Search results for: daily trips by public transport

Authors: Andreas Savvides, Chloe Kadi

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The objective of this study is to investigate how the planning and design of open parks within neighborhoods and communities can promote physical activity in order to enhance the health of the local population. A review of relevant literature was conducted for studies regarding the relationship between health and physical activity and the park characteristics that can promote physical activity among people. The findings of the literature review were then compared and analyzed, in order to identify the main characteristics of urban parks that can promote physical activity and enhance public health. In order to find out how the characteristics identified in the literature were applied in real life, an analysis of three existing parks in three different countries was conducted. The parks, apart from their geographical location, also vary in size and layout. The parks were chosen because they are urban open parks and they include facilities for physical activity.

Keywords: Urban planning, active living behavior, open parks, sustainable mobility.

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Authors: Ali Akbar Jamali

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This paper discusses site selection process for biological soil conservation planning. It was supported by a valuefocused approach and spatial multi-criteria evaluation techniques. A first set of spatial criteria was used to design a number of potential sites. Next, a new set of spatial and non-spatial criteria was employed, including the natural factors and the financial costs, together with the degree of suitability for the Bonkuh watershed to biological soil conservation planning and to recommend the most acceptable program. The whole process was facilitated by a new software tool that supports spatial multiple criteria evaluation, or SMCE in GIS software (ILWIS). The application of this tool, combined with a continual feedback by the public attentions, has provided an effective methodology to solve complex decisional problem in biological soil conservation planning.

Keywords: GIS, Biological soil conservation planning, Spatial multi-criteria evaluation, Iran

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Authors: A. E. Mukhametov, M. T. Yerbulekova, D. R. Dautkanova, G. A. Tuyakova, G. Aitkhozhayeva

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The accumulation of heavy metals in food is a constant problem in many parts of the world. Vegetable oils are widely used, both for cooking and for processing in the food industry, meeting the main dietary requirements. One of the main chemical pollutants, heavy metals, is usually found in vegetable oils. These chemical pollutants are carcinogenic, teratogenic and immunotoxic, harmful to consumption and have a negative effect on human health even in trace amounts. Residues of these substances can easily accumulate in vegetable oil during cultivation, processing and storage. In this article, the content of the concentration of heavy metal ions in vegetable oils of Kazakhstan production is studied: sunflower, rapeseed, safflower and linseed oil. Heavy metals: arsenic, cadmium, lead and nickel, were determined in three repetitions by the method of flame atomic absorption. Analysis of vegetable oil samples revealed that the largest lead contamination (Pb) was determined to be 0.065 mg/kg in linseed oil. The content of cadmium (Cd) in the largest amount of 0.009 mg/kg was found in safflower oil. Arsenic (As) content was determined in rapeseed and safflower oils at 0.003 mg/kg, and arsenic (As) was not detected in linseed and sunflower oil. The nickel (Ni) content in the largest amount of 0.433 mg/kg was in linseed oil. The heavy metal contents in the test samples complied with the requirements of regulatory documents for vegetable oils. An assessment of the health risk of vegetable oils with a daily consumption of 36 g per day shows that all samples of vegetable oils produced in Kazakhstan are safe for consumption. But further monitoring is needed, since all these metals are toxic and their harmful effects become apparent only after several years of exposure.

Keywords: Kazakhstan, oil, safety, toxic metals.

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Authors: C. Temaneh-Nyah, J. Makiche, J. Nujoma

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This paper considers the characterization of a complex electromagnetic environment due to multiple sources of electromagnetic radiation as a five-dimensional surface which can be described by a set of several surface sections including: instant EM field intensity distribution maps at a given frequency and altitude, instantaneous spectrum at a given location in space and the time evolution of the electromagnetic field spectrum at a given point in space. This characterization if done over time can enable the exposure levels of Radio Frequency Radiation at every point in the analysis area to be determined and results interpreted based on comparison of the determined RFR exposure level with the safe guidelines for general public exposure given by recognized body such as the International commission on non-ionizing radiation protection (ICNIRP), Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the National Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA).

Keywords: Electromagnetic Environment, Electric Field Strength, Mathematical Models.

