Abstract: This study examined a habitat-suitability assessment method namely the Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA). A virtual species was created and then dispatched in a geographic information system model of a real landscape in three historic scenarios: (1) spreading, (2) equilibrium, and (3) overabundance. In each scenario, the virtual species was sampled and these simulated data sets were used as inputs for the ENFA to reconstruct the habitat suitability model. The 'equilibrium' scenario gives the highest quantity and quality among three scenarios. ENFA was sensitive to the distribution scenarios but not sensitive to sample sizes. The use of a virtual species proved to be a very efficient method, allowing one to fully control the quality of the input data as well as to accurately evaluate the predictive power of the analyses.
Abstract: The stem cells have ability to differentiated
themselves through mitotic cell division and various range of
specialized cell types. Cellular differentiation is a way by which few
specialized cell develops into more specialized.This paper studies the
fundamental problem of computational schema for an artificial neural
network based on chemical, physical and biological variables of
state. By doing this type of study system could be model for a viable
propagation of various economically important stem cells
differentiation. This paper proposes various differentiation outcomes
of artificial neural network into variety of potential specialized cells
on implementing MATLAB version 2009. A feed-forward back
propagation kind of network was created to input vector (five input
elements) with single hidden layer and one output unit in output
layer. The efficiency of neural network was done by the assessment
of results achieved from this study with that of experimental data
input and chosen target data. The propose solution for the efficiency
of artificial neural network assessed by the comparatative analysis of
“Mean Square Error" at zero epochs. There are different variables of
data in order to test the targeted results.
Abstract: This article proposes a new methodology to be used by SMEs (Small and Medium enterprises) to characterize their performance in quality, highlighting weaknesses and area for improvement. The methodology aims to identify the principal causes of quality problems and help to prioritize improvement initiatives. This is a self-assessment methodology that intends to be easy to implement by companies with low maturity level in quality. The methodology is organized in six different steps which includes gathering information about predetermined processes and subprocesses of quality management, defined based on the well-known Juran-s trilogy for quality management (Quality planning, quality control and quality improvement) and, predetermined results categories, defined based on quality concept. A set of tools for data collecting and analysis, such as interviews, flowcharts, process analysis diagrams and Failure Mode and effects Analysis (FMEA) are used. The article also presents the conclusions obtained in the application of the methodology in two cases studies.
Abstract: The objective of this article is to discuss the potential
of economic analysis as a tool for identification and evaluation of
corruption in legislative acts. We propose that corruption be
perceived as a risk variable within the legislative process. Therefore
we find it appropriate to employ risk analysis methods, used in
various fields of economics, for the evaluation of corruption in
legislation. Furthermore we propose the incorporation of these
methods into the so called corruption impact assessment (CIA), the
general framework for detection of corruption in legislative acts. The
applications of the risk analysis methods are demonstrated on
examples of implementation of proposed CIA in the Czech Republic.
Abstract: International markets driven forces are changing
continuously, therefore companies need to gain a competitive edge in
such markets. Improving the company's products, processes and
practices is no longer auxiliary. Lean production is a production
management philosophy that consolidates work tasks with minimum
waste resulting in improved productivity. Lean production practices
can be mapped into many production areas. One of these is
Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (MET). Many lean
production practices can be implemented in MET, namely, specific
equipment configurations, total preventive maintenance, visual
control, new equipment/ technologies, production process
reengineering and shared vision of perfection.The purpose of this
paper is to investigate the implementation level of these six practices
in Jordanian industries. To achieve that a questionnaire survey has
been designed according to five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire
is validated through pilot study and through experts review. A sample
of 350 Jordanian companies were surveyed, the response rate was
83%. The respondents were asked to rate the extent of
implementation for each of practices. A relationship conceptual
model is developed, hypotheses are proposed, and consequently the
essential statistical analyses are then performed. An assessment tool
that enables management to monitor the progress and the
effectiveness of lean practices implementation is designed and
presented. Consequently, the results show that the average
implementation level of lean practices in MET is 77%, Jordanian
companies are implementing successfully the considered lean
production practices, and the presented model has Cronbach-s alpha
value of 0.87 which is good evidence on model consistency and
results validation.
Abstract: In a liberalized electricity market, it is not surprising
that different customers require different power quality (PQ) levels at
different price. Power quality related to several power disturbances is
described by many parameters, so how to define a comprehensive
hierarchy evaluation system of power quality (PQCHES) has become
a concerned issue. In this paper, based on four electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC) levels, the numerical range of each power
disturbance is divided into five grades (Grade I –Grade V), and the
“barrel principle" of power quality is used for the assessment of
overall PQ performance with only one grade indicator. A case study
based on actual monitored data of PQ shows that the site PQ grade
indicates the electromagnetic environment level and also expresses the
characteristics of loads served by the site.
