Search results for: computer processing of large databases

Authors: Fangwei Zhu, Wei Tian, Linzhuo Wang, Miao Yu

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Megaproject has long been a critical issue in project governance, for its low success rate and large impact on society. Although the extant literature on megaproject governance is vast, to our best knowledge, the lacking of a thorough literature review makes it hard for us to gain a holistic view on current scenario of megaproject governance. The study conducts a systematic literature review process to analyze the existing literatures on megaproject governance. The finding indicates that mega project governance needs to be handled at network level and forming a network level governance provides a holistic framework for governing megaproject towards sustainable development of the projects. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as future studies and limitations, were discussed.

Keywords: megaproject, governance, literature review, network

Procedia PDF Downloads 185

Authors: Sea Hoon Lim

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A superfluid is a fluid of bosons that flows without resistance. In order to be a superfluid, a substance’s particles must behave like bosons, yet remain mobile enough to be considered a superfluid. Bosons are low-temperature particles that can be in all energy states at the same time. If bosons were to be cooled down, then the particles will all try to be on the lowest energy state, which is called the Bose Einstein condensation. The temperature when bosons start to matter is when the temperature has reached its critical temperature. For example, when Helium reaches its critical temperature of 2.17K, the liquid density drops and becomes a superfluid with zero viscosity. However, most materials will solidify -and thus not remain fluids- at temperatures well above the temperature at which they would otherwise become a superfluid. Only a few substances currently known to man are capable of at once remaining a fluid and manifesting boson statistics. The most well-known of these is helium and its isotopes. Because hydrogen is lighter than helium, and thus expected to manifest Bose statistics at higher temperatures than helium, one might expect hydrogen to also be a superfluid. As of today, however, no one has yet been able to produce a bulk, hydrogen superfluid. The reason why hydrogen did not form a superfluid in the past is its intermolecular interactions. As a result, hydrogen molecules are much more likely to crystallize than their helium counterparts. The key to creating a hydrogen superfluid is therefore finding a way to reduce the effect of the interactions among hydrogen molecules, postponing the solidification to lower temperature. In this work, we attempt via computer simulation to produce bulk superfluid hydrogen through binary mixing. Binary mixture is a technique of mixing two pure substances in order to avoid crystallization and enhance super fluidity. Our mixture here is KALJ H2. We then sample the partition function using this Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC), which is well-suited for the equilibrium properties of low-temperature bosons and captures not only the statistics but also the dynamics of Hydrogen. Via this sampling, we will then produce a time evolution of the substance and see if it exhibits superfluid properties.

Keywords: superfluidity, hydrogen, binary mixture, physics

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Authors: Ji Chan Kim, Seok Hong Min, Tae Kwon Ha

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The effect of Yttrium addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Sn-Zn eutectic alloy, which has been attracting intensive focus as a Pb-free solder material, was investigated in this study. Phase equilibrium has been calculated by using FactSage® to evaluate the composition and fraction of equilibrium intermetallic compounds and construct a phase diagram. In the case of Sn-8.8 Zn eutectic alloy, the as-cast microstructure was typical lamellar. With addition of 0.25 wt. %Y, a large amount of pro-eutectic phases have been observed and various YZnx intermetallic compounds were expected to successively form during cooling. Hardness of Sn-8.8 Zn alloy was not affected by Y-addition and both alloys could be rolled by 90% at room temperature.

Keywords: lead-free solder, zn-al-sn alloy, phase equilibrium, rolling, microstructure, hardness

Procedia PDF Downloads 296

Authors: Yunwei Tang, Linhai Jing, Hui Li, Qingjie Liu, Xiuxia Li, Qi Yan, Haifeng Ding

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The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is an endangered species, mainly live in central China, where bamboos act as the main food source of wild giant pandas. Knowledge of spatial distribution of bamboos therefore becomes important for identifying the habitat of giant pandas. There have been ongoing studies for mapping bamboos and other tree species using remote sensing. WorldView-2 (WV-2) is the first high resolution commercial satellite with eight Multi-Spectral (MS) bands. Recent studies demonstrated that WV-2 imagery has a high potential in classification of tree species. The advanced classification techniques are important for utilising high spatial resolution imagery. It is generally agreed that object-based image analysis is a more desirable method than pixel-based analysis in processing high spatial resolution remotely sensed data. Classifiers that use spatial information combined with spectral information are known as contextual classifiers. It is suggested that contextual classifiers can achieve greater accuracy than non-contextual classifiers. Thus, spatial correlation can be incorporated into classifiers to improve classification results. The study area is located at Wuyipeng area in Wolong, Sichuan Province. The complex environment makes it difficult for information extraction since bamboos are sparsely distributed, mixed with brushes, and covered by other trees. Extensive fieldworks in Wuyingpeng were carried out twice. The first one was on 11th June, 2014, aiming at sampling feature locations for geometric correction and collecting training samples for classification. The second fieldwork was on 11th September, 2014, for the purposes of testing the classification results. In this study, spectral separability analysis was first performed to select appropriate MS bands for classification. Also, the reflectance analysis provided information for expanding sample points under the circumstance of knowing only a few. Then, a spatially weighted object-based k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) classifier was applied to the selected MS bands to identify seven land cover types (bamboo, conifer, broadleaf, mixed forest, brush, bare land, and shadow), accounting for spatial correlation within classes using geostatistical modelling. The spatially weighted k-NN method was compared with three alternatives: the traditional k-NN classifier, the Support Vector Machine (SVM) method and the Classification and Regression Tree (CART). Through field validation, it was proved that the classification result obtained using the spatially weighted k-NN method has the highest overall classification accuracy (77.61%) and Kappa coefficient (0.729); the producer’s accuracy and user’s accuracy achieve 81.25% and 95.12% for the bamboo class, respectively, also higher than the other methods. Photos of tree crowns were taken at sample locations using a fisheye camera, so the canopy density could be estimated. It is found that it is difficult to identify bamboo in the areas with a large canopy density (over 0.70); it is possible to extract bamboos in the areas with a median canopy density (from 0.2 to 0.7) and in a sparse forest (canopy density is less than 0.2). In summary, this study explores the ability of WV-2 imagery for bamboo extraction in a mountainous region in Sichuan. The study successfully identified the bamboo distribution, providing supporting knowledge for assessing the habitats of giant pandas.

