Abstract: At present, the cascade PID control is widely used to
control the superheating temperature (main steam temperature). As
Main Steam Temperature has the characteristics of large inertia, large
time-delay and time varying, etc., conventional PID control strategy
cannot achieve good control performance. In order to overcome the
bad performance and deficiencies of main steam temperature control
system, Model Free Adaptive Control (MFAC) - P cascade control
system is proposed in this paper. By substituting MFAC in PID of the
main control loop of the main steam temperature control, it can
overcome time delays, non-linearity, disturbance and time variation.
Abstract: The wide use of the Internet-based applications bring many challenges to the researchers to guarantee the continuity of the connections needed by the mobile hosts and provide reliable Internet access for them. One of proposed solutions by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is to connect the local, multi-hop, and infrastructure-less Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) with Internet structure. This connection is done through multi-interface devices known as Internet Gateways. Many issues are related to this connection like gateway discovery, handoff, address auto-configuration and selecting the optimum gateway when multiple gateways exist. Many studies were done proposing gateway selection schemes with a single selection criterion or weighted multiple criteria. In this research, a review of some of these schemes is done showing the differences, the features, the challenges and the drawbacks of each of them.
Abstract: Standard processes, similar and limited production
lines, the production of high direct costs will be more accurate than
the use of parts of the traditional cost systems in the literature.
However, direct costs, overhead expenses, in turn, decrease the
burden of increasingly sophisticated production facilities, a situation
that led the researchers to look for the cost of traditional systems of
alternative techniques. Variety cost management approaches for
example Total quality management (TQM), just-in-time (JIT),
benchmarking, kaizen costing, targeting cost, life cycle costs (LLC),
activity-based costing (ABC) value engineering have been
introduced. Management and cost applications have changed over the
past decade and will continue to change. Modern cost systems can
provide relevant and accurate cost information. These methods
provide the decisions about customer, product and process
improvement. The aim of study is to describe and explain the
adoption and application of costing systems in SME. This purpose
reports on a survey conducted during 2014 small and medium sized
enterprises (SME) in Ankara. The survey results were evaluated
using SPSS18 package program.
Abstract: Living today in turbulent business environment forces
companies to distinguish from each other, securing sustainable
competitive growth and competitive advantage. The best possible
solution is to invest (effort and financial resources) within
companies’ different practices of human resource management
(HRM), more specifically in employees’ knowledge, skills and
abilities. Applying this approach companies will create enviable level
of human capital securing its economic growth. Employees become
human capital for their employers at the moment when they
contribute with their own knowledge and abilities in creating material
and non-material value of the company. The main aim of this
research is to explore the relations between human capital
investments and business excellence of Croatian companies.
Furthermore, the differences in the level of human capital
investments with regard to several companies’ characteristics (e.g.
size of the company, ownership and type of the industry) are
investigated.
Abstract: Constructing a portfolio of investments is one of the
most significant financial decisions facing individuals and
institutions. In accordance with the modern portfolio theory
maximization of return at minimal risk should be the investment goal
of any successful investor. In addition, the costs incurred when
setting up a new portfolio or rebalancing an existing portfolio must
be included in any realistic analysis.
In this paper rebalancing an investment portfolio in the presence of
transaction costs on the Croatian capital market is analyzed. The
model applied in the paper is an extension of the standard portfolio
mean-variance optimization model in which transaction costs are
incurred to rebalance an investment portfolio. This model allows
different costs for different securities, and different costs for buying
and selling. In order to find efficient portfolio, using this model, first,
the solution of quadratic programming problem of similar size to the
Markowitz model, and then the solution of a linear programming
problem have to be found. Furthermore, in the paper the impact of
transaction costs on the efficient frontier is investigated. Moreover, it
is shown that global minimum variance portfolio on the efficient
frontier always has the same level of the risk regardless of the amount
of transaction costs. Although efficient frontier position depends of
both transaction costs amount and initial portfolio it can be concluded
that extreme right portfolio on the efficient frontier always contains
only one stock with the highest expected return and the highest risk.
