Search results for: accounting information quality

Authors: Somsak Klaysung

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This study aims to investigate the comparison of brands equity between Samsung and Apple from students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The research method will using quantitative research, data was collected by questionnaires distributed to communication of arts students in the faculty of management science of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University for 100 samples by purposive sampling method. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistic including percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistic is t-test for hypothesis testing. The results showed that brands equity between Apple and Samsung brand have the ability to recognize brand from the customer by perceived value of the uniqueness of brand and recall when in a situation that must be purchased (Salience), which is the lowest level in branding and consumers can recognize the capacity of the product (Judgment) and opinions about the quality and reliability when it comes to mobile phones Apple and Samsung brand are not different.

Keywords: Apple and Samsung brand, brand equity, judgment, performance, resonance, salience

Procedia PDF Downloads 201

Authors: Priscila Ribeiro dos Santos, Luiz Antonio Daniel

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Inadequate access to clean water and sanitation has become one of the most widespread problems affecting people throughout the developing world, leading to an unceasing need for low-cost and sustainable wastewater treatment systems. The UASB technology has been widely employed as a suitable and economical option for the treatment of sewage in developing countries, which involves low initial investment, low energy requirements, low operation and maintenance costs, high loading capacity, short hydraulic retention times, long solids retention times and low sludge production. Whereas dissolved air flotation process is a good option for the post-treatment of anaerobic effluents, being capable of producing high quality effluents in terms of total suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand, phosphorus, and even pathogens. This work presents an evaluation and monitoring, over a period of 6 months, of one compact full-scale system with this configuration, UASB reactors followed by dissolved air flotation units (DAF), operating in Brazil. It was verified as a successful treatment system, and an issue of relevance since dissolved air flotation process treating UASB reactor effluents is not widely encompassed in the literature. The study covered the removal and behavior of several variables, such as turbidity, total suspend solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), Escherichia coli, total coliforms and Clostridium perfringens. The physicochemical variables were analyzed according to the protocols established by the Standard Methods for Examination of Water and Wastewater. For microbiological variables, such as Escherichia coli and total coliforms, it was used the “pour plate” technique with Chromocult Coliform Agar (Merk Cat. No.1.10426) serving as the culture medium, while the microorganism Clostridium perfringens was analyzed through the filtering membrane technique, with the Ágar m-CP (Oxoid Ltda, England) serving as the culture medium. Approximately 74% of total COD was removed in the UASB reactor, and the complementary removal done during the flotation process resulted in 88% of COD removal from the raw sewage, thus the initial concentration of COD of 729 mg.L-1 decreased to 87 mg.L-1. Whereas, in terms of particulate COD, the overall removal efficiency for the whole system was about 94%, decreasing from 375 mg.L-1 in raw sewage to 29 mg.L-1 in final effluent. The UASB reactor removed on average 77% of the TSS from raw sewage. While the dissolved air flotation process did not work as expected, removing only 30% of TSS from the anaerobic effluent. The final effluent presented an average concentration of 38 mg.L-1 of TSS. The turbidity was significantly reduced, leading to an overall efficiency removal of 80% and a final turbidity of 28 NTU.The treated effluent still presented a high concentration of fecal pollution indicators (E. coli, total coliforms, and Clostridium perfringens), showing that the system did not present a good performance in removing pathogens. Clostridium perfringens was the organism which suffered the higher removal by the treatment system. The results can be considered satisfactory for the physicochemical variables, taking into account the simplicity of the system, besides that, it is necessary a post-treatment to improve the microbiological quality of the final effluent.

Keywords: dissolved air flotation, municipal sewage, UASB reactor, treatment

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Authors: Julia Reinold, Inge Hooijen, Christoph Meng, Melissa Siegel

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This paper investigates whether or not students intend to stay in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine (EMR) after graduation taking into account the role of hard and soft locational factors, social factors as well as demographic aspects in shaping their mobility preferences. Since graduates are considered a convenient source of human capital in today’s knowledge based economy, it is crucial to understand what drives their mobility intentions in order to retain larger numbers of graduates. This is particularly true for peripheral regions, which need to compete with assumed more attractive economic centres. This paper adds a euregional perspective to the existing literature on graduate migration. Using survey data from 2015 from five higher education institutions in the EMR, this paper finds that mobility intentions are determined by students’ perceptions of the quality of life, openness and career opportunities in the euroregion. In addition, distance to the partner and other social ties such as family and friends influence migration intentions.

