Search results for: benchmark level
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 3518

Search results for: benchmark level

3248 A Multi-Level GA Search with Application to the Resource-Constrained Re-Entrant Flow Shop Scheduling Problem

Authors: Danping Lin, C.K.M. Lee

Abstract:

Re-entrant scheduling is an important search problem with many constraints in the flow shop. In the literature, a number of approaches have been investigated from exact methods to meta-heuristics. This paper presents a genetic algorithm that encodes the problem as multi-level chromosomes to reflect the dependent relationship of the re-entrant possibility and resource consumption. The novel encoding way conserves the intact information of the data and fastens the convergence to the near optimal solutions. To test the effectiveness of the method, it has been applied to the resource-constrained re-entrant flow shop scheduling problem. Computational results show that the proposed GA performs better than the simulated annealing algorithm in the measure of the makespan

Keywords: Resource-constrained, re-entrant, genetic algorithm (GA), multi-level encoding

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1739
3247 Next Generation IP Address Transition Mechanism for Web Application System

Authors: Mohd. Khairil Sailan, Rosilah Hassan, Zuhaizal Zulkifli

Abstract:

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address is decreasing and a rapid transition method to the next generation IP address (IPv6) should be established. This study aims to evaluate and select the best performance of the IPv6 address network transitionmechanisms, such as IPv4/IPv6 dual stack, transport Relay Translation (TRT) and Reverse Proxy with additional features. It is also aim to prove that faster access can be done while ensuring optimal usage of available resources used during the test and actual implementation. This study used two test methods such asInternet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)ping and ApacheBenchmark (AB) methodsto evaluate the performance.Performance metrics for this study include aspects ofaverageaccessin one second,time takenfor singleaccess,thedata transfer speed and the costof additional requirements.Reverse Proxy with Caching featureis the most efficientmechanism because of it simpler configurationandthe best performerfrom the test conducted.

Keywords: IPv4, IPv6, network transition, apache benchmark andreverse proxy

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2049
3246 Uniform Overlapped Multi-Carrier PWM for a Six-Level Diode Clamped Inverter

Authors: S.Srinivas

Abstract:

Multi-level voltage source inverters offer several advantages such as; derivation of a refined output voltage with reduced total harmonic distortion (THD), reduction of voltage ratings of the power semiconductor switching devices and also the reduced electro-magnetic-interference problems etc. In this paper, new carrier-overlapped phase-disposition or sub-harmonic sinusoidal pulse width modulation (CO-PD-SPWM) and also the carrieroverlapped phase-disposition space vector modulation (CO-PDSVPWM) schemes for a six-level diode-clamped inverter topology are proposed. The principle of the proposed PWM schemes is similar to the conventional PD-PWM with a little deviation from it in the sense that the triangular carriers are all overlapped. The overlapping of the triangular carriers on one hand results in an increased number of switchings, on the other hand this facilitates an improved spectral performance of the output voltage. It is demonstrated through simulation studies that the six-level diode-clamped inverter with the use of CO-PD-SPWM and CO-PD-SVPWM proposed in this paper is capable of generating multiple levels in its output voltage. The advantages of the proposed PWM schemes can be derived to benefit, especially at lower modulation indices of the inverter and hence this aspect of the proposed PWM schemes can be well exploited in high power applications requiring low speeds of operation of the drive.

Keywords: Diode clamped inverter, Pulse width modulation, Six level inverter, carrier based PWM.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1868
3245 The Operating Behaviour of Unbalanced Unpaced Merging Assembly Lines

Authors: S. Shaaban, T. McNamara, S. Hudson

Abstract:

This paper reports on the performance of deliberately unbalanced, reliable, non-automated and assembly lines that merge, whose workstations differ in terms of their mean operation times. Simulations are carried out on 5- and 8-station lines with 1, 2 and 4 buffer capacity units, % degrees of line imbalance of 2, 5 and 12, and 24 different patterns of means imbalance. Data on two performance measures, namely throughput and average buffer level were gathered, statistically analysed and compared to a merging balanced line counterpart. It was found that the best configurations are a balanced line arrangement and a monotone decreasing order for each of the parallel merging lines, with the first generally resulting in a lower throughput and the second leading to a lower average buffer level than those of a balanced line.

