Search results for: computer terms

Authors: Martina Kanciruk, Jac J. W. Andrews, Tyrone Donnon

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The purpose of this study was to determine the significance of history of obesity for the development of childhood overweight and/or obesity. Accordingly, a systematic literature review of English-language studies published from 1980 to 2012 using the following data bases: MEDLINE, PsychINFO, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Dissertation Abstracts International was conducted. The following terms were used in the search: pregnancy, overweight, obesity, family history, parents, childhood, risk factors. Eleven studies of family history and obesity conducted in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America met the inclusion criteria. A meta-analysis of these studies indicated that family history of obesity is a significant risk factor of overweight and /or obesity in offspring; risk for offspring overweight and/or obesity associated with family history varies depending of the family members included in the analysis; and when family history of obesity is present, the offspring are at greater risk for developing obesity or overweight. In addition, the results from moderator analyses suggest that part of the heterogeneity discovered between the studies can be explained by the region of world that the study occurred in and the age of the child at the time of weight assessment.

Keywords: childhood obesity, overweight, family history, risk factors, meta-analysis

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Authors: Nishitha Chowdary, Prabhav Dwivedi

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Solar radiation (or insolation) is responsible for 174 petawatts (PW) of energy reaching the Earth's atmosphere. About one-third of this is reflected in space. Solar energy is by far the most abundant source of energy on Earth. In this study to use solar energy to the fullest in a solar air heater, An analysis of a solar air heater duct roughened with fixed cylindrical ribs in 3-D has been done using CFD. These fixed cylindrical ribs have a uniform circular cross-section and are placed in transverse in-line and staggered arrangements. The orientation of ribs has been fixed and is perpendicular to the in-flow direction. Cylindrical ribs are arranged periodically with fixed pitch; therefore, one pitch length is only considered in the present study. Validation has been done with smooth as well as with roughened duct and is matched perfectly with the developed correlations. Geometric parameters, namely rib height (e), ranges from 1 to 2 mm and pitch ranges from 10 to 40 mm are used in the present investigation. Thermo-hydraulic performance parameters in terms of average Nusselt number and friction factor have been extracted for Reynolds number ranging 5000—18000 to optimize the performance of roughened duct.

Keywords: cylindrical ribs, solar air heater, thermo-hydraulic performance factor, roughened duct

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Authors: Ali Mohammadi

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This study explored the root causes of women's lack of writing in literature by digging into Virginia Woolf's A Room of One’s Own. Virginia Woolf was the pioneer of feminist literary criticism in the 20th century. She was hugely preoccupied, throughout her writing life, with the role of women in history and with the relationship between women and fiction. Besides, she wrote continuously about the difficulties of women's writing and of writing as a woman. This research aims to mirror a number of key arguments concerning women’s issues: the social and economic conditions necessary for writing; the problem of a tradition of women's writing; the concept of a 'female sentence' articulating women's voices and values and the idea of the androgynous aesthetic in which an author would be able to write free from an awareness of their sex as male or female. Woolf was very wary of making any definitive assertions about women's writing, or at least in terms of its style or form. Indeed, much of the essay is taken up with her reflections on the lack of women's writing over the history of English literature. It was concluded that the reason for this absence of female writing does not just spring from the deficiency of genius, but of material circumstances and facilities. Additionally, the demands of the domestic household, the poverty of education available to women, and the laws that denied married women’s ownership of funds or property made it virtually impossible for women to take up writing as a profession.

Keywords: autonomy, facilities, genius, literature, women

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Authors: Wenjun Hou, Marek Perkowski

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The Traveling Salesman problem is famous in computing and graph theory. In short, it asks for the Hamiltonian cycle of the least total weight in a given graph with N nodes. All variations on this problem, such as those with K-bounded-degree nodes, are classified as NP-complete in classical computing. Although several papers propose theoretical high-level designs of quantum algorithms for the Traveling Salesman Problem, no quantum circuit implementation of these algorithms has been created up to our best knowledge. In contrast to previous papers, the goal of this paper is not to optimize some abstract complexity measures based on the number of oracle iterations, but to be able to evaluate the real circuit and time costs of the quantum computer. Using the emerging quantum programming language Q# developed by Microsoft, which runs quantum circuits in a quantum computer simulation, an implementation of the bounded-degree problem and its respective quantum circuit were created. To apply Grover’s algorithm to this problem, a quantum oracle was designed, evaluating the cost of a particular set of edges in the graph as well as its validity as a Hamiltonian cycle. Repeating the Grover algorithm with an oracle that finds successively lower cost each time allows to transform the decision problem to an optimization problem, finding the minimum cost of Hamiltonian cycles. N log₂ K qubits are put into an equiprobablistic superposition by applying the Hadamard gate on each qubit. Within these N log₂ K qubits, the method uses an encoding in which every node is mapped to a set of its encoded edges. The oracle consists of several blocks of circuits: a custom-written edge weight adder, node index calculator, uniqueness checker, and comparator, which were all created using only quantum Toffoli gates, including its special forms, which are Feynman and Pauli X. The oracle begins by using the edge encodings specified by the qubits to calculate each node that this path visits and adding up the edge weights along the way. Next, the oracle uses the calculated nodes from the previous step and check that all the nodes are unique. Finally, the oracle checks that the calculated cost is less than the previously-calculated cost. By performing the oracle an optimal number of times, a correct answer can be generated with very high probability. The oracle of the Grover Algorithm is modified using the recalculated minimum cost value, and this procedure is repeated until the cost cannot be further reduced. This algorithm and circuit design have been verified, using several datasets, to generate correct outputs.

