Multi-Objective Relief Distribution System Model for Volcano Disaster Victims

Because of its location in the ring of fire, Indonesia has around 30% of all volcanoes in the world. After the volcano erupted, the area around the volcano was damaged and many people lost their houses, jobs, and possibilities to live in there. Before the volcano erupts, people who live around the volcano must be evacuated as soon as possible to one of the available shelters. In the shelters, drinking water, food, and medicine are needed by victims who were evacuated to survive aftermath of a disaster. To distribute reliefs to all shelters effectively, we developed a multi-objective relief distribution model. This distribution system model aims to determine the allocation of various types of relief items to several shelters with a minimum total cost and balanced service level between locations. This multiobjective relief distribution model considered multi-item, multi-period, multi-vehicle, and multi-trip by using a pre-emptive goal programming approach. This optimization model was applied to the numerical example based on Semeru Mount as the highest active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is located in Lumajang, East Java

Data-driven prediction modeling for part attributes and process monitoring in additive manufacturing

The first study aimed to use artificial neural networks (ANN) to predict how process parameters would affect the part attributes in an extrusion-based additive manufacturing (AM) process. The study involved parts fabrication using an orthogonal array experimental design with five process parameters at three levels: building orientation, print speed, extrusion temperature, deposition direction, and layer thickness. The fabricated parts were measured for dimensional accuracy, surface roughness, and tensile strength. These attributes were then used to train, validate, and test multilayer ANN models. Three of the four ANN models were for predicting each of the three-part qualities separately, while the fourth was for combining all three attributes. Regarding RMSE and correlation coefficient, the findings showed that the individual part attribute ANN models outperformed the model for combining three attributes. To determine which parameters had a higher impact on the individual part qualities, comparisons between the individual part attributes with respect to the process parameters were made. The trained ANN models can forecast and optimize the part properties in extrusion-based AM processes. The second research developed a new method of collecting time series data for process monitoring in a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) system using wireless sensors to predict the machine bed angular velocity of FFF using the Vanilla Long Short-Term Memory (VLSTM) network. With two levels, the printer speed and deposition direction of the nozzle head were used in this study following a full factorial experimental design to investigate their effects on machine vibration during printing. Time series machine bed angular velocity data were collected and used to train and test the proposed VLSTM network. Adam optimizer and VLSTM networks with four cells generated the best training accuracy after 100 epochs. One developed VLSTM model was used to train and test the network by inserting four-time series machine bed angular velocity data. Then four-time series simulation results were investigated to analyze the outputs of our developed and trained model. Simulation and experimental results were analyzed using root mean square error (RMSE). Practical data analysis concluded that the deposition direction of the nozzle head and printer speed both significantly affected the angular velocity of the printer bed. The developed VLSTM model can be used to predict the FFF printer bed angular velocity having different unexplored printer speeds and deposition directions, which will eventually help predict the quality of the printed parts through machine vibration analysis

تدريس علم العقيدة الإسلامية وفق منهج المتكلمين في نظر أبو حامد الغزالي من خلال كتابه الاقتصاد في الاعتقاد

علم العقيدة من أشرف العلوم الإسلامية لاتصالها بالمعتقدات المسلم التي بها ينجو في دنياه وأخراه. بالنظر إلى مناهج تدريس هذا العلم قد اشتهر منذ عدة قرون منهج المتكلمين الذي اشتهر على يد أبو الحسن الأشعري وأبو منصور الماتريدي واشتهرت بمنهج الأشاعرة، ومنهج الحنابلة أو المسمى بأهل الحديث. من البديهيات المسلمة أن علم العقيدة يجب تعلمها لجميع الأمة بلا استثناء، لكن الإشكالية تكمن في مقدار التي لا يسع على المسلم جهله. بينما يدعي بعض من ينتسبون إلى الأشاعرة يجب دراسة علم العقيدة وفق منهج المتكلمين وإلا لا تصح عقيدة المسلم وعلى هذا الأساس لا تقبل عبادته وأعدوها من الفروض العينية، ويرفض الآخرون بحجة أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم لم يسلك هذا المسلك من التفريعات في علم الكلام ولا أمر به أصحابه رضوان الله عليهم أجمعين. وعلى هذا يهدف هذا البحث استكشاف ما يراه حجة الإسلام الإمام الغزالي تجاه هذه القضية الشائكة. فمعرفة رأي الغزالي مهم وفي رأي الباحث يحسم هذه الإشكالية، فالعزالي مشهور بأحد علماء الكبار الذين اشتغلوا بعلم العقيدة، واشتهر في سلوك منهج المتكلمين كما تلقاه عن شيخه الإمام الحرمين. وسبب اختيار كتاب الاقتصاد في الاعتقاد للغزالي لأنه مشهور بعمدة الباب في العقيدة على طريقة المتكلمين ورتب الغزالي أبواب الكتاب على طريقتها. وتبنت الجامعات الإسلامية بما فيها الكلية التربية بالجامعة الإسلامية العالمية ماليزيا من ضمن المراجع الأساسية لتدريس مادة العقيدة الإسلامية. اختار الباحث المنهج الوصفي من خلال استخدام مراجعة أدبيات البحث الممنهجة systematical literature review للوصول إلى الغرض المنشود لأنها دقيقة في نتائجها ومميزة. وتوصل البحث إلى أن الغزالي قسم الناس في حاجة تعلم هذا العلم إلى أربعة أقسام، وفصل كل قسم منهم المقدار من المعرفة الذي يحتاجون إليها. وكذلك أصدر حكما شرعيا لتعلم هذا العلم على كل من هذه الأقسام المذكورة. يوصي الباحث مراجعة وبناء منهج تدريس علم العقيدة سواء في المدارس أو الجامعات أو دروس المساجد وفق ما يراه الغزالي، فليس كل ما يعلم يقال، وليس كل ما يقال حضر وقته وأناسه، وخاطبوا الناس على قدر عقولهم خوفا أن يكذب الله ورسوله

