Search results for: Index quality of transparency report

Authors: G. Jelic Mrcelic, M. Sliskovic

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In Croatia, the majority of cultured marine fish species are reared in net cages. The intensive production of the fish in net cages may generate the considerable amount of bio waste and change water quality especially in enclosed and semi-enclosed coastal areas. The aim of this paper is to assess the potential impact of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) cage farm on water quality. The weak relationship between food supply and water quality parameters (nutrient content and phytoplankton biomass) was found, but significant changes in oxygen saturation was observed in the cages during the warmer period of a year especially in the morning (occasionally it dropped below 70 %). Despite of, satisfactory results of water quality parameters, it is necessary to establish comprehensive monitoring process, especially to include quality assessment of fouling communities.

Keywords: Mariculture, monitoring, fish cages, water quality parameters.

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Authors: Carrie Ho, Choo Bo Quan

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Urban non-point source (NPS) pollution for a residential catchment in Miri, Sarawak was investigated for two storm events in 2011. Runoff from two storm events were sampled and tested for water quality parameters including TSS, BOD5, COD, NH3-N, NO3-N, NO2-N, P and Pb. Concentration of the water quality parameters was found to vary significantly between storms and the pollutant of concern was found to be NO3-N, TSS, COD and Pb. Results were compared to the Interim National Water Quality Standards for Malaysia (INWQS),and the stormwater runoff from the study can be classified as polluted, exceeding class III water quality, especially in terms of TSS, COD, and NH3-N with maximum EMCs of 158, 135, and 2.17 mg/L, respectively.

Keywords: Residential land-use, urban runoff, water quality.

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Authors: Alejandro Villegas, Cihan Varol

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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) products is an emerging technology that can contain forensically important information for a criminal activity. Without having the user name and passwords, this forensically important information can still be gathered by the investigators. Although there are a few VoIP forensic investigative applications available in the literature, most of them are particularly designed to collect evidence from the Skype product. Therefore, in order to assist law enforcement with collecting forensically important information from variety of Betamax VoIP tools, CVOIP-FRU framework is developed. CVOIP-FRU provides a data gathering solution that retrieves usernames, contact lists, as well as call and SMS logs from Betamax VoIP products. It is a scripting utility that searches for data within the registry, logs and the user roaming profiles in Windows and Mac OSX operating systems. Subsequently, it parses the output into readable text and html formats. One superior way of CVOIP-FRU compared to the other applications that due to intelligent data filtering capabilities and cross platform scripting back end of CVOIP-FRU, it is expandable to include other VoIP solutions as well. Overall, this paper reveals the exploratory analysis performed in order to find the key data paths and locations, the development stages of the framework, and the empirical testing and quality assurance of CVOIP-FRU.

Keywords: Betamax, digital forensics, report utility, VoIP, VoIP Buster, VoIPWise.

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Authors: Mohammed A. Kafaji

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This paper aims to investigate the influence of quality of education and quality of research, provided by local educational institutions, on the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in managing business operations for companies in Saudi market. A model was developed and tested using data collected from 138 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of foreign companies in diverse business sectors. The data is analyzed and managed using multivariate approaches through standard statistical packages. The results showed that educational quality has little contribution to the ICT adoption while research quality seems to play a more prominent role. These results are analyzed in terms of business environment and market constraints and further extended to the perceived effectiveness of applied pedagogical approaches in schools and universities.

Keywords: Domestic Competition, Quality of Education, Quality of Research, ICT Adoption, Mediation.

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Authors: Whee Yen Wong, Kim Yeow Tshai, Chan Wai Lee

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There are various approaches to implement quality improvements. Organizations aim for a management standard which is capable of providing customers with quality assurance on their product/service via continuous process improvement. Carefully planned steps are necessary to ensure the right quality improvement methodology (QIM) and business operations are consistent, reliable and truly meet the customers' needs. This paper traces the evolution of QIM in Malaysia-s Information Technology (IT) industry in the past, current and future; and highlights some of the thought of researchers who contributed to the science and practice of quality, and identifies leading methodologies in use today. Some of the misconceptions and mistakes leading to quality system failures will also be examined and discussed. This paper aims to provide a general overview of different types of QIMs available for IT businesses in maximizing business advantages, enhancing product quality, improving process routines and increasing performance earnings.

