Search results for: Extended Producer Responsibility

Authors: Yuka Kawakami, Tomoyuki Yokogawa, Hisashi Miyazaki, Sousuke Amasaki, Yoichiro Sato, Michiyoshi Hayase

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In this paper, we proposed a method for detecting consistency violation between state machine diagrams and a sequence diagram defined in UML 2.0 using SMV. We extended a method expressing these diagrams defined in UML 1.0 with boolean formulas so that it can express a sequence diagram with combined fragments introduced in UML 2.0. This extension made it possible to represent three types of combined fragment: alternative, option and parallel. As a result of experiment, we confirmed that the proposed method could detect consistency violation correctly with SMV.

Keywords: UML, model checking, SMV, sequence diagram.

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Authors: Ime R. Udotong, Justina I. R. Udotong

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Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU), a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and the highest crude oil & condensate producer in Nigeria has its operational base and an oil terminal, the Qua Iboe terminal (QIT) located at Ibeno, Nigeria. Other oil companies like Network Exploration and Production Nigeria Ltd, Frontier Oil Ltd; Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd; Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd and Nigerian Agip Energy, a subsidiary of the Italian ENI E&P operate onshore, on the continental shelf and in deep offshore of the Atlantic Ocean, respectively with the coastal waters of Ibeno, Nigeria as the nearest shoreline. This study was designed to delineate the oil-polluted sites in Ibeno, Nigeria using microbiological and physico-chemical characterization of soils, sediments and ground and surface water samples from the study area. Results obtained revealed that there have been significant recent hydrocarbon inputs into this environment as observed from the high counts of hydrocarbonoclastic microorganisms in excess of 1% at all the stations sampled. Moreover, high concentrations of THC, BTEX and heavy metals contents in all the samples analyzed corroborate the high recent crude oil input into the study area. The results also showed that the pollution of the different environmental media sampled were of varying degrees, following the trend: ground water > surface water > sediments > soils.

Keywords: Microbiological characterization, oil-polluted sites, physico-chemical analyses, total hydrocarbon content.

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Authors: Daniel Kostrzewa, Henryk Josiński

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The expanded Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm (exIWO) is an optimization metaheuristic modelled on the original IWO version created by the researchers from the University of Tehran. The authors of the present paper have extended the exIWO algorithm introducing a set of both deterministic and non-deterministic strategies of individuals’ selection. The goal of the project was to evaluate the exIWO by testing its usefulness for solving some test instances of the traveling salesman problem (TSP) taken from the TSPLIB collection which allows comparing the experimental results with optimal values.

Keywords: Expanded Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm (exIWO), Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), heuristic approach, inversion operator.

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Authors: A. Briseno, A, Zorrilla

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Firms are increasingly responding to social and environmental claims from society. Practices oriented to attend issues such as poverty, work equality, or renewable energy, are being implemented more frequently by firms to address impacts on sustainability. However, questions remain on how the responses of firms vary across industries and regions between the social and the economic objectives. Using concepts from organizational theory and social network theory, this paper aims to create a theoretical framework that explains the internal and external influences that make a firm establish its objective. The framework explains why firms might have a different objective orientation in terms of its economic and social prioritization.

Keywords: Organizational identity, social network analysis, firm objective, value maximization, social responsibility.

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Authors: Hossein Riazoshams, Midi Habshah, Jr., Mohamad Bakri Adam

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The detection of outliers is very essential because of their responsibility for producing huge interpretative problem in linear as well as in nonlinear regression analysis. Much work has been accomplished on the identification of outlier in linear regression, but not in nonlinear regression. In this article we propose several outlier detection techniques for nonlinear regression. The main idea is to use the linear approximation of a nonlinear model and consider the gradient as the design matrix. Subsequently, the detection techniques are formulated. Six detection measures are developed that combined with three estimation techniques such as the Least-Squares, M and MM-estimators. The study shows that among the six measures, only the studentized residual and Cook Distance which combined with the MM estimator, consistently capable of identifying the correct outliers.

Keywords: Nonlinear Regression, outliers, Gradient, LeastSquare, M-estimate, MM-estimate.

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Authors: Barzan Hadi Hama Karim

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The primary purpose of this paper is to explain the impact of successful classroom management on the academic achievements of students, the importance of positive relationship between teacher and students, among students, between teacher and parents. Effective communication plays an important role to encourage students study hard and learn materials which are covered by the teacher in the class. Friendly relationships among students other than their preferred friends help them to have team working and be socialized. In addition, a well-organized classroom arrangement enhances students learning. As the consequence of successful classroom management students should feel responsibility and need to feel it. The one who is responsible to provide a comfortable environment and help students learn is the manager of the classroom who is named Teacher.

