Search results for: regional pattern
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 4083

Search results for: regional pattern

1953 Identifying the Structural Components of Old Buildings from Floor Plans

Authors: Shi-Yu Xu

Abstract:

The top three risk factors that have contributed to building collapses during past earthquake events in Taiwan are: "irregular floor plans or elevations," "insufficient columns in single-bay buildings," and the "weak-story problem." Fortunately, these unsound structural characteristics can be directly identified from the floor plans. However, due to the vast number of old buildings, conducting manual inspections to identify these compromised structural features in all existing structures would be time-consuming and prone to human errors. This study aims to develop an algorithm that utilizes artificial intelligence techniques to automatically pinpoint the structural components within a building's floor plans. The obtained spatial information will be utilized to construct a digital structural model of the building. This information, particularly regarding the distribution of columns in the floor plan, can then be used to conduct preliminary seismic assessments of the building. The study employs various image processing and pattern recognition techniques to enhance detection efficiency and accuracy. The study enables a large-scale evaluation of structural vulnerability for numerous old buildings, providing ample time to arrange for structural retrofitting in those buildings that are at risk of significant damage or collapse during earthquakes.

Keywords: structural vulnerability detection, object recognition, seismic capacity assessment, old buildings, artificial intelligence

Procedia PDF Downloads 66
1952 Analysis of Accessibility of Tourism Transportation in Banyuwangi

Authors: Lilla Anjani, Ervina Ahyudanari

Abstract:

Tourism is one of the contributors to regional economic income. Banyuwangi has made rapid developments related to the tourism sector, especially since 2010. There are 25 tourist visit locations that can become tourist destinations. Banyuwangi has tourism transportation to support the ease of reaching tourist places. This transportation operates with six routes, namely the final destination of Ijen Crater, Glenmore, Bajangan, Bangsring, Red Island, and Pine Forest. Despite having tourism transportation, tourists tend to choose to use a private car or rent a car because there is no access to tourist places using public transportation. Tourism transportation is also one form of sustainable tourism development in the future, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. The Banyuwangi government has a special program for tourism development that is supported by all sectors in Banyuwangi. To support the development of tourism in Banyuwangi, it is necessary to analyze existing tourism transportation as well as suggestions regarding new routes to reach all tourism locations in Banyuwangi Regency. The analysis reviewed in this study is an analysis of accessibility, distance, and time to the tourism location. There are 30 tourism destination points from 39 ODTW references from the transportation service, and the tourism office of Banyuwangi Regency Banyuwangi tourism objects can be divided into six zones based on travel time and distance. The highest accessibility value for Zone A is 51.96, and the lowest is 11.989. The highest accessibility value for Zone B is 33.4269, and the lowest is 21.737. The highest accessibility value for Zone C is 33,407, and the lowest is 14,848. The highest accessibility value for Zone D is 58,967, and the lowest is 14,742. The highest accessibility value for Zone E is 56,401, and the lowest is 14.1. The highest accessibility value for Zone F is 176.14, and the lowest is 44.1. There are two tourist transportation routes with six sessions every day. The resulting new route is in the form of grouping based on locations that can be reached in one particular area.

Keywords: accessibility, tourism clustering, Banyuwangi tourism, sustainable development goals

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1951 A Case of Ujjain on Religious Tourism: Challenges for Sustainability

Authors: Harsimran Kaur Chadha, Preeti Onkar

Abstract:

Tourism has grown into one of the world’s largest industries in the last two decades all over the world. It is an important sector of Indian economy as it contributes substantially to the foreign exchange earnings of the country. The tourism policies of India aim to position tourism as a major engine of economic growth. These policies work towards utilizing tourism’s direct and multiplier effect on employment and poverty eradication in a sustainable manner. India is blessed with a great ancient and living civilization that gave rise to four of the world’s great religions and philosophies. Diverse religions, castes, languages, culture of India build a tremendous potential for religious tourism in India. Religious Tourism facilitates development of basic infrastructural facilities, generates income for the local community as well as the government, balances regional development, and fosters peace and socio-cultural harmony. However, tourism development needs to be regulated to prevent the negative impacts. The main challenge towards Sustainable Tourism development is to balance limits and usage of natural resources. The uncontrollable growth of tourism should not lead to resource degradation. Since tourism growth is inevitable, the challenge is to manage it sustainably within environmental, social and economic constraints. This paper tries to explore both the benefits and costs of Religious Tourism Development, using the example of Simhasth Kumbh Mahaparv at Ujjain. Finally it concludes by putting forth the notion that heavy investments for temporary infrastructure development incurred during these large spiritual gatherings need to be sustainable in the long run.

