Abstract: Hazard management that can prevent fatal accidents and property losses is a fundamental process during the buildings’ construction stage. However, due to lack of safety supervision resources and operational pressures, the conduction of hazard management is poor and ineffective in China. In order to improve the quality of construction safety management, it is critical to explore the use of information technologies to ensure that the process of hazard management is efficient and effective. After exploring the existing problems of construction hazard management in China, this paper develops the griddization management model for construction hazard management. First, following the knowledge grid infrastructure, the griddization computing infrastructure for construction hazards management is designed which includes five layers: resource entity layer, information management layer, task management layer, knowledge transformation layer and application layer. This infrastructure will be as the technical support for realizing grid management. Second, this study divides the construction hazards into grids through city level, district level and construction site level according to grid principles. Last, a griddization management process including hazard identification, assessment and control is developed. Meanwhile, all stakeholders of construction safety management, such as owners, contractors, supervision organizations and government departments, should take the corresponding responsibilities in this process. Finally, a case study based on actual construction hazard identification, assessment and control is used to validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed griddization management model. The advantage of this designed model is to realize information sharing and cooperative management between various safety management departments.
Abstract: Fault diagnosis of Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV)
system using an adaptive Kalman filter is proposed. The LPV model
is comprised of scheduling parameters, and the emulator parameters.
The scheduling parameters are chosen such that they are capable of
tracking variations in the system model as a result of changes in the
operating regimes. The emulator parameters, on the other hand,
simulate variations in the subsystems during the identification phase
and have negligible effect during the operational phase. The nominal
model and the influence vectors, which are the gradient of the feature
vector respect to the emulator parameters, are identified off-line from
a number of emulator parameter perturbed experiments. A Kalman
filter is designed using the identified nominal model. As the system
varies, the Kalman filter model is adapted using the scheduling
variables. The residual is employed for fault diagnosis. The
proposed scheme is successfully evaluated on simulated system as
well as on a physical process control system.
Abstract: HMS Industrial Networks AB has been recognized as
one of the most innovative companies in the industrial
communication industry worldwide. The creation of their Anybus
innovation during the 1990s contributed considerably to the
company’s success. From inception, HMS’ employees were
innovating for the purpose of creating new business (the creation
phase). After the Anybus innovation, they began the process of
internationalization (the commercialization phase), which in turn led
them to concentrate on cost reduction, product quality, delivery
precision, operational efficiency, and increasing growth (the growth
phase). As a result of this transformation, performing new radical
innovations have become more complicated. The purpose of our research was to explore the dynamics of
innovation at HMS from the aspect of key actors, activities, and
events, over the three phases, in order to understand what led to the
creation of their Anybus innovation, and why it has become
increasingly challenging for HMS to create new radical innovations
for the future. Our research methodology was based on a longitudinal,
retrospective study from the inception of HMS in 1988 to 2014, a
single case study inspired by the grounded theory approach. We
conducted 47 interviews and collected 1 024 historical documents for
our research. Our analysis has revealed that HMS’ success in creating the
Anybus, and developing a successful business around the innovation,
was based on three main capabilities – cultivating customer relations
on different managerial and organizational levels, inspiring business
relations, and balancing complementary human assets for the purpose
of business creation. The success of HMS has turned the management’s attention away
from past activities of key actors, of their behavior, and how they
influenced and stimulated the creation of radical innovations.
Nowadays, they are rhetorically focusing on creativity and
innovation. All the while, their real actions put emphasis on growth,
cost reduction, product quality, delivery precision, operational
efficiency, and moneymaking. In the process of becoming an
international company, HMS gradually refocused. In so doing they
became profitable and successful, but they also forgot what made
them innovative in the first place. Fortunately, HMS’ management
has come to realize that this is the case and they are now in search of
recapturing innovation once again. Our analysis indicates that HMS’ management is facing several
barriers to innovation related path dependency and other lock-in
phenomena. HMS’ management has been captured, trapped in their
mindset and actions, by the success of the past. But now their future has to be secured, and they have come to realize that moneymaking is
not everything. In recent years, HMS’ management have begun to
search for innovation once more, in order to recapture their past
capabilities for creating radical innovations. In order to unlock their
managerial perceptions of customer needs and their counter-innovation
driven activities and events, to utilize the full potential of
their employees and capture the innovation opportunity for the future.
Abstract: Large scale Indian manufacturers started
implementing Six Sigma to their supply core to fulfill the endless
need of high quality products. As well, they initiated encouraging
their suppliers to apply the well-ascertain SS management practice
and kept no resource for supplier enterprises, generally small midsized
enterprises to think for the admittance of Six Sigma as a quality
promotion drive. There are many issues to study for requisite changes
before the introduction of Six Sigma in auto SMEs. This paper
converges on impeding factors while implementing SS drive and also
pinpoints the gains achieved through successful implementation. The
result of this study suggest some operational guidelines for effective
implementation of Six Sigma from evidences acquired through
research questionnaire and interviews with industrial professionals,
apportioned to assort auto sector mid-sized enterprises (MSEs) in
India.
