Abstract: Hong Kong is a densely populated city suffering badly from the urban heat island effect. Green wall offers a means of ameliorating the situation but there are doubts over its suitability in Hong Kong’s unique environment. In this paper, we look at the potential for green walls in Hong Kong first by summarizing some of the Chinese green walling systems and associated vegetation in use, then by an introduction to three existing green walls in Hong Kong, and finally through a small experiment aimed at identifying the likely main effects of green walled housing.
The results indicate that green walling in Hong Kong is likely to provide enhanced internal house environment in terms of warm weather temperature reduction, stabilization and damping, with direct energy savings in air-conditioning and indirect district benefits of reduced heat island effect and carbon emissions. The green walling insulation properties also suggest the possibility of warmer homes in winter and/or energy savings in mechanical heating provision.
Abstract: This paper explain about prototype of a business directory for micro-scale businesses, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the third phase of the research. The third phase is the phase of software development based on the model of SME business directory that had been developed, to create prototype software SME business directory. In the fourth phase, namely the implementation, these units have been developed are tested to obtain input from potential users. The fifth phase is the testing phase to determine the strengths and weaknesses of software has been developed. The result of this phase is the software in the form of on-line (web based) and multimedia-based. Business Directory, if implemented will facilitate and optimize the access of SMEs to ease supplier access to marketing. Business Directory will be equipped with the power of geocoding, so each location can be easily viewed SMEs on the map. The map will be constructed by using the functionality of a web-based Google Maps API. The information presented in the form of multimedia that can be more interesting and interactive. Methodology used to achieve the goal: observation, interviews, modeling and classifying business directory for SMEs.
Abstract: Currently, the High voltage power supply for microwave generators with one magnetron uses a single-phase transformer with magnetic shunt. To contribute in the development of technological innovation in industry of manufacturing of power supplies of magnetrons for microwaves, ovens for domestic or industrial use, this original work treats the optimization of a new three-phase high voltage power supply for industrial microwaves generators with N magnetrons by phase (Treated case N=1), from its modeling with Matlab-Simulink. The design of this power supply uses three π quadruple models equivalents of new three-phase transformer with magnetic shunt of each phase. Every one supplies at its output a voltage doubler cell composed of a capacitor and a diode that in its output supplies only one magnetron.
In this work we will define a strategy that aims to reduce the volume of the transformer and the weight and cost of the entire system of the high voltage power supply, while respecting the conditions recommended by the manufacturer, concerning the current flowing in each magnetron: (Imax
Abstract: Surgical team consists of variety types of medical specialists possessing different kind of knowledge, motivations, personalities or abilities. This together with poor knowledge transfer, lack of information and communication technologies (ICT) implementations in hospitals can cause protraction of patient care processes and even jeopardize patient safety. There is presented in the article the outcomes of studies on communication and workflow in surgical team in the background of different collaboration levels in healthcare system. As a result the five determinants of improving workflow and communication within surgical team were indicated as well as knowledge-based tools and supporting information technology were proposed.
Abstract: Our field experiments were set at the RISF Látókép Experimental Farm of the Centre for Agricultural and Applied Economic Sciences of the University of Debrecen, on lime-coated chernozem soil. During our studies, we have investigated two winter wheat varieties (GK Öthalom, Mv Csárdás) of different genotypes. The preceding crops were sunflower and grain maize. We examined wheat leaf area index (LAI) five times during by BBCH scale. We have found that during the different stages of the vegetation period, the LAI values were different depending on the preceding crop, variety and nutrient levels. According to our results, the lowest LAI values were experienced in the control treatment, in the case of both preceding crops. According to our studies we can conclude that crop rotation and fertilizer treatment influenced the studied physiological trait to different extents.
Abstract: This paper proposes a video-based framework for face recognition to identify which faces appear in a video sequence. Our basic idea is like a tracking task - to track a selection of person candidates over time according to the observing visual features of face images in video frames. Hence, we employ the state-space model to formulate video-based face recognition by dividing this problem into two parts: the likelihood and the transition measures. The likelihood measure is to recognize whose face is currently being observed in video frames, for which two-dimensional linear discriminant analysis is employed. The transition measure estimates the probability of changing from an incorrect recognition at the previous stage to the correct person at the current stage. Moreover, extra nodes associated with head nodes are incorporated into our proposed state-space model. The experimental results are also provided to demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of our proposed approach.
Abstract: In an original directed diffusion routing protocol, a sink requests sensing data from a source node by flooding interest messages to the network. Then, the source finds the sink by sending exploratory data messages to all nodes that generate incoming interest messages. This protocol signaling can cause heavy traffic in the network, an interference of the radio signal, collisions, great energy consumption of sensor nodes, etc. According to this research problem, this paper investigates the effect of sending interest and exploratory data messages on the performance of directed diffusion routing protocol. We demonstrate the research problem occurred from employing directed diffusion protocol in mobile wireless environments. For this purpose, we perform a set of experiments by using NS2 (network simulator 2). The radio propagation models; Two-ray ground reflection with and without shadow fading are included to investigate the effect of signaling. The simulation results show that the number of times of sent and received protocol signaling in the case of sending interest and exploratory data messages are larger than the case of sending other protocol signals, especially in the case of shadowing model. Additionally, the number of exploratory data message is largest in one round of the protocol procedure.
