Search results for: internet platform

Authors: Ayse Inel Manav, Nuray Simsek

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The number of people with dementia and the problems that are experienced by these people are increasing along with aging world population. This study was carried out to assess the effects of reminiscence therapy using internet videos on the cognitive condition and apathy levels of elderly people who had mild dementia and lived in nursing homes. This randomly controlled experimental study was conducted between 25 May-25 August 2016 in the nursing home, elderly care and rehabilitation centers in Adana and Seyhan, Turkey. A total of 32 individuals participated in this study, 16 in the experimental group and 16 in the control group. Data were collected using a personal information form developed on the basis of the published literature, the Standardized Mini Mental Test (SMMT) and the Apathy Rating Scale (ARS). The Clinical Research Ethics Committee's approval, written institutional permission, and the written consent of the participants were obtained before data collection. The individuals in the experimental group received reminiscence therapy using internet videos for 60 minutes one day a week for three months. During the same period, 25-30 minutes of unstructured interviews on subjects unrelated to reminiscence were carried out with individuals in the control group. The SMMT and ARS were administered before the applications in the experimental group and at the end of the third month. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and frequencies) as well as Student's t-test, the Mann-Whitney U-test, and Wilcoxon's signed ranks test. In this study, the total SMMT post-test scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group (p = 0.001; p < 0.01). There was a difference between experimental and control groups' total SMMT post-test scores (p = 0.001; p < 0.01). The experimental group's ARS total post-test scores were higher than those of the control group (p = 0.001; p < 0.01). This study found that group reminiscence therapy using internet videos improved the cognitive functions and apathy levels of elderly individuals with mild dementia.

Keywords: apaty, cognitive testing, dementia, elderly, reminisence threapy

Procedia PDF Downloads 197

Authors: Atiwit Sinyoo, Sekh Thanprasertsuk, Sithiporn Agthong, Pasakorn Watanatada, Shaun Peter Qureshi, Saknan Bongsebandhu-Phubhakdi

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Background: Since the SARS-CoV-2 virus became extensively disseminated throughout the world, online learning has become one of the most hotly debated topics in educational reform. While some studies have already shown the advantage of online learning, there are still questions concerning how online learning affects students’ learning behavior and academic achievement when each student learns in a different way. Hence, we aimed to develop a guide for preclinical medical students to avoid drawbacks and get benefits from online learning that possibly a double-edged sword. Methods: We used a multiple-choice questionnaire to evaluate the learning behavior of second-year Thai medical students in the neuroscience course. All traditional face-to-face lecture classes were video-recorded and promptly posted to the online learning platform throughout this course. Students could pick and choose whatever classes they wanted to attend, and they may use online learning as often as they wished. Academic performance was evaluated as summative score, spot exam score and pre-post-test improvement. Results: More frequently students used online learning platform, the less they attended lecture classes (P = 0.035). High proactive online learners (High PO) who were irregular attendee (IrA) had significantly lower summative scores (P = 0.026), spot exam score (P = 0.012) and pre-post-test improvement (P = 0.036). In the meanwhile, conditional attendees (CoA) who only attended classes with attendance check had significantly higher summative score (P = 0.025) and spot exam score (P = 0.001) if they were in the High PO group. Conclusions: The benefit and drawbacks edges of using an online learning platform were demonstrated in our research. Based on this double-edged sword effect, we believe that online learning is a valuable learning strategy, but students must carefully plan their study schedule to gain the “benefit edge” meanwhile avoiding its “drawback edge”.

Keywords: academic performance, assessment, attendance, online learning, preclinical medical students

Procedia PDF Downloads 158

Authors: V. B. Bastos, M. P. Lima, P. R. G. Kurka

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This paper applies to the creation of virtual 3D environments for the study and development of mobile robot image based navigation algorithms and techniques, which need to operate robustly and efficiently. The test of these algorithms can be performed in a physical way, from conducting experiments on a prototype, or by numerical simulations. Current simulation platforms for robotic applications do not have flexible and updated models for image rendering, being unable to reproduce complex light effects and materials. Thus, it is necessary to create a test platform that integrates sophisticated simulated applications of real environments for navigation, with data and image processing. This work proposes the development of a high-level platform for building 3D model’s environments and the test of image-based navigation algorithms for mobile robots. Techniques were used for applying texture and lighting effects in order to accurately represent the generation of rendered images regarding the real world version. The application will integrate image processing scripts, trajectory control, dynamic modeling and simulation techniques for physics representation and picture rendering with the open source 3D creation suite - Blender.

Keywords: simulation, visual navigation, mobile robot, data visualization

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Cheng-Jhe Lee, Chiun-Chieh Hsu

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Due to the rapid development of the Internet and the increased availability of digital documents, the excessive information on the Internet has led to information overflow problem. In order to solve these problems for effective information retrieval, document clustering in text mining becomes a popular research topic. Clustering is the unsupervised classification of data items into groups without the need of training data. Many conventional document clustering methods perform inefficiently for large document collections because they were originally designed for relational database. Therefore they are impractical in real-world document clustering and require special handling for high dimensionality and high volume. We propose the FIHC (Frequent Itemset-based Hierarchical Clustering) method, which is a hierarchical clustering method developed for document clustering, where the intuition of FIHC is that there exist some common words for each cluster. FIHC uses such words to cluster documents and builds hierarchical topic tree. In this paper, we combine FIHC algorithm with ontology to solve the semantic problem and mine the meaning behind the words in documents. Furthermore, we use the closed frequent itemsets instead of only use frequent itemsets, which increases efficiency and scalability. The experimental results show that our method is more accurate than those of well-known document clustering algorithms.

