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Authors: Saeid Rabiei Majd, Motahareh Alvandi, Mehrad Rabiei

Abstract:

The rapid economic and technological development of any country depends on access to cheap sources of energy. Competition for access to petroleum resources is always accompanied by numerous environmental risks. These factors have caused more attention to environmental issues and sustainable development in petroleum contracts and activities. Nowadays, a sign of developed countries is adhering to the principles and rules of international environmental law and sustainable development of commercial contracts. China has entered into play through the massive project plan, One Belt, One Road. China is becoming a new emerging power in the world. China's bilateral investment treaties have an impact on environmental rights and sustainable development through regional and international foreign direct investment. The aim of this research is to examine China's key position to promote and improve environmental principles and international law and sustainable development in the energy sector in the world through the initiative, One Belt, One Road. Based on this hypothesis, it seems that in the near future, China's investment bilateral investment treaties will become popular investment model used in global trade, especially in the field of energy and sustainable development. They will replace the European and American models. The research method is including literature review, analytical and descriptive methods.

Keywords: Principles of sustainable development, oil and gas law, Chinas BITs, one belt one road, environmental rights.

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Authors: M. M. Qasaymeh, M. A. Khodeir

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Subspace channel estimation methods have been studied widely, where the subspace of the covariance matrix is decomposed to separate the signal subspace from noise subspace. The decomposition is normally done by using either the eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) or the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the auto-correlation matrix (ACM). However, the subspace decomposition process is computationally expensive. This paper considers the estimation of the multipath slow frequency hopping (FH) channel using noise space based method. In particular, an efficient method is proposed to estimate the multipath time delays by applying multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm which is based on the null space extracted by the rank revealing LU (RRLU) factorization. As a result, precise information is provided by the RRLU about the numerical null space and the rank, (i.e., important tool in linear algebra). The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed novel method by approximately decreasing the computational complexity to the half as compared with RRQR methods keeping the same performance.

Keywords: Time Delay Estimation, RRLU, RRQR, MUSIC, LS-ESPRIT, LS-ESPRIT, Frequency Hopping.

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Authors: Yoonsuh Jung

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As DNA microarray data contain relatively small sample size compared to the number of genes, high dimensional models are often employed. In high dimensional models, the selection of tuning parameter (or, penalty parameter) is often one of the crucial parts of the modeling. Cross-validation is one of the most common methods for the tuning parameter selection, which selects a parameter value with the smallest cross-validated score. However, selecting a single value as an ‘optimal’ value for the parameter can be very unstable due to the sampling variation since the sample sizes of microarray data are often small. Our approach is to choose multiple candidates of tuning parameter first, then average the candidates with different weights depending on their performance. The additional step of estimating the weights and averaging the candidates rarely increase the computational cost, while it can considerably improve the traditional cross-validation. We show that the selected value from the suggested methods often lead to stable parameter selection as well as improved detection of significant genetic variables compared to the tradition cross-validation via real data and simulated data sets.

Keywords: Cross Validation, Parameter Averaging, Parameter Selection, Regularization Parameter Search.

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Authors: Sara Mohtashami, Habib Rajabi Mashhadi

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With the growth of electricity generation from gas energy gas pipeline reliability can substantially impact the electric generation. A physical disruption to pipeline or to a compressor station can interrupt the flow of gas or reduce the pressure and lead to loss of multiple gas-fired electric generators, which could dramatically reduce the supplied power and threaten the power system security. Gas pressure drops during peak loading time on pipeline system, is a common problem in network with no enough transportation capacity which limits gas transportation and causes many problem for thermal domain power systems in supplying their demand. For a feasible generation scheduling planning in networks with no sufficient gas transportation capacity, it is required to consider gas pipeline constraints in solving the optimization problem and evaluate the impacts of gas consumption in power plants on gas pipelines operating condition. This paper studies about operating of gas fired power plants in critical conditions when the demand of gas and electricity peak together. An integrated model of gas and electric model is used to consider the gas pipeline constraints in the economic dispatch problem of gas-fueled thermal generator units.

