Search results for: Conceptual scale

Authors: P. Abhishesh, B. S. Ryuh, Y. S. Oh, H. J. Moon, R. Akanksha

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This paper discusses about the conceptual design and development of the control system software using Programmable logic controller (PLC) for autonomous driving and agricultural operations of Multipurpose Agricultural Robot Platform (MARP). Based on given initial conditions by field analysis and desired agricultural operations, the structural design development of MARP is done using modelling and analysis tool. PLC, being robust and easy to use, has been used to design the autonomous control system of robot platform for desired parameters. The robot is capable of performing autonomous driving and three automatic agricultural operations, viz. hilling, mulching, and sowing of seeds in the respective order. The input received from various sensors on the field is later transmitted to the controller via ZigBee network to make the changes in the control program to get desired field output. The research is conducted to provide assistance to farmers by reducing labor hours for agricultural activities by implementing automation. This study will provide an alternative to the existing systems with machineries attached behind tractors and rigorous manual operations on agricultural field at effective cost.

Keywords: Agricultural operations, autonomous driving, MARP, PLC.

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Authors: Sally Naji, Julie Gwilliam

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Climate change remains a challenging matter for the human and the built environment in the 21st century, where the need to consider adaptation to climate change in the development process is paramount. However, there remains a lack of information regarding how we should prepare responses to this issue, such as through developing organized and sophisticated tools enabling the adaptation process. This study aims to build a systematic framework approach to investigate the potentials that Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment tools (NSA) might offer in enabling both the analysis of the emerging adaptive capacity to climate change. The analysis of the framework presented in this paper aims to discuss this issue in three main phases. The first part attempts to link sustainability and climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity. It is argued that in deciding to promote sustainability in the context of climate change, both the resilience and vulnerability processes become central. However, there is still a gap in the current literature regarding how the sustainable development process can respond to climate change. As well as how the resilience of practical strategies might be evaluated. It is suggested that the integration of the sustainability assessment processes with both the resilience thinking process, and vulnerability might provide important components for addressing the adaptive capacity to climate change. A critical review of existing literature is presented illustrating the current lack of work in this field, integrating these three concepts in the context of addressing the adaptive capacity to climate change. The second part aims to identify the most appropriate scale at which to address the built environment for the climate change adaptation. It is suggested that the neighborhood scale can be considered as more suitable than either the building or urban scales. It then presents the example of NSAs, and discusses the need to explore their potential role in promoting the adaptive capacity to climate change. The third part of the framework presents a comparison among three example NSAs, BREEAM Communities, LEED-ND, and CASBEE-UD. These three tools have been selected as the most developed and comprehensive assessment tools that are currently available for the neighborhood scale. This study concludes that NSAs are likely to present the basis for an organized framework to address the practical process for analyzing and yet promoting Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change. It is further argued that vulnerability (exposure & sensitivity) and resilience (Interdependence & Recovery) form essential aspects to be addressed in the future assessment of NSA’s capability to adapt to both short and long term climate change impacts. Finally, it is acknowledged that further work is now required to understand impact assessment in terms of the range of physical sectors (Water, Energy, Transportation, Building, Land Use and Ecosystems), Actor and stakeholder engagement as well as a detailed evaluation of the NSA indicators, together with a barriers diagnosis process.

Keywords: Adaptive capacity, climate change, NSA tools, resilience, vulnerability.

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Authors: Tofigh Hamidavi, Sepehr Abrishami, Pasquale Ponterosso, David Begg

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Structural design and analysis is an important and time-consuming process, particularly at the conceptual design stage. Decisions made at this stage can have an enormous effect on the entire project, as it becomes ever costlier and more difficult to alter the choices made early on in the construction process. Hence, optimisation of the early stages of structural design can provide important efficiencies in terms of cost and time. This paper suggests a structural design optimisation (SDO) framework in which Genetic Algorithms (GAs) may be used to semi-automate the production and optimisation of early structural design alternatives. This framework has the potential to leverage conceptual structural design innovation in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) projects. Moreover, this framework improves the collaboration between the architectural stage and the structural stage. It will be shown that this SDO framework can make this achievable by generating the structural model based on the extracted data from the architectural model. At the moment, the proposed SDO framework is in the process of validation, involving the distribution of an online questionnaire among structural engineers in the UK.

