Search results for: paper machine risk analysis

Authors: F. Fabeil Noor, Roslinah Mahmud, Janice L. H. Nga, Rasid Mail

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In Malaysia, particularly in Sabah, the government has been promoting entrepreneurship among rural people to encourage them to earn their living by making good use of the diverse natural resources and local cultures of Sabah. Nevertheless, despite the government’s aim to encourage more local community in rural area to involve in entrepreneurship, the involvement of community in entrepreneurial activity is still low. It is crucial to identify the factors stimulate (or prevent) the involvement of rural community in Sabah in entrepreneurial activity. Therefore, this study tries to investigate the personal and contextual factors that may have impact on decision to start a business among the local community in Mantanani Island. In addition, this study also aims to identify the perceived benefits they receive from entrepreneurial activity. A structured face-to-face interview was conducted with 61 local communities in Mantanani Island. Data analysis revealed that passion, personal skills and self-confidence are the significant internal factors to entrepreneurial activity, whereas access to finance, labour and infrastructure are the significant external factors that are found to influence entrepreneurship. In terms of perceived rewards they received from taking up small business, it was found that respondents are predominantly agreed that entrepreneurship offers financial benefit than non-financial. In addition, this study also offers several suggestions for entrepreneurship development in Mantanani Island and it is hoped that this study may help the related agency to develop effective support policies in order to encourage more people in rural area to involve in entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, motivation, perceived rewards, rural community.

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Authors: Mohammad Ali Jabraeil Jamali, Ahmad Khademzadeh

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The success of an electronic system in a System-on- Chip is highly dependent on the efficiency of its interconnection network, which is constructed from routers and channels (the routers move data across the channels between nodes). Since neither classical bus based nor point to point architectures can provide scalable solutions and satisfy the tight power and performance requirements of future applications, the Network-on-Chip (NoC) approach has recently been proposed as a promising solution. Indeed, in contrast to the traditional solutions, the NoC approach can provide large bandwidth with moderate area overhead. The selected topology of the components interconnects plays prime rule in the performance of NoC architecture as well as routing and switching techniques that can be used. In this paper, we present two generic NoC architectures that can be customized to the specific communication needs of an application in order to reduce the area with minimal degradation of the latency of the system. An experimental study is performed to compare these structures with basic NoC topologies represented by 2D mesh, Butterfly-Fat Tree (BFT) and SPIN. It is shown that Cluster mesh (CMesh) and MinRoot schemes achieves significant improvements in network latency and energy consumption with only negligible area overhead and complexity over existing architectures. In fact, in the case of basic NoC topologies, CMesh and MinRoot schemes provides substantial savings in area as well, because they requires fewer routers. The simulation results show that CMesh and MinRoot networks outperforms MESH, BFT and SPIN in main performance metrics.

Keywords: MinRoot, CMesh, NoC, Topology, Performance Evaluation

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Authors: Ilelabayo I. Adebisi, Yetunde R. Okeyinka, Abdulrasaq K. Ayinla

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Architectural design is a complex process especially when the issue of user’s comfort, building sustainability and energy efficiency needs to be addressed. The current energy challenge and the seek for an environment where users will have a more physiological and psychological comfort in this part of the world have led various researchers to constantly explore the concept of passive design techniques. Passive techniques are design strategies used in regulating building indoor climates and improving users comfort without the use of energy driven devices. This paper describes and analyses the significance of passive techniques on indoor climates and their impact on thermal comfort of building users using LAUTECH College of health sciences Ogbomoso as a case study. The study aims at assessing the appropriateness of the passive strategies used in achieving comfort in their buildings with a view to evaluate their adequacy and effectiveness and suggesting how comfortable their building users are. This assessment was carried out through field survey and questionnaires and findings revealed that strategies such as Orientation, Spacing, Courtyards, window positioning and choice of landscape adopted are inadequate while only fins and roof overhangs are adequate. The finding also revealed that 72% of building occupants feel hot discomfort in their various spaces and hence have the urge to get fresh air from outside during work hours. The Mahoney table was used to provide appropriate architectural design recommendations to guide future designers in the study area.

Keywords: Energy challenge, passive cooling, techniques, thermal comfort, users comfort.

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Authors: P. N. Korde, P. P. Bedekar

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The time coordination of overcurrent relays (OCR) in a power distribution network is of great importance, as it reduces the power outages by avoiding the mal-operation of the backup relays. For this, the optimum value of the time multiplier setting (TMS) of OCRs should be chosen. The problem of determining the optimum value of TMS of OCRs in power distribution networks is formulated as a constrained optimization problem. The objective is to find the optimum value of TMS of OCRs to minimize the time of operation of relays under the constraint of maintaining the coordination of relays. A power distribution network can have a combination of numerical and electromechanical relays. The TMS of numerical relays can be set to any real value (which satisfies the constraints of the problem), whereas the TMS of electromechanical relays can be set in fixed step (0 to 1 in steps of 0.05). The main contribution of this paper is a formulation of the problem as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem and application of Gomory's cutting plane method to find the optimum value of TMS of OCRs. The TMS of electromechanical relays are taken as integers in the range 1 to 20 in the step of 1, and these values are mapped to 0.05 to 1 in the step of 0.05. The results obtained are compared with those obtained using a simplex method and its variants. It has been shown that the mixed-integer linear programming method outperforms the simplex method (and its variants) in the case of a system having a combination of numerical and electromechanical relays.