Keywords:

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Authors: Yehia A. Eldrainy, Hossam S. Aly, Khalid M. Saqr, Mohammad Nazri Mohd Jaafar

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The central recirculation zone (CRZ) in a swirl stabilized gas turbine combustor has a dominant effect on the fuel air mixing process and flame stability. Most of state of the art swirlers share one disadvantage; the fixed swirl number for the same swirler configuration. Thus, in a mathematical sense, Reynolds number becomes the sole parameter for controlling the flow characteristics inside the combustor. As a result, at low load operation, the generated swirl is more likely to become feeble affecting the flame stabilization and mixing process. This paper introduces a new swirler concept which overcomes the mentioned weakness of the modern configurations. The new swirler introduces air tangentially and axially to the combustor through tangential vanes and an axial vanes respectively. Therefore, it provides different swirl numbers for the same configuration by regulating the ratio between the axial and tangential flow momenta. The swirler aerodynamic performance was investigated using four CFD simulations in order to demonstrate the impact of tangential to axial flow rate ratio on the CRZ. It was found that the length of the CRZ is directly proportional to the tangential to axial air flow rate ratio.

Keywords: Swirler, Gas turbine, CFD, Numerical simulation, Recirculation zone, Swirl number

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Authors: D. Moussazadeh, A. Aytug

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The focus of this study is to analyze and elaborate the formal factors in the architectural features of the museums. From aesthetic vantage point, this study has scrutinized the formal aesthetic values and identity-related features of the museums. Furthermore, the importance of the museums as the centers of knowledge, science and arts has gradually increased in the last century, whereby they have shifted from an elite standing to the pluralist approach as to address every sections of the community. This study will focus on the museum structures that are designed with the aesthetic apprehension, and presented as the artistic works on the basis of an objective attitude to elaborate the formal aesthetic factors on the formal aesthetics. It is of great importance to increase such studies for getting some concrete results to perceive the recent term aesthetic approaches and improve the forms in line with such approaches. This study elaborates the aesthetic facts solely on the basis of visual dimensions, but ignores the subjective effects to evaluate it in formal, subjective and conceptual aspects. The main material of this study comprises of the descriptive works on the conceptual substructure, and a number of schedules drawn on such concepts, which are applied on the example museum structures. Such works cover many several existing sources such as the design, philosophy, artistic philosophy, shape, form, design elements and principles as well as the museums.

Keywords: Aesthetics, design principles and elements, Gestalt.

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Authors: Md. Sohidul Islam, Mohammad Rakibul Islam

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In this paper, we consider a non-identically independently distributed (non-i.i.d.) Hoyt fading single-input multiple-out put (SIMO) channel, where the transmitter sends some confidential information to the legitimate receiver in presence of an eavesdropper. We formulated the probability of non-zero secrecy mutual information; secure outage probability and average secrecy mutual information (SMI) for the SIMO wireless communication system. The calculation has been carried out using small limit argument approximation (SLAA) on zeroth-order modified Bessel function of first kind. In our proposed model, an eavesdropper observes transmissions of information through another Hoyt fading channel. First, we derived the analytical expression for non-zero secrecy mutual information. Then, we find the secure outage probability to investigate the outage behavior of the proposed model. Finally, we find the average secrecy mutual information. We consider that the channel state information (CSI) is known to legitimate receiver.

Keywords: Hoyt fading, main channel, eavesdropper channel, secure outage probability, average secrecy mutual information.

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Authors: Mansi Jhamb, R. K. Sharma, A. K. Gupta

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In the current scenario, with the increasing integration densities, most system-on-chip designs are partitioned into multiple clock domains. In this paper, an asynchronous FIFO (First-in First-out pipeline) design is employed as a data transfer interface between two independent clock domains. Since the clocks on the either sides of the FIFO run at a different speed, the task to ensure the correct data transmission through this FIFO is manually performed. Firstly an existing asynchronous FIFO design is discussed and simulated. Gate-level simulation results depicted the flaw in existing design. In order to solve this problem, a novel modified asynchronous FIFO design is proposed. The results obtained from proposed design are in perfect accordance with theoretical expectations. The proposed asynchronous FIFO design outperforms the existing design in terms of accuracy and speed. In order to evaluate the performance of the FIFO designs presented in this paper, the circuits were implemented in 0.24µ TSMC CMOS technology and simulated at 2.5V using HSpice (© Avant! Corporation). The layout design of the proposed FIFO is also presented.

