Search results for: overview of porosity classification
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 3593

Search results for: overview of porosity classification

1403 A Review of the Drawbacks of Current Fixed Connection Façade Systems, Non-Structural Standards, and Ways of Integrating Movable Façade Technology into Buildings

Authors: P. Abtahi, B. Samali

Abstract:

Façade panels of various shapes, weights, and connections usually act as a barrier between the indoor and outdoor environments. They also play a major role in enhancing the aesthetics of building structures. They are attached by different types of connections to the primary structure or inner panels in double skin façade skins. Structural buildings designed to withstand seismic shocks have been undergoing a critical appraisal in recent years, with the emphasis changing from ‘strength’ to ‘performance’. Performance based design and analysis have found their way into research, development, and practice of earthquake engineering, particularly after the 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe earthquakes. The design performance of facades as non-structural elements has now focused mainly on evaluating the damage sustained by façade frames with fixed connections, not movable ones. This paper will review current design standards for structural buildings, including the performance of structural and non-structural components during earthquake excitations in order to overview and evaluate the damage assessment and behaviour of various façade systems in building structures during seismic activities. The proposed solutions for each facade system will be discussed case by case to evaluate their potential for incorporation with newly designed connections. Finally, Double-Skin-Facade systems can potentially be combined with movable facade technology, although other glazing systems would require minor to major changes in their design before being integrated into the system.

Keywords: building performance, earthquake engineering, glazing system, movable façade technology

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1402 A Dissipative Particle Dynamics Study of a Capsule in Microfluidic Intracellular Delivery System

Authors: Nishanthi N. S., Srikanth Vedantam

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Intracellular delivery of materials has always proved to be a challenge in research and therapeutic applications. Usually, vector-based methods, such as liposomes and polymeric materials, and physical methods, such as electroporation and sonoporation have been used for introducing nucleic acids or proteins. Reliance on exogenous materials, toxicity, off-target effects was the short-comings of these methods. Microinjection was an alternative process which addressed the above drawbacks. However, its low throughput had hindered its adoption widely. Mechanical deformation of cells by squeezing them through constriction channel can cause the temporary development of pores that would facilitate non-targeted diffusion of materials. Advantages of this method include high efficiency in intracellular delivery, a wide choice of materials, improved viability and high throughput. This cell squeezing process can be studied deeper by employing simple models and efficient computational procedures. In our current work, we present a finite sized dissipative particle dynamics (FDPD) model to simulate the dynamics of the cell flowing through a constricted channel. The cell is modeled as a capsule with FDPD particles connected through a spring network to represent the membrane. The total energy of the capsule is associated with linear and radial springs in addition to constraint of the fixed area. By performing detailed simulations, we studied the strain on the membrane of the capsule for channels with varying constriction heights. The strain on the capsule membrane was found to be similar though the constriction heights vary. When strain on the membrane was correlated to the development of pores, we found higher porosity in capsule flowing in wider channel. This is due to localization of strain to a smaller region in the narrow constriction channel. But the residence time of the capsule increased as the channel constriction narrowed indicating that strain for an increased time will cause less cell viability.

Keywords: capsule, cell squeezing, dissipative particle dynamics, intracellular delivery, microfluidics, numerical simulations

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1401 Time Series Regression with Meta-Clusters

Authors: Monika Chuchro

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This paper presents a preliminary attempt to apply classification of time series using meta-clusters in order to improve the quality of regression models. In this case, clustering was performed as a method to obtain a subgroups of time series data with normal distribution from inflow into waste water treatment plant data which Composed of several groups differing by mean value. Two simple algorithms: K-mean and EM were chosen as a clustering method. The rand index was used to measure the similarity. After simple meta-clustering, regression model was performed for each subgroups. The final model was a sum of subgroups models. The quality of obtained model was compared with the regression model made using the same explanatory variables but with no clustering of data. Results were compared by determination coefficient (R2), measure of prediction accuracy mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and comparison on linear chart. Preliminary results allows to foresee the potential of the presented technique.

Keywords: clustering, data analysis, data mining, predictive models

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1400 Automated Detection of Women Dehumanization in English Text

Authors: Maha Wiss, Wael Khreich

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Animals, objects, foods, plants, and other non-human terms are commonly used as a source of metaphors to describe females in formal and slang language. Comparing women to non-human items not only reflects cultural views that might conceptualize women as subordinates or in a lower position than humans, yet it conveys this degradation to the listeners. Moreover, the dehumanizing representation of females in the language normalizes the derogation and even encourages sexism and aggressiveness against women. Although dehumanization has been a popular research topic for decades, according to our knowledge, no studies have linked women's dehumanizing language to the machine learning field. Therefore, we introduce our research work as one of the first attempts to create a tool for the automated detection of the dehumanizing depiction of females in English texts. We also present the first labeled dataset on the charted topic, which is used for training supervised machine learning algorithms to build an accurate classification model. The importance of this work is that it accomplishes the first step toward mitigating dehumanizing language against females.