Keywords: Classroom management, positive relationship, effective communication, teacher, student.

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Authors: Gilberto Gonzalez-A, Dunia Nuñez-P

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Bond graph models of an electrical transformer including the nonlinear saturation are presented. The transformer using electrical and magnetic circuits are modelled. These models determine the relation between self and mutual inductances, and the leakage and magnetizing inductances of power transformers with two windings using the properties of a bond graph. The equivalence between electrical and magnetic variables is given. The modelling and analysis using this methodology to three phase power transformers can be extended.

Keywords: Bond graph, electrical transformer, magnetic circuits, nonlinear saturation.

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Authors: Mohammadreza Sahebi, Arash Azizi Mazreah, Asadollah Shahbahrami, Bahram Bakhshi

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Energy consumption is an important design issue for Mobile Subscriber Station (MSS) in the standard IEEE 802.16e. Because mobility of MSS implies that energy saving becomes an issue so that lifetime of MSS can be extended before re-charging. Also, the mechanism in efficiently managing the limited energy is becoming very significant since a MSS is generally energized by battery. For these, sleep mode operation is recently specified in the MAC (Medium Access Control) protocol. In order to reduce the energy consumption, we focus on the sleep-mode and wake-mode of the MAC layer, which are included in the IEEE 802.16 standards [1- 2].

Keywords: IEEE 802.16e, Sleep-mode, Wake-mode, Downlink, Mobile Subscriber Station.

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Authors: Kazuyoshi Mori

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In this paper, we first show a relationship between two stabilizing controllers, which presents an extended feedback system using two stabilizing controllers. Then, we apply this relationship to the two-stage compensator design. In this paper, we consider singleinput single-output plants. On the other hand, we do not assume the coprime factorizability of the model. Thus, the results of this paper are based on the factorization approach only, so that they can be applied to numerous linear systems.

Keywords: Relationship among Compensators, Two-Stage Compensator Design, Parametrization of Stabilizing Controllers, Factorization Approach

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Authors: Isabel Duarte de Almeida, João Vilas-Boas, Luís Miguel Ferreira

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Environmental concerns about the scarcity of marine resources are critical driving forces for firms aiming to prepare their supply chains for sustainability. Building on previous work, this paper highlights the implementation of good practices geared towards sustainable operations in the seafood department, which were pursued in an exploratory retailer case. Outcomes of the adopted environmentally and socially acceptable fish retailing strategies, ranged from traceability, to self-certification and eco-labelling. The consequences for business were, as follows: stronger collaboration and trust across the chain of custody, improvement of sponsors’ image and of consumers’ loyalty and, progress in the Greenpeace retailers’ evaluation ranking.

Keywords: Sustainability in sea food, Supply Chain Traceability, Social Responsibility.

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Authors: Alfred Hasanaj, Ardit Gjeta, Miranda Kullolli

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The approach in analyzing defects on different pipe lines is conducted through Failure Assessment Diagram (FAD). These methods of analyses have further extended in recent years. This approach is used to identify and stress out a solution for the defects which randomly occur with gas pipes such are corrosion defects, gauge defects, and combination of defects where gauge and dents are included. Few of the defects are to be analyzed in this paper where our main focus will be the fracture of cast Iron pipes, elastic-plastic failure and plastic collapse of X52 steel pipes for gas transport. We need to conduct a calculation of probability of the defects in order to predict and avoid such costly defects.

Keywords: Defects, Failure Assessment Diagrams, Safety Factor Steel Pipes.

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Authors: Yusuke Onoue, Seiji Fujino, Norimasa Nakashima

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The IDR(s) method based on an extended IDR theorem was proposed by Sonneveld and van Gijzen. The original IDR(s) method has excellent property compared with the conventional iterative methods in terms of efficiency and small amount of memory. IDR(s) method, however, has unexpected property that relative residual 2-norm stagnates at the level of less than 10-12. In this paper, an effective strategy for stagnation detection, stagnation avoidance using adaptively information of parameter s and improvement of convergence rate itself of IDR(s) method are proposed in order to gain high accuracy of the approximated solution of IDR(s) method. Through numerical experiments, effectiveness of adaptive tuning IDR(s) method is verified and demonstrated.

Keywords: Krylov subspace methods, IDR(s), adaptive tuning, stagnation of relative residual.

