Search results for: urbanized environment planning

Authors: Babak H. Tabrizi, Seyed Farid Ghaderi

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Concurrent planning of project scheduling and material ordering has been increasingly addressed within last decades as an approach to improve the project execution costs. Therefore, we have taken the problem into consideration in this paper, aiming to maximize schedules quality robustness, in addition to minimize the relevant costs. In this regard, a bi-objective mathematical model is developed to formulate the problem. Moreover, it is possible to utilize the all-unit discount for materials purchasing. The problem is then solved by the constraint method, and the Pareto front is obtained for a variety of robustness values. The applicability and efficiency of the proposed model is tested by different numerical instances, finally.

Keywords: e-constraint method, material ordering, project management, project scheduling

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Authors: Nony Rahadiva

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The development of housing in urban areas can not be separated from the high rate of population growth from both natural population growth and population growth due to migration. The development is bounded by urban land area so that construction of flats become a development priority. Quality of residential flats are influenced by the patterns of behavior of its inhabitants. The frequency of contact between the occupants become one of the effects of good social relations, but harmful activity can degrade the environment, especially in flats. One of the social relationships that can be seen on the flats development is the residents in Kutobedah flat built in Malang city. Problems that occur in that place is unfavorable flat management due to social activities such as daily activities and also the neighboring activities of apartment dwellers who tend not to pay attention to the environment. Based on these problems we can do a study on social interaction in Kutobedah flat and its influence on the management of flat facilities and infrastructures. This research was carried out by submitting a questionnaire to the residents of the apartment based social activities , operations and maintenance of the flats. By using a weighted analysis, we can find that social interaction tenants is high, but the level of infrastructure and facilities management of the tenants is low so it is needed to counsel the residents how to use and maintain the infrastructure properly.

Keywords: activities, flat, infrastructure management, social interaction

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Authors: Sari Myréen

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of multisensory elements in enhancing and facilitating foreign language acquisition among adult students in a language classroom. The use of multisensory elements enables the creation of a student-centered classroom, where the focus is on individual learner’s language learning process, perceptions and motivation. Multisensory language learning is a pedagogical approach where the language learner uses all the senses more effectively than in a traditional in-class environment. Language learning is facilitated due to multisensory stimuli which increase the number of cognitive connections in the learner and take into consideration different types of learners. A living lab called Multisensory Space creates a relaxed and receptive state in the learners through various multisensory stimuli, and thus promotes their natural foreign language acquisition. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in two questionnaire inquiries among the Finnish students of a higher education institute at the end of their basic French courses in December 2014 and 2016. The inquiries discussed the effects of multisensory elements on the students’ motivation to study French as well as their learning outcomes. The results show that the French classes in the Multisensory Space provide the students with an encouraging and pleasant learning environment, which has a positive impact on their motivation to study the foreign language as well as their language learning outcomes.

Keywords: foreign language acquisition, pedagogical approach, multisensory learning, transcultural learning

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Authors: Jirarat Teeravaraprug, Usawadee Inklay

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This paper gave an attempt in prioritizing information technologies that organizations should give concentration. The case study was organizations in the automotive assembly industry in Thailand. Data were first collected to gather all information technologies known and used in the automotive assembly industry in Thailand. Five experts from the industries were surveyed based on the concept of fuzzy DEMATEL. The information technologies were categorized into six groups, which were communication, transaction, planning, organization management, warehouse management, and transportation. The cause groups of information technologies for each group were analysed and presented. Moreover, the relationship between the used and the significant information technologies was given. Discussions based on the used information technologies and the research results are given.

Keywords: information technology, automotive assembly industry, fuzzy DEMATEL

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Authors: Sumaya Iqbal, Aijaz Ahmad Reshi

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The advances in sensor and embedded technologies have led to rapid developments in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Presently researchers focus on the integration of WSNs to Internet for their pervasive availability to access these network resources as the interoperable subsystems. The recent computing technologies like cloud computing has made the resource sharing as a converged infrastructure with required service interfaces for the shared resources over the Internet. This paper presents application architecture for wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANS) following web of things, which allows easy integration of each node to the Internet in order to provide them web accessibility. The architecture enables the sensors and actuator nodes accessed and controlled using cloud interface on WWW. The application architecture was implemented using existing web and its emerging technologies. In particular Representational State Transfer protocol (REST) was extended for the specific requirements of the application. Cloud computing environment has been used as a development platform for the application to assess the possibility of integrating the WSAN nodes to Cloud services. The mushroom farm environment monitoring and control using WSANs has been taken as a research use case.

