Abstract: This research is intended to develop a raw material allocation model in timber processing industry in Perum Perhutani Unit I, Central Java, Indonesia. The model can be used to determine the quantity of allocation of timber between chain in the supply chain to select supplier considering factors that are log price and the distance. In determining the quantity of allocation of timber between chains in the supply chain, the model considers the optimal inventory in each chain. Whilst the optimal inventory is determined based on demand forecast, the capacity and safety stock. Problem solving allocation is conducted by developing linear programming model that aims to minimize the total cost of the purchase, transportation cost and storage costs at each chain. The results of numerical examples show that the proposed model can generate savings of the purchase cost of 20.84% and select suppliers with mileage closer.
Abstract: Reinforced concrete stair slabs with mid landings i.e.
Dog-legged shaped are conventionally designed as per specifications
of standard codes of practices which guide about the effective span
according to the varying support conditions. Presently, the behavior
of such slabs has been investigated using Finite Element method. A
single flight stair slab with landings on both sides and supported at
ends on wall, and a multi flight stair slab with landings and six
different support arrangements have been analyzed. The results
obtained for stresses, strains and deflections are used to describe the
behavior of such stair slabs, including locations of critical moments
and deflections. Values of critical moments obtained by F.E. analysis
have also have been compared with that obtained from conventional
analysis. Analytical results show that the moments are also critical
near the kinks i.e. junction of mid-landing and inclined waist slab.
This change in the behavior of dog-legged stair slab may be due to
continuity of the material in transverse direction in two landings
adjoining the waist slab, hence additional stiffness achieved. This
change in the behavior is generally not taken care of in conventional
method of design.
Abstract: Although achieving zero-defect software release is
practically impossible, software industries should take maximum
care to detect defects/bugs well ahead in time allowing only bare
minimums to creep into released version. This is a clear indicator of
time playing an important role in the bug detection. In addition to
this, software quality is the major factor in software engineering
process. Moreover, early detection can be achieved only through
static code analysis as opposed to conventional testing.
BugCatcher.Net is a static analysis tool, which detects bugs in .NET®
languages through MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language)
inspection. The tool utilizes a Parser based on Finite State Automata
to carry out bug detection. After being detected, bugs need to be
corrected immediately. BugCatcher.Net facilitates correction, by
proposing a corrective solution for reported warnings/bugs to end
users with minimum side effects. Moreover, the tool is also capable
of analyzing the bug trend of a program under inspection.
Abstract: The purposes of this research were 1) to investigate
behavior of media exposure and participation in environmental
activities of King Mongkut-s University of Technology Thonburi
(KMUTT) dormitory students, 2) to compare the correlation between
faculties and participation in environmental activities of KMUTT
dormitory students, and 3) to compare the correlation between media
exposure and participation in environmental activities of KMUTT
dormitory students. The tool used for collecting data was
questionnaire. The research findings revealed that dormitory students
were mostly exposed to the environmental media via public relations
boards for general media and KMUTT dormitory media. Dormitory
students were daily exposed to media via websites on the internet and
weekly for other media. Dormitory students participation in the
environmental activities was at high level (x = 3.65) on an
individual basis and was at medium level (x = 2.76) on a collective
basis. Faculties did not correlate with the participation in
environmental activities of dormitory students at the .01 statistical
level and media exposure via various media correlated with
participation in environmental activities of dormitory students at the
.01 statistical level.
Abstract: This paper demonstrates the feasibility of replacing
the metal coil spring with the composite coil spring. Three different
types of springs were made using glass fiber, carbon fiber and
combination of glass fiber and carbon fiber. The objective of the
study is to reduce the weight of the spring. According to the
experimental results the spring rate of the carbon fiber spring is
34% more than the glass fiber spring and 45% more than the glass
fiber/carbon fiber spring. The weight of the carbon fiber spring is
18% less than the glass fiber spring, 15% less than the Glass
fiber/carbon fiber spring and 80% less than the steel spring.
