Search results for: executive functions [EFs]

Authors: Hyeon-Kyo Lim, Sang-Hun Byun

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Risk assessment is carried out in most industrial plants for accident prevention, but there exists insufficient data for statistical decision making. It is commonly said that risk can be expressed as a product of consequence and likelihood of a corresponding hazard factor. Eventually, therefore, risk assessment involves human decision making which cannot be objective per se. This study was carried out to comprehend perceptive characteristics of human beings in industrial plants. Subjects were shown a set of illustrations describing scenes of industrial plants, and were asked to assess the risk of each scene with not only linguistic variables but also numeric scores in the aspect of consequence and likelihood. After that, their responses were formulated as fuzzy membership functions, and compared with those of university students who had no experience of industrial works. The results showed that risk level of industrial workers were lower than those of any other groups, which implied that the workers might generally have a tendency to neglect more hazard factors in their work fields.

Keywords: fuzzy, hazard, linguistic variable, risk assessment

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Authors: O. Ahmed Apampa, Yinusa, A. Jimoh

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The aim of this study was to develop an appropriate model for predicting the compaction behavior of lateritic soils and corn cob ash (CCA) stabilized lateritic soils. This was done by first adopting an equation earlier developed for fine-grained soils and subsequent adaptation by others and extending it to modified lateritic soil through the introduction of alpha and beta parameters which are polynomial functions of the CCA binder input. The polynomial equations were determined with MATLAB R2011 curve fitting tool, while the alpha and beta parameters were determined by standard linear programming techniques using the Solver function of Microsoft Excel 2010. The model so developed was a good fit with a correlation coefficient R2 value of 0.86. The paper concludes that it is possible to determine the optimum moisture content and the maximum dry density of CCA stabilized soils from the compaction test of the unmodified soil, and recommends that this procedure is extended to other binder stabilized lateritic soils to facilitate quick decision making in roadworks.

Keywords: compaction, corn cob ash, lateritic soil, stabilization

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Authors: Takahiro Hino, Michiharu Maeda

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Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is an optimization approach that achieves the social model of bird flocking and fish schooling. PSO works in continuous space and can solve continuous optimization problem with high quality. Set-based particle swarm optimization (SPSO) functions in discrete space by using a set. SPSO can solve combinatorial optimization problem with high quality and is successful to apply to the large-scale problem. In this paper, we present an algorithm of SPSO with status memory to decide the position based on the previous position for solving traveling salesman problem (TSP). In order to show the effectiveness of our approach. We examine SPSOSM for TSP compared to the existing algorithms.

Keywords: combinatorial optimization problems, particle swarm optimization, set-based particle swarm optimization, traveling salesman problem

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Authors: Ardita Malaj, Ahmad R. Alsaber, Bedour Alboloushi, Anwaar Alkandari

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Organizations worldwide, particularly in Kuwait, are concerned with implementing a progressive workplace culture and fostering social innovation behaviours. The main aim of this research is to examine and establish a thorough comprehension of the relationship between an inventive organizational culture, employee intrapreneurial behaviour, authentic leadership, employee job satisfaction, and employee job commitment in the manufacturing sector of Kuwait, which is a developed economy. Literature reviews analyse the core concepts and their related areas by scrutinizing their definitions, dimensions, and importance to uncover any deficiencies in existing research. The examination of relevant research uncovered major gaps in understanding. This study examines the reliability and validity of a newly developed questionnaire designed to identify the appropriate applications for a large-scale investigation. A preliminary investigation was carried out, determining a sample size of 36 respondents selected randomly from a pool of 223 samples. SPSS was utilized to calculate the percentages of the demographic characteristics for the participants, assess the credibility of the measurements, evaluate the internal consistency, validate all agreements, and determine Pearson's correlation. The study's results indicated that the majority of participants were male (66.7%), aged between 35 and 44 (38.9%), and possessed a bachelor's degree (58.3%). Approximately 94.4% of the participants were employed full-time. 72.2% of the participants are employed in the electrical, computer, and ICT sector, whilst 8.3% work in the metal industry. Out of all the departments, the human resource department had the highest level of engagement, making up 13.9% of the total. Most participants (36.1%) possessed intermediate or advanced levels of experience, whilst 21% were classified as entry-level. Furthermore, 8.3% of individuals were categorized as first-level management, 22.2% were categorized as middle management, and 16.7% were categorized as executive or senior management. Around 19.4% of the participants have over a decade of professional experience. The Pearson's correlation coefficient for all 5 components varies between 0.4009 to 0.7183. The results indicate that all elements of the questionnaire were effectively verified, with a Cronbach alpha factor predominantly exceeding 0.6, which is the criterion commonly accepted by researchers. Therefore, the work on the larger scope of testing and analysis could continue.

