Search results for: malware information sharing platform
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 12658

Search results for: malware information sharing platform

8518 A Service-Learning Experience in the Subject of Adult Nursing

Authors: Eva de Mingo-Fernández, Lourdes Rubio Rico, Carmen Ortega-Segura, Montserrat Querol-García, Raúl González-Jauregui

Abstract:

Today, one of the great challenges that the university faces is to get closer to society and transfer knowledge. The competency-based training approach favours a continuous interaction between practice and theory, which is why it is essential to establish real experiences with reflection and debate and to contrast them with personal and professional knowledge. Service-learning (SL) consists of an integration of academic learning with service in the community, which enables teachers to transfer knowledge with social value and students to be trained on the basis of experience of real needs and problems with the aim of solving them. SLE combines research, teaching, and social value knowledge transfer with the real social needs and problems of a community. Goal: The objective of this study was to design, implement, and evaluate a service-learning program in the subject of adult nursing for second-year nursing students. Methodology: After establishing collaboration with eight associations of people with different pathologies, the students were divided into eight groups, and each group was assigned an association. The groups were made up of 10-12 students. The associations willing to participate were for the following conditions: diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, fibromyalgia, heart, lung, and kidney diseases. The methodological design consisting of 5 activities was then applied. Three activities address personal and individual reflections, where the student initially describes what they think it is like to live with a certain disease. They then express their reflections resulting from an interview conducted by peers, in person or online, with a person living with this particular condition, and after sharing the results of their reflections with the rest of the group, they make an oral presentation in which they present their findings to the other students. This is followed by a service task in which the students collaborate in different activities of the association, and finally, a third individual reflection is carried out in which the students express their experience of collaboration. The evaluation of this activity is carried out by means of a rubric for both the reflections and the presentation. It should be noted that the oral presentation is evaluated both by the rest of the classmates and by the teachers. Results: The evaluation of the activity, given by the students, is 7.80/10, commenting that the experience is positive and brings them closer to the reality of the people and the area.

Keywords: academic learning integration, knowledge transfer, service-learning, teaching methodology

Procedia PDF Downloads 52
8517 Relationship Financing: A Process of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Authors: Y. Fandja, O. Colot, M. Croquet

Abstract:

Small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) face difficulties in accessing bank credit. Bank credit is actually the main source of external financing for SMEs. In general, SMEs are risky businesses because of the potential opacity maintained by the leader in the management of affairs, the agency conflicts between business owners and third-party funders and the potential opportunism of the leader due to the incompleteness of the contracts. These elements accentuate the problems of information asymmetries between SMEs and bankers leading to capital rationing. Moreover, the last economic crisis reinforced this rationing of capital. However, a long-term relationship between SMEs and their bank would enable the latter to accumulate a set of relevant information allowing the reduction of information asymmetry and, consequently, the reduction of credit rationing. The objective of this research is to investigate the lived experience of SMEs loan officers in their relationships with their clients in order to understand how these relationships can affect the financing structure of these SMEs. To carry out this research, an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is implemented. This approach is part of the constructivist paradigm and refers to the subjective narratives of the individual rather than to an objective description of the facts. The role of the researcher is to explore the lived experience of the interviewees and to try to understand the meaning they give to this experience. Currently, several sixty-minute semi-structured interviews with loan officers for SMEs have been conducted. The analysis of the content of these interviews brought out three main themes. First, the relationship between the credit officer and the company manager is complex because the credit officer is not aware of establishing a personal relationship with his client. Second; the emotional involvement in the bank financing decision is present and third, the trust in the relationship between the credit officer and his client is very important. The originality of this research is to use the interpretative phenomenological analysis more specific to psychology and sociology in order to approach in a different way the problem of the financing of SMEs through their particular relations with the bankers.

Keywords: financing structure, interpretative phenomenological analysis, relationship financing, SME

Procedia PDF Downloads 144
8516 Implementation of an Open Source ERP for SMEs in the Automotive Sector in Peru: A Case Study

Authors: Gerson E. Cornejo, Luis A. Gamarra, David S. Mauricio

Abstract:

The Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) allows the integration of all the business processes of the functional areas of the companies, in order to automate and standardize the processes, obtain accurate information and improve decision making in time real. In Peru, 79% of medium and small companies (SMEs) do not use any management software, this is because it is believed that ERPs are expensive, complex and difficult to implement. However, for more than 20 years there have been Open Source ERPs, which are more accessible and have the same benefit as proprietary ERPs, but there is little information on the implementation process. In this work is made a case of study, in order to show the implementation process of an Open Source ERP, Odoo, based on the ASAP methodology (Accelerated SAP) and applied to a company of corrective and preventive maintenance services of vehicles. The ERP allowed the SME to standardize its business processes, increase its productivity, reducing up to 40% certain processes. The study of this case shows that it is feasible and profitable to implement an Open Source ERP in SMEs in the Automotive Sector of Peru. In addition, it is shown that the ASAP methodology is adequate to carry out Open Source ERPs implementation projects.

