bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Main actors in provision of fiction e-books in a small language market: a Swedish case
Authors: Wallin Birgitta  , Maceviciute Elena
Published: February 2025

One of the consequences of the “small language” phenomenon is that the Swedish book industry is prey to the negative effects of globalization, since books have an international market and a Swedish multilingual citizen can buy e-books from international online booksellers. Publications in the local language are potentially in competition with books in English, and a local publisher or bookseller is competing with international publishers and Amazon.com
Attitudes towards open access: a meta-synthesis of the empirical literature
Authors: Togia Aspasia  , Korobili Stella
Published: February 2025

The aim of the present study is to report the results of a meta-synthesis of the empirical literature on scholars' attitudes towards Open Access (OA) journals. A total of 16 articles published in scholarly journals since 2002 (when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was released) were included in the study and five major themes emerged from their examination and analysis. The literature indicates that attitudes and perceptions of OA are varied across countries and across disciplines. Free access, which is perceived to facilitate wider dissemination of research outputs, is a strong incentive for publishing in OA. However, quality and reputation are the most important factors in selecting a journal and take priority over the availability of free access. Although OA is perceived to have many advantages over the traditional publication model, it raises some concerns too, especially in regard to the author-pays model, the quality of peer-review and the impact of the journals.
An Algorithm for the Penalized Multiple Choice Knapsack Problem
Authors: Hilliard Elizabeth M.  , Greenwald Amy  , Naroditskiy Victor
Published: February 2025

We present an algorithm for the penalized multiple choice knapsack problem (PMCKP), a combination of the more common penalized knapsack problem (PKP) and multiple choice knapsack problem (MCKP). Our approach is to converts a PMCKP into a PKP using a previously known transformation between MCKP and KP, and then solve the PKP greedily. For PMCKPs with well-behaved penalty functions, our algorithm is optimal for the linear relaxation of the problem.
Generating Multi-Agent Plans by Distributed Intersection of Finite State Machines
Authors: Tožička Jan  , Jakubův Jan  , Komenda Antonín
Published: February 2025

Deterministic multi-agent planning described by MA-STRIPS formalism requires mixture of coordination and synthesis of local agents' plans. All agents' plans, as sequences of actions, can be implicitly described by an appropriate generative structure. Having all local plans of all participating agents described by such a structure and having a merged process of such structures, we can induce a global multi-agent plan by successive elimination of unfeasible combinations of local agents' plans.
Belief merging within fragments of propositional logic
Authors: Creignou Nadia  , Papini Odile  , Rümmele Stefan  , Woltran Stefan
Published: February 2025

Recently, belief change within the framework of fragments of propositional logic has gained increasing attention. Previous works focused on belief contraction and belief revision on the Horn fragment. However, the problem of belief merging within fragments of propositional logic has been neglected so far. This paper presents a general approach to define new merging operators derived from existing ones such that the result of merging remains in the fragment under consideration. Our approach is not limited to the case of Horn fragment but applicable to any fragment of propositional logic characterized by a closure property on the sets of models of its formulæ. We study the logical properties of the proposed operators in terms of satisfaction of merging postulates, considering in particular distance-based merging operators for Horn and Krom fragments.
Spatio-Temporal Stream Reasoning with Incomplete Spatial Information
Authors: Heintz Fredrik  , de Leng Daniel
Published: February 2025

Reasoning about time and space is essential for many applications, especially for robots and other autonomous systems that act in the real world and need to reason about it. In this paper we present a pragmatic approach to spatio-temporal stream reasoning integrated in the Robot Operating System through the DyKnow framework. The temporal reasoning is done in Metric Temporal Logic and the spatial reasoning in the Region Connection Calculus RCC-8. Progression is used to evaluate spatio-temporal formulas over incrementally available streams of states. To handle incomplete information the underlying first-order logic is extended to a three-valued logic. When incomplete spatial information is received, the algebraic closure of the known information is computed. Since the algebraic closure might have to be re-computed every time step, we separate the spatial variables into static and dynamic variables and reuse the algebraic closure of the static variables, which reduces the time to compute the full algebraic closure. The end result is an efficient and useful approach to spatio-temporal reasoning over streaming information with incomplete spatial information.
Symmetry-Driven Decision Diagrams for Knowledge Compilation
Authors: Bart Anicet  , Koriche Frédéric  , Lagniez Jean-Marie  , Marquis Pierre
Published: February 2025

