Search results for: communal practice network

Authors: Panupong Makvichian

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Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is nowadays a common technology that improves navigation functions in our life. Additionally, GNSS is also being employed on behalf of an accurate atmospheric sensor these times. Meteorology is a practical application of GNSS, which is unnoticeable in the background of people’s life. GNSS Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a positioning method that requires data from a single dual-frequency receiver and precise information about satellite positions and satellite clocks. In addition, careful attention to mitigate various error sources is required. All the above data are combined in a sophisticated mathematical algorithm. At this point, the research is going to demonstrate how GNSS and PPP method is capable to provide high-precision estimates, such as 3D positions or Zenith tropospheric delays (ZTDs). ZTDs combined with pressure and temperature information allows us to estimate the water vapor in the atmosphere as precipitable water vapor (PWV). If the process is replicated for a network of GNSS sensors, we can create thematic maps that allow extract water content information in any location within the network area. All of the above are possible thanks to the advances in GNSS data processing. Therefore, we are able to use GNSS data for climatic trend analysis and acquisition of the further knowledge about the atmospheric water content.

Keywords: GNSS, precise point positioning, Zenith tropospheric delays, precipitable water vapor

Procedia PDF Downloads 198

Authors: Diana Reckien

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Vulnerability assessments are increasingly used to support policy-making in complex environments, like urban areas. Usually, vulnerability studies include the construction of aggregate (sub-) indices and the subsequent mapping of indices across an area of interest. Vulnerability studies show a couple of advantages: they are great communication tools, can inform a wider general debate about environmental issues, and can help allocating and efficiently targeting scarce resources for adaptation policy and planning. However, they also have a number of challenges: Vulnerability assessments are constructed on the basis of a wide range of methodologies and there is no single framework or methodology that has proven to serve best in certain environments, indicators vary highly according to the spatial scale used, different variables and metrics produce different results, and aggregate or composite vulnerability indicators that are mapped easily distort or bias the picture of vulnerability as they hide the underlying causes of vulnerability and level out conflicting reasons of vulnerability in space. So, there is urgent need to further develop the methodology of vulnerability studies towards a common framework, which is one reason of the paper. We introduce a social vulnerability approach, which is compared with other approaches of bio-physical or sectoral vulnerability studies relatively developed in terms of a common methodology for index construction, guidelines for mapping, assessment of sensitivity, and verification of variables. Two approaches are commonly pursued in the literature. The first one is an additive approach, in which all potentially influential variables are weighted according to their importance for the vulnerability aspect, and then added to form a composite vulnerability index per unit area. The second approach includes variable reduction, mostly Principal Component Analysis (PCA) that reduces the number of variables that are interrelated into a smaller number of less correlating components, which are also added to form a composite index. We test these two approaches of constructing indices on the area of New York City as well as two different metrics of variables used as input and compare the outcome for the 5 boroughs of NY. Our analysis yields that the mapping exercise yields particularly different results in the outer regions and parts of the boroughs, such as Outer Queens and Staten Island. However, some of these parts, particularly the coastal areas receive the highest attention in the current adaptation policy. We imply from this that the current adaptation policy and practice in NY might need to be discussed, as these outer urban areas show relatively low social vulnerability as compared with the more central parts, i.e. the high dense areas of Manhattan, Central Brooklyn, Central Queens and the Southern Bronx. The inner urban parts receive lesser adaptation attention, but bear a higher risk of damage in case of hazards in those areas. This is conceivable, e.g., during large heatwaves, which would more affect more the inner and poorer parts of the city as compared with the outer urban areas. In light of the recent planning practice of NY one needs to question and discuss who in NY makes adaptation policy for whom, but the presented analyses points towards an under representation of the needs of the socially vulnerable population, such as the poor, the elderly, and ethnic minorities, in the current adaptation practice in New York City.

Keywords: vulnerability mapping, social vulnerability, additive approach, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), New York City, United States, adaptation, social sensitivity

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Authors: Pratibha Srivastava, Chithra V. J., Sudhakar S., Nitin K. D.

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A closed-loop system comprises of a controller, a response system, and an actuating system. The controller, which is the system under test for us, excites the actuators based on feedback from the sensors in a periodic manner. The sensors should provide the feedback to the System Under Test (SUT) within a deterministic time post excitation of the actuators. Any delay or miss in the generation of response or acquisition of excitation pulses may lead to control loop controller computation errors, which can be catastrophic in certain cases. Such systems categorised as hard real-time systems that need special strategies. The real-time operating systems available in the market may be the best solutions for such kind of simulations, but they pose limitations like the availability of the X Windows system, graphical interfaces, other user tools. In this paper, we present strategies that can be used on a general purpose operating system (Bare Linux Kernel) to achieve a deterministic deadline and hence have the added advantages of a GPOS with real-time features. Techniques shall be discussed how to make the time-critical application run with the highest priority in an uninterrupted manner, reduced network latency for distributed architecture, real-time data acquisition, data storage, and retrieval, user interactions, etc.

Keywords: real time data acquisition, real time kernel preemption, scheduling, network latency

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Authors: Grace D. Severo, Lopita U. Jung

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This study aimed to determine the educational philosophies and teaching styles of the college faculty of the University of Perpetual Help System DALTA in the campuses of Las-Piñas, Molino, and Calamba, south of Metro Manila. It sought to determine the relationships of educational philosophy and teaching styles of the college faculty vis-à-vis the university system’s educational philosophies and teaching style preferences. A hundred and five faculty members from the Colleges of Education, Arts and Sciences responded to the survey during the academic year 2014-2015. The Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory measured the faculty’s preferred educational philosophies. The Principles of Adult Learning Scale measured the faculty’s teaching style preference. Findings show that there is a similarity between the university system and the faculty members in using the progressive educational philosophy, however both contrasted in the preferred teaching style. Majority of the faculty held progressive educational philosophy but their preference for teacher-centered teaching style did not match. This implies that the majority are certain of having progressive educational philosophy but are not utilizing the learner-centered teaching styles; a high degree of support and commitment to practice a progressive and humanist philosophical orientation in education; and a high degree of support on teacher-centered teaching style promotion from the institution can strengthen a high degree of commitment for the faculty to enunciate their values and practice through these educational philosophies and teaching styles.