Keywords: ASAP, automotive sector, ERP implementation, open source

Procedia PDF Downloads 319
8515 CAD Tool for Parametric Design modification of Yacht Hull Surface Models

Authors: Shahroz Khan, Erkan Gunpinar, Kemal Mart

Abstract:

Recently parametric design techniques became a vital concept in the field of Computer Aided Design (CAD), which helps to provide sophisticated platform to the designer in order to automate the design process in efficient time. In these techniques, design process starts by parameterizing the important features of design models (typically the key dimensions), with the implementation of design constraints. The design constraints help to retain the overall shape of the model while modifying its parameters. However, the process of initializing an appropriate number of design parameters and constraints is the crucial part of parametric design techniques, especially for complex surface models such as yacht hull. This paper introduces a method to create complex surface models in favor of parametric design techniques, a method to define the right number of parameters and respective design constraints, and a system to implement design parameters in contract to design constraints schema. For this, in our proposed approach the design process starts by dividing the yacht hull into three sections. Each section consists of different shape lines, which form the overall shape of yacht hull. The shape lines are created using Cubic Bezier Curves, which allow larger design flexibility. Design parameters and constraints are defined on the shape lines in 3D design space to facilitate the designers for better and individual handling of parameters. Afterwards, shape modifiers are developed, which allow the modification of each parameter while satisfying the respective set of criteria and design constraints. Such as, geometric continuities should be maintained between the shape lines of the three sections, fairness of the hull surfaces should be preserved after modification and while design modification, effect of a single parameter should be negligible on other parameters. The constraints are defined individually on shape lines of each section and mutually between the shape lines of two connecting sections. In order to validate and visualize design results of our shape modifiers, a real time graphic interface is created.

Keywords: design parameter, design constraints, shape modifies, yacht hull

Procedia PDF Downloads 288
8514 Communication Barriers in Disaster Risk Management

Authors: Pooja Pandey

Abstract:

The role of communication plays an integral part in the management of any disaster, whether natural or human-induced, both require effective and strategic delivery of information. The way any information is conveyed carries the most weight while dealing with the disaster. Hence, integrating communication strategies in disaster risk management (DRM) are extensively acknowledged however, these integration and planning are missing from the practical books. Researchers are continuously exploring integrated DRM and have established substantial vents between research and implementation of the strategies (gaps between science and policy). For this reason, this paper reviews the communication barriers that obstruct effective management of the disaster. Communication between first responders (government agencies, police, medical services) and the public (people directly affected by the disaster) is most critical and lacks proper delivery during a disaster. And these challenges can only be resolved if the foundation of the problem is properly dealt with, which is resolving the issues within the organizations. Through this study, it was found that it is necessary to build the communication gap between the organizations themselves as most of the hindrances occur during the mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery phase of the disaster. The study is concluded with the main aim to review the communication barriers within and at the organizational, technological, and social levels that impact effective DRM. In the end, some suggestions are made to strengthen the knowledge for future improvement in communication between the responders and their organizations.

Keywords: communication, organization, barriers, first responders, disaster risk management

Procedia PDF Downloads 279
8513 One Health Approach: The Importance of Improving the Identification of Waterborne Bacteria in Austrian Water

Authors: Aurora Gitto, Philipp Proksch

Abstract:

The presence of various microorganisms (bacteria, fungi) in surface water and groundwater represents an important issue for human health worldwide. The matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) has emerged as a promising and reliable tool for bacteria identification in clinical diagnostic microbiology and environmental strains thanks to an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. The study aims first to conceptualise and set up library information and create a comprehensive database of MALDI-TOF-MS spectra from environmental water samples. The samples were analysed over a year (2021-2022) using membrane filtration methodology (0.45 μm and 0.22 μm) and then isolated on R2A agar for a period of 5 days and Yeast extract agar growing at 22 °C up to 4 days and 37 °C for 48 hours. The undetected organisms by MALDI-TOF-MS were analysed by PCR and then sequenced. The information obtained by the sequencing was further implemented in the MALDI-TOF-MS library. Among the culturable bacteria, the results show how the incubator temperature affects the growth of some genera instead of others, as demonstrated by Pseudomonas sp., which grows at 22 °C, compared to Bacillus sp., which is abundant at 37 °C. The bacteria community shows a variation in composition also between the media used, as demonstrated with R2A agar which has been defined by a higher presence of organisms not detected compared to YEA. Interesting is the variability of the Genus over one year of sampling and how the seasonality impacts the bacteria community; in fact, in some sampling locations, we observed how the composition changed, moving from winter to spring and summer. In conclusion, the bacteria community in groundwater and river bank filtration represents important information that needs to be added to the library to simplify future water quality analysis but mainly to prevent potential risks to human health.

Keywords: water quality, MALDI-TOF-MS, sequencing, library

Procedia PDF Downloads 67
8512 Syntax and Words as Evolutionary Characters in Comparative Linguistics

Authors: Nancy Retzlaff, Sarah J. Berkemer, Trudie Strauss

Abstract:

In the last couple of decades, the advent of digitalization of any kind of data was probably one of the major advances in all fields of study. This paves the way for also analysing these data even though they might come from disciplines where there was no initial computational necessity to do so. Especially in linguistics, one can find a rather manual tradition. Still when considering studies that involve the history of language families it is hard to overlook the striking similarities to bioinformatics (phylogenetic) approaches. Alignments of words are such a fairly well studied example of an application of bioinformatics methods to historical linguistics. In this paper we will not only consider alignments of strings, i.e., words in this case, but also alignments of syntax trees of selected Indo-European languages. Based on initial, crude alignments, a sophisticated scoring model is trained on both letters and syntactic features. The aim is to gain a better understanding on which features in two languages are related, i.e., most likely to have the same root. Initially, all words in two languages are pre-aligned with a basic scoring model that primarily selects consonants and adjusts them before fitting in the vowels. Mixture models are subsequently used to filter ‘good’ alignments depending on the alignment length and the number of inserted gaps. Using these selected word alignments it is possible to perform tree alignments of the given syntax trees and consequently find sentences that correspond rather well to each other across languages. The syntax alignments are then filtered for meaningful scores—’good’ scores contain evolutionary information and are therefore used to train the sophisticated scoring model. Further iterations of alignments and training steps are performed until the scoring model saturates, i.e., barely changes anymore. A better evaluation of the trained scoring model and its function in containing evolutionary meaningful information will be given. An assessment of sentence alignment compared to possible phrase structure will also be provided. The method described here may have its flaws because of limited prior information. This, however, may offer a good starting point to study languages where only little prior knowledge is available and a detailed, unbiased study is needed.

