Search results for: multiple equations

Authors: Hirseland Andreas, Kerschbaumer Lukas

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In the case of Germany, there are about one million long-term unemployed – a figure that did not vary much during the past years. These long-term unemployed did not benefit from the prospering labor market while most short-term unemployed did. Instead, they are continuously dependent on welfare and sometimes precarious short-term employment, experiencing work poverty. Long-term unemployment thus turns into a main obstacle to become employed again, especially if it is accompanied by other impediments such as low-level education (school/vocational), poor health (especially chronical illness), advanced age (older than fifty), immigrant status, motherhood or engagement in care for other relatives. As can be shown by this current research project, in these cases the chance to regain employment decreases to near nil. Almost two-thirds of all welfare recipients have multiple impediments which hinder a successful transition from welfare back to sustainable and sufficient employment. Prospective employers are unlikely to hire long-term unemployed with additional impediments because they evaluate potential employees on their negative signaling (e.g. low-level education) and the implicit assumption of unproductiveness (e.g. poor health, age). Some findings of the panel survey “Labor market and social security” (PASS) carried out by the Institute of Employment Research (the research institute of the German Federal Labor Agency) spread a ray of hope, showing that unlikely does not necessarily mean impossible. The presentation reports on current research on these very scarce “success stories” of unlikely transitions from long-term unemployment to work and how these cases were able to perform this switch against all odds. The study is based on a mixed-method design. Within the panel survey (~15,000 respondents in ~10,000 households), only 66 cases of such unlikely transitions were observed. These cases have been explored by qualitative inquiry – in depth-interviews and qualitative network techniques. There is strong evidence that sustainable transitions are influenced by certain biographical resources like habits of network use, a set of informal skills and particularly a resilient way of dealing with obstacles, combined with contextual factors rather than by job-placement procedures promoted by Job-Centers according to activation rules or by following formal paths of application. On the employer’s side small and medium-sized enterprises are often found to give job opportunities to a wider variety of applicants, often based on a slow but steadily increasing relationship leading to employment. According to these results it is possible to show and discuss some limitations of (German) activation policies targeting the labor market and their impact on welfare dependency and long-term unemployment. Based on these findings, indications for more supportive small-scale measures in the field of labor-market policies are suggested to help long-term unemployed with multiple impediments to overcome their situation (e.g. organizing small-scale-structures and low-threshold services to encounter possible employers on a more informal basis like “meet and greet”).

Keywords: against-all-odds, mixed-methods, Welfare State, long-term unemployment

Procedia PDF Downloads 365

Authors: Saad Bin Saeed, Fayzan Ahmed, Shahbaz Ahmed, Amjad Hussain

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The aim of this study is to evaluate dynamic log files (Dynalogs) at different dose rates by dose-volume histograms (DVH) and used as a (QA) procedure of IMRT. Seven patients of phase one head and neck cancer with similar OAR`s are selected randomly. Reference plans of dose rate 300 and 600 MU/Min with prescribed dose of 50Gy in 25 fractions for each patient is made. Dynalogs produced by delivery of reference plans processed by in-house MATLAB program which produces new field files contain actual positions of multi-leaf collimators (MLC`s) instead of planned positions in reference plans. Copies of reference plans are used to import new field files generated by MATLAB program and renamed as Dyn.plan. After dose calculations of Dyn.plans for different dose rates, DVH, and multiple linear regression tools are used to evaluate reference and Dyn.plans. The results indicate good agreement of correlation between different dose rate plans. The maximum dose difference among PTV and OAR`s are found to be less than 5% and 9% respectively. The study indicates the potential of dynalogs to be used as patient-specific QA of IMRT at different dose rate.

