Search results for: Future operational environment

Authors: A. S. Lourens, B. Du Plooy

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Across the world, initiatives have been introduced to encourage women to enter into and remain in engineering fields. However, research has shown that many women leave engineering or suffer a loss of self-esteem and self-confidence compared to their male counterparts. To address this problem, a South African comprehensive university developed a self-leadership intervention pilot study in 2013, aimed at improving the self-efficacy of its female engineering students and increasing retention rates. This paper is a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretive study of the rationale and operational aspects of the Women in Engineering Leadership Association’s (WELA) self-leadership workshop. The objectives of this paper are to provide a framework for the design of a self-leadership workshop and to provide insight into the process of developing such a workshop specifically for women engineering students at a South African university. Finally, the paper proposes an evaluation process for the pilot workshop, which also provides a framework to improve future workshops. It is anticipated that the self-leadership development framework will be applicable to other higher education institutions wishing to improve women engineering student’s feelings of self-efficacy and therefore retention rates of women in engineering.

Keywords: Co-curricular interventions, Self-efficacy, Self-leadership, Women in Engineering.

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Authors: Mosses E. Lufuke

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This paper attempted to investigate whether there is Granger-causality running from trade to environment as evidenced in the changing climatic condition and land degradation. Using Tanzania as the reference, VAR-Granger-causality test was employed to rationalize the conundrum of causal-effect relationship between trade and environment. The changing climatic condition, as the proxy of both nitrous oxide emissions (in thousand metric tons of CO₂ equivalent) and land degradation measured by the size of arable land were tested against trade using both exports and imports variables. The result indicated that neither of the trade variables Granger-cause the variability on gas emissions and arable land size. This suggests the possibility that all trade concerns in relation to environment to have been internalized in domestic policies to offset any likely negative consequence.

Keywords: Trade, growth, impact, environment.

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Authors: Sven Borén, Lisiana Nurhadi, Henrik Ny

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From a theoretical perspective, electric buses can be more sustainable and can be cheaper than fossil fuelled buses in city traffic. The authors have not found other studies based on actual urban public transport in Swedish winter climate. Further on, noise measurements from buses for the European market were found old. The aims of this follow-up study was therefore to test and possibly verify in a real-life environment how energy efficient and silent electric buses are, and then conclude on if electric buses are preferable to use in public transport. The Ebusco 2.0 electric bus, fitted with a 311 kWh battery pack, was used and the tests were carried out during November 2014-April 2015 in eight municipalities in the south of Sweden. Six tests took place in urban traffic and two took place in more of a rural traffic setting. The energy use for propulsion was measured via logging of the internal system in the bus and via an external charging meter. The average energy use turned out to be 8% less (0,96 kWh/km) than assumed in the earlier theoretical study. This rate allows for a 320 km range in public urban traffic. The interior of the bus was kept warm by a diesel heater (biodiesel will probably be used in a future operational traffic situation), which used 0,67 kWh/km in January. This verified that electric buses can be up to 25% cheaper when used in public transport in cities for about eight years. The noise was found to be lower, primarily during acceleration, than for buses with combustion engines in urban bus traffic. According to our surveys, most passengers and drivers appreciated the silent and comfortable ride and preferred electric buses rather than combustion engine buses. Bus operators and passenger transport executives were also positive to start using electric buses for public transport. The operators did however point out that procurement processes need to account for eventual risks regarding this new technology, along with personnel education. The study revealed that it is possible to establish a charging infrastructure for almost all studied bus lines. However, design of a charging infrastructure for each municipality requires further investigations, including electric grid capacity analysis, smart location of charging points, and tailored schedules to allow fast charging. In conclusion, electric buses proved to be a preferable alternative for all stakeholders involved in public bus transport in the studied municipalities. However, in order to electric buses to be a prominent support for sustainable development, they need to be charged either by stand-alone units or via an expansion of the electric grid, and the electricity should be made from new renewable sources.

Keywords: Sustainability, Electric, Bus, Noise, GreenCharge.

