Search results for: vector information

Authors: Manita Ale, Ganesh P. Shivakoti, Ram C. Bastakoti

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Irrigation system, a system for enhancing agricultural productivity, requires regular maintenance in order to avoid irregular allocation of water. For maintenance of the system in long run, farmers’ participation plays a key role increasing the performance of system. The performance of any irrigation system mainly relies on various factors which affect collective action plus decision making, as well as their shared impacts. The paper consists of system level information that were collected from 12 Irrigation Systems (IS) from three-sampled districts of Nepal and the household information that were collected from 160 irrigation water users. The results reveal that, out of 12 sampled irrigation systems, only 4 systems shows high performance levels. The high performance level of those systems was characterized on the basis of adequate availability of water, good maintenance of system infrastructure, and conformance to existing rules followed. In addition, the paper compares different irrigation systems based on trust, reciprocity, cropping intensity, command area and yield as tools to indicate the importance of collective action in performance of irrigation system.

Keywords: collective action, decision-making, farmers’ participation, performance

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Authors: Dimiter M. Dimitrov, Abdullah Sadaawi

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The National Assessment for Schools (NAFS) in Saudi Arabia consists of standardized tests in Mathematics, Reading, and Science for school grade levels 3, 6, and 9. One main goal is to classify students into four categories of NAFS performance (minimal, basic, proficient, and advanced) by schools and the entire national sample. The NAFS scoring and equating is performed on a bounded scale (D-scale: ranging from 0 to 1) in the framework of the recently developed “D-scoring method of measurement.” The specificity of the NAFS measurement framework and data complexity presented both challenges and opportunities to (a) the estimation of score reliability for schools, (b) setting cut-scores for the classification of students into categories of performance, and (c) generating plausible values for distributions of student performance on the D-scale. The estimation of score reliability at the school level was performed in the framework of generalizability theory (GT), with students “nested” within schools and test items “nested” within test forms. The GT design was executed via a multilevel modeling syntax code in R. Cut-scores (on the D-scale) for the classification of students into performance categories was derived via a recently developed method of standard setting, referred to as “Response Vector for Mastery” (RVM) method. For each school, the classification of students into categories of NAFS performance was based on distributions of plausible values for the students’ scores on NAFS tests by grade level (3, 6, and 9) and subject (Mathematics, Reading, and Science). Plausible values (on the D-scale) for each individual student were generated via random selection from a statistical logit-normal distribution with parameters derived from the student’s D-score and its conditional standard error, SE(D). All procedures related to D-scoring, equating, generating plausible values, and classification of students into performance levels were executed via a computer program in R developed for the purpose of NAFS data analysis.

Keywords: large-scale assessment, reliability, generalizability theory, plausible values

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Authors: Rosa Amalia Safitri, Ine van der Fels-Klerx, Henk Hogeveen

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Halal is a dietary law observed by people following Islamic faith. It is considered as a type of credence food quality which cannot be easily assured by consumers even upon and after consumption. Therefore, Halal certification takes place as a practical tool for the consumers to make an informed choice particularly in a non-Muslim majority country, including the Netherlands. Discrete choice experiment (DCE) was employed in this study for its ability to assess the importance of attributes attached to Halal beef in the Dutch market and to investigate consumer utilities. Furthermore, willingness to pay (WTP) for the desired Halal certification was estimated. Four most relevant attributes were selected, i.e., the slaughter method, traceability information, place of purchase, and Halal certification. Price was incorporated as an attribute to allow estimation of willingness to pay for Halal certification. There were 242 Muslim respondents who regularly consumed Halal beef completed the survey, from Dutch (53%) and non-Dutch consumers living in the Netherlands (47%). The vast majority of the respondents (95%) were within the age of 18-45 years old, with the largest group being student (43%) followed by employee (30%) and housewife (12%). Majority of the respondents (76%) had disposable monthly income less than € 2,500, while the rest earned more than € 2,500. The respondents assessed themselves of having good knowledge of the studied attributes, except for traceability information with 62% of the respondents considered themselves not knowledgeable. The findings indicated that slaughter method was valued as the most important attribute, followed by Halal certificate, place of purchase, price, and traceability information. This order of importance varied across sociodemographic variables, except for the slaughter method. Both Dutch and non-Dutch subgroups valued Halal certification as the third most important attributes. However, non-Dutch respondents valued it with higher importance (0,20) than their Dutch counterparts (0,16). For non-Dutch, the price was more important than Halal certification. The ideal product preferred by the consumers indicated the product serving the highest utilities for consumers, and characterized by beef obtained without pre-slaughtering stunning, with traceability info, available at Halal store, certified by an official certifier, and sold at 2.75 € per 500 gr. In general, an official Halal certifier was mostly preferred. However, consumers were not willing to pay for premium for any type of Halal certifiers, indicated by negative WTP of -0.73 €, -0.93 €, and -1,03€ for small, official, and international certifiers, respectively. This finding indicated that consumers tend to lose their utility when confronted with price. WTP estimates differ across socio-demographic variables with male and non-Dutch respondents had the lowest WTP. The unfamiliarity to traceability information might cause respondents to perceive it as the least important attribute. In the context of Halal certified meat, adding traceability information into meat packaging can serve two functions, first consumers can justify for themselves whether the processes comply with Halal requirements, for example, the use of pre-slaughtering stunning, and secondly to assure its safety. Therefore, integrating traceability info into meat packaging can help to make informed decision for both Halal status and food safety.

