Search results for: balance training

Authors: Shabnam Dadparvar, Laijin Shen

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This paper focuses on China’s policy in the Middle East and the rivalry with the U.S. The question is that what are the main factors on China’s Middle East policy and its competition with the U.S? The hypothesis regards to three effective factors: 'China’s energy dependency' on the Middle East, 'economy' and support for 'stability' in the Middle East. What is important in China’s competition with the U.S regarding to its Middle East policy is the substantial difference in ways of treating the countries of the region; China is committed to Westphalia model based on non-interference in internal affairs of the countries and respect the sovereignty of the governments. However, after 9/11, the U.S is seeking a balance between stability and change through intervention in the international affairs and in some cases is looking for a regime change. From the other hand, China, due to its dependency on the region’s energy welcomes America’s military presence in the region for providing stability. The authors by using a descriptive analytical method try to explain the situation of rivalry between China and the United States in Middle East. China is an 'emerging power' with high economic growth and in demand of more energy supply. The problem is that a rising power in the region is often a source of concern for hegemony.

Keywords: China's foreign policy, energy, hegemony, the Middle East

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Authors: Sonia Arradaza-Pajaron

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This study examined the relationship between transformational leadership (TL) and self-efficacy (SE) of academic heads in the implementation of a customized English language curriculum (CELC) among technological state universities and colleges in Leyte provinces and Biliran, Philippines. Results manifested that academic leaders practiced transformational leadership and are self-efficacious enough but with only moderate level in the effectiveness of CELC implementation. It was found out; further, that of the four identified transformational leadership components, except idealized influence, three of which demonstrated a significant relationship with CELC component variables, although in varying degree. Moreover, self-efficacy sources, especially vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion manifested moderate to high significant relationships with effective CELC curriculum implementation. Further, verbal persuasion and physiological/emotional condition manifested significant relationship with CELC-resource and CELC-contextual/community influence, respectively. Regression analysis showed that TL-individualized consideration component explained wider extent when correlated with CELC contextual/community components, while self-efficacy source-verbal persuasion demonstrated a wider extent with the three CELC components, namely; resource, process and physiological/emotional condition. Results further revealed that TL-individualized consideration manifested lesser influence with CELC implementation, while SE-verbal persuasion demonstrated stronger influence or effect on CELC-process, CELC-physiological/emotional, while lesser influence with CELC-resource. This implies that academic leaders, in order to carry out effective curriculum implementation, should provide more emphasis on school culture, its beliefs, practices and academic atmosphere but most of all empower human resources who are considered the backbone of the work place and can be directly affected by any curriculum shifts and challenges. To realize this, more values-skilled training programs must be designed for academic heads are needed to equip them with the necessary leadership skills, beliefs in their capacity to lead and their own enhance emotional well-being in leading subordinates and facilitating curriculum implementation.

Keywords: Customized English Language curriculum, CELC, self-efficacy, transformational leadership, values-skilled training

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Authors: T. Konst

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Most jobs include training and communication tasks, but often the people in these jobs lack pedagogical competences to plan, implement and assess learning. This paper aims to discuss how a learning approach called innovation pedagogy developed in higher education can be utilized for learning development in various organizations. The methods presented how to implement innovation pedagogy such as process consultation and train the trainer model can provide added value to develop pedagogical knowhow in organizations and thus support their internal learning and development.

Keywords: innovation pedagogy, learning, organizational development, process consultation

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Authors: Babesse Saad, Ameddah Djemeleddine

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In this paper, a learning algorithm using neuronal networks to improve the roll stability and prevent the rollover in a single unit heavy vehicle is proposed. First, LQR control to keep balanced normalized rollovers, between front and rear axles, below the unity, then a data collected from this controller is used as a training basis of a neuronal regulator. The ANN controller is thereafter applied for the nonlinear side force model, and gives satisfactory results than the LQR one.

Keywords: rollover, single unit heavy vehicle, neural networks, nonlinear side force

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Authors: Taieb Kherafa Noureddine

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The paper presents a new approach regarding the management in sports that is based on the principles of reengineering. Applying that modern and pure management system, called reengineering, in sports activity, we hope to get better and better results, in order to increase both the health state and the performances of trained athletes. The paper also presents the similarities between BPR (Business Process Reengineering) and sports managements, as well as the proposed solution for a proper implementation of such model of management. The five components of the basic BPR model are presented, together with their features for sports management.

