Search results for: Distributed Clustering

Authors: Sidhartha Panda, N.P.Padhy

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Wind power is among the most actively developing distributed generation (DG) technology. Majority of the wind power based DG technologies employ wind turbine induction generators (WTIG) instead of synchronous generators, for the technical advantages like: reduced size, increased robustness, lower cost, and increased electromechanical damping. However, dynamic changes of wind speed make the amount of active/reactive power injected/drawn to a WTIG embedded distribution network highly variable. This paper analyzes the effect of wind speed changes on the active and reactive power penetration to the wind energy embedded distribution network. Four types of wind speed changes namely; constant, linear change, gust change and random change of wind speed are considered in the analysis. The study is carried out by three-phase, non-linear, dynamic simulation of distribution system component models. Results obtained from the investigation are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Wind turbine induction generator, distribution network, active and reactive power, wind speed.

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Authors: Elia Favarelli, Enrico Testi, Andrea Giorgetti

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Autonomous structural health monitoring (SHM) of many structures and bridges became a topic of paramount importance for maintenance purposes and safety reasons. This paper proposes a set of machine learning (ML) tools to perform automatic feature selection and detection of anomalies in a bridge from vibrational data and compare different feature extraction schemes to increase the accuracy and reduce the amount of data collected. As a case study, the Z-24 bridge is considered because of the extensive database of accelerometric data in both standard and damaged conditions. The proposed framework starts from the first four fundamental frequencies extracted through operational modal analysis (OMA) and clustering, followed by time-domain filtering (tracking). The fundamental frequencies extracted are then fed to a dimensionality reduction block implemented through two different approaches: feature selection (intelligent multiplexer) that tries to estimate the most reliable frequencies based on the evaluation of some statistical features (i.e., entropy, variance, kurtosis), and feature extraction (auto-associative neural network (ANN)) that combine the fundamental frequencies to extract new damage sensitive features in a low dimensional feature space. Finally, one-class classification (OCC) algorithms perform anomaly detection, trained with standard condition points, and tested with normal and anomaly ones. In particular, principal component analysis (PCA), kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), and autoassociative neural network (ANN) are presented and their performance are compared. It is also shown that, by evaluating the correct features, the anomaly can be detected with accuracy and an F1 score greater than 95%.

Keywords: Anomaly detection, dimensionality reduction, frequencies selection, modal analysis, neural network, structural health monitoring, vibration measurement.

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Authors: Ashkan Ebadi, Adam Krzyzak

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Recommender systems, also known as recommender engines, have become an important research area and are now being applied in various fields. In addition, the techniques behind the recommender systems have been improved over the time. In general, such systems help users to find their required products or services (e.g. books, music) through analyzing and aggregating other users’ activities and behavior, mainly in form of reviews, and making the best recommendations. The recommendations can facilitate user’s decision making process. Despite the wide literature on the topic, using multiple data sources of different types as the input has not been widely studied. Recommender systems can benefit from the high availability of digital data to collect the input data of different types which implicitly or explicitly help the system to improve its accuracy. Moreover, most of the existing research in this area is based on single rating measures in which a single rating is used to link users to items. This paper proposes a highly accurate hotel recommender system, implemented in various layers. Using multi-aspect rating system and benefitting from large-scale data of different types, the recommender system suggests hotels that are personalized and tailored for the given user. The system employs natural language processing and topic modelling techniques to assess the sentiment of the users’ reviews and extract implicit features. The entire recommender engine contains multiple sub-systems, namely users clustering, matrix factorization module, and hybrid recommender system. Each sub-system contributes to the final composite set of recommendations through covering a specific aspect of the problem. The accuracy of the proposed recommender system has been tested intensively where the results confirm the high performance of the system.

Keywords: Tourism, hotel recommender system, hybrid, implicit features.

