Search results for: objective assessment

Authors: Wai Yee Lin, Masahiro Yamao

Abstract:

Food control measures are critical in fostering food safety management of a nation. However, no academic study has been undertaken to assess the food control system of Myanmar up to now. The objective of this research paper was to assess the food control system with in depth examination of five key components using desktop analysis and short survey from related food safety program organizations including regulators and inspectors. Study showed that the existing food control system is conventional, mainly focusing on primary health care approach while relying on reactive measures. The achievements of food control work have been limited to a certain extent due to insufficienttechnical capacity that is needed to upgrade staffs, laboratory equipment and technical assistance etc. associated with various sectors. Assessing food control measures is the first step in the integration of food safety management, this paper could assist policy makers in providing information for enhancing the safety and quality of food produced and consumed in Myanmar.

Keywords: Food Control, Food Policy, Legislation, Management

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Authors: Ching-Yi Lee, Dyi-Cheng Chen, Bo-Yan Lai, Chin-Pin Chen

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Creative design requires new approaches to assessment in vocational and technological education. To date, there has been little discussion on instruments used to evaluate dies produced by students in vocational and technological education. Developing a generic instrument has been very difficult due to the diversity of creative domains, the specificity of content, and the subjectivity involved in judgment. This paper presents an instrument for measuring the creativity in the design of products by expanding the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). The content-based scale was evaluated for content validity by 5 experts. The scale comprises 5 criteria: originality; practicability; precision; aesthetics; and exchangeability. Nine experts were invited to evaluate the dies produced by 38 college students who enrolled in a Product Design and Development course. To further explore the degree of rater agreement, inter-rater reliability was calculated for each dimension using Kendall's coefficient of concordance test. The inter-judge reliability scores achieved significance, with coefficients ranging from 0.53 to 0.71.

Keywords: Design education, die creative product, vocational and technological education, Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT).

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Authors: Zhenkun Wang, Simon S. Gao

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Using a scoring system, this paper provides a comparative assessment of the quality of data between XBRL formatted financial reports and non-XBRL financial reports. It shows a major improvement in the quality of data of XBRL formatted financial reports. Although XBRL formatted financial reports do not show much advantage in the quality at the beginning, XBRL financial reports lately display a large improvement in the quality of data in almost all aspects. With the improved XBRL web data managing, presentation and analysis applications, XBRL formatted financial reports have a much better accessibility, are more accurate and better in timeliness.

Keywords: Data Quality; Financial Report; Information; XBRL

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Authors: Zahra Morshedi

Abstract:

Environmental considerations have become an integral part of developmental thinking and decision making in many countries. It is growing rapidly in importance as a discipline of its own. Preventive approaches have been used at the evolutional process of environmental management as a broad and dynamic system for dealing with pollution and environmental degradation. In this regard, Environmental Assessment as an activity for identification and prediction of project’s impacts carried out in the world and its legal significance dates back to late 1960. In Iran, according to the Article 2 of Environmental Protection Act, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should be prepared for seven categories of project. This article has been actively implementing by Department of Environment at 1997. World Bank in 1989 attempted to introducing application of Environmental Assessment for making decision about projects which are required financial assistance in developing countries. So, preparing EIA for obtaining World Bank loan was obligated. Alborz Project is one of the World Bank Projects in Iran which is environmentally significant. Seven out of ten W.B safeguard policies were considered at this project. In this paper, Alborz project, objectives, safeguard policies and role of environmental management will be elaborated

Keywords: AILWMP, EIA, Environmental Management, Safeguard Policies.

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Authors: Todor Bačkalić, Marinko Maslarić, Milosav Georgijević, Sanja Bojić

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Presented article outlines a rationale, why it is necessary to develop competence about infrastructure risk in water transport. Climate changes are evident and require special attention and global monitoring. Current risk assessment methods for Inland waterway transport just consider some dramatic events. We present a new method for the assessment of risk and vulnerability of inland waterway transport where river depth represents a crucial part. The analysis of water level changes in the lower Danube was done for two significant periods (1965-1979 and 1998-2012).

Keywords: Container ship, draught, probability, the Danube.