Keywords: business process reengineering, great sports events, sports management, training activities

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Authors: Hamad Almohamadi, Abdulrahman AlKassem, Majed Alamoudi

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Dumping Aluminum (Al) waste into landfills causes several health and environmental problems. The pyrolysis process could treat Al waste to produce AlCl₃ and H₂. Using the Aspen Plus software, a techno-economic and feasibility assessment has been performed for Al waste pyrolysis. The Aspen Plus simulation was employed to estimate the plant's mass and energy balance, which was assumed to process 100 dry metric tons of Al waste per day. This study looked at two cases of Al waste treatment. The first case produces 355 tons of AlCl₃ per day and 9 tons of H₂ per day without recycling. The conversion rate must be greater than 50% in case 1 to make a profit. In this case, the MSP for AlCl₃ is $768/ton. The plant would generate $25 million annually if the AlCl₃ were sold at $1000 per ton. In case 2 with recycling, the conversion has less impact on the plant's profitability than in case 1. Moreover, compared to case 1, the MSP of AlCl₃ has no significant influence on process profitability. In this scenario, if AlCl₃ were sold at $1000/ton, the process profit would be $58 million annually. Case 2 is better than case 1 because recycling Al generates a higher yield than converting it to AlCl₃ and H₂.

Keywords: aluminum waste, aspen plus, process modelling, fast pyrolysis, techno-economic assessment

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Authors: Kazuaki Shiraishi, Narumitsu Asai, Tsukasa Kitahara, Sosuke Mieno, Takaharu Kameoka

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The purpose of this research is to facilitate productivity advances in agriculture. To accomplish this, we developed an automatic three-dimensional (3D) recording system for growth of field crops that consists of a number of inexpensive modules: a very low-cost stereo camera, a couple of ZigBee wireless modules, a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, and a third generation (3G) wireless communication module. Our system uses an inexpensive Web stereo camera in order to keep total costs low. However, inexpensive video cameras record low-resolution images that are very noisy. Accordingly, in order to resolve these problems, we adopted a deep learning method. Based on the results of extended period of time operation test conducted without the use of an external power supply, we found that by using Super-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network method, our system could achieve a balance between the competing goals of low-cost and superior performance. Our experimental results showed the effectiveness of our system.

Keywords: 3D plant data, automatic recording, stereo camera, deep learning, image processing

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Authors: Robert Jedrys, Zdzislaw Kobos, Justyna Skrzynska, Zbigniew Wochynski

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Professions connected to aviation require an assessment of the suitability of health, psychological and psychomotor skills and overall physical fitness of the organism, who applies. Assessment of the physical condition is conducted by the committees consisting of aero-medical specialists in clinical medicine and aviation. In addition, psychological predispositions should be evaluated by specialized psychologists familiar with the specifics of the tasks and requirements for the various positions in aviation. Both, physical abilities and general physical fitness of candidates for aviation shall be assessed during the selection exams, which also test the ability to deal with stress what is very important in aviation. Hence, the mentioned exams in physical education not only help to judge on the ranking in candidates in terms of their efficiency and performance, but also allows to evaluate the functioning under stress measured using psychological tests. Moreover, before-test stress is a predictors of successfulness in the next stages of education and practical training in the aviation. The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of temperamental traits on strategies used for coping with stress during selection exams in physical education, deciding on admission to aviation school. The study involved 30 candidates for fighter pilot training in aviation school . To evaluate the temperament 'The Formal Characteristics of Behavior-Temperament Inventory' (FCB-TI) by B. Zawadzki and J.Strelau was used. To determine the pattern of coping with stress 'The Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations' (CISS) to N. S. Endler and J. D. A. Parker were engaged. Study of temperament and styles of coping with stress was conducted directly before the exam selection of physical education. The results were analyzed with 'Statistica 9' program. The studies showed that:-There is a negative correlation between such a temperament feature as 'perseverance' and preferred style of coping with stress concentrated on the task (r = -0.590; p < 0.004); -There is a positive correlation between such a feature of temperament as 'emotional reactivity,' and preference to deal with a stressful situation with ‘style centered on emotions’ (r = 0.520; p <0.011); -There is a negative correlation between such a feature of temperament as ‘strength’ and ‘style of coping with stress concentrated on emotions’ (r = -0.580; p < 0.004). Studies indicate that temperament traits determine the perception of stress and preferred coping styles used during the selection, as during the exams in physical education.