Keywords: educational philosophies, teaching styles, philosophy of adult education inventory, principles of adult learning scale

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Authors: Katharina Kargel, Frederic Vobbe

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Sexualized violence against children and adolescents using digital media poses particular challenges for practitioners with a focus on crisis intervention (social work, psychotherapy, law enforcement). The technical delimitation of violence increases the burden on those affected and increases the complexity of interdisciplinary cooperation. Urgently needed recommendations for practical action do not yet exist in Germany. Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, these recommendations for action are being developed in the HUMAN project together with science and practice. The presentation introduces the participatory approach of the HUMAN project. We discuss the application-oriented, casuistic approach of the project and present its results using the example of concrete case-based recommendations for Action. The participants will be presented with concrete prototypical case studies from the project, which will be used to illustrate quality criteria for crisis intervention in cases of sexualized violence using digital media. On the basis of case analyses, focus group interviews and interviews with victims of violence, we present the six central challenges of sexualized violence with the use of digital media, namely: • Diffusion (Ambiguities regarding the extent and significance of violence) , • Transcendence (Space and time independence of the dynamics of violence, omnipresence), • omnipresent anxiety (considering diffusion and transcendence), • being haunted (repeated confrontation with digital memories of violence or the perpetrator), • disparity (conflicts of interpretative power between those affected and the social environment) • simultaneity (of all other factors). We point out generalizable principles with which these challenges can be dealt with professionally. Dealing professionally with sexualized violence using digital media requires a stronger networking of professional actors. A clear distinction must be made between their own mission and the mission of the network partners. Those affected by violence must be shown options for crisis intervention in the context of the aid networks. The different competencies and the professional mission of the offers of help are to be made transparent. The necessity of technical possibilities for deleting abuse images beyond criminal prosecution will be discussed. Those affected are stabilized by multimodal strategies such as a combination of rational emotive therapy, legal support and technical assistance.

Keywords: sexualized violence, intervention, digital media, children and youth

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Authors: Jonathan Sohn

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Deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown state-of-the-art performance for many applications, including computer vision, natural language processing, and speech recognition. Recently, adversarial attacks have been studied in the context of deep neural networks, which aim to alter the results of deep neural networks by modifying the inputs slightly. For example, an adversarial attack on a DNN used for object detection can cause the DNN to miss certain objects. As a result, the reliability of DNNs is undermined by their lack of robustness against adversarial attacks, raising concerns about their use in safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving. In this paper, we focus on studying the adversarial attacks and defenses on DNNs for image classification. There are two types of adversarial attacks studied which are fast gradient sign method (FGSM) attack and projected gradient descent (PGD) attack. A DNN forms decision boundaries that separate the input images into different categories. The adversarial attack slightly alters the image to move over the decision boundary, causing the DNN to misclassify the image. FGSM attack obtains the gradient with respect to the image and updates the image once based on the gradients to cross the decision boundary. PGD attack, instead of taking one big step, repeatedly modifies the input image with multiple small steps. There is also another type of attack called the target attack. This adversarial attack is designed to make the machine classify an image to a class chosen by the attacker. We can defend against adversarial attacks by incorporating adversarial examples in training. Specifically, instead of training the neural network with clean examples, we can explicitly let the neural network learn from the adversarial examples. In our experiments, the digit recognition accuracy on the MNIST dataset drops from 97.81% to 39.50% and 34.01% when the DNN is attacked by FGSM and PGD attacks, respectively. If we utilize FGSM training as a defense method, the classification accuracy greatly improves from 39.50% to 92.31% for FGSM attacks and from 34.01% to 75.63% for PGD attacks. To further improve the classification accuracy under adversarial attacks, we can also use a stronger PGD training method. PGD training improves the accuracy by 2.7% under FGSM attacks and 18.4% under PGD attacks over FGSM training. It is worth mentioning that both FGSM and PGD training do not affect the accuracy of clean images. In summary, we find that PGD attacks can greatly degrade the performance of DNNs, and PGD training is a very effective way to defend against such attacks. PGD attacks and defence are overall significantly more effective than FGSM methods.

Keywords: deep neural network, adversarial attack, adversarial defense, adversarial machine learning

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Authors: Şeyda Akçalı

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This study explores the concept of social sustainability and its characteristics in terms of neighborhood (mahalle) which is a social phenomenon in Turkish urban life. As social sustainability indicators that moving away traditional themes toward multi-dimensional measures, the solutions for urban strategies may be achieved through learning lessons from historical precedents. It considers the inherent values of traditional urban forms contribute to the evolution of the city as well as the social functions of it. The study aims to measure non-tangible issues in order to evaluate social sustainability in historic urban environments and how they could contribute to the current urban planning strategies. The concept of neighborhood (mahalle) refers to a way of living that represents the organization of Turkish social and communal life rather than defining an administrative unit for the city. The distinctive physical and social features of neighborhood illustrate the link between social sustainability and historic urban environment. Instead of having a nostalgic view of past, it identifies both the failures and successes and extract lessons of traditional urban environments and adopt them to modern context. First, the study determines the aspects of social sustainability which are issued as the key themes in the literature. Then, it develops a model by describing the social features of mahalle which show consistency within the social sustainability agenda. The model is used to analyze the performance of traditional housing area in the historical city center of Bursa, Turkey whether it meets the residents’ social needs and contribute collective functioning of the community. Through a questionnaire survey exercised in the historic neighborhoods, the residents are evaluated according to social sustainability criteria of neighborhood. The results derived from the factor analysis indicate that social aspects of neighborhood are social infrastructure, identity, attachment, neighborliness, safety and wellbeing. Qualitative evaluation shows the relationship between key aspects of social sustainability and demographic and socio-economic factors. The outcomes support that inherent values of neighborhood retain its importance for the sustainability of community although there must be some local arrangements for few factors with great attention not to compromise the others. The concept of neighborhood should be considered as a potential tool to support social sustainability in national political agenda and urban policies. The performance of underlying factors in historic urban environment proposes a basis for both examining and improving traditional urban areas and how it may contribute to the overall city.

