Search results for: trapezoidal channel
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1311

Search results for: trapezoidal channel

351 Omani Community in Digital Age: A Study of Omani Women Using Back Channel Media to Empower Themselves for Frontline Entrepreneurship

Authors: Sangeeta Tripathi, Muna Al Shahri

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This research article presents the changing role and status of women in Oman. Transformation of women’s status started with the regime of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said in 1970. It is always desired by the Sultan to enable women in all the ways for the balance growth of the country. Forbidding full face veil for women in public offices is one of the best efforts for their empowerment. Women education is also increasing rapidly. They are getting friendly with new information communication technology and using different social media applications such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook for interaction and economic growth. Though there are some traditional and tribal boundaries, women are infused with courage and enjoying fair treatment and equal opportunities in different career positions. The study will try to explore changing mindset of young Omani women towards these traditional tribal boundaries, cultural heritage, business and career: ‘How are young Omani women making balance between work and social prestige?’, ‘How are they preserving their cultural values, embracing new technologies and approaching social network to enhance their economic power.’ This paper will discover their hurdles while using internet for their new entrepreneur. It will also examine the prospects of online business in Oman. The mixed research methodology is applied to find out the result.

Keywords: advertising, business, entrepreneurship, tribal barrier

Procedia PDF Downloads 283
350 Effect of Ethyl Cellulose and Hydroxy Propyl Methyl Cellulose Polymer on the Release Profile of Diltiazem Hydrochloride Sustained Release Pellets

Authors: Shahana Sharmin

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In the present study, the effect of cellulose polymers Ethyl Cellulose and Hydroxy Propyl Methyl Cellulose was evaluated on the release profile of drug from sustained release pellet. Diltiazem Hydrochloride, an antihypertensive, cardio-protective agent and slow channel blocker were used as a model drug to evaluate its release characteristics from different pellets formulations. Diltiazem Hydrochloride sustained release pellets were prepared by drug loading (drug binder suspension) on neutral pellets followed by different percentages of spraying, i.e. 2%,4%, 6%, 8% and 10% coating suspension using ethyl cellulose and hydroxy-propyl methyl cellulose polymer in a fixed 85:15 ratios respectively. The in vitro dissolution studies of Diltiazem Hydrochloride from these sustained release pellets were carried out in pH 7.2 phosphate buffer for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 hrs using USP-I method. Statistically, significant differences were found among the drug release profile from different formulations. Polymer content with the highest concentration of Ethyl cellulose on the pellets shows the highest release retarding rate of the drug. The retarding capacity decreases with the decreased concentration of ethyl cellulose. The release mechanism was explored and explained with zero order, first order, Higuchi and Korsmeyer’s equations. Finally, the study showed that the profile and kinetics of drug release were functions of polymer type, polymer concentration & the physico-chemical properties of the drug.

Keywords: diltiazem hydrochloride, ethyl cellulose, hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose, release kinetics, sustained release pellets

Procedia PDF Downloads 391
349 Asymmetrically Contacted Tellurium Short-Wave Infrared Photodetector with Low Dark Current and High Sensitivity at Room Temperature

Authors: Huang Haoxin

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Large dark current at room temperature has long been the major bottleneck that impedes the development of high-performance infrared photodetectors towards miniaturization and integration. Although infrared photodetectors based on layered 2D narrow bandgap semiconductors have shown admirable advantages compared with those based on conventional compounds, which typically suffer from expensive cryogenic operations, it is still urgent to develop a simple but effective strategy to further reduce the dark current. Herein, a tellurium (Te) based infrared photodetector is reported with a specifically designed asymmetric electrical contact area. The deliberately introduced asymmetric electrical contact raises the electric field intensity difference in the Te channel near the drain and the source electrodes, resulting in spontaneous asymmetric carrier diffusion under global infrared light illumination under zero bias. Specifically, the Te-based photodetector presents promising detector performance at room temperature, including a low dark current of≈1 nA, an ultrahigh photocurrent/dark current ratio of 1.57×10⁴, a high specific detectivity (D*) of 3.24×10⁹ Jones, and relatively fast response speed of ≈720 μs at zero bias. The results prove that the simple design of asymmetric electrical contact areas can provide a promising solution to high-performance 2D semiconductor-based infrared photodetectors working at room temperature.

Keywords: asymmetrical contact, tellurium, dark current, infrared photodetector, sensitivity

Procedia PDF Downloads 23
348 An AI-Based Dynamical Resource Allocation Calculation Algorithm for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Authors: Zhou Luchen, Wu Yubing, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

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As the scale of the network becomes larger and more complex than before, the density of user devices is also increasing. The development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks is able to collect and transform data in an efficient way by using software-defined networks (SDN) technology. This paper proposed a three-layer distributed and dynamic cluster architecture to manage UAVs by using an AI-based resource allocation calculation algorithm to address the overloading network problem. Through separating services of each UAV, the UAV hierarchical cluster system performs the main function of reducing the network load and transferring user requests, with three sub-tasks including data collection, communication channel organization, and data relaying. In this cluster, a head node and a vice head node UAV are selected considering the Central Processing Unit (CPU), operational (RAM), and permanent (ROM) memory of devices, battery charge, and capacity. The vice head node acts as a backup that stores all the data in the head node. The k-means clustering algorithm is used in order to detect high load regions and form the UAV layered clusters. The whole process of detecting high load areas, forming and selecting UAV clusters, and moving the selected UAV cluster to that area is proposed as offloading traffic algorithm.