Keywords: aviation, physical education, stress, temperamental traits

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Authors: R. L. Ujjwal, Abhishek Jain

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In the field of computer vision, most facial variations such as identity, expression, emotions and gender have been extensively studied. Automatic age estimation has been rarely explored. With age progression of a human, the features of the face changes. This paper is providing a new comparable study of different type of algorithm to feature extraction [Hybrid features using HAAR cascade & HOG features] & classification [KNN & SVM] training dataset. By using these algorithms we are trying to find out one of the best classification algorithms. Same thing we have done on the feature selection part, we extract the feature by using HAAR cascade and HOG. This work will be done in context of age group classification model.

Keywords: computer vision, age group, face detection

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Authors: Daljinder Singh, J.S.Dhillon, Balraj Singh

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According to no free lunch theorem, a single search technique cannot perform best in all conditions. Optimization method can be attractive choice to solve optimization problem that may have exclusive advantages like robust and reliable performance, global search capability, little information requirement, ease of implementation, parallelism, no requirement of differentiable and continuous objective function. In order to synergize between exploration and exploitation and to further enhance the performance of Bat algorithm, the paper proposed a modified bat algorithm that adds additional search procedure based on bat’s previous experience. The proposed algorithm is used for solving the economic load dispatch (ELD) problem. The practical constraint such valve-point loading along with power balance constraints and generator limit are undertaken. To take care of power demand constraint variable elimination method is exploited. The proposed algorithm is tested on various ELD problems. The results obtained show that the proposed algorithm is capable of performing better in majority of ELD problems considered and is at par with existing algorithms for some of problems.

Keywords: bat algorithm, economic load dispatch, penalty method, variable elimination method

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Authors: V. Rao, A. Bedford

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As the efficient performance of national grid becomes increasingly important to maintain the electrical network stability, the balance between the generation and the demand must be effectively maintained. To do this, any losses that occur in the power network must be reduced by compensating for it. In this paper, one of the main cause for the losses in the network is identified as the variance, which hinders the grid’s power carrying capacity. The reason for the variance in the grid is investigated and identified as the rise in the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) such as wind and solar power. The intermittent nature of these RES along with fluctuating demands gives rise to variance in the electrical network. The losses that occur during this process is estimated by analyzing the network’s power profiles. Whilst researchers have identified different ways to tackle this problem, little consideration is given to energy storage. This paper seeks to redress this by considering the role of energy storage systems as potential solutions to reduce variance in the network. The implementation of suitable energy storage systems based on different applications is presented in this paper as part of variance reduction method and thus contribute towards maintaining a stable and efficient grid operation.

Keywords: energy storage, electrical losses, national grid, renewable energy, variance

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Authors: Fatimah Opebiyi

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Economic growth promotion, inflation reduction and consumer protection are among the core public interest aims of governments. Nevertheless, higher rates of default by consumers in relation to credit card loans and mortgages in recent times illustrate that government’s performance in balancing the protection of the economy and consumer is subpar. This thereby raises an important question on the role of government in protecting consumers during prolonged spells of inflation, particularly when such inflationary trends may be traceable to the acts of the government. Adopting a doctrinal research methodology, this article investigates the evolution of the concept of consumer protection in the United Kingdom and also brings to the fore the tensions and conflicts of interests in the aims and practices of the main regulators within the financial services industry. Relying on public interest theories of regulation and responsive regulatory theory, the article explores the limitations in the state’s ability to strike the right balance in meeting regulatory aims of the regulatory agencies at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Keywords: financial regulation, consumer protection, prudential regulation, public interest theories of regulation, central bank

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Authors: M. R. Babaei, S. M. Hosseini, S. Rahmani, L. Moradi

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Today, the quality of education and training systems and the effectiveness of the education systems of most concern to stakeholders and decision-makers of our country's development in each country. In Iran this is a double issue of concern to numerous reasons; So that governments, over the past decade have hardly even paid the running costs of education. ICT is claiming it has the power to change the structure of a program for training, reduce costs and increase quality, and do education systems and products consistent with the needs of the community and take steps to practice education. Own of the areas that the introduction of information technology has fundamentally changed is the field of education. The aim of this research is process reengineering management in schools simultaneously has been using field studies to collect data in the form of interviews and a questionnaire survey. The statistical community of this research has been the country of Iran and smart schools under the education. Sampling was targeted. The data collection tool was a questionnaire composed of two parts. The questionnaire consists of 36 questions that each question designates one of effective factors on the management of smart schools. Also each question consists of two parts. The first part designates the operating position in the management process, which represents the domain's belonging to the management agent (planning, organizing, leading, controlling). According to the classification of Dabryn and in second part the factors affect the process of managing the smart schools were examined, that Likert scale is used to classify. Questions the validity of the group of experts and prominent university professors in the fields of information technology, management and reengineering of approved and Cronbach's alpha reliability and also with the use of the formula is evaluated and approved. To analyse the data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the factors contributing to the rating of (Linkert scale) descriptive statistics (frequency table data, mean, median, mode) was used. To analyse the data using analysis of variance and nonparametric tests and Friedman test, the assumption was evaluated. The research conclusions show that the factors influencing the management process re-engineering smart schools in school performance is affected.

