Search results for: basic reproductive number

Authors: R. Kenova, K. Anguelov, R. Nikolova

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The human factor plays a major role in boosting the competitive capacity of logistic enterprises. This is of particular importance when it comes to logistic companies. On the one hand they should be strictly compliant with legislation; on the other hand, they should be competitive in terms of pricing and of delivery timelines. Moreover, their policies should allow them to be as flexible as possible. All these circumstances are reason for very serious challenges for the qualification, motivation and experience of the human resources, working in logistic companies or in logistic departments of trade and industrial enterprises. The geographic place of Bulgaria puts it in position of a country with some specific competitive advantages in the goods transport from Europe to Asia and back. Along with it, there is a number of logistic companies, that operate in this sphere in Bulgaria. In the current paper, the authors aim to establish the condition of the administrative capacity and human resources in the logistic companies and logistic departments of trade and industrial companies in Bulgaria in order to propose some guidelines for improving of their effectiveness. Due to independent empirical research, conducted in Bulgarian logistic, trade and industrial enterprises, the authors investigate both the impact degree and the interdependence of various factors that characterize the administrative capacity. The study is conducted with a prepared questionnaire, in format of direct interview with the respondents. The volume of the poll is 50 respondents, representatives of: general managers of industrial or trade enterprises; logistic managers of industrial or trade enterprises; general managers of forwarding companies – either with own or with hired transport; experts from Bulgarian association of logistics; logistic lobbyist and scientists of the relevant area. The data are gathered for 3 months, then arranged by a specialized software program and analyzed by preset criteria. Based on the results of this methodological toolbox, it can be claimed that there is a correlation between the individual criteria. Also, a commitment between the administrative capacity and other factors that determine the competitiveness of the studied companies is established. In this paper, the authors present results of the empirical research that concerns the number and the workload in the logistic departments of the enterprises. Also, what is commented is the experience, related to logistic processes management and human resources competence. Moreover, the overload level of the logistic specialists is analyzed as one of the main threats for making mistakes and losing clients. The paper stands behind the thesis that there is indispensability of forming an effective and efficient administrative capacity, based on the number, qualification, experience and motivation of the staff in the logistic companies. The paper ends with recommendations about the qualification and experience of the specialists in logistic departments; providing effective and efficient administrative capacity in the logistic departments; interdependence of the human factor and the other factors that influence the enterprise competitiveness.

Keywords: Administrative capacity, human resources, logistic competitiveness, staff qualification.

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Authors: Wei-Hsin Sun, Jr-Ming Miao, Chang-Hsien Tai, Chien-Chun Hung

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The development of biomimetic micro-aerial-vehicles (MAVs) with flapping wings is the future trend in military/domestic field. The successful flight of MAVs is strongly related to the understanding of unsteady aerodynamic performance of low Reynolds number airfoils under dynamic flapping motion. This study explored the effects of flapping frequency, stroke amplitude, and the inclined angle of stroke plane on lift force and thrust force of a bio-inspiration corrugated airfoil with 33 full factorial design of experiment and ANOVA analysis. Unsteady vorticity flows over a corrugated thin airfoil executing flapping motion are computed with time-dependent two-dimensional laminar incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with the conformal hybrid mesh. The tested freestream Reynolds number based on the chord length of airfoil as characteristic length is fixed of 103. The dynamic mesh technique is applied to model the flapping motion of a corrugated airfoil. Instant vorticity contours over a complete flapping cycle clearly reveals the flow mechanisms for lift force generation are dynamic stall, rotational circulation, and wake capture. The thrust force is produced as the leading edge vortex shedding from the trailing edge of airfoil to form a reverse von Karman vortex. Results also indicated that the inclined angle is the most significant factor on both the lift force and thrust force. There are strong interactions between tested factors which mean an optimization study on parameters should be conducted in further runs.

Keywords: biomimetic, MAVs, aerodynamic, ANOVA analysis.

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Authors: V.D. Hatamipour, M.A. Akhavan-Behabadi