Keywords: Asynchronous, Clock, CMOS, C-element, FIFO, Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS), HSpice.

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Authors: S.K. Mazloomi, Nasri b. Sulaiman

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By analyzing the sources of energy and power loss in PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) controlled drivers of water electrolysis cells, it is possible to reduce the power dissipation and enhance the efficiency of such hydrogen production units. A PWM controlled power driver is based on a semiconductor switching element where its power dissipation might be a remarkable fraction of the total power demand of an electrolysis system. Power dissipation in a semiconductor switching element is related to many different parameters which could be fitted into two main categories: switching losses and conduction losses. Conduction losses are directly related to the built, structure and capabilities of a switching device itself and indeed the conditions in which the element is handling the switching application such as voltage, current, temperature and of course the fabrication technology. On the other hand, switching losses have some other influencing variables other than the mentioned such as control system, switching method and power electronics circuitry of the PWM power driver. By analyzings the characteristics of recently developed power switching transistors from different families of Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT), Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFET) and Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT), some recommendations are made in this paper which are able to lead to achieve higher hydrogen production efficiency by utilizing PWM controlled water electrolysis cells.

Keywords: Power switch, PWM, Semiconductor switch, Waterelectrolysis

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Authors: Mustafa Bin Yusof, Mohammad Amirul Affiz Bin Afripin

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Safety of bus journey is a fundamental concern. Risk of injuries and fatalities is severe when bus superstructure fails during rollover accident. Adequate design and sufficient strength of bus superstructure can reduce the number of injuries and fatalities. This paper deals with structural analysis of bus superstructure undergoes rollover event. Several value of mass will be varied in multiple simulations. The purpose of this work is to analyze structural response of bus superstructure in terms of deformation, stress and strain under several loading and constraining conditions. A complete bus superstructure with forty four passenger-s capability was developed using finite element analysis software. Simulations have been conducted to observe the effect of total mass of bus on the strength of superstructure. These simulations are following United Nation Economic Commission of Europe regulation 66 which focuses on strength of large vehicle superstructure. Validation process had been done using simple box model experiment and results obtained are comparing with simulation results. Inputs data from validation process had been used in full scale simulation. Analyses suggested that, the failure of bus superstructure during rollover situation is basically dependent on the total mass of bus and on the strength of bus superstructure.

Keywords: Bus, rollover, superstructure strength, UNECE regulation 66.

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Authors: Nadia Masood Khan, Muhammad Salman Khan, Gul Muhammad Khan

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Cardiologists perform cardiac auscultation to detect abnormalities in heart sounds. Since accurate auscultation is a crucial first step in screening patients with heart diseases, there is a need to develop computer-aided detection/diagnosis (CAD) systems to assist cardiologists in interpreting heart sounds and provide second opinions. In this paper different algorithms are implemented for automated heart sound classification using unsegmented phonocardiogram (PCG) signals. Support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network (ANN) and cartesian genetic programming evolved artificial neural network (CGPANN) without the application of any segmentation algorithm has been explored in this study. The signals are first pre-processed to remove any unwanted frequencies. Both time and frequency domain features are then extracted for training the different models. The different algorithms are tested in multiple scenarios and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. Results indicate that SVM outperforms the rest with an accuracy of 73.64%.

Keywords: Pattern recognition, machine learning, computer aided diagnosis, heart sound classification, and feature extraction.

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Authors: Ko-Hsun Huang, Hsiao-Chen You, Yi-Shin Deng

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With the rapid growth and development of information and communication technology, the Internet has played a definite and irreplaceable role in people-s social lives in Taiwan like in other countries. In July 2008, on a general social website, an unexpected phenomenon was noticed – that there were more than one hundred users who started forming clubs voluntarily and having face-to-face gatherings for specific purposes. In this study, it-s argued whether or not teenagers- social contact on the Internet is involved in their life context, and tried to reveal the teenagers- social preferences, values, and needs, which merge with and influence teenagers- social activities. Therefore, the study conducts multiple user experience research methods, which include practical observations and qualitative analysis by contextual inquiries and in-depth interviews. Based on the findings, several design implications for software related to social interactions and cultural inheritance are offered. It is concluded that the inherent values of a social behaviors might be a key issue in developing computer-mediated communication or interaction designs in the future.

