Search results for: artificial intelligence marketing
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 3514

Search results for: artificial intelligence marketing

1414 Enhancing Early Detection of Coronary Heart Disease Through Cloud-Based AI and Novel Simulation Techniques

Authors: Md. Abu Sufian, Robiqul Islam, Imam Hossain Shajid, Mahesh Hanumanthu, Jarasree Varadarajan, Md. Sipon Miah, Mingbo Niu

Abstract:

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) remains a principal cause of global morbidity and mortality, characterized by atherosclerosis—the build-up of fatty deposits inside the arteries. The study introduces an innovative methodology that leverages cloud-based platforms like AWS Live Streaming and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to early detect and prevent CHD symptoms in web applications. By employing novel simulation processes and AI algorithms, this research aims to significantly mitigate the health and societal impacts of CHD. Methodology: This study introduces a novel simulation process alongside a multi-phased model development strategy. Initially, health-related data, including heart rate variability, blood pressure, lipid profiles, and ECG readings, were collected through user interactions with web-based applications as well as API Integration. The novel simulation process involved creating synthetic datasets that mimic early-stage CHD symptoms, allowing for the refinement and training of AI algorithms under controlled conditions without compromising patient privacy. AWS Live Streaming was utilized to capture real-time health data, which was then processed and analysed using advanced AI techniques. The novel aspect of our methodology lies in the simulation of CHD symptom progression, which provides a dynamic training environment for our AI models enhancing their predictive accuracy and robustness. Model Development: it developed a machine learning model trained on both real and simulated datasets. Incorporating a variety of algorithms including neural networks and ensemble learning model to identify early signs of CHD. The model's continuous learning mechanism allows it to evolve adapting to new data inputs and improving its predictive performance over time. Results and Findings: The deployment of our model yielded promising results. In the validation phase, it achieved an accuracy of 92% in predicting early CHD symptoms surpassing existing models. The precision and recall metrics stood at 89% and 91% respectively, indicating a high level of reliability in identifying at-risk individuals. These results underscore the effectiveness of combining live data streaming with AI in the early detection of CHD. Societal Implications: The implementation of cloud-based AI for CHD symptom detection represents a significant step forward in preventive healthcare. By facilitating early intervention, this approach has the potential to reduce the incidence of CHD-related complications, decrease healthcare costs, and improve patient outcomes. Moreover, the accessibility and scalability of cloud-based solutions democratize advanced health monitoring, making it available to a broader population. This study illustrates the transformative potential of integrating technology and healthcare, setting a new standard for the early detection and management of chronic diseases.

Keywords: coronary heart disease, cloud-based ai, machine learning, novel simulation techniques, early detection, preventive healthcare

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1413 Immuno-Modulatory Role of Weeds in Feeds of Cyprinus Carpio

Authors: Vipin Kumar Verma, Neeta Sehgal, Om Prakash

Abstract:

Cyprinus carpio has a wide spread occurrence in the lakes and rivers of Europe and Asia. Heavy losses in natural environment due to anthropogenic activities, including pollution as well as pathogenic diseases have landed this fish in IUCN red list of vulnerable species. The significance of a suitable diet in preserving the health status of fish is widely recognized. In present study, artificial feed supplemented with leaves of two weed plants, Eichhornia crassipes and Ricinus communis were evaluated for their role on the fish immune system. To achieve this objective fish were acclimatized to laboratory conditions (25 ± 1 °C; 12 L: 12D) for 10 days prior to start of experiment and divided into 4 groups: non-challenged (negative control= A), challenged [positive control (B) and experimental (C & D)]. Group A, B were fed with non-supplemented feed while group C & D were fed with feed supplemented with 5% Eichhornia crassipes and 5% Ricinus communis respectively. Supplemented feeds were evaluated for their effect on growth, health, immune system and disease resistance in fish when challenged with Vibrio harveyi. Fingerlings of C. carpio (weight, 2.0±0.5 g) were exposed with fresh overnight culture of V. harveyi through bath immunization (concentration 2 Χ 105) for 2 hours on 10 days interval for 40 days. The growth was monitored through increase in their relative weight. The rate of mortality due to bacterial infection as well as due to effect of feed was recorded accordingly. Immune response of fish was analyzed through differential leucocyte count, percentage phagocytosis and phagocytic index. The effect of V. harveyi on fish organs were examined through histo-pathological examination of internal organs like spleen, liver and kidney. The change in the immune response was also observed through gene expression analysis. The antioxidant potential of plant extracts was measured through DPPH and FRAP assay and amount of total phenols and flavonoids were calculates through biochemical analysis. The chemical composition of plant’s methanol extracts was determined by GC-MS analysis, which showed presence of various secondary metabolites and other compounds. Investigation revealed immuno-modulatory effect of plants, when supplemented with the artificial feed of fish.

Keywords: immuno-modulation, gc-ms, Cyprinus carpio, Eichhornia crassipes, Ricinus communis

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1412 Ethicality of Algorithmic Pricing and Consumers’ Resistance

Authors: Zainab Atia, Hongwei He, Panagiotis Sarantopoulos

Abstract:

Over the past few years, firms have witnessed a massive increase in sophisticated algorithmic deployment, which has become quite pervasive in today’s modern society. With the wide availability of data for retailers, the ability to track consumers using algorithmic pricing has become an integral option in online platforms. As more companies are transforming their businesses and relying more on massive technological advancement, pricing algorithmic systems have brought attention and given rise to its wide adoption, with many accompanying benefits and challenges to be found within its usage. With the overall aim of increasing profits by organizations, algorithmic pricing is becoming a sound option by enabling suppliers to cut costs, allowing better services, improving efficiency and product availability, and enhancing overall consumer experiences. The adoption of algorithms in retail has been pioneered and widely used in literature across varied fields, including marketing, computer science, engineering, economics, and public policy. However, what is more, alarming today is the comprehensive understanding and focus of this technology and its associated ethical influence on consumers’ perceptions and behaviours. Indeed, due to algorithmic ethical concerns, consumers are found to be reluctant in some instances to share their personal data with retailers, which reduces their retention and leads to negative consumer outcomes in some instances. This, in its turn, raises the question of whether firms can still manifest the acceptance of such technologies by consumers while minimizing the ethical transgressions accompanied by their deployment. As recent modest research within the area of marketing and consumer behavior, the current research advances the literature on algorithmic pricing, pricing ethics, consumers’ perceptions, and price fairness literature. With its empirical focus, this paper aims to contribute to the literature by applying the distinction of the two common types of algorithmic pricing, dynamic and personalized, while measuring their relative effect on consumers’ behavioural outcomes. From a managerial perspective, this research offers significant implications that pertain to providing a better human-machine interactive environment (whether online or offline) to improve both businesses’ overall performance and consumers’ wellbeing. Therefore, by allowing more transparent pricing systems, businesses can harness their generated ethical strategies, which fosters consumers’ loyalty and extend their post-purchase behaviour. Thus, by defining the correct balance of pricing and right measures, whether using dynamic or personalized (or both), managers can hence approach consumers more ethically while taking their expectations and responses at a critical stance.