Abstract: The UK has had its fair share of the shale gas
revolutionary waves blowing across the global oil and gas industry at
present. Although, its exploitation is widely agreed to have been
delayed, shale gas was looked upon favorably by the UK Parliament
when they recognized it as genuine energy source and granted
licenses to industry to search and extract the resource. This, although
a significant progress by industry, there yet remains another test the
UK fracking resource must pass in order to render shale gas
extraction feasible – it must be economically extractible and
sustainably so. Developing unconventional resources is much more
expensive and risky, and for shale gas wells, producing in
commercial volumes is conditional upon drilling horizontal wells and
hydraulic fracturing, techniques which increase CAPEX. Meanwhile,
investment in shale gas development projects is sensitive to gas price
and technical and geological risks. Using a Two-Factor Model, the
economics of the Bowland shale wells were analyzed and the
operational conditions under which fracking is profitable in the UK
was characterized. We find that there is a great degree of flexibility
about Opex spending; hence Opex does not pose much threat to the
fracking industry in the UK. However, we discover Bowland shale
gas wells fail to add value at gas price of $8/ Mmbtu. A minimum gas
price of $12/Mmbtu at Opex of no more than $2/ Mcf and no more
than $14.95M Capex are required to create value within the present
petroleum tax regime, in the UK fracking industry.
Abstract: Energy consumption data, in particular those involving
public buildings, are impacted by many factors: the building structure,
climate/environmental parameters, construction, system operating
condition, and user behavior patterns. Traditional methods for data
analysis are insufficient. This paper delves into the data mining
technology to determine its application in the analysis of building
energy consumption data including energy consumption prediction,
fault diagnosis, and optimal operation. Recent literature are reviewed
and summarized, the problems faced by data mining technology in the
area of energy consumption data analysis are enumerated, and research
points for future studies are given.
Abstract: The study of the aerodynamics related to the
improvement in the acting of airplanes and automobiles with the
objective of being reduced the effect of the attrition of the air on
structures, providing larger speeds and smaller consumption of fuel.
The application of the knowledge of the aerodynamics not more
limits to the aeronautical and automobile industries. Therefore, this
research aims to design and construction of a wind tunnel to perform
aerodynamic analysis in bodies of cars, seeking greater efficiency.
Therefore, this research aims to design and construction of a wind
tunnel to perform aerodynamic analysis in bodies of cars, seeking
greater efficiency. For this, a methodology for wind tunnel type
selection is designed to be built, taking into account the various
existing configurations in which chose to build an open circuit tunnel,
due to the lower complexity of construction and installation;
operational simplicity and low cost. The guidelines for the project
were teaching: the layer that limits study and analyze specimens with
different geometries. For the variation of pressure in the test, section
of a switched gauge used a pitot tube. Thus, it was possible to obtain
quantitative and qualitative results, which proved to be satisfactory.
Abstract: The early-stage damage detection in offshore
structures requires continuous structural health monitoring and for the
large area the position of sensors will also plays an important role in
the efficient damage detection. Determining the dynamic behavior of
offshore structures requires dense deployment of sensors. The wired
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are highly expensive
and always needs larger installation space to deploy. Wireless sensor
networks can enhance the SHM system by deployment of scalable
sensor network, which consumes lesser space. This paper presents the
results of wireless sensor network based Structural Health Monitoring
method applied to a scaled experimental model of offshore structure
that underwent wave loading. This method determines the
serviceability of the offshore structure which is subjected to various
environment loads. Wired and wireless sensors were installed in the
model and the response of the scaled BLSRP model under wave
loading was recorded. The wireless system discussed in this study is
the Raspberry pi board with Arm V6 processor which is programmed
to transmit the data acquired by the sensor to the server using Wi-Fi
adapter, the data is then hosted in the webpage. The data acquired
from the wireless and wired SHM systems were compared and the
design of the wireless system is verified.
Abstract: The number and adequacy of Performance-Indicators
(PIs) for organisational purposes are core to the success of
organisations and a major concern to the sponsor of this research.
This assignment developed a procedure to improve a firm’s
performance assessment system, by identifying two key-PIs out of 28
initial ones, and by setting criteria and their relative importance to
validate and rank the adequacy and the right number of operational
metrics. The Analytical-Hierarchy-Process was used with a synthesismethod
to treat data coming from the management inquiries.
Although organisational alignment has been achieved, business
processes should also be targeted and PIs continuously revised.