Keywords: challenges, religious, sustainable, tourism

Procedia PDF Downloads 332
1950 Investigation and Research on Construction Technology of Tenon and Mortise in Traditional Chinese Architecture

Authors: Liang Zhang

Abstract:

Chinese traditional architecture has developed a school of its own in the world. It has a different structure and construction technology from western architecture. Tenon and mortise structure and construction technology, as the key to the construction of traditional Chinese architecture, have been inherited for thousands of years by traditional craftsmen in various regions of China. However, the traditional architecture varies greatly in different times and regional cultures in China. It is still a lack of research whether this difference extends to mortise and tenon technology. In this study, we measured the mortise and tenon of traditional buildings in Fujian province, Yunnan province, and Northern China; Interviewed some old craftsmen about their traditional construction methods, And compared the today's traditional mortise and tenon technology with that of Song and Qing Dynasties. The results showed that although Chinese traditional architecture has the same origin, the mortise and tenon construction technology systems have been developed at different times, regions, and cultures. For example, tenon and mortise technology in Yunnan Province needs to ensure the ability of buildings to resist earthquakes, while that in Fujian Province needs to ensure the ability of buildings to withstand typhoons. People in different regions, cultures, and times have a different understanding of architectural aesthetics, and the evolution of tools also has different effects on mortise and tenon technology. This study explains the manifestations and causes of these differences. At the same time, due to the impact of modern architectural technology, mortise, and tenon, traditional technology is also rapidly disappearing. As a sorting and collection of mortise and tenon techniques of traditional Chinese architecture, this paper puts forward the corresponding traditional technology protection strategy, to guide the protection and maintenance of local traditional buildings.

Keywords: tenon and mortise, traditional Chinese architecture, traditional craftsmen, construction technology

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1949 The Higher Education System in Jordan: Philosophy and Premises Preparation

Authors: Ihsan Orsan Oglah Elrabbaei

Abstract:

This research stems from the philosophy of education notion, as it is a fundamental pillar within or component of the philosophy of education. It is the general framework that society takes towards the future in order to build its integrated educational system amid the variables that surround it, in order to prepare its members in all aspects of cognitive, skill, and behavioral life, so that there is a clear concept of the system of productive values, according to the vision of philosophy that defines its future roles, which can be found in the system of productive values. With the resignation, everything changes. As a result, the philosophy of education is anticipated to evolve in response to perceived changes in society in terms of the nature of its human and material resources. The study will answer the following questions: Has the philosophy of education changed to accommodate this change? Alternatively, is the change that occurs because of natural growth without education having a role in directing this change and being aware of it in order to fit with national, regional, and global changes? Were the national educational goals and curricula and their programs viewed through the lenses of interest? On the other hand, do things happen without realizing that the philosophy of education has changed and that it proceeds according to the natural rolling of the invisible impulse? The study concluded that we must reconsider the philosophy of education and redefine who is an educated person. In addition, to recognize all the values of the roles that the individual can play in his society, according to his abilities, and with respect. Moreover, building a new philosophy of education based on what society can look at and what it wants from a flexible future takes the concept of changing life values, their contents, diversity, and the roles of each individual in them.

Keywords: higher education system, jordan, philosophy, premises preparation.

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1948 Modeling Spillover Effects of Pakistan-India Bilateral Trade upon Sustainability of Economic Growth in Pakistan

Authors: Taimoor Hussain Alvi, Syed Toqueer Akhter

Abstract:

The focus of this research is to identify Pak-India bilateral trade spillover effects upon Pakistan’s Growth rate. Cross-country spillover growth Effects have been linked with openness and access to markets. In this research, we intend to see the short run and long run effects of Pak-India Bilateral Trade Openness upon economic growth in Pakistan. Trade Openness has been measured as the sum of bilateral exports and imports between the two countries. Increased emphasis on the condition and environment of financial markets is laid in light of globalization and trade liberalization. This research paper makes use of the Univariate Autoregressive Distributed Lagged Model to analyze the effects of bilateral trade variables upon the growth pattern of Pakistan in the short run and long run. Key findings of the study empirically support the notion that increased bilateral trade will be beneficial for Pakistan in the short run because of cost advantage and knowledge spillover in terms of increased technical and managerial ability from multinational firms. However, contrary to extensive literature, increased bilateral trade measures will affect Pakistan’s growth rate negatively in the long run because of the industrial size differential and increased integration of Indian economy with the world.

Keywords: bilateral trade openness, spillover, comparative advantage, univariate

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1947 Comparing Image Processing and AI Techniques for Disease Detection in Plants

Authors: Luiz Daniel Garay Trindade, Antonio De Freitas Valle Neto, Fabio Paulo Basso, Elder De Macedo Rodrigues, Maicon Bernardino, Daniel Welfer, Daniel Muller

Abstract:

Agriculture plays an important role in society since it is one of the main sources of food in the world. To help the production and yield of crops, precision agriculture makes use of technologies aiming at improving productivity and quality of agricultural commodities. One of the problems hampering quality of agricultural production is the disease affecting crops. Failure in detecting diseases in a short period of time can result in small or big damages to production, causing financial losses to farmers. In order to provide a map of the contributions destined to the early detection of plant diseases and a comparison of the accuracy of the selected studies, a systematic literature review of the literature was performed, showing techniques for digital image processing and neural networks. We found 35 interesting tool support alternatives to detect disease in 19 plants. Our comparison of these studies resulted in an overall average accuracy of 87.45%, with two studies very closer to obtain 100%.

