Abstract: Liquidity risk management ranks to key concepts
applied in finance. Liquidity is defined as a capacity to obtain
funding when needed, while liquidity risk means as a threat to this
capacity to generate cash at fair costs. In the paper we present
challenges of liquidity risk management resulting from the 2007-
2009 global financial upheaval. We see five main regulatory
liquidity risk management issues requiring revision in coming
years: liquidity measurement, intra-day and intra-group liquidity
management, contingency planning and liquidity buffers, liquidity
systems, controls and governance, and finally models testing the
viability of business liquidity models.
Abstract: From an economic standpoint the current and future
road traffic situation in urban areas is a cost factor. Traffic jams and
congestion prolong journey times and tie up resources in trucks and
personnel. Many discussions about imposing charges or tolls for
cities in Europe in order to reduce traffic congestion are currently in
progress. Both of these effects lead – directly or indirectly - to
additional costs for the urban distribution systems in retail
companies. One approach towards improving the efficiency of retail
distribution systems, and thus towards avoiding negative
environmental factors in urban areas, is horizontal collaboration for
deliveries to retail outlets – Urban Retail Logistics. This paper
presents a classification system to help reveal where cooperation
between retail companies is possible and makes sense for deliveries
to retail outlets in urban areas.
Abstract: This paper presents a new classification algorithm using colour and texture for obstacle detection. Colour information is computationally cheap to learn and process. However in many cases, colour alone does not provide enough information for classification. Texture information can improve classification performance but usually comes at an expensive cost. Our algorithm uses both colour and texture features but texture is only needed when colour is unreliable. During the training stage, texture features are learned specifically to improve the performance of a colour classifier. The algorithm learns a set of simple texture features and only the most effective features are used in the classification stage. Therefore our algorithm has a very good classification rate while is still fast enough to run on a limited computer platform. The proposed algorithm was tested with a challenging outdoor image set. Test result shows the algorithm achieves a much better trade-off between classification performance and efficiency than a typical colour classifier.
Abstract: With the development of the Polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) products in many applications, the challenge of investigating
the raw material composition and reducing the cost have both
become more and more important. Considerable research has been
done investigating the effect of additives on the PVC products. Most
of the PVC composites research investigates only the effect of
single/few factors, at a time. This isolated consideration of the input
factors does not take in consideration the interaction effect of the
different factors. This paper implements a mixture experimental
design approach to find out a cost-effective PVC composition for the
production of electrical-insulation cables considering the ASTM
Designation (D) 6096. The results analysis showed that a minimum
cost can be achieved through using 20% virgin PVC, 18.75%
recycled PVC, 43.75% CaCO3 with participle size 10 microns, 14%
DOP plasticizer, and 3.5% CPW plasticizer. For maximum UTS the
compound should consist of: 17.5% DOP, 62.5% virgin PVC, and
20.0% CaCO3 of particle size 5 microns. Finally, for the highest
ductility the compound should be made of 35% virgin PVC, 20%
CaCO3 of particle size 5 microns, and 45.0% DOP plasticizer.
Abstract: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common
and disabling condition. Therapist-delivered treatments that use
exposure and response prevention have been found to be very
effective in treating OCD, although they are costly and associated
with high rates of attrition. Effective treatments that can be made
widely available without the need for therapist contact are urgently
needed. This case study represents the first published investigation of
a self-administered cognitive treatment for OCD in a 50-year old
female with a 20 year history of OCD. The treatment evaluation
occurred over 27 weeks, including 12 weeks of self-administration of
the Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy (DIRT) program. Decreases
of between 23% to 33% on measures from pre-treatment to follow-up
were observed. Bearing in mind the methodological limitations
associated with a case study, we conclude that the results reported
here are encouraging and indicate that further research effort
evaluating the effectiveness of self-administered DIRT is warranted.
