Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to consider the
introduction of online courses to replace the current classroom-based
staff training. The current training is practical, and must be
completed before access to the financial computer system is
authorized. The long term objective is to measure the efficacy,
effectiveness and efficiency of the training, and to establish whether
a transfer of knowledge back to the workplace has occurred. This
paper begins with an overview explaining the importance of staff
training in an evolving, competitive business environment and
defines the problem facing this particular organization. A summary
of the literature review is followed by a brief discussion of the
research methodology and objective. The implementation of the
alpha version of the online course is then described. This paper may
be of interest to those seeking insights into, or new theory regarding,
practical interventions of online learning in the real world.
Abstract: How to effectively allocate system resource to process
the Client request by Gateway servers is a challenging problem. In
this paper, we propose an improved scheme for autonomous
performance of Gateway servers under highly dynamic traffic loads.
We devise a methodology to calculate Queue Length and Waiting
Time utilizing Gateway Server information to reduce response time
variance in presence of bursty traffic. The most widespread
contemplation is performance, because Gateway Servers must offer
cost-effective and high-availability services in the elongated period,
thus they have to be scaled to meet the expected load. Performance
measurements can be the base for performance modeling and
prediction. With the help of performance models, the performance
metrics (like buffer estimation, waiting time) can be determined at
the development process. This paper describes the possible queue
models those can be applied in the estimation of queue length to
estimate the final value of the memory size. Both simulation and
experimental studies using synthesized workloads and analysis of
real-world Gateway Servers demonstrate the effectiveness of the
proposed system.
Abstract: The increasing competitiveness in manufacturing
industry is forcing manufacturers to seek effective processing
schedules. The paper presents an optimization manufacture
scheduling approach for dependent details processing with given
processing sequences and times on multiple machines. By defining
decision variables as start and end moments of details processing it is
possible to use straightforward variables restrictions to satisfy
different technological requirements and to formulate easy to
understand and solve optimization tasks for multiple numbers of
details and machines. A case study example is solved for seven base
moldings for CNC metalworking machines processed on five
different machines with given processing order among details and
machines and known processing time-s duration. As a result of linear
optimization task solution the optimal manufacturing schedule
minimizing the overall processing time is obtained. The
manufacturing schedule defines the moments of moldings delivery
thus minimizing storage costs and provides mounting due-time
satisfaction. The proposed optimization approach is based on real
manufacturing plant problem. Different processing schedules variants
for different technological restrictions were defined and implemented
in the practice of Bulgarian company RAIS Ltd. The proposed
approach could be generalized for other job shop scheduling
problems for different applications.
Abstract: In recent years, many researches to mine the exploding Web world, especially User Generated Content (UGC) such as
weblogs, for knowledge about various phenomena and events in the physical world have been done actively, and also Web services
with the Web-mined knowledge have begun to be developed for
the public. However, there are few detailed investigations on how accurately Web-mined data reflect physical-world data. It must be
problematic to idolatrously utilize the Web-mined data in public Web services without ensuring their accuracy sufficiently. Therefore,
this paper introduces the simplest Web Sensor and spatiotemporallynormalized
Web Sensor to extract spatiotemporal data about a target
phenomenon from weblogs searched by keyword(s) representing the
target phenomenon, and tries to validate the potential and reliability of the Web-sensed spatiotemporal data by four kinds of granularity
analyses of coefficient correlation with temperature, rainfall, snowfall,
and earthquake statistics per day by region of Japan Meteorological
Agency as physical-world data: spatial granularity (region-s population
density), temporal granularity (time period, e.g., per day vs. per week), representation granularity (e.g., “rain" vs. “heavy rain"), and
media granularity (weblogs vs. microblogs such as Tweets).