Keywords: gender bias, machine learning, NLP, women dehumanization

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1399 In vitro Characterization of Mice Bone Microstructural Changes by Low-Field and High-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Authors: Q. Ni, J. A. Serna, D. Holland, X. Wang

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The objective of this study is to develop Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) techniques to enhance bone related research applied on normal and disuse (Biglycan knockout) mice bone in vitro by using both low-field and high-field NMR simultaneously. It is known that the total amplitude of T₂ relaxation envelopes, measured by the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill NMR spin echo train (CPMG), is a representation of the liquid phase inside the pores. Therefore, the NMR CPMG magnetization amplitude can be transferred to the volume of water after calibration with the NMR signal amplitude of the known volume of the selected water. In this study, the distribution of mobile water, porosity that can be determined by using low-field (20 MHz) CPMG relaxation technique, and the pore size distributions can be determined by a computational inversion relaxation method. It is also known that the total proton intensity of magnetization from the NMR free induction decay (FID) signal is due to the water present inside the pores (mobile water), the water that has undergone hydration with the bone (bound water), and the protons in the collagen and mineral matter (solid-like protons). Therefore, the components of total mobile and bound water within bone that can be determined by low-field NMR free induction decay technique. Furthermore, the bound water in solid phase (mineral and organic constituents), especially, the dominated component of calcium hydroxyapatite (Ca₁₀(OH)₂(PO₄)₆) can be determined by using high-field (400 MHz) magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR. With MAS technique reducing NMR spectral linewidth inhomogeneous broadening and susceptibility broadening of liquid-solid mix, in particular, we can conduct further research into the ¹H and ³¹P elements and environments of bone materials to identify the locations of bound water such as OH- group within minerals and bone architecture. We hypothesize that with low-field and high-field magic angle spinning NMR can provide a more complete interpretation of water distribution, particularly, in bound water, and these data are important to access bone quality and predict the mechanical behavior of bone.

Keywords: bone, mice bone, NMR, water in bone

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1398 An International Analysis of Career Development and Management Programs for High-Performance Athletes: A Perspective of Organizational Support

Authors: H. J. Hong

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Sporting organizations are arguably responsible for encouraging high-performance athletes to balance their life and identity during their sporting career; sporting organizations can establish the motivational climate for high-performance athletes using athlete career development and management programs. The purpose of this article to provide an overview of career development and management programs in 20 countries and to examine the following seven features of the programs: (1) Which government-funded sporting organizations provide career development and management programs? (2) Which athletes are eligible to access the programs? (3) What are the aims and objectives of the programs? (4) What are the activities and content of the programs? (5) Who is responsible for the delivery of the programs within organizations (e.g., advisors, coordinators, service providers, counsellors, etc.)? (6) Do the sporting organizations have training and development programs for support services providers? and (7) Do the sporting organizations assess the programs in terms of the programs’ impact on high-performance athletes’ career development and management skills? Web-based data collection was conducted first. The author contacted the sporting organizations to clarify information as required by requesting further information via emails, international calls, video calls on Skype, and by visiting the sporting organizations and meeting with the practitioners (Fiji, Ireland, Korea, Scotland, Singapore, and Spain). By selecting comparable career development and management programs, the present study reviews programs across the world, identifying similarities, differences, and difficulties, so that sporting organizations and practitioners may enhance the quality of their programs. Since international comparisons of career development and management programs remain scarce, the findings deepen the knowledge of high-performance athletes’ career development, management, and transitions in the areas of organizational support programs.

Keywords: athletes' career development and management, athletes' psychological preparation, organizational support, sport career transition

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1397 Rt. Side Sleeping Position Prevents Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Authors: Othman Salim Hussein Al-Fleesy

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Background: Studies showed that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has association with sleeping positions. Up-to-date no study explained how could they prevent it? Objectives: 1-To determine which sleeping position is certainly safe one to prevent SIDS. 2-To establish criteria for suggesting definition and making diagnosis for SIDS. 3-To discuss the controversy surrounding SUND, ALTE, NM, as compared to SIDS. Method: This literature review was built on a previous literature. Articles were obtained randomly according to their availability to the author. For the purpose of this work an easy approach was built by modeling an overview on SIDS topic after clarifying the misconception and misinterpretation of a number of controversial issues in regard to SIDS such as: asphyxia, sudden unexpected death among adults (Bangungut or Pokkuri), apparent life threatening event (ALTE), Nightmare, and comparing the findings with the literature review results..By this unique method we got a clue for prevention of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Results: The revision revealed with no doubt that no study before have studied right-side sleeping position at all. The author determined right side as the only safe position to preventing SIDS. A new definition for SIDS is suggested. The author postulated a Right side position hypothesis (Alfleesy hypothesis) which is a testable hypothesis in front of all researchers for further study . Conclusion: Our results contradict totally all previous studies and recommendations. We recommended strongly the right side position only for sleeping to prevent SIDS. New definition is suggested and a new hypothesis is postulated.