Keywords: Average buffer level, merging lines, simulation, throughput, unbalanced.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1503
3244 A Hybrid Overset Algorithm for Aerodynamic Problems with Moving Objects

Authors: S. M. H. Karimian, F. S. Salehi, H. Alisadeghi

Abstract:

A two-dimensional moving mesh algorithm is developed to simulate the general motion of two rotating bodies with relative translational motion. The grid includes a background grid and two sets of grids around the moving bodies. With this grid arrangement rotational and translational motions of two bodies are handled separately, with no complications. Inter-grid boundaries are determined based on their distances from two bodies. In this method, the overset concept is applied to hybrid grid, and flow variables are interpolated using a simple stencil. To evaluate this moving mesh algorithm unsteady Euler flow is solved for different cases using dual-time method of Jameson. Numerical results show excellent agreement with experimental data and other numerical results. To demonstrate the capability of present algorithm for accurate solution of flow fields around moving bodies, some benchmark problems have been defined in this paper.

Keywords: Moving mesh, Overset grid, Unsteady Euler, Relative motion.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1656
3243 The Role of Business Survey Measures in Forecasting Croatian Industrial Production

Authors: M. Cizmesija, N. Erjavec, V. Bahovec

Abstract:

While the European Union (EU) harmonized methodology is a benchmark of worldwide used business survey (BS) methodology, the choice of variables that are components of the confidence indicators, as the leading indicators, is not strictly determined and unique. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate and to quantify the relationship between all business survey variables in manufacturing industry and industrial production as a reference macroeconomic series in Croatia. The assumption is that there are variables in the business survey, that are not components of Industrial Confidence Indicator (ICI) and which can accurately (and sometimes better then ICI) predict changes in Croatian industrial production. Empirical analyses are conducted using quarterly data of BS variables in manufacturing industry and Croatian industrial production over the period from the first quarter 2005 to the first quarter 2013. Research results confirmed the assumption: three BS variables which is not components of ICI (competitive position, demand and liquidity) are the best leading indicator then ICI, in forecasting changes in Croatian industrial production instantaneously, with one, two or three quarter ahead.

Keywords: Balance, Business Survey, Confidence Indicators, Industrial Production, Forecasting.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1871
3242 The Association between the Firm Characteristics and Corporate Mandatory Disclosure the Case of Greece

Authors: Despina Galani, Anastasios Alexandridis, Antonios Stavropoulos

Abstract:

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

Keywords: Mandatory disclosure, Annual report, Disclosure index

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3921
3241 Developing Safety Behavior Practice Suitable for Thai Industrial Operators

Authors: Lertchai Ratana-Arporn, Aphisith Angkhanit

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to develop safety practices which is suitable for Thai industrial operators from Incident and Injury Free, IIF to create safety behavior and reduce the un-safe records in the petroleum industry. A number of 310 technicians i.e., 295 males and 15 females, in service maintenance section participated in this program. The safety attitude level and safety behavior level for pre-attended and post-attended the developed safety practices of the technicians were evaluated using questionnaire procedure and on-site observation. After applied the developed practice program, both of the safety attitudes and safety behavior were increased to be at very good level and good level, respectively. Evaluating the follow-up unsafe records, it was found that the injury was reduced from 0.11 to 0 case/month, the medical treatment case was reduced from 0.22 to 0 case/month and the first aid case was reduced from 1 to 0.33 case/month. The developed safety working practice was successfully implemented to Thai industrial operators.

Keywords: Incident and Injury Free, safety practices, Thai industrial operators, "WeCare".

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1110
3240 Estimating Shortest Circuit Path Length Complexity

Authors: Azam Beg, P. W. Chandana Prasad, S.M.N.A Senenayake

Abstract:

When binary decision diagrams are formed from uniformly distributed Monte Carlo data for a large number of variables, the complexity of the decision diagrams exhibits a predictable relationship to the number of variables and minterms. In the present work, a neural network model has been used to analyze the pattern of shortest path length for larger number of Monte Carlo data points. The neural model shows a strong descriptive power for the ISCAS benchmark data with an RMS error of 0.102 for the shortest path length complexity. Therefore, the model can be considered as a method of predicting path length complexities; this is expected to lead to minimum time complexity of very large-scale integrated circuitries and related computer-aided design tools that use binary decision diagrams.