Keywords: WSAN, REST, web of things, ZigBee, cloud interface, PaaS, sensor gateway

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Authors: Everard van Kemenade

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Many quality improvement activities are planned. Leaders are strongly involved in missions, visions and strategic planning. They use, consciously or unconsciously, the PDCA-cycle, also know as the Deming cycle. After the planning, the plans are carried out and the results or effects are measured. If the results show that the goals in the plan have not been achieved, adjustments are made in the next plan or in the execution of the processes. Then, the cycle is run through again. Traditionally, the PDCA-cycle is advocated as a means to an end. However, PDCA is especially fit for planned, ordered, certain contexts. It fits with the empirical and referential quality paradigm. For uncertain, unordered, unplanned processes, something else might be needed instead of Plan-Do-Check-Act. Due to the complexity of our society, the influence of the context, and the uncertainty in our world nowadays, not every activity can be planned anymore. At the same time organisations need to be more innovative than ever. That provides leaders with ‘wicked tendencies’. However, that raises the question how one can innovate without being able to plan? Complexity science studies the interactions of a diverse group of agents that bring about change in times of uncertainty, e.g. when radical innovation is co-created. This process is called emergence. This research study explores the role of leadership in the emergence paradigm. Aim of the article is to study the way that leadership can support the emergence of innovation in a complex context. First, clarity is given on the concepts used in the research question: complexity, emergence, innovation and leadership. Thereafter a literature search is conducted to answer the research question. The topics ‘emergent leadership’ or ‘complexity leadership’ are chosen for an exploratory search in Google and Google Scholar using the berry picking method. Exclusion criterion is emergence in other disciplines than organizational development or in the meaning of ‘arising’. The literature search conducted gave 45 hits. Twenty-seven articles were excluded after reading the title and abstract because they did not research the topic of emergent leadership and complexity. After reading the remaining articles as a whole one more was excluded because the article used emergent in the limited meaning of ‗arising‘ and eight more were excluded because the topic did not match the research question of this article. That brings the total of the search to 17 articles. The useful conclusions from the articles are merged and grouped together under overarching topics, using thematic analysis. The findings are that 5 topics prevail when looking at possibilities for leadership to facilitate innovation: enabling, sharing values, dreaming, interacting, context sensitivity and adaptivity. Together they form In Dutch the acronym Medusa.

Keywords: complexity science, emergence, leadership in the emergence paradigm, innovation, the Medusa principles

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Authors: Sun Jiaojiao, Fu Jiayan

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At present, in China, the research about the urban sustainability construction is still in the exploratory stage. The ecological problems of the coastal area are more sensitive and complicated. In the background of global warming with serious ecological damage, this paper deeply researches on the main characteristics of urban sustainability and measures how to build urban sustainability. Through combination with regional environmental and economic ability along the coastal area, we put forward the system planning framework, construction strategy and the evaluation index system in order to seek the way of building urban sustainability along coastal area in China.

Keywords: urban sustainability, coastal areas, construction strategy, evaluation index system

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Authors: Iranlade Festus Adeyem

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This paper analyses the role played by the Nudge method as an artistic strategy in addressing the issues of Lagos waste management in Nigeria. As a Lagosian, experiential knowledge of Lagos’ dirty environment through careless littering, especially in the Lagos Mainland community, was helpful. Employing Nudge theory in creative waste recycling assists in persuading Lagosians through strategic sensitization to carefully weigh their options rather than being compelled to act in a dictated direction. Empirical awareness of Lagos’ environment and creative, reflective experiences were handy in inspiring the identified communities to subtly encourage the reuse, recycling and repurposing of generated waste instead of dumping it indiscriminately. The repurposed waste used to ‘upcycle’ and ‘downcycle’ contemporary artworks were displayed to highlight single-use materials as improvised alternatives to conventional ones. The Nudge concept application, therefore, persuades Lagosians, Lagos artists and trainees to see waste as untapped effective materials during the campaigns. Using the Nudge philosophy thus encourages Lagosians and creatives to use personal discretion in managing their generated waste naturally. Its application also helped intervene minimally in the Lagos waste objectives to prevent the attendant health issues that may occur. And inspire waste improvisation for the scarce, imported and expensive art materials in Lagos City.

