Abstract: In this paper a new methodology for vendor selection
and supply quotas determination (VSSQD) is proposed. The problem
of VSSQD is solved by the model that combines revised weighting
method for determining the objective function coefficients, and a
multiple objective linear programming (MOLP) method based on the
cooperative game theory for VSSQD. The criteria used for VSSQD
are: (1) purchase costs and (2) product quality supplied by individual
vendors. The proposed methodology has been tested on the example
of flour purchase for a bakery with two decision makers.
Abstract: Socio-economic development, which is seen around
the world today, has contributed to the emergence of new problems
of a social nature. Different political, historical, geographical or
economic conditions cause that, in addition to global issues of social
policy such as an aging population, unemployment, migration,
countries, regions, there are also specific new problems that require
diagnosis, individualized approach and efficient, planned solutions.
These should include, among others, digital addiction, peer violence,
obesity among children, the problem of ‘legal highs’, stress,
depression, diseases associated with environmental pollution etc. The
central authorities, selected most often with the tools specific to
representative democracy, that is, the general election, for many
reasons, inter alia, organizational, communication, are not able to
effectively diagnose their intensity, territorial distribution, and thus to
effectively fight them. This article aims to show how in Poland,
citizens influence solving problems related to the broader social
policy implemented at the local government level and indicates the
possibilities of improving those solutions. The conclusions of
theoretical analysis have been supported by empirical studies, which
tested the use of instruments of participatory democracy in the
planning and creation of communal strategies for solving social
problems in one of the Polish voivodeships.
Abstract: In recent years a new method of combination
treatment for cancer has been developed and studied that has led to
significant advancements in the field of cancer therapy. Hyperthermia
is a traditional therapy that, along with a creation of a medically
approved level of heat with the help of an alternating magnetic AC
current, results in the destruction of cancer cells by heat. This paper
gives details regarding the production of the spherical nanocomposite
PVA/γ-Fe2O3 in order to be used for medical purposes such as tumor
treatment by hyperthermia. To reach a suitable and evenly distributed
temperature, the nanocomposite with core-shell morphology and
spherical form within a 100 to 200 nanometer size was created using
phase separation emulsion, in which the magnetic nano-particles γ-
Fe2O3 with an average particle size of 20 nano-meters and with
different percentages of 0.2, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 were covered by
polyvinyl alcohol. The main concern in hyperthermia and heat
treatment is achieving desirable specific absorption rate (SAR) and
one of the most critical factors in SAR is particle size. In this project
all attempts has been done to reach minimal size and consequently
maximum SAR. The morphological analysis of the spherical
structure of the nanocomposite PVA/γ-Fe2O3 was achieved by SEM
analyses and the study of the chemical bonds created was made
possible by FTIR analysis. To investigate the manner of magnetic
nanocomposite particle size distribution a DLS experiment was
conducted. Moreover, to determine the magnetic behavior of the γ-
Fe2O3 particle and the nanocomposite PVA/γ-Fe2O3 in different
concentrations a VSM test was conducted. To sum up, creating
magnetic nanocomposites with a spherical morphology that would be
employed for drug loading opens doors to new approaches in
developing nanocomposites that provide efficient heat and a
controlled release of drug simultaneously inside the magnetic field,
which are among their positive characteristics that could significantly
improve the recovery process in patients.
Abstract: This paper describes the main features of a knowledge-based system evaluation method. System evaluation is placed in the context of a hybrid legal decision-support system, Advisory Support for Home Settlement in Divorce (ASHSD). Legal knowledge for ASHSD is represented in two forms, as rules and previously decided cases. Besides distinguishing the two different forms of knowledge representation, the paper outlines the actual use of these forms in a computational framework that is designed to generate a plausible solution for a given case, by using rule-based reasoning (RBR) and case-based reasoning (CBR) in an integrated environment. The nature of suitability assessment of a solution has been considered as a multiple criteria decision-making process in ASHAD evaluation. The evaluation was performed by a combination of discussions and questionnaires with different user groups. The answers to questionnaires used in this evaluations method have been measured as a fuzzy linguistic term. The finding suggests that fuzzy linguistic evaluation is practical and meaningful in knowledge-based system development purpose.