Keywords: Euroregion, graduate migration, highly skilled migration, human capital

Procedia PDF Downloads 264

Authors: Balamurugan Baladhandapani, Ganesh Renganathan, V. R. Sanal Kumar

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In this paper a comprehensive review on various factory layouts has been carried out for designing a lucrative process layout for medium scale industries. Industry data base reveals that the end product rejection rate is on the order of 10% amounting large profit loss. In order to avoid these rejection rates and to increase the quality product production an intermediate non-destructive testing facility (INDTF) has been recommended for increasing the overall profit. We observed through detailed case studies that while introducing INDTF to medium scale industries the expensive production process can be avoided to the defective products well before its final shape. Additionally, the defective products identified during the intermediate stage can be effectively utilized for other applications or recycling; thereby the overall wastage of the raw materials can be reduced and profit can be increased. We concluded that the prudent design of a factory layout through critical path method facilitating with INDTF will warrant profitable outcome.

Keywords: intermediate non-destructive testing, medium scale industries, process layout design

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

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

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

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Authors: Shan Jiang

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Child aggression represents a significant global issue, with its familial determinants being crucial. Family is a vital context for child development, but prior research on the impact of parental assortative mating on child aggression is limited. This study investigates the effects of assortative mating on child aggression, elucidating the mediating mechanisms involved and examining gender-specific responses, within a substantial sample of 10,570 parents and their children, grades 1-6, in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China. The findings indicate that children exhibit a significant increase in aggressive behaviors when maternal income surpasses paternal income, contrasted with families where the father's income is higher. The study identifies family communication, co-parenting quality, and parental problem-solving strategies as significant mediators in the relationship between parental income/education differences and child aggression. This research contributes to understanding the parental influence on child behavior within the family system and offers valuable implications for child protection policy and intervention strategies.

Keywords: assortative mating, aggression, children, family

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Authors: Ibrahim Alhumaidan

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As King Saud University believes in the critical role played by technology and its effectiveness in achieving quality, speed of achievement, facilitating follow-up and enhancing responsibility undertaking; the university is keen on activating its e-services for the purpose of attaining the primary requirements of achievement and perfection. The web portal of the student's academic system comes as one of the most important practices in technological and e-transaction aspects. It enables students to carry out their processes–registration, addition, evaluation, viewing their results, and scholastic accomplishments, etc.– through the relevant web portal. The aim of this study is to recognize Education College students' attitude -as one of King's University Colleges- regarding the usage of the academic system web portal, its effectiveness in saving time and effort, and, efficiency in enhancing student's planning skills. The study society is all students of college of education in King Saud University and the sample has been chosen randomly from them. The study tool is a questionnaire designed to learn about students' views about using the web portal; as the researcher used the surveying methodology to achieve the aim of the study.

Keywords: web portal, academic system, education faculty, students, planning skills

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Authors: Manatchanok Tantiphiphatthana, Lin Peng, Rujira Jitrwung, Kunio Yoshikawa

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Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a technique for obtaining clean biofuel from biomass in the presence of heat and pressure in an aqueous medium which leads to a decomposition of this biomass to the formation of various products. A role of operating conditions is essential for the bio-oil and other products’ yield and also quality of the products. The effects of these parameters were investigated in regards to the composition and yield of the products. Chlorellaceae microalgae were tested under different HTL conditions to clarify suitable conditions for extracting bio-oil together with value-added co-products. Firstly, different microalgae loading rates (5-30%) were tested and found that this parameter has not much significant to product yield. Therefore, 10% microalgae loading rate was selected as a proper economical solution for conditioned schedule at 250oC and 30 min-reaction time. Next, a range of temperature (210-290oC) was applied to verify the effects of each parameter by keeping the reaction time constant at 30 min. The results showed no linkage with the increase of the reaction temperature and some reactions occurred that lead to different product yields. Moreover, some nutrients found in the aqueous product are possible to be utilized for nutrient recovery.

