Search results for: youth economic discomfort index.

Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Ken Yeh, Cheng-Wu Chen, Han-Hsi Liang

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The sanitary sewerage connection rate becomes an important indicator of advanced cities. Following the construction of sanitary sewerages, the maintenance and management systems are required for keeping pipelines and facilities functioning well. These maintenance tasks often require sewer workers to enter the manholes and the pipelines, which are confined spaces short of natural ventilation and full of hazardous substances. Working in sewers could be easily exposed to a risk of adverse health effects. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level of noncarcinogenic health risk assessment of sewer workers. On the basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances in sewers and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity and mortality of the adverse health effects. The provision of the morbidity and mortality rates of the related diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.

Keywords: Bayesian belief networks, sanitary sewerage, healthrisk assessment, hazard quotient, target organ-specific hazard index.

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Authors: W. A. Hamd Alla, E. M. Shalaby, R. A. Dawood, A. A. Zohry

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A field experiment was carried out at Arab El- Awammer Research Station, Agric. Res. Center. Assiut Governorate during summer seasons of 2013 and 2014. The present study assessed the effect of cowpea with maize intercropping on yield and its components. The experiment comprised of three treatments (sole cowpea, sole maize and cowpea-maize intercrop). The experimental design was a randomized complete block with four replications. Results indicated that intercropped maize plants with cowpea, exhibited greater potentiality and resulted in higher values of most of the studied criteria viz., plant height, number of ears/plant, number of rows/ear, number of grains/row, grains weight/ear, 100–grain weight and straw and grain yields. Fresh and dry forage yields of cowpea were lower in intercropping with maize than sole. Furthermore, the combined of the two seasons revealed that the total Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) between cowpea and maize was 1.65. The Aggressivity (A) maize was 0.45 and cowpea was -0.45. This showed that maize was the dominant crop, whereas cowpea was the dominated. The Competitive Ratio (CR) indicated that maize more competitive than cowpea, maize was 1.75 and cowpea was 0.57. The Actual Yield Loss (AYL) maize was 0.05 and cowpea was -0.40. The Monetary Advantage Index (MAI) was 2360.80.

Keywords: Intercropping, cowpea, maize, land equivalent ratio (LER).

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Authors: Fauzi Jarushi, S. AlKaabim, Paul Cosentino

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The Standard Penetration Test (SPT) is the most common in situ test for soil investigations. On the other hand, the Cone Penetration Test (CPT) is considered one of the best investigation tools. Due to the fast and accurate results that can be obtained it complaints the SPT in many applications like field explorations, design parameters, and quality control assessments. Many soil index and engineering properties have been correlated to both of SPT and CPT. Various foundation design methods were developed based on the outcome of these tests. Therefore it is vital to correlate these tests to each other so that either one of the tests can be used in the absence of the other, especially for preliminary evaluation and design purposes. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the SPT and CPT for different type of sandy soils in Florida. Data for this research were collected from number of projects sponsored by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), six sites served as the subject of SPT-CPT correlations. The correlations were established between the cone resistance (qc), sleeve friction (fs) and the uncorrected SPT blow counts (N) for various soils. A positive linear relationship was found between qc, fs and N for various sandy soils. In general, qc versus N showed higher correlation coefficients than fs versus N. qc/N ratios were developed for different soil types and compared to literature values, the results of this research revealed higher ratios than literature values.

Keywords: In situ tests, Correlation, SPT, CPT.

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Authors: Aelita Skarzauskiene, Monika Maciuliene

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In this paper, we conduct a systematic survey of urban communities in Lithuania to evaluate their potential to co-create collective intelligence or “civic intelligence” applying Digital Co-creation Index methodology that includes different socio-technological indicators. Civic intelligence is a form of collective intelligence that refers to the group’s capacity to perceive societal problems and to address them effectively. The research focuses on evaluation of diverse organizational designs that increase efficient collective performance. The current scientific project advanced the state of the art by evaluating the basic preconditions in the urban communities through which the collective intelligence is being co-created under the systemic manner. The research subject is the “bottom up” digital enabled urban platforms, initiated by Lithuanian public organizations, civic movements or business entities. The web-based monitoring results obtained by applying a social indices calculation methodology and Pearson correlation analysis provided the information about the potential and limits of the urban communities and what possible changes need to be implemented to overcome the limitations.

