Search results for: New Product development Process

Authors: Thomas Jin-Chee Liu

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The numerical simulation of the crack welding process is reported in this paper. The thermo-electro-structural coupled-field finite element analysis is adopted to investigate the welding process of crack surfaces. In the simulation, the pressure-dependent and temperature-dependent electrical contact conditions are considered. From the results, the crack surfaces can melt and weld together under the compressive load and electric current. The contact pressure effect must be considered in the finite element analysis to obtain more practical results.

Keywords: Crack welding, contact pressure, Joule heating, finite element, coupled-field.

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Authors: Mojisola F. Oyewole, Franscisca T. Adetoro, Nkiru T. Meludu

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Moringa oleifera is a nutritious vegetable tree with varieties of potential uses, as almost every part of the Moringa oleifera tree can be used for food. This study was conducted in Oyo State, Nigeria, to find out the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified products among rural and urban dwellers. Purposive sampling was used to select two local governments’ areas. Stratified sampling technique was also used to select one community each from rural and urban areas while snowball sampling technique was used to select ten respondents each from the two communities, making a total number of forty respondents. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, Chi-square, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and regression analysis. Result from the study revealed that majority of the respondents (80%) fell within the age range of 20-49 years and 55% of them were male, 55% were married, 70% of them were Christians, 80% of them had tertiary education. The result also showed that 85% were aware of the Moringa plant and (65%) of them have consumed Moringa oleifera and the perception statements on the benefits of Moringa oleifera indicated that (52.5%) of the respondents rated Moringa oleifera to be favorable, most of them had high acceptability for Moringa egusi soup, Moringa tea, Moringa pap and yam pottage with Moringa. The result of the hypotheses testing showed that there is a significant relationship between sex of the respondents and acceptability of the diversified Moringa oleifera products (x2=6.465, p = 0.011). There is also a significant relationship between family size of the respondents level of acceptability of the Moringa oleifera products (r = 0.327, p = 0.040). Based on the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified products; the plant is of great economic importance to the populace. Therefore, there should be more public awareness through the media to enlighten people on the beneficial effects of Moringa oleifera.

Keywords: Acceptability, Moringa oleifera, Diversified, Product, Dwellers.

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Authors: Mingaleva Zhanna, Kapuskina Tatiana

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The article touches upon questions of information security in Russian Economy. It covers theoretical bases of information security and causes of its development. The theory is proved by the analysis of business activities and the main tendencies of information security development. Perm region has been chosen as the bases for the analysis, being the fastestdeveloping region that uses methods of information security in managing it economy. As a result of the study the authors of the given article have formulated their own vision of the problem of information security in various branches of economy and stated prospects of information security development and its growing role in Russian economy

Keywords: security of business, management of information security, institutional analyses.

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Authors: B. Mukanova, N. Glazyrina, S. Glazyrin

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The formulated problem of optimization of the technological process of water treatment for thermal power plants is considered in this article. The problem is of multiparametric nature. To optimize the process, namely, reduce the amount of waste water, a new technology was developed to reuse such water. A mathematical model of the technology of wastewater reuse was developed. Optimization parameters were determined. The model consists of a material balance equation, an equation describing the kinetics of ion exchange for the non-equilibrium case and an equation for the ion exchange isotherm. The material balance equation includes a nonlinear term that depends on the kinetics of ion exchange. A direct problem of calculating the impurity concentration at the outlet of the water treatment plant was numerically solved. The direct problem was approximated by an implicit point-to-point computation difference scheme. The inverse problem was formulated as relates to determination of the parameters of the mathematical model of the water treatment plant operating in non-equilibrium conditions. The formulated inverse problem was solved. Following the results of calculation the time of start of the filter regeneration process was determined, as well as the period of regeneration process and the amount of regeneration and wash water. Multi-parameter optimization of water treatment process for thermal power plants allowed decreasing the amount of wastewater by 15%.

Keywords: Direct problem, multiparametric optimization, optimization parameters, water treatment.

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Authors: Shirong Li, Huan Yan

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To help the client to select a competent agent construction enterprise (ACE), this study aims to investigate the selection standards by using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and build an evaluation mathematical model with Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). According to the outputs of literature review, four orderly levels are established within the model, taking the consideration of various agent construction models in practice. Then, the process of applying FAHP and GRA is discussed in detailed. Finally, through a case study, this paper illustrates how to apply these methods in getting the weights of each standard and the final assessment result.

