Search results for: code division multiple access (CDMA)

Authors: E. Kissi, V. K. Acheamfour, J. J. Gyimah, T. Adjei-Kumi

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Factoring accounts receivable is widely accepted as an alternative financing source and utilized in almost every industry that sells business-to-business or business-to-government. However, its patronage in the construction industry is very limited as some barriers hinder its application in the construction industry. This study aims at assessing the barriers to the use of factoring accounts receivables in the Ghanaian construction industry. The study adopted the sequential exploratory research method where structured and unstructured questionnaires were conveniently distributed to D1K1 and D2K2 construction firms in Ghana. Using the one-sample t-test and Kendall’s Coefficient of concordance data were analyzed. The most severe challenge concluded is the high cost of factoring patronage. Other critical challenges identified were low knowledge on factoring processes, inadequate access to information on factoring, and high risks involved in factoring. Hence, it is recommended that contractors should be made aware of the prospects of factoring of accounts receivables in the construction industry. This study serves as basis for further rigorous research into factoring of accounts receivables in the industry.

Keywords: Barriers, contractors, factoring accounts receivables, Ghanaian, perception.

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Authors: T. C. Chu, S.H. Wu

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This paper suggests ranking alternatives under fuzzy MCDM (multiple criteria decision making) via an centroid based ranking approach, where criteria are classified to benefit qualitative, benefit quantitative and cost quantitative ones. The ratings of alternatives versus qualitative criteria and the importance weights of all criteria are assessed in linguistic values represented by fuzzy numbers. The membership function for the final fuzzy evaluation value of each alternative can be developed through α-cuts and interval arithmetic of fuzzy numbers. The distance between the original point and the relative centroid is applied to defuzzify the final fuzzy evaluation values in order to rank alternatives. Finally a numerical example demonstrates the computation procedure of the proposed model.

Keywords: Fuzzy MCDM, Criteria, Fuzzy number, Ranking, Relative centroid.

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Authors: C. Angel, S. Asha

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Despite the advances made in various new technologies, application of these technologies for agriculture still remains a formidable task, as it involves integration of diverse domains for monitoring the different process involved in agricultural management. Advances in ambient intelligence technology represents one of the most powerful technology for increasing the yield of agricultural crops and to mitigate the impact of water scarcity, climatic change and methods for managing pests, weeds and diseases. This paper proposes a GPS-assisted, machine to machine solutions that combine information collected by multiple sensors for the automated management of paddy crops. To maintain the economic viability of paddy cultivation, the various techniques used in agriculture are discussed and a novel system which uses ambient intelligence technique is proposed in this paper. The ambient intelligence based agricultural system gives a great scope.

Keywords: Ambient Intelligence, Agricultural technology, smart agriculture, precise farming.

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Authors: S. Kapoor, R. Liu, X. J. Wu, M. X. Yao

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A group of Stellite alloys are studied in consideration of temperature effects on their hardness and wear resistance. The hardness test is conducted on a micro-hardness tester with a hot stage equipped that allows heating the specimen up to 650°C. The wear resistance of each alloy is evaluated using a pin-on-disc tribometer with a heating furnace built-in that provides the temperature capacity up to 450°C. The experimental results demonstrate that the hardness and wear resistance of Stellite alloys behave differently at room temperature and at high temperatures. The wear resistance of Stellite alloys at room temperature mainly depends on their carbon content and also influenced by the tungsten content in the alloys. However, at high temperatures the wear mechanisms of Stellite alloys become more complex, involving multiple factors. The relationships between chemical composition, microstructure, hardness and wear resistance of these alloys are studied, with focus on temperature effect on these relations.

Keywords: Stellite alloy, temperature, hardness, wear resistance

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Authors: To-Yuan Chen, Tzu-Ching Shih, Hao-Li Liu, Kuen-Cheng Ju

Abstract:

The focal spot of a high intensity focused ultrasound transducer is small. To heat a large target volume, multiple treatment spots are required. If the power of each treatment spot is fixed, it could results in insufficient heating of initial spots and over-heating of later ones, which is caused by the thermal diffusion. Hence, to produce a uniform heated volume, the delivered energy of each treatment spot should be properly adjusted. In this study, we proposed an iterative, extrapolation technique to adjust the required ultrasound energy of each treatment spot. Three different scanning pathways were used to evaluate the performance of this technique. Results indicate that by using the proposed technique, uniform heating volume could be obtained.