Keywords: FIHC, documents clustering, ontology, closed frequent itemset

Procedia PDF Downloads 399

Authors: Lochan Basyal

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Global Automation is an emerging technology of today’s era and is based on Internet of Things (IoT). Global automation deals with the controlling of electrical appliances throughout the world. The fabrication of this system has been carried out with interfacing an electrical control system module to Raspberry Pi. An electrical control system module includes a relay driver mechanism through which appliances are controlled automatically in respective condition. In this research project, one email ID has been assigned to Raspberry Pi, and the users from different location having different email ID can mail to Raspberry Pi on assigned email address “[email protected]” with subject heading “Device Control” with predefined command on compose email line. Also, a notification regarding current working condition of this system has been updated on respective user email ID. This approach is an innovative way of implementing smart automation system through which a user can control their electrical appliances like light, fan, television, refrigerator, etc. in their home with the use of email facility. The development of this project helps to enhance the concept of smart home application as well as industrial automation.

Keywords: control circuit, e-mail, global automation, internet of things, IOT, Raspberry Pi

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: Ying Li, Rui Hu, Shizhen Chen, Xin Zhou, Yunhuang Yang

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Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death among men. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a specific product of prostatic epithelial cells, is an important indicator of prostate cancer. Though PSA is not a specific serum biomarker for the screening of prostate cancer, it is recognized as an indicator for prostate cancer recurrence and response to therapy for patient’s post-prostatectomy. Since radical prostatectomy eliminates the source of PSA production, serum PSA levels fall below 50 pg/mL, and may be below the detection limit of clinical immunoassays (current clinical immunoassay lower limit of detection is around 10 pg/mL). Many clinical studies have shown that intervention at low PSA levels was able to improve patient outcomes significantly. Therefore, ultra-sensitive and precise assays that can accurately quantify extremely low levels of PSA (below 1-10 pg/mL) will facilitate the assessment of patients for the possibility of early adjuvant or salvage treatment. Currently, the commercially available ultra-sensitive ELISA kit (not used clinically) can only reach a detection limit of 3-10 pg/mL. Other platforms developed by different research groups could achieve a detection limit as low as 0.33 pg/mL, but they relied on sophisticated instruments to get the final readout. Herein we report a microfluidic platform for point-of-care (POC) detection of PSA with a detection limit of 0.5 pg/mL and without the assistance of any equipment. This platform is based on a previously reported volumetric-bar-chart chip (V-Chip), which applies platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) as the ELISA probe to convert the biomarker concentration to the volume of oxygen gas that further pushes the red ink to form a visualized bar-chart. The length of each bar is used to quantify the biomarker concentration of each sample. We devised a long reading channel V-Chip (LV-Chip) in this work to achieve a wide detection window. In addition, LV-Chip employed a unique enzyme-free ELISA probe that enriched PtNPs significantly and owned 500-fold enhanced catalytic ability over that of previous V-Chip, resulting in a significantly improved detection limit. LV-Chip is able to complete a PSA assay for five samples in 20 min. The device was applied to detect PSA in 50 patient serum samples, and the on-chip results demonstrated good correlation with conventional immunoassay. In addition, the PSA levels in finger-prick whole blood samples from healthy volunteers were successfully measured on the device. This completely stand-alone LV-Chip platform enables convenient POC testing for patient follow-up in the physician’s office and is also useful in resource-constrained settings.

Keywords: point-of-care detection, microfluidics, PSA, ultra-sensitive

Procedia PDF Downloads 110

Authors: Myriam Rousseau, Suzie McKinnon, Mathieu Mireault, Anaïs V. Berthiaume, Marie-Hélène Poulin, Jacinthe Bourassa, Louis-Simon Maltais

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The increasing presence of young people with autism is forcing schools to adapt to this new situation and to offer services that meet the needs of this clientele. However, school staff often feels unqualified to support these students, lacking the preparation, skills and training to meet their needs. Continuing education for these staff is therefore essential to ensure that they can meet the needs of these students. As a result, the Government of Quebec has developed a bilingual (French and English) online training on autism specific to the needs of school staff. Therefore, adequate training for all school staff is likely to provide quality learning opportunities for these students. The research project focuses on the participants' appreciation, contributions, and social validity of the training. More specifically, it aims to: 1) evaluate the knowledge and self-efficacy of the participants, 2) evaluate the social validity and 3) document the evaluation of the ergonomics of the platform hosting the training. The evaluation carried out as part of this descriptive study uses a quantitative method. Data are collected using questionnaires completed online. The analysis of preliminary data reveals that participants' knowledge of autism and their sense of self-efficacy increased significantly. They value the training positively and consider it to be acceptable, appropriate, and suitable. The participants find it important for school staff to take this training. Almost all the items measuring the ergonomics of the platform have averages above 4.57/5. In general, the study shows that the training allows participating of the trainee school staff to improve their knowledge of autism and their sense of self-efficacy with young people with autism. In addition, participants recognize that the training has good social validity and appreciate the online modality. However, these results should be interpreted with caution given the limited number of participants who completed the research project. It is therefore important to continue the research with a larger number of participants to allow an adequate and general representativeness of the social validity, the feeling of competence and the appreciation of the platform.