Keywords: bamboo mapping, classification, geostatistics, k-NN, worldview-2

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Authors: Nalinee Sophatsathit

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This paper presents a variation of navigation systems which tallies every node along the shortest path from start to destination nodes. The underlying technique rests on the well-established Dijkstra Algorithm. The ultimate goal is to serve as a user navigation guide that furnishes stop over cost of every node along this shortest path, whereby users can decide whether or not to visit any specific nodes. The output is an implementable module that can be further refined to run on the Internet and smartphone technology. This will benefit large organizations having physical installations spreaded over wide area such as hospitals, universities, etc. The savings on service personnel, let alone lost time and unproductive work, are attributive to innovative navigation system management.

Keywords: navigation systems, shortest path, smartphone technology, user navigation guide

Procedia PDF Downloads 317

Authors: Abdelkader Hadjoudja, Hajar Bouazza

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The PLD/CPLD devices are widely used for logic synthesis since several decades. Based on sum of product terms (PTs) architecture, the PLD/CPLD offer a high degree of flexibility to support various application requirements. They are suitable for large combinational logic, finite state machines as well as intensive I/O designs. CPLDs offer very predictable timing characteristics and are therefore ideal for critical control applications. This paper describes how the logic synthesis techniques, such as 1) XOR detection, 2) logic doubling, 3) complement of a Boolean function are combined, applied and used to optimize the CPLDs devices architecture that is based on PAL-like macrocells. Our goal is to use these techniques for minimizing the number of macrocells required to implement a circuit and minimize the delay of mapped circuit.

Keywords: CPLD, doubling, optimization, XOR

Procedia PDF Downloads 266

Authors: Matthew Montebello

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Student engagement within a virtual learning environment generates masses of data points that can significantly contribute to the learning analytics that lead to decision support. Ideally, similar data is collected during student interaction with a physical learning space, and as a consequence, data is present at a large scale, even in relatively small classes. In this paper, we report of such an occurrence during classes held in a HiFlex modality as we investigate the advantages of adopting such a methodology. We plan to take full advantage of the learner-generated data in an attempt to further enhance the effectiveness of the adopted learning environment. This could shed crucial light on operating modalities that higher education institutions around the world will switch to in a post-COVID era.

Keywords: HiFlex, big data in higher education, learning analytics, virtual learning environment

Procedia PDF Downloads 183

Authors: Ira V. Stancheva, Ely G. Zayova, Maria P. Geneva, Marieta G. Hristozkova, Lyudmila I. Dimitrova, Maria I. Petrova

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The study describes a highly efficient and low-cost protocol for rapid and mass in vitro propagation of medicinal and aromatic plant species (Hyssopus officinalis L., Lamiaceae). Hyssop is an important aromatic herb used for its medicinal values because of its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. The protocol for large-scale multiplication of this aromatic plant was developed using young stem tips explants. The explants were sterilized with 0.04% mercuric chloride (HgCl₂) solution for 20 minutes and washing three times with sterile distilled water in 15 minutes. The cultural media was full and half strength Murashige and Skoog medium containing indole-3-butyric acid. Full and ½ Murashige and Skoog media without auxin were used as controls. For each variant 20 glass tubes with two plants were used. In each tube two tip and nodal explants were inoculated. Maximum shoot and root number were obtained on ½ Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with 0.1 mg L-1 indole-3-butyric acid at the same time after four weeks of culture. The number of shoots per explant and shoot height were considered. The data on rooting percentage, the number of roots per plant and root length were collected after the same cultural period. The highest percentage of survival 85% for this medicinal plant was recorded in mixture of soil, sand and perlite (2:1:1 v/v/v). This mixture was most suitable for acclimatization of all propagated plants. Ex vitro acclimatization was carried out at 24±1 °C and 70% relative humidity under 16 h illuminations (50 μmol m⁻²s⁻¹). After adaptation period, the all plants were transferred to the field. The plants flowered within three months after transplantation. Phenotypic variations in the acclimatized plants were not observed. An average of 90% of the acclimatized plants survived after transferring into the field. All the in vitro propagated plants displayed normal development under the field conditions. Developed in vitro techniques could provide a promising alternative tool for large-scale propagation that increases the number of homologous plants for field cultivation. Acknowledgments: This study was conducted with financial support from National Science Fund at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, Project DN06/7 17.12.16.