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Authors: Tinatin Kurdghelashvili

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The paper deals with the usage of speech acts and politeness strategies in an EFL classroom in Georgia (Rep of). It explores the students’ and the teachers’ practice of the politeness strategies and the speech acts of apology, thanking, request, compliment / encouragement, command, agreeing / disagreeing, addressing and code switching. The research method includes observation as well as a questionnaire. The target group involves the students from Georgian public schools and two certified, experienced local English teachers. The analysis is based on Searle’s Speech Act Theory and Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies. The findings show that the students have certain knowledge regarding politeness yet they fail to apply them in English communication. In addition, most of the speech acts from the classroom interaction are used by the teachers and not the students. Thereby, it is suggested that teachers should cultivate the students’ communicative competence and attempt to give them opportunities to practise more English speech acts than they do today.

Keywords: English as a foreign language, Georgia, politeness principles, speech acts.

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Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan

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Spintronic, also termed spin electronics or spin transport electronics, is a kind of new technology, which exploits the two fundamental degrees of freedom- spin-state and charge-state of electrons to enhance the operational speed for the data storage and transfer efficiency of the device. Thus, it seems an encouraging technology to combat most of the prevailing complications in orthodox electron-based devices. This novel technology possesses the capacity to mix the semiconductor microelectronics and magnetic devices’ functionalities into one integrated circuit. Traditional semiconductor microelectronic devices use only the electronic charge to process the information based on binary numbers, 0 and 1. Due to the incessant shrinking of the transistor size, we are reaching the final limit of 1 nm or so. At this stage, the fabrication and other device operational processes will become challenging as the quantum effect comes into play. In this situation, we should find an alternative future technology, and spintronic may be such technology to transfer and store information. This review article provides a detailed discussion of the spintronic technology: fundamentals, materials, devices, circuits, challenges, and current research trends. At first, the fundamentals of spintronics technology are discussed. Then types, properties, and other issues of the spintronic materials are presented. After that, fabrication and working principles, as well as application areas and advantages/disadvantages of spintronic devices and circuits, are explained. Finally, the current challenges, current research areas, and prospects of spintronic technology are highlighted. This is a new paradigm of electronic cum magnetic devices built on the charge and spin of the electrons. Modern engineering and technological advances in search of new materials for this technology give us hope that this would be a very optimistic technology in the upcoming days.

Keywords: Spintronic technology, spin, charge, magnetic devices, spintronic devices, spintronic materials.

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Authors: Hapriza Ashari, Nik Ahmad Kamal Nik Mahmod

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This article aims to assess the level of basic knowledge of statutory employment rights at the workplace as prescribed by the Malaysian Employment Act 1955. The statutory employment rights comprises of a variety of individual employment rights such as protections of wages, statutory right to the general standard of working time, statutory right to rest day, public holidays, annual leave and sick leave as well as female employee’s statutory right to paid maternity leave. A field survey was carried out to collect data by using self-administered questionnaires from Human Resource (HR) practitioners in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The results reveal that the level of basic knowledge of legislated employment rights varies between different types of statutory rights from high level to low level.

Keywords: Employment legislation, Human Resource (HR) practitioner, legal knowledge, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

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Authors: Sandhya, Rajbir Singh, Ramesh Kumar

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The purpose of this research paper on the subject of Leadership Effectiveness attempts to conduct a focused amount of research to examine the employees’ perceptions pertaining to specific competencies of leadership effectiveness in Indian manufacturing industries and to correlate their perceptions between private sectors and public sector undertakings. It specifically looks at the current definitions of leadership and looks at some historical background information relating to the more common theories that relate to leadership and effectiveness. This research was conducted by using a variety of current books and periodical articles on the topic of leadership effectiveness and employees’ perceptions. A number of leadership effectiveness competencies have been identified. The demographic details and perception of the employees on importance of leadership effectiveness competencies have been obtained through a well designed online questionnaire. For this purpose, a likert scale of seven-point has been used. Descriptive and inferential statistics is used to analyze the gathered data.

Keywords: Employees Perception, Leadership Effectiveness, Leadership Competencies, Manufacturing.