Abstract: Mineral product, waste concrete (fine aggregates),
waste in the optical field, industry, and construction employ separators
to separate solids and classify them according to their size. Various
sorting machines are used in the industrial field such as those operating
under electrical properties, centrifugal force, wind power, vibration,
and magnetic force. Study on separators has been carried out to
contribute to the environmental industry. In this study, we perform
CFD analysis for understanding the basic mechanism of the separation
of waste concrete (fine aggregate) particles from air with a machine
built with a rotor with blades. In CFD, we first performed
two-dimensional particle tracking for various particle sizes for the
model with 1 degree, 1.5 degree, and 2 degree angle between each
blade to verify the boundary conditions and the method of rotating
domain method to be used in 3D. Then we developed 3D numerical
model with ANSYS CFX to calculate the air flow and track the
particles. We judged the capability of particle separation for given size
by counting the number of particles escaping from the domain toward
the exit among 10 particles issued at the inlet. We confirm that
particles experience stagnant behavior near the exit of the rotating
blades where the centrifugal force acting on the particles is in balance
with the air drag force. It was also found that the minimum particle
size that can be separated by the machine with the rotor is determined
by its capability to stay at the outlet of the rotor channels.
Abstract: Context-aware technologies provide system
applications with the awareness of environmental conditions,
customer behaviours, object movements, etc. Further, with such
capability system applications can be smart to intelligently adapt their
responses to the changing conditions. In regard to business
operations, this promises businesses that their business processes can
run more intelligently, adaptively and flexibly, and thereby either
improve customer experience, enhance reliability of service delivery,
or lower operational cost, to make the business more competitive and
sustainable. Aiming at realising such context-aware business process
management, this paper firstly explores its potential benefit, and then
identifies some gaps between the current business process
management support and the expected. In addition, some preliminary
solutions are also discussed in regard to context definition, rule-based
process execution, run-time process evolution, etc. A framework is
also presented to give a conceptual architecture of context-aware
business process management system to guide system
implementation.
Abstract: The increase in electric power demand in face of
environmental issues has intensified the participation of renewable
energy sources such as photovoltaics, in the energy matrix of various
countries. Due to their operational characteristics, they can generate
time-varying harmonic and inter-harmonic distortions. For this
reason, the application of methods of measurement based on
traditional Fourier analysis, as proposed by IEC 61000-4-7, can
provide inaccurate results. Considering the aspects mentioned herein,
came the idea of the development of this work which aims to present
the results of a comparative evaluation between a methodology
arising from the combination of the Prony method with the Kalman
filter and another method based on the IEC 61000-4-30 and IEC
61000-4-7 standards. Employed in this study were synthetic signals
and data acquired through measurements in a 50kWp photovoltaic
installation.
Abstract: Present empirical paper investigates the relationship
between FDI and economic growth by 10 selected industries in 10
Central and Eastern European countries from the period 1995 to
2012. Different estimation approaches were used to explore the
connection between FDI and economic growth, for example OLS,
RE, FE with and without time dummies. Obtained empirical results
leads to some main consequences: First, the Central and East
European countries (CEEC) attracted foreign direct investment,
which raised the productivity of industries they entered in. It should
be concluded that the linkage between FDI and output growth by
industries is positive and significant enough to suggest that foreign
firm’s participation enhanced the productivity of the industries they
occupied. There had been an endogeneity problem in the regression
and fixed effects estimation approach was used which partially
corrected the regression analysis in order to make the results less
biased. Second, it should be stressed that the results show that time
has an important role in making FDI operational for enhancing output
growth by industries via total factor productivity. Third, R&D
positively affected economic growth and at the same time, it should
take some time for research and development to influence economic
growth. Fourth, the general trends masked crucial differences at the
country level: over the last 20 years, the analysis of the tables and
figures at the country level show that the main recipients of FDI of
the 11 Central and Eastern European countries were Hungary, Poland
and the Czech Republic. The main reason was that these countries
had more open door policies for attracting the FDI. Fifth, according
to the graphical analysis, while Hungary had the highest FDI inflow
in this region, it was not reflected in the GDP growth as much as in
other Central and Eastern European countries.
Abstract: The power electronic components within Electric Vehicles (EV) need to operate in several important modes. Some modes directly influence safety, while others influence vehicle performance. Given the variety of functions and operational modes required of the power electronics, it needs to meet efficiency requirements to minimize power losses. Another challenge in the control and construction of such systems is the ability to support bidirectional power flow. This paper considers the construction, operation, and feasibility of available converters for electric vehicles with feasible configurations of electrical buses and loads. This paper describes logic and control signals for the converters for different operations conditions based on the efficiency and energy usage bases.