Keywords: quantum computing, quantum circuit optimization, quantum algorithms, hybrid quantum algorithms, quantum programming, Grover’s algorithm, traveling salesman problem, bounded-degree TSP, minimal cost, Q# language

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Authors: Bilge Demir, Ahmet Durgutlu, Mustafa Acarer

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In this study, the butt welding of the commercial AZ31 magnesium alloy sheets have been carried out by using Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding process with alternative and pulsed current. Welded samples were examined with regards to hardness and microstructure. Despite some recent developments in welding of magnesium alloys, they have some problems such as porosity, hot cracking, oxide formation and so on. Samples of the welded parts have undergone metallographic and mechanical examination. Porosities and homogeneous micron grain oxides were rarely observed. Orientations of the weld microstructure in terms of heat transfer also were rarely observed and equiaxed grain morphology was dominant grain structure as in the base metal. As results, fusion zone and few locations of the HAZ of the welded samples have shown twin’s grains. Hot cracking was not observed for any samples. Weld bead geometry of the welded samples were evaluated as normal according to welding parameters. In the results, conditions of alternative and pulsed current and the samples were compared to each other with regards to microstructure and hardness.

Keywords: AZ31 magnesium alloy, microstructures, micro hardness TIG welding

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Authors: Eliane Abdo

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Small and medium sized firms “SMEs” play essential role in the countries’ economic development mainly in terms of production, employment and equitable distribution of income. For innovative SMEs, the investment in the human capital and in research and development are crucial to survive in a competitive environment. In this paper we perform a literature review to underline the financing difficulties and constraints which innovative SMEs face while investing in intangible assets: not only when defining amount of the investments but also while choosing its financing methods. Literature review revealed that in order to finance their intangible assets, SMEs rely in first on their internal financing: the availability of internal cash flows can then determine their investment’s decision. Moreover SMEs face difficulties to finance their intangibles by financial debts due to the uncertainty of future cash flow and the absence of physical guarantees; they will therefore go for the issuance of new shares as a second choice, since innovative companies have high opportunity of growth that attract new shareholders.

Keywords: small and medium sized firms, capital structure, intangible investment, financial constraints

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Authors: Elham A. Alsadoon, Hamadah B. Alsadoon

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Educators try to design learning environments that are preferred by their students. With the wide-spread adoption of cell phones surpassing any other technology, educators should not fail to invest in the power of such technology. This study aimed to explore the current use of cell phones in education among Saudi students in Saudi universities and how students perceive such use. Data was collected from 237 students at King Saud University. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the data. A T-test for independent groups was used to examine whether there was a significant difference between males and females in their perception of using cell phones in education. Findings suggested that students have a positive attitude toward the use of cell phones in education. The most accepted use was for sending notification to students, which has already been experienced through the Twasel system provided by King Saud University. This electronic system allows instructors to easily send any SMS or email to their students. The use of cell phone applications came in the second rank of using cell phones in education. Students have already experienced the benefits of having these applications handy wherever they go. On the other hand, they did not perceive using cell phones for assessment as practical educational usage. No gender difference was detected in terms of students’ perceptions toward using cell phones in education.

Keywords: cell phone, mobile learning, educational sciences, education

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Authors: Felicia Kikelomo Oluwalola

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The study was designed to identify the challenges to change and innovation in educational system in Nigeria. Educational institutions, like all other organizations, require constant monitoring, to identify areas for potential improvement. However, educational reforms are often not well-implemented. This results in massive wastage of finances, human resources, and lost potential. Educational institutions are organised on many levels, from the individual classroom under the management of a single teacher, to groups of classrooms supervised by a Head Teacher or Executive Teacher, to a whole-school structure, under the guidance of the principal. Therefore, there is need for changes and innovation in our educational system since we are in the era of computer age. In doing so, this paper examined the psychology of change, concept of change and innovation with suggested view points. Educational administrators and individuals should be ready to have the challenge of monitoring changes in technologies. Educational planners/policy makers should be encouraged to involve in change process.