Keywords: pilot study, ESIB, innovative organizational culture, Kuwait, validation

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Authors: Ibtissam Mharzi Alaoui, Camélia Sehaqui

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The success of a bank depends upon its effective risk management. With the growing complexity and diversity of financial products and services, as well as the accelerating pace of globalization over the past decade, risk management is becoming increasingly difficult. thus, all measurement and monitoring functions must be much more vigorous, relevant and adequate. The Shariah non-compliance risk is specific aspect of Islamic finance which ipso facto, deserves particular attention. It affects the validity of all Islamic financial contracts and it turns out to be likely to result in considerable losses on the overall Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). The purpose of this paper is to review the theoretical literature on Shariah non-compliance risk in order to give a clearer understanding of its sources, causes and consequences. Our intention through this work is to bring added value to the Islamic finance industry all over the world. The findings provide a useful reference work for the Islamic banks in structuring (or restructuring) of their own system of shariah risk management and internal control.

Keywords: Shariah non-compliance, risk management, financial products, Islamic finance.

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Authors: Abdulrahman Sumayli

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Natural Zinc has many significant biological functions, including developments and sustainable of bones and wound healing. Metallic zinc has recently been explored as potential biomaterials that have preferable biodegradable, biocompatible, and mechanical properties. Pure metal zinc has a preferable physical and mechanical properties for biodegradable and biocompatible applications such as density and modulus of elasticity. The aim of the research is to make different Zn-based metallic alloys and test them effectively to be used as biocompatible and biodegradable materials in the field biomedical application. Microstructure study of the as-cast alloys will be examined using SEM (scanning electron microscope) followed by X-ray diffraction investigated so as to evaluate phase constitution of the designed alloys. After that, immersion test and electrochemical test will be applied to the designed alloys so as to study bio corrosion behaviour of the proposed alloys. Finally, in vitro cytocompatibility well conducted to study biocompatibility of the made alloys.

Keywords: Zn-based alloys, biodegradable and biocompatible materials, cytotoxicity test, neutron synchrotron imaging

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Authors: Soheil Mohtaram, Wu Weidong, Yashar Aryanfar

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This research investigates the points with heat recovery potential in a triple-pressure cogeneration combined cycle power plant and determines the amount of waste heat that can be recovered. A modified cycle arrangement is then adopted for accessing thermal potentials. Modeling the energy system is followed by thermodynamic and energetic evaluation, and then the price of the manufactured products is also determined using the Total Revenue Requirement (TRR) method and term economic analysis. The results of optimization are then presented in a Pareto chart diagram by implementing a new model with dual objective functions, which include power cost and produce heat. This model can be utilized to identify the optimal operating point for such power plants based on electricity and heat prices in different regions.

Keywords: heat loss, recycling, unused energy, efficient production, optimization, triple-pressure cogeneration

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Authors: Paul Okonkwo, Howard Smith

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A study to estimate the size of the cabin and major aircraft components as well as detect and avoid interference between internally placed components and the external surface, during the conceptual design synthesis and optimisation to explore the design space of a BWB, was conducted. Sizing of components follows the Bradley cabin sizing and rubber engine scaling procedures to size the cabin and engine respectively. The interference detection and avoidance algorithm relies on the ability of the Class Shape Transform parameterisation technique to generate polynomial functions of the surfaces of a BWB aircraft configuration from the sizes of the cabin and internal objects using few variables. Interference detection is essential in packaging of non-conventional configuration like the BWB because of the non-uniform airfoil-shaped sections and resultant varying internal space. The unique configuration increases the need for a methodology to prevent objects from being placed in locations that do not sufficiently enclose them within the geometry.

Keywords: packaging, optimisation, BWB, parameterisation, aircraft conceptual design

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Authors: Eric Granholm, Christophe Delay, Jason Holden, Peter Link

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Negative symptoms are an important unmet treatment needed for schizophrenia. We conducted an open trial of a novel blended intervention called mobile-assisted cognitive behavior therapy for negative symptoms (mCBTn). mCBTn is a weekly group therapy intervention combining in-person and smartphone-based CBT (CBT2go app) to improve experiential negative symptoms in people with schizophrenia. Both the therapy group and CBT2go app included recovery goal setting, thought challenging, scheduling of pleasurable activities and social interactions, and pleasure savoring interventions to modify defeatist attitudes, a target mechanism associated with negative symptoms, and improve experiential negative symptoms. We tested whether participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (N=31) who met prospective criteria for persistent negative symptoms showed improvement in experiential negative symptoms. Retention was excellent (87% at 18 weeks) and severity of defeatist attitudes and motivation and pleasure negative symptoms declined significantly in mCBTn with large effect sizes. We also tested whether pupillary responses, a measure of cognitive effort, predicted improvement in negative symptoms mCBTn. Pupillary responses were recorded at baseline using a Tobii pupillometer during the digit span task with 3-, 6- and 9-digit spans. Mixed models showed that greater dilation during the task at baseline significantly predicted a greater reduction in experiential negative symptoms. Pupillary responses may provide a much-needed prognostic biomarker of which patients are most likely to benefit from CBT. Greater pupil dilation during a cognitive task predicted greater improvement in experiential negative symptoms. Pupil dilation has been linked to motivation and engagement of executive control, so these factors may contribute to benefits in interventions that train cognitive skills to manage negative thoughts and emotions. The findings suggest mCBTn is a feasible and effective treatment for experiential negative symptoms and justify a larger randomized controlled clinical trial. The findings also provide support for the defeatist attitude model of experiential negative symptoms and suggest that mobile-assisted interventions like mCBTn can strengthen and shorten intensive psychosocial interventions for schizophrenia.

