Search results for: environment shelter

Authors: Seung Woo Lee, So Jeong Nam, Jai-Kyung Lee

Abstract:

It can be said that the business sector is faced with a range of challenges–a rapidly changing business environment, an increase and diversification of customers- demands and the consequent need for quick response–for having in place flexible management and production info systems. As a matter of fact, many manufacturers have adopted production info management systems such as MES and ERP. Nevertheless, managers are having difficulties obtaining ever-changing production process information in real time, or responding quickly to any change in production related needs on the basis of such information. This is because they rely on poor production info systems which are not capable of providing real-time factory settings. If the manufacturer doesn-t have a capacity for collecting or digitalizing the 4 Ms (Man, Machine, Material, Method), which are resources for production, on a real time basis, it might to difficult to effectively maintain the information on production process. In this regard, this paper will introduce some new alternatives to the existing methods of collecting the 4 Ms in real time, which are currently comprise the production field.

Keywords: 4M, Acquisition of Data on shop-floor, Real-time machine interface

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Authors: Paul Christodoulides, Georgios Florides, Panayiotis Pouloupatis, Vassilios Messaritis, Lazaros Lazari

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Ground-source heat pumps achieve higher efficiencies than conventional air-source heat pumps because they exchange heat with the ground that is cooler in summer and hotter in winter than the air environment. Earth heat exchangers are essential parts of the ground-source heat pumps and the accurate prediction of their performance is of fundamental importance. This paper presents the development and validation of a numerical model through an incompressible fluid flow, for the simulation of energy and temperature changes in and around a U-tube borehole heat exchanger. The FlexPDE software is used to solve the resulting simultaneous equations that model the heat exchanger. The validated model (through a comparison with experimental data) is then used to extract conclusions on how various parameters like the U-tube diameter, the variation of the ground thermal conductivity and specific heat and the borehole filling material affect the temperature of the fluid.

Keywords: U-tube borehole, energy flow, incompressible fluid, numerical model

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Authors: K. Reza-Yazdi, M. Fallah, M. Khodaparast, F. Kateb, M. Hosseini-Ghaffari

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The objective of this study was to determine effect of dietary essential oil (EO) compounds, which contained cinnamaldehyde, eugenol, peppermint, coriander, cumin, lemongrass, and an organic carrier on feed intake, milk composition, and rumen fermentation of dairy cows during heat exposure. Thirty-two Holstein cows (days in milk= 60 ± 5) were assigned to one of two treatment groups: a Control and EO fed. The experiment lasted 28 days. Dry matter intake (DMI) was measured daily while and milk production was measured weekly. Our result showed that DMI and milk yield was decreased (P < 0.01) in control cows relative to EO cows. Furthermore, supplementation with EO was associated with a decrease in the molar proportion of propionate (P < 0.05) and increase (P < 0.05) in acetate to propionate ratio. In conclusion, EO supplementations in diets can be useful nutritional modification to alleviate for the decrease DMI and milk production during heat exposure in lactating dairy cows.

Keywords: Dairy cow, feed additive, plant extract.

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Authors: Constantia Achilleos, Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis

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Road industry has challenged the prospect of ecoconstruction. Pavements may fit within the framework of sustainable development. Hence, research implements assessments of conventional pavements impacts on environment in use of life cycle approach. To meet global, and often national, targets on pollution control, newly introduced pavement designs are under study. This is the case of Cyprus demonstration, which occurred within EcoLanes project work. This alternative pavement differs on concrete layer reinforced with tire recycling product. Processing of post-consumer tires produces steel fibers improving strength capacity against cracking. Thus maintenance works are relevantly limited in comparison to flexible pavement. This enables to be more ecofriendly, referenced to current study outputs. More specific, proposed concrete pavement life cycle processes emits 15 % less air pollutants and consumes 28 % less embodied energy than those of the asphalt pavement. In addition there is also a reduction on costs by 0.06 %.

Keywords: Environmental impact assessment, life cycle, tirerecycling, transportation pavement.