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Authors: Razilan A. Kadir, Wan A. K. W. Dollah, Fatimah A. Saaid, S. Diljit

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Academic digital libraries emerged as a result of advances in computing and information systems technologies, and had been introduced in universities and to public. As results, moving in parallel with current technology in learning and researching environment indeed offers myriad of advantages especially to students and academicians, as well as researchers. This is due to dramatic changes in learning environment through the use of digital library system which giving spectacular impact on these societies- way of performing their study/research. This paper presents a survey of current criteria for evaluating academic digital libraries- performance. The goal is to discuss criteria being applied so far for academic digital libraries evaluation in the context of user-centered design. Although this paper does not comprehensively take into account all previous researches in evaluating academic digital libraries but at least it can be a guide in understanding the evaluation criteria being widely applied.

Keywords: Academic digital libraries, evaluation criteria, performance, user-centered.

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Authors: Yousra Zakaria Ahmed, Ahmed El Gendy, Salah El Haggar

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In this paper, our methodology to assess sustainability of wastewater treatment technologies in Egypt is presented. The preliminary list of factors to be considered, as well as their ranking listed. The factors include, but are not limited to pollutants removal efficiency and energy consumption under the environmental dimension, construction cost, operation and maintenance costs and required land area cost under the economic dimension and public acceptance, noise and generating job opportunities for local residents. This methodology is intended to be a user-friendly screening tool to support the decision making process when investigating different wastewater treatment technologies in Egypt. Based on the research work results presented in this paper, it can be generally concluded that the categorization of some of the social and environmental aspects of sustainability is subjective and highly dependent on the local conditions and researchers’ background.

Keywords: Sustainability, wastewater treatment, sustainability assessment, Egypt.

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Authors: Solomon Neway Jida, Jean-Francois Hetet, Pascal Chesse

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Vehicular emission is the key source of air pollution in the urban environment. This includes both fine particles (PM_2.5) and coarse particulate matters (PM₁₀). However, particulate matter emissions from road traffic comprise emissions from exhaust tailpipe and emissions due to wear and tear of the vehicle part such as brake, tire and clutch and re-suspension of dust (non-exhaust emission). This study estimates the share of the two sources of pollutant particle emissions from on-roadside vehicles in the Addis Ababa municipality, Ethiopia. To calculate its share, two methods were applied; the exhaust-tailpipe emissions were calculated using the Europeans emission inventory Tier II method and Tier I for the non-exhaust emissions (like vehicle tire wear, brake, and road surface wear). The results show that of the total traffic-related particulate emissions in the city, 63% emitted from vehicle exhaust and the remaining 37% from non-exhaust sources. The annual roads transport exhaust emission shares around 2394 tons of particles from all vehicle categories. However, from the total yearly non-exhaust particulate matter emissions’ contribution, tire and brake wear shared around 65% and 35% emanated by road-surface wear. Furthermore, vehicle tire and brake wear were responsible for annual 584.8 tons of coarse particles (PM₁₀) and 314.4 tons of fine particle matter (PM_2.5) emissions in the city whereas surface wear emissions were responsible for around 313.7 tons of PM₁₀ and 169.9 tons of PM_2.5 pollutant emissions in the city. This suggests that non-exhaust sources might be as significant as exhaust sources and have a considerable contribution to the impact on air quality.

Keywords: Addis Ababa, automotive emission, emission estimation, particulate matters.

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Authors: Mehmet Altınöz

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Organizational communication is an administrative function crucial especially for executives in the implementation of organizational and administrative functions. Executives spend a significant part of their time on communicative activities. Doing his or her daily routine, arranging meeting schedules, speaking on the telephone, reading or replying to business correspondence, or fulfilling the control functions within the organization, an executive typically engages in communication processes. Efficient communication is the principal device for the adequate implementation of administrative and organizational activities. For this purpose, management needs to specify the kind of communication system to be set up and the kind of communication devices to be used. Communication is vital for any organization. In conventional offices, communication takes place within the hierarchical pyramid called the organizational structure, and is known as formal or informal communication. Formal communication is the type that works in specified structures within the organizational rules and towards the organizational goals. Informal communication, on the other hand, is the unofficial type taking place among staff as face-to-face or telephone interaction. Communication in virtual as well as conventional offices is essential for obtaining the right information in administrative activities and decision-making. Virtual communication technologies increase the efficiency of communication especially in virtual teams. Group communication is strengthened through an inter-group central channel. Further, ease of information transmission makes it possible to reach the information at the source, allowing efficient and correct decisions. Virtual offices can present as a whole the elements of information which conventional offices produce in different environments. At present, virtual work has become a reality with its pros and cons, and will probably spread very rapidly in coming years, in line with the growth in information technologies.

