Search results for: opinions of users

Authors: O. Sauperl, L. Fras Zemljic

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The textile industry is gaining increasing importance in the field of medical materials. Therefore, presented research is focused on textile materials for external (out-of-body) use. Such materials could be various hygienic textile products (diapers, tampons, sanitary napkins, incontinence products, etc.), protective textiles and various hospital linens (surgical covers, masks, gowns, cloths, bed linens, etc.) wound pillows, bandages, orthopedic socks, etc. Function of tampons and sanitary napkins is not only to provide protection during the menstrual cycle, but their function can be also to take care of physiological or pathological vaginal discharge. In general, women's intimate areas are against infection protected by a low pH value of the vaginal flora. High pH inhibits the development of harmful microorganisms, as it is difficult to be reproduced in an acidic environment. The normal vaginal flora in healthy women is highly colonized by lactobacilli. The lactic acid produced by these organisms maintains the constant acidity of the vagina. If the balance of natural protection breaks, infections can occur. In the market, there exist probiotic tampons as a medical product supplying the vagina with beneficial probiotic lactobacilli. But, many users have concerns about the use of tampons due to the possible dry-out of the vagina as well as the possible toxic shock syndrome, which is the reason that they use mainly sanitary napkins during the menstrual cycle. Functionalization of sanitary napkins with probiotics is, therefore, interesting in regard to maintain a healthy vaginal flora and to offer to users added value of the sanitary napkins in the sense of health- and environmentally-friendly products. For this reason, the presented research is oriented in functionalization of the sanitary napkins with the probiotic paste in order to activate the lactic acid bacteria presented in the core of the functionalized sanitary napkin at the time of the contact with the menstrual fluid. In this way, lactobacilli could penetrate into vagina and by maintaining healthy vaginal flora to reduce the risk of vaginal disorders. In regard to the targeted research problem, the influence of probiotic paste applied onto cotton hygienic napkins on selected properties was studied. The aim of the research was to determine whether the sanitary napkins with the applied probiotic paste may assure suitable vaginal pH to maintain a healthy vaginal flora during the use of this product. Together with this, sorption properties of probiotic functionalized sanitary napkins were evaluated and compared to the untreated one. The research itself was carried out on the basis of tracking and controlling the input parameters, currently defined by Slovenian producer (Tosama d.o.o.) as the most important. Successful functionalization of sanitary pads with the probiotic paste was confirmed by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Results of the methods used within the presented research show that the absorption of the pads treated with probiotic paste deteriorates compared to non-treated ones. The coating shows a 6-month stability. Functionalization of sanitary pads with probiotic paste is believed to have a commercial potential for lowering the probability of infection during the menstrual cycle.

Keywords: functionalization, probiotic paste, sanitary pads, textile materials

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Fernando Miguel Campos, Carlos Ferreira, João Pestana, Pedro Campos, Nils Ehrenberg, Wojciech Hydzik

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The current trend of organizations offering their workers open-office spaces and co-working offices has been primed for stimulating teamwork and collaboration. However, this is not always valid as these kinds of spaces bring other types of challenges that compromise workers productivity and creativity. We present an approach for improving creativity and productivity at the workspace by redesigning an office chair that incorporates subtle technological elements that help users focus, relax and being more productive and creative. This sheds light on how we can better design interactive furniture for such popular contexts, as we develop this new chair through a multidisciplinary approach using ergonomics, interior design, interaction design, hardware and software engineering and psychology.

Keywords: creativity, co-working, ergonomics, human-computer interaction, interaction, interactive furniture, productivity

Procedia PDF Downloads 330

Authors: István Patkó, Hosam Bayoumi Hamuda, András Szeder

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In order to efficiently solve the problems created by the deepening energy crisis affecting Europe and the world, governments cannot neglect the opportunities of using the energy produced by sun collectors. In many of the EU countries there are sun collectors producing heat energy, e.g. in 2011 in the area of EU27 (countries which belong to European Union) + Switzerland altogether 37519126 m2 were operated, which are capable of producing 26.3 GWh heat energy. The energy produced by these sun collectors is utilized at the place of production. In the near future governments will have to focus more on spreading and using sun collectors. Among the complex problems of operating sun collectors, this article deals with determining the optimal tilt angle, directions of sun collectors. We evaluate the contamination of glass surface of sun collector to the produced energy. Our theoretically results are confirmed by laboratory measurements. The purpose of our work is to help users and engineers in determination of optimal operation parameters of sun collectors.