Keywords: IMRT, dynalogs, dose rate, DVH

Procedia PDF Downloads 538

Authors: Vivek Upadhayay, Siddharth Deshmukh

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In recent years utilization of renewable energy sources has increased majorly because of the increase in global warming concerns. Organization these days are generally operated by Micro grid or smart grid on a small level. Power optimization and optimal load tripping is possible in a smart grid based industry. In any plant or industry loads can be divided into different categories based on their importance to the plant and power requirement pattern in the working days. Coming up with an idea to divide loads in different such categories and providing different power management algorithm to each category of load can reduce the power cost and can come handy in balancing stability and reliability of power. An objective function is defined which is subjected to a variable that we are supposed to minimize. Constraint equations are formed taking difference between the power usages pattern of present day and same day of previous week. By considering the objectives of minimal load tripping and optimal power distribution the proposed problem formulation is a multi-object optimization problem. Through normalization of each objective function, the multi-objective optimization is transformed to single-objective optimization. As a result we are getting the optimized values of power required to each load for present day by use of the past values of the required power for the same day of last week. It is quite a demand response scheduling of power. These minimized values then will be distributed to each load through an algorithm used to optimize the power distribution at a greater depth. In case of power storage exceeding the power requirement, profit can be made by selling exceeding power to the main grid.

Keywords: power flow optimization, power trading enhancement, smart grid, multi-object optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 527

Authors: Komang Rahayu Indrawati, Ni Wayan Sinthia Widiastuti, Ratna Dewi Santosa

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Today the career of Balinese working women has been highly developed where able to work with loyalty and high professionalism. Career for a woman is one conscious choice and a call of conscience, which provides financial support for her family. Career for women can develop their own potencies, intellectually, and socially, so women feel that their role is meaningful and beneficial for herself and others. Emotional support becomes important to understand certainly for women who have multirole like Balinese working women to meet the demands of their role and also enhancing their work motivation and the quality of work life. This research used quantitative research method with questionnaires dissemination to 120 respondents and analyzed using Multiple Regression Analysis. The purpose of this study was to see the role of emotional support for work motivation and quality of work life in working Balinese women. The results of this study showed that emotional support and work motivation give a significant role in the quality of work life on Balinese working women.

Keywords: Balinese working women, emotional support, quality of work life, work motivation

Procedia PDF Downloads 199

Authors: Vinesh Janarthanan, Mohammad H. Rahman

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There are numerous neurological conditions that may result in a loss of motor function. Such conditions may include cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, stroke or multiple sclerosis. Due to impaired motor function, specifically in the hand and arm, living independently becomes tremendously more difficult. Rehabilitation programs are the main method to treat these kinds of disabled individuals. However, these programs require longtime commitment from the clinicians/therapists, demand person to person caring, and typically the treatment duration is usually very long. Aside from the treatment received from the therapist, the continuation of neuroplasticity at home is essential to maximizing development and restoring the biological function. To contribute in this area, we have researched and developed a portable and comfortable hand glove for fine motor skills rehabilitation. The glove provides interactive home-based therapy to engage the patient with simple games. The key to this treatment is the repetition of moving the hand and being capable of positioning the hand in various ways.

Keywords: home based, wearable sensors, glove, rehabilitation, motor function, video games

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Moustapha Bande, Hakima Ould-Slimane, Hanifa Boucheneb

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Software development for complex systems requires efficient and automatic tools that can be used to verify the satisfiability of some critical properties such as security ones. With the emergence of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), considerable work has been done in order to better modularize the separation of concerns in the software design and implementation. The goal is to prevent the cross-cutting concerns to be scattered across the multiple modules of the program and tangled with other modules. One of the key challenges in the aspect-oriented programs is to be sure that all the pieces put together at the weaving time ensure the satisfiability of the overall system requirements. Our paper focuses on this problem and proposes a formal property verification approach for a given property from the woven program. The approach is based on the control flow graph (CFG) of the woven program, and the use of a satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) solver to check whether each property (represented par one aspect) is satisfied or not once the weaving is done.

Keywords: aspect-oriented programming, control flow graph, property verification, satisfiability modulo theories

Procedia PDF Downloads 178

Authors: Edward W. Staley, Corban G. Rivera, Ashley J. Llorens

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Advances in reinforcement learning (RL) have resulted in recent breakthroughs in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) across many different domains. An emerging landscape of development environments is making powerful RL techniques more accessible for a growing community of researchers. However, most existing frameworks do not directly address the problem of learning in complex operating environments, such as dense urban settings or defense-related scenarios, that incorporate distributed, heterogeneous teams of agents. To help enable AI research for this important class of applications, we introduce the AI Arena: a scalable framework with flexible abstractions for distributed multi-agent reinforcement learning. The AI Arena extends the OpenAI Gym interface to allow greater flexibility in learning control policies across multiple agents with heterogeneous learning strategies and localized views of the environment. To illustrate the utility of our framework, we present experimental results that demonstrate performance gains due to a distributed multi-agent learning approach over commonly-used RL techniques in several different learning environments.

