Abstract: A method which allows a diabetic quadriplegic patient
that has had four limb amputations (above the knee and elbow) to
self-administer injections of insulin has been designed. The aim of
this research project is to improve a quadriplegic patient’s selfmanagement,
affected by diabetes, by designing a suitable device for
self-administering insulin.
The quadriplegic patient affected by diabetes has to be able to selfadminister
insulin safely and independently to guarantee stable
healthy conditions. The device also should be designed to adapt to a
number of different varying personal characteristics such as height
and body weight.
Abstract: In this study, a three dimensional numerical heat
transfer model has been used to simulate the laser structuring of
polymer substrate material in the Three-Dimensional Molded
Interconnect Device (3D MID) which is used in the advanced multifunctional
applications. A finite element method (FEM) transient
thermal analysis is performed using APDL (ANSYS Parametric
Design Language) provided by ANSYS. In this model, the effect of
surface heat source was modeled with Gaussian distribution, also the
effect of the mixed boundary conditions which consist of convection
and radiation heat transfers have been considered in this analysis. The
model provides a full description of the temperature distribution, as
well as calculates the depth and the width of the groove upon material
removal at different set of laser parameters such as laser power and
laser speed. This study also includes the experimental procedure to
study the effect of laser parameters on the depth and width of the
removal groove metal as verification to the modeled results. Good
agreement between the experimental and the model results is
achieved for a wide range of laser powers. It is found that the quality
of the laser structure process is affected by the laser scan speed and
laser power. For a high laser structured quality, it is suggested to use
laser with high speed and moderate to high laser power.
Abstract: The study area is Zaria, located in the basement
complex of northern Nigeria. The rock type forming the major part of
the Zaria batholith is granite. This research work was carried out to
compare the responses of seismic refraction tomography and
resistivity tomography in the same geologic environment and under
the same conditions. Hence, the choice of the site that has a visible
granitic outcrop that extends across a narrow stream channel and is
flanked by unconsolidated overburden, a neutral profile that was
covered by plain overburden and a site with thick lateritic cover
became necessary. The results of the seismic and resistivity
tomography models reveals that seismic velocity and resistivity does
not always simultaneously increase with depth, but their responses in
any geologic environment are determined by changes in the
mechanical and chemical content of the rock types rather than depth.
Abstract: This paper reports the empirical investigation on the
effect of involuntary displacement of indigenous tribes on their sociocultural
and food practices. A descriptive research design using the
quantitative approach was applied and individual of indigenous tribes
as unit of analysis. Through a self-administered survey among two
selected Malaysia indigenous tribes, one hundred fifty questionnaires
were successfully collected. With the application of descriptive and
inferential statistic some useful insights pertaining to the issue
investigated was significantly obtained. Findings revealed that
improvement on the socio-culture, economy and knowledge is
apparent on the indigenous groups’ resulted from displacement
program. Displacement also has a slight impact on indigenous
groups’ food practices. These positive indications provide significant
implications, not only for the indigenous groups themselves, but also
for the responsible authorities.
Abstract: Voltage sags are the most common power quality
disturbance in the distribution system. It occurs due to the fault in the
electrical network or by the starting of a large induction motor and
this can be solved by using the custom power devices such as
Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR). In this paper DVR is proposed to
compensate voltage sags on critical loads dynamically. The DVR
consists of VSC, injection transformers, passive filters and energy
storage (lead acid battery). By injecting an appropriate voltage, the
DVR restores a voltage waveform and ensures constant load voltage.
The simulation and experimental results of a DVR using MATLAB
software shows clearly the performance of the DVR in mitigating
voltage sags.
Abstract: Frequent, continuous speech training has proven to be
a necessary part of a successful speech therapy process, but
constraints of traveling time and employment dispensation become
key obstacles especially for individuals living in remote areas or for
dependent children who have working parents. In order to ameliorate
speech difficulties with ample guidance from speech therapists, a
website has been developed that supports speech therapy and training
for people with articulation disorders in the standard Thai language.
This web-based program has the ability to record speech training
exercises for each speech trainee. The records will be stored in a
database for the speech therapist to investigate, evaluate, compare
and keep track of all trainees’ progress in detail. Speech trainees can
request live discussions via video conference call when needed.
Communication through this web-based program facilitates and
reduces training time in comparison to walk-in training or
appointments. This type of training also allows people with
articulation disorders to practice speech lessons whenever or
wherever is convenient for them, which can lead to a more regular
training processes.
Abstract: The article presents the trends in Georgian wine
market development and evaluates the competitive advantages of
Georgia to enter the wine market based on its customs, traditions and
historical practices combined with modern technologies.