In this paper, symmetries are exploited for achieving significant space savings in a knowledge compilation perspective. More precisely, the languages FBDD and DDG of decision diagrams are extended to the languages Sym-FBDDX,Yand Sym-DDGX,Yof symmetry-driven decision diagrams, where X is a set of “symmetry-free” variables and Y is a set of “top” variables. Both the time efficiency and the space efficiency of Sym-FBDDX,Yand Sym-DDGX,Yare analyzed, in order to put those languages in the knowledge compilation map for propositional representations. It turns out that each of Sym-FBDDX,Yand Sym-DDGX,Ysatisfies CT (the model counting query). We prove that no propositional language over a set X∪Y of variables, satisfying both CO (the consistency query) and CD (the conditioning transformation), is at least as succinct as any of Sym-FBDDX,Yand Sym-DDGX,Yunless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. The price to be paid is that only a restricted form of conditioning and a restricted form of forgetting are offered by Sym-FBDDX,Yand Sym-DDGX,Y. Nevertheless, this proves sufficient for a number of applications, including configuration and planning. We describe a compiler targeting Sym-FBDDX,Yand Sym-DDGX,Yand give some experimental results on planning domains, highlighting the practical significance of these languages.
From analogical proportions in lattices to proportional analogies in formal concepts
Authors: Miclet Laurent  , Barbot Nelly  , Prade Henri
Published: February 2025

The paper provides an attempt at bridging formal concept analysis and the modeling of analogical proportions (i.e., statements of the form “a is to b as c is to d”). A suitable definition for analogical proportions in non distributive lattices is proposed and then applied to concept lattices. This enables us to compute what we call proportional analogies that establish analogies on a proportional basis between pairs (a, b) and (c, d) when a and c belong to a domain and b and d to another domain (as in “Moby Dick is to Herman Melville as Alice in Wonderland is to Lewis Carroll”).
A resource-sensitive logic of agency
Authors: Porello Daniele  , Troquard Nicolas
Published: February 2025

We study a fragment of Intuitionistic Linear Logic combined with non-normal modal operators. Focusing on the minimal modal logic, we provide a Gentzen-style sequent calculus as well as a semantics in terms of Kripke resource models. We show that the proof theory is sound and complete with respect to the class of minimal Kripke resource models. We also show that the sequent calculus allows cut elimination. We put the logical framework to use by instantiating it as a logic of agency. In particular, we apply it to reason about the resource-sensitive use of artefacts.
Consolidation of Probabilistic Knowledge Bases by Inconsistency Minimization
Authors: Potyka Nico  , Thimm Matthias
Published: February 2025

Consolidation describes the operation of restoring consistency in an inconsistent knowledge base. Here we consider this problem in the context of probabilistic conditional logic, a language that focuses on probabilistic conditionals (if-then rules). If a knowledge base, i. e., a set of probabilistic conditionals, is inconsistent traditional model-based inference techniques are not applicable. In this paper, we develop an approach to repair such knowledge bases that relies on a generalized notion of a model of a knowledge base that extends to classically inconsistent knowledge bases. We define a generalized approach to reasoning under maximum entropy on these generalized models and use it to repair the knowledge base. This approach is founded on previous work on inconsistency measures and we show that it is well-defined, provides a unique solution, and satisfies other desirable properties.
Normalized Relevance Distance – A Stable Metric for Computing Semantic Relatedness over Reference Corpora
Authors: Schaefer Christoph  , Hienert Daniel  , Gottron Thomas
Published: February 2025

We propose the Normalized Relevance Distance (NRD): a robust metric for computing semantic relatedness between terms. NRD makes use of a controlled reference corpus for a statistical analysis. The analysis is based on the relevance scores and joint occurrence of terms in documents. On the basis of established reference datasets, we demonstrate that NRD does not require sophisticated data tuning and is less dependent on the choice of the reference corpus than comparable approaches.
Heterogeneous Facility Location without Money on the Line
Authors: Serafino Paolo  , Ventre Carmine
Published: February 2025

The study of facility location in the presence of self-interested agents has recently emerged as the benchmark problem in the research on mechanism design without money. Here we study the related problem of heterogeneous 2-facility location, that features more realistic assumptions such as: (i) multiple heterogeneous facilities have to be located, (ii) agents' locations are common knowledge and (iii) agents bid for the set of facilities they are interested in. We study the approximation ratio of both deterministic and randomized truthful algorithms when the underlying network is a line. We devise an (n−1)-approximate deterministic truthful mechanism and prove a constant approximation lower bound. Furthermore, we devise an optimal and truthful (in expectation) randomized algorithm.
Sequential diagnosis of high cardinality faults in knowledge-bases by direct diagnosis generation
Authors: Shchekotykhin Kostyantyn  , Friedrich Gerhard  , Rodler Patrick  , Fleiss Philipp
Published: February 2025

Sequential diagnosis methods compute a series of queries for discriminating between diagnoses. Queries are answered by probing such that eventually the set of faults is identified. The computation of queries is based on the generation of a set of most probable diagnoses. However, in diagnosis problem instances where the number of minimal diagnoses and their cardinality is high, even the generation of a set of minimum cardinality diagnoses is unfeasible with the standard conflict-based approach. In this paper we propose to base sequential diagnosis on the computation of some set of minimal diagnoses using the direct diagnosis method, which requires less consistency checks to find a minimal diagnosis than the standard approach. We study the application of this direct method to high cardinality faults in knowledge-bases. In particular, our evaluation shows that the direct method results in almost the same number of queries for cases when the standard approach is applicable. However, for the cases when the standard approach is not applicable, sequential diagnosis based on the direct method is able to locate the faults correctly.
Computing Optimal Policies for Attack Graphs with Action Failures and Costs
Authors: Durkota Karel  , Lisy Viliam
Published: February 2025

