Search results for: mobile transactional processing system

Authors: Amjaad Alsalamah, Liyakathunsia Syed

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Transportation is an essential need for many people to go to their work, school, and home. In particular, the main common method inside many cities is to drive the car. Driving a car can be an easy job to reach the destination and load all stuff in a reasonable time. However, deciding to find a parking lot for a car can take a long time using the traditional system that can issue a paper ticket for each customer. The old system cannot guarantee a parking lot for all customers. Also, payment methods are not always available, and many customers struggled to find their car among a numerous number of cars. As a result, this research focuses on providing an online smart parking system in order to save time and budget. This system provides a flexible management system for both parking owner and customers by receiving all request via the online system and it gets an accurate result for all available parking and its location.

Keywords: smart parking system, IoT, tracking system, process model, cost, time

Procedia PDF Downloads 336

Authors: Boce Zhang

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Strategic innovation of nanotechnology to promote food safety has drawn tremendous attentions among research groups, which includes the need for research support during the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in the United States. There are urgent demands and knowledge gaps to the understanding of a) food-water-bacteria interface as for how pathogens persist and transmit during food processing and storage; b) minimum processing requirement needed to prevent pathogen cross-contamination in the food system. These knowledge gaps are of critical importance to the food industry. However, the lack of knowledge is largely hindered by the limitations of research tools. Our groups recently endeavored two novel engineering systems with biomimetics and microfluidics as a holistic approach to hazard analysis and risk mitigation, which provided unprecedented research opportunities to study pathogen behavior, in particular, contamination, and cross-contamination, at the critical food-water-pathogen interface. First, biomimetically-patterned surfaces (BPS) were developed to replicate the identical surface topography and chemistry of a natural food surface. We demonstrated that BPS is a superior research tool that empowers the study of a) how pathogens persist through sanitizer treatment, b) how to apply fluidic shear-force and surface tension to increase the vulnerability of the bacterial cells, by detaching them from a protected area, etc. Secondly, microfluidic devices were designed and fabricated to study the bactericidal kinetics in the sub-second time frame (0.1~1 second). The sub-second kinetics is critical because the cross-contamination process, which includes detachment, migration, and reattachment, can occur in a very short timeframe. With this microfluidic device, we were able to simulate and study these sub-second cross-contamination scenarios, and to further investigate the minimum sanitizer concentration needed to sufficiently prevent pathogen cross-contamination during the food processing. We anticipate that the findings from these studies will provide critical insight on bacterial behavior at the food-water-cell interface, and the kinetics of bacterial inactivation from a broad range of sanitizers and processing conditions, thus facilitating the development and implementation of science-based food safety regulations and practices to mitigate the food safety risks.

Keywords: biomimetic materials, microbial food safety, microfluidic device, nanotechnology

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Authors: Pi-Lan Yang

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It is controversial which type of gloss condition (i.e., gloss language or gloss position) is more effective in second or foreign language (L2) vocabulary learning. The present study compared the performance on learning ten English words in the conditions of L2 English reading with no glosses and with glosses of Chinese equivalents/translations and L2 English definitions at the side of a page and at an attached sheet for low-intermediate Chinese-speaking learners of English, who were technology university students in Taiwan. It is found first that the performances on the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest were overall better in the gloss condition than those in the no-gloss condition. Next, it is found that the glosses of Chinese translations were more effective and sustainable than those of L2 English definitions. Finally, the effects of L2 English glosses at the side of a page were observed to be less sustainable than those at an attached sheet. In addition, an opinion questionnaire used also showed a preference for the glosses of Chinese translations in L2 English reading. These results would be discussed in terms of automated lexical access, sentence processing mechanisms, and the trade-off nature of storage and processing functions in working memory system, proposed by the capacity theory of language comprehension.

Keywords: glosses of Chinese equivalents/translations, glosses of L2 English definitions, L2 vocabulary learning, L2 English reading

