Search results for: ocean models
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 7017

Search results for: ocean models

6447 Effect of Forests and Forest Cover Change on Rainfall in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

Authors: Alemayehu Muluneh, Saskia Keesstra, Leo Stroosnijder, Woldeamlak Bewket, Ashenafi Burka

Abstract:

There are some scientific evidences and a belief by many that forests attract rain and deforestation contributes to a decline of rainfall. However, there is still a lack of concrete scientific evidence on the role of forests in rainfall amount. In this paper, we investigate the forest-rainfall relationships in the environmentally hot spot area of the Central Rift Valley (CRV) of Ethiopia. Specifically, we evaluate long term (1970-2009) rainfall variability and its relationship with historical forest cover and the relationship between existing forest cover and topographical variables and rainfall distribution. The study used 16 long term and 15 short term rainfall stations. The Mann-Kendall test, bi variate and multiple regression models were used. The results show forest and wood land cover continuously declined over the 40 years period (1970-2009), but annual rainfall in the rift valley floor increased by 6.42 mm/year. But, on the escarpment and highlands, annual rainfall decreased by 2.48 mm/year. The increase in annual rainfall in the rift valley floor is partly attributable to the increase in evaporation as a result of increasing temperatures from the 4 existing lakes in the rift valley floor. Though, annual rainfall is decreasing on the escarpment and highlands, there was no significant correlation between this rainfall decrease and forest and wood land decline and also rainfall variability in the region was not explained by forest cover. Hence, the decrease in annual rainfall on the escarpment and highlands is likely related to the global warming of the atmosphere and the surface waters of the Indian Ocean. Spatial variability of number of rainy days from systematically observed two-year’s rainfall data (2012-2013) was significantly (R2=-0.63) explained by forest cover (distance from forest). But, forest cover was not a significant variable (R2=-0.40) in explaining annual rainfall amount. Generally, past deforestation and existing forest cover showed very little effect on long term and short term rainfall distribution, but a significant effect on number of rainy days in the CRV of Ethiopia.

Keywords: elevation, forest cover, rainfall, slope

Procedia PDF Downloads 547
6446 A Comparative Study on ANN, ANFIS and SVM Methods for Computing Resonant Frequency of A-Shaped Compact Microstrip Antennas

Authors: Ahmet Kayabasi, Ali Akdagli

Abstract:

In this study, three robust predicting methods, namely artificial neural network (ANN), adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and support vector machine (SVM) were used for computing the resonant frequency of A-shaped compact microstrip antennas (ACMAs) operating at UHF band. Firstly, the resonant frequencies of 144 ACMAs with various dimensions and electrical parameters were simulated with the help of IE3D™ based on method of moment (MoM). The ANN, ANFIS and SVM models for computing the resonant frequency were then built by considering the simulation data. 124 simulated ACMAs were utilized for training and the remaining 20 ACMAs were used for testing the ANN, ANFIS and SVM models. The performance of the ANN, ANFIS and SVM models are compared in the training and test process. The average percentage errors (APE) regarding the computed resonant frequencies for training of the ANN, ANFIS and SVM were obtained as 0.457%, 0.399% and 0.600%, respectively. The constructed models were then tested and APE values as 0.601% for ANN, 0.744% for ANFIS and 0.623% for SVM were achieved. The results obtained here show that ANN, ANFIS and SVM methods can be successfully applied to compute the resonant frequency of ACMAs, since they are useful and versatile methods that yield accurate results.

Keywords: a-shaped compact microstrip antenna, artificial neural network (ANN), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), support vector machine (SVM)

Procedia PDF Downloads 441
6445 Tram Track Deterioration Modeling

Authors: Mohammad Yousefikia, Sara Moridpour, Ehsan Mazloumi

Abstract:

Perceiving track geometry deterioration decisively influences the optimization of track maintenance operations. The effective management of this deterioration and increasingly utilized system with limited financial resources is a significant challenge. This paper provides a review of degradation models relevant for railroad tracks. Furthermore, due to the lack of long term information on the condition development of tram infrastructures, presents the methodology which will be used to derive degradation models from the data of Melbourne tram network.

Keywords: deterioration modeling, asset management, railway, tram

Procedia PDF Downloads 379
6444 Modeling of Diurnal Pattern of Air Temperature in a Tropical Environment: Ile-Ife and Ibadan, Nigeria

Authors: Rufus Temidayo Akinnubi, M. O. Adeniyi

Abstract:

Existing diurnal air temperature models simulate night time air temperature over Nigeria with high biases. An improved parameterization is presented for modeling the diurnal pattern of air temperature (Ta) which is applicable in the calculation of turbulent heat fluxes in Global climate models, based on Nigeria Micrometeorological Experimental site (NIMEX) surface layer observations. Five diurnal Ta models for estimating hourly Ta from daily maximum, daily minimum, and daily mean air temperature were validated using root-mean-square error (RMSE), Mean Error Bias (MBE) and scatter graphs. The original Fourier series model showed better performance for unstable air temperature parameterizations while the stable Ta was strongly overestimated with a large error. The model was improved with the inclusion of the atmospheric cooling rate that accounts for the temperature inversion that occurs during the nocturnal boundary layer condition. The MBE and RMSE estimated by the modified Fourier series model reduced by 4.45 oC and 3.12 oC during the transitional period from dry to wet stable atmospheric conditions. The modified Fourier series model gave good estimation of the diurnal weather patterns of Ta when compared with other existing models for a tropical environment.

