Search results for: digital developments

Authors: Wilfred Jeyatheese Jeyaraj

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Considering the current digital age, Library Marketing, in its entirety, has evolved to elucidate the importance of falling back to the roots of searching for tangible and intangible resources, traversing through pages and references to acquire the required knowledge needs with proper guidance. With the turn of the century, the present generation has deeply entrenched their virtual presence, browsing via search engines for all their information needs. Not fully realizing the adverse effects of the materials available digitally, the authenticity of such resources cannot be verified. So a user might be led to believe false misdirected data. This paper tends to elucidate the prominent strategies to market Sri Lankan libraries in a proper manner so as to captivate a large user base making them aware that all resources and materials that they access without guidance outside the libraries are also available within the libraries with added guidance towards accessing the right data. The main contemplation here is to focus on getting more users to visit libraries in person to copiously apprehend the importance of browsing for materials with the proper direction. The current library marketing strategies in Sri Lankan libraries need to be streamlined to align with the best interest of acquiring the present generations to visit libraries in person to reap its benefits.

Keywords: accessibility, librarianship, marketing, Sri Lanka

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Authors: Johnson Adafin, James O. B. Rotimi, Suzanne Wilkinson, Abimbola O. Windapo

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An aspect of client expenditure management that requires attention is the level of accuracy achievable in design-stage elemental cost planning. This has been a major concern for construction clients and practitioners in New Zealand (NZ). Pre-tender estimating inaccuracies are significantly influenced by the level of risk information available to estimators. Proper cost planning activities should ensure the production of a project’s likely construction costs (initial and final), and subsequent cost control activities should prevent unpleasant consequences of cost overruns, disputes and project abandonment. If risks were properly identified and priced at the design stage, observed variance between design-stage elemental cost plans (ECPs) and final tender sums (FTS) (initial contract sums) could be reduced. This study investigates the variations between design-stage ECPs and FTS of construction projects, with a view to identifying risk factors that are responsible for the observed variance. Data were sourced through interviews, and risk factors were identified by using thematic analysis. Access was obtained to project files from the records of study participants (consultant quantity surveyors), and document analysis was employed in complementing the responses from the interviews. Study findings revealed the discrepancies between ECPs and FTS in the region of -14% and +16%. It is opined in this study that the identified risk factors were responsible for the variability observed. The values obtained from the analysis would enable greater accuracy in the forecast of FTS by Quantity Surveyors. Further, whilst inherent risks in construction project developments are observed globally, these findings have important ramifications for construction projects by expanding existing knowledge on what is needed for reasonable budgetary performance and successful delivery of construction projects. The findings contribute significantly to the study by providing quantitative confirmation to justify the theoretical conclusions generated in the literature from around the world. This therefore adds to and consolidates existing knowledge.

Keywords: accuracy, design-stage, elemental cost plan, final tender sum

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Authors: Shahriar Farzam, Maryam Rastgarpour

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Image denoising plays extremely important role in digital image processing. Enhancement of clinical image research based on Curvelet has been developed rapidly in recent years. In this paper, we present a method for image contrast enhancement for cone beam CT (CBCT) images based on fast discrete curvelet transforms (FDCT) that work through Unequally Spaced Fast Fourier Transform (USFFT). These transforms return a table of Curvelet transform coefficients indexed by a scale parameter, an orientation and a spatial location. Accordingly, the coefficients obtained from FDCT-USFFT can be modified in order to enhance contrast in an image. Our proposed method first uses a two-dimensional mathematical transform, namely the FDCT through unequal-space fast Fourier transform on input image and then applies thresholding on coefficients of Curvelet to enhance the CBCT images. Consequently, applying unequal-space fast Fourier Transform leads to an accurate reconstruction of the image with high resolution. The experimental results indicate the performance of the proposed method is superior to the existing ones in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Effective Measure of Enhancement (EME).

Keywords: curvelet transform, CBCT, image enhancement, image denoising

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Authors: Loreta Axhami

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Media literacy in the digital age emerges not only as a set of skills to generate true knowledge and information but also as a pedagogy methodology, as a kind of educational philosophy. In addition to such innovations as information integration and communication technologies, media infrastructures, and web usage in the educational system, media literacy enables the change in the learning methods, pedagogy, teaching programs, and school curriculum itself. In this framework, this study focuses on ICT's impact on teaching and learning methods and the degree they are reflected in the Albanian education system. The study is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of scientific research. Referring to the study findings, it results that student’s limited access to the internet in school, focus on the hardcopy textbooks and the role of the teacher as the only or main source of knowledge and information are some of the main factors contributing to the implementation of authoritarian pedagogical methods in the Albanian education system. In these circumstances, the implementation of media literacy is recommended as an apt educational process for the 21st century, which requires a reconceptualization of textbooks as well as the application of modern teaching and learning methods by integrating information and communication technologies.

