Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MEng (Mechanical Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

Orientador: Silvio Roberto Andrietta / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Quimica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T23:09:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bassetto_NayaraZago_M.pdf: 1198826 bytes, checksum: cc10dd78f55da0ba496ff27d88b3e57b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Neste trabalho foi desenvolvido o sistema especialista SEPPA para auxiliar no projeto de construção ou reforma de uma planta industrial para produção de álcool anidro e hidratado fazendo o dimensionamento dos equipamentos, especificando o consumo de energia, o consumo de água e a produção de vapor. Um sistema Especialista é um software que é projetado e desenvolvido para atender a uma aplicação determinada do conhecimento humano. É capaz de emitir uma decisão, apoiado em conhecimento justificado, a partir de uma base de informações, tal qual um especialista de determinada área do conhecimento humano. Uma vez que é gasto um grande tempo para realização dos cálculos de dimensionamento de equipamentos e que pessoas são suscetíveis a erros por diversos fatores, este trabalho será de grande auxílio a todos os profissionais que trabalham dimensionando equipamentos para produção de álcool diminuindo o tempo de cálculo e detalhamentos, garantindo a certeza e precisão em todas as respostas, preservando e reproduzindo o conhecimento do especialista da área em questão. Utilizou para desenvolvimento das telas de interface com o usuário a linguagem de programação Delphi 5.0 e para armazenamento de dados o sistema de banco de dados Interbase 6.0. O Delphi é uma linguagem de programação orientada a objetos, e nos permite trabalhar com a herança em telas proporcionando agilidade no desenvolvimento destas e na implementação de códigos em opções comuns a todos os formulários. O Interbase é um eficiente e seguro banco de dados Cliente/Servidor relacional. A base de conhecimento do sistema foi adquirida através da experiência acumulada de um Engenheiro Químico, este foi construído para processos contínuos e possui algoritmos contendo cálculos de balanço de massa, balanço de energia e equações cinéticas. Através dos testes realizados o software mostrou ser seguro e apto a projetar uma planta industrial, seus resultados foram coerentes com os dados obtidos através dos cálculos e especificações realizadas por meio de um projeto manual utilizando os mesmos parâmetros de entrada / Abstract: In this work it was developed a Expert System an help in the design to built-up or restaur of building or reform industrial plant for the production of anidro and hydrated alcohol defining the size of the equipments, specifying the energy and water consumption and the vapor production. An Expert System is a software projected and developed to attend a determined application and limited of the humans knowledge. It¿s able to emit a decision, supported at justified knowledge, from the base of information, exactly a specialist of a determined area of the human knowledge. The Expert System has its mechanism supported at the heuristic processes. The reasoning process is made the realization of the importance of the facts and comparing it with information contained in the knowledge accumulated about this facts and hypothesis. This reasoning is always based in the previous accumulated knowledge. A specialist with this process is not able to achieve a right decision if the facts that dispose to apply your previous knowledge are not sufficient, and can arrive at a wrong conclusion in function of many reasons. Since is spent a big time to perform the calculations for the dimensionation of equipments and that people are always susceptible at mistakes for many factors, this work will be of a significant help to all the professionals that working dimension at the equipments to the alcohol production diminishing the time of calculations and details, guaranteeing the right answer and the precision so, preserving and reproducing the specialist knowledge of the area in question. It was utilized for the development the Interface and the language of programation Delphi 5.0 and to the storage of data was used the database Interbase 6.0. Delphi is a language of programation oriented to objects, and it permits to work with the inheritance at hardware¿s providing agility in the development of this and the implementation of codes in common options at all the formularies. Interbase is an efficient and safe database Client/ Server. The base of knowledge of system was acquired through the experience accumulated of chemistry engineers in the design of continuous process and has algorithms containing of mass and energy balances as well as thus kinetic equation. Through the tests carried out the software showed be safe and apt to project an industrial plant, its results were coherent with the data obtained through calculus and specifications realized by means of a manual project using the same entrance parameter / Mestrado / Desenvolvimento de Processos Biotecnologicos / Mestre em Engenharia Química

Natural disasters disrupt our daily life and cause many sufferings. Among the various natural disasters, flood is one of the most catastrophic. Assessing flood risk helps to take necessary precautions and can save human lives. The assessment of risk involves various factors which can not be measured with hundred percent certainty. Therefore, the present methods of flood risk assessment can not assess the risk of flooding accurately.  This research rigorously investigates various types of uncertainties associated with the flood risk factors. In addition, a comprehensive study of the present flood risk assessment approaches has been conducted. Belief Rule Base expert systems are widely used to handle various of types of uncertainties. Therefore, this research considers BRBES’s approach to develop an expert system to assess the risk of flooding. In addition, to facilitate the learning procedures of BRBES, an optimal learning algorithm has been proposed. The developed BRBES has been applied taking real world case study area, located at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The training data has been collected from the case study area to obtain the trained BRB and to develop the optimal learning model. The BRBES can generate different "What-If" scenarios which enables the analysis of flood risk of an area from various perspectives which makes the system robust and sustainable. This system is said to be intelligent as it has knowledge base, inference engine as well as the learning capability.

This Diploma thesis is about using of expert systems in capacity management of existing virtual servers and it's optimization in company's environment.