Keywords: air temperature, mean bias error, Fourier series analysis, surface energy balance,

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6443 An Estimating Equation for Survival Data with a Possibly Time-Varying Covariates under a Semiparametric Transformation Models

Authors: Yemane Hailu Fissuh, Zhongzhan Zhang

Abstract:

An estimating equation technique is an alternative method of the widely used maximum likelihood methods, which enables us to ease some complexity due to the complex characteristics of time-varying covariates. In the situations, when both the time-varying covariates and left-truncation are considered in the model, the maximum likelihood estimation procedures become much more burdensome and complex. To ease the complexity, in this study, the modified estimating equations those have been given high attention and considerations in many researchers under semiparametric transformation model was proposed. The purpose of this article was to develop the modified estimating equation under flexible and general class of semiparametric transformation models for left-truncated and right censored survival data with time-varying covariates. Besides the commonly applied Cox proportional hazards model, such kind of problems can be also analyzed with a general class of semiparametric transformation models to estimate the effect of treatment given possibly time-varying covariates on the survival time. The consistency and asymptotic properties of the estimators were intuitively derived via the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The characteristics of the estimators in the finite sample performance for the proposed model were illustrated via simulation studies and Stanford heart transplant real data examples. To sum up the study, the bias for covariates has been adjusted by estimating density function for the truncation time variable. Then the effect of possibly time-varying covariates was evaluated in some special semiparametric transformation models.

Keywords: EM algorithm, estimating equation, semiparametric transformation models, time-to-event outcomes, time varying covariate

Procedia PDF Downloads 152
6442 Evaluating Generative Neural Attention Weights-Based Chatbot on Customer Support Twitter Dataset

Authors: Sinarwati Mohamad Suhaili, Naomie Salim, Mohamad Nazim Jambli

Abstract:

Sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) models augmented with attention mechanisms are playing an increasingly important role in automated customer service. These models, which are able to recognize complex relationships between input and output sequences, are crucial for optimizing chatbot responses. Central to these mechanisms are neural attention weights that determine the focus of the model during sequence generation. Despite their widespread use, there remains a gap in the comparative analysis of different attention weighting functions within seq2seq models, particularly in the domain of chatbots using the Customer Support Twitter (CST) dataset. This study addresses this gap by evaluating four distinct attention-scoring functions—dot, multiplicative/general, additive, and an extended multiplicative function with a tanh activation parameter — in neural generative seq2seq models. Utilizing the CST dataset, these models were trained and evaluated over 10 epochs with the AdamW optimizer. Evaluation criteria included validation loss and BLEU scores implemented under both greedy and beam search strategies with a beam size of k=3. Results indicate that the model with the tanh-augmented multiplicative function significantly outperforms its counterparts, achieving the lowest validation loss (1.136484) and the highest BLEU scores (0.438926 under greedy search, 0.443000 under beam search, k=3). These results emphasize the crucial influence of selecting an appropriate attention-scoring function in improving the performance of seq2seq models for chatbots. Particularly, the model that integrates tanh activation proves to be a promising approach to improve the quality of chatbots in the customer support context.

Keywords: attention weight, chatbot, encoder-decoder, neural generative attention, score function, sequence-to-sequence

Procedia PDF Downloads 78
6441 Analysis of the Contribution of Drude and Brendel Model Terms to the Dielectric Function

Authors: Christopher Mkirema Maghanga, Maurice Mghendi Mwamburi

Abstract:

Parametric modeling provides a means to deeper understand the properties of materials. Drude, Brendel, Lorentz and OJL incorporated in SCOUT® software are some of the models used to study dielectric films. In our work, we utilized Brendel and Drude models to extract the optical constants from spectroscopic data of fabricated undoped and niobium doped titanium oxide thin films. The individual contributions by the two models were studied to establish how they influence the dielectric function. The effect of dopants on their influences was also analyzed. For the undoped films, results indicate minimal contribution from the Drude term due to the dielectric nature of the films. However as doping levels increase, the rise in the concentration of free electrons favors the use of Drude model. Brendel model was confirmed to work well with dielectric films - the undoped titanium Oxide films in our case.

