Search results for: artificial neural networks
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 4887

Search results for: artificial neural networks

687 Adaptive Design of Large Prefabricated Concrete Panels Collective Housing

Authors: Daniel M. Muntean, Viorel Ungureanu

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More than half of the urban population in Romania lives today in residential buildings made out of large prefabricated reinforced concrete panels. Since their initial design was made in the 1960’s, these housing units are now being technically and morally outdated, consuming large amounts of energy for heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, while failing to meet the needs of the contemporary life-style. Due to their widespread use, the design of a system that improves their energy efficiency would have a real impact, not only on the energy consumption of the residential sector, but also on the quality of life that it offers. Furthermore, with the transition of today’s existing power grid to a “smart grid”, buildings could become an active element for future electricity networks by contributing in micro-generation and energy storage. One of the most addressed issues today is to find locally adapted strategies that can be applied considering the 20-20-20 EU policy criteria and to offer sustainable and innovative solutions for the cost-optimal energy performance of buildings adapted on the existing local market. This paper presents a possible adaptive design scenario towards sustainable retrofitting of these housing units. The apartments are transformed in order to meet the current living requirements and additional extensions are placed on top of the building, replacing the unused roof space, acting not only as housing units, but as active solar energy collection systems. An adaptive building envelope is ensured in order to achieve overall air-tightness and an elevator system is introduced to facilitate access to the upper levels.

Keywords: adaptive building, energy efficiency, retrofitting, residential buildings, smart grid

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686 Hsa-miR-192-5p, and Hsa-miR-129-5p Prominent Biomarkers in Regulation Glioblastoma Cancer Stem Cells Genes Microenvironment

Authors: Rasha Ahmadi

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Glioblastoma is one of the most frequent brain malignancies, having a high mortality rate and limited survival in individuals with this malignancy. Despite different treatments and surgery, recurrence of glioblastoma cancer stem cells may arise as a subsequent tumor. For this reason, it is crucial to research the markers associated with glioblastoma stem cells and specifically their microenvironment. In this study, using bioinformatics analysis, we analyzed and nominated genes in the microenvironment pathways of glioblastoma stem cells. In this study, an appropriate database was selected for analysis by referring to the GEO database. This dataset comprised gene expression patterns in stem cells derived from glioblastoma patients. Gene clusters were divided as high and low expression. Enrichment databases such as Enrichr, STRING, and GEPIA were utilized to analyze the data appropriately. Finally, we extracted the potential genes 2700 high-expression and 1100 low-expression genes are implicated in the metabolic pathways of glioblastoma cancer progression. Cellular senescence, MAPK, TNF, hypoxia, zimosterol biosynthesis, and phosphatidylinositol metabolism pathways were substantially expressed and the metabolic pathways were downregulated. After assessing the association between protein networks, MSMP, SOX2, FGD4 ,and CNTNAP3 genes with high expression and DMKN and SBSN genes with low were selected. All of these genes were observed in the survival curve, with a survival of fewer than 10 percent over around 15 months. hsa-mir-192-5p, hsa-mir-129-5p, hsa-mir-215-5p, hsa-mir-335-5p, and hsa-mir-340-5p played key function in glioblastoma cancer stem cells microenviroments. We introduced critical genes through integrated and regular bioinformatics studies by assessing the amount of gene expression profile data that can play an important role in targeting genes involved in the energy and microenvironment of glioblastoma cancer stem cells. Have. This study indicated that hsa-mir-192-5p, and hsa-mir-129-5p are appropriate candidates for this.

Keywords: Glioblastoma, Cancer Stem Cells, Biomarker Discovery, Gene Expression Profiles, Bioinformatics Analysis, Tumor Microenvironment

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685 Evaluation of Indoor Radon as Air Pollutant in Schools and Control of Exposure of the Children

Authors: Kremena Ivanona, Bistra Kunovska, Jana Djunova, Desislava Djunakova, Zdenka Stojanovska

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In recent decades, the general public has become increasingly interested in the impact of air pollutions on their health. Currently, numerous studies are aimed at identifying pollutants in the indoor environment where they carry out daily activities. Internal pollutants can be of both natural and artificial origin. With regard to natural pollutants, special attention is paid to natural radioactivity. In recent years, radon has been one of the most studied indoor pollutants because it has the greatest contribution to human exposure to natural radionuclides. It is a known fact that lung cancer can be caused by radon radiation and it is the second risk factor after smoking for the onset of the disease. The main objective of the study under the National Science Fund of Bulgaria, in the framework of grant No КП-06-Н23/1/07.12.2018 is to evaluate the indoor radon as an important air pollutant in school buildings in order to reduce the exposure to children. The measurements were performed in 48 schools located in 55 buildings in one Bulgarian administrative district (Kardjaly). The nuclear track detectors (CR-39) were used for measurements. The arithmetic and geometric means of radon concentrations are AM = 140 Bq/m3, and GM = 117 Bq/m3 respectively. In 51 school rooms, the radon levels were greater than 200 Bq/m3, and in 28 rooms, located in 17 school buildings, it exceeded the national reference level of 300 Bq/m3, defined in the Bulgarian ordinance on radiation protection (or 30% of the investigated buildings). The statistically significant difference in the values of radon concentration by municipalities (KW, р < 0.001) obtained showed that the most likely reason for the differences between the groups is the geographical location of the buildings and the possible influence of the geological composition. The combined effect of the year of construction (technical condition of the buildings) and the energy efficiency measures was considered. The values of the radon concentration in the buildings where energy efficiency measures have been implemented are higher than those in buildings where they have not been performed. This result confirms the need for investigation of radon levels before conducting the energy efficiency measures in buildings. Corrective measures for reducing the radon levels have been recommended in school buildings with high radon levels in order to decrease the children's exposure.

