Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body
of knowledge in the area of management accounting, particularly
performance measurement systems within the BSC framework, by
investigating empirically the extent of multiple performance
measures usage and their effects on the financial performance of
Jordanian banks in the branches level. Nevertheless, the result of this
study shows that the non-financial measures usages, particularly,
customer oriented indicators and product/ service oriented indicators,
appears to be important as it enhances firm performance.
Remarkably, the findings reveal that there is positive relationship
between the usages of multiple performance measures via overall
BSC measures and financial performance in the branches level.
Abstract: A well balanced numerical scheme based on
stationary waves for shallow water flows with arbitrary topography
has been introduced by Thanh et al. [18]. The scheme was
constructed so that it maintains equilibrium states and tests indicate
that it is stable and fast. Applying the well-balanced scheme for the
one-dimensional shallow water equations, we study the early shock
waves propagation towards the Phuket coast in Southern Thailand
during a hypothetical tsunami. The initial tsunami wave is generated
in the deep ocean with the strength that of Indonesian tsunami of
2004.
Abstract: Pattern matching based on regular tree grammars have been widely used in many areas of computer science. In this paper, we propose a pattern matcher within the framework of code generation, based on a generic and a formalized approach. According to this approach, parsers for regular tree grammars are adapted to a general pattern matching solution, rather than adapting the pattern matching according to their parsing behavior. Hence, we first formalize the construction of the pattern matches respective to input trees drawn from a regular tree grammar in a form of the so-called match trees. Then, we adopt a recently developed generic parser and tightly couple its parsing behavior with such construction. In addition to its generality, the resulting pattern matcher is characterized by its soundness and efficient implementation. This is demonstrated by the proposed theory and by the derived algorithms for its implementation. A comparison with similar and well-known approaches, such as the ones based on tree automata and LR parsers, has shown that our pattern matcher can be applied to a broader class of grammars, and achieves better approximation of pattern matches in one pass. Furthermore, its use as a machine code selector is characterized by a minimized overhead, due to the balanced distribution of the cost computations into static ones, during parser generation time, and into dynamic ones, during parsing time.
Abstract: Agriculture products are being more demanding in
market today. To increase its productivity, automation to produce
these products will be very helpful. The purpose of this work is to
measure and determine the ripeness and quality of watermelon. The
textures on watermelon skin will be captured using digital camera.
These images will be filtered using image processing technique. All
these information gathered will be trained using ANN to determine
the watermelon ripeness accuracy. Initial results showed that the best
model has produced percentage accuracy of 86.51%, when measured
at 32 hidden units with a balanced percentage rate of training dataset.
Abstract: A brushless DC motor with integrated drive circuit for air management system is presented. Using magnetic equivalent circuit model a basic design of the motor is determined, and specific configurations are inspected thanks to finite element analysis. In order to reduce an unbalanced magnetic force in an axial direction, induced forces between a stator core and a permanent magnet are calculated with respect to the relative positions of them. For the high efficiency, and high power density, BLDC motor and drive are developed. Also vibration mode and eccentricity of a rotor are considered at the rated and maximum rotational speed Through the experimental results, a validity of the simulated one is confirmed.
Abstract: The agricultural organic farming is different from
conventional farming in a way that is aimed at providing a balanced
and constructive action in agricultural systems. With the increase in
intensive agriculture, undesirable changes were being observed in
ecosystems with irreparable damage being caused to the natural
equilibrium. This is the reason for the increasing interest in organic
farming as an environment friendly agricultural production method.
In the present work three red fruits produced in organic farming were
analyzed, namely raspberry, gooseberry and blueberry. The samples
were harvested in a local farm when at plain maturation. The results
obtained allowed to conclude that the blueberry contained higher
amounts of phenolic compounds, total tannins and total anthocyanins
than raspberry and gooseberry. Furthermore, the HPLC analysis
allowed to identify monomeric anthocyanins and phenolic acids in
the three fruits studied.
Abstract: Portuguese diet has been gradually diverging from the basic principles of healthy eating, leading to an unbalanced dietary pattern which, associated with increasing sedentary lifestyle, has a negative impact on public health. The main objective of this work was to characterize the dietary habits of university students in Viseu, Portugal. The study consisted of a sample of 80 university students, aged between 18 and 28 years. Anthropometric data (weight (kg) and height (m)) were collected and Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated. The dietary habits were assessed through a three-day food record and the software Medpoint was used to convert food into energy and nutrients. The results showed that students present a normal body mass index. Female university students made a higher number of daily meals than male students, and these last skipped breakfast more frequently. The values of average daily intake of energy, macronutrients and calcium were higher in males. The food pattern was characterized by a predominant consumption of meat, cereal, fats and sugar. Dietary intake of dairy products, fruits, vegetables and legumes does not meet the recommendations, revealing inadequate food habits such as hypoglycemic, hyperprotein and hyperlipidemic diet. Our findings suggest that preventive interventions should be focus in promoting healthy eating habits and physical activity in adulthood.