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Authors: Binger Lu

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It remains unclear whether second language (L2) speakers could use discourse context cues to predict upcoming information as native speakers do during online comprehension. Some researchers propose that L2 learners may have a reduced ability to generate predictions during discourse processing. At the same time, there is evidence that discourse-level cues are weighed more heavily in L2 processing than in L1. Previous studies showed that L1 prediction is sensitive to the global validity of predictive cues. The current study aims to explore whether and to what extent L2 learners can dynamically and strategically adjust their prediction in accord with the global validity of predictive cues in L2 discourse comprehension as native speakers do. In a self-paced reading experiment, Chinese native speakers (N=128), C-E bilinguals (N=128), and English native speakers (N=128) read high-predictable (e.g., Jimmy felt thirsty after running. He wanted to get some water from the refrigerator.) and low-predictable (e.g., Jimmy felt sick this morning. He wanted to get some water from the refrigerator.) discourses in two-sentence frames. The global validity of predictive cues was manipulated by varying the ratio of predictable (e.g., Bill stood at the door. He opened it with the key.) and unpredictable fillers (e.g., Bill stood at the door. He opened it with the card.), such that across conditions, the predictability of the final word of the fillers ranged from 100% to 0%. The dependent variable was reading time on the critical region (the target word and the following word), analyzed with linear mixed-effects models in R. C-E bilinguals showed reliable prediction across all validity conditions (β = -35.6 ms, SE = 7.74, t = -4.601, p< .001), and Chinese native speakers showed significant effect (β = -93.5 ms, SE = 7.82, t = -11.956, p< .001) in two of the four validity conditions (namely, the High-validity and MedLow conditions, where fillers ended with predictable words in 100% and 25% cases respectively), whereas English native speakers didn’t predict at all (β = -2.78 ms, SE = 7.60, t = -.365, p = .715). There was neither main effect (χ^²(3) = .256, p = .968) nor interaction (Predictability: Background: Validity, χ^²(3) = 1.229, p = .746; Predictability: Validity, χ^²(3) = 2.520, p = .472; Background: Validity, χ^²(3) = 1.281, p = .734) of Validity with speaker groups. The results suggest that prediction occurs in L2 discourse processing but to a much less extent in L1, witha significant effect in some conditions of L1 Chinese and anull effect in L1 English processing, consistent with the view that L2 speakers are more sensitive to discourse cues compared with L1 speakers. Additionally, the pattern of L1 and L2 predictive processing was not affected by the global validity of predictive cues. C-E bilinguals’ predictive processing could be partly transferred from their L1, as prior research showed that discourse information played a more significant role in L1 Chinese processing.

Keywords: bilingualism, discourse processing, global validity, prediction, self-paced reading

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Authors: Mafawez Alharbi, Mahdi Jemmali

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E-learning is a developing area especially in education. E-learning can provide several benefits to learners. An intelligent system to collect all components satisfying user preferences is so important. This research presents an approach that it capable to personalize e-information and give the user their needs following their preferences. This proposal can make some knowledge after more evaluations made by the user. In addition, it can learn from the habit from the user. Finally, we show a walk-through to prove how intelligent process work.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, architecture, e-learning, software engineering, processing

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Authors: Ivan Balachin, Geanette Polanco, Jiang Xingliang, Hu Qin

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The problem of global warming raised up interest towards renewable energy sources. To reduce cost of wind energy is a challenge. Before building of wind park conditions such as: average wind speed, direction, time for each wind, probability of icing, must be considered in the design phase. Operation values used on the setting of control systems also will depend on mentioned variables. Here it is proposed a procedure to be include in the evaluation of the performance of a wind turbine, based on the amplitude of wind changes, the number of changes and their duration. A generic study case based on actual data is presented. Data analysing techniques were applied to model the power required for yaw system based on amplitude and data amount of wind changes. A theoretical model between time, amplitude of wind changes and angular speed of nacelle rotation was identified.

Keywords: field data processing, regression determination, wind turbine performance, wind turbine placing, yaw system losses

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Authors: Pilar Rey del Castillo

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This document describes the building of an average indicator of the general sentiments about the future exposed in the newspapers in Spain. The raw data are collected through the scraping of the Digital Periodical and Newspaper Library website. Basic tools of natural language processing are later applied to the collected information to evaluate the sentiment strength of each word in the texts using a polarized dictionary. The last step consists of summarizing these sentiments to produce daily indices. The results are a first insight into the applicability of these techniques to produce periodic sentiment indicators.

Keywords: natural language processing, periodic indicator, sentiment analysis, web scraping

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Authors: Jayme R. Swanke

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This study examined the benefits of maintaining public blogs about substance use disorder recovery. The data analyzed for this study included statements about the benefits derived by individuals who blogged about their recovery. The researcher developed classifications of statements that expressed what these individuals gained from blogging into common themes and developed an emerging theory based on these patterns. The findings indicate that these individuals in recovery benefit from blogging by developing connections, processing emotions, remaining accountable, as well as enjoying.

Keywords: substance use disorder recovery, connection, blogging, accountability, processing emotions

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Authors: Mohsin Talib Mohammed, Zahid A. Khan, Arshad N. Siddiquee

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The wide use of titanium (Ti) materials in medicine gives impetus to a search for development new techniques with elevated properties such as strength, corrosion resistance and Young's modulus close to that of bone tissue. This article presents the most recent state of the art on the use of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) technique in evolving mechanical characteristics of the ultrafine-grained bio-grade Ti materials. Over past few decades, research activities in this area have grown enormously and have produced interesting results, including achieving the combination of conflicting properties that are desirable for biomedical applications by severe plastic deformation (SPD) processing. A comprehensive review of the most recent work in this area is systematically presented. The challenges in processing ultrafine-grained Ti materials are identified and discussed. An overview of the biomedical Ti alloys processed with ECAP technique is given in this review, along with a summary of their effect on the important mechanical properties that can be achieved by SPD processing. The paper also offers insights in the mechanisms underlying SPD.

