Search results for: integrated planning

Authors: Dimitrios J. Dimitriou, Maria F. Sartzetaki

Abstract:

The assessment variables of the accessibility and the sustainability of access infrastructure for remote regions may vary significant by location and a wide range of factors may affect the decision process. In this paper, the environmental disturbance implications of transportation system to key demand and supply variables impact the economic system in remote destination are descripted. According to a systemic approach, the key sustainability variables deals with decision making process that have to be included in strategic plan for the critical transport infrastructure development and their relationship to regional socioeconomic system are presented. The application deals with the development of railway in remote destinations, where the traditional CBA not include the external cost generated by the environmental impacts that may have a range of diverse impacts on transport infrastructure and services. The analysis output provides key messages to decision and policy makers towards sustainable development of transport infrastructure, especially for remote destinations where accessibility is a key factor of regional economic development and social stability. The key conclusion could be essential useful for relevant applications in remote regions in the same latitude.

Keywords: Sustainable development in remote regions, sustainability variables, transport infrastructure, strategic planning.

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Authors: Jayendra Krishna, Laxmi Srivastava

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Power flow (PF) study, which is performed to determine the power system static states (voltage magnitudes and voltage angles) at each bus to find the steady state operating condition of a system, is very important and is the most frequently carried out study by power utilities for power system planning, operation and control. In this paper, a counterpropagation neural network (CPNN) is proposed to solve power flow problem under different loading/contingency conditions for computing bus voltage magnitudes and angles of the power system. The counterpropagation network uses a different mapping strategy namely counterpropagation and provides a practical approach for implementing a pattern mapping task, since learning is fast in this network. The composition of the input variables for the proposed neural network has been selected to emulate the solution process of a conventional power flow program. The effectiveness of the proposed CPNN based approach for solving power flow is demonstrated by computation of bus voltage magnitudes and voltage angles for different loading conditions and single line-outage contingencies in IEEE 14-bus system.

Keywords: Admittance matrix, counterpropagation neural network, line outage contingency, power flow

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Authors: War War Myint

Abstract:

Geometric design is an important part of planning process design for physical highway to fill up basic function of roads, to give good traffic service. It is found that most of the road safety problems occur at the horizontal curves and complex-compound curves. In this paper, review on Sagarinn-Myinsain Portion of Nay Pyi Taw - Mandalay highway has been conducted in aspect of geometric design induced road safety condition. Horizontal alignment of geometric features and curve details are reviewed based on (AASHTO) standard and revised by Autodesk Land Desktop Software. Moreover, 85th Percentile Operation Speeds (V85) with driver confidence on horizontal curves is evaluated in order to obtain the range of highway safety factor (FS). The length of the selected highway portion is 13.65 miles and 8 lanes. The results of this study can be used to investigate the possible hazardous locations in advance and to revise how design radius and super elevation should be for better road safety performance for the selected portion. Moreover, the relationship between highway safety and highway geometry characteristics can also be known.

Keywords: Geometric design; horizontal alignment; superelevation; 85th percentile operation speed (V85), safety factor (FS).

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Authors: Raúl Pereda García, Julio Manuel de Luis Ruiz, Elena Castillo López, Rubén Pérez Álvarez, Felipe Piña García

Abstract:

New technologies for the capture of point clouds have experienced a great advance in recent years. In this way, its use has been extended in geomatics, providing measurement solutions that have been popularized without there being, many times, a detailed study of its accuracy. This research focuses on the study of the viability of topographic works with drones incorporating different sensors sensitive to the visible spectrum. The fundamentals have been applied to a road, located in Cantabria (Spain), where a platform extension and the reform of a riprap were being constructed. A total of six flights were made during two months, all of them with GPS as part of the photogrammetric process, and the results were contrasted with those measured with total station. The obtained results show that the choice of the camera and the planning of the flight have an important impact on the accuracy. In fact, the representations with a level of detail corresponding to 1/1000 scale are admissible, depending on the existing vegetation, and obtaining better results in the area of the riprap. This set of techniques is, therefore, suitable for the control of earthworks in road works but with certain limitations which are exposed in this paper.

Keywords: Drone, earth movement control, global position system, surveying technology.