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Authors: S. Aziz, B. Alexander, C. Gengnagel, S. Weinzierl

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This paper explores a generative design, simulation, and optimization workflow for the integration of acoustical diffuser and/or absorber geometry with embedded coupled Helmholtz-resonators for full scale 3D printed building components. Large-scale additive manufacturing in conjunction with algorithmic CAD design tools enables a vast amount of control when creating geometry. This is advantageous regarding the increasing demands of comfort standards for indoor spaces and the use of more resourceful and sustainable construction methods and materials. The presented methodology highlights these new technological advancements and offers a multimodal and integrative design solution with the potential for an immediate application in the AEC-Industry. In principle, the methodology can be applied to a wide range of structural elements that can be manufactured by additive manufacturing processes. The current paper focuses on a case study of an application for a biaxial load-bearing beam grillage made of reinforced concrete, which allows for a variety of applications through the combination of additive prefabricated semi-finished parts and in-situ concrete supplementation. The semi-prefabricated parts or formwork bodies form the basic framework of the supporting structure and at the same time have acoustic absorption and diffusion properties that are precisely acoustically programmed for the space underneath the structure. To this end, a hybrid validation strategy is being explored using a digital and cross-platform simulation environment, verified with physical prototyping. The iterative workflow starts with the generation of a parametric design model for the acoustical geometry using the algorithmic visual scripting editor Grasshopper3D inside the Building Information Modeling (BIM) software Revit. Various geometric attributes (i.e., bottleneck and cavity dimensions) of the resonator are parameterized and fed to a numerical optimization algorithm which can modify the geometry with the goal of increasing absorption at resonance and increasing the bandwidth of the effective absorption range. Using Rhino.Inside and LiveLink for Revit the generative model was imported directly into the Multiphysics simulation environment COMSOL. The geometry was further modified and prepared for simulation in a semi-automated process. The incident and scattered pressure fields were simulated from which the surface normal absorption coefficients were calculated. This reciprocal process was repeated to further optimize the geometric parameters. Subsequently the numerical models were compared to a set of 3D concrete printed physical twin models which were tested in a .25 m x .25 m impedance tube. The empirical results served to improve the starting parameter settings of the initial numerical model. The geometry resulting from the numerical optimization was finally returned to grasshopper for further implementation in an interdisciplinary study.

Keywords: Acoustical design, additive manufacturing, computational design, multimodal optimization.

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Authors: Abdallah S. Abdallah, Mohamad A bou El-Nasr, A. Lynn Abbott

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This paper presents a new color face image database for benchmarking of automatic face detection algorithms and human skin segmentation techniques. It is named the VT-AAST image database, and is divided into four parts. Part one is a set of 286 color photographs that include a total of 1027 faces in the original format given by our digital cameras, offering a wide range of difference in orientation, pose, environment, illumination, facial expression and race. Part two contains the same set in a different file format. The third part is a set of corresponding image files that contain human colored skin regions resulting from a manual segmentation procedure. The fourth part of the database has the same regions converted into grayscale. The database is available on-line for noncommercial use. In this paper, descriptions of the database development, organization, format as well as information needed for benchmarking of algorithms are depicted in detail.

Keywords: Image database, color image analysis, facedetection, skin segmentation.

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Authors: Robson C. Santos, Christian N. Barreto, Gerson G. Cunha, Severino J. C. Neto

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This paper aims to project the construction of a prototype azimuthal thruster, mounted with materials of low cost and easy access, testing in a controlled environment to measure their performance, characteristics and feasibility of future projects. The construction of the simulation of dynamic positioning software, responsible for simulating a vessel and reposition it when necessary. Validation tests were performed in the form of partial or complete system. These tests validate the system manually or automatically. The system provides an interface to the user and simulates the conditions unfavorable positioning of a vessel, accurately calculates the azimuth angle, the direction of rotation of the helix and the time that this should be turned on so that the vessel back to position original. A serial communication connects the Simulation Dynamic Positioning System with Embedded System causing the usergenerated data to simulate the DP system arrives in the form of control signals to the motors of the propellant. This article addresses issues in the marine industry employees.

Keywords: Azimuthal Thruster, Dynamic Positioning, Embedded System.