An attack graph represents all known sequences of actions that compromise a system in form of an and-or graph. We assume that each action in the attack graph has a specified cost and probability of success and propose an algorithm for computing an action selection policy minimizing the expected cost of performing an attack. We model the problem as a finite horizon MDP and use forward search with transposition tables and various pruning techniques based on the structure of the attack graph. We experimentally compare the proposed algorithm to a generic MDP solver and a solver transforming the problem to an Unconstrained Influence Diagram showing a substantial runtime improvement.
User's Satisfaction in Recommendation Systems
Authors: Kamal Shahid  , Ibrahim Roliana  , Ghani Imran
Published: February 2025

A significant response to the information overload problem currently being experienced as a result of the enormous advent of internet usage has been demonstrated by recommendation systems; that is, providing users with adapted information services. User preferences play a key role in preparing recommendations in the search for required information over the web. User feedback, both explicit and implicit, has proven to be vital for recommendation systems, with the similarity between users then able to be computed. In this paper we propose that traditional reliance on user similarity may be overstated. Nevertheless, there are many problems to be faced, specifically; sparseness, cold start, prediction accuracy, as well as scalability, which can all, result in a challenge of trust over the recommendation systems. A sparsity rate of 95% has been experienced in CF-based commercial recommendation applications. We discuss the manner in which other factors have a vital role in managing recommendations. Specifically, we propose that the issue of user satisfaction must be considered and incorporated with explicit feedback for improved recommendations.
An Improved Intrusion Detection Approach using Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique and Deep Belief Network
Authors: Adil S. Hasan  , Ali S. Saad Azhar  , Raza Kamran  , Hussaan A. Mahmood
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a network intrusion detection technique based on Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique (SMOTE) and Deep Belief Network (DBN) applied to a class imbalance KDD-99 dataset. SMOTE is used to eliminate the class imbalance problem while intrusion classification is performed using DBN. The proposed technique first resolves the class imbalance problem in the KDD-99 dataset followed by DBN to estimate the initial model. The accuracy is further enhanced by using multilayer perceptron networks. The obtained results are compared with the existing best technique based on reduced size recurrent neural network. The study shows that our approach is competitive and efficient in classifying both intrusion and normal patterns in KDD-99 dataset.
Argumentation-based collaborative intelligence analysis in CISpaces
Authors: Toniolo Alice  , Dropps Timothy  , Ouyang Robin Wentao  , Allen John A.  , Norman Timothy J.  , Oren Nir  , Srivastava Mani  , Sullivan Paul
Published: February 2025

We present the CISpaces framework, a collaborative virtual space for intelligence analysts for the elaboration of information to explain a situation. CISpaces supports the analysis of conflicting information in collaboration exploiting argumentation schemes to structure and share analyses, crowd-sourcing to collect information and provenance to establish the credibility of hypotheses.
An ontology for the Business Process Modelling Notation
Authors: Rospocher Marco  , Ghidini Chiara  , Serafini Luciano
Published: February 2025

In this paper we describe a formal ontological description of the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN), one of the most popular languages for business process modelling. The proposed ontology (the BPMN Ontology) provides a classification of all the elements of BPMN, together with the formal description of the attributes and conditions describing how the elements can be combined in a BPMN business process description. Using the classes and properties defined in the BPMN Ontology any BPMN diagram can be represented as an A-box (i.e., a set of instances and assertions on them) of the ontology: this allows the exploitation of ontological reasoning services such as consistency checking and query answering to investigate the compliance of a process with the BPMN Specification as well as other structural property of the process. The paper also presents the modelling process followed for the creation of the BPMN Ontology, and describes some application scenarios exploiting the BPMN Ontology.
Towards Ontological Support for Principle Solutions in Mechanical Engineering
Authors: Breitsprecher Thilo  , Codescu Mihai  , Jucovschi Constantin  , Kohlhase Michael  , Schröder Lutz  , Wartzack Sandro
Published: February 2025

Among the standard stages of the engineering design process, the principle solution can be regarded as an analogue of the design specification, fixing the way the final product works. It is usually constructed as an abstract sketch where the functional parts of the product are identified, and geometric and topological constraints are formulated. Here, we outline a semantic approach where the principle solution is annotated with ontological assertions, thus making the intended requirements explicit and available for further machine processing; this includes the automated detection of design errors in the final CAD model, making additional use of a background ontology of engineering knowledge.
Opportunities in Big Data Management and Processing
Authors: Stantic Bela  , Pokorný Jaroslav
Published: February 2025

