Search results for: Multi-carrier frequency diverse array

Authors: S. V. Ukwungwu, A. J. Abbas, G. G. Nasr

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The increasing high price of natural gas and oil with attendant increase in energy demand on world markets in recent years has stimulated interest in recovering residual oil saturation across the globe. In order to meet the energy security, efforts have been made in developing new technologies of enhancing the recovery of oil and gas, utilizing techniques like CO₂ flooding, water injection, hydraulic fracturing, surfactant flooding etc. Surfactant flooding however optimizes production but poses risk to the environment due to their toxic nature. Amongst proven records that have utilized other type of bacterial in producing biosurfactants for enhancing oil recovery, this research uses a technique to combine biosurfactants that will achieve a scale of EOR through lowering interfacial tension/contact angle. In this study, three biosurfactants were produced from three Bacillus species from freeze dried cultures using sucrose 3 % (w/v) as their carbon source. Two of these produced biosurfactants were screened with the TEMCO Pendant Drop Image Analysis for reduction in IFT and contact angle. Interfacial tension was greatly reduced from 56.95 mN.m^-1 to 1.41 mN.m^-1 when biosurfactants in cell-free culture (Bacillus licheniformis) were used compared to 4. 83mN.m^-1 cell-free culture of Bacillus subtilis. As a result, cell-free culture of (Bacillus licheniformis) changes the wettability of the biosurfactant treatment for contact angle measurement to more water-wet as the angle decreased from 130.75^o to 65.17^o. The influence of microbial treatment on crushed rock samples was also observed by qualitative wettability experiments. Treated samples with biosurfactants remained in the aqueous phase, indicating a water-wet system. These results could prove that biosurfactants can effectively change the chemistry of the wetting conditions against diverse surfaces, providing a desirable condition for efficient oil transport in this way serving as a mechanism for EOR. The environmental friendly effect of biosurfactants applications for industrial purposes play important advantages over chemically synthesized surfactants, with various possible structures, low toxicity, eco-friendly and biodegradability.

Keywords: Bacillus, biosurfactant, enhanced oil recovery, residual oil, wettability.

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Authors: Thomas Meier

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One of the major challenges for sustainable smart building systems is to support device interoperability, i.e. connecting sensor or actuator devices from different vendors, and present their functionality to the external applications. Furthermore, smart building systems are supposed to connect with devices that are not available yet, i.e. devices that become available on the market sometime later. It is of vital importance that a sustainable smart building platform provides an appropriate external interface that can be leveraged by external applications and smart services. An external platform interface must be stable and independent of specific devices and should support flexible and scalable usage scenarios. A typical approach applied in smart home systems is based on a generic device interface used within the smart building platform. Device functions, even of rather complex devices, are mapped to that generic base type interface by means of specific device drivers. Our new approach, presented in this work, extends that approach by using the smart building system’s rule engine to create complex virtual devices that can represent the most diverse properties of real devices. We examined and evaluated both approaches by means of a practical case study using a smart building system that we have developed. We show that the solution we present allows the highest degree of flexibility without affecting external application interface stability and scalability. In contrast to other systems our approach supports complex virtual device configuration on application layer (e.g. by administration users) instead of device configuration at platform layer (e.g. platform operators). Based on our work, we can show that our approach supports almost arbitrarily flexible use case scenarios without affecting the external application interface stability. However, the cost of this approach is additional appropriate configuration overhead and additional resource consumption at the IoT platform level that must be considered by platform operators. We conclude that the concept of complex virtual devices presented in this work can be applied to improve the usability and device interoperability of sustainable intelligent building systems significantly.

Keywords: Complex virtual devices, device integration, device interoperability, Internet of Things, smart building platform.

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Authors: Hang T. T. Truong, Ronald S. Laura, Kylie Shaw

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Within Vietnam's system of higher education, its schools of business play a vital role in supporting the country’s economic objectives. However, the crucial contribution of soft skills for maximal success within the business sector has to date not been adequately recognized by its business schools. This being so, the development of the business school curriculum in Vietnam has not been able to 'catch up', so to say, with the burgeoning need of students for a comprehensive soft skills program designed to meet the national and global business objectives of their potential employers. The burden of the present paper is first to reveal the results of our survey in Vietnam which make explicit the extent to which major Vietnamese industrial employers’ value the potential role that soft skill competencies can play in maximizing business success. Our final task will be to determine which soft skills employers discern as best serving to maximize the economic interests of Vietnam within the global marketplace. Semi-structured telephone interviews have been conducted with the 15 representative Head Employers of Vietnam's reputedly largest and most successful of the diverse business enterprises across Vietnam. The findings of the study indicate that all respondents highly value the increasing importance of soft skills in business success. Our critical analysis of respondent data reveals that 19 essential soft skills are deemed by employers as integral to business workplace efficacy and should thus be integrated into the formal business curriculum. We are confident that our study represents the first comprehensive and specific survey yet undertaken within the business sector in Vietnam which accesses and analyses the opinions of representative employers from major companies across the country in regard to the growing importance of 19 specific soft skills essential for maximizing overall business success. Our research findings also reveal that the integration into business school curriculums nationwide of the soft skills we have identified is of paramount importance to advance the national and global economic interests of Vietnam.

