Due to toxicity and non-biodegradability of petroleum-derived mineral insulating oil, the use of vegetable-based oils such natural esters as insulating liquid is on grow. Although natural esters have higher flash point compared to mineral insulating oil, its high viscosity is not suitable for existing distribution transformer with natural cooling system. Thus, low-viscosity esters derived from various vegetable-based oils have been developed. In this study, waste cooking oil methyl ester (WCOME) is proposed as potential low-viscosity insulating fluid for transformer. Waste cooking oil (WCO) is cheaper vegetable-based oil relative to crude vegetable oil. It is also abundantly available as 50,000 tonnes were reported being produced in Malaysia each year. WCOME is produced via catalysed transesterification reaction between WCO and methanol using potassium hydroxide (KOH). The physical (density, flash point, pour point, viscosity), chemical (water content, acidity) and electrical (breakdown voltage) properties of WCOME are presented and discussed. Results indicated that transesterification reaction produced a low viscosity WCOME fluid (14.19 mm2/s) that possessed a dielectric breakdown voltage (BdV) of 30 kV, which is 50% above the IEEE C57.147 BdV’s requirement for new natural ester fluids. Hence, the WCOME has a potential to be used as electrical insulating liquid for transformer.

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In this investigation, a period of ten years of wind data from five meteorological station have been used to evaluate the potential of wind energy production on the Irbid, Al-Salt, Madaba, Tafilah and Aqaba regions, Situated in Northern Jordan, west-central Jordan, central Jordan, southern Jordan and northeastern tip of the Red Sea respectively. Furthermore, a study into the feasibility of using three wind turbines of different power ranging from 900, 2000 and 3000 kW at each location to be employed in wind farms is examined. The reported data of the wind speeds over ten years are fitted to the Weibull and Ralyeigh distribution, which is most frequently used and most appropriate, characterizing frequency distribution for wind moving over Jordan. The wind speed annual mean values and the frequency distributions were found for the five locations studied. It is apparent from the results of the analysis that the highly promising sites of having good wind energy potential is Aqaba, whereas, Madaba has the lower potential. The annual mean values of the wind speed and power density of the observed and theoretical distributions are 2.88 ms-1 and 50 Wm-2 for Irbid, 2.34 ms-1 and 26 Wm-2 for Al-Salt, 3.00 ms-1 and 33Wm-2 for Madaba, 3.20 ms-1 and 60 Wm-2 for Tafilah and 4.78 ms-1 and 160 Wm-2 for Aqaba.

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In this research, the double Voigt method was used to analyze the X-ray lines and then to use the Williamson-Hall method for estimate the particle size and lattice strain of cerium oxide nanoparticle. The value of the crystallite size was equal to (12.4964nm) and the emotion was equal to (0.006819). In addition, other methods have been used in addition to the double Voigt method for the calculation of crystallite size and lattice strain. These methods are (Sherrer method, size-strain plot (SSP) method and Halder-Wagner method) and their results are as follows Sherrer crystallite size (7.6386 nm) and lattice strain (0.01039), SSP method crystallite size (59.8956 nm) and lattice strain (0.00157), and Halder-Wagner method crystallite size (9.2287nm) and lattice strain (0.00267). The double Voigt method combined with Williamson Hall method gave very accurate results in calculating both crystallite size and lattice strain by taking a full diffraction curve during calculations.

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In this work, we prepared a solid polymer electrolyte based on starch and sodium hydroxide via a simple casting method. The hybrid starch-sodium hydroxide film formed the belts morphology. Such belt structure is believed to be able to improve ionic mobility and electrochemical reaction effectively. The highest ionic conductivity was achieved at 3.93 x 10^-3 S/cm for 25 wt% of sodium hydroxide. A comparative investigation on sodium hydroxide as an ionic dopant in starch proved that the sodium hydroxide addition is an effective way to increase ionic conductivity and electrochemical activity.