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Authors: Dagnija Blumberga, Toms Prodanuks, Ivars Veidenbergs, Andra Blumberga

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Gas condensing units with inner tubes heat exchangers represent third generation technology and differ from second generation heat and mass transfer units, which are fulfilled by passive filling material layer. The first one improves heat and mass transfer by increasing cooled contact surface of gas and condensate drops and film formed in inner tubes heat exchanger. This paper presents a selection of significant factors which influence the heat and mass transfer. Experimental planning is based on the research and analysis of main three independent variables; velocity of water and gas as well as density of spraying. Empirical mathematical models show that the coefficient of heat transfer is used as dependent parameter which depends on two independent variables; water and gas velocity. Empirical model is proved by the use of experimental data of two independent gas condensing units in Lithuania and Russia. Experimental data are processed by the use of heat transfer criteria-Kirpichov number. Results allow drawing the graphical nomogram for the calculation of heat and mass transfer conditions in the innovative and energy efficient gas cooling unit.

Keywords: Gas condensing unit, filling, inner heat exchanger, package, spraying, tunes.

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Authors: M. Farahnakian, M.R. Razfar, S. Elhami-Joosheghan

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This paper presents an approach for the determination of the optimal cutting parameters (spindle speed, feed rate, depth of cut and engagement) leading to minimum surface roughness in face milling of high silicon stainless steel by coupling neural network (NN) and Electromagnetism-like Algorithm (EM). In this regard, the advantages of statistical experimental design technique, experimental measurements, artificial neural network, and Electromagnetism-like optimization method are exploited in an integrated manner. To this end, numerous experiments on this stainless steel were conducted to obtain surface roughness values. A predictive model for surface roughness is created by using a back propogation neural network, then the optimization problem was solved by using EM optimization. Additional experiments were performed to validate optimum surface roughness value predicted by EM algorithm. It is clearly seen that a good agreement is observed between the predicted values by EM coupled with feed forward neural network and experimental measurements. The obtained results show that the EM algorithm coupled with back propogation neural network is an efficient and accurate method in approaching the global minimum of surface roughness in face milling.

Keywords: cutting parameters, face milling, surface roughness, artificial neural network, Electromagnetism-like algorithm,

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Authors: E. Satoh, R. Kasahara, T. Aoki, K. Fukatsu, D. Venkata Ramanarao, H. Harayama, T. Murata, A. Suwa

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Rice plant hoppers (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) have been causing extensive economic damage in rice and are considered as serious threat in rice producing countries of Asia. They have developed resistance to major groups of chemical insecticide, and severe outbreaks occur commonly throughout Asia. To control these nuisance pests, Nihon Nohyaku Co., Ltd., recently discovered an insecticide, benzpyrimoxan (proposed ISO name), which is under development as NNI-1501 (development code). Benzpyrimoxan has a unique chemical structure which contains benzyloxy and cyclic acetal groups on pyrimidine moiety (5-(1,3-dioxan-2-yl)-4-[4- (trifluoromethyl)benzyloxy]pyrimidine). In order to clarify the biological properties of benzpyrimoxan, we conducted several experiments and found the following results. Benzpyrimoxan has high activity against nymphal stages of rice plant hoppers without any adulticidal activity. It provides excellent and long lasting control against rice plant hoppers, including populations that have developed resistance to several other chemical groups of insecticide. The study on its mode of action is undergoing. These features highlight the versatility of this insecticide as an effective and valuable tool from the viewpoints of insecticide resistance management and integrated pest management program. With the use of benzpyrimoxan, farmers shall be able to lead the best yield potential by keeping the population density of rice plant hoppers and associated virus diseases under control.

Keywords: Acetal, benzpyrimoxan, insecticide, NNI-1501, pyrimidine, rice plant hoppers.

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Authors: Mosaad Khadr, Gerd Morgenschweis, Andreas Schlenkhoff

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Drought is one of the most damaging climate-related hazards, it is generally considered as a prolonged absence of precipitation. This normal and recurring climate phenomenon had plagued civilization throughout history because of the negative impacts on economical, environmental and social sectors. Drought characteristics are thus recognized as important factors in water resources planning and management. The purpose of this study is to detect the changes in drought frequency, persistence and severity in the Ruhr river basin. The frequency of drought events was calculated using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Used data are daily precipitation records from seven meteorological stations covering the period 1961-2007. The main benefit of the application of this index is its versatility, only rainfall data is required to deliver five major dimensions of a drought : duration, intensity, severity, magnitude, and frequency. Furthermore, drought can be calculated in different time steps. In this study SPI was calculated for 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24 months. Several drought events were detected in the covered period, these events contain mild, moderate and severe droughts. Also positive and negative trends in the SPI values were observed.