Keywords: improvisation, nudge, upcycle and downcycle, strategy

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Authors: Megumi Nishida, Naoya Motegi, Takurou Kikuchi, Tomoko Tokumura

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In recent years, power system has been changed and flexible power pricing system such as demand response has been sought in Japan. The demand response system is simple in the household sector and the owner, decision-maker, can gain the benefits of power saving. On the other hand, the execution of the demand response in the office building is more complex than household because various people such as owners, building administrators and occupants are involved in making decisions. While the owners benefit from the demand saving, the occupants are forced to be exposed to demand-saved environment certain benefits. One of the reasons is that building systems are usually centralized control and each occupant cannot choose either participate demand response event or not, and contribution of each occupant to demand response is unclear to provide incentives. However, the recent development of IT and building systems enables the personalized control of office environment where each occupant can control the lighting level or temperature around him or herself. Therefore, it can be possible to have a system which each occupant can make a decision of demand response participation in office building. This study investigates the personal behavior upon demand response requests, under the condition where each occupant can adjust their brightness individually in their workspace. Once workers participate in the demand response, their task lights are automatically turned off. The participation rates in the demand response events are compared between four groups which are divided by different motivation, the presence or absence of incentives and the way of participation. The result shows that there are the significant differences of participation rates in demand response event between four groups. The way of participation has a large effect on the participation rate. ‘Opt-out’ group, where the occupants are automatically enrolled in a demand response event if they don't express non-participation, will have the highest participation rate in the four groups. The incentive has also an effect on the participation rate. This study also reports that the impact of low illumination office environment on the occupants, such as stress or fatigue. The electrocardiogram and the questionnaire are used to investigate the autonomic nervous activity and subjective symptoms about the fatigue of the occupants. There is no big difference between dim workspace during demand response event and bright workspace in autonomic nervous activity and fatigue.

Keywords: demand response, illumination, questionnaire, electrocardiogram

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Authors: Yumei Wu, Xiaoyan Dang, Shenglong Yang, Shengmao Zhang

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The East China Sea is one of four main seas in China, where there are many fishery resources. Some important fishing grounds, such as Zhousan fishing ground important to society. But the eco-environment is destroyed seriously due to the rapid developing of industry and economy these years. In this paper, about twenty-year satellite data from MODIS and the statistical information of marine environment from the China marine environmental quality bulletin were applied to do the research. The chlorophyll-a concentration data from MODIS were dealt with in the East China Sea and then used to analyze the features and variations of plankton biomass in recent years. The statistics method was used to obtain their spatial and temporal features. The plankton biomass in the Yangtze River estuary and the Taizhou region were highest. The high phytoplankton biomass usually appeared between the 88th day to the 240th day (end-March - August). In the peak time of phytoplankton blooms, the Taizhou islands was the earliest, and the South China Sea was the latest. The intensity and period of phytoplankton blooms were connected with the global climate change. This work give us confidence to use satellite data to do more researches about the China Sea, and it also provides some help for us to know about the eco-environmental variation of the East China Sea and regional effect from global climate change.

Keywords: the East China Sea, phytoplankton biomass, temporal and spatial variation, phytoplankton bloom

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Authors: Clarice Zimbili Zondi

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This study investigates the effect of restorative justice programmes offered to offenders in prison environment (Correctional Centres) during their rehabilitation. The study looks specifically to programmes offered by a Non-Profit Organisation (NPO), Phoenix Zululand (PZ) in twelve (12) different prisons in Zululand, South Africa. Document analysis, interviews and participant observation methods were used to test whether the work done by Phoenix Zululand is in line with the remarks made on restorative justice as encapsulated in the White Paper on Corrections 2005 in South Africa. Also tested was whether a better understanding of restorative justice programmes assists in coming up with better strategies to change the behaviour of offenders. The study findings discovered that the work that is done by PZ is not in line with the remarks made in the White Paper on Corrections. Also the importance of a full comprehension of what one is doing in order to be effective in rehabilitation. However, rehabilitation that is aimed at only changing the decision-making processes of offenders not to reoffend, does not serve as a total rehabilitation programme. Rehabilitation is only successful if ex-offenders, whilst still in prison, have developed market-related skills and become employed or self-employed. Restorative Justice Programmes offered by PZ, although they play a critical role, appears to be lacking in equipping offenders with skills for effective reintegration into society and, subsequently, self-reliance.

Keywords: offender, rehabilitation, restorative justice, prison

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Authors: Ali J. Ghandour, Houssam A. Krayem, Abedelkarim A. Jezzini

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High-resolution satellite images and remote sensing can provide global information in a fast way compared to traditional methods of data collection. Under such high resolution, a road is not a thin line anymore. Objects such as cars and trees are easily identifiable. Automatic vehicles enumeration can be considered one of the most important applications in traffic management. In this paper, autonomous vehicle detection and classification approach in highway environment is proposed. This approach consists mainly of three stages: (i) first, a set of preprocessing operations are applied including soil, vegetation, water suppression. (ii) Then, road networks detection and delineation is implemented using built-up area index, followed by several morphological operations. This step plays an important role in increasing the overall detection accuracy since vehicles candidates are objects contained within the road networks only. (iii) Multi-level Otsu segmentation is implemented in the last stage, resulting in vehicle detection and classification, where detected vehicles are classified into cars and trucks. Accuracy assessment analysis is conducted over different study areas to show the great efficiency of the proposed method, especially in highway environment.