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Authors: Zhou Hong, Gu Xiao-Qing, Lıu Hong-Jiao, Leng Jing

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Seamless learning is becoming a research hotspot in recent years, and the emerging of micro-lectures, flipped classroom has strengthened the development of seamless learning. Based on the characteristics of the seamless learning across time and space and the course structure of the flipped classroom, and the theories of language learning, we put forward the language learning model which can support ‘seamless flipped’ environment (abbreviated as ‘S-F’). Meanwhile, the characteristics of the ‘S-F’ learning environment, the corresponding framework construction and the activity design of diversified corpora were introduced. Moreover, a language learning app named ‘Daily Speaking’ was developed to facilitate the practice of the language learning model in ‘S-F’ environment. In virtue of the learning case of Shanghai language, the rationality and feasibility of this framework were examined, expecting to provide a reference for the design of ‘S-F’ learning in different situations.

Keywords: Seamless learning, flipped classroom, seamless-flipped environment, language learning model.

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Authors: Baoshan Wei, Shuai Han, Xing Zhang

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Local obstacle avoidance is critical for mobile robot navigation. It is a challenging task to ensure path optimality and safety in cluttered environments. We proposed an Environment Aware Dynamic Window Approach in this paper to cope with the issue. The method integrates environment characterization into Dynamic Window Approach (DWA). Two strategies are proposed in order to achieve the integration. The local goal strategy guides the robot to move through openings before approaching the final goal, which solves the local minima problem in DWA. The adaptive control strategy endows the robot to adjust its state according to the environment, which addresses path safety compared with DWA. Besides, the evaluation shows that the path generated from the proposed algorithm is safer and smoother compared with state-of-the-art algorithms.

Keywords: Adaptive control, dynamic window approach, environment aware, local obstacle avoidance, mobile robots.

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Authors: George N. Prodromidis, Frank A. Coutelieris

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Biogas can be currently considered as an alternative option for electricity production, mainly due to its high energy content (hydrocarbon-rich source), its renewable status and its relatively low utilization cost. Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) stacks convert fuel’s chemical energy to electricity with high efficiencies and reveal significant advantages on fuel flexibility combined with lower emissions rate, especially when utilize biogas. Electricity production by biogas constitutes a composite problem which incorporates an extensive parametric analysis on numerous dynamic variables. The main scope of the presented study is to propose a detailed thermodynamic model on the optimization of SOFC-based power plants’ operation based on fundamental thermodynamics, energy and exergy balances. This model named THERMAS (THERmodynamic MAthematical Simulation model) incorporates each individual process, during electricity production, mathematically simulated for different case studies that represent real life operational conditions. Also, THERMAS offers the opportunity to choose a great variety of different values for each operational parameter individually, thus allowing for studies within unexplored and experimentally impossible operational ranges. Finally, THERMAS innovatively incorporates a specific criterion concluded by the extensive energy analysis to identify the most optimal scenario per simulated system in exergy terms. Therefore, several dynamical parameters as well as several biogas mixture compositions have been taken into account, to cover all the possible incidents. Towards the optimization process in terms of an innovative OPF (OPtimization Factor), presented here, this research study reveals that systems supplied by low methane fuels can be comparable to these supplied by pure methane. To conclude, such an innovative simulation model indicates a perspective on the optimal design of a SOFC stack based system, in the direction of the commercialization of systems utilizing biogas.

Keywords: Biogas, Exergy, Optimization, SOFC.

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Authors: Wang Liguang, Zhang Xueqing

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The build-operate-transfer (BOT) project delivery system has provided effective routes to mobilize private sector funds, innovative technologies, management skills and operational efficiencies for public infrastructure development and have been widely used in China during the last 20 years. Many BOT projects in China will be smoothly transferred to the government soon and the transfer stage, which is considered as the last stage, must be studied carefully and handled well to achieve the overall success of BOT projects. There will be many issues faced by both the public sector and private sector in the transfer stage of BOT projects, including project post-assessment, technology and documents transfer, personal training and staff transition, etc. and sometimes additional legislation is needed for future operation and management of facilities. However, most previous studies focused on the bidding, financing, and building and operation stages instead of transfer stage. This research identifies nine key issues in the transfer stage of BOT projects through a comprehensive study on three cases in China, and the expert interview and expert discussion meetings are held to validate the key issues and give detail analysis. A proposed framework of transfer management is prepared based on the experiences derived and lessons drawn from the case studies and expert interview and discussions, which is expected to improve the transfer management of BOT projects in practice.

Keywords: BOT project, key issues, transfer management transfer stage.