Keywords: bio-oil, hydrothermal liquefaction, microalgae, aqueous co-product

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Authors: Aviv Yaniv, Ron Ben Arosh, Nadav Gasner, Michael Konviser, Arbel Yaniv

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This paper introduces two methods for the evaluation of Question Decomposition Meaning Representation (QDMR) as predicted by sequence-to-sequence model and COPYNET parser for natural language questions processing, motivated by the fact that previous evaluation metrics used for this task do not take into account some characteristics of the representation, such as partial ordering structure. To this end, several heuristics to extract such partial dependencies are formulated, followed by the hereby proposed evaluation methods denoted as Proportional Graph Matcher (PGM) and Conversion to Normal String Representation (Nor-Str), designed to better capture the accuracy level of QDMR predictions. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed evaluation methods and show the added value suggested by one of them- the Nor-Str, for better distinguishing between high and low-quality QDMR when predicted by models such as COPYNET. This work represents an important step forward in the development of better evaluation methods for QDMR predictions, which will be critical for improving the accuracy and reliability of natural language question-answering systems.

Keywords: NLP, question answering, question decomposition meaning representation, QDMR evaluation metrics

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Authors: Prince Mugoya, Collins Oduor Ondiek, Patrick Kanyi Wamuyu

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Refugee Job Board Website is a web-based application that provides a platform for organizations to post jobs specifically for refugees. Organizations upload job opportunities and refugees can view them on the website. The website also allows refugees to input their skills and qualifications. The methodology used to develop this system is a waterfall (traditional) methodology. Software development tools include Brackets which will be used to code the website and PhpMyAdmin to store all the data in a database.

Keywords: information technology, refugee, skills, utilization, economy, jobs

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Authors: Mostafa Jafari

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How the people continually create and recreate the six dimensional inter- sub-cultural relationships from the strategic point of view? Can they engineer and direct it toward creating a set of peaceful subcultures? This paper answers to these questions. Our mental images shape the quantity and quality of our relationships. The six dimensions of mental images are: my mental image about myself, your mental image about yourself, my mental image about you, your mental image about me, my imagination about your image about me and your imagination about my mental image about you. Strategic engineering is dynamically shaping these images and imaginations.Methodology: This survey, which is based on object and the relation between the variables, is explanatory, correlative and quantitative. The target community members are 90 educated people from universities. The data has been collected through questionnaire and interview and has been analyzed by descriptive statistical techniques and qualitative method. Results: Our findings show that engineering and deliberatly managing the process of inter- sub-cultural transactions in the national and global level can enable us to continually reform a peaceful set of learner sub-culturals toward recreate a peaceful unit global Home.

Keywords: strategic engineering, mental image, six dimensional mental images strategy , cultural literacy, radar technique

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Authors: Krishna Mohana Rao Gurram, R. Padmini, P. Vamsi Krishna

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As a part of extensive research for ecologically safe and operator friendly cutting fluids, this paper presents the experimental investigations on the performance of eco-friendly vegetable oil based nanofluids in turning operation. In order to assess the quality of nano cutting fluids used during machining, cutting temperatures, cutting forces and surface roughness under constant cutting conditions are measured. The influence of two types of nanofluids prepared from nano boric acid and CNT particles mixed separately with coconut oil, on machining performance during turning operation is examined. Comparative analysis of the results obtained is done under dry and lubricant environments. Results obtained using cutting fluids prepared from vegetable oil based nanofluids are encouraging and more pronouncing by the application of CCCNT at machining zone. The extent of improvement in reduction of cutting temperatures, main cutting force, tool wear and surface roughness is tracked to be 13%, 37.5%, 44% and 40% respectively by the application of CCCNT compared to dry machining.

Keywords: nanoparticles, vegetable oil, machining, MQL, surface roughness

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Authors: Bo Liu, Qingshan Kong, Weiqing Huang

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With the rapid development of modern communication, diagnosing the fiber-optic quality and faults in real-time is widely focused. In this paper, a Labview-based system is proposed for fiber-optic faults detection. The wavelet threshold denoising method combined with Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is applied to denoise the optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) signal. Then the method based on Gabor representation is used to detect events. Experimental measurements show that signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the OTDR signal is improved by 1.34dB on average, compared with using the wavelet threshold denosing method. The proposed system has a high score in event detection capability and accuracy. The maximum detectable fiber length of the proposed Labview-based system can be 65km.

Keywords: empirical mode decomposition, events detection, Gabor transform, optical time domain reflectometer, wavelet threshold denoising

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Authors: Mohammad A. Alia, Abdelfatah Aref Tamimi, Omaima N. A. Al-Allaf

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This paper reviews a comparison study on the most common used authentication methods. Some of these methods are actually based on cryptography. In this study, we show the main cryptographic services. Also, this study presents a specific discussion about authentication service, since the authentication service is classified into several categorizes according to their methods. However, this study gives more about the real life example for each of the authentication methods. It talks about the simplest authentication methods as well about the available biometric authentication methods such as voice, iris, fingerprint, and face authentication.

