Search results for: Linear systems
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 5785

Search results for: Linear systems

2995 The Management in Large Emergency Situations – A Best Practise Case Study based on GIS for Management of Evacuation

Authors: Ion Baş, Claudiu Zoicaş, Angela Ioniţâ

Abstract:

In most of the cases, natural disasters lead to the necessity of evacuating people. The quality of evacuation management is dramatically improved by the use of information provided by decision support systems, which become indispensable in case of large scale evacuation operations. This paper presents a best practice case study. In November 2007, officers from the Emergency Situations Inspectorate “Crisana" of Bihor County from Romania participated to a cross-border evacuation exercise, when 700 people have been evacuated from Netherlands to Belgium. One of the main objectives of the exercise was the test of four different decision support systems. Afterwards, based on that experience, software system called TEVAC (Trans Border Evacuation) has been developed “in house" by the experts of this institution. This original software system was successfully tested in September 2008, during the deployment of the international exercise EU-HUROMEX 2008, the scenario involving real evacuation of 200 persons from Hungary to Romania. Based on the lessons learned and results, starting from April 2009, the TEVAC software is used by all Emergency Situations Inspectorates all over Romania.

Keywords: Emergency evacuation, Searching Features, TEVAC(Trans Border Evacuation) software system, User Interface Design.

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2994 Application of Exact String Matching Algorithms towards SMILES Representation of Chemical Structure

Authors: Ahmad Fadel Klaib, Zurinahni Zainol, Nurul Hashimah Ahamed, Rosma Ahmad, Wahidah Hussin

Abstract:

Bioinformatics and Cheminformatics use computer as disciplines providing tools for acquisition, storage, processing, analysis, integrate data and for the development of potential applications of biological and chemical data. A chemical database is one of the databases that exclusively designed to store chemical information. NMRShiftDB is one of the main databases that used to represent the chemical structures in 2D or 3D structures. SMILES format is one of many ways to write a chemical structure in a linear format. In this study we extracted Antimicrobial Structures in SMILES format from NMRShiftDB and stored it in our Local Data Warehouse with its corresponding information. Additionally, we developed a searching tool that would response to user-s query using the JME Editor tool that allows user to draw or edit molecules and converts the drawn structure into SMILES format. We applied Quick Search algorithm to search for Antimicrobial Structures in our Local Data Ware House.

Keywords: Exact String-matching Algorithms, NMRShiftDB, SMILES Format, Antimicrobial Structures.

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2993 A Six-Year Case Study Evaluating the Stakeholders’ Requirements and Satisfaction in Higher Educational Establishments

Authors: Ioannis I. Αngeli

Abstract:

Worldwide and mainly in the European Union, many standards, regulations, models and systems exists for the evaluation and identification of stakeholders’ requirements of individual universities and higher education (HE) in general. All systems are targeting to measure or evaluate the Universities’ Quality Assurance Systems and the services offered to the recipients of HE, mainly the students. Numerous surveys were conducted in the past either by each university or by organized bodies to identify the students’ satisfaction or to evaluate to what extent these requirements are fulfilled. In this paper, the main results of an ongoing 6-year joint research will be presented very briefly. This research deals with an in depth investigation of student’s satisfaction, students personal requirements, a cup analysis among these two parameters and compares different universities. Through this research an attempt will be made to address four very important questions in higher education establishments (HEE): (1) Are there any common requirements, parameters, good practices or questions that apply to a large number of universities that will assure that students’ requirements are fulfilled? (2) Up to what extent the individual programs of HEE fulfil the requirements of the stakeholders? (3) Are there any similarities on specific programs among European HEE? (4) To what extent the knowledge acquired in a specific course program is utilized or used in a specific country? For the execution of the research an internationally accepted questionnaire(s) was used to evaluate up to what extent the students’ requirements and satisfaction were fulfilled in 2012 and five years later (2017). Samples of students and or universities were taken from many European Universities. The questionnaires used, the sampling method and methodology adopted, as well as the comparison tables and results will be very valuable to any university that is willing to follow the same route and methodology or compare the results with their own HHE. Apart from the unique methodology, valuable results are demonstrated from the four case studies. There is a great difference between the student’s expectations or importance from what they are getting from their universities (in all parameters they are getting less). When there is a crisis or budget cut in HEE there is a direct impact to students. There are many differences on subjects taught in European universities.

Keywords: Quality in higher education, students’ requirements, education standards, student’s survey, stakeholder’s requirements, Mechanical Engineering courses.