The shortest plank principle of PQ barrel is an incentive
mechanism, which can combine with the rewards/penalty mechanism
(RPM) of consumed energy “on quality demand", to stimulate utilities
to improve the overall PQ level and also stimulate end-user more
“smart" under the infrastructure of future SmartGrid..
Abstract: Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.
Abstract: Social resilience has role to govern the local community and coastal fisheries resources toward sustainable fisheries development in tsunami affected area. This paper asses, explore and investigates of indigenous institutions, external and internal facilitators toward strengthening social resilience. Identification of the genuine organizations role had been conducted twice by using Rapid Assessment Appraisal, Focus Group Discussion, and in-depth interview for collecting primary and secondary data. Local wisdom had a contribution and adaptable to rebound social resilience. The Panglima Laot Lhok (sea commander) had determined and adapted role on recovery of the fishing community, particularly facilitated aid delivery to fishermen, as shown in anchovy fisheries relief case in Krueng Raya Bay. Toke Bangku (financial trader) had stimulated for reinforcement of advance payment and market channel. The other institutions supported upon linking and bridging connectivity among stakeholders. Collaborative governance can avoid conflict, reduce donor dependency and strengthen social resilience within fishing community.
Abstract: The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)
and normalized difference moisture index (NDMI) derived from the
moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) have been
widely used to identify spatial information of drought condition. The
relationship between NDVI and NDMI has been analyzed using
Pearson correlation analysis and showed strong positive relationship.
The drought indices have detected drought conditions and identified
spatial extents of drought. A comparison between normal year and
drought year demonstrates that the amplitude analysis considered both
vegetation and moisture condition is an effective method to identify
drought condition. We proposed the amplitude analysis is useful for
quick spatial assessment of drought information at a regional scale.
Abstract: Improvement in CAE methods has an important role for shortening of the vehicle product development time. It is provided that validation of the design and improvements in terms of durability can be done without hardware prototype production. In recent years, several different methods have been developed in order to investigate fatigue damage of the vehicle. The intended goal among these methods is prediction of fatigue damage in a short time with reduced costs. This study developed a new fatigue damage prediction method in the automotive sector using power spectrum densities of accelerations. This study also confirmed that the weak region in vehicle can be easily detected with the method developed in this study which results were compared with conventional method.
Abstract: In order to develop forest management strategies in
tropical forest in Malaysia, surveying the forest resources and
monitoring the forest area affected by logging activities is essential.
There are tremendous effort has been done in classification of land
cover related to forest resource management in this country as it is a
priority in all aspects of forest mapping using remote sensing and
related technology such as GIS. In fact classification process is a
compulsory step in any remote sensing research. Therefore, the main
objective of this paper is to assess classification accuracy of
classified forest map on Landsat TM data from difference number of
reference data (200 and 388 reference data). This comparison was
made through observation (200 reference data), and interpretation
and observation approaches (388 reference data). Five land cover
classes namely primary forest, logged over forest, water bodies, bare
land and agricultural crop/mixed horticultural can be identified by
the differences in spectral wavelength. Result showed that an overall
accuracy from 200 reference data was 83.5 % (kappa value
0.7502459; kappa variance 0.002871), which was considered
acceptable or good for optical data. However, when 200 reference
data was increased to 388 in the confusion matrix, the accuracy
slightly improved from 83.5% to 89.17%, with Kappa statistic
increased from 0.7502459 to 0.8026135, respectively. The accuracy
in this classification suggested that this strategy for the selection of
training area, interpretation approaches and number of reference data
used were importance to perform better classification result.
Abstract: This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief
networks (BBN) as a higher level of health risk assessment for a
dumping site of lead battery smelter factory. On the basis of the
epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and
expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic
relationships between the hazardous substances and their adverse
health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity of the adverse
health effects. The provision of the morbidity rates of the related
diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of
conventional methods.
Abstract: Amongst the consistently fluctuating conditions
prevailing today, changeability represents a strategic key factor for a
manufacturing company to achieve success on the international
markets. In order to cope with turbulences and the increasing level of
incalculability, not only the flexible design of production systems but
in particular the employee as enabler of change provide the focus
here. It is important to enable employees from manufacturing
companies to participate actively in change events and in change
decisions. To this end, the learning factory has been created, which is
intended to serve the development of change-promoting competences
and the sensitization of employees for the necessity of changes.
Abstract: The paper is intended to declare and apply ethics, i. e.
moral principles, rules in marketing environment. Ethical behavior of
selected pharmaceutical companies in the Slovak Republic is the
object of our research. The aim of our research is to determine
perception of ethical behavior of the pharmaceutical industry in
Slovakia by the medicine representatives in comparison with the
assessment of doctors and patients. The experimental sample
included 90 participants who were divided into three groups:
medicine representatives of the pharmaceutical companies (N=30),
doctors (N=30) and patients (N=30). The research method was a
Questionnaire of ethical behavior, created by us, that describes
individual areas included in the Code of ethics of the pharmaceutical
industry in Slovakia. The results showed influence of professional
status on ethical behavior perception, not gender. Higher perception
was indicated at patients rather than doctors and medicine
representatives.