Abstract: This paper presents the determination of the proper
quality costs parameters which provide the optimum return. The
system dynamics simulation was applied. The simulation model was
constructed by the real data from a case of the electronic devices
manufacturer in Thailand. The Steepest Descent algorithm was
employed to optimise. The experimental results show that the
company should spend on prevention and appraisal activities for 850
and 10 Baht/day respectively. It provides minimum cumulative total
quality cost, which is 258,000 Baht in twelve months. The effect of
the step size in the stage of improving the variables to the optimum
was also investigated. It can be stated that the smaller step size
provided a better result with more experimental runs. However, the
different yield in this case is not significant in practice. Therefore, the
greater step size is recommended because the region of optima could
be reached more easily and rapidly.
Abstract: It is necessary to incorporate technological advances
achieved in the field of engineering into dentistry in order to enhance
the process of diagnosis, treatment planning and enable the doctors to
render better treatment to their patients. To achieve this ultimate goal
long distance collaborations are often necessary. This paper discusses
the various collaborative tools and their applications to solve a few
burning problems confronted by the dentists. Customization is often
the solution to most of the problems. But rapid designing,
development and cost effective manufacturing is a difficult task to
achieve. This problem can be solved using the technique of digital
manufacturing. Cases from 6 major branches of dentistry have been
discussed and possible solutions with the help of state of art
technology using rapid digital manufacturing have been proposed in
the present paper. The paper also entails the usage of existing tools in
collaborative and digital manufacturing area.
Abstract: There are multiple reasons to expect that detecting the
word order errors in a text will be a difficult problem, and detection
rates reported in the literature are in fact low. Although grammatical
rules constructed by computer linguists improve the performance of
grammar checker in word order diagnosis, the repairing task is still
very difficult. This paper presents an approach for repairing word
order errors in English text by reordering words in a sentence and
choosing the version that maximizes the number of trigram hits
according to a language model. The novelty of this method concerns
the use of an efficient confusion matrix technique for reordering the
words. The comparative advantage of this method is that works with
a large set of words, and avoids the laborious and costly process of
collecting word order errors for creating error patterns.
Abstract: Dual motor drives fed by single inverter is
purposely designed to reduced size and cost with respect to
single motor drives fed by single inverter. Previous researches
on dual motor drives only focus on the modulation and the
averaging techniques. Only a few of them, study the
performance of the drives based on different speed controller
other than Proportional and Integrator (PI) controller. This
paper presents a detailed comparative study on fuzzy rule-base
in Fuzzy Logic speed Controller (FLC) for Dual Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) drives. Two fuzzy speed
controllers which are standard and simplified fuzzy speed
controllers are designed and the results are compared and
evaluated. The standard fuzzy controller consists of 49 rules
while the proposed controller consists of 9 rules determined by
selecting the most dominant rules only. Both designs are
compared for wide range of speed and the robustness of both
controllers over load disturbance changes is tested to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the simplified/reduced rulebase.
Abstract: Main goal of preventive healthcare problems are at
decreasing the likelihood and severity of potentially life-threatening
illnesses by protection and early detection. The levels of
establishment and staffing costs along with summation of the travel
and waiting time that clients spent are considered as objectives
functions of the proposed nonlinear integer programming model. In
this paper, we have proposed a bi-objective mathematical model for
designing a network of preventive healthcare facilities so as to
minimize aforementioned objectives, simultaneously. Moreover, each
facility acts as M/M/1 queuing system. The number of facilities to be
established, the location of each facility, and the level of technology
for each facility to be chosen are provided as the main determinants
of a healthcare facility network. Finally, to demonstrate performance
of the proposed model, four multi-objective decision making
techniques are presented to solve the model.
Abstract: The security of computer networks plays a strategic
role in modern computer systems. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)
act as the 'second line of defense' placed inside a protected
network, looking for known or potential threats in network traffic
and/or audit data recorded by hosts. We developed an Intrusion
Detection System using LAMSTAR neural network to learn patterns
of normal and intrusive activities, to classify observed system
activities and compared the performance of LAMSTAR IDS with
other classification techniques using 5 classes of KDDCup99 data.
LAMSAR IDS gives better performance at the cost of high
Computational complexity, Training time and Testing time, when
compared to other classification techniques (Binary Tree classifier,
RBF classifier, Gaussian Mixture classifier). we further reduced the
Computational Complexity of LAMSTAR IDS by reducing the
dimension of the data using principal component analysis which in
turn reduces the training and testing time with almost the same
performance.