Keywords: pattern recognition, image processing, deep learning, precision agriculture, smart farming, agricultural automation

Procedia PDF Downloads 355
1946 Speciation of Bacteria Isolated from Clinical Canine and Feline Urine Samples by Using ChromID CPS Elite Agar: A Preliminary Study

Authors: Delsy Salinas, Andreia Garcês, Augusto Silva, Paula Brilhante Simões

Abstract:

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common disease affecting dogs and cats in both community and hospital environment. Bacteria is the most frequent agent isolated, fewer than 1% of infections are due to parasitic, fungal, or viral agents. Common symptoms and laboratory abnormalities includeabdominal pain, pyrexia, renomegaly, and neutrophilia with left shift. A rapid and precise identification of the bacterial agent is still a challenge in veterinarian laboratories. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aims to describe bacterial colony patterns of urine samples by using chromID™ CPS® EliteAgar (BioMérieux, France) from canine and feline specimens submitted to a veterinary laboratory in Portugal (INNO Veterinary Laboratory, Braga)from January to March2022. All urine samples were cultivated in CPS Elite Agar with calibrated 1 µL inoculating loop and incubated at 37ºC for 18-24h. Color,size, and shape (regular or irregular outline)were recorded for all samples. All colonies were classified as Gram-negative or Gram-positive bacteriausing Gram stain (PREVI® Color BioMérieux, France) and determined if they were pure colonies. Identification of bacteria species was performed using GP and GN cards inVitek 2® Compact(BioMérieux, France). A total of 256/1003 submitted urine samples presented bacterial growth, from which 172 isolates were included in this study. The sample’s population included 111 dogs (n=45 males and n=66 females) and 61 cats (n=35 males and n=26 females). The most frequent isolated bacteria wasEscherichia coli (44,7%), followed by Proteus mirabilis (13,4%). All Escherichia coli isolates presented red to burgundy colonies, a colony diameter between 2 to 6 mm, and regular or irregular outlines. Similarly, 100% of Proteus mirabilis isolates were dark yellow colonies with a diffuse pigment and the same size and shape as Escherichia coli. White and pink pale colonies where Staphylococcus species exclusively and S. pseudintermedius was the most frequent (8,2 %). Cian to blue colonies were mostly Enterococcusspp. (8,2%) and Streptococcus spp. (4,6%). Beige to brown colonies were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2,9%) and Citrobacter spp. (1,2%).Klebsiella spp.,Serratia spp. and Enterobacter spp were green colonies. All Gram-positive isolates were 1 to 2 mm diameter long and had a regular outline, meanwhile, Gram-negative rods presented variable patterns. This results showed that theprevalence of E coli and P. mirabilis as uropathogenic agents follows the same trends in Europe as previously described in other studies. Both agents presented a particular color pattern in CPS Elite Agar to identify them without needing complementary tests. No other bacteria genus could be correlated strongly to a specific color pattern, and similar results have been observed instudies using human’s samples. Chromogenic media shows a great advantage for common urine bacteria isolation than traditional COS, McConkey, and CLEDAgar mediums in a routine context, especially when mixed fermentative Gram-negative agents grow simultaneously. In addition, CPS Elite Agar is versatile for Artificial Intelligent Reading Plates Systems. Routine veterinarian laboratories could use CPS Elite Agar for a rapid screening for bacteria identification,mainlyE coli and P.mirabilis, saving 6h to 10h of automatized identification.

Keywords: cats, CPS elite agar, dogs, urine pathogens

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1945 Hybrid Seismic Energy Dissipation Devices Made of Viscoelastic Pad and Steel Plate

Authors: Jinkoo Kim, Minsung Kim

Abstract:

This study develops a hybrid seismic energy dissipation device composed of a viscoelastic damper and a steel slit damper connected in parallel. A cyclic loading test is conducted on a test specimen to validate the seismic performance of the hybrid damper. Then a moment-framed model structure is designed without seismic load so that it is retrofitted with the hybrid dampers. The model structure is transformed into an equivalent simplified system to find out optimum story-wise damper distribution pattern using genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the hybrid damper is investigated by fragility analysis and the life cycle cost evaluation of the structure with and without the dampers. The analysis results show that the model structure has reduced probability of reaching damage states, especially the complete damage state, after seismic retrofit. The expected damage cost and consequently the life cycle cost of the retrofitted structure turn out to be significantly small compared with those of the original structure. Acknowledgement: This research was supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) through the International Cooperative R & D program (N043100016).

Keywords: seismic retrofit, slit dampers, friction dampers, hybrid dampers

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1944 A Critical Review of Assessments of Geological CO2 Storage Resources in Pennsylvania and the Surrounding Region

Authors: Levent Taylan Ozgur Yildirim, Qihao Qian, John Yilin Wang

Abstract:

A critical review of assessments of geological carbon dioxide (CO2) storage resources in Pennsylvania and the surrounding region was completed with a focus on the studies of Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP), United States Department of Energy (US-DOE), and United States Geological Survey (USGS). Pennsylvania Geological Survey participated in the MRCSP Phase I research to characterize potential storage formations in Pennsylvania. The MRCSP’s volumetric method estimated ~89 gigatonnes (Gt) of total CO2 storage resources in deep saline formations, depleted oil and gas reservoirs, coals, and shales in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the US-DOE calculated storage efficiency factors using log-odds normal distribution and Monte Carlo sampling, revealing contingent storage resources of ~18 Gt to ~20 Gt in deep saline formations, depleted oil and gas reservoirs, and coals in Pennsylvania. Additionally, the USGS employed Beta-PERT distribution and Monte Carlo sampling to determine buoyant and residual storage efficiency factors, resulting in 20 Gt of contingent storage resources across four storage assessment units in Appalachian Basin. However, few studies have explored CO2 storage resources in shales in the region, yielding inconclusive findings. This article provides a critical and most up to date review and analysis of geological CO2 storage resources in Pennsylvania and the region.

