Search results for: ubiquitous learning environment scaffolding

Authors: Sun Gang

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A variety of functional spaces are distributed on the vast mountain waterfront. Their functional positioning presents a spontaneous form of settlement space, and the construction features show a passive impact on the natural environment. As the precious heritage of inheriting human civilization and promoting historical culture, the traditional settlement space in mountainous areas is also the local expression of landscape pattern pattern gene. Under the impact of rapid urban construction and the stimulation of the transformation of social consumption demand, the original texture, scale and ecology of the traditional mountain settlement space, especially the historical and cultural settlement space, have been affected, and the decline of characteristics hinders the development. This paper selects Anju Ancient Town, the fourth largest ancient city in China, which is located in the city of mountains and waters as the research object, and combines spatial analysis and other methods to study the characteristics and causes of its spatial morphology, analyze the internal logic in its formation and development process, build a genetic analysis map, explore the possibility of settlement inheritance and development, and provide reference for the construction, protection and inheritance of traditional mountain settlements.

Keywords: mountain traditional settlement, historical and cultural settlement space, spatial form, spatial gene

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Authors: Mohamed Al Araby, Amany Salman, Mostafa Amin, Mohamed Madbully, Dalia Keraa, Mariam Ali, Marah Abdelfatah, Mariam Ahmed, Ahmed Hassab

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In recent years, the architecture, engineering, and construction (A.E.C.) industry have been exposed to important innovations, most notably the global integration of digital design and fabrication (D.D.F.) processes in the industry’s workflow. Despite this evolution in that sector, Africa was excluded from the examination of this development. The reason behind this exclusion is the preconceived view of it as a developing region that still employs traditional methods of construction. The primary objective of this review is to investigate the trend of digital construction (D.C.) in the African environment and the difficulties in its regular utilization of it. This objective can be attained by recognizing the notion of distributed computing in Africa and evaluating the impact of the projects deploying this technology on both the immediate and broader contexts. The paper’s methodology begins with the collection of data from 224 initiatives throughout Africa. Then, 50 of these projects were selected based on the criteria of the project's recency, typology variety, and location diversity. After that, a literature-based comparative analysis was undertaken. This study’s findings reveal a pattern of motivation for applying digital fabrication processes. Moreover, it is essential to evaluate the socio-economic effects of these projects on the population living near the analyzed subject. The last step in this study is identifying the influence on the neighboring nations.

Keywords: Africa, digital construction, digital design, fabrication

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Authors: Sandra Mitrovic, Gaurav Singh

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In many industries, including telecommunications, churn prediction has been a topic of active research. A lot of attention has been drawn on devising the most informative features, and this area of research has gained even more focus with spread of (social) network analytics. The call detail records (CDRs) have been used to construct customer networks and extract potentially useful features. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies including network features have yet proposed a generic way of representing network information. Instead, ad-hoc and dataset dependent solutions have been suggested. In this work, we build upon a recently presented method (node2vec) to obtain representations for nodes in observed network. The proposed approach is generic and applicable to any network and domain. Unlike node2vec, which assumes a static network, we consider a dynamic and time-evolving network. To account for this, we propose an approach that constructs the feature representation of each node by generating its node2vec representations at different timestamps, concatenating them and finally compressing using an auto-encoder-like method in order to retain reasonably long and informative feature vectors. We test the proposed method on churn prediction task in telco domain. To predict churners at timestamp ts+1, we construct training and testing datasets consisting of feature vectors from time intervals [t1, ts-1] and [t2, ts] respectively, and use traditional supervised classification models like SVM and Logistic Regression. Observed results show the effectiveness of proposed approach as compared to ad-hoc feature selection based approaches and static node2vec.

Keywords: churn prediction, dynamic networks, node2vec, auto-encoders

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Authors: Shan-Yu Hsu, Hsin-Shu Huang

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The main purpose of this teaching research is to design an interdisciplinary team-assisted teaching method for trainees and interns and review the effectiveness of this teaching method on trainees' understanding of peritoneal dialysis. The teaching research object is the fifth and sixth-grade trainees in a medical center's medical school. The teaching methods include media teaching, demonstration of technical operation, face-to-face communication with patients, special case discussions, and field visits to the peritoneal dialysis room. Evaluate learning effectiveness before, after, and verbally. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS paired-sample t-test to analyze whether there is a difference in peritoneal dialysis professional cognition before and after teaching intervention. Descriptive statistics show that the average score of the previous test is 74.44, the standard deviation is 9.34, the average score of the post-test is 95.56, and the standard deviation is 5.06. The results of the t-test of the paired samples are shown as p-value = 0.006, showing the peritoneal dialysis professional cognitive test. Significant differences were observed before and after. The interdisciplinary team-assisted teaching method helps trainees and interns to improve their professional awareness of peritoneal dialysis. At the same time, trainee physicians have positive feedback on the inter-professional team-assisted teaching method. This teaching research finds that the clinical ability development education of trainees and interns can provide cross-professional team-assisted teaching methods to assist clinical teaching guidance.

