Search results for: Flood prediction process

Authors: Pawel P. Czapski, Andrzej Sluzek

Abstract:

This paper presents preliminary results regarding system-level power awareness for FPGA implementations in wireless sensor networks. Re-configurability of field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) allows for significant flexibility in its applications to embedded systems. However, high power consumption in FPGA becomes a significant factor in design considerations. We present several ideas and their experimental verifications on how to optimize power consumption at high level of designing process while maintaining the same energy per operation (low-level methods can be used additionally). This paper demonstrates that it is possible to estimate feasible power consumption savings even at the high level of designing process. It is envisaged that our results can be also applied to other embedded systems applications, not limited to FPGA-based.

Keywords: Power optimization, FPGA, system-level designing, wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: Norlin Pauzi, Ahmad R.M. Yahya, Zairossani Nor, Amirul A. Abdullah

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Strain M was isolated from the latex of Hevea brasiliensis that grow in the rubber farm area of Malaysia Rubber Board. Strain M was tentatively identified as Bacillus sp. Strain M demonstrated high protease production at pH 9, and this was suitable to be applied in rubber processing that was in alkaline conditions. The right and suitable proportion to be used in applying supernatant into the latex was two parts of latex and one part of enzyme. In this proportion, the latex was stable throughout the 72 hours of treatment. The potential of strain M to degrade protein in the natural rubber latex was proven with the reduction of 79.3% nitrogen in 24 hours treatment. Centrifugation process of the latex before undergoing the treatment had increased the protein degradation in latex. Although the centrifugation process did not achieve zero nitrogen content, it had improved the performance of protein denaturing in the natural rubber.

Keywords: Hevea brasiliensis, Bacillus sp., protease, latex.

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Authors: P. Weerachanchai, C. Tangsathitkulchai, M. Tangsathitkulchai

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Attempt was made to improve certain characteristics of bio-oil derived from palm kernel pyrolysis by blending it with diesel fuel and alcohols. Two types of alcohol, ethanol or butanol, was used as cosolvent to stabilize the phase of ternary systems. Phase behaviors and basic fuel properties of palm kernel bio-oildiesel- alcohol systems were investigated in this study. Alcohol types showed a significant influence on the phase characteristics with palm kernel bio-oil-diesel-butanol system giving larger soluble area than that of palm kernel bio-oil-diesel-ethanol system. For fuel properties, blended fuels showed superior properties including lower values of density (~860 kg/m3 at 25°C), viscosity (~4.12 mm2/s at 40°C), carbon residue (1.02-2.53 wt%), ash (0.018-0.034 wt%) and pour point (<-25 to -7 °C), increased pH (~ 6.4) and giving reasonable heating values of 32.5-41.2 MJ/kg. To enable the prediction of some properties of fuel mixtures, the measured fuel properties including heating value, density, ash content and pH were fitted by Kay-s mixing rule, whereas the viscosities of blended fuels at different temperatures were correlated by the modified Grunberg-Nissan equation and Andrade equation.

Keywords: Bio-oil, fuel blend, fuel properties, phase behaviour.

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Authors: Nidal H. Abu-Zahra, Subhashini Gunashekar

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Polyurethane foam is functionalized with Sulfonic acid groups to remove lead ions (Pb²⁺) from drinking water through a cation exchange process. The synthesis is based on addition polymerization of the -NCO groups of an isocyanate with the –OH groups of a polyol to form the urethane. Toluene-diisocyanateis reacted with Polypropylene glycol to form a linear pre-polymer, which is further polymerized using a chain extender, N, N-bis(2-hydorxyethyl)-2-aminoethane-sulfonic acid (BES). BES acts as a functional group site to exchange Pb²⁺ ions. A set of experiments was designed to study the effect of various processing parameters on the performance of the synthesized foam. The maximum Pb²⁺ ion exchange capacity of the foam was found to be 47ppb/g from a 100ppb Pb²⁺ solution over a period of 60 minutes. A multistage batch filtration process increased the lead removal to 50-54ppb/3g of foam over a period of 90 minutes.

Keywords: Adsorption, Functionalized, Ion exchange, Polyurethane, Sulfonic.

