Search results for: computer information systems

Authors: Jorge Gonzalez Camus, Valentin Keyantuo, Mahamadi Warma

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In this work, we obtain representation results for solutions of a time-fractional differential equation involving the discrete fractional Laplace operator in terms of generalized Wright functions. Such equations arise in the modeling of many physical systems, for example, chain processes in chemistry and radioactivity. The focus is on the linear problem of the simplified Moore - Gibson - Thompson equation, where the discrete fractional Laplacian and the Caputo fractional derivate of order on (0,2] are involved. As a particular case, we obtain the explicit solution for the discrete heat equation and discrete wave equation. Furthermore, we show the explicit solution for the equation involving the perturbed Laplacian by the identity operator. The main tool for obtaining the explicit solution are the Laplace and discrete Fourier transforms, and Stirling's formula. The methodology mainly is to apply both transforms in the equation, to find the inverse of each transform, and to prove that this solution is well defined, using Stirling´s formula.

Keywords: discrete fractional Laplacian, explicit representation of solutions, fractional heat and wave equations, fundamental

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Authors: Olumuyiwa I. Ojo, Kola Amao, Josiah A. Adeyemo, Fred A. O. Otieno

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A study was carried out to assess the environmental impact of Kampe (Omi) irrigation scheme with respect to public health hazards, the rising water table, salinity and alkalinity problems on the project site. A structured questionnaire was used as the main tool to gather information on the effect of the irrigation project on the various communities around the project site. The different sections of the questionnaire enabled the gathering of information ranging from general to more specific information. The results obtained from the study showed that the two effects are obvious: the 'positive effects' which include increasing the socioeconomic development of the entire communities, resulting in an increase in employment opportunities and better lifestyle and the 'negative effects' in which malaria (100% occurrence) and schistosomiasis (66.7%) were found to be active diseases caused by irrigation activities. Increase in height of water table and salinity is eminent in the irrigation site unless adequate drainage is provided. The collection and experimental analyses of representation soil and water samples from each scheme were used to assess the current status of each receptor. Results obtained indicate the absence of soil with sodium adsorption ration (SAR) values ranging from 3.0 to 3.89, exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) ranged from 3.8% to 5.5% while pH values ranged from 6.60 to 7.00. Drainage facilities of the project site are inadequate, therefore making it difficult to leach the soil and flood history is occasional.

Keywords: irrigation, impact, soil analysis, Nigeria

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Authors: Hussein Altartouri

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The purpose of this paper is to present a modeling and control of the active suspension system using robust state feedback controller implemented for a half car model. This system represents a mechatronic system which contains all the essential components to be considered a complete mechatronic system. This system must adapt different conditions which are difficult to compromise, such as disturbances, slippage, and motion on rough road (that contains rocks, stones, and other miscellanies). Some current automobile suspension systems use passive components only by utilizing spring and damping coefficient with fixed rates. Vehicle suspensions systems are used to provide good road handling and improve passenger comfort. Passive suspensions only offer compromise between these two conflicting criteria. Active suspension poses the ability to reduce the traditional design as a compromise between handling and comfort by directly controlling the suspensions force actuators. In this study, the robust state feedback controller implemented to the active suspensions system for half car model.

Keywords: half-car model, active suspension system, state feedback, road profile

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Authors: Danute Jablonskyte-Rasce, Laura Masilionyte

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The field experiments of different farming systems were conducted at Joniškėlis Experimental Station of the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in 2006–2016. The soil of the experimental site was Endocalcari-Endohypogleyic Cambisol (CMg-n-w-can). The research was designed to identify the effects of dry matter and nitrogen accumulated in the above-ground biomass of various catch crops grown after winter wheat on soil mineral nitrogen variation during the autumn and spring period in the presence of intensive leaching complex. Research was done in the soil differing in humus status in the organic and sustainable cropping systems by growing various plant mixtures as catch crops: narrow-leafed lupine (Lupinus angustifolius L.) and oil radish (Raphanus sativus var. Oleifera L.), white mustard (Sinapis alba L.) and buckwheat (Fagopyrum exculentum Moench.) and white mustard as a sole crop. All crop and soil management practices have shown optimal efficiency in late autumn – stubble breaking, catch crops and straw used during the post-harvest period of the main crops, reduced Nmin migration into deeper (40–80 cm) soil layer. The greatest Nmin reduction in the 0–40 cm soil layer during the period from late autumn to early spring was identified in the sustainable cropping system having applied N30 for the promotion of straw mineralization and with no catch crops cultivation. The sustainable cropping system, having applied N30 for straw mineralization and growing white mustard in combination with buckwheat as catch crops, Nmin difference in the spring compared with its status in the autumn in the soil low and moderate in humus was lower by 70.1% and 34.2%, respectively.

Keywords: soil nitrogen, catch crops, ecological and sustainable farming systems, Cambisol

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Authors: Viktória Sugár, Attila Talamon, András Horkai, Michihiro Kita

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The dense urban fabric of the Budapest 7th district is known as the former Jewish Quarter. The majority of the historical building stock contains multi-story tenement houses with courtyards, built around the end of the 19^th century. Various rehabilitation and urban planning attempt occurred until today, mostly left unfinished. Present paper collects the past rehabilitation plans, actions and their effect which took place in the former Jewish District of Budapest. The authors aim to assess the boundaries of a complex building stock rehabilitation, by taking into account the monument protection guidelines. As a main focus of the research, structural as well as energetic rehabilitation possibilities are analyzed in case of each building by using Geographic Information System (GIS) methods.

