Abstract: This paper presents an analytical model to estimate
the cost of an optimized design of reinforced concrete isolated
footing base on structural safety. Flexural and optimized formulas for
square and rectangular footingare derived base on ACI building code
of design, material cost and optimization. The optimization
constraints consist of upper and lower limits of depth and area of
steel. Footing depth and area of reinforcing steel are to be minimized
to yield the optimal footing dimensions. Optimized footing materials
cost of concrete, reinforcing steel and formwork of the designed
sections are computed. Total cost factor TCF and other cost factors
are developed to generalize and simplify the calculations of footing
material cost. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the
model capability of estimating the material cost of the footing for a
desired axial load.
Abstract: The myoelectric signal (MES) is one of the Biosignals
utilized in helping humans to control equipments. Recent approaches
in MES classification to control prosthetic devices employing pattern
recognition techniques revealed two problems, first, the classification
performance of the system starts degrading when the number of
motion classes to be classified increases, second, in order to solve the
first problem, additional complicated methods were utilized which
increase the computational cost of a multifunction myoelectric
control system. In an effort to solve these problems and to achieve a
feasible design for real time implementation with high overall
accuracy, this paper presents a new method for feature extraction in
MES recognition systems. The method works by extracting features
using Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT) applied on the MES from
multiple channels, and then employs Fuzzy c-means (FCM)
algorithm to generate a measure that judges on features suitability for
classification. Finally, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) is
utilized to reduce the size of the data before computing the
classification accuracy with a multilayer perceptron neural network.
The proposed system produces powerful classification results (99%
accuracy) by using only a small portion of the original feature set.
Abstract: This paper presents Qmulus- a Cloud Based GPS
Model. Qmulus is designed to compute the best possible route which
would lead the driver to the specified destination in the shortest time
while taking into account real-time constraints. Intelligence
incorporated to Qmulus-s design makes it capable of generating and
assigning priorities to a list of optimal routes through customizable
dynamic updates. The goal of this design is to minimize travel and
cost overheads, maintain reliability and consistency, and implement
scalability and flexibility. The model proposed focuses on
reducing the bridge between a Client Application and a Cloud
service so as to render seamless operations. Qmulus-s system
model is closely integrated and its concept has the potential to be
extended into several other integrated applications making it capable
of adapting to different media and resources.
Abstract: This paper presents the influence of distributed generation (DG) on congestion and locational marginal price (LMP) in an optimal power flow (OPF) based wholesale electricity market. The problem of optimal placement to manage congestion and reduce LMP is formulated for the objective of social welfare maximization. From competitive electricity market standpoint, DGs have great value when they reduce load in particular locations and at particular times when feeders are heavily loaded. The paper lies on the groundwork that solution to optimal mix of generation and transmission resources can be achieved by addressing congestion and corresponding LMP. Obtained as lagrangian multiplier associated with active power flow equation for each node, LMP gives the short run marginal cost (SRMC) of electricity. Specific grid locations are examined to study the influence of DG penetration on congestion and corresponding shadow prices. The influence of DG on congestion and locational marginal prices has been demonstrated in a modified IEEE 14 bus test system.
Abstract: Haptics has been used extensively in many applications especially in human machine interaction and virtual reality systems. Haptic technology allows user to perceive virtual reality as in real world. However, commercially available haptic devices are expensive and may not be suitable for educational purpose. This paper describes the design and development of a low cost haptic knob, with only one degree of freedom, for use in rehabilitation or training hand pronation and supination. End-effectors can be changed to suit different applications or variation in hand sizes and hand orientation.
Abstract: Nowadays there is a growing environmental concern
and the business communities have slowly started recognising
environmental protection and sustainable utilization of natural
resources into their marketing strategies. This paper discusses the
various Ecolabeling and Certification Systems developed world
over to regulate and introduce Fair Trade in Ornamental Fish
Industry. Ecolabeling and green certification are considered as part
of these strategies implemented partly out of compulsion from the
National and International Regulatory Bodies and Environmental
Movements. All the major markets of ornamental fishes like
European Union, USA and Japan have started putting restrictions on
the trade to impose ecolabeling as a non tariff barrier like the one
imposed on seafood and aqua cultured products. A review was done
on the available Ecolabeling and Green Certification Schemes
available at local, national and international levels for fisheries
including aquaculture and ornamental fish trade and to examine the
success and constraints faced by these schemes during its
implementation. The primary downside of certification is the
multiplicity of ecolabels and cost incurred by applicants for
certification, costs which may in turn be passed on to consumers.
