bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Estrogen Receptor α Is Crucial in Zearalenone-Induced Invasion and Migration of Prostate Cancer Cells
Authors: Kowalska Karolina , Habrowska-Górczyńska Dominika , Urbanek Kinga , Domińska Kamila , Piastowska-Ciesielska Agnieszka
Published: February 2018

Zearalenone (ZEA), a mycotoxin produced in the genus Fusarium, binds to estrogen receptors (ER) and is therefore regarded as an endocrine disruptor. ZEA has also been found to modulate the proliferation and apoptosis of prostate cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. This study evaluates whether the effect of a low dose of ZEA (0.1 and 0.001 nM) on the invasion and migration of prostate cancer cell line PC3 is associated with ERs expression. The invasion and migration was evaluated by modified Boyden chamber assay, scratch assay, gelatin zymography, Real Time qPCR (RTqPCR) and Western blot. The involvement of ERs was evaluated with the selective ER antagonists: estrogen receptor α (ERα) antagonist 1,3-bis (4-hydroxyphenyl)-4-methyl-5-[4-(2-piperidinylethoxy) phenol]-1H-pyrazole dihydrochloride (MPP) and estrogen receptor β (ERβ) antagonist 4-[2–phenyl-5,7–bis (trifluoromethyl) pyrazolo [1,5-a]-pyrimidin-3-yl] phenol (PHTPP). ZEA was found to modulate cell motility dependent on estrogen receptors, particularly ERα. Increased cell migration and invasion were associated with increased MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity as well as the up-regulation of the EMT-associated genes vimentin (VIM), zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1/2 (ZEB1/2) and transforming growth factor β 1 (TGFβ1). In conclusion, ZEA might modulate the invasiveness of prostate cancer cells dependently on ERα expression.
Repeated Dietary Exposure to Low Levels of Domoic Acid and Problems with Everyday Memory: Research to Public Health Outreach
Authors: Grattan Lynn , Boushey Carol , Liang Yuanyuan , Lefebvre Kathi , Castellon Laura , Roberts Kelsey , Toben Alexandra , Morris J.
Published: February 2018

Domoic Acid (DA) is a marine-based neurotoxin. Dietary exposure to high levels of DA via shellfish consumption has been associated with Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning, with milder memory decrements found in Native Americans (NAs) with repetitive, lower level exposures. Despite its importance for protective action, the clinical relevance of these milder memory problems remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine whether repeated, lower-level exposures to DA impact everyday memory (EM), i.e., the frequency of memory failures in everyday life. A cross-sectional sample of 60 NA men and women from the Pacific NW was studied with measures of dietary exposure to DA via razor clam (RC) consumption and EM. Findings indicated an association between problems with EM and elevated consumption of RCs with low levels of DA throughout the previous week and past year after controlling for age, sex, and education. NAs who eat a lot of RCs with presumably safe levels of DA are at risk for clinically significant memory problems. Public health outreach to minimize repetitive exposures are now in place and were facilitated by the use of community-based participatory research methods, with active involvement of state regulatory agencies, tribe leaders, and local physicians.
Increasing Block Tariffs in an Arid Developing Country: A Discrete/Continuous Choice Model of Residential Water Demand in Jordan
Authors: Klassert Christian , Sigel Katja , Klauer Bernd , Gawel Erik
Published: February 2018

Arid developing countries face growing challenges from water scarcity, which are exacerbated by deficient piped water supply infrastructures. Increasing block tariffs (IBTs), charging higher rates with increasing water consumption, can potentially reconcile cost recovery to finance these infrastructures with an equitable and affordable sharing of the cost burden. A firm understanding of the impacts of varying prices and socio-economic conditions on residential water demand is necessary for designing IBTs that promote these objectives. Consistently estimating water demand under an IBT requires a discrete/continuous choice (DCC) model. Despite this, few econometric studies of arid developing countries have applied this state-of-the-art approach. This paper applies a DCC model to estimate residential water demand under IBTs in the severely water-stressed country of Jordan, using 15,811 country-wide household-level observations from five years up to 2013. We extend Hewitt and Hanemann’s original DCC formulation in order to accommodate IBTs featuring a linearly progressive tariff block. We then use the resulting demand function to assess Jordan’s 2013 IBTs and alternative IBT designs. Under the estimated price elasticities, very few IBT designs achieve a full recovery of the financial costs of water provision, but we still identify a potential to improve cost recovery and affordability.
A Simulation-Optimization Model for Seawater Intrusion Management at Pingtung Coastal Area, Taiwan
Authors: Huang Po-Syun , Chiu Yung-Chia
Published: February 2018