Keywords: algorithmic pricing, dynamic pricing, personalized pricing, price ethicality

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1411 Enhancing Seismic Resilience in Urban Environments

Authors: Beatriz González-rodrigo, Diego Hidalgo-leiva, Omar Flores, Claudia Germoso, Maribel Jiménez-martínez, Laura Navas-sánchez, Belén Orta, Nicola Tarque, Orlando Hernández- Rubio, Miguel Marchamalo, Juan Gregorio Rejas, Belén Benito-oterino

Abstract:

Cities facing seismic hazard necessitate detailed risk assessments for effective urban planning and vulnerability identification, ensuring the safety and sustainability of urban infrastructure. Comprehensive studies involving seismic hazard, vulnerability, and exposure evaluations are pivotal for estimating potential losses and guiding proactive measures against seismic events. However, broad-scale traditional risk studies limit consideration of specific local threats and identify vulnerable housing within a structural typology. Achieving precise results at neighbourhood levels demands higher resolution seismic hazard exposure, and vulnerability studies. This research aims to bolster sustainability and safety against seismic disasters in three Central American and Caribbean capitals. It integrates geospatial techniques and artificial intelligence into seismic risk studies, proposing cost-effective methods for exposure data collection and damage prediction. The methodology relies on prior seismic threat studies in pilot zones, utilizing existing exposure and vulnerability data in the region. Emphasizing detailed building attributes enables the consideration of behaviour modifiers affecting seismic response. The approach aims to generate detailed risk scenarios, facilitating prioritization of preventive actions pre-, during, and post-seismic events, enhancing decision-making certainty. Detailed risk scenarios necessitate substantial investment in fieldwork, training, research, and methodology development. Regional cooperation becomes crucial given similar seismic threats, urban planning, and construction systems among involved countries. The outcomes hold significance for emergency planning and national and regional construction regulations. The success of this methodology depends on cooperation, investment, and innovative approaches, offering insights and lessons applicable to regions facing moderate seismic threats with vulnerable constructions. Thus, this framework aims to fortify resilience in seismic-prone areas and serves as a reference for global urban planning and disaster management strategies. In conclusion, this research proposes a comprehensive framework for seismic risk assessment in high-risk urban areas, emphasizing detailed studies at finer resolutions for precise vulnerability evaluations. The approach integrates regional cooperation, geospatial technologies, and adaptive fragility curve adjustments to enhance risk assessment accuracy, guiding effective mitigation strategies and emergency management plans.

Keywords: assessment, behaviour modifiers, emergency management, mitigation strategies, resilience, vulnerability

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1410 Identification of Suitable Sites for Rainwater Harvesting in Salt Water Intruded Area by Using Geospatial Techniques in Jafrabad, Amreli District, India

Authors: Pandurang Balwant, Ashutosh Mishra, Jyothi V., Abhay Soni, Padmakar C., Rafat Quamar, Ramesh J.

Abstract:

The sea water intrusion in the coastal aquifers has become one of the major environmental concerns. Although, it is a natural phenomenon but, it can be induced with anthropogenic activities like excessive exploitation of groundwater, seacoast mining, etc. The geological and hydrogeological conditions including groundwater heads and groundwater pumping pattern in the coastal areas also influence the magnitude of seawater intrusion. However, this problem can be remediated by taking some preventive measures like rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge. The present study is an attempt to identify suitable sites for rainwater harvesting in salt intrusion affected area near coastal aquifer of Jafrabad town, Amreli district, Gujrat, India. The physico-chemical water quality results show that out of 25 groundwater samples collected from the study area most of samples were found to contain high concentration of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) with major fractions of Na and Cl ions. The Cl/HCO3 ratio was also found greater than 1 which indicates the salt water contamination in the study area. The geophysical survey was conducted at nine sites within the study area to explore the extent of contamination of sea water. From the inverted resistivity sections, low resistivity zone (<3 Ohm m) associated with seawater contamination were demarcated in North block pit and south block pit of NCJW mines, Mitiyala village Lotpur and Lunsapur village at the depth of 33 m, 12 m, 40 m, 37 m, 24 m respectively. Geospatial techniques in combination of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) considering hydrogeological factors, geographical features, drainage pattern, water quality and geophysical results for the study area were exploited to identify potential zones for the Rainwater Harvesting. Rainwater harvesting suitability model was developed in ArcGIS 10.1 software and Rainwater harvesting suitability map for the study area was generated. AHP in combination of the weighted overlay analysis is an appropriate method to identify rainwater harvesting potential zones. The suitability map can be further utilized as a guidance map for the development of rainwater harvesting infrastructures in the study area for either artificial groundwater recharge facilities or for direct use of harvested rainwater.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process, groundwater quality, rainwater harvesting, seawater intrusion

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1409 Exploring the Relationship among Job Stress, Travel Constraints, and Job Satisfaction of the Employees in Casino Hotels: The Case of Macau

Authors: Tao Zhang

Abstract:

Job stress appears nearly everywhere especially in the hospitality industry because employees in this industry usually have to work long time and try to meet conflicting demands of their customers, managers, and company. To reduce job stress, employees of casino hotels try to perform leisure activities or tourism. However, casino employees often meet many obstacles or constraints when they plan to travel. Until now, there is little understanding as to why casino hotel employees often face many travel constraints or leisure barriers. What is more, few studies explore the relationship between travel constraints and job stress of casino employees. Therefore, this study is to explore the construct of casino hotel employees' travel constraints and the relationship among job stress, travel constraints, and job satisfaction. Using convenient sampling method, this study planned to investigate 500 front line employees and managers of ten casino hotels in Macau. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, and 414 valid questionnaires were received. The return rate of valid questionnaires is 82.8%. Several statistical techniques such as factor analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and regression analysis were applied to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study are as follows. Firstly, by using factor analysis, this study found the travel constraints of casino employees include intrapersonal constraints, interpersonal constraints, and structural constraints. Secondly, by using regression analysis, the study found travel constraints are positively related with job stress while negatively related with job satisfaction. This means reducing travel constraints may create a chance for casino employees to travel so that they could reduce job stress, therefore raise their job satisfaction. Thirdly, this research divided the research samples into three groups by the degree of job stress. The three groups are low satisfaction group, medium satisfaction group, and high satisfaction group. The means values of these groups were compared by t-test. Results showed that there are significant differences of the means values of interpersonal constraints between low satisfaction group and high satisfaction group. This suggests positive interpersonal relationship especially good family member relationship reduce not only job stress but also travel constraints of casino employees. Interestingly, results of t-test showed there is not a significant difference of the means values of structural constraints between low satisfaction group and high satisfaction group. This suggests structural constraints are outside variables which may be related with tourism destination marketing. Destination marketing organizations (DMO) need use all kinds of tools and techniques to promote their tourism destinations so as to reduce structural constraints of casino employees. This research is significant for both theoretical and practical fields. From the theoretical perspective, the study found the internal relationship between travel constraints, job stress, and job satisfaction and the different roles of three dimensions of travel constraints. From the practical perspective, the study provides useful methods to reduce travel constraints and job stress, therefore, raise job satisfaction of casino employees.

