Search results for: Environmental management systems

Authors: A. Nachour, L. Ouzizi, Y. Aoura

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Recent developments on multi-agent system have brought a new research field on image processing. Several algorithms are used simultaneously and improved in deferent applications while new methods are investigated. This paper presents a new automatic method for edge detection using several agents and many different actions. The proposed multi-agent system is based on parallel agents that locally perceive their environment, that is to say, pixels and additional environmental information. This environment is built using Vector Field Convolution that attract free agent to the edges. Problems of partial, hidden or edges linking are solved with the cooperation between agents. The presented method was implemented and evaluated using several examples on different synthetic and medical images. The obtained experimental results suggest that this approach confirm the efficiency and accuracy of detected edge.

Keywords: Edge detection, medical MR images, multi-agent systems, vector field convolution.

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Authors: M. Königová, J. Fejfar

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Business continuity management (BCM) identifies potential external and internal threats to an organization and their impacts to business operations. The goal of the article is to identify, based on the analysis of employee turnover in organizations in the Czech Republic, the role of personnel planning in BCM. The article is organized as follows. The first part of the article concentrates on the theoretical background of the topic. The second part of the article is dedicated to the evaluation of the outcomes of the survey conducted (questionnaire survey), focusing on the analysis of employee turnover in organizations in the Czech Republic. The final part of the article underlines the role of personnel planning in BCM, since poor planning of staff needs in an organization can represent a future threat for business continuity ensuring.

Keywords: Business continuity management, key employees, personnel planning, turnover.

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Authors: Ammar Mahjoubi, Ridha Fethi Mechlouch, Belgacem Mahdhaoui, Ammar Ben Brahim

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This purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a model to accurately predict the cell temperature of a PV module that adapts to various mounting configurations, mounting locations, and climates while only requiring readily available data from the module manufacturer. Results from this model are also compared to results from published cell temperature models. The models were used to predict real-time performance from a PV water pumping systems in the desert of Medenine, south of Tunisia using 60-min intervals of measured performance data during one complete year. Statistical analysis of the predicted results and measured data highlight possible sources of errors and the limitations and/or adequacy of existing models, to describe the temperature and efficiency of PV-cells and consequently, the accuracy of performance of PV water pumping systems prediction models.

Keywords: Temperature of a photovoltaic module, Predicted models, PV water pumping systems efficiency, Simulation, Desert of southern Tunisia.

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Authors: Mert Bal, Hayri Sever, Oya Kalıpsız

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Medical Decision Support Systems (MDSSs) are sophisticated, intelligent systems that can provide inference due to lack of information and uncertainty. In such systems, to model the uncertainty various soft computing methods such as Bayesian networks, rough sets, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, inductive logic programming and genetic algorithms and hybrid methods that formed from the combination of the few mentioned methods are used. In this study, symptom-disease relationships are presented by a framework which is modeled with a formal concept analysis and theory, as diseases, objects and attributes of symptoms. After a concept lattice is formed, Bayes theorem can be used to determine the relationships between attributes and objects. A discernibility relation that forms the base of the rough sets can be applied to attribute data sets in order to reduce attributes and decrease the complexity of computation.

Keywords: Formal Concept Analysis, Rough Set Theory, Granular Computing, Medical Decision Support System.

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Authors: M.V Rajesh, Archana R, A Unnikrishnan, R Gopikakumari, Jeevamma Jacob

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The System Identification problem looks for a suitably parameterized model, representing a given process. The parameters of the model are adjusted to optimize a performance function based on error between the given process output and identified process output. The linear system identification field is well established with many classical approaches whereas most of those methods cannot be applied for nonlinear systems. The problem becomes tougher if the system is completely unknown with only the output time series is available. It has been reported that the capability of Artificial Neural Network to approximate all linear and nonlinear input-output maps makes it predominantly suitable for the identification of nonlinear systems, where only the output time series is available. [1][2][4][5]. The work reported here is an attempt to implement few of the well known algorithms in the context of modeling of nonlinear systems, and to make a performance comparison to establish the relative merits and demerits.

