Search results for: Hydrogen power systems
4055 A Classical Method of Optimizing Manufacturing Systems Using a Number of Industrial Engineering Techniques
Authors: John M. Ikome, Martha E. Ikome, Therese Van Wyk
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Productivity optimization of a company can significantly increase the company’s output and productivity which can be in the form of corrective actions of ineffective activities, process simplification, and reduction of variations, responsiveness, and reduction of set-up-time which are all under the classification of waste within the manufacturing environment. Deriving a means to eliminate a number of these issues has a key importance for manufacturing organization. This paper focused on a number of industrial engineering techniques which include a cause and effect diagram, to identify and optimize the method or systems being used. Based on our results, it shows that there are a number of variations within the production processes that can significantly disrupt the expected output.
Keywords: Optimization, fishbone diagram, productivity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10014054 How Do Politicians Recover Their Costs? The Political Economy of Representative Democracy in India
Authors: Subramaniam Chandran
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This paper explores the features of political economy in the dynamics of representative politics in India. Politics is seen as enhancing economic benefits through acquiring and maintenance of power in the realm of democratic set up. The system of representation is riddled with competitive populism. Emerging leaders and parties are forced to accommodate their ideologies in coping with competitive politics. Electoral politics and voting behaviour reflect series of influences mooted by the politicians. Voters are accustomed to expect benefits outs of state exchequer. The electoral competitors show a changing phase of investment and return policy. Every elector has to spend and realize his costs in his tenure. In the case of defeated electors, even the cost recovery is not possible directly; there are indirect means to recover their costs. The series of case studies show the method of party funding, campaign financing, electoral expenditure, and cost recovery. Regulations could not restrict the level of spending. Several cases of disproportionate accumulation of wealth by the politicians reveal that money played a major part in electoral process. The political economy of representative politics hitherto ignores how a politician spends and recovers his cost and multiples his wealth. To be sure, the acquiring and maintenance of power is to enhance the wealth of the electors.
Keywords: Political economy, representative politics, costrecovery, electoral politics
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15514053 Removal of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons from Contaminated Soils by Electrochemical Method
Authors: D. M. Cocârță, I. A. Istrate, C. Streche, D. M. Dumitru
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Soil contamination phenomena are a wide world issue that has received the important attention in the last decades. The main pollutants that have affected soils are especially those resulted from the oil extraction, transport and processing. This paper presents results obtained in the framework of a research project focused on the management of contaminated sites with petroleum products/ REMPET. One of the specific objectives of the REMPET project was to assess the electrochemical treatment (improved with polarity change respect to the typical approach) as a treatment option for the remediation of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) from contaminated soils. Petroleum hydrocarbon compounds attach to soil components and are difficult to remove and degrade. Electrochemical treatment is a physicochemical treatment that has gained acceptance as an alternative method, for the remediation of organic contaminated soils comparing with the traditional methods as bioremediation and chemical oxidation. This type of treatment need short time and have high removal efficiency, being usually applied in heterogeneous soils with low permeability. During the experimental tests, the following parameters were monitored: pH, redox potential, humidity, current intensity, energy consumption. The electrochemical method was applied in an experimental setup with the next dimensions: 450 mm x 150 mm x 150 mm (L x l x h). The setup length was devised in three electrochemical cells that were connected at two power supplies. The power supplies configuration was provided in such manner that each cell has a cathode and an anode without overlapping. The initial value of TPH concentration in soil was of 1420.28 mg/kgdw. The remediation method has been applied for only 21 days, when it was already noticed an average removal efficiency of 31 %, with better results in the anode area respect to the cathode one (33% respect to 27%). The energy consumption registered after the development of the experiment was 10.6 kWh for exterior power supply and 16.1 kWh for the interior one. Taking into account that at national level, the most used methods for soil remediation are bioremediation (which needs too much time to be implemented and depends on many factors) and thermal desorption (which involves high costs in order to be implemented), the study of electrochemical treatment will give an alternative to these two methods (and their limitations).