Abstract: The adoption of building information modeling (BIM)
is increasing in the construction industry. However, quantity
surveyors are slow in adoption compared to other professions due to
lack of awareness of the BIM’s potential in their profession. It is still
unclear on how BIM application can enhance quantity surveyors’
work performance and project performance. The aim of this research
is to identify the capabilities of BIM in quantity surveying practices
and examine the relationship between BIM capabilities and project
performance. Questionnaire survey and interviews were adopted for
data collection. Literature reviews identified there are eleven BIM
capabilities in quantity surveying practice. Questionnaire results
showed that there are several BIM capabilities significantly
correlated with project performance in time, cost and quality aspects
and the results were validated through interviews. These findings
show that BIM has the capabilities to enhance quantity surveyors’
performances and subsequently improved project performance.
Abstract: Knowledge management is a critical component of
competitive success in service organizations. Knowledge
management centers on creating new knowledge and utilizing
existing knowledge. While utilizing existing knowledge relates to
input and control and can lead to a reduction in costs; creating new
knowledge relates to output and growth and can lead to an increase in
revenue. Therefore managers must ensure that they can successfully
optimize the knowledge and talent in their organizations. To do this
they and must try to develop an environment that promotes the
generation, acquisition, transfer and use of valuable knowledge in
creative ways. However knowledge management is complex and
diverse. Research suggests that organizations in general and SMEs in
particular are finding it difficult to implement successful knowledge
management initiatives. Our research attempts to understand whether
organizations are adopting best practice initiatives in their
organizations. This paper presents findings from an exploratory study
of 139 SMEs operating in the tourism sector across Europe. The
goals of the survey is to assess the level of awareness of knowledge
and talent management strategies and methodologies and to
determine whether the responding companies implement best practice
knowledge management initiatives in their organizations Analysis of
the findings from the study are presented and discussed.
Abstract: Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses have created demand for a cost-effective vaccine to prevent a pandemic of the disease. Here, we report that Trichoplusia ni (T. ni) larvae can act as a cost-effective bioreactor to produce recombinant HA5 (rH5HA) proteins as an potential effective vaccine for chickens. To facilitate the recombinant virus identification, virus titer determination and access the infected larvae, we employed the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) derived from Perina nuda virus (PnV, belongs to insect picorna like Iflavirus genus) to construct a bi-cistronic baculovirus expression vector that can express the rH5HA protein and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) simultaneously. Western blot analysis revealed that the 70 kDa rH5HA protein and partially cleaved products (40 kDa H5HA1) were generated in T. ni larvae infected with recombinant baculovirus carrying the H5HA gene. These data suggest that the baculovirus-larvae recombinant protein expression system could be a cost-effective platform for H5N1 vaccine production.
Abstract: The usual method of river flow diversion involves construction of tunnels and cofferdams. Given the fact that the cost of diversion works could be as high as 10-20% of the total dam construction cost, due attention should be paid to optimum design of the diversion works. The cost of diversion works depends, on factors, such as: the tunnel dimensions and the intended tunneling support measures during and after excavation; quality and characterizes of the rock through which the tunnel should be excavated; the dimensions of the upstream (and downstream) cofferdams; and the magnitude of river flood the system is designed to divert. In this paper by use of the cost of unit prices for tunnel excavation, tunnel lining, tunnel support (rock bolt + shotcrete) and cofferdam fill the cost function was determined. The function is then minimized by the aid of PSO Algorithm (particle swarm optimization). It is found that the optimum diameter and the total diversion cost are directly related to the river flood discharge (Q). It has also shown that in addition to optimum diameter design discharge (Q), river length, tunnel length, is mainly a function of the ratios (not the absolute values) of the unit prices and does not depend on the overall price levels in the respective country. The results of optimization use in some of the case study lead us to significant changes in the cost.