Abstract: The interaction of mass will determine the curvature of space-time, may determine that events proceed at different rates of time at each point in space, so each has a corresponding gravitational potential time. So we can find different values of gravity (g), corresponding to different times (t), thus making a "map of time in space." The space-time is curved by present mass, causing a force of attraction towards the body, but if you invest the curvature of space-time, we find that this field is repulsive: Obtaining negative gravitational forces and positive gravitational forces respectively.
Abstract: This article aims to investigate the performance of a magnetic fluid based squeeze film between rotating transversely rough curved porous annular plates incorporating the effect of elastic deformation. The associated stochastically averaged Reynolds type equation is solved to obtain the pressure distribution leading to the calculation of the load carrying capacity. The results suggest that the transverse roughness of the bearing surfaces affects the performance adversely although the bearing systems register a relatively improved performance due to the magnetization. The deformation causes reduced the load carrying capacity while the curvature parameters tend to nominally increase the load carrying capacity. Besides, the adverse effect of porosity, deformation and standard deviation can be minimized to some extent by the positive effect of the magnetization and the curvature parameters in the case of negatively skewed roughness by suitably choosing the rotational inertia and the aspect ratio, which becomes significant when negative variance occurs.
Abstract: A total of 60 male mule ducks and 60 male Muscovy ducks were allotted into three groups (n = 20) to estimate the effects of overfeeding (two and four meals) versus ad libitum feeding on productive performance traits, foie gras production, internal organs, and blood parameters.
The results show that force-feeding four meals significantly increased (P < 0.01) body weight, weight gain, and gain percentage compared to force-feeding two meals. Both force-feeding regimes (two or four meals) induced significantly higher body weight, weight gain, gain percentage, and absolute carcass weight than ad libitum feeding; however, carcass percentage was significantly higher in ad libitum feeding. Mule ducks had significantly higher weight gain and weight gain percentages than Muscovy ducks.
Feed consumption per kilogram of foie gras and per kilogram weight gain was lower for the four-meal than for the two-meal forced feeding regime. Force-feeding four meals induced significantly higher liver weight and percentage (488.96 ± 25.78g, 7.82 ± 0.40%) than force-feeding two meals (381.98 ± 13.60g, 6.42 ± 0.21%). Moreover, feed conversion was significantly higher under forced feeding than under ad libitum feeding (77.65 ± 3.41g, 1.72 ± 0.05%; P < 0.01).
Forced feeding (two or four meals) increased all organ weights (intestine, proventriculus, heart, spleen, and pancreas) over ad libitum feeding weights, except for the gizzard; however intestinal and abdominal fat values were higher for four-meal forced feeding than for two-meal forced feeding.
Overfeeding did not change blood parameters significantly compared to ad libitum feeding; however, four-meal forced feeding improved the quality of foie gras since it significantly increased the percentage of grade A foie gras (62.5%) at the expense of grades B (33.33%) and C (4.17%) compared with the two-meal forced feeding.
The mortality percentage among Muscovy ducks during the forced feeding period was 22.5%, compared to 0% in mule ducks. Liver weight was highly significantly correlated with life weight after overfeeding and certain blood plasma traits.
Abstract: Periodic broadcast is a cost-effective solution for large-scale distribution of popular videos because this approach guarantees constant worst service latency, regardless of the number of video requests. An essential periodic broadcast method is the client-centric approach (CCA), which allows clients to use smaller receiving bandwidth to download broadcast data. An enhanced version, namely CCA++, was proposed to yield a shorter waiting time. This work further improves CCA++ in reducing client buffer requirements. The new scheme decreases the buffer requirements by as much as 52% when compared to CCA++. This study also provides an analytical evaluation to demonstrate the performance advantage, as compared with particular schemes.
Abstract: In times when product life cycles are decreasing, while market demands are increasing, manufacturing enterprises are confronted with the challenge of more frequent and more complex ramp-ups. Thus it becomes obvious that ramp-up management is going to be a topic enterprises have to focus on in the future. Since each ramp-up is unique concerning the product, the process, the technology, the circumstances and the coaction of these four factors, the knowledge of the ramp-up situation and the current ramp-up capability of the enterprise are fundamental requirements for the subsequent improvement of the ramp-up capability of the production system.
In this article a methodology is going to be presented which can be used to define typical production ramp-up situations, to identify the current ramp-up capability of a production system and to improve it with respect to a specific situation. Additionally there will be a description of the functionality of a software-tool developed based on this methodology.