Keywords: agent construction enterprise, agent constructionmodel, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, grey relational analysis

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Authors: R. Bhuvenesh, M.H. Norizaman, M.S. Abdul Manan

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Industrial surveys shows that manufacturing companies define the qualities of thermal removing process based on the dimension and physical appearance of the cutting material surface. Therefore, the roughness of the surface area of the material cut by the plasma arc cutting process and the rate of the removed material by the manual plasma arc cutting machine was importantly considered. Plasma arc cutter Selco Genesis 90 was used to cut Standard AISI 1017 Steel of 200 mm x100 mm x 6 mm manually based on the selected parameters setting. The material removal rate (MRR) was measured by determining the weight of the specimens before and after the cutting process. The surface roughness (SR) analysis was conducted using Mitutoyo CS-3100 to determine the average roughness value (Ra). Taguchi method was utilized to achieve optimum condition for both outputs studied. The microstructure analysis in the region of the cutting surface is performed using SEM. The results reveal that the SR values are inversely proportional to the MRR values. The quality of the surface roughness depends on the dross peak that occurred after the cutting process.

Keywords: Material removal rate, plasma arc cutting, surface roughness, Taguchi method

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Authors: Danielle Reichel, Antoine Druilhe, Tuan Dang

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Traditional development of wireless sensor network mote is generally based on SoC1 platform. Such method of development faces three main drawbacks: lack of flexibility in terms of development due to low resource and rigid architecture of SoC; low capability of evolution and portability versus performance if specific micro-controller architecture features are used; and the rapid obsolescence of micro-controller comparing to the long lifetime of power plants or any industrial installations. To overcome these drawbacks, we have explored a new approach of development of wireless sensor network mote using a hybrid FPGA technology. The application of such approach is illustrated through the implementation of an innovative wireless sensor network protocol called OCARI.

Keywords: Hybrid FPGA, Embedded system, Mote, flexibility, durability, OCARI protocol, SoC, Wireless Sensor Network

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Authors: Farzaneh Ahmadzadeh

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Quality control charts are very effective in detecting out of control signals but when a control chart signals an out of control condition of the process mean, searching for a special cause in the vicinity of the signal time would not always lead to prompt identification of the source(s) of the out of control condition as the change point in the process parameter(s) is usually different from the signal time. It is very important to manufacturer to determine at what point and which parameters in the past caused the signal. Early warning of process change would expedite the search for the special causes and enhance quality at lower cost. In this paper the quality variables under investigation are assumed to follow a multivariate normal distribution with known means and variance-covariance matrix and the process means after one step change remain at the new level until the special cause is being identified and removed, also it is supposed that only one variable could be changed at the same time. This research applies artificial neural network (ANN) to identify the time the change occurred and the parameter which caused the change or shift. The performance of the approach was assessed through a computer simulation experiment. The results show that neural network performs effectively and equally well for the whole shift magnitude which has been considered.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, change point estimation, monte carlo simulation, multivariate exponentially weighted movingaverage

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Authors: Nazira Kakulia, Tsotne Zhghenti

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The institutional development is one of the actual topics in economics science. New trends and directions of institutional development mostly depend on its structure and framework. Transformation of institutions is an important problem for every economy, especially for developing countries. The first research goal is to determine the importance and interactions between different institutions in Georgia. Using World Governance Indicators and Economic Freedom indexes it can be calculated the size for each institutional group. The second aim of this research is to evaluate Georgian institutional backwardness in comparison to other post-communist economies. We use statistical and econometric methods to evaluate the difference between the levels of institutional development in Georgia and in leading post-communist economies. Within the scope of this research, major findings are coefficients which are an assessment of their deviation (i.e. lag) of institutional indicators between Georgia and leading post-communist country which should be compared. The last part of the article includes analysis around the selected coefficients.

Keywords: Post-communist transition, institutions, economic growth, institutional development.