Keywords: geographic information system, Hungary, Jewish Quarter, monument, protection, rehabilitation

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Authors: Mehdi Mohebodini, Iman Khalili-Baseri, Mehdi Behnamian, Sara Dezhsetan

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Diversity analysis at the molecular level using PCR-based markers is the efficient and rapid method of identifying the relationships and differences among the genotypes. In the present study, genetic diversity and relationships among 20 collected purslane accessions were evaluated using ISSR markers. The genotyping data were used to understand the relationships among the collected accessions and identify genetically diverse purslane accessions. The 25 primers gave a total of 92 bands, of which 62 were polymorphic (67.4%). The genetic diversity as estimated by Shannon’s information index was 0.55, revealing a quite high level of genetic diversity in the germplasm. The average number of an observed allele, effective allele, polymorphic information content (PIC) and Nei’s index were 2, 1.65, 0.37 and 0.37, respectively.

Keywords: Portulaca oleracea L., genetic diversity, ISSR, germplasm

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Authors: Denise Levy, Gian M. A. A. Sordi

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This web based project focuses on continuing corporate education and improving workers' skills in Brazilian radioactive facilities throughout the country. The potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) shall contribute to improve the global communication in this very large country, where it is a strong challenge to ensure high quality professional information to as many people as possible. The main objective of this system is to provide Brazilian radioactive facilities a complete web-based repository - in Portuguese - for research, consultation and information, offering conditions for learning and improving professional and personal skills. UNIPRORAD is a web based system to offer unified programs and inter-related information about radiological protection programs. The content includes the best practices for radioactive facilities in order to meet both national standards and international recommendations published by different organizations over the past decades: International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN). The website counts on concepts, definitions and theory about optimization and ionizing radiation monitoring procedures. Moreover, the content presents further discussions related to some national and international recommendations, such as potential exposure, which is currently one of the most important research fields in radiological protection. Only two publications of ICRP develop expressively the issue and there is still a lack of knowledge of fail probabilities, for there are still uncertainties to find effective paths to quantify probabilistically the occurrence of potential exposures and the probabilities to reach a certain level of dose. To respond to this challenge, this project discusses and introduces potential exposures in a more quantitative way than national and international recommendations. Articulating ICRP and AIEA valid recommendations and official reports, in addition to scientific papers published in major international congresses, the website discusses and suggests a number of effective actions towards safety which can be incorporated into labor practice. The WEB platform was created according to corporate public needs, taking into account the development of a robust but flexible system, which can be easily adapted to future demands. ICTs provide a vast array of new communication capabilities and allow to spread information to as many people as possible at low costs and high quality communication. This initiative shall provide opportunities for employees to increase professional skills, stimulating development in this large country where it is an enormous challenge to ensure effective and updated information to geographically distant facilities, minimizing costs and optimizing results.

Keywords: distance learning, information and communication technology, nuclear science, radioactive facilities

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Authors: Aniekan James Akpan

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The use of signs and symbols to represent cardinal information is inalienable among African communities. It has been the tenable instrument of cultural transmission for decades, but in the current transposal of Western values, a good number of communicating codes and symbolic images have been gradually relegated to the background. This paper discusses the regeneration of cultural artifacts and sign languages in Nigerian films using Johnpaul Rebecca and Ayamma as models in a qualitative research based on Charles Sanders Pierce's Semiotics as well as quantitative methods of survey using questionnaire and focus group discussion as instruments to obtain data. With a population of 2,343 viewers of the movies used for the study and a sample size of 322 respondents using Philip Meyer’s guide, findings show that cultural relics can stabilise the subject matter of a film. Artifacts can stimulate curiosity and invoke nostalgia. Sign languages encode deeper information that ordinary speech may not properly convey in films. It concludes that the use of non-verbal codes in filmmaking deserves deep research into the culture portrayed and that non-verbal cues communicate deeper information about a people's cosmos in a film than dialogue. It recommends that adequate research should be made before producing a film and the idea of cultural values represented in artifacts and sign language should be ingrained in the courses for students to acquaint themselves with.

Keywords: cultural artifact, Nollywood films, non-verbal communication, sign language

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Authors: Badr M. Alshammari, A. Rabeh, A. K. Mohamed

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This paper presents the modeling and the control of a grid-connected photovoltaic system (PVS). Firstly, the MPPT control of the PVS and its associated DC/DC converter has been analyzed in order to extract the maximum of available power. Secondly, the control system of the grid side converter (GSC) which is a three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI) has been presented. A special attention has been paid to the control algorithms of the GSC converter during grid voltages imbalances. Especially, three different control objectives are to achieve; the mitigation of the grid imbalance adverse effects, at the point of common coupling (PCC), on the injected currents, the elimination of double frequency oscillations in active power flow, and the elimination of double frequency oscillations in reactive power flow. Simulation results of two control strategies have been performed via MATLAB software in order to demonstrate the particularities of each control strategy according to power quality standards.