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Authors: M. H. Lai, D. S. Gunawardena, K. S. Lim, H. Ahmad

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In this paper, we have reported birefringence manipulation in regenerated high birefringent fiber Bragg grating (RPMG) by using CO2 laser annealing method. The results indicate that the birefringence of RPMG remains unchanged after CO2 laser annealing followed by slow cooling process, but reduced after fast cooling process (~5.6×10-5). After a series of annealing procedures with different cooling rates, the obtained results show that slower the cooling rate, higher the birefringence of RPMG. The volume, thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) and glass transition temperature (Tg) change of stress applying part in RPMG during cooling process are responsible for the birefringence change. Therefore, these findings are important to the RPMG sensor in high and dynamic temperature environment. The measuring accuracy, range and sensitivity of RPMG sensor is greatly affected by its birefringence value. This work also opens up a new application of CO2 laser for fiber annealing and birefringence modification.

Keywords: Birefringence, CO2 laser annealing, regenerated gratings, thermal stress.

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Authors: F. Gökgöz, M. E. Atmaca

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Electricity plays an indispensable role in human life and the economy. It is a unique product or service that must be balanced instantaneously, as electricity is not stored, generation and consumption should be proportional. Effective and efficient use of electricity is very important not only for society, but also for the environment. A competitive electricity market is one of the best ways to provide a suitable platform for effective and efficient use of electricity. On the other hand, it carries some risks that should be carefully managed by the market players. Risk management is an essential part in market players’ decision making. In this paper, risk management through diversification is applied with the help of Markowitz’s Mean-variance, Down-side and Semi-variance methods for a case study. Performance of optimal electricity sale solutions are measured and evaluated via Sharpe-Ratio, and the optimal portfolio solutions are improved. Two years of historical weekdays’ price data of the Turkish Day Ahead Market are used to demonstrate the approach.

Keywords: Electricity market, portfolio optimization, risk management in electricity market, Sharpe ratio.

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Authors: Solehuddin Shuib, Koay Boon Aik, Zainul Ahmad Rajion

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There are many types of mechanical failure on the dental implant. In this project, the failure that needs to take into consideration is the bone resorption on the dental implant. Human bone has its ability to remodel after the implantation. As the dental implant is installed into the bone, the bone will detect and change the bone structure to achieve new biomechanical environment. This phenomenon is known as bone remodeling. The objective of the project is to improve the performance of dental implant by using different types of design. These designs are used to analyze and predict the failure of the dental implant by using finite element analysis (FEA) namely ANSYS. The bone is assumed to be fully attached to the implant or cement. Hence, results are then compared with other researchers. The results were presented in the form of Von Mises stress, normal stress, shear stress analysis, and displacement. The selected design will be analyzed further based on a theoretical calculation of bone remodeling on the dental implant. The results have shown that the design constructed passed the failure analysis. Therefore, the selected design is proven to have a stable performance at the recovery stage.

Keywords: Dental implant, FEA, bone remodeling, osseointegration.

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Authors: Samee Ullah Khan, Ishfaq Ahmad

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This paper proposes a novel game theoretical technique to address the problem of data object replication in largescale distributed computing systems. The proposed technique draws inspiration from computational economic theory and employs the extended Vickrey auction. Specifically, players in a non-cooperative environment compete for server-side scarce memory space to replicate data objects so as to minimize the total network object transfer cost, while maintaining object concurrency. Optimization of such a cost in turn leads to load balancing, fault-tolerance and reduced user access time. The method is experimentally evaluated against four well-known techniques from the literature: branch and bound, greedy, bin-packing and genetic algorithms. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach outperforms the four techniques in both the execution time and solution quality.

Keywords: Auctions, data replication, pricing, static allocation.

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Authors: Bita Mashayekhi, Azadeh Maddahi, Arash Tahriri

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The purpose of this paper is developing a model for audit quality, with regard to the contextual and environmental attributes of the audit profession in Iran. For this purpose, using an exploratory approach, and because of the special attributes of the auditing profession in Iran in terms of the legal environment, regulatory and supervisory mechanisms, audit firms size, and etc., we used grounded theory approach as a qualitative research method. Therefore, we got the opinions of the experts in the auditing and capital market areas through unstructured interviews. As a result, the authors revealed the determinants of audit quality, and by using these determinants, developed an Integrated Audit Quality Model, including causal conditions, intervening conditions, context, as well as action strategies related to AQ and their consequences. In this research, audit quality is studied using a systemic approach. According to this approach, the quality of inputs, processes, and outputs of auditing determines the quality of auditing, therefore, the quality of all different parts of this system is considered.

Keywords: Audit quality, integrated audit quality model, audit supply, demand for audit service, grounded theory.