Keywords: autism, online training, school staff, social validity

Procedia PDF Downloads 37

Authors: Beata J. Lehka, Samuel A. Bradley, Frederik G. Hansson, Khem B. Adhikari, Daniela Rago, Paulina Rubaszka, Ahmad K. Haidar, Ling Chen, Lea G. Hansen, Olga Gudich, Konstantina Giannakou, Yoko Nakamura, Thomas Dugé de Bernonville, Konstantinos Koudounas, Sarah E. O’Connor, Vincent Courdavault, Jay D. Keasling, Jie Zhang, Michael K. Jensen

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Monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIAs) represent a large class of natural plant products with marketed pharmaceutical activities against a wide range of applications, including cancer and mental disorders. Halogenated MIAs have shown improved pharmaceutical properties; however, characterisation and synthesis of new-to-nature halogenated MIAs remain a challenge in slow-growing plants with limited genetic tractability. Here, we demonstrate a platform for de novo biosynthesis of two bioactive MIAs, serpentine and alstonine, in baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, reaching titers of 8.85 mg/L and 4.48 mg/L, respectively, when cultivated in fed-batch micro bioreactors. Using this MIA biosynthesis platform, we undertake a systematic exploration of the derivative space surrounding these compounds and produce halogenated MIAs. The aim of the current study is to develop a fermentation process for halogenated MIAs.

Keywords: monoterpenoid indole alkaloids, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, halogenated derivatives, fermentation

Procedia PDF Downloads 210

Authors: Nizar Karim Uribe-Orihuela, Fernando Brambila-Paz, Ivette Caldelas, Rodrigo Montufar-Chaveznava

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In this paper, we present the advances corresponding to the implementation of a strategy to visualize geographical data using a Software Development Kit (SDK) for video games. We use multispectral images from Landsat 7 platform and Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data from The National Institute of Geography and Statistics of Mexican (INEGI). We select a place of interest to visualize from Landsat platform and make some processing to the image (rotations, atmospheric correction and enhancement). The resulting image will be our gray scale color-map to fusion with the LIDAR data, which was selected using the same coordinates than in Landsat. The LIDAR data is translated to 8-bit raw data. Both images are fused in a software developed using Unity (an SDK employed for video games). The resulting image is then displayed and can be explored moving around. The idea is the software could be used for students of geology and geophysics at the Engineering School of the National University of Mexico. They will download the software and images corresponding to a geological place of interest to a smartphone and could virtually visit and explore the site with a virtual reality visor such as Google cardboard.

Keywords: virtual reality, interactive technologies, geographical data visualization, video games technologies, educational material

Procedia PDF Downloads 246

Authors: Minna Pikkarainen, Yueqiang Xu

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The integration of digital technology with existing healthcare processes has been painfully slow, a huge gap exists between the fields of strictly regulated official medical care and the quickly moving field of health and wellness technology. We claim that the promises of preventive healthcare can only be fulfilled when this gap is closed – health care and self-care becomes seamless continuum “correct information, in the correct hands, at the correct time allowing individuals and professionals to make better decisions” what we call connected health approach. Currently, the issues related to security, privacy, consumer consent and data sharing are hindering the implementation of this new paradigm of healthcare. This could be solved by following MyData principles stating that: Individuals should have the right and practical means to manage their data and privacy. MyData infrastructure enables decentralized management of personal data, improves interoperability, makes it easier for companies to comply with tightening data protection regulations, and allows individuals to change service providers without proprietary data lock-ins. This paper tackles today’s unprecedented challenges of enabling and stimulating multiple healthcare data providers and stakeholders to have more active participation in the digital health ecosystem. First, the paper systematically proposes the MyData approach for healthcare and preventive health data ecosystem. In this research, the work is targeted for health and wellness ecosystems. Each ecosystem consists of key actors, such as 1) individual (citizen or professional controlling/using the services) i.e. data subject, 2) services providing personal data (e.g. startups providing data collection apps or data collection devices), 3) health and wellness services utilizing aforementioned data and 4) services authorizing the access to this data under individual’s provided explicit consent. Second, the research extends the existing four archetypes of orchestrator-driven healthcare data business models for the healthcare industry and proposes the fifth type of healthcare data model, the MyData Blockchain Platform. This new architecture is developed by the Action Design Research approach, which is a prominent research methodology in the information system domain. The key novelty of the paper is to expand the health data value chain architecture and design from centralization and pseudo-decentralization to full decentralization, enabled by blockchain, thus the MyData blockchain platform. The study not only broadens the healthcare informatics literature but also contributes to the theoretical development of digital healthcare and blockchain research domains with a systemic approach.

Keywords: blockchain, health data, platform, action design

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Odoh Ben Uruchi

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Information Technology is an outcome of the nexus between the computer technology and the communication technology which has grown as silver fiber in Nigeria. Information Technology represents the fourth generation of human communication after sight, oral and written communications. The internet, as with all path-breaking technological developments gives us all the ample privileges to act as a global community; advertise and operate across all frontiers; over boarders and beyond the control of any government. The security concerns, computer abuse and the side effects of this technology have moved to the forefront of the consciousness of law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, Nigeria is one of the very few countries in the world to have not legislated Cyber Laws, although several unsuccessful attempts have been made in recent times at providing the legal framework for regulating the activities in Nigerian cyberspace. Traditional legal systems have led to great difficulty in keeping pace with the rapid growth of the internet and its impact throughout Nigeria. The only existing legal frameworks are constantly being challenged by technological advancement. This has created a need to constantly update and adapt the way in which we organize ourselves as Legal Practitioners in order to maintain overall control of its domestic and national interests. This paper seeks to appraise the challenges facing the legal profession in Nigeria because of want of Cyber Laws. In doing this, the paper shall highlight the loopholes in the existing laws and recommends the way forward.