Keywords: heat energy, tilt angle, direction of sun collector, contamination of surface

Procedia PDF Downloads 433

Authors: Ahmed Alaoui

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This paper contributes to the ongoing debate as to the relevance of translation studies to professional practitioners. It exposes the various misconceptions permeating the links between theory and practice in the translation landscape in the Arab World. It is a thesis of this paper that specialization in translation should be redefined; taking account of the fact, that specialized knowledge alone is neither crucial nor sufficient in technical translation. It should be tested against the readability of the translated text, the appropriateness of its style and the usability of its content by end-users to carry out their intended tasks. The paper also proposes a preliminary model to establish a working link between theory and practice from the perspective of professional trainers and practitioners, calling for the latter to participate in the production of knowledge in a systematic fashion. While this proposal is driven by a rather intuitive conviction, a research line is needed to specify the methodological moves to establish the mediation strategies that would relate the components in the model of knowledge transfer proposed in this paper.

Keywords: knowledge transfer, misconceptions, specialized texts, translation theory, translation practice

Procedia PDF Downloads 393

Authors: Hanwei Cheng, Chengbei Xu, Yijie Wang

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More and more college students are accustomed to surfing the Internet everyday. As community members, college students have ability to express opinions and participate in social affairs, they not only accept information passively, but also voice their concerns on the Internet. We interpret the online discourses featured with anonymization, so it helps us more effectively and conveniently understand the behaviors and thoughts of college students, and educators can thus grasp the scales and directions in guiding online language. We analyzed online comments in both content and form aspects in one student forum (named Dandan, the BNU’s campus forum), and through methods of literature review and interview, we found that in term of content, college students pay attention to practical information online, emphasize on personal development and pursue hot issues; in term of form, college students' online language displays cross-border quality sometimes under the general feature of normative, and they often explore a certain topic in the form of question or discussion, and they like to show feelings in ironic and stream-of-consciousness ways. It is argued that college students intend to establish a community to facilitate personal development and meet emotional needs through the student forum, and by making comments at the forum they are also able to get involved in public affairs. We should pay attention to problems of college students' online discourse, such as boundary issues (like informal advertisement and information authenticity), emotional issues and the spread of gossip. Some possible solutions to solving online discourse problems can be applied, like we can improve access systems of student forum, clarify principles of Internet langue use, change oversimplified management approaches and use some other tactics, in order to form a mechanism of student self-regulation, also deepen the trust and cooperation between school administrators and students.

Keywords: online language, youth discourse, content and form, implication and strategy

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: Shaikh Farhad Hossain, Liakot Ali

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Technology advances accelerate the quality and type of services provided for health care and especially for monitoring health conditions. Sensors have turned out to be more effective to detect diverse physiological signs and can be worn on the human body utilizing remote correspondence modules. An assortment of programming devices have been created to help in preparing a difference rundown of essential signs by examining and envisioning information produced by different sensors. In this proposition, we presented a Health signs and Activity acknowledgment monitoring system. Utilizing off-the-rack sensors, we executed a movement location system for identifying five sorts of action: falling, lying down, sitting, standing, and walking. The framework collects and analyzes sensory data in real-time, and provides different feedback to the users. In addition, it can generate alerts based on the detected events and store the data collected to a medical server.

Keywords: ADL, SVM, TRIL , MEMS

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Authors: Arnesh Vijay

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Ever since its early introduction in the late 1980s, the mobile industry has been rapidly evolving with each passing year. The development witnessed is not just in its ability to support diverse applications, but also its extension into diverse technological means to access and offer various services to users. Amongst the various technologies present, radio systems have clearly emerged as a strong contender, due to its fine attributes of accessibility, reachability, interactiveness, and cost efficiency. These advancements have no doubt guaranteed unprecedented ease, utility and sophistication to the cell phone users, but caused uncertainty due to the interdependence of various systems, making it extremely complicated to exactly map concepts on to 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) standards. Although the close interrelation and interdependence of intellectual property rights and mobile standard specifications have been widely acknowledged by the technical and legal community; there, however, is a requirement for clear distinction between the scope and future-proof of inventions to influence standards and its market place adoptability. For this, collaborative work is required between intellectual property professionals, researchers, standardization specialists and country specific legal experts. With the evolution into next generation mobile technology, i.e., to 5G systems, there is a need for further work to be done in this field, which has been felt now more than ever before. Based on these lines, this poster will briefly describe the importance of intellectual property rights in the European market. More specifically, will analyse the role played by intellectual property in various standardization institutes, such as 3GPP (3rd generation partnership project) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union). The main intention: to ensure the scope and purpose is well defined, and concerned parties on all four sides are well informed on the clear significance of good proposals which not only bring economic revenue to the company but those that are capable of improving the technology and offer better services to mankind. The poster will comprise different sections. The first segment begins with a background on the rapidly evolving mobile technology, with a brief insight on the industrial impact of standards and its relation to intellectual property rights. Next, section two will succinctly outline the interplay between patents and standards; explicitly discussing the ever changing and rapidly evolving relationship between the two sectors. Then the remaining sections will examine ITU and its role played in international standards development, touching upon the various standardization process and the common patent policies and related guidelines. Finally, it proposes ways to improve the collaboration amongst various sectors for a more evolved and sophisticated next generation mobile telecommunication system. The sole purpose here is to discuss methods to reduce the gap and enhance the exchange of information between the two sectors to offer advanced technologies and services to mankind.