Keywords: Social Computing, Social Interaction, User-centered Design, Contextual Inquiry.

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Authors: Dalhatu, Musa Yusha’u, Shuaibu Sidi Safiyanu, Haliru Musa Hussaini

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This study examined budget and performance of public enterprises in Nasarawa State, Nigeria in a period of 2009-2013. The study utilized secondary sources of data obtained from four selected parastatals’ budget allocation and revenue generation for the period under review. The simple correlation coefficient was used to analyze the extent of the relationship between budget allocation and revenue generation of the parastatals. Findings revealed varying results. There was positive (0.21) and weak correlation between expenditure and revenue of Nasarawa Investment and Property Development Company (NIPDC). However, the study further revealed that there was strong and weak negative relationship in the revenue and expenditure of the following parastatals over the period under review. Viz: Nasarawa State Water Board, -0.27 (weak), Nasarawa State Broadcasting Service, -0.52 (Strong) and Nasarawa State College of Agriculture, -0.36 (weak). The study therefore, recommends that government should increase its investments in NIPDC to enhance efficiency and profitability. It also recommends that government should strengthen its fiscal responsibility, accountability and transparency in public parastatals.

Keywords: Allocation, Budget, Public Enterprises, Parastatals, Performance.

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Authors: Lokesh Tharani, R.P.Yadav

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This paper presents the results related to the interference reduction technique in multistage multiuser detector for asynchronous DS-CDMA system. To meet the real-time requirements for asynchronous multiuser detection, a bit streaming, cascade architecture is used. An asynchronous multiuser detection involves block-based computations and matrix inversions. The paper covers iterative-based suboptimal schemes that have been studied to decrease the computational complexity, eliminate the need for matrix inversions, decreases the execution time, reduces the memory requirements and uses joint estimation and detection process that gives better performance than the independent parameter estimation method. The stages of the iteration use cascaded and bits processed in a streaming fashion. The simulation has been carried out for asynchronous DS-CDMA system by varying one parameter, i.e., number of users. The simulation result exhibits that system gives optimum bit error rate (BER) at 3rd stage for 15-users.

Keywords: Multi-user detection (MUD), multiple accessinterference (MAI), near-far effect, decision feedback detector, successive interference cancellation detector (SIC) and parallelinterference cancellation (PIC) detector.

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Authors: Kamalendu Pal

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This paper describes the main features of a knowledge-based system evaluation method. System evaluation is placed in the context of a hybrid legal decision-support system, Advisory Support for Home Settlement in Divorce (ASHSD). Legal knowledge for ASHSD is represented in two forms, as rules and previously decided cases. Besides distinguishing the two different forms of knowledge representation, the paper outlines the actual use of these forms in a computational framework that is designed to generate a plausible solution for a given case, by using rule-based reasoning (RBR) and case-based reasoning (CBR) in an integrated environment. The nature of suitability assessment of a solution has been considered as a multiple criteria decision-making process in ASHAD evaluation. The evaluation was performed by a combination of discussions and questionnaires with different user groups. The answers to questionnaires used in this evaluations method have been measured as a fuzzy linguistic term. The finding suggests that fuzzy linguistic evaluation is practical and meaningful in knowledge-based system development purpose. 

Keywords: Case-based reasoning, decision-support system, fuzzy linguistic term, rule-based reasoning, system evaluation.

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Authors: R. Walha, F. Drira, H. El-Abed, A. M. Alimi

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The Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) applied to Arabic language is a challenging task. This is mainly related to the language specificities which make the researchers facing multiple difficulties such as the insufficient linguistic resources and the very limited number of available transcribed Arabic speech corpora. In this paper, we are interested in the development of a HMM-based ASR system for Standard Arabic (SA) language. Our fundamental research goal is to select the most appropriate acoustic parameters describing each audio frame, acoustic models and speech recognition unit. To achieve this purpose, we analyze the effect of varying frame windowing (size and period), acoustic parameter number resulting from features extraction methods traditionally used in ASR, speech recognition unit, Gaussian number per HMM state and number of embedded re-estimations of the Baum-Welch Algorithm. To evaluate the proposed ASR system, a multi-speaker SA connected-digits corpus is collected, transcribed and used throughout all experiments. A further evaluation is conducted on a speaker-independent continue SA speech corpus. The phonemes recognition rate is 94.02% which is relatively high when comparing it with another ASR system evaluated on the same corpus.

