Search results for: Geographic Information System

Authors: Krish Batra

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The advent of open banking has revolutionized the financial services industry by fostering innovation, enhancing customer experience, and promoting competition. However, this paradigm shift towards more open and interconnected banking ecosystems has introduced complex cybersecurity challenges. This research paper delves into the multifaceted cybersecurity landscape of open banking, highlighting the vulnerabilities and threats inherent in sharing financial data across a network of banks and third-party providers. Through a detailed analysis of recent data breaches, phishing attacks, and other cyber incidents, the paper assesses the current state of cybersecurity within the open banking framework. It examines the effectiveness of existing security measures, such as encryption, API security protocols, and authentication mechanisms, in protecting sensitive financial information. Furthermore, the paper explores the regulatory response to these challenges, including the implementation of standards such as PSD2 in Europe and similar initiatives globally. By identifying gaps in current cybersecurity practices, the research aims to propose a set of robust, forward-looking strategies that can enhance the security and resilience of open banking systems. This includes recommendations for banks, third-party providers, regulators, and consumers on how to mitigate risks and ensure a secure open banking environment. The ultimate goal is to provide stakeholders with a comprehensive understanding of the cybersecurity implications of open banking and to outline actionable steps for safeguarding the financial ecosystem in an increasingly interconnected world.

Keywords: open banking, financial services industry, cybersecurity challenges, data breaches, phishing attacks, encryption, API security protocols, authentication mechanisms, regulatory response, PSD2, cybersecurity practices

Procedia PDF Downloads 37

Authors: AlHanoof A. Alharbi, Fatima M. Alamoudi, Razan A. Albrahim, Sarah F. Alharbi, Abdullah M Almuhaideb, Norah A. Almubairik, Abdulrahman Alharby, Naya M. Nagy

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Recently, drones received a rapid interest in different industries worldwide due to its powerful impact. However, limitations still exist in this emerging technology, especially privacy violation. These aircrafts consistently threaten the security of entities by entering restricted areas accidentally or deliberately. Therefore, this research project aims to develop drone detection and prevention mechanism to protect the restricted area. Until now, none of the solutions have met the optimal requirements of detection which are cost-effectiveness, high accuracy, long range, convenience, unaffected by noise and generalization. In terms of prevention, the existing methods are focusing on impractical solutions such as catching a drone by a larger drone, training an eagle or a gun. In addition, the practical solutions have limitations, such as the No-Fly Zone and PITBULL jammers. According to our study and analysis of previous related works, none of the solutions includes detection and prevention at the same time. The proposed solution is a combination of detection and prevention methods. To implement the detection system, a passive radar will be used to properly identify the drone against any possible flying objects. As for the prevention, jamming signals and forceful safe landing of the drone integrated together to stop the drone’s operation. We believe that applying this mechanism will limit the drone’s invasion of privacy incidents against highly restricted properties. Consequently, it effectively accelerates drones‘ usages at personal and governmental levels.

Keywords: detection, drone, jamming, prevention, privacy, RF, radar, UAV

Procedia PDF Downloads 194

Authors: Khaled M. Ali, M. A. Abdel-Hamid, Ayman A. Mostafa

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Objective: Safety and efficacy of Ahmed glaucoma valve implantation for the management of uveitis induced glaucoma evaluated on the five dogs with uncontrollable glaucoma. Materials and Methods: Ahmed Glaucoma Valve (AGV®; New World Medical, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA) is a flow restrictive, non-obstructive self-regulating valve system. Preoperative ocular evaluation included direct ophthalmoscopy and measurement of the intraocular pressure (IOP). The implant was examined and primed prior to implantation. The selected site of the valve implantation was the superior quadrant between the superior and lateral rectus muscles. A fornix-based incision was made through the conjunectiva and Tenon’s capsule. A pocket is formed by blunt dissection of Tenon’s capsule from the episclera. The body of the implant was inserted into the pocket with the leading edge of the device around 8-10 mm from the limbus. Results: No post operative complications were detected in the operated eyes except a persistent corneal edema occupied the upper half of the cornea in one case. Hyphaema was very mild and seen only in two cases which resolved quickly two days after surgery. Endoscopical evaluation for the operated eyes revealed a normal ocular fundus with clearly visible optic papilla, tapetum and retinal blood vessels. No evidence of hemorrhage, infection, adhesions or retinal abnormalities was detected. Conclusion: Ahmed glaucoma valve is safe and effective implant for treatment of uveitic glaucoma in dogs.

Keywords: Ahmed valve, endoscopy, glaucoma, ocular fundus

Procedia PDF Downloads 568

Authors: Muhammad Yousaf Ali, Shahid Mansoor, Javeria Qazi, Imran Amin, Musarrat Shaheen

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Cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) is the major threat to the cotton crop and is transmitted by whitefly (Bemisia tabaci). Since multiple begomoviruses and associated satellites are involved in CLCuD, approaches based on the concept of broad-spectrum resistance are essential for effective disease control. Gro-El and G5 are two proteins from whitefly endosymbiont and M13 bacteriophage origin, respectively. Gro-El encapsulates the virus particle when it enters the whitefly and protects the virus from the immune system of the whitefly as well as prevents viral expression in it. This characteristic of Gro-El can be exploited to get resistance against viruses if expressed in plants. G5 is a single-stranded DNA binding protein, expression of which in transgenic plants will stop viral expression on its binding with ssDNA. The use of tissue-specific promoters is more efficient than constitutive promoters. Transgenics of Nicotiana benthamiana for Gro-El under constitutive promoter and Gro-El under phloem specific promoter were made. In comparison to non-transgenic plants, transgenic plants with Gro-El under NSP promoter showed promising results when challenged against cotton leaf curl Multan virus (CLCuMuV) along with cotton leaf curl Multan beta satellite (CLCuMB), cotton leaf curl Khokhran virus (CLCuKoV) along with cotton leaf curl Multan beta satellite (CLCuMB) and Pedilenthus leaf curl virus (PedLCV) along with Tobacco leaf curl beta satellite (TbLCB).

