Abstract: The emergence of person-centred discourse based
around notions of 'personal development planning- and 'work'life
balance' has taken hold in education and the workplace in recent
years. This paper examines this discourse with regard to recent
developments in higher education as well as the inter-related issue of
work-life balance in occupational careers. In both cases there have
been national and trans-national policy initiatives directed towards
improving both personal opportunities and competitive advantage in
a global knowledge-based economy. However, despite an increasing
concern with looking outward at this globalised educational and
employment marketplace, there is something of a paradox in
encouraging people to look inward at themselves in order to become
more self-determined. This apparent paradox is considered from a
discourse analytic perspective in terms of the ideological effects of an
increasing concern with the personal world. Specifically, it is argued
that there are tensions that emerge from a concern with an innerdirected
process of self-reflection that dissolve any engagement with
wider political issues that impact upon educational and career
development.
Abstract: Due to important issues, such as deadlock, starvation,
communication, non-deterministic behavior and synchronization,
concurrent systems are very complex, sensitive, and error-prone.
Thus ensuring reliability and accuracy of these systems is very
essential. Therefore, there has been a big interest in the formal
specification of concurrent programs in recent years. Nevertheless,
some features of concurrent systems, such as dynamic process
creation, scheduling and starvation have not been specified formally
yet. Also, some other features have been specified partially and/or
have been described using a combination of several different
formalisms and methods whose integration needs too much effort. In
other words, a comprehensive and integrated specification that could
cover all aspects of concurrent systems has not been provided yet.
Thus, this paper makes two major contributions: firstly, it provides a
comprehensive formal framework to specify all well-known features
of concurrent systems. Secondly, it provides an integrated
specification of these features by using just a single formal notation,
i.e., the Z language.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with an epidemic model with delay. By using the comparison theorem of the differential equation and constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional, Some sufficient conditions which guarantee the permeance and existence of a unique globally attractive positive almost periodic solution of the model are obtain. Finally, an example is employed to illustrate our result.
Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate whether
chlorophyll meter readings (SPAD) can be used as criterion of singleplant
selection in maize breeding. Experimentation was performed at
the ultra-low density of 0.74 plants/m2 in order the potential yield per
plant to be fully expressed. R-31 honeycomb experiments were
conducted in three different areas in Greece (Thessaloniki, Giannitsa
and Florina) using 30 inbred lines at well-watered and water-stressed
conditions during the 2012 growing season. The chlorophyll meter
readings had higher rates at dry conditions, except location of
Giannitsa where differences were not significant. Genotypes of
highest chlorophyll meter readings were consistent across areas,
emphasizing on the character’s stability. A positive correlation
between the chlorophyll meter readings and grain yield was
strengthening over time and culminated at the physiological maturity
stage. There was a clear sign that the chlorophyll meter readings has
the potential to be used for the selection of stress-adaptive genotypes
and may permit modern maize to be grown at wider range of
environments addressing the climate change scenarios.
Abstract: Surface roughness (Ra) is one of the most important requirements in machining process. In order to obtain better surface roughness, the proper setting of cutting parameters is crucial before the process take place. This research presents the development of mathematical model for surface roughness prediction before milling process in order to evaluate the fitness of machining parameters; spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut. 84 samples were run in this study by using FANUC CNC Milling α-Τ14ιE. Those samples were randomly divided into two data sets- the training sets (m=60) and testing sets(m=24). ANOVA analysis showed that at least one of the population regression coefficients was not zero. Multiple Regression Method was used to determine the correlation between a criterion variable and a combination of predictor variables. It was established that the surface roughness is most influenced by the feed rate. By using Multiple Regression Method equation, the average percentage deviation of the testing set was 9.8% and 9.7% for training data set. This showed that the statistical model could predict the surface roughness with about 90.2% accuracy of the testing data set and 90.3% accuracy of the training data set.
Abstract: On a such wide-area environment as a Grid, data
placement is an important aspect of distributed database systems. In
this paper, we address the problem of initial placement of database
no-replicated fragments in Grid architecture. We propose a graph
based approach that considers resource restrictions. The goal is to
optimize the use of computing, storage and communication
resources. The proposed approach is developed in two phases: in the
first phase, we perform fragment grouping using knowledge about
fragments dependency and, in the second phase, we determine an
efficient placement of the fragment groups on the Grid. We also
show, via experimental analysis that our approach gives solutions
that are close to being optimal for different databases and Grid
configurations.
Abstract: Mechanical buckling analysis of rectangular plates
with central circular cutout is performed in this paper. The finiteelement
method is used to study the effects of plate-support
conditions, aspect ratio, and hole size on the mechanical buckling
strength of the perforated plates subjected to linearly varying loading.
Results show that increasing the hole size does not necessarily reduce
the mechanical buckling strength of the perforated plates. It is also
concluded that the clamped boundary condition increases the
mechanical buckling strength of the perforated plates more than the
simply-supported boundary condition and the free boundary
conditions enhance the mechanical buckling strength of the
perforated plates more effectively than the fixed boundary conditions.
Furthermore, for the bending cases, the critical buckling load of
perforated plates with free edges is less than perforated plates with
fixed edges.