Keywords: re-engineering, management process, smart school, Iran's school

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Authors: Airy Huang, Fuji Foo, Aries Prasetya Wibowo

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In recent years, the focus of Natural Language Processing (NLP) development has been gradually shifting from the semantics-based approach to deep learning one, which performs faster with fewer resources. Although it performs well in many applications, the deep learning approach, due to the lack of semantics understanding, has difficulties in noticing and expressing a novel business case with a pre-defined scope. In order to meet the requirements of specific robotic services, deep learning approach is very labor-intensive and time consuming. It is very difficult to improve the capabilities of conversational AI in a short time, and it is even more difficult to self-learn from experiences to deliver the same service in a better way. In this paper, we present an adaptive conversational AI algorithm that combines both semantic knowledge and deep learning to address this issue by learning new business cases through conversations. After self-learning from experience, the robot adapts to the business cases originally out of scope. The idea is to build new or extended robotic services in a systematic and fast-training manner with self-configured programs and constructed dialog flows. For every cycle in which a chat bot (conversational AI) delivers a given set of business cases, it is trapped to self-measure its performance and rethink every unknown dialog flows to improve the service by retraining with those new business cases. If the training process reaches a bottleneck and incurs some difficulties, human personnel will be informed of further instructions. He or she may retrain the chat bot with newly configured programs, or new dialog flows for new services. One approach employs semantics analysis to learn the dialogues for new business cases and then establish the necessary ontology for the new service. With the newly learned programs, it completes the understanding of the reaction behavior and finally uses dialog flows to connect all the understanding results and programs, achieving the goal of self-learning process. We have developed a chat bot service mounted on a kiosk, with a camera for facial recognition and a directional microphone array for voice capture. The chat bot serves as a concierge with polite conversation for visitors. As a proof of concept. We have demonstrated to complete 90% of reception services with limited self-learning capability.

Keywords: conversational AI, chatbot, dialog management, semantic analysis

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Authors: I. O. Nascimento, J. T. Manzi

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The drying process is an important operation in the chemical industry and it is widely used in the food, grain industry and fertilizer industry. However, for demanding a considerable consumption of energy, such a process requires a deep energetic analysis in order to reduce operating costs. This paper deals with thermodynamic optimization applied to rotary dryers based on the entropy production minimization, aiming at to reduce the energy consumption. To do this, the mass, energy and entropy balance was used for developing a relationship that represents the rate of entropy production. The use of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is essential because it takes into account constraints of nature. Since the entropy production rate is minimized, optimals conditions of operations can be established and the process can obtain a substantial gain in energy saving. The minimization strategy had been led using classical methods such as Lagrange multipliers and implemented in the MATLAB platform. As expected, the preliminary results reveal a significant energy saving by the application of the optimal parameters found by the procedure of the entropy minimization It is important to say that this method has shown easy implementation and low cost.

Keywords: thermodynamic optimization, drying, entropy minimization, modeling dryers

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Authors: Adrianna D. Hendricks

