The Use of Computer Simulation as Technological Education for Crisis Management Staff

Education and practical training crisis management members are a topical issue nowadays. The paper deals with the perspectives and possibilities of "smart solutions" to education for crisis management staff. Currently, there is a large number of simulation tools, which notes that they are suitable for practical training of crisis management staff. The first part of the paper is focused on the introduction of the technology simulation tools. The simulators aim is to create a realistic environment for the practical training of extending units of crisis staff. The second part of the paper concerns the possibilities of using the simulation technology to the education process. The aim of this section is to introduce the practical capabilities and potential of the simulation programs for practical training of crisis management staff.

The Influence of the Types of Smoke Powder and Storage Duration on Sensory Quality of Balinese Beef and Buffalo Meatballs

This study aims to examine the sensory quality of meatballs made from Balinese beef and buffalo meat after the addition of smoke powder prior to storage at the temperatures of 2- 5°C for 7 days. This study used meat from Longissimus dorsi muscle of male Balinese cattle aged 3 years and of male buffalo aged 5 years as the main raw materials, and smoke powder as a binder and preservative in making meatballs. The study was based on completely randomized design (CRD) of factorial pattern of 2 x 3 x 2 where factors 1, 2 and 3 included the types of meat (cattle and buffalo), types of smoke powder (oven dried, freeze dried and spray dried) with a level of 2% of the weight of the meat (w/w), and storage duration (0 and 7 days) with three replications, respectively. The parameters measured were the meatball sensory quality (scores of tenderness, firmness, chewing residue, and intensity of flavor). The results of this study show that each type of meat has produced different sensory characteristics. The meatballs made from buffalo meat have higher tenderness and elasticity scores than the Balinese beef. Meanwhile, the buffalo meatballs have a lower residue mastication score than the Balinese beef. Each type of smoke powders has produced a relatively similar sensory quality of meatballs. It can be concluded that the smoke powder of 2% of the weight of the meat (w/w) could maintain the sensory quality of the meatballs for 7 days of storage.

A Method to Compute Efficient 3D Helicopters Flight Trajectories Based on a Motion Polymorph-Primitives Algorithm

Finding the optimal 3D path of an aerial vehicle under flight mechanics constraints is a major challenge, especially when the algorithm has to produce real time results in flight. Kinematics models and Pythagorian Hodograph curves have been widely used in mobile robotics to solve this problematic. The level of difficulty is mainly driven by the number of constraints to be saturated at the same time while minimizing the total length of the path. In this paper, we suggest a pragmatic algorithm capable of saturating at the same time most of dimensioning helicopter 3D trajectories’ constraints like: curvature, curvature derivative, torsion, torsion derivative, climb angle, climb angle derivative, positions. The trajectories generation algorithm is able to generate versatile complex 3D motion primitives feasible by a helicopter with parameterization of the curvature and the climb angle. An upper ”motion primitives’ concatenation” algorithm is presented based. In this article we introduce a new way of designing three-dimensional trajectories based on what we call the ”Dubins gliding symmetry conjecture”. This extremely performing algorithm will be soon integrated to a real-time decisional system dealing with inflight safety issues.

Valorization of Waste Dates in South Algeria: Biofuel Production

In Algeria, the conditioning units of dates, generate significant quantities of waste arising from sorting deviations. This biomass, until then considered as a waste with high impact on the environment can be transformed into high value added product. It is possible to develop common dates of low commercial value, and put on the local and international market a new generation of products with high added values such as bio ethanol. Besides its use in chemical synthesis, bio ethanol can be blended with gasoline to produce a clean fuel while improving the octane.