Keywords: Drought, Germany, Precipitation, Ruhr River, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Trend Test.

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Zamani Kouhpanji

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Characterizing the fatigue and fracture properties of nanostructures is one of the most challenging tasks in nanoscience and nanotechnology due to lack of a MEMS/NEMS device for generating uniform cyclic loadings at high frequencies. Here, the dynamic response of a recently proposed MEMS/NEMS device under different inputs signals is completely investigated. This MEMS/NEMS device is designed and modeled based on the electromagnetic force induced between paired parallel wires carrying electrical currents, known as Ampere’s Force Law (AFL). Since this MEMS/NEMS device only uses two paired wires for actuation part and sensing part, it represents highly sensitive and linear response for nanostructures with any stiffness and shapes (single or arrays of nanowires, nanotubes, nanosheets or nanowalls). In addition to studying the maximum gains at different resonance frequencies of the MEMS/NEMS device, its dynamical responses are investigated for different inputs and nanostructure properties to demonstrate the capability, usability, and reliability of the device for wide range of nanostructures. This MEMS/NEMS device can be readily integrated into SEM/TEM instruments to provide real time study of the fatigue and fracture properties of nanostructures as well as their softening or hardening behaviors, and initiation and/or propagation of nanocracks in them.

Keywords: Ampere’s force law, dynamical response, fatigue and fracture characterization, paired wire actuators and sensors, MEMS/NEMS devices.

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Authors: Farzana Sharmin, Mohammad Tipu Sultan, Benqian Li

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Advancement of new media technology and consumption of social media have altered the way of communication in the tourism industry, mostly for consumers’ travel planning, online purchase, and experience sharing activity. There is an accelerating trend among young consumers’ to utilize this new media technology. This paper aims to analyze the attitude of young consumers’ about social media use for travel purposes. The convenience random sample method used to collect data from an urban area of Shanghai (China), consists of 225 young consumers’. This survey identified behavioral determinants of social media consumption by the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB). The instrument developed support on previous research to test hypotheses. The results of structural analyses indicate that attitude towards the use of social media is affected by external factors such as availability and accessibility of technology. In addition, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control have partially influenced the attitude of respondents’. The results of this study could help to improve social media travel marketing and promotional strategies for respective groups.

Keywords: Social media, theory of planned behavior, travel behavior, young consumer.

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Authors: S. Palaniyappan, P. K. Chennam, M. Trautmann, H. Ahmad, T. Mehner, T. Lampke, G. Wagner

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In structural-health monitoring of fiber reinforced plastics (FRPs), every single inorganic fiber sensor that are integrated into the bulk material requires an electrical insulation around itself, when the surrounding reinforcing fibers are electrically conductive. This results in a more accurate data acquisition only from the sensor fiber without any electrical interventions. For this purpose, thin nano-films of aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃)-based electrical-insulation coatings have been fabricated around the Silicon Carbide (SiC) single fiber sensors through reactive DC magnetron sputtering technique. The sputtered coatings were amorphous in nature and the thickness of the coatings increased with an increase in the sputter time. Microstructural characterization of the coated fibers performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed a homogeneous circumferential coating with no detectable defects or cracks on the surface. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses of the as-sputtered and 2 hours annealed coatings (825 & 1125 ˚C) revealed the amorphous and crystalline phases of Al₂O₃ respectively. Raman spectroscopic analyses produced no characteristic bands of Al₂O₃, as the thickness of the films was in the nanometer (nm) range, which is too small to overcome the actual penetration depth of the laser used. In addition, the influence of the insulation coatings on the mechanical properties of the SiC sensor fibers has been analyzed.

Keywords: Al2O3 insulation coating, reactive sputtering, SiC single fiber sensor, single fiber tensile test.