Keywords: alignments, bioinformatics, comparative linguistics, historical linguistics, statistical methods

Procedia PDF Downloads 139
8511 A Qualitative Study on Cyberbullying and Traditional Bullying among Taiwanese High School Students

Authors: Chia-Wen Wang, Patou Masika Musumari, Teeranee Techasrivichien, S. Pilar Suguimoto, Chang-Chuan Chan, Masako Ono-Kihara, Masahiro Kihara

Abstract:

Background: In recent years, a particular form of bullying, referred to as 'cyberbullying' has emerged along with the rapid expansion of the Internet, social network services (SNSs) and smart phones. Many Asian countries, including Taiwan, are faced with both the cyberbullying and the traditional form of bullying. This study aims to explore Taiwanese adolescents’ experiences, perceptions and opinions regarding cyberbullying and traditional bullying through the perspective of victim, perpetrator, or witness. Method: This is a qualitative study using face-to-face in-depth interviews guided by a semi-structured questionnaire among high school students -aged 16 to 18 years- in Taipei, Taiwan. The participants were recruited through convenience sampling from five high schools between June and November 2016. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the thematic analysis approach. Results: Forty-eight participants were recruited, of which, 14 (29.2%) reported had ever experienced bullying. Specifically, 7 participants (14.6%) reported had ever been victims of cyberbullying, 1 (2%) had been victims of traditional bullying, and 6 (12.5%) had been victims of both cyber and traditional bullying. The majority (70.8%) reported had ever witnessed acts of bullying; however, none of the participants recognized had ever been a perpetrator of bullying. Cyberbullying mostly happens on social media (Facebook and Instagram) or LINE instant messaging application, and included upload and sharing of degrading pictures and videos of victims, as well as gossip and mean messages by the perpetrators. The anonymous and public nature of social media groups in schools made it easier to perpetrate bullying. The victim of traditional bullying reported being the target of verbal attack because of his physical appearance. Regardless of the type of bullying, victims reported feeling bad, angry, or depressed as a result of being bullied. Witnesses of both cyber- and traditional bullying cited physical appearance (e.g. having the big/flat bust or big butt, or overweight or obese) and disability as the most reasons of being a bullying victim. Conclusion: Both cyberbullying and traditional bullying had negative emotional and psychological impacts on victims. This study warrants further research to assess the extent of this phenomenon and understand the characteristics of perpetrators, victims, and witnesses to inform the design of tailored interventions using appropriate channels of dissemination.

Keywords: cyberbullying, traditional bullying, social media, adolescents

Procedia PDF Downloads 330
8510 Monitoring Prospective Sites for Water Harvesting Structures Using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems-Based Modeling in Egypt

Authors: Shereif. H. Mahmoud

Abstract:

Egypt has limited water resources, and it will be under water stress by the year 2030. Therefore, Egypt should consider natural and non-conventional water resources to overcome such a problem. Rain harvesting is one solution. This Paper presents a geographic information system (GIS) methodology - based on decision support system (DSS) that uses remote sensing data, filed survey, and GIS to identify potential RWH areas. The input into the DSS includes a map of rainfall surplus, slope, potential runoff coefficient (PRC), land cover/use, soil texture. In addition, the outputs are map showing potential sites for RWH. Identifying suitable RWH sites implemented in the ArcGIS model environment using the model builder of ArcGIS 10.1. Based on Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) analysis taking into account five layers, the spatial extents of RWH suitability areas identified using Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE). The suitability model generated a suitability map for RWH with four suitability classes, i.e. Excellent, Moderate, Poor, and unsuitable. The spatial distribution of the suitability map showed that the excellent suitable areas for RWH concentrated in the northern part of Egypt. According to their averages, 3.24% of the total area have excellent and good suitability for RWH, while 45.04 % and 51.48 % of the total area are moderate and unsuitable suitability, respectively. The majority of the areas with excellent suitability have slopes between 2 and 8% and with an intensively cultivated area. The major soil type in the excellent suitable area is loam and the rainfall range from 100 up to 200 mm. Validation of the used technique depends on comparing existing RWH structures locations with the generated suitability map using proximity analysis tool of ArcGIS 10.1. The result shows that most of exiting RWH structures categorized as successful.

Keywords: rainwater harvesting (RWH), geographic information system (GIS), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), multi-criteria evaluation (MCE), decision support system (DSS)

Procedia PDF Downloads 344
8509 Assessment of Barriers Preventing Recycling Practices among Bars and Eateries in Central South Africa

Authors: Jana Vermaas, Carien Denner

Abstract:

Waste has become a global issue and the management regarding it a priority. Some of the main problems in South Africa (SA) include: (1) the lack of information and education, (2) waste collection services, (3) reusing and recycling is not encouraged, (4) illegal dumping, and the biggest problem of all (5) the lack of waste related regulations and enforcement by the government and municipalities. In SA, there are provinces such as Gauteng and the Western Cape that have some recycling programs in place, but nothing yet in the central part of the country. By identifying the barriers preventing these businesses from recycling, the local municipalities and recycling services could create a solution. Owners or employees of eateries and bars completed a self-administered questionnaire. Information were obtained on knowledge of recycling, participation in recycling and to which extent, barriers that prevent them from recycling and motives that would encourage recycling. The data obtained from the questionnaire indicated that most (98%) participants knew only the basics, that recycling is a process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. Further knowledge questions indicated that individuals were not educated about recycling as almost half (49%) of the participants believe that they can’t reuse plastic bottles. They do not understand which items of their waste could be re-used or recycled. They had limited knowledge about the recycling opportunities or practices in the area. Only a small number (34%) were involved in recycling or sustainable practices. Many did not even know of any collection services or buy-back centres in their vicinity. Most of the participants (94%) indicated that they would be willing to recycle if it would have a financial benefit. Many also stated that they would be more willing to recycle if the recyclable waste will be collected from their establishment, on a regular basis. The enforcement of recycling by municipalities or government by awarding fines for waste offenders was indicated as a significant motive. It could be concluded that the most significant barrier is knowledge and lack of information. These businesses do not comprehend the impact that they can have with their recycling contributions, not only on the environment, but also on the consumers that they serve. Another barrier is the lack of collection services. There are currently no government or municipal services for the collection of recyclable waste. All waste are taken to landfills. Many of the larger recycling initiatives and companies do not reach as far as central SA. Therefore, the buy-back component of recycling is not present.

