Abstract: Global environmental changes lead to increased frequency and scale of natural disaster, Taiwan is under the influence of global warming and extreme weather. Therefore, the vulnerability was increased and variability and complexity of disasters is relatively enhanced. The purpose of this study is to consider the source and magnitude of hazard characteristics on the tourism industry. Using modern risk management concepts, integration of related domestic and international basic research, this goes beyond the Taiwan typhoon disaster risk assessment model and evaluation of loss. This loss evaluation index system considers the impact of extreme weather, in particular heavy rain on the tourism industry in Taiwan. Consider the extreme climate of the compound impact of disaster for the tourism industry; we try to make multi-hazard risk assessment model, strategies and suggestions. Related risk analysis results are expected to provide government department, the tourism industry asset owners, insurance companies and banking include tourist disaster risk necessary information to help its tourism industry for effective natural disaster risk management.
Abstract: Nowadays, the pace of business change is such that,
increasingly, new functionality has to be realized and reliably
installed in a matter of days, or even hours. Consequently, more and
more business processes are prone to a continuous change. The
objective of the research in progress is to use the MAP model, in a
conceptual modeling method for flexible and adaptive business
process. This method can be used to capture the flexibility
dimensions of a business process; it takes inspiration from
modularity concept in the object oriented paradigm to establish a
hierarchical construction of the BP modeling. Its intent is to provide
a flexible modeling that allows companies to quickly adapt their
business processes.
Abstract: An inflation–extension test with human vena cava
inferior was performed with the aim to fit a material model. The vein
was modeled as a thick–walled tube loaded by internal pressure and
axial force. The material was assumed to be an incompressible
hyperelastic fiber reinforced continuum. Fibers are supposed to be
arranged in two families of anti–symmetric helices. Considered
anisotropy corresponds to local orthotropy. Used strain energy
density function was based on a concept of limiting strain
extensibility. The pressurization was comprised by four pre–cycles
under physiological venous loading (0 – 4kPa) and four cycles under
nonphysiological loading (0 – 21kPa). Each overloading cycle was
performed with different value of axial weight. Overloading data
were used in regression analysis to fit material model. Considered
model did not fit experimental data so good. Especially predictions
of axial force failed. It was hypothesized that due to
nonphysiological values of loading pressure and different values of
axial weight the material was not preconditioned enough and some
damage occurred inside the wall. A limiting fiber extensibility
parameter Jm was assumed to be in relation to supposed damage.
Each of overloading cycles was fitted separately with different values
of Jm. Other parameters were held the same. This approach turned out
to be successful. Variable value of Jm can describe changes in the
axial force – axial stretch response and satisfy pressure – radius
dependence simultaneously.
Abstract: This paper numerically investigates the effects of input
speed on the overall dynamic characteristics of a multi-body system
with differently located revolute clearance joints without friction. A
typical planar slider-crank mechanism is used as a demonstration case
in which the effects of the input speed on the dynamic performance
of the mechanism with a revolute clearance joint between the crank
and connecting rod, and between the connecting rod and slider are
separately investigated with comprehensive observations numerically
presented. It is observed that, changing the driving speed of a multibody
system makes the behavior of the system to change from
either periodic to chaotic, or chaotic to periodic depending on which
joint has clearance. The location of the clearance revolute joint and
the operating speed of a multi-body system play a crucial role in
predicting accurately the dynamic responses of the system. Therefore
the dynamic behavior of one clearance revolute joint cannot be used
as a general case for a mechanical system.
Abstract: Routing in MANET is extremely challenging because
of MANETs dynamic features, its limited bandwidth, frequent
topology changes caused by node mobility and power energy
consumption. In order to efficiently transmit data to destinations, the
applicable routing algorithms must be implemented in mobile ad-hoc
networks. Thus we can increase the efficiency of the routing by
satisfying the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters by developing
routing algorithms for MANETs. The algorithms that are inspired by
the principles of natural biological evolution and distributed
collective behavior of social colonies have shown excellence in
dealing with complex optimization problems and are becoming more
popular. This paper presents a survey on few meta-heuristic
algorithms and naturally-inspired algorithms.
Abstract: In this paper, an erosion-based model for abrasive
waterjet (AWJ) turning process is presented. By using modified
Hashish erosion model, the volume of material removed by impacting
of abrasive particles to surface of the rotating cylindrical specimen is
estimated and radius reduction at each rotation is calculated.
Different to previous works, the proposed model considers the
continuous change in local impact angle due to change in workpiece
diameter, axial traverse rate of the jet, the abrasive particle roundness
and density. The accuracy of the proposed model is examined by
experimental tests under various traverse rates. The final diameters
estimated by the proposed model are in good accordance with
experiments.
Abstract: Technological innovation capability (TIC) is
defined as a comprehensive set of characteristics of a firm that
facilities and supports its technological innovation strategies.
