Search results for: Continuous Fuel Cost
1301 A Comparative Study of Rigid and Modified Simplex Methods for Optimal Parameter Settings of ACO for Noisy Non-Linear Surfaces
Authors: Seksan Chunothaisawat, Pongchanun Luangpaiboon
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There are two common types of operational research techniques, optimisation and metaheuristic methods. The latter may be defined as a sequential process that intelligently performs the exploration and exploitation adopted by natural intelligence and strong inspiration to form several iterative searches. An aim is to effectively determine near optimal solutions in a solution space. In this work, a type of metaheuristics called Ant Colonies Optimisation, ACO, inspired by a foraging behaviour of ants was adapted to find optimal solutions of eight non-linear continuous mathematical models. Under a consideration of a solution space in a specified region on each model, sub-solutions may contain global or multiple local optimum. Moreover, the algorithm has several common parameters; number of ants, moves, and iterations, which act as the algorithm-s driver. A series of computational experiments for initialising parameters were conducted through methods of Rigid Simplex, RS, and Modified Simplex, MSM. Experimental results were analysed in terms of the best so far solutions, mean and standard deviation. Finally, they stated a recommendation of proper level settings of ACO parameters for all eight functions. These parameter settings can be applied as a guideline for future uses of ACO. This is to promote an ease of use of ACO in real industrial processes. It was found that the results obtained from MSM were pretty similar to those gained from RS. However, if these results with noise standard deviations of 1 and 3 are compared, MSM will reach optimal solutions more efficiently than RS, in terms of speed of convergence.
Keywords: Ant colony optimisation, metaheuristics, modified simplex, non-linear, rigid simplex.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16241300 Electromagnetic Source Direction of Arrival Estimation via Virtual Antenna Array
Authors: Meiling Yang, Shuguo Xie, Yilong Zhu
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Nowadays, due to diverse electric products and complex electromagnetic environment, the localization and troubleshooting of the electromagnetic radiation source is urgent and necessary especially on the condition of far field. However, based on the existing DOA positioning method, the system or devices are complex, bulky and expensive. To address this issue, this paper proposes a single antenna radiation source localization method. A single antenna moves to form a virtual antenna array combined with DOA and MUSIC algorithm to position accurately, meanwhile reducing the cost and simplify the equipment. As shown in the results of simulations and experiments, the virtual antenna array DOA estimation modeling is correct and its positioning is credible.
Keywords: Virtual antenna array, DOA, localization, far field.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9701299 An E-learning System Architecture based on Cloud Computing
Authors: Md. Anwar Hossain Masud, Xiaodi Huang
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The massive proliferation of affordable computers, Internet broadband connectivity and rich education content has created a global phenomenon in which information and communication technology (ICT) is being used to transform education. Therefore, there is a need to redesign the educational system to meet the needs better. The advent of computers with sophisticated software has made it possible to solve many complex problems very fast and at a lower cost. This paper introduces the characteristics of the current E-Learning and then analyses the concept of cloud computing and describes the architecture of cloud computing platform by combining the features of E-Learning. The authors have tried to introduce cloud computing to e-learning, build an e-learning cloud, and make an active research and exploration for it from the following aspects: architecture, construction method and external interface with the model.