Keywords: Business curriculum, business graduates, employers’ perception, soft skills.

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Authors: Hekmatpanah, M.

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Since the beginning of human history, human activities have caused many changes in the environment. Today, a particular attention should be paid to gaining knowledge about water quality of wetlands which are pristine natural environments rich in genetic reserves. If qualitative conditions of industrial areas (in terms of both physicochemical and biological conditions) are not addressed properly, they could cause disruption in natural ecosystems, especially in rivers. With regards to the quality of water resources, determination of pollutant sources plays a pivotal role in engineering projects as well as designing water quality control systems. Thus, using different methods such as flow duration curves, dischargepollution load model and frequency analysis by HYFA software package, risk of various industrial pollutants in international and ecologically important Gavkhoni wetland is analyzed. In this study, a station located at Varzaneh City is used as the last station on Zayanderud River, from where the river water is discharged into the wetland. Results showed that elements- concentrations often exceeded the allowed level and river water can endanger regional ecosystem. In addition, if the river discharge is managed on Q25 basis, this basis can lower concentrations of elements, keeping them within the normal level.

Keywords: Pollutants Risk, Industry, Flow Discharge, Management, Gavkhoni Wetland

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Authors: Osama Brinji, Wing Kong Chiu, Graham Tew

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Understanding the stability of rail ballast is one of the most important aspects in the railways. An unstable track may cause some issues such as unnecessary vibration and ultimately loss of track quality. The track foundation plays an important role in the stabilization of the railway. The dynamic response of rail ballast in the vicinity of the rail sleeper can affect the stability of the rail track and this has not been studied in detail. A review of literature showed that most of the works focused on the area under the concrete sleeper. Although there are some theories about the shear (longitudinal) effect of the rail ballast, these have not properly been studied and hence are not well understood. The stability of a rail track will depend on the compactness of the ballast in its vicinity. This paper will try to determine the dynamic response of the ballast to identify its resonant behaviour. This preliminary research is one of several studies that examine the vibration response of the granular materials. The main aim is to use this information for future design of sleepers to ensure that any dynamic response of the sleeper will not compromise the state of compactness of the ballast. This paper will report on the dependence of damping and the natural frequency of the ballast as a function of depth and distance from the point of excitation introduced through a concrete block. The concrete block is used to simulate a sleeper and the ballast is simulated with gravel. In spite of these approximations, the results presented in the paper will show an agreement with theories and the assumptions that are used in study the mechanical behaviour of the rail ballast.

Keywords: Ballast, dynamic response, sleeper, stability.

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Authors: Yi Yang, Jiasong Sun

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Almost every aspect of our daily lives is now intertwined with some degree of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). HCI courses draw on knowledge from disciplines as diverse as computer science, psychology, design principles, anthropology and more. The HCI courses in the Department of Electronics at Tsinghua University, known as the Media and Cognition course, is constantly updated to reflect the most advanced technological advances, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence-based interaction. For more than a decade, this course has used an interest-based approach to teaching, in which students proactively propose some research-based questions and collaborate with teachers, using course knowledge to explore potential solutions. Semantic communication plays a key role in facilitating understanding and interaction between users and computer systems, ultimately enhancing system usability and user experience. The advancements in AI-generated technology, which has gained significant attention from both academia and industry in recent years, are exemplified by language models like GPT-3 that generate human-like dialogues from given prompts. The latest version of the HCI course practices a semantic communication platform based on AI-generated techniques. We explored a student-centered model and proposed an interest-based teaching method. Students are no longer just recipients of knowledge, but become active participants in the learning process driven by personal interests, thereby encouraging students to take responsibility for their own education. One of the latest results of this teaching approach in the course "Media and Cognition" is a student proposal to develop a semantic communication platform rooted in artificial intelligence generative technologies. The platform solves a key challenge in communications technology: the ability to preserve visual signals. The interest-based approach emphasizes personal curiosity and active participation, and the proposal of an artificial intelligence-generated semantic communication platform is an example and successful result of how students can exert greater creativity when they have the power to control their own learning.

Keywords: Human-computer interaction, media and cognition course, semantic communication, retain ability, prompts.

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Authors: Marcia T. Mitchell

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This research uses computational linguistics, an area of study that employs a computer to process natural language, and aims at discerning the patterns that exist in declarative sentences used in technical texts. The approach is mathematical, and the focus is on instructional texts found on web pages. The technique developed by the author and named the MAYA Semantic Technique is used here and organized into four stages. In the first stage, the parts of speech in each sentence are identified. In the second stage, the subject of the sentence is determined. In the third stage, MAYA performs a frequency analysis on the remaining words to determine the verb and its object. In the fourth stage, MAYA does statistical analysis to determine the content of the web page. The advantage of the MAYA Semantic Technique lies in its use of mathematical principles to represent grammatical operations which assist processing and accuracy if performed on unambiguous text. The MAYA Semantic Technique is part of a proposed architecture for an entire web-based intelligent tutoring system. On a sample set of sentences, partial semantics derived using the MAYA Semantic Technique were approximately 80% accurate. The system currently processes technical text in one domain, namely Cµ programming. In this domain all the keywords and programming concepts are known and understood.

