Abstract: Now, the use of renewable energy power generation
has been advanced. In this paper, we compared the usable amount of
resource for photovoltaic power generation which was estimated using
the NEDO formula and the expansion support policy of photovoltaic
power generation which was researched using Internet in the
municipality level in Hokkaido and Aichi Prefecture, Japan. This
paper will contribute to grasp the current situation especially about the
policy. As a result, there were municipalities which seemed to be no
consideration of fitting the amount of resources. We think it would
need to consider the suitability between the resources and policies.
Abstract: Job satisfaction and motivation have been given an
important attention in psychology because they are seen as main
instruments in maintaining organizational growth and development;
they are also used to accomplish organizational aims and objectives.
However, it has been observed that some institutions failed in
motivating and stimulating their workers; in contrast, workers may be
motivated but not satisfied with the job and failed to perform
efficiently and effectively. It is hoped that the study of this nature
would be of significance value to all stakeholders in education
specifically, lecturers in higher institutions in Nigeria. Also, it is
hoped that the findings of this study will enhance lecturers’
effectiveness and performance in discharging their duties. In the light
of the above statements, this study investigated whether job
satisfaction and motivation predict lecturers’ effectiveness in Nigeria
Police Academy, Wudil, Kano State. Correlational research method
was adopted for the study, while purposive sampling technique was
used to choose the institution and the sampled lectures (70). Simple
random sampling technique was used to select one hundred cadets
across the academy. Two instruments were used to elicit information
from both lecturers and cadets. These were job satisfaction and
motivation; and lecturers’ effectiveness Questionnaires. The
instruments were subjected to pilot testing and found to have
reliability coefficient of 0.69 and 0.71 respectively. The results of the
study revealed that there was a significance relationship among job
satisfaction, motivation and lecturers effectiveness in Nigeria Police
Academy. There was a significance relationship between job
satisfaction and lecturers’ effectiveness in Nigeria Police Academy
the cal r is 0.21 while the crt r is 0.19. at p
Abstract: Over the past few decades, manufacturing has evolved
from a more labor-intensive set of mechanical processes to a
sophisticated set of information based technology processes. With the
existence of various advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs),
more and more functions or jobs are performed by these machines
instead of human labour. This study was undertaken in order to
research the extent of AMTs adoption in manufacturing companies in
Kenya. In order to investigate a survey was conducted via
questionnaires that were sent to 183 selected AMT manufacturing
companies in Kenya. 92 companies responded positively. All the
surveyed companies were found to have a measure of investment in
at least two of the 14 types of AMTs investigated. In general the
company surveyed showed that the level of AMT adoption in Kenya
is very low with investments levels at a mean of 2.057 and
integration levels at a mean of 1.639 in a scale of 1-5.
Abstract: Present empirical paper investigates the relationship
between FDI and economic growth by 10 selected industries in 10
Central and Eastern European countries from the period 1995 to
2012. Different estimation approaches were used to explore the
connection between FDI and economic growth, for example OLS,
RE, FE with and without time dummies. Obtained empirical results
leads to some main consequences: First, the Central and East
European countries (CEEC) attracted foreign direct investment,
which raised the productivity of industries they entered in. It should
be concluded that the linkage between FDI and output growth by
industries is positive and significant enough to suggest that foreign
firm’s participation enhanced the productivity of the industries they
occupied. There had been an endogeneity problem in the regression
and fixed effects estimation approach was used which partially
corrected the regression analysis in order to make the results less
biased. Second, it should be stressed that the results show that time
has an important role in making FDI operational for enhancing output
growth by industries via total factor productivity. Third, R&D
positively affected economic growth and at the same time, it should
take some time for research and development to influence economic
growth. Fourth, the general trends masked crucial differences at the
country level: over the last 20 years, the analysis of the tables and
figures at the country level show that the main recipients of FDI of
the 11 Central and Eastern European countries were Hungary, Poland
and the Czech Republic. The main reason was that these countries
had more open door policies for attracting the FDI. Fifth, according
to the graphical analysis, while Hungary had the highest FDI inflow
in this region, it was not reflected in the GDP growth as much as in
other Central and Eastern European countries.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to specify factors influencing
the profitability of selected banks. Next, a model will be created to
help establish variables that have a demonstrable influence on the
development of the selected banks' profitability ratios. Czech banks
and their international parent companies were selected for analyzing
profitability. Banks categorized as large banks (according to the
Czech National Bank's system, which ranks banks according to
balance sheet total) were selected to represent the Czech banks. Two
ratios, the return on assets ratio (ROA) and the return on equity ratio
(ROE) are used to assess bank profitability. Six endogenous and four
external indicators were selected from among other factors that
influence bank profitability. The data analyzed were for 2001–2013.
