Stability Verification of Nearly Periodic Impulsive Linear Systems using Reachability Analysis

International audienceThe paper provides stability analysis to certain classes of hybrid systems, more precisely impulsive linear systems. This analysis is conducted using the notion of reachable set. The main contribution in this work is the derivation of theoretical necessary and sufficient conditions for impulsive linear systems with nearly periodic resets subject to timing contracts. This characterization serves as the basis of a computational method for the stability verification of the considered class of systems. In addition, we show how this work handles the problem of timing contract synthesis for the considered class and we generalize our approach to verify stability of impulsive linear systems with stochastic reset instants. Applications on sampled-data control systems and comparisons with existing results are then discussed, showing the effectiveness of our approach

Determinants of Financial Performance of Jordan Islamic Bank

The ever-increasing importance of financial performance to companies in coupled with global and domestic competitions, increasing cost and decreasing profitability was the impetus for this study. Despite the copious number of statistical failure prediction models described in the literature, testing of whether such methodologies work in practice are lacking. This Study examines the determinants of financial performance of Jordan Islamic Bank (JIB) during the period 2000-2012. The financial performance (Dependent variable) is measured by Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Return on Unrestricted Investment Accounts (ROUIA). On the other hand, the Independent variables are divided to two categories which are macroeconomic variables and bank specificfactors. Macroeconomic variables are inflation rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and Unemployment rate. Bank specific factors are total income divided by total assets, equity ratio, debt ratio, bank size, and liquidity ratio. Firstly, the researchers  found that there is significance level and positive relationship between ROA on one hand. Inflation, equity ratio, and bank size on the other hand. Also, there is not significant but positive relationship between ROA and GDP. On the other hand, there is significance level and negative relationship between ROA and unemployment rate, and Debt ratio. Moreover, there is insignificance level and negative relationship between ROA and total income to total assets, and liquidity ratio. Secondly, the analysis revealed that there is significance level and positive relationship between ROE on one hand. Inflation and bank size on the other hand. Moreover, there is not significance level but positive relationship between ROE and GDP, equity ratio, and liquidity ratio. We noticed significance level and negative relationship between ROE and unemployment rate, but ROE is insignificant and negative relationship with total income to total assets, and debt ratio. Finally, the analysis revealed that there is significance level and positive relationship between ROUIA and GDP. Moreover, we noticed that there is insignificance level and positive relationship between ROUIA and inflation rate, total income to total assets, equity ratio, and bank size. On the other hand, there is significance level but negative relationship between ROUIA and unemployment rate. Also, there is insignificance level and negative relationship between ROUIA and debt ratio, and liquidity ratio.

Determinants of Financial Performance for the Banks Sector in Jordan

This study contributes to analyze a very important sector in Jordan which is banking sector. This process will be revealed by analyzing the determinants of financial performance for the banks' sector in Jordan during the period 2012- 2016. Return on Assets (ROA) was an indicator to measure the financial performance as dependent variable. On the other side, the independent variables were represented by microeconomic variables and macroeconomic variables. According to this study, microeconomic variables were liquidity quick ratio, cash and investments to total deposits, net credit facilities to total deposits, debt ratio, and profit margin.  In addition to that, macroeconomic variables were Gross Domestic Product growth rate (GDP), inflation rate, and unemployment rate as a percentage of total labor force.After conducting the statistical analysis, there was an impact of profit margin on return on assets at 1% significance level. The study inferred from that there were no impact of the rest of microeconomic variables and macroeconomic variables as well on the financial performance indicator. So, the study recommended banks sector in Jordan to focus and analyze the profit margin beside to analyze the changes in other independent indicators to improve the financial performance for banks sector in Jordan.   Â

Adapting And Enhancing Hybrid Computational Methods For RNA Secondary Structure Prediction

The secondary structure of RNA with pseudoknots is widely utilized for tracing the RNA tertiary structure, which is a key to understanding the functions of the RNAs and their useful roles in developing drugs for viral diseases. Experimental methods for determining RNA tertiary structure are time consuming and tedious. Therefore, predictive computational approaches are required. Predicting the most accurate and energy-stable pseudoknot RNA secondary structure has been proven to be an NP-hard problem. This thesis presents a hybrid method to predict the RNA pseudoknot secondary structures by combining detection methods with dynamic programming algorithms

An innovative approach for enhancing capacity utilization in point-to-point voice over internet protocol calls

Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calls are increasingly transported over computer-based networking due to several factors, such as low call rates. However, point-to-point (P-P) calls, as a division of VoIP, are encountering a capacity utilization issue. The main reason for that is the giant packet header, especially when compared to the runt P-P calls packet payload. Therefore, this research article introduced a method to solve the liability of the giant packet header of the P-P calls. The introduced method is named voice segment compaction (VSC). The VSC method employs the unneeded P-P calls packet header elements to carry the voice packet payload. This, in turn, reduces the size of the voice payload and improves network capacity utilization. The preliminary results demonstrated the importance of the introduced VSC method, while network capacity improved by up to 38.33%

Hardware architectures & designs for projective elliptic curves point addition operation using variable levels of parallelism

Although ECC protocol is considered one of the most secure schemes for information security; it also suffers in its arithmetic computations from the modular inversion operation which is known to be time consuming operation. In the addition operation, Many ECC designs that use projective coordinates over GF (p) have not considered a balance between area, hardware utilization, and performance factors which is important in many ECC applications. In this research we proposed to use the projective coordinates systems to compute the ECC point addition operation with no inversion operations due to the ability to convert each inversion to several multiplication operations that can be applied in parallel. We also present several architectures and design choices for point addition operation that will help to build ECC Coprocessor. These architectures consider different levels of parallelism which may give different choices in ECC design in terms of time and space. This paper proposes the different hardware architectures to design ECC Processor by varying the degree of parallelization benefiting from the inherent parallelism for ECC addition operation. It was shown that the throughput of the design with 4 parallel multipliers enhanced the system performance by 400% and 340% for both projections (X/Z, Y/Z), and (X/Z2, Y/Z3) respectively while the design with 5 parallel multipliers is considered the best fit for projection (X/Z, Y/Z2) due its ability to best utilize and parallelize the hardware arithmetic operations. However, the projection (X/Z, Y/Z) when applied using 4 parallel multipliers gave the best results in terms of hardware utilization, parallelization enhancements and cost factor which make it the first choice when you design the ECC Coprocessor using projective coordinates. A trade-off between security, area and performance is which control the ECC Coprocessor design, the more parallelization you make the more area needed the less time required which will lead to a better performance

Critical care nurses' experiences during the Illness of family members : a qualitative study

Introduction: A loved one's hospitalization in a critical care unit is a traumatic experience for families. However, because of their status and professional competence, a family member who is also a critical care nurse has additional obstacles and often long-term consequences. Objectives: To describe the experiences of critical care nurse-family members when a loved one is admitted to a critical care unit at the Hotel-Dieu de France hospital. Methods: A qualitative path based on van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology combining both descriptive and interpretive models were adopted. Results: The lived experience of critical care nurses in providing care for their family members admitted into the same critical care were summarized in five themes. Nurses were torn between roles, consisting of confounding roles, their registered nurse status, and watchfulness. The lived experience of critical care nurses in providing care for their family members admitted into the same critical care was summarized into specialized knowledge that included a double-edged sword of seeking information and difficulty delivering the information. Critical nurses compete for expectations, including those placed on self and family members, resulting in emotional and personal sacrifice while gaining insight into the experiences. Conclusions: Critical care nurse-family members have a unique experience compared to the rest of the family, necessitating specialized care and attention. Increased awareness among healthcare providers could be a start in the right direction