Keywords: Backup protection, constrained optimization, Gomory's cutting plane method, mixed-integer linear programming, overcurrent relay coordination, simplex method.

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Authors: J. Daba, J. Dubois

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In this work, we improve a previously developed segmentation scheme aimed at extracting edge information from speckled images using a maximum likelihood edge detector. The scheme was based on finding a threshold for the probability density function of a new kernel defined as the arithmetic mean-to-geometric mean ratio field over a circular neighborhood set and, in a general context, is founded on a likelihood random field model (LRFM). The segmentation algorithm was applied to discriminated speckle areas obtained using simple elliptic discriminant functions based on measures of the signal-to-noise ratio with fractional order moments. A rigorous stochastic analysis was used to derive an exact expression for the cumulative density function of the probability density function of the random field. Based on this, an accurate probability of error was derived and the performance of the scheme was analysed. The improved segmentation scheme performed well for both simulated and real images and showed superior results to those previously obtained using the original LRFM scheme and standard edge detection methods. In particular, the false alarm probability was markedly lower than that of the original LRFM method with oversegmentation artifacts virtually eliminated. The importance of this work lies in the development of a stochastic-based segmentation, allowing an accurate quantification of the probability of false detection. Non visual quantification and misclassification in medical ultrasound speckled images is relatively new and is of interest to clinicians.

Keywords: Discriminant function, false alarm, segmentation, signal-to-noise ratio, skewness, speckle.

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Authors: Joo-Hack Lee, Jin-Seung Choi, Dong-Won Kang, Jeong-Woo Seo, Ju-Young Kim, Dae-Hyeok Kim, Seung-Tae Yang, Gye-Rae Tack

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For cycling, the analysis of the pedal force is one of the important factors in the study of exercise ability assessment and overuse injuries. In past studies, a two-axis measurement sensor was used at the sagittal plane to measure the force only in the anterior, posterior, and vertical directions and to analyze the loss of force and the injury on the frontal plane due to the forces in the right and left directions. In this study, which is a basic study on diverse analyses of the pedal force that consider the forces on the sagittal plane and the frontal plane, a three-axis pedal force measurement sensor was developed to measure the anterior-posterior (Fx), medio-lateral (Fz), and vertical (Fy) forces. The sensor was fabricated with a size and shape similar to those of the general flat pedal, and had a 550g weight that allowed smooth pedaling. Its measurement range was ±1000 N for Fx and Fz and ±2000 N for Fy, and its non-linearity, hysteresis, and repeatability were approximately 0.5%. The data were sampled at 1000 Hz using a signal collector. To use the developed sensor, the pedaling efficiency (index of efficiency, IE) and the range of left and right (medio-lateral, ML) forces were measured with two seat heights (low and high). The results of the measurement showed that the IE was higher and the force range in the ML direction was lower with the high position than with the low position. The developed measurement sensor and its application results will be useful in understanding and explaining the complicated pedaling technique, and will enable diverse kinematic analyses of the pedal force on the sagittal plane and the frontal plane.

Keywords: Cycling, Index of effectiveness, Pedal force.

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Authors: Moheb R. Girgis, Tarek M. Mahmoud, Tarek Abd-El-Hafeez

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This paper proposes a system to extract images from web pages and then detect the skin color regions of these images. As part of the proposed system, using BandObject control, we built a Tool bar named 'Filter Tool Bar (FTB)' by modifying the Pavel Zolnikov implementation. The Yahoo! Team provides us with the Yahoo! SDK API, which also supports image search and is really useful. In the proposed system, we introduced three new methods for extracting images from the web pages (after loading the web page by using the proposed FTB, before loading the web page physically from the localhost, and before loading the web page from any server). These methods overcome the drawback of the regular expressions method for extracting images suggested by Ilan Assayag. The second part of the proposed system is concerned with the detection of the skin color regions of the extracted images. So, we studied two famous skin color detection techniques. The first technique is based on the RGB color space and the second technique is based on YUV and YIQ color spaces. We modified the second technique to overcome the failure of detecting complex image's background by using the saturation parameter to obtain an accurate skin detection results. The performance evaluation of the efficiency of the proposed system in extracting images before and after loading the web page from localhost or any server in terms of the number of extracted images is presented. Finally, the results of comparing the two skin detection techniques in terms of the number of pixels detected are presented.

Keywords: Browser Helper Object, Color spaces, Image and URL extraction, Skin detection, Web Browser events.