Keywords: Evolution, Integrating and Aligning, Malaysia's Quality Improvement Methodology, Six Sigma Data Quality Management.

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Authors: Mohammad Hosseini

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Ultrafast transistor laser investigated here has the graded index separate confinement heterostructure (GRIN-SCH) in its base region. Resonance-free optical frequency response with -3 dB bandwidth of more than 26 GHz has been achieved for a single quantum well transistor laser by using graded index layers of AlξGa1-ξAs (ξ: 0.1→0) in the left side of quantum well and AlξGa1-ξAs (ξ: 0.05→0) in the right side of quantum well. All required parameters, including quantum well and base transit time, optical confinement factor and spontaneous recombination lifetime, have been calculated using a self-consistent charge control model.

Keywords: Transistor laser, ultrafast, GRIN-SCH, -3db optical bandwidth, AlξGa1-ξAs.

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Authors: Pei-Ju Chao, Tsair-Fwu Lee, Wei-Luen Huang, Long-Chang Chen, Te-Jen Su, Wen-Ping Chen

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The main goal in this paper is to quantify the quality of different techniques for radiation treatment plans, a back-propagation artificial neural network (ANN) combined with biomedicine theory was used to model thirteen dosimetric parameters and to calculate two dosimetric indices. The correlations between dosimetric indices and quality of life were extracted as the features and used in the ANN model to make decisions in the clinic. The simulation results show that a trained multilayer back-propagation neural network model can help a doctor accept or reject a plan efficiently. In addition, the models are flexible and whenever a new treatment technique enters the market, the feature variables simply need to be imported and the model re-trained for it to be ready for use.

Keywords: neural network, dosimetric index, radiation treatment, tumor

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Authors: José Leandro Melgar Néris, Claudinéia Brazil, Luciane Teresa Salvi, Isabel Cristina Damin

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The impact the climate change is not recent, the main variable in the hydrological cycle is the sequence and shortage of a drought, which has a significant impact on the socioeconomic, agricultural and environmental spheres. This study aims to characterize and quantify, based on precipitation climatic projections, the rainy and dry events in the region of the Uruguay River Basin, through the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The database is the image that is part of the Intercomparison of Model Models, Phase 5 (CMIP5), which provides condition prediction models, organized according to the Representative Routes of Concentration (CPR). Compared to the normal set of climates in the Uruguay River Watershed through precipitation projections, seasonal precipitation increases for all proposed scenarios, with a low climate trend. From the data of this research, the idea is that this article can be used to support research and the responsible bodies can use it as a subsidy for mitigation measures in other hydrographic basins.

Keywords: Drought index, climatic projections, precipitation of the Uruguay River Basin, Standardized Precipitation Index.

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Authors: Liu Ji-Wei, Pei Yu-Liang, Liu Qian, Han Xiang, Zeng De-Liang

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The economic and stable operation was affected seriously by coal quality disturbance for power plants. Based on model analysis, influence of the disturbance can be considered as gain change of control system. Power capability coefficient of coal was constructed to inhibit it. Accuracy of the coefficient was verified by operating data. Then coal quality disturbance free system based on gain scheduling was designed for coordinated control system. Simulation showed that, the strategy improved control quality obviously, and inhibited the coal quality disturbance.

Keywords: coordinate control system, coal quality disturbance, energy coefficient of coal quality, gain scheduling

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Authors: S. Bouhouche, M. Lahreche, S. Ziani, J. Bast

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Modern manufacturing facilities are large scale, highly complex, and operate with large number of variables under closed loop control. Early and accurate fault detection and diagnosis for these plants can minimise down time, increase the safety of plant operations, and reduce manufacturing costs. Fault detection and isolation is more complex particularly in the case of the faulty analog control systems. Analog control systems are not equipped with monitoring function where the process parameters are continually visualised. In this situation, It is very difficult to find the relationship between the fault importance and its consequences on the product failure. We consider in this paper an approach to fault detection and analysis of its effect on the production quality using an adaptive centring and scaling in the pickling process in cold rolling. The fault appeared on one of the power unit driving a rotary machine, this machine can not track a reference speed given by another machine. The length of metal loop is then in continuous oscillation, this affects the product quality. Using a computerised data acquisition system, the main machine parameters have been monitored. The fault has been detected and isolated on basis of analysis of monitored data. Normal and faulty situation have been obtained by an artificial neural network (ANN) model which is implemented to simulate the normal and faulty status of rotary machine. Correlation between the product quality defined by an index and the residual is used to quality classification.

