Abstract: The liberalization and privatization processes have
forced public utility companies to face new competitive challenges,
implementing strategies to gain market share and, at the same time,
keep the old customers. To this end, many companies have carried
out mergers, acquisitions and conglomerations in order to diversify
their business. This paper focuses on companies operating in the free
energy market in Italy. In the last decade, this sector has undergone
profound changes that have radically changed the competitive
scenario and have led companies to implement diversification
strategies of the business. Our work aims to evaluate the economic
and financial performances obtained by energy companies, following
the beginning of the liberalization process, verifying the possible
relationship with the implemented diversification strategies.
Abstract: Application of nanoparticles as additives in membrane
synthesis for improving the resistance of membranes against fouling
has triggered recent interest in new membrane types. However, most
nanoparticle-enhanced membranes suffer from the tradeoff between
permeability and selectivity. In this study, nano-WS2 was explored as
the additive in membrane synthesis by non-solvent induced phase
separation. Blended PES-WS2 flat-sheet membranes with the
incorporation of ultra-low concentrations of nanoparticles (from 0.025
to 0.25%, WS2/PES ratio) were manufactured and investigated in
terms of permeability, fouling resistance and solute rejection.
Remarkably, a significant enhancement in the permeability was
observed as a result of the incorporation of ultra-low fractions of
nano-WS2 to the membrane structure. Optimal permeability values
were obtained for modified membranes with 0.10%
nanoparticle/polymer concentration ratios. Furthermore, fouling
resistance and solute rejection were significantly improved by the
incorporation of nanoparticles into the membrane matrix. Specifically,
fouling resistance of modified membrane can increase by around 50%.
Abstract: Rapid Prototyping (RP) is a technology that produces models and prototype parts from 3D CAD model data, CT/MRI scan data, and model data created from 3D object digitizing systems. There are several RP process like Stereolithography (SLA), Solid Ground Curing (SGC), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), 3D Printing (3DP) among them SLS and FDM RP processes are used to fabricate pattern of custom cranial implant. RP technology is useful in engineering and biomedical application. This is helpful in engineering for product design, tooling and manufacture etc. RP biomedical applications are design and development of medical devices, instruments, prosthetics and implantation; it is also helpful in planning complex surgical operation. The traditional approach limits the full appreciation of various bony structure movements and therefore the custom implants produced are difficult to measure the anatomy of parts and analyze the changes in facial appearances accurately. Cranioplasty surgery is a surgical correction of a defect in cranial bone by implanting a metal or plastic replacement to restore the missing part. This paper aims to do a comparative study on the dimensional error of CAD and SLS RP Models for reconstruction of cranial defect by comparing the virtual CAD with the physical RP model of a cranial defect.
Abstract: Managing knowledge of research is one way to ensure
just in time information and knowledge to support research strategist
and activities. Unfortunately researcher found the vital research
knowledge in IHL (Institutions of Higher Learning) are scattered,
unstructured and unorganized. Aiming on lay aside conceptual
foundations for understanding and developing OMS (Organizational
Memory System) to facilitate research in IHL, this research revealed
ten factors contributed to the needs of research in the IHL and seven
internal challenges of IHL in promoting research to their academic
members. This study then suggested a comprehensive support of
managing research knowledge using Organizational Memory System
(OMS). Eight OMS characteristics to support research were
identified. Finally the initial work in designing OMS was projected
using knowledge taxonomy. All analysis is derived from pertinent
research paper related to research in IHL and OMS. Further study can
be conducted to validate and verify results presented.
Abstract: Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that has peaked to an alarming rate in recent decades. It can be found in tropical and sub-tropical climate. In Malaysia, dengue has been declared as one of the national health threat to the public. This study aimed to map the spatial distributions of dengue cases in the district of Hulu Langat, Selangor via a combination of Geographic Information System (GIS) and spatial statistic tools. Data related to dengue was gathered from the various government health agencies. The location of dengue cases was geocoded using a handheld GPS Juno SB Trimble. A total of 197 dengue cases occurring in 2003 were used in this study. Those data then was aggregated into sub-district level and then converted into GIS format. The study also used population or demographic data as well as the boundary of Hulu Langat. To assess the spatial distribution of dengue cases three spatial statistics method (Moran-s I, average nearest neighborhood (ANN) and kernel density estimation) were applied together with spatial analysis in the GIS environment. Those three indices were used to analyze the spatial distribution and average distance of dengue incidence and to locate the hot spot of dengue cases. The results indicated that the dengue cases was clustered (p < 0.01) when analyze using Moran-s I with z scores 5.03. The results from ANN analysis showed that the average nearest neighbor ratio is less than 1 which is 0.518755 (p < 0.0001). From this result, we can expect the dengue cases pattern in Hulu Langat district is exhibiting a cluster pattern. The z-score for dengue incidence within the district is -13.0525 (p < 0.0001). It was also found that the significant spatial autocorrelation of dengue incidences occurs at an average distance of 380.81 meters (p < 0.0001). Several locations especially residential area also had been identified as the hot spots of dengue cases in the district.
Abstract: Urban road network traffic has become one of the
most studied research topics in the last decades. This is mainly due to
the enlargement of the cities and the growing number of motor
vehicles traveling in this road network. One of the most sensitive
problems is to verify if the network is congestion-free. Another
related problem is the automatic reconfiguration of the network
without building new roads to alleviate congestions. These problems
require an accurate model of the traffic to determine the steady state
of the system. An alternative is to simulate the traffic to see if there
are congestions and when and where they occur. One key issue is to
find an adequate model for road intersections. Once the model
established, either a large scale model is built or the intersection is
represented by its performance measures and simulation for analysis.