Keywords: carbon capture and storage, geological CO2 storage, pennsylvania, appalachian basin

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1943 Text Localization in Fixed-Layout Documents Using Convolutional Networks in a Coarse-to-Fine Manner

Authors: Beier Zhu, Rui Zhang, Qi Song

Abstract:

Text contained within fixed-layout documents can be of great semantic value and so requires a high localization accuracy, such as ID cards, invoices, cheques, and passports. Recently, algorithms based on deep convolutional networks achieve high performance on text detection tasks. However, for text localization in fixed-layout documents, such algorithms detect word bounding boxes individually, which ignores the layout information. This paper presents a novel architecture built on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). A global text localization network and a regional bounding-box regression network are introduced to tackle the problem in a coarse-to-fine manner. The text localization network simultaneously locates word bounding points, which takes the layout information into account. The bounding-box regression network inputs the features pooled from arbitrarily sized RoIs and refine the localizations. These two networks share their convolutional features and are trained jointly. A typical type of fixed-layout documents: ID cards, is selected to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system. These networks are trained on data cropped from nature scene images, and synthetic data produced by a synthetic text generation engine. Experiments show that our approach locates high accuracy word bounding boxes and achieves state-of-the-art performance.

Keywords: bounding box regression, convolutional networks, fixed-layout documents, text localization

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1942 Design Guidelines for URM Infills and Effect of Construction Sequence on Seismic Performance of Code Compliant RC Frame Buildings

Authors: Putul Haldar, Yogendra Singh, D. K. Paul

Abstract:

Un-Reinforced Masonry (URM) infilled RC framed buildings are the most common construction practice for modern multi-storey buildings in India like many other parts of the world. Although the behavior and failure pattern of the global structure changes significantly due to infill-frame interaction, the general design practice is to treat them as non-structural elements and their stiffness, strength and interaction with frame is often ignored, as it is difficult to simulate. Indian Standard, like many other major national codes, does not provide any explicit guideline for modeling of infills. This paper takes a stock of controlling design provisions in some of the major national seismic design codes (BIS 2002; CEN 2004; NZS-4230 2004; ASCE-41 2007) to ensure the desired seismic performance of infilled frame. Most of the national codes on seismic design of buildings still lack in adequate guidelines on modeling and design of URM infilled frames results in variable assumption in analysis and design. This paper, using nonlinear pushover analysis, also presents the effect of one of such assumptions of conventional ‘simultaneous’ analysis procedure of infilled frame on the seismic performance of URM infilled RC frame buildings.

Keywords: URM infills, RC frame, seismic design codes, construction sequence of infilled frame

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1941 Robustness Conditions for the Establishment of Stationary Patterns of Drosophila Segmentation Gene Expression

Authors: Ekaterina M. Myasnikova, Andrey A. Makashov, Alexander V. Spirov

Abstract:

First manifestation of a segmentation pattern in the early Drosophila development is the formation of expression domains (along with the main embryo axis) of genes belonging to the trunk gene class. Highly variable expression of genes from gap family in early Drosophila embryo is strongly reduced by the start of gastrulation due to the gene cross-regulation. The dynamics of gene expression is described by a gene circuit model for a system of four gap genes. It is shown that for the formation of a steep and stationary border by the model it is necessary that there existed a nucleus (modeling point) in which the gene expression level is constant in time and hence is described by a stationary equation. All the rest genes expressed in this nucleus are in a dynamic equilibrium. The mechanism of border formation associated with the existence of a stationary nucleus is also confirmed by the experiment. An important advantage of this approach is that properties of the system in a stationary nucleus are described by algebraic equations and can be easily handled analytically. Thus we explicitly characterize the cross-regulation properties necessary for the robustness and formulate the conditions providing this effect through the properties of the initial input data. It is shown that our formally derived conditions are satisfied for the previously published model solutions.

Keywords: drosophila, gap genes, reaction-diffusion model, robustness

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1940 Multi-Criteria Inventory Classification Process Based on Logical Analysis of Data

Authors: Diana López-Soto, Soumaya Yacout, Francisco Ángel-Bello

Abstract:

Although inventories are considered as stocks of money sitting on shelve, they are needed in order to secure a constant and continuous production. Therefore, companies need to have control over the amount of inventory in order to find the balance between excessive and shortage of inventory. The classification of items according to certain criteria such as the price, the usage rate and the lead time before arrival allows any company to concentrate its investment in inventory according to certain ranking or priority of items. This makes the decision making process for inventory management easier and more justifiable. The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach for the classification of new items based on the already existing criteria. This approach is called the Logical Analysis of Data (LAD). It is used in this paper to assist the process of ABC items classification based on multiple criteria. LAD is a data mining technique based on Boolean theory that is used for pattern recognition. This technique has been tested in medicine, industry, credit risk analysis, and engineering with remarkable results. An application on ABC inventory classification is presented for the first time, and the results are compared with those obtained when using the well-known AHP technique and the ANN technique. The results show that LAD presented very good classification accuracy.