Keywords: reinforcement learning, multi-agent, deep learning, artificial intelligence

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: Heba Fouad, Tarek M. Madkour, Safwan A. Khedr

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This paper investigates multiple factors that impact the formation of geopolymers and their compressive strength to be utilized in construction as an environmentally-friendly material. Bentonite and Kaolinite were thermally calcinated at 750 °C to obtain Metabentonite and Metakaolinite with higher reactivity. Both source materials were activated using a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Thereafter, samples were cured at different temperatures. The samples were analyzed chemically using a host of spectroscopic techniques. The bulk density and compressive strength of the produced Geopolymer pastes were studied. Findings indicate that the ratio of NaOH solution to source material affects the compressive strength, being optimal at 0.54. Moreover, controlled heat curing was proven effective to improve compressive strength. The existence of characteristic Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) peaks at approximately 1020 cm-1 and 460 cm-1 which corresponds to the asymmetric stretching vibration of Si-O-T and bending vibration of Si-O-Si, hence, confirming the formation of the target geopolymer.

Keywords: calcination of metakaolinite, compressive strength, FTIR analysis, geopolymer, green cement

Procedia PDF Downloads 173

Authors: Sarika Bahadure

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Sustainability starts with conserving resources for future generations. Since human’s existence on this earth, he has been consuming natural resources. The resource consumption pace in the past was very slow, but industrialization in 18^th century brought a change in the human lifestyle. New inventions and discoveries upgraded the human workforce to machines. The mass manufacture of goods provided easy access to products. In the last few decades, the globalization and change in technologies brought consumer oriented market. The consumption of resources has increased at a very high scale. This overconsumption pattern brought economic boom and provided multiple opportunities, but it also put stress on the natural resources. This paper tries to put forth the facts and figures of the population growth and consumption of resources with examples. This is explained with the help of the mathematical expression of doubling known as exponential growth. It compares the carrying capacity of the earth and resource consumption of humans’ i.e. ecological footprint and bio-capacity. Further, it presents the need to conserve natural resources and re-examine sustainable resource use approach for sustainability.

Keywords: consumption, exponential growth, population, resources, sustainability

Procedia PDF Downloads 231

Authors: Judith Stein, Elfriede Friedmann

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The injection of a drug into the vitreous body for the treatment of retinal diseases like wet aged-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common medical intervention worldwide. We develop mathematical models for drug transport in the vitreous body of a human eye to analyse the impact of different rheological models of the vitreous on drug distribution. In addition to the convection diffusion equation characterizing the drug spreading, we use porous media modeling for the healthy vitreous with a dense collagen network and include the steady permeating flow of the aqueous humor described by Darcy's law driven by a pressure drop. Additionally, the vitreous body in a healthy human eye behaves like a viscoelastic gel through the collagen fibers suspended in the network of hyaluronic acid and acts as a drug depot for the treatment of retinal diseases. In a completely liquefied vitreous, we couple the drug diffusion with the classical Navier-Stokes flow equations. We prove the global existence and uniqueness of the weak solution of the developed initial-boundary value problem describing the drug distribution in the healthy vitreous considering the permeating aqueous humor flow in the realistic three-dimensional setting. In particular, for the drug diffusion equation, results from the literature are extended from homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions to our mixed boundary conditions that describe the eye with the Galerkin's method using Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and trace theorem. Because there is only a small effective drug concentration range and higher concentrations may be toxic, the ability to model the drug transport could improve the therapy by considering patient individual differences and give a better understanding of the physiological and pathological processes in the vitreous.

Keywords: coupled PDE systems, drug diffusion, mixed boundary conditions, vitreous body

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: M. Y. Saleh, G. M. ELanany, M. H. Elzahar, M. Z. Elshikhipy

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Industrial wastewater discharge, which carries high concentrations of dissolved solids and iron, could be treated by high rate activated sludge stage of the multiple-stage sludge treatment plant, a system which is characterized by high treatment efficiency, optimal prices, and small areas compared with conventional activated sludge treatment plants. A pilot plant with an influent industrial discharge flow of 135 L/h was designed following the activated sludge system to simulate between the biological and chemical treatment with the addition of dosages 100, 150, 200 and 250 mg/L alum salt to the aeration tank. The concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) and iron (Fe) in industrial discharge flow had an average range of 140000 TDS and 4.5 mg/L iron. The optimization of the chemical-biological process using a dosage of 200 mg/L alum succeeded to improve the removal efficiency of TDS and total iron to 48.15% and 68.11% respectively.