Abstract: A Negotiation Support is required on a value-based decision to enable each stakeholder to evaluate and rank the solution alternatives before engaging into negotiation with the other stakeholders. This study demonstrates a process of negotiation support model for selection of a building system from value-based design perspective. The perspective is based on comparison of function and cost of a building system. Multi criteria decision techniques were applied to determine the relative value of the alternative solutions for performing the function. A satisfying option game theory are applied to the criteria of value-based decision which are LCC (life cycle cost) and function based FAST. The results demonstrate a negotiation process to select priorities of a building system. The support model can be extended to an automated negotiation by combining value based decision method, group decision and negotiation support.
Abstract: As the air traffic increases at a hub airport, some
flights cannot land or depart at their preferred target time. This event
happens because the airport runways become occupied to near their
capacity. It results in extra costs for both passengers and airlines
because of the loss of connecting flights or more waiting, more fuel
consumption, rescheduling crew members, etc. Hence, devising an
appropriate scheduling method that determines a suitable runway and
time for each flight in order to efficiently use the hub capacity and
minimize the related costs is of great importance. In this paper, we
present a mixed-integer zero-one model for scheduling a set of mixed
landing and departing flights (despite of most previous studies
considered only landings). According to the fact that the flight cost is
strongly affected by the level of airline, we consider different airline
categories in our model. This model presents a single objective
minimizing the total sum of three terms, namely 1) the weighted
deviation from targets, 2) the scheduled time of the last flight (i.e.,
makespan), and 3) the unbalancing the workload on runways. We
solve 10 simulated instances of different sizes up to 30 flights and 4
runways. Optimal solutions are obtained in a reasonable time, which
are satisfactory in comparison with the traditional rule, namely First-
Come-First-Serve (FCFS) that is far apart from optimality in most
cases.
Abstract: Within the new world order, the term “crisis" is nowadays familiar to companies. Organizations are experiencing conditions which are surprising, uncertain, often adverse and usually unstable. The companies, who grasp the importance of transformation within the information age, have felt the need to develop modern methods to achieve the ability to thrive despite severe shocks. Through strategically managing human resource and developing appropriate elements of human resource system, companies can be assured for resolving the crisis. In this paper the role of HR system on resolving crisis has been evaluated. To help accomplish this, an insight on previous strategic HRM literature and an introduction to the elements and relationship within HR systems has been presented. It also reviews different attitude around resilience in literature. It continues by reviewing three elements central to developing an organization-s capacity for crisis resolving and it will demonstrate how designing proper elements of HR system can lead the organizations to possess the ability for passing through crisis. Finally it will evaluate an Iranian Insurance organization in case of one of the three central elements (specific cognitive ability) and observe how successful they were on developing an effective HR system to be ready for facing crisis.
Abstract: Bleeding in the digestive duct is an important diagnostic parameter for patients. Blood in the endoscopic image can be determined by investigating the color tone of blood due to the degree of oxygenation, under- or over- illumination, food debris and secretions, etc. However, we found that how to pre-process raw images obtained from the capsule detectors was very important. We applied various image process methods suitable for the capsule endoscopic image in order to remove noises and unbalanced sensitivities for the image pixels. The results showed that much improvement was achieved by additional pre-processing techniques on the algorithm of determining bleeding areas.
Abstract: In this longitudinal study, we examined the moderating role of personality in the relationship between communication behaviors and long-term dyadic adjustment. A sample of 82 couples completed the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. These couples were also videotaped during a 15-minute problem-solving discussion. Approximately 2.5 years later, these couples completed again the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Results show that personality of both men and women moderates the relationship between communication behaviors of the partner and long-term dyadic adjustment of the individual. Women-s openness and men-s extraversion moderate the relationship between some communication behaviors and long-term dyadic adjustment
Abstract: This paper presents the methodology from machine
learning approaches for short-term rain forecasting system. Decision
Tree, Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Support Vector Machine
(SVM) were applied to develop classification and prediction models
for rainfall forecasts. The goals of this presentation are to
demonstrate (1) how feature selection can be used to identify the
relationships between rainfall occurrences and other weather
conditions and (2) what models can be developed and deployed for
predicting the accurate rainfall estimates to support the decisions to
launch the cloud seeding operations in the northeastern part of
Thailand. Datasets collected during 2004-2006 from the
Chalermprakiat Royal Rain Making Research Center at Hua Hin,
Prachuap Khiri khan, the Chalermprakiat Royal Rain Making
Research Center at Pimai, Nakhon Ratchasima and Thai
Meteorological Department (TMD). A total of 179 records with 57
features was merged and matched by unique date. There are three
main parts in this work. Firstly, a decision tree induction algorithm
(C4.5) was used to classify the rain status into either rain or no-rain.