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2992 Resilient Machine Learning in the Nuclear Industry: Crack Detection as a Case Study

Authors: Anita Khadka, Gregory Epiphaniou, Carsten Maple

Abstract:

There is a dramatic surge in the adoption of Machine Learning (ML) techniques in many areas, including the nuclear industry (such as fault diagnosis and fuel management in nuclear power plants), autonomous systems (including self-driving vehicles), space systems (space debris recovery, for example), medical surgery, network intrusion detection, malware detection, to name a few. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a part of everyday modern human life. To date, the predominant focus has been developing underpinning ML algorithms that can improve accuracy, while factors such as resiliency and robustness of algorithms have been largely overlooked. If an adversarial attack is able to compromise the learning method or data, the consequences can be fatal, especially but not exclusively in safety-critical applications. In this paper, we present an in-depth analysis of five adversarial attacks and two defence methods on a crack detection ML model. Our analysis shows that it can be dangerous to adopt ML techniques without rigorous testing, since they may be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, especially in security-critical areas such as the nuclear industry. We observed that while the adopted defence methods can effectively defend against different attacks, none of them could protect against all five adversarial attacks entirely.

Keywords: Resilient Machine Learning, attacks, defences, nuclear industry, crack detection.

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2991 Experimental Determination of Reactions of Wind-Resistant Support of Circular Stacks in Various Configurations

Authors: Debojyoti Mitra

Abstract:

Higher capacities of power plants together with increased awareness on environmental considerations have led to taller height of stacks. It is seen that strong wind can result in falling of stacks. So, aerodynamic consideration of stacks is very important in order to save the falling of stacks. One stack is not enough in industries and power sectors and two or three stacks are required for proper operation of the unit. It is very important to arrange the stacks in proper way to resist their downfall. The present experimental study concentrates on the mutual effect of three nearby stacks on each other at three different arrangements, viz. linear, side-by-side and triangular. The experiments find out the directions of resultant forces acting on the stacks in different configurations so that proper arrangement of supports can be made with respect to the wind directionality obtained from local meteorological data. One can also easily ascertain which stack is more vulnerable to wind in comparison to the others for a particular configuration. Thus, this study is important in studying the effect of wind force on three stacks in different arrangements and is very helpful in placing the supports in proper places in order to avoid failing of stack-like structures due to wind.

Keywords: Stacks, relative positioning, drag and lift forces, resultant forces and supports.

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2990 A Machine Learning Approach for Anomaly Detection in Environmental IoT-Driven Wastewater Purification Systems

Authors: Giovanni Cicceri, Roberta Maisano, Nathalie Morey, Salvatore Distefano

Abstract:

The main goal of this paper is to present a solution for a water purification system based on an Environmental Internet of Things (EIoT) platform to monitor and control water quality and machine learning (ML) models to support decision making and speed up the processes of purification of water. A real case study has been implemented by deploying an EIoT platform and a network of devices, called Gramb meters and belonging to the Gramb project, on wastewater purification systems located in Calabria, south of Italy. The data thus collected are used to control the wastewater quality, detect anomalies and predict the behaviour of the purification system. To this extent, three different statistical and machine learning models have been adopted and thus compared: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) autoencoder, and Facebook Prophet (FP). The results demonstrated that the ML solution (LSTM) out-perform classical statistical approaches (ARIMA, FP), in terms of both accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness in monitoring and controlling the wastewater purification processes.

Keywords: EIoT, machine learning, anomaly detection, environment monitoring.

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2989 The Techno-Economic and Environmental Assessments of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems in Bhubaneswar, India

Authors: A. K. Pradhan, M. K. Mohanty, S. K. Kar

Abstract:

The power system utility has started to think about the green power technology in order to have an eco-friendly environment. The green power technology utilizes renewable energy sources for reduction of GHG emissions. Odisha state (India) is very rich in potential of renewable energy sources especially in solar energy (about 300 solar days), for installation of grid connected photovoltaic system. This paper focuses on the utilization of photovoltaic systems in an Institute building of Bhubaneswar city, Odisha. Different data like solar insolation (kW/m2/day), sunshine duration has been collected from metrological stations for Bhubaneswar city. The required electrical power and cost are calculated for daily load of 1.0 kW. The HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Model of Electric Renewable) software is used to estimate system size and its performance analysis. The simulation result shows that the cost of energy (COE) is $ 0.194/kWh, the Operating cost is $63/yr and the net present cost (NPC) is $3,917. The energy produced from PV array is 1,756kWh/yr and energy purchased from grid is 410kWh/yr. The AC primary load consumption is 1314 kWh/yr and the Grid sales are 746 kWh/yr. One battery is connected in parallel with 12V DC Bus and the usable nominal capacity 2.4 kWh with 9.6 h autonomy capacity.

Keywords: Economic assessment, HOMER, Optimization, Photovoltaic (PV), Renewable energy.