Keywords: ABC multi-criteria inventory classification, inventory management, multi-class LAD model, multi-criteria classification

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1939 Exploring Spiritual Needs of Taiwanese Inpatients with Advanced Cancer and Their Family Caregivers

Authors: Szu Mei Hsiao

Abstract:

This study explores the spiritual needs of inpatients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers in one southern regional teaching hospital in Taiwan and elucidates the differences and similarities of spiritual needs between them. Little research reports the different phases of spiritual needs and the potential impact of Chinese cultural values on the spiritual needs. Qualitative inquiry was used. Twenty-one patients with advanced cancer and twenty-two family caregivers were recruited. During hospitalization, all participants identified spiritual needs both the palliative phase and the dying phase: (a) the need to foster faith/confidence and hope for medicine and/or God; (b) to understand the meaning and values of life; (c) to experience more reciprocal human love and forgiveness; and (d) to obey God’s/Heaven will. Furthermore, the differences of spiritual needs between patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers are as follows: (a) family caregivers emphasized the need to inform relatives and say goodbye in order to die peacefully; (b) patients highlighted a need to maintain a certain physical appearance in order to preserve their dignity; nurture one’s willpower; learn about the experiences of cancer survivors; and identify one’s own life experience for understanding the meaning and values of life. Moreover, the dissimilarity of spiritual needs is that the patients pointed out the need to understand God’s will during the palliative treatment phase. However, the family caregivers identified the need to forgive each other, and inform relatives and say goodbye to patients in the dying phase. This research has shown that the needs of meaning/values of life and facing death peacefully are different between two groups. Health professionals will be encouraged to detect and to develop individualized care strategies to meet spiritual needs.

Keywords: advanced cancer, Chinese culture, family caregivers, qualitative research, spiritual needs

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1938 Long-Term Climate Patterns in Eastern and Southeastern Ethiopia

Authors: Messay Mulugeta, Degefa Tolossa

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize trends of climate risks in eastern and southeastern parts of Ethiopia. This part of the country appears severely affected by recurrent droughts, erratic rainfall, and increasing temperature condition. Particularly, erratic rains and moisture stresses have been forcibly threatening and shoving the people over many decades coupled with unproductive policy frameworks and weak institutional setups. These menaces have been more severe in dry lowlands where rainfall is more erratic and scarce. Long-term climate data of nine weather stations in eastern and southeastern parts of Ethiopia were obtained from National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia (NMA). As issues related to climate risks are very intricate, different techniques and indices were applied to deal with the objectives of the study. It is concluded that erratic rainfall, moisture scarcity, and increasing temperature conditions have been the main challenges in eastern and southeastern Ethiopia. In fact, these risks can be eased by putting in place efficient and integrated rural development strategies, environmental rehabilitation plans of action in overworked areas, proper irrigation and water harvesting practices and well thought-out and genuine resettlement schemes.

Keywords: rainfall variability, erratic rains, precipitation concentration index (PCI), climatic pattern, Ethiopia

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1937 Opportunity Development and Entrepreneurial Process

Authors: Abosede Mosunmola Odeseye

Abstract:

The sustainability of nations’ economies today have proven to be unrealistic in a constantly changing world without appropriate accordance to entrepreneurship role and its processes. This role has therefore proven to be a product of the available and discoverable opportunities by an individual/organisation in any pattern – innovation, discovery, diffusion, imitation amidst possible challenges. In light of these, this paper examined the relationship between opportunity development and entrepreneurial processes as well as the factors determining individual’s opportunity development and the success of entrepreneurial processes. Systematic review method was adopted for selecting relevant academic materials. The theoretical base of this paper was anchored on Schumpeter’s entrepreneurial innovation model and Drucker and Stevenson’s opportunity-based entrepreneurship theory. Based on the reviewed literature, it was discovered that rough business idea “opportunity” in any form – techniques/product encounter various obstacles to achieve its development, acceptability and sustainability. In essence, the findings revealed that the birth of every opportunity is as a result of the individual/organisation and environmental factors to be able to scale through the whole process successfully. Due to the outcome of this paper, it was recommended that the organisations/government should endeavour to create an enabling environment for a rough business idea to come to life amidst the hurdles of the entrepreneurial process.

Keywords: entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurship, opportunity, opportunity development, organisation, sustainability

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1936 The Evaluation of Substitution of Acacia villosa in Ruminants Ration

Authors: Hadriana Bansi, Elizabeth Wina, Toto Toharmat

Abstract:

Acacia villosa is thornless shrub legume which contents high crude protein. However, the utilization of A. villosa as ruminant feed is limited by its secondary compounds. The aim of this article is to find out the maximum of substitution A. villosa in sheep ration. The nutritional evaluation consisted of in vitro two stages, in vivo, and in vitro gas production trials. The secondary compounds of A. villosa also were analyzed. Evaluating digestibility of increasing level of substitution A. villosa replacing Pennisetum purpureum was using in vitro two stages. The substitution of 30% A. villosa was compared to 100% P. purpureum by in vitro gas production technique and in vivo digestibility. The results of two stages in vitro showed that total phenol, condensed tannin, and non-protein amino acid (NPAA) were high. Substitution 15% A. villosa reached the highest digestibility for both dry matter (DM) and crude protein (CP) which were 67% and 86% respectively, but it was shown that DM and CP digestibility of substitution 30% of A. villosa was still high which were 61.82% and 75-67% respectively. The pattern of gas production showed that first 8 hours total gas production substitution of 30% A. villosa was higher than 100% P. purpureum and declined after 10 hours incubation. In vivo trials showed that substitution of 30% A. villosa significantly increased CP intake, CP digestibility, and nitrogen retention. It can be concluded that substitution A. villosa until 30% still gave the good impact even though it has high secondary compounds.

