Scenarios of Societal Security and Business Continuity Cycles

Societal security, continuity scenarios and methodological cycling approach explained in this article. Namely societal security organizational challenges ask implementation of international standards BS 25999-2 & global ISO 22300 which is a family of standards for business continuity management system. Efficient global organization system is distinguished of high entity´s complexity, connectivity & interoperability, having not only cooperative relations in a fact. Competing business have numerous participating ´enemies´, which are in apparent or hidden opponent and antagonistic roles with prosperous organization system, resulting to a crisis scene or even to a battle theatre. Organization business continuity scenarios are necessary for such ´a play´ preparedness, planning, management & overmastering in real environments.

Study of γ Irradiation and Storage Time on Microbial Load and Chemical Quality of Persian Saffron

Irradiation is considered one of the most efficient technological processes for the reduction of microorganisms in food. It can be used to improve the safety of food products, and to extend their shelf lives. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of gamma irradiation for improvement of saffron shelf life. Samples were treated with 0 (none irradiated), 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 kGy of gamma irradiation and held for 2 months. The control and irradiated samples were underwent microbial analysis, chemical characteristics and sensory evaluation at 30 days intervals. Microbial analysis indicated that irradiation had a significant effect (P < 0.05) on the reduction of microbial loads. There was no significant difference in sensory quality and chemical characteristics during storage in saffron.

High Speed and Ultra Low-voltage CMOS NAND and NOR Domino Gates

In this paper we ultra low-voltage and high speed CMOS domino logic. For supply voltages below 500mV the delay for a ultra low-voltage NAND2 gate is aproximately 10% of a complementary CMOS inverter. Furthermore, the delay variations due to mismatch is much less than for conventional CMOS. Differential domino gates for AND/NAND and OR/NOR operation are presented.

Fuzzy Risk-Based Life Cycle Assessment for Estimating Environmental Aspects in EMS

Environmental aspects plays a central role in environmental management system (EMS) because it is the basis for the identification of an organization-s environmental targets. The existing methods for the assessment of environmental aspects are grouped into three categories: risk assessment-based (RA-based), LCA-based and criterion-based methods. To combine the benefits of these three categories of research, this study proposes an integrated framework, combining RA-, LCA- and criterion-based methods. The integrated framework incorporates LCA techniques for the identification of the causal linkage for aspect, pathway, receptor and impact, uses fuzzy logic to assess aspects, considers fuzzy conditions, in likelihood assessment, and employs a new multi-criteria decision analysis method - multi-criteria and multi-connection comprehensive assessment (MMCA) - to estimate significant aspects in EMS. The proposed model is verified, using a real case study and the results show that this method successfully prioritizes the environmental aspects.

Meteorological Data Study and Forecasting Using Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Weather systems use enormously complex combinations of numerical tools for study and forecasting. Unfortunately, due to phenomena in the world climate, such as the greenhouse effect, classical models may become insufficient mostly because they lack adaptation. Therefore, the weather forecast problem is matched for heuristic approaches, such as Evolutionary Algorithms. Experimentation with heuristic methods like Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm can lead to the development of new insights or promising models that can be fine tuned with more focused techniques. This paper describes a PSO approach for analysis and prediction of data and provides experimental results of the aforementioned method on realworld meteorological time series.

Optimal Manufacturing Scheduling for Dependent Details Processing

The increasing competitiveness in manufacturing industry is forcing manufacturers to seek effective processing schedules. The paper presents an optimization manufacture scheduling approach for dependent details processing with given processing sequences and times on multiple machines. By defining decision variables as start and end moments of details processing it is possible to use straightforward variables restrictions to satisfy different technological requirements and to formulate easy to understand and solve optimization tasks for multiple numbers of details and machines. A case study example is solved for seven base moldings for CNC metalworking machines processed on five different machines with given processing order among details and machines and known processing time-s duration. As a result of linear optimization task solution the optimal manufacturing schedule minimizing the overall processing time is obtained. The manufacturing schedule defines the moments of moldings delivery thus minimizing storage costs and provides mounting due-time satisfaction. The proposed optimization approach is based on real manufacturing plant problem. Different processing schedules variants for different technological restrictions were defined and implemented in the practice of Bulgarian company RAIS Ltd. The proposed approach could be generalized for other job shop scheduling problems for different applications.

