Search results for: Operation strategy

Authors: M. Shaker, S. Minaei, M. H. Khoshtaghaza, A. Banakar, A. Jafari

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In this study a system of machine vision and singulation was developed to separate paddy from rice and determine paddy husking and rice breakage percentages. The machine vision system consists of three main components including an imaging chamber, a digital camera, a computer equipped with image processing software. The singulation device consists of a kernel holding surface, a motor with vacuum fan, and a dimmer. For separation of paddy from rice (in the image), it was necessary to set a threshold. Therefore, some images of paddy and rice were sampled and the RGB values of the images were extracted using MATLAB software. Then mean and standard deviation of the data were determined. An Image processing algorithm was developed using MATLAB to determine paddy/rice separation and rice breakage and paddy husking percentages, using blue to red ratio. Tests showed that, a threshold of 0.75 is suitable for separating paddy from rice kernels. Results from the evaluation of the image processing algorithm showed that the accuracies obtained with the algorithm were 98.36% and 91.81% for paddy husking and rice breakage percentage, respectively. Analysis also showed that a suction of 45 mmHg to 50 mmHg yielding 81.3% separation efficiency is appropriate for operation of the kernel singulation system.

Keywords: Computer vision, rice kernel, husking, breakage.

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Authors: González Carreño G., Rejas Muslera Rj., Padilla Fernández-Vega J., Cepeda González M. I.

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Automobile Industry has great importance in the Spanish economy (8,7 % of the active Spanish population is employed in this sector).The above mentioned sector has been one of the principal sectors affected by the current economic crisis, consistently, the budgets in advertising have been severely limited (46,9 % less in the period of reference), these needs of reduction have originated a substantial change in the advertising strategy (from 2007 the increase of the advertising investment in Internet is 251,6 %), and increase profitability. The growing use of social media by consumers therefore makes online consumer conversations an attractive additional format for Automobile firms to promote products at a lower cost. This research analyzes the relation between the activity in Social Media and the design in the car industry, looking for relations between strategies of design based on Social Media and sales and a channel of information for companies to know what the consumer preferences. For this ongoing research we used a longitudinal withdrawal of information has been used using information of panel. Managerial and research implications of the finding are discussed.

Keywords: Automobile Industry, Design, Economics Crisis, Innovation, Internet, Social Media.

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Authors: Nabil El Kadhi, Minerva M. Bunagan

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The dynamism in education, particularly in the area of teaching, learning and assessment has caused Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) worldwide to seek for ways to continuously improve their educational processes. HEIs use outcomes of institutional audits, assessments and accreditations, for improvement. In this study, the published institutional audit reports of HEIs in the Sultanate of Oman were analyzed to produce features of good practice; identify challenges along Teaching, Learning Assessment (TLA); and propose a framework that puts major emphasis in having a quality-assured TLA, including a set of principles that can be used as basis in succeeding an institutional visit. The TLA framework, which shows the TLA components, characteristics of the components, related expectation, including implementation tool/ strategy and pitfalls can be used by HEIs to have an adequate understanding of the scope of audit and be able to satisfy institutional audit requirements. The scope of this study can be widened by exploring the other requirements of the Institutional Audits in the Sultanate of Oman, particularly the area on Governance and Management and Student Support Services.

Keywords: Accreditation, audit, quality assurance, teaching, learning and assessment.

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Authors: R. Sharma, M. Gopal

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Markov games can be effectively used to design controllers for nonlinear systems. The paper presents two novel controller design algorithms by incorporating ideas from gametheory literature that address safety and consistency issues of the 'learned' control strategy. A more widely used approach for controller design is the H∞ optimal control, which suffers from high computational demand and at times, may be infeasible. We generate an optimal control policy for the agent (controller) via a simple Linear Program enabling the controller to learn about the unknown environment. The controller is facing an unknown environment and in our formulation this environment corresponds to the behavior rules of the noise modeled as the opponent. Proposed approaches aim to achieve 'safe-consistent' and 'safe-universally consistent' controller behavior by hybridizing 'min-max', 'fictitious play' and 'cautious fictitious play' approaches drawn from game theory. We empirically evaluate the approaches on a simulated Inverted Pendulum swing-up task and compare its performance against standard Q learning.

