Search results for: dynamic network analysis
29247 New Media and Its Role in Shaping the 'Bersih Movement' in Malaysia
Authors: Rosyidah Muhamad
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New media is facilitating collective action in ways never thought possible. Although the broader political climate may have a powerful influence on the success or failure of emerging social movement organizations, the Internet is enabling groups previously incapable of political action to find their voices Whether this shift is offering greater relative benefit to previously underrepresented or incumbent political fixtures is subject to debate, but it is clear that like-minded people are now able to better locate and converse with each other via many Internet. The recent social movement in Malaysia – the BERSIH Movement had attracted demonstrators from countries all over the world. The movement with an unforeseen mixture of nationalities became world news. Interestingly, the new media seemed to play a crucial role in the organization of the protests around the world. This article maps this movement via an analysis of their websites. It examines the contribution of these websites based on the collective identity, actual mobilization and a network of organizations. This research indicates signs of an integration of different organizations that contributed to an important role of the new media.Keywords: Bersih Movement, Malaysian politics, new media, social movement
Procedia PDF Downloads 27729246 Investigating Elements That Influence Higher Education Institutions’ Digital Maturity
Authors: Zarah M. Bello, Nathan Baddoo, Mariana Lilley, Paul Wernick
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In this paper, we present findings from a multi-part study to evaluate candidate elements reflecting the level of digital capability maturity (DCM) in higher education and the relationship between these elements. We will use these findings to propose a model of DCM for educational institutions. We suggest that the success of learning in higher education is dependent in part on the level of maturity of digital capabilities of institutions as well as the abilities of learners and those who support the learning process. It is therefore important to have a good understanding of the elements that underpin this maturity as well as their impact and interactions in order to better exploit the benefits that technology presents to the modern learning environment and support its continued improvement. Having identified ten candidate elements of digital capability that we believe support the level of a University’s maturity in this area as well as a number of relevant stakeholder roles, we conducted two studies utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the first of these studies, 85 electronic questionnaires were completed by various stakeholders in a UK university, with a 100% response rate. We also undertook five in-depth interviews with management stakeholders in the same university. We then utilized statistical analysis to process the survey data and conducted a textual analysis of the interview transcripts. Our findings support our initial identification of candidate elements and support our contention that these elements interact in a multidimensional manner. This multidimensional dynamic suggests that any proposal for improvement in digital capability must reflect the interdependency and cross-sectional relationship of the elements that contribute to DCM. Our results also indicate that the notion of DCM is strongly data-centric and that any proposed maturity model must reflect the role of data in driving maturity and improvement. We present these findings as a key step towards the design of an operationalisable DCM maturity model for universities.Keywords: digital capability, elements, maturity, maturity framework, university
Procedia PDF Downloads 14129245 Socioterritorial Inequalities in a Region of Chile. Beyond the Geography
Authors: Javier Donoso-Bravo, Camila Cortés-Zambrano
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In this paper, we analyze socioterritorial inequalities in the region of Valparaiso (Chile) using secondary data to account for these inequalities drawing on economic, social, educational, and environmental dimensions regarding the thirty-six municipalities of the region. We looked over a wide-ranging set of secondary data from public sources regarding economic activities, poverty, employment, income, years of education, post-secondary education access, green areas, access to potable water, and others. We found sharp socioterritorial inequalities especially based on the economic performance in each territory. Analysis show, on the one hand, the existence of a dual and unorganized development model in some territories with a strong economic activity -especially in the areas of finance, real estate, mining, and vineyards- but, at the same time, with poor social indicators. On the other hand, most of the territories show a dispersed model with very little dynamic economic activities and very poor social development. Finally, we discuss how socioterritorial inequalities in the region of Valparaiso reflect the level of globalization of the economic activities carried on in every territory.Keywords: socioterritorial inequalities, development model, Chile, secondary data, Region of Valparaiso
Procedia PDF Downloads 10029244 The Impact of HKUST-1 Metal-Organic Framework Pretreatment on Dynamic Acetaldehyde Adsorption
Authors: M. François, L. Sigot, C. Vallières
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Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are a real health issue, particularly in domestic indoor environments. Among these VOCs, acetaldehyde is frequently monitored in dwellings ‘air, especially due to smoking and spontaneous emissions from the new wall and soil coverings. It is responsible for respiratory complaints and is classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans. Adsorption processes are commonly used to remove VOCs from the air. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a promising type of material for high adsorption performance. These hybrid porous materials composed of metal inorganic clusters and organic ligands are interesting thanks to their high porosity and surface area. The HKUST-1 (also referred to as MOF-199) is a copper-based MOF with the formula [Cu₃(BTC)₂(H₂O)₃]n (BTC = benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate) and exhibits unsaturated metal sites that can be attractive sites for adsorption. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of HKUST-1 pretreatment on acetaldehyde adsorption. Thus, dynamic adsorption experiments were conducted in 1 cm diameter glass column packed with 2 cm MOF bed height. MOF were sieved to 630 µm - 1 mm. The feed gas (Co = 460 ppmv ± 5 ppmv) was obtained by diluting a 1000 ppmv acetaldehyde gas cylinder in air. The gas flow rate was set to 0.7 L/min (to guarantee a suitable linear velocity). Acetaldehyde concentration was monitored online by gas chromatography coupled with a flame ionization detector (GC-FID). Breakthrough curves must allow to understand the interactions between the MOF and the pollutant as well as the impact of the HKUST-1 humidity in the adsorption process. Consequently, different MOF water content conditions were tested, from a dry material with 7 % water content (dark blue color) to water saturated state with approximately 35 % water content (turquoise color). The rough material – without any pretreatment – containing 30 % water serves as a reference. First, conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of the evolution of the ratio of the column outlet concentration (C) on the inlet concentration (Co) as a function of time for different HKUST-1 pretreatments. The shape of the breakthrough curves is significantly different. The saturation of the rough material is slower (20 h to reach saturation) than that of the dried material (2 h). However, the breakthrough time defined for C/Co = 10 % appears earlier in the case of the rough material (0.75 h) compared to the dried HKUST-1 (1.4 h). Another notable difference is the shape of the curve before the breakthrough at 10 %. An abrupt increase of the outlet concentration is observed for the material with the lower humidity in comparison to a smooth increase for the rough material. Thus, the water content plays a significant role on the breakthrough kinetics. This study aims to understand what can explain the shape of the breakthrough curves associated to the pretreatments of HKUST-1 and which mechanisms take place in the adsorption process between the MOF, the pollutant, and the water.Keywords: acetaldehyde, dynamic adsorption, HKUST-1, pretreatment influence
Procedia PDF Downloads 23629243 Virtual Reality Applications for Building Indoor Engineering: Circulation Way-Finding
Authors: Atefeh Omidkhah Kharashtomi, Rasoul Hedayat Nejad, Saeed Bakhtiyari
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Circulation paths and indoor connection network of the building play an important role both in the daily operation of the building and during evacuation in emergency situations. The degree of legibility of the paths for navigation inside the building has a deep connection with the perceptive and cognitive system of human, and the way the surrounding environment is being perceived. Human perception of the space is based on the sensory systems in a three-dimensional environment, and non-linearly, so it is necessary to avoid reducing its representations in architectural design as a two-dimensional and linear issue. Today, the advances in the field of virtual reality (VR) technology have led to various applications, and architecture and building science can benefit greatly from these capabilities. Especially in cases where the design solution requires a detailed and complete understanding of the human perception of the environment and the behavioral response, special attention to VR technologies could be a priority. Way-finding in the indoor circulation network is a proper example for such application. Success in way-finding could be achieved if human perception of the route and the behavioral reaction have been considered in advance and reflected in the architectural design. This paper discusses the VR technology applications for the way-finding improvements in indoor engineering of the building. In a systematic review, with a database consisting of numerous studies, firstly, four categories for VR applications for circulation way-finding have been identified: 1) data collection of key parameters, 2) comparison of the effect of each parameter in virtual environment versus real world (in order to improve the design), 3) comparing experiment results in the application of different VR devices/ methods with each other or with the results of building simulation, and 4) training and planning. Since the costs of technical equipment and knowledge required to use VR tools lead to the limitation of its use for all design projects, priority buildings for the use of VR during design are introduced based on case-studies analysis. The results indicate that VR technology provides opportunities for designers to solve complex buildings design challenges in an effective and efficient manner. Then environmental parameters and the architecture of the circulation routes (indicators such as route configuration, topology, signs, structural and non-structural components, etc.) and the characteristics of each (metrics such as dimensions, proportions, color, transparency, texture, etc.) are classified for the VR way-finding experiments. Then, according to human behavior and reaction in the movement-related issues, the necessity of scenario-based and experiment design for using VR technology to improve the design and receive feedback from the test participants has been described. The parameters related to the scenario design are presented in a flowchart in the form of test design, data determination and interpretation, recording results, analysis, errors, validation and reporting. Also, the experiment environment design is discussed for equipment selection according to the scenario, parameters under study as well as creating the sense of illusion in the terms of place illusion, plausibility and illusion of body ownership.Keywords: virtual reality (VR), way-finding, indoor, circulation, design
Procedia PDF Downloads 7329242 Overview and Future Opportunities of Sarcasm Detection on Social Media Communications
Authors: Samaneh Nadali, Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad, Nurfadhlina Mohammad Sharef
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Sarcasm is a common phenomenon in social media which is a nuanced form of language for stating the opposite of what is implied. Due to the intentional ambiguity, analysis of sarcasm is a difficult task not only for a machine but even for a human. Although sarcasm detection has an important effect on sentiment, it is usually ignored in social media analysis because sarcasm analysis is too complicated. While there is a few systems exist which can detect sarcasm, almost no work has been carried out on a study and the review of the existing work in this area. This survey presents a nearly full image of sarcasm detection techniques and the related fields with brief details. The main contributions of this paper include the illustration of the recent trend of research in the sarcasm analysis and we highlight the gaps and propose a new framework that can be explored.Keywords: sarcasm detection, sentiment analysis, social media, sarcasm analysis
Procedia PDF Downloads 45329241 An Approach for Multilayered Ecological Networks
Authors: N. F. F. Ebecken, G. C. Pereira