Keywords: mobile technology, mobile standards, intellectual property rights, 3GPP

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Dominik Halstrup, Marlene Schriever

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The industry, as one of the main energy consumer, is of critical importance along the way of transforming the energy system to Renewable Energies. The distributed character of the Energy Transition demands for further flexibility being introduced to the grid. In order to shed further light on the acceptance of Electric Energy Storage (ESS) from an industrial point of view, this study therefore examines the German manufacturing industry. The analysis in this paper uses data composed of a survey amongst 101 manufacturing companies in Germany. Being part of a two-stage research design, both qualitative and quantitative data was collected. Based on a literature review an acceptance concept was developed in the paper and four user-types identified: (Dedicated) User, Impeded User, Forced User and (Dedicated) Non-User and incorporated in the questionnaire. Both descriptive and bivariate analysis is deployed to identify the level of acceptance in the different organizations. After a factor analysis has been conducted, variables were grouped to form independent acceptance factors. Out of the 22 organizations that do show a positive attitude towards ESS, 5 have already implemented ESS and show a positive attitude towards ESS. They can be therefore considered ‘Dedicated Users’. The remaining 17 organizations have a positive attitude but have not implemented ESS yet. The results suggest that profitability plays an important role as well as load-management systems that are already in place. Surprisingly, 2 organizations have implemented ESS even though they have a negative attitude towards it. This is an example for a ‘Forced User’ where reasons of overriding importance or supporters with overriding authority might have forced the company to implement ESS. By far the biggest subset of the sample shows (critical) distance and can therefore be considered ‘(Dedicated) Non-Users’. The results indicate that the majority of the respondents have not thought ESS in their own organization through yet. For the majority of the sample one can therefore not speak of critical distance but rather a distance due to insufficient information and the perceived unprofitability. This paper identifies the relative state of acceptance of ESS in the manufacturing industry as well as current reasons for hindrance and perspectives for future growth of ESS in an industrial setting from a policy level. The interest that is currently generated by the media could be channeled and taken into a more substantial and individual discussion about ESS in an industrial setting. If the current perception of profitability could be addressed and communicated accordingly, ESS and their use in for instance cooperative business models could become a topic for more organizations in Germany and other parts of the world. As price mechanisms tend to favor existing technologies, policy makers need to further access the use of ESS and acknowledge the positive effects when integrated in an energy system. The subfields of generation, transmission and distribution become increasingly intertwined. New technologies and business models, such as ESS or cooperative arrangements entering the market, increase the number of stakeholders. Organizations need to find their place within this array of stakeholders.

Keywords: acceptance, energy storage solutions, German energy transition, manufacturing industry

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Authors: Erica Lima

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The objective of this paper is to discuss relevant points about teaching translation in Brazilian universities and the possible impacts of blogs and social networks to translator education today. It is intended to analyze the curricula of Brazilian translation courses, contrasting them to information obtained from two social networking groups of great visibility in the area concerning essential characteristics to become a successful profession. Therefore, research has, as its main corpus, a few undergraduate translation programs’ syllabuses, as well as a few postings on social networks groups that specifically share professional opinions regarding the necessity for a translator to obtain a degree in translation to practice the profession. To a certain extent, such comments and their corresponding responses lead to the propagation of discourses which influence the ideas that aspiring translators and recent graduates end up having towards themselves and their undergraduate courses. The postings also show that many professionals do not have a clear position regarding the translator education; while refuting it, they also encourage “free” courses. It is thus observed that cyberspace constitutes, on the one hand, a place of mobilization of people in defense of similar ideas. However, on the other hand, it embodies a place of tension and conflict, in view of the fact that there are many participants and, as in any other situation of interlocution, disagreements may arise. From the postings, aspects related to professionalism were analyzed (including discussions about regulation), as well as questions about the classic dichotomies: theory/practice; art/technique; self-education/academic training. As partial result, the common interest regarding the valorization of the profession could be mentioned, although there is no consensus on the essential characteristics to be a good translator. It was also possible to observe that the set of socially constructed representations in the group reflects characteristics of the world situation of the translation courses (especially in some European countries and in the United States), which, in the first instance, does not accurately reflect the Brazilian idiosyncrasies of the area.