Keywords: Computer supported collaboration, co-creation, collective intelligence, socio-technological system, networked society.

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Authors: M. Victor Jose, V. Seenivasagam

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This paper describes a logical method to enhance security on the grid computing to restrict the misuse of the grid resources. This method is an economic and efficient one to avoid the usage of the special devices. The security issues, techniques and solutions needed to provide a secure grid computing environment are described. A well defined process for security management among the resource accesses and key holding algorithm is also proposed. In this method, the identity management, access control and authorization and authentication are effectively handled.

Keywords: Grid security, Irregular binary series, Key holding mechanism, Resource identity, Secure resource access.

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Authors: Hassnen M. Jafer, W. Atherton, F. Ruddock, E. Loffill

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This study represents the results of an experimental work using two types of fly ashes as a cement replacement in soft soil stabilisation. The fly ashes (FA1 and FA2) used in this study are by-products resulting from an incineration processes between 800 and 1200 ˚C. The stabilised soil in this study was an intermediate plasticity silty clayey soil with medium organic matter content. The experimental works were initially conducted on soil treated with different percentages of FA1 (0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15%) to identify the optimum FA1 content. Then FA1 was chemically activated by FA2 which has high alkalinity by blending the optimum content of FA1 with different portions of FA2. The improvement levels were evaluated dependent on the results obtained from consistency limits and compaction tests along with the results of unconfined compressive strength (UCS) tests which were conducted on specimens of soil treated with FA1 and FA2 and exposed to different periods of curing (zero, 7, 14, and 28 days). The results indicated that the FA1 and FA2 used in this study effectively improved the physical and geotechnical properties of the soft soil where the index of plasticity (IP) was decreased significantly from 21 to 13.17 with 12% of FA1; however, there was a slight increase in IP with the use of FA2. Meanwhile, 12% of FA1 was identified as the optimum percentage improving the UCS of stabilised soil significantly. Furthermore, FA2 was found effective as a chemical activator to FA1 where the UCS was improved significantly after using FA2.

Keywords: Soft soil stabilisation, waste materials, unconfined compressive strength.

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Authors: Nadezhda Nikolaeva, Tatyana Alexandrova, Alexandr Alexandrov

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Processing of high-silicon bauxite on the base of the traditional clinkering method is related to high power consumption and capital investments, which makes production of alumina from those ores non-competitive in terms of basic economic showings. For these reasons, development of technological solutions enabling to process bauxites with various chemical and mineralogical structures efficiently with low level of thermal power consumption is important. Flow sheet of the studies on washability of ores from the Timanskoe and the Severo-Onezhskoe deposits is on the base of the flotation method.

Keywords: Low-quality bauxite, resource-saving technology, optimization, aluminum, conditioning of composition, separation characteristics.

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Authors: Mohammad Abdallah

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Due to the constant increase in terrorist attacks, the research and engineering communities have given significant attention to building performance under explosions. This paper presents a methodology for studying and simulating the dynamic responses of steel structures during external detonations, particularly for accurately investigating the impact of incrementing charge weight on the members total behavior, resistance and failure. Prediction damage method was introduced to evaluate the damage level of the steel members based on five scenarios of explosions. Johnson–Cook strength and failure model have been used as well as ABAQUS finite element code to simulate the explicit dynamic analysis, and antecedent field tests were used to verify the acceptance and accuracy of the proposed material strength and failure model. Based on the structural response, evaluation criteria such as deflection, vertical displacement, drift index, and damage level; the obtained results show the vulnerability of steel columns and un-braced steel frames which are designed and optimized to carry dead and live load to resist and endure blast loading.

Keywords: Steel structure, blast load, terrorist attacks, charge weight, damage level.

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Authors: Debashree Guha, Debjani Chakraborty

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The aim of this paper is to adopt a compromise ratio (CR) methodology for fuzzy multi-attribute single-expert decision making proble. In this paper, the rating of each alternative has been described by linguistic terms, which can be expressed as triangular fuzzy numbers. The compromise ratio method for fuzzy multi-attribute single expert decision making has been considered here by taking the ranking index based on the concept that the chosen alternative should be as close as possible to the ideal solution and as far away as possible from the negative-ideal solution simultaneously. From logical point of view, the distance between two triangular fuzzy numbers also is a fuzzy number, not a crisp value. Therefore a fuzzy distance measure, which is itself a fuzzy number, has been used here to calculate the difference between two triangular fuzzy numbers. Now in this paper, with the help of this fuzzy distance measure, it has been shown that the compromise ratio is a fuzzy number and this eases the problem of the decision maker to take the decision. The computation principle and the procedure of the compromise ratio method have been described in detail in this paper. A comparative analysis of the compromise ratio method previously proposed [1] and the newly adopted method have been illustrated with two numerical examples.