Keywords: authoritarian pedagogic model, education system, ICT, media literacy

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Authors: Alejandro Villegas, Cihan Varol

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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) products is an emerging technology that can contain forensically important information for a criminal activity. Without having the user name and passwords, this forensically important information can still be gathered by the investigators. Although there are a few VoIP forensic investigative applications available in the literature, most of them are particularly designed to collect evidence from the Skype product. Therefore, in order to assist law enforcement with collecting forensically important information from variety of Betamax VoIP tools, CVOIP-FRU framework is developed. CVOIP-FRU provides a data gathering solution that retrieves usernames, contact lists, as well as call and SMS logs from Betamax VoIP products. It is a scripting utility that searches for data within the registry, logs and the user roaming profiles in Windows and Mac OSX operating systems. Subsequently, it parses the output into readable text and html formats. One superior way of CVOIP-FRU compared to the other applications that due to intelligent data filtering capabilities and cross platform scripting back end of CVOIP-FRU, it is expandable to include other VoIP solutions as well. Overall, this paper reveals the exploratory analysis performed in order to find the key data paths and locations, the development stages of the framework, and the empirical testing and quality assurance of CVOIP-FRU.

Keywords: betamax, digital forensics, report utility, VoIP, VoIPBuster, VoIPWise

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Authors: Abdulrahman S. Alqahtani

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The revolution of computing and networks could revolutionise terrorism in the same way that it has brought about changes in other aspects of life. The modern technological era has faced countries with a new set of security challenges. There are many states and potential adversaries who have the potential and capacity in cyberspace, which makes them able to carry out cyber-attacks in the future. Some of them are currently conducting surveillance, gathering and analysis of technical information, and mapping of networks and nodes and infrastructure of opponents, which may be exploited in future conflicts. This poster presents the results of the quantitative study (survey) to test the validity of the proposed theoretical framework for the cyber terrorist threats. This theoretical framework will help to in-depth understand these new digital terrorist threats. It may also be a practical guide for managers and technicians in critical infrastructure, to understand and assess the threats they face. It might also be the foundation for building a national strategy to counter cyberterrorism. In the beginning, it provides basic information about the data. To purify the data, reliability and exploratory factor analysis, as well as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed. Then, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was utilised to test the final model of the theory and to assess the overall goodness-of-fit between the proposed model and the collected data set.

Keywords: cyberterrorism, critical infrastructure, , national security, theoretical framework, terrorism

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Authors: Yuri V. Plugatar, Vladimir P. Koba, Vladimir V. Papelbu, Vladimir N. Gerasimchuk, Tatjana M. Sakhno

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Using a supersonic shaft–wood tomography, the evaluation of a shaft-wood phyto-pathogenic damage level of Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) Buccholz was prosecuted. The digital bivariate reflections of the shaft tissue damage were obtained, the characteristics of comparative parameters of the wood-decay degree were given. The investigation results allowed to show up the role of some edaphic factors in their affection on a vital condition and the level of destructive processes while shaft tissue damaging of S.giganteum. It was pinned up that soil consolidation, and hydro-morphication equally make for a phyto-pathogenic damage of plants. While soil consolidation negative acting the shaft-wood damage is located in an underneath of a shaft. In the conditions of an enlarged hydro-morphication a tissue degradation runs less intensively, the destructive processes more active spread in a vertical section of a shaft. The use of a supersonic tomography method gives wide possibilities to diagnose a shaft-wood phyto-pathogenic damage.

Keywords: Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) Buccholz, supersonic tomography, diagnosis, phyto-pathogenic damage, a vital condition

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Authors: Spase Janevski

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We, as designers, should be aware of the consequences of our material selection, at the early stages of the design process. Some of the designer’s decisions can have a very significant impact on design for sustainability. The influence of this concept has led to years of research studies into eco-friendly materials and their potentials for creating new sustainable products. In order to answer the question, 'how cork has become a design trend', this paper will present an overview of the implications of the concept of design for sustainability on the potential uses of cork material. A decade ago, cork as a material had an association with wine stoppers, but with the evolution of sustainable product design as part of the concept of design for sustainability, cork now offers product designers a wide range of new materials and applications. The purpose of this paper is to show how the phenomenon of sustainability has had an impact on the progress of the material which is currently not being an integral component of the design material palette. At the beginning, the nature of the relationship between cork and sustainability will be explained through the following stages: 1) fundamental understanding of the concept of Design for Sustainability and the importance of material selection for sustainable product design, and 2) the importance of cork oak trees for the environment and the environmental impacts of cork products. In order to examine and present the influence of the sustainability on the innovation in cork applications, the paper will provide a historical overview of designing with cork. The overview will consist of four stages: 1) pre-industrial period - the period when ancient nations used cork and amphoras to store their wine; 2) industrial period - emergence and industrialization of well-known wine stoppers; 3) post-industrial period - commercializing cork products in the area of floors and coverings and first developments in industrial research; and 4) the period when large cork realized the importance of sustainability and started to focus more markedly on research and development. The existence of new cork materials, the investigation in new applications and the investment in new innovations have proved that the sustainability approach has had a great influence on the revival of this material. In addition, the paper will present some of the new cork innovative materials and applications and their potentials for designing promising and sustainable solutions with additive manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing. Lastly, the paper will introduce some questions for further study, such as the environmental impacts of the new hybrid materials and the gap between cork industry and cork research and development teams. The paper concludes by stating that cork is not only a material for wine stoppers anymore, thanks to the awareness of the concept of design for sustainability.