The Effect of Randomly Distributed Polypropylene Fibers Borogypsum Fly Ash and Cement on Freezing-Thawing Durability of a Fine-Grained Soil

A number of studies have been conducted recently to investigate the influence of randomly oriented fibers on some engineering properties of cohesive and cohesionless soils. However, few studies have been carried out on freezing-thawing behavior of fine-grained soils modified with discrete fiber inclusions and additive materials. This experimental study was performed to investigate the effect of randomly distributed polypropylene fibers (PP) and some additive materials [e.g.., borogypsum (BG), fly ash (FA) and cement (C)] on freezing-thawing durability (mass losses) of a fine-grained soil for 6, 12, and 18 cycles. The Taguchi method was applied to the experiments and a standard L9 orthogonal array (OA) with four factors and three levels were chosen. A series of freezing-thawing tests were conducted on each specimen. 0-20% BG, 0-20% FA, 0- 0.25% PP and 0-3% of C by total dry weight of mixture were used in the preparation of specimens. Experimental results showed that the most effective materials for the freezing-thawing durability (mass losses) of the samples were borogypsum and fly ash. The values of mass losses for 6, 12 and 18 cycles in optimum conditions were 16.1%, 5.1% and 3.6%, respectively.

Improvement of Frictional Coefficient of Modified Shoe Soles onto Icy and Snowy Road by Tilting of Added Glass Fibers into Rubber

The purpose of this study is to propose an effective method to improve frictional coefficient between shoe rubber soles with added glass fibers and the surfaces of icy and snowy road in order to prevent slip-and-fall accidents by the users. The additional fibers into the rubber were uniformly tilted to the perpendicular direction of the frictional surface, where tilting angles were -60, -30, +30, +60, 90 degrees and 0 (as normal specimen), respectively. It was found that parallel arraignment was effective to improve the frictional coefficient when glass fibers were embedded in the shoe rubber, while perpendicular to normal direction of the embedded glass fibers on the shoe surface was also effective to do that once after they were exposed from the shoe rubber with its abrasion. These improvements were explained by the increase of stiffness against the shear deformation of the rubber at critical frictional state and adequate scratching of fibers when fibers were protruded in perpendicular to frictional direction, respectively. Most effective angle of tilting of frictional coefficient between rubber specimens and a stone was perpendicular (= 0 degree) to frictional direction. Combinative modified rubber specimen having 2 layers was fabricated where tilting angle of protruded fibers was 0 degree near the contact surface and tilting angle of embedded fibers was 90 degrees near back surface in thickness direction to further improve the frictional coefficient. Current study suggested that effective arraignments in tilting angle of the added fibers should be applied in designing rubber shoe soles to keep the safeties for users in regions of cold climates.

Rotary Entrainment in Two Phase Stratified Gas-Liquid Layers: An Experimental Study

Rotary entrainment is a phenomenon in which the interface of two immiscible fluids are subjected to external flux by means of rotation. Present work reports the experimental study on rotary motion of a horizontal cylinder between the interface of air and water to observe the penetration of gas inside the liquid. Experiments have been performed to establish entrainment of air mass in water alongside the cylindrical surface. The movement of tracer and seeded particles has been tracked to calculate the speed and path of the entrained air inside water. Simplified particle image velocimetry technique has been used to trace the movement of particles/tracers at the moment they are injected inside the entrainment zone and suspended beads have been used to replicate the particle movement with respect to time in order to determine the flow dynamics of the fluid along the cylinder. Present paper establishes a thorough experimental analysis of the rotary entrainment phenomenon between air and water keeping in interest the extent to which we can intermix the two and also to study its entrainment trajectories.

Down-Regulated Gene Expression of GKN1 and GKN2 as Diagnostic Markers for Gastric Cancer

Gastric Cancer (GC) has high morbidity and fatality rate in various countries. It is still one of the most frequent and deadly diseases. Gastrokine1 (GKN1) and gastrokine2 (GKN2) genes are highly expressed in the normal stomach epithelium and play important roles in maintaining the integrity and homeostasis of stomach mucosal epithelial cells. In this study, 47 paired samples that were grouped according to the types of gastric cancer and the clinical characteristics of the patients, including gender and average of age. They were investigated with gene expression analysis and mutation screening by monitoring RT-PCR, SSCP and nucleotide sequencing techniques. Both GKN1 and GKN2 genes were observed significantly reduced found by (Wilcoxon signed rank test; p