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Authors: Melike Şah, Konstantin Y.Degtiarev

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This paper proposes a novel improvement of forecasting approach based on using time-invariant fuzzy time series. In contrast to traditional forecasting methods, fuzzy time series can be also applied to problems, in which historical data are linguistic values. It is shown that proposed time-invariant method improves the performance of forecasting process. Further, the effect of using different number of fuzzy sets is tested as well. As with the most of cited papers, historical enrollment of the University of Alabama is used in this study to illustrate the forecasting process. Subsequently, the performance of the proposed method is compared with existing fuzzy time series time-invariant models based on forecasting accuracy. It reveals a certain performance superiority of the proposed method over methods described in the literature.

Keywords: Forecasting, fuzzy time series, linguistic values, student enrollment, time-invariant model.

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Authors: Mostafa Jafarian Abyaneh, Khashayar Jafari, Vahab Toufigh

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The cost of experiments on different types of concrete has raised the demand for prediction of their behavior with numerical analysis. In this research, an advanced numerical model has been presented to predict the complete elastic-plastic behavior of polymer concrete (PC), high-strength concrete (HSC), high performance concrete (HPC) along with different steel fiber contents under uniaxial compression. The accuracy of the numerical response was satisfactory as compared to other conventional simple models such as Mohr-Coulomb and Drucker-Prager. In order to predict the complete elastic-plastic behavior of specimens including softening behavior, disturbed state concept (DSC) was implemented by nonlinear finite element analysis (NFEA) and hierarchical single surface (HISS) failure criterion, which is a failure surface without any singularity.

Keywords: Disturbed state concept, hierarchical single surface, failure criterion, high performance concrete, high-strength concrete, nonlinear finite element analysis, polymer concrete, steel fibers, uniaxial compression test.

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Authors: Yao-Tien Wang, Hsiang-Fu Yu, Dung Chen Chiou

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In wireless and mobile communications, this progress provides opportunities for introducing new standards and improving existing services. Supporting multimedia traffic with wireless networks quality of service (QoS). In this paper, a grey-fuzzy controller for radio resource management (GF-RRM) is presented to maximize the number of the served calls and QoS provision in wireless networks. In a wireless network, the call arrival rate, the call duration and the communication overhead between the base stations and the control center are vague and uncertain. In this paper, we develop a method to predict the cell load and to solve the RRM problem based on the GF-RRM, and support the present facility has been built on the application-level of the wireless networks. The GF-RRM exhibits the better adaptability, fault-tolerant capability and performance than other algorithms. Through simulations, we evaluate the blocking rate, update overhead, and channel acquisition delay time of the proposed method. The results demonstrate our algorithm has the lower blocking rate, less updated overhead, and shorter channel acquisition delay.

Keywords: radio resource management, grey prediction, fuzzylogic control, wireless networks, quality of service.

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Authors: M. Sarai Atab, A. Smallbone, A. P. Roskilly

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A thermodynamic study is performed on the Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination process for brackish water. The detailed RO model of thermodynamics properties with and without an energy recovery device was built in Simulink/MATLAB and validated against reported measurement data. The efficiency of desalination plants can be estimated by both the first and second laws of thermodynamics. While the first law focuses on the quantity of energy, the second law analysis (i.e. exergy analysis) introduces quality. This paper used the Main Outfall Drain in Iraq as a case study to conduct energy and exergy analysis of RO process. The result shows that it is feasible to use energy recovery method for reverse osmosis with salinity less than 15000 ppm as the exergy efficiency increases twice. Moreover, this analysis shows that the highest exergy destruction occurs in the rejected water and lowest occurs in the permeate flow rate accounting 37% for 4.3% respectively.

Keywords: Brackish water, exergy, irrigation, reverse osmosis.

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Authors: Nameesh Miglani, Rajeev Saha, R. S. Parihar

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Estimation of the quality regarding higher education within a university is practically long drawn process besides being difficult to measure primarily due to lack of a standard scale. National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) evolved a methodology of assessment which involves self-appraisal by each university/college and an assessment of performance by an expert committee. The attributes involved in assessing a university may not be totally independent from each other thereby necessitating the consideration of interdependencies. The present study focuses on evaluation of assessment criteria using graph theoretic approach and fuzzy treatment of data collected from the students. The technique will provide a suitable platform to university management team to cross check assessment of education quality by considering interdependencies of the attributes using graph theory.

Keywords: Graph theory, NAAC accreditation criteria, Indian University accreditation process.