Keywords: eateries, recycling, sustainable practices, waste

Procedia PDF Downloads 275
8508 The Cases Studies of Eyewitness Misidentifications during Criminal Investigation in Taiwan

Authors: Chih Hung Shih

Abstract:

Eyewitness identification is one of the efficient information to identify suspects during criminal investigation. However eyewitness identification is improved frequently, inaccurate and plays vital roles in wrongful convictions. Most eyewitness misidentifications are made during police criminal investigation stage and then accepted by juries. Four failure investigation case studies in Taiwan are conduct to demonstrate how misidentifications are caused during the police investigation context. The result shows that there are several common grounds among these cases: (1) investigators lacked for knowledge about eyewitness memory so that they couldn’t evaluate the validity of the eyewitnesses’ accounts and identifications, (2) eyewitnesses were always asked to filter out several suspects during the investigation, and received investigation information which contaminated the eyewitnesses’ memory, (3) one to one live individual identifications were made in most of cases, (4) eyewitness identifications were always used to support the hypotheses of investigators, and exaggerated theirs powers when conform with the investigation lines, (5) the eyewitnesses’ confidence didn’t t reflect the validity of their identifications , but always influence the investigators’ beliefs for the identifications, (6) the investigators overestimated the power of the eyewitness identifications and ignore the inconsistency with other evidence. Recommendations have been proposed for future academic research and police practice of eyewitness identification in Taiwan.

Keywords: criminal investigation, eyewitness identification, investigative bias, investigative failures

Procedia PDF Downloads 228
8507 Developing Indicators in System Mapping Process Through Science-Based Visual Tools

Authors: Cristian Matti, Valerie Fowles, Eva Enyedi, Piotr Pogorzelski

Abstract:

The system mapping process can be defined as a knowledge service where a team of facilitators, experts and practitioners facilitate a guided conversation, enable the exchange of information and support an iterative curation process. System mapping processes rely on science-based tools to introduce and simplify a variety of components and concepts of socio-technical systems through metaphors while facilitating an interactive dialogue process to enable the design of co-created maps. System maps work then as “artifacts” to provide information and focus the conversation into specific areas around the defined challenge and related decision-making process. Knowledge management facilitates the curation of that data gathered during the system mapping sessions through practices of documentation and subsequent knowledge co-production for which common practices from data science are applied to identify new patterns, hidden insights, recurrent loops and unexpected elements. This study presents empirical evidence on the application of these techniques to explore mechanisms by which visual tools provide guiding principles to portray system components, key variables and types of data through the lens of climate change. In addition, data science facilitates the structuring of elements that allow the analysis of layers of information through affinity and clustering analysis and, therefore, develop simple indicators for supporting the decision-making process. This paper addresses methodological and empirical elements on the horizontal learning process that integrate system mapping through visual tools, interpretation, cognitive transformation and analysis. The process is designed to introduce practitioners to simple iterative and inclusive processes that create actionable knowledge and enable a shared understanding of the system in which they are embedded.

Keywords: indicators, knowledge management, system mapping, visual tools

Procedia PDF Downloads 180
8506 Zimbabwe's Foreign Policy in Southern Africa, 1980-2013

Authors: Dylan Yanano Mangani, Theodore Nkadimeng Mahosi

Abstract:

Soon after independence on 18th April 1980, Zimbabwe’s foreign policy was shaped by the realities on the ground, which saw the country managing a sound relationship with both the Capitalist West and the Communist Eastern blocs. The post-independence foreign policy was therefore premised on security concerns illuminated by the Cold War era. This was one the reasons President Robert Mugabe adopted a policy of reconciliation and this earned his government recognition on the international platform. However, in Southern Africa apartheid South Africa was still the vanguard of capitalism and oppression such that she posed a serious threat to the newly born Zimbabwean nation which necessitated that Zimbabwe position herself both in the region and the continent to counter potential internal stability from within. Irrespective of how the international community viewed the country’s foreign policy Zimbabwe has continued to influence regional, continental and world geo-politics, especially on behalf of the developing nations. This raises a question why as a result of its foreign policy the country is now regarded a pariah state, especially some Western countries which used to applaud its political economic policies immediately after independence. Therefore, this study argues that the political economy of Zimbabwe had a far-reaching bearing on its foreign policy. For this reason, the problem necessitates the investigation of Zimbabwe’s foreign policy perspectives in Southern Africa since the turn of the 1990s. Two main theories which are Realism, Afro-centrism inform the study as an attempt to understand Zimbabwe’s foreign policy paradigm shift and perhaps provide answers to the objectives raised. The research therefore employs a qualitative approach where the conceptual nature of the study into the foreign policy of Zimbabwe is largely desktop research. However, the nature of the study will also require that oral interviews are conducted to substantiate some of the arguments advanced.

