Search results for: natural attenuation process

Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Mary L. G. S. Senna

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The development of tourism is on the use of landscapes, natural or constructed, which involves a number of factors that contribute to the deterioration of nature. Tourist activity coupled with sustainable development has led to the emergence of many questions about these terms, since they are not well defined in this sense through literature searches. The present study was to analyze the main concepts and discussions involving sustainable tourism, providing reflections that can cause answers about one of the main questions in today's activity sector on whether its sustainability is a myth or reality. The methodology of this study is discussions, theoretical studies and bibliographic research. The results showed that the scholars who address the issue, often leave uncertainty about some discussions that demonstrate that there are still many studies to be conducted in order to prove that the claims so as to form the basis of what will be Tourism sustainable.

Keywords: tourism, sustainability, development, discussions

Procedia PDF Downloads 177

Authors: Natalia A. Salazar, Erika K. Méndez, Catalina Álvarez, Carlos E. Orrego

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Lyophilization, also called freeze-drying, is an important dehydration technique mainly used for pharmaceuticals. Food industry also uses lyophilization when it is important to retain most of the nutritional quality, taste, shape and size of dried products and to extend their shelf life. Vacuum-Induced during freezing cycle (VI) has been used in order to control ice nucleation and, consequently, to reduce the time of primary drying cycle of pharmaceuticals preserving quality properties of the final product. This procedure has not been applied in freeze drying of foods. The present work aims to investigate the effect of VI on the lyophilization drying time, final moisture content, density and reconstitutional properties of mango (Mangifera indica L.) slices (MS) and mango pulp-maltodextrin dispersions (MPM) (30% concentration of total solids). Control samples were run at each freezing rate without using induced vacuum. The lyophilization endpoint was the same for all treatments (constant difference between capacitance and Pirani vacuum gauges). From the experimental results it can be concluded that at the high freezing rate (0.4°C/min) reduced the overall process time up to 30% comparing process time required for the control and VI of the lower freeze rate (0.1°C/min) without affecting the quality characteristics of the dried product, which yields a reduction in costs and energy consumption for MS and MPM freeze drying. Controls and samples treated with VI at freezing rate of 0.4°C/min in MS showed similar results in moisture and density parameters. Furthermore, results from MPM dispersion showed favorable values when VI was applied because dried product with low moisture content and low density was obtained at shorter process time compared with the control. There were not found significant differences between reconstitutional properties (rehydration for MS and solubility for MPM) of freeze dried mango resulting from controls, and VI treatments.

Keywords: drying time, lyophilization, mango, vacuum induced freezing

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Authors: S. Bouchami, M.N. Lakhoua

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The automotive market is a dynamic market that continues to grow. That’s why several companies belonging to this sector adopt a quality improvement approach. Wanting to be competitive and successful in the environment in which they operate, these companies are dedicated to establishing a system of quality management to ensure the achievement of the objective quality, improving the products and process as well as the satisfaction of the customers. In this paper, the management of the quality and the improvement of a production line in an industrial company is presented. In fact, the project is divided into two essential parts: the creation of the technical line documentation and the quality assurance documentation and the resolution of defects at the line, as well as those claimed by the customer. The creation of the documents has required a deep understanding of the manufacturing process. The analysis and problem solving were done through the implementation of PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) and FTA (Fault Tree Analysis). As perspective, in order to better optimize production and improve the efficiency of the production line, a study on the problems associated with the supply of raw materials should be made to solve the problems of stock-outs which cause delays penalizing for the industrial company.

Keywords: quality management, documentary system, Plan Do Check Act (PDCA), fault tree analysis (FTA) method

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Frederic Henry-Couannier

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Dark Gravity is a natural extension of general relativity in presence of a flat non dynamical background. Matter and radiation fields from its dark sector, as soon as their gravity dominates over our side fields gravity, produce a constant acceleration law of the scale factor. After a brief reminder of the Dark Gravity theory foundations, the confrontation with the main cosmological probes is carried out. We show that, amazingly, the sudden transition between the usual matter dominated decelerated expansion law a(t) ∝ t²/³ and this accelerated expansion law a(t) ∝ t² predicted by the theory should be able to fit the main cosmological probes (SN, BAO, CMB and age of the oldest stars data) but also direct H₀ measurements with two free parameters only: H₀ and the transition redshift.

Keywords: anti-gravity, negative energies, time reversal, field discontinuities, dark energy theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 56

Authors: Un Hwa Choe, Jong Hyon Choe, Yong Jun Kim

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The aim of this study was to effectively remove Fe2+ by using ozone microbubbles in bottled mineral water to prevent sediment from occurring during storage and increase shelf life. By considering the characteristics of mineral water with low solubility of ozone and high CO2 content, a suitable ozone injection step was chosen and a new mineral water treatment method using microbubbles was proposed. As a result of the treatment of the bottled mineral water with ozone microbubbles, the iron ion concentration was reduced from 0.14 mg/L to 0.01 mg/L, and the shelf life increased to 360 days. During the treatment, the concentrations of K+ and Na+ were almost unchanged, and the deposition time was reduced to one-third compared to the natural oxidation.