Keywords: renewable energies, photovoltaic systems, dc link, voltage source inverter, space vector SVPWM, unbalanced voltage dips, symmetrical components

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Authors: Modesta E. Ezema, Chikwendu V. Alabekee, Victoria N. Ishiwu, Ifeyinwa NwosuArize, Chinedu I. Nwoye

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The advent of wireless networking in computing technology cannot be overemphasized, it opened up easy accessibility to information resources, networking made easier and brought internet accessibility to our doorsteps, but despite all these, some mishap came in with it that is causing mayhem in today ‘s overall information security. The cyber criminals will always compromise the integrity of a message that is not encrypted or that is encrypted with a weak algorithm.In other to correct the mayhem, this study focuses on cryptosystem and cryptography. This ensures end to end crypt messaging. The study of various cryptographic algorithms, as well as the techniques and applications of the cryptography for efficiency, were all considered in the work., present and future applications of cryptography were dealt with as well as Quantum Cryptography was exposed as the current and the future area in the development of cryptography. An empirical study was conducted to collect data from network users.

Keywords: algorithm, cryptography, cryptosystem, network

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Authors: Anthony Halog

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In the coming decades the world that we know today will be drastically transformed. Population and economic growth, particularly in developing countries, are radically changing the demand for food and natural resources. Due to the transformations caused by these megatrends, especially economic growth which is rapidly expanding the middle class and changing consumption patterns worldwide, it is expected that this will result to an increase of approximately 40 percent in the demand for food, water, energy and other resources in the next decades. To fulfill this demand in a sustainable and efficient manner while avoiding food and water scarcity as well as environmental catastrophes in the near future, some industries, particularly the ones involved in food and energy production, have to drastically change its current production systems towards circular and green economy. In Australia, the agri-food industry has played a very important role in the scenario described above. It is one of the major food exporters in the world, supplying fast growing international markets in Asia and the Middle East. Though the Australian food supply chains are economically and technologically developed, it has been facing enduring challenges about its international competitiveness and environmental burdens caused by its production processes. An integrated framework for sustainability assessment is needed to precisely identify inefficiencies and environmental impacts created during food production processes. This research proposes a combination of industrial ecology and systems science based methods and tools intending to develop a novel and useful methodological framework for life cycle sustainability analysis of the agri-food industry. The presentation highlights circular economy paradigm aiming to implement sustainable industrial processes to transform the current industrial model of agri-food supply chains. The results are expected to support government policy makers, business decision makers and other stakeholders involved in agri-food-energy production system in pursuit of green and circular economy. The framework will assist future life cycle and integrated sustainability analysis and eco-redesign of food and other industrial systems.

Keywords: circular economy, eco-efficiency, agri-food systems, green economy, life cycle sustainability assessment

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Authors: Mireille Elhajj, Washington Ochieng, Deeph Chana

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The challenges of the rapid growth in the demand for transport has traditionally been seen within the context of the problems of congestion, air quality, climate change, safety, and affordability. However, there are increasing threats including those related to crime such as cyber-attacks that threaten the security of the transport of people and goods. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents for the first time, a comprehensive framework for the assessment of the current and future security issues of multi-modal transport systems. The approach or method proposed is based on a structured framework starting with a detailed specification of the transport asset map (transport system architecture), followed by the identification of vulnerabilities. The asset map and vulnerabilities are used to identify the various approaches for exploitation of the vulnerabilities, leading to the creation of a set of threat scenarios. The threat scenarios are then transformed into risks and their categories, and include insights for their mitigation. The consideration of the mitigation space is holistic and includes the formulation of appropriate policies and tactics and/or technical interventions. The quality of the framework is ensured through a structured and logical process that identifies the stakeholders, reviews the relevant documents including policies and identifies gaps, incorporates targeted surveys to augment the reviews, and uses subject matter experts for validation. The approach to categorising security risks is an extension of the current methods that are typically employed. Specifically, the partitioning of risks into either physical or cyber categories is too limited for developing mitigation policies and tactics/interventions for transport systems where an interplay between physical and cyber processes is very often the norm. This interplay is rapidly taking on increasing significance for security as the emergence of cyber-physical technologies, are shaping the future of all transport modes. Examples include: Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) in road transport; the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) in rail transport; Automatic Identification System (AIS) in maritime transport; advanced Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) technologies in air transport; and the Internet of Things (IoT). The framework adopts a risk categorisation scheme that considers risks as falling within the following threat→impact relationships: Physical→Physical, Cyber→Cyber, Cyber→Physical, and Physical→Cyber). Thus the framework enables a more complete risk picture to be developed for today’s transport systems and, more importantly, is readily extendable to account for emerging trends in the sector that will define future transport systems. The framework facilitates the audit and retro-fitting of mitigations in current transport operations and the analysis of security management options for the next generation of Transport enabling strategic aspirations such as systems with security-by-design and co-design of safety and security to be achieved. An initial application of the framework to transport systems has shown that intra-modal consideration of security measures is sub-optimal and that a holistic and multi-modal approach that also addresses the intersections/transition points of such networks is required as their vulnerability is high. This is in-line with traveler-centric transport service provision, widely accepted as the future of mobility services. In summary, a risk-based framework is proposed for use by the stakeholders to comprehensively and holistically assess the security of transport systems. It requires a detailed understanding of the transport architecture to enable a detailed vulnerabilities analysis to be undertaken, creates threat scenarios and transforms them into risks which form the basis for the formulation of interventions.