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Authors: Sang-Hun Lee, Bum-Soo Kim, Yang-Sae Moon, Jinho Kim

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In this paper we present a photo mosaic smartphone application in client-server based large-scale image databases. Photo mosaic is not a new concept, but there are very few smartphone applications especially for a huge number of images in the client-server environment. To support large-scale image databases, we first propose an overall framework working as a client-server model. We then present a concept of image-PAA features to efficiently handle a huge number of images and discuss its lower bounding property. We also present a best-match algorithm that exploits the lower bounding property of image-PAA. We finally implement an efficient Android-based application and demonstrate its feasibility.

Keywords: smartphone applications; photo mosaic; similarity search; data mining; large-scale image databases.

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Authors: Jito Vanualailai, Bibhya Sharma

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Swarm principles are increasingly being used to design controllers for the coordination of multi-robot systems or, in general, multi-agent systems. This paper proposes a two-dimensional Lagrangian swarm model that enables the planar agents, modeled as point masses, to swarm whilst effectively avoiding each other and obstacles in the environment. A novel method, based on an extended Lyapunov approach, is used to construct the model. Importantly, the Lyapunov method ensures a form of practical stability that guarantees an emergent behavior, namely, a cohesive and wellspaced swarm with a constant arrangement of individuals about the swarm centroid. Computer simulations illustrate this basic feature of collective behavior. As an application, we show how multiple planar mobile unicycle-like robots swarm to eventually form patterns in which their velocities and orientations stabilize.

Keywords: Attractive-repulsive swarm model, individual-based swarm model, Lagrangian swarm model, Lyapunov stability, Lyapunov-like function, practical stability, unicycle.

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Authors: Shahana T. K., Babita R. Jose, K. Poulose Jacob, Sreela Sasi

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The demand for new telecommunication services requiring higher capacities, data rates and different operating modes have motivated the development of new generation multi-standard wireless transceivers. A multi-standard design often involves extensive system level analysis and architectural partitioning, typically requiring extensive calculations. In this research, a decimation filter design tool for wireless communication standards consisting of GSM, WCDMA, WLANa, WLANb, WLANg and WiMAX is developed in MATLAB® using GUIDE environment for visual analysis. The user can select a required wireless communication standard, and obtain the corresponding multistage decimation filter implementation using this toolbox. The toolbox helps the user or design engineer to perform a quick design and analysis of decimation filter for multiple standards without doing extensive calculation of the underlying methods.

Keywords: Decimation filter, MATLAB® toolbox, Multistandard transceivers, Sigma-delta A/D converter.

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Authors: Salah Algabli

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As online learning takes center stage, Arabic language instructors face the imperative to adapt their practices for the digital realm. This study investigates the experiences of online Arabic instructors to unveil the pedagogical opportunities and challenges this format presents. Utilizing a transcendental phenomenological approach with 15 diverse participants, the research shines a light on the unique realities of online language teaching at the university level, specifically in the United States. The study proposes theoretical and practical solutions to maximize the benefits of online language learning while mitigating its challenges. Recommendations cater to instructors, researchers, and program coordinators, paving the way for enhancing the quality of online Arabic language education. The findings highlight the need for pedagogical approaches tailored to the online environment, ultimately shaping a future where both instructors and learners thrive in this digital landscape.

Keywords: Online Arabic language learning, pedagogical opportunities and challenges, online Arabic teachers, online language instruction, digital pedagogy.

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Authors: Andrej Miklošík, Petra Horváthová, Štefan Žák

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Nowadays companies in all sectors are looking for the sources of competitive advantages. Holistic marketing approach searches for their emergence based on the integration of all components and elements across the organization. Modern marketing sees the sources of competitive advantage in implementing the latest managerial practices, motivation, intelligent project management, knowledge management, collaborative marketing, CSR and, in the recent years, also in the business process optimization. With the use of modern tools including business process management and business process modelling the company can markedly increase its internal efficiency which can lead not only to lowering the costs but to creating the environment for optimal customer care, positive corporate culture and for origination of innovations as well. In the article the authors analyze the recent trend in this area and introduce suggestions to companies to identify and optimize the key processes that have a significant impact of the company´s competitiveness.