Keywords: CO₂-rich mineral water, ozone-micro bubble, shelf life, bottled mineral water, water treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 85

Authors: Oussama Hafferssas, Hiba Benyahia, Amina Madani, Nassima Zeriri

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Although data nowadays has multiple forms; from text to images, and from audio to videos, yet text is still the most used one at a public level. At an academical and research level, and unlike other forms, text can be considered as the easiest form to process. Therefore, a brunch of Data Mining researches has been always under its shadow, called "Text Mining". Its concept is just like data mining’s, finding valuable patterns in data, from large collections and tremendous volumes of data, in this case: Text. Named entity recognition (NER) is one of Text Mining’s disciplines, it aims to extract and classify references such as proper names, locations, expressions of time and dates, organizations and more in a given text. Our approach "Octopub" does not aim to find new ways to improve named entity recognition process, rather than that it’s about finding a new, and yet smart way, to use NER in a way that we can extract sentiments of millions of people using Social Networks as a limitless information source, and Marketing for product promotion as the main domain of application.

Keywords: textmining, named entity recognition(NER), sentiment analysis, social media networks (SN, SMN), business intelligence(BI), marketing

Procedia PDF Downloads 589

Authors: Eman H. El-Gamal, Mai E. Khedr, Randa Ghonim, Mohamed Rashad

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In the past few years, biochar - a highly carbon-rich material produced from agro-wastes by pyrolysis process - was used as an effective adsorbent for heavy metals removal from polluted water. In this study, different types of biochar (rice straw 'RSB', corn cob 'CCB', and Jatropha shell 'JSB' were used to evaluate the adsorption capacity of heavy metals removal from multiple-metal solutions (Cu, Mn, Zn, and Cd). Kinetics modeling has been examined to illustrate potential adsorption mechanisms. The results showed that the potential removal of metal is dependent on the metal and biochar types. The adsorption capacity of the biochars followed the order: RSB > JSB > CCB. In general, RSB and JSB biochars presented high potential removal of heavy metals from polluted water, which was higher than 90 and 80% after 2 hrs of contact time for all metals, respectively. According to the kinetics data, the pseudo-second-order model was agreed strongly with Cu, Mn, Zn, and Cd adsorption onto the biochars (R2 ≥ 0.97), indicating the dominance of specific adsorption process, i.e., chemisorption. In conclusion, this study revealed that RSB and JSB biochar have the potential to be a strong adsorbent for multiple-metal removal from wastewater.

Keywords: adsorption, biochar, chemisorption, polluted water

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Authors: Shuo Liu

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In Chinese text classification tasks, redundant words and phrases can interfere with the formation of extracted and analyzed text information, leading to a decrease in the accuracy of the classification model. To reduce irrelevant elements, extract and utilize text content information more efficiently and improve the accuracy of text classification models. In this paper, the text in the corpus is first extracted using the TextRank algorithm for abstraction, the words in the abstract are used as nodes to construct a text graph, and then the graph attention network (GAT) is used to complete the task of classifying the text. Testing on a Chinese dataset from the network, the classification accuracy was improved over the direct method of generating graph structures using text.

Keywords: Chinese natural language processing, text classification, abstract extraction, graph attention network

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Authors: L. Cesari, L. Canabady-Rochelle, F. Mutelet

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The thermal conversion of lignin produces bio-oils that contain many compounds with high added-value such as phenolic compounds. In order to efficiently extract these compounds, the possible use of choline bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide [Choline][NTf2] ionic liquid was explored. To this end, a multistep approach was implemented. First, binary (phenolic compound and solvent) and ternary (phenolic compound and solvent and ionic liquid) solutions were investigated. Eight binary systems of phenolic compound and water were investigated at atmospheric pressure. These systems were quantified using the turbidity method and UV-spectroscopy. Ternary systems (phenolic compound and water and [Choline][NTf2]) were investigated at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. After stirring, the solutions were let to settle down, and a sample of each phase was collected. The analysis of the phases was performed using gas chromatography with an internal standard. These results were used to quantify the values of the interaction parameters of thermodynamic models. Then, extractions were performed on synthetic solutions to determine the influence of several operating conditions (temperature, kinetics, amount of [Choline][NTf2]). With this knowledge, it has been possible to design and simulate an extraction process composed of one extraction column and one flash. Finally, the extraction efficiency of [Choline][NTf2] was quantified with real bio-oils from lignin pyrolysis. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed using gas chromatographic connected to mass spectroscopy and flame ionization detector. The experimental measurements show that the extraction of phenolic compounds is efficient at room temperature, quick and does not require a high amount of [Choline][NTf2]. Moreover, the simulations of the extraction process demonstrate that [Choline][NTf2] process requires less energy than an organic one. Finally, the efficiency of [Choline][NTf2] was confirmed in real situations with the experiments on lignin pyrolysis bio-oils.