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Authors: Muhammad Suryanegara, Dendi Wijayatullah, Dadang Gunawan

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We review a knowledge extractor model in constructing 3G Killer Applications. The success of 3G is essential for Government as it became part of Telecommunications National Strategy. The 3G wireless technologies may reach larger area and increase country-s ICT penetration. In order to understand future customers needs, the operators require proper information (knowledge) lying inside. Our work approached future customers as complex system where the complex knowledge may expose regular behavior. The hidden information from 3G future customers is revealed by using fractal-based questionnaires. Afterward, further statistical analysis is used to match the results with operator-s strategic plan. The developments of 3G applications also consider its saturation time and further improvement of the application.

Keywords: 3G Killer Applications, Knowledge, Telecommunications Strategy.

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Authors: N. Z. Azlan, H. Yamaura

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This paper presents the Function Approximation Technique (FAT) based adaptive impedance control for a robotic finger. The force based impedance control is developed so that the robotic finger tracks the desired force while following the reference position trajectory, under unknown environment position and uncertainties in finger parameters. The control strategy is divided into two phases, which are the free and contact phases. Force error feedback is utilized in updating the uncertain environment position during contact phase. Computer simulations results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

Keywords: Adaptive impedance control, force based impedance control, force control, Function Approximation Technique (FAT), unknown environment position.

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Authors: Muhammad Safi, Abdul Manan

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In recent years, research in aircraft avionics systems (i.e., radars and antennas) has grown revolutionary. Aircraft technology is experiencing an increasing inclination from all mechanical to all electrical aircraft, with the introduction of inhabitant air vehicles and drone taxis over the last few years. This develops an overriding need to summarize the history, latest trends, and future development in aircraft avionics research for a better understanding and development of new technologies in the domain of avionics systems. This paper focuses on the future trends in antennas and phased arrays for avionics systems. Along with the general overview of the future avionics trend, this work describes the review of around 50 high-quality research papers on aircraft communication systems. Electric-powered aircrafts have been a hot topic in the modern aircraft world. Electric aircrafts have supremacy over their conventional counterparts. Due to increased drone taxi and urban air mobility, fast and reliable communication is very important, so concepts of Broadband Integrated Digital Avionics Information Exchange Networks (B-IDAIENs) and Modular Avionics are being researched for better communication of future aircraft. A Ku-band phased array antenna based on a modular design can be used in a modular avionics system. Furthermore, integrated avionics is also emerging research in future avionics. The main focus of work in future avionics will be using integrated modular avionics and infra-red phased array antennas, which are discussed in detail in this paper. Other work such as reconfigurable antennas and optical communication, are also discussed in this paper. The future of modern aircraft avionics would be based on integrated modulated avionics and small artificial intelligence-based antennas. Optical and infrared communication will also replace microwave frequencies.

Keywords: AI, avionics systems, communication, electric aircrafts, Infra-red, integrated avionics, modular avionics, phased array, reconfigurable antenna, UAVs.

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Authors: G. Aloisio, L. T. De Paolis, A. De Mauro, A. Mongelli

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One of the essential requirements of a realistic surgical simulator is to reproduce haptic sensations due to the interactions in the virtual environment. However, the interaction need to be performed in real-time, since a delay between the user action and the system reaction reduces the immersion sensation. In this paper, a prototype of a coronary stent implant simulator is present; this system allows real-time interactions with an artery by means of a specific haptic device. To improve the realism of the simulation, the building of the virtual environment is based on real patients- images and a Web Portal is used to search in the geographically remote medical centres a virtual environment with specific features in terms of pathology or anatomy. The functional architecture of the system defines several Medical Centres in which virtual environments built from the real patients- images and related metadata with specific features in terms of pathology or anatomy are stored. The searched data are downloaded from the Medical Centre to the Training Centre provided with a specific haptic device and with the software necessary both to manage the interaction in the virtual environment. After the integration of the virtual environment in the simulation system it is possible to perform training on the specific surgical procedure.

Keywords: Medical Simulation, Web Portal, Virtual Reality.