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Authors: Jin hui Kim, Hyung kwan Cho, Ji won Moon, Hoon Chang

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The purpose of this study is comparing and analysing of the financial characteristics for development methods of the urban development project in the established area, focusing on the multi-level replotting. Analysis showed that the type of the lowest expenditure was 'combination type of group-land and multi-level replotting' and the type of the highest profitability was 'multi-level replotting type'. But 'multi-level replotting type' has still risk of amount of cost for the additional architecture. In addition, we subdivided standard amount for liquidation of replotting and analysed income-expenditure flow. Analysis showed that both of 'multi-level replotting type' and 'combination type of group-land and multi-level replotting' improved profitability of project and property change ratio. However, when the standard was under a certain amount, amount of original property for the replotting was increased exponentially, and profitability of project.

Keywords: Urban development, multi-level replotting, financial characteristics, expropriation type, combination type, urban meteorology.

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Authors: C. Bisu, M. Zapciu, A. Gérard

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This paper proposes a method to vibration analysis in order to on-line monitoring and predictive maintenance during the milling process. Adapting envelope method to diagnostics and the analysis for milling tool materials is an important contribution to the qualitative and quantitative characterization of milling capacity and a step by modeling the three-dimensional cutting process. An experimental protocol was designed and developed for the acquisition, processing and analyzing three-dimensional signal. The vibration envelope analysis is proposed to detect the cutting capacity of the tool with the optimization application of cutting parameters. The research is focused on Hilbert transform optimization to evaluate the dynamic behavior of the machine/ tool/workpiece.

Keywords: diagnostics, envelope, milling, vibration

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Authors: Nam Lethanh, Bryan T. Adey

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In this paper, the potential use of an exponential hidden Markov model to model a hidden pavement deterioration process, i.e. one that is not directly measurable, is investigated. It is assumed that the evolution of the physical condition, which is the hidden process, and the evolution of the values of pavement distress indicators, can be adequately described using discrete condition states and modeled as a Markov processes. It is also assumed that condition data can be collected by visual inspections over time and represented continuously using an exponential distribution. The advantage of using such a model in decision making process is illustrated through an empirical study using real world data.

Keywords: Deterioration modeling, Exponential distribution, Hidden Markov model, Pavement management

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Authors: Mikhail V. Khachaturyan

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The article analyzes problems of improving the management systems of the ownership risks in the conditions of the transformation of the Russian economy. Among the main sources of threats business owners should highlight is the inefficiency of the implementation of business models and interaction with hired managers. In this context, it is particularly important to analyze the relationship of business models and ownership risks. The analysis of this problem appears to be relevant for a number of reasons: Firstly, the increased risk appetite of the owner directly affects the business model and the composition of his holdings; secondly, owners with significant stakes in the company are factors in the formation of particular types of risks for owners, for which relations have a significant influence on a firm's competitiveness and ultimately determines its survival; and thirdly, inefficient system of management ownership of risk is one of the main causes of mass bankruptcies, which significantly affects the stable operation of the economy as a whole. The separation of the processes of possession, disposal and use in modern organizations is the cause of not only problems in the process of interaction between the owner and managers in managing the organization as a whole, but also the asymmetric information about the kinds and forms of the main risks. Managers tend to avoid risky projects, inhibit the diversification of the organization's assets, while owners can insist on the development of such projects, with the aim not only of creating new values for themselves and consumers, but also increasing the value of the company as a result of increasing capital. In terms of separating ownership and management, evaluation of projects by the ratio of risk-yield requires preservation of the influence of the owner on the process of development and making management decisions. It is obvious that without a clearly structured system of participation of the owner in managing the risks of their business, further development is hopeless. In modern conditions of forming a risk management system, owners are compelled to compromise between the desire to increase the organization's ability to produce new value, and, consequently, increase its cost due to the implementation of risky projects and the need to tolerate the cost of lost opportunities of risk diversification. Improving the effectiveness of the management of ownership risks may also contribute to the revitalization of creditors on implementation claims to inefficient owners, which ultimately will contribute to the efficiency models of ownership control to exclude variants of insolvency. It is obvious that in modern conditions, the success of the model of the ownership of risk management and audit is largely determined by the ability and willingness of the owner to find a compromise between potential opportunities for expanding the firm's ability to create new value through risk and maintaining the current level of new value creation and an acceptable level of risk through the use of models of diversification.