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Renewable energy resources play an essential role in the sustainable energy development as they are friendly energy resources. Solar energy is one of the renewable energy sources are used in many fields from domestic/industrial fluid heating, cooking and electricity production. The parabolic trough collector (PTC) is adopted to be the good choice for medium temperature (150–400 °C) heat necessities. The admiration of solar PTC has generated utility in maximum efficiency energy potential. The heat transfer element (HTE) receiver portion of PTC is the main part in PTC assembly manufactured as tubular shape either without glass envelope or covered with a glass envelope to reduce the radiative and convective heat losses. This article focused on the main parameters was considered in the HTE receiver design of parabolic trough solar collectors (PTC) which were enhanced the heat transfer process in deep details. Further, this work extended to discuss the primary results that came from a different design of PTC receiver based on previous studies in order to benefits researchers who are interested in solar energy collectors.

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Nanoparticles application for heavy oil recovery has shown positive results in laboratory experiments simulating enhancing oil recovery. This work consists in a comparative analysis of the nanoparticles to determinate that has better applicability for viscosity reduction and increase of oil recovery on the Ecuador east basin. The majority studies are based on the use of the nanoparticles such as: aluminum oxide, silicon oxide, titanium oxide, nickel oxide, among others that at certain concentrations were mixed with formation water or brine to obtain a respective nanofluid to be injected into samples of wet cores with heavy oil obtained from a reservoir. The analysis result indicates that aluminum oxide reduces the oil viscosity in a more effective way in addition of obtaining the best recovery percentage in comparison with the other nanofluids, considering that also helps to increase API grades turning them in a lighter hydrocarbon for its refining process.

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Taguchi design was utilized to determine the significant impact of ultrasonic assisted milling cutting parameter performance on Inconel 718 material. An experiment using Taguchi orthogonal array, L9 with parameters such as ultrasonic frequency, feed rate cutting speed and at various cutting condition types was conducted. An orthogonal array, Pareto analysis of variance (ANOVA) and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio were utilized to ascertain these machining parameters effects. The findings yielded that the most significant parameter was the cutting conditions for the surface roughness. Hence, the Taguchi method was deemed more suitable than a full factorial design to screen significant parameter with trials of minimum number.

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Particulate matter is a critical air pollutant in Malaysia as it is the utmost dominant pollutant, especially in industrial and urban areas. The development of a robust model for PM10 concentration forecasting provides invaluable information for local authorities to take precautionary measures and implement significant actions to improve air pollution status. This study aims to develop and assess the linear (Multiple Linear Regression, MLR) and nonlinear (Multilayer Perceptron, MLP) models forecasting capability in an industrial area of Pasir Gudang, Johor. Daily observations of PM10 concentration, meteorological factors (wind speed, ambient temperature and relative humidity) and gaseous pollutants (SO2, NO2 and CO) from the year 2007-2014 were used in this study. Results showed that MLP model was able to explain 68.7% (R2 = 0.687) variance in the data compared to MLR model with 52.7% (R2 = 0.527). Overall, the MLP model able to increase the accuracy of forecasting by 29.9% and reducing the error by 69.3% with respect to MLR model. Thus, it is proven that nonlinear model has high ability in virtually representing the complexity and nonlinearity of PM10 in the atmosphere without any prior assumptions, unlike the linear model.

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Due to rapid growth of population and industrialization, there is a need for need for tremendous growth in the infrastructure development. This leads to the depletion of natural resources because they are excavated at high rate. In that way natural resources available for construction materials are also being rapidly depleted which hikes the cost of these materials. Hence more focus is essential for finding out the alternative materials for construction. In the present study the focus was made on the coarse aggregates and an attempt was made to replace the conventional coarse aggregates using coconut shells in concrete. A control mix was designed for M 25 grade of concrete and then the crushed granite aggregates were replaced with coconut shells by volume in different levels such as 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%. The mechanical properties of concrete such as compressive strength, split tensile strength, and flexural strength were determined as per the relevant Indian standards. From the test results it was found that the properties of concrete decreased as the level of replacement of coconut shell aggregates increased. The density of concrete also decreases as the percentage of coconut shell is increased. The test results of this study showed that up to 40% replacement gave better strength. Hence the use of coconut shells up to 40% can be encouraged for field applications that help in protecting the environment, as well as producing the light weight concrete.

