Search results for: small sized hotels

Authors: I. Rodionov, A. Semenov, E. Gosteva, O. Sokolova

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Currently, the venture capital becomes more and more advanced and effective source of the innovation project financing, connected with a high-risk level. In the developed countries, it plays a key role in transforming innovation projects into successful businesses and creating prosperity of the modern economy. Actually, in Russia there are many necessary preconditions for creation of the effective venture investment system: the network of the public institutes for innovation financing operates; there is a significant number of the small and medium-sized enterprises, capable to sell production with good market potential. However, the current system does not confirm the necessary level of efficiency in practice that can be substantially explained by the absence of the accurate plan of action to form the national venture model and by the lack of experience of successful venture deals with profitable exits in Russian economy. This paper studies the influence of various factors on the venture industry development by the example of the IT-sector in Russia. The choice of the sector is based on the fact, that this segment is the main driver of the venture capital market growth in Russia, and the necessary set of data exists. The size of investment of the second round is used as the dependent variable. To analyse the influence of the previous round such determinant as the volume of the previous (first) round investments is used. There is also used a dummy variable in regression to examine that the participation of an investor with high reputation and experience in the previous round can influence the size of the next investment round. The regression analysis of short-term interrelations between studied variables reveals prevailing influence of the volume of the first round investments on the venture investments volume of the second round. Because of the research, the participation of investors with first-class reputation has a small impact on an indicator of the value of investment of the second round. The expected positive dependence of the second round investments on the forecasted market growth rate now of the deal is also rejected. So, the most important determinant of the value of the second-round investment is the value of first–round investment, so it means that the most competitive on the Russian market are the start-up teams which can attract more money on the start, and the target market growth is not the factor of crucial importance.

Keywords: venture industry, venture investment, determinants of the venture sector development, IT-sector

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Authors: Beibit Karibayev, Akmaral Imanbayeva, Timur Namazbayev

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Currently, the small spacecraft (SSC) industry is experiencing a big boom in popularity. This is primarily due to ease of use, low cost and mobility. In addition, these programs can be implemented not only at the state level but also at the level of companies, universities and other organizations. For remote sensing of the Earth (ERS), small spacecraft with an orientation system is used. It is important to take into account here that a remote sensing device, for example, a camera for photographing the Earth's surface, must be directed at the Earth's surface. But this, at first glance, the limitation can be turned into an advantage using a patch antenna. This work proposed to use a patch antenna based on a unidirectional fractal in the SSC. The CST Microwave Studio software package was used for simulation and research. Copper (ε = 1.0) was chosen as the emitting element and reflector. The height of the substrate was 1.6 mm, the type of substrate material was FR-4 (ε = 4.3). The simulation was performed in the frequency range of 0 – 6 GHz. As a result of the research, a patch antenna based on fractal geometry was developed for ERS nanosatellites. The capabilities of these antennas are modeled and investigated. A method for calculating and modeling fractal geometry for patch antennas has been developed.

Keywords: antenna, earth remote sensing, fractal, small spacecraft

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: Anthony Proschka, Deepak Mishra, Merlyn Ramanan, Zurab Baratashvili

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Small and medium-sized businesses receive over 160 billion invoices every year. Since these documents exhibit many subtle differences in layout and text, extracting structured fields such as sender name, amount, and VAT rate from them automatically is an open research question. In this paper, existing work in template-based document extraction is extended, and a system is devised that is able to reliably extract all required fields for up to 70% of all documents in the data set, more than any other previously reported method. The approaches are described for 1) detecting through visual features which template a given document belongs to, 2) automatically generating extraction rules for a given new template by composing regular expressions from multiple components, and 3) computing confidence scores that indicate the accuracy of the automatic extractions. The system can generate templates with as little as one training sample and only requires the ground truth field values instead of detailed annotations such as bounding boxes that are hard to obtain. The system is deployed and used inside a commercial accounting software.

Keywords: data mining, information retrieval, business, feature extraction, layout, business data processing, document handling, end-user trained information extraction, document archiving, scanned business documents, automated document processing, F1-measure, commercial accounting software

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Authors: Saleh B. Mohamed, Mohamed H. Elhsnawi, Mesbah M. Salem

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Current and future applications of small gas turbine engines annular type combustors have requirements presenting difficult disputes to the combustor designer. Reduced cost and fuel consumption and improved durability and reliability as well as higher temperatures and pressures for such application are forecast. Coupled with these performance requirements, irrespective of the engine size, is the demand to control the pollutant emissions, namely the oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, smoke and unburned hydrocarbons. These technical and environmental challenges have made the design of small size combustion system a very hard task. Thus, the main target of this work is to generalize a calculation method of annular type combustors for small gas turbine engines that enables to understand the fundamental concepts of the coupled processes and to identify the proper procedure that formulates and solves the problems in combustion fields in as much simplified and accurate manner as possible. The combustion chamber in task is designed with central vaporizing unit and to deliver 516.3 KW of power. The geometrical constraints are 142 mm & 140 mm overall length and casing diameter, respectively, while the airflow rate is 0.8 kg/sec and the fuel flow rate is 0.012 kg/sec. The relevant design equations are programmed by using MathCAD language for ease and speed up of the calculation process.