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Authors: Marios N. Moschakis

Abstract:

This paper deals with the assessment of faulted area around an industrial customer connected to a particular electric grid that will cause a certain sag magnitude on this customer. The faulted (critical or exposed) area’s length is calculated by adding all line lengths in the neighborhood of the critical node (customer). The applied method is the so-called Method of Critical Distances. By using advanced short-circuit analysis, the Critical Area can be accurately calculated for radial and meshed power networks due to all symmetrical and asymmetrical faults. For the demonstration of the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a study case is used.

Keywords: Critical area, fault-induced voltage sags, industrial customers, power quality.

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Authors: F. Lazzali, M. Farsi

Abstract:

Several models of vulnerability assessment have been proposed. The selection of one of these models depends on the objectives of the study. The classical methodologies for seismic vulnerability analysis, as a part of seismic risk analysis, have been formulated with statistical criteria based on a rapid observation. The information relating to the buildings performance is statistically elaborated. In this paper, we use the European Macroseismic Scale EMS-98 to define the relationship between damage and macroseismic intensity to assess the seismic vulnerability. Applying to Algiers area, the first step is to identify building typologies and to assign vulnerability classes. In the second step, damages are investigated according to EMS-98.

Keywords: Damage, EMS-98, inventory building, vulnerability classes

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Authors: S. Nasri, H. Bouziri

Abstract:

Disasters are quite experienced in our days. They are caused by floods, landslides, and building fires that is the main objective of this study. To cope with these unexpected events, precautions must be taken to protect human lives. The emphasis on disposal work focuses on the resolution of the evacuation problem in case of no-notice disaster. The problem of evacuation is listed as a dynamic network flow problem. Particularly, we model the evacuation problem as an earliest arrival flow problem with load dependent transit time. This problem is classified as NP-Hard. Our challenge here is to propose a metaheuristic solution for solving the evacuation problem. We define our objective as the maximization of evacuees during earliest periods of a time horizon T. The objective provides the evacuation of persons as soon as possible. We performed an experimental study on emergency evacuation from the tunisian children’s hospital. This work prompts us to look for evacuation plans corresponding to several situations where the network dynamically changes.

Keywords: Dynamic network flow, Load dependent transit time, Evacuation strategy, Earliest arrival flow problem.

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Authors: M. Owlia, M. H. Azarsa, M. Khabbazan, A. Mirbagheri

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Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation exercises are a series of stretching techniques that are commonly used in rehabilitation and exercise therapy. Assessment of these exercises for true maneuvering requires extensive experience in this field and could not be down with patients themselves. In this paper, we developed software that uses Microsoft Kinect sensor, a spherical color marker, and real-time image processing methods to evaluate patient’s performance in generating true patterns of movements. The software also provides the patient with a visual feedback by showing his/her avatar in a Virtual Reality environment along with the correct path of moving hand, wrist and marker. Primary results during PNF exercise therapy of a patient in a room environment shows the ability of the system to identify any deviation of maneuvering path and direction of the hand from the one that has been performed by an expert physician.

Keywords: Image processing, Microsoft Kinect, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, upper extremities assessment, virtual reality.

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Authors: Ya Hong Dong, Conrad T.C. Wong, S. Thomas Ng, James M.W. Wong

Abstract:

Precast concrete has been widely adopted in public housing construction of Hong Kong since the mid-1980s. While pre-casting is considered an environmental friendly solution, there is lack of study to investigate the life cycle performance of precast concrete units. This study aims to bridge the knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) study for two precast elements namely façade and bathroom. The results show that raw material is the most significant contributor of environmental impact accounting for about 90% to the total impact. Furthermore, human health is more affected by the production of precast concrete than the ecosystems.

Keywords: Environment, green, LCA, LCIA, precast.

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Authors: Atefeh Bagherianziarat, Dana Hamplova

Abstract:

The inverse social gradient in life satisfaction (LS) is a well-established research finding. Although objective aspects of inequality or individuals’ socioeconomic status are among the approved predictors of life satisfaction; however, less is known about the effect of subjective inequality and the interplay of these two aspects of inequality on life satisfaction. It is suggested that individuals’ perception of their socioeconomic status in society can moderate the link between their absolute socioeconomic status and life satisfaction. Nevertheless, this moderating link has not been affirmed to work likewise in societies with different welfare regimes associating with different levels of social inequality. In this study, we compared the moderative influence of subjective inequality on the link between objective inequality and LS. In particular, we focus on differences across welfare state regimes based on Esping-Andersen's theory. Also, we explored the moderative role of believing in the value of equality on the link between objective and subjective inequality on LS, in the given societies. Since our studied variables were measured at both individual and country levels, we applied a multilevel analysis to the European Social Survey data (round 9). The results showed that people in different regimes reported statistically meaningful different levels of LS that is explained to different extends by their household income and their perception of their income inequality. The findings of the study supported the previous findings of the moderator influence of perceived inequality on the link between objective inequality and LS. However, this link is different in various welfare state regimes. The results of the multilevel modeling showed that country-level subjective equality is a positive predictor for individuals’ LS, while the Gini coefficient that was considered as the indicator of absolute inequality has a smaller effect on LS. Also, country-level subjective equality moderates the confirmed link between individuals’ income and their LS. It can be concluded that both individual and country-level subjective inequality slightly moderate the effect of individuals’ income on their LS.

Keywords: individual values, life satisfaction, multi-level analysis, objective inequality, subjective inequality, welfare regimes status

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Authors: Mohammad Taha, Dia abu al Nadi

Abstract:

In this paper, the phase control antenna array synthesis is presented. The problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem that imposes nulls with prescribed level while maintaining the sidelobe at a prescribed level. For efficient use of the algorithm memory, compared to the well known Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), the Accelerated Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO) is used to estimate the phase parameters of the synthesized array. The objective function is formed using a main objective and set of constraints with penalty factors that measure the violation of each feasible solution in the search space to each constraint. In this case the obtained feasible solution is guaranteed to satisfy all the constraints. Simulation results have shown significant performance increases and a decreased randomness in the parameter search space compared to a single objective conventional particle swarm optimization.

Keywords: Array synthesis, Sidelobe level control, Constrainedoptimization, Accelerated Particle Swarm Optimization.

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Authors: R. N. Patel

Abstract:

This paper deals with the tuning of parameters for Automatic Generation Control (AGC). A two area interconnected hydrothermal system with PI controller is considered. Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms have been applied to optimize the controller parameters. Two objective functions namely Integral Square Error (ISE) and Integral of Time-multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE) are considered for optimization. The effectiveness of an objective function is considered based on the variation in tie line power and change in frequency in both the areas. MATLAB/SIMULINK was used as a simulation tool. Simulation results reveal that ITAE is a better objective function than ISE. Performances of optimization algorithms are also compared and it was found that genetic algorithm gives better results than particle swarm optimization algorithm for the problems of AGC.

Keywords: Area control error, Artificial intelligence, Automatic generation control, Genetic Algorithms and modeling, ISE, ITAE, Particle swarm optimization.

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Authors: Rahmat A, Radin Rafeeuddin R. D., Norasrudin S., Mastura M.

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The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of a footballer-s postural on selected physical fitness components. Twenty-one (21) subjects of the university male footballers under the Sport Excellence Center programme were photographed using qualitative analysis. The postural variables were stratified manually into normal and anomalies group and their flexibility, strength and SAQ performance were compared using the Mann-Whitney Test. The AROM assessment and SAQ test reported no significance difference (Z=-.398, p=0.711, p>0.05), similar to the lower body strength was shown with no significance different (Z=-.493, p=0.640, p>0.05). In contrast, only 1 RM strength test for the upper body strength test shown with a significance different (Z=- 2.537, p=0.009, p<0.05) the. Hence, the Body posture among the football athletes with anomalies does not influence selected physical fitness components. This study has proven, that postural anomalies will not affect or influence the physical performance the respective athletes.

Keywords: Postural Analysis, Anomalies, Flexibility, Strength, SAQ.

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Authors: Elsa Eka Putri, N.S.V Kameswara Rao, M. A. Mannan

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The objective of this study is to evaluate the threshold stress of the clay with sand subgrade soil. Threshold stress can be defined as the stress level above which cyclic loading leads to excessive deformation and eventual failure. The thickness determination of highways formations using the threshold stress approach is a more realistic assessment of the soil behaviour because it is subjected to repeated loadings from moving vehicles. Threshold stress can be evaluated by plastic strain criterion, which is based on the accumulated plastic strain behaviour during cyclic loadings [1]. Several conditions of the all-round pressure the subgrade soil namely, zero confinement, low all-round pressure and high all-round pressure are investigated. The threshold stresses of various soil conditions are determined. Threshold stress of the soil are 60%, 31% and 38.6% for unconfined partially saturated sample, low effective stress saturated sample, high effective stress saturated sample respectively.