Keywords: information technology, challenges, legal profession, Nigeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 516

Authors: Fadi Saleh, Çığdem Sezer Zhmurov

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Biopharmaceuticals represent one of the wildest developing fields within biotechnology, and the biological macromolecules being produced inside cells have a variety of applications for therapies. In the past, mammalian cells, especially CHO cells, have been employed in the production of biopharmaceuticals. This is because these cells can achieve human-like completion of PTM. These systems, however, carry apparent disadvantages like high production costs, vulnerability to contamination, and limitations in scalability. This research is focused on the utilization of microalgae as a bioreactor system for the synthesis of biopharmaceutical glycoproteins in relation to PTMs, particularly N-glycosylation. The research points to a growing interest in microalgae as a potential substitute for more conventional expression systems. A number of advantages exist in the use of microalgae, including rapid growth rates, the lack of common human pathogens, controlled scalability in bioreactors, and the ability of some PTMs to take place. Thus, the potential of microalgae to produce recombinant proteins with favorable characteristics makes this a promising platform in order to produce biopharmaceuticals. The study focuses on the examination of the N-glycosylation pathways across different species of microalgae. This investigation is important as N-glycosylation—the process by which carbohydrate groups are linked to proteins—profoundly influences the stability, activity, and general performance of glycoproteins. Additionally, bioinformatics methodologies are employed to explain the genetic pathways implicated in N-glycosylation within microalgae, with the intention of modifying these organisms to produce glycoproteins suitable for human consumption. In this way, the present comparative analysis of the N-glycosylation pathway in humans and microalgae can be used to bridge both systems in order to produce biopharmaceuticals with humanized glycosylation profiles within the microalgal organisms. The results of the research underline microalgae's potential to help improve some of the limitations associated with traditional biopharmaceutical production systems. The study may help in the creation of a cost-effective and scale-up means of producing quality biopharmaceuticals by modifying microalgae genetically to produce glycoproteins with N-glycosylation that is compatible with humans. Improvements in effectiveness will benefit biopharmaceutical production and the biopharmaceutical sector with this novel, green, and efficient expression platform. This thesis, therefore, is thorough research into the viability of microalgae as an efficient platform for producing biopharmaceutical glycoproteins. Based on the in-depth bioinformatic analysis of microalgal N-glycosylation pathways, a platform for their engineering to produce human-compatible glycoproteins is set out in this work. The findings obtained in this research will have significant implications for the biopharmaceutical industry by opening up a new way of developing safer, more efficient, and economically more feasible biopharmaceutical manufacturing platforms.

Keywords: microalgae, glycoproteins, post-translational modification, genome

Procedia PDF Downloads 24

Authors: Zhiwen Pan, Jesus Pacheco, Salim Hariri, Yiqiang Chen, Bozhi Liu

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The Internet of Things (IoT) will lead to the development of advanced Smart Home services that are pervasive, cost-effective, and can be accessed by home occupants from anywhere and at any time. However, advanced smart home applications will introduce grand security challenges due to the increase in the attack surface. Current approaches do not handle cybersecurity from a holistic point of view; hence, a systematic cybersecurity mechanism needs to be adopted when designing smart home applications. In this paper, we present a generic intrusion detection methodology to detect and mitigate the anomaly behaviors happened in Smart Home Systems (SHS). By utilizing our Smart Home Context Data Structure, the heterogeneous information and services acquired from SHS are mapped in context attributes which can describe the context of smart home operation precisely and accurately. Runtime models for describing usage patterns of home assets are developed based on characterization functions. A threat-aware action management methodology, used to efficiently mitigate anomaly behaviors, is proposed at the end. Our preliminary experimental results show that our methodology can be used to detect and mitigate known and unknown threats, as well as to protect SHS premises and services.

Keywords: Internet of Things, network security, context awareness, intrusion detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Amir Rashid

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Cloud Computing frameworks empower organizations to cut expenses by outsourcing computation resources on-request. As of now, customers of Cloud service providers have no methods for confirming the privacy and ownership of their information and data. To address this issue we propose the platform of a trusted cloud computing program (TCCP). TCCP empowers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) suppliers, for example, Amazon EC2 to give a shout box execution condition that ensures secret execution of visitor virtual machines. Also, it permits clients to bear witness to the IaaS supplier and decide if the administration is secure before they dispatch their virtual machines. This paper proposes a Trusted Cloud Computing Platform (TCCP) for guaranteeing the privacy and trustworthiness of computed data that are outsourced to IaaS service providers. The TCCP gives the deliberation of a shut box execution condition for a client's VM, ensuring that no cloud supplier's authorized manager can examine or mess up with its data. Furthermore, before launching the VM, the TCCP permits a client to dependably and remotely acknowledge that the provider at backend is running a confided in TCCP. This capacity extends the verification of whole administration, and hence permits a client to confirm the data operation in secure mode.

Keywords: cloud security, IaaS, cloud data privacy and integrity, hybrid cloud

Procedia PDF Downloads 299

Authors: Messaouda Annab

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The rapid development of technology has led to an important context in which different languages and structures are used in the same conversations. This paper investigates the practice of language borrowing within social media platform, namely, Facebook among Algerian Vernacular Arabic (AVA) students. In other words, this study will explore how Algerian students have incorporated lexical English borrowing in their online conversations. This paper will examine the relationships between language, culture and identity among a multilingual group. The main objective is to determine the cultural and linguistic functions that borrowing fulfills in social media and to explain the possible factors underlying English borrowing. The nature of the study entails the use of an online research method that includes ten online Facebook conversations in the form of private messages collected from Bachelor and Masters Algerian students recruited from the English department at the University of Oum El-Bouaghi. The analysis of data revealed that social media platform provided the users with opportunities to shift from one language to another. This practice was noticed in students’ online conversations. English borrowing was the most relevant language performance in accordance with Arabic which is the mother tongue of the chosen sample. The analysis has assumed that participants are skilled in more than one language.

