Search results for: growth performance

Authors: C. Phalakornkule, S. Polgumhang, W. Tongdaung

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This study presents an investigation of electrochemical variables and an application of the optimal parameters in operating a continuous upflow electrocoagulation reactor in removing dye. Direct red 23, which is azo-based, was used as a representative of direct dyes. First, a batch mode was employed to optimize the design parameters: electrode type, electrode distance, current density and electrocoagulation time. The optimal parameters were found to be iron anode, distance between electrodes of 8 mm and current density of 30 A·m-2 with contact time of 5 min. The performance of the continuous upflow reactor with these parameters was satisfactory, with >95% color removal and energy consumption in the order of 0.6-0.7 kWh·m-3.

Keywords: Decolorization, Direct Dye, Electrocoagulation, Textile Wastewater, Upflow Reactor.

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Authors: Florin Pop

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Simulation is a very powerful method used for highperformance and high-quality design in distributed system, and now maybe the only one, considering the heterogeneity, complexity and cost of distributed systems. In Grid environments, foe example, it is hard and even impossible to perform scheduler performance evaluation in a repeatable and controllable manner as resources and users are distributed across multiple organizations with their own policies. In addition, Grid test-beds are limited and creating an adequately-sized test-bed is expensive and time consuming. Scalability, reliability and fault-tolerance become important requirements for distributed systems in order to support distributed computation. A distributed system with such characteristics is called dependable. Large environments, like Cloud, offer unique advantages, such as low cost, dependability and satisfy QoS for all users. Resource management in large environments address performant scheduling algorithm guided by QoS constrains. This paper presents the performance evaluation of scheduling heuristics guided by different optimization criteria. The algorithms for distributed scheduling are analyzed in order to satisfy users constrains considering in the same time independent capabilities of resources. This analysis acts like a profiling step for algorithm calibration. The performance evaluation is based on simulation. The simulator is MONARC, a powerful tool for large scale distributed systems simulation. The novelty of this paper consists in synthetic analysis results that offer guidelines for scheduler service configuration and sustain the empirical-based decision. The results could be used in decisions regarding optimizations to existing Grid DAG Scheduling and for selecting the proper algorithm for DAG scheduling in various actual situations.

Keywords: Scheduling, Simulation, Performance Evaluation, QoS, Distributed Systems, MONARC

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Authors: Kanika Sood, Sijie Shang

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A fundamental goal of education includes preparing students to become a part of the global workforce by making beneficial contributions to society. In this paper, we analyze student performance for multiple courses that involve different teaching pedagogies: a cooperative learning technique and an inquiry-based learning strategy. Student performance includes student engagement, grades, and attendance records. We perform this study in the Computer Science department for online and in-person courses for 450 students. We will perform correlation analysis to study the relationship between student scores and other parameters such as gender, mode of learning. We use natural language processing and machine learning to analyze student feedback data and performance data. We assess the learning outcomes of two teaching pedagogies for undergraduate and graduate courses to showcase the impact of pedagogical adoption and learning outcome as determinants of academic achievement. Early findings suggest that when using the specified pedagogies, students become experts on their topics and illustrate enhanced engagement with peers.

Keywords: Bag-of-words, cooperative learning, education, inquiry-based learning, in-person learning, Natural Language Processing, online learning, sentiment analysis, teaching pedagogy.

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Authors: Yong-An Jung, Young-Hwan You

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This paper suggests an improved integer frequency offset (IFO) estimation scheme using P1 symbol for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based the second generation terrestrial digital video broadcasting (DVB-T2) system. Proposed IFO estimator is designed by a low-complexity blind IFO estimation scheme, which is implemented with complex additions. Also, we propose active carriers (ACs) selection scheme in order to prevent performance degradation in blind IFO estimation. The simulation results show that under the AWGN and TU6 channels, the proposed method has low complexity than conventional method and almost similar performance in comparison with the conventional method.

Keywords: OFDM, DVB-T2, P1 symbol, ACs, IFO.