The coastal regions of Pingtung Plain in southern Taiwan rely on groundwater as their main source of fresh water for aquaculture, agriculture, domestic, and industrial sectors. The availability of fresh groundwater is threatened by unsustainable groundwater extraction and the over-pumpage leads to the serious problem of seawater intrusion. It is desired to find appropriate management strategies to control groundwater salinity and mitigate seawater intrusion. In this study, a simulation–optimization model has been presented to solve the problem of seawater intrusion along the coastal aquifers in Pingtung Plain and the objective is using injection well barriers and minimizing the total injection rate based on the pre-determined locations of injection barriers. The SEAWAT code is used to simulate the process of seawater intrusion and the surrogate model of artificial neural networks (ANNs) is used to approximate the seawater intrusion (SWI) numerical model to increase the computational efficiency during the optimization process. The heuristic optimization scheme of differential evolution (DE) algorithm is selected to identify the global optimal management solution. Two different management scenarios, one is the injection barriers located along the coast and the other is the injection barrier located at the inland, are considered and the optimized results show that the deployment of injection barriers at the inland is more effective to reduce total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations and mitigate seawater intrusion than that along the coast. The computational time can be reduced by more than 98% when using ANNs to replace the numerical model and the DE algorithm has been confirmed as a robust optimization scheme to solve groundwater management problems. The proposed framework can identify the most reliable management strategies and provide a reference tool for decision making with regard to seawater intrusion remediation.
Derived environment effects and logarithmic perception
Authors: Storme Benjamin
Published: February 2018

Phonologically-derived environment effects (henceforth, PDEEs) describe patterns where a phonological process P applies only if accompanied by another phonological process P’. This paper proposed that PDEEs follow from the hypothesis that the input-output distance is perceived logarithmically: this predicts that a feature change may be less salient perceptually and therefore represent a smaller violation of faithfulness if accompanied by another feature change. This theory has two desirable consequences: (i) it reconciles the analysis of PDEEs with the hypothesis of a preference for minimal input-output changes in phonological grammar and (ii) it derives a number of constraints on the features that can interact in PDEEs, therefore providing a restrictive account of the typology.
Learning within- and between-word variation in probabilistic OT grammars
Authors: Nazarov Aleksei
Published: February 2018

This paper proposes a novel method of inferring diacritics for representing between-word variation (exceptionality) in Optimality Theoretic (OT) grammars (e.g., Pater 2000, 2010) that makes it possible to infer such diacritics in the face of within-word variation. Existing methods of inferring diacritics in OT (Pater 2010, Becker 2009, Coetzee 2009) are based in categorical grammar learning (Tesar 1995), which makes them unable to handle within-word variation. Existing methods of inferring probabilistic OT grammars (e.g., Boersma 1998) handle within-word variation well, but have no provision to distinguish exceptional from non-exceptional words, and are incompatible with the main idea in Pater (2010). I show that this latter idea can be made compatible with probabilistic grammars based on a case study from Hebrew (Temkin-Martínez 2010), so that both within- and between-word variation can be learned.
Le professeur Louis Perrier : un homme de foi passionné de sciences
Authors: Perrier Alain
Published: February 2018

Dans cet article, Alain Perrier présente le parcours familial et universitaire de Louis Perrier, théologien et professeur de sciences à la Faculté de théologie protestante de Montauban, puis de Montpellier, de 1907 à 1945. Il souligne l’influence des professeurs Franz Leenhardt et Armand Sabatier dans la formation du jeune Perrier avant de faire une synthèse des domaines scientifiques auquel le professeur confirmé voua ses recherches. À travers les principales publications de Louis Perrier présentées de façon chronologique, l’auteur dresse une cartographie de ses champs de recherche, faisant ainsi apparaître non seulement le vaste savoir encyclopédique du médecin et théologien, mais aussi son engagement sur la voie moderne de l’écologie.
Le financement des infrastructures énergétiques en France au xix e siècle : retour sur les investissements houillers (bassin du Pas-de-Calais, 1850-1914)
Authors: Mastin Jean-Luc
Published: February 2018

Appliquée ici au bassin houiller du Pas-de-Calais (le plus productif de France après 1877), une méthode permet de renouveler l’étude du financement des infrastructures énergétiques en France, en croisant trois approches : la quantification des investissements sur la longue durée ; l’analyse des réseaux d’investisseurs ; l’analyse micro-économique comparée de deux compagnies houillères incarnant deux modèles de financement différents. L’exploitation sérielle des dossiers de redevance (ou « états d’exploitation »), conservés aux Archives Nationales (série F 14 ), et des bilans des quatre plus grands charbonnages (Lens, Béthune, Bruay, Nœux), permet de chiffrer les « dépenses de premier établissement » (DPE) annuelles (flux) et cumulées (stocks), et de les mettre en rapport avec l’extraction. Elle révèle que les investissements des compagnies du Pas-de-Calais (notamment Lens, contrôlée par les « grandes familles » de Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing) sont très supérieurs à ceux des compagnies du Nord (notamment Anzin, contrôlée par les capitaux parisiens). Et, parmi elles, Lens l’emporte sur Béthune, qui échappe, du moins à ses débuts, à la place lilloise. Les réseaux d’investisseurs de Lens sont remarquablement stables : ce sont les « grandes familles » du textile et du sucre de la région lilloise. En revanche, le réseau fondateur de Béthune (groupe Boittelle, banquiers de Cambrai) s’efface au profit de nouveaux réseaux, concurrents, venus de Lille et de Paris. Or, à ces deux places correspondent deux modèles de financement opposés : à Lens sont appliquées les méthodes du capitalisme familial du Nord, tandis qu’à Béthune, le financement est étroitement dépendant des marchés boursiers. Mais c’est Lens qui présente les meilleurs résultats financiers et boursiers, ce qui tend à montrer que les « grandes familles » de la région lilloise ont joué un rôle d’investisseur de long terme dans les infrastructures charbonnières en France.
« J’ai l’honneur d’attirer votre attention à mon sujet »
Authors: Lauwers Karen
Published: February 2018