An audit to evaluate the TICs of a firm may trigger
improvement in its future practices. Such an audit can be used
by the firm for self assessment or third-party independent
assessment to identify problems of its capability status. This
paper attempts to develop such an auditing framework that
can help to determine the subtle links between innovation
capabilities and business performance; and to enable the
auditor to determine whether good practice is in place. The
seven TICs in this study include learning, R&D, resources
allocation, manufacturing, marketing, organization and
strategic planning capabilities. Empirical data was acquired
through a survey study of 200 manufacturing firms in the
Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta (HK/PRD) region. Structural
equation modelling was employed to examine the
relationships among TICs and various performance indicators:
sales performance, innovation performance, product
performance, and sales growth. The results revealed that
different TICs have different impacts on different
performance measures. Organization capability was found to
have the most influential impact. Hong Kong manufacturers
are now facing the challenge of high-mix-low-volume
customer orders. In order to cope with this change, good
capability in organizing different activities among various
departments is critical to the success of a company.
Abstract: In this paper, we proposed a novel receiver algorithm
for coherent underwater acoustic communications. The proposed
receiver is composed of three parts: (1) Doppler tracking and
correction, (2) Time reversal channel estimation and combining, and
(3) Joint iterative equalization and decoding (JIED). To reduce
computational complexity and optimize the equalization algorithm,
Time reversal (TR) channel estimation and combining is adopted to
simplify multi-channel adaptive decision feedback equalizer (ADFE)
into single channel ADFE without reducing the system performance.
Simultaneously, the turbo theory is adopted to form joint iterative
ADFE and convolutional decoder (JIED). In JIED scheme, the ADFE
and decoder exchange soft information in an iterative manner, which
can enhance the equalizer performance using decoding gain. The
simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce
computational complexity and improve the performance of equalizer.
Therefore, the performance of coherent underwater acoustic
communications can be improved greatly.
Abstract: Modern highly automated production systems faces
problems of reliability. Machine function reliability results in
changes of productivity rate and efficiency use of expensive
industrial facilities. Predicting of reliability has become an important
research and involves complex mathematical methods and
calculation. The reliability of high productivity technological
automatic machines that consists of complex mechanical, electrical
and electronic components is important. The failure of these units
results in major economic losses of production systems. The
reliability of transport and feeding systems for automatic
technological machines is also important, because failure of transport
leads to stops of technological machines. This paper presents
reliability engineering on the feeding system and its components for
transporting a complex shape parts to automatic machines. It also
discusses about the calculation of the reliability parameters of the
feeding unit by applying the probability theory. Equations produced
for calculating the limits of the geometrical sizes of feeders and the
probability of sticking the transported parts into the chute represents
the reliability of feeders as a function of its geometrical parameters.
Abstract: The construction industry is the pillar industry in
China, accounting for about 6% of the gross domestic product. Along
with changes in the external environment of the construction industry
in China, the construction firm faces fierce competition. The paper
aims to investigate the relationship between diversified types of
construction firm and its performance in China. Based on generalist
and specialist strategy in organizational ecology, we think a generalist
organization can be applied to an enterprise with diversified
developments, while specialist groups are extended to professional
enterprises .This study takes advantage of annual financial data of
listed construction firm to empirically verify the relationship between
diversification and corporation performance establishing a regression
equation to econometric analysis. We find that: 1) Specialization can
significantly improve the level of profitability of listed construction
firms, and there is a significant positive relationship with corporate
performance; 2) The level of operating performance of listed
construction enterprises which engage in unrelated diversification is
higher than those with related diversification; 3) The relationship
between state-owned construction firms and corporate performance is
negative. The more the year of foundation is, the higher performance
will be; however, the more the year of being listed, the lower
performance will be.
Abstract: Many studies have shown that Artificial Neural
Networks (ANN) have been widely used for forecasting financial
markets, because of many financial and economic variables are nonlinear,
and an ANN can model flexible linear or non-linear
relationship among variables.
The purpose of the study was to employ an ANN models to
predict the direction of the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100
Indices (ISE National-100).
As a result of this study, the model forecast the direction of the
ISE National-100 to an accuracy of 74, 51%.
Abstract: Key management is a vital component in any modern security protocol. Due to scalability and practical implementation considerations automatic key management seems a natural choice in significantly large virtual private networks (VPNs). In this context IETF Internet Key Exchange (IKE) is the most promising protocol under permanent review. We have made a humble effort to pinpoint IKEv2 net gain over IKEv1 due to recent modifications in its original structure, along with a brief overview of salient improvements between the two versions. We have used US National Institute of Technology NIIST VPN simulator to get some comparisons of important performance metrics.
Abstract: Tomato powder has good potential as substitute of tomato paste and other tomato products. In order to protect physicochemical properties and nutritional quality of tomato during dehydration process, investigation was carried out using different drying methods and pretreatments. Solar drier and continuous conveyor (tunnel) drier were used for dehydration where as calcium chloride (CaCl2), potassium metabisulphite (KMS), calcium chloride and potassium metabisulphite (CaCl2 +KMS), and sodium chloride (NaCl) selected for treatment.. lycopene content, dehydration ratio, rehydration ratio and non-enzymatic browning in addition to moisture, sugar and titrable acidity were studied. Results show that pre-treatment with CaCl2 and NaCl increased water removal and moisture mobility in tomato slices during drying of tomatoes. Where CaCl2 used along with KMS the NEB was recorded the least compared to other treatments and the best results were obtained while using the two chemicals in combination form. Storage studies in LDPE polymeric and metalized polyesters films showed less changes in the products packed in metallized polyester pouches and even after 6 months lycopene content did not decrease more than 20% as compared to the control sample and provide extension of shelf life in acceptable condition for 6 months. In most of the quality characteristics tunnel drier samples presented better values in comparison to solar drier.