Keywords: Architecture, Cloud Computing, E-learning, Information Technology
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 110711298 Financial Analysis Analogies for Software Risk
Authors: Masood Uzzafer
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A dynamic software risk assessment model is presented. Analogies between dynamic financial analysis and software risk assessment models are established and based on these analogies it suggested that dynamic risk model for software projects is the way to move forward for the risk assessment of software project. It is shown how software risk assessment change during different phases of a software project and hence requires a dynamic risk assessment model to capture these variations. Further evolution of dynamic financial analysis models is discussed and mapped to the evolution of software risk assessment models.Keywords: Software Risk Assessment, Software ProjectManagement, Software Cost, Dynamic Modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15541297 Thermo-Mechanical Treatments of Cu-Ti Alloys
Authors: M. M. Morgham, A. A. Hameda, N. A. Zriba, H. A. Jawan
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This paper aims to study the effect of cold work condition on the microstructure of Cu-1.5wt%Ti, and Cu-3.5wt%Ti and hence mechanical properties. The samples under investigation were machined, and solution heat treated. X-ray diffraction technique is used to identify the different phases present after cold deformation by compression and also different heat treatment and also measuring the relative quantities of phases present. The metallographic examination is used to study the microstructure of the samples. The hardness measurements were used to indicate the change in mechanical properties. The results are compared with the mechanical properties obtained by previous workers. Experiments on cold compression followed by aging of Cu-Ti alloys have indicated that the most efficient hardening of the material results from continuous precipitation of very fine particles within the matrix. These particles were reported to be β`-type, Cu4Ti phase. The β`-β transformation and particles coarsening within the matrix as well as long grain boundaries were responsible for the overaging of Cu-1.5wt%Ti and Cu-3.5wt%Ti alloys. It is well known that plate-like particles are β – type, Cu3Ti phase. Discontinuous precipitation was found to start at the grain boundaries and expand into grain interior. At the higher aging temperature, a classic Widmanstätten morphology forms giving rise to a coarse microstructure comprised of α and the equilibrium phase β. Those results were confirmed by X-ray analysis, which found that a few percent of Cu3Ti, β precipitates are formed during aging at high temperature for long time for both Cu- Ti alloys (i.e. Cu-1.5wt%Ti and Cu-3.5wt%Ti).
Keywords: Metallographic, hardness, precipitation, aging.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17321296 The Influence of the Commons Structure Modification on the Active Power Losses Allocation
Authors: O. Pop, C. Barbulescu, M. Nemes, St. Kilyeni
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The tracing methods determine the contribution the power system sources have in their supplying. These methods can be used to assess the transmission prices, but also to recover the transmission fixed cost. In this paper is presented the influence of the modification of commons structure has on the specific price of transfer and on active power losses. The authors propose a power losses allocation method, based on Kirschen-s method. The system operator must make use of a few basic principles about allocation. The only necessary information is the power flows on system branches and the modifications applied to power system buses. In order to illustrate this method, the 25-bus test system is used, elaborated within the Electrical Power Engineering Department, from Timisoara, Romania.Keywords: Power systems, P-U bus, P-Q bus, loss allocation, traceability methods.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15251295 Decision Support System for Solving Multi-Objective Routing Problem
Authors: Ismail El Gayar, Ossama Ismail, Yousri El Gamal
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This paper presented a technique to solve one of the transportation problems that faces us in real life which is the Bus Scheduling Problem. Most of the countries using buses in schools, companies and traveling offices as an example to transfer multiple passengers from many places to specific place and vice versa. This transferring process can cost time and money, so we build a decision support system that can solve this problem. In this paper, a genetic algorithm with the shortest path technique is used to generate a competitive solution to other well-known techniques. It also presents a comparison between our solution and other solutions for this problem.
Keywords: Bus scheduling problem, decision support system, genetic algorithm, operation planning, shortest path, transportation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15321294 Increasing of Energy Efficiency based on Persian Ancient Architectural Patterns in Desert Regions (Case Study Of Traditional Houses In Kashan)
Authors: Mehran Jamshidi, Naghmeh Yazdanfar, Masoud Nasri
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In general architecture means the art of creating the space. Comprehensive and complete body which is created by a creative and purposeful thought to respond the human needs. Professionally, architecture is the are of designing and comprehensive planning of physical spaces that is created for human-s productivity. The purpose of architectural design is to respond the human needs which is appeared in physical frame. Human in response to his needs is always looking to achieve comfort. Throughout history of human civilization this relative comfort has been inspired by nature and assimilating the facility and natural achievement in the format of artifact patterns base on the nature, so that it is achieved in this comfort level and invention of these factors. All physical factors like regional, social and economical factors are made available to human in order to achieve a specific goal and are made to gain an ideal architecture to respond the functional needs and consider the aesthetics and elemental principles and pay attention to residents- comfort. In this study the Persian architecture with exploiting and transforming the energies into the requisite energies of architecture spaces and importing fuel products, utilities, etc, in order to achieve a relative comfort level will be investigated. In this paper the study of structural and physical specialties of traditional houses in desert regions and Central Plateau of Iran gave us this opportunity to being more familiar with important specialties of energy productivity in architecture body of traditional houses in these regions specially traditional houses of Kashan and in order to use these principles to create modern architectures in these regions.Keywords: architecture principles, stable architecture, management, energy productivity, body, energy