À partir des lettres que Constant Groussau, député du Nord entre 1902 et 1936, a reçues de la part de « citoyens ordinaires », cet article souhaite élargir l’interprétation habituelle de son image. Cette nouvelle approche, qui met l’accent sur la nature interactivement construite de la représentation parlementaire, permet également de jeter une lumière sur les perceptions et les attentes des citoyens au sujet d’un député (et plus largement, de la politique nationale) ainsi que sur leur propre place dans les réseaux sociaux-politiques. Les correspondants de Groussau, pour la plupart, peuvent être divisés en deux groupes : d’un côté, des religieux et des religieuses de différentes régions et même des exilés en Belgique et en Espagne, de l’autre, des victimes (physiques et économiques) de la première guerre mondiale dans les régions envahies. Ces dernières lui écrivirent surtout dans les années 1930, alors que la crise aggravait leur situation et rendait les inégalités encore plus criantes. Cependant, l’image de Groussau, défenseur du Nord, coexistait aisément avec celle du défenseur des catholiques et, souvent, ce dernier rôle continuait de l’emporter. Deux cadres référentiels sont alors présents : celui de la religion et celui du régime politique. Se méfiant du régime français et des partis de gauche ( lato sensu ) – qui avaient promulgué une loi « persécutrice » – plusieurs requérants privilégient le premier même s’ils mentionnent parfois des valeurs générales concordant avec celles de la République, partagées par de nombreux catholiques. Entre ces deux modèles qui peuvent se recouvrir, Groussau, en interaction avec ses correspondants, se profile comme un député accessible, plus facile à contacter à Paris qu’à Lille, apprécié pour son expertise juridique et son influence auprès du gouvernement.
How to Teach CAD/CAE Systems
Authors: Kuna Peter , Hašková Alena , Palaj Miloš , Skačan Miloslav , Záhorec Ján
Published: February 2018

In the traditional methodology of CAD system teaching, one starts with acquirement of technical drawing principles and design of technical schemes and drawings based on manual drawing. Only consequently students learn to draw the schemes and technical drawings in some of the CAD systems. An alternative possibility to teach CAD/CAE systems could be to start immediately with machine element draughts and modelling and to the technical drawing teaching to pay attention only marginally, in a reduced time allocation. A key question related to this, by the authors proposed way of teaching CAD/CAE systems, is whether the reduction of the technical drawing teaching will not have a negative impact on the students` achievements. The answer to this question should be found out from a pedagogical experiment which the authors are going to carry out and a methodology of which is presented in the paper.
Neural Network PID Algorithm for a Class of Discrete-Time Nonlinear Systems
Authors: Kong Huifang , Fang Yao
Published: February 2018

The control of nonlinear system is the hotspot in the control field. The paper proposes an algorithm to solve the tracking and robustness problem for the discrete-time nonlinear system. The completed control algorithm contains three parts. First, the dynamic linearization model of nonlinear system is designed based on Model Free Adaptive Control, whose model parameters are calculated by the input and output data of system. Second, the model error is estimated using the Quasi-sliding mode control algorithm, hence, the whole model of system is estimated. Finally, the neural network PID controller is designed to get the optimal control law. The convergence and BIBO stability of the control system is proved by the Lyapunov function. The simulation results in the linear and nonlinear system validate the effectiveness and robustness of the algorithm. The robustness effort of Quasi-sliding mode control algorithm in nonlinear system is also verified in the paper.
Appraisal of Transactional Data Through Visualisation for SMEs
Authors: Khan Wajid , Selamat Siti Aishah Mohd , Ramachandran Manoharan
Published: February 2018

E-commerce has proven to play a pivotal role in the economy growth. One of the key e-commerce functions is the collection of the vast amount of useful transactional data to help businesses in understanding their consumers' behaviour. With the rapid and large volume of data collected, it is posing a great challenge for businesses to analyse the data on a day-to-day basis. The key issue is not in the generation or collection of data; it is in the manipulation of the collected data to churn out new and insightful information. Information visualisation is an effective tool in converting data into interactive interfaces to unearth hidden trends. It provides a platform to explore the data in a more rapid and intuitive approach. There are several existing techniques to analyse multidimensional data. This chapter seeks to introduce a comprehensive and robust visualisation model and framework for adoption. The visualisation model consists of four major layers, which include acquisition and data analysis, data representation, user and computer interaction, and result storage.
An Analysis of Customers' Acceptance of Internet Banking
Authors: Akgül Yakup
Published: February 2018

