Abstract: This paper presents an analysis result of relationship
between business and information technology (IT) in business process
reengineering (BPR). 258 Japanese firm-level data collected have been
analyzed using structural equation modeling. This analysis was aimed
to illuminating success factors of achieve effective BPR. Analysis was
focused on management factors (including organizational factors) and
implementing management method (e.g. balanced score card, internal
control, etc.).These results would contribute for achieving effective
BPR by showing effective tasks and environment to be focused.
Abstract: Some Chromium (III) complexes were synthesized
with three amino acids: L Glutamic Acid, Glycine, and L-cysteine as
the ligands, in order to provide a new supplement containing Cr(III)
for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The complexes have been
prepared by refluxing a mixture of Chromium(III) chloride in
aqueous solution with L-glutamic acid, Glycine, and L-cysteine after
pH adjustment by sodium hydroxide. These complexes were
characterized by Infrared and Uv-Vis spectrophotometer and
Elemental analyzer. The product yields of four products were 87.50
and 56.76% for Cr-Glu complexes, 46.70% for Cr-Gly complex and
40.08% for Cr-Cys complex respectively. The predicted structure of
the complexes are [Cr(glu)2(H2O)2].xH2O, Cr(gly)3..xH2O and
Cr(cys)3.xH2O., respectively.
Abstract: Iron in groundwater is one of the problems that render the water unsuitable for drinking. The concentration above 0.3 mg/L is common in groundwater. The conventional method of removal is by precipitation under oxic condition. In this study, iron removal under anaerobic conditions was examined by batch experiment as a main purpose. The process involved by purging of groundwater samples with H2S to form iron sulfide. Removal up to 83% for 1 mg/L iron solution was achieved. The removal efficiency dropped to 82% and 75% for the higher initial iron concentrations 3.55 and 5.01 mg/L, respectively. The average residual sulfide concentration in water after the process was 25*g/L. The Eh level during the process was -272 mV. The removal process was found to follow the first order reaction with average rate constant of 4.52 x 10-3. The half-life for the concentrations to reduce from initial values was 157 minutes.
Abstract: This paper features the modeling and design of a
Robust Decentralized Fast Output Sampling (RDFOS) Feedback
control technique for the active vibration control of a smart flexible
multimodel Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beams for a multivariable
(MIMO) case by retaining the first 6 vibratory modes. The beam
structure is modeled in state space form using the concept of
piezoelectric theory, the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the Finite
Element Method (FEM) technique by dividing the beam into 4 finite
elements and placing the piezoelectric sensor / actuator at two finite
element locations (positions 2 and 4) as collocated pairs, i.e., as
surface mounted sensor / actuator, thus giving rise to a multivariable
model of the smart structure plant with two inputs and two outputs.
Five such multivariable models are obtained by varying the
dimensions (aspect ratios) of the aluminium beam. Using model
order reduction technique, the reduced order model of the higher
order system is obtained based on dominant Eigen value retention
and the Davison technique. RDFOS feedback controllers are
designed for the above 5 multivariable-multimodel plant. The closed
loop responses with the RDFOS feedback gain and the magnitudes of
the control input are obtained and the performance of the proposed
multimodel smart structure system is evaluated for vibration control.
Abstract: Worm propagation profiles have significantly changed
since 2003-2004: sudden world outbreaks like Blaster or Slammer
have progressively disappeared and slower but stealthier worms
appeared since, most of them for botnets dissemination. Decreased
worm virulence results in more difficult detection.
In this paper, we describe a stealth worm propagation model
which has been extensively simulated and analysed on a huge virtual
network. The main features of this model is its ability to infect any
Internet-like network in a few seconds, whatever may be its size while
greatly limiting the reinfection attempt overhead of already infected
hosts. The main simulation results shows that the combinatorial
topology of routing may have a huge impact on the worm propagation
and thus some servers play a more essential and significant role than
others. The real-time capability to identify them may be essential to
greatly hinder worm propagation.
Abstract: TiO2/Ag composite films were prepared by
incorporating Ag in the pores of mesoporous TiO2 films using a
photoreduction method. The Ag nanoparticle sizes were in a range of
3.66-38.56 nm. The TiO2/Ag composite films were characterized by
X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and
transmission electron microscropy (TEM). The TiO2 films and
TiO2/Ag composite films were immersed in a 0.3 mM N719 dye
solution and characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The
TiO2/Ag/N719 composite film showed that an optimal size of Ag
nanoparticles was 19.12 nm and, hence, gave the maximum optical
absorption spectra. The improved absorption was due to surface
plasmon resonance induced by the Ag nanoparticles to enhance the
absorption coefficient of the dye.