Keywords: cotton leaf curl disease, whitefly, endosymbionts, transgenic, resistance

Procedia PDF Downloads 80

Authors: Yulan Wu

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The spread of fake news on social media has posed significant societal harm to the public and the nation, with its threats spanning various domains, including politics, economics, health, and more. News on social media often covers multiple domains, and existing models studied by researchers and relevant organizations often perform well on datasets from a single domain. However, when these methods are applied to social platforms with news spanning multiple domains, their performance significantly deteriorates. Existing research has attempted to enhance the detection performance of multi-domain datasets by adding single-domain labels to the data. However, these methods overlook the fact that a news article typically belongs to multiple domains, leading to the loss of domain knowledge information contained within the news text. To address this issue, research has found that news records in different domains often use different vocabularies to describe their content. In this paper, we propose a fake news detection framework that combines domain knowledge and expert knowledge. Firstly, it utilizes an unsupervised domain discovery module to generate a low-dimensional vector for each news article, representing domain embeddings, which can retain multi-domain knowledge of the news content. Then, a feature extraction module uses the domain embeddings discovered through unsupervised domain knowledge to guide multiple experts in extracting news knowledge for the total feature representation. Finally, a classifier is used to determine whether the news is fake or not. Experiments show that this approach can improve multi-domain fake news detection performance while reducing the cost of manually labeling domain labels.

Keywords: fake news, deep learning, natural language processing, multiple domains

Procedia PDF Downloads 51

Authors: Harshadkumar Rajgor, Jeff Butterworth

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Background: Barretts oesophagus increases the risk of developing oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Over the last 40 years, there has been a 6 fold increase in the incidence of oesophageal adenocarcinoma in the western world and the incidence rates are increasing at a greater rate than cancers of the colon, breast and lung. Endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) is a relatively new technique being used by 2 centres in the greater midlands cancer network. EMR can be used for curative or staging purposes, for high-grade dysplasia’s and T1 tumours of the oesophagus. EMR is also suitable for those who are deemed high risk for oesophagectomy. EMR has a recurrence rate of 21% according to the Wiesbaden data. Method: A retrospective study of prospectively collected data was carried out involving 24 patients who had EMR for curative or staging purposes. Complications of residual or recurrent disease following EMR that required further treatment were investigated. Results: In 54% of cases residual or recurrent disease was suspected. 96% of patients were given clear and concise information regarding their diagnosis of high-grade dysplasia or T1 tumours. All 24 patients consulted the same specialist healthcare team. Conclusion: EMR is a safe and effective treatment for patients who have high-grade dysplasia and T1NO tumours. In 54% of cases residual or recurrent disease was suspected. Initially, only single resections were undertaken. Multiple resections are now being carried out to reduce the risk of recurrence. Complications from EMR remain low in this series and consisted of a single episode of post procedural bleeding.

Keywords: endoscopic mucosal resection, oesophageal dysplasia, T1 tumours, cancer network

Procedia PDF Downloads 307

Authors: E. Riani, T. T. Irawadi, S. Nurjanah, K. Syamsu, E. G. Said, Suprihatin, M. R. Cordova

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Especially coastal, Indonesian and Chinese communities have utilized sandfish to improve reproduction quality of men. This study aimed to examine the nutrition on sandfish flesh that has the potency to improve reproduction quality of men. The materials used were sandfish with weight of 200-500 g, and then analysis of proximate, analysis of amino acid, analysis of fatty acid and analysis of mineral contained in the sandfish were performed. The results showed that protein content (39.96%) was the main component of the flesh; the carbohydrate and fat were 25.43% and 4.18%, respectively. Sandfish powder contains several essential amino acids and nonessential amino acids. Nine of ten amino acids needed by human body are contained in sandfish powder, i.e. arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine and valine; only tryptophan that are not contained in sandfish powder. Sandfish powder contains saturated fatty acid kaproat, kaprilat, kaprat, laurat, miristat, stearat, arakhidat and behenat; monosaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). MUFA is composed of fatty acid oleat, while PUFA is composed fatty acid omega 3 (linonenat, eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) and omega 6 (linoleat and arakhidonat). The minerals contained in sandfish powder are macrominerals and microminerals. Based on the findings, the nutrition in sandfish powder has a good potency to improve reproduction of men, especially PUFA for the maturation of spermatozoa, zinc for production function and spermatogenesis, motility of spermatozoa, acromoson reaction; Mg for transformation of genetic information and motility of spermatozoa; calcium for spermatogenesis, capacity and fertilization of spermatozoa. Thus, sandfish flesh powder has the potency to improve reproduction quality of men.