Keywords: air pollution, indoor radon, children exposure, schools

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684 Evaluation of the Self-Organizing Map and the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System Machine Learning Techniques for the Estimation of Crop Water Stress Index of Wheat under Varying Application of Irrigation Water Levels for Efficient Irrigation Scheduling

Authors: Aschalew C. Workneh, K. S. Hari Prasad, C. S. P. Ojha

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The crop water stress index (CWSI) is a cost-effective, non-destructive, and simple technique for tracking the start of crop water stress. This study investigated the feasibility of CWSI derived from canopy temperature to detect the water status of wheat crops. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have become increasingly popular in recent years for determining CWSI. In this study, the performance of two AI techniques, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and self-organizing maps (SOM), are compared while determining the CWSI of paddy crops. Field experiments were conducted for varying irrigation water applications during two seasons in 2022 and 2023 at the irrigation field laboratory at the Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. The ANFIS and SOM-simulated CWSI values were compared with the experimentally calculated CWSI (EP-CWSI). Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the upper and lower CWSI baselines. The upper CWSI baseline was found to be a function of crop height and wind speed, while the lower CWSI baseline was a function of crop height, air vapor pressure deficit, and wind speed. The performance of ANFIS and SOM were compared based on mean absolute error (MAE), mean bias error (MBE), root mean squared error (RMSE), index of agreement (d), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), and coefficient of correlation (R²). Both models successfully estimated the CWSI of the paddy crop with higher correlation coefficients and lower statistical errors. However, the ANFIS (R²=0.81, NSE=0.73, d=0.94, RMSE=0.04, MAE= 0.00-1.76 and MBE=-2.13-1.32) outperformed the SOM model (R²=0.77, NSE=0.68, d=0.90, RMSE=0.05, MAE= 0.00-2.13 and MBE=-2.29-1.45). Overall, the results suggest that ANFIS is a reliable tool for accurately determining CWSI in wheat crops compared to SOM.

Keywords: adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system, canopy temperature, crop water stress index, self-organizing map, wheat

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683 Nanotechnology in Conservation of Artworks: TiO2-Based Nanocoatings for the Protection and Preservation of Stone Monuments

Authors: Sayed M. Ahmed, Sawsan S. Darwish, Nagib A. Elmarzugi, Mohammad A. Al-Dosari, Mahmoud A. Adam, Nadia A. Al-Mouallimi

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The preservation of cultural heritage is a worldwide problem. Stone monuments represent an important part of this heritage, but due to their prevalently outdoor location, they are generally subject to a complex series of weathering and decay processes, in addition to physical and chemical factors, also biological agents usually play an important role in deterioration phenomena. The aim of this paper is to experimentally verify applicability and feasibility of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles for the preservation of historical (architectural, monumental, archaeological) stone surfaces which enables to reduce the deterioration behaviors mentioned above. TiO2 nanoparticles dispersed in an aqueous colloidal suspension were applied directly on travertine (Marble and limestone often used in historical and monumental buildings) by spray-coating in order to obtain a nanometric film on stone samples. SEM, coupled with EDX microanalysis. (SEM-EDX), in order to obtain information oncoating homogeneity, surface morphology before and after aging and penetration depth of the TiO2 within the samples. Activity of the coated surface was evaluated with UV accelerated aging test. Capillary water absorption, thermal aging and colorimetric measurements have been performed on on coated and uncoated samples to evaluate their properties and estimate change of appearance with colour variation. Results show Tio2 nanoparticles good candidate for coating applications on calcareous stone, good water-repellence was observed on the samples after treatment; analyses were carried out on both untreated and freshly treated samples as well as after artificial aging. Colour change showed negligible variations on the coated or uncoated stone as well as after aging. Results showed that treated stone surfaces seem to be not affected after 1000 hours of exposure to UV radiation, no alteration of the original features.

Keywords: architectural and archaeological heritage, calcareous stone, photocatalysis TiO2, self-cleaning, thermal aging

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682 Evolution of Bombings against Transportation Infrastructure

Authors: Jonathan K. Hill

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The transportation networks throughout Africa remain the only transportation infrastructure system in the world that is attacked by terrorists at a high frequency, so the international community can learn from each attack. The targeting of transportation should be recognized as a direct attack against a civilian population, so the international community should work to better understand the types of attacks utilized, the types of improvised explosive device designs adapted to transportation targets, and the ways the various modes of transportation have been attacked throughout the continent. Some countries have seen grenade attacks that have resulted in only injuries, while some countries have experienced large vehicle bombings that have resulted in hundreds of injuries and numerous deaths. With insurgencies, explosive devices have been small, complex, and generally target an enemy of the insurgency. With terrorist bombings, the explosive devices have been large, brazen, and targeted at civilian populations. And, these civilian populations are easily targeted within the transportation system. The presentation provided by Assess Africa LLC is titled ‘Evolution of Bombings Against Transportation Infrastructure’ and covers improvised explosive device characteristics, how improvised explosive devices have been adapted to transportation targets in Africa, analyses recent incidents, and provides some advice for effective protective measures. A main component of the improvised explosive device characteristics portion of the presentation focuses on the link between explosive device components, the intelligence network, and the bomb-builder’s network. By understanding the components, how the use of various components can be linked to a terrorist group’s capabilities, and how the bomb-builder acquires materials, the analysis of improvised explosive device attacks takes on a new direction – one that focuses on defeating the network instead of merely reviewing incidents of the past.

Keywords: Africa, bombings, critical infrastructure protection, transportation security

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681 The Effect of Foot Progression Angle on Human Lower Extremity

Authors: Sungpil Ha, Ju Yong Kang, Sangbaek Park, Seung-Ju Lee, Soo-Won Chae

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The growing number of obese patients in aging societies has led to an increase in the number of patients with knee medial osteoarthritis (OA). Artificial joint insertion is the most common treatment for knee medial OA. Surgery is effective for patients with serious arthritic symptoms, but it is costly and dangerous. It is also inappropriate way to prevent a disease as an early stage. Therefore Non-operative treatments such as toe-in gait are proposed recently. Toe-in gait is one of non-surgical interventions, which restrain the progression of arthritis and relieves pain by reducing knee adduction moment (KAM) to facilitate lateral distribution of load on to knee medial cartilage. Numerous studies have measured KAM in various foot progression angle (FPA), and KAM data could be obtained by motion analysis. However, variations in stress at knee cartilage could not be directly observed or evaluated by these experiments of measuring KAM. Therefore, this study applied motion analysis to major gait points (1st peak, mid –stance, 2nd peak) with regard to FPA, and to evaluate the effects of FPA on the human lower extremity, the finite element (FE) method was employed. Three types of gait analysis (toe-in, toe-out, baseline gait) were performed with markers placed at the lower extremity. Ground reaction forces (GRF) were obtained by the force plates. The forces associated with the major muscles were computed using GRF and marker trajectory data. MRI data provided by the Visible Human Project were used to develop a human lower extremity FE model. FE analyses for three types of gait simulations were performed based on the calculated muscle force and GRF. We observed the maximum stress point during toe-in gait was lower than the other types, by comparing the results of FE analyses at the 1st peak across gait types. This is the same as the trend exhibited by KAM, measured through motion analysis in other papers. This indicates that the progression of knee medial OA could be suppressed by adopting toe-in gait. This study integrated motion analysis with FE analysis. One advantage of this method is that re-modeling is not required even with changes in posture. Therefore another type of gait simulation or various motions of lower extremity can be easily analyzed using this method.