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Although networks provide a powerful approach to the study of a wide variety of ecological systems, their formulation usually does not include various types of interactions, interactions that vary in space and time, and interconnected systems such as networks. The emerging field of 'multilayer networks' provides a natural framework for extending ecological systems analysis to include these multiple layers of complexity as it specifically allows for differentiation and modeling of intralayer and interlayer connectivity. The structure provides a set of concepts and tools that can be adapted and applied to the ecology, facilitating research in high dimensionality, heterogeneous systems in nature. Here, ecological multilayer networks are formally defined based on a review of prior and related approaches, illustrates their application and potential with existing data analyzes, and discusses limitations, challenges, and future applications. The integration of multilayer network theory into ecology offers a largely untapped potential to further address ecological complexity, to finally provide new theoretical and empirical insights into the architecture and dynamics of ecological systems.Keywords: ecological networks, multilayered networks, sea ecology, Brazilian Coastal Area
Procedia PDF Downloads 15429240 MAGNI Dynamics: A Vision-Based Kinematic and Dynamic Upper-Limb Model for Intelligent Robotic Rehabilitation
Authors: Alexandros Lioulemes, Michail Theofanidis, Varun Kanal, Konstantinos Tsiakas, Maher Abujelala, Chris Collander, William B. Townsend, Angie Boisselle, Fillia Makedon
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This paper presents a home-based robot-rehabilitation instrument, called ”MAGNI Dynamics”, that utilized a vision-based kinematic/dynamic module and an adaptive haptic feedback controller. The system is expected to provide personalized rehabilitation by adjusting its resistive and supportive behavior according to a fuzzy intelligence controller that acts as an inference system, which correlates the user’s performance to different stiffness factors. The vision module uses the Kinect’s skeletal tracking to monitor the user’s effort in an unobtrusive and safe way, by estimating the torque that affects the user’s arm. The system’s torque estimations are justified by capturing electromyographic data from primitive hand motions (Shoulder Abduction and Shoulder Forward Flexion). Moreover, we present and analyze how the Barrett WAM generates a force-field with a haptic controller to support or challenge the users. Experiments show that by shifting the proportional value, that corresponds to different stiffness factors of the haptic path, can potentially help the user to improve his/her motor skills. Finally, potential areas for future research are discussed, that address how a rehabilitation robotic framework may include multisensing data, to improve the user’s recovery process.Keywords: human-robot interaction, kinect, kinematics, dynamics, haptic control, rehabilitation robotics, artificial intelligence
Procedia PDF Downloads 32729239 Classification of Potential Biomarkers in Breast Cancer Using Artificial Intelligence Algorithms and Anthropometric Datasets
Authors: Aref Aasi, Sahar Ebrahimi Bajgani, Erfan Aasi
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Breast cancer (BC) continues to be the most frequent cancer in females and causes the highest number of cancer-related deaths in women worldwide. Inspired by recent advances in studying the relationship between different patient attributes and features and the disease, in this paper, we have tried to investigate the different classification methods for better diagnosis of BC in the early stages. In this regard, datasets from the University Hospital Centre of Coimbra were chosen, and different machine learning (ML)-based and neural network (NN) classifiers have been studied. For this purpose, we have selected favorable features among the nine provided attributes from the clinical dataset by using a random forest algorithm. This dataset consists of both healthy controls and BC patients, and it was noted that glucose, BMI, resistin, and age have the most importance, respectively. Moreover, we have analyzed these features with various ML-based classifier methods, including Decision Tree (DT), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Logistic Regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) along with NN-based Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) classifier. The results revealed that among different techniques, the SVM and MLP classifiers have the most accuracy, with amounts of 96% and 92%, respectively. These results divulged that the adopted procedure could be used effectively for the classification of cancer cells, and also it encourages further experimental investigations with more collected data for other types of cancers.Keywords: breast cancer, diagnosis, machine learning, biomarker classification, neural network
Procedia PDF Downloads 13329238 Dynamic High-Rise Moment Resisting Frame Dissipation Performances Adopting Glazed Curtain Walls with Superelastic Shape Memory Alloy Joints
Authors: Lorenzo Casagrande, Antonio Bonati, Ferdinando Auricchio, Antonio Occhiuzzi
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This paper summarizes the results of a survey on smart non-structural element dynamic dissipation when installed in modern high-rise mega-frame prototypes. An innovative glazed curtain wall was designed using Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) joints in order to increase the energy dissipation and enhance the seismic/wind response of the structures. The studied buildings consisted of thirty- and sixty-storey planar frames, extracted from reference three-dimensional steel Moment Resisting Frame (MRF) with outriggers and belt trusses. The internal core was composed of a CBF system, whilst outriggers were placed every fifteen stories to limit second order effects and inter-storey drifts. These structural systems were designed in accordance with European rules and numerical FE models were developed with an open-source code, able to account for geometric and material nonlinearities. With regard to the characterization of non-structural building components, full-scale crescendo tests were performed on aluminium/glass curtain wall units at the laboratory of the Construction Technologies Institute (ITC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), deriving force-displacement curves. Three-dimensional brick-based inelastic FE models were calibrated according to experimental results, simulating the fac¸ade response. Since recent seismic events and extreme dynamic wind loads have generated the large occurrence of non-structural components failure, which causes sensitive economic losses and represents a hazard for pedestrians safety, a more dissipative glazed curtain wall was studied. Taking advantage of the mechanical properties of SMA, advanced smart joints were designed with the aim to enhance both the dynamic performance of the single non-structural unit and the global behavior. Thus, three-dimensional brick-based plastic FE models were produced, based on the innovated non-structural system, simulating the evolution of mechanical degradation in aluminium-to-glass and SMA-to-glass connections when high deformations occurred. Consequently, equivalent nonlinear links were calibrated to reproduce the behavior of both tested and smart designed units, and implemented on the thirty- and sixty-storey structural planar frame FE models. Nonlinear time history analyses (NLTHAs) were performed to quantify the potential of the new system, when considered in the lateral resisting frame system (LRFS) of modern high-rise MRFs. Sensitivity to the structure height was explored comparing the responses of the two prototypes. Trends in global and local performance were discussed to show that, if accurately designed, advanced materials in non-structural elements provide new sources of energy dissipation.Keywords: advanced technologies, glazed curtain walls, non-structural elements, seismic-action reduction, shape memory alloy