Keywords: ASR, HMM, acoustical analysis, acoustic modeling, Standard Arabic language

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Authors: M. Bouguerra, I. Habi

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The continuity in the electric supply of the electric installations is becoming one of the main requirements of the electric supply network (generation, transmission, and distribution of the electric energy). The achievement of this requirement depends from one side on the structure of the electric network and on the other side on the avaibility of the reserve source provided to maintain the supply in case of failure of the principal one. The avaibility of supply does not only depends on the reliability parameters of the both sources (principal and reserve) but it also depends on the reliability of the circuit breaker which plays the role of interlocking the reserve source in case of failure of the principal one. In addition, the principal source being under operation, its control can be ideal and sure, however, for the reserve source being in stop, a preventive maintenances which proceed on time intervals (periodicity) and for well defined lengths of time are envisaged, so that this source will always available in case of the principal source failure. The choice of the periodicity of preventive maintenance of the source of reserve influences directly the reliability of the electric feeder system In this work and on the basis of the semi- markovian's processes, the influence of the time of interlocking the reserve source upon the reliability of an industrial electric network is studied and is given the optimal time of interlocking the reserve source in case of failure the principal one, also the influence of the periodicity of the preventive maintenance of the source of reserve is studied and is given the optimal periodicity.

Keywords: Semi-Markovians processes, reliability, optimization, industrial electric network.

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Authors: S. Ganesh

Abstract:

Power distribution systems typically have tie and sectionalizing switches whose states determine the topological configuration of the network. The aim of network reconfiguration of the distribution network is to minimize the losses for a load arrangement at a particular time. Thus the objective function is to minimize the losses of the network by satisfying the distribution network constraints. The various constraints are radiality, voltage limits and the power balance condition. In this paper the status of the switches is obtained by using Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm. ABC is based on a particular intelligent behavior of honeybee swarms. ABC is developed based on inspecting the behaviors of real bees to find nectar and sharing the information of food sources to the bees in the hive. The proposed methodology has three stages. In stage one ABC is used to find the tie switches, in stage two the identified tie switches are checked for radiality constraint and if the radilaity constraint is satisfied then the procedure is proceeded to stage three otherwise the process is repeated. In stage three load flow analysis is performed. The process is repeated till the losses are minimized. The ABC is implemented to find the power flow path and the Forward Sweeper algorithm is used to calculate the power flow parameters. The proposed methodology is applied for a 33–bus single feeder distribution network using MATLAB.

Keywords: Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, Distribution system, Loss reduction, Network reconfiguration.

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Authors: Wilailak Siripornadulsil, Siriyanapat Tasaku, Jutamas Buahorm, Surasak Siripornadulsil

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The objectives of this study were to isolate LAB from various sources, dietary supplement, Thai traditional fermented food, and freshwater fish and to characterize their potential as probiotic cultures. Out of 1,558 isolates, 730 were identified as LAB based on isolation on MRS agar supplemented with a bromocresol purple indicator&CaCO₃ and Gram-positive, catalase- and oxidase-negative characteristics. Eight isolates showed the potential probiotic properties including tolerance to acid, bile salt & heat, proteolytic, amylolytic & lipolytic activities and oxalate-degrading capability. They all showed the antimicrobial activity against some Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogenic bacteria. Based on 16S rDNA sequence analysis, they were identified as Enterococcus faecalis BT2 & MG30, Leconostoc mesenteroides SW64 and Pediococcus pentosaceous BD33, CF32, NP6, PS34 & SW5. The health beneficial effects and food safety will be further investigated and developed as a probiotic or protective culture used in Nile tilapia belly flap meat fermentation.

Keywords: Lactic acid bacteria, pathogen, probiotic, protective culture.