Granularity Analysis for Spatio-Temporal Web Sensors

In recent years, many researches to mine the exploding Web world, especially User Generated Content (UGC) such as weblogs, for knowledge about various phenomena and events in the physical world have been done actively, and also Web services with the Web-mined knowledge have begun to be developed for the public. However, there are few detailed investigations on how accurately Web-mined data reflect physical-world data. It must be problematic to idolatrously utilize the Web-mined data in public Web services without ensuring their accuracy sufficiently. Therefore, this paper introduces the simplest Web Sensor and spatiotemporallynormalized Web Sensor to extract spatiotemporal data about a target phenomenon from weblogs searched by keyword(s) representing the target phenomenon, and tries to validate the potential and reliability of the Web-sensed spatiotemporal data by four kinds of granularity analyses of coefficient correlation with temperature, rainfall, snowfall, and earthquake statistics per day by region of Japan Meteorological Agency as physical-world data: spatial granularity (region-s population density), temporal granularity (time period, e.g., per day vs. per week), representation granularity (e.g., “rain" vs. “heavy rain"), and media granularity (weblogs vs. microblogs such as Tweets).

Sustainable and Ecological Designs of the Built Environment

This paper reviews designs of the built environment from a sustainability perspective, emphasizing their importance in achieving ecological and sustainable economic objectives. The built environment has traditionally resulted in loss of biodiversity, extinction of some species, climate change, excessive water use, land degradation, space depletion, waste accumulation, energy consumption and environmental pollution. Materials used like plastics, metals, bricks, concrete, cement, natural aggregates, glass and plaster have wreaked havoc on the earth´s resources, since they have high levels of embodied energy hence not sustainable. Additional resources are consumed during use and disposal phases. Proposed designs for sustainability solutions include: ecological sanitation and eco-efficiency systems that ensure social, economic, environmental and technical sustainability. Renewable materials and energy systems, passive cooling and heating systems and material and energy reduction, reuse and recycling can improve the sector. These ideas are intended to inform the field of ecological design of the built environment.

Modification by the River Vaslui of the Hydrological Regime and Its Economic Implications (Romania)

The influence of human activities produced by dams along the river beds is minor, but the location of accumulation of water directly influences the hydrological regime. The most important effect of the influence of damming on the way water flows decreases the frequency of floods. The water rate controls the water flow of the dams. These natural reservoirs become dysfunctional and, as a result, a new distribution of flow in the downstream sector, where maximum flow is, brings about, in this case, higher values. In addition to fishing, middle and lower courses of rivers located by accumulation also have a role in mitigating flood waves, thus providing flood protection. The Vaslui also ensures a good part of the needs of the town water supply. The most important lake is Solesti, close to the Vaslui River, opened in 1974. A hydrological regime of accumulation is related to an anthropogenic and natural drainage system. The design conditions and their manoeuvres drain or fill the water courses.

Observer Design for Ecological Monitoring

Monitoring of ecological systems is one of the major issues in ecosystem research. The concepts and methodology of mathematical systems theory provide useful tools to face this problem. In many cases, state monitoring of a complex ecological system consists in observation (measurement) of certain state variables, and the whole state process has to be determined from the observed data. The solution proposed in the paper is the design of an observer system, which makes it possible to approximately recover the state process from its partial observation. The method is illustrated with a trophic chain of resource – producer – primary consumer type and a numerical example is also presented.

National Specific of Idioms in Kazakh and Korean Languages

It is well known that the phraseology of a language - the phenomenon of identity. This uniqueness is due to the fact that "there are idioms image-based views of reality that shows mainly of everyday empirical, historical and spiritual experience of a language community, associated with its cultural traditions. The article says that the phraseological units very clearly show the image of the people and give us a great view of the national identity. With the phraseology of the Kazakh and Korean language can understand the mentality of the nation, identity, perception of people. It is in the phraseological units can surprise the culture and customs of the people. Phraseological units store and transmit information about the level of material and spiritual culture of the people, his life, past and present, the development of society in general. And in Korean and Kazakh languages idioms occupy a particularly important role.

