Abstract: The emergence of person-centred discourse based
around notions of 'personal development planning- and 'work'life
balance' has taken hold in education and the workplace in recent
years. This paper examines this discourse with regard to recent
developments in higher education as well as the inter-related issue of
work-life balance in occupational careers. In both cases there have
been national and trans-national policy initiatives directed towards
improving both personal opportunities and competitive advantage in
a global knowledge-based economy. However, despite an increasing
concern with looking outward at this globalised educational and
employment marketplace, there is something of a paradox in
encouraging people to look inward at themselves in order to become
more self-determined. This apparent paradox is considered from a
discourse analytic perspective in terms of the ideological effects of an
increasing concern with the personal world. Specifically, it is argued
that there are tensions that emerge from a concern with an innerdirected
process of self-reflection that dissolve any engagement with
wider political issues that impact upon educational and career
development.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of
mean size of industry on survival of new firms in East-Azarbaijan
province through 1981-2006 using hazard function. So the effect of
two variables including mean employment of industry and mean
capital of industry are investigated on firm's survival. The Industry &
Mine Ministry database has used for data gathering and the data are
analyzed using the semi-parametric cox regression model. The results
of this study shows that there is a meaningful negative relationship
between mean capital of industry and firm's survival, but the mean
employment of industry has no meaningful effect on survival of new
firms.
Abstract: Due to important issues, such as deadlock, starvation,
communication, non-deterministic behavior and synchronization,
concurrent systems are very complex, sensitive, and error-prone.
Thus ensuring reliability and accuracy of these systems is very
essential. Therefore, there has been a big interest in the formal
specification of concurrent programs in recent years. Nevertheless,
some features of concurrent systems, such as dynamic process
creation, scheduling and starvation have not been specified formally
yet. Also, some other features have been specified partially and/or
have been described using a combination of several different
formalisms and methods whose integration needs too much effort. In
other words, a comprehensive and integrated specification that could
cover all aspects of concurrent systems has not been provided yet.
Thus, this paper makes two major contributions: firstly, it provides a
comprehensive formal framework to specify all well-known features
of concurrent systems. Secondly, it provides an integrated
specification of these features by using just a single formal notation,
i.e., the Z language.
Abstract: The present paper deals with the experimental and
computational study of axial collapse of the aluminum metallic shells
having combined tube-frusta geometry between two parallel plates.
Shells were having bottom two third lengths as frusta and remaining
top one third lengths as tube. Shells were compressed to recognize
their modes of collapse and associated energy absorption capability.
An axisymmetric Finite Element computational model of collapse
process is presented and analysed, using a non-linear FE code
FORGE2. Six noded isoparametric triangular elements were used to
discretize the deforming shell. The material of the shells was
idealized as rigid visco-plastic. To validate the computational model
experimental and computed results of the deformed shapes and their
corresponding load-compression and energy-compression curves
were compared. With the help of the obtained results progress of the
axisymmetric mode of collapse has been presented, analysed and
discussed.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with an epidemic model with delay. By using the comparison theorem of the differential equation and constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional, Some sufficient conditions which guarantee the permeance and existence of a unique globally attractive positive almost periodic solution of the model are obtain. Finally, an example is employed to illustrate our result.
Abstract: The problem of agricultural-soil pollution is closely
linked to the production of ecologically pure foodstuffs and to human health. An important task, therefore, is to rehabilitate agricultural
soils with the help of state-of-the-art biotechnologies, based on the use of metal-accumulating plants. In this work, on the basis of
literature data and the results of prior research from this laboratory, plants were selected for which the growing technology is well
developed and which are widespread locally: sugar sorghum (Sorghum saccharatum), sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense (Piper.)
Stapf.), and sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). I report on laboratory
experiments designed to study the influence of synthetic indole-3-
acetic acid and the extracellular indole-3-acetic acid released by the
plant-growth-promoting rhizobacterium Azospirillum brasilense Sp245 on growth of and arsenic accumulation by these plants.
Abstract: Text categorization is the problem of classifying text
documents into a set of predefined classes. After a preprocessing
step, the documents are typically represented as large sparse vectors.
When training classifiers on large collections of documents, both the
time and memory restrictions can be quite prohibitive. This justifies
the application of feature selection methods to reduce the
dimensionality of the document-representation vector. In this paper,
three feature selection methods are evaluated: Random Selection,
Information Gain (IG) and Support Vector Machine feature selection
(called SVM_FS). We show that the best results were obtained with
SVM_FS method for a relatively small dimension of the feature
vector. Also we present a novel method to better correlate SVM
kernel-s parameters (Polynomial or Gaussian kernel).
Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate whether
chlorophyll meter readings (SPAD) can be used as criterion of singleplant
selection in maize breeding. Experimentation was performed at
the ultra-low density of 0.74 plants/m2 in order the potential yield per
plant to be fully expressed. R-31 honeycomb experiments were
conducted in three different areas in Greece (Thessaloniki, Giannitsa
and Florina) using 30 inbred lines at well-watered and water-stressed
conditions during the 2012 growing season. The chlorophyll meter
readings had higher rates at dry conditions, except location of
Giannitsa where differences were not significant. Genotypes of
highest chlorophyll meter readings were consistent across areas,
emphasizing on the character’s stability. A positive correlation
between the chlorophyll meter readings and grain yield was
strengthening over time and culminated at the physiological maturity
stage. There was a clear sign that the chlorophyll meter readings has
the potential to be used for the selection of stress-adaptive genotypes
and may permit modern maize to be grown at wider range of
environments addressing the climate change scenarios.
Abstract: Power system stability enhancement by simultaneous tuning of a Power System Stabilizer (PSS) and a Static Var Compensator (SVC)-based controller is thoroughly investigated in this paper. The coordination among the proposed damping stabilizers and the SVC internal voltage regulators has also been taken into consideration. The design problem is formulated as an optimization problem with a time-domain simulation-based objective function and Real-Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) is employed to search for optimal controller parameters. The proposed stabilizers are tested on a weakly connected power system with different disturbances and loading conditions. The nonlinear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed control schemes over a wide range of loading conditions and disturbances. Further, the proposed design approach is found to be robust and improves stability effectively even under small disturbance and unbalanced fault conditions.
Abstract: Surface roughness (Ra) is one of the most important requirements in machining process. In order to obtain better surface roughness, the proper setting of cutting parameters is crucial before the process take place. This research presents the development of mathematical model for surface roughness prediction before milling process in order to evaluate the fitness of machining parameters; spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut. 84 samples were run in this study by using FANUC CNC Milling α-Τ14ιE. Those samples were randomly divided into two data sets- the training sets (m=60) and testing sets(m=24). ANOVA analysis showed that at least one of the population regression coefficients was not zero. Multiple Regression Method was used to determine the correlation between a criterion variable and a combination of predictor variables. It was established that the surface roughness is most influenced by the feed rate. By using Multiple Regression Method equation, the average percentage deviation of the testing set was 9.8% and 9.7% for training data set. This showed that the statistical model could predict the surface roughness with about 90.2% accuracy of the testing data set and 90.3% accuracy of the training data set.
Abstract: On a such wide-area environment as a Grid, data
placement is an important aspect of distributed database systems. In
this paper, we address the problem of initial placement of database
no-replicated fragments in Grid architecture. We propose a graph
based approach that considers resource restrictions. The goal is to
optimize the use of computing, storage and communication
resources. The proposed approach is developed in two phases: in the
first phase, we perform fragment grouping using knowledge about
fragments dependency and, in the second phase, we determine an
efficient placement of the fragment groups on the Grid. We also
show, via experimental analysis that our approach gives solutions
that are close to being optimal for different databases and Grid
configurations.
Abstract: Mechanical buckling analysis of rectangular plates
with central circular cutout is performed in this paper. The finiteelement
method is used to study the effects of plate-support
conditions, aspect ratio, and hole size on the mechanical buckling
strength of the perforated plates subjected to linearly varying loading.
Results show that increasing the hole size does not necessarily reduce
the mechanical buckling strength of the perforated plates. It is also
concluded that the clamped boundary condition increases the
mechanical buckling strength of the perforated plates more than the
simply-supported boundary condition and the free boundary
conditions enhance the mechanical buckling strength of the
perforated plates more effectively than the fixed boundary conditions.
Furthermore, for the bending cases, the critical buckling load of
perforated plates with free edges is less than perforated plates with
fixed edges.
Abstract: The purpose of this report is to suggest a new
methodology for the assessment of the comparative efficiency of the
reforms made in different countries by an integral index. We have
highlighted the reforms made in post-crisis period in 21 former
socialist countries.
The integral index describes the social-economic development
level. The integral index contains of six indexes: The Global
Competitiveness Index, Doing Business, The Corruption Perception,
The Index of Economic Freedom, The Human Development, and
The Democracy Index, which are reported by different international
organizations. With the help of our methodology we first summarized
the above-mentioned 6 indexes and attained 1 general index, besides,
our new method enables us to assess the comparative efficiency of the
reforms made in different countries by analyzing them.
The purpose is to reveal the opportunities and threats of socialeconomic
reforms in different directions.
Abstract: A novel low-cost impedance control structure is
proposed for monitoring the contact force between end-effector and
environment without installing an expensive force/torque sensor.
Theoretically, the end-effector contact force can be estimated from the
superposition of each joint control torque. There have a nonlinear
matrix mapping function between each joint motor control input and
end-effector actuating force/torques vector. This new force control
structure can be implemented based on this estimated mapping matrix.