Abstract: In this paper, we analyze and test a scheme for the
estimation of electrical fundamental frequency signals from the
harmonic load current and voltage signals.
The scheme was based on using two different Multi Layer
Artificial Neural Networks (ML-ANN) one for the current and the
other for the voltage.
This study also analyzes and tests the effect of choosing the
optimum artificial neural networks- sizes which determine the quality
and accuracy of the estimation of electrical fundamental frequency
signals.
The simulink tool box of the Matlab program for the simulation of
the test system and the test of the neural networks has been used.
Abstract: The trend of growing density on chips has increases not
only the temperature in chips but also the gradient of the temperature
depending on locations. In this paper, we propose the balanced skew
tree generation technique for minimizing the clock skew that is
affected by the temperature gradients on chips. We calculate the
interconnect delay using Elmore delay equation, and find out the
optimal balanced clock tree by modifying the clock trees generated
through the Deferred Merge Embedding(DME) algorithm. The
experimental results show that the distance variance of clock insertion
points with and without considering the temperature gradient can be
lowered below 54% and we confirm that the skew is remarkably
decreased after applying the proposed technique.
Abstract: Process control and energy conservation are the two
primary reasons for using an adjustable speed drive. However,
voltage sags are the most important power quality problems facing
many commercial and industrial customers. The development of
boost converters has raised much excitement and speculation
throughout the electric industry. Now utilities are looking to these
devices for performance improvement and reliability in a variety of
areas. Examples of these include sags, spikes, or transients in supply
voltage as well as unbalanced voltages, poor electrical system
grounding, and harmonics. In this paper, simulations results are
presented for the verification of the proposed boost converter
topology. Boost converter provides ride through capability during
sag and swell. Further, input currents are near sinusoidal. This
eliminates the need of braking resistor also.
Abstract: Through 1980s, management accounting researchers
described the increasing irrelevance of traditional control and
performance measurement systems. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC)
is a critical business tool for a lot of organizations. It is a
performance measurement system which translates mission and
strategy into objectives. Strategy map approach is a development
variant of BSC in which some necessary causal relations must be
established. To recognize these relations, experts usually use
experience. It is also possible to utilize regression for the same
purpose. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which is one of the
most powerful methods of multivariate data analysis, obtains more
appropriate results than traditional methods such as regression. In the
present paper, we propose SEM for the first time to identify the
relations between objectives in the strategy map, and a test to
measure the importance of relations. In SEM, factor analysis and test
of hypotheses are done in the same analysis. SEM is known to be
better than other techniques at supporting analysis and reporting. Our
approach provides a framework which permits the experts to design
the strategy map by applying a comprehensive and scientific method
together with their experience. Therefore this scheme is a more
reliable method in comparison with the previously established
methods.
Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to investigate thelong-run equilibrium and short-run dynamics of international housing prices when macroeconomic variables change. We apply the Pedroni’s, panel cointegration, using the unbalanced panel data analysis of 33 countries over the period from 1980Q1 to 2013Q1, to examine the relationships among house prices and macroeconomic variables. Our empirical results of panel data cointegration tests support the existence of a cointegration among these macroeconomic variables and house prices. Besides, the empirical results of panel DOLS further present that a 1% increase in economic activity, long-term interest rates, and construction costs cause house prices to respectively change 2.16%, -0.04%, and 0.22% in the long run.Furthermore, the increasing economic activity and the construction cost would cause strongerimpacts on the house prices for lower income countries than higher income countries.The results lead to the conclusion that policy of house prices growth can be regarded as economic growth for lower income countries. Finally, in America region, the coefficient of economic activity is the highest, which displays that increasing economic activity causes a faster rise in house prices there than in other regions. There are some special cases whereby the coefficients of interest rates are significantly positive in America and Asia regions.
Abstract: This paper focuses on reducing the power consumption
of wireless sensor networks. Therefore, a communication protocol
named LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) is modified.
We extend LEACHs stochastic cluster-head selection algorithm
by a modifying the probability of each node to become cluster-head
based on its required energy to transmit to the sink. We present
an efficient energy aware routing algorithm for the wireless sensor
networks. Our contribution consists in rotation selection of clusterheads
considering the remoteness of the nodes to the sink, and then,
the network nodes residual energy. This choice allows a best distribution
of the transmission energy in the network. The cluster-heads
selection algorithm is completely decentralized. Simulation results
show that the energy is significantly reduced compared with the
previous clustering based routing algorithm for the sensor networks.