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Authors: Pradip Kumar Das

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As the entire world continues its rapid move towards industrialization, it has seriously threatened mankind’s ability to maintain an ecological balance. Geographical and natural forces have a significant influence on the location of industries. Industrialization is the foundation stone of the development of any country, while the unplanned industrialization and discharge of waste by industries is the cause of environmental pollution. There is growing degree of awareness and concern globally among nations about environmental degradation or pollution. Environmental resources endowed by the gift of nature and not manmade are invaluable natural resources of a country like India. Any developmental activity is directly related to natural and environmental resources. Economic development without environmental considerations brings about environmental crises and damages the quality of life of present, as well as future generation. As corporate sectors in the global market, especially in India, are becoming anxious about environmental degradation, naturally more and more emphasis will be ascribed to how environment-friendly the outcomes are. Maintaining accounts of such environmental and natural resources in the country has become more urgent. Moreover, international awareness and acceptance of the importance of environmental issues has motivated the development of a branch of accounting called “Environmental Accounting”. Environmental accounting attempts to detect and focus the resources consumed and the costs rendered by an industrial unit to the environment. For the sustainable development of mankind, a healthy environment is indispensable. Gradually, therefore, in many countries including India, environment matters are being given top most priority. Accounting and disclosure of environmental matters have been increasingly manifesting as an important dimension of corporate accounting and reporting practices. But, as conventional accounting deals with mainly non-living things, the formulation of valuation, and measurement and accounting techniques for incorporating environment-related matters in the corporate financial statement sometimes creates problems for the accountant. In the light of this situation, the conceptual analysis of the study is concerned with the rationale of environmental accounting on the economy and society as a whole, and focuses the failures of the traditional accounting system. A modest attempt has been made to throw light on the environmental awareness in developing nations like India and discuss the problems associated with the implementation of environmental accounting. The conceptual study also reflects that despite different anomalies, environmental accounting is becoming an increasing important aspect of the accounting agenda within the corporate sector in India. Lastly, a conclusion, along with recommendations, has been given to overcome the situation.

Keywords: Environmental accounting, environmental degradation, environmental management, environmental resources.

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Authors: Shankar Subramanian Iyer

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The vocational education, enhanced by technology and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is going to be the main ingredient of the future of education. This is coming from the various issues of the current educational system like cost, time, type of course, type of curriculum, unemployment, to name the major reasons. Most millennials like to perform and learn rather than learning how to perform. This is the essence of vocational education be it any field from cooking, painting, plumbing to modern technologies using computers. Even a more theoretical course like entrepreneurship can be taught as to be an entrepreneur and learn about its nuances. The best way to learn accountancy is actually keeping accounts for a small business or grocer and learn the ropes of accountancy and finance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between vocational skills, RPL and new technologies with future employability. This study implies that individual's knowledge and skills are essential aspects to be emphasized in future education and to give credit for prior experience for future employability. Virtual reality can be used to stimulate workplace situations for vocational learning for fields like hospitality, medical emergencies, healthcare, draughtsman ship, building inspection, quantity surveying, estimation, to name a few. All disruptions in future education, especially vocational education, are going to be technology driven with the advent of AI, ML, IoT, VR, VI etc. Vocational education not only helps institutes cut costs drastically, but allows all students to have hands-on experiences, rather than to be observers. The earlier experiential learning theory and the recent theory of knowledge and skills-based learning modified and applied to the vocational education and development of skills is the proposed contribution of this paper. Apart from secondary research study on major scholarly articles, books, primary research using interviews, questionnaire surveys have been used to validate and test the reliability of the suggested model using Partial Least Square- Structural Equation Method (PLS-SEM), the factors being assimilated using an existing literature review. Major findings have been that there exists high relationship between the vocational skills, RPL, new technology to the future employability through mediation of future employability skills.

Keywords: Vocational education, vocational skills, competencies, modern technologies, Recognition of Prior Learning, RPL.

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Authors: Carlos Sanchís-Pedregosa, José A. D. M achuca, María del Mar González-Zamora

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The growing outsourcing of logistics services resulting from the ongoing current in firms of costs reduction/increased efficiency means that it is becoming more and more important for the companies doing the outsourcing to carry out a proper evaluation. The multiple definitions and measures of logistics service performance found in research on the topic create a certain degree of confusion and do not clear the way towards the proper measurement of their performance. Do a model and a specific set of indicators exist that can be considered appropriate for measuring the performance of logistics services outsourcing in industrial environments? Are said indicators in keeping with the objectives pursued by outsourcing? We aim to answer these and other research questions in the study we have initiated in the field within the framework of the international High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project of which this paper forms part. As the first stage of this research, this paper reviews articles dealing with the topic published in the last 15 years with the aim of detecting the models most used to make this measurement and determining which performance indicators are proposed as part of said models and which are most used. The first steps are also taken in determining whether these indicators, financial and operational, cover the aims that are being pursued when outsourcing logistics services. The findings show there is a wide variety of both models and indicators used. This would seem to testify to the need to continue with our research in order to try to propose a model and a set of indicators for measuring the performance of logistics services outsourcing in industrial environments.