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Authors: Maninder Jeet Kaur, Moin Uddin, Harsh K. Verma

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The efficient use of available licensed spectrum is becoming more and more critical with increasing demand and usage of the radio spectrum. This paper shows how the use of spectrum as well as dynamic spectrum management can be effectively managed and spectrum allocation schemes in the wireless communication systems be implemented and used, in future. This paper would be an attempt towards better utilization of the spectrum. This research will focus on the decision-making process mainly, with an assumption that the radio environment has already been sensed and the QoS requirements for the application have been specified either by the sensed radio environment or by the secondary user itself. We identify and study the characteristic parameters of Cognitive Radio and use Genetic Algorithm for spectrum allocation. Performance evaluation is done using MATLAB toolboxes.

Keywords: Cognitive Radio, Fitness Functions, Fuzzy Logic, Quality of Service (QoS)

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Authors: L. Plošek, F. Nsanganwimana, B. Pourrut, J. Elbl, J. Hynšt, A. Kintl, D. Kubná, J. Záhora

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Land degradation is of concern in many countries. People more and more must address the problems associated with the degradation of soil properties due to man. Increasingly, organic soil amendments, such as compost are being examined for their potential use in soil restoration and for preventing soil erosion. In the Czech Republic, compost is the most used to improve soil structure and increase the content of soil organic matter. Land reclamation / restoration is one of the ways to evaluate industrially produced compost because Czech farmers are not willing to use compost as organic fertilizer. The most common use of reclamation substrates in the Czech Republic is for the rehabilitation of landfills and contaminated sites.

This paper deals with the influence of reclamation substrates (RS) with different proportions of compost and sand on selected soil properties–chemical characteristics, nitrogen bioavailability, leaching of mineral nitrogen, respiration activity and plant biomass production. Chemical properties vary proportionally with addition of compost and sand to the control variant (topsoil). The highest differences between the variants were recorded in leaching of mineral nitrogen (varies from 1.36mg dm^-3 in C to 9.09mg dm^-3). Addition of compost to soil improves conditions for plant growth in comparison with soil alone. However, too high addition of compost may have adverse effects on plant growth. In addition, high proportion of compost increases leaching of mineral N. Therefore, mixture of 70% of soil with 10% of compost and 20% of sand may be recommended as optimal composition of RS.

Keywords: Biomass, Compost, Reclamation, Respiration.

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Authors: Nélio Veiga, Paula Ferreira, Tiago Correia, Maria J. Correia, Carlos Pereira, Odete Amaral, Ilídio J. Correia

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Introduction: The application of fissure sealants is considered to be an important primary prevention method used in dental medicine. However, the formation of microleakage gaps between tooth enamel and the fissure sealant applied is one of the most common reasons of dental caries development in teeth with fissure sealants. The association between various dental biomaterials may limit the major disadvantages and limitations of biomaterials functioning in a complementary manner. The present study consists in the incorporation of a cariostatic agent – silver diamine fluoride (SDF) – in a resin-based fissure sealant followed by the study of release kinetics by spectrophotometry analysis of the association between both biomaterials and assessment of the inhibitory effect on the growth of the reference bacterial strain Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) in an in vitro study. Materials and Methods: An experimental in vitro study was designed consisting in the entrapment of SDF (Cariestop^® 12% and 30%) into a commercially available fissure sealant (Fissurit^®), by photopolymerization and photocrosslinking. The same sealant, without SDF was used as a negative control. The effect of the sealants on the growth of S. mutans was determined by the presence of bacterial inhibitory halos in the cultures at the end of the incubation period. In order to confirm the absence of bacteria in the surface of the materials, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) characterization was performed. Also, to analyze the release profile of SDF along time, spectrophotometry technique was applied. Results: The obtained results indicate that the association of SDF to a resin-based fissure sealant may be able to increase the inhibition of S. mutans growth. However, no SDF release was noticed during the in vitro release studies and no statistical significant difference was verified when comparing the inhibitory halo sizes obtained for test and control group.  Conclusions: In this study, the entrapment of SDF in the resin-based fissure sealant did not potentiate the antibacterial effect of the fissure sealant or avoid the immediate development of dental caries. The development of more laboratorial research and, afterwards, long-term clinical data are necessary in order to verify if this association between these biomaterials is effective and can be considered for being used in oral health management. Also, other methodologies for associating cariostatic agents and sealant should be addressed.