Keywords: business process optimization, competitive advantage, corporate social responsibility, knowledge management

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Authors: Chaudhuri Manoj Kumar Swain, Susmita Das

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This paper explores a detailed procedure of predicting a path loss (PL) model and its application in estimating the coverage probability in a WiMAX network. For this a hybrid approach is followed in predicting an empirical PL model of a 2.65 GHz WiMAX network deployed in a suburban environment. Data collection, statistical analysis, and regression analysis are the phases of operations incorporated in this approach and the importance of each of these phases has been discussed properly. The procedure of collecting data such as received signal strength indicator (RSSI) through experimental set up is demonstrated. From the collected data set, empirical PL and RSSI models are predicted with regression technique. Furthermore, with the aid of the predicted PL model, essential parameters such as PL exponent as well as the coverage probability of the network are evaluated. This research work may assist in the process of deployment and optimisation of any cellular network significantly.

Keywords: WiMAX, RSSI, path loss, coverage probability, regression analysis.

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Authors: V. Joshi Manohar, P. Sujatha, K. S. R. Anjaneyulu

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Nowadays Multilevel inverters are widely using in various applications. Modulation strategy at fundamental switching frequency like, SHEPWM is prominent technique to eliminate lower order of harmonics with less switching losses and better harmonic profile. The equations which are formed by SHE are highly nonlinear transcendental in nature, there may exist single, multiple or even no solutions for a particular MI. However, some loads such as electrical drives, it is required to operate in whole range of MI. In order to solve SHE equations for whole range of MI, intelligent techniques are well suited to solve equations so as to produce lest %THDV. Hence, this paper uses Continuous genetic algorithm for minimising harmonics. This paper also presents wavelet based analysis of harmonics. The developed algorithm is simulated and %THD from FFT analysis and Wavelet analysis are compared. MATLAB programming environment and SIMULINK models are used whenever necessary.

Keywords: Cascade H-Bridge Inverter (CHB), Continuous Genetic Algorithm (C-GA), Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation (SHEPWM), Total Harmonic Distortion (%THDv), Wavelet Transform (WT).

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Authors: L. Cazacova, A. Erdelhun, A.M. Saymanlier, N. Cazacova, U. Ulbar

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Today due to rising levels of housing- necessities, several problems have been raised regarding to urban quality of life. The aim of the research is to study social and spatial aspects of housing environment and to find out their interaction with the urban quality of life. As a case of study two pilot areas of Famagusta city in North Cyprus, were selected: Baykal, considered as an established urban district and Tuzla, a newly developed peri-urban district. In order to determine urban quality of life in planning and developing of housing areas, social and spatial aspects of selected areas have been examined, differences between them according to the planning policy have been pointed out, advantages and disadvantages of housing planning have been found. As a practical implementation of the research a number of households in each selected area have been interviewed in order to draw a conclusion.

Keywords: housing development, Famagusta, quality of life, social and spatial aspects.

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Authors: Shahzad Hassan, Kamran Saeed

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People are always in search of Wi-Fi hotspots because Internet is a major demand nowadays. But like all other technologies, there is still room for improvement in the Wi-Fi technology with regards to the speed and quality of connectivity. In order to address these aspects, Harald Haas, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, proposed what we know as the Li-Fi (Light Fidelity). Li-Fi is a new technology in the field of wireless communication to provide connectivity within a network environment. It is a two-way mode of wireless communication using light. Basically, the data is transmitted through Light Emitting Diodes which can vary the intensity of light very fast, even faster than the blink of an eye. From the research and experiments conducted so far, it can be said that Li-Fi can increase the speed and reliability of the transfer of data. This paper pays particular attention on the assessment of the performance of this technology. In other words, it is a 5G technology which uses LED as the medium of data transfer. For coverage within the buildings, Wi-Fi is good but Li-Fi can be considered favorable in situations where large amounts of data are to be transferred in areas with electromagnetic interferences. It brings a lot of data related qualities such as efficiency, security as well as large throughputs to the table of wireless communication. All in all, it can be said that Li-Fi is going to be a future phenomenon where the presence of light will mean access to the Internet as well as speedy data transfer.

Keywords: Communication, LED, Li-Fi, Wi-Fi.