Keywords: Electrochemical remediation, pollution, soil contamination, total petroleum hydrocarbons
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10824052 Automatic Generation Control of Multi-Area Electric Energy Systems Using Modified GA
Authors: Gayadhar Panda, Sidhartha Panda, C. Ardil
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A modified Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimal selection of parameters for Automatic Generation Control (AGC) of multi-area electric energy systems is proposed in this paper. Simulations on multi-area reheat thermal system with and without consideration of nonlinearity like governor dead band followed by 1% step load perturbation is performed to exemplify the optimum parameter search. In this proposed method, a modified Genetic Algorithm is proposed where one point crossover with modification is employed. Positional dependency in respect of crossing site helps to maintain diversity of search point as well as exploitation of already known optimum value. This makes a trade-off between exploration and exploitation of search space to find global optimum in less number of generations. The proposed GA along with decomposition technique as developed has been used to obtain the optimum megawatt frequency control of multi-area electric energy systems. Time-domain simulations are conducted with trapezoidal integration along with decomposition technique. The superiority of the proposed method over existing one is verified from simulations and comparisons.
Keywords: Automatic Generation Control (AGC), Reheat, Proportional Integral (PI) controller, Dead Band, Genetic Algorithm(GA).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26584051 Analysis of Lightning Surge Condition Effect on Surge Arrester in Electrical Power System by using ATP/EMTP Program
Authors: N. Mungkung, S. Wongcharoen., Tanes Tanitteerapan, C. Saejao, D. Arunyasot
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The condition of lightning surge causes the traveling waves and the temporary increase in voltage in the transmission line system. Lightning is the most harmful for destroying the transmission line and setting devices so it is necessary to study and analyze the temporary increase in voltage for designing and setting the surge arrester. This analysis describes the figure of the lightning wave in transmission line with 115 kV voltage level in Thailand by using ATP/EMTP program to create the model of the transmission line and lightning surge. Because of the limit of this program, it must be calculated for the geometry of the transmission line and surge parameter and calculation in the manual book for the closest value of the parameter. On the other hand, for the effects on surge protector when the lightning comes, the surge arrester model must be right and standardized as metropolitan electrical authority's standard. The candidate compared the real information to the result from calculation, also. The results of the analysis show that the temporary increase in voltage value will be rise to 326.59 kV at the line which is done by lightning when the surge arrester is not set in the system. On the other hand, the temporary increase in voltage value will be 182.83 kV at the line which is done by lightning when the surge arrester is set in the system and the period of the traveling wave is reduced, also. The distance for setting the surge arrester must be as near to the transformer as possible. Moreover, it is necessary to know the right distance for setting the surge arrester and the size of the surge arrester for preventing the temporary increase in voltage, effectively.
Keywords: Lightning surge, surge arrester, electrical power system, ATP/EMTP program.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27664050 Uniform Overlapped Multi-Carrier PWM for a Six-Level Diode Clamped Inverter
Authors: S.Srinivas
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Multi-level voltage source inverters offer several advantages such as; derivation of a refined output voltage with reduced total harmonic distortion (THD), reduction of voltage ratings of the power semiconductor switching devices and also the reduced electro-magnetic-interference problems etc. In this paper, new carrier-overlapped phase-disposition or sub-harmonic sinusoidal pulse width modulation (CO-PD-SPWM) and also the carrieroverlapped phase-disposition space vector modulation (CO-PDSVPWM) schemes for a six-level diode-clamped inverter topology are proposed. The principle of the proposed PWM schemes is similar to the conventional PD-PWM with a little deviation from it in the sense that the triangular carriers are all overlapped. The overlapping of the triangular carriers on one hand results in an increased number of switchings, on the other hand this facilitates an improved spectral performance of the output voltage. It is demonstrated through simulation studies that the six-level diode-clamped inverter with the use of CO-PD-SPWM and CO-PD-SVPWM proposed in this paper is capable of generating multiple levels in its output voltage. The advantages of the proposed PWM schemes can be derived to benefit, especially at lower modulation indices of the inverter and hence this aspect of the proposed PWM schemes can be well exploited in high power applications requiring low speeds of operation of the drive.Keywords: Diode clamped inverter, Pulse width modulation, Six level inverter, carrier based PWM.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19164049 Interactive Model Based On an Extended CPN
Authors: Shuzhen Yao, Fengjing Zhao, Jianwei He
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The UML modeling of complex distributed systems often is a great challenge due to the large amount of parallel real-time operating components. In this paper the problems of verification of such systems are discussed. ECPN, an Extended Colored Petri Net is defined to formally describe state transitions of components and interactions among components. The relationship between sequence diagrams and Free Choice Petri Nets is investigated. Free Choice Petri Net theory helps verifying the liveness of sequence diagrams. By converting sequence diagrams to ECPNs and then comparing behaviors of sequence diagram ECPNs and statecharts, the consistency among models is analyzed. Finally, a verification process for an example model is demonstrated.