In both cases, it is important to seek the queueing model to represent
the road intersection. In this paper, we propose to model the road
intersection as a BCMP queueing network and we compare this
analytical model against a simulation model for validation.
Abstract: Biodiesel as an alternative fuel for diesel engines has been developed for some three decades now. While it is gaining wide acceptance in Europe, USA and some parts of Asia, the same cannot be said of Africa. With more than 35 countries in the continent depending on imported crude oil, it is necessary to look for alternative fuels which can be produced from resources available locally within any country. Hence this study presents performance of single cylinder diesel engine using blends of shea butter biodiesel. Shea butter was transformed into biodiesel by transesterification process. Tests are conducted to compare the biodiesel with baseline diesel fuel in terms of engine performance and exhaust emission characteristics. The results obtained showed that the addition of biodiesel to diesel fuel decreases the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and increases the brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC). These results are expected due to the lower energy content of biodiesel fuel. On the other hand while the NOx emissions increased with increase in biodiesel content in the fuel blends, the emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), un-burnt hydrocarbon (UHC) and smoke opacity decreased. The engine performance which indicates that the biodiesel has properties and characteristics similar to diesel fuel and the reductions in exhaust emissions make shea butter biodiesel a viable additive or substitute to diesel fuel.
Abstract: It is well known that during the developments in the
economic sector and through the financial crises occur everywhere in
the whole world, volatility measurement is the most important
concept in financial time series. Therefore in this paper we discuss
the volatility for Amman stocks market (Jordan) for certain period of
time. Since wavelet transform is one of the most famous filtering
methods and grows up very quickly in the last decade, we compare
this method with the traditional technique, Fast Fourier transform to
decide the best method for analyzing the volatility. The comparison
will be done on some of the statistical properties by using Matlab
program.
Abstract: Performance of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) multiband
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultrawideband
(UWB) signal generation using frequency quadrupling
technique and transmission over fiber is experimentally investigated.
The frequency quadrupling is achived by using only one Mach-
Zehnder modulator (MZM) that is biased at maximum transmission
(MATB) point. At the output, a frequency quadrupling signal is
obtained then sent to a second MZM. This MZM is used for MBOFDM
UWB signal modulation. In this work, we demonstrate 30-
GHz mm-wave wireless that carries three-bands OFDM UWB
signals, and error vector magnitude (EVM) is used to analyze the
transmission quality. It is found that our proposed technique leads to
an improvement of 3.5 dB in EVM at 40% of local oscillator (LO)
modulation with comparison to the technique using two cascaded
MZMs biased at minimum transmission (MITB) point.
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: We propose a fast and robust hierarchical face detection system which finds and localizes face images with a cascade of classifiers. Three modules contribute to the efficiency of our detector. First, heterogeneous feature descriptors are exploited to enrich feature types and feature numbers for face representation. Second, a PSO-Adaboost algorithm is proposed to efficiently select discriminative features from a large pool of available features and reinforce them into the final ensemble classifier. Compared with the standard exhaustive Adaboost for feature selection, the new PSOAdaboost algorithm reduces the training time up to 20 times. Finally, a three-stage hierarchical classifier framework is developed for rapid background removal. In particular, candidate face regions are detected more quickly by using a large size window in the first stage. Nonlinear SVM classifiers are used instead of decision stump functions in the last stage to remove those remaining complex nonface patterns that can not be rejected in the previous two stages. Experimental results show our detector achieves superior performance on the CMU+MIT frontal face dataset.
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: Knowing the geometrical object pose of products in manufacturing line before robot manipulation is required and less time consuming for overall shape measurement. In order to perform it, the information of shape representation and matching of objects is become required. Objects are compared with its descriptor that conceptually subtracted from each other to form scalar metric. When the metric value is smaller, the object is considered closed to each other. Rotating the object from static pose in some direction introduce the change of value in scalar metric value of boundary information after feature extraction of related object. In this paper, a proposal method for indexing technique for retrieval of 3D geometrical models based on similarity between boundaries shapes in order to measure 3D CAD object pose using object shape feature matching for Computer Aided Testing (CAT) system in production line is proposed. In experimental results shows the effectiveness of proposed method.
Abstract: Capacity and efficiency of any refrigerating system
diminish rapidly as the difference between the evaporating and
condensing temperature is increased by a reduction in the evaporator
temperature. The single stage vapour compression refrigeration
system using various refrigerants are limited to an evaporator
temperature of -40 0C. Below temperature of -40 0C the either
cascade refrigeration system or multi stage vapour compression
system is employed. Present work describes thermal design of
condenser (HTS), cascade condenser and evaporator (LTS) of
R404A-R508B and R410A-R23 cascade refrigeration system. Heat
transfer area of condenser, cascade condenser and evaporator for
both systems are compared and the effect of condenser and
evaporator temperature on heat-transfer area for both systems is
studied under same operating condition. The results shows that the
required heat-transfer area of condenser and cascade condenser for
R410A-R23 cascade system is lower than the R404A-R508B cascade
system but heat transfer area of evaporator is similar for both the
system. The heat transfer area of condenser and cascade condenser
decreases with increase in condenser temperature (Tc), whereas the
heat transfer area of cascade condenser and evaporator increases with
increase in evaporator temperature (Te).
Abstract: In the past decade, because of wide applications of
hybrid systems, many researchers have considered modeling and
control of these systems. Since switching systems constitute an
important class of hybrid systems, in this paper a method for optimal
control of linear switching systems is described. The method is also
applied on the two-tank system which is a much appropriate system
to analyze different modeling and control techniques of hybrid
systems. Simulation results show that, in this method, the goals of
control and also problem constraints can be satisfied by an
appropriate selection of cost function.