Keywords: Logistics, objectives, outsourcing, performancemeasurement systems

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Authors: C. Clements, M. Hasenohr, A. Anvar

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A glider is in essence an unpowered vehicle and in this project we designed and built an oceanic glider, designed to operate underwater. This Glider was designed to collect ocean data such as temperature, pressure and (in future measures physical dimensions of the operating environment) and output this data to an external source. Development of the Oceanic Glider required research into various actuation systems that control buoyancy, pitch and yaw and the dynamics of these systems. It also involved the design and manufacture of the Glider and the design and implementation of a controller that enabled the Glider to navigate and move in an appropriate manner.

Keywords: Ocean Glider, Robot, Automation, Command, Control, Navigation.

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Authors: Mabel Ortiz, Claudio Díaz

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This paper explores Chilean pre-service teachers' perceptions about the provision of corrective feedback in a wiki environment during the collaborative writing of an argumentative essay. After conducting a semi-structured interview on 22 participants, the data were processed through the content analysis technique. The results show that students have positive perceptions about corrective feedback, provided through a wiki virtual environment, which in turn facilitates feedback provision and impacts language learning effectively. Some of the positive perceptions about virtual feedback refer to permanent access, efficiency, simultaneous revision and immediacy. It would then be advisable to integrate wiki-based feedback as a methodology for the language classroom and collaborative writing tasks.

Keywords: Argumentative essay, focused corrective feedback, perception, wiki environment.

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Authors: Imad M. Assali

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Recently, the world main problem is a global warming and climate change affecting both outdoor and indoor environments, especially the air quality (AQ) as a result of vast migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. Therefore, cities became more crowded and denser from an irregular population increase, along with increasing urbanization caused many problems for the environment such as increasing the land prices, changes in life style, and the new buildings are not adapted to the climate producing uncomfortable and unhealthy indoor building conditions. As interior environments are the places that create the most intimate relationship with the user. Consequently, the indoor environment quality (IEQ) for buildings became uncomfortable and unhealthy for its occupants. The symptoms commonly associated with poor indoor environment such as itchy, headache, fatigue, and respiratory complaints such as cough and congestion, etc. The symptoms tend to improve over time or even disappear when people are away from the building. Therefore, designing a healthy indoor environment to fulfill human needs is the main concern for architects and interior designer. However, this research explores how occupant expectations and environmental attitudes may influence occupant health and satisfaction within the context of the indoor environment. In doing so, it reviews and contributes to the methods and tools used to evaluate only the indoor environment quality (IEQ) components of building performance. Its main aim is to review the literature on indoor human comfort. This is followed by a review of previous papers published related to human comfort. Finally, this paper will provide possible approaches in design level of healthy buildings.

Keywords: Sustainable building, indoor environment quality (IEQ), occupant's health, active system, sick building syndrome (SBS).

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Authors: Abdulrahman A. Bahaddad, Mohammed Beshir

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The objective of this paper is to demonstrate and describe eight different types of power generation technologies and to understand the history and future trends of each technology. In addition, a comparative analysis between these technologies will be presented with respect to their cost analysis and associated performance.

Keywords: Conventional power generation, economic analysis, environmental impact, renewable energy power generation.

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Authors: MK Lee, JS Hong, SM Sin, HU Oh

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Heat pipes are used to control the thermal problem for electronic cooling. It is especially difficult to dissipate heat to a heat sink in an environment in space compared to earth. For solving this problem, in this study, the Poiseuille (Po) number, which is the main measure of the performance of a heat pipe, is studied by CFD; then, the heat pipe performance is verified with experimental results. A heat pipe is then fabricated for a spatial environment, and an in-house code is developed. Further, a heat pipe subsystem, which consists of a heat pipe, MLI (Multi Layer Insulator), SSM (Second Surface Mirror), and radiator, is tested and correlated with the TMM (Thermal Mathematical Model) through a commercial code. The correlation results satisfy the 3K requirement, and the generated thermal model is verified for application to a spatial environment.