Keywords: cold war set up, foreign policy, look east policy, pan-africanism, post 2000 period, Southern Africa, Zimbabwe

Procedia PDF Downloads 313
8505 Interaction between the Rio Conventions on Climate and Biodiversity: Analysis of the Integration of Ecosystem-Based Approaches and Nature-Based Solutions into the UNFCCC

Authors: Dieudonne Mevono Mvogo

Abstract:

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) co-sponsored workshop report suggests that climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the most pressing issues of the Anthropocene. Research establishes the interconnection between climate change and biodiversity. On the one hand, the impact of climate change on biodiversity loss – 14 % over the past century – is projected to surpass other threats – land and sea use 34 % and direct exploitation of species 23 % – during the 21st century. Response measures to climate change also affect biodiversity negatively or positively. On the other hand, actions to halt or reverse biodiversity loss can enhance land and ocean capacity for carbon sequestration. These actions can also promote adaptation by ensuring adaptive capacity. This systemic interaction between climate change and biodiversity affects the human quality of life. The United Nations Secretariat's report entitled 'Gaps in international environmental law and environment-related instruments: towards a global pact for the environment,' released in 2018, states that cooperation and mutual support among agreements dealing with climate change, the protection of the marine environment, freshwater resources and hazardous waste are indispensable for the effective implementation of the Convention on the Biological Diversity (CBD). Since biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate, this study aims to evaluate the cooperative framework for the coherence and coordination between climate change and biodiversity regimes to provide co-benefits for climate and biodiversity crises. It questions the potential improvement regarding integrating ecosystem-based approaches and nature-based solutions – promoted by the CBD – into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Keywords: rio conventions, climate change, biodiversity, cooperative framework, ecosystem-based approaches, nature-based solutions

Procedia PDF Downloads 107
8504 Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Data Classification Using Support Vector Machine and Mahalanobis Distance

Authors: Najoua El Hajjaji El Idrissi, Necip Gokhan Kasapoglu

Abstract:

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar-based imaging is a powerful technique used for earth observation and classification of surfaces. Forest evolution has been one of the vital areas of attention for the remote sensing experts. The information about forest areas can be achieved by remote sensing, whether by using active radars or optical instruments. However, due to several weather constraints, such as cloud cover, limited information can be recovered using optical data and for that reason, Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) is used as a powerful tool for forestry inventory. In this [14paper, we applied support vector machine (SVM) and Mahalanobis distance to the fully polarimetric AIRSAR P, L, C-bands data from the Nezer forest areas, the classification is based in the separation of different tree ages. The classification results were evaluated and the results show that the SVM performs better than the Mahalanobis distance and SVM achieves approximately 75% accuracy. This result proves that SVM classification can be used as a useful method to evaluate fully polarimetric SAR data with sufficient value of accuracy.

Keywords: classification, synthetic aperture radar, SAR polarimetry, support vector machine, mahalanobis distance

Procedia PDF Downloads 118
8503 The Design of Intelligent Passenger Organization System for Metro Stations Based on Anylogic

Authors: Cheng Zeng, Xia Luo

Abstract:

Passenger organization has always been an essential part of China's metro operation and management. Facing the massive passenger flow, stations need to improve their intelligence and automation degree by an appropriate integrated system. Based on the existing integrated supervisory control system (ISCS) and simulation software (Anylogic), this paper designs an intelligent passenger organization system (IPOS) for metro stations. Its primary function includes passenger information acquisition, data processing and computing, visualization management, decision recommendations, and decision response based on interlocking equipment. For this purpose, the logical structure and intelligent algorithms employed are particularly devised. Besides, the structure diagram of information acquisition and application module, the application of Anylogic, the case library's function process are all given by this research. Based on the secondary development of Anylogic and existing technologies like video recognition, the IPOS is supposed to improve the response speed and address capacity in the face of emergent passenger flow of metro stations.

Keywords: anylogic software, decision-making support system, intellectualization, ISCS, passenger organization

Procedia PDF Downloads 159
8502 Exploring Syntactic and Semantic Features for Text-Based Authorship Attribution

Authors: Haiyan Wu, Ying Liu, Shaoyun Shi

Abstract:

Authorship attribution is to extract features to identify authors of anonymous documents. Many previous works on authorship attribution focus on statistical style features (e.g., sentence/word length), content features (e.g., frequent words, n-grams). Modeling these features by regression or some transparent machine learning methods gives a portrait of the authors' writing style. But these methods do not capture the syntactic (e.g., dependency relationship) or semantic (e.g., topics) information. In recent years, some researchers model syntactic trees or latent semantic information by neural networks. However, few works take them together. Besides, predictions by neural networks are difficult to explain, which is vital in authorship attribution tasks. In this paper, we not only utilize the statistical style and content features but also take advantage of both syntactic and semantic features. Different from an end-to-end neural model, feature selection and prediction are two steps in our method. An attentive n-gram network is utilized to select useful features, and logistic regression is applied to give prediction and understandable representation of writing style. Experiments show that our extracted features can improve the state-of-the-art methods on three benchmark datasets.

Keywords: authorship attribution, attention mechanism, syntactic feature, feature extraction

Procedia PDF Downloads 121
8501 Radio Frequency Identification Chips in Colour Preference Tracking

Authors: A. Ballard

Abstract:

The ability to track goods and products en route in the delivery system, in the warehouse, and on the top floor is a huge advantage to shippers and retailers. Recently the emergence of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has enabled this better than ever before. However, a significant problem exists in that RFID technology depends on the quality of the information stored for each tagged product. Because of the profusion of names for colours, it is very difficult to ascertain that stored values are recognised by all users who view the product visually. This paper reports the findings of a study in which 50 consumers and 50 logistics workers were shown colour swatches and asked to choose the name of the colour from a multiple choice list. They were then asked to match consumer products, including toasters, jumpers, and toothbrushes, with the identifying inventory information available for each one. The findings show that the ability to match colours was significantly stronger with the color swatches than with the consumer products and that while logistics professionals made more frequent correct identification than the consumers, their results were still unsatisfactorily low. Based on these findings, a proposed universal model of colour identification numbers has been developed.