Keywords: SIDS, ALTE, nightmare, forensic sciences

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1396 Credit Risk Evaluation Using Genetic Programming

Authors: Ines Gasmi, Salima Smiti, Makram Soui, Khaled Ghedira

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Credit risk is considered as one of the important issues for financial institutions. It provokes great losses for banks. To this objective, numerous methods for credit risk evaluation have been proposed. Many evaluation methods are black box models that cannot adequately reveal information hidden in the data. However, several works have focused on building transparent rules-based models. For credit risk assessment, generated rules must be not only highly accurate, but also highly interpretable. In this paper, we aim to build both, an accurate and transparent credit risk evaluation model which proposes a set of classification rules. In fact, we consider the credit risk evaluation as an optimization problem which uses a genetic programming (GP) algorithm, where the goal is to maximize the accuracy of generated rules. We evaluate our proposed approach on the base of German and Australian credit datasets. We compared our finding with some existing works; the result shows that the proposed GP outperforms the other models.

Keywords: credit risk assessment, rule generation, genetic programming, feature selection

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1395 Preservation of Sensitive Biological Products: An Insight into Conventional and Upcoming Drying Techniques

Authors: Jannika Dombrowski, Sabine Ambros, Ulrich Kulozik

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Several drying techniques are used to preserve sensitive substances such as probiotic lactic acid bacteria. With the aim to better understand differences between these processes, this work gives new insights into structural variations resulting from different preservation methods and their impact on product quality and storage stability. Industrially established methods (freeze drying, spray drying) were compared to upcoming vacuum, microwave-freeze, and microwave-vacuum drying. For freeze and microwave-freeze dried samples, survival and activity maintained 100%, whereas vacuum and microwave-vacuum dried cultures achieved 30-40% survival. Spray drying yielded in lowest viability. The results are directly related to temperature and oxygen content during drying. Interestingly, most storage stable products resulted from vacuum and microwave-vacuum drying due to denser product structures as determined by helium pycnometry and SEM images. Further, lower water adsorption velocities were responsible for lower inactivation rates. Concluding, resulting product structures as well as survival rates and storage stability mainly depend on the type of water removal instead of energy input. Microwave energy compared to conductive heating did not lead to significant differences regarding the examined factors. Correlations could be proven for three investigated microbial strains. The presentation will be completed by an overview on the energy efficiency of the presented methods.

Keywords: drying techniques, energy efficiency, lactic acid bacteria, probiotics, survival rates, structure characterization

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1394 Digital Interventions for Older People Experiencing Homelessness (OPEH): A Systematic Scoping Review

Authors: Emily Adams, Eddie Donaghy, David Henderson, Lauren Ng, Caroline Sanders, Rowena Stewart, Maria Wolters, Stewart Mercer

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Ongoing review abstract: Older People Experiencing Homelessness (OPEH) can have mental and physical indicators of aging 10–20 years earlier than the general population and experience premature mortality due to age-related chronic conditions. Emerging literature suggests digital interventions could positively impact PEH’s well-being. However, the increased reliance on digital delivery may also perpetuate digital inequalities for socially excluded groups, including PEH. The potential triple disadvantage of being older, homeless, and digitally excluded creates a uniquely problematic situation that warrants further research. This scoping review aims to investigate and synthesise the range and type of digital interventions available to OPEH and the organisations that support OPEH. The following databases were searched on 28th July 2023: Medline, Scopus, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)‎, Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)‎, Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library (ACMDL) and Policy commons. A search strategy was developed in collaboration with an academic librarian. The presentation will include: An introduction to OPEH and digital exclusion Overview of the results of this review: OPEH usage of digital platforms Current digital interventions available The role of support organisations Current gaps in the evidence, future research and recommendations for policy and practice

Keywords: homeless, digital exclusion, aging, technology

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1393 Advancing Environmental Remediation Through the Production of Functional Porous Materials from Phosphorite Residue Tailings

Authors: Ali Mohammed Yimer, Ayalew Assen, Youssef Belmabkhout

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Environmental remediation is a pressing global concern, necessitating innovative strategies to address the challenges posed by industrial waste and pollution. This study aims to advance environmental remediation by developing cutting-edge functional porous materials from phosphorite residue tailings. Phosphorite mining activities generate vast amounts of waste, which pose significant environmental risks due to their contaminants. The proposed approach involved transforming these phosphorite residue tailings into valuable porous materials through a series of physico-chemical processes including milling, acid-base leaching, designing or templating as well as formation processes. The key components of the tailings were extracted and processed to produce porous arrays with high surface area and porosity. These materials were engineered to possess specific properties suitable for environmental remediation applications, such as enhanced adsorption capacity and selectivity for target contaminants. The synthesized porous materials were thoroughly characterized using advanced analytical techniques (XRD, SEM-EDX, N2 sorption, TGA, FTIR) to assess their structural, morphological, and chemical properties. The performance of the materials in removing various pollutants, including heavy metals and organic compounds, were evaluated through batch adsorption experiments. Additionally, the potential for material regeneration and reusability was investigated to enhance the sustainability of the proposed remediation approach. The outdoors of this research holds significant promise for addressing the environmental challenges associated with phosphorite residue tailings. By valorizing these waste materials into porous materials with exceptional remediation capabilities, this study contributes to the development of sustainable and cost-effective solutions for environmental cleanup. Furthermore, the utilization of phosphorite residue tailings in this manner offers a potential avenue for the remediation of other contaminated sites, thereby fostering a circular economy approach to waste management.