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Evaporator is an important and widely used heat exchanger in air conditioning and refrigeration industries. Different methods have been used by investigators to increase the heat transfer rates in evaporators. One of the passive techniques to enhance heat transfer coefficient is the application of microfin tubes. The mechanism of heat transfer augmentation in microfin tubes is dependent on the flow regime of two-phase flow. Therefore many investigations of the flow patterns for in-tube evaporation have been reported in literatures. The gravitational force, surface tension and the vapor-liquid interfacial shear stress are known as three dominant factors controlling the vapor and liquid distribution inside the tube. A review of the existing literature reveals that the previous investigations were concerned with the two-phase flow pattern for flow boiling in horizontal tubes [12], [9]. Therefore, the objective of the present investigation is to obtain information about the two-phase flow patterns for evaporation of R-134a inside horizontal smooth and microfin tubes. Also Investigation of heat transfer during flow boiling of R-134a inside horizontal microfin and smooth tube have been carried out experimentally The heat transfer coefficients for annular flow in the smooth tube is shown to agree well with Gungor and Winterton-s correlation [4]. All the flow patterns occurred in the test can be divided into three dominant regimes, i.e., stratified-wavy flow, wavy-annular flow and annular flow. Experimental data are plotted in two kinds of flow maps, i.e., Weber number for the vapor versus weber number for the liquid flow map and mass flux versus vapor quality flow map. The transition from wavy-annular flow to annular or stratified-wavy flow is identified in the flow maps.

Keywords: Flow boiling, Flow pattern, Heat transfer, Horizontal, Smooth tube, Microfin tube.

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Authors: Decha Samana, Vites Longani

Abstract:

For positive integer s and t, the Ramsey number R(s, t) is the least positive integer n such that for every graph G of order n, either G contains Ks as a subgraph or G contains Kt as a subgraph. We construct the circulant graphs and use them to obtain lower bounds of some small Ramsey numbers.

Keywords: Lower bound, Ramsey numbers, Graphs, Distance line.

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Authors: E. Dolatdar, S. Soleymani, B. Mozafari

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Power loss reduction is one of the main targets in power industry and so in this paper, the problem of finding the optimal configuration of a radial distribution system for loss reduction is considered. Optimal reconfiguration involves the selection of the best set of branches to be opened ,one each from each loop, for reducing resistive line losses , and reliving overloads on feeders by shifting the load to adjacent feeders. However ,since there are many candidate switching combinations in the system ,the feeder reconfiguration is a complicated problem. In this paper a new approach is proposed based on a simple optimum loss calculation by determining optimal trees of the given network. From graph theory a distribution network can be represented with a graph that consists a set of nodes and branches. In fact this problem can be viewed as a problem of determining an optimal tree of the graph which simultaneously ensure radial structure of each candidate topology .In this method the refined genetic algorithm is also set up and some improvements of algorithm are made on chromosome coding. In this paper an implementation of the algorithm presented by [7] is applied by modifying in load flow program and a comparison of this method with the proposed method is employed. In [7] an algorithm is proposed that the choice of the switches to be opened is based on simple heuristic rules. This algorithm reduce the number of load flow runs and also reduce the switching combinations to a fewer number and gives the optimum solution. To demonstrate the validity of these methods computer simulations with PSAT and MATLAB programs are carried out on 33-bus test system. The results show that the performance of the proposed method is better than [7] method and also other methods.

Keywords: Distribution System, Reconfiguration, Loss Reduction , Graph Theory , Optimization , Genetic Algorithm

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Authors: Wen-Chao Tang, Tang-Yi Liu, Ming Gao, Gang Xu, Hua-Yuan Yang

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This study developed a method for teaching acupuncture manipulation in small groups optimized with the theory of motor learning. Sixty acupuncture students and their teacher participated in our research. Motion videos were recorded of their manipulations using the lifting-thrusting method. These videos were analyzed using Simi Motion software to acquire the movement parameters of the thumb tip. The parameter velocity curves along Y axis was used to generate small teaching groups clustered by a self-organized map (SOM) and K-means. Ten groups were generated. All the targeted instruction based on the comparative results groups as well as the videos of teacher and student was provided to the members of each group respectively. According to the theory and research of motor learning, the factors or technologies such as video instruction, observational learning, external focus and summary feedback were integrated into this teaching method. Such efforts were desired to improve and enhance the effectiveness of current acupuncture teaching methods in limited classroom teaching time and extracurricular training.

Keywords: Acupuncture, group teaching, video instruction, observational learning, external focus, summary feedback.

