Abstract: purpose of this study was to investigate the current status of support services for students with special education needs (SEN) at colleges and universities in Taiwan. Seventy-two college and universities received a questionnaire on its resource room operation process and four resource room staffs each from different areas were interviewed through semi- structured interview forms. The main findings were (1) most colleges and universities did offer sufficient administrative resources; (2) more efforts on preventions for SEN students and establishment of disability awareness should be made for all campus faculties ; (3) more comprehensive services were required to help students to have better transition into post-school life; (4) most schools provided basic administrative resource requirements but qualities of the resource room programs needed to be enhanced; and (5) most resource room staffs lacked of professional knowledge in counseling the SEN students which needed to be strengthened in the future.
Abstract: In this paper, a benchmarking framework is presented
for the performance assessment of irrigations systems. Firstly, a data
envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to measure the technical
efficiency of irrigation systems. This method, based on linear
programming, aims to determine a consistent efficiency ranking of
irrigation systems in which known inputs, such as water volume
supplied and total irrigated area, and a given output corresponding to
the total value of irrigation production are taken into account
simultaneously. Secondly, in order to examine the irrigation
efficiency in more detail, a cross – system comparison is elaborated
using a performance indicators set selected by IWMI. The above
methodologies were applied in Thessaloniki plain, located in
Northern Greece while the results of the application are presented and
discussed. The conjunctive use of DEA and performance indicators
seems to be a very useful tool for efficiency assessment and
identification of best practices in irrigation systems management.
Abstract: Hydrothermally synthesized high silica borosilicates
with the MFI structure was subjected to several characterization
techniques. The effect of boron on the structure and acidity of
HZSM-5 catalyst were studied by XRD, SEM, N2 adsorption, solid
state NMR, NH3-TPD. It was confirmed that boron had entered the
framework in the boron samples. The results also revealed that strong
acidity was weakened and weak acidity was strengthened by the
boron added zeolite framework compared with parent catalyst. The
catalytic performance was carried out in a fixed bed at 460°C for
methanol to propylene (MTP) reaction. The results of MTP reaction
showed a great increment of the propylene selectivity and excellent
stability for the B-HZSM-5. The catalyst exhibited about 81%
selectivity to C2
= - C4
= olefins with 40% selectivity of propylene as
major component at near 100% methanol conversion, and the stable
performance in the studied period was 100h.
Abstract: Experimental data from an atmospheric air/water terrain slugging case has been made available by the Shell Amsterdam research center, and has been subject to numerical simulation and comparison with a one-dimensional two-phase slug tracking simulator under development at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The code is based on tracking of liquid slugs in pipelines by use of a Lagrangian grid formulation implemented in Cµ by use of object oriented techniques. An existing hybrid spatial discretization scheme is tested, in which the stratified regions are modelled by the two-fluid model. The slug regions are treated incompressible, thus requiring a single momentum balance over the whole slug. Upon comparison with the experimental data, the period of the simulated severe slugging cycle is observed to be sensitive to slug generation in the horizontal parts of the system. Two different slug initiation methods have been tested with the slug tracking code, and grid dependency has been investigated.
Abstract: The design of Automatic Generation Control (AGC) system plays a vital role in automation of power system. This paper proposes Hybrid Neuro Fuzzy (HNF) approach for AGC of two-area interconnected reheat thermal power system with the consideration of Generation Rate Constraint (GRC). The advantage of proposed controller is that it can handle the system non-linearities and at the same time the proposed approach is faster than conventional controllers. The performance of HNF controller has been compared with that of both conventional Proportional Integral (PI) controller as well as Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) both in the absence and presence of Generation Rate Constraint (GRC). System performance is examined considering disturbance in each area of interconnected power system.
Abstract: The review performed on the condition of energy
consumption & rate in Iran, shows that unfortunately the subject of
optimization and conservation of energy in active industries of
country lacks a practical & effective method and in most factories,
the energy consumption and rate is more than in similar industries of
industrial countries. The increasing demand of electrical energy and
the overheads which it imposes on the organization, forces
companies to search for suitable approaches to optimize energy
consumption and demand management. Application of value
engineering techniques is among these approaches. Value
engineering is considered a powerful tool for improving profitability.