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In this study, the activity undertaken is to develop a kinetic turbine that has been studied previously with the modification of the turbine blade shape, so that the momentum of the resulting blade becomes larger. Some researcher mentioned in some studies, that a kinetic turbine is a simple turbine and has a low efficiency. As previous studies of turbines to be observed are a laboratory-scale prototype turbine and what is sought is the turbine efficiency as a representative of a turbine performance. The results of this turbine performance measurement will be compared with the result of the kinetic turbine modeling on the Computer Fluid Dynamic system. In order that the modeling results comparable to be valid, it was then compared with the previous studies result. Then what was done was observing the pressure distribution occurred in the turbine. For the bowl bladed kinetic turbine it was found that the highest efficiency achieved was 21% at a water flow rate of 45 m3/ h and a turbine rotation of about 80 RPM. The simulation results with CFDs that observe every movement of rotating runner appear that there are at least two turbine blades that experience great momentum in the modeling. Compared with previous research, the kinetic turbine with a curved blade, the turbine bowl bladed efficiency has a higher efficiency and a more stable turbine rotation. The largest water flow, pressure occurs on the 45 (runner position as big as 1.02e+010 Pa and occurs in its two blade area. On the 40° runner position, the water flow pressure is slightly lower as big as 9.34e+009 Pa and also occurs in the two blades regions. While at the 5°, 10°, 15°, 20°, 25° and 30 runner position the water pressure is the lowest but still high enough with a value of about 8.63e+009 Pa. Thus, based on the water pressure between the blades which produces the same relative momentum in the kinetic turbine with the bowl blade, it can be concluded that this turbine rotation is more stable. The water pressure produced is higher than that on the curve bladed kinetic turbine observed in the previous research.

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In this investigation, the critical micelle concentration of local surfactant was measured with the CMC is 6ml dissolved in 19 ml of water. It has ability to decrease the surface tension from 72 to 29.0 dyne/m. The foam capacity of the local surfactant in solution was investigated. The foam was generated by using a foam generator continuously. The variation of CMC then used to measure the foam capacities dynamically in foam generator. With the concentration 1x, 2x, 3x CMC, the surfactant was possible to produce foam capacity A, B and C cm. The foam capacity then measure in the presence of the coffee colloidal particle and Cd ion contaminant with the foam capacity, E, F and G cm for 1x, 2x, 3x CMC respectively. The foam capacity of SDS was first evaluated at different concentrations. The results show that the decreased foam capacity and stability was more distinct in the presence of coffee colloidal particles than Cd ions contaminant. The colloidal particles of coffee may have stronger interaction with SDS and thus reduce the formation of the foam.

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Abstract:

Vital signs taken from the patient's body has gained significant interest among researchers studying disease diagnosis. To achieve accurate diagnoses, the performance metrics of any proposed system must be satisfied. Two essential metrics can be found in such a system; the first metric is the measurement accuracy and the second one is the power efficiency. This paper aims to introduce accurate measurements and improve the power consumption of the proposed system. This study introduced a prototype of wireless vital signs monitoring system (WVSMS) for monitoring three vital parameters (i.e. heart rate, Spo2 and temperature) of patients inside/outside hospitals. A ZigBee wireless protocol was interfaced with the Arduino Pro mini based on ATmega 328p microcontroller to alert doctors in real time via a wireless sensor network (WSN) in emergency cases when a patient’s vital signs rise to a critical level. The measurement accuracies of the heart rate, Spo2 and temperature are achieved relative to the consumer-ready devices based on statistical analyses, such as mean error, Bland-Altman and histogram. The power consumption of the WVSMS is improved by using duty cycle for the sleep/wake scheme. The experimental results revealed that the three vital parameters can be measured with high accuracy of 99.4%. In addition, the power savings of 84.5 % is achieved. Moreover, the WVSMS outperformed a similar system in terms of accuracy and power consumption.