Keywords: k-means, resource allocation, SDN, UAV network, unmanned aerial vehicles

Procedia PDF Downloads 84
347 Spatio-Temporal Variability in Reciprocal Resource Subsidies across Adjacent Terrestrial and Aquatic Eastern Cape Ecosystems

Authors: Tiyisani L. Chavalala, Nicole B. Richoux, Martin H. Villet

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Rivers and their adjacent ecosystems are linked by reciprocal ecological subsidies. Rivers receive nutrients and energy from land, and these transfers can represent important food subsidies, a phenomenon known as allochthony. Emergence of adult aquatic invertebrates can also provide important food sources to terrestrial consumers. Reciprocal subsidies are influenced by factors such as canopy cover, river flow rate and channel width, which can be highly variable through space and time. The aim of this study is to identify and quantify the main trophic links between adjacent ecosystems (terrestrial and freshwater systems) in several Eastern Cape Rivers with different catchment sizes and flow rates and to develop an understanding of the factors that affect the strength of these links and their spatial dynamics. Food sources and consumers were sampled during four seasons (August 2016, November 2016, February 2017 and May 2017), and stable isotope ratios will serve as tracers to estimate the food web structures. Emergence traps are being used to quantify the rates of emergence of adult aquatic insects, and infall-pan traps are being used to quantify the terrestrial insects falling into rivers as potential food subsidies.

Keywords: emerging aquatic insects, in-falling terrestrial insects, reciprocal resource subsidies, stable isotopes

Procedia PDF Downloads 184
346 Rising Velocity of a Non-Newtonian Liquids in Capillary Tubes

Authors: Reza Sabbagh, Linda Hasanovich, Aleksey Baldygin, David S. Nobes, Prashant R. Waghmare

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The capillary filling process is significantly important to study for numerous applications such as the under filling of the material in electronic packaging or liquid hydrocarbons seepage through porous structure. The approximation of the fluid being Newtonian, i.e., linear relationship between the shear stress and deformation rate cannot be justified in cases where the extent of non-Newtonian behavior of liquid governs the surface driven transport, i.e., capillarity action. In this study, the capillary action of a non-Newtonian fluid is not only analyzed, but also the modified generalized theoretical analysis for the capillary transport is proposed. The commonly observed three regimes: surface forces dominant (travelling air-liquid interface), developing flow (viscous force dominant), and developed regimes (interfacial, inertial and viscous forces are comparable) are identified. The velocity field along each regime is quantified with Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid in square shaped vertically oriented channel. Theoretical understanding of capillary imbibition process, particularly in the case of Newtonian fluids, is relied on the simplified assumption of a fully developed velocity profile which has been revisited for developing a modified theory for the capillary transport of non-Newtonian fluids. Furthermore, the development of the velocity profile from the entrance regime to the developed regime, for different power law fluids, is also investigated theoretically and experimentally.

Keywords: capillary, non-Newtonian flow, shadowgraphy, rising velocity

Procedia PDF Downloads 184
345 Impacts of Applying Automated Vehicle Location Systems to Public Bus Transport Management

Authors: Vani Chintapally

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The expansion of modest and minimized Global Positioning System (GPS) beneficiaries has prompted most Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) frameworks today depending solely on satellite-based finding frameworks, as GPS is the most stable usage of these. This paper shows the attributes of a proposed framework for following and dissecting open transport in a run of the mill medium-sized city and complexities the qualities of such a framework to those of broadly useful AVL frameworks. Particular properties of the courses broke down by the AVL framework utilized for the examination of open transport in our study incorporate cyclic vehicle courses, the requirement for particular execution reports, and so forth. This paper particularly manages vehicle movement forecasts and the estimation of station landing time, combined with consequently produced reports on timetable conformance and other execution measures. Another side of the watched issue is proficient exchange of information from the vehicles to the control focus. The pervasiveness of GSM bundle information exchange advancements combined with decreased information exchange expenses have brought on today's AVL frameworks to depend predominantly on parcel information exchange administrations from portable administrators as the correspondences channel in the middle of vehicles and the control focus. This methodology brings numerous security issues up in this conceivably touchy application field.

Keywords: automatic vehicle location (AVL), expectation of landing times, AVL security, data administrations, wise transport frameworks (ITS), guide coordinating

Procedia PDF Downloads 361
344 DCDNet: Lightweight Document Corner Detection Network Based on Attention Mechanism

Authors: Kun Xu, Yuan Xu, Jia Qiao

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The document detection plays an important role in optical character recognition and text analysis. Because the traditional detection methods have weak generalization ability, and deep neural network has complex structure and large number of parameters, which cannot be well applied in mobile devices, this paper proposes a lightweight Document Corner Detection Network (DCDNet). DCDNet is a two-stage architecture. The first stage with Encoder-Decoder structure adopts depthwise separable convolution to greatly reduce the network parameters. After introducing the Feature Attention Union (FAU) module, the second stage enhances the feature information of spatial and channel dim and adaptively adjusts the size of receptive field to enhance the feature expression ability of the model. Aiming at solving the problem of the large difference in the number of pixel distribution between corner and non-corner, Weighted Binary Cross Entropy Loss (WBCE Loss) is proposed to define corner detection problem as a classification problem to make the training process more efficient. In order to make up for the lack of Dataset of document corner detection, a Dataset containing 6620 images named Document Corner Detection Dataset (DCDD) is made. Experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain fast, stable and accurate detection results on DCDD.