Keywords: Monte Carlo circuit simulation data, binary decision diagrams, neural network modeling, shortest path length estimation

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1335
3239 Music-Inspired Harmony Search Algorithm for Fixed Outline Non-Slicing VLSI Floorplanning

Authors: K. Sivasubramanian, K. B. Jayanthi

Abstract:

Floorplanning plays a vital role in the physical design process of Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) chips. It is an essential design step to estimate the chip area prior to the optimized placement of digital blocks and their interconnections. Since VLSI floorplanning is an NP-hard problem, many optimization techniques were adopted in the literature. In this work, a music-inspired Harmony Search (HS) algorithm is used for the fixed die outline constrained floorplanning, with the aim of reducing the total chip area. HS draws inspiration from the musical improvisation process of searching for a perfect state of harmony. Initially, B*-tree is used to generate the primary floorplan for the given rectangular hard modules and then HS algorithm is applied to obtain an optimal solution for the efficient floorplan. The experimental results of the HS algorithm are obtained for the MCNC benchmark circuits.

Keywords: Floor planning, harmony search, non-slicing floorplan, very large scale integrated circuits.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1914
3238 Identification of Promising Infant Clusters to Obtain Improved Block Layout Designs

Authors: Mustahsan Mir, Ahmed Hassanin, Mohammed A. Al-Saleh

Abstract:

The layout optimization of building blocks of unequal areas has applications in many disciplines including VLSI floorplanning, macrocell placement, unequal-area facilities layout optimization, and plant or machine layout design. A number of heuristics and some analytical and hybrid techniques have been published to solve this problem. This paper presents an efficient high-quality building-block layout design technique especially suited for solving large-size problems. The higher efficiency and improved quality of optimized solutions are made possible by introducing the concept of Promising Infant Clusters in a constructive placement procedure. The results presented in the paper demonstrate the improved performance of the presented technique for benchmark problems in comparison with published heuristic, analytic, and hybrid techniques.

Keywords: Block layout problem, building-block layout design, CAD, optimization, search techniques.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1200
3237 Ceramic Employees’ Occupational Health and Safety Training Expectations in Turkey

Authors: Erol Karaca

Abstract:

This study aims to analyze ceramic employees’ occupational health and safety training expectations. To that general objective, the study tries to examine whether occupational health and safety training expectations of ceramic employees meaningfully differentiate depending on demographic features and professional, social and economic conditions. For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed by the researcher. The research data were collected through this questionnaire called “Questionnaire of Occupational Health and Safety Training Expectation” (QSOHSTE). QSOHSTE was applied to 125 ceramic employees working in Kütahya, Turkey. Data obtained from questionnaire were analyzed via SPSS 21. The findings, obtained from the study, revealed that employees’ agreement level to occupational health and safety training expectation statements is generally high-level. The findings reveal that employees expect professional interest such as increased development and investment, preventive measures for accidents, interventions to evaluate the working conditions, establishment of safe working environments and sustainment of adequate equipment for occupational health and safety training process. Besides these findings, employees’ agreement level to occupational health and safety training expectation statements also varies in terms of educational level, professional seniority, income level and perception of economic condition.

Keywords: Occupational Health and Safety, Occupational Training, Occupational Expectation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2385
3236 Body Mass Index, Components of Metabolic Syndrome and Hyperuricemia among Women in Postmenopausal Period

Authors: Vladyslav Povoroznyuk, Galina Dubetska, Roksolana Povoroznyuk

Abstract:

In recent years, the problem of hyperuricemia is getting a particular importance due to its increased incidence in the world population. The aim of this study was to determine uriс acid level in blood serum, incidence of hyperuricemia among women in postmenopausal period and their association with body mass index and some components of metabolic syndrome (triglyceride, cholesterol, systolic and diastolic pressure). We examined 412 women in postmenopausal period. They were divided in to the following groups: I group (BMI = 18,5-24,9), II group (BMI = 25,0-29,9), III group (BMI = 30,0-34,9), IV group (BMI > 35). We determined uric acid level among women during postmenopausal period depending on their body mass index. The higher level of uric acid was found in patients with the maximal body mass index (BMI > 35). In the I group it was 277,52 ± 8,40; in the II group – 286,81 ± 7,79; in the III group – 291,81 ± 7,56; in the IV group – 327,17 ± 12,17. Incidence of hyperuricemia among women in the I group was 10,2%, in the II group – 15,9%; in the III group – 21,2%, in the IV group – 34,2%. We found an interdependence between an uric acid level and BMI in the examined women (r = 0,21, p < 0,05). We determined that the highest level of triglyceride (F = 18,62, p < 0,05), cholesterol (F = 3,64, p < 0,05), atherogenic coefficient (F = 22,64, p < 0,05), systolic (F = 10,5, p < 0,05) and diastolic pressure (F = 4,30, p < 0,05) was among women with hyperuricemia. It was an interdependence between an uric acid level and triglyceride (r = 0,26, p < 0,05), atherogenic coefficient (r = 0,24, p < 0,05) among women in postmenopausal period.

Keywords: Hyperuricemia, uric acid, body mass index, metabolic syndrome, triglyceride, cholesterol, atherogenic coefficient, systolic and diastolic pressure, women.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 391
3235 Florida’s Groundwater and Surface Water System Reliability in Terms of Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise

Authors: Rahman Davtalab, Saba Ghotbi

Abstract:

Florida is one of the most vulnerable states to natural disasters among the 50 states of the USA. The state exposed by tropical storms, hurricanes, storm surge, landslide, etc. Besides the mentioned natural phenomena, global warming, sea-level rise, and other anthropogenic environmental changes make a very complicated and unpredictable system for decision-makers. In this study, we tried to highlight the effects of climate change and sea-level rise on surface water and groundwater systems for three different geographical locations in Florida; Main Canal of Jacksonville Beach in the northeast of Florida adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, Grace Lake in central Florida, far away from surrounded coastal line, and Mc Dill in Florida and adjacent to Tampa Bay and Mexican Gulf. An integrated hydrologic and hydraulic model was developed and simulated for all three cases, including surface water, groundwater, or a combination of both. For the case study of Main Canal-Jacksonville Beach, the investigation showed that a 76 cm sea-level rise in time horizon 2060 could increase the flow velocity of the tide cycle for the main canal's outlet and headwater. This case also revealed how the sea level rise could change the tide duration, potentially affecting the coastal ecosystem. As expected, sea-level rise can raise the groundwater level. Therefore, for the Mc Dill case, the effect of groundwater rise on soil storage and the performance of stormwater retention ponds is investigated. The study showed that sea-level rise increased the pond’s seasonal high water up to 40 cm by time horizon 2060. The reliability of the retention pond is dropped from 99% for the current condition to 54% for the future. The results also proved that the retention pond could not retain and infiltrate the designed treatment volume within 72 hours, which is a significant indication of increasing pollutants in the future. Grace Lake case study investigates the effects of climate change on groundwater recharge. This study showed that using the dynamically downscaled data of the groundwater recharge can decline up to 24 % by the mid-21st century. 

Keywords: groundwater, surface water, Florida, retention pond, tide, sea-level rise

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 513
3234 A Preliminary Study on the Suitability of Data Driven Approach for Continuous Water Level Modeling

Authors: Muhammad Aqil, Ichiro Kita, Moses Macalinao

Abstract:

Reliable water level forecasts are particularly important for warning against dangerous flood and inundation. The current study aims at investigating the suitability of the adaptive network based fuzzy inference system for continuous water level modeling. A hybrid learning algorithm, which combines the least square method and the back propagation algorithm, is used to identify the parameters of the network. For this study, water levels data are available for a hydrological year of 2002 with a sampling interval of 1-hour. The number of antecedent water level that should be included in the input variables is determined by two statistical methods, i.e. autocorrelation function and partial autocorrelation function between the variables. Forecasting was done for 1-hour until 12-hour ahead in order to compare the models generalization at higher horizons. The results demonstrate that the adaptive networkbased fuzzy inference system model can be applied successfully and provide high accuracy and reliability for river water level estimation. In general, the adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system provides accurate and reliable water level prediction for 1-hour ahead where the MAPE=1.15% and correlation=0.98 was achieved. Up to 12-hour ahead prediction, the model still shows relatively good performance where the error of prediction resulted was less than 9.65%. The information gathered from the preliminary results provide a useful guidance or reference for flood early warning system design in which the magnitude and the timing of a potential extreme flood are indicated.