Keywords: Natural language understanding, computational linguistics, knowledge representation, linguistic theories.

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Authors: Wajiha Javed, Arsalan Jabbar, Nelofer Mehboob, Muhammad Tafseer, Zahid Memon

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Introduction: Researchers globally have strived to explore diverse factors that augment the continuation and uptake of family planning methods. Clients’ satisfaction is one of the core determinants facilitating continuation of family planning methods. There is a major debate yet scanty evidence to contrast public and private sectors with respect to client satisfaction. The objective of this study is to compare quality-of-care provided by public and private sectors of Pakistan through a client satisfaction lens. Methods: We used Pakistan Demographic Heath Survey 2012-13 dataset on 3133 women. Ten different multivariate models were made. to explore the relationship between client satisfaction and dependent outcome after adjusting for all known confounding factors and results are presented as OR and AOR (95% CI). Results: Multivariate analyses showed that clients were less satisfied in contraceptive provision from private sector as compared to public sector (AOR 0.92, 95% CI 0.63-1.68) even though the result was not statistically significant. Clients were more satisfied from private sector as compared to the public sector with respect to other determinants of quality-of-care follow-up care (AOR 3.29, 95% CI 1.95-5.55), infection prevention (AOR 2.41, 95% CI 1.60-3.62), counseling services (AOR 2.01, 95% CI 1.27-3.18, timely treatment (AOR 3.37, 95% CI 2.20-5.15), attitude of staff (AOR 2.23, 95% CI 1.50-3.33), punctuality of staff (AOR 2.28, 95% CI 1.92-4.13), timely referring (AOR 2.34, 95% CI 1.63-3.35), staff cooperation (AOR 1.75, 95% CI 1.22-2.51) and complications handling (AOR 2.27, 95% CI 1.56-3.29). Discussion: Public sector has successfully attained substantial satisfaction levels with respect to provision of contraceptives, but it contrasts previous literature from a multi country studies. Our study though in is concordance with a study from Tanzania where public sector was more likely to offer family planning services to clients as compared to private facilities. Conclusion: In majority of the developing countries, public sector is more involved in FP service provision; however, in Pakistan clients’ satisfaction in private sector is more, which opens doors for public-private partnerships and collaboration in the near future. 

Keywords: Client satisfaction, Family Planning, Public private partnership, Quality of care

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Authors: Dante Jose R. Amisola, Glenford M. Prospero

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'Driving What’s Next' is a strong campaign of the new administration of De La Salle Lipa in promoting social innovation in quality education. The new leadership directs social innovation in quality education in the institutional directions and initiatives to address real-world challenges with real-world solutions. This research under study aims to qualify the commitment of the institution to extend the Lasallian quality human and Christian education to all, as expressed in the Institution’s new mission-vision statement. The Classic Grounded Theory methodology is employed in the process of generating concepts in reference to the documents, a series of meetings, focus group discussions and other related activities that account for the conceptualization and formulation of the new mission-vision along with the new education innovation framework. Notably, Driving What’s Next is the emergent theory that encapsulates the commitment of giving quality human and Christian education to all. It directs the new leadership in driving social innovation in quality education initiatives. Correspondingly, Driving What’s Next is continually resolved through four interrelated strategies also termed as the institution's four strategic directions, namely: (1) driving social innovation in quality education, (2) embracing our shared humanity and championing social inclusion and justice initiatives, (3) creating sustainable futures and (4) engaging diverse stakeholders in our shared mission. Significantly, the four strategic directions capture and integrate the 17 UN sustainable development goals, making the innovative curriculum locally and globally relevant. To conclude, the main concern of the new administration and how it is continually resolved, provide meaningful and fun learning experiences and promote a new way of learning in the light of the 21^st century skills among the members of the academic community including stakeholders and extended communities at large, which are defined as: learning together and by association (collaboration), learning through engagement (communication), learning by design (creativity) and learning with social impact (critical thinking).

Keywords: De La Salle Lipa, Driving What’s Next, social innovation in quality education, DLSL mission - vision, strategic directions.