Keywords: document detection, corner detection, attention mechanism, lightweight

Procedia PDF Downloads 332
343 Understanding the Effectiveness of Branding Strategies in Car Rental Service Business in India

Authors: Vrajesh Chokshi

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In last three decades, the global economy is substantially changed. Today, we are living in highly inter-connected world. The global markets are more open and consumers are well informed about products and services. The information technology revolution has broken all barriers in global business. The E-commerce has given opportunities of global trades to corporate. The IT is extensively used in almost all industries. After liberalization in 1992, the Indian economy is also significantly changed. The IT (information technology) and ITES (IT enable services) are extensively used in supply chain management. In India, previously car rental service business was dominated by local organization and operated through local contact. This industry is very lucrative and to catch this opportunity, many new corporate have ventured into e-commerce car rental service business in India. As the market is very competitive, branding is also very important part of marketing strategy. Now, the E-commerce portals those are in car rental business in India have realized the importance of the same and have started usage of all types of communication channel to promote their brand in different Indian markets. At consumer side, the awareness is also being considerably increased due to marketing communication campaign run by these companies. This paper aims to understand effectiveness of branding strategies in car rental business in India and also tries to identify unique promotional strategies to consolidate brand image of this business in different Indian markets.

Keywords: branding strategies, car rental business, CRM (customer relationship management), ITES (information technology enabled services)

Procedia PDF Downloads 282
342 The “Bright Side” of COVID-19: Effects of Livestream Affordances on Consumer Purchase Willingness: Explicit IT Affordances Perspective

Authors: Isaac Owusu Asante, Yushi Jiang, Hailin Tao

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Live streaming marketing, the new electronic commerce element, became an optional marketing channel following the COVID-19 pandemic. Many sellers have leveraged the features presented by live streaming to increase sales. Studies on live streaming have focused on gaming and consumers’ loyalty to brands through live streaming, using interview questionnaires. This study, however, was conducted to measure real-time observable interactions between consumers and sellers. Based on the affordance theory, this study conceptualized constructs representing the interactive features and examined how they drive consumers’ purchase willingness during live streaming sessions using 1238 datasets from Amazon Live, following the manual observation of transaction records. Using structural equation modeling, the ordinary least square regression suggests that live viewers, new followers, live chats, and likes positively affect purchase willingness. The Sobel and Monte Carlo tests show that new followers, live chats, and likes significantly mediate the relationship between live viewers and purchase willingness. The study introduces a new way of measuring interactions in live streaming commerce and proposes a way to manually gather data on consumer behaviors in live streaming platforms when the application programming interface (API) of such platforms does not support data mining algorithms.

Keywords: livestreaming marketing, live chats, live viewers, likes, new followers, purchase willingness

Procedia PDF Downloads 51
341 Classification of Business Models of Italian Bancassurance by Balance Sheet Indicators

Authors: Andrea Bellucci, Martina Tofi

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The aim of paper is to analyze business models of bancassurance in Italy for life business. The life insurance business is very developed in the Italian market and banks branches have 80% of the market share. Given its maturity, the life insurance market needs to consolidate its organizational form to allow for the development of non-life business, which nowadays collects few premiums but represents a great opportunity to enlarge the market share of bancassurance using its strength in the distribution channel while the market share of independent agents is decreasing. Starting with the main business model of bancassurance for life business, this paper will analyze the performances of life companies in the Italian market by balance sheet indicators and by main discriminant variables of business models. The study will observe trends from 2013 to 2015 for the Italian market by exploiting a database managed by Associazione Nazionale delle Imprese di Assicurazione (ANIA). The applied approach is based on a bottom-up analysis starting with variables and indicators to define business models’ classification. The statistical classification algorithm proposed by Ward is employed to design business models’ profiles. Results from the analysis will be a representation of the main business models built by their profile related to indicators. In that way, an unsupervised analysis is developed that has the limit of its judgmental dimension based on research opinion, but it is possible to obtain a design of effective business models.

Keywords: bancassurance, business model, non life bancassurance, insurance business value drivers

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340 Alumina Supported Copper-Manganese Catalysts for Combustion of Exhaust Gases: Effect of Preparation Method

Authors: Krasimir Ivanov, Elitsa Kolentsova, Dimitar Dimitrov

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The development of active and stable catalysts without noble metals for low temperature oxidation of exhaust gases remains a significant challenge. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of the preparation method on the catalytic activity of the supported copper-manganese mixed oxides in terms of VOCs oxidation. The catalysts were prepared by impregnation of γ-Al2O3 with copper and manganese nitrates and acetates and the possibilities for CO, CH3OH and dimethyl ether (DME) oxidation were evaluated using continuous flow equipment with a four-channel isothermal stainless steel reactor. Effect of the support, Cu/Mn mole ratio, heat treatment of the precursor and active component loading were investigated. Highly active alumina supported Cu-Mn catalysts for CO and VOCs oxidation were synthesized. The effect of preparation conditions on the activity behavior of the catalysts was discussed. The synergetic interaction between copper and manganese species increases the activity for complete oxidation over mixed catalysts. Type of support, calcination temperature and active component loading along with catalyst composition are important factors, determining catalytic activity. Cu/Mn molar ratio of 1:5, heat treatment at 450oC and 20 % active component loading are the best compromise for production of active catalyst for simultaneous combustion of CO, CH3OH and DME.