Keywords: cork, design for sustainability, innovation, sustainable materials

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Authors: A. E. El-Henawey, A. A. El-Kouny, M. M. Abd –El-Halim

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Moving target indication (MTI) which is an anti-clutter technique that limits the display of clutter echoes. It uses the radar received information primarily to display moving targets only. The purpose of MTI is to discriminate moving targets from a background of clutter or slowly-moving chaff particles as shown in this paper. Processing system in these radars is so massive and complex; since it is supposed to perform a great amount of processing in very short time, in most radar applications the response of a single canceler is not acceptable since it does not have a wide notch in the stop-band. A double-delay canceler is an MTI delay-line canceler employing the two-delay-line configuration to improve the performance by widening the clutter-rejection notches, as compared with single-delay cancelers. This canceler is also called a double canceler, dual-delay canceler, or three-pulse canceler. In this paper, a double delay line canceler is chosen for study due to its simplicity in both concept and implementation. Discussing the implementation of a simple digital moving target indicator (DMTI) using FPGA which has distinct advantages compared to other application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for the purposes of this work. The FPGA provides flexibility and stability which are important factors in the radar application.

Keywords: FPGA, MTI, double delay line canceler, Doppler Shift

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Authors: Rakesh Prajapati, Purvik Patel, Avadhoot Rajurkar

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Nowadays, manufacturing industries augment their production lines with modern machining centers backed by CAM software. Several attempts are being made to cut down the programming time for machining complex geometries. Special programs/software have been developed to generate the digital numerical data and to prepare NC programs by using suitable post-processors for different machines. By selecting the tools and manufacturing process then applying tool paths and NC program are generated. More and more complex mechanical parts that earlier were being cast and assembled/manufactured by other processes are now being machined. Majority of these parts require lots of pocketing operations and find their applications in die and mold, turbo machinery, aircraft, nuclear, defense etc. Pocketing operations involve removal of large quantity of material from the metal surface. The modeling of warm cast and clamping a piece of food processing parts which the used of Pro-E and MasterCAM^® software. Pocketing operation has been specifically chosen for toolpath optimization. Then after apply Pocketing toolpath, Multi Tool Selection and Reduce Air Time give the results of software simulation time and experimental machining time.

Keywords: toolpath, part program, optimization, pocket

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Authors: Vikram Chowdhary, Marek Vins

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The profitability of the pharmaceutical drug business has attracted considerable interest, but it also faces significant challenges. Counterfeiters take advantage of the industry's vulnerabilities, which are further exacerbated by the globalization of the market, online trading, and complex supply chains. Governments and organizations worldwide are dedicated to creating a secure environment that ensures a consistent and genuine supply of pharmaceutical products. In 2019, the European authorities implemented regulation EU 2016/161 to strengthen traceability and transparency throughout the entire drug supply chain. This regulation requires the addition of enhanced security features, such as serializing items to the saleable unit level or individual packs. Despite these efforts, the incidents of pharmaceutical counterfeiting continue to rise globally, with regulated territories being particularly affected. This paper examines the effectiveness of the drug serialization system implemented by European authorities. By conducting a systematic literature review, we assess the implementation of drug serialization and explore the potential benefits of integrating emerging digital technologies, such as RFID and Blockchain, to improve traceability and management. The objective is to fortify pharmaceutical supply chains against counterfeiters and manipulators and ensure their security.

Keywords: blockchain, counterfeit drugs, EU drug serialization, pharmaceutical industry, RFID