Keywords: Multilayer neural networks, Radial Basis Functions, Clustering algorithm, Back Propagation training, Extended Kalmanfiltering, Mean Square Error, Nonlinear Modeling, Cramer RaoLower Bound.

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Authors: C. S. Mammas, A. Lazaris, A. S. Mamma-Graham, G. Kostopanagiotou, C. Lemonidou, J. Mantas, E. Patsouris

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Introduction: The process to build a better safety culture, methods of error analysis, and preventive measures, starts with an understanding of the effects when human factors engineering refer to remote microscopic diagnosis in surgery and specially in organ transplantation for the remote evaluation of the grafts. It has been estimated that even in well-organized transplant systems an average of 8% to 14% of the grafts (G) that arrive at the recipient hospitals may be considered as diseased, injured, damaged or improper for transplantation. Digital microscopy adds information on a microscopic level about the grafts in Organ Transplant (OT), and may lead to a change in their management. Such a method will reduce the possibility that a diseased G, will arrive at the recipient hospital for implantation. Aim: Ergonomics of Digital Microscopy (DM) based on virtual slides, on Telemedicine Systems (TS) for Tele-Pathological (TPE) evaluation of the grafts (G) in organ transplantation (OT). Material and Methods: By experimental simulation, the ergonomics of DM for microscopic TPE of Renal Graft (RG), Liver Graft (LG) and Pancreatic Graft (PG) tissues is analyzed. In fact, this corresponded to the ergonomics of digital microscopy for TPE in OT by applying Virtual Slide (VS) system for graft tissue image capture, for remote diagnoses of possible microscopic inflammatory and/or neoplastic lesions. Experimentation included: a. Development of an OTE-TS similar Experimental Telemedicine System (Exp.-TS), b. Simulation of the integration of TS with the VS based microscopic TPE of RG, LG and PG applying DM. Simulation of the DM based TPE was performed by 2 specialists on a total of 238 human Renal Graft (RG), 172 Liver Graft (LG) and 108 Pancreatic Graft (PG) tissues digital microscopic images for inflammatory and neoplastic lesions on four electronic spaces of the four used TS. Results: Statistical analysis of specialist‘s answers about the ability to diagnose accurately the diseased RG, LG and PG tissues on the electronic space among four TS (A,B,C,D) showed that DM on TS for TPE in OT is elaborated perfectly on the ES of a Desktop, followed by the ES of the applied Exp.-TS. Tablet and Mobile-Phone ES seem significantly risky for the application of DM in OT (p<.001). Conclusion: To make the largest reduction in errors and adverse events referring to the quality of the grafts, it will take application of human factors engineering to procurement, design, audit, and aware ness-raising activities. Consequently, it will take an investment in new training, people, and other changes to management activities for DM in OT. The simulating VS based TPE with DM of RG, LG and PG tissues after retrieval; seem feasible and reliable and dependable on the size of the electronic space of the applied TS, for remote prevention of diseased grafts from being retrieved and/or sent to the recipient hospital and for post-grafting and pre-transplant planning.

Keywords: Organ Transplantation, Tele-Pathology, Digital Microscopy, Virtual Slides.

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Authors: Fei Ping Por, Soon Fook Fong

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The proposed Multimedia Pronunciation Learning Management System (MPLMS) in this study is a technology with profound potential for inducing improvement in pronunciation learning. The MPLMS optimizes the digitised phonetic symbols with the integration of text, sound and mouth movement video. The components are designed and developed in an online management system which turns the web to a dynamic user-centric collection of consistent and timely information for quality sustainable learning. The aim of this study is to design and develop the MPLMS which serves as an innovative tool to improve English pronunciation. This paper discusses the iterative methodology and the three-phase Alessi and Trollip model in the development of MPLMS. To align with the flexibility of the development of educational software, the iterative approach comprises plan, design, develop, evaluate and implement is followed. To ensure the instructional appropriateness of MPLMS, the instructional system design (ISD) model of Alessi and Trollip serves as a platform to guide the important instructional factors and process. It is expected that the results of future empirical research will support the efficacy of MPLMS and its place as the premier pronunciation learning system.