Keywords: Neural Network, Fuzzy, River, Forecasting

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1250
3233 Stock Portfolio Selection Using Chemical Reaction Optimization

Authors: Jin Xu, Albert Y.S. Lam, Victor O.K. Li

Abstract:

Stock portfolio selection is a classic problem in finance, and it involves deciding how to allocate an institution-s or an individual-s wealth to a number of stocks, with certain investment objectives (return and risk). In this paper, we adopt the classical Markowitz mean-variance model and consider an additional common realistic constraint, namely, the cardinality constraint. Thus, stock portfolio optimization becomes a mixed-integer quadratic programming problem and it is difficult to be solved by exact optimization algorithms. Chemical Reaction Optimization (CRO), which mimics the molecular interactions in a chemical reaction process, is a population-based metaheuristic method. Two different types of CRO, named canonical CRO and Super Molecule-based CRO (S-CRO), are proposed to solve the stock portfolio selection problem. We test both canonical CRO and S-CRO on a benchmark and compare their performance under two criteria: Markowitz efficient frontier (Pareto frontier) and Sharpe ratio. Computational experiments suggest that S-CRO is promising in handling the stock portfolio optimization problem.

Keywords: Stock portfolio selection, Markowitz model, Chemical Reaction Optimization, Sharpe ratio

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2023
3232 Image Retrieval Based on Multi-Feature Fusion for Heterogeneous Image Databases

Authors: N. W. U. D. Chathurani, Shlomo Geva, Vinod Chandran, Proboda Rajapaksha

Abstract:

Selecting an appropriate image representation is the most important factor in implementing an effective Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system. This paper presents a multi-feature fusion approach for efficient CBIR, based on the distance distribution of features and relative feature weights at the time of query processing. It is a simple yet effective approach, which is free from the effect of features' dimensions, ranges, internal feature normalization and the distance measure. This approach can easily be adopted in any feature combination to improve retrieval quality. The proposed approach is empirically evaluated using two benchmark datasets for image classification (a subset of the Corel dataset and Oliva and Torralba) and compared with existing approaches. The performance of the proposed approach is confirmed with the significantly improved performance in comparison with the independently evaluated baseline of the previously proposed feature fusion approaches.

Keywords: Feature fusion, image retrieval, membership function, normalization.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1304
3231 Determinants of the Income of Household Level Coir Yarn Labourers in Sri Lanka

Authors: G. H. B. Dilhari, A. A. D. T. Saparamadu

Abstract:

Sri Lanka is one of the prominent countries for the coir production. The coir is one of the by-products of the coconut and the coir industry is considered to be one of the traditional industries in Sri Lanka. Because of the inherent nature of the coir industry, labourers play a significant role in the coir production process. The study has analyzed the determinants of the income of the household level coir yarn labourers. The study was conducted in the Kumarakanda Grama Niladhari division. Simple random sampling was used to generate a sample of 100 household level coir yarn labourers and structured questionnaire, personal interviews, and discussion were performed to gather the required data. The obtained data were statistically analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis test were performed for mean comparison. The findings revealed that the household level coir yarn industry is dominated by the female workers and it was identified that fewer numbers of workers have engaged in this industry as the main occupation. In addition to that, elderly participation in the industry is higher than the younger participation and most of them have engaged in the industry as a source of extra income. Level of education, the methods of engagement, satisfaction, engagement in the industry by the next generation, support from the government, method of government support, working hours per day, employed as a main job, number of completed units per day, suffering from job related diseases and type of the diseases were related with income level of household level coir yarn laboures. The recommendations as to flourish in future includes, technological transformation for coir yarn production, strengthening the raw material base and regulating the raw material supply, introduction of new technologies, markets and training programmes, the establishment of the labourers’ association, the initiation of micro credit schemes and better consideration about the job oriented diseases.

Keywords: Coir, Income, Sri Lanka.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1480
3230 Integrating Context Priors into a Decision Tree Classification Scheme

Authors: Kasim Terzic, Bernd Neumann

Abstract:

Scene interpretation systems need to match (often ambiguous) low-level input data to concepts from a high-level ontology. In many domains, these decisions are uncertain and benefit greatly from proper context. This paper demonstrates the use of decision trees for estimating class probabilities for regions described by feature vectors, and shows how context can be introduced in order to improve the matching performance.