Keywords: Building Information Modelling, BIM, Genetic Algorithm, GA, architecture-engineering-construction, AEC, Optimisation, structure, design, population, generation, selection, mutation, crossover, offspring.

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Authors: P. Pasomboon, P. Chumnanpuen, T. E-kobon

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Hyaluronic acid (HA) consists of linear heteropolysaccharides repeat of D-glucuronic acid and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine. HA has various useful properties to maintain skin elasticity and moisture, reduce inflammation, and lubricate the movement of various body parts without causing immunogenic allergy. HA can be found in several animal tissues as well as in the capsule component of some bacteria including Pasteurella multocida. This study aimed to modify a genome-scale metabolic model of Escherichia coli using computational simulation and flux analysis methods to predict HA productivity under different carbon sources and nitrogen supplement by the addition of two enzymes (GLMU2 and HYAD) from P. multocida to improve the HA production under the specified amount of carbon sources and nitrogen supplements. Result revealed that threonine and aspartate supplement raised the HA production by 12.186%. Our analyses proposed the genome-scale metabolic model is useful for improving the HA production and narrows the number of conditions to be tested further.

Keywords: Pasteurella multocida, Escherichia coli, hyaluronic acid, genome-scale metabolic model, bioinformatics.

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Authors: Silvina Caíno-Lores, Jesús Carretero

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Large scale computing infrastructures have been widely developed with the core objective of providing a suitable platform for high-performance and high-throughput computing. These systems are designed to support resource-intensive and complex applications, which can be found in many scientific and industrial areas. Currently, large scale data-intensive applications are hindered by the high latencies that result from the access to vastly distributed data. Recent works have suggested that improving data locality is key to move towards exascale infrastructures efficiently, as solutions to this problem aim to reduce the bandwidth consumed in data transfers, and the overheads that arise from them. There are several techniques that attempt to move computations closer to the data. In this survey we analyse the different mechanisms that have been proposed to provide data locality for large scale high-performance and high-throughput systems. This survey intends to assist scientific computing community in understanding the various technical aspects and strategies that have been reported in recent literature regarding data locality. As a result, we present an overview of locality-oriented techniques, which are grouped in four main categories: application development, task scheduling, in-memory computing and storage platforms. Finally, the authors include a discussion on future research lines and synergies among the former techniques.

Keywords: Co-scheduling, data-centric, data-intensive, data locality, in-memory storage, large scale.

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Authors: Fiasal Assiri, Joanna Wincenciak, David Morrison-Love

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With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Saudi government suspended students from going to school to combat the outbreak. As e-learning was not applied at all in schools, online teaching and learning have been revived in Saudi Arabia by providing a new platform called ‘Madrasati’. The Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) is used to examine individuals’ intention behaviour in many fields. Nevertheless, the factors that affect teachers’ continuance intention of the Madrasati platform have not yet been investigated. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model in light with DTPB. To enhance the predictability of the model, the study incorporates other variables including learning content quality and interactivity as sub-factors under the perceived usefulness, students and government influences under the subjective norms, and technical support and prior e-learning experience under the perceived behavioural control. The model will be further validated using a mixed methods approach. Such findings would help administrators and stakeholders to understand teachers’ needs and develop new methods that might encourage teachers to continue using Madrasati effectively in their teaching.

Keywords: Madrasati, Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour, continuance intention, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control.

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Authors: David M. Jenkins Jr.

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Scale Time Offset Robust Modulation (STORM) [1]– [3] is a high bandwidth waveform design that adds time-scale to embedded reference modulations using only time-delay [4]. In an environment where each user has a specific delay and scale, identification of the user with the highest signal power and that user-s phase is facilitated by the STORM processor. Both of these parameters are required in an efficient multiuser detection algorithm. In this paper, the STORM modulation approach is evaluated with a direct sequence spread quadrature phase shift keying (DS-QPSK) system. A misconception of the STORM time scale modulation is that a fine temporal resolution is required at the receiver. STORM will be applied to a QPSK code division multiaccess (CDMA) system by modifying the spreading codes. Specifically, the in-phase code will use a typical spreading code, and the quadrature code will use a time-delayed and time-scaled version of the in-phase code. Subsequently, the same temporal resolution in the receiver is required before and after the application of STORM. In this paper, the bit error performance of STORM in a synchronous CDMA system is evaluated and compared to theory, and the bit error performance of STORM incorporated in a single user WCDMA downlink is presented to demonstrate the applicability of STORM in a modern communication system.