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19901293 A Study of Standing-Wave Thermoacoustic Refrigerator
Authors: Patcharin Saechan, Isares Dhuchakallaya
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Thermoacoustic refrigerator is a cooling device which uses the acoustic waves to produce the cooling effect. The aim of this paper is to explore the experimental and numerical feasibility of a standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator. The effects of the stack length, position of stack and operating frequency on the cooling performance are carried out. The circular pore stacks are tested under the atmospheric pressure. A low-cost loudspeaker is used as an acoustic driver. The results show that the location of stack installed in resonator tube has a greater effect on the cooling performance, than the stack length and operating frequency, respectively. The temperature difference across the ends of stack can be generated up to 13.7°C, and the temperature of cold-end is dropped down by 5.3°C from the ambient temperature.Keywords: Cooling performance, Refrigerator, Standing-wave, Thermoacoustics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23551292 Designing Offshore Pipelines Facing the Geohazard of Active Seismic Faults
Authors: Maria S. Trimintziou, Michael G. Sakellariou, Prodromos N. Psarropoulos
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The current study focuses on the seismic design of offshore pipelines against active faults. After an extensive literature review of the provisions of the seismic norms worldwide and of the available analytical methods, the study simulates numerically (through finite-element modeling and strain-based criteria) the distress of offshore pipelines subjected to PGDs induced by active normal and reverse seismic faults at the seabed. Factors, such as the geometrical properties of the fault, the mechanical properties of the ruptured soil formations, and the pipeline characteristics, are examined. After some interesting conclusions regarding the seismic vulnerability of offshore pipelines, potential cost-effective mitigation measures are proposed taking into account constructability issues.Keywords: Active faults, Seismic design, offshore pipelines.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22021291 Adsorption of Copper by using Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA)
Authors: N.A.Johan, S.R.M.Kutty, M. H. Isa, N.S.Muhamad, H.Hashim
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Many non-conventional adsorbent have been studied as economic alternative to commercial activated carbon and mostly agricultural waste have been introduced such as rubber leaf powder and hazelnut shell. Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA), produced from the rice husk is one of the low-cost materials that were used as adsorbent of heavy metal. The aim of this research was to study the feasibility of using MIRHA500 and MIRHA800 as adsorbent for the removal of Cu(II) metal ions from aqueous solutions by the batch studies. The adsorption of Cu(II) into MIRHA500 and MIRH800 favors Fruendlich isotherm and imply pseudo – kinetic second order which applied chemisorptionsKeywords: Copper (II) aqueous solution, batch study, MIRHA500, MIRHA800, Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash(MIRHA)
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19211290 Investment Trend Analysis of Dhaka Stock Exchange: A Comparative Study
Authors: Azaz Zaman, Mirazur Rahman
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Capital market is a crucial financial market place where companies and the government can raise long-term funds and, at the same time, investors get the opportunity to invest in the listed companies. Capital markets play a vital role not only in shifting the funds from surplus entity to deficit for investment, but also in the overall economic development of any developing country like Bangladesh. Being the first and biggest capital market of Bangladesh, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) is the prime bourse of the country. The differences in the investment preference— among three broad categories of investors in DSE including individual investors, institutional investors, and government— are easily observed. Authors of this article have used five categories of investors such as sponsors or directors of the company, institutional investors, foreign investors, government, and the general public in order to present a comparative analysis of their investment patterns. Obtaining data on the percentage of investment by these five types of investors in different sectors from the DSE website, this study aims to analyze the sector-wise investment preference of these investors using August 2018 data. The study has found that the sponsors or directors of the company have the highest percentage of investment in the textile industry which is close to 16%. The Bangladesh government, as an investor, has the highest percentage of investment in the fuel & power sector, approximately 32%. It has also found that the mutual funds' sector is mostly financed by institutional investors, nearly 28%. Foreign investors have their most investments in the banking sector, which is close to 22%. It has also revealed that the textile sector is mostly financed by the general public, close to 17%. Nevertheless, general public, surprisingly, has the lowest percentage of investment in the telecommunication sector, which is 0.10%.