Keywords: Organization, conventional office, virtual office, communication, communication model, communication functions, communication methods, vertical communication, linear communication, diagonal communication

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Authors: Wisdom G. Dube, Talent Makoni, Tasiana K. Nyadzayo, Namukolo M. Covic

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Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in Zimbabwe. Addressing vitamin A deficiency has the potential of enhancing resistance to disease and reducing mortality especially in children less than 5 years. We implemented and adapted vitamin A outreach supplementation strategy within the National Immunization Days and Extended Programme of Immunization in a rural district in Zimbabwe. Despite usual operational challenges faced this approach enabled the district to increase delivery of supplementation coverage. This paper describes the outreach strategy that was implemented in the remote rural district. The strategy covered 63 outreach sites with 2 sites being covered per day and visited once per month for the whole year. Coverage reached 71% in an area of previous coverage rates of around less than 50%. We recommend further exploration of this strategy by others working in similar circumstances. This strategy can be a potential way for use by Scaling-Up-Nutrition member states.

Keywords: Coverage, Strategy, Supplementation, Vitamin A.

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Authors: F. Amin Salehi, L. Sharp, M. A. Abdoli, D.E.Cotton, K.Rezapour

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The daily increase of organic waste materials resulting from different activities in the country is one of the main factors for the pollution of environment. Today, with regard to the low level of the output of using traditional methods, the high cost of disposal waste materials and environmental pollutions, the use of modern methods such as anaerobic digestion for the production of biogas has been prevailing. The collected biogas from the process of anaerobic digestion, as a renewable energy source similar to natural gas but with a less methane and heating value is usable. Today, with the help of technologies of filtration and proper preparation, access to biogas with features fully similar to natural gas has become possible. At present biogas is one of the main sources of supplying electrical and thermal energy and also an appropriate option to be used in four stroke engine, diesel engine, sterling engine, gas turbine, gas micro turbine and fuel cell to produce electricity. The use of biogas for different reasons which returns to socio-economic and environmental advantages has been noticed in CHP for the production of energy in the world. The production of biogas from the technology of anaerobic digestion and its application in CHP power plants in Iran can not only supply part of the energy demands in the country, but it can materialize moving in line with the sustainable development. In this article, the necessity of the development of CHP plants with biogas fuels in the country will be dealt based on studies performed from the economic, environmental and social aspects. Also to prove the importance of the establishment of these kinds of power plants from the economic point of view, necessary calculations has been done as a case study for a CHP power plant with a biogas fuel.

Keywords: Anaerobic Digestion, Biogas, CHP, Organic Wastes

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Authors: M. A. Abd-Allah, Mahmoud N. Ali, A. Said

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Lightning protection systems (LPS) for wind power generation is becoming an important public issue. A serious damage of blades, accidents where low-voltage and control circuit breakdowns are frequently occur in many wind farms. A grounding system is one of the most important components required for appropriate LPSs in wind turbines WTs. Proper design of a wind turbine grounding system is demanding and several factors for the proper and effective implementation must taken into account. In this paper proposed procedure of proper design of grounding systems for a wind turbine was introduced. This procedure depends on measuring of ground current of simulated wind farm under lightning taking into consideration the soil ionization. The procedure also includes the Ground Potential Rise (GPR) and the voltage distributions at ground surface level and Touch potential. In particular, the contribution of mitigating techniques, such as rings, rods and the proposed design were investigated.

Keywords: WTs, LPS, GPR, Grounding System, Mitigating techniques.