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Authors: Aminu J. A. Koguna, Aliyu M. Aliyu, Olawale T. Fajemidupe, Yahaya D. Baba

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Production fluids are transported from the platform to tankers or process facilities through transfer pipelines. Water being one of the heavier phases tends to settle at the bottom of pipelines especially at low flow velocities and this has adverse consequences for pipeline integrity. On restart after a shutdown, this could result in corrosion and issues for process equipment, thus the need to have the heavier liquid dispersed into the flowing lighter fluid. This study looked at the flow regime of low water cut and low flow velocity oil and water flow using conductive film thickness probes in a large diameter 4-inch pipe to obtain oil and water interface height and the interface structural velocity. A wide range of 0.1–1.0 m/s oil and water mixture velocities was investigated for 0.5–5% water cut. Two fluid model predictions were used to compare with the experimental results.

Keywords: Interface height, liquid-liquid flow, two-fluid model, water cut.

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Authors: Lei Zhang, Wen-jun Ruan, Hao Wang, Peng-xin Wang

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The source of the jet noise is generated by rocket exhaust plume during rocket engine testing. A domain decomposition approach is applied to the jet noise prediction in this paper. The aerodynamic noise coupling is based on the splitting into acoustic sources generation and sound propagation in separate physical domains. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is used to simulate the supersonic jet flow. Based on the simulation results of the flow-fields, the jet noise distribution of the sound pressure level is obtained by applying the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) acoustics equation and Fourier transform. The calculation results show that the complex structures of expansion waves, compression waves and the turbulent boundary layer could occur due to the strong interaction between the gas jet and the ambient air. In addition, the jet core region, the shock cell and the sound pressure level of the gas jet increase with the nozzle size increasing. Importantly, the numerical simulation results of the far-field sound are in good agreement with the experimental measurements in directivity.

Keywords: Supersonic gas jet, Large Eddy Simulation(LES), acoustic noise, Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) equations, nozzle size.

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Authors: Eng. Alaa K. Satti Salih

Abstract:

Revolutions Applications such as telecommunications, hands-free communications, recording, etc. which need at least one microphone, the signal is usually infected by noise and echo. The important application is the speech enhancement, which is done to remove suppressed noises and echoes taken by a microphone, beside preferred speech. Accordingly, the microphone signal has to be cleaned using digital signal processing DSP tools before it is played out, transmitted, or stored. Engineers have so far tried different approaches to improving the speech by get back the desired speech signal from the noisy observations. Especially Mobile communication, so in this paper will do reconstruction of the speech signal, observed in additive background noise, using the Kalman filter technique to estimate the parameters of the Autoregressive Process (AR) in the state space model and the output speech signal obtained by the MATLAB. The accurate estimation by Kalman filter on speech would enhance and reduce the noise then compare and discuss the results between actual values and estimated values which produce the reconstructed signals.

Keywords: Autoregressive Process, Kalman filter, Matlab and Noise speech.

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Authors: Adel Sabry Eesa, Adnan Mohsin Abdulazeez Brifcani, Zeynep Orman

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This paper presents a new meta-heuristic bio-inspired optimization algorithm which is called Cuttlefish Algorithm (CFA). The algorithm mimics the mechanism of color changing behavior of the cuttlefish to solve numerical global optimization problems. The colors and patterns of the cuttlefish are produced by reflected light from three different layers of cells. The proposed algorithm considers mainly two processes: reflection and visibility. Reflection process simulates light reflection mechanism used by these layers, while visibility process simulates visibility of matching patterns of the cuttlefish. To show the effectiveness of the algorithm, it is tested with some other popular bio-inspired optimization algorithms such as Genetic Algorithms (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Bees Algorithm (BA) that have been previously proposed in the literature. Simulations and obtained results indicate that the proposed CFA is superior when compared with these algorithms.

Keywords: Cuttlefish Algorithm, bio-inspired algorithms, optimization.

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Authors: Reena Murali, David Peter S.

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The small interfering RNA (siRNA) alters the regulatory role of mRNA during gene expression by translational inhibition. Recent studies show that upregulation of mRNA because serious diseases like cancer. So designing effective siRNA with good knockdown effects plays an important role in gene silencing. Various siRNA design tools had been developed earlier. In this work, we are trying to analyze the existing good scoring second generation siRNA predicting tools and to optimize the efficiency of siRNA prediction by designing a computational model using Artificial Neural Network and whole stacking energy (%G), which may help in gene silencing and drug design in cancer therapy. Our model is trained and tested against a large data set of siRNA sequences. Validation of our results is done by finding correlation coefficient of experimental versus observed inhibition efficacy of siRNA. We achieved a correlation coefficient of 0.727 in our previous computational model and we could improve the correlation coefficient up to 0.753 when the threshold of whole tacking energy is greater than or equal to -32.5 kcal/mol.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Double Stranded RNA, RNA Interference, Short Interfering RNA.