Keywords: Design, development, multimedia, pronunciation, learning management system

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Authors: Ashkan Ebadi, Adam Krzyzak

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Recommender systems, also known as recommender engines, have become an important research area and are now being applied in various fields. In addition, the techniques behind the recommender systems have been improved over the time. In general, such systems help users to find their required products or services (e.g. books, music) through analyzing and aggregating other users’ activities and behavior, mainly in form of reviews, and making the best recommendations. The recommendations can facilitate user’s decision making process. Despite the wide literature on the topic, using multiple data sources of different types as the input has not been widely studied. Recommender systems can benefit from the high availability of digital data to collect the input data of different types which implicitly or explicitly help the system to improve its accuracy. Moreover, most of the existing research in this area is based on single rating measures in which a single rating is used to link users to items. This paper proposes a highly accurate hotel recommender system, implemented in various layers. Using multi-aspect rating system and benefitting from large-scale data of different types, the recommender system suggests hotels that are personalized and tailored for the given user. The system employs natural language processing and topic modelling techniques to assess the sentiment of the users’ reviews and extract implicit features. The entire recommender engine contains multiple sub-systems, namely users clustering, matrix factorization module, and hybrid recommender system. Each sub-system contributes to the final composite set of recommendations through covering a specific aspect of the problem. The accuracy of the proposed recommender system has been tested intensively where the results confirm the high performance of the system.

Keywords: Tourism, hotel recommender system, hybrid, implicit features.

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Authors: Miroslav Popelka, Jakub Nožička

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The whole work is based on possibility to use Lego Mindstorms robotics systems to reduce costs. Lego Mindstorms consists of a wide variety of hardware components necessary to simulate, programme and test of robotics systems in practice. To programme algorithm, which simulates space using the ultrasonic sensor, was used development environment supplied with kit. Software Matlab was used to render values afterwards they were measured by ultrasonic sensor. The algorithm created for this paper uses theoretical knowledge from area of signal processing. Data being processed by algorithm are collected by ultrasonic sensor that scans 2D space in front of it. Ultrasonic sensor is placed on moving arm of robot which provides horizontal moving of sensor. Vertical movement of sensor is provided by wheel drive. The robot follows map in order to get correct positioning of measured data. Based on discovered facts it is possible to consider Lego Mindstorm for low-cost and capable kit for real-time modelling.

Keywords: LEGO Mindstorms, ultrasonic sensor, Real-time modeling, 2D object, low-cost robotics systems, sensors, Matlab, EV3 Home Edition Software.

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Authors: Manoranjan Das, Benudhar Sahu, Urmila Bhanja

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Co-channel interference is one of the major problems in wireless systems. The effects of co-channel interference in a Nakagami fading channel on the ABER (Average Bit Error Rate) with static nodes are well analyzed. In this paper, we derive the ABER with the presence of mobile nodes. ABER is also derived for mobile systems in the presence of co-channel interference.

Keywords: ABER, co-channel interference, Nakagami fading.

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Authors: Z. Liu, K. Cao

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Strategic spatial planning, which is taken as an effective and competitive way for the governors of the city to improve the development and management level of a city, has been blooming in recent years all over the world. In the context of globalization and informatization, strategic spatial planning must transfer its focus on three different levels: global, regional and urban. Internal and external changes in environmental conditions lead to new advances in strategic planning both theoretically and practically. However, such advances or changes respond differently to cities on account of different dynamic mechanisms. This article aims at two cities of Tianjin in China and Melbourne in Australia, through a comparative study on strategic planning, to explore the differentiation of mechanisms in urban planning making. By comparison and exploration, the purpose of this article is to exhibit two different planning worlds between western and Chinese in a new way nowadays.

Keywords: Differentiation, Tianjin China, Melbourne Australia, strategic planning.

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Authors: Salima Hacini, Zahia Guessoum, Zizette Boufaïda

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Human activities are increasingly based on the use of remote resources and services, and on the interaction between remotely located parties that may know little about each other. Mobile agents must be prepared to execute on different hosts with various environmental security conditions. The aim of this paper is to propose a trust based mechanism to improve the security of mobile agents and allow their execution in various environments. Thus, an adaptive trust mechanism is proposed. It is based on the dynamic interaction between the agent and the environment. Information collected during the interaction enables generation of an environment key. This key informs on the host-s trust degree and permits the mobile agent to adapt its execution. Trust estimation is based on concrete parameters values. Thus, in case of distrust, the source of problem can be located and a mobile agent appropriate behavior can be selected.