Keywords: challenges, change, education, innovation

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Authors: Chalakorn Chitsaart, Suchada Rianmora, Noppawat Vongpiyasatit

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In order to reduce the transportation time and cost for direct interface between customer and manufacturer, the image processing technique has been introduced in this research where designing part and defining manufacturing process can be performed quickly. A3D virtual model is directly generated from a series of multi-view images of an object, and it can be modified, analyzed, and improved the structure, or function for the further implementations, such as computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). To estimate and quote the production cost, the user-friendly platform has been developed in this research where the appropriate manufacturing parameters and process detections have been identified and planned by CAM simulation.

Keywords: image processing technique, feature detections, surface registrations, capturing multi-view images, Production costs and Manufacturing processes

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Authors: Ruijie Fan, Hao Xu

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Due to the increasing demand for resources, solid waste disposal is becoming an increasingly important issue to be addressed. Solid waste is not only hazardous to human health but also has a negative impact on the environment. The main sources of solid waste are metals, glass, food, plastics, paper, and electrical waste. Different types of waste may require different treatments. The UK currently lags behind other countries, such as Japan and Germany, in terms of waste management. Although the UK is catching up through various incentives, waste management education in the UK still faces challenges. Education requires a lot of work before the UK can achieve a circular economy. This paper first presents the latest information on the five main types of solid waste in the UK today. It delves into the current state of waste paper management in the UK, in addition to gathering information from the literature on the current state of waste management education in the UK as a whole. Potential barriers to the disposal of each waste type in the UK are identified, along with potential barriers to education in the UK. This study was based on a pragmatic philosophy to find possible solutions for these barriers, including questionnaires to conduct an in-depth investigation. In addition, the questionnaire analysis reveals a correlation between educational attainment and individual waste management behaviour and attitudes. This research guides inspiration on the current problems of waste management in the UK.

Keywords: circular economy, education, solid waste, waste management

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Authors: Sakti Mandal

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Varying distribution of land surface temperature in an urbanized environment is a globally addressed phenomenon. Usually has been noticed that criticality of surface temperature increases from the periphery to the urban centre. As the centre experiences maximum severity of heat throughout the year, it also represents most critical zone in terms of thermal condition. In this present study, an attempt has been taken to propose a quantitative approach of thermal critical zonation (TCZ) on the basis of seasonal temperature variation. Here the zonation is done by calculating thermal critical value (TCV). From the Landsat 8 thermal digital data of summer and winter seasons for the year 2014, the land surface temperature maps and thermally critical zonation has been prepared, and corresponding dataset has been computed to conduct the overall study of that particular study area. It is shown that TCZ can be clearly identified and analyzed by the help of inter-seasonal temperature range. The results of this study can be utilized effectively in future urban development and planning projects as well as a framework for implementing rules and regulations by the authorities for a sustainable urban development through an environmentally affable approach.

Keywords: thermal critical values (TCV), thermally critical zonation (TCZ), land surface temperature (LST), Landsat 8, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC)

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Authors: Justin Reverdi, Sixin Zhang, Saïd Aoues, Fabrice Gamboa, Serge Gratton, Thomas Pellegrini

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In vapor cycle systems, the mass flow sensor plays a key role for different monitoring and control purposes. However, physical sensors can be inaccurate, heavy, cumbersome, expensive, or highly sensitive to vibrations, which is especially problematic when embedded into an aircraft. The conception of a virtual sensor, based on other standard sensors, is a good alternative. This paper has two main objectives. Firstly, a data-driven model using a convolutional neural network is proposed to estimate the mass flow of the compressor. We show that it significantly outperforms the standard polynomial regression model (thermodynamic maps) in terms of the standard MSE metric and engineer performance metrics. Secondly, a semi-automatic segmentation method is proposed to compute the engineer performance metrics for real datasets, as the standard MSE metric may pose risks in analyzing the dynamic behavior of vapor cycle systems.