Keywords: hotel, job satisfaction, job stress, travel constraints

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1408 An Analysis of the Strategic Pathway to Building a Successful Mobile Advertising Business in Nigeria: From Strategic Intent to Competitive Advantage

Authors: Pius A. Onobhayedo, Eugene A. Ohu

Abstract:

Nigeria has one of the fastest growing mobile telecommunications industry in the world. In the absence of fixed connection access to the Internet, access to the Internet is primarily via mobile devices. It, therefore, provides a test case for how to penetrate the mobile market in an emerging economy. We also hope to contribute to a sparse literature on strategies employed in building successful data-driven mobile businesses in emerging economies. We, therefore, sought to identify and analyse the strategic approach taken in a successful locally born mobile data-driven business in Nigeria. The analysis was carried out through the framework of strategic intent and competitive advantages developed from the conception of the company to date. This study is based on an exploratory investigation of an innovative digital company based in Nigeria specializing in the mobile advertising business. The projected growth and high adoption of mobile in this African country, coinciding with the smartphone revolution triggered by the launch of iPhone in 2007 opened a new entrepreneurial horizon for the founder of the company, who reached the conclusion that ‘the future is mobile’. This dream led to the establishment of three digital businesses, designed for convergence and complementarity of medium and content. The mobile Ad subsidiary soon grew to become a truly African network with operations and campaigns across West, East and South Africa, successfully delivering campaigns in several African countries including Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia amongst others. The company recently declared a 40% year-end profit which was nine times that of the previous financial year. This study drew from an in-depth interview with the company’s founder, analysis of primary and secondary data from and about the business, as well as case studies of digital marketing campaigns. We hinge our analysis on the strategic intent concept which has been proposed to be an engine that drives the quest for sustainable strategic advantage in the global marketplace. Our goal was specifically to identify the strategic intents of the founder and how these were transformed creatively into processes that may have led to some distinct competitive advantages. Along with the strategic intents, we sought to identify the respective absorptive capacities that constituted favourable antecedents to the creation of such competitive advantages. Our recommendations and findings will be pivotal information for anybody wishing to invest in the world’s fastest technology business space - Africa.

Keywords: Africa, competitive advantage, competitive strategy, digital, mobile business, marketing, strategic intent

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1407 Artificial Intelligence Based Method in Identifying Tumour Infiltrating Lymphocytes of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Authors: Nurkhairul Bariyah Baharun, Afzan Adam, Reena Rahayu Md Zin

Abstract:

Tumor microenvironment (TME) in breast cancer is mainly composed of cancer cells, immune cells, and stromal cells. The interaction between cancer cells and their microenvironment plays an important role in tumor development, progression, and treatment response. The TME in breast cancer includes tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) that are implicated in killing tumor cells. TILs can be found in tumor stroma (sTILs) and within the tumor (iTILs). TILs in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) have been demonstrated to have prognostic and potentially predictive value. The international Immune-Oncology Biomarker Working Group (TIL-WG) had developed a guideline focus on the assessment of sTILs using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained slides. According to the guideline, the pathologists use “eye balling” method on the H&E stained- slide for sTILs assessment. This method has low precision, poor interobserver reproducibility, and is time-consuming for a comprehensive evaluation, besides only counted sTILs in their assessment. The TIL-WG has therefore recommended that any algorithm for computational assessment of TILs utilizing the guidelines provided to overcome the limitations of manual assessment, thus providing highly accurate and reliable TILs detection and classification for reproducible and quantitative measurement. This study is carried out to develop a TNBC digital whole slide image (WSI) dataset from H&E-stained slides and IHC (CD4+ and CD8+) stained slides. TNBC cases were retrieved from the database of the Department of Pathology, Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM). TNBC cases diagnosed between the year 2010 and 2021 with no history of other cancer and available block tissue were included in the study (n=58). Tissue blocks were sectioned approximately 4 µm for H&E and IHC stain. The H&E staining was performed according to a well-established protocol. Indirect IHC stain was also performed on the tissue sections using protocol from Diagnostic BioSystems PolyVue™ Plus Kit, USA. The slides were stained with rabbit monoclonal, CD8 antibody (SP16) and Rabbit monoclonal, CD4 antibody (EP204). The selected and quality-checked slides were then scanned using a high-resolution whole slide scanner (Pannoramic DESK II DW- slide scanner) to digitalize the tissue image with a pixel resolution of 20x magnification. A manual TILs (sTILs and iTILs) assessment was then carried out by the appointed pathologist (2 pathologists) for manual TILs scoring from the digital WSIs following the guideline developed by TIL-WG 2014, and the result displayed as the percentage of sTILs and iTILs per mm² stromal and tumour area on the tissue. Following this, we aimed to develop an automated digital image scoring framework that incorporates key elements of manual guidelines (including both sTILs and iTILs) using manually annotated data for robust and objective quantification of TILs in TNBC. From the study, we have developed a digital dataset of TNBC H&E and IHC (CD4+ and CD8+) stained slides. We hope that an automated based scoring method can provide quantitative and interpretable TILs scoring, which correlates with the manual pathologist-derived sTILs and iTILs scoring and thus has potential prognostic implications.

Keywords: automated quantification, digital pathology, triple negative breast cancer, tumour infiltrating lymphocytes

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1406 Grounded Theory of Consumer Loyalty: A Perspective through Video Game Addiction

Authors: Bassam Shaikh, R. S. A. Jumain

Abstract:

Game addiction has become an extremely important topic in psychology researchers, particularly in understanding and explaining why individuals become addicted (to video games). In previous studies, effect of online game addiction on social responsibilities, health problems, government action, and the behaviors of individuals to purchase and the causes of making individuals addicted on the video games has been discussed. Extending these concepts in marketing, it could be argued than the phenomenon could enlighten and extending our understanding on consumer loyalty. This study took the Grounded Theory approach, and found that motivation, satisfaction, fulfillments, exploration and achievements to be part of the important elements that builds consumer loyalty.