Keywords: mechanical properties, ECAP, titanium, biomedical applications

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Authors: Michael K. O. Ayomoh, Oyindamola A. Omotuyi

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Autonomous mobile robots deployed to explore or operate in a never explored or an abandoned sub-surface mine requires extreme effectiveness in coordination and communication. In a bid to transmit information from the depth of the mine to the external surface in real-time and amidst diverse physical, chemical and virtual impediments, the concept of unified cooperative robots is seen to be a proficient approach. This paper presents an effective [human → robot → task] coordination framework for effective exploration of an abandoned underground mine. The problem addressed in this research is basically the development of a globalized optimization model premised on time series differentiation and geometrical configurations for effective positioning of the two classes of robots in the cooperation namely the outermost stationary master (OSM) robots and the innermost dynamic task (IDT) robots for effective bi-directional signal transmission. In addition, the synchronization of a vision system and wireless communication system for both categories of robots, fiber optics system for the OSM robots in cases of highly sloppy or vertical mine channels and an autonomous battery recharging capability for the IDT robots further enhanced the proposed concept. The OSM robots are the master robots which are positioned at strategic locations starting from the mine open surface down to its base using a fiber-optic cable or a wireless communication medium all subject to the identified mine geometrical configuration. The OSM robots are usually stationary and function by coordinating the transmission of signals from the IDT robots at the base of the mine to the surface and in a reverse order based on human decisions at the surface control station. The proposed scheme also presents an optimized number of robots required to form the cooperation in a bid to reduce overall operational cost and system complexity.

Keywords: sub-surface mine, wireless communication, outermost stationary master robots, inner-most dynamic robots, fiber optic

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Authors: Gherbi Khadidja

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In the Mediterranean region, water resources are limited and very unevenly distributed in space and time. The main objective of this project is the development of a wireless network for the management of water resources in northern Algeria, the Mitidja plain, which helps farmers to irrigate in the most optimized way and solve the problem of water shortage in the region. Therefore, we will develop an aid tool that can modernize and replace some traditional techniques, according to the real needs of the crops and according to the soil conditions as well as the climatic conditions (soil moisture, precipitation, characteristics of the unsaturated zone), These data are collected in real-time by sensors and analyzed by an algorithm and displayed on a mobile application and the website. The results are essential information and alerts with recommendations for action to farmers to ensure the sustainability of the agricultural sector under water shortage conditions. In the first part: We want to set up a wireless sensor network, for precise management of water resources, by presenting another type of equipment that allows us to measure the water content of the soil, such as the Watermark probe connected to the sensor via the acquisition card and an Arduino Uno, which allows collecting the captured data and then program them transmitted via a GSM module that will send these data to a web site and store them in a database for a later study. In a second part: We want to display the results on a website or a mobile application using the database to remotely manage our smart irrigation system, which allows the farmer to use this technology and offers the possibility to the growers to access remotely via wireless communication to see the field conditions and the irrigation operation, at home or at the office. The tool to be developed will be based on satellite imagery as regards land use and soil moisture. These tools will make it possible to follow the evolution of the needs of the cultures in time, but also to time, and also to predict the impact on water resources. According to the references consulted, if such a tool is used, it can reduce irrigation volumes by up to up to 40%, which represents more than 100 million m3 of savings per year for the Mitidja. This volume is equivalent to a medium-size dam.

Keywords: optimal irrigation, soil moisture, smart irrigation, water management

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Authors: Reem I. Altamimi, Geoff D. Skinner

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Extended periods engaged in sedentary behavior increases the risk of becoming overweight and/or obese which is linked to other health problems. Adding technology to the term ‘active living’ permits its inclusion in promoting and facilitating habitual physical activity. Technology can either act as a barrier to, or facilitate this lifestyle, depending on the chosen technology. Physical Activity Monitoring Technologies (PAMTs) are a popular example of such technologies. Different contemporary PAMTs have been evaluated based on customer reviews; however, there is a lack of published experimental research into the efficacy of PAMTs. This research aims to investigate the reliability of four PAMTs: two wristbands (Fitbit Flex and Jawbone UP), a waist-clip (Fitbit One), and a mobile application (iPhone Health Application) for recording a specific distance walked on a treadmill (1.5km) at constant speed. Physical activity tracking technologies are varied in their recordings, even while performing the same activity. This research demonstrates that Jawbone UP band recorded the most accurate distance compared to Fitbit One, Fitbit Flex, and iPhone Health Application.