Keywords: sandfish flesh powder, nutrition, reproduction quality, men

Procedia PDF Downloads 437

Authors: M. N. Khajavi, S. Nasiri, E. Farokhi, M. R. Bavir

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Alcohol fuels are renewable, have low pollution and have high octane number; therefore, they are important as fuel in internal combustion engines. Percentage detection of these alcoholic fuels with gasoline is a complicated, time consuming, and expensive process. Nowadays, these processes are done in equipped laboratories, based on international standards. The aim of this research is to determine percentage detection of different fuels based on vibration analysis of engine block signals. By doing, so considerable saving in time and cost can be achieved. Five different fuels consisted of pure gasoline (G) as base fuel and combination of this fuel with different percent of ethanol and methanol are prepared. For example, volumetric combination of pure gasoline with 10 percent ethanol is called E10. By this convention, we made M10 (10% methanol plus 90% pure gasoline), E30 (30% ethanol plus 70% pure gasoline), and M30 (30% Methanol plus 70% pure gasoline) were prepared. To simulate real working condition for this experiment, the vehicle was mounted on a chassis dynamometer and run under 1900 rpm and 30 KW load. To measure the engine block vibration, a three axis accelerometer was mounted between cylinder 2 and 3. After acquisition of vibration signal, eight time feature of these signals were used as inputs to an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The designed ANFIS was trained for classifying these five different fuels. The results show suitable classification ability of the designed ANFIS network with 96.3 percent of correct classification.

Keywords: internal combustion engine, vibration signal, fuel composition, classification, ANFIS

Procedia PDF Downloads 388

Authors: Kothuri Sriraman, Mattupalli Komal Teja

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In this paper, a novel algorithm is proposed for the recognition of hulls in a hand written images that might be irregular or digit or character shape. Identification of objects and internal objects is quite difficult to extract, when the structure of the image is having bulk of clusters. The estimation results are easily obtained while going through identifying the sub-regional objects by using the SASK algorithm. Focusing mainly to recognize the number of internal objects exist in a given image, so as it is shadow-free and error-free. The hard clustering and density clustering process of obtained image rough set is used to recognize the differentiated internal objects, if any. In order to find out the internal hull regions it involves three steps pre-processing, Boundary Extraction and finally, apply the Hull Detection system. By detecting the sub-regional hulls it can increase the machine learning capability in detection of characters and it can also be extend in order to get the hull recognition even in irregular shape objects like wise black holes in the space exploration with their intensities. Layered hulls are those having the structured layers inside while it is useful in the Military Services and Traffic to identify the number of vehicles or persons. This proposed SASK algorithm is helpful in making of that kind of identifying the regions and can useful in undergo for the decision process (to clear the traffic, to identify the number of persons in the opponent’s in the war).

Keywords: chain code, Hull regions, Hough transform, Hull recognition, Layered Outline Extraction, SASK algorithm

Procedia PDF Downloads 329

Authors: Bahram Khan, Anderson Rocha Ramos, Rui R. Paulo, Fernando J. Velez

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With the growing demand for a new blend of applications, the users dependency on the internet is increasing day by day. Mobile internet users are giving more attention to their own experiences, especially in terms of communication reliability, high data rates and service stability on move. This increase in the demand is causing saturation of existing radio frequency bands. To address these challenges, researchers are investigating the best approaches, Carrier Aggregation (CA) is one of the newest innovations, which seems to fulfill the demands of the future spectrum, also CA is one the most important feature for Long Term Evolution - Advanced (LTE-Advanced). For this purpose to get the upcoming International Mobile Telecommunication Advanced (IMT-Advanced) mobile requirements (1 Gb/s peak data rate), the CA scheme is presented by 3GPP, which would sustain a high data rate using widespread frequency bandwidth up to 100 MHz. Technical issues such as aggregation structure, its implementations, deployment scenarios, control signal techniques, and challenges for CA technique in LTE-Advanced, with consideration of backward compatibility, are highlighted in this paper. Also, performance evaluation in macro-cellular scenarios through a simulation approach is presented, which shows the benefits of applying CA, low-complexity multi-band schedulers in service quality, system capacity enhancement and concluded that enhanced multi-band scheduler is less complex than the general multi-band scheduler, which performs better for a cell radius longer than 1800 m (and a PLR threshold of 2%).

Keywords: component carrier, carrier aggregation, LTE-advanced, scheduling

Procedia PDF Downloads 176

Authors: Ho-Dae Chong, Jong-Kil Kim

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Collaborative research has become more prevalent and important across disciplines because it stimulates innovation and interaction between scholars. Seeing as existing studies relatively disregarded the institutional conditions triggering collaborative research, this work aims to analyze the changing trend in collaborative work patterns among Korean social scientists. The focus of this research is the performance of social scientists who received research grants through the government’s Social Science Korea (SSK) program. Using quantitative statistical methods, collaborative research patterns in a total of 2,354 papers published under the umbrella of the SSK program in peer-reviewed scholarly journals from 2013 to 2016 were examined to identify changing trends and triggering factors in collaborative research. A notable finding is that the share of collaborative research is overwhelmingly higher than that of individual research. In particular, levels of collaborative research surpassed 70%, increasing much quicker compared to other research done in the social sciences. Additionally, the most common composition of collaborative research was for two or three researchers to conduct joint research as coauthors, and this proportion has also increased steadily. Finally, a strong association between international journals and co-authorship patterns was found for the papers published by SSK program researchers from 2013 to 2016. The SSK program can be seen as the driving force behind collaboration between social scientists. Its emphasis on competition through a merit-based financial support system along with a rigorous evaluation process seems to have influenced researchers to cooperate with those who have similar research interests.