Keywords: consumer utilities, discrete choice experiments, Halal certification, willingness to pay

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Authors: Shashank. S. Bagane, H. N. Rajendra Prasad

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Building Information Modeling (BIM) has currently developed into a potent solution. The consistent development of BIM technology in the sphere of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry has enhanced the effectiveness of construction and decision making. However, aggrandized global warming and energy crisis has impacted on building energy analysis. It is now becoming an important factor to be considered in the AEC industry. Amalgamating energy analysis in the planning and design phase of a structure has become a necessity. In the current construction industry, estimating energy usage and reducing its footprint is of high priority. The construction industry is giving more prominence to sustainability alongside energy efficiency. This demand is compelling the designers, planners, and engineers to inspect the sustainable performance throughout the building's life cycle. The current study primarily focuses on energy consumption, space arrangement, and spatial geometry of a residential building. Most commonly residential structures in India are constructed considering Vastu Shastra. Vastu designs are intended to integrate architecture with nature and utilizing geometric patterns, symmetry, and directional alignments. In the current study, a residential brick masonry structure is considered for BIM analysis, Architectural model of the structure will be created using Revit software, later the orientation and spatial arrangement will be finalized based on Vastu principles. Furthermore, the structure will be investigated for the impact of building orientation and spatial arrangements on energy using Green Building Studio software. Based on the BIM analysis of the structure, energy consumption of subsequent building orientations will be understood. A well-orientated building having good spatial arrangement can save a considerable amount of energy throughout its life cycle and reduces the need for heating and lighting which will prove to diminish energy usage and improve the energy efficiency of the residential building.

Keywords: building information modeling, energy impact, spatial geometry, vastu

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Authors: Fabio Salvador Aparecido Santos, Spencer Chainey, Richard Wortley

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Urban morphology can be understood as the study of the physical form of cities through its elements. Crime, at this turn, can be oversimplified as an action that breaks the rules established in a certain society. This study involves these two subjects through the relationship between elements of urban morphology and density of crime occurrences. We consider that there is a research gap about the influence of urban features on crime occurrences using statistic methods and mapping techniques on Geographic Information Systems. The investigation will comprehend three main phases. The first phase involves examining how theoretical principles associated with urban morphology can be viewed in terms of their influence on crime patterns. The second phase involves the development of tools to be used to model elements of urban morphology, and measure the relationship between these urban morphological elements and patterns of crime. The third phase involves determining the extent to which elements of the urban environment can contribute to crime reduction. Understanding the relationship between urban morphology and crime patterns in a Latin American context will help highlight the influence urban planning has on the crime problems that emerge in these settings, and how effectively urban planning can contribute to reducing crime.

Keywords: Agent-based Modelling, Environmental Criminology, Geographic Information System, Urban Morphology

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Authors: Gholamreza Momenzadeh, Forough Nematolahi

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The Extended Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPII) system usually requires massive amounts of storage space, powerful servers, and large upfront and ongoing investments to purchase and manage the software and the related hardware which are not affordable for organizations. In recent decades, organizations prefer to adapt their business structures with new technologies for remaining competitive in the world economy. Therefore, cloud computing (which is one of the tools of information technology (IT)) is a modern system that reveals the next-generation application architecture. Also, cloud computing has had some advantages that reduce costs in many ways such as: lower upfront costs for all computing infrastructure and lower cost of maintaining and supporting. On the other hand, traditional ERPII is not responding for huge amounts of data and relations between the organizations. In this study, based on a literature study, ERPII is investigated in the context of cloud computing where the organizations operate more efficiently. Also, ERPII conditions have a response to needs of organizations in large amounts of data and relations between the organizations.

Keywords: extended enterprise resource planning, cloud computing, business process, enterprise information integration

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Authors: Kenneth Harper

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The secure sharing of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is a critical challenge in modern healthcare, demanding solutions to enhance interoperability, privacy, and data integrity. Traditional standards like Health Information Exchange (HIE) and HL7 have made significant strides in facilitating data exchange between healthcare entities. However, these approaches rely on centralized architectures that are often vulnerable to data breaches, lack sufficient privacy measures, and have scalability issues. This paper proposes a framework for secure, decentralized sharing of EHRs using blockchain technology, cryptographic tokens, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The blockchain's immutable ledger, decentralized control, and inherent security mechanisms are leveraged to improve transparency, accountability, and auditability in healthcare data exchanges. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of tokenizing patient data through NFTs, creating unique digital identifiers for each record, which allows for granular data access controls and proof of data ownership. These NFTs can also be employed to grant access to authorized parties, establishing a secure and transparent data sharing model that empowers both healthcare providers and patients. The proposed approach addresses common privacy concerns by employing privacy-preserving techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and homomorphic encryption to ensure that sensitive patient information can be shared without exposing the actual content of the data. This ensures compliance with regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. Additionally, the integration of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) with blockchain technology allows for enhanced interoperability, enabling healthcare organizations to exchange data seamlessly and securely across various systems while maintaining data governance and regulatory compliance. Through real-world case studies and simulations, this paper demonstrates how blockchain-based EHR sharing can reduce operational costs, improve patient outcomes, and enhance the security and privacy of healthcare data. This decentralized framework holds great potential for revolutionizing healthcare information exchange, providing a transparent, scalable, and secure method for managing patient data in a highly regulated environment.