Keywords: CFD, Heat pipe, Radiator, Space.

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Authors: G. Feletti, D. Tedesco, P. Trucco

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The present study aims to develop a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to enhance information and predictive capabilities in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems, supporting both operational and strategic decisions of different actors. The employed research methodology consists of a first phase of revision of the technical-scientific literature concerning the indicators currently in use for the performance measurement of EMS. It emerges that current studies focus on two distinct areas and independent objectives: the ambulance service, a fundamental component of pre-hospital health treatment, and the patient care in the Emergency Department (ED). Conversely, the perspective proposed by this study is to consider an integrated view of the ambulance service process and the ED process, both essential to ensure high quality of care and patient safety. Thus, the proposal covers the end-to-end healthcare service process and, as such, allows considering the interconnection between the two EMS processes, the pre-hospital and hospital ones, connected by the assignment of the patient to a specific ED. In this way, it is possible to optimize the entire patient management. Therefore, attention is paid even to EMS aspects that in current literature tend to be neglected or underestimated. In particular, the integration of the two processes enables to evaluate the advantage of an ED selection decision having visibility on EDs’ saturation status and therefore considering, besides the distance, the available resources and the expected waiting times. Starting from a critical review of the KPIs proposed in extant literature, the design of the dashboard was carried out: the high number of analyzed KPIs was reduced by eliminating firstly the ones not in line with the aim of the study and then the ones supporting a similar functionality. The KPIs finally selected were tested on a realistic dataset, which draw us to exclude additional indicators due to unavailability of data required for their computation. The final dashboard, that was discussed and validated by experts in the field, includes a variety of KPIs able to support operational and planning decisions, early warning, and citizens’ awareness on EDs accessibility in real time. The association of each KPI to the EMS phase it refers to enabled the design of a well-balanced dashboard, covering both efficiency and effectiveness performance objectives of the entire EMS process. Indeed, just the initial phases related to the interconnection between ambulance service and patient care are covered by traditional KPIs. Future developments could be directed to building a hierarchical dashboard, composed by a high-level minimal set of KPIs for measuring the basic performance of the EMS system, at an aggregate level, and lower levels of KPIs that bring additional and more detailed information on specific performance dimensions or EMS phases.

Keywords: Emergency Medical Services, Key Performance Indicators, Dashboard, Decision Support.

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Authors: D.Y. Su, C.C. Liu, C.M. Chiang, W. Wang

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This study aims to discuss the effect of illumination and the color temperature of the lighting source under the office lighting environment on human psychological and physiological responses. In this study, 21 healthy participants were selected, and the Ryodoraku measurement system was utilized to measure their skin resistance change.The findings indicated that the effect of the color temperature of the lighting source on human physiological responses is significant within 90 min after turning the lights on; while after 90 min the effect of illumination on human physiological responses is higher than that of the color temperature. Moreover, the cardiovascular, digestive and endocrine systems are prone to be affected by the indoor lighting environment. During the long-term exposure to high intensity of illumination and high color temperature (2000Lux -6500K), the effect on the psychological responses turned moderate after the human visual system adopted to the lighting environment. However, the effect of the Ryodoraku value on human physiological responses was more significant with the increase of perceptive time. The effect of long time exposure to a lighting environment on the physiological responses is greater than its effect on the psychological responses. This conclusion is different from the traditional public viewpoint that the effect on the psychological responses is greater.

Keywords: Autonomic nervous system, Human responses, Office Lighting Environment, Ryodoraku, Meridian

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Authors: M. Ismail, Cao Yihua, Zhao Ming

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Heavy rainfall greatly affects the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. There are many accidents of aircraft caused by aerodynamic efficiency degradation by heavy rain. In this Paper we have studied the heavy rain effects on the aerodynamic efficiency of NACA 64-210 & NACA 0012 airfoils. For our analysis, CFD method and preprocessing grid generator are used as our main analytical tools, and the simulation of rain is accomplished via two phase flow approach-s Discrete Phase Model (DPM). Raindrops are assumed to be non-interacting, non-deforming, non-evaporating and non-spinning spheres. Both airfoil sections exhibited significant reduction in lift and increase in drag for a given lift condition in simulated rain. The most significant difference between these two airfoils was the sensitivity of the NACA 64-210 to liquid water content (LWC), while NACA 0012 performance losses in the rain environment is not a function of LWC . It is expected that the quantitative information gained in this paper will be useful to the operational airline industry and greater effort such as small scale and full scale flight tests should put in this direction to further improve aviation safety.