Keywords: Modeling, fault detection and diagnosis, parameters estimation, neural networks, Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD), pickling process.

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Authors: Awadhesh Kumar Singh

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Checkpointing is one of the commonly used techniques to provide fault-tolerance in distributed systems so that the system can operate even if one or more components have failed. However, mobile computing systems are constrained by low bandwidth, mobility, lack of stable storage, frequent disconnections and limited battery life. Hence, checkpointing protocols having lesser number of synchronization messages and fewer checkpoints are preferred in mobile environment. There are two different approaches, although not orthogonal, to checkpoint mobile computing systems namely, time-based and index-based. Our protocol is a fusion of these two approaches, though not first of its kind. In the present exposition, an index-based checkpointing protocol has been developed, which uses time to indirectly coordinate the creation of consistent global checkpoints for mobile computing systems. The proposed algorithm is non-blocking, adaptive, and does not use any control message. Compared to other contemporary checkpointing algorithms, it is computationally more efficient because it takes lesser number of checkpoints and does not need to compute dependency relationships. A brief account of important and relevant works in both the fields, time-based and index-based, has also been included in the presentation.

Keywords: Checkpointing, forced checkpoint, mobile computing, recovery, time-coordinated.

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Authors: Carlos Oliveira

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This paper is a criticism of the traditional model of teaching and presents alternative teaching methods, different from the traditional lecture. These methods are accompanied by reports of experience of their application in a class. It was concluded that in the lecture, the student has a low learning rate and that other methods should be used to make the most engaging learning environment for the student, contributing (or facilitating) his learning process. However, the teacher should not use a single method, but rather a range of different methods to ensure the learning experience does not become repetitive and fatiguing for the student.

Keywords: Educational practices, experience report, IT in education, teaching methods.

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Authors: S. Chadsuthi, W. Triampo, C. Modchang, P. Kanthang, D. Triampo, N. Nuttavut

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We present analysis of spatial patterns of generic disease spread simulated by a stochastic long-range correlation SIR model, where individuals can be infected at long distance in a power law distribution. We integrated various tools, namely perimeter, circularity, fractal dimension, and aggregation index to characterize and investigate spatial pattern formations. Our primary goal was to understand for a given model of interest which tool has an advantage over the other and to what extent. We found that perimeter and circularity give information only for a case of strong correlation– while the fractal dimension and aggregation index exhibit the growth rule of pattern formation, depending on the degree of the correlation exponent (β). The aggregation index method used as an alternative method to describe the degree of pathogenic ratio (α). This study may provide a useful approach to characterize and analyze the pattern formation of epidemic spreading

Keywords: spatial pattern epidemics, aggregation index, fractaldimension, stochastic, long-rang epidemics

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Authors: S. Banerjee, A. Apte Deshpande, N. Mandi, S. Padmanabhan

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We report a novel fusion tag for expressing recombinant proteins in E. coli. The fusion tag is the C-terminus part of the human GMCSF gene comprising 45 amino acids, which aid in over expression of otherwise non expressible genes. Expression of hIFN a2b with this fusion tag also escapes the requirement of rare codons for expression. This is also a first report of a small fusion tag of human origin having affinity to heparin sepharose column facilitating the purification of fusion protein.