Keywords: mitigations, risk, transport, security, vulnerabilities

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Authors: Jay P. Sipani, Riki H. Patel, Trushit Upadhyaya

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Today there is a demand to monitor environmental factors almost in all research institutes and industries and even for domestic uses. The analog data measurement requires manual effort to note readings, and there may be a possibility of human error. Such type of systems fails to provide and store precise values of parameters with high accuracy. Analog systems are having drawback of storage/memory. Therefore, there is a requirement of a smart system which is fully automated, accurate and capable enough to monitor all the environmental parameters with utmost possible accuracy. Besides, it should be cost-effective as well as portable too. This paper represents the Wireless Sensor (WS) data communication using DHT11, Arduino, SIM900A GSM module, a mobile device and Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). Experimental setup includes the heating arrangement of DHT11 and transmission of its data using Arduino and SIM900A GSM shield. The mobile device receives the data using Arduino, GSM shield and displays it on LCD too. Heating arrangement is used to heat and cool the temperature sensor to study its characteristics.

Keywords: wireless communication, Arduino, DHT11, LCD, SIM900A GSM module, mobile phone SMS

Procedia PDF Downloads 264

Authors: Kgabo Pofu, Hintsa Araya, Dean Oelofse, Sonja Venter, Christian Du Plooy, Phatu Mashela

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Nematode resistance to the tropical root-knot (Meloidogyne species) nematodes is one of the most preferred nematode management strategies in development of smallholder resource-poor farming systems. Due to its pharmacological and ethnomedicinal applications, Artemisia annua is one of the underutilised crops that have attracted attention of policy-makers in rural agrarian development in South Africa. However, the successful introduction of this crop in smallholder resource-poor farming systems could be upset by the widespread aggressive Meloidogyne species, which have limited management options. The objective of this study therefore was to determine the degree of nematode resistance to the South African M. incognita and M. javanica population densities on A. annua seedlings. Uniform three-week-old seedlings in pots containing pasteurised growing medium under greenhouse conditions were inoculated using a series of eggs and second-stage juveniles of two Meloidogyne species in separate trials. At 56 days after inoculation, treatments were highly significant on reproductive factor (RF) for M. incognita and M. javanica on A. annua, contributing 87 and 89% in total treatment variation of the variables, respectively. At all levels of inoculation, RF values for M. incognita (0.17-0.79) and M. javanica (0.02-0.29) were below unity, without any noticeable root galls. Infection of A. annua by both Meloidogyne species had no significant effects on growth variables. In conclusion, A. annua seedlings are resistant to the South African M. incognita and M. javanica population densities and could therefore be explored further for use in smallholder resource-poor farming systems.

Keywords: ethnomedicial plants, medicinal plants, underutilised crops, plant parasitic nematodes

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Authors: Rajvir Kaur, Jeewani Anupama Ginige

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With recent trends in Big Data and advancements in Information and Communication Technologies, the healthcare industry is at the stage of its transition from clinician oriented to technology oriented. Many people around the world die of cancer because the diagnosis of disease was not done at an early stage. Nowadays, the computational methods in the form of Machine Learning (ML) are used to develop automated decision support systems that can diagnose cancer with high confidence in a timely manner. This paper aims to carry out the comparative evaluation of a selected set of ML classifiers on two existing datasets: breast cancer and cervical cancer. The ML classifiers compared in this study are Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN), Logistic Regression, Ensemble (Bagged Tree) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The evaluation is carried out based on standard evaluation metrics Precision (P), Recall (R), F1-score and Accuracy. The experimental results based on the evaluation metrics show that ANN showed the highest-level accuracy (99.4%) when tested with breast cancer dataset. On the other hand, when these ML classifiers are tested with the cervical cancer dataset, Ensemble (Bagged Tree) technique gave better accuracy (93.1%) in comparison to other classifiers.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, breast cancer, classifiers, cervical cancer, f-score, machine learning, precision, recall

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Authors: Ksenija Milošević, Davor Lončarević, Tihana Mudrinić, Jasmina Dostanić

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Heterogeneous photocatalytic processes have gained growing interest as an efficient method to generate hydrogen by using clean energy sources and degrading various organic pollutants. The main obstacles that restrict efficient photoactivity are narrow light-response range and high rates of charge carrier recombination. The formation of heterojunction by combining a semiconductor with low VB and a semiconductor with high CB and a suitable band gap was found to be an efficient method to prepare more sensible materials with improved charge separation, appropriate oxidation and reduction ability, and enhanced visible-light harvesting. In our research, various binary heterojunction systems based on the wide-band gap (TiO₂) and narrow bandgap (g-C₃N₄, CuO, and Co₂O₃) photocatalyst were studied. The morphology, optical, and electrochemical properties of the photocatalysts were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), N₂ physisorption, diffuse reflectance measurements (DRS), and Mott-Schottky analysis. The photocatalytic performance of the synthesized catalysts was tested in single and simultaneous systems. The synthesized photocatalysts displayed good adsorption capacity and enhanced visible-light photocatalytic performance. The mutual interactions of pollutants on their adsorption and degradation efficiency were investigated. The interfacial connection between photocatalyst constituents and the mechanism of the transport pathway of photogenerated charge species was discussed. A radical scavenger study revealed the interaction mechanisms of the photocatalyst constituents in single and multiple pollutant systems under solar and visible light irradiation, indicating the type of heterojunction system (Z scheme or type II).