Keywords: Fictitious Play, Cautious Fictitious Play, InvertedPendulum, Controller, Markov Games, Mobile Robot.

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Authors: Doaa M. Atia, Faten H. Fahmy, Ninet M. Ahmed, Hassen T. Dorrah

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In this paper, the optimum design for renewable energy system powered an aquaculture pond was determined. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) software program, which is developed by U.S National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is used for analyzing the feasibility of the stand alone and hybrid system in this study. HOMER program determines whether renewable energy resources satisfy hourly electric demand or not. The program calculates energy balance for every 8760 hours in a year to simulate operation of the system. This optimization compares the demand for the electrical energy for each hour of the year with the energy supplied by the system for that hour and calculates the relevant energy flow for each component in the model. The essential principle is to minimize the total system cost while HOMER ensures control of the system. Moreover the feasibility analysis of the energy system is also studied. Wind speed, solar irradiance, interest rate and capacity shortage are the parameters which are taken into consideration. The simulation results indicate that the hybrid system is the best choice in this study, yielding lower net present cost. Thus, it provides higher system performance than PV or wind stand alone systems.

Keywords: Wind stand-alone system, Photovoltaic stand-alone system, Hybrid system, Optimum system sizing, feasibility, Cost analysis.

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Authors: R. Kamali, A. R. Binesh, S. Hossainpour

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To understand working features of a micro combustor, a computer code has been developed to study combustion of hydrogen–air mixture in a series of chambers with same shape aspect ratio but various dimensions from millimeter to micrometer level. The prepared algorithm and the computer code are capable of modeling mixture effects in different fluid flows including chemical reactions, viscous and mass diffusion effects. The effect of various heat transfer conditions at chamber wall, e.g. adiabatic wall, with heat loss and heat conduction within the wall, on the combustion is analyzed. These thermal conditions have strong effects on the combustion especially when the chamber dimension goes smaller and the ratio of surface area to volume becomes larger. Both factors, such as larger heat loss through the chamber wall and smaller chamber dimension size, may lead to the thermal quenching of micro-scale combustion. Through such systematic numerical analysis, a proper operation space for the micro-combustor is suggested, which may be used as the guideline for microcombustor design. In addition, the results reported in this paper illustrate that the numerical simulation can be one of the most powerful and beneficial tools for the micro-combustor design, optimization and performance analysis.

Keywords: Numerical simulation, Micro-combustion, MEMS, CFD, Chemical reaction.

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Authors: Mu-Yen Chen, Min-Hsuan Fan, Chia-Chen Chen, Siang-Yu Jhong

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In recent years, real estate prediction or valuation has been a topic of discussion in many developed countries. Improper hype created by investors leads to fluctuating prices of real estate, affecting many consumers to purchase their own homes. Therefore, scholars from various countries have conducted research in real estate valuation and prediction. With the back-propagation neural network that has been popular in recent years and the orthogonal array in the Taguchi method, this study aimed to find the optimal parameter combination at different levels of orthogonal array after the system presented different parameter combinations, so that the artificial neural network obtained the most accurate results. The experimental results also demonstrated that the method presented in the study had a better result than traditional machine learning. Finally, it also showed that the model proposed in this study had the optimal predictive effect, and could significantly reduce the cost of time in simulation operation. The best predictive results could be found with a fewer number of experiments more efficiently. Thus users could predict a real estate transaction price that is not far from the current actual prices.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Taguchi Method, Real Estate Valuation Model.

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Authors: L. R. Valencia Pérez, J. M. Peña Aguilar, A. Lamadrid Álvarez, A. Pastrana Palma, H. F. Valencia Pérez, M. Vivanco Vargas