Keywords: blockchain, electronic health records (ehrs), fast healthcare interoperability resources (fhir), health information exchange (hie), hl7, interoperability, non-fungible tokens (nfts), privacy-preserving techniques, tokens, secure data sharing,

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Authors: Luljeta Plakolli-Kasumi

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In the digital age, the relationship between traditional property rights and online intellectual property rights is becoming increasingly complex. On the one hand, the internet and advancements in technology have allowed for the widespread distribution and use of digital content, making it easier for individuals and businesses to access and share information. On the other hand, the rise of digital piracy and illegal file-sharing has led to increased concerns about the protection of intellectual property rights. This paper aims to examine the relationship between traditional property rights and online intellectual property rights in the digital age by analyzing the current legal frameworks, key challenges and controversies that arise, and potential solutions for addressing these issues. The paper will look at how traditional property rights concepts such as ownership and possession are being applied in the online context and how they intersect with new and evolving forms of intellectual property such as digital downloads, streaming services, and online content creation. It will also discuss the tension between the need for strong intellectual property protection to encourage creativity and innovation and the public interest in promoting access to information and knowledge. Ultimately, the paper will explore how the legal system can adapt to better balance the interests of property owners, creators, and users in the digital age.

Keywords: intellectual property, traditional property, digital age, digital content

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Authors: Kanika Gupta, Ashok Kumar

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Biofilms are dense, highly hydrated cell clusters that are irreversibly attached to a substratum, to an interface or to each other, and are embedded in a self-produced gelatinous matrix composed of extracellular polymeric substances. Research in biofilm field has become very significant, as biofilm has shown high mechanical resilience and resistance to antibiotic treatment and constituted as a significant problem in both healthcare and other industry related to microorganisms. The massive information both stated and hidden in the biofilm literature are growing exponentially therefore it is not possible for researchers and practitioners to automatically extract and relate information from different written resources. So, the current work proposes and discusses the use of text mining techniques for the extraction of information from biofilm literature corpora containing 34306 documents. It is very difficult and expensive to obtain annotated material for biomedical literature as the literature is unstructured i.e. free-text. Therefore, we considered unsupervised approach, where no annotated training is necessary and using this approach we developed a system that will classify the text on the basis of growth and development, drug effects, radiation effects, classification and physiology of biofilms. For this, a two-step structure was used where the first step is to extract keywords from the biofilm literature using a metathesaurus and standard natural language processing tools like Rapid Miner_v5.3 and the second step is to discover relations between the genes extracted from the whole set of biofilm literature using pubmed.mineR_v1.0.11. We used unsupervised approach, which is the machine learning task of inferring a function to describe hidden structure from 'unlabeled' data, in the above-extracted datasets to develop classifiers using WinPython-64 bit_v3.5.4.0Qt5 and R studio_v0.99.467 packages which will automatically classify the text by using the mentioned sets. The developed classifiers were tested on a large data set of biofilm literature which showed that the unsupervised approach proposed is promising as well as suited for a semi-automatic labeling of the extracted relations. The entire information was stored in the relational database which was hosted locally on the server. The generated biofilm vocabulary and genes relations will be significant for researchers dealing with biofilm research, making their search easy and efficient as the keywords and genes could be directly mapped with the documents used for database development.

Keywords: biofilms literature, classifiers development, text mining, unsupervised learning approach, unstructured data, relational database

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Authors: Nekzad R Doctor, Shubham Bhonde, Shashwat Gawande

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The homologation, also known as “type approval,” describes primarily the granting of approval by an official authority. For the use and the import of Keys & ID transmitters as well as Body Control Modules with radio transmission around the globe, homologation is necessary. Depending on country requirements or technical properties (e.g., frequency or transmission power), different approaches need to be fulfilled. The requirements could vary in the form of certifications requirement or exemptions, any technologies forbidden, additional legal requirements and type approval for manufacturing locations. This research will give an overview of all different types of approval and technical requirement for worldwide countries.Information is not available for a lot of countries which is challenging for an entrant in the field of homologation. Also, even if the information is available, there could be a language barrier as different countries sometimes upload their regulations in a local language. Also, there is a lot of unclarity in many countries regarding type approval requirements (Safety, EMC certification,2nd factory certification). To have a clear overview and understanding of type approval requirements, in this document, the Worldwide country will be divided into 4 groups based on technology. After which, a region country-specific type approval requirement will be checked in detail. This document will facilitate in providing global Homologation requirements.

Keywords: homologation, type approval, EMC, body control modules

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Authors: Muhamamd Shahid Farooq, Maazan Zafar, Rizawana Akhtar

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E-learning technologies are the blessings of advancements in science and technology. These facilitate the learners to get information at any place and any time by improving their self-confidence, self-efficacy and effectiveness in teaching learning process. E-learning provides an individualized learning experience for learners and remove barriers faced by students during new and creative ways of gaining information. It provides a wide range of facilities to enable the teachers and students for effective and purposeful learning. This study was conducted to explore the attitudes of university students and teachers towards e-learning working in a metropolitan university of Pakistan. The personal, institutional and technological characteristics of the teachers and students of higher education institution effect the adoption of e-learning. For this descriptive study 449 students and 35 university teachers were surveyed by using a Likert scale type questionnaire consisting of 52 statements relating to six factors "perceived usefulness, intention to adopt e-learning, ease of e-learning use, availability resources, e-learning stressors, and pressure to use e-learning". Data were analyzed by making comparisons on the basis of different demographic factors. The findings of the study show that both type of respondents have positive attitude towards e-learning. However, the male and female respondents differ in their opinion for e-learning implementation.