These tools are used for reduction of expenses, increasing profits,
quality improvement, increasing market share, performing works in
shorter durations, more efficient utilization of sources & etc.
In this article, we shall review the subject of value engineering and
its capabilities for creating effective transformations in industrial
organizations, in order to reduce energy costs & the results have
been investigated and described during a case study in Mazandaran
wood and paper industries, the biggest consumer of energy in north
of Iran, for the purpose of presenting the effects of performed tasks
in optimization of energy consumption by utilizing value engineering
techniques in one case study.
Abstract: The paper presents an approach for handling uncertain
information in deductive databases using multivalued logics. Uncertainty
means that database facts may be assigned logical values other
than the conventional ones - true and false. The logical values represent
various degrees of truth, which may be combined and propagated
by applying the database rules. A corresponding multivalued database
semantics is defined. We show that it extends successful conventional
semantics as the well-founded semantics, and has a polynomial time
data complexity.
Abstract: Decision fusion is one of hot research topics in
classification area, which aims to achieve the best possible
performance for the task at hand. In this paper, we
investigate the usefulness of this concept to improve change
detection accuracy in remote sensing. Thereby, outputs of
two fuzzy change detectors based respectively on
simultaneous and comparative analysis of multitemporal
data are fused by using fuzzy integral operators. This
method fuses the objective evidences produced by the
change detectors with respect to fuzzy measures that express
the difference of performance between them. The proposed
fusion framework is evaluated in comparison with some
ordinary fuzzy aggregation operators. Experiments carried
out on two SPOT images showed that the fuzzy integral was
the best performing. It improves the change detection
accuracy while attempting to equalize the accuracy rate in
both change and no change classes.
Abstract: Effective knowledge support relies on providing
operation-relevant knowledge to workers promptly and accurately. A
knowledge flow represents an individual-s or a group-s
knowledge-needs and referencing behavior of codified knowledge
during operation performance. The flow has been utilized to facilitate
organizational knowledge support by illustrating workers-
knowledge-needs systematically and precisely. However,
conventional knowledge-flow models cannot work well in cooperative
teams, which team members usually have diverse knowledge-needs in
terms of roles. The reason is that those models only provide one single
view to all participants and do not reflect individual knowledge-needs
in flows. Hence, we propose a role-based knowledge-flow view model
in this work. The model builds knowledge-flow views (or virtual
knowledge flows) by creating appropriate virtual knowledge nodes
and generalizing knowledge concepts to required concept levels. The
customized views could represent individual role-s knowledge-needs
in teamwork context. The novel model indicates knowledge-needs in
condensed representation from a roles perspective and enhances the
efficiency of cooperative knowledge support in organizations.
Abstract: It is impossible to think about democracy without elections. The litmus test of any electoral process in any country is the possibility of a one time minority to become a majority at another time and a peaceful transition of power. In many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa though the multi-party elections appeared to be competitive they failed the acid test of democracy: peaceful regime change in a free and fair election. Failure to solve electoral disputes might lead to bloody electoral conflicts as witnessed in many emerging democracies in Africa. The aim of this paper is to investigate electoral conflicts in Africa since the end of the Cold War by using the 2005 post-election violence in Ethiopia as a case study. In Ethiopia, the coming to power of the EPRDF in 1991 marked the fall of the Derg dictatorial military government and the beginning of a multi-party democracy. The country held multi-party parliamentary elections in 1995, 2000, and 2005 where the ruling EPRDF party “won" the elections through violence, involving intimidation, manipulation, detentions of political opponents, torture, and political assassinations. The 2005 electoral violence was the worst electoral violence in the country-s political history that led to the death of 193 protestors and the imprisonment of more than 40, 000 people. It is found out that the major causes of the 2005 Ethiopian election were the defeat of the ruling party in the election and its attempt to reverse the poll results by force; the Opposition-s lack of decisive leadership; the absence of independent courts and independent electoral management body; and the ruling party-s direct control over the army and police.