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Authors: Raja Suzana Raja Kasim

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This paper attempts to highlight the significant role of knowledge management practices (KMP) and competencies in improving the performance and efficiency of public sector organizations. It appears that public sector organizations in developing countries have not received much attention in the research literature of knowledge management and competencies. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the role of KMP and competencies in achieving superior performance among public sector organizations in Malaysia in the broader perspective. Survey questionnaires were distributed to all Administrative and Diplomatic Officers (ADS) from 28 ministries located in Putrajaya, Malaysia. This paper also examines preliminary empirical results on the relationship between support for knowledge management practices, competencies, and orientation in Malaysia-s public organizations. This paper supports the notion that the practices of knowledge management at the organizational level are a prerequisite for successful organizational performance. In conclusion, the results not only have the potential to contribute theoretically to both management strategy and knowledge management field literature but also to the area of organizational performance.

Keywords: knowledge, knowledge management practices, competencies, organizational performance

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Authors: Aziah Khamis, H. Shareef

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The purpose of planned islanding is to construct a power island during system disturbances which are commonly formed for maintenance purpose. However, in most of the cases island mode operation is not allowed. Therefore distributed generators (DGs) must sense the unplanned disconnection from the main grid. Passive technique is the most commonly used method for this purpose. However, it needs improvement in order to identify the islanding condition. In this paper an effective method for identification of islanding condition based on phase space and neural network techniques has been developed. The captured voltage waveforms at the coupling points of DGs are processed to extract the required features. For this purposed a method known as the phase space techniques is used. Based on extracted features, two neural network configuration namely radial basis function and probabilistic neural networks are trained to recognize the waveform class. According to the test result, the investigated technique can provide satisfactory identification of the islanding condition in the distribution system.

Keywords: Classification, Islanding detection, Neural network, Phase space.

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Authors: Salam R. Yaghi, Saleh Abu Dabous

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Government reports and published research have flagged and brought to public attention the deteriorating condition of a large percentage of bridges in Canada and the United States. With the increasing number of deteriorated bridges in the US, Canada, and around the globe, condition assessment techniques of concrete bridges are evolving. Investigation for bridges’ defects such as cracks, spalls, and delamination and their level of severity are the main objectives of condition assessment. Inspection and rehabilitation programs are being implemented to monitor and maintain deteriorated bridge infrastructure. This paper highlights the state-of-the art of current practices being performed for concrete bridge inspection. The information is gathered from the literature and through a distributed questionnaire. The current practices in concrete bridge inspection rely on the use of hummer sounding and chain dragging tests. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) techniques are not being utilized fully in the process. Nonetheless, they are being partially utilized by the recommendation of the bridge inspector after conducting visual inspection. Lanes are usually closed during the performance of visual inspection and bridge inspection in general.

Keywords: Bridge Inspection, Condition Assessment, questionnaire, Non-Destructive Testing.

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Authors: M. Mehani, N. Salhi, T. Valeria, S. Ladjel

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Red River Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) is a tree of the genus Eucalyptus widely distributed in Algeria and in the world. The value of its aromatic secondary metabolites offers new perspectives in the pharmaceutical industry. This strategy can contribute to the sustainable development of our country. Preliminary tests performed on the essential oil of Eucalyptus camendulensis showed that this oil has antibacterial activity vis-à-vis the bacterial strains (Enterococcus feacalis, Enterobacter cloaceai, Proteus microsilis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and antifungic (Fusarium sporotrichioide and Fusarium graminearum). The culture medium used was nutrient broth Muller Hinton. The interaction between the bacteria and the essential oil is expressed by a zone of inhibition with diameters of MIC indirectly expression of. And we used the PDA medium to determine the fungal activity. The extraction of the aromatic fraction (essentially oilhydrolat) of the fresh aerian part of the Eucalyptus camendulensis was performed by hydrodistillation. The average essential oil yield is 0.99%. The antimicrobial and fungal study of the essential oil and hydrosol showed a high inhibitory effect on the growth of pathogens.

Keywords: Essential oil, Eucalyptus camendulensis, bacteria and Fungi.