Keywords: Internet security, malicious host, mobile agent security, trust management

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Authors: Nurazean Maarop, Noorjan Mohd Mustapha, Rasimah Yusoff, Roslina Ibrahim, Norziha Megat Mohd Zainuddin

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The goal of this study is to identify success factors that could influence the ISMS self-implementation in government sector from qualitative perspective. This study is based on a case study in one of the Malaysian government agency. Semi-structured interviews involving five key informants were conducted to examine factors addressed in the conceptual framework. Subsequently, thematic analysis was executed to describe the influence of each factor on the success implementation of ISMS. The result of this study indicates that management commitment, implementer commitment and implementer competency are part of the success factors for ISMS self-implementation in Malaysian Government Sector.

Keywords: ISMS Success Factors, IT Project Management, IS Success, Information Security.

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Authors: N. Ebrahimi-Tofighi, M. ArdebiliPour, M. Shahabadi

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In this paper, the effect of receive and/or transmit antenna spacing on the performance (BER vs. SNR) of multipleantenna systems is determined by using an RCS (Radar Cross Section) channel model. In this physical model, the scatterers existing in the propagation environment are modeled by their RCS so that the correlation of the receive signal complex amplitudes, i.e., both magnitude and phase, can be estimated. The proposed RCS channel model is then compared with classical models.

Keywords: MIMO system, Performance of system, Signalcorrelation, SIMO system, Wireless channel model.

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Authors: O. P. Misra, Preety Kalra

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It is well recognized that the green house gases such as Chlorofluoro Carbon (CFC), CH4, CO2 etc. are responsible directly or indirectly for the increase in the average global temperature of the Earth. The presence of CFC is responsible for the depletion of ozone concentration in the atmosphere due to which the heat accompanied with the sun rays are less absorbed causing increase in the atmospheric temperature of the Earth. The gases like CH4 and CO2 are also responsible for the increase in the atmospheric temperature. The increase in the temperature level directly or indirectly affects the dynamics of interacting species systems. Therefore, in this paper a mathematical model is proposed and analysed using stability theory to asses the effects of increasing temperature due to greenhouse gases on the survival or extinction of populations in a prey-predator system. A threshold value in terms of a stress parameter is obtained which determines the extinction or existence of populations in the underlying system.

Keywords: Equilibria, Green house gases, Model, Populations, Stability.

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Authors: Penghui Zhang, Hua Zhang, Jun-Bo Wang, Cheng Zeng, Zijian Cao

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With the development of software-defined networks and programmable data planes, in-band network telemetry (INT) has become an emerging technology in communications because it can get accurate and real-time network information. However, due to the expansion of the network scale, existing telemetry systems, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, have difficulty in meeting the common requirements of low overhead, low latency and full coverage for traffic measurement. This paper proposes a network-wide telemetry system with a low-latency low-overhead path planning (INT-LLPP). This paper builds a mathematical model to analyze the telemetry overhead and latency of INT systems. Then, we adopt a greedy-based path planning algorithm to reduce the overhead and latency of the network telemetry with the full network coverage. The simulation results show that network-wide telemetry is achieved and the telemetry overhead can be reduced significantly compared with existing INT systems. INT-LLPP can control the system latency to get real-time network information.

Keywords: Network telemetry, network monitoring, path planning, low latency.

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Authors: Abdulatif Abdusalam, Mohamed Shaban

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This paper introduces Interfacing and Replication of electronic tools based on the MATLAB/ SIMULINK mock-up package. Mock-up components contain dc-dc converters, power issue rectifiers, motivation machines, dc gear, synchronous gear, and more entire systems. The power issue rectifier model includes solid state device models. The tools provide clear-cut structures and mock-up of complex energy systems, connecting with power electronic machines.

Keywords: Power electronics, Machine, Matlab/Simulink.