Keywords: monitor quality, patient safety, health promotion objective, cross-professional team-assisted teaching methods

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Authors: M. A. Zaki Ewiss, S. Afifi

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Nahda University (NUB) believes that internationalisation of higher educational is able to provide global society with an education that meets current needs and that can respond efficiently to contemporary demands and challenges, which are characterized by globalisation, interdependence, and multiculturalism. In this paper, we will discuss the the challenges of the Egyptian Higher Education system and the future vision to improve this system> In this report, the following issues will be considered: Increasing knowledge on the development of specialized programs of study at the university. Developing international cooperation programs, which focus on the development of the students and staff skills, and providing academic culture and learning opportunities. Increasing the opportunities for student mobility, and research projects for faculty members. Increased opportunities for staff, faculty and students to continue to learn foreign universities, and to benefit from scholarships in various disciplines. Taking the advantage of the educational experience and modern teaching methods; Providing the opportunities to study abroad without increasing the period of time required for graduation, and through greater integration in the curricula and programs; More cultural interaction through student exchanges.Improving and providing job opportunities for graduates through participation in the global labor market. This document sets out NUB strategy to move towards that vision. We are confident that greater explicit differentiation, greater freedom and greater collaboration are the keys to delivering the further improvement in quality we shall need to retain and strengthen our position as one of the world’s leading higher education systems.

Keywords: technology transfer higher education, knowledge transfer, internationalisation, mobility

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Authors: Nongcebo Ngcobo

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This research explores the importance of including a multitude of voices in the cultural heritage narrative, particularly in South Africa. The Mashishing project is an extension of and builds on the existing ‘Biesje Poort project’ which is a rock art project that was funded by the National Heritage Council in 2010 - 2013. Hence, the Mashishing marking memories project applies comparable Biesje Poort project objectives, though in a different geographical area. The wider project objectives are to transfer skills, promote social cohesion and empowerment, and lastly to add to the knowledge base of the Mashishing region and the repository of the local museum in the Lydenburg museum. This study is located in the Mashishing area, in Mpumalanga, South Africa. In this area, there were no present multi-vocal heritage projects. This research assesses the Mashishing marking memories project through the culture-centered approach for communication for social change, which examines the impact that the diverse participants have on the operations of the Mashishing project and also investigates whether the culturally diverse participants facilitates or hinders effective participation within the project. Key findings of this research uncovered the significance of participation and diverse voices in the cultural heritage field. Furthermore, this study highlights how unequal power relations affect effective participation. As a result, this study encourages the importance of bringing the researcher and the participant in a safe space to facilitate mutual learning. It also encourages an exchange of roles, where the researcher shifts from being an authoritarian figure to being in the role of a listener.

Keywords: culture, heritage, participation, social change

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Authors: Ma Lanting, S. Eguilior, A. Hurtado, Juan F. Llamas Borrajo

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Horizontal hydraulic fracturing is a technology to increase natural gas flow and improve productivity in the low permeability formation. During this drilling operation tons of flowback and produced water which contains many organic compounds return to the surface with a potential risk of influencing the surrounding environment and human health. A mathematical model is urgently needed to represent organic compounds in water transportation process behavior and the concentration change with time throughout the hydraulic fracturing operation life cycle. A comprehensive model combined Organic Matter Transport Dynamic Model with Two-Compartment First-order Model Constant (TFRC) Model has been established to quantify the organic compounds concentration. This algorithm model is composed of two transportation parts based on time factor. For the fast part, the curve fitting technique is applied using flowback water data from the Marcellus shale gas site fracturing and the coefficients of determination (R2) from all analyzed compounds demonstrate a high experimental feasibility of this numerical model. Furthermore, along a decade of drilling the concentration ratio curves have been estimated by the slow part of this model. The result shows that the larger value of Koc in chemicals, the later maximum concentration in water will reach, as well as all the maximum concentrations percentage would reach up to 90% of initial concentration from shale formation within a long sufficient period.

Keywords: model, shale gas, concentration, organic compounds

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Authors: Mark Williams

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The digital revolution has radically transformed our social environment creating vast opportunities for interconnectivity and social interaction. This revolution, however, has also changed the reach and impact of hate crime, with social media providing a new platform to victimize and harass users in their homes. In this way, developments in the information and communication technologies have exacerbated and facilitated the commission of hate crime, increasing its prevalence and impact. Unfortunately, legislators, policymakers and criminal justice professionals have struggled to keep pace with these technological developments, reducing their ability to intervene in, regulate and govern the commission of hate crimes online. This work is further complicated by the global nature of this crime due to the tendency for offenders and victims to reside in multiple different jurisdictions, as well as the need for criminal justice professionals to obtain the cooperation of private companies to access information required for prosecution. Drawing on in-depth interviews with key criminal justice professionals and policymakers with detailed knowledge in this area, this paper examines the specific challenges the police and prosecution services face as they attempt to intervene in and prosecute the commission of hate crimes online. It is argued that any attempt to reduce online othering, such as the commission of hate crimes online, must be multifaceted, collaborative and involve both innovative technological solutions as well as internationally agreed ethical and legal frameworks.