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Authors: S. I. V. Sousa, F.G. Martins, M. C. Pereira, M. C. M. Alvim-Ferraz, H. Ribeiro, M. Oliveira, I. Abreu

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Exposure to ambient air pollution has been linked to a number of health outcomes, starting from modest transient changes in the respiratory tract and impaired pulmonary function, continuing to restrict activity/reduce performance and to the increase emergency rooms visits, hospital admissions or mortality. The increase of allergenic symptoms has been associated with air contaminants such as ozone, particulate matter, fungal spores and pollen. Considering the potential relevance of crossed effects of nonbiological pollutants and airborne pollens and fungal spores on allergy worsening, the aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of non-biological pollutants (O3 and PM10) and meteorological parameters on the concentrations of pollen and fungal spores using multiple linear regressions. The data considered in this study were collected in Oporto which is the second largest Portuguese city, located in the North. Daily mean of O3, PM10, pollen and fungal spore concentrations, temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind velocity, pollen and fungal spore concentrations, for 2003, 2004 and 2005 were considered. Results showed that the 90th percentile of the adjusted coefficient of determination, P90 (R2aj), of the multiple regressions varied from 0.613 to 0.916 for pollen and from 0.275 to 0.512 for fungal spores. O3 and PM10 showed to have some influence on the biological pollutants. Among the meteorological parameters analysed, temperature was the one that most influenced the pollen and fungal spores airborne concentrations. Relative humidity also showed to have some influence on the fungal spore dispersion. Nevertheless, the models for each pollen and fungal spore were different depending on the analysed period, which means that the correlations identified as statistically significant can not be, even so, consistent enough.

Keywords: Air pollutants, meteorological parameters, biologicalpollutants, multiple linear correlations.

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Authors: Siripen Yiamjanya, Kevin Wongleedee

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This research paper aims to identify travel motivation by push and pull factors that affected decision making of international tourists in selecting Thailand as their destination choice. A total of 200 international tourists who traveled to Thailand during January and February, 2014 were used as the sample in this study. A questionnaire was employed as a tool in collecting the data, conducted in Bangkok. The list consisted of 30 attributes representing both psychological factors as “push- based factors” and destination factors as “pull-based factors”. Mean and standard deviation were used in order to find the top ten travel motives that were important determinants in the respondents’ decision making process to select Thailand as their destination choice. The finding revealed the top ten travel motivations influencing international tourists to select Thailand as their destination choice included [i] getting experience in foreign land; [ii] Thai food; [iii] learning new culture; [iv] relaxing in foreign land; [v] wanting to learn new things; [vi] being interested in Thai culture, and traditional markets; [vii] escaping from same daily life; [viii] enjoying activities; [ix] adventure; and [x] good weather. Classification of push- based and pull- based motives suggested that getting experience in foreign land was the most important push motive for international tourists to travel, while Thai food portrayed its highest significance as pull motive. Discussion and suggestions were also made for tourism industry of Thailand.

Keywords: Decision Making, Destination Choice, International Tourist, Pull Factor, Push Factor, Thailand, Travel Motivation.

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Authors: Vasudev Das

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The specific problem is that private and public organizational leaders often do not understand the importance of sonic therapeutic intervention in preventing financial fraud. The study aimed to explore sonic therapeutic intervention practitioners' lived experiences regarding the value of sonic therapeutic intervention in preventing financial fraud. The data collection methods were semi-structured interviews of purposeful samples and documentary reviews, which were analyzed thematically. Four themes emerged from the analysis of interview transcription data: Sonic therapeutic intervention enabled self-control, pro-spiritual values, consequentiality mindset, and post-conventional consciousness. The itemized four themes helped non-engagement in financial fraud. Implications for positive social change include enhanced financial fraud management, more significant financial leadership, and result-oriented decision-taking in the financial market. Also, the study results can improve the increased de-escalation of anxiety/stress associated with defrauding.

Keywords: consciousness, consequentiality, rehabilitation, reintegration

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Authors: E. Ardil, Erdem Uçar, Parvinder S. Sandhu

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As the majority of faults are found in a few of its modules so there is a need to investigate the modules that are affected severely as compared to other modules and proper maintenance need to be done on time especially for the critical applications. In this paper, we have explored the different predictor models to NASA-s public domain defect dataset coded in Perl programming language. Different machine learning algorithms belonging to the different learner categories of the WEKA project including Mamdani Based Fuzzy Inference System and Neuro-fuzzy based system have been evaluated for the modeling of maintenance severity or impact of fault severity. The results are recorded in terms of Accuracy, Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). The results show that Neuro-fuzzy based model provides relatively better prediction accuracy as compared to other models and hence, can be used for the maintenance severity prediction of the software.