Keywords: historical city center, mahalle, neighborhood, social sustainability, traditional urban environment, Turkey

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Authors: Nathalie Stephenne, Mathieu Veschkens, Stéphane Palm, Christophe Charlemagne, Jacques Defoux

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According to Europe’s first River basin Management Plans (RBMPs), 56% of European rivers failed to achieve the good status targets of the Water Framework Directive WFD. In Central European countries such as Belgium, even more than 80% of rivers failed to achieve the WFD quality targets. Although the RBMP’s should reduce the stressors and improve water body status, their potential to address multiple stress situations is limited due to insufficient knowledge on combined effects, multi-stress, prioritization of measures, impact on ecology and implementation effects. This paper describes a webGis prototype developed for the Walloon administration to improve the communication and the management of sediment dredging actions carried out in rivers and lakes in the frame of RBMPs. A large number of stakeholders are involved in the management of rivers and lakes in Wallonia. They are in charge of technical aspects (client and dredging operators, organizations involved in the treatment of waste…), management (managers involved in WFD implementation at communal, provincial or regional level) or policy making (people responsible for policy compliance or legislation revision). These different kinds of stakeholders need different information and data to cover their duties but have to interact closely at different levels. Moreover, information has to be shared between them to improve the management quality of dredging operations within the ecological system. In the Walloon legislation, leveling dredged sediments on banks requires an official authorization from the administration. This request refers to spatial information such as the official land use map, the cadastral map, the distance to potential pollution sources. The production of a collective geodatabase can facilitate the management of these authorizations from both sides. The proposed internet system integrates documents, data input, integration of data from disparate sources, map representation, database queries, analysis of monitoring data, presentation of results and cartographic visualization. A prototype of web application using the API geoviewer chosen by the Geomatic department of the SPW has been developed and discussed with some potential users to facilitate the communication, the management and the quality of the data. The structure of the paper states the why, what, who and how of this communication tool.

Keywords: sediments, web application, GIS, rivers management

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Authors: Shital Suresh Borse, Vijayalaxmi Kadroli

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E-commerce industries nowadays implement the latest AI, ML Techniques to improve their own performance and prediction accuracy. This helps to gain a huge profit from the online market. Ant Colony Optimization, Genetic algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Neural Network & GWO help many e-commerce industries for up-gradation of their predictive performance. These algorithms are providing optimum results in various applications, such as stock price prediction, prediction of drug-target interaction & user ratings of similar products in e-commerce sites, etc. In this study, customer reviews will play an important role in prediction analysis. People showing much interest in buying a lot of services& products suggested by other customers. This ultimately increases net profit. In this work, a convolution neural network (CNN) is proposed which further is useful to optimize the prediction accuracy of an e-commerce website. This method shows that CNN is used to optimize hyperparameters of GWO algorithm using an appropriate coding scheme. Accurate model results are verified by comparing them to PSO results whose hyperparameters have been optimized by CNN in Amazon's customer review dataset. Here, experimental outcome proves that this proposed system using the GWO algorithm achieves superior execution in terms of accuracy, precision, recovery, etc. in prediction analysis compared to the existing systems.

Keywords: prediction analysis, e-commerce, machine learning, grey wolf optimization, particle swarm optimization, CNN

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Authors: Elena Carcano, James Ball

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This work details the strategies adopted by the Italian Water Utilities during the distribution of water in emergency conditions which glide from earthquakes and droughts to floods and fires. Several water bureaus located over the national territory have been interviewed, and the collected information has been used in a database of potential interventions to be taken. The work discusses the actions adopted by water utilities. These are generally prioritized in order to minimize the social, temporal, and economic burden that the damaged and nearby areas need to support. Actions are defined relying on the Bayesian Network Approach, which constitutes the hard core of any decision support system. The Bayesian Networks give answers to interventions to real and most likely risky cases. The added value of this research consists in supplying the National Bureau, namely Protezione Civile, in charge of managing havoc and catastrophic situations with a univocal plot outline so as to be able to handle actions uniformly at the expense of different local laws or contradictory customs which squander any recovery conditions, proper technical service, and economic aids. The paper is organized as follows: in section 1, the introduction is stated; section 2 provides a brief discussion of BNNs (Bayesian Networks), section 3 introduces the adopted methodology; and in the last sections, results are presented, and conclusions are drawn.

