Abstract: One of the determinants of a firm-s prosperity is the
customers- perceived service quality and satisfaction. While service
quality is wide in scope, and consists of various dimensions, there
may be differences in the relative importance of these dimensions in
affecting customers- overall satisfaction of service quality.
Identifying the relative rank of different dimensions of service quality
is very important in that it can help managers to find out which
service dimensions have a greater effect on customers- overall
satisfaction. Such an insight will consequently lead to more effective
resource allocation which will finally end in higher levels of
customer satisfaction. This issue –despite its criticality- has not
received enough attention so far. Therefore, using a sample of 240
bank customers in Iran, an artificial neural network is developed to
address this gap in the literature. As customers- evaluation of service
quality is a subjective process, artificial neural networks –as a brain
metaphor- may appear to have a potentiality to model such a
complicated process. Proposing a neural network which is able to
predict the customers- overall satisfaction of service quality with a
promising level of accuracy is the first contribution of this study. In
addition, prioritizing the service quality dimensions in affecting
customers- overall satisfaction –by using sensitivity analysis of
neural network- is the second important finding of this paper.
Abstract: The present study has been carried out with a view to calculate the coastal vulnerability index (CVI) to know the high and low sensitive areas and area of inundation due to future SLR. Both conventional and remotely sensed data were used and analyzed through the modelling technique. Out of the total study area, 8.26% is very high risk, 14.21% high, 9.36% medium, 22.46% low and 7.35% in the very low vulnerable category, due to costal components. Results of the inundation analysis indicate that 225.2 km² and 397 km² of the land area will be submerged by flooding at 1m and 10m inundation levels. The most severely affected sectors are expected to be the residential, industrial and recreational areas. As this coast is planned for future coastal developmental activities, measures such as industrializations, building regulation, urban growth planning and agriculture, development of an integrated coastal zone management, strict enforcement of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act, monitoring of impacts and further research in this regard are recommended for the study area.
Abstract: The oil and gas industry has moved towards Load and
Resistance Factor Design through API RP2A - LRFD and the
recently published international standard, ISO-19902, for design of
fixed steel offshore structures. The ISO 19902 is intended to provide
a harmonized design practice that offers a balanced structural fitness
for the purpose, economy and safety. As part of an ongoing work, the
reliability analysis of tubular joints of the jacket structure has been
carried out to calibrate the load and resistance factors for the design
of offshore platforms in Malaysia, as proposed in the ISO.
Probabilistic models have been established for the load effects (wave,
wind and current) and the tubular joints strengths. In this study the
First Order Reliability Method (FORM), coded in MATLAB
Software has been employed to evaluate the reliability index of the
typical joints, designed using API RP2A - WSD and ISO 19902.
Abstract: A new digital transceiver circuit for asynchronous frame detection is proposed where both the transmitter and receiver contain all digital components, thereby avoiding possible use of conventional devices like monostable multivibrators with unstable external components such as resistances and capacitances. The proposed receiver circuit, in particular, uses a combinational logic block yielding an output which changes its state as soon as the start bit of a new frame is detected. This, in turn, helps in generating an efficient receiver sampling clock. A data latching circuit is also used in the receiver to latch the recovered data bits in any new frame. The proposed receiver structure is also extended from 4- bit information to any general n data bits within a frame with a common expression for the output of the combinational logic block. Performance of the proposed hardware design is evaluated in terms of time delay, reliability and robustness in comparison with the standard schemes using monostable multivibrators. It is observed from hardware implementation that the proposed circuit achieves almost 33 percent speed up over any conventional circuit.
Abstract: For the last decade, statistics show traumatic brain
injury (TBI) is a growing concern in our legal system. In an effort to
obtain data regarding the influence of neuropsychological expert
witness testimony in a criminal case, this study tested three
hypotheses. H1: The majority of jurors will vote not guilty, due to
mild head injury. H2: The jurors will give more credence to the
testimony of the neuropsychologist rather than the psychiatrist. H3:
The jurors will be more lenient in their sentencing, given the
testimony of the neuropsychologist-s testimony. The criterion for
inclusion in the study as a participant is identical to those used for
inclusion in the eligibility for jury duty in the United States. A chisquared
test was performed to analyze the data for the three
hypotheses. The results supported all of the hypotheses; however
statistical significance was seen in H1 and H2 only.
Abstract: In this paper we present a generic approach for the problem of the blind estimation of the parameters of linear and convolutional error correcting codes. In a non-cooperative context, an adversary has only access to the noised transmission he has intercepted. The intercepter has no knowledge about the parameters used by the legal users. So, before having acess to the information he has first to blindly estimate the parameters of the error correcting code of the communication. The presented approach has the main advantage that the problem of reconstruction of such codes can be expressed in a very simple way. This allows us to evaluate theorical bounds on the complexity of the reconstruction process but also bounds on the estimation rate. We show that some classical reconstruction techniques are optimal and also explain why some of them have theorical complexities greater than these experimentally observed.
Abstract: Stuck-pipe in drilling operations is one of the most
pressing and expensive problems in the oil industry. This paper
describes a computational simulation and an experimental study of
the hydrodynamic vibrator, which may be used for liquidation of
stuck-pipe problems during well drilling. The work principle of the
vibrator is based upon the known phenomena of Vortex Street of
Karman and the resulting generation of vibrations. We will discuss
the computational simulation and experimental investigations of
vibrations in this device. The frequency of the vibration parameters
has been measured as a function of the wide range Reynolds Number.
The validity of the computational simulation and of the assumptions
on which it is based has been proved experimentally. The
computational simulation of the vibrator work and its effectiveness
was carried out using FLUENT software. The research showed high
degree of congruence with the results of the laboratory tests and
allowed to determine the effect of the granular material features upon
the pipe vibration in the well. This study demonstrates the potential
of using the hydrodynamic vibrator in a well drilling system.
Abstract: The increasing influence of traffic on building
objects and people residing in them should be taken into account in
diagnosis and design. Users of buildings expect that vibrations
occurring in their environment, will not only lead to damage to the
building or its accelerated wear, but neither would affect the required
comfort in rooms designed to accommodate people. This article
describes the methods and principles useful in designing and building
diagnostics located near transportation routes, with particular
emphasis on the impact of traffic vibration on people in buildings. It
also describes the procedures used in obtaining information about the
parameters of vibrations in different cases of diagnostics and design.
A universal algorithm of procedure in diagnostics and design of
buildings taking into account assurance of human vibration comfort
of people residing in the these buildings was presented.
Abstract: A decomposition of a graph G is a collection ψ of
graphs H1,H2, . . . , Hr of G such that every edge of G belongs
to exactly one Hi. If each Hi is either an induced path in G,
then ψ is called an induced acyclic path decomposition of G and
if each Hi is a (induced) cycle in G then ψ is called a (induced)
cycle decomposition of G. The minimum cardinality of an induced
acyclic path decomposition of G is called the induced acyclic path
decomposition number of G and is denoted by ¤Çia(G). Similarly
the cyclic decomposition number ¤Çc(G) is defined. In this paper we
begin an investigation of these parameters.