Keywords: wastewater, activated sludge, TDS, total iron

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Authors: Aysegul Sarac

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The aim of this study is to analyze the impacts of integrating agile development principles and practices, in particular to reduce project lead time in a multi-project environment. We analyze Arçelik Washing Machine R&D Center in which multiple projects are conducted by shared resources. In the first part of the study, we illustrate the current waterfall model system by using a value stream map. We define all activities starting from the first idea of the project to the customer and measure process time and lead time of projects. In the second part of the study we estimate potential improvements and select a set of these improvements to integrate agile principles. We aim to develop a future state map and analyze the impacts of integrating lean principles on project lead time. The main contribution of this study is that we analyze and integrate agile product development principles in a real multi-project system.

Keywords: agile project management, multi project system, project lead time, product development

Procedia PDF Downloads 307

Authors: Bella Llego

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The purpose of this study was to explain and empirically test the influence of attitude towards work, job satisfaction and organizational commitment of SSRU employee’s evaluation and performance. Data used in this study was primary data which were collected through Organizational Commitment Questionnaire with 1-5 Likert Scale. The respondent of this study was 200 managerial and non-managerial staff of SSRU. The statistics to analyze the data provide the descriptive by the mean, standard deviation and test hypothesis by the use of multiple regression. The result of this study is showed that attitude towards work have positive but not significant effect to job satisfaction and employees evaluation and performance. Different with attitude towards work, the organizations commitment has positive and significant influence on job satisfaction and employee performance at SSRU. It means every improvement in organization’s commitment has a positive effect toward job satisfaction and employee evaluation and performance at SSRU.

Keywords: attitude towards work, employee’s evaluation and performance, jobs satisfaction, organization commitment

Procedia PDF Downloads 457

Authors: Sunmyeng Kim

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IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards provide multiple transmission rates, which can be changed dynamically according to the channel condition.Cooperative communications we reintroduced to improve the overallperformance of wireless LANs with the help of relay nodes with higher transmission rates. The cooperative communications are based on the fact that the transmission is much faster when sending data packets to a destination node through a relay node with higher transmission rate, rather than sending data directly to the destination node at low transmission rate. To apply the cooperative communications in wireless LAN, several MAC protocols have been proposed. Some of them can result in collisions among relay nodes in a dense network. In order to solve this problem, we propose a new protocol. Relay nodes are grouped based on their transmission rates. And then, relay nodes only in the highest group try to get channel access. Performance evaluation is conducted using simulation, and shows that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms the previous protocol in terms of throughput and collision probability.

Keywords: cooperative communications, MAC protocol, relay node, WLAN

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Authors: Mohd Hasni Chumiran

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The rapid growth of global industrialism over the past few decades has led to various environmental issues and ecological instability, all due to human activity. In order to solve this global issue, the manufacturers alike have begun to embrace the use of ecodesign products. However, when considering a specific field, multiple questions have been raised and industrial designers (the practising designer's R&D group) have been unable to define the ecological cycle methodology. In this paper, we investigate the validation of problematic in the creation of ecodesign products with the 'reduce, reuse and recycle' (3R’s) method, which is an untested product design theory. The aim of this research is to address the 3R’s method can be extracted in order to transmit an ecological form of ecodesign, specifically among Malaysian furniture manufacturers. By operating the Descriptive Study I (DS-I) phase: Design Research Methodology (DRM), the research has applied two research approaches by the methodological triangulation tradition. To achieve the result, this validation of descriptive structure (design theory) shall be matched with the research hypothesis along the use of research questions.