Keywords: hierarchical process, strategic plan, water emergency conditions, water supply

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Authors: Ruel A. Welch

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Since the introduction of ServiceNow, the UK’s Science Museum Group’s (SMG) ICT service desk portal. There has not been an analysis of the tools available to SMG staff for just-in-time knowledge acquisition (knowledge management systems) and reporting ICT incidents with a focus on an aspect of professional identity, namely, gender. This study is conducted in the milieu of UK museums, galleries, arts, academic, charitable, and cultural heritage sectors. Numerous authors suggest that males and females experience ICT usage differently. Therefore, it is important for SMG to investigate the apparent disparities so that solutions can be derived to minimize this digital divide if one exists. It is acknowledged at SMG that there are challenges with keeping up with an ever-changing digital landscape. Subsequently, this entails the rapid upskilling of staff and developing an infrastructure that supports just-in-time technological knowledge acquisition and reporting technology-related issues. This problem was addressed by analyzing ServiceNow ICT incident reports and reports from knowledge articles from a six-month period from February to July. This study found a statistically significant relationship between gender and reporting an ICT incident. There is also a significant relationship between gender and the priority level of ICT incidents. Interestingly, there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and reading knowledge articles. Additionally, there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and reporting an ICT incident related to the knowledge article that was read by staff. The knowledge acquired from this study is useful to service desk management practice as it will help to inform the creation of future knowledge articles and ICT incident reporting processes.

Keywords: digital divide, ICT service desk practice, knowledge management systems, workplace learning

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Authors: Charbel Aoun, Loic Lagadec

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A Sensor Network (SN) is considered as an operation of two phases: (1) the observation/measuring, which means the accumulation of the gathered data at each sensor node; (2) transferring the collected data to some processing center (e.g., Fusion Servers) within the SN. Therefore, an underwater sensor network can be defined as a sensor network deployed underwater that monitors underwater activity. The deployed sensors, such as Hydrophones, are responsible for registering underwater activity and transferring it to more advanced components. The process of data exchange between the aforementioned components perfectly defines the Marine Observatory (MO) concept which provides information on ocean state, phenomena and processes. The first step towards the implementation of this concept is defining the environmental constraints and the required tools and components (Marine Cables, Smart Sensors, Data Fusion Server, etc). The logical and physical components that are used in these observatories perform some critical functions such as the localization of underwater moving objects. These functions can be orchestrated with other services (e.g. military or civilian reaction). In this paper, we present an extension to our MO meta-model that is used to generate a design tool (ArchiMO). We propose new constraints to be taken into consideration at design time. We illustrate our proposal with an example from the MO domain. Additionally, we generate the corresponding simulation code using our self-developed domain-specific model compiler. On the one hand, this illustrates our approach in relying on Enterprise Architecture (EA) framework that respects: multiple views, perspectives of stakeholders, and domain specificity. On the other hand, it helps reducing both complexity and time spent in design activity, while preventing from design modeling errors during porting this activity in the MO domain. As conclusion, this work aims to demonstrate that we can improve the design activity of complex system based on the use of MDE technologies and a domain-specific modeling language with the associated tooling. The major improvement is to provide an early validation step via models and simulation approach to consolidate the system design.

Keywords: smart sensors, data fusion, distributed fusion architecture, sensor networks, domain specific modeling language, enterprise architecture, underwater moving object, localization, marine observatory, NS-3, IMS

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Authors: Kiomars Habibi, Mostafa Behzadfar, Airin Jaberi

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Designing appropriate places for the comfort of pedestrians is one of the most important aspects of modern urbanization and renovation and rehabilitation stimulus of urban old fabrics. So, that special cities designed for pedestrians with a complete network of streets without cars, can be considered as one of the best habitations in the world. The number of these cities with a network of streets and squares in which beauty, enjoyment and comfort are mostly concerned for the pedestrians designed regions is increasing around the world, such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, Munich, Frankfurt, Venice, Rome, etc. In this paper, we are going to explain the influential factors regarding the efficiency of these cities by identifying one of the most important pedestrian ways of the world; Strøget is a car free zone in Copenhagen, Denmark. This popular tourist attraction in the center of town is the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe. Analyses indicate that world-wide experience concerning the renovation and rehabilitation of old fabrics has many advantages in exploiting the idea of pedestrian way for regeneration of old fabrics. Transforming the streets to appropriate places for the comfort of pedestrians, expanding the public spaces such as city squares, and decreasing the masses of building alongside the brought comfort and peace is the main reason in the success of Strøget pedestrian street in urban old fabrics of Copenhagen. Hypothesis: The Strøget pedestrian street has been the development stimulus in Copenhagen and the urban old fabrics development as a result

Keywords: development, stimulus, pedestrian street, urban landscape, Stroget

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Authors: Mahdi GoharRokhi, Mohammad H. Ruhipour, Mohammad R. ZamaniZadeh, Mohsen Maleki, Yusef Shamsayi, Mahdi FarhaniNejad, Farzad FarrokhZadeh

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Possessing massive resources of natural gas and petroleum, Iran has a special place among all other oil producing countries, according to international institutions of energy. In order to use these resources, development and functioning optimization of refineries and industrial units is mandatory. Heat exchanger is one of the most important and strategic equipment which its key role in the process of production is clear to everyone. For instance, if the temperature of a processing fluid is not set as needed by heat exchangers, the specifications of desired product can change profoundly. Crude oil enters a network of heat exchangers in atmospheric distillation section before getting into the distillation tower; in this case, well-functioning of heat exchangers can significantly affect the operation of distillation tower. In this paper, different scenarios for pre-heating of oil are studied using oil and gas simulation software, and the results are discussed. As we reviewed various scenarios, adding a heat exchanger to pre-heating network is proposed as the most efficient factor in improving all governing parameters of the tower i.e. temperature, pressure, and reflux rate. This exchanger is embedded in crude oil’s path. Crude oil enters the exchanger after E-101 and exchanges heat with discharging kerosene pump around from E-136. As depicted in the results, it will efficiently assist the improvement of process operation and side expenses.