Keywords: functional porous materials, phosphorite residue tailings, adsorption, environmental remediation, sustainable solutions

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1392 Vector-Based Analysis in Cognitive Linguistics

Authors: Chuluundorj Begz

Abstract:

This paper presents the dynamic, psycho-cognitive approach to study of human verbal thinking on the basis of typologically different languages /as a Mongolian, English and Russian/. Topological equivalence in verbal communication serves as a basis of Universality of mental structures and therefore deep structures. Mechanism of verbal thinking consisted at the deep level of basic concepts, rules for integration and classification, neural networks of vocabulary. In neuro cognitive study of language, neural architecture and neuro psychological mechanism of verbal cognition are basis of a vector-based modeling. Verbal perception and interpretation of the infinite set of meanings and propositions in mental continuum can be modeled by applying tensor methods. Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces are applied for a description of human semantic vocabulary and high order structures.

Keywords: Euclidean spaces, isomorphism and homomorphism, mental lexicon, mental mapping, semantic memory, verbal cognition, vector space

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1391 Lipid Extraction from Microbial Cell by Electroporation Technique and Its Influence on Direct Transesterification for Biodiesel Synthesis

Authors: Abu Yousuf, Maksudur Rahman Khan, Ahasanul Karim, Amirul Islam, Minhaj Uddin Monir, Sharmin Sultana, Domenico Pirozzi

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Traditional biodiesel feedstock like edible oils or plant oils, animal fats and cooking waste oil have been replaced by microbial oil in recent research of biodiesel synthesis. The well-known community of microbial oil producers includes microalgae, oleaginous yeast and seaweeds. Conventional transesterification of microbial oil to produce biodiesel is lethargic, energy consuming, cost-ineffective and environmentally unhealthy. This process follows several steps such as microbial biomass drying, cell disruption, oil extraction, solvent recovery, oil separation and transesterification. Therefore, direct transesterification of biodiesel synthesis has been studying for last few years. It combines all the steps in a single reactor and it eliminates the steps of biomass drying, oil extraction and separation from solvent. Apparently, it seems to be cost-effective and faster process but number of difficulties need to be solved to make it large scale applicable. The main challenges are microbial cell disruption in bulk volume and make faster the esterification reaction, because water contents of the medium sluggish the reaction rate. Several methods have been proposed but none of them is up to the level to implement in large scale. It is still a great challenge to extract maximum lipid from microbial cells (yeast, fungi, algae) investing minimum energy. Electroporation technique results a significant increase in cell conductivity and permeability caused due to the application of an external electric field. Electroporation is required to alter the size and structure of the cells to increase their porosity as well as to disrupt the microbial cell walls within few seconds to leak out the intracellular lipid to the solution. Therefore, incorporation of electroporation techniques contributed in direct transesterification of microbial lipids by increasing the efficiency of biodiesel production rate.

Keywords: biodiesel, electroporation, microbial lipids, transesterification

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1390 Optimization of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Peshawar Using Mathematical Modelling and GIS with Focus on Incineration

Authors: Usman Jilani, Ibad Khurram, Irshad Hussain

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Environmentally sustainable waste management is a challenging task as it involves multiple and diverse economic, environmental, technical and regulatory issues. Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) is more challenging in developing countries like Pakistan due to lack of awareness, technology and human resources, insufficient funding, inefficient collection and transport mechanism resulting in the lack of a comprehensive waste management system. This work presents an overview of current MSWM practices in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and proposes a better and sustainable integrated solid waste management system with incineration (Waste to Energy) option. The diverted waste would otherwise generate revenue; minimize land fill requirement and negative impact on the environment. The proposed optimized solution utilizing scientific techniques (like mathematical modeling, optimization algorithms and GIS) as decision support tools enhances the technical & institutional efficiency leading towards a more sustainable waste management system through incorporating: - Improved collection mechanisms through optimized transportation / routing and, - Resource recovery through incineration and selection of most feasible sites for transfer stations, landfills and incineration plant. These proposed methods shift the linear waste management system towards a cyclic system and can also be used as a decision support tool by the WSSP (Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar), agency responsible for the MSWM in Peshawar.