Keywords: Acacia villosa, digestibility, gas production, secondary compounds

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1935 Rural-Urban Partnership for Balanced Spatial Development in Latvia

Authors: Zane Bulderberga

Abstract:

Spatial dimension in development planning is becoming more topical in 21st century as a result of changes in population structure. Sustainable spatial development focuses on identifying and using territorial advantages to foster the harmonized development of the entire country, reducing negative effects of population concentration, increasing availability and mobility. EU and national development planning documents state polycentrism as main tool for balance spatial development, including investment concentration in growth centres. If mutual cooperation of growth centres as well as urban-rural cooperation is not fostered, then territorial differences can deepen and create unbalanced development. The aim of research: to evaluate the urban-rural interaction, elaborating spatial development scenarios in framework of Latvian regional policy. To perform the research monographic, comparison, abstract-logical method, synthesis and analysis will be used when studying the theoretical aspects of research aiming at collecting the ideas of scientists from different countries, concepts, regulations as well as to create meaningful scientific discussion. Hierarchy analysis process (AHP) will be used to state further scenarios of spatial development in Latvia. Experts from various institutions recognized urban-rural interaction and co-operation as an essential tool for the development. The most important factors for balanced spatial development in Latvia are availability of public transportation and improvement of service availability. Evaluating the three alternative scenarios, it was concluded that the urban-rural partnership will ensure a balanced development in Latvian regions.

Keywords: rural-urban interaction, rural-urban cooperation, spatial development, AHP

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1934 Advances in Artificial intelligence Using Speech Recognition

Authors: Khaled M. Alhawiti

Abstract:

This research study aims to present a retrospective study about speech recognition systems and artificial intelligence. Speech recognition has become one of the widely used technologies, as it offers great opportunity to interact and communicate with automated machines. Precisely, it can be affirmed that speech recognition facilitates its users and helps them to perform their daily routine tasks, in a more convenient and effective manner. This research intends to present the illustration of recent technological advancements, which are associated with artificial intelligence. Recent researches have revealed the fact that speech recognition is found to be the utmost issue, which affects the decoding of speech. In order to overcome these issues, different statistical models were developed by the researchers. Some of the most prominent statistical models include acoustic model (AM), language model (LM), lexicon model, and hidden Markov models (HMM). The research will help in understanding all of these statistical models of speech recognition. Researchers have also formulated different decoding methods, which are being utilized for realistic decoding tasks and constrained artificial languages. These decoding methods include pattern recognition, acoustic phonetic, and artificial intelligence. It has been recognized that artificial intelligence is the most efficient and reliable methods, which are being used in speech recognition.

Keywords: speech recognition, acoustic phonetic, artificial intelligence, hidden markov models (HMM), statistical models of speech recognition, human machine performance

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1933 School Context-Related Factors That Affect Principals’ Instructional Leadership Competence at Primary Schools in Tarcha Town, Ethiopia

Authors: Godaye Gobena Gomiole

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The purpose of this study was to investigate school context-related factors that affect principals' instructional leadership competence in primary schools in Tarcha Town, Ethiopia. A qualitative case study research design was used. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Twelve senior principals were included in the study through purposive sampling. Interviews were used to collect in-depth data. The data was analyzed thematically. The findings of the study indicated that primary school principals face both internal and external challenges. Internally, they face limited knowledge and skills, a lack of courage and commitment, and administrative work overload. Their external challenges included negative attitudes from parents and teachers, a lack of instructional materials, and little support from local education authorities. Consequently, they can't serve effectively as instructional leaders or resource people. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Ministry of Education, South West Regional Education Bureau, Dawuro Zone Education Department, and Tarcha Town Administration Education Officers and Cluster Supervisors regularly monitor and support school leaders and prepare and provide pertinent teaching materials and training so that the principals can lead in the capacity that is appropriate for the position.

Keywords: instructional leadership, primary school, principals, school context related factors

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1932 Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Effects and What Answers?

Authors: Abdoulahad Allamine

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The objective of this study is to assess the impact of climate variability on agriculture and food security in 43 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. We use for this purpose the data from BADC bases, UNCTAD, and WDI FAOSTAT to estimate a VAR model on panel data. The sample is divided into three (03) agro-climatic zones, more explicitly the equatorial zone, the Sahel region and the semi-arid zone. This allows to highlight the differential impacts sustained by countries and appropriate responses to each group of countries. The results show that the sharp fluctuations in the volume of rainfall negatively affect agriculture and food security of countries in the equatorial zone, with heavy rainfall and high temperatures in the Sahel region. However, countries with low temperatures and low rainfall are the least affected. The hedging policies against the risks of climate variability must be more active in the first two groups of countries. On this basis and in general, we recommend integration of agricultural policies between countries is done to reduce the effects of climate variability on agriculture and food security. It would be logical to encourage regional and international closer collaboration on the development and dissemination of improved varieties, ecological intensification, and management of biotic and abiotic stresses facing these climate variability to sustainably increase food production. Small farmers also need training in agricultural risk hedging techniques related to climate variations; this requires an increase in state budgets allocated to agriculture.