Keywords: bio-oils, extraction, lignin, phenolic compounds

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Authors: Hsiao-Lin Fang

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The Patient Self-Determination Act is based on the belief that each life is unique. The act regards each patient as an autonomous entity and explicitly protects the patient’s rights to know and make decisions and choices while ensuring that the patient’s wish for a peaceful end is granted. Even when the patient is unconscious and unable to express himself/herself, the patient’s self-determination and its exercise are still protected under the law. The act also ensures that healthcare professionals (HCPs) have a specific set of rules to follow and complete legal protection when their patients are unable to express themselves clearly. This report is about a 55-year-old female patient who weighed 110 kg and was diagnosed with acute type A aortic dissection. The case was that the patient suddenly felt backache and nausea during sleep before daybreak and was therefore transferred to this hospital from the original one. After the doctor explained the patient’s conditions, it was concluded that surgery was necessary. However, the patient’s family was immediately against the surgery after having heard its possible complications. Nevertheless, the patient was still willing to receive the surgery. Being at odds with her family, the patient decided to sign the surgery agreement herself and agreed to receive the two surgical procedures: (1) ascending aorta replacement and (2) innominate artery debranching. After the surgery, the patient did not regain consciousness and therefore received computed tomography scanning of the brain, which revealed false lumen involving proximal left common carotid artery, left subclavian artery and innominate artery, and severe compression of the true lumen with total/subtotal occlusion in the left common carotid artery. On the following day, the doctor discussed two further surgical procedures: (1) endografting for descending aorta and (2) endografting for left common carotid artery and subclavian artery with the family. However, as the patient’s postoperative recovery of consciousness only reached the level of stupor and her family had no intention of subsequent healthcare for the patient, the family made the joint decision three days later to have the endotracheal tube removed from the patient and let her die a natural death. Suggestion: An advance directive (AD) can be created beforehand. Once the patient is in a special clinical state (e.g., terminal illness, permanent vegetative state, etc.), the AD can determine whether to sustain the patient’s life through ‘medical intervention’ or to respect the patient’s rights to choose a peaceful end and receive palliative care. Through the expression of self-determination, it is possible to respect the patient’s medical practice autonomy and protect the patient’s dignity and right to a peaceful end, thereby respecting and supporting the patient’s decision. This also allows the three sides: the patient, the family and the medical team to understand the patient’s true wish in the process of advance care planning (ACP) and thereby promote harmony in the HCP-patient relationship.

Keywords: intensive care unit patient, cardiovascular surgery, self-determination, advance directive

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Authors: Dev Pratap Singh, Harshika Hasija, Ashwini S.

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The project aims to provide a touchless, intuitive interface for human-computer interaction, enabling users to control their computers using hand gestures and voice commands. The system leverages advanced computer vision techniques using the Media Pipe framework and OpenCV to detect and interpret real-time hand gestures, transforming them into mouse actions such as clicking, dragging, and scrolling. Additionally, the integration of a voice assistant powered by the speech recognition library allows for seamless execution of tasks like web searches, location navigation, and gesture control in the system through voice commands.

Keywords: gesture recognition, hand tracking, machine learning, convolutional neural networks, natural language processing, voice assistant

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Authors: Frazer Kirk, Rohen Skiba, Pankaj Saxena

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The natural history of the QAV is poorly understood due to the exceeding rarity of the condition. Incidence rates vary between 0.00028-1%. Classically patients present with Aortic Regurgitation (AR) between 40-60 years of age experiencing palpitations, chest pain, or heart failure. (1, 2) Echocardiography is the mainstay of diagnosis for this condition; however, given the rarity of this condition, it can easily be overlooked, as demonstrated here. The case report that follows serves as a reminder of the condition to reduce the innate cognitive bias to overlook the diagnosis due to the availability heuristic. Intraoperative photography, echocardiographic and magnetic resonance imaging from this case for reference to demonstrate that while the diagnosis of Aortic regurgitation was recognized early, the valve morphology was underappreciated.

Keywords: quadricuspid aortic valve, cardiac surgery, echocardiography, congenital

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: Rajesh Singh, Kailash Kale

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In this paper, the Binomial process type occurrence of software failures is considered and failure intensity has been characterized by one parameter Rayleigh class Software Reliability Growth Model (SRGM). The proposed SRGM is mathematical function of parameters namely; total number of failures i.e. η-0 and scale parameter i.e. η-1. It is assumed that very little or no information is available about both these parameters and then considering non-informative priors for both these parameters, the Bayes estimators for the parameters η-0 and η-1 have been obtained under square error loss function. The proposed Bayes estimators are compared with their corresponding maximum likelihood estimators on the basis of risk efficiencies obtained by Monte Carlo simulation technique. It is concluded that both the proposed Bayes estimators of total number of failures and scale parameter perform well for proper choice of execution time.