Keywords: borrowing, language performance, linguistic background, social media

Procedia PDF Downloads 158

Authors: Estevan B. Costa, Armando M. Toda, Marcell A. A. Mesquita, Jacques D. Brancher

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The advances in technology in the last five years allowed an improvement in the educational area, as the increasing in the development of educational software. One of the techniques that emerged in this lapse is called Gamification, which is the utilization of video game mechanics outside its bounds. Recent studies involving this technique provided positive results in the application of these concepts in many areas as marketing, health and education. In the last area there are studies that cover from elementary to higher education, with many variations to adequate to the educators methodologies. Among higher education, focusing on IT courses, data structures are an important subject taught in many of these courses, as they are base for many systems. Based on the exposed this paper exposes the development of an interactive web learning environment, called DSLEP (Data Structure Learning Platform), to aid students in higher education IT courses. The system includes basic concepts seen on this subject such as stacks, queues, lists, arrays, trees and was implemented to ease the insertion of new structures. It was also implemented with gamification concepts, such as points, levels, and leader boards, to engage students in the search for knowledge and stimulate self-learning.

Keywords: gamification, Interactive learning environment, data structures, e-learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 494

Authors: Thomas Yeboah

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Cloud Computing is newly paradigm in computing that promises a delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet). As Cloud Computing is a newly style of computing on the internet. It has many merits along with some crucial issues that need to be resolved in order to improve reliability of cloud environment. These issues are related with the load balancing, fault tolerance and different security issues in cloud environment.In this paper the main concern is to develop an effective load balancing algorithm that gives satisfactory performance to both, cloud users and providers. This proposed algorithm (hybrid Bee Ant Colony algorithm) is a combination of two dynamic algorithms: Ant Colony Optimization and Bees Life algorithm. Ant Colony algorithm is used in this hybrid Bee Ant Colony algorithm to solve load balancing issues whiles the Bees Life algorithm is used for optimization of job scheduling in cloud environment. The results of the proposed algorithm shows that the hybrid Bee Ant Colony algorithm outperforms the performances of both Ant Colony algorithm and Bees Life algorithm when evaluated the proposed algorithm performances in terms of Waiting time and Response time on a simulator called CloudSim.

Keywords: ant colony optimization algorithm, bees life algorithm, scheduling algorithm, performance, cloud computing, load balancing

Procedia PDF Downloads 628

Authors: Negar Vkilbashi, Hassan Kabiri

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Modern diplomacy, in its general form, refers to the people and not the governments, and diplomacy tactics are more addressed to the people than to the governments. Media diplomacy and cyber diplomacy are also one of the sub-branches of public diplomacy and, in fact, the role of media in the process of influencing public opinion and directing foreign policy. Mass media, including written, radio and television, theater, satellite, internet, and news agencies, transmit information and demands. What the Qatari government tried to implement in the countries of the region during the Arab Spring and after was through its important media, Al Jazeera. The embargo on Qatar began in 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt imposed a land, sea, and air blockade against the country. The media tool constitutes the cornerstone of soft power in the field of foreign policy, which Qatari leaders have consistently resorted to over the past two decades. Undoubtedly, the role it played in covering the events of the Arab Spring has created geopolitical tensions. The United Arab Emirates and other neighboring countries sometimes criticize Al Jazeera for providing a platform for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other Islamists to promote their ideology. In 2011, at the same time as the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera reached the peak of its popularity. Al Jazeera's live coverage of protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria helped create a unified narrative of the Arab Spring, with audiences tuning in every Friday to watch simultaneous protests across the Middle East. Al Jazeera operates in three groups: First, it is a powerful base in the hands of the government so that it can direct and influence Arab public opinion. Therefore, this network has been able to benefit from the unlimited financial support of the Qatar government to promote its desired policies and culture. Second, it has provided an attractive platform for politicians and scientific and intellectual elites, thus attracting their support and defense from the government and its rulers. Third, during the last years of Prince Hamad's reign, the Al Jazeera network formed a deterrent weapon to counter the media and political struggle campaigns. The importance of the research is that this network covers a wide range of people in the Middle East and, therefore, has a high influence on the decision-making of countries. On the other hand, Al Jazeera is influential as a tool of public diplomacy and soft power in Qatar's foreign policy, and by studying it, the results of its effectiveness in the past years can be examined. Using a qualitative method, this research analyzes the impact of the media on the implementation of Qatar's foreign policy on the public opinion of the people of the Middle East. Data collection has been done by the secondary method, that is, reading related books, magazine articles, newspaper reports and articles, and analytical reports of think tanks. The most important findings of the research are that Al Jazeera plays an important role in Qatar's foreign policy in Qatar's public diplomacy. So that, in 2011, 2017 and 2023, it played an important role in Qatar's foreign policy in various crises. Also, the people of Arab countries use Al-Jazeera as their first reference.

