Abstract: Kuwait-s electric power system is vertically integrated
organization owned and operated by the government. For more than
five decades, the government of Kuwait has provided relatively
reliable electric services to consumers with subsidized electric
service fees. Given the country-s rapid socio-economical
development and consequently the increase of electricity demand, a
question that inflicts itself: Is it necessary to reform the power system
to face the fast growing demand? This paper recommends that the
government should consider the private sector as a partner in
operating the power system. Therefore, power system restructuring is
needed to allow such partnership. There are challenges that prevent
such restructuring. Abstract recommendations toward resolving these
challenges are proposed.
Abstract: Intelligent schools are those which use IT devices and
technologies as media software, hardware and networks to improve
learning process. On the other hand management improvement is
best described as the process from which managers learn and improve
their skills not only to benefit themselves but also their employing
organizations Here, we present a model Management improvement
System that has been applied on some schools and have made strict
improvement.
Abstract: Five vegetables (spinach, lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and onion) were freshly harvested from the Alau Dam and Gongulong agricultural areas for the determination of some organochlorine pesticide residues (o, p-DDE, p,p’-DDD, o,p’-DDD, p,p’-DDT, α-BHC, γ-BHC, metoxichlor, lindane, endosulfan dieldrin, and aldrin.) Soil samples were also collected at different depths for the determination of the above pesticides. Samples collection and preparation were conducted using standard procedures. The concentrations of all the pesticides in the soil and vegetable samples were determined using GC/MS SHIMADZU (GC-17A) equipped with electron capture detector (ECD). The highest concentration was that of p,p’-DDD (132.4±13.45µg/g) which was observed in the leaf of cabbage, while the lowest concentration was that of p,p’-DDT (2.34µg/g) was observed in the root of spinach. Similar trends were observed at the Gongulong agricultural area, with p,p’-DDD having the highest concentration of 153.23µg/g in the leaf of cabbage, while the lowest concentration was that of p,p’-DDT (12.45µg/g) which was observed in the root of spinach. α-BHC, γ-BHC, Methoxychlor, and lindane were detected in all the vegetable samples studied. The concentrations of all the pesticides in the soil samples were observed to be higher at a depth of 21-30cm, while the lowest concentrations were observed at a depth of 0-10cm. The concentrations of all the pesticides in the vegetables and soil samples from the two agricultural sites were observed to be at alarming levels, much higher than the maximum residue limits (MRLs) and acceptable daily intake values (ADIs) .The levels of the pesticides observed in the vegetables and soil samples investigated, are of such a magnitude that calls for special attention and laws to regulate the use and circulation of such chemicals. Routine monitoring of pesticide residues in these study areas is necessary for the prevention, control and reduction of environmental pollution, so as to minimize health risks.
Abstract: Although there are many theories and discussion of leadership, the necessity of having a new leadership paradigm was emphasized. The existing leadership characteristic of instruction and control revealed its limitations. Market competition becomes fierce and economic recession never ends worldwide. Of the leadership theories, servant leadership was introduced recently and is in line with the environmental changes of the organization. Servant leadership is a combination of two words, 'servant' and 'leader' and can be defined as the role of the leader who focuses on doing voluntary work for others with altruistic ethics, makes members, customers, and local communities a priority, and makes a commitment to satisfying their needs. This leadership received attention as one field of leadership in the late 1990s and secured its legitimacy. This study discusses the existing research trends of leadership, the concept, behavior characteristics, and lower dimensions of servant leadership, compares servant leadership with the existing leadership researches and diagnoses if servant leadership is a useful concept for further leadership researches. Finally, this study criticizes the limitations in the existing researches on servant leadership.
Abstract: As the Textile Industry is the second largest industry
in Egypt and as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up
a great portion of this industry therein it is essential to apply the
concept of Cleaner Production for the purpose of reducing pollution.
In order to achieve this goal, a case study concerned with ecofriendly
stone-washing of jeans-garments was investigated. A raw
material-substitution option was adopted whereby the toxic
potassium permanganate and sodium sulfide were replaced by the
environmentally compatible hydrogen peroxide and glucose
respectively where the concentrations of both replaced chemicals
together with the operating time were optimized. In addition, a
process-rationalization option involving four additional processes
was investigated. By means of criteria such as product quality,
effluent analysis, mass and heat balance; and cost analysis with the
aid of a statistical model, a process optimization treatment revealed
that the superior process optima were 50%, 0.15% and 50min for
H2O2 concentration, glucose concentration and time, respectively.