Keywords: copper-manganese catalysts, CO, VOCs oxidation, exhaust gases

Procedia PDF Downloads 392
339 The Effects of Distribution Channels on the Selling Prices of Hotels in Time of Crisis

Authors: Y. Yılmaz, C. Ünal, A. Dursun

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Distribution channels play significant role for hotels. Direct and indirect selling options of hotel rooms have been increased especially with the help of new technologies, i.e. hotel’s own web sites and online booking sites. Although these options emerged as tools for diversifying the distribution channels, vast number of hotels -mostly resort hotels- is still heavily dependent upon international tour operators when selling their products. On the other hand, hotel sector is so vulnerable against crises. Economic, political or any other crisis can affect hotels very badly and so it is critical to have the right balance of distribution channel to avoid the adverse impacts of a crisis. In this study, it is aimed to search the impacts of a general crisis on the selling prices of hotels which have different weights of distribution channels. The study was done in Turkey where various crises occurred in 2015 and 2016 which had great negative impacts on Turkish tourism and led enormous occupancy rate and selling price reductions. 112 upscale resort hotel in Antalya, which is the most popular tourism destination of Turkey, joined to the research. According to the results, hotels with high dependency to international tour operators are more forced to reduce their room prices in crisis time compared to the ones which use their own web sites more. It was also found that the decline in room prices is limited for hotels which are working with national tour operators and travel agencies in crisis time.

Keywords: marketing channels, crisis, hotel, international tour operators, online travel agencies

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338 Comparison of Two Anesthetic Methods during Interventional Neuroradiology Procedure: Propofol versus Sevoflurane Using Patient State Index

Authors: Ki Hwa Lee, Eunsu Kang, Jae Hong Park

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Background: Interventional neuroradiology (INR) has been a rapidly growing and evolving neurosurgical part during the past few decades. Sevoflurane and propofol are both suitable anesthetics for INR procedure. Monitoring of depth of anesthesia is being used very widely. SEDLine™ monitor, a 4-channel processed EEG monitor, uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze the raw EEG signal and displays the Patient State Index (PSI) values. There are only a fewer studies examining the PSI in the neuro-anesthesia. We aimed to investigate the difference of PSI values and hemodynamic variables between sevoflurane and propofol anesthesia during INR procedure. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of patients who scheduled to undergo embolization of non-ruptured intracranial aneurysm by a single operator from May 2013 to December 2014, retrospectively. Sixty-five patients were categorized into two groups; sevoflurane (n = 33) vs propofol (n = 32) group. The PSI values, hemodynamic variables, and the use of hemodynamic drugs were analyzed. Results: Significant differences were seen between PSI values obtained during different perioperative stages in both two groups (P < 0.0001). The PSI values of propofol group were lower than that of sevoflurane group during INR procedure (P < 0.01). The patients in propofol group had more prolonged time of extubation and more phenylephrine requirement than sevoflurane group (p < 0.05). Anti-hypertensive drug was more administered to the patients during extubation in sevoflurane group (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The PSI can detect depth of anesthesia and changes of concentration of anesthetics during INR procedure. Extubation was faster in sevoflurane group, but smooth recovery was shown in propofol group.

Keywords: interventional neuroradiology, patient state index, propofol, sevoflurane

Procedia PDF Downloads 160
337 Optimization of Lercanidipine Nanocrystals Using Design of Experiments Approach

Authors: Dolly Gadhiya, Jayvadan Patel, Mihir Raval

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Lercanidipine hydrochloride is a calcium channel blockers used for treating angina pectoris and hypertension. Lercanidipine is a BCS Class II drug having poor aqueous solubility. Absolute bioavailability of Lercanidipine is very low and the main reason ascribed for this is poor aqueous solubility of the drug. Design and formulatation of nanocrystals by media milling method was main focus of this study. In this present study preliminary optimization was carried out with one factor at a time (OFAT) approach. For this different parameters like size of milling beads, amount of zirconium beads, types of stabilizer, concentrations of stabilizer, concentrations of drug, stirring speeds and milling time were optimized on the basis of particle size, polydispersity index and zeta potential. From the OFAT model different levels for above parameters selected for Plackett - Burman Design (PBD). Plackett-Burman design having 13 runs involving 6 independent variables was carried out at higher and lower level. Based on statistical analysis of PBD it was found that concentration of stabilizer, concentration of drug and stirring speed have significant impact on particle size, PDI, zeta potential value and saturation solubility. These experimental designs for preparation of nanocrystals were applied successfully which shows increase in aqueous solubility and dissolution rate of Lercanidipine hydrochloride.