Keywords: deep learning, convolutional neural network, vapor cycle system, virtual sensor

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Authors: Ghada Moussa, Mamoud Owais

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Transit Route Network Design Problem (TrNDP) is the most important component in Transit planning, in which the overall cost of the public transportation system highly depends on it. The main purpose of this study is to develop a novel solution methodology for the TrNDP, which goes beyond pervious traditional sophisticated approaches. The novelty of the solution methodology, adopted in this paper, stands on the deterministic operators which are tackled to construct bus routes. The deterministic manner of the TrNDP solution relies on using linear and integer mathematical formulations that can be solved exactly with their standard solvers. The solution methodology has been tested through Mandl’s benchmark network problem. The test results showed that the methodology developed in this research is able to improve the given network solution in terms of number of constructed routes, direct transit service coverage, transfer directness and solution reliability. Although the set of routes resulted from the methodology would stand alone as a final efficient solution for TrNDP, it could be used as an initial solution for meta-heuristic procedures to approach global optimal. Based on the presented methodology, a more robust network optimization tool would be produced for public transportation planning purposes.

Keywords: integer programming, transit route design, transportation, urban planning

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Authors: Jatindranath Gain, Madhumita DasSarkar, Sudakshina Kundu

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Quantum information is stored in states with multiple quasiparticles, which have a topological degeneracy. Topological quantum computation is concerned with two-dimensional many body systems that support excitations. Anyons are elementary building block of quantum computations. When anyons tunneling in a double-layer system can transition to an exotic non-Abelian state and produce Fibonacci anyons, which are powerful enough for universal topological quantum computation (TQC).Here the exotic behavior of Fibonacci Superlattice is studied by using analytical transfer matrix methods and hence Fibonacci anyons. This Fibonacci anyons can build a quantum computer which is very emerging and exciting field today’s in Nanophotonics and quantum computation.

Keywords: quantum computing, quasicrystals, Multiple Quantum wells (MQWs), transfer matrix method, fibonacci anyons, quantum hall effect, nanophotonics

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Authors: Yaser Ghasemi Aryan, Firoozeh Moghiminejad, Mohammadreza Shahraki

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Background: The cooperative institution is considered the first and most essential pillar of strengthening social capital, whose sustainability is the main guarantee of survival and continued participation of local communities in natural resource management projects. The Village Development Group and the Microcredit Fund are two important social and economic institutions in the implementation of the International Project for the Restoration of Degraded Forest Lands (RFLDL) in Sarayan City, South Khorasan Province, which has learned positive lessons from the participation of the beneficiaries in the implementation. They have brought more effective projects to deal with desertification. However, the low activity or liquidation of some of these institutions has become one of the important challenges and concerns of project executive experts. The current research was carried out with the aim of explaining the main components of the instability of these institutions. Materials and Methods: This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of method, practical in terms of purpose, and the method of collecting information is two documentary and survey methods. The statistical population of the research included all the members of the village development groups and microcredit funds in the target villages of the RFLDL project of Sarayan city, based on the Kochran formula and matching with the Karjesi and Morgan table. Net people were selected as a statistical sample. After confirming the validity of the expert's opinions, the reliability of the questionnaire was 0.83, which shows the appropriate reliability of the researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS software. Results: The results related to the extraction of obstacles to the stability of social and economic networks were classified and prioritized in the form of 5 groups of social-cultural, economic, administrative, educational-promotional and policy-management factors. Based on this, in the socio-cultural factors, the items ‘not paying attention to the structural characteristics and composition of groups’, ‘lack of commitment and moral responsibility in some members of the group,’ and ‘lack of a clear pattern for the preservation and survival of groups’, in the disciplinary factors, The items ‘Irregularity in holding group meetings’ and ‘Irregularity of members to participate in meetings’, in the economic factors of the items "small financial capital of the fund’, ‘the low amount of loans of the fund’ and ‘the fund's inability to conclude contracts and attract capital from other sources’, in the educational-promotional factors of the items ‘non-simultaneity of job training with the granting of loans to create jobs’ and ‘insufficient training for the effective use of loans and job creation’ and in the policy-management factors of the item ‘failure to provide government facilities for support From the funds, they had the highest priority. Conclusion: In general, the results of this research show that policy-management factors and social factors, especially the structure and composition of social and economic institutions, are the most important obstacles to their sustainability. Therefore, it is suggested to form cooperative institutions based on network analysis studies in order to achieve the appropriate composition of members.

Keywords: cooperative institution, social capital, network analysis, participation, Sarayan.