Keywords: Pseudonoise coded communication, Cyclic codes, Code division multiaccess

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Authors: E. E. Marschalko, K. Kalcza-Janosi, I. Kotta, B. Bibok

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There is a scarcity of validated instruments in Hungarian for the assessment of self-determination related traits and behaviors. In order to fill in this gap, the aim of this study was the translation, cultural adaptation and validation of Self-Determination Scale (SDS) for the Hungarian population. A total of 4335 adults participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 27.97 (SD = 9.60). The sample consisted mostly of females, less than 20% were males. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed for factorial structure checking and validation Cronbach’s alpha was used to examine the reliability of the factors. Our results revealed that the Hungarian version of SDS has good psychometric properties and it is a reliable tool for psychologists who would like to study or assess self-determination traits in their clients. The adapted and validated Hungarian version of SDS is presented in this paper.

Keywords: self-determination, traits, self-determination scale, awareness of self, perceived choice, adults, Hungarian, psychometric properties

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Authors: B. Daee, H. M. El Naggar

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This paper presents an experimental study on structural performance of an innovative noise barrier consisting of poly-block, light polyurethane foam (LPF) and polyurea. This wall system (flexi-wall) is intended to be employed as a vertical extension to existing sound barriers in an accelerated construction method. To aid in the wall design, several mechanical tests were conducted on LPF specimens and two full-scale walls were then fabricated employing the same LPF material. The full-scale walls were subjected to lateral loading in order to establish their lateral resistance. A cyclic fatigue test was also performed on a full-scale flexi-wall in order to evaluate the performance of the wall under a repetitive loading condition. The result of the experiments indicated the suitability of flexi-wall in accelerated construction and confirmed that the structural performance of the wall system under lateral loading is satisfactory for the sound barrier application. The experimental results were discussed and a preliminary design procedure for application of flexi-wall in sound barrier applications was also developed.

Keywords: Noise barrier, Polyurethane Foam, Accelerated construction, Full-scale experiment.

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Authors: Yusuf Yasa, Erkan Mese

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This paper investigates the thermal issue of permanent magnet synchronous generator which is frequently used in direct drive gearless small-scale wind turbine applications. Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) is designed with 2.5 kW continuous and 6 kW peak power. Then considering generator geometry, mechanical design of wind turbine is performed. Thermal analysis and optimization is carried out considering all wind turbine components to reach realistic results. This issue is extremely important in research and development (R&D) process for wind turbine applications.

Keywords: Direct drive, gearless wind turbine, permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG), small-scale wind turbine, thermal management.

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Authors: Sobhy Fathy A. Hashesh

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The study was carried out in the Elementary Classes of Andalus Private Schools, girls section using control and experimental groups formed by Random Assignment Strategy. The study aimed at investigating the effect of Al-Andalus Fused Curriculum (AFC) model of learning and the effect of separate subjects’ approach on the development of students’ conceptual learning and skills acquiring. The society of the study composed of Al-Andalus Private Schools, elementary school students, Girls Section (N=240), while the sample of the study composed of two randomly assigned groups (N=28) with one experimental group and one control group. The study followed the quantitative and qualitative approaches in collecting and analyzing data to investigate the study hypotheses. Results of the study revealed that there were significant statistical differences between students’ conceptual learning and skills acquiring for the favor of the experimental group. The study recommended applying this model on different educational variables and on other age groups to generate more data leading to more educational results for the favor of students’ learning outcomes.

Keywords: AFC, Lego Education, mechatronics, STEAM, Al-Andalus Fused Curriculum.

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Authors: Ahmed Shinkafi, Craig Lawson

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There is a great advancement towards the All-Electric Aircraft (AEA) technology. The AEA concept assumes that all aircraft systems will be integrated into one electrical power source in the future. The principle of the electro-thermal system is to transfer the energy required for anti/de-icing to the protected areas in electrical form. However, powering a large aircraft anti-icing system electrically could be quite excessive in cost and system weight. Hence, maximising the anti/de-icing efficiency of the electro-thermal system in order to minimise its power demand has become crucial to electro-thermal de-icing system sizing. In this work, an enhanced methodology has been developed for conceptual sizing of aircraft electro-thermal de-icing System. The work factored those critical terms overlooked in previous studies which were critical to de-icing energy consumption. A case study of a typical large aircraft wing de-icing was used to test and validate the model. The model was used to optimise the system performance by a trade-off between the de-icing peak power and system energy consumption. The optimum melting surface temperatures and energy flux predicted enabled the reduction in the power required for de-icing. The weight penalty associated with electro-thermal anti-icing/de-icing method could be eliminated using this method without under estimating the de-icing power requirement.