Keywords: agro-climatic zones, climate variability, food security, Sub-Saharan Africa, VAR on panel data

Procedia PDF Downloads 359
1931 Characteristics Features and Action Mechanism of Some Country Made Pistols

Authors: Ajitesh Pal, Arpan Datta Roy, H. K. Pratihari

Abstract:

The different illegal firearms crudely made by skilled gunsmith from scrap materials are popularly known as country made firearms. Such firearms along with improvised ammunition are clandestinely marketed at the cheaper price without any license to the extremist group, criminal, poachers and firearm lovers. As per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), MHA, Govt of India about 80% firearm cases are committed by country made/improvised firearms. The ballistic division of the laboratory has examined a good number of cases. The analysis of firearm cases received for forensic examination revealed that 7.65mm calibre pistols mostly improvised firearm are commonly used in firearm related crime cases. In the present communication, physical parameters and other characteristics features of some 7.65mm calibre pistols have been discussed in detail. The detailed study on country made (CM) firearm will help to prepare a database related to type of material used, origin of the raw material and tools used for inscription. The study also includes to establish the chemistry of propellants & head stamp pattern. The database will be helpful to the firearm examiners, researchers, students pursuing study on forensic science as reference material.

Keywords: improvised pistol, stringent gun law, working mechanism, parameters, database

Procedia PDF Downloads 57
1930 Response Surface Methodology to Obtain Disopyramide Phosphate Loaded Controlled Release Ethyl Cellulose Microspheres

Authors: Krutika K. Sawant, Anil Solanki

Abstract:

The present study deals with the preparation and optimization of ethyl cellulose-containing disopyramide phosphate loaded microspheres using solvent evaporation technique. A central composite design consisting of a two-level full factorial design superimposed on a star design was employed for optimizing the preparation microspheres. The drug:polymer ratio (X1) and speed of the stirrer (X2) were chosen as the independent variables. The cumulative release of the drug at a different time (2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 hr) was selected as the dependent variable. An optimum polynomial equation was generated for the prediction of the response variable at time 10 hr. Based on the results of multiple linear regression analysis and F statistics, it was concluded that sustained action can be obtained when X1 and X2 are kept at high levels. The X1X2 interaction was found to be statistically significant. The drug release pattern fitted the Higuchi model well. The data of a selected batch were subjected to an optimization study using Box-Behnken design, and an optimal formulation was fabricated. Good agreement was observed between the predicted and the observed dissolution profiles of the optimal formulation.

Keywords: disopyramide phosphate, ethyl cellulose, microspheres, controlled release, Box-Behnken design, factorial design

Procedia PDF Downloads 437
1929 Application of Nonparametric Geographically Weighted Regression to Evaluate the Unemployment Rate in East Java

Authors: Sifriyani Sifriyani, I Nyoman Budiantara, Sri Haryatmi, Gunardi Gunardi

Abstract:

East Java Province has a first rank as a province that has the most counties and cities in Indonesia and has the largest population. In 2015, the population reached 38.847.561 million, this figure showed a very high population growth. High population growth is feared to lead to increase the levels of unemployment. In this study, the researchers mapped and modeled the unemployment rate with 6 variables that were supposed to influence. Modeling was done by nonparametric geographically weighted regression methods with truncated spline approach. This method was chosen because spline method is a flexible method, these models tend to look for its own estimation. In this modeling, there were point knots, the point that showed the changes of data. The selection of the optimum point knots was done by selecting the most minimun value of Generalized Cross Validation (GCV). Based on the research, 6 variables were declared to affect the level of unemployment in eastern Java. They were the percentage of population that is educated above high school, the rate of economic growth, the population density, the investment ratio of total labor force, the regional minimum wage and the ratio of the number of big industry and medium scale industry from the work force. The nonparametric geographically weighted regression models with truncated spline approach had a coefficient of determination 98.95% and the value of MSE equal to 0.0047.

Keywords: East Java, nonparametric geographically weighted regression, spatial, spline approach, unemployed rate

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1928 Role of International Organizations towards Good Governance: Recent Trends

Authors: E. Prema Shyam

Abstract:

The role of international organizations has contributed in various ways for the good governance in the world at large. Since the beginning of the 1990s international organizations, particularly those active in the areas of human rights, trade and economic etc., have embraced a 'good governance'. It is also pertinent to mention that the application of the concept of good governance to international organizations themselves and not exclusively to national or regional polities is a more recent phenomenon. Especially since the second half of the 1990s, a number of international organizations have carried out major governance reforms, assuming that their calls for governments to heed higher standards of good governance will be all the more credible provided that they develop a good governance standard for themselves. In addition to this number of organizations such as the United Nations (UN), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Union (EU), International Committee of the Red Cross and World Trade Organization (WTO). OECD has been specifically mobilized to fight corruption. The World Bank was the first international organization to address the issue of good governance when it attributed the African development crisis to a crisis of governance in a 1989 report. International organizations are often denounced for their lack of transparency and democracy. However, in the last few years, a number of them have pushed through impressive reforms aimed at enhancing good governance standards within their own organizations, especially in the light of their long-standing secrecy. This is a remnant of the traditional conception of international organizations, which renders them merely answerable to their Members. International organizations have already gone quite some way in the areas of good management and opening up to the public. However, as far as participatory governance is concerned, lot to be done for the larger interest of society. In this paper, an attempt has been made to focus the issues on international organisations with regard to good governance.