Keywords: municipal solid waste management, incineration, mathematical modeling, optimization, GIS, Peshawar

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1389 Applications of Out-of-Sequence Thrust Movement for Earthquake Mitigation: A Review

Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh

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The study presents an overview of the many uses and approaches for estimating out-of-sequence thrust movement in earthquake mitigation. The study investigates how knowing and forecasting thrust movement during seismic occurrences might assist to effective earthquake mitigation measures. The review begins by discussing out-of-sequence thrust movement and its importance in earthquake mitigation strategies. It explores how typical techniques of estimating thrust movement may not capture the full complexity of seismic occurrences and emphasizes the benefits of include out-of-sequence data in the analysis. A thorough review of existing research and studies on out-of-sequence thrust movement estimates for earthquake mitigation. The study demonstrates how to estimate out-of-sequence thrust movement using multiple data sources such as GPS measurements, satellite imagery, and seismic recordings. The study also examines the use of out-of-sequence thrust movement estimates in earthquake mitigation measures. It investigates how precise calculation of thrust movement may help improve structural design, analyse infrastructure risk, and develop early warning systems. The potential advantages of using out-of-sequence data in these applications to improve the efficiency of earthquake mitigation techniques. The difficulties and limits of estimating out-of-sequence thrust movement for earthquake mitigation. It addresses data quality difficulties, modelling uncertainties, and computational complications. To address these obstacles and increase the accuracy and reliability of out-of-sequence thrust movement estimates, the authors recommend topics for additional study and improvement. The study is a helpful resource for seismic monitoring and earthquake risk assessment researchers, engineers, and policymakers, supporting innovations in earthquake mitigation measures based on a better knowledge of thrust movement dynamics.

Keywords: earthquake mitigation, out-of-sequence thrust, satellite imagery, seismic recordings, GPS measurements

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1388 'Antibody Exception' under Dispute and Waning Usage: Potential Influence on Patenting Antibodies

Authors: Xiangjun Kong, Dongning Yao, Yuanjia Hu

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Therapeutic antibodies have become the most valuable and successful class of biopharmaceutical drugs, with a huge market potential and therapeutic advantages. Antibody patents are, accordingly, extremely important. As the technological limitation of the early stage of this field, the U. S. Patent and Trademark Offices (USPTO) have issued guidelines that suggest an exception for patents claiming a genus of antibodies that bind to a novel antigen, even in the absence of any experimental antibody production. This 'antibody exception' allowed for a broad scope on antibody claims, and led a global trend to patent antibodies without antibodies. Disputes around the pertinent patentability and written description issues remain particularly intense. Yet the validity of such patents had not been overtly challenged until Centocor v. Abbott, which restricted the broad scope of antibody patents and hit the brakes on the 'antibody exception'. The courts tend to uphold the requirement for adequate description of antibodies in the patent specifications, to avoid overreaching antibody claims. Patents following the 'antibody exception' are at risk of being found invalid for inadequately describing what they have claimed. However, the relation between the court and USPTO guidelines remains obscure, and the waning of the 'antibody exception' has led to further disputes around antibody patents. This uncertainty clearly affects patent applications, antibody innovations, and even relevant business performance. This study will give an overview of the emergence, debate, and waning usage of the 'antibody exception' in a number of enlightening cases, attempting to understand the specific concerns and the potential influence of antibody patents. We will then provide some possible strategies for antibody patenting, under the current considerations on the 'antibody exception'.

Keywords: antibody exception, antibody patent, USPTO (U. S. Patent and Trademark Offices) guidelines, written description requirement

Procedia PDF Downloads 155
1387 Performance Evaluation of Various Segmentation Techniques on MRI of Brain Tissue

Authors: U.V. Suryawanshi, S.S. Chowhan, U.V Kulkarni

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Accuracy of segmentation methods is of great importance in brain image analysis. Tissue classification in Magnetic Resonance brain images (MRI) is an important issue in the analysis of several brain dementias. This paper portraits performance of segmentation techniques that are used on Brain MRI. A large variety of algorithms for segmentation of Brain MRI has been developed. The objective of this paper is to perform a segmentation process on MR images of the human brain, using Fuzzy c-means (FCM), Kernel based Fuzzy c-means clustering (KFCM), Spatial Fuzzy c-means (SFCM) and Improved Fuzzy c-means (IFCM). The review covers imaging modalities, MRI and methods for noise reduction and segmentation approaches. All methods are applied on MRI brain images which are degraded by salt-pepper noise demonstrate that the IFCM algorithm performs more robust to noise than the standard FCM algorithm. We conclude with a discussion on the trend of future research in brain segmentation and changing norms in IFCM for better results.

Keywords: image segmentation, preprocessing, MRI, FCM, KFCM, SFCM, IFCM

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1386 Open-Source YOLO CV For Detection of Dust on Solar PV Surface

Authors: Jeewan Rai, Kinzang, Yeshi Jigme Choden

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Accumulation of dust on solar panels impacts the overall efficiency and the amount of energy they produce. While various techniques exist for detecting dust to schedule cleaning, many of these methods use MATLAB image processing tools and other licensed software, which can be financially burdensome. This study will investigate the efficiency of a free open-source computer vision library using the YOLO algorithm. The proposed approach has been tested on images of solar panels with varying dust levels through an experiment setup. The experimental findings illustrated the effectiveness of using the YOLO-based image classification method and the overall dust detection approach with an accuracy of 90% in distinguishing between clean and dusty panels. This open-source solution provides a cost effective and accessible alternative to commercial image processing tools, offering solutions for optimizing solar panel maintenance and enhancing energy production.