Robust Steam Temperature Regulation for Distillation of Essential Oil Extraction Process using Hybrid Fuzzy-PD plus PID Controller

This paper presents a hybrid fuzzy-PD plus PID (HFPP) controller and its application to steam distillation process for essential oil extraction system. Steam temperature is one of the most significant parameters that can influence the composition of essential oil yield. Due to parameter variations and changes in operation conditions during distillation, a robust steam temperature controller becomes nontrivial to avoid the degradation of essential oil quality. Initially, the PRBS input is triggered to the system and output of steam temperature is modeled using ARX model structure. The parameter estimation and tuning method is adopted by simulation using HFPP controller scheme. The effectiveness and robustness of proposed controller technique is validated by real time implementation to the system. The performance of HFPP using 25 and 49 fuzzy rules is compared. The experimental result demonstrates the proposed HFPP using 49 fuzzy rules achieves a better, consistent and robust controller compared to PID when considering the test on tracking the set point and the effects due to disturbance.

Formation of Round Channel for Microfluidic Applications

PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) polymer is a suitable material for biological and MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) designers, because of its biocompatibility, transparency and high resistance under plasma treatment. PDMS round channel is always been of great interest due to its ability to confine the liquid with membrane type micro valves. In this paper we are presenting a very simple way to form round shapemicrofluidic channel, which is based on reflow of positive photoresist AZ® 40 XT. With this method, it is possible to obtain channel of different height simply by varying the spin coating parameters of photoresist.

Modeling Hybrid Systems with MLD Approach and Analysis of the Model Size and Complexity

Recently, a great amount of interest has been shown in the field of modeling and controlling hybrid systems. One of the efficient and common methods in this area utilizes the mixed logicaldynamical (MLD) systems in the modeling. In this method, the system constraints are transformed into mixed-integer inequalities by defining some logic statements. In this paper, a system containing three tanks is modeled as a nonlinear switched system by using the MLD framework. Comparing the model size of the three-tank system with that of a two-tank system, it is deduced that the number of binary variables, the size of the system and its complexity tremendously increases with the number of tanks, which makes the control of the system more difficult. Therefore, methods should be found which result in fewer mixed-integer inequalities.

Methane and Other Hydrocarbon Gas Emissions Resulting from Flaring in Kuwait Oilfields

Air pollution is a major environmental health problem, affecting developed and developing countries around the world. Increasing amounts of potentially harmful gases and particulate matter are being emitted into the atmosphere on a global scale, resulting in damage to human health and the environment. Petroleum-related air pollutants can have a wide variety of adverse environmental impacts. In the crude oil production sectors, there is a strong need for a thorough knowledge of gaseous emissions resulting from the flaring of associated gas of known composition on daily basis through combustion activities under several operating conditions. This can help in the control of gaseous emission from flares and thus in the protection of their immediate and distant surrounding against environmental degradation. The impacts of methane and non-methane hydrocarbons emissions from flaring activities at oil production facilities at Kuwait Oilfields have been assessed through a screening study using records of flaring operations taken at the gas and oil production sites, and by analyzing available meteorological and air quality data measured at stations located near anthropogenic sources. In the present study the Industrial Source Complex (ISCST3) Dispersion Model is used to calculate the ground level concentrations of methane and nonmethane hydrocarbons emitted due to flaring in all over Kuwait Oilfields. The simulation of real hourly air quality in and around oil production facilities in the State of Kuwait for the year 2006, inserting the respective source emission data into the ISCST3 software indicates that the levels of non-methane hydrocarbons from the flaring activities exceed the allowable ambient air standard set by Kuwait EPA. So, there is a strong need to address this acute problem to minimize the impact of methane and non-methane hydrocarbons released from flaring activities over the urban area of Kuwait.