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Authors: Vladyslav Povoroznyuk, Anna Musiienko, Nataliia Zaverukha, Roksolana Povoroznyuk

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Along with the global aging of population, the number of people with somatic diseases is increasing, including such interrelated pathologies as obesity, osteoarthritis (OA) and osteoporosis (OP). The objective of the study is to examine the connection between body mass index (BMI), OA and bone mineral density (BMD) of lumbar spine, femoral neck and trabecular bone score (TBS) in postmenopausal women with OA. We have observed 359 postmenopausal women (50-89 years old) and divided them into four groups by age: 50-59 yrs, 60-69 yrs, 70-79 yrs and over 80 years old. In addition, according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Clinical classification criteria for knee and hip OA, we divided them into 2 groups: group I – 117 females with symptomatic OA (including 89 patients with knee OA, 28 patients with hip OA) and group II –242 women with a normal functional activity of large joints. Analysis of data was performed taking into account their BMI, classified by World Health Organization (WHO). Diagnosis of obesity was established when BMI was above 30 kg/m². In woman with obesity, a symptomatic OA was detected in 44 postmenopausal women (41.1%), a normal functional activity of large joints - in 63 women (58.9%). However, in women with normal BMI – 73 women, who account for 29.0% of cases, a symptomatic OA was detected. According to a chi-squared (χ2) test, a significantly higher level of BMI was detected in postmenopausal women with OA (χ2 = 5.05, p = 0.02). Women with a symptomatic OA had a significantly higher BMD of lumbar spine compared with women who had a normal functional activity of large joints. No significant differences of BMD of femoral necks or TBS were detected in either the group with OA or with a normal functional activity of large joints.

Keywords: Bone mineral density, BMD, body mass index, BMI, obesity, overweight, postmenopausal women, osteoarthritis.

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Authors: Imad M. Assali

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

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

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Authors: Sumathi Poobal, G. Ravindran

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Medical imaging uses the advantage of digital technology in imaging and teleradiology. In teleradiology systems large amount of data is acquired, stored and transmitted. A major technology that may help to solve the problems associated with the massive data storage and data transfer capacity is data compression and decompression. There are many methods of image compression available. They are classified as lossless and lossy compression methods. In lossy compression method the decompressed image contains some distortion. Fractal image compression (FIC) is a lossy compression method. In fractal image compression an image is coded as a set of contractive transformations in a complete metric space. The set of contractive transformations is guaranteed to produce an approximation to the original image. In this paper FIC is achieved by PIFS using quadtree partitioning. PIFS is applied on different images like , Ultrasound, CT Scan, Angiogram, X-ray, Mammograms. In each modality approximately twenty images are considered and the average values of compression ratio and PSNR values are arrived. In this method of fractal encoding, the parameter, tolerance factor Tmax, is varied from 1 to 10, keeping the other standard parameters constant. For all modalities of images the compression ratio and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) are computed and studied. The quality of the decompressed image is arrived by PSNR values. From the results it is observed that the compression ratio increases with the tolerance factor and mammogram has the highest compression ratio. The quality of the image is not degraded upto an optimum value of tolerance factor, Tmax, equal to 8, because of the properties of fractal compression.

Keywords: Fractal image compression, IFS, PIFS, PSNR, Quadtree partitioning.

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Authors: Anamika Jain, A. S. Thoke, R. N. Patel

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This paper addresses the problems encountered by conventional distance relays when protecting double-circuit transmission lines. The problems arise principally as a result of the mutual coupling between the two circuits under different fault conditions; this mutual coupling is highly nonlinear in nature. An adaptive protection scheme is proposed for such lines based on application of artificial neural network (ANN). ANN has the ability to classify the nonlinear relationship between measured signals by identifying different patterns of the associated signals. One of the key points of the present work is that only current signals measured at local end have been used to detect and classify the faults in the double circuit transmission line with double end infeed. The adaptive protection scheme is tested under a specific fault type, but varying fault location, fault resistance, fault inception angle and with remote end infeed. An improved performance is experienced once the neural network is trained adequately, which performs precisely when faced with different system parameters and conditions. The entire test results clearly show that the fault is detected and classified within a quarter cycle; thus the proposed adaptive protection technique is well suited for double circuit transmission line fault detection & classification. Results of performance studies show that the proposed neural network-based module can improve the performance of conventional fault selection algorithms.

Keywords: Double circuit transmission line, Fault detection and classification, High impedance fault and Artificial Neural Network.

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Authors: Triloksingh G. Arora, Mohan V. Aware, Dhananjay R. Tutakne

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Thyristor based firing angle controlled voltage regulators are extensively used for speed control of single phase induction motors. This leads to power saving but the applied voltage and current waveforms become non-sinusoidal. These non-sinusoidal waveforms increase voltage and thermal stresses which result into accelerated insulation aging, thus reducing the motor life. Life models that allow predicting the capability of insulation under such multi-stress situations tend to be very complex and somewhat impractical. This paper presents the fuzzy logic application to investigate the synergic effect of voltage and thermal stresses on intrinsic aging of induction motor insulation. A fuzzy expert system is developed to estimate the life of induction motor insulation under multiple stresses. Three insulation degradation parameters, viz. peak modification factor, wave shape modification factor and thermal loss are experimentally obtained for different firing angles. Fuzzy expert system consists of fuzzyfication of the insulation degradation parameters, algorithms based on inverse power law to estimate the life and defuzzyficaton process to output the life. An electro-thermal life model is developed from the results of fuzzy expert system. This fuzzy logic based electro-thermal life model can be used for life estimation of induction motors operated with non-sinusoidal voltage and current waveforms.