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2988 Numerical Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interaction on Wedge Slamming Impact Using Particle Method

Authors: Sung-Chul Hwang, Di Ren, Sang-Moon Yoon, Jong-Chun Park, Abbas Khayyer, Hitoshi Gotoh

Abstract:

This paper presents a fully Lagrangian coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) solver for simulations of fluid-structure interactions, which is based on the Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) method to solve the governing equations corresponding to incompressible flows as well as elastic structures. The developed solver is verified by reproducing the high velocity impact loads of deformable thin wedges with three different materials such as mild steel, aluminium and tin during water entry. The present simulation results for aluminium are compared with analytical solution derived from the hydrodynamic Wagner model and linear Wan’s theory. And also, the impact pressure and strain on the water entry wedge with three different materials, such as mild steel, aluminium and tin, are simulated and the effects of hydro-elasticity are discussed.

Keywords: Fluid-structure interaction (FSI), Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) method, Elastic structure, Incompressible fluid Wedge slamming impact.

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2987 Defining a Pathway to Zero Energy Building: A Case Study on Retrofitting an Old Office Building into a Net Zero Energy Building for Hot-Humid Climate

Authors: Kwame B. O. Amoah

Abstract:

This paper focuses on retrofitting an old existing office building to a net-zero energy building (NZEB). An existing small office building in Melbourne, Florida, was chosen as a case study to integrate state-of-the-art design strategies and energy-efficient building systems to improve building performance and reduce energy consumption. The study aimed to explore possible ways to maximize energy savings and renewable energy generation sources to cover the building's remaining energy needs necessary to achieve net-zero energy goals. A series of retrofit options were reviewed and adopted with some significant additional decision considerations. Detailed processes and considerations leading to zero energy are well documented in this study, with lessons learned adequately outlined. Based on building energy simulations, multiple design considerations were investigated, such as emerging state-of-the-art technologies, material selection, improvements to the building envelope, optimization of the HVAC, lighting systems, and occupancy loads analysis, as well as the application of renewable energy sources. The comparative analysis of simulation results was used to determine how specific techniques led to energy saving and cost reductions. The research results indicate that this small office building can meet net-zero energy use after appropriate design manipulations and renewable energy sources.

Keywords: Energy consumption, building energy analysis, energy retrofits, energy-efficiency.

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2986 Exergetic and Sustainability Evaluation of a Building Heating System in Izmir, Turkey

Authors: Nurdan Yildirim, Arif Hepbasli

Abstract:

Heating, cooling and lighting appliances in buildings account for more than one third of the world’s primary energy demand. Therefore, main components of the building heating systems play an essential role in terms of energy consumption. In this context, efficient energy and exergy utilization in HVAC-R systems has been very essential, especially in developing energy policies towards increasing efficiencies. The main objective of the present study is to assess the performance of a family house with a volume of 326.7 m3 and a net floor area of 121 m2, located in the city of Izmir, Turkey in terms of energetic, exergetic and sustainability aspects. The indoor and exterior air temperatures are taken as 20°C and 1°C, respectively. In the analysis and assessment, various metrics (indices or indicators) such as exergetic efficiency, exergy flexibility ratio and sustainability index are utilized. Two heating options (Case 1: condensing boiler and Case 2: air heat pump) are considered for comparison purposes. The total heat loss rate of the family house is determined to be 3770.72 W. The overall energy efficiencies of the studied cases are calculated to be 49.4% for Case 1 and 54.7% for Case 2. The overall exergy efficiencies, the flexibility factor and the sustainability index of Cases 1 and 2 are computed to be around 3.3%, 0.17 and 1.034, respectively.

Keywords: Buildings, exergy, low exergy, sustainability, efficiency, heating, renewable energy.

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2985 Energy Management System and Interactive Functions of Smart Plug for Smart Home

Authors: Win Thandar Soe, Innocent Mpawenimana, Mathieu Di Fazio, Cécile Belleudy, Aung Ze Ya

Abstract:

Intelligent electronic equipment and automation network is the brain of high-tech energy management systems in critical role of smart homes dominance. Smart home is a technology integration for greater comfort, autonomy, reduced cost, and energy saving as well. These services can be provided to home owners for managing their home appliances locally or remotely and consequently allow them to automate intelligently and responsibly their consumption by individual or collective control systems. In this study, three smart plugs are described and one of them tested on typical household appliances. This article proposes to collect the data from the wireless technology and to extract some smart data for energy management system. This smart data is to quantify for three kinds of load: intermittent load, phantom load and continuous load. Phantom load is a waste power that is one of unnoticed power of each appliance while connected or disconnected to the main. Intermittent load and continuous load take in to consideration the power and using time of home appliances. By analysing the classification of loads, this smart data will be provided to reduce the communication of wireless sensor network for energy management system.

Keywords: Energy management, load profile, smart plug, wireless sensor network.

