Search results for: resource management algorithm

Authors: Ugbede Onalo, Mohd Lizam, Ahmad Kaseri, Otache Innocent

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Giving the paucity of studies on IFRS adoption and quality of banks accounting quality, particularly in emerging economies, this study is motivated to investigate whether the Nigeria decision to adopt IFRS beginning from 1 January 2012 is associated with high quality accounting measures. Consistent with prior literatures, this study measure quality of financial statement information using earnings measurement, timeliness of loss recognition and value relevance. A total of twenty Nigeria banks covering a period of six years (2008-2013) divided equally into three years each (2008, 2009, 2010) pre adoption period and (2011, 2012, 2013) post adoption period were investigated. Following prior studies eight models were in all employed to investigate earnings management, timeliness of loss recognition and value relevance of Nigeria bank accounting quality for the different reporting regimes. Results suggest that IFRS adoption is associated with minimal earnings management, timely recognition of losses and high value relevance of accounting information. Summarily, IFRS adoption engenders higher quality of banks financial statement information compared to local GAAP. Hence, this study recommends the global adoption of IFRS and that Nigeria banks should embrace good corporate governance practices.

Keywords: IFRS, SAS, quality of accounting information, earnings measurement, discretionary accruals, non-discretionary accruals, total accruals, Jones model, timeliness of loss recognition, value relevance

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Authors: Davie G. Dave, Prisca H. Mugabe, Tonderai Mutibvu

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Globally, HWCs are on the rise. Such is the case with urban areas in Zimbabwe, yet little has been documented about it. This study was done to provide insights into the occurrence of human-wildlife conflicts in urban areas. The study was carried out in Harare, Bindura, Masvingo, Beitbridge, and Chiredzi to determine the cause, nature, extent, and frequency of occurrence of HWC, to determine the key wildlife species involved in conflicts and management practices done to combat wildlife conflicts in these areas. Several sampling techniques encompassing multi-stage sampling, stratified random, purposive, and simple random sampling were employed for placing residential areas into three strata according to population density, selecting residential areas, and selecting actual participants. Data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire and key informant interviews. The results revealed that property destruction and crop damage were the most prevalent conflicts. Of the 15 animals that were cited, snakes, baboons, and monkeys were associated with the most conflicts. The occurrence of HWCs was mainly attributed to the increase in both animal and human populations. To curtail these HWCs, the local people mainly used non-lethal methods, whilst lethal methods were used by authorities for some of the reported cases. The majority of the conflicts were seasonal and less severe. There were growing concerns by respondents on the issues of wildlife conflicts, especially in those areas that had primates, such as Warren Park in Harare and Limpopo View in Beitbridge. There are HWCs hotspots in urban areas, and to ameliorate this, suggestions are that there is a need for a multi-action approach that includes general awareness campaigns on HWCs and land use planning that involves the creation of green spaces to ease wildlife management.

Keywords: human-wildlife conflicts, mitigation measures, residential areas, types of conflicts, urban areas

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Authors: Ahmed Fradi

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Nowadays, recent technological advances in the acquisition, modeling, and processing of three-dimensional (3D) objects data lead to the creation of models stored in huge databases, which are used in various domains such as computer vision, augmented reality, game industry, medicine, CAD (Computer-aided design), 3D printing etc. On the other hand, the industry is currently benefiting from powerful modeling tools enabling designers to easily and quickly produce 3D models. The great ease of acquisition and modeling of 3D objects make possible to create large 3D models databases, then, it becomes difficult to navigate them. Therefore, the indexing of 3D objects appears as a necessary and promising solution to manage this type of data, to extract model information, retrieve an existing model or calculate similarity between 3D objects. The objective of the proposed research is to develop a framework allowing easy and fast access to 3D objects in a CAD models database with specific indexing algorithm to find objects similar to a reference model. Our main objectives are to study existing methods of similarity calculation of 3D objects (essentially shape-based methods) by specifying the characteristics of each method as well as the difference between them, and then we will propose a new approach for indexing and comparing 3D models, which is suitable for our case study and which is based on some previously studied methods. Our proposed approach is finally illustrated by an implementation, and evaluated in a professional context.

Keywords: CAD, 3D object retrieval, shape based retrieval, similarity calculation

Procedia PDF Downloads 262

Authors: E. Gaury, P. Mandausch, O. Picot, A. R. Thomas, L. Veisblat, L. Ralambozanany, C. Delsart

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In Dakar, demographic and spatial growth was accompanied by a 50% increase in household waste between 1988 and 2008 in the city. In addition, a change in the nature of household waste was observed between 1990 and 2007. The share of plastic increased by 15% between 2004 and 2007 in Dakar. Plastics represent the seventh category of household waste, the most produced per year in Senegal. The share of plastic in household and similar waste is 9% in Senegal. Waste management in the city of Dakar is a complex process involving a multitude of formal and informal actors with different perceptions and objectives. The objective of this study was to understand the motivations that could lead to sorting action, as well as the perception of plastic waste sorting within the Dakar population (households and institutions). The problematic of this study was as follows: what may be the factors playing a role in the sorting action? In an attempt to answer this, two approaches have been developed: (1) An exploratory qualitative study by semi-structured interviews with two groups of individuals concerned by the sorting of plastic waste: on the one hand, the experts in charge of waste management and on the other the households-producers of waste plastics. This study served as the basis for formulating the hypotheses and thus for the quantitative analysis. (2) A quantitative study using a questionnaire survey method among households producing plastic waste in order to test the previously formulated hypotheses. The objective was to have quantitative results representative of the population of Dakar in relation to the behavior and the process inherent in the adoption of the plastic waste sorting action. The exploratory study shows that the perception of state responsibility varies between institutions and households. Public institutions perceive this as a shared responsibility because the problem of plastic waste affects many sectors (health, environmental education, etc.). Their involvement is geared more towards raising awareness and educating young people. As state action is limited, the emergence of private companies in this sector seems logical as they are setting up collection networks to develop a recycling activity. The state plays a moral support role in these activities and encourages companies to do more. The study of the understanding of the action of sorting plastic waste by the population of Dakar through a quantitative analysis was able to demonstrate the attitudes and constraints inherent in the adoption of plastic waste sorting.Cognitive attitude, knowledge, and visible consequences have been shown to correlate positively with sorting behavior. Thus, it would seem that the population of Dakar is more sensitive to what they see and what they know to adopt sorting behavior.It has also been shown that the strongest constraints that could slow down sorting behavior were the complexity of the process, too much time and the lack of infrastructure in which to deposit plastic waste.