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This work proposes a Cooperation-Competitive (Coopetitive) approach that allows coordinated work among the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), the Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ) and government funds from National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) or some other international organizations. To work on an overall knowledge transfer strategy with e-learning over the Cloud, where experts in junior high and high school education, working in multidisciplinary teams, perform analysis, evaluation, design, production, validation and knowledge transfer at large scale using a Cloud Computing platform. Allowing teachers and students to have all the information required to ensure a homologated nationally knowledge of topics such as mathematics, statistics, chemistry, history, ethics, civism, etc. This work will start with a pilot test in Spanish and initially in two regional dialects Otomí and Náhuatl. Otomí has more than 285,000 speaking indigenes in Queretaro and Mexico´s central region. Náhuatl is number one indigenous dialect spoken in Mexico with more than 1,550,000 indigenes. The phase one of the project takes into account negotiations with indigenous tribes from different regions, and the Information and Communication technologies to deliver the knowledge to the indigenous schools in their native dialect. The methodology includes the following main milestones: Identification of the indigenous areas where Otomí and Náhuatl are the spoken dialects, research with the SEP the location of actual indigenous schools, analysis and inventory or current schools conditions, negotiation with tribe chiefs, analysis of the technological communication requirements to reach the indigenous communities, identification and inventory of local teachers technology knowledge, selection of a pilot topic, analysis of actual student competence with traditional education system, identification of local translators, design of the e-learning platform, design of the multimedia resources and storage strategy for “Cloud Computing”, translation of the topic to both dialects, Indigenous teachers training, pilot test, course release, project follow up, analysis of student requirements for the new technological platform, definition of a new and improved proposal with greater reach in topics and regions. Importance of phase one of the project is multiple, it includes the proposal of a working technological scheme, focusing in the cultural impact in Mexico so that indigenous tribes can improve their knowledge about new forms of crop improvement, home storage technologies, proven home remedies for common diseases, ways of preparing foods containing major nutrients, disclose strengths and weaknesses of each region, communicating through cloud computing platforms offering regional products and opening communication spaces for inter-indigenous cultural exchange.

Keywords: Mexicans indigenous tribes, education, knowledge transfer, cloud computing, Otomí, Náhuatl, language.

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Authors: Yansong Zhang, Xueyuan Li, Junjie Zhou, Xufeng Yin, Shihua Yuan, Shuxian Liu

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Aiming at the verification of control algorithms for skid-steering vehicles, a vehicle simulation model of 6×6 electric skid-steering unmanned vehicle was established based on Trucksim and Simulink. The original transmission and steering mechanism of Trucksim are removed, and the electric skid-steering model and a closed-loop controller for the vehicle speed and yaw rate are built in Simulink. The simulation results are compared with the ones got by theoretical formulas. The results show that the predicted tire mechanics and vehicle kinematics of Trucksim-Simulink simulation model are closed to the theoretical results. Therefore, it can be used as an effective approach to study the dynamic performance and control algorithm of skid-steering vehicle. In this paper, a method of motion control based on feed forward control is also designed. The simulation results show that the feed forward control strategy can make the vehicle follow the target yaw rate more quickly and accurately, which makes the vehicle have more maneuverability.

Keywords: Skid-steering, Trucksim-Simulink, feedforward control, dynamics.

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Authors: Surinder Deswal

Abstract:

There has been a growing interest in the oxygenation by plunging water jets in the last few years due to their inherent advantages, like energy-efficient, low operation cost, etc. Though a lot of work has been reported on the oxygen-transfer by single plunging water jets but very few studies have been carried out using multiple plunging jets. In this paper, volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient and oxygen-transfer efficiency has been studied experimentally for multiple inclined plunging jets (having jet plunge angle of 60 0 ) in a pool of water for different configurations, in terms of varying number of jets and jet diameters. This research suggests that the volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient and oxygentransfer efficiency of the multiple inclined plunging jets for air-water system are significantly higher than those of a single vertical as well as inclined plunging jet for same flow area and other similar conditions. The study also reveals that the oxygen-transfer increase with increase in number of multiple jets under similar conditions, which will be most advantageous and energy-efficient in practical situations when large volumes of wastewaters are to be treated. A relationship between volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient and jet parameters is also proposed. The suggested relationship predicts the volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient for multiple inclined plunging jet(s) within a scatter of ±15 percent. The relationship will be quite useful in scale-up and in deciding optimum configuration of multiple inclined plunging jet aeration system.

Keywords: Multiple inclined plunging jets, jet plunge angle, volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient, oxygen-transfer efficiency.

