Abstract: This study examines the inelastic behavior of adjacent planar reinforced concrete (R.C.) frames subjected to strong ground motions. The investigation focuses on the effects of vertical ground motion on the seismic pounding. The examined structures are modeled and analyzed by RUAUMOKO dynamic nonlinear analysis program using reliable hysteretic models for both structural members and contact elements. It is found that the vertical ground motion mildly affects the seismic response of adjacent buildings subjected to structural pounding and, for this reason, it can be ignored from the displacement and interstorey drifts assessment. However, the structural damage is moderately affected by the vertical component of earthquakes.
Abstract: Risk management is an essential fraction of project management, which plays a significant role in project success. Many failures associated with Web projects are the consequences of poor awareness of the risks involved and lack of process models that can serve as a guideline for the development of Web based applications. To circumvent this problem, contemporary process models have been devised for the development of conventional software. This paper introduces the WPRiMA (Web Project Risk Management Assessment) as the tool, which is used to implement RIAP, the risk identification architecture pattern model, which focuses upon the data from the proprietor-s and vendor-s perspectives. The paper also illustrates how WPRiMA tool works and how it can be used to calculate the risk level for a given Web project, to generate recommendations in order to facilitate risk avoidance in a project, and to improve the prospects of early risk management.
Abstract: The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)
and normalized difference moisture index (NDMI) derived from the
moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) have been
widely used to identify spatial information of drought condition. The
relationship between NDVI and NDMI has been analyzed using
Pearson correlation analysis and showed strong positive relationship.
The drought indices have detected drought conditions and identified
spatial extents of drought. A comparison between normal year and
drought year demonstrates that the amplitude analysis considered both
vegetation and moisture condition is an effective method to identify
drought condition. We proposed the amplitude analysis is useful for
quick spatial assessment of drought information at a regional scale.
Abstract: This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief
networks (BBN) as a higher level of health risk assessment for a
dumping site of lead battery smelter factory. On the basis of the
epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and
expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic
relationships between the hazardous substances and their adverse
health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity of the adverse
health effects. The provision of the morbidity rates of the related
diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of
conventional methods.
Abstract: Perth will run out of available sustainable natural
water resources by 2015 if nothing is done to slow usage rates,
according to a Western Australian study [1]. Alternative water
technology options need to be considered for the long-term
guaranteed supply of water for agricultural, commercial, domestic
and industrial purposes. Seawater is an alternative source of water for
human consumption, because seawater can be desalinated and
supplied in large quantities to a very high quality.
While seawater desalination is a promising option, the technology
requires a large amount of energy which is typically generated from
fossil fuels. The combustion of fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases
(GHG) and, is implicated in climate change. In addition to
environmental emissions from electricity generation for desalination,
greenhouse gases are emitted in the production of chemicals and
membranes for water treatment. Since Australia is a signatory to the
Kyoto Protocol, it is important to quantify greenhouse gas emissions
from desalinated water production.
A life cycle assessment (LCA) has been carried out to determine
the greenhouse gas emissions from the production of 1 gigalitre (GL)
of water from the new plant. In this LCA analysis, a new desalination
plant that will be installed in Bunbury, Western Australia, and known
as Southern Seawater Desalinization Plant (SSDP), was taken as a
case study. The system boundary of the LCA mainly consists of three
stages: seawater extraction, treatment and delivery. The analysis
found that the equivalent of 3,890 tonnes of CO2 could be emitted
from the production of 1 GL of desalinated water. This LCA analysis
has also identified that the reverse osmosis process would cause the
most significant greenhouse emissions as a result of the electricity
used if this is generated from fossil fuels
Abstract: The pedagogy project has been proven as an active
learning method, which is used to develop learner-s skills and
knowledge.The use of technology in the learning world, has filed
several gaps in the implementation of teaching methods, and online
evaluation of learners. However, the project methodology presents
challenges in the assessment of learners online.
Indeed, interoperability between E-learning platforms (LMS) is
one of the major challenges of project-based learning assessment.
Firstly, we have reviewed the characteristics of online assessment
in the context of project-based teaching. We addressed the
constraints encountered during the peer evaluation process.
Our approach is to propose a meta-model, which will describe a
language dedicated to the conception of peer assessment scenario in
project-based learning. Then we illustrate our proposal by an
instantiation of the meta-model through a business process in a
scenario of collaborative assessment on line.
