This study aims to describe and compare infrastructure systems of Asian and European countries. The first part is a survey to show similarities and differences between the two systems. Comparison between transportation costs is made. Road and air transports are studied, starting from Paris for Europe and from Bangkok for Asia to other cities within their respective continents. It was shown that it is not possible to rank in one part Asian countries and in second part European countries. It is better to rank Asian and European countries together because they represent the same level of development in one hand and the emerging countries in the other. Freight transport has been shown to be cheaper in Asia than in Europe, even if the price depends on destination. However, border crossing is more expensive in Asia than in European Union.
The paper describes a serious gamedesigned and implemented within the framework of the European project “Posso … Non Posso … Vado! PNPV Project Rev.2 (I can ... I cannot ... I go!) which aims to introduce and foster an entrepreneurial mindset among young people. The focus of the game is on the management of a touristic company, in a complex market in which players compete with other companies/players. After a brief overview on Entrepreneurship Education, the paper describes the structure of the gamethat allows players to face increasingly complex situations, through learning by doing and learning by failing methodologies. Thenthetools integrated in the game to support teachersin analyzing students’ activities are described.
Renewable energy is another energy efficiency solution within the modern day of life. The production of energy contributes significantly to the environment and thus human health to the environment. In India, wind and solar energy are available at no cost throughout the year.In India there is a power shortage and load restrictions. Due to power shortages and problems in many regions, to bridge the gap between electricity demand and supply, we must use a hybrid system.The paper aims to improve the power demand using Wind and Solar energy within the MATLAB software. The hybrid model has Solar panels Maximum power point tracking, power converter, turbine and PMSG generator.
The subject of this research is the presentation of a model for studying the integration of migration flows with the resident population. The basic element for social cohesion is the cultural level of the people involved. In this study, we hypothesize a similarity between diffusion laws of the heat and culture, represented respectively by equations on the knowledge and temperature. The integration of migration flows is described by the use of the Cahn-Hilliard equation.
Turning is one of the most widely used machining processes in the mechanical engineering industry. Thus, the choice of optimal cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed and depth of cut) is very important in order to ensure a better surface condition of the machined parts and the life of the cutting tools, which requires great relationship with the wear of the tool-part interface. The result of a good choice of cutting conditions can be seen by a reduction in this wear. During machining, the geometric shape and the physical state of the tool are modified by the combined action of the cutting forces and by the temperature reached by the cutting edge. These modifications which gradually increase with the duration of machining are commonly grouped under the term wear of the tool. They appear on the active part of the tool. In this work, we propose an optimization method allowing determining a mathematical model of the wear and tear by applying the experiment plan. This model highlights the relationship between the elements of the cutting regime (cutting speed, feed and depth of passes) and the responses studied (Wear in clearance).
Demand for renewable energy (RES) systems is increasing, and research into wind and PV System has reached a pace in current years. Currently, the world is highly dependent on fossil fuels for energy needs, and these fossil fuels are on the brink of extinction. Demand for renewable energy will increase sharply in the coming years. Our work presents a hybrid system of energy generation with photovoltaic and wind system. Wind and PV system is connected to the grid as well as with each other. A control strategy is designed to maximize the benefits of such network interface system. The inverter is programmed to work as a multi-functional device with active power filtering capabilities. As a result the inverter is employed to power the RES energy in the network as a power converter. All analysis is performed and validated by the MATLAB / Simulink simulation, placing the system under dynamic load conditions.
The article deals a new method of theoretical and practical training for professional qualification examination for to obtain a gun license in the Czech Republic. When using the new method of teaching and training is the shooting accuracy is assessed as one number; this number contains the information of the capability of a shooter to hit the assigned part of a target from the short-term perspective as well as from the long-term perspective.
E-learning is a new methodology in the field of education that has risen since the widespread of personal computers and the worldwide web. Nowadays, e-learning method became very popular. Universities, organizations, individual teachers and other educational institutes use it intensely. The main purpose of this paper is to present a development of the LMS experiences through use of Moodle and its functions in Riga Technical University.
Intending to investigate the challenges that have emerged in the Building Technology and Management area, as well as to promote the development of Master’s degree programmes which can be able to sustain the preparation of competent specialists who will easily adapt to the new market demands, a research on Educational marketing was conducted during the 2011-2012 academic year. As part of the research, a set of specific questionnaires used as an instrument of surveying was distributed to final-year students, representing university graduates from both Bachelor’s and Master’s degree studies. This Paper presents an analysis of the Educational Programmes offered to Bachelor-graduate students from ‘Civil Engineering’ and ‘Engineering and Management’ lines of study. The obtained data and information according to the survey are meant to be taken into account during the periodical curriculum review of the Programmes.