Every day we witness new forms of data in various formats. Some example include structured data from transactions we make, unstructured data as text communications of different kinds, varieties of multimedia files and video streams. To ensure efficient processing of this data, often called ‘Big Data’, the use of highly distributed and scalable systems and new data management architectures, e.g. distributed file systems and NoSQL database, has been widely considered. However, volume, variety and velocity of Big Data and data analytics demands indicate that these tools solve Big Data problems partially only. To make effective use of such data, novel concepts of management is required, in particular, being able to efficiently access data within a tolerable time not only from the users own domain, but also from other domains which the user is authorized to access. This paper elaborates on some issues related to the efficient management of Big Data, discusses current trends, identifies the challenges and suggests possible research directions.
Provably Correct Test Development for Timed Systems
Authors: Vain Jüri  , Anier Aivo  , Halling Evelin
Published: February 2025

Automated software testing is an increasing trend for improving the productivity and quality of software development processes. That, in turn, rises issues of trustability and conclusiveness of automatically generated tests and testing procedures. The main contribution of this paper is the methodology of proving the correctness of tests for remote testing of systems with time constraints. To demonstrate the feasibility of the approach we show how the abstract conformance tests are generated, verified and made practically executable on distributed model-based testing platform dTron.
Kinetic study of steel emissivity and its effect on steel behaviour under fire condition
Authors: Fang Han  , Wong Man Biu  , Bai Yu
Published: February 2025

Steel emissivity is one of the key parameters for steel structure design for fire resistance since it affects the heat exchange between structural steel members and fire. Constant values of emissivity are usually given in design standards and used in computations for predicting steel structure temperatures under fire conditions. However, such steel temperature estimations would only be approximate due to the fact that variation of steel emissivity has been shown to be temperature dependent by previous research [7]. The temperature-dependent steel emissivity increases upon heating as a consequence of the occurrence of thermal oxidation on steel surface. In this study, the steel emissivity was measured experimentally. Besides, a model based on the kinetic theory for thermal oxidation was proposed for computing steel emissivity and used for kinetic study of steel emissivity variation. Both the experimental result and kinetic study show that steel emissivity is also dependent on the heating rate. Based on this new finding for computing steel emissivity, the kinetic model is recommended to be used for steel design at high temperature in order to obtain an accurate prediction of steel temperatures under fire condition.
Analysis of hopper eccentricity effect on granular flow in three-dimensional silos using discrete element method
Authors: Benyamine M.  , Fezzioui N.  , Hami O.  , Djermane M.  , Slimani A.
Published: February 2025

Silos are widely used in industry and agriculture for the storage of different granular products. The discharge of granular matter from these containers is one of the most common phenomena of everyday life, but it has not yet been completely understood. Early studies of the discharge process were mainly concerned with the concentric silos. However, eccentric hoppers are frequently encountered in chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Then, it is of paramount importance to understand the physical phenomena that control the flow of grains in these silos to guarantee optimal discharge process. In this study, numerical simulation was performed using Discrete Element Method DEM in order to analyze the discharge process in three dimensional eccentric silos. The flow performance in centric and eccentric silos are also analyzed and compared and a clear effect of hopper eccentricities is shown. The results obtained for different hopper eccentricities reveal that flow of particle is slightly dependant on the position of exit aperture.
Target column overdesign factor of steel frames considering system reliability
Authors: Zhao Yan-Gang  , Lu Zhao-Hui  , Sharfuddin Mohammad
Published: February 2025

Steel frames are usually designed with a column over design factor (COF) to ensure the yielding of all beams in flexure prior to possible yielding of columns, which is generally considered to be the preferable failure mode. In the present study, considering the uncertainties of earthquake load and strengths of structural members, the failure modes of multistory ductile frame structures are investigated probabilistically. First order reliability method (FORM) and Dimension Reduction Integration (DRI) with fourth moment standardization are mainly applied in the investigation. The Ai distribution of load along the height of the frame is taken into account. Comparing with the result of triangular distribution it is observed that target COF requirement is affected by the load considered in the evaluation. To evaluate the target COF requirement that probabilistically avoids the undesirable story collapse modes the consideration of system reliability is very essential. In the present paper, the concept of system reliability in introduced in determining the target COF. It is observed that target values of COF considering system reliability is different from than that of most likely failure modes. This study has been conducted for different reliability levels and the corresponding COF values have been presented in this paper.
Effect of shear wall in improving the reliability of RC frame buildings subjected to seismic loading
Authors: Dahesh Mohamed A.  , Tuken Ahmet  , Siddiqui Nadeem A.
Published: February 2025