Keywords: design research methodology, ecodesign, ecological form, industrial design

Procedia PDF Downloads 234

Authors: Mayank Gupta, Siba Prasad Samal, Vasu Kakkirala

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The internet world and its priorities have changed considerably in the last decade. Browsing on smart phones has increased manifold and is set to explode much more. Users spent considerable time browsing different websites, that gives a great deal of insight into user’s preferences. Instead of plain information classifying different aspects of browsing like Bookmarks, History, and Download Manager into useful categories would improve and enhance the user’s experience. Most of the classification solutions are server side that involves maintaining server and other heavy resources. It has security constraints and maybe misses on contextual data during classification. On device, classification solves many such problems, but the challenge is to achieve accuracy on classification with resource constraints. This on device classification can be much more useful in personalization, reducing dependency on cloud connectivity and better privacy/security. This approach provides more relevant results as compared to current standalone solutions because it uses content rendered by browser which is customized by the content provider based on user’s profile. This paper proposes a Naive Bayes based lightweight classification engine targeted for a resource constraint devices. Our solution integrates with Web Browser that in turn triggers classification algorithm. Whenever a user browses a webpage, this solution extracts DOM Tree data from the browser’s rendering engine. This DOM data is a dynamic, contextual and secure data that can’t be replicated. This proposal extracts different features of the webpage that runs on an algorithm to classify into multiple categories. Naive Bayes based engine is chosen in this solution for its inherent advantages in using limited resources compared to other classification algorithms like Support Vector Machine, Neural Networks, etc. Naive Bayes classification requires small memory footprint and less computation suitable for smartphone environment. This solution has a feature to partition the model into multiple chunks that in turn will facilitate less usage of memory instead of loading a complete model. Classification of the webpages done through integrated engine is faster, more relevant and energy efficient than other standalone on device solution. This classification engine has been tested on Samsung Z3 Tizen hardware. The Engine is integrated into Tizen Browser that uses Chromium Rendering Engine. For this solution, extensive dataset is sourced from dmoztools.net and cleaned. This cleaned dataset has 227.5K webpages which are divided into 8 generic categories ('education', 'games', 'health', 'entertainment', 'news', 'shopping', 'sports', 'travel'). Our browser integrated solution has resulted in 15% less memory usage (due to partition method) and 24% less power consumption in comparison with standalone solution. This solution considered 70% of the dataset for training the data model and the rest 30% dataset for testing. An average accuracy of ~96.3% is achieved across the above mentioned 8 categories. This engine can be further extended for suggesting Dynamic tags and using the classification for differential uses cases to enhance browsing experience.

Keywords: chromium, lightweight engine, mobile computing, Naive Bayes, Tizen, web browser, webpage classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 165

Authors: Matteo Calabrese, Martin Cimmino, Dimos Kapetis, Martina Manfrin, Donato Concilio, Giuseppe Toscano, Giovanni Ciandrini, Giancarlo Paccapeli, Gianluca Giarratana, Marco Siciliano, Andrea Forlani, Alberto Carrotta

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In this paper we describe a machine learning methodology for Predictive Maintenance (PdM) applied on woodworking industrial machines. PdM is a prominent strategy consisting of all the operational techniques and actions required to ensure machine availability and to prevent a machine-down failure. One of the challenges with PdM approach is to design and develop of an embedded smart system to enable the health status of the machine. The proposed approach allows screening simultaneously multiple connected machines, thus providing real-time monitoring that can be adopted with maintenance management. This is achieved by applying temporal feature engineering techniques and training an ensemble of classification algorithms to predict Remaining Useful Lifetime of woodworking machines. The effectiveness of the methodology is demonstrated by testing an independent sample of additional woodworking machines without presenting machine down event.

Keywords: predictive maintenance, machine learning, connected machines, artificial intelligence

Procedia PDF Downloads 228

Authors: Faizan Ahmad, Jenna Wong

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Time lag between peak values of horizontal and vertical seismic waves is a well-known phenomenon. Horizontal and vertical seismic waves, secondary and primary waves in nature respectively, travel through different layers of soil and the travel time is dependent upon the medium of wave transmission. In seismic analysis, many standardized codes do not require the actual vertical acceleration to be part of the analysis procedure. Instead, a factor load addition for a particular site is used to capture strength demands in case of vertical excitation. This study reviews the effects of vertical accelerations to analyze the behavior of a linearly rubber isolated structure in different time lag situations and frequency content by application of historical and simulated ground motions using SAP2000. The response of the structure is reviewed under multiple sets of ground motions and trends based on time lag and frequency variations are drawn. The accuracy of these results is discussed and evaluated to provide reasoning for use of real vertical excitations in seismic analysis procedures, especially for isolated structures.