Keywords: Biomaterial, fissure sealant, primary prevention, silver diamine fluoride, S. mutans.

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Authors: A. Diaf, H. Aburideh, Z.Tigrine, D. Tassalit, F.Alaoui

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The tray/multi-tray distillation process is a topic that has been investigated to great detail over the last decade by many teams such as Jubran et al. [1], Adhikari et al. [2], Mowla et al. [3], Shatat et al. [4] and Fath [5] to name a few. A significant amount of work and effort was spent focusing on modeling and/simulation of specific distillation hardware designs. In this work, we have focused our efforts on investigating and gathering experimental data on several engineering and design variables to quantify their influence on the yield of the multi-tray distillation process. Our goals are to generate experimental performance data to bridge some existing gaps in the design, engineering, optimization and theoretical modeling aspects of the multi-tray distillation process.

Keywords: Distillation, Desalination, Multi-Stage still, Solar Energy

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Authors: Bit-Na Kwon, Dong-Hyun Ha, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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In wireless communication, space-time block code (STBC), cyclic delay diversity (CDD) and space-time cyclic delay diversity (STCDD)are used as the spatial diversity schemes and have been widely studied for the reliablecommunication. If these schemes are used, the communication system can obtain the improved performance. However,the quality of the system is degraded when the distance between a source and a destination is distant in wireless communication system. In this paper, the cooperative transmission scheme using two sources is proposed and improves the performance of the wireless communication system.

Keywords: OFDM, Cooperative communication, CDD, STBC, STCDD.

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Authors: Francesco Ruscio, Paolo Paoletti, Jens Thomas, Paul Myers, Sebastiano Fichera

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This paper presents the development of a low-cost monitoring system for a hydroponic urban vertical farm, enabling its automation and a quantitative assessment of the farm performance. Urban farming has seen increasing interest in the last decade thanks to the development of energy efficient and affordable LED lights; however, the optimal configuration of such systems (i.e. amount of nutrients, light-on time, ambient temperature etc.) is mostly based on the farmers’ experience and empirical guidelines. Moreover, even if simple, the maintenance of such systems is labor intensive as it requires water to be topped-up periodically, mixing of the nutrients etc. To unlock the full potential of urban farming, a quantitative understanding of the role that each variable plays in the growth of the plants is needed, together with a higher degree of automation. The low-cost monitoring system proposed in this paper is a step toward filling this knowledge and technological gap, as it enables collection of sensor data related to water and air temperature, water level, humidity, pressure, light intensity, pH and electric conductivity without requiring any human intervention. More sensors and actuators can also easily be added thanks to the modular design of the proposed platform. Data can be accessed remotely via a simple web interface. The proposed platform can be used both for quantitatively optimizing the setup of the farms and for automating some of the most labor-intensive maintenance activities. Moreover, such monitoring system can also potentially be used for high-level decision making, once enough data are collected.

Keywords: Automation, hydroponics, internet of things, monitoring system, urban farming.

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Authors: Karolína Vozková, Matěj Kuc

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This paper deals with the impact of decrease in interest rates on the performance of commercial and cooperative banks in the Eurozone measured by net interest margin. The analysis was performed on balanced dataset of 268 commercial and 726 cooperative banks spanning the 2008-2015 period. We employed Fixed Effects estimation panel method. As expected, we found a negative relationship between market rates and net interest margin. Our results suggest that the impact of negative interest income differs across individual banking business models. More precisely, those cooperative banks were much more hit by the decrease of market interest rates which might be due to their ownership structure and more restrictive business regulation.

Keywords: Cooperative banks, performance, negative interest rates, risk management.