Keywords: fusion tag, bacterial expression, rare codons, human GMCSF

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Authors: Towards Better Quality in Healthcare, Operations Management: A Developmental Literature Review

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This work presents the various perspectives, dimensions, components and definitions given to quality in the operations management (OM) and healthcare services (HCS) literature in time, highlighting gaps and learning opportunities between the two disciplines through a thorough search into their rich and distinct body of knowledge. Greater and new insights about the general nature of quality are obtained with findings such as in OM, quality has been approached in six fairly distinct paradigms (excellence, value, conformity to specifications, attributes, satisfaction and meeting or exceeding customer expectations), whereas in HCS, two approaches are prominent (Donabedian’s structure, process and outcomes model and Lohr and Schroeder’s circumscribed definition). The two disciplines views on quality seem to have progressed much in parallel with little cross-learning from each other. This work then proposes an encompassing definition of quality as a lever and suggests further research and development avenues for a better use of the concept of quality by academics and practitioners alike toward the goals of greater organizational performance and improved management in healthcare and possibly other service domains.

Keywords: Healthcare, management, operations, quality, services.

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Authors: Maria Paula Santos, Ana Lucas

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Organizations support their operations and decision making on the data they have at their disposal, so the quality of these data is remarkably important and Data Quality (DQ) is currently a relevant issue, the literature being unanimous in pointing out that poor DQ can result in large costs for organizations. The literature review identified and described 24 Critical Success Factors (CSF) for Data Quality Management (DQM) that were presented to a panel of experts, who ordered them according to their degree of importance, using the Delphi method with the Q-sort technique, based on an online questionnaire. The study shows that the five most important CSF for DQM are: definition of appropriate policies and standards, control of inputs, definition of a strategic plan for DQ, organizational culture focused on quality of the data and obtaining top management commitment and support.

Keywords: Critical success factors, data quality, data quality management, Delphi, Q-Sort.

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Authors: Sarka Velcovska

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The paper deals with quality labels used in the food products market, especially with labels of quality, labels of origin, and labels of organic farming. The aim of the paper is to identify perception of these labels by consumers in the Czech Republic. The first part refers to the definition and specification of food quality labels that are relevant in the Czech Republic. The second part includes the discussion of marketing research results. Data were collected with personal questioning method. Empirical findings on 150 respondents are related to consumer awareness and perception of national and European food quality labels used in the Czech Republic, attitudes to purchases of labelled products, and interest in information regarding the labels. Statistical methods, in the concrete Pearson´s chi-square test of independence, coefficient of contingency, and coefficient of association are used to determinate if significant differences do exist among selected demographic categories of Czech consumers.

Keywords: Food quality labels, quality labels awareness, quality labels perception, marketing research.

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Authors: A. J. Regan, F. J. Lidgey, M. Betteridge, P. Georgiou, C. Toumazou, K. Hayatleh, J. R. Dibble

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Our goal is development of an algorithm capable of predicting the directional trend of the Standard and Poor’s 500 index (S&P 500). Extensive research has been published attempting to predict different financial markets using historical data testing on an in-sample and trend basis, with many authors employing excessively complex mathematical techniques. In reviewing and evaluating these in-sample methodologies, it became evident that this approach was unable to achieve sufficiently reliable prediction performance for commercial exploitation. For these reasons, we moved to an out-ofsample strategy based on linear regression analysis of an extensive set of financial data correlated with historical closing prices of the S&P 500. We are pleased to report a directional trend accuracy of greater than 55% for tomorrow (t+1) in predicting the S&P 500.

Keywords: Financial algorithm, GPU, S&P 500, stock market prediction.

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Authors: Ģirts Brasliņš, Ilja Arefjevs, Nadežda Tarakanova

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The objective of countercyclical capital buffer is to encourage banks to build up buffers in good times that can be drawn down in bad times. The aim of the report is to assess such decisions by banks derived from three approaches. The approaches are the aggregate credit-to-GDP ratio, credit growth as well as banking sector profits. The approaches are implemented for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for the time period 2000-2012. The report compares three approaches and analyses their relevance to the Baltic States by testing the correlation between a growth in studied variables and a growth of corresponding gaps. Methods used in the empirical part of the report are econometric analysis as well as economic analysis, development indicators, relative and absolute indicators and other methods. The research outcome is a cross-Baltic comparison of two alternative approaches to establish or release a countercyclical capital buffer by banks and their implications for each Baltic country.

Keywords: Basel III, countercyclical capital buffer, banks, credit growth, Baltic States.