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Authors: Ismial A. Raji, Blessing Egbezieme Oladejo, Babatunde Kasim Oladele

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The study investigated the influence of leadership succession and tenure on goal attainment in the University of Ibadan. Leadership styles, tenure politics, organization succession, leadership succession, goal attainment in terms of research, teaching and public services were considered. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 250 consisting 90 academic staff, 100 Senior Non-Teaching Staff and 60 Junior Non-Teaching Staff. Questionnaire was the instrument used to collect data. The instrument reliability coefficient was 0.88. Data collected were analysed with descriptive statistics. The result revealed that a significant relationship exist between leadership succession, tenure and goal attainment (r= .648, 0.466 and 0.479p< .0.5) Also, There was no statistical significant interaction between the effects of leadership tenure and leadership succession on goal attainment, F (38, 131) = 1.356, p = .104. The main influence of the independent variables on goal attainment were significant at F (24, 131) = 1.682, p=.034 and F (26, 131) = 2.182, p=.002. The study concluded that leadership succession and tenure are key factors for goal attainment in the University of Ibadan. The study recommended that an effective leadership succession and tenure processes should be maintained and sustained by higher institutions of learning.

Keywords: leadership tenure, style, succession, institutional goal

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Authors: Willem J. A. Louw

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The wave of new advanced computing technology that has been developed during the recent past has significantly changed the way we communicate, collaborate and collect information. It has created a new technology environment and paradigm in which our children and students grow-up and this impacts on their learning. Research confirmed that Generation Y students have a preference for learning in the new technology environment. The challenge or question is: How do we adjust our teaching and learning to make the most of these changes. The complexity of effective and efficient teaching and learning must not be underestimated and changes must be preceded by proper objective research to prevent any haphazard developments that could do more harm than benefit. A blended learning approach has been used in the Forestry department for a few numbers of years including the use of electronic-peer assisted learning (e-pal) in a fixed-computer set-up within a learning management system environment. It was decided to extend the investigation and do some exploratory research by using a range of different Tablet devices. For this purpose, learning activities or assignments were designed to cover aspects of communication, collaboration and collection of information. The Moodle learning management system was used to present normal module information, to communicate with students and for feedback and data collection. Student feedback was collected by using an online questionnaire and informal discussions. The research project was implemented in 2013, 2014 and 2015 amongst first and third-year students doing a forestry three-year technical tertiary qualification in commercial plantation management. In general, more than 80% of the students alluded to that the device was very useful in their learning environment while the rest indicated that the devices were not very useful. More than ninety percent of the students acknowledged that they would like to continue using the devices for all of their modules whilst the rest alluded to functioning efficiently without the devices. Results indicated that information collection (access to resources) was rated the highest advantageous factor followed by communication and collaboration. The main general advantages of using Tablets were listed by the students as being mobility (portability), 24/7 access to learning material and information of any kind on a user friendly device in a Wi-Fi environment, fast computing process speeds, saving time, effort and airtime through skyping and e-mail, and use of various applications. Ownership of the device is a critical factor while the risk was identified as a major potential constraint. Significant differences were reported between the different types and quality of Tablets. The preferred types are those with a bigger screen and the ones with overall better functionality and quality features. Tablets significantly increase the collaboration, communication and information collection needs of the students. It does, however, not replace the need of a computer/laptop because of limited storage and computation capacity, small screen size and inefficient typing.

Keywords: tablets, teaching, blended learning, tablet quality

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Authors: Lee Da Hyun

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The purpose of this study is to explore the relation between the internal dynamics of standing committees and legislative productivity of the Korean National Assembly using statistical methods. Studies on legislation in South Korea have been largely revolved around political parties due to the uniqueness of its political context including strong party cohesion and party’s nomination right. However, as standing committees have been at the center of legislatures since the 6th National Assembly, there is a growing need for studying the operation and effectiveness of standing committees in legislation process. Thus, through panel data analysis for the sixteen standing committees across the four terms of the Korean National Assembly-from the 16th to the 19th-this article attempts to reveal that legislators’ bill passing rate is not a sole function of factors pertaining to political party as the existing studies have believed. By measuring the ideological distribution within a committee and the bill passing rate, this article provides differentiated interpretation from established theories of standing committees and presents compelling evidence describing complex interactions and independent operation of the standing committees with the subsequent legislative results.

Keywords: collective decision-making, lawmaking, legislation, political polarization, standing committees

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Authors: Ali Ganoun, Wesam Algablawi, Wasim BenAnaif

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Video based traffic surveillance based on License Plate Recognition (LPR) system is an essential part for any intelligent traffic management system. The LPR system utilizes computer vision and pattern recognition technologies to obtain traffic and road information by detecting and recognizing vehicles based on their license plates. Generally, the video based LPR system is a challenging area of research due to the variety of environmental conditions. The LPR systems used in a wide range of commercial applications such as collision warning systems, finding stolen cars, controlling access to car parks and automatic congestion charge systems. This paper presents an automatic LPR system of Libyan license plate. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated with three video sequences.