Keywords: modeling, Brendel model, optical constants, titanium oxide, Drude Model

Procedia PDF Downloads 183
6440 Improving Our Understanding of the in vivo Modelling of Psychotic Disorders

Authors: Zsanett Bahor, Cristina Nunes-Fonseca, Gillian L. Currie, Emily S. Sena, Lindsay D.G. Thomson, Malcolm R. Macleod

Abstract:

Psychosis is ranked as the third most disabling medical condition in the world by the World Health Organization. Despite a substantial amount of research in recent years, available treatments are not universally effective and have a wide range of adverse side effects. Since many clinical drug candidates are identified through in vivo modelling, a deeper understanding of these models, and their strengths and limitations, might help us understand reasons for difficulties in psychosis drug development. To provide an unbiased summary of the preclinical psychosis literature we performed a systematic electronic search of PubMed for publications modelling a psychotic disorder in vivo, identifying 14,721 relevant studies. Double screening of 11,000 publications from this dataset so far established 2403 animal studies of psychosis, with the most common model being schizophrenia (95%). 61% of these models are induced using pharmacological agents. For all the models only 56% of publications test a therapeutic treatment. We propose a systematic review of these studies to assess the prevalence of reporting of measures to reduce risk of bias, and a meta-analysis to assess the internal and external validity of these animal models. Our findings are likely to be relevant to future preclinical studies of psychosis as this generation of strong empirical evidence has the potential to identify weaknesses, areas for improvement and make suggestions on refinement of experimental design. Such a detailed understanding of the data which inform what we think we know will help improve the current attrition rate between bench and bedside in psychosis research.

Keywords: animal models, psychosis, systematic review, schizophrenia

Procedia PDF Downloads 290
6439 Transport Emission Inventories and Medical Exposure Modeling: A Missing Link for Urban Health

Authors: Frederik Schulte, Stefan Voß

Abstract:

The adverse effects of air pollution on public health are an increasingly vital problem in planning for urban regions in many parts of the world. The issue is addressed from various angles and by distinct disciplines in research. Epidemiological studies model the relative increase of numerous diseases in response to an increment of different forms of air pollution. A significant share of air pollution in urban regions is related to transport emissions that are often measured and stored in emission inventories. Though, most approaches in transport planning, engineering, and operational design of transport activities are restricted to general emission limits for specific air pollutants and do not consider more nuanced exposure models. We conduct an extensive literature review on exposure models and emission inventories used to study the health impact of transport emissions. Furthermore, we review methods applied in both domains and use emission inventory data of transportation hubs such as ports, airports, and urban traffic for an in-depth analysis of public health impacts deploying medical exposure models. The results reveal specific urban health risks related to transport emissions that may improve urban planning for environmental health by providing insights in actual health effects instead of only referring to general emission limits.

Keywords: emission inventories, exposure models, transport emissions, urban health

Procedia PDF Downloads 389
6438 Removal of Basic Yellow 28 Dye from Aqueous Solutions Using Plastic Wastes

Authors: Nadjib Dahdouh, Samira Amokrane, Elhadj Mekatel, Djamel Nibou

Abstract:

The removal of Basic Yellow 28 (BY28) from aqueous solutions by plastic wastes PMMA was investigated. The characteristics of plastic wastes PMMA were determined by SEM, FTIR and chemical composition analysis. The effects of solution pH, initial Basic Yellow 28 (BY28) concentration C, solid/liquid ratio R, and temperature T were studied in batch experiments. The Freundlich and the Langmuir models have been applied to the adsorption process, and it was found that the equilibrium followed well Langmuir adsorption isotherm. A comparison of kinetic models applied to the adsorption of BY28 on the PMMA was evaluated for the pseudo-first-order and the pseudo-second-order kinetic models. It was found that used models were correlated with the experimental data. Intraparticle diffusion model was also used in these experiments. The thermodynamic parameters namely the enthalpy ∆H°, entropy ∆S° and free energy ∆G° of adsorption of BY28 on PMMA were determined. From the obtained results, the negative values of Gibbs free energy ∆G° indicated the spontaneity of the adsorption of BY28 by PMMA. The negative values of ∆H° revealed the exothermic nature of the process and the negative values of ∆S° suggest the stability of BY28 on the surface of SW PMMA.

Keywords: removal, Waste PMMA, BY28 dye, equilibrium, kinetic study, thermodynamic study

Procedia PDF Downloads 153
6437 Analysis on Prediction Models of TBM Performance and Selection of Optimal Input Parameters

Authors: Hang Lo Lee, Ki Il Song, Hee Hwan Ryu

Abstract:

An accurate prediction of TBM(Tunnel Boring Machine) performance is very difficult for reliable estimation of the construction period and cost in preconstruction stage. For this purpose, the aim of this study is to analyze the evaluation process of various prediction models published since 2000 for TBM performance, and to select the optimal input parameters for the prediction model. A classification system of TBM performance prediction model and applied methodology are proposed in this research. Input and output parameters applied for prediction models are also represented. Based on these results, a statistical analysis is performed using the collected data from shield TBM tunnel in South Korea. By performing a simple regression and residual analysis utilizinFg statistical program, R, the optimal input parameters are selected. These results are expected to be used for development of prediction model of TBM performance.