Keywords: design of gas turbine, small engine design, annular type combustors, mechanical engineering

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Authors: Ema Septaria, Muhammad Yamani, N. S. B. Ambarini

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The problem begins with the imposition of fine penalties by Ipuh small fishermen for customary fishing vessels encroaching catchment area in the Ipuh, a village in Muko-Muko, Bengkulu, Indonesia. Two main reasons for that are fishermen from out of Ipuh came and fished in Ipuh water using trawl as the gear and the number of fish decrease time by time as a result of irresponsible fishing practice. Such conflict has lasted since long ago. Indonesia Governing laws do not rule the utilization of sea territory by small fishermen that when the conflict appears there is a rechtvacuum on how to solve the conflict and this leads to a chaos in society. In Ipuh itself, there has been a local law in fisheries which they still adhere up to present because they believe holding to the law will keep the fish sustain. This is an empirical legal research with socio legal approach. The results of this study show even though laws do not regulate in detail about the utilization of sea territory by small fishermen, there is an article in Fisheries Act stating fisheries activity has to put attention to local law and community participation. Furthermore, constitution governs that the land, the waters and the natural resources within shall be under the powers of the State and shall be used to the greatest benefit of the people. With the power, Government has to make a policy that reinforces what has been ruled in Ipuh local law. Besides, Bengkulu Governor has to involve Ipuh community directly in managing their fisheries to ensure the fisheries sustainability therein.

Keywords: local law, reinforcement, conflict, sea utilization, small fishermen

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Authors: Nicolas Spitz, Nicolas Coniglio, Mohamed El Mansori, Alex Montagne, Sabeur Mezghani

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Nowadays buildings' construction is performed by pouring concrete into molds referred to as formworks that are usually prefabricated metallic modules. Defects such as stripping may possibly form during the removal of the formwork if the interfacial bonding between the concrete and the formwork is high. A new pull-off tensile test was developed in our laboratory to simulate small-scale formwork removals. The concrete-to-formwork adherence force was measured on bare and coated formworks with different surface signatures. The used concrete was a mixture largely used on building sites and contains CEM I Portland cement and calcareous filler. The concrete surface appearance and the type of failures at the concrete-formwork interface have been investigated. The originality of this near-to-surface test was to compare the laboratory-measured adherence forces to the on-site observations. Based upon the small-scale laboratory test results, functional formwork specifications with low adherence to concrete was proposed in terms of superficial signature characteristics.

Keywords: concrete-formwork adherence, interfacial bonding, skin formwork functionality, small-scale pull-off tensile test

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Authors: Palwinder Singh, Baljit Kaur, Sukhmeet Kaur

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Amongst a library of rationally designed small peptides, (H)Gly-Gly-Phe-Leu(OMe) was identified, reducing prostaglandin production of COX-2 with IC50 60 nM vs. 6000 nM for COX-1. The 5 mg Kg-1 dose of this compound rescued albino mice by 80% from capsaicin-induced paw licking and recovered it by 60% from carrageenan-induced inflammation. The mode of action of the compound for targeting COX-2, iNOS, and VGSC was investigated by using substances P, L-arginine, and veratrine, respectively, as the biomarkers. The interactions of the potent compound with COX-2 were supported by the isothermal calorimetry experiments showing Ka 6.10±1.10x104 mol-1 and ΔG -100.3 k J mol-1 in comparison to Ka 0.41x103 ±0.09 mol-1 and ΔG -19.2±0.06 k J mol-1 for COX-1. This compound did not show toxicity up to 2000 mg Kg-1 dose. Furthermore, beyond the conventional mode of working with anti-inflammatory agents through enzyme inhibition, COX-2 was provided with a peptide-based alternate substrate. Proline-centered pentapeptide iso-conformational to arachidonic acid exhibited appreciable selectivity for COX-2 overcoming acetic acid and formalin-induced pain in rats to almost 80% and was treated as a substrate by the enzyme. Hence, we suggest small peptides as highly potent and promising candidates for their further development into an anti-inflammatory drug.

Keywords: small peptides, cyclooxygenase, inflammation, substrate

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Authors: Ndivhudzannyi Rembuluwani, Francis Dacosta, Emmanuel Mhlongo

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The small-scale rock aggregate sector of the mining industry is a major source of employment for a significant number of people, particularly in remote rural areas, where alternative livelihoods are rare. It contributes to local economy by generating income and producing major and essential materials for the building, construction, and other industries. However, the sector is confronted with many challenges that hamper productivity and growth. The problems that confront this sector includes: health and safety, environmental impacts, low production and low adherence to mining legislations. This study investigated the challenges confronting selected small-scale rock aggregate mines in the Vhembe District of Limpopo province of South Africa, assesses the health, safety, low production and environmental impacts associated with aggregate production and to develop an integrated approach of addressing the multi-faceted challenges.