Keywords: behavior, Dakar, plastic waste, waste management

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Authors: Masoud Rabbani, Majede Smizadeh, Hamed Farrokhi-Asl

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We study jointly determining prices and production in a multiple period horizon under a general non-stationary stochastic demand with continuous prices. In some periods we need to increase capacity of production to satisfy demand. This paper presents a model to aid multi-period production capacity planning by quantifying the trade-off between product quality and production cost. The product quality is estimated as the statistical variation from the target performances obtained from the output tolerances of the production machines that manufacture the components. We consider different tolerance for different machines that use to increase capacity. The production cost is estimated as the total cost of owning and operating a production facility during the planning horizon.so capacity planning has cost that impact on price. Pricing products often turns out to be difficult to measure them because customers have a reservation price to pay that impact on price and demand. We decide to determine prices and production for periods after enhance capacity and consider reservation price to determine price. First we use an algorithm base on fuzzy set of the optimal objective function values to determine capacity planning by determine maximize interval from upper bound in minimum objectives and define weight for objectives. Then we try to determine inventory and pricing policies. We can use a lemma to solve a problem in MATLAB and find exact answer.

Keywords: price policy, inventory policy, capacity planning, product quality, epsilon -constraint

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Authors: Muhammad Ather Nadeem, Bilal Ahmad Khan, Hussam F. Najeeb Alawadi, Athar Mahmood, Aneela Nijabat, Tasawer Abbas, Muhammad Habib, Abdullah

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The global prevalence of Avena fatua infestation poses a significant challenge to wheat sustainability. While chemical control stands out as an efficient and rapid way to control weeds, concerns over developing resistance in weeds and environmental pollution have led to criticisms of herbicide use. Consequently, this study was designed to address these challenges through the chemical synthesis, characterization, and optimization of chitosan-based nanoparticles containing clodinofop Propargyl and fenoxaprop-P-ethyl for the effective management of A. fatua. Utilizing the ionic gelification technique, chitosan-based nanoparticles of clodinofop Propargyl and fenoxaprop-P-ethyl were prepared. These nanoparticles were applied at the 3-4 leaf stage of Phalaris minor weed, applying seven altered doses. These nanoparticles were applied at the 3-4 leaf stage of Phalaris minor weed, applying seven altered doses (D0 (Check weeds), D1 (Recommended dose of traditional-herbicide (TH), D2 (Recommended dose of Nano-herbicide (NPs-H)), D3 (NPs-H with 05-fold lower dose), D4 ((NPs-H) with 10-fold lower dose), D5 (NPs-H with 15-fold lower dose), and D6 (NPs-H with 20-fold lower dose)). Characterization of the chitosan-containing herbicide nanoparticles (CHT-NPs) was conducted using FT-IR analysis, demonstrating a perfect match with standard parameters. UV–visible spectrum further revealed absorption peaks at 310 nm for NPs of clodinofop propargyl and at 330 nm for NPs of fenoxaprop-p-ethyl. This research aims to contribute to sustainable weed management practices by addressing the challenges associated with chemical herbicide use. The application of chitosan-based nanoparticles (CHT-NPs) containing fenoxaprop-P-ethyl and clodinofop-propargyl at the recommended dose of the standard herbicide resulted in 100% mortality and visible injury to weeds. Surprisingly, when applied at a lower dose with 5-folds, these chitosan-containing nanoparticles of clodinofop Propargyl and fenoxaprop-P-ethyl demonstrated extreme control efficacy. Furthermore, at a 10-fold lower dose compared to standard herbicides and the recommended dose of clodinofop-propargyl and fenoxaprop-P-ethyl, the chitosan-based nanoparticles exhibited comparable effects on chlorophyll content, visual injury (%), mortality (%), plant height (cm), fresh weight (g), and dry weight (g) of A. fatua. This study indicates that chitosan/tripolyphosphate-loaded nanoparticles containing clodinofop-propargyl and fenoxaprop-P-ethyl can be effectively utilized for the management of A. fatua at a 10-fold lower dose, highlighting their potential for sustainable and efficient weed control.

Keywords: mortality, chitosan-based nanoparticles, visual injury, chlorophyl contents, 5-fold lower dose.

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Authors: Gokul Prasad, Pennan Chinnasamy

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The degradation of groundwater resources, attributed to factors such as excessive abstraction and contamination, has emerged as a global concern. This study delves into the stable isotopes of water) in a hard-rock aquifer situated in the Upper Godavari watershed, an agriculturally rich region in India underlain by Basalt. The higher groundwater draft (> 90%) poses significant risks; comprehending groundwater sources, flow patterns, and their environmental impacts is pivotal for researchers and water managers. The region has faced five droughts in the past 20 years; four are categorized as medium. The recharge rates are variable and show a very minimum contribution to groundwater. The rainfall pattern shows vast variability, with the region receiving seasonal monsoon rainfall for just four months and the rest of the year experiencing minimal rainfall. This research closely monitored monsoon precipitation inputs and examined spatial and temporal fluctuations in δ18O and δ2H in both groundwater and precipitation. By discerning individual recharge events during monsoons, it became possible to identify periods when evaporation led to groundwater quality deterioration, characterized by elevated salinity and stable isotope values in the return flow. The locally derived meteoric water line (LMWL) (δ2H = 6.72 * δ18O + 1.53, r² = 0.6) provided valuable insights into the groundwater system. The leftward shift of the Nashik LMWL in relation to the GMWL and LMWL indicated groundwater evaporation (-33 ‰), supported by spatial variations in electrical conductivity (EC) data. Groundwater in the eastern and northern watershed areas exhibited higher salinity > 3000uS/cm, expanding > 40% of the area compared to the western and southern regions due to geological disparities (alluvium vs basalt). The findings emphasize meteoric precipitation as the primary groundwater source in the watershed. However, spatial variations in isotope values and chemical constituents indicate other contributing factors, including evaporation, groundwater source type, and natural or anthropogenic (specifically agricultural and industrial) contaminants. Therefore, the study recommends focused hydro geochemistry and isotope analysis in areas with strong agricultural and industrial influence for the development of holistic groundwater management plans for protecting the groundwater aquifers' quantity and quality.