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Authors: Amani Ashari, Julia Omar, Arif Hashim, Shahrul Hamid

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Apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene polymorphism has influence on serum lipids which relates to cardiovascular risk. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency distribution of APOE alleles among Malaysian Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM) patients with and without coronary artery disease (CAD) and their association with serum lipid profiles. A total of 115 patients were recruited in which 78 patients had Type 2 DM without CAD and 37 patients had Type 2 DM with CAD. The APOE polymorphism was detected by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). The APOE ɛ3 allele was the most common one in both groups. There was no significant association between the APOE genotypes and the CAD status in Type 2 DM using Pearson χ² test. Further analysis indicated there were no significant differences in all lipid parameters between E2, E3 and E4 subgroups in both groups. The study showed that the E4 allele carriers of Type 2 DM with CAD patients had higher LDL-C level and lower HDL-C level compared to the other allele carriers. However, analyses showed these levels were not statistically different. The study also showed that the Type 2 DM with CAD group with E2 allele had higher triglyceride (TG). In conclusion, further study with larger sample size is needed to confirm role of E4 as a marker of CAD among Type 2 DM patients in Malaysian population.

Keywords: Apolipoprotein E, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, lipids.

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Authors: A. Baith Mohamed, Ayman Abdel-Hamid, Kareem Youssri Mohamed

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Current proposals for E-passport or ID-Card is similar to a regular passport with the addition of tiny contactless integrated circuit (computer chip) inserted in the back cover, which will act as a secure storage device of the same data visually displayed on the photo page of the passport. In addition, it will include a digital photograph that will enable biometric comparison, through the use of facial recognition technology at international borders. Moreover, the e-passport will have a new interface, incorporating additional antifraud and security features. However, its problems are reliability, security and privacy. Privacy is a serious issue since there is no encryption between the readers and the E-passport. However, security issues such as authentication, data protection and control techniques cannot be embedded in one process. In this paper, design and prototype implementation of an improved E-passport reader is presented. The passport holder is authenticated online by using GSM network. The GSM network is the main interface between identification center and the e-passport reader. The communication data is protected between server and e-passport reader by using AES to encrypt data for protection will transferring through GSM network. Performance measurements indicate a 19% improvement in encryption cycles versus previously reported results.

Keywords: RFID "Radio Frequency Identification", EPC"Electronic Product Code", ICAO "International Civil Aviation Organization", IFF "Identify Friend or Foe"

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Authors: Orpita U. Laz, Ataur Rahman

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

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

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Authors: A. Selmi

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Free vibration analysis of homogenous and axially functionally graded simply supported beams within the context of Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is presented in this paper. The material properties of the beams are assumed to obey the linear law distribution. The effective elastic modulus of the composite was predicted by using the rule of mixture. Here, the complexities which appear in solving differential equation of transverse vibration of composite beams which limit the analytical solution to some special cases are overcome using a relatively new approach called the Differential Transformation Method. This technique is applied for solving differential equation of transverse vibration of axially functionally graded beams. Natural frequencies and corresponding normalized mode shapes are calculated for different Young’s modulus ratios. MATLAB code is designed to solve the transformed differential equation of the beam. Comparison of the present results with the exact solutions proves the effectiveness, the accuracy, the simplicity, and computational stability of the differential transformation method. The effect of the Young’s modulus ratio on the normalized natural frequencies and mode shapes is found to be very important.

Keywords: Differential transformation method, functionally graded material, mode shape, natural frequency.

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Authors: F. Rashno Seydari, M. Nikafrooz

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This paper intends to study needs analysis of hearing-impaired students’ teachers in elementary schools all over Iran. The subjects of this study were 275 teachers who were teaching hearing-impaired students in elementary schools. The participants were selected by a quota sampling method. To collect the data, questionnaires of training needs consisting of 41 knowledge items and 31 performance items were used. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS software in the form of descriptive analyses (frequency and mean) and inferential analyses (one sample t-test, paired t-test, independent t-test, and Pearson correlation coefficient). The findings of the study indicated that teachers generally have considerable needs in knowledge and performance domains. In 32 items out of the total 41 knowledge domain items and in the 27 items out of the total 31 performance domain items, the teachers had considerable needs. From the quantitative point of view, the needs of the performance domain were more than those of the knowledge domain, so they have to be considered as the first priority in training these teachers. There was no difference between the level of the needs of male and female teachers. There was a significant difference between the knowledge and performance domain needs and the teachers’ teaching experience, 0.354 and 0.322 respectively. The teachers who had been trained in working with hearing-impaired students expressed more training needs (both knowledge and performance).

Keywords: Needs analysis, hearing impaired students, hearing impaired students’ teachers, knowledge domain, performance domain.

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Authors: J.S. Ubhi, M.S. Patterh, T.S. Kamal

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In this paper, the effect of transmission codes on the performance of coherent square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (CSMQAM) under hybrid selection/maximal-ratio combining (H-S/MRC) diversity is analysed. The fading channels are modeled as frequency non-selective slow independent and identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). The results for coded MQAM are computed numerically for the case of (24,12) extended Golay code and compared with uncoded MQAM under H-S/MRC diversity by plotting error probabilities versus average signal to noise ratio (SNR) for various values L and N in order to examine the improvement in the performance of the digital communications system as the number of selected diversity branches is increased. The results for no diversity, conventional SC and Lth order MRC schemes are also plotted for comparison. Closed form analytical results derived in this paper are sufficiently simple and therefore can be computed numerically without any approximations. The analytical results presented in this paper are expected to provide useful information needed for design and analysis of digital communication systems over wireless fading channels.