Keywords: coauthorship, collaboration, competition, cooperation, Social Science Korea, policy

Procedia PDF Downloads 212

Authors: Seyyed Kavous Abbasi

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Technical and professional branch is a subcategory of high school educational system. It deals with the programs which have been designed for the promotion of applied science and necessary skill and growth of potential talents in students. The purpose of performance of this branch is preparing of preponderance of in police in different section of industries and service. The aim of this research is the survey of group relation family, economic, educational and individual factors and the student's tendency toward technical professional courses. The method of the study is descriptive survey. 195 subjects were chosen randomly from all the male and female students of technical and professional school in Izeh. Instrument for this research was research-made questionnaire consisting of 22 questions on the base of likers spectrum. The reliability of this questionnaire has been estimated 0.8. Analyses of research data has been performed in two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics. Analyses of data has shown that the family factors with average of 3.12, individual factors 3.95, economic factors 3.92 and educational factors 3.57 more than middle level have more effects , in comparison with the factor of group relation with average of 2.79 less than average level in tendency the technical and professional course . Comparison of effective factors in tendency to technical and professional course has shown that individual factors had the most effects and the group relation factors had the least effects. Comparison between male and female subject's ideas showed that there is a different between their ideas about economics and family factors.

Keywords: high school, relation family, individual factors, analysis interest

Procedia PDF Downloads 232

Authors: Khyamling Parane, B. M. Prabhu Prasad, Basavaraj Talawar

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Fast simulations are critical in reducing time to market in CMPs and SoCs. Several simulators have been used to evaluate the performance and power consumed by Network-on-Chips. Researchers and designers rely upon these simulators for design space exploration of NoC architectures. Our experiments show that simulating large NoC topologies take hours to several days for completion. To speed up the simulations, it is necessary to investigate and optimize the hotspots in simulator source code. Among several simulators available, we choose Booksim2.0, as it is being extensively used in the NoC community. In this paper, we analyze the cache and memory system behaviour of Booksim2.0 to accurately monitor input dependent performance bottlenecks. Our measurements show that cache and memory usage patterns vary widely based on the input parameters given to Booksim2.0. Based on these measurements, the cache configuration having least misses has been identified. To further reduce the cache misses, we use software optimization techniques such as removal of unused functions, loop interchanging and replacing post-increment operator with pre-increment operator for non-primitive data types. The cache misses were reduced by 18.52%, 5.34% and 3.91% by employing above technology respectively. We also employ thread parallelization and vectorization to improve the overall performance of Booksim2.0. The OpenMP programming model and SIMD are used for parallelizing and vectorizing the more time-consuming portions of Booksim2.0. Speedups of 2.93x and 3.97x were observed for the Mesh topology with 30 × 30 network size by employing thread parallelization and vectorization respectively.

Keywords: cache behaviour, network-on-chip, performance profiling, vectorization

Procedia PDF Downloads 180

Authors: Mohammed Sherzad

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The Sahara desert covers third of the total surface of Africa with a quarter of this area within the national boundaries of Algeria. Sand drift and deposition is considered one of the major factors of the desertification process in the area. It is estimated that a third of the world's hot arid lands are covered by aeolian sand deposits, forming extensive sand bedforms. The Gourrara region in the Grand Erg Occidental (west of Algerian Sahara) and the region of Souf in the Grand Erg Oriental (east of Algerian Sahara) have been chosen as case studies. These were significant cultural and trading centers for many centuries despite their remote location and their harsh desert environment particularly solar radiation and sand drift and deposition. The architecture of the sustained vernacular settlements in each of the two regions has unique design features for this environment. So do the irrigation systems used - palm groves and the foggara system for capturing and distributing groundwater. However, the ecological balance which enabled the Saharans to live with the desert has been upset. New buildings often use technology based on models imported or imposed from areas that climatically have little in common. These make the inhabitants live ‘in the desert’ rather than ‘with the desert’. This paper will describe the qualities of the vernacular architecture and demonstrate its effectiveness and adaptability to the region’s harsh desert environment in comparison with contemporary buildings. Developing design guides and approaches based on lessons from the traditional architecture is important to ensure sustained livelihoods of the inhabitants in these areas.

Keywords: vernacular architecture, desert architecture, hot climate, aeolian sand deposition

Procedia PDF Downloads 456

Authors: Neha Parekh, Divya Ladha, Poonam Wadhwani, Nisha Shah

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Nano scaled materials have attracted tremendous interest as corrosion inhibitor due to their high surface area on the metal surfaces. It is well known that the zinc oxide nanoparticles have higher reactivity towards aqueous acidic solution. This work presents a new method to incorporate zinc oxide nanoparticles with white sesame seeds extract (nano-green inhibitor) for corrosion protection of zinc in acidic medium. The morphology of the zinc oxide nanoparticles was investigated by TEM and DLS. The corrosion inhibition efficiency of the green inhibitor and nano-green inhibitor was determined by Gravimetric and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) methods. Gravimetric measurements suggested that nano-green inhibitor is more effective than green inhibitor. Furthermore, with the increasing temperature, inhibition efficiency increases for both the inhibitors. In addition, it was established the Temkin adsorption isotherm fits well with the experimental data for both the inhibitors. The effect of temperature and Temkin adsorption isotherm revealed Chemisorption mechanism occurring in the system. The activation energy (Ea) and other thermodynamic parameters for inhibition process were calculated. The data of EIS showed that the charge transfer controls the corrosion process. The surface morphology of zinc metal (specimen) in absence and presence of green inhibitor and nano-green inhibitor were performed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) techniques. The outcomes indicated a formation of a protective layer over zinc metal (specimen).