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Authors: Ellie Abdi, Susana Juniu

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The purpose of this presentation is to describe an interdisciplinary teaching program that integrates physical education concepts using a philosophical approach. The presentation includes a review of: a) the philosophy of American education, b) the philosophy of sports and physical education, c) the interdisciplinary physical education program, d) professional development programs, (e) the Success of this physical education program, f) future of physical education. This unique interdisciplinary program has been implemented in an urban school physical education discipline in East Orange, New Jersey for over 10 years.

During the program the students realize that the bodies go through different experiences. The body becomes a place where a child can recognize in an enjoyable way to express and perceive particular feelings or mental states. Children may distinguish themselves to have high abilities in the social or other domains but low abilities in the field of athletics.

The goal of this program for the individuals is to discover new skills, develop and demonstrate age appropriate mastery level at different tasks, therefore the program consists of 9 to 12 sports, including many game. Each successful experience increases the awareness ability. Engaging in sports and physical activities are social movements involving groups of children in situations such as teams, friends, and recreational settings, which serve as a primary socializing agent for teaching interpersonal skills. As a result of this presentation the audience will reflect and explore how to structure a physical education program to integrate interdisciplinary subjects with philosophical concepts.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary disciplines, philosophical concepts, physical education.

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Authors: A. Majeed, P. Ali

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Before designing an electrical system, the estimation of load is necessary for unit sizing and demand-generation balancing. The system could be a stand-alone system for a village or grid connected or integrated renewable energy to grid connection, especially as there are non–electrified villages in developing countries. In the classical model, the energy demand was found by estimating the household appliances multiplied with the amount of their rating and the duration of their operation, but in this paper, information exists for electrified villages could be used to predict the demand, as villages almost have the same life style. This paper describes a method used to predict the average energy consumed in each two months for every consumer living in a village by Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The input data are collected using a regional survey for samples of consumers representing typical types of different living, household appliances and energy consumption by a list of information, and the output data are collected from administration office of Piramagrun for each corresponding consumer. The result of this study shows that the average demand for different consumers from four villages in different months throughout the year is approximately 12 kWh/day, this model estimates the average demand/day for every consumer with a mean absolute percent error of 11.8%, and MathWorks software package MATLAB version 7.6.0 that contains and facilitate Neural Network Toolbox was used.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, load estimation, regional survey, rural electrification.

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Authors: Karoliina Nisula, Samuli Pekkola

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Business education has been criticized for being too theoretical and distant from business life. Different types of experiential learning environments ranging from manual role-play to computer simulations and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been used to introduce the realistic and practical experience into business learning. Each of these learning environments approaches business learning from a different perspective. The implementations tend to be individual exercises supplementing the traditional courses. We suggest combining them into a business skills laboratory resembling an actual workplace. In this paper, we present a concrete implementation of an ERP-supported business learning environment that is used throughout the first year undergraduate business curriculum. We validate the implementation by evaluating the learning outcomes through the different domains of Bloom’s taxonomy. We use the role-play oriented practice enterprise model as a comparison group. Our findings indicate that using the ERP simulation improves the poor and average students’ lower-level cognitive learning. On the affective domain, the ERP-simulation appears to enhance motivation to learn as well as perceived acquisition of practical hands-on skills.

Keywords: Business simulations, experiential learning, ERP systems, learning environments.

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Authors: Varun Singh, Mainak Bandyopadhyay, Maharana Pratap Singh

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The shortest path (SP) problem concerns with finding the shortest path from a specific origin to a specified destination in a given network while minimizing the total cost associated with the path. This problem has widespread applications. Important applications of the SP problem include vehicle routing in transportation systems particularly in the field of in-vehicle Route Guidance System (RGS) and traffic assignment problem (in transportation planning). Well known applications of evolutionary methods like Genetic Algorithms (GA), Ant Colony Optimization, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) have come up to solve complex optimization problems to overcome the shortcomings of existing shortest path analysis methods. It has been reported by various researchers that PSO performs better than other evolutionary optimization algorithms in terms of success rate and solution quality. Further Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have emerged as key information systems for geospatial data analysis and visualization. This research paper is focused towards the application of PSO for solving the shortest path problem between multiple points of interest (POI) based on spatial data of Allahabad City and traffic speed data collected using GPS. Geovisualization of results of analysis is carried out in GIS.