Abstract: This study reports the implementation of Good
Manufacturing Practice (GMP) in a polycarbonate film processing
plant. The implementation of GMP took place with the creation of a
multidisciplinary team. It was carried out in four steps: conduct gap
assessment, create gap closure plan, close gaps, and follow up the
GMP implementation. The basis for the gap assessment is the
guideline for GMP for plastic materials and articles intended for Food
Contact Material (FCM), which was edited by Plastic Europe. The
effective results of the GMP implementation in this study showed
100% completion of gap assessment. The key success factors for
implementing GMP in production process are the commitment,
intention and support of top management.
Abstract: One major issue that is regularly cited as a block to
the widespread use of online assessments in eLearning, is that of the
authentication of the student and the level of confidence that an
assessor can have that the assessment was actually completed by that
student. Currently, this issue is either ignored, in which case
confidence in the assessment and any ensuing qualification is
damaged, or else assessments are conducted at central, controlled
locations at specified times, losing the benefits of the distributed
nature of the learning programme. Particularly as we move towards
constructivist models of learning, with intentions towards achieving
heutagogic learning environments, the benefits of a properly
managed online assessment system are clear. Here we discuss some
of the approaches that could be adopted to address these issues,
looking at the use of existing security and biometric techniques,
combined with some novel behavioural elements. These approaches
offer the opportunity to validate the student on accessing an
assessment, on submission, and also during the actual production of
the assessment. These techniques are currently under development in
the DECADE project, and future work will evaluate and report their
use..
Abstract: An advanced Monte Carlo simulation method, called Subset Simulation (SS) for the time-dependent reliability prediction for underground pipelines has been presented in this paper. The SS can provide better resolution for low failure probability level with efficient investigating of rare failure events which are commonly encountered in pipeline engineering applications. In SS method, random samples leading to progressive failure are generated efficiently and used for computing probabilistic performance by statistical variables. SS gains its efficiency as small probability event as a product of a sequence of intermediate events with larger conditional probabilities. The efficiency of SS has been demonstrated by numerical studies and attention in this work is devoted to scrutinise the robustness of the SS application in pipe reliability assessment. It is hoped that the development work can promote the use of SS tools for uncertainty propagation in the decision-making process of underground pipelines network reliability prediction.
Abstract: Today, computer systems are more and more complex and support growing security risks. The security managers need to find effective security risk assessment methodologies that allow modeling well the increasing complexity of current computer systems but also maintaining low the complexity of the assessment procedure. This paper provides a brief analysis of common security risk assessment methodologies leading to the selection of a proper methodology to fulfill these requirements. Then, a detailed analysis of the most effective methodology is accomplished, presenting numerical examples to demonstrate how easy it is to use.
Abstract: Software maintenance, which involves making enhancements, modifications and corrections to existing software systems, consumes more than half of developer time. Specification comprehensibility plays an important role in software maintenance as it permits the understanding of the system properties more easily and quickly. The use of formal notation such as B increases a specification-s precision and consistency. However, the notation is regarded as being difficult to comprehend. Semi-formal notation such as the Unified Modelling Language (UML) is perceived as more accessible but it lacks formality. Perhaps by combining both notations could produce a specification that is not only accurate and consistent but also accessible to users. This paper presents an experiment conducted on a model that integrates the use of both UML and B notations, namely UML-B, versus a B model alone. The objective of the experiment was to evaluate the comprehensibility of a UML-B model compared to a traditional B model. The measurement used in the experiment focused on the efficiency in performing the comprehension tasks. The experiment employed a cross-over design and was conducted on forty-one subjects, including undergraduate and masters students. The results show that the notation used in the UML-B model is more comprehensible than the B model.
Abstract: The research on the effectiveness of environmental
assessment (EA) is a milestone effort to evaluate the state of the field,
including many contributors related with a lot of countries since more
than two decades. In the 1960s, there was a surge of interest between
modern industrialized countries over unexpected opposite effects of
technical invention. The interest led to choice of approaches for
assessing and prediction the impressions of technology and
advancement for social and economic, state health and safety, solidity
and the circumstances. These are consisting of risk assessment,
technology assessment, environmental impact assessment and costbenefit
analysis. In this research contribution, the authors have
described the research status for environmental assessment in
cumulative environmental system. This article discusses the methods
for cumulative effect assessment (CEA).