Keywords: Aging, Dielectric losses, Insulation and Life Estimation.

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Authors: Etim, Victoria Enefiok, Dada, Oluseyi Akintunde, Bassey Okon

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Phonological disorder is a serious and disturbing issue to many parents and teachers. Efforts towards resolving the problem have been undermined by other specific disabilities which were hidden to many regular and special education teachers. It is against this background that this study was motivated to provide data on the prevalence of phonological disorders in children with specific language impairment (CWSLI) as the first step towards critical intervention. The study was a survey of 15 CWSLI from St. Louise Inclusive schools, Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. Phonological Processes Diagnostic Scale (PPDS) with 17 short sentences, which cut across the five phonological processes that were examined, were validated by experts in test measurement, phonology and special education. The respondents were made to read the sentences with emphasis on the targeted sounds. Their utterances were recorded and analyzed in the language laboratory using Praat Software. Data were also collected through friendly interactions at different times from the clients. The theory of generative phonology was adopted for the descriptive analysis of the phonological processes. Data collected were analyzed using simple percentage and composite bar chart for better understanding of the result. The study found out that CWSLI exhibited the five phonological processes under investigation. It was revealed that 66.7%, 80%, 73.3%, 80%, and 86.7% of the respondents have severe deficit in fricative stopping, velar fronting, liquid gliding, final consonant deletion and cluster reduction, respectively. It was therefore recommended that a nationwide survey should be carried out to have national statistics of CWSLI with phonological deficits and develop intervention strategies for effective therapy to remediate the disorder.

Keywords: Language disorders, phonology, phonological processes, specific language impairment.

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Authors: Amira Abbes Kheriji, Faouzi Bouani, Mekki Ksouri, Mohamed Ben Ahmed

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Model Predictive Control (MPC) is increasingly being proposed for real time applications and embedded systems. However comparing to PID controller, the implementation of the MPC in miniaturized devices like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and microcontrollers has historically been very small scale due to its complexity in implementation and its computation time requirement. At the same time, such embedded technologies have become an enabler for future manufacturing enterprises as well as a transformer of organizations and markets. Recently, advances in microelectronics and software allow such technique to be implemented in embedded systems. In this work, we take advantage of these recent advances in this area in the deployment of one of the most studied and applied control technique in the industrial engineering. In fact in this paper, we propose an efficient framework for implementation of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) in the performed STM32 microcontroller. The STM32 keil starter kit based on a JTAG interface and the STM32 board was used to implement the proposed GPC firmware. Besides the GPC, the PID anti windup algorithm was also implemented using Keil development tools designed for ARM processor-based microcontroller devices and working with C/Cµ langage. A performances comparison study was done between both firmwares. This performances study show good execution speed and low computational burden. These results encourage to develop simple predictive algorithms to be programmed in industrial standard hardware. The main features of the proposed framework are illustrated through two examples and compared with the anti windup PID controller.

Keywords: Embedded systems, Model Predictive Control, microcontroller, Keil tool.

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Authors: Marija R. Jokanović, Vladimir M. Tomović, Mihajlo T. Jović, Branislav V. Šojić, Snežana B. Škaljac, Tatjana A. Tasić, Predrag M. Ikonić

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Proximate composition (moisture, protein, total fat, and total ash) and textural characteristics (hardness, adhesiveness, springiness, cohesiveness, chewiness and firmness and work of shear) of cooked sausages formulated from mechanically deboned chicken meat (MDCM) with addition of chicken offal (heart, gizzard or liver) were investigated. Chicken offal replaced equal weight (15 kg) of MDCM in standard sausage formulation. Regarding proximate composition sausage with heart addition was significantly (P<0.05) lower in moisture content (70.45%) than sausage with liver addition (71.35%), and significantly (P<0.05) the highest in total ash content (2.83%). Sausage with gizzard addition was significantly higher in protein content (9.77%) than sausage with liver addition (9.42%). Total fat content didn’t significantly (P>0.05) differ among all three sausages. The effect of offal addition was more notable in Warner-Bratzler shear test results than in texture profile analysis test. Firmness and work of shear were significantly different (P<0.05) among all three sausages. Sausage with liver addition was significantly (P<0.05) lower in hardness (1672 g) and chewiness (1020 g) and numerically the lowest in springiness (0.90) and adhesiveness (–70 g*s) comparing with other two sausages. Sausage with heart addition was significantly (P<0.05) higher in cohesiveness (0.74) comparing with other two sausages.