Keywords: Lercanidipine hydrochloride, nanocrystals, OFAT, Plackett Burman

Procedia PDF Downloads 185
336 Artificial Intelligence Assisted Sentiment Analysis of Hotel Reviews Using Topic Modeling

Authors: Sushma Ghogale

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With a surge in user-generated content or feedback or reviews on the internet, it has become possible and important to know consumers' opinions about products and services. This data is important for both potential customers and businesses providing the services. Data from social media is attracting significant attention and has become the most prominent channel of expressing an unregulated opinion. Prospective customers look for reviews from experienced customers before deciding to buy a product or service. Several websites provide a platform for users to post their feedback for the provider and potential customers. However, the biggest challenge in analyzing such data is in extracting latent features and providing term-level analysis of the data. This paper proposes an approach to use topic modeling to classify the reviews into topics and conduct sentiment analysis to mine the opinions. This approach can analyse and classify latent topics mentioned by reviewers on business sites or review sites, or social media using topic modeling to identify the importance of each topic. It is followed by sentiment analysis to assess the satisfaction level of each topic. This approach provides a classification of hotel reviews using multiple machine learning techniques and comparing different classifiers to mine the opinions of user reviews through sentiment analysis. This experiment concludes that Multinomial Naïve Bayes classifier produces higher accuracy than other classifiers.

Keywords: latent Dirichlet allocation, topic modeling, text classification, sentiment analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 83
335 Mobile Traffic Management in Congested Cells using Fuzzy Logic

Authors: A. A. Balkhi, G. M. Mir, Javid A. Sheikh

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To cater the demands of increasing traffic with new applications the cellular mobile networks face new changes in deployment in infrastructure for making cellular networks heterogeneous. To reduce overhead processing the densely deployed cells require smart behavior with self-organizing capabilities with high adaptation to the neighborhood. We propose self-organization of unused resources usually excessive unused channels of neighbouring cells with densely populated cells to reduce handover failure rates. The neighboring cells share unused channels after fulfilling some conditional candidature criterion using threshold values so that they are not suffered themselves for starvation of channels in case of any abrupt change in traffic pattern. The cells are classified as ‘red’, ‘yellow’, or ‘green’, as per the available channels in cell which is governed by traffic pattern and thresholds. To combat the deficiency of channels in red cell, migration of unused channels from under-loaded cells, hierarchically from the qualified candidate neighboring cells is explored. The resources are returned back when the congested cell is capable of self-contained traffic management. In either of the cases conditional sharing of resources is executed for enhanced traffic management so that User Equipment (UE) is provided uninterrupted services with high Quality of Service (QoS). The fuzzy logic-based simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is efficiently in coincidence with improved successful handoffs.

Keywords: candidate cell, channel sharing, fuzzy logic, handover, small cells

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334 Web Proxy Detection via Bipartite Graphs and One-Mode Projections

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

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333 Human Gesture Recognition for Real-Time Control of Humanoid Robot

Authors: S. Aswath, Chinmaya Krishna Tilak, Amal Suresh, Ganesh Udupa

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There are technologies to control a humanoid robot in many ways. But the use of Electromyogram (EMG) electrodes has its own importance in setting up the control system. The EMG based control system helps to control robotic devices with more fidelity and precision. In this paper, development of an electromyogram based interface for human gesture recognition for the control of a humanoid robot is presented. To recognize control signs in the gestures, a single channel EMG sensor is positioned on the muscles of the human body. Instead of using a remote control unit, the humanoid robot is controlled by various gestures performed by the human. The EMG electrodes attached to the muscles generates an analog signal due to the effect of nerve impulses generated on moving muscles of the human being. The analog signals taken up from the muscles are supplied to a differential muscle sensor that processes the given signal to generate a signal suitable for the microcontroller to get the control over a humanoid robot. The signal from the differential muscle sensor is converted to a digital form using the ADC of the microcontroller and outputs its decision to the CM-530 humanoid robot controller through a Zigbee wireless interface. The output decision of the CM-530 processor is sent to a motor driver in order to control the servo motors in required direction for human like actions. This method for gaining control of a humanoid robot could be used for performing actions with more accuracy and ease. In addition, a study has been conducted to investigate the controllability and ease of use of the interface and the employed gestures.

Keywords: electromyogram, gesture, muscle sensor, humanoid robot, microcontroller, Zigbee

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332 Optimization Based Extreme Learning Machine for Watermarking of an Image in DWT Domain

Authors: RAM PAL SINGH, VIKASH CHAUDHARY, MONIKA VERMA

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In this paper, we proposed the implementation of optimization based Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) for watermarking of B-channel of color image in discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain. ELM, a regularization algorithm, works based on generalized single-hidden-layer feed-forward neural networks (SLFNs). However, hidden layer parameters, generally called feature mapping in context of ELM need not to be tuned every time. This paper shows the embedding and extraction processes of watermark with the help of ELM and results are compared with already used machine learning models for watermarking.Here, a cover image is divide into suitable numbers of non-overlapping blocks of required size and DWT is applied to each block to be transformed in low frequency sub-band domain. Basically, ELM gives a unified leaning platform with a feature mapping, that is, mapping between hidden layer and output layer of SLFNs, is tried for watermark embedding and extraction purpose in a cover image. Although ELM has widespread application right from binary classification, multiclass classification to regression and function estimation etc. Unlike SVM based algorithm which achieve suboptimal solution with high computational complexity, ELM can provide better generalization performance results with very small complexity. Efficacy of optimization method based ELM algorithm is measured by using quantitative and qualitative parameters on a watermarked image even though image is subjected to different types of geometrical and conventional attacks.