Abstract: This research explorers the relationship between leadership style and continuous improvement (CI) teams. CI teams have several features that are not always found in other types of teams, including multi-functional members, short time period for performance, positive and actionable results, and exposure to senior leadership. There is no one best style of leadership for these teams. Instead, it is important to select the best leadership style for the situation. The leader must have the flexibility to change styles and the skill to use the chosen style effectively in order to ensure the team’s success.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the self and
decision making levels of students receiving education in schools of
physical training and sports. The population of the study consisted
258 students, among which 152 were male and 106 were female
( X age=19,3713 + 1,6968), that received education in the schools of
physical education and sports of Selcuk University, Inonu University,
Gazi University and Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University. In order to
achieve the purpose of the study, the Melbourne Decision Making
Questionnary developed by Mann et al. (1998) [1] and adapted to
Turkish by Deniz (2004) [2] and the Self-Esteem Scale developed by
Aricak (1999) [3] was utilized. For analyzing and interpreting data
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, t-test and one way anova test were used,
while for determining the difference between the groups Tukey test
and Multiple Linear Regression test were employed and significance
was accepted at P
Abstract: Models are placed by modeling paradigm at the center of development process. These models are represented by languages, like UML the language standardized by the OMG which became necessary for development. Moreover the ontology engineering paradigm places ontologies at the center of development process; in this paradigm we find OWL the principal language for knowledge representation. Building ontologies from scratch is generally a difficult task. The bridging between UML and OWL appeared on several regards such as the classes and associations. In this paper, we have to profit from convergence between UML and OWL to propose an approach based on Meta-Modelling and Graph Grammars and registered in the MDA architecture for the automatic generation of OWL ontologies from UML class diagrams. The transformation is based on transformation rules; the level of abstraction in these rules is close to the application in order to have usable ontologies. We illustrate this approach by an example.
Abstract: In this paper, fluid flow patterns of steady incompressible flow inside shear driven cavity are studied. The numerical simulations are conducted by using lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for different Reynolds numbers. In order to simulate the flow, derivation of macroscopic hydrodynamics equations from the continuous Boltzmann equation need to be performed. Then, the numerical results of shear-driven flow inside square and triangular cavity are compared with results found in literature review. Present study found that flow patterns are affected by the geometry of the cavity and the Reynolds numbers used.
Abstract: Appropriate description of business processes through
standard notations has become one of the most important assets for
organizations. Organizations must therefore deal with quality faults
in business process models such as the lack of understandability and
modifiability. These quality faults may be exacerbated if business
process models are mined by reverse engineering, e.g., from existing
information systems that support those business processes. Hence,
business process refactoring is often used, which change the internal
structure of business processes whilst its external behavior is
preserved. This paper aims to choose the most appropriate set of
refactoring operators through the quality assessment concerning
understandability and modifiability. These quality features are
assessed through well-proven measures proposed in the literature.
Additionally, a set of measure thresholds are heuristically established
for applying the most promising refactoring operators, i.e., those that
achieve the highest quality improvement according to the selected
measures in each case.
Abstract: Rice husk is one of the alternative fuels for Thailand because of its high potential and environmental benefits. Nonetheless, the environmental profile of the electricity production from rice husk must be assessed to ensure reduced environmental damage. A 10 MW pilot plant using rice husk as feedstock is the study site. The environmental impacts from rice husk power plant are evaluated by using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. Energy, material and carbon balances have been determined for tracing the system flow. Carbon closure has been used for describing of the net amount of CO2 released from the system in relation to the amount being recycled between the power plant and the CO2 adsorbed by rice husk. The transportation of rice husk to the power plant has significant on global warming, but not on acidification and photo-oxidant formation. The results showed that the impact potentials from rice husk power plant are lesser than the conventional plants for most of the categories considered; except the photo-oxidant formation potential from CO. The high CO from rice husk power plant may be due to low boiler efficiency and high moisture content in rice husk. The performance of the study site can be enhanced by improving the combustion efficiency.