Keywords: focused ultrasound, thermal therapy, uniform heating, iteration, extrapolation, scan

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Authors: M. Hakami, A. Jammaly, I. Attafi, M. Oraiby, M. Jeraiby

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We reviewed an unusual case of a 65-year-old male taking an herbal mixture containing compounds with anticholinesterase activity for a long period of time, presented with acute my myocardial infarction and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome followed by death. Clinically, there are findings correlated with anticholinesterase activity, such as bilateral miosis, diaphoresis, vomiting and fasciculation without a history of any toxic ingestion or exposure. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry screening studies identified the presence of thymol, anethole in the herbal extract and butylated hydroxytoluene in the blood sample. Hence, with this case report, we intend to highlight the necessity of evaluating the long-term use of the herbal mixture.

Keywords: Cholinesterase inhibitors, thymol, anethole, butylated hydroxytoluene, cardiac toxicity and myocardial infarction.

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Authors: M. Bouri, L. Chraïbi, N. Sefiani

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Currently, industries endeavor to align their environmental management system with the ISO 14001:2015 international standard, while preserving competitiveness and sustainability. Then, a key driver for these industries is to develop a skilled workforce that is able to implement, continuously improve and audit the environmental management system. The purpose of this paper is to provide an environmental competency framework that aims to identify, rank and categorize the competencies required by both the environmental managers and auditors. This competency framework is expected to be useful during competency assessment, recruitment, and training processes. To achieve this end, a modified 2-tuple Delphi approach is here proposed based on a combination of the modified Delphi approach and the 2-tuple linguistic representation model. The adopted approach is presented as numerous questionnaires that are spread over multiple rounds in order to obtain a consensus among the different Moroccan experts participating to this study.

Keywords: Competency framework, Delphi, environmental competency, 2-tuple.

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Authors: Mandla T. Nene, Edgar.Jembere, Matthew O. Adigun, Themba Shezi, Siyabonga S. Cebekhulu

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The drastic increase in the usage of SMS technology has led service providers to seek for a solution that enable users of mobile devices to access services through SMSs. This has resulted in the proposal of solutions towards SMS-based service invocation in service oriented environments. However, the dynamic nature of service-oriented environments coupled with sudden load peaks generated by service request, poses performance challenges to infrastructures for supporting SMS-based service invocation. To address this problem we adopt load balancing techniques. A load balancing model with adaptive load balancing and load monitoring mechanisms as its key constructs is proposed. The load balancing model then led to realization of Least Loaded Load Balancing Framework (LLLBF). Evaluation of LLLBF benchmarked with round robin (RR) scheme on the queuing approach showed LLLBF outperformed RR in terms of response time and throughput. However, LLLBF achieved better result in the cost of high processing power.

Keywords: SMS (Short Message Service), LLLBF (Least Loaded Load Balancing Framework), Service Oriented Computing (SOC).

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Authors: Alisha Fisher

Abstract:

Survivors of sex trafficking often report extensive harm not just from the violence itself, but multiple levels such as internalized shame, societal misunderstandings, and the process of reporting, exiting, and healing. The aim of this article is to examine the multi-layered approach to supporting survivors who are exiting sex trafficking through immediate, short-term, and long-term care approaches. We present a systematic review of the current barriers structurally, psychosocially, and psychologically through a Canadian perspective, and apply them to the interventions within the service continuum, basic needs, and further needs and supports to consider. This article suggests that ongoing and additional funding to survivor’s support services, specialized police and heath care training, and increased prevention and public education on the realities of sex trafficking in Canada is a necessity for survivor healing, and the prevention of further harm.

Keywords: Canada Sex Trafficking, exiting sex trafficking, sex trafficking survivors, sex trafficking supports.

