Search results for: search path planning

Authors: Mohammad Amini, Aliakbar Alijarahi

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This research that is collected and title as ‘ the search of possibility of running six sigma process in IT education center ‘ goals to test possibility of running the six sigma process and using in IT education center system. This process is a good method that is used for reducing process, errors. To evaluate running off six sigma in the IT education center, some variables relevant to this process is selected. These variables are: - The amount of support from organization master boss to process. - The current specialty. - The ability of training system for compensating reduction. - The amount of match between current culture whit six sigma culture . - The amount of current quality by comparing whit quality gain from running six sigma. For evaluation these variables we select four question and to gain the answers, we set a questionnaire from with 28 question and distribute it in our typical society. Since, our working environment is a very competition, and organization needs to decree the errors to minimum, otherwise it lasts their customers. The questionnaire from is given to 55 persons, they were filled and returned by 50 persons, after analyzing the forms these results is gained: - IT education center needs to use and run this system (six sigma) for improving their process qualities. - The most factors need to run the six sigma exist in the IT education center, but there is a need to support.

Keywords: education, customer, self-action, quality, continuous improvement process

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Authors: M. M. Othman, Walid El-Khattam, Y. G. Hegazy, A. Y. Abdelaziz

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This paper presents a method for finding the optimal location and capacity of dispatchable DGs connected to the distribution feeders for optimal planning for a specified power loss without violating the system practical constraints. The distributed generation units in the proposed algorithm is modeled as voltage controlled node with the flexibility to be converted to constant power node in case of reactive power limit violation. The proposed algorithm is implemented in MATLAB and tested on the IEEE 37-nodes feeder. The results that are validated by comparing it with results obtained from other competing methods show the effectiveness, accuracy and speed of the proposed method.

Keywords: distributed generators, firefly technique, optimization, power loss

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Authors: Ignitia Motjolopane

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in economies by contributing to economic growth and employment. In the fourth industrial revolution, the convergence of technologies and the changing nature of work created pressures on economies globally. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) may support SMEs in exploring, exploiting, and transforming business models to align with their growth aspirations. SMEs' growth aspirations fall into four categories: subsistence, income, growth, and speculative. Subsistence-oriented firms focus on meeting basic financial obligations and show less motivation for business model innovation. SMEs focused on income, growth, and speculation are more likely to pursue business model innovation to support growth strategies. SMEs' strategic goals link to distinct business model innovation paths depending on whether SMEs are starting a new business, pursuing growth, or seeking profitability. Integrating generative artificial intelligence in start-up SME business model innovation enhances value creation, user-oriented innovation, and SMEs' ability to adapt to dynamic changes in the business environment. The existing literature may lack comprehensive frameworks and guidelines for effectively integrating generative AI in start-up reiterative business model innovation paths. This paper examines start-up business model innovation path with generative artificial intelligence. A theoretical approach is used to examine start-up-focused SME reiterative business model innovation path with generative AI. Articulating how generative AI may be used to support SMEs to systematically and cyclically build the business model covering most or all business model components and analyse and test the BM's viability throughout the process. As such, the paper explores generative AI usage in market exploration. Moreover, market exploration poses unique challenges for start-ups compared to established companies due to a lack of extensive customer data, sales history, and market knowledge. Furthermore, the paper examines the use of generative AI in developing and testing viable value propositions and business models. In addition, the paper looks into identifying and selecting partners with generative AI support. Selecting the right partners is crucial for start-ups and may significantly impact success. The paper will examine generative AI usage in choosing the right information technology, funding process, revenue model determination, and stress testing business models. Stress testing business models validate strong and weak points by applying scenarios and evaluating the robustness of individual business model components and the interrelation between components. Thus, the stress testing business model may address these uncertainties, as misalignment between an organisation and its environment has been recognised as the leading cause of company failure. Generative AI may be used to generate business model stress-testing scenarios. The paper is expected to make a theoretical and practical contribution to theory and approaches in crafting a robust business model innovation path with generative artificial intelligence in start-up SMEs.

Keywords: business models, innovation, generative AI, small medium enterprises

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Authors: Shahab Mirzaean Mahabadi, Elham Ebrahimi

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The urban development process in the historical urban context has predominately witnessed two main approaches: the first is the Preservation and conservation of the urban fabric and its value, and the second approach is urban renewal and redevelopment. The latter is generally supported by political and economic aspirations. These two approaches conflict evidently. The authors go through the history of urban planning in order to review the historical development of the mentioned approaches. In this article, various values which are inherent in the historical fabric of a city are illustrated by emphasizing on cultural identity and activity. In the following, it is tried to find an optimized plan which maximizes economic development and minimizes change in historical-cultural sites simultaneously. In the proposed model, regarding the decision maker’s intention, and the variety of functions, the selected zone is divided into a number of components. For each component, different alternatives can be assigned, namely, renovation, refurbishment, destruction, and change in function. The decision Variable in this model is to choose an alternative for each component. A set of decisions made upon all components results in a plan. A plan developed in this way can be evaluated based on the decision maker’s point of view. That is, interactions between selected alternatives can make a foundation for the assessment of urban context to design a historical-cultural landscape. A genetic algorithm (GA) approach is used to search for optimal future land use within the historical-culture landscape for a sustainable high-growth city.