Abstract: The evolution of silica optical fiber strength aged in cetyltrimethylammonium chloride solution (CTAC) has been investigated. If the solution containing surfactants presents appreciable changes in physical and chemical properties at the critical micelle concentration (CMC), a non negligible mechanical behavior fiber change is observed for silica fiber aged in cationic surfactants as CTAC which can lead to optical fiber reliability questioning. The purpose of this work is to study the mechanical behavior of silica coated and naked optical fibers in contact with CTAC solution at different concentrations. Result analysis proves that the immersion in CTAC drastically decreases the fiber strength and specially near the CMC point. Beyond CMC point, a small increase of fiber strength is analyzed and commented.
Abstract: The contact width is important design parameter for
optimizing the design of new metal gasket for asbestos substitution
gasket. The contact width is found have relationship with the helium
leak quantity. In the increasing of axial load value, the helium leak
quantity is decreasing and the contact width is increasing. This study
provides validity method using simulation analysis and the result is
compared to experimental using pressure sensitive paper. The results
denote similar trend data between simulation and experimental result.
Final evaluation is determined by helium leak quantity to check
leakage performance of gasket design. Considering the phenomena of
position change on the convex contact, it can be developed the
optimization of gasket design by increasing contact width.
Abstract: The development of Artificial Neural Networks
(ANNs) is usually a slow process in which the human expert has to
test several architectures until he finds the one that achieves best
results to solve a certain problem. This work presents a new
technique that uses Genetic Programming (GP) for automatically
generating ANNs. To do this, the GP algorithm had to be changed in
order to work with graph structures, so ANNs can be developed. This
technique also allows the obtaining of simplified networks that solve
the problem with a small group of neurons. In order to measure the
performance of the system and to compare the results with other
ANN development methods by means of Evolutionary Computation
(EC) techniques, several tests were performed with problems based
on some of the most used test databases. The results of those
comparisons show that the system achieves good results comparable
with the already existing techniques and, in most of the cases, they
worked better than those techniques.
Abstract: As far as the latest technological improvements are concerned, digital systems more become popular than the past. Despite this growing demand to the digital systems, content copy and attack against the digital cinema contents becomes a serious problem. To solve the above security problem, we propose “traceable watermarking using Hash functions for digital cinema system. Digital Cinema is a great application for traceable watermarking since it uses watermarking technology during content play as well as content transmission. The watermark is embedded into the randomly selected movie frames using CRC-32 techniques. CRC-32 is a Hash function. Using it, the embedding position is distributed by Hash Function so that any party cannot break off the watermarking or will not be able to change. Finally, our experimental results show that proposed DWT watermarking method using CRC-32 is much better than the convenient watermarking techniques in terms of robustness, image quality and its simple but unbreakable algorithm.
Abstract: Regular physical activity contributes positively to physiological and psychological health. This study aimed to identify exercise behavior changes, self efficacy and decisional balance in nursing and midwifery students. This was a cross-sectional study carried out in Iran.300undergraduate nursing and midwifery students participated in this study. Data were collected using a questionnaire including demographic information, exercise stages of change, exercise self efficacy and pros and cons exercise decisional balance. The analysis was performed using the SPSS.A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Abstract: Customarily, the LMTD correction factor, FT, is used
to screen alternative designs for a heat exchanger. Designs with
unacceptably low FT values are discarded. In this paper, authors have
proposed a more fundamental criterion, based on feasibility of a
multipass exchanger as the only criteria, followed by economic
optimization. This criterion, coupled with asymptotic energy targets,
provide the complete optimization space in a heat exchanger network
(HEN), where cost-optimization of HEN can be performed with only
Heat Recovery Approach temperature (HRAT) and number-of-shells
as variables.
Abstract: The common practice of operating S-rotor is in an
open environment; however there are times when the rotor is
installed in a bounded environment and there might be changes in the
performance of the rotor. This paper presents the changes in the
performance of S-rotor when operated in bounded flows. The
investigation was conducted experimentally to compare the
performance of the rotors in bounded environment against open
environment. Three different rotors models were designed, fabricated
and subjected to experimental measurements. All of the three models
were having 600 mm height and 300 mm Diameter. They were tested
in three different flow environments; namely: partially bounded
environment, fully bounded environment and open environment.
Rotors were found to have better starting up capabilities when
operated in bounded environment. Apart from that, all rotors manage
to achieve higher Power and Torque Coefficients at a higher Tip
Speed Ratio as compared to the open environment.