Keywords: Compromise ratio method, Fuzzy multi-attributesingle-expert decision making, Fuzzy number, Linguistic variable

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Authors: Ren-Jieh Kuo, Chun-Shou Huang

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The research of juice flavor forecasting has become more important in China. Due to the fast economic growth in China, many different kinds of juices have been introduced to the market. If a beverage company can understand their customers’ preference well, the juice can be served more attractive. Thus, this study intends to introducing the basic theory and computing process of grapes juice flavor forecasting based on support vector regression (SVR). Applying SVR, BPN, and LR to forecast the flavor of grapes juice in real data shows that SVR is more suitable and effective at predicting performance.

Keywords: Flavor forecasting, artificial neural networks, support vector regression, grape juice flavor.

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Authors: Valerio D’Andrea

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The GERmanium Detector Array (GERDA) experiment, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) of INFN, searches for 0νββ of 76Ge. Germanium diodes enriched to ∼ 86 % in the double beta emitter 76Ge(enrGe) are exposed being both source and detectors of 0νββ decay. Neutrinoless double beta decay is considered a powerful probe to address still open issues in the neutrino sector of the (beyond) Standard Model of particle Physics. Since 2013, just after the completion of the first part of its experimental program (Phase I), the GERDA setup has been upgraded to perform its next step in the 0νββ searches (Phase II). Phase II aims to reach a sensitivity to the 0νββ decay half-life larger than 1026 yr in about 3 years of physics data taking. This exposing a detector mass of about 35 kg of enrGe and with a background index of about 10^−3 cts/(keV·kg·yr). One of the main new implementations is the liquid argon scintillation light read-out, to veto those events that only partially deposit their energy both in Ge and in the surrounding LAr. In this paper, the GERDA Phase II expected goals, the upgrade work and few selected features from the 2015 commissioning and 2016 calibration runs will be presented. The main Phase I achievements will be also reviewed.

Keywords: Gerda, double beta decay, germanium, LNGS.

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Authors: T. Atan, T. Ayyıldız, P. Akyol

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The purpose of this study was to examine and compare physical fitness values of students engaged in different team sport branches Totally 60 female, and 60 male athletes, that 20 athletes in each branch which are volleyball, basketball and football participated the study as a volunteer. The mean ages of female and male athletes were 21.20 ±1.87 and 21.61 ± 1.61 respectively. Age, height, body weight, body mass index, flexibility, body fat percentage, 30m sprint, maximum oxygen consumption capacity (MaxVO2) and drop jump values were measured. As a result of measurements, significant differences were found in height, weight, MaxVO2, shuttle run speed between different sports branches in female athletes. In male athletes, height, body weight, flexibility, 30m split speed and drop jump values were found significantly different between sports branches. As a conclusion and as a literature, it can be said that structure of body has to be appropriate with the engaged sports branch. Physical fitness values that required the sports branches can be expressed clearly by increasing the number of subjects.

Keywords: Volleyball, basketball, football, athletes, physical fitness.

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Authors: Gbenga M. Ayininuola, Olasunkanmi A. Adekitan

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Calcined kaolinite clay (CKC) is a pozzolanic material that is current drawing research attention. This work investigates the conditions for the best performance of a CKC from a kaolinite clay source in Ajebo, Abeokuta (southwest Nigeria) known for its commercial availability. Samples from this source were subjected to X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). XRD shows that kaolinite is the main mineral in the clay source. This mineral is responsible for the pozzolanic behavior of CKC. DSC indicates that the transformation from the clay to CKC occurred between 550 and 750 ^oC. Using this temperature range, clay samples were milled and different CKC samples were produced in an electric muffle furnace using temperatures of 550, 600, 650, 700, 750 and 800 ^oC respectively for 1 hour each. This was also repeated for 2 hours. The degree of de-hydroxylation (d_tg) and strength activity index (SAI) were also determined for each of the CKC samples. The d_tg and SAI tests were repeated two more times for each sample and averages were taken. Results showed that peak d_tg occurred at 750 ^oC for 1 hour calcining combination (94.27%) whereas marginal differences were recorded at some lower temperatures (90.97% for 650 ^oC for 2 hours; 91.05% for 700 ^oC for 1 hour and 92.77% for 700 ^oC for 2 hours). Optimum SAI was reported at 700 ^oC for 1 hour (99.05%). Rating SAI as a better parameter than d_tg, 700 ^oC for 1 hour combination was adopted as the best calcining condition. The paper recommends the adoption of this clay source for pozzolan production by adopting the calcining conditions established in this work.