The aim of this chapter is to provide insights into the causal factor of people's internet banking acceptance. It endeavors to address a research need for extending the technology acceptance model (TAM) by adding contextual variables and its implication on e-customer satisfaction and e-customer loyalty. As trust and service quality has never failed to be a significant predictor in e-commerce research, this study proposes to integrate trust and service quality into the TAM to get a better understanding of e-banking adoption. A research model reflecting the effect of e-trust and internet banking service quality dimensions on TAM constructs is proposed.
Measuring the Service Quality of Services
Authors: Vashishth Abhishek , Chakraborty Ayon
Published: February 2018

SERVQUAL and e-SERVQUAL have been considered the most effective and powerful approaches in evaluating the quality and gaps in the service delivered in traditional and electronic services, respectively, but neither SERVQUAL nor e-SERVQUAL can measure the overall service quality of the firm. Therefore, this chapter aims to propose and test a new scale that can measure the overall service quality of the firm.
Successful Computer Forensics Analysis on the Cyber Attack Botnet
Authors: Leelasankar Kavisankar , C. Chellappan , P. Sivasankar
Published: February 2018

The success of computer forensics lies in the complete analysis of the evidence that is available. This is done by not only analyzing the evidence which is available but also searching for new concrete evidence. The evidence is obtained through the logs of the data during the cyberattack. When performing analysis of the cyberattack especially the botnet attacks, there are many challenges. First and the foremost is that it hides the identity of the mastermind, the botmaster. It issues the command to be executed using its subordinate, the command and control (C&C). The traceback of C&C itself is a complex task. Secondly, it victimizes the innocent compromised device zombies. This chapter discusses the analysis done in both proactive and reactive ways to resolve these challenges. The chapter ends by discussing the analysis to find the real mastermind to protect the innocent compromised system and to protect the victim system/organization affected by the botnet cyberattack.
A Collective Consciousness Model in a Post-Media Society
Authors: Mayo Sherry
Published: February 2018

During the twentieth century, the modern media was born and viewed as an industrial factory-model machine. These powerful media such as film, radio, and television transmitted culture to the passive masses. These art forms were divorced of ritual and authenticity and were reproduced to reinforce their prowess. In the twenty-first century post-media condition, a process of convergence and evolution toward a social consciousness, facilitated by a many-to-many social network strategy, is underway. Web 2.0 technologies are a catalyst toward an emergence of a collectivist aesthetic consciousness. As the prophecy of a post-industrial society becomes fulfilled, a post-media society emerges whose quest is for knowledge dependent upon economy that barters information. This chapter identifies a conceptual model of this recent paradigmatic shift and to identify some of the possibilities that are emerging.
Rapid Product Development and Application in Ceramics Production
Authors: Olalere Folasayo Enoch
Published: February 2018

This chapter practically investigates how rapid prototyping technology can be effectively adopted to enhance ceramics production. The researcher used an experimental approach that analysed the conventional methods used in ceramics production and then introduced computer-aided design tools (CAD) and rapid prototyping technology into the development process. After that, four ceramic products were developed to test the viability of the rapid production process. Finally, the process was evaluated and compared to the conventional methods. The findings revealed that the introduction of CAD and rapid prototyping technology into the development process reduces the development time and also helps to ensure the accuracy of the prototypes produced. Besides, visualising and validating the design digitally (CAD models) also helps to identify possible faults at the early stage of the development process. Therefore, the ideas explored in this chapter will give insight to ceramics designers and artisans on how they can effectively eliminate bottlenecks in the production process.
Population and Global Food Security
Authors: Tiwari Supriya , Vaish Barkha , Singh Pooja
Published: February 2018

Global food security is one if the major issues that needs utmost attention of the scientific community in near future. The growing food demand of the society is putting enormous pressure on the resources over which the food supply of the civilization depends. The two major components affecting the global food security are population and global climate change. The rate at which the population of the World is increasing, the food production needs to be doubled to meet the growing requirements. Consequences of global climate change not only reduce the productivity of major staple crops, but also cause destruction of the arable land that can be used for agricultural purposes. The present chapter discusses the effects of population increase and climate change upon food production, which will play a significant role in food security around the globe in near future.
Impact of Global Climate Change on Potato Diseases and Strategies for Their Mitigation
Authors: Lal Mehi , Yadav Saurabh , Pant Rajendra Prasad , Dua Vijay Kumar , Singh B. P. , Kaushik Surinder Kumar
Published: February 2018

