Abstract: The study applied a combination of organisational learning models (Senge, 1994: Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell, 1991) and later adopted fifteen organisational learning principles with one of the biggest energy providers in South East Asia. The purposes of the current study were to: a) investigate the company-s practices on fifteen organisational learning principles; b) explore the perceptions and expectations of its employees in relations to the principles; and c) compare the perceptions and expectations between management and non-management staff toward the fifteen factors. One hundred and ten employees responded on a designed questionnaire and the results indicated that the company was practicing activities that associated with organisational learning principles. Also, according to the T-test results, significant differences between management and non-management respondents were found. Research implications are also provided.
Abstract: Cyber attacks pose a serious threat to all states. Therefore, states constantly seek for various methods to encounter those threats. In addition, recent changes in the nature of cyber attacks and their more complicated methods have created a new concept: active cyber defense (ACD). This article tries to answer firstly why ACD is important to NATO and find out the viewpoint of NATO towards ACD. Secondly, infrastructure protection is essential to cyber defense. Critical infrastructure protection with ACD means is even more important. It is assumed that by implementing active cyber defense, NATO may not only be able to repel the attacks but also be deterrent. Hence, the use of ACD has a direct positive effect in all international organizations’ future including NATO.
Abstract: Direction of Arrival estimation refers to defining a mathematical function called a pseudospectrum that gives an indication of the angle a signal is impinging on the antenna array. This estimation is an efficient method of improving the quality of service in a communication system by focusing the reception and transmission only in the estimated direction thereby increasing fidelity with a provision to suppress interferers. This improvement is largely dependent on the performance of the algorithm employed in the estimation. Many DOA algorithms exists amongst which are MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT. In this paper, performance of these three algorithms is analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy as assessed and characterized by the CRLB and memory requirements in various environments and array sizes. It is found that the three algorithms are high resolution and dependent on the operating environment and the array size.
Abstract: Five lignin samples were fractionated with
Acetone/Water mixtures and the obtained fractions were subjected to
extensive structural characterization, including Fourier Transform
Infrared (FT-IR), Gel permeation Chromatography (GPC) and
Phosphorus-31 NMR spectroscopy (31P-NMR). The results showed
that for all studied lignins the solubility increases with the increment
of the acetone concentration. Wheat straw lignin has the highest
solubility in 90/10 (v/v) Acetone/Water mixture, 400 mg lignin being
dissolved in 1 mL mixture. The weight average molecular weight of
the obtained fractions increased with the increment of acetone
concentration and thus with solubility. 31P-NMR analysis based on
lignin modification by reactive phospholane into phosphitylated
compounds was used to differentiate and quantify the different types
of OH groups (aromatic, aliphatic, and carboxylic) found in the
fractions obtained with 70/30 (v/v) Acetone/Water mixture.
Abstract: Multiple sequence alignment is a fundamental part in
many bioinformatics applications such as phylogenetic analysis.
Many alignment methods have been proposed. Each method gives a
different result for the same data set, and consequently generates a
different phylogenetic tree. Hence, the chosen alignment method
affects the resulting tree. However in the literature, there is no
evaluation of multiple alignment methods based on the comparison of
their phylogenetic trees. This work evaluates the following eight
aligners: ClustalX, T-Coffee, SAGA, MUSCLE, MAFFT, DIALIGN,
ProbCons and Align-m, based on their phylogenetic trees (test trees)
produced on a given data set. The Neighbor-Joining method is used
to estimate trees. Three criteria, namely, the dNNI, the dRF and the
Id_Tree are established to test the ability of different alignment
methods to produce closer test tree compared to the reference one
(true tree). Results show that the method which produces the most
accurate alignment gives the nearest test tree to the reference tree.
MUSCLE outperforms all aligners with respect to the three criteria
and for all datasets, performing particularly better when sequence
identities are within 10-20%. It is followed by T-Coffee at lower
sequence identity (30%), trees scores of all methods
become similar.