In the past, several researches have been carried out to study the influence of shear walls on controlling the lateral stiffness/story drift of the RC buildings under seismic forces. But the level of increase in the reliability due to the implementation of shear walls was not studied much. In the present study, a simple Monte Carlo Simulation-based methodology has been presented by which increase in the reliability level due to the addition of shear walls in RC building frame was quantitatively assessed. In order to demonstrate the methodology, first a 10-story seismically deficient (in terms of lateral stiffness) rectangular RC frame building having no shear walls was subjected to an earthquake of known magnitude and its reliability against lateral drift was estimated. The building was then laterally stiffened by shear walls in the two orthogonal directions and reliability indices were estimated again in each direction. It was demonstrated that the shear walls improve the reliability against serviceability limit state of lateral drift dramatically. A parametric study was also carried out to obtain that value of story weight below which the building is as reliable as desired (i.e. reliability index ≥ 3.0).
Effect of proximity on wind loads on tall buildings
Authors: Ahuja Ashok Kumar  , Raj Ritu
Published: February 2025

An attempt has been made in the present study to find the effect of proximity between tall buildings on wind loads. Interference effect between two building blocks having different cross-sectional shapes is studied. Rigid models of tall buildings are made of timber and tested in an open circuit boundary layer wind tunnel. Models of the object buildings are placed on load cell one by one first under isolated condition and later under interference condition. Twisting moment developed due to wind is also measured in addition to base shear and base moment in along wind as well as across wind directions. Effects of percentage obstruction by the interfering buildings on wind loads on object buildings are studied. Results presented in the paper are of great use for the structural designers while designing closely spaced tall buildings.
On-site concrete waste minimization in the UK
Authors: Meibodi Amir B.  , Kew H.
Published: February 2025

Over 1 billion tonnes of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) is generated every year worldwide. According to the Government's Waste Strategy for England, Construction industry is one of the biggest sources of waste in England. The construction, demolition and excavation (CD&E) sector generates more waste than any other sector in England, and it is the largest generator of hazardous waste, approximately 1.7 million tonnes, considering, the sector accounts for 9 to 10% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Concrete has been verified to be a leading construction material for more than a century. The production of concrete in the world has been estimated at an annual rate of 1 m3 (approximately 2.5 tones) per capita. The Focus of this paper is in the particular area of concrete, to identify and illustrate the current methods and practices of onsite concrete waste minimizing in construction industry in the UK (United Kingdom). After literature reviews and researches in current and previous studies in waste minimization, a list of possible methods have been prepared. In addition, semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted in the study. The results illustrate “use of pre-fabricated building components”, “Education and training”, and “Purchase Management” as the most recommended methods (among the current practices) that promote waste minimization in the UK.
Preliminary study of strength of coal composites
Authors: Moatlhodi Lerato J.  , Okonta Felix N.
Published: February 2025

Large scale floor convergence and sudden failure of pillars in room-and-pillar underground mining have been reported in various countries over many years. Failure of these mines has been attributed, amongst other causes, to the stiffness criterion used by the mining operators and most importantly mine design practices, that tend to reduce the width-to-height ratio i.e. slender pillars in pursuit of greater coal recovery yields, in order to maximize coal recovery in the seam. It is recorded that the room-and-pillar method can leave behind about 40% of the total coal available for mining. The current study seeks to determine the appropriate width-height ratio for coal composite and stabilized coal pillars. Pure coal was mixed with granular soil and stabilized with cement to form cylindrical composite columns which were crushed to determine their unconfined compressive strength at different width-to-height ratios. The strength increased with the increase in W/H of the columns. Increase in coal percentage in a composite reduces the strength. The stabilized coal pillars mobilized less strength than the composite pillars. Based on limited data, relationships amongst column strength W/H and mix ratios were formulated and are proposed for the estimation of strength of mine support structures. More data is however required to formulate a general regression equation.
Thermal characterization of heat reflective coating for building application
Authors: Suman Bal Mukund
Published: February 2025

The paper describes the measurement of thermal conductance and resistance of a reflective coating in the laboratory by guarded hot plate apparatus. Thermal resistance (R) of the coating and white wash was found 0.0012 m2K/W and zero respectively and reflectivity of heat reflective coating and white washing is 0.85 and 0.70. The maximum temperature difference of ceiling and the west wall surface between heat reflective coated room and the room treated with white wash were recorded as 6.0°C and 3.8°C respectively. The cooling load was reduced by 5.75% and 12.7% for heat reflective coated room on wall and for both the roof and walls respectively when compared to white wash application on wall and on roof and wall both when air-conditioner of 18000 Btu/hr capacity was used in each of the identical rooms maintaining indoor temperature at 23°C.
Thermal insulation of crumb-rubber mortar for building walls application
Authors: Sanni Mukaila Yinka  , Amana Ocholi  , Stephen PinderEjeh
Published: February 2025