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The inherently varying nature of tumor shapes and image intensities make brain tumor detection very intricate. Since several available methods and tumor detection are far from being resolved. Initially, an optimization-based classification a new hybrid model was proposed to describe an individual use of clonal selection and particle swarm optimization (PSO) to verify a specified MR brain image as either normal or abnormal. The methodology involves two major stages. In the first stage, used sparse principal component analysis (SPCA) to reduce feature space, and selected the important features. The second phase two hybrid optimization-based negative selection models were developed to investigate the integration of clonal selection technique with PSO from the perspective of classification and detection to optimize the parameters C and d. Fivefold cross-validation was utilized to avoid overfitting and to ensure a robust classification. Although clonal negative selection classification algorithm (CNSCA), has the best performance. The proposed method achieved 99.10% classification accuracy. The admirable features of the outcomes submit that the suggested methods may institute a basis for reliable MRI brain tumor diagnosis and treatments. A comparison with other techniques showed the competitiveness of the proposed methods.

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This study investigate on the potential of using sewage sludge ash to improve the shear strength parameters of soft soil. The sludge ash was obtained by burning the sludge for 1 hour at 800 °C. In this research, the following laboratory tests were conducted on the soft soil which are sieve analysis, standard proctor compaction, specific gravity, Atterberg limit and direct shear test. Two curing times were used for the untreated soils and treated soils with sludge ash which are 7 days and 14 days. The sludge ash was mixed with the soil at different percentages by weight of the soil at 2%, 4% 8% and 16%. The results showed that the increment in the sludge ash up to 8% increase both shear strength parameters which are cohesion and friction angle at 7 days curing time. Further increment of the sludge ash resulting decreases the cohesion values. The outcomes were observed present a better performance of the shear strength parameters at 7 days curing time. The findings of this research indicate that sludge ash can be applied to stabilize the soft soil and further diminish the environmental hazard associated with this material.

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Rapid changes have been happened in land uses in Baghdad city in Iraq especially through the last fifteen years ago. Green and agricultural areas are gradually decreased as a result of population growth and increasing demand for residential buildings. The intent of this study is to determine the annual area changes of land uses during the period from 2002 to the end of 2016. The elected study area is placed in North of Baghdad. Set of multi-temporal satellite images are obtained from Google earth professional. These images are rectified according to the coordinate system in Iraq by measuring numerous control points using global positioning system. Images are classified into green and urban regions and their areas are tabulated for all multi-temporal data using geographic information system. The results indicate that the percentages of land use area changes are 36.7%, 35.1%, 34.3%, 17%, and 12.4% in Gheraiat, Tunis district, Basateen district, Saba Abkar, and Surroundings of Kadhimiyah regions, respectively. Regression equations are deduced with high value of R square for all regions which give an ability to predict land use area alteration in future.