Keywords: cybercrime, digital policing, hate crime, social media

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Authors: Nabil Mezhoud

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The economic operation of electric energy generating systems is one of the predominant problems in energy systems. Due to the need for better reliability, high energy quality, lower losses, lower cost and a clean environment, the application of renewable and sustainable energy sources, such as wind energy, solar energy, etc., in recent years has become more widespread. In this work, one of a bio-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm inspired by the flashing behavior of fireflies at night called the Firefly Algorithm (FFA) is applied to solve the Optimal Energy Management (OEM) and the environmental index (EI) problems of a micro-grid (MG) operating by Renewable and Sustainable Generation Systems (RSGS). Our main goal is to minimize the nonlinear objective function of an electrical microgrid, taking into account equality and inequality constraints. The FFA approach was examined and tested on a standard MG system composed of different types of RSGS, such as wind turbines (WT), photovoltaic systems (PV), and non-renewable energy, such as fuel cells (FC), micro turbine (MT), diesel generator (DEG) and loads with energy storage systems (ESS). The results are promising and show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach to solve the OEM and the EI problems. The results of the proposed method have been compared and validated with those known references published recently.

Keywords: renewable energy sources, energy management, distributed generator, micro-grids, firefly algorithm

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Authors: Anne Mette Nyvad, Ken Ramshøj Christensen

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In the syntax literature, it has standardly been assumed that relative clauses and complement wh-clauses are islands for extraction in English, and that constraints on extraction from syntactic islands are universal. However, the Mainland Scandinavian languages has been known to provide counterexamples. Previous research on Danish has shown that neither relative clauses nor embedded questions are strong islands in Danish. Instead, extraction from this type of syntactic environment is degraded due to structural complexity and it interacts with nonstructural factors such as the frequency of occurrence of the matrix verb, the possibility of temporary misanalysis leading to semantic incongruity and exposure over time. We argue that these facts can be accounted for with parametric variation in the availability of CP-recursion, resulting in the patterns observed, as Danish would then “suspend” the ban on movement out of relative clauses and embedded questions. Given that Danish does not seem to adhere to allegedly universal syntactic constraints, such as the Complex NP Constraint and the Wh-Island Constraint, what happens in L2 English? We present results from a study investigating how native Danish speakers judge extractions from island structures in L2 English. Our findings suggest that Danes transfer their native language parameter setting when asked to judge island constructions in English. This is compatible with the Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis, as the latter predicts that Danish would have difficulties resetting their [+/- CP-recursion] parameter in English because they are not exposed to negative evidence.

Keywords: syntax, islands, second language acquisition, danish

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Authors: Lubna Eljabu, Mohammad Etemad, Stan Matwin

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Port authorities have many challenges in congested ports to allocate their resources to provide a safe and secure loading/ unloading procedure for cargo vessels. Selecting a destination port is the decision of a vessel master based on many factors such as weather, wavelength and changes of priorities. Having access to a tool which leverages AIS messages to monitor vessel’s movements and accurately predict their next destination port promotes an effective resource allocation process for port authorities. In this research, we propose a method, namely, Reference Route of Trajectory (RRoT) to assist port authorities in predicting inflow and outflow traffic in their local environment by monitoring Automatic Identification System (AIS) messages. Our RRoT method creates a reference route based on historical AIS messages. It utilizes some of the best trajectory similarity measure to identify the destination of a vessel using their recent movement. We evaluated five different similarity measures such as Discrete Fr´echet Distance (DFD), Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), Partial Curve Mapping (PCM), Area between two curves (Area) and Curve length (CL). Our experiments show that our method identifies the destination port with an accuracy of 98.97% and an fmeasure of 99.08% using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) similarity measure.

Keywords: spatial temporal data mining, trajectory mining, trajectory similarity, resource optimization

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Authors: Yu Sin Syu

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Objective: The study aimed to improve the patient guidance satisfaction of patients hospitalized in iodine-131 isolation rooms, as well as the patient guidance completion rate for such patients. Method: A patient care guidance checklist and patient care guidance satisfaction questionnaire were administered to 29 patients who had previously been hospitalized in iodine-131 isolation rooms. The evaluation was conducted on a one-on-one basis, and its results showed that the patients’ satisfaction with patient guidance was only 3.7 points and that the completion rate for the patient guidance performed by nurses was only 67%. Therefore, various solutions were implemented to create a more complete patient guidance framework for nurses, including the incorporation of regular care-related training in in-service education courses; the establishment of patient care guidance standards for patients in iodine-131 isolation rooms; the establishment of inpatient care standards and auditing processes for iodine-131 isolation rooms; the creation of an introductory handbook on ward environment; Invite other the care team the revision of iodine-131 health education brochures; the creation of visual cards and videos covering equipment operation procedures; and introduction of QR codes. Results: Following the implementation of the above measures, the overall satisfaction of patients hospitalized in iodine-131 isolation rooms increased from 3.7 points to 4.6 points, and the completion rate for patient guidance rose from 67% to 100%. Conclusion: Given the excellent results achieved in this study, it is hoped that this nursing project can serve as a benchmark for other relevant departments.