Keywords: Aircraft de-icing system, electro-thermal, in-flight icing.

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Authors: Chien-Hua Lee, Cheng-Yi Chen

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The stability test problem for homogeneous large-scale perturbed bilinear time-delay systems subjected to constrained inputs is considered in this paper. Both nonlinear uncertainties and interval systems are discussed. By utilizing the Lyapunove equation approach associated with linear algebraic techniques, several delay-independent criteria are presented to guarantee the robust stability of the overall systems. The main feature of the presented results is that although the Lyapunov stability theorem is used, they do not involve any Lyapunov equation which may be unsolvable. Furthermore, it is seen the proposed schemes can be applied to solve the stability analysis problem of large-scale time-delay systems.

Keywords: homogeneous bilinear system, constrained input, time-delay, uncertainty, transient response, decay rate.

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Authors: Eva Čáslavová, Andrej Višněvský

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This research focused on the dimensions of brand personality of the Ice Hockey World Championship sporting event. The authors compared the elements in relation to different demographic groups including gender, age, level of education and student status of the population of Prague. Moreover, the differences of opinions of respondents who had experience of visiting a sports event and those who had not were assessed. In the research, the modified brand personality scale was used. This modified scale consists of five dimensions: responsibility, activity, toughness, individuality and emotionality, none of which was previously tested. The authors had an intentional sample of 291 respondents from Prague available, ranging in age from 18 years to 75 years, with either a high school or university education. The respondents rated the characteristic features in a seven-point Likert Scale and the data was collected in November 2012. The results suggest that the Ice Hockey World Championship is most identified with these dimensions: responsibility, emotionality and activity. Men had higher mean scores (4.93) on the Likert Scale in the emotionality dimension, while women had higher mean scores (4.91) in the activity dimension. Those respondents with experience visiting an Ice Hockey World Championship match had the highest mean score (5.10) in the emotionality dimension. This research had expected to show more pronounced mean values (above six) on the Likert scale in the emotionality and activity dimensions that more strongly characterize the brand personality of the Ice Hockey World Championship, however this expectation was not confirmed.

Keywords: Brand personality dimensions, ice hockey, international sport event, sports marketing.

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Authors: Kuhelee Chandel, Julia Åhlén, Stefan Seipel

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This study evaluates the accuracy of Microsoft HoloLens (Version 1) for small-scale industrial activities, comparing its measurements to ground truth data from a Kuka Robotics arm. Two experiments were conducted to assess its position-tracking capabilities, revealing that the HoloLens device is effective for measuring the position of dynamic objects with small dimensions. However, its precision is affected by the velocity of the trajectory and its position within the device's field of view. While the HoloLens device may be suitable for small-scale tasks, its limitations for more complex and demanding applications requiring high precision and accuracy must be considered. The findings can guide the use of HoloLens devices in industrial applications and contribute to the development of more effective and reliable position-tracking systems.

Keywords: Augmented Reality, AR, Microsoft HoloLens, object tracking, industrial processes.

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Authors: Munir Majdalawieh, Adam Marks

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In today’s very competitive higher education industry (HEI), HEIs are faced with the primary concern of developing, deploying, and sustaining high quality academic programs. Today, the HEI has well-established accreditation systems endorsed by a country’s legislation and institutions. The accreditation system is an educational pathway focused on the criteria and processes for evaluating educational programs. Although many aspects of the accreditation process highlight both the past and the present (prove), the “program review” assessment is "forward-looking assessment" (improve) and thus transforms the process into a continuing assessment activity rather than a periodic event. The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual measurement framework for program review to be used by HEIs to undertake a robust and targeted approach to proactively and continuously review their academic programs to evaluate its practicality and effectiveness as well as to improve the education of the students. The proposed framework consists of two main components: program review principles and the program review measurement matrix.

Keywords: Academic program, program review principles, curriculum development, accreditation, evaluation, assessment, review measurement matrix, program review process, information technologies supporting learning, learning/teaching methodologies and assessment.