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Authors: Chih-Neng Liang, Huang-Bin Huang, Bo-Chiuan Chen

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Nowadays, keyless entry systems are widely adopted for vehicle immobilizer systems due to both advantages of security and convenience. Keyless entry systems could overcome brute-force key guessing attack, statistics attack and masquerade attack, however, they can't prevent from thieves stealing behavior. In this paper, we proposed a new architecture try to improve the existent flaws. The integration of the keyless entry system and the fingerprint identification technology is more suitable to implement on the portable transponder to achieve higher security needs. We also adopt and modify AES security protocol for life expectancy and security of the portable transponder. In addition, the identification of a driver's fingerprint makes the service of automatic reinstatement of a driver's preferences become possible. Our design can satisfy not only the three kinds of previous illegal attacks, but also the stealing situation. Furthermore, many practical factors, such as costs, life expectancy and performance, have been well considered in the design of portable transponder.

Keywords: Keyless entry-system, fingerprint identification, AES security protocol, vehicle immobilizer system.

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Authors: O. Zennouhi, M. El Mderssa, J. Ibijbijen, E. Bouiamrine, L. Nassiri

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Rangelands and silvopastoral systems of the middle Atlas are under a heavy pressure, which led to pasture degradation, invasion by non-palatable and toxic species and edaphic aridification due to the regression of the global vegetation cover. In this situation, the introduction of multipurpose leguminous shrubs, such as Bituminaria bituminosa (L.) Stirton, commonly known as bituminous clover, could be a promising socio-ecological alternative for the rehabilitation of these degraded areas. The application of biofertilizers like plant growth promoting rhizobacteria especially phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) can ensure a successful installation of this plant in the selected degraded areas. The main objective of the present work is to produce well-inoculated seedlings using the best efficient PSB strains in the greenhouse to increase their ability to resist to environmental constraints once transplanted to the field in the central Middle Atlas.

Keywords: Biofertilizers, Bituminaria bituminosa, phosphate solubilizing bacteria, rehabilitation.

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Authors: Kwa-Sur Tam

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This paper reviews various approaches that have been used for the modeling and simulation of large-scale engineering systems and determines their appropriateness in the development of a RICS modeling and simulation tool. Bond graphs, linear graphs, block diagrams, differential and difference equations, modeling languages, cellular automata and agents are reviewed. This tool should be based on linear graph representation and supports symbolic programming, functional programming, the development of noncausal models and the incorporation of decentralized approaches.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary, dynamic, functional programming, object-oriented.

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Authors: Lianglin Xiong, Xiuyong Ding, Shouming Zhong

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In this paper, the problem of asymptotical stability of neutral systems with nonlinear perturbations is investigated. Based on a class of novel augment Lyapunov functionals which contain freeweighting matrices, some new delay-dependent asymptotical stability criteria are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) by using new inequality analysis technique. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the derived condition are much less conservative than those given in the literature.

Keywords: Asymptotical stability, neutral system, nonlinear perturbation, delay-dependent, linear matrix inequality (LMI).

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Authors: Eileen M. J. Knight

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This study examines the structural and systematic processes of the Human Resources Division at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago for evidence of incorporation of the University's 2012- 2017 Strategic Plan. In conducting the study the structure of the Human Resources Management Division and its functions were carefully reviewed and measured against the strategic direction of the organisation. Findings indicate disconnect between these areas as there is apparent failure of the Human Resources Division to totally align its mandate with that of the organisation-s strategic direction. This action serves to threaten the viability of the organisation and its efficiency and effectiveness as an institution. The recommendations being put forward are for the realignment of the Human Resources Management Division and for its focus to mirror that of the organisation and the organisation-s goals and objectives. This may entail a restructuring of the Division.

Keywords: Commonwealth Caribbean, Realignment, Region, Strategic Plan.