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Authors: Ramamurthy S, Vanaja Ranjan P

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A DC-to-DC converter for applications involving a source with widely varying voltage conditions with loads requiring constant voltage from full load down to no load is presented. The switching regulator considered is a Buck converter with Pulse Skipping Modulation control whereby pulses applied to the switch are blocked or released on output voltage crossing a predetermined value. Results of the study on the performance of regulator circuit are presented. The regulator regulates over a wide input voltage range with slightly higher ripple content and good transient response. Input current spectrum indicates a good EMI performance with crowding of components at low frequency range.

Keywords: DC/DC Converter, Pulse Skipping Modulation, Buckregulator, Modulation Factor, Electromagnetic Interference

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Authors: Guneet Saini, Shahrukh, Sunil Sharma

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Traffic congestion is the most critical issue faced by those in the transportation profession today. Over the past few years, roundabouts have been recognized as a measure to promote efficiency at intersections globally. In developing countries like India, this type of intersection still faces a lot of issues, such as bottleneck situations, long queues and increased waiting times, due to increasing traffic which in turn affect the performance of the entire urban network. This research is a case study of a non-conventional roundabout, in terms of geometric design, in a small town in India. These types of roundabouts should be analyzed for their functionality in mixed traffic conditions, prevalent in many developing countries. Microscopic traffic simulation is an effective tool to analyze traffic conditions and estimate various measures of operational performance of intersections such as capacity, vehicle delay, queue length and Level of Service (LOS) of urban roadway network. This study involves analyzation of an unsymmetrical non-circular 6-legged roundabout known as “Kala Aam Chauraha” in a small town Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, India using VISSIM simulation package which is the most widely used software for microscopic traffic simulation. For coding in VISSIM, data are collected from the site during morning and evening peak hours of a weekday and then analyzed for base model building. The model is calibrated on driving behavior and vehicle parameters and an optimal set of calibrated parameters is obtained followed by validation of the model to obtain the base model which can replicate the real field conditions. This calibrated and validated model is then used to analyze the prevailing operational traffic performance of the roundabout which is then compared with a proposed alternative to improve efficiency of roundabout network and to accommodate pedestrians in the geometry. The study results show that the alternative proposed is an advantage over the present roundabout as it considerably reduces congestion, vehicle delay and queue length and hence, successfully improves roundabout performance without compromising on pedestrian safety. The study proposes similar designs for modification of existing non-conventional roundabouts experiencing excessive delays and queues in order to improve their efficiency especially in the case of developing countries. From this study, it can be concluded that there is a need to improve the current geometry of such roundabouts to ensure better traffic performance and safety of drivers and pedestrians negotiating the intersection and hence this proposal may be considered as a best fit.

Keywords: Operational performance, roundabout, simulation, VISSIM, traffic.

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Authors: F. Amin, S. Feizi

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Big data has the potential to improve the quality of services; enable infrastructure that businesses depend on to adapt continually and efficiently; improve the performance of employees; help organizations better understand customers; and reduce liability risks. Analytics and marketing models of fixed and mobile operators are falling short in combating churn and declining revenue per user. Big Data presents new method to reverse the way and improve profitability. The benefits of Big Data and next-generation network, however, are more exorbitant than improved customer relationship management. Next generation of networks are in a prime position to monetize rich supplies of customer information—while being mindful of legal and privacy issues. As data assets are transformed into new revenue streams will become integral to high performance.

Keywords: Big Data, Next Generation Networks, Network Transformation.

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Authors: Inseok Yeo, Tae-Ho Song

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To practically apply vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) to buildings or home appliances, VIPs have demanded long-term lifespan with outstanding insulation performance. Service lives of VIPs enveloped with Al-foil and three-layer Al-metallized envelope are calculated. For Al-foil envelope, the service life is longer but edge conduction is too large compared with the Al-metallized envelope. To increase service life even more, the proposed double enveloping method and metal-barrier-added enveloping method are further analyzed. The service lives of the VIP to employ two enveloping methods are calculated. Also, pressure increase and thermal insulation performance characteristics are investigated. For the metalbarrier- added enveloping method, effective thermal conductivity increase with time is close to that of Al-foil envelope, especially, for getter-inserted VIPs. For double enveloping method, if water vapor is perfectly adsorbed, the effect of service life enhancement becomes much greater. From these methods, the VIP can be guaranteed for service life of more than 20 years.