Keywords: Hyssopus officinalis L., in vitro culture, micro propagation, acclimatization

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Authors: Rashmi Raghunandan, Sanjana Shankar, Rakshitha K. Bhat

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Social media contributes a vast amount of data and information about individuals to the internet. This project will greatly reduce the need for unnecessary manual analysis of large and diverse social media profiles by filtering out and combining the useful information from various social media profiles, eliminating irrelevant data. It differs from the existing social media aggregators in that it does not provide a consolidated view of various profiles. Instead, it provides consolidated INFORMATION derived from the subject’s posts and other activities. It also allows analysis over multiple profiles and analytics based on several profiles. We strive to provide a query system to provide a natural language answer to questions when a user does not wish to go through the entire profile. The information provided can be filtered according to the different use cases it is used for.

Keywords: social network, analysis, Facebook, Linkedin, git, big data

Procedia PDF Downloads 426

Authors: Ravindra Gohane, S. V. Deshmukh

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The coal acts as a fuel on a very large scale. Coal forms the basis of any thermal power plant. Different types of coal are available for utilization. The moisture content, volatile nature and ash content determines the type of the coal. Out of these moisture plays a very important part as it is present naturally within the coal and is added while handling the coal and is termed as wet coal. The problems of wet coal are many and more particularly during rainy season such as generation loss, jamming of crusher, reduction in calorific value, transportation of coal etc. Efforts are made to resolve the problems arising out of wet coal worldwide. This paper highlights the issue of resolving the problem due to wet coal with the help of a case study involving installation of V-type wiper on the conveyer belt.

Keywords: coal handling plant, wet coal, v-type, generation

Procedia PDF Downloads 338

Authors: Benjamin Castillo, Luis Pastenes, Fernando Cordova

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The pathogen growth in animal source foods is a common problem in the food industry, causing monetary losses due to the spoiling of products or food intoxication outbreaks in the community. In this sense, the quality of the product is reflected by the population of deteriorating agents present in it, which are mainly bacteria. The factors which are likely associated with freshness in animal source foods are temperature and processing, storage, and transport times. However, the level of deterioration of products depends, in turn, on the characteristics of the bacterial population, causing the decomposition or spoiling, such as pH level and toxins. Knowing the growth dynamics of the agents that are involved in product contamination allows the monitoring for more efficient processing. This means better quality and reasonable costs, along with a better estimation of necessary time and temperature intervals for transport and storage in order to preserve product quality. The objective of this project is to design a secondary model that allows measuring the impact on temperature bacterial growth and the competition for pH adequacy and release of bacteriocins in order to describe such phenomenon and, thus, estimate food product half-life with the least possible risk of deterioration or spoiling. In order to achieve this objective, the authors propose an analysis of a three-dimensional ordinary differential which includes; logistic bacterial growth extended by the inhibitory action of bacteriocins including the effect of the medium pH; change in the medium pH levels through an adaptation of the Luedeking-Piret kinetic model; Bacteriocin concentration modeled similarly to pH levels. These three dimensions are being influenced by the temperature at all times. Then, this differential system is expanded, taking into consideration the variable temperature and the concentration of pulsed bacteriocins, which represent characteristics inherent of the modeling, such as transport and storage, as well as the incorporation of substances that inhibit bacterial growth. The main results lead to the fact that temperature changes in an early stage of transport increased the bacterial population significantly more than if it had increased during the final stage. On the other hand, the incorporation of bacteriocins, as in other investigations, proved to be efficient in the short and medium-term since, although the population of bacteria decreased, once the bacteriocins were depleted or degraded over time, the bacteria eventually returned to their regular growth rate. The efficacy of the bacteriocins at low temperatures decreased slightly, which equates with the fact that their natural degradation rate also decreased. In summary, the implementation of the mathematical model allowed the simulation of a set of possible bacteria present in animal based products, along with their properties, in various transport and storage situations, which led us to state that for inhibiting bacterial growth, the optimum is complementary low constant temperatures and the initial use of bacteriocins.