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2984 Reliability Analysis of Press Unit using Vague Set

Authors: S. P. Sharma, Monica Rani

Abstract:

In conventional reliability assessment, the reliability data of system components are treated as crisp values. The collected data have some uncertainties due to errors by human beings/machines or any other sources. These uncertainty factors will limit the understanding of system component failure due to the reason of incomplete data. In these situations, we need to generalize classical methods to fuzzy environment for studying and analyzing the systems of interest. Fuzzy set theory has been proposed to handle such vagueness by generalizing the notion of membership in a set. Essentially, in a Fuzzy Set (FS) each element is associated with a point-value selected from the unit interval [0, 1], which is termed as the grade of membership in the set. A Vague Set (VS), as well as an Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS), is a further generalization of an FS. Instead of using point-based membership as in FS, interval-based membership is used in VS. The interval-based membership in VS is more expressive in capturing vagueness of data. In the present paper, vague set theory coupled with conventional Lambda-Tau method is presented for reliability analysis of repairable systems. The methodology uses Petri nets (PN) to model the system instead of fault tree because it allows efficient simultaneous generation of minimal cuts and path sets. The presented method is illustrated with the press unit of the paper mill.

Keywords: Lambda -Tau methodology, Petri nets, repairable system, vague fuzzy set.

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2983 Analysis of Thermal Damping in Si Based Torsional Micromirrors

Authors: R. Resmi, M. R. Baiju

Abstract:

The thermal damping of a dynamic vibrating micromirror is an important factor affecting the design of MEMS based actuator systems. In the development process of new micromirror systems, assessing the extent of energy loss due to thermal damping accurately and predicting the performance of the system is very essential. In this paper, the depth of the thermal penetration layer at different eigenfrequencies and the temperature variation distributions surrounding a vibrating micromirror is analyzed. The thermal penetration depth corresponds to the thermal boundary layer in which energy is lost which is a measure of the thermal damping is found out. The energy is mainly dissipated in the thermal boundary layer and thickness of the layer is an important parameter. The detailed thermoacoustics is used to model the air domain surrounding the micromirror. The thickness of the boundary layer, temperature variations and thermal power dissipation are analyzed for a Si based torsional mode micromirror. It is found that thermal penetration depth decreases with eigenfrequency and hence operating the micromirror at higher frequencies is essential for reducing thermal damping. The temperature variations and thermal power dissipations at different eigenfrequencies are also analyzed. Both frequency-response and eigenfrequency analyses are done using COMSOL Multiphysics software.

Keywords: Eigen frequency analysis, micromirrors, thermal damping, thermoacoustic interactions.

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2982 Using Different Aspects of the Signings for Appearance-based Sign Language Recognition

Authors: Morteza Zahedi, Philippe Dreuw, Thomas Deselaers, Hermann Ney

Abstract:

Sign language is used by the deaf and hard of hearing people for communication. Automatic sign language recognition is a challenging research area since sign language often is the only way of communication for the deaf people. Sign language includes different components of visual actions made by the signer using the hands, the face, and the torso, to convey his/her meaning. To use different aspects of signs, we combine the different groups of features which have been extracted from the image frames recorded directly by a stationary camera. We combine the features in two levels by employing three techniques. At the feature level, an early feature combination can be performed by concatenating and weighting different feature groups, or by concatenating feature groups over time and using LDA to choose the most discriminant elements. At the model level, a late fusion of differently trained models can be carried out by a log-linear model combination. In this paper, we investigate these three combination techniques in an automatic sign language recognition system and show that the recognition rate can be significantly improved.

Keywords: American sign language, appearance-based features, Feature combination, Sign language recognition

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2981 Swarmed Discriminant Analysis for Multifunction Prosthesis Control

Authors: Rami N. Khushaba, Ahmed Al-Ani, Adel Al-Jumaily

Abstract:

One of the approaches enabling people with amputated limbs to establish some sort of interface with the real world includes the utilization of the myoelectric signal (MES) from the remaining muscles of those limbs. The MES can be used as a control input to a multifunction prosthetic device. In this control scheme, known as the myoelectric control, a pattern recognition approach is usually utilized to discriminate between the MES signals that belong to different classes of the forearm movements. Since the MES is recorded using multiple channels, the feature vector size can become very large. In order to reduce the computational cost and enhance the generalization capability of the classifier, a dimensionality reduction method is needed to identify an informative yet moderate size feature set. This paper proposes a new fuzzy version of the well known Fisher-s Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) feature projection technique. Furthermore, based on the fact that certain muscles might contribute more to the discrimination process, a novel feature weighting scheme is also presented by employing Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for estimating the weight of each feature. The new method, called PSOFLDA, is tested on real MES datasets and compared with other techniques to prove its superiority.

Keywords: Discriminant Analysis, Pattern Recognition, SignalProcessing.