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This paper examines the factors that contribute to the re-traumatization of victims of sex trafficking within the Canadian context. Sex trafficking occurring domestically in Canada is severely under-researched, stigmatized, and under-prosecuted, leading to the re-traumatization of victims by various levels of government. This is in part due to the Canadian criminal justice system unethically utilizing prostitution laws in cases of sex trafficking and partially due to the unaddressed stigmatization victims face within the justice system itself. Utilizing evidence from a current literature review, personal correspondence, and personal life experiences, this paper will demonstrate the need for victim involvement in policy reform. The current literature review was done through an academic database search using the terms: “Sex Trafficking, Exploitation, Canada”, with the limitation of articles written within the last 5 years and written within the Canadian context. Overall, from the results, only eight articles precisely matched the criteria. The current literature argues strongly and unanimously for more research and education of professionals who have close contact with high-risk populations (doctors, police officers, social workers, etc.) to protect both minors and adults from being sexually trafficked. Additionally, for women and girls who do not have Canadian citizenship, the fear of deportation becomes a barrier to disclosing exploitation experiences to professionals. There is a desperate need for more research done in tandem with survivors and victims to inform policymaking in a meaningful way. The researcher is a survivor of sex trafficking both as a youth and as an adult, giving the researcher a unique insight into the realities of the criminal justice system for victims of sex trafficking. There is a clear need for professionals in positions of power to be re-educated about the realities of sex-trafficking, and what it means for the victims. Congruent to the current research the author calls for: standardized professional training for people in healthcare, police officers, court officials, and victim services; with the additional layers of victim involvement in creation of professional education training, and victim involvement in research. Justice for victims/survivors can only be obtained if they have been consulted and believed. Without meaningful consultation with survivors, victims who are both minors and adults will continue to fall through the cracks in policy.

Keywords: Canadian policy, re-traumatization, sex-trafficking, stigmatization

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Authors: Aravindhan Nepolean, Chidamabaranathan Bibin, Rajesh K., Gopinath S., Ashok Kumar R., Arun Kumar S., Sadasivan N.

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Wind turbine blades are an important parameter for surging renewable energy production. Optimizing blade profiles and developing new materials for wind turbine blades take a lot of time and effort. Even though many standards for wind turbine blades have been developed for large-scale applications, they are not more effective in small-scale applications. We used acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene to make small-scale wind turbine blades in this study (ABS). We chose the material because it is inexpensive and easy to machine into the desired form. They also have outstanding chemical, stress, and creep resistance. The blade measures 332 mm in length and has a 664 mm rotor diameter. A modal study of blades is carried out, as well as a comparison with current e-glass fiber. They were able to balance the output with less vibration, according to the findings. Q blade software is used to simulate rotating output. The modal analysis testing and prototype validation of wind turbine blades were used for experimental validation.

Keywords: acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, e-glass fiber, modal, renewable energy, q-blade

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Authors: Yassir Semmar

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During the past two decades, the topic of multicultural competence has gained much attention in the psychology field, most notably in the clinical and counseling specializations. While higher education institutions have been placing a premium on sensitizing their faculty, staff, and student bodies to various diversity and multicultural issues, little emphasis has been directed towards mandating multicultural training for graduate learners in the educational psychology specialty. Given the increasingly diverse student population, it is imperative for educational psychologists to become multiculturally competent particularly in instructional and mentoring contexts. Strategies and conditions for attaining multicultural competence are discussed.

Keywords: multicultural competence, instruction, pedagogical practices, mentoring

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Authors: Ksenia Volkova, Artur Petrosyan, Ignatii Dubyshkin, Alexei Ossadtchi

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Brain-computer interfaces are a growing research field producing many implementations that find use in different fields and are used for research and practical purposes. Despite the popularity of the implementations using non-invasive neuroimaging methods, radical improvement of the state channel bandwidth and, thus, decoding accuracy is only possible by using invasive techniques. Electrocorticography (ECoG) is a minimally invasive neuroimaging method that provides highly informative brain activity signals, effective analysis of which requires the use of machine learning methods that are able to learn representations of complex patterns. Deep learning is a family of machine learning algorithms that allow learning representations of data with multiple levels of abstraction. This study explores the potential of deep learning approaches for ECoG processing, decoding movement intentions and the perception of proprioceptive information. To obtain synchronous recording of kinematic movement characteristics and corresponding electrical brain activity, a series of experiments were carried out, during which subjects performed finger movements at their own pace. Finger movements were recorded with a three-axis accelerometer, while ECoG was synchronously registered from the electrode strips that were implanted over the contralateral sensorimotor cortex. Then, multichannel ECoG signals were used to track finger movement trajectory characterized by accelerometer signal. This process was carried out both causally and non-causally, using different position of the ECoG data segment with respect to the accelerometer data stream. The recorded data was split into training and testing sets, containing continuous non-overlapping fragments of the multichannel ECoG. A deep convolutional neural network was implemented and trained, using 1-second segments of ECoG data from the training dataset as input. To assess the decoding accuracy, correlation coefficient r between the output of the model and the accelerometer readings was computed. After optimization of hyperparameters and training, the deep learning model allowed reasonably accurate causal decoding of finger movement with correlation coefficient r = 0.8. In contrast, the classical Wiener-filter like approach was able to achieve only 0.56 in the causal decoding mode. In the noncausal case, the traditional approach reached the accuracy of r = 0.69, which may be due to the presence of additional proprioceptive information. This result demonstrates that the deep neural network was able to effectively find a representation of the complex top-down information related to the actual movement rather than proprioception. The sensitivity analysis shows physiologically plausible pictures of the extent to which individual features (channel, wavelet subband) are utilized during the decoding procedure. In conclusion, the results of this study have demonstrated that a combination of a minimally invasive neuroimaging technique such as ECoG and advanced machine learning approaches allows decoding motion with high accuracy. Such setup provides means for control of devices with a large number of degrees of freedom as well as exploratory studies of the complex neural processes underlying movement execution.