The Relations between Seismic Results and Groundwater near the Gokpinar Damp Area, Denizli, Turkey

The understanding of geotechnical characteristics of near-surface material and the effects of the groundwater is very important problem in such as site studies. For showing the relations between seismic data and groundwater, we selected about 25 km2 as the study area. It has been presented which is a detailed work of seismic data and groundwater depths of Gokpinar Damp area. Seismic waves velocity (Vp and Vs) are very important parameters showing the soil properties. The seismic records were used the method of the multichannel analysis of surface waves near area of Gokpinar Damp area. Sixty sites in this area have been investigated with survey lines about 60 m in length. MASW (Multichannel analysis of surface wave) method has been used to generate onedimensional shear wave velocity profile at locations. These shear wave velocities are used to estimate equivalent shear wave velocity in the study area at every 2 and 5 m intervals up to a depth of 45 m. Levels of equivalent shear wave velocity of soil are used the classified of the study area. After the results of the study, it must be considered as components of urban planning and building design of Gokpinar Damp area, Denizli and the application and use of these results should be required and enforced by municipal authorities.

Bearing Condition Monitoring with Acoustic Emission Techniques

Monitoring the conditions of rotating machinery, such as bearings, is important in order to improve the stability of work. Acoustic Emission (AE) and vibration analysis are some of the most accomplished techniques used for this purpose. Acoustic emission has the ability to detect the initial phase of component degradation. Moreover, it has been observed that vibration analysis is not as successful at low rotational speeds (below 100 rpm). This because the energy generated within this speed region is not detectable using conventional vibration. From this perspective, this paper has presented a brief review of using acoustic emission techniques for monitoring bearing conditions.

The Relationships between Human Resource Management and Entrepreneurship: Case Study SME in Thailand

This study aims to investigate the relationships between human resource management and entrepreneurship in the view of owner-managers and employees, and among employees with in the SME in Thailand. The research method used qualitative method to confirm the phenomenology interest with top management position which women are regarding their career path by using purposive sampling method. The results showed that human resources management has positive relate with the corporate entrepreneurship are including the recruitment process, training worker, professional career development and reward system impact to entrepreneur’s knowledge and innovation of corporate entrepreneurship in respectively to bring a very reliable way. Then, the key informant suggested that women’s career experiences predisposed them to find an alternative route for entrepreneurship, despite having achieved top management. The understanding factors that successfully contribute to the development of women entrepreneurs from career development perspective are critical endeavour for any type of organization as well.

Assessment on Communication Students’ Internship Performances from the Employers’ Perspective

Internship is a supervised and structured learning experience related to one’s field of study or career goal. Internship allows students to obtain work experience and the opportunity to apply skills learned during university. Internship is a valuable learning experience for students; however, literature on employer assessment is scarce on Malaysian student’s internship experience. This study focuses on employer’s perspective on student’s performances during their three months of internship. The results are based on the descriptive analysis of 45 sets of question gathered from the on-site supervisors of the interns. The survey of 45 on-site supervisor’s feedback was collected through postal mail. It was found that, interns have not met their on-site supervisor’s expectations in many areas. The significance of this study is employer’s assessment on the internship shall be used as feedback to improve on ways how to prepare students for their internship and employments in future.