Keywords: remote sensing, object identification, vehicle and road extraction, vehicle and road features-based classification

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Authors: J. Ikome, M. Ndeley

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When a machine breakdown forces a Modified Flow Shop (MFS) out of the prescribed state, the proposed strategy reschedules part of the initial schedule to match up with the preschedule at some point. The objective is to create a new schedule that is consistent with the other production planning decisions like material flow, tooling and purchasing by utilizing the time critical decision making concept. We propose a new rescheduling strategy and a match-up point determination procedure through a feedback mechanism to increase both the schedule quality and stability. The proposed approach is compared with alternative reactive scheduling methods under different experimental settings.

Keywords: advanced critical task methods modified flow shop (MFS), Manufacturing, experiment, determination

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Authors: Marcel Rojahn, Edzard Weber, Norbert Gronau

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Terminology is a critical instrument for each researcher. Different terminologies for the same research object may arise in different research communities. By this inconsistency, many synergistic effects get lost. Theories and models will be more understandable and reusable if a common terminology is applied. This paper examines the terminological (in) consistency for the research field of job-shop scheduling through a literature review. There is an enormous variety in the choice of terms and mathematical notation for the same concept. The comparability, reusability, and combinability of scheduling methods are unnecessarily hampered by the arbitrary use of homonyms and synonyms. The acceptance in the community of used variables and notation forms is shown by means of a compliance quotient. This is proven by the evaluation of 240 scientific publications on planning methods.

Keywords: job-shop scheduling, terminology, notation, standardization

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Authors: Mohammad M. Khan, Gajendra Dixit

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Partially lubricated sliding wear behaviour of a zinc-based alloy reinforced with 10wt% SiC particles has been studied as a function of applied load and solid lubricant particle size and has been compared with that of matrix alloy and conventionally used grey cast iron. The wear tests were conducted at the sliding velocities of 2.1m/sec in various partial lubricated conditions using pin on disc machine as per ASTM G-99-05. Base oil (SAE 20W-40) or mixture of the base oil with 5wt% graphite of particle sizes (7-10 µm) and (100 µm) were used for creating lubricated conditions. The matrix alloy revealed primary dendrites of a and eutectoid a + h and Î phases in the Inter dendritic regions. Similar microstructure has been depicted by the composite with an additional presence of the dispersoid SiC particles. In the case of cast iron, flakes of graphite were observed in the matrix; the latter comprised of (majority of) pearlite and (limited quantity of) ferrite. Results show a large improvement in wear resistance of the zinc-based alloy after reinforcement with SiC particles. The cast iron shows intermediate response between the matrix alloy and composite. The solid lubrication improved the wear resistance and friction behaviour of both the reinforced and base alloy. Moreover, minimum wear rate is obtained in oil+ 5wt % graphite (7-10 µm) lubricated environment for the matrix alloy and composite while for cast iron addition of solid lubricant increases the wear rate and minimum wear rate is obtained in case of oil lubricated environment. The cast iron experienced higher frictional heating than the matrix alloy and composite in all the cases especially at higher load condition. As far as friction coefficient is concerned, a mixed trend of behaviour was noted. The wear rate and frictional heating increased with load while friction coefficient was affected in an opposite manner. Test duration influenced the frictional heating and friction coefficient of the samples in a mixed manner.

Keywords: solid lubricant, sliding wear, grey cast iron, zinc based metal matrix composites

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Authors: Areej K. Al-Jwaid, Dmitiry Berllio, Andrew Cundy, Irina Savina, Jonathan L. Caplin