Keywords: Classification, Decision Trees, Interpretation, Vision

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1256
3229 Research into Concrete Blocks with Waste Glass

Authors: P. Turgut, E. S. Yahlizade

Abstract:

In this paper, a parametric experimental study for producing paving blocks using fine and coarse waste glass is presented. Some of the physical and mechanical properties of paving blocks having various levels of fine glass (FG) and coarse glass (CG) replacements with fine aggregate (FA) are investigated. The test results show that the replacement of FG by FA at level of 20% by weight has a significant effect on the compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength and abrasion resistance of the paving blocks as compared with the control sample because of puzzolanic nature of FG. The compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength and abrasion resistance of the paving block samples in the FG replacement level of 20% are 69%, 90%, 47% and 15 % higher as compared with the control sample respectively. It is reported in the earlier works the replacement of FG by FA at level of 20% by weight suppress the alkali-silica reaction (ASR) in the concrete. The test results show that the FG at level of 20% has a potential to be used in the production of paving blocks. The beneficial effect on these properties of CG replacement with FA is little as compared with FG.

Keywords: Concrete paving , Properties, Waste glass.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5205
3228 Predictive Modelling Techniques in Sediment Yield and Hydrological Modelling

Authors: Adesoji T. Jaiyeola, Josiah Adeyemo

Abstract:

This paper presents an extensive review of literature relevant to the modelling techniques adopted in sediment yield and hydrological modelling. Several studies relating to sediment yield are discussed. Many research areas of sedimentation in rivers, runoff and reservoirs are presented. Different types of hydrological models, different methods employed in selecting appropriate models for different case studies are analysed. Applications of evolutionary algorithms and artificial intelligence techniques are discussed and compared especially in water resources management and modelling. This review concentrates on Genetic Programming (GP) and fully discusses its theories and applications. The successful applications of GP as a soft computing technique were reviewed in sediment modelling. Some fundamental issues such as benchmark, generalization ability, bloat, over-fitting and other open issues relating to the working principles of GP are highlighted. This paper concludes with the identification of some research gaps in hydrological modelling and sediment yield.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, evolutionary algorithm, genetic programming, sediment yield.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1816
3227 Survey of Curriculum Quality of Postgraduate Studies of Insurance Management Field Case: University of Allameh Taba Tabaee

Authors: F. Havas Beigi, E. Mohammadi, M.Vafaee Yeganeh

Abstract:

Curriculum is one of the most important inputs in higher education system and for knowing the strong and weak spots of it we need evaluation. The main purpose of this study was to survey of the curriculum quality of Insurance Management field. Case: University of Allameh Taba Tabaee(according to view point of students,alumni,employer and faculty members).Descriptive statistics (mean, tables, percentages, frequency distribution) and inferential statistics (CHI SQUARE) were used to analyze the data. Six criterions considered for the Quality of curriculum: objectives, content, teaching and learning methods, space and facilities, Time, assessment of learning. objectives, teaching and learning methods criterions was desirable level, content criteria was undesirable level, space and facilities, time and assessment of learning were rather desirable level. The quality of curriculum of insurance management field was relatively desirable level.

Keywords: Quality, curriculum, insurance management, higher education.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1289
3226 Military Families’ Attachment to the Royal Guards Community of Dusit District, Bangkok Metropolitan

Authors: Kaniknun Photchong, Phusit Phukamchanoad

Abstract:

The objective of this research is to study the people’s level of participation in activities of the community, their satisfaction towards the community, the attachment they have to the community, factors that influence the attachment, as well as the characteristics of the relationships of military families’ of the Royal Guards community of Dusit District. The method used was non-probability sampling by quota sampling according to people’s age. The determined age group was 18 years or older.