Procedia PDF Downloads 32829237 A Pattern Recognition Neural Network Model for Detection and Classification of SQL Injection Attacks
Authors: Naghmeh Moradpoor Sheykhkanloo
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Structured Query Language Injection (SQLI) attack is a code injection technique in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into a given SQL database by simply using a web browser. Losing data, disclosing confidential information or even changing the value of data are the severe damages that SQLI attack can cause on a given database. SQLI attack has also been rated as the number-one attack among top ten web application threats on Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). OWASP is an open community dedicated to enabling organisations to consider, develop, obtain, function, and preserve applications that can be trusted. In this paper, we propose an effective pattern recognition neural network model for detection and classification of SQLI attacks. The proposed model is built from three main elements of: a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) generator in order to generate thousands of malicious and benign URLs, a URL classifier in order to: 1) classify each generated URL to either a benign URL or a malicious URL and 2) classify the malicious URLs into different SQLI attack categories, and an NN model in order to: 1) detect either a given URL is a malicious URL or a benign URL and 2) identify the type of SQLI attack for each malicious URL. The model is first trained and then evaluated by employing thousands of benign and malicious URLs. The results of the experiments are presented in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.Keywords: neural networks, pattern recognition, SQL injection attacks, SQL injection attack classification, SQL injection attack detection
Procedia PDF Downloads 46829236 Regional Changes under Extreme Meteorological Events
Authors: Renalda El Samra, Elie Bou-Zeid, Hamza Kunhu Bangalath, Georgiy Stenchikov, Mutasem El Fadel
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The regional-scale impact of climate change over complex terrain was examined through high-resolution dynamic downscaling conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, with initial and boundary conditions from a High-Resolution Atmospheric Model (HiRAM). The analysis was conducted over the eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on the country of Lebanon, which is characterized by a challenging complex topography that magnifies the effect of orographic precipitation. Four year-long WRF simulations, selected based on HiRAM time series, were performed to generate future climate projections of extreme temperature and precipitation over the study area under the conditions of the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5. One past WRF simulation year, 2008, was selected as a baseline to capture dry extremes of the system. The results indicate that the study area might be exposed to a temperature increase between 1.0 and 3ºC in summer mean values by 2050, in comparison to 2008. For extreme years, the decrease in average annual precipitation may exceed 50% at certain locations in comparison to 2008.Keywords: HiRAM, regional climate modeling, WRF, Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)
Procedia PDF Downloads 39429235 Comparative Study of Flood Plain Protection Zone Determination Methodologies in Colombia, Spain and Canada
Authors: P. Chang, C. Lopez, C. Burbano
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Flood protection zones are riparian buffers that are formed to manage and mitigate the impact of flooding, and in turn, protect local populations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Guía Técnica de Criterios para el Acotamiento de las Rondas Hídricas in Colombia against international regulations in Canada and Spain, in order to determine its limitations and contribute to its improvement. The need to establish a specific corridor that allows for the dynamic development of a river is clear; however, limitations present in the Colombian Technical Guide are identified. The study shows that international regulations provide similar concepts as used in Colombia, but additionally integrate aspects such as regionalization that allows for a better characterization of the channel way, and incorporate the frequency of flooding and its probability of occurrence in the concept of risk when determining the protection zone. The case study analyzed in Dosquebradas - Risaralda aimed at comparing the application of the different standards through hydraulic modeling. It highlights that the current Colombian standard does not offer sufficient details in its implementation phase, which leads to a false sense of security related to inaccuracy and lack of data. Furthermore, the study demonstrates how the Colombian norm is ill-adapted to the conditions of Dosquebradas typical of the Andes region, both in the social and hydraulic aspects, and does not reduce the risk, nor does it improve the protection of the population. Our study considers it pertinent to include risk estimation as an integral part of the methodology when establishing protect flood zone, considering the particularity of water systems, as they are characterized by an heterogeneous natural dynamic behavior.Keywords: environmental corridor, flood zone determination, hydraulic domain, legislation flood protection zone
Procedia PDF Downloads 11229234 K-12 Students’ Digital Life: Activities and Attitudes
Authors: Meital Amzalag, Sharon Hardof-Jaffe