The studies reveal serious inadequacies in a number of ecolabels
and cast doubt on their overall contribution to effective fisheries
management and sustainability. The paper also discusses the
inititive taken in India to develop guidelines for Green Certification
of Fresh water ornamental fishes.
Abstract: Continuous measurements and multivariate methods are applied in researching the effects of energy consumption on indoor air quality (IAQ) in a Finnish one-family house. Measured data used in this study was collected continuously in a house in Kuopio, Eastern Finland, during fourteen months long period. Consumption parameters measured were the consumptions of district heat, electricity and water. Indoor parameters gathered were temperature, relative humidity (RH), the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) and differential air pressure. In this study, self-organizing map (SOM) and Sammon's mapping were applied to resolve the effects of energy consumption on indoor air quality. Namely, the SOM was qualified as a suitable method having a property to summarize the multivariable dependencies into easily observable two-dimensional map. Accompanying that, the Sammon's mapping method was used to cluster pre-processed data to find similarities of the variables, expressing distances and groups in the data. The methods used were able to distinguish 7 different clusters characterizing indoor air quality and energy efficiency in the study house. The results indicate, that the cost implications in euros of heating and electricity energy vary according to the differential pressure, concentration of carbon dioxide, temperature and season.
Abstract: The globalization of the Indian economy has thrown a great challenge to the Indian industries in respect of productivity, quality, cost, delivery etc. Achieving success• the global market has required fundamental shift in the way business is conducted and has dramatically affected virtually every aspect of process industry. The internal manufacturing process and supporting infrastructure should be such that it can compete successfully in global markets with better flexibility and delivery. The paper deals with a case study of a reputed process industry, some changes in the process has been suggested, which leads to reduction in labor cost and production cost.
Abstract: Protein subchloroplast locations are correlated with its
functions. In contrast to the large amount of available protein
sequences, the information of their locations and functions is less
known. The experiment works for identification of protein locations
and functions are costly and time consuming. The accurate prediction
of protein subchloroplast locations can accelerate the study of
functions of proteins in chloroplast. This study proposes a Random
Forest based method, ChloroRF, to predict protein subchloroplast
locations using interpretable physicochemical properties. In addition
to high prediction accuracy, the ChloroRF is able to select important
physicochemical properties. The important physicochemical
properties are also analyzed to provide insights into the underlying
mechanism.
Abstract: In this study, we are interested in the economic lot
scheduling problem (ELSP) that considers manufacturing of the
serviceable products and remanufacturing of the reworked products. In
this paper, we formulate a mathematical model for the ELSP with
reworks using the basic period approach. In order to solve this
problem, we propose a search algorithm to find the cyclic multiplier ki
of each product that can be cyclically produced for every ki basic
periods. This research also uses two heuristics to search for the optimal
production sequence of all lots and the optimal time length of the basic
period so as to minimize the average total cost. This research uses a
numerical example to show the effectiveness of our approach.
Abstract: Environmental accounting is a recent phenomenon in the modern jurisprudence. It may reflect the corporate governance mechanisms in line with the natural resources and environmental sound management and administration systems in any country of the world. It may be a corporate focused on the improving of the environmental quality. But it is often identified that it is ignored due to some reasons such as unconsciousness, lack of ethical education etc. At present, the world community is very much concerned about the state of the environmental accounting and auditing systems as it bears sustainability on the mother earth for our generations. It is one of the important tools for understanding on the role played by the natural environment in the economy. It provides adequate data which is highlighted both in the contribution of natural resources to economic well-being as well as the costs imposed by pollution or resource degradation. It can play a critical role as on be a part of the many international environmental organizations such as IUCN, WWF, PADELIA, WRI etc.; as they have been taking many initiatives for ensuring the environmental accouting for our competent survivals. The global state actors have already taken some greening accounting initiatives under the forum of the United Nations Division for Sustainable Dedevolpment, the United Nations Statistical Division, the United Nations Conference on Environment and development known as Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg Conference 2002 etc. This study will provide an overview of the environmental accounting education consisting of 25 respondents based on the primary and secondary sources.
Abstract: We propose a low-cost uniform analysis framework
allowing comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the
bicycling experience within and between cities. A primary
component is an expedient, one-page mobility survey from which
mode share is calculated. The bicycle mode share of many cities
remains unknown, creating a serious barrier for both scientists and
policy makers aiming to understand and increase rates of bicycling.