With these values the superior process ought to reduce the annual
cost by about EGP 105 relative to the currently used conventional
method.
Abstract: In the present study, the response of Nili Ravi buffalo
oocytes to recombinant human follicle stimulating hormone (rhFSH)
(Organon) on meiotic maturation in vitro was examined. Oocytes
were matured in vitro in medium containing either 0 or 0.05 IU/ ml
rhFSH and the stage of nuclear maturation recorded after 24 hours.
The percentage of oocytes in the control group undergoing germinal
vesicle breakdown (GVBD) observed after 24 hours of culture was
29 % whereas as in rhFSH group the percentage was 10 % were at
this stage (P< 0.001).Thus in the presence of rhFSH, a significantly
greater number of oocytes had progressed to the more advanced
stages of nuclear maturation. Indeed, the maturation of GV
(Germinal Vesicle) stage oocytes to the metaphase II (M II) stage
after 24 hours was significantly (P< 0.0001) increased by the
addition of rhFSH (82 % VS 47 %). The percentage of degenerated
oocytes after 24 hours of culture was 24 % in control group, whereas
in rhFSH group the percentage was 8 % after 24 hours. Degeneration
of the oocytes after 24 hours was not significantly (P = 0. 9361)
decreased.
Abstract: Social resilience has role to govern the local community and coastal fisheries resources toward sustainable fisheries development in tsunami affected area. This paper asses, explore and investigates of indigenous institutions, external and internal facilitators toward strengthening social resilience. Identification of the genuine organizations role had been conducted twice by using Rapid Assessment Appraisal, Focus Group Discussion, and in-depth interview for collecting primary and secondary data. Local wisdom had a contribution and adaptable to rebound social resilience. The Panglima Laot Lhok (sea commander) had determined and adapted role on recovery of the fishing community, particularly facilitated aid delivery to fishermen, as shown in anchovy fisheries relief case in Krueng Raya Bay. Toke Bangku (financial trader) had stimulated for reinforcement of advance payment and market channel. The other institutions supported upon linking and bridging connectivity among stakeholders. Collaborative governance can avoid conflict, reduce donor dependency and strengthen social resilience within fishing community.
Abstract: The intent of this essay is to evaluate the effectiveness
of surge suppressor aimed at power supply used for automation
devices in power distribution system which is consist of MOV and
T type low-pass filter. Books, journal articles and e-sources related
to surge protection of power supply used for automation devices in
power distribution system were consulted, and the useful information
was organized, analyzed and developed into five parts: characteristics
of surge wave, protection against surge wave, impedance characteristics
of target, using Matlab to simulate circuit response after
5kV,1.2/50s surge wave and suggestions for surge protection. The
results indicate that various types of load situation have great impact
on the effectiveness of surge protective device. Therefore, type and
parameters of surge protective device need to be carefully selected,
and load matching is also vital to be concerned.
Abstract: The use of polypropylene mesh devices for Pelvic
Organ Prolapse (POP) spread rapidly during the last decade, yet our
knowledge of the mesh-tissue interaction is far from complete. We
aimed to perform a thorough pathological examination of explanted
POP meshes and describe findings that may explain mechanisms of
complications resulting in product excision. We report a spectrum of
important findings, including nerve ingrowth, mesh deformation,
involvement of detrusor muscle with neural ganglia, and
polypropylene degradation. Analysis of these findings may improve
and guide future treatment strategies.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the
efficiency of a double-layer roof in collecting solar energy as an
application to the areas such as raising high-end temperature of
organic Rankine cycle (ORC). The by-product of the solar roof is to
reduce building air-conditioning loads. The experimental apparatus
are arranged to evaluate the effects of the solar roof in absorbing solar
energy. The flow channel is basically formed by an aluminum plate on
top of a plywood plate. The geometric configurations in which the
effects of absorbing energy is analyzed include: a bare uncovered
aluminum plate, a glass-covered aluminum plate, a
glass-covered/black-painted aluminum plate, a plate with variable
lengths, a flow channel with stuffed material (in an attempt on
enhancement of heat conduction), and a flow channel with variable
slanted angles. The experimental results show that the efficiency of
energy collection varies from 0.6 % to 11 % for the geometric
configurations mentioned above. An additional study is carried out
using CFD simulation to investigate the effects of fins on the
aluminum plate. It shows that due to vastly enhanced heat conduction,
the efficiency can reach ~23 % if 50 fins are installed on the aluminum
plate. The study shows that a double-layer roof can efficiently absorb
solar energy and substantially reduce building air-conditioning
loads. On the high end of an organic Rankine cycle, a solar pond is
used to replace the warm surface water of the sea as OTEC (ocean
thermal energy conversion) is the driving energy for the ORC. The
energy collected from the double-layered solar roof can be pumped
into the pond and raise the pond temperature as the pond surface area is
equivalently increased by nearly one-fourth of the total area of the
double-layer solar roof. The effect of raising solar pond temperature is
especially prominent if the double-layer solar roofs are installed in a
community area.