Variational EM Inference Algorithm for Gaussian Process Classification Model with Multiclass and Its Application to Human Action Classification

In this paper, we propose the variational EM inference algorithm for the multi-class Gaussian process classification model that can be used in the field of human behavior recognition. This algorithm can drive simultaneously both a posterior distribution of a latent function and estimators of hyper-parameters in a Gaussian process classification model with multiclass. Our algorithm is based on the Laplace approximation (LA) technique and variational EM framework. This is performed in two steps: called expectation and maximization steps. First, in the expectation step, using the Bayesian formula and LA technique, we derive approximately the posterior distribution of the latent function indicating the possibility that each observation belongs to a certain class in the Gaussian process classification model. Second, in the maximization step, using a derived posterior distribution of latent function, we compute the maximum likelihood estimator for hyper-parameters of a covariance matrix necessary to define prior distribution for latent function. These two steps iteratively repeat until a convergence condition satisfies. Moreover, we apply the proposed algorithm with human action classification problem using a public database, namely, the KTH human action data set. Experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm shows good performance on this data set.

Evaluation of External Costs of Traffic Accident in Slovak Republic

The report deals with comparison of traffic accidents in Slovak republic in road and rail transport since 2009 until 2014, with evaluation of external costs and consequently with the possibilities of their internalization. The results of road traffic accidents analysis are realized in line with after-effects they have caused; in line with main cause, place of origin (within or out of town) and in accordance to age of accident´s victims and kind of injuries (easy, hard or fatal). Evaluation of individual after-effects is carried in terms of probability of traffic accidents occurrence.

Awareness and Attitudes of Primary Grade Teachers (1-4thGrade) towards Inclusive Education

The present research aimed at studying the awareness and attitudes of teachers towards inclusive education. The sample consisted of 60 teachers, teaching in the primary section (1st – 4th) of regular schools affiliated to the SSC board in Mumbai. Sample was selected by Multi-stage cluster sampling technique. A semi-structured self-constructed interview schedule and a self-constructed attitude scale was used to study the awareness of teachers about disability and Inclusive education, and their attitudes towards inclusive education respectively. Themes were extracted from the interview data and quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS package. Results revealed that teachers had some amount of awareness but an inadequate amount of information on disabilities and inclusive education. Disability to most (37) teachers meant “an inability to do something”. The difference between disability and handicap was stated by most as former being cognitive while handicap being physical in nature. With regard to Inclusive education, a large number (46) stated that they were unaware of the term and did not know what it meant. Majority (52) of them perceived maximum challenges for themselves in an inclusive set up, and emphasized on the role of teacher training courses in the area of providing knowledge (49) and training in teaching methodology (53). Although, 83.3% of teachers held a moderately positive attitude towards inclusive education, a large percentage (61.6%) of participants felt that being in inclusive set up would be very challenging for both children with special needs and without special needs. Though, most (49) of the teachers stated that children with special needs should be educated in regular classroom but they further clarified that only those should be in a regular classroom who have physical impairments of mild or moderate degree.

Development of Monitoring Blood Bank Center Based PIC Microcontroller Using CAN Communication

This paper describes the design and implementation of a hardware setup for online monitoring of 24 refrigerators inside blood bank center using the microcontroller and CAN bus for communications between each node. Due to the security of locations in the blood bank hall and difficulty of monitoring of each refrigerator separately, this work proposes a solution to monitor all the blood bank refrigerators in one location. CAN-bus system is used because it has many applications and advantages, especially for this system due to easy in use, low cost, providing a reduction in wiring, fast to repair and easily expanding the project without a problem.

A Comparative Understanding of Critical Problems Faced by Pakistani and Indian Transportation Industry

It is very important for a developing nation to developing their infrastructure on the prime priority because their infrastructure particularly their roads and transportation functions as a blood in the system. Almost 1.1 billion populations share the travel and transportation industry in India. On the other hand, the Pakistan transportation industry is also extensive and elevating about 170 million users of transportation. Indian and Pakistani specifically within bus industry are well connected within and between the urban and rural areas. The transportation industry is radically helping the economic alleviation of both countries. Due to high economic instability, unemployment and poverty rate both countries governments are very serious and committed to help for boosting their economy. They believe that any form of transportation development would play a vital role in the development of land, infrastructure which could indirectly support many other industries’ developments, such as tourism, freighting and shipping businesses, just to mention a few. However, it seems that their previous transportation planning in the due course has failed to meet the fast growing demand. As with the span of time, both the countries are looking forward to a long-term, and economical solutions, because the demand is from time to time keep appreciating and reacting according to other key economic drivers. Content analysis method and case study approach is used in this paper and secondary data from the bureau of statistic is used for case analysis. The paper focused on the mobility concerns of the lower and middle-income people in India and Pakistan. The paper is aimed to highlight the weaknesses, opportunities and limitations resulting from low priority industry for a government, which is making the either country's public suffer. The paper has concluded that the main issue is identified as the slow, inappropriate, and unfavorable decisions which are not in favor of long-term country’s economic development and public interest. The paper also recommends to future research avenues for public and private transportation, which is continuously failing to meet the public expectations.