Keywords: corrosion, green inhibitor, nanoparticles, zinc

Procedia PDF Downloads 432

Authors: Asmaa Ahmed Nasr El-Din

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The Egyptian countryside faces many environmental problems in the field of environmental pollution in a wide range due to the current bad behavior patterns towards the environment, where the rural people continued to follow unconscious environmental practices in addition to the lack of environmental awareness among the rural people in terms of legislation, and the damages resulting from those practices. Rural women play an important and vital role that cannot be neglected in the field of reducing environmental pollution and rationalizing environmental resources, and it is their responsibility to maintain the safety of environmental elements such as water, air, food, and soil from pollution, either through limiting their personal practice that leads to the pollution of these elements or from During the upbringing of her children on the right behaviors towards these elements to protect them from pollution and thus avoid the infection of family members with diseases arising from environmental pollution that may affect their health and production capacity. Therefore, the research aimed to identify the level of rural women’s implementation of environmental practices (land, water, air, public health, and food waste), as well as determining the nature of the relationship between the studied independent variables (demographic, social and economic characteristics) and the level of rural women’s implementation of their role in preserving the environment and identifying some women’s information sources rural environment to preserve the environment. The research was conducted in the villages of Tarout and Qam al-Arous in the governorates of Sharkia and BeniSuef, respectively, and a random sample of 333 rural women was selected using the Yamani equation. Statistical ratio analysis, arithmetic mean, Pearson simple correlation coefficient value, and T-test.

Keywords: environment, rural women, EL-sharkia, banuef

Procedia PDF Downloads 91

Authors: Susan P. Teru, Jerome Nyameh

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Many contemporary organizations are placing a greater emphasis on business enterprise systems as a means of generating higher levels of economic development and sustainability. Many business research and literature has also concur that enterprise drive economic development, giving little or no credit to social enterprise, whose profit is reinvest to the community development compare to the business enterprise that share their profit to shareholders. Economic development and corporate sustainability includes economic policies that affect the beneficiaries of the economic entity and how it support corporate sustainability as a multifaceted concept that requires organizational change and adaptation on different levels. In this paper, we provide a closer examination of this suggested link between the social enterprise orientation of an organization and the pursuit of corporate sustainability. We suggest that producing social enterprise increments may be best achieved by orienting social enterprise entrepreneurs system to promote economic development and corporate sustainability, which is the new approach to organizational excellent. To this end, we describe a new approach to the social enterprise process that includes social entrepreneur and the key drivers of economic development and corporate sustainability at each stage. We present a model of social enterprise that incorporates the main ideas of the paper and suggests a new perspective for thinking about how to foster and manage social enterprise to achieve high levels of economic development and corporate sustainability as a new ways of achieving organizational excellence. Specifically, we seek to assess (1) what constitutes a corporate sustainability-oriented organization culture, (2) whether it is possible for organizations to display a unified corporate sustainability as a result of social enterprise (3) whether organizations can become more sustainable through social enterprise change.

Keywords: social enterprise orientation, organization, the pursuit of corporate sustainability, business and management

Procedia PDF Downloads 409

Authors: Paul Saah, Charles Mbohwa, Nelson Sizwe Madonsela

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In the context of developing countries, this study explores a crucial component of economic development by examining the reasons behind the failure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are acknowledged as essential drivers of economic expansion, job creation, and poverty alleviation in emerging countries. This research uses South Africa as a case study to evaluate the reasons why SMEs fail in developing nations. This study explores a quantitative research methodology to investigate the complex causes of SME failures using statistical tools and reliability tests. To ensure the viability of data collection, a sample size of 400 small business owners was chosen using a non-probability selection technique. A closed-ended questionnaire was the primary technique used to obtain detailed information from the participants. Data was analysed and interpreted using computer software packages such as the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the findings, the main reasons why SMEs fail in developing nations are a lack of strategic business planning, a lack of funding, poor management, a lack of innovation, a lack of business research and a low level of education and training. The results of this study show that SMEs can be sustainable and successful as long as they comprehend and use the suggested small business success determining variables into their daily operations. This implies that the more SMEs in developing countries implement the proposed determinant factors of small business success in their business operations the more the businesses are likely to succeed and vice versa.

Keywords: failure, developing countries, SMEs, economic development, South Africa

Procedia PDF Downloads 58

Authors: Rurui Liu

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Universities have been one of the most important institutions in society. They shoulder the responsibility to do research and teach further generations. Therefore, the governance of universities has been a heated topic and has been learned for years. Recently, it witnessed great changes, for example, the massification of Higher Education, marketization, and privatization. As a result, more stakeholders are involved in the governance of Higher Education, among which students’ participation in HE becomes more important. However, the research about students’ participation in HE governance in China is not sufficient, and the situation requires improvement. The paper aims to not only fill in the research gap but also put forward practical suggestions to follow the world’s trend of HE governance. The methodology of this paper is literature analysis with comparative studies between China and western countries. The research points out that the current situation of students’ participation in HE governance is unideal due to problems in three fields, values and concepts, mechanisms and systems, as well as student unions. Then, the policy implications are based on these reasons: universities should highlight students’ status, respect their subjectivity and adhere to the service awareness; the government requires to build a sound legal system while universities should establish complete mechanisms and systems; student unions should be encouraged by universities to take part in HE governance affairs with sufficient funds, and autonomy. On the one hand, this paper is a further application of four rationales (consumerism, political-realism, communitarian, democracy, and consequentialism) created by Luescher‐Mamashela for the inevitable trend of students’ participation in HE governance. On the other hand, the suggestions it made benefit the students, universities, and society in practical ways.