Keywords: YOLO, openCV, dust detection, solar panels, computer vision, image processing

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1385 Hierarchical Control Structure to Control the Power Distribution System Components in Building Systems

Authors: Hamed Sarbazy, Zohre Gholipour Haftkhani, Ali Safari, Pejman Hosseiniun

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Scientific and industrial progress in the past two decades has resulted in energy distribution systems based on power electronics, as an enabling technology in various industries and building management systems can be considered. Grading and standardization module power electronics systems and its use in a distributed control system, a strategy for overcoming the limitations of using this system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate strategies for scheduling and control structure of standard modules is a power electronic systems. This paper introduces the classical control methods and disadvantages of these methods will be discussed, The hierarchical control as a mechanism for distributed control structure of the classification module explains. The different levels of control and communication between these levels are fully introduced. Also continue to standardize software distribution system control structure is discussed. Finally, as an example, the control structure will be presented in a DC distribution system.

Keywords: application management, hardware management, power electronics, building blocks

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1384 Emotional Analysis for Text Search Queries on Internet

Authors: Gemma García López

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The goal of this study is to analyze if search queries carried out in search engines such as Google, can offer emotional information about the user that performs them. Knowing the emotional state in which the Internet user is located can be a key to achieve the maximum personalization of content and the detection of worrying behaviors. For this, two studies were carried out using tools with advanced natural language processing techniques. The first study determines if a query can be classified as positive, negative or neutral, while the second study extracts emotional content from words and applies the categorical and dimensional models for the representation of emotions. In addition, we use search queries in Spanish and English to establish similarities and differences between two languages. The results revealed that text search queries performed by users on the Internet can be classified emotionally. This allows us to better understand the emotional state of the user at the time of the search, which could involve adapting the technology and personalizing the responses to different emotional states.

Keywords: emotion classification, text search queries, emotional analysis, sentiment analysis in text, natural language processing

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1383 A Review of Process Safety Management for Small and Medium Business in Malaysia

Authors: Muhammad Afiq Anaqi Bin Baharudin, Muhammad Izamuddin Bin Mohd Nasir, Syarifuddin Bin Sujuanda, Muhammad Syahmi Rusyaidi Bin Sham Suddin, Danish Hakimi Bin kamaruzaman, Muhammad Haqimi Nazim Bin Hasmanizam, Mohammad Akmal Zakwan Bin Amran, Muhammad Alparizi Bin Latif

Abstract:

In particular, for small and medium enterprises (SMBs) in Malaysia, process safety management (PSM) is a crucial component of industrial safety. Limited resources, a lack of technical know-how, and linguistic and cultural obstacles are just a few of the difficulties SMBs in Malaysia encounter while putting PSM programmes into practice. A number of studies have emphasised the significance of leadership commitment, hazard identification and assessment, and employee involvement in the execution of effective PSM programmes, which are crucial for preventing accidents and incidents. In the literature, there has been a lot of discussion on the creation of specialised PSM frameworks for SMBs in Malaysia. Several studies have proposed implementation frameworks for PSM programmes that are based on recognised worldwide standards. Despite the significance of PSM in ensuring industrial safety, there are still a number of gaps in the literature on PSM in Malaysian SMBs. These gaps include the need for additional research on the efficiency of PSM programmes in reducing accidents and incidents in SMBs as well as the development of more specialised approaches to implementing PSM programmes in SMBs with limited resources and technical expertise. The goal of this review is to give a thorough overview of the body of research on PSM in Malaysian SMBs while highlighting important findings, points of contention, and knowledge gaps that need to be filled in.

Keywords: process safety management, occupational safety and health (OSH), small businesses, medium businesses, malaysia

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1382 Data Science in Military Decision-Making: A Semi-Systematic Literature Review

Authors: H. W. Meerveld, R. H. A. Lindelauf

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In contemporary warfare, data science is crucial for the military in achieving information superiority. Yet, to the authors’ knowledge, no extensive literature survey on data science in military decision-making has been conducted so far. In this study, 156 peer-reviewed articles were analysed through an integrative, semi-systematic literature review to gain an overview of the topic. The study examined to what extent literature is focussed on the opportunities or risks of data science in military decision-making, differentiated per level of war (i.e. strategic, operational, and tactical level). A relatively large focus on the risks of data science was observed in social science literature, implying that political and military policymakers are disproportionally influenced by a pessimistic view on the application of data science in the military domain. The perceived risks of data science are, however, hardly addressed in formal science literature. This means that the concerns on the military application of data science are not addressed to the audience that can actually develop and enhance data science models and algorithms. Cross-disciplinary research on both the opportunities and risks of military data science can address the observed research gaps. Considering the levels of war, relatively low attention for the operational level compared to the other two levels was observed, suggesting a research gap with reference to military operational data science. Opportunities for military data science mostly arise at the tactical level. On the contrary, studies examining strategic issues mostly emphasise the risks of military data science. Consequently, domain-specific requirements for military strategic data science applications are hardly expressed. Lacking such applications may ultimately lead to a suboptimal strategic decision in today’s warfare.