Keywords: bacterial growth, bacteriocins, mathematical modelling, temperature

Procedia PDF Downloads 120

Authors: J.R.S.S. Kumara, M.A.R.M. Fernando, S.Venkatesh, D.K. Jayaratne

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Protection of heritage monuments against lightning has become extremely important as far as their historical values are concerned. When such structures are large and tall, the risk of lightning initiated from both cloud and ground can be high. This paper presents a lightning risk analysis of three giant stupas in Anuradhapura era (fourth century BC onwards) in Sri Lanka. The three stupas are Jethawaaramaya (269-296 AD), Abayagiriya (88-76 BC) and Ruwanweliseya (161-137 BC), the third, fifth and seventh largest ancient structures in the world. These stupas are solid brick structures consisting of a base, a near hemispherical dome and a conical spire on the top. The ancient stupas constructed with a dielectric crystal on the top and connected to the ground through a conducting material, was considered as the hypothesis for their original lightning protection technique. However, at present, all three stupas are protected with Franklin rod type air termination systems located on top of the spire. First, a risk analysis was carried out according to IEC 62305 by considering the isokeraunic level of the area and the height of the stupas. Then the standard protective angle method and rolling sphere method were used to locate the possible touching points on the surface of the stupas. The study was extended to estimate the critical current which could strike on the unprotected areas of the stupas. The equations proposed by (Uman 2001) and (Cooray2007) were used to find the striking distances. A modified version of rolling sphere method was also applied to see the effects of upward leaders. All these studies were carried out for two scenarios: with original (i.e. ancient) lightning protection system and with present (i.e. new) air termination system. The field distribution on the surface of the stupa in the presence of a downward leader was obtained using finite element based commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics for further investigations of lightning risks. The obtained results were analyzed and compared each other to evaluate the performance of ancient and new lightning protection methods and identify suitable methods to design lightning protection systems for stupas. According to IEC standards, all three stupas with new and ancient lightning protection system has Level IV protection as per protection angle method. However according to rolling sphere method applied with Uman’s equation protection level is III. The same method applied with Cooray’s equation always shows a high risk with respect to Uman’s equation. It was found that there is a risk of lightning strikes on the dome and square chamber of the stupa, and the corresponding critical current values were different with respect to the equations used in the rolling sphere method and modified rolling sphere method.

Keywords: Stupa, heritage, lightning protection, rolling sphere method, protection level

Procedia PDF Downloads 227

Authors: Rahimah Akbar, Abdullah Al-Hashemi, Hanan Taqi, Taiba Sadeq

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As technology continues to develop, teaching curriculums in both schools and universities have begun adopting a more computer/digital based approach to the transmission of knowledge and information, as opposed to the more old-fashioned use of textbooks. This gives rise to the question: Are there any differences in learning from a digital source over learning from a printed source, as in from a textbook? More specifically, which medium of information results in better long-term retention? A review of the confounding factors implicated in understanding the relationship between learning from the two different mediums was done. Alongside this, a 4-week cohort study involving 76 1st year English Language female students was performed, whereby the participants were divided into 2 groups. Group A studied material from a paper source (referred to as the Print Medium), and Group B studied material from a digital source (Digital Medium). The dependent variables were grading of memory recall indexed by a 4 point grading system, and total frequency of item repetition. The study was facilitated by advanced computer software called Super Memo. Results showed that, contrary to prevailing evidence, the Digital Medium group showed no statistically significant differences in terms of the shift from Remember (Episodic) to Know (Semantic) when all confounding factors were accounted for. The shift from Random Guess and Familiar to Remember occurred faster in the Digital Medium than it did in the Print Medium.

Keywords: digital medium, print medium, long-term memory recall, episodic memory, semantic memory, super memo, forgetting index, frequency of repetitions, total time spent

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Eylem Güzel, Soner Güler, Mustafa Gülen

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Masonry is the oldest building materials since ancient times. Adobe, stone, brick are the most widespread materials used in the construction of masonry buildings. Masonry buildings compose of a large part of building stock especially in rural areas and underdeveloped regions of Turkey. The seismic performance of adobe masonry buildings is vulnerable against earthquake effects. In this study, after 2011 Van earthquake with magnitude 7.2 Mw, damages occurred in existing adobe masonry buildings in Van city is investigated. The observed damages and reasons of adobe masonry buildings in design and construction phase are specified and evaluated.

Keywords: adobe masonry buildings, earthquake effects, damages, seismic performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 306