Keywords: Consistency, liveness, Petri Net, sequence diagram.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16114048 Specification of a Model of Honeypot Attack Based On Raised Data
Authors: Souleymane Oumtanaga, Prosper Kimou, Kouadio Gaza Kevin
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The security of their network remains the priorities of almost all companies. Existing security systems have shown their limit; thus a new type of security systems was born: honeypots. Honeypots are defined as programs or intended servers which have to attract pirates to study theirs behaviours. It is in this context that the leurre.com project of gathering about twenty platforms was born. This article aims to specify a model of honeypots attack. Our model describes, on a given platform, the evolution of attacks according to theirs hours. Afterward, we show the most attacked services by the studies of attacks on the various ports. It is advisable to note that this article was elaborated within the framework of the research projects on honeyspots within the LABTIC (Laboratory of Information Technologies and Communication).
Keywords: Honeypot, networks, attack, leurrecom, computer network
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14634047 Parallel Particle Swarm Optimization Optimized LDI Controller with Lyapunov Stability Criterion for Nonlinear Structural Systems
Authors: P.-W. Tsai, W.-L. Hong, C.-W. Chen, C.-Y. Chen
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In this paper, we present a neural-network (NN) based approach to represent a nonlinear Tagagi-Sugeno (T-S) system. A linear differential inclusion (LDI) state-space representation is utilized to deal with the NN models. Taking advantage of the LDI representation, the stability conditions and controller design are derived for a class of nonlinear structural systems. Moreover, the concept of utilizing the Parallel Particle Swarm Optimization (PPSO) algorithm to solve the common P matrix under the stability criteria is given in this paper.
Keywords: Lyapunov Stability, Parallel Particle Swarm Optimization, Linear Differential Inclusion, Artificial Intelligence.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18654046 Multivariable System Reduction Using Stability Equation Method and SRAM
Authors: D. Bala Bhaskar
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An algorithm is proposed for the order reduction of large scale linear dynamic multi variable systems where the reduced order model denominator is obtained by using Stability equation method and numerator coefficients are obtained by using SRAM. The proposed algorithm produces a lower order model for an original stable high order multivariable system. The reduction procedure is easy to understand, efficient and computer oriented. To highlight the advantages of the approach, the algorithm is illustrated with the help of a numerical example and the results are compared with the other existing techniques in literature.
Keywords: Multi variable systems, order reduction, stability equation method, SRAM, time domain characteristics, ISE.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7284045 Impact Analysis Based on Change Requirement Traceability in Object Oriented Software Systems
Authors: Sunil Tumkur Dakshinamurthy, Mamootil Zachariah Kurian
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Change requirement traceability in object oriented software systems is one of the challenging areas in research. We know that the traces between links of different artifacts are to be automated or semi-automated in the software development life cycle (SDLC). The aim of this paper is discussing and implementing aspects of dynamically linking the artifacts such as requirements, high level design, code and test cases through the Extensible Markup Language (XML) or by dynamically generating Object Oriented (OO) metrics. Also, non-functional requirements (NFR) aspects such as stability, completeness, clarity, validity, feasibility and precision are discussed. We discuss this as a Fifth Taxonomy, which is a system vulnerability concern.
Keywords: Artifacts, NFRs, OO metrics, SDLC, XML.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11584044 Client Importance and Audit Quality under Civil Law versus Common Law Societies
Authors: Kelly Grani Yuen
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Accounting scandals and auditing frauds are perceived to be driven by aggressive companies and misrepresentation of audit reports. However, local legal systems and law enforcements may affect the services auditors provide to their ‘important’ clients. Under the civil law and common law jurisdictions, the standard setters, the government, and the regulatory bodies treat cases differently. As such, whether or not different forms of legal systems and extent of law enforcement plays an important role in auditor’s Audit Quality is a question this paper attempts to explore. The paper focuses on the investigation in Asia, where Hong Kong represents the common-law jurisdiction, while Taiwan and China represent the civil law jurisdiction. Only the ten reputable accounting firms are used in this study due to the differences in rankings and establishments of some of the small local audit firms. This will also contribute to the data collected between the years 2007-2013. By focusing on the use of multiple regression based on the dependent (Audit Quality) and independent variables (Client Importance, Law Enforcement, and Press Freedom), six different models are established. Results demonstrate that since different jurisdictions have different legal systems and market regulations, auditor’s treatment on ‘important’ clients will vary. However, with the moderators in place (law enforcement and press freedom), the relationship between client importance and audit quality may be smoothed out. With that in mind, this study contributes to local governments and standard setters’ consideration on legal reform and proper law enforcement in the market. Perhaps, with such modifications on the economic systems, collusion between companies and auditors can finally be put to a halt.