Keywords: health and safety, legislative framework, productivity, rock aggregate, small-scale mining

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Authors: C. Nobre, C. C. Castro, A.-L. Hantson, J. A. Teixeira, L. R. Rodrigues, G. De Weireld

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Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) are produced from sucrose by Aureobasidium pullulans in yields between 40-60% (w/w). To increase the amount of FOS it is necessary to remove the small, non-prebiotic sugars, present. Two methods for producing high-purity FOS have been developed: the use of microorganisms able to consume small saccharides; and the use of continuous chromatography to separate sugars: simulated moving bed (SMB). It is herein proposed the combination of both methods. The aim of this study is to optimize the composition of the fermentative broth (in terms of salts and sugars) that will be further purified by SMB. A yield of 0.63 gFOS.g Sucrose-1 was obtained with A. pullulans using low amounts of salts in the initial fermentative broth. By removing the small sugars, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Zymomonas mobilis increased the percentage of FOS from around 56.0% to 83% (w/w) in average, losing only 10% (w/w) of FOS during the recovery process.

Keywords: fructo-oligosaccharides, microbial treatment, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Zymomonas mobilis

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Authors: Angga S. Fajar, Y. Takahashi, J. Kiyono, S. Sawada

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The problem of medium span bridge bearing support in the extreme temperatures fluctuation region is deterioration in case the suppression of superstructure that sustains temperature expansion. The other hand, the behavior and the parameter of RC column accompanied with friction damping mechanism were determined successfully based on the experiment and numerical analysis. This study proposes the structural system of RC pier accompanied with multi sliding friction damping mechanism to substitute the conventional system of pier together with bearing support. In this system, the pier has monolith behavior to the superstructure with flexible small deformation to accommodate thermal expansion of the superstructure. The flexible small deformation behavior is realized by adding the gap mechanism in the multi sliding friction devices form. The important performances of this system are sufficient lateral flexibility in small deformation, sufficient elastic deformation capacity, sufficient lateral force resistance, and sufficient energy dissipation. Numerical analysis performed for this system with fiber element model. It shows that the structural system has good performance not only under small deformation due to thermal expansion of the superstructure but also under seismic load.

Keywords: RC Pier, thermal expansion, multi sliding friction device, flexible small deformation

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Authors: Salahud Din, Saima Masood, Hafsa Zaneb, Habib –ur- Rehman, Imad Khan, Muqader Shah

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The objective of this study was to examine the osteomorphological differences between the long bones of adult Chinkara and an adult Beetal goat, using visual observation, which has still not studied. The osseous remains of these small-sized ungulates often encountered, but cannot distinguish, because of the lack of literature. Specimens of the adult Chinkara of known age and sex for osteomorphological studies are collected from the Manglot Wildlife Park and Ungulate Breeding Centre, Nizampur, Pakistan, while the bones of adult Beetal goats are obtained after slaughtering in a slaughterhouse. The research is carried out at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. In this research, the main morphological features recorded in the long bones of thoracic limb and pelvic limb of the adult Chinkara, by comparing them to those of the Beetal goat. The most important differences between the two species are noted in the scapula, the humerus, the radius and ulna, the metacarpal, femur, tibia metatarsal and phalanges. In conclusion, the present study suggests that the morphology of the long bones of adult Chinkara has different from the Beetal goat in various points of view. Based on these recorded points, long bones of these two species can easily be differentiated. The study is helpful in zooarcheological, comparative osteometric studies, for forensic specialists and veterinary anatomists.

Keywords: Beetal goat, Chinkara, comparative morphological features, long bones, osteology

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Authors: Darshana Thomas, Edward Wilkie, James Irvine

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The Internet of things (IoT) is currently a highly researched topic, especially within the context of the smart home. These are small sensors that are capable of gathering data and transmitting it to a server. The majority of smart home products use protocols such as ZigBee or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). As these small sensors are increasing in number, the need to implement these with much more capable and ubiquitous transmission technology is necessary. The high power consumption is the reason that holds these small sensors back from using other protocols such as the most ubiquitous form of communication, WiFi. Comparing the power consumption of existing transmission technologies to one with WiFi inbuilt, would provide a better understanding for choosing between these technologies. We have developed a small IoT device with WiFi capability and proven that it is much more efficient than the first protocol, 433 MHz. We extend our work in this paper and compare WiFi power consumption with the other most widely used protocol BLE. The experimental results in this paper would conclude whether the developed prototype is capable in terms of power consumption to replace the existing protocol BLE with WiFi.

Keywords: bluetooth, internet of things (IoT), power consumption, WiFi

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Authors: Winai Rungrittidetch

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This paper investigated the operational system, procedures, outcomes, and obstacles during the application of the Corporate Social Responsibility by the small enterprises and other involved groups in the anchor production business of the core firm, Jatura Charoen Chai Company Limited. The paper also aimed to discover ways to improve the stakeholders who participated in the CSR training and advisory programme. The paper utilized the qualitative methodology which included documentary review and semi- structured interview. The interviews were made with 8 respondents as the representative of different groups of the company’s stakeholder. The findings drew out the lessons learned from the participation of the selected small manufacturing enterprises in the CSR training and advisory programme. Some suggestions were also made, addressing the significance of the Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy.

