Abstract: Modelling of building processes of a multimodal
freight transportation support information system is discussed based
on modern CASE technologies. Functional efficiencies of ports in
the eastern part of the Black Sea are analyzed taking into account
their ecological, seasonal, resource usage parameters. By resources,
we mean capacities of berths, cranes, automotive transport, as well as
work crews and neighbouring airports. For the purpose of designing
database of computer support system for Managerial (Logistics)
function, using Object-Role Modeling (ORM) tool (NORMA–Natural ORM Architecture) is proposed, after which Entity
Relationship Model (ERM) is generated in automated process.
Software is developed based on Process-Oriented and Service-Oriented architecture, in Visual Studio.NET environment.
Abstract: In order to be capable of dealing with uncertainties,
subjectivities, including vagueness arising in building construction
projects, the application of fuzzy reasoning technique based on fuzzy
set theory is proposed. This study contributes significantly to the
development of a fuzzy reasoning safety risk assessment model for
building construction projects that could be employed to assess the
risk magnitude of each hazardous event identified during
construction, and a third parameter of probability of consequence is
incorporated in the model. By using the proposed safety risk analysis
methodology, more reliable and less ambiguities, which provide the
safety risk management project team for decision-making purposes.
Abstract: Wicking and evaporation of water in porous knitted fabrics is investigated by combining experimental and analytical approaches: The standard wicking model from Lucas and Washburn is enhanced to account for evaporation and gravity effects. The goal is to model the effect of gravity and evaporation on wicking using simple analytical expressions and investigate the influence of fabrics geometrical parameters, such as porosity and thickness on evaporation impact on maximum reachable height values. The results show that fabric properties have a significant influence on evaporation effect. In this paper, an experimental study of determining water kinetics from different knitted fabrics were gravimetrically investigated permitting the measure of the mass and the height of liquid rising in fabrics in various atmospheric conditions. From these measurements, characteristic pore parameters (capillary radius and permeability) can be determined.
Abstract: Red pepper (Capsicum annum L.) has long been
recognized as a good source of antioxidants, being rich in ascorbic
acid and other phytochemicals. In Turkish cuisine red pepper is
sometimes consumed raw in salads and baked as a garnish, but its
most wide consumption type is red pepper paste. The processing of
red pepper into pepper paste includes various thermal treatment steps
such as heating and pasteurizing. There are reports demonstrating an
enhancement or reduction in antioxidant activity of vegetables after
thermal treatment. So this study was conducted to investigate the
total phenolic, ascorbic acid and total carotenoids as well as free
radical scavenging activity of raw red pepper and various red pepper
pastes obtainable on the market. The samples were analyzed for
radical-scavenging activity (RSA) and total polyphenol (TP) content
using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and Folin-Ciocalteu
methods, respectively. Total carotenoids and ascorbic acid contents
were determined spectrophotometrically. Results suggest that hot
pepper paste contained significantly (P0.05) difference in RSA, ascorbic acid and total carotenoids
content between sweet and hot red pepper paste products. It is
concluded that the red pepper paste, that has a wide range of
consumption in Turkish cuisine, presents a good dose of phenolic
compounds and antioxidant capacity and it should be regarded as a
functional food.
Abstract: Growing human population has placed increased
demands on water supplies and spurred a heightened interest in
desalination infrastructure. Key elements of the economics of
desalination projects are thermal and electrical inputs. With growing
concerns over use of fossil fuels to (indirectly) supply these inputs,
coupling of desalination with nuclear power production represents a
significant opportunity. Individually, nuclear and desalination
technologies have a long history and are relatively mature. For
desalination, Reverse Osmosis (RO) has the lowest energy inputs.
However, the economically driven output quality of the water
produced using RO, which uses only electrical inputs, is lower than the
output water quality from thermal desalination plants. Therefore,
modern desalination projects consider that RO should be coupled with
thermal desalination technologies (MSF, MED, or MED-TVC) with
attendant steam inputs to permit blending to produce various qualities
of water. A large nuclear facility is well positioned to dispatch large
quantities of both electrical and thermal power. This paper considers
the supply of thermal energy to a large desalination facility to examine
heat balance impact on the nuclear steam cycle. The APR1400 nuclear
plant is selected as prototypical from both a capacity and turbine cycle
heat balance perspective to examine steam supply and the impact on
electrical output. Extraction points and quantities of steam are
considered parametrically along with various types of thermal
desalination technologies to form the basis for further evaluations of
economically optimal approaches to the interface of nuclear power
production with desalination projects. In our study, the
thermodynamic evaluation will be executed by DE-TOP, an IAEA
sponsored program. DE-TOP has capabilities to analyze power
generation systems coupled to desalination plants through various
steam extraction positions, taking into consideration the isolation loop
between the nuclear and the thermal desalination facilities (i.e., for
radiological isolation).