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Authors: Kiyohiro Yamazaki

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This paper considers a forming process of a single competitive factor in the digital camera industry from the viewpoint of product platform. To make product development easier for companies and to increase product introduction ratios, development efforts concentrate on improving and strengthening certain product attributes, and it is born in the process that the product platform is formed continuously. It is pointed out that the formation of this product platform raises product development efficiency of individual companies, but on the other hand, it has a trade-off relationship of causing unification of competitive factors in the whole industry. This research tries to analyze product specification data which were collected from the web page of digital camera companies. Specifically, this research collected all product specification data released in Japan from 1995 to 2003 and analyzed the composition of image sensor and optical lens; and it identified product platforms shared by multiple products and discussed their application. As a result, this research found that the product platformation was born in the development of the standard product for major market segmentation. Every major company has made product platforms of image sensors and optical lenses, and as a result, this research found that the competitive factors were unified in the entire industry throughout product platformation. In other words, this product platformation brought product development efficiency of individual firms; however, it also caused industrial competition factors to be unified in the industry.

Keywords: Digital camera industry, product evolution trajectory, product platform, unification of competitive factors.

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Authors: Awais Ahmad Khan, Emad Abouel Nasr, H. M. A. Hussein, Abdulrahman Al-Ahmari

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Sheet-metal parts have been widely applied in electronics, communication and mechanical industries in recent decades; but the advancement in sheet-metal part design and manufacturing is still behind in comparison with the increasing importance of sheet-metal parts in modern industry. This paper presents a methodology for automatic extraction of some common 2D internal sheet metal features. The features used in this study are taken from Unipunch ™ catalogue. The extraction process starts with the data extraction from STEP file using an object oriented approach and with the application of suitable algorithms and rules, all features contained in the catalogue are automatically extracted. Since the extracted features include geometry and engineering information, they will be effective for downstream application such as feature rebuilding and process planning.

Keywords: Feature Extraction, Internal Features, Punch Shapes, Sheet metal, STEP.

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Authors: L. Tirabeni, K. E. Soderquist, P. Pisano

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Our purpose is to investigate how the relationship between employees and innovation management processes can drive organizations to successful innovations. This research is deeply related to a new way of thinking about human resources management practices. It’s not simply about improving the employees’ engagement, but rather about a different and more radical commitment: the employee can take on the role traditionally played by the customer, namely to become the first tester of an innovative product or service, the first user/customer and eventually the first investor in the innovation. This new perception of employees could create the basis of a novelty in the innovation process where innovation is taken to a next level when the problems with customer driven innovation on the one hand, and employees driven innovation on the other can be balanced. This research identifies an effective approach to innovation where the employees will participate throughout the whole innovation process, not only in the idea creation but also in the idea definition and development by giving feedback in parallel to that provided by customers and lead-users.

Keywords: Employee-Driven Innovation, engagement, human resource management, innovative companies.

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Authors: Antonios Paraskevas, Michael Madas

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For a university to maintain its international competitiveness in education, it is essential to recruit qualitative academic staff as it constitutes its most valuable asset. This selection demonstrates a significant role in achieving strategic objectives, particularly by emphasizing a firm commitment to exceptional student experience and innovative teaching and learning practices of high quality. In this vein, the appropriate selection of academic staff establishes a very important factor of competitiveness, efficiency and reputation of an academic institute. Within this framework, our work demonstrates a comprehensive methodological concept that emphasizes on the multi-criteria nature of the problem and on how decision makers could utilize our approach in order to proceed to the appropriate judgment. The conceptual framework introduced in this paper is built upon a hybrid neutrosophic method based on the Neutrosophic Analytical Hierarchy Process (N-AHP), which uses the theory of neutrosophy sets and is considered suitable in terms of significant degree of ambiguity and indeterminacy observed in decision-making process. To this end, our framework extends the N-AHP by incorporating the Neutrosophic Delphi Method (N-DM). By applying the N-DM, we can take into consideration the importance of each decision-maker and their preferences per evaluation criterion. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed model stands out within the realm of related literature as one of the few studies to employ N-DM in the context of academic staff selection. As a case study, it was decided to use our method to a real problem of academic personnel selection, having as main goal to enhance the algorithm proposed in previous scholars’ work, and thus taking care of the inherit ineffectiveness which becomes apparent in traditional multi-criteria decision-making methods when dealing with situations alike. As a further result, we prove that our method demonstrates greater applicability and reliability when compared to other decision models.