Keywords: e-learning, ICT, e-sources of learning, questionnaire

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Authors: Seyed Hassan Nikookar, Mahmoud Fazeli-Dinan, Seyyed Payman Ziapour, Ahmad-Ali Enayati

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Background: Mosquitoes look for all kinds of aquatic habitats for laying eggs. Characteristics of water habitats are important factors in determining whether a mosquito can survive and successfully completed their developmental stages. Physicochemical factors can display an important role in vector control programs. This investigate determined whether physicochemical factors differ between habitats can be effective in the larvae density in Mazandaran province. Methods: Larvae were collected by the standard dipper up to 350 ml for 15-20 minutes from fixed habitats in 16 villages of 30 townships, the specimens identified by morphological key. Water samples were collected during larval collection and were evaluated for temperature (°C), acidity (pH), turbidity (NTU), electrical conductivity (μS/cm), alkalinity (mg/l), total hardness (mg/l), nitrate (mg/l), chloride (mg/l), phosphate (mg/l), sulfate (mg/l) in selected habitats using standard methods. Spearman Correlation coefficient was used for analyze data. Results: Totally 7566 mosquito larvae of three genera and 15 species were collected of fixed habitats. Cx. pipiens was the dominant species except in villages of Tileno, Zavat, Asad Abad, Shah Mansur Mahale which An. maculipennis, Cx. torrentium were as the predominant species. Turbidity in Karat Koti, Chloride in Al Tappeh, nitrate, phosphate and sulfate in Chalmardi, electrical conductivity, alkalinity, total hardness in Komishan villages were significantly higher than other villages (P < 0.05). There were a significant positive correlation between Cx. pipiens and Electrical conductivity, Alkalinity, Total hardness, Chloride, Cx. tritaeniorhynchus and Chloride, whereas a significant negative correlation observed between Sulfate and Cx. perexiguss. Conclusion: The correlations observed between physicochemical factor and larval density, possibly can confirm the effect of these parameters on the breeding activities of mosquitoes, and could probability facilitate larval control programs by the handwork of such factors.

Keywords: anopheles, culex, culiseta, physicochemical, habitats, larvae density, correlation

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Authors: Caja Thimm

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Already well before the Corona pandemic hit the world, ‘fake news‘ were no longer regarded as harmless twists of the truth but as intentionally composed disinformation, often with the goal of manipulative populist propaganda. During the Corona crisis, particularly conspiracy narratives have become a worldwide phenomenon with dangerous consequences (anti vaccination myths). The success of these manipulated news need s to be counteracted by trustworthy news, which in Europe particularly includes public broadcasting media and their social media channels. To understand better how the main public broadcasters in Germany, the UK, and France used Instagram strategically, a comparative study was carried out. The study – comparative analysis of Instagram during the Corona Crisis In our empirical study, we compared the activities by selected formats during the Corona crisis in order to see how the public broadcasters reached their audiences and how this might, in the longer run, affect journalistic strategies on social media platforms. First analysis showed that the increase in the use of social media overall was striking. Almost one in two adult online users (48 %) obtained information about the virus in social media, and in total, 38% of the younger age group (18-24) looked for Covid19 information on Instagram, so the platform can be regarded as one of the central digital spaces for Corona related information searches. Quantitative measures showed that 47% of recent posts by the broadcasters were related to Corona, and 7% treated conspiracy myths. For the more detailed content analysis, the following categories of analysis were applied: • Digital storytelling and instastories • Textuality and semantic keys • links to information • stickers • videochat • fact checking • news ticker • service • infografics and animated tables Additionally to these basic features, we particularly looked for new formats created during the crisis. Journalistic use of social media platforms opens up immediate and creative ways of applying the media logics of the respective platforms, and particularly the BBC and ARD formats proved to be interactive, responsive, and entertaining. Among them were new formats such as a space for user questions and personal uploads, interviews, music, comedy, etc. Particularly the fact checking channel got a lot of attention, as many user questions were focused on the conspiracy theories, which dominated the public discourse during many weeks in 2020. In the presentation, we will introduce eight particular strategies that show how public broadcasting journalism can adopt digital platforms and use them creatively and, hence help to counteract against conspiracy narratives and fake news.

Keywords: fake news, social media, digital journalism, digital methods

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Authors: Hanwei Cheng, Chengbei Xu, Yijie Wang

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More and more college students are accustomed to surfing the Internet everyday. As community members, college students have ability to express opinions and participate in social affairs, they not only accept information passively, but also voice their concerns on the Internet. We interpret the online discourses featured with anonymization, so it helps us more effectively and conveniently understand the behaviors and thoughts of college students, and educators can thus grasp the scales and directions in guiding online language. We analyzed online comments in both content and form aspects in one student forum (named Dandan, the BNU’s campus forum), and through methods of literature review and interview, we found that in term of content, college students pay attention to practical information online, emphasize on personal development and pursue hot issues; in term of form, college students' online language displays cross-border quality sometimes under the general feature of normative, and they often explore a certain topic in the form of question or discussion, and they like to show feelings in ironic and stream-of-consciousness ways. It is argued that college students intend to establish a community to facilitate personal development and meet emotional needs through the student forum, and by making comments at the forum they are also able to get involved in public affairs. We should pay attention to problems of college students' online discourse, such as boundary issues (like informal advertisement and information authenticity), emotional issues and the spread of gossip. Some possible solutions to solving online discourse problems can be applied, like we can improve access systems of student forum, clarify principles of Internet langue use, change oversimplified management approaches and use some other tactics, in order to form a mechanism of student self-regulation, also deepen the trust and cooperation between school administrators and students.