Abstract: This paper proposes transient angle stability
agents to enhance power system stability. The proposed transient
angle stability agents divided into two strategy agents. The
first strategy agent is a prediction agent that will predict power
system instability. According to the prediction agent-s output,
the second strategy agent, which is a control agent, is automatically
calculating the amount of active power reduction that can
stabilize the system and initiating a control action. The control
action considered is turbine fast valving. The proposed strategies
are applied to a realistic power system, the IEEE 50-
generator system. Results show that the proposed technique can
be used on-line for power system instability prediction and control.
Abstract: The notion of S-fuzzy left h-ideals in a hemiring is introduced and it's basic properties are investigated.We also study the homomorphic image and preimage of S-fuzzy left h-ideal of hemirings.Using a collection of left h-ideals of a hemiring, S-fuzzy left h-ideal of hemirings are established.The notion of a finite-valued S-fuzzy left h-ideal is introduced,and its characterization is given.S-fuzzy relations on hemirings are discussed.The notion of direct product and S-product are introduced and some properties of the direct product and S-product of S-fuzzy left h-ideal of hemiring are also discussed.
Abstract: Environmental considerations have become an integral part of developmental thinking and decision making in many countries. It is growing rapidly in importance as a discipline of its own. Preventive approaches have been used at the evolutional process of environmental management as a broad and dynamic system for dealing with pollution and environmental degradation. In this regard, Environmental Assessment as an activity for identification and prediction of project’s impacts carried out in the world and its legal significance dates back to late 1960. In Iran, according to the Article 2 of Environmental Protection Act, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should be prepared for seven categories of project. This article has been actively implementing by Department of Environment at 1997. World Bank in 1989 attempted to introducing application of Environmental Assessment for making decision about projects which are required financial assistance in developing countries. So, preparing EIA for obtaining World Bank loan was obligated. Alborz Project is one of the World Bank Projects in Iran which is environmentally significant. Seven out of ten W.B safeguard policies were considered at this project. In this paper, Alborz project, objectives, safeguard policies and role of environmental management will be elaborated
Abstract: In the last decades, a number of robust fuzzy clustering algorithms have been proposed to partition data sets affected by noise and outliers. Robust fuzzy C-means (robust-FCM) is certainly one of the most known among these algorithms. In robust-FCM, noise is modeled as a separate cluster and is characterized by a prototype that has a constant distance δ from all data points. Distance δ determines the boundary of the noise cluster and therefore is a critical parameter of the algorithm. Though some approaches have been proposed to automatically determine the most suitable δ for the specific application, up to today an efficient and fully satisfactory solution does not exist. The aim of this paper is to propose a novel method to compute the optimal δ based on the analysis of the distribution of the percentage of objects assigned to the noise cluster in repeated executions of the robust-FCM with decreasing values of δ . The extremely encouraging results obtained on some data sets found in the literature are shown and discussed.
Abstract: Energy Efficiency Management is the heart of a
worldwide problem. The capability of a multi-agent system as a
technology to manage the micro-grid operation has already been
proved. This paper deals with the implementation of a decisional
pattern applied to a multi-agent system which provides intelligence to
a distributed local energy network considered at local consumer level.
Development of multi-agent application involves agent
specifications, analysis, design, and realization. Furthermore, it can
be implemented by following several decisional patterns. The
purpose of present article is to suggest a new approach for a
decisional pattern involving a multi-agent system to control a
distributed local energy network in a decentralized competitive
system. The proposed solution is the result of a dichotomous
approach based on environment observation. It uses an iterative
process to solve automatic learning problems and converges
monotonically very fast to system attracting operation point.
Abstract: Efficient handoff algorithms are a cost-effective way
of enhancing the capacity and QoS of cellular system. The higher
value of hysteresis effectively prevents unnecessary handoffs but
causes undesired cell dragging. This undesired cell dragging causes
interference or could lead to dropped calls in microcellular
environment. The problems are further exacerbated by the corner
effect phenomenon which causes the signal level to drop by 20-30 dB
in 10-20 meters. Thus, in order to maintain reliable communication
in a microcellular system new and better handoff algorithms must be
developed. A fuzzy based handoff algorithm is proposed in this paper
as a solution to this problem. Handoff on the basis of ratio of slopes
of normal signal loss to the actual signal loss is presented. The fuzzy
based solution is supported by comparing its results with the results
obtained in analytical solution.