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Authors: Pierre-Marie Basset, Gabriel Reboul, Binh DangVu, Sébastien Mercier

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Rotorcraft provides invaluable services thanks to their Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), hover and low speed capabilities. Yet their use is still often limited by their cost and environmental impact, especially noise and energy consumption. One of the main brakes to the expansion of the use of rotorcraft for urban missions is the environmental impact. The first main concern for the population is the noise. In order to develop the transversal competency to assess the rotorcraft environmental footprint, a collaboration has been launched between six research departments within ONERA. The progress in terms of models and methods are capitalized into the numerical workshop C.R.E.A.T.I.O.N. “Concepts of Rotorcraft Enhanced Assessment Through Integrated Optimization Network”. A typical mission for which the environmental impact issue is of great relevance has been defined. The first milestone is to perform the pre-sizing of a reference helicopter for this mission. In a second milestone, an alternate rotorcraft concept has been defined: a tandem rotorcraft with optional propulsion. The key design trends are given for the pre-sizing of this rotorcraft aiming at a significant reduction of the global environmental impact while still giving equivalent flight performance and safety with respect to the reference helicopter. The models and methods have been improved for catching sooner and more globally, the relative variations on the environmental impact when changing the rotorcraft architecture, the pre-design variables and the operation parameters.

Keywords: Environmental impact, flight performance, helicopter, rotorcraft pre-sizing.

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Authors: Q. J. Yang

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This paper presents a case study of geotechnical design of bridge foundations and approaches in hilly granite formation in northern New South Wales of Australia. Firstly, the geological formation and existing cut slope conditions which have high risks of rock fall will be described. The bridge has three spans to be constructed using balanced cantilever method with a middle span of 150 m. After concept design option engineering, it was decided to change from pile foundation to pad footing with ground anchor system to optimize the bridge foundation design. The geotechnical design parameters were derived after two staged site investigations. The foundation design was carried out to satisfy both serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state during construction and in operation. It was found that the pad footing design was governed by serviceability limit state design loading cases. The design of bridge foundation also considered presence of weak rock layer intrusion and a layer of “no core” to ensure foundation stability. The precast mass concrete block system was considered for the retaining walls for the bridge approaches to resolve the constructability issue over hilly terrain. The design considered the retaining wall block sliding stability, while the overturning and internal stabilities are satisfied.

Keywords: Pad footing, hilly formation, stability, block works.

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Authors: Sungnam Hong, Sun-Kyu Park, Dooyong Cho, Jinwoong Choi

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In this paper, a strategy for long-span bridge disaster response was developed, divided into risk analysis, business impact analysis, and emergency response plan. At the risk analysis stage, the critical risk was estimated. The critical risk was “car accident."The critical process by critical-risk classification was assessed at the business impact analysis stage. The critical process was the task related to the road conditions and traffic safety. Based on the results of the precedent analysis, an emergency response plan was established. By making the order of the standard operating procedures clear, an effective plan for dealing with disaster was formulated. Finally, a prototype software was developed based on the research findings. This study laid the foundation of an information-technology-based disaster response guideline and is significant in that it computerized the disaster response plan to improve the plan-s accessibility.

Keywords: Emergency response; Long-span bridge; Disaster management; Standard operating procedure; Ubiquitous.

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Authors: Prakash Devale, R. S. Prasad, Amol Dhumane, Pritesh Patil

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Now a days video data embedding approach is a very challenging and interesting task towards keeping real time video data secure. We can implement and use this technique with high-level applications. As the rate-distortion of any image is not confirmed, because the gain provided by accurate image frame segmentation are balanced by the inefficiency of coding objects of arbitrary shape, with a lot factors like losses that depend on both the coding scheme and the object structure. By using rate controller in association with the encoder one can dynamically adjust the target bitrate. This paper discusses about to keep secure videos by mixing signature data with negligible distortion in the original video, and to keep steganographic video as closely as possible to the quality of the original video. In this discussion we propose the method for embedding the signature data into separate video frames by the use of block Discrete Cosine Transform. These frames are then encoded by real time encoding H.264 scheme concepts. After processing, at receiver end recovery of original video and the signature data is proposed.

Keywords: Data Hiding, Digital Watermarking, video coding H.264, Rate Control, Block DCT.