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Authors: N. Hammid, F. Bouarab-Dahmani, T. Berkane

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Since its appearance, the MOOC (massive open online course) is gaining more and more intention of the educational communities over the world. Apart from the current MOOCs design and purposes, the creators of MOOC focused on the importance of the connection and knowledge exchange between individuals in learning. In this paper, we present a conceptual model for massive open online blended courses where teachers over the world can collaborate and exchange their experience to get a common efficient content designed as a MOOC opened to their students to live a better learning experience. This model is based on disciplines’ concepts capitalization and the detection of the obstacles met by their students when faced with problem situations (exercises, projects, case studies, etc.). This detection is possible by analyzing the frequently of semantic errors committed by the students. The participation of teachers in the design of the course and the attendance by their students can guarantee an efficient and extensive participation (an important number of participants) in the course, the learners’ motivation and the evaluation issues, in the way that the teachers designing the course assess their students. Thus, the teachers review, together with their knowledge, offer a better assessment and efficient connections to their students.

Keywords: MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses, Online learning, E-learning, Blended learning.

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Authors: Fernando Alonso, Rafael Fernandez, Sonia Frutos, Javier Soriano

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CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management information developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified as a CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset of DLs capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The paper shows how the proposed mapping can be used for automatic reasoning about the management information models, as a design aid, by means of new-generation CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art automatic reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use algorithms that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Such a CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and its architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized by the DMTF.

Keywords: CIM, Knowledge-based Information Models, Ontology Languages, OWL, Description Logics, Integrated Network Management, Intelligent Agents, Automatic Reasoning Techniques.

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Authors: Henrik Prinzhorn, Peter Nyhuis, Johannes Wagner, Peter Burggräf, Torben Schmitz, Christina Reuter

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Assembling large-scale products, such as airplanes, locomotives, or wind turbines, involves frequent process interruptions induced by e.g. delayed material deliveries or missing availability of resources. This leads to a negative impact on the logistical performance of a producer of xxl-products. In industrial practice, in case of interruptions, the identification, evaluation and eventually the selection of an alternative order of assembly activities (‘assembly alternative’) leads to an enormous challenge, especially if an optimized logistical decision should be reached. Therefore, in this paper, an innovative, optimization model for the identification of assembly alternatives that addresses the given problem is presented. It describes make-to-order, large-scale product assembly processes as a resource constrained project scheduling (RCPS) problem which follows given restrictions in practice. For the evaluation of the assembly alternative, a cost-based definition of the logistical objectives (delivery reliability, inventory, make-span and workload) is presented.

Keywords: Assembly scheduling, large-scale products, make-to-order, rescheduling, optimization.

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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: Farhad Alizadeh, Alireza Faregh Gharamaleki, Mojtaba Jalilzadeh, Houshang Gholami, Ali Akhoundzadeh

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This study presented hybrid pre-processing approach along with a conceptual model to enhance the accuracy of river discharge prediction. In order to achieve this goal, Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithm (EEMD), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Mutual Information (MI) were employed as a hybrid pre-processing approach conjugated to Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM). A conceptual strategy namely multi-station model was developed to forecast the Souris River discharge more accurately. The strategy used herein was capable of covering uncertainties and complexities of river discharge modeling. DWT and EEMD was coupled, and the feature selection was performed for decomposed sub-series using MI to be employed in multi-station model. In the proposed feature selection method, some useless sub-series were omitted to achieve better performance. Results approved efficiency of the proposed DWT-EEMD-MI approach to improve accuracy of multi-station modeling strategies.

Keywords: River stage-discharge process, LSSVM, discrete wavelet transform (DWT), ensemble empirical decomposition mode (EEMD), multi-station modeling.

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Authors: Paola Gattinoni, Laura Scesi, Elena Cerino Adbin, Daniele Cremonesi

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The interaction of tunneling or mining with groundwater has become a very relevant problem not only due to the need to guarantee the safety of workers and to assure the efficiency of the tunnel drainage systems, but also to safeguard water resources from impoverishment and pollution risk. Therefore it is very important to forecast the drainage processes (i.e., the evaluation of drained discharge and drawdown caused by the excavation). The aim of this study was to know better the system and to quantify the flow drained from the Fontane mines, located in Val Germanasca (Turin, Italy). This allowed to understand the hydrogeological local changes in time. The work has therefore been structured as follows: the reconstruction of the conceptual model with the geological, hydrogeological and geological-structural study; the calculation of the tunnel inflows (through the use of structural methods) and the comparison with the measured flow rates; the water balance at the basin scale. In this way it was possible to understand what are the relationships between rainfall, groundwater level variations and the effect of the presence of tunnels as a means of draining water. Subsequently, it the effects produced by the excavation of the mining tunnels was quantified, through numerical modeling. In particular, the modeling made it possible to observe the drawdown variation as a function of number, excavation depth and different mines linings.