Keywords: Audit quality, client importance, jurisdiction, modified audit opinions.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11204043 Effect of Network Communication Overhead on the Performance of Adaptive Speculative Locking Protocol
Authors: Waqar Haque, Pai Qi
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The speculative locking (SL) protocol extends the twophase locking (2PL) protocol to allow for parallelism among conflicting transactions. The adaptive speculative locking (ASL) protocol provided further enhancements and outperformed SL protocols under most conditions. Neither of these protocols consider the impact of network latency on the performance of the distributed database systems. We have studied the performance of ASL protocol taking into account the communication overhead. The results indicate that though system load can counter network latency, it can still become a bottleneck in many situations. The impact of latency on performance depends on many factors including the system resources. A flexible discrete event simulator was used as the testbed for this study.
Keywords: concurrency control, distributed database systems, speculative locking
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16974042 Control of Pendulum on a Cart with State Dependent Riccati Equations
Authors: N. M. Singh, Jayant Dubey, Ghanshyam Laddha
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State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) approach is a modification of the well studied LQR method. It has the capability of being applied to control nonlinear systems. In this paper the technique has been applied to control the single inverted pendulum (SIP) which represents a rich class of nonlinear underactuated systems. SIP modeling is based on Euler-Lagrange equations. A procedure is developed for judicious selection of weighting parameters and constraint handling. The controller designed by SDRE technique here gives better results than existing controllers designed by energy based techniques.Keywords: State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE), Single Inverted Pendulum (SIP), Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR)
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30864041 Coverage Availability for the IEEE 802.16 System over the SUI Channels with Rayleigh Fading
Authors: Shiann-Shiun Jeng, Chen-Wan Tsung, Hong-You Liou, Chun-Chieh Chang, Jia-Ming Chen
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The coverage probability and range of IEEE 802.16 systems depend on different wireless scenarios. Evaluating the performance of IEEE 802.16 systems over Stanford University Interim (SUI) channels is suggested by IEEE 802.16 specifications. In order to derive an effective method for forecasting the coverage probability and range, this study uses the SUI channel model to analyze the coverage probability with Rayleigh fading for an IEEE 802.16 system. The BER of the IEEE 802.16 system is shown in the simulation results. Then, the maximum allowed path loss can be calculated and substituted into the coverage analysis. Therefore, simulation results show the coverage range with and without Rayleigh fading.Keywords: OFDM, coverage, SUI channel, IEEE 802.16
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14784040 Comparison between Higher-Order SVD and Third-order Orthogonal Tensor Product Expansion
Authors: Chiharu Okuma, Jun Murakami, Naoki Yamamoto
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In digital signal processing it is important to approximate multi-dimensional data by the method called rank reduction, in which we reduce the rank of multi-dimensional data from higher to lower. For 2-dimennsional data, singular value decomposition (SVD) is one of the most known rank reduction techniques. Additional, outer product expansion expanded from SVD was proposed and implemented for multi-dimensional data, which has been widely applied to image processing and pattern recognition. However, the multi-dimensional outer product expansion has behavior of great computation complex and has not orthogonally between the expansion terms. Therefore we have proposed an alterative method, Third-order Orthogonal Tensor Product Expansion short for 3-OTPE. 3-OTPE uses the power method instead of nonlinear optimization method for decreasing at computing time. At the same time the group of B. D. Lathauwer proposed Higher-Order SVD (HOSVD) that is also developed with SVD extensions for multi-dimensional data. 3-OTPE and HOSVD are similarly on the rank reduction of multi-dimensional data. Using these two methods we can obtain computation results respectively, some ones are the same while some ones are slight different. In this paper, we compare 3-OTPE to HOSVD in accuracy of calculation and computing time of resolution, and clarify the difference between these two methods.Keywords: Singular value decomposition (SVD), higher-order SVD (HOSVD), higher-order tensor, outer product expansion, power method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15624039 Stability of a Self-Excited Machine Due to the Mechanical Coupling
Authors: M. Soltan Rezaee, M. R. Ghazavi, A. Najafi, W.-H. Liao
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Generally, different rods in shaft systems can be misaligned based on the mechanical system usages. These rods can be linked together via U-coupling easily. The system is self-stimulated and may cause instabilities due to the inherent behavior of the coupling. In this study, each rod includes an elastic shaft with an angular stiffness and structural damping. Moreover, the mass of shafts is considered via attached solid disks. The impact of the system architecture and shaft mass on the instability of such mechanism are studied. Stability charts are plotted via a method based on Floquet theory. Eventually, the unstable points have been found and analyzed in detail. The results show that stabilizing the driveline is feasible by changing the system characteristics which include shaft mass and architecture.
