Meta-Routing: Synergistic Merging of Message Routing and Link Maintenance

The maintenance of network connectivity is essential for effective and efficient mobile team operations. Achieving robust mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) connectivity requires a capable link maintenance mechanism especially if the network experiences expected intermittent connectivity due to a hostile environment. One applicable example of such network scenarios is multi-robot exploration for urban search and rescue (USAR). With the proliferation of these robotic networks, communication problems such as the link maintenance problem are subject to be raised quickly. Although various routing protocols for wireless ad hoc networks have been proposed, they solve the problems of message routing and link maintenance separately, resulting in additional overhead costs and long latency in network communication. Traditional routing protocols discover existing links, connect these links, find the best path and minimize the path cost. The limitation of previous routing protocols motivates us to develop a new concept of routing mechanism for a robotic network. This routing mechanism is named Meta-Routing. Meta-Routing expands current routing protocols to include not only the normal routing of packets, but also the maintenance of links in mobile agent scenarios. Thus, Meta-Routing minimizes the communication path cost and the overhead cost, the latter of which results from discovering a route, repairing a link or establishing a new communication path between nodes. This dissertation presents a method to achieve Meta-Routing by controlling robot motion based on the radio frequency (RF) environment recognition method and gradient descent method. Mobile robot controlled motion can effectively improve network performance by driving robots to favorable locations with strong links. Moreover, the gradient descent method is used in driving the robots into the direction of favorable positions for maximizing broken or failing links and maintaining network connectivity. The main accomplished goals of this thesis are summarized as follows: firstly, the Meta-Routing protocol, which integrates link maintenance into the normal message routing protocol cost function; secondly, the dissertation examines the unification of the syntax of message routing protocol and the link maintenance process through physical configuration of mobile network nodes by controlling their movement in the field; finally, the dissertation demonstrates that the utilization of the RF environment recognition and classification method improves route repair estimation for achieving link maintenance in the presented Meta-Routing protocol. The numerical experimental results demonstrate promising RF environment recognition and node controlled motion results, as well as confirm their abilities in robot movement control for link maintenance and reduction of the total path cost

The role of edutainment in e-learning: An empirical study.

Impersonal, non-face-to-face contact and text-based interfaces, in the e-Learning segment, present major problems that are encountered by learners, since they are out on vital personal interactions and useful feedback messages, as well as on real-time information about their learning performance. This research programme suggests a multimodal, combined with an edutainment approach, which is expected to improve the communications between users and e-Learning systems. This thesis empirically investigates users’ effectiveness; efficiency and satisfaction, in order to determine the influence of edutainment, (e.g. amusing speech and facial expressions), combined with multimodal metaphors, (e.g. speech, earcon, avatar, etc.), within e-Learning environments. Besides text, speech, visual, and earcon modalities, avatars are incorporated to offer a visual and listening realm, in online learning. The methodology used for this research project comprises a literature review, as well as three experimental platforms. The initial experiment serves as a first step towards investigating the feasibility of completing all the tasks and objectives in the research project, outlined above. The remaining two experiments explore, further, the role of edutainment in enhancing e-Learning user interfaces. The overall challenge is to enhance user-interface usability; to improve the presentation of learning, in e-Learning systems; to improve user enjoyment; to enhance interactivity and learning performance; and, also, to contribute in developing guidelines for multimodal involvement, in the context of edutainment. The results of the experiments presented in this thesis show an improvement in user enjoyment, through satisfaction measurements. In the first experiment, the enjoyment level increased by 11%, in the Edutainment (E) platform, compared to the Non-edutainment (NE) interface. In the second experiment, the Game-Based Learning (GBL) interface obtained 14% greater enhancement than the Virtual Class (VC) interface and 20.85% more than the Storytelling interface; whereas, the percentage obtained by the game incorporated with avatars increased by an extra 3%, compared with the other platforms, in the third experiment. In addition, improvement in both user performance and learning retention were detected through effective and efficiency measurements. In the first experiment, there was no significant difference between mean values of time, for both conditions (E) & (NE) which were not found to be significant, when tested using T-test. In the second experiment, the time spent in condition (GBL) was higher by 7-10 seconds, than in the other conditions. In the third experiment, the mean values of the time taken by the users, in all conditions, were comparable, with an average of 22.8%. With regards to effectiveness, the findings of the first experiment showed, generally, that the mean correct answer for condition (E) was higher by 20%, than the mean for condition (NE). Users in condition (GBL) performed better than the users in the other conditions, in the second experiment. The percentage of correct answers, in the second experiment, was higher by 20% and by 34.7%, in condition (GBL), than in the (VC) and (ST), respectively. Finally, a set of empirically derived guidelines was produced for the design of usable multimodal e-Learning and edutainment interfaces.Libyan Embass