Keywords: GIS, Outliers, PSO, Traffic Data.

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Authors: Jui-Pui Hung, Yu-Sheng Lai, Tzuo-Liang Luo, Kung-Da Wu, Yun-Ji Zhan

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This study presented the investigation of the influence of the tool holder interface stiffness on the dynamic characteristics of a spindle tool system. The interface stiffness was produced by drawbar force on the tool holder, which tends to affect the spindle dynamics. In order to assess the influence of interface stiffness on the vibration characteristic of spindle unit, we first created a three dimensional finite element model of a high speed spindle system integrated with tool holder. The key point for the creation of FEM model is the modeling of the rolling interface within the angular contact bearings and the tool holder interface. The former can be simulated by a introducing a series of spring elements between inner and outer rings. The contact stiffness was calculated according to Hertz contact theory and the preload applied on the bearings. The interface stiffness of the tool holder was identified through the experimental measurement and finite element modal analysis. Current results show that the dynamic stiffness was greatly influenced by the tool holder system. In addition, variations of modal damping, static stiffness and dynamic stiffness of the spindle tool system were greatly determined by the interface stiffness of the tool holder which was in turn dependent on the draw bar force applied on the tool holder. Overall, this study demonstrates that identification of the interface characteristics of spindle tool holder is of very importance for the refinement of the spindle tooling system to achieve the optimum machining performance.

Keywords: Dynamic stiffness, Drawbar force, Interface stiffness, Spindle-tool holder.

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Authors: Hossein Gitinavard, Mohammad Hossein Fazel Zarandi

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In the last decades, concerns about the environmental issues lead to professional and academic efforts on green supplier selection problems. In this sake, one of the main issues in evaluating the green supplier selection problems, which could increase the uncertainty, is the preferences of the experts' judgments about the candidate green suppliers. Therefore, preparing an expert system to evaluate the problem based on the historical data and the experts' knowledge can be sensible. This study provides an expert evaluation system to assess the candidate green suppliers under selected criteria in a multi-period approach. In addition, a ranking approach under interval-valued hesitant fuzzy set (IVHFS) environment is proposed to select the most appropriate green supplier in planning horizon. In the proposed ranking approach, the IVHFS and the last aggregation approach are considered to margin the errors and to prevent data loss, respectively. Hence, a comparative analysis is provided based on an illustrative example to show the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Green supplier selection, expert system, ranking approach, interval-valued hesitant fuzzy setting.

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Authors: Anosh Arshad Sundhu, Francesco Giordano, Giacomo Della Croce, Maurizio Arnone

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Digital Twin (DT) is a technology that generates a virtual representation of a physical system or process, enabling real-time monitoring, analysis, and simulation. DT of an Electrical Distribution System (EDS) can perform online analysis by integrating the static and real-time data in order to show the current grid status and predictions about the future status to the Distribution System Operator (DSO), producers and consumers. DT technology for EDS also offers the opportunity to DSO to test hypothetical scenarios. This paper discusses the development of a DT of an EDS by Smart Grid Controller (SGC) application, which is developed using open-source libraries and languages. The developed application can be integrated with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) of any EDS for creating the DT. The paper shows the performance of developed tools inside the application, tested on real EDS for grid observability, Smart Recursive Load Flow (SRLF) calculation and state estimation of loads in MV feeders.

Keywords: Digital Twin, Distribution System Operator, Electrical Distribution System, Smart Grid Controller, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System, Smart Recursive Load Flow.

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Authors: Wong Poh Lee, Mohd. Azam Osman, Abdullah Zawawi Talib, Ahmad Izani Md. Ismail

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Traffic congestion has become a major problem in many countries. One of the main causes of traffic congestion is due to road merges. Vehicles tend to move slower when they reach the merging point. In this paper, an enhanced algorithm for traffic simulation based on the fluid-dynamic algorithm and kinematic wave theory is proposed. The enhanced algorithm is used to study traffic congestion at a road merge. This paper also describes the development of a dynamic traffic simulation tool which is used as a scenario planning and to forecast traffic congestion level in a certain time based on defined parameter values. The tool incorporates the enhanced algorithm as well as the two original algorithms. Output from the three above mentioned algorithms are measured in terms of traffic queue length, travel time and the total number of vehicles passing through the merging point. This paper also suggests an efficient way of reducing traffic congestion at a road merge by analyzing the traffic queue length and travel time.