Keywords: corporate, social, responsibility, enterprises

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Authors: Maud Tixier

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Societal issues are at stake for cruises anywhere, whatever the size of the ships and their destinations are. However, the Mediterranean sea is the main region where many operate and the challenges are both social and environmental. The presentation focuses on small ships, accounting for market niches, aimed at more specific cruise passengers and calling at less visited areas. How they cope with the benefit of all stakeholders is a persistent issue of our time.

Keywords: environment, management, social, societal, safety

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Authors: Soham Lalwala, Ronita Singh, Yaman Pattanaik

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In the present scenario of globalization and privatization, it becomes difficult for small scale industries to sustain due to rapidly increasing competition. In a developing country, most of the gross output is generally obtained from small scale industries. Thus, quality plays a vital role in maintaining customer satisfaction. Total quality management (TQM) is an approach which enables employees to focus on quality rather quantity, further improving the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the whole organization. The objective of the paper is to present the application of TQM and develop a TQM Model in a small scale industry of narrow fabrics in Surat, India named ‘Rajdhani Lace & Borders’. Further, critical success factors relating all the fabric processes involved were identified. The data was collected by conducting a questionnaire survey. After data was collected, critical areas were visualized using different tools of TQM such as cause and effect diagram, control charts and run charts. Overall, responses were analyzed, and factor analysis was used to develop the model. The study presented here will aid the management of the above-mentioned industry in identifying the weaker areas and thus give a plausible solution to improve the total productivity of the firm along with effective utilization of resources and better customer satisfaction.

Keywords: critical success factors, narrow fabrics, quality, small scale industries, total quality management (TQM)

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Authors: Ploychompoo Kittikunchotiwut

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This study examines the relationships between human resource practices, knowledge management capacity, and innovation performance. The data were collected by using a questionnaire from 241 firms in the hotels in Thailand. The hypothesized relationships among variables are examined by using ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis. The findings show that human resource practices have a positive effect on knowledge management capacity. Besides, knowledge management capacity was found to positively affect innovation performance. Finally, the limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: human resource practices, knowledge management capacity, innovation performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 287

Authors: Mari Chaikovskaia, Jean-Philippe Gayon, Alain Quilliot

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We consider a fleet of elementary robots that can be connected in different ways to transport loads of different types. For instance, a single robot can transport a small load, and the association of two robots can either transport a large load or two small loads. We seek to determine the optimal number of robots to transport a set of loads in a given time interval, with or without reconfiguration. We show that the problem with reconfiguration is strongly NP-hard by a reduction to the bin-packing problem. Then, we study a special case with unit capacities and derive simple formulas for the minimum number of robots, up to 3 types of loads. For this special case, we compare the minimum number of robots with or without reconfiguration and show that the gain is limited in absolute value but may be significant for small fleets.

Keywords: fleet sizing, reconfigurability, robots, transportation

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Authors: S. Alyami, S. Mohammad

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These Risk management practices have a significant impact on construction SMEs. The effective utilisation of these practices depends on culture change in order to optimise decision making for critical activities within construction projects. Thus, successful implementation of empowerment strategies would enhance operational employees to participate in effective decision making. However, there remain many barriers to individuals and organisations within empowerment strategies that require empirical investigation before the industry can benefit from their implementation. Gaps in understanding the relationship between employee empowerment and risk management practices still exist. This research paper aims to examine the impact of the structural empowerment on risk management practices in construction SMEs. The questionnaire has been distributed to participants (162 employees) that involve projects and civil engineers within a case study from Saudi construction SMEs. Partial least squares based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was utilised to perform analysis. The results reveal a positive relationship between empowerment and risk management practices. The study shows how structural empowerment contributes to operational employees in risk management practices through involving activities such as decision making, self-efficiency, and autonomy. The findings of this study will contribute to close the current gaps in the construction SMEs context.

Keywords: construction SMEs, culture, decision making, empowerment, risk management

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Authors: Ririh Rahma Ratinghayu, Jayu Pramudya, Nur Aini Masruroh, Shi-Woei Lin