Keywords: Coupling, mechanical systems, oscillations, rotating shafts.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7624038 Multi-Objective Optimal Design of a Cascade Control System for a Class of Underactuated Mechanical Systems
Authors: Yuekun Chen, Yousef Sardahi, Salam Hajjar, Christopher Greer
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This paper presents a multi-objective optimal design of a cascade control system for an underactuated mechanical system. Cascade control structures usually include two control algorithms (inner and outer). To design such a control system properly, the following conflicting objectives should be considered at the same time: 1) the inner closed-loop control must be faster than the outer one, 2) the inner loop should fast reject any disturbance and prevent it from propagating to the outer loop, 3) the controlled system should be insensitive to measurement noise, and 4) the controlled system should be driven by optimal energy. Such a control problem can be formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem such that the optimal trade-offs among these design goals are found. To authors best knowledge, such a problem has not been studied in multi-objective settings so far. In this work, an underactuated mechanical system consisting of a rotary servo motor and a ball and beam is used for the computer simulations, the setup parameters of the inner and outer control systems are tuned by NSGA-II (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm), and the dominancy concept is used to find the optimal design points. The solution of this problem is not a single optimal cascade control, but rather a set of optimal cascade controllers (called Pareto set) which represent the optimal trade-offs among the selected design criteria. The function evaluation of the Pareto set is called the Pareto front. The solution set is introduced to the decision-maker who can choose any point to implement. The simulation results in terms of Pareto front and time responses to external signals show the competing nature among the design objectives. The presented study may become the basis for multi-objective optimal design of multi-loop control systems.Keywords: Cascade control, multi-loop control systems, multi-objective optimization, optimal control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9234037 A Robust Controller for Output Variance Reduction and Minimum Variance with Application on a Permanent Field DC-Motor
Authors: Mahmood M. Al-Imam, M. Mustafa
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In this paper, we present an experimental testing for a new algorithm that determines an optimal controller-s coefficients for output variance reduction related to Linear Time Invariant (LTI) Systems. The algorithm features simplicity in calculation, generalization to minimal and non-minimal phase systems, and could be configured to achieve reference tracking as well as variance reduction after compromising with the output variance. An experiment of DCmotor velocity control demonstrates the application of this new algorithm in designing the controller. The results show that the controller achieves minimum variance and reference tracking for a preset velocity reference relying on an identified model of the motor.Keywords: Output variance, minimum variance, overparameterization, DC-Motor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13594036 Application of Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets(GSPN) in Modeling and Evaluating a Resource Sharing Flexible Manufacturing System
Authors: Aryanejad Mir Bahador Goli, Zahra Honarmand Shah Zileh
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In most study fields, a phenomenon may not be studied directly but it will be examined indirectly by phenomenon model. Making an accurate model of system, there is attained new information from modeled phenomenon without any charge, danger, etc... there have been developed more solutions for describing and analyzing the recent complicated systems but few of them have analyzed the performance in the range of system description. Petri nets are of limited solutions which may make such union. Petri nets are being applied in problems related to modeling and designing the systems. Theory of Petri nets allow a system to model mathematically by a Petri net and analyzing the Petri net can then determine main information of modeled system-s structure and dynamic. This information can be used for assessing the performance of systems and suggesting corrections in the system. In this paper, beside the introduction of Petri nets, a real case study will be studied in order to show the application of generalized stochastic Petri nets in modeling a resource sharing production system and evaluating the efficiency of its machines and robots. The modeling tool used here is SHARP software which calculates specific indicators helping to make decision.Keywords: Flexible manufacturing system, generalizedstochastic Petri nets, Markov chain, performance evaluation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19024035 Detection of Legionella pneumophila in Cooling Water Systems of Hospitals and Nursing Homes of Kerman City, Iran by Semi- Nested PCR
Authors: Mohammad Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Reza Shakibaie, Kyvan Shams, Mohammad Khalili