Keywords: cyberspace, teaching translation, translator education, university

Procedia PDF Downloads 388

Authors: H. Nur Görkemli, Mehmet Fidan

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After the first acquaintance with internet in April 1993, number of internet users increased rapidly in Turkey. According to Turkish Statistical Institute’s 2013 data, internet usage in Turkey between 16-74 age group is 48,9%. Hospitals are one of the areas where internet is being intensively used like many other businesses. As a part of public relations application, websites are important tools for hospitals to reach a wide range of target audience within and outside the organization. With their websites, hospitals have opportunities to give information about their organization, strengthen their image, compete with their rivals, interact with shareholders, reflect their transparency and meet with new audiences. This study examines web sites of totally 31 hospitals which are located in Konya. Institutions are categorized as public and private hospitals and then three main research categories are determined: content, visual and technical. Main and sub categories are examined by using content analysis method. Results are interpreted in terms of public and private institutions.

Keywords: websites, hospital, health communication, internet, webpages

Procedia PDF Downloads 378

Authors: Chothmal, Basant Agarwal

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Sentiment analysis means to classify a given review document into positive or negative polar document. Sentiment analysis research has been increased tremendously in recent times due to its large number of applications in the industry and academia. Sentiment analysis models can be used to determine the opinion of the user towards any entity or product. E-commerce companies can use sentiment analysis model to improve their products on the basis of users’ opinion. In this paper, we propose a new One-class Support Vector Machine (One-class SVM) based sentiment analysis model for movie review documents. In the proposed approach, we initially extract features from one class of documents, and further test the given documents with the one-class SVM model if a given new test document lies in the model or it is an outlier. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed sentiment analysis model.

Keywords: feature selection methods, machine learning, NB, one-class SVM, sentiment analysis, support vector machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 517

Authors: J. H. Boonzaaier, A. C. Brent

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South Africa, a water scarce country, experiences the phenomenon that its life supporting natural water resources is seriously threatened by the users that are totally dependent on it. South Africa is globally applauded to have of the best and most progressive water laws and policies. There are however growing concerns regarding natural water resource quality deterioration and a critical void in the management of natural resources and compliance to policies due to increasing institutional uncertainties and failures. These are in accordance with concerns of many South African researchers and practitioners that call for a change in paradigm from talk to practice and a more constructive, practical approach to governance challenges in the management of water resources. A qualitative theory-building case study through longitudinal action research was conducted from 2014 to 2017. The research assessed whether a strategic positioned institutional agent can be parlayed to facilitate and execute WRM on catchment level by engaging multiple stakeholders in a polycentric setting. Through a critical realist approach a distinction was made between ex ante self-deterministic human behaviour in the realist realm, and ex post governance-management in the constructivist realm. A congruence analysis, including Toulmin’s method of argumentation analysis, was utilised. The study evaluated the unique case of a self-steering local water management institution, the Impala Water Users Association (WUA) in the Pongola River catchment in the northern part of the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. Exploiting prevailing water resource threats, it expanded its ancillary functions from 20,000 to 300,000 ha. Embarking on WRM activities, it addressed natural water system quality assessments, social awareness, knowledge support, and threats, such as: soil erosion, waste and effluent into water systems, coal mining, and water security dimensions; through structured engagement with 21 different catchment stakeholders. By implementing a proposed polycentric governance-management model on a catchment scale, the WUA achieved to fill the void. It developed a foundation and capacity to protect the resilience of the natural environment that is critical for freshwater resources to ensure long-term water security of the Pongola River basin. Further work is recommended on appropriate statutory delegations, mechanisms of sustainable funding, sufficient penetration of knowledge to local levels to catalyse behaviour change, incentivised support from professionals, back-to-back expansion of WUAs to alleviate scale and cost burdens, and the creation of catchment data monitoring and compilation centres.

Keywords: institutional agent, water governance, polycentric water resource management, water resource management

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Shoohira Aftab, Hammad Afzal

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Information integration is a well known procedure to provide consolidated view on sets of heterogeneous information sources. It not only provides better statistical analysis of information but also facilitates users to query without any knowledge on the underlying heterogeneous information sources The problem of providing a consolidated view of information can be handled using Semantic data (information stored in such a way that is understandable by machines and integrate-able without manual human intervention). However, integrating information using semantic web technology without any access management enforced, will results in increase of privacy and confidentiality concerns. In this research we have designed and developed a framework that would allow information from heterogeneous formats to be consolidated, thus resolving the issue of interoperability. We have also devised an access control system for defining explicit privacy constraints. We designed and applied our framework on both semantic and non-semantic data from heterogeneous resources. Our approach is validated using scenario based testing.