Keywords: information security, cryptography, system access control, authentication, network security

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Authors: Anne Nattembo

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Cervical cancer remains a major public health problem in developing countries, especially in Africa. Effective cervical cancer prevention communication requires identification of behaviors, attitudes and increasing awareness of a given population; thus this study focused on investigating awareness, attitudes, and behavior among female university students towards cervical cancer messages. The study objectives sought to investigate the communication behavior of young adults towards cervical cancer, to understand female students recognition of cervical cancer as a problem, to identify the frames related to cervical cancer and their impact towards audience communication and participation behaviors, to identify the factors that influence behavioral intentions and level of involvement towards cervical cancer services and to make recommendations on how to improve cervical cancer communication towards female university students. The researcher obtained data using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions targeting 90 respondents. The semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out through one-on-one discussions basis using a set of prepared questions among 53 respondents. All interviews were audio-tape recorded. Each interview was directly typed into Microsoft Word. 4 focus group discussions were conducted with a total of 37 respondents; 2 female only groups with 10 respondents in one and 9 respondents in another, 1 mixed with 12 participants 5 of whom were male, and 1 male only group with 6 participants. The key findings show that the participants preferred to receive and access cervical cancer information from doctors although they were mainly receiving information from the radio. In regards to the type of public the respondents represent, majority of the respondents were non-publics in the sense that they did not have knowledge about cervical cancer, had low levels of involvement and had high constraint recognition their cervical cancer knowledge levels. The researcher identified the most salient audience frames among female university students towards cervical cancer and these included; death, loss, and fear. These frames did not necessarily make cervical cancer an issue of concern among the female university students but rather an issue they distanced themselves from as they did not perceive it as a risk. The study also identified the constraints respondents face in responding to cervical cancer campaign calls-to-action which included; stigma, lack of knowledge and access to services as well as lack of recommendation from doctors. In regards to sex differences, females had more knowledge about cervical cancer than the males. In conclusion the study highlights the importance of interpersonal communication in risk or health communication with a focus on health providers proactively sharing cervical cancer prevention information with their patients. Health provider’s involvement in cervical cancer is very important in influencing behavior and compliance of cervical cancer calls-to-action. The study also provides recommendations for designing effective cervical cancer campaigns that will positively impact on the audience such as packaging cervical cancer messages that also target the males as a way of increasing their involvement and more campaigns to increase awareness of cervical cancer as well as designing positive framed messages to counter the negative audience frames towards cervical cancer.

Keywords: cervical cancer communication, health communication, university students, risk communication

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Authors: Gokhan Dok, Hakan Ozturk, Aydin Demir

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The behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) members is quite important in RC structures. When evaluating the performance of structures, the nonlinear properties are defined according to the cross sectional behavior of RC members. To be able to determine the behavior of RC members, its cross sectional behavior should be known well. The moment-curvature (MC) relationship is used to represent cross sectional behavior. The MC relationship of RC cross section can be best determined both experimentally and numerically. But, experimental study on RC members is very difficult. The aim of the study is to obtain the MC relationship of RC shear walls. Additionally, it is aimed to determine the parameters which affect MC relationship. While obtaining MC relationship of RC members, XTRACT which can represent robustly the MC relationship is used. Concrete quality, longitudinal and transverse reinforcing ratios, are selected as parameters which affect MC relationship. As a result of the study, curvature ductility and effective flexural stiffness are determined using this parameter. Effective flexural stiffness is compared with the values defined in design codes.

Keywords: moment-curvature, reinforced concrete, shear wall, numerical

Procedia PDF Downloads 267

Authors: Samiullah Paracha, Sania Jehanzeb, M. H. Gharanai, A. R. Ahmadi, H.Sokout, Toshiro Takahara

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The purpose of this study is to examine how health consumers utilize pictures when developing an understanding of multimedia health documents, and whether attentional processes, measured by eye-tracking, relate to differences in health-related cognitive resources and passage comprehension. To investigate these issues, we will present health-related text-picture passages to elders and collect eye movement data to measure readers’ looking behaviors.