Keywords: students’ participation, higher education governance, Chinese higher education, university power

Procedia PDF Downloads 66

Authors: Yao Song

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Objectives: We aimed to explore the clinicodemographic characteristics and prognosis of grey zone squamous cell cancer (GZSCC) located in the overlapping or ambiguous area of the oral cavity and oropharynx and to identify valuable factors that would improve its differential diagnosis and prognosis. Methods: Information of GZSCC patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database was compared to patients with an oral cavity (OCSCC) and oropharyngeal (OPSCC) squamous cell carcinomas with corresponding HPV status, respectively. Kaplan-Meier method with log-rank test and multivariate Cox regression analysis were applied to assess associations between clinical characteristics and overall survival (OS). A predictive model integrating age, gender, marital status, HPV status, and staging variables was conducted to classify GZSCC patients into three risk groups and verified internally by 10-fold cross validation. Results: A total of 3318 GZSCC, 10792 OPSCC, and 6656 OCSCC patients were identified. HPV-positive GZSCC patients had the best 5-year OS as HPV-positive OPSCC (81% vs. 82%). However, the 5-year OS of HPV-negative/unknown GZSCC (43%/42%) was the worst among all groups, indicating that HPV status and the overlapping nature of tumors were valuable prognostic predictors in GZSCC patients. Compared with the strategy of dividing GZSCC into two groups by HPV status, the predictive model integrating more variables could additionally identify a unique high-risk GZSCC group with the lowest OS rate. Conclusions: GZSCC patients had distinct clinical characteristics and prognoses compared with OPSCC and OCSCC; integrating HPV status and other clinical factors could help distinguish GZSCC and predict their prognosis.

Keywords: GZSCC, OCSCC, OPSCC, HPV

Procedia PDF Downloads 65

Authors: Oxana Vasilyeva

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This paper draws on research in progress focusing on independent art in the Russian Federation. I am using the concept of independent art to mean art free from state control and established restrictive narratives. The Russian state pursues its interests by supporting or forbidding certain forms of art, and art that promotes values in opposition to the official political course is often forbidden. Arguments presented below draw from fieldwork carried out in Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg in June – August 2019, which included in-depth interviews with artists. This research explores socially engaged artistic works and their effect on socio-political state of affairs. It argues that artistic works entering public places have a potential to challenge autocratic system and inspire civil society to be critically engaged and to be capable to resist state propaganda. I am focusing on those artists who have a critical stance towards the current Russian political regime and analyzing their works in terms of transgression. By using the framework of transgression I aim to demonstrate how artists step across existing norms with their art influencing political and social order. To show the connection between the factors mentioned above, I will turn to two examples of transgressive aesthetics; one is individual and another is collective. The first example is Konstantin Benkovich, an artist who makes his works out of steel rebar, which is considered to be a symbol of the lack of freedom, as it is usually encountered in prison settings. The second example is a collective art practice called Monstration. It combines techniques of a demonstration and a carnival atmosphere. In 2019 Monstration was held in 30 Russian cities, despite the dissatisfaction of the authorities.

Keywords: art, culture, resistance, Russia

Procedia PDF Downloads 110

Authors: Hamad Albadr

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With a rapid influence to sustain the needs for global trends that had arisen for the increasing complexities in health-care provision, the increasing number of health professionals at different levels, and the need to assure more equitable access to health care, the great variation in the levels of initial education for health care professional around the world had been assign bachelor's degree as the minimum point of entry to the health professions. This intent had affected all the health care professions including biomedical engineering. In Saudi Arabia, these challenges add more pressure to retain the global trends for associate degree graduates to upgrade their education to the bachelor's degree or called birding. This paper is to review the reality of biomedical technology programs that offered in Saudi Arabia by Technical Colleges or Community Colleges nationwide and the challenges that face these colleges to run such bridging program to achieve the Bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering and the official requirements by the Ministry of Higher Education and to maintain the international standards. The author will use strategic planning methodology for designing the biomedical engineering bridging of bachelor's program by reviewing the responsibilities of the biomedical engineers in hospitals through their job descriptions to determine the job assessment needs in advance to Developing a Curriculum (DACUM) through Instructional System Design (ISD) approach via five steps: Analysis, Design, Development, Implement, Evaluate (ADDIE).