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Authors: Ana Gavardashvili

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The field-and-scientific studies to evaluate the modern ecological state in the water area of the estuaries of the major water-abundant rivers in the coastal line of the Black Sea (Chorokhi, Kintrishi, Natanebi, Supsa, Khobistskali, Rioni and Enguri) and sea ports (Batumi, Poti) and sea terminals of the oil pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa, Kulevi) were accomplished in the months of June and July of 2015. GPS coordinates and GIS programs were used to fix the areas of the estuaries of the above-listed rivers on a digital map, with their values varying within the limits of 0,861 and 20,390 km2. Water samples from the Black Sea were taken from the river estuaries and sea ports during the field works, with their statistical series of 125 points. The temperatures of air (t2) and water in the Black Sea (t1) were measured locally, and their relative value is (t1 /t2 ) = 0,69 – 0,92. 125 water samples taken from the study object in the Black Sea coastal line were subject to laboratory analysis, and it was established that the Black Sea acidity (pH) changes within the limits of 7,71 – 8,22 in the river estuaries and within 8,42 - 8,65 in the port water areas and at oil terminals. As for the Sea water salinity index (TDS), it changes within the limits of 6,15 – 12,67 in the river estuaries, and (TDS) = 11,80 – 13,67 in the port water areas and at oil terminals. By taking the gained data and climatic changes into account, by using the theories of reliability and risk at the following stage, the nature of the changes of the function of the Black Sea ecological parameters will be established.

Keywords: acidity, estuary, salinity, sea

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Authors: Boy Subirosa Sabarguna, Aria Kekalih, Irzan Nurman

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Introduction: Software in the form of Clinical Decision Support System could help students in understanding the mind set of decision-making in diagnosis and treatment at the stage of general practitioners. This could accelerate and ease the learning process which previously took place by using books and experience. Method: Gather 1000 members of the National Medical Multimedia Digital Community (NM2DC) who use the “flowchart of diagnosis and treatment” software, and analyse factors related to: display, speed in learning, convenience in learning, helpfulness and usefulness in the learning process, by using the Likert Scale through online questionnaire which will further be processed using percentage. Results and Discussions: Out of the 1000 members of NM2DC, apparently: 97.0% of the members use the software and 87.5% of them are students. In terms of the analysed factors related to: display, speed in learning, convenience in learning, helpfulness and usefulness of the software’s usage, the results indicate a 90.7% of fairly good performance. Therefore, the “Flowchart of Diagnosis and Treatment” software has helped students in understanding the decision-making of diagnosis and treatment. Conclusion: the use of “Flowchart of Diagnosis and Treatment” software indicates a positive role in helping students understand decision-making of diagnosis and treatment.

Keywords: usage, software, diagnosis and treatment, medical education

Procedia PDF Downloads 359

Authors: Vo Thi Hai Quan

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Nam Con Son sedimentary basin is one of the very important oil and gas basins in offshore Vietnam. Hai Thach field of block 05-2 contains mostly gas accumulations in fine-grained, sand/mud-rich turbidite system, which was deposited in a turbidite channel and fan environment. Major Upper Miocene reservoir of HT-3X lies above a well-developed unconformity. The main objectives of this study are to reconstruct depositional environment and to assess the reservoir quality using data from 14 meters of core samples and digital wireline data of the well HT-3X. The wireline log and core data showed that the vertical sequences of representative facies of the well mainly range from Tb to Te divisions of Bouma sequences with predominance of Tb and Tc compared to Td and Te divisions. Sediments in this well were deposited in a submarine fan association with very fine to fine-grained, homogeneous sandstones that have high porosity and permeability, high- density turbidity currents with longer transport route from the sediment source to the basin, indicating good quality of reservoir. Sediments are comprised mainly of the following sedimentary structures: massive, laminated sandstones, convoluted bedding, laminated ripples, cross-laminated ripples, deformed sandstones, contorted bedding.

Keywords: Hai Thach field, Miocene sand, turbidite, wireline data

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Authors: Cheng-Jhe Lee, Chiun-Chieh Hsu

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Due to the rapid development of the Internet and the increased availability of digital documents, the excessive information on the Internet has led to information overflow problem. In order to solve these problems for effective information retrieval, document clustering in text mining becomes a popular research topic. Clustering is the unsupervised classification of data items into groups without the need of training data. Many conventional document clustering methods perform inefficiently for large document collections because they were originally designed for relational database. Therefore they are impractical in real-world document clustering and require special handling for high dimensionality and high volume. We propose the FIHC (Frequent Itemset-based Hierarchical Clustering) method, which is a hierarchical clustering method developed for document clustering, where the intuition of FIHC is that there exist some common words for each cluster. FIHC uses such words to cluster documents and builds hierarchical topic tree. In this paper, we combine FIHC algorithm with ontology to solve the semantic problem and mine the meaning behind the words in documents. Furthermore, we use the closed frequent itemsets instead of only use frequent itemsets, which increases efficiency and scalability. The experimental results show that our method is more accurate than those of well-known document clustering algorithms.