Abstract: A series of tests on cold-formed steel (CFS) wall plate system subjected to uplift force at the mid span of the wall plate is presented. The aim of the study was to study the behaviour and identify the modes of failure of CFS wall plate system. Two parameters were considered in these studies: 1) different dimension of U-bracket at the supports and 2) different sizes of lipped C-channel. The lipped C-channels used were C07508, C07512 and C10012. The dimensions of the leg of U-bracket were 50x35 mm and 50x60 mm respectively, where 25 mm clearance was provided to the connections for specimens with clearance. Results show that specimens with and without clearance experienced the same mode of failure. Failure began with the yielding of the connectors followed by distortional buckling of the wall plate. However, when C075 sections were used as wall plate, the system behaved differently. There was a large deformation in the wall plate and failure began in the distortional buckling of the wall plate followed by bearing of the connecting plates at the supports (U-bracket). The ultimate strength of the system also decreased dramatically when C075 sections were used.
Abstract: This study examines the impact of working capital
management on firms- performance and market value of the firms in
Nigeria. A sample of fifty four non-financial quoted firms in Nigeria
listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange was used for this study. Data
were collected from annual reports of the sampled firms for the
period 1995-2009. This result shows there is a significant negative
relationship between cash conversion cycle and market valuation
and firm-s performance. It also shows that debt ratio is positively
related to market valuation and negatively related firm-s
performance. The findings confirm that there is a significant
relationship between Market valuation, profitability and working
capital component in line with previous studies. This mean that
Nigeria firms should ensure adequate management of working
capital especially cash conversion cycle components of account
receivables, account payables and inventories, as efficiency working
capital management is expected to contribute positively to the firms-
market value.
Abstract: In this paper, the implementation of a rule-based
intuitive reasoner is presented. The implementation included two
parts: the rule induction module and the intuitive reasoner. A large
weather database was acquired as the data source. Twelve weather
variables from those data were chosen as the “target variables"
whose values were predicted by the intuitive reasoner. A “complex"
situation was simulated by making only subsets of the data available
to the rule induction module. As a result, the rules induced were
based on incomplete information with variable levels of certainty.
The certainty level was modeled by a metric called "Strength of
Belief", which was assigned to each rule or datum as ancillary
information about the confidence in its accuracy. Two techniques
were employed to induce rules from the data subsets: decision tree
and multi-polynomial regression, respectively for the discrete and the
continuous type of target variables. The intuitive reasoner was tested
for its ability to use the induced rules to predict the classes of the
discrete target variables and the values of the continuous target
variables. The intuitive reasoner implemented two types of
reasoning: fast and broad where, by analogy to human thought, the
former corresponds to fast decision making and the latter to deeper
contemplation. . For reference, a weather data analysis approach
which had been applied on similar tasks was adopted to analyze the
complete database and create predictive models for the same 12
target variables. The values predicted by the intuitive reasoner and
the reference approach were compared with actual data. The intuitive
reasoner reached near-100% accuracy for two continuous target
variables. For the discrete target variables, the intuitive reasoner
predicted at least 70% as accurately as the reference reasoner. Since
the intuitive reasoner operated on rules derived from only about 10%
of the total data, it demonstrated the potential advantages in dealing
with sparse data sets as compared with conventional methods.
Abstract: This paper implements the inventory model developed in the first part of this paper in a simplified problem to simultaneously reduce costs and risks in JIT systems. This model is developed to ascertain an optimal ordering strategy for procuring raw materials by using regular multi-external and local backup suppliers to reduce the total cost of the products, and at the same time to reduce the risks arising from this cost reduction within production systems. A comparison between the cost of using the JIT system and using the proposed inventory model shows the superiority of the use of the inventory model.