Keywords: online language, youth discourse, content and form, implication and strategy

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Authors: Gustavo Cruz-Bello

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Progreso is a coastal community in Yucatan, Mexico, highly exposed to floods produced by severe storms and tropical cyclones. A participatory cartography approach was conducted to help to reduce floods disasters and assess social vulnerability within the community. The first step was to engage local authorities in risk management to facilitate the process. Two workshop were conducted, in the first, a poster size printed high spatial resolution satellite image of the town was used to gather information from the participants: eight women and seven men, among them construction workers, students, government employees and fishermen, their ages ranged between 23 and 58 years old. For the first task, participants were asked to locate emblematic places and place them in the image to familiarize with it. Then, they were asked to locate areas that get flooded, the buildings that they use as refuges, and to list actions that they usually take to reduce vulnerability, as well as to collectively come up with others that might reduce disasters. The spatial information generated at the workshops was digitized and integrated into a GIS environment. A printed version of the map was reviewed by local risk management experts, who validated feasibility of proposed actions. For the second workshop, we retrieved the information back to the community for feedback. Additionally a survey was applied in one household per block in the community to obtain socioeconomic, prevention and adaptation data. The information generated from the workshops was contrasted, through T and Chi Squared tests, with the survey data in order to probe the hypothesis that poorer or less educated people, are less prepared to face floods (more vulnerable) and live near or among higher presence of floods. Results showed that a great majority of people in the community are aware of the hazard and are prepared to face it. However, there was not a consistent relationship between regularly flooded areas with people’s average years of education, house services, or house modifications against heavy rains to be prepared to hazards. We could say that the participatory cartography intervention made participants aware of their vulnerability and made them collectively reflect about actions that can reduce disasters produced by floods. They also considered that the final map could be used as a communication and negotiation instrument with NGO and government authorities. It was not found that poorer and less educated people are located in areas with higher presence of floods.

Keywords: climate change, floods, Mexico, participatory mapping, social vulnerability

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Authors: Geng Cui, Naoto Imura, Katsuhiro Nishinari, Takahiro Ezaki

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The bullwhip effect, which refers to the amplification of demand variance as one moves up the supply chain, has been observed in various industries and extensively studied through analytic approaches. Existing methods to mitigate the bullwhip effect, such as decentralized demand information, vendor-managed inventory, and the Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment System, rely on the willingness and ability of supply chain participants to share their information. However, in practice, information sharing is often difficult to realize due to privacy concerns. The purpose of this study is to explore new ways to mitigate the bullwhip effect without the need for information sharing. This paper proposes a 'bullwhip absorption strategy' (BAS) to alleviate the bullwhip effect by absorbing it downstream in the supply chain. To achieve this, a two-stage supply chain system was employed, consisting of a single retailer and a single manufacturer. In each time period, the retailer receives an order generated according to an autoregressive process. Upon receiving the order, the retailer depletes the ordered amount, forecasts future demand based on past records, and places an order with the manufacturer using the order-up-to replenishment policy. The manufacturer follows a similar process. In essence, the mechanism of the model is similar to that of the beer game. The BAS is implemented at the retailer's level to counteract the bullwhip effect. This strategy requires the retailer to reduce the uncertainty in its orders, thereby absorbing the bullwhip effect downstream in the supply chain. The advantage of the BAS is that upstream participants can benefit from a reduced bullwhip effect. Although the retailer may incur additional costs, if the gain in the upstream segment can compensate for the retailer's loss, the entire supply chain will be better off. Two indicators, order variance and inventory variance, were used to quantify the bullwhip effect in relation to the strength of absorption. It was found that implementing the BAS at the retailer's level results in a reduction in both the retailer's and the manufacturer's order variances. However, when examining the impact on inventory variances, a trade-off relationship was observed. The manufacturer's inventory variance monotonically decreases with an increase in absorption strength, while the retailer's inventory variance does not always decrease as the absorption strength grows. This is especially true when the autoregression coefficient has a high value, causing the retailer's inventory variance to become a monotonically increasing function of the absorption strength. Finally, numerical simulations were conducted for verification, and the results were consistent with our theoretical analysis.

Keywords: bullwhip effect, supply chain management, inventory management, demand forecasting, order-to-up policy

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Authors: Abdul-Dahiru El-Yuguda, Saka Saheed Baba, Tawa Monilade Adisa, Mustapha Bala Abubakar

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Background: Chikungunya (CHIK) virus, a previously anecdotally described arbovirus, is now assuming a worldwide public health burden. The CHIK virus infection is characterized by potentially life threatening and debilitating arthritis in addition to the high fever, arthralgia, myalgia, headache and rash. Method: Three hundred and seventy (370) serum samples were collected from outpatients with febrile illness attending University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Nigeria, and was used to detect for Chikungunya (CHIK) virus IgG and IgM antibodies using the Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs). Result: Out of the 370 sera tested, 39 (10.5%) were positive for presence of CHIK virus antibodies. A total of 24 (6.5%) tested positive for CHIK virus IgM only while none (0.0%) was positive for presence of CHIK virus IgG only and 15 (4.1%) of the serum samples were positive for both IgG and IgM antibodies. A significant difference (p<0.0001) was observed in the distribution of CHIK virus antibodies in relation to gender. The males had prevalence of 8.5% IgM antibodies as against 4.6% observed in females. On the other hand 4.6% of the females were positive for concurrent CHIK virus IgG and IgM antibodies when compared to a prevalence of 3.4% observed in males. Only the age groups ≤ 60 years and the undisclosed age group were positive for presence of CHIK virus IgG and/or IgM antibodies. No significant difference (p>0.05) was observed in the seasonal prevalence of CHIK virus antibodies among the study subjects Analysis of the prevalence of CHIK virus antibodies in relation to clinical presentation (as observed by Clinicians) of the patients revealed that headache and fever were the most frequently encountered ailments. Conclusion: The CHIK virus IgM and concurrent IgM and IgG antibody prevalence rates of 6.5% and 4.1% observed in this study indicates a current infection and the lack of IgG antibody alone observed shows that the infection is not endemic but sporadic. Recommendation: Further studies should be carried to establish the seasonal prevalence of CHIK virus infection vis-à-vis vector dynamics in the study area. A comprehensive study need to be carried out on the molecular characterization of the CHIK virus circulating in Nigeria with a view to developing CHIK virus vaccine.