Keywords: finite element analysis, gait analysis, human model, motion capture

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680 Effect of Electromagnetic Fields at 27 GHz on Sperm Quality of Mytilus galloprovincialis

Authors: Carmen Sica, Elena M. Scalisi, Sara Ignoto, Ludovica Palmeri, Martina Contino, Greta Ferruggia, Antonio Salvaggio, Santi C. Pavone, Gino Sorbello, Loreto Di Donato, Roberta Pecoraro, Maria V. Brundo

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Recently, a rise in the use of wireless internet technologies such as Wi-Fi and 5G routers/modems have been demonstrated. These devices emit a considerable amount of electromagnetic radiation (EMR), which could interact with the male reproductive system either by thermal or non-thermal mechanisms. The aim of this study was to investigate the direct in vitro influence of 5G radiation on sperm quality in Mytilus galloprovincialis, considered an excellent model for reproduction studies. The experiments at 27 GHz were conducted by using a no commercial high gain pyramidal horn antenna. To evaluate the specific absorption rate (SAR), a numerical simulation has been performed. The resulting incident power density was significantly lower than the power density limit of 10 mW/cm2 set by the international guidelines as a limit for nonthermal effects above 6 GHz. However, regarding temperature measurements of the aqueous sample, it has been verified an increase of 0.2°C, compared to the control samples. This very low-temperature increase couldn’t interfere with experiments. For experiments, sperm samples taken from sexually mature males of Mytilus galloprovincialis were placed in artificial seawater, salinity 30 + 1% and pH 8.3 filtered with a 0.2 m filter. After evaluating the number and quality of spermatozoa, sperm cells were exposed to electromagnetic fields a 27GHz. The effect of exposure on sperm motility and quality was evaluated after 10, 20, 30 and 40 minutes with a light microscope and also using the Eosin test to verify the vitality of the gametes. All the samples were performed in triplicate and statistical analysis was carried out using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Turkey test for multiple comparations of means to determine differences of sperm motility. A significant decrease (30%) in sperm motility was observed after 10 minutes of exposure and after 30 minutes, all sperms were immobile and not vital. Due to little literature data about this topic, these results could be useful for further studies concerning a great diffusion of these new technologies.

Keywords: mussel, spermatozoa, sperm motility, millimeter waves

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679 Inverse Saturable Absorption in Non-linear Amplifying Loop Mirror Mode-Locked Fiber Laser

Authors: Haobin Zheng, Xiang Zhang, Yong Shen, Hongxin Zou

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The research focuses on mode-locked fiber lasers with a non-linear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). Although these lasers have shown potential, they still have limitations in terms of low repetition rate. The self-starting of mode-locking in NALM is influenced by the cross-phase modulation (XPM) effect, which has not been thoroughly studied. The aim of this study is two-fold. First, to overcome the difficulties associated with increasing the repetition rate in mode-locked fiber lasers with NALM. Second, to analyze the influence of XPM on self-starting of mode-locking. The power distributions of two counterpropagating beams in the NALM and the differential non-linear phase shift (NPS) accumulations are calculated. The analysis is conducted from the perspective of NPS accumulation. The differential NPSs for continuous wave (CW) light and pulses in the fiber loop are compared to understand the inverse saturable absorption (ISA) mechanism during pulse formation in NALM. The study reveals a difference in differential NPSs between CW light and pulses in the fiber loop in NALM. This difference leads to an ISA mechanism, which has not been extensively studied in artificial saturable absorbers. The ISA in NALM provides an explanation for experimentally observed phenomena, such as active mode-locking initiation through tapping the fiber or fine-tuning light polarization. These findings have important implications for optimizing the design of NALM and reducing the self-starting threshold of high-repetition-rate mode-locked fiber lasers. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of NALM mode-locked fiber lasers by exploring the ISA mechanism and its impact on self-starting of mode-locking. The research fills a gap in the existing knowledge regarding the XPM effect in NALM and its role in pulse formation. This study provides insights into the ISA mechanism in NALM mode-locked fiber lasers and its role in selfstarting of mode-locking. The findings contribute to the optimization of NALM design and the reduction of self-starting threshold, which are essential for achieving high-repetition-rate operation in fiber lasers. Further research in this area can lead to advancements in the field of mode-locked fiber lasers with NALM.

Keywords: inverse saturable absorption, NALM, mode-locking, non-linear phase shift

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678 Stronger Together – Micro-Entrepreneurs’ Resilience Development in a Communal Training Space 

Authors: Halonen

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Covid-19 pandemic and the succeeding crises have profoundly shaken the accustomed ways of interaction and thereby challenged the customary engagement patterns among entrepreneurs Consequently, this has led to the experience of lack of collegial interaction for some. Networks and relationships are a crucial factor to strengthening resilience, being especially significant in non-ordinary times. This study aims to shed light on entrepreneurs’ resilience development in and through entrepreneurs’ communal and training space. The context for research is a communal training space in a municipality in Finland of which goal is to help entrepreneurs to experience of peer support and community as part of the "tribe" is strengthened, the entrepreneurs' well-being at work, resilience, ability to change, innovativeness and general life management is strengthened. This communal space is regarded as an example of a physical community of practice (CoP) of entrepreneurs. The research aims to highlight the importance of rediscovering the “new normal” communality as itself but as a key building block of resilience. The initial research questions of the study are: RQ1: What is the role of entrepreneurs’ CoP and communal space in nurturing resilience development among them? RQ2: What positive entrepreneurial outcomes can be achieved through established CoP. The data will be gathered starting from the launch of the communality space in September 2023 onwards. It includes participatory observations of training gatherings, interviews with entrepreneurs and utilizes action research as the method. The author has an active role in participating and facilitating the development. The full paper will be finalized by the fall 2024. The idea of the new normal communality in a CoP among entrepreneurs is to be rediscovered due to its positive impact on entrepreneur’s resilience and business success. The other implications of study can extend to wider entrepreneurial ecosystem and other key stakeholders. Especially emphasizing the potential of communality in CoP for fostering entrepreneurs’ resilience and well-being ensuing business growth, community-driven entrepreneurship development and vitality of the case municipality.