Keywords: airfoil, discrete phase modeling, heavy rain, Reynolds number

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Authors: Cruz Pascual, Enrique Regidor, Paloma Ortega, David Martínez, Paloma Astasio

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This paper evaluates the association between economic environment in the districts of Madrid (Spain) and physical inactivity, using income per capita as indicator of economic environment. The analysis included 6,601 individuals aged 16 to 74 years. The measure of association estimated was the prevalence odds ratio for physical inactivity by income per capita. After adjusting for sex, age, and individual socioeconomic characteristics, people living in the districts with the lowest per capita income had an odds ratio for physical inactivity 1.58 times higher (95% confidence interval 1.35 to 1.85) than those living in districts with the highest per capita income. Additional adjustment for the availability of sports facilities in each district did not decrease the magnitude of the association. These findings show that the widely believed assumption that the availability of sports and recreational facilities, as a possible explanation for the relation between economic environment and physical inactivity, cannot be considered a universal observation.

Keywords: Economic environment, physical inactivity, sports facilities, districts, Madrid, Spain

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Authors: Jinhua Guo

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Designing, implementing, and debugging concurrency control algorithms in a real system is a complex, tedious, and errorprone process. Further, understanding concurrency control algorithms and distributed computations is itself a difficult task. Visualization can help with both of these problems. Thus, we have developed an exploratory environment in which people can prototype and test various versions of concurrency control algorithms, study and debug distributed computations, and view performance statistics of distributed systems. In this paper, we describe the exploratory environment and show how it can be used to explore concurrency control algorithms for the interactive steering of distributed computations.

Keywords: Consistency, Distributed Computing, InteractiveSteering, Simulation, Visualization

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Authors: Nader Gharibnavaz, Hossein Yazdi

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If organizations like Mellat Bank want to identify its customer market completely to reach its specified goals, it can segment the market to offer the product package to the right segment. Our objective is to offer a segmentation model for Iran banking market in Mellat bank view. The methodology of this project is combined by “segmentation on the basis of four part-quality variables" and “segmentation on the basis of different in means". Required data are gathered from E-Systems and researcher personal observation. Finally, the research offers the organization that at first step form a four dimensional matrix with 756 segments using four variables named value-based, behavioral, activity style, and activity level, and at the second step calculate the means of profit for every cell of matrix in two distinguished work level (levels α1:normal condition and α2: high pressure condition) and compare the segments by checking two conditions that are 1- homogeneity every segment with its sub segment and 2- heterogeneity with other segments, and so it can do the necessary segmentation process. After all, the last offer (more explained by an operational example and feedback algorithm) is to test and update the model because of dynamic environment, technology, and banking system.

Keywords: market segmentation model, banking system, Mellat bank

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Authors: Chong-Yang Qiao, Teeravarunyou Sakol

Abstract:

Current production-oriented factories need maintenance operators to work in shifts monitoring and inspecting complex systems and different equipment in the situation of mechanical breakdown. Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology that embeds data into the environment for situation awareness to help maintenance operators make decisions and solve problems. An application was designed to identify the problem of steam generators and inspection centrifugal pumps. The objective of this research was to find the best medium of AR and type of problem solving strategies among analogy, focal object method and mean-ends analysis. Two scenarios of inspecting leakage were temperature and vibration. Two experiments were used in usability evaluation and future innovation, which included decision-making process and problem-solving strategy. This study found that maintenance operators prefer build-in magnifier to zoom the components (55.6%), 3D exploded view to track the problem parts (50%), and line chart to find the alter data or information (61.1%). There is a significant difference in the use of analogy (44.4%), focal objects (38.9%) and mean-ends strategy (16.7%). The marked differences between maintainers and operators are of the application of a problem solving strategy. However, future work should explore multimedia information retrieval which supports maintenance operators for decision-making.

Keywords: Augmented reality, situation awareness, decision-making, problem-solving.