Keywords: Fitbit, jawbone up, mobile tracking applications, physical activity tracking technologies

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Authors: A. Van Staden, N. Purcell

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Spelling development is complex and multifaceted and relies on several cognitive-linguistic processes. This paper explored the spelling difficulties of English second language learners with auditory processing delays. This empirical study aims to address these issues by means of an intervention design. Specifically, the objectives are: (a) to develop and implement a multi-sensory spelling program for second language learners with auditory processing difficulties (APD) for a period of 6 months; (b) to assess the efficacy of the multi-sensory spelling program and whether this intervention could significantly improve experimental learners' spelling, phonological awareness, and processing (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), working memory (WM), word reading and reading comprehension; and (c) to determine the relationship (or interplay) between these cognitive and linguistic skills (mentioned above), and how they influence spelling development. Forty-four English, second language learners with APD were sampled from one primary school in the Free State province. The learners were randomly assigned to either an experimental (n=22) or control group (n=22). During the implementation of the spelling program, several visual, tactile and kinesthetic exercises, including the utilization of fingerspelling were introduced to support the experimental learners’ (N = 22) spelling development. Post-test results showed the efficacy of the multi-sensory spelling program, with the experimental group who were trained in utilising multi-sensory coding and fingerspelling outperforming learners from the control group on the cognitive-linguistic, spelling and reading measures. The results and efficacy of this multi-sensory spelling program and the utilisation of fingerspelling for hearing second language learners with APD open up innovative perspectives for the prevention and targeted remediation of spelling difficulties.

Keywords: English second language spellers, auditory processing delays, spelling difficulties, multi-sensory intervention program

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Authors: Jasmin Cowin, Amany Alkhayat

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This paper will concentrate on a comparative analysis of both the advantages and limitations of using digital learning resources (DLRs). DLRs covered will be Virtual Reality (VR), Mobile Learning (M-learning) and Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) together with their subset, Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in language education. In addition, best practices for language teaching and the application of established language teaching methodologies such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the audio-lingual method, or community language learning will be explored. Education has changed dramatically since the eruption of the pandemic. Traditional face-to-face education was disrupted on a global scale. The rise of distance learning brought new digital tools to the forefront, especially web conferencing tools, digital storytelling apps, test authoring tools, and VR platforms. Language educators raced to vet, learn, and implement multiple technology resources suited for language acquisition. Yet, questions remain on how to harness new technologies, digital tools, and their ubiquitous availability while using established methods and methodologies in language learning paired with best teaching practices. In M-learning language, learners employ portable computing devices such as smartphones or tablets. CALL is a language teaching approach using computers and other technologies through presenting, reinforcing, and assessing language materials to be learned or to create environments where teachers and learners can meaningfully interact. In VR, a computer-generated simulation enables learner interaction with a 3D environment via screen, smartphone, or a head mounted display. Research supports that VR for language learning is effective in terms of exploration, communication, engagement, and motivation. Students are able to relate through role play activities, interact with 3D objects and activities such as field trips. VR lends itself to group language exercises in the classroom with target language practice in an immersive, virtual environment. Students, teachers, schools, language institutes, and institutions benefit from specialized support to help them acquire second language proficiency and content knowledge that builds on their cultural and linguistic assets. Through the purposeful application of different language methodologies and teaching approaches, language learners can not only make cultural and linguistic connections in DLRs but also practice grammar drills, play memory games or flourish in authentic settings.

Keywords: language teaching methodologies, computer-assisted language learning, mobile learning, virtual reality

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Authors: Sally A. Brown

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Over the last 30 years, researchers have developed models or frameworks to provide a more structured understanding of the reading comprehension process. Cognitive information processing models and social cognitive theories both provide frameworks to inform reading comprehension instruction. The purpose of this paper is to (a) provide an overview of the historical development of reading comprehension theory, (b) review the literature framed by cognitive information processing, social cognitive, and integrated reading comprehension theories, and (c) demonstrate how these frameworks inform instruction. As integrated models of reading can guide the interpretation of various factors related to student learning, an integrated framework designed by the researcher will be presented. Results indicated that features of cognitive processing and social cognitivism theory—represented in the integrated framework—highlight the importance of the role of the teacher. This model can aid teachers in not only improving reading comprehension instruction but in identifying areas of challenge for students.