Keywords: resilience, resilience development, communal space, community of practice (CoP)

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677 Lexical Based Method for Opinion Detection on Tripadvisor Collection

Authors: Faiza Belbachir, Thibault Schienhinski

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The massive development of online social networks allows users to post and share their opinions on various topics. With this huge volume of opinion, it is interesting to extract and interpret these information for different domains, e.g., product and service benchmarking, politic, system of recommendation. This is why opinion detection is one of the most important research tasks. It consists on differentiating between opinion data and factual data. The difficulty of this task is to determine an approach which returns opinionated document. Generally, there are two approaches used for opinion detection i.e. Lexical based approaches and Machine Learning based approaches. In Lexical based approaches, a dictionary of sentimental words is used, words are associated with weights. The opinion score of document is derived by the occurrence of words from this dictionary. In Machine learning approaches, usually a classifier is trained using a set of annotated document containing sentiment, and features such as n-grams of words, part-of-speech tags, and logical forms. Majority of these works are based on documents text to determine opinion score but dont take into account if these texts are really correct. Thus, it is interesting to exploit other information to improve opinion detection. In our work, we will develop a new way to consider the opinion score. We introduce the notion of trust score. We determine opinionated documents but also if these opinions are really trustable information in relation with topics. For that we use lexical SentiWordNet to calculate opinion and trust scores, we compute different features about users like (numbers of their comments, numbers of their useful comments, Average useful review). After that, we combine opinion score and trust score to obtain a final score. We applied our method to detect trust opinions in TRIPADVISOR collection. Our experimental results report that the combination between opinion score and trust score improves opinion detection.

Keywords: Tripadvisor, opinion detection, SentiWordNet, trust score

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676 Automatic Near-Infrared Image Colorization Using Synthetic Images

Authors: Yoganathan Karthik, Guhanathan Poravi

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Colorizing near-infrared (NIR) images poses unique challenges due to the absence of color information and the nuances in light absorption. In this paper, we present an approach to NIR image colorization utilizing a synthetic dataset generated from visible light images. Our method addresses two major challenges encountered in NIR image colorization: accurately colorizing objects with color variations and avoiding over/under saturation in dimly lit scenes. To tackle these challenges, we propose a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based framework that learns to map NIR images to their corresponding colorized versions. The synthetic dataset ensures diverse color representations, enabling the model to effectively handle objects with varying hues and shades. Furthermore, the GAN architecture facilitates the generation of realistic colorizations while preserving the integrity of dimly lit scenes, thus mitigating issues related to over/under saturation. Experimental results on benchmark NIR image datasets demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in producing high-quality colorizations with improved color accuracy and naturalness. Quantitative evaluations and comparative studies validate the superiority of our method over existing techniques, showcasing its robustness and generalization capability across diverse NIR image scenarios. Our research not only contributes to advancing NIR image colorization but also underscores the importance of synthetic datasets and GANs in addressing domain-specific challenges in image processing tasks. The proposed framework holds promise for various applications in remote sensing, medical imaging, and surveillance where accurate color representation of NIR imagery is crucial for analysis and interpretation.

Keywords: computer vision, near-infrared images, automatic image colorization, generative adversarial networks, synthetic data

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675 Treating Voxels as Words: Word-to-Vector Methods for fMRI Meta-Analyses

Authors: Matthew Baucum

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With the increasing popularity of fMRI as an experimental method, psychology and neuroscience can greatly benefit from advanced techniques for summarizing and synthesizing large amounts of data from brain imaging studies. One promising avenue is automated meta-analyses, in which natural language processing methods are used to identify the brain regions consistently associated with certain semantic concepts (e.g. “social”, “reward’) across large corpora of studies. This study builds on this approach by demonstrating how, in fMRI meta-analyses, individual voxels can be treated as vectors in a semantic space and evaluated for their “proximity” to terms of interest. In this technique, a low-dimensional semantic space is built from brain imaging study texts, allowing words in each text to be represented as vectors (where words that frequently appear together are near each other in the semantic space). Consequently, each voxel in a brain mask can be represented as a normalized vector sum of all of the words in the studies that showed activation in that voxel. The entire brain mask can then be visualized in terms of each voxel’s proximity to a given term of interest (e.g., “vision”, “decision making”) or collection of terms (e.g., “theory of mind”, “social”, “agent”), as measured by the cosine similarity between the voxel’s vector and the term vector (or the average of multiple term vectors). Analysis can also proceed in the opposite direction, allowing word cloud visualizations of the nearest semantic neighbors for a given brain region. This approach allows for continuous, fine-grained metrics of voxel-term associations, and relies on state-of-the-art “open vocabulary” methods that go beyond mere word-counts. An analysis of over 11,000 neuroimaging studies from an existing meta-analytic fMRI database demonstrates that this technique can be used to recover known neural bases for multiple psychological functions, suggesting this method’s utility for efficient, high-level meta-analyses of localized brain function. While automated text analytic methods are no replacement for deliberate, manual meta-analyses, they seem to show promise for the efficient aggregation of large bodies of scientific knowledge, at least on a relatively general level.

Keywords: FMRI, machine learning, meta-analysis, text analysis

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674 A Case Study on Machine Learning-Based Project Performance Forecasting for an Urban Road Reconstruction Project

Authors: Soheila Sadeghi

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In construction projects, predicting project performance metrics accurately is essential for effective management and successful delivery. However, conventional methods often depend on fixed baseline plans, disregarding the evolving nature of project progress and external influences. To address this issue, we introduce a distinct approach based on machine learning to forecast key performance indicators, such as cost variance and earned value, for each Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) category within an urban road reconstruction project. Our proposed model leverages time series forecasting techniques, namely Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, to predict future performance by analyzing historical data and project progress. Additionally, the model incorporates external factors, including weather patterns and resource availability, as features to improve forecast accuracy. By harnessing the predictive capabilities of machine learning, our performance forecasting model enables project managers to proactively identify potential deviations from the baseline plan and take timely corrective measures. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we conduct a case study on an urban road reconstruction project, comparing the model's predictions with actual project performance data. The outcomes of this research contribute to the advancement of project management practices in the construction industry by providing a data-driven solution for enhancing project performance monitoring and control.

Keywords: project performance forecasting, machine learning, time series forecasting, cost variance, schedule variance, earned value management

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673 Study on the Voltage Induced Wrinkling of Elastomer with Different Electrode Areas