Authors: Artur Tyliszczak, Ewa Szymanek, Maciej Marek

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Flow through granular materials is important to a vast array of industries, for instance in construction industry where granular layers are used for bulkheads and isolators, in chemical engineering and catalytic reactors where large surfaces of packed granular beds intensify chemical reactions, or in energy production systems, where granulates are promising materials for heat storage and heat transfer media. Despite the common usage of granulates and extensive research performed in this field, phenomena occurring between granular solid elements or between solids and fluid are still not fully understood. In the present work we analyze the heat exchange process between the flowing medium (gas, liquid) and solid material inside the granular layers. We consider them as a composite of isolated solid elements and inter-granular spaces in which a gas or liquid can flow. The structure of the layer is controlled by shapes of particular granular elements (e.g., spheres, cylinders, cubes, Raschig rings), its spatial distribution or effective characteristic dimension (total volume or surface area). We will analyze to what extent alteration of these parameters influences on flow characteristics (turbulent intensity, mixing efficiency, heat transfer) inside the layer and behind it. Analysis of flow inside granular layers is very complicated because the use of classical experimental techniques (LDA, PIV, fibber probes) inside the layers is practically impossible, whereas the use of probes (e.g. thermocouples, Pitot tubes) requires drilling of holes inside the solid material. Hence, measurements of the flow inside granular layers are usually performed using for instance advanced X-ray tomography. In this respect, theoretical or numerical analyses of flow inside granulates seem crucial. Application of discrete element methods in combination with the classical finite volume/finite difference approaches is problematic as a mesh generation process for complex granular material can be very arduous. A good alternative for simulation of flow in complex domains is an immersed boundary-volume penalization (IB-VP) in which the computational meshes have simple Cartesian structure and impact of solid objects on the fluid is mimicked by source terms added to the Navier-Stokes and energy equations. The present paper focuses on application of the IB-VP method combined with large eddy simulation (LES). The flow solver used in this work is a high-order code (SAILOR), which was used previously in various studies, including laminar/turbulent transition in free flows and also for flows in wavy channels, wavy pipes and over various shape obstacles. In these cases a formal order of approximation turned out to be in between 1 and 2, depending on the test case. The current research concentrates on analyses of the flows in dense granular layers with elements distributed in a deterministic regular manner and validation of the results obtained using LES-IB method and body-fitted approach. The comparisons are very promising and show very good agreement. It is found that the size, number of elements and their distribution have huge impact on the obtained results. Ordering of the granular elements (or lack of it) affects both the pressure drop and efficiency of the heat transfer as it significantly changes mixing process.

Keywords: granular layers, heat transfer, immersed boundary method, numerical simulations

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Authors: Perpetual Onyejelem, Kenichi Matsui

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Solid waste management is one essential area for urban administration to achieve environmental sustainability. Proper solid waste management (SWM) improves the environment by reducing diseases and increasing public health. On the other way, improper SWM practices negatively impact public health and environmental sustainability. This article evaluates SWM in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, with the goal of determining the current solid waste management practices and their health implications. This study used secondary data, which relies on existing published literature and official documents. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement and its four-stage inclusion/exclusion criteria were utilized as part of a systematic literature review technique to locate the literature that concerns SWM practices and the implementation of solid waste management policies between 2014-2023 in PortHarcourt and its health effects from specific databases (Scopus and Google Scholar). The results found that despite the existence and implementation of the Rivers State Waste Management Policy and the formulation of the National Policy on Solid Waste Management in Port Harcourt, residents continued to dump waste in drainages. They were unaware of waste sorting and dumped waste haphazardly. This trend has persisted due to a lack of political commitment to the effective implementation and monitoring of policies and strategies and a lack of training provided to waste collectors regarding the SWM approach, which involves sorting and separating waste. In addition, inadequate remuneration for waste collectors, the absence of community participation in policy formulation, and insufficient awareness among residents regarding the 3R approach are also contributory factors. This caused the emergence of vector-borne diseases such as malaria, lassa fever, and cholera in Port Harcourt, increasing the expense of healthcare for locals, particularly low-income households. The study urges the government to prioritize protecting the health of its citizens by studying the methods other nations have taken to address the problem of solid waste management and adopting those that work best for their region. The bottom-up strategy should be used to include locals in developing solutions. However, citizens who are always the most impacted by this issue should launch initiatives to address it and put pressure on the government to assist them when they have limitations.

Keywords: health effects, solid waste management practices, environmental pollution, Port-Harcourt

Procedia PDF Downloads 45

Authors: Nada Jasim Habeeb, Rana Saad Mohammed, Muntaha Khudair Abbass

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For more efficient and fast video summarization, this paper presents a surveillance video summarization method. The presented method works to improve video summarization technique. This method depends on temporal differencing to extract most important data from large video stream. This method uses histogram differencing and Sum Conditional Variance which is robust against to illumination variations in order to extract motion objects. The experimental results showed that the presented method gives better output compared with temporal differencing based summarization techniques.

Keywords: temporal differencing, video summarization, histogram differencing, sum conditional variance

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Authors: Rogelio Luck, Yucheng Liu

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This paper proposes the continuous-time singular value decomposition (SVD) for the impulse response function, a special kind of Green’s functions e⁻⁽ᵗ⁻ ᵀ⁾, in order to find a set of singular functions and singular values so that the convolutions of such function with the set of singular functions on a specified domain are the solutions to the inhomogeneous differential equations for those singular functions. A numerical example was illustrated to verify the proposed method. Besides the continuous-time SVD, a discrete-time SVD is also presented for the impulse response function, which is modeled using a Toeplitz matrix in the discrete system. The proposed method has broad applications in signal processing, dynamic system analysis, acoustic analysis, thermal analysis, as well as macroeconomic modeling.