Keywords: multimedia, eye-tracking, consumer health informatics, human-computer interaction

Procedia PDF Downloads 316

Authors: Sepehr Moradi

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The physical and mechanical property parameters, inter-relation of key dimensional and distribution profile of raw Australia Superfine Merino Wool (ASFW) and Inner Mongolia Cashmere (IMC) fibres have been studied. The relationship between the properties of these fibres is assessed using fit transformation functions obtained through correlation coefficient analysis. ASFW and IMC fibre properties are found to be both positively skewed and asymmetric in nature. Whilst fibre diameter varies along its length and both ends have a tapering shape. The basic physical features, namely linear density, true local diameter, true length and breaking load are positively correlated while their tenacity is negatively correlated. The tenacity and true length follow a second order polynomial while the true local diameter is linearly correlated. Assessment of the diameter and length is sufficient to estimate the evaluation of quality for commercial grade ASFW and IMC fibres.

Keywords: Australia Superfine Merino Wool fibre, Inner Mongolia Cashmere fibre, distribution profile, physical properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 147

Authors: Rui Pedro de Sousa Guimarães Ferreira, Carlos Alberto Maia Domínguez

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Despite the ambitions to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, to fulfill the Paris Agreement's goals, the building and construction sector remains one of the most resource-intensive and greenhouse gas-emitting industries in the world, accounting for 40% of worldwide CO ₂ emissions. Over the past few decades, globalization and population growth have led to an exponential rise in demand in the housing market and, by extension, in the building industry. Considering this housing crisis, it is obvious that we will not stop building in the near future. However, the transition, which has already started, is challenging and complex because it calls for the worldwide participation of numerous organizations in altering how building systems, which have been a part of our everyday existence for over a century, are used. Wood is one of the alternatives that is most frequently used nowadays (under responsible forestry conditions) because of its physical qualities and, most importantly, because it produces fewer carbon emissions during manufacturing than steel or concrete. Furthermore, as wood retains its capacity to store CO ₂ after application and throughout the life of the building, working as a natural carbon filter, it helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. After a century-long focus on other materials, in the last few decades, technological advancements have made it possible to innovate systems centered around the use of wood. However, there are still some questions that require further exploration. It is necessary to standardize production and manufacturing processes based on prefabrication and modularization principles to achieve greater precision and optimization of the solutions, decreasing building time, prices, and waste from raw materials. In addition, this approach will make it possible to develop new architectural solutions to solve the rigidity and irreversibility of buildings, two of the most important issues facing housing today. Most current models are still created as inflexible, fixed, monofunctional structures that discourage any kind of regeneration, based on matrices that sustain the conventional family's traditional model and are founded on rigid, impenetrable compartmentalization. Adaptability and flexibility in housing are, and always have been, necessities and key components of architecture. People today need to constantly adapt to their surroundings and themselves because of the fast-paced, disposable, and quickly obsolescent nature of modern items. Migrations on a global scale, different kinds of co-housing, or even personal changes are some of the new questions that buildings have to answer. Designing with the reversibility of construction systems and materials in mind not only allows for the concept of "looping" in construction, with environmental advantages that enable the development of a circular economy in the sector but also unleashes multiple social benefits. In this sense, it is imperative to develop prefabricated and modular construction systems able to address the formalization of a reversible proposition that adjusts to the scale of time and its multiple reformulations, many of which are unpredictable. We must allow buildings to change, grow, or shrink over their lifetime, respecting their nature and, finally, the nature of the people living in them. It´s the ability to anticipate the unexpected, adapt to social factors, and take account of demographic shifts in society to stabilize communities, the foundation of real innovative sustainability.

Keywords: modular, timber, flexibility, housing

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Authors: Samuel Olugbenga King

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Using a reflective analysis tool to provide both local and global perspectives, this study focuses on the longitudinal evaluation of the Graduate Student Development (GSD) initiative, the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program. The reflection process involves examining the past and present to identify challenges, and culminates in the creation of an action plan to address barriers to further growth and teaching development of graduate students, thus positively impacting student experience. The outcomes of the reflective critique of the PFF program indicate that lack of mentoring as well as inadequate feedback and funding are barriers that need to be addressed to positively impact the graduate student experience. Consequently, interventions, such as peer and student evaluations, and alumni surveys are highlighted as pragmatic modes of addressing the inadequate feedback and mentoring barriers. However, funding remains an ongoing challenge. This article is a contribution to the literature on the use of critical reflection approaches to investigate and evaluate specific programming that focuses on enhancing the graduate student experience and development.