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In the last few decades, children and youth have been immersed in digital technologies. Indeed, recent studies explored the implication of technology use in their leisure and learning activities. Educators face an essential need to utilize technology and implement them into the curriculum. To do that, educators need to understand how young people use digital technology. This study aims to explore K12 students' digital lives from their point of view, to reveal their digital activities, age and gender differences with respect to digital activities, and to present the students' attitudes towards technologies in learning. The study approach is quantitative and includes354 students ages 6-16 from three schools in Israel. The online questionnaire was based on self-reports and consists of four parts: Digital activities: leisure time activities (such as social networks, gaming types), search activities (information types and platforms), and digital application use (e.g., calendar, notes); Digital skills (requisite digital platform skills such as evaluation and creativity); Social and emotional aspects of digital use (conducting digital activities alone and with friends, feelings, and emotions during digital use such as happiness, bullying); Digital attitudes towards digital integration in learning. An academic ethics board approved the study. The main findings reveal the most popular K12digital activities: Navigating social network sites, watching TV, playing mobile games, seeking information on the internet, and playing computer games. In addition, the findings reveal age differences in digital activities, such as significant differences in the use of social network sites. Moreover, the finding raises gender differences as girls use more social network sites and boys use more digital games, which are characterized by high complexity and challenges. Additionally, we found positive attitudes towards technology integration in school. Students perceive technology as enhancing creativity, promoting active learning, encouraging self-learning, and helping students with learning difficulties. The presentation will provide an up-to-date, accurate picture of the use of various digital technologies by k12 students. In addition, it will discuss the learning potentials of such use and how to implement digital technologies in the curriculum. Acknowledgments: This study is a part of a broader study about K-12 digital life in Israel and is supported by Mofet-the Israel Institute for Teachers'Development.Keywords: technology and learning, K-12, digital life, gender differences
Procedia PDF Downloads 13429233 Oxygen Enriched Co-Combustion of Sub-Bituminous Coal/Biomass Waste Fuel Blends
Authors: Chaouki Ghenai
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Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis of co-combustion of coal/biomass waste fuel blends is presented in this study. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of biomass portions (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%: weight percent) blended with coal and oxygen concentrations (21% for air, 35%, 50%, 75% and 100 % for pure oxygen) on the combustion performance and emissions. The goal is to reduce the air emissions from power plants coal combustion. Sub-bituminous Nigerian coal with calorific value of 32.51 MJ/kg and sawdust (biomass) with calorific value of 16.68 MJ/kg is used in this study. Coal/Biomass fuel blends co-combustion is modeled using mixture fraction/pdf approach for non-premixed combustion and Discrete Phase Modeling (DPM) to predict the trajectories and the heat/mass transfer of the fuel blend particles. The results show the effects of oxygen concentrations and biomass portions in the coal/biomass fuel blends on the gas and particles temperatures, the flow field, the devolitization and burnout rates inside the combustor and the CO2 and NOX emissions at the exit from the combustor. The results obtained in the course of this study show the benefits of enriching combustion air with oxygen and blending biomass waste with coal for reducing the harmful emissions from coal power plants.Keywords: co-combustion, coal, biomass, fuel blends, CFD, air emissions
Procedia PDF Downloads 41529232 Quoting Jobshops Due Dates Subject to Exogenous Factors in Developing Nations
Authors: Idris M. Olatunde, Kareem B.
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In manufacturing systems, especially job shops, service performance is a key factor that determines customer satisfaction. Service performance depends not only on the quality of the output but on the delivery lead times as well. Besides product quality enhancement, delivery lead time must be minimized for optimal patronage. Quoting accurate due dates is sine quo non for job shop operational survival in a global competitive environment. Quoting accurate due dates in job shops has been a herculean task that nearly defiled solutions from many methods employed due to complex jobs routing nature of the system. This class of NP-hard problems possessed no rigid algorithms that can give an optimal solution. Jobshop operational problem is more complex in developing nations due to some peculiar factors. Operational complexity in job shops emanated from political instability, poor economy, technological know-how, and the non-promising socio-political environment. The mentioned exogenous factors were hardly considered in the previous studies on scheduling problem related to due date determination in job shops. This study has filled the gap created in the past studies by developing a dynamic model that incorporated the exogenous factors for accurate determination of due dates for varying jobs complexity. Real data from six job shops selected from the different part of Nigeria, were used to test the efficacy of the model, and the outcomes were analyzed statistically. The results of the analyzes showed that the model is more promising in determining accurate due dates than the traditional models deployed by many job shops in terms of patronage and lead times minimization.Keywords: due dates prediction, improved performance, customer satisfaction, dynamic model, exogenous factors, job shops
Procedia PDF Downloads 41129231 Crop Classification using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Images
Authors: Iqra Yaseen
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One of the well-known areas of computer science and engineering, image processing in the context of computer vision has been essential to automation. In remote sensing, medical science, and many other fields, it has made it easier to uncover previously undiscovered facts. Grading of diverse items is now possible because of neural network algorithms, categorization, and digital image processing. Its use in the classification of agricultural products, particularly in the grading of seeds or grains and their cultivars, is widely recognized. A grading and sorting system enables the preservation of time, consistency, and uniformity. Global population growth has led to an increase in demand for food staples, biofuel, and other agricultural products. To meet this demand, available resources must be used and managed more effectively. Image processing is rapidly growing in the field of agriculture. Many applications have been developed using this approach for crop identification and classification, land and disease detection and for measuring other parameters of crop. Vegetation localization is the base of performing these task. Vegetation helps to identify the area where the crop is present. The productivity of the agriculture industry can be increased via image processing that is based upon Unmanned Aerial Vehicle photography and satellite. In this paper we use the machine learning techniques like Convolutional Neural Network, deep learning, image processing, classification, You Only Live Once to UAV imaging dataset to divide the crop into distinct groups and choose the best way to use it.Keywords: image processing, UAV, YOLO, CNN, deep learning, classification