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Legionella pneumophila is involved in more than 95% cases of severe atypical pneumonia. Infection is mainly by inhalation the indoor aerosols through the water-coolant systems. Because some Legionella strains may be viable but not culturable, therefore, Taq polymerase, DNA amplification and semi-nested-PCR were carried out to detect Legionella-specific 16S-rDNA sequence. For this purpose, 1.5 litter of water samples from 77 water-coolant system were collected from four different hospitals, two nursing homes and one student hostel in Kerman city of Iran, each in a brand new plastic bottle during summer season of 2006 (from April to August). The samples were filtered in the sterile condition through the Millipore Membrane Filter. DNA was extracted from membrane and used for PCR to detect Legionella spp. The PCR product was then subjected to semi-nested PCR for detection of L. pneumophila. Out of 77 water samples that were tested by PCR, 30 (39%) were positive for most species of Legionella. However, L. pneumophila was detected from 14 (18.2%) water samples by semi-nested PCR. From the above results it can be concluded that water coolant systems of different hospitals and nursing homes in Kerman city of Iran are highly contaminated with L. pneumophila spp. and pose serious concern. So, we recommend avoiding such type of coolant system in the hospitals and nursing homes.Keywords: Legionella pneumophila, water-coolant system, semi-nested -PCR.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20564034 Technology, Organizational and Environmental Determinants of Business Intelligence Systems Adoption in Croatian SME: A Case Study of Medium-Sized Enterprise
Authors: Ana-Marija Stjepić, Luka Sušac, Dalia Suša Vugec
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In the last few years, examples from scientific literature and business practices show that the adoption of technological innovations increases enterprises' performance. Recently, when it comes to the field of information technology innovation, business intelligence systems (BISs) have drawn a significant amount of attention of the scientific circles. BISs can be understood as a form of technological innovation which can bring certain benefits to the organizations that are adopting it. Therefore, the aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to define determinants of successful BISs adoption in small and medium enterprises and thus contribute to this neglected research area and (2) to present the current state of BISs adoption in small and medium-sized companies. In order to do so, determinants are defined and classified into three dimensions, according to the Technology – Organization – Environment (TOE) theoretical framework that describes the impact of each dimension on technological innovations adoption. Moreover, paper brings a case study presenting the adoption of BISs in practice within an organization from tertiary (service) industry sector. Based on the results of the study, guidelines for more efficient, faster and easier BISs adoption are presented.
Keywords: Adoption, business intelligence, business intelligence systems, case study, TOE framework.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9364033 Methods for Analyzing the Energy Efficiencyand Cost Effectiveness of Evaporative Cooling Air Conditioning
Authors: A Fouda, Z. Melikyan
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Air conditioning systems of houses consume large quantity of electricity. To reducing energy consumption for air conditioning purposes it is becoming attractive the use of evaporative cooling air conditioning which is less energy consuming compared to air chillers. But, it is obvious that higher energy efficiency of evaporative cooling is not enough to judge whether evaporative cooling economically is competitive with other types of cooling systems. To proving the higher energy efficiency and cost effectiveness of the evaporative cooling competitive analysis of various types of cooling system should be accomplished. For noted purpose optimization mathematical model for each system should be composed based on system approach analysis. In this paper different types of evaporative cooling-heating systems are discussed and methods for increasing their energy efficiency and as well as determining of their design parameters are developed. The optimization mathematical models for each of them are composed with help of which least specific costs for each of them are reviled. The comparison of specific costs proved that the most efficient and cost effective is considered the “direct evaporating" system if it is applicable for given climatic conditions. Next more universal and applicable for many climatic conditions system providing least cost of heating and cooling is considered the “direct evaporating" system.Keywords: air, conditioning, system, evaporative cooling, mathematical model, optimization, thermoeconomic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17724032 Quality Parameters of Offset Printing Wastewater
Authors: Kiurski S. Jelena, Kecić S. Vesna, Aksentijević M. Snežana
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Samples of tap and wastewater were collected in three offset printing facilities in Novi Sad, Serbia. Ten physicochemical parameters were analyzed within all collected samples: pH, conductivity, m - alkalinity, p - alkalinity, acidity, carbonate concentration, hydrogen carbonate concentration, active oxygen content, chloride concentration and total alkali content. All measurements were conducted using the standard analytical and instrumental methods. Comparing the obtained results for tap water and wastewater, a clear quality difference was noticeable, since all physicochemical parameters were significantly higher within wastewater samples. The study also involves the application of simple linear regression analysis on the obtained dataset. By using software package ORIGIN 5 the pH value was mutually correlated with other physicochemical parameters. Based on the obtained values of Pearson coefficient of determination a strong positive correlation between chloride concentration and pH (r = -0.943), as well as between acidity and pH (r = -0.855) was determined. In addition, statistically significant difference was obtained only between acidity and chloride concentration with pH values, since the values of parameter F (247.634 and 182.536) were higher than Fcritical (5.59). In this way, results of statistical analysis highlighted the most influential parameter of water contamination in offset printing, in the form of acidity and chloride concentration. The results showed that variable dependence could be represented by the general regression model: y = a0 + a1x+ k, which further resulted with matching graphic regressions.