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Authors: Chit Su Htwe, Win Htay

Abstract:

The iris recognition technology is the most accurate, fast and less invasive one compared to other biometric techniques using for example fingerprints, face, retina, hand geometry, voice or signature patterns. The system developed in this study has the potential to play a key role in areas of high-risk security and can enable organizations with means allowing only to the authorized personnel a fast and secure way to gain access to such areas. The paper aim is to perform the iris region detection and iris inner and outer boundaries localization. The system was implemented on windows platform using Visual C# programming language. It is easy and efficient tool for image processing to get great performance accuracy. In particular, the system includes two main parts. The first is to preprocess the iris images by using Canny edge detection methods, segments the iris region from the rest of the image and determine the location of the iris boundaries by applying Hough transform. The proposed system tested on 756 iris images from 60 eyes of CASIA iris database images.

Keywords: Canny, C#, hough transform, image preprocessing.

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Authors: Amaral, António, Araújo, Madalena

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This paper seeks to give a general idea of the universe of project portfolio management, from its multidisciplinary nature, to the many challenges it raises, passing through the different techniques, models and tools used to solve the multiple problems known. It is intended to contribute to the clarification, with great depth, of the impacts and relationships involved in managing the projects- portfolio. It aims at proposing a technique for the project alignment with the organisational strategy, in order to select projects that later on will be considered in the analysis and selection of the portfolio. We consider the development of a methodology for assessing the project alignment index very relevant in the global market scenario. It can help organisations to gain a greater awareness of market dynamics, speed up the decision process and increase its consistency, thus enabling the strategic alignment and the improvement of the organisational performance.

Keywords: Project Portfolio Management Cycle, Project Portfolio Selection, Resource Assignment, Strategy Alignment technique

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Authors: F. Bakiri, T. Rexha, A. Mitre

Abstract:

The aim of our study was to compare knowledge of regarding HPV and cervical cancer in female student of 18 to 26 years old, with or without sexual intercourse. We conducted a questionnaire survey of the students (N=568), in Faculty of Natural Sciences, Tirana, Albania. Sexually experienced students were more likely to have heard of risk factors such as multiple sex partners, sexual intercourse before age 18, having contracted any sexually transmitted diseases, having genital warts, smoking cigarettes, use of oral contraceptive, poor diet or nutrition and using tampons. No significant sexually experience differences were observed in knowledge of the way of transmission of the virus associated with cervical cancer knowledge, the virus associated with cervical cancer knowledge, the prevention of cervical cancer knowledge. On the other hand strong significant sexually experience differences were observed in knowledge of the diagnostic way of cervical cancer and what HPV can cause knowledge.

Keywords: Risk factors, HPV, Cervical cancer, Albanian students.

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Authors: A. Al Drees, A. Alahmari, R. Almuwayshir

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The advanced information technology is becoming an important factor in the development of financial services industry, especially the banking industry. It has introduced new ways of delivering banking to the customer, such as Internet Banking. Banks began to look at electronic banking (e-banking) as a means to replace some of their traditional branch functions using the Internet as a new distribution channel. Some consumers have at least more than one account, and across banks, and access these accounts using e-banking services. To look at the current net worth position, customers have to login to each of their accounts and get the details and work on consolidation. This not only takes ample time but it is a repetitive activity at a specified frequency. To address this point, an account aggregation concept is added as a solution. E-banking account aggregation, as one of the e-banking types, appeared to build a stronger relationship with customers. Account Aggregation Service generally refers to a service that allows customers to manage their bank accounts maintained in different institutions through a common Internet banking operating a platform, with a high concern to security and privacy. This paper presents an overview of an e-banking account aggregation approach as a new service in the e-banking field.

Keywords: E-banking, security, account aggregation, enterprise application development.