A Theoretical Model for a Humidification Dehumidification (HD) Solar Desalination Unit

A theoretical study of a humidification dehumidification solar desalination unit has been carried out to increase understanding the effect of weather conditions on the unit productivity. A humidification-dehumidification (HD) solar desalination unit has been designed to provide fresh water for population in remote arid areas. It consists of solar water collector and air collector; to provide the hot water and air to the desalination chamber. The desalination chamber is divided into humidification and dehumidification towers. The circulation of air between the two towers is maintained by the forced convection. A mathematical model has been formulated, in which the thermodynamic relations were used to study the flow, heat and mass transfer inside the humidifier and dehumidifier. The present technique is performed in order to increase the unit performance. Heat and mass balance has been done and a set of governing equations has been solved using the finite difference technique. The unit productivity has been calculated along the working day during the summer and winter sessions and has compared with the available experimental results. The average accumulative productivity of the system in winter has been ranged between 2.5 to 4 (kg/m2)/day, while the average summer productivity has been found between 8 to 12 (kg/m2)/day.

Two-Photon Ionization of Silver Clusters

In this paper, we calculate the two-photon ionization (TPI) cross-section for pump-probe scheme in Ag neutral cluster. The pump photon energy is assumed to be close to the surface plasmon (SP) energy of cluster in dielectric media. Due to this choice, the pump wave excites collective oscillations of electrons-SP and the probe wave causes ionization of the cluster. Since the interband transition energy in Ag exceeds the SP resonance energy, the main contribution into the TPI comes from the latter. The advantage of Ag clusters as compared to the other noble metals is that the SP resonance in silver cluster is much sharper because of peculiarities of its dielectric function. The calculations are performed by separating the coordinates of electrons corresponding to the collective oscillations and the individual motion that allows taking into account the resonance contribution of excited SP oscillations. It is shown that the ionization cross section increases by two orders of magnitude if the energy of the pump photon matches the surface plasmon energy in the cluster.

Shear Strength of Reinforced Web Openings in Steel Beams

The floor beams of steel buildings, cold-formed steel floor joists in particular, often require large web openings, which may affect their shear capacities. A cost effective way to mitigate the detrimental effects of such openings is to weld/fasten reinforcements. A difficulty associated with an experimental investigation to establish suitable reinforcement schemes for openings in shear zone is that moment always coexists with the shear, and thus, it is impossible to create pure shear state in experiments, resulting in moment influenced results. However, Finite Element Method (FEM) based analysis can be conveniently used to investigate the pure shear behaviour of webs including webs with reinforced openings. This paper presents the details associated with the finite element analysis of thick/thin-plates (representing the web of hot-rolled steel beam, and the web of a cold-formed steel member) having a large reinforced opening. The study considered simply-supported rectangular plates subjected to in-plane shear loadings until failure (including post-buckling behaviour). The plate was modelled using geometrically non-linear quadrilateral shell elements, and non-linear stress-strain relationship based on experiments. Total Langrangian with large displacement/small strain formulation was used for such analyses. The model also considered the initial geometric imperfections. This study considered three reinforcement schemes, namely, flat, lip, and angle reinforcements. This paper discusses the modelling considerations and presents the results associated with the various reinforcement schemes under consideration.