Keywords: Groundwater, Italy, numerical model, tunneling.

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Authors: Yi-Hsiang Pan, Wei-Ting Hsu, Chang-Pang Lin

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The purpose of this study was to develop and examine a Teaching Commitment Scale of Health and Physical Education (TCS-HPE) for Taiwanese elementary school teachers. First of all, based on teaching commitment related theory and literatures to develop a original scale with 40 items, later both stratified random sampling and cluster sampling were used to sample participants. During the first stage, 300 teachers were sampled and 251 valid scales (83.7%) returned. Later, the data was analyzed by exploratory factor analysis to obtain 74.30% of total variance for the construct validity. The Cronbach-s alpha coefficient of sum scale reliability was 0.94, and subscale coefficients were between 0.80 and 0.96. In the second stage, 400 teachers were sampled and 318 valid scales (79.5%) returned. Finally, this study used confirmatory factor analysis to test validity and reliability of TCS-HPE. The result showed that the fit indexes reached acceptable criteria(¤ç2 (246 ) =557.64 , p<.05, RMSEA= 0.03, GFI = 0.96, AGFI = 0.95, NFI = 0.91, CFI = 0.98, RMR = 0.04, SRMR = 0.03). In conclusion, TCS-HPE has four dimensions with 24 items, including teaching identification, teaching involvement, teaching objectives and tendency towards work continuation. It is an acceptable measurement instrument with reliability and validity.

Keywords: Attitude, belief, construct validity, teachers' professional development.

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Authors: Eisa A. Alsafran, Francis T. Edum-Fotwe, Wayne E. Lord

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The degree to which a public client actively participates in Public Private Partnership (PPP) schemes, is seen as a determinant of the success of the arrangement, and in particular, efficiency in the delivery of the assets of any infrastructure development. The asset delivery is often an early barometer for judging the overall performance of the PPP. Currently, there are no defined descriptors for the degree of such participation. The lack of defined descriptors makes the association between the degree of participation and efficiency of asset delivery, difficult to establish. This is particularly so if an optimum effect is desired. In addition, such an association is important for the strategic decision to embark on any PPP initiative. This paper presents a conceptual model of different levels of participation that characterise PPP schemes. The modelling was achieved by a systematic review of reported sources that address essential aspects and structures of PPP schemes, published from 2001 to 2015. As a precursor to the modelling, the common areas of Public Client Participation (PCP) were investigated. Equity and risk emerged as two dominant factors in the common areas of PCP, and were therefore adopted to form the foundation of the modelling. The resultant conceptual model defines the different states of combined PCP. The defined states provide a more rational basis for establishing how the degree of PCP affects the efficiency of asset delivery in PPP schemes.

Keywords: Asset delivery, infrastructure development, public private partnership, public client participation.

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Authors: Krassimir Todorov

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The purpose of the paper is to redefine the levels of structure of corporate, business and functional strategies that were established over the past several decades, to a conceptual model, consisting of corporate, business and operations strategies, that are reinforced by functional strategies. We will propose a conceptual framework of different perspectives in the role of strategic operations as a separate strategic place and reposition the remaining functional strategies as supporting tools, existing at all three levels. The proposed model is called ‘the strategic engine’, since the mutual relationships of its ingredients are identical with main elements and working principle of the internal combustion engine. Based on theoretical essence, related to every strategic level, we will prove that the strategic engine model is useful for managers seeking to safeguard the competitive advantage of their companies. Each strategy level is researched through its basic elements. At the corporate level we examine the scope of firm’s product, the vertical and geographical coverage. At the business level, the point of interest is limited to the SWOT analysis’ basic elements. While at operations level, the key research issue relates to the scope of the following performance indicators: cost, quality, speed, flexibility and dependability. In this relationship, the paper provides a different view for the role of operations strategy within the overall strategy concept. We will prove that the theoretical essence of operations goes far beyond the scope of traditionally accepted business functions. Exploring the applications of Resource-based theory and Market-based theory within the strategic levels framework, we will prove that there is a logical consequence of the theoretical impact in corporate, business and operations strategy – at every strategic level, the validity of one theory is substituted to the level of the other. Practical application of the conceptual model is tested in automotive industry. Actually, the proposed theoretical concept is inspired by a leading global automotive group – Inchcape PLC, listed on the London Stock Exchange, and constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Keywords: Business strategy, corporate strategy, functional strategies, operations strategy.