Keywords: Calcined kaolinite clay, calcination, optimum-calcining conditions, pozzolanity.

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Authors: Deniz T. Sodiri, Venkat V S S Sastry

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The paper presents an on-line recognition machine (RM) for continuous/isolated, dynamic and static gestures that arise in Flight Deck Officer (FDO) training. RM is based on generic pattern recognition framework. Gestures are represented as templates using summary statistics. The proposed recognition algorithm exploits temporal and spatial characteristics of gestures via dynamic programming and Markovian process. The algorithm predicts corresponding index of incremental input data in the templates in an on-line mode. Accumulated consistency in the sequence of prediction provides a similarity measurement (Score) between input data and the templates. The algorithm provides an intuitive mechanism for automatic detection of start/end frames of continuous gestures. In the present paper, we consider isolated gestures. The performance of RM is evaluated using four datasets - artificial (W TTest), hand motion (Yang) and FDO (tracker, vision-based ). RM achieves comparable results which are in agreement with other on-line and off-line algorithms such as hidden Markov model (HMM) and dynamic time warping (DTW). The proposed algorithm has the additional advantage of providing timely feedback for training purposes.

Keywords: On-line Recognition Algorithm, IsolatedDynamic/Static Gesture Recognition, On-line Markovian/DynamicProgramming, Training in Virtual Environments.

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Authors: S. Khali, R. Nebbali, K. Bouhadef

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A numerical investigation is performed for non Newtonian fluids flow between two concentric cylinders. The D2Q9 lattice Boltzmann model developed from the Bhatangar-Gross-Krook (LBGK) approximation is used to obtain the flow field for fluids obeying to the power-law model. The inner and outer cylinders rotate in the same and the opposite direction while the end walls are maintained at rest. The combined effects of the Reynolds number (Re) of the inner and outer cylinders, the radius ratio (η) as well as the power-law index (n) on the flow characteristics are analyzed for an annular space of a finite aspect ratio (Γ). Two flow modes are obtained: a primary mode (laminar stable regime) and a secondary mode (laminar unstable regime). The so obtained flow structures are different from one mode to another. The transition critical Reynolds number Re_c from the primary to the secondary mode is analyzed for the co-courant and counter-courant flows. This critical value increases as n increases. The prediction of the swirling flow of non Newtonians fluids in axisymmetric geometries is shown in the present work.

Keywords: Taylor-Couette flows, non Newtonian fluid, Lattice Boltzmann method.

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Authors: Qasem Qananwah, Ahmad Dagamseh, Hiam AlQuran, Khalid Shaker Ibrahim

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Blood pressure helps the physicians greatly to have a deep insight into the cardiovascular system. The determination of individual blood pressure is a standard clinical procedure considered for cardiovascular system problems. The conventional techniques to measure blood pressure (e.g. cuff method) allows a limited number of readings for a certain period (e.g. every 5-10 minutes). Additionally, these systems cause turbulence to blood flow; impeding continuous blood pressure monitoring, especially in emergency cases or critically ill persons. In this paper, the most important statistical features in the photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals were extracted to estimate the blood pressure noninvasively. PPG signals from more than 40 subjects were measured and analyzed and 12 features were extracted. The features were fed to principal component analysis (PCA) to find the most important independent features that have the highest correlation with blood pressure. The results show that the stiffness index means and standard deviation for the beat-to-beat heart rate were the most important features. A model representing both features for Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) was obtained using a statistical regression technique. Surface fitting is used to best fit the series of data and the results show that the error value in estimating the SBP is 4.95% and in estimating the DBP is 3.99%.

Keywords: Blood pressure, noninvasive optical system, PCA, continuous monitoring.