Keywords: FIHC, documents clustering, ontology, closed frequent itemset

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Authors: Massimo Morichi

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Over the last five years, starting in 2019, several nuclear measurement systems have been conceived and realized for specific nuclear safeguards applications, as well as for nuclear security, implementing some innovative technologies and methods for attended and unattended nuclear measurements. Some of those technologies imply the integration of combined gamma and neutron detection systems both for counting and spectroscopic applications that allow the SNM (Special Nuclear Material) verification and quantification through specific simultaneous measurements (gamma and neutron) from standard to high count rate due to high flux irradiation. IAEA has implemented some of these technologies in key international safeguards inspections worldwide, like a Fast Neutron Collar Monitor for fresh fuel verification of U235 mass (used during inspections for material declaration verification) or for unattended measuring systems with a distinct shift register installed in an anti-tampering sealed housing in unattended mode (remote inspection and continuous monitoring) together with an Unattended Multichannel Analyzer for spectroscopy analysis of SNM like canisters. Such developments, realized with integrated mid-resolution scintillators (FWHM: <3,5%) together with organic scintillators such as Stilbene detectors or Liquid sealed scintillators like EJ-309 with great pulse shape discrimination managed by a fast DAQ and with a high level of system integration, are offering in the near term the possibility to enhance further their implementation, reducing the form factor in order to facilitate their implementation in many critical parts of the Nuclear Fuel Operations as well as of the Next generation of Nuclear Reactors. This will facilitate embedding these advanced technical solutions in the next generation of nuclear installations, assuring the implementation of the Safeguards by Design requested by IAEA for all future/novel nuclear installations. This work presents the most recent designs/systems and provides some clear examples of ongoing applications on the Fuel Cycle-Fuel Fabrication as well as for the SMR/AMR and microreactors. Detailed technology testing and validation in different configuration if provided together with some case-studies and operational implications.

Keywords: nuclear safeguard, gamma and neutron detection systems, spectroscopy analysis, nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear power reactors, decommissioning dismantling, nuclear security

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Authors: Marvin Ricardo Awarab

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There has never been a greater need for telecom services. The Internet of Things (IoT), 5G networking, and edge computing are the driving forces behind this increased demand. The fierce demand offers communications service providers significant income opportunities. The telecom sector is centered on automation, and realizing a digital operation that functions as a real-time business will be crucial for the industry as a whole. Automation in telecom refers to the application of technology to create a more effective, quick, and scalable alternative to the conventional method of operating the telecom industry. With the promotion of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), telecom companies will continue to invest extensively in telecom automation technology. Automation offers benefits in the telecom industry; developing countries such as Namibia may not fully tap into such benefits because of the lack of funds and infrastructural resources to invest in automation. This paper fully investigates the benefits of automation in the telecom industry. Furthermore, the paper identifies hiccups that developing countries such as Namibia face in their quest to fully introduce automation in the telecom industry. Additionally, the paper proposes possible avenues that Namibia, as a developing country, adopt investing in automation infrastructural resources with the aim of reaping the full benefits of automation in the telecom industry.

Keywords: automation, development, internet, internet of things, network, telecom, telecommunications policy, 5G

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Authors: Rasheed A. Saliu, Sunday E. Ogundipe, Oluwaseun A. Adefila

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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in recent time has transformed the means by which we inform ourselves, with world events and areas of personal interests, and further our learning. Today, for many, books and journals are no longer the first or primary source of information or learning. We now regularly rely on images, video, animations and sound to acquire information and to learn. Increased and improved access to the internet has accelerated this phenomenon. We now acquire and access information in ways fundamentally different from the pre-ICT era. But to what extent is academic staff in colleges of education, having access to and the utilising of ICT devices in their lecture deliveries especially in School of Science and Vocational and Technical? The main focus of this paper is to proffer solution to this salient question. It is essentially an empirical study carried out in five colleges of education in south-west zone of Nigeria. The target population was the academic staff in the selected institution. A total number of 150 male and female lecturers were contacted for the study. The main instrument was questionnaire. The finding reveals that male lecturers are much more ICT inclined than women folk in the academics. Some recommendations were made to endear academics to utilizing ICT at their disposal to foster qualitative delivery in this digital era.

Keywords: education, gender, ICT, Nigeria

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Authors: Manal Sultan Alhussein, Xiang Michelle Liu

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Telehealth is an advanced technology using digital information and telecommunication facilities that provide access to health services from a distance. It slows the transmission factor of COVID-19, especially for elderly patients and patients with chronic diseases during the pandemic. Therefore, understanding patient perspectives on telehealth services and the factors impacting their option of telehealth service will shed light on the measures that healthcare providers can take to improve the quality of telehealth services. This study aimed to evaluate perceptions of telehealth services among different patient groups and explore various aspects of telehealth utilization in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey distributed via social media platforms was used to collect research data. In addition to the descriptive statistics, both correlation and regression analyses were conducted to test research hypotheses. The empirical results highlighted that the factors such as accessibility to telehealth services and the type of specialty clinics that the patients required play important roles in the effectiveness of telehealth services they received. However, the results found that patients’ waiting time to receive telehealth services and their annual income did not significantly influence their desire to select receiving healthcare services via telehealth. The limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: telehealth, patient satisfaction, pandemic, healthcare, survey