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2980 The Association between the Firm Characteristics and Corporate Mandatory Disclosure the Case of Greece

Authors: Despina Galani, Anastasios Alexandridis, Antonios Stavropoulos

Abstract:

The main thrust of this paper is to assess the level of disclosure in the annual reports of non-financial Greek firms and to empirically investigate the hypothesized impact of several firm characteristics on the extent of mandatory disclosure. A disclosure checklist consisting of 100 mandatory items was developed to assess the level of disclosure in the 2009 annual reports of 43 Greek companies listed at the Athens stock exchange. The association between the level of disclosure and some firm characteristics was examined using multiple linear regression analysis. The study reveals that Greek companies on general have responded adequately to the mandatory disclosure requirements of the regulatory bodies. The findings also indicate that firm size was significant positively associated with the level of disclosure. The remaining variables such as age, profitability, liquidity, and board composition were found to be insignificant in explaining the variation of mandatory disclosures. The outcome of this study is undoubtedly of great concern to the investment community at large to assist in evaluating the extent of mandatory disclosure by Greek firms and explaining the variation of disclosure in light of firm-specific characteristics.

Keywords: Mandatory disclosure, Annual report, Disclosure index

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2979 Discrete Polyphase Matched Filtering-based Soft Timing Estimation for Mobile Wireless Systems

Authors: Thomas O. Olwal, Michael A. van Wyk, Barend J. van Wyk

Abstract:

In this paper we present a soft timing phase estimation (STPE) method for wireless mobile receivers operating in low signal to noise ratios (SNRs). Discrete Polyphase Matched (DPM) filters, a Log-maximum a posterior probability (MAP) and/or a Soft-output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) are combined to derive a new timing recovery (TR) scheme. We apply this scheme to wireless cellular communication system model that comprises of a raised cosine filter (RCF), a bit-interleaved turbo-coded multi-level modulation (BITMM) scheme and the channel is assumed to be memory-less. Furthermore, no clock signals are transmitted to the receiver contrary to the classical data aided (DA) models. This new model ensures that both the bandwidth and power of the communication system is conserved. However, the computational complexity of ideal turbo synchronization is increased by 50%. Several simulation tests on bit error rate (BER) and block error rate (BLER) versus low SNR reveal that the proposed iterative soft timing recovery (ISTR) scheme outperforms the conventional schemes.

Keywords: discrete polyphase matched filters, maximum likelihood estimators, soft timing phase estimation, wireless mobile systems.

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2978 Methods for Manufacture of Corrugated Wire Mesh Laminates

Authors: Jeongho Choi, Krishna Shankar, Alan Fien, Andrew Neely

Abstract:

Corrugated wire mesh laminates (CWML) are a class of engineered open cell structures that have potential for applications in many areas including aerospace and biomedical engineering. Two different methods of fabricating corrugated wire mesh laminates from stainless steel, one using a high temperature Lithobraze alloy and the other using a low temperature Eutectic solder for joining the corrugated wire meshes are described herein. Their implementation is demonstrated by manufacturing CWML samples of 304 and 316 stainless steel (SST). It is seen that due to the facility of employing wire meshes of different densities and wire diameters, it is possible to create CWML laminates with a wide range of effective densities. The fabricated laminates are tested under uniaxial compression. The variation of the compressive yield strength with relative density of the CWML is compared to the theory developed by Gibson and Ashby for open cell structures [22]. It is shown that the compressive strength of the corrugated wire mesh laminates can be described using the same equations by using an appropriate value for the linear coefficient in the Gibson-Ashby model.

Keywords: cellular solids, corrugation, foam, open-cell, metal mesh, laminate, stainless steel

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2977 Electron Beam Processing of Ethylene-Propylene-Terpolymer-Based Rubber Mixtures

Authors: M. D. Stelescu, E. Manaila, G. Craciun, D. Ighigeanu

Abstract:

The goal of the paper is to present the results regarding the influence of the irradiation dose and amount of multifunctional monomer trimethylol-propane trimethacrylate (TMPT) on ethylene-propylene-diene terpolymer rubber (EPDM) mixtures irradiated in electron beam. Blends, molded on an electrically heated laboratory roller mill and compressed in an electrically heated hydraulic press, were irradiated using the ALID 7 of 5.5 MeV linear accelerator in the dose range of 22.6 kGy to 56.5 kGy in atmospheric conditions and at room temperature of 25 °C. The share of cross-linking and degradation reactions was evaluated by means of sol-gel analysis, cross-linking density measurements, FTIR studies and Charlesby-Pinner parameter (p0/q0) calculations. The blends containing different concentrations of TMPT (3 phr and 9 phr) and irradiated with doses in the mentioned range have present the increasing of gel content and cross-linking density. Modified and new bands in FTIR spectra have appeared, because of both cross-linking and chain scission reactions.