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This research studies pricing strategy in cooperative setting of hotel duopoly selling perishable product under fixed capacity constraint by using the perspective of managers. In hotel revenue management, competitor’s average room rate and occupancy rate should be taken into manager’s consideration in determining pricing strategy to generate optimum revenue. This information is not provided by business intelligence or available in competitor’s website. Thus, Information Sharing (IS) among players might result in improved performance of pricing strategy. IS is widely adopted in the logistics industry, but IS within hospitality industry has not been well-studied. This research put IS as one of cooperative game schemes, besides Mutual Price Setting (MPS) scheme. In off-peak season, hotel manager arranges pricing strategy to offer promotion package and various kinds of discounts up to 60% of full-price to attract customers. Competitor selling homogenous product will react the same, then triggers a price war. Price war which generates lower revenue may be avoided by creating collaboration in pricing strategy to optimize payoff for both players. In MPS cooperative game, players collaborate to set a room rate applied for both players. Cooperative game may avoid unfavorable players’ payoff caused by price war. Researches on horizontal cooperative game in logistics show better performance and payoff for the players, however, horizontal cooperative game in hotel revenue management has not been demonstrated. This paper aims to develop hotel revenue management models under duopoly cooperative schemes (IS & MPS), which are compared to models under non-cooperative scheme too. Each scheme has five models, Capacity Allocation Model; Demand Model; Revenue Model; Optimal Price Model; and Equilibrium Price Model. Capacity Allocation Model and Demand Model employs self-hotel and competitor’s full and discount price as predictors under non-linear relation. Optimal price is obtained by assuming revenue maximization motive. Equilibrium price is observed by interacting self-hotel’s and competitor’s optimal price under reaction equation. Equilibrium is analyzed using game theory approach. The sequence applies for three schemes. MPS Scheme differently aims to optimize total players’ payoff. The case study in which theoretical models are applied observes two hotels offering homogenous product in Indonesia during a year. The Capacity Allocation, Demand, and Revenue Models are built using multiple regression and statistically tested for validation. Case study data confirms that price behaves within demand model in a non-linear manner. IS Models can represent the actual demand and revenue data better than Non-IS Models. Furthermore, IS enables hotels to earn significantly higher revenue. Thus, duopoly hotel players in general, might have reasonable incentives to share information horizontally. During off-peak season, MPS Models are able to predict the optimal equal price for both hotels. However, Nash equilibrium may not always exist depending on actual payoff of adhering or betraying mutual agreement. To optimize performance, horizontal cooperative game may be chosen over non-cooperative game. Mathematical models can be used to detect collusion among business players. Empirical testing can be used as policy input for market regulator in preventing unethical business practices potentially harming society welfare.

Keywords: horizontal cooperative game theory, hotel revenue management, information sharing, mutual price setting

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Authors: Ibrahim Ahmed, Richard Amoateng, Akhil Jain, Mohamed Ahmed

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Alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is a type of acquired cardiomyopathy caused by chronic alcohol consumption. Frequently ACM is associated with arrhythmias such as atrial flutter. Our aim was to characterize the patient demographics and investigate the effect of atrial flutter (AF) on ACM. This was a retrospective cohort study using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database to identify admissions in adults with principal and secondary diagnoses of alcoholic cardiomyopathy and atrial flutter from 2019. Multivariate linear and logistic regression models were adjusted for age, gender, race, household income, insurance status, Elixhauser comorbidity score, hospital location, bed size, and teaching status. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality, and secondary outcomes were the length of stay (LOS) and total charge in USD. There was a total of 21,855 admissions with alcoholic cardiomyopathy, of which 1,635 had atrial flutter (AF-ACM). Compared to Non-AF-ACM cohort, AF-ACM cohort had fewer females (4.89% vs 14.54%, p<0.001), were older (58.66 vs 56.13 years, p<0.001), fewer Native Americans (0.61% vs2.67%, p<0.01), had fewer smaller (19.27% vs 22.45%, p<0.01) & medium-sized hospitals (23.24% vs28.98%, p<0.01), but more large-sized hospitals (57.49% vs 48.57%, p<0.01), more Medicare (40.37% vs 34.08%, p<0.05) and fewer Medicaid insured (23.55% vs 33.70%, p=<0.001), fewer hypertension (10.7% vs 15.01%, p<0.05), and more obesity (24.77% vs 16.35%, p<0.001). Compared to Non-AF-ACM cohort, there was no difference in AF-ACM cohort mortality rate (6.13% vs 4.20%, p=0.0998), unadjusted mortality OR 1.49 (95% CI 0.92-2.40, p=0.102), adjusted mortality OR 1.36 (95% CI 0.83-2.24, p=0.221), but there was a difference in LOS 1.23 days (95% CI 0.34-2.13, p<0.01), total charge $28,860.30 (95% CI 11,883.96-45,836.60, p<0.01). In patients admitted with ACM, the presence of AF was not associated with a higher all-cause mortality rate or odds of all-cause mortality; however, it was associated with 1.23 days increase in LOS and a $28,860.30 increase in total hospitalization charge. Native Americans, older age and obesity were risk factors for the presence of AF in ACM.