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Authors: Marcin Michalak

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Due to the increasing efforts on saving our natural environment a change in the structure of energy resources can be observed - an increasing fraction of a renewable energy sources. In many countries traditional underground coal mining loses its significance but there are still countries, like Poland or Germany, in which the coal based technologies have the greatest fraction in a total energy production. This necessitates to make an effort to limit the costs and negative effects of underground coal mining. The longwall complex is as essential part of the underground coal mining. The safety and the effectiveness of the work is strongly dependent of the diagnostic state of powered roof supports. The building of a useful and reliable diagnostic system requires a lot of data. As the acquisition of a data of any possible operating conditions it is important to have a possibility to generate a demanded artificial working characteristics. In this paper a new approach of modelling a leg pressure in the single unit of powered roof support. The model is a result of the analysis of a typical working cycles.

Keywords: Machine modelling, underground mining, coal mining.

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Authors: G. Fouché, J. N. Eloff, K. Wellington

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Acaricides are commonly used to control ticks but are toxic, harmful to the environment and too expensive to resource-limited farmers. Traditionally, many communities in South Africa rely on a wide range of indigenous practices to keep their livestock healthy. One of these health care practices includes the use of medicinal plants and this offers an alternative to conventional medicine. An investigation was conducted at the CSIR in South Africa, and selected indigenous plants used in communities were scientifically evaluated for the management of ticks in animals. 17 plants were selected from 239 plants used traditionally in South Africa. Two different organic extracts were prepared from the 17 samples, resulting in 34 plant samples. These were tested for efficacy against two tick species, namely Rhipicephalus microplus and Rhipicephalus turanicus. The plant extracts were also screened against Vero cells and most were found to have low cytotoxicity. This study has shown that there is potential for the development of botanicals as natural acaricides against ticks that are non-toxic and environmentally benign.

Keywords: Rhipicephalus microplus, Rhipicephalus turanicus, ticks, plant extracts, South Africa.

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Authors: A. Bagherzadhalimi, E. Di Maria

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The feedbacks obtained regarding the sense of presence from pilot users operating a Mobile Robotic presence (MRP) system to visit a simulated museum are reported in this paper. The aim is to investigate how much the perception of system’s usefulness and ease of use is affected by operators’ sense of social telepresence (presence) in the remote location. Therefore, scenarios of visiting a museum are simulated and the user operators are supposed to perform some regular tasks inside the remote environment including interaction with local users, navigation and visiting the artworks. Participants were divided into two groups, those who had previous experience of operation and interaction with a MRP system and those who never had experience. Based on the results, both groups provided different feedbacks. Moreover, there was a significant association between user’s sense of presence and their perception of system usefulness and ease of use.

Keywords: Mobile Robotic Telepresence, Museum, Social Telepresence, Usability test.

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Authors: Guguloth Ramesh, T. K. Sunil Kumar

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This paper presents congestion management in deregulated power systems. In a deregulated environment, every buyer wants to buy power from the cheapest generator available, irrespective of relative geographical location of buyer and seller. As a consequence of this, the transmission corridors evacuating the power of cheaper generators would get overloaded if all such transactions are approved. Congestion management is a mechanism to prioritize the transactions and commit to such a schedule which would not overload the network. The congestions in the transmission lines are determined by Optimal Power Flow (OPF) solution, which is carried by primal liner programming method. Congestion in the transmission lines are alleviated by connected Distributed Generation (DG) of micro grid at load bus. A method to determine the optimal location of DG unit has been suggested based on transmission line relief sensitivity based approach. The effectiveness of proposed method has been demonstrated on modified IEEE-14 and 30 bus test systems.

Keywords: Congestion management, Distribution Generation (DG), Transmission Line Relief (TLR) sensitivity index, OPF.

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Authors: Immanuel I. Bitto, Thomas Agam

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28 healthy adult Maradi bucks were used to evaluate sperm production and sperm storage capacity in the breed. Daily sperm production (DSP) averaged 0.55±0.05x109, while the daily sperm production/g (DSP/g) was 1.37±0.12 x107. Gonadal sperm reserve was 1.99±0.18 x109, while the caput, upper corpus and lower corpus averaged 0.58±0.04 x109, 0.36±0.02 x109 and 0.33±0.08 x109 respectively. The proximal cauda, mid cauda, distal cauda and ductus deferens had values of 0.68±0.10 x109, 1.23±0.16 x109,1.87±0. x109and 0.17±0.05 x109 respectively. The relative contributions of the respective epididymal sections and ductus deferens to the total extragonadal sperm reserves were, 11.11%, 6.89%, 6.32%, 13.03%, 23.56%, 35.82% and 3.26% respectively. Gonadal sperm reserves were significantly higher (p<0.05) than caput reserves, upper corpus reserves, lower corpus reserves, proximal cauda reserves and ductus deferens reserves. Gonadal reserves were however similar (p>0.05) to mid cauda and distal cauda epididymal reserves.