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Authors: Paul O. Udofot, Emem B. Inyang

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The study investigated the variability in aptitude amidst interactive effects of several social and environmental factors that could influence individual tendencies to engage in entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Consequently, the study targeted a population having similar backgrounds in type and level of higher education that are tailored toward enterprise management and development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A two-stage sampling procedure was used to select 67 respondents. Primarily, the study assessed the salient pattern of entrepreneurship aptitude of respondents, and estimated and analyzed the index against their personal characteristics. Male respondents belonged to two extremes of aptitude index ranges (poor and high). Though female respondents did not exhibit a poor entrepreneurship aptitude index, the incidence percentage of the high index range of entrepreneurship aptitude among male trainees was more than the combined incidence percentage of their female counterparts. Respondents’ backgrounds outside gender presented a serious influence on entrepreneurship uptake likelihood if all situations were normal.

Keywords: Aptitude, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation, gender divide, intention, trainee.

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Authors: Perminderjit Singh, Sukhvir Singh

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Total Quality Management (TQM) refers to management methods used to enhance quality and productivity in business organizations. Total Quality Management (TQM) has become a frequently used term in discussions concerning quality. Total Quality management has brought rise in demands on the organizations policy and the customers have gained more importance in the organizations focus. TQM is considered as an important management tool, which helps the organizations to satisfy their customers. In present research critical success factors includes management commitment, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, work culture and environment, supplier quality management, training and development, employee satisfaction and product/process design are studied. A questionnaire is developed to implement these critical success factors in implementation of total quality management in Indian industry. Questionnaires filled by consulting different industrial organizations. Data collected from questionnaires is analyzed by descriptive and importance indexes. 

Keywords: Total quality management, critical success factor, employee satisfaction.

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Authors: Manal Rayes

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In its efforts to utilize the information and communication technology to enhance the quality of public service delivery, national and local governments around the world are competing to introduce more ICT applications as tools to automate processes related to law enforcement or policy execution, increase citizen orientation, trust, and satisfaction, and create one-stop-shops for public services. In its implementation, e-Government ICTs need to maintain transparency, participation, and collaboration. Due to this diverse of mixed goals and requirements, e-Government systems need to be designed based on special design considerations in order to eliminate the risks of failure to compliance to government regulations, citizen dissatisfaction, or market repulsion. In this article we suggest a framework with guidelines for designing government information systems that takes into consideration the special requirements of the public sector. Then we introduce two case studies and show how applying those guidelines would result in a more solid system design.

Keywords: e-government, framework, guidelines, system design.

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Authors: U. Şendurur, B. Nazlıoğlu

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Using Turkish data, in this study it is investigated that whether a firm’s ownership structure has an impact on its stock prices after the crisis. A linear regression model is conducted on the data of non-financial firms that are trading in Istanbul Stock Exchange 100 Index (ISE 100) index. The findings show that, all explanatory variables such as inside ownership, largest ownership, concentrated ownership, foreign shareholders, family controlled and dispersed ownership are not very important to explain stock prices after the crisis. Family controlled firms and concentrated ownership is positively related to stock price, dispersed ownership, largest ownership, foreign shareholders, and inside ownership structures have negative interaction between stock prices, but because of the p value is not under the value of 0.05 this relation is not significant. In addition, the analysis shows that, the shares of firms that have inside, largest and dispersed ownership structure are outperform comparing with the other firms. Furthermore, ownership concentrated firms outperform to family controlled firms.

Keywords: Financial crisis, ISE 100 Index, Ownership structure, Stock price.