Keywords: BER, DWT, extreme leaning machine (ELM), PSNR

Procedia PDF Downloads 287
331 Observation of the Flow Behavior for a Rising Droplet in a Mini-Slot

Authors: H. Soltani, J. Hadfield, M. Redmond, D. S. Nobes

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The passage of oil droplets through a vertical mini-slot were investigated in this study. Oil-in-water emulsion can undergo coalescence of finer oil droplets forming droplets of a size that need to be considered individually. This occurs in a number of industrial processes and has important consequences at a scale where both body and surfaces forces are relevant. In the study, two droplet diameters of smaller than the slot width and a relatively larger diameter where the oil droplet can interact directly with the slot wall were generated. To monitor fluid motion, a particle shadow velocimetry (PSV) imaging technique was used to study fluid flow motion inside and around a single oil droplet rising in a net co-flow. The droplet was a transparent canola oil and the surrounding working fluid was glycerol, adjusted to allow a matching of refractive index between the two fluids. Particles seeded in both fluids were observed with the PSV system allowing the capture of the velocity field both within the droplet and in the surrounds. The effect of droplet size on the droplet internal circulation was observed. Part of the study was related the potential generation of flow structures, such as von Karman vortex shedding already observed in rising droplets in infinite reservoirs and their interaction with the mini-channel. Results show that two counter-rotating vortices exist inside the droplets as they pass through slot. The vorticity map analysis shows that the droplet of relatively larger size has a stronger internal circulation.

Keywords: rising droplet, rectangular orifice, particle shadow velocimetry, match refractive index

Procedia PDF Downloads 155
330 River Analysis System Model for Proposed Weirs at Downstream of Large Dam, Thailand

Authors: S. Chuenchooklin

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This research was conducted in the Lower Ping River Basin downstream of the Bhumibol Dam and the Lower Wang River Basin in Tak Province, Thailand. Most of the tributary streams of the Ping can be considered as ungauged catchments. There are 10- pumping station installation at both river banks of the Ping in Tak Province. Recently, most of them could not fully operate due to the water amount in the river below the level that would be pumping, even though included water from the natural river and released flow from the Bhumibol Dam. The aim of this research was to increase the performance of those pumping stations using weir projects in the Ping. Therefore, the river analysis system model (HEC-RAS) was applied to study the hydraulic behavior of water surface profiles in the Ping River with both cases of existing conditions and proposed weirs during the violent flood in 2011 and severe drought in 2013. Moreover, the hydrologic modeling system (HMS) was applied to simulate lateral streamflow hydrograph from ungauged catchments of the Ping. The results of HEC-RAS model calibration with existing conditions in 2011 showed best trial roughness coefficient for the main channel of 0.026. The simulated water surface levels fitted to observation data with R2 of 0.8175. The model was applied to 3 proposed cascade weirs with 2.35 m in height and found surcharge water level only 0.27 m higher than the existing condition in 2011. Moreover, those weirs could maintain river water levels and increase of those pumping performances during less river flow in 2013.

Keywords: HEC-RAS, HMS, pumping stations, cascade weirs

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329 Impact of Data and Model Choices to Urban Flood Risk Assessments

Authors: Abhishek Saha, Serene Tay, Gerard Pijcke

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The availability of high-resolution topography and rainfall information in urban areas has made it necessary to revise modeling approaches used for simulating flood risk assessments. Lidar derived elevation models that have 1m or lower resolutions are becoming widely accessible. The classical approaches of 1D-2D flow models where channel flow is simulated and coupled with a coarse resolution 2D overland flow models may not fully utilize the information provided by high-resolution data. In this context, a study was undertaken to compare three different modeling approaches to simulate flooding in an urban area. The first model used is the base model used is Sobek, which uses 1D model formulation together with hydrologic boundary conditions and couples with an overland flow model in 2D. The second model uses a full 2D model for the entire area with shallow water equations at the resolution of the digital elevation model (DEM). These models are compared against another shallow water equation solver in 2D, which uses a subgrid method for grid refinement. These models are simulated for different horizontal resolutions of DEM varying between 1m to 5m. The results show a significant difference in inundation extents and water levels for different DEMs. They are also sensitive to the different numerical models with the same physical parameters, such as friction. The study shows the importance of having reliable field observations of inundation extents and levels before a choice of model and data can be made for spatial flood risk assessments.