Blended Learning is a well balanced fusion of face-to-face learning and online experiences. In this paper we discuss some design aspects concerning the optimal proportion between the two means of education applied to Engineering students. Our approach is taking into account the creative potential of engineering students and their type of thinking that have been previously investigated through the Brain Lateralization Information System (BLIS) [1]. In this paper we aim at identifying ways in which creative thinking and problem solving techniques can be implemented as personalized Blended Education Programs for students attending courses in the fields of Engineering. A blended course has an integrated online component and a concomitant face-to-face seat time, in order to reach student populations that cannot attend a fully face-to-face program. The advantages of face to face and the advantages of online activities have been put into balance and discussed. The purposes behind learning activities should be expressed by: community building, trust building, spontaneous reaction, clarification on one hand and reflection, analysis, exploration, creation on the other hand. In our efforts of designing a blended course we have considered the best suited modality for each specialty.
The present work deals with the production of biodiesel from Sandbox (Hura crepitans) seed oil and the optimization of the parameters that influence the transesterification of Sandbox (Hura crepitans)seed oil into biodiesel using Response Surface Methodology. Hura crepitans oil was obtained from by using hydraulic press for Mechanical and n-hexane for solvent extraction. Esterification was done using methanol and sodium hydroxide. A total of 48 experiments using Central Composite Design were carried out. The R-Squared, Adequate Precision, Predicted and Adjusted R-Squared values were 0.9367, 19.219, 0.8576 and 0.9070 respectively. The result of the extraction of oil, physiochemical properties, and optimization process shows that sandbox (Hura crepitans) seed oil has characteristics that are more favorable to biodiesel production. The optimal conditions for extraction of oil from sandbox seed oil were given as alcohol/ oil ratio of 5.0, catalyst amount of 20 g/ml, extraction temperature of 60 ºC, and extraction time of 45.01 minutes, with the predicted oil yield as 97.33% respectively which shows that the experimental values are in good agreement with predicted values.
To migrate to cloud computing or other new generation of computational and communicational network we should making some laws about limitations on such networks. We should clarify clearly the level of accessions to resources and/or the ability to sending or receiving files through such network. We can avoid unpredicted and undesired works by using of law makings. Furthermore, besides of law making we can use evolutionary and/or intelligence techniques for estimation and prediction about parameters that deal with controlling of our network – for example in this paper we introduce one type of such intelligence algorithms which named as unscented Kalman filter. By giving some raw inputs about treatments and resources of such networks we’re able to estimate and predict about lots of different conditions of these networks. For example, we should have an estimation and prediction algorithm to be able to track and trace the hackers or crackers, if they’re permeating to our network. Or we should estimate the amount of users that will use particular software or application on a specific hour through such network. Also, if we study users treatment on a specific network, like cloud computing, we’re able to estimate and predict their keen and eagerness about new released software or application; because if we know how people treat and face and react with new emerging software we’re able to construct and program our applications more precisely. In this paper, at first we tell about cloud computing – we define it completely and discuss about all aspects of this new generation of internet – also in the first section we discuss about efficiency of cloud computing in saving of energy and tell differences between the amount of energy that cloud resources use and the amount of energy that other computerized frames were use. We proof our suggestions and ideas by the means of analytical and mathematical analysis; after that when we understand about all of its concepts, a brief review about Microsoft decisions on cloud computing were present, we review new systems and software’s of Microsoft that equipped with cloud computing and study the advantages and disadvantages of these new services which are equipped with cloud computing. In the next section by the knowing of whole concepts and key features of this network and also by knowing the critical uses of this network on different industries we introduce fixedinterval smoothers; which can be used for estimation and prediction of different parameters in such network. For example, we can use this for estimation and prediction about permeating of hackers or for predicting the amount of users that will use special part of our network in a particular period of time or by tracking and tracing the packets or even users. By performing such activities we’re able to eliminate malicious and spyware treatments from the beginning points of our network. Also by the means of mathematical analysis in this paper, we demonstrate all of our suggestions and according to these proofs we conclude about workability and liability of such network.