Keywords: alcoholic cardiomyopathy, atrial flutter, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia

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Authors: Gregory Sullivan

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The evolution of global warming has escalated the number and complexity of forest fires around the world. As an example, the United States and Brazil combined generated more than 30,000 forest fires last year. The impact to our environment, structures and individuals is incalculable. The world has learned to try to take this in stride, trying multiple ways to contain fires. Some countries are trying to use cameras in limited areas. There are discussions of using hundreds of low earth orbit satellites and linking them together, and, interfacing them through ground networks. These are all truly noble attempts to defeat the forest fire phenomenon. But there is a better, simpler answer. A bigger piece of the solutions puzzle is to see the fires while they are small, soon after initiation. The approach is to see the fires while they are very small and report their location (latitude and longitude) to local first responders. This is done by placing a sensor at geostationary orbit (GEO: 26,000 miles above the earth). By placing this small satellite in GEO, we can “stare” at the earth, and sense temperature changes. We do not “see” fires, but “measure” temperature changes. This has already been demonstrated on an experimental scale. Fires were seen at close to initiation, and info forwarded to first responders. it were the first to identify the fires 7 out of 8 times. The goal is to have a small independent satellite at GEO orbit focused only on forest fire initiation. Thus, with one small satellite, focused only on forest fire initiation, we hope to greatly decrease the impact to persons, property and the environment.

Keywords: space detection, wildfire early warning, demonstration wildfire detection and action from space, space detection to first responders

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Authors: Palwinder Singh

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Beyond the conventional mode of working with anti-inflammatory agents through enzyme inhibition, herein, an alternate substrate of cyclooxygenase-2 was developed. Proline centered pentapeptide iso-conformational to arachidonic acid exhibited appreciable selectivity for COX-2 overcoming acetic acid and formalin induced pain in rats to almost 80% and was treated as a substrate by the enzyme. Remarkably, COX-2 metabolized the pentapeptide into small fragments consisting mainly of di- and tri-peptides that ensured the safe breakdown of the peptide under in-vivo conditions. The kinetic parameter Kcat/Km for COX-2 mediated metabolism of peptide 6.3 x 105 M-1 s-1 was quite similar to 9.5 x 105 M-1 s-1 for arachidonic acid. Evidenced by the dynamic molecular studies and the use of Y385F COX-2, it was observed that the breakage of the pentapeptide has probably taken place through H-bond activation of the peptide bond by the side chains of Y385 and S530.

Keywords: small peptides, anti-inflammatory agents, cyclooxygenase-2, unnatural substrates

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Authors: Yolanda Zografova, Ekaterina Dimitrova, Tsvetelina Panchelieva, Victoria Nedeva-Atanasova

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Aggression and violence amongst school-aged children are widely spread phenomenon, which is expanding both on a global level and in Bulgaria. The purpose of the paper is to reveal the overall range of different types and manifestations of school aggression in a specific age group (12 to 18 years old students) from the 5th to the 12th grade according to the Bulgarian education system. In addition, the research investigates the dynamics of aggressive behaviour in two parallel lines – a horizontal one (with students from the same age) and a vertical one (with students from different grade). In the current study based on the original authors’ inventory (School Aggression Questionnaire), the three main types of aggression are measured – physical, verbal and indirect. The sample consists of 300 students from schools in a big metropolitan city, a mid-sized town, and a small town. Results show that the predominant aggression type is the verbal one, but this is the predominant type for the girls in the sample, not for the boys. Another result is that the higher the school grade, the lower levels of overall aggression is shown by the students. The study of such a multi-dimensional phenomenon as the aggression will provide up-to-date scientific knowledge, important both for the development of science on these topics, and useful for public interests in relation to the balanced development of children and adolescents at school. The results provide an excellent base for the development of prevention and intervention programs in order to reduce school aggression.

Keywords: educational psychology, School aggression, interpersonal relations, school aggression questionnaire, types of aggression

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Authors: Hari Krishna Ayyappa, Reenu Singh

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Rising population and restricted land for development has led towards the growth of vertical buildings and small complexes. It provides many possibilities to change the shape and size of internal space in addition to the social impacts on the commercial spaces. With the increased volatility of necessities of people, the need for mental and physical comfort has continuously increased. . Living in a small space musts minimalist and space- saving cabinetwork results to sustain mortal good. This paper attempts to explore the Influence of Using Minimalist Furniture on the Efficiency of the commercial Space interiors by means of the variable resulting from preceding studies based on literature. A literature review was conducted on research articles to understand the contributing variables in a well designed small commercial spaces. A questionnaire survey was conducted to understand the layout of small commercial spaces with respect to Environmental impact, material, Design elements, Modern approach, Layered lightings, and colours. The problem of small spaces can be resolved by some ways; it's still needed for cabinetwork to develop to be more innovative to accommodate small living spaces. Since cabinetwork is a necessity and not luxury, everybody is in need of it. The spatial factors affecting overall satisfaction at a detailed position were bandied. The variable helped in proposing design ideation and mock ups to explore improved interiors. This paper concludes that most of the principles of the minimalist approach have been overlooked at, which had an impact on the space efficiency in commercial spaces like storage rooms, office area, retail stores, restaurants, and other spaces where business is conducted.