Keywords: seismic analysis, vertical accelerations, time lag, isolated structures

Procedia PDF Downloads 337

Authors: Nadjib Melkemi, Salah Belaidi

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Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) studies have been performed on nineteen molecules of 1,2-dithiole-3-thione analogues. The compounds used are the potent inducers of enzymes involved in the maintenance of reduced glutathione pools as well as phase-2 enzymes important to electrophile detoxication. A multiple linear regression (MLR) procedure was used to design the relationships between molecular descriptor and detoxication properties of the 1,2-dithiole-3-thione derivatives. The predictivity of the model was estimated by cross-validation with the leave-one-out method. Our results suggest a QSAR model based of the following descriptors: qS2, qC3, qC5, qS6, DM, Pol, log P, MV, SAG, HE and EHOMO for the specific activity of quinone reductase; qS1, qS2, qC3, qC4, qC5, qS6, DM, Pol, logP, MV, SAG, HE and EHOMO for the production of growth hormone. To confirm the predictive power of the models, an external set of molecules was used. High correlation between experimental and predicted activity values was observed, indicating the validation and the good quality of the derived QSAR models.

Keywords: QSAR, quinone reductase activity, production of growth hormone, MLR

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Authors: Huda Alazmi

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Social studies educational research has, so far, devoted very little attention towards spatial thinking in classroom teaching. To help address such paucity, this study explores the spatial thinking instructional experiences of middle school social studies teachers in Kuwait. The goal is to learn their teaching practices and assess teacher understanding for the spatial thinking concept to enable future improvements. Using a qualitative study approach, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews to examine the relevant experiences of 14 social studies teachers. The findings revealed three major themes: (1) concepts of space, (2) tools of representation, and (3) spatial reasoning. These themes illustrated how social studies teachers focus predominantly upon simple concepts of space, using multiple tools of representation, but avoid addressing critical spatial reasoning. The findings help explain the current situation while identifying weaker areas for further analysis and improvement.

Keywords: spatial thinking, concepts of space, spatial representation, spatial reasoning

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Authors: Abisola Akinola, Akinsulere Femi

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The stock market has continually been a source of economic development in most developing countries. This study examined the relationship between investors’ ratio analysis and profitability of quoted companies in Nigeria using secondary data obtained from the annual reports of forty-two (42) companies. The study employed the multiple regression technique to analyze the relationship between investors’ ratio analysis (measured by dividend per share and earning per share) and profitability (measured by the return on equity). The results from the analysis show that investors’ ratio analysis, when measured by earnings per share, have a positive and significant impact on profitability. However, the study noted that investors’ ratio analysis, when measured by dividend per share, tend to have a positive impact on profitability but it is statistically insignificant. By implication, investors and other stakeholders that are interested in investing in stocks can predict the earning capacity of listed firms in the stock market.

Keywords: dividend per share, earnings per share, profitability, return on equity

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: K. Tejasri, K. Suvarna Vani, S. Prathyusha, S. Ramya

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Proteins are chained sequences of amino acids which are brought together by the peptide bonds. Many varying formations of the chains are possible due to multiple combinations of amino acids and rotation in numerous positions along the chain. Protein structure prediction is one of the crucial goals worked towards by the members of bioinformatics and theoretical chemistry backgrounds. Among the four different structure levels in proteins, we emphasize mainly the secondary level structure. Generally, the secondary protein basically comprises alpha-helix and beta-sheets. Multi-class classification problem of data with disparity is truly a challenge to overcome and has to be addressed for the beta strands. Imbalanced data distribution constitutes a couple of the classes of data having very limited training samples collated with other classes. The secondary structure data is extracted from the protein primary sequence, and the beta-strands are predicted using suitable machine learning algorithms.

Keywords: proteins, secondary structure elements, beta-sheets, beta-strands, alpha-helices, machine learning algorithms

Procedia PDF Downloads 95

Authors: Aisha Noour, Nick Hubbard

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Learner motivation is considered an important premise for the Blended e-Learning (BL) method. BL is an effective learning method in multiple domains, which opens several opportunities for its participants to engage in the learning environment. This research explores the learners’ perspective of BL according to the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It identifies the opportunities and challenges for using the BL in Logistics Education (LE) in Egyptian Higher Education (HE). SDT is approached from different perspectives within the relationship between Intrinsic Motivation (IM), Extrinsic Motivation (EM) and Amotivation (AM). A self-administered face-to-face questionnaire was used to collect data from learners who were geographically widely spread around three colleges of International Transport and Logistics (CILTs) at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AAST&MT) in Egypt. Six hundred and sixteen undergraduates responded to a questionnaire survey. Respondents were drawn from three branches in Greater Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said. The data analysis used was SPSS 22 and AMOS 18.

