Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the
enhancement of a hydroelectric plant protection by coordinating
protection measures / existing security and introducing new measures
under a risk management process. In addition, plan identifies key
critical elements of a hydroelectric plant, from its level vulnerabilities
and threats it is subjected to in order to achieve the necessary
protection measures to reduce the level of risk.
Abstract: Lateral torsional buckling is a global buckling mode
which should be considered in design of slender structural members
under flexure about their strong axis. It is possible to compute the
load which causes lateral torsional buckling of a beam by finite
element analysis, however, closed form equations are needed in
engineering practice for calculation ease which can be obtained by
using energy method. In lateral torsional buckling applications of
energy method, a proper function for the critical lateral torsional
buckling mode should be chosen which can be thought as the
variation of twisting angle along the buckled beam. Accuracy of the
results depends on how close is the chosen function to the exact
mode. Since critical lateral torsional buckling mode of the cantilever
I-beams varies due to material properties, section properties and
loading case, the hardest step is to determine a proper mode function
in application of energy method. This paper presents an approximate function for critical lateral
torsional buckling mode of doubly symmetric cantilever I-beams.
Coefficient matrices are calculated for concentrated load at free end,
uniformly distributed load and constant moment along the beam
cases. Critical lateral torsional buckling modes obtained by presented
function and exact solutions are compared. It is found that the modes
obtained by presented function coincide with differential equation
solutions for considered loading cases.
Abstract: Cost overruns are a persistent problem in oil and gas
megaprojects. Whilst the extant literature is filled with studies on
incidents and causes of cost overruns, underlying theories to explain
their emergence in oil and gas megaprojects are few. Yet, a way to
contain the syndrome of cost overruns is to understand the bases of
‘how and why’ they occur. Such knowledge will also help to develop
pragmatic techniques for better overall management of oil and gas
megaprojects. The aim of this paper is to explain the development of
cost overruns in hydrocarbon megaprojects through the perspective of
chaos theory. The underlying principles of chaos theory and its
implications for cost overruns are examined and practical
recommendations proposed. In addition, directions for future research
in this fertile area provided.
Abstract: In a world characterized by greed and the lust for
power and its attendant trappings, abuse of legal power is nothing
new to most of us. Legal abuses of power abound in all fields of
human endeavour. Accounts of such abuses dominate the mass media
and for the average individual, no single day goes by without his
getting to hear about at least one such occurrence. This paper briefly
looks at the meaning of legal power, what legal abuse is all about, its
causes, and some of its manifestations in the society. Its
consequences will also be discussed and some suggestions for reform
will be made. In the course of the paper, references will be made to
various jurisdictions around the world.
Abstract: This contribution is focused on the methodology for
identifying levels of quality and improving quality through new
logistics model in railway transport. It is oriented on the application
of dynamic quality models, which represent an innovative method of
evaluation quality services. Through this conception, time factor,
expected, and perceived quality in each moment of the transportation
process within logistics chain can be taken into account. Various
models describe the improvement of the quality which emphases the
time factor throughout the whole transportation logistics chain.
Quality of services in railway transport can be determined by the
existing level of service quality, by detecting the causes of
dissatisfaction employees but also customers, to uncover strengths
and weaknesses. This new logistics model is able to recognize critical
processes in logistic chain. It includes service quality rating that must
respect its specific properties, which are unrepeatability,
impalpability, their use right at the time they are provided and
particularly changeability, which is significant factor in the
conditions of rail transport as well. These peculiarities influence the
quality of service regarding the constantly increasing requirements
and that result in new ways of finding progressive attitudes towards
the service quality rating.
Abstract: People, throughout the history, have made estimates
and inferences about the future by using their past experiences.
Developing information technologies and the improvements in the
database management systems make it possible to extract useful
information from knowledge in hand for the strategic decisions.