Keywords: Error probability, diversity reception, Rayleigh fading channels, wireless digital communications.

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Authors: Celso A. G. Santos, Paula K. M. M. Freire

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The urban centers within northeastern Brazil are mainly influenced by the intense rainfalls, which can occur after long periods of drought, when flood events can be observed during such events. Thus, this paper aims to study the rainfall frequencies in such region through the wavelet transform. An application of wavelet analysis is done with long time series of the total monthly rainfall amount at the capital cities of northeastern Brazil. The main frequency components in the time series are studied by the global wavelet spectrum and the modulation in separated periodicity bands were done in order to extract additional information, e.g., the 8 and 16 months band was examined by an average of all scales, giving a measure of the average annual variance versus time, where the periods with low or high variance could be identified. The important increases were identified in the average variance for some periods, e.g. 1947 to 1952 at Teresina city, which can be considered as high wet periods. Although, the precipitation in those sites showed similar global wavelet spectra, the wavelet spectra revealed particular features. This study can be considered an important tool for time series analysis, which can help the studies concerning flood control, mainly when they are applied together with rainfall-runoff simulations.

Keywords: rainfall data, urban center, wavelet transform.

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Authors: Orly Redlich

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In the age of social distance, which has been added to an individual and competitive worldview, it has become important to find a way to promote closeness and personal touch. The sense of social belonging and the existence of positive interaction with others have recently become a considerable necessity. Therefore, this theoretical paper will review one of the familiar and common concepts among different cultures around the world – birthday. This paper has a theoretical contribution that deepens the understanding of the birthday concept. Birthday rituals are historical and universal events, which noted since the prehistoric eras. In ancient history, birthday rituals were solely reserved for kings and nobility members, but over the years, birthday celebrations have evolved into a worldwide tradition. Some of the familiar birthday customs and symbols are currently common among most cultures, while some cultures have adopted for themselves unique birthday customs, which characterized their values and traditions. The birthday concept has a unique significance in Judaism as well, historically, religiously, and socially: It is considered as a lucky day and a private holiday for the celebrant. Therefore, the present paper reviews diverse birthday customs around the world in different cultures, including Judaism, and marks important birthdays throughout history. The paper also describes how the concept of birthday appears over the years in songs, novels, and art, and presents quotes from distinguished sages. The theoretical review suggests that birthday has a special meaning as a time-mark in the cycle of life, and as a socialization means in human development. Moreover, the birthday serves as a symbol of belonging and group cohesiveness, a day in which the celebrant's sense of belonging and sense of importance are strengthened and nurtured. Thus, the reappearance of these elements in a family or group interaction during the birthday ceremony allows the celebrant to absorb positive impressions about himself. In view of the extensive theoretical review, it seems that the unique importance of birthdays can serve as the foundation for intervention programs that may affect the participants’ sense of belonging and empowerment. In the group aspect, perhaps it can also yield therapeutic factors within a group. Concrete recommendations are presented at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Birthday, universal events, rituals, positive interaction, group cohesiveness.

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Authors: Sevgi Birsel Nemlioğlu, Hasan Atak

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Aggression is a behavior that cannot be approved by the society. Vandalism which is aggression towards objects is an action that tends to damage public or personal property. The behaviors that are described as vandalism can often be observed in the schools as well. According to Zwier and Vaughan (1) previous research about the reasons of and precautionary measures for vandalism in schools can be grouped in three tendency categories: conservative, liberal and radical. In this context, the main aim of this study is to discover which ideological tendency of the reasons of school vandalism is adopted by the teachers and what are their physical, environmental, school system and societal solutions for vandalism. A total of 200 teachers participated in this study, and the mean age was 34.20 years (SD = 6.54). The sample was made up of 109 females and 91 males. For the analysis of the data, SPSS 15.00, frequency, percentage, and t-test were used. The research showed that the teachers have tendencies in the order of conservative, liberal and radical for the reasons of vandalism. The research also showed that the teachers do not have any tendency for eliminating vandalism physically and general solutions on the level of society; on the other hand they mostly adopt a conservative tendency in terms of precautions against vandalism in the school system. Second most, they adopt the liberal tendency in terms of precautions against vandalism in the school system. . It is observed that the findings of this study are comparable to the existing literature on the subject. Future studies should be conducted with multiple variants and bigger sampling.

Keywords: Vandalism, School, Vandal, Turkey, Teacher, Tendency.

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Authors: Muhamad S., Norasrudin S, Rahmat A.