The overall accuracy of classification tree achieves 94.41% with the
five-fold cross validation. The C4.5 algorithm was also used to
classify the rain amount into three classes as no-rain (0-0.1 mm.),
few-rain (0.1- 10 mm.), and moderate-rain (>10 mm.) and the overall
accuracy of classification tree achieves 62.57%. Secondly, an ANN
was applied to predict the rainfall amount and the root mean square
error (RMSE) were used to measure the training and testing errors of
the ANN. It is found that the ANN yields a lower RMSE at 0.171 for
daily rainfall estimates, when compared to next-day and next-2-day
estimation. Thirdly, the ANN and SVM techniques were also used to
classify the rain amount into three classes as no-rain, few-rain, and
moderate-rain as above. The results achieved in 68.15% and 69.10%
of overall accuracy of same-day prediction for the ANN and SVM
models, respectively. The obtained results illustrated the comparison
of the predictive power of different methods for rainfall estimation.
Abstract: Responses of the dynamical systems are highly affected by the natural frequencies and it has a huge impact on design and operation of high-rise and high-speed elevators. In the present paper, the variational iteration method (VIM) is employed to investigate better understanding the dynamics of elevator cable as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) swing system. Comparisons made among the results of the proposed closed-form analytical solution, the traditional numerical iterative time integration solution, and the linearized governing equations confirm the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach. Furthermore, based on the results of the proposed closed-form solution, the linearization errors in calculating the natural frequencies in different cases are discussed.
Abstract: This research was conducted to determine responses
of chickpeas to drought in different periods (early period, late period,
no-irrigation, two times irrigation as control). The trial was made in
“Randomized Complete Block Design" with three replications on
2010 and 2011 years in Konya-Turkey. Genotypes were consisted
from 7 lines of ICARDA, 2 certified lines and 1 local population. The
results showed that; as means of years and genotypes, early period
stress showed highest (207.47 kg da-1) seed yield and it was followed
by control (202.33 kg da-1), late period (144.64 kg da-1) and normal
(106.93 kg da-1) stress applications. The genotypes were affected too
much by drought and, the lowest seed was taken from non-irrigated
plots. As the means of years and stress applications, the highest
(196.01 kg da-1) yield was taken from genotype 22255. The reason of
yield variation could be derived from different responses of
genotypes to drought.
Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of product substitution in the single-period 'newsboy-type' problem in a fuzzy environment. It is supposed that the single-period problem operates under uncertainty in customer demand, which is described by imprecise terms and modelled by fuzzy sets. To perform this analysis, we consider the fuzzy model for two-item with upward substitution. This upward substitutability is reasonable when the products can be stored according to certain attribute levels such as quality, brand or package size. We show that the explicit consideration of this substitution opportunity increase the average expected profit. Computational study is performed to observe the benefits of product's substitution.
Abstract: In this paper, determining the optimal proportionalintegral-
derivative (PID) controller gains of an single-area load
frequency control (LFC) system using genetic algorithm (GA) is
presented. The LFC is notoriously difficult to control optimally using
conventionally tuning a PID controller because the system parameters
are constantly changing. It is for this reason the GA as tuning strategy
was applied. The simulation has been conducted in MATLAB
Simulink package for single area power system. the simulation results
shows the effectiveness performance of under various disturbance.
Abstract: Increasing demand on the performance of Subsea
Production Systems (SPS) suggests a need for more detailed
investigation of fluid behavior taking place in subsea equipment.
Complete CFD cool down analyses of subsea equipment are very
time demanding. The objective of this paper is to investigate a
Locked CFD approach, which enables significant reduction of the
computational time and at the same time maintains sufficient
accuracy during thermal cool down simulations. The result
comparison of a dead leg simulation using the Full CFD and the three
LCFD-methods confirms the validity of the locked flow field
assumption for the selected case. For the tested case the LCFD
simulation speed up by factor of 200 results in the absolute thermal
error of 0.5 °C (3% relative error), speed up by factor of 10 keeps the
LCFD results within 0.1 °C (0.5 % relative error) comparing to the
Full CFD.
Abstract: The mechanical properties of blends consisting of
plasticized poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB) and plasticized poly(vinyl
chloride) (PVC) are studied, in order to evaluate the possibility of
using recycled PVB waste derived from windshields. PVC was
plasticized with 38% of diisononyl phthalate (DINP), while PVB was
plasticized with 28% of triethylene glycol, bis(2-ethylhexanoate)
(3GO). The optimal process conditions for the PVB/PVC blend in 1:1
ratio were determined. Entropy was used in order to theoretically
predict the blends miscibility. The PVB content of each blend
composition used was ranging from zero to 100%. Tensile strength
and strain were tested. In addition, a comparison between recycled
and original PVB, used as constituents of the blend, was performed.
Abstract: Tool wear and surface roughness prediction plays a
significant role in machining industry for proper planning and control
of machining parameters and optimization of cutting conditions. This
paper deals with developing an artificial neural network (ANN)
model as a function of cutting parameters in turning steel under
minimum quantity lubrication (MQL). A feed-forward
backpropagation network with twenty five hidden neurons has been
selected as the optimum network. The co-efficient of determination
(R2) between model predictions and experimental values are 0.9915,
0.9906, 0.9761 and 0.9627 in terms of VB, VM, VS and Ra
respectively. The results imply that the model can be used easily to
forecast tool wear and surface roughness in response to cutting
parameters.