Keywords: information integration, semantic data, interoperability, security, access control system

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: Rabia Bashir, Sajjad Akbar

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There is an inevitable demand of web mining due to rapid increase of huge information on the Internet, but the striking variety of web structures has made required content retrieval a difficult task. To counter this issue, Web Content Mining (WCM) emerges as a potential candidate which extracts and integrates suitable resources of data to users. In past few years, research has been done on several extraction techniques for WCM i.e. agent-based, template-based, assumption-based, statistic-based, wrapper-based and machine learning. However, it is still unclear that either these approaches are efficiently tackling the significant challenges of WCM or not. To answer this question, this paper identifies these challenges such as language independency, structure flexibility, performance, automation, dynamicity, redundancy handling, intelligence, relevant content retrieval, and privacy. Further, mapping of these challenges is done with existing extraction mechanisms which helps to adopt the most suitable WCM approach, given some conditions and characteristics at hand.

Keywords: content mining challenges, web content mining, web content extraction approaches, web information retrieval

Procedia PDF Downloads 548

Authors: Yassine Meraihi, Dalila Acheli, Rabah Meraihi

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Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) is a special case of Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) used to establish communications and exchange information among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed infrastructure. VANET is seen as a promising technology used to provide safety, efficiency, assistance and comfort to the road users. Routing is an important issue in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network to find and maintain communication between vehicles due to the highly dynamic topology, frequently disconnected network and mobility constraints. This paper evaluates the performance of two most popular proactive routing protocols OLSR and DSDV in real city traffic scenario on the basis of three metrics namely Packet delivery ratio, throughput and average end to end delay by varying vehicles density and transmission range.

Keywords: DSDV, OLSR, quality of service, routing protocols, VANET

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Authors: Zuk Nechemia Turbovich

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This paper introduces DoD, a contextual spiral model that describes the lifecycle of products intended for manufacturing using Personal 3D Printers (P3DP). The study is based on a review of the desktop P3DPs market that shows that the combination of digital connectivity, coupled with the potential ownership of P3DP by home users, is radically changing the form of the product lifecycle, comparatively to familiar lifecycle paradigms. The paper presents the change in the design process, considering the characterization of product types in the P3DP market and the possibility of having a direct dialogue between end-user and product designers. The model, as an updated paradigm, provides a strategic perspective on product design and tools for success, understanding that design is subject to rapid and continuous improvement and that products are subject to repair, update, and customization. The paper will include a review of real cases.

Keywords: lifecycle, mass-customization, personal 3d-printing, user involvement

Procedia PDF Downloads 183

Authors: Muhammad Nouman Qureshi, Muhammad Hanif

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Adaptive cluster sampling (ACS) is specifically developed for the estimation of highly clumped populations and applied to a wide range of situations like animals of rare and endangered species, uneven minerals, HIV patients and drug users. In this paper, we proposed a generalized semi-exponential estimator with two auxiliary variables under the framework of ACS design. The expressions of approximate bias and mean square error (MSE) of the proposed estimator are derived. Theoretical comparisons of the proposed estimator have been made with existing estimators. A numerical study is conducted on real and artificial populations to demonstrate and compare the efficiencies of the proposed estimator. The results indicate that the proposed generalized semi-exponential estimator performed considerably better than all the adaptive and non-adaptive estimators considered in this paper.

Keywords: auxiliary information, adaptive cluster sampling, clustered populations, Hansen-Hurwitz estimation

Procedia PDF Downloads 238

Authors: Ying-Lun Tseng Chiu-Ying Chen

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Taiwan's Mental Health Act was amended at the end of 2022; they added regulations regarding refusing compulsory treatment by patients with mental illnesses. In addition, not only by an examination committee, the judge must also assess the patient's need for compulsory treatment. Additionally, the maximum of compulsory hospitalization has been reduced from an unlimited period to a maximum of 60 days. They aim to promote the healthcare autonomy of individuals with mental illnesses in Taiwan and prevent their silenced voice in medical decision-making while they still possess rationality. Furthermore, they plan to use community support and social care networks to replace the current practice of compulsory treatment in Taiwan. This study uses qualitative research methodology, utilizing interview guidelines to inquire about the experiences of Taiwanese who have undergone compulsory hospitalization, compulsory community treatment, and compulsory medical care. The interviews aimed to explore their feelings when they were subjected to compulsory medical intervention, the inside of their illness, their opinions after treatments, and whether alternative medical interventions proposed by them were considered. Additionally, participants also asked about their personal life history and their support networks in their lives. We collected 12 Taiwanese who had experienced compulsory medical interventions and were interviewed 14 times. The findings indicated that participants still possessed rationality during the onset of their illness. However, when they have other treatments to replace compulsory medical, they sometimes diverge from those of the doctors and their families. Finally, doctors prefer their professional judgment and patients' families' option. Therefore, Taiwanese mental health patients' power of decision-making still needs to improve. Because this research uses qualitative research, so difficult to find participants, and the sample size rate was smaller than Taiwan's population, it may have biases in the analysis. So, Taiwan still has significant progress in enhancing the decision-making rights of participants in the study.