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Authors: F. Bendahma, S. Bentata, S. Cherid, A. Zitouni, S. Terkhi, T. Lantri, Y. Sefir, Z. F. Meghoufel

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We examine the electronic transport properties in Al_xGa_1-xAs/GaAs superlattices. Using the transfer-matrix technique and the exact Airy function formalism, we investigate theoretically the effect of structural parameters on the electronic energy spectra of trimer thickness barrier (TTB). Our numerical calculations showed that the localization length of the states becomes more extended when the disorder is correlated (trimer case). We have also found that the resonant tunneling time (RTT) is of the order of several femtoseconds.

Keywords: Electronic transport properties, structural parameters, superlattice, transfer-matrix technique.

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Authors: Cheng-Fang Huang, Meei-Ling Hung, Teh-Lu Liao, Her-Terng Yau, Jun-Juh Yan

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The design of chaos-based secure communication via synchronized modified Chua-s systems is investigated in this paper. A continuous control law is proposed to ensure synchronization of the master and slave modified Chua-s systems by using the variable structure control technique. Particularly, the concept of extended systems is introduced such that a continuous control input is obtained to avoid chattering phenomenon. Then, it becomes possible to ensure that the message signal embedded in the transmitter can be recovered in the receiver.

Keywords: Chaos, Secure communication, Synchronization, Variable structure control (VSC)

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Authors: Ali Haroonabadi, Mohammad Teshnehlab

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None of the processing models in the software development has explained the software systems performance evaluation and modeling; likewise, there exist uncertainty in the information systems because of the natural essence of requirements, and this may cause other challenges in the processing of software development. By definition an extended version of UML (Fuzzy- UML), the functional requirements of the software defined uncertainly would be supported. In this study, the behavioral description of uncertain information systems by the aid of fuzzy-state diagram is crucial; moreover, the introduction of behavioral diagrams role in F-UML is investigated in software performance modeling process. To get the aim, a fuzzy sub-profile is used.

Keywords: Fuzzy System, Software Development Model, Software Performance Evaluation, UML

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Authors: Syed Salman Ahmed, Zahid Halim, Rauf Baig, Shariq Bashir

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With the rapid growth in business size, today's businesses orient towards electronic technologies. Amazon.com and e-bay.com are some of the major stakeholders in this regard. Unfortunately the enormous size and hugely unstructured data on the web, even for a single commodity, has become a cause of ambiguity for consumers. Extracting valuable information from such an everincreasing data is an extremely tedious task and is fast becoming critical towards the success of businesses. Web content mining can play a major role in solving these issues. It involves using efficient algorithmic techniques to search and retrieve the desired information from a seemingly impossible to search unstructured data on the Internet. Application of web content mining can be very encouraging in the areas of Customer Relations Modeling, billing records, logistics investigations, product cataloguing and quality management. In this paper we present a review of some very interesting, efficient yet implementable techniques from the field of web content mining and study their impact in the area specific to business user needs focusing both on the customer as well as the producer. The techniques we would be reviewing include, mining by developing a knowledge-base repository of the domain, iterative refinement of user queries for personalized search, using a graphbased approach for the development of a web-crawler and filtering information for personalized search using website captions. These techniques have been analyzed and compared on the basis of their execution time and relevance of the result they produced against a particular search.

Keywords: Data mining, web mining, search engines, knowledge discovery.

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Authors: Tebogo P. Phetla, Edison Muzenda

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This study was carried out to develop a flotation procedure for an oxide copper ore from a Region in Central Africa for producing an 18% copper concentrate for downstream processing at maximum recovery from a 4% copper feed grade. The copper recoveries achieved from the test work were less than 50% despite changes in reagent conditions (multistage sulphidisation, use of RCA emulsion and mixture, use of AM 2, etc). The poor recoveries were attributed to the mineralogy of the ore from which copper silicates accounted for approximately 70% (mass) of the copper minerals in the ore. These can be complex and difficult to float using conventional flotation methods. Best results were obtained using basic sulphidisation procedures, a high flotation temperature and extended flotation residence time.

Keywords: Froth flotation, Sulphidisation, Copper oxide ore, Mineralogy, Recovery

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Authors: Juha Kettunen

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This study analyzes collaborative and networked academic authorship in higher education. The literature review shows evidence that single authorship has made a gradual paradigm shift to joint authorship. The empirical evidence from the Turku University of Applied Sciences indicates that collaborative authorship has notably increased in the last few years. Co-authorship has extended outside the institution to other domestic and international academic organizations. Co-authorship not only increase the merits of academic scholars but builds and maintains networks of research and development. The results of this study help the authors, editors and partners of research and development projects to have a more concrete understanding of how co-authorship has developed and spread beyond higher education institutions.

Keywords: Co-authorship, social networking, higher education, research and development.

