Abstract: In this study, workplace environmental monitoring
systems were established using USN(Ubiquitous Sensor Networks)
and LabVIEW. Although existing direct sampling methods enable
finding accurate values as of the time points of measurement, those
methods are disadvantageous in that continuous management and
supervision are difficult and costs for are high when those methods are
used. Therefore, the efficiency and reliability of workplace
management by supervisors are relatively low when those methods are
used. In this study, systems were established so that information on
workplace environmental factors such as temperatures, humidity and
noises is measured and transmitted to the PC in real time to enable
supervisors to monitor workplaces through LabVIEW on the PC.
When any accidents have occurred in workplaces, supervisors can
immediately respond through the monitoring system and this system
enables integrated workplace management and the prevention of
safety accidents. By introducing these monitoring systems, safety
accidents due to harmful environmental factors in workplaces can be
prevented and these monitoring systems will be also helpful in finding
out the correlation between safety accidents and occupational diseases
by comparing and linking databases established by this monitoring
system with existing statistical data.
Abstract: The Taiwan government has started to promote the “Plain Landscape Afforestation and Greening Program" since 2002. A key task of the program was the payment for environmental services (PES), entitled the “Plain Landscape Afforestation Policy" (PLAP), which was certificated by the Executive Yuan on August 31, 2001 and enacted on January 1, 2002. According to the policy, it is estimated that the total area of afforestation will be 25,100 hectares by December 31, 2007. Until the end of 2007, the policy had been enacted for six years in total and the actual area of afforestation was 8,919.18 hectares. Among them, Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) was accounted for 7,960 hectares (with 2,450.83 hectares as public service area) which occupied 86.22% of the total afforestation area; the private farmland promoted by local governments was accounted for 869.18 hectares which occupied 9.75% of the total afforestation area. Based on the above, we observe that most of the afforestation area in this policy is executed by TSC, and the achievement ratio by TSC is better than by others. It implies that the success of the PLAP is seriously related to the execution of TSC. The objective of this study is to analyze the relevant policy planning of TSC-s participation in the PLAP, suggest complementary measures, and draw up effective adjustment mechanisms, so as to improve the effectiveness of executing the policy. Our main conclusions and suggestions are summarized as follows: 1. The main reason for TSC-s participation in the PLAP is based on their passive cooperation with the central government or company policy. Prior to TSC-s participation in the PLAP, their lands were mainly used for growing sugarcane. 2. The main factors of TSC-s consideration on the selection of tree species are based on the suitability of land and species. The largest proportion of tree species is allocated to economic forests, and the lack of technical instruction was the main problem during afforestation. Moreover, the method of improving TSC-s future development in leisure agriculture and landscape business becomes a key topic. 3. TSC has developed short and long-term plans on participating in the PLAP for the future. However, there is no great willingness or incentive on budgeting for such detailed planning. 4. Most people from TSC interviewed consider the requirements on PLAP unreasonable. Among them, an unreasonable requirement on the number of trees accounted for the greatest proportion; furthermore, most interviewees suggested that the government should continue to provide incentives even after 20 years. 5. Since the government shares the same goals as TSC, there should be sufficient cooperation and communication that support the technical instruction and reduction of afforestation cost, which will also help to improve effectiveness of the policy.
Abstract: Kobe City is a metropolis including large suburbs, where housing communities have been developed for many years. People have been recently moving to the urban areas and the suburbs are losing their power to attract population. At the same time, many blocks of high-rise flats have being built near railway stations adjoining town centers, and are drawing people of all generations. Residents with different lifestyle preferences are making good use of town centers and city centers based on effective railway services to live together happily in a household as well as the same flats. Thus railway services can play an essential role in sustainable urban development.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the development of Szuchung Creek take for the cause of the critical success factors, This research is to use the depth interviews, document analysis and Modified-Delphi technique survey of nine depth interviews with experts and 14 experts of Modified-Delphi technique questionnaire and inviting as the research object, Szuchung Creek Hot Springs for the scope of the study. The results show, Szuchung Creek Hot Springs development take for career success factors for the following reasons: 1. Government. 2. Opportunities. 3. Factors of production. 4. Demand conditions. 5. Corporate structure and the degree of competition. 6. Related and supporting industries. Furthermore, Szuchung Creek hot springs, itself already has a number of critical success factors. Contingent less than or inadequacies by Szuchung Creek take for the enterprise development to take for the cause of the critical success factors as the basis for correcting, planning out for local use improvement strategies to achieve the objective of sustainable management.