Reasoning with Dynamic Domains and Computer Security

Representing objects in a dynamic domain is essential in commonsense reasoning under some circumstances. Classical logics and their nonmonotonic consequences, however, are usually not able to deal with reasoning with dynamic domains due to the fact that every constant in the logical language denotes some existing object in the static domain. In this paper, we explore a logical formalization which allows us to represent nonexisting objects in commonsense reasoning. A formal system named N-theory is proposed for this purpose and its possible application in computer security is briefly discussed.

Fast Database Indexing for Large Protein Sequence Collections Using Parallel N-Gram Transformation Algorithm

With the rapid development in the field of life sciences and the flooding of genomic information, the need for faster and scalable searching methods has become urgent. One of the approaches that were investigated is indexing. The indexing methods have been categorized into three categories which are the lengthbased index algorithms, transformation-based algorithms and mixed techniques-based algorithms. In this research, we focused on the transformation based methods. We embedded the N-gram method into the transformation-based method to build an inverted index table. We then applied the parallel methods to speed up the index building time and to reduce the overall retrieval time when querying the genomic database. Our experiments show that the use of N-Gram transformation algorithm is an economical solution; it saves time and space too. The result shows that the size of the index is smaller than the size of the dataset when the size of N-Gram is 5 and 6. The parallel N-Gram transformation algorithm-s results indicate that the uses of parallel programming with large dataset are promising which can be improved further.

A Comparison on Healing Effects of an Ayurvedic Preparation and Silver Sulfadiazine on Burn Wounds in Albino Rats

To compare Healing Effects of an Ayurvedic Preparation and Silver Sulfadiazine on burn wounds in Albino Rats. Methods: Albino rats– 30 male / female rats weighing between 150-200 g were used in the study. They were individually housed and maintained on normal diet and water ad libitum. Partial thickness burn wounds were inflicted, on overnight-starved animals under pentobarbitone (30mg/kg, i.p.) anaesthesia, by pouring hot molten wax at 80oC into a plastic cylinder of 300 mm2 circular openings placed on the shaven back of the animal. Apart from the drugs under investigation no local/ systemic chemotherapeutic cover will be provided to animals. All the animals were assessed for the percentage of wound contraction, signs of infection, scab formation and histopathological examination. Results: Percentage of wound healing was significantly better in the test ointment group compared to the standard. Signs of infection were observed in more animals in the test ointment group compared to the standard. Scab formation also took place earlier in the test ointment group compared to standard. Epithelial regeneration and healing profile was better in the test ointment compared to the standard. Moreover the test ointment group did not show any raised margins in the wound or blackish discoloration as was observed in silver sulfadiazine group. Conclusion: The burn wound healing effect of the ayurvedic ointment under study is better in comparison to standard therapy of silver sulfadiazine. The problem of infection encountered with the test ointment can be overcome by changing the concentrations and proportions of the ingredients in the test ointment which constitutes the further plan of the study.

Brain MRI Segmentation and Lesions Detection by EM Algorithm

In Multiple Sclerosis, pathological changes in the brain results in deviations in signal intensity on Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI). Quantitative analysis of these changes and their correlation with clinical finding provides important information for diagnosis. This constitutes the objective of our work. A new approach is developed. After the enhancement of images contrast and the brain extraction by mathematical morphology algorithm, we proceed to the brain segmentation. Our approach is based on building statistical model from data itself, for normal brain MRI and including clustering tissue type. Then we detect signal abnormalities (MS lesions) as a rejection class containing voxels that are not explained by the built model. We validate the method on MR images of Multiple Sclerosis patients by comparing its results with those of human expert segmentation.

Computer-based Alarm Processing and Presentation Methods in Nuclear Power Plants

Computerized alarm systems have been applied increasingly to nuclear power plants. For existing plants, an add-on computer alarm system is often installed to the control rooms. Alarm avalanches during the plant transients are major problems with the alarm systems in nuclear power plants. Computerized alarm systems can process alarms to reduce the number of alarms during the plant transients. This paper describes various alarm processing methods, an alarm cause tracking function, and various alarm presentation schemes to show alarm information to the operators effectively which are considered during the development of several computerized alarm systems for Korean nuclear power plants and are found to be helpful to the operators.