Keywords: graduate student experience, longitudinal reflection, quality enhancement, teaching

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Authors: Amit Kumar, Himanshu Singal, Arnav Bhavsar

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In this modern era of automation, most of the academic exams and competitive exams are Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ). The responses of these MCQ based exams are recorded in the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) sheet. Evaluation of the OMR sheet requires separate specialized machines for scanning and marking. The sheets used by these machines are special and costs more than a normal sheet. Available process is non-economical and dependent on paper thickness, scanning quality, paper orientation, special hardware and customized software. This study tries to tackle the problem of evaluating the OMR sheet without any special hardware and making the whole process economical. We propose an image processing based algorithm which can be used to read and evaluate the scanned OMR sheets with no special hardware required. It will eliminate the use of special OMR sheet. Responses recorded in normal sheet is enough for evaluation. The proposed system takes care of color, brightness, rotation, little imperfections in the OMR sheet images.

Keywords: OMR, image processing, hough circle trans-form, interpolation, detection, binary thresholding

Procedia PDF Downloads 155

Authors: R. Premasiri, W. A. H. A. Abeygunasekara, S. M. Hewavidana, T. Jananthan, R. M. S. Madawala, K. Vaheeshan

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Forecasting the potential for disastrous events such as landslides has become one of the major necessities in the current world. Most of all, the landslides occurred in Sri Lanka are found to be triggered mostly by intense rainfall events. The study area is the landslide near Gerandiella waterfall which is located by the 41st kilometer post on Nuwara Eliya-Gampala main road in Kotmale Division in Sri Lanka. The landslide endangers the entire Kotmale town beneath the slope. Geographic Information System (GIS) platform is very much useful when it comes to the need of emulating the real-world processes. The models are used in a wide array of applications ranging from simple evaluations to the levels of forecast future events. This project investigates the possibility of developing a dynamic model to map the spatial distribution of the slope stability. The model incorporates several theoretical models including the infinite slope model, Green Ampt infiltration model and Perched ground water flow model. A series of rainfall values can be fed to the model as the main input to simulate the dynamics of slope stability. Hydrological model developed using GIS is used to quantify the perched water table height, which is one of the most critical parameters affecting the slope stability. Infinite slope stability model is used to quantify the degree of slope stability in terms of factor of safety. DEM was built with the use of digitized contour data. Stratigraphy was modeled in Surfer using borehole data and resistivity images. Data available from rainfall gauges and piezometers were used in calibrating the model. During the calibration, the parameters were adjusted until a good fit between the simulated ground water levels and the piezometer readings was obtained. This model equipped with the predicted rainfall values can be used to forecast of the slope dynamics of the area of interest. Therefore it can be investigated the slope stability of rainfall induced landslides by adjusting temporal dimensions.

Keywords: factor of safety, geographic information system, hydrological model, slope stability

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Authors: Pavlína Částková, Jiří Kropáč, Jan Kubrický

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The paper deals with the current issue of Information and Communication Technologies and their implementation into the educational activities of preschool children. The issue is addressed in the context of technical education and the specifics of its implementation in a kindergarten. One of the main topics of this paper is a technical game activity of a preschool child, and its possibilities, benefits and risks. The paper presents games/toys as one of the means of exploring and understanding technology as an essential part of human culture.

Keywords: ICT, technical education, pre-school age, technical games

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Authors: Dmitry Aron

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Major radiation accidents carry not only the potential risks of negative consequences for public health due to exposure but also because of large-scale emergency measures were taken by authorities to protect the population, which can lead to unreasonable social and economic damage. It is technically difficult, as a rule, to assess the possible costs and damages from decisions on evacuation or resettlement of residents in the shortest possible time, since it requires specially prepared information systems containing relevant information on demographic, economic parameters and incoming data on radiation conditions. Foreign observers also face the difficulties in assessing the consequences of an accident in a foreign territory, since they usually do not have official and detailed statistical data on the territory of foreign state beforehand. Also, they can suppose the application of unofficial data from open Internet sources is an unreliable and overly labor-consuming procedure. This paper describes an approach to prompt creation of relational database that contains detailed actual data on economics, demographics and radiation situation at the Fukushima Prefecture during the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident, received by the author from open Internet sources. This database was developed and used to assess the number of evacuated population, radiation doses, expected financial losses and other parameters of the affected areas. The costs for the areas with temporarily evacuated and long-term resettled population were investigated, and the radiological and economic effectiveness of the measures taken to protect the population was estimated. Some of the results are presented in the article. The study showed that such a tool for analyzing the consequences of radiation accidents can be prepared in a short space of time for the entire territory of Japan, and it can serve for the modeling of social and economic consequences for hypothetical accidents for any nuclear power plant in its territory.