Keywords: cognitive-behavioral therapy, mobile interventions, negative symptoms, pupillometry schizophrenia

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Authors: Leah Burton, Sara Cumming, Julianne DiSanto

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Homelessness is a widespread and complex problem in Canada and around the globe. Many Canadians will face homelessness at least once in their lifetime, with several experiencing subsequent bouts or cyclical patterns of housing precarity. While a Housing First approach to homelessness is a long-standing and widely accepted best practice, it is also recognized that the acquisition of life skills is an effective way to reduce cycles of homelessness. Indeed, when individuals are provided with a range of life skills—such as (but not limited to) financial literacy, household management, interpersonal skills, critical thinking, and resource management—they are given the tools required to maintain long-term Housing for a lifetime; thus reducing a repetitive need for services. However, there is limited research regarding the best ways to teach life skills, a problem that has been further complicated in a post-pandemic world, where services are being delivered online or in a hybrid model of care. More than this, it is difficult to provide life skills on a large scale without losing a client-centered approach to services. This lack of client-centeredness is also seen in the lack of attention to culturally sensitive life skills, which consider the diverse needs of individuals and imbed equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within the skills being taught. This study aims to fill these identified gaps in the literature by employing a community-engaged (CER) approach. Academic, government, funders, front-line staff, and clients at 15 not-for-profits from across the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada, collaborated to co-create a virtual, client-centric, EDI-informed life skill learning management system. A triangulation methodology was utilized for this research. An environmental scan was conducted for current best practices, and over 100 front-line staff (including workers, managers, and executive directors who work with homeless populations) participated in two separate Creative Problem Solving Sessions. Over 200 individuals with experience in homelessness completed quantitative and open-ended surveys. All sections of this research aimed to discover the areas of skills that individuals need to maintain Housing and to ascertain what a more client-driven EDI approach to life skills training should include. This presentation will showcase the findings on which life skills are deemed essential for homeless and precariously housed individuals.

Keywords: homelessness, housing first, life skills, community engaged research, client- centered

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Authors: Rabail Shafique Satti, Sidra Ejaz, Madiha Arshad, Marwa Khalid, Sadia Majeed

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The paper presents the development of an automated security system to automate the entry of visitors, providing more flexibility of managing their record and securing homes or workplaces. Face recognition is part of this system to authenticate the visitors. A cost effective and SMS based door security module has been developed and integrated with the GSM network and made part of this system to allow communication between system and owner. This system functions in real time as when the visitor’s arrived it will detect and recognizes his face and on the result of face recognition process it will open the door for authorized visitors or notifies and allows the owner’s to take further action in case of unauthorized visitor. The proposed system is developed and it is successfully ensuring security, managing records and operating gate without physical interaction of owner.

Keywords: SMS, e-mail, GSM modem, authenticate, face recognition, authorized

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Authors: Mahdi Alshamasin, Riad Al-Kasasbeh, Nikolay Korenevskiy

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We apply mathematical models for the interaction of the internal and biologically active points of meridian structures. Amongst the diseases for which reflex diagnostics are effective are those of the stomach disease. It is shown that use of fuzzy logic decision-making yields good results for the prediction and early diagnosis of gastrointestinal tract diseases, depending on the reaction energy of biologically active points (acupuncture points). It is shown that good results for the prediction and early diagnosis of diseases from the reaction energy of biologically active points (acupuncture points) are obtained by using fuzzy logic decision-making.

Keywords: acupuncture points, fuzzy logic, diagnostically important points (DIP), confidence factors, membership functions, stomach diseases

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Authors: Manju Pandey, Nilay Khare, S. C. Shrivastava

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This paper is the final in a series, which has defined two new classes of aggregation operators for triangular and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers based on the geometrical characteristics of their fuzzy membership functions. In the present paper, a new aggregation operator for trapezoidal fuzzy numbers has been defined. The new operator is based on the geometric mean of the membership lines to the left and right of the maximum possibility interval. The operator is defined and the analytical relationships have been derived. Computation of the aggregate is demonstrated with a numerical example. Corresponding arithmetic and geometric aggregates as well as results from the recent work of the authors on TrFN aggregates have also been computed.