Keywords: admission care guidance, guidance satisfaction, integrity, Iodine131 isolation

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Authors: M. Aghili, S. Tabarestani, C. Freytes, M. Shojaie, M. Cabrerizo, A. Barreto, N. Rishe, R. E. Curiel, D. Loewenstein, R. Duara, M. Adjouadi

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A major challenge in medical studies, especially those that are longitudinal, is the problem of missing measurements which hinders the effective application of many machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, recent Alzheimer's Disease studies have focused on the delineation of Early Mild Cognitive Impairment (EMCI) and Late Mild Cognitive Impairment (LMCI) from cognitively normal controls (CN) which is essential for developing effective and early treatment methods. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper explores the potential of using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm in handling missing values in multiclass classification. We seek a generalized classification scheme where all prodromal stages of the disease are considered simultaneously in the classification and decision-making processes. Given the large number of subjects (1631) included in this study and in the presence of almost 28% missing values, we investigated the performance of XGBoost on the classification of the four classes of AD, NC, EMCI, and LMCI. Using 10-fold cross validation technique, XGBoost is shown to outperform other state-of-the-art classification algorithms by 3% in terms of accuracy and F-score. Our model achieved an accuracy of 80.52%, a precision of 80.62% and recall of 80.51%, supporting the more natural and promising multiclass classification.

Keywords: eXtreme gradient boosting, missing data, Alzheimer disease, early mild cognitive impairment, late mild cognitive impair, multiclass classification, ADNI, support vector machine, random forest

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Authors: Farnaz Yusuf, Naseem A. Gaur

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The increase in environmental concerns, rapid depletion of fossil fuel reserves and intense interest in achieving energy security has led to a global research effort towards developing renewable sources of fuels. Second generation biofuels have attracted more attention recently as the use of lignocellulosic biomass can reduce fossil fuel dependence and is environment-friendly. Xylose is the main pentose and second most abundant sugar after glucose in lignocelluloses. Saccharomyces cerevisiae does not readily uptake and use pentose sugars. For an economically feasible biofuel production, both hexose and pentose sugars must be fermented to ethanol. Therefore, it is important to develop S. cerevisiae host platforms with more efficient xylose utilization. This work aims to construct a xylose fermenting yeast strains with engineered oxido-reductative pathway for xylose metabolism. Engineered strain was further improved by adaptive evolutionary engineering approach. The engineered strain is able to grow on xylose as sole carbon source with the maximum ethanol yield of 0.39g/g xylose and productivity of 0.139g/l/h at 96 hours. The further improvement in strain development involves over expression of pentose phosphate pathway and protein engineering of xylose reductase/xylitol dehydrogenase to change their cofactor specificity in order to reduce xylitol accumulation.

Keywords: biofuel, lignocellulosic biomass, saccharomyces cerevisiae, xylose

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Authors: Mahua Banerjee, Debtanu Maiti

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Zero-tillage cultivation is a farming practice that reduces costs while maintaining harvests and protecting the environment. Innovative partnerships among researchers, farmers, and other actors in the agricultural value chain have enabled the adoption of zero-tillage to sow rice in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, increasing farmers' incomes, fostering more sustainable use of soil and water, and providing a platform for cropping diversification and the introduction of other resource-conserving practices. A field experiment was conducted in the farmer’s field of Ausgram I Block, Burdwan, West Bengal, India under sandy loam soil with soil pH of 5.2, which is low in Nitrogen, medium in Phosphorus and Potassium. There were three techniques of tillage-T1: Zero tillage in Rice, T2: conventional tillage in Rice, T3: Rice grown with Drum seeder and three varieties namely V1: MTU 7029 V2-MTU 1010, V3: Pratikha thus making nine treatment combinations which were replicated thrice and the experiment was laid out in Factorial Randomised Block Design. Among the three varieties, rice variety MTU 7029 gave higher yield in all the tillage techniques. The highest yield was obtained under Zero tillage followed by conventional tillage. From economic analysis it was revealed that the benefit:cost ratio was higher in Zero tillage and rice cultivation by drum seeder. Zero-till is increasingly being adopted because it gives more yield at less cost, saves labour and farmer time. Farmers will be interested in this technology once they overcome their tillage biases.

Keywords: economics, Indo-Gangetic plain, rice, zero tillage, yield

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Authors: Surachai Ampawasuvan, Supornchai Utainarumol

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Most of fuel station’ customers, who drive on the major arterial road wants to use the stations to fill fuel to their vehicle during their journey to destinations. According to the survey of traffic volume of the vehicle using fuel stations by video cameras, automatic counting tools, or questionnaires, it was found that most users prefer to use fuel stations on holiday rather than on working day. They also prefer to use fuel stations in the morning rather than in the evening. When comparing the ratio of the distribution pattern of traffic volume of the vehicle using fuel stations by video cameras, automatic counting tools, there is no significant difference. However, when comparing the ratio of peak hour (peak hour rate) of the results from questionnaires at 13 to 14 percent with the results obtained by using the methods of the Institute of Transportation Engineering (ITE), it is found that the value is similar. However, it is different from a survey by video camera and automatic traffic counting at 6 to 7 percent of about half. So, this study suggests that in order to forecast trip generation of vehicle using fuel stations on major arterial road which is mostly characterized by Though Traffic, it is recommended to use the value of half of peak hour rate, which would make the forecast for trips generation to be more precise and accurate and compatible to surrounding environment.