The quality and quantity of the potatoes produced is directly affected by the climatic factors that prevailed during the crop season. It is also well established that abiotic and biotic stresses cause tremendous losses to the crop. Host plants and their pathogens are prone to various climatic factors like temperature, relative humidity, rainfall and CO2 which are behaving in erratic manner. Phytophthora infestans has adapted itself at higher temperature so there are chances to spread at a larger area. The other potato diseases like early blight, bacterial wilt, soft rot and viral diseases may also behave differently at elevated temperature and high rainfall. Viral diseases of potato are serious threat to potato industry as most of the viruses are transmitted by vectors and vector populations are bound to increase with these changed climatic conditions. Therefore, potato researchers need to simulate these conditions and devise mitigation strategies for sustained potato production.
An Overview of Climate Change and Impacts on Food Security in Small Island Developing States
Authors: Roberts T. Grady , Rodriguez Mary T.
Published: February 2018

Our climate is changing and this will impact food security around the world. The impacts from climate change will not be evenly felt around the world. Some of the most vulnerable areas will be coastal zones and island territories. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are especially vulnerable. This chapter provides an overview of climate change, discusses climate change projections, and then highlights specific regional climate change projections. It then discusses how SIDS can respond to climate change, introduces gender as a variable to consider when discussing climate change, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of monitoring and evaluation.
The Art of Climate Change
Authors: Smilan Cathy
Published: February 2018

A multi-faceted assignment in a course, Feminist Perspectives of Craft, guided students to investigate the thesis that global warming and climate change are feminist concerns using research, debate, studio inquiry and critique. After team debates, students created individual art pieces; the criteria were that the piece must articulate some aspect of the implications of climate change, human interaction with and responsibility for the environment, and include one or more aspects of the textile techniques that we were exploring in class. Living in a New England coastal community built upon fiber craft, textile and seafaring industry, these elements guided visual art exploration and lesson planning questioning how human interaction with the environment sustains the economy and how societies, in turn, must sustain our earth that provides for the community. Critiques of process and final artwork informed lesson planning about how decisions have far reaching impact extending to the global community.
Impact of Climate Change on the Retreat of Himalayan Glaciers and Its Impact on Major River Hydrology
Authors: Singh Ram Karan
Published: February 2018

Himalayan Glaciers are the largest freshwater resource on earth and the rivers originating from them are an important source of water. They significantly modify stream flow both in quantity and timing as annual basin run-off is enhanced or decreased in years of negative or positive glacier mass balance respectively. Although glacial advances and retreats are a part of its natural cyclic phenomenon, the rate of de-glaciations has accelerated in recent times due to climatic changes and global warming caused by anthropogenic activities. Some of the important glaciers of Himalayas are receding at an alarming rate, which could have dire consequences on river hydrology of the main rivers of this region namely, Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra, initially causing floods and the paradoxically, scarcity of water later. This chapter is an attempt to summarize some of the studies on Himalayan glacier retreats and also to assess its impact on the availability of freshwater in the sub-continent.
Efficient Golden-Ball Algorithm Based Clustering to solve the Multi-Depot VRP With Time Windows
Authors: Guezouli Lahcene , Bensakhria Mohamed , Abdelhamid Samir
Published: February 2018

In this article, the authors propose a decision support system which aims to optimize the classical Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem by considering the existence of multiple available depots and a time window which must not be violated, that they call the Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window (MDVRPTW), and with respecting a set of criteria including: schedules requests from clients, the capacity of vehicles. The authors solve this problem by proposing a recently published technique based on soccer concepts, called Golden Ball (GB), with different solution representation from the original one, this technique was designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems, and by embedding a clustering algorithm. Computational results have shown that the approach produces acceptable quality solutions compared to the best previous results in similar problem in terms of generated solutions and processing time. Experimental results prove that the proposed Golden Ball algorithm is efficient and effective to solve the MDVRPTW problem.
Image Processing Based Colorectal Cancer Detection in Histopathological Images
Authors: Banwari Anamika , Sengar Namita , Dutta Malay Kishore
Published: February 2018

The article proposes an image processing-based automatic methodology for early diagnosis of colorectal cancer. In pathology, staining and sectioning of tissues are routinely used as a primary technique to detect cancer. In this methodology, the colorectal gland tissues are segmented by using adaptive threshold method. Also, it includes an analysis of geometrical features of colorectal tissues as well as it does classification of cancerous cells which classify the cancerous and non-cancerous cell efficiently. The classification is based on discriminatory geometrical features which gives good result. Unlike existing methods, it quantifies lumen and epithelial cells only in the ROI, which makes this method computationally efficient. Automatic supervised classification is accomplished on the extracted discriminatory features using support vector machine classifier. The proposed methodology segments and classifies the cancerous / non-cancerous region with an accuracy of 93.74%. The proposed method is also computationally fast which makes it suitable for real time applications.
C̆ech Fuzzy Soft Closure Spaces
Authors: Majeed Rasha Naser
Published: February 2018