Keywords: LR fuzzy number, interval fuzzy number, triangular fuzzy number, trapezoidal fuzzy number, apex angle, left apex angle, right apex angle, aggregation operator, arithmetic and geometric mean

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Authors: Guang-Ho Cha

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This paper presents a context-sensitive media similarity search algorithm. One of the central problems regarding media search is the semantic gap between the low-level features computed automatically from media data and the human interpretation of them. This is because the notion of similarity is usually based on high-level abstraction but the low-level features do not sometimes reflect the human perception. Many media search algorithms have used the Minkowski metric to measure similarity between image pairs. However those functions cannot adequately capture the aspects of the characteristics of the human visual system as well as the nonlinear relationships in contextual information given by images in a collection. Our search algorithm tackles this problem by employing a similarity measure and a ranking strategy that reflect the nonlinearity of human perception and contextual information in a dataset. Similarity search in an image database based on this contextual information shows encouraging experimental results.

Keywords: context-sensitive search, image search, similarity ranking, similarity search

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Authors: Jose Gonzalez, Fai Cheng, Ivy Fan

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Shipping has a mature and ever expanding worldwide market. The future of the marine industry itself is not only irrevocably linked with the global economic, social, and political landscape; it is also subject to the technological developments in different fields. Some of them may have never been linked to the marine industry before. Companies in the marine sector are getting more dependent on technologies to achieve competitive advantage in an increasing open market. Technologies can be fused across different business functions and geopolitical influences. A successful marine business should be prepared to embrace such potential changes that lie ahead. The present paper intends to articulate long-term marine technology strategies from an industrial perspective. Methodology and current development are introduced. The paper will also provide insight into future technological trends demand for major commercial ship types. It may also assist different stakeholders in tailoring their long-term strategies to achieve a Sea Change and to uncap opportunity.

Keywords: commercial sector, marine, trends, technology

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Authors: M. J. Ponnambalam

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Physics Outreach in Jamaica has nearly tripled the number of students doing Introductory Calculus-based Physics at the University of the West Indies (UWI, Mona) within 5 years, and thus has shown the importance of Physics Teaching & Learning in Informal Settings. In 1899, the first president of the American Physical Society called Physics, “the science above all sciences.” Sure enough, exactly one hundred years later, Time magazine proclaims Albert Einstein, “Person of the Century.” Unfortunately, Physics seems to be losing that glow in this century. Many countries, big and small, are finding it difficult to attract bright young minds to pursue Physics. At UWI, Mona, the number of students in first year Physics dropped to an all-time low of 81 in 2006, from more than 200 in the nineteen eighties, spelling disaster for the Physics Department! The author of this paper launched an aggressive Physics Outreach that same year, aimed at conveying to the students and the general public the following messages: i) Physics is an exciting intellectual enterprise, full of fun and delight. ii) Physics is very helpful in understanding how things like TV, CD player, car, computer, X-ray, CT scan, MRI, etc. work. iii) The critical and analytical thinking developed in the study of Physics is of inestimable value in almost any field. iv) Physics is the core subject for Science and Technology, and hence of national development. Science Literacy is a ‘must’ for any nation in the 21st century. Hence, the Physics Outreach aims at reaching out to every person, through every possible means. The Outreach work is split into the following target groups: i) Universities, ii) High Schools iii) Middle Schools, iv) Primary Schools, v) General Public, and vi) Physics teachers in High Schools. The programmes, tools and best practices are adjusted to suit each target group. The feedback from each group is highly positive. e.g. In February 2014, the author conducted in 3 Primary Schools the Interactive Show on ‘Science Is Fun’ to stimulate 290 students’ interest in Science – with lively and interesting demonstrations and experiments in a highly interactive way, using dramatization, story-telling and dancing. The feedback: 47% found the Show ‘Exciting’ and 51% found it ‘Interesting’ – totaling an impressive 98%. When asked to describe the Show in their own words, the leading 4 responses were: ‘Fun’ (26%), ‘Interesting’ (20%), ‘Exciting’ (14%) and ‘Educational’ (10%) – confirming that ‘fun’ & ‘education’ can go together. The success of Physics Outreach in Jamaica verifies the following words of Chodos, Associate Executive Officer of the American Physical Society: “If we could get members to go to K-12 schools and levitate a magnet or something, we really think these efforts would bring great rewards.”

