Abstract: The choice of studying economics instead of another subject should be motivated by the fact that economics training equips students with skills and knowledge that other disciplines do not provide. Which are these skills and knowledge, however, is not always very clear. This article clarifies such issue by first exploring the philosophical foundations and the defining features of the discipline, and then by investigating in which ways these are transferred to the students. In other words, we study what is meant by the 'economic way of thinking' that is passed on to the students.
Abstract: At present, the severe oil crisis and greenhouse effect are booming, which is a growing worry for China. Over a long period of study, choosing the development of biological diesel is a feasible way in the desertification region in China. With considering the adaptability of Micro-algae in desertification region and analyzing energy consumption and carbon calculations of Micro-algae biodiesel produced by JJ company , this paper, make the microalgae our optimal choice to develop biological diesel in china's desertification region.
Abstract: The relevance of the study of everyday life in Almaty
and Kyzylorda are associated with the emergence of the modern
trends in historiography and socializing areas of government reform.
The relevance is due to the fact that in the early twentieth century
Kyzylorda and Almaty began to develop as a city and this period has
a special place in the life of the state. An interesting aspect of the
everyday life of the inhabitants of the new city, which was built in the
era of Stalin's Five-Year Plans, can be examined through the eyes of
the Soviet people living in a specific environment, reflecting the life
of the citizens. The study of industrialization of the Soviet Union and
the attention paid to new developments in the first five years of
everyday aspects as the impact of the modernization of the 1930s was
one of the decisive factors in the lives of residents. Among these
factors, we would like to highlight the medical field, which is the
basis of all human life, specifically focusing on the state of medicine
in Alma-Ata in the first 20-30-years of the twentieth century, and
analyze the different aspects of human life, determining the quality of
medical care to the population during this period.
Abstract: COSMED K4b2 is a portable electrical device designed to test pulmonary functions. It is ideal for many applications that need the measurement of the cardio-respiratory response either in the field or in the lab is capable with the capability to delivery real time data to a sink node or a PC base station with storing data in the memory at the same time. But the actual sensor outputs and data received may contain some errors, such as impulsive noise which can be related to sensors, low batteries, environment or disturbance in data acquisition process. These abnormal outputs might cause misinterpretations of exercise or living activities to persons being monitored. In our paper we propose an effective and feasible method to detect and identify errors in applications by principal component analysis (PCA) and a back propagation (BP) neural network.
Abstract: To achieve the desired specifications of gain and
phase margins for plants with time-delay that stabilized with FO-PID
controller a lead compensator is designed. At first the range of
controlled system stability based on stability boundary criteria is
determined. Using stability boundary locus method in frequency
domain the fractional order controller parameters are tuned and then
with drawing bode diagram in frequency domain accessing to desired
gain and phase margin are shown. Numerical examples are given to
illustrate the shapes of the stabilizing region and to show the design
procedure.
Abstract: This research paper is based upon the simulation of
gradient of mathematical functions and scalar fields using MATLAB.
Scalar fields, their gradient, contours and mesh/surfaces are
simulated using different related MATLAB tools and commands for
convenient presentation and understanding. Different mathematical
functions and scalar fields are examined here by taking their
gradient, visualizing results in 3D with different color shadings and
using other necessary relevant commands. In this way the outputs of
required functions help us to analyze and understand in a better way
as compared to just theoretical study of gradient.
Abstract: Petri Net being one of the most useful graphical tools for modelling complex asynchronous systems, we have used Petri Net to model multi-track railway level crossing system. The roadway has been augmented with four half-size barriers. For better control, a three stage control mechanism has been introduced to ensure that no road-vehicle is trapped on the level crossing. Timed Petri Net is used to include the temporal nature of the signalling system. Safeness analysis has also been included in the discussion section.
Abstract: Starting with an analysis of the financial and
operational indicators that can be found in the specialised literature,
this study aims to contribute to improvements in the performance
measurement systems used when the unit of analysis is the
manufacturing plant. For this a search was done in the highest impact
Journals of Production and Operations Management and
Management Accounting , with the aim of determining the financial
and operational indicators used to evaluate performance when
Advanced Production Practices have been implemented, more
specifically when the practices implemented are Total Quality
Management, JIT/Lean Manufacturing and Total Productive
Maintenance. This has enabled us to obtain a classification of the two
types of indicators based on how much each is used. For the financial
indicators we have also prepared a proposal that can be adapted to
manufacturing plants- accounting features. In the near future we will
propose a model that links practices implementation with financial
and operational indicators and these two last with each other. We aim
to will test this model empirically with the data obtained in the High
Performance Manufacturing Project.