Abstract: Network Management Systems have played a great important role in information systems. Management is very important and essential in any fields. There are many managements such as configuration management, fault management, performance management, security management, accounting management and etc. Among them, configuration, fault and security management is more important than others. Because these are essential and useful in any fields. Configuration management is to monitor and maintain the whole system or LAN. Fault management is to detect and troubleshoot the system. Security management is to control the whole system. This paper intends to increase the network management functionalities including configuration management, fault management and security management. In configuration management system, this paper specially can support the USB ports and devices to detect and read devices configuration and solve to detect hardware port and software ports. In security management system, this paper can provide the security feature for the user account setting and user management and proxy server feature. And all of the history of the security such as user account and proxy server history are kept in the java standard serializable file. So the user can view the history of the security and proxy server anytime. If the user uses this system, the user can ping the clients from the network and the user can view the result of the message in fault management system. And this system also provides to check the network card and can show the NIC card setting. This system is used RMI (Remote Method Invocation) and JNI (Java Native Interface) technology. This paper is to implement the client/server network management system using Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE). This system can provide more than 10 clients. And then this paper intends to show data or message structure of client/server and how to work using TCP/IP protocol.
Abstract: This research investigates the use of digital technology
namely interactive multimedia in effective art education provided by
museum. Several multimedia experience examples created for art
education are study case subjected to assistance audiences- learning
within the context of existing theory in the field of interactive
multimedia.
Abstract: A numerical method is developed for simulating
the motion of particles with arbitrary shapes in an effectively
infinite or bounded viscous flow. The particle translational and
angular motions are numerically investigated using a fluid-structure
interaction (FSI) method based on the Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian
(ALE) approach and the dynamic mesh method (smoothing and
remeshing) in FLUENT ( ANSYS Inc., USA). Also, the effects of
arbitrary shapes on the dynamics are studied using the FSI method
which could be applied to the motions and deformations of a single
blood cell and multiple blood cells, and the primary thrombogenesis
caused by platelet aggregation. It is expected that, combined with a
sophisticated large-scale computational technique, the simulation
method will be useful for understanding the overall properties of blood
flow from blood cellular level (microscopic) to the resulting
rheological properties of blood as a mass (macroscopic).
Abstract: In this paper I have developed a system for evaluating
the degree of fear emotion that the intelligent agent-based system
may feel when it encounters to a persecuting event. In this paper I
want to describe behaviors of emotional agents using human
behavior in terms of the way their emotional states evolve over time.
I have implemented a fuzzy inference system using Java
environment. As the inputs of this system, I have considered three
parameters related on human fear emotion. The system outputs can
be used in agent decision making process or choosing a person for
team working systems by combination the intensity of fear to other
emotion intensities.
Abstract: This paper presents a new method for the
implementation of a direct rotor flux control (DRFOC) of induction
motor (IM) drives. It is based on the rotor flux components
regulation. The d and q axis rotor flux components feed proportional
integral (PI) controllers. The outputs of which are the target stator
voltages (vdsref and vqsref). While, the synchronous speed is depicted at
the output of rotor speed controller. In order to accomplish variable
speed operation, conventional PI like controller is commonly used.
These controllers provide limited good performances over a wide
range of operations even under ideal field oriented conditions. An
alternate approach is to use the so called fuzzy logic controller. The
overall investigated system is implemented using dSpace system
based on digital signal processor (DSP). Simulation and experimental
results have been presented for a one kw IM drives to confirm the
validity of the proposed algorithms.
Abstract: In this paper variation of spot price and total profits of
the generating companies- through wholesale electricity trading are
discussed with and without Central Generating Stations (CGS) share
and seasonal variations are also considered. It demonstrates how
proper analysis of generators- efficiencies and capabilities, types of
generators owned, fuel costs, transmission losses and settling price
variation using the solutions of Optimal Power Flow (OPF), can
allow companies to maximize overall revenue. It illustrates how
solutions of OPF can be used to maximize companies- revenue under
different scenarios. And is also extended to computation of Available
Transfer Capability (ATC) is very important to the transmission
system security and market forecasting. From these results it is
observed that how crucial it is for companies to plan their daily
operations and is certainly useful in an online environment of
deregulated power system. In this paper above tasks are demonstrated
on 124 bus real-life Indian utility power system of Andhra Pradesh
State Grid and results have been presented and analyzed.