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Authors: Tatyana Alexandrova, Alexandr Alexandrov, Nadezhda Nikolaeva

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A problem of complex mineral resources development is urgent and priority, it is aimed at realization of the processes of their ecologically safe development, one of its components is revealing the influence of the forms of element compounds in raw materials and in the processing products. In view of depletion of the precious metal reserves at the traditional deposits in the XXI century the large-size open cast deposits, localized in black shale strata begin to play the leading role. Carbonaceous (black) shales carry a heightened metallogenic potential. Black shales with high content of carbon are widely distributed within the scope of Bureinsky massif. According to academician Hanchuk`s data black shales of Sutirskaya series contain generally PGEs native form. The presence of high absorptive towards carbonaceous matter gold and PGEs compounds in crude ore results in decrease of valuable components extraction because of their sorption into dissipated carbonaceous matter.

Keywords: Сarbonaceous rocks, bitumens, precious metals, concentration, extraction.

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Authors: S. Venkateshwarlu, B. P. Muni, A. D. Rajkumar, J. Praveen

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Custom power is a technology driven product and service solution which embraces a family devices such as Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR), Distributed Shunt Compensator (DSTATCOM), Solid State Breaker (SSB) etc which will provide power quality functions at distribution voltages. The rapid response of these devices enables them to operate in real time, providing continuous and dynamic control of the supply including voltage and reactive power regulation, harmonic reduction and elimination of voltage dips. This paper presents the benefits of multilevel inverters when they are used for DPC based custom power devices. Power flow control mechanism, salient features, advantages and disadvantages of direct power control (DPC) using lookup table, SVM, predictive voltage vector and hybrid DPC strategies are discussed in this paper. Simulation results of three level inverter based STATCOM, harmonic analysis of multi level inverters are presented at the end.

Keywords: DPC, DPC-SVM, Dynamic voltage restorer, DSTATCOM, Multilevel inverter, PWM Converter, PDPC, VF-DPC.

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Authors: Saeid Haghjoo, Ebrahim Reyhani, Fahimeh Kolahdouz

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The present study aimed to evaluate the understanding of the students in Tehran universities (Iran) about the numerical representation of the average rate of change based on the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO). In the present descriptive-survey research, the statistical population included undergraduate students (basic sciences and engineering) in the universities of Tehran. The samples were 604 students selected by random multi-stage clustering. The measurement tool was a task whose face and content validity was confirmed by math and mathematics education professors. Using Cronbach's Alpha criterion, the reliability coefficient of the task was obtained 0.95, which verified its reliability. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi-squared and independent t-tests) under SPSS-24 software. According to the SOLO model in the prestructural, unistructural, and multistructural levels, basic science students had a higher percentage of understanding than that of engineering students, although the outcome was inverse at the relational level. However, there was no significant difference in the average understanding of both groups. The results indicated that students failed to have a proper understanding of the numerical representation of the average rate of change, in addition to missconceptions when using physics formulas in solving the problem. In addition, multiple solutions were derived along with their dominant methods during the qualitative analysis. The current research proposed to focus on the context problems with approximate calculations and numerical representation, using software and connection common relations between math and physics in the teaching process of teachers and professors.

Keywords: Average rate of change, context problems, derivative, numerical representation, SOLO taxonomy.

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Authors: Mohsen Maadani, Seyed Ahmad Motamedi

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The use of wireless technology in industrial networks has gained vast attraction in recent years. In this paper, we have thoroughly analyzed the effect of contention window (CW) size on the performance of IEEE 802.11-based industrial wireless networks (IWN), from delay and reliability perspective. Results show that the default values of CWmin, CWmax, and retry limit (RL) are far from the optimum performance due to the industrial application characteristics, including short packet and noisy environment. In this paper, an adaptive CW algorithm (payload-dependent) has been proposed to minimize the average delay. Finally a simple, but effective CW and RL setting has been proposed for industrial applications which outperforms the minimum-average-delay solution from maximum delay and jitter perspective, at the cost of a little higher average delay. Simulation results show an improvement of up to 20%, 25%, and 30% in average delay, maximum delay and jitter respectively.

Keywords: Average Delay, Contention Window, Distributed Coordination Function (DCF), Jitter, Industrial Wireless Network (IWN), Maximum Delay, Reliability, Retry Limit.