Procedia PDF Downloads 10429230 A Novel Approach to Design and Implement Context Aware Mobile Phone
Authors: G. S. Thyagaraju, U. P. Kulkarni
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Context-aware computing refers to a general class of computing systems that can sense their physical environment, and adapt their behaviour accordingly. Context aware computing makes systems aware of situations of interest, enhances services to users, automates systems and personalizes applications. Context-aware services have been introduced into mobile devices, such as PDA and mobile phones. In this paper we are presenting a novel approaches used to realize the context aware mobile. The context aware mobile phone (CAMP) proposed in this paper senses the users situation automatically and provides user context required services. The proposed system is developed by using artificial intelligence techniques like Bayesian Network, fuzzy logic and rough sets theory based decision table. Bayesian Network to classify the incoming call (high priority call, low priority call and unknown calls), fuzzy linguistic variables and membership degrees to define the context situations, the decision table based rules for service recommendation. To exemplify and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, the context aware mobile phone is tested for college campus scenario including different locations like library, class room, meeting room, administrative building and college canteen.Keywords: context aware mobile, fuzzy logic, decision table, Bayesian probability
Procedia PDF Downloads 36429229 Bacteriological Characterization of Drinking Water Distribution Network Biofilms by Gene Sequencing Using Different Pipe Materials
Authors: M. Zafar, S. Rasheed, Imran Hashmi
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Very little is concerned about the bacterial contamination in drinking water biofilm which provide a potential source for bacteria to grow and increase rapidly. So as to understand the microbial density in DWDs, a three-month study was carried out. The aim of this study was to examine biofilm in three different pipe materials including PVC, PPR and GI. A set of all these pipe materials was installed in DWDs at nine different locations and assessed on monthly basis. Drinking water quality was evaluated by different parameters and characterization of biofilm. Among various parameters are Temperature, pH, turbidity, TDS, electrical conductivity, BOD, COD, total phosphates, total nitrates, total organic carbon (TOC) free chlorine and total chlorine, coliforms and spread plate counts (SPC) according to standard methods. Predominant species were Bacillus thuringiensis, Pseudomonas fluorescens , Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Bacillus safensis and significant increase in bacterial population was observed in PVC pipes while least in cement pipes. The quantity of DWDs bacteria was directly depended on biofilm bacteria and its increase was correlated with growth and detachment of bacteria from biofilms. Pipe material also affected the microbial community in drinking water distribution network biofilm while Similarity in bacterial species was observed between systems due to same disinfectant dose, time period and plumbing pipes.Keywords: biofilm, DWDs, pipe material, bacterial population
Procedia PDF Downloads 34529228 A Critical Genre Analysis of Negative Parts in CSR Reports
Authors: Shuai Liu
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In corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, companies are expected to present both the positive and negative parts of the social and environmental impacts of their performance. This study investigates how the companies that listed in fortune 500 respond to this challenge by analyzing the representations of negative part especially the safety performance. It has found that in the level of genre analysis, it presented 3 major moves and 11 steps in terms of the interdiscursivity analysis. It was made up of three dominant discourse.. The study calls for greater focus on the internal and external analysis of the negative aspect of aspects of companies’ self-disclosure.Keywords: CSR reports, negative parts, critical genre analysis, interdiscursivity
Procedia PDF Downloads 42629227 Hot Deformability of Si-Steel Strips Containing Al
Authors: Mohamed Yousef, Magdy Samuel, Maha El-Meligy, Taher El-Bitar
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The present work is dealing with 2% Si-steel alloy. The alloy contains 0.05% C as well as 0.85% Al. The alloy under investigation would be used for electrical transformation purposes. A heating (expansion) - cooling (contraction) dilation investigation was executed to detect the a, a+g, and g transformation temperatures at the inflection points of the dilation curve. On heating, primary a was detected at a temperature range between room temperature and 687 oC. The domain of a+g was detected in the range between 687 oC and 746 oC. g phase exists in the closed g region at the range between 746 oC and 1043 oC. The domain of a phase appears again at a temperature range between 1043 and 1105 oC, and followed by secondary a at temperature higher than 1105 oC. A physical simulation of thermo-mechanical processing on the as-cast alloy was carried out. The simulation process took into consideration the hot flat rolling pilot plant parameters. The process was executed on the thermo-mechanical simulator (Gleeble 3500). The process was designed to include seven consecutive passes. The 1st pass represents the roughing stage, while the remaining six passes represent finish rolling stage. The whole process was executed at the temperature range from 1100 oC to 900 oC. The amount of strain starts with 23.5% at the roughing pass and decreases continuously to reach 7.5 % at the last finishing pass. The flow curve of the alloy can be abstracted from the stress-strain curves representing simulated passes. It shows alloy hardening from a pass to the other up to pass no. 6, as a result of decreasing the deformation temperature and increasing of cumulative strain. After pass no. 6, the deformation process enhances the dynamic recrystallization phenomena to appear, where the z-parameter would be high.Keywords: si- steel, hot deformability, critical transformation temperature, physical simulation, thermo-mechanical processing, flow curve, dynamic softening.