Keywords: flooding, DEM, shallow water equations, subgrid

Procedia PDF Downloads 119
328 An Approach to Secure Mobile Agent Communication in Multi-Agent Systems

Authors: Olumide Simeon Ogunnusi, Shukor Abd Razak, Michael Kolade Adu

Abstract:

Inter-agent communication manager facilitates communication among mobile agents via message passing mechanism. Until now, all Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) compliant agent systems are capable of exchanging messages following the standard format of sending and receiving messages. Previous works tend to secure messages to be exchanged among a community of collaborative agents commissioned to perform specific tasks using cryptosystems. However, the approach is characterized by computational complexity due to the encryption and decryption processes required at the two ends. The proposed approach to secure agent communication allows only agents that are created by the host agent server to communicate via the agent communication channel provided by the host agent platform. These agents are assumed to be harmless. Therefore, to secure communication of legitimate agents from intrusion by external agents, a 2-phase policy enforcement system was developed. The first phase constrains the external agent to run only on the network server while the second phase confines the activities of the external agent to its execution environment. To implement the proposed policy, a controller agent was charged with the task of screening any external agent entering the local area network and preventing it from migrating to the agent execution host where the legitimate agents are running. On arrival of the external agent at the host network server, an introspector agent was charged to monitor and restrain its activities. This approach secures legitimate agent communication from Man-in-the Middle and Replay attacks.

Keywords: agent communication, introspective agent, isolation of agent, policy enforcement system

Procedia PDF Downloads 279
327 Future Projection of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods Hazard: A Hydrodynamic Study of the Highest Lake in the Dhauliganga Basin, Uttarakhand

Authors: Ashim Sattar, Ajanta Goswami, Anil V. Kulkarni

Abstract:

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) highly contributes to mountain hazards in the Himalaya. Over the past decade, high altitude lakes in the Himalaya has been showing notable growth in their size and number. The key reason is rapid retreat of its glacier front. Hydrodynamic modeling GLOF using shallow water equations (SWE) would result in understanding its impact in the downstream region. The present study incorporates remote sensing based ice thickness modeling to determine the future extent of the Dhauliganga Lake to map the over deepening extent around the highest lake in the Dhauliganga basin. The maximum future volume of the lake calculated using area-volume scaling is used to model a GLOF event. The GLOF hydrograph is routed along the channel using one dimensional and two dimensional model to understand the flood wave propagation till it reaches the 1st hydropower station located 72 km downstream of the lake. The present extent of the lake calculated using SENTINEL 2 images is 0.13 km². The maximum future extent of the lake, mapped by investigating the glacier bed has a calculated scaled volume of 3.48 x 106 m³. The GLOF modeling releasing the future volume of the lake resulted in a breach hydrograph with a peak flood of 4995 m³/s at just downstream of the lake. Hydraulic routing

Keywords: GLOF, glacial lake outburst floods, mountain hazard, Central Himalaya, future projection

Procedia PDF Downloads 142
326 Transferring Data from Glucometer to Mobile Device via Bluetooth with Arduino Technology

Authors: Tolga Hayit, Ucman Ergun, Ugur Fidan

Abstract:

Being healthy is undoubtedly an indispensable necessity for human life. With technological improvements, in the literature, various health monitoring and imaging systems have been developed to satisfy your health needs. In this context, the work of monitoring and recording the data of individual health monitoring data via wireless technology is also being part of these studies. Nowadays, mobile devices which are located in almost every house and which become indispensable of our life and have wireless technology infrastructure have an important place of making follow-up health everywhere and every time because these devices were using in the health monitoring systems. In this study, Arduino an open-source microcontroller card was used in which a sample sugar measuring device was connected in series. In this way, the glucose data (glucose ratio, time) obtained with the glucometer is transferred to the mobile device based on the Android operating system with the Bluetooth technology channel. A mobile application was developed using the Apache Cordova framework for listing data, presenting graphically and reading data over Arduino. Apache Cordova, HTML, Javascript and CSS are used in coding section. The data received from the glucometer is stored in the local database of the mobile device. It is intended that people can transfer their measurements to their mobile device by using wireless technology and access the graphical representations of their data. In this context, the aim of the study is to be able to perform health monitoring by using different wireless technologies in mobile devices that can respond to different wireless technologies at present. Thus, that will contribute the other works done in this area.

Keywords: Arduino, Bluetooth, glucose measurement, mobile health monitoring

Procedia PDF Downloads 299
325 Lattice Boltzmann Simulation of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Through Porous Media by Means of Pore-Scale Approach: Effect of Obstacles Size and Arrangement on Tortuosity and Heat Transfer for a Porosity Degree

Authors: Annunziata D’Orazio, Arash Karimipour, Iman Moradi

Abstract:

The size and arrangement of the obstacles in the porous media has an influential effect on the fluid flow and heat transfer, even in the same porosity. Regarding to this, in the present study, several different amounts of obstacles, in both regular and stagger arrangements, in the analogous porosity have been simulated through a channel. In order to compare the effect of stagger and regular arrangements, as well as different quantity of obstacles in the same porosity, on fluid flow and heat transfer. In the present study, the Single Relaxation Time Lattice Boltzmann Method, with Bhatnagar-Gross-Ktook (BGK) approximation and D2Q9 model, is implemented for the numerical simulation. Also, the temperature field is modeled through a Double Distribution Function (DDF) approach. Results are presented in terms of velocity and temperature fields, streamlines, percentage of pressure drop and Nusselt number of the obstacles walls. Also, the correlation between tortuosity and Nusselt number of the obstacles walls, for both regular and staggered arrangements, has been proposed. On the other hand, the results illustrated that by increasing the amount of obstacles, as well as changing their arrangement from regular to staggered, in the same porosity, the rate of tortuosity and Nusselt number of the obstacles walls increased.