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Authors: Ciprian Dobre

Abstract:

The scale, complexity and worldwide geographical spread of the LHC computing and data analysis problems are unprecedented in scientific research. The complexity of processing and accessing this data is increased substantially by the size and global span of the major experiments, combined with the limited wide area network bandwidth available. We present the latest generation of the MONARC (MOdels of Networked Analysis at Regional Centers) simulation framework, as a design and modeling tool for large scale distributed systems applied to HEP experiments. We present simulation experiments designed to evaluate the capabilities of the current real-world distributed infrastructure to support existing physics analysis processes and the means by which the experiments bands together to meet the technical challenges posed by the storage, access and computing requirements of LHC data analysis within the CMS experiment.

Keywords: Modeling and simulation, evaluation, large scale distributed systems, LHC experiments, CMS.

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Authors: Rita C. Ramos

Abstract:

Aggression is a multi- factorial concept and multilevel in nature. The Young Adolescent is being influenced by family, school and community. This paper is aimed to determine the following: aggression level among young adolescents, difference of level of aggression on school and year levels and to determine the correlates of aggression. There were 142 high school students from two different national highs schools (Region 3 and National Capital Region).Convenience sampling was use in this study. The following measures were used namely: Aggression Scale, Parental Support Fighting Scale, Positive Behavior Scale and Exposure to Violence and Trauma questionnaire. There was no significant difference in aggression level among different year level and schools. The findings of the study suggested that high level of community violence and having low parental support for non-aggressive behavior contribute to the prediction of aggression.

Keywords: Aggression, Determinants, Young Adolescents.

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Authors: Fernando Alonso, Rafael Fernandez, Sonia Frutos, Javier Soriano

Abstract:

CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management information developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified as a CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset of DLs capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The paper shows how the proposed mapping provides CIM diagrams with precise semantics and can be used for automatic reasoning about the management information models, as a design aid, by means of newgeneration CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art automatic reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use algorithms that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Such a CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and its architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized by the DMTF.

Keywords: CIM, Knowledge-based Information Models, OntologyLanguages, OWL, Description Logics, Integrated Network Management, Intelligent Agents, Automatic Reasoning Techniques.

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Authors: Mohammed S. Assiri

Abstract:

In EFL programs, rating scales used in writing assessment are often constructed by intuition. Intuition-based scales tend to provide inaccurate and divisive ratings of learners’ writing performance. Hence, following an empirical approach, this study attempted to develop a rating scale for elementary-level writing at an EFL program in Saudi Arabia. Towards this goal, 98 students’ essays were scored and then coded using comprehensive taxonomy of writing constructs and their measures. An automatic linear modeling was run to find out which measures would best predict essay scores. A nonparametric ANOVA, the Kruskal-Wallis test, was then used to determine which measures could best differentiate among scoring levels. Findings indicated that there were certain measures that could serve as either good predictors of essay scores or differentiators among scoring levels, or both. The main conclusion was that a rating scale can be empirically developed using predictive and discriminative statistical tests.

Keywords: Analytic scoring, rating scales, writing assessment, writing performance.

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Authors: S. Nouri

Abstract:

In this study, the Si-aluminide coating was prepared on gamma-TiAl [Ti-45Al-2Nb-2Mn-1B (at. %)] via liquid-phase slurry procedure. The high temperature oxidation resistance of this diffusion coating was evaluated at 1100 °C for 400 hours. The results of the isothermal oxidation showed that the formation of Si-aluminide coating can remarkably improve the high temperature oxidation of bare gamma-TiAl alloy. The identification of oxide scale microstructure showed that the formation of protective Al₂O₃+SiO₂ mixed oxide scale along with a continuous, compact and uniform layer of Ti₅Si₃ beneath the surface oxide scale can act as an oxygen diffusion barrier during the high temperature oxidation. The other possible mechanisms related to the formation of Si-aluminide coating and oxide scales were also discussed.

Keywords: Gamma-TiAl alloy, Si-aluminide coating, slurry procedure, high temperature oxidation.

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