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The objective of current study is to investigate the differences of winning and losing teams in terms of goal scoring and passing sequences. Total of 31 matches from UEFA-EURO 2012 were analyzed and 5 matches were excluded from analysis due to matches end up drawn. There are two groups of variable used in the study which is; i. the goal scoring variable and: ii. passing sequences variable. Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon matched pair rank test with significant value set at p < 0.05. Current study found the timing of goal scored was significantly higher for winning team at 1st half (Z=-3.416, p=.001) and 2nd half (Z=-3.252, p=.001). The scoring frequency was also found to be increase as time progressed and the last 15 minutes of the game was the time interval the most goals scored. The indicators that were significantly differences between winning and losing team were the goal scored (Z=-4.578, p=.000), the head (Z=-2.500, p=.012), the right foot (Z=-3.788,p=.000), corner (Z=-.2.126,p=.033), open play (Z=-3.744,p=.000), inside the penalty box (Z=-4.174, p=.000) , attackers (Z=-2.976, p=.003) and also the midfielders (Z=-3.400, p=.001). Regarding the passing sequences, there are significance difference between both teams in short passing sequences (Z=-.4.141, p=.000). While for the long passing, there were no significance difference (Z=-.1.795, p=.073). The data gathered in present study can be used by the coaches to construct detailed training program based on their objectives.

Keywords: Football, goals scored, passing, timing.

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Authors: M. Hetmańczyk, R. Polaniak, K. Brukało, E. Grochowska-Niedworok

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Eating behaviours of people are determined by knowledge gained at different stages of life. Children’s diet is especially important. They have to eat meals regularly. Meals should consist of protein, carbohydrates and fat, and drinking the right amount of water. Mistakes in children’s diets affect their health and may lead to health issues such as diabetes, overweight, obesity or malnutrition. The aim of the study was to assess the eating habits among 10-15-year-old children. To achieve this aim, the study included children aged 10-15 years living in Silesia Province, Poland; the participants consisted of 52.08% girls and 47.92% boys. Authorial questionnaire contains 28 questions about eating habits. The results of 192 students were subjected to analysis. The results show that half of the surveyed students participated in physical activity every day. Most children ate 4-5 meals every day, but the breaks between them were too long (four and more hours). Children generally ate cooked meals. Most children ate first breakfast every day, but only one third of studied children ate a second breakfast daily, while 93.75% ate vegetables at least once a day, 94.79% ate fruit at least once a day, and 79.17% drink a daily glass of milk or more. The study found that the eating behaviours of the surveyed children were unsatisfying. While the children did not participate in physical activity often enough, girls took part slightly more often. Children eat second breakfast not often enough. Younger children (10-12 years old) are doing it more often than the older children (13-15 years old). Gender is not a determinant of the frequency of second breakfast consumption.

Keywords: Eating habits, children, diet, nutrition status.

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Authors: Handan Ertaş

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The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between organizational trust level and organizational justice of Municipality officials. Correlational method has been used via descriptive survey model and Organizational Justice Perception Scale, Organizational Trust Inventory and Interpersonal Trust Scale have been applied to 353 participants who work in Konya Metropolitan Municipality and central district municipalities in the study. Frequency as statistical method, Independent Samples t test for binary groups, One Way-ANOVA analyses for multi-groups and Pearson Correlation analysis have been used to determine the relation in the data analysis process.It has been determined in the outcomes of the study that participants have high level of organizational trust, “Interpersonal Trust” is in the first place and there is a significant difference in the favor of male officials in terms of Trust on the Organization Itself and Interpersonal Trust. It has also been understood that officials in district municipalities have higher perception level in all dimensions, there is a significant difference in Trust on the Organization sub-dimension and work status is an important factor on organizational trust perception. Moreover, the study has shown that organizational justice implementations are important in raising trust of official on the organization, administrator and colleagues, and there is a parallel relation between Organizational Trust components and Organizational Trust dimensions.

Keywords: Konya, Organizational Justice, Organizational.

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Authors: Fetah Eren, Ismail Sahin, Ismail Celik, Ahmet Oguz Akturk

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The aim of this study is to discover secondary school students’ perceptions related to information technologies and the connections between concepts in their cognitive structures. A word association test consisting of six concepts related to information technologies is used to collect data from 244 secondary school students. Concept maps that present students’ cognitive structures are drawn with the help of frequency data. Data are analyzed and interpreted according to the connections obtained as a result of the concept maps. It is determined students associate most with these concepts—computer, Internet, and communication of the given concepts, and associate least with these concepts—computer-assisted education and information technologies. These results show the concepts, Internet, communication, and computer, are an important part of students’ cognitive structures. In addition, students mostly answer computer, phone, game, Internet and Facebook as the key concepts. These answers show students regard information technologies as a means for entertainment and free time activity, not as a means for education.

Keywords: Word association test, cognitive structure, information technology, secondary school.