Keywords: Chikungunya virus, IgM and IgG antibodies, febrile patients, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay

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Authors: Ruijie Fan, Hao Xu

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Due to the increasing demand for resources, solid waste disposal is becoming an increasingly important issue to be addressed. Solid waste is not only hazardous to human health but also has a negative impact on the environment. The main sources of solid waste are metals, glass, food, plastics, paper, and electrical waste. Different types of waste may require different treatments. The UK currently lags behind other countries, such as Japan and Germany, in terms of waste management. Although the UK is catching up through various incentives, waste management education in the UK still faces challenges. Education requires a lot of work before the UK can achieve a circular economy. This paper first presents the latest information on the five main types of solid waste in the UK today. It delves into the current state of waste paper management in the UK, in addition to gathering information from the literature on the current state of waste management education in the UK as a whole. Potential barriers to the disposal of each waste type in the UK are identified, along with potential barriers to education in the UK. This study was based on a pragmatic philosophy to find possible solutions for these barriers, including questionnaires to conduct an in-depth investigation. In addition, the questionnaire analysis reveals a correlation between educational attainment and individual waste management behaviour and attitudes. This research guides inspiration on the current problems of waste management in the UK.

Keywords: circular economy, education, solid waste, waste management

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Authors: Terada Pinyo

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This study is a survey research designed to evaluate the quality of graduate students and factors influencing their quality. The sample group consists of 240 students. The data are collected from stratified sampling and are analyzed and calculated by instant computer program. Statistics used are percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation coefficient, Cramer’s V and logistic regression analysis. It is found that the graduate students’ opinions regarding their characteristics according to the Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF) are at high score range both overall and specific category. The top categories that received the top score are interpersonal skills and responsibility, ethics and morals, knowledge, cognitive skills, numerical analysis with communication and information technology skills, respectively. On the other hand, factors affecting the quality of graduate students are cognitive skills, numerical analysis with communication and information technology, knowledge, interpersonal skills and responsibility, ethics and morals, and career regarding sales/business, respectively.

Keywords: student quality evaluation, Thai qualifications framework for higher education, graduate school, cognitive skills

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Authors: David Ofosu-Hamilton, John K. E. Edumadze

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Universities have come to recognize the role Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills plays in the daily activities of tertiary students. The ability to use ICT – essentially, computers and their diverse applications – are important resources that influence an individual’s economic and social participation and human capital development. Our society now increasingly relies on the Internet, and the Cloud as a means to communicate and disseminate information. The educated individual should, therefore, be able to use ICT to create and share knowledge that will improve society. It is, therefore, important that universities require incoming students to demonstrate a level of computer proficiency or trained to do so at a minimal cost by deploying advanced educational technologies. The training and standardized assessment of all in-coming first-year students of the University of Cape Coast in Information Technology Skills (ITS) have become a necessity as students’ most often than not highly overestimate their digital skill and digital ignorance is costly to any economy. The one-semester course is targeted at fresh students and aimed at enhancing the productivity and software skills of students. In this respect, emphasis is placed on skills that will enable students to be proficient in using Microsoft Office and Google Apps for Education for their academic work and future professional work whiles using emerging digital multimedia technologies in a safe, ethical, responsible, and legal manner. The course is delivered in blended mode - online and self-paced (student centered) using Alison’s free cloud-based tutorial (Moodle) of Microsoft Office videos. Online support is provided via discussion forums on the University’s Moodle platform and tutor-directed and assisted at the ICT Centre and Google E-learning laboratory. All students are required to register for the ITS course during either the first or second semester of the first year and must participate and complete it within a semester. Assessment focuses on Alison online assessment on Microsoft Office, Alison online assessment on ALISON ABC IT, Peer assessment on e-portfolio created using Google Apps/Office 365 and an End of Semester’s online assessment at the ICT Centre whenever the student was ready in the cause of the semester. This paper, therefore, focuses on the digital culture approach of hybrid teaching, learning and paperless examinations and the possible adoption by other courses or programs at the University of Cape Coast.

Keywords: assessment, blended, cloud, paperless

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Authors: Prudvi Paresi, Fatemeh Javidan

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In recent years, greenhouse gas, or in particular, carbon emissions, have received special attention from environmentalists and designers due to the fact that they significantly contribute to the temperature rise. The building industry is one of the top seven major industries contributing to embodied carbon emission. Signage systems are an integral part of the building industry and bring completeness to the space-building by providing the required information and guidance. A significant amount of building materials, such as steel, aluminium, acrylic, LED, etc., are utilized in these systems, but very limited information is available on their sustainability and carbon footprint. Therefore, there is an urgent need to assess the emissions associated with the signage industry and for controlling these by adopting different mitigation techniques without sacrificing the efficiency of the project. The present paper investigates the embodied carbon of two case studies in the Australian signage industry within the cradle – gate (A1-A3) and gate–site (A4-A5) stages. A material source-based database is considered to achieve more accuracy. The study identified that aluminium is the major contributor to embodied carbon in the signage industry compared to other constituents. Finally, an attempt is made to suggest strategies for mitigating embodied carbon in this industry.