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Authors: N. Marzban, J. K. Heydarzadeh M. Pourmohammadbagher, M. H. Hatami, A. Samia

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A nano-alumina-zirconia composite catalyst was synthesized by a simple aqueous sol-gel method using AlCl₃.6H₂O and ZrCl₄ as precursors. Thermal decomposition of the precursor and subsequent formation of γ-Al₂O₃ and t-Zr were investigated by thermal analysis. XRD analysis showed that γ-Al₂O₃ and t-ZrO₂ phases were formed at 700 °C. FT-IR analysis also indicated that the phase transition to γ-Al₂O₃ occurred in corroboration with X-ray studies. TEM analysis of the calcined powder revealed that spherical particles were in the range of 8-12 nm. The nano-alumina-zirconia composite particles were mesoporous and uniformly distributed in their crystalline phase. In order to measure the catalytic activity, esterification reaction was carried out. Biodiesel, as a renewable fuel, was formed in a continuous packed column reactor. Free fatty acid (FFA) was esterified with ethanol in a heterogeneous catalytic reactor. It was found that the synthesized γ-Al₂O₃/ZrO₂ composite had the potential to be used as a heterogeneous base catalyst for biodiesel production processes.

Keywords: Nano-alumina-zirconia, composite catalyst, thin film, biodiesel.

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Authors: U. Ben-Hamed, H. Seddighi, K. Thomas

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UK breweries generate extensive by products in the form of spent grain, slurry and yeast. Much of the spent grain is produced by large breweries and processed in bulk for animal feed. Spent brewery grains contain up to 20% protein dry weight and up to 60% fiber and are useful additions to animal feed. Bulk processing is economic and allows spent grain to be sold so providing an income to the brewery. A proportion of spent grain, however, is produced by small local breweries and is more variably distributed to farms or other users using intermittent collection methods. Such use is much less economic and may incur losses if not carefully assessed for transport costs. This study reports an economic returns of using wet brewery spent grain (WBSG) in animal feed using the Co-product Optimizer Decision Evaluator model (Cattle CODE) developed by the University of Nebraska to predict performance and economic returns when byproducts are fed to finishing cattle. The results indicated that distance from brewery to farm had a significantly greater effect on the economics of use of small brewery spent grain and that alternative uses than cattle feed may be important to develop.

Keywords: Animal Feed, Brewery Spent Grains, cattle CODE, Economic returns.

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Authors: Jirarat Teeravaraprug, Tarathorn Podcharathitikull

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Nowadays, Ministry of Industry has given an attention to develop Eco-industrial towns in Thailand. Eco-industrial towns are a way of demonstrating the application of industrial ecology and are subjects of increased interest as government, business and society. This concept of Eco-industrial town is quite new in Thailand. It is used as a way of achieving more sustainable industrial development. However, many firms or organizations have misunderstood the concept and treated with suspicion. The planning and development of Eco-industrial towns is a significant challenge for the developers and public agencies. This research then gives an attempt to determine current problems of being Eco-Industrial towns and determine success factors for developing Eco-Industrial towns in Thailand. The research starts with giving knowledge about Eco-industrial towns to stakeholders and conducting public hearing in order to acquire the problems of being Eco-industrial towns. Then, factors effecting the development of Eco-Industrial town are collected. The obtained factors are analyzed by using the concept of IOC. Then, the remained factors are categorized and structured based on the concept of AHP. A questionnaire is constructed and distributed to the experts who are involved in the Eco-industrial town project. The result shows that the most significant success criterion is management teams of industrial parks or groups and the second most significant goes to governmental policies.

Keywords: AHP, Eco-industrial town, success factors, Thailand.

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Authors: Wook-Won Kim, Je-Seok Shin, Jin-O Kim

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As the penetration of Energy Storage System (ESS) increases in the power system due to higher performance and lower cost than ever, ESS is expanding its role to the ancillary service as well as the storage of extra energy from the intermittent renewable energy resources. For multi-ESS with different capacity and SOC level each other, it is required to make the optimal schedule of SOC level use the multi-ESS effectively. This paper proposes the energy allocation method for the multiple battery ESS with reliability constraint, in order to make the ESS discharge the required energy as long as possible. A simple but effective method is proposed in this paper, to satisfy the power for the spinning reserve requirement while improving the system reliability. Modelling of ESS is also proposed, and reliability is evaluated by using the combined reliability model which includes the proposed ESS model and conventional generation one. In the case study, it can be observed that the required power is distributed to each ESS adequately and accordingly, the SOC is scheduled to improve the reliability indices such as Loss of Load Probability (LOLP) and Loss of Load Expectation (LOLE).