Keywords: peak rate, trips generation, fuel station, arterial road

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Authors: Ahmad Torkaman, Suogol Shomtob, Hadi Akbari Seddigh

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In this paper it has been attempted to investigate the lack of attention to how specific spatial characteristics of the children except existing places such as nurseries. In order to achieve the standard center to faster children understanding their mentality is the first issue that must be studied. Exploring the spiritual characteristics and complexities of children cannot be possible except in accordance with the different aspects and background of their growth in various age periods. In order to achieving the standard center for fostering children, the first issue that must be studied understands their mentality. Exploring the spiritual qualities and complexities of children are not provided except in accordance with the characteristics and their different growth backgrounds in different age periods. According to previous researches game or playing is the most important activity that helps children to communicate and educate and sometimes therapy in specific fields. Investigating game as a proper way to train, the variety of games, the various kind of play environment and how to treat some abnormalities thereby are the issues discussed in recent research. Another consideration concerns the importance of artistic activities among children which is very evident in studying identification of their abnormalities. At the end of this study after investigating how to understand child and communicate with him/her, aiming to recognize Specific spatial characteristics for better training children, the physical and physiological criteria and characteristics is Reviewed and ends up to a list of required spaces and dimensional characteristic of spaces and needed children's equipment.

Keywords: children, space, interior design, development, growth

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Authors: Erica Lima

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In Brazil, considering the (little) age of translation studies, it can be argued that the University of Campinas is traditionally an important place for graduate studies in translation. The story is told from the accreditation for the Masters, in 1987, and the Doctoral program, in 1993, within the Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics. Since the beginning, the program boasted cutting-edge research, with theoretical reflections on various aspects, and with different methodological trends. However, on the one hand, the graduate studies development was continuously growing, but on the other, it is not what was observed in the undergraduate degree program. Currently, there are only a few disciplines of Translation Theory and Practice, which does not seem to respond to student aspirations. The objective of this paper is to present the characteristics of the university’s graduate program as something profitable, considering the concern in relating the research to the historical moment in which we are living, with research conducted in a socially compromised environment and committed to the impact that it will cause ethically and socially, as well as to question the undergraduate program paths. The objective is also to discuss and propose changes, considering the limited scope currently achieved. In light of the information age, in which we have an avalanche of information, we believe that the training of translators in the undergraduate degree should be reviewed, with the goal of retracing current paths and following others that are consistent with our historical period, marked by virtual and real, by the shuffling of borders and languages, the need for new language policies, greater inclusion, and more acceptance of others. We conclude that we need new proposals for the development of the translator in an undergraduate program, and also present suggestions to be implemented in the graduate program.

Keywords: graduate Brazilian program, undergraduate Brazilian program, translator’s education, Unicamp

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Authors: Gabriela V. Angeles Perez, Jose Castillejos Lopez, Araceli L. Reyes Cabello, Emilio Bravo Grajales, Adriana Perez Espinosa, Jose L. Quiroz Fabian

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Road traffic accidents are among the principal causes of traffic congestion, causing human losses, damages to health and the environment, economic losses and material damages. Studies about traditional road traffic accidents in urban zones represents very high inversion of time and money, additionally, the result are not current. However, nowadays in many countries, the crowdsourced GPS based traffic and navigation apps have emerged as an important source of information to low cost to studies of road traffic accidents and urban congestion caused by them. In this article we identified the zones, roads and specific time in the CDMX in which the largest number of road traffic accidents are concentrated during 2016. We built a database compiling information obtained from the social network known as Waze. The methodology employed was Discovery of knowledge in the database (KDD) for the discovery of patterns in the accidents reports. Furthermore, using data mining techniques with the help of Weka. The selected algorithms was the Maximization of Expectations (EM) to obtain the number ideal of clusters for the data and k-means as a grouping method. Finally, the results were visualized with the Geographic Information System QGIS.

Keywords: data mining, k-means, road traffic accidents, Waze, Weka

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Authors: Anil Ranjitbhai Patel, Clement John Shaji, Peter Liggesmeyer

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Safety and security of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is a growing concern, first, due to the increased number of safety-critical functions taken over by automotive embedded systems; second, due to the increased exposure of the software-intensive systems to potential attackers; third, due to dynamic interaction in an uncertain and unknown environment at runtime which results in changed functional and non-functional properties of the system. Frequently occurring environmental uncertainties, random component failures, and compromise security of the AVs might result in hazardous events, sometimes even in an accident, if left undetected. Beyond these technical issues, we argue that the safety and security of AVs against accidental and deliberate faults are poorly understood and rarely implemented. One possible way to overcome this is through a well-known diversity approach. As an effective approach to increase safety and security, diversity has been widely used in the aviation, railway, and aerospace industries. Thus, the paper proposes fault-tolerance by diversity model takes into consideration the mitigation of accidental and deliberate faults by application of structure and variant redundancy. The model can be used to design the AVs with various types of diversity in hardware and software-based multi-version system. The paper evaluates the presented approach by employing an example from adaptive cruise control, followed by discussing the case study with initial findings.