Keywords: urban sustainability, green city, regeneration, genetic algorithm

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Authors: Yuanyi (Richard) Fang

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Under the theory of La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny, if a country can increase its legal protections for minority shareholders, the country can develop an ideal securities market that only arises under the dispersed ownership corporate governance. However, the path-dependence scholarship, such as Lucian Arye Bebchuk and Mark J. Roe, presented a different view with LLS&V. They pointed out that the initial framework of the ownership structure and traditional culture will prevent the change of the corporate governance structure through legal reform. This paper contends that traditional culture factors as an important aspect when forming the corporate governance structure. However, it is not impossible for the government to change its traditional corporate governance structure and traditional culture because the culture does not remain intact. Culture evolves with time. The occurrence of the important events will affect the people’s psychological process. The psychological process affects the evolution of culture. The new cultural norms can help defeat the force of the traditional culture and the resistance from the initial corporate ownership structure. Using Taiwan as an example, through analyzing the historical background, related corporate rules and the reactions of adoption new rules from the media, this paper try to show that Taiwan’s culture norms do not remain intact and have changed with time. It further provides that the culture is not always the hurdle for the adoption of the dispersed ownership corporate governance structure as the culture can change. A new culture can provide strong support for the adoption of the new corporate governance structure.

Keywords: LLS&V theory, corporate governance, culture, path–dependent theory

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Authors: Arezoo Seifollahi

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One of the topics that is receiving a lot of attention in artistic circles and among Iran today and has been the subject of many conversations is the issue of Iranian graphics. In this research, the functional and practical aspects of Iranian painting as a visual-identity language in Iranian graphics have been investigated by relying on Iranian cultural and social posters in order to gain an understanding of the trend of contemporary graphic art in Iran and to help us reach the identity of graphics. In order to arrive at Iranian graphics, first, the issue of identity and what it is has been examined, and then this category has been addressed in Iran and throughout the history of this country in order to reveal the characteristics of the identity that has come to us today under the name of Iranian identity cognition. In the following, the search for Iranian identity in the art of this land, especially the art of painting, and then the art of contemporary painting and the search for identity in it have been discussed. After that, Iranian identity has been investigated in Iranian graphics. To understand Iranian graphics, after a brief description of its contemporary history, this art is examined at the considered time point. By using the inductive method of examining the posters of each course and taking into account the related cultural and social conditions, we tried to get a general and comprehensive understanding of the graphic features of each course.

Keywords: Iranian painting, graphic visual language, Iranian identity, social cultural poster

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Authors: U. S. N. Raju, Kothuri Sai Kiran, Meena G. Kamal, Vinay Nikhil Pabba, Suresh Kanaparthi

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There is huge amount of lecture video data available for public use, and many more lecture videos are being created and uploaded every day. Searching for videos on required topics from this huge database is a challenging task. Therefore, an efficient method for video retrieval is needed. An approach for automated video indexing and video search in large lecture video archives is presented. As the amount of video lecture data is huge, it is very inefficient to do the processing in a centralized computation framework. Hence, Hadoop Framework for distributed computing for Big Video Data is used. First, step in the process is automatic video segmentation and key-frame detection to offer a visual guideline for the video content navigation. In the next step, we extract textual metadata by applying video Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on key-frames. The OCR and detected slide text line types are adopted for keyword extraction, by which both video- and segment-level keywords are extracted for content-based video browsing and search. The performance of the indexing process can be improved for a large database by using distributed computing on Hadoop framework.

Keywords: video lectures, big video data, video retrieval, hadoop

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Authors: Smriti Bhatnagar

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This study aims to find if the Transit-oriented planning and development approach benefit the quality of air in neighborhoods of New Delhi. Two methodologies, namely the land use regression analysis and the Transit-oriented development index analysis, are being used to explore this relationship. Land Use Regression Analysis makes use of urban form characteristics as obtained for 33 neighborhoods in Delhi. These comprise road lengths, land use areas, population and household densities, number of amenities and distance between amenities. Regressions are run to establish the relationship between urban form variables and air quality parameters (dependent variables). For the Transit-oriented development index analysis, the Transit-oriented Development index is developed as a composite index comprising 29 urban form indicators. This index is developed by assigning weights to each of the 29 urban form data points. Regressions are run to establish the relationship between the Transit-oriented development index and air quality parameters. The thesis finds that elements of Transit-oriented development if incorporated in planning approach, have a positive effect on air quality. Roads suited for non-motorized transport, well connected civic amenities in neighbourhoods, for instance, have a directly proportional relationship with air quality. Transit-oriented development index, however, is not found to have a consistent relationship with air quality parameters. The reason could this, however, be in the way that the index has been constructed.

Keywords: air quality, land use regression, mixed-use planning, transit-oriented development index, New Delhi

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Authors: A. Pietro Rimoldi, B. Anilkumar Gopinath, C. Minimol Korulla

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Coastal engineering structure is conventionally designed for a shorter planning horizon usually 20 years. These structures are subjected to different offshore climatic externalities like waves, tides, tsunamis etc. during the design life period. The probability of occurrence of these different offshore climatic externalities varies. The impact frequently caused by these externalities on the structures is of concern because it has a significant bearing on the capital /operating cost of the project. There can also be repeated short time occurrence of these externalities in the assumed planning horizon which can cause heavy damage to the conventional coastal structure which are mainly made of rock. A replacement of the damaged portion to prevent complete collapse is time consuming and expensive when dealing with hard rock structures. But if coastal structures are made of Geo-synthetic containment systems such replacement is quickly possible in the time period between two successive occurrences. In order to have a better knowledge and to enhance the predictive capacity of these occurrences, this study estimates risk of encounter within the design life period of various externalities based on the concept of exponential distribution. This gives an idea of the frequency of occurrences which in turn gives an indication of whether replacement is necessary and if so at what time interval such replacements have to be effected. To validate this theoretical finding, a pilot project has been taken up in the field so that the impact of the externalities can be studied both for a hard rock and a Geosynthetic tube structure. The paper brings out the salient feature of a case study which pertains to a project in which Geosynthetic tubes have been used for reformation of a seawall adjacent to a conventional rock structure in Alappuzha coast, Kerala, India. The effectiveness of the Geosystem in combatting the impact of the short-term externalities has been brought out.