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Authors: Dong Xie, Jun Zhao, Yiming Weng

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The objective of this study was to synthesize and characterize the poly(alkenoic acid)s with different molecular structures, use these polymers to formulate a dental cement restorative, and study the effect of molecular structures on reaction kinetics, viscosity, and mechanical strengths of the formed polymers and cement restoratives. In this study, poly(alkenoic acid)s with different molecular structures were synthesized. The purified polymers were formulated with commercial Fuji II LC glass fillers to form the experimental cement restoratives. The reaction kinetics was studied via 1HNMR spectroscopy. The formed restoratives were evaluated using compressive strength, diametral tensile strength, flexural strength, hardness and wear-resistance tests. Specimens were conditioned in distilled water at 37oC for 24 h prior to testing. Fuji II LC restorative was used as control. The results show that the higher the arm number and initiator concentration, the faster the reaction was. It was also found that the higher the arm number and branching that the polymer had, the lower the viscosity of the polymer in water and the lower the mechanical strengths of the formed restorative. The experimental restoratives were 31-53% in compressive strength, 37- 55% in compressive modulus, 80-126% in diametral tensile strength, 76-94% in flexural strength, 4-21% in fracture toughness and 53-96% in hardness higher than Fuji II LC. For wear test, the experimental restoratives were only 5.4-13% of abrasive and 6.4-12% of attritional wear depths of Fuji II LC in each wear cycle. The aging study also showed that all the experimental restoratives increased their strength continuously during 30 days, unlike Fuji II LC. It is concluded that polymer molecular structures have significant and positive impact on mechanical properties of dental cement restoratives.

Keywords: Poly(alkenoic acid)s, molecular structures, dental cement, mechanical strength.

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Authors: Estevan B. Costa, Armando M. Toda, Marcell A. A. Mesquita, Jacques D. Brancher

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The advances in technology in the last five years allowed an improvement in the educational area, as the increasing in the development of educational software. One of the techniques that emerged in this lapse is called Gamification, which is the utilization of video game mechanics outside its bounds. Recent studies involving this technique provided positive results in the application of these concepts in many areas as marketing, health and education. In the last area there are studies that covers from elementary to higher education, with many variations to adequate to the educators methodologies. Among higher education, focusing on IT courses, data structures are an important subject taught in many of these courses, as they are base for many systems. Based on the exposed this paper exposes the development of an interactive web learning environment, called DSLEP (Data Structure Learning Platform), to aid students in higher education IT courses. The system includes basic concepts seen on this subject such as stacks, queues, lists, arrays, trees and was implemented to ease the insertion of new structures. It was also implemented with gamification concepts, such as points, levels, and leader boards, to engage students in the search for knowledge and stimulate self-learning.

Keywords: Gamification, Interactive learning environment, Data structures, e-learning.

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Authors: Nitai Biswas, Prasenjit Kapas, Arumay Jana, Asish Paul

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Introduction: Motivation is basic drive for all kinds of action. It has direct influence on academic achievement and sports performance that builds urge to incentive values of success. In other words, it can be defined as the need for success to attain excellence. Anxiety in pre competition especially in sports formulates positive inward settings in mind to overcome the challenge. There is a tendency to perceive competitive situations as some threatening issues and to respond them with feelings of apprehension and tension. Aim: Aim of the study was to compare the achievement motivation and competition anxiety among three different classes of students. Methods and Materials: To conduct the study the researcher has taken 131 male subjects from three different classes as Extra Department, Bachelor of Physical Education-I and Master of Physical EducationII, aged 19-28 years. Achievement motivation and sports competition anxiety were measured by the questionnaire. To analyze the data mean, standard deviation for each parameter as descriptive statistics and one way analysis of variance as inferential statistics were employed. Results: From the result of the study in achievement motivation (p ≥ 0.05) and competition anxiety (p ≥ 0.05) no significant differences were found among the said three groups. Conclusion: The study concluded that all three groups had almost the same state of achievement motivation and sports competition anxiety.

Keywords: Anxiety, sports psychology, sports competition anxiety, achievement motivation, academic hierarchy.

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Authors: Marina Velikova, Hennie Daniels, Ad Feelders

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In many data mining applications, it is a priori known that the target function should satisfy certain constraints imposed by, for example, economic theory or a human-decision maker. In this paper we consider partially monotone prediction problems, where the target variable depends monotonically on some of the input variables but not on all. We propose a novel method to construct prediction models, where monotone dependences with respect to some of the input variables are preserved by virtue of construction. Our method belongs to the class of mixture models. The basic idea is to convolute monotone neural networks with weight (kernel) functions to make predictions. By using simulation and real case studies, we demonstrate the application of our method. To obtain sound assessment for the performance of our approach, we use standard neural networks with weight decay and partially monotone linear models as benchmark methods for comparison. The results show that our approach outperforms partially monotone linear models in terms of accuracy. Furthermore, the incorporation of partial monotonicity constraints not only leads to models that are in accordance with the decision maker's expertise, but also reduces considerably the model variance in comparison to standard neural networks with weight decay.

Keywords: mixture models, monotone neural networks, partially monotone models, partially monotone problems.