Keywords: Fukushima, radiation accident, emergency measures, database

Procedia PDF Downloads 179

Authors: Saransh Sharma, Atharv Dekhne

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Passwords stored on central services and hashed are prone to cyberattacks and hacks. Hence, given all these nuisances, there’s a need to eliminate character-based authentication protocols, which would ultimately benefit all developers as well as end-users.To replace this conventional but antiquated protocol with a secure alternative would be Passwordless Authentication. The meta root.id system creates a public and private key, of which the user is only able to access the private key. Further, after signing the key, the user sends the information over the API to the server, which checks its validity with the public key and grants access accordingly.

Keywords: passwordless, OAuth, bitcoin, ZKP, SIN, BIP

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Authors: Oscar Corredor, Alexander Guzman, Adan Leon

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Density is a bulk physical property that indicates the quality of a petroleum fraction. It is also a useful property to estimate various physicochemical properties of fraction and petroleum fluids; however, the determination of density of extra heavy residual (EHR) fractions by standard methodologies, (ASTM D70) shows limitations for samples with higher densities than 1.0879 g/cm3. For this reason, a dilution methodology was developed in order to determinate density for those particular fractions, 87 (EHR) fractions were obtained as products of the fractionation of Colombian typical Vacuum Distillation Residual Fractions using molecular distillation (MD) and extraction with Solvent N-hexane in Supercritical Conditions (SFEF) pilot plants. The proposed methodology showed reliable results that can be demonstrated with the standard deviation of repeatability and reproducibility values of 0.0031 and 0.0061 g/ml respectively. In the same way, it was possible to determine densities in fractions EHR up to 1.1647g/cm3 and °API values obtained were ten times less than the water reference value.

Keywords: API, density, vacuum residual, molecular distillation, supercritical fluid extraction

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Authors: Ahmed Al-Adaileh, Souheil Khaddaj

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Outcomes of exhaustion of natural resources started influencing each spirit on this planet. Energy is an essential factor in this aspect. To restore the circumstance to the appropriate track, all attempts must focus on two fundamental branches: producing electricity from clean and renewable reserves and decreasing the overall unnecessary consumption of energy. The focal point of this paper will be on lessening the power consumption in the household's segment. This paper is an attempt to give a clear understanding of a framework called Reduction of Energy Consumption in Household Sector (RECHS) and how it should help householders to reduce their power consumption by substituting their household appliances, turning-off the appliances when stand-by modus is detected, and scheduling their appliances operation periods. Technically, the framework depends on utilizing Z-Wave compatible plug-ins which will be connected to the usual house devices to gauge and control them remotely and semi-automatically. The suggested framework underpins numerous quality characteristics, for example, integrability, scalability, security and adaptability.

Keywords: smart energy management systems, internet of things, wireless mesh networks, microservices, cloud computing, big data

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Authors: A. S. Talaab, Safaa, A. Mahmoud, Hanan S. Siam

Abstract:

A field experiment was conducted during the winter season of 2013/2014 in the barley production area of Dakhala – New Valley Governorate, Egypt to assess the effect of nitrogen rate and time of N fertilizer application on barley grain yield, yield components and N use efficiency of barley and their association with grain yield. The treatments consisted of three levels of nitrogen (0, 70 and 100 kg N/acre) and five application times. The experiment was laid out as a randomized complete block design with three replication. Results revealed that barley grain yield and yield components increased significantly in response to N rate. Splitting N fertilizer amount at several times result in significant effect on grain yield, yield components, protein content and N uptake efficiency when compared with the entire N was applied at once. Application of N at rate of 100 kg N/acre resulted in accumulation of nitrate in the subsurface soil > 30cm. When N application timing considered, less NO3 was found in the soil profile with splitting N application compared with all preplans application.

Keywords: nitrogen use efficiency, splitting N fertilizer, barley, NO3

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Authors: Shradha Parsekar, Suma Nair, Ajay Bailey, Binu V. S.