Keywords: TBM performance prediction model, classification system, simple regression analysis, residual analysis, optimal input parameters

Procedia PDF Downloads 309
6436 Statistical Assessment of Models for Determination of Soil–Water Characteristic Curves of Sand Soils

Authors: S. J. Matlan, M. Mukhlisin, M. R. Taha

Abstract:

Characterization of the engineering behavior of unsaturated soil is dependent on the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC), a graphical representation of the relationship between water content or degree of saturation and soil suction. A reasonable description of the SWCC is thus important for the accurate prediction of unsaturated soil parameters. The measurement procedures for determining the SWCC, however, are difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. During the past few decades, researchers have laid a major focus on developing empirical equations for predicting the SWCC, with a large number of empirical models suggested. One of the most crucial questions is how precisely existing equations can represent the SWCC. As different models have different ranges of capability, it is essential to evaluate the precision of the SWCC models used for each particular soil type for better SWCC estimation. It is expected that better estimation of SWCC would be achieved via a thorough statistical analysis of its distribution within a particular soil class. With this in view, a statistical analysis was conducted in order to evaluate the reliability of the SWCC prediction models against laboratory measurement. Optimization techniques were used to obtain the best-fit of the model parameters in four forms of SWCC equation, using laboratory data for relatively coarse-textured (i.e., sandy) soil. The four most prominent SWCCs were evaluated and computed for each sample. The result shows that the Brooks and Corey model is the most consistent in describing the SWCC for sand soil type. The Brooks and Corey model prediction also exhibit compatibility with samples ranging from low to high soil water content in which subjected to the samples that evaluated in this study.

Keywords: soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC), statistical analysis, unsaturated soil, geotechnical engineering

Procedia PDF Downloads 338
6435 Data Poisoning Attacks on Federated Learning and Preventive Measures

Authors: Beulah Rani Inbanathan

Abstract:

In the present era, it is vivid from the numerous outcomes that data privacy is being compromised in various ways. Machine learning is one technology that uses the centralized server, and then data is given as input which is being analyzed by the algorithms present on this mentioned server, and hence outputs are predicted. However, each time the data must be sent by the user as the algorithm will analyze the input data in order to predict the output, which is prone to threats. The solution to overcome this issue is federated learning, where the models alone get updated while the data resides on the local machine and does not get exchanged with the other local models. Nevertheless, even on these local models, there are chances of data poisoning, and it is crystal clear from various experiments done by many people. This paper delves into many ways where data poisoning occurs and the many methods through which it is prevalent that data poisoning still exists. It includes the poisoning attacks on IoT devices, Edge devices, Autoregressive model, and also, on Industrial IoT systems and also, few points on how these could be evadible in order to protect our data which is personal, or sensitive, or harmful when exposed.

Keywords: data poisoning, federated learning, Internet of Things, edge computing

Procedia PDF Downloads 87
6434 Lean Impact Analysis Assessment Models: Development of a Lean Measurement Structural Model

Authors: Catherine Maware, Olufemi Adetunji

Abstract:

The paper is aimed at developing a model to measure the impact of Lean manufacturing deployment on organizational performance. The model will help industry practitioners to assess the impact of implementing Lean constructs on organizational performance. It will also harmonize the measurement models of Lean performance with the house of Lean that seems to have become the industry standard. The sheer number of measurement models for impact assessment of Lean implementation makes it difficult for new adopters to select an appropriate assessment model or deployment methodology. A literature review is conducted to classify the Lean performance model. Pareto analysis is used to select the Lean constructs for the development of the model. The model is further formalized through the use of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in defining the underlying latent structure of a Lean system. An impact assessment measurement model developed can be used to measure Lean performance and can be adopted by different industries.

Keywords: impact measurement model, lean bundles, lean manufacturing, organizational performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 485
6433 Spatial Time Series Models for Rice and Cassava Yields Based on Bayesian Linear Mixed Models

Authors: Panudet Saengseedam, Nanthachai Kantanantha

Abstract:

This paper proposes a linear mixed model (LMM) with spatial effects to forecast rice and cassava yields in Thailand at the same time. A multivariate conditional autoregressive (MCAR) model is assumed to present the spatial effects. A Bayesian method is used for parameter estimation via Gibbs sampling Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). The model is applied to the rice and cassava yields monthly data which have been extracted from the Office of Agricultural Economics, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives of Thailand. The results show that the proposed model has better performance in most provinces in both fitting part and validation part compared to the simple exponential smoothing and conditional auto regressive models (CAR) from our previous study.