First, correlation analysis, which was supposed to eliminate
correlated values, was conducted. A large number of correlated
values were established on the basis of this analysis. The strongly
correlated values were omitted. Despite this, the subsequent
regression analysis of profitability for the individual banks that were
selected did not confirm that the selected variables influenced their
profitability. The studied factors' influence on bank profitability was
demonstrated only for Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka and Société
Générale using regression analysis. For Československa Obchodni
Banka, it was demonstrated that inflation level and the amount of the
central bank's interest rate influenced the return on assets ratio and
that capital adequacy and market concentration influenced the return
on equity ratio for Société Générale.
Abstract: We regard forecasting of energy consumption by
private production areas of a large industrial facility as well as by the
facility itself. As for production areas, the forecast is made based on
empirical dependencies of the specific energy consumption and the
production output. As for the facility itself, implementation of the
task to minimize the energy consumption forecasting error is based
on adjustment of the facility’s actual energy consumption values
evaluated with the metering device and the total design energy
consumption of separate production areas of the facility. The
suggested procedure of optimal energy consumption was tested based
on the actual data of core product output and energy consumption by
a group of workshops and power plants of the large iron and steel
facility. Test results show that implementation of this procedure gives
the mean accuracy of energy consumption forecasting for winter
2014 of 0.11% for the group of workshops and 0.137% for the power
plants.
Abstract: Gladiolus is an important cash crop and is grown
mainly for its elegant spikes. Traditionally the gladiolus corms are
planted manually which is very tedious, time consuming and labor
intensive operation. So far, there is no planter available for planting
of gladiolus corms. With a view to mechanize the planting operation
of this horticultural crop, a prototype of 4-row gladiolus planter was
developed and its performance was evaluated in-situ condition. Cupchain
type metering device was used to place each single gladiolus
corm in furrow at required spacing while planting. Three levels of
corm spacing viz 15, 20 and 25 cm and four levels of forward speed
viz 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 km/h was taken as evaluation parameter for
the planter. The performance indicators namely corm spacing in each
row, coefficient of uniformity, missing index, multiple index, quality
of feed index, number of corms per meter length, mechanical damage
to the corms etc. were determined during the field test. The data was
statistically analyzed using Completely Randomized Design (CRD)
for testing the significance of the parameters. The result indicated
that planter was able to drop the corms at required nominal spacing
with minor variations. The highest deviation from the mean corm
spacing was observed as 3.53 cm with maximum coefficient of
variation as 13.88%. The highest missing and quality of feed indexes
were observed as 6.33% and 97.45% respectively with no multiples.
The performance of the planter was observed better at lower forward
speed and wider corm spacing. The field capacity of the planter was
found as 0.103 ha/h with an observed field efficiency of 76.57%.
Abstract: Sentiment analysis means to classify a given review
document into positive or negative polar document. Sentiment
analysis research has been increased tremendously in recent times
due to its large number of applications in the industry and academia.
Sentiment analysis models can be used to determine the opinion of
the user towards any entity or product. E-commerce companies can
use sentiment analysis model to improve their products on the basis
of users’ opinion. In this paper, we propose a new One-class Support
Vector Machine (One-class SVM) based sentiment analysis model
for movie review documents. In the proposed approach, we initially
extract features from one class of documents, and further test the
given documents with the one-class SVM model if a given new test
document lies in the model or it is an outlier. Experimental results
show the effectiveness of the proposed sentiment analysis model.