Keywords: Cooked sausage, mechanically deboned chicken meat, offal, proximate composition, texture

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Authors: N. Cetinkaya

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The objective of the present study is to determine the critical control points during the production, transportation and storage conditions of compound feeds to be used in the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) feed safety management system. A total of 40 feed samples were taken after 20 and 40 days of storage periods from the 10 dairy and 10 beef cattle farms following the transportation of the compound feeds from the factory. In addition, before transporting the feeds from factory immediately after production of dairy and beef cattle compound feeds, 10 from each total 20 samples were taken as 0 day. In all feed samples, chemical composition and total aflatoxin levels were determined. The aflatoxin levels in all feed samples with the exception of 2 dairy cattle feeds were below the maximum acceptable level. With the increase in storage period in dairy feeds, the aflatoxin levels were increased to 4.96 ppb only in a BS8 dairy farm. This value is below the maximum permissible level (10 ppb) in beef cattle feed. The aflatoxin levels of dairy feed samples taken after production varied between 0.44 and 2.01 ppb. Aflatoxin levels were found to be between 0.89 and 3.01 ppb in dairy cattle feeds taken on the 20^th day of storage at 10 dairy cattle farm. On the 40^th day, feed aflatoxin levels in the same dairy cattle farm were found between 1.12 and 7.83 ppb. The aflatoxin levels were increased to 7.83 and 6.31 ppb in 2 dairy farms, after a storage period of 40 days. These obtained aflatoxin values are above the maximum permissible level in dairy cattle feeds. The 40 days storage in pellet form in the HACCP feed safety management system can be considered as a critical control point.

Keywords: Aflatoxin, beef cattle feed, compound feed, dairy cattle feed, HACCP.

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Authors: Jamaiah H. Yahaya, Aziz Deraman, Abdul Razak Hamdan, Yusmadi Yah Jusoh

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One of the most essential issues in software products is to maintain it relevancy to the dynamics of the user’s requirements and expectation. Many studies have been carried out in quality aspect of software products to overcome these problems. Previous software quality assessment models and metrics have been introduced with strengths and limitations. In order to enhance the assurance and buoyancy of the software products, certification models have been introduced and developed. From our previous experiences in certification exercises and case studies collaborating with several agencies in Malaysia, the requirements for user based software certification approach is identified and demanded. The emergence of social network applications, the new development approach such as agile method and other varieties of software in the market have led to the domination of users over the software. As software become more accessible to the public through internet applications, users are becoming more critical in the quality of the services provided by the software. There are several categories of users in web-based systems with different interests and perspectives. The classifications and metrics are identified through brain storming approach with includes researchers, users and experts in this area. The new paradigm in software quality assessment is the main focus in our research. This paper discusses the classifications of users in web-based software system assessment and their associated factors and metrics for quality measurement. The quality model is derived based on IEEE structure and FCM model. The developments are beneficial and valuable to overcome the constraints and improve the application of software certification model in future.

Keywords: Software certification model, user centric approach, software quality factors, metrics and measurements, web-based system.

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Authors: Roy Y. C. Huang, J. S. Kuang, Hamdolah Behnam

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Beam-column connections play an important role in the reinforced concrete moment resisting frame (RCMRF), which is one of the most commonly used structural systems around the world. The premature failure of such connections would severely limit the seismic performance and increase the vulnerability of RCMRF. In the past decades, researchers primarily focused on investigating the structural behaviour and failure mechanisms of conventional beam-column joints, the beam width of which is either smaller than or equal to the column width, while studies in wide beam-column joints were scarce. This paper presents the preliminary experimental results of two full-scale exterior wide beam-column connections, which are mainly designed and detailed according to ACI 318-14 and ACI 352R-02, under reversed cyclic loading. The ratios of the design shear force to the nominal shear strength of these specimens are 1.0 and 1.7, respectively, so as to probe into differences of the joint shear strength between experimental results and predictions by design codes of practice. Flexural failure dominated in the specimen with ratio of 1.0 in which full-width plastic hinges were observed, while both beam hinges and post-peak joint shear failure occurred for the other specimen. No sign of premature joint shear failure was found which is inconsistent with ACI codes’ prediction. Finally, a modification of current codes of practice is provided to accurately predict the joint shear strength in wide beam-column joint.

Keywords: Joint shear strength, reversed cyclic loading, seismic codes, wide beam-column joints.

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Authors: K. Praraththajariya

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The main purpose of this research was to study how to communicate the identity of the Amphawa district, Samut Songkram province for sustainable tourism. The qualitative data was collected through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows: 1. The identity of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province is the area controlled by Amphawa sub district (submunicipality). The working unit which runs and looks after Amphawa sub district administration is known as the Amphawa mayor. This establishment was built to be a resort for normal people and tourists visiting the Amphawa district near the Maekong River consisting of rest accommodations. Along the river there is a restaurant where food and drinks are served, rich mangrove forests, a learning center, fireflies and cork trees. The Amphawa district was built to honor and commemorate King Rama II and is where the greatest number of fireflies and cork trees can be seen in Thailand from May to October each year. 2. The communication of the identity of Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province which the researcher could find and design to present in English materials can be summed up in 5 items: 1) The history of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province 2) The history of King Rama II Memorial Park 3) The identity of Amphawa Floating Market 4) The Learning center of Ecosystem: Fireflies and Cork Trees 5) How to keep Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province for sustainable tourism.