Keywords: bandgap alignment, heterojunction, photocatalysis, reaction mechanism

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Authors: Aline Valverde Arroteia, Tatiana Gondim do Amaral, Silvio Burrattino Melhado

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During the last twenty years, the construction field in Brazil has evolved significantly in response to its market growing and competitiveness. However, this evolving path has faced many obstacles such as cultural barriers and the lack of efforts to achieve quality at the construction site. At the same time, the greatest amount of information generated on the designing or construction phases is lost due to the lack of an effective coordination of these activities. Face this problem, the aim of this research was to implement a French method named PEO which means preparation for building construction (in Portuguese) seeking to understand the design management process and its interface with the building construction phase. The research method applied was qualitative, and it was carried out through two case studies in the city of Goiania, in Goias, Brazil. The research was divided into two stages called pilot study at Company A and implementation of PEO at Company B. After the implementation; the results demonstrated the PEO method's effectiveness and feasibility while a booster on the quality improvement of design management. The analysis showed that the method has a purpose to improve the design and allow the reduction of failures, errors and rework commonly found in the production of buildings. Therefore, it can be concluded that the PEO is feasible to be applied to real estate and building companies. But, companies need to believe in the contribution they can make to the discovery of design failures in conjunction with other stakeholders forming a construction team. The result of PEO can be maximized when adopting the principles of simultaneous engineering and insertion of new computer technologies, which use a three-dimensional model of the building with BIM process.

Keywords: communication, design and construction interface management, preparation for building construction (PEO), proactive coordination (CPA)

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Authors: Vidar Hepsø

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The energy and oil companies on the Norwegian Continental shelf come from a situation where each asset control and manage their energy supply (island mode) and move towards a situation where the assets need to collaborate and coordinate energy use with others due to increased cost and scarcity of electric energy sharing the energy that is provided. Currently, several areas are electrified either with an onshore grid cable or are receiving intermittent energy from offshore wind-parks. While the onshore grid in Norway is well regulated, the offshore grid is still in the making, with several oil and gas electrification projects and offshore wind development just started. The paper will describe the shift in the mindset that comes with operating this new offshore grid. This transition process heralds an increase in collaboration across boundaries and integration of energy management across companies, businesses, technical disciplines, and engagement with stakeholders in the larger society. This transition will be described as a function of the new challenges with increased complexity of the energy mix (wind, oil/gas, hydrogen and others) coupled with increased technical and organization complexity in energy management. Organizational complexity denotes an increasing integration across boundaries, whether these boundaries are company, vendors, professional disciplines, regulatory regimes/bodies, businesses, and across numerous societal stakeholders. New practices must be developed, made legitimate and institutionalized across these boundaries. Only parts of this complexity can be mitigated technically, e.g.: by use of batteries, mixing energy systems and simulation/ forecasting tools. Many challenges must be mitigated with legitimated societal and institutionalized governance practices on many levels. Offshore electrification supports Norway’s 2030 climate targets but is also controversial since it is exploiting the larger society’s energy resources. This means that new systems and practices must also be transparent, not only for the industry and the authorities, but must also be acceptable and just for the larger society. The paper report from ongoing work in Norway, participant observation and interviews in projects and people working with offshore grid development in Norway. One case presented is the development of an offshore floating windfarm connected to two offshore installations and the second case is an offshore grid development initiative providing six installations electric energy via an onshore cable. The development of the offshore grid is analyzed using a capability platform framework, that describes the technical, competence, work process and governance capabilities that are under development in Norway. A capability platform is a ‘stack’ with the following layers: intelligent infrastructure, information and collaboration, knowledge sharing & analytics and finally business operations. The need for better collaboration and energy forecasting tools/capabilities in this stack will be given a special attention in the two use cases that are presented.

Keywords: capability platform, electrification, carbon footprint, control rooms, energy forecsting, operational model

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Authors: Joyraj Chakraborty, Geoffrey Ottoy, Jean-Pierre Goemaere, Lieven De Strycker

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Sensor swarms can be a cost-effectieve and more user-friendly alternative for location based service systems in different application like health-care. To increase the lifetime of such swarm networks, the energy consumption should be scaled to the required localization accuracy. In this paper we have investigated some parameter for energy model that couples localization accuracy to energy-related sensor parameters such as signal length,Bandwidth and sample frequency. The goal is to use the model for the localization of undetermined environmental sounds, by means of wireless acoustic sensors. we first give an overview of TDOA-based localization together with the primary sources of TDOA error (including reverberation effects, Noise). Then we show that in localization, the signal sample rate can be under the Nyquist frequency, provided that enough frequency components remain present in the undersampled signal. The resulting localization error is comparable with that of similar localization systems.