Abstract: In this paper, approach to incoherent signal detection
in multi-element antenna array are researched and modeled. Two
types of useful signals with unknown wavefront were considered:
first one, deterministic (Barker code), and second one, random
(Gaussian distribution). The derivation of the sufficient statistics took
into account the linearity of the antenna array. The performance
characteristics and detecting curves are modeled and compared for
different useful signals parameters and for different number of
elements of the antenna array. Results of researches in case of some
additional conditions can be applied to a digital communications
systems.
Abstract: Privacy is sacred and would normally be expected and preserved by an individual. Online privacy is no longer about the right to be left alone, but also includes the right not to be monitored. However, with the revelations made by United States National Security Agency former employee Edward Snowden that the government is spying on internet communications, individuals’ privacy can no longer be expected. Therefore, this paper is intended to evaluate law related to privacy protection in the digital domain, who should govern it and whether invasion to a person’s privacy is a necessary justification to preserve national security.
Abstract: This paper introduces an effective method of
segmenting Korean text (place names in Korean) from a Korean road
sign image. A Korean advanced directional road sign is composed of
several types of visual information such as arrows, place names in
Korean and English, and route numbers. Automatic classification of
the visual information and extraction of Korean place names from the
road sign images make it possible to avoid a lot of manual inputs to a
database system for management of road signs nationwide. We
propose a series of problem-specific heuristics that correctly segments
Korean place names, which is the most crucial information, from the
other information by leaving out non-text information effectively. The
experimental results with a dataset of 368 road sign images show 96%
of the detection rate per Korean place name and 84% per road sign
image.
Abstract: This paper introduces a signal monitoring program
developed with a view to helping electrical engineering students get
familiar with sensors with digital output. Because the output of digital
sensors cannot be simply monitored by a measuring instrument such as
an oscilloscope, students tend to have a hard time dealing with digital
sensors. The monitoring program runs on a PC and communicates with
an MCU that reads the output of digital sensors via an asynchronous
communication interface. Receiving the sensor data from the MCU,
the monitoring program shows time and/or frequency domain plots of
the data in real time. In addition, the monitoring program provides a
serial terminal that enables the user to exchange text information with
the MCU while the received data is plotted. The user can easily
observe the output of digital sensors and configure the digital sensors
in real time, which helps students who do not have enough experiences
with digital sensors. Though the monitoring program was programmed
in the Matlab programming language, it runs without the Matlab since
it was compiled as a standalone executable.
Abstract: The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD)
technologies has become pervasive in the Architecture, Engineering
and Construction (AEC) industry. This has led to its inclusion as an
important part of the training module in the curriculum for
Architecture Schools in Nigeria. This paper examines the ethical
questions that arise in the implementation of Computer Aided Design
(CAD) Content of the curriculum for Architectural education. Using
existing literature, it begins this scrutiny from the propriety of
inclusion of CAD into the education of the architect and the
obligations of the different stakeholders in the implementation
process. It also examines the questions raised by the negative use of
computing technologies as well as perceived negative influence of
the use of CAD on design creativity. Survey methodology was
employed to gather data from the Department of Architecture,
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli, which has been
used as a case study on how the issues raised are being addressed.
The paper draws conclusions on what will make for successful ethical
implementation.
Abstract: Password authentication is one of the widely used
methods to achieve authentication for legal users of computers and
defense against attackers. There are many different ways to
authenticate users of a system and there are many password cracking
methods also developed. This paper proposes how best password
cracking can be performed on a CPU-GPGPU based system. The
main objective of this work is to project how quickly a password can
be cracked with some knowledge about the computer security and
password cracking if sufficient security is not incorporated to the
system.
Abstract: Thermoacoustic refrigerator is a cooling device which
uses the acoustic waves to produce the cooling effect. The aim of this
paper is to explore the experimental and numerical feasibility of a
standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator. The effects of the stack
length, position of stack and operating frequency on the cooling
performance are carried out. The circular pore stacks are tested under
the atmospheric pressure. A low-cost loudspeaker is used as an
acoustic driver. The results show that the location of stack installed in
resonator tube has a greater effect on the cooling performance, than
the stack length and operating frequency, respectively. The
temperature difference across the ends of stack can be generated up
to 13.7°C, and the temperature of cold-end is dropped down by 5.3°C
from the ambient temperature.