Keywords: threshold stress, cyclic loading, pore water pressure.

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Authors: Ritsuko Kawasaki (Aiba), Takeshi Hiromatsu

Abstract:

Management is required to understand all information security risks within an organization, and to make decisions on which information security risks should be treated in what level by allocating how much amount of cost. However, such decision-making is not usually easy, because various measures for risk treatment must be selected with the suitable application levels. In addition, some measures may have objectives conflicting with each other. It also makes the selection difficult. Moreover, risks generally have trends and it also should be considered in risk treatment. Therefore, this paper provides the extension of the model proposed in the previous study. The original model supports the selection of measures by applying a combination of weighted average method and goal programming method for multi-objective analysis to find an optimal solution. The extended model includes the notion of weights to the risks, and the larger weight means the priority of the risk.

Keywords: Information security risk treatment, Selection of risk measures, Risk acceptanceand Multi-objective optimization.

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Authors: Nina V. Zaitseva, Pavel Z. Shur, Nina G. Atiskova

Abstract:

Nowadays harmonization of sanitary and hygienic standards of environmental quality with international standards is crucial part of integration of Russia into the international community. Harmonization of Russian and international ambient air quality standards may be realized by risk-based standards development. In this paper approaches to risk-based standards development and examples of these approaches implementation are presented.

Keywords: Harmonization, health risk assessment, evolutionary modelling, benchmark level, nickel, manganese.

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Authors: H. Izadbakhsh, M.Hour Ali, A. Amirkhani, A. Montazeri, M. Saberi

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The after–sales activities are nowadays acknowledged as a relevant source of revenue, profit and competitive advantage in most manufacturing industries. Top and middle management, therefore, should focus on the definition of a structured business performance measurement system for the after-sales business. The paper aims at filling this gap, and presents an integrated methodology for the after-sales network performance measurement, and provides an empirical application to automotive case companies and their official service network. This is the first study that presents an integrated multivariate approach for total assessment and improvement of after-sale services.

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Automotive companies, After-sale services.

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Authors: Dale Dzemydiene, Aurelija Burinskiene, Arunas Miliauskas, Kristina Ciziuniene

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Data flow and the purpose of reporting the data are different and dependent on business needs. Different parameters are reported and transferred regularly during freight delivery. This business practices form the dataset constructed for each time point and contain all required information for freight moving decisions. As a significant amount of these data is used for various purposes, an integrating methodological approach must be developed to respond to the indicated problem. The proposed methodology contains several steps: (1) collecting context data sets and data validation; (2) multi-objective analysis for optimizing freight transfer services. For data validation, the study involves Grubbs outliers analysis, particularly for data cleaning and the identification of statistical significance of data reporting event cases. The Grubbs test is often used as it measures one external value at a time exceeding the boundaries of standard normal distribution. In the study area, the test was not widely applied by authors, except when the Grubbs test for outlier detection was used to identify outsiders in fuel consumption data. In the study, the authors applied the method with a confidence level of 99%. For the multi-objective analysis, the authors would like to select the forms of construction of the genetic algorithms, which have more possibilities to extract the best solution. For freight delivery management, the schemas of genetic algorithms' structure are used as a more effective technique. Due to that, the adaptable genetic algorithm is applied for the description of choosing process of the effective transportation corridor. In this study, the multi-objective genetic algorithm methods are used to optimize the data evaluation and select the appropriate transport corridor. The authors suggest a methodology for the multi-objective analysis, which evaluates collected context data sets and uses this evaluation to determine a delivery corridor for freight transfer service in the multi-modal transportation network. In the multi-objective analysis, authors include safety components, the number of accidents a year, and freight delivery time in the multi-modal transportation network. The proposed methodology has practical value in the management of multi-modal transportation processes.

Keywords: Multi-objective decision support, analysis, data validation, freight delivery, multi-modal transportation, genetic programming methods.

