Exact analysis of a discrete material three-station one-buffer merge system with unreliable machines

In this paper, a model of a discrete material flow line consisting of three unreliable machines and one buffer of limited capacity is analysed. A similar system, but with continuous flow of material was examined by Helber and Mehrtens (2001) and Tan (2001). In our system it is assumed that the buffer has two immediate preceding machines, performing the same operations and one immediate succeeding machine that receives material from the buffer. For the case where the buffer reaches its own capacity, one of the two preceding machines has priority over the other to dispose its processed part into the buffer. Processing times are assumed to be deterministic and identical for all machines and are taken as the time unit. Geometrically distributed operation dependent failures at the machines are assumed. All possible transition equations for the examined model are derived and a recursive algorithm that generates the transition matrix for any value N of the storage level is developed. Once the transition matrix is known the performance measures of the model under consideration can be easily evaluated. This model may be used as a building block in a decomposition method to evaluate large production systems with split/merge operations (for example, flow lines with quality inspections and rework loops).     

Investigating Greek employees’ intention to use web-based training

In the last few decades, the implementation of information technology has given rise to several organizational training needs that have to be satisfied, in order to empower organizational IT performance. The users of new technologies have to be trained quickly and efficiently, and since they are usually distributed to different remote locations, web-based training is the preferred, and sometimes the only, process for employee training. This study deals with the prognosis of employees’ intention to use a web-based training process, by extending the technology acceptance model using some other related factors, such as learning goal orientation, management support, enjoyment, self-efficacy and computer anxiety. Two hundred and eighty seven employees participated in this study to test the validity of the research model. The findings of the structural equation modeling indicate that enjoyment, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use directly affect employees’ intention to use web-based training, while learning goal orientation has the strongest indirect impact on employees’ intention. Finally, three new causal relations are proposed for further research.     

Greedy regression ensemble selection: Theory and an application to water quality prediction

This paper studies the greedy ensemble selection family of algorithms for ensembles of regression models. These algorithms search for the globally best subset of regressors by making local greedy decisions for changing the current subset. We abstract the key points of the greedy ensemble selection algorithms and present a general framework, which is applied to an application domain with important social and commercial value: water quality prediction.     

Size fraction characterization of highly-calcareous fly ash

The chemical and mineralogical composition of lignite fly ash (FA) varies as a function of the prevalent conditions in both the processes of power production and lignite mining. The differentiation of the qualitative and quantitative composition of the highly-calcareous lignite fly ash, as a function of its particle size distribution, is verified in this paper. According to the results of the conducted research, a fine-grained fraction of considerable amount presents properties that obstruct the sustainable exploitation of calcareous lignite fly ash in cement industry applications. On the other hand, the same grain fraction (because of its hydraulic properties) can be utilized in other sort of applications, based on different criteria, i.e. in road constructions. The coarse-grained fraction (which reflects a low proportion to the total fly ash output) presents the same undesired characteristics as well. Rather, the intermediate grain fraction (75-150 μm) presents the highly desirable properties when fly ash is utilized as a pozzolanic additive. In addition, the mechanism of the formation of the intermediate grain fraction strongly prevents the factors that cause the variation of fly ash-quality. It is therefore the optimum part of the whole amount of lignite FA, to be utilized as additive in cement manufacturing. The outcomes of this paper will hopefully contribute towards the crucial goal of the expansion of the utilization of calcareous lignite fly ash by proposing a more effective way of using this material, basically by taking advantage of its fundamental chemical and mineralogical properties.     

Applying evolutionary computation to the school timetabling problem: The Greek case

In this contribution, an adaptive algorithm based on evolutionary computation techniques is designed, developed and applied to the timetabling problem of educational organizations. Specifically, the proposed algorithm has been used in order to create feasible and efficient timetables for high schools in Greece. The algorithm has been tested exhaustively with real-world input data coming from many different high schools and has been compared with several other effective techniques in order to demonstrate its efficiency and superior performance. Simulation results showed that the algorithm is able to construct a feasible and very efficient timetable more quickly and easily compared to other techniques, thus preventing disagreements and arguments among teachers and assisting each school to operate with its full resources from the beginning of the academic year. Except from that, due to its inherent adaptive behavior it can be used each time satisfying different specific constraints, in order to lead to timetables, thus meeting the different needs that each school may have.     

Antioxidant and free radical-scavenging activities of phenolic extracts of olive fruits

The antioxidant ability of phenolic extracts of olive fruits during maturity in Chondrolia and Amfissis cultivars grown at 10 m and 300 m altitude showed that altitude affected phenol content, antioxidant and Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ reduction/binding ability. The hydroxyl radical, peroxyl radical and peroxynitrite-induced DNA nicking assays have been used to evaluate the anti-radical activity of the extracts. Results showed that the ability of olive extracts to prevent radical-mediated DNA damage arises from the triple synergistic action of the genotype, the altitude and the maturation stage.     

A Modeling Study of NH3 Slip Catalysts: Analysis of the SCR/PGM Interactions

We present a simulation study which comparatively analyzes the performances of four configurations of NH₃ slip catalysts (ASC) for automotive NH₃–SCR based Diesel aftertreatment systems. The comparison in terms of NH₃ conversion and N₂ selectivity over a wide range of operating conditions highlights the positive interaction of NH₃–SCR and PGM oxidation chemistries, which is best exploited by a dual-layer configuration with the SCR catalyst on top. This study also emphasizes the key role of modeling and simulation tools in the development of complex exhaust aftertreatment systems as well as the importance of a clear understanding of the catalytic chemistry involved in automotive deNOx converters.     

An ensemble uncertainty aware measure for directed hill climbing ensemble pruning

This paper proposes a new measure for ensemble pruning via directed hill climbing, dubbed Uncertainty Weighted Accuracy (UWA), which takes into account the uncertainty of the decision of the current ensemble. Empirical results on 30 data sets show that using the proposed measure to prune a heterogeneous ensemble leads to significantly better accuracy results compared to state-of-the-art measures and other baseline methods, while keeping only a small fraction of the original models. Besides the evaluation measure, the paper also studies two other parameters of directed hill climbing ensemble pruning methods, the search direction and the evaluation dataset, with interesting conclusions on appropriate values.