Keywords: Pollution, printing industry, simple linear regression analysis, wastewater.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16744031 ML-Based Blind Frequency Offset Estimation Schemes for OFDM Systems in Non-Gaussian Noise Environments
Authors: Keunhong Chae, Seokho Yoon
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This paper proposes frequency offset (FO) estimation schemes robust to the non-Gaussian noise for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. A maximum-likelihood (ML) scheme and a low-complexity estimation scheme are proposed by applying the probability density function of the cyclic prefix of OFDM symbols to the ML criterion. From simulation results, it is confirmed that the proposed schemes offer a significant FO estimation performance improvement over the conventional estimation scheme in non-Gaussian noise environments.
Keywords: Frequency offset, cyclic prefix, maximum-likelihood, non-Gaussian noise, OFDM.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20224030 MinRoot and CMesh: Interconnection Architectures for Network-on-Chip Systems
Authors: Mohammad Ali Jabraeil Jamali, Ahmad Khademzadeh
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The success of an electronic system in a System-on- Chip is highly dependent on the efficiency of its interconnection network, which is constructed from routers and channels (the routers move data across the channels between nodes). Since neither classical bus based nor point to point architectures can provide scalable solutions and satisfy the tight power and performance requirements of future applications, the Network-on-Chip (NoC) approach has recently been proposed as a promising solution. Indeed, in contrast to the traditional solutions, the NoC approach can provide large bandwidth with moderate area overhead. The selected topology of the components interconnects plays prime rule in the performance of NoC architecture as well as routing and switching techniques that can be used. In this paper, we present two generic NoC architectures that can be customized to the specific communication needs of an application in order to reduce the area with minimal degradation of the latency of the system. An experimental study is performed to compare these structures with basic NoC topologies represented by 2D mesh, Butterfly-Fat Tree (BFT) and SPIN. It is shown that Cluster mesh (CMesh) and MinRoot schemes achieves significant improvements in network latency and energy consumption with only negligible area overhead and complexity over existing architectures. In fact, in the case of basic NoC topologies, CMesh and MinRoot schemes provides substantial savings in area as well, because they requires fewer routers. The simulation results show that CMesh and MinRoot networks outperforms MESH, BFT and SPIN in main performance metrics.