First, the robot end-effector is manipulated to specified positions, then
the force controller is actuated based on the hall sensor current
feedback of each joint motor. The model-free fuzzy sliding mode
control (FSMC) strategy is employed to design the position and force
controllers, respectively. All the hardware circuits and software
control programs are designed on an Altera Nios II embedded
development kit to constitute an embedded system structure for a
retrofitted Mitsubishi 5 DOF robot. Experimental results show that PI
and FSMC force control algorithms can achieve reasonable contact
force monitoring objective based on this hardware control structure.
Abstract: When it comes to last, it is regarded as the critical
foundation of shoe design and development. A computer aided
methodology for various last form designs is proposed in this study.
The reverse engineering is mainly applied to the process of scanning
for the last form. Then with the minimum energy for revision of
surface continuity, the surface reconstruction of last is rebuilt by the
feature curves of the scanned last. When the surface reconstruction of
last is completed, the weighted arithmetic mean method is applied to
the computation on the shape morphing for the control mesh of last,
thus 3D last form of different sizes is generated from its original form
feature with functions remained. In the end, the result of this study is
applied to an application for 3D last reconstruction system. The
practicability of the proposed methodology is verified through later
case studies.
Abstract: Digital broadcasting has been an area of active
research, development, innovation and business models development
in recent years. This paper presents a survey on the characteristics of
the digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) standards, and
implementation status of DTTB worldwide showing the standards
adopted. It is clear that only the developed countries and some in the
developing ones shall be able to beat the ITU set analogue to digital
broadcasting migration deadline because of the challenges that these
countries faces in digitizing their terrestrial broadcasting. The
challenges to keep on track the DTTB migration plan are also
discussed in this paper. They include financial, technology gap,
policies alignment with DTTB technology, etc. The reported
performance comparisons for the different standards are also
presented. The interesting part is that the results for many
comparative studies depends to a large extent on the objective behind
such studies, hence counter claims are common.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel method for remaining
useful life prediction using the Elliptical Basis Function (EBF)
network and a Markov chain. The EBF structure is trained by a
modified Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm in order to take
into account the missing covariate set. No explicit extrapolation is
needed for internal covariates while a Markov chain is constructed to
represent the evolution of external covariates in the study. The
estimated external and the unknown internal covariates constitute an
incomplete covariate set which are then used and analyzed by the EBF
network to provide survival information of the asset. It is shown in the
case study that the method slightly underestimates the remaining
useful life of an asset which is a desirable result for early maintenance
decision and resource planning.
Abstract: Attempts were made to identify anuran glial cells. They were found as nervous tissue resident. Having stage dependent morphotype changes, whereby, appeared as an ovoid to oval in resting state and amoeboid mrophotypes in activated state, stained fairly with methylene blue and take up Pelikane blue 10% aqueous solution, as well as having the ability to phagocytize heat killed Staphylococcus aureus. They were delineated from the migrating peripheral monocytes by morphotypic and morphometeric differences. Such criteria were consistence with glial cells. Thus, the anuran glial cells are being identified in the frog Rana ridibunda Pallas 1771 and this animal can be of use as a simple model for the immunobiology of glial cells.
Abstract: A Negotiation Support is required on a value-based decision to enable each stakeholder to evaluate and rank the solution alternatives before engaging into negotiation with the other stakeholders. This study demonstrates a process of negotiation support model for selection of a building system from value-based design perspective. The perspective is based on comparison of function and cost of a building system. Multi criteria decision techniques were applied to determine the relative value of the alternative solutions for performing the function. A satisfying option game theory are applied to the criteria of value-based decision which are LCC (life cycle cost) and function based FAST. The results demonstrate a negotiation process to select priorities of a building system. The support model can be extended to an automated negotiation by combining value based decision method, group decision and negotiation support.
Abstract: As the air traffic increases at a hub airport, some
flights cannot land or depart at their preferred target time. This event
happens because the airport runways become occupied to near their
capacity. It results in extra costs for both passengers and airlines
because of the loss of connecting flights or more waiting, more fuel
consumption, rescheduling crew members, etc. Hence, devising an
appropriate scheduling method that determines a suitable runway and
time for each flight in order to efficiently use the hub capacity and
minimize the related costs is of great importance. In this paper, we
present a mixed-integer zero-one model for scheduling a set of mixed
landing and departing flights (despite of most previous studies
considered only landings). According to the fact that the flight cost is
strongly affected by the level of airline, we consider different airline
categories in our model. This model presents a single objective
minimizing the total sum of three terms, namely 1) the weighted
deviation from targets, 2) the scheduled time of the last flight (i.e.,
makespan), and 3) the unbalancing the workload on runways. We
solve 10 simulated instances of different sizes up to 30 flights and 4
runways. Optimal solutions are obtained in a reasonable time, which
are satisfactory in comparison with the traditional rule, namely First-
Come-First-Serve (FCFS) that is far apart from optimality in most
cases.