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Phenol is a toxic compound that is widely distributed in the environment including the atmosphere, water and soil, due to the release of effluents from the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries, coking plants and oil refineries. Moreover, a range of daily products, using phenol as a raw material, may find their way into the environment without prior treatment. The toxicity of phenol effects both human and environment health, and various physio-chemical methods to remediate phenol contamination have been used. While these techniques are effective, their complexity and high cost had led to search for alternative strategies to reduce and eliminate high concentrations of phenolic compounds in the environment. Biological treatments are preferable because they are environmentally friendly and cheaper than physico-chemical approaches. Some microorganisms such as Pseudomonas sp., Rhodococus sp., Acinetobacter sp. and Bacillus sp. have shown a high ability to degrade phenolic compounds to provide a sole source of energy. Immobilisation process utilising various materials have been used to protect and enhance the viability of cells, and to provide structural support for the bacterial cells. The aim of this study is to develop a new approach to the bioremediation of phenol based on an immobilisation strategy that can be used in wastewater. In this study, two bacterial species known to be phenol degrading bacteria (Pseudomonas mendocina and Rhodococus koreensis) were purchased from National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria (NCIMB). The two species and mixture of them were immobilised to produce macro porous crosslinked cell cryogels samples by using four types of cross-linker polymer solutions in a cryogelation process. The samples were used in a batch culture to degrade phenol at an initial concentration of 50mg/L at pH 7.5±0.3 and a temperature of 30°C. The four types of polymer solution - i. glutaraldehyde (GA), ii. Polyvinyl alcohol with glutaraldehyde (PVA+GA), iii. Polyvinyl alcohol–aldehyde (PVA-al) and iv. Polyetheleneimine–aldehyde (PEI-al), were used at different concentrations, ranging from 0.5 to 1.5% to crosslink the cells. The results of SEM and rheology analysis indicated that cell-cryogel samples crosslinked with the four cross-linker polymers formed monolithic macro porous cryogels. The samples were evaluated for their ability to degrade phenol. Macro porous cell–cryogels crosslinked with GA and PVA+GA showed an ability to degrade phenol for only one week, while the other samples crosslinked with a combination of PVA-al + PEI-al at two different concentrations have shown higher stability and viability to reuse to degrade phenol at concentration (50 mg/L) for five weeks. The initial results of using crosslinked cell cryogel samples to degrade phenol indicate that is a promising tool for bioremediation strategies especially to eliminate and remove the high concentration of phenol in wastewater.

Keywords: bioremediation, crosslinked cells, immobilisation, phenol degradation

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Authors: M. Draman, S. Z. Muhamad Yassin, M. S. Alias, Z. Lambak, M. I. Zulkifli, S. N. Padhi, K. N. Baharim, F. Maskuriy, A. I. A. Rahim

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The performance of Malay automatic speech recognition (ASR) system for the call centre environment is presented. The system utilizes Kaldi toolkit as the platform to the entire library and algorithm used in performing the ASR task. The acoustic model implemented in this system uses a deep neural network (DNN) method to model the acoustic signal and the standard (n-gram) model for language modelling. With 80 hours of training data from the call centre recordings, the ASR system can achieve 72% of accuracy that corresponds to 28% of word error rate (WER). The testing was done using 20 hours of audio data. Despite the implementation of DNN, the system shows a low accuracy owing to the varieties of noises, accent and dialect that typically occurs in Malaysian call centre environment. This significant variation of speakers is reflected by the large standard deviation of the average word error rate (WERav) (i.e., ~ 10%). It is observed that the lowest WER (13.8%) was obtained from recording sample with a standard Malay dialect (central Malaysia) of native speaker as compared to 49% of the sample with the highest WER that contains conversation of the speaker that uses non-standard Malay dialect.

Keywords: conversational speech recognition, deep neural network, Malay language, speech recognition

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Authors: Iryna Biskub

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The interdisciplinary approach to modern linguistic studies is exemplified by the merge of various research methods, which sometimes causes complications related to the verification of the research results. This methodological confusion can be resolved by means of creating new techniques of linguistic analysis combining several scientific paradigms. Modern linguistics has developed really productive and efficient methods for the investigation of cognitive and communicative phenomena of which language is the central issue. In the field of discourse studies, one of the best examples of research methods is the method of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA can be viewed both as a method of investigation, as well as a critical multidisciplinary perspective. In CDA the position of the scholar is crucial from the point of view exemplifying his or her social and political convictions. The generally accepted approach to obtaining scientifically reliable results is to use a special well-defined scientific method for researching special types of language phenomena: cognitive methods applied to the exploration of cognitive aspects of language, whereas communicative methods are thought to be relevant only for the investigation of communicative nature of language. In the recent decades discourse as a sociocultural phenomenon has been the focus of careful linguistic research. The very concept of discourse represents an integral unity of cognitive and communicative aspects of human verbal activity. Since a human being is never able to discriminate between cognitive and communicative planes of discourse communication, it doesn’t make much sense to apply cognitive and communicative methods of research taken in isolation. It is possible to modify the classical CDA procedure by means of mapping human cognitive procedures onto the strategic communicative planning of discourse communication. The analysis of the electronic petition 'Block Donald J Trump from UK entry. The signatories believe Donald J Trump should be banned from UK entry' (584, 459 signatures) and the parliamentary debates on it has demonstrated the ability to map cognitive and communicative levels in the following way: the strategy of discourse modeling (communicative level) overlaps with the extraction of semantic macrostructures (cognitive level); the strategy of discourse management overlaps with the analysis of local meanings in discourse communication; the strategy of cognitive monitoring of the discourse overlaps with the formation of attitudes and ideologies at the cognitive level. Thus, the experimental data have shown that it is possible to develop a new complex methodology of discourse analysis, where cognition would meet communication, both metaphorically and literally. The same approach may appear to be productive for the creation of computational models of human-computer interaction, where the automatic generation of a particular type of a discourse could be based on the rules of strategic planning involving cognitive models of CDA.