Abstract: This paper analyses the non linear properties
exhibited by a drill string system under various un balanced mass
conditions. The drill string is affected by continuous friction in the
form of drill bit and well bore hole interactions. This paper proves
the origin of limit cycling and increase of non linearity with increase
in speed of the drilling in the presence of friction. The spectrum of
the frequency response is also studied to detect the presence of
vibration abnormalities arising during the drilling process.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a Multiple Description Image Coding(MDIC) scheme to generate two compressed and balanced rates descriptions in the wavelet domain (Daubechies biorthogonal (9, 7) wavelet) using pairwise correlating transform optimal and application method for Generalized Multiple Description Coding (GMDC) to image coding in the wavelet domain. The GMDC produces statistically correlated streams such that lost streams can be estimated from the received data. Our performance test shown that the proposed method gives more improvement and good quality of the reconstructed image when the wavelet coefficients are normalized by Gaussian Scale Mixture (GSM) model then the Gaussian one ,.
Abstract: This paper presents modeling and analysis of 12-phase distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM), which is capable of balancing the source currents in spite of unbalanced loading and phase outages. In addition to balance the supply current, the power factor can be set to a desired value. The theory of instantaneous symmetrical components is used to generate the twelve-phase reference currents. These reference currents are then tracked using current controlled voltage source inverter, operated in a hysteresis band control scheme. An ideal compensator in place of physical realization of the compensator is used. The performance of the proposed DTATCOM is validated through MATLAB simulation and detailed simulation results are given.
Abstract: The increasing demand for sufficient and clean
energy forces industrial and service companies to align their strategies towards efficient consumption. This trend refers also to the
residential building sector. There, large amounts of energy consumption are caused by house and facility heating. Many of the
operated hot water heating systems lack hydraulic balanced working
conditions for heat distribution and –transmission and lead to
inefficient heating. Through hydraulic balancing of heating systems,
significant energy savings for primary and secondary energy can be
achieved. This paper addresses the use of KNX-technology (Smart
Buildings) in residential buildings to ensure a dynamic adaption of
hydraulic system's performance, in order to increase the heating
system's efficiency. In this paper, the procedure of heating system
segmentation into hydraulically independent units (meshes) is
presented. Within these meshes, the heating valve are addressed and
controlled by a central facility server. Feasibility criteria towards
such drivers will be named. The dynamic hydraulic balance is
achieved by positioning these valves according to heating loads, that
are generated from the temperature settings in the corresponding
rooms. The energetic advantages of single room heating control
procedures, based on the application FacilityManager, is presented.
Abstract: In this paper, a neural tree (NT) classifier having a
simple perceptron at each node is considered. A new concept for
making a balanced tree is applied in the learning algorithm of the
tree. At each node, if the perceptron classification is not accurate and
unbalanced, then it is replaced by a new perceptron. This separates
the training set in such a way that almost the equal number of patterns
fall into each of the classes. Moreover, each perceptron is trained only
for the classes which are present at respective node and ignore other
classes. Splitting nodes are employed into the neural tree architecture
to divide the training set when the current perceptron node repeats
the same classification of the parent node. A new error function based
on the depth of the tree is introduced to reduce the computational
time for the training of a perceptron. Experiments are performed to
check the efficiency and encouraging results are obtained in terms of
accuracy and computational costs.
Abstract: To minimize power losses, it is important to
determine the location and size of local generators to be placed in
unbalanced power distribution systems. On account of some inherent
features of unbalanced distribution systems, such as radial structure,
large number of nodes, a wide range of X/R ratios, the conventional
techniques developed for the transmission systems generally fail on
the determination of optimum size and location of distributed
generators (DGs). This paper presents a simple method for
investigating the problem of contemporaneously choosing best
location and size of DG in three-phase unbalanced radial distribution
system (URDS) for power loss minimization and to improve the
voltage profile of the system. Best location of the DG is determined
by using voltage index analysis and size of DG is computed by
variational technique algorithm according to available standard size
of DGs. This paper presents the results of simulations for 25-bus and
IEEE 37- bus Unbalanced Radial Distribution system.
Abstract: The purpose of the experiments described in this article was the comparison of integrated fixed film activated sludge (IFAS) and activated sludge (AS) system. The IFAS applied system consists of the cigarette filter rods (wasted filter in tobacco factories) as a biofilm carrier. The comparison with activated sludge was performed by two parallel treatment lines. Organic substance, ammonia and TP removal was investigated over four month period. Synthetic wastewater was prepared with ordinary tap water and glucose as the main sources of carbon and energy, plus balanced macro and micro nutrients. COD removal percentages of 94.55%, and 81.62% were achieved for IFAS and activated sludge system, respectively. Also, ammonia concentration significantly decreased by increasing the HRT in both systems. The average ammonia removal of 97.40 % and 96.34% were achieved for IFAS and activated sludge system, respectively. The removal efficiency of total phosphorus (TP-P) was 60.64%, higher than AS process by 56.63% respectively.