Abstract: The Cone Penetration Test (CPT) is a common in-situ
test which generally investigates a much greater volume of soil more
quickly than possible from sampling and laboratory tests. Therefore,
it has the potential to realize both cost savings and assessment of soil
properties rapidly and continuously. The principle objective of this
paper is to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of using
artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the soil angle of internal
friction (Φ) and the soil modulus of elasticity (E) from CPT results
considering the uncertainties and non-linearities of the soil. In
addition, ANNs are used to study the influence of different
parameters and recommend which parameters should be included as
input parameters to improve the prediction. Neural networks discover
relationships in the input data sets through the iterative presentation
of the data and intrinsic mapping characteristics of neural topologies.
General Regression Neural Network (GRNN) is one of the powerful
neural network architectures which is utilized in this study. A large
amount of field and experimental data including CPT results, plate
load tests, direct shear box, grain size distribution and calculated data
of overburden pressure was obtained from a large project in the
United Arab Emirates. This data was used for the training and the
validation of the neural network. A comparison was made between
the obtained results from the ANN's approach, and some common
traditional correlations that predict Φ and E from CPT results with
respect to the actual results of the collected data. The results show
that the ANN is a very powerful tool. Very good agreement was
obtained between estimated results from ANN and actual measured
results with comparison to other correlations available in the
literature. The study recommends some easily available parameters
that should be included in the estimation of the soil properties to
improve the prediction models. It is shown that the use of friction
ration in the estimation of Φ and the use of fines content in the
estimation of E considerable improve the prediction models.
Abstract: Concrete is found to undergo degradation when
subjected to elevated temperatures and loose substantial amount of its
strength. The loss of strength in concrete is mainly attributed to
decomposition of C-S-H and release of physically and chemically
bound water, which begins when the exposure temperature exceeds
100°C. When such a concrete comes in contact with moisture, the
cement paste is found rehydrate and considerable amount of strength
lost is found to recover. This paper presents results of an
experimental program carried out to investigate the effect of recuring
on strength gain of OPC concrete specimens subjected to elevated
temperatures from 200°C to 800°C, which were subjected to
retention time of two hours and four hours at the designated
temperature. Strength recoveries for concrete subjected to 7
designated elevated temperatures are compared. It is found that the
efficacy of recuring as a measure of strength recovery reduces with
increase in exposure temperature.
Abstract: In this paper, an effective non-destructive, noninvasive
approach for leak detection was proposed. The process relies
on analyzing thermal images collected by an IR viewer device that
captures thermo-grams. In this study a statistical analysis of the
collected thermal images of the ground surface along the expected
leak location followed by a visual inspection of the thermo-grams
was performed in order to locate the leak. In order to verify the
applicability of the proposed approach the predicted leak location
from the developed approach was compared with the real leak
location. The results showed that the expected leak location was
successfully identified with an accuracy of more than 95%.
Abstract: The goal of image segmentation is to cluster pixels
into salient image regions. Segmentation could be used for object
recognition, occlusion boundary estimation within motion or stereo
systems, image compression, image editing, or image database lookup.
In this paper, we present a color image segmentation using
support vector machine (SVM) pixel classification. Firstly, the pixel
level color and texture features of the image are extracted and they
are used as input to the SVM classifier. These features are extracted
using the homogeneity model and Gabor Filter. With the extracted
pixel level features, the SVM Classifier is trained by using FCM
(Fuzzy C-Means).The image segmentation takes the advantage of
both the pixel level information of the image and also the ability of
the SVM Classifier. The Experiments show that the proposed method
has a very good segmentation result and a better efficiency, increases
the quality of the image segmentation compared with the other
segmentation methods proposed in the literature.
Abstract: Although there had been a many studies that shows
the impact of air pollution on physical health, comparatively less was
known of human behavioral responses and annoyance impacts.
Annoyance caused by air pollution is a public health problem because
it can be an ambient stressor causing stress and disease and can affect
quality of life. The objective of this work is to evaluate the
annoyance caused by air pollution in two different industrialized
urban areas, Dunkirk (France) and Vitoria (Brazil). The populations
of these cities often report feeling annoyed by dust. Surveys were
conducted, and the collected data were analyzed using statistical
analyses. The results show that sociodemographic variables,
importance of air quality, perceived industrial risk, perceived air
pollution and occurrence of health problems play important roles in
the perceived annoyance. These results show the existence of a
common problem in geographically distant areas and allow
stakeholders to develop prevention strategies.