Abstract: This paper presents a method of economic factorial analysis of the CO2 emissions based on the extension of the Divisia index to interconnected factors. This approach, contrary to the Kaya identity, considers three main factors of the CO2 emissions: gross domestic product, energy consumption, and population - as equally important, and allows for accounting of all of them simultaneously. The three factors are included into analysis together with their carbon intensities that allows for obtaining a comprehensive picture of the change in the CO2 emissions. A computer program in R-language that is available for free download serves automation of the calculations. A case study of the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions is used as an example.
Abstract: This paper presents an application of the Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) methodology to a turret punching machine in an elevators company, in Portugal. The work was developed during five months, in the ambit of a master thesis in Industrial Engineering and Management. The Lean Production tool SMED was applied to reduce setup times in order to improve the production flexibility of the machine. The main results obtained were a reduction of 64% in setup time (from 15.1 to 5.4min), 50% in work-in-process amount (from 12.8 to 6.4 days) and 99% in the distance traveled by the operator during the internal period (from 136.7 to 1.7m). These improvements correspond to gains of about €7,315.38 per year.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to survey the incidence, prevalence, types and associated impairments of CP in children at the Tripoli children hospital (T.C.H). The study covered all the cases the hospital had diagnosed in the period between (1.1.2009) and (31.12.2010), during which 38 cases of ages between 2 months to 3 years were diagnosed in the mentioned period. The incidence of CP was (17.42 per one thousand) out of (2143) of different neurological cases and came with a result of 23 cases of spastic CP which represented about (60.53%) out of the total number of cases, and the most associated impairment is convulsion. Medical information was collected from the patients’ files at the registration department from the neurology department. The data has been collected by a questionnaire, which had been set to finely organize the patient’s files.
Abstract: This paper contributes to the analysis of the design of regional development programs. This is a case study the birth, life, death and afterlife of a stately development program in Norway, supporting diffusion of innovations by promoting e-business in SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises).
The study shows that joint projects like regional development programs have to be designed such that the present value of the future benefits always exceeds the present value of the future effort for all stakeholders vital for the survival of the project. The study also indicate that a development program not always have one common goal which all the stakeholders agree upon. There are several stakeholders who may have different goals by playing a part in the realization of the program.
Even if some parties evaluate the results of a development program as a failure, other may have attained their goals. The lessons learned from this study may advise the designers of development programs involving many independent stakeholders. There is a lack of research examining failing development programs, investigating the reasons for it to be considered a failure. This paper shows why a development program was terminated and gives hint to how joint programs could be designed in order for the program to deliver the wanted results to all the key stakeholders.
Abstract: We consider n individuals described by p standardized variables, represented by points of the surface of the unit hypersphere Sn-1. For a previous choice of n individuals we suppose that the set of observables variables comes from a mixture of bipolar Watson distribution defined on the hypersphere. EM and Dynamic Clusters algorithms are used for identification of such mixture. We obtain estimates of parameters for each Watson component and then a partition of the set of variables into homogeneous groups of variables. Additionally we will present a factor analysis model where unobservable factors are just the maximum likelihood estimators of Watson directional parameters, exactly the first principal component of data matrix associated to each group previously identified. Such alternative model it will yield us to directly interpretable solutions (simple structure), avoiding factors rotations.
Abstract: Since the late 1970s, quality management has become an important tool for achieving a high quality of public e-administration services in many countries. Very important part of quality management in e-administration is measurement of quality indicators related to this sector. Therefore, this paper gives a description of e-administration, including statistics about it and other examples from many countries worldwide, as well as the explanation of quality management in public e-administration. The paper also gives a list and description of quality indicators relevant to e-administration, as part of quality management within the e-administration. Through a literature review and best practices, the paper aims to analyze quality indicators measurement and other parts of good quality management when it comes to the public e-administration and consequently to show the usefulness of quality management in public e-administration in order to provide services of high quality.
Abstract: This article aims to assess the level of basic knowledge of statutory employment rights at the workplace as prescribed by the Malaysian Employment Act 1955. The statutory employment rights comprises of a variety of individual employment rights such as protections of wages, statutory right to the general standard of working time, statutory right to rest day, public holidays, annual leave and sick leave as well as female employee’s statutory right to paid maternity leave. A field survey was carried out to collect data by using self-administered questionnaires from Human Resource (HR) practitioners in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The results reveal that the level of basic knowledge of legislated employment rights varies between different types of statutory rights from high level to low level.
Abstract: This study examines the media habits of young people
in Saudi Arabia, in particular their use of the Internet and television
in the domestic sphere, and how use of the Internet impacts upon
other activities. In order to address the research questions, focus
group interviews were conducted with Saudi university students. The
study found that television has become a central part of social life
within the household where television represents a main source for
family time, particularly in Ramadan while the Internet is a solitary
activity where it is used in more private spaces. Furthermore, Saudi
females were also more likely to have their Internet access monitored
and circumscribed by family members, with parents controlling the
location and the amount of time spent using the Internet.