Abstract: The production of a plant can be measured in terms of
seeds. The generation of seeds plays a critical role in our social and
daily life. The fruit production which generates seeds, depends on the
various parameters of the plant, such as shoot length, leaf number,
root length, root number, etc When the plant is growing, some leaves
may be lost and some new leaves may appear. It is very difficult to
use the number of leaves of the tree to calculate the growth of the
plant.. It is also cumbersome to measure the number of roots and
length of growth of root in several time instances continuously after
certain initial period of time, because roots grow deeper and deeper
under ground in course of time. On the contrary, the shoot length of
the tree grows in course of time which can be measured in different
time instances. So the growth of the plant can be measured using the
data of shoot length which are measured at different time instances
after plantation. The environmental parameters like temperature, rain
fall, humidity and pollution are also play some role in production of
yield. The soil, crop and distance management are taken care to
produce maximum amount of yields of plant. The data of the growth
of shoot length of some mustard plant at the initial stage (7,14,21 &
28 days after plantation) is available from the statistical survey by a
group of scientists under the supervision of Prof. Dilip De. In this
paper, initial shoot length of Ken( one type of mustard plant) has
been used as an initial data. The statistical models, the methods of
fuzzy logic and neural network have been tested on this mustard
plant and based on error analysis (calculation of average error) that
model with minimum error has been selected and can be used for the
assessment of shoot length at maturity. Finally, all these methods
have been tested with other type of mustard plants and the particular
soft computing model with the minimum error of all types has been
selected for calculating the predicted data of growth of shoot length.
The shoot length at the stage of maturity of all types of mustard
plants has been calculated using the statistical method on the
predicted data of shoot length.
Abstract: The present study presents a new approach to automatic
data clustering and classification problems in large and complex
databases and, at the same time, derives specific types of explicit rules
describing each cluster. The method works well in both sparse and
dense multidimensional data spaces. The members of the data space
can be of the same nature or represent different classes. A number
of N-dimensional ellipsoids are used for enclosing the data clouds.
Due to the geometry of an ellipsoid and its free rotation in space
the detection of clusters becomes very efficient. The method is based
on genetic algorithms that are used for the optimization of location,
orientation and geometric characteristics of the hyper-ellipsoids. The
proposed approach can serve as a basis for the development of
general knowledge systems for discovering hidden knowledge and
unexpected patterns and rules in various large databases.
Abstract: Market competition and a desire to gain advantages on globalized market, drives companies towards innovation efforts. Project overload is an unpleasant phenomenon, which is happening for employees inside those organizations trying to make the most efficient use of their resources to be innovative. But what are the impacts of project overload on organization-s innovation capabilities? Advanced engineering teams (AE) inside a major heavy equipment manufacturer are suffering from project overload in their quest for innovation. In this paper, Agent-based modeling (ABM) is used to examine the current reality of the company context, and of the AE team, where the opportunities and challenges for reducing the risk of project overload and moving towards innovation were identified. Project overload is more likely to stifle innovation and creativity inside teams. On the other hand, motivations on proper challenging goals are more likely to help individual to alleviate the negative aspects of low level of project overload.
Abstract: The prediction of Software quality during development life cycle of software project helps the development organization to make efficient use of available resource to produce the product of highest quality. “Whether a module is faulty or not" approach can be used to predict quality of a software module. There are numbers of software quality prediction models described in the literature based upon genetic algorithms, artificial neural network and other data mining algorithms. One of the promising aspects for quality prediction is based on clustering techniques. Most quality prediction models that are based on clustering techniques make use of K-means, Mixture-of-Guassians, Self-Organizing Map, Neural Gas and fuzzy K-means algorithm for prediction. In all these techniques a predefined structure is required that is number of neurons or clusters should be known before we start clustering process. But in case of Growing Neural Gas there is no need of predetermining the quantity of neurons and the topology of the structure to be used and it starts with a minimal neurons structure that is incremented during training until it reaches a maximum number user defined limits for clusters. Hence, in this work we have used Growing Neural Gas as underlying cluster algorithm that produces the initial set of labeled cluster from training data set and thereafter this set of clusters is used to predict the quality of test data set of software modules. The best testing results shows 80% accuracy in evaluating the quality of software modules. Hence, the proposed technique can be used by programmers in evaluating the quality of modules during software development.