Keywords: autonomous vehicles, diversity, fault-tolerance, adaptive cruise control, safety, security

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Authors: Sasan Aryaee, Mahdi Ravanshadnia

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Naturally, any activity is associated with risk, and humans have understood this concept from very long times ago and seek to identify its factors and sources. On the one hand, proper risk management can cause problems such as delays and unforeseen costs in the development projects, temporary or permanent loss of services, getting lost or information theft, complexity and limitations in processes, unreliable information caused by rework, holes in the systems and many such problems. In the present study, a model has been presented to rank the environmental risks of oil and gas projects. The statistical population of the study consists of all executives active in the oil and gas fields, that the statistical sample is selected randomly. In the framework of the proposed method, environmental risks of oil and gas projects were first extracted, then a questionnaire based on these indicators was designed based on Likert scale and distributed among the statistical sample. After assessing the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, environmental risks of oil and gas projects were ranked using the VIKOR method of multiple-criteria decision-making. The results showed that the best options for HSE planning of oil and gas projects that caused the reduction of risks and personal injury and casualties and less than other options is costly for the project and it will add less time to the duration of implementing the project is the entering of dye to the environment when painting the generator pond and the presence of the rigger near the crane.

Keywords: ranking, multi-criteria decision making, oil and gas projects, HSEmanagement, environmental risks

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Authors: Mohammed Al-Bloushi, Sanghyun Jeong, Torove Leiknes

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Biofouling in the open recirculating cooling water systems may cause biological corrosion, which can reduce the performance, increase the energy consummation and lower heat exchange efficiencies of the cooling tower. Seawater cooling towers are prone to biofouling due to the presences of organic and inorganic compounds in the seawater. The availability of organic and inorganic nutrients, along with sunlight and continuous aeration of the cooling tower contributes to an environment that is ideal for microbial growth. Various microorganisms (algae, fungi, and bacteria) can grow in a cooling tower system under certain environmental conditions. The most commonly being used method to control the biofouling in the cooling tower is the addition of biocides such as chlorination. In this study, algae containing diatom and green algae were added to the cooling tower basin, and its viability was monitored in the recirculating cooling seawater loop as well as in the cooling tower basin. Continuous addition of biocides was employed in pilot-scale seawater cooling towers, and it was operated continuously for 2 months. Three different types of oxidizing biocides, namely chlorine, chlorine dioxide and ozone, were tested. The results showed that all biocides were effective in keeping the biological growth to the minimum regardless of algal addition. Amongst the biocides, ozone could reduce 99% of total live cells of bacteria and algae, followed by chlorine dioxide at 97%, while the conventional chlorine showed only 89% reduction in the bioactivities.

Keywords: algae, biocide, biofouling, seawater cooling tower

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Authors: Hieu Duy Nguyen, Chitsan Lin Jr., Dung Duc Tran

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Nowadays, drought and salinity intrusion becomes a severe problem in the Lower Mekong region due to climate change, especially in coastal provinces. Freshwater resources are decreased due to sea-level rise and the decline in water flow from upstream in the dry season. The combination of the above issues can lead to many effects on the environment and human health in affected areas such as the pathological of digestive or decreased the immune system. Tidal cycle and upstream flows are the two main factors affecting the saline intrusion process and the former salt-wedge in the estuary. Under suitable conditions, salt-wedge can be going further upstream under the water surface and affected groundwater. In order to have a proper plan for the mitigation of the above adverse effects, we need to understand the characteristics of this process. In this study, 3D model is used to investigate the movement of salt-wedge under different conditions of tidal and flow discharge. The salinity in the vertical profile is also measured in the dry season of 2017 and 2018 for model calibrating. The data has proved that there is the presence of salt-wedge in the study area. The obtained results will help strategic planners to use and preserve water resources more effectively and serve as a basis for new research directions on saline intrusion and human health.

Keywords: salt-wedge, salinity intrusion, human health, 3D model

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Authors: Jasmine Adela Mutang, Rosnah Ismail, Chua Bee Seok, Ferlis Bahari, Lailawati Madlan, Walton Wider, Rickless Das

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Waste projection is increasing and most landfills in Malaysia are running out of space. Due to that, waste management is now becoming a major challenge. The most sustainable solution is by practicing sustainable practices such as recycling. Since 1993 the government has launched several recycling campaigns and implemented the National Recycling Policy. However, public participation is still very low. Only 10.5% of solid waste was recycled up to now which is far below than of in developed countries. Nevertheless the government is optimistic that the target of 22% recycling by 2020 will be achieved if there is a positive flow pattern in sustainable practices in particular recycling behavior among Malaysian. Understanding public motivations towards recycling domestic waste are important to improve current recycling rate. Thus this study attempts to identify what are the possible motivations and hindrances for the public to recycle. Open-ended questions format were administered to 484 people in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Two specific questions we asked to explore their general determinants and barriers in practicing recycling: “What motivates you to recycle?” and “What are the barriers you encountered in doing recycling activities?” Thematic analysis was conducted on the open-ended questions in which themes were created with the raw comments. It was found that the underlying recycling motivations are awareness’ towards the environment, benefits to the society and individual, and social influence. Non participations are influence by attitudes, commitment, facilities, knowledge, inconvenience, and enforcement.