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Authors: Hashim Mohammed Alhassan, Johnnie Ben-Edigbe

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Traffic flow in adverse weather conditions have been investigated in this study for general traffic, week day and week end traffic. The empirical evidence is strong in support of the view that rainfall affects macroscopic traffic flow parameters. Data generated from a basic highway section along J5 in Johor Bahru, Malaysia was synchronized with 161 rain events over a period of three months. This revealed a 4.90%, 6.60% and 11.32% reduction in speed for light rain, moderate rain and heavy rain conditions respectively. The corresponding capacity reductions in the three rainfall regimes are 1.08% for light rain, 6.27% for moderate rain and 29.25% for heavy rain. In the week day traffic, speed drops of 8.1% and 16.05% were observed for light and heavy conditions. The moderate rain condition speed increased by 12.6%. The capacity drops for week day traffic are 4.40% for light rain, 9.77% for moderate rain and 45.90% for heavy rain. The weekend traffic indicated speed difference between the dry condition and the three rainy conditions as 6.70% for light rain, 8.90% for moderate rain and 13.10% for heavy rain. The capacity changes computed for the weekend traffic were 0.20% in light rain, 13.90% in moderate rain and 16.70% in heavy rain. No traffic instabilities were observed throughout the observation period and the capacities reported for each rain condition were below the norain condition capacity. Rainfall has tremendous impact on traffic flow and this may have implications for shock wave propagation.

Keywords: Highway Capacity, Dry condition, Rainfall Intensity, Rainy condition, Traffic Flow Rate.

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Authors: Dorota Kobus-Ostrowska

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Work for everyone, especially for person with disability is a condition in independence; it secures basic needs and develops manual and intellectual capabilities. The work is a source of income, and it builds and strengthens of self-esteem and competence. The purpose of this article is to identify work as an important factor in everyone’s life, despite Polish disabled persons rarely having the chance to undertake a job. In order to achieve this purpose, two methods were used: comparative and qualitative. The theoretical part of this article is based on studies of a wide range of Polish and foreign literature devoted to the issue of the occupational development of people with disabilities. The article was also enriched with the institutional and legal analysis types of support for people with disabilities in Poland. Currently, a Polish person with disability who wants to enter or return to the labor market is under a special protection. Those entities employing workers with disabilities may obtain a subsidy for the salary of a person with disabilities. Unfortunately, people with disability in Poland rarely participate in the workforce. The factors that contribute to this include the difficulty in obtaining work, the uncertainty of keeping it, and the low salary offered. Despite that domestic and foreign literature highlight the important role of disabled people as a workforce, very few people with disability in Poland are economically active.

Keywords: Disabled person, work, employer, rehabilitation.

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Authors: Khalid Alammar

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Aim of this study is to evaluate a new three-equation turbulence model applied to flow and heat transfer through a pipe. Uncertainty is approximated by comparing with published direct numerical simulation results for fully-developed flow. Error in the mean axial velocity, temperature, friction, and heat transfer is found to be negligible.

Keywords: Heat Transfer, Nusselt number, Skin friction, Turbulence.

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Authors: Görkem Arslan Kılınç

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Due to the high construction, operation, and maintenance costs of tall buildings, quantification of the area in the plan layout which provides a financial return is an important design criterion. The area of the “core and the structural system elements” does not provide financial return but must exist in the plan layout. Some characteristic items of tall office buildings affect the size of these areas. From this point of view, 15 tall office buildings were systematically investigated. The typical office floor plans of these buildings were re-produced digitally. The area of the “core and the structural system elements” in each building and the characteristic items of each building were calculated. These characteristic items are the size of the long and short plan edge, plan length/width ratio, size of the core long and short edge, core length/width ratio, core area, slenderness, building height, number of floors, and floor height. These items were analyzed by correlation and regression analyses. Results of this paper put forward that; characteristic items which affect the area of "core and structural system elements" are plan long and short edge size, core short edge size, building height, and the number of floors. A one-unit increase in plan short side size increases the area of the "core and structural system elements" in the plan by 12,378 m2. An increase in core short edge size increases the area of the core and structural system elements in the plan by 25,650 m2. Subsequent studies can be conducted by expanding the sample of the study and considering the geographical location of the building.

Keywords: Core area, correlation analysis, floor area, regression analysis, space efficiency, tall office buildings.