Keywords: sensor swarms, localization, wireless sensor swarms, scalable energy

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Authors: Maria Pintea, Nigel Mason

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Induced chemistry is one of the newest pathways in the nanotechnology field with applications in the focused electron beam induced processes for deposition of nm scale structures. Si(OPr)₄ and Ti(OEt)₄ are two of the precursors that have not been so extensively researched, though highly sought for semiconductor and medical applications fields, the two compounds make good candidates for FEBIP and are the subject of velocity slice map imaging analysis for deposition purposes, offering information on kinetic energies, fragmentation channels, and angular distributions. The velocity slice map imaging technique is a method used for the characterization of molecular dynamics of the molecule and the fragmentation channels as a result of induced chemistry. To support the gas-phase analysis, Meso-Bio-Nano simulations of irradiation dynamics studies are employed with final results on Fe(CO)₅ deposited on various substrates. The software is capable of running large scale simulations for complex biomolecular, nano- and mesoscopic systems with applications to thermos-mechanical DNA damage, complex materials, gases, nanoparticles for cancer research and deposition applications for nanotechnology, using a large library of classical potentials, many-body force fields, molecular force fields involved in the classical molecular dynamics.

Keywords: focused electron beam induced deposition, FEBID, induced chemistry, molecular dynamics, velocity map slice imaging

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Authors: Sadeq Al Yaari, Ayman Al Yaari, Adham Al Yaari, Montaha Al Yaari, Aayah Al Yaari, Sajedah Al Yaar

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Objectives: To assess the effect of using audio-visual aids and computer-assisted/ aided language instruction (CALI) in the performance of students of special needs studying vocabulary course. Methods: The performance of forty students of special needs (males and females) who used audiovisual aids and CALI in their vocabulary course at al-Malādh school for students of special needs was compared to that of another group (control group) of the same number and age (8-18). Again, subjects in the experimental group were given lessons using audio-visual aids and CALI, while those in the control group were given lessons using ordinary educational aids only, although both groups almost shared the same features (class environment, speech language therapist (SLT), etc.). Pre-andposttest was given at the beginning and end of the semester and a qualitative and quantitative analysis followed. Results & conclusions: Results of the present experimental study's pre-and-posttests indicated that the performance of the students in the first group was higher than that of those of the second group (34.27%, 73.82% vs. 33.57%, 34.92%, respectively). Compared with females, males’ performance was higher (1515 scores vs. 1438 scores). Such findings suggest that the presence of these audiovisual aids and CALI in the classes of students of special needs, especially if they are studying vocabulary building course is very important due to their usefulness in the improvement of performance of the students of special needs.

Keywords: language components, vocabulary, audio-visual aids, CALI, special needs, students, SLTs

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Authors: Mohamed Abdullahi Gure, Farhia Ali Abdi

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There is almost a complete certainty among educators that parental involvement is the remedy for many of the problems facing schools. It is also widely acknowledged that school administrators and teachers have important roles in promoting parental involvement in children’s education. This work aims at examining the views of parents and teachers on school-partnership practices for promoting parental involvement in education in selected primary schools in Mogadishu-Somalia. The method, which has been employed in this study, is a mixed-method approach; data were collected from parents as well as from teachers of the selected schools using survey questionnaires and interviews. A sample size of 377 parents and 214 teachers participated in this study. This study used an instrument that has been developed by Epstein and Salinas (1993) to assess the perceptions of parents and teachers about parental involvement. Furthermore, data was collected qualitatively through interviews with parents and teachers of the selected schools. The findings of this study show that parents and teachers had similar positive perceptions towards school practices for parental involvement. This study is significant for several reasons. It contributes to the limited information on parental involvement in Somalia and therefore, filling a gap in the existing empirical literature. It offers information to educators as well as to parents, which will help them understand the issues that relate to parental involvement in education. It is hoped that information from this study will facilitate parents and teachers to understand each other’s ideas on parental involvement and develop positive working relations to support children to become successful in their education.

Keywords: Mogadishu, parents, school-partnership, practices, teachers

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Authors: Ipek Kivanc, Demet Ozgur-Unluakin

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Over the past years, technological innovations and advancements have played an important role in the industrial world. Due to technological improvements, the degree of complexity of the systems has increased. Hence, all systems are getting more uncertain that emerges from increased complexity, resulting in more cost. It is challenging to cope with this situation. So, implementing efficient planning of maintenance activities in such systems are getting more essential. Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are powerful tools for stochastic sequential decision problems under uncertainty. Although maintenance optimization in a dynamic environment can be modeled as such a sequential decision problem, POMDPs are not widely used for tackling maintenance problems. However, they can be well-suited frameworks for obtaining optimal maintenance policies. In the classical representation of the POMDP framework, the system is denoted by a single node which has multiple states. The main drawback of this classical approach is that the state space grows exponentially with the number of state variables. On the other side, factored representation of POMDPs enables to simplify the complexity of the states by taking advantage of the factored structure already available in the nature of the problem. The main idea of factored POMDPs is that they can be compactly modeled through dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs), which are graphical representations for stochastic processes, by exploiting the structure of this representation. This study aims to demonstrate how maintenance planning of dynamic systems can be modeled with factored POMDPs. An empirical maintenance planning problem of a dynamic system consisting of four partially observable components deteriorating in time is designed. To solve the empirical model, we resort to Symbolic Perseus solver which is one of the state-of-the-art factored POMDP solvers enabling approximate solutions. We generate some more predefined policies based on corrective or proactive maintenance strategies. We execute the policies on the empirical problem for many replications and compare their performances under various scenarios. The results show that the computed policies from the POMDP model are superior to the others. Acknowledgment: This work is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) under grant no: 117M587.