Keywords: cognition, communication, discourse, strategy

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Authors: Franklin Nantui Mabe, Robert Osei

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Activities and operations of artisanal small scale mining (ASM) have recently appealed to the attention of policymakers, researchers, and the general public in Ghana. This stems from the negative impacts of ASM operations on the environment and livelihoods of local inhabitants, as well as the disregard for available ASM mining policies. This study, therefore, investigates whether or not artisanal small-scale miners have enough knowledge of the mining policies and their implementations. The study adopted the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) framework approach to design the research, collect and analyze primary data. The most aware ASM policy provision is the one that mandates the government to reserve demarcated ASM areas for Ghanaians, whilst the least aware provision is the one that admonishes the government to promote co-operative saving among ASM. The awareness index is lower than the attitude index towards the policy provisions. In terms of practices, miners continued to use bad practices with the associated negative impacts on the environment and rural livelihoods. It is therefore important for the government through mineral commission, district, municipal and metropolitan assemblies to intensify the education on the ASM policies. These could be done with the help of ASM associations. The current systems where a cluster of districts have a single Mineral Commission Office should be restructured to make sure that each mining district has an office.

Keywords: mining policies, KAP, awareness, artisanal small-scale mining

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Authors: Zixian Zhang, Shanliang Yao, Zile Huang, Zhaodong Wu, Xiaohui Zhu, Yong Yue, Jieming Ma

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Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) are valuable due to their ability to perform dangerous and time-consuming tasks on the water. Object detection tasks are significant in these applications. However, inherent challenges, such as the complex distribution of obstacles, reflections from shore structures, water surface fog, etc., hinder the performance of object detection of USVs. To address these problems, this paper provides a fusion method for USVs to effectively detect objects in the inland surface environment, utilizing vision sensors and 3+1D Millimeter-wave radar. MMW radar is complementary to vision sensors, providing robust environmental information. The radar 3D point cloud is transferred to 2D radar pseudo image to unify radar and vision information format by utilizing the point transformer. We propose a multi-source object detection network (RV-YOLOX )based on radar-vision fusion for inland waterways environment. The performance is evaluated on our self-recording waterways dataset. Compared with the YOLOX network, our fusion network significantly improves detection accuracy, especially for objects with bad light conditions.

Keywords: inland waterways, YOLO, sensor fusion, self-attention

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Authors: M. Ndeley

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Now our days, Almost all manufacturing facilities need to use production planning and scheduling systems to increase productivity and to reduce production costs. Real-life production operations are subject to a large number of unexpected disruptions that may invalidate the original schedules. In these cases, rescheduling is essential to minimize the impact on the performance of the system. In this work we consider flow shop layouts that have seldom been studied in the rescheduling literature. We generate and employ three types of disruption that interrupt the original schedules simultaneously. We develop rescheduling algorithms to finally accomplish the twofold objective of establishing a standard framework on the one hand; and proposing rescheduling methods that seek a good trade-off between schedule quality and stability on the other.

Keywords: flow shop scheduling, uncertainty, rescheduling, stability

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Authors: Abidemi C. Adegboye, Nosakhare Ikponmwosa, Rogers A. Akinsokeji