Keywords: groundwater quality, stable isotopes, salinity, groundwater management, hard-rock aquifer

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Authors: Naydelis Brito Suárez, Deni Librado Torres Román, Fernando Hermosillo Reynoso

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Automatic detection and generation of a dynamic ROI (Region of Interest) in vehicle traffic surveillance videos based on a static camera in Intelligent Transportation Systems is challenging for computer vision-based systems. The dynamic ROI, being a changing ROI, should capture any other moving object located outside of a static ROI. In this work, the video is represented by a Tensor model composed of a Background and a Foreground Tensor, which contains all moving vehicles or objects. The values of each pixel over a time interval are represented by time series, and some pixel rows were selected. This paper proposes a pixel entropy-based algorithm for automatic detection and generation of a dynamic ROI in traffic videos under the assumption of two types of theoretical pixel entropy behaviors: (1) a pixel located at the road shows a high entropy value due to disturbances in this zone by vehicle traffic, (2) a pixel located outside the road shows a relatively low entropy value. To study the statistical behavior of the selected pixels, detecting the entropy changes and consequently moving objects, Shannon, Tsallis, and Approximate entropies were employed. Although Tsallis entropy achieved very high results in real-time, Approximate entropy showed results slightly better but in greater time.

Keywords: convex hull, dynamic ROI detection, pixel entropy, time series, moving objects

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Authors: P. Bharathiraja

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Computer Aided decision making system is used to enhance diagnosis and prognosis of diseases and also to assist clinicians and junior doctors in clinical decision making. Medical Data used for decision making should be definite and consistent. Data Mining and soft computing techniques are used for cleaning the data and for incorporating human reasoning in decision making systems. Fuzzy rule based inference technique can be used for classification in order to incorporate human reasoning in the decision making process. In this work, missing values are imputed using the mean or mode of the attribute. The data are normalized using min-ma normalization to improve the design and efficiency of the fuzzy inference system. The fuzzy inference system is used to handle the uncertainties that exist in the medical data. Equal-width-partitioning is used to partition the attribute values into appropriate fuzzy intervals. Fuzzy rules are generated using Class Based Associative rule mining algorithm. The system is trained and tested using heart disease data set from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) Machine Learning Repository. The data was split using a hold out approach into training and testing data. From the experimental results it can be inferred that classification using fuzzy inference system performs better than trivial IF-THEN rule based classification approaches. Furthermore it is observed that the use of fuzzy logic and fuzzy inference mechanism handles uncertainty and also resembles human decision making. The system can be used in the absence of a clinical expert to assist junior doctors and clinicians in clinical decision making.

Keywords: decision making, data mining, normalization, fuzzy rule, classification

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Authors: Megan Weisbart

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Background/Significance: The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) environment contributes to nurse burnout. Burnout costs include decreased employee compassion, missed workdays, worse patient outcomes, diminished job performance, high turnover, and higher organizational cost. Meaningful recognition, nurturing of interpersonal connections, and mindfulness-based interventions are associated with decreased burnout. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to decrease Neonatal ICU (NICU) nurse burnout using a Wellness Bundle that fosters meaningful recognition, interpersonal connections and includes mindfulness-based interventions. Methods: The Professional Quality of Life Scale Version 5 (ProQOL5) was used to measure burnout before Wellness Bundle implementation, after six months, and will be given yearly for three years. Meaningful recognition bundle items include Online submission and posting of staff shoutouts, recognition events, Nurses Week and Unit Practice Council member gifts, and an employee recognition program. Fostering of interpersonal connections bundle items include: Monthly staff games with prizes, social events, raffle fundraisers, unit blog, unit wellness basket, and a wellness resource sheet. Quick coherence techniques were implemented at staff meetings and huddles as a mindfulness-based intervention. Findings: The mean baseline burnout score of 14 NICU nurses was 20.71 (low burnout). The baseline range was 13-28, with 11 nurses experiencing low burnout, three nurses experiencing moderate burnout, and zero nurses experiencing high burnout. After six months of the Wellness Bundle Implementation, the mean burnout score of 39 NICU nurses was 22.28 (low burnout). The range was 14-31, with 22 nurses experiencing low burnout, 17 nurses experiencing moderate burnout, and zero nurses experiencing high burnout. Conclusion: A NICU Wellness Bundle that incorporated meaningful recognition, fostering of interpersonal connections, and mindfulness-based activities was implemented to improve work environments and decrease nurse burnout. Participation bias and low baseline response rate may have affected the reliability of the data and necessitate another comparative measure of burnout in one year.

Keywords: burnout, NICU, nurse, wellness

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Authors: Maryam Ghoreishi, Christian Larsen

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In this paper, we investigate the effect of stochastic inputs on problem of joint optimal pricing and lot-sizing decisions where the inventory cycle is divided into advance and spot sales periods. During the advance sales period, customer can make reservations while customer with reservations can cancel their order. However, during the spot sales period customers receive the order as soon as the order is placed, but they cannot make any reservation or cancellation during that period. We assume that the inter arrival times during the advance sales and spot sales period are exponentially distributed where the arrival rate is decreasing function of price. Moreover, we assume that the number of cancelled reservations is binomially distributed. In addition, we assume that deterioration process follows an exponential distribution. We investigate two cases. First, we consider two-state case where we find the optimal price during the spot sales period and the optimal price during the advance sales period. Next, we develop a generalized case where we extend two-state case also to allow dynamic prices during the spot sales period. We apply the Markov decision theory in order to find the optimal solutions. In addition, for the generalized case, we apply the policy iteration algorithm in order to find the optimal prices, the optimal lot-size and maximum advance sales amount.

