Review: The evolution of chemometrics coupled with near infrared spectroscopy for fruit quality evaluation

Short wave near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy operated in a partial or full transmission geometry and a point spectroscopy mode has been increasingly adopted for evaluation of quality of intact fruit, both on-tree and on-packing lines. The evolution in hardware has been paralleled by an evolution in the modelling techniques employed. This review documents the range of spectral pre-treatments and modelling techniques employed for this application. Over the last three decades, there has been a shift from use of multiple linear regression to partial least squares regression. Attention to model robustness across seasons and instruments has driven a shift to machine learning methods such as artificial neural networks and deep learning in recent years, with this shift enabled by the availability of large and diverse training and test sets.

A review on modelling and dynamic analysis of viscoelastic rotor systems

Purpose The purpose of this study is to bring down collective information about various issues encountered in modelling of rotor systems. Design/methodology/approach The most important and basic part of “rotor dynamics” is the study related to its different modelling techniques which further involves the analysis of shaft for understanding the system potential, competence and reliability. The issues addressed in this study are classified mainly into two parts: the initial part gives out a vast overview of significant problems as well as different techniques applied to encounter modelling of rotor systems, while the latter part of the study describes the post-processing problem that occurs while performing the dynamic analysis. Findings The review incorporates the most important research works that have already placed a benchmark right from the beginning as well as the recent works that are still being carried out to further produce better outcomes. The review concludes with the modal analysis of rotor shaft to show the importance of mathematical model through its dynamic behaviour. Originality/value A critical literature review on the modelling techniques of rotor shaft systems is provided from earliest to latest along with its real-time application in different research and industrial fields.

User Antecedents, CRM Implementation and Impact on Customer Outcomes in Jordanian Service Industry

The implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become increasingly important to scholars and practitioners over the last two decades. This study examined the relationships between user antecedents, CRM implementation, and customer outcomes. Its aims were to identify CRM user antecedents, explore the impact of these antecedents on CRM implementation, and examine the connection between CRM implementation and customer outcomes: loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. A quantitative method was employed consisting of a structured questionnaire. A total of 290 completed questionnaires were returned and analyzed with structural equation modelling techniques. The results indicated there were significant positive relationships between four out of five antecedents and CRM implementation; however, an impact of user involvement was not supported by the data. CRM implementation was also found to positively affect all three customer’s outcomes: loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. These findings are of practical and theoretical value to practitioners, customers, and policy makers

Effectiveness Analysis of Spline Surfaces Creating Methods for Shell Structures Modelling

The shape of the surface of shell structures, measured by laser scanning, can be modelled using approximating spline functions. Since the 1990s, several modelling techniques have been developed: based on points, meshes, areas outlined on meshes, regions grouping areas with a similar structure. The most effective of them have been used in modern software, but their implementations differ significantly. The most important differences concern the accuracy of modelling, especially places with rapid shape changes, including edges. The differences also affect the mathematical complexity of the created model (the number of unknowns) and the time of its development. These factors contribute to the effectiveness of modelling. Some methods work fully automatically, others allow manual selection of certain parameters, there are also methods that require full manual control. Their selection and application is greatly affected by the user’s intuition and knowledge in the field of creating such surfaces. This study tested the influence of the above factors on the modelling efficiency. A total of six methods of creating spline surfaces were analysed in three software packages of different classes: Geomagic Design X, Solidworks and RhinoResurf. The analyses were carried out on a shell structure of complex shape, consisting of seven patches separated by edges. The created models were assessed in terms of their accuracy of fitting into the point cloud. Additionally, the complexity of the model expressed in the number of control points and the time of its development were determined. The results confirmed the validity of the four methods in terms of model fitting accuracy. The best results were achieved using the semi-automatic method in the most advanced software package and the manual method in the simplest package. This has confirmed the great importance of user experience in terms of theoretical properties of spline functions. However, complexity and development time did not show a direct relationship with the accuracy of the models created. ANALIZA EFEKTYWNOŚCI METOD TWORZENIA POWIERZCHNI SKLEJANYCH DLA MODELOWANIA OBIEKTÓW POWŁOKOWYCH Modelowanie kształtu powierzchni obiektów powłokowych, pomierzonych za pomocą skaningu laserowego, można przeprowadzić za pomocą aproksymacyjnych funkcji sklejanych. Funkcje te dobrze przybliżają kształty o ciągłej krzywiźnie, jakimi są powłoki, jednocześnie wykazując spadki dokładności w miejscach zerwania tej ciągłości. Od lat 90. XX wieku rozwinęło się kilka technik modelowania za ich pomocą, m.in.: wykorzystujących same punkty, siatki mesh, obszary obrysowane na siatkach mesh, regiony grupujące obszary o podobnej strukturze. Najbardziej skuteczne z nich zostały zastosowane we współczesnym oprogramowaniu, ale ich implementacje znacząco się pomiędzy sobą różnią. Najważniejsze różnice dotyczą dokładności modelowania, szczególnie miejsc o szybkich zmianach kształtu, włączając w nie krawędzie. Różnice dotyczą też złożoności matematycznej utworzonego modelu (liczby niewiadomych) oraz czasu jego opracowania. Czynniki te składają się na efektywność modelowania. Część metod działa w pełni automatycznie, inne pozwalają na ręczny dobór pewnych parametrów, są też metody wymagające pełnego sterowania ręcznego. W ich wyborze i stosowaniu duże znaczenie ma intuicja i wiedza użytkownika w zakresie tworzenia tego typu powierzchni. W opracowaniu przetestowano wpływ powyższych czynników na efektywność modelowania. Badaniom poddano łącznie sześć metod tworzenia powierzchni sklejanych w trzech pakietach oprogramowania różnej klasy: Geomagic Design X, Solidworks i RhinoResurf. Analizy przeprowadzono na obiekcie powłokowym o złożonym kształcie, składającym się z siedmiu płatów rozdzielonych krawędziami. Został on pomierzony metodą skaningu laserowego, a scalona chmura punktów stanowiła podstawę do modelowania za pomocą funkcji sklejanych. Utworzone modele oceniono pod względem dokładności wpasowania w chmurę punktów za pomocą wykresów odchyłek punktów od powierzchni, odchyłek średnich oraz maksymalnych. Dodatkowo określono złożoność modelu wyrażoną liczbą punktów kontrolnych oraz czas jego opracowania. Wyniki pozwoliły na potwierdzenie skuteczności czterech metod w zakresie dokładności wpasowania modeli. Najlepsze efekty osiągnięto stosując metodę półautomatyczną w najbardziej zaawansowanym pakiecie oprogramowania oraz metodę ręczną w najprostszym z pakietów. Potwierdza to duże znaczenie doświadczenia użytkownika w zakresie teoretycznych własności funkcji sklejanych. Złożoność i czas opracowania nie wykazywały natomiast bezpośredniego związku z dokładnością tworzonych modeli.