Keywords: Foreigner tourists, signified, semiotics, sustainable tourism.

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Authors: Abdulrahman Abdulrahman

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A side weir is a hydraulic structure set into the side of a channel. This structure is used for water level control in channels, to divert flow from a main channel into a side channel when the water level in the main channel exceeds a specific limit and as storm overflows from urban sewerage system. Computation of water surface over the side weirs is essential to determine the flow rate of the side weir. Analytical solutions for water surface profile along rectangular side weir are available only for the special cases of rectangular and trapezoidal channels considering constant specific energy. In this paper, a rectangular side weir located in a combined (trapezoidal with exponential) channel was considered. Expanding binominal series of integer and fraction powers and the using of reduction formula of cosine function integrals, a general analytical formula was obtained for water surface profile along a side weir in a combined (trapezoidal with exponential) channel. Since triangular, rectangular, trapezoidal and parabolic cross-sections are special cases of the combined cross section, the derived formula, is applicable to triangular, rectangular, trapezoidal cross-sections as analytical solution and semi-analytical solution to parabolic cross-section with maximum relative error smaller than 0.76%. The proposed solution should be a useful engineering tool for the evaluation and design of side weirs in open channel.

Keywords: Analytical solution, combined channel, exponential channel, side weirs, trapezoidal channel, water surface profile.

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Authors: Geng Xiangren, Liu Lei, Gui Ye-Wei, Tang Wei, Wang An-ling

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The malfunction of thermal protection system (TPS) caused by aerodynamic heating is a latent trouble to aircraft structure safety. Accurately predicting the structure temperature field is quite important for the TPS design of hypersonic vehicle. Since Thornton’s work in 1988, the coupled method of aerodynamic heating and heat transfer has developed rapidly. However, little attention has been paid to the influence of structural deformation on aerodynamic heating and structural temperature field. In the flight, especially the long-endurance flight, the structural deformation, caused by the aerodynamic heating and temperature rise, has a direct impact on the aerodynamic heating and structural temperature field. Thus, the coupled interaction cannot be neglected. In this paper, based on the method of static aero-thermo-elasticity, considering the influence of aero-thermo-elasticity deformation, the aerodynamic heating and heat transfer coupled results of hypersonic vehicle wing model were calculated. The results show that, for the low-curvature region, such as fuselage or center-section wing, structure deformation has little effect on temperature field. However, for the stagnation region with high curvature, the coupled effect is not negligible. Thus, it is quite important for the structure temperature prediction to take into account the effect of elastic deformation. This work has laid a solid foundation for improving the prediction accuracy of the temperature distribution of aircraft structures and the evaluation capacity of structural performance.

Keywords: Aero-thermo-elasticity, elastic deformation, structural temperature, multi-field coupling.

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Authors: Filippo Ranalli, Forest Flager, Martin Fischer

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This paper presents a ground structure method to optimize the topology and discrete member sizing of steel frame structures in order to minimize total installed cost, including material, fabrication and erection components. The proposed method improves upon existing cost-based ground structure methods by incorporating constructability considerations well as satisfying both strength and serviceability constraints. The architecture for the method is a bi-level Multidisciplinary Feasible (MDF) architecture in which the discrete member sizing optimization is nested within the topology optimization process. For each structural topology generated, the sizing optimization process seek to find a set of discrete member sizes that result in the lowest total installed cost while satisfying strength (member utilization) and serviceability (node deflection and story drift) criteria. To accurately assess cost, the connection details for the structure are generated automatically using accurate site-specific cost information obtained directly from fabricators and erectors. Member continuity rules are also applied to each node in the structure to improve constructability. The proposed optimization method is benchmarked against conventional weight-based ground structure optimization methods resulting in an average cost savings of up to 30% with comparable computational efficiency.

Keywords: Cost-based structural optimization, cost-based topology and sizing optimization, steel frame ground structure optimization, multidisciplinary optimization of steel structures.

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Authors: Elena C. Tamaş, Grațiela M. Țârlea, Gianni Flamaropol, Dragoș Hera

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This article is referring to a comparative study regarding the electrical energy consumption for lighting on diverse types of big sizes commercial buildings built in Romania after 2007, having 3, 4, 5 versus 8, 9, 10 operational years. Some buildings have installed building management systems (BMS) to monitor also the lighting performances starting with the opening days till the present days but some have chosen only local meters to implement. Firstly, for each analyzed building, the total required energy power and the energy power consumption for lighting were calculated depending on the lamps number, the unit power and the average daily running hours. All objects and installations were chosen depending on the destination/location of the lighting (exterior parking or access, interior or covering parking, building interior and building perimeter). Secondly, to all lighting objects and installations, mechanical counters were installed, and to the ones linked to BMS there were installed the digital meters as well for a better monitoring. Some efficient solutions are proposed to improve the power consumption, for example the 1/3 lighting functioning for the covered and exterior parking lighting to those buildings if can be done. This type of lighting share can be performed on each level, especially on the night shifts. Another example is to use the dimmers to reduce the light level, depending on the executed work in the respective area, and a 30% power energy saving can be achieved. Using the right BMS to monitor, the energy consumption depending on the average operational daily hours and changing the non-performant unit lights with the ones having LED technology or economical ones might increase significantly the energy performances and reduce the energy consumption of the buildings.