Keywords: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation, blended e-learning, Self Determination Theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 422

Authors: Mehrab Karimian

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The present study was designed to find the relationship between Iranian teachers' motivation, their creativity and their job stress. To achieve such goals, 101 EFL teachers, through convenient sampling from different institutes of Shiraz and Fasa, took part in this study. The researcher utilized three instruments, including the Motivation to Teach Questionnaire (MTQ), the Teacher Creativity Questionnaire, and the Job Stress Questionnaire. By running the Pearson correlation coefficient, the findings emphasized that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' motivation and their creativity. Moreover, the finding of this study revealed that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' motivation and their job stress. Also, according to the results of this study, there was no statistically significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' creativity and their job stress. Besides, by utilizing multiple regression analyses, the finding highlighted that just teachers' creativity was able to strongly predict the variance in teachers' motivation. Each of the other variables, namely gender, teachers' job stress, and years of teaching experience individually and collectively, did not predict teachers' motivation. The pedagogical implications of the findings are thoroughly presented.

Keywords: creativity, job stress, gender, years of teaching experience

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Authors: Niloufar Yadgari

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GANs are a potent form of deep learning models that have found success in various fields. They are part of the larger group of generative techniques, which aim to produce authentic data using a probabilistic model that learns distributions from actual samples. In clinical settings, GANs have demonstrated improved abilities in capturing spatially intricate, nonlinear, and possibly subtle disease impacts in contrast to conventional generative techniques. This review critically evaluates the current research on how GANs are being used in imaging studies of different neurological conditions like Alzheimer's disease, brain tumors, aging of the brain, and multiple sclerosis. We offer a clear explanation of different GAN techniques for each use case in neuroimaging and delve into the key hurdles, unanswered queries, and potential advancements in utilizing GANs in this field. Our goal is to connect advanced deep learning techniques with neurology studies, showcasing how GANs can assist in clinical decision-making and enhance our comprehension of the structural and functional aspects of brain disorders.

Keywords: GAN, pathology, generative adversarial network, neuro imaging

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Authors: Sameer Jung Karki, Gokhan Saygili

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The allowable bearing capacity of foundation systems is determined by applying a factor of safety to the ultimate bearing capacity. Conventional ultimate bearing capacity calculations routines are based on deterministic input parameters where the nonuniformity and inhomogeneity of soil and site properties are not accounted for. Hence, the laws of mathematics like probability calculus and statistical analysis cannot be directly applied to foundation engineering. It’s assumed that the Factor of Safety, typically as high as 3.0, incorporates the uncertainty of the input parameters. This factor of safety is estimated based on subjective judgement rather than objective facts. It is an ambiguous term. Hence, a probabilistic analysis of the bearing capacity of an isolated footing on a clayey soil is carried out by using the Monte Carlo Simulation method. This simulated model was compared with the traditional discrete model. It was found out that the bearing capacity of soil was found higher for the simulated model compared with the discrete model. This was verified by doing the sensitivity analysis. As the number of simulations was increased, there was a significant % increase of the bearing capacity compared with discrete bearing capacity. The bearing capacity values obtained by simulation was found to follow a normal distribution. While using the traditional value of Factor of safety 3, the allowable bearing capacity had lower probability (0.03717) of occurring in the field compared to a higher probability (0.15866), while using the simulation derived factor of safety of 1.5. This means the traditional factor of safety is giving us bearing capacity that is less likely occurring/available in the field. This shows the subjective nature of factor of safety, and hence probability method is suggested to address the variability of the input parameters in bearing capacity equations.