Estudi de la coautoria de publicacions científiques entre UPC i institucions de Xina

S'analitza la coautoria de la UPC amb autors vinculats a institucions de Xina, per totes les areas temàtiques i sense considerar límits cronològics o documentals.Postprint (author’s final draft

Proceedings of Junior Researcher Workshop on Real-Time Computing

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Junior Researcher Workshop on Real-Time Computing 2007, which is held conjointly with the 15th conference on Real-Time and Network Systems (RTNS'07). The first successful edition was held conjointly with the French Summer School on Real-Time Systems 2005 (http://etr05.loria.fr). Its main purpose is to bring together junior researchers (Ph.D. students, postdoc, ...) working on real-time systems. This workshop is a good opportunity to present our works and share ideas with other junior researchers and not only, since we will present our work to the audience of the main conference. In response to the call for papers, 14 papers were submitted and the international Program Committee provided detailed comments to improve these work-in-progress papers. We hope that our remarks will help the authors to submit improved long versions of theirs papers to the next edition of RTNS. JRWRTC'07 would not be possible without the generous contribution of many volunteers and institutions which supported RTNS'07. First, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to our sponsors for their financial support : Conseil Général de Meuthe et Moselle, Conseil Régional de Lorraine, Communauté Urbaine du Grand Nancy, Université Henri Poincaré, Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine and LORIA and INRIA Lorraine. We are thankful to Pascal Mary for authorizing us to use his nice picture of “place Stanislas” for the proceedings and web site (many others are available at www.laplusbelleplacedumonde.com). Finally, we are most grateful to the local organizing committee that helped to organize the conference

The association between brand equity and consumer perceptions of smartphones among millennials in Pietermaritzburg.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Mobile technologies, particularly smartphones, have become an essential part of millennials’ lives. It is imperative to understand the fundamental building blocks of the influence that brand equity and consumer perceptions have on the purchasing decisions made by millennials in the long haul. Therefore, offering and designing attractive smartphones is crucial to increasing sales and revenue in the mobile industry, especially because the purchasing decision of millennials is still indecipherable and hybrid. The purpose of this study is to determine the key brand equity associations between consumer perceptions of smartphones among millennials at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg) campus. This study employed a quantitative research approach. A sample of 165 students, between the ages of 24 and 39, who have a smartphone were selected to represent the population. The data collection process was conducted by means of analysing the respective constructs of this study. Furthermore, the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was employed in this study. Descriptive statistics were presented in the form of graphs and tables, while cross tabulations and chi-square tests were used to present inferential statistics. Lastly, the essence of reliability was tested through Cronbach Alpha statistics. The findings of the study indicated that all key concepts were positively correlated, meaning that a relationship exists between the variables. There were moderate correlations between brand awareness and brand association (r=.537), brand loyalty (r=.518), brand image (r=.558), perceived quality (r=.604), product packaging (r=.649), online and offline presence (r=.538) as well as overall brand equity (r=.540). Weak correlations were shown between brand awareness and product pricing (r=.317) as well as brand values and ethics (r=.354). On the other hand, brand association was highly correlated with brand loyalty (r=.806), brand image (r=.745), perceived quality (r=.722), and overall brand equity (r=.744). The results obtained in this study had revealed that the overall brand equity in the smartphone industry continues to grow rapidly and the offering in the market becomes more multifaceted. Therefore, it is imperative that organisations incorporate more than just the handset and the whole package from software systems, applications, and network services. Most significantly, it is imperative to understand the fundamental building blocks of the influence that brand equity and consumer perceptions has on the purchasing decisions amongst millennials in the long haul. Hence, offering and designing attractive smartphones are crucial to increase sales and revenue in the mobile industry, especially since smartphones' purchasing decision among millennials is still indecipherable and hybrid. Keywords: Brand equity, consumer perceptions, smartphones, millennials, University of KwaZulu- Natal, Pietermaritzburg, brand awareness, brand association, brand image, perceived quality, brand loyalty, product pricing, product packaging and brand values and ethics