Keywords: Analytical Hierarchy Process, Delphi Method, Multi-criteria decision making methods, neutrosophic set theory, personnel recruitment.

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Authors: Jia-Jang Wu

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This paper presents the scaling laws that provide the criteria of geometry and dynamic similitude between the full-size rotor-shaft system and its scale model, and can be used to predict the torsional vibration characteristics of the full-size rotor-shaft system by manipulating the corresponding data of its scale model. The scaling factors, which play fundamental roles in predicting the geometry and dynamic relationships between the full-size rotor-shaft system and its scale model, for torsional free vibration problems between scale and full-size rotor-shaft systems are firstly obtained from the equation of motion of torsional free vibration. Then, the scaling factor of external force (i.e., torque) required for the torsional forced vibration problems is determined based on the Newton’s second law. Numerical results show that the torsional free and forced vibration characteristics of a full-size rotor-shaft system can be accurately predicted from those of its scale models by using the foregoing scaling factors. For this reason, it is believed that the presented approach will be significant for investigating the relevant phenomenon in the scale model tests.

Keywords: Torsional vibration, full-size model, scale model, scaling laws.

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Authors: Mikel Alonso López, María Francisca Blasco López, Víctor Molero Ayala

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The present study explains the somatic marker theory of Antonio Damasio, which indicates that when making a decision, the stored or possible future scenarios (future memory) images allow people to feel for a moment what would happen when they make a choice, and how this is emotionally marked. This process can be conscious or unconscious. The development of new Neuromarketing techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), carries a greater understanding of how the brain functions and consumer behavior. In the results observed in different studies using fMRI, the evidence suggests that the somatic marker and future memories influence the decision-making process, adding a positive or negative emotional component to the options. This would mean that all decisions would involve a present emotional component, with a rational cost-benefit analysis that can be performed later.

Keywords: Emotions, decision making, somatic marker, consumer´s brain.

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Authors: Gül Tekin Temur, Tolga Kaya, Serpil Öktem, Sıtkı Gözlü

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The purpose of this study is to reveal the principles, which have the highest impact on determining the Strategic Quality Management (SQM) implementation perceptions of managers. In order to accomplish this goal, first of all, a factor analysis is conducted on the attitudes of managers at 80 large-scale firms in Turkey for SQM principles. Secondly, utilizing t tests and discriminant analysis, the most effective items are determined. The results show that “process improvement" and “assessment of competitiveness" are the management principles, which have the highest impact on determining the SQM implementation perceptions of Turkish managers.

Keywords: Assessment of Competitiveness, Process Improvement, Strategic Quality Management.

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Authors: Marita Canina, Carmen Bruno

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Digital Do It Yourself (DIY) is a contemporary socio-technological phenomenon, enabled by technological tools. The nature and potential long-term effects of this phenomenon have been widely studied within the framework of the EU funded project ‘Digital Do It Yourself’, in which the authors have created and experimented a specific Digital Do It Yourself (DiDIY) co-design process. The phenomenon was first studied through a literature research to understand its multiple dimensions and complexity. Therefore, co-design workshops were used to investigate the phenomenon by involving people to achieve a complete understanding of the DiDIY practices and its enabling factors. These analyses allowed the definition of the DiDIY fundamental factors that were then translated into a design tool. The objective of the tool is to shape design concepts by transferring these factors into different environments to achieve innovation. The aim of this paper is to present the ‘DiDIY Factor Stimuli’ tool, describing the research path and the findings behind it.

Keywords: Co-design process, digital DIY, innovation, toolkit.