Keywords: inventory control, pricing, Markov decision theory, advance sales system

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Authors: Mayank Mundhra, Chester Rebeiro

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Cryptocurrencies are rapidly finding wide application in areas such as Real Time Gross Settlements and Payments Systems. Ripple is a cryptocurrency that has gained prominence with banks and payment providers. It solves the Byzantine General’s Problem with its Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA), where each server maintains a list of servers, called Unique Node List (UNL) that represents the network for the server, and will not collectively defraud it. The server believes that the network has come to a consensus when members of the UNL come to a consensus on a transaction. In this paper we improve Ripple to achieve better speed, security, last mile connectivity and ease of use. We implement guidelines and automated systems for building and maintaining UNLs for resilience, robustness, improved security, and efficient information propagation. We enhance the system so as to ensure that each server receives information from across the whole network rather than just from the UNL members. We also introduce the paradigm of UNL overlap as a function of information propagation and the trust a server assigns to its own UNL. Our design not only reduces vulnerabilities such as eclipse attacks, but also makes it easier to identify malicious behaviour and entities attempting to fraudulently Double Spend or stall the system. We provide experimental evidence of the benefits of our approach over the current Ripple scheme. We observe ≥ 4.97x and 98.22x in speedup and success rate for information propagation respectively, and ≥ 3.16x and 51.70x in speedup and success rate in consensus.

Keywords: Ripple, Kelips, unique node list, consensus, information propagation

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Authors: Choumous Mannoubi, Dahlia Kairy, Brigitte Vachon

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The use of technology allows clinicians to provide an individualized approach in a cost-effective manner and to reach a broader client base more easily. Such interventions can be effective in ensuring self-management and follow-up of people with diabetes, reducing the risk of complications by improving accessibility to care services, and better adherence to health recommendations. Consideration of users' opinions and fears to inform the design and implementation stages of these telehealth services seems to be essential to improve their acceptance and usability. The objective of this study is to describe the telepractice of nutritionists supporting the therapeutic management of diabetic patients and document the functional requirements of nutritionists for the design of a tele-nutrition platform. To best identify the requirements and constraints of nutritionists, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with 10 nutritionists who offered tele-nutrition services. Using a qualitative design with a descriptive approach based on the Nutrition Care Process Model (mNCP) framework, we explored in depth the state of nutritionists' telepractice in public and private health care settings, as well as their requirements for teleconsultation. Qualitative analyses revealed that nutritionists primarily used telephone calls during the COVID 19 pandemic to provide teleconsultations. Nutritionists identified the following important features for the design of a tele-nutrition platform: it should support interprofessional collaboration, allow for the development and monitoring of a care plan, integrate with the existing IT environment, be easy to use, accommodate different levels of patient literacy, and allow for easy sharing of educational materials to support nutrition education.

Keywords: telehealth, nutrition, diabetes, telenutrition, teleconsultation, telemonitoring

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Authors: P. Larpsomboonchai

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Agro-industry is one of major industries that has strong impacts on national economic incomes, growth, stability, and sustainable development. Moreover, this industry also has strong influences on social, cultural and political issues. Furthermore, this industry, as producing primary and secondary products, is facing challenges from such diverse factors such as demand inconsistency, intense international competition, technological advancements and new competitors. In order to maintain and to improve industry’s competitiveness in both domestics and international markets, science and technology are key factors. Besides hard sciences and technologies, modern industrial engineering concepts such as Just in Time (JIT) Total Quality Management (TQM), Quick Response (QR), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Lean can be very effective to supportant to increase efficiency and effectiveness of these agricultural products on world stage. Onion is one of Thailand’s major export products which brings back national incomes. But, it also facing challenges in many ways. This paper focused its interests in onion packing process and its related activities such as storage and shipment from one of major packing plant and storage in Mae Wang District, Chiang Mai, Thailand, by applying Toyota Production System (TPS) or Lean concepts, to improve process capability throughout the entire packing and distribution process which will be profitable for the whole onion supply chain. And it will be beneficial to other related agricultural products in Thailand and other ASEAN countries.

Keywords: packing process, Toyota Production System (TPS), lean concepts, waste reduction, lean in agro-industries activities

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Authors: Usha Loganathan, Haresh Pandya

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Analysis and correlation of soil properties represent an important outset for precision agriculture and is currently promoted and implemented in the developed world. Establishing relationships among indices of soil salinity has always been a challenging task in salt affected soils necessitating unique approaches for their reclamation and management to sustain long term productivity of Soil. Soil salinity indices like Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR) are normally used to characterize soils as either sodic or saline sodic. Currently, Determination of Soil sodium adsorption ratio is a more accepted and reliable measure of soil salinity. However, it involves arduous and protracted laboratory investigations which demand evolving new and economical methods to determine SAR based on simple soil salinity index. A linear regression model to predict soil SAR from soil electrical conductivity has been developed and presented in this paper as per which, soil SAR could very well be worked out as a pedotransfer function of soil EC. The present study was carried out in Orathupalayam (11.09-11.11 N latitude and 74.54-77.59 E longitude) in the vicinity of Orathupalayam Reservoir of Noyyal River Basin, India, over a period of 3 consecutive years from September 2013 through February 2016 in different locations chosen randomly through different seasons. The research findings are discussed in the light of micro level farming practices in India and recommend determination of SAR as a low cost technology aiding in the effective management of salt affected agricultural land.