Keywords: physics education, physics popularization, UWI, Jamaica

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Authors: Parker Murray, Marci Johnson, Tyson S. Burnham, Alina K. Fong, Mark D. Allen, Bruce McIff

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Purpose: Pathological dysregulation of Neurovascular Coupling (NVC) caused by mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the predominant source of chronic post-concussion syndrome (PCS) symptomology. fNCI has the ability to localize dysregulation in NVC by measuring blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signaling during the performance of fMRI-adapted neuropsychological evaluations. With fNCI, 57 brain areas consistently affected by concussion were identified as PCS neural markers, which were validated on large samples of concussion patients and healthy controls. These neuromarkers provide the basis for a computation of PCS severity which is referred to as the Severity Index Score (SIS). The SIS has proven valuable in making pre-treatment decisions, monitoring treatment efficiency, and assessing long-term stability of outcomes. Methods and Materials: After being scanned while performing various cognitive tasks, 476 concussed patients received an SIS score based on the neural dysregulation of the 57 previously identified brain regions. These scans provide an objective measurement of attentional, subcortical, visual processing, language processing, and executive functioning abilities, which were used as biomarkers for post-concussive neural dysregulation. Initial SIS scores were used to develop individualized therapy incorporating cognitive, occupational, and neuromuscular modalities. These scores were also used to establish pre-treatment benchmarks and measure post-treatment improvement. Results: Changes in SIS were calculated in percent change from pre- to post-treatment. Patients showed a mean improvement of 76.5 percent (σ= 23.3), and 75.7 percent of patients showed at least 60 percent improvement. Longitudinal reassessment of 24 of the patients, measured an average of 7.6 months post-treatment, shows that SIS improvement is maintained and improved, with an average of 90.6 percent improvement from their original scan. Conclusions: fNCI provides a reliable measurement of NVC allowing for identification of concussion pathology. Additionally, fNCI derived SIS scores direct tailored therapy to restore NVC, subsequently resolving chronic PCS resulting from mTBI.

Keywords: concussion, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), neurovascular coupling (NVC), post-concussion syndrome (PCS)

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Authors: Haode Huo, Jingjing He, Rui Kang, Xuefei Guan

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This paper presents a study of Lamb wave damage diagnosis of composite delamination using instantaneous phase data. Numerical experiments are performed using the finite element method. Different sizes of delamination damages are modeled using finite element package ABAQUS. Lamb wave excitation and responses data are obtained using a pitch-catch configuration. Empirical mode decomposition is employed to extract the intrinsic mode functions (IMF). Hilbert–Huang Transform is applied to each of the resulting IMFs to obtain the instantaneous phase information. The baseline data for healthy plates are also generated using the same procedure. The size of delamination is correlated with the instantaneous phase change for damage diagnosis. It is observed that the unwrapped instantaneous phase of shows a consistent behavior with the increasing delamination size.

Keywords: delamination, lamb wave, finite element method, EMD, instantaneous phase

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Authors: Emily Stamm, Neil Smyth, Elizabeth O'Sullivan

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In Identity-Based Encryption (IBE), an identity, such as a username, email address, or domain name, acts as the public key. IBE consolidates the PKI by eliminating the repetitive process of requesting public keys for each message encryption. Two of the most popular schemes are Sakai-Kasahara (SAKKE), which is based on elliptic curve pairings, and the Ducas, Lyubashevsky, and Prest lattice scheme (DLP- Lattice), which is based on quantum-secure lattice cryptography. In or- der to embed the schemes in a standard enterprise setting, both schemes are implemented as shared system libraries and integrated into a REST service that functions at the enterprise level. The performance of both schemes as libraries and services is compared, and the practicalities of implementation and application are discussed. Our performance results indicate that although SAKKE has the smaller key and ciphertext sizes, DLP-Lattice is significantly faster overall and we recommend it for most enterprise use cases.

Keywords: identity-based encryption, post-quantum cryptography, lattice-based cryptography, IBE

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Authors: I Made Ginarsa, Agung Budi Muljono, I Made Ari Nrartha

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Transient voltage response appears in power system operation when an additional loading is forced to load bus of power systems. In this research, improvement of transient voltage response is done by using power system stabilizer-static var compensator (PSS-SVC) based on adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS)-algorithm. The main function of the PSS is to add damping component to damp rotor oscillation through automatic voltage regulator (AVR) and excitation system. Learning process of the ANFIS is done by using off-line method where data learning that is used to train the ANFIS model are obtained by simulating the PSS-SVC conventional. The ANFIS model uses 7 Gaussian membership functions at two inputs and 49 rules at an output. Then, the ANFIS-PSS and ANFIS-SVC models are applied to power systems. Simulation result shows that the response of transient voltage is improved with settling time at the time of 4.25 s.