Keywords: brain-computer interface, deep learning, ECoG, movement decoding, sensorimotor cortex

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Authors: Pranav Gulati, Isha Sharma

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Hypertension and hypotension are known to have repercussions on the health of an individual, with hypertension contributing to an increased probability of risk to cardiovascular diseases and hypotension resulting in syncope. This prompts the development of a non-invasive, non-intrusive, continuous and cuff-less blood pressure monitoring system to detect blood pressure variations and to identify individuals with acute and chronic heart ailments, but due to the unavailability of such devices for practical daily use, it becomes difficult to screen and subsequently regulate blood pressure. The complexities which hamper the steady monitoring of blood pressure comprises of the variations in physical characteristics from individual to individual and the postural differences at the site of monitoring. We propose to develop a continuous, comprehensive cardio-analysis tool, based on reflective photoplethysmography (PPG). The proposed device, in the form of an eyewear captures the PPG signal and estimates the systolic and diastolic blood pressure using a sensor positioned near the temporal artery. This system relies on regression models which are based on extraction of key points from a pair of PPG wavelets. The proposed system provides an edge over the existing wearables considering that it allows for uniform contact and pressure with the temporal site, in addition to minimal disturbance by movement. Additionally, the feature extraction algorithms enhance the integrity and quality of the extracted features by reducing unreliable data sets. We tested the system with 12 subjects of which 6 served as the training dataset. For this, we measured the blood pressure using a cuff based BP monitor (Omron HEM-8712) and at the same time recorded the PPG signal from our cardio-analysis tool. The complete test was conducted by using the cuff based blood pressure monitor on the left arm while the PPG signal was acquired from the temporal site on the left side of the head. This acquisition served as the training input for the regression model on the selected features. The other 6 subjects were used to validate the model by conducting the same test on them. Results show that the developed prototype can robustly acquire the PPG signal and can therefore be used to reliably predict blood pressure levels.

Keywords: blood pressure, photoplethysmograph, eyewear, physiological monitoring

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Authors: Joe Amalraj, M. Arunkumar

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Haze is an atmospheric phenomenon that signicantly degrades the visibility of outdoor scenes. This is mainly due to the atmosphere particles that absorb and scatter the light. This paper introduces a novel single image approach that enhances the visibility of such degraded images. In this method is a fusion-based strategy that derives from two original hazy image inputs by applying a white balance and a contrast enhancing procedure. To blend effectively the information of the derived inputs to preserve the regions with good visibility, we filter their important features by computing three measures (weight maps): luminance, chromaticity, and saliency. To minimize artifacts introduced by the weight maps, our approach is designed in a multiscale fashion, using a Laplacian pyramid representation. This paper demonstrates the utility and effectiveness of a fusion-based technique for de-hazing based on a single degraded image. The method performs in a per-pixel fashion, which is straightforward to implement. The experimental results demonstrate that the method yields results comparative to and even better than the more complex state-of-the-art techniques, having the advantage of being appropriate for real-time applications.

