Search results for: urban systems

Authors: Keiko Shimazu, Yasuhiro Maida, Tetsuya Sugata, Daisuke Tamakoshi, Kenji Makabe, Haruki Suzuki

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In this paper, we report how to acquire serious victims’ locations in the Acute Stage of Large-scale Disasters, in an Emergency Information Network System designed by us. The background of our concept is based on the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March 11^th, 2011. Through many experiences of national crises caused by earthquakes and tsunamis, we have established advanced communication systems and advanced disaster medical response systems. However, Japan was devastated by huge tsunamis swept a vast area of Tohoku causing a complete breakdown of all the infrastructures including telecommunications. Therefore, we noticed that we need interdisciplinary collaboration between science of disaster medicine, regional administrative sociology, satellite communication technology and systems engineering experts. Communication of emergency information was limited causing a serious delay in the initial rescue and medical operation. For the emergency rescue and medical operations, the most important thing is to identify the number of casualties, their locations and status and to dispatch doctors and rescue workers from multiple organizations. In the case of the Tohoku earthquake, the dispatching mechanism and/or decision support system did not exist to allocate the appropriate number of doctors and locate disaster victims. Even though the doctors and rescue workers from multiple government organizations have their own dedicated communication system, the systems are not interoperable.

Keywords: crisis management, disaster mitigation, messing, MGRS, military grid reference system, satellite communication system

Procedia PDF Downloads 237

Authors: Nelson Lujara

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The paper presents a practical three-phase PWM inverter suitable for low voltage, low rating energy efficient systems. The work in the paper is conducted with the view to establishing the significance of the loss contribution from the PWM inverter in the determination of the complete losses of a photovoltaic (PV) array-powered induction motor drive water pumping system. Losses investigated include; conduction and switching loss of the devices and gate drive losses. It is found that the PWM inverter operates at a reasonable variable efficiency that does not fall below 92% depending on the load. The results between the simulated and experimental results for the system with or without a maximum power tracker (MPT) compares very well, within an acceptable range of 2% margin.

Keywords: energy, inverter, losses, photovoltaic

Procedia PDF Downloads 641

Authors: Steven Sam, Ximena Schmidt, Hugh Dickinson, Jens Jensen

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The goal of this study is to explore the potential of data science and citizen science approaches to develop an interactive, digital, open infrastructure that pulls together African indigenous agriculture and food systems data from multiple sources, making it accessible and reusable for policy, research and practice in modern food production efforts. The World Bank has recognised that African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) is innovative and unique among local and subsistent smallholder farmers, and it is central to sustainable food production and enhancing biodiversity and natural resources in many poor, rural societies. AIK refers to tacit knowledge held in different languages, cultures and skills passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. AIK is a key driver of food production, preservation, and consumption for more than 80% of citizens in Africa, and can therefore assist modern efforts of reducing food insecurity and hunger. However, the documentation and dissemination of AIK remain a big challenge confronting librarians and other information professionals in Africa, and there is a risk of losing AIK owing to urban migration, modernisation, land grabbing, and the emergence of relatively small-scale commercial farming businesses. There is also a clear disconnect between the AIK and scientific knowledge and modern efforts for sustainable food production. The study combines data science and citizen science approaches through active community participation to generate and share AIK for facilitating learning and promoting knowledge that is relevant for policy intervention and sustainable food production through a curated digital platform based on FAIR principles. The study adopts key informant interviews along with participatory photo and video elicitation approach, where farmers are given digital devices (mobile phones) to record and document their every practice involving agriculture, food production, processing, and consumption by traditional means. Data collected are analysed using the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council’s proven methodology of citizen science (Zooniverse) and data science. Outcomes are presented in participatory stakeholder workshops, where the researchers outline plans for creating the platform and developing the knowledge sharing standard framework and copyrights agreement. Overall, the study shows that learning from AIK, by investigating what local communities know and have, can improve understanding of food production and consumption, in particular in times of stress or shocks affecting the food systems and communities. Thus, the platform can be useful for local populations, research, and policy-makers, and it could lead to transformative innovation in the food system, creating a fundamental shift in the way the North supports sustainable, modern food production efforts in Africa.

Keywords: Africa indigenous agriculture knowledge, citizen science, data science, sustainable food production, traditional food system

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Authors: Mostafa A. Shokshok, Omran Ali Abu Krais

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This paper describes the collection and analysis of data obtained from face-to-face interviews conducted in selected Libyan industrial companies. The objectives of the interviews are to enhance understanding, and generate explanations of current issues in culture and quality management systems in Libyan companies. The method used in analyzing the questions, as well as the main finding of each question are explained. The interviews probed areas identify national and organizational culture, quality management systems, current methods, effects, barriers and other factors affecting the success of quality management implementation. Eleven questions are prepared and been discussed with the interviewees.