Keywords: Bayesian method, linear mixed model, multivariate conditional autoregressive model, spatial time series

Procedia PDF Downloads 395
6432 Multi-Layer Perceptron and Radial Basis Function Neural Network Models for Classification of Diabetic Retinopathy Disease Using Video-Oculography Signals

Authors: Ceren Kaya, Okan Erkaymaz, Orhan Ayar, Mahmut Özer

Abstract:

Diabetes Mellitus (Diabetes) is a disease based on insulin hormone disorders and causes high blood glucose. Clinical findings determine that diabetes can be diagnosed by electrophysiological signals obtained from the vital organs. 'Diabetic Retinopathy' is one of the most common eye diseases resulting on diabetes and it is the leading cause of vision loss due to structural alteration of the retinal layer vessels. In this study, features of horizontal and vertical Video-Oculography (VOG) signals have been used to classify non-proliferative and proliferative diabetic retinopathy disease. Twenty-five features are acquired by using discrete wavelet transform with VOG signals which are taken from 21 subjects. Two models, based on multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function, are recommended in the diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy. The proposed models also can detect level of the disease. We show comparative classification performance of the proposed models. Our results show that proposed the RBF model (100%) results in better classification performance than the MLP model (94%).

Keywords: diabetic retinopathy, discrete wavelet transform, multi-layer perceptron, radial basis function, video-oculography (VOG)

Procedia PDF Downloads 259
6431 Oryzanol Recovery from Rice Bran Oil: Adsorption Equilibrium Models Through Kinetics Data Approachments

Authors: A.D. Susanti, W. B. Sediawan, S.K. Wirawan, Budhijanto, Ritmaleni

Abstract:

Oryzanol content in rice bran oil (RBO) naturally has high antioxidant activity. Its reviewed has several health properties and high interested in pharmacy, cosmetics, and nutrition’s. Because of the low concentration of oryzanol in crude RBO (0.9-2.9%) then its need to be further processed for practical usage, such as via adsorption process. In this study, investigation and adjustment of adsorption equilibrium models were conducted through the kinetic data approachments. Mathematical modeling on kinetics of batch adsorption of oryzanol separation from RBO has been set-up and then applied for equilibrium results. The size of adsorbent particles used in this case are usually relatively small then the concentration in the adsorbent is assumed to be not different. Hence, the adsorption rate is controlled by the rate of oryzanol mass transfer from the bulk fluid of RBO to the surface of silica gel. In this approachments, the rate of mass transfer is assumed to be proportional to the concentration deviation from the equilibrium state. The equilibrium models applied were Langmuir, coefficient distribution, and Freundlich with the values of the parameters obtained from equilibrium results. It turned out that the models set-up can quantitatively describe the experimental kinetics data and the adjustment of the values of equilibrium isotherm parameters significantly improves the accuracy of the model. And then the value of mass transfer coefficient per unit adsorbent mass (kca) is obtained by curve fitting.

Keywords: adsorption equilibrium, adsorption kinetics, oryzanol, rice bran oil

Procedia PDF Downloads 323
6430 Vibration of a Beam on an Elastic Foundation Using the Variational Iteration Method

Authors: Desmond Adair, Kairat Ismailov, Martin Jaeger

Abstract:

Modelling of Timoshenko beams on elastic foundations has been widely used in the analysis of buildings, geotechnical problems, and, railway and aerospace structures. For the elastic foundation, the most widely used models are one-parameter mechanical models or two-parameter models to include continuity and cohesion of typical foundations, with the two-parameter usually considered the better of the two. Knowledge of free vibration characteristics of beams on an elastic foundation is considered necessary for optimal design solutions in many engineering applications, and in this work, the efficient and accurate variational iteration method is developed and used to calculate natural frequencies of a Timoshenko beam on a two-parameter foundation. The variational iteration method is a technique capable of dealing with some linear and non-linear problems in an easy and efficient way. The calculations are compared with those using a finite-element method and other analytical solutions, and it is shown that the results are accurate and are obtained efficiently. It is found that the effect of the presence of the two-parameter foundation is to increase the beam’s natural frequencies and this is thought to be because of the shear-layer stiffness, which has an effect on the elastic stiffness. By setting the two-parameter model’s stiffness parameter to zero, it is possible to obtain a one-parameter foundation model, and so, comparison between the two foundation models is also made.

Keywords: Timoshenko beam, variational iteration method, two-parameter elastic foundation model

Procedia PDF Downloads 194
6429 Positive Bias and Length Bias in Deep Neural Networks for Premises Selection

Authors: Jiaqi Huang, Yuheng Wang

Abstract:

Premises selection, the task of selecting a set of axioms for proving a given conjecture, is a major bottleneck in automated theorem proving. An array of deep-learning-based methods has been established for premises selection, but a perfect performance remains challenging. Our study examines the inaccuracy of deep neural networks in premises selection. Through training network models using encoded conjecture and axiom pairs from the Mizar Mathematical Library, two potential biases are found: the network models classify more premises as necessary than unnecessary, referred to as the ‘positive bias’, and the network models perform better in proving conjectures that paired with more axioms, referred to as ‘length bias’. The ‘positive bias’ and ‘length bias’ discovered could inform the limitation of existing deep neural networks.