Procedia PDF Downloads 24429226 Prediction of Music Track Popularity: A Machine Learning Approach
Authors: Syed Atif Hassan, Luv Mehta, Syed Asif Hassan
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Hit song science is a field of investigation wherein machine learning techniques are applied to music tracks in order to extract such features from audio signals which can capture information that could explain the popularity of respective tracks. Record companies invest huge amounts of money into recruiting fresh talents and churning out new music each year. Gaining insight into the basis of why a song becomes popular will result in tremendous benefits for the music industry. This paper aims to extract basic musical and more advanced, acoustic features from songs while also taking into account external factors that play a role in making a particular song popular. We use a dataset derived from popular Spotify playlists divided by genre. We use ten genres (blues, classical, country, disco, hip-hop, jazz, metal, pop, reggae, rock), chosen on the basis of clear to ambiguous delineation in the typical sound of their genres. We feed these features into three different classifiers, namely, SVM with RBF kernel, a deep neural network, and a recurring neural network, to build separate predictive models and choosing the best performing model at the end. Predicting song popularity is particularly important for the music industry as it would allow record companies to produce better content for the masses resulting in a more competitive market.Keywords: classifier, machine learning, music tracks, popularity, prediction
Procedia PDF Downloads 66029225 Finding a Redefinition of the Relationship between Rural and Urban Knowledge
Authors: Bianca Maria Rulli, Lenny Valentino Schiaretti
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The considerable recent urbanization has increasingly sharpened environmental and social problems all over the world. During the recent years, many answers to the alarming attitudes in modern cities have emerged: a drastic reduction in the rate of growth is becoming essential for future generations and small scale economies are considered more adaptive and sustainable. According to the concept of degrowth, cities should consider surpassing the centralization of urban living by redefining the relationship between rural and urban knowledge; growing food in cities fundamentally contributes to the increase of social and ecological resilience. Through an innovative approach, this research combines the benefits of urban agriculture (increase of biological diversity, shorter and thus more efficient supply chains, food security) and temporary land use. They stimulate collaborative practices to satisfy the changing needs of communities and stakeholders. The concept proposes a coherent strategy to create a sustainable development of urban spaces, introducing a productive green-network to link specific areas in the city. By shifting the current relationship between architecture and landscape, the former process of ground consumption is deeply revised. Temporary modules can be used as concrete tools to create temporal areas of innovation, transforming vacant or marginal spaces into potential laboratories for the development of the city. The only permanent ground traces, such as foundations, are minimized in order to allow future land re-use. The aim is to describe a new mindset regarding the quality of space in the metropolis which allows, in a completely flexible way, to bring back the green and the urban farming into the cities. The wide possibilities of the research are analyzed in two different case-studies. The first is a regeneration/connection project designated for social housing, the second concerns the use of temporary modules to answer to the potential needs of social structures. The intention of the productive green-network is to link the different vacant spaces to each other as well as to the entire urban fabric. This also generates a potential improvement of the current situation of underprivileged and disadvantaged persons.Keywords: degrowth, green network, land use, temporary building, urban farming
Procedia PDF Downloads 50229224 Linear Stability Analysis of a Regularized Two-Fluid Model for Unstable Gas-Liquid Flows in Long Hilly Terrain Pipelines
Authors: David Alejandro Lazo-Vasquez, Jorge Luis Balino
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In the petroleum industry, multiphase flow occurs when oil, gas, and water are transported in the same pipe through large pipeline systems. The flow can take different patterns depending on parameters like fluid velocities, pipe diameter, pipe inclination, and fluid properties. Mainly, intermittent flow is produced by the natural propagation of short and long waves, according to the Kelvin-Helmholtz Stability Theory. To model stratified flow and the onset of intermittent flow, it is crucial to have knowledge of short and long waves behavior. The two-fluid model, frequently employed for characterizing multiphase systems, becomes ill-posed for high liquid and gas velocities and large inclination angles, for short waves can develop infinite growth rates. We are interested in focusing attention on long-wave instability, which leads to the production of roll waves that may grow and result in the transition from stratified flow to intermittent flow. In this study, global and local linear stability analyses for dynamic and kinematic stability criteria predict the regions of stability of the flow for different pipe inclinations and fluid velocities in regularized and non-regularized systems, concurrently. It was possible to distinguish when: wave growth rates are absolutely bounded (stable stratified smooth flow), waves have finite growth rates (unstable stratified wavy flow), and when the equation system becomes elliptic and hyperbolization is needed. In order to bound short wave growth rates and regularize the equation system, we incorporated some lower and higher-order terms like interfacial drag and surface tension, respectively.Keywords: linear stability analysis, multiphase flow, onset of slugging, two-fluid model regularization
Procedia PDF Downloads 13429223 BingleSeq: A User-Friendly R Package for Single-Cell RNA-Seq Data Analysis
Authors: Quan Gu, Daniel Dimitrov
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BingleSeq was developed as a shiny-based, intuitive, and comprehensive application that enables the analysis of single-Cell RNA-Sequencing count data. This was achieved via incorporating three state-of-the-art software packages for each type of RNA sequencing analysis, alongside functional annotation analysis and a way to assess the overlap of differential expression method results. At its current state, the functionality implemented within BingleSeq is comparable to that of other applications, also developed with the purpose of lowering the entry requirements to RNA Sequencing analyses. BingleSeq is available on GitHub and will be submitted to R/Bioconductor.Keywords: bioinformatics, functional annotation analysis, single-cell RNA-sequencing, transcriptomics