Keywords: interviews, quality, culture, Libyan industrial companies

Procedia PDF Downloads 522

Authors: Núria Arimany Serrat, Xavier Ferràs Hernández, Petra A. Nylund, Eric Viardot

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Innovation is an increasingly important antecedent to firm competitiveness and growth. Successful innovation, however, requires a significant financial commitment and the means of financing accessible to the firm may affect its ability to innovate. The access to equity financing such as venture capital has been connected to innovativeness for young firms. For established enterprises, debt financing of innovation may be a more realistic option. Continuous innovation and growth would otherwise require a constant increase of equity. We, therefore, investigate the relation between debt financing and innovation for large firms and hypothesize that those firms that carry more debt will be more innovative. The need for debt financing of innovation may be reduced for very profitable firms, which can finance innovation with cash flow. We thus hypothesize a moderating effect of profitability on the relationship between debt financing and innovation. We carry out an empirical investigation using a longitudinal data set including 167 large European firms over five years, resulting in 835 firm years. We apply generalized least squares (GLS) regression with fixed firm effects to control for firm heterogeneity. The findings support our hypotheses and we conclude that access to debt finding is an important antecedent of innovation, with profitability as a moderating factor. The results do however differ across national innovation systems and we find a strong relationship for British, Dutch, French, and Italian firms but not for German and Spanish entities. We discuss differences in the national systems of innovation and financing which contextualize the variations in the findings and thus make a nuanced contribution to the research in innovation financing. The cross-country differences calls for differentiated advice to managers, institutions, and researchers depending on the national context.

Keywords: innovation, R&D, national innovation systems, financing

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Authors: Neeti Nayak, Khalid Duri

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Despite the many advances made in transportation planning, the number of injuries and fatalities in the United States which involve motorized vehicles near intersections remain largely unchanged year over year. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 2018 indicates accidents involving motorized vehicles at traffic intersections accounted for 8,245 deaths and 914,811 injuries. Furthermore, collisions involving pedal cyclists killed 861 people (38% at intersections) and injured 46,295 (68% at intersections), while accidents involving pedestrians claimed 6,247 lives (25% at intersections) and injured 71,887 (56% at intersections)- the highest tallies registered in nearly 20 years. Some of the causes attributed to the rising number of accidents relate to increasing populations and the associated changes in land and traffic usage patterns, insufficient visibility conditions, and inadequate applications of traffic controls. Intersections that were initially designed with a particular land use pattern in mind may be rendered obsolete by subsequent developments. Many accidents involving pedestrians are accounted for by locations which should have been designed for safe crosswalks. Conventional solutions for evaluating intersection safety often require costly deployment of engineering surveys and analysis, which limit the capacity of resource-constrained administrations to satisfy their community’s needs for safe roadways adequately, effectively relegating mitigation efforts for high-risk areas to post-incident responses. This paper demonstrates how geospatial technology can identify high-risk locations and evaluate the viability of specific intersection management techniques. GIS is used to simulate relevant real-world conditions- the presence of traffic controls, zoning records, locations of interest for human activity, design speed of roadways, topographic details and immovable structures. The proposed methodology provides a low-cost mechanism for empowering urban planners to reduce the risks of accidents using 2-dimensional data representing multi-modal street networks, parcels, crosswalks and demographic information alongside 3-dimensional models of buildings, elevation, slope and aspect surfaces to evaluate visibility and lighting conditions and estimate probabilities for jaywalking and risks posed by blind or uncontrolled intersections. The proposed tools were developed using sample areas of Southern California, but the model will scale to other cities which conform to similar transportation standards given the availability of relevant GIS data.

Keywords: crosswalks, cyclist safety, geotechnology, GIS, intersection safety, pedestrian safety, roadway safety, transportation planning, urban design

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Authors: Pooria Norouzi, Nicholas Tsang, Adam van der Goes, Joseph Yu, Douglas Zheng, Sirine Maleej

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In this study, virtual meters will be designed and used for energy balance measurements of an air handling unit (AHU). The method aims to replace traditional physical sensors in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems with simulated virtual meters. Due to the inability to manage and monitor these systems, many HVAC systems have a high level of inefficiency and energy wastage. Virtual meters are implemented and applied in an actual HVAC system, and the result confirms the practicality of mathematical sensors for alternative energy measurement. While most residential buildings and offices are commonly not equipped with advanced sensors, adding, exploiting, and monitoring sensors and measurement devices in the existing systems can cost thousands of dollars. The first purpose of this study is to provide an energy consumption rate based on available sensors and without any physical energy meters. It proves the performance of virtual meters in HVAC systems as reliable measurement devices. To demonstrate this concept, mathematical models are created for AHU-07, located in building NE01 of the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) Burnaby campus. The models will be created and integrated with the system’s historical data and physical spot measurements. The actual measurements will be investigated to prove the models' accuracy. Based on preliminary analysis, the resulting mathematical models are successful in plotting energy consumption patterns, and it is concluded confidently that the results of the virtual meter will be close to the results that physical meters could achieve. In the second part of this study, the use of virtual meters is further assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) in the HVAC systems of building to improve energy management and efficiency. By the data mining approach, virtual meters’ data is recorded as historical data, and HVAC system energy consumption prediction is also implemented in order to harness great energy savings and manage the demand and supply chain effectively. Energy prediction can lead to energy-saving strategies and considerations that can open a window in predictive control in order to reach lower energy consumption. To solve these challenges, the energy prediction could optimize the HVAC system and automates energy consumption to capture savings. This study also investigates AI solutions possibility for autonomous HVAC efficiency that will allow quick and efficient response to energy consumption and cost spikes in the energy market.