Keywords: Multiple energy storage system, energy allocation method, SOC schedule, reliability constraints.

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Authors: Chapman Eze Nnadozie

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Relational databases constitute a very vital tool for the effective management and administration of both personal and organizational data. Data access ranges from a single user database management software to a more complex distributed server system. This paper intends to appraise the use a programming language extension like structured query language (SQL) to establish links to a relational database (Microsoft Access 2013) using Visual C++ 9 programming language environment. The methodology used involves the creation of tables to form a database using Microsoft Access 2013, which is Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) database compliant. The SQL command is used to query the tables in the database for easy extraction of expected records inside the visual C++ environment. The findings of this paper reveal that records can easily be accessed and manipulated to filter exactly what the user wants, such as retrieval of records with specified criteria, updating of records, and deletion of part or the whole records in a table.

Keywords: Data access, database, database management system, OLE, programming language, records, relational database, software, SQL, table.

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Authors: M. Hammerton, J. Trevathan, T. Myers, W. Read

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The transfer rate of messages in distributed sensor network applications is a critical factor in a system's performance. The Sensor Abstraction Layer (SAL) is one such system. SAL is a middleware integration platform for abstracting sensor specific technology in order to integrate heterogeneous types of sensors in a network. SAL uses Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) as its connection method, which has unsatisfying transfer rates, especially for streaming data. This paper analyses different connection methods to optimize data transmission in SAL by replacing RMI. Our results show that the most promising Java-based connections were frameworks for Java New Input/Output (NIO) including Apache MINA, JBoss Netty, and xSocket. A test environment was implemented to evaluate each respective framework based on transfer rate, resource usage, and scalability. Test results showed the most suitable connection method to improve data transmission in SAL JBoss Netty as it provides a performance enhancement of 68%.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, remote method invocation, transmission time.

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Authors: M.Machhout, M.Zeghid, W.El hadj youssef, B.Bouallegue, A.Baganne, R.Tourki

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Long number multiplications (n ≥ 128-bit) are a primitive in most cryptosystems. They can be performed better by using Karatsuba-Ofman technique. This algorithm is easy to parallelize on workstation network and on distributed memory, and it-s known as the practical method of choice. Multiplying long numbers using Karatsuba-Ofman algorithm is fast but is highly recursive. In this paper, we propose different designs of implementing Karatsuba-Ofman multiplier. A mixture of sequential and combinational system design techniques involving pipelining is applied to our proposed designs. Multiplying large numbers can be adapted flexibly to time, area and power criteria. Computationally and occupation constrained in embedded systems such as: smart cards, mobile phones..., multiplication of finite field elements can be achieved more efficiently. The proposed designs are compared to other existing techniques. Mathematical models (Area (n), Delay (n)) of our proposed designs are also elaborated and evaluated on different FPGAs devices.

Keywords: finite field, Karatsuba-Ofman, long numbers, multiplication, mathematical model, recursivity.

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Authors: Pei-yih Ting, Dream-Ming Huang, Xiao-Wei Huang

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Frequently a group of people jointly decide and authorize a specific person as a representative in some business/poitical occasions, e.g., the board of a company authorizes the chief executive officer to close a multi-billion acquisition deal. In this paper, an integrated proxy multi-signature scheme that allows anonymously vetoable delegation is proposed. This protocol integrates mechanisms of private veto, distributed proxy key generation, secure transmission of proxy key, and existentially unforgeable proxy multi-signature scheme. First, a provably secure Guillou-Quisquater proxy signature scheme is presented, then the “zero-sharing" protocol is extended over a composite modulus multiplicative group, and finally the above two are combined to realize the GQ proxy multi-signature with anonymously vetoable delegation. As a proxy signature scheme, this protocol protects both the original signers and the proxy signer. The modular design allows simplified implementation with less communication overheads and better computation performance than a general secure multi-party protocol.