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Authors: Mohamed Watfa, William Daher, Hisham Al Azar

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The main idea behind in network aggregation is that, rather than sending individual data items from sensors to sinks, multiple data items are aggregated as they are forwarded by the sensor network. Existing sensor network data aggregation techniques assume that the nodes are preprogrammed and send data to a central sink for offline querying and analysis. This approach faces two major drawbacks. First, the system behavior is preprogrammed and cannot be modified on the fly. Second, the increased energy wastage due to the communication overhead will result in decreasing the overall system lifetime. Thus, energy conservation is of prime consideration in sensor network protocols in order to maximize the network-s operational lifetime. In this paper, we give an energy efficient approach to query processing by implementing new optimization techniques applied to in-network aggregation. We first discuss earlier approaches in sensors data management and highlight their disadvantages. We then present our approach “Energy Efficient Indexed Aggregation" (EEIA) and evaluate it through several simulations to prove its efficiency, competence and effectiveness.

Keywords: Sensor Networks, Data Base, Data Fusion, Aggregation, Indexing, Energy Efficiency

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Authors: Stella Y. Ng, John B. Peacock, Kay Chuan Tan

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This paper discusses the use of a computerized test to measure the decision-making abilities of teenage basketball players in Singapore. There are five sections in this test – Competitive state anxiety inventory-2 (CSAI-2) questionnaire (measures player’s cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence), Corsi block-tapping task (measures player’s short-term spatial memory), situation awareness global assessment technique (SAGAT) (measures players’ situation awareness in a basketball game), multiple choice questions on basketball knowledge (measures players’ knowledge of basketball rules and concepts), and lastly, a learning test that requires participants to recall and recognize basketball set plays (measures player’s ability to learn and recognize set plays). A total of 25 basketball players, aged 14 to 16 years old, from three secondary school teams participated in this experiment. The results that these basketball players obtained from this cognitive test were then used to compare with their physical fitness and basketball performance.

Keywords: Basketball, cognitive abilities, computerized test, decision-making.

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Authors: Ahmad Zahran, Ahmed Herzallah, Ahmad Ahmad, Mahran Quraan

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Generation of high DC voltages is necessary for testing the insulation material of high voltage AC transmission lines with long lengths. The harmonic and ripple contents of the output DC voltage supplied by high voltage DC circuits require the use of costly capacitors to smooth the output voltage after rectification. This paper proposes a new modular multiplier high voltage DC generator with embedded Cockcroft-Walton circuits that achieve a negligible harmonic and ripple contents of the output DC voltage without the need for costly filters to produce a nearly constant output voltage. In this new topology, Cockcroft-Walton modules are connected in series to produce a high DC output voltage. The modules are supplied by low input AC voltage sources that have the same magnitude and frequency and shifted from each other by a certain angle to eliminate the harmonics from the output voltage. The small ripple factor is provided by the smoothing column capacitors and the phase shifted input voltages of the cascaded modules. The constituent harmonics within each module are determined using Fourier analysis. The viability of the proposed DC generator for testing purposes and the effectiveness of the cascaded connection are confirmed by numerical simulations using MATLAB/Simulink.

Keywords: Cockcroft-Walton circuit, Harmonics, Ripple factor, HVDC generator.

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Authors: H. Ahmed, A. Schlenkhoff

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Recently, permeable breakwaters have been suggested to overcome the disadvantages of fully protection breakwaters. These protection structures have minor impacts on the coastal environment and neighboring beaches where they provide a more economical protection from waves and currents. For regular waves, a numerical model is used (FLOW-3D, VOF) to investigate the hydraulic performance of a permeable breakwater. The model of permeable breakwater consists of a pair of identical vertical slotted walls with an impermeable upper and lower part, where the draft is a decimal multiple of the total depth. The middle part is permeable with a porosity of 50%. The second barrier is located at distant of 0.5 and 1.5 of the water depth from the first one. The numerical model is validated by comparisons with previous laboratory data and semi-analytical results of the same model. A good agreement between the numerical results and both laboratory data and semi-analytical results has been shown and the results indicate the applicability of the numerical model to reproduce most of the important features of the interaction. Through the numerical investigation, the friction factor of the model is carefully discussed.

Keywords: Coastal structures, permeable breakwater, slotted wall, numerical model, energy dissipation coefficient.