Keywords: Vacuum insulation panels, Service life, Double enveloping, Metal-barrier-added enveloping, Edge conduction.

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Authors: Sophia C. Alih, Mohammadreza Vafaei, Farnoud Rahimi Mansour, Nur Hajarul Falahi Abdul Halim

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Built-up columns have been widely employed by practice engineers in the design and construction of buildings and bridges. However, failures have been observed in this type of columns in previous seismic events. This study analyses the performance of built-up columns with different configurations of battens when it is subjected to seismic loads. Four columns with different size of battens were simulated and subjected to three different intensities of axial load along with a lateral cyclic load. Results indicate that the size of battens influences significantly the seismic behavior of columns. Lower shear capacity of battens results in higher ultimate strength and ductility for built-up columns. It is observed that intensity of axial load has a significant effect on the ultimate strength of columns, but it is less influential on the yield strength. For a given drift value, the stress level in the centroid of smaller size battens is significantly more than that of larger size battens signifying damage concentration in battens rather than chords. It is concluded that design of battens for shear demand lower than code specified values only slightly reduces initial stiffness of columns; however, it improves seismic performance of battened columns.

Keywords: Battened column, built-up column, cyclic behavior, seismic design, steel column.

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Authors: Farhat Hajer, Khir Tahar, Cherni Rafik, Dakhli Radhouen, Ammar Ben Brahim

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This paper presents the energy and exergy optimization of a real gas turbine power plant performance of 100 MW of power, installed in the South East of Tunisia. A simulation code is established using the EES (Engineering Equation Solver) software. The parameters considered are those of the actual operating conditions of the gas turbine thermal power station under study. The results show that thermal and exergetic efficiency decreases with the increase of the ambient temperature. Air excess has an important effect on the thermal efficiency. The emission of NOx rises in the summer and decreases in the winter. The obtained rates of NOx are compared with measurements results.

Keywords: Efficiency, exergy, gas turbine, temperature.

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Authors: Gurjinder Kaur, Yogesh Chaba, V. K. Jain

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The aim of this paper is to explore the security issues that significantly affect the performance of Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANET)and limit the services provided to their intended users. The MANETs are more vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS) because of their properties like shared medium, dynamic topologies etc. A DDoS attack is a coordinated attempt made by malicious users to flood the victim network with the large amount of data such that the resources of the victim network are exhausted resulting in the deterioration of the network performance. This paper highlights the effects of different types of DDoS attacks in MANETs and categorizes them according to their behavior.

Keywords: Distributed Denial, Mobile Adhoc Networks

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Authors: Mahesh Pal

Abstract:

In recent years, a number of works proposing the combination of multiple classifiers to produce a single classification have been reported in remote sensing literature. The resulting classifier, referred to as an ensemble classifier, is generally found to be more accurate than any of the individual classifiers making up the ensemble. As accuracy is the primary concern, much of the research in the field of land cover classification is focused on improving classification accuracy. This study compares the performance of four ensemble approaches (boosting, bagging, DECORATE and random subspace) with a univariate decision tree as base classifier. Two training datasets, one without ant noise and other with 20 percent noise was used to judge the performance of different ensemble approaches. Results with noise free data set suggest an improvement of about 4% in classification accuracy with all ensemble approaches in comparison to the results provided by univariate decision tree classifier. Highest classification accuracy of 87.43% was achieved by boosted decision tree. A comparison of results with noisy data set suggests that bagging, DECORATE and random subspace approaches works well with this data whereas the performance of boosted decision tree degrades and a classification accuracy of 79.7% is achieved which is even lower than that is achieved (i.e. 80.02%) by using unboosted decision tree classifier.

Keywords: Ensemble learning, decision tree, remote sensingclassification.