One set of a sample group was done per family. The questionnaires were conducted by 287 people. Snowball sampling was also used by interviewing people of the community, starting from the Royal Guards Community’s leader, then by 20 of the community’s well-respected persons. The data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics, such as arithmetic mean and standard deviation, as well as by inferential statistics, such as Independent - Samples T test (T-test), One-Way ANOVA (F-test), Chi-Square. Descriptive analysis according to the structure of the interview content was also used. The results of the research is that the participation of the population in the Royal Guards Community in various activities is at a medium level, with the average participation level during Mother’s and Father’s Days. The people’s general level of satisfaction towards the premises of the Royal Guards Community is at the highest level.

The people were most satisfied with the transportation within the community and in contacting with people from outside the premises. The access to the community is convenient and there are various entrances. The attachment of the people to the Royal Guards Community in general and by each category is at a high level. The feeling that the community is their home rated the highest average. Factors that influence the attachment of the people of the Royal Guards Community are age, status, profession, income, length of stay in the community, membership of social groups, having neighbors they feel close and familiar with, and as well as the benefits they receive from the community. In addition, it was found that people that participate in activities have a high level of positive relationship towards the attachment of the people to the Royal Guards Community. The satisfaction of the community has a very high level of positive relationship with the attachment of the people to the Royal Guards Community.

The characteristics of the attachment of military families’ is that they live in big houses that everyone has to protect and care for, starting from the leader of the family as well as all members. Therefore, they all love the community they live in. The characteristics that show the participation of activities within the community and the high level of satisfaction towards the premises of the community will enable the people to be more attached to the community. The people feel that everyone is close neighbors within the community, as if they are one big family.

Keywords: Activities, Attachment, Community, Royal Guards, Satisfaction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1623
3225 Incorporation of SVS CBVLC Supplementary Controller for Damping SSR in Power System

Authors: Narendra Kumar, Sanjiv Kumar

Abstract:

Static VAR System (SVS) is a kind of FACTS device which is used in power system primarily for the purpose of voltage and reactive power control. In this paper presents a systematic approach for designing SVS supplementary controller, which is used to improve the damping of power system oscillation. The combined bus voltage and line current (CBVLC) supplementary controller has been developed and incorporated in the SVS control system located at the middle of the series compensated long transmission line. Damping of torsional stresses due to subsynchronous resonance resulting from series capacitive compensation using CBVLC is investigated in this paper. Simulation results are carried out with MATLAB/Simulink on the IEEE first benchmark model (FBM). The simulation results show that the oscillations are satisfactorily damped out by the SVS supplementary controller. Time domain simulation is performed on power system and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Keywords: Bus voltage and line current (BVLC), series compensation, sub synchronous resonance (SSR), supplementary controller, eigenvalue investigation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1804
3224 Advanced Robust PDC Fuzzy Control of Nonlinear Systems

Authors: M. Polanský

Abstract:

This paper introduces a new method called ARPDC (Advanced Robust Parallel Distributed Compensation) for automatic control of nonlinear systems. This method improves a quality of robust control by interpolating of robust and optimal controller. The weight of each controller is determined by an original criteria function for model validity and disturbance appreciation. ARPDC method is based on nonlinear Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems and Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) control scheme. The relaxed stability conditions of ARPDC control of nominal system have been derived. The advantages of presented method are demonstrated on the inverse pendulum benchmark problem. From comparison between three different controllers (robust, optimal and ARPDC) follows, that ARPDC control is almost optimal with the robustness close to the robust controller. The results indicate that ARPDC algorithm can be a good alternative not only for a robust control, but in some cases also to an adaptive control of nonlinear systems.

Keywords: Robust control, optimal control, Takagi–Sugeno (TS) fuzzy models, linear matrix inequality (LMI), observer, Advanced Robust Parallel Distributed Compensation (ARPDC).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1529
3223 Controlling of Multi-Level Inverter under Shading Conditions Using Artificial Neural Network

Authors: Abed Sami Qawasme, Sameer Khader

Abstract:

This paper describes the effects of photovoltaic voltage changes on Multi-level inverter (MLI) due to solar irradiation variations, and methods to overcome these changes. The irradiation variation affects the generated voltage, which in turn varies the switching angles required to turn-on the inverter power switches in order to obtain minimum harmonic content in the output voltage profile. Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to solve harmonics elimination equations of eleven level inverters with equal and non-equal dc sources. After that artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm is proposed to generate appropriate set of switching angles for MLI at any level of input dc sources voltage causing minimization of the total harmonic distortion (THD) to an acceptable limit. MATLAB/Simulink platform is used as a simulation tool and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyses are carried out for output voltage profile to verify the reliability and accuracy of the applied technique for controlling the MLI harmonic distortion. According to the simulation results, the obtained THD for equal dc source is 9.38%, while for variable or unequal dc sources it varies between 10.26% and 12.93% as the input dc voltage varies between 4.47V nd 11.43V respectively. The proposed ANN algorithm provides satisfied simulation results that match with results obtained by alternative algorithms.