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Authors: Sri Ratna Rahayu, Oktia Woro Kasmini Handayani, Lourensiana Y. S. Ngaga, Imade Sudana, Irwan Budiono

Abstract:

Malaria is an infectious disease that still cannot be solved in Kori village, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, where the most of people live in rumah panggung (Stilts House). The purpose of this study was to know whether there were the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture, and behavior on malaria incidence in the Kori village. A cross-sectional study was performed to explore the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture and behavior on malaria incidence. This study recruited 280 respondents, who live in the rumah panggung, permanent residents in Kori village, were age above 17 years old, and suffered from malaria in the past year. The collected data were analyzed with path analysis. The results of this study showed that the environment of rumah panggung and behavior have a direct effect on the incidence of malaria (p < 0.05). It could be concluded that improvement of environmental conditions of rumah panggung, sociocultural, and behavioral changes to maintain a healthy environment are needed to reduce the malaria incidence.

Keywords: Rumah panggung, socio cultural, behavior, malaria.

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Authors: Eulálio G. Campelo F., Wolffried Stucky

Abstract:

The paper introduces and discusses definitions and concepts from the supplier relationship management area. This review has the goal to provide readers with the basic conditions to understand the market mechanisms and the technological developments of the SRM market. Further on, the work gives a picture of the actual business environment in which the SRM vendors are in, and the main trends in the field, based on the main SRM functionalities i.e. e-Procurement, e-Sourcing and Supplier Enablement, which indicates users and software providers the future technological developments and practises that will take place in this area in the next couple of years.

Keywords: Supplier Relationship Management, e-Procurement, e-Sourcing, Supplier Enablement.

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Authors: Lee Bih Ni, Zulfhikar Rabe, Nurul Asyikin Hassan

Abstract:

The Ministry of Education Malaysia dynamically and drastically made the subject of History mandatory to be in force in 2013. This is in recognition of the nation's heritage and treasures in maintaining true facts and information for future generations of the State. History reveals the civilization of a nation and the fact of national cultural heritage. Civilization needs to be preserved as a legacy of sovereign heritage. Today's generation is the catalyst for future heirs who will support the principle and direction of the country. In line with the National Education Philosophy that aims to shape the potential development of individuals holistically and uniquely in order to produce a balanced and harmonious student in terms of intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical. Hence, understanding the importance of studying the history subject as a pillar of identity and the history of nationhood is to be a priority in the pursuit of knowledge and empowering the spirit of statehood that is nurtured through continuous learning at school. Judging from the aspect of teacher leadership role in integrating history in a combined way based on Teacher Education Philosophy. It empowers the teaching profession towards the teacher to support noble character. It also supports progressive and scientific views. Teachers are willing to uphold the State's aspirations and celebrate the country's cultural heritage. They guarantee individual development and maintain a united, democratic, progressive and disciplined society. Teacher's role as a change and leadership agent in education begins in the classroom through formal or informal educational processes. This situation is expanded in schools, communities and countries. The focus of this paper is on the role of teacher leadership influencing the effectiveness of teaching and learning history in the classroom environment. Leadership guides to teachers' perceptions on the role of teacher leadership, teaching leadership, and the teacher leadership role and effective teacher leadership role. Discussions give emphasis on aspects of factors affecting the classroom environment, forming the classroom agenda, effective classroom implementation methods, suitable climate for historical learning and teacher challenges in implicating the effectiveness of teaching and learning processes.

Keywords: Teacher leadership, leadership lessons, effective classroom, effective teacher.

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Authors: Dilip Kumar S.M, Vijaya Kumar B.P.

Abstract:

The decisions made by admission control algorithms are based on the availability of network resources viz. bandwidth, energy, memory buffers, etc., without degrading the Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirement of applications that are admitted. In this paper, we present an energy-aware admission control (EAAC) scheme which provides admission control for flows in an ad hoc network based on the knowledge of the present and future residual energy of the intermediate nodes along the routing path. The aim of EAAC is to quantify the energy that the new flow will consume so that it can be decided whether the future residual energy of the nodes along the routing path can satisfy the energy requirement. In other words, this energy-aware routing admits a new flow iff any node in the routing path does not run out of its energy during the transmission of packets. The future residual energy of a node is predicted using the Multi-layer Neural Network (MNN) model. Simulation results shows that the proposed scheme increases the network lifetime. Also the performance of the MNN model is presented.

Keywords: Ad hoc networks, admission control, energy-aware routing, Quality-of-Service, future residual energy, neural network.

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