Keywords: Risk management, ownership risks, economic transformation, Russian economy, management systems.

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Authors: Pradeep Kumar, Tjoon Tow Teng, Shri Chand, Kailas L. Wasewar

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The pulp and paper mill effluent is one of the high polluting effluent amongst the effluents obtained from polluting industries. All the available methods for treatment of pulp and paper mill effluent have certain drawbacks. The coagulation is one of the cheapest process for treatment of various organic effluents. Thus, the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and colour of paper mill effluent is studied using coagulation process. The batch coagulation process was performed using various coagulants like: aluminium chloride, poly aluminium chloride and copper sulphate. The initial pH of the effluent (Coagulation pH) has tremendous effect on COD and colour removal. Poly aluminium chloride (PAC) as coagulant reduced COD to 84 % and 92 % of colour was removed at an optimum pH 5 and coagulant dose of 8 ml l-1. With aluminium chloride at an optimum pH = 4 and coagulant dose of 5 g l-1, 74 % COD and 86 % colour removal were observed. The results using copper sulphate as coagulant (a less commercial coagulant) were encouraging. At an optimum pH 6 and mass loading of 5 g l-1, 76 % COD reduction and 78 % colour reduction were obtained. It was also observed that after addition of coagulant, the pH of the effluent decreases. The decrease in pH was highest for AlCl3, which was followed by PAC and CuSO4. Significant amount of COD reductions was obtained by coagulation process. Since the coagulation process is the first stage for treatment of effluent and some of the coagulant cations usually remain in the treated effluents. Thus, cation like copper may be one of the good catalyst for second stage of treatment process like wet oxidation. The copper has been found to be good oxidation catalyst then iron and aluminum.

Keywords: Aluminium based coagulants, Coagulation, Copper, PAC, Pulp and paper mill effluent, Wastewater treatment

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Authors: Zsolt János Viharos, Krisztián Balázs Kis, Imre Paniti, Gábor Belső, Péter Németh, János Farkas

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The paper presents the results and industrial applications in the production setup period estimation based on industrial data inherited from the field of polymer cutting. The literature of polymer cutting is very limited considering the number of publications. The first polymer cutting machine is known since the second half of the 20th century; however, the production of polymer parts with this kind of technology is still a challenging research topic. The products of the applying industrial partner must met high technical requirements, as they are used in medical, measurement instrumentation and painting industry branches. Typically, 20% of these parts are new work, which means every five years almost the entire product portfolio is replaced in their low series manufacturing environment. Consequently, it requires a flexible production system, where the estimation of the frequent setup periods' lengths is one of the key success factors. In the investigation, several (input) parameters have been studied and grouped to create an adequate training information set for an artificial neural network as a base for the estimation of the individual setup periods. In the first group, product information is collected such as the product name and number of items. The second group contains material data like material type and colour. In the third group, surface quality and tolerance information are collected including the finest surface and tightest (or narrowest) tolerance. The fourth group contains the setup data like machine type and work shift. One source of these parameters is the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) but some data were also collected from Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawings. The number of the applied tools is one of the key factors on which the industrial partners’ estimations were based previously. The artificial neural network model was trained on several thousands of real industrial data. The mean estimation accuracy of the setup periods' lengths was improved by 30%, and in the same time the deviation of the prognosis was also improved by 50%. Furthermore, an investigation on the mentioned parameter groups considering the manufacturing order was also researched. The paper also highlights the manufacturing introduction experiences and further improvements of the proposed methods, both on the shop floor and on the quotation preparation fields. Every week more than 100 real industrial setup events are given and the related data are collected.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, low series manufacturing, polymer cutting, setup period estimation.

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Authors: Teodora Bakardjieva, Galya Gercheva

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In this paper an open agent-based modular framework for personalized and adaptive curriculum generation in e-learning environment is proposed. Agent-based approaches offer several potential advantages over alternative approaches. Agent-based systems exhibit high levels of flexibility and robustness in dynamic or unpredictable environments by virtue of their intrinsic autonomy. The presented framework enables integration of different types of expert agents, various kinds of learning objects and user modeling techniques. It creates possibilities for adaptive e-learning process. The KM e-learning system is in a process of implementation in Varna Free University and will be used for supporting the educational process at the University.