Keywords: Al Jazeera, Qatar, media, diplomacy

Procedia PDF Downloads 78

Authors: Cian O'Shea, Ross O'Halloran, Peter Haigh

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices. They are becoming widely adopted in many industries, including health care, building energy management, and conditional monitoring. As the scale of WSN deployments increases, the cost and complexity of battery replacement and disposal become more significant and in time may become a barrier to adoption. Harvesting ambient energies provide a pathway to reducing dependence on batteries and in the future may lead to autonomously powered sensors. This work describes a simulation tool that enables the user to predict the battery life of a wireless sensor that utilizes energy harvesting to supplement the battery power. To create this simulator, all aspects of a typical WSN edge device were modelled including, sensors, transceiver, and microcontroller as well as the energy source components (batteries, solar cells, thermoelectric generators (TEG), supercapacitors and DC/DC converters). The tool allows the user to plug and play different pre characterized devices as well as add user-defined devices. The goal of this simulation tool is to predict the lifetime of a device and scope for extension using ambient energy sources.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network, IoT, edge device, simulation, solar cells, TEG, supercapacitor, energy harvesting

Procedia PDF Downloads 130

Authors: Wang Shuen-Tai, Lin Yu-Ching, Chang Hsi-Ya

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Cloud computing is the innovative and leading information technology model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort. In this paper, we aim at the development of workflow management system for cloud computing platforms based on our previous research on the dynamic allocation of the cloud computing resources and its workflow process. We took advantage of the HTML 5 technology and developed web-based workflow interface. In order to enable the combination of many tasks running on the cloud platform in sequence, we designed a mechanism and developed an execution engine for workflow management on clouds. We also established a prediction model which was integrated with job queuing system to estimate the waiting time and cost of the individual tasks on different computing nodes, therefore helping users achieve maximum performance at lowest payment. This proposed effort has the potential to positively provide an efficient, resilience and elastic environment for cloud computing platform. This development also helps boost user productivity by promoting a flexible workflow interface that lets users design and control their tasks' flow from anywhere.

Keywords: web-based, workflow, HTML5, Cloud Computing, Queuing System

Procedia PDF Downloads 309

Authors: Loong Qing Zhe, Foo Jing Heng

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A variety of data files are now available on the internet due to the advancement of technology across the globe today. As more and more data are being uploaded on the internet, people are becoming more concerned that their private data, particularly medical health records, are being compromised and sold to others for money. Hence, the accessibility and confidentiality of patients' medical records have to be protected through electronic means. Blockchain technology is introduced to offer patients security against adversaries or unauthorised parties. In the blockchain network, only authorised personnel or organisations that have been validated as nodes may share information and data. For any change within the network, including adding a new block or modifying existing information about the block, a majority of two-thirds of the vote is required to confirm its legitimacy. Additionally, a consortium permission blockchain will connect all the entities within the same community. Consequently, all medical data in the network can be safely shared with all authorised entities. Also, synchronization can be performed within the cloud since the data is real-time. This paper discusses an efficient method for storing and sharing electronic health records (EHRs). It also examines the framework of roles within the blockchain and proposes a new approach to maintain EHRs with keyword indexes to search for patients' medical records while ensuring data privacy.

Keywords: healthcare sectors, distributed system, blockchain, electronic health records (EHR)

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Heeyeul Kwon, Yongtae Park

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Despite the highly touted benefits, emerging technologies have unleashed pervasive concerns regarding unintended and unforeseen social impacts. Thus, those wishing to create safe and socially acceptable products need to identify such side effects and mitigate them prior to the market proliferation. Various methodologies in the field of technology assessment (TA), namely Delphi, impact assessment, and scenario planning, have been widely incorporated in such a circumstance. However, literatures face a major limitation in terms of sole reliance on participatory workshop activities. They unfortunately missed out the availability of a massive untapped data source of futuristic information flooding through the Internet. This research thus seeks to gain insights into utilization of futuristic data, future-oriented documents from the Internet, as a supplementary method to generate social impact scenarios whilst capturing perspectives of experts from a wide variety of disciplines. To this end, network analysis is conducted based on the social keywords extracted from the futuristic documents by text mining, which is then used as a guide to produce a comprehensive set of detailed scenarios. Our proposed approach facilitates harmonized depictions of possible hazardous consequences of emerging technologies and thereby makes decision makers more aware of, and responsive to, broad qualitative uncertainties.

Keywords: emerging technologies, futuristic data, scenario, text mining

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Authors: Zabeehullah, Fahim Arif, Yawar Abbas

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Software Defined Network (SDN) is a next genera-tion networking model which simplifies the traditional network complexities and improve the utilization of constrained resources. Currently, most of the SDN based Internet of Things(IoT) environments use traditional network routing strategies which work on the basis of max or min metric value. However, IoT network heterogeneity, dynamic traffic flow and complexity demands intelligent and self-adaptive routing algorithms because traditional routing algorithms lack the self-adaptions, intelligence and efficient utilization of resources. To some extent, SDN, due its flexibility, and centralized control has managed the IoT complexity and heterogeneity but still Software Defined IoT (SDIoT) lacks intelligence. To address this challenge, we proposed a model called Deep Routing Strategy (DRS) which uses Deep Learning algorithm to perform routing in SDIoT intelligently and efficiently. Our model uses real-time traffic for training and learning. Results demonstrate that proposed model has achieved high accuracy and low packet loss rate during path selection. Proposed model has also outperformed benchmark routing algorithm (OSPF). Moreover, proposed model provided encouraging results during high dynamic traffic flow.

Keywords: SDN, IoT, DL, ML, DRS

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Authors: Manpreet Kaur, Amita Rani, Sanjay Kumar

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The Internet of Things (IoT), a cyber-physical paradigm, allows a large number of devices to connect and send the sensory data in the network simultaneously. This tremendous amount of data generated leads to very high network load consequently resulting in network congestion. It further amounts to frequent loss of useful information and depletion of significant amount of nodes’ energy. Therefore, there is a need to control congestion in IoT so as to prolong network lifetime and improve the quality of service (QoS). Hence, we propose a two-level clustering based routing algorithm considering congestion score and packet priority metrics that focus on minimizing the network congestion. In the proposed Priority based Congestion Control (PBCC) protocol the sensor nodes in IoT network form clusters that reduces the amount of traffic and the nodes are prioritized to emphasize important data. Simultaneously, a congestion score determines the occurrence of congestion at a particular node. The proposed protocol outperforms the existing Packet Discard Network Clustering (PDNC) protocol in terms of buffer size, packet transmission range, network region and number of nodes, under various simulation scenarios.