Keywords: explicit instruction, integrated models of reading comprehension, reading comprehension, teacher’s role

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Authors: Dorothea Voß, Tobias Esser, Michael Huber, Jakob Albert

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The growing world population and the associated increase in demand for energy and consumer goods, as well as increasing waste production, requires the development of sustainable processes. In addition, the increasing environmental awareness of our society is a driving force for the requirement that processes must be as resource and energy efficient as possible. In this context, the use of polyoxometalate catalysts (POMs) has emerged as a promising approach for the development of green processes. POMs are bifunctional polynuclear metal-oxo-anion cluster characterized by a strong Brønsted acidity, a high proton mobility combined with fast multi-electron transfer and tunable redox potential. In addition, POMs are soluble in many commonly known solvents and exhibit resistance to hydrolytic and oxidative degradation. Due to their structure and excellent physicochemical properties, POMs are efficient acid and oxidation catalysts that have attracted much attention in recent years. Oxidation processes with molecular oxygen are worth mentioning here. However, the fact that the POM catalysts are homogeneous poses a challenge for downstream processing of product solutions and recycling of the catalysts. In this regard, nanofiltration membranes have gained increasing interest in recent years, particularly due to their relative sustainability advantage over other technologies and their unique properties such as increased selectivity towards multivalent ions. In order to establish an efficient downstream process for the highly selective separation of homogeneous POM catalysts from aqueous solutions using nanofiltration membranes, a laboratory-scale membrane system was designed and constructed. By varying various process parameters, a sensitivity analysis was performed on a model system to develop an optimized method for the recovery of POM catalysts. From this, process-relevant key figures such as the rejection of various system components were derived. These results form the basis for further experiments on other systems to test the transferability to serval separation tasks with different POMs and products, as well as for recycling experiments of the catalysts in processes on laboratory scale.

Keywords: downstream processing, nanofiltration, polyoxometalates, homogeneous catalysis, green chemistry

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Authors: Liwen Hou

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The booming mobile business has been penetrating the taxi industry worldwide with P2P (peer to peer) taxi services, as an emerging business model, transforming the industry. Parallel with other mobile businesses, member recommendations and online reviews are believed to be very effective with regard to acquiring new users for P2P taxi services. Based on an empirical dataset of the taxi industry in China, this study aims to reveal which factors influence users’ recommendations and review-writing behaviors. Differing from the existing literature, this paper takes the taxi driver’s perspective into consideration and hence selects a group of variables related to the drivers. We built two models to reflect the factors that influence the number of recommendations and reviews posted on the platform (i.e., the app). Our models show that all factors, except the driver’s score, significantly influence the recommendation behavior. Likewise, only one factor, passengers’ bad reviews, is insignificant in generating more drivers’ reviews. In the conclusion, we summarize the findings and limitations of the research.

Keywords: online recommendation, P2P taxi service, review-writing, word of mouth

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Authors: Sara Gallo, Margherita Pasini, Margherita Brondino, Daniela Raccanello, Roberto Burro, Elisa Menardo

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Most of the studies on the ability of environments to recover people’s cognitive resources have been conducted in laboratory using simulated environments (e.g., photographs, videos, or virtual reality), based on the implicit assumption that exposure to simulated environments has the same effects of exposure to real environments. However, the technical characteristics of simulated environments, such as the dynamic or static characteristics of the stimulus, critically affect their perception. Measuring perceived restorativeness in situ rather than in laboratory could increase the validity of the obtained measurements. Personal mobile devices could be useful because they allow accessing immediately online surveys when people are directly exposed to an environment. At the same time, it becomes important to develop short and reliable measuring instruments that allow a quick assessment of the restorative qualities of the environments. One of the frequently used self-report measures to assess perceived restorativeness is the “Perceived Restorativeness Scale” (PRS) based on Attention Restoration Theory. A lot of different versions have been proposed and used according to different research purposes and needs, without studying their validity. This longitudinal study reported some preliminary validation analyses on a short version of original scale, the PRS-6, developed to be quick and mobile-friendly. It is composed of 6 items assessing fascination and being-away. 102 Italian university students participated to the study, 84% female with age ranging from 18 to 47 (M = 20.7; SD = 2.9). Data were obtained through a survey online that asked them to report their perceived restorativeness of the environment they were in (and the kind of environment) and their positive emotion (Positive and Negative Affective Schedule, PANAS) once a day for seven days. Cronbach alpha and item-total correlations were used to assess reliability and internal consistency. Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) models were run to study the factorial structure (construct validity). Correlation analyses between PRS and PANAS scores were used to check discriminant validity. In the end, multigroup CFA models were used to study measurement invariance (configural, metric, scalar, strict) between different mobile devices and between day of assessment. On the whole, the PRS-6 showed good psychometric proprieties, similar to those of the original scale, and invariance across devices and days. These results suggested that the PRS-6 could be a valid alternative to assess perceived restorativeness when researchers need a brief and immediate evaluation of the recovery quality of an environment.