Abstract: We present a new numerical method for the computation of the steady-state solution of Markov chains. Theoretical analyses show that the proposed method, with a contraction factor α, converges to the one-dimensional null space of singular linear systems of the form Ax = 0. Numerical experiments are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, with applications to a class of interesting models in the domain of tandem queueing networks.
Abstract: In this paper, the bio-mechanical analysis of human joints is carried out and the study is extended to the robot manipulator. This study will first focus on the kinematics of human arm which include the movement of each joint in shoulder, wrist, elbow and finger complexes. Those analyses are then extended to the design of a human robot manipulator. A simulator is built for Direct Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics of human arm. In the simulation of Direct Kinematics, the human joint angles can be inserted, while the position and orientation of each finger tips (end-effector) are shown. Inverse Kinematics does the reverse of the Direct Kinematics. Based on previous materials obtained from kinematics analysis, the human manipulator joints can be designed to follow prescribed position trajectories.
Abstract: This paper mainly investigates the environmental and
economic impacts of worldwide use of electric vehicles. It can be
concluded that governments have good reason to promote the use of
electric vehicles. First, the global vehicles population is evaluated with
the help of grey forecasting model and the amount of oil saving is
estimated through approximate calculation. After that, based on the
game theory, the amount and types of electricity generation needed by
electronic vehicles are established. Finally, some conclusions on the
government-s attitudes are drawn.
Abstract: In this paper, first we introduce the stable distribution, stable process and theirs characteristics. The a -stable distribution family has received great interest in the last decade due to its success in modeling data, which are too impulsive to be accommodated by the Gaussian distribution. In the second part, we propose major applications of alpha stable distribution in telecommunication, computer science such as network delays and signal processing and financial markets. At the end, we focus on using stable distribution to estimate measure of risk in stock markets and show simulated data with statistical softwares.
Abstract: Database management systems that integrate user preferences promise better solution for personalization, greater flexibility and higher quality of query responses. This paper presents a tentative work that studies and investigates approaches to express user preferences in queries. We sketch an extend capabilities of SQLf language that uses the fuzzy set theory in order to define the user preferences. For that, two essential points are considered: the first concerns the expression of user preferences in SQLf by so-called fuzzy commensurable predicates set. The second concerns the bipolar way in which these user preferences are expressed on mandatory and/or optional preferences.
Abstract: Simulation is a very powerful method used for highperformance
and high-quality design in distributed system, and now
maybe the only one, considering the heterogeneity, complexity and
cost of distributed systems. In Grid environments, foe example, it is
hard and even impossible to perform scheduler performance
evaluation in a repeatable and controllable manner as resources and
users are distributed across multiple organizations with their own
policies. In addition, Grid test-beds are limited and creating an
adequately-sized test-bed is expensive and time consuming.
Scalability, reliability and fault-tolerance become important
requirements for distributed systems in order to support distributed
computation. A distributed system with such characteristics is called
dependable. Large environments, like Cloud, offer unique
advantages, such as low cost, dependability and satisfy QoS for all
users. Resource management in large environments address
performant scheduling algorithm guided by QoS constrains. This
paper presents the performance evaluation of scheduling heuristics
guided by different optimization criteria. The algorithms for
distributed scheduling are analyzed in order to satisfy users
constrains considering in the same time independent capabilities of
resources. This analysis acts like a profiling step for algorithm
calibration. The performance evaluation is based on simulation. The
simulator is MONARC, a powerful tool for large scale distributed
systems simulation. The novelty of this paper consists in synthetic
analysis results that offer guidelines for scheduler service
configuration and sustain the empirical-based decision. The results
could be used in decisions regarding optimizations to existing Grid
DAG Scheduling and for selecting the proper algorithm for DAG
scheduling in various actual situations.
Abstract: Open and distance learning is a fairly new concept in
Malawi. The major public provider, the Malawi College of Distance
Education, rolled out its activities only about 40 years ago. Over the
years, the demand for distance education has tremendously increased.