Keywords: factored representation, maintenance, multi-component system, partially observable Markov decision processes

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Authors: Jean-Francois Rajotte, Martin Sotir, Frank Gouineau

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The installation and management of traffic monitoring devices can be costly from both a financial and resource point of view. It is therefore important to take advantage of in-place infrastructures to extract the most information. Here we show how low-quality urban road traffic images from cameras already available in many cities (such as Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto) can be used to estimate traffic flow. To this end, we use a pre-trained neural network, developed for object detection, to count vehicles within images. We then compare the results with human annotations gathered through crowdsourcing campaigns. We use this comparison to assess performance and calibrate the neural network annotations. As a use case, we consider six months of continuous monitoring over hundreds of cameras installed in the city of Montreal. We compare the results with city-provided manual traffic counting performed in similar conditions at the same location. The good performance of our system allows us to consider applications which can monitor the traffic conditions in near real-time, making the counting usable for traffic-related services. Furthermore, the resulting annotations pave the way for building a historical vehicle counting dataset to be used for analysing the impact of road traffic on many city-related issues, such as urban planning, security, and pollution.

Keywords: traffic monitoring, deep learning, image annotation, vehicles, roads, artificial intelligence, real-time systems

Procedia PDF Downloads 181

Authors: Gorazd Karer

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When performing a diagnostic procedure or surgery in general anesthesia (GA), a proper introduction and dosing of anesthetic agents are one of the main tasks of the anesthesiologist. However, depth of anesthesia (DoA) also seems to be a suitable process for closed-loop control implementation. To implement such a system, one must be able to acquire the relevant signals online and in real-time, as well as stream the calculated control signal to the infusion pump. However, during a procedure, patient monitors and infusion pumps are purposely unable to connect to an external (possibly medically unapproved) device for safety reasons, thus preventing closed-loop control. The paper proposes a conceptual solution to the aforementioned problem. First, it presents some important aspects of contemporary clinical practice. Next, it introduces the closed-loop-control-system structure and the relevant information flow. Focusing on transferring the data from the patient to the computer, it presents a non-invasive image-based system for signal acquisition from a patient monitor for online depth-of-anesthesia assessment. Furthermore, it introduces a UDP-based communication method that can be used for transmitting the calculated anesthetic inflow to the infusion pump. The proposed system is independent of a medical device manufacturer and is implemented in Matlab-Simulink, which can be conveniently used for DoA control implementation. The proposed scheme has been tested in a simulated GA setting and is ready to be evaluated in an operating theatre. However, the proposed system is only a step towards a proper closed-loop control system for DoA, which could routinely be used in clinical practice.

Keywords: closed-loop control, depth of anesthesia (DoA), modeling, optical signal acquisition, patient state index (PSi), UDP communication protocol

Procedia PDF Downloads 204

Authors: Sakul Jariyachansit

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The purposes of this research were to investigate and to compare the factors affecting the decision for Tourism in Thailand by ASEAN Tourists and among ASEAN community tourists. Samples in this research were 400 ASEAN Community Tourists who travel in Thailand at Suvarnabhumi Airport during November 2016 - February 2016. The researchers determined the sample size by using the formula Taro Yamane at 95% confidence level tolerances 0.05. The English questionnaire, research instrument, was distributed by convenience sampling, for gathering data. Descriptive statistics was applied to analyze percentages, mean and standard deviation and used for hypothesis testing. The statistical analysis by multiple regression analysis (Multiple Regression) was employed to prove the relationship hypotheses at the significant level of 0.01. The results showed that majority of the respondents indicated the factors affecting the decision for Tourism in Thailand by ASEAN Tourists, in general there were a moderate effects and the mean of each side is moderate. Transportation was the most influential factor for tourism in Thailand. Therefore, the mode of transport, information, infrastructure and personnel are very important to factor affecting decision making for tourism in Thailand by ASEAN tourists. From the hypothesis testing, it can be predicted that the decision for choosing Tourism in Thailand is at R2 = 0.449. The predictive equation is decision for choosing Tourism in Thailand = 1.195 (constant value) + 0.425 (tourist attraction) +0.217 (information received) and transportation factors, tourist attraction, information, human resource and infrastructure at the significant level of 0.01.