Keywords: improvement, transient voltage, PSS-SVC, ANFIS, settling time

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Authors: Yao-Hong Tsai

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This paper presents a weighted approach to unconstrained iris recognition. Nowadays, commercial systems are usually characterized by strong acquisition constraints based on the subject’s cooperation. However, it is not always achievable for real scenarios in our daily life. Researchers have been focused on reducing these constraints and maintaining the performance of the system by new techniques at the same time. With large variation in the environment, there are two main improvements to develop the proposed iris recognition system. For solving extremely uneven lighting condition, statistic based illumination normalization is first used on eye region to increase the accuracy of iris feature. The detection of the iris image is based on Adaboost algorithm. Secondly, the weighted approach is designed by Gaussian functions according to the distance to the center of the iris. Furthermore, local binary pattern (LBP) histogram is then applied to texture classification with the weight. Experiment showed that the proposed system provided users a more flexible and feasible way to interact with the verification system through iris recognition.

Keywords: authentication, iris recognition, adaboost, local binary pattern

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Authors: Mojtaba Valinataj

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Nowadays reversible logic has received many attentions as one of the new fields for reducing the power consumption. On the other hand, the processing systems have weaknesses against different external effects. In this paper, some error detecting reversible logic serial multipliers are proposed by incorporating the parity-preserving gates. This way, the new designs are presented for signed parity-preserving serial multipliers based on the Booth's algorithm by exploiting the new arrangements of existing gates. The experimental results show that the proposed 4×4 multipliers in this paper reach up to 20%, 35%, and 41% enhancements in the number of constant inputs, quantum cost, and gate count, respectively, as the reversible logic criteria, compared to previous designs. Furthermore, all the proposed designs have been generalized for n×n multipliers with general formulations to estimate the main reversible logic criteria as the functions of the multiplier size.

Keywords: Booth’s algorithm, error detection, multiplication, parity-preserving gates, quantum computers, reversible logic

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Authors: Ceshi Sun, Yueyu Zhao, Yaobing Zhao, Zhiqiang Wang, Jian Peng, Pengxin Guo

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With the rapid development of transportation, there are more than 100 cable-stayed bridges with main span larger than 300 m in China. In order to ascertain the statistical relationships among the design parameters of stay cables and their distribution characteristics, 1500 cables were selected from 25 practical long-span cable-stayed bridges. A new relationship between the first order frequency and the length of cable was found by conducting the curve fitting. Then, based on this relationship other interesting relationships were deduced. Several probability density functions (PDFs) were used to investigate the distributions of the parameters of first order frequency, stress level and the Irvine parameter. It was found that these parameters obey the Lognormal distribution, the Weibull distribution and the generalized Pareto distribution, respectively. Scatter diagrams of the three parameters were plotted and their 95% confidence intervals were also investigated.

Keywords: cable, cable-stayed bridge, long-span, statistical analysis

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Authors: E. Velasco

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Meeting high standards of writing in a Second Language (L2) is extremely important for many students who wish to undertake studies at universities in both English and non-English speaking countries. University lecturers in English speaking countries continue to express dissatisfaction with the apparent poor quality of essay writing skills displayed by English as a Second Language (ESL) students, whose essays are often criticised for their lack of cohesion and coherence. These critiques have extended to contexts such as Colombia, where many ESL students are criticised for their inability to write high-quality academic texts in L2-English, particularly at the tertiary level. If Colombian ESL students are expected to meet high standards of writing when studying locally and abroad, it makes sense to carry out specific research that can perhaps lead to recommendations to support their quest for improving argumentative strategies. Employing Corpus Linguistics methods within a Learner Corpus Research framework, and a combination of Log-Likelihood and Bayes Factor measures, this paper investigated argumentative essays written by Colombian ESL students. The study specifically aimed to analyse conjunctive adjuncts in argumentative essays to find out how Colombian ESL students connect their ideas in discourse. Results suggest that a) Colombian ESL learners need explicit instruction on specific areas of conjunctive adjuncts to counteract overuse, underuse and misuse; b) underuse of endophoric and evidential adjuncts highlights gaps between IELTS-like essays and good quality tertiary-level essays and published papers, and these gaps are linked to prior knowledge brought into writing task, rhetorical functions in writing, and research processes before writing takes place; c) both Colombian ESL learners and L1-English writers (in a reference corpus) overuse some adjuncts and underuse endophoric and evidential adjuncts, when compared to skilled L1-English and L2-English writers, so differences in frequencies of adjuncts has little to do with the writers’ L1, and differences are rather linked to types of essays writers produce (e.g. ESL vs. university essays). Ender Velasco: The pedagogical recommendations deriving from the study are that: a) Colombian ESL learners need to be shown that overuse is not the only way of giving cohesion to argumentative essays and there are other alternatives to cohesion (e.g., implicit adjuncts, lexical chains and collocations); b) syllabi and classroom input need to raise awareness of gaps in writing skills between IELTS-like and tertiary-level argumentative essays, and of how endophoric and evidential adjuncts are used to refer to anaphoric and cataphoric sections of essays, and to other people’s work or ideas; c) syllabi and classroom input need to include essay-writing tasks based on previous research/reading which learners need to incorporate into their arguments, and tasks that raise awareness of referencing systems (e.g., APA); d) classroom input needs to include explicit instruction on use of punctuation, functions and/or syntax with specific conjunctive adjuncts such as for example, for that reason, although, despite and nevertheless.