Keywords: climatic externalities, exponential distribution, geosystems, planning horizon

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Authors: Arshad Hussain

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Background: Sukh Initiative is a multi-donor funded, family planning and reproductive health project, primed by Aman Healthcare Services; implemented through a consortium of local and international organizations, in a selected one million underserved peri-urban population of Karachi, Sindh; which aims at increasing modern contraceptive prevalence rate by 15 percentage point. Objective: To empower women to access contraception by increasing knowledge, improving quality of services and expanding the basket of choices; contributing to the goals of FP2020. Methods: A five years project has a multi-pronged approach with door to door services by LHWs and CHWs in an LHWs covered population and provision of quality FP/RH services both at public and private health care facilities. The project engages youth (12-16 years) both with community and at secondary schools to mentor them for responsible adulthood with life skilled base initiative. A 24/7 availability of youth and FP helpline service provides counselling, referrals in addition with a follow-up mechanism. Results: 131,810 MWRAs were reached by 191 community health workers through 29,693 of community support group meetings and 166,775 house hold visits. These MWRAs were counselled on FP related myths and misconception and referred to 216 providers trained for quality family planning services and maintaining average 64% quality scores in 43 public health and 35 private facilities in the project area. Of those referred 26% MWRAs opted modern contraception with 17.56% in LARCs and 41% PPFP as compared to baseline. Aman TeleHealth is linked with 24/7 counselling, referrals and post services follow-ups to clients, showing 14% proportion of FP call volume. Sukh has a unique role in engaging all partners on youth SRHR issues through family life education sessions, 30 higher sec. schools in Sukh area have been provided LSBE to 16,000 students (aged 15-17), and in community approximately 10, 496 girls and boys have received SRHR information. Conclusion: Through individual counselling, access to quality family planning services and involvement of stakeholders, Suk created an enabling environment to rapid increase in family planning in the project intervention area.

Keywords: family planning and reproductive health, married women with reproductive age, urban squatter, Pakistan

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Authors: G. Gurguze, I. Turkoglu

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Today, the developing features of technological tools with limited energy resources have made it necessary to use energy efficiently. Energy management techniques have emerged for this purpose. As with every field, energy management is vital for robots that are being used in many areas from industry to daily life and that are thought to take up more spaces in the future. Particularly, effective power management in autonomous and multi robots, which are getting more complicated and increasing day by day, will improve the performance and success. In this study, robot management algorithms, usage of renewable and hybrid energy sources, robot motion patterns, robot designs, sharing strategies of workloads in multiple robots, road and mission planning algorithms are discussed for efficient use of energy resources by mobile robots. These techniques have been evaluated in terms of efficient use of existing energy resources and energy management in robots.

Keywords: energy management, mobile robot, robot administration, robot management, robot planning

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Authors: Kehinde Agbele, Longe Olumide, Daniel Ekong, Dele Seluwa, Akintoye Onamade

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One major problem of most existing information retrieval systems (IRS) is that they provide even access and retrieval results to individual users specially based on the query terms user issued to the system. When using IRS, users often present search queries made of ad-hoc keywords. It is then up to IRS to obtain a precise representation of user’s information need, and the context of the information. In effect, the volume and range of the Internet documents is growing exponentially and consequently causes difficulties for a user to obtain information that precisely matches the user interest. Diverse combination techniques are used to achieve the specific goal. This is due, firstly, to the fact that users often do not present queries to IRS that optimally represent the information they want, and secondly, the measure of a document's relevance is highly subjective between diverse users. In this paper, we address the problem by investigating the optimization of IRS to individual information needs in order of relevance. The paper addressed the development of algorithms that optimize the ranking of documents retrieved from IRS. This paper addresses this problem with a two-fold approach in order to retrieve domain-specific documents. Firstly, the design of context of information. The context of a query determines retrieved information relevance using personalization and context-awareness. Thus, executing the same query in diverse contexts often leads to diverse result rankings based on the user preferences. Secondly, the relevant context aspects should be incorporated in a way that supports the knowledge domain representing users’ interests. In this paper, the use of evolutionary algorithms is incorporated to improve the effectiveness of IRS. A context-based information retrieval system that learns individual needs from user-provided relevance feedback is developed whose retrieval effectiveness is evaluated using precision and recall metrics. The results demonstrate how to use attributes from user interaction behavior to improve the IR effectiveness.