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Authors: Markus Link, Manfred Spraul, Hartmut Schaefer, Fang Fang, Birk Schuetz

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High Resolution NMR Spectroscopy offers unique screening capabilities for food quality and safety by combining non-targeted and targeted screening in one analysis.

The objective is to demonstrate, that due to its extreme reproducibility NMR can detect smallest changes in concentrations of many components in a mixture, which is best monitored by statistical evaluation however also delivers reliable quantification results.

The methodology typically uses a 400 MHz high resolution instrument under full automation after minimized sample preparation.

For example one fruit juice analysis in a push button operation takes at maximum 15 minutes and delivers a multitude of results, which are automatically summarized in a PDF report.

The method has been proven on fruit juices, where so far unknown frauds could be detected. In addition conventional targeted parameters are obtained in the same analysis. This technology has the advantage that NMR is completely quantitative and concentration calibration only has to be done once for all compounds. Since NMR is so reproducible, it is also transferable between different instruments (with same field strength) and laboratories. Based on strict SOP`s, statistical models developed once can be used on multiple instruments and strategies for compound identification and quantification are applicable as well across labs.

Keywords: Automated solution, NMR, non-targeted screening, targeted screening.

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Authors: A. Salsabili, M.Aghajani Mir, S.Saheri, Noor Ezlin Ahmad Basri

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The main aims in this research are to study the solid waste generation in the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment in the UKM and at the same time to determine composition and some of the waste characteristics likewise: moisture content, density, pH and C/N ratio. For this purpose multiple campaigns were conducted to collect the wastes produced in all hostels, faculties, offices and so on, during 24th of February till 2nd of March 2009, measure and investigate them with regard to both physical and chemical characteristics leading to highlight the necessary management policies. Research locations are Faculty of Engineering and the Canteen nearby that. From the result gained, the most suitable solid waste management solution will be proposed to UKM. The average solid waste generation rate in UKM is 203.38 kg/day. The composition of solid waste generated are glass, plastic, metal, aluminum, organic and inorganic waste and others waste. From the laboratory result, the average moisture content, density, pH and C/N ratio values from the solid waste generated are 49.74%, 165.1 kg/m3, 5.3, and 7:1 respectively. Since, the food waste (organic waste) were the most dominant component, around 62% from the total waste generated hence, the most suitable solid waste management solution is composting.

Keywords: Solid Waste, Waste Management, Characterizationand Composition

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Authors: P. Chambe, B. Canova, A. Balabanian, M. Pele, N. Coeur

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To avoid battery assisted tags with limited lifetime batteries, it is proposed here to replace them by energy harvesting systems, able to feed from local environment. This would allow total independence to RFID systems, very interesting for applications where tag removal from its location is not possible. Example is here described for luggage safety in airports, and is easily  extendable to similar situation in terms of operation constraints. The idea is to fix RFID tag with energy harvesting system not only to identify luggage but also to supply an embedded microcontroller with a sensor delivering luggage weight making it impossible to add or to remove anything from the luggage during transit phases. The aim is to optimize the harvested energy for such RFID applications, and to study in which limits these applications are theoretically possible. Proposed energy harvester is based on two energy sources: piezoelectricity and electromagnetic waves, so that when the luggage is moving on ground transportation to airline counters, the piezo module supplies the tag and its microcontroller, while the RF module operates during luggage transit thanks to readers located along the way. Tag location on the luggage is analyzed to get best vibrations, as well as harvester better choice for optimizing the energy supply depending on applications and the amount of energy harvested during a period of time. Effects of system parameters (RFID UHF frequencies, limit distance between the tag and the antenna necessary to harvest energy, produced voltage and voltage threshold) are discussed and working conditions for such system are delimited.

Keywords: EM waves, Energy Harvesting, Piezoelectric, RFID Tag.