Keywords: atmospheric distillation unit, heat exchanger, preheat, simulation

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Authors: Omar A. Abuobidalla, Mingyuan Chen, Satyaveer S. Chauhan

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Railroad transportation of hazardous materials freights is important to the North America economics that supports the national’s supply chain. This paper introduces various extensions of the dynamic hazardous materials trip plan problems. The problem captures most of the operational features of a real-world railroad transportations systems that dynamically initiates a set of blocks and assigns each shipment to a single block path or multiple block paths. The dynamic hazardous materials trip plan policies have distinguishing features that are integrating the blocking plan, and the block activation decisions. We also present a non-linear mixed integer programming formulation for each variant and present managerial insights based on a hypothetical railroad network. The computation results reveal that the dynamic car scheduling policies are not only able to take advantage of the capacity of the network but also capable of diminishing the population, and environment risks by rerouting the active blocks along the least risky train services without sacrificing the cost advantage of the railroad. The empirical results of this research illustrate that the issue of integrating the blocking plan, and the train makeup of the hazardous materials freights must receive closer attentions.

Keywords: dynamic car scheduling, planning and scheduling hazardous materials freights, airborne hazardous materials, gaussian plume model, integrated blocking and routing plans, box model

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Authors: O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, J. Fischer, C. Lautenbach, H. A. Pant

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In 21st century higher education (HE), the diversity among students has increased in recent years due to the internationalization and higher mobility. Offering and providing equal and fair opportunities based on students’ individual skills and abilities instead of their social or cultural background is one of the major aims of HE. In this context, valid, objective and transparent assessments of students’ preconditions and academic competencies in HE are required. However, as analyses of the current states of research and practice show, a substantial research gap on assessment practices in HE still exists, calling for the development of effective solutions. These demands lead to significant conceptual and methodological challenges. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the research program 'Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education – Validation and Methodological Challenges' (KoKoHs) focusses on addressing these challenges in HE assessment practice by modeling and validating objective test instruments. Including 16 cross-university collaborative projects, the German-wide research program contributes to bridging the research gap in current assessment research and practice by concentrating on practical and policy-related challenges of assessment in HE. In this paper, we present a differentiated overview of existing assessments of HE at the national and international level. Based on the state of research, we describe the theoretical and conceptual framework of the KoKoHs Program as well as results of the validation studies, including their key outcomes. More precisely, this includes an insight into more than 40 developed assessments covering a broad range of transparent and objective methods for validly measuring domain-specific and generic knowledge and skills for five major study areas (Economics, Social Science, Teacher Education, Medicine and Psychology). Computer-, video- and simulation-based instruments have been applied and validated to measure over 20,000 students at the beginning, middle and end of their (bachelor and master) studies at more than 300 HE institutions throughout Germany or during their practical training phase, traineeship or occupation. Focussing on the validity of the assessments, all test instruments have been analyzed comprehensively, using a broad range of methods and observing the validity criteria of the Standards for Psychological and Educational Testing developed by the American Educational Research Association, the American Economic Association and the National Council on Measurement. The results of the developed assessments presented in this paper, provide valuable outcomes to predict students’ skills and abilities at the beginning and the end of their studies as well as their learning development and performance. This allows for a differentiated view of the diversity among students. Based on the given research results practical implications and recommendations are formulated. In particular, appropriate and effective learning opportunities for students can be created to support the learning development of students, promote their individual potential and reduce knowledge and skill gaps. Overall, the presented research on competency assessment is highly relevant to national and international HE practice.

Keywords: 21st century skills, academic competencies, innovative assessments, KoKoHs

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Authors: Muqdad Al-Juboori, Bithin Datta

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Hydraulic structures such as gravity dams are classified as essential structures, and have the vital role in providing strong and safe water resource management. Three major aspects must be considered to achieve an effective design of such a structure: 1) The building cost, 2) safety, and 3) accurate analysis of seepage characteristics. Due to the complexity and non-linearity relationships of the seepage process, many approximation theories have been developed; however, the application of these theories results in noticeable errors. The analytical solution, which includes the difficult conformal mapping procedure, could be applied for a simple and symmetrical problem only. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to: 1) develop a surrogate model based on numerical simulated data using SEEPW software to approximately simulate seepage process related to a hydraulic structure, 2) develop and solve a linked simulation-optimization model based on the developed surrogate model to describe the seepage occurring under a concrete gravity dam, in order to obtain optimum and safe design at minimum cost. The result shows that the linked simulation-optimization model provides an efficient and optimum design of concrete gravity dams.

Keywords: artificial neural network, concrete gravity dam, genetic algorithm, seepage analysis

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Authors: Manee Hasap, Mongkolchai Hasap, Tasanee Nasae

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the primary caregivers’ knowledge and capabilities for providing quality care to be hospitalized post-hip fracture surgery elderly patients. The theoretical framework of the study was derived from the concepts of dependent care agency in Orem’s Self-Care theory, and family care provision for the elderly and chronically ill patients. 59 subjects were purposively selected. The subjects were primary caregivers of post-operated hip fracture elderly patients who had been admitted to the Orthopaedic Ward of Songklanagarind Hospital. Demographic data of the caregivers and patients were collected by non-participant observation using the evaluation and recording forms. The reliability of caregivers’ knowledge measurement (0.86) was obtained by KR-20 and that of caregivers’ capabilities for post-operative care evaluation form (0.97) obtained from 2 observers by interrater reliability. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistic, which were frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The result of this study indicated that elderly patients with post-hip fracture surgery had many pre-discharge self care limitations. Approximately, 75% of the caregivers had knowledge to respond to patient’s essential needs at a high level, while the rest (25%) had this knowledge a moderate level. For observation, 57.63% of the subjects had capabilities in care practice at a moderate level; 28.81% had capabilities in care practice at a high level, while 13.56% had at a low level. The result of this study can be used as basic information for patients and caregivers capabilities developing plan especially, providing patients’ activities, accident surveillance and complications prevention for a good life quality of elderly patients after hip surgery both hospitalization and rehabilitation at home.