Authors: Zhende Hou, Fan Yang, Guoli Zhang

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Dielectric elastomer is a promising class of Electroactive polymers which can deform in response to an applied electric field. Comparing general smart material, the Dielectric elastomer is more compliance and can achieve higher energy density, which can be for diverse applications such as actuators, artificial muscles, soft robotics, and energy harvesters. The coupling of the Electroactive polymers and the electric field is that the elastomer is sandwiched between two compliant electrodes and when the electrodes are subjected to a voltage, the positive and negative charges on the two electrodes compress the polymer, so that the polymer reduces in thickness and expands in area. However, the pre-stretched dielectric elastomer film not only can achieve large electric-field induced deformation but also is prone to wrinkling, under the interaction of its own strain energy and the applied electric field energy. For a uniaxially pre-stretched dielectric elastomer film, the electrode area is an important parameter to the electric-field induced deformation and may also be a key factor affecting the film wrinkling. To determine and quantify the effect experimentally, VHB 9473 tapes were employed and compliant electrodes with different areas were pant on each of them. The tape was first tensed to a uniaxial stretch of 8. Then a DC voltage was applied to the electrodes and increased gradually until wrinkling occurred in the film. Then, the critical wrinkling voltages of the film with different electrode areas were obtained, and the wrinkle wavelengths were obtained simultaneously for analyzing the wrinkling characteristics. Experimental results indicate when the electrode area is smaller the wrinkling voltage is higher, and with the increases of electrode area, the wrinkling voltage decreases rapidly until a specific area. Beyond that, the wrinkling voltage becomes larger gradually with the increases of the area. While the wrinkle wavelength decreases gradually with the increase of voltage monotonically. That is, the relation between the critical wrinkling voltage and the electrode areas is U-shaped. Analysis believes that the film wrinkling is a kind of local effect, the interaction and the energy transfer between electrode region and non-electrode region have great influence on wrinkling. In the experiment, very thin copper wires are used as the electrode leads that just contact with the electrodes, which can avoid the stiffness of the leads affecting the wrinkling.

Keywords: elastomers, uniaxial stretch, electrode area, wrinkling

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672 Cross-Dipole Right-Hand Circularly Polarized UHF/VHF Yagi-Uda Antenna for Satellite Applications

Authors: Shativel S., Chandana B. R., Kavya B. C., Obli B. Vikram, Suganthi J., Nagendra Rao G.

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Satellite communication plays a pivotal role in modern global communication networks, serving as a vital link between terrestrial infrastructure and remote regions. The demand for reliable satellite reception systems, especially in UHF (Ultra High Frequency) and VHF (Very High Frequency) bands, has grown significantly over the years. This research paper presents the design and optimization of a high-gain, dual-band crossed Yagi-Uda antenna in CST Studio Suite, specifically tailored for satellite reception. The proposed antenna system incorporates a circularly polarized (Right-Hand Circular Polarization - RHCP) design to reduce Faraday loss. Our aim was to use fewer elements and achieve gain, so the antenna is constructed using 6x2 elements arranged in cross dipole and supported with a boom. We have achieved 10.67dBi at 146MHz and 9.28dBi at 437.5MHz.The process includes parameter optimization and fine-tuning of the Yagi-Uda array’s elements, such as the length and spacing of directors and reflectors, to achieve high gain and desirable radiation patterns. Furthermore, the optimization process considers the requirements for UHF and VHF frequency bands, ensuring broad frequency coverage for satellite reception. The results of this research are anticipated to significantly contribute to the advancement of satellite reception systems, enhancing their capabilities to reliably connect remote and underserved areas to the global communication network. Through innovative antenna design and simulation techniques, this study seeks to provide a foundation for the development of next-generation satellite communication infrastructure.

Keywords: Yagi-Uda antenna, RHCP, gain, UHF antenna, VHF antenna, CST, radiation pattern.

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671 Educational Turn towards Digitalization by Changing Leadership, Networks and Qualification Concepts

Authors: Patricia Girrbach

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Currently, our society is facing a new and incremental upheaval technological revolution named digitalization. In order to face the relating challenges organizations have to be prepared. They need appropriate circumstances in order to cope with current issues concerning digital transformation processes. Nowadays digitalization emerged as top issues for companies and business leaders. In this context, it is a pressure on companies to have a positive, productive digital culture. And indeed, Organizations realize that they need to address this important issue. In this context 87 percent of organizations quote culture and engagement as one of their top challenges in terms of any change process, but especially in terms of the digital turn. Executives can give their company a competitive advantage and attract top talent by having a strong workplace culture that supports digitalization. Many current studies attest that fact. Digital-oriented companies can hire more easily, they have the lowest voluntary turnover rates, deliver better customer service, and are more profitable over the long run. Based on this background it is important to provide companies starting points and practical measurements how to reach this goal. The major findings are that firms need to make sense out of digitalization. In this context, they should focus on internal but also on external stakeholders. Furthermore, they should create certain working conditions and they should support the qualification of employees, e.g. by Virtual Reality. These measurements can create positive experiences in terms of digitalization in order to ensure the support of stuff in terms of the digital turn. Based on several current studies and literature research this paper provides concrete measurements for companies in order to enable the digital turn. Therefore, the aim of this paper is providing possible practical starting points which support both the education of employees by digitalization as well as the digital turn itself within the organization.

Keywords: digitalization, industry 4.0, education 4.0, virtual reality

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670 Service Interactions Coordination Using a Declarative Approach: Focuses on Deontic Rule from Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules Models

Authors: Nurulhuda A. Manaf, Nor Najihah Zainal Abidin, Nur Amalina Jamaludin

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Coordinating service interactions are a vital part of developing distributed applications that are built up as networks of autonomous participants, e.g., software components, web services, online resources, involve a collaboration between a diverse number of participant services on different providers. The complexity in coordinating service interactions reflects how important the techniques and approaches require for designing and coordinating the interaction between participant services to ensure the overall goal of a collaboration between participant services is achieved. The objective of this research is to develop capability of steering a complex service interaction towards a desired outcome. Therefore, an efficient technique for modelling, generating, and verifying the coordination of service interactions is developed. The developed model describes service interactions using service choreographies approach and focusing on a declarative approach, advocating an Object Management Group (OMG) standard, Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR). This model, namely, SBVR model for service choreographies focuses on a declarative deontic rule expressing both obligation and prohibition, which can be more useful in working with coordinating service interactions. The generated SBVR model is then be formulated and be transformed into Alloy model using Alloy Analyzer for verifying the generated SBVR model. The transformation of SBVR into Alloy allows to automatically generate the corresponding coordination of service interactions (service choreography), hence producing an immediate instance of execution that satisfies the constraints of the specification and verifies whether a specific request can be realised in the given choreography in the generated choreography.