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Authors: Christos Bouras, Eirini Stergiou, Charitini Karakostaki, Vasileios Tzanos, Vasileios Kokkinos

Abstract:

Wind power represents a major pathway to curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and thus reducing the rate of climate change. A wind turbine runs practically emission-free for 20 years, representing one of the most environmentally sustainable sources of energy. Nevertheless, environmental and biodiversity concerns can often slow down or halt the deployment of wind farms due to local public opposition. This opposition is often fuelled by poor relationships between wind energy stakeholders and civil society, which in many cases led to conflictual protests and property damage. In this context, addressing these concerns is essential in order to facilitate the proliferation of wind farms in Europe and the phase-out of fossil fuels from the energy mix. The aim of this study is to identify a number of good practices and cases to avoid increasing biodiversity protection at all stages of wind farms’ lifecycle in three participating countries, namely Greece, Latvia, and Poland. The results indicate that although available technological solutions are already being exploited worldwide, in these countries, there is still room for improvement. To address this gap, a set of policy recommendations is proposed to accomplish the wind energy targets in the near future while simultaneously mitigating the pertinent biodiversity risks.

Keywords: Biodiversity protection, environmental impact, social acceptance, wind energy.

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Authors: R. Gomathi, D. Sharmila

Abstract:

The emergence of the Semantic Web technology increases day by day due to the rapid growth of multiple web pages. Many standard formats are available to store the semantic web data. The most popular format is the Resource Description Framework (RDF). Querying large RDF graphs becomes a tedious procedure with a vast increase in the amount of data. The problem of query optimization becomes an issue in querying large RDF graphs. Choosing the best query plan reduces the amount of query execution time. To address this problem, nature inspired algorithms can be used as an alternative to the traditional query optimization techniques. In this research, the optimal query plan is generated by the proposed SAPSO algorithm which is a hybrid of Simulated Annealing (SA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms. The proposed SAPSO algorithm has the ability to find the local optimistic result and it avoids the problem of local minimum. Experiments were performed on different datasets by changing the number of predicates and the amount of data. The proposed algorithm gives improved results compared to existing algorithms in terms of query execution time.

Keywords: Semantic web, RDF, Query optimization, Nature inspired algorithms, PSO, SA.

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Authors: K. A. Ghazaryan, G. A. Gevorgyan, H. S. Movsesyan, N. P. Ghazaryan, K. V. Grigoryan

Abstract:

The heavy metal pollution degree in the soils around the Zangezur copper and molybdenum combine in Syunik Marz, Armenia was assessed. The results of the study showed that heavy metal pollution degree in the soils mainly decreased with increasing distance from the open mine and the ore enrichment combine which indicated that the open mine and the ore enrichment combine were the main sources of heavy metal pollution. The only exception was observed in the northern part of the open mine where pollution degree in the sites (along the open mine) situated 600 meters far from the mine was higher than that in the sites located 300 meters far from the mine. This can be explained by the characteristics of relief and air currents as well as the weak vegetation cover of these sites and the characteristics of soil structure. According to geo-accumulation index (I-geo), contamination factor (Cf), contamination degree (Cd) and pollution load index (PLI) values, the pollution degree in the soils around the open mine and the ore enrichment combine was higher than that in the soils around the tailing dumps which was due to the proper and accurate operation of the Artsvanik tailing damp and the recultivation of the Voghji tailing dump. The high Cu and Mo pollution of the soils was conditioned by the character of industrial activities, the moving direction of air currents as well as the physicochemical peculiarities of the soils.

Keywords: Armenia, Zangezur copper and molybdenum combine, soil, heavy metal pollution degree.

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Authors: Alpesh Adeshara, Rajendrasinh Jadeja, Praghnesh Bhatt

Abstract:

Implementation of advanced technologies requires sophisticated instruments that deal with the operation, control, restoration and protection of rapidly growing power system network under normal and abnormal conditions. Presently, the applications of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) are widely found in real time operation, monitoring, controlling and analysis of power system network as it eliminates the various limitations of supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) conventionally used in power system. The use of PMU data is very rapidly increasing its importance for online and offline analysis. Wide area measurement system (WAMS) is developed as new technology by use of multiple PMUs in power system. The present paper proposes a model of Matlab based PMU using Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) algorithm and evaluation of its operation under different contingencies. In this paper, PMU based two bus system having WAMS network is presented as a case study.

Keywords: DFT-Discrete Fourier Transform, GPS-Global Positioning System, PMU-Phasor Measurement System, WAMS-Wide Area Monitoring System.

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