Keywords: factor, decision making, ASEAN tourists, tourism in Thailand

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Keh-Wen Carin Chuang, Kuan-Chou Chen

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Our society is in a constant state of change. Technology advancements continue to affect our daily lives. How we work, communicate and entertain ourselves has changed dramatically in the past decades. As our society learns to accept and adapt to the many different technological advances that seem to inundate every part of our lives, the education institutions must migrate from traditional methods of instruction to online education in order to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by these technology advancements. There are many benefits that can be gained for university and society from offering online programs by utilizing advanced technologies. But the programs must not be implemented carelessly. The key to providing a quality online program is the issue of perceived quality, which takes into account the viewpoint of all stakeholders involved. To truly ensure the institutional quality, however, a systemic view of all factors contributing to the quality must be analyzed and linked to one another — allowing education administrators to understand how each factor contributes to the perceived quality of online education. The perceived quality of an online program will be positively reinforced only through an organizational-wide effort that focuses on managed administration, augmenting online program branding, skilled faculty, supportive alumni, student satisfaction, and effective delivery systems — each of which is vital to a quality online program. This study focuses on the concept of quality assurance in the start-up, implementation, and sustainability of online education. A case of online MBA program will be analyzed to explore the quality assurance. The difficulties in promoting online education quality is the fact that universities are complex networks of disciplinary, social, economic, and political fiefdoms, both internal and external factors to the institutions. As such, the system analysis, a systems-thinking approach, on the issue of perceived quality is ideal to investigate the factors and how each factor contributes to the perceived quality in the online education domain.

Keywords: systems thinking, quality assurance, online education, MBA program

Procedia PDF Downloads 221

Authors: Ömer Ateş, Atilla Savaş

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Reducers and transmission systems are power and speed transfer tools that have been used for many years in the technology world and in all engineering fields. Since today's transmissions have a threaded tap system, torque interruption occurs during tap change. besides, breakdown and manufacturing costs are high. Another problem is the limited torque and rpm setting in stepped gearbox systems. In this study, a new type of transmission system is designed to solve these problems. This new type of transmission system has been called the Continuously Variable Pulley. The most important feature of the transmission system in the study is that it can be adjusted Revolutions Per Minute-wise and torque-wise at the millimeter (precision) adjustment level. In order to make adjustments at this level, an adjustable pulley with the help of hydraulic piston is designed. The efficiency of the designed transmission system is 97 percent, the efficiency of today's transmissions is in the range of 85-95 percent. examined at the analysis and calculations, it is seen that the designed system gives realistic results and can be compared with today's transmissions and reducers. Therefore, this new type of transmission has been proven to be usable in production areas and the world of technology.

Keywords: gearbox, reducer, transmission, torque

Procedia PDF Downloads 112

Authors: Kurudzirayi Robson Musikavanhu

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Nanophase particles exhibit quantum behavior by virtue of their small size, being particles of gamma to x-ray wavelength [atomic range]. Such particles exhibit high frequencies, high energy/photon, high penetration power, high ionization power [atomic behavior] and are stable at low energy levels as opposed to bulk phase matter [macro particles] which exhibit higher wavelength [radio wave end] properties, hence lower frequency, lower energy/photon, lower penetration power, lower ionizing power and are less stable at low temperatures. The ‘unique’ behavioral motion of Nano systems will remain a mystery as long as quantum theory remains a mystery, and for pharmacology, pharmacovigilance profiling of Nano systems becomes virtually impossible. Quantum theory is the 4 – 3 – 5 electromagnetic law of life and life motion systems on planet earth. Electromagnetic [wave-particle] properties of all particulate matter changes as mass [bulkiness] changes from one phase to the next [Nano-phase to micro-phase to milli-phase to meter-phase to kilometer phase etc.] and the subsequent electromagnetic effect of one phase particle on bulk matter [different phase] changes from one phase to another. All matter exhibit electromagnetic properties [wave-particle duality] in behavior and the lower the wavelength [and the lesser the bulkiness] the higher the gamma ray end properties exhibited and the higher the wavelength [and the greater the bulkiness], the more the radio-wave end properties are exhibited. Quantum theory is the 4 [moon] – 3[sun] – [earth] 5 law of the Electromagnetic spectrum [solar system]. 4 + 3 = 7; 4 + 3 + 5 = 12; 4 * 3 * 5 = 60; 42 + 32 = 52; 43 + 33 + 53 = 63. Quantum age is overdue.

Keywords: electromagnetic solar system, nano-material, nano pharmacology, pharmacovigilance, quantum theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 427

Authors: Elham Serkani, Hossein Gharaee Garakani, Naser Mohammadzadeh, Elaheh Vaezpour

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Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are the main components of network security. These systems analyze the network events for intrusion detection. The design of an IDS is through the training of normal traffic data or attack. The methods of machine learning are the best ways to design IDSs. In the method presented in this article, the pruning algorithm of C5.0 decision tree is being used to reduce the features of traffic data used and training IDS by the least square vector algorithm (LS-SVM). Then, the remaining features are arranged according to the predictor importance criterion. The least important features are eliminated in the order. The remaining features of this stage, which have created the highest level of accuracy in LS-SVM, are selected as the final features. The features obtained, compared to other similar articles which have examined the selected features in the least squared support vector machine model, are better in the accuracy, true positive rate, and false positive. The results are tested by the UNSW-NB15 dataset.

Keywords: decision tree, feature selection, intrusion detection system, support vector machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 248