Keywords: electrical conductivity, orathupalayam, pedotranfer function, sodium adsorption ratio

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Authors: Hafiz M. Rizwan, Muhammad S. Sajid, Zafar Iqbal, Muhammad Saqib

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Gastro-intestinal (GI) helminths infection in sheep causes a substantial loss in terms of productivity and constitutes serious economic losses in the world. Different types of forages are rich in trace element contents and may act as a natural resource to improve the trace element deficiencies leading to immunity boost-up in general and against gastrointestinal parasitic infections in particular. In the present study, the level of trace elements (Cu, Co, Mn, Zn) determined in sera of different breeds of sheep, available feedstuffs, respective soil samples and their association with GI helminths in Sialkot district, Punjab, Pakistan. Almost similar prevalence of GI helminths was recorded (32.81%) during spring 2015 and (32.55%) during autumn 2014. The parasitic species identified from the microscopically scanned faecal samples of district Sialkot were Fasciola (F.) hepatica, F. gigantica, Haemonchus contortus, Eimeria crandallis, Gongylonema pulchrum, Oesophagostomum sp., Trichuris ovis, Strongyles sp., Cryptosporidium sp. and Trichostrongylus sp. Among variables like age, sex, and breed, only sex was found significant in district Sialkot. A significant (P < 0.05) variation in the concentration of Zn, Cu, Mn, and Co was recorded in collected forages species. Soils of grazing field showed insignificant (P > 0.05) variation among soils of different tehsils of Sialkot district. Statistically, sera of sheep showed no variation (P > 0.05) during autumn 2014, While, variation (P < 0.05) among different tehsils of Sialkot district during spring 2015 except Co. During autumn 2014 the mean concentration of Cu, Zn, and Co in sera was inversely proportional to the mean EPG of sheep while during spring 2015 only Zn was inversely proportional to the mean EPG of sheep. The trace element-rich forages preferably Zn were effective ones against helminths infection. The trace element-rich forages will be recommended for their utilization as an alternate to improve the trace element deficiencies in sheep which ultimately boost up the immunity against gastrointestinal parasitic infections.

Keywords: coprological examination, gastro-intestinal parasites, prevalence, sheep, trace elements

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Authors: Toslim Uddin Khan, Jesmin Akter, Mohiuddin Ahmed

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Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and personal health-care practice is a critical issue to prevent morbidity and other reproductive health complications among adolescent girls in Bangladesh. Inadequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities lead to unhealthy MHM practices that resulted in poor reproductive health outcomes. It is evident from different studies that superstitions and misconception are more common in rural communities that limit young girls’ access to and understanding of the menstrual hygiene and self care practices. The state-of-the-art approach of Social Marketing Company (SMC) is proved to be instrumental in delivering reinforcing health messages, making public health and hygiene products available at the door steps of the community through community mobilization programs in rural Bangladesh. School health program is one of the flagship interventions of SMC to equip adolescent girls and boys with correct knowledge of health and hygiene practices among themselves, their families and peers. In Bangladeshi culture, adolescent girls often feel shy to ask fathers or male family members about buying sanitary napkin from local pharmacy and they seem to be reluctant to seek help regarding their menstrual problems. A recent study reveals that 48% adolescent girls are using sanitary napkins while majority of them are unaware of menstrual hygiene practices in Bangladesh. Under school adolescent program, SMC organizes health education sessions for adolescent girls from grade seven to ten using enter-educate approach with special focus on sexual and reproductive health and menstrual hygiene issues including delaying marriage and first pregnancy. In addition, 2500 rural women entrepreneurs branded as community sales agents are also involved in disseminating health messages and selling priority health products including sanitary napkin at the household level. These women entrepreneurs are serving as a source of sustainable supply of the sanitary napkins for the rural adolescent girls and thereby they are earning profit margins on the sales they make. A recent study on the impact of adolescent program activities reveals that majority (71%) of the school adolescent girls are currently using sanitary napkins. Health education equips and empowers adolescent girls with accurate knowledge about menstrual hygiene practices and self-care as well. Therefore, engagement of female entrepreneurs in school adolescent health program at the community level is one of the promising ways to improve menstrual hygiene practices leading to increased use of sanitary napkin in rural and semi-rural communities in Bangladesh.

Keywords: school adolescent program, social marketing, women entrepreneurs, menstrual hygiene management

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Authors: Dariusz Jemielniak

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The near future will bring significant changes to contemporary organizations and management, because of the rapidly increasing role of immaterial goods and knowledge workers. The area of copyright, IP, as well as digital (non-material) goods and media redistribution seems to be one of the major challenges for the economy and society in general, and management and organization studies in particular. The proposed paper shows the views and perceptions of fairness of digital media sharing among Harvard Law School LL.M. students, basing on 50 qualitative interviews and 100 questionnaires. The researcher took an ethnographic approach to the study and joined the 2016 Harvard LL.M. Facebook group, which allowed natural socializing and joining for in-person events and private parties more easily. After making acquaintance with many of the students, the researcher conducted a quantitative questionnaire with 100 respondents, allowing to better understand the respondents perception of fairness in digital files sharing in different contexts (depending on the price of the media, its availability, regional licensing, status of the copyright holder, etc.). Basing on the results of the questionnaire, the researcher followed up with long-term, open ended, loosely structured ethnographic interviews (50 interviews were conducted) to further deepen the understanding of the results. The major finding of the study is that Harvard lawyers, in spite of the highest possible understanding of law, as well as professional standards, generally approve of digital piracy in certain contexts. Interestingly, they are also more likely to approve of it if they work for the government rather than the private sector. The conclusions from this study allow a better understanding of how ‘fairness’ is perceived by the younger generation of law professionals, and also open grounds for a more rational licensing policing.