Keywords: virtual meters, HVAC, artificial intelligence, energy consumption prediction

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Authors: Khattab E. A., Gehan A. Amin

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The aim of the experiment was to investigate yield and yield components under effect of three different tillage systems and three faba bean varieties on clay-loamy soils. The experiment was conducted as split plot design having tillage systems in main plot and varieties in subplot. A field trial was conducted during the winter seasons of 2021-2022 and 2022-2-23, respectively in private of the agricultural lands of Shobra Beddin village, which belongs to Mansoura District of Dakahlia Province 31°, (04457)- N latitude and 31°4757- E longitude. The soil was prepared. The Seeds covered with a thin layer of soil, sown and watered. Three weeks later, the developed plants were thinned. Finally, the plants collected after 110 days of growth. Growth, yield and chemical contents determined. The results showed that the highest yield in the traditional tillage system corresponds to the superior to other tillage systems. In addition, In the variety comparison, the Sakha 1 variety was characterized by the highest yield as well as the highest values of plant growth properties among the three varieties. Conclusion: The traditional tillage system is increase grain yield of variety Sakha 1 compared with other varieties.

Keywords: yield, tillage system, varieties, faba bean

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Authors: Sylvia O. Ogoanah, Khalifa Mustapha, Joshua E. Emedo

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Despite the call for wildlife conservation and sustainability, wildlife trade and bushmeat consumption seem to have reached an all-time high in Benin City, Southern Nigeria. This necessitated the survey of wildlife trade, otherwise called bushmeat, in selected markets in Benin City, Southern Nigeria, between December 2015 and May 2016 (dry season) and June to September (rainy season). Although the eight markets randomly selected within the urban and peri-urban areas operate daily, visits were made weekly to prevent double counting of the same live specimen. On each visit, counts were made of live specimens seen while those cut in parts and dried were identified by the vendors before photographing and recording. Quantitative data analysis was done using SPSS 14 software programs. A total of two thousand five hundred and eighty-nine (2589) bushmeat specimens comprising six mammals and a reptile were recorded for the rainy season. These included the grasscutter (Thryonomis swinderianus) with an abundance of 37.9%, duikers (Sylvicapra grimma) 31.8%, porcupines (Artherurus africanus) 25.0 %, alligators (Alligator mississipienus) 3.2%, pangolins (Manis tricuspis) 0.85%, bush-pig (Potachoerus porcus) 0.7%, and the white-throated monkey (Cercopithecus erythrogaster) 0.5%, respectively. The dry season sampling recorded nine thousand seven hundred and ninety-three (9793) specimens comprising four mammals and one reptile. Species recorded included Thryonomis swinderianus (grasscutters) 35.8%, Artherurus africanus (porcupine) 30.1%, Sylvicapra grimmia (duikers) 21.8%, Alligator mississipiensis (alligators) 6.18% with juveniles 2.27% and Manis tricuspis (pangolin) 3.58%, The designated Central bush meat market as well as markets in the peri-urban areas recorded the highest number of specimens. The three dominant species in both rainy and dry seasons were the grasscutters, porcupines, and duikers, with the grasscutter having the highest dominance of 37.9% and 35.8%, respectively. There was a significant difference between the rainy and dry season samplings p=0.001. The increase in specimens collected in the dry season could be due to greater exposure due to reduced vegetation cover. The high number of specimens arising from weekly sampling from markets that operate daily could be used as an estimation of wildlife specimens captured over the period. This poses a great threat to wildlife conservation as juveniles, as well as endangered species, are hunted indiscriminately. Educating the people with emphasis on the importance of sustainability and conservation, rearing of the grasscutter, which is in high demand and enforcement of existing laws on wildlife trade offenses would help in reducing threats to wildlife conservation.

Keywords: bushmeat consumption, conservation implications, Southern Nigeria, threats, wildlife trade

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Authors: Uche Joyce Ogbonda, Yingchun Ji, Paul Coates

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The proximity of schools to gas flaring sites and the use of simple ventilation systems in school buildings with currently no regulation or laid down blueprint during design and construction in an environment prone to adverse environmental hazards caused by the continuous exploration of oil in the Niger Delta is worrisome. Although a wide health implication has been associated with inhalation of poor air, its effect on the performance of schoolchildren and staffs is poorly understood. Thus, the aim of this research is to explore from professionals around the region the issues surrounding the provision of clean air indoors even though, most developed and developing world are advancing in newer systems and technologies for clean indoor air. This study adopts both qualitative and quantitative approach using both open-ended and semi- structured interview techniques. This paper finds that indoor air quality is not considered during design, selection, and construction of schools. Analysis showed that rather than consider the health effect associated with the inhalation of ambient air by schoolchildren who spend 80% of their active time in schools due to the use of simple open windows and doors as source of breathable air. Advanced ventilation systems were therefore recommended to ensure supplying clean air for school buildings.