Keywords: license plate recognition, localization, segmentation, recognition

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Authors: Kinga Wieczorek, Elzbieta Kukier, Remigiusz Pomykala, Beata Lachtara, Renata Szewczyk, Krzysztof Kwiatek, Jacek Osek

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The MICRORISK project (Research cooperation in assessment of microbiological hazard and risk in the food chain) was funded by the European Commission under the FP7 PEOPLE 2012 IRSES call within the International Research Staff Exchange Scheme of Marie Curie Action and realized during years from 2014 to 2015. The main aim of the project was to establish a cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the third State in the area important from the public health point of view. The following organizations have been engaged in the activity: National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) in Pulawy, Poland (coordinator), French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) in Maisons Alfort, France, National Scientific Center Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine (NSC IECVM), Kharkov and State Scientific and Research Institute of Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary and Sanitary Expertise (SSRILDVSE) Kijev Ukraine. The results of the project showed that Ukraine used microbiological criteria in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005 of 15 November 2005 on microbiological criteria for foodstuffs. Compliance concerns both the criteria applicable at the stage of food safety (retail trade), as well as evaluation criteria and process hygiene in food production. In this case, the Ukrainian legislation also provides application of the criteria that do not have counterparts in the food law of the European Union, and are based on the provisions of Ukrainian law. Partial coherence of the Ukrainian and EU legal requirements in terms of microbiological criteria for food and feed concerns microbiological parameters such as total plate count, coliforms, coagulase-positive Staphylococcus spp., including S. aureus. Analysis of laboratory methods used for microbiological hazards control in food production chain has shown that most methods used in the EU are well-known by Ukrainian partners, and many of them are routinely applied as the only standards in the laboratory practice or simultaneously used with Ukrainian methods. The area without any legislation, where the EU regulation and analytical methods should be implemented is the area of Shiga toxin producing E. coli, including E. coli O157 and staphylococcal enterotoxin detection. During the project, the analysis of the existing Ukrainian and EU data concerning the prevalence of the most important food-borne pathogens on different stages of food production chain was performed. Particularly, prevalence of Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., L. monocytogenes as well as clostridia was examined. The analysis showed that poultry meat still appears to be the most important food-borne source of Campylobacter and Salmonella in the UE. On the other hand, L. monocytogenes were seldom detected above the legal safety limit (100 cfu/g) among the EU countries. Moreover, the analysis revealed the lack of comprehensive data regarding the prevalence of the most important food-borne pathogens in Ukraine. The results of the MICRORISK project are networking activities among researches originations participating in the tasks will help with a better recognition of each other regarding very important, from the public health point of view areas such as microbiological hazards in the food production chain and finally will help to improve food quality and safety for consumers.

Keywords: cooperation, European Union, food chain safety, food law, microbiological risk, Microrisk, Poland, Ukraine

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Authors: Arbnor Pajaziti, Hasan Cana

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In this paper, the structural genetic algorithm is used to optimize the neural network to control the joint movements of robotic arm. The robotic arm has also been modeled in 3D and simulated in real-time in MATLAB. It is found that Neural Networks provide a simple and effective way to control the robot tasks. Computer simulation examples are given to illustrate the significance of this method. By combining Genetic Algorithm optimization method and Neural Networks for the given robotic arm with 5 D.O.F. the obtained the results shown that the base joint movements overshooting time without controller was about 0.5 seconds, while with Neural Network controller (optimized with Genetic Algorithm) was about 0.2 seconds, and the population size of 150 gave best results.

Keywords: robotic arm, neural network, genetic algorithm, optimization

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Authors: Ming Wei

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Over the past two decades, Location Based Service (LBS) data have been increasingly applied to urban and transportation studies due to their comprehensiveness and consistency. However, compared to other LBS data including mobile phone data, GPS and social networking platforms, smart card data collected from public transport users have arguably yet to be fully exploited in urban systems analysis. By using five weekdays of passenger travel transaction data taken from go card – Southeast Queensland’s transit smart card – this paper analyses the spatiotemporal distribution of passenger movement with regard to the land use patterns in Brisbane. Work and residential places for public transport commuters were identified after extracting journeys-to-work patterns. Our results show that the locations of the workplaces identified from the go card data and residential suburbs are largely consistent with those that were marked in the land use map. However, the intensity for some residential locations in terms of population or commuter densities do not match well between the map and those derived from the go card data. This indicates that the misalignment between residential areas and workplaces to a certain extent, shedding light on how enhancements to service management and infrastructure expansion might be undertaken.