Abstract: The ε4 allele of the ε2, ε3 and ε4 protein isoform polymorphism in the gene encoding apolipoprotein E (Apo E) has previously been associated with increased cardiac artery disease (CAD); therefore to investigate the significance of this polymorphism in pathogenesis of CAD in Iranian patients with stenosis and control subjects. To investigate the association between
Apo E polymorphism and coronary artery disease we performed a comparative case control study of the frequency of Apo E
polymorphism in One hundred CAD patients with stenosis who underwent coronary angiography (>50% stenosis) and 100 control subjects (
Abstract: In this paper, we present a cost-effective wireless
distributed load shedding system for non-emergency scenarios. In
power transformer locations where SCADA system cannot be used,
the proposed solution provides a reasonable alternative that combines
the use of microcontrollers and existing GSM infrastructure to send
early warning SMS messages to users advising them to proactively
reduce their power consumption before system capacity is reached
and systematic power shutdown takes place.
A novel communication protocol and message set have been
devised to handle the messaging between the transformer sites, where
the microcontrollers are located and where the measurements take
place, and the central processing site where the database server is
hosted. Moreover, the system sends warning messages to the endusers
mobile devices that are used as communication terminals. The
system has been implemented and tested via different experimental
results.
Abstract: The Taiwan government has started to promote the “Plain Landscape Afforestation and Greening Program" since 2002. A key task of the program was the payment for environmental services (PES), entitled the “Plain Landscape Afforestation Policy" (PLAP), which was certificated by the Executive Yuan on August 31, 2001 and enacted on January 1, 2002. According to the policy, it is estimated that the total area of afforestation will be 25,100 hectares by December 31, 2007. Until the end of 2007, the policy had been enacted for six years in total and the actual area of afforestation was 8,919.18 hectares. Among them, Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) was accounted for 7,960 hectares (with 2,450.83 hectares as public service area) which occupied 86.22% of the total afforestation area; the private farmland promoted by local governments was accounted for 869.18 hectares which occupied 9.75% of the total afforestation area. Based on the above, we observe that most of the afforestation area in this policy is executed by TSC, and the achievement ratio by TSC is better than by others. It implies that the success of the PLAP is seriously related to the execution of TSC. The objective of this study is to analyze the relevant policy planning of TSC's participation in the PLAP, suggest complementary measures, and draw up effective adjustment mechanisms, so as to improve the effectiveness of executing the policy. Our main conclusions and suggestions are summarized as follows: 1. The main reason for TSC’s participation in the PLAP is based on their passive cooperation with the central government or company policy. Prior to TSC’s participation in the PLAP, their lands were mainly used for growing sugarcane. 2. The main factors of TSC's consideration on the selection of tree species are based on the suitability of land and species. The largest proportion of tree species is allocated to economic forests, and the lack of technical instruction was the main problem during afforestation. Moreover, the method of improving TSC’s future development in leisure agriculture and landscape business becomes a key topic. 3. TSC has developed short and long-term plans on participating in the PLAP for the future. However, there is no great willingness or incentive on budgeting for such detailed planning. 4. Most people from TSC interviewed consider the requirements on PLAP unreasonable. Among them, an unreasonable requirement on the number of trees accounted for the greatest proportion; furthermore, most interviewees suggested that the government should continue to provide incentives even after 20 years. 5. Since the government shares the same goals as TSC, there should be sufficient cooperation and communication that support the technical instruction and reduction of afforestation cost, which will also help to improve effectiveness of the policy.
Abstract: This study was carried out to reveal the bacterial composition of aerosol in the studied abattoirs. Bacteria isolated were characterized according to microbiological standards. Factors such as temperature and distance were considered as variable in this study. The isolation was carried out at different temperatures such as 27oC, 31oC and 29oC and at various distances of 100meters and 200meters away from the slaughter sites. Result obtained showed that strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus alimentarius and Micrococcus sp. were identified. The total viable counts showed that more microorganisms were present in the morning while the least viable count of 388cfu was recorded in the evening period of this study. This study also showed that more microbial loads were recorded the further the distance is to the slaughter site. Conclusively, the array of bacteria isolated suggests that abattoir sites may be a potential source of pathogenic organisms to commuters if located within residential environment.
Abstract: A procedure commonly used in Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) to evaluate the neighborhoods functions that use the non-deterministic algorithms is the calculation of the critical path in a digraph. This paper presents an experimental study of the cost of computation that exists when the calculation of the critical path in the solution for instances in which a JSSP of large size is involved. The results indicate that if the critical path is use in order to generate neighborhoods in the meta-heuristics that are used in JSSP, an elevated cost of computation exists in spite of the fact that the calculation of the critical path in any digraph is of polynomial complexity.
Abstract: InGaAsN and GaAsN epitaxial layers with similar
nitrogen compositions in a sample were successfully grown on a
GaAs (001) substrate by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. An
electron cyclotron resonance nitrogen plasma source has been used to
generate atomic nitrogen during the growth of the nitride layers. The
indium composition changed from sample to sample to give
compressive and tensile strained InGaAsN layers. Layer
characteristics have been assessed by high-resolution x-ray
diffraction to determine the relationship between the lattice constant
of the GaAs1-yNy layer and the fraction x of In. The objective was to
determine the In fraction x in an InxGa1-xAs1-yNy epitaxial layer which
exactly cancels the strain present in a GaAs1-yNy epitaxial layer with
the same nitrogen content when grown on a GaAs substrate.