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Authors: Rachita Lal

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Urban sprawl is a significant contributor to land use change in developing countries, where urbanization rates are high. The most important driver of environmental changes is also considered to be the shift in land use and land cover. Our local and regional land managers must carefully analyze urbanization and its effects on cities to make the best choices. This study uses satellite imagery to examine how urbanization affects the local ecosystem through geographic expansion. The following research focuses on the effects of city growth on the local environment, land use, and Land cover. The primary focus of this research is to study, To understand the role of urbanization on city expansion. To study the impact of spatial growth of urban areas on the Land cover. In this paper, the GIS tool will be used to analyze. For this purpose, four digital images are used for the years 2000, 2005, 2011, and 2019. The use of the approach in the Bhubaneswar Urban Core, one of the fastest developing and planned cities in India, has proved that it is highly beneficial and successful for monitoring urban sprawl. It offers a helpful tool for quantitative assessment, which is crucial for determining the spatial dynamics, variations, and changes of urban sprawl patterns in quickly increasing regions.

Keywords: LULC, urbanization, environment impact assessment, spatial growth

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Authors: A. Schander, T. Tessmann, H. Stemmann, S. Strokov, A. Kreiter, W. Lang

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For the chronic application of neural prostheses and other brain-computer interfaces, long-term stable microelectrodes for electrical stimulation are essential. In recent years many developments were done to investigate different appropriate materials for these electrodes. One of these materials is the electrical conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), which has lower impedance and higher charge injection capacity compared to noble metals like gold and platinum. However the long-term stability of this polymer is still unclear. Thus this paper reports on the in-vitro evaluation of the long-term stability of PEDOT coated gold microelectrodes. For this purpose a highly flexible electrocorticography (ECoG) electrode array, based on the polymer polyimide, is used. This array consists of circular gold electrodes with a diameter of 560 µm (0.25 mm2). In total 25 electrodes of this array were coated simultaneously with the polymer PEDOT:PSS in a cleanroom environment using a galvanostatic electropolymerization process. After the coating the array is additionally sterilized using a steam sterilization process (121°C, 1 bar, 20.5 min) to simulate autoclaving prior to the implantation of such an electrode array. The long-term measurements were performed in phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS, pH 7.4) at the constant body temperature of 37°C. For the in-vitro electrical stimulation a one channel bipolar current stimulator is used. The stimulation protocol consists of a bipolar current amplitude of 5 mA (cathodal phase first), a pulse duration of 100 µs per phase, a pulse pause of 50 µs and a frequency of 1 kHz. A PEDOT:PSS coated gold electrode with an area of 1 cm2 serves as the counter electrode. The electrical stimulation is performed continuously with a total amount of 86.4 million bipolar current pulses per day. The condition of the PEDOT coated electrodes is monitored in between with electrical impedance spectroscopy measurements. The results of this study demonstrate that the PEDOT coated electrodes are stable for more than 3.6 billion bipolar current pulses. Also the unstimulated electrodes show currently no degradation after the time period of 5 months. These results indicate an appropriate long-term stability of this electrode coating for chronic recording and electrical stimulation. The long-term measurements are still continuing to investigate the life limit of this electrode coating.

Keywords: chronic recording, electrical stimulation, long-term stability, microelectrodes, PEDOT

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Authors: G. Arockiasamy, B. Sujeevan Kumar, Surendheran

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Human progress and development are highly influenced by the power of information access and technology. A global and multi-national transformation all over the word is possible due to digitalization. In the process of exchanging information, experience, and resources, there is a radical shift in who controls them. Mass media has turned the world into a global village by strengthening communication network. As a result, a new digital culture has emerged as a social network commonly known as new media. Today the advancement of technology is at the doorstep of everyone linking to anywhere. The traditional social restrictions are broken down by the new type of virtual communication modality that transcends people beyond boundaries At the same time media empire has invaded every nook and corner of the world through great expansion. Media activism is growing stronger and stronger but the truth and true meaning lost in the process. This paper explores the peoples’ attitude to media activism and tracing its direction. The methodology employed is random sampling survey and content analysis method. Both qualitatively and quantitatively measured. The findings tend to show 60 percent indicate media activism as positive and others indicate as negative. As a conclusion, media activism has danger within but depends on nature of the development of human orientation.