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Authors: Orpita U. Laz, Ataur Rahman

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Climate change will affect various aspects of hydrological cycle such as rainfall. A change in rainfall will affect flood magnitude and frequency in future which will affect the design and operation of hydraulic structures. In this paper, trends in subhourly, sub-daily, and daily extreme rainfall events from 18 rainfall stations located in Tasmania, Australia are examined. Two nonparametric tests (Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s Rho) are applied to detect trends at 10%, 5%, and 1% significance levels. Sub-hourly (6, 12, 18, and 30 minutes) annual maximum rainfall events have been found to experience statistically significant upward trends at 10% level of significance. However, sub-daily durations (1 hour, 3 and 12 hours) exhibit decreasing trends and no trends exists for longer duration rainfall events (e.g. 24 and 72 hours). Some of the durations (e.g. 6 minutes and 6 hours) show similar results (with upward trends) for both the tests. For 12, 18, 60 minutes and 3 hours durations both the tests show similar downward trends. This finding has important implication for Tasmania in the design of urban infrastructure where shorter duration rainfall events are more relevant for smaller urban catchments such as parking lots, roof catchments and smaller sub-divisions.

Keywords: Climate change, design rainfall, Mann-Kendall test, trends, Spearman’s Rho, Tasmania.

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Authors: Omid A. Zargar

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The simulated mass and spring method evaluation for subway or railways construction and installation systems have a wide application in rail industries. This kind of design should be optimizing all related parameters to reduce the amount of vibration in cities, homelands, historical zones and other critical locations. Finite element method could help us a lot to analysis such applications with an excellent accuracy but always developing some simple, fast and user friendly evaluation method required in subway industrial applications. In addition, process parameter optimization extremely required in railway industries to achieve some optimal design of railways with maximum safety, reliability and performance. Furthermore, it is important to reduce vibrations and further related maintenance costs as well as possible. In this paper a simple but useful simulated mass and spring evaluation system developed for Esfahan subway construction. Besides, some of related recent patent and innovations in rail world industries like Suspension mass tuned vibration reducer, short sleeper vibration attenuation fastener and Airtight track vibration-noise reducing fastener discussed in details.

Keywords: Subway construction engineering, natural frequency, operation frequency, vibration analysis, polyurethane layer.

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Authors: Rui Sun, Tamer M. Ismail, Xiaohan Ren, M. Abd El-Salam

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Incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the key scopes in the global clean energy strategy. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was established in order to reveal these features of the combustion process in a fixed porous bed of MSW. Transporting equations and process rate equations of the waste bed were modeled and set up to describe the incineration process, according to the local thermal conditions and waste property characters. Gas phase turbulence was modeled using k-ε turbulent model and the particle phase was modeled using the kinetic theory of granular flow. The heterogeneous reaction rates were determined using Arrhenius eddy dissipation and the Arrhenius-diffusion reaction rates. The effects of primary air flow rate and temperature in the burning process of simulated MSW are investigated experimentally and numerically. The simulation results in bed are accordant with experimental data well. The model provides detailed information on burning processes in the fixed bed, which is otherwise very difficult to obtain by conventional experimental techniques.

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model, Waste Incineration, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Fixed Bed, Primary air.

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Authors: Ja'far Alqatawna, Jawed Siddiqi, Babak Akhgar, Mohammad Hjouj Btoush

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A great deal of research works in the field information systems security has been based on a positivist paradigm. Applying the reductionism concept of the positivist paradigm for information security means missing the bigger picture and thus, the lack of holism which could be one of the reasons why security is still overlooked, comes as an afterthought or perceived from a purely technical dimension. We need to reshape our thinking and attitudes towards security especially in a complex and dynamic environment such as e- Business to develop a holistic understanding of e-Business security in relation to its context as well as considering all the stakeholders in the problem area. In this paper we argue the suitability and need for more inductive interpretive approach and qualitative research method to investigate e-Business security. Our discussion is based on a holistic framework of enquiry, nature of the research problem, the underling theoretical lens and the complexity of e-Business environment. At the end we present a research strategy for developing a holistic framework for understanding of e-Business security problems in the context of developing countries based on an interdisciplinary inquiry which considers their needs and requirements.