Keywords: carbon accounting, small-scale construction, signage industry, construction materials

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Authors: R. Güçlü, E. Küçüksakarya

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Word association (WA) gives the broadest information on how knowledge is structured in the human mind. Cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics are the disciplines that consider WA tests as substantial in gaining insights into the very nature of the human cognitive system and semantic knowledge. In this study, Berlin and Kay’s basic 11 color terms (1969) are presented as the stimuli words to a total number of 300 Turkish university students. The responses are analyzed according to Fitzpatrick’s model (2007), including four categories, namely meaning-based responses, position-based responses, form-based responses, and erratic responses. In line with the findings, the responses to free association tests are expected to give much information about Turkish university students’ psychological structuring of vocabulary, especially morpho-syntactic and semantic relationships among words. To conclude, theoretical and practical implications are discussed to make an in-depth evaluation of how associations of basic color terms are represented in the mental lexicon of Turkish university students.

Keywords: color term, gender, mental lexicon, word association task

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Authors: Vasileiou Apostolos, Theodosiou Chrysa, Tsitroulis Ioannis, Maris Fotios

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The severity of extreme phenomena is due to their ability to cause severe damage in a small amount of time. It has been observed that floods affect the greatest number of people and induce the biggest damage when compared to the total of annual natural disasters. The detection of potential flood-prone areas constitutes one of the fundamental components of the European Natural Disaster Management Policy, directly connected to the European Directive 2007/60. The aim of the present paper is to develop a new methodology that combines geographical information, fuzzy logic and multi-criteria evaluation methods so that the most vulnerable areas are defined. Therefore, ten factors related to geophysical, morphological, climatological/meteorological and hydrological characteristics of the basin were selected. Afterwards, two models were created to detect the areas pronest to flooding. The first model defined the gravitas of each factor using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the final map of possible flood spots were created using GIS and Boolean Algebra. The second model made use of the fuzzy logic and GIS combination and a respective map was created. The application area of the aforementioned methodologies was in Ardas basin due to the frequent and important floods that have taken place these last years. Then, the results were compared to the already observed floods. The result analysis shows that both models can detect with great precision possible flood spots. As the fuzzy logic model is less time-consuming, it is considered the ideal model to apply to other areas. The said results are capable of contributing to the delineation of high risk areas and to the creation of successful management plans dealing with floods.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process, flood prone areas, fuzzy logic, geographic information system

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Authors: Siddharth Vashisth, Varun Mathur

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This review provides an overview of the impact that implementation of various Knowledge Management (KM) strategies has had on the growth of a department in a Public Sector Company in India. In a regulated utility controlled by the government, the growth of an organization such as Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) had depended largely on the efficiencies of the systems and its people. However, subsequent to the de-regularization & to the entry of the private competition, the need for a ‘systematic templating’ of knowledge was recognized. This necessitated the introduction of Knowledge Management Centre (KMC). Projects & Pipelines Department (P&P) of HPCL introduced KMC that contributed significantly towards KM by adopting various strategies such as standardization, leveraging information system, competency enhancement, and improvements & innovations. These strategies gave both tangible as well as intangible benefits towards KM. Knowledge, technology & people are the three pillars that need to be catered for effective knowledge management in any organization. In HPCL, the initiative of KMC has served as an intermediary between these three major pillars as each activity of the strategy was centered on them and contributed significantly to their growth and up-gradation, ensuring overall growth of KM in the department.

Keywords: knowledge, knowledge management, public sector organization, standardization, technology, people, skill, information system, innovation, competency, impact

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Authors: Melissa C. LaDuke

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The overarching purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the current format of online delivery for Defense Acquisition University (DAU) courses and Air Force Acquisition (AFA) personnel participation. AFA personnel (hereafter named “student”) were particularly of interest, as they have been mandated to take anywhere from 3 to 30 online courses to earn various DAU specialization certifications. Participants in this qualitative case study were AFA personnel who pursued DAU certifications in science and technology management, program/contract management, and other related fields. Air Force personnel were interviewed about their experiences with online courses. The data gathered were analyzed and grouped into 12 major themes. The themes tied into the theoretical framework and spoke to either teacher-centered or student-centered educational practices within Defense Acquisitions University. Based on the results of the data analysis, various factors contributed to student perceptions of DAU courses, including the online course construct and relevance to their job. The analysis also found students want to learn the information presented but would like to be able to apply the information learned in meaningful ways.

Keywords: educational theory, computer-based training, interview, student perceptions, online course design, teacher positionality

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Authors: Diego Adrian Cardenas Jorge, Gerardo Mirando Guisado, Alfredo Barrientos Padilla

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A system based on Affective Computing can detect and interpret human information like voice, facial expressions and body movement to detect emotions and execute a corresponding response. This data is important due to the fact that a person can communicate more effectively with emotions than can be possible with words. This information can be processed through technological components like Facial Recognition, Gait Recognition or Gesture Recognition. As of now, solutions proposed using this technology only consider one component at a given moment. This research investigation proposes two solutions based on Affective Computing taking into account more than one component for emotion detection. The proposals reflect the levels of dependency between hardware devices and software, as well as the interaction process between the system and the user which implies the development of scenarios where both proposals will be put to the test in a live environment. Both solutions are to be developed in code by software engineers to prove the feasibility. To validate the impact on society and business interest, interviews with stakeholders are conducted with an investment mind set where each solution is labeled on a scale of 1 through 5, being one a minimum possible investment and 5 the maximum.