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Authors: Matheus Borges Carneiro, Fabiane Letícia Lizarelli, José Carlos de Toledo

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The evolution of quality management by companies was strongly enabled by, among others, ISO 9001 certification, which is considered a crucial requirement for several customers. Likewise, performance measurement provides useful insights for companies to identify the reflection of their decision-making process on their improvement. One of the most used performance measurement models is the balanced scorecard (BSC), which uses four perspectives to address a firm’s performance: financial, internal process, customer satisfaction, and learning and growth. Since ISO 9001 certified firms are likely to measure their performance through BSC approach, it is important to verify whether the certificate influences the firm performance or not. Therefore, this paper aims to verify the impact of ISO 9001:2015 on Brazilian firms’ performance based on the BSC perspective. Hence, nine certified companies located in the Southeast region of Brazil were studied through a multiple case study approach. Within this study, it was possible to identify the positive impact of ISO 9001 on firms’ overall performance, and four Critical Success Factors (CSFs) were identified as relevant on the linkage among ISO 9001 and firms’ performance: employee involvement, top management, process management, and customer focus. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of interviews was limited to the quality manager specialist, and the sample was limited since several companies were closed during the period of the study. This study presents an in-depth analysis of how the relationship between ISO 9001 certification and firms’ performance in a developing country is.

Keywords: Balanced scorecard, Brazilian firms’ performance, critical success factors, ISO 9001 certification, performance measurement.

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Authors: Khairul Bariah Sulaiman, Tajul Aris Yang

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Fermentation is well known as an essential process to develop chocolate flavor in dried cocoa beans. Besides developing the precursor of cocoa flavor, it also induces the color changes in the beans. The fermentation process is influenced by various factors such as planting material, preconditioning of cocoa pod and fermentation technique. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate color of Malaysian cocoa beans and how the duration of pods storage and fermentation technique using shallow box will effect on its color characteristics. There are two factors being studied i.e. duration of cocoa pod storage (0, 2, 4 and 6 days) and duration of cocoa fermentation (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 days). The experiment is arranged in 4 x 6 factorial designs with 24 treatments and arrangement is in a Completely Randomised Design (CRD). The produced beans are inspected for color changes under artificial light during cut test and divided into four groups of color namely fully brown, purple brown, fully purple and slaty. Cut tests indicated that cocoa beans which are directly dried without undergone fermentation has the highest slaty percentage. However, application of pods storage before fermentation process is found to decrease the slaty percentage. In contrast, the percentages of fully brown beans start to dominate after two days of fermentation, especially from four and six days of pods storage batch. Whereas, almost all batches of cocoa beans have a percentage of fully purple less than 20%. Interestingly, the percentage of purple brown beans are scattered in the entire beans batch regardless any specific trend. Meanwhile, statistical analysis using General Linear Model showed that the pods storage has a significant effect on the color characteristic of the Malaysian dried beans compared to fermentation duration.

Keywords: Cocoa beans, color, fermentation, shallow box.

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Authors: Ch. Nerl, M. Wimmer, P. Hofer, E. Kaschnitz

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The present article deals with a composite casting process that allows to produce bilayer AlSn6-Al strips based on the technique of horizontal continuous casting. In the first part experimental investigations on the production of a single layer AlSn6 strip are described. Afterwards essential results of basic compound casting trials using simple test specimen are presented to define the thermal conditions required for a metallurgical compound between the alloy AlSn6 and pure aluminium. Subsequently, numerical analyses are described. A finite element model was used to examine a continuous composite casting process. As a result of the simulations the main influencing parameters concerning the thermal conditions within the composite casting region could be pointed out. Finally, basic guidance is given for the design of an appropriate composite mould system.

Keywords: Aluminium alloys, composite casting, compound casting, continuous casting, numerical simulation

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Authors: K. Majumdar, S. Datta

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Electricity is recognized as fundamental to industrialization and improving the quality of life of the people. Harnessing the immense untapped hydropower potential in Tripura region opens avenues for growth and provides an opportunity to improve the well-being of the people of the region, while making substantial contribution to the national economy. Gumti hydro power plant generates power to mitigate the crisis of power in Tripura, India. The first unit of hydro power plant (5MW) was commissioned in June 1976 & another two units of 5 MW was commissioned simultaneously. But out of 15MW capacity at present only 8MW- 9MW power is produced from Gumti hydro power plant during rainy season. But during lean season the production reduces to 0.5MW due to shortage of water. Now, it is essential to implement some mitigation measures so that the further atrocities can be prevented and originality will be possible to restore. The decision making ability of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Concordance Analysis Techniques (CAT) are utilized to identify the better decision or solution to the present problem. Some related attributes are identified by the method of surveying within the experts and the available reports and literatures. Similar criteria are removed and ultimately seven relevant ones are identified. All the attributes are compared with each other and rated accordingly to their importance over the other with the help of Pair wise Comparison Matrix. In the present investigation different mitigation measures are identified and compared to find the best suitable alternative which can solve the present uncertainties involving the existence of the Gumti Hydro Power Plant.