Keywords: Multi level inverter, genetic algorithm, artificial neural network, total harmonic distortion.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 563
3222 Entrepreneurial Activity - Indicator of Regional Development in Croatia

Authors: Svjetlana Letinić, Katarina Štavlić

Abstract:

Given that entrepreneurship is a very significant factor of regional development, it is necessary to approach systematically the development with measures of regional politics. According to international classification The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS II), there are three regions in Croatia. The indicators of entrepreneurial activities on the national level of Croatia are analyzed in the paper, taking into consideration the results of referent research. The level of regional development is shown based on the analysis of entrepreneurs- operations. The results of the analysis show a very unfavorable situation in entrepreneurial activities on the national level of Croatia. The origin of this situation is to be found in the surroundings with an expressed inequality of regional development, which is caused by the non-existence of a strategically directed regional policy. In this paper recommendations which could contribute to the reduction of regional inequality in Croatia, have been made.

Keywords: indicators of entrepreneurial activity, regional development, regional inequity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1625
3221 Enhanced Imperialist Competitive Algorithm for the Cell Formation Problem Using Sequence Data

Authors: S. H. Borghei, E. Teymourian, M. Mobin, G. M. Komaki, S. Sheikh

Abstract:

Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) is a recent meta-heuristic method that is inspired by the social evolutions for solving NP-Hard problems. The ICA is a population-based algorithm which has achieved a great performance in comparison to other metaheuristics. This study is about developing enhanced ICA approach to solve the Cell Formation Problem (CFP) using sequence data. In addition to the conventional ICA, an enhanced version of ICA, namely EICA, applies local search techniques to add more intensification aptitude and embed the features of exploration and intensification more successfully. Suitable performance measures are used to compare the proposed algorithms with some other powerful solution approaches in the literature. In the same way, for checking the proficiency of algorithms, forty test problems are presented. Five benchmark problems have sequence data, and other ones are based on 0-1 matrices modified to sequence based problems. Computational results elucidate the efficiency of the EICA in solving CFP problems.

Keywords: Cell formation problem, Group technology, Imperialist competitive algorithm, Sequence data.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1529
3220 Artificial Intelligent (AI) Based Cascade Multi-Level Inverter for Smart Nano Grid

Authors: S. Chatterji, S. L. Shimi

Abstract:

As wind, solar and other clean and green energy sources gain popularity worldwide, engineers are seeking ways to make renewable energy systems more affordable and to integrate them with existing ac power grids. In the present paper an attempt has been made for integrating the PV arrays to the smart nano grid using an artificial intelligent (AI) based solar powered cascade multilevel inverter. The AI based controller switching scheme has been used for improving the power quality by reducing the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of the multi-level inverter output voltage.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligent (AI), Solar Powered Multi-level Inverter, Smart nano grid, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3339
3219 Detecting Remote Protein Evolutionary Relationships via String Scoring Method

Authors: Nazar Zaki, Safaai Deris

Abstract:

The amount of the information being churned out by the field of biology has jumped manifold and now requires the extensive use of computer techniques for the management of this information. The predominance of biological information such as protein sequence similarity in the biological information sea is key information for detecting protein evolutionary relationship. Protein sequence similarity typically implies homology, which in turn may imply structural and functional similarities. In this work, we propose, a learning method for detecting remote protein homology. The proposed method uses a transformation that converts protein sequence into fixed-dimensional representative feature vectors. Each feature vector records the sensitivity of a protein sequence to a set of amino acids substrings generated from the protein sequences of interest. These features are then used in conjunction with support vector machines for the detection of the protein remote homology. The proposed method is tested and evaluated on two different benchmark protein datasets and it-s able to deliver improvements over most of the existing homology detection methods.

Keywords: Protein homology detection; support vectormachine; string kernel.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1344