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Authors: Muhammad I. Ibrahimy, Mamun B.I. Reaz, Khandaker Asaduzzaman, Sazzad Hussain

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An approach to develop the FPGA of a flexible key RSA encryption engine that can be used as a standard device in the secured communication system is presented. The VHDL modeling of this RSA encryption engine has the unique characteristics of supporting multiple key sizes, thus can easily be fit into the systems that require different levels of security. A simple nested loop addition and subtraction have been used in order to implement the RSA operation. This has made the processing time faster and used comparatively smaller amount of space in the FPGA. The hardware design is targeted on Altera STRATIX II device and determined that the flexible key RSA encryption engine can be best suited in the device named EP2S30F484C3. The RSA encryption implementation has made use of 13,779 units of logic elements and achieved a clock frequency of 17.77MHz. It has been verified that this RSA encryption engine can perform 32-bit, 256-bit and 1024-bit encryption operation in less than 41.585us, 531.515us and 790.61us respectively.

Keywords: RSA, FPGA, Communication, Security, VHDL.

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Authors: Narendra Singh Yadav, R.P.Yadav

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Mobile ad hoc network is a collection of mobile nodes communicating through wireless channels without any existing network infrastructure or centralized administration. Because of the limited transmission range of wireless network interfaces, multiple "hops" may be needed to exchange data across the network. Consequently, many routing algorithms have come into existence to satisfy the needs of communications in such networks. Researchers have conducted many simulations comparing the performance of these routing protocols under various conditions and constraints. One question that arises is whether speed of nodes affects the relative performance of routing protocols being studied. This paper addresses the question by simulating two routing protocols AODV and DSDV. Protocols were simulated using the ns-2 and were compared in terms of packet delivery fraction, normalized routing load and average delay, while varying number of nodes, and speed.

Keywords: AODV, DSDV, MANET, relative performance

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Authors: Ippei Kamihira, Takashi Nakajima, Taiyo Matsumura, Hikaru Miura, Takashi Ono

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In this research, the goal was construction of a system by which multiple sensors were used to observe the daily life behavior of persons living alone (while respecting their privacy), using this information to judge such conditions as bad physical condition or falling in the home, etc., so that these abnormal conditions can be made known to relatives and third parties. The daily life patterns of persons living alone are expressed by the number of responses of sensors each time that a set time period has elapsed. By comparing data for the prior two weeks, it was possible to judge a situation as “normal” when the person was in good physical condition or as “abnormal” when the person was in bad physical condition.

Keywords: Sensors, Elderly living alone, Abnormality detection, Lifestyle habit.

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Authors: Mehdi Hosseinzadeh, Parisa Khoshvaght

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In some applications, such as image recognition or compression, segmentation refers to the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple segments. Image segmentation is typically used to locate objects and boundaries (lines, curves, etc.) in images. Image segmentation is to classify or cluster an image into several parts (regions) according to the feature of image, for example, the pixel value or the frequency response. More precisely, image segmentation is the process of assigning a label to every pixel in an image such that pixels with the same label share certain visual characteristics. The result of image segmentation is a set of segments that collectively cover the entire image, or a set of contours extracted from the image. Several image segmentation algorithms were proposed to segment an image before recognition or compression. Up to now, many image segmentation algorithms exist and be extensively applied in science and daily life. According to their segmentation method, we can approximately categorize them into region-based segmentation, data clustering, and edge-base segmentation. In this paper, we give a study of several popular image segmentation algorithms that are available.

Keywords: Image Segmentation, hierarchical segmentation, partitional segmentation, density estimation.

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Authors: Oluseye Adeniyi Adeleke, Mohd Fadzli Salleh

Abstract:

Cooperative communication provides transmit diversity, even when, due to size constraints, mobile units cannot accommodate multiple antennas. A versatile cooperation method called coded cooperation has been developed, in which cooperation is implemented through channel coding with a view to controlling the errors inherent in wireless communication. In this work we evaluate the performance of coded cooperation in flat Rayleigh fading environment using a concept known as the pair wise error probability (PEP). We derive the PEP for a flat fading scenario in coded cooperation and then compare with the signal-to-noise ratio of the users in the network. Results show that an increase in the SNR leads to a decrease in the PEP. We also carried out simulations to validate the result.

Keywords: Channel state information, coded cooperation, cooperative systems, pairwise-error-probability, Reed-Solomon codes.