Abstract: In many cases, there are some time lag between the consumption of inputs and the production of outputs. This time lag effect should be considered in evaluating the performance of organizations. Recently, a couple of DEA models were developed for considering time lag effect in efficiency evaluation of research activities. Multi-periods input(MpI) and Multi-periods output(MpO) models are integrate models to calculate simple efficiency considering time lag effect. However, these models can’t discriminate efficient DMUs because of the nature of basic DEA model in which efficiency scores are limited to ‘1’. That is, efficient DMUs can’t be discriminated because their efficiency scores are same. Thus, this paper suggests a super-efficiency model for efficiency evaluation under the consideration of time lag effect based on the MpO model. A case example using a long term research project is given to compare the suggested model with the MpO model.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to introduce a new
interface program to calculate a dose distribution with Monte Carlo method in complex heterogeneous systems such as organs or tissues
in proton therapy. This interface program was developed under
MATLAB software and includes a friendly graphical user interface
with several tools such as image properties adjustment or results display. Quadtree decomposition technique was used as an image
segmentation algorithm to create optimum geometries from Computed Tomography (CT) images for dose calculations of proton
beam. The result of the mentioned technique is a number of nonoverlapped
squares with different sizes in every image. By this way
the resolution of image segmentation is high enough in and near
heterogeneous areas to preserve the precision of dose calculations
and is low enough in homogeneous areas to reduce the number of
cells directly. Furthermore a cell reduction algorithm can be used to combine neighboring cells with the same material. The validation of this method has been done in two ways; first, in comparison with experimental data obtained with 80 MeV proton beam in Cyclotron
and Radioisotope Center (CYRIC) in Tohoku University and second, in comparison with data based on polybinary tissue calibration method, performed in CYRIC. These results are presented in this paper. This program can read the output file of Monte Carlo code while region of interest is selected manually, and give a plot of dose distribution of proton beam superimposed onto the CT images.
Abstract: The self-organizing map (SOM) model is a well-known neural network model with wide spread of applications. The main characteristics of SOM are two-fold, namely dimension reduction and topology preservation. Using SOM, a high-dimensional data space will be mapped to some low-dimensional space. Meanwhile, the topological relations among data will be preserved. With such characteristics, the SOM was usually applied on data clustering and visualization tasks. However, the SOM has main disadvantage of the need to know the number and structure of neurons prior to training, which are difficult to be determined. Several schemes have been proposed to tackle such deficiency. Examples are growing/expandable SOM, hierarchical SOM, and growing hierarchical SOM. These schemes could dynamically expand the map, even generate hierarchical maps, during training. Encouraging results were reported. Basically, these schemes adapt the size and structure of the map according to the distribution of training data. That is, they are data-driven or dataoriented SOM schemes. In this work, a topic-oriented SOM scheme which is suitable for document clustering and organization will be developed. The proposed SOM will automatically adapt the number as well as the structure of the map according to identified topics. Unlike other data-oriented SOMs, our approach expands the map and generates the hierarchies both according to the topics and their characteristics of the neurons. The preliminary experiments give promising result and demonstrate the plausibility of the method.
Abstract: Vibration of thin cylindrical shells made of a
functionally gradient material composed of stainless steel and nickel
is presented. The effects of the FGM configuration are studied by
studying the frequencies of FG cylindrical shells. In this case FG
cylindrical shell has Nickel on its outer surface and stainless steel on
its inner surface. The study is carried out based on third order shear
deformation shell theory. The objective is to study the natural
frequencies, the influence of constituent volume fractions and the
effects of configurations of the constituent materials on the
frequencies. The properties are graded in the thickness direction
according to the volume fraction power-law distribution. Results are
presented on the frequency characteristics, the influence of the
constituent various volume fractions on the frequencies.