Keywords: context, document relevance, information retrieval, personalization, user search behaviors

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Authors: Benoit Landi, Hervé Pingaud, Jean-Benoit Culie, Michel Galaup

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Serious games have been widely disseminated in the field of digital learning. They have proved their utility in improving skills through virtual environments that simulate the field where new competencies have to be improved and assessed. This paper describes how we created CLONE, a serious game whose purpose is to help nurses create an efficient work plan in a hospital care unit. In CLONE, the number of patients to take care of is similar to the reality of their job, going far beyond what is currently practiced in nurse school classrooms. This similarity with the operational field increases proportionally the number of activities to be scheduled. Moreover, very often, the team of nurses is composed of regular nurses and nurse assistants that must share the work with respect to the regulatory obligations. Therefore, on the one hand, building a short-term planning is a complex task with a large amount of data to deal with, and on the other, good clinical practices have to be systematically applied. We present how reference planning has been defined by addressing an optimization problem formulation using the expertise of teachers. This formulation ensures the gameplay feasibility for the scenario that has been produced and enhanced throughout the game design process. It was also crucial to steer a player toward a specific gaming strategy. As one of our most important learning outcomes is a clear understanding of the workload concept, its factual calculation for each caregiver along time and its inclusion in the nurse reasoning during planning elaboration are focal points. We will demonstrate how to modify the game scenario to create a digital environment in which these somewhat abstract principles can be understood and applied. Finally, we give input on an experience we had on a pilot of a thousand undergraduate nursing students.

Keywords: care planning, workload, game design, hospital nurse, organizational skills, digital learning, serious game

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Authors: Francesca Schiavello

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This work aims to create a hybrid algorithm, combining Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) with an Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) in the place of traditional gradient based optimization processes. QAOA’s were first introduced in 2014, where, at the time, their algorithm performed better than the traditional best known classical algorithm for Max-cut graphs. Whilst classical algorithms have improved since then and have returned to being faster and more efficient, this was a huge milestone for quantum computing, and their work is often used as a benchmarking tool and a foundational tool to explore variants of QAOA’s. This, alongside with other famous algorithms like Grover’s or Shor’s, highlights to the world the potential that quantum computing holds. It also presents the reality of a real quantum advantage where, if the hardware continues to improve, this could constitute a revolutionary era. Given that the hardware is not there yet, many scientists are working on the software side of things in the hopes of future progress. Some of the major limitations holding back quantum computing are the quality of qubits and the noisy interference they generate in creating solutions, the barren plateaus that effectively hinder the optimization search in the latent space, and the availability of number of qubits limiting the scale of the problem that can be solved. These three issues are intertwined and are part of the motivation for using EAs in this work. Firstly, EAs are not based on gradient or linear optimization methods for the search in the latent space, and because of their freedom from gradients, they should suffer less from barren plateaus. Secondly, given that this algorithm performs a search in the solution space through a population of solutions, it can also be parallelized to speed up the search and optimization problem. The evaluation of the cost function, like in many other algorithms, is notoriously slow, and the ability to parallelize it can drastically improve the competitiveness of QAOA’s with respect to purely classical algorithms. Thirdly, because of the nature and structure of EA’s, solutions can be carried forward in time, making them more robust to noise and uncertainty. Preliminary results show that the EA algorithm attached to QAOA can perform on par with the traditional QAOA with a Cobyla optimizer, which is a linear based method, and in some instances, it can even create a better Max-Cut. Whilst the final objective of the work is to create an algorithm that can consistently beat the original QAOA, or its variants, due to either speedups or quality of the solution, this initial result is promising and show the potential of EAs in this field. Further tests need to be performed on an array of different graphs with the parallelization aspect of the work commencing in October 2023 and tests on real hardware scheduled for early 2024.

Keywords: evolutionary algorithm, max cut, parallel simulation, quantum optimization

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Authors: Bhawna Verma

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Looking at the contraceptive use and unmet need specific to the different age groups would help to understand various determinants and characteristics of women from different age groups, which are often being neglected. The study explores contraceptive behavior, unmet need for family planning and its correlates among young nulliparous women aged 15-29, using data from NFHS-4 (2015-16), India. Method: The study utilized information from 26,924 currently married women, who has no child or who have had first terminated pregnancy and was aged 15-29 at the time of the survey. Chi-Square and logistic regression analysis have been used to assess the effects of socio-economic characteristics. Results: Of all the considered explanatory variables religion, caste, education, current age, age at marriage, media exposure and regional differences were found to be significantly affecting the behavior of contraceptive use. Women of the 25-29 age group are 0.6 percent less likely to have an unmet need than women of 12-19 age group. Unmet need is increasing with the increased level of education. Muslim women are 0.3 percent less likely to have an unmet need than women of Hindu category. Conclusion: Separate considerations must be given to the needs for family planning formation among nulliparous women along with the factors associated with the use and non-use of contraceptives among them. Separate considerations must be given for effective promotion of FP knowledge through print, electronic media, towards the unequal access to the contraceptives among nulliparous women. Marriages after legal minimum age and encouraging women for higher education may address existing socio-economic barriers.

Keywords: contraceptive use, unmet need, family planning, contraceptive behavior

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Authors: Thorben Kuprat, Julian Becker, Jonas Mayer, Peter Nyhuis

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For years now, it has been recognized that logistic performance capability contributes enormously to a production enterprise’s competitiveness and as such is a critical control lever. In doing so, the orientation on customer wishes (e.g. delivery dates) represents a key parameter not only in the value-adding production but also in product regeneration. Since production and regeneration processes have different characteristics, production planning and control measures cannot be directly transferred to regeneration processes. As part of a special research project, the Institute of Production Systems and Logistics Hannover is focused on increasing the logistic performance capability of regeneration processes for complex capital goods. The aim is to ensure logistic targets are met by implementing a model specifically designed to align the capacities and load in regeneration processes.