Keywords: singular value decomposition, impulse response function, Green’s function , Toeplitz matrix , Hankel matrix

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Mohammad Moezzibadi, Isabelle Charpentier, Adrien Wanko, Robert Mosé

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The calibration of hydrodynamic parameters for subsurface constructed wetlands (CWs) is a sensitive process since highly non-linear equations are involved in unsaturated flow modeling. CW systems are engineered systems designed to favour natural treatment processes involving wetland vegetation, soil, and their microbial flora. Their significant efficiency at reducing the ecological impact of urban runoff has been recently proved in the field. Numerical flow modeling in a vertical variably saturated CW is here carried out by implementing the Richards model by means of a mixed hybrid finite element method (MHFEM), particularly well adapted to the simulation of heterogeneous media, and the van Genuchten-Mualem parametrization. For validation purposes, MHFEM results were compared to those of HYDRUS (a software based on a finite element discretization). As van Genuchten-Mualem soil hydrodynamic parameters depend on water content, their estimation is subject to considerable experimental and numerical studies. In particular, the sensitivity analysis performed with respect to the van Genuchten-Mualem parameters reveals a predominant influence of the shape parameters α, n and the saturated conductivity of the filter on the piezometric heads, during saturation and desaturation. Modeling issues arise when the soil reaches oven-dry conditions. A particular attention should also be brought to boundary condition modeling (surface ponding or evaporation) to be able to tackle different sequences of rainfall-runoff events. For proper parameter identification, large field datasets would be needed. As these are usually not available, notably due to the randomness of the storm events, we thus propose a simple, robust and low-cost numerical method for the inverse modeling of the soil hydrodynamic properties. Among the methods, the variational data assimilation technique introduced by Le Dimet and Talagrand is applied. To that end, a variational data assimilation technique is implemented by applying automatic differentiation (AD) to augment computer codes with derivative computations. Note that very little effort is needed to obtain the differentiated code using the on-line Tapenade AD engine. Field data are collected for a three-layered CW located in Strasbourg (Alsace, France) at the water edge of the urban water stream Ostwaldergraben, during several months. Identification experiments are conducted by comparing measured and computed piezometric head by means of the least square objective function. The temporal variability of hydrodynamic parameter is then assessed and analyzed.

Keywords: automatic differentiation, constructed wetland, inverse method, mixed hybrid FEM, sensitivity analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: Sasirin Srisomkiew, Sireewan Ratsadornasai, Tanomkwan Tipvong, Isariya Meesing

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Cassava is an important food source in the tropics and has recently gained attention as a potential source of biofuel that can replace limited fossil fuel sources. As a result, the demand for cassava production to support industries both within the country and abroad has increased. In Thailand, most farmers prefer to grow cassava in sandy and sandy loam areas where the soil has low natural fertility. Cassava is a tuber plant that has large roots to store food, resulting in the absorption of large amounts of nutrients from the soil, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Therefore, planting cassava in the same area for a long period causes soil erosion and decreases soil fertility. The loss of soil fertility affects the economy, society, and food and energy security of the country. Therefore, it is necessary to know the level of soil fertility and the amount of nutrients in the soil. To address this problem, this study applies geo-informatics technology and mathematical equations to assess erosion and soil fertility and to analyze factors affecting the amount of cassava production in Maha Sarakham Province. The results show that the area for cassava cultivation has increased in every district of Maha Sarakham Province between 2015-2022, with the total area increasing to 180,922 rai or 5.47% of the province’s total area during this period. Furthermore, it was found that it is possible to assess areas with soil erosion problems that had a moderate level of erosion in areas with high erosion rates ranging from 5-15 T/rai/year. Soil fertility assessment and information obtained from the soil nutrient map for 2015–2023 reveal that farmers in the area have improved the soil by adding chemical fertilizers along with organic fertilizers, such as manure and green manure, to increase the amount of nutrients in the soil. This is because the soil resources of Maha Sarakham Province mostly have relatively low agricultural potential due to the soil texture being sand and sandy loam. In this scenario, the ability to absorb nutrients is low, and the soil holds little water, so it is naturally low in fertility. Moreover, agricultural soil problems were found, including the presence of saline soil, sandy soil, and acidic soil, which is a serious restriction on land use because it affects the release of nutrients into the soil. The results of this study may be used as a guideline for managing soil resources and improving soil quality to prevent soil degradation problems that may occur in the future.

Keywords: Cassava, geoinformatics, soil erosion, soil fertility, land use change

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Authors: Amit Kamra, V. K. Jain, Pragya

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Mammography is widely used technique for breast cancer screening. There are various other techniques for breast cancer screening but mammography is the most reliable and effective technique. The images obtained through mammography are of low contrast which causes problem for the radiologists to interpret. Hence, a high quality image is mandatory for the processing of the image for extracting any kind of information from it. Many contrast enhancement algorithms have been developed over the years. In the present work, an efficient morphology based technique is proposed for contrast enhancement of masses in mammographic images. The proposed method is based on Multiscale Morphology and it takes into consideration the scale of the structuring element. The proposed method is compared with other state-of-the-art techniques. The experimental results show that the proposed method is better both qualitatively and quantitatively than the other standard contrast enhancement techniques.

Keywords: enhancement, mammography, multi-scale, mathematical morphology

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Authors: Telmen Dashdondov, Selenge Erdenechimeg

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Padus asiatica contains large quantities of polyphenolic compounds, and it is one of the most consumed fruits throughout the country. These compounds have the biological activity of the fruit and have long been used in traditional Mongolian medicine for diarrhea, coughs, pneumonia, and gastritis. In this study, we studied the solvents that can be used to make extracts from dried raw fruits; in order to determine the amount of tannin in Padus asiatica, we selected three solvents: distilled water, 20% ethanol, and 40% ethanol, and determined the amount of tannin. As a result, the amount of extract (distilled water) was 11.8%, the amount of extract (20% ethanol) was 15.7%, and the amount of extract (40% ethanol) was 8.2%. Therefore, it was found that tannins are extracted better in 20% ethanol solution.