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Authors: Othman Maklouf, Abdurazag Ghila, Ahmed Abdulla

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This paper introduces a low cost INS/GPS algorithm for land vehicle navigation application. The data fusion process is done with an extended Kalman filter in cascade configuration mode. In order to perform numerical simulations, MATLAB software has been developed. Loosely coupled configuration is considered. The results obtained in this work demonstrate that a low-cost INS/GPS navigation system is partially capable of meeting the performance requirements for land vehicle navigation. The relative effectiveness of the kalman filter implementation in integrated GPS/INS navigation algorithm is highlighted. The paper also provides experimental results; field test using a car is carried out.

Keywords: GPS, INS, IMU, Kalman filter.

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Authors: Bo Meng, Wei Wang

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Resistance of denial of service attacks is a key security requirement in voting protocols. Acquisti protocol plays an important role in development of internet voting protocols and claims its security without strong physical assumptions. In this study firstly Acquisti protocol is modeled in extended applied pi calculus, and then resistance of denial of service attacks is proved with ProVerif. The result is that it is not resistance of denial of service attacks because two denial of service attacks are found. Finally we give the method against the denial of service attacks.

Keywords: Applied pi calculus, protocol state, symbolic model, availability.

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Authors: Elisa Pautasso, Matteo Castagno, Michele Osella

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In the last decade the emergence of new social needs as an effect of the economic crisis has stimulated the flourishing of business endeavours characterised by explicit social goals. Social start-ups, social enterprises or Corporate Social Responsibility operations carried out by traditional companies are quintessential examples in this regard. This paper analyses these kinds of initiatives in order to discover the main characteristics of social business models and to provide insights to social entrepreneurs for developing or improving their strategies. The research is conducted through the integration of literature review and case study analysis and, thanks to the recognition of the importance of both profits and social impacts as the key success factors for a social business model, proposes a framework for identifying indicators suitable for measuring the social impacts generated.

Keywords: Business model, case study, impacts, social business.

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Authors: S. Seyedtabaii, E. Seyedtabaii

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Rounding of coefficients is a common practice in hardware implementation of digital filters. Where some coefficients are very close to zero or one, as assumed in this paper, this rounding action also leads to some computation reduction. Furthermore, if the discarded coefficient is of high order, a reduced order filter is obtained, otherwise the order does not change but computation is reduced. In this paper, the Least Squares approximation to rounded (or discarded) coefficient FIR filter is investigated. The result also succinctly extended to general type of FIR filters.

Keywords: Digital filter, filter approximation, least squares, model order reduction.

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Authors: É. Kónya, E. Szabó, I. Bata-Vidács, T. Deák, M. Ottucsák, N. Adányi, A. Székács

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Spice paprika is a major spice commodity in the European Union (EU), produced locally and imported from non-EU countries, reported not only for chemical and microbiological contamination, but also for fraud. The effective interaction between producers’ quality management practices and government and EU activities is described on the example of spice paprika production and control in Hungary, a country of leading spice paprika producer and per capita consumer in Europe. To demonstrate the importance of various contamination factors in the Hungarian production and EU trade of spice paprika, several aspects concerning food safety of this commodity are presented. Alerts in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) of the EU between 2005 and 2013, as well as Hungarian state inspection results on spice paprika in 2004 are discussed, and quality non-compliance claims regarding spice paprika among EU member states are summarized in by means of network analysis. Quality assurance measures established along the spice paprika production technology chain at the leading Hungarian spice paprika manufacturer, Kalocsai Fűszerpaprika Zrt. are surveyed with main critical control points identified. The structure and operation of the Hungarian state food safety inspection system is described. Concerted performance of the latter two quality management systems illustrates the effective interaction between internal (manufacturer) and external (state) quality control measures.

Keywords: Spice paprika, quality control, reporting mechanisms, RASFF, vulnerable points, HACCP, BRC Global Standard.

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Authors: Suhas K, Sripadaraja K

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This paper details few mechanical modeling and design issues of RF MEMS switches. We concentrate on an electrostatically actuated broad side series switch; surface micromachined with a crab leg membrane. The same results are extended to any complex structure. With available experimental data and fabrication results, we present the variation in dynamic performance and compliance of the switch with reference to few design issues, which we find are critical in deciding the dynamic behavior of the switch, without compromise on the RF characteristics. The optimization of pull in voltage, transient time and resonant frequency with regard to these critical design parameters are also presented.