Abstract: In this paper, we proposed a novel SCR (Silicon Controlled
Rectifier) - based ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) protection device for I/O
and power clamp. The proposed device has a higher holding voltage
characteristic than conventional SCR. These characteristics enable to have
latch-up immunity under normal operating conditions as well as superior full
chip ESD protection. The proposed device was analyzed to figure out
electrical characteristics and tolerance robustness in term of individual
design parameters (D1, D2, D3). They are investigated by using the
Synopsys TCAD simulator. As a result of simulation, holding voltage
increased with different design parameters. The holding voltage of the
proposed device changes from 3.3V to 7.9V. Also, N-Stack structure ESD
device with the high holding voltage is proposed. In the simulation results,
2-stack has holding voltage of 6.8V and 3-stack has holding voltage of
10.5V. The simulation results show that holding voltage of stacking
structure can be larger than the operation voltage of high-voltage
application.
Abstract: This paper presents an experimental study on
structural performance of an innovative noise barrier consisting of
poly-block, light polyurethane foam (LPF) and polyurea. This wall
system (flexi-wall) is intended to be employed as a vertical extension
to existing sound barriers in an accelerated construction method. To
aid in the wall design, several mechanical tests were conducted on
LPF specimens and two full-scale walls were then fabricated
employing the same LPF material. The full-scale walls were
subjected to lateral loading in order to establish their lateral
resistance. A cyclic fatigue test was also performed on a full-scale
flexi-wall in order to evaluate the performance of the wall under a
repetitive loading condition. The result of the experiments indicated
the suitability of flexi-wall in accelerated construction and confirmed
that the structural performance of the wall system under lateral
loading is satisfactory for the sound barrier application. The
experimental results were discussed and a preliminary design
procedure for application of flexi-wall in sound barrier applications
was also developed.
Abstract: Construction and reconstruction of settlements and
individual municipalities, environmental management and the
creation, deployment of the forces of production and building
transport and technical equipment requires a large expenditure of
material and human resources. That is why the economic aspects of
the majority decision in these planes built in the foreground and are
often decisive. Thereby but more serious is that the economic aspects
of the settlement, the creation and function remain in their whole,
unprocessed, and cannot speak of a set of individual techniques and
methods traditional indicators and experiments with new approaches.
This is true both at the level of the national economy, and in their
own urban designs. Still a few remain identified specific economic
shaping patterns of settlement and the less it is possible to speak of
their control. Also practical assessing economics of specific solutions
are often used non-apt indicators in addition to economics usually
identifies with the lowest acquisition cost or high-intensity land use
with little regard for functional efficiency and little studied much
higher operating and maintenance costs".
Abstract: Biodiesel, as an alternative renewable fuel, has been
receiving increasing attention due to the limited supply of fossil fuels
and the increasing need for energy. Microalgae are promising source
for lipids, which can be converted to biodiesel. The biodiesel
production from microalgae lipids using lipase catalyzed reaction in
supercritical CO2 medium has several advantages over conventional
production processes. However, identifying the optimum microalgae
lipid extraction and transesterification conditions is still a challenge.
In this study, the quality of biodiesel produced from lipids extracted
from Scenedesmus sp. and their enzymatic transesterification using
supercritical carbon dioxide have been investigated. At the optimum
conditions, the highest biodiesel production yield was found to be
82%. The fuel properties of the produced biodiesel, without any
separation step, at optimum reaction condition, were determined and
compared to ASTM standards. The properties were found to comply
with the limits, and showed a low glycerol content, without any
separation step.
Abstract: The legality of some countries or agencies’ acts to spy
on personal phone calls of the public became a hot topic to many
social groups’ talks. It is believed that this act is considered an
invasion to someone’s privacy. Such act may be justified if it is
singling out specific cases but to spy without limits is very
unacceptable. This paper discusses the needs for not only a simple
and light weight technique to secure mobile voice calls but also a
technique that is independent from any encryption standard or library.