Keywords: good governance, World Trade Organisation, international organisation, governance reforms

Procedia PDF Downloads 435
1927 Electroencephalogram Based Approach for Mental Stress Detection during Gameplay with Level Prediction

Authors: Priyadarsini Samal, Rajesh Singla

Abstract:

Many mobile games come with the benefits of entertainment by introducing stress to the human brain. In recognizing this mental stress, the brain-computer interface (BCI) plays an important role. It has various neuroimaging approaches which help in analyzing the brain signals. Electroencephalogram (EEG) is the most commonly used method among them as it is non-invasive, portable, and economical. Here, this paper investigates the pattern in brain signals when introduced with mental stress. Two healthy volunteers played a game whose aim was to search hidden words from the grid, and the levels were chosen randomly. The EEG signals during gameplay were recorded to investigate the impacts of stress with the changing levels from easy to medium to hard. A total of 16 features of EEG were analyzed for this experiment which includes power band features with relative powers, event-related desynchronization, along statistical features. Support vector machine was used as the classifier, which resulted in an accuracy of 93.9% for three-level stress analysis; for two levels, the accuracy of 92% and 98% are achieved. In addition to that, another game that was similar in nature was played by the volunteers. A suitable regression model was designed for prediction where the feature sets of the first and second game were used for testing and training purposes, respectively, and an accuracy of 73% was found.

Keywords: brain computer interface, electroencephalogram, regression model, stress, word search

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1926 Media Usage, Citizenship Norms, and Political Participation of Transition to Democracy in Indonesia

Authors: Najmuddin Najmuddin

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to determine whether media usage and change of citizenship norms influence political participation. The focus of this study is to examine citizenship norms in the context of the development of information, and communication technology and how it will impact political participation in the context of Indonesia's transition to democracy. The study use survey method. The main theoretical framework is media and political participation. The results of this study reveal that gender, age and educational background of the respondents did not influence significantly media usage and citizenship norms. The Results also show that educational background is not a factor that distinguishes media usage but it becomes differentiating factor in citizenship norms. The results further show that the media usage has a significant correlation with citizenship norms and citizenship norms has a significant relationship with political participation. In addition, media usage and citizenship norms impact significantly to political participation. The sub-dimensions of citizenship norms (compliance, duty, and engaged citizen) provides a significant contribution to the sub-dimensions of political participation (traditional political participation, modern political participation, civic political participation). Based on the findings it can be concluded that the political euphoria in the era of transition to democracy has changed pattern media usage and citizenship norms of among the young generation.

Keywords: media, citizenship, norms, political, participation, democracy

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1925 Greenland Monitoring Using Vegetation Index: A Case Study of Lal Suhanra National Park

Authors: Rabia Munsaf Khan, Eshrat Fatima

Abstract:

The analysis of the spatial extent and temporal change of vegetation cover using remotely sensed data is of critical importance to agricultural sciences. Pakistan, being an agricultural country depends on this resource as it makes 70% of the GDP. The case study is of Lal Suhanra National Park, which is not only the biggest forest reserve of Pakistan but also of Asia. The study is performed using different temporal images of Landsat. Also, the results of Landsat are cross-checked by using Sentinel-2 imagery as it has both higher spectral and spatial resolution. Vegetation can easily be detected using NDVI which is a common and widely used index. It is an important vegetation index, widely applied in research on global environmental and climatic change. The images are then classified to observe the change occurred over 15 years. Vegetation cover maps of 2000 and 2016 are used to generate the map of vegetation change detection for the respective years and to find out the changing pattern of vegetation cover. Also, the NDVI values aided in the detection of percentage decrease in vegetation cover. The study reveals that vegetation cover of the area has decreased significantly during the year 2000 and 2016.

Keywords: Landsat, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), sentinel 2, Greenland monitoring

Procedia PDF Downloads 289
1924 Efficient Schemes of Classifiers for Remote Sensing Satellite Imageries of Land Use Pattern Classifications

Authors: S. S. Patil, Sachidanand Kini

Abstract:

Classification of land use patterns is compelling in complexity and variability of remote sensing imageries data. An imperative research in remote sensing application exploited to mine some of the significant spatially variable factors as land cover and land use from satellite images for remote arid areas in Karnataka State, India. The diverse classification techniques, unsupervised and supervised consisting of maximum likelihood, Mahalanobis distance, and minimum distance are applied in Bellary District in Karnataka State, India for the classification of the raw satellite images. The accuracy evaluations of results are compared visually with the standard maps with ground-truths. We initiated with the maximum likelihood technique that gave the finest results and both minimum distance and Mahalanobis distance methods over valued agriculture land areas. In meanness of mislaid few irrelevant features due to the low resolution of the satellite images, high-quality accord between parameters extracted automatically from the developed maps and field observations was found.

Keywords: Mahalanobis distance, minimum distance, supervised, unsupervised, user classification accuracy, producer's classification accuracy, maximum likelihood, kappa coefficient

Procedia PDF Downloads 162