The present government has displayed positive political will to uplift
ODL as outlined in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy as
well as the National Education Sector Plan. A growing national
interest in education coupled with political stability and a booming
ICT industry also raise hope for success. However, a fragile economy
with a GNI per capita of -US$ 200 over the last decade, poor public
funding, erratic power supply and lack of expertise put strain on
efforts towards the promotion of ODL initiatives. Despite the
challenges, the nation appears determined to go flat out and explore
all possible avenues that could revolutionise education access and
equity through ODL.
Abstract: One astonishing capability of humans is to recognize thousands of different objects visually, and to learn the semantic association between those objects and words referring to them. This work is an attempt to build a computational model of such capacity,simulating the process by which infants learn how to recognize objects and words through exposure to visual stimuli and vocal sounds.One of the main fact shaping the brain of a newborn is that lights and colors come from entities of the world. Gradually the visual system learn which light sensations belong to same entities, despite large changes in appearance. This experience is common between humans and several other mammals, like non-human primates. But humans only can recognize a huge variety of objects, most manufactured by himself, and make use of sounds to identify and categorize them. The aim of this model is to reproduce these processes in a biologically plausible way, by reconstructing the essential hierarchy of cortical circuits on the visual and auditory neural paths.
Abstract: Increasing use of cell phone as a medium of human interaction is playing a vital role in solving riddles of crime as well. A young girl went missing from her home late in the evening in the month of August, 2008 when her enraged relatives and villagers physically assaulted and chased her fiancée who often frequented her home. Two years later, her mother lodged a complaint against the relatives and the villagers alleging that after abduction her daughter was either sold or killed as she had failed to trace her. On investigation, a rusted cell phone with partial visible IMEI number, clothes, bangles, human skeleton etc. recovered from abandoned well in the month of May, 2011 were examined in the lab. All hopes pinned on identity of cell phone, for only linking evidence to fix the scene of occurrence supported by call detail record (CDR) and to dispel doubts about mode of sudden disappearance or death as DNA technology did not help in establishing identity of the deceased. The conventional scientific methods were used without success and international mobile equipment identification number of the cell phone could be generated by using statistical analysis followed by online verification.
Abstract: It has become crucial over the years for nations to
improve their credit scoring methods and techniques in light of the
increasing volatility of the global economy. Statistical methods or
tools have been the favoured means for this; however artificial
intelligence or soft computing based techniques are becoming
increasingly preferred due to their proficient and precise nature and
relative simplicity. This work presents a comparison between Support
Vector Machines and Artificial Neural Networks two popular soft
computing models when applied to credit scoring. Amidst the
different criteria-s that can be used for comparisons; accuracy,
computational complexity and processing times are the selected
criteria used to evaluate both models. Furthermore the German credit
scoring dataset which is a real world dataset is used to train and test
both developed models. Experimental results obtained from our study
suggest that although both soft computing models could be used with
a high degree of accuracy, Artificial Neural Networks deliver better
results than Support Vector Machines.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with propagation of thermoelastic longitudinal vibrations of an infinite circular cylinder, in the context of the linear theory of generalized thermoelasticity with two relaxation time parameters (Green and Lindsay theory). Three displacement potential functions are introduced to uncouple the equations of motion. The frequency equation, by using the traction free boundary conditions, is given in the form of a determinant involving Bessel functions. The roots of the frequency equation give the value of the characteristic circular frequency as function of the wave number. These roots, which correspond to various modes, are numerically computed and presented graphically for different values of the thermal relaxation times. It is found that the influences of the thermal relaxation times on the amplitudes of the elastic and thermal waves are remarkable. Also, it is shown in this study that the propagation of thermoelastic longitudinal vibrations based on the generalized thermoelasticity can differ significantly compared with the results under the classical formulation. A comparison of the results for the case with no thermal effects shows well agreement with some of the corresponding earlier results.
Abstract: Social cognitive theory explains the power to inaugurate change is determined by the mutual influence of personal proclivity and social factors which will shape ones- motivations and expectations. In construction industry, green concept offers an opportunity to leave a lighter footprint on the environment. This opportunity, however, has not been fully grasped by many countries. As such, venturing into green construction for many practitioners would be their maiden experience. Decision to venture into new practice such as green construction will be influenced by certain drivers. This paper explores these drivers which is further expanded into motivational factors and later becomes the platform upon which expectation for green construction stands. This theoretical concept of motivation and expectations, which is adapted from social cognitive theory, focus on developers- view because of their crucial role in green application. This conceptual framework, which serves as the basis for further research, will benefit the industry as it elucidate cognitive angles to attract more new entrants to green business.