Keywords: consumer preferences, supply chain logistics, radio frequency identification, RFID, colour preference

Procedia PDF Downloads 107
8500 Screen Method of Distributed Cooperative Navigation Factors for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarm

Authors: Can Zhang, Qun Li, Yonglin Lei, Zhi Zhu, Dong Guo

Abstract:

Aiming at the problem of factor screen in distributed collaborative navigation of dense UAV swarm, an efficient distributed collaborative navigation factor screen method is proposed. The method considered the balance between computing load and positioning accuracy. The proposed algorithm utilized the factor graph model to implement a distributed collaborative navigation algorithm. The GNSS information of the UAV itself and the ranging information between the UAVs are used as the positioning factors. In this distributed scheme, a local factor graph is established for each UAV. The positioning factors of nodes with good geometric position distribution and small variance are selected to participate in the navigation calculation. To demonstrate and verify the proposed methods, the simulation and experiments in different scenarios are performed in this research. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves a good balance between the computing load and positioning accuracy in the distributed cooperative navigation calculation of UAV swarm. This proposed algorithm has important theoretical and practical value for both industry and academic areas.

Keywords: screen method, cooperative positioning system, UAV swarm, factor graph, cooperative navigation

Procedia PDF Downloads 59
8499 A Study of the Views of Information Technologies Teachers regarding In-Service Training

Authors: Halit Arslan, Ismail Sahin, Ahmet Oguz Akturk, Ismail Celik

Abstract:

Today, the means of following the developments in the area of science and technology is to keep up with the pace of the advancements in this area. As is in every profession, apart from their personal efforts, the training of teachers in the period after they start their careers is only possible through in-service training. The aim of the present study is to determine the views of Information Technologies (IT) teachers regarding the in-service training courses organized by the Ministry of National Education. In this study, in which quantitative research methods and techniques were employed, the views of 196 IT teachers were collected by using the “Views on In-service Training” questionnaire developed by the authors of the paper. Independent groups t-test was used to determine whether the views of IT teachers regarding in-service training differed depending on gender, age and professional seniority. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate whether the views of IT teachers regarding in-service training differed depending on the number of in-service training courses they joined and the type of in-service training course they wanted to take. According to the findings obtained in the study, the views of IT teachers on in-service training did not show a significant difference depending on gender and age, whereas those views differed depending on professional seniority, the number of in-service training courses they joined and the type of in-service training course they wanted to take.

Keywords: in-service training, IT teachers, professional development, personal development

Procedia PDF Downloads 396
8498 Scheduling Building Projects: The Chronographical Modeling Concept

Authors: Adel Francis

Abstract:

Most of scheduling methods and software apply the critical path logic. This logic schedule activities, apply constraints between these activities and try to optimize and level the allocated resources. The extensive use of this logic produces a complex an erroneous network hard to present, follow and update. Planning and management building projects should tackle the coordination of works and the management of limited spaces, traffic, and supplies. Activities cannot be performed without the resources available and resources cannot be used beyond the capacity of workplaces. Otherwise, workspace congestion will negatively affect the flow of works. The objective of the space planning is to link the spatial and temporal aspects, promote efficient use of the site, define optimal site occupancy rates, and ensures suitable rotation of the workforce in the different spaces. The Chronographic scheduling modelling belongs to this category and models construction operations as well as their processes, logical constraints, association and organizational models, which help to better illustrate the schedule information using multiple flexible approaches. The model defined three categories of areas (punctual, surface and linear) and four different layers (space creation, systems, closing off space, finishing, and reduction of space). The Chronographical modelling is a more complete communication method, having the ability to alternate from one visual approach to another by manipulation of graphics via a set of parameters and their associated values. Each individual approach can help to schedule a certain project type or specialty. Visual communication can also be improved through layering, sheeting, juxtaposition, alterations, and permutations, allowing for groupings, hierarchies, and classification of project information. In this way, graphic representation becomes a living, transformable image, showing valuable information in a clear and comprehensible manner, simplifying the site management while simultaneously utilizing the visual space as efficiently as possible.

Keywords: building projects, chronographic modelling, CPM, critical path, precedence diagram, scheduling

Procedia PDF Downloads 137
8497 Recommender System Based on Mining Graph Databases for Data-Intensive Applications

Authors: Mostafa Gamal, Hoda K. Mohamed, Islam El-Maddah, Ali Hamdi

Abstract:

In recent years, many digital documents on the web have been created due to the rapid growth of ’social applications’ communities or ’Data-intensive applications’. The evolution of online-based multimedia data poses new challenges in storing and querying large amounts of data for online recommender systems. Graph data models have been shown to be more efficient than relational data models for processing complex data. This paper will explain the key differences between graph and relational databases, their strengths and weaknesses, and why using graph databases is the best technology for building a realtime recommendation system. Also, The paper will discuss several similarity metrics algorithms that can be used to compute a similarity score of pairs of nodes based on their neighbourhoods or their properties. Finally, the paper will discover how NLP strategies offer the premise to improve the accuracy and coverage of realtime recommendations by extracting the information from the stored unstructured knowledge, which makes up the bulk of the world’s data to enrich the graph database with this information. As the size and number of data items are increasing rapidly, the proposed system should meet current and future needs.