Keywords: affective computing, emotions, emotion detection, face recognition, gait recognition

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Authors: Janusz Bobulski, Mariusz Kubanek

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The main goal of the research is to develop a multimedia container structure containing three types of images: RGB, lidar and infrared, properly calibrated to each other. An additional goal is to develop program libraries for creating and saving this type of file and for restoring it. It will also be necessary to develop a method of data synchronization from lidar and RGB cameras as well as infrared. This type of file could be used in autonomous vehicles, which would certainly facilitate data processing by the intelligent autonomous vehicle management system. Autonomous cars are increasingly breaking into our consciousness. No one seems to have any doubts that self-driving cars are the future of motoring. Manufacturers promise that moving the first of them to showrooms is the prospect of the next few years. Many experts believe that creating a network of communicating autonomous cars will be able to completely eliminate accidents. However, to make this possible, it is necessary to develop effective methods of detection of objects around the moving vehicle. In bad weather conditions, this task is difficult on the basis of the RGB(red, green, blue) image. Therefore, in such situations, you should be supported by information from other sources, such as lidar or infrared cameras. The problem is the different data formats that individual types of devices return. In addition to these differences, there is a problem with the synchronization of these data and the formatting of this data. The goal of the project is to develop a file structure that could be containing a different type of data. This type of file is calling a multimedia container. A multimedia container is a container that contains many data streams, which allows you to store complete multimedia material in one file. Among the data streams located in such a container should be indicated streams of images, films, sounds, subtitles, as well as additional information, i.e., metadata. This type of file could be used in autonomous vehicles, which would certainly facilitate data processing by the intelligent autonomous vehicle management system. As shown by preliminary studies, the use of combining RGB and InfraRed images with Lidar data allows for easier data analysis. Thanks to this application, it will be possible to display the distance to the object in a color photo. Such information can be very useful for drivers and for systems in autonomous cars.

Keywords: an autonomous car, image processing, lidar, obstacle detection

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Authors: Munaf Rashid

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For content-based human action retrieval systems, search accuracy is often inferior because of the following two reasons 1) global information pertaining to videos is totally ignored, only low level motion descriptors are considered as a significant feature to match the similarity between query and database videos, and 2) the semantic gap between the high level user concept and low level visual features. Hence, in this paper, we propose a method that will address these two issues and in doing so, this paper contributes in two ways. Firstly, we introduce a method that uses both global and local information in one framework for an action retrieval task. Secondly, to minimize the semantic gap, a user concept is involved by incorporating features weight updating (FWU) Relevance Feedback (RF) approach. We use statistical characteristics to dynamically update weights of the feature descriptors so that after every RF iteration feature space is modified accordingly. For testing and validation purpose two human action recognition datasets have been utilized, namely Weizmann and UCF. Results show that even with a number of visual challenges the proposed approach performs well.

Keywords: relevance feedback (RF), action retrieval, semantic gap, feature descriptor, codebook

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Authors: Yolina A. Petrova, Georgi I. Petkov

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The paper presents a symbolic model for category learning and categorization (called RoleMap). Unlike the other models which implement learning in a separate working mode, role-governed category learning and categorization emerge in RoleMap while it does its usual reasoning. The model is based on several basic mechanisms known as reflecting the sub-processes of analogy-making. It steps on the assumption that in their everyday life people constantly compare what they experience and what they know. Various commonalities between the incoming information (current experience) and the stored one (long-term memory) emerge from those comparisons. Some of those commonalities are considered to be highly important, and they are transformed into concepts for further use. This process denotes the category learning. When there is missing knowledge in the incoming information (i.e. the perceived object is still not recognized), the model makes anticipations about what is missing, based on the similar episodes from its long-term memory. Various such anticipations may emerge for different reasons. However, with time only one of them wins and is transformed into a category member. This process denotes the act of categorization.

Keywords: analogy-making, categorization, category learning, cognitive modeling, role-governed categories

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Authors: Joanna Grzybowska, Magdalena Igras, Mariusz Ziółko

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Association rule learning is an approach for discovering interesting relationships in large databases. The analysis of relations, invisible at first glance, is a source of new knowledge which can be subsequently used for prediction. We used this data mining technique (which is an automatic and objective method) to learn about interesting affects associations in a corpus of emergency phone calls. We also made an attempt to match revealed rules with their possible situational context. The corpus was collected and subjectively annotated by two researchers. Each of 3306 recordings contains information on emotion: (1) type (sadness, weariness, anxiety, surprise, stress, anger, frustration, calm, relief, compassion, contentment, amusement, joy) (2) valence (negative, neutral, or positive) (3) intensity (low, typical, alternating, high). Also, additional information, that is a clue to speaker’s emotional state, was annotated: speech rate (slow, normal, fast), characteristic vocabulary (filled pauses, repeated words) and conversation style (normal, chaotic). Exponentially many rules can be extracted from a set of items (an item is a previously annotated single information). To generate the rules in the form of an implication X → Y (where X and Y are frequent k-itemsets) the Apriori algorithm was used - it avoids performing needless computations. Then, two basic measures (Support and Confidence) and several additional symmetric and asymmetric objective measures (e.g. Laplace, Conviction, Interest Factor, Cosine, correlation coefficient) were calculated for each rule. Each applied interestingness measure revealed different rules - we selected some top rules for each measure. Owing to the specificity of the corpus (emergency situations), most of the strong rules contain only negative emotions. There are though strong rules including neutral or even positive emotions. Three examples of the strongest rules are: {sadness} → {anxiety}; {sadness, weariness, stress, frustration} → {anger}; {compassion} → {sadness}. Association rule learning revealed the strongest configurations of affects (as well as configurations of affects with affect-related information) in our emergency phone calls corpus. The acquired knowledge can be used for prediction to fulfill the emotional profile of a new caller. Furthermore, a rule-related possible context analysis may be a clue to the situation a caller is in.

Keywords: data mining, emergency phone calls, emotional profiles, rules

Procedia PDF Downloads 409