is to prepare and use a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) system to manage and reuse systems knowledge. Such a FAQ system can help reduce the resolution time for each service incident ticket. However, there is a major problem where over time the knowledge in such FAQs tends to become outdated. Much of the knowledge captured in the FAQ requires periodic updates in response to new insights or new trends in the problems addressed in order to maintain its usefulness for problem resolution. These updates require a systematic approach to define the exact portion of the FAQ and its content. Therefore, we are working on a novel method to hierarchically structure the FAQ and automate the updates of its structure and content. We use structured information and the unstructured text information with the timelines of the information in the service incident tickets. We cluster the tickets by structured category information, by keywords, and by keyword modifiers for the unstructured text information. We also calculate an urgency score based on trends, resolution times, and priorities. We carefully studied the tickets of one of our projects over a 2.5-year time period. After the first 6 months we started to create FAQs and confirmed they improved the resolution times. We continued observing over the next 2 years to assess the ongoing effectiveness of our method for the automatic FAQ updates. We improved the ratio of tickets covered by the FAQ from 32.3% to 68.9% during this time. Also, the average time reduction of ticket resolution was between 31.6% and 43.9%. Subjective analysis showed more than 75% reported that the FAQ system was useful in reducing ticket resolution times.

Keywords: FAQ System, Resolution Time, Service Incident Tickets, IT System Maintenance.

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Authors: T. Patrice Nna Nna, S. Ndjakomo Essiane, S. Pérabi Ngoffé, F. Amigue Fissou

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This paper deals with the harmonic decontamination of current in an electrical grid by an active shunt filter in order to improve power quality. The contribution of this paper is mainly based on the proposal of a control strategy for an active filter based on Duty Cycle Modulation (DCM). First, three-monophase method is applied for the identification of disturbing currents. A Simulink model of this method is given for one phase of the grid. Secondly, two orders were designed: the first one is the Hysteresis Control and the second one is the DCM Control. Finally, a comparative study of the two controls was performed. The results obtained show a significant improvement in the rate of harmonic distortion for both controls. The harmonic distortion for the Hysteresis control is limited by the non-controllability of the switching frequencies of the inverter's switches and reduces the harmonic distortion rate (THD) to 3.12% as opposed to the DCM control which limits the THD to 2.82% which makes it better.

Keywords: Harmonic pollution, shunt active filter, hysteresis, Duty Cycle Modulation.

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Authors: Eric K. W. Aikins

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Traditionally, Ghana is a marine fishing country. The fishing industry dominated by artisanal marine fishing helps Ghana to meet its fish and protein requirements. Also, it provides employment for most coastal dwellers that depend on fishing as their main economic enterprise. Nonetheless, the marine fishing industry is confronted with challenges that have contributed to a declining fish production in recent past decade. Bad fishing practices and the general limited knowledge on sustainable management of fisheries resources are the limiting factors that affect sustainable fish production and sustainable marine biodiversity management in Ghana. This paper discusses the challenges and strategies for attaining and maintaining sustainable marine fishing in Ghana as well as the state of marine fishing in Ghana. It concludes that an increase in the level of involvement of local fishers in the management of fisheries resources of the country could help local fishers to employ sustainable fisheries resources exploitation methods that could result in an improvement in the spatio-economic development and wellbeing of affected fishing communities in particular and Ghana in general.

Keywords: Pair trawling, sargassum, spatio-economic development, sustainable marine fishing.

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Authors: Vishal Awasthi, Krishna Raj

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Unwanted side effects because of spectral aliasing and spectral imaging during signal processing would be the major concern over the sampling rate alteration. Multirate-multistage implementation of digital filter could come about a large computational saving than single rate filter suitable for sample rate conversion. This implementation can further improve through high-level architectural transformation in circuit level. Reallocating registers and  relocating flip-flops across logic gates through retiming certainly a prominent sequential transformation technology, that optimize hardware circuits to achieve faster clocking speed without affecting the functionality. In this paper, we proposed an efficient compensated cascade Integrator comb (CIC) decimation filter structure that analyze the consequence of filter order variation which has a retimed FIR filter being compensator while using the cutset retiming technique and achieved an improvement in the passband droop by 14% to 39%, in computation time by 38.04%, 25.78%, 12.21%, 6.69% and 4.44% and reduction in path delay by 62.27%, 72%, 86.63%, 91.56% and 94.42% of 3, 6, 8, 12 and 24 order filter respectively than the non-retimed CIC compensation filter.

Keywords: Multirate Filtering, CIC decimation filter, Compensation theory, Retiming, Retiming algorithm, Filter order, Synchronous dataflow graph.