Keywords: Lighting consumption, commercial buildings, maintenance, energy performances.

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Authors: Toshifumi Hiramatsu, Satoshi Morita, Manuel Pencelli, Marta Niccolini, Matteo Ragaglia, Alfredo Argiolas

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Automation technologies for agriculture field are needed to promote labor-saving. One of the most relevant problems in automated agriculture is represented by controlling the robot along a predetermined path in presence of rough terrain or incline ground. Unfortunately, disturbances originating from interaction with the ground, such as slipping, make it quite difficult to achieve the required accuracy. In general, it is required to move within 5-10 cm accuracy with respect to the predetermined path. Moreover, lateral velocity caused by gravity on the incline field also affects slipping. In this paper, a path-tracking controller for tracked mobile robots moving on rough terrains of incline field such as vineyard is presented. The controller is composed of a disturbance observer and an adaptive controller based on the kinematic model of the robot. The disturbance observer measures the difference between the measured and the reference yaw rate and linear velocity in order to estimate slip. Then, the adaptive controller adapts “virtual” parameter of the kinematics model: Instantaneous Centers of Rotation (ICRs). Finally, target angular velocity reference is computed according to the adapted parameter. This solution allows estimating the effects of slip without making the model too complex. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed solution is tested in a simulation environment.

Keywords: Agricultural robot, autonomous control, path-tracking control, tracked mobile robot.

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Authors: Catherine A. Todd, Fazel Naghdy

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In this work a surgical simulator is produced which enables a training otologist to conduct a virtual, real-time prosthetic insertion. The simulator provides the Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon with real-time visual and haptic responses during virtual cochlear implantation into a 3D model of the human Scala Tympani (ST). The parametric model is derived from measured data as published in the literature and accounts for human morphological variance, such as differences in cochlear shape, enabling patient-specific pre- operative assessment. Haptic modeling techniques use real physical data and insertion force measurements, to develop a force model which mimics the physical behavior of an implant as it collides with the ST walls during an insertion. Output force profiles are acquired from the insertion studies conducted in the work, to validate the haptic model. The simulator provides the user with real-time, quantitative insertion force information and associated electrode position as user inserts the virtual implant into the ST model. The information provided by this study may also be of use to implant manufacturers for design enhancements as well as for training specialists in optimal force administration, using the simulator. The paper reports on the methods for anatomical modeling and haptic algorithm development, with focus on simulator design, development, optimization and validation. The techniques may be transferrable to other medical applications that involve prosthetic device insertions where user vision is obstructed.

Keywords: Haptic modeling, medical device insertion, real-time visualization of prosthetic implantation, surgical simulation.

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Authors: A. Al Hinai, H. Jayasuriya, H. Kotagama

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Most Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with oil-based economy like Oman are looking for other potential revenue generation options as the crude oil price is regularly fluctuating due to changing geopolitical environment. Oman has advantage of possessing world-heritage nature tourism hotspots around the country and the government is making investments and strategies to uplift the tourism industry following Oman Vision 2040 strategies. Oman’s agriculture is not significantly contributing to the economy, but possesses specific and diversified arid cropping systems. Oman has modern farms; nevertheless some of the agricultural production activities are done with cultural practices and styles that would be attractive to tourists. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potentials for promoting agritourism industry in Oman; recognize potential sites, commodities and activities, and predict potential revenue generation as a projection from that of the tourism sector. Moreover, the study enables to foresee possible auxiliary advantages of agritourism such as, empowerment of women and youth, enhancement in the value-addition industry for agricultural produce through technology transfer and capacity building, and producing export quality products. Agritourism could increase employability, empowerment of women and youth, improve value-addition industry and export-oriented agribusiness. These efforts including provision of necessary technology-transfer and capacity-building should be rendered by the collaboration of academic institutions, relevant ministries and other public and private sector stakeholders.

Keywords: Agritourism, nature-based tourism, potentials, revenue generation, value addition.