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

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The number of indices developed for the evaluation of obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) both in adults and pediatric population is ever increasing. These indices can be weight-dependent or weight–independent. Some are extremely sophisticated equations and their clinical utility is questionable in routine clinical practice. The aim of this study was to compare presently available obesity indices and find the most practical one. Their associations with MetS components were also investigated to determine their capacities in differential diagnosis of morbid obesity with and without MetS. Children with normal body mass index (N-BMI) and morbid obesity were recruited for this study. Three groups were constituted. Age- and sex-dependent BMI percentiles for morbid obese (MO) children were above 99 according to World Health Organization tables. Of them, those with MetS findings were evaluated as MetS group. Children, whose values were between 85 and 15, were included in N-BMI group. The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tekirdag Namik Kemal University, Faculty of Medicine. Parents filled out informed consent forms to participate in the study. Anthropometric measurements and blood pressure values were recorded. BMI, hip index (HI), conicity index (CI), triponderal mass index (TPMI), body adiposity index (BAI), body shape index (BSI), body roundness index (BRI), abdominal volume index (AVI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and [waist circumference (WC) + hip circumference (HC)]/2 were the formulas examined in this study. Routine biochemical tests including fasting blood glucose (FBG), insulin (INS), blood lipids were performed. Statistical program SPSS was used for the evaluation of study data; p < 0.05 was accepted as the statistical significance degree. HI did not differ among the groups. A statistically significant difference was noted between N-BMI and MetS groups in terms of ABSI. All the other indices were capable of making discrimination between N-BMI-MO, N-BMI- MetS and MO-MetS groups. No correlation was found between FBG and any obesity indices in any groups. The same was true for INS in N-BMI group. Insulin was correlated with BAI, TPMI, CI, BRI, AVI and (WC+HC)/2 in MO group without MetS findings. In the MetS group, the only index, which was correlated with INS, was (WC+HC)/2. These findings have pointed out that complicated formulas may not be required for the evaluation of the alterations among N-BMI and various obesity groups including MetS. The simple easily computable weight-independent index, (WC+HC)/2, was unique, because it was the only index, which exhibits a valuable association with INS in MetS group. It did not exhibit any correlation with other obesity indices showing associations with INS in MO group. It was concluded that (WC+HC)/2 was pretty valuable practicable index for the discrimination of MO children with and without MetS findings.

Keywords: Fasting blood glucose, insulin, metabolic syndrome, obesity indices.

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Authors: Piyali Chaudhuri, Peter T. Martin, Aleksandar Z. Stevanovic, Chongkai Zhu

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Loop detectors report traffic characteristics in real time. They are at the core of traffic control process. Intuitively, one would expect that as density of detection increases, so would the quality of estimates derived from detector data. However, as detector deployment increases, the associated operating and maintenance cost increases. Thus, traffic agencies often need to decide where to add new detectors and which detectors should continue receiving maintenance, given their resource constraints. This paper evaluates the effect of detector spacing on freeway travel time estimation. A freeway section (Interstate-15) in Salt Lake City metropolitan region is examined. The research reveals that travel time accuracy does not necessarily deteriorate with increased detector spacing. Rather, the actual location of detectors has far greater influence on the quality of travel time estimates. The study presents an innovative computational approach that delivers optimal detector locations through a process that relies on Genetic Algorithm formulation.

Keywords: Detector, Freeway, Genetic algorithm, Travel timeestimate.

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Authors: Chien-Hui Yang, Che-Yang Lin, Ya-Chen Hsu

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Gold passbook is an investing tool that is especially suitable for investors to do small investment in the solid gold. The gold passbook has the lower risk than other ways investing in gold, but its price is still affected by gold price. However, there are many factors can cause influences on gold price. Therefore, building a model to predict the price of gold passbook can both reduce the risk of investment and increase the benefits. This study investigates the important factors that influence the gold passbook price, and utilize the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) to build the predictive model. This method can not only obtain the significant variables but also perform well in prediction. Finally, the significant variables of gold passbook price, which can be predicted by GMDH, are US dollar exchange rate, international petroleum price, unemployment rate, whole sale price index, rediscount rate, foreign exchange reserves, misery index, prosperity coincident index and industrial index.

Keywords: Gold price, Gold passbook price, Group Method ofData Handling (GMDH), Regression.

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Authors: N. Fuad, M. N. Taib, R. Jailani, M. E. Marwan

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This paper discusses on power spectral density (PSD) characteristics which are extracted from three-dimensional (3D) electroencephalogram (EEG) models. The EEG signal recording was conducted on 150 healthy subjects. Development of 3D EEG models involves pre-processing of raw EEG signals and construction of spectrogram images. Then, the values of maximum PSD were extracted as features from the model. These features are analyzed using mean relative power (MRP) and different mean relative power (DMRP) technique to observe the pattern among different brain balancing indexes. The results showed that by implementing these techniques, the pattern of brain balancing indexes can be clearly observed. Some patterns are indicates between index 1 to index 5 for left frontal (LF) and right frontal (RF).