In this paper, the C̆ech fuzzy soft closure spaces are defined and their basic properties are studied. Closed (respectively, open) fuzzy soft sets is defined in C̆ech fuzzy-soft closure spaces. It has been shown that for each C̆ech fuzzy soft closure space there is an associated fuzzy soft topological space. In addition, the concepts of a subspace and a sum are defined in C̆ech fuzzy soft closure space. Finally, fuzzy soft continuous (respectively, open and closed) mapping between C̆ech fuzzy soft closure spaces are introduced. Mathematics Subject Classification: 54A40, 54B05, 54C05.
Evaluating Factors Motivate Users on Green IT Readiness (Part 2)
Authors: Alsultanny Yas A. , Alnassar Fatma M.
Published: February 2018

Due to the advancement of information and communications technology, most of the businesses and services have transformed into an e-businesses and e-services. The organizations are facing a great deal of pressure from regulators to move toward green IT. The aim of this article is to evaluate the factors affecting on green IT readiness from the perspective of IT users, a questionnaire designed for this purpose. The questionnaire divided into two parts, the first part for demographics information, and the second part contains 34 statements divided into 6 factors. There are 460 respondents to the questionnaire. The results of the data analysis showed that the factors, technology and attitude have an agreed degree of agreement, while the practice, policy, governance, and green IT readiness have a neutral degree of agreement. The governance factor has the highest effect on green IT readiness. The article recommends the ministries of electricity must be increasing the awareness for green IT as part of their awareness for power consumption saving.
Wind Turbine Remote Maintenance With Wearable Technologies
Authors: Ünal Buket Celik , Ünal Onur
Published: February 2018

This article describes how the renewable energy sector is increasing in size and wind turbine technology has improved. With the development of internet technology maintenance efficiency has improved. Maintenance is a core activity of the production life cycle since it accounts for 60 to 70% of its total costs. This has led to increased need for maintenance planning and the implementation of new technologies. Shared vision system (SVS) is another enabling technology used for dealing with the increasingly complex maintenance procedures. The main objective of this article is to develop a SVS technology for remote maintenance by enabling cooperation between the technician and the expert. The system represents a solution within the intersection of the areas of problem solving and remote support in the context of collaborative work. As a test case application to show the potential of a SVS considering the following targets: improve time taken to complete maintenance tasks and improve the communication between the technician and the expert.
Using Markov Theory to Deliver Informed Decisions in Partially Observable Business Processes Operation
Authors: Guerreiro Sérgio
Published: February 2018

This article explores the stochastic capabilities offered by Markov theories combined with business transaction models, from the Enterprise Engineering field, to contribute to the decision-making body of knowledge. An agro-food case study shows the utility of this solution and the evaluation argues the management decisions value in situations where is not possible to fully observe the state of the reality, or to be fully aware about it. A full policy graph that forecasts the belief states from observations and enacted actions is delivered.
Reconstructing Christchurch: Quantitative Findings on Shift in Building Structural Systems
Authors: Bruneau Michel , MacRae Gregory A.
Published: February 2018

After the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes, much of the Christchurch Central Business District (CBD) was demolished and a new city has emerged in its place. A series of interviews conducted with key professionals involved with the reconstruction, together with data collected from various sources has made it possible to identify some of the drivers that have influenced decisions about the selection of structural material and specific structural systems used. Here, quantitative results obtained from this study are presented, in terms of structural systems, size of building in terms of square foot, as a function of time since the earthquake. The Christchurch rebuilding experience is most significant, providing a unique insight into some of the mechanisms that can dictate structural engineering decisions during the post-earthquake reconstruction of a modern city.
Innovative Suspended Superstructure for the Retrofitting of a Steel Truss Railway Bridge
Authors: Mezzi Marco , Nestovito Gianluca , Petrella Paolo , Cefaliello Vincenzo
Published: February 2018

The bridge in Poggio Renatico crossing the Reno river on the railway line between Bologna and Ferrara, consists of steel decks supported by masonry abutments and piers, while foundations and pier caps are made of reinforced concrete. After the 2012 Emilia Earthquake and accounting for the fluvial erosion below the piers foundations, a structural assessment of the bridge was carried out in accordance with to the current Italian rules. Although a sufficient structure capacity against the actual transit loads resulted, the bridge showed some inadequacies with respect to the load models provided by both the national standard for constructions and the guidelines of the Italian railway network company. The retrofitting project consists of an improvement of the structural capacity of all the elements: girders, piers and abutments. An innovative retrofitting solution provides for the strengthening of the existing decks through a suspension system of cables anchored to steel towers standing on both abutments and piers and creating a kind of suspended bridge. The retrofitting is compatible with the normal scheduled interruptions of the rail traffic thereby reducing the maintenance costs of the railway system. The structural solution represents a model easily replicable to solve analogous situations along the railway network.
Seismic Behavior Investigation of Prefabricated Steel Industrial Buildings
Authors: Korkmaz Kasim A. , Uzer Musa
Published: February 2018

