The viability of IS enhanced knowledge sharing in mission-critical command and control centers

Engineering processes such as the maintenance of mission-critical infrastructures are highly unpredictable processes that are vital for everyday life, as well as for national security goals. These processes are categorized as Emergent Knowledge Processes (EKP), organizational processes that are characterized by a changing set of actors, distributed knowledge bases, and emergent knowledge sharing activities where the process itself has no predetermined structure. The research described here utilizes the telecommunications network fault diagnosis process as a specific example of an EKP. The field site chosen for this research is a global undersea telecommunication network where nodes are staffed by trained personnel responsible for maintaining local equipment using Network Management Systems. The overall network coordination responsibilities are handled by a centralized command and control center, or Network Management Center. A formal case study is performed in this global telecommunications network to evaluate the design of an Alarm Correlation Tool (ACT). This work defines a design methodology for an Information System (IS) that can support complex engineering diagnosis processes. As such, a Decision Support System design model is used to iterate through a number of design theories that guide design decisions. Utilizing the model iterations, it is found that IS design theories such as Decision Support Systems (DSS), Expert Systems (ES) and Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) design theories, do not produce systems appropriate for supporting complex engineering processes. A design theory for systems that support EKPs is substituted as the project\u27s driving theory during the final iterations of the DSS Design Model. This design theory poses the use of naive users to support the design process as one of its key principles. The EKP design theory principles are evaluated and addressed to provide feedback to this recently introduced Information System Design Theory. The research effort shows that use of the EKP design theory is also insufficient in designing complex engineering systems. As a result, the main contribution of this work is to augment design theory with a methodology that revolves around the analysis of the knowledge management and control environment as a driving force behind IS design. Finally, the research results show that a model-based knowledge captunng algorithm provides an appropriate vehicle to capture and manipulate experiential engineering knowledge. In addition, it is found that the proposed DSS Design Model assists in the refinement of highly complex system designs. The results also show that the EKP design theory is not sufficient to address all the challenges posed by systems that must support mission-critical infrastructures

Multidrug Resistance of Uropathogens at Governmental Hospitals in the Gaza Strip/Palestine

Urinary tract infection is a public health problem worldwide. E. coli and klebsiella are among the main etiologic for UTI in Gaza Strip. The growing variations in resistance among uropathogens to antimicrobials is multifactorial and varies globally. It greatly reduces/limits or complicate treatment option. Aims: To determine the pattern of antimicrobial resistance and multidrug resistance among uropathogens at governmental hospitals. Methods: We analyzed the data of 11,890 urine samples processed in governmental hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Palestine during 2019. The percentage of resistance was calculated for uropathogens, and then multidrug resistance was calculated according to “CDC†definition. Results: Of 11,890 urine samples, 2910 (24.5%) showed significant growth.  Escherichia coli was isolated most frequently (1743; 59.9%), followed by Klebsiella spp. (725; 24.9%), Pseudomonas spp. (123; 4.2%), Streptococcus spp. (98; 3.4%), Staphylococcus aureus (41; 1.4%). Microorganisms resistance was high against Ampicillin (92.4%) and Amoxicillin (91.1%), Co-Trimoxazole (68.2%), Cefalexin (64.9%), Doxycycline (61.9%), Nalidixic acid (53.6%), Cefuroxime (53.0%), Ceftriaxone (48.9%), Ceftazidime (43.1%), Ciprofloxacin (36.9%), Gentamicin (25.8%), Amikacin (3.2%). The resistance of microorganisms in males is higher than females. Multidrug resistance was detected in 37% of E. coli and 53% in Klebsiella spp. Conclusion: Resistance is high and variable among uropathogens isolated from patients in Gaza strip. Both age and gender are risk factors in both infection and resistance pattern. The multidrug resistance percentage is growing remarkably in Gaza Strip. Keywords: Uropathogens, Resistance, Urinary tract infection, Multidrug resistance, Gaza strip, Palestine &nbsp

Thermosolutal Marangoni boundary layer magnetohydrodynamic flow with the Soret and Dufour effects past a vertical flat plate

AbstractA numerical study of laminar magnetohydrodynamic thermosolutal Marangoni convection along a vertical surface in the presence of the Soret and Dufour effects has been performed. The diffusion-thermo implies that the heat transfer is induced by concentration gradient, and thermo-diffusion implies that the mass diffusion is induced by thermal gradient. In conformity to actuality, it is assumed that the surface tension varies linearly with both the temperature and concentration and that both interface temperature and concentration are quadratic functions of the interface arc length x. The general governing partial differential equations are converted into nonlinear ordinary differential equations using unique similarity transformations. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Hartmann number (0 ≤ M ≤ 5), thermosolutal surface tension ratio (0 ≤ R ≤ 5), Soret parameter (0.1 ≤ Sr ≤ 2), Dufour parameter (0.03 ≤ Du ≤ 0.6), Prandtl number (0.72 ≤ Pr ≤ 10) and Schmidt number (0.3 ≤ Sc ≤ 3) on the fluid velocity heat and mass transfer. It is found that, both of temperature and concentration gradient at the wall increases as the thermosolutal surface tension ratio increases. Also, the increase in Prandtl number results in an enhancement in the heat transfer at the wall