This research work reveals that the thermal properties of cement mortar are significantly affected with increase in crumb-rubber content, when used to partially replace sand in cement mortar mixes. The work is based on experimental study with replacement made at 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% crumb rubber by volume. Thermal properties were measured base on the transient line heat source (TLS) method using a KD 2 Pro-thermal analyzer. Thermal properties most especially the thermal conductivity of cement mortar (1.286W/mk) was greatly reduced to 0.351W/mk indicating 72.7% reduction with 25% crumb-rubber particles content, which makes it a better insulator. The specific heat capacity of cement mortar (2.791 MJ/m3.k) was reduced to 1.424MJ/m3k indicating 49% reduction with 25% rubber content, which may adversely reduce thermal mass effect. Other thermal properties such as thermal resistivity increased by 72.7%, thermal diffusivity decreased by 46.4% while thermal effusivity decreases by 66.4%.These results indicates that the potential use of such a composite material as an insulating mortar for building applications is viable.
Rheology of portland cement pastes with siliceous mineral additions
Authors: Rahhal Viviana  , Pedrajas César  , Irassar Edgardo  , Talero Rafael
Published: February 2025

In this paper, the rheological behaviour of pastes of Portland cement and different siliceous mineral additions was analyzed. For this purpose, two Portland cements with different mineralogical composition (low C3A and high C3S content and low C3S and high C3A content) combined with different replacement percentages of three minerals additions of siliceous nature (quartz, diatomite and silica fume) are used. Mineral admixtures have similar chemical composition, but they have different crystallinity and morphology: the quartz is fully crystalline; diatomite and the silica fume are vitreous with a small fraction of cristobalite. The vitreous phase content in the mineral additions gives the pozzolanic properties. All determinations were performed on Haake Roto Viscosimeter at 25°C, at the time corresponding to the minimum in dQ/dt calorimetric curve during the dormant period. The results show that portland cement with low C3A content and high C3S content presents a great shear resistance and the replacement by siliceous mineral addition affect the rheological behavior of paste depending on the water demand and the pozzolanic reactivity.
Influence of different grinding types on granulometry of recycled glass
Authors: Dvořák Karel  , Fridrichová Marcela  , Dobrovolný Petr
Published: February 2025

This paper is dedicated to reducing CO2 emissions by using the production of Portland cement with admixtures II species. It explores the possibility of using recycled glass as hydraulically active substance dependent on pozzolanity on progress and specific surface grinding. Recycled glass prepared in standart grinding device, for example ball or vibration mill, does not reach required qualities to participate in high rate of hydrating reaction of cement. Disadvantage of glass grain is their sharp-edge morphology. After grinding, they create conglomeration, which despite a large specific surface it does not adequately react and will behave as inert admixture. This work is an opening study in issue of potential utilization of high-speed mill for recycled glass grinding. The article deals with comparison of the influence of traditional ball mill with high-speed mill on shape and size of grains and on increase of Pozzolanic activity. The resulting products are examined from the chemical, mineralogical and technological perspective.
Polymer modified bitumen asphalt, a proposed solution for UAE pavement deterioration
Authors: Sabouni Reem  , Al-Ghazali Ahmed
Published: February 2025

The traffic volume in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has tremendously risen in the last decade due to the fast-pace development of the country. This increase in traffic volume combined with the harsh environment of the UAE causes the deterioration of asphalt pavements to accelerate all around the country, especially in areas of congested traffic. To understand the main mechanisms of pavement deterioration present in UAE roads a field examination of asphalt pavements in congested areas in the UAE was performed. The field examination recognized six main problems in UAE pavements: mix rutting, subgrade rutting, fatigue cracking, bleeding, raveling, and potholes. Then an investigation was been carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of using Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) polymer modified bitumen (PMB) asphalt to help improve the deterioration problems. A group of standard experiments were performed on both standard asphalt and polymer modified asphalt samples. The experimental investigation shows that, the SBS-PMB asphalt had favorable stability, stiffness, flow and density results. Based on the field observations and the experimental investigation, polymer modified bitumen asphalt is proposed to be used in new constructed roads to help reduce the amount of deterioration and maintenance cost in the UAE.
Performance of corrosion inhibiting admixtures in a marine environment
Authors: Robertson Ian N.
Published: February 2025

Corrosion of reinforcing steel is a major contributor to early deterioration of concrete structures in a coastal environment. This paper presents the results of an eight year field study involving 25 reinforced concrete panels exposed to a marine tidal zone. Seven different corrosion inhibiting admixtures and two pozzolans were used to compare their effectiveness at preventing or delaying onset of corrosion. This study was funded by the Hawaii Dept. of Transportation, Harbors Division, in order to evaluate commercially available corrosion inhibiting admixtures when used in concretes made with basalt aggregates common to Hawaii and other Pacific Islands. The corrosion-inhibiting admixtures included in this project were Darex Corrosion Inhibitor (DCI), Rheocrete CNI, Rheocrete 222+, FerroGard 901, Xypex Admix C-2000, Latex-modifier, Kryton KIM, and the pozzolans were fly ash and silica fume.
Shear behavior of ultra-high-strength steel fiber-reinforced self-compacting concrete beams
Authors: El-Dieb Amr S.  , El-Maaddawy Tamer A.  , Al-Rawashdah Omar
Published: February 2025