Abstract: In this research (using induction furnace process)
nodular iron with three different percentages of copper (residual,
0.5% and 1,2%) was obtained. Chemical analysis was performed by
mass spectrometry and microstructures were characterized by Optical
Microscopy (ASTM E3) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).
The study of mechanical behavior was carried out in a mechanical
test machine (ASTM E8) and a Pin on disk tribometer (ASTM G99)
was used to assess wear resistance. It is observed that the dissolution
of copper in crystal lattice increases the pearlite structure improving
the wear and hardness behavior, but producing a contrary effect on
the energy absorption.
Abstract: Doxorubicin, also known as Adriamycin, is an
anthracycline class of drug used in cancer chemotherapy. It is used in
the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, acute
leukemia, breast cancer, lung cancer, endometrium cancer and ovary
cancers. It functions via intercalating DNA and ultimately killing
cancer cells. The major side effects of doxorubicin are hair loss,
myelosuppression, nausea & vomiting, oesophagitis, diarrhea, heart
damage and liver dysfunction. The minor modifications in the
structure of compound exhibit large variation in the biological
activity, has prompted us to carry out the synthesis of sulfonamide
derivatives. Sulfonamide is an important feature with broad spectrum
of biological activity such as antiviral, antifungal, diuretics, antiinflammatory,
antibacterial and anticancer activities. Structure of the
synthesized compound N-(1-methyl-2-oxo-2-N-methyl anilinoethyl)
benzene sulfonamide confirmed by proton nuclear magnetic
resonance (1H NMR),13C NMR, Mass and FTIR spectroscopic tools
to assure the position of all protons and hence stereochemistry of the
molecule. Further we have reported the binding potential of
synthesized sulfonamide analogues in comparison to doxorubicin
drug using Auto Dock 4.2 software. Computational binding energy
(B.E.) and inhibitory constant (Ki) has been evaluated for the
synthesized compound in comparison of doxorubicin against Poly
(dA-dT).Poly (dA-dT) and Poly (dG-dC).Poly (dG-dC) sequences.
The in vitro cytotoxic study against human breast cancer cell lines
confirms the better anticancer activity of the synthesized compound
over currently in use anticancer drug doxorubicin. The IC50 value of
the synthesized compound is 7.12 μM whereas for doxorubicin is 7.2
μM.
Abstract: As the economies of other countries in the
Mediterranean Basin, the tourism sector in our country has a high
denominator in economics. Tourism businesses, which are building
blocks of tourism, sector faces with a variety of problems during their
activities. These problems faced make business efficiency and
competition conditions of the businesses difficult. Most of the
problems faced by the tourism businesses and the information of
consumers about consumers’ rights were used in this study, which is
conducted to determine the problems of tourism businesses in the
Central Anatolia Region. It is aimed to contribute the awareness of
staff and executives working at tourism sector and to attract attention
of businesses active concurrently with tourism sector and legislators.
Abstract: The aim of research was to define the relations
between volatile compounds, some parameters (pH, titratable acidity
(TA), total soluble solid (TSS), lactic acid bacteria count) and
consumer preference of commercial fermented milks. These relations
tend to be used for controlling and developing new fermented milk
product. Three leading commercial brands of fermented milks in
Thailand were evaluated by consumers (n=71) using hedonic scale
for four attributes (sweetness, sourness, flavour, and overall liking),
volatile compounds using headspace-solid phase microextraction
(HS-SPME) GC-MS, pH, TA, TSS and LAB count. Then the
relations were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). The
PCA data showed that all of four attributes liking scores were related
to each other. They were also related to TA, TSS and volatile
compounds. The related volatile compounds were mainly on
fermented produced compounds including acetic acid, furanmethanol,
furfural, octanoic acid and the volatiles known as artificial fruit
flavour (beta pinene, limonene, vanillin, and ethyl vanillin). These
compounds were provided the information about flavour addition in
commercial fermented milk in Thailand.
Abstract: Operations, maintenance and reliability of wind
turbines have received much attention over the years due to the rapid
expansion of wind farms. This paper explores early fault diagnosis
technique for a 5MW wind turbine system subjected to multiple
faults, where genetic optimization algorithm is employed to make the
residual sensitive to the faults, but robust against disturbances. The
proposed technique has a potential to reduce the downtime mostly
caused by the breakdown of components and exploit the productivity
consistency by providing timely fault alarms. Simulation results show
the effectiveness of the robust fault detection methods used under
Matlab/Simulink/Gatool environment.