Keywords: service choreography, service coordination, behavioural modelling, complex interactions, declarative specification, verification, model transformation, semantics of business vocabulary and rules, SBVR

Procedia PDF Downloads 127
669 Comparison of Illuminance Levels in Old Omani and Portuguese Forts in Oman

Authors: Maatouk Khoukhi

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Nowadays the reduction of the energy consumed by buildings to achieve mainly the thermal comfort for the occupants represent the main concern for architects and building designers. The common and traditional solution to achieve this target is the design of a highly insulated envelope and reduce the opening and the transparent elements such windows. However, this will lead to the artificial lighting system to consume more energy to compensate the lack of natural lighting coming through the glazed parts of the building envelope. Therefore, a good balance between sufficient daylight and control thermal heat through the building envelope should be considered for energy saving purpose. To achieve a better indoor environment the windows size and spacing including the interior finishing and the location of the partition must be assessed accurately. Daylighting is the controlled admission of natural light into space through windows and transparent elements of the building envelope which helps create a visually stimulating and productive environment for building occupants. The main concern is not to provide enough daylight to an occupied space, but how to achieve this without any undesirable side effect. Indeed, the glare is a major problem in glazed façade buildings, and this could be reduced by using tinted windows. The main target of this research is to investigate the daylight adequacy of functional needs in old Omani Forts and how they have been designed and built to avoid glare and overheating with the appropriate window-to-floor ratio. Because more windows do not automatically result in more daylighting but that is natural light has been controlled and distributed properly throughout the space. Spaces from different Omani and Portuguese Forts under the same climate conditions are considered in order to compare the daylight illuminance levels and examine the similarities and differences in visual attributes between them. The result of this study indicates that lighting preference is not universal and people from different geographical locations are adapted to certain illuminance levels. Therefore, the standards could not be generalized for the entire world. This would be useful to practitioners who are designing to effectively address the diversity of user’s lighting levels preferences in our globally connected society.

Keywords: day lighting, energy, forts, thermal comfort

Procedia PDF Downloads 146
668 Exploring Simple Sequence Repeats within Conserved microRNA Precursors Identified from Tea Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) Database

Authors: Anjan Hazra, Nirjhar Dasgupta, Chandan Sengupta, Sauren Das

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Tea (Camellia sinensis) has received substantial attention from the scientific world time to time, not only for its commercial importance, but also for its demand to the health-conscious people across the world for its extensive use as potential sources of antioxidant supplement. These health-benefit traits primarily rely on some regulatory networks of different metabolic pathways. Development of microsatellite markers from the conserved genomic regions is being worthwhile for studying the genetic diversity of closely related species or self-pollinated species. Although several SSR markers have been reported, in tea the trait-specific Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) are yet to be identified, which can be used for marker assisted breeding technique. MicroRNAs are endogenous, noncoding, short RNAs directly involved in regulating gene expressions at the post-transcriptional level. It has been found that diversity in miRNA gene interferes the formation of its characteristic hair pin structure and the subsequent function. In the present study, the precursors of small regulatory RNAs (microRNAs) has been fished out from tea Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) database. Furthermore, the simple sequence repeat motifs within the putative miRNA precursor genes are also identified in order to experimentally validate their existence and function. It is already known that genic-SSR markers are very adept and breeder-friendly source for genetic diversity analysis. So, the potential outcome of this in-silico study would provide some novel clues in understanding the miRNA-triggered polymorphic genic expression controlling specific metabolic pathways, accountable for tea quality.

Keywords: micro RNA, simple sequence repeats, tea quality, trait specific marker

Procedia PDF Downloads 290
667 An Analysis on Clustering Based Gene Selection and Classification for Gene Expression Data

Authors: K. Sathishkumar, V. Thiagarasu

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Due to recent advances in DNA microarray technology, it is now feasible to obtain gene expression profiles of tissue samples at relatively low costs. Many scientists around the world use the advantage of this gene profiling to characterize complex biological circumstances and diseases. Microarray techniques that are used in genome-wide gene expression and genome mutation analysis help scientists and physicians in understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms, in diagnoses and prognoses, and choosing treatment plans. DNA microarray technology has now made it possible to simultaneously monitor the expression levels of thousands of genes during important biological processes and across collections of related samples. Elucidating the patterns hidden in gene expression data offers a tremendous opportunity for an enhanced understanding of functional genomics. However, the large number of genes and the complexity of biological networks greatly increase the challenges of comprehending and interpreting the resulting mass of data, which often consists of millions of measurements. A first step toward addressing this challenge is the use of clustering techniques, which is essential in the data mining process to reveal natural structures and identify interesting patterns in the underlying data. This work presents an analysis of several clustering algorithms proposed to deals with the gene expression data effectively. The existing clustering algorithms like Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-means algorithm and evolutionary algorithm etc. are analyzed thoroughly to identify the advantages and limitations. The performance evaluation of the existing algorithms is carried out to determine the best approach. In order to improve the classification performance of the best approach in terms of Accuracy, Convergence Behavior and processing time, a hybrid clustering based optimization approach has been proposed.

Keywords: microarray technology, gene expression data, clustering, gene Selection

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666 Thermodynamic Analyses of Information Dissipation along the Passive Dendritic Trees and Active Action Potential

Authors: Bahar Hazal Yalçınkaya, Bayram Yılmaz, Mustafa Özilgen

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Brain information transmission in the neuronal network occurs in the form of electrical signals. Neural work transmits information between the neurons or neurons and target cells by moving charged particles in a voltage field; a fraction of the energy utilized in this process is dissipated via entropy generation. Exergy loss and entropy generation models demonstrate the inefficiencies of the communication along the dendritic trees. In this study, neurons of 4 different animals were analyzed with one dimensional cable model with N=6 identical dendritic trees and M=3 order of symmetrical branching. Each branch symmetrically bifurcates in accordance with the 3/2 power law in an infinitely long cylinder with the usual core conductor assumptions, where membrane potential is conserved in the core conductor at all branching points. In the model, exergy loss and entropy generation rates are calculated for each branch of equivalent cylinders of electrotonic length (L) ranging from 0.1 to 1.5 for four different dendritic branches, input branch (BI), and sister branch (BS) and two cousin branches (BC-1 & BC-2). Thermodynamic analysis with the data coming from two different cat motoneuron studies show that in both experiments nearly the same amount of exergy is lost while generating nearly the same amount of entropy. Guinea pig vagal motoneuron loses twofold more exergy compared to the cat models and the squid exergy loss and entropy generation were nearly tenfold compared to the guinea pig vagal motoneuron model. Thermodynamic analysis show that the dissipated energy in the dendritic tress is directly proportional with the electrotonic length, exergy loss and entropy generation. Entropy generation and exergy loss show variability not only between the vertebrate and invertebrates but also within the same class. Concurrently, single action potential Na+ ion load, metabolic energy utilization and its thermodynamic aspect contributed for squid giant axon and mammalian motoneuron model. Energy demand is supplied to the neurons in the form of Adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Exergy destruction and entropy generation upon ATP hydrolysis are calculated. ATP utilization, exergy destruction and entropy generation showed differences in each model depending on the variations in the ion transport along the channels.