Abstract: The Spiral development model has been used
successfully in many commercial systems and in a good number of
defense systems. This is due to the fact that cost-effective
incremental commitment of funds, via an analogy of the spiral model
to stud poker and also can be used to develop hardware or integrate
software, hardware, and systems. To support adaptive, semantic
collaboration between domain experts and knowledge engineers, a
new knowledge engineering process, called Spiral_OWL is proposed.
This model is based on the idea of iterative refinement, annotation
and structuring of knowledge base. The Spiral_OWL model is
generated base on spiral model and knowledge engineering
methodology. A central paradigm for Spiral_OWL model is the
concentration on risk-driven determination of knowledge engineering
process. The collaboration aspect comes into play during knowledge
acquisition and knowledge validation phase. Design rationales for the
Spiral_OWL model are to be easy-to-implement, well-organized, and
iterative development cycle as an expanding spiral.
Abstract: 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.
Abstract: To decompose organochlorides by bioremediation, co-culture biohydrogen producer and dehalogenation microorganisms is a useful method. In this study, we combined these two characteristics from a biohydrogen producer, Rhodopseudomonas palustris, and a dehalogenation microorganism, Pseudomonas putida, to enchance halorespiration in R. palustris. The genes encoding cytochrome P450cam system (camC, camA, and camB) from P. putida were expressed in R. palustris with designated expression plasmid. All tested strains were cultured to log phase then presented pentachloroethane (PCA) in media. The vector control strain could degrade PCA about 78% after 16 hours, however, the cytochrome P450cam system expressed strain, CGA-camCAB, could completely degrade PCA in 12 hours. While taking chlorinated aromatic, 3-chlorobenzoate, as sole carbon source or present benzoate as co-substrate, CGA-camCAB presented faster growth rate than vector control strain.
Abstract: The application of a simple microcontroller to deal
with a three variable input and a single output fuzzy logic controller,
with Proportional – Integral – Derivative (PID) response control
built-in has been tested for an automatic voltage regulator. The
fuzzifiers are based on fixed range of the variables of output voltage.
The control output is used to control the wiper motor of the auto
transformer to adjust the voltage, using fuzzy logic principles, so that
the voltage is stabilized. In this report, the author will demonstrate
how fuzzy logic might provide elegant and efficient solutions in the
design of multivariable control based on experimental results rather
than on mathematical models.
Abstract: The competitive learning is an adaptive process in
which the neurons in a neural network gradually become sensitive to
different input pattern clusters. The basic idea behind the Kohonen-s
Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOFM) is competitive learning.
SOFM can generate mappings from high-dimensional signal spaces
to lower dimensional topological structures. The main features of this
kind of mappings are topology preserving, feature mappings and
probability distribution approximation of input patterns. To overcome
some limitations of SOFM, e.g., a fixed number of neural units and a
topology of fixed dimensionality, Growing Self-Organizing Neural
Network (GSONN) can be used. GSONN can change its topological
structure during learning. It grows by learning and shrinks by
forgetting. To speed up the training and convergence, a new variant
of GSONN, twin growing cell structures (TGCS) is presented here.
This paper first gives an introduction to competitive learning, SOFM
and its variants. Then, we discuss some GSONN with fixed
dimensionality, which include growing cell structures, its variants
and the author-s model: TGCS. It is ended with some testing results
comparison and conclusions.
Abstract: This paper applies an anthropological approach to illuminate the dynamic cultural geography of Kazakhstani Korean ethnicity focusing on its turning point, the historic “Seoul Olympic Games in 1988." The Korean ethnic group was easily considered as a harmonious and homogeneous community by outsiders, but there existed deep-seated conflicts and hostilities within the ethnic group. The majority-s oppositional dichotomy of superiority and inferiority toward the minority was continuously reorganized and reinforced by difference in experience, memory and sentiment. However, such a chronic exclusive boundary was collapsed following the patriotism ignited by the Olympics held in their mother country. This paper explores the fluidity of subject by formation of the boundary in which constructed cultural differences are continuously essentialized and reproduced, and by dissolution of cultural barrier in certain contexts.