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Authors: Saif Ullah, Guan Zailin, Xu Xianhao, He Zongdong, Wang Baoxi

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Assembly line balancing problem is aimed to divide the tasks among the stations in assembly lines and optimize some objectives. In assembly lines the workload on stations is different from each other due to different tasks times and the difference in workloads between stations can cause blockage or starvation in some stations in assembly lines. Buffers are used to store the semi-finished parts between the stations and can help to smooth the assembly production. The assembly line balancing and buffer sizing problem can affect the throughput of the assembly lines. Assembly line balancing and buffer sizing problems have been studied separately in literature and due to their collective contribution in throughput rate of assembly lines, balancing and buffer sizing problem are desired to study simultaneously and therefore they are considered concurrently in current research. Current research is aimed to maximize throughput, minimize total size of buffers in assembly line and minimize workload variations in assembly line simultaneously. A multi objective optimization objective is designed which can give better Pareto solutions from the Pareto front and a simple example problem is solved for assembly line balancing and buffer sizing simultaneously. Current research is significant for assembly line balancing research and it can be significant to introduce optimization approaches which can optimize current multi objective problem in future.

Keywords: Assembly line balancing, Buffer sizing, Pareto solutions.

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Authors: Manouchehre Ansari, Mahmoud Dehghan Nayeri, Reza Yousefi Zenouz

Abstract:

In order to develop any strategy, it is essential to first identify opportunities, threats, weak and strong points. Assessment of technology level provides the possibility of concentrating on weak and strong points. The results of technology assessment have a direct effect on decision making process in the field of technology transfer or expansion of internal research capabilities so it has a critical role in technology management. This paper presents a conceptual model to analyze the technology capability of a company as a whole and in four main aspects of technology. This model was tested on 10 automotive parts manufacturers in IRAN. Using this model, capability level of manufacturers was investigated in four fields of managing aspects, hard aspects, human aspects, and information and knowledge aspects. Results show that these firms concentrate on hard aspect of technology while others aspects are poor and need to be supported more. So this industry should develop other aspects of technology as well as hard aspect to have effective and efficient use of its technology. These paper findings are useful for the technology planning and management in automotive part manufactures in IRAN and other Industries which are technology followers and transport their needed technologies.

Keywords: Technology, Technological evaluation, TechnologyMaturity

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Authors: Felipe Azocar Simonet, Luis Acosta Espejo

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In this article, we will try to find an efficient boundary approximation for the bi-objective location problem with coherent coverage for two levels of hierarchy (CCLP). We present the mathematical formulation of the model used. Supported efficient solutions and unsupported efficient solutions are obtained by solving the bi-objective combinatorial problem through the weights method using a Lagrangean heuristic. Subsequently, the results are validated through the DEA analysis with the GEM index (Global efficiency measurement).

Keywords: Coherent covering location problem, efficient frontier, Lagrangian relaxation, data envelopment analysis.

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Authors: M. F. Wu, F. T. Cheng

Abstract:

Leather industry is the most important traditional industry to provide the leather products in the world for thousand years. The fierce global competitive environment and common awareness of global carbon reduction make livestock supply quantities falling, salt and wet blue leather material reduces and the price skyrockets significantly. Exchange rate fluctuation led sales revenue decreasing which due to the differences of export exchanges and compresses the overall profitability of leather industry. This paper applies activity-based benefit assessment approach to build up fitness fur input mixed model, fur is Wet Blue, which concerned with four key factors: the output rate of wet blue, unit cost of wet blue, yield rate and grade level of Wet Blue to achieve the low cost strategy under given unit price of leather product condition of the company. The research findings indicate that applying this model may improve the input cost structure, decrease numbers of leather product inventories and to raise the competitive advantages of the enterprise in the future.

Keywords: Activity-Based Benefit Assessment Approach, Input mixed, Output Rate, Wet Blue.

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Authors: Afshari H., Khosravi Sh.

Abstract:

Nowadays there are more than thirty maturity models in different knowledge areas. Maturity model is an area of interest that contributes organizations to find out where they are in a specific knowledge area and how to improve it. As Information Resource Management (IRM) is the concept that information is a major corporate resource and must be managed using the same basic principles used to manage other assets, assessment of the current IRM status and reveal the improvement points can play a critical role in developing an appropriate information structure in organizations. In this paper we proposed a framework for information resource management maturity model (IRM3) that includes ten best practices for the maturity assessment of the organizations' IRM.

Keywords: Information resource management (IRM), information resource management maturity model (IRM3), maturity model, best practice.