Keywords: Software Metrics, Fuzzy, Neuro-Fuzzy, SoftwareFaults, Accuracy, MAE, RMSE.

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Authors: Ahmet Diken, Tahsin Karabulut

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The factor which developing countries are in need is capital. Such countries make an effort to increase their income in order to meet their expenses for employment, infrastructure, superstructure investments, education, health and defense. The sole income of the countries is taxes collected from businesses. The businesses should drive profit and return in order to be able to toll. In a world where competition exists, different strategies may be followed by business in developing countries and they must specify their target markets. İn order to minimize cost and maximize profit, SMEs have to concentrate on target markets and select cost oriented strategy. In this study, a theoretical model is suggested that SME firms have to act as cluster between each other, and also must be optimal provider for large scale firms. SMEs’ policy must be supported by public. This relationship can benefit large scale firms to have brand over the world, and this organization increases value added for developing countries.

Keywords: Competitiveness, sustainability, SMEs, developing countries.

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Authors: Nantida Otakum

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The purposes of the study are to study and to investigate the relationship among exposure, uses and gratifications of television morning news among undergraduate students in Bangkok. This study also compares differences in information exposure, uses and gratifications of television morning news among these students. The research methodology employed a questionnaire as a quantitative method. The respondents were undergraduate students at public and private universities in Bangkok. Totally, 400 usable questionnaires were received. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. The results indicated that information exposure of undergraduate students in Bangkok was at a high level. Students’ uses and gratifications were also at high level. Information exposure was positively correlated with uses and gratifications. Uses of information were positively correlated with satisfaction with information. The results also showed that students with differences in sex and type of university were not significantly different in information exposure, and uses and gratifications.

Keywords: Television Morning News, Information Exposure, Uses and Gratifications.

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Authors: Khaireyah Kh. Al-Hamad, V. Nassehi, A. R. Khan

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Air pollution is a major environmental health problem, affecting developed and developing countries around the world. Increasing amounts of potentially harmful gases and particulate matter are being emitted into the atmosphere on a global scale, resulting in damage to human health and the environment. Petroleum-related air pollutants can have a wide variety of adverse environmental impacts. In the crude oil production sectors, there is a strong need for a thorough knowledge of gaseous emissions resulting from the flaring of associated gas of known composition on daily basis through combustion activities under several operating conditions. This can help in the control of gaseous emission from flares and thus in the protection of their immediate and distant surrounding against environmental degradation. The impacts of methane and non-methane hydrocarbons emissions from flaring activities at oil production facilities at Kuwait Oilfields have been assessed through a screening study using records of flaring operations taken at the gas and oil production sites, and by analyzing available meteorological and air quality data measured at stations located near anthropogenic sources. In the present study the Industrial Source Complex (ISCST3) Dispersion Model is used to calculate the ground level concentrations of methane and nonmethane hydrocarbons emitted due to flaring in all over Kuwait Oilfields. The simulation of real hourly air quality in and around oil production facilities in the State of Kuwait for the year 2006, inserting the respective source emission data into the ISCST3 software indicates that the levels of non-methane hydrocarbons from the flaring activities exceed the allowable ambient air standard set by Kuwait EPA. So, there is a strong need to address this acute problem to minimize the impact of methane and non-methane hydrocarbons released from flaring activities over the urban area of Kuwait.

Keywords: Kuwait Oilfields, ISCST3 model, flaring, Airpollution, Methane and Non-methane.