Keywords: bearing capacity, factor of safety, isolated footing, montecarlo simulation

Procedia PDF Downloads 189

Authors: Y. Rathiranee, D. M. Semasinghe

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This study attempts to identify the factors influencing on women empowerment of rural area in Sri Lanka through micro finance services. Data were collected from one hundred (100) rural women involving self employment activities through a questionnaire using direct personal interviews. Judgment and Convenience Random sampling technique was used to select the sample size from three Divisional Secretariat divisions of Kandawalai, Poonakari and Karachchi in Kilinochchi District. The factor analysis was performed on fourteen (14) variables for screening and reducing the variables to identify the influencing factors on empowerment. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the relationship between the three empowerment factors and the impact of micro-finance on overall empowerment of rural women. The result of this study summarized the variables into three factors namely decision making, freedom to mobility and family support and which are positively associated with empowerment. In addition to this the value of adjusted R2 is 0.248 indicates that all the variables extracted can be explained 24.8% of the variation in the women empowerment through microfinance. Independent variables of these three factors have a positive correlation with women empowerment as well as significant values at 5 percent level.

Keywords: influencing factors, micro finance, rural women, women empowerment

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Authors: Eugene Okyere-Kwakye

Abstract:

Knowledge sharing is a practice where individuals commonly exchange both tacit and explicit knowledge to jointly create a new knowledge. Knowledge management literature vividly express that knowledge sharing is the keystone and perhaps it is the most important aspect of knowledge management. To enhance the understanding of knowledge sharing domain, this study is aimed to investigate some factors that could influence employee’s attitude and behaviour to share their knowledge. The researchers employed the social exchange theory as a theoretical foundation for this study. Three essential factors namely: Trust, mutual reciprocity and perceived enjoyment that could influence knowledge sharing behaviour has been incorporated into a research model. To empirically validate this model, data was collected from one hundred and twenty respondents. The multiple regression analysis was employed to analyse the data. The results indicate that perceived enjoyment and trust have a significant influence on knowledge sharing. Surprisingly, mutual reciprocity did not influence knowledge sharing. The paper concludes by highlight the practical implications of the findings and areas for future research to consider.

Keywords: perceived enjoyment, trust, knowledge sharing, knowledge management

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Authors: Soufiene Ilahi, Noureddine Yacoubi

Abstract:

GaInAsSb grown on GaSb substrate is an interesting material employed as an active layer in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) operating in mid-infrared emission. This material presents some advantages like highs optical absorption coefficient and good thermal conductivity, which is very desirable for VCSEL application. In this paper, we have investigated the effects of thermal annealing on optical properties and thermal conductivity of GaInAsSb/GaSb. The studies are carried out by means of the photo thermal deflection spectroscopy technique (PDS). In fact, optical absorption spectrum and thermal conductivity have been determined by a comparison between the experimental and theoretical phases of the PDS signal. We have found that thermal conductivity increased significantly to 13 W/m.K for GaInAsSb annealed during 60 min. In addition, we have found that bandgap energy is blue-shifted around 30 meV. The amplitudes signal of PDS reveals multiple reflections as a function of annealing time, which reflect the high crystalline quality of the layer.

Keywords: thermal conductivity, bandgap energy of GaInAsSb, GaInAsSb active layer, optical absorption

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Authors: Michał Lidner, Zbigniew SzcześNiak

Abstract:

The ability to estimate blast load overpressure properly plays an important role in safety design of buildings. The issue of studying of blast loading on structural elements has been explored for many years. However, in many literature reports shock wave overpressure is estimated with simplified triangular or exponential distribution in time. This indicates some errors when comparing real and numerical reaction of elements. Nonetheless, it is possible to further improve setting similar to the real blast load overpressure function versus time. The paper presents a method of numerical analysis of the phenomenon of the air shock wave propagation. It uses Finite Volume Method and takes into account energy losses due to a heat transfer with respect to an adiabatic process rule. A system of three equations (conservation of mass, momentum and energy) describes the flow of a volume of gaseous medium in the area remote from building compartments, which can inhibit the movement of gas. For validation three cases of a shock wave flow were analyzed: a free field explosion, an explosion inside a steel insusceptible tube (the 1D case) and an explosion inside insusceptible cube (the 3D case). The results of numerical analysis were compared with the literature reports. Values of impulse, pressure, and its duration were studied. Finally, an overall good convergence of numerical results with experiments was achieved. Also the most important parameters were well reflected. Additionally analyses of dynamic response of one of considered structural element were made.

Keywords: adiabatic process, air shock wave, explosive, finite volume method

Procedia PDF Downloads 194