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Authors: González A. Julio, Ramírez L. Leonardo, Puerta A. Gabriel

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Telemedicine services use a large amount of data, most of which are diagnostic images in Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and Health Level Seven (HL7) formats. Metadata is generated from each related image to support their identification. This study presents the use of decision trees for the optimization of information search processes for diagnostic images, hosted on the cloud server. To analyze the performance in the server, the following quality of service (QoS) metrics are evaluated: delay, bandwidth, jitter, latency and throughput in five test scenarios for a total of 26 experiments during the loading and downloading of DICOM images, hosted by the telemedicine group server of the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Bogotá, Colombia. By applying decision trees as a data mining technique and comparing it with the sequential search, it was possible to evaluate the search times of diagnostic images in the server. The results show that by using the metadata in decision trees, the search times are substantially improved, the computational resources are optimized and the request management of the telemedicine image service is improved. Based on the experiments carried out, search efficiency increased by 45% in relation to the sequential search, given that, when downloading a diagnostic image, false positives are avoided in management and acquisition processes of said information. It is concluded that, for the diagnostic images services in telemedicine, the technique of decision trees guarantees the accessibility and robustness in the acquisition and manipulation of medical images, in improvement of the diagnoses and medical procedures in patients.

Keywords: Cloud storage, decision trees, diagnostic image, search, telemedicine.

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Authors: M. L. Dinis, M. C. Vila, A. Fiúza, A. Futuro, C. Nunes

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The present paper describes the study of paste tailings prepared in laboratory using gold tailings, produced in a Finnish gold mine with the incorporation of coal ash. Natural leaching tests were conducted with the original materials (tailings, fly and bottom ashes) and also with paste mixtures that were prepared with different percentages of tailings and ashes. After leaching, the solid wastes were physically and chemically characterized and the results were compared to those selected as blank – the unleached samples. The tailings and the coal ash, as well as the prepared mixtures, were characterized, in addition to the textural parameters, by the following measurements: grain size distribution, chemical composition and pH. Mixtures were also tested in order to characterize their mechanical behavior by measuring the flexural strength, the compressive strength and the consistency. The original tailing samples presented an alkaline pH because during their processing they were previously submitted to pressure oxidation with destruction of the sulfides. Therefore, it was not possible to ascertain the effect of the coal ashes in the acid mine drainage. However, it was possible to verify that the paste reactivity was affected mostly by the bottom ash and that the tailings blended with bottom ash present lower mechanical strength than when blended with a combination of fly and bottom ash. Surface paste disposal offer an attractive alternative to traditional methods in addition to the environmental benefits of incorporating large-volume wastes (e.g. bottom ash). However, a comprehensive characterization of the paste mixtures is crucial to optimize paste design in order to enhance engineer and environmental properties.

Keywords: Coal ash, gold tailings, paste, surface disposal.

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Authors: Yuri A. Gruber, Matheus Rosendo, Ulisses G. A. Casemiro, Klaus de Geus, Rafael T. Bee

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Lightning strikes can cause severe negative impacts to the electrical sector causing direct damage to equipment as well as shutdowns, especially when occurring in power substations. In order to mitigate this problem, a meticulous planning of the power substation protection system is of vital importance. A critical part of this is the distribution of shielding wires through the substation, which creates a 3D imaginary protection mesh similar to a circus tarpaulin. Equipment enclosed in the volume defined by that 3D mesh is considered protected against lightning strikes. The use of traditional methods of longitudinal cutting analysis based on 2D CAD tools makes the process laborious and the results obtained may not guarantee satisfactory protection of electrical equipment. This work describes the application of a Game Engine to the problem of lightning protection of power substations providing the visualization of the 3D protection mesh, the amount of protected components and the highlight of equipment which remain unprotected. In addition, aspects regarding the implementation and the advantages of approaching the problem using Unreal® Engine 4 are described. In order to validate results, a comparison with traditional 2D methods is applied to the same case study to which the proposed technique has been applied. Finally, a comparative study involving different levels of protection using the technique developed in this work is presented, showing that modern game engines can be a powerful accessory for simulations in several areas of engineering.

Keywords: Game engine, rolling spheres method, substation protection, UE4, Unreal® Engine 4.

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Authors: Aziz, Nur Mardhiyah, Salleh, Hafez

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Implementing Information Technology/ Information System (IT/IS) is critical for every industry as its potential benefits have been to motivate many industries including the Malaysian construction industry to invest in it. To successfully implement IT/IS has become the major concern for every organisation. Identifying the critical success factors (CSFs) has become the main agenda for researchers, academicians and practitioners due to the wide number of failures reported. This research paper seeks to identify the CSFs that influence the successful implementation of IT/IS in construction industry in Malaysia. Limited factors relating to people issue will be highlighted here to showcase some as it becomes one of the major contributing factors to the failure. Three (3) organisations have participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews are employed as they offer sufficient flexibility to ensure that all relevant factors are covered. Several key issues contributing to successful implementations of IT/IS are identified. The results of this study reveal that top management support, communication, user involvement, IT staff roles and responsibility, training/skills, leader/ IT Leader, organisation culture, knowledge/ experience, motivation, awareness, focus and ambition, satisfaction, teamwork/ collaboration, willingness to change, attitude, commitment, management style, interest in IT, employee behaviour towards collaborative environment, trust, interpersonal relationship, personal characteristic and competencies are significantly associated with the successful implementations of IT/IS. It is anticipated that this study will create awareness and contribute to a better understanding amongst construction industry players and will assist them to successfully implement IT/IS.

Keywords: critical success factors, construction industry , IT/IS, people

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