Keywords: capacity planning, complex capital goods, logistic performance, regeneration process

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Authors: Sam S. Hashemi

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The breakage of bonding between sand particles and their dislodgment from the borehole wall are among the main factors resulting in a borehole failure in poorly cemented granular formations. The grain debonding usually precedes the borehole failure and it can be considered as a sign that the onset of the borehole collapse is imminent. Detecting the bonding breakage point and introducing an appropriate failure criterion will play an important role in borehole stability analysis. To study the influence of different factors on the initiation of sand bonding breakage at the borehole wall, a series of laboratory tests was designed and conducted on poorly cemented sand samples. The total absorbed strain energy per volume of material up to the point of the observed particle debonding was computed. The results indicated that the particle bonding breakage point at the borehole wall was reached both before and after the peak strength of the thick-walled hollow cylinder specimens depending on the stress path and cement content. Three different cement contents and two borehole sizes were investigated to study the influence of the bonding strength and scale on the particle dislodgment. Test results showed that the stress path has a significant influence on the onset of the sand bonding breakage. It was shown that for various stress paths, there is a near linear relationship between the absorbed energy and the normal effective mean stress.

Keywords: borehole stability, experimental studies, poorly cemented sands, total absorbed strain energy

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Authors: M. Pilgun

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The report presents the results of a study of the specifics of speech perception by actors of video hosting services on the material of urban planning conflicts. To analyze the content, the multimodal approach using neural network technologies is employed. Analysis of word associations and associative networks of relevant stimulus revealed the evaluative reactions of the actors. Analysis of the data identified key topics that generated negative and positive perceptions from the participants. The calculation of social stress and social well-being indices based on user-generated content made it possible to build a rating of road transport construction objects according to the degree of negative and positive perception by actors.

Keywords: social media, speech perception, video hosting, networks

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Authors: H. E. M. W. G. M. K. Ekanayake, J. Dharmasena

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Natural Landscape fragmentation and habitat loss are emerging issues in Sri Lanka, which is due to rapid urban development and inadequate concern of managing Landscape connectivity. Urban Wetlands are the most vulnerable ecosystem effects from the fragmentation. Therefore, management of landscape connectivity with proper analysis and understanding has become a most important measure for urban wetland habitats. This study aimed to introduce spatial planning strategy to identify and locate landscape developments appropriately in order to restore landscape connectivity. Therefore, the study focuses on understanding the relationship between habitat patch metrics and landscape connectivity with reference to Colombo wetlands. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to measure the wetland patch metrics; Patch area, Total edge, Perimeter-area ratio, Core area index and Inter-patch distances. Further, GIS-enabled least-cost path tool was used to measure the Landscape connectivity and calculate the number of species flow paths per wetland patch. According to the research findings; increasing the patch area, maintaining a mean perimeter-area ratio and core area index also reducing the inter-patch distances could enhance the landscape connectivity. Further, this study introduces three patch typologies; ‘active patches,' ‘open patches’ and ‘closed patches’ that severs to landscape connectivity in different levels. In the end, the study proposes a strategy for Landscape Architects to select most suitable locations to implement ecological based landscape developments with adjacent to the existing urban habitat in order to enhance habitat patch metrics and to restore the landscape connectivity.

Keywords: landscape fragmentation, urban wetlands, landscape connectivity, patch metrics

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Authors: S. B. D. Samarasinghe, Malini Herath

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Participatory planning is a very important process for decision making and choosing the best alternative options for community welfare, development of the society and its interactions among community and professionals. People’s involvement is considered as the key guidance in participatory planning. Presently, Participatory planning is being used in many fields. It's not only limited to planning but also to disaster management, poverty, housing, etc. In the past, Disaster management practice was a top-down approach, but it raised many issues as it was converted to a bottom-up approach. There are several approaches that can aid disaster management. Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) is a very successful participatory approach to risk management that is often successfully applied by other disaster-prone countries. In the local context, CBDRM has been applied to prevent Diseases as well as to prevent disasters such as landslides, tsunamis and floods. From three years before, Sri Lanka has initiated the CBDRM approach to minimize landslide vulnerability. Hence, this study mainly focuses on the impact of CBDRM approaches on landslide hazards. Also to identify their successes and failures from both implementing parties and community. This research is carried out based on a qualitative method combined with a descriptive research approach. A successful framework was prepared via a literature review. Case studies were selected considering landslide CBDRM programs which were implemented by Disaster Management Center and National Building Research Organization in Badulla. Their processes were evaluated. Data collection is done through interviews and informal discussions. Then their ideas were quantified by using the Relative Effectiveness index. The resulting numerical value was used to rank the program effectiveness and their success, failures and impacting factors. Results show that there are several failures among implementing parties and the community. Overcoming those factors can make way for better conduction of future CBDRM programs.