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Authors: Leslie Beale

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Being a patient with a chronic disease is both a physical and emotional experience. The ability to recognize a patient’s emotional health is an important part of a health care provider’s skills. For the purposes of this paper, emotional health is viewed as the way that we feel, and the way that our feelings affect us. Understanding the patient’s emotional health leads to improved provider-patient relationships and health outcomes. For example, when a patient first hears his or her diagnosis from a provider, they might find it difficult to cope with their emotions. Struggling to cope with emotions interferes with the patient’s ability to read, understand, and act on health information and services. As a result, the patient becomes more frustrated and confused, creating barriers to accessing healthcare services. These barriers are challenging for both the patient and their healthcare providers. There are five basic emotions that are part of who we are and are always with us: fear, anger, sadness, joy, and compassion. Living with a chronic disease however can cause a patient to experience and express these emotions in new and unique ways. Within the provider-patient relationship, there needs to be an understanding that each patient experiences these five emotions and, experiences them at different times. In response to this need, the paper highlights a health promotion framework for patients with chronic disease. This framework emphasizes the emotional health of patients.

Keywords: Health promotion, emotional health, patients with chronic disease, patient-centered care.

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Authors: M. Geetha Priya, K. Baskaran, S. Srinivasan

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Digital systems are said to be constructed using basic logic gates. These gates are the NOR, NAND, AND, OR, EXOR & EXNOR gates. This paper presents a robust three transistors (3T) based NAND and NOR gates with precise output logic levels, yet maintaining equivalent performance than the existing logic structures. This new set of 3T logic gates are based on CMOS inverter and Pass Transistor Logic (PTL). The new universal logic gates are characterized by better speed and lower power dissipation which can be straightforwardly fabricated as memory ICs for high performance computer networks. The simulation tests were performed using standard BPTM 22nm process technology using SYNOPSYS HSPICE. The 3T NAND gate is evaluated using C17 benchmark circuit and 3T NOR is gate evaluated using a D-Latch. According to HSPICE simulation in 22 nm CMOS BPTM process technology under given conditions and at room temperature, the proposed 3T gates shows an improvement of 88% less power consumption on an average over conventional CMOS logic gates. The devices designed with 3T gates will make longer battery life by ensuring extremely low power consumption.

Keywords: Low power, CMOS, pass-transistor, flash memory, logic gates.

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Authors: Ming-Ta Yang, Jyh-Cherng Gu, Po-Chun Lin, Yen-Lin Huang, Chun-Wei Huang, Jin-Lung Guan

Abstract:

Since IEC61850 substation communication standard represents the trend to develop new generations of Substation Automation System (SAS), many IED manufacturers pursue this technique and apply for KEMA. In order to put on the market to meet customer demand as fast as possible, manufacturers often apply their products only for basic environment standard certification but claim to conform to IEC61850 certification. Since verification institutes generally perform verification tests only on specific IEDs of the manufacturers, the interoperability between all certified IEDs cannot be guaranteed. Therefore the interoperability between IEDs from different manufacturers needs to be tested. Based upon the above reasons, this study applies the definitions of the information models, communication service, GOOSE functionality and Substation Configuration Language (SCL) of the IEC61850 to build the concept of communication protocols, and build the test environment. The procedures of the test of the data collection and exchange of the P2P communication mode and Client / Server communication mode in IEC61850 are outlined as follows. First, test the IED GOOSE messages communication capability from different manufacturers. Second, collect IED data from each IED with SCADA system and use HMI to display the SCADA platform. Finally, problems generally encountered in the test procedure are summarized.

Keywords: GOOSE, IEC61850, IED, SCADA.

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Authors: Chung-Hung Tsai

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Global environmental changes lead to increased frequency and scale of natural disaster, Taiwan is under the influence of global warming and extreme weather. Therefore, the vulnerability was increased and variability and complexity of disasters is relatively enhanced. The purpose of this study is to consider the source and magnitude of hazard characteristics on the tourism industry. Using modern risk management concepts, integration of related domestic and international basic research, this goes beyond the Taiwan typhoon disaster risk assessment model and evaluation of loss. This loss evaluation index system considers the impact of extreme weather, in particular heavy rain on the tourism industry in Taiwan. Consider the extreme climate of the compound impact of disaster for the tourism industry; we try to make multi-hazard risk assessment model, strategies and suggestions. Related risk analysis results are expected to provide government department, the tourism industry asset owners, insurance companies and banking include tourist disaster risk necessary information to help its tourism industry for effective natural disaster risk management.

Keywords: Tourism industry, extreme weather, multi-hazard, vulnerability analysis, loss exceeding probability, risk management.