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Authors: Fariba Shavakhi Zavareh, Hadi Fotoohabadi, Reza Sedaghati

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Due to the continuous increment of the load demand, identification of weaker buses, improvement of voltage profile and power losses in the context of the voltage stability problems has become one of the major concerns for the larger, complex, interconnected power systems. The objective of this paper is to review the impact of Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) controller in Wind generators connected electrical network for maintaining voltage stability. Wind energy could be the growing renewable energy due to several advantages. The influence of wind generators on power quality is a significant issue; non uniform power production causes variations in system voltage and frequency. Therefore, wind farm requires high reactive power compensation; the advances in high power semiconducting devices have led to the development of FACTS. The FACTS devices such as for example SVC inject reactive power into the system which helps in maintaining a better voltage profile. The performance is evaluated on an IEEE 14 bus system, two wind generators are connected at low voltage buses to meet the increased load demand and SVC devices are integrated at the buses with wind generators to keep voltage stability. Power flows, nodal voltage magnitudes and angles of the power network are obtained by iterative solutions using MIPOWER.

Keywords: Voltage Profile, FACTS Device, SVC, Distributed Generation.

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Authors: J.-C. Cexus, A.O. Boudraa

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In this paper, a new approach for target recognition based on the Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm of Huang etal. [11] and the energy tracking operator of Teager [13]-[14] is introduced. The conjunction of these two methods is called Teager-Huang analysis. This approach is well suited for nonstationary signals analysis. The impulse response (IR) of target is first band pass filtered into subsignals (components) called Intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) with well defined Instantaneous frequency (IF) and Instantaneous amplitude (IA). Each IMF is a zero-mean AM-FM component. In second step, the energy of each IMF is tracked using the Teager energy operator (TEO). IF and IA, useful to describe the time-varying characteristics of the signal, are estimated using the Energy separation algorithm (ESA) algorithm of Maragos et al .[16]-[17]. In third step, a set of features such as skewness and kurtosis are extracted from the IF, IA and IMF energy functions. The Teager-Huang analysis is tested on set of synthetic IRs of Sonar targets with different physical characteristics (density, velocity, shape,? ). PCA is first applied to features to discriminate between manufactured and natural targets. The manufactured patterns are classified into spheres and cylinders. One hundred percent of correct recognition is achieved with twenty three echoes where sixteen IRs, used for training, are free noise and seven IRs, used for testing phase, are corrupted with white Gaussian noise.

Keywords: Target recognition, Empirical mode decomposition, Teager-Kaiser energy operator, Features extraction.

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Authors: Ahmad Zahran, Ahmed Herzallah, Ahmad Ahmad, Mahran Quraan

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Generation of high DC voltages is necessary for testing the insulation material of high voltage AC transmission lines with long lengths. The harmonic and ripple contents of the output DC voltage supplied by high voltage DC circuits require the use of costly capacitors to smooth the output voltage after rectification. This paper proposes a new modular multiplier high voltage DC generator with embedded Cockcroft-Walton circuits that achieve a negligible harmonic and ripple contents of the output DC voltage without the need for costly filters to produce a nearly constant output voltage. In this new topology, Cockcroft-Walton modules are connected in series to produce a high DC output voltage. The modules are supplied by low input AC voltage sources that have the same magnitude and frequency and shifted from each other by a certain angle to eliminate the harmonics from the output voltage. The small ripple factor is provided by the smoothing column capacitors and the phase shifted input voltages of the cascaded modules. The constituent harmonics within each module are determined using Fourier analysis. The viability of the proposed DC generator for testing purposes and the effectiveness of the cascaded connection are confirmed by numerical simulations using MATLAB/Simulink.

Keywords: Cockcroft-Walton circuit, Harmonics, Ripple factor, HVDC generator.

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Authors: Esam M. Alawadhi, Raed I. Bourisli

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Periodic vortex shedding in pulsating flow inside wavy channel and the effect it has on heat transfer are studied using the finite volume method. A sinusoidally-varying component is superimposed on a uniform flow inside a sinusoidal wavy channel and the effects on the Nusselt number is analyzed. It was found that a unique optimum value of the pulsation frequency, represented by the Strouhal number, exists for Reynolds numbers ranging from 125 to 1000. Results suggest that the gain in heat transfer is related to the process of vortex formation, movement about the troughs of the wavy channel, and subsequent ejection/destruction through the converging section. Heat transfer is the highest when the frequencies of the pulsation and vortex formation approach being in-phase. Analysis of Strouhal number effect on Nu over a period of pulsation substantiates the proposed physical mechanism for enhancement. The effect of changing the amplitude of pulsation is also presented over a period of pulsation, showing a monotonic increase in heat transfer with increasing amplitude. The 60% increase in Nusselt number suggests that sinusoidal fluid pulsation can an effective method for enhancing heat transfer in laminar, wavy-channel flows.

Keywords: Vortex shedding, pulsating flow, wavy channel, CFD.