In order to analyze the supply of wine, dynamics of vineyard land
area and grape varieties are discussed, trends in wine production are
presented, trends in export and import are evaluated, local wine
market, its micro and macro environments are studied and analyzed
based on the interviews with experts and analysis of initial recording
materials.
For strengthening its position on the international market, the level
of competitiveness of Georgian wine is defined, which is evaluated
by “ex-ante” and “ex-post” methods, as well as by four basic and two
additional factors of the Porter’s diamond method; potential
advantages and disadvantages of Georgian wine are revealed.
Conclusions are made by identifying the factors that hinder the
development of Georgian wine market. Based on the conclusions,
relevant recommendations are developed.
Abstract: Among all FACTS devices, the unified power flow
controller (UPFC) is considered to be the most versatile device.
This is due to its capability to control all the transmission system
parameters (impedance, voltage magnitude, and phase angle). With
the growing interest in UPFC, the attention to develop a mathematical
model has increased. Several models were introduced for UPFC in
literature for different type of studies in power systems. In this paper
a novel comparison study between two dynamic models of UPFC
with their proposed control strategies.
Abstract: A generalized vortex lattice method for complex
lifting surfaces with flap and aileron deflection is formulated. The
method is not restricted by the linearized theory assumption and
accounts for all standard geometric lifting surface parameters:
camber, taper, sweep, washout, dihedral, in addition to flap and
aileron deflection. Thickness is not accounted for since the physical
lifting body is replaced by a lattice of panels located on the mean
camber surface. This panel lattice setup and the treatment of different
wake geometries is what distinguish the present work form the
overwhelming majority of previous solutions based on the vortex
lattice method. A MATLAB code implementing the proposed
formulation is developed and validated by comparing our results to
existing experimental and numerical ones and good agreement is
demonstrated. It is then used to study the accuracy of the widely used
classical vortex-lattice method. It is shown that the classical approach
gives good agreement in the clean configuration but is off by as much
as 30% when a flap or aileron deflection of 30° is imposed. This
discrepancy is mainly due the linearized theory assumption
associated with the conventional method. A comparison of the effect
of four different wake geometries on the values of aerodynamic
coefficients was also carried out and it is found that the choice of the
wake shape had very little effect on the results.
Abstract: An analysis of the Australian Diabetes Screening
Study estimated undiagnosed diabetes mellitus [DM] prevalence in a
high risk general practice based cohort. DM prevalence varied from
9.4% to 18.1% depending upon the diagnostic criteria utilised with
age being a highly significant risk factor. Utilising the gold standard
oral glucose tolerance test, the prevalence of DM was 22-23% in
those aged >= 70 years and
Abstract: From an organizational perspective, leaders are a
variation of the same talent pool in that they all score a larger than
average value on the bell curve that maps leadership behaviors and
characteristics, namely competence, vision, communication,
confidence, cultural sensibility, stewardship, empowerment,
authenticity, reinforcement, and creativity. The question that remains
unanswered and essentially unresolved is how to explain the irony
that leaders are so much alike yet their organizations diverge so
noticeably in their ability to innovate. Leadership intersects with
innovation at the point where human interactions get exceedingly
complex and where certain paradoxical forces cohabit: conflict with
conciliation, sovereignty with interdependence, and imagination with
realism. Rather than accepting that leadership is without context, we
argue that leaders are specialists of their domain and that those
effective at leading for innovation are distinct within the broader pool
of leaders. Keeping in view the extensive literature on leadership and
innovation, we carried out a quantitative study with data collected
over a five-year period involving 240 participants from across five
dissimilar companies based in the United States. We found that while
innovation and leadership are, in general, strongly interrelated (r =
.89, p = 0.0), there are five qualities that set leaders apart on
innovation. These qualities include a large radius of trust, a restless
curiosity with a low need for acceptance, an honest sense of self and
other, a sense for knowledge and creativity as the yin and yang of
innovation, and an ability to use multiple senses in the engagement
with followers. When these particular behaviors and characteristics
are present in leaders, organizations out-innovate their rivals by a
margin of 29.3 per cent to gain an unassailable edge in a business
environment that is regularly disruptive. A strategic outcome of this
study is a psychometric scale named iLeadership, proposed with the
underlying evidence, limitations, and potential for leadership and
innovation in organizations.c
Abstract: This study aimed at designing and developing a
mechanical force gauge for the square watermelon mold for the first
time. It also tried to introduce the square watermelon characteristics
and its production limitations. The mechanical force gauge
performance and the product itself were also described. There are
three main designable gauge models: a. hydraulic gauge, b. strain
gauge, and c. mechanical gauge. The advantage of the hydraulic
model is that it instantly displays the pressure and thus the force
exerted by the melon. However, considering the inability to measure
forces at all directions, complicated development, high cost, possible
hydraulic fluid leak into the fruit chamber and the possible influence
of increased ambient temperature on the fluid pressure, the
development of this gauge was overruled. The second choice was to
calculate pressure using the direct force a strain gauge. The main
advantage of these strain gauges over spring types is their high
precision in measurements; but with regard to the lack of conformity
of strain gauge working range with water melon growth, calculations
were faced with problems. Finally the mechanical pressure gauge has
advantages, including the ability to measured forces and pressures on
the mold surface during melon growth; the ability to display the peak
forces; the ability to produce melon growth graph thanks to its
continuous force measurements; the conformity of its manufacturing
materials with the required physical conditions of melon growth; high
air conditioning capability; the ability to permit sunlight reaches the
melon rind (no yellowish skin and quality loss); fast and
straightforward calibration; no damages to the product during
assembling and disassembling; visual check capability of the product
within the mold; applicable to all growth environments (field,
greenhouses, etc.); simple process; low costs and so forth.