Abstract: Workflow Management Systems (WfMS) alloworganizations to streamline and automate business processes and reengineer their structure. One important requirement for this type of system is the management and computation of the Quality of Service(QoS) of processes and workflows. Currently, a range of Web processes and workflow languages exist. Each language can be characterized by the set of patterns they support. Developing andimplementing a suitable and generic algorithm to compute the QoSof processes that have been designed using different languages is a difficult task. This is because some patterns are specific to particular process languages and new patterns may be introduced in future versions of a language. In this paper, we describe an adaptive algorithm implemented to cope with these two problems. The algorithm is called adaptive since it can be dynamically changed as the patterns of a process language also change.
Abstract: The notions of prime(semiprime) fuzzy h-ideal(h-biideal,
h-quasi-ideal) in Γ-hemiring are introduced and some of their
characterizations are obtained by using "belongingness(∈)" and
"quasi - coincidence(q)". Cartesian product of prime(semiprime)
fuzzy h-ideals of Γ-hemirings are also investigated.
Abstract: A novel idea presented in this paper is to combine
multihop routing with single-frequency networks (SFNs) for a
broadcasting scenario. An SFN is a set of multiple nodes that transmit
the same data simultaneously, resulting in transmitter macrodiversity.
Two of the most important performance factors of multihop
networks, node reachability and routing robustness, are analyzed.
Simulation results show that our proposed SFN-D routing algorithm
improves the node reachability by 37 percentage points as compared
to non-SFN multihop routing. It shows a diversity gain of 3.7 dB,
meaning that 3.7 dB lower transmission powers are required for the
same reachability. Even better results are possible for larger
networks. If an important node becomes inactive, this algorithm can
find new routes that a non-SFN scheme would not be able to find.
Thus, two of the major problems in multihopping are addressed;
achieving robust routing as well as improving node reachability or
reducing transmission power.
Abstract: A dissimilarity measure between the empiric
characteristic functions of the subsamples associated to the different
classes in a multivariate data set is proposed. This measure can be
efficiently computed, and it depends on all the cases of each class. It
may be used to find groups of similar classes, which could be joined
for further analysis, or it could be employed to perform an
agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis of the set of classes. The
final tree can serve to build a family of binary classification models,
offering an alternative approach to the multi-class SVM problem. We
have tested this dendrogram based SVM approach with the oneagainst-
one SVM approach over four publicly available data sets,
three of them being microarray data. Both performances have been
found equivalent, but the first solution requires a smaller number of
binary SVM models.
Abstract: The public sector holds large amounts of data of
various areas such as social affairs, economy, or tourism. Various
initiatives such as Open Government Data or the EU Directive on
public sector information aim to make these data available for public
and private service providers. Requirements for the provision of
public sector data are defined by legal and organizational
frameworks. Surprisingly, the defined requirements hardly cover
security aspects such as integrity or authenticity.
In this paper we discuss the importance of these missing
requirements and present a concept to assure the integrity and
authenticity of provided data based on electronic signatures. We
show that our concept is perfectly suitable for the provisioning of
unaltered data. We also show that our concept can also be extended
to data that needs to be anonymized before provisioning by
incorporating redactable signatures. Our proposed concept enhances
trust and reliability of provided public sector data.
Abstract: Recently, lots of researchers are attracted to retrieving
multimedia database by using some impression words and their values.
Ikezoe-s research is one of the representatives and uses eight pairs of
opposite impression words. We had modified its retrieval interface and
proposed '2D-RIB' in the previous work. The aim of the present paper
is to improve his/her satisfaction level to the retrieval result in the
2D-RIB. Our method is to extend the 2D-RIB. One of our extensions is
to define and introduce the following two measures: 'melody
goodness' and 'general acceptance'. Another extension is three types
of customization menus. The result of evaluation using a pilot system
is as follows. Both of these two measures 'melody goodness'
and -general acceptance- can contribute to the improvement.
Moreover, it is effective if we introduce the customization menu
which enables a retrieval person to reduce the strictness level of
retrieval condition in an impression pair based on his/her need.
Abstract: In this paper sensitivity analysis is performed for
reliability evaluation of power systems. When examining the
reliability of a system, it is useful to recognize how results
change as component parameters are varied. This knowledge
helps engineers to understand the impact of poor data, and
gives insight on how reliability can be improved. For these
reasons, a sensitivity analysis can be performed. Finally, a real
network was used for testing the presented method.
Abstract: The paper discusses optimising work on a method of processing ceramic / metal composite coatings for various applications and is based on preliminary work on processing anodes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The composite coating is manufactured by the electroless co-deposition of nickel and yttria stabilised zirconia (YSZ) simultaneously on to a ceramic substrate. The effect on coating characteristics of substrate surface treatments and electroless nickel bath parameters such as pH and agitation methods are also investigated. Characterisation of the resulting deposit by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA) is also discussed.