Keywords: graph databases, NLP, recommendation systems, similarity metrics

Procedia PDF Downloads 91
8496 The Polarization on Twitter and COVID-19 Vaccination in Brazil

Authors: Giselda Cristina Ferreira, Carlos Alberto Kamienski, Ana Lígia Scott

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced the anti-vaccination movement in Brazil, supported by unscientific theories and false news and the possibility of wide communication through social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the large volume of information on the subject against COVID-19 as an Infodemic. In this paper, we present a protocol to identify polarizing users (called polarizers) and study the profiles of Brazilian polarizers on Twitter (renamed to X some weeks ago). We analyzed polarizing interactions on Twitter (in Portuguese) to identify the main polarizers and how the conflicts they caused influenced the COVID-19 vaccination rate throughout the pandemic. This protocol uses data from this social network, graph theory, Java, and R-studio scripts to model and analyze the data. The information about the vaccination rate was obtained in a public database for the government called OpenDataSus. The results present the profiles of Twitter’s Polarizer (political position, gender, professional activity, immunization opinions). We observed that social and political events influenced the participation of these different profiles in conflicts and the vaccination rate.

Keywords: Twitter, polarization, vaccine, Brazil

Procedia PDF Downloads 58
8495 Contentious Issues Concerning the Methodology of Using the Lexical Approach in Teaching ESP

Authors: Elena Krutskikh, Elena Khvatova

Abstract:

In tertiary settings expanding students’ vocabulary and teaching discursive competence is seen as one of the chief goals of a professional development course. However, such a focus often is detrimental to students’ cognitive competences, such as analysis, synthesis, and creative processing of information, and deprives students of motivation for self-improvement and self-development of language skills. The presentation is going to argue that in an ESP course special attention should be paid to reading/listening which can promote understanding and using the language as a tool for solving significant real world problems, including professional ones. It is claimed that in the learning process it is necessary to maintain a balance between the content and the linguistic aspect of the educational process as language acquisition is inextricably linked with mental activity and the need to express oneself is a primary stimulus for using a language. A study conducted among undergraduates indicates that they place a premium on quality materials that motivate them and stimulate their further linguistic and professional development. Thus, more demands are placed on study materials that should contain new information for students and serve not only as a source of new vocabulary but also prepare them for real tasks related to professional activities.

Keywords: critical reading, english for professional development, english for specific purposes, high order thinking skills, lexical approach, vocabulary acquisition

Procedia PDF Downloads 151
8494 BIM-based Construction Noise Management Approach With a Focus on Inner-City Construction

Authors: Nasim Babazadeh

Abstract:

Growing demand for a quieter dwelling environment has turned the attention of construction companies to reducing the propagated noise of their project. In inner-city constructions, close distance between the construction site and surrounding buildings lessens the efficiency of passive noise control methods. Dwellers of the nearby areas may file complaints and lawsuits against the construction companies due to the emitted construction noise, thereby leading to the interruption of processes, compensation costs, or even suspension of the project. Therefore, construction noise should be predicted along with the project schedule. The advantage of managing the noise in the pre-construction phase is two-fold. Firstly, changes in the time plan and construction methods can be applied more flexibly. Thus, the costs related to rescheduling can be avoided. Secondly, noise-related legal problems are expected to be reduced. To implement noise mapping methods for the mentioned prediction, the required detailed information (such as the location of the noisy process, duration of the noisy work) can be exported from the 4D BIM model. The results obtained from the noise maps would be used to help the planners to define different work scenarios. The proposed approach has been applied for the foundation and earthwork of a site located in a residential area, and the obtained results are discussed.

Keywords: building information modeling, construction noise management, noise mapping, 4D BIM

Procedia PDF Downloads 170
8493 Digital Architectural Practice as a Challenge for Digital Architectural Technology Elements in the Era of Digital Design

Authors: Ling Liyun

Abstract:

In the field of contemporary architecture, complex forms of architectural works continue to emerge in the world, along with some new terminology emerged: digital architecture, parametric design, algorithm generation, building information modeling, CNC construction and so on. Architects gradually mastered the new skills of mathematical logic in the form of exploration, virtual simulation, and the entire design and coordination in the construction process. Digital construction technology has a greater degree in controlling construction, and ensure its accuracy, creating a series of new construction techniques. As a result, the use of digital technology is an improvement and expansion of the practice of digital architecture design revolution. We worked by reading and analyzing information about the digital architecture development process, a large number of cases, as well as architectural design and construction as a whole process. Thus current developments were introduced and discussed in our paper, such as architectural discourse, design theory, digital design models and techniques, material selecting, as well as artificial intelligence space design. Our paper also pays attention to the representative three cases of digital design and construction experiment at great length in detail to expound high-informatization, high-reliability intelligence, and high-technique in constructing a humane space to cope with the rapid development of urbanization. We concluded that the opportunities and challenges of the shift existed in architectural paradigms, such as the cooperation methods, theories, models, technologies and techniques which were currently employed in digital design research and digital praxis. We also find out that the innovative use of space can gradually change the way people learn, talk, and control information. The past two decades, digital technology radically breaks the technology constraints of industrial technical products, digests the publicity on a particular architectural style (era doctrine). People should not adapt to the machine, but in turn, it’s better to make the machine work for users.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, collaboration, digital architecture, digital design theory, material selection, space construction

Procedia PDF Downloads 124
8492 Sizing and Thermal Analysis of Mechanically Pumped Fluid Loop Thermal Control Technique for Small Satellite Scientific Applications

Authors: Shanmugasundaram Selvadurai, Amal Chandran

Abstract:

Small satellites have become an alternative low-cost solution for several missions to accomplish specific missions such as Earth imaging, Technology demonstration, Education, and other commercial purposes. Small satellite missions focusing on Infrared imaging applications require lower temperature for scientific instruments and such low temperature can be achieved only using external cryocoolers but the disadvantage is that they generate a large amount of waste heat. Existing passive thermal control techniques are not capable to handle such large thermal loads and hence one of the traditional active Thermal Control System (TCS) is studied for a small satellite configuration. This work aims to downscale the existing Mechanically Pumped Fluid Loop (MPFL) TCS to a 27U CubeSat platform for an imaginary scientific instrument. The temperature-sensitive detector in the instrument considered to be maintained between 130K and 150K to reduce dark current noise and increase the data quality. A Single-Phase fluid based MPFL is chosen for this system-level study and this TCS consists of a microfluid pump, a micro-cryocooler, a fluid accumulator, external heaters, flow regulators, and sensors. This work also explains the thermal control system architecture with a conceptual design, arrangement of all the components, and thermal analysis for different low orbit conditions. Sizing and extensive trade studies for the components are conducted and the results have shown that the Single-phase MPFL system is able to handle the given thermal loads and maintain the satellite’s interface temperature within the desired limit.