Keywords: Stock market investment, Dhaka stock exchange, capital market, Bangladesh.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8931289 A Method for Solving a Bi-Objective Transportation Problem under Fuzzy Environment
Authors: Sukhveer Singh, Sandeep Singh
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A bi-objective fuzzy transportation problem with the objectives to minimize the total fuzzy cost and fuzzy time of transportation without according priorities to them is considered. To the best of our knowledge, there is no method in the literature to find efficient solutions of the bi-objective transportation problem under uncertainty. In this paper, a bi-objective transportation problem in an uncertain environment has been formulated. An algorithm has been proposed to find efficient solutions of the bi-objective transportation problem under uncertainty. The proposed algorithm avoids the degeneracy and gives the optimal solution faster than other existing algorithms for the given uncertain transportation problem.
Keywords: Transportation problem, efficient solution, ranking function, fuzzy transportation problem.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13571288 Modeling and Simulation of Photovoltaic based LED Lighting System
Authors: Ankit R Patel, Ankit A Patel, Mahesh A Patel, Dhaval R Vyas
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Although lighting systems powered by Photovoltaic (PV) cells have existed for many years, they are not widely used, especially in lighting for buildings, due to their high initial cost and low conversion efficiency. One of the technical challenges facing PV powered lighting systems has been how to use dc power generated by the PV module to energize common light sources that are designed to operate efficiently under ac power. Usually, the efficiency of the dc light sources is very poor compared to ac light sources. Rapid developments in LED lighting systems have made this technology a potential candidate for PV powered lighting systems. This study analyzed the efficiency of each component of PV powered lighting systems to identify optimum system configurations for different applications.Keywords: Energy Efficiency, LED, Modeling of systems, Photovoltaic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32021287 Finding Sparse Features in Face Detection Using Genetic Algorithms
Authors: H. Sagha, S. Kasaei, E. Enayati, M. Dehghani
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Although Face detection is not a recent activity in the field of image processing, it is still an open area for research. The greatest step in this field is the work reported by Viola and its recent analogous is Huang et al. Both of them use similar features and also similar training process. The former is just for detecting upright faces, but the latter can detect multi-view faces in still grayscale images using new features called 'sparse feature'. Finding these features is very time consuming and inefficient by proposed methods. Here, we propose a new approach for finding sparse features using a genetic algorithm system. This method requires less computational cost and gets more effective features in learning process for face detection that causes more accuracy.Keywords: Face Detection, Genetic Algorithms, Sparse Feature.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15811286 Thin Bed Reservoir Delineation Using Spectral Decomposition and Instantaneous Seismic Attributes, Pohokura Field, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand
Authors: P. Sophon, M. Kruachanta, S. Chaisri, G. Leaungvongpaisan, P. Wongpornchai
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The thick bed hydrocarbon reservoirs are primarily interested because of the more prolific production. When the amount of petroleum in the thick bed starts decreasing, the thin bed reservoirs are the alternative targets to maintain the reserves. The conventional interpretation of seismic data cannot delineate the thin bed having thickness less than the vertical seismic resolution. Therefore, spectral decomposition and instantaneous seismic attributes were used to delineate the thin bed in this study. Short Window Discrete Fourier Transform (SWDFT) spectral decomposition and instantaneous frequency attributes were used to reveal the thin bed reservoir, while Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) spectral decomposition and envelope (instantaneous amplitude) attributes were used to indicate hydrocarbon bearing zone. The study area is located in the Pohokura Field, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand. The thin bed target is the uppermost part of Mangahewa Formation, the most productive in the gas-condensate production in the Pohokura Field. According to the time-frequency analysis, SWDFT spectral decomposition can reveal the thin bed using a 72 Hz SWDFT isofrequency section and map, and that is confirmed by the instantaneous frequency attribute. The envelope attribute showing the high anomaly indicates the hydrocarbon accumulation area at the thin bed target. Moreover, the CWT spectral decomposition shows the low-frequency shadow zone and abnormal seismic attenuation in the higher isofrequencies below the thin bed confirms that the thin bed can be a prospective hydrocarbon zone.