Keywords: Padus asiatica, tannin, diarrhea, Mongolian medicinal plant

Procedia PDF Downloads 150

Authors: Faiza Hussain, Usman Qamar

Abstract:

Synonym-based searching is recognized to be a complicated problem as text mining from unstructured data of web is challenging. Finding useful information which matches user need from bulk of web pages is a cumbersome task. In this paper, a novel and practical synonym retrieval technique is proposed for addressing this problem. For replacement of semantics, user intent is taken into consideration to realize the technique. Parts-of-Speech tagging is applied for pattern generation of the query and a thesaurus for this experiment was formed and used. Comparison with Non-Context Based Searching, Context Based searching proved to be a more efficient approach while dealing with linguistic semantics. This approach is very beneficial in doing intent based searching. Finally, results and future dimensions are presented.

Keywords: natural language processing, text mining, information retrieval, parts-of-speech tagging, grammar, semantics

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Authors: M. Obydul Haque Kamaly

Abstract:

This paper aims to provide a brief discussion on bay al-salam as a method of implementing Islamic Banking in the agricultural arena of Bangladesh. For this purpose, the nature and conditions of bay al-salam contracts will be first discussed. Next, the paper will focus on the comparison between conventional banks and Islamic banks and should answer how bay al-salam can be used as a popular method in agricultural transactions in the country. The paper is based on secondary data which is to describe bay al-salam as future proceedings for Islamic banking. Evidence suggests Islamic banking is very much practiced like modern conventional banking with certain restrictions imposed by Sharia and addresses a large number of business requirements successfully. Thus, it’s time for us to implement Islamic banking (bay al-salam) on our agricultural arena and to get most benefits from them.

Keywords: bay al-salam, agricultural banking, Islamic banking, implementation

Procedia PDF Downloads 247

Authors: Ridha Fethi Mechlouch, Ahlem Ayadi, Ammar Ben Brahim

Abstract:

Given the importance of the preservation of polyphenols and carotenoids during thermal processing, we attempted in this study to investigate the variation of these two parameters in faba beans during microwave treatment using different power densities (1; 2; and 3W/g), then to perform a mathematical modeling by using non-linear regression analysis to evaluate the models constants. The variation of the carotenoids and polyphenols ratio of faba beans and the models are tested to validate the experimental results. Exponential models were found to be suitable to describe the variation of caratenoid ratio (R²= 0.945, 0.927 and 0.946) for power densities (1; 2; and 3W/g) respectively, and polyphenol ratio (R²= 0.931, 0.989 and 0.982) for power densities (1; 2; and 3W/g) respectively. The effect of microwave power density Pd(W/g) on the coefficient k of models were also investigated. The coefficient is highly correlated (R² = 1) and can be expressed as a polynomial function.

Keywords: microwave treatment, power density, carotenoid, polyphenol, modeling

Procedia PDF Downloads 245

Authors: G .D. B. N. Kulasaooriya, H. B. S. Ariyarathne, I. Abeygunawardene, A. A. J. Rafarathne, B. V. Perera

Abstract:

Elephant is the largest resident of the wild and has small surface to volume ratio as well as less number of sweat glands which cause challenges to the thermoregulation of this mammal. However, this megaherbivore has adopted specialised meachanisms to maintain its thermal balance through behavioral adaptations, ear flapping and well anastomosed arterioles and venules of the ear. Nevertheless, little is known on the involvement of the skin in the process of thermoregulation. The present study was undertaken to monitor the water evaporation rate from the skin of unrestrained wild elephant calves throughout the day and to understand its importance in the thermoregulation. Seven baby elephants housed in the elephant transit home, Udawalawe were used. Ambient temparature, relative humidity (RH) and radiation heat load was monitored throughout the day of the study period. Similarly, surface temparature of the skin was taken at six points including lateral ear pinna, lateral body and the rump during the same period. The skin water evaporation was also measured from the same sites using cobolt chloride method. The surface are of the skin was determined by assigning geometrical shapes to each body part. The results showed that the ambient temperature gradually increased with the day reaching maximum around 3.00 pm. The relative humidity was lowest early in the morning. The radiation heat load did not show any significant change in the study period. The skin temperature was different among lateral ear pinna, lateral body and the rump where the highest temperature was on the rump and the lowest on the lateral ear pinna. The skin temperature gradually increase with increasing ambient temperature but there was not a strong correlation (R2 =53.53) between these two. The skin temperature had strong correlation with RH (p<0.05 R2 =70.84% ) but a significant relationship was not considered since the radiation heat load was not varying in large scale. The skin evaporative water loss had a weak negative correlation with ambient temperature (correlation coefficient= -0.01) whereas strong positive correlation with RH (correlation coefficient= 25.275 ) and no corelation with radiation heat load. It also appeared that skin water loss increases as the skin temperature increased. In the present study, it was observed that on average, skin of the baby elephant looses 403 g/m2/h of water. Based on these observations it can be concluded that a large volume of water is evaporated from the skin of baby elephants and evaporative heat loss may be contributing significantly to the thermoregulation. However, further investigation on the influence of environmental factors on evaporative heat loss has to be conducted to understand the thermoregulatory mechanisms of the baby elephant.