Keywords: air quality, gas flare, health implication, schools, ventilation system

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Authors: Saba Nuzhat

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The present ethnographic study examines how domestic violence and authoritative knowledge affect the reproductive health of females; in terms of contraceptive behavior and induced abortion. This qualitative study has been conducted by collecting in depth informal interviews and case studies of 12 female respondents living in an urban slum of Keraniganj, located Dhaka city. The study depicts how multivariable factors are linked to a woman’s ability to contracept and make abortion decisions in a cultural context where being a wife infers to submission, limited mobility, sexual availability, and restricted autonomy on her own reproduction health. This study shows how violence is being normalized and socially acceptable, every time women do not adhere to go through expected gender roles. The study primarily explores the subjective experiences and perceptions of the females about contraceptive behavior as well as abortions from a medical anthropological perspective. A number of salient examples are highlighted into this paper where women who go through abortion or adopt various measures of contraceptives get highly influenced by authoritative knowledge or under the pressure of male dominance. The lack of female autonomy or prevalence of domestic violence challenges the gender equality of Bangladeshi society and female sovereignty in accessing sexual or reproductive rights. This paper remarks the significance of medical anthropological research that helps to understand the intricate interrelationship between authoritative knowledge and male dominance with female reproductive health in order to reduce women’s risk of experiencing domestic violence and to promote reproductive health autonomy for themselves for espousing contraceptive behaviors and abortion decisions.

Keywords: abortion, authoritative knowledge, contraception, domestic violence, reproductive health

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Authors: Zahra Yadollahi, Marjan Motiei, Natalia Kazantseva, Petr Saha

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Chitosan (CS)-whey protein isolate (WPI) core-shell nanoparticles were synthesized through self-assembly of whey protein isolated polyanions and chitosan polycations in the presence of tripolyphosphate (TPP) as a crosslinker. The formation of this type of nanostructures with narrow particle size distribution is crucial for developing delivery systems since the functional characteristics highly depend on their sizes. To achieve this goal, the nanostructure was optimized by varying the concentrations of WPI, CS, and TPP in the reaction mixture. The chemical characteristics, surface morphology, and particle size of the nanoparticles were evaluated.

Keywords: whey protein isolated, chitosan, nanoparticles, delivery system

Procedia PDF Downloads 96

Authors: Emeshaw Damtew Zebene, Edom Seife, Hagos Tesfay, Gurja Belay

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Background: cancer incidence and mortality has grown rapidly throughout the world. Aging of the population, urbanization, physical inactivity, economic growth followed by smoking and drinking contributed a lot for the increased incidence of cancer all over the globe. Objective: the aim of this study was to assess a one-year trend of cancer patients who underwent curative/radical radiotherapy at radiotherapy center, Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital, Ethiopia. Methodology: We performed a prospective descriptive study of cancer patients treated with LINAC at Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from April 2021- March 2022. A standardized questionnaire was used to collect sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the patients. Descriptive statistics and chi-square results were generated using SPSS version 24. The level of significance was obtained at 0.05. Results: Sixty-four (64) curative/radical patients-44 females and 20 males were analyzed. Majority, 27(42.2%), of the patients age range from 45 to 64, and 45(70%) of them were urban residents where a group of higher gynecologic cancer was observed.78% of the patients were with locally advanced cancer, and 54(84.4%) of them had no awareness about cancer. Generally, head & neck cancer were found the most prevalent cancer 20(31.3%), and the leading cause of cancer among women was cervical cancer 17(38.6%), where about half 7(15.9%) of them were HIV positive. Conclusion: Our finding revealed that most of curative/radical patients presented at a locally advanced stage of the disease. Hence, maintaining the already available teletherapy machines and installing additional radiotherapy centers may help in treating the patients at the early stage of the disease. Since almost all of our study participants did not have information about cancer, awareness raising mechanisms should be done. Additionally, understanding differences in cancer incidence between urban and rural is important. Key words: Cancer, Curative/radical, Radiotherapy, Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital

Keywords: cancer, curative/radical, radiotherapy, tkur anbessa specialized hospital

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Authors: Shamm Kidane, Ibrahim Abdella, Fitsum Gaim, Simon Mulugeta, Sirak Asmerom, Natnael Ambasager, Yoel Ghebrihiwot

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The call for natural language processing (NLP) systems for low-resource languages has become more apparent than ever in the past few years, with the arduous challenges still present in preparing such systems. This paper presents an improved dataset version of the Nagaoka Tigrinya Corpus for Parts-of-Speech (POS) classification system in the Tigrinya language. The size of the initial Nagaoka dataset was incremented, totaling the new tagged corpus to 118K tokens, which comprised the 12 basic POS annotations used previously. The additional content was also annotated manually in a stringent manner, followed similar rules to the former dataset and was formatted in CONLL format. The system made use of the novel approach in NLP tasks and use of the monolingually pre-trained TiELECTRA, TiBERT and TiRoBERTa transformer models. The highest achieved score is an impressive weighted F1-score of 94.2%, which surpassed the previous systems by a significant measure. The system will prove useful in the progress of NLP-related tasks for Tigrinya and similarly related low-resource languages with room for cross-referencing higher-resource languages.