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The increase in awareness towards global warming has prompted the research of alternatives to the conventional ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). In addition, studies have demonstrated that the use of geopolymer cement slurries resulted in lower carbon emission and superior cement properties compared to the ordinary Portland cement. In this study, the factors which affect the wellbore integrity in regards to cementing were identified and a comparison between Class G cement and Fly Ash Geopolymer (FAGP) cement pertaining to the identified factors were made. In addition, a thorough analysis on the factors affecting the properties of geopolymer in regards to its application in oil well cementing was performed. The results enable the finding of optimum parameters required to produce geopolymer cements for oil well applications. The FAGP cement achieved higher compressive strengths compared to Class G cement for all curing temperatures above 36oC. At optimum curing temperatures, for all curing time FAGP cement achieved higher compressive strengths in comparison Class G cement. Moreover, FAGP cement was found to be more susceptible to marine environment whereby curing medium of brine water resulted in higher compressive strengths. In addition, FAGP cement has lesser carbon footprint, superior chemical durability, lower permeability and higher crack propagation threshold in comparison the Class G cement. In addition, key variables which influence the compressive strength of FAGP cement such as type of activating solution, concentration of activating solution alkaline liquid to fly ash ratio, aging duration and water to binder ratio were identified and the corresponding optimum values in achieving highest compressive strength were suggested. The conclusion supports the usage of geopolymer cement for oil well cementing whereby it has an edge over conventional Portland cement for better short term and long term performance to ensure wellbore integrity throughout the producing life span of the well, with less hazards imposed on the environment.

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This article focuses on the Limits of the Approach the Six Sigma by report to the factory 4.0. In this framework, we have made a few arguments showing that the main tools of Six Sigma are not adapted to the characteristics of the complex factory 4.0. The approach mono-process is reductionist view of the complex interactions between the various industrial equipment of the complex factory 4.0 and which are connected in real time. On the other hand, if we want to improve the complex factory 4.0 as a complex system using the approach Six Sigma, it is essential to characterize its initial performance in terms of capability and this by applying the normal law mono-variable without taking into account the multidimensional aspect of the data. While the transformed mathematics the most used in the Six Sigma, in particular the transformed mathematical of Johnson, generates the denaturing of the data. The said article initiates a first reflection around the multi-Six Sigma Machine Learning.

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In this study we propose a procedure to find the various performance measures in terms of crisp values for fuzzy queue with two classes, in which the arrival rate and service rate are fuzzy numbers. DSW algorithm is used to define membership functions of the performance measures of queuing system. The algorithm is based on the a - cut representation of fuzzy sets in a standard interval analysis. Numerical example is also illustrated to check the validity of the model.

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Natural language processing task usually involves predicting a large number of variables that depend on each other as well as on other observed variables. We have studied different approaches: generative and discriminative that can be taken into consideration. CRFS, HMMs and MaxEnt can be used but, CRFs particularly have seen wide application in this particular area. CRFs can also be used in computer vision, and bioinformatics. Moreover, regularization plays a vital role and L1 and L2 regularizers are critical tools in machine learning due to their ability to simplify solutions. In this paper we compare both L1 and L2 regularization technique while they are being applied on dataset consisting of news articles. The results obtained are checked by three parameters namely Precision, recall and support.

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As miniaturization of conventional MOSFETs leading to its scaling limits, novel nano-scale devices are studied and developed. To improve Ion/Ioff ratio gate controllable wrap-around gate CNTFETs are recently investigated. The Gate-All-Around (GAA) CNTFET is one of the best types of CNTFETs which gives the environment for technological scaling beyond 10 nm because of its electrical and physical properties. In nano-scale device design, ultra thin body with GAA-CNTFET is an ideal choice to improve the performance. As device dimensions minimizes, new processing steps increases the source of variation. To address these issues during scaling, there is a necessity for device engineering and new nano devices based on different principles of physics. In this paper, we have studied the effect of diameter, chiral vector, Gate oxide thickness, different dielectric material constant, number of CNTs on threshold voltage (Vth). It is observed that chiral vector (n,0) with increasing values of n is more sensitive towards reduction in threshold voltage and also in our simulation it is analysed that when the number of CNTs are equal to N, drain current increases in the same order. In addition to this, the effects of quantum capacitance on these parametric variations have also been plotted. From the simulation, we analysed that chiral vector is very crucial parameter for CNTFET devices to control threshold voltage of the transistor.