Keywords: media activism, media industry, program, truth information, orientation and nature

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Authors: Hiba Dakroub, Danilo Russo, Luca Cistrone, Francesco Serra, Giovanna Fusco, Esterina De Carlo, Maria Grazia Amoroso

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The question of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the cycle of transmission between humans and animals is still unanswered. One serious concern associated with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that the virus might spill back from humans to wildlife, which would render some animal species reservoirs of the human virus. The aim of the present study is to monitor the potential risk of SARS-CoV-2 reverse infection from humans to bats, by performing bat surveillance from different sites in Central-Southern Italy. We collected 240 droppings or saliva from 129 bats and tested them using specific and general primers of SARS-COV-2 and coronaviruses respectively. All samples, including 127 nasal swabs and 113 fecal droppings resulted negative for SARS-COV-2, and these results were confirmed by testing the samples with the Droplet Digital PCR. Also, an end-point RT-PCR was performed and no sample showed specific bands. The absence of SARS-CoV-2 in the bats we surveyed is a first step towards a better understanding of reverse transmission to bats of this virus. We hope our first contribution will encourage the establishment of systematic surveillance of wildlife, and specifically bats, to help prevent reverse zoonotic episodes that would jeopardize human health as well as biodiversity conservation and management.

Keywords: coronaviruses, bats, zoonotic viruses, spillback, SARS-CoV-2

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Authors: Givi Gavardashvili, Eduard Kukhalashvili, Tamriko Supatashvili, Giorgi Natroshvili, Konstantine Bziava, Irma Qufarashvili

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In the article to research water levels in the Zhinvali water reservoirs by field and theoretical research and using GPS and GIS technologies has been established dynamic of water reservoirs changes in the suitable coordinates and has been made water reservoir maps and is lined in the 3D format. By using of GPS coordinates and digital maps has been established water horizons of Zhinvali water reservoir in the absolute marks and has been calculated water levels volume. To forecast the filling of the Zhinvali water reservoir by solid sediment in 2018 conducted field experimental researches in the catchment basin of river Tetri (White) Aragvi. It has been established main hydrological and hydraulic parameters of the active erosion-debris flow tributaries of river Tetri Aragvi. It has been calculated erosion coefficient considering the degradation of the slope. By calculation is determined, that in the river Tetri Aragvi catchment basin the value of 1% maximum discharge changes Q1% = 70,0 – 550,0 m3/sec, and erosion coefficient - E = 0,73 - 1,62, with suitable fifth class of erosion and intensity 50-100 tone/hectare in the year.

Keywords: Zhinvali soil dam, water reservoirs, water levels, erosion, debris flow

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: Chih Hsing Lin, Wen-Ching Chen, Ssu-Ying Chen, Chih-Chyau Yang, Chien-Ming Wu, Chun-Ming Huang

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Critical structures such as buildings, bridges and dams require periodic inspections to ensure safe operation. The reliable inspection of structures can be achieved by combing temperature sensor and accelerometers. In this work, we propose a building structure health monitoring device (BSHMD) with using three 1-axis accelerometers, gateway, analog to digital converter (ADC), and data logger to monitoring the building structure. The proposed BSHMD achieves the features of low cost by using three 1-axis accelerometers with the data synchronization problem being solved, and easily installation and removal. Furthermore, we develop a packet acquisition program to receive the sensed data and then classify it based on time and date. Compared with 3-axis accelerometer, our proposed 1-axis accelerometers based device achieves 64.3% cost saving. Compared with previous structural monitoring device, the BSHMD achieves 89% area saving. Therefore, with using the proposed device, the realtime diagnosis system for building damage monitoring can be conducted effectively.

Keywords: building structure health monitoring, cost effective, 1-axis accelerometers, real-time diagnosis

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Authors: Meet Shah, Ankita Aditya, Dhruv Bindra, V. S. Omkar, Aashruti Seervi

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In today's world, we need documents everywhere for a smooth workflow in the identification process or any other security aspects. The current system and techniques which are used for identification need one thing, that is ‘proof of existence’, which involves valid documents, for example, educational, financial, etc. The main issue with the current identity access management system and digital identification process is that the system is centralized in their network, which makes it inefficient. The paper presents the system which resolves all these cited issues. It is based on ‘blockchain’ technology, which is a 'decentralized system'. It allows transactions in a decentralized and immutable manner. The primary notion of the model is to ‘have everything with nothing’. It involves inter-linking required documents of a person with a single identity card so that a person can go anywhere without having the required documents with him/her. The person just needs to be physically present at a place wherein documents are necessary, and using a fingerprint impression and an iris scan print, the rest of the verification will progress. Furthermore, some technical overheads and advancements are listed. This paper also aims to layout its far-vision scenario of blockchain and its impact on future trends.

Keywords: blockchain, decentralized system, fingerprint impression, identity management, iris scan

Procedia PDF Downloads 129

Authors: Abdunaser Abduelmula, Maria Luisa M. Bastos, José A. Gonçalves

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The modeling of the earth's surface and evaluation of urban environment, with 3D models, is an important research topic. New stereo capabilities of high-resolution optical satellites images, such as the tri-stereo mode of Pleiades, combined with new image matching algorithms, are now available and can be applied in urban area analysis. In addition, photogrammetry software packages gained new, more efficient matching algorithms, such as SGM, as well as improved filters to deal with shadow areas, can achieve denser and more precise results. This paper describes a comparison between 3D data extracted from tri-stereo and dual stereo satellite images, combined with pixel based matching and Wallis filter. The aim was to improve the accuracy of 3D models especially in urban areas, in order to assess if satellite images are appropriate for a rapid evaluation of urban environments. The results showed that 3D models achieved by Pleiades tri-stereo outperformed, both in terms of accuracy and detail, the result obtained from a Geo-eye pair. The assessment was made with reference digital surface models derived from high-resolution aerial photography. This could mean that tri-stereo images can be successfully used for the proposed urban change analyses.