Keywords: thermoregulation, behavioral adaptations, evaporation, elephant

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: Arnold S. Freitas Neto, Rodrigo E. Coelho, Erick S. Mendonça

Abstract:

This study aimed to obtain an alloy of Iron and Aluminum in the proportion of 50% of atomicity for each constituent. Alloys were obtained by processing recycled aluminum and chips of 1200 series carbon steel in a high-energy mill. For the experiment, raw materials were processed thorough high energy milling before mixing the substances. Subsequently, the mixture of 1200 series carbon steel and Aluminum powder was carried out a milling process. Thereafter, hot compression was performed in a closed die in order to obtain the samples. The pieces underwent heat treatments, sintering and aging. Lastly, the composition and the mechanical properties of their hardness were analyzed. In this paper, results are compared with previous studies, which used iron powder of high purity instead of Carbon steel in the composition.

Keywords: Fe-Al alloys, high energy milling, metallography characterization, powder metallurgy

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Authors: Osama Mohamed Elrajubi, Idris El-Feghi, Mohamed Abu Baker Saghayer

Abstract:

This paper describes an identification of specific shapes within binary images using the morphological Hit-or-Miss Transform (HMT). Hit-or-Miss transform is a general binary morphological operation that can be used in searching of particular patterns of foreground and background pixels in an image. It is actually a basic operation of binary morphology since almost all other binary morphological operators are derived from it. The input of this method is a binary image and a structuring element (a template which will be searched in a binary image) while the output is another binary image. In this paper a modification of Hit-or-Miss transform has been proposed. The accuracy of algorithm is adjusted according to the similarity of the template and the sought template. The implementation of this method has been done by C language. The algorithm has been tested on several images and the results have shown that this new method can be used for similar shape detection.

Keywords: hit-or-miss operator transform, HMT, binary morphological operation, shape detection, binary images processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 313

Authors: Ghazala Hcini, Imen Jdey, Hela Ltifi

Abstract:

Malaria disease should be considered and handled as a potential restorative catastrophe. One of the most challenging tasks in the field of microscopy image processing is due to differences in test design and vulnerability of cell classifications. In this article, we focused on applying deep learning to classify patients by identifying images of infected and uninfected cells. We performed multiple forms, counting a classification approach using the Hue, Saturation, Value (HSV) color space. HSV is used since of its superior ability to speak to image brightness; at long last, for classification, a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture is created. Clusters of focus were used to deliver the classification. The highlights got to be forbidden, and a few more clamor sorts are included in the information. The suggested method has a precision of 99.79%, a recall value of 99.55%, and provides 99.96% accuracy.

Keywords: deep learning, convolutional neural network, image classification, color transformation, HSV color, malaria diagnosis, malaria cells images

Procedia PDF Downloads 75

Authors: Sandra Smart-Akande, Chaminda Hewage, Imtiaz Khan, Thanuja Mallikarachchi

Abstract:

According to UK police-recorded data, there has been a substantial increase in knife-related crime and youth violence in the UK since 2014 particularly in the London boroughs. These crime rates are disproportionally distributed across London with the majority of these crimes occurring in the highly deprived areas of London and among young people aged 11 to 24 with large discrepancies across ethnicity, age, gender and borough of residence. Comprehensive studies and literature have identified risk factors associated with a knife carrying among youth to be Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs), poor mental health, school or social exclusion, drug dealing, drug using, victim of violent crime, bullying, peer pressure or gang involvement, just to mention a few. ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood, this can be experiences or stressful events in the early life of a child and can lead to an increased risk of damaging health or social outcomes in the latter life of the individual. Research has shown that children or youths involved in youth violence have had childhood experience characterised by disproportionate adverse childhood experiences and substantial literature link ACEs to be associated with criminal or delinquent behavior. ACEs are commonly grouped by researchers into: Abuse (Physical, Verbal, Sexual), Neglect (Physical, Emotional) and Household adversities (Mental Illness, Incarcerated relative, Domestic violence, Parental Separation or Bereavement). To the author's best knowledge, no study to date has investigated how household mental health (mental health of a parent or mental health of a child) and domestic violence (domestic violence on a parent or domestic violence on a child) is related to knife homicides across the local authorities areas of London. This study seeks to address the gap by examining a large sample of data from the London Metropolitan Police Force and Characteristics of Children in Need data from the UK Department for Education. The aim of this review is to identify and synthesise evidence from data and a range of literature to identify the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and youth violence in the UK. Understanding the link between ACEs and future outcomes can support preventative action.

Keywords: adverse childhood experiences, domestic violence, mental health, youth violence, prediction analysis, London knife crime

Procedia PDF Downloads 103