Keywords: Tigrinya POS corpus, TiBERT, TiRoBERTa, conditional random fields

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Authors: Marlen Acosta Alamo, Lisa Manne, Richard Veit

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Habitat loss due to land use change is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. This form of habitat loss is a non-random phenomenon since the same environmental factors that make an area suitable for supporting high local biodiversity overlap with those that make it attractive for urban development. We aimed to compare the effect of two non-random habitat loss predictors on the richness, abundance, and rarity of nature-affiliated and human-affiliated North American breeding birds. For each group of birds, we simulated the non-random habitat loss using two predictors: the House Price Index as a measure of the attractiveness of an area for humans and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index as a proxy for primary productivity. We compared the results of the two non-random simulation sets and one set of random habitat loss simulations using an analysis of variance and followed up with a Tukey-Kramer test when appropriate. The attractiveness of an area for humans predicted estimates of richness loss and increase of rarity higher than primary productivity and random habitat loss for nature-affiliated and human-affiliated birds. For example, at 50% of habitat loss, the attractiveness of an area for humans produced estimates of richness at least 5% lower and of a rarity at least 40% higher than primary productivity and random habitat loss for both groups of birds. Only for the species abundance of nature-affiliated birds, the attractiveness of an area for humans did not outperform primary productivity as a predictor of biodiversity following habitat loss. We demonstrated the value of the House Price Index, which can be used in conservation assessments as an index of the risks of habitat loss for natural communities. Thus, our results have relevant implications for sustainable urban land-use planning practices and can guide stakeholders and developers in their efforts to conserve local biodiversity.

Keywords: biodiversity loss, bird biodiversity, house price index, non-random habitat loss

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Authors: Siqi Qiu, Yijian Zheng, Xin Guo Ming

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In many reliability and risk analysis, failures of components are supposed to be independent. However, in reality, the ignorance of failure dependencies among components may render the results of reliability and risk analysis incorrect. There are two principal ways to incorporate failure dependencies in system reliability and risk analysis: implicit and explicit methods. In the implicit method, failure dependencies can be modeled by joint probabilities, correlation values or conditional probabilities. In the explicit method, certain types of dependencies can be modeled in a fault tree as mutually independent basic events for specific component failures. In this paper, explicit and implicit methods based on BDD will be proposed to evaluate the reliability of systems considering failure dependencies. The obtained results prove the equivalence of the proposed implicit and explicit methods. It is found that the consideration of failure dependencies decreases the reliability of systems. This observation is intuitive, because more components fail due to failure dependencies. The consideration of failure dependencies helps designers to reduce the dependencies between components during the design phase to make the system more reliable.

Keywords: reliability assessment, risk assessment, failure dependencies, binary decision diagram

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Authors: Ilgin Gökaşar, Saman Ghaffarian

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The need for fast processed big data of transportation ridership (eg., smartcard data) and traffic operation (e.g., traffic detectors data) which requires a lot of computational power is incontrovertible in Intelligent Transportation Systems. Nowadays cloud computing is one of the important subjects and popular information technology solution for data processing. It enables users to process enormous measure of data without having their own particular computing power. Thus, it can also be a good selection for transportation big data processing as well. This paper intends to examine how the cloud computing can enhance transportation big data process with contrasting its advantages and disadvantages, and discussing cloud computing features.

Keywords: big data, cloud computing, Intelligent Transportation Systems, ITS, traffic data processing

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Authors: Stephen L. Roberts

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This article offers a critical analysis of the rise of syndromic surveillance systems for the advanced detection of pandemic threats within contemporary global health security frameworks. The article traces the iterative evolution and ascendancy of three such novel syndromic surveillance systems for the strengthening of health security initiatives over the past two decades: 1) The Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED-mail); 2) The Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN); and 3) HealthMap. This article demonstrates how each newly introduced syndromic surveillance system has become increasingly oriented towards the integration of digital algorithms into core surveillance capacities to continually harness and forecast upon infinitely generating sets of digital, open-source data, potentially indicative of forthcoming pandemic threats. This article argues that the increased centrality of the algorithm within these next-generation syndromic surveillance systems produces a new and distinct form of infectious disease surveillance for the governing of emergent pathogenic contingencies. Conceptually, the article also shows how the rise of this algorithmic mode of infectious disease surveillance produces divergences in the governmental rationalities of global health security, leading to the rise of an algorithmic governmentality within contemporary contexts of Big Data and these surveillance systems. Empirically, this article demonstrates how this new form of algorithmic infectious disease surveillance has been rapidly integrated into diplomatic, legal, and political frameworks to strengthen the practice of global health security – producing subtle, yet distinct shifts in the outbreak notification and reporting transparency of states, increasingly scrutinized by the algorithmic gaze of syndromic surveillance.