Keywords: bachelor's degree bridging, biomedical engineering program, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh College of Technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 476

Authors: Ajab G. Majidi, Bilal Bingölbali, Adem Akpınar

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This study aims to investigate the amount of energy (economic wave energy potential) that can be obtained from the existing wave energy converters in the high wave energy potential region of the Black Sea in terms of wave energy potential and their performance at different depths in the region. The data needed for this purpose were obtained using the calibrated nested layered SWAN wave modeling program version 41.01AB, which was forced with Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) winds from 1979 to 2009. The wave dataset at a time interval of 2 hours was accumulated for a sub-grid domain for around Karaburun beach in Arnavutkoy, a district of Istanbul city. The annual sea state characteristic matrices for the five different depths along with a vertical line to the coastline were calculated for 31 years. According to the power matrices of different wave energy converter systems and characteristic matrices for each possible installation depth, the probability distribution tables of the specified mean wave period or wave energy period and significant wave height were calculated. Then, by using the relationship between these distribution tables, according to the present wave climate, the energy that the wave energy converter systems at each depth can produce was determined. Thus, the economically feasible potential of the relevant coastal zone was revealed, and the effect of different depths on energy converter systems is presented. The Oceantic at 50, 75 and 100 m depths and Oyster at 5 and 25 m depths presents the best performance. In the 31-year long period 1998 the most and 1989 is the least dynamic year.

Keywords: annual power production, Black Sea, efficiency, power production performance, wave energy converter

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Authors: K. P. Gogoi

Abstract:

The current research study investigates the motivational pattern viz Power motivation among the tribal college students of Assam. The sample consisted of 240 college students (120 tribal and 120 non-tribal) ranging from 18-24 years, 60 males and 60 females for both tribal’s and non-tribal’s. Attempts were made to include all the prominent tribes of Assam viz. Thematic Apperception Test, Power motive Scale and a semi structured interview schedule were used to gather information about their family types, parental deprivation, parental relations, social and political belongingness. Mean, Standard Deviation, and t-test were the statistical measures adopted in this 2x2 factorial design study. In addition to this discriminant analysis has been worked out to strengthen the predictive validity of the obtained data. TAT scores reveal significant difference between the tribal’s and non-tribal on power motivation. However results obtained on gender difference indicates similar scores among both the cultures. Cross validation of the TAT results was done by using the power motive scale by T. S. Dapola which confirms the results on need for power through TAT scores. Power motivation has been studied in three directions i.e. coercion, inducement and restraint. An interesting finding is that on coercion tribal’s score high showing significant difference whereas in inducement or seduction the non-tribal’s scored high showing significant difference. On the other hand on restraint no difference exists between both cultures. Discriminant analysis has been worked out between the variables n-power, coercion, inducement and restraint. Results indicated that inducement or seduction (.502) is the dependent measure which has the most discriminating power between these two cultures.

Keywords: power motivation, tribal, social, political, predictive validity, cross validation, coercion, inducement, restraint

Procedia PDF Downloads 471

Authors: Satyasen Panda, Urmila Bhanja

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In this paper, we have presented and analyzed three-dimensional (3-D) matrices of wavelength/time/space code for optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) networks with NAND subtraction detection technique. The 3-D codes are constructed by integrating a two-dimensional modified quadratic congruence (MQC) code with one-dimensional modified prime (MP) code. The respective encoders and decoders were designed using fiber Bragg gratings and optical delay lines to minimize the bit error rate (BER). The performance analysis of the 3D-OCDMA system is based on measurement of signal to noise ratio (SNR), BER and eye diagram for a different number of simultaneous users. Also, in the analysis, various types of noises and multiple access interference (MAI) effects were considered. The results obtained with NAND detection technique were compared with those obtained with OR and AND subtraction techniques. The comparison results proved that the NAND detection technique with 3-D MQC\MP code can accommodate more number of simultaneous users for longer distances of fiber with minimum BER as compared to OR and AND subtraction techniques. The received optical power is also measured at various levels of BER to analyze the effect of attenuation.

Keywords: Cross Correlation (CC), Three dimensional Optical Code Division Multiple Access (3-D OCDMA), Spectral Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access (SAC-OCDMA), Multiple Access Interference (MAI), Phase Induced Intensity Noise (PIIN), Three Dimensional Modified Quadratic Congruence/Modified Prime (3-D MQC/MP) code

Procedia PDF Downloads 401

Authors: Kelsey Scanlon

Abstract:

Introduction: With the rate of female collegiate and professional athletes on the rise in recent decades, fluctuations in physical performance in relation to the menstrual cycle is an important area of study. PURPOSE: The purpose of this research was to compare differences in upper and lower body maximal anaerobic capacities across a single menstrual cycle. Methode: Participants (n=11) met a total of four times; once for familiarization and again on day 1 of menses (follicular phase), day 14 (ovulation), and day 21 (luteal phase) respectively. Upper body power was assessed using a bench press weight of ~50% of the participant’s predetermined 1-repetition maximum (1-RM) on a ballistic measurement system and variables included peak force (N), mean force (N), peak power (W), mean power (W), and peak velocity (m/s). Lower body power output was collected using a standard Wingate test. The variables of interest were anaerobic capacity (w/kg), peak power (W), mean power (W), fatigue index (W/s), and total work (J). Result: Statistical significance was not observed (p > 0.05) in any of the aforementioned variables after completing multiple one ways of analyses of variances (ANOVAs) with repeated measures on time. Conclusion: Within the parameters of this research, neither female upper nor lower body power output differed across the menstrual cycle when analyzed using 50% of one repetition (1RM) maximal bench press and the 30-second maximal effort cycle ergometer Wingate test. Therefore, researchers should not alter their subject populations due to the incorrect assumption that power output may be influenced by the menstrual cycle.