Keywords: care givers’ knowledge, care givers’ capabilities, elderly hip fracture patients, patients

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Authors: Anikó Kaluzsa

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The article's author aims to introduce and analyze those microbiological safety hazards which indicate the presence of secondary contamination in the water supply system. Since drinking water belongs to primary foods and is the basic condition of life, special attention should be paid on its quality. There are such indicators among the microbiological features can be found in water, which are clear evidence of the presence of water contamination, and based on this there is no need to perform other diagnostics, because they prove properly the contamination of the given water supply section. Laboratory analysis can help - both technologically and temporally – to identify contamination, but it does matter how long takes the removal and if the disinfection process takes place in time. The identification of the factors that often occur in the same places or the chance of their occurrence is greater than the average, facilitates our work. The pathogen microbiological risk assessment by the help of several features determines the most likely occurring microbiological features in the Carpathian basin. From among all the microbiological indicators, that are recommended targets for routine inspection by the World Health Organization, there is a paramount importance of the appearance of Escherichia coli in the water network, as its presence indicates the potential ubietiy of enteric pathogens or other contaminants in the water network. In addition, the author presents the steps of microbiological risk assessment analyzing those pathogenic micro-organisms registered to be the most critical.

Keywords: drinking water, E. coli, microbiological indicators, risk assessment, water safety plan

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Authors: Jacky Hau

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The prevalence of emerging technologies disrupts various industries as well as consumer behavior. Data collection has been in the fingertip and inherited through enabled Internet-of-things (IOT) devices. Big data analytics (BDA) becomes possible and allows real-time demand network management (DNM) through leagile supply chain. To enhance further on its resilience and predictability, governance is going to be examined to promote supply chain transparency and trust in an efficient manner. Leagility combines lean thinking and agile techniques in supply chain management. It aims at reducing costs and waste, as well as maintaining responsiveness to any volatile consumer demand by means of adjusting the decoupling point where the product flow changes from push to pull. Leagility would only be successful when collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR) process or alike is in place throughout the supply chain business entities. Governance and procurement of the supply chain, however, is crucial and challenging for the execution of CPFR as every entity has to walk-the-talk generously for the sake of overall benefits of supply chain performance, not to mention the complexity of exercising the polices at both of within across various supply chain business entities on account of organizational behavior and mutual trust. Empirical survey results showed that the effective timespan on demand forecasting had been drastically shortening in the magnitude of months to weeks planning horizon, thus agility shall come first and preferably following by lean approach in a timely manner.

Keywords: governance, leagility, procure-to-pay, source-to-contract

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Authors: M. Ananthakrishnan, Sunil K Patil, Koti Naveen, Inuganti Hemanth Kumar

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State estimation output of EMS forms the base case for all other advanced applications used in real time by a power system operator. Ensuring tuning of state estimator is a repeated process and cannot be left once a good solution is obtained. This paper attempts to demonstrate methods to improve state estimator solution by identifying incorrect modelling and telemetry inputs to the application. In this work, identification of database topology modelling error by plotting static network using node-to-node connection details is demonstrated with examples. Analytical methods to identify wrong transmission parameters, incorrect limits and mistakes in pseudo load and generator modelling are explained with various cases observed. Further, methods used for active and reactive power tuning using bus summation display, reactive power absorption summary, and transformer tap correction are also described. In a large power system, verifying all network static data and modelling parameter on regular basis is difficult .The proposed tuning methods can be easily used by operators to quickly identify errors to obtain the best possible state estimation performance. This, in turn, can lead to improved decision-support capabilities, ultimately enhancing the safety and reliability of the power grid.

Keywords: active power tuning, database modelling, reactive power, state estimator

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Authors: Akudo Ejelonu, Sarah Willig, J. Anthony Sauder, Heather Murphy, Frances Shofer

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Background: The high prevalence of diarrheal diseases in the village of Tzununá, Guatemala is linked to lack of sanitation facilities and handwashing practices. Diarrheal diseases are preventable and improved access to latrines, hygiene education and clean water may improve sanitation by reducing the spread of disease. Objective: Between May 2015-January 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Chapter of Engineers Without Border (PennEWB) and local partners designed an intervention to reduce diarrheal disease by building pour flush latrines in 50 individual households and providing education on the importance of handwashing practice. Design/Methods: Through convenient sampling, we surveyed 45 households to evaluate the community’s knowledge of diarrheal disease, handwashing practices, and maintenance of the latrines. Results: 92% of the study participants experienced decrease of new cases of diarrheal disease after receiving a latrine. Only 11% washed their hands after defecating in the latrine. There was gap in understanding the health outcome of latrine sanitation and handwashing education. The respondents did not connect the reduction of diarrheal disease with latrine use and maintenance. Instead, they associated their motivation for latrine use with aesthetics, proximity to their home, ease and comfort, and reduction of shame. We recommend that PennEWB adopt UNICEF or WHO education on hand washing practice. Conclusion: Social interaction and social pressure drove the household use of latrines. The latrines are being valued and cleaned. The education that the residents received did not target norms and behaviors. Latrines could be used to create a new social norm that supports behavioral change.

Keywords: diarrheal disease, latrine, open defecation, water, sanitation and hygiene

Procedia PDF Downloads 157

Authors: Feng Yang

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Machine learning (ML), especially deep learning (DL), has been extensively applied to many applications in recently years and gained great success in solving different problems, including scientific problems. However, conventional ML/DL methodologies are purely data-driven which have the limitations, such as need of ample amount of labelled training data, lack of consistency to physical principles, and lack of generalizability to new problems/domains. Recently, there is a growing consensus that ML models need to further take advantage of prior knowledge to deal with these limitations. Physics-informed machine learning, aiming at integration of physics/domain knowledge into ML, has been recognized as an emerging area of research, especially in the recent 2 to 3 years. In this work, physics-informed ML, specifically physics-informed neural network (NN), is employed and implemented to estimate the displacements at x, y, z directions in a solid mechanics problem that is controlled by equilibrium equations with boundary conditions. By incorporating the physics (i.e. the equilibrium equations) into the learning process of NN, it is showed that the NN can be trained very efficiently with a small set of labelled training data. Experiments with different settings of the NN model and the amount of labelled training data were conducted, and the results show that very high accuracy can be achieved in fulfilling the equilibrium equations as well as in predicting the displacements, e.g. in setting the overall displacement of 0.1, a root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.09 × 10−4 was achieved.