Abstract: While the problem based learning (PBL) approach promotes unsupervised self-directed learning (SDL), many students experience difficulty juggling the role of being an information recipient and information seeker. Logbooks have been used to assess trainee doctors but not in other areas. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of logbook for assessing SDL during PBL sessions in first year medical students. The log book included a learning checklist and knowledge and skills components. Comparisons with the baseline assessment of student performance in PBL and that at semester end after logbook intervention showed significant improvements in student performance (31.5 ± 8 vs. 17.7 ± 4.4; p
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a Perceptually Optimized Foveation based Embedded ZeroTree Image Coder (POEFIC) that introduces a perceptual weighting to wavelet coefficients prior to control SPIHT encoding algorithm in order to reach a targeted bit rate with a perceptual quality improvement with respect to a given bit rate a fixation point which determines the region of interest ROI. The paper also, introduces a new objective quality metric based on a Psychovisual model that integrates the properties of the HVS that plays an important role in our POEFIC quality assessment. Our POEFIC coder is based on a vision model that incorporates various masking effects of human visual system HVS perception. Thus, our coder weights the wavelet coefficients based on that model and attempts to increase the perceptual quality for a given bit rate and observation distance. The perceptual weights for all wavelet subbands are computed based on 1) foveation masking to remove or reduce considerable high frequencies from peripheral regions 2) luminance and Contrast masking, 3) the contrast sensitivity function CSF to achieve the perceptual decomposition weighting. The new perceptually optimized codec has the same complexity as the original SPIHT techniques. However, the experiments results show that our coder demonstrates very good performance in terms of quality measurement.
Abstract: Natural resources management including water resources requires reliable estimations of time variant environmental parameters. Small improvements in the estimation of environmental parameters would result in grate effects on managing decisions. Noise reduction using wavelet techniques is an effective approach for preprocessing of practical data sets. Predictability enhancement of the river flow time series are assessed using fractal approaches before and after applying wavelet based preprocessing. Time series correlation and persistency, the minimum sufficient length for training the predicting model and the maximum valid length of predictions were also investigated through a fractal assessment.
Abstract: The contamination of 15 ground water resources
of a selected region earmarked for the emergency supply
of population has been monitored. The resources have been selected
on the basis of previous assessment of natural conditions
and the exploitation of territory in their surroundings and infiltration
area. Two resources out of 15 have been excluded from further
exploitation, because they have not met some of the 72 assessed
hygienic indicators of extended analysis. The remaining 13 resources
have been the subject of health risk analysis in relation
to the contamination by arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel and
manganese. The risk analysis proved that all 13 resources meet
health standards with regard to the above mentioned purposefully
selected elements and may thus be included into crisis plans. Water
quality of ground resources may be assessed in the same way
with regard to other contaminants.
Abstract: In a product development process, understanding the functional behavior of the system, the role of components in achieving functions and failure modes if components/subsystem fails its required function will help develop appropriate design validation and verification program for reliability assessment. The integration of these three issues will help design and reliability engineers in identifying weak spots in design and planning future actions and testing program. This case study demonstrate the advantage of unascertained theory described in the subjective cognition uncertainty, and then applies blind number (BN) theory in describing the uncertainty of the mechanical system failure process and the same time used the same theory in bringing out another mechanical reliability system model. The practical calculations shows the BN Model embodied the characters of simply, small account of calculation but betterforecasting capability, which had the value of macroscopic discussion to some extent.
Abstract: CT assessment of postoperative spine is challenging in the presence of metal streak artifacts that could deteriorate the
quality of CT images. In this paper, we studied the influence of different acquisition parameters on the magnitude of metal streaking.
A water-bath phantom was constructed with metal insertion similar with postoperative spine assessment. The phantom was scanned with
different acquisition settings and acquired data were reconstructed
using various reconstruction settings. Standardized ROIs were defined within streaking region for image analysis. The result shows
increased kVp and mAs enhanced SNR values by reducing image
noise. Sharper kernel enhanced image quality compared to smooth
kernel, but produced more noise in the images with higher CT fluctuation. The noise between both kernels were significantly
different (P
Abstract: A study was conducted to formally characterize
notebook computer performance under various environmental and
usage conditions. Software was developed to collect data from the
operating system of the computer. An experiment was conducted to
evaluate the performance parameters- variations, trends, and
correlations, as well as the extreme value they can attain in various
usage and environmental conditions. An automated software script
was written to simulate user activity. The variability of each
performance parameter was addressed by establishing the empirical
relationship between performance parameters. These equations were
presented as baseline estimates for performance parameters, which
can be used to detect system deviations from normal operation and
for prognostic assessment. The effect of environmental factors,
including different power sources, ambient temperatures, humidity,
and usage, on performance parameters of notebooks was studied.
Abstract: This paper describes a prototype aircraft that can fly
slowly, safely and transmit wireless video for tasks like reconnaissance,
surveillance and target acquisition. The aircraft is designed to
fly in closed quarters like forests, buildings, caves and tunnels which
are often spacious but GPS reception is poor. Envisioned is that a
small, safe and slow flying vehicle can assist in performing dull,
dangerous and dirty tasks like disaster mitigation, search-and-rescue
and structural damage assessment.