Abstract: The market competition is moving from the single
firm to the whole supply chain because of increasing competition and
growing need for operational efficiencies and customer orientation.
Supply chain management allows companies to look beyond their
organizational boundaries to develop and leverage resources and
capabilities of their supply chain partners. This creates competitive
advantages in the marketplace and because of this SCM has acquired
strategic importance. Lean Approach is a management strategy that focuses on reducing
every type of waste present in an organization. This approach is
becoming more and more popular among supply chain managers. The supply chain application of lean approach is not frequent. In
particular, it is not well studied which are the impacts of lean
approach principles in a supply chain context. In literature there are
only few studies aimed at understanding the qualitative impact of the
lean approach in supply chains. Therefore, the goal of this research
work is to study the impacts of lean principles implementation along
a supply chain. To achieve this, a simulation model of a threeechelon
multi-product supply chain has been built. Kanban system (and several priority policies) and setup time
reduction degrees are implemented in the lean-configured supply
chain to apply pull and lot-sizing decrease principles respectively. To
evaluate the benefits of lean approach, lean supply chain is compared
with an EOQ-configured supply chain. The simulation results show
that Kanban system and setup-time reduction improve inventory
stock level. They also show that logistics efforts are affected to lean
implementation degree. The paper concludes describing
performances of lean supply chain in different contexts.
Abstract: The present explanatory study concerns with the
relation between Diabetes Mellitus and Food Balance in the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia during 2005-2010, using published data. Results illustrated that Saudi citizen daily protein consumption
(DPC) during 2005-2007 (g/capita/day) is higher than the average
global consumption level of protein with 15.27%, daily fat
consumption (DFC) with 24.56% and daily energy consumption
(DEC) with 16.93% and increases than recommended level by
International Nutrition Organizations (INO) with 56% for protein,
60.49% for fat and 27.37% for energy. On the other hand, DPC per
capita in Saudi Arabia decreased during the period 2008-2010 from
88.3 to 82.36 gram/ day. Moreover, DFC per capita in Saudi Arabia
decreased during the period 2008-2010 from 3247.90 to 3176.43
Cal/capita/ day, and daily energy consumption (DEC) of Saudi
citizen increases than world consumption with 16.93%, whereas
increases with 27.37% than INO. Despite this, DPC, DFC and DEC
per capita in Saudi Arabia still higher than world mean. On the other
side, results illustrated that the number of diabetic patients in Saudi
Arabia during the same period (2005-2010). The curve of diabetic
patient’s number in Saudi Arabia during 2005-2010 is regular
ascending with increasing level ranged between 7.10% in 2005 and
12.44% in 2010. It is essential to devise Saudi National programs to educate the
public about the relation of food balances and diabetes so it could be
avoided, and provide citizens with healthy dietary balances tables.
Abstract: Processing of high-silicon bauxite on the base of the
traditional clinkering method is related to high power consumption
and capital investments, which makes production of alumina from
those ores non-competitive in terms of basic economic showings. For
these reasons, development of technological solutions enabling to
process bauxites with various chemical and mineralogical structures
efficiently with low level of thermal power consumption is important.
Flow sheet of the studies on washability of ores from the Timanskoe
and the Severo-Onezhskoe deposits is on the base of the flotation
method.
Abstract: Our sowing date experiment took place in the
Demonstration Garden of Institution of Plant Sciences, Centre for
Agricultural Sciences of University of Debrecen, in 2012-2014. The
paper contains data of test year 2014. Our purpose, besides several
other examinations, was to observe how sowing date influences the
leaf area index and the activity of photosynthesis of maize hybrids,
and how those factors affect fruiting. In the experiment we monitored
the change of the leaf area index and the photosynthesis of hybrids
with four different growing seasons. The results obtained confirm
that not only the environmental and agricultural factors in the
growing season have effect on the yield, but also other factors like
the leaf area index and the photosynthesis are determinative
parameters, and all those factors together, modifying the effects of
each other, develop average yields.
Abstract: The photovoltaic (PV) panel with no galvanic
isolation system is well known technique in the world which is
effective and delivers power with enhanced efficiency. The PV
generation presented here is for stand-alone system installed in
remote areas when as the resulting power gets connected to electronic
load installation instead of being tied to the grid. Though very small,
even then transformer-less topology is shown to be with leakage in
pico-ampere range. By using PWM technique PWM, leakage current
in different situations is shown. The results shown in this paper show
how the pico-ampere current is reduced to femto-ampere through use
of inductors and capacitors of suitable values of inductor and
capacitors with the load.