Keywords: restorativeness, validation, short scale development, psychometrics proprieties

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Authors: David W. Farler, Perry Haan

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This paper explores what effective leadership is being employed in the engineering, technology, and construction (ETC) industry. Organizations need to understand what character traits are being used and what leadership styles work to promote sustainability and improve the triple bottom line. This paper looks at multiple publications on leadership and character traits effective for managers and leaders in the ETC industry. The ETC industry is a trillion-dollar industry, and understanding ways to improve leadership is vital for organizations' successful outcomes. With improvements to the managerial and leadership, there could be ways for organizations to profit more and cut down on cost costs. Finding ways to improve motivation can help organizations improve safety, improve culture, and increase employee motivation. From the research, this paper has found that situational leadership, transformational, and transactional are the most effective leadership styles that individuals can use in the ETC industry for leadership. Character traits that are the most effective have been identified in this research paper. This research has contributed to the ways individuals who start in the engineering and technology industry can improve upon their leadership skills as they are promoted into managerial and leadership roles. The need for managerial positions in the ETC industry, such as project and construction managers, to improve is vital for successful outcomes and creating a high-level performance. The study helps provide a gap in the limited research available to improve ETC leadership for all organizations' present and future.

Keywords: construction, effective leadership, engineering, technology

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Authors: Pedro Paulino

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The majority of the world’s population is already living in urban areas and the urban population is expected to keep increasing in the next decades. This exponential increase in urban population carries with it obvious mobility problems. Not only a new paradigm in the transport sector is needed in order to address these problems; effective regulatory policies to ensure the quality of services, passenger rights, competition between operators and consistency of the entire mobile ecosystem are needed as well. The purpose of this paper is to present the problems the world faces in this sector and contribute to their solution. Indeed, our study concludes that only through the active supervision of the markets and the activity of monitoring the various operators will it be possible to develop a sustainable and efficient transport system which meets the needs of a changing world.

Keywords: mobility, regulation policies, sanctioning powers, sustainable transport

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Authors: Justin P. Pool, Haruyo Yoshida

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This research focuses on the effects of creating an English as a foreign language curriculum that combines online learning and classroom teaching in a complementary manner. Through pre- and post-test results, teacher observation, and learner reflection, it will be shown that learners can benefit from online programs focusing on receptive skills if combined with a communicative classroom environment that encourages learners to develop their productive skills. Much research has lamented the fact that many modern mobile assisted language learning apps do not take advantage of the affordances of modern technology by focusing only on receptive skills rather than inviting learners to interact with one another and develop communities of practice. This research takes into account the realities of the state of such apps and focuses on how to best create a curriculum that complements apps which focus on receptive skills. The research involved 15 adult learners working for a business in Japan simultaneously engaging in 1) a commercial online English language learning application that focused on reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary and 2) a 15-week class focused on communicative language teaching, presentation skills, and mitigation of error aversion tendencies. Participants of the study experienced large gains on a standardized test, increased motivation and willingness to communicate, and asserted that they felt more confident regarding English communication. Moreover, learners continued to study independently at higher rates after the study than they had before the onset of the program. This paper will include the details of the program, reveal the improvement in test scores, share learner reflections, and critically view current evaluation models for mobile assisted language learning applications.

Keywords: adult learners, communicative language teaching, mobile assisted language learning, motivation

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Authors: Ashish Agarwal, Vaibhav Singh

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Harmful emissions from oil and gas processing facilities have long remained a matter of concern for governments and environmentalists throughout the world. This paper analyses Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) gas processing plant in Hazira, Gujarat, India. It is the largest gas-processing complex in the country designed to process 41MMSCMD sour natural gas & associated sour condensate. The complex, sprawling over an area of approximate 705 hectares is the mother plant for almost all industries at Hazira and enroute Hazira Bijapur Jagdishpur pipeline. Various sources of pollution from each unit starting from Gas Terminal to Dew Point Depression unit and Caustic Wash unit along the processing chain were examined with the help of different emission data obtained from ONGC. Pollution discharged to the environment was classified into Water, Air, Hazardous Waste and Solid (Non-Hazardous) Waste so as to analyze each one of them efficiently. To protect air environment, Sulphur recovery unit along with automatic ambient air quality monitoring stations, automatic stack monitoring stations among numerous practices were adopted. To protect water environment different effluent treatment plants were used with due emphasis on aquaculture of the nearby area. Hazira plant has obtained the authorization for handling and disposal of five types of hazardous waste. Most of the hazardous waste were sold to authorized recyclers and the rest was given to Gujarat Pollution Control Board authorized vendors. Non-Hazardous waste was also handled with an overall objective of zero negative impact on the environment. The effect of methods adopted is evident from emission data of the plant which was found to be well under Gujarat Pollution Control Board limits.