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Authors: Yepeng Cheng, Yasuhiko Morimoto

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Customer relationship analysis is vital for retail stores, especially for supermarkets. The point of sale (POS) systems make it possible to record the daily purchasing behaviors of customers as an identification point of sale (ID-POS) database, which can be used to analyze customer behaviors of a supermarket. The customer value is an indicator based on ID-POS database for detecting the customer loyalty of a store. In general, there are many supermarkets in a city, and other nearby competitor supermarkets significantly affect the customer value of customers of a supermarket. However, it is impossible to get detailed ID-POS databases of competitor supermarkets. This study firstly focused on the customer value and distance between a customer's home and supermarkets in a city, and then constructed the models based on logistic regression analysis to analyze correlations between distance and purchasing behaviors only from a POS database of a supermarket chain. During the modeling process, there are three primary problems existed, including the incomparable problem of customer values, the multicollinearity problem among customer value and distance data, and the number of valid partial regression coefficients. The improved customer value, Huff’s gravity model, and inverse attractiveness frequency are considered to solve these problems. This paper presents three types of models based on these three methods for loyal customer classification and competitors’ influence analysis. In numerical experiments, all types of models are useful for loyal customer classification. The type of model, including all three methods, is the most superior one for evaluating the influence of the other nearby supermarkets on customers' purchasing of a supermarket chain from the viewpoint of valid partial regression coefficients and accuracy.

Keywords: Customer value, Huff's Gravity Model, POS, retailer.

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Authors: Liming Chen, Baoxin Xiu, Zhaoyun Ding, Bin Liu, Xianqiang Zhu

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In the era of big data, public investors are faced with more complicated information related to investment decisions than ever before. To survive in the fierce competition, it has become increasingly urgent for investors to combine multi-source knowledge and evaluate the companies’ true value efficiently. For this, a rule-based ontology reasoning method is proposed to support steel companies’ value assessment. Considering the delay in financial disclosure and based on cost-benefit analysis, this paper introduces the supply chain enterprises financial analysis and constructs the ontology model used to value the value of steel company. In addition, domain knowledge is formally expressed with the help of Web Ontology Language (OWL) language and SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) rules. Finally, a case study on a steel company in China proved the effectiveness of the method we proposed.

Keywords: Financial ontology, steel company, supply chain, ontology reasoning.

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Authors: Roman Novak, Matjaz Vencelj

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The angular distribution of Compton scattering of two quanta originating in the annihilation of a positron with an electron is investigated as a quantum key distribution (QKD) mechanism in the gamma spectral range. The geometry of coincident Compton scattering is observed on the two sides as a way to obtain partially correlated readings on the quantum channel. We derive the noise probability density function of a conceptually equivalent prepare and measure quantum channel in order to evaluate the limits of the concept in terms of the device secrecy capacity and estimate it at roughly 1.9 bits per 1 000 annihilation events. The high error rate is well above the tolerable error rates of the common reconciliation protocols; therefore, the proposed key agreement protocol by public discussion requires key reconciliation using classical error-correcting codes. We constructed a prototype device based on the readily available monolithic detectors in the least complex setup.

Keywords: Compton scattering, gamma-ray polarization, quantumcryptography, quantum key distribution

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Authors: Md Abdullah Al Faruque

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A very large percentage of bridge failures are attributed to scouring around bridge piers and this directly influences public safety. Experiments are carried out in a 12-m long rectangular open channel flume made of transparent tempered glass. A 300 mm thick bed made up of sand particles is leveled horizontally to create the test bed and a 50 mm hollow plastic cylinder is used as a model bridge pier. Tests are carried out with varying flow depths and velocities. Data points of various scour parameters such as scour depth, width, and length are collected based on different flow conditions and visual observations of changes in the stream bed downstream the bridge pier are also made as the scour progresses. Result shows that all three major flow characteristics (flow depth, Froude number and densimetric Froude number) have one way or other affect the scour profile.

Keywords: Bridge pier scour, densimetric Froude number, flow depth, Froude Number, sand.