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Authors: Meor Othman Hamzah, Lillian Gungat, Nur Izzi Md. Yusoff, Jan Valentin

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The recent hike in raw materials costs and the quest for preservation of the environment has prompted asphalt industries to adopt greener road construction technology. This paper presents a study on such technology by means of asphalt recycling and use of warm mix asphalt (WMA) additive. It evaluates the effects of a WMA named RH-WMA on binder rheological properties and asphalt mixture performance. The recycled asphalt, obtained from local roads, was processed, fractionated, and incorporated with virgin aggregate and binder. For binder testing, the recycled asphalt was extracted and blended with virgin binder. The binder and mixtures specimen containing 30 % and 50 % recycled asphalt contents were mixed with 3 % RH-WMA. The rheological properties of the binder were evaluated based on fundamental, viscosity, and frequency sweep tests. Indirect tensile strength and resilient modulus tests were carried out to assess the mixture’s performances. The rheological properties and strength performance results showed that the addition of RH-WMA slightly reduced the binder and mixtures stiffness. The percentage of recycled asphalt increased the stiffness of binder and mixture, and thus improves the resistance to rutting. Therefore, the integration of recycled asphalt and RH-WMA can be an alternative material for road sustainable construction for countries in the tropics.

Keywords: Recycled asphalt, warm mix additive, rheological, mixture performance.

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Authors: Ingy A. El-Khouly, Khaled S. El-Kilany, Aziz E. El-Sayed

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The process of wafer fabrication is arguably the most technologically complex and capital intensive stage in semiconductor manufacturing. This large-scale discrete-event process is highly reentrant, and involves hundreds of machines, restrictions, and processing steps. Therefore, production control of wafer fabrication facilities (fab), specifically scheduling, is one of the most challenging problems that this industry faces. Dispatching rules have been extensively applied to the scheduling problems in semiconductor manufacturing. Moreover, lot release policies are commonly used in this manufacturing setting to further improve the performance of such systems and reduce its inherent variability. In this work, simulation is used in the scheduling of re-entrant flow shop manufacturing systems with an application in semiconductor wafer fabrication; where, a simulation model has been developed for the Intel Five-Machine Six Step Mini-Fab using the ExtendTM simulation environment. The Mini-Fab has been selected as it captures the challenges involved in scheduling the highly re-entrant semiconductor manufacturing lines. A number of scenarios have been developed and have been used to evaluate the effect of different dispatching rules and lot release policies on the selected performance measures. Results of simulation showed that the performance of the Mini-Fab can be drastically improved using a combination of dispatching rules and lot release policy.

Keywords: Dispatching rules, lot release policy, re-entrant flowshop, semiconductor manufacturing.

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Authors: Huang, Wei-Hsiu Chang, Pei-Chann, Wang, Lien-Chun

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The problems with high complexity had been the challenge in combinatorial problems. Due to the none-determined and polynomial characteristics, these problems usually face to unreasonable searching budget. Hence combinatorial optimizations attracted numerous researchers to develop better algorithms. In recent academic researches, most focus on developing to enhance the conventional evolutional algorithms and facilitate the local heuristics, such as VNS, 2-opt and 3-opt. Despite the performances of the introduction of the local strategies are significant, however, these improvement cannot improve the performance for solving the different problems. Therefore, this research proposes a meta-heuristic evolutional algorithm which can be applied to solve several types of problems. The performance validates BBEA has the ability to solve the problems even without the design of local strategies.

Keywords: Combinatorial problems, Artificial Chromosomes, Blocks Mining, Block Recombination

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Authors: Lee Ock-Sun

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The effective development of a geoscience education and training program takes account of the rapidly changing environment in the geoscience market, includes information about resource-rich countries which have international education demands. In this paper, we introduce the geoscience program run by the International School for Geoscience Resources at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (IS-Geo of KIGAM), and show its remarkable performance. To further effective geoscience program planning and operation, we present recommendations for strategic management for customer-oriented operation with a more favorable program format and advanced training aids. Above all, the IS-Geo of KIGAM should continue improve through ‘plan-do-see-feedback’ activities based on the recommendations.

Keywords: Demand survey, geoscience program, program performance, strategic management.