Abstract: Based on the standard finite element method, a new
finite element method which is known as nonlocal finite element
method (NL-FEM) is numerically implemented in this article to
study the nonlocal effects for solving 1D nonlocal elastic problem.
An Eringen-type nonlocal elastic model is considered. In this model,
the constitutive stress-strain law is expressed interms of integral
equation which governs the nonlocal material behavior. The new
NL-FEM is adopted in such a way that the postulated nonlocal elastic
behavior of material is captured by a finite element endowed with a
set of (cross-stiffness) element itself by the other elements in mesh.
An example with their analytical solutions and the relevant numerical
findings for various load and boundary conditions are presented and
discussed in details. It is observed from the numerical solutions that
the torsional deformation angle decreases with increasing nonlocal
nanoscale parameter. It is also noted that the analytical solution fails
to capture the nonlocal effect in some cases where numerical
solutions handle those situation effectively which prove the
reliability and effectiveness of numerical techniques.
Abstract: Dengue, a disease found in most tropical and
subtropical areas of the world. It has become the most common
arboviral disease of humans. This disease is caused by any of four
serotypes of dengue virus (DEN1-DEN4). In many endemic
countries, the average age of getting dengue infection is shifting
upwards, dengue in pregnancy and infancy are likely to be
encountered more frequently. The dynamics of the disease is studied
by a compartmental model involving ordinary differential equations
for the pregnant, infant human and the vector populations. The
stability of each equilibrium point is given. The epidemic dynamic is
discussed. Moreover, the numerical results are shown for difference
values of dengue antibody.
Abstract: Real options theory suggests that managerial flexibility embedded within irreversible investments can account for a significant value in project valuation. Although the argument has become the dominant focus of capital investment theory over decades, yet recent survey literature in capital budgeting indicates that corporate practitioners still do not explicitly apply real options in investment decisions. In this paper, we explore how real options decision criteria can be transformed into equivalent capital budgeting criteria under the consideration of uncertainty, assuming that underlying stochastic process follows a geometric Brownian motion (GBM), a mixed diffusion-jump (MX), or a mean-reverting process (MR). These equivalent valuation techniques can be readily decomposed into conventional investment rules and “option impacts", the latter of which describe the impacts on optimal investment rules with the option value considered. Based on numerical analysis and Monte Carlo simulation, three major findings are derived. First, it is shown that real options could be successfully integrated into the mindset of conventional capital budgeting. Second, the inclusion of option impacts tends to delay investment. It is indicated that the delay effect is the most significant under a GBM process and the least significant under a MR process. Third, it is optimal to adopt the new capital budgeting criteria in investment decision-making and adopting a suboptimal investment rule without considering real options could lead to a substantial loss in value.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to develop a security model for voice eavesdropping protection over digital networks. The proposed model provides an encryption scheme and a personal secret key exchange between communicating parties, a so-called voice data transformation system, resulting in a real-privacy conversation. The operation of this system comprises two main steps as follows: The first one is the personal secret key exchange for using the keys in the data encryption process during conversation. The key owner could freely make his/her choice in key selection, so it is recommended that one should exchange a different key for a different conversational party, and record the key for each case into the memory provided in the client device. The next step is to set and record another personal option of encryption, either taking all frames or just partial frames, so-called the figure of 1:M. Using different personal secret keys and different sets of 1:M to different parties without the intervention of the service operator, would result in posing quite a big problem for any eavesdroppers who attempt to discover the key used during the conversation, especially in a short period of time. Thus, it is quite safe and effective to protect the case of voice eavesdropping. The results of the implementation indicate that the system can perform its function accurately as designed. In this regard, the proposed system is suitable for effective use in voice eavesdropping protection over digital networks, without any requirements to change presently existing network systems, mobile phone network and VoIP, for instance.
Abstract: Quantitative characterization of nonlinear directional
couplings between stochastic oscillators from data is considered. We
suggest coupling characteristics readily interpreted from a physical
viewpoint and their estimators. An expression for a statistical
significance level is derived analytically that allows reliable coupling
detection from a relatively short time series. Performance of the
technique is demonstrated in numerical experiments.