Keywords: big data, smart card data, travel pattern, land use

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Authors: Sabri Serkan Gulluoglu

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It is possible with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that the information about all natural and artificial resources on the earth is obtained taking advantage of satellite images are obtained by remote sensing techniques. However, determination of unknown sources, mapping of the distribution and efficient evaluation of resources are defined may not be possible with the original image. For this reasons, some process steps are needed like transformation, pre-processing, image enhancement and classification to provide the most accurate assessment numerically and visually. Many studies which present the phases of obtaining and processing of the satellite images have examined in the literature study. The research showed that the determination of the process steps may be followed at this subject with the existence of a common whole may provide to progress the process rapidly for the necessary and possible studies which will be.

Keywords: remote sensing, satellite imaging, gis, computer science, information

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Authors: Azman Ramlie, Vivian Foo Jing Wen

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As the advancement of technology has tremendously changed the way people communicate with each other, it has opened up opportunities for interracial relationships. Interracial relationship is also known as intercultural or interethnic relationships. This research topic aims to study on students’ perceptions toward interracial relationship in terms of their level of acceptance and approval. In addition, the study also focuses on determining and ranking the factors that affects students’ perceptions towards interracial relationship. This study also targets to determine the differences in students’ perceptions from business and communication major. This study uses a sample of university students from Sunway University, particularly on students in business and communication major. The study was conducted through online survey questionnaires. Results revealed that students’ level of acceptance towards interracial relationship was high. In addition, results also further indicated that family members’ support was one of the most important factors in influencing students’ perception towards interracial relationship. No diverse differences of perceptions among students in business and communication major towards interracial relationship were shown in the findings. Most of the result showed that both majors turned out to have similar perceptions towards interracial relationship. It can be said that the students’ perception towards interracial relationship did not differ from which major the students was in but their family background that would shape their perceptions.

Keywords: interracial relationship, racial, relationship, perceptions

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Authors: Wern-Yarng Shieh, Chao Qian, Bingnan Pei

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A design of communication area for infrared electronic-toll-collection systems to provide an extended communication interval in the vehicle traveling direction and regular boundary between contiguous traffic lanes is proposed. By utilizing two typical low-cost commercial infrared LEDs with different half-intensity angles Φ1/2 = 22° and 10°, the radiation pattern of the emitter is designed to properly adjust the spatial distribution of the signal power. The aforementioned purpose can be achieved with an LED array in a three-piece structure with appropriate mounting angles. With this emitter, the influence of the mounting parameters, including the mounting height and mounting angles of the on-board unit and road-side unit, on the system performance in terms of the received signal strength and communication area are investigated. The results reveal that, for our emitter proposed in this paper, the ideal "long-and-narrow" characteristic of the communication area is very little affected by these mounting parameters. An optimum mounting configuration is also suggested.

Keywords: dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), electronic toll collection (ETC), infrared communication, intelligent transportation system (ITS), multilane free flow

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Authors: Adeyemi A. Ajisebiolola

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This study examined people’s responses to demand and consumption of herbal medicines in Nigeria. It also assessed people’s evaluation of the effectiveness of the existing medicines on the treatment of ailments and encouraging forest products utilization for greener future in terms of healthcare delivery. Two Local Government Areas, namely Ido and Ibadan Northwest were adopted for the study; Ido is characterized by rural populace and Ibadan Northwest by urban populace. Out of 500 questionnaires randomly administered to the households in the two local government areas of study, 481 (96.2%) were recovered. Statistical analysis employed showed that people were beginning to understand the importance of herbal medicines in Nigeria as majority of the households use herbal medicines to treat various ailments. Among the major problems encountered by the respondents are lack of precise dosage and adequate preservation methods. It was recommended that Forestry Research Institutes in Nigeria should be deeply involved in the findings on medicinal plants, package them into products and make them available to the society for sustainable healthcare management and greener future of the nation.

Keywords: demand and consumption, forest products, herbal medicines, Nigeria

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Authors: Mahboobeh Hemmati, Tahar Messadi, Hongmei Gu

Abstract:

This overall research is targeted at the assessment of the new CLT-built Adohi Hall residential building located on the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The purpose of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study is to analyze the environmental impacts resulting from the transportation route of the Austrian imported CLT to the construction site with those of the CLT assumed to be originating from Conway, Arkansas. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CLT from Europe (Styria-Graz in Austria) to the site was first investigated. The results were then compared with the GWP of the CLT produced in Conway, Arkansas. The impacts of each scenario, using the Ecoinvent database, are then calculated and compared against each other to find the most environmentally efficient scenario in terms of global warming impacts. The quantification of GWP is associated with different transportation systems, water, road, and rail. Obtained through comparison, the findings reveal that the use of local materials is more efficient. In addition, transportation by water produces less Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission in comparison to freight transportation by rail and road. Thus, besides the travel distance, the utilized transportation system is still a significant factor and should be seriously considered in making decisions for moving materials.