Keywords: Goats, Reserves, Sperm, Tropics

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Authors: Hassan Jorfi, Saeid Jorfi, Hashim Fauzy Bin Yaccob, Ishak Mad Shah

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In today's complex global environment, emotional intelligence in educational administrations encompasses self-regard that is formed to utilize communication effectiveness. The paper is undertaken to understand the relationship between managers- emotional intelligence especially self-regard and employees to improve communication effectiveness in educational administrations of Iran. Data (N = 145) for this study were collected through questionnaires that participants were managers and employees educational administrations of Iran. The aim of this paper assess the emotional intelligence especially self-regard of managers and employees and its relationship with communication effectiveness in educational administrations of Iran. This paper explained self-regard that has a high relationship with communication especially communication effectiveness. Self-regard plays an important role in communication effectiveness. Individuals with high self-regard tend to have higher emotional intelligence and this action lead to improve communication effectiveness. The result of the paper shows a strong correspondence between self-regard and communication effectiveness in educational administrations.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, self-regard, communication effectiveness, motivation.

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Authors: Ethar H. Khalil, Bahaa I. Kazem

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In this work a software simulation model has been proposed for two driven wheels mobile robot path planning; that can navigate in dynamic environment with static distributed obstacles. The work involves utilizing Bezier curve method in a proposed N order matrix form; for engineering the mobile robot path. The Bezier curve drawbacks in this field have been diagnosed. Two directions: Up and Right function has been proposed; Probability Recursive Function (PRF) to overcome those drawbacks. PRF functionality has been developed through a proposed; obstacle detection function, optimization function which has the capability of prediction the optimum path without comparison between all feasible paths, and N order Bezier curve function that ensures the drawing of the obtained path. The simulation results that have been taken showed; the mobile robot travels successfully from starting point and reaching its goal point. All obstacles that are located in its way have been avoided. This navigation is being done successfully using the proposed PRF techniques.

Keywords: Mobile robot, path planning, Bezier curve.

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Authors: J. Furuya, S. Kobayashi, S. D. Meyer

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This research examines possible effects of climatic change focusing on global warming and its impacts on world agricultural product markets, by using a world food model developed to consider climate changes. GDP and population for each scenario were constructed by IPCC and climate data for each scenario was reported by the Hadley Center and are used in this research to consider results in different contexts. Production and consumption of primary agriculture crops of the world for each socio-economic scenario are obtained and investigated by using the modified world food model. Simulation results show that crop production in some countries or regions will have different trends depending on the context. These alternative contexts depend on the rate of GDP growth, population, temperature, and rainfall. Results suggest that the development of environment friendly technologies lead to more consumption of food in many developing countries. Relationships among environmental policy, clean energy development, and poverty elimination warrant further investigation.

Keywords: Global warming, SRES scenarios, World food model.

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Authors: R. Bremananth, Andy W. H. Khong, A. Chitra

Abstract:

Visualizing sound and noise often help us to determine an appropriate control over the source localization. Near-field acoustic holography (NAH) is a powerful tool for the ill-posed problem. However, in practice, due to the small finite aperture size, the discrete Fourier transform, FFT based NAH couldn-t predict the activeregion- of-interest (AROI) over the edges of the plane. Theoretically few approaches were proposed for solving finite aperture problem. However most of these methods are not quite compatible for the practical implementation, especially near the edge of the source. In this paper, a zip-stuffing extrapolation approach has suggested with 2D Kaiser window. It is operated on wavenumber complex space to localize the predicted sources. We numerically form a practice environment with touch impact databases to test the localization of sound source. It is observed that zip-stuffing aperture extrapolation and 2D window with evanescent components provide more accuracy especially in the small aperture and its derivatives.

Keywords: Acoustic source localization, Near-field acoustic holography (NAH), FFT, Extrapolation, k-space wavenumber errors.

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