Abstract: As currently various portable devices were launched,
smart business conducted using them became common. Since smart
business can use company-internal resources in an exlternal remote
place, user authentication that can identify authentic users is an
important factor. Commonly used user authentication is a method of
using user ID and Password. In the user authentication using ID and
Password, the user should see and enter authentication information
him or her. In this user authentication system depending on the user’s
vision, there is the threat of password leaks through snooping in the
process which the user enters his or her authentication information.
This study designed and produced a user authentication module
using an actuator to respond to the snooping threat.
Abstract: Concerns on corrosion and effective coating
protection of double hull tankers and bulk carriers in service have
been raised especially in water ballast tanks (WBTs). Test
protocols/methodologies specifically that which is incorporated in the
International Maritime Organisation (IMO), Performance Standard
for Protective Coatings for Dedicated Sea Water ballast tanks (PSPC)
are being used to assess and evaluate the performance of the coatings
for type approval prior to their application in WBTs. However, some
of the type approved coatings may be applied as very thick films to
less than ideally prepared steel substrates in the WBT. As such films
experience hygrothermal cycling from operating and environmental
conditions, they become embrittled which may ultimately result in
cracking. This embrittlement of the coatings is identified as an
undesirable feature in the PSPC but is not mentioned in the test
protocols within it. There is therefore renewed industrial research
aimed at understanding this issue in order to eliminate cracking and
achieve the intended coating lifespan of 15 years in good condition.
This paper will critically review test protocols currently used for
assessing and evaluating coating performance, particularly the IMO
PSPC.
Abstract: The growth of wireless devices affects the availability
of limited frequencies or spectrum bands as it has been known that
spectrum bands are a natural resource that cannot be added.
Meanwhile, the licensed frequencies are idle most of the time.
Cognitive radio is one of the solutions to solve those problems.
Cognitive radio is a promising technology that allows the unlicensed
users known as secondary users (SUs) to access licensed bands
without making interference to licensed users or primary users (PUs).
As cloud computing has become popular in recent years, cognitive
radio networks (CRNs) can be integrated with cloud platform. One of
the important issues in CRNs is security. It becomes a problem since
CRNs use radio frequencies as a medium for transmitting and CRNs
share the same issues with wireless communication systems. Another
critical issue in CRNs is performance. Security has adverse effect to
performance and there are trade-offs between them. The goal of this
paper is to investigate the performance related to security trade-off in
CRNs with supporting cloud platforms. Furthermore, Queuing
Network Models with preemptive resume and preemptive repeat
identical priority are applied in this project to measure the impact of
security to performance in CRNs with or without cloud platform. The
generalized exponential (GE) type distribution is used to reflect the
bursty inter-arrival and service times at the servers. The results show
that the best performance is obtained when security is disabled and
cloud platform is enabled.
Abstract: A blood pressure monitor or sphygmomanometer can
be either manual or automatic, employing respectively either the
auscultatory method or the oscillometric method.
The manual version of the sphygmomanometer involves an
inflatable cuff with a stethoscope adopted to detect the sounds
generated by the arterial walls to measure blood pressure in an artery.
An automatic sphygmomanometer can be effectively used to
monitor blood pressure through a pressure sensor, which detects
vibrations provoked by oscillations of the arterial walls.
The pressure sensor implemented in this device improves the
accuracy of the measurements taken.