Abstract: Design for Disassembly (DfD) aims to reuse the
structural components instead of demolition followed by recycling of
the demolition debris. This concept preserves the invested embodied
energy of materials, thus reducing inputs of new embodied energy
during materials reprocessing or remanufacturing. Both analytical and
experimental research on a proposed DfD beam-column connection
for use in residential apartments is currently investigated at the
National University of Singapore in collaboration with the Housing
and Development Board of Singapore. The present study reports on
the results of a numerical analysis of the proposed connection utilizing
finite element analysis. The numerical model was calibrated and
validated by comparison against experimental results. Results of a
parametric study will also be presented and discussed.
Abstract: Installation of power compensation equipment in
some cases places additional buses into the system. Therefore, a total
number of power flow equations and voltage unknowns increase due
to additional locations of installed devices. In this circumstance, power flow calculation is more complicated. It may result in a
computational convergence problem. This paper presents a power flow calculation by using Newton-Raphson iterative method together
with the proposed load transfer technique. This concept is to eliminate additional buses by transferring installed loads at the new buses to existing two adjacent buses. Thus, the total number of power
flow equations is not changed. The overall computational speed is
expectedly shorter than that of solving the problem without applying the load transfer technique. A 15-bus test system is employed for test
to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed load transfer technique. As a result, the total number of iteration required and execution time
is significantly reduced.
Abstract: In order to provide and maintain effective pedagogy for the burgeoning virtual reality community, it is vital to have trained faculty in the institutions of higher education who will teach these courses and be able to make full use of their academic knowledge and expertise. As the number of online courses continues to grow, there is a need for these institutions to establish mentoring programs that will support the novice online instructor. The environment in which this takes place and the factors that ensure its success are critical to the adoption of the new instructional delivery format taught by both seasoned educators and adjunct instructors. Effective one-on-one mentoring promotes a professional, compassionate and collegial faculty who will provide a consistent and rigorous academic program for students online.
Abstract: We report on the development of a model to
understand why the range of experience with respect to HIV
infection is so diverse, especially with respect to the latency period.
To investigate this, an agent-based approach is used to extract highlevel
behaviour which cannot be described analytically from the set
of interaction rules at the cellular level. A network of independent
matrices mimics the chain of lymph nodes. Dealing with massively
multi-agent systems requires major computational effort. However,
parallelisation methods are a natural consequence and advantage of
the multi-agent approach and, using the MPI library, are here
implemented, tested and optimized. Our current focus is on the
various implementations of the data transfer across the network.
Three communications strategies are proposed and tested, showing
that the most efficient approach is communication based on the
natural lymph-network connectivity.
Abstract: Gated community has gained its dominant in residential areas development that it has become the standard development pattern of the newly built residential areas in contemporary China. The form of gated community has its own advantages and rationality that meet the needs of quite a lot of residents, but it-s also believed by researchers that the form has great damage to the urban morphology and development, and has a negative impact on residents- living style. However, there is still a considerable controversy of the origins and outcomes. Though recognized as a global phenomenon, gated community developed in China is greatly to do with the specific local forces, respect to the unique historical, political and socio-cultural momentums. A historical review of the traditional settlements in China and the trends that how Gated community has gained its contemporary form, is indispensable for comprehending the local forces, and provide a new perspective to solve the controversy.
Abstract: Neural networks offer an alternative approach both
for identification and control of nonlinear processes in process
engineering. The lack of software tools for the design of controllers
based on neural network models is particularly pronounced in this
field. SIMULINK is properly a widely used graphical code
development environment which allows system-level developers to
perform rapid prototyping and testing. Such graphical based
programming environment involves block-based code development
and offers a more intuitive approach to modeling and control task in
a great variety of engineering disciplines. In this paper a
SIMULINK based Neural Tool has been developed for analysis and
design of multivariable neural based control systems. This tool has
been applied to the control of a high purity distillation column
including non linear hydrodynamic effects. The proposed control
scheme offers an optimal response for both theoretical and practical
challenges posed in process control task, in particular when both,
the quality improvement of distillation products and the operation
efficiency in economical terms are considered.