Keywords: binomial process, non-informative prior, maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), rayleigh class, software reliability growth model (SRGM)

Procedia PDF Downloads 389

Authors: Muhammad Zainuddin Arriafdi, Hamudah Hakimah Abdullah, Mohd Helmi Sani, Wan Azlina Ahmad, Muhd Nazrul Hisham Zainal Alam

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The biotechnology process development demands numerous experimental works. In laboratory environment, this is typically carried out using a shake flask platform. This paper presents the design and fabrication of a miniature bioreactor system as an alternative research tool for bioprocessing. The working volume of the reactor is 100 ml, and it is made of plastic. The main features of the reactor included stirring control, temperature control via the electrical heater, aeration strategy through a miniature air compressor, and online optical cell density (OD) sensing. All sensors and actuators integrated into the reactor was controlled using an Arduino microcontroller platform. In order to demonstrate the functionality of such miniature bioreactor concept, series of batch Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation experiments were performed under various glucose concentrations. Results attained from the fermentation experiments were utilized to solve the Monod equation constants, namely the saturation constant, Ks, and cells maximum growth rate, μmax as to further highlight the usefulness of the device. The mixing capacity of the reactor was also evaluated. It was found that the results attained from the miniature bioreactor prototype were comparable to results achieved using a shake flask. The unique features of the device as compared to shake flask platform is that the reactor mixing condition is much more comparable to a lab-scale bioreactor setup. The prototype is also integrated with an online OD sensor, and as such, no sampling was needed to monitor the progress of the reaction performed. Operating cost and medium consumption are also low and thus, making it much more economical to be utilized for biotechnology process development compared to lab-scale bioreactors.

Keywords: biotechnology, miniature bioreactor, research tools, Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: G. C. Tikkiwal, Mukesh Upadhyay

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During the surveillance operations at war or peace time, the Radar operator gets a scatter of targets over the screen. This may be a tracked vehicle like tank vis-à-vis T72, BMP etc, or it may be a wheeled vehicle like ALS, TATRA, 2.5Tonne, Shaktiman or moving the army, moving convoys etc. The radar operator selects one of the promising targets into single target tracking (STT) mode. Once the target is locked, the operator gets a typical audible signal into his headphones. With reference to the gained experience and training over the time, the operator then identifies the random target. But this process is cumbersome and is solely dependent on the skills of the operator, thus may lead to misclassification of the object. In this paper, we present a technique using mathematical and statistical methods like fast fourier transformation (FFT) and principal component analysis (PCA) to identify the random objects. The process of classification is based on transforming the audible signature of target into music octave-notes. The whole methodology is then automated by developing suitable software. This automation increases the efficiency of identification of the random target by reducing the chances of misclassification. This whole study is based on live data.

Keywords: radar target, FFT, principal component analysis, eigenvector, octave-notes, DSP

Procedia PDF Downloads 394

Authors: Siti Badriyah Rushayati, Resti Meilani, Rachmad Hermawan

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A biosphere reserve is developed to create harmony amongst economic development, community development, and environmental protection, through partnership between human and nature. Giam Siak Kecil Bukit Batu Biosphere Reserve (GSKBB BR) in Riau Province, Indonesia, is unique in that it has peat soil dominating the area, many springs essential for human livelihood, high biodiversity. Furthermore, it is the only biosphere reserve covering privately managed production forest areas. The annual occurrences of deforestation and forest fire pose a threat toward such unique biosphere reserve. Forest fire produced smokes that along with mass airflow reached neighboring countries, particularly Singapore and Malaysia. In this research, we aimed at analyzing the threat of deforestation and forest fire, and the potential of CO2 emission at GSKBB BR. We used Landsat image, arcView software, and ERDAS IMAGINE 8.5 Software to conduct spatial analysis of land cover and land use changes, calculated CO2 emission based on emission potential from each land cover and land use type, and exercised simple linear regression to demonstrate the relation between CO2 emission potential and deforestation. The result showed that, beside in the buffer zone and transition area, deforestation also occurred in the core area. Spatial analysis of land cover and land use changes from years 2010, 2012, and 2014 revealed that there were changes of land cover and land use from natural forest and industrial plantation forest to other land use types, such as garden, mixed garden, settlement, paddy fields, burnt areas, and dry agricultural land. Deforestation in core area, particularly at the Giam Siak Kecil Wildlife Reserve and Bukit Batu Wildlife Reserve, occurred in the form of changes from natural forest in to garden, mixed garden, shrubs, swamp shrubs, dry agricultural land, open area, and burnt area. In the buffer zone and transition area, changes also happened, what once swamp forest changed into garden, mixed garden, open area, shrubs, swamp shrubs, and dry agricultural land. Spatial analysis on land cover and land use changes indicated that deforestation rate in the biosphere reserve from 2010 to 2014 had reached 16 119 ha/year. Beside deforestation, threat toward the biosphere reserve area also came from forest fire. The occurrence of forest fire in 2014 had burned 101 723 ha of the area, in which 9 355 ha of core area, and 92 368 ha of buffer zone and transition area. Deforestation and forest fire had increased CO2 emission as much as 24 903 855 ton/year.