Abstract: The POD-assisted projective integration method based on the equation-free framework is presented in this paper. The method is essentially based on the slow manifold governing of given system. We have applied two variants which are the “on-line" and “off-line" methods for solving the one-dimensional viscous Bergers- equation. For the on-line method, we have computed the slow manifold by extracting the POD modes and used them on-the-fly along the projective integration process without assuming knowledge of the underlying slow manifold. In contrast, the underlying slow manifold must be computed prior to the projective integration process for the off-line method. The projective step is performed by the forward Euler method. Numerical experiments show that for the case of nonperiodic system, the on-line method is more efficient than the off-line method. Besides, the online approach is more realistic when apply the POD-assisted projective integration method to solve any systems. The critical value of the projective time step which directly limits the efficiency of both methods is also shown.
Abstract: This conference paper discusses a risk allocation problem for subprime investing banks involving investment in subprime structured mortgage products (SMPs) and Treasuries. In order to solve this problem, we develop a L'evy process-based model of jump diffusion-type for investment choice in subprime SMPs and Treasuries. This model incorporates subprime SMP losses for which credit default insurance in the form of credit default swaps (CDSs) can be purchased. In essence, we solve a mean swap-at-risk (SaR) optimization problem for investment which determines optimal allocation between SMPs and Treasuries subject to credit risk protection via CDSs. In this regard, SaR is indicative of how much protection investors must purchase from swap protection sellers in order to cover possible losses from SMP default. Here, SaR is defined in terms of value-at-risk (VaR). Finally, we provide an analysis of the aforementioned optimization problem and its connections with the subprime mortgage crisis (SMC).
Abstract: A mobile agent is a software which performs an
action autonomously and independently as a person or an
organizations assistance. Mobile agents are used for searching
information, retrieval information, filtering, intruder recognition in
networks, and so on. One of the important issues of mobile agent is
their security. It must consider different security issues in effective
and secured usage of mobile agent. One of those issues is the
integrity-s protection of mobile agents.
In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of each method,
after reviewing the existing methods, is examined. Regarding to this
matter that each method has its own advantage or disadvantage, it
seems that by combining these methods, one can reach to a better
method for protecting the integrity of mobile agents. Therefore, this
method is provided in this paper and then is evaluated in terms of
existing method. Finally, this method is simulated and its results are
the sign of improving the possibility of integrity-s protection of
mobile agents.
Abstract: In this study, the existence and uniqueness of the solution of a nonlinear singular integral equation that is defined on a region in the complex plane is proven and a method is given for finding the solution.
Abstract: The production of a plant can be measured in terms of
seeds. The generation of seeds plays a critical role in our social and
daily life. The fruit production which generates seeds, depends on the
various parameters of the plant, such as shoot length, leaf number,
root length, root number, etc When the plant is growing, some leaves
may be lost and some new leaves may appear. It is very difficult to
use the number of leaves of the tree to calculate the growth of the
plant.. It is also cumbersome to measure the number of roots and
length of growth of root in several time instances continuously after
certain initial period of time, because roots grow deeper and deeper
under ground in course of time. On the contrary, the shoot length of
the tree grows in course of time which can be measured in different
time instances. So the growth of the plant can be measured using the
data of shoot length which are measured at different time instances
after plantation. The environmental parameters like temperature, rain
fall, humidity and pollution are also play some role in production of
yield. The soil, crop and distance management are taken care to
produce maximum amount of yields of plant. The data of the growth
of shoot length of some mustard plant at the initial stage (7,14,21 &
28 days after plantation) is available from the statistical survey by a
group of scientists under the supervision of Prof. Dilip De. In this
paper, initial shoot length of Ken( one type of mustard plant) has
been used as an initial data. The statistical models, the methods of
fuzzy logic and neural network have been tested on this mustard
plant and based on error analysis (calculation of average error) that
model with minimum error has been selected and can be used for the
assessment of shoot length at maturity. Finally, all these methods
have been tested with other type of mustard plants and the particular
soft computing model with the minimum error of all types has been
selected for calculating the predicted data of growth of shoot length.