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Authors: Krzysztof Zieliński, Dariusz Kierzek

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The addition of a small amount of alumina cement to Portland cement results in immediate setting, a rapid increase in the compressive strength and a clear increase of the adhesion to concrete substrate. This phenomenon is used, among others, for the production of liquid floor self-levelling compounds. Alumina cement is several times more expensive than Portland cement and is a component having a significant impact on prices of products manufactured with its use. For the production of liquid floor self-levelling compounds, low-alumina cement containing approximately 40% Al₂O₃ is normally used. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of Portland cement with the addition of alumina cement on the basic physical and mechanical properties of cement slurries and mortars. CEM I 42.5R and three types of alumina cement containing 40%, 50% and 70% of Al₂O₃ were used for the tests. Mixes containing 4%, 6%, 8%, 10% and 12% of different varieties of alumina cement were prepared; for which, the time of initial and final setting, compressive and flexural strength and adhesion to concrete substrate were determined. The analysis of the obtained test results showed that a similar immediate setting effect and clearly better adhesion strength can be obtained using the addition of 6% of high-alumina cement than 12% of low-alumina cement. As the prices of these cements are similar, this can give significant financial savings in the production of liquid floor self-levelling compounds.

Keywords: Alumina cement, immediate setting, compression strength, adhesion to substrate.

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Authors: Federico Pérez González, Iñaki Goiricelaia Ordorika, Pedro Iriondo Bengoa

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A new method for low complexity image coding is presented, that permits different settings and great scalability in the generation of the final bit stream. This coding presents a continuoustone still image compression system that groups loss and lossless compression making use of finite arithmetic reversible transforms. Both transformation in the space of color and wavelet transformation are reversible. The transformed coefficients are coded by means of a coding system in depending on a subdivision into smaller components (CFDS) similar to the bit importance codification. The subcomponents so obtained are reordered by means of a highly configure alignment system depending on the application that makes possible the re-configure of the elements of the image and obtaining different levels of importance from which the bit stream will be generated. The subcomponents of each level of importance are coded using a variable length entropy coding system (VBLm) that permits the generation of an embedded bit stream. This bit stream supposes itself a bit stream that codes a compressed still image. However, the use of a packing system on the bit stream after the VBLm allows the realization of a final highly scalable bit stream from a basic image level and one or several enhance levels.

Keywords: Image compression, wavelet transform, highlyscalable, reversible transform, embedded, subcomponents.

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Authors: Asma Rabaoui, Zied Lachiri, Noureddine Ellouze

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Discrimination between different classes of environmental sounds is the goal of our work. The use of a sound recognition system can offer concrete potentialities for surveillance and security applications. The first paper contribution to this research field is represented by a thorough investigation of the applicability of state-of-the-art audio features in the domain of environmental sound recognition. Additionally, a set of novel features obtained by combining the basic parameters is introduced. The quality of the features investigated is evaluated by a HMM-based classifier to which a great interest was done. In fact, we propose to use a Multi-Style training system based on HMMs: one recognizer is trained on a database including different levels of background noises and is used as a universal recognizer for every environment. In order to enhance the system robustness by reducing the environmental variability, we explore different adaptation algorithms including Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression (MLLR), Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) and the MAP/MLLR algorithm that combines MAP and MLLR. Experimental evaluation shows that a rather good recognition rate can be reached, even under important noise degradation conditions when the system is fed by the convenient set of features.

Keywords: Sounds recognition, HMM classifier, Multi-style training, Environmental Adaptation, Feature combinations.

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Authors: G. Shanmugasundar, R. Sivaramakrishnan, S. Venugopal

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Robots are booming as an essential substituent in the field of inspection. In hazardous environments like nuclear waste disposal, robots are really a necessitate one. In a view to meet such demands, this paper presents the seven degree of freedom articulated inspection robot. To design such a robot the kinematic analysis of seven Degree of freedom robot which can inspect the hazardous nuclear waste storage tanks is done. The effective utilization of universal joints for arms and screw jack mechanisms at the base gives the higher order of degree of freedom to the newly designed robot. The analytical method of deriving the manipulator forward as well as inverse kinematics is explained elaborately using the Denavit-Hartenberg Approach for the purpose of calculating the robot joints, links and end-effector parameters. The comparison of the geometric and the analytical approach is stated. The self-developed kinematic model gives the accurate positions of the end effector. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is developed in Visual Basic language for the manipulation of kinematic results easily. This software gives the expected position of the end-effector accurately at short time compared to manual manipulations.

Keywords: Robot kinematics, screw jack mechanisms, Denavit-Hartenberg approach, universal joints.