Therefore, different methods have been developed. Data mining by
association rules learning is one of such methods. Apriori algorithm,
one of the well-known association rules learning algorithms, is not
commonly used in spatio-temporal data sets. However, it is possible
to embed time and space features into the data sets and make Apriori
algorithm a suitable data mining technique for learning spatiotemporal
association rules. Lake Van, the largest lake of Turkey, is a
closed basin. This feature causes the volume of the lake to increase or
decrease as a result of change in water amount it holds. In this study,
evaporation, humidity, lake altitude, amount of rainfall and
temperature parameters recorded in Lake Van region throughout the
years are used by the Apriori algorithm and a spatio-temporal data
mining application is developed to identify overflows and newlyformed
soil regions (underflows) occurring in the coastal parts of
Lake Van. Identifying possible reasons of overflows and underflows
may be used to alert the experts to take precautions and make the
necessary investments.
Abstract: Myocardial infarction is one of the leading causes of
death in the world. Some of these deaths occur even before the
patient reaches the hospital. Myocardial infarction occurs as a result
of impaired blood supply. Because the most of these deaths are due to
coronary artery disease, hence the awareness of the warning signs of
a heart attack is essential. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense,
but most of them start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort, then
early detection and successful treatment of these symptoms is vital to
save them. Therefore, importance and usefulness of a system
designing to assist physicians in early diagnosis of the acute heart
attacks is obvious. The main purpose of this study would be to enable patients to
become better informed about their condition and to encourage them
to seek professional care at an earlier stage in the appropriate
situations. For this purpose, the data were collected on 711 heart
patients in Iran hospitals. 28 attributes of clinical factors can be
reported by patients; were studied. Three logistic regression models
were made on the basis of the 28 features to predict the risk of heart
attacks. The best logistic regression model in terms of performance
had a C-index of 0.955 and with an accuracy of 94.9%. The variables,
severe chest pain, back pain, cold sweats, shortness of breath, nausea
and vomiting, were selected as the main features.
Abstract: This paper tries to answer to the questions whether or
not trade openness causes economic growth and trade policy changes
are good for Turkey as a developing country in global economy
before and after 1980. We employ Johansen co-integration and
Granger causality tests with error correction modeling based on
vector autoregressive. Using WDI data from the pre-1980 and the
post-1980, we find that trade openness and economic growth are cointegrated
in the second term only. Also the results suggest a lack of
long-run causality between our two variables. These findings may
imply that trade policy of Turkey should concentrate more on extra
complementary economic reforms.
Abstract: Ceramic obtained on the base of aluminum oxide has
wide application range, because it has unique properties, for example,
wear-resistance, dielectric characteristics, and exploitation ability at
high temperatures and in corrosive atmosphere. Low temperature
synthesis of α-Al2O3 is energo-economical process and it is topical
for developing technologies of corundum ceramics fabrication. In the present work possibilities of low temperature transformation
of oxyhydroxides in α-Al2O3, during the presence of small amount of
rare–earth elements compounds (also Th, Re), have been discussed.
Aluminum unstable oxyhydroxides have been obtained by hydrolysis
of aluminium isopropoxide, nitrates, sulphate, and chloride in
alkaline environment at 80-90ºC temperatures. β-Al(OH)3 has been
received from aluminum powder by ultrasonic development. Drying
of oxyhydroxide sol has been conducted with presence of various
types seeds, which amount reaches 0,1-0,2% (mas). Neodymium,
holmium, thorium, lanthanum, cerium, gadolinium, disprosium
nitrates and rhenium carbonyls have been used as seeds and they
have been added to the sol specimens in amount of 0.1-0.2% (mas)
calculated on metals. Annealing of obtained gels is carried out at 70–
1100ºC for 2 hrs. The same specimen transforms in α-Al2O3 at
1100ºC. At this temperature in case of presence of lanthanum and
gadolinium transformation takes place by 70-85%. In case of
presence of thorium stabilization of γ-and θ-phases takes place. It is
established, that thorium causes inhibition of α-phase generation at
1100ºC, and at the time when in all other doped specimens α-phase is
generated at lower temperatures (1000-1050ºC). Synthesis of various
type compounds and simultaneous consolidation has developed in the
furnace of OXY-GON. Composite materials containing oxide and
non-oxide components close to theoretical data have been obtained in
this furnace respectively. During the work the following devices have
been used: X-ray diffractometer DRON-3M (Cu-Kα, Ni filter,
2º/min), High temperature vacuum furnace OXY-GON, electronic
scanning microscopes Nikon ECLIPSE LV 150, NMM-800TRF,
planetary mill Pulverisette 7 premium line, SHIMADZU Dynamic
Ultra Micro Hardness Tester, DUH-211S, Analysette 12 Dyna sizer.