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Authors: Najaf Hedayat

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Food and fibre production in arid and semi-arid regions has emerged as one of the major challenges for various socio-economic and political reasons such as the food security and self-sufficiency. Productive use of the renewable water resources has risen on top ofthe decision-making agenda. For this reason, efficient operation and maintenance of modern irrigation and drainage schemes become part and parcel and indispensible reality in agricultural policy making arena. The aim of this paper is to investigate the complexity of operating and maintaining such schemes, mainly focussing on challenges which enhance and opportunities that impedsustainable food and fibre production. The methodology involved using secondary data complemented byroutine observations and stakeholders views on issues that influence the O&M in the Dez command area. The SPSS program was used as an analytical framework for data analysis and interpretation.Results indicate poor application efficiency in most croplands, much of which is attributed to deficient operation of conveyance and distribution canals. These in turn, are reportedly linked to inadequate maintenance of the pumping stations and hydraulic structures like turnouts,flumes and other control systems particularly in the secondary and tertiary canals. Results show that the aforementioned deficiencies have been the major impediment to establishing regular flow toward the farm gates which subsequently undermine application efficiency and tillage operationsat farm level. Results further show that accumulative impact of such deficiencies has been the major causes of poorcrop yield and quality that deem production system in these croplands uneconomic. Results further show that the present state might undermine the sustainability of agricultural system in the command area. The overall conclusion being that present water management is unlikely to be responsive to challenges that the sector faces. And in the absence of coherent measures to shift the status quo situation in favour of more productive resource use, it would be hard to fulfil the objectives of the National Economic and Socio-cultural Development Plans.

Keywords: renewable water resources, Dez scheme, irrigationand drainage, sustainable crop production, O&M

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Authors: Eko Budi Santoso, Kazia Laturette, Stanislaus Adnanto Mastan

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This study aims to examine the association between disclosure of social responsibility and tax aggressiveness in developing countries, namely Thailand. This is due to the increasing trend of disclosure of social responsibility in developing countries, even though this disclosure of information is still voluntary. On the other hand, developing countries have low taxation rate and investor protection infrastructures that allow the disclosure of social responsibility to be used opportunistically as a tool to fool the attainment of interests. This study also examines the role of assurance on the association between corporate social responsibility disclosure and tax aggressiveness. The assurance aims to provide confidence that the disclosure of social responsibility by the company is valid. This research builds an index to measure the disclosure of social responsibility based on the rules issued by the innovative Global Reporting. The results of the study are based on a sample of publicly traded companies in Thailand, which showed a positive association between disclosure of corporate social responsibility and tax aggressiveness, but it was further discovered that these results were mitigated by the existence of assurance against disclosure of corporate social responsibility. The results of this study indicate that the disclosure of corporate social responsibility can show that the company cares about the issue of social responsibility but does not automatically make the company as one that holds ethical values ​​in its business practices.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility disclosure, tax aggressiveness, sustainability assurance, business ethics.

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Authors: Shoji Katagiri

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This study deals with wage inequality in organization and shows the relationship between ICT and wage in organization. To do so, we incorporate ICT’s factors in organization into our model. ICT’s factors are efficiencies of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Computer Assisted Design/Computer Assisted Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), and NETWORK. The improvement of ICT’s factors decrease the learning cost to solve problem pertaining to the hierarchy in organization. The improvement of NETWORK increases the wage inequality within workers and decreases within managers and entrepreneurs. The improvements of CAD/CAM and ERP increases the wage inequality within all agent, and partially increase it between the agents in hierarchy.

Keywords: Endogenous economic growth, ICT, inequality, capital accumulation, technology.

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Authors: S. S. Dol

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Improvement in vehicle efficiency can reduce global fossil fuels consumptions. For that sole reason, Shell Global Corporation introduces Shell Eco-marathon where student teams require to design, build and test energy-efficient vehicles. Hence, this paper will focus on design processes and the development of a fuel economic vehicle which satisfying the requirements of the competition. In this project, three components are designed and analyzed, which are the body, chassis and powertrain of the vehicle. Optimum design for each component is produced through simulation analysis and theoretical calculation in which improvement is made as the project progresses.

Keywords: Energy efficient vehicle, drag force, chassis, powertrain.