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Authors: Vicky Min-How Lim, Siew Fan Wong, Tong Ming Lim

Abstract:

Automatic keyphrase extraction is useful in efficiently locating specific documents in online databases. While several techniques have been introduced over the years, improvement on accuracy rate is minimal. This research examines attribute scores for author-supplied keyphrases to better understand how the scores affect the accuracy rate of automatic keyphrase extraction. Five attributes are chosen for examination: Term Frequency, First Occurrence, Last Occurrence, Phrase Position in Sentences, and Term Cohesion Degree. The results show that First Occurrence is the most reliable attribute. Term Frequency, Last Occurrence and Term Cohesion Degree display a wide range of variation but are still usable with suggested tweaks. Only Phrase Position in Sentences shows a totally unpredictable pattern. The results imply that the commonly used ranking approach which directly extracts top ranked potential phrases from candidate keyphrase list as the keyphrases may not be reliable.

Keywords: Accuracy, Attribute Score, Author-supplied keyphrases, Automatic keyphrase extraction.

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Authors: Wullapa Wongsinlatam

Abstract:

Back propagation algorithm (BP) is a widely used technique in artificial neural network and has been used as a tool for solving the time series problems, such as decreasing training time, maximizing the ability to fall into local minima, and optimizing sensitivity of the initial weights and bias. This paper proposes an improvement of a BP technique which is called IM-COH algorithm (IM-COH). By combining IM-COH algorithm with cuckoo search algorithm (CS), the result is cuckoo search improved control output hidden layer algorithm (CS-IM-COH). This new algorithm has a better ability in optimizing sensitivity of the initial weights and bias than the original BP algorithm. In this research, the algorithm of CS-IM-COH is compared with the original BP, the IM-COH, and the original BP with CS (CS-BP). Furthermore, the selected benchmarks, four time series samples, are shown in this research for illustration. The research shows that the CS-IM-COH algorithm give the best forecasting results compared with the selected samples.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, back propagation algorithm, time series, local minima problem, metaheuristic optimization.

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Authors: Erfan Niazi, Marianne Fenech

Abstract:

Red Blood Cells (RBCs) or erythrocytes tend to form chain-like aggregates under low shear rate called rouleaux. This is a reversible process and rouleaux disaggregate in high shear rates. Therefore, RBCs aggregation occurs in the microcirculation where low shear rates are present but does not occur under normal physiological conditions in large arteries. Numerical modeling of RBCs interactions is fundamental in analytical models of a blood flow in microcirculation. Population Balance Modeling (PBM) is particularly useful for studying problems where particles agglomerate and break in a two phase flow systems to find flow characteristics. In this method, the elementary particles lose their individual identity due to continuous destructions and recreations by break-up and agglomeration. The aim of this study is to find RBCs aggregation in a dynamic situation. Simplified PBM was used previously to find the aggregation rate on a static observation of the RBCs aggregation in a drop of blood under the microscope. To find aggregation rate in a dynamic situation we propose an experimental set up testing RBCs sedimentation. In this test, RBCs interact and aggregate to form rouleaux. In this configuration, disaggregation can be neglected due to low shear stress. A high-speed camera is used to acquire video-microscopic pictures of the process. The sizes of the aggregates and velocity of sedimentation are extracted using an image processing techniques. Based on the data collection from 5 healthy human blood samples, the aggregation rate was estimated as 2.7x10³(±0.3 x10³) 1/s.

Keywords: Red blood cell, Rouleaux, microfluidics, image processing, population balance modeling.

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Authors: Kaveh Mohammad Cyrus, Shadi Sanagoo

Abstract:

MABENA model is a complementary model in comparison with traditional models such as HCMS, CMS and etc. New factors, which have effects on preparation of strategic plans and their sequential order in MABENA model is the platform of presented road map in this paper.Study review shows, factors such as emerging new critical success factors for strategic planning, improvement of international strategic models, increasing the maturity of companies and emerging new needs leading to design a new model which can be responsible for new critical factors and solve the limitations of previous strategic management models. Preparation of strategic planning need more factors than introduced in traditional models. The needed factors includes determining future Critical Success Factors and competencies, defining key processes, determining the maturity of the processes, considering all aspects of the external environment etc. Description of aforementioned requirements, the outcomes and their order is developing and presenting the MABENA model-s road map in this paper. This study presents a road map for strategic planning of the Iranian organizations.

Keywords: Competitive Advantage, Process Maturity, StrategicPlanning, Strategic potential

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