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For many resource-rich developing countries, fiscal policy has become a key tool used for short-run fiscal management since it is considered as playing a critical role in injecting part of resource rents into the economies. However, given its instability, reliance on revenue from commodity exports renders fiscal management, budgetary planning and the efficient use of public resources difficult. In this study, the linkage between commodity prices and fiscal operations among a sample of commodity-exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is investigated. The main question is whether commodity price fluctuations affects the effectiveness of fiscal policy as a macroeconomic stabilization tool in these countries. Fiscal management effectiveness is considered as the ability of fiscal policy to react countercyclically to output gaps in the economy. Fiscal policy is measured as the ratio of fiscal deficit to GDP and the ratio of government spending to GDP, output gap is measured as a Hodrick-Prescott filter of output growth for each country, while commodity prices are associated with each country based on its main export commodity. Given the dynamic nature of fiscal policy effects on the economy overtime, a dynamic framework is devised for the empirical analysis. The panel cointegration and error correction methodology is used to explain the relationships. In particular, the study employs the panel ECM technique to trace short-term effects of commodity prices on fiscal management and also uses the fully modified OLS (FMOLS) technique to determine the long run relationships. These procedures provide sufficient estimation of the dynamic effects of commodity prices on fiscal policy. Data used cover the period 1992 to 2016 for 11 SSA countries. The study finds that the elasticity of the fiscal policy measures with respect to the output gap is significant and positive, suggesting that fiscal policy is actually procyclical among the countries in the sample. This implies that fiscal management for these countries follows the trend of economic performance. Moreover, it is found that fiscal policy has not performed well in delivering macroeconomic stabilization for these countries. The difficulty in applying fiscal stabilization measures is attributable to the unstable revenue inflows due to the highly volatile nature of commodity prices in the international market. For commodity-exporting countries in SSA to improve fiscal management, therefore, fiscal planning should be largely decoupled from commodity revenues, domestic revenue bases must be improved, and longer period perspectives in fiscal policy management are the critical suggestions in this study.

Keywords: commodity prices, ECM, fiscal policy, fiscal procyclicality, fully modified OLS, sub-saharan africa

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Authors: Margareta Rahayuningsih, Nugroho Edi K., Siti Alimah

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Wreathed Hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus) is the one of hornbill species (Family: Bucerotidae) that found on Mount Ungaran. In the preservation or planning in situ conservation of Wreathed Hornbill require the habitat condition data. The objective of the research was to determine the land cover change on Mount Ungaran using satellite image data and GIS. Based on the land cover data on 1999-2009 the research showed that the primer forest on Mount Ungaran was decreased almost 50%, while the seconder forest, tea and coffee plantation, and the settlement were increased.

Keywords: GIS, Mount Ungaran, threatened habitat, Wreathed Hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus)

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Authors: Alfi Al Fahreizy

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Yogyakarta is one of the provinces in Indonesia that often get a power outage because of high load electrical consumption. The authors mapped the electrical energy consumption [GWh] for the province of Yogyakarta in 2014-2025 using LEAP (Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system) software. This paper use BAU (Business As Usual) scenario. BAU scenario in which the projection is based on the assumption that growth in electricity consumption will run as normally as before. The goal is to be able to see the electrical energy consumption in the household sector, industry , business, social, government office building, and street lighting. The data is the data projected statistical population and consumption data electricity [GWh] 2010, 2011, 2012 in Yogyakarta province.

Keywords: LEAP, energy consumption, Yogyakarta, BAU

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Authors: S. M. Giripunje, Mohit Kumar

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Acoustic energy that exists in our everyday life and environment have been overlooked as a green energy that can be extracted, generated, and consumed without any significant negative impact to the environment. The harvested energy can be used to enable new technology like wireless sensor networks. Technological developments in the realization of truly autonomous MEMS devices and energy storage systems have made acoustic energy harvesting (AEH) an increasingly viable technology. AEH is the process of converting high and continuous acoustic waves from the environment into electrical energy by using an acoustic transducer or resonator. AEH is not popular as other types of energy harvesting methods since sound waves have lower energy density and such energy can only be harvested in very noisy environment. However, the energy requirements for certain applications are also correspondingly low and also there is a necessity to observe the noise to reduce noise pollution. So the ability to reclaim acoustic energy and store it in a usable electrical form enables a novel means of supplying power to relatively low power devices. A quarter-wavelength straight-tube acoustic resonator as an acoustic energy harvester is introduced with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and PVDF doped with ZnO nanoparticles, piezoelectric cantilever beams placed inside the resonator. When the resonator is excited by an incident acoustic wave at its first acoustic eigen frequency, an amplified acoustic resonant standing wave is developed inside the resonator. The acoustic pressure gradient of the amplified standing wave then drives the vibration motion of the PVDF piezoelectric beams, generating electricity due to the direct piezoelectric effect. In order to maximize the amount of the harvested energy, each PVDF and PVDF-ZnO piezoelectric beam has been designed to have the same structural eigen frequency as the acoustic eigen frequency of the resonator. With a single PVDF beam placed inside the resonator, the harvested voltage and power become the maximum near the resonator tube open inlet where the largest acoustic pressure gradient vibrates the PVDF beam. As the beam is moved to the resonator tube closed end, the voltage and power gradually decrease due to the decreased acoustic pressure gradient. Multiple piezoelectric beams PVDF and PVDF-ZnO have been placed inside the resonator with two different configurations: the aligned and zigzag configurations. With the zigzag configuration which has the more open path for acoustic air particle motions, the significant increases in the harvested voltage and power have been observed. Due to the interruption of acoustic air particle motion caused by the beams, it is found that placing PVDF beams near the closed tube end is not beneficial. The total output voltage of the piezoelectric beams increases linearly as the incident sound pressure increases. This study therefore reveals that the proposed technique used to harvest sound wave energy has great potential of converting free energy into useful energy.