Abstract: The stability of a software system is one of the most
important quality attributes affecting the maintenance effort. Many
techniques have been proposed to support the analysis of software
stability at the architecture, file, and class level of software systems,
but little effort has been made for that at the feature (i.e., method and
attribute) level. And the assumptions the existing techniques based
on always do not meet the practice to a certain degree. Considering
that, in this paper, we present a novel metric, Stability of Software
(SoS), to measure the stability of object-oriented software systems
by software change propagation analysis using a simulation way
in software dependency networks at feature level. The approach is
evaluated by case studies on eight open source Java programs using
different software structures (one employs design patterns versus one
does not) for the same object-oriented program. The results of the
case studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed metric. The
approach has been fully automated by a tool written in Java.
Abstract: Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are an emerging
technology for last-mile broadband access. In WMNs, similar to ad
hoc networks, each user node operates not only as a host but also as a
router. User packets are forwarded to and from an Internet-connected
gateway in multi-hop fashion. The WMNs can be integrated with
other networking technologies i.e. ad hoc networks, to implement a
smooth network extension. The meshed topology provides good
reliability and scalability, as well as low upfront investments. Despite
the recent start-up surge in WMNs, much research remains to be
done in standardizing the functional parameters of WMNs to fully
exploit their full potential. An edifice of the security concerns of
these networks is authentication of a new client joining an integrated
ad hoc network and such a scenario will require execution of a multihop
authentication technique. Our endeavor in this paper is to
introduce a secure authentication technique, with light over-heads
that can be conveniently implemented for the ad-hoc nodes forming
clients of an integrated WMN, thus facilitating their inter-operability.
Abstract: Since the 1940s, many promising telepresence
research results have been obtained. However, telepresence
technology still has not reached industrial usage. As human
intelligence is necessary for successful execution of most manual
assembly tasks, the ability of the human is hindered in some cases,
such as the assembly of heavy parts of small/medium lots or
prototypes. In such a case of manual assembly, the help of industrial
robots is mandatory. The telepresence technology can be considered
as a solution for performing assembly tasks, where the human
intelligence and haptic sense are needed to identify and minimize the
errors during an assembly process and a robot is needed to carry
heavy parts. In this paper, preliminary steps to integrate the
telepresence technology into industrial robot systems are introduced.
The system described here combines both, the human haptic sense
and the industrial robot capability to perform a manual assembly task
remotely using a force feedback joystick. Mapping between the
joystick-s Degrees of Freedom (DOF) and the robot-s ones are
introduced. Simulation and experimental results are shown and future
work is discussed.
Abstract: The anomalous generation of plasma blocks by
interaction of petawatt-picosecond laser pulses permits side-on
ignition of uncompressed solid fusion fuel following an improved
application of the hydrodynamic Chu-model for deuterium-tritium.
The new possibility of side-on laser ignition depends on accelerated
ions and produced ions beams of high energy particles by the
nonlinear ponderomotive force of the laser pulse in the plasma block,
a re-evaluation of the early hydrodynamic analysis for ignition of
inertial fusion by including inhibition factor, collective effect of
stopping power of alpha particles and the energy loss rate
reabsorption to plasma by the protons of plasma blocks being
reduced by about a factor 40.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect
of combining Real Experimentation (RE) With Virtual
Experimentation (VE) on students- conceptual understanding of
photo electric effect. To achieve this, a pre–post comparison study
design was used that involved 46 undergraduate students. Two
groups were set up for this study. Participants in the control group
used RE to learn photo electric effect, whereas, participants in the
experimental group used RE in the first part of the curriculum and
VE in another part. Achievement test was given to the groups
before and after the application as pre-test and post test. The
independent samples t- test, one way Anova and Tukey HSD test
were used for testing the data obtained from the study.
According to the results of analyzes, the experimental group
was found more successful than the control group.