Keywords: Dynamic, fluid-dynamic, kinematic wave theory, simulation, traffic congestion.

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Authors: M. Ricardo Lang, A. Costa, I. Iesbik, K. Haag, L. Trindade Buffara, O. Reimann Junior, C. Auswaldt Steclan

Abstract:

Stroke affects not only the individual, but has significant impacts on the social and family context. Therefore, it is necessary to know the peculiarities of each region, in order to contribute to regional public health policies effectively. Thus, the present study discusses biomarkers in a post-stroke population, admitted to a stroke unit (U-stroke) of reference in the southern region of Brazil. Biomarkers were analyzed, such as age, length of stay, mortality rate, survival time, risk factors and family history of stroke in patients after ischemic stroke. In this studied population, comparing men and women, it was identified that men were more affected than women, and the average age of women affected was higher, as they also had the highest mortality rate and the shortest hospital stay. The risk factors identified here were according to the global scenario; with systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) being the most frequent and those associated with sedentary lifestyle in women the most frequent (dyslipidemia, heart disease and obesity). In view of this, the importance of studies that characterize populations regionally is evident, strengthening the strategic planning of policies in favor of health care.

Keywords: Biomarkers, population, stroke, sex, stroke unit.

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Authors: Nigina Toktasynova, Sholpan Sagyndykova, Zhanat Kenzhebayeva, Maksat Kalimoldayev, Mariya Ishimova, Irbulat Utepbergenov

Abstract:

To solve these problems, we investigated the management system of heating enterprise, including strategic planning based on the balanced scorecard (BSC), quality management in accordance with the standards of the Quality Management System (QMS) ISO 9001 and analysis of the system based on expert judgment using fuzzy inference. To carry out our work we used the theory of fuzzy sets, the QMS in accordance with ISO 9001, BSC, method of construction of business processes according to the notation IDEF0, theory of modeling using Matlab software simulation tools and graphical programming LabVIEW. The results of the work are as follows: We determined possibilities of improving the management of heat-supply plant-based on QMS; after the justification and adaptation of software tool it has been used to automate a series of functions for the management and reduction of resources and for the maintenance of the system up to date; an application for the analysis of the QMS based on fuzzy inference has been created with novel organization of communication software with the application enabling the analysis of relevant data of enterprise management system. 

Keywords: Balanced scorecard, heat supply, quality management system, the theory of fuzzy sets.

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Authors: George Yungchih Wang

Abstract:

Real options theory suggests that managerial flexibility embedded within irreversible investments can account for a significant value in project valuation. Although the argument has become the dominant focus of capital investment theory over decades, yet recent survey literature in capital budgeting indicates that corporate practitioners still do not explicitly apply real options in investment decisions. In this paper, we explore how real options decision criteria can be transformed into equivalent capital budgeting criteria under the consideration of uncertainty, assuming that underlying stochastic process follows a geometric Brownian motion (GBM), a mixed diffusion-jump (MX), or a mean-reverting process (MR). These equivalent valuation techniques can be readily decomposed into conventional investment rules and “option impacts", the latter of which describe the impacts on optimal investment rules with the option value considered. Based on numerical analysis and Monte Carlo simulation, three major findings are derived. First, it is shown that real options could be successfully integrated into the mindset of conventional capital budgeting. Second, the inclusion of option impacts tends to delay investment. It is indicated that the delay effect is the most significant under a GBM process and the least significant under a MR process. Third, it is optimal to adopt the new capital budgeting criteria in investment decision-making and adopting a suboptimal investment rule without considering real options could lead to a substantial loss in value.