Abstract: The decision-making process is theoretically clearly
defined. Generally, it includes the problem identification and
analysis, data gathering, goals and criteria setting, alternatives
development and optimal alternative choice and its implementation.
In practice however, various modifications of the theoretical
decision-making process can occur. The managers can consider some
of the phases to be too complicated or unfeasible and thus they do not
carry them out and conversely some of the steps can be
overestimated.
The aim of the paper is to reveal and characterize the perception of
the individual phases of decision-making process by the managers.
The research is concerned with managers in the military environment
– commanders. Quantitative survey is focused cross-sectionally in the
individual levels of management of the Ministry of Defence of the
Czech Republic. On the total number of 135 respondents the analysis
focuses on which of the decision-making process phases are
problematic or not carried out in practice and which are again
perceived to be the easiest. Then it is examined the reasons of the
findings.
Abstract: This paper proposes a mathematical model and
examines the performance of an exact algorithm for a location–
transportation problems in humanitarian relief. The model determines
the number and location of distribution centers in a relief network,
the amount of relief supplies to be stocked at each distribution center
and the vehicles to take the supplies to meet the needs of disaster
victims under capacity restriction, transportation and budgetary
constraints. The computational experiments are conducted on the
various sizes of problems that are generated. Branch and bound
algorithm is applied for these problems. The results show that this
algorithm can solve problem sizes of up to three candidate locations
with five demand points and one candidate location with up to twenty
demand points without premature termination.
Abstract: In reference to the legal state in the Thai legal system,
most people understand the minor principles of the legal state form,
which are the principles that can be explained and understood easily
and the results can be seen clearly, especially in the legitimacy of
administrative acts. Therefore, there is no awareness of justice, which
is the fundamental value of Thai law. The legitimacy of administrative
acts requires the administration to adhere to the constitution and
legislative laws in enforcement of the laws. If it appears that the
administrative acts are illegitimate, the administrative court, as the
court of justice, will revoke those acts as if they had never been set in
the legal system, this will affect people’s trust as they are unaware as
to whether the administrative acts that appoint their lives are
legitimate or not. Regarding the revocation of administrative orders
by the administrative court as if those orders had never existed, the
common individual surely cannot be expected to comprehend the
security of their juristic position. Therefore, the legal state does not
require a revocation of the government’s acts to terminate its legal
results merely because those acts are illegitimate, but there should be
considerations and realizations regarding the “The Principle of the
Protection of Legitimate Expectation,” which is a minor principle in
the legal state’s content that focuses on supporting and protecting
legitimate expectations of the juristic position of an individual and
maintaining justice, which is the fundamental value of Thai law.
Abstract: Cement concrete is a complex mixture of different
materials. Behaviour of concrete depends on its mix proportions and
constituents when it is subjected to elevated temperatures. Principal
effects due to elevated temperatures are loss in compressive strength,
loss in weight or mass, change in colour and spall of concrete. The
experimental results of normal concrete and high strength concrete
subjected elevated temperatures at 200°C, 400°C, 600°C, and 800°C
and different cooling regimes viz. air cooling, water quenching on
different grade of concrete are reported in this paper.
Abstract: Conservation works in Malaysia that is procured by
public organisation usually follow the traditional approach where the
works are tendered based on Bills of Quantities (BQ). One of the
purposes of tendering is to enable the selection of a competent
contractor that offers a competitive price. While competency of the
contractors are assessed by their technical knowledge, experience and
track records, the assessment of pricing will be dependent on the
tender amount. However, the issue currently faced by the
conservation works sector is the difficulty in assessing the
competitiveness and reasonableness of the tender amount due to the
high variance between the tenders amount. Thus, this paper discusses
the factors that cause difficulty to the tenderers in pricing
competitively in a bidding exercise for conservation tenders. Data on
tendering is collected from interviews with conservation works
contractors to gain in-depth understanding of the barriers faced in
pricing tenders of conservation works. Findings from the study lent
support to the contention that the variance of tender amount is very
high amongst tenderers. The factors identified in the survey are the
format of BQ, hidden works, experience and labour and material
costs.