Keywords: Hydrocarbon indication, instantaneous seismic attribute, spectral decomposition, thin bed delineation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6401285 Software Model for a Computer Based Training for an HVDC Control Desk Simulator
Authors: José R. G. Braga, Joice B. Mendes, Guilherme H. Caponetto, Alexandre C. B. Ramos
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With major technological advances and to reduce the cost of training apprentices for real-time critical systems, it was necessary the development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems for training apprentices in these systems. These systems, in general, have interactive features so that the learning is actually more efficient, making the learner more familiar with the mechanism in question. In the home stage of learning, tests are performed to obtain the student's income, a measure on their use. The aim of this paper is to present a framework to model an Intelligent Tutoring Systems using the UML language. The various steps of the analysis are considered the diagrams required to build a general model, whose purpose is to present the different perspectives of its development.Keywords: Computer based training, Hypermedia, Software modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16071284 Advanced Deployable/Retractable Solar Panel System for Satellite Applications
Authors: Zane Brough, Claudio Paoloni
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Modern low earth orbit (LEO) satellites that require multi-mission flexibility are highly likely to be repositioned between different operational orbits. While executing this process the satellite may experience high levels of vibration and environmental hazards, exposing the deployed solar panel to dangerous stress levels, fatigue and space debris, hence it is desirable to retract the solar array before satellite repositioning to avoid damage or failure.
A novel concept of deployable/retractable hybrid solar array systemcomposed of both rigid and flexible solar panels arranged within a petal formation, aimed to provide a greater power to volume ratio while dramatically reducing mass and cost is proposed.
Keywords: Deployable Solar Panel, Satellite, Retractable Solar Panel, Hybrid Solar Panel.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 46741283 Cooperative CDD Scheme Based on Hierarchical Modulation in OFDM System
Authors: Seung-Jun Yu, Yeong-Seop Ahn, Young-Min Ko, Hyoung-Kyu Song
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In order to achieve high data rate and increase the spectral efficiency, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system has been proposed. However, multiple antennas are limited by size and cost. Therefore, recently developed cooperative diversity scheme, which profits the transmit diversity only with the existing hardware by constituting a virtual antenna array, can be a solution. However, most of the introduced cooperative techniques have a common fault of decreased transmission rate because the destination should receive the decodable compositions of symbols from the source and the relay. In this paper, we propose a cooperative cyclic delay diversity (CDD) scheme that use hierarchical modulation. This scheme is free from the rate loss and allows seamless cooperative communication.Keywords: MIMO, Cooperative communication, CDD, Hierarchical modulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21971282 Establishing a New Simple Formula for Buckling Length Factor (K) of Rigid Frames Columns
Authors: Ehab Hasan Ahmed Hasan Ali
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The calculation of buckling length factor (K) for steel frames columns is a major and governing processes to determine the dimensions steel frame columns cross sections during design. The buckling length of steel frames columns has a direct effect on the cost (weight) of using cross section. A new formula is required to determine buckling length factor (K) by simplified way. In this research a new formula for buckling length factor (K) was established to determine by accurate method for a limited interval of columns ends rigidity (GA, GB). The new formula can be used ease to evaluate the buckling length factor without needing to complicated equations or difficult charts.Keywords: Buckling length, New formula, Curve fitting, Simplification, Steel column design.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22591281 Iterative Way to Acquire Information Technology for Defense and Aerospace
Authors: Ahmet Denker, Hakan Gürkan
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Defense and Aerospace environment is continuously striving to keep up with increasingly sophisticated Information Technology (IT) in order to remain effective in today-s dynamic and unpredictable threat environment. This makes IT one of the largest and fastest growing expenses of Defense. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent a year on IT projects. But, too many of those millions are wasted on costly mistakes. Systems that do not work properly, new components that are not compatible with old ones, trendy new applications that do not really satisfy defense needs or lost through poorly managed contracts. This paper investigates and compiles the effective strategies that aim to end exasperation with low returns and high cost of Information Technology acquisition for defense; it tries to show how to maximize value while reducing time and expenditure.Keywords: Iterative process, acquisition management, project management, software economics, requirement analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13991280 Analysis of Causality between Defect Causes Using Association Rule Mining
Authors: Sangdeok Lee, Sangwon Han, Changtaek Hyun
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Construction defects are major components that result in negative impacts on project performance including schedule delays and cost overruns. Since construction defects generally occur when a few associated causes combine, a thorough understanding of defect causality is required in order to more systematically prevent construction defects. To address this issue, this paper uses association rule mining (ARM) to quantify the causality between defect causes, and social network analysis (SNA) to find indirect causality among them. The suggested approach is validated with 350 defect instances from concrete works in 32 projects in Korea. The results show that the interrelationships revealed by the approach reflect the characteristics of the concrete task and the important causes that should be prevented.Keywords: Causality, defect causes, social network analysis, association rule mining.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13371279 Deficits and Solutions in the Development of Modular Factory Systems
Authors: Achim Kampker, Peter Burggräf, Moritz Krunke, Hanno Voet
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As a reaction to current challenges in factory planning, many companies think about introducing factory standards to lower planning times and decrease planning costs. If these factory standards are set-up with a high level of modularity, they are defined as modular factory systems. This paper deals with the main current problems in the application of modular factory systems in practice and presents a solution approach with its basic models. The methodology is based on methods from factory planning but also uses the tools of other disciplines like product development or technology management to deal with the high complexity, which the development of modular factory systems implies. The four basic models that such a methodology has to contain are introduced and pointed out.