Keywords: e-Business Security, Complexity, Methodological considerations, interpretive qualitative research and Case study method.

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Authors: Masoud Nasri, Rahele Hekmatpanah

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Growing world population has fundamental impacts and often catastrophic on natural habitat. The immethodical consumption of energy, destruction of the forests and extinction of plant and animal species are the consequence of this experience. Urban sustainability and sustainable urban development, that is so spoken these days, should be considered as a strategy, goal and policy, beyond just considering environmental issues and protection. The desert-s climate has made a bunch of problems for its residents. Very hot and dry climate in summers of the Iranian desert areas, when there was no access to modern energy source and mechanical cooling systems in the past, made Iranian architects to design a natural ventilation system in their buildings. The structure, like a tower going upward the roof, besides its ornamental application and giving a beautiful view to the building, was used as a spontaneous ventilation system. In this paper, it has been tried to name the problems of the area and it-s inconvenience, then some answers has pointed out in order to solve the problems and as an alternative solution BADGIR (wind-catcher) has been introduced as a solution knowing that it has been playing a major role in dealing with the problems.

Keywords: Productivity, Sustainable development, hot aridzones, climate design, BADGIR (wind-catcher)

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Authors: Daniel J. O. Ferreira, Juan H. Sosa-Arnao, Bruno C. Moreira, Leonardo P. Rangel, Song W. Park

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The comprehensive CFD models have been used to represent and study the heterogeneous combustion of biomass. In the present work, the operation of a global flue gas circuit in the sugarcane bagasse combustion, from wind boxes below primary air grate supply, passing by bagasse insertion in swirl burners and boiler furnace, to boiler bank outlet is simulated. It uses five different meshes representing each part of this system located in sequence: wind boxes and grate, boiler furnace, swirl burners, superheaters and boiler bank. The model considers turbulence using standard k-ε, combustion using EDM, radiation heat transfer using DTM with 16 ray directions and bagasse particle tracking represented by Schiller- Naumann model. The results showed good agreement with expected behavior found in literature and equipment design. The more detailed results view in separated parts of flue gas system allows observing some flow behaviors that cannot be represented by usual simplifications like bagasse supply under homogeneous axial and rotational vectors and others that can be represented using new considerations like the representation of 26 thousand grate orifices by 144 rectangular inlets.

Keywords: Comprehensive CFD model, sugar-cane bagasse combustion, sugar-cane bagasse grate boiler.

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Authors: Victor H. Benitez, Ramon V. Armas-Flores, Jesus H. Pacheco-Ramirez

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Systems transforming solar energy into electrical power have emerged as a viable source of clean, renewable energy. Solar power tower technology is a good example of this type of system, which consists of several mobile mirrors, called heliostats, which reflect the sun's radiation to the same point, located on top of a tower at the center of heliostat field, for collection or transformation into another type of energy. The so-called Hermosillo’s Solar Platform (Plataforma Solar de Hermosillo, PSH, in Spanish) is a facility constituted with several heliostats, its aim and scope is for research purposes. In this paper, the implementation of a wireless communication system based on intelligent nodes is proposed in order to allow the communication and control of the heliostats in PSH. Intelligent nodes transmit information from one point to another, and can perform other actions that allow them to adapt to the conditions and limitations of a field of heliostats, thus achieving effective communication system. After deployment of the nodes in the heliostats, tests were conducted to measure the effectiveness of the communication, and determine the feasibility of using the proposed technologies. The test results were always positive, exceeding expectations held for its operation in the field of heliostats. Therefore, it was possible to validate the efficiency of the wireless communication system to be implemented in PSH, allowing communication and control of the heliostats.

Keywords: Solar energy, heliostat, wireless communication, intelligent node.