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Authors: Edelyn Alicar-Cadorna

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This study assessed the productivity and performance of the barangays in the Heritage City of Vigan in terms of the barangays- resource requirements, management of resources, produced goods and services, and outcomes of service delivery. The descriptive research design was used in the study employing the input-process-output-outcomes model. Findings of this study showed that the barangays were strong in terms of resource requirements which enabled them to produce goods and services. The barangays were also strong in terms of management of resources in development planning. They also showed great potential along fiscal administration, and had a moderately high capability in organization and management. However, the barangays appeared to be most wanting in the area of barangay legislation, but they were strong in community mobilization and they had strong linkages with POs, NGOs and educational institutions. In the delivery of social services, the barangays favored the maintenance of day care centers. However, the barangays seem to be weak in the delivery of economic services. They fared well along providing protective services such as in establishing a Barangay Disaster Coordinating Council and organizing a group of Barangay Tanod. In terms of environmental services, the barangays performed garbage collection and disposal; however, garbage still found their way in the streets in some barangays. The services delivered had effected an improved status of the barangays. However, the barangays are still facing some problems.

Keywords: Barangays, Performance and Productivity.

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Authors: K. Varesi, A. Radan

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In this paper, a new Genetic Algorithm (GA) based methodology is proposed to optimize the Degree of Hybridization (DOH) in a passenger parallel hybrid car. At first step, target parameters for the vehicle are decided and then using ADvanced VehIcle SimulatOR (ADVISOR) software, the variation pattern of these target parameters, across the different DOHs, is extracted. At the next step, a suitable cost function is defined and is optimized using GA. In this paper, also a new technique has been proposed for deciding the number of battery modules for each DOH, which leads to a great improvement in the vehicle performance. The proposed methodology is so simple, fast and at the same time, so efficient.

Keywords: Degree of Hybridization (DOH), Electric Motor, Emissions, Fuel Economy, Genetic Algorithm (GA), Hybrid ElectricVehicle (HEV), Vehicle Performance

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Authors: Abbas Alli Taghipoor Bafghi, Hosein Bakhoda, Fateme Khodaei Chegeni

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An experimental investigation is carried out to establish the performance characteristics of a compression ignition engine while using cerium oxide nanoparticles as additive in neat diesel and diesel-biodiesel blends. In the first phase of the experiments, stability of neat diesel and diesel-biodiesel fuel blends with the addition of cerium oxide nanoparticles is analyzed. After series of experiments, it is found that the blends subjected to high speed blending followed by ultrasonic bath stabilization improves the stability. In the second phase, performance characteristics are studied using the stable fuel blends in a single cylinder four stroke engine coupled with an electrical dynamometer and a data acquisition system. The cerium oxide acts as an oxygen donating catalyst and provides oxygen for combustion. The activation energy of cerium oxide acts to burn off carbon deposits within the engine cylinder at the wall temperature and prevents the deposition of non-polar compounds on the cylinder wall results reduction in HC emissions. The tests revealed that cerium oxide nanoparticles can be used as additive in diesel and diesel-biodiesel blends to improve complete combustion of the fuel significantly.

Keywords: Diesel engine, cerium oxide, diesel-biodiesel blends, nanoparticles.

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Authors: T. Sungkaworn, W. Triampo, P. Nalakarn, D. Triampo, I. M. Tang, Y. Lenbury, P. Picha

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Semiconductor nanomaterials like TiO2 nanoparticles (TiO2-NPs) approximately less than 100 nm in diameter have become a new generation of advanced materials due to their novel and interesting optical, dielectric, and photo-catalytic properties. With the increasing use of NPs in commerce, to date few studies have investigated the toxicological and environmental effects of NPs. Motivated by the importance of TiO2-NPs that may contribute to the cancer research field especially from the treatment prospective together with the fractal analysis technique, we have investigated the effect of TiO2-NPs on colony morphology in the dark condition using fractal dimension as a key morphological characterization parameter. The aim of this work is mainly to investigate the cytotoxic effects of TiO2-NPs in the dark on the growth of human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cell colonies from morphological aspect. The in vitro studies were carried out together with the image processing technique and fractal analysis. It was found that, these colonies were abnormal in shape and size. Moreover, the size of the control colonies appeared to be larger than those of the treated group. The mean Df +/- SEM of the colonies in untreated cultures was 1.085±0.019, N= 25, while that of the cultures treated with TiO2-NPs was 1.287±0.045. It was found that the circularity of the control group (0.401±0.071) is higher than that of the treated group (0.103±0.042). The same tendency was found in the diameter parameters which are 1161.30±219.56 μm and 852.28±206.50 μm for the control and treated group respectively. Possible explanation of the results was discussed, though more works need to be done in terms of the for mechanism aspects. Finally, our results indicate that fractal dimension can serve as a useful feature, by itself or in conjunction with other shape features, in the classification of cancer colonies.