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Authors: Sheam-Chyun Lin, Wei-Kai Chen, Hung-Cheng Yen, Yung-Jen Cheng, Yu-Cheng Chen

Abstract:

Result from the constant dwindle in natural resources, the alternative way to reduce the costs in our daily life would be urgent to be found in the near future. As the ancient technique based on the theory of solar chimney since roman times, the double-skin façade are simply composed of two large glass panels in purpose of daylighting and also natural ventilation in the daytime. Double-skin façade is generally installed on the exterior side of buildings as function as the window, so there is always a huge amount of passive solar energy the façade would receive to induce the airflow every sunny day. Therefore, this article imposes a domestic double-skin window for residential usage and attempts to improve the volume flow rate inside the cavity between the panels by the frame geometry design, the installation of outlet guide plate and the solar energy collection system. Note that the numerical analyses are applied to investigate the characteristics of flow field, and the boundary conditions in the simulation are totally based on the practical experiment of the original prototype. Then we redesign the prototype from the knowledge of the numerical results and fluid dynamic theory, and later the experiments of modified prototype will be conducted to verify the simulation results. The velocities at the inlet of each case are increase by 5%, 45% and 15% from the experimental data, and also the numerical simulation results reported 20% improvement in volume flow rate both for the frame geometry design and installation of outlet guide plate.

Keywords: Solar energy, Double-skin façades, Thermal buoyancy, Fluid machinery.

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Authors: Najiba Ouled Omar, Azza Harbaoui, Henda Ben Ghezala

Abstract:

Current research practices sentiment analysis with a focus on social networks, DEfi Fouille de Texte (DEFT) (Text Mining Challenge) evaluation campaign focuses on opinion mining and sentiment analysis on social networks, especially social network Twitter. It aims to confront the systems produced by several teams from public and private research laboratories. DEFT offers participants the opportunity to work on regularly renewed themes and proposes to work on opinion mining in several editions. The purpose of this article is to scrutinize and analyze the works relating to opinions mining and sentiment analysis in the Twitter social network realized by DEFT. It examines the tasks proposed by the organizers of the challenge and the methods used by the participants.

Keywords: Opinion mining, sentiment analysis, emotion, polarity, annotation, OSEE, figurative language, DEFT, Twitter, Tweet.

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Authors: Domenico Chizzoniti, Monica Moscatelli, Letizia Cattani, Piero Favino, Luca Preis

Abstract:

A settlement strategy is to anticipate and respond the needs of existing and future communities through the provision of primary health care facilities in marginalized areas. Access to a health care network is important to improving healthcare coverage, often lacking, in developing countries. The study explores that a good sanitary system strategy of rural contexts brings advantages to an existing settlement: improving transport, communication, water and social facilities. The objective of this paper is to define a possible methodology to implement primary health care facilities in disadvantaged areas of emerging countries. In this research, we analyze the case study of Lauro de Freitas, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Bahia, part of the Metropolitan Region of Salvador, with an area of 57,662 km² and 194.641 inhabitants. The health localization system in Lauro de Freitas is an integrated process that involves not only geographical aspects, but also a set of factors: population density, epidemiological data, allocation of services, road networks, and more. Data were collected also using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to the local population. Synthesized data suggest that moving away from the coast where there is the greatest concentration of population and services, a network of primary health care facilities is able to improve the living conditions of small-dispersed communities. Based on the health service needs of populations, we have developed a methodological approach that is particularly useful in rural and remote contexts in emerging countries.

Keywords: Primary health care, developing countries, policy health planning, settlement strategy.

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Authors: Batin Latif Aylak, Bernd Noche

Abstract:

Overhead conveyor systems satisfy by their simple
construction, wide application range and their full compatibility with
other manufacturing systems, which are designed according to
international standards. Ultra-light overhead conveyor systems are
rope-based conveying systems with individually driven vehicles. The
vehicles can move automatically on the rope and this can be realized
by energy and signals. Crossings are realized by switches. Overhead
conveyor systems are particularly used in the automotive industry but
also at post offices. Overhead conveyor systems always must be
integrated with a logistical process by finding the best way for a
cheaper material flow and in order to guarantee precise and fast
workflows. With their help, any transport can take place without
wasting ground and space, without excessive company capacity, lost
or damaged products, erroneous delivery, endless travels and without
wasting time. Ultra-light overhead conveyor systems provide optimal
material flow, which produces profit and saves time. This article
illustrates the advantages of the structure of the ultra-light overhead
conveyor systems in logistics applications and explains the steps of
their system design. After an illustration of the steps, currently
available systems on the market will be shown by means of their
technical characteristics. Due to their simple construction, demands
to an ultra-light overhead conveyor system will be illustrated.

Keywords: Logistics, material flow, overhead conveyor.

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