Abstract: The purpose of the current study is to gain insight into the relative role of professional self-image (PSI) for service providers among leader-member exchange (LMX), career success. Lack of studies demonstrated that PSI of service providers affect on their CS. So, it is necessary to, according to service providers- perspective, explore the relationship among LMX and CS in hospitality industry. The result of the current study can suggest strategic directions for hospitality practitioners in terms of constructing LMX relationship, so as to make service providers realize and build their PSI, and to promote their CS. Implications of these findings for hospitality implementations as well as future research directions are subsequently discussed.
Abstract: The paper shows how the perceptions of five organizational virtuousness dimensions (optimism, trust, compassion, integrity, and forgiveness) explain organizational citizenship behaviors (altruism, sportsmanship, courtesy, conscientiousness, and civic virtue). A sample comprising 216 individuals from 14 industrial organizations was collected. Individuals reported their perceptions of organizational virtuousness, their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) being reported by their supervisors. The main findings are the following: (a) the perceptions of trust predict altruism; (b) the perceptions of integrity predict civic virtue.
Abstract: We describe a work with an evolutionary computing
algorithm for non photo–realistic rendering of a target image. The
renderings are produced by genetic programming. We have used two
different types of strokes: “empty triangle" and “filled triangle" in
color level. We compare both empty and filled triangular strokes to
find which one generates more aesthetic pleasing images. We found
the filled triangular strokes have better fitness and generate more
aesthetic images than empty triangular strokes.
Abstract: Turbulence modeling of large-scale flow over a vegetated surface is complex. Such problems involve large scale computational domains, while the characteristics of flow near the surface are also involved. In modeling large scale flow, surface roughness including vegetation is generally taken into account by mean of roughness parameters in the modified law of the wall. However, the turbulence structure within the canopy region cannot be captured with this method, another method which applies source/sink terms to model plant drag can be used. These models have been developed and tested intensively but with a simple surface geometry. This paper aims to compare the use of roughness parameter, and additional source/sink terms in modeling the effect of plant drag on wind flow over a complex vegetated surface. The RNG k-ε turbulence model with the non-equilibrium wall function was tested with both cases. In addition, the k-ω turbulence model, which is claimed to be computationally stable, was also investigated with the source/sink terms. All numerical results were compared to the experimental results obtained at the study site Mason Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand. In the near-surface region, it is found that the results obtained by using the source/sink term are more accurate than those using roughness parameters. The k-ω turbulence model with source/sink term is more appropriate as it is more accurate and more computationally stable than the RNG k-ε turbulence model. At higher region, there is no significant difference amongst the results obtained from all simulations.
Abstract: Even it has been recognized that Shape Memory
Alloys (SMA) have a significant potential for deployment actuators,
the number of applications of SMA-based actuators to the present
day is still quite small, due to the need of deep understanding of the
thermo-mechanical behavior of SMA, causing an important need for
a mathematical model able to describe all thermo-mechanical
properties of SMA by relatively simple final set of constitutive
equations. SMAs offer attractive potentials such as: reversible strains
of several percent, generation of high recovery stresses and high
power / weight ratios. The paper tries to provide an overview of the
shape memory functions and a presentation of the designed and
developed temperature control system used for a gripper actuated by
two pairs of differential SMA active springs. An experimental setup
was established, using electrical energy for actuator-s springs heating
process. As for holding the temperature of the SMA springs at certain
level for a long time was developed a control system in order to
avoid the active elements overheating.
Abstract: In this paper the complete rotor system including
elastic shaft with distributed mass, allowing for the effects of oil film
in bearings. Also, flexibility of foundation is modeled. As a whole
this article is a relatively complete research in modeling and
vibration analysis of rotor considering gyroscopic effect, damping,
dependency of stiffness and damping coefficients on frequency and
solving the vibration equations including these parameters. On the
basis of finite element method and utilizing four element types
including element of shaft, disk, bearing and foundation and using
MATLAB, a computer program is written. So the responses in
several cases and considering different effects are obtained. Then the
results are compared with each other, with exact solutions and results
of other papers.