Abstract: This research was conducted in an automotive company in Indonesia to overcome the problem of high logistics cost. The problem causes high of additional truck delivery. From the breakdown of the problem, chosen one route, which has the highest gap value, namely for RE-04. Research methodology will be started from calculating the ideal condition, making simulation, calculating the ideal logistic cost, and proposing an improvement. From the calculation of the ideal condition, box arrangement was done on the truck has efficiency with three trucks delivery per day. Route simulation making uses Tecnomatix Plant Simulation software as a visualization for the company about how the system is occurred on route RE-04 in ideal condition. The last step is proposing improvements on the area of route RE-04. The route arrangement is done by Saving Method and sequence of each supplier with the Nearest Neighbor. The results of the proposed improvements are three new route groups, where was expected to decrease logistics cost and increase the average of the truck efficiency per day.
Abstract: This paper introduces the concept and principle of data
cleaning, analyzes the types and causes of dirty data, and proposes
several key steps of typical cleaning process, puts forward a well
scalability and versatility data cleaning framework, in view of data
with attribute dependency relation, designs several of violation data
discovery algorithms by formal formula, which can obtain inconsistent
data to all target columns with condition attribute dependent no matter
data is structured (SQL) or unstructured (NoSql), and gives 6 data
cleaning methods based on these algorithms.
Abstract: Analyzing the relation networks between the hospital
buildings which have complex structure and distinctive spatial
relationships is quite difficult. The hospital buildings which require
specialty in spatial relationship solutions during design and selfinnovation
through the developing technology should survive and
keep giving service even after the disasters such as earthquakes. In
this study, a hospital building where the load-bearing system was
strengthened because of the insufficient earthquake performance and
the construction of an additional building was required to meet the
increasing need for space was discussed and a comparative spatial
evaluation of the hospital building was made with regard to its status
before the change and after the change. For this reason, spatial
organizations of the building before change and after the change were
analyzed by means of Space Syntax method and the effects of the
change on space organization parameters were searched by applying
an analytical procedure. Using Depthmap UCL software,
Connectivity, Visual Mean Depth, Beta and Visual Integration
analyses were conducted. Based on the data obtained after the
analyses, it was seen that the relationships between spaces of the
building increased after the change and the building has become more
explicit and understandable for the occupants. Furthermore, it was
determined according to findings of the analysis that the increase in
depth causes difficulty in perceiving the spaces and the changes
considering this problem generally ease spatial use.
Abstract: Damaturu is the capital of Yobe State in northeastern
Nigeria where civic amenities and facilities are not adequate even
after 24 years of its existence. The volatile security and political
situations are most significant causes for the same. The basic facility
for the citizens in terms of drinking water and electricity are not
available. For the drinking water, they have to rely on personal
boreholes or the filtered borehole waters available in packaged
sachets in market. The present study is concerned with environmental
impact of indiscriminate disposal of drinking synthetic polythene
water sachets in Damaturu. The sachet water is popularly called as
“pure water”, but its purity is questionable. Increased production and
consumption of sachet water has led to indiscriminate dumping and
disposal of empty sachets leading to serious environmental threat.
The evidence of this is seen for sachets littering the streets and the
drainages blocked by ‘blocks’ of water sachet waste. Sachet water
gained much popularity in Nigeria because the product is convenient
for use, affordable and economically viable. The present study aims
to find out the solution to this environmental problem. The fieldbased
study has found some significant factors that cause
environmental and socio economic effect due to this. Some
recommendations have been made based on research findings
regarding sustainable waste management, recycling and re-use of the
non-biodegradable products in society.
Abstract: Main purpose of this study is to identify the impact of
government expenditure on economic growth in Asian Countries.