Keywords: algorithms, global health, pandemic, surveillance

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Authors: Pawel Magryta, Mateusz Paszko

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In today's world, a big problem of individual mobility, especially in large urban areas, occurs. Commonly used grand way of transport such as buses, trains or cars do not fulfill their tasks, i.e. they are not able to meet the increasing mobility needs of the growing urban population. Additional to that, the limitations of civil infrastructure construction in the cities exist. Nowadays the most common idea is to transfer the part of urban transport on the level of air transport. However to do this, there is a need to develop an individual flying transport vehicle. The biggest problem occurring in this concept is the type of the propulsion system from which the vehicle will obtain a lifting force. Standard propeller drives appear to be too noisy. One of the ideas is to provide the required take-off and flight power by the machine using the innovative ejector system. This kind of the system will be designed through a suitable choice of the three-dimensional geometric structure with special shape of nozzle in order to generate overpressure. The authors idea is to make a device that would allow to cumulate the overpressure using the a five-sided geometrical structure that will be limited on the one side by the blowing flow of air jet. In order to test this hypothesis a computer simulation study of aerodynamic drag of such 3D structures have been made. Based on the results of these studies, the tests on real model were also performed. The final stage of work was a comparative analysis of the results of simulation and real tests. The CFD simulation studies of air flow was conducted using the Star CD - Star Pro 3.2 software. The design of virtual model was made using the Catia v5 software. Apart from the objective to obtain advanced aviation propulsion system, all of the tests and modifications of 3D structures were also aimed at achieving high efficiency of this device while maintaining the ability to generate high value of overpressures. This was possible only in case of a large mass flow rate of air. All these aspects have been possible to verify using CFD methods for observing the flow of the working medium in the tested model. During the simulation tests, the distribution and size of pressure and velocity vectors were analyzed. Simulations were made with different boundary conditions (supply air pressure), but with a fixed external conditions (ambient temp., ambient pressure, etc.). The maximum value of obtained overpressure is 2 kPa. This value is too low to exploit the power of this device for the individual transport vehicle. Both the simulation model and real object shows a linear dependence of the overpressure values obtained from the different geometrical parameters of three-dimensional structures. Application of computational software greatly simplifies and streamlines the design and simulation capabilities. This work has been financed by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Keywords: aviation propulsion, CFD, 3d structure, aerodynamic drag

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Authors: Maciej Zaręba, Sławomir Lasota

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Knowing the degree of dependencies between the sets of input signals and selected sets of indicators that measure a production system's effectiveness is of great importance in the industry. This paper introduces the SELM method that enables the selection of sets of input signals, which affects the most the selected subset of indicators that measures the effectiveness of a production system. For defined set of output indicators, the method quantifies the impact of input signals that are gathered in the continuous monitoring production system.

Keywords: manufacturing operation management, signal relationship, continuous monitoring, production systems

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Authors: A. S. Walkey, N. P. Patidar

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It is not always economical to provide reactive power using synchronous alternators. The cost of reactive power can be minimized by optimal placing of FACTS devices in power systems. In this paper a Particle Swarm Optimization- Sequential Quadratic Programming (PSO-SQP) algorithm is applied to minimize the cost of reactive power generation along with real power generation to alleviate the bus voltage violations. The effectiveness of proposed approach tested on IEEE-14 bus systems. In this paper in addition to synchronous generators, an opportunity of FACTS devices are also proposed to procure the reactive power demands in the power system.

Keywords: reactive power, reactive power cost, voltage security margins, capability curve, FACTS devices

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Authors: Ambika Prasad Gupta, Harshit Sosan Lakra

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Food security is an important issue that has been widely discussed in literature. However, there is a lack of research on the specific food security challenges faced by tribal communities. Tribal food security refers to the ability of indigenous or tribal communities to consistently access and afford an adequate and nutritious supply of food. These communities often have unique cultural, social, and economic contexts that can impact their food security. The study aims to assess the food security status of all thirty-two major tribes, including Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) people living in various blocks of Jharkhand State. The methodology of this study focuses on measuring the food security index of indigenous people by developing and redefining a new Tribal Food Security Index (TFSI) as per the indigenous community-level indicators identified by the Global Food Security Index and other indicators relevant to food security. Affordability, availability, quality and safety, and natural resources were the dimensions used to calculate the overall Tribal Food Security Index. A survey was conducted for primary data collection of tribes and PVTGs at the household level in various districts of Jharkhand with a considerable tribal population. The result shows that due to the transition from rural to urban areas, there is a considerable change in TFSI and a decrease in forest dependency of tribal communities. Socioeconomic factors like occupation and household size had a significant correlation with TFSI. Tribal households living in forests have a higher food security index than tribal households residing in urban transition areas. The study also shows that alternative methodology adopted to measure specific community-level food security creates high significant impact than using commonly used indices.