Keywords: biosphere reserve, CO2 emission, deforestation, forest fire

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Authors: Giles Balbinotti, Lucas Balbinotti, Paula Hembecker

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The management of the productive process project activities, for the conception of future work and for the financial health of the companies, is an important condition in an organizational model that corroborates the management of the human aspects and their variabilities existing in the work. It is important to seek, at all levels of the organization, understanding and consequent cultural change, and so that factors associated with human aspects are considered and prioritized in the projects. In this scenario, the central question of research for this study is placed from the context of the work, in which the managers and project coordinators are inserted, as follows: How is the top management convinced, in the design stages, to take The ‘Ergonomics’ as strategy for the performance and sustainability of the business? In this perspective, this research has as general objective to analyze how the application of the management of the human aspects in a real project of productive process in the automotive industry, including the activity of the manager and coordinator of the project beyond the strategies of convincing to act in the ergonomics of design. For this, the socio-technical and ergonomic approach is adopted, given its anthropocentric premise in the sense of acting on the social system simultaneously to the technical system, besides the support of the Modapts system that measures the non-value-added times and the correlation with the Critical positions. The methodological approach adopted in this study is based on a review of the literature and the analysis of the activity of the project coordinators of an industry, including the management of human aspects in the context of work variability and the strategies applied in project activities. It was observed in the study that the loss of performance of the serial production lines reaches the important number of the order of 30%, which can make the operation with not value-added, and this loss has as one of the causes, the ergonomic problems present in the professional activity.

Keywords: human aspects in production process project, ergonomics in design, sociotechnical project management, sociotechnical, ergonomic principles, sustainability

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Authors: Stefan Papastefanou

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is an interdisciplinary field of computer science with the aim of creating intelligent machine behavior. Early approaches to AI have been configured to operate in very constrained environments where the behavior of the AI system was previously determined by formal rules. Knowledge was presented as a set of rules that allowed the AI system to determine the results for specific problems; as a structure of if-else rules that could be traversed to find a solution to a particular problem or question. However, such rule-based systems typically have not been able to generalize beyond the knowledge provided. All over the world and especially in IT-heavy industries such as the United States, the European Union, Singapore, and China, machine learning has developed to be an immense asset, and its applications are becoming more and more significant. It has to be examined how such products of machine learning models can and should be protected by IP law and for the purpose of this paper patent law specifically, since it is the IP law regime closest to technical inventions and computing methods in technical applications. Genetic breeding models are currently less popular than recursive neural network method and deep learning, but this approach can be more easily described by referring to the evolution of natural organisms, and with increasing computational power; the genetic breeding method as a subset of the evolutionary algorithms models is expected to be regaining popularity. The research method focuses on patentability (according to the world’s most significant patent law regimes such as China, Singapore, the European Union, and the United States) of AI inventions and machine learning. Questions of the technical nature of the problem to be solved, the inventive step as such, and the question of the state of the art and the associated obviousness of the solution arise in the current patenting processes. Most importantly, and the key focus of this paper is the problem of patenting inventions that themselves are developed through machine learning. The inventor of a patent application must be a natural person or a group of persons according to the current legal situation in most patent law regimes. In order to be considered an 'inventor', a person must actually have developed part of the inventive concept. The mere application of machine learning or an AI algorithm to a particular problem should not be construed as the algorithm that contributes to a part of the inventive concept. However, when machine learning or the AI algorithm has contributed to a part of the inventive concept, there is currently a lack of clarity regarding the ownership of artificially created inventions. Since not only all European patent law regimes but also the Chinese and Singaporean patent law approaches include identical terms, this paper ultimately offers a comparative analysis of the most relevant patent law regimes.