Consequently, main objective is to analyze whether government
expenditure causes economic growth in Asian countries vice versa
and then scrutinizing long-run equilibrium relationship exists
between them. The study completely based on secondary data. The
methodology being quantitative that includes econometrical
techniques of cointegration, panel fixed effects model and granger
causality in the context of panel data of Asian countries; Singapore,
Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, India and
Bhutan with 44 observations in each country, totaling to 396
observations from 1970 to 2013. The model used is the random
effects panel OLS model. As with the above methodology, the study
found the fascinating outcome. At first, empirical findings exhibit a
momentous positive impact of government expenditure on Gross
Domestic Production in Asian region. Secondly, government
expenditure and economic growth indicate a long-run relationship in
Asian countries. In conclusion, there is a unidirectional causality
from economic growth to government expenditure and government
expenditure to economic growth in Asian countries. Hence the study
is validated that it is in line with the Keynesian theory and Wagner’s
law as well. Consequently, it can be concluded that role of
government would play a vital role in economic growth of Asian
Countries. However; if government expenditure did not figure out
with the economy’s needs it might be considerably inspiration the
economy in a negative way so that society bears the costs.
Abstract: The access to relevant information that is adapted to
user’s needs, preferences and environment is a challenge in many
applications running. That causes an appearance of context-aware
systems. To facilitate the development of this class of applications, it
is necessary that these applications share a common context
metamodel. In this article, we will present our context metamodel
that is defined using the OMG Meta Object facility (MOF).This
metamodel is based on the analysis and synthesis of context concepts
proposed in literature.
Abstract: Indonesia has experienced annual forest fires that have
rapidly destroyed and degraded its forests. Fires in the peat swamp
forests of Riau Province, have set the stage for problems to worsen,
this being the ecosystem most prone to fires (which are also the most
difficult, to extinguish). Despite various efforts to curb deforestation,
and forest degradation processes, severe forest fires are still
occurring. To find an effective solution, the basic causes of the
problems must be identified. It is therefore critical to have an indepth
understanding of the underlying causal factors that have
contributed to deforestation and forest degradation as a whole, in
order to attain reductions in their rates. An assessment of the drivers of deforestation and forest
degradation was carried out, in order to design and implement
measures that could slow these destructive processes. Research was
conducted in Giam Siak Kecil–Bukit Batu Biosphere Reserve
(GSKBB BR), in the Riau Province of Sumatera, Indonesia. A
biosphere reserve was selected as the study site because such reserves
aim to reconcile conservation with sustainable development. A
biosphere reserve should promote a range of local human activities,
together with development values that are in line spatially and
economically with the area conservation values, through use of a
zoning system. Moreover, GSKBB BR is an area with vast peatlands,
and is experiencing forest fires annually. Various factors were
analysed to assess the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation
in GSKBB BR; data were collected from focus group discussions
with stakeholders, key informant interviews with key stakeholders,
field observation and a literature review. Landsat satellite imagery was used to map forest-cover changes
for various periods. Analysis of landsat images, taken during the
period 2010-2014, revealed that within the non-protected area of core
zone, there was a trend towards decreasing peat swamp forest areas,
increasing land clearance, and increasing areas of community oilpalm
and rubber plantations. Fire was used for land clearing and most
of the forest fires occurred in the most populous area (the transition
area). The study found a relationship between the deforested/
degraded areas, and certain distance variables, i.e. distance from
roads, villages and the borders between the core area and the buffer
zone. The further the distance from the core area of the reserve, the
higher was the degree of deforestation and forest degradation. Research findings suggested that agricultural expansion may be
the direct cause of deforestation and forest degradation in the reserve,
whereas socio-economic factors were the underlying driver of forest
cover changes; such factors consisting of a combination of sociocultural,
infrastructural, technological, institutional (policy and governance), demographic (population pressure) and economic
(market demand) considerations. These findings indicated that local
factors/problems were the critical causes of deforestation and
degradation in GSKBB BR. This research therefore concluded that
reductions in deforestation and forest degradation in GSKBB BR
could be achieved through ‘local actor’-tailored approaches such as
community empowerment.