Prefabricated steel industrial buildings are designed with design standards against to earthquake loads. Several lateral systems are used to increase the strength of steel industrial buildings against earthquake loads. Most commonly used systems are braced frame systems. In the braced frame systems, the most important problem is the buckling of these members under compression loads. Currently, the cost for buckling restrained braced frame systems are too high. For steel industrial buildings, the buildings` cost are calculated by considering unit weight of steel. The main cost of the building is based on manufacturing of steel and erection of the building. On the other hand, masonry infilled wall systems are preferred to protect the inside. Masonry infill walls are the structural members resisting to compression loads. Masonry infill walls are commonly rigid systems on contrary to braced frame systems since the masonry infill walls are constructed during the both axes. The aim of this study is to evaluate the seismic behavior of prefabricated steel industrial buildings. These industrial buildings were considered in various combinations as bare, with tension strand systems as braced frame members and masonry infill walls which are used to resist lateral forces. Behavior of tension strand systems used as lateral resistance in prefabricated steel buildings comparing to bare and infill walled ones have been investigated. In the models with tension strand systems, various diameters and pretension loads were used for investigation of various cases of structural system.
Beam Web-Side-Plate Connection Axial Performance
Authors: Alizadeh Saeid , MacRae Gregory A. , Bull Des , Clifton George Charles
Published: February 2018

A number of beam web side plate connection configurations are analyzed under monotonic axial force. Parameters investigated include (i) gravity loads causing a beam shear up to 60% of the capacity, (ii) column lateral drift, (iii) beam lateral restraint along the length, (iv) packing effect represent the practice when plates do not align perfectly, and (v) cope length. For the analyses conducted, gravity shear forces up to 0.6 times of the cleat plate gross shear capacity, reduced the connection compressive axial strength by up to 15% compared to connections without gravity loads. The connection axial strength varied by 10% with lateral drifts of up to 2% and the increase or decrease depended on the relative directions of drift and axial force. Also, axial strength of double-coped WSP connection decreased linearly with increasing the cope length. Other parameters were found to have less than 2% effect on the web side plate axial strength. A general simple design method to assess axial strength of these connections is proposed.
Required Column Overdesign Factor of 3D Steel Moment Frames with Square Tube Columns
Authors: Chan Iathong , Koetaka Yuji
Published: February 2018

Steel moment frames are designed to ensure sufficient energy absorption capacity by achieving an entire beam-hinging collapse mechanism against severe earthquakes. Therefore, the column overdesign factor is stipulated in seismic design codes in some countries. For example in Japanese seismic design code, the specified column overdesign factor is 1.5 or more for steel moment frames with square tube columns. And this paper describes seismic response by 3D analysis of steel moment frames, and presents seismic demand for the column overdesign factor to keep the damage of square tube columns below the specified limit of plastic deformation. The major parameters are column overdesign factor, horizontal load bearing capacity, shape of frames and input direction of ground motion. In order to investigate 3D behavior of frames and correlation between plastic deformation of columns and column over design factor, apparent column overdesign factor, which is defined as the ratio of full plastic moment of the column (s) to the full plastic moment of the beam (s) projected in the input direction of the ground motion, is introduced. From the earthquake response analysis, it is clarified that the profile of maximum value of cumulative plastic deformation of columns to apparent column overdesign factor, with the similar horizontal load bearing capacity, are nearly identical regardless of number of stories, floor plan, and input direction of ground motion. As a result, the required column overdesign factor to keep the damage of columns below the limit of plastic deformation is proposed under the reliability index of 2.
Buckling Behavior of Circular Steel Tubes under Fire
Authors: Seo Ji Hye , Won Deok Hee , Park Woo Sun , Kim Seung Jun
Published: February 2018

Recently, several lives were lost because of the collapse of structures under fire. Steel members are mainly used in the columns and beams of buildings for improving construction efficiency. The fire resistance of steel structure is very important because when it don’t have fire resistive covering, it rapidly changes with high temperature. In fire resistance design of steel, steel structure must have fire resistive covering. But many facilities as temporary facilities, parking lot don’t have it. The buckling behavior of steel structures under fire is also significant because it can cause local buckling failure through the reduction in structural material properties by temperature. In this study, the elastic buckling behavior of a circular steel tube under fire was investigated using finite element analysis. The parameters for this analysis used were, diameter–thickness ratio, fire exposure area, and fire scenarios. The elastic buckling strength of circular steel tube rapidly decreased when subjected to the fire curve. Local buckling occurred and this can lead to global failure. When fire resistance design of circular steel tube was performed, buckling behavior must be considered.
Effects of Changing Double Angles Configuration Used as Braces in Seismic Resisting Systems
Authors: Bermudez Carlos , Gutierrez Oscar
Published: February 2018