Keywords: automated theorem proving, premises selection, deep learning, interpreting deep learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 183
6428 Modified Clusterwise Regression for Pavement Management

Authors: Mukesh Khadka, Alexander Paz, Hanns de la Fuente-Mella

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Typically, pavement performance models are developed in two steps: (i) pavement segments with similar characteristics are grouped together to form a cluster, and (ii) the corresponding performance models are developed using statistical techniques. A challenge is to select the characteristics that define clusters and the segments associated with them. If inappropriate characteristics are used, clusters may include homogeneous segments with different performance behavior or heterogeneous segments with similar performance behavior. Prediction accuracy of performance models can be improved by grouping the pavement segments into more uniform clusters by including both characteristics and a performance measure. This grouping is not always possible due to limited information. It is impractical to include all the potential significant factors because some of them are potentially unobserved or difficult to measure. Historical performance of pavement segments could be used as a proxy to incorporate the effect of the missing potential significant factors in clustering process. The current state-of-the-art proposes Clusterwise Linear Regression (CLR) to determine the pavement clusters and the associated performance models simultaneously. CLR incorporates the effect of significant factors as well as a performance measure. In this study, a mathematical program was formulated for CLR models including multiple explanatory variables. Pavement data collected recently over the entire state of Nevada were used. International Roughness Index (IRI) was used as a pavement performance measure because it serves as a unified standard that is widely accepted for evaluating pavement performance, especially in terms of riding quality. Results illustrate the advantage of the using CLR. Previous studies have used CLR along with experimental data. This study uses actual field data collected across a variety of environmental, traffic, design, and construction and maintenance conditions.

Keywords: clusterwise regression, pavement management system, performance model, optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 251
6427 Using the Bootstrap for Problems Statistics

Authors: Brahim Boukabcha, Amar Rebbouh

Abstract:

The bootstrap method based on the idea of exploiting all the information provided by the initial sample, allows us to study the properties of estimators. In this article we will present a theoretical study on the different methods of bootstrapping and using the technique of re-sampling in statistics inference to calculate the standard error of means of an estimator and determining a confidence interval for an estimated parameter. We apply these methods tested in the regression models and Pareto model, giving the best approximations.

Keywords: bootstrap, error standard, bias, jackknife, mean, median, variance, confidence interval, regression models

Procedia PDF Downloads 381
6426 Framework for Developing Change Team to Maximize Change Initiative Success

Authors: Mohammad Z. Ansari, Lisa Brodie, Marilyn Goh

Abstract:

Change facilitators are individuals who utilize change philosophy to make a positive change to organizations. The application of change facilitators can be seen in various change models; Lewin, Lippitt, etc. The facilitators within numerous change models are considered as internal/external consultants. Whilst most of the scholarly paper considers change facilitation as a consensus attempt to improve organization, there is a lack of a framework that develops both the organization and the change facilitator creating a self-sustaining change environment. This research paper introduces the development of the framework for change Leaders, Planners, and Executers (LPE), aiming at various organizational levels (Process, Departmental, and Organisational). The LPE framework is derived by exploring interrelated characteristics between facilitator(s) and the organization through qualitative research for understanding change management techniques and facilitator(s) behavioral aspect from existing Change Management models and Organisation behavior works of literature. The introduced framework assists in highlighting and identify the most appropriate change team to successfully deliver the change initiative within any organization (s).

Keywords: change initiative, LPE framework, change facilitator(s), sustainable change

Procedia PDF Downloads 196
6425 3D Building Model Utilizing Airborne LiDAR Dataset and Terrestrial Photographic Images

Authors: J. Jasmee, I. Roslina, A. Mohammed Yaziz & A.H Juazer Rizal

Abstract:

The need of an effective building information collection method is vital to support a diversity of land development activities. At present, advances in remote sensing such as airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is an established technology for building information collection, location, and elevation of the reflecting laser points towards the construction of 3D building models. In this study, LiDAR datasets and terrestrial photographic images of buildings towards the construction of 3D building models is explored. It is found that, the quantitative accuracy of the constructed 3D building model, namely in the horizontal and vertical components were ± 0.31m (RMSEx,y) and ± 0.145m (RMSEz) respectively. The accuracies were computed based on sixty nine (69) horizontal and twenty (20) vertical surveyed points. As for the qualitative assessment, it is shown that the appearance of the 3D building model is adequate to support the requirements of LOD3 presentation based on the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standard CityGML.