Keywords: Power spectral density, 3D EEG model, brain balancing, mean relative power, different mean relative power.

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Authors: K. Nagaraju, S. Sivanagaraju, T. Ramana, V. Ganesh

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This paper presents a simple method for estimation of additional load as a factor of the existing load that may be drawn before reaching the point of line maximum loadability of radial distribution system (RDS) with different realistic load models at different substation voltages. The proposed method involves a simple line loadability index (LLI) that gives a measure of the proximity of the present state of a line in the distribution system. The LLI can use to assess voltage instability and the line loading margin. The proposed method also compares with the existing method of maximum loadability index [10]. The simulation results show that the LLI can identify not only the weakest line/branch causing system instability but also the system voltage collapse point when it is near one. This feature enables us to set an index threshold to monitor and predict system stability on-line so that a proper action can be taken to prevent the system from collapse. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm, computer simulations are carried out on two bus and 69 bus RDS.

Keywords: line loadability index, line loading margin, maximum line loadability, system stability, radial distribution system

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Authors: Mst. Nilufa Sultana, Shatirah Akib, Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf, Mohamed Roseli Zainal Abidin

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Most people today are aware that global climate change is not just a scientific theory but also a fact with worldwide consequences. Global climate change is due to rapid urbanization, industrialization, high population growth and current vulnerability of the climatic condition. Water is becoming scarce as a result of global climate change. To mitigate the problem arising due to global climate change and its drought effect, harvesting rainwater from green roofs, an environmentally-friendly and versatile technology, is becoming one of the best assessment criteria and gaining attention in Malaysia. This paper addresses the sustainability of green roofs and examines the quality of water harvested from green roofs in comparison to rainwater. The factors that affect the quality of such water, taking into account, for example, roofing materials, climatic conditions, the frequency of rainfall frequency and the first flush. A green roof was installed on the Humid Tropic Centre (HTC) is a place of the study on monitoring program for urban Stormwater Management Manual for Malaysia (MSMA), Eco-Hydrological Project in Kuala Lumpur, and the rainwater was harvested and evaluated on the basis of four parameters i.e., conductivity, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH and temperature. These parameters were found to fall between Class I and Class III of the Interim National Water Quality Standards (INWQS) and the Water Quality Index (WQI). Some preliminary treatment such as disinfection and filtration could likely to improve the value of these parameters to class I. This review paper clearly indicates that there is a need for more research to address other microbiological and chemical quality parameters to ensure that the harvested water is suitable for use potable water for domestic purposes. The change in all physical, chemical and microbiological parameters with respect to storage time will be a major focus of future studies in this field.

Keywords: Green roofs, INWQS, MSMA-SME, Rainwater harvesting.

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Authors: Martin J.-D. Otis, Thien-Ly Nguyen-Dang, Thierry Laliberte, Denis Ouellet, Denis Laurendeau, Clement Gosselin

Abstract:

A Cable-Driven Locomotion Interface provides a low inertia haptic interface and is used as a way of enabling the user to walk and interact with virtual surfaces. These surfaces generate Cartesian wrenches which must be optimized for each motorized reel in order to reproduce a haptic sensation in both feet. However, the use of wrench control requires a measure of the cable tensions applied to the moving platform. The latter measure may be inaccurate if it is based on sensors located near the reel. Moreover, friction hysteresis from the reel moving parts needs to be compensated for with an evaluation of low angular velocity of the motor shaft. Also, the pose of the platform is not known precisely due to cable sagging and mechanical deformation. This paper presents a non-ideal motorized reel design with its corresponding control strategy that aims at overcoming the aforementioned issues. A transfert function of the reel based on frequency responses in function of cable tension and cable length is presented with an optimal adaptative PIDF controller. Finally, an hybrid position/tension control is discussed with an analysis of the stability for achieving a complete functionnality of the haptic platform.

Keywords: haptic, reel, transparency, cable, tension, control

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