Keywords: Electron beam irradiation, EPDM rubber, crosslinking density, gel fraction.

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2976 Highly Accurate Target Motion Compensation Using Entropy Function Minimization

Authors: Amin Aghatabar Roodbary, Mohammad Hassan Bastani

Abstract:

One of the defects of stepped frequency radar systems is their sensitivity to target motion. In such systems, target motion causes range cell shift, false peaks, Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) reduction and range profile spreading because of power spectrum interference of each range cell in adjacent range cells which induces distortion in High Resolution Range Profile (HRRP) and disrupt target recognition process. Thus Target Motion Parameters (TMPs) effects compensation should be employed. In this paper, such a method for estimating TMPs (velocity and acceleration) and consequently eliminating or suppressing the unwanted effects on HRRP based on entropy minimization has been proposed. This method is carried out in two major steps: in the first step, a discrete search method has been utilized over the whole acceleration-velocity lattice network, in a specific interval seeking to find a less-accurate minimum point of the entropy function. Then in the second step, a 1-D search over velocity is done in locus of the minimum for several constant acceleration lines, in order to enhance the accuracy of the minimum point found in the first step. The provided simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: ATR, HRRP, motion compensation, SFW, TMP.

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2975 Using Business Intelligence Capabilities to Improve the Quality of Decision-Making: A Case Study of Mellat Bank

Authors: Jalal Haghighat Monfared, Zahra Akbari

Abstract:

Today, business executives need to have useful information to make better decisions. Banks have also been using information tools so that they can direct the decision-making process in order to achieve their desired goals by rapidly extracting information from sources with the help of business intelligence. The research seeks to investigate whether there is a relationship between the quality of decision making and the business intelligence capabilities of Mellat Bank. Each of the factors studied is divided into several components, and these and their relationships are measured by a questionnaire. The statistical population of this study consists of all managers and experts of Mellat Bank's General Departments (including 190 people) who use commercial intelligence reports. The sample size of this study was 123 randomly determined by statistical method. In this research, relevant statistical inference has been used for data analysis and hypothesis testing. In the first stage, using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the normalization of the data was investigated and in the next stage, the construct validity of both variables and their resulting indexes were verified using confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, using the structural equation modeling and Pearson's correlation coefficient, the research hypotheses were tested. The results confirmed the existence of a positive relationship between decision quality and business intelligence capabilities in Mellat Bank. Among the various capabilities, including data quality, correlation with other systems, user access, flexibility and risk management support, the flexibility of the business intelligence system was the most correlated with the dependent variable of the present research. This shows that it is necessary for Mellat Bank to pay more attention to choose the required business intelligence systems with high flexibility in terms of the ability to submit custom formatted reports. Subsequently, the quality of data on business intelligence systems showed the strongest relationship with quality of decision making. Therefore, improving the quality of data, including the source of data internally or externally, the type of data in quantitative or qualitative terms, the credibility of the data and perceptions of who uses the business intelligence system, improves the quality of decision making in Mellat Bank.

Keywords: Business intelligence, business intelligence capability, decision making, decision quality.

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2974 Fundamental Theory of the Evolution Force: Gene Engineering utilizing Synthetic Evolution Artificial Intelligence

Authors: L. K. Davis

Abstract:

The effects of the evolution force are observable in nature at all structural levels ranging from small molecular systems to conversely enormous biospheric systems. However, the evolution force and work associated with formation of biological structures has yet to be described mathematically or theoretically. In addressing the conundrum, we consider evolution from a unique perspective and in doing so we introduce the “Fundamental Theory of the Evolution Force: FTEF”. We utilized synthetic evolution artificial intelligence (SYN-AI) to identify genomic building blocks and to engineer 14-3-3 ζ docking proteins by transforming gene sequences into time-based DNA codes derived from protein hierarchical structural levels. The aforementioned served as templates for random DNA hybridizations and genetic assembly. The application of hierarchical DNA codes allowed us to fast forward evolution, while dampening the effect of point mutations. Natural selection was performed at each hierarchical structural level and mutations screened using Blosum 80 mutation frequency-based algorithms. Notably, SYN-AI engineered a set of three architecturally conserved docking proteins that retained motion and vibrational dynamics of native Bos taurus 14-3-3 ζ.

Keywords: 14-3-3 docking genes, synthetic protein design, time based DNA codes, writing DNA code from scratch.