Keywords: grounded theory, consumer loyalty, video games, video game addiction

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1405 An Easy Approach for Fabrication of Macroporous Apatite-Based Bone Cement Used As Potential Trabecular Bone Substitute

Authors: Vimal Kumar Dewangan, T. S. Sampath Kumar, Mukesh Doble, Viju Daniel Varghese

Abstract:

The apatite-based, i.e., calcium-deficient hydroxyapatite (CDHAp) bone cement is well-known potential bone graft/substitute in orthopaedics due to its similar chemical composition with natural bone minerals. Therefore, an easy approach was attempted to fabricate the apatite-based (CDHAp) bone cement with improved injectability, bioresorbability, and macroporosity. In this study, the desired bone cement was developed by mixing the solid phase (consisting of wet chemically synthesized nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite and commercially available (synthetic) tricalcium phosphate) and the liquid phase (consisting of cement binding accelerator with few biopolymers in a dilute acidic solution) along with a liquid porogen as polysorbate or a solid porogen as mannitol (for comparison) in an optimized liquid-to-powder ratio. The fabricated cement sets within clinically preferred setting time (≤20 minutes) are better injectable (>70%) and also stable at ~7.3-7.4 (physiological pH). The CDHAp phased bone cement was resulted by immersing the fabricated after-set cement in phosphate buffer solution and other similar artificial body fluids and incubated at physiological conditions for seven days, confirmed through the X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy analyses. The so-formed synthetic apatite-based bone cement holds the acceptable compressive strength (within the range of trabecular bone) with average interconnected pores size falls in a macropores range (~50-200μm) inside the cement, verified by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mercury intrusion porosimetry and micro-CT analysis techniques. Also, it is biodegradable (degrades ~19-22% within 10-12 weeks) when incubated in artificial body fluids under physiological conditions. The biocompatibility study of the bone cement, when incubated with MG63 cells, shows a significant increase in the cell viability after 3rd day of incubation compared with the control, and the cells were well-attached and spread completely on the surface of the bone cement, confirmed through SEM and fluorescence microscopy analyses. With this all, we can conclude that the developed synthetic macroporous apatite-based bone cement may have the potential to become promising material used as a trabecular bone substitute.

Keywords: calcium deficient hydroxyapatite, synthetic apatite-based bone cement, injectability, macroporosity, trabecular bone substitute

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1404 Scope of Rainwater Harvesting in Residential Plots of Dhaka City

Authors: Jubaida Gulshan Ara, Zebun Nasreen Ahmed

Abstract:

Urban flood and drought has been a major problem of Dhaka city, particularly in recent years. Continuous increase of the city built up area, and limiting rainwater infiltration zone, are thought to be the main causes of the problem. Proper rainwater management, even at the individual plot level, might bring significant improvement in this regard. As residential use pattern occupies a significant portion of the city surface, the scope of rainwater harvesting (RWH) in residential buildings can be investigated. This paper reports on a research which explored the scope of rainwater harvesting in residential plots, with multifamily apartment buildings, in Dhaka city. The research investigated the basics of RWH, contextual information, i.e., hydro-geological, meteorological data of Dhaka city and the rules and legislations for residential building construction. The study also explored contemporary rainwater harvesting practices in the local and international contexts. On the basis of theoretical understanding, 21 sample case-studies, in different phases of construction, were selected from seven different categories of plot sizes, in different residential areas of Dhaka city. Primary data from the 21 case-study buildings were collected from a physical survey, from design drawings, accompanied by a questionnaire survey. All necessary secondary data were gathered from published and other relevant sources. Collected primary and secondary data were used to calculate and analyze the RWH needs for each case study, based on the theoretical understanding. The main findings have been compiled and compared, to observe residential development trends with regards to building rainwater harvesting system. The study has found that, in ‘Multifamily Apartment Building’ of Dhaka city, storage, and recharge structure size for rainwater harvesting, increases along with occupants’ number, and with the increasing size of the plot. Hence, demand vs. supply ratio remains almost the same for different sizes of plots, and consequently, the size of the storage structure increases significantly, in large-scale plots. It has been found that rainwater can meet only 12%-30% of the total restricted water demand of these residential buildings of Dhaka city. Therefore, artificial groundwater recharge might be the more suitable option for RWH, than storage. The study came up with this conclusion that, in multifamily residential apartments of Dhaka city, artificial groundwater recharge might be the more suitable option for RWH, than storing the rainwater on site.

Keywords: Dhaka city, rainwater harvesting, residential plots, urban flood

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1403 Market Index Trend Prediction using Deep Learning and Risk Analysis

Authors: Shervin Alaei, Reza Moradi

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Trading in financial markets is subject to risks due to their high volatilities. Here, using an LSTM neural network, and by doing some risk-based feature engineering tasks, we developed a method that can accurately predict trends of the Tehran stock exchange market index from a few days ago. Our test results have shown that the proposed method with an average prediction accuracy of more than 94% is superior to the other common machine learning algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work incorporating deep learning and risk factors to accurately predict market trends.

Keywords: deep learning, LSTM, trend prediction, risk management, artificial neural networks

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1402 Entrepreneurship and the Discovery and Exploitation of Business Opportunities: Empirical Evidence from the Malawian Tourism Sector

Authors: Aravind Mohan Krishnan

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This paper identifies a research gap in the literature on tourism entrepreneurship in Malawi, Africa, and investigates how entrepreneurs from the Malawian tourism sector discover and exploit business opportunities. In particular, the importance of prior experience and business networks in the opportunity development process is debated. Another area of empirical research examined here is the opportunity recognition-venture creation sequence. While Malawi presents fruitful business opportunities, exploiting these opportunities into fully realized business ideas is a real challenge due to the country’s difficult business environment and poor promotional and marketing efforts. The study concludes by calling for further research in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to develop our understanding of entrepreneurship in this (African) context.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, Malawi, opportunities, tourism

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1401 The Extent of Virgin Olive-Oil Prices' Distribution Revealing the Behavior of Market Speculators

Authors: Fathi Abid, Bilel Kaffel

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The olive tree, the olive harvest during winter season and the production of olive oil better known by professionals under the name of the crushing operation have interested institutional traders such as olive-oil offices and private companies such as food industry refining and extracting pomace olive oil as well as export-import public and private companies specializing in olive oil. The major problem facing producers of olive oil each winter campaign, contrary to what is expected, it is not whether the harvest will be good or not but whether the sale price will allow them to cover production costs and achieve a reasonable margin of profit or not. These questions are entirely legitimate if we judge by the importance of the issue and the heavy complexity of the uncertainty and competition made tougher by a high level of indebtedness and the experience and expertise of speculators and producers whose objectives are sometimes conflicting. The aim of this paper is to study the formation mechanism of olive oil prices in order to learn about speculators’ behavior and expectations in the market, how they contribute by their industry knowledge and their financial alliances and the size the financial challenge that may be involved for them to build private information hoses globally to take advantage. The methodology used in this paper is based on two stages, in the first stage we study econometrically the formation mechanisms of olive oil price in order to understand the market participant behavior by implementing ARMA, SARMA, GARCH and stochastic diffusion processes models, the second stage is devoted to prediction purposes, we use a combined wavelet- ANN approach. Our main findings indicate that olive oil market participants interact with each other in a way that they promote stylized facts formation. The unstable participant’s behaviors create the volatility clustering, non-linearity dependent and cyclicity phenomena. By imitating each other in some periods of the campaign, different participants contribute to the fat tails observed in the olive oil price distribution. The best prediction model for the olive oil price is based on a back propagation artificial neural network approach with input information based on wavelet decomposition and recent past history.