Keywords: ATP utilization, entropy generation, exergy loss, neuronal information transmittance

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665 Phosphate Regulation of Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Symbiosis in Rice

Authors: Debatosh Das, Moxian Chen, Jianhua Zhang, Caroline Gutjahr

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Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) is a mutualistic symbiosis between plant roots and Glomeromycotina fungi, which is activated under low but inhibited by high phosphate. The effect of phosphate on AM development has been observed for many years, but mechanisms regulating it under contrasting phosphate levels remain unknown. Based on previous observations that promoters of several AM functional genes contain PHR binding motifs, we hypothesized that PHR2, a master regulator of phosphate starvation response in rice, was recruited to regulate AM symbiosis development. We observed a drastic reduction in root colonization and significant AM transcriptome modulation in phr2. PHR2 targets genes required for root colonization and AM signaling. The role of PHR2 in improving root colonization, mycorrhizal phosphate uptake, and growth response was confirmed in field soil. In conclusion, rice PHR2, which is considered a master regulator of phosphate starvation responses, acts as a positive regulator of AM symbiosis between Glomeromycotina fungi and rice roots. PHR2 directly targets the transcription of plant strigolactone and AM genes involved in the establishment of this symbiosis. Our work facilitates an understanding of ways to enhance AMF propagule populations introduced in field soils (as a biofertilizer) in order to restore the natural plant-AMF networks disrupted by modern agricultural practices. We show that PHR2 is required for AM-mediated improvement of rice yield in low phosphate paddy field soil. Thus, our work contributes knowledge for rational application of AM in sustainable agriculture. Our data provide important insights into the regulation of AM by the plant phosphate status, which has a broad significance in agriculture and terrestrial ecosystems.

Keywords: biofertilizer, phosphate, mycorrhiza, rice, sustainable, symbiosis

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664 Modelling Insider Attacks in Public Cloud

Authors: Roman Kulikov, Svetlana Kolesnikova

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Last decade Cloud Computing technologies have been rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Each year more and more organizations, corporations, internet services and social networks trust their business sensitive information to Public Cloud. The data storage in Public Cloud is protected by security mechanisms such as firewalls, cryptography algorithms, backups, etc.. In this way, however, only outsider attacks can be prevented, whereas virtualization tools can be easily compromised by insider. The protection of Public Cloud’s critical elements from internal intruder remains extremely challenging. A hypervisor, also called a virtual machine manager, is a program that allows multiple operating systems (OS) to share a single hardware processor in Cloud Computing. One of the hypervisor's functions is to enforce access control policies. Furthermore, it prevents guest OS from disrupting each other and from accessing each other's memory or disk space. Hypervisor is the one of the most critical and vulnerable elements in Cloud Computing infrastructure. Nevertheless, it has been poorly protected from being compromised by insider. By exploiting certain vulnerabilities, privilege escalation can be easily achieved in insider attacks on hypervisor. In this way, an internal intruder, who has compromised one process, is able to gain control of the entire virtual machine. Thereafter, the consequences of insider attacks in Public Cloud might be more catastrophic and significant to virtual tools and sensitive data than of outsider attacks. So far, almost no preventive security countermeasures have been developed. There has been little attention paid for developing models to assist risks mitigation strategies. In this paper formal model of insider attacks on hypervisor is designed. Our analysis identifies critical hypervisor`s vulnerabilities that can be easily compromised by internal intruder. Consequently, possible conditions for successful attacks implementation are uncovered. Hence, development of preventive security countermeasures can be improved on the basis of the proposed model.

Keywords: insider attack, public cloud, cloud computing, hypervisor

Procedia PDF Downloads 346
663 Improving Fake News Detection Using K-means and Support Vector Machine Approaches

Authors: Kasra Majbouri Yazdi, Adel Majbouri Yazdi, Saeid Khodayi, Jingyu Hou, Wanlei Zhou, Saeed Saedy

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Fake news and false information are big challenges of all types of media, especially social media. There is a lot of false information, fake likes, views and duplicated accounts as big social networks such as Facebook and Twitter admitted. Most information appearing on social media is doubtful and in some cases misleading. They need to be detected as soon as possible to avoid a negative impact on society. The dimensions of the fake news datasets are growing rapidly, so to obtain a better result of detecting false information with less computation time and complexity, the dimensions need to be reduced. One of the best techniques of reducing data size is using feature selection method. The aim of this technique is to choose a feature subset from the original set to improve the classification performance. In this paper, a feature selection method is proposed with the integration of K-means clustering and Support Vector Machine (SVM) approaches which work in four steps. First, the similarities between all features are calculated. Then, features are divided into several clusters. Next, the final feature set is selected from all clusters, and finally, fake news is classified based on the final feature subset using the SVM method. The proposed method was evaluated by comparing its performance with other state-of-the-art methods on several specific benchmark datasets and the outcome showed a better classification of false information for our work. The detection performance was improved in two aspects. On the one hand, the detection runtime process decreased, and on the other hand, the classification accuracy increased because of the elimination of redundant features and the reduction of datasets dimensions.

Keywords: clustering, fake news detection, feature selection, machine learning, social media, support vector machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 154
662 National Scope Study on Resilience of Nursing Teams During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Brazilian Experience

Authors: Elucir Gir, Laelson Rochelle Milanês Sousa, Pedro Henrique Tertuliano Leoni, Carla Aparecida Arena Ventura, Ana Cristina de Oliveira e Silva, Renata Karina Reis

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Context and significance: Resilience is a protective agent for the physical and mental well-being of nursing professionals. Team members are constantly subjected to high levels of work stress that can negatively impact care performance and users of health services. Stress levels have been exacerbated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the resilience of nursing professionals in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach carried out with professionals from nursing teams from all regions of Brazil. Data collection took place in the first year of the pandemic between October and December 2020. Data were obtained through an online questionnaire posted on social networks. The information collected included the sociodemographic characterization of the nursing professionals and the Brief Resilient Coping Scale was applied. Student's t-test for independent samples and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to compare resilience scores with sociodemographic variables. Results: 8,792 nursing professionals participated in the study, 5,767 (65.6%) were nurses, 7,437 (84.6%) were female and 2,643 (30.1%) were from the Northeast region of Brazil, 5,124 (58.8% ) had low levels of resilience. The results showed a statistically significant difference between the resilience score and the variables: professional category (p<0.001); sex (p = 0.003); age range (p<0.001); region of Brazil (p<0.001); marital status (p=0.029) and providing assistance in a field hospital (p<0.001). Conclusion: Participants in this study had, in general, low levels of resilience. There is an urgent need for actions aimed at promoting the psychological health of nursing professionals inserted in pandemic contexts. Descriptors: Psychological Resilience; Nursing professionals; COVID-19; SARSCoV-2.