Keywords: GQ proxy signature, proxy multi-signature, zero-sharing protocol, secure multi-party protocol, private veto protocol

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Authors: Mohamed K. Watfa

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Like any sentient organism, a smart environment relies first and foremost on sensory data captured from the real world. The sensory data come from sensor nodes of different modalities deployed on different locations forming a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Embedding smart sensors in humans has been a research challenge due to the limitations imposed by these sensors from computational capabilities to limited power. In this paper, we first propose a practical WSN application that will enable blind people to see what their neighboring partners can see. The challenge is that the actual mapping between the input images to brain pattern is too complex and not well understood. We also study the connectivity problem in 3D/2D wireless sensor networks and propose distributed efficient algorithms to accomplish the required connectivity of the system. We provide a new connectivity algorithm CDCA to connect disconnected parts of a network using cooperative diversity. Through simulations, we analyze the connectivity gains and energy savings provided by this novel form of cooperative diversity in WSNs.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Networks, Pervasive Computing, Eye Vision Application, 3D Connectivity, Clusters, Energy Efficient, Cooperative diversity.

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Authors: B. D. Polat, O. Keles

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Physical vapor deposition under conditions of an obliquely incident flux results in a film formation with an inclined columnar structure. These columns will be oriented toward the vapor source because of the self-shadowing effect, and they are homogenously distributed on the substrate surface because of the limited surface diffusion ability of ad-atoms when there is no additional substrate heating.

In this work, the oblique angle electron beam evaporation technique is used to fabricate thin films containing inclined nanorods. The results demonstrate that depending on the thin film composition, the morphology of the nanorods is changed as well. The galvanostatic analysis of these thin film anodes reveals that a composite CuSn nanorods having approximately 900mAhg^-1 of initial discharge capacity, performs higher electrochemical performance compared to pure Sn nanorods containing anode material. The long cycle life and the advanced electrochemical properties of the nanostructured composite electrode might be attributed to its improved mechanical tolerance and enhanced electrical conductivity depending on the Cu presence in the nanorods.

Keywords: Cu-Sn thin film, oblique angle deposition, lithium ion batteries, anode.

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Authors: Enrique Claver Cortés, Bartolomé Marco Lajara, Eduardo Sánchez García, Pedro Seva Larrosa, Encarnación Manresa Marhuenda, Lorena Ruiz Fernández, Esther Poveda Pareja

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In recent decades, the analysis of the effects of clustering as an essential factor for the development of innovations and the competitiveness of enterprises has raised great interest in different areas. Nowadays, companies have access to almost all tangible and intangible resources located and/or developed in any country in the world. However, despite the obvious advantages that this situation entails for companies, their geographical location has shown itself, increasingly clearly, to be a fundamental factor that positively influences their innovative performance and competitiveness. Industrial clusters could represent a unique level of analysis, positioned between the individual company and the industry, which makes them an ideal unit of analysis to determine the effects derived from company membership of a cluster. Also, the absorptive capacity (hereinafter 'AC') can mediate the process of innovation development by companies located in a cluster. The transformation and exploitation of knowledge could have a mediating effect between knowledge acquisition and innovative performance. The main objective of this work is to determine the key factors that affect the degree of generation and use of knowledge from the environment by companies and, consequently, their innovative performance and competitiveness. The elements analyzed are the companies' membership of a cluster and the AC. To this end, 30 most relevant papers published on this subject in the "Web of Science" database have been reviewed. Our findings show that, within a cluster, the knowledge coming from the companies' environment can significantly influence their innovative performance and competitiveness, although in this relationship, the degree of access and exploitation of the companies to this knowledge plays a fundamental role, which depends on a series of elements both internal and external to the company.

Keywords: Absorptive capacity, clusters, innovation, knowledge.