Keywords: Tumor growth, Cell colonies, TiO2, Nanoparticles, Fractal, Morphology, Aggregation.

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Authors: Chandrakant R Kini, Satish Shenoy B, Yagnesh Sharma N.

Abstract:

In a bid to improve turbine entry temperature for maximizing the thermal efficiency of the HP stage gas turbine blade, an attempt is made in this paper to compare the performance of helicoidal ducted blade cooling with turbulator of different geometric proportion. It is found from analysis that there is significant improvement in cooling characteristics for turbine blade with turbulator geometry having larger e/D ratio. Also it is found from analysis, performance is vastly improved for greater thickness of turbulator geometry.

Keywords: Conjugate heat transfer, turbine blade cooling, helicoidal cooling duct, turbulator.

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Authors: Anthropometric, Physical Fitness Ability Profile of Elite, Non-Elite Boxers of Manipur

Abstract:

Background: Boxing is one of the oldest combat sports where different anthropological and fitness ability parameters determine performance. It is characterized by short duration, high intensity bursts of activity. The purpose of this research was to determine anthropometric and physical fitness profile of male elite and non-elite boxers of Manipur and to compare the two groups. Materials and Methods: Nineteen subjects were selected as elite boxers and twenty-four were non-elite boxers of Manipur. A cross-sectional study was conducted on anthropometric measurements and physical fitness ability tests on 33 subjects (elite and non-elite boxers). Statistical analysis was done using descriptive statistics, t-test and logistic regression with the help of SPSS version 15 software. Results: Results showed elite boxers have significantly reduced neck girth and calf girth as compare to non-elite boxers. Elite boxers have significantly lower sub scapular skin fold (SSF) and supra iliac skin fold (SISF) than their counterparts. Higher stature, larger BTB and lower percent fat are associated with higher performance in boxing. Sit ups (SU), standing Broad Jump (SBJ), Plat taping (PT), Sit and reach (SAR) and Harvard Step Test (HST) are predicted as most contributing factors enhancing performance level among the physical fitness components. Elite boxers are found to have more functional strength (sit ups), higher explosive strength (SBJ), more agility (PT), cardio-vascular endurance and flexibility (SAR) than non-elite boxers. Conclusion: In conclusion, lower fat, higher lean body mass, larger bi-trochantric breadth, high explosive strength, agility and flexibility are significantly associated with higher performance and chance of becoming elite boxers.

Keywords: Anthropometry, elite and non-elite boxers, Manipur, physical fitness.

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Authors: M. Y. Lee, D. H. Shin, S. H. Park, W.C. Ham, S.K. Ko, C. G. Song

Abstract:

Photoacoustic Tomography (PAT) is a promising medical imaging modality that combines optical imaging contrast with the spatial resolution of ultrasound imaging. It can also distinguish the changes in biological features. But, real-time PAT system should be confirmed due to photoacoustic effect for tissue. Thus, we have developed a real-time PAT system using a custom-developed data acquisition board and ultrasound linear probe. To evaluate performance of our system, phantom test was performed. As a result of those experiments, the system showed satisfactory performance and its usefulness has been confirmed. We monitored the degradation of inflammation which induced on the rat’s kidney using real-time PAT.

Keywords: Photoacoustic tomography, inflammation detection, rat, kidney, contrast agent, ultrasound.

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