It then presents and tests one encrypting algorithm that is based of
Frequency scrambling technique to show fair and delay-free process
that can be used to protect phone calls from such spying acts.
Abstract: Adopting Most Advantageous Tender (MAT) for the
government procurement projects has become popular in Taiwan. As
time pass by, the problems of MAT has appeared gradually. People
condemn two points that are the result might be manipulated by a
single committee member’s partiality and how to make a fair decision
when the winner has two or more. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
proposed that the best scoring method should meet the four reasonable
criteria. According to these four criteria this paper constructed an
“Illegitimate Scores Checking Scheme” for a scoring method and used
the scheme to find out the illegitimate of the current evaluation method
of MAT. This paper also proposed a new scoring method that is called
the “Standardizing Overall Evaluated Score Method”. This method
makes each committee member’s influence tend to be identical. Thus,
the committee members can scoring freely according to their partiality
without losing the fairness. Finally, it was examined by a large-scale
simulation, and the experiment revealed that the it improved the
problem of dictatorship and perfectly avoided the situation of cyclical
majorities, simultaneously. This result verified that the Standardizing
Overall Evaluated Score Method is better than any current evaluation
method of MAT.
Abstract: Radial profiles of particle velocities were investigated
in a 6.1m high methanol-to-olefins cold model experimental device
using a TSI laser Doppler velocimeter. The effect of axial height on
flow development was not obvious in fully developed region under the
same operating condition. Superficial gas velocity and solid
circulating rate had significant influence on particle velocity in the
center region of the riser. Besides, comparisons among rising,
descending and average particle velocity were conducted. The particle
average velocity was similar to the rising particle velocity and higher
than the descending particle velocity in radial locations except the wall
region of riser.
Abstract: The notion of power and gender domination is one of
the inseparable aspects of themes in postmodern literature. The
reason of its importance has been discussed frequently since the rise
of Michel Foucault and his insight into the circulation of power and
the transgression of forces. Language and society operate as the basic
grounds for the study, as all human beings are bound to the set of
rules and norms which shape them in the acceptable way in the
macrocosm. How different genders in different positions behave and
show reactions to the provocation of social forces and superiority of
one another is of great interest to writers and literary critics. Mamet’s
works are noticeable for their controversial but timely themes which
illustrate human conflicts with the society and greed for power. Many
critics like Christopher Bigsby and Harold Bloom have discussed
Mamet and his ideas in recent years. This paper is the study of
Oleanna, Mamet’s masterpiece about the teacher-student relationship
and the circulation of power between a man and woman. He shows
the very breakable boundaries in the domination of a gender and the
downfall of speech as the consequence of transgression and freedom.
The failure of the language the teacher uses and the abuse of his own
words by a student who seeks superiority and knowledge are the
main subjects of the discussion. Supported by the ideas of Foucault,
the language Mamet uses to present his characters becomes the
fundamental premise in this study. As a result, language becomes
both the means of achievement and downfall.
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.
Abstract: Floorplanning plays a vital role in the physical design
process of Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) chips. It is an
essential design step to estimate the chip area prior to the optimized
placement of digital blocks and their interconnections. Since VLSI
floorplanning is an NP-hard problem, many optimization techniques
were adopted in the literature. In this work, a music-inspired
Harmony Search (HS) algorithm is used for the fixed die outline
constrained floorplanning, with the aim of reducing the total chip
area. HS draws inspiration from the musical improvisation process of
searching for a perfect state of harmony. Initially, B*-tree is used to
generate the primary floorplan for the given rectangular hard
modules and then HS algorithm is applied to obtain an optimal
solution for the efficient floorplan. The experimental results of the
HS algorithm are obtained for the MCNC benchmark circuits.
Abstract: This paper presents an application of a “Systematic
Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a soft systems approach
to domain-driven design of information systems development. The
framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have
embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to
the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects
framework. This framework have been used in action research
projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of
business processes using object-oriented domain models and the
implementation of software systems based on those domain models.
Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as
a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to
develop the domain model using UML for the given business
domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous
works, and a real case study “Information Retrieval System for
academic research” is used, in this paper, to show further practice and
evaluation of the framework in different business domain. We argue
that there are advantages from combining and using techniques from
different methodologies in this way for business domain modelling.
The framework is overviewed and justified as multimethodology
using Mingers multimethodology ideas.
Abstract: In this paper, we investigated the athermal pressure
behavior of the structural and elastic properties of scheelite BaWO4
phase up to 7 GPa using the ab initio pseudo-potential method. The
calculated lattice parameters pressure relation have been compared
with the experimental values and found to be in good agreement with
these results. Moreover, we present for the first time the investigation
of the elastic properties of this compound using the density functional
perturbation theory (DFPT). It is shown that this phase is
mechanically stable up to 7 GPa after analyzing the calculated elastic
constants. Other relevant quantities such as bulk modulus, pressure
derivative of bulk modulus, shear modulus; Young’s modulus,
Poisson’s ratio, anisotropy factors, Debye temperature and sound
velocity have been calculated. The obtained results, which are
reported for the first time to the best of the author’s knowledge, can
facilitate assessment of possible applications of the title material.
Abstract: In this study free vibration analysis of aluminum
honeycomb sandwich structures were carried out experimentally and
numerically. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of sandwich
structures fabricated with different configurations for clamped-free
boundary condition were determined. The effects of lower and upper
face sheet thickness, the core material thickness, cell diameter, cell
angle and foil thickness on the vibration characteristics were
examined. The numerical studies were performed with ANSYS
package. While the sandwich structures were modeled in ANSYS the
continuum model was used. Later, the numerical results were
compared with the experimental findings.
Abstract: The future and the development of science is therefore
seen in interdisciplinary areas such as biomedical engineering. Selfassembled
structures, similar to stem cell niches would inhibit fast
division process and subsequently capture the stem cells from the
blood flow. By means of surface topography and the stiffness as well
as microstructure progenitor cells should be differentiated towards
the formation of endothelial cells monolayer which effectively will
inhibit activation of the coagulation cascade. The idea of the material
surface development met the interest of the clinical institutions,
which support the development of science in this area and are waiting
for scientific solutions that could contribute to the development of
heart assist systems. This would improve the efficiency of the
treatment of patients with myocardial failure, supported with artificial
heart assist systems. Innovative materials would enable the redesign,
in the post project activity, construction of ventricular heart assist.
Abstract: This paper proposed the comparison made between
Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation, Sinusoidal Pulse Width
Modulation and Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width
Modulation technique for minimization of Total Harmonic Distortion
in Cascaded H-Bridge Multi-Level Inverter. In Multicarrier Pulse
Width Modulation method by using Alternate Position of Disposition
scheme for switching pulse generation to Multi-Level Inverter.
Another carrier based approach; Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation
method is also implemented to define the switching pulse generation
system in the multi-level inverter. In Selective Harmonic Elimination
method using Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization
algorithm for define the required switching angles to eliminate low
order harmonics from the inverter output voltage waveform and
reduce the total harmonic distortion value. So, the results validate that
the Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation method
does capably eliminate a great number of precise harmonics and
minimize the Total Harmonic Distortion value in output voltage
waveform in compared with Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation
method, Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation method. In this paper,
comparison of simulation results shows that the Selective Harmonic
Elimination method can attain optimal harmonic minimization
solution better than Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation method,
Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation method.
Abstract: In addition to environmental parameters like rain,
temperature diseases on crop is a major factor which affects
production quality & quantity of crop yield. Hence disease
management is a key issue in agriculture. For the management of
disease, it needs to be detected at early stage. So, treat it properly &
control spread of the disease. Now a day, it is possible to use the
images of diseased leaf to detect the type of disease by using image
processing techniques. This can be achieved by extracting features
from the images which can be further used with classification
algorithms or content based image retrieval systems. In this paper,
color image is used to extract the features such as mean and standard
deviation after the process of region cropping. The selected features
are taken from the cropped image with different image size samples.
Then, the extracted features are taken in to the account for
classification using Fuzzy Inference System (FIS).