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Authors: L. Tao, T. J. Sun, Z. H. Li

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The knowledge base of welding defect recognition is essentially incomplete. This characteristic determines that the recognition results do not reflect the actual situation. It also has a further influence on the classification of welding quality. This paper is concerned with the study of a rough set based method to reduce the influence and improve the classification accuracy. At first, a rough set model of welding quality intelligent classification has been built. Both condition and decision attributes have been specified. Later on, groups of the representative multiple compound defects have been chosen from the defect library and then classified correctly to form the decision table. Finally, the redundant information of the decision table has been reducted and the optimal decision rules have been reached. By this method, we are able to reclassify the misclassified defects to the right quality level. Compared with the ordinary ones, this method has higher accuracy and better robustness.

Keywords: intelligent decision, rough set, welding defects, welding quality level

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Authors: Chakkrit Snae, Michael Brueckner

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In this paper the authors present the framework of a system for assisting users through counseling on personal health, the Personal Health Assistance Service Expert System (PHASES). Personal health assistance systems need Personal Health Records (PHR), which support wellness activities, improve the understanding of personal health issues, enable access to data from providers of health services, strengthen health promotion, and in the end improve the health of the population. This is especially important in societies where the health costs increase at a higher rate than the overall economy. The most important elements of a healthy lifestyle are related to food (such as balanced nutrition and diets), activities for body fitness (such as walking, sports, fitness programs), and other medical treatments (such as massage, prescriptions of drugs). The PHASES framework uses an ontology of food, which includes nutritional facts, an expert system keeping track of personal health data that are matched with medical treatments, and a comprehensive data transfer between patients and the system.

Keywords: Personal health assistance service, expert system, ontologies, knowledge management, information technology.

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Authors: Mustafa Abdalla, Khaled A. Madi, Rajab Farhat

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An array antenna system with innovative signal processing can improve the resolution of a source direction of arrival (DoA) estimation. High resolution techniques take the advantage of array antenna structures to better process the incoming waves. They also have the capability to identify the direction of multiple targets. This paper investigates performance of the DOA estimation algorithm namely; Capon and MUSIC on the uniform linear array (ULA). The simulation results show that in Capon and MUSIC algorithm the resolution of the DOA techniques improves as number of snapshots, number of array elements, signal-to-noise ratio and separation angle between the two sources θ increases.

Keywords: Antenna array, Capon, MUSIC, Direction-of-arrival estimation, signal processing, uniform linear arrays.

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Authors: Tugce Ercan

Abstract:

This research study aims to identify the impact of two factors –growth and competitive strategies- on a set of building production innovation strategies. It was conducted a questionery survey to collect data from construction professionals and it was asked them the importance level of predicted innovation strategies for corporate strategies. Multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to see the main and interaction effects of corporate strategies on building innovation strategies. The results indicate that growth strategies such as entering in a new a market or new project types has a greater effect on innovation strategies rather than competitive strategies such as cost leadership or differentiation strategies. However the interaction effect of competitive strategies and growth strategies on innovation strategies is much bigger than the only effect of competitive strategies. It was also analyzed the descriptive statistics of innovation strategies for different competitive and growth strategy types.

Keywords: competitive strategy, growth strategy, innovation, construction company, MANOVA

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Authors: Václav Voltr, Jan Leština

Abstract:

The basis of examines is survey of 500 in the years 2002-2010, which was selected according to homogeneity of land cover and where 1090 revenues were evaluated. For achieved yields of winter wheat is obtained multicriterial regression function depending on the major factors influencing the consumption of nitrogen. The coefficient of discrimination of the established model is 0.722. The increase in efficiency of fertilization is involved in supply of organic nutrients, tillage, soil pH, past weather, the humus content in the subsoil and grain content to 0.001 mm. The decrease in efficiency was mainly influenced by the total dose of mineral nitrogen, although it was divided into multiple doses, the proportion loamy particles up to 0.01 mm, rainy, or conversely dry weather during the vegetation. The efficiency of nitrogen was found to be the smallest on undeveloped soils and the highest on chernozem and alluvial soils.