Keywords: materials, modern approach, space efficiency, tall commercial buildings

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Authors: Todor Nickolov Stoyanov

Abstract:

Cooperatives are present in all countries and in almost all sectors, including agriculture, forestry, food, finance, health, marketing, insurance and credit. Strong cooperatives are able to overcome many of the difficulties faced by private owners. Cooperatives use seven principles, including the 'Community Concern" principle, which enables cooperatives to work for the sustainable development of the community. The members of cooperatives may use different systems for generating year-round employment and for receiving sustainable income through performing different forestry activities. Various methods are used during the preparation of the report. These include literature reviews, statistics, secondary data and expert interviews. The members of the cooperatives are benefits exclusively from increasing the efficiency of the various products and from the overall yield of the harvest, and ultimately from achieving better profit through cooperative efforts. Cooperatives also use other types of activities that are an additional opportunity for cooperative income. There are many heterogeneous activities in the production and service sectors of the forest cooperatives under consideration. Some cooperatives serve dairies, distilleries, woodworking enterprises, tourist homes, hotels and motels, shops, ski slopes, sheep breeding, etc. Through the revenue generated by the activity, cooperatives have the opportunity to carry out various environmental and protective activities - recreation, water protection, protection of endangered and endemic species, etc., which in the case of small-scale forests cannot be achieved and the management is not sustainable. The conclusions indicate the results received in the analysis. Cooperative management of forests and forest lands gives higher incomes to individual owners. The management of forests and forest lands through cooperatives helps to carry out different environmental and protective activities. Cooperative forest management provides additional means of subsistence to the owners of poor forest lands. Cooperative management of forests and forest lands support owners to implement the forest management plans and to apply sustainable management of these territories.

Keywords: cooperative, forestry, forest owners, principles of cooperation

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Authors: Huayuan Lu, Chunfang Yang, Ma Zhu, Baojun Qi, Yaqiong Qiao, Jiangqian Xu

Abstract:

Image geolocalization has great application prospects in fields such as autonomous driving and virtual/augmented reality. In practical application scenarios, the size of the image to be located is not fixed; it is impractical to train different networks for all possible sizes. When its size does not match the size of the input of the descriptor extraction model, existing image geolocalization methods usually directly scale or crop the image in some common ways. This will result in the loss of some information important to the geolocalization task, thus affecting the performance of the image geolocalization method. For example, excessive down-sampling can lead to blurred building contour, and inappropriate cropping can lead to the loss of key semantic elements, resulting in incorrect geolocation results. To address this problem, this paper designs a learnable image resizer and proposes an arbitrary-sized image geolocation method. (1) The designed learnable image resizer employs the self-attention mechanism to enhance the geometric features of the resized image. Firstly, it applies bilinear interpolation to the input image and its feature maps to obtain the initial resized image and the resized feature maps. Then, SKNet (selective kernel net) is used to approximate the best receptive field, thus keeping the geometric shapes as the original image. And SENet (squeeze and extraction net) is used to automatically select the feature maps with strong contour information, enhancing the geometric features. Finally, the enhanced geometric features are fused with the initial resized image, to obtain the final resized images. (2) The proposed image geolocalization method embeds the above image resizer as a fronting layer of the descriptor extraction network. It not only enables the network to be compatible with arbitrary-sized input images but also enhances the geometric features that are crucial to the image geolocalization task. Moreover, the triplet attention mechanism is added after the first convolutional layer of the backbone network to optimize the utilization of geometric elements extracted by the first convolutional layer. Finally, the local features extracted by the backbone network are aggregated to form image descriptors for image geolocalization. The proposed method was evaluated on several mainstream datasets, such as Pittsburgh30K, Tokyo24/7, and Places365. The results show that the proposed method has excellent size compatibility and compares favorably to recently mainstream geolocalization methods.

Keywords: image geolocalization, self-attention mechanism, image resizer, geometric feature

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Authors: M. Bertsiou, E. Feloni, E. Baltas

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The proper management of the water supply and electricity is the key issue, especially in small islands, where sustainability has been combined with the autonomy and covering of water needs and the fast development in potential sectors of economy. In this research work a hybrid system in Fournoi island (Icaria), a small island of Aegean, has been evaluated in order to produce hydropower and cover water demands, as it can provide solutions to acute problems, such as the water scarcity or the instability of local power grids. The meaning and the utility of hybrid system and the cooperation with a desalination plant has also been considered. This kind of project has not yet been widely applied, so the consideration will give us valuable information about the storage of water and the controlled distribution of the generated clean energy. This process leads to the conclusions about the functioning of the system and the profitability of this project, covering the demand for water and electricity.