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Authors: Elena M. Capitanul, Carlos A. Nunes Cosenza, Walid El Moudani, Felix Mora Camino

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The construction of a new airport or the extension of an existing one requires massive investments and many times public private partnerships were considered in order to make feasible such projects. One characteristic of these projects is uncertainty with respect to financial and environmental impacts on the medium to long term. Another one is the multistage nature of these types of projects. While many airport development projects have been a success, some others have turned into a nightmare for their promoters. This communication puts forward a new approach for airport investment risk assessment. The approach takes explicitly into account the degree of uncertainty in activity levels prediction and proposes milestones for the different stages of the project for minimizing risk. Uncertainty is represented through fuzzy dual theory and risk management is performed using dynamic programming. An illustration of the proposed approach is provided.

Keywords: Airports, fuzzy logic, risk, uncertainty.

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Authors: Fu Shiming, Pei Yifei

Abstract:

To study the impact of the inter-module ventilation (IMV) on the space station, the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model under the influence of IMV, the mathematical model, boundary conditions and calculation method are established and determined to analyze the influence of IMV on cabin air flow characteristics and velocity distribution firstly; and then an integrated overall thermal mathematical model of the space station is used to consider the impact of IMV on thermal management. The results show that: the IMV has a significant influence on the cabin air flow, the flowrate of IMV within a certain range can effectively improve the air velocity distribution in cabin, if too much may lead to its deterioration; IMV can affect the heat deployment of the different modules in space station, thus affecting its thermal management, the use of IMV can effectively maintain the temperature levels of the different modules and help the space station to dissipate the waste heat.

Keywords: CFD, Environment control and life support, Space station, Thermal management, Thermal mathematical model.

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Authors: A. R. Vazifedoost, M. Rahgozar, F. Oroumchian

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Knowledge discovery from text and ontology learning are relatively new fields. However their usage is extended in many fields like Information Retrieval (IR) and its related domains. Human Plausible Reasoning based (HPR) IR systems for example need a knowledge base as their underlying system which is currently made by hand. In this paper we propose an architecture based on ontology learning methods to automatically generate the needed HPR knowledge base.

Keywords: Ontology Learning, Human Plausible Reasoning, knowledge extraction, knowledge representation.

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Authors: Heung Seok Chae, Jaegeol Park

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Recently, there have been an increasing interest in RFID system and RFID systems have been applied to various applications. Load balancing is a fundamental technique for providing scalability of systems by moving workload from overloaded nodes to under-loaded nodes. This paper presents an approach to adaptive load balancing for RFID middlewares. Workloads of RFID middlewares can have a considerable variation according to the location of the connected RFID readers and can abruptly change at a particular instance. The proposed approach considers those characteristics of RFID middle- wares to provide an efficient load balancing.

Keywords: RFID middleware, Adaptive load balancing.

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Authors: Samah Jawad Jabari

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Water is the most important and valuable resource not only for human life but also for all living things on the planet. The water supply utilities should fulfill the water requirement quantitatively and qualitatively. Drinking water systems are exposed to both natural (hurricanes and flood) and manmade hazards (risks) that are common in Palestine. Non-Revenue Water (NRW) is a manmade risk which remains a major concern in Palestine, as the NRW levels are estimated to be at a high level. In this research, Hebron city water distribution network was taken as a case study to estimate and audit the NRW levels. The research also investigated the state of the existing water distribution system in the study area by investigating the water losses and obtained more information on NRW prevention and management practices. Data and information have been collected from the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) and Hebron Municipality (HM) archive. In addition to that, a questionnaire has been designed and administered by the researcher in order to collect the necessary data for water auditing. The questionnaire also assessed the views of stakeholder in PWA and HM (staff) on the current status of the NRW in the Hebron water distribution system. The important result obtained by this research shows that NRW in Hebron city was high and in excess of 30%. The main factors that contribute to NRW were the inaccuracies in billing volumes, unauthorized consumption, and the method of estimating consumptions through faulty meters. Policy for NRW reduction is available in Palestine; however, it is clear that the number of qualified staff available to carry out the activities related to leak detection is low, and that there is a lack of appropriate technologies to reduce water losses and undertake sufficient system maintenance, which needs to be improved to enhance the performance of the network and decrease the level of NRW losses.

Keywords: Non-revenue water, water auditing, leak detection, water meters.