Keywords: algorithms, inventor, genetic breeding models, machine learning, patentability

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Authors: Jacek Kabzinski, Karolina Przybylowska, Lukasz Dziki, Adam Dziki, Ireneusz Majsterek

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The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) is increasing from year to year. Despite intensive research CRC etiology remains unknown. Studies suggest that at the basis of the process of carcinogenesis can lie reduced efficiency of DNA repair mechanisms, often caused by polymorphisms in DNA repair genes. The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between gene polymorphisms Pro242Arg of PolB gene and Arg780His of Lig3 gene and modulation of the risk of colorectal cancer in the Polish population. Determination of the molecular basis of carcinogenesis process and predicting increased risk will allow qualifying patients to increased risk group and including them in preventive program. We used blood collected from 110 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The control group consisted of equal number of healthy people. Genotyping was performed by TaqMan method. The obtained results indicate that the genotype 780Arg/His of Lig3 gene is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. On the basis of these results, we conclude that Lig3 gene polymorphism Arg780His may be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer.

Keywords: BER, colorectal cancer, PolB, Lig3, polymorphisms

Procedia PDF Downloads 454

Authors: Man Fung Ho, Lap So, Jiaqi Zhang, Yuheng Zhao, Huiyang Lu, Tat Shing Choi, K. Y. Michael Wong

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Nowadays, a tremendous amount of data is available in the transportation system, enabling the development of various machine learning approaches to make short-term latency predictions. A natural question is then the choice of relevant information to enable accurate predictions. Using traffic data collected from the Taiwan Freeway System, we consider the prediction of short-term latency of a freeway segment with a length of 17 km covering 5 measurement points, each collecting vehicle-by-vehicle data through the electronic toll collection system. The processed data include the past latencies of the freeway segment with different time lags, the traffic conditions of the individual segments (the accumulations, the traffic fluxes, the entrance and exit rates), the total accumulations, and the weekday latency profiles obtained by Gaussian process regression of past data. We arrive at several important conclusions about how data should be refined to obtain accurate predictions, which have implications for future system-wide latency predictions. (1) We find that the prediction of median latency is much more accurate and meaningful than the prediction of average latency, as the latter is plagued by outliers. This is verified by machine-learning prediction using XGBoost that yields a 35% improvement in the mean square error of the 5-minute averaged latencies. (2) We find that the median latency of the segment 15 minutes ago is a very good baseline for performance comparison, and we have evidence that further improvement is achieved by machine learning approaches such as XGBoost and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). (3) By analyzing the feature importance score in XGBoost and calculating the mutual information between the inputs and the latencies to be predicted, we identify a sequence of inputs ranked in importance. It confirms that the past latencies are most informative of the predicted latencies, followed by the total accumulation, whereas inputs such as the entrance and exit rates are uninformative. It also confirms that the inputs are much less informative of the average latencies than the median latencies. (4) For predicting the latencies of segments composed of two or three sub-segments, summing up the predicted latencies of each sub-segment is more accurate than the one-step prediction of the whole segment, especially with the latency prediction of the downstream sub-segments trained to anticipate latencies several minutes ahead. The duration of the anticipation time is an increasing function of the traveling time of the upstream segment. The above findings have important implications to predicting the full set of latencies among the various locations in the freeway system.

Keywords: data refinement, machine learning, mutual information, short-term latency prediction

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Authors: Adriana de Paula Lacerda Santos, Bruna Godke, Mauro Lacerda Santos Filho

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Several dams in the world have already collapsed, causing environmental, social and economic damage. The concern to avoid future disasters has stimulated the creation of a great number of laws and rules in many countries. In Brazil, Law 12.334/2010 was created, which establishes the National Policy on Dam Safety. Overall, this policy requires the dam owners to invest in the maintenance of their structures and to improve its monitoring systems in order to provide faster and straightforward responses in the case of an increase of risks. As monitoring tools, visual inspections has provides comprehensive assessment of the structures performance, while auscultation’s instrumentation has added specific information on operational or behavioral changes, providing an alarm when a performance indicator exceeds the acceptable limits. These limits can be set using statistical methods based on the relationship between instruments measures and other variables, such as reservoir level, time of the year or others instruments measuring. Besides the design parameters (uplift of the foundation, displacements, etc.) the dam instrumentation can also be used to monitor the behavior of defects and damage manifestations. Specifically in concrete gravity dams, one of the main causes for the appearance of cracks, are the concrete volumetric changes generated by the thermal origin phenomena, which are associated with the construction process of these structures. Based on this, the goal of this research is to propose a monitoring process of the thermal cracking behavior in concrete gravity dams, through the instrumentation data analysis and the establishment of control values. Therefore, as a case study was selected the Block B-11 of José Richa Governor Dam Power Plant, that presents a cracking process, which was identified even before filling the reservoir in August’ 1998, and where crack meters and surface thermometers were installed for its monitoring. Although these instruments were installed in May 2004, the research was restricted to study the last 4.5 years (June 2010 to November 2014), when all the instruments were calibrated and producing reliable data. The adopted method is based on simple linear correlations procedures to understand the interactions among the instruments time series, verifying the response times between them. The scatter plots were drafted from the best correlations, which supported the definition of the limit control values. Among the conclusions, it is shown that there is a strong or very strong correlation between ambient temperature and the crack meters and flowmeters measurements. Based on the results of the statistical analysis, it was possible to develop a tool for monitoring the behavior of the case study cracks. Thus it was fulfilled the goal of the research to develop a proposal for a monitoring process of the behavior of thermal cracking in concrete gravity dams.

