Abstract: Where renewable energy sources, solar, hydro, wind are available the remote communities and businesses can be provided with the most reliable and affordable source of electrical energy. This paper presents a model of safari rest contains all the necessary services for the interested tourists who visit the safari Sinai desert. The PV energy system provides the rural energy needs of remote communities. A photovoltaic renewable energy system is designed to feed the global Ac and Dc electrical required load of this safari rest . The benefits of photovoltaic renewable energy at rural applications are its versatility and convenience. This model of safari rest must be taken in consideration by Egyptian Government as it will provide the tourism plane by new interested tourism field which put a big spot on Red sea area: El Ghordaka.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a new approach to constructing the Delaunay Triangulation and the optimum algorithm for the case of multidimensional spaces (d ≥ 2). Analysing the modern state, it is possible to draw a conclusion, that the ideas for the existing effective algorithms developed for the case of d ≥ 2 are not simple to generalize on a multidimensional case, without the loss of efficiency. We offer for the solving this problem an effective algorithm that satisfies all the given requirements. But theoretical complexity of the problem it is impossible to improve as the Worst - Case Optimality for algorithms of solving such a problem is proved.
Abstract: The Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy, bestowed
by His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej to the people of
Thailand, highlights a balanced way of living. Three principles of
moderation reasonableness, and immunity, along with the conditions
for morality and knowledge, can be applied to any level of the
society–from an individual to the nation. The Philosophy of
Sufficiency Economy helps address the current development
challenges, which are issues on institutions, environmental
sustainability, human well-being, and the role of the government.
Abstract: With the increasing spread of computers and the internet among culturally, linguistically and geographically diverse communities, issues of internationalization and localization and becoming increasingly important. For some of the issues such as different scales for length and temperature, there is a well-developed measurement theory. For others such as date formats no such theory will be possible. This paper fills a gap by developing a measurement theory for a class of scales previously overlooked, based on discrete and interval-valued scales such as spanner and shoe sizes. The paper gives a theoretical foundation for a class of data representation problems.
Abstract: In this paper we present a novel approach for density estimation. The proposed approach is based on using the logistic regression model to get initial density estimation for the given empirical density. The empirical data does not exactly follow the logistic regression model, so, there will be a deviation between the empirical density and the density estimated using logistic regression model. This deviation may be positive and/or negative. In this paper we use a linear combination of Gaussian (LCG) with positive and negative components as a model for this deviation. Also, we will use the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate the parameters of LCG. Experiments on real images demonstrate the accuracy of our approach.
Abstract: The degradation of selected pharmaceuticals in some
water matrices was studied by using several chemical treatments. The
pharmaceuticals selected were the beta-blocker metoprolol, the
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory naproxen, the antibiotic amoxicillin,
and the analgesic phenacetin; and their degradations were conducted
by using UV radiation alone, ozone, Fenton-s reagent, Fenton-like
system, photo-Fenton system, and combinations of UV radiation and
ozone with H2O2, TiO2, Fe(II), and Fe(III). The water matrices, in
addition to ultra-pure water, were a reservoir water, a groundwater,
and two secondary effluents from two municipal WWTP. The results
reveal that the presence of any second oxidant enhanced the
oxidation rates, with the systems UV/TiO2 and O3/TiO2 providing the
highest degradation rates. It is also observed in most of the
investigated oxidation systems that the degradation rate followed the
sequence: amoxicillin > naproxen > metoprolol > phenacetin. Lower
rates were obtained with the pharmaceuticals dissolved in natural
waters and secondary effluents due to the organic matter present
which consume some amounts of the oxidant agents.
Abstract: Simultaneous determination of multicomponents of phenol, resorcinol and catechol with a chemometric technique a PCranking artificial neural network (PCranking-ANN) algorithm is reported in this study. Based on the data correlation coefficient method, 3 representative PCs are selected from the scores of original UV spectral data (35 PCs) as the original input patterns for ANN to build a neural network model. The results obtained by iterating 8000 .The RMSEP for phenol, resorcinol and catechol with PCranking- ANN were 0.6680, 0.0766 and 0.1033, respectively. Calibration matrices were 0.50-21.0, 0.50-15.1 and 0.50-20.0 μg ml-1 for phenol, resorcinol and catechol, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of phenol, resorcinol and catechol in synthetic and water samples.
Abstract: Extensive research has been devoted to economic
production quantity (EPQ) problem. However, no attention has been
paid to problems where production period length is constrained. In
this paper, we address the problem of deciding the optimal
production quantity and the number of minor setups within each
cycle, in which, production period length is constrained but a minor
setup is possible for pass the constraint. A mathematical model is
developed and Iterated Local Search (ILS) is proposed to solve this
problem. Finally, solution procedure illustrated with a numerical
example and results are analyzed.