Abstract: Developing our knowledge of when pineapple roots
grow can lead to improved water, fertilizer applications, and more
precise culture management. This paper presents current
understanding of morphological traits in pineapple roots, highlighting
studies using incubation periods and various solid MS media treated
with different sucrose concentrations and pH, which directly assess in
vitro environmental factors. Rooting parameters had different optimal
sucrose concentrations and incubation periods. All shoots failed to
root in medium supplemented with sucrose at 5 g/L and no roots
formed within the first 45 days in medium enriched with sucrose at
10 g/L. After 75 days, all shoots rooted in medium enriched with 10
and 20 g/L sucrose. Moreover, MS medium supplied with 20 g/L
sucrose resulted in the longest and the highest number of roots with
27.3 mm and 4.7, respectively. Root function, such as capacity for P
and N uptake, declined rapidly with root length. As a result, the
longer the incubation period, the better the rooting responses would
be.
Abstract: This article presents an alternative collapse capacity
intensity measure in the three elements form which is influenced by
the spectral ordinates at periods longer than that of the first mode
period at near and far source sites. A parameter, denoted by β, is
defined by which the spectral ordinate effects, up to the effective
period (2T1), on the intensity measure are taken into account. The
methodology permits to meet the hazard-levelled target extreme
event in the probabilistic and deterministic forms. A MATLAB code
is developed involving OpenSees to calculate the collapse capacities
of the 8 archetype RC structures having 2 to 20 stories for regression
process. The incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method is used to
calculate the structure’s collapse values accounting for the element
stiffness and strength deterioration. The general near field set
presented by FEMA is used in a series of performing nonlinear
analyses. 8 linear relationships are developed for the 8structutres
leading to the correlation coefficient up to 0.93. A collapse capacity
near field prediction equation is developed taking into account the
results of regression processes obtained from the 8 structures. The
proposed prediction equation is validated against a set of actual near
field records leading to a good agreement. Implementation of the
proposed equation to the four archetype RC structures demonstrated
different collapse capacities at near field site compared to those of
FEMA. The reasons of differences are believed to be due to
accounting for the spectral shape effects.
Abstract: In this talk, we introduce a newly developed quantile
function model that can be used for estimating conditional
distributions of financial returns and for obtaining multi-step ahead
out-of-sample predictive distributions of financial returns. Since we
forecast the whole conditional distributions, any predictive quantity
of interest about the future financial returns can be obtained simply
as a by-product of the method. We also show an application of the
model to the daily closing prices of Dow Jones Industrial Average
(DJIA) series over the period from 2 January 2004 - 8 October 2010.
We obtained the predictive distributions up to 15 days ahead for
the DJIA returns, which were further compared with the actually
observed returns and those predicted from an AR-GARCH model.
The results show that the new model can capture the main features
of financial returns and provide a better fitted model together with
improved mean forecasts compared with conventional methods. We
hope this talk will help audience to see that this new model has the
potential to be very useful in practice.
Abstract: Lyophilization, also called freeze-drying, is an
important dehydration technique mainly used for pharmaceuticals.
Food industry also uses lyophilization when it is important to retain
most of the nutritional quality, taste, shape and size of dried products
and to extend their shelf life. Vacuum-Induced during freezing cycle
(VI) has been used in order to control ice nucleation and,
consequently, to reduce the time of primary drying cycle of
pharmaceuticals preserving quality properties of the final product.
This procedure has not been applied in freeze drying of foods. The
present work aims to investigate the effect of VI on the lyophilization
drying time, final moisture content, density and reconstitutional
properties of mango (Mangifera indica L.) slices (MS) and mango
pulp-maltodextrin dispersions (MPM) (30% concentration of total
solids). Control samples were run at each freezing rate without using
induced vacuum. The lyophilization endpoint was the same for all
treatments (constant difference between capacitance and Pirani
vacuum gauges). From the experimental results it can be concluded
that at the high freezing rate (0.4°C/min) reduced the overall process
time up to 30% comparing process time required for the control and
VI of the lower freeze rate (0.1°C/min) without affecting the quality
characteristics of the dried product, which yields a reduction in costs
and energy consumption for MS and MPM freeze drying. Controls
and samples treated with VI at freezing rate of 0.4°C/min in MS
showed similar results in moisture and density parameters.
Furthermore, results from MPM dispersion showed favorable values
when VI was applied because dried product with low moisture
content and low density was obtained at shorter process time
compared with the control. There were not found significant
differences between reconstitutional properties (rehydration for MS
and solubility for MPM) of freeze dried mango resulting from
controls, and VI treatments.