Keywords: anaerobic, athlete, female, power

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: C. Sridawruang

Abstract:

Young people today has sexual activities differing from those of earlier generations, in that teenagers are likely to have multiple partners, and are frequently in short-term relationships or with partners that are not well known to them. The proportion of teenage mothers in Thailand has increased. Young people were not specifically addressed during the overall very successful HIV-prevention campaigns. Because of this missed opportunity, they are still unaware of the risk of unsafe sexual behavior. Aims: To describe the reproductive health care services in perspectives of rural Thai teenagers Methods: This survey was one part of a mixed method approach taken using survey and focus groups with 439 teenagers aged 12-18 years in 5 villages, Udon Thani, Thailand. The standard questionnaire survey had been used for collecting data. The numeric data was checked and analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Results: Most teenager respondents stated that they do not know where sexual reproductive health services provided for them. Most teenagers felt difficult to access and talk with health staff about sexual related issues. They stated that discussing, or consulting with health providers might not be safe. Teenagers might lose opportunities to access and get advice from health care services. The mean knowledge score of contraception and condom reproductive was 6.34 from a total score 11. Most teenagers especially girls expressed a need for counseling services and reported a need for telephone services. Conclusions: The need of appropriate information focusing on sexual relationships and contraception should be designed to help young people make wise decisions and there should be set health care services for Thai teenagers to make sure that teenagers could access easily. Health care providers need to be trained to improve their knowledge, attitudes and skills in reproductive health care practices for Thai teenagers.

Keywords: youth friendly health services, rural, Thai, teenagers

Procedia PDF Downloads 326

Authors: Elisa Silva, Rui Lança, Fátima Farinha, Miguel José Oliveira, Manuel Duarte Pinheiro, Cátia Miguel

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Tourism is one of the global engines of development. With good planning and management, it can be a positive force, bringing benefits to touristic destinations around the world. However, without constrains, boundaries well established and constant survey, tourism can be very harmful and induce destination’s degradation. In the interest of the tourism sector and the community it is important to develop the destination maintaining its sustainability. The OBSERVE project is an instrument for monitoring and evaluating the sustainability of the region of Algarve. Its main priority is to provide environmental, economic, social-cultural and institutional indicators to support the decision-making process towards a sustainable growth. In the pursuit of the objectives, it is being developed a digital platform where the significant indicators will be continuously updated. It is known that the successful development of a touristic region depends from the careful planning with the commitment of central and regional government, industry, services and community stakeholders. Understand the different perspectives of stakeholders is essential to engage them in the development planning. However, actual stakeholders’ engagement process is complex and not easy to accomplish. To create a consistent system of indicators designed to monitor and evaluate the sustainability performance of a touristic region it is necessary to access the local data and the consideration of the full range of values and uncertainties. This paper presents the OBSERVE project and describes the stakeholders´ engagement process highlighting the contributions, ambitions and constraints.

Keywords: sustainable tourism, stakeholders' engagement, OBSERVE project, Algarve region

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Samuel Mejorado

Abstract:

C. Reinahrdtii serves as one of the most promising organisms from which to obtain biological hydrogen. However, its production catalyst, [FeFe]-hydrogenase, is largely inhibited by the presence of oxygen. In recent years, researchers have identified a Proton Gradient Regulation 5 (PGR5) deficient mutant, which shows enhanced respiration and lower accumulations of oxygen within the system. In this research, we investigated the effects of varying nutrient conditions on PGR5 mutants' ability to produce hydrogen. After growing PGR5 mutants in varying nutrient conditions under 55W fluorescent lamps at 30℃ with constant stirring at 200 rpm, a common water displacement method was utilized to obtain a definitive volumetric reading of hydrogen produced by these mutants over a period of 12 days. After the trials, statistical t-tests and ANOVAs were performed to better determine the effect which nutrient conditions have on PGR5 mutants' ability to produce hydrogen. In this, we report that conditions of sulfur deprivation most optimally enhanced hydrogen production within these mutants, with groups grown under these conditions demonstrating the highest production capacity over the entire 12-day period. Similarly, it was found that when grown under conditions of nitrogen deprivation, a favorable shift towards carbon fixation and overall lipid/starch metabolism was observed. Overall, these results demonstrate that PGR5-deficient mutants stand as a promising source of biohydrogen when grown under conditions of sulfur deprivation. To date, photochemical characteristics of [FeFe]-hydrogenase in these mutants have yet to be investigated under conditions of sulfur deprivation.

Keywords: biofuel, biohydrogen, [FeFe]-hydrogenase, algal biofuel

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Derjew Ayele Ejigu, Houde Song, Xiaojing Liu

Abstract:

This work presents the particle swarm optimization trained neural network (PSO-NN) supervisory proportional integral derivative (PID) control method to monitor the pressurized water reactor (PWR) core power for safe operation. The proposed control approach is implemented on the transfer function of the PWR core, which is computed from the state-space model. The PWR core state-space model is designed from the neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, and reactivity models using perturbation around the equilibrium value. The proposed control approach computes the control rod speed to maneuver the core power to track the reference in a closed-loop scheme. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to train the neural network (NN) and to tune the PID simultaneously. The controller performance is examined using integral absolute error, integral time absolute error, integral square error, and integral time square error functions, and the stability of the system is analyzed by using the Bode diagram. The simulation results indicated that the controller shows satisfactory performance to control and track the load power effectively and smoothly as compared to the PSO-PID control technique. This study will give benefit to design a supervisory controller for nuclear engineering research fields for control application.

Keywords: machine learning, neural network, pressurized water reactor, supervisory controller

Procedia PDF Downloads 139