Keywords: Nitrogen efficiency, winter wheat, regression model

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Authors: Moosa Mazloom, Hojjat Hatami

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The aim of this article is to access the optimal mix design of self-compacting light weight concrete. The effects of magnetic water, superplasticizer based on polycarboxylic-ether, and silica fume on characteristics of this type of concrete are studied. The workability of fresh concrete and the compressive strength of hardened concrete are considered here. For this purpose, nine mix designs were studied. The percentages of superplasticizer were 0.5, 1, and 2% of the weight of cement, and the percentages of silica fume were 0, 6, and 10% of the weight of cement. The water to cementitious ratios were 0.28, 0.32, and 0.36. The workability of concrete samples was analyzed by the devices such as slump flow, V-funnel, L box, U box, and Urimet with J ring. Then, the compressive strengths of the mixes at the ages of 3, 7, 28, and 90 days were obtained. The results show that by using magnetic water, the compressive strengths are improved at all the ages. In the concrete samples with ordinary water, more superplasticizer dosages were needed. Moreover, the combination of superplasticizer and magnetic water had positive effects on the mixes containing silica fume and they could flow easily.

Keywords: Magnetic water, self-compacting light weight concrete, silica fume, superplasticizer.

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Authors: Mohammad Najmol Haque, Takeshi Maki, Jun Sasaki

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Headed stud shear connections are widely used in the junction or embedded zone of hybrid girder to achieve whole composite action with continuity that can sustain steel-concrete interfacial tensile and shear forces. In Japan, Japan Road Association (JRA) specifications are used for hybrid girder design that utilizes very low level of stud capacity than those of American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) specifications, Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) specifications and EURO code. As low design shear strength is considered in design of connections, the time dependent shear behavior due to sustained external loading is not considered, even not fully studied. In this study, a finite element approach was used to evaluate the time dependent shear behavior for headed studs used as connections at the junction. This study clarified, how the sustained loading distinctively impacted on changing the interfacial shear of connections with time which was sensitive to lodging history, positions of flanges, neighboring studs, position of prestress bar and reinforcing bar, concrete strength, etc. and also identified a shear influence area. Stud strength was also confirmed through pushout tests. The outcome obtained from the study may provide an important basis and reference data in designing connections of hybrid girders with enhanced stud capacity with due consideration of their long-term shear behavior.

Keywords: Finite element approach, hybrid girder, headed stud shear connections, sustained loading, time dependent shear behavior.

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Authors: Frances Turner

Abstract:

Gloves are significant physical objects, being one of the oldest forms of dress. Glove culture is part of every facet of life; its extraordinary history encompasses practicality, and symbolism reflecting a wide range of social practices. The survival of not only the gloves but associated articles enables the possibility to analyse real lives, however so far this area has been largely neglected. Limited information is available to students, researchers, or those involved with the design and making of gloves. There are several museums and independent collectors in England that hold collections of gloves (some from as early as 16th century), machinery, tools, designs and patterns, marketing materials and significant archives which demonstrate the rich heritage of English glove design and manufacturing, being of national significance and worthy of international interest. Through a research glove network which now exists thanks to research grant funding, there is potential for the holders of glove collections to make connections and explore links between these resources to promote a stronger understanding of the significance, breadth and heritage of the English glove industry. The network takes an interdisciplinary approach to bring together interested parties from academia, museums and manufacturing, with expert knowledge of the production, collections, conservation and display of English leather gloves. Academics from diverse arts and humanities disciplines benefit from the opportunities to share research and discuss ideas with network members from non-academic contexts including museums and heritage organisations, industry, and contemporary designers. The fragmented collections when considered in entirety provide an overview of English glove making since earliest times and those who wore them. This paper makes connections and explores links between these resources to promote a stronger understanding of the significance, breadth and heritage of the English Glove industry. The following areas are explored: current content and status of the individual museum collections, potential links, sharing of information histories, social and cultural and relationship to history of fashion design, manufacturing and materials, approaches to maintenance and conservation, access to the collections and strategies for future understanding of their national significance. The facilitation of knowledge exchange and exploration of the collections through the network informs organisations’ future strategies for the maintenance, access and conservation of their collections. By involving industry in the network, it is possible to ensure a contemporary perspective on glove-making in addition to the input from heritage partners. The slow fashion movement and awareness of artisan craft and how these can be preserved and adopted for glove and accessory design is addressed. Artisan leather glove making was a skilled and significant industry in England that has now declined to the point where there is little production remaining utilising the specialist skills that have hardly changed since earliest times. This heritage will be identified and preserved for future generations of the rich cultural history of gloves may be lost.