Keywords: agents, e-Learning, knowledge management, knowledge sharing, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Nieto Bernal Wilson, Carmona Suarez Edgar

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The organizations have structured and unstructured information in different formats, sources, and systems. Part of these come from ERP under OLTP processing that support the information system, however these organizations in OLAP processing level, presented some deficiencies, part of this problematic lies in that does not exist interesting into extract knowledge from their data sources, as also the absence of operational capabilities to tackle with these kind of projects.  Data Warehouse and its applications are considered as non-proprietary tools, which are of great interest to business intelligence, since they are repositories basis for creating models or patterns (behavior of customers, suppliers, products, social networks and genomics) and facilitate corporate decision making and research. The following paper present a structured methodology, simple, inspired from the agile development models as Scrum, XP and AUP. Also the models object relational, spatial data models, and the base line of data modeling under UML and Big data, from this way sought to deliver an agile methodology for the developing of data warehouses, simple and of easy application. The methodology naturally take into account the application of process for the respectively information analysis, visualization and data mining, particularly for patterns generation and derived models from the objects facts structured.

Keywords: Data warehouse, model data, big data, object fact, object relational fact, process developed data warehouse.

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Authors: A. Samraj, S. Sayeed, J. E. Raja., J. Hossen, A. Rahman

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Monitoring the tool flank wear without affecting the throughput is considered as the prudent method in production technology. The examination has to be done without affecting the machining process. In this paper we proposed a novel work that is used to determine tool flank wear by observing the sound signals emitted during the turning process. The work-piece material we used here is steel and aluminum and the cutting insert was carbide material. Two different cutting speeds were used in this work. The feed rate and the cutting depth were constant whereas the flank wear was a variable. The emitted sound signal of a fresh tool (0 mm flank wear) a slightly worn tool (0.2 -0.25 mm flank wear) and a severely worn tool (0.4mm and above flank wear) during turning process were recorded separately using a high sensitive microphone. Analysis using Singular Value Decomposition was done on these sound signals to extract the feature sound components. Observation of the results showed that an increase in tool flank wear correlates with an increase in the values of SVD features produced out of the sound signals for both the materials. Hence it can be concluded that wear monitoring of tool flank during turning process using SVD features with the Fuzzy C means classification on the emitted sound signal is a potential and relatively simple method.

Keywords: Fuzzy c means, Microphone, Singular ValueDecomposition, Tool Flank Wear.

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Authors: Dimitar Georgiev, Bogdan Bogdanov, Yancho Hristov, Irena Markovska

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In this study the adsorption of Cu (II) ions from aqueous solutions on synthetic zeolite NaA was evaluated. The effect of solution temperature and the determination of the kinetic parameters of adsorption of Cu(II) from aqueous solution on zeolite NaA is important in understanding the adsorption mechanism. Variables of the system include adsorption time, temperature (293- 328K), initial solution concentration and pH for the system. The sorption kinetics of the copper ions were found to be strongly dependent on pH (the optimum pH 3-5), solute ion concentration and temperature (293 – 328 K). It was found, the pseudo-second-order model was the best choice among all the kinetic models to describe the adsorption behavior of Cu(II) onto ziolite NaA, suggesting that the adsorption mechanism might be a chemisorptions process The activation energy of adsorption (Ea) was determined as Cu(II) 13.5 kJ mol-1. The low value of Ea shows that Cu(II) adsorption process by zeolite NaA may be an activated chemical adsorption. The thermodynamic parameters (ΔG0, ΔH0, and ΔS0) were also determined from the temperature dependence. The results show that the process of adsorption Cu(II) is spontaneous and endothermic process and rise in temperature favors the adsorption.

Keywords: Zeolite NaA, adsorption, adsorption capacity, kinetic sorption

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Authors: Wei Yi Lim, M. Annamalai Arasu, M. Kumarasamy Raja, Minkyu Je

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In this paper, the design of wide-swing constant transconductance (g_m) bias circuit that generates bias voltage for low-noise amplifier (LNA) circuit design by using an off-chip resistor is demonstrated. The overall transconductance (G_m) generated by the constant g_m bias circuit is important to maintain the overall gain and noise figure of the LNA circuit. Therefore, investigation is performed to study the variation in G_m with process, temperature and supply voltage (PVT).  Temperature and supply voltage are swept from -10 °C to 85 °C and 1.425 V to 1.575 V respectively, while the process conditions are also varied to the extreme and the g_m variation is eventually concluded at between -3 % to 7 %. With the slight variation in the g_m value, through simulation, at worst condition of state SS, we are able to attain a conversion gain (S₂₁) variation of -3.10 % and a noise figure (NF) variation of 18.71 %. The whole constant g_m circuit draws approximately 100 µA from a 1.5V supply and is designed based on 0.13 µm CMOS process. 