Keywords: Factory planning, modular factory systems, factory standards, cost-benefit analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9851278 Cluster Analysis of Customer Churn in Telecom Industry
Authors: Abbas Al-Refaie
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The research examines the factors that affect customer churn (CC) in the Jordanian telecom industry. A total of 700 surveys were distributed. Cluster analysis revealed three main clusters. Results showed that CC and customer satisfaction (CS) were the key determinants in forming the three clusters. In two clusters, the center values of CC were high, indicating that the customers were loyal and SC was expensive and time- and energy-consuming. Still, the mobile service provider (MSP) should enhance its communication (COM), and value added services (VASs), as well as customer complaint management systems (CCMS). Finally, for the third cluster the center of the CC indicates a poor level of loyalty, which facilitates customers churn to another MSP. The results of this study provide valuable feedback for MSP decision makers regarding approaches to improving their performance and reducing CC.
Keywords: Cluster analysis, telecom industry, switching cost, customer churn.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25391277 Applications of Support Vector Machines on Smart Phone Systems for Emotional Speech Recognition
Authors: Wernhuar Tarng, Yuan-Yuan Chen, Chien-Lung Li, Kun-Rong Hsie, Mingteh Chen
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An emotional speech recognition system for the applications on smart phones was proposed in this study to combine with 3G mobile communications and social networks to provide users and their groups with more interaction and care. This study developed a mechanism using the support vector machines (SVM) to recognize the emotions of speech such as happiness, anger, sadness and normal. The mechanism uses a hierarchical classifier to adjust the weights of acoustic features and divides various parameters into the categories of energy and frequency for training. In this study, 28 commonly used acoustic features including pitch and volume were proposed for training. In addition, a time-frequency parameter obtained by continuous wavelet transforms was also used to identify the accent and intonation in a sentence during the recognition process. The Berlin Database of Emotional Speech was used by dividing the speech into male and female data sets for training. According to the experimental results, the accuracies of male and female test sets were increased by 4.6% and 5.2% respectively after using the time-frequency parameter for classifying happy and angry emotions. For the classification of all emotions, the average accuracy, including male and female data, was 63.5% for the test set and 90.9% for the whole data set.Keywords: Smart phones, emotional speech recognition, socialnetworks, support vector machines, time-frequency parameter, Mel-scale frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18421276 Design Histories for Enhanced Concurrent Structural Design
Authors: Adam Sobey, James Blake, Ajit Shenoi
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The leisure boatbuilding industry has tight profit margins that demand that boats are created to a high quality but with low cost. This requirement means reduced design times combined with increased use of design for production can lead to large benefits. The evolutionary nature of the boatbuilding industry can lead to a large usage of previous vessels in new designs. With the increase in automated tools for concurrent engineering within structural design it is important that these tools can reuse this information while subsequently feeding this to designers. The ability to accurately gather this materials and parts data is also a key component to these tools. This paper therefore aims to develop an architecture made up of neural networks and databases to feed information effectively to the designers based on previous design experience.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11701275 Analysis of Developments in the Understanding of In-Service Training in Turkish Public Administration: Personnel Management to Human Resource Management
Authors: Sema Müge Özdemiray
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In line with the new public management approach to provide effective and efficient services necessary to achieve the social goals of public institutions, employees must have the knowledge and skills required by the age. In conjunction with the transition from personnel management to human resources management, it is seen that there is a change in the understanding of in-service training, the understanding of "required in-service training" has switched to the understanding of "continuous in-service training". However, in terms of in-service training in Turkey, it seems to be trouble at the point of adopting to change. The main purpose of this study is to primarily create a conceptual framework of in-service training and subsequently determine, analyze and discuss the developments and problems faced by in-service training in Turkey in the transition from personnel management to human resources management. In accordance with this purpose, the necessary data of this study were collected using qualitative approaches. Observation and document analysis was used and content analysis was performed on the data gathered in the study. The results of this study, according to data such as the number of institutions requesting in-service training, allocated budget of in-service training, the number of people participating in such training, transition of personnel management to human resources management should not lead to a paradigm shift in Turkey’s understanding of in-service training, although this is compulsory for public institutions in accordance with the law in Turkey. In-service training in Turkish public administration is still not implemented effectively and is seen as a social activity for employees and a formality for institutions.