Because of its low cost and expedience, this framework could be
replicated widely, uniformly filling the data gap. The framework has
been applied to 13 Central European cities with success. Data is
collected on multiple modes with specific questions regarding both
behavior and quality of travel experience. Individual preferences are
also collected, examining the conditions under which respondents
would change behavior to adopt more sustainable modes (bicycling
or public transportation). A broad analysis opportunity results,
intended to inform policy choices.
Abstract: Least Development Countries (LDC) like
Bangladesh, whose 25% revenue earning is achieved from Textile
export, requires producing less defective textile for minimizing
production cost and time. Inspection processes done on these
industries are mostly manual and time consuming. To reduce error
on identifying fabric defects requires more automotive and
accurate inspection process. Considering this lacking, this research
implements a Textile Defect Recognizer which uses computer
vision methodology with the combination of multi-layer neural
networks to identify four classifications of textile defects. The
recognizer, suitable for LDC countries, identifies the fabric defects
within economical cost and produces less error prone inspection
system in real time. In order to generate input set for the neural
network, primarily the recognizer captures digital fabric images by
image acquisition device and converts the RGB images into binary
images by restoration process and local threshold techniques.
Later, the output of the processed image, the area of the faulty
portion, the number of objects of the image and the sharp factor of
the image, are feed backed as an input layer to the neural network
which uses back propagation algorithm to compute the weighted
factors and generates the desired classifications of defects as an
output.
Abstract: Studying alternative raw materials for biodiesel production is of major importance. The use of mixtures with incorporation of wastes is an environmental friendly alternative and might reduce biodiesel production costs. The objective of the present work was: (i) to study biodiesel production using waste frying oil mixed with pork lard and (ii) to understand how mixture composition influences biodiesel quality. Biodiesel was produced by transesterification and quality was evaluated through determination of several parameters according to EN 14214. The weight fraction of lard in the mixture varied from 0 to 1 in 0.2 intervals. Biodiesel production yields varied from 81.7 to 88.0 (wt%), the lowest yields being the ones obtained using waste frying oil and lard alone as raw materials. The obtained products fulfilled most of the determined quality specifications according to European biodiesel quality standard EN 14214. Minimum purity (96.5 wt%) was closely obtained when waste frying oil was used alone and when 0.2% of lard was incorporated in the raw material (96.3 wt%); however, it ranged from 93.9 to 96.3 (wt%) being always close to the limit. From the evaluation of the influence of mixture composition in biodiesel quality, it was possible to establish a model to be used for predicting some parameters of biodiesel resulting from mixtures of waste frying oil with lard when different lard contents are used.
Abstract: XML data consists of a very flexible tree-structure
which makes it difficult to support the storing and retrieving of XML
data. The node numbering scheme is one of the most popular
approaches to store XML in relational databases. Together with the
node numbering storage scheme, structural joins can be used to
efficiently process the hierarchical relationships in XML. However, in
order to process a tree-structured XPath query containing several
hierarchical relationships and conditional sentences on XML data,
many structural joins need to be carried out, which results in a high
query execution cost. This paper introduces mechanisms to reduce the
XPath queries including branch nodes into a much more efficient form
with less numbers of structural joins. A two step approach is proposed.
The first step merges duplicate nodes in the tree-structured query and
the second step divides the query into sub-queries, shortens the paths
and then merges the sub-queries back together. The proposed
approach can highly contribute to the efficient execution of XML
queries. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can
reduce the query execution cost by up to an order of magnitude of the
original execution cost.
Abstract: The daily increase of organic waste materials resulting
from different activities in the country is one of the main factors for
the pollution of environment. Today, with regard to the low level of
the output of using traditional methods, the high cost of disposal
waste materials and environmental pollutions, the use of modern
methods such as anaerobic digestion for the production of biogas has
been prevailing. The collected biogas from the process of anaerobic
digestion, as a renewable energy source similar to natural gas but
with a less methane and heating value is usable. Today, with the help
of technologies of filtration and proper preparation, access to biogas
with features fully similar to natural gas has become possible. At
present biogas is one of the main sources of supplying electrical and
thermal energy and also an appropriate option to be used in four
stroke engine, diesel engine, sterling engine, gas turbine, gas micro
turbine and fuel cell to produce electricity. The use of biogas for
different reasons which returns to socio-economic and environmental
advantages has been noticed in CHP for the production of energy in
the world. The production of biogas from the technology of anaerobic
digestion and its application in CHP power plants in Iran can not only
supply part of the energy demands in the country, but it can
materialize moving in line with the sustainable development. In this
article, the necessity of the development of CHP plants with biogas
fuels in the country will be dealt based on studies performed from the
economic, environmental and social aspects. Also to prove the
importance of the establishment of these kinds of power plants from
the economic point of view, necessary calculations has been done as
a case study for a CHP power plant with a biogas fuel.