Control-Affine Extremum Seeking Control with Attenuating Oscillations

Control-affine Extremum Seeking Control (ESC) systems have been increasingly studied and applied in the last decade. Similar to classic ESC related structures, control-affine ESC systems are operable by assuming access to measurements of the objective function, and not necessarily its expression. In contrast to classic ESC related structures, in a control-affine ESC, the objective function -- or a map of it -- is incorporated within the system's vector fields themselves. This has invoked the use of tools from geometric control theory, namely Lie Bracket Systems (LBSs). Said LBSs play a crucial role in stability and performance characterization of ESCs. In a recent effort, many control-affine ESC structures have been generalized in a unifying class and analyzed through LBSs. In addition, this generalized class converge asymptotically to the extremum point; however, the extremum point has to be known a priori and guaranteeing vanishing control input at the extremum point requires the application of strong conditions. In this paper, we introduce a LBS-based ESC structure that: (1) does not require the extremum point a priori, (2) its oscillations attenuate structurally via a novel application of a geometric-based Kalman filter estimating LBSs; and (3) its stability is characterized by a time-dependent (one bound) condition that is verifiable via simulations and relaxed when compared to the generalized approach mentioned earlier. We provide numerical simulations of three problems to demonstrate the ability of our proposed ESC; these problems cannot be solved with vanishing oscillations using the above-mentioned generalized approach in literature

Analyzing and Mimicking the Optimized Flight Physics of Soaring Birds: A Differential Geometric Control and Extremum Seeking System Approach with Real Time Implementation

For centuries, soaring birds -- such as albatrosses and eagles -- have been mysterious and intriguing for biologists, physicists, aeronautical/control engineers, and applied mathematicians. These fascinating biological organisms have the ability to fly for long-duration while spending little to no energy. This flight technique/maneuver is called dynamic soaring (DS). For biologists and physicists, the DS phenomenon is nothing but a wonder of the very elegant ability of the bird's interaction with nature and using its physical ether in an optimal way for better survival and energy efficiency. For the engineering community, it is a source of inspiration and an unequivocal promising chance for bio-mimicking. In literature, significant work has been done on modeling and constructing control systems that allow the DS maneuver to be mimicked. However, mathematical characterization of the DS phenomenon in literature has been limited to optimal control configurations that utilized developments in numerical optimization algorithms along with control methods to identify the optimal DS trajectory taken (or to be taken) by the bird/mimicking system. In this paper, we provide a novel two-layered mathematical approach to characterize, model, mimic, and control DS in a simple and real-time implementation. The first layer will be a differential geometric control formulation and analysis of the DS problem. The second layer will be a linkage between the DS philosophy and a class of dynamical control systems known as extremum seeking systems. We believe our framework captures more of the biological behavior of soaring birds and opens the door for geometric control theory and extremum seeking systems to be utilized in systems biology and natural phenomena. Simulation results are provided along with comparisons with powerful optimal control solvers to illustrate the advantages of the introduced method

Seismic performance of existing R.C. framed buildings

AbstractThe earthquakes disasters basically occur due to buildings damage not because of the earth shaking. Therefore, the countries have being updated the seismic codes. The seismic loads for buildings design in Egyptian Code have been changed from (EC-1994) to (ECP-201, 2012). On the other hand, the need is raised to study the vulnerability of existing buildings, which can be divided into the buildings designed to resist the gravity loads only (GLD) and the buildings designed according to Egyptian code (EC-1994). Comparison between forces due to Egyptian code for loads (EC-1994) and (ECP-201, 2012) is carried out on the multi-stories R.C. framed buildings which are the most common type of existing buildings in Egypt. To investigate the vulnerability of existing buildings, nonlinear static pushover analysis is conducted to evaluate the real strength of the existing buildings. Moreover, it is considered a useful and effective tool for the performance of three framed buildings: 3, 6 and 10 stories due to expected future earthquakes. Finally, it is found that the vulnerability of existing GLD buildings occurs at expected ground accelerations (ag) greater than 0.125g in Egyptian seismic map, while the EC-94 designed buildings behave elastically up to (ag) equals to 0.2g and above that a slight damage may occur

Cattaneo–Christov heat flux impacts on MHD radiative natural convection of Al2O3-Cu-H2O hybrid nanofluid in wavy porous containers using LTNE

This paper aims to examine impacts of Cattaneo–Christov heat flux on the magnetohydrodynamic convective transport within irregular containers in the presence of the thermal radiation. Both of the magnetic field and flow domain are slant with the inclination angles Ω and γ, respectively. The worked fluid is consisting of water (H2O) and Al2O3-Cu hybrid nanoparticles. The enclosures are filled with a porous medium, and the local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) model between the hybrid nanofluids and the porous elements are considered. Influences of various types of the obstacles are examined, namely, horizontal cold elliptic, vertical elliptic and cross section ellipsis. The solution methodology is depending on the finite volume method with nonorthogonal grids. The major outcomes revealed that the location (0.75, 0.5) is better for the rate of the flow and temperature gradients. The higher values of H* causes that the solid phase temperature has a similar behavior of the fluid phase temperature indicating to the thermal equilibrium state. Also, the fluid-phase average Nusselt number is maximizing by increasing Cattaneo–Christov heat flux factor