Keywords: single image de-hazing, outdoor images, enhancing, DSP

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Authors: Ábrám Zoltán

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Introduction: Climate change is now a major health risk, and its environmental and health effects have become frequently discussed topics. The consequences of climate change are clearly visible in natural disasters and excess deaths caused by extreme weather conditions. Global warming and the increasingly frequent extreme weather events have direct, immediate effects or long-term, indirect effects on health. For this reason, it is a need to teach the health effects of climate change in medical schools. Material and methods: We looked for various surveys, studies, and reports on the main pathways through which global warming affects health. Medical schools face the challenge of teaching the health implications of climate change and integrating knowledge about the health effects of climate change into medical training. For this purpose, there were organised World Café workshops for three target groups: medical students, academic staff, and practising medical doctors. Results: Among the goals of the research is the development of a detailed curriculum for medical students, which serves to expand their knowledge in basic education. At the same time, the project promotes the increase of teacher motivation and the development of methodological guidelines for university teachers; it also provides further training for practicing doctors. The planned teaching materials will be developed in a format suitable for traditional face-to-face teaching, as well as e-learning teaching materials. CLIMATEMED is a project based on the cooperation of six universities and institutions from four countries, the aim of which is to improve the curriculum and expand knowledge about the health effects of climate change at medical universities. Conclusions: In order to assess the needs, summarize the proposals, to develop the necessary strategy, World Café type, one-and-a-half to two-hour round table discussions will take place separately for medical students, academic staff, and practicing doctors. The CLIMATEMED project can facilitate the integration of knowledge about the health effects of climate change into curricula and can promote practical use. The avoidance of the unwanted effects of global warming and climate change is not only a public matter, but it is also a challenge to change our own lifestyle. It is the responsibility of all of us to protect the Earth's ecosystem and the physical and mental health of ourselves and future generations.

Keywords: climate change, health effects, medical schools, World Café, medical students

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Babaei, Sanaz Kamrani

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The main problems That arise In adopting most Enterprise resources planning (ERP) strategies come from organizational, complex information systems like the ERP integrate the data of all business areas within the organization. The implementation of ERP is a difficult process as it involves different types of end users. Based on literature, we proposed a conceptual framework and examined it to find the effect of some of the individual, organizational, and technological factors on the usage of ERP and its impact on the end user. The results of the analysis suggest that computer self-efficacy, organizational support, training, and compatibility have a positive influence on ERP usage which in turn has significant influence on panoptic empowerment and individual performance.

Keywords: factor, influencing, enterprise, system

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Authors: S. P. Sharma, Som Nath Saha

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This paper presents the performance, based on exergy analysis of double flow solar air heaters with corrugated and flat plate absorber. A mathematical model of double flow solar air heater based on energy balance equations has been presented and the results obtained have been compared with that of a conventional flat-plate solar air heater. The double flow corrugated absorber solar air heater performs thermally better than the flat plate double flow and conventional flat-plate solar air heater under same operating conditions. However, the corrugated absorber leads to higher pressure drop thereby increasing pumping power. The results revealed that the energy and exergy efficiencies of double flow corrugated absorber solar air heater is much higher than conventional solar air heater with the concept involving of increase in heat transfer surface area and turbulence in air flow. The results indicate that the energy efficiency increases, however, exergy efficiency decreases with increase in mass flow rate.

Keywords: corrugated absorber, double flow, exergy efficiency, solar air heater

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Authors: Jong-Bae Lee, Seongsoo Lee

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This paper proposes an adaptive discharge time control method to balance cell voltages in alternating battery cell discharging method. In the alternating battery cell discharging method, battery cells are periodically discharged in turn. Recovery effect increases battery output voltage while the given battery cell rests without discharging, thus battery operation time of target system increases. However, voltage mismatch between cells leads two problems. First, voltage difference between cells induces inter-cell current with wasted power. Second, it degrades battery operation time, since system stops when any cell reaches to the minimum system operation voltage. To solve this problem, the proposed method adaptively controls cell discharge time to equalize both cell voltages. In the proposed method, battery operation time increases about 19%, while alternating battery cell discharging method shows about 7% improvement.

Keywords: battery, recovery effect, low-power, alternating battery cell discharging, adaptive discharge time control

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Authors: Rasikh Tariq, Fatima Z. Benarab

Abstract:

Evaporative coolers has a minimum potential to reach the wet-bulb temperature of intake air which is not enough to handle a large cooling load; therefore, it is not a feasible option to overcome cooling requirement of a building. The invention of Maisotsenko (M) cycle has led evaporative cooling technology to reach the sub-wet-bulb temperature of the intake air; therefore, it brings an innovation in evaporative cooling techniques. In this work, we developed a mathematical model of the Maisotsenko based air cooler by applying energy and mass balance laws on different air channels. The governing ordinary differential equations are discretized and simulated on MATLAB. The temperature and the humidity plots are shown in the simulation results. A parametric study is conducted by varying working air inlet conditions (temperature and humidity), inlet air velocity, geometric parameters and water temperature. The influence of these aforementioned parameters on the cooling effectiveness of the HMX is reported.  Results have shown that the effectiveness of the M-Cycle is increased by increasing the ambient temperature and decreasing absolute humidity. An air velocity of 0.5 m/sec and a channel height of 6-8mm is recommended.