Abstract: Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) E-commerce has been
growing at a very high speed in recent years. Since identical or
nearly-same kinds of products compete one another by relying on
keyword search in C2C E-commerce, some sellers describe their
products with spam keywords that are popular but are not related to
their products. Though such products get more chances to be retrieved
and selected by consumers than those without spam keywords,
the spam keywords mislead the consumers and waste their time.
This problem has been reported in many commercial services like
ebay and taobao, but there have been little research to solve this
problem. As a solution to this problem, this paper proposes a method
to classify whether keywords of a product are spam or not. The
proposed method assumes that a keyword for a given product is
more reliable if the keyword is observed commonly in specifications
of products which are the same or the same kind as the given
product. This is because that a hierarchical category of a product
in general determined precisely by a seller of the product and so is
the specification of the product. Since higher layers of the hierarchical
category represent more general kinds of products, a reliable degree
is differently determined according to the layers. Hence, reliable
degrees from different layers of a hierarchical category become
features for keywords and they are used together with features only
from specifications for classification of the keywords. Support Vector
Machines are adopted as a basic classifier using the features, since
it is powerful, and widely used in many classification tasks. In
the experiments, the proposed method is evaluated with a golden
standard dataset from Yi-han-wang, a Chinese C2C E-commerce,
and is compared with a baseline method that does not consider
the hierarchical category. The experimental results show that the
proposed method outperforms the baseline in F1-measure, which
proves that spam keywords are effectively identified by a hierarchical
category in C2C E-commerce.
Abstract: The ever increasing amount of solid waste (SW)
generated which is exacerbated by lack of proper waste management
system is of growing concern worldwide and in major cities in
developing countries due to its social, economic and environmental
implications. This study attempts to describe the aspects of solid
waste management (SWM) in Adama, one of the fast urbanizing
cities in Ethiopia, and highlights the challenges thereof. Data were
gathered through interview supplemented by field observation and
self-administered questionnaire. Then, the data were analyzed using
the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. In
addition, secondary data were gathered from documents. Findings
revealed that the current SWM practice couldn’t cope with the fast
urbanizing needs and the rapid population growth exhibited by the
city. Besides, major factors contributing to the inefficient system
were identified. The study would provide practical insights to
decision makers in developing a sustainable SWM system leading to
minimized risk in the city.
Abstract: Heating, cooling and lighting appliances in buildings
account for more than one third of the world’s primary energy
demand. Therefore, main components of the building heating systems
play an essential role in terms of energy consumption. In this context,
efficient energy and exergy utilization in HVAC-R systems has been
very essential, especially in developing energy policies towards
increasing efficiencies. The main objective of the present study is to
assess the performance of a family house with a volume of 326.7 m3
and a net floor area of 121 m2, located in the city of Izmir, Turkey in
terms of energetic, exergetic and sustainability aspects. The indoor
and exterior air temperatures are taken as 20°C and 1°C, respectively.
In the analysis and assessment, various metrics (indices or indicators)
such as exergetic efficiency, exergy flexibility ratio and sustainability
index are utilized. Two heating options (Case 1: condensing boiler
and Case 2: air heat pump) are considered for comparison purposes.
The total heat loss rate of the family house is determined to be
3770.72 W. The overall energy efficiencies of the studied cases are
calculated to be 49.4% for Case 1 and 54.7% for Case 2. The overall
exergy efficiencies, the flexibility factor and the sustainability index
of Cases 1 and 2 are computed to be around 3.3%, 0.17 and 1.034,
respectively.
Abstract: Azadirachta excelsa or locally known as sentang are
frequently used as a traditional medicine by diabetes patients in
Malaysia. However, less attention has been given to their toxicity
effect. Thus, the study is an attempt to examine the protective effect
of A. excelsa on the pancreas and to determine possible toxicity
mediated by the extract. Diabetes was induced experimentally in rats
by high-fat-diet for 16 weeks followed by intraperitoneal injection of
streptozotocin at dosage of 35 mg/kg of body weight. Declination of
the fasting blood glucose level was observed after continuous
administration of A. excelsa for 14 days twice daily. This is due to the
refining structure of the pancreas. However, surprisingly, the plant
extract reduced the leukocytes, erythrocytes, hemoglobin, MCHC and
lymphocytes. In addition, the rat treated with the plant extract
exhibited increment in AST and eosinocytes level. Overall, the
finding shows that A. excelsa possesses antidiabetic activity by
improving the structure of pancreatic islet of Langerhans but
involved in ameliorating of hematology and biochemical parameters.