THE SURVEY OF THE MONUMENTAL FOUNTAIN IN THE TOWN OF DALMINE: A PRELIMINARY WORK FOR THE CONSERVATION PROJECT

The Monumental Fountain of Dalmine was built to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Benito Mussolini’s historical address held on March 20, 1919, to which the square was dedicated. In the basin stood a large marble block on which some sentences of the Duce’s speech were carved. The work was partially destroyed at the end of the World War II and the block was removed. Today, what remains of the Dalmine Fountain constitutes the privileged meeting place of the city. However, it has great sealing problems as well as high management and maintenance costs, which prevent its normal functioning. Consequently, it is kept empty for many months of the year and filled with water only in the summer. This essay intends to propose a study based on the analysis of historical sources and 3D survey and modelling techniques aimed to understand the historical and urban value of the monument, to support its conservation and to enhance its role as a central meeting point for the town.

AN ALTERNATIVE 3D ADDRESS VISUALIZATION METHOD FOR BUILDINGS AND BUILDING INDEPENDENT SECTIONS WITH GIS-BASED 3D MODELLING APPROACH

Most commonly used detail type in 3D city modelling is building layer. One of the most important distinguishing point of buildings is independent sections. When the independent sections are examined in the context of Urban Information System (UIS), they have a multi-layered structure with their own characteristics. In address management processes, definition of the area belonging to a person, family or organization is realized through independent sections of buildings. In this study, it is aimed to model one the most important components of city objects such as building independent sections and road networks with GIS-based 3D modelling techniques. According to the results obtained from literature studies, answers were researched to the questions of what should be workflow of producing 3D models in the system and what should be in ideal 3D GIS database. Buildings and building independent sections were geocoded to provide some additional innovations to address mapping methods. Procedural modelling method was preferred as a GIS-based 3D modelling technique. Created models enable both the visualization of address data and their transfer to the 3D environment, as well as navigation. It provides some practical information. The designed system has been tested practically in Trabzon city.

A Unification of Heterogeneous Data Sources into a Graph Model in E-commerce

The incorporation of heterogeneous data models into large-scale e-commerce applications incurs various complexities and overheads, such as redundancy of data, maintenance of different data models, and communication among different models for query processing. Graphs have emerged as data modelling techniques for large-scale applications with heterogeneous, schemaless, and relationship-centric data. Models exist for mapping different types of data to a graph; however, the unification of data from heterogeneous source models into a graph model has not received much attention. To address this, we propose a new framework in this study. The proposed framework first transforms data from various source models into graph models individually and then unifies them into a single graph. To justify the applicability of the proposed framework in e-commerce applications, we analyse and compare query performance, scalability, and database size of the unified graph with heterogeneous source data models for a predefined set of queries. We also access some qualitative measures, such as flexibility, completeness, consistency, and maturity for the proposed unified graph. Based on the experimental results, the unified graph outperforms heterogeneous source models for query performance and scalability; however, it falls behind for database size.

A Review of Methodological Approaches and Modeling Techniques in Service Quality Evaluation of Surface Transportation during the Last Decade

During the duration of the last decade, a growing interest has been noticed among transport practitioners and researchers to better understand the concept of service quality in the field of surface transportation and identify important service quality (SQ) attributes of different transportation services since these results have implications for transport managers. Due to advancements in computer technology and the availability of software packages, researchers are better able to extract meaningful results from passengers’ opinions collected through stated preference surveys and communicate their findings to transport managers looking to ameliorate SQ to boost ridership on a limited budget. Since the concept of SQ is itself complex owing to the nature of the service itself compared to a tangible product and characteristics of SQ attribute, different advanced modelling techniques based on multivariate analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence paradigms have become popular tools among researchers. This paper aims to summarize the trends of the SQ research in the field of surface transportation during the last decade with a focus on the methodological approaches and modelling techniques and delineate future directions for research in this field.