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Authors: K. Bommanna Raja, M.Madheswaran, K.Thyagarajah

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A higher order spline interpolated contour obtained with up-sampling of homogenously distributed coordinates for segmentation of kidney region in different classes of ultrasound kidney images has been developed and presented in this paper. The performance of the proposed method is measured and compared with modified snake model contour, Markov random field contour and expert outlined contour. The validation of the method is made in correspondence with expert outlined contour using maximum coordinate distance, Hausdorff distance and mean radial distance metrics. The results obtained reveal that proposed scheme provides optimum contour that agrees well with expert outlined contour. Moreover this technique helps to preserve the pixels-of-interest which in specific defines the functional characteristic of kidney. This explores various possibilities in implementing computer-aided diagnosis system exclusively for US kidney images.

Keywords: Ultrasound Kidney Image – Kidney Segmentation –Active Contour – Markov Random Field – Higher Order SplineInterpolation

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Authors: Roohi Shabrin S., Devi Prasad B., Prabu D., Pallavi R. S., Revathi P.

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Due to memory leaks, often-valuable system memory gets wasted and denied for other processes thereby affecting the computational performance. If an application-s memory usage exceeds virtual memory size, it can leads to system crash. Current memory leak detection techniques for clusters are reactive and display the memory leak information after the execution of the process (they detect memory leak only after it occur). This paper presents a Dynamic Memory Monitoring Agent (DMMA) technique. DMMA framework is a dynamic memory leak detection, that detects the memory leak while application is in execution phase, when memory leak in any process in the cluster is identified by DMMA it gives information to the end users to enable them to take corrective actions and also DMMA submit the affected process to healthy node in the system. Thus provides reliable service to the user. DMMA maintains information about memory consumption of executing processes and based on this information and critical states, DMMA can improve reliability and efficaciousness of cluster computing.

Keywords: Dynamic Memory Monitoring Agent (DMMA), Cluster Computing, Memory Leak, Fault Tolerant Framework, Dynamic Memory Leak Detection (DMLD).

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Authors: Chutima Klaysung

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This research aims to study the factors that influence the decision to choose the spa service of consumers in Amphawa, Samut Songkhram, Thailand. The research method will use quantitative research; data were collected by questionnaires distributed to spa consumers, both female and male, aged between 20 years and 70 years in the Amphawa, Samut Songkhram area for 400 samples by convenience sampling method. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics including percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics, including Pearson correlation for hypothesis testing. The results showed that the demographic variables including age, education, occupation, income and frequency of access to service spa were related to the decision to choose the spa service of consumers in Amphawa, Samut Songkhram. In addition, the researchers found the marketing mixed factors such as products, prices, places, promotion, personnel selling, physical evidence and processes were associated with the decision to choose the spa service of consumers in Amphawa, Samut Songkhram, Thailand.

Keywords: Consumers in Amphawa, Samut Songkhram, Thailand, decision to choose a spa service, marketing mixed factor, spa service.

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Authors: Sher Muhammad, Mirza Muhammad Waqar

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It is necessary to monitor and identify mangroves types and spatial extent near coastal areas because it plays an important role in coastal ecosystem and environmental protection. This research aims at identifying and mapping mangroves types along Karachi coast ranging from 24.79⁰ to 24.85⁰ in latitude and 66.91⁰ to 66.97⁰ in longitude using hyperspectral remote sensing data and techniques. Image acquired during February, 2012 through Hyperion sensor have been used for this research. Image pre processing includes geometric and radiometric correction followed by Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) and Pixel Purity Index (PPI). The output of MNF and PPI has been analyzed by visualizing it in n-dimensions for end member extraction. Well distributed clusters on the n-dimensional scatter plot have been selected with the region of interest (ROI) tool as end members. These end members have been used as an input for classification techniques applied to identify and map mangroves species including Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Spectral Feature Fitting (SFF) and Spectral Information Diversion (SID). Only two types of mangroves namely Avicennia Marina (White Mangroves) and Avicennia germinans (Black Mangroves) have been observed throughout the study area.

Keywords: Mangrove, Hyperspectral, SAM, SFF, SID.