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Authors: Abdel-Samad M. Ali, Ali A. Hadi Al-Shawi

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Discrimination against women and girls impairs progress in all domains of development articulated either in the framework of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Paper aspires to create greater awareness among researchers and policy makers of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them within the Arab region. The study reveals how Arab countries are closing in on gender-oriented targets of the third and fifth MDGs. While some countries can claim remarkable achievements particularly in girls’ equality in education, there is still a long way to go to keep Arab’s commitments to current and future generations in other countries and subregions especially in the economic participation or in the political empowerment of women. No country has closed or even expected to close the economic participation gap or the political empowerment gap. This should provide the incentive to keep moving forward in the Post-2015 Agenda. Findings of the study prove that while Arab states have uneven achievements in reducing maternal mortality, Arab women remain at a disadvantage in the labour market. For Arab region especially LDCs, improving maternal health is part of the unmet agenda for the post-2015 period and still calls for intensified efforts and procedures. While antenatal care coverage is improving across the Arab region, progress is marginal in LDCs. To achieve proper realization of gender equality and empowerment of women in the Arab region in the post-2015 agenda, the study presents critical key challenges to be addressed. These challenges include: Negative cultural norms and stereotypes; violence against women and girls; early marriage and child labour; women’s limited control over their own bodies; limited ability of women to generate their own income and control assets and property; gender-based discrimination in law and in practice; women’s unequal participation in private and public decision making autonomy; and limitations in data. However, in all Arab states, gender equality must be integrated as a goal across all issues, particularly those that affect the future of a country.

Keywords: Gender, equity, millennium development goals, post-2015 development agenda.

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Authors: M.Mirzakhani, M.R.Ardakani , A.Aeene Band , A.H. Shirani Rad, F.Rejali

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In order to evaluate the Effects of dual inoculation of Azotobacter and Mycorrhiza with Nitrogen and Phosphorus levels on yield and yield components of spring safflower, this study was carried out in field of Farahan university in Markazi province in 2007. A factorial in a randomized complete block design with three replications was used inoculation of Azotobacter (with inoculation and without inoculation) and Mycorrhiza (with inoculation and without inoculation ) with Nitrogen and Phosphorus levels [F0= N0+ P0 (kg.ha-1), F1= N50+ P25(kg.ha-1), F2= N100+ P50(kg.ha-1) and F3= N150+ P75 (kg.ha-1)] on spring safflower (cultivar IL-111). In this study characteristics such as: Harvest index, Hectolitre weight, Root dry weight, Seed yield, Mycorrhizal Colonization Root, Number of days to maturity were assessed. Results indicated that treatment (A0M1F3) with grain yield (1556 kg.ha-1) and treatment (A0M1F0) with grain yield (918 kg.ha-1) were significantly superior to the other treatments and according to calculated, inoculation seeds in plantig date with Azotobacter and Mycorrhiza to cause increase grain yield about 5/38 percentage. we can by inoculation safflower seeds with Azotobacter and Mycorrhiza too easily at the time sowing date. The purpose of this research, study and evaluation the role of biological fixation N and P, to provide for feeds plants.

Keywords: Spring safflower, grain yield, inoculation, Azotobacter and Mycorrhiza.

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Authors: M. Mahboubkhah, H. Fayazfar

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In this research, Forming Limit Diagrams for supertension sheet metals which are using in automobile industry have been obtained. The exerted strains to sheet metals have been measured with four different methods and the errors of each method have also been represented. These methods have been compared with together and the most efficient and economic way of extracting of the exerted strains to sheet metals has been introduced. In this paper total error and uncertainty of FLD extraction procedures have been derived. Determination of the measurement uncertainty in extracting of FLD has a great importance in design and analysis of the sheet metal forming process.

Keywords: Forming Limit Diagram, Major and Minor Strain, Measurement Uncertainty.

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Authors: Godwin A. Otogo, Sansanee Wangvoralak, Graham J. Pierce, Lee C. Hastie, Beth Scott

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The squid Loligo forbesii is suspected to be an important species in marine food webs, as it can strongly impact its prey and be impacted upon by predation, competition, fishing and/or climate variability. To quantify these impacts in the food web, the measurement of its trophic position and ecological role within well-studied ecosystems is essential. An Ecopath model was balanced and run for the Moray Firth ecosystem and was used to investigate the significance of this squid’s trophic roles. The network analysis routine included in Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) was used to estimate trophic interaction, system indicators (health condition and developmental stage) and food web features. Results indicated that within the Moray Firth squid occupy a top trophic position in the food web and also a major prey item for many other species. Results from Omnivory Index (OI) showed that squid is a generalized feeder transferring energy across wide trophic levels and is more important as a predator than that as a prey in the Moray Firth ecosystem. The results highlight the importance of taking squid into account in the management of Europe’s living marine resources.