Keywords: community-based disaster risk management, disaster management, preparedness, landslide

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Authors: Salma I. Dwidar, Amal A. Abdelsattar

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Alexandria city is one of the greatest cities in the world. It confronted different civilizations throughout the ages due to its special geographical location and climate which left many archaeological areas of great heritage (Ptolemaic, Greek, Romanian, especially sunken monuments, Coptic, Islamic, and finally, the Modern). Also, Alexandria city contains areas with different patterns of urban planning, both Hellenistic and compacted planning which merited the diversity in planning. Despite the magnitude of this city, which contains all the elements of tourism, the city was not included in the tourism map of Egypt properly comparing with similar cities in Egypt. This paper discusses the importance of heritage areas in Alexandria and the relationship between heritage areas and modern buildings. It highlights the absence of a methodology to deal with heritage areas as touristic areas. Also, the paper aims to develop multiple touristic routes to visit archaeological areas and other sights of significance in Alexandria. The research methodology is divided into two main frameworks. The first framework is a historical study of the urban development of Alexandria and the most important remaining monuments throughout the ages, as well as an analytical study of sunken monuments and their importance in increasing the rate of tourism. Moreover, it covers a study of the importance of the Library of Alexandria and its effect on the international focus of the city. The second framework focuses on the proposal of some tourism routes to visit the heritage areas, archaeological monuments, sunken monuments and the sights of Alexandria. The study concludes with the proposal of three tourism routes. The first route, which is the longest one, passes by all the famous monuments of the city as well as its modern sights. The second route passes through the heritage areas, sunken monuments, and Library of Alexandria. The third route includes the sunken monuments and Library of Alexandria. These three tourism routes will ensures the touristic development of the city which leads to the economic growth of the city and the country.

Keywords: archeological buildings, heritage buildings, heritage tourism, planning of Islamic cities

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Authors: Rui Calejo Rodrigues

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Building Refurbishing and Maintenance is a major area of knowledge ultimately dispensed to user/occupant criteria. The optimization of the service life of a building needs a special background to be assessed as it is one of those concepts that needs proficiency to be implemented. ISO 15686-2 Buildings and constructed assets - Service life planning: Part 2, Service life prediction procedures, states a factorial method based on deterministic data for building components life span. Major consequences result on a deterministic approach because users/occupants are not sensible to understand the end of components life span and so simply act on deterministic periods and so costly and resources consuming solutions do not meet global targets of planet sustainability. The estimation of 2 thousand million conventional buildings in the world, if submitted to a probabilistic method for service life planning rather than a deterministic one provide an immense amount of resources savings. Since 1989 the research team nowadays stating for CEES–Center for Building in Service Studies developed a methodology based on Montecarlo method for probabilistic approach regarding life span of building components, cost and service life care time spans. The research question of this deals with the importance of probabilistic approach of buildings life planning compared with deterministic methods. It is presented the mathematic model developed for buildings probabilistic lifespan approach and experimental data is obtained to be compared with deterministic data. Assuming that buildings lifecycle depends a lot on component replacement this methodology allows to conclude on the global impact of fixed replacements methodologies such as those on result of deterministic models usage. Major conclusions based on conventional buildings estimate are presented and evaluated under a sustainable perspective.

Keywords: building components life cycle, building maintenance, building sustainability, Montecarlo Simulation

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Authors: Gaurav Kumar Sinha

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The volatility of the oil market, influenced by geopolitical, economic, and environmental factors, presents significant challenges for stakeholders in predicting trends and demand. This article explores the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in developing robust forecasting models to anticipate changes in the oil market more accurately. We delve into various AI techniques, including machine learning, deep learning, and time series analysis, that have been adapted to analyze historical data and current market conditions to forecast future trends. The study evaluates the effectiveness of these models in capturing complex patterns and dependencies in market data, which traditional forecasting methods often miss. Additionally, the paper discusses the integration of external variables such as political events, economic policies, and technological advancements that influence oil prices and demand. By leveraging AI, stakeholders can achieve a more nuanced understanding of market dynamics, enabling better strategic planning and risk management. The article concludes with a discussion on the potential of AI-driven models in enhancing the predictive accuracy of oil market forecasts and their implications for global economic planning and strategic resource allocation.

Keywords: AI forecasting, oil market trends, machine learning, deep learning, time series analysis, predictive analytics, economic factors, geopolitical influence, technological advancements, strategic planning

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Authors: Tripatjot S. Panag, J. S. Dhillon

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The lifetime of a wireless sensor network can be effectively increased by using scheduling operations. Once the sensors are randomly deployed, the task at hand is to find the largest number of disjoint sets of sensors such that every sensor set provides complete coverage of the target area. At any instant, only one of these disjoint sets is switched on, while all other are switched off. This paper proposes a heuristic search method to find the maximum number of disjoint sets that completely cover the region. A population of randomly initialized members is made to explore the solution space. A set of heuristics has been applied to guide the members to a possible solution in their neighborhood. The heuristics escalate the convergence of the algorithm. The best solution explored by the population is recorded and is continuously updated. The proposed algorithm has been tested for applications which require sensing of multiple target points, referred to as point coverage applications. Results show that the proposed algorithm outclasses the existing algorithms. It always finds the optimum solution, and that too by making fewer number of fitness function evaluations than the existing approaches.