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Authors: Pariwat Somnuek

Abstract:

This study focused on tourism logistic services in the border areas of Thailand by an analysis and comparison of the opinions of tourists, villagers, and entrepreneurs of these services. Sample representatives of this study were a total of 600 villagers and 15 entrepreneurs in the three border areas consisting of Chong Anma, Chong Sa-Ngam, and Chong Jom checkpoints. For methodology, survey questionnaires, situation analysis, TOWS matrix, and focus group discussions were used for data collection, as well as descriptive analysis and statistics such as arithmetic means and standard deviations, were employed for data analysis. The findings revealed that business potential was at the medium level and entrepreneurs were satisfied with their turnovers. However, perspectives of transportation and tourism services provided for tourists need to be immediately improved. Recommendations for the potential development included promotion of border tourism destinations and foreign investments into accommodation, restaurants, and transport, as well as the establishment of business networks between Thailand and Cambodia, along with the introduction of new tourism destinations by co-operation between entrepreneurs in both countries. These initiatives may lead to increased visitors, collaboration of security offices, and an improved image of tourism security.

Keywords: Business potential, potential development, tourism logistics, services.

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Authors: M. Sedighizadeh, A. Rezazadeh

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A self tuning PID control strategy using reinforcement learning is proposed in this paper to deal with the control of wind energy conversion systems (WECS). Actor-Critic learning is used to tune PID parameters in an adaptive way by taking advantage of the model-free and on-line learning properties of reinforcement learning effectively. In order to reduce the demand of storage space and to improve the learning efficiency, a single RBF neural network is used to approximate the policy function of Actor and the value function of Critic simultaneously. The inputs of RBF network are the system error, as well as the first and the second-order differences of error. The Actor can realize the mapping from the system state to PID parameters, while the Critic evaluates the outputs of the Actor and produces TD error. Based on TD error performance index and gradient descent method, the updating rules of RBF kernel function and network weights were given. Simulation results show that the proposed controller is efficient for WECS and it is perfectly adaptable and strongly robust, which is better than that of a conventional PID controller.

Keywords: Wind energy conversion systems, reinforcementlearning; Actor-Critic learning; adaptive PID control; RBF network.

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Authors: Ali Abdi Kordani, Meysam Rooyintan, Sid Mohammad Boroomandrad

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Nowadays, one the most important problems in megacities is public transportation and satisfying citizens from this system in order to decrease the traffic congestions and air pollution. Accordingly, to improve the transit passengers and increase the travel safety, new transportation systems such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), tram, and monorail have expanded that each one has different merits and demerits. That is why comparing different systems for a systematic selection of public transportation systems in a big city like Tehran, which has numerous problems in terms of traffic and pollution, is essential. In this paper, it is tried to investigate the advantages and feasibility of using monorail, tram and BRT systems, which are widely used in most of megacities in all over the world. In Tehran, by using SPSS statistical analysis software and TOPSIS method, these three modes are compared to each other and their results will be assessed. Experts, who are experienced in the transportation field, answer the prepared matrix questionnaire to select each public transportation mode (tram, monorail, and BRT). The results according to experts’ judgments represent that monorail has the first priority, Tram has the second one, and BRT has the third one according to the considered indices like execution costs, wasting time, depreciation, pollution, operation costs, travel time, passenger satisfaction, benefit to cost ratio and traffic congestion.

Keywords: Bus Rapid Transit, Costs, Monorail, Pollution, Tram.

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Authors: B. Varaprasad, C. Srinivasa Rao

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In the manufacturing sector, hard turning has emerged as vital machining process for cutting hardened steels. Besides many advantages of hard turning operation, one has to implement to achieve close tolerances in terms of surface finish, high product quality, reduced machining time, low operating cost and environmentally friendly characteristics. In the present study, three-dimensional CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) based simulation of  hard turning by using commercial software DEFORM 3D has been compared to experimental results of  stresses, temperatures and tool forces in machining of AISI D3 steel using mixed Ceramic inserts (CC6050). In the present analysis, orthogonal cutting models are proposed, considering several processing parameters such as cutting speed, feed, and depth of cut. An exhaustive friction modeling at the tool-work interfaces is carried out. Work material flow around the cutting edge is carefully modeled with adaptive re-meshing simulation capability. In process simulations, feed rate and cutting speed are constant (i.e.,. 0.075 mm/rev and 155 m/min), and analysis is focused on stresses, forces, and temperatures during machining. Close agreement is observed between CAE simulation and experimental values.

Keywords: Hard-turning, computer-aided engineering, computational machining, finite element method.