Keywords: comparative analysis, GWP, LCA, transportation

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Authors: Mouheb Mehdoui, Amel Fraisse, Mounir Zrigui

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This paper explores the potential of short texts through semantic enrichment and disambiguation techniques. By employing context fusion, we aim to enhance the comprehension and utility of concise textual information. The methodologies utilized are grounded in recent advancements in natural language processing, which allow for a deeper understanding of semantics within limited text formats. Specifically, topic classification is employed to understand the context of the sentence and assess the relevance of added expressions. Additionally, word sense disambiguation is used to clarify unclear words, replacing them with more precise terms. The implications of this research extend to various applications, including information retrieval and knowledge representation. Ultimately, this work highlights the importance of refining short text processing techniques to unlock their full potential in real-world applications.

Keywords: information traffic, text summarization, word-sense disambiguation, semantic enrichment, ambiguity resolution, short text enhancement, information retrieval, contextual understanding, natural language processing, ambiguity

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Authors: A. Y. Mukhtar, J. B. Munyakazi, R. Ouifki

Abstract:

Over the past few decades, the unprecedented increase in mobility has raised considerable concern about the relationship between mobility and vector-borne diseases and malaria in particular. Thus, one can claim that human mobility is one of the contributing factors to the resurgence of malaria. To assess human mobility on malaria burden among hosts, we formulate a movement-based model on a network of patches. We then extend human multi-group SEIAR deterministic epidemic models into a system of stochastic differential equations (SDEs). Our quantitative stochastic model which is expressed in terms of average rates of movement between compartments is fitted to time-series data (weekly malaria data of 2011 for each patch) using the maximum likelihood approach. Using the metapopulation (multi-group) model, we compute and analyze the basic reproduction number. The result shows that human movement is sufficient to preserve malaria disease firmness in the patches with the low transmission. With these results, we concluded that the sensitivity of malaria to the human mobility is turning to be greatly important over the implications of future malaria control in South Sudan.

Keywords: basic reproduction number, malaria, maximum likelihood, movement, stochastic model

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Authors: Henda Gnakate Biba, Ndassa Mouafon Issa

Abstract:

Dictionaries modeled on the Western model [tonic accent languages] are not suitable and do not account for tonal languages phonologically, which is why the [prosodic and phonological] ethnographic dictionary was designed. It is a glossary that expresses the tones and the rhythm of words. It recreates exactly the speaking or singing of a tonal language, and allows the non-speaker of this language to pronounce the words as if they were a native. It is a dictionary adapted to tonal languages. It was built from ethnomusicological theorems and phonological processes, according to Jean. J. Rousseau 1776 hypothesis /To say and to sing were once the same thing/. Each word in the French dictionary finds its corresponding language, ekaη. And each word ekaη is written on a musical staff. This ethnographic dictionary is also an inventive, original and innovative research thesis, but it is also an inventive, original and innovative research thesis. A contribution to the theoretical, musicological, ethno musicological and linguistic conceptualization of languages, giving rise to the practice of interlocution between the social and cognitive sciences, the activities of artistic creation and the question of modeling in the human sciences: mathematics, computer science, translation automation and artificial intelligence. When you apply this theory to any text of a folksong of a world-tone language, you do not only piece together the exact melody, rhythm, and harmonies of that song as if you knew it in advance but also the exact speaking of this language. The author believes that the issue of the disappearance of tonal languages and their preservation has been structurally resolved, as well as one of the greatest cultural equations related to the composition and creation of tonal, polytonal and random music. The experimentation confirming the theorization designed a semi-digital, semi-analog application which translates the tonal languages of Africa (about 2,100 languages) into blues, jazz, world music, polyphonic music, tonal and anatonal music and deterministic and random music). To test this application, I use a music reading and writing software that allows me to collect the data extracted from my mother tongue, which is already modeled in the musical staves saved in the ethnographic (semiotic) dictionary for automatic translation ( volume 2 of the book). Translation is done (from writing to writing, from writing to speech and from writing to music). Mode of operation: you type a text on your computer, a structured song (chorus-verse), and you command the machine a melody of blues, jazz and, world music or, variety etc. The software runs, giving you the option to choose harmonies, and then you select your melody.

Keywords: music, language, entenglement, science, research

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