Keywords: recycling motivation, recycling barrier, sustainable, household waste

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Authors: Hayder H. Kareem, Ayad K. Hussein, Aseel A. Alkatib

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Groundwater accumulated at geological formations constitutes a worldwide vital water resource component which can be used to supply agriculture, industry, and domestic uses. The subsurface environment is affected by human activities; consequently, planning and sustainable management of aquifers require serious attention, especially as the world is exposed to the problem of global warming. Establishing accurate and efficient groundwater models will provide confident results for the behavior of the aquifer's system. The new approach, 'Distributed Value Property Zones,' available in Visual MODFLOW, is used to reconstruct the subsurface zones of the Al-Najaf region aquifer, and then its effect is compared with those manual and automated (PEST) approaches. Results show that the model has become more accurate with the use of the new approach, as the calibration and results analyses revealed. The assessment of the Al-Najaf region groundwater aquifer has revealed a degree of insufficiency of the required pumping demand, which reflects dry areas in both of the aquifer's layers. In addition, with pumping, the Euphrates River loses water of 7458 m³/day to the aquifer, while without pumping, it gains 28837 m³/day from the rainfall's recharge. The distributed value property zones approach achieves a precise groundwater model to assess the state of the Al-Najaf region aquifer.

Keywords: Al-Najaf region, distributed value property zones approach, hydraulic conductivity, groundwater modelling using visual MODFLOW

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Authors: Qiaosi Li, Frankie Kwan Kit Wong, Tung Fung

Abstract:

Lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) loading with novel sensors offers a low cost approach for data acquisition in complex environment. This study established a framework for applying UAV system in complex environment quick mapping and assessed the performance of UAV-based hyperspectral image and digital surface model (DSM) derived from photogrammetric point clouds for 13 species classification in wetland area Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site, Hong Kong. The study area was part of shallow bay with flat terrain and the major species including reedbed and four mangroves: Kandelia obovata, Aegiceras corniculatum, Acrostichum auerum and Acanthus ilicifolius. Other species involved in various graminaceous plants, tarbor, shrub and invasive species Mikania micrantha. In particular, invasive species climbed up to the mangrove canopy caused damage and morphology change which might increase species distinguishing difficulty. Hyperspectral images were acquired by Headwall Nano sensor with spectral range from 400nm to 1000nm and 0.06m spatial resolution image. A sequence of multi-view RGB images was captured with 0.02m spatial resolution and 75% overlap. Hyperspectral image was corrected for radiative and geometric distortion while high resolution RGB images were matched to generate maximum dense point clouds. Furtherly, a 5 cm grid digital surface model (DSM) was derived from dense point clouds. Multiple feature reduction methods were compared to identify the efficient method and to explore the significant spectral bands in distinguishing different species. Examined methods including stepwise discriminant analysis (DA), support vector machine (SVM) and minimum noise fraction (MNF) transformation. Subsequently, spectral subsets composed of the first 20 most importance bands extracted by SVM, DA and MNF, and multi-source subsets adding extra DSM to 20 spectrum bands were served as input in maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) and SVM classifier to compare the classification result. Classification results showed that feature reduction methods from best to worst are MNF transformation, DA and SVM. MNF transformation accuracy was even higher than all bands input result. Selected bands frequently laid along the green peak, red edge and near infrared. Additionally, DA found that chlorophyll absorption red band and yellow band were also important for species classification. In terms of 3D data, DSM enhanced the discriminant capacity among low plants, arbor and mangrove. Meanwhile, DSM largely reduced misclassification due to the shadow effect and morphological variation of inter-species. In respect to classifier, nonparametric SVM outperformed than MLC for high dimension and multi-source data in this study. SVM classifier tended to produce higher overall accuracy and reduce scattered patches although it costs more time than MLC. The best result was obtained by combining MNF components and DSM in SVM classifier. This study offered a precision species distribution survey solution for inaccessible wetland area with low cost of time and labour. In addition, findings relevant to the positive effect of DSM as well as spectral feature identification indicated that the utility of UAV-borne hyperspectral and photogrammetry deriving 3D data is promising in further research on wetland species such as bio-parameters modelling and biological invasion monitoring.

Keywords: digital surface model (DSM), feature reduction, hyperspectral, photogrammetric point cloud, species mapping, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

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Authors: Saeid Rabiei Majd, Motahareh Alvandi, Bahareh Asefi

Abstract:

Extraction of maximum natural resources is one of the common policies of governments, especially petroleum resources that have high economic and strategic value. The incentive to access and maintain profitable oil markets for governments or international oil companies, causing neglects them to pay attention to environmental principles and sustainable development, which in turn drives up environmental and climate change. Significant damage to the environment can cause severe damage to citizens and indigenous people, such as the compulsory evacuation of their zone due to contamination of water and air resources, destruction of animals and plants. Hawizeh Marshes is a common aquatic and environmental ecosystem along the Iran-Iraq border that also has oil resources. This marsh has been very rich in animal, vegetative, and oil resources. Since 1990, the political motives, the strategic importance of oil extraction, and the disregard for the environmental rights of the Iraqi and Iranian governments in the region have caused 90% of the marshes and forced migration of indigenous people. In this paper, we examine the environmental degradation factors resulting from the adoption of policies and practices of governments in this region based on the principles of environmental rights and sustainable development. Revision of the implementation of the government’s policies and natural resource utilization systems can prevent the spread of climate change, which is a serious international challenge today.