Abstract: Buildings with floating column are highly undesirable built in seismically active areas. Many urban multi-storey buildings today have floating column buildings which are adopted to accommodate parking at ground floor or reception lobbies in the first storey. The earthquake forces developed at different floor levels in a building need to be brought down along the height to the ground by the shortest path; any deviation or discontinuity in this load transfer path results in poor performance of the building. Floating column buildings are severely damaged during earthquake. Damage on this structure can be reduce by taking the effect of infill wall. This paper presents the effect of stiffness of infill wall to the damage occurred in floating column building when ground shakes. Modelling and analysis are carried out by non linear analysis programme IDARC-2D. Damage occurred in beams, columns, storey are studied by formulating modified Park & Ang model to evaluate damage indices. Overall structural damage indices in buildings due to shaking of ground are also obtained. Dynamic response parameters i.e. lateral floor displacement, storey drift, time period, base shear of buildings are obtained and results are compared with the ordinary moment resisting frame buildings. Formation of cracks, yield, plastic hinge, are also observed during analysis.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose an efficient hierarchical DNA
sequence search method to improve the search speed while the
accuracy is being kept constant. For a given query DNA sequence,
firstly, a fast local search method using histogram features is used as a
filtering mechanism before scanning the sequences in the database.
An overlapping processing is newly added to improve the robustness
of the algorithm. A large number of DNA sequences with low
similarity will be excluded for latter searching. The Smith-Waterman
algorithm is then applied to each remainder sequences. Experimental
results using GenBank sequence data show the proposed method
combining histogram information and Smith-Waterman algorithm is
more efficient for DNA sequence search.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to develop a dynamic cardiac phantom for quality control in myocardial scintigraphy. The dynamic heart phantom constructed only contained the left ventricle, made of elastic material (latex), comprising two cavities: one internal and one external. The data showed a non-significant variation in the values of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) obtained by varying the heart rate. It was also possible to evaluate the ejection fraction (LVEF) through different arrays of image acquisition and to perform an intercomparison of LVEF by two different scintillation cameras. The results of the quality control tests were satisfactory, showing that they can be used as parameters in future assessments. The new dynamic heart phantom was demonstrated to be effective for use in LVEF measurements. Therefore, the new heart simulator is useful for the quality control of scintigraphic cameras.
Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of recognizing and
interpreting the behavior of human workers in industrial
environments for the purpose of integrating humans in software
controlled manufacturing environments. In this work we propose a
generic concept in order to derive solutions for task-related manual
production applications. Thus, we are able to use a versatile concept
providing flexible components and being less restricted to a specific
problem or application. We instantiate our concept in a spot welding
scenario in which the behavior of a human worker is interpreted
when performing a welding task with a hand welding gun. We
acquire signals from inertial sensors, video cameras and triggers and
recognize atomic actions by using pose data from a marker based
video tracking system and movement data from inertial sensors.
Recognized atomic actions are analyzed on a higher evaluation level
by a finite state machine.
Abstract: High purity hydrogen and the valuable by-product of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be produced by the methane catalytic decomposition. The methane conversion and the performance of CNTs were determined by the choices of catalysts and the condition of decomposition reaction. In this paper, Ni/MgO and Ni/O-D (oxidized diamond) catalysts were prepared by wetness impregnation method. The effects of reaction temperature and space velocity of methane on the methane conversion were investigated in a fixed-bed. The surface area, structure and micrography were characterized with BET, XPS, SEM, EDS technology. The results showed that the conversion of methane was above 8% within 150 min (T=500) for 33Ni/O-D catalyst and higher than 25% within 120 min (T=650) for 41Ni/MgO catalyst. The initial conversion increased with the increasing temperature of the decomposition reaction, but their catalytic activities decreased rapidly while at too higher temperature. To decrease the space velocity of methane was propitious to promote the methane conversion, but not favor of the hydrogen yields. The appearance of carbon resulted from the methane decomposition lied on the support type and the condition of catalytic reaction. It presented as fiber shape on the surface of Ni/O-D at the relatively lower temperature such as 500 and 550, but as grain shape stacked on and overlayed on the surface of the metal nickel while at 650. The carbon fiber can form on the Ni/MgO surface at 650 and the diameter of the carbon fiber increased with the decreasing space velocity.