Keywords: Transconductance, LNA, temperature, process.

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Authors: Rajinder Singh, Ram Valluru

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Chain Ladder (CL) method, Expected Loss Ratio (ELR) method and Bornhuetter-Ferguson (BF) method, in addition to more complex transition-rate modeling, are commonly used actuarial reserving methods in general insurance. There is limited published research about their relative performance in the context of Mortgage Insurance (MI). In our experience, these traditional techniques pose unique challenges and do not provide stable claim estimates for medium to longer term liabilities. The relative strengths and weaknesses among various alternative approaches revolve around: stability in the recent loss development pattern, sufficiency and reliability of loss development data, and agreement/disagreement between reported losses to date and ultimate loss estimate. CL method results in volatile reserve estimates, especially for accident periods with little development experience. The ELR method breaks down especially when ultimate loss ratios are not stable and predictable. While the BF method provides a good tradeoff between the loss development approach (CL) and ELR, the approach generates claim development and ultimate reserves that are disconnected from the ever-to-date (ETD) development experience for some accident years that have more development experience. Further, BF is based on subjective a priori assumption. The fundamental shortcoming of these methods is their inability to model exogenous factors, like the economy, which impact various cohorts at the same chronological time but at staggered points along their life-time development. This paper proposes an alternative approach of parametrizing the loss development curve and using logistic regression to generate the ultimate loss estimate for each homogeneous group (accident year or delinquency period). The methodology was tested on an actual MI claim development dataset where various cohorts followed a sigmoidal trend, but levels varied substantially depending upon the economic and operational conditions during the development period spanning over many years. The proposed approach provides the ability to indirectly incorporate such exogenous factors and produce more stable loss forecasts for reserving purposes as compared to the traditional CL and BF methods.

Keywords: Actuarial loss reserving techniques, logistic regression, parametric function, volatility.

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Authors: Pongsatorn Tantrabundit, Lersak Phothong, Ong-art Chanprasitchai

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Due to the emergence of the Internet, it has extended the traditional Word-of-Mouth (WOM) to a new form called “Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM).” Unlike traditional WOM, eWOM is able to present information in various ways by applying different components. Each eWOM component generates different effects on online consumer behavior. This research investigates the effects of Webcare (responding message) from product/ service providers on negative eWOM by applying two types of products (search and experience). The proposed conceptual model was developed based on the combination of the stages in consumer decision-making process, theory of reasoned action (TRA), theory of planned behavior (TPB), the technology acceptance model (TAM), the information integration theory and the elaboration likelihood model. The methodology techniques used in this study included multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple regression analysis. The results suggest that Webcare does slightly increase Thai online consumer’s perceptions on perceived eWOM trustworthiness, information diagnosticity and quality. For negative eWOM, we also found that perceived eWOM Trustworthiness, perceived eWOM diagnosticity and quality have a positive relationship with eWOM influence whereas perceived valence has a negative relationship with eWOM influence in Thai online consumers.

Keywords:

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Authors: Adrienne Kline, Jaydip Desai

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Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a noninvasive technique that registers signals originating from the firing of neurons in the brain. The Emotiv EEG Neuroheadset is a consumer product comprised of 14 EEG channels and was used to record the reactions of the neurons within the brain to two forms of stimuli in 10 participants. These stimuli consisted of auditory and visual formats that provided directions of ‘right’ or ‘left.’ Participants were instructed to raise their right or left arm in accordance with the instruction given. A scenario in OpenViBE was generated to both stimulate the participants while recording their data. In OpenViBE, the Graz Motor BCI Stimulator algorithm was configured to govern the duration and number of visual stimuli. Utilizing EEGLAB under the cross platform MATLAB®, the electrodes most stimulated during the study were defined. Data outputs from EEGLAB were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics® Version 20. This aided in determining the electrodes to use in the development of a brain-machine interface (BMI) using real-time EEG signals from the Emotiv EEG Neuroheadset. Signal processing and feature extraction were accomplished via the Simulink® signal processing toolbox. An Arduino™ Duemilanove microcontroller was used to link the Emotiv EEG Neuroheadset and the right and left Mecha TE™ Hands.