Abstract: In this paper, a framework for the simplification and
standardization of metaheuristic related parameter-tuning by applying
a four phase methodology, utilizing Design of Experiments and
Artificial Neural Networks, is presented. Metaheuristics are multipurpose
problem solvers that are utilized on computational optimization
problems for which no efficient problem specific algorithm
exist. Their successful application to concrete problems requires the
finding of a good initial parameter setting, which is a tedious and
time consuming task. Recent research reveals the lack of approach
when it comes to this so called parameter-tuning process. In the
majority of publications, researchers do have a weak motivation for
their respective choices, if any. Because initial parameter settings
have a significant impact on the solutions quality, this course of
action could lead to suboptimal experimental results, and thereby
a fraudulent basis for the drawing of conclusions.
Abstract: We proposed a technique to identify road traffic
congestion levels from velocity of mobile sensors with high accuracy
and consistent with motorists- judgments. The data collection utilized
a GPS device, a webcam, and an opinion survey. Human perceptions
were used to rate the traffic congestion levels into three levels: light,
heavy, and jam. Then the ratings and velocity were fed into a
decision tree learning model (J48). We successfully extracted vehicle
movement patterns to feed into the learning model using a sliding
windows technique. The parameters capturing the vehicle moving
patterns and the windows size were heuristically optimized. The
model achieved accuracy as high as 99.68%. By implementing the
model on the existing traffic report systems, the reports will cover
comprehensive areas. The proposed method can be applied to any
parts of the world.
Abstract: This paper describes text mining technique for automatically extracting association rules from collections of textual documents. The technique called, Extracting Association Rules from Text (EART). It depends on keyword features for discover association rules amongst keywords labeling the documents. In this work, the EART system ignores the order in which the words occur, but instead focusing on the words and their statistical distributions in documents. The main contributions of the technique are that it integrates XML technology with Information Retrieval scheme (TFIDF) (for keyword/feature selection that automatically selects the most discriminative keywords for use in association rules generation) and use Data Mining technique for association rules discovery. It consists of three phases: Text Preprocessing phase (transformation, filtration, stemming and indexing of the documents), Association Rule Mining (ARM) phase (applying our designed algorithm for Generating Association Rules based on Weighting scheme GARW) and Visualization phase (visualization of results). Experiments applied on WebPages news documents related to the outbreak of the bird flu disease. The extracted association rules contain important features and describe the informative news included in the documents collection. The performance of the EART system compared with another system that uses the Apriori algorithm throughout the execution time and evaluating extracted association rules.
Abstract: Palladium-catalyzed hydrodechlorination is a
promising alternative for the treatment of environmentally relevant
water bodies, such as groundwater, contaminated with chlorinated
organic compounds (COCs). In the aqueous phase
hydrodechlorination of COCs, Pd-based catalysts were found to have
a very high catalytic activity. However, the full utilization of the
catalyst-s potential is impeded by the sensitivity of the catalyst to
poisoning and deactivation induced by reduced sulfur compounds
(e.g. sulfides). Several regenerants have been tested before to recover
the performance of sulfide-fouled Pd catalyst. But these only
delivered partial success with respect to re-establishment of the
catalyst activity. In this study, the deactivation behaviour of
Pd/Al2O3 in the presence of sulfide was investigated. Subsequent to
total deactivation the catalyst was regenerated in the aqueous phase
using potassium permanganate. Under neutral pH condition,
oxidative regeneration with permanganate delivered a slow recovery
of catalyst activity. However, changing the pH of the bulk solution to
acidic resulted in the complete recovery of catalyst activity within a
regeneration time of about half an hour. These findings suggest the
superiority of permanganate as regenerant in re-activating Pd/Al2O3
by oxidizing Pd-bound sulfide.