Keywords: Human resources management, in-service training, personnel management, public institutions.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10331274 Evaluating Efficiency of Nina Distribution Company Using Window Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist Index
Authors: Hossein Taherian Far, Ali Bazaee
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Achieving continuous sustained economic growth and following economic development can be the target for all countries which are looking for it. In this regard, distribution industry plays an important role in growth and development of any nation. So, estimating the efficiency and productivity of the so called industry and identifying factors influencing it, is very necessary. The objective of the present study is to measure the efficiency and productivity of seven branches of Nina Distribution Company using window data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index from spring 2013 to summer 2015. In this study, using criteria of fixed assets, payroll personnel, operating costs and duration of collection of receivables were selected as inputs and people and net sales, gross profit and percentage of coverage to customers were selected as outputs. Then, the process of performance window data envelopment analysis was driven and process efficiency has been measured using Malmquist index. The results indicate that the average technical efficiency of window Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and fluctuating trend is sustainable. But the average management efficiency in window DEA model is related with negative growth (decline) of about 13%. The mean scale efficiency in all windows, except in the second one which is faced with 8%, shows growth of 18% compared to the first window. On the other hand, the mean change in total factor productivity in all branches of the industry shows average negative growth (decrease) of 12% which are the result of a negative change in technology.
Keywords: Nina Distribution Company branches, window data envelopment analysis, Malmquist productivity index.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11621273 Considerations of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Functioning as a Chain of Trust in Electronic Payments Systems
Authors: Theodosios Tsiakis, George Stephanides, George Pekos
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The growth of open networks created the interest to commercialise it. The establishment of an electronic business mechanism must be accompanied by a digital – electronic payment system to transfer the value of transactions. Financial organizations are requested to offer a secure e-payment synthesis with equivalent level of security served in conventional paper-based payment transactions. PKI, which is functioning as a chain of trust in security architecture, can enable security services of cryptography to epayments, in order to take advantage of the wider base either of customer or of trading partners and the reduction of cost transaction achieved by the use of Internet channels. The paper addresses the possibilities and the implementation suggestions of PKI in relevance to electronic payments by suggesting a framework that should be followed.Keywords: Electronic Payment, Security, Trust
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14231272 Wireless Sensor Network: Characteristics and Architectures
Authors: Muhammad R Ahmed, Xu Huang, Dharmandra Sharma, Hongyan Cui
Abstract:
An information procuring and processing emerging technology wireless sensor network (WSN) Consists of autonomous nodes with versatile devices underpinned by applications. Nodes are equipped with different capabilities such as sensing, computing, actuation and wireless communications etc. based on application requirements. A WSN application ranges from military implementation in the battlefield, environmental monitoring, health sector as well as emergency response of surveillance. The nodes are deployed independently to cooperatively monitor the physical and environmental conditions. The architecture of WSN differs based on the application requirements and focus on low cost, flexibility, fault tolerance capability, deployment process as well as conserve energy. In this paper we have present the characteristics, architecture design objective and architecture of WSNKeywords: wireless sensor network, characteristics, architecture
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