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Authors: Tung-Liang Chen, Ming - Yi Huang, Tchiu-Hui Su

Abstract:

This study investigates the relationships between Work Motivation, Work Stress, and Job Satisfaction toward cross-strait employees. The target subjects are three manufacturing firms in Mainland China and Taiwan. Out of 450 distributed surveys, 352 valid surveys were obtained with the response rate of 78.22%.The findings have addressed three main pull factors toward cross-strait employees in choosing jobs, which are (1) high level of firm stability, (2) good firm image, and (3) good employee benefits. In addition, various employee attributes exert different impacts on Work Motivation, Work Stress, and Job Satisfaction. The comparison between expected and actual perceived Job Satisfaction toward cross-strait employees shows that “salary" ranks highest regarding expected Job Satisfaction whereas “co-worker relationship" ranks highest regarding actual perceived Job Satisfaction, which implies actual perceived Job Satisfaction do not match employee expectations. Therefore, this research further concludes that there exists differences between employees- expected and actual perceived Job Satisfaction.

Keywords: Cross-strait, job satisfaction, work motivation, work stress

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Authors: M. Hammerton, J. Trevathan, T. Myers, W. Read

Abstract:

The transfer rate of messages in distributed sensor network applications is a critical factor in a system's performance. The Sensor Abstraction Layer (SAL) is one such system. SAL is a middleware integration platform for abstracting sensor specific technology in order to integrate heterogeneous types of sensors in a network. SAL uses Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) as its connection method, which has unsatisfying transfer rates, especially for streaming data.  This paper analyses different connection methods to optimize data transmission in SAL by replacing RMI.  Our results show that the most promising Java-based connections were frameworks for Java New Input/Output (NIO) including Apache MINA, JBoss Netty, and xSocket. A test environment was implemented to evaluate each respective framework based on transfer rate, resource usage, and scalability. Test results showed the most suitable connection method to improve data transmission in SAL JBoss Netty as it provides a performance enhancement of 68%.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, remote method invocation, transmission time.

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Authors: Hafiz Usama Imad, Muhammad Akram Akhund, Tauha Hussain Ali, Ali Raza Khoso, Fida Hussain Siddiqui

Abstract:

Construction industry plays a significant role in fulfilling the major requirements of the human being. It is one of the major constituents of every developed country. Although the construction industry of both the developing and developed countries encompasses a major part of the economy, and millions of rupees are utilized every year on various kinds of construction projects. But, this industry is facing numerous hurdles in terms of its budget and timely completion. Construction projects generally consist of several phases like planning, designing, execution, and finishing. This research study aims to determine the significant factors of time overrun in pre-construction planning (PCP) phase of construction projects in Pakistan. Questionnaires were distributed by various means and responses of respondents were compiled and collected data were then analyzed through a statistical technique using SPSS version 24. Major causes of time overrun in pre-construction planning phase; which is an extremely important phase of construction projects, were revealed. The research conclusion will provide a pathway for stakeholders to pay attention to the mentioned causes to overcome the major issue of time overrun.

Keywords: Construction industry, Pakistan, pre-construction planning phase, time overrun.

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Authors: Hiroki Yoshikai, Shin’ichi Arakawa, Tetsuya Takine, Masayuki Murata

Abstract:

API (Application Programming Interface) economy is expected to create new value by converting corporate services such as information processing and data provision into APIs and using these APIs to connect services. Understanding dynamics of a market of API economy under strategies of participants is crucial to fully maximize the values of API economy. To capture the behavior of a market in which the number of participants changes over time, we present a time-evolving market model for a platform in which API providers who provide APIs to service providers participate in addition to service providers and consumers. Then, we use the market model to clarify the role API providers play in expanding market participants and forming ecosystems. The results show that the platform with API providers increased the number of market participants by 67% and decreased the cost to develop services by 25% compared to the platform without API providers. Furthermore, during the expansion phase of the market, it is found that the profits of participants are mostly the same when 70% of the revenue from consumers is distributed to service providers and API providers. It is also found that, when the market is mature, the profits of the service provider and API provider will decrease significantly due to their competitions and the profit of the platform increases.

Keywords: API Economy, ecosystem, platform, API providers.

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