This study evaluates the ability of several Regional Climate Models (RCMs) to simulate rainfall patterns in the South Caucasus region. In total, 8 RCM simulations were assessed against the CRU observational database over different domains, among them two from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). Seasonal climatology, annual rainfall cycles and interannual variability in RCM outputs were estimated for 8 homogeneous sub-regions against several observational datasets. Different metrics covering from monthly and seasonal to annual time scales are analyzed over the region of interest. The results confirm the distinct capabilities of climate models in capturing the local features of the climatic conditions of the South Caucasus region. At the same time, the analysis shows significant deviations in individual models depending on the sub-region and season; however, the ensemble mean is in better agreement with observations than individual models. Overall, the analysis presented here demonstrates that, the multi-model ensemble mean adequately simulates rainfall in the South Caucasus and, therefore, it can be used to assess future climate predictions for the region. This work promotes the selection of RCM runs with reasonable performance in the South Caucasus region, from which, for the first time, a high-resolution bias-adjusted climate database can be generated for future risk assessment and impact studies.
Significant advances in power system control design techniques that can take into consideration plants linearized around a number of operating conditions. Most of these techniques are based on eigenspectrum analysis which has numerous advantages. A wealth of applications of eigenstructure assignment are available in the literature and showed that new applications have been found and parametric solution of eigenspectrum assignment can be used successfully to design feedback controllers. The use of supplementary controller added to the automatic voltage regulator (AVR) is a practical effective way to supply additional positive damping to system oscillations via power system stabilizers. The present paper utilizes eigenspectrum analysis in the practical design of proportional integral (PI) type power system stabilizers, in order to achieve good steady state as well as transient response characteristics. Eigenspectrum analysis is attractive since it takes into account freedom in determining feedback gains and provides the frequencies and the damping at each frequency for the entire system in a single calculation. Moreover sensitivity of eigenvalues and eigenvectors with respect to parameter variations are assessed so as to provide information to improve setting parameters for power system damping and stability, without ignoring the operating conditions. The results of eigenvalue/eigenvector sensitivity are tangible for analysis with a wide range of parameter variations and is presented through the right and left eigenvectors of the system matrix and also through Taylor series analysis.
This paper is focused on preparing of fire in the perspective automated artillery fire support control system. Artillery units of the Army of the Czech Republic, reflecting current global security neighborhood, can be used outside the Czech Republic. The paper presents problems in process of preparing of fire especially problems in permanently embedded information and reports and overviews. The paper presents problems of current Artillery communication and information system and suggests requirements of the future system.
The severe economic crisis is affecting significantly to the environment in which companies have to continue with their business. Consequently, academicians and managers are worried about what is going to happen with the Social Responsibility and particularly with the Environmental Responsibility, due to the decrease in the financial performance of the companies. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of the crisis on the environmental behavior of the Spanish companies through an explicative study, deepening in the comparison between the years 2006 and 2010. As a result, Spanish companies continue carrying out behaving in an environmentally friendly way because their Environmental Scores are growing, despite the decline of the Financial Performance. Moreover, it is identified a change in the factors that affect to the environmental behavior due to the identification of less dependence on corporate financial performance.
The approval of methodologies involving the transportation sector confronts methodological concepts that hinder the eligibility of such projects as Clean Development Mechanism, mainly because it is a segment whose emissions come from mobile sources. The verification of additionality and monitoring of emissions, in principle, can be regarded as some of the key barriers to fit transportation sector projects into the CDM framework. This paper discusses these issues and examines, in particular, the road-rail intermodality. Since the partial replacement of cargo transport via trucks by wagon trains presents a great potential for mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases, this paper also analyzes the characteristics that a project involving road-rail intermodality must possess in order to be approved by the Executive Board of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It also analyzes the main difficulties that such a project might face.
In this paper, we describe the design of the synchronization and power unit controller (SPUC) for CO2 laser cable marking system inline-processing. It is mainly composed of a synchronization and modulation control circuits. Power control of output laser beam is achieved by pulse width modulation (PWM). The synchronization between the CO2 laser, the rotating mask disk and the pivoting mirror is performed by a Lab VIEW based program and National Instruments (NI).
These days’ lots of technologies migrate from traditional systems into cloud and similar technologies; also we should note that cloud can be used for military and civilian purposes [3]. On the other hand, in such a large scale networks we should consider the reliability and powerfulness of such networks in facing with events such as high amount of users that may login to their profiles simultaneously, or for example if we have the ability to predict about what times that we would have the most crowd in network, or even users prefer to use which part of the Cloud Computing more than other parts – which software or hardware configuration. With knowing such information, we can avoid accidental crashing or hanging of the network that may be cause by logging of too much users. In this paper we propose Kalman Filter that can be used for estimating the amounts of users and software’s that run on cloud computing or other similar platforms at a certain time. After introducing this filter, at the end of paper, we talk about some potentials of this filter in cloud computing platform. In this paper we demonstrate about how we can use Kalman filter in estimating and predicting of our target, by the means of several examples on Kalman filter. Also at the end of paper we propose information filter for estimation and prediction about cloud computing resources.