Keywords: piracy, digital sharing, perception of fairness, legal profession

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Authors: Riccardo Fratini, Riccardo Santini, Jacopo Serafini, Massimo Gennaretti, Stefano Panzieri

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This paper presents a nonlinear differential model, for a three-bladed horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) suited for control applications. It is based on a 8-dofs, lumped parameters structural dynamics coupled with a quasi-steady sectional aerodynamics. In particular, using the Euler-Lagrange Equation (Energetic Variation approach), the authors derive, and successively validate, such model. For the derivation of the aerodynamic model, the Greenbergs theory, an extension of the theory proposed by Theodorsen to the case of thin airfoils undergoing pulsating flows, is used. Specifically, in this work, the authors restricted that theory under the hypothesis of low perturbation reduced frequency k, which causes the lift deficiency function C(k) to be real and equal to 1. Furthermore, the expressions of the aerodynamic loads are obtained using the quasi-steady strip theory (Hodges and Ormiston), as a function of the chordwise and normal components of relative velocity between flow and airfoil Ut, Up, their derivatives, and section angular velocity ε˙. For the validation of the proposed model, the authors carried out open and closed-loop simulations of a 5 MW HAWT, characterized by radius R =61.5 m and by mean chord c = 3 m, with a nominal angular velocity Ωn = 1.266rad/sec. The first analysis performed is the steady state solution, where a uniform wind Vw = 11.4 m/s is considered and a collective pitch angle θ = 0.88◦ is imposed. During this step, the authors noticed that the proposed model is intrinsically periodic due to the effect of the wind and of the gravitational force. In order to reject this periodic trend in the model dynamics, the authors propose a collective repetitive control algorithm coupled with a PD controller. In particular, when the reference command to be tracked and/or the disturbance to be rejected are periodic signals with a fixed period, the repetitive control strategies can be applied due to their high precision, simple implementation and little performance dependency on system parameters. The functional scheme of a repetitive controller is quite simple and, given a periodic reference command, is composed of a control block Crc(s) usually added to an existing feedback control system. The control block contains and a free time-delay system eτs in a positive feedback loop, and a low-pass filter q(s). It should be noticed that, while the time delay term reduces the stability margin, on the other hand the low pass filter is added to ensure stability. It is worth noting that, in this work, the authors propose a phase shifting for the controller and the delay system has been modified as e^(−(T−γk)), where T is the period of the signal and γk is a phase shifting of k samples of the same periodic signal. It should be noticed that, the phase shifting technique is particularly useful in non-minimum phase systems, such as flexible structures. In fact, using the phase shifting, the iterative algorithm could reach the convergence also at high frequencies. Notice that, in our case study, the shifting of k samples depends both on the rotor angular velocity Ω and on the rotor azimuth angle Ψ: we refer to this controller as a spatial repetitive controller. The collective repetitive controller has also been coupled with a C(s) = PD(s), in order to dampen oscillations of the blades. The performance of the spatial repetitive controller is compared with an industrial PI controller. In particular, starting from wind speed velocity Vw = 11.4 m/s the controller is asked to maintain the nominal angular velocity Ωn = 1.266rad/s after an instantaneous increase of wind speed (Vw = 15 m/s). Then, a purely periodic external disturbance is introduced in order to stress the capabilities of the repetitive controller. The results of the simulations show that, contrary to a simple PI controller, the spatial repetitive-PD controller has the capability to reject both external disturbances and periodic trend in the model dynamics. Finally, the nominal value of the angular velocity is reached, in accordance with results obtained with commercial software for a turbine of the same type.

Keywords: wind turbines, aeroelasticity, repetitive control, periodic systems

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Authors: Yunfan Jiang

Abstract:

In response to an identified gap in available treatment programmes for high-risk offenders with multiple criminogenic needs and guided by emerging literature in the field of correctional rehabilitation, Singapore Prison Service (SPS) developed the Integrated Criminogenic Programme (ICP) in 2012. This evidence-informed psychological programme was designed to address all seven dynamic criminogenic needs (from the Central 8) of high-risk offenders by applying concepts from rehabilitation and psychological theories such as Risk-Need-Responsivity, Good Lives Model, narrative identity, and motivational interviewing. This programme also encompasses a 6-month community maintenance component for the purpose of providing structured step-down support in the aftercare setting. These sessions provide participants the opportunity for knowledge reinforcement and application of skills attained in-care. A quantitative evaluation of the ICP showed that the intervention group had statistically significant improvements across time in most self-report measures of criminal attitudes, substance use attitudes, and psychosocial functioning. This was congruent with qualitative data from participants saying that the ICP had the most impact on their criminal thinking patterns and management of behaviours in high-risk situations. Results from the comparison group showed no difference in their criminal attitudes, even though they reported statistically significant improvements across time in their substance use attitudes and some self-report measures of psychosocial functioning. The programme’s efficacy was also apparent in the lower rates of recidivism and relapse within 12 months for the intervention group. The management of staff issues arising from the development and implementation of an innovative high-intensity psychological programme such as the ICP will also be discussed.

Keywords: evaluation, forensic psychology, intervention programme, offender rehabilitation

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Authors: Abduladim Maitieg

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The oil manufacture is one of the main productive activities in Libya and has a massive infrastructure, including offshore drilling and exploration and wide oil export platform sites that located in coastal area. There is a threat to marine and coastal area of oil spills is greatest in those sites with a high spills comes from urban and industry, parallel to that, monitoring oil spills and risk emergency strategy is weakness, An approach for estimating a coastal resources vulnerability to oil spills is presented based on abundance, environmental and Scio-economic importance, distance to oil spill resources and oil risk likelihood. As many as 10 coastal resources were selected for oil spill assessment at the coast. This study aims to evaluate, determine and establish vulnerable coastal resource maps and estimating the rate of oil spill comes for different oil spill resources in Misratah marine environment. In the study area there are two type of oil spill resources, major oil resources come from offshore oil industries which are 96 km from the Coast and Loading/Uploading oil platform. However, the miner oil resources come from urban sewage pipes and fish ports. In order to analyse the collected database, the Geographic information system software has been used to identify oil spill location, to map oil tracks in front of study area, and developing seasonal vulnerable costal resources maps. This work shows that there is a differential distribution of the degree of vulnerability to oil spills along the coastline, with values ranging from high vulnerability and low vulnerability, and highlights the link between oil spill movement and coastal resources vulnerability. The results of assessment found most of costal freshwater spring sites are highly vulnerable to oil spill due to their location on the intertidal zone and their close to proximity to oil spills recourses such as Zreag coast. Furthermore, the Saltmarsh coastline is highly vulnerable to oil spill risk due to characterisation as it contains a nesting area of sea turtles and feeding places for migratory birds and the . Oil will reach the coast in winter season according to oil spill movement. Coastal tourist beaches in the north coast are considered as highly vulnerable to oil spill due to location and closeness to oil spill resources.