Exploring Service Recovery and Justice Theory in the Libyan Airline Industry

The services industry is the fastest growing sector of the global economy, and central to its success. This research is concerned with observations of service recovery and its impact on customer satisfaction, and focuses on recovery after service failure, including factors such as compensation, speed, and apology, and their effect on customer perceptions of justice, including distributive, procedural and interactional justice. This exploratory and explanatory study seeks to provide information and understanding of the impact of service recovery and customer satisfaction on each other, by investigating the effect of service failure and recovery on customer perceptions of justice in two Libyan airlines. The theoretical framework of the study is derived from the literature, and is based on a set of interlinking relationships between elements of service recovery (apology, speed and compensation), their effect on customer perceptions of justice (interactional, distributive and procedural) and their logical outcome, which is customer satisfaction. Central to the framework is the conceptualisation of a model of service failure, perceptions of justice, and service recovery as a single continuous process which has as its outcome a level of customer satisfaction. The study starts from the theoretical view point that justice is a necessary component of customer satisfaction, and uses a questionnaire to collect data relevant to the three issues (service recovery, justice and customer satisfaction), which appear in the theoretical model. A total of 584 questionnaires were distributed to the customers of two Libyan airlines at Tripoli‟s international airport, collecting data customer perceptions of service failure recovery efforts. The statistical package SPSS was employed to analyse the raw data and the findings represent a set of relationships established between elements of service recovery and perceptions of justice. The study represents a contribution to knowledge about the relationships between service recovery and justice, using data collected in a developing country and in an industry of vital importance to national development yet opens to international competition. Theoretical and methodological contributions in the form of the study‟s model and questionnaire establish a basis for further research into this area in other developing countries and other industries

Oilfield Produced Water Management: Treatment, Reuse and Disposal

Produced water is accompanied with the production of oil and gas especially at the fields producing by water drive or water injection. The quantity of these waters is expected to be more complicated problem with an increasing in water cut which is expected to be 3-8 barrels water/produced barrel oil.Produced water may contain many constituents based on what is present in the subsurface at a particular location. Produced water contains dissolved solids and hydrocarbons (dissolved and suspended) and oxygen depletion. The most common dissolved solid is salt with concentrations range between a few parts per thousand to hundreds parts per thousand. In addition to salt, many produced waters also contain high levels of heavy metals like zinc, barium, chromium, lead, nickel, uranium, vanadium and low levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM).This study will highlight the main aspects of the different international experiences with the produced water treatment for subsequent reuse or disposal. These different treatment methods vary considerably in effectiveness, cost and their environmental impacts. Samples of produced water from Al-Mishrif formation in ten wells belongs to five fields southern Iraq were taken and analyzed chemically to define the basic features of these waters and to have guide lines for the best strategy that required handling the increased water cut in these fields

Negative Ion Drift and Diffusion in a TPC near 1 Bar

Drift velocity and longitudinal diffusion measurements are reported for a Negative Ion TPC (NITPC) operating with Helium + carbon disulfide gas mixtures at total pressures from 160 to 700 torr. Longitudinal diffusion at the thermal-limit was observed for drift fields up to at least 700 V/cm in all gas mixtures tested. The results are of particular interest in connection with mechanical simplification of Dark Matter searches such as DRIFT, and for high energy physics experiments in which a low-Z, low density, gaseous tracking detector with no appreciable Lorentz drift is needed for operation in very high magnetic fields.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Two-Phase Capillary Pressure-Saturation Relationship for Kerosene in Iraqi Sand

Quantitative descriptions of the two-phase flow in the subsurface soil require knowledge of the relative permeability-saturation-capillary pressure Kr-S-Pc relationships. The significance of the present study lies in introducing a physical model that was used to measure the capillary pressure-saturation curve for the twophase kerosene-water system in Kerbala’s sand. The experimental results are fitted with the empirical mathematical function described by (Parker et al., 1987) which is based on (Van Genuchten’s model, 1980). This function can be used to specify the residual water saturation, Sr, and Van Genuchten’s soil parameters, α and n. The best-fit curve was found by using a nonlinear least squares fitting routine using the SPSS software version 7.5. The fitting parameters Sr, α and n for the best-fit to Van Genuchten’s capillary pressuresaturation curve for kerosene-water system have the values of 7%, 0.048 cm-1 and 2.7, respectively, for Kerbala’s sand