Ultra-high-strength concrete (UHSC) is characterized with its high compressive strength, yet it shows very brittle failure compared to normal-strength concrete due to a limited post-crack behavior. The inclusion of steel fibers would enhance the post-crack response of this high class of concrete. Since UHSC is produced with very low water to cementitious materials ratio, the inclusion of steel fibers would reduce the concrete workability. The development of self-compacting concrete (SCC) opened the avenue for resolving the workability issue. In this study, the shear response of ultra-high-strength fiber-reinforced self-compacting concrete beams (UHS-FR-SCC) has been investigated. The impact of varying the steel fiber volume; Vf=0.4%,0.8% and 1.2%, on the shear response has been investigated. The shear response of the UHS-FR-SCC beams has been compared with that of similar beams made of normal strength concrete (NSC). The addition of steel fibers significantly increased the shear capacity of the concrete beams. The shear strength gain increased with an increase in the amount of steel fibers. The use of steel fibers had a more pronounced effect on the incremental shear strength gain of the NSC beams than the UHSC beams. Test results indicated that the inclusion of steel fibers with proper volume fraction can be used as a substitution of the internal steel stirrups. The obtained results could be used as input data to examine the validity of current models for shear strength prediction of UHS-FR-SCC beams.
Swiss Federal Publication Workflow with Akoma Ntoso
Authors: Palmirani Monica  , Vitali Fabio  , Bernasconi Albano  , Gambazzi Luca
Published: February 2025

This paper presents the application of the Akoma Ntoso XML standard to the Swiss Federal Chancellery, in particular to the Official Publications Centre document workflow in relation of the IRIs/URIs naming convention. A robust proof-of-concept was conducted on a variety of document types and a IRIs/URIs resolver was implemented for managing the dereferencing to the official sources.
Mutual Resource Exchanging Model in Mobile Computing and its Application to Collective Intelligence 3D Movies
Authors: Yoshida Naofumi
Published: February 2025

The only way for efficient use of limited resources is exchanging them each other in mobile environment. In this paper, an application for production of 3D movies by collective intelligence is presented. By this model, flexible and elastic usability can be implemented on mobile devices in mobile computing environment. And novel contents creation can be implemented by combination of this model, security, and collective intelligence.
An improved method for circle detection
Authors: Wu Wen-Yen
Published: February 2025

A split and merge method for detecting circular objects has been proposed in this paper. In the split stage, curve segmentation is performed by using a dominant point detection method. The segments are then classified as linear or nonlinear segments by the linearity criterion. In the merge stage, the geometric properties of circles are applied to estimate the centers and radii for nonlinear segments. The merge procedure is used to find if there is a better fitting error. The nonlinear segments are classified into several clusters. The circles will be identified if they have small fitting errors. The proposed method has been evaluated using both of the synthetic and real images. The experimental results show that the proposed method is efficient. It can detect both of the broken and occluded circular objects effectively. In addition, it is robust for the noisy images.
A Fast Handover Control Scheme Using the Optimistic Ready-Tunneling (ORT) Approach
Authors: Chiang Meng-Shu  , Huang Chung-Ming
Published: February 2025

With the functionalities of obtaining new care-of-address (CoA) ahead and building tunnels for packet forwarding during handover, the fast handover scheme has better performance than Mobile IPv6. However, the handover performance is downgraded if mobile node (MN) cannot finish the handover preparation before the associated link is broken. In this paper, we propose an optimistic ready-tunneling (ORT) control scheme to resolve the aforementioned problems. In the proposed ORT scheme, new access router (NAR) can prepare for a new CoA and builds a tunnel for MN ahead when MN enters the domain of NAR. As a result, MN can switch to the new network domain smoothly because of early CoA acquisition and tunnel establishment during handover.
RobotDroid – A Keyword-Driven Testing Tool for Android Applications
Authors: Liu Chien-Hung  , Chen Shu-Ling  , Chen Huang-Ke
Published: February 2025

With Android devices become widespread, the number of Android applications has grown rapidly in recent years. Consequently, how to automate the testing of Android applications has increasingly drawn attention. However, most of Android testing tools require users to have programming skills to develop or maintain low-level test scripts and, hence, the uses of these testing tools have a steep learning curve. In order to ease the development and maintenance of Android test scripts, this paper adapts the concept of keyword-driven testing into the context of Android applications. Particularly, a test library is developed with various keywords defined to support Android keyword-driven testing. Moreover, a corresponding testing tool, called RobotDroid, is implemented to facilitate the Android keyword-driven test case development and execution. With the proposed Android test library and tool, the efforts to write test cases for Android applications can be greatly reduced. The readability, reusability, and maintainability of the Android test cases can also be effectively improved.
The payoff pattern of Nash Equilibria By a Change of Risk in 2×2 Simulation-Based Game
Authors: Lee Yao-Hsien  , Lee Mei-Yu
Published: February 2025