Keywords: coverage, disjoint sets, heuristic, lifetime, scheduling, Wireless sensor networks, WSN

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Authors: B. Petrović, L. Rutonjski, M. Baucal, M. Teodorović, O. Čudić, B. Basarić

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Purpose/Objective: Radiotherapy treatment planning requires use of CT simulator, in order to acquire CT images. The overall performance of CT simulator determines the quality of radiotherapy treatment plan, and at the end, the outcome of treatment for every single patient. Therefore, it is strongly advised by international recommendations, to set up a quality control procedures for every machine involved in radiotherapy treatment planning process, including the CT scanner/ simulator. The overall process requires number of tests, which are used on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis, depending on the feature tested. Materials/Methods: Two phantoms were used: a dedicated phantom CIRS 062QA, and a QA phantom obtained with the CT simulator. The examined CT simulator was Siemens Somatom Definition as Open, dedicated for radiation therapy treatment planning. The CT simulator has a built in software, which enables fast and simple evaluation of CT QA parameters, using the phantom provided with the CT simulator. On the other hand, recommendations contain additional test, which were done with the CIRS phantom. Also, legislation on ionizing radiation protection requires CT testing in defined periods of time. Taking into account the requirements of law, built in tests of a CT simulator, and international recommendations, the intitutional QC programme for CT imulator is defined, and implemented. Results: The CT simulator parameters evaluated through the study were following: CT number accuracy, field uniformity, complete CT to ED conversion curve, spatial and contrast resolution, image noise, slice thickness, and patient table stability.The following limits are established and implemented: CT number accuracy limits are +/- 5 HU of the value at the comissioning. Field uniformity: +/- 10 HU in selected ROIs. Complete CT to ED curve for each tube voltage must comply with the curve obtained at comissioning, with deviations of not more than 5%. Spatial and contrast resultion tests must comply with the tests obtained at comissioning, otherwise machine requires service. Result of image noise test must fall within the limit of 20% difference of the base value. Slice thickness must meet manufacturer specifications, and patient stability with longitudinal transfer of loaded table must not differ of more than 2mm vertical deviation. Conclusion: The implemented QA tests gave overall basic understanding of CT simulator functionality and its clinical effectiveness in radiation treatment planning. The legal requirement to the clinic is to set up it’s own QA programme, with minimum testing, but it remains user’s decision whether additional testing, as recommended by international organizations, will be implemented, so to improve the overall quality of radiation treatment planning procedure, as the CT image quality used for radiation treatment planning, influences the delineation of a tumor and calculation accuracy of treatment planning system, and finally delivery of radiation treatment to a patient.

Keywords: CT simulator, radiotherapy, quality control, QA programme

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Authors: Yi-Fung Lin, Yuan-Mei Liao

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Background: Pain is common among patients with cancer and is also one of the most disturbing symptoms. As this suffering is subjective, if patients proactively participate in their pain self-management, pain could be alleviated effectively. However, not everyone can carry out self-management very well because human behavior is a product of the cognition process. In this process, we can see that "self-efficacy" plays an essential role in affecting human behaviors. Methods: We used the eight steps of concept analysis proposed by Walker and Avant to clarify the concept of “self-efficacy for cancer pain management.” A comprehensive literature review was conducted for relevant publications that were published during the period of 1977 to 2021. We used several keywords, including self-efficacy, self-management, concept analysis, conceptual framework, and cancer pain, to search the following databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Embase. Results: We identified three defining attributes for the concept of self-efficacy for cancer pain management, including pain management abilities, confidence, and continuous pain monitoring, and recognized six skills related to pain management abilities: problem-solving, decision-making, resource utilization, forming partnerships between medical professionals and patients, planning actions, and self-regulation. Five antecedents for the concept of self-efficacy for cancer pain management were identified: pain experience, existing cancer pain, pain-related knowledge, a belief in pain management, and physical/mental state. Consequences related to self-efficacy for cancer pain management were achievement of pain self-management, well pain control, satisfying quality of life, and containing motivation. Conclusions: This analysis provides researchers with a clearer understanding of the concept of “self-efficacy for cancer pain management.” The findings presented here provide a foundation for future research and nursing interventions to enhance self-efficacy for cancer pain management.

Keywords: cancer pain, concept analysis, self-efficacy, self-management

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Authors: Christine F. Boos, Fernando M. Azevedo

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Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a record of the electrical activity of the brain that has many applications, such as monitoring alertness, coma and brain death; locating damaged areas of the brain after head injury, stroke and tumor; monitoring anesthesia depth; researching physiology and sleep disorders; researching epilepsy and localizing the seizure focus. Epilepsy is a chronic condition, or a group of diseases of high prevalence, still poorly explained by science and whose diagnosis is still predominantly clinical. The EEG recording is considered an important test for epilepsy investigation and its visual analysis is very often applied for clinical confirmation of epilepsy diagnosis. Moreover, this EEG analysis can also be used to help define the types of epileptic syndrome, determine epileptiform zone, assist in the planning of drug treatment and provide additional information about the feasibility of surgical intervention. In the context of diagnosis confirmation the analysis is made using long term EEG recordings with at least 24 hours long and acquired by a minimum of 24 electrodes in which the neurophysiologists perform a thorough visual evaluation of EEG screens in search of specific electrographic patterns called epileptiform discharges. Considering that the EEG screens usually display 10 seconds of the recording, the neurophysiologist has to evaluate 360 screens per hour of EEG or a minimum of 8,640 screens per long term EEG recording. Analyzing thousands of EEG screens in search patterns that have a maximum duration of 200 ms is a very time consuming, complex and exhaustive task. Because of this, over the years several studies have proposed automated methodologies that could facilitate the neurophysiologists’ task of identifying epileptiform discharges and a large number of methodologies used neural networks for the pattern classification. One of the differences between all of these methodologies is the type of input stimuli presented to the networks, i.e., how the EEG signal is introduced in the network. Five types of input stimuli have been commonly found in literature: raw EEG signal, morphological descriptors (i.e. parameters related to the signal’s morphology), Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) spectrum, Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) spectrograms and Wavelet Transform features. This study evaluates the application of these five types of input stimuli and compares the classification results of neural networks that were implemented using each of these inputs. The performance of using raw signal varied between 43 and 84% efficiency. The results of FFT spectrum and STFT spectrograms were quite similar with average efficiency being 73 and 77%, respectively. The efficiency of Wavelet Transform features varied between 57 and 81% while the descriptors presented efficiency values between 62 and 93%. After simulations we could observe that the best results were achieved when either morphological descriptors or Wavelet features were used as input stimuli.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, electroencephalogram signal, pattern recognition, signal processing