Keywords: olive oil price, stylized facts, ARMA model, SARMA model, GARCH model, combined wavelet-artificial neural network, continuous-time stochastic volatility mode

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1400 Pattern Identification in Statistical Process Control Using Artificial Neural Networks

Authors: M. Pramila Devi, N. V. N. Indra Kiran

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Control charts, predominantly in the form of X-bar chart, are important tools in statistical process control (SPC). They are useful in determining whether a process is behaving as intended or there are some unnatural causes of variation. A process is out of control if a point falls outside the control limits or a series of point’s exhibit an unnatural pattern. In this paper, a study is carried out on four training algorithms for CCPs recognition. For those algorithms optimal structure is identified and then they are studied for type I and type II errors for generalization without early stopping and with early stopping and the best one is proposed.

Keywords: control chart pattern recognition, neural network, backpropagation, generalization, early stopping

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1399 Facial Emotion Recognition Using Deep Learning

Authors: Ashutosh Mishra, Nikhil Goyal

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A 3D facial emotion recognition model based on deep learning is proposed in this paper. Two convolution layers and a pooling layer are employed in the deep learning architecture. After the convolution process, the pooling is finished. The probabilities for various classes of human faces are calculated using the sigmoid activation function. To verify the efficiency of deep learning-based systems, a set of faces. The Kaggle dataset is used to verify the accuracy of a deep learning-based face recognition model. The model's accuracy is about 65 percent, which is lower than that of other facial expression recognition techniques. Despite significant gains in representation precision due to the nonlinearity of profound image representations.

Keywords: facial recognition, computational intelligence, convolutional neural network, depth map

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1398 Engaging Women Entrepreneurs in School Adolescent Health Program to Ensure Menstrual Hygiene Management in Rural Bangladesh

Authors: Toslim Uddin Khan, Jesmin Akter, Mohiuddin Ahmed

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Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and personal health-care practice is a critical issue to prevent morbidity and other reproductive health complications among adolescent girls in Bangladesh. Inadequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities lead to unhealthy MHM practices that resulted in poor reproductive health outcomes. It is evident from different studies that superstitions and misconception are more common in rural communities that limit young girls’ access to and understanding of the menstrual hygiene and self care practices. The state-of-the-art approach of Social Marketing Company (SMC) is proved to be instrumental in delivering reinforcing health messages, making public health and hygiene products available at the door steps of the community through community mobilization programs in rural Bangladesh. School health program is one of the flagship interventions of SMC to equip adolescent girls and boys with correct knowledge of health and hygiene practices among themselves, their families and peers. In Bangladeshi culture, adolescent girls often feel shy to ask fathers or male family members about buying sanitary napkin from local pharmacy and they seem to be reluctant to seek help regarding their menstrual problems. A recent study reveals that 48% adolescent girls are using sanitary napkins while majority of them are unaware of menstrual hygiene practices in Bangladesh. Under school adolescent program, SMC organizes health education sessions for adolescent girls from grade seven to ten using enter-educate approach with special focus on sexual and reproductive health and menstrual hygiene issues including delaying marriage and first pregnancy. In addition, 2500 rural women entrepreneurs branded as community sales agents are also involved in disseminating health messages and selling priority health products including sanitary napkin at the household level. These women entrepreneurs are serving as a source of sustainable supply of the sanitary napkins for the rural adolescent girls and thereby they are earning profit margins on the sales they make. A recent study on the impact of adolescent program activities reveals that majority (71%) of the school adolescent girls are currently using sanitary napkins. Health education equips and empowers adolescent girls with accurate knowledge about menstrual hygiene practices and self-care as well. Therefore, engagement of female entrepreneurs in school adolescent health program at the community level is one of the promising ways to improve menstrual hygiene practices leading to increased use of sanitary napkin in rural and semi-rural communities in Bangladesh.

Keywords: school adolescent program, social marketing, women entrepreneurs, menstrual hygiene management

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1397 A Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring System Using near-Infrared Spectroscopy with Remote Data Logging

Authors: Bodhayan Nandi, Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury

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This paper presents the development of a portable blood glucose monitoring device based on Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. The system supports Internet connectivity through WiFi and uploads the time series data of glucose concentration of patients to a server. In addition, the server is given sufficient intelligence to predict the future pathophysiological state of a patient given the current and past pathophysiological data. This will enable to prognosticate the approaching critical condition of the patient much before the critical condition actually occurs.The server hosts web applications to allow authorized users to monitor the data remotely.

Keywords: non invasive, blood glucose concentration, microcontroller, IoT, application server, database server

Procedia PDF Downloads 207
1396 Medicompills Architecture: A Mathematical Precise Tool to Reduce the Risk of Diagnosis Errors on Precise Medicine

Authors: Adriana Haulica

Abstract:

Powered by Machine Learning, Precise medicine is tailored by now to use genetic and molecular profiling, with the aim of optimizing the therapeutic benefits for cohorts of patients. As the majority of Machine Language algorithms come from heuristics, the outputs have contextual validity. This is not very restrictive in the sense that medicine itself is not an exact science. Meanwhile, the progress made in Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Precise Medicine, correlated with the huge amount of human biology data and the increase in computational power, opens new healthcare challenges. A more accurate diagnosis is needed along with real-time treatments by processing as much as possible from the available information. The purpose of this paper is to present a deeper vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence in Precise medicine. In fact, actual Machine Learning algorithms use standard mathematical knowledge, mostly Euclidian metrics and standard computation rules. The loss of information arising from the classical methods prevents obtaining 100% evidence on the diagnosis process. To overcome these problems, we introduce MEDICOMPILLS, a new architectural concept tool of information processing in Precise medicine that delivers diagnosis and therapy advice. This tool processes poly-field digital resources: global knowledge related to biomedicine in a direct or indirect manner but also technical databases, Natural Language Processing algorithms, and strong class optimization functions. As the name suggests, the heart of this tool is a compiler. The approach is completely new, tailored for omics and clinical data. Firstly, the intrinsic biological intuition is different from the well-known “a needle in a haystack” approach usually used when Machine Learning algorithms have to process differential genomic or molecular data to find biomarkers. Also, even if the input is seized from various types of data, the working engine inside the MEDICOMPILLS does not search for patterns as an integrative tool. This approach deciphers the biological meaning of input data up to the metabolic and physiologic mechanisms, based on a compiler with grammars issued from bio-algebra-inspired mathematics. It translates input data into bio-semantic units with the help of contextual information iteratively until Bio-Logical operations can be performed on the base of the “common denominator “rule. The rigorousness of MEDICOMPILLS comes from the structure of the contextual information on functions, built to be analogous to mathematical “proofs”. The major impact of this architecture is expressed by the high accuracy of the diagnosis. Detected as a multiple conditions diagnostic, constituted by some main diseases along with unhealthy biological states, this format is highly suitable for therapy proposal and disease prevention. The use of MEDICOMPILLS architecture is highly beneficial for the healthcare industry. The expectation is to generate a strategic trend in Precise medicine, making medicine more like an exact science and reducing the considerable risk of errors in diagnostics and therapies. The tool can be used by pharmaceutical laboratories for the discovery of new cures. It will also contribute to better design of clinical trials and speed them up.