Abstract: Re-entrant scheduling is an important search problem
with many constraints in the flow shop. In the literature, a number of
approaches have been investigated from exact methods to
meta-heuristics. This paper presents a genetic algorithm that encodes
the problem as multi-level chromosomes to reflect the dependent
relationship of the re-entrant possibility and resource consumption.
The novel encoding way conserves the intact information of the data
and fastens the convergence to the near optimal solutions. To test the
effectiveness of the method, it has been applied to the
resource-constrained re-entrant flow shop scheduling problem.
Computational results show that the proposed GA performs better than
the simulated annealing algorithm in the measure of the makespan
Abstract: Team efficacy beliefs show promise in enhancing
team performance. Using a model-based quantitative research design,
we investigated the antecedents and performance consequences of
generalized team efficacy (potency) in a sample of 56 capital projects
executed by 15 Fortune 500 companies in the process industries.
Empirical analysis of our field survey identified that generalized
team efficacy beliefs were positively associated with an objective
measure of project cost performance. Regression analysis revealed
that team competence, empowering leadership, and performance
feedback all predicted generalized team efficacy beliefs. Tests of
mediation revealed that generalized team efficacy fully mediated
between these three inputs and project cost performance.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore how the emotions at the moment of conflict escalation are expressed nonverbally and how it can be detected by the parties involved in the conflicting situation. The study consists of two parts, in the first part it starts with the definition of "conflict" and "nonverbal communication". Further it includes the analysis of emotions and types of emotions, which may bring to the conflict escalation. Four types of emotions and emotion constructs are analyzed, particularly fear, anger, guilt and frustration. The second part of the study analyses the general role of nonverbal behavior in interaction and communication, which information it may give during communication to the person, who sends or receives those signals. The study finishes with the analysis of the nonverbal expression of analyzed emotions and on how it can be used during interaction.
Abstract: This paper aims to study the methodology of building the knowledge of planning adequate punches in order to complete the task of strip layout for shearing processes, using progressive dies. The proposed methodology uses die design rules and characteristics of different types of punches to classify them into five groups: prior use (the punches must be used first), posterior use (must be used last), compatible use (may be used together), sequential use (certain punches must precede some others) and simultaneous use (must be used together). With these five groups of punches, the searching space of feasible designs will be greatly reduced, and superimposition becomes a more effective method of punch layout. The superimposition scheme will generate many feasible solutions, an evaluation function based on number of stages, moment balancing and strip stability is developed for helping designers to find better solutions.
Abstract: Collaborative networked learning (hereafter CNL)
was first proposed by Charles Findley in his work “Collaborative
networked learning: online facilitation and software support" as part
of instructional learning for the future of the knowledge worker. His
premise was that through electronic dialogue learners and experts
could interactively communicate within a contextual framework to
resolve problems, and/or to improve product or process knowledge.
Collaborative learning has always been the forefront of educational
technology and pedagogical research, but not in the mainstream of
operations management. As a result, there is a large disparity in the
study of CNL, and little is known about the antecedents of network
collaboration and sharing of information among diverse employees in
the manufacturing environment. This paper presents a model to
bridge the gap between theory and practice. The objective is that
manufacturing organizations will be able to accelerate organizational
learning and sharing of information through various collaborative
Abstract: Twenty four male Thai native × Anglo-Nubian
crossbred goats were randomly allocated to receive four treatments.
The experiment was conducted for four months and slaughtered that
the Longissimus dorsi muscle was collected for fatty acid analysis.
The results conclude that either castrated method or ages had no
significantly different on monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA)
(P>0.05) except erucic acid (C22:1n9). Interaction between castrated
method and ages had significantly different in MUFA (P
Abstract: The toxicity of aqueous extracts of two plants,
Nicotiana tobacum and Eucalyptus globulus were investigated against second instar larvae of Lycoriella auripila, one of the most
important pests of button mushroom, using agar dilution technique.
Seven concentrations of aqueous extracts of both plants were applied
on second instar larvae and their mortality were evaluated after 24, 48 and 72 h. The obtained results revealed that aqueous extracts of N.
tabacum and E. globulus caused 77.55 and 72.5% mortality of larvae
of L. auripila at concentration of 4000 ppm after 72h, respectively. Toxicities of tobacco extract after 24, 48 and 72 h were 1.52, 1.85
and 1.70 times greather than eucalyptus, respectively. The estimated LC50 after 24, 48 and 72 h were 7316.5, 2468.5 and 2013.1 ppm for
tobacco and 64870.0, 6839.5 and 3326.4 ppm for eucalyptus, respectively. These plants merit further study as potential insecticides
for the control of L. auripila.