Keywords: Ecopath, Loligo forbesii, moray firth, squid, trophic-level.

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Authors: Lindiwe O. K. Mabuza, Alan C. Brent, Maxwell Mapako

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Technology transfer of renewable energy technologies is very often unsuccessful in the developing world. Aside from challenges that have social, economic, financial, institutional and environmental dimensions, technology transfer has generally been misunderstood, and largely seen as mere delivery of high tech equipment from developed to developing countries or within the developing world from R&D institutions to society. Technology transfer entails much more, including, but not limited to: entire systems and their component parts, know-how, goods and services, equipment, and organisational and managerial procedures. Means to facilitate the successful transfer of energy technologies, including the sharing of lessons are subsequently extremely important for developing countries as they grapple with increasing energy needs to sustain adequate economic growth and development. Improving the success of technology transfer is an ongoing process as more projects are implemented, new problems are encountered and new lessons are learnt. Renewable energy is also critical to improve the quality of lives of the majority of people in developing countries. In rural areas energy is primarily traditional biomass. The consumption activities typically occur in an inefficient manner, thus working against the notion of sustainable development. This paper explores the implementation of technology transfer in the developing world (sub-Saharan Africa). The focus is necessarily on RETs since most rural energy initiatives are RETs-based. Additionally, it aims to highlight some lessons drawn from the cited RE projects and identifies notable differences where energy technology transfer was judged to be successful. This is done through a literature review based on a selection of documented case studies which are judged against the definition provided for technology transfer. This paper also puts forth research recommendations that might contribute to improved technology transfer in the developing world. Key findings of this paper include: Technology transfer cannot be complete without satisfying pre-conditions such as: affordability, maintenance (and associated plans), knowledge and skills transfer, appropriate know how, ownership and commitment, ability to adapt technology, sound business principles such as financial viability and sustainability, project management, relevance and many others. It is also shown that lessons are learnt in both successful and unsuccessful projects.

Keywords: Technology transfer, technology management, renewable energy, sustainable development.

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Authors: H. Baskar, A. S. Chakravarthy, P. Garg, D. Goel, A. S. Raj, K. Kumar, Lakshya, R. Parvatham, V. Sushant, B. Kumar Rout

Abstract:

In this paper, we present a computer vision task called nighttime dehaze-enhancement. This task aims to jointly perform dehazing and lightness enhancement. Our task fundamentally differs from nighttime dehazing – our goal is to jointly dehaze and enhance scenes, while nighttime dehazing aims to dehaze scenes under a nighttime setting. In order to facilitate further research on this task, we release a benchmark dataset called Reside-β Night dataset, consisting of 4122 nighttime hazed images from 2061 scenes and 2061 ground truth images. Moreover, we also propose a network called NDENet (Nighttime Dehaze-Enhancement Network), which jointly performs dehazing and low-light enhancement in an end-to-end manner. We evaluate our method on the proposed benchmark and achieve Structural Index Similarity (SSIM) of 0.8962 and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) of 26.25. We also compare our network with other baseline networks on our benchmark to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. We believe that nighttime dehaze-enhancement is an essential task particularly for autonomous navigation applications, and hope that our work will open up new frontiers in research. The code for our network is made publicly available.

Keywords: Dehazing, image enhancement, nighttime, computer vision.

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Authors: Zoran Veršić, Josip Galić, Marin Binički, Lucija Stepinac

Abstract:

With the current increase in CO2 emissions and global warming, the sustainability of both existing and new solutions must be assessed on a wide scale. As the implementation of closed cavity façades (CCF) is on the rise, various factors must be included in the analysis of new types of CCF. This paper aims to cover the relevant factors included in the sustainability assessment of new types of CCF. Several mathematical models are being used to describe the physical behavior of CCF. Depending on the type of CCF, they cover the main factors which affect the durability of the façade: thermal behavior of various elements in the façade, stress and deflection of the glass panels, pressure and the moisture control in the cavity. CCF itself represents a complex system in which all mentioned factors must be considered mutually. Still, the façade is only an envelope of a more complex system, the building. Choice of the façade dictates the heat loss and the heat gain, thermal comfort of inner space, natural lighting, and ventilation. Annual energy consumption for heating, cooling, lighting, and maintenance costs will present the operational advantages or disadvantages of the chosen façade system in economic and environmental aspects. Still, the only operational viewpoint is not all-inclusive. As the building codes constantly demand higher energy efficiency as well as transfer to renewable energy sources, the ratio of embodied and lifetime operational energy footprint of buildings is changing. With the drop in operational energy CO2 emissions, embodied energy emissions present a larger and larger share in the lifecycle emissions of the building. Taking all into account, the sustainability assessment of a façade, as well as other major building elements, should include all mentioned factors during the lifecycle of an element. The challenge of such an approach is a timescale. Depending on the climatic conditions on the building site, the expected lifetime of a glazed façade can exceed 25 years. In such a timespan, some of the factors can be estimated more precisely than the others. However, the ones depending on the socio-economic conditions are more likely to be harder to predict than the natural ones like the climatic load. This work recognizes and summarizes the relevant factors needed for the assessment of a new type of CCF, considering the entire lifetime of a façade element in an environmental aspect.

Keywords: Assessment, closed cavity façade, life cycle, sustainability.

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Authors: H. C. Chinwenyi, H. D. Ibrahim, F. A. Ahmed

Abstract:

In modern financial mathematics, valuing derivatives such as options is often a tedious task. This is simply because their fair and correct prices in the future are often probabilistic. This paper examines three different Stochastic Differential Equation (SDE) models in finance; the Constant Elasticity of Variance (CEV) model, the Balck-Karasinski model, and the Heston model. The various Martingales option price valuation formulas for these three models were obtained using the replicating portfolio method. Also, the numerical solution of the derived Martingales options price valuation equations for the SDEs models was carried out using the Monte Carlo method which was implemented using MATLAB. Furthermore, results from the numerical examples using published data from the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), all share index data show the effect of increase in the underlying asset value (stock price) on the value of the European Put Option for these models. From the results obtained, we see that an increase in the stock price yields a decrease in the value of the European put option price. Hence, this guides the option holder in making a quality decision by not exercising his right on the option.

Keywords: Equivalent Martingale Measure, European Put Option, Girsanov Theorem, Martingales, Monte Carlo method, option price valuation, option price valuation formula.

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Authors: Dávid Csercsik, Péter Kádár

Abstract:

In the case of the proposed method, the problem is parallelized by considering multiple possible mode of operation profiles, which determine the range in which the generators operate in each period. For each of these profiles, the optimization is carried out independently, and the best resulting dispatch is chosen. For each such profile, the resulting problem is a quadratic programming (QP) problem with a potentially negative definite Q quadratic term, and constraints depending on the actual operation profile. In this paper we analyze the performance of available MATLAB optimization methods and solvers for the corresponding QP.

Keywords: Economic dispatch, optimization, quadratic programming, MATLAB.

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Authors: Bianca Schweiger, Lucile Bahnweg, Barbara Palm, Ute Steinfeld

Abstract:

The occurrence and removal of trace organic contaminants in the aquatic environment has become a focus of environmental concern. For the selective removal of carbamazepine from loaded waters molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were synthesized with carbamazepine as template. Parameters varied were the type of monomer, crosslinker, and porogen, the ratio of starting materials, and the synthesis temperature. Best results were obtained with a template to crosslinker ratio of 1:20, toluene as porogen, and methacrylic acid (MAA) as monomer. MIPs were then capable to recover carbamazepine by 93% from a 10-5 M landfill leachate solution containing also caffeine and salicylic acid. By comparison, carbamazepine recoveries of 75% were achieved using a nonimprinted polymer (NIP) synthesized under the same conditions, but without template. In landfill leachate containing solutions carbamazepine was adsorbed by 93-96% compared with an uptake of 73% by activated carbon. The best solvent for desorption was acetonitrile, with which the amount of solvent necessary and dilution with water was tested. Selected MIPs were tested for their reusability and showed good results for at least five cycles. Adsorption isotherms were prepared with carbamazepine solutions in the concentration range of 0.01 M to 5*10-6 M. The heterogeneity index showed a more homogenous binding site distribution.

Keywords: Carbamazepine, landfill leachate, removal, reuse

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