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Authors: Tris Kee

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As the urban design discipline develops renewed interests in participatory design and collaborative place-making, it becomes critical to review the potential and limitations in current processes to ensure a sustainable method for future development.This paper explores how collaborative design can be a key to future sustainable urban development through two case studies from Asia.The process involves a multi-disciplinary collaboration and an innovative learning process by sharing ideas as well as careful consideration on social, economic and political circumstances among government and district stakeholders.This intrinsic proposition of innovative participatory planning implies interdisciplinary collaboration between professionals and local residents to integrate knowledge into new urban place-making thinking.Design innovation in contemporary society can manifest itself in the discourse sustainable urban development by bottom-up planning and community driven design. This paper examines the emerging design pedagogy which promotes interdisciplinary coalition of professionals and local stakeholders in community development as an innovative design rubric to create a sustainable urban approach.Through two case studies in Hong Kong, this paper reviews and critically evaluates the process of how the notion of sustainable development in contemporary urban planning theory is underpinned by the collaborative design practice.

Keywords: collaborative design, design innovation, sustainable development, urban development

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Authors: Artiya Sopharak, Tosaphol Ratniyomchai, Thanatchai Kulworawanichpong

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This paper presents an energy-saving study of Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) using an optimal train coasting operation. For the dynamic train movement with four modes of operation, including accelerating mode, constant speed or cruising mode, coasting mode, and braking mode are considered in this study. The acceleration rate, the deceleration rate, and the starting coasting point are taken into account the optimal train speed profile during coasting mode with considering the energy saving and acceptable travel time comparison to the based case with no coasting operation. In this study, the mathematical method as a Quadratic Search Method (QDS) is conducted to carry out the optimization problem. A single train of MRT services between two stations with a distance of 2 km and a maximum speed of 80 km/h is taken to be the case study. Regarding the coasting mode operation, the results show that the longer distance of costing mode, the less energy consumption in cruising mode and the less braking energy. On the other hand, the shorter distance of coasting mode, the more energy consumption in cruising mode and the more braking energy.

Keywords: energy saving, coasting mode, mass rapid transit, quadratic search method

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Authors: Xue Bai, Ranran He, Chang Liu

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Care planning before the onset of intensive care needs can benefit older adults’ psychological well-being and increases families’ ability to manage caregiving crises and cope with care transitions. Effective care planning requires collaborative ‘team-work’ in families. However, future care planning has not been substantially examined in intergenerational or family contexts, let alone among immigrant families who have to face particular challenges in parental caregiving. From a family systems perspective, this study intends to explore the extent, processes, and contents of intergenerational care planning of Mainland immigrant ageing families in Hong Kong and to examine the intergenerational congruence and discrepancies in the care planning process. Adopting a qualitative research design, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 adult child-older parent pairs and another 33 adult children. In total, 50 adult children who migrated to Hong Kong after the age of 18 with more than three years’ work experience in Hong Kong had at least one parent aged over 55 years old who was not a Hong Kong resident and considered his/herself as the primary caregiver of the parent were recruited. Seventeen ageing parents of the recruited adult children were invited for dyadic interviews. Scarcity of caregiving resources in the context of cross-border migration, intergenerational discrepancies in care planning stages, both generations’ struggle and ambivalence toward filial care, intergenerational transmission of care values, and facilitating role of accumulated family capital in care preparation were primary themes concluded from participants’ narratives. Compared with ageing parents, immigrant adult children generally displayed lower levels of care planning. Although with a strong awareness of parents’ future care needs, few adult children were found engaged in concrete planning activities. This is largely due to their uncertainties toward future life and career, huge work and living pressure, the relatively good health status of their parents, and restrictions of public welfare policies in the receiving society. By contrast, children’s cross-border migration encouraged ageing parents to have early and clear preparation for future care. Ageing parents mostly expressed low filial care expectations when realizing the scarcity of family caregiving resources in the cross-border context. Even though they prefer in-person support from children, most of them prepare themselves for independent ageing to prioritize the next generation’s needs or choose to utilize paid services, welfare systems, friend networks, or extended family networks in their sending society. Adult children were frequently found caught in the dilemma of desiring to provide high quality and in-person support for their parents but lacking sufficient resources. Notably, a salient pattern of intergenerational transmission in terms of family and care values and ideal care arrangement emerged from intergenerational care preparation. Moreover, the positive role of accumulated family capital generated by a reunion in care preparation and joint decision-making were also identified. The findings of the current study will enhance professionals’ and service providers’ awareness of intergenerational care planning in cross-border migration contexts, inform services to alleviate unpreparedness for elderly care and intergenerational discrepancies concerning care arrangements and broaden family services to encompass intergenerational care planning interventions. Acknowledgment: This study is supported by a General Research Grant from the Research Grants Council of the HKSAR, China (Project Number: 15603818).

Keywords: intergenerational care planning, mainland immigrants in Hong Kong, migrant family, older adults

Procedia PDF Downloads 126