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2973 Testing Loaded Programs Using Fault Injection Technique

Authors: S. Manaseer, F. A. Masooud, A. A. Sharieh

Abstract:

Fault tolerance is critical in many of today's large computer systems. This paper focuses on improving fault tolerance through testing. Moreover, it concentrates on the memory faults: how to access the editable part of a process memory space and how this part is affected. A special Software Fault Injection Technique (SFIT) is proposed for this purpose. This is done by sequentially scanning the memory of the target process, and trying to edit maximum number of bytes inside that memory. The technique was implemented and tested on a group of programs in software packages such as jet-audio, Notepad, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Outlook. The results from the test sample process indicate that the size of the scanned area depends on several factors. These factors are: process size, process type, and virtual memory size of the machine under test. The results show that increasing the process size will increase the scanned memory space. They also show that input-output processes have more scanned area size than other processes. Increasing the virtual memory size will also affect the size of the scanned area but to a certain limit.

Keywords: Complex software systems, Error detection, Fault tolerance, Injection and testing methodology, Memory faults, Process and virtual memory.

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2972 The Hall Coefficient and Magnetoresistance in Rectangular Quantum Wires with Infinitely High Potential under the Influence of a Laser Radiation

Authors: Nguyen Thu Huong, Nguyen Quang Bau

Abstract:

The Hall Coefficient (HC) and the Magnetoresistance (MR) have been studied in two-dimensional systems. The HC and the MR in Rectangular Quantum Wire (RQW) subjected to a crossed DC electric field and magnetic field in the presence of a Strong Electromagnetic Wave (EMW) characterized by electric field are studied in this work. Using the quantum kinetic equation for electrons interacting with optical phonons, we obtain the analytic expressions for the HC and the MR with a dependence on magnetic field, EMW frequency, temperatures of systems and the length characteristic parameters of RQW. These expressions are different from those obtained for bulk semiconductors and cylindrical quantum wires. The analytical results are applied to GaAs/GaAs/Al. For this material, MR depends on the ratio of the EMW frequency to the cyclotron frequency. Indeed, MR reaches a minimum at the ratio 5/4, and when this ratio increases, it tends towards a saturation value. The HC can take negative or positive values. Each curve has one maximum and one minimum. When magnetic field increases, the HC is negative, achieves a minimum value and then increases suddenly to a maximum with a positive value. This phenomenon differs from the one observed in cylindrical quantum wire, which does not have maximum and minimum values.

Keywords: Hall coefficient, rectangular quantum wires, electron-optical phonon interaction, quantum kinetic equation.

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2971 Power System Security Constrained Economic Dispatch Using Real Coded Quantum Inspired Evolution Algorithm

Authors: A. K. Al-Othman, F. S. Al-Fares, K. M. EL-Nagger

Abstract:

This paper presents a new optimization technique based on quantum computing principles to solve a security constrained power system economic dispatch problem (SCED). The proposed technique is a population-based algorithm, which uses some quantum computing elements in coding and evolving groups of potential solutions to reach the optimum following a partially directed random approach. The SCED problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem in a way that insures a secure-economic system operation. Real Coded Quantum-Inspired Evolution Algorithm (RQIEA) is then applied to solve the constrained optimization formulation. Simulation results of the proposed approach are compared with those reported in literature. The outcome is very encouraging and proves that RQIEA is very applicable for solving security constrained power system economic dispatch problem (SCED).

Keywords: State Estimation, Fuzzy Linear Regression, FuzzyLinear State Estimator (FLSE) and Measurements Uncertainty.

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2970 Fiber Optic Sensors for Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor Measurement

Authors: H. Akbari Khorami, P. Wild, N. Djilali

Abstract:

This paper reports on the response of a fiber-optic sensing probe to small concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) vapor at room temperature. H2O2 has extensive applications in industrial and medical environments. Conversely, H2O2 can be a health hazard by itself. For example, H2O2 induces cellular damage in human cells and its presence can be used to diagnose illnesses such as asthma and human breast cancer. Hence, development of reliable H2O2 sensor is of vital importance to detect and measure this species. Ferric ferrocyanide, referred to as Prussian Blue (PB), was deposited on the tip of a multimode optical fiber through the single source precursor technique and served as an indicator of H2O2 in a spectroscopic manner. Sensing tests were performed in H2O2-H2O vapor mixtures with different concentrations of H2O2. The results of sensing tests show the sensor is able to detect H2O2 concentrations in the range of 50.6 ppm to 229.5 ppm. Furthermore, the sensor response to H2O2 concentrations is linear in a log-log scale with the adjacent R-square of 0.93. This sensing behavior allows us to detect and quantify the concentration of H2O2 in the vapor phase.

Keywords: Chemical deposition, fiber-optic sensors, hydrogen peroxide vapor, prussian blue.