The risk of the Dominant Strategic payoff (DS payoff) plays very important role in decision-making process when the payoffs are not realized. We examine the risk effect on the NE payoff and show that the distance level of two strategic payoffs eliminates the risk effect of the DS payoff. It is worthy to note that the risk effect of the DS payoff on the NE payoff, nevertheless, comparing with the DS payoff, the NE payoff with higher expected value and lower variance. Moreover, the higher the standard deviation of the DS payoff, which is larger than 1, is, the higher the coefficients of the NE payoff are.
An Color Interference Checking Chip Dicing Plan for Multiple Project Wafer
Authors: Shih Chihhsiong  , Huang Minlong  , Liang Zhaolong
Published: February 2025

In the wafer production process, cost is an important factor. Due to the requirement of different chips, different dice arrangements are needed to generate these chips.
Study of Radio Resource Reallocation for Hotspots in LTE Network
Authors: Chua Fu Yuan  , Lo Kang-Hao  , Chen Yen-Wen
Published: February 2025

The Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture, which is defined by Open Networking Foundation (ONF), can provide flexible bandwidth management for time-vary requirements to enhance the efficiency of resource utilization. The basic concept of SDN is to separate the control plane and data plane. By the tightly and centralized control, SDN can not only provide effective network security management, but also dynamically adjust the network resource according to the requirement to maximize the system throughput. In this paper, the proposed method adapts the SDN approach to improve the cellular network throughput. Both of Average Allocation (AA) and Focus Allocation (FA) methods are proposed to reallocate Resource Block (RB) under the avoidance of subcarrier interference for hot spot cells. Two cases with frequency reuse factor 1/7 and 1/12 were adopted to examine the efficiency of the proposed methods. The performance impacts of different numbers of hotspot cells with unbalanced traffic load scenarios were examined through simulations. The simulation results illustrate that both methods can improve the system throughput in above scenarios. Furthermore, the AA method achieves better throughput of hotspot cells when compared with the FA method.
Self healing supramolecular nanocomposites
Authors: Liu Zhen  , Picken Stephen J.  , Besseling Klaas (N.A.M.)
Published: February 2025

We have designed, prepared, and characterized a class of advanced intrinsic self-healing polymer nanocomposites where the self-assembled filler skeleton formed by nanoparticles is embedded in a continuous phase of a supramolecular elastomer. In intrinsic self-healing systems the ability for a material to repair itself is achieved by keeping the required mobility in the system while using nanoparticle reinforcement to achieve the overall stiffness and resilience. This means that it is indeed possible to design a material that reconciles both mobility and stiffness, which at first sight might seem a tall order. Unlike self-healing materials based on encapsulated reagents, solvents or adhesives, the intrinsic self-healing mechanism is engrained into the material itself, and self-healing can be repeated indefinitely, also at previously damaged locations. The reinforcing skeleton that interpenetrates through the polymer matrix not only prevents the supramolecular elastomer matrix from flowing, but also provides the nanocomposite with load-bearing capabilities. The supramolecular polymer we discuss here is boric acid modified poly(dimethylsiloxane), PBS. During the PBS synthesis boric acid cleaves silicone oil chains (PDMS) forming hydrogen bonding boric acid end-groups. These end-groups can subsequently also form covalent crosslinks via reversible boroxol rings. The supramolecular PBS elastomer is responsible for integrating the two-component nanocomposite as a whole by means of its reversible intermolecular H-bonding cross-links. By fine tuning the nanoparticle-molecule adhesion, the particle aspect ratio, and the particle network formation, we are able to obtain a load-resistant nanocomposite without prolonging the healing time.
Encapsulated rejuvenators for healing of asphalt
Authors: Su Jun-Feng  , Schlangen Erik
Published: February 2025

Asphalt concrete is one of the most common types of pavement surface materials used in the world. It is a porous material made at very high temperatures (~180 °C) that consists of a mixture of asphalt binder (bitumen), aggregate particles and air voids. After some years of use, the stiffness of asphalt concrete increases, its relaxation capacity decreases, the binder becomes more brittle, micro-cracks develop in it and cracking of the interface between aggregates and binder occurs. This mechanism is especially detrimental in porous asphalt where it leads to ravelling. Ravelling, which is the loss of aggregate particles from the surface layer, is the main damage mechanism of porous asphalt surface wearing courses. In the chapter “Unravelling of porous asphalt” in this book it is discussed that ravelling can be avoided or delayed by mixing steel wool fragments through the asphalt. These fragments make it possible to heat the asphalt with induction energy and by that close micro-cracks. In this project another approach is followed: the use of rejuvenators. These rejuvenators are encapsulated and mixed through the asphalt. These capsules break due to the constant fatigue loads and to the higher stiffness of the binder that happens when it oxidizes. Once the capsules are broken, a permanent deformation happens in the capsules and if the fatigue loads of traffic continue, they suffer a permanent deformation and the rejuvenator is released and softens the binder and makes it more flexible again. In the project the capsules are optimized and the process of rejuvenation is studied.