Keywords: deep learning, neural network, physics-informed machine learning, solid mechanics

Procedia PDF Downloads 150

Authors: Siming Xie

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In social networks, the term homophily refers to the tendency of agents with similar characteristics to link with one another and is so robustly observed across many contexts and dimensions. The starting point of my research is the observation that the “type” of agents is not a single exogenous variable. Agents, despite their differences in race, religion, and other hard to alter characteristics, may share interests and engage in activities that cut across those predetermined lines. This research aims to capture the interactions of homophily effects in a model where agents have two-dimension characteristics (i.e., race and personal hobbies such as basketball, which one either likes or dislikes) and with biases in meeting opportunities and in favor of same-type friendships. A novel feature of my model is providing a matching process with biased meeting probability on different dimensions, which could help to understand the structuring process in multidimensional networks without missing layer interdependencies. The main contribution of this study is providing a welfare based matching process for agents with multi-dimensional characteristics. In particular, this research shows that the biases in meeting opportunities on one dimension would lead to the emergence of homophily on the other dimension. The objective of this research is to determine the pattern of homophily in network formations, which will shed light on our understanding of segregation and its remedies. By constructing a two-dimension matching process, this study explores a method to describe agents’ homophilous behavior in a social network with multidimension and construct a game in which the minorities and majorities play different strategies in a society. It also shows that the optimal strategy is determined by the relative group size, where society would suffer more from social segregation if the two racial groups have a similar size. The research also has political implications—cultivating the same characteristics among agents helps diminishing social segregation, but only if the minority group is small enough. This research includes both theoretical models and empirical analysis. Providing the friendship formation model, the author first uses MATLAB to perform iteration calculations, then derives corresponding mathematical proof on previous results, and last shows that the model is consistent with empirical evidence from high school friendships. The anonymous data comes from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

Keywords: homophily, multidimension, social networks, friendships

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Authors: Ridwan Dewayanto Rusli

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We show how prisoner's dilemma-type competition problems can be mitigated through rapid platform diversification and ecosystem expansion. We analyze a ride-hailing company in Southeast Asia, Gojek, whose network grew to more than 170 million users comprising consumers, partner drivers, merchants, and complementors within a few years and has already achieved higher contribution margins than ride-hailing peers Uber and Lyft. Its ecosystem integrates ride-hailing, food delivery and logistics, merchant solutions, e-commerce, marketplace and advertising, payments, and fintech offerings. The company continues growing its network of complementors and App developers, expanding content and gaining critical mass in consumer data analytics and advertising. We compare the company's growth and diversification trajectory with those of its main international rivals and peers. The company's rapid growth and future potential are analyzed using Cusumano's (2012) Staying Power and Six Principles, Hax and Wilde's (2003) and Hax's (2010) The Delta Model as well as Santos' (2016) home-market advantages frameworks. The recently announced multi-billion-dollar merger with one of Southeast Asia's largest e-commerce majors lends additional support to the above arguments.

Keywords: ride-hailing, prisoner's dilemma, platform and ecosystem strategy, digital applications, diversification, home market advantages, e-commerce

Procedia PDF Downloads 94

Authors: Claire P. Griffin

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The education provision for students with special educational needs, including students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), has undergone significant national and international changes in recent years. In particular, an increase in resource-based provision has occurred across educational settings in an effort to support inclusive practices. This paper seeks to explore the role of the Special Needs Assistant (SNA) in supporting children with ASD in Irish schools. This research stems from the second national evaluation of ‘Education Provision for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Ireland’ (NCSE, 2016). This research was commissioned by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) in Ireland and conducted by a team of researchers from Mary Immaculate College, Limerick from February to July 2014. This study involved a multiple case study research strategy across 24 educational sites, as selected through a stratified sampling process. Research strategies included semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, documentary review and child conversations. Data analysis was conducted electronically using Nvivo software, with use of an additional quantitative recording mechanism based on scaled weighting criteria for collected data. Based on such information, key findings from the NCSE national evaluation will be presented and critically reviewed, with particular reference to the role of the SNA in supporting pupils with ASD. Examples of positive practice inherent within the SNA role will be outlined and contrasted with discrete areas for development. Based on such findings, recommendations for the evolving role of the SNA will be presented, with the aim of informing both policy and best practice within the field.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, inclusive education , paraprofessional, special needs assistant

Procedia PDF Downloads 279

Authors: Amy L. Irvine, Gabriel Reygondeau, Derek P. Tittensor

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Marine protected areas (MPAs) within Canada’s exclusive economic zone help ensure the conservation and sustainability of marine ecosystems and the continued provision of ecosystem services to society (e.g., food, carbon sequestration). With ongoing and accelerating climate change, however, MPAs may become undermined in terms of their effectiveness at fulfilling these outcomes. Many populations of species, especially those at their thermal range limits, may shift to cooler waters or become extirpated due to climate change, resulting in new species compositions and ecological interactions within static MPA boundaries. While Canadian MPA management follows international guidelines for marine conservation, no consistent approach exists for adapting MPA networks to climate change and the resulting altered ecosystem conditions. To fill this gap, projected climate-driven shifts in species distributions on Canada’s east coast were analyzed to identify when native species emigrate and novel species immigrate within the network and how high mitigation and carbon emission scenarios influence these timelines. Indicators of the ecological changes caused by these species' shifts in the biological community were also developed. Overall, our research provides projections of climate change impacts and helps to guide adaptive management responses within the Canadian east coast MPA network.