Keywords: 3D models, environment, matching, pleiades

Procedia PDF Downloads 331

Authors: Suaka Yaro

Abstract:

This article provides an alternative examination of the causes and the ramifications of the Ivorian political conflict from 2002 to 2009. The researcher employed a constructivist epistemology and qualitative study based upon fieldwork in different African cities interviewing Ivorians outside and within Ivory Coast. A purposive sampling of fourteen participants was selected. A purposive sampling was used to select fourteen respondents. The respondents were selected based on their involvement in Ivorian conflict. Their experiences on the causes and effects of the conflict were tapped for analysis. Qualitative methodology was used for the study. The data collection instruments were semi-structured interview questions, open-ended semi-structured questionnaire, and documentary analysis. The perceptions of these participants on the causes, effects and the possible solution to the endemic conflict in their homeland hold key perspectives that have hitherto been ignored in the whole debate about the Ivorian political conflict and its legacies. Finally, from the synthesized findings of the investigation, the researcher concluded that the analysed data revealed that the causes of the conflict were competition for scarce resources, bad governance, media incitement, xenophobia, incessant political power struggle and the proliferation of small firearms entering the country. The effects experienced during the conflict were the human rights violation, destruction of property including UN premises and displaced people both internally and externally. Some recommendations made include: Efforts should be made by the government to strengthen good relationship among different ethnic groups and help them adapt to new challenges that confront democratic developments in the country. The government should organise the South African style of Truth and Reconciliation Commission to revisit the horrors of the past in order to heal wounds and prevent future occurrence of the conflict. Employment opportunities and other income generating ventures for Ivorian should be created by the government by attracting local and foreign investors. The numerous rebels should be given special skills training in other for them to be able to live among the communities in Ivory Coast. Government of national unity should be encouraged in situation like this.

Keywords: displaced, federalism, pluralism, identity politics, grievance, eligibility, greed

Procedia PDF Downloads 224

Authors: Monisha Pattanaik

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In scenarios where users have to work with large amounts of hierarchical data structures combined with visualizations (For example, Construction 3d Models, Manufacturing equipment's models, Gantt charts, Building Plans), the data structures have a high density in terms of consisting multiple parent nodes up to 50 levels and their siblings to descendants, therefore convey an immediate feeling of complexity. With customers moving to consumer-grade enterprise software, it is crucial to make sophisticated features made available to touch devices or smaller screen sizes. This paper evaluates the UI component that allows users to scroll through all deep density levels using a slider overlay on top of the hierarchy table, performing several actions to focus on one set of objects at any point in time. This overlay component also solves the problem of excessive horizontal scrolling of the entire table on a fixed pane for a hierarchical table. This component can be customized to navigate through parents, only siblings, or a specific component of the hierarchy only. The evaluation of the UI component was done by End Users of application and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) experts to test the UI component's usability with statistical results and recommendations to handle complex hierarchical data visualizations.

Keywords: building information modeling, digital twin, navigation, UI component, user interface, usability, visualization

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: T. O. Babarinde

Abstract:

Interest in natural refrigerants, such as hydrocarbons has been renewed in recent years because of the environmental problems associated with synthetic chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and hydro-chlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) refrigerants. Due to the depletion of ozone-layer and global warming effects, synthetic refrigerants are being gradually phased out in accordance with the international protocols that aim to protect the environment. In this work, a refrigerator designed to work with R134a was used for this experiment, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) which consists of commercial propane and butane in a single evaporator domestic refrigerator with a total volume of 62 litres. In this experiment, type K thermocouples with their probes were used to measure the temperatures of four major components (evaporator, compressor, condenser and expansion device) of the refrigeration system. Also the system was instrumented with two pressure gauges at the inlet and outlet of the compressor for measuring the suction and discharged pressures. Four sets of experiments were carried out using different charges and the charges were measured with a digital charging scale. Thermodynamic properties of the LPG refrigerant were determined. The results obtained showed that the design temperature and pull-down time set by International Standard Organisation (ISO) for refrigerator was achieved using LPG charge of 60g. The system COP increases with 14.6% and the power consumption reduced with 9.8% when compared with R134a. Therefore, LPG can replace R134a in domestic refrigerator.

Keywords: domestic refrigerator, experimental, R290/R600, R134a

Procedia PDF Downloads 432