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Authors: Dakshina Ranjan Kisku, Hunny Mehrotra, Jamuna Kanta Sing, Phalguni Gupta

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Identity verification of authentic persons by their multiview faces is a real valued problem in machine vision. Multiview faces are having difficulties due to non-linear representation in the feature space. This paper illustrates the usability of the generalization of LDA in the form of canonical covariate for face recognition to multiview faces. In the proposed work, the Gabor filter bank is used to extract facial features that characterized by spatial frequency, spatial locality and orientation. Gabor face representation captures substantial amount of variations of the face instances that often occurs due to illumination, pose and facial expression changes. Convolution of Gabor filter bank to face images of rotated profile views produce Gabor faces with high dimensional features vectors. Canonical covariate is then used to Gabor faces to reduce the high dimensional feature spaces into low dimensional subspaces. Finally, support vector machines are trained with canonical sub-spaces that contain reduced set of features and perform recognition task. The proposed system is evaluated with UMIST face database. The experiment results demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed system with high recognition rates.

Keywords: Biometrics, Multiview face Recognition, Gaborwavelets, LDA, SVM.

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Authors: Yen-Ting Wang, Shou-Jing Guo, Hsiu-Kuang Chang, Kenny Wen-Chyuan Chen, Alex J.Y. Lee

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This study examined the effects of eight weeks of whole-body vibration training (WBVT) on vertical and decuple jump performance in handball athletes. Sixteen collegiate Level I handball athletes volunteered for this study. They were divided equally as control group and experimental group (EG). During the period of the study, all athletes underwent the same handball specific training, but the EG received additional WBVT (amplitude: 2 mm, frequency: 20 - 40 Hz) three time per week for eight consecutive weeks. The vertical jump performance was evaluated according to the maximum height of squat jump (SJ) and countermovement jump (CMJ). Single factor ANCOVA was used to examine the differences in each parameter between the groups after training with the pretest values as a covariate. The statistic significance was set at p < .05. After 8 weeks WBVT, the EG had significantly improved the maximal height of SJ (40.92 ± 2.96 cm vs. 48.40 ± 4.70 cm, F = 5.14, p < .05) and the maximal height CMJ (47.25 ± 7.48 cm vs. 52.20 ± 6.25 cm, F = 5.31, p < .05). 8 weeks of additional WBVT could improve the vertical and decuple jump performance in handball athletes. Enhanced motor unit synchronization and firing rates, facilitated muscular contraction stretch-shortening cycle, and improved lower extremity neuromuscular coordination could account for these enhancements.

Keywords: Muscle strength, explosive power, squat jump, and countermovement jump.

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Authors: Wenjuan Du, Jingtian Bi, Tong Wang, Haifeng Wang

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Grid connection of a large-scale wind farm affects power system small-signal angular stability in two aspects. Firstly, connection of the wind farm brings about the change of load flow and configuration of a power system. Secondly, the dynamic interaction is introduced by the wind farm with the synchronous generators (SGs) in the power system. This paper proposes a method to assess the two aspects of the effect of the wind farm on power system small-signal angular stability. The effect of the change of load flow/system configuration brought about by the wind farm can be examined separately by displacing wind farms with constant power sources, then the effect of the dynamic interaction of the wind farm with the SGs can be also computed individually. Thus, a clearer picture and better understanding on the power system small-signal angular stability as affected by grid connection of the large-scale wind farm are provided. In the paper, an example power system with grid connection of a wind farm is presented to demonstrate the proposed approach.

Keywords: power system small-signal angular stability, power system low-frequency oscillations, electromechanical oscillation modes, wind farms, double fed induction generator (DFIG)

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Authors: Fruzsina Pataki-Bittó, Edit Németh

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On the one hand, new technologies and communication tools improve employee productivity and accelerate information and knowledge transfer, while on the other hand, information overload and continuous interruptions make it even harder to concentrate at work. It is a great challenge for companies to find the right balance, while there is also an ongoing demand to recruit and retain the talented employees who are able to adopt the modern work style and effectively use modern communication tools. For this reason, this research does not focus on the objective measures of office interruptions, but aims to find those disruption factors which influence the comfort and job satisfaction of employees, and the way how they feel generally at work. The focus of this research is on how employees feel about the different types of interruptions, which are those they themselves identify as hindering factors, and those they feel as stress factors. By identifying and then reducing these destructive factors, job satisfaction can reach a higher level and employee turnover can be reduced. During the research, we collected information from depth interviews and questionnaires asking about work environment, communication channels used in the workplace, individual communication preferences, factors considered as disruptions, and individual steps taken to avoid interruptions. The questionnaire was completed by 141 office workers from several types of workplaces based in Hungary. Even though 66 respondents are working at Hungarian offices of multinational companies, the research is about the characteristics of the Hungarian labor force. The most important result of the research shows that while more than one third of the respondents consider office noise as a disturbing factor, personal inquiries are welcome and considered useful, even if in such cases the work environment will not be convenient to solve tasks requiring concentration. Analyzing the sizes of the offices, in an open-space environment, the rate of those who consider office noise as a disturbing factor is surprisingly lower than in smaller office rooms. Opinions are more diverse regarding information communication technologies. In addition to the interruption factors affecting the employees' job satisfaction, the research also focuses on the role of the offices in the 21^st century.

Keywords: Information overload, interruption, job satisfaction, office environment, work efficiency.

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