Keywords: MinRoot, CMesh, NoC, Topology, Performance Evaluation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21274029 Extending BDI Multiagent Systems with Agent Norms
Authors: Francisco José Plácido da Cunha, Tassio Ferenzini Martins Sirqueira, Marx Leles Viana, Carlos José Pereira de Lucena
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Open Multiagent Systems (MASs) are societies in which heterogeneous and independently designed entities (agents) work towards similar, or different ends. Software agents are autonomous and the diversity of interests among different members living in the same society is a fact. In order to deal with this autonomy, these open systems use mechanisms of social control (norms) to ensure a desirable social order. This paper considers the following types of norms: (i) obligation — agents must accomplish a specific outcome; (ii) permission — agents may act in a particular way, and (iii) prohibition — agents must not act in a specific way. All of these characteristics mean to encourage the fulfillment of norms through rewards and to discourage norm violation by pointing out the punishments. Once the software agent decides that its priority is the satisfaction of its own desires and goals, each agent must evaluate the effects associated to the fulfillment of one or more norms before choosing which one should be fulfilled. The same applies when agents decide to violate a norm. This paper also introduces a framework for the development of MASs that provide support mechanisms to the agent’s decision-making, using norm-based reasoning. The applicability and validation of this approach is demonstrated applying a traffic intersection scenario.Keywords: BDI aAgent, BDI4JADE framework, multiagent system, normative agents.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9984028 Measurement of Real Time Drive Cycle for Indian Roads and Estimation of Component Sizing for HEV using LABVIEW
Authors: Varsha Shah, Patel Pritesh, Patel Sagar, PrasantaKundu, RanjanMaheshwari
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Performance of vehicle depends on driving patterns and vehicle drive train configuration. Driving patterns depends on traffic condition, road condition and driver behavior. HEV design is carried out under certain constrain like vehicle operating range, acceleration, decelerations, maximum speed and road grades which are directly related to the driving patterns. Therefore the detailed study on HEV performance over a different drive cycle is required for selection and sizing of HEV components. A simple hardware is design to measured velocity v/s time profile of the vehicle by operating vehicle on Indian roads under real traffic conditions. To size the HEV components, a detailed dynamic model of the vehicle is developed considering the effect of inertia of rotating components like wheels, drive chain, engine and electric motor. Using vehicle model and different Indian drive cycles data, total tractive power demanded by vehicle and power supplied by individual components has been calculated.Using above information selection and estimation of component sizing for HEV is carried out so that HEV performs efficiently under hostile driving condition. Complete analysis is carried out in LABVIEW.Keywords: BLDC motor, Driving cycle, LABVIEW Ultracapacitors, Vehicle Dynamics,
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 39014027 Cultivating Focal Firm-s Supply Chain Process Integration Capabilities: The Investigation of Critical Determinants and Consequences
Authors: Chun-Der Chen, Yi-Wen Fan, Cheng-Kiang Farn
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In today-s competitive global business environment, the concept of supply chain management (SCM) continues to become increasingly market-oriented, shifting the primary driver of the value chain from supply to demand. Recent recommendations encourage researchers to focus investigations on the supply chain process integration (SCPI) capabilities that integrate a focal firm with its network of suppliers and business customers to create value for it. However, theoretical and empirical researches pertaining to the antecedents and consequences of a focal firm-s SCPI capabilities have been limited and piecemeal. The purpose of this study is to investigate the critical determinants and consequences of a focal firm-s SCPI capabilities. We test our proposed research framework using a sample of 139 sales managers of manufacturing industries in Taiwan, our research findings show that (1) both perceived business customer-s power and focal firm-s market-oriented culture positively influences a focal firm-s SCPI capabilities, and (2) SCPI capabilities positively influence a focal firm-s SCM performance, both operational and strategic benefits. Implications for practitioners and researchers and suggestions for future research are also addressed in this study.Keywords: Supply chain process integration capabilities, Perceived business customer's power, Market-oriented culture, Supply chain management performance.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 33064026 3D Finite Element Analysis for Mechanics of Soil-Tool Interaction
Authors: A. Armin, R. Fotouhi, W. Szyszkowski
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This paper is part of a study to develop robots for farming. As such power requirement to operate equipment attach to such robots become an important factor. Soil-tool interaction plays major role in power consumption, thus predicting accurately the forces which act on the blade during the farming is very important for optimal designing of farm equipment. In this paper, a finite element investigation for tillage tools and soil interaction is described by using an inelastic constitutive material law for agriculture application. A 3-dimensional (3D) nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) is developed to examine behavior of a blade with different rake angles moving in a block of soil, and to estimate the blade force. The soil model considered is an elastic-plastic with non-associated Drucker-Prager material model. Special use of contact elements are employed to consider connection between soil-blade and soil-soil surfaces. The FEA results are compared with experimental ones, which show good agreement in accurately predicting draft forces developed on the blade when it moves through the soil. Also a very good correlation was obtained between FEA results and analytical results from classical soil mechanics theories for straight blades. These comparisons verified the FEA model developed. For analyzing complicated soil-tool interactions and for optimum design of blades, this method will be useful.Keywords: Finite element analysis, soil-blade contact modeling, blade force.
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