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Authors: Amogh Katti, J. Sai Asritha, D. Nivedh, M. Kalyan Srinivas, B. Somnath Chakravarthi

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Today's modern education system uses Learning Management System (LMS) portals for the scoring and grading of student performances, to maintain student records, and teachers are instructed to accept assignments through online submissions of .pdf, .doc, .ppt, etc. There is a risk of data tampering in the traditional portals; we will apply the Blockchain model instead of this traditional model to avoid data tampering and also provide a decentralized mechanism for overall fairness. Blockchain technology is a better and also recommended model because of the following features: consensus mechanism, decentralized system, cryptographic encryption, smart contracts, Ethereum blockchain. The proposed system ensures data integrity and tamper-proof assignment submission and grading, which will be helpful for both students and also educators.

Keywords: Education technology, learning management system, decentralized applications, blockchain.

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Authors: Aspasia Koutsokosta, Stefanos Katsavounis

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This paper reviews the model-based qualitative and quantitative Operations Management research in the context of Construction Supply Chain Management (CSCM). Construction industry has been traditionally blamed for low productivity, cost and time overruns, waste, high fragmentation and adversarial relationships. The construction industry has been slower than other industries to employ the Supply Chain Management (SCM) concept and develop models that support the decision-making and planning. However the last decade there is a distinct shift from a project-based to a supply-based approach of construction management. CSCM comes up as a new promising management tool of construction operations and improves the performance of construction projects in terms of cost, time and quality. Modeling the Construction Supply Chain (CSC) offers the means to reap the benefits of SCM, make informed decisions and gain competitive advantage. Different modeling approaches and methodologies have been applied in the multi-disciplinary and heterogeneous research field of CSCM. The literature review reveals that a considerable percentage of the CSC modeling research accommodates conceptual or process models which present general management frameworks and do not relate to acknowledged soft Operations Research methods. We particularly focus on the model-based quantitative research and categorize the CSCM models depending on their scope, objectives, modeling approach, solution methods and software used. Although over the last few years there has been clearly an increase of research papers on quantitative CSC models, we identify that the relevant literature is very fragmented with limited applications of simulation, mathematical programming and simulation-based optimization. Most applications are project-specific or study only parts of the supply system. Thus, some complex interdependencies within construction are neglected and the implementation of the integrated supply chain management is hindered. We conclude this paper by giving future research directions and emphasizing the need to develop optimization models for integrated CSCM. We stress that CSC modeling needs a multi-dimensional, system-wide and long-term perspective. Finally, prior applications of SCM to other industries have to be taken into account in order to model CSCs, but not without translating the generic concepts to the context of construction industry.

Keywords: Construction supply chain management, modeling, operations research, optimization and simulation.

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Authors: Thomas Meier

Abstract:

One of the major challenges for sustainable smart building systems is to support device interoperability, i.e. connecting sensor or actuator devices from different vendors, and present their functionality to the external applications. Furthermore, smart building systems are supposed to connect with devices that are not available yet, i.e. devices that become available on the market sometime later. It is of vital importance that a sustainable smart building platform provides an appropriate external interface that can be leveraged by external applications and smart services. An external platform interface must be stable and independent of specific devices and should support flexible and scalable usage scenarios. A typical approach applied in smart home systems is based on a generic device interface used within the smart building platform. Device functions, even of rather complex devices, are mapped to that generic base type interface by means of specific device drivers. Our new approach, presented in this work, extends that approach by using the smart building system’s rule engine to create complex virtual devices that can represent the most diverse properties of real devices. We examined and evaluated both approaches by means of a practical case study using a smart building system that we have developed. We show that the solution we present allows the highest degree of flexibility without affecting external application interface stability and scalability. In contrast to other systems our approach supports complex virtual device configuration on application layer (e.g. by administration users) instead of device configuration at platform layer (e.g. platform operators). Based on our work, we can show that our approach supports almost arbitrarily flexible use case scenarios without affecting the external application interface stability. However, the cost of this approach is additional appropriate configuration overhead and additional resource consumption at the IoT platform level that must be considered by platform operators. We conclude that the concept of complex virtual devices presented in this work can be applied to improve the usability and device interoperability of sustainable intelligent building systems significantly.

Keywords: Complex virtual devices, device integration, device interoperability, Internet of Things, smart building platform.

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