Keywords: hybrid system, water, electricity, island

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Authors: Jerzy Banski

Abstract:

Small towns represent a key element of settlement structure and serve a number of important functions associated with the servicing of rural areas that surround them. It is in light of this that scientific studies have paid considerable attention to the functional structure of centers of this kind, as well as the relationships with both surrounding rural areas and other urban centers. But a preliminary to such research has typically involved attempts at classifying the urban centers themselves, with this also assisting with the planning and shaping of development policy on different spatial scales. The purpose of the work is to test out the methods underpinning three different classifications of small urban centers, as well as to offer a preliminary interpretation of the outcomes obtained. Research took in 722 settlement units in Poland, granted town rights and populated by fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. A morphologically-based classification making reference to the database of topographic objects as regards land cover within the administrative boundaries of towns and cities was carried out, and it proved possible to distinguish the categories of “housing-estate”, industrial and R&R towns, as well as towns characterized by dichotomy. Equally, a functional/morphological approach taken with the same database allowed for the identification – via an alternative method – of three main categories of small towns (i.e., the monofunctional, multifunctional or oligo functional), which could then be described in far greater detail. A third, multi-criterion classification made simultaneous reference to the conditioning of a structural, a location-related, and an administrative hierarchy-related nature, allowing for distinctions to be drawn between small towns in 9 different categories. The results obtained allow for multifaceted analysis and interpretation of the geographical differentiation characterizing the distribution of Poland’s urban centers across space in the country.

Keywords: small towns, classification, local planning, Poland

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Authors: Delia Gabriela Moisa, Demos Parapanos, Tim Heap

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The tourism sector is mainly comprised of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMEs), representing approximately 80% of global businesses in this field. These entities require focused attention and support to address challenges, ensuring their competitiveness and relevance in a dynamic industry characterized by continuously changing customer preferences. To address these challenges, it becomes imperative to consider not only socio-demographic factors but also delve into the intricate interplay of psychological elements influencing consumer behavior. This study investigates the impact of personality traits and travel motivations on visitor activities in Cumbria, United Kingdom, an iconic region marked by UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including The Lake District National Park and Hadrian's Wall. With a £4.1 billion tourism industry primarily driven by SMEs, Cumbria serves as an ideal setting for examining the relationship between tourist psychology and activities. Employing the Big Five personality model and the Travel Career Pattern motivation theory, this study aims to explain the relationship between psychological factors and tourist activities. The study further explores SME perspectives on personality-based market segmentation, providing strategic insights into addressing evolving tourist preferences.This pioneering mixed-methods study integrates quantitative data from 330 visitor surveys, subsequently complemented by qualitative insights from tourism SME representatives. The findings unveil that socio-demographic factors do not exhibit statistically significant variations in the activities pursued by visitors in Cumbria. However, significant correlations emerge between personality traits and motivations with preferred visitor activities. Open-minded tourists gravitate towards events and cultural activities, while Conscientious individuals favor cultural pursuits. Extraverted tourists lean towards adventurous, recreational, and wellness activities, while Agreeable personalities opt for lake cruises. Interestingly, a contrasting trend emerges as Extraversion increases, leading to a decrease in interest in cultural activities. Similarly, heightened Agreeableness corresponds to a decrease in interest in adventurous activities. Furthermore, travel motivations, including nostalgia and building relationships, drive event participation, while self-improvement and novelty-seeking lead to adventurous activities. Additionally, qualitative insights from tourism SME representatives underscore the value of targeted messaging aligned with visitor personalities for enhancing loyalty and experiences. This study contributes significantly to scholarship through its novel framework, integrating tourist psychology with activities and industry perspectives. The proposed conceptual model holds substantial practical implications for SMEs to formulate personalized offerings, optimize marketing, and strategically allocate resources tailored to tourist personalities. While the focus is on Cumbria, the methodology's universal applicability offers valuable insights for destinations globally seeking a competitive advantage. Future research addressing scale reliability and geographic specificity limitations can further advance knowledge on this critical relationship between visitor psychology, individual preferences, and industry imperatives. Moreover, by extending the investigation to other districts, future studies could draw comparisons and contrasts in the results, providing a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing visitor psychology and preferences.

Keywords: personality trait, SME, tourist behaviour, tourist motivation, visitor activity

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Authors: Ran Etgar, Yuval Cohen, Erel Avineri

Abstract:

One of the major challenges of transportation in medium sized inner-cities (such as Tel-Aviv) is the last-mile solution. Personal rapid transit (PRT) seems like an applicable candidate for this, as it combines the benefits of personal (car) travel with the operational benefits of transit. However, the investment required for large area PRT grid is significant and there is a need to economically justify such investment by correctly evaluating the grid capacity. PRT main elements are small automated vehicles (sometimes referred to as podcars) operating on a network of specially built guideways. The research is looking at a specific concept of elevated PRT system. Literature review has revealed the drawbacks PRT modelling and simulation approaches, mainly due to the lack of consideration of technical and operational features of the system (such as headways, acceleration, safety issues); the detailed design of infrastructure (guideways, stations, and docks); the stochastic and sessional characteristics of demand; and safety regulations – all of them have a strong effect on the system performance. A highly detailed model of the system, developed in this research, is applying a discrete event simulation combined with an agent-based approach, to represent the system elements and the podecars movement logic. Applying a case study approach, the simulation model is used to study the capacity of the system, the expected throughput of the system, the utilization, and the level of service (journey time, waiting time, etc.).

Keywords: capacity, productivity measurement, PRT, simulation, transportation

Procedia PDF Downloads 147