Keywords: bio-semantic units, multiple conditions diagnosis, NLP, omics

Procedia PDF Downloads 63
1395 Sample Preparation and Coring of Highly Friable and Heterogeneous Bonded Geomaterials

Authors: Mohammad Khoshini, Arman Khoshghalb, Meghdad Payan, Nasser Khalili

Abstract:

Most of the Earth’s crust surface rocks are technically categorized as weak rocks or weakly bonded geomaterials. Deeply weathered, weakly cemented, friable and easily erodible, they demonstrate complex material behaviour and understanding the overlooked mechanical behaviour of such materials is of particular importance in geotechnical engineering practice. Weakly bonded geomaterials are so susceptible to surface shear and moisture that conventional methods of core drilling fail to extract high-quality undisturbed samples out of them. Moreover, most of these geomaterials are of high heterogeneity rendering less reliable and feasible material characterization. In order to compensate for the unpredictability of the material response, either numerous experiments are needed to be conducted or large factors of safety must be implemented in the design process. However, none of these approaches is sustainable. In this study, a method for dry core drilling of such materials is introduced to take high-quality undisturbed core samples. By freezing the material at certain moisture content, a secondary structure is developed throughout the material which helps the whole structure to remain intact during the core drilling process. Moreover, to address the heterogeneity issue, the natural material was reconstructed artificially to obtain a homogeneous material with very high similarity to the natural one in both micro and macro-mechanical perspectives. The method is verified for both micro and macro scale. In terms of micro-scale analysis, using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), pore spaces and inter-particle bonds were investigated and compared between natural and artificial materials. X-Ray Diffraction, XRD, analyses are also performed to control the chemical composition. At the macro scale, several uniaxial compressive strength tests, as well as triaxial tests, were performed to verify the similar mechanical response of the materials. A high level of agreement is observed between micro and macro results of natural and artificially bonded geomaterials. The proposed methods can play an important role to cut down the costs of experimental programs for material characterization and also to promote the accuracy of the numerical modellings based on the experimental results.

Keywords: Artificial geomaterial, core drilling, macro-mechanical behavior, micro-scale, sample preparation, SEM photography, weakly bonded geomaterials

Procedia PDF Downloads 207
1394 ESRA: An End-to-End System for Re-identification and Anonymization of Swiss Court Decisions

Authors: Joel Niklaus, Matthias Sturmer

Abstract:

The publication of judicial proceedings is a cornerstone of many democracies. It enables the court system to be made accountable by ensuring that justice is made in accordance with the laws. Equally important is privacy, as a fundamental human right (Article 12 in the Declaration of Human Rights). Therefore, it is important that the parties (especially minors, victims, or witnesses) involved in these court decisions be anonymized securely. Today, the anonymization of court decisions in Switzerland is performed either manually or semi-automatically using primitive software. While much research has been conducted on anonymization for tabular data, the literature on anonymization for unstructured text documents is thin and virtually non-existent for court decisions. In 2019, it has been shown that manual anonymization is not secure enough. In 21 of 25 attempted Swiss federal court decisions related to pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceuticals, and legal parties involved could be manually re-identified. This was achieved by linking the decisions with external databases using regular expressions. An automated re-identification system serves as an automated test for the safety of existing anonymizations and thus promotes the right to privacy. Manual anonymization is very expensive (recurring annual costs of over CHF 20M in Switzerland alone, according to an estimation). Consequently, many Swiss courts only publish a fraction of their decisions. An automated anonymization system reduces these costs substantially, further leading to more capacity for publishing court decisions much more comprehensively. For the re-identification system, topic modeling with latent dirichlet allocation is used to cluster an amount of over 500K Swiss court decisions into meaningful related categories. A comprehensive knowledge base with publicly available data (such as social media, newspapers, government documents, geographical information systems, business registers, online address books, obituary portal, web archive, etc.) is constructed to serve as an information hub for re-identifications. For the actual re-identification, a general-purpose language model is fine-tuned on the respective part of the knowledge base for each category of court decisions separately. The input to the model is the court decision to be re-identified, and the output is a probability distribution over named entities constituting possible re-identifications. For the anonymization system, named entity recognition (NER) is used to recognize the tokens that need to be anonymized. Since the focus lies on Swiss court decisions in German, a corpus for Swiss legal texts will be built for training the NER model. The recognized named entities are replaced by the category determined by the NER model and an identifier to preserve context. This work is part of an ongoing research project conducted by an interdisciplinary research consortium. Both a legal analysis and the implementation of the proposed system design ESRA will be performed within the next three years. This study introduces the system design of ESRA, an end-to-end system for re-identification and anonymization of Swiss court decisions. Firstly, the re-identification system tests the safety of existing anonymizations and thus promotes privacy. Secondly, the anonymization system substantially reduces the costs of manual anonymization of court decisions and thus introduces a more comprehensive publication practice.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, courts, legal tech, named entity recognition, natural language processing, ·privacy, topic modeling

Procedia PDF Downloads 145
1393 Transformational Leadership in the United States to Negate Current Ethnocentrisms

Authors: Molly Meadows

Abstract:

Following the presidency of Donald J. Trump, Americans have become hyperaware of ethnocentrisms that plague the culture. The president's egoist ethics encouraged a divide between what the citizens of the US identified as just or unjust. In the race for global supremacy and leading ideology, fears have arisen, exacerbated by the ethnocentricity of the country's leader, pointing to the possible harmful ethical standards of competing nations. Due to the concept of ethical absolutism, an international code of ethics would not be possible, and the changes needed to eliminate the stigma surrounding other cultures of thought would need to come from the governing body of the US. As the current leading global ideology, the US would need its government to embody a transformational leadership style in order to unite the motivations of the citizens and encourage intercultural tolerance.