Keywords: data science, decision-making, information superiority, literature review, military

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1381 Net Zero Energy Schools: The Starting Block for the Canadian Energy Neutral K-12 Schools

Authors: Hamed Hakim, Roderic Archambault, Charles J. Kibert, Maryam Mirhadi Fard

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Changes in the patterns of life in the late 20th and early 21st century have created new challenges for educational systems. Greening the physical environment of school buildings has emerged as a response to some of those challenges and led to the design of energy efficient K-12 school buildings. With the advancement in knowledge and technology, the successful construction of Net Zero Energy Schools, such as the Lady Bird Johnson Middle School demonstrates a cutting edge generation of sustainable schools, and solves the former challenge of attaining energy self-sufficient educational facilities. There are approximately twenty net zero energy K-12 schools in the U.S. of which about six are located in Climate Zone 5 and 6 based on ASHRAE climate zone classification. This paper aims to describe and analyze the current status of energy efficient and NZE schools in Canada. An attempt is made to study existing U.S. energy neutral strategies closest to the climate zones in Canada (zones 5 and 6) and identify the best practices for Canadian schools.

Keywords: Canada K-12 schools, green school, energy efficient, net-zero energy schools

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1380 Corporate Governance and Corporate Sustainability: Evidence from a Developing Country

Authors: Edmund Gyimah

Abstract:

Using data from 146 annual reports of listed firms in Ghana for the period 2013-2020, this study presents indicative findings which inspire practical actions and future research. Firms which prepared and presented sustainability reports were excluded from this study for a coverage of corporate sustainability disclosures centred on annual reports. Also, corporate sustainability disclosures of the firms on corporate websites were not included in the study considering the tendency of updates which cannot easily be traced. The corporate sustainability disclosures in the annual reports since the commencement of the G4 Guidelines in 2013 have been below average for all the dimensions of sustainability and the general sustainability disclosures. Few traditional elements of the board composition such as board size and board independence could affect the corporate sustainability disclosures in the annual reports as well as the age of the firm, firm size, and industry classification of the firm. Sustainability disclosures are greater in sustainability reports than in annual reports, however, firms without sustainability reports should have a considerable amount of sustainability disclosures in their annual reports. Also, because of the essence of sustainability, this study suggests to firms to have sustainability committee perhaps, they could make a difference in disclosing the enough sustainability information even when they do not present sustainability information in stand-alone reports.

Keywords: disclosures, sustainability, board, reports

Procedia PDF Downloads 178
1379 Addressing Ophthalmic and Vascular Diabetic Complications in South Asians

Authors: Haaris Khan, Farhad Udwadia

Abstract:

South Asians are the fastest-growing immigrant population in Canada and are 3-4 times more likely to develop diabetes. In a primary care setting, language barriers continue to persist as a prominent obstacle when delivering crucial health information. Given the abundance of languages in the South Asian community and the varying levels of English fluency, there is compelling evidence that these language barriers can adversely impact health outcomes. The microvascular and macrovascular complications of poor diabetic management are well established and universally recognized. However, these are often difficult concepts to grasp for even individuals fluent in English. In order to lessen the burden of language barriers, we developed a comprehensive guide in various languages that discuss the complications and screening guidelines for diabetic and prediabetic patients. The guide is presented in the form of a pamphlet, with an electronic version being constructed as well, that provides basic information on diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy as well as the screening recommendations. We also conducted a review of the literature around the topic and incorporated our findings into our project. Our goal is for primary care physicians to have this resource and to be able to provide the link or pamphlet to patients in need. Our presentation also provides a comprehensive overview of some of the other barriers that individuals in the South Asian community face when seeking care. Given the staggering number of individuals in the South Asian community with diabetes and the morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes and its complications, effective community-specific strategies are needed to mitigate the potential consequences of poor diabetes management.

Keywords: diabetes, patient education, ophthalmology, vascular surgery

Procedia PDF Downloads 205
1378 Tree Species Classification Using Effective Features of Polarimetric SAR and Hyperspectral Images

Authors: Milad Vahidi, Mahmod R. Sahebi, Mehrnoosh Omati, Reza Mohammadi

Abstract:

Forest management organizations need information to perform their work effectively. Remote sensing is an effective method to acquire information from the Earth. Two datasets of remote sensing images were used to classify forested regions. Firstly, all of extractable features from hyperspectral and PolSAR images were extracted. The optical features were spectral indexes related to the chemical, water contents, structural indexes, effective bands and absorption features. Also, PolSAR features were the original data, target decomposition components, and SAR discriminators features. Secondly, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the genetic algorithms (GA) were applied to select optimization features. Furthermore, the support vector machine (SVM) classifier was used to classify the image. The results showed that the combination of PSO and SVM had higher overall accuracy than the other cases. This combination provided overall accuracy about 90.56%. The effective features were the spectral index, the bands in shortwave infrared (SWIR) and the visible ranges and certain PolSAR features.