Keywords: Concordance Analysis Techniques, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Hydro Power.

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Authors: Ljubomir Nikolic, Larisa Trichtchenko

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The connection between solar activity and adverse phenomena in the Earth’s environment that can affect space and ground based technologies has spurred interest in Space Weather (SW) research. A great effort has been put on the development of suitable models that can provide advanced forecast of SW events. With the progress in computational technology, it is becoming possible to develop operational large scale physics based models which can incorporate the most important physical processes and domains of the Sun-Earth system. In order to enhance our SW prediction capabilities we are developing advanced numerical tools. With operational requirements in mind, our goal is to develop a modular simulation framework of propagation of the disturbances from the Sun through interplanetary space to the Earth. Here, we report and discuss on the development of coronal field and solar wind components for a large scale MHD code. The model for these components is based on a potential field source surface model and an empirical Wang-Sheeley-Arge solar wind relation. 

Keywords: Space weather, numerical modeling, coronal field, solar wind.

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Authors: Othoman Elsayah, Naren Gupta, Binsheng Zhang

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The construction sector constitutes one of the most important sectors in the economy of any country. Contractor selection is a critical decision that is undertaken by client organizations and is central to the success of any construction project. Contractor selection (CS) is a process which involves investigating, screening and determining whether candidate contractors have the technical and financial capability to be accepted to formally tender for construction work. The process should be conducted prior to the award of contract, characterized by many factors such as: contactor’s skills, experience on similar projects, track- record in the industry, and financial stability. However, this paper evaluates the current state of knowledge in relation to contractor selection process and demonstrates the findings from the analysis of the data collected from the Delphi questionnaire survey. The survey was conducted with a group of 12 experts working in the Libyan construction industry (LCI). The paper starts by briefly explaining the general outline of the questionnaire including the survey participation rate, the different fields the experts came from, and the business titles of the participants. Then the paper describes the tests used to determine when the experts had reached consensus. The paper is based on research which aims to develop rank contractor selection criteria with specific application to make construction projects in the Libyan context. The findings of this study will be utilized to establish the scope of work that will be used as part of a PhD research.

Keywords: Contractor selection, Libyan construction industry, Decision experts and Delphi technique.

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Authors: Kang Zijian, Zhang Tingyu, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

Abstract:

This article investigates the challenges in memory migration during the live migration of virtual machines. We found three challenges probably existing in pre-copy technology. One of the main challenges is the challenge of downtime migration. Decreasing the downtime could promise the normal work for a virtual machine. Although pre-copy technology is greatly decreasing the downtime, we still need to shut down the machine in order to finish the last round of data transfer. This paper provides an optimization scheme for the problems existing in pro-copy technology, mainly the optimization of the dirty page migration mechanism. The typical pre-copy technology copies n-1th’s dirty pages in nth turn. However, our idea is to create a double iteration method to solve this problem.

Keywords: Virtual machine, pre-copy technology, memory migration process, downtime, dirty pages migration method.

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Authors: Soon-ok Myong, Byong-soon Chun

Abstract:

This paper intends to identify the ethnic Kazakhstani Koreans- political process of identity formation by exploring their narrative and practice about the state language represented in the course of their becoming the new citizens of a new independent state. The Russophone Kazakhstani Koreans- inability to speak the official language of their affiliated state is considered there as dissatisfying the basic requirement of citizens of the independent state, so that they are becoming marginalized from the public sphere. Their contradictory attitude that at once demonstrates nominal reception and practical rejection of the obligatory state language unveils a high barrier inside between their self-language and other-language. In this paper, the ethnic Korean group-s conflicting linguistic identity is not seen as a free and simple choice, but as a dynamic struggle and political process in which the subject-s past experiences and memories intersect with the external elements of pressure.

Keywords: Ethnic Kazakhstani Koreans, Soviet Korean's Russification, Linguistic Identity, Russian-Kazakh Dichotomy.

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