Keywords: climate change, indigenous rights, petroleum operation, sustainable development principles, sovereignty on resources

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Xunan Huang, Caicai Zhang

Abstract:

This paper investigated the code-mixing features in Mandarin-English bilingual children in Singapore. First, it examined whether the code-mixing rate was different in Mandarin Chinese and English contexts. Second, it explored the syntactic categories of code-mixing in Singapore bilingual children. Moreover, this study investigated whether morphological information was preserved when inserting syntactic components into the matrix language. Data are derived from the Singapore Bilingual Corpus, in which the recordings and transcriptions of sixty English-Mandarin 5-to-6-year-old children were preserved for analysis. Results indicated that the rate of code-mixing was asymmetrical in the two language contexts, with the rate being significantly higher in the Mandarin context than that in the English context. The asymmetry is related to language dominance in that children are more likely to code-mix when using their nondominant language. Concerning the syntactic categories of code-mixing words in the Singaporean bilingual children, we found that noun-mixing, verb-mixing, and adjective-mixing are the three most frequently used categories in code-mixing in the Mandarin context. This pattern mirrors the syntactic categories of code-mixing in the Cantonese context in Cantonese-English bilingual children, and the general trend observed in lexical borrowing. Third, our results also indicated that English vocabularies that carry morphological information are embedded in bare forms in the Mandarin context. These findings shed light upon how bilingual children take advantage of the two languages in mixed utterances in a bilingual environment.

Keywords: bilingual children, code-mixing, English, Mandarin Chinese

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Authors: Michael A. Ifarajimi

Abstract:

The transition from being a graduate teacher to a highly accomplished teacher has been widely portrayed in literature as challenging. Pre-service teachers are troubled with complex issues such as implementing, assessment, meeting prescribed learning outcomes, taking risks, supporting eco sustainability, etc. This list is not exhaustive as they are further complicated when the concerns extend beyond the classroom into the broader school setting and community. Meanwhile, the pre-service teacher education programme as is currently run in Nigeria, cannot adequately prepare newly trained teachers for the realities of classroom teaching. And there appears to be no formal structure in place for mentoring such teachers by the more seasoned teachers in schools. The central research question of the study, therefore, is which institutional framework can be distinguished for enactment in mentoring practices in teacher education? The study was conducted in five colleges of education in South-West Nigeria, and a sample of 1000 pre-service teachers on their final year practicum was randomly selected from the colleges of education. A pre-service teacher mentorship programme (PTMP) framework was designed and implemented, with a focus on the impact of transformative inquiry on the pre-service teacher support system. The study discovered a significant impact of mentoring on pre-service teacher’s professional transformation. The study concluded that institutionalizing mentorship through transformative inquiry is a means to sustainable teacher education, professional growth, and effective classroom practice. The study recommended that the government should enact policies that will promote mentoring in teacher education and establish a framework for the implementation of mentoring practices in the colleges of education in Nigeria.

Keywords: institutionalization, mentoring, pre-service teachers teacher education, transformative inquiry

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Authors: Ikenna Charles Onyema, Prince Tolut Bako

Abstract:

A study was carried out in the Atlantic Ocean off the Lighthouse Beach, Lagos. There were monthly and spatial variations in physical and chemical characteristics of the neritic ocean (August-December, 2014). Mean and standard deviation values for air temperature were 27. 67, ± 2.98 oC, water temperature (28.37 ± 1.88), pH (7.85 ± 0.17), Conductivity (44738.75 ± 6262.76 µS/cm), Total dissolved solids (29236.71 ± 4273.30 mg/L), Salinity (27.11 ± 3.91 ‰), Alkalinity (126.99 ± 42.81 mg/L) and Chloride (15056. 67 ± 2165.78 mg/L). Higher estimates were recorded in the dry than wet months for these characteristics. On the other hand, reducing values were recorded for Acidity (2.34 ± 0.63 mg/L), Total hardness (4711.98 ± 691.50 mg/L), Phosphate (1.1 ± 0.78 mg/L), Sulphate (2601.99 ± 447.04 mg/L) and Nitrate (0.12 ± 0.06 mg/L). Values for Total suspended solids and Biological oxygen demand values were low ( < 1mg/L). Twenty-one species of phytoplankton were recorded. Diatoms recorded 80.92% and were the dominant group. Hemidiscus cuneiformis, Coscinodiscus centralis, Coscinodiscus lineatus, Coscinodiscus radiatus and Oscillatoria limosa were more frequently occurring species. Biddulphia sinensis and four species of Ceratium, were representatives of the dry season. The dry season also recorded comparatively higher individuals of phytoplankton than the wet season. Spirogyra sp. (green algae) appeared only in the wet season. Species abundance (N) was highest in December at Station 1 (13.15%) (dry season) and lowest in August (wet season) at Station 3 (2.96%). The physico-chemical factors and phytoplankton reflected a tropical unpolluted neritic oceanic environment.

Keywords: sea, physico-chemistry, micro-algae, lighthouse beach

Procedia PDF Downloads 205