Abstract:

Background: Concealing of cancer-related information is seen in many low-and-middle-income countries and may be associated with multiple factors. Comparatively, there is lack of information about, how breast cancers diagnosed women disclose cancer-related information to their social contacts and vice versa. To get more insights on the participant’s experience, opinions, expectations, and attitudes, a qualitative study is a suitable approach. Therefore, this study involving in-depth interviews was planned to lessen this gap. Methods: Interviews were conducted separately among breast cancer patients and their caregivers with semi-structured qualitative interview guide. Purposive and convenient sampling was being used to recruit patients and caregivers, respectively. Ethical clearance and permission from the tertiary hospital were obtained and participants were selected from the Udupi district, Karnataka, India. After obtaining a list of breast cancer diagnosed cases, participants were contacted in person and their willingness to take part in the study was taken. About 39 caregivers and 35 patients belonging to different breast cancer stages were recruited. Interviews were recorded with prior permission. Data was managed by Atlas.ti 8 software. The recordings were transcribed, translated and coded in two cycles. Most of the patients belonged to stage II and III cancer. Codes were grouped together into to whom breast cancer status was concealed to and underneath reason for the same. Main findings: followings are the codes and code families which emerged from the data. 1) Concealing the breast cancer status from social contacts other than close family members (such as extended family, neighbor and friends). Participants perceived the reasons as, a) to avoid questions which people probe (which doesn’t have answers), b) to avoid people paying courtesy visit (to inquire about the health as it is Indian culture to visit the sick person) making it inconvenient for patient and caregivers have to offer something and talk to them, c) to avoid people getting shocked (react as if cancer is different from other diseases) or getting emotional/sad, or getting fear of death d) to avoid getting negative suggestion or talking anything in front of patient as it may affect patient negatively, e) to avoid getting stigmatized, f) to avoid getting obstacle in child’s marriage. 2) Participant concealed the breast cancer status of young children as they perceived that it may a) affect studies, b) affect emotionally, c) children may get scared. 3) Concealing the breast cancer status from patients as the caregivers perceived that they have fear of a) worsening patient’s health, b) patient getting tensed, c) patient getting shocked, and d) patient getting scared. However, some participants stressed important in disclosing the cancer status to social contact/patient to make the people aware of the disease. Conclusion: The news of breast cancer spreads like electricity in the wire, therefore, patient or family avoid it for many reasons. Although, globally, due to physicians’ ethical obligations, there is an inclination towards more disclosure of cancer diagnosis and status of prognosis to the patient. However, it is an ongoing argument whether patient/social contacts should know the status especially in a country like India.

Keywords: breast cancer, concealing cancer status, India, qualitative study

Procedia PDF Downloads 121

Authors: Zeynep Yazicioglu

Abstract:

Project development is a complex process where many stakeholders work together. Employers and main contractors are the base stakeholders, whereas designers, engineers, sub-contractors, suppliers, supervisors, and consultants are other stakeholders. A combination of the complexity of the building process with a large number of stakeholders often leads to time and cost overruns and irregular resource utilization. Failure to comply with the work schedule and inefficient use of resources in the construction processes indicate that it is necessary to accelerate production and increase productivity. The development of computer software called Building Information Modeling, abbreviated as BIM, is a major technological breakthrough in this area. The use of BIM enables architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical projects to be drawn in coordination. BIM is a tool that should be considered by every stakeholder with the opportunities it offers, such as minimizing construction errors, reducing construction time, forecasting, and determination of the final construction cost. It is a process spreading over the years, enabling all stakeholders associated with the project and construction to use it. The main goal of this paper is to explore the problems associated with the adoption of BIM in multi-stakeholder projects. The paper is a conceptual study, summarizing the author’s practical experience with design offices and construction firms working with BIM. In the transition period to BIM, three of the challenges will be examined in this paper: 1. The compatibility of supplier companies with BIM, 2. The need for two-dimensional drawings, 3. Contractual issues related to BIM. The paper reviews the literature on BIM usage and reviews the challenges in the transition stage to BIM. Even on an international scale, the supplier that can work in harmony with BIM is not very common, which means that BIM's transition is continuing. In parallel, employers, local approval authorities, and material suppliers still need a 2-D drawing. In the BIM environment, different stakeholders can work on the same project simultaneously, giving rise to design ownership issues. Practical applications and problems encountered are also discussed, providing a number of suggestions for the future.

Keywords: BIM opportunities, collaboration, contract issues about BIM, stakeholders of project

Procedia PDF Downloads 97