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In our previous works, we observed the formation of Au-carbon nanoparticles via pulsed laser ablation (PLA) under pressurized CO2. We showed that the size of the generated nanoparticles depend strongly on the pressure and the temperature of the CO2 medium. Here, we further elaborate this finding by applying more extreme conditions for the CO2 medium. The experiments were performed at temperatures and pressures of 31-80 °C and 5-15 MPa, corresponding to the supercritical phase of CO2. We observed that the generated Au-carbon nanoparticles has the average size of 11 nm with spherical and nanocluster structures. The effects of the medium temperature and pressure will be discussed thoroughly.

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A serious neurological disorder characterized by unpredictable seizures affecting the nervous system and brain is epilepsy. A seizure is nothing but a very short disruption in the normal activity of the brain that interferes severely with the brain function. The brain is comprised of billions of cells termed neurons which communicate by means of sending and receiving electrical messages. The activity of the brain is quite a rhythmic process where all the groups of neurons communicate with other similar group of neurons. When a seizure occurs, large groups of brain cells send messages simultaneously thereby the normal brain function gets temporarily disrupted where the seizure is occurring. An Electroencephalography (EEG) is a test that helps to record and manage the electrical signals of the brain. For the diagnosis of epilepsy and sleep disorders, the physicians use it widely. As the EEG recordings are generally very lengthy, processing it is difficult and hence in this paper Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) technique is used for clustering initially. Later the clustered values are then classified with the help of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifier. Results show that an average classification accuracy of 93.54% along with an average performance index of 84.71% is obtained.

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Prognosis of various diseases has been a challenge in medical field. With advances in Cognitive Sciences, Neural Networks and Machine Learning this challenge is being addressed at various levels. Cervical Dysplasia or cancer is one of the major reasons for women deaths. So, here novel framework based on reservoir computing is applied on this problem. Also, most commonly faced lack of labeled data and partial data availability in medical field is addressed by this framework. Proposed framework is compared with current machine learning models like Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, Adaboost and Multi Layer Perceptron. Results over ten various parameters prove it is best in cost amongst all over this dataset. Also it is stable in partial availability of information.

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In hypersonic aircrafts, the necessity of operating at speed lower than Mach 1.0 obliged the designers to use the complicate propulsion plant of the mixed compression turbojet. Fast commercial passenger transportation will probably shorten the flight time by a factor 5, from the actual 6 hours to 1 hours for the London-NYC flight route. Therefore, the engine will work for a shorter time. The subsonic part of the flight is very limited. For this reason, a possible solution can be to substitute the turbojet with a pulsejet in the ramjet duct. Valveless pulsejets are extremely, simple, reliable, lightweight, fully throttable jet engines. The main limitations of the pulsejet are very low efficiency, relatively low “thrust density” and noise. Noise is naturally reduced as the main working frequency passes from the 150Hz of small pulsejet to the 40Hz of larger ones. Efficiency can be increased inserting the pulsejet in a ramjet-duct. This solution increases the pressure at the pulsejet intake and efficiently recovers heat from the pulsejet walls. Finally, it is possible to decelerate the jet with an ejector exhaust thrust augmenter. The feasibility of this concept is investigated in this paper. For this purpose, it was imagined to develop a transport aircraft with the aerodynamic of the Valkyrie and the new propulsion system. A cruise speed of MACH 3.5@25,000m was simulated with CFD. In this cruise condition the pulsejet works as a combustion stabilizer for the ramjet. Also the take-off condition was simulated. At take off the thrust is obtained only by the pulsejet.

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This paper presents the design and implementation of an objective evaluation model for the quality of anaglyph 3D video based on standardized objective evaluation models for 2D video; each metric that composes the objective model is adapted so that it can identify the characteristic components of anaglyph 3D video. In order to verify the proposed model, a subjective evaluation is carried out, in which the evaluation of the viewers about the perception of video quality is carried out through a mobile device, for this purpose a web application is developed in charge of acquiring and store all the information in a database; the process is carried out following international recommendations. The results obtained from the objective model show that a good approximation is achieved compared to the results of the subjective evaluation.

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