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Authors: Ali Y Al-Attraqchi, P. Rajeev, M. Javad Hashemi, Riadh Al-Mahaidi

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This paper presents a probabilistic incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) of a full reinforced concrete building subjected to column loss scenario for the assessment of progressive collapse. The IDA is chosen to explicitly account for uncertainties in loads and system capacity. Fragility curves are developed to predict the probability of progressive collapse given the loss of one or more columns. At a broader scale, it will also provide critical information needed to support the development of a new generation of design codes that attempt to explicitly quantify structural robustness.

Keywords: Incremental dynamic analysis, progressive collapse, structural engineering, pushdown analysis.

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Authors: Yiqiong Yuan, Jun Sun, Dongmei Zhou, Jianan Sun

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In this paper, we presented a Multi-Objective Random Drift Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (MORDPSO-CD) based on RDPSO and crowding distance sorting to improve the convergence and distribution with less computation cost. MORDPSO-CD makes the most of RDPSO to approach the true Pareto optimal solutions fast. We adopt the crowding distance sorting technique to update and maintain the archived optimal solutions. Introducing the crowding distance technique into MORDPSO can make the leader particles find the true Pareto solution ultimately. The simulation results reveal that the proposed algorithm has better convergence and distribution.

Keywords: Multi-objective optimization, random drift particle swarm optimization, crowding distance, Pareto optimal solution.

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Authors: J. K. Shrestha, A. Benta, R. B. Lopes, N. Lopes

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This paper presents a multi-objective model for addressing two main objectives in designing rural roads networks: minimization of user operation costs and maximization of population covered. As limited budgets often exist, a reasonable trade-off must be obtained in order to account for both cost and social benefits in this type of networks. For a real-world rural road network, the model is solved, where all non-dominated solutions were obtained. Afterwards, an analysis is made on the (possibly) most interesting solutions (the ones providing better trade-offs). This analysis, coupled with the knowledge of the real world scenario (typically provided by decision makers) provides a suitable method for the evaluation of road networks in rural areas of developing countries.

Keywords: Multi-objective, user operation cost, population covered, rural road network.

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Authors: Sun Mei, Nagata Katsuya, Onoda Hiroshi

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With the resource exhaustion, bad affections of human activities and the awakening of the human rights, the corporate social responsibility became popular corporate strategy achieving sustainable development of both corporation and society. The issue of Guideline of Chinese Corporate Social Responsibility Report promotes greatly corporation to take social responsibility. This paper built the index system according to this guideline and takes the textile industry as an example, uses the analytical hierarchy process to identify the weightings of different responsibilities of corporation to guide the corporate social responsibility performance assessment.

Keywords: Sustainable development, analytical hierarchyprocess, index system, corporate social responsibility

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Authors: Kolar Jan, Dvorak Vaclav

Abstract:

In this study, an optimization of supersonic air-to-air ejector is carried out by a recently developed single-objective genetic algorithm based on adaption of sequence of individuals. Adaptation of sequence is based on Shape-based distance of individuals and embedded micro-genetic algorithm. The optimal sequence found defines the succession of CFD-aimed objective calculation within each generation of regular micro-genetic algorithm. A spring-based deformation mutates the computational grid starting the initial individualvia adapted population in the optimized sequence. Selection of a generation initial individual is knowledge-based. A direct comparison of the newly defined and standard micro-genetic algorithm is carried out for supersonic air-to-air ejector. The only objective is to minimize the loose of total stagnation pressure in the ejector. The result is that sequence-adopted micro-genetic algorithm can provide comparative results to standard algorithm but in significantly lower number of overall CFD iteration steps.

Keywords: Grid deformation, Micro-genetic algorithm, shapebased sequence, supersonic ejector.

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Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Ken Yeh, Cheng-Wu Chen, Han-Hsi Liang

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The sanitary sewerage connection rate becomes an important indicator of advanced cities. Following the construction of sanitary sewerages, the maintenance and management systems are required for keeping pipelines and facilities functioning well. These maintenance tasks often require sewer workers to enter the manholes and the pipelines, which are confined spaces short of natural ventilation and full of hazardous substances. Working in sewers could be easily exposed to a risk of adverse health effects. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level of noncarcinogenic health risk assessment of sewer workers. On the basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances in sewers and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity and mortality of the adverse health effects. The provision of the morbidity and mortality rates of the related diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.

Keywords: Bayesian belief networks, sanitary sewerage, healthrisk assessment, hazard quotient, target organ-specific hazard index.

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