Abstract: The rapid development technology and widespread
Internet make business environment changing a lot. In order to stand in
the global market and to keep subsistence, “changing” is unspoken
rule for the company’s survival. The purpose of this paper is building
up change model by using SWOT, strategy map, KPI and change
management theory. The research findings indicate that the company
needs to deal with employee’s resistance emotion firstly before
building up change model. The ways of providing performance
appraisal reward, consulting and counseling mechanisms that will
great help to achieve reducing staff negative emotions and motivate
staff’s efficiencies also. To revise strategy map, modify corporate
culture, and improve internal operational processes which is based on
change model. Through the change model, the increasing growth rate
of net income helps company to achieve the goals and be a leading
brand of precision machinery industry.
Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which sense
environmental data with battery-powered nodes, require multi-hop
communication. This power-demanding task adds an extra workload
that is unfairly distributed across the network. As a result, nodes run
out of battery at different times: this requires an impractical
individual node maintenance scheme. Therefore we investigate a new
Cooperative Sensing approach that extends the WSN operational life
and allows a more practical network maintenance scheme (where all
nodes deplete their batteries almost at the same time). We propose a
novel cooperative algorithm that derives a piecewise representation
of the sensed signal while controlling approximation accuracy.
Simulations show that our algorithm increases WSN operational life
and spreads communication workload evenly. Results convey a
counterintuitive conclusion: distributing workload fairly amongst
nodes may not decrease the network power consumption and yet
extend the WSN operational life. This is achieved as our cooperative
approach decreases the workload of the most burdened cluster in the
network.
Abstract: This research tested the performance of alternative
warehouse designs concerning the picking process. The chosen
performance measures were Travel Distance and Total Fulfilment
Time. An explanatory case study was built up around a model
implemented with SIMUL8. Hypotheses were set by selecting
outcomes from the literature survey matching popular empirical
findings. 17.4% reductions were found for Total Fulfilment Time and
Resource Utilisation. The latter was then used as a proxy for
operational efficiency. Literal replication of theoretical data-patterns
was considered as an internal validity sign. Assessing the estimated
changes benefits ahead of implementation was found to be a
contribution to practice.
Abstract: The paper is focused on the operational model for
transport the single wagon consignments on railway network by
using two different models of train formation. The paper gives an
overview of possibilities of improving the quality of transport
services. Paper deals with two models used in problematic of train
formatting - time continuously and time discrete. By applying these
models in practice, the transport company can guarantee a higher
quality of service and expect increasing of transport performance.
The models are also applicable into others transport networks. The
models supplement a theoretical problem of train formation by new
ways of looking to affecting the organization of wagon flows.
Abstract: One of the challenges that higher education faces is to
find how to approach the sustainability in an inclusive way to the
student within all the different academic areas, how to move the
sustainable development from the abstract field to the operational
field. This research comes from the ecoliteracy and the pedagogical
praxis as tools for rebuilding the teaching processes inside of
universities. The purpose is to determine and describe which are the
factors involved in the process of learning particularly in the
Greenhouse-School Siembra UV. In the Greenhouse-School Siembra UV, of the University of
Veracruz, are cultivated vegetables, medicinal plants and small
cornfields under the usage of eco-technologies such as hydroponics,
Wickingbed and Hugelkultur, which main purpose is the saving of
space, labor and natural resources, as well as function as agricultural
production alternatives in the urban and periurban zones. The sample was formed with students from different academic
areas and who are actively involved in the greenhouse, as well as
institutes from the University of Veracruz and governmental and nongovernmental
departments. This project comes from a pedagogic praxis approach, from filling
the needs that the different professional profiles of the university
students have. All this with the purpose of generate a pragmatic
dialogue with the sustainability. It also comes from the necessity to
understand the factors that intervene in the students’ praxis. In this
manner is how the students are the fundamental unit in the sphere of
sustainability. As a result, it is observed that those University of Veracruz
students who are involved in the Greenhouse-school, Siembra UV,
have enriched in different levels the sense of urban and periurban
agriculture because of the diverse academic approaches they have
and the interaction between them. It is concluded that the ecotechnologies
act as fundamental tools for ecoliteracy in society,
where it is strengthen the nutritional and food security from a
sustainable development approach.
Abstract: This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC)
of a utility interactive three phase inverter (TPI) for a photovoltaic
(PV) system at commercial level. The proposed model uses phase
locked loop (PLL) to synchronize the TPI with the power electric
grid (PEG) and performs MPC control in a dq reference frame. TPI
model consists of a boost converter (BC), maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) control, and a three-leg voltage source inverter
(VSI). The operational model of VSI is used to synthesize the
sinusoidal current and track the reference. The model is validated
using a 35.7 kW PV system in Matlab/Simulink. Implementation
results show simplicity and accuracy, as well as reliability of the
model.