Keywords: indigenous people, tribal food security, particularly vulnerable tribal groups, Jharkhand

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Authors: Sudha Arlikatti, Laura Siebeneck, Simon A. Andrew

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The objective of this research is to measure organizational resiliency through five attributes namely, rapidity, redundancy, resourcefulness, and robustness and to provide recommendations for resiliency building in flood risk communities. The research was conducted in Thailand following the severe floods of 2011 triggered by Tropical Storm Nock-ten. The floods lasted over eight months starting in June 2011 affecting 65 of the country’s 76 provinces and over 12 million people. Funding from a US National Science Foundation grant was used to collect ephemeral data in rural (Ayutthaya), suburban (Pathum Thani), and urban (Bangkok) provinces of Thailand. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted in Thai with 44 contacts from public, private, and non-profit organizations including universities, schools, automobile companies, vendors, tourist agencies, monks from temples, faith based organizations, and government agencies. Multiple triangulations were used to analyze the data by identifying selective themes from the qualitative data, validated with quantitative data and news media reports. This helped to obtain a more comprehensive view of how organizations in different geographic settings varied in their understanding of what enhanced or hindered their resilience and consequently their speed and capacities to respond. The findings suggest that the urban province of Bangkok scored highest in resourcefulness, rapidity of response, robustness, and ability to rebound. This is not surprising considering that it is the country’s capital and the seat of government, economic, military and tourism sectors. However, contrary to expectations all 44 respondents noted that the rural province of Ayutthaya was the fastest to recover amongst the three. Its organizations scored high on redundancy and rapidity of response due to the strength of social networks, a flood disaster sub-culture due to annual flooding, and the help provided by monks from and faith based organizations. Organizations in the suburban community of Pathum Thani scored lowest on rapidity of response and resourcefulness due to limited and ambiguous warnings, lack of prior flood experience and controversies that government flood protection works like sandbagging favored the capital city of Bangkok over them. Such a micro-level examination of organizational resilience in rural, suburban and urban areas in a country through mixed methods studies has its merits in getting a nuanced understanding of the importance of disaster subcultures and religious norms for resilience. This can help refocus attention on the strengths of social networks and social capital, for flood mitigation.

Keywords: disaster subculture, flood response, organizational resilience, Thailand floods, religious beliefs and response, social capital and disasters

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Authors: Eugene Stepanov, Arkadi Ponossov

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Ordinary differential equations with switching nonlinearities constitute a very useful tool in many applications. The solutions of such equations can usually be calculated analytically if they cross the discontinuities transversally. Otherwise, one has trajectories that slides along the discontinuity, and the calculations become less straightforward in this case. For instance, one of the problems one faces is non-uniqueness of the sliding modes. In the presentation, it is proposed to apply the theory of hybrid dynamical systems to calculate the solutions that are ‘hidden’ in the discontinuities. Roughly, one equips the underlying switched system with an explicitly designed discrete dynamical system (‘automaton’), which governs the dynamics of the switched system. This construction ‘splits’ the dynamics, which, as it is shown in the presentation, gives uniqueness of the resulting hybrid trajectories and at the same time provides explicit formulae for them. Projecting the hybrid trajectories back onto the original continuous system explains non-uniqueness of its trajectories. The automaton is designed with the help of the attractors of the specially constructed adjoint dynamical system. Several examples are provided in the presentation, which supports the efficiency of the suggested scheme. The method can be of interest in control theory, gene regulatory networks, neural field models and other fields, where switched dynamics is a part of the analysis.

Keywords: hybrid dynamical systems, singular perturbation analysis, sliding modes, switched dynamics

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Authors: Sharif Muddsair, Eisels Martin, Giesbrecht Eugenie

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With development of society increase the demand for the movement of people also increases gradually. The various modes of the transport in different extent which expat impacts, which depends on mainly technical-operating conditions. The up-to-date telematics systems provide the transport industry a revolutionary. Appropriate use of these systems can help to substantially improve the efficiency. Vehicle monitoring and fleet tracking are among services used for improving efficiency and effectiveness of utility vehicle. There are many telematics systems which may contribute to eco-driving. Generally, they can be grouped according to their role in driving cycle. • Before driving - eco-route selection, • While driving – Advanced driver assistance, • After driving – remote analysis. Our point of interest is regulated in third point [after driving – remote analysis]. TS [Telematics-system] make it possible to record driving patterns in real time and analysis the data later on, So that driver- classification-specific hints [fast driver, slow driver, aggressive driver…)] are given to imitate eco-friendly driving style. Together with growing number of vehicle and development of information technology, telematics become an ‘active’ research subject in IT and the car industry. Telematics has gone a long way from providing navigation solution/assisting the driver to become an integral part of the vehicle. Today’s telematics ensure safety, comfort and become convenience of the driver.

Keywords: internet of things, iot, connected vehicle, cv, ts, telematics services, ml, machine learning

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Authors: Anna Crivellari, Valerio Cozzani

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Even though most of the electricity produced in the entire world still comes from fossil fuels, new policies are being implemented in order to promote a more sustainable use of energy sources. Offshore renewable resources have become increasingly attractive thanks to the huge entity of power potentially obtained. However, the intermittent nature of renewables often limits the capacity of the systems and creates mismatches between supply and demand. Hydrogen is foreseen to be a promising vector to store and transport large amounts of excess renewable power by using existing oil and gas infrastructure. In this work, an offshore hybrid energy system integrating wind energy conversion with hydrogen production was conceptually defined and applied to offshore gas platforms. A techno-economic analysis was performed by considering two different locations for the installation of the innovative power system, i.e., the North Sea and the Adriatic Sea. The water depth, the distance of the platform from the onshore gas grid, the hydrogen selling price and the green financial incentive were some of the main factors taken into account in the comparison. The results indicated that the use of well-defined indicators allows to capture specifically different cost and revenue features of the analyzed systems, as well as to evaluate their competitiveness in the actual and future energy market.