Keywords: argumentative essays, colombian english as a second language (esl) learners, conjunctive adjuncts, corpus linguistics

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Authors: Gu Sihao

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The coordinated development of "ecology-production-life" in cities has been highly concerned by the country, and the transformation development and sustainable development of resource-based cities have become a hot research topic at present. As an important part of China's resource-based cities, coal resource-based cities have the characteristics of large number and wide distribution. However, due to the adjustment of national energy structure and the gradual exhaustion of urban coal resources, the development vitality of coal resource-based cities is gradually reduced. In many studies, the deterioration of ecological environment in coal resource-based cities has become the main problem restricting their urban transformation and sustainable development due to the "emphasis on economy and neglect of ecology". Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Central Government has been deepening territorial space planning and development. On the premise of optimizing territorial space development pattern, it has completed the demarcation of ecological protection red lines, carried out ecological zoning and ecosystem evaluation, which have become an important basis and scientific guarantee for ecological modernization and ecological civilization construction. Grasp the regional multiple ecosystem services is the precondition of the ecosystem management, and the relationship between the multiple ecosystem services study, ecosystem services cluster can identify the interactions between multiple ecosystem services, and on the basis of the characteristics of the clusters on regional ecological function zoning, to better Social-Ecological system management. Based on this cognition, this study optimizes the spatial function zoning of Gujiao, a coal resource-based city, in order to provide a new theoretical basis for its sustainable development. This study is based on the detailed analysis of characteristics and utilization of Gujiao city land space, using SOFM neural networks to identify local ecosystem service clusters, according to the cluster scope and function of ecological function zoning of space partition balance and coordination between different ecosystem services strength, establish a relationship between clusters and land use, and adjust the functions of territorial space within each zone. Then, according to the characteristics of coal resources city and national spatial function zoning characteristics, as the driving factors of land change, by cellular automata simulation program, such as simulation under different restoration strategy situation of urban future development trend, and provides relevant theories and technical methods for the "third-line" demarcations of Gujiao's territorial space planning, optimizes territorial space functions, and puts forward targeted strategies for the promotion of regional ecosystem services, providing theoretical support for the improvement of human well-being and sustainable development of resource-based cities.

Keywords: coal resource-based city, territorial spatial planning, ecosystem service cluster, gmop model, geosos-FLUS model, functional zoning optimization and upgrading

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Authors: Samuel Faboyede, Obiamaka Nwobu, Samuel Fakile, Dickson Mukoro

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In the present dynamic business environment of corporate governance and regulations, financial reporting is an inevitable and extremely significant process for every business enterprise. Several financial elements such as Annual Reports, Quarterly Reports, ad-hoc filing, and other statutory/regulatory reports provide vital information to the investors and regulators, and establish trust and rapport between the internal and external stakeholders of an organization. Investors today are very demanding, and emphasize greatly on authenticity, accuracy, and reliability of financial data. For many companies, the Internet plays a key role in communicating business information, internally to management and externally to stakeholders. Despite high prominence being attached to external reporting, it is disconnected in most companies, who generate their external financial documents manually, resulting in high degree of errors and prolonged cycle times. Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers are increasingly susceptible to endorsing error-laden reports, late filing of reports, and non-compliance with regulatory acts. There is a lack of common platform to manage the sensitive information – internally and externally – in financial reports. The Internet financial reporting language known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) continues to develop in the face of challenges and has now reached the point where much of its promised benefits are available. This paper looks at the emergence of this revolutionary twenty-first century language of digital reporting. It posits that today, the world is on the brink of an Internet revolution that will redefine the ‘business reporting’ paradigm. The new Internet technology, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), is already being deployed and used across the world. It finds that XBRL is an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) based information format that places self-describing tags around discrete pieces of business information. Once tags are assigned, it is possible to extract only desired information, rather than having to download or print an entire document. XBRL is platform-independent and it will work on any current or recent-year operating system, or any computer and interface with virtually any software. The paper concludes that corporate stakeholders and the government cannot afford to ignore the XBRL. It therefore recommends that all must act locally and think globally now via the adoption of XBRL that is changing the face of worldwide business reporting.