Abstract: In this paper, an improved technique for contingency
ranking using artificial neural network (ANN) is presented. The
proposed approach is based on multi-layer perceptrons trained by
backpropagation to contingency analysis. Severity indices in dynamic
stability assessment are presented. These indices are based on the
concept of coherency and three dot products of the system variables.
It is well known that some indices work better than others for a
particular power system. This paper along with test results using
several different systems, demonstrates that combination of indices
with ANN provides better ranking than a single index. The presented
results are obtained through the use of power system simulation
(PSS/E) and MATLAB 6.5 software.
Abstract: Perth will run out of available sustainable natural
water resources by 2015 if nothing is done to slow usage rates,
according to a Western Australian study [1]. Alternative water
technology options need to be considered for the long-term
guaranteed supply of water for agricultural, commercial, domestic
and industrial purposes. Seawater is an alternative source of water for
human consumption, because seawater can be desalinated and
supplied in large quantities to a very high quality.
While seawater desalination is a promising option, the technology
requires a large amount of energy which is typically generated from
fossil fuels. The combustion of fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases
(GHG) and, is implicated in climate change. In addition to
environmental emissions from electricity generation for desalination,
greenhouse gases are emitted in the production of chemicals and
membranes for water treatment. Since Australia is a signatory to the
Kyoto Protocol, it is important to quantify greenhouse gas emissions
from desalinated water production.
A life cycle assessment (LCA) has been carried out to determine
the greenhouse gas emissions from the production of 1 gigalitre (GL)
of water from the new plant. In this LCA analysis, a new desalination
plant that will be installed in Bunbury, Western Australia, and known
as Southern Seawater Desalinization Plant (SSDP), was taken as a
case study. The system boundary of the LCA mainly consists of three
stages: seawater extraction, treatment and delivery. The analysis
found that the equivalent of 3,890 tonnes of CO2 could be emitted
from the production of 1 GL of desalinated water. This LCA analysis
has also identified that the reverse osmosis process would cause the
most significant greenhouse emissions as a result of the electricity
used if this is generated from fossil fuels
Abstract: In this paper the main objective is to analyze the
quality of service of the bus companies operating in the city of
Campos, located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This analysis,
based on the opinion of the bus customers, will help to determine
their degree of satisfaction with the service provided by the bus
companies. The result of this assessment shows that the bus
customers are displeased with the quality of service supplied by the
bus companies. Therefore, it is necessary to identify alternative
solutions to minimize the consequences of the main problems related
to customers- dissatisfaction identified in our evaluation and to help
the bus companies operating in Campos better fulfill their riders-
needs.
Abstract: A key requirement for e-learning materials is
reusability and interoperability, that is the possibility to use at least
part of the contents in different courses, and to deliver them trough
different platforms. These features make possible to limit the cost of
new packages, but require the development of material according to
proper specifications. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference
Model) is a set of guidelines suitable for this purpose. A specific
adaptation project has been started to make possible to reuse existing
materials. The paper describes the main characteristics of SCORM
specification, and the procedure used to modify the existing material.
Abstract: This study aimed to present the mechanical
performance evaluation of the dynamic hip screw (DHS) for
trochanteric fracture by means of finite element method. The
analyses were performed based on stainless steel and titanium
implant material definitions at various stages of bone healing and
including implant removal. The assessment of the mechanical
performance used two parameters, von Mises stress to evaluate the
strength of bone and implant and elastic strain to evaluate fracture
stability. The results show several critical aspects of dynamic hip
screw for trochanteric fracture stabilization. In the initial stage of
bone healing process, partial weight bearing should be applied to
avoid the implant failure. In the late stage of bone healing, stainless
steel implant should be removed.
Abstract: The three-time-scale plant model of a wind power
generator, including a wind turbine, a flexible vertical shaft, a Variable
Inertia Flywheel (VIF) module, an Active Magnetic Bearing (AMB)
unit and the applied wind sequence, is constructed. In order to make
the wind power generator be still able to operate as the spindle speed
exceeds its rated speed, the VIF is equipped so that the spindle speed
can be appropriately slowed down once any stronger wind field is
exerted. To prevent any potential damage due to collision by shaft
against conventional bearings, the AMB unit is proposed to regulate
the shaft position deviation. By singular perturbation order-reduction
technique, a lower-order plant model can be established for the
synthesis of feedback controller. Two major system parameter
uncertainties, an additive uncertainty and a multiplicative uncertainty,
are constituted by the wind turbine and the VIF respectively.
Frequency Shaping Sliding Mode Control (FSSMC) loop is proposed
to account for these uncertainties and suppress the unmodeled
higher-order plant dynamics. At last, the efficacy of the FSSMC is
verified by intensive computer and experimental simulations for
regulation on position deviation of the shaft and counter-balance of
unpredictable wind disturbance.