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Authors: Minh Van Nguyen, Magnea Gudrun Karlsdottir, Adalheidur Olafsdottir, Arnljotur Bjarki Bergsson, Sigurjon Arason

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The effects of seawater and slurry ice bleeding methods on the sensory, microbiological and chemical quality changes of cod fillets during chilled storage were examined in this study. The results from sensory evaluation showed that slurry ice bleeding method prolonged the shelf life of cod fillets up to 13-14 days compared to 10-11 days for fish bled in seawater. Slurry ice bleeding method also led to a slower microbial growth and biochemical developments, resulting lower total plate count (TPC), H2S-producing bacteria count, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), trimethylamine (TMA), free fatty acid (FFA) content and higher phospholipid content (PL) compared to those of samples bled in seawater. The results of principle component analysis revealed that TPC, H2S-producing bacteria, TVB-N, TMA and FFA were in significant correlation. They were also in negative correlation with sensory evaluation (Torry score), PL and water holding capacity (WHC).

Keywords: Bleeding method, chilled storage, microbial growth, sensory evaluation.

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Authors: Morteza Amirabadi, Vahid Fayaz , Fereshteh Felegary, Hossien Hossienkhani

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The most suitable Semiconductor detector, Cadmium Zinc Teloraid , has unique properties because of high Atomic number and wide Brand Gap . It has been tried in this project with different processes such as Lead , Diffusion , Produce and Recombination , effect of Trapping and injection carrier of CdZnTe , to get hole and then present a complete answer of it . Then we should investigate the movement of carrier ( Electron – Hole ) by using above answer.

Keywords: Semiconcuctor detector, Trapping, Recommbination, Diffusion

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Authors: Zare Aliabad, H., Mirzaei, S.

Abstract:

This work presents a theoretical investigation of the simultaneous absorption of CO2 and H2S into aqueous solutions of MDEA and DEA. In this process the acid components react with the basic alkanolamine solution via an exothermic, reversible reaction in a gas/liquid absorber. The use of amine solvents for gas sweetening has been investigated using process simulation programs called HYSYS and ASPEN. We use Electrolyte NRTL and Amine Package and Amines (experimental) equation of state. The effects of temperature and circulation rate and amine concentration and packed column and murphree efficiency on the rate of absorption were studied. When lean amine flow and concentration increase, CO2 and H2S absorption increase too. With the improvement of inlet amine temperature in absorber, CO2 and H2S penetrate to upper stages of absorber and absorption of acid gases in absorber decreases. The CO2 concentration in the clean gas can be greatly influenced by the packing height, whereas for the H2S concentration in the clean gas the packing height plays a minor role. HYSYS software can not estimate murphree efficiency correctly and it applies the same contributions in all diagrams for HYSYS software. By improvement in murphree efficiency, maximum temperature of absorber decrease and the location of reaction transfer to the stages of bottoms absorber and the absorption of acid gases increase.

Keywords: Absorber, DEA, MDEA, Simulation.

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Authors: Permphan Dharmasaroja

Abstract:

Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) has been reported to develop after a hymenoptera sting, but its pathogenesis is not known in detail. Myelin basic protein (MBP)- specific T cells have been detected in the blood of patients with ADEM, and a proportion of these patients develop multiple sclerosis (MS). In an attempt to understand the mechanisms underlying ADEM, molecular mimicry between hymenoptera venom peptides and the human immunodominant MBP peptide was scrutinized, based on the sequence and structural similarities, whether it was the root of the disease. The results suggest that the three wasp venom peptides have low sequence homology with the human immunodominant MBP residues 85-99. Structural similarity analysis among the three venom peptides and the MS-related HLA-DR2b (DRA, DRB1*1501)-associated immunodominant MHC binding/TCR contact residues 88-93, VVHFFK showed that hyaluronidase residues 7-12, phospholipase A1 residues 98-103, and antigen 5 residues 109-114 showed a high degree of similarity 83.3%, 100%, and 83.3% respectively. In conclusion, some wasp venom peptides, particularly phospholipase A1, may potentially act as the molecular motifs of the human 3HLA-DR2b-associated immunodominant MBP88-93, and possibly present a mechanism for induction of wasp sting-associated ADEM.

Keywords: central nervous system, Hymenoptera, myelin basicprotein, molecular mimicry.