Keywords: real options, capital budgeting, geometric Brownianmotion, mixed diffusion-jump, mean-reverting process

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Authors: Juan Carlos Briones Macias

Abstract:

Currently, the Huancavilca City Park in Guayaquil is an abandoned public space that is discovering a growing problem of insecurity, where various problems have been perceived, such as the lack of green areas, deteriorating furniture, insufficient lighting, the use of inadequate cladding materials and very sunny areas due to the lack of planning in the design of green areas. The objective of this scientific article is to redesign Huancavilca Park through public space design strategies for more attractive and comfortable areas, becoming a point of interaction in a safe and accessible way. A mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative) was applied, obtaining information based on surveys, interviews, field observations, and systematizing the data in the traditional weighting of the structuring aspects of the park. The results were obtained from the methodological design scheme of iterative analysis of public spaces by Jan Güell. It is concluded that the use of urban strategies in the structuring elements of the park, such as vegetation, furniture, generating new activities, and security interventions, will specifically solve all the problems of the Huancavilca Park tested in a Pareto 80/20 Diagram.

Keywords: Public space, green areas, vegetation, street furniture, urban analysis.

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Authors: A. Hadjadj, S. Maamir

Abstract:

Since the advent of the law 86/14 concerning the
exploitation of the national territory by foreign companies in
partnership with the Algerian oil and gas company, the problem of
hydrocarbons metering in the sharing production come out.
More generally, good management counting hydrocarbons can
provide data on the production wells, the field and the reservoir for
medium and long term planning, particularly in the context of the
management and field development.
In this work, we are interested in the transactional metering which
is a very delicate and crucial period in the current context of the new
hydrocarbon’s law characterized by assets system between the
various activities of Sonatrach and its foreign partners.
After a state of the art on hydrocarbons metering devices in
Algeria and elsewhere, we will decline the advantages and
disadvantages of each system, and then we describe the problem to
try to reach an optimal solution.

Keywords: Flowmeter orifice, heat flow, Sonatrach, Transactional metering.

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Authors: B. Dora Arul Selvi, .N. Kamaraj

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Transient Stability is an important issue in power systems planning, operation and extension. The objective of transient stability analysis problem is not satisfied with mere transient instability detection or evaluation and it is most important to complement it by defining fast and efficient control measures in order to ensure system security. This paper presents a new Fuzzy Support Vector Machines (FSVM) to investigate the stability status of power systems and a modified generation rescheduling scheme to bring back the identified unstable cases to a more economical and stable operating point. FSVM improves the traditional SVM (Support Vector Machines) by adding fuzzy membership to each training sample to indicate the degree of membership of this sample to different classes. The preventive control based on economic generator rescheduling avoids the instability of the power systems with minimum change in operating cost under disturbed conditions. Numerical results on the New England 39 bus test system show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: Fuzzy Support Vector Machine (FSVM), Incremental Cost, Preventive Control, Transient stability

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Authors: Fariba Azizi, Firoozeh Haghighi, Viliam Makis

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In this paper, we propose a method to model the relationship between failure time and degradation for a simple step stress test where underlying degradation path is linear and different causes of failure are possible. It is assumed that the intensity function depends only on the degradation value. No assumptions are made about the distribution of the failure times. A simple step-stress test is used to shorten failure time of products and a tampered failure rate (TFR) model is proposed to describe the effect of the changing stress on the intensities. We assume that some of the products that fail during the test have a cause of failure that is only known to belong to a certain subset of all possible failures. This case is known as masking. In the presence of masking, the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of the model parameters are obtained through an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm by treating the causes of failure as missing values. The effect of incomplete information on the estimation of parameters is studied through a Monte-Carlo simulation. Finally, a real example is analyzed to illustrate the application of the proposed methods.

Keywords: Expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm, cause of failure, intensity, linear degradation path, masked data, reliability function.

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Authors: M. Ramezanifard, J. Dargahi, S. Najarian, N. Narayanan

Abstract:

One of the major disadvantages of the minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is the lack of tactile feedback to the surgeon. In order to identify and avoid any damage to the grasped complex tissue by endoscopic graspers, it is important to measure the local softness of tissue during MIS. One way to display the measured softness to the surgeon is a graphical method. In this paper, a new tactile sensor has been reported. The tactile sensor consists of an array of four softness sensors, which are integrated into the jaws of a modified commercial endoscopic grasper. Each individual softness sensor consists of two piezoelectric polymer Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) films, which are positioned below a rigid and a compliant cylinder. The compliant cylinder is fabricated using a micro molding technique. The combination of output voltages from PVDF films is used to determine the softness of the grasped object. The theoretical analysis of the sensor is also presented. A method has been developed with the aim of reproducing the tactile softness to the surgeon by using a graphical method. In this approach, the proposed system, including the interfacing and the data acquisition card, receives signals from the array of softness sensors. After the signals are processed, the tactile information is displayed by means of a color coding method. It is shown that the degrees of softness of the grasped objects/tissues can be visually differentiated and displayed on a monitor.