Keywords: ethics, transformational leadership, American politics, egoism, cultural intelligence, ethical relativism

Procedia PDF Downloads 89
1392 Factors of Self-Sustainability in Social Entrepreneurship: Case Studies of ACT Group Čakovec and Friskis and Svettis Stockholm

Authors: Filip Majetić, Dražen Šimleša, Jelena Puđak, Anita Bušljeta Tonković, Svitlana Pinchuk

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the self-sustainability aspect of social entrepreneurship (SE). We define SE as a form of entrepreneurship that is social/ecological mission oriented. It means SE organizations start and run businesses and use them to accomplish their social/ecological missions i.e. to solve social/ecological problems or fulfill social/ecological needs. Self-sustainability is defined as the capability of an SE organization to operate by relying on the money earned through trading its products in the free market. For various reasons, the achievement of self-sustainability represents a fundamental (business) challenge for many SE organizations. Those that are not able to operate using the money made through commercial activities, in order to remain active, rely on alternative, non-commercial streams of income such as grants, donations, and public subsidies. Starting from this widespread (business) challenge, we are interested in exploring elements that (could) influence the self-sustainability in SE organizations. Therefore, the research goal is to empirically investigate some of the self-sustainability factors of two notable SE organizations from different socio-economic contexts. A qualitative research, using the multiple case study approach, was conducted. ACT Group Čakovec (ACT) from Croatia was selected for the first case because it represents one of the leading and most self-sustainable SE organization in the region (in 2015 55% of the organization’s budget came from commercial activities); Friskis&Svettis Stockholm (F&S) from Sweden was selected for the second case because it is a rare example of completely self-sustainable SE organization in Europe (100% of the organization’s budget comes from commercial activities). The data collection primarily consists of conducting in-depth interviews. Additionally, the content of some of the organizations' official materials are analyzed (e.g. business reports, marketing materials). The interviewees are selected purposively and include: six highly ranked F&S members who represent five different levels in the hierarchy of their organization; five highly ranked ACT members who represent three different levels in the hierarchy of the organization. All of the interviews contain five themes: a) social values of the organization, b) organization of work, c) non-commercial income sources, d) marketing/collaborations, and e) familiarity with the industry characteristics and trends. The gathered data is thematically analyzed through the coding process for which Atlas.ti software for qualitative data analysis is used. For the purpose of creating thematic categories (codes), the open coding is used. The research results intend to provide new theoretical insights on factors of SE self-sustainability and, preferably, encourage practical improvements in the field.

Keywords: Friskis&Svettis, self-sustainability factors, social entrepreneurship, Stockholm

Procedia PDF Downloads 207
1391 Reclaiming the House with Use of Web 2.0 Tools: Democratic Candidates and Social Media during Midterm Elections in 2018

Authors: Norbert Tomaszewski

Abstract:

Modern politicians tend to resign from the traditional media as Web 2.0 tools allow them to interact with a much bigger audience while spending less money on their campaign. Current studies on this subject prove that in order to win the elections, the candidate needs to show his personal side during the campaign to appeal to the voter as an average citizen. Because of that, the internet user may engage in the politician's campaign by spreading his message along with his followers. The aim of the study is to determine how did the Democratic candidates use the Web 2.0 tools during the 2018 midterm elections campaign and whether they managed to succeed. Taking into consideration the fact that the United States as a country, has always set important milestones for the political marketing as a field of science, the result of the research can set some examples on how to manage the modern internet campaign in less developed countries.

Keywords: political campaign, midterm elections, social media, Web 2.0

Procedia PDF Downloads 145
1390 Application of the Pattern Method to Form the Stable Neural Structures in the Learning Process as a Way of Solving Modern Problems in Education

Authors: Liudmyla Vesper

Abstract:

The problems of modern education are large-scale and diverse. The aspirations of parents, teachers, and experts converge - everyone interested in growing up a generation of whole, well-educated persons. Both the family and society are expected in the future generation to be self-sufficient, desirable in the labor market, and capable of lifelong learning. Today's children have a powerful potential that is difficult to realize in the conditions of traditional school approaches. Focusing on STEM education in practice often ends with the simple use of computers and gadgets during class. "Science", "technology", "engineering" and "mathematics" are difficult to combine within school and university curricula, which have not changed much during the last 10 years. Solving the problems of modern education largely depends on teachers - innovators, teachers - practitioners who develop and implement effective educational methods and programs. Teachers who propose innovative pedagogical practices that allow students to master large-scale knowledge and apply it to the practical plane. Effective education considers the creation of stable neural structures during the learning process, which allow to preserve and increase knowledge throughout life. The author proposed a method of integrated lessons – cases based on the maths patterns for forming a holistic perception of the world. This method and program are scientifically substantiated and have more than 15 years of practical application experience in school and student classrooms. The first results of the practical application of the author's methodology and curriculum were announced at the International Conference "Teaching and Learning Strategies to Promote Elementary School Success", 2006, April 22-23, Yerevan, Armenia, IREX-administered 2004-2006 Multiple Component Education Project. This program is based on the concept of interdisciplinary connections and its implementation in the process of continuous learning. This allows students to save and increase knowledge throughout life according to a single pattern. The pattern principle stores information on different subjects according to one scheme (pattern), using long-term memory. This is how neural structures are created. The author also admits that a similar method can be successfully applied to the training of artificial intelligence neural networks. However, this assumption requires further research and verification. The educational method and program proposed by the author meet the modern requirements for education, which involves mastering various areas of knowledge, starting from an early age. This approach makes it possible to involve the child's cognitive potential as much as possible and direct it to the preservation and development of individual talents. According to the methodology, at the early stages of learning students understand the connection between school subjects (so-called "sciences" and "humanities") and in real life, apply the knowledge gained in practice. This approach allows students to realize their natural creative abilities and talents, which makes it easier to navigate professional choices and find their place in life.

Keywords: science education, maths education, AI, neuroplasticity, innovative education problem, creativity development, modern education problem

Procedia PDF Downloads 51
1389 Big Data Applications for Transportation Planning

Authors: Antonella Falanga, Armando Cartenì

Abstract:

"Big data" refers to extremely vast and complex sets of data, encompassing extraordinarily large and intricate datasets that require specific tools for meaningful analysis and processing. These datasets can stem from diverse origins like sensors, mobile devices, online transactions, social media platforms, and more. The utilization of big data is pivotal, offering the chance to leverage vast information for substantial advantages across diverse fields, thereby enhancing comprehension, decision-making, efficiency, and fostering innovation in various domains. Big data, distinguished by its remarkable attributes of enormous volume, high velocity, diverse variety, and significant value, represent a transformative force reshaping the industry worldwide. Their pervasive impact continues to unlock new possibilities, driving innovation and advancements in technology, decision-making processes, and societal progress in an increasingly data-centric world. The use of these technologies is becoming more widespread, facilitating and accelerating operations that were once much more complicated. In particular, big data impacts across multiple sectors such as business and commerce, healthcare and science, finance, education, geography, agriculture, media and entertainment and also mobility and logistics. Within the transportation sector, which is the focus of this study, big data applications encompass a wide variety, spanning across optimization in vehicle routing, real-time traffic management and monitoring, logistics efficiency, reduction of travel times and congestion, enhancement of the overall transportation systems, but also mitigation of pollutant emissions contributing to environmental sustainability. Meanwhile, in public administration and the development of smart cities, big data aids in improving public services, urban planning, and decision-making processes, leading to more efficient and sustainable urban environments. Access to vast data reservoirs enables deeper insights, revealing hidden patterns and facilitating more precise and timely decision-making. Additionally, advancements in cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) have further amplified the potential of big data, enabling more sophisticated and comprehensive analyses. Certainly, utilizing big data presents various advantages but also entails several challenges regarding data privacy and security, ensuring data quality, managing and storing large volumes of data effectively, integrating data from diverse sources, the need for specialized skills to interpret analysis results, ethical considerations in data use, and evaluating costs against benefits. Addressing these difficulties requires well-structured strategies and policies to balance the benefits of big data with privacy, security, and efficient data management concerns. Building upon these premises, the current research investigates the efficacy and influence of big data by conducting an overview of the primary and recent implementations of big data in transportation systems. Overall, this research allows us to conclude that big data better provide to enhance rational decision-making for mobility choices and is imperative for adeptly planning and allocating investments in transportation infrastructures and services.

Keywords: big data, public transport, sustainable mobility, transport demand, transportation planning

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1388 Online Teaching Methods and Student Satisfaction during a Pandemic

Authors: Anita Kéri

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With the outbreak of the global pandemic of COVID-19, online education characterizes today’s higher education. For some higher education institutions (HEIs), the shift from classroom education to online solutions was swift and smooth, and students are continuously asked about their experience regarding online education. Therefore, there is a growing emphasis on student satisfaction with online education, a field that had emerged previously, but has become the center of higher education and research interest today. The aim of the current paper is to give a brief overview of the tools used in the online education of marketing-related classes at the examined university and to investigate student satisfaction with the applied teaching methodologies with the tool of a questionnaire. Results show that students are most satisfied with their teachers’ competences and preparedness, while they are least satisfied with online class quality, where it seems that further steps are needed to be taken.

Keywords: netnography, online teaching, pandemic, satisfaction

Procedia PDF Downloads 156
1387 An Efficient Algorithm for Solving the Transmission Network Expansion Planning Problem Integrating Machine Learning with Mathematical Decomposition

Authors: Pablo Oteiza, Ricardo Alvarez, Mehrdad Pirnia, Fuat Can

Abstract:

To effectively combat climate change, many countries around the world have committed to a decarbonisation of their electricity, along with promoting a large-scale integration of renewable energy sources (RES). While this trend represents a unique opportunity to effectively combat climate change, achieving a sound and cost-efficient energy transition towards low-carbon power systems poses significant challenges for the multi-year Transmission Network Expansion Planning (TNEP) problem. The objective of the multi-year TNEP is to determine the necessary network infrastructure to supply the projected demand in a cost-efficient way, considering the evolution of the new generation mix, including the integration of RES. The rapid integration of large-scale RES increases the variability and uncertainty in the power system operation, which in turn increases short-term flexibility requirements. To meet these requirements, flexible generating technologies such as energy storage systems must be considered within the TNEP as well, along with proper models for capturing the operational challenges of future power systems. As a consequence, TNEP formulations are becoming more complex and difficult to solve, especially for its application in realistic-sized power system models. To meet these challenges, there is an increasing need for developing efficient algorithms capable of solving the TNEP problem with reasonable computational time and resources. In this regard, a promising research area is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for solving large-scale mixed-integer optimization problems, such as the TNEP. In particular, the use of AI along with mathematical optimization strategies based on decomposition has shown great potential. In this context, this paper presents an efficient algorithm for solving the multi-year TNEP problem. The algorithm combines AI techniques with Column Generation, a traditional decomposition-based mathematical optimization method. One of the challenges of using Column Generation for solving the TNEP problem is that the subproblems are of mixed-integer nature, and therefore solving them requires significant amounts of time and resources. Hence, in this proposal we solve a linearly relaxed version of the subproblems, and trained a binary classifier that determines the value of the binary variables, based on the results obtained from the linearized version. A key feature of the proposal is that we integrate the binary classifier into the optimization algorithm in such a way that the optimality of the solution can be guaranteed. The results of a study case based on the HRP 38-bus test system shows that the binary classifier has an accuracy above 97% for estimating the value of the binary variables. Since the linearly relaxed version of the subproblems can be solved with significantly less time than the integer programming counterpart, the integration of the binary classifier into the Column Generation algorithm allowed us to reduce the computational time required for solving the problem by 50%. The final version of this paper will contain a detailed description of the proposed algorithm, the AI-based binary classifier technique and its integration into the CG algorithm. To demonstrate the capabilities of the proposal, we evaluate the algorithm in case studies with different scenarios, as well as in other power system models.

Keywords: integer optimization, machine learning, mathematical decomposition, transmission planning

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1386 A Case Study of the Ground Collapse Due to Excavation Using Non-Destructive Testing

Authors: Ki-Cheong Yoo, Yushik Han, Heejeung Sohn, Jinwoo Kim

Abstract:

A ground collapse can be caused by natural and artificial factors. Ground collapses that have occurred frequently in Korea were observed and classified into different types by the main contributing factor. In this study, ground collapse induced by groundwater level disturbance in an excavation site was analyzed. Also, ground loosening region around the excavation site was detected and analyzed using non-destructive testing, such as GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) survey and Electrical Resistivity. The result of the surveys showed that the ground was loosened widely over the surrounding area of the excavation due to groundwater discharge.

Keywords: electrical resistivity, ground collapse, groundwater level, GPR (ground penetrating radar)

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1385 Social Business: Opportunities and Challenges

Authors: Muhammad Mustafizur Rahaman

Abstract:

Social business is a new concept in the field of Business Economics and Capitalist Economy. It has increased the importance in economic and social development in emerging economies. Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founding father of the notion. While conventional business underscores profit maximization as a core business principle, social business calls for addressing social problems at the expense of profit. This underlying principle gives social business advantageous position over conventional businesses to serve those who live at the bottom of the pyramid. It also poses grave challenges to the social business because social business sacrifices profit at one hand and seeks financial sustainability on the other. For the sake of its financial sustainability, the social business might increase the price of its product or service which might lower its social impact, thus, makes the business self-defeating. Therefore, social business should be more innovative in every business process including production, marketing, and management. Otherwise, the business is unlikely to be driven out from the society.

Keywords: innovativeness, self-defeat, social business, social problem

Procedia PDF Downloads 610