Keywords: hyperspectral, PolSAR, feature selection, SVM

Procedia PDF Downloads 414
1377 Calculate Product Carbon Footprint through the Internet of Things from Network Science

Authors: Jing Zhang

Abstract:

To reduce the carbon footprint of mankind and become more sustainable is one of the major challenges in our era. Internet of Things (IoT) mainly resolves three problems: Things to Things (T2T), Human to Things, H2T), and Human to Human (H2H). Borrowing the classification of IoT, we can find carbon prints of industries also can be divided in these three ways. Therefore, monitoring the routes of generation and circulation of products may help calculate product carbon print. This paper does not consider any technique used by IoT itself, but the ideas of it look at the connection of products. Carbon prints are like a gene or mark of a product from raw materials to the final products, which never leave the products. The contribution of this paper is to combine the characteristics of IoT and the methodology of network science to find a way to calculate the product's carbon footprint. Life cycle assessment, LCA is a traditional and main tool to calculate the carbon print of products. LCA is a traditional but main tool, which includes three kinds.

Keywords: product carbon footprint, Internet of Things, network science, life cycle assessment

Procedia PDF Downloads 113
1376 Privacy-Preserving Model for Social Network Sites to Prevent Unwanted Information Diffusion

Authors: Sanaz Kavianpour, Zuraini Ismail, Bharanidharan Shanmugam

Abstract:

Social Network Sites (SNSs) can be served as an invaluable platform to transfer the information across a large number of individuals. A substantial component of communicating and managing information is to identify which individual will influence others in propagating information and also whether dissemination of information in the absence of social signals about that information will be occurred or not. Classifying the final audience of social data is difficult as controlling the social contexts which transfers among individuals are not completely possible. Hence, undesirable information diffusion to an unauthorized individual on SNSs can threaten individuals’ privacy. This paper highlights the information diffusion in SNSs and moreover it emphasizes the most significant privacy issues to individuals of SNSs. The goal of this paper is to propose a privacy-preserving model that has urgent regards with individuals’ data in order to control availability of data and improve privacy by providing access to the data for an appropriate third parties without compromising the advantages of information sharing through SNSs.

Keywords: anonymization algorithm, classification algorithm, information diffusion, privacy, social network sites

Procedia PDF Downloads 317
1375 Methods for Distinction of Cattle Using Supervised Learning

Authors: Radoslav Židek, Veronika Šidlová, Radovan Kasarda, Birgit Fuerst-Waltl

Abstract:

Machine learning represents a set of topics dealing with the creation and evaluation of algorithms that facilitate pattern recognition, classification, and prediction, based on models derived from existing data. The data can present identification patterns which are used to classify into groups. The result of the analysis is the pattern which can be used for identification of data set without the need to obtain input data used for creation of this pattern. An important requirement in this process is careful data preparation validation of model used and its suitable interpretation. For breeders, it is important to know the origin of animals from the point of the genetic diversity. In case of missing pedigree information, other methods can be used for traceability of animal´s origin. Genetic diversity written in genetic data is holding relatively useful information to identify animals originated from individual countries. We can conclude that the application of data mining for molecular genetic data using supervised learning is an appropriate tool for hypothesis testing and identifying an individual.

Keywords: genetic data, Pinzgau cattle, supervised learning, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 544
1374 Study of Physico-Chimical Properties of a Silty Soil

Authors: Moulay Smaïne Ghembaza, Mokhtar Dadouch, Nour-Said Ikhlef

Abstract:

Soil treatment is to make use soil that does not have the characteristics required in a given context. We limit ourselves in this work to the field of road earthworks where we have chosen to develop a local material in the region of Sidi Bel Abbes (Algeria). This material has poor characteristics not meeting the standards used in road geo technics. To remedy this, firstly, we were trying to improve the Proctor Standard characteristics of this material by mechanical treatment increasing the compaction energy. Then, by a chemical treatment, adding some cement dosages, our results show that this material classified A1h a increase maximum dry density and a reduction in the water content of compaction. A comparative study is made on the optimal properties of the material between the two modes of treatment. On the other hand, after treatment, one finds a decrease in the plasticity index and the methylene blue value. This material exhibits a change of class. Therefore, soil class CL turned into a soil class composed CL-ML (Silt of low plasticity). This observation allows this material to be used as backfill or sub grade.

Keywords: treatment of soil, cement, subgrade, Atteberg limits, classification, optimum proctor properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 468