Keywords: concrete gravity dam, dams safety, instrumentation, simple linear correlation

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Authors: H. Aripin, I. Made Joni, Edvin Priatna, Nundang Busaeri, Svilen Sabchevski

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In this investigation, manganese has been produced from medium grade manganese ore from Karangnunggal mine (West Java, Indonesia). The ores were grinded using a jar mill to pass through a 150 mesh sieve. The effects of keeping it at a temperature of 1200 °C in methane gas on the structural properties have been studied. The material’s properties have been characterized on the basis of the experimental data obtained using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. It has been found that the ore contains MnO₂ as the main constituents at about 46.80 wt.%. It can be also observed that the ore particles are agglomerated forming dense grains with different texture and morphology. The irregular-shaped grains with dark contrast, the large brighter grains, and smaller grains with bright texture and smooth surfaces are associated with the presence of manganese, calcium, and quartz, respectively. From XRD patterns, MnO₂ is reduced to hausmannite (Mn₃O₄), manganosite (MnO) and manganese carbide (Mn₇C₃). At a temperature of 1200°C the keeping time does not have any effect on the formation of crystals and the crystalline phases remain almost unchanged in the time range from 15 to 90 minutes. An increase of the keeping time up to 45 minutes during the sintering process leads to an increase of the MnO concentration, while at 90 minutes, the concentration decreases. At longer keeping times the excess reaction of the methane gas and manganese oxide in the ore causes an increase of carbon deposition. As a result, it blocks the particle surface and then hinders the reduction process of manganese oxide. From FTIR spectrum allows one to explain that the appearance of C=O stretching mode arises from absorption of atmospheric methane and manganese oxide of the ore. The intensity of this band increases with increasing the keeping time, indicating an increase of carbon deposition on the surface of manganese oxide.

Keywords: manganese, medium grade manganese ore, structural properties, keeping the temperature, carbon deposition

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Authors: Anastasia Rita Widiarti, Agus Harjoko, Marsono, Sri Hartati

Abstract:

This paper presents the results of a study to test whether the Javanese character manuscript image preprocessing model that have been more widely applied, can also be applied to segment of the Batak characters manuscripts. The treatment process begins by converting the input image into a binary image. After the binary image is cleaned of noise, then the segmentation lines using projection profile is conducted. If unclear histogram projection is found, then the smoothing process before production indexes line segments is conducted. For each line image which has been produced, then the segmentation scripts in the line is applied, with regard of the connectivity between pixels which making up the letters that there is no characters are truncated. From the results of manuscript preprocessing system prototype testing, it is obtained the information about the system truth percentage value on pieces of Pustaka Batak Podani Ma AjiMamisinon manuscript ranged from 65% to 87.68% with a confidence level of 95%. The value indicates the truth percentage shown the initial processing model in Javanese characters manuscript image can be applied also to the image of the Batak characters manuscript.

Keywords: connected component, preprocessing, manuscript image, projection profiles

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Authors: Mousa Saleh Daoud

Abstract:

Rickets is a condition that affects the development of bones in children. It causes soft bones, which can become bowed or curved, this bending and curvature is evident in the age of Walking. The most common cause of rickets is dietary deficiency of vitamin D or Lack of exposure to sunlight or both together. The link between vitamin D and rickets has been known for many years and is well understood by doctors and scientists. If a child does not get enough of the vitamin D, the bones cannot form hard outer shells. This is why they become soft and weak. This study was conducted on children who reviewed by our medical clinic between the years 2011-2013. The study included 400 children, aged between one and six years. 11 children had clear clinical manifestations of rickets of varying degrees and all of them due to lack of vitamin D except for one case of rickets resistant to vitamin D. 389 cases ranged between natural and deficiency in vitamin D without clinical manifestations of Rickets.

Keywords: rickts, bone metabolic diseases, vitamin D, child

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Authors: Zheng-Yan Ruan, Chien-Hao Wang, Hong-Jen Lin, Chien-Peng Huang, Ying-Hao Chen, En-Cheng Yang, Chwan-Lu Tseng, Joe-Air Jiang

Abstract:

Bees play a vital role in pollination. This paper focuses on the weighing process of honey. Honey is usually stored at the comb in a hive. Bee farmers brush bees away from the comb and then collect honey, and the collected honey is weighed afterward. However, such a process brings strong negative influences on bees and even leads to the death of bees. This paper therefore presents an Internet of Things-based weight monitoring system which uses weight sensors to measure the weight of honey and simplifies the whole weighing procedure. To verify the system, the weight measured by the system is compared to the weight of standard weights used for calibration by employing a linear regression model. The R² of the regression model is 0.9788, which suggests that the weighing system is highly reliable and is able to be applied to obtain actual weight of honey. In the future, the weight data of honey can be used to find the relationship between honey production and different ecological parameters, such as bees’ foraging behavior and weather conditions. It is expected that the findings can serve as critical information for honey production improvement.