Keywords: XBRL, financial reporting, internet, internal and external reports

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Authors: Meenakshi Pappu

Abstract:

The terms like liveability, Sustainable Development Goals and pandemic have been widely analysed in proving sustainable cities and community living in growing urban areas by 2030. The pandemic has made us all ruminate about how we look into different fast-growing cities which vary in geographical location, climatic zones, terrains, land use and varying cultural backgrounds & traditions belong to the mother soil. India has taken up huge steps to move towards achieving UN-SDGs. Smart city missions have played a vital role in moving towards SDG. Visakhapatnam city is the executive capital in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Located on the Eastern Ghats in South India, it is surrounded by a mountain range on three sides and the Indian Ocean on one side. This unique geographical location and fast urbanization in the last two decades, has put up immense pressure on the natural environment and recourses. It's observed that a lot of investigation to address the existing and proposed land-use, spatial, natural resources, air quality, environmental challenges, and a range of socio-economic, economic challenges were identified during the assessment phase. The citizen concerns with quality and quantity of access to water, sewerage, energy, transportation (public & private) and safety for the public were found out through surveying. Urban infrastructure plays a major part in city building. These cities are occupied by people who come for a better living. This paper aims to provide off-center way of approach to citizens-oriented community habits by addressing SDG 11: Sustainable cities & community by enkindling a characteristic framework of amalgamating 1.eco-design principal, 2. three factors of liveability and 3. a local traditional planning solution. Aiming towards a sustainable development utilized with the focus on the quality of the life and experience of the people who live in urban areas integrating life with soil & water. Building strong social agenda that includes affordable housing for all levels of households, secure and place for good quality public realm for the local people with activity in green corridor, open meeting space & adding recreational places for advantage..

Keywords: livability, eco-design, smart city mission, sustainable

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: Reza M. Rudd, Ali Saeedi, Colin Wood

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In this article, the latest advancements made in the applications of polymers in the enhanced hydrocarbon recovery technologies are investigated. For this purpose, different classes of polymers are reviewed and the latest progresses made in making them suitable for application under harsh reservoir conditions are discussed. The main reservoir conditions whose effects are taken into account include the temperature, rock mineralogy and brine salinity and composition. For profile modification and blocking the thief zones, polymers are used in the form of nanocomposite hydrogels. Polymers are also used as thickeners during CO2 flooding. Also, they are used in enhanced gas recovery, to inhibit the mixing of injection gas with the in-situ natural gas. This review covers the main types of polymers, their functions and the challenges in their applications, some of which are mentioned above. Included in this review are also the latest progresses made in the development of new polymeric surfactants used for surfactant flooding.

Keywords: EOR, EGR, polymer flooding, profile modification, mobility control, nanocomposite hydrogels, CO2 flooding, polymeric surfactants

Procedia PDF Downloads 567

Authors: Soniya Takshak, R. K. Sharma

Abstract:

Let q and n be positive integers, then Fᵩ denotes the finite field of q elements, and Fqn denotes the extension of Fᵩ of degree n. Also, Fᵩ* represents the multiplicative group of non-zero elements of Fᵩ, and the generators of Fᵩ* are called primitive elements. A normal element α of a finite field Fᵩⁿ is such that {α, αᵠ, . . . , αᵠⁿ⁻¹} forms a basis for Fᵩⁿ over Fᵩ. Primitive normal elements have several applications in coding theory and cryptography. So, establishing the existence of primitive normal elements under certain conditions is both theoretically important and a natural issue. In this article, we provide a sufficient condition for the existence of a primitive normal element α in Fᵩⁿ of a prescribed primitive norm and non-zero trace over Fᵩ such that f(α) is also primitive, where f(x) ∈ Fᵩⁿ(x) is a rational function of degree sum m. Particularly, we investigated the rational functions of degree sum 4 over Fᵩⁿ, where q = 11ᵏ and demonstrated that there are only 3 exceptional pairs (q, n), n ≥ 7 for which such kind of primitive normal elements may not exist. In general, we show that such elements always exist except for finitely many choices of (q, n). To arrive to our conclusion, we used additive and multiplicative character sums.

Keywords: finite field, primitive element, normal element, norm, trace, character

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Authors: Mohammad Alawairdhi

Abstract:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) started gaining attention as late as the 1990s, and since then efforts are ongoing to define the domain’s precise specifications. There is yet no single agreed upon definition. However, a predominant majority perceives CRM as a mechanism for enhancing interaction with customers, thereby strengthening the relationship between a business and its clients. From the perspective of Information Technology (IT) companies, CRM systems can be viewed as facilitating software products or services to automate the marketing, selling and servicing functions of an organization. In this paper, we have proposed a Bluetooth enabled CRM system for small- and medium-scale organizations. In the proposed system, Bluetooth technology works as an automatic identification token in addition to its common use as a communication channel. The system comprises a server side accompanied by a user-interface support for both client and server sides. The system has been tested in two environments and users have expressed ease of use, convenience and understandability as major advantages of the proposed solution.

Keywords: customer relationship management, CRM, bluetooth, automatic identification token

Procedia PDF Downloads 342