Keywords: Minimally invasive surgery, Robotic surgery, Sensor, Softness, Tactile.

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Authors: Bakari M. M. Mwinyiwiwa

Abstract:

Renewable Energy based microgrids are being considered to provide electricity for the expanding energy demand in the grid distribution network and grid isolated areas. The technical challenges associated with the operation and controls are immense. Electricity generation by Renewable Energy Sources is of stochastic nature such that there is a demand for regulation of voltage output in order to satisfy the standard loads’ requirements. In a renewable energy based microgrid, the energy sources give stochastically variable magnitude AC or DC voltages. AC voltage regulation of micro and mini sources pose practical challenges as well as unbearable costs. It is therefore practically and economically viable to convert the voltage outputs from stochastic AC and DC voltage sources to constant DC voltage to satisfy various DC loads including inverters which ultimately feed AC loads. This paper presents results obtained from SEPIC converter based DC bus voltage regulator as a case study for renewable energy microgrid application. Real-Time Simulation results show that upon appropriate choice of controller parameters for control of the SEPIC converter, the output DC bus voltage can be kept constant regardless of wide range of voltage variations of the source. This feature is particularly important in the situation that multiple renewable sources are to be integrated to supply a microgrid under main grid integration or isolated modes of operation.

Keywords: DC Voltage Regulator, microgrid, multisource, Renewable Energy, SEPIC Converter.

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Authors: Manouchehre Ansari, Mahmoud Dehghan Nayeri, Reza Yousefi Zenouz

Abstract:

In order to develop any strategy, it is essential to first identify opportunities, threats, weak and strong points. Assessment of technology level provides the possibility of concentrating on weak and strong points. The results of technology assessment have a direct effect on decision making process in the field of technology transfer or expansion of internal research capabilities so it has a critical role in technology management. This paper presents a conceptual model to analyze the technology capability of a company as a whole and in four main aspects of technology. This model was tested on 10 automotive parts manufacturers in IRAN. Using this model, capability level of manufacturers was investigated in four fields of managing aspects, hard aspects, human aspects, and information and knowledge aspects. Results show that these firms concentrate on hard aspect of technology while others aspects are poor and need to be supported more. So this industry should develop other aspects of technology as well as hard aspect to have effective and efficient use of its technology. These paper findings are useful for the technology planning and management in automotive part manufactures in IRAN and other Industries which are technology followers and transport their needed technologies.

Keywords: Technology, Technological evaluation, TechnologyMaturity

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Authors: Brahmi Brahim, Mohammad Habibur Rahman, Maarouf Saad, Cristóbal Ochoa Luna

Abstract:

A repetitive training movement is an efficient method to improve the ability and movement performance of stroke survivors and help them to recover their lost motor function and acquire new skills. The ETS-MARSE is seven degrees of freedom (DOF) exoskeleton robot developed to be worn on the lateral side of the right upper-extremity to assist and rehabilitate the patients with upper-extremity dysfunction resulting from stroke. Practically, rehabilitation activities are repetitive tasks, which make the assistive/robotic systems to suffer from repetitive/periodic uncertainties and external perturbations induced by the high-order dynamic model (seven DOF) and interaction with human muscle which impact on the tracking performance and even on the stability of the exoskeleton. To ensure the robustness and the stability of the robot, a new nonlinear backstepping control was implemented with designed tests performed by healthy subjects. In order to limit and to reject the periodic/repetitive disturbances, an iterative estimator was integrated into the control of the system. The estimator does not need the precise dynamic model of the exoskeleton. Experimental results confirm the robustness and accuracy of the controller performance to deal with the external perturbation, and the effectiveness of the iterative estimator to reject the repetitive/periodic disturbances.

Keywords: Backstepping control, iterative control, rehabilitation, ETS-MARSE.

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