Keywords: cost analysis, energy efficiency assessment, hydrogen production, offshore wind energy

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Authors: Thamo Sutharssan, Diogo Montalvao, Wen-Chung Wang, Yong Chen, Claudia Pisac

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A combined heat and power (CHP) system is an efficient and clean way to generate power (electricity). Heat produced by the CHP system can be used for water and space heating. The CHP system which uses hydrogen as fuel produces zero carbon emission. Its’ efficiency can reach more than 80% whereas that of a traditional power station can only reach up to 50% because much of the thermal energy is wasted. The other advantages of CHP systems include that they can decentralize energy generation, improve energy security and sustainability, and significantly reduce the energy cost to the users. This paper presents the economic benefits of using a CHP system in the domestic environment. For this analysis, natural gas is considered as potential fuel as the hydrogen fuel cell based CHP systems are rarely used. UK government incentives for CHP systems are also considered as the added benefit. Results show that CHP requires a significant initial investment in return it can reduce the annual energy bill significantly. Results show that an investment may be paid back in 7 years. After the back period, CHP can run for about 3 years as most of the CHP manufacturers provide 10-year warranty.

Keywords: combined heat and power, clean energy, hydrogen fuel cell, economic analysis of CHP, zero emission

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Authors: El Miloudi Djelloul

Abstract:

Technology nowadays enables the remote access to laboratory equipment and instruments via Internet. This is especially useful in engineering education, where students can conduct laboratory experiment remotely. Such remote laboratory access can enable student to use expensive laboratory equipment, which is not usually available to students. In this paper, we present a method of creating a Web-based Remote Laboratory Experimentation in the master degree course “Wireless Communications Systems” which is part of “ICS (Information and Communication Systems)” and “Investment Management in Telecommunications” curriculums. This is done within the RIPLECS Project and the NI2011 FF005 Research Project “Implementation of Project-Based Learning in an Interdisciplinary Master Program”.

Keywords: remote access, remote laboratory, wireless telecommunications, external antenna-switching controller board (EASCB)

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Authors: Khosrow Maleknejad, Asyieh Ebrahimzadeh

Abstract:

In this paper, the numerical solution of optimal control problem (OCP) for systems governed by Volterra integro-differential (VID) equation is considered. The method is developed by means of the Legendre wavelet approximation and collocation method. The properties of Legendre wavelet accompany with Gaussian integration method are utilized to reduce the problem to the solution of nonlinear programming one. Some numerical examples are given to confirm the accuracy and ease of implementation of the method.

Keywords: collocation method, Legendre wavelet, optimal control, Volterra integro-differential equation

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Authors: Tiffany Baetens, Sophie Halliez, Luc Buée, Emiliano Pallecchi, Vincent Thomy, Steve Arscott

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We demonstrate here a viable stretchable bio-microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS) technology for use with biological studies concerned with the effect of high mechanical strains on living cells. An example of this is traumatic brain injury (TBI) where neurons are damaged with physical force to the brain during, e.g., accidents and sports. Robust, miniaturized integrated systems are needed by biologists to be able to study the effect of TBI on neuron cells in vitro. The major challenges in this area are (i) to develop micro, and nanofabrication processes which are based on stretchable substrates and to (ii) create systems which are robust and performant at very high mechanical strain values—sometimes as high as 100%. At the time of writing, such processes and systems were rapidly evolving subject of research and development. The BioMEMS which we present here is composed of an elastomer substrate (low Young’s modulus ~1 MPa) onto which is patterned robust electrodes and insulators. The patterning of the thin films is achieved using standard photolithography techniques directly on the elastomer substrate—thus making the process generic and applicable to many materials’ in based systems. The chosen elastomer used is commercial ‘Sylgard 184’ polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). It is spin-coated onto a silicon wafer. Multistep ultra-violet based photolithography involving commercial photoresists are then used to pattern robust thin film metallic electrodes (chromium/gold) and insulating layers (parylene) on the top of the PDMS substrate. The thin film metals are deposited using thermal evaporation and shaped using lift-off techniques The BioMEMS has been characterized mechanically using an in-house strain-applicator tool. The system is composed of 12 electrodes with one reference electrode transversally-orientated to the uniaxial longitudinal straining of the system. The electrical resistance of the electrodes is observed to remain very stable with applied strain—with a resistivity approaching that of evaporated gold—up to an interline strain of ~50%. The mechanical characterization revealed some interesting original properties of such stretchable BioMEMS. For example, a Poisson effect induced electrical ‘self-healing’ of cracking was identified. Biocompatibility of the commercial photoresist has been studied and is conclusive. We will present the results of the BioMEMS, which has also characterized living cells with a commercial Multi Electrode Array (MEA) characterization tool (Multi Channel Systems, USA). The BioMEMS enables the cells to be strained up to 50% and then characterized electrically and optically.

Keywords: BioMEMS, elastomer, electrical impedance measurements of living cells, high mechanical strain, microfabrication, stretchable systems, thin films, traumatic brain injury

Procedia PDF Downloads 147