Keywords: sulphur recovery unit, effluent treatment plant, hazardous waste, sour gas

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Authors: Shu Yin, Zhiyang Ding, Jianzhong Huang, Xiaojun Ruan, Xiaomin Zhu, Xiao Qin

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Since large-scale and data-intensive applications have been widely deployed, there is a growing demand for high-performance storage systems to support data-intensive applications. Compared with traditional storage systems, next-generation systems will embrace dedicated processor to reduce computational load of host machines and will have hybrid combinations of different storage devices. The advent of flash- memory-based solid state disk has become a critical role in revolutionizing the storage world. However, instead of simply replacing the traditional magnetic hard disk with the solid state disk, it is believed that finding a complementary approach to corporate both of them is more challenging and attractive. This paper explores an idea of active storage, an emerging new storage configuration, in terms of the architecture and design, the parallel processing capability, the cooperation of other machines in cluster computing environment, and a disk configuration, the hybrid combination of different types of disk drives. Experimental results indicate that the proposed HcDD achieves better I/O performance and longer storage system lifespan.

Keywords: arallel storage system, hybrid storage system, data inten- sive, solid state disks, reliability

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Authors: Margo O'Sullivan, Xuefeng Chen, Qi Zhao, J. Jiang, Ning Fu

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Early childhood development, or ECD, is about the 'whole child' – the physical, social and emotional, cognitive thinking and language progression of each young individual. Overwhelming evidence is now available to support investment in Early Childhood Development internationally, attendance at ECD leads to: improved learning outcomes; improved completion and reduced less dropout rates; and most notably, Professor Heckman, Nobel Laureate’s, findings that for every dollar invested, there is an economic return of up to 17%. Notably, ECD has been included in the 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The Government of China (GOC) has embraced this research and in 2010, State Council, announced focus on ECD setting a target to provide access to ECD for 85% of 3-6 year olds by 2020; to date, the target has surpassed expectations and reached 70.4%. GoC is also increasingly focusing on the even more critical 0-3 age group, when the plasticity of the brain is at its peak and neurons form connections as fast as 1,000 per second. Key to ECD are parents and caregivers of young children, with parental education critical to fully exploiting the significant potential of the early years of children. In China, with such vast numbers, one in seven pre-school age children in the world live in China, the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the National Centre for Education Technology, explored how to best provide parental education and provide key child developmental related knowledge to parents and caregivers. In response, MoE and UNICEF created a resource for parenting information that began with a computer website in 2012, followed by piloting a kiosk service in 2013 for parents in remote areas without access to the internet, and then a mobile phone application in 2014. The resource includes 269 ECD messages and 200 micro-videos covering critical issues of early childhood development from birth to age 6 years: daily care, nutrition and feeding, disease prevention, immunization, development and education, and safety and protection. To date, there have been 397,599 unique views on the website, and data for the mobile app currently being analysed (Links: http://yuer.cbern.gov.cn/; App: https://appsto.re/cn/OiKPZ.i). This paper will explore the development of this resource, its use by parents and the public, efforts to assess the effectiveness in improving parenting and child development, and future plans to roll an updated version in 2016 to all parents.

Keywords: early childhood development, mobile apps for education, parental education, China

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Authors: Wan-I Lee, Nelio Mendoza Figueredo

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The impact of COVID-19 has a significant effect on all sectors of society globally. Health information technology (HIT) has become an effective health strategy in this age of distancing. In this regard, Mobile Health (mHealth) plays a critical role in managing patient and provider workflows during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the users' perception of service quality about mHealth services plays a significant role in shaping confidence and subsequent behaviors regarding the mHealth users' intention of use. This study's objective was to explore levels of user attributes analyzed by a qualitative method of how health practitioners and patients are satisfied or dissatisfied with using mHealth services; and analyzed the users' intention in the context of Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research explores the experienced usability of a mHealth services during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study uses qualitative methods that include in-depth and semi-structured interviews that investigate participants' perceptions and experiences and the meanings they attribute to them. The five cases consisted of health practitioners, clinic staff, and patients' experiences using mHealth services. This study encourages participants to discuss issues related to the research question by asking open-ended questions, usually in one-to-one interviews. The findings show the positive and negative attributes of mHealth service quality. Hence, the significant importance of patients' and health practitioners' issues on several dimensions of perceived service quality is system quality, information quality, and interaction quality. A concept map for perceptions regards to emergency uses' intention of mHealth services process is depicted. The findings revealed that users pay more attention to "Medical care", "ease of use" and "utilitarian benefits" and have less importance for "Admissions and Convenience" and "Social influence". To improve mHealth services, the mHealth providers and health practitioners should better manage users' experiences to enhance mHealth services. This research contributes to the understanding of service quality issues in mHealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19, mobile health, service quality, use intention

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Authors: Selma Sbit, Mohamed Bechir Dadi, Belgacem Chibani Rhaimi

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Incorporating Home eNodeB (HeNB) in cellular networks, e.g. Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A), is beneficial for extending coverage and enhancing capacity at low price especially within the non-line-of sight (NLOS) environments such as homes. HeNB or femtocell is a small low powered base station which provides radio coverage to the mobile users in an indoor environment. This deployment results in a heterogeneous network where the available spectrum becomes shared between two layers. Therefore, a problem of Inter Cell Interference (ICI) appears. This issue is the main challenge in LTE-A. To deal with this challenge, various techniques based on frequency, time and power control are proposed. This paper deals with the impact of carrier aggregation and higher order MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) schemes on the LTE-Advanced performance. Simulation results show the advantages of these schemes on the system capacity (4.10⁹ b/s/Hz when bandwidth B=100 MHz and when applying MIMO 8x8 for SINR=30 dB), maximum theoretical peak data rate (more than 4 Gbps for B=100 MHz and when MIMO 8x8 is used) and spectral efficiency (15 b/s/Hz and 30b/s/Hz when MIMO 4x4 and MIMO 8x8 are applying respectively for SINR=30 dB).