Keywords: HMX, maisotsenko cycle, mathematical modeling, numerical simulation, parametric study

Procedia PDF Downloads 147

Authors: Hamad Aljassmi, Sangwon Han

Abstract:

Various solutions for preventing construction defects have been suggested. However, a construction company may have difficulties adopting all these suggestions due to financial and practical constraints. Based on this recognition, this paper aims to identify the most significant defect causes and formulate their defect generation mechanism in order to help a construction company to set priorities of its defect prevention strategies. For this goal, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 106 industry professionals and identified five most significant causes including: (1) organizational culture, (2) time pressure and constraints, (3) workplace quality system, (4) financial constraints upon operational expenses and (5) inadequate employee training or learning opportunities.

Keywords: defect, quality, failure, risk

Procedia PDF Downloads 627

Authors: Chiung-Ju Huang, Yuan-Hong Ho

Abstract:

This study utilizes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Rules Dataset focusing on four specific fiscal rules such as expenditure rule, revenue rule, budget balance rule, and debt rule and five main characteristics of each fiscal rule those are monitoring, enforcement, coverage, legal basis, and escape clause to construct the Fiscal Rule Index for nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region from 1996 to 2015. After constructing the fiscal rule index for each country, we utilize the Panel Generalized Method of Moments (Panel GMM) by using the constructed fiscal rule index to examine the effectiveness of fiscal rules in reducing procyclicality. Empirical results show that national fiscal rules have a significantly negative impact on procyclicality of government expenditure. Additionally, stricter fiscal rules combined with high government effectiveness are effective in reducing procyclicality of government expenditure. Results of this study indicate that for nine Asia-Pacific countries, policymakers’ use of fiscal rules and government effectiveness to reducing procyclicality of fiscal policy are effective.

Keywords: counter-cyclical policy, fiscal rules, government efficiency, procyclical policy

Procedia PDF Downloads 280

Authors: Mehaiguene Madjid, Touhari Fadhila, Meddi Mohamed

Abstract:

The Cheliff basin offers a good hydrological example for the possibility of studying the problem which elucidated in the future, because of the unclearity in several aspects and hydraulic installation. Thus, our study of the Cheliff basin is divided into two principal parts: The spatial evaluation of the precipitation: also, the understanding of the modes of the reconstitution of the resource in water supposes a good knowledge of the structuring of the precipitation fields in the studied space. In the goal of a good knowledge of revitalizes them in water and their management integrated one judged necessary to establish a precipitation card of the Cheliff basin for a good understanding of the evolution of the resource in water in the basin and that goes will serve as basis for all study of hydraulic planning in the Cheliff basin. Then, the establishment of the precipitation card of the Cheliff basin answered a direct need of setting to the disposition of the researchers for the region and a document of reference that will be completed therefore and actualized. The hydrological study, based on the statistical hydrometric data processing will lead us to specify the hydrological terms of the assessment hydrological and to clarify the fundamental aspects of the annual flow, seasonal, extreme and thus of their variability and resources surface water.

Keywords: hydrological assessment, surface water resources, Cheliff, Algeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 304

Authors: Chayarat Tantanasarit, Sandhya Babel

Abstract:

Green mussels (Perna viridis) can effectively remove nutrients from seawater through their filtration process. This study aims to estimate 'net' nutrient removal rate by green mussel through calculation of nutrient uptake and release. Nutrients (carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus) uptake was calculated based on the mussel filtration rate. Nutrient release was evaluated from carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus released as mussel feces. By subtracting nutrient release from nutrient uptake, net nutrient removal by green mussel can be found as 3302, 380 and 124 mg/year/indv. Mass balance model was employed to simulate nutrient removal in actual green mussel farming conditions. Mussels farm area, seawater flow rate and amount of mussels were considered in the model. Results show that although larger quantity of green mussel farms lead to higher nutrient removal rate, the maximum green mussel cultivation should be taken into consideration as nutrients released through mussel excretion can strongly affect marine ecosystem.

Keywords: carbon, ecretion, filtration, nitrogen, phosphorus

Procedia PDF Downloads 400