Cette thèse propose un système d'aide à l'indexation et à la recherche de documents pédagogiques fondé sur l'utilisation de Wikipédia.l'outil d'aide à l'indexation permet de seconder les documentalistes dans la validation, le filtrage et la sélection des thématiques, des concepts et des mots-clés issus de l'extraction automatique d'un document. En effectuant une analyse des données textuelles d'un document, nous proposons au documentaliste une liste de descripteurs permettant de représenter et discriminer le document. Le travail du documentaliste se limite alors à une lecture rapide du document et à la sélection et suppression des descripteurs suggérés par le système pour rendre l'indexation homogène, discriminante et exhaustive. Pour cela nous utilisons Wikipédia comme base de connaissances. Le modèle utilisé pour l'extraction des descripteurs permet également de faire de la recherche d'information sur un corpus de document déjà indexé. / This thesis proposes an indexing suupport and information retrieval system for learning resources based on Wikipedia.The indexing support system assists the archivists in fetching the descriptors for a given document. The system analyses the textual content of the document and suggests to the archivists a set of relevant descriptors for this document. After a speed-reading of the document and superficail analysis, the archivists can validate, filter and select the descriptors they consider relevant. To perform this task, we decide to use Wikipedai as knowledge base. The suggest model also anables us to carry out information retrieval tasks on the previously analyzed documents of a corpus.

When medical researchers test a new treatment procedure, they recruit patients with appropriate health problems and medical histories. An experiment with a new procedure is called a clinical trial. The selection of patients for clinical trials has traditionally been a labor-intensive task, which involves matching of medical records with a list of eligibility criteria. A recent project at the University of South Florida has been aimed at the automation of this task. The project has involved the development of an expert system that selects matching clinical trials for each patient. If a patient's data are not sufficient for choosing a trial, the system suggests additional medical tests. We report the work on the representation and entry of the related selection criteria and medical tests. We first explain the structureof the system's knowledge base, which describes clinical trials and criteria for selecting patients. We then present an interface that enables a clinician to add new trials and selection criteria without the help of a programmer. Experiments show that the addition of a new clinical trial takes ten to twenty minutes, and that novice users learn the full functionality of the interface in about an hour.

During last couple of decades, the paid child care has become one of the central issues of feminist research. The agencies mediating child care are relatively the new actor in child care arrangements in the Czech Republic. This MA thesis argues that they not only fill the gap in the market by offering a child care. Above all, far from providing the simple supply that reacts to the demand on the market, the agencies create the demand for specific care. Drawing upon qualitative research conducted with owners of these agencies, the text looks into the ways how the child care is constructed. The analysis consists of two parts. In the first one the agencies are understood as expert systems generating specific trust. In the second part, the issues of qualified, specialized, and professionalized care are discussed. The thesis aims at showing that child care in the agencies is deconstructed as a natural female activity and is reconstructed as a gendered activity requiring particular skills that are submitted to professional screening.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused severe adverse effects on the human life and the global economy affecting all communities and individuals due to its rapid spreading, increase in the number of affected cases and creating severe health issues and death cases worldwide. Since no particular treatment has been acknowledged so far for this disease, prompt detection of COVID-19 is essential to control and halt its chain. In this paper, we introduce an intelligent fuzzy inference system for the primary diagnosis of COVID-19. The system infers the likelihood level of COVID-19 infection based on the symptoms that appear on the patient. This proposed inference system can assist physicians in identifying the disease and help individuals to perform self-diagnosis on their own cases.

Many organizations have been attempting to build a conceptual framework for managing technology, with varying degrees of success. Most begin by consulting leading technology authorities, borrowing elements of their thinking, and adapting these elements to their organizational and personal situations. This dissertation extends this process by using the formal research methodology of multiple perspectives (technical, organizational, personal, and cross-cuing) to build a case-based model of the technology integration process. The research and the model construction benefits from a solid foundation established through a review of technology management and knowledge systems literature. The significant aspects of the research are tied to its objectives which can be divided into academic and industrial classifications: Academic Objectives: 1. Use multiple perspectives in real-time (for input to decisions as events unfold) 2. Focus on a multiple perspectives view of technology integration into an organization Industrial Objectives: 1. Improve project effectiveness by increasing understanding of the technology integration process 2. Establish a model for the integration of a new technology into an organization The development of the case-based model was the primary objective, with the other objectives providing the methodology and subject-matter content to support model development. These four objectives are of interest to three parties: scholars who are interested in the theoretical and methodological aspects of technology integration and inquiring systems, technology developers in general who can benefit from improved means to integrate technology and analyze success/failure, and technology developers in information systems organizations who can obtain specific insight as well as utilize the general industrial results. From the multiple perspectives investigation, thirteen conclusions were reached about the process of integrating knowledge systems into an information systems organization. These conclusions are specific to the case study, but may have general applicability. The multiple perspectives methodology is then presented as the foundation for a technology integration model, on which the technology usage phases of awareness, motivation, and functioning capability can be completed. The model is described and then illustrated with two knowledge systems development project cases. With regards to the research objectives, it is concluded that: 1. The use of multiple perspectives in real-time are difficult and requires practice 2. Because technology integration is dependent upon technical, organization, and personal factors, the use of multiple perspectives are appropriate and useful. Eight of 13 conclusions were dependent upon the cross-cuing process 3. Multiple perspective analysis improved the understanding of the technology integration process. This understanding was sometimes helpful and sometimes harmful to the effectiveness of the integration process 4. The proposed technology integration model, using the awareness, motivation, and functioning capability phases, was developed and exercised. This model proved useful in limited application Finally, a method for organizing and navigating the perspectives, cross-cuing, and conclusions is presented and used.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg 1990. / No abstract provided.