Keywords: capacity, carrier aggregation, LTE-Advanced, MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), peak data rate, spectral efficiency

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Authors: Amandeep Kaur

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Digital Image processing is a fundamental tool to perform various operations on the digital images for pattern recognition, noise removal and feature extraction. In this paper noise removal technique has been described for various types of noises. This paper comprises discussion about various noises available in the image due to different environmental, accidental factors. In this paper, various de-noising approaches have been discussed that utilize different wavelets and filters for de-noising. By analyzing various papers on image de-noising we extract that wavelet based de-noise approaches are much effective as compared to others.

Keywords: de-noising techniques, edges, image, image processing

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Authors: A. Sivakumar, S. S. Darun Prakash, P. Navaneethakrishnan

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In and around Erode District, it is estimated that more than 1250 chemical and allied textile processing fabric industries are affected, partially closed and shut off for various reasons such as poor management, poor supplier performance, lack of planning for productivity, fluctuation of output, poor investment, waste analysis, labor problems, capital/labor ratio, accumulation of stocks, poor maintenance of resources, deficiencies in the quality of fabric, low capacity utilization, age of plant and equipment, high investment and input but low throughput, poor research and development, lack of energy, workers’ fear of loss of jobs, work force mix and work ethic. The main objective of this work is to analyze the existing conditions in textile fabric sector, validate the break even of Total Productivity (TP), analyze, design and implement fuzzy sets and mathematical programming for improvement of productivity and quality dimensions in the fabric processing industry. It needs to be compatible with the reality of textile and fabric processing industries. The highly risk events from productivity and quality dimension were found by fuzzy systems and results are wrapped up among the textile fabric processing industry.

Keywords: break even point, fuzzy crisp data, fuzzy sets, productivity, productivity cycle, total productive maintenance

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Authors: Asnate Kirse, Daina Karklina, Sandra Muizniece-Brasava, Ruta Galoburda

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Pulses are high in plant protein and dietary fiber, and contain slowly digestible starches. Innovative products from pulses could increase their consumption and benefit consumer health. This study was conducted to evaluate physicochemical stability of processed cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. cv. Fradel) and maple pea (Pisum sativum var. arvense L. cv. Bruno) spreads at 5 °C temperature during 62-day storage. Physicochemical stability of pulse spreads was compared after sous vide treatment (80 °C/15 min) and high pressure processing (700 MPa/10 min/20 °C). Pulse spreads were made by homogenizing cooked pulses in a food processor together with salt, citric acid, oil, and bruschetta seasoning. A total of four different pulse spreads were studied: Cowpea spread without and with seasoning, maple pea spread without and with seasoning. Transparent PA/PE and light proof PET/ALU/PA/PP film pouches were used for packaging of pulse spreads under vacuum. The parameters investigated were pH, water activity and mass losses. Pulse spreads were tested on days 0, 15, 29, 42, 50, 57 and 62. The results showed that sous-vide treatment and high pressure processing had an insignificant influence on pH, water activity and mass losses after processing, irrespective of packaging material did not change (p>0.1). pH and water activity of sous-vide treated and high pressure processed pulse spreads in different packaging materials proved to be stable throughout the storage. Mass losses during storage accounted to 0.1% losses. Chosen sous-vide treatment and high pressure processing regimes and packaging materials are suitable to maintain consistent physicochemical quality of the new products during 62-day storage.

Keywords: cowpea, flexible packaging, maple pea, water activity

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Authors: Iliya Musa Adamu

Abstract:

This paper seeks to develop an expert system that would troubleshoot computer network and evaluate the network system performance so as to reduce the workload on technicians and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of solutions proffered to computer network problems. The platform of the system was developed using ASP.NET, whereas the codes are implemented in Visual Basic and integrated with SQL Server 2005. The knowledge base was represented using production rule, whereas the searching method that was used in developing the network troubleshooting expert system is the forward-chaining-rule-based-system. This software tool offers the advantage of providing an immediate solution to most computer network problems encountered by computer users.

Keywords: expert system, forward chaining rule based system, network, troubleshooting

Procedia PDF Downloads 647