Abstract: Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is an essential
component of an organisation’s strategic procedures, which requires
attention of several factors to envisage a range of long-term outcomes
to support strategic project portfolio decisions. To evaluate overall
efficiency at the portfolio level, it is essential to identify the
functionality of specific projects as well as to aggregate those
findings in a mathematically meaningful manner that indicates the
strategic significance of the associated projects at a number of levels
of abstraction. PPM success is directly associated with the quality of
decisions made and poor judgment increases portfolio costs. Hence,
various Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques have
been designed and employed to support the decision-making
functions. This paper reviews possible options to enhance the
decision-making outcomes in organisational portfolio management
processes using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) both from
academic and practical perspectives and will examine the usability,
certainty and quality of the technique. The results of the study will
also provide insight into the technical risk associated with current
decision-making model to underpin initiative tracking and strategic
portfolio management.
Abstract: The purpose of the study is to investigate the level of
intrinsic motivation of trainers after attending a Continuous
Professional Development Course (CPD) organized by Institute of
Teacher Training Malaysia titled, “Transformation of Teaching and
Learning the Fun Way”. This study employed a survey whereby 96
teacher trainers were given Situational Intrinsic Motivational Scale
(SIMS) Instruments. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to
get the validity of this instrument in local setting. Data were analyzed
with SPSS for descriptive statistic. Semi- structured interviews were
also administrated to collect qualitative data on participants’
experiences after participating in the two-day fun-filled program. The
findings showed that the participants’ level of intrinsic motivation
showed higher mean than the amotivation. The results revealed that
the intrinsic motivation mean is 19.0 followed by Identified
regulation with a mean of 17.4, external regulation 9.7 and
amotivation 6.9. The interview data also revealed that the participants
were motivated after attending this training program. It can be
concluded that this program, which was organized by Institute of
Teacher Training Malaysia, was able to enhance participants’ level of
motivation. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a multidimensional
approach to motivation was utilized. Therefore, teacher trainers may
have more success using the “The fun way approach” in conducting
training program in future.
Abstract: The power electronic components within Electric Vehicles (EV) need to operate in several important modes. Some modes directly influence safety, while others influence vehicle performance. Given the variety of functions and operational modes required of the power electronics, it needs to meet efficiency requirements to minimize power losses. Another challenge in the control and construction of such systems is the ability to support bidirectional power flow. This paper considers the construction, operation, and feasibility of available converters for electric vehicles with feasible configurations of electrical buses and loads. This paper describes logic and control signals for the converters for different operations conditions based on the efficiency and energy usage bases.
Abstract: Considering the challenges of short product life cycles
and growing variant diversity, cost minimization and manufacturing
flexibility increasingly gain importance to maintain a competitive
edge in today’s global and dynamic markets. In this context, an
aerodynamic part feeding system for high-speed industrial assembly
applications has been developed at the Institute of Production
Systems and Logistics (IFA), Leibniz Universitaet Hannover. The
aerodynamic part feeding system outperforms conventional systems
with respect to its process safety, reliability, and operating speed. In
this paper, a multi-objective optimisation of the aerodynamic feeding
system regarding the orientation rate, the feeding velocity, and the
required nozzle pressure is presented.
Abstract: In this paper, a robust fault detection and isolation
(FDI) scheme is developed to monitor a multivariable nonlinear
chemical process called the Chylla-Haase polymerization reactor,
when it is under the cascade PI control. The scheme employs a radial
basis function neural network (RBFNN) in an independent mode to
model the process dynamics, and using the weighted sum-squared
prediction error as the residual. The Recursive Orthogonal Least
Squares algorithm (ROLS) is employed to train the model to
overcome the training difficulty of the independent mode of the
network. Then, another RBFNN is used as a fault classifier to isolate
faults from different features involved in the residual vector. Several
actuator and sensor faults are simulated in a nonlinear simulation of
the reactor in Simulink. The scheme is used to detect and isolate the
faults on-line. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the
scheme even the process is subjected to disturbances and
uncertainties including significant changes in the monomer feed rate,
fouling factor, impurity factor, ambient temperature, and
measurement noise. The simulation results are presented to illustrate
the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.