Abstract: The operating control parameters of injection
flushing type of electrical discharge machining process on stainless
steel 304 workpiece using copper tools are being optimized
according to its individual machining characteristic i.e. Electrode
Wear Ratio (EWR). Higher EWR would give bad dimensional
precision for the EDM machined workpiece because of high
electrode wear. Hence, the quality characteristic for EWR is set to
lower-the-better to achieve the optimum dimensional precision for
the machined workpiece. Taguchi method has been used for the
construction, layout and analysis of the experiment for EWR
machining characteristic. The use of Taguchi method in the
experiment saves a lot of time and cost of preparing and machining
the experiment samples. Therefore, an L18 Orthogonal array
which was the fundamental component in the statistical design of
experiments has been used to plan the experiments and Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA) is used to determine the optimum machining
parameters for this machining characteristic. The control
parameters selected for this optimization experiments are polarity,
pulse on duration, discharge current, discharge voltage, machining
depth, machining diameter and dielectric liquid pressure. The
result had shown that negative polarity machining parameter
setting will decreases EWR.
Abstract: This study examines regional convergence in per capita personal income in the US and Canada. We find that the disparity in real per capita income levels across US states (Canadian provinces) has declined, but income levels are not identical. Income levels become more aligned once costs of living are accounted for in relative per capita income series. US states (Canadian provinces) converge at an annual rate of between 1.3% and 2.04% (between 2.15% and 2.37%). A pattern of σ and β-convergence in per capita personal income across regions evident over the entire sample period, is reversed over 1979-1989 (1976-1990) period. The reversal may be due to sectoral or region-specific shocks that have highly persistent effects. The latter explanation might be true for half of the US and most of Canada.
Abstract: This study proposes a hybrid minimal repair policy
which combines periodic maintenance policy with age-based maintenance policy for a serial production system. Parameters of such policy are defined as and which indicate as hybrid minimal
repair time and planned preventive maintenance time
respectively . Under this hybrid policy, the system is
repaired minimally if it fails during , . A perfect repair is
conducted on the first failure after at any machines. At the same time, we take opportunity to advance the preventive maintenance of
other machines simultaneously. If the system is still operating
properly up to , then the preventive maintenance is carried out as its
predetermined schedule. For a given , we obtain the optimal value which minimizes the expected cost per time unit. Numerical
example is presented to illustrate the properties of the optimal solution.
Abstract: Recently, the issue of machine condition monitoring
and fault diagnosis as a part of maintenance system became global
due to the potential advantages to be gained from reduced
maintenance costs, improved productivity and increased machine
availability. The aim of this work is to investigate the effectiveness
of a new fault diagnosis method based on power spectral density
(PSD) of vibration signals in combination with decision trees and
fuzzy inference system (FIS). To this end, a series of studies was
conducted on an external gear hydraulic pump. After a test under
normal condition, a number of different machine defect conditions
were introduced for three working levels of pump speed (1000, 1500,
and 2000 rpm), corresponding to (i) Journal-bearing with inner face
wear (BIFW), (ii) Gear with tooth face wear (GTFW), and (iii)
Journal-bearing with inner face wear plus Gear with tooth face wear
(B&GW). The features of PSD values of vibration signal were
extracted using descriptive statistical parameters. J48 algorithm is
used as a feature selection procedure to select pertinent features from
data set. The output of J48 algorithm was employed to produce the
crisp if-then rule and membership function sets. The structure of FIS
classifier was then defined based on the crisp sets. In order to
evaluate the proposed PSD-J48-FIS model, the data sets obtained
from vibration signals of the pump were used. Results showed that
the total classification accuracy for 1000, 1500, and 2000 rpm
conditions were 96.42%, 100%, and 96.42% respectively. The results
indicate that the combined PSD-J48-FIS model has the potential for
fault diagnosis of hydraulic pumps.
Abstract: Reno-pin contact test is a method that is controlled by
DC motor used to characterize electronic chips. This method is used in
electronic and telecommunication devices. A new electric
performance testing system is developed in which the testing method
is controlled by using Piezoelectric Transducer (PZT) instead of DC
motor which reduces vibration and noise. The vertical displacement of
the Reno-pin is very short in the Reno-pin contact testing system. Now
using a flexible guide in the new Reno-pin contact system, the vertical
movement of the Reno-pin is increased many times of the existing
Reno-pin contact testing method using DC motor. Using the present
electric performance testing system with a flexible hinge and PZT
instead of DC motor, manufacturing of electronic chips are able to
characterize chips with low cost and high speed.