Keywords: internet of things, weight, honey, bee

Procedia PDF Downloads 459

Authors: Srivatsav Sanjay Sridhar, Asvitha Raja, Prathit Kalra, Soni Gupta

Abstract:

Database management is a system that keeps track of details about a person in an organisation. Not a lot of orphanages these days are shifting to a computer and program-based system, but unfortunately, most have only pen and paper-based records, which not only consumes space but it is also not eco-friendly. It comes as a hassle when one has to view a record of a person as they have to search through multiple records, and it will consume time. This program will organise all the data and can pull out any information about anyone whose data is entered. This is also a safe way of storage as physical data gets degraded over time or, worse, destroyed due to natural disasters. In this developing world, it is only smart enough to shift all data to an electronic-based storage system. The program comes with all features, including creating, inserting, searching, and deleting the data, as well as printing them.

Keywords: database, orphans, programming, C⁺⁺

Procedia PDF Downloads 157

Authors: Pongsawee Supanonth

Abstract:

This research is the study of Spectrum Management and the increase in efficiency of Spectrum Utilization. It also proves that Cognitive Radio is a newer technology that will change the face of e-communications network today. This study used qualitative research methods by using in-depth interviews to collect data from a sample specific to those who work in Radio channel from 6 key informant and literature review from the related documents in online database. The result is the technique of Dynamic Spectrum Allocation that is the most suitable for Thailand. We conduct in-depth research for future purposes. Moreover, we can also develop a model that can be used in regulating and managing spectrum that is most suitable for Thailand. And also develop an important tool which can be of importance to allocation of spectrum as a natural resource appropriately. It will also guarantee quality and high benefit in a substantial way.

Keywords: cognitive radio, management of radio spectrum, spectrum management, spectrum scarcity

Procedia PDF Downloads 320

Authors: Chang Su Woo, Hyun Sung Park

Abstract:

Air spring system is widely accepted for railway vehicle secondary suspension to reduce and absorb the vibration and noise. The low natural frequency ensures a comfortable ride and an invariably good stiffness. In this paper, the characteristic and durability test was conducted in laboratory by using servo-hydraulic fatigue testing system to reliability evaluation of air spring for electric railway vehicle. The experimental results show that the characteristics and durability of domestically developed products are excellent. Moreover, to guarantee the adaption of air spring, the ride comfort and air pressure variation were measured in train test on subway line. Air spring developed by this study for railway vehicles can guarantee the reliability of average usage of 1 million times at 90% confidence level.

Keywords: air spring, reliability, railway, service lifetime

Procedia PDF Downloads 476

Authors: José Davi Oliveira De Moura, Chou Sin Chan

Abstract:

In this study, the effect of convective momentum transport (CMT) on the life of cyclone systems and their organization is analyzed. A case of strong precipitation, in the southeast of Brazil, was simulated using Eta model with two kinds of convective parameterization: Kain-Fritsch without CMT and Kain-fritsch with CMT. Reanalysis data from CFSR were used to compare Eta model simulations. The Wind, mean sea level pressure, rain and temperature are included in analysis. The rain was evaluated by Equitable Threat Score (ETS) and Bias Index; the simulations were compared among themselves to detect the influence of CMT displacement on the systems. The result shows that CMT process decreases the intensity of meso cyclones (higher pressure values on nuclei) and change the positions and production of rain. The decrease of intensity in meso cyclones should be caused by the dissolution of momentum from lower levels from up levels. The rain production and rain distribution were altered because the displacement of the larger systems scales was changed. In addition, the inclusion of CMT process is very important to improve the simulation of life time of meteorological systems.

Keywords: convection, Kain-Fritsch, momentum, parameterization

Procedia PDF Downloads 325

Authors: Adilson C. Barros, Kayo Okazaki, Valter Arthur

Abstract:

The radio-protective substances protect the organism from ionizing radiation when previously ingested. Synthetic radio-protectives produce unpleasant side effects and are expensive. This article reports the search for natural radio-protective agents in foods, whose occurrence is widespread, costs are lower and the side effects are non-existent. In this work, we studied the eggplant, a food widely used in Brazil, comparing the radiosensitivity of insects reared on diet eggplant and outside this diet. The eggplant causes change in LD50 parameter of insects population but the response curve needs to be better shaped to conclude something about radioprotection. What we can see is that it seems to contain some radiomodifier substance.

Keywords: radioprotector, radiobiology, Solanun melongena L., Lasioderma serricorne

Procedia PDF Downloads 434