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Authors: Ahmad M. Abdel Fattah, Ayman M. Bahaa El-Din, Hossam M.A. Fahmy

Abstract:

Modular multiplication is the basic operation in most public key cryptosystems, such as RSA, DSA, ECC, and DH key exchange. Unfortunately, very large operands (in order of 1024 or 2048 bits) must be used to provide sufficient security strength. The use of such big numbers dramatically slows down the whole cipher system, especially when running on embedded processors. So far, customized hardware accelerators - developed on FPGAs or ASICs - were the best choice for accelerating modular multiplication in embedded environments. On the other hand, many algorithms have been developed to speed up such operations. Examples are the Montgomery modular multiplication and the interleaved modular multiplication algorithms. Combining both customized hardware with an efficient algorithm is expected to provide a much faster cipher system. This paper introduces an enhanced architecture for computing the modular multiplication of two large numbers X and Y modulo a given modulus M. The proposed design is compared with three previous architectures depending on carry save adders and look up tables. Look up tables should be loaded with a set of pre-computed values. Our proposed architecture uses the same carry save addition, but replaces both look up tables and pre-computations with an enhanced version of sign detection techniques. The proposed architecture supports higher frequencies than other architectures. It also has a better overall absolute time for a single operation.

Keywords: Montgomery multiplication, modular multiplication, efficient architecture, FPGA, RSA

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Authors: Kazuki Kamada, Haruka Yamashita

Abstract:

In Japan, taxi is one of the popular transportations and taxi industry is one of the big businesses. However, in recent years, there has been a difficult problem of reducing the number of taxi drivers. In the taxi business, mainly three passenger catching methods are applied. One style is "cruising" that drivers catches passengers while driving on a road. Second is "waiting" that waits passengers near by the places with many requirements for taxies such as entrances of hospitals, train stations. The third one is "dispatching" that is allocated based on the contact from the taxi company. Above all, the cruising taxi drivers need the experience and intuition for finding passengers, and it is difficult to decide "the destination for cruising". The strong recommendation system for the cruising taxies supports the new drivers to find passengers, and it can be the solution for the decreasing the number of drivers in the taxi industry. In this research, we propose a method of recommending a destination for cruising taxi drivers. On the other hand, as a machine learning technique, the embedding models that embed the high dimensional data to a low dimensional space is widely used for the data analysis, in order to represent the relationship of the meaning between the data clearly. Taxi drivers have their favorite courses based on their experiences, and the courses are different for each driver. We assume that the course of cruising taxies has meaning such as the course for finding business man passengers (go around the business area of the city of go to main stations) and course for finding traveler passengers (go around the sightseeing places or big hotels), and extract the meaning of their destinations. We analyze the cruising history data of taxis based on the embedding model and propose the recommendation system for passengers. Finally, we demonstrate the recommendation of destinations for cruising taxi drivers based on the real-world data analysis using proposing method.

Keywords: Taxi industry, decision making, recommendation system, embedding model.

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Authors: A.Campanile, M. Mandarino, V. Piscopo

Abstract:

This paper deals with the problem of non-uniform torsion in thin-walled elastic beams with asymmetric cross-section, removing the basic concept of a fixed center of twist, necessary in the Vlasov-s and Benscoter-s theories to obtain a warping stress field equivalent to zero. In this new torsion/flexure theory, despite of the classical ones, the warping function will punctually satisfy the first indefinite equilibrium equation along the beam axis and it wont- be necessary to introduce the classical congruence condition, to take into account the effect of the beam restraints. The solution, based on the Fourier development of the displacement field, is obtained assuming that the applied external torque is constant along the beam axis and on both beam ends the unit twist angle and the warping axial displacement functions are totally restrained. Finally, in order to verify the feasibility of the proposed method and to compare it with the classical theories, two applications are carried out. The first one, relative to an open profile, is necessary to test the numerical method adopted to find the solution; the second one, instead, is relative to a simplified containership section, considered as full restrained in correspondence of two adjacent transverse bulkheads.

Keywords: Non-uniform torsion, Asymmetric cross-section, Fourier series, Helmholtz equation, FE method.

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Authors: N. Neysani Samany, M.R. Delavar, N. Chrisman, M.R. Malek

Abstract:

Location-aware computing is a type of pervasive computing that utilizes user-s location as a dominant factor for providing urban services and application-related usages. One of the important urban services is navigation instruction for wayfinders in a city especially when the user is a tourist. The services which are presented to the tourists should provide adapted location aware instructions. In order to achieve this goal, the main challenge is to find spatial relevant objects and location-dependent information. The aim of this paper is the development of a reusable location-aware model to handle spatial relevancy parameters in urban location-aware systems. In this way we utilized ontology as an approach which could manage spatial relevancy by defining a generic model. Our contribution is the introduction of an ontological model based on the directed interval algebra principles. Indeed, it is assumed that the basic elements of our ontology are the spatial intervals for the user and his/her related contexts. The relationships between them would model the spatial relevancy parameters. The implementation language for the model is OWLs, a web ontology language. The achieved results show that our proposed location-aware model and the application adaptation strategies provide appropriate services for the user.

Keywords: Spatial relevancy, Context-aware, Ontology, Modeling

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