Keywords: Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), RadioFrequency MEMS, Modeling, Actuators

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Authors: Daniel Chen, George Mamic, Clinton Fookes, Sridha Sridharan

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An automatic method for the extraction of feature points for face based applications is proposed. The system is based upon volumetric feature descriptors, which in this paper has been extended to incorporate scale space. The method is robust to noise and has the ability to extract local and holistic features simultaneously from faces stored in a database. Extracted features are stable over a range of faces, with results indicating that in terms of intra-ID variability, the technique has the ability to outperform manual landmarking.

Keywords: Scale space volume descriptor, feature extraction, 3D facial landmarking

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Authors: Mohsen Zand, Ahmadreza Naghsh Nilchi, S. Amirhassan Monadjemi

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Optical character recognition of cursive scripts presents a number of challenging problems in both segmentation and recognition processes in different languages, including Persian. In order to overcome these problems, we use a newly developed Persian word segmentation method and a recognition-based segmentation technique to overcome its segmentation problems. This method is robust as well as flexible. It also increases the system-s tolerances to font variations. The implementation results of this method on a comprehensive database show a high degree of accuracy which meets the requirements for commercial use. Extended with a suitable pre and post-processing, the method offers a simple and fast framework to develop a full OCR system.

Keywords: OCR, Persian, Recognition, Segmentation.

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Authors: Mohamed Belaid, Edison Muzenda, Getrude Mitilene, Mansoor Mollagee

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A feasibility study for the design and construction of a pilot plant for the extraction of castor oil in South Africa was conducted. The study emphasized the four critical aspects of project feasibility analysis, namely technical, financial, market and managerial aspects. The technical aspect involved research on existing oil extraction technologies, namely: mechanical pressing and solvent extraction, as well as assessment of the proposed production site for both short and long term viability of the project. The site is on the outskirts of Nkomazi village in the Mpumalanga province, where connections for water and electricity are currently underway, potential raw material supply proves to be reliable since the province is known for its commercial farming. The managerial aspect was evaluated based on the fact that the current producer of castor oil will be fully involved in the project while receiving training and technical assistance from Sasol Technology, the TSC and SEDA. Market and financial aspects were evaluated and the project was considered financially viable with a Net Present Value (NPV) of R2 731 687 and an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 18% at an annual interest rate of 10.5%. The payback time is 6years for analysis over the first 10 years with a net income of R1 971 000 in the first year. The project was thus found to be feasible with high chance of success while contributing to socio-economic development. It was recommended for lab tests to be conducted to establish process kinetics that would be used in the initial design of the plant.

Keywords: Mechanical pressing, Net Present Value, Oilextraction, Project feasibility, Solvent extraction

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Authors: E. Rak

Abstract:

The aim of the paper is to identify some of the specific characteristics of employee development, as observed in the practice of small enterprises in Poland. Results suggest that a sizeable percentage of employers are not interested in improving the development of their employee base. This aspect is often perceived as insignificant. In addition, many employers have no theoretical or practical knowledge of employee development methods. Lack of sufficient financial support is reported as third on the list of the most important barriers to employee development. Employees, on the other hand, typically offload the responsibility of initiating this type of activities onto the employer. Employee development plans are typically flexible and accommodating. The original value offered by this research comes in the form of a detailed characteristics of employee development in small enterprises, accompanied by identification of specificity of human resource development in Polish companies.

Keywords: Employee development specificity, human resources development, small businesses, trainings.

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Authors: Serge Provost, Yishan Zang

Abstract:

Following a review of various approaches that are utilized for classifying the tail behavior of a distribution, an easily implementable methodology that relies on an arctangent transformation is presented. The classification criterion is actually based on the difference between two specific quantiles of the transformed distribution. The resulting categories enable one to classify distributional tails as distinctly short, short, nearly medium, medium, extended medium and somewhat long, providing that at least two moments exist. Distributions possessing a single moment are said to be long tailed while those failing to have any finite moments are classified as having an extremely long tail. Several illustrative examples will be presented.

Keywords: Arctangent transformation, change of variables, heavy-tailed distributions, tail classification.

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Authors: Chung To Kong, Siu Ming Yiu

Abstract:

Rubik's cube was invented in 1974. Since then, speedcubers all over the world try their best to break the world record again and again. The newest record is 3.47 seconds. There are many factors that affect the timing including turns per second (tps), algorithm, finger trick, and hardware of the cube. In this paper, the lower bound of the cube solving time will be discussed using convex optimization. Extended analysis of the world records will be used to understand how to improve the timing. With the understanding of each part of the solving step, the paper suggests a list of speed improvement technique. Based on the analysis of the world record, there is a high possibility that the 3 seconds mark will be broken soon.

Keywords: Rubik’s cube, convex optimization, speed cubing, CFOP.

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