Keywords: LiDAR datasets, DSM, DTM, 3D building models

Procedia PDF Downloads 321
6424 Improving University Operations with Data Mining: Predicting Student Performance

Authors: Mladen Dragičević, Mirjana Pejić Bach, Vanja Šimičević

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The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. These models could improve allocation of students among colleges and optimize the newly introduced model of government subsidies for higher education. For the purpose of collecting data, an anonymous survey was carried out in the last year of undergraduate degree student population using random sampling method. Decision trees were created of which two have been chosen that were most successful in predicting student success based on two criteria: Grade Point Average (GPA) and time that a student needs to finish the undergraduate program (time-to-degree). Decision trees have been shown as a good method of classification student success and they could be even more improved by increasing survey sample and developing specialized decision trees for each type of college. These types of methods have a big potential for use in decision support systems.

Keywords: data mining, knowledge discovery in databases, prediction models, student success

Procedia PDF Downloads 407
6423 Investigating the Effectiveness of Multilingual NLP Models for Sentiment Analysis

Authors: Othmane Touri, Sanaa El Filali, El Habib Benlahmar

Abstract:

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has gained significant attention lately. It has proved its ability to analyze and extract insights from unstructured text data in various languages. It is found that one of the most popular NLP applications is sentiment analysis which aims to identify the sentiment expressed in a piece of text, such as positive, negative, or neutral, in multiple languages. While there are several multilingual NLP models available for sentiment analysis, there is a need to investigate their effectiveness in different contexts and applications. In this study, we aim to investigate the effectiveness of different multilingual NLP models for sentiment analysis on a dataset of online product reviews in multiple languages. The performance of several NLP models, including Google Cloud Natural Language API, Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services, Amazon Comprehend, Stanford CoreNLP, spaCy, and Hugging Face Transformers are being compared. The models based on several metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, are being evaluated and compared to their performance across different categories of product reviews. In order to run the study, preprocessing of the dataset has been performed by cleaning and tokenizing the text data in multiple languages. Then training and testing each model has been applied using a cross-validation approach where randomly dividing the dataset into training and testing sets and repeating the process multiple times has been used. A grid search approach to optimize the hyperparameters of each model and select the best-performing model for each category of product reviews and language has been applied. The findings of this study provide insights into the effectiveness of different multilingual NLP models for Multilingual Sentiment Analysis and their suitability for different languages and applications. The strengths and limitations of each model were identified, and recommendations for selecting the most performant model based on the specific requirements of a project were provided. This study contributes to the advancement of research methods in multilingual NLP and provides a practical guide for researchers and practitioners in the field.

Keywords: NLP, multilingual, sentiment analysis, texts

Procedia PDF Downloads 104
6422 Climatic Roots of Piracy in Red Sea

Authors: Nasser Karami

Abstract:

Piracy in the North West of Indian Ocean and the Red Sea has become a global crisis in recent years. Pirates of this area are often very poor people from the Horn of Africa and the western coast of the Red Sea. Climatic and geographical evidence suggests that poverty and destruction of social structures in the region have directly relation to prolonged-drought. Indeed, after the seventies (more than 40 years ago) due to the long-term drought in the region, all political, economic and social structures had declined. Spread of terrorism, violent extremism and of course piracy, are main effects of climate change and drought of this regression. It is disturbing to say the climatic documents say that because of global climate change, severe drought will continue in this region. This mean that the dangers worse than piracy threatens the future of this area. Forty-year data that has assessed in this study indicate that there is direct relationship between spread of drought and piracy in the Red Sea.

Keywords: climate, poverty, climate change, drought, piracy in red sea

Procedia PDF Downloads 498
6421 Drying Kinects of Soybean Seeds

Authors: Amanda Rithieli Pereira Dos Santos, Rute Quelvia De Faria, Álvaro De Oliveira Cardoso, Anderson Rodrigo Da Silva, Érica Leão Fernandes Araújo

Abstract:

The study of the kinetics of drying has great importance for the mathematical modeling, allowing to know about the processes of transference of heat and mass between the products and to adjust dryers managing new technologies for these processes. The present work had the objective of studying the kinetics of drying of soybean seeds and adjusting different statistical models to the experimental data varying cultivar and temperature. Soybean seeds were pre-dried in a natural environment in order to reduce and homogenize the water content to the level of 14% (b.s.). Then, drying was carried out in a forced air circulation oven at controlled temperatures of 38, 43, 48, 53 and 58 ± 1 ° C, using two soybean cultivars, BRS 8780 and Sambaíba, until reaching a hygroscopic equilibrium. The experimental design was completely randomized in factorial 5 x 2 (temperature x cultivar) with 3 replicates. To the experimental data were adjusted eleven statistical models used to explain the drying process of agricultural products. Regression analysis was performed using the least squares Gauss-Newton algorithm to estimate the parameters. The degree of adjustment was evaluated from the analysis of the coefficient of determination (R²), the adjusted coefficient of determination (R² Aj.) And the standard error (S.E). The models that best represent the drying kinetics of soybean seeds are those of Midilli and Logarítmico.