Keywords: medical decision making, compulsory treatment, medical ethics, mental health act

Procedia PDF Downloads 80

Authors: K. Thamizhmaran, Akshaya Devi Arivazhagan, M. Anitha

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On the case of most important systematic issue that must need to be solved in means of implementing a data transmission algorithm on the source of Mobile adhoc networks (MANETs). That is, how to save mobile nodes energy on meeting the requirements of applications or users as the mobile nodes are with battery limited. On while satisfying the energy saving requirement, hence it is also necessary of need to achieve the quality of service. In case of emergency work, it is necessary to deliver the data on mean time. Achieving quality of service in MANETs is also important on while. In order to achieve this requirement, Hence, we further implement the Energy-Aware routing protocol for system of Mobile adhoc networks were it being proposed, that on which saves the energy as on every node by means of efficiently selecting the mode of energy efficient path in the routing process by means of Enhanced AODV routing protocol.

Keywords: Ad-Hoc networks, MANET, routing, AODV, EAODV

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Authors: Elkington Sibusiso Mnguni

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The Mokolo-Crocodile Water Augmentation Project (MCWAP) is located in the Limpopo Province in the northern-western part of South Africa. Its purpose is to increase water supply by 30 million cubic meters per year to meet current and future demand for users, including power stations, mining houses, and the local municipality in the Lephalale area. This paper documents the planning and implementation aspects of the MCWAP infrastructure project. The study will add to the body of knowledge with respect to bulk water infrastructure development in water-scarce regions. The method used to gather and collate relevant data and information was the desktop study. The key finding was that the project was successfully completed in 2015 using conventional project management and construction methods. The project is currently being operated and maintained by the National Department of Water and Sanitation.

Keywords: construction, contract management, infrastructure project, project management

Procedia PDF Downloads 302

Authors: Sumaiya Amir Khan, Shayma Al-Sharif, Samiha Mazher, Neha Intikhab Khan

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This research paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of sleep-tracking AI applications in smart-watches. It focuses on comparing the sleep analyses of two different smartwatch brands, Samsung and Fitbit, and measuring sleep at three different stages – REM (Rapid-Eye-Movement), NREM (Non-Rapid-Eye-Movement), and deep sleep. The methodology involves the participation of different users and analyzing their sleep data. The results reveal that although light sleep is the longest stage, deep sleep is higher than average in the participants. The study also suggests that light sleep is not uniform, and getting higher levels of deep sleep can prevent debilitating health conditions. Based on the findings, it is recommended that individuals should aim to achieve higher levels of deep sleep to maintain good health. Overall, this research contributes to the growing literature on the effectiveness of sleep-tracking AI applications and their potential to improve sleep quality.

Keywords: sleep tracking, lifestyle, accuracy, health, AI, AI features, ML

Procedia PDF Downloads 79

Authors: Érica Lima

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In the digital era, in which we have an avalanche of information, it is not new that the Internet has brought new modes of communication and knowledge access. Characterized by the multiplicity of discourses, opinions, beliefs and cultures, the web is a space of political-ideological dimensions where people (who often do not know each other) interact and create representations, deconstruct stereotypes, and redefine identities. Currently, the translator needs to be able to deal with digital spaces ranging from specific software to social media, which inevitably impact on his professional life. One of the most impactful ways of being seen in cyberspace is the participation in social networking groups. In addition to its ability to disseminate information among participants, social networking groups allow a significant personal and social exposure. Such exposure is due to the visibility of each participant achieved not only on its personal profile page, but also in each comment or post the person makes in the groups. The objective of this paper is to study the representations of translators and translation process on the Internet, more specifically in publications in two Brazilian groups of great influence on the Facebook: "Translators/Interpreters" and "Translators, Interpreters and Curious". These chosen groups represent the changes the network has brought to the profession, including the way translators are seen and see themselves. The analyzed posts allowed a reading of what common sense seems to think about the translator as opposed to what the translators seem to think about themselves as a professional class. The results of the analysis lead to the conclusion that these two positions are antagonistic and sometimes represent conflict of interests: on the one hand, the society in general consider the translator’s work something easy, therefore it is not necessary to be well remunerated; on the other hand, the translators who know how complex a translation process is and how much it takes to be a good professional. The results also reveal that social networking sites such as Facebook provide more visibility, but it takes a more active role from the translator to achieve a greater appreciation of the profession and more recognition of the role of the translator, especially in face of increasingly development of automatic translation programs.