Keywords: coastal recourses vulnerability, oil spill trajectory, gnome software, Misratah coast- Libya, GIS

Procedia PDF Downloads 315

Authors: Olumayowa M. Olowe, Michael D. Asemoloye Odunayo J. Olawuyi, Hilda Vasanthakaalam

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Poor management of maize ear rot caused by fungal infection in Nigeria affected the quantity and quality of maize. This study, therefore, aims at characterizing and controlling Fusarium strains using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Maize ear showing rot symptoms were obtained from some selected farms located at Ilesa East and West using random sampling technique. Isolation of Fusarium pathogen from infected maize grain was done using direct pour plate method on potato dextrose agar (PDA) and was characterized based on morphological and molecular ITS-amplification methods. The reaction of PVASYN8F2, T2LCOMP1STR SYN-W-1, and T2LCOMP4 maize varieties, to the Fusarium ear rot pathogens and biocontrol efficacy of the mycorrhizal fungi were assessed on growth, yield, agronomic parameters and symptoms observed. The strains; olowILH1 and olowILH2 identified as Fusarium napiforme were the most dominant and virulent pathogens associated with the maize. They showed genetic similarity with documented ear rot pathogens on NCBI with accession numbers Fusarium proliferatum KT224027, KT224023, and Fusarium sp AY237110. They both exhibited varying inhibitory effects on the three maize varieties compare to control (uninfected plant) which had better growth characteristics. It was also observed that strain olowILH1 was more virulent than olowILH2. T2LCOMP4 was generally more susceptible to both fungal strains compared to the other two maize (T2LCOMP1STR SYN-W-1 and T2LCOMP4 ). In all, strain olowILH1 was more virulent than olowILH2, and Glomus clarum had higher inhibitory pathogenic effect against Fusarium strains compared to G. deserticola.

Keywords: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, disease management, Fusarium strains, identification

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Authors: Szu-Kai Hsu, Po-Ching Lin

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As more and more multi-core processors emerge, traditional sequential programming paradigm no longer suffice. Yet only few modern dynamic programming languages can leverage such advantage. Ruby, for example, despite its wide adoption, only includes threads as a simple parallel primitive. The global virtual machine lock of official Ruby runtime makes it impossible to exploit full parallelism. Though various alternative Ruby implementations do eliminate the global virtual machine lock, they only provide developers dated locking mechanism for data synchronization. However, traditional locking mechanism error-prone by nature. Software Transactional Memory is one of the promising alternatives among others. This paper introduces a new virtual machine: GobiesVM to provide a native software transactional memory based solution for dynamic programming languages to exploit parallelism. We also proposed a simplified variation of Transactional Locking II algorithm. The empirical results of our experiments show that support of STM at virtual machine level enables developers to write straightforward code without compromising parallelism or sacrificing thread safety. Existing source code only requires minimal or even none modi cation, which allows developers to easily switch their legacy codebase to a parallel environment. The performance evaluations of GobiesVM also indicate the difference between sequential and parallel execution is significant.

Keywords: global interpreter lock, ruby, software transactional memory, virtual machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 285

Authors: Keshav Raj Acharya, Prabina Sharma

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Sugandhakokila (Cinnamomum glaucescens Nees. Dury) is a large evergreen native tree species; mostly confined naturally in mid-hills of Rapti Zone of Nepal. The species is identified as prioritized for agro-technology development as well as for research and development by a department of plant resources. This species is band for export outside the country without processing by the government of Nepal to encourage the value addition within the country. The present study was carried out in Chillikot village of Dang district to find out the economic contribution of C. glaucescens in the local economy and to document the major conservation threats for this species. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools such as Household survey, key informants interviews and focus group discussions were carried out to collect the data. The present study reveals that about 1.7 million Nepalese rupees (NPR) have been contributed annually in the local economy of 29 households from the collection of C. glaucescens berries in the study area. The average annual income of each family was around NPR 67,165.38 (US$ 569.19) from the sale of the berries which contributes about 53% of the total household income. Six different value chain actors are involved in C. glaucescens business. Maximum profit margin was taken by collector followed by producer, exporter and processor. The profit margin was found minimum to regional and village traders. The total profit margin for producers was NPR 138.86/kg, and regional traders have gained NPR 17/kg. However, there is a possibility to increase the profit of producers by NPR 8.00 more for each kg of berries through the initiation of community forest user group and village cooperatives in the area. Open access resource, infestation by an insect to over matured trees and browsing by goats were identified as major conservation threats for this species. Handing over the national forest as a community forest, linking the producers with the processor through organized market channel and replacing the old tree through new plantation has been recommended for future.

Keywords: community forest, conservation threats, C. glaucescens, value chain analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 140

Authors: Sadhana Ghnayem

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This article examines the relationship between several socio-economic and background variables of Arab-Israeli families and their effect on the conflict management style of forcing, where teenage children are expected to obey their parents without questioning. The article explores the inter-generational gap and the desire of Arab-Israeli parents to force their teenage children to obey without questioning. The independent variables include: the sex of the parent, religion (Christian or Muslim), income of the parent, years of education of the parent, and the sex of the teenage child. We use the dependent variable of “Obedience Without Questioning” that is reported twice: by each of the parents as well as by the children. We circulated a questionnaire and collected data from a sample of 180 parents and their adolescent child living in the Galilee area during 2018. In this questionnaire we asked each of the parent and his/her teenage child about whether the latter is expected to follow the instructions of the former without questioning. The outcome of this article indicates, first, that Christian-Arab families are less authoritarian than Muslims families in demanding sheer obedience from their children. Second, female parents indicate more than male parents that their teenage child indeed obeys without questioning. Third, there is a negative correlation between the variable “Income” and “Obedience without Questioning.” Yet, the regression coefficient of this variable is close zero. Fourth, there is a positive correlation between years of education and obedience reported by the children. In other words, more educated parents are more likely to demand obedience from their children.  Finally, after running the regression, the study also found that the impact of the variables of religion as well as the sex of the child on the dependent variable of obedience is also significant at above 95 and 90%, respectively.