Abstract: Amoxicillin is an antibiotic which is widely used to
treat various infections in both human beings and animals. However,
when amoxicillin is released into the environment, it is a major
problem. Amoxicillin causes bacterial resistance to these drugs and
failure of treatment with antibiotics. Liquid membrane is of great
interest as a promising method for the separation and recovery of the
target ions from aqueous solutions due to the use of carriers for the
transport mechanism, resulting in highly selectivity and rapid
transportation of the desired metal ions. The simultaneous processes
of extraction and stripping in a single unit operation of liquid
membrane system are very interesting. Therefore, it is practical to
apply liquid membrane, particularly the HFSLM for industrial
applications as HFSLM is proved to be a separation process with
lower capital and operating costs, low energy and extractant with
long life time, high selectivity and high fluxes compared with solid
membranes. It is a simple design amenable to scaling up for industrial
applications. The extraction and recovery for (Amoxicillin) through
the hollow fiber supported liquid membrane (HFSLM) using
aliquat336 as a carrier were explored with the experimental data. The
important variables affecting on transport of amoxicillin viz.
extractant concentration and operating time were investigated. The
highest AMOX- extraction percentages of 85.35 and Amoxicillin
stripping of 80.04 were achieved with the best condition at 6 mmol/L
[aliquat336] and operating time 100 min. The extraction reaction
order (n) and the extraction reaction rate constant (kf) were found to
be 1.00 and 0.0344 min-1, respectively.
Abstract: Most of the oil palm plantations have been threatened
by Basal Stem Rot (BSR) disease which causes serious economic
impact. This study was conducted to identify the healthy and BSRinfected
oil palm tree using thirteen color indices. Multispectral and
thermal camera was used to capture 216 images of the leaves taken
from frond number 1, 9 and 17. Indices of normalized difference
vegetation index (NDVI), red (R), green (G), blue (B), near infrared
(NIR), green – blue (GB), green/blue (G/B), green – red (GR),
green/red (G/R), hue (H), saturation (S), intensity (I) and thermal
index (T) were used. From this study, it can be concluded that G
index taken from frond number 9 is the best index to differentiate
between the healthy and BSR-infected oil palm trees. It not only gave
high value of correlation coefficient (R=-0.962), but also high value
of separation between healthy and BSR-infected oil palm tree.
Furthermore, power and S model developed using G index gave the
highest R2 value which is 0.985.
Abstract: Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes due to human
activities and natural causes have become a major environmental
concern. Assessment of temporal remote sensing data provides
information about LULC impacts on environment. Land Surface
Temperature (LST) is one of the important components for modeling
environmental changes in climatological, hydrological, and
agricultural studies. In this study, LULC changes (September 7, 1984
and July 8, 2014) especially in agricultural lands together with
population changes (1985-2014) and LST status were investigated
using remotely sensed and census data in South Marmara Watershed,
Turkey. LULC changes were determined using Landsat TM and
Landsat OLI data acquired in 1984 and 2014 summers. Six-band TM
and OLI images were classified using supervised classification
method to prepare LULC map including five classes including Forest
(F), Grazing Land (G), Agricultural Land (A), Water Surface (W),
Residential Area-Bare Soil (R-B) classes. The LST image was also
derived from thermal bands of the same dates.
LULC classification results showed that forest areas, agricultural
lands, water surfaces and residential area-bare soils were increased as
65751 ha, 20163 ha, 1924 ha and 20462 ha respectively. In
comparison, a dramatic decrement occurred in grazing land (107985
ha) within three decades. The population increased 29% between
years 1984-2014 in whole study area. Along with the natural causes,
migration also caused this increase since the study area has an
important employment potential. LULC was transformed among the
classes due to the expansion in residential, commercial and industrial
areas as well as political decisions. In the study, results showed that
agricultural lands around the settlement areas transformed to
residential areas in 30 years.
The LST images showed that mean temperatures were ranged
between 26-32°C in 1984 and 27-33°C in 2014. Minimum
temperature of agricultural lands was increased 3°C and reached to
23°C. In contrast, maximum temperature of A class decreased to
41°C from 44°C. Considering temperatures of the 2014 R-B class and
1984 status of same areas, it was seen that mean, min and max
temperatures increased by 2°C.
As a result, the dynamism of population, LULC and LST resulted
in increasing mean and maximum surface temperatures, living
spaces/industrial areas and agricultural lands.
Abstract: When printing a plate (or dish) by an FDM 3D printer,
the process normally requires support material, which causes several
problems. This paper proposes a method for forming thin plates
without using wasteful support material. This method requires several
extraordinary parameter values when slicing plates. The experiments
show that the plates can, for the most part, be successfully formed
using a conventional slicer and a 3D printer; however, seams between
layers spoil them and the quality of printed objects strongly depends
on the slicer.