Keywords: curve of drying seeds, Glycine max L., moisture ratio, statistical models

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6420 Infilling Strategies for Surrogate Model Based Multi-disciplinary Analysis and Applications to Velocity Prediction Programs

Authors: Malo Pocheau-Lesteven, Olivier Le Maître

Abstract:

Engineering and optimisation of complex systems is often achieved through multi-disciplinary analysis of the system, where each subsystem is modeled and interacts with other subsystems to model the complete system. The coherence of the output of the different sub-systems is achieved through the use of compatibility constraints, which enforce the coupling between the different subsystems. Due to the complexity of some sub-systems and the computational cost of evaluating their respective models, it is often necessary to build surrogate models of these subsystems to allow repeated evaluation these subsystems at a relatively low computational cost. In this paper, gaussian processes are used, as their probabilistic nature is leveraged to evaluate the likelihood of satisfying the compatibility constraints. This paper presents infilling strategies to build accurate surrogate models of the subsystems in areas where they are likely to meet the compatibility constraint. It is shown that these infilling strategies can reduce the computational cost of building surrogate models for a given level of accuracy. An application of these methods to velocity prediction programs used in offshore racing naval architecture further demonstrates these method's applicability in a real engineering context. Also, some examples of the application of uncertainty quantification to field of naval architecture are presented.

Keywords: infilling strategy, gaussian process, multi disciplinary analysis, velocity prediction program

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6419 Legal Considerations in Fashion Modeling: Protecting Models' Rights and Ensuring Ethical Practices

Authors: Fatemeh Noori

Abstract:

The fashion industry is a dynamic and ever-evolving realm that continuously shapes societal perceptions of beauty and style. Within this industry, fashion modeling plays a crucial role, acting as the visual representation of brands and designers. However, behind the glamorous façade lies a complex web of legal considerations that govern the rights, responsibilities, and ethical practices within the field. This paper aims to explore the legal landscape surrounding fashion modeling, shedding light on key issues such as contract law, intellectual property, labor rights, and the increasing importance of ethical considerations in the industry. Fashion modeling involves the collaboration of various stakeholders, including models, designers, agencies, and photographers. To ensure a fair and transparent working environment, it is imperative to establish a comprehensive legal framework that addresses the rights and obligations of each party involved. One of the primary legal considerations in fashion modeling is the contractual relationship between models and agencies. Contracts define the terms of engagement, including payment, working conditions, and the scope of services. This section will delve into the essential elements of modeling contracts, the negotiation process, and the importance of clarity to avoid disputes. Models are not just individuals showcasing clothing; they are integral to the creation and dissemination of artistic and commercial content. Intellectual property rights, including image rights and the use of a model's likeness, are critical aspects of the legal landscape. This section will explore the protection of models' image rights, the use of their likeness in advertising, and the potential for unauthorized use. Models, like any other professionals, are entitled to fair and ethical treatment. This section will address issues such as working conditions, hours, and the responsibility of agencies and designers to prioritize the well-being of models. Additionally, it will explore the global movement toward inclusivity, diversity, and the promotion of positive body image within the industry. The fashion industry has faced scrutiny for perpetuating harmful standards of beauty and fostering a culture of exploitation. This section will discuss the ethical responsibilities of all stakeholders, including the promotion of diversity, the prevention of exploitation, and the role of models as influencers for positive change. In conclusion, the legal considerations in fashion modeling are multifaceted, requiring a comprehensive approach to protect the rights of models and ensure ethical practices within the industry. By understanding and addressing these legal aspects, the fashion industry can create a more transparent, fair, and inclusive environment for all stakeholders involved in the art of modeling.

Keywords: fashion modeling contracts, image rights in modeling, labor rights for models, ethical practices in fashion, diversity and inclusivity in modeling

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6418 A Stepwise Approach to Automate the Search for Optimal Parameters in Seasonal ARIMA Models

Authors: Manisha Mukherjee, Diptarka Saha

Abstract:

Reliable forecasts of univariate time series data are often necessary for several contexts. ARIMA models are quite popular among practitioners in this regard. Hence, choosing correct parameter values for ARIMA is a challenging yet imperative task. Thus, a stepwise algorithm is introduced to provide automatic and robust estimates for parameters (p; d; q)(P; D; Q) used in seasonal ARIMA models. This process is focused on improvising the overall quality of the estimates, and it alleviates the problems induced due to the unidimensional nature of the methods that are currently used such as auto.arima. The fast and automated search of parameter space also ensures reliable estimates of the parameters that possess several desirable qualities, consequently, resulting in higher test accuracy especially in the cases of noisy data. After vigorous testing on real as well as simulated data, the algorithm doesn’t only perform better than current state-of-the-art methods, it also completely obviates the need for human intervention due to its automated nature.

Keywords: time series, ARIMA, auto.arima, ARIMA parameters, forecast, R function

Procedia PDF Downloads 165