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Authors: M. Bouguerra, I. Habi

Abstract:

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

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

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Authors: V. Benidze

Abstract:

After the Rose Revolution of 2003, Georgia has achieved an unparalleled socioeconomic success. However, economic growth since 2012 has been sluggish and certainly not enough to rapidly improve the county’s standard of living that still remains substantially low compared to that in developed nations. Recent poor economic performance has shown that some key challenges need to be addressed if Georgia is to achieve high future economic growth that will decrease the poverty rate and create a middle class in the country. This paper offers in detail analysis of the economic performance of Georgia since 2012 and identifies key challenges facing the country’s economy. The main challenge going forward will be transforming Georgia from a consumption-driven to a production-oriented economy. It is identified that mobilizing domestic investment through savings, attracting foreign investment in tradable sectors and expanding the country’s export base will be crucial in the facilitation of the above-mentioned structural transformation. As the outcome of the research, the paper suggests a strategy for accelerating Georgia’ future economic growth and offers recommendations based on the relevant conclusions.

Keywords: Challenges, development, economic growth, economic policy, Georgia.

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Authors: Jamal Abdi

Abstract:

This paper is largely a response/critique of Samuel P. Huntington´s Clash of Civilizations thesis. The overriding argument is that Huntington´s thesis is characterized by failure to distinguish between ´groups´ and ´categories´. Multinational civilizations overcoming their internal collective action problems, which would enable them to pursue a unified strategy vis-à-vis the West, is a rather foundational assumption in his theory. Without assigning sufficient intellectual attention to the processes through which multinational civilizations may gain capacity for concerted action i.e. become a group, he contended that the post-cold-war world would be shaped in large measure by interactions among seven or eight major civilizations. Thus, failure in providing a convincing analysis of multi-national civilizations´ transition from categories to groups is a significant weakness in Huntington´s clash theory. It is also suggested that so-called Islamic terrorism and the war on terror is not to be taken as an expression of presence of clash between a Western and an Islamic civilization, as terrorist organizations would be superfluous in a world characterized by clash of civilizations. Consequences of multinational civilizations becoming a group are discussed in relation to contemporary Western superiority.

Keywords: Clash of civilizations, groups, categories, groupism.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah, Mi Jianing

Abstract:

The lack of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure in African countries is hampering the successful adoption, development and implementation of e-government in Africa. Electronic government is the use of ICTs to modernize government public administration processes and to provide government services to citizens with a purpose to enhance efficiency, accountability, and transparency in government’s interaction with the citizenry. ICT application in public administration has the potential to modernize and create smarter government and improvement in public service delivery. China’s Internet Plus policy and One Belt One Road strategy present a golden opportunity for countries in Africa to attract the huge financial investment through Chinese IT companies to develop and close Africa’s ICT infrastructure gap. This study recommends the establishment of One Belt One Road ICT Infrastructure Fund for Africa (OBOR ICT Fund for Africa) to enable countries in Africa to source solely for the purpose of ICT infrastructure development in the public sector/government machinery which would in turn promote the adoption and development of e-government in the public sectors of respective countries in Africa.

Keywords: E-government, public service delivery, internet plus, one belt one road initiative, China, Africa.

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Authors: M. Rodionov, N. Sharapova, Z. Dedovets

Abstract:

The article describes methods of preparation of future teachers that includes the entire diversity of traditional and computer-oriented methodological approaches. The authors reveal how, in the specific educational environment, a teacher can choose the most effective combination of educational technologies based on the nature of the learning task. The key conditions that determine such a choice are that the methodological approach corresponds to the specificity of the problem being solved and that it is also responsive to the individual characteristics of the students. The article refers to the training of students in the proper use of mathematical electronic tools for educational purposes. The preparation of future mathematics teachers should be a step-by-step process, building on specific examples. At the first stage, students optimally solve problems aided by electronic means of teaching. At the second stage, the main emphasis is on modeling lessons. At the third stage, students develop and implement strategies in the study of one of the topics within a school mathematics curriculum. The article also recommended the implementation of this strategy in preparation of future teachers and stated the possible benefits.

Keywords: Computer-oriented approach, traditional approach, future teachers, mathematics, lesson, students, education.

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