Abstract: Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address is decreasing and a rapid transition method to the next generation IP address (IPv6) should be established. This study aims to evaluate and select the best performance of the IPv6 address network transitionmechanisms, such as IPv4/IPv6 dual stack, transport Relay Translation (TRT) and Reverse Proxy with additional features. It is also aim to prove that faster access can be done while ensuring optimal usage of available resources used during the test and actual implementation. This study used two test methods such asInternet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)ping and ApacheBenchmark (AB) methodsto evaluate the performance.Performance metrics for this study include aspects ofaverageaccessin one second,time takenfor singleaccess,thedata transfer speed and the costof additional requirements.Reverse Proxy with Caching featureis the most efficientmechanism because of it simpler configurationandthe best performerfrom the test conducted.
Abstract: Determining reasonable fees is the main objective of designing the cost estimation and payment systems for consultant contracts. However, project clients utilize different cost estimation and payment systems because of their varying views on the reasonableness of consultant fees. This study reviews the cost estimation and payment systems of consultant contracts for five countries, including the US (Washington State Department of Transportation), Japan (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism), China (Engineering Design Charging Standard) and UK (Her Majesty's Treasure). Specifically, this work investigates the budgeting process, contractor selection method, contractual price negotiation process, cost review, and cost-control concept of the systems used in these countries. The main finding indicates that that project client-s view on whether the fee is high will affect the way he controls it. In the US, the fee is commonly considered to be high. As a result, stringent auditing system (low flexibility given to the consultant) is then applied. In the UK, the fee is viewed to be low by comparing it to the total life-cycle project cost. Thus, a system that has high flexibility in budgeting and cost reviewing is given to the consultant. In terms of the flexibility allowed for the consultant, the systems applied in Japan and China fall between those of the US and UK. Both the US and UK systems are helpful in determining a reasonable fee. However, in the US system, rigid auditing standards must be established and additional cost-audit manpower is required. In the UK system, sufficient historical cost data should be needed to evaluate the reasonableness of the consultant-s proposed fee
Abstract: The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy to estimation fetal weight by Johnson-s method and compares it with actual birth weight. The sample group was 126 infants delivered in Dan KhunThot hospital from January March 2012. Fetal weight was estimated by measuring fundal height according to Johnson-s method. The information was collected by studying historical delivery records and then analyzed by using the statistics of frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. Finally, the difference was analyzed by a paired t-test.The results showed had an average birth weight was 3093.57 ± 391.03 g (mean ± SD) and 3,455 ± 454.55 g average estimated fetal weight by Johnson-s method higher than average actual birth weight was 384.09 grams. When classifying the infants according to birth weight found that low birth weight ( 4000 g) actual birth weight was more than estimated fetal weight. The difference was found between actual birth weight and estimation fetal weight of the minimum weight in high birth weight ( > 4000 g) , the appropriate birth weight (2500-3999g) and low birth weight (
Abstract: In recent years, real estate prediction or valuation has
been a topic of discussion in many developed countries. Improper
hype created by investors leads to fluctuating prices of real estate,
affecting many consumers to purchase their own homes. Therefore,
scholars from various countries have conducted research in real estate
valuation and prediction. With the back-propagation neural network
that has been popular in recent years and the orthogonal array in the
Taguchi method, this study aimed to find the optimal parameter
combination at different levels of orthogonal array after the system
presented different parameter combinations, so that the artificial
neural network obtained the most accurate results. The experimental
results also demonstrated that the method presented in the study had a
better result than traditional machine learning. Finally, it also showed
that the model proposed in this study had the optimal predictive effect,
and could significantly reduce the cost of time in simulation operation.
The best predictive results could be found with a fewer number of
experiments more efficiently. Thus users could predict a real estate
transaction price that is not far from the current actual prices.