Procedia PDF Downloads 20129222 Nexus between Energy, Environment and Economic Growth: Sectoral Analysis from Pakistan
Authors: Muhammad Afzal, Muhammad Sajjad
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Climate change has become a global environmental challenge and it has affected the world’s economy. Its impact is widespread across all major sectors of the economy i.e. agriculture, industry, and services sectors. This study attempts to measure the long run as well as the short-run dynamic between energy; environment and economic growth by using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach at aggregate as well as sectoral level. We measured the causal relationship between electricity consumption, fuel consumption, CO₂ emission, and real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the period of 1980 to 2016 for Pakistan. Our co-integration results reveal that all the variables are co-integrated at aggregate as well as at sectoral level. Electricity consumption shows two-way casual relation at for industry, services and aggregate level. The inverted U-Curve hypothesis tested the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and per capita GDP and results supported the Environment Kuznet Curve (EKC) hypothesis. This study cannot ignore the importance of energy for economic growth but prefers to focus on renewable and green energy to pave on the trajectory of development.Keywords: climate change, economic growth, energy, environment
Procedia PDF Downloads 16329221 Scope of Virtualization
Authors: Pavneet Kaur, Palak Sharma
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Virtualization is a term that basically describe creation of virtual version of something like operating system, network, etc. Virtualization is a technology which is in use from 1970, but with new developments and inventions, it is now useful in education, software development etc. This paper will describe basic introduction of virtualization, along with its various categories. It will also describe use of virtualization in software engineering, its various benefits and shortcomings.Keywords: virtualization, hardware, software, os
Procedia PDF Downloads 36729220 Geographic Information System for District Level Energy Performance Simulations
Authors: Avichal Malhotra, Jerome Frisch, Christoph van Treeck
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The utilization of semantic, cadastral and topological data from geographic information systems (GIS) has exponentially increased for building and urban-scale energy performance simulations. Urban planners, simulation scientists, and researchers use virtual 3D city models for energy analysis, algorithms and simulation tools. For dynamic energy simulations at city and district level, this paper provides an overview of the available GIS data models and their levels of detail. Adhering to different norms and standards, these models also intend to describe building and construction industry data. For further investigations, CityGML data models are considered for simulations. Though geographical information modelling has considerably many different implementations, extensions of virtual city data can also be made for domain specific applications. Highlighting the use of the extended CityGML models for energy researches, a brief introduction to the Energy Application Domain Extension (ADE) along with its significance is made. Consequently, addressing specific input simulation data, a workflow using Modelica underlining the usage of GIS information and the quantification of its significance over annual heating energy demand is presented in this paper.Keywords: CityGML, EnergyADE, energy performance simulation, GIS
Procedia PDF Downloads 16729219 Value Chain Analysis and Enhancement Added Value in Palm Oil Supply Chain
Authors: Juliza Hidayati, Sawarni Hasibuan
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PT. XYZ is a manufacturing company that produces Crude Palm Oil (CPO). The fierce competition in the global markets not only between companies but also a competition between supply chains. This research aims to analyze the supply chain and value chain of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) in the company. Data analysis method used is qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis describes supply chain and value chain, while the quantitative analysis is used to find out value added and the establishment of the value chain. Based on the analysis, the value chain of crude palm oil (CPO) in the company consists of four main actors that are suppliers of raw materials, processing, distributor, and customer. The value chain analysis consists of two actors; those are palm oil plantation and palm oil processing plant. The palm oil plantation activities include nurseries, planting, plant maintenance, harvesting, and shipping. The palm oil processing plant activities include reception, sterilizing, thressing, pressing, and oil classification. The value added of palm oil plantations was 72.42% and the palm oil processing plant was 10.13%.Keywords: palm oil, value chain, value added, supply chain
Procedia PDF Downloads 36929218 Data and Spatial Analysis for Economy and Education of 28 E.U. Member-States for 2014
Authors: Alexiou Dimitra, Fragkaki Maria
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The objective of the paper is the study of geographic, economic and educational variables and their contribution to determine the position of each member-state among the EU-28 countries based on the values of seven variables as given by Eurostat. The Data Analysis methods of Multiple Factorial Correspondence Analysis (MFCA) Principal Component Analysis and Factor Analysis have been used. The cross tabulation tables of data consist of the values of seven variables for the 28 countries for 2014. The data are manipulated using the CHIC Analysis V 1.1 software package. The results of this program using MFCA and Ascending Hierarchical Classification are given in arithmetic and graphical form. For comparison reasons with the same data the Factor procedure of Statistical package IBM SPSS 20 has been used. The numerical and graphical results presented with tables and graphs, demonstrate the agreement between the two methods. The most important result is the study of the relation between the 28 countries and the position of each country in groups or clouds, which are formed according to the values of the corresponding variables.Keywords: Multiple Factorial Correspondence Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Factor Analysis, E.U.-28 countries, Statistical package IBM SPSS 20, CHIC Analysis V 1.1 Software, Eurostat.eu Statistics
Procedia PDF Downloads 509