Keywords: Brain-machine interface, EEGLAB, emotiv EEG neuroheadset, openViBE, simulink.

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Authors: Amitrajit Sarkar

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The use of Electronic Commerce (EC) technologies enables Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to improve their efficiency and competitive position. Much of the literature proposes an extensive set of benefits for organizations that choose to adopt and implement ECommerce systems. Factors of Business –to-business (B2B) E-Commerce adoption and implementation have been extensively investigated. Despite enormous attention given to encourage Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt and implement E-Commerce, little research has been carried out in identifying the factors of Business-to-Consumer ECommerce adoption and implementation for SMEs. To conduct the study, Tornatsky and Fleischer model was adopted and tested in four SMEs located in Christchurch, New Zealand. This paper explores the factors that impact the decision and method of adoption and implementation of ECommerce systems in automobile industry. Automobile industry was chosen because the product they deal with i.e. cars are not a common commodity to be sold online, despite this fact the eCommerce penetration in automobile industry is high. The factors that promote adoption and implementation of E-Commerce technologies are discussed, together with the barriers. This study will help SME owners to effectively handle the adoption and implementation process and will also improve the chance of successful E-Commerce implementation. The implications of the findings for managers, consultants, and government organizations engaged in promoting E-Commerce adoption and implementation in small businesses and future research are discussed.

Keywords: E-Commerce in SMEs, E-Commerce in automobile industry, B2C E-Commerce, E-Commerce adoption and Implementation, E-Commerce Website Implementation, E-Commerce Models.

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Authors: Moataz M. Naguib, Hatem Khater, A. Baith Mohamed

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MARS is a shared-key (symmetric) block cipher algorithm supporting 128-bit block size and a variable key size of between 128 and 448 bits. MARS has a several rounds of cryptographic core that is designed to take advantage of the powerful results for improving security/performance tradeoff over existing ciphers. In this work, a new function added to improve the ciphering process it is called, Meta-Morphic function. This function use XOR, Rotating, Inverting and No-Operation logical operations before and after encryption process. The aim of these operations is to improve MARS cipher process and makes a high confusion criterion for the Ciphertext.

Keywords: AES, MARS, Metamorphic, Cryptography, Block Cipher.

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Authors: I. Kontorovich, R. Zazkis

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We present a framework of researcher knowledge development in conducting a study in mathematics education. The key components of the framework are: knowledge germane to conducting a particular study, processes of knowledge accumulation, and catalyzing filters that influence a researcher decision making. The components of the framework originated from a confluence between constructs and theories in Mathematics Education, Higher Education and Sociology. Drawing on a self-reflective interview with a leading researcher in mathematics education, Professor Michèle Artigue, we illustrate how the framework can be utilized in data analysis. Criteria for framework evaluation are discussed.

Keywords: Community of practice, knowledge development, mathematics education research, researcher knowledge.

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Authors: Ali Reza Vaezi, Ouldouz Bakhshi Rad

Abstract:

Gully erosion is a widespread and often dramatic form of soil erosion caused by water during and immediately after heavy rainfall. It occurs when flowing surface water is channelled across unprotected land and washes away the soil along the drainage lines. The formation of gully is influenced by various factors, including climate, drainage surface area, slope gradient, vegetation cover, land use, and soil properties. It is a very important problem in semi-arid regions, where soils have lower organic matter and are weakly aggregated. Intensive agriculture and tillage along the slope can accelerate soil erosion by water in the region. There is little information on the development of gully erosion in agricultural rainfed areas. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the relationship between gully erosion and morphometric characteristics of the drainage area and the effects of soil properties and soil management factors (land use and tillage method) on gully development. A field study was done in a 900 km2 agricultural area in Hshtroud township located in the south of East Azerbaijan province, NW Iran. Toward this, 222 gullies created in rainfed lands were found in the area. Some properties of gullies, consisting of length, width, depth, height difference, cross section area, and volume, were determined. Drainage areas for each or some gullies were determined, and their boundaries were drawn. Additionally, the surface area of each drainage, land use, tillage direction, and soil properties that may affect gully formation were determined. The soil erodibility factor (K) defined in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was estimated based on five soil properties (silt and very fine sand, coarse sand, organic matter, soil structure code, and soil permeability). Gully development in each drainage area was quantified using its volume and soil loss. The dependency of gully development on drainage area characteristics (surface area, land use, tillage direction, and soil properties) was determined using correlation matrix analysis. Based on the results, gully length was the most important morphometric characteristic indicating the development of gully erosion in the lands. Gully development in the area was related to slope gradient (r = -0.26), surface area (r = 0.71), the area of rainfed lands (r = 0.23), and the area of rainfed tilled along the slope (r = 0.24). Nevertheless, its correlation with the area of pasture and soil erodibility factor (K) was not significant. Among the characteristics of drainage area, surface area is the major factor controlling gully volume in the agricultural land. No significant correlation was found between gully erosion and soil erodibility factor (K) estimated by the USLE. It seems the estimated soil erodibility cannot describe the susceptibility of the study soils to the gully erosion process. In these soils, aggregate stability and soil permeability are the two soil physical properties that affect the actual soil erodibility and in consequence, these soil properties can control gully erosion in the rainfed lands. 

Keywords: Agricultural area, gully properties, soil structure, USLE, Universal Soil Loss Equation.

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Authors: Amin Esmaeilzadeh, Mohammad Sadeghi, Farhad Kolahan

Abstract:

Arc welding is an important joining process widely used in many industrial applications including production of automobile, ships structures and metal tanks. In welding process, the moving electrode causes highly non-uniform temperature distribution that leads to residual stresses and different deviations, especially buckling distortions in thin plates. In order to control the deviations and increase the quality of welded plates, a fixture can be used as a practical and low cost method with high efficiency. In this study, a coupled thermo-mechanical finite element model is coded in the software ANSYS to simulate the behavior of thin plates located by a 3-2-1 positioning system during the welding process. Computational results are compared with recent similar works to validate the finite element models. The agreement between the result of proposed model and other reported data proves that finite element modeling can accurately predict the behavior of welded thin plates.

Keywords: Welding, thin plate, buckling distortion, fixture locators, finite element modelling.

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Authors: Pedro M. A. Vitoriano, Tito. G. Amaral

Abstract:

Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) Systems are commonly used on Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) manufacturing. The use of this technology has been proven as highly efficient for process improvements and quality achievements. The correct extraction of the component for posterior analysis is a critical step of the AOI process. Nowadays, the Pattern Matching Algorithm is commonly used, although this algorithm requires extensive calculations and is time consuming. This paper will present an improved algorithm for the component localization process, with the capability of implementation in a parallel execution system.

Keywords: AOI, automated optical inspection, SMD, surface mounting devices, pattern matching, parallel execution.

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Authors: Marwah Mohsin, Thomas Beach, Alan Kwan, Mahdi Ismail

Abstract:

This paper describes the differences in views on sustainable development between the general public and experts in a developing country, Iraq. This paper will answer the question: How do the views of the public differ from the generally accepted view of experts in the context of sustainable urban development in Iraq? In order to answer this question, the views of both the public and the experts will be analysed. These results are taken from a public survey and a Delphi questionnaire. These will be analysed using statistical methods in order to identify the significant differences. This will enable investigation of the different perceptions between the public perceptions and the experts’ views towards urban sustainable development factors. This is important due to the fact that different viewpoints between policy-makers and the public will impact on the acceptance by the public of any future sustainable development work that is undertaken. The brief findings of the statistical analysis show that the views of both the public and the experts are considered different in most of the variables except six variables show no differences. Those variables are ‘The importance of establishing sustainable cities in Iraq’, ‘Mitigate traffic congestion’, ‘Waste recycling and separating’, ‘Use wastewater recycling’, ‘Parks and green spaces’, and ‘Promote investment’.

Keywords: Urban sustainable development, experts’ views, public views, statistical analysis.

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