Keywords: internet of things, cyber-physical systems, congestion control, priority, transmission rate

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Authors: Bander Alzahrani, Mohammed Alreshoodi

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Information-centric networking (ICN) using architectures such as the Publish-Subscribe Internet Technology (PURSUIT) has been proposed as a new networking model that aims at replacing the current used end-centric networking model of the Internet. This emerged model focuses on what is being exchanged rather than which network entities are exchanging information, which gives the control plane functions such as routing and host location the ability to be specified according to the content items. The forwarding plane of the PURSUIT ICN architecture uses a simple and light mechanism based on Bloom filter technologies to forward the packets. Although this forwarding scheme solve many problems of the today’s Internet such as the growth of the routing table and the scalability issues, it is vulnerable to brute force attacks which are starting point to distributed- denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In this work, we design and analyze a novel source-routing and information delivery technique that keeps the simplicity of using Bloom filter-based forwarding while being able to deter different attacks such as denial of service attacks at the ingress of the network. To achieve this, special forwarding nodes called Edge-FW are directly attached to end user nodes and used to perform a security test for malicious injected random packets at the ingress of the path to prevent any possible attack brute force attacks at early stage. In this technique, a core entity of the PURSUIT ICN architecture called topology manager, that is responsible for finding shortest path and creating a forwarding identifiers (FId), uses a cryptographically secure hash function to create a 64-bit hash, h, over the formed FId for authentication purpose to be included in the packet. Our proposal restricts the attacker from injecting packets carrying random FIds with a high amount of filling factor ρ, by optimizing and reducing the maximum allowed filling factor ρm in the network. We optimize the FId to the minimum possible filling factor where ρ ≤ ρm, while it supports longer delivery trees, so the network scalability is not affected by the chosen ρm. With this scheme, the filling factor of any legitimate FId never exceeds the ρm while the filling factor of illegitimate FIds cannot exceed the chosen small value of ρm. Therefore, injecting a packet containing an FId with a large value of filling factor, to achieve higher attack probability, is not possible anymore. The preliminary analysis of this proposal indicates that with the designed scheme, the forwarding function can detect and prevent malicious activities such DDoS attacks at early stage and with very high probability.

Keywords: forwarding identifier, filling factor, information centric network, topology manager

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Authors: Houmame Benbouali

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This paper introduces the design, analysis, tests and application of a new isolation system used in irregular structure, also briefly introduces the recent research, and development on seismic isolation of civil buildings in China. A very large platform (2 stories RC frame) with plane size 1500m wide and 2000m long was built to cover the city railway communication hub area. About 50 isolation house buildings (9 stories RC frame) with 480,000 M2 were built on the top floor of platform. A new advanced isolation system named Storied-Isolation was used to ensure the seismic safety for this irregular structure with the largest isolation house building area in the world. This new isolation system has been used widely in China. There are over 400 buildings with seismic isolation have been built in China until 2003. This paper will introduce the recent research, and development on seismic isolation of civil buildings in China, including the tendency of application on seismic isolation, different isolation systems, different design level being used, design codes, application status and examples of application. Also the paper makes discussion of some problems on the future development of seismic isolation in China.

Keywords: civil buildings, floor, irregular structure, seismic isolation

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Authors: Taoues Hadour

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Twitter has become a popular means of communication used in a variety of fields, such as politics, journalism, and academia. This widely used online platform has an impact on the way people express themselves and is changing language usage worldwide at an unprecedented pace. The language used online reflects the linguistic battle that has been going on for several decades in French society. This study enables a deeper understanding of users' linguistic behavior online. The implications are important and allow for a rise in awareness of intercultural and cross-language exchanges. This project investigates the mixing of French-English language usage among French users of Twitter using a topic analysis approach. This analysis draws on Gumperz's theory of conversational switching. In order to collect tweets at a large scale, the data was collected in R using the rtweet package to access and retrieve French tweets data through Twitter’s REST and stream APIs (Application Program Interface) using the software RStudio, the integrated development environment for R. The dataset was filtered manually and certain repetitions of themes were observed. A total of nine topic categories were identified and analyzed in this study: entertainment, internet/social media, events/community, politics/news, sports, sex/pornography, innovation/technology, fashion/make up, and business. The study reveals that entertainment is the most frequent topic discussed on Twitter. Entertainment includes movies, music, games, and books. Anglicisms such as trailer, spoil, and live are identified in the data. Change in language usage is inevitable and is a natural result of linguistic interactions. The use of different languages online is just an example of what the real world would look like without linguistic regulations. Social media reveals a multicultural and multilinguistic richness which can deepen and expand our understanding of contemporary human attitudes.