Abstract: For schools to be desirable places in which to work, it
is necessary for principals to recognise their teachers’ emotions, and
be sensitive to their needs. This necessitates that principals are
capable to correctly identify their emotionally intelligent behaviours
(EIBs) they need to use in order to be successful leaders. They also
need to have knowledge of their emotional intelligence and be able to
identify the factors and situations that evoke emotion at an
interpersonal level. If a principal is able to do this, then the control
and understanding of emotions and behaviours of oneself and others
could improve vastly. This study focuses on the interpersonal EIBS
of principals affecting the job satisfaction of teachers. The correlation
coefficients in this quantitative study strongly indicate that there is a
statistical significance between the respondents’ level of job
satisfaction, the rating of their principals’ EIBs and how they believe
their principals’ EIBs will affect their sense of job satisfaction. It can
be concluded from the data obtained in this study that there is a
significant correlation between the sense of job satisfaction of
teachers and their principals’ interpersonal EIBs. This means that the
more satisfied a teacher is at school, the more appropriate and
meaningful a principal’s EIBs will be. Conversely, the more
dissatisfied a teacher is at school the less appropriate and less
meaningful a principal’s interpersonal EIBs will be. This implies that
the leaders’ EIBs can be construed as one of the major factors
affecting the job satisfaction of employees.
Abstract: Research has shown that techno-entrepreneurship is
economically significant. Therefore, it is suggested that teaching
techno-entrepreneurship may be important because such programmes
would prepare current and future generations of learners to recognise
and act on high-technology opportunities. Education in technoentrepreneurship
may increase the knowledge of how to start one’s
own enterprise and recognise the technological opportunities for
commercialisation to improve decision-making about starting a new
venture; also it influence decisions about capturing the business
opportunities and turning them into successful ventures. Universities
can play a main role in connecting and networking technoentrepreneurship
students towards a cooperative attitude with real
business practice and industry knowledge. To investigate and answer
whether education for techno-entrepreneurs really helps, this paper
choses a comparison of literature reviews as its method of research.
After reviewing literature related to the impact of technoentrepreneurship
education on self-employment 6 studies which had
similar aim and objective to this paper were. These particular papers
were selected based on a keywords search and as their aim,
objectives, and gaps were close to the current research. In addition,
they were all based on the influence of techno-entrepreneurship
education in self-employment and intention of students to start new
ventures. The findings showed that teaching techno-entrepreneurship
education may have an influence on students’ intention and their
future self-employment, but which courses should be covered and the
duration of programmes, needs further investigation.
Abstract: The need to merge software artifacts seems inherent
to modern software development. Distribution of development over
several teams and breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable
pieces are an effective means to deal with the kind of complexity. In
each case, the separately developed artifacts need to be assembled as
efficiently as possible into a consistent whole in which the parts still
function as described. In addition, earlier changes are introduced into
the life cycle and easier is their management by designers.
Interaction-based specifications such as UML sequence diagrams
have been found effective in this regard. As a result, sequence
diagrams can be used not only for capturing system behaviors but
also for merging changes in order to create a new version. The
objective of this paper is to suggest a new approach to deal with the
problem of software merging at the level of sequence diagrams by
using the concept of dependence analysis that captures, formally, all
mapping, and differences between elements of sequence diagrams
and serves as a key concept to create a new version of sequence
diagram.
Abstract: The problem of degradation of agricultural residues
from palm oil industry is increasing due to its expansion.
Lignocelloulosic waste from these industry represent large amount of
unutilized resources, this is due to their high lignin content. Since
white rot fungi are capable of degrading lignin, its potential for the
degradation of lignocelloulosic waste from palm oil industry was
accessed. The lignocellluloses content was measured before and after
biodegradation and the rate of reduction was determined. From the
results of the biodegradation, it was observed that hemicellulose
reduces by 22.62%, cellulose by 20.97% and lignin by 10.65% from
the initials lignocelluloses contents. Thus, to improve the digestibility
of palm oil mesocarp fibre, treatment by white rot-fungi is
recommended.
Abstract: Piezoelectric actuator is treated as RC load when it is
modeled electrically. For some piezoelectric actuator applications,
arbitrary voltage is required to actuate. Especially for unidirectional
arbitrary voltage driving like as sine wave, some special inverter with
circuit that can charge and discharge the capacitive energy can be
used. In this case, the difference between power supply level and the
object voltage level for RC load is varied. Because the control gain is
constant, the controlled output is not uniform according to the voltage
difference. In this paper, for charge and discharge circuit for
unidirectional arbitrary voltage driving for piezoelectric actuator, the
controller gain is controlled according to the voltage difference. With
the proposed simple idea, the load voltage can have controlled
smoothly although the voltage difference is varied. The
appropriateness is proved from the simulation of the proposed circuit.
Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of resource allocation
in the emerging cognitive technology. Focusing the Quality of
Service (QoS) of Primary Users (PU), a novel method is proposed for
the resource allocation of Secondary Users (SU). In this paper, we
propose the unique Utility Function in the game theoretic model of
Cognitive Radio which can be maximized to increase the capacity of
the Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) and to minimize the
interference scenario. Utility function is formulated to cater the need
of PUs by observing Signal to Noise ratio. Existence of Nash
Equilibrium for the postulated game is established.