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2969 Colorectal Cancer Screening by a CEACAM-6 Immunosensor

Authors: C. T. S. Ching, P. W. C hen, T. P. Sun, H. L. Shieh

Abstract:

The biomarker for colorectal cancer (CRC) is CEACAM-6 antigen (C6AG). Therefore, this study aims to develop a novel, simple and low-cost CEACAM-6 antigen immumosensor (C6AG-IMS), based on electrical impedance measurement, for precise determination of C6AG. A low-cost screen-printed graphite electrode was constructed and used as the sensor, with CEACAM-6 antibody (C6AB) immobilized on it. The procedures of sensor fabrication and antibody immobilization are simple and low-cost. Measurement of the electrical impedance at a definite frequency ranges (0.43 – 1.26 MHz) showed that the C6AG-IMS has an excellent linear (r2>0.9) response range (8.125 – 65 pg/mL), covering the normal physiological and pathological ranges of blood C6AG levels. Also, the C6AG-IMS has excellent reliability and validity, with the intraclass correlation coefficient being 0.97. In conclusion, a novel, simple, low-cost and reliable C6AG-IMS was designed and developed, being able to accurately determine blood C6AG levels in the range of pathological and normal physiological regions. The C6AG-IMS can provide a point-of-care and immediate screening results to the user at home.

Keywords: Colorectal Cancer, Immunosensor, Electrical Impedance, CEACAM-6, Measurement, Point-of-Care

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2968 Effective Scheduling of Semiconductor Manufacturing using Simulation

Authors: Ingy A. El-Khouly, Khaled S. El-Kilany, Aziz E. El-Sayed

Abstract:

The process of wafer fabrication is arguably the most technologically complex and capital intensive stage in semiconductor manufacturing. This large-scale discrete-event process is highly reentrant, and involves hundreds of machines, restrictions, and processing steps. Therefore, production control of wafer fabrication facilities (fab), specifically scheduling, is one of the most challenging problems that this industry faces. Dispatching rules have been extensively applied to the scheduling problems in semiconductor manufacturing. Moreover, lot release policies are commonly used in this manufacturing setting to further improve the performance of such systems and reduce its inherent variability. In this work, simulation is used in the scheduling of re-entrant flow shop manufacturing systems with an application in semiconductor wafer fabrication; where, a simulation model has been developed for the Intel Five-Machine Six Step Mini-Fab using the ExtendTM simulation environment. The Mini-Fab has been selected as it captures the challenges involved in scheduling the highly re-entrant semiconductor manufacturing lines. A number of scenarios have been developed and have been used to evaluate the effect of different dispatching rules and lot release policies on the selected performance measures. Results of simulation showed that the performance of the Mini-Fab can be drastically improved using a combination of dispatching rules and lot release policy.

Keywords: Dispatching rules, lot release policy, re-entrant flowshop, semiconductor manufacturing.

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2967 Hazards Assessment of Radon Exhalation Rate and Radium Content in the Soil Samples in Iraqi Kurdistan Using Passive and Active Detecting Methods

Authors: Asaad H. Ismail, Mohamad S. Jaafar

Abstract:

This study aims to assess the environmental hazards from radon exhalation rate in the soil samples in selected locations in Iraqi Kurdistan, using passive (CR-39NTDs) and active (RAD7) detecting method. Radon concentration, effective radium content and radon exhalation rate were estimated in soil samples that collected at the depth level of 30 cm inside 124 houses. The results show that the emanation rate for radon gas was variation from location to other, depending on the geological formation. Most health risks come from emanation of radon and its daughter due to its contribution for indoor radon, so the results showed that there is a linear relationship between the ratio of soil and indoor radon concentration (CSoil Rn222/ Cindoor Rn222) and the effective radium content in soil samples. The results show that radon concentration has high and low values in Hajyawa city and Er. Tyrawa Qr, respectively. A comparison between our results with that mentioned in international reports was done.

Keywords: Radon, CR-39NTDs, RAD7, Soil, Iraqi Kurdistan.

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2966 Toward Delegated Democracy: Vote by Yourself, or Trust Your Network

Authors: Hiroshi Yamakawa, Michiko Yoshida, Motohiro Tsuchiya

Abstract:

The recent development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enables new ways of "democratic" decision-making such as a page-ranking system, which estimates the importance of a web page based on indirect trust on that page shared by diverse group of unorganized individuals. These kinds of "democracy" have not been acclaimed yet in the world of real politics. On the other hand, a large amount of data about personal relations including trust, norms of reciprocity, and networks of civic engagement has been accumulated in a computer-readable form by computer systems (e.g., social networking systems). We can use these relations as a new type of social capital to construct a new democratic decision-making system based on a delegation network. In this paper, we propose an effective decision-making support system, which is based on empowering someone's vote whom you trust. For this purpose, we propose two new techniques: the first is for estimating entire vote distribution from a small number of votes, and the second is for estimating active voter choice to promote voting using a delegation network. We show that these techniques could increase the voting ratio and credibility of the whole decision by agent-based simulations.

Keywords: Delegation, network centrality, social network, voting ratio.

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