Keywords: Artisan glove making skills, English leather gloves, glove culture, glove network.

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Authors: Seyed Ali Sadat Noori, Elham Sahebi Bazaz

Abstract:

Topological changes in mobile ad hoc networks frequently render routing paths unusable. Such recurrent path failures have detrimental effects on quality of service. A suitable technique for eliminating this problem is to use multiple backup paths between the source and the destination in the network. This paper proposes an effective and efficient protocol for backup and disjoint path set in ad hoc wireless network. This protocol converges to a highly reliable path set very fast with no message exchange overhead. The paths selection according to this algorithm is beneficial for mobile ad hoc networks, since it produce a set of backup paths with more high reliability. Simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of our algorithm in terms of route numbers in the path set and its reliability. In order to acquire link reliability estimates, we use link expiration time (LET) between two nodes.

Keywords: Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Reliability, Routing, Disjoint Path

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Authors: Gülcin Büyüközkan, Mehmet Sakir Ersoy

Abstract:

The decision of information technology (IT) outsourcing requires close attention to the evaluation of supplier selection process because the selection decision involves conflicting multiple criteria and is replete with complex decision making problems. Selecting the most appropriate suppliers is considered an important strategic decision that may impact the performance of outsourcing engagements. The objective of this paper is to aid decision makers to evaluate and assess possible IT outsourcing suppliers. An axiomatic design based fuzzy group decision making is adopted to evaluate supplier alternatives. Finally, a case study is given to demonstrate the potential of the methodology. KeywordsIT outsourcing, Supplier selection, Multi-criteria decision making, Axiomatic design, Fuzzy logic.

Keywords: IT outsourcing, Supplier selection, Multi-criteria decision making, Axiomatic design, Fuzzy logic

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Authors: Emmanuel U. Ingwu

Abstract:

The study examined the influence of pay differentials on employee retention in the State Colleges of Education in the South-South Region of Nigeria. 275 subjects drawn from members of the wage negotiating teams in the Colleges were administered questionnaires constructed for study. Analysis of Variance revealed that the observed pay differentials significantly influenced retainership, f(5,269 = 6.223, P< 0.05). However, the Multiple Classification Analysis and Post-Hoc test indicated that employees in two of the Colleges with slightly lower and higher pay levels may probably remain with their employers while employees in other Colleges with the least and highest pay levels suggested quitting. Based on these observations, the influence of pay on employee retention seems inconclusive. Generally, employees in the colleges studied are dissatisfied with current pay levels. Management should confront these challenges by improving pay packages to encourage employees to remain and be dedicated to duty.

Keywords: Employee, Influence, Pay differentials, Retention.

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Authors: Y. W. Chen, H. L. Fan

Abstract:

Evidence shows that start-ups success is positively correlated with the launch of the first product. However, new ventures are seldom able to acquire abundant resources for new product development (NPD), which means that entrepreneurs may depend on personal creativity instead of physical investments to achieve and accelerate innovation speed. This study accentuates the role of entrepreneurial bricolage, which defined as making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities, in the relations of creative self-efficacy and innovation speed. This study uses the multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses in a sample of 203 start-ups operating in various creative markets in Taiwan. Results reveal that creative self-efficacy is positively and directly associated with innovation speed, whereas entrepreneurial bricolage plays a full mediator. These findings offer important theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Creative self-efficacy, innovation speed, entrepreneurial bricolage, new ventures.

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