Abstract: Sensorized instruments that accurately measure the interaction forces (between biological tissue and instrument endeffector) during surgical procedures offer surgeons a greater sense of immersion during minimally invasive robotic surgery. Although there is ongoing research into force measurement involving surgical graspers little corresponding effort has been carried out on the measurement of forces between scissor blades and tissue. This paper presents the design and development of a force measurement test apparatus, which will serve as a sensor characterization and evaluation platform. The primary aim of the experiments is to ascertain whether the system can differentiate between tissue samples with differing mechanical properties in a reliable, repeatable manner. Force-angular displacement curves highlight trends in the cutting process as well the forces generated along the blade during a cutting procedure. Future applications of the test equipment will involve the assessment of new direct force sensing technologies for telerobotic surgery.
Abstract: This work evaluated the effect of temperature on headspace solid-phase microextraction of volatile and furanic compounds in coated fish sticks. The major goal was the analysis of the samples as consumed, to reproduce volatile compounds people feel when consuming those products. Extraction at 37 ºC (the human body temperature) throughout the HS-SPME analysis of volatile and furanic compounds in coated fish was compared with higher extraction temperatures, which are frequently used for this kind of determinations. The profile of volatile compounds found in deepfried (F) and non-fried (NF) coated fish at 37 and 50 ºC was different from that obtained at 80 ºC. Concerning furan and its derivatives, an extra formation of these compounds was observed at higher extraction temperatures. The analysis of volatile and furanic compounds in fish coated sticks simulating the cooking and eating conditions can be reliably carried out setting the headspace absorption temperature at 37 ºC.
Abstract: Rapid Prototyping (RP) is a technology that produces models and prototype parts from 3D CAD model data, CT/MRI scan data, and model data created from 3D object digitizing systems. There are several RP process like Stereolithography (SLA), Solid Ground Curing (SGC), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), 3D Printing (3DP) among them SLS and FDM RP processes are used to fabricate pattern of custom cranial implant. RP technology is useful in engineering and biomedical application. This is helpful in engineering for product design, tooling and manufacture etc. RP biomedical applications are design and development of medical devices, instruments, prosthetics and implantation; it is also helpful in planning complex surgical operation. The traditional approach limits the full appreciation of various bony structure movements and therefore the custom implants produced are difficult to measure the anatomy of parts and analyze the changes in facial appearances accurately. Cranioplasty surgery is a surgical correction of a defect in cranial bone by implanting a metal or plastic replacement to restore the missing part. This paper aims to do a comparative study on the dimensional error of CAD and SLS RP Models for reconstruction of cranial defect by comparing the virtual CAD with the physical RP model of a cranial defect.
Abstract: Uterine and oviducal fluids are necessary for
capacitation of the spermatozoa and early embryonic development.
The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of estrous
cycle phases (follicular and luteal) on some biological parameters
(enzymes, electrolytes and total proteins) in uterine and oviducal
secretions of ewes. Oviducal and uterine fluids were collected,
diluted and centrifuged. According to our results, concentrations of
GPT, G6PDH, total proteins, K and Na were significantly (P
Abstract: As new challenges emerge in power electrical
workplace safety, it is the responsibility of the systems designer to
seek out new approaches and solutions that address them. Design
decisions made today will impact cost, safety and serviceability of
the installed systems for 40 or 50 years during the useful life for the
owner. Studies have shown that this cost is an order of magnitude of
7 to 10 times the installed cost of the power distribution equipment.
This paper reviews some aspects of earthing system design in power
substation surrounded by residential houses. The electrical potential
rise and split factors are discussed and a few recommendations are
provided to achieve a safety voltage in the area beyond the boundary
of the substation.
Abstract: This paper critiques several exiting strategic
international human resource management (SIHRM) frameworks and
discusses their limitations to apply directly to emerging multinational
enterprises (EMNEs), especially those generated from China and
other BRICS nations. To complement the existing SIHRM
frameworks, key variables relevant to emerging economies are
identified and the extended model with particular reference to
EMNEs is developed with several research propositions. It is
believed that the extended model would better capture the recent
development of MNEs in transition, and alert emerging international
managers to address several human resource management challenges
in the global context