The shoot length at the stage of maturity of all types of mustard
plants has been calculated using the statistical method on the
predicted data of shoot length.
Abstract: The use of artificial neural network (ANN) modeling
for prediction and forecasting variables in water resources
engineering are being increasing rapidly. Infrastructural applications
of ANN in terms of selection of inputs, architecture of networks,
training algorithms, and selection of training parameters in different
types of neural networks used in water resources engineering have
been reported. ANN modeling conducted for water resources
engineering variables (river sediment and discharge) published in
high impact journals since 2002 to 2011 have been examined and
presented in this review. ANN is a vigorous technique to develop
immense relationship between the input and output variables, and
able to extract complex behavior between the water resources
variables such as river sediment and discharge. It can produce robust
prediction results for many of the water resources engineering
problems by appropriate learning from a set of examples. It is
important to have a good understanding of the input and output
variables from a statistical analysis of the data before network
modeling, which can facilitate to design an efficient network. An
appropriate training based ANN model is able to adopt the physical
understanding between the variables and may generate more effective
results than conventional prediction techniques.
Abstract: With the exponential progress of technological
development comes a strong sense that events are moving too quickly
for our schools and that teachers may be losing control of them in the
process. This paper examines the impact of e-learning and e-teaching
in universities, from both the student and teacher perspective. In
particular, it is shown that e-teachers should focus not only on the
technical capacities and functions of IT materials and activities, but
must attempt to more fully understand how their e-learners perceive
the learning environment. From the e-learner perspective, this paper
indicates that simply having IT tools available does not automatically
translate into all students becoming effective learners. More
evidence-based evaluative research is needed to allow e-learning and
e-teaching to reach full potential.
Abstract: As business environments are rapidly changing,
the manufacturing system must be reconfigured to adapt to
various customer needs. In order to cope with this challenge, it
is quintessential to test industrial control logic rapidly and
easily in the design time, and monitor operational behavior in
the run time of automated manufacturing system. Proposed
integrated model for virtual prototyping and operational
monitoring of industrial control logic is to improve limitations
of current ladder programming practices and general discrete
event simulation method. Each plant layout model using HMI
package and object-oriented control logic model is designed
independently and is executed simultaneously in integrated
manner to reflect design practices of automation system in the
design time. Control logic is designed and executed using UML
activity diagram without considering complicated control
behavior to deal with current trend of reconfigurable
manufacturing. After the physical installation, layout model of
virtual prototype constructed in the design time is reused for
operational monitoring of system behavior during run time.
Abstract: This paper aims at presenting the biotechnology used
to obtain collagen-based gels from shark (Squalus acanthias) and brill
skin, marine fish growing in the Black Sea. Due to the structure of its
micro-fibres, collagen can be considered a nanomaterial; in order to
use collagen-based matrixes as biomaterial, rheological studies must
be performed first, to state whether they are stable or not. For the
triple-helix structure to remain stable within these gels at room or
human body temperature, they must be stabilized by reticulation.
Abstract: Undoubtedly, chassis is one of the most important
parts of a vehicle. Chassis that today are produced for vehicles are
made up of four parts. These parts are jointed together by screwing.
Transverse parts are called cross member.
This study reviews the stress generated by cyclic laboratory loads
in front cross member of Peugeot 405. In this paper the finite element
method is used to simulate the welding process and to determine the
physical response of the spot-welded joints. Analysis is done by the
Abaqus software.
The Stresses generated in cross member structure are generally
classified into two groups: The stresses remained in form of residual
stresses after welding process and the mechanical stress generated by
cyclic load. Accordingly the total stress must be obtained by
determining residual stress and mechanical stress separately and then
sum them according to the superposition principle.
In order to improve accuracy, material properties including
physical, thermal and mechanical properties were supposed to be
temperature-dependent. Simulation shows that maximum Von Misses
stresses are located at special points. The model results are then
compared to the experimental results which are reported by
producing factory and good agreement is observed.