Keywords: climate change, ecosystem modeling, marine protected areas, management

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Marzena Tomaszewska, Beata Bilska, Danuta Kolozyn-Krajewska

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Food loss and food waste are a global problem of the modern economy. The research undertaken aimed to analyze how food is handled in catering establishments when it comes to food waste and to demonstrate main ways of management with foods/dishes not served to consumers. A survey study was conducted from January to June 2019. The selection of catering establishments participating in the study was deliberate. The study included establishments located only in Mazowieckie Voivodeship (Poland). 42 completed questionnaires were collected. In some questions, answers were based on a 5-point scale of 1 to 5 (from 'always'/'every day' to 'never'). The survey also included closed questions with a suggested cafeteria of answers. The respondents stated that in their workplaces, dishes served cold and hot ready meals are discarded every day or almost every day (23.7% and 20.5% of answers respectively). A procedure most frequently used for dealing with dishes not served to consumers on a given day is their storage at a cool temperature until the following day. In the research, 1/5 of respondents admitted that consumers 'always' or 'usually' leave uneaten meals on their plates, and over 41% 'sometimes' do so. It was found additionally that food not used in food service sector is most often thrown into a public container for rubbish. Most often thrown into the public container (with communal trash) were: expired products (80.0%), plate waste (80.0%), and inedible products (fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells) (77.5%). Most frequently into the container dedicated only for food waste were thrown out used deep-frying oil (62.5%). 10% of respondents indicated that inedible products in their workplaces is allocate for animal feeds. Food waste in the food service sector still remains an insufficiently studied issue, as owners of these objects are often unwilling to disclose data pertaining to the subject. Incorrect ways of management with foods not served to consumers were observed. There is the need to develop the educational activities for employees and management in the context of food waste management in the food service sector. This publication has been developed under the contract with the National Center for Research and Development No Gospostrateg1/385753/1/NCBR/2018 for carrying out and funding of a project implemented as part of the 'The social and economic development of Poland in the conditions of globalizing markets - GOSPOSTRATEG' program entitled 'Developing a system for monitoring wasted food and an effective program to rationalize losses and reduce food wastage' (acronym PROM).

Keywords: food waste, inedible products, plate waste, used deep-frying oil

Procedia PDF Downloads 119

Authors: Ammar Ayad Issa Al-Rifaie, Zuhreya Muazu, Maysam Ali Abdulwahid, Dermot Gleeson

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The aim of this audit was to examine the efficiency of alcohol history documentation and screening for hazardous drinkers at the Medical Admission Unit (MAU) of Northern General Hospital (NGH), Sheffield, to identify any potential for enhancing clinical practice. Data were collected from medical clerking sheets, ICE system and directly from 82 patients by three junior medical doctors using both CAGE questionnaire and AUDIT-C tool for newly admitted patients to MAU in NGH, in the period between January and March 2015. Alcohol consumption was documented in around two-third of the patient sample and this was documented fairly accurately by health care professionals. Some used subjective words such as 'social drinking' in the alcohol units’ section of the history. CAGE questionnaire was applied to only four patients and none of the patients had documented advice, education or referral to an alcohol liaison team. AUDIT-C tool had identified 30.4%, while CAGE 10.9%, of patients admitted to the NGH MAU as hazardous drinkers. The amount of alcohol the patient consumes positively correlated with the score of AUDIT-C (Pearson correlation 0.83). Re-audit is planned to be carried out after integrating AUDIT-C tool as labels in the notes and presenting a brief teaching session to junior doctors. Alcohol misuse screening is not adequately undertaken and no appropriate action is being offered to hazardous drinkers. CAGE questionnaire is poorly applied to patients and when satisfactory and adequately used has low sensitivity to detect hazardous drinkers in comparison with AUDIT-C tool. Re-audit of alcohol screening practice after introducing AUDIT-C tool in clerking sheets (as labels) is required to compare the findings and conclude the audit cycle.

Keywords: alcohol screening, AUDIT-C, CAGE, hazardous drinking

Procedia PDF Downloads 409

Authors: Akilah A. Jardine

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The integration and expansion of the global economy have indeed brought about a number of positive changes such as access to new goods and services and the opportunity for individuals and businesses to migrate, communicate, and work globally. Nevertheless, the interconnectedness of world economies is not without its negative and shameful side effects. The subsequent overabundance of goods and services has resulted in heightened competition among firms and their supply chains, fuelling the exploitation of impoverished and vulnerable individuals who are unable to equally salvage from the benefits of the integrated economy. To maintain their position in a highly competitive arena, the operations of many businesses have adopted unethical and unscrupulous practices to maximise profit, often targeting the most marginalised members of society. Simultaneously, in a consumerist obsessed society preoccupied with the consumption and accumulation of material wealth, the demand for goods and services greatly contributes to the pressure on firms, thus bolstering the exploitation of labour. This paper aims to examine the impact of business operations on the practice of labour exploitation. It explores corrupt business practices that firms adopt and key labour exploitative conditions outlined by the International Labour Organization, particularly, paying workers low wages, forcing individuals to work in abusive and unsafe conditions, and considers the issue regarding individuals’ consent to exploitative environments. Further, it considers the role of consumers in creating the high demand for goods and services, which in turn fosters the exploitation of labour. This paper illustrates that the practice of labour exploitation in the economy is a by-product of both global competitive business operations and heightened consumer consumption.

Keywords: globalisation, labour exploitation, modern slavery, sweatshops, unethical business practices

Procedia PDF Downloads 143