Keywords: code-switching, French, sociolinguistics, Twitter

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Authors: Benjamin Arazi

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Blockchain is the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. It revolutionizes the meaning of trust in the sense of offering total reliability without relying on any central entity that controls or supervises the system. The Wall Street Journal states: “Blockchain Marks the Next Step in the Internet’s Evolution”. Blockchain was listed as #1 in Linkedin – The Learning Blog “most in-demand hard skills needed in 2020”. As stated there: “Blockchain’s novel way to store, validate, authorize, and move data across the internet has evolved to securely store and send any digital asset”. GSMA, a leading Telco organization of mobile communications operators, declared that “Blockchain has the potential to be for value what the Internet has been for information”. Motivated by these seminal observations, this paper presents the foundations of a Blockchain-based “Internet of Assets” academic program that joins under one roof leading application areas that are characterized by the transfer of assets over communication lines. Two such areas, which are pillars of our economy, are Fintech – Financial Technology and mobile communications services. The next application in line is Healthcare. These challenges are met based on available extensive professional literature. Blockchain-based assets communication is based on extending the principle of Bitcoin, starting with the basic question: If digital money that travels across the universe can ‘prove its own validity’, can this principle be applied to digital content. A groundbreaking positive answer here led to the concept of “smart contract” and consequently to DLT - Distributed Ledger Technology, where the word ‘distributed’ relates to the non-existence of reliable central entities or trusted third parties. The terms Blockchain and DLT are frequently used interchangeably in various application areas. The World Bank Group compiled comprehensive reports, analyzing the contribution of DLT/Blockchain to Fintech. The European Central Bank and Bank of Japan are engaged in Project Stella, “Balancing confidentiality and auditability in a distributed ledger environment”. 130 DLT/Blockchain focused Fintech startups are now operating in Switzerland. Blockchain impact on mobile communications services is treated in detail by leading organizations. The TM Forum is a global industry association in the telecom industry, with over 850 member companies, mainly mobile operators, that generate US$2 trillion in revenue and serve five billion customers across 180 countries. From their perspective: “Blockchain is considered one of the digital economy’s most disruptive technologies”. Samples of Blockchain contributions to Fintech (taken from a World Bank document): Decentralization and disintermediation; Greater transparency and easier auditability; Automation & programmability; Immutability & verifiability; Gains in speed and efficiency; Cost reductions; Enhanced cyber security resilience. Samples of Blockchain contributions to the Telco industry. Establishing identity verification; Record of transactions for easy cost settlement; Automatic triggering of roaming contract which enables near-instantaneous charging and reduction in roaming fraud; Decentralized roaming agreements; Settling accounts per costs incurred in accordance with agreement tariffs. This clearly demonstrates an academic education structure where fundamental technologies are studied in classes together with these two application areas. Advanced courses, treating specific implementations then follow separately. All are under the roof of “Internet of Assets”.

Keywords: blockchain, education, financial technology, mobile telecommunications services

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Authors: Vandenbroucke Karel, Georges Annabel, Schuurman Dimitri

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In the past years, bundling of transport flows, whether or not implemented in an intermodal process, has popped up as a promising concept in the logistics sector. Bundling of transport flows is a process where two or more shippers decide to synergize their shipped goods over a common transport lane. Promoted by the European Commission, several programs have been set up and have shown their benefits. Bundling promises both shippers and logistics service providers economic, societal and ecological benefits. By bundling transport flows and thus reducing truck (or other carrier) capacity, the problems of driver shortage, increased fuel prices, mileage charges and restricted hours of service on the road are solved. In theory, the advantages of bundled transport exceed the drawbacks, however, in practice adoption among shippers remains low. In fact, bundling is mentioned as a disruptive process in the rather traditional logistics sector. In this context, a Belgian company asked iMinds Living Labs to set up a Living Lab research project with the goal to investigate how the uptake of bundling transport flows can be accelerated and to check whether an online data sharing platform can overcome the adoption barriers. The Living Lab research was conducted in 2016 and combined quantitative and qualitative end-user and market research. Concretely, extensive desk research was conducted and combined with insights from expert interviews with four consultants active in the Belgian logistics sector and in-depth interviews with logistics professionals working for shippers (N=10) and LSP’s (N=3). In the article, we present findings which show that there are several factors slowing down the uptake of bundling transport flows. Shippers are hesitant to change how they currently work and they are hesitant to work together with other shippers. Moreover, several practical challenges impede shippers to work together. We also present some opportunities that can accelerate the adoption of bundling of transport flows. First, it seems that there is not enough support coming from governmental and commercial organizations. Secondly, there is the chicken and the egg problem: too few interested parties will lead to no or very few matching lanes. Shippers are therefore reluctant to partake in these projects because the benefits have not yet been proven. Thirdly, the incentive is not big enough for shippers. Road transport organized by the shipper individually is still seen as the easiest and cheapest solution. A solution for the abovementioned challenges might be found in the online data sharing platform of the Belgian company. The added value of this platform is showing shippers possible matching lanes, without the shippers having to invest time in negotiating and networking with other shippers and running the risk of not finding a match. The interviewed shippers and experts indicated that the online data sharing platform is a very promising concept which could accelerate the uptake of bundling of transport flows.

Keywords: adoption barriers, bundling of transport, shippers, transport optimization

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Authors: Medhin Haftom Hailu

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The advancement of information technology has significantly impacted Ethiopia's economy, driving innovation, productivity, job creation, and global connectivity. This research examined the impact of contemporary information and communication technologies on Ethiopian economic progress. The study examined eight variables, including mobile, internet, and fixed-line penetration rates, and five macroeconomic control variables. The results showed a positive and strong effect of ICT on economic growth in Ethiopia, with 1% increase in mobile, internet, and fixed line services penetration indexes resulting in an 8.03, 10.05, and 30.06% increase in real GDP. The Granger causality test showed that all ICT variables Granger caused economic growth, but economic growth Granger caused mobile penetration rate only. The study suggests that coordinated ICT infrastructure development, increased telecom service accessibility, and increased competition in the telecom market are crucial for Ethiopia's economic growth. Ethiopia is attempting to establish a digital economy through massive investment in ensuring ICT quality and accessibility. Thus, the research could enhance in understanding of the economic impact of ICT expansion for successful ICT policy interventions for future research.

Keywords: economic growth, cointegration and error correction, ICT expansion, granger causality, penetration

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