Keywords: lattice boltzmann method, heat transfer, porous media, pore-scale, porosity, tortuosity

Procedia PDF Downloads 65
324 Evaluation of the Appropriateness of Common Oxidants for Ruthenium (II) Chemiluminescence in a Microfluidic Detection Device Coupled to Microbore High Performance Liquid Chromatography for the Analysis of Drugs in Formulations and Biological Fluids

Authors: Afsal Mohammed Kadavilpparampu, Haider A. J. Al Lawati, Fakhr Eldin O. Suliman, Salma M. Z. Al Kindy

Abstract:

In this work, we evaluated the appropriateness of various oxidants that can be used potentially with Ru(bipy)32+ CL system while performing CL detection in a microfluidic device using eight common active pharmaceutical ingredients- ciprofloxacin, hydrochlorothiazide, norfloxacin, buspirone, fexofenadine, cetirizine, codeine, and dextromethorphan. This is because, microfludics have very small channel volume and the residence time is also very short. Hence, a highly efficient oxidant is required for on-chip CL detection to obtain analytically acceptable CL emission. Three common oxidants were evaluated, lead dioxide, cerium ammonium sulphate and ammonium peroxydisulphate. Results obtained showed that ammonium peroxydisulphate is the most appropriate oxidant which can be used in microfluidic setup and all the tested analyte give strong CL emission while using this oxidant. We also found that Ru(bipy)33+ generated off-line by oxidizing [Ru(bipy)3]Cl2.6H2O in acetonitrile under acidic condition with lead dioxide was stable for more than 72 hrs. A highly sensitive microbore HPLC- CL method using ammonium peroxydisulphate as an oxidant in a microfluidic on-chip CL detection has been developed for the analyses of fixed-dose combinations of pseudoephedrine (PSE), fexofenadine (FEX) and cetirizine (CIT) in biological fluids and pharmaceutical formulations with minimum sample pre-treatment.

Keywords: oxidants, microbore High Performance Liquid Chromatography, chemiluminescence, microfluidics

Procedia PDF Downloads 422
323 Analyzing Microblogs: Exploring the Psychology of Political Leanings

Authors: Meaghan Bowman

Abstract:

Microblogging has become increasingly popular for commenting on current events, spreading gossip, and encouraging individualism--which favors its low-context communication channel. These social media (SM) platforms allow users to express opinions while interacting with a wide range of populations. Hashtags allow immediate identification of like-minded individuals worldwide on a vast array of topics. The output of the analytic tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)--a program that associates psychological meaning with the frequency of use of specific words--may suggest the nature of individuals’ internal states and general sentiments. When applied to groupings of SM posts unified by a hashtag, such information can be helpful to community leaders during periods in which the forming of public opinion happens in parallel with the unfolding of political, economic, or social events. This is especially true when outcomes stand to impact the well-being of the group. Here, we applied the online tools, Google Translate and the University of Texas’s LIWC, to a 90-posting sample from a corpus of Colombian Spanish microblogs. On translated disjoint sets, identified by hashtag as being authored by advocates of voting “No,” advocates voting “Yes,” and entities refraining from hashtag use, we observed the value of LIWC’s Tone feature as distinguishing among the categories and the word “peace,” as carrying particular significance, due to its frequency of use in the data.

Keywords: Colombia peace referendum, FARC, hashtags, linguistics, microblogging, social media

Procedia PDF Downloads 89
322 Management Practices in Hypertension: Results of Win-Over-A Pan India Registry

Authors: Abhijit Trailokya, Kamlesh Patel

Abstract:

Background: Hypertension is a common disease seen in clinical practice and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Many patients require combination therapy for the management of hypertension. Objective: To evaluate co-morbidities, risk factors and management practices of hypertension in Indian population. Material and methods: A total of 1596 hypertensive adult patients received anti-hypertensive medications were studied in a cross-sectional, multi-centric, non-interventional, observational registry. Statistical analysis: Categories or nominal data was expressed as numbers with percentages. Continuous variables were analyzed by descriptive statistics using mean, SD, and range Chi square test was used for in between group comparison. Results: The study included 73.50% males and 26.50% females. Overweight (50.50%) and obesity (30.01%) was common in the hypertensive patients (n=903). A total of 54.76% patients had history of smoking. Alcohol use (33.08%), sedentary life style (32.96%) and history of tobacco chewing (17.92%) were the other lifestyle habits of hypertensive patients. Diabetes (36.03%) and dyslipidemia (39.79%) history was common in these patients. Family history of hypertension and diabetes was seen in 82.21% and 45.99% patients respectively. Most (89.16%) patients were treated with combination of antihypertensive agents. ARBs were the by far most commonly used agents (91.98%) followed by calcium channel blockers (68.23%) and diuretics (60.21%). ARB was the most (80.35%) preferred agent as monotherapy. ARB was also the most common agent as a component of dual therapy, four drug and five drug combinations. Conclusion: Most of the hypertensive patients need combination treatment with antihypertensive agents. ARBs are the most preferred agents as monotherapy for the management of hypertension. ARBs are also very commonly used as a component of combination therapy during hypertension management.

Keywords: antihypertensive, hypertension, management, ARB

Procedia PDF Downloads 506