Keywords: active thermal control system, satellite thermal, mechanically pumped fluid loop system, cryogenics, cryocooler

Procedia PDF Downloads 240
8491 Geospatial Network Analysis Using Particle Swarm Optimization

Authors: Varun Singh, Mainak Bandyopadhyay, Maharana Pratap Singh

Abstract:

The shortest path (SP) problem concerns with finding the shortest path from a specific origin to a specified destination in a given network while minimizing the total cost associated with the path. This problem has widespread applications. Important applications of the SP problem include vehicle routing in transportation systems particularly in the field of in-vehicle Route Guidance System (RGS) and traffic assignment problem (in transportation planning). Well known applications of evolutionary methods like Genetic Algorithms (GA), Ant Colony Optimization, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) have come up to solve complex optimization problems to overcome the shortcomings of existing shortest path analysis methods. It has been reported by various researchers that PSO performs better than other evolutionary optimization algorithms in terms of success rate and solution quality. Further Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have emerged as key information systems for geospatial data analysis and visualization. This research paper is focused towards the application of PSO for solving the shortest path problem between multiple points of interest (POI) based on spatial data of Allahabad City and traffic speed data collected using GPS. Geovisualization of results of analysis is carried out in GIS.

Keywords: particle swarm optimization, GIS, traffic data, outliers

Procedia PDF Downloads 463
8490 The Impact of Neonatal Methamphetamine on Spatial Learning and Memory of Females in Adulthood

Authors: Ivana Hrebickova, Maria Sevcikova, Romana Slamberova

Abstract:

The present study was aimed at evaluation of cognitive changes following scheduled neonatal methamphetamine exposure in combination with long-term exposure in adulthood of female Wistar rats. Pregnant mothers were divided into two groups: group with indirect exposure (methamphetamine in dose 5 mg/ml/kg, saline in dose 1 ml/kg) during early lactation period (postnatal day 1–11) - progeny of these mothers were exposed to the effects of methamphetamine or saline indirectly via the breast milk; and the second group with direct exposure – all mothers were left intact for the entire lactation period, while progeny was treated with methamphetamine (5 mg/ml/kg) by injection or the control group, which was received needle pick (shame, not saline) at the same time each day of period of application (postnatal day 1–11). Learning ability and memory consolidation were tested in the Morris Water Maze, which consisted of three types of tests: ‘Place Navigation Test ‘; ‘Probe Test ‘; and ‘Memory Recall Test ‘. Adult female progeny were injected daily, after completion last trial with saline or methamphetamine (1 mg/ml/kg). We compared the effects of indirect/direct neonatal methamphetamine exposure and adult methamphetamine treatment on cognitive function of female rats. Statistical analyses showed that neonatal methamphetamine exposure worsened spatial learning and ability to remember the position of the platform. The present study demonstrated that direct methamphetamine exposure has more significant impact on process of learning and memory than indirect exposure. Analyses of search strategies (thigmotaxis, scanning) used by females during the Place Navigation Test and Memory Recall Test confirm all these results.

Keywords: methamphetamine, Morris water maze, neonatal exposure, strategies, Wistar rats

Procedia PDF Downloads 250
8489 Media Impression and Its Impact on Foreign Policy Making: A Study of India-China Relations

Authors: Rosni Lakandri

Abstract:

With the development of science and technology, there has been a complete transformation in the domain of information technology. Particularly after the Second World War and Cold War period, the role of media and communication technology in shaping the political, economic, socio-cultural proceedings across the world has been tremendous. It performs as a channel between the governing bodies of the state and the general masses. As we have seen the international community constantly talking about the onset of Asian Century, India and China happens to be the major player in this. Both have the civilization history, both are neighboring countries, both are witnessing a huge economic growth and, important of all, both are considered the rising powers of Asia. Not negating the fact that both countries have gone to war with each other in 1962 and the common people and even the policy makers of both the sides view each other till now from this prism. A huge contribution to this perception of people goes to the media coverage of both sides, even if there are spaces of cooperation which they share, the negative impacts of media has tended to influence the people’s opinion and government’s perception about each other. Therefore, analysis of media’s impression in both the countries becomes important in order to know their effect on the larger implications of foreign policy towards each other. It is usually said that media not only acts as the information provider but also acts as ombudsman to the government. They provide a kind of check and balance to the governments in taking proper decisions for the people of the country but in attempting to answer this hypothesis we have to analyze does the media really helps in shaping the political landscape of any country? Therefore, this study rests on the following questions; 1.How do China and India depict each other through their respective News media? 2.How much and what influences they make on the policy making process of each country? How do they shape the public opinion in both the countries? In order to address these enquiries, the study employs both primary and secondary sources available, and in generating data and other statistical information, primary sources like reports, government documents, and cartography, agreements between the governments have been used. Secondary sources like books, articles and other writings collected from various sources and opinion from visual media sources like news clippings, videos in this topic are also included as a source of on ground information as this study is not based on field study. As the findings suggest in case of China and India, media has certainly affected people’s knowledge about the political and diplomatic issues at the same time has affected the foreign policy making of both the countries. They have considerable impact on the foreign policy formulation and we can say there is some mediatization happening in foreign policy issues in both the countries.

Keywords: China, foreign policy, India, media, public opinion

Procedia PDF Downloads 142