Keywords: Facebook, social representation, translation, translator

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Authors: Pallavi Malhotra

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This paper examines the importance of ethics in cloud computing. In the modern society, cloud computing is offering individuals and businesses an unlimited space for storing and processing data or information. Most of the data and information stored in the cloud by various users such as banks, doctors, architects, engineers, lawyers, consulting firms, and financial institutions among others require a high level of confidentiality and safeguard. Cloud computing offers centralized storage and processing of data, and this has immensely contributed to the growth of businesses and improved sharing of information over the internet. However, the accessibility and management of data and servers by a third party raise concerns regarding the privacy of clients’ information and the possible manipulations of the data by third parties. This document suggests the approaches various stakeholders should take to address various ethical issues involving cloud-computing services. Ethical education and training is key to all stakeholders involved in the handling of data and information stored or being processed in the cloud.

Keywords: IT ethics, cloud computing technology, cloud privacy and security, ethical education

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Authors: Aymen Gammoudi, Hamza Labbaci, Nizar Messai, Yacine Sam

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Web Service Composition (Mash-up) has been considered as a new approach used to offer the user a set of Web Services responding to his request. These approaches can return a set of similar Mash-ups in a given context that makes users unable to select the perfect one. Recent approaches focus on computing the skyline over a set of Quality of Service (QoS) attributes. However, these approaches are not sufficient in a dynamic web service environment where the delivered QoS by a Web service is inherently uncertain. In this paper, we treat the problem of computing the skyline over a set of similar Mash-ups under certain dimension values. We generate dimensions for each Mash-up using aggregation operations applied to the QoS attributes. We then tackle the problem of computing the skyline under uncertain dimensions. We present each dimension value of mash-up using a frame of discernment and introduce the d-dominance using the Evidence Theory. Finally, we propose our experimental results that show both the effectiveness of the introduced skyline extensions and the efficiency of the proposed approaches.

Keywords: web services, uncertain QoS, mash-ups, uncertain dimensions, skyline, evidence theory, d-dominance

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Authors: Mohamed Sanad, Noha Hassan

Abstract:

A broadband resonant terminal antenna has been developed. It can be used in different MIMO arrangements such as 2x2, 4x4, 8x8, or even 12x12 MIMO configurations. The antenna covers the whole LTE and WiFi bands besides the existing 2G/3G bands (700-5800 MHz), without using any matching/tuning circuits. Matching circuits significantly reduce the efficiency of any antenna and reduce the battery life. They also reduce the bandwidth because they are frequency dependent. The antenna can be implemented in smartphone handsets, tablets, laptops, notebooks or any other terminal. It is also suitable for different IoT and vehicle applications. The antenna is manufactured from a flexible material and can be bent or folded and shaped in any form to fit any available space in any terminal. It is self-contained and does not need to use the ground plane, the chassis or any other component of the terminal. Hence, it can be mounted on any terminal at different positions and configurations. Its performance does not get affected by the terminal, regardless of its type, shape or size. Moreover, its performance does not get affected by the human body of the terminal’s users. Because of all these unique features of the antenna, multiples of them can be simultaneously used for MIMO diversity coverage in any terminal device with a high isolation and a low correlation factor between them.

Keywords: IOT, LTE, MIMO, terminal antenna, WiFi

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Authors: Tahir Saleem, Mohammad Usman, Nadeem Khan

Abstract:

GPS signals are used for navigation and positioning purposes by a diverse set of users. However, this project intends to utilize the reflected GPS L5 signals for location of target in a region of interest by generating an image that highlights the positions of targets in the area of interest. The principle of bi-static radar is used to detect the targets or any movement or changes. The idea is confirmed by the results obtained during MATLAB simulations. A matched filter based technique is employed in the signal processing to improve the system resolution. The simulation is carried out under different conditions with moving receiver and targets. Noise and attenuation is also induced and atmospheric conditions that affect the direct and reflected GPS signals have been simulated to generate a more practical scenario. A realistic GPS L5 signal has been simulated, the simulation results verify that the detection and imaging of targets is possible by employing reflected GPS using L5 signals and matched filter processing technique with acceptable spatial resolution.