Keywords: psychological resilience, nursing professionals, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2

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661 Adaptive Certificate-Based Mutual Authentication Protocol for Mobile Grid Infrastructure

Authors: H. Parveen Begam, M. A. Maluk Mohamed

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Mobile Grid Computing is an environment that allows sharing and coordinated use of diverse resources in dynamic, heterogeneous and distributed environment using different types of electronic portable devices. In a grid environment the security issues are like authentication, authorization, message protection and delegation handled by GSI (Grid Security Infrastructure). Proving better security between mobile devices and grid infrastructure is a major issue, because of the open nature of wireless networks, heterogeneous and distributed environments. In a mobile grid environment, the individual computing devices may be resource-limited in isolation, as an aggregated sum, they have the potential to play a vital role within the mobile grid environment. Some adaptive methodology or solution is needed to solve the issues like authentication of a base station, security of information flowing between a mobile user and a base station, prevention of attacks within a base station, hand-over of authentication information, communication cost of establishing a session key between mobile user and base station, computing complexity of achieving authenticity and security. The sharing of resources of the devices can be achieved only through the trusted relationships between the mobile hosts (MHs). Before accessing the grid service, the mobile devices should be proven authentic. This paper proposes the dynamic certificate based mutual authentication protocol between two mobile hosts in a mobile grid environment. The certificate generation process is done by CA (Certificate Authority) for all the authenticated MHs. Security (because of validity period of the certificate) and dynamicity (transmission time) can be achieved through the secure service certificates. Authentication protocol is built on communication services to provide cryptographically secured mechanisms for verifying the identity of users and resources.

Keywords: mobile grid computing, certificate authority (CA), SSL/TLS protocol, secured service certificates

Procedia PDF Downloads 286
660 A Good Start for Digital Transformation of the Companies: A Literature and Experience-Based Predefined Roadmap

Authors: Batuhan Kocaoglu

Abstract:

Nowadays digital transformation is a hot topic both in service and production business. For the companies who want to stay alive in the following years, they should change how they do their business. Industry leaders started to improve their ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) like backbone technologies to digital advances such as analytics, mobility, sensor-embedded smart devices, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and more. Selecting the appropriate technology for the related business problem also is a hot topic. Besides this, to operate in the modern environment and fulfill rapidly changing customer expectations, a digital transformation of the business is required and change the way the business runs, affect how they do their business. Even the digital transformation term is trendy the literature is limited and covers just the philosophy instead of a solid implementation plan. Current studies urge firms to start their digital transformation, but few tell us how to do. The huge investments scare companies with blur definitions and concepts. The aim of this paper to solidify the steps of the digital transformation and offer a roadmap for the companies and academicians. The proposed roadmap is developed based upon insights from the literature review, semi-structured interviews, and expert views to explore and identify crucial steps. We introduced our roadmap in the form of 8 main steps: Awareness; Planning; Operations; Implementation; Go-live; Optimization; Autonomation; Business Transformation; including a total of 11 sub-steps with examples. This study also emphasizes four dimensions of the digital transformation mainly: Readiness assessment; Building organizational infrastructure; Building technical infrastructure; Maturity assessment. Finally, roadmap corresponds the steps with three main terms used in digital transformation literacy as Digitization; Digitalization; and Digital Transformation. The resulted model shows that 'business process' and 'organizational issues' should be resolved before technology decisions and 'digitization'. Companies can start their journey with the solid steps, using the proposed roadmap to increase the success of their project implementation. Our roadmap is also adaptable for relevant Industry 4.0 and enterprise application projects. This roadmap will be useful for companies to persuade their top management for investments. Our results can be used as a baseline for further researches related to readiness assessment and maturity assessment studies.

Keywords: digital transformation, digital business, ERP, roadmap

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659 Selection of New Business in Brazilian Companies Incubators through Hierarchical Methodology

Authors: Izabel Cristina Zattar, Gilberto Passos Lima, Guilherme Schünemann de Oliveira

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In Brazil, there are several institutions committed to the development of new businesses based on product innovation. Among them are business incubators, universities and science institutes. Business incubators can be defined as nurseries for new companies, which may be in the technology segment, discussed in this article. Business incubators provide services related to infrastructure, such as physical space and meeting rooms. Besides these services, incubators also offer assistance in the form of information and communication, access to finance, relationship networks and business monitoring and mentoring processes. Business incubators support not all technology companies. One of the business incubators tasks is to assess the nature and feasibility of new business proposals. To assist this goal, this paper proposes a methodology for evaluating new business using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). This paper presents the concepts used in the assessing methodology application for new business, concepts that have been tested with positive results in practice. This study counts on three main steps: first, a hierarchy was built, based on new business manuals used by the business incubators. These books and manuals relate business selection requirements, such as the innovation status and other technological aspects. Then, a questionnaire was generated, in order to guide incubator experts in the parity comparisons at all hierarchy levels. The weights of each requirement are calculated from information obtained from the questionnaire responses. Finally, the proposed method was applied to evaluate five new business proposals, which were applying to be part of a company incubator. The main result is the classification of these new businesses, which helped the incubator experts to decide what companies were more eligible to work with. This classification may also be helpful to the decision-making process of business incubators in future selection processes.

Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Brazilian companies incubators, technology companies, incubator

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658 Tamukkana, Ancient Achaemenids City near the Persian Gulf

Authors: Ghulamhossein Nezami

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Civilizations based in Iran, especially in the south, have always realized the all-around importance of the Persian Sea and for various reasons, have paid full attention to it. The first of these was the pre-Aryan government, Ilam in the coastal province of Sharihum and the city of Lian (now the port of Bushehr) in terms of trade, defense and religion. With the establishment of the Achaemenids on the entire plateau of Iran to the center of Persia, they created several communication routes from Parseh to the shores of the Persian Gulf, which ended in the present Bushehr province. This coastal area was extended by a road in the coastal plain to the more southern parts of the ports of Ausinze - according to Ptolemy the port of Siraf before the Sassanids - and Epstane and Hormozia in the present-day Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the ancient city of Temukknana, whose new historical documents testify to its extraordinary importance in the Achaemenid period, especially Darius I of the Achaemenids, from a strategic position with the coastal areas, the coasts and on the other hand with the gamers, the political center. - Achaemenid administration, had. New archeological evidence, research, and excavations show that both the famous Achaemenid kings and courtiers paid special attention to Tamukknana. The discovery of a tomb and three Achaemenid palaces from before the reign of Cyrus to Xerxes in this region showed the importance of the strategic, security-defense and commercial position of this region, extraordinary for the Achaemenids. Therefore, the city of Temukkana in the Dashtestan region of present-day Bushehr province became an important Achaemenid center on the Persian Gulf coast and became the political-economic center of gravity of the Achaemenids and the regulator of communication networks on the Persian Gulf coast. This event showed that the Achaemenids attached importance to their economic goals and oversight of their vast territory by the Persian Gulf. Methods: Book resources and field study.

Keywords: Achaemenids, Bushehr, Persian Gulf, Tamukkana

Procedia PDF Downloads 170