Abstract: In conventional reliability assessment, the reliability data of system components are treated as crisp values. The collected data have some uncertainties due to errors by human beings/machines or any other sources. These uncertainty factors will limit the understanding of system component failure due to the reason of incomplete data. In these situations, we need to generalize classical methods to fuzzy environment for studying and analyzing the systems of interest. Fuzzy set theory has been proposed to handle such vagueness by generalizing the notion of membership in a set. Essentially, in a Fuzzy Set (FS) each element is associated with a point-value selected from the unit interval [0, 1], which is termed as the grade of membership in the set. A Vague Set (VS), as well as an Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS), is a further generalization of an FS. Instead of using point-based membership as in FS, interval-based membership is used in VS. The interval-based membership in VS is more expressive in capturing vagueness of data. In the present paper, vague set theory coupled with conventional Lambda-Tau method is presented for reliability analysis of repairable systems. The methodology uses Petri nets (PN) to model the system instead of fault tree because it allows efficient simultaneous generation of minimal cuts and path sets. The presented method is illustrated with the press unit of the paper mill.
Abstract: This paper proposes a three-dimensional motion capture and feedback system of flying disc throwing action learners with use of Kinect device. Rather than conventional 3-D motion capture system, Kinect has advantages of cost merit, easy system development and operation. A novice learner of flying disc is trained to keep arm movement in steady height, to twist the waist, and to stretch the elbow according to the waist angle. The proposing system captures learners- body movement, checks their skeleton positions in pre-motion / motion / post-motion in several ways, and displays feedback messages to refine their actions.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to develop a new two dimensional time accurate Euler solver for shock tube applications. The solver was developed to study the performance of a newly built short-duration hypersonic test facility at Universiti Tenaga Nasional “UNITEN" in Malaysia. The facility has been designed, built, and commissioned for different values of diaphragm pressure ratios in order to get wide range of Mach number. The developed solver uses second order accurate cell-vertex finite volume spatial discretization and forth order accurate Runge-Kutta temporal integration and it is designed to simulate the flow process for similar driver/driven gases (e.g. air-air as working fluids). The solver is validated against analytical solution and experimental measurements in the high speed flow test facility. Further investigations were made on the flow process inside the shock tube by using the solver. The shock wave motion, reflection and interaction were investigated and their influence on the performance of the shock tube was determined. The results provide very good estimates for both shock speed and shock pressure obtained after diaphragm rupture. Also detailed information on the gasdynamic processes over the full length of the facility is available. The agreements obtained have been reasonable.
Abstract: Zeolite A and MCM-41 have extensive applications in basic science, petrochemical science, energy conservation/storage, medicine, chemical sensor, air purification, environmentally benign composite structure and waste remediation. However, the use of zeolite A and MCM-41 in these areas, especially environmental remediation, are restricted due to prohibitive production cost. Efficient recycling of and resource recovery from coal fly ash has been a major topic of current international research interest, aimed at achieving sustainable development of human society from the viewpoints of energy, economy, and environmental strategy. This project reported an original, novel, green and fast methods to produce nano-porous zeolite A and MCM-41 materials from coal fly ash. For zeolite A, this novel production method allows a reduction by half of the total production time while maintaining a high degree of crystallinity of zeolite A which exists in a narrower particle size distribution. For MCM-41, this remarkably green approach, being an environmentally friendly process and reducing generation of toxic waste, can produce pure and long-range ordered MCM-41 materials from coal fly ash. This approach took 24 h at 25 oC to produce 9 g of MCM-41 materials from 30 g of the coal fly ash, which is the shortest time and lowest reaction temperature required to produce pure and ordered MCM-41 materials (having the largest internal surface area) compared to the values reported in the literature. Performance evaluation of the produced zeolite A and MCM-41 materials in wastewater treatment and air pollution control were reported. The residual fly ash was also converted to zeolite Na-P1 which showed good performance in removal of multi-metal ions in wastewater. In wastewater treatment, compared to commercial-grade zeolite A, adsorbents produced from coal fly ash were effective in removing multi heavy metal ions in water and could be an alternative material for treatment of wastewater. In methane emission abatement, the zeolite A (produced from coal fly ash) achieved similar methane removal efficiency compared to the zeolite A prepared from pure chemicals. This report provides the guidance for production of zeolite A and MCM-41 from coal fly ash by a cost-effective approach which opens potential applications of these materials in environmental industry. Finally, environmental and economic aspects of production of zeolite A and MCM-41 from coal fly ash were discussed.