Keywords: GPS, L5 Signal, SAR, spatial resolution

Procedia PDF Downloads 534

Authors: Laidi Maamar, Hanini Salah

Abstract:

The present work investigates the potential of artificial neural network (ANN) model to predict the horizontal global solar radiation (HGSR). The ANN is developed and optimized using three years meteorological database from 2011 to 2013 available at the meteorological station of Blida (Blida 1 university, Algeria, Latitude 36.5°, Longitude 2.81° and 163 m above mean sea level). Optimal configuration of the ANN model has been determined by minimizing the Root Means Square Error (RMSE) and maximizing the correlation coefficient (R2) between observed and predicted data with the ANN model. To select the best ANN architecture, we have conducted several tests by using different combinations of parameters. A two-layer ANN model with six hidden neurons has been found as an optimal topology with (RMSE=4.036 W/m²) and (R²=0.999). A graphical user interface (GUI), was designed based on the best network structure and training algorithm, to enhance the users’ friendliness application of the model.

Keywords: artificial neural network, global solar radiation, solar energy, prediction, Algeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 498

Authors: Attaullah Khawaja, Amna Shabbir

Abstract:

Channel inversion is one of the simplest techniques for multiuser downlink systems with single-antenna users. In this paper regularized channel inversion under equal power constraint in the multiuser multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) broadcast channels has been considered. Sum capacity with plain channel inversion also known as Zero Forcing Beam Forming (ZFBF) and optimum sum capacity using Dirty Paper Coding (DPC) has also been investigated. Analysis and simulations show that regularization enhances the system performance and empower linear growth in Sum Capacity and specially work well at low signal to noise ratio (SNRs) regime.

Keywords: broadcast channel, channel inversion, multiple antenna multiple-user wireless, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), regularization, dirty paper coding (DPC), sum capacity

Procedia PDF Downloads 527

Authors: Ch. Sridevi, S. P. Shailender Kumar, B. Gurudayal, A. Chalapathi Rao, K. Koteswara Rao, P. Srinivasulu

Abstract:

System reliability and system availability evaluation plays a crucial role in ensuring the seamless operation of complex satellite data reception system with consistent performance for longer periods. This paper presents a novel approach for the same using a case study on one of the antenna systems at satellite data reception ground station in India. The methodology involves analyzing system's components, their failure rates, system's architecture, generation of logical reliability block diagram model and estimating the reliability of the system using the component level mean time between failures considering exponential distribution to derive a baseline estimate of the system's reliability. The model is then validated with collected system level field failure data from the operational satellite data reception systems that includes failure occurred, failure time, criticality of the failure and repair times by using statistical techniques like median rank, regression and Weibull analysis to extract meaningful insights regarding failure patterns and practical reliability of the system and to assess the accuracy of the developed reliability model. The study mainly focused on identification of critical units within the system, which are prone to failures and have a significant impact on overall performance and brought out a reliability model of the identified critical unit. This model takes into account the interdependencies among system components and their impact on overall system reliability and provides valuable insights into the performance of the system to understand the Improvement or degradation of the system over a period of time and will be the vital input to arrive at the optimized design for future development. It also provides a plug and play framework to understand the effect on performance of the system in case of any up gradations or new designs of the unit. It helps in effective planning and formulating contingency plans to address potential system failures, ensuring the continuity of operations. Furthermore, to instill confidence in system users, the duration for which the system can operate continuously with the desired level of 3 sigma reliability was estimated that turned out to be a vital input to maintenance plan. System availability and station availability was also assessed by considering scenarios of clash and non-clash to determine the overall system performance and potential bottlenecks. Overall, this paper establishes a comprehensive methodology for reliability and availability analysis of complex satellite data reception systems. The results derived from this approach facilitate effective planning contingency measures, and provide users with confidence in system performance and enables decision-makers to make informed choices about system maintenance, upgrades and replacements. It also aids in identifying critical units and assessing system availability in various scenarios and helps in minimizing downtime and optimizing resource allocation.

Keywords: exponential distribution, reliability modeling, reliability block diagram, satellite data reception system, system availability, weibull analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 84

Authors: Aswitha Bachala

Abstract:

Energy shortage became a worldwide major problem since the 1970s, due to high energy consumption. Buildings are the primary energy users which consume 40% of global energy consumption, in which, 40%-50% of building’s energy usage is consumed due to its envelope. In hot and dry climates, 40% of energy is consumed only for cooling purpose, which implies major portion of energy savings can be worked through the envelopes. Biomimicry can be one solution for extracting efficient thermoregulation strategies found in nature. This paper aims to identify different biomimetic building envelopes which shall offer a higher potential to reduce energy consumption in hot and dry climates. It focuses on investigating the scope for reducing energy consumption through biomimetic approach in terms of envelopes. An in-depth research on different biomimetic building envelopes will be presented and analyzed in terms of heat absorption, in addition to, the impact it had on reducing the buildings energy consumption. This helps to understand feasible biomimetic building envelopes to mitigate heat absorption in hot and dry climates.

Keywords: biomimicry, building envelopes, energy consumption, hot and dry climate

Procedia PDF Downloads 215