Seismic resisting systems consisting of double angles are used in many parts of the world. Generally, these double angles are arranged in the shape of a T, with a very small distance between them. However, sometimes these angles are distanced and faced in order to improve their mechanical characteristics about the axis of symmetry. In the past, their design was made in the same way as the double angles arranged in a T shape, that is, considering the limit states of flexural buckling and buckling by flexural-torsional, but ignoring the properties of the connectors and their effect on the modified slenderness ratio, as well as the fact that in this case the warping constant is not negligible. These parameters are taken into account in this research in order to study the effects of increasing the distance between the connectors and their possible use as braces in seismic resisting systems. The theoretical results were compared with the experimental results of fifty-seven specimens tested in the laboratory of structures of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Sede Manizales. The models were classified according to the main angles, the connectors, the total lengths, and the width of separation. All of them were subjected to axial compressive stress, with free rotation at both ends. Three identical specimens of each model were constructed. The flexural buckling length about x-axis was limited to two meters in all specimens tested whereas the flexural bucking length about y-axis and flexural-torsional buckling length were not limited, i.e. these lengths are equivalent to the total length of each specimen tested. This in order that the critical limit state was to be the flexural-torsional buckling as a function of the torsional buckling term in Z, except in the models of class 2 in which this induced condition was not reached. This was proposed to better evaluate the torsional buckling term in Z. The experimental results show that the nominal compressive strength for the flexural-torsional buckling limit state, when it is governed by torsion, is undervalued. A new methodology is proposed for the calculation of the nominal compressive strength for the flexural-torsional buckling limit state, when it is governed by torsion.
Seismic Testing of the Connecting Joint in a Buckling-Restrained K-Braced RC Frame
Authors: Wu An Chien , Tsai Keh Chyuan , Lin Ting Li
Published: February 2018

In this study, a 12-story reinforced concrete (RC) building with buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) arranged in a zigzag configuration is proposed as a prototype building. The beam-column joint at the tenth floor selected as the sub-assemblage specimen and its details including the BRB gusset bracket and RC corbels were designed following the model building codes. The full-scale sub-assemblage of the structural system was tested using cyclic loading procedure. Test results show that the proposed BRB-to-RC connection details performed very well without failure in the steel gusset bracket or the RC corbels. In order to further study the seismic performance of the 12-story buckling-restrained braced RC frame, nonlinear response history analyses are conducted using a total of 240 (SLE, DBE and MCE) ground accelerations. Analysis results indicate that the maximum ratios of total BRB shear to base shear are about 23% (SLE), 21% (DBE) and 19% (MCE). The maximum inter-story drift ratios under MCE and DBE events are 2.32% and 1.82%, respectively. Analysis results also suggest that the high mode effect is not significant. It is found that the peak demand of the horizontal tension force on the steel gusset bracket can be estimated by considering 70% of the sum of the two horizontal force components computed from the two adjacent BRB maximum tension strengths.
Experimental Testing and Design of High Performance Shear Links for Eccentrically Braced Frames
Authors: Volynkin-Ewens Dimitry , Clifton George Charles , Dusicka Peter
Published: February 2018

Steel links inside Eccentrically Braced Frames (EBFs) can be classified as either short, intermediate or long. The more commonly used short links yield primarily in shear and dissipate incoming energy inside the web of the link. Advances in shear link research and industry practice, particularly the increased use of bolted links, have allowed greater freedom in the design of the link section, as the section used can be decoupled from the collector beam section. Seven shear link specimens were tested inside a full scale EBF set up, and were subjected to AISC’s 2005 shear link loading protocol. Increasing levels of rotation were applied to links of varied cross-sections and intermediate stiffener spacings. Links with low web aspect ratios performed to a higher rotation than past research would have suggested, and when intermediate stiffeners were removed, they performed to an even higher rotation. Recommendations for design are presented, including a relaxation of the stiffener spacing equations when web aspect ratio criteria are met. A provision is also included to allow greater rotational ductilities in EBF frames with low web aspect shear links.
Experimental Verification of Design Models in a Static and Dynamic Loading Test
Authors: Kvocak Vincent , Dubecky Daniel , Kozlejova Viktoria
Published: February 2018

Nowadays more and more often investors and constructors are building constructions by combining two of the most common materials: reinforced concrete and steel. By understanding their behavior we can squeeze a mountain of used material with better results. They make it possible to take advantage of good mechanical properties of concrete in compression and steel in tension. One of the commonest types of composite structures is deck bridges with encased filler beams. These types of construction have been employed in Slovakia and all over Europe without any major change since the beginning of the 19th century. Several steel sections of modified shapes and dimensions were designed and tested in the Laboratories of the Institute of Structural Engineering at the Technical University in Košice. The main goal was to design and experiment with deck bridges made of various sections so as to maximise their cost-effectiveness by reducing the amount of steel consumed. Based on theoretical analyses, specimens were prepared in the laboratory, consisting of a variety of fully encased steel sections. It was cast into the prepared steel formwork placed on a fixed bearing plate so as to prevent deflection of composite beams during the concreting process.