Keywords: conflict, religion, conflict management style, obedience

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Authors: Khandoker Akib Mohammad

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While analyzing time-to-event data, it is possible that a certain fraction of subjects will never experience the event of interest, and they are said to be cured. When this feature of survival models is taken into account, the models are commonly referred to as cure models. In the presence of covariates, the conditional survival function of the population can be modelled by using the cure model, which depends on the probability of being uncured (incidence) and the conditional survival function of the uncured subjects (latency), and a combination of logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards (PH) regression is used to model the incidence and latency respectively. In this paper, we have shown the asymptotic normality of the profile likelihood estimator via asymptotic expansion of the profile likelihood and obtain the explicit form of the variance estimator with an implicit function in the profile likelihood. We have also shown the efficient score function based on projection theory and the profile likelihood score function are equal. Our contribution in this paper is that we have expressed the efficient information matrix as the variance of the profile likelihood score function. A simulation study suggests that the estimated standard errors from bootstrap samples (SMCURE package) and the profile likelihood score function (our approach) are providing similar and comparable results. The numerical result of our proposed method is also shown by using the melanoma data from SMCURE R-package, and we compare the results with the output obtained from the SMCURE package.

Keywords: Cox PH model, cure model, efficient score function, EM algorithm, implicit function, profile likelihood

Procedia PDF Downloads 144

Authors: Nam-Uk Kim, Sung-Hwan Kim, Tai-Myoung Chung

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Typical security management systems are not suitable for detecting APT attack, because they cannot draw the big picture from trivial events of security solutions. Although SIEM solutions have security analysis engine for that, their security analysis mechanisms need to be verified in academic field. Although this paper proposes merely an architectural model for APT detection, we will keep studying on correlation analysis mechanism in the future.

Keywords: advanced persistent threat, anomaly detection, data mining

Procedia PDF Downloads 528

Authors: Zhipeng Chen, Peng Zhang, Qingyun Liu, Li Guo

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With the Internet becoming the dominant channel for business and life, many IPs are increasingly masked using web proxies for illegal purposes such as propagating malware, impersonate phishing pages to steal sensitive data or redirect victims to other malicious targets. Moreover, as Internet traffic continues to grow in size and complexity, it has become an increasingly challenging task to detect the proxy service due to their dynamic update and high anonymity. In this paper, we present an approach based on behavioral graph analysis to study the behavior similarity of web proxy users. Specifically, we use bipartite graphs to model host communications from network traffic and build one-mode projections of bipartite graphs for discovering social-behavior similarity of web proxy users. Based on the similarity matrices of end-users from the derived one-mode projection graphs, we apply a simple yet effective spectral clustering algorithm to discover the inherent web proxy users behavior clusters. The web proxy URL may vary from time to time. Still, the inherent interest would not. So, based on the intuition, by dint of our private tools implemented by WebDriver, we examine whether the top URLs visited by the web proxy users are web proxies. Our experiment results based on real datasets show that the behavior clusters not only reduce the number of URLs analysis but also provide an effective way to detect the web proxies, especially for the unknown web proxies.

Keywords: bipartite graph, one-mode projection, clustering, web proxy detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 245

Authors: Hamdi Amroun, Yacine Benziani, Mehdi Ammi

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In this paper, we propose an approach of detecting the behavior of the viewers of a TV program in a non-controlled environment. The experiment we propose is based on the use of three types of connected objects (smartphone, smart watch, and a connected remote control). 23 participants were observed while watching their TV programs during three phases: before, during and after watching a TV program. Their behaviors were detected using an approach based on The Dempster Shafer Theory (DST) in two phases. The first phase is to approximate dynamically the mass functions using an approach based on the correlation coefficient. The second phase is to calculate the approximate mass functions. To approximate the mass functions, two approaches have been tested: the first approach was to divide each features data space into cells; each one has a specific probability distribution over the behaviors. The probability distributions were computed statistically (estimated by empirical distribution). The second approach was to predict the TV-viewing behaviors through the use of classifiers algorithms and add uncertainty to the prediction based on the uncertainty of the model. Results showed that mixing the fusion rule with the computation of the initial approximate mass functions using a classifier led to an overall of 96%, 95% and 96% success rate for the first, second and third TV-viewing phase respectively. The results were also compared to those found in the literature. This study aims to anticipate certain actions in order to maintain the attention of TV viewers towards the proposed TV programs with usual connected objects, taking into account the various uncertainties that can be generated.

Keywords: Iot, TV-viewing behaviors identification, automatic classification, unconstrained environment

Procedia PDF Downloads 229

Authors: Srinivas Peri, Siva Abhishek Sirivella, Tejaswini Kallakuri, Uzair Ahmad

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Effective traffic management and infrastructure planning are crucial for the development of smart cities and intelligent transportation systems. This study addresses the challenge of data scarcity by generating realistic synthetic traffic data using the PeMS-Bay dataset, improving the accuracy and reliability of predictive modeling. Advanced synthetic data generation techniques, including TimeGAN, GaussianCopula, and PAR Synthesizer, are employed to produce synthetic data that replicates the statistical and structural characteristics of real-world traffic. Future integration of Spatial-Temporal Generative Adversarial Networks (ST-GAN) is planned to capture both spatial and temporal correlations, further improving data quality and realism. The performance of each synthetic data generation model is evaluated against real-world data to identify the best models for accurately replicating traffic patterns. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks are utilized to model and predict complex temporal dependencies within traffic patterns. This comprehensive approach aims to pinpoint areas with low vehicle counts, uncover underlying traffic issues, and inform targeted infrastructure interventions. By combining GAN-based synthetic data generation with LSTM-based traffic modeling, this study supports data-driven decision-making that enhances urban mobility, safety, and the overall efficiency of city planning initiatives.

Keywords: GAN, long short-term memory, synthetic data generation, traffic management

Procedia PDF Downloads 27