Keywords: acoustic energy, acoustic resonator, energy harvester, eigenfrequency, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)

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Authors: Shu-Hui Jan, Shih-Ping Ho, Hui-Ping Tserng

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Construction knowledge can be referred to and reused among involved project managers and job-site engineers to alleviate problems on a construction job-site and reduce the time and cost of solving problems related to constructability. This paper proposes a new methodology to provide sharing of construction knowledge by using the Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach. The main characteristics of BIM include illustrating 3D CAD-based presentations and keeping information in a digital format, and facilitation of easy updating and transfer of information in the 3D BIM environment. Using the BIM approach, project managers and engineers can gain knowledge related to 3D BIM and obtain feedback provided by job-site engineers for future reference. This study addresses the application of knowledge sharing management in the construction phase of construction projects and proposes a BIM-based Knowledge Sharing Management (BIMKSM) system for project managers and engineers. The BIMKSM system is then applied in a selected case study of a construction project in Taiwan to verify the proposed methodology and demonstrate the effectiveness of sharing knowledge in the BIM environment. The combined results demonstrate that the BIMKSM system can be used as a visual BIM-based knowledge sharing management platform by utilizing the BIM approach and web technology.

Keywords: construction knowledge management, building information modeling, project management, web-based information system

Procedia PDF Downloads 358

Authors: Nor Azlina A. Rahman, Jamaliah Said, Salwana Hassan

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Prompt changes in global business environment, such as passionate competition, managerial/operational, changing governmental regulation and innovation in technology have significant impacts on the organizations. At present, global business environment demands for more proactive institutions on microfinance to provide an opportunity for the business success. Microfinance providers in Malaysia still accelerate its activities of funding by cash and cheque. These institutions are at high risk as the paper-based system is deemed to be slow and prone to human error, as well as requiring a major annual reconciliation process. The global transformation of financial services, growing involvement of technology, innovation and new business activities had progressively made risk management profile to be more subjective and diversified. The persistent, complex and dynamic nature of risk management activities in the institutions arise due to highly automated advancements of technology. This may thus manifest in a variety of ways throughout the financial services sector. This study seeks out to examine current operational risks management being experienced by microfinance providers in Malaysia; investigate the process of current practices on facilitator control factor mechanisms, and explore how the adoption of technology, innovation and use of management accounting practices would affect the risk management process of operation system in microfinance providers in Malaysia. A case study method was employed in this study. The case study also need to find that the vital past role of management accounting will be used for mitigation of risk management activities towards accountability as an information or guideline to microfinance provider. An empirical element obtainable with qualitative method is needed in this study, where multipart and in-depth information are essential to understand the issues of these institution phenomena. This study is expected to propose a theoretical model for implementation of technology, innovation and management accounting practices into the system of operation to improve internal control and subsequently lead to mitigation of risk management activities among microfinance providers to be more successful.

Keywords: microfinance, accountability, operational risks, management accounting practices

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Authors: Inna V. Krotova

Abstract:

The study pays special attention to the definition of the psychological potential of a specialist-defectologist, which determines his desire to increase the level of his or her professional competence. The group included participants of the educational environment – an additional professional program 'Technologies of psychological and pedagogical assistance for children with complex developmental disabilities' implemented by the department of defectology and clinical psychology of the KFU jointly with the Support Fund for the Deafblind people 'Co-Unity'. The purpose of our study was to identify the psychological aspects of the readiness of the specialist-defectologist to his or her professional development. The study assessed the indicators of psychological preparedness, and its four components were taken into account: motivational, cognitive, emotional and volitional. We used valid and standardized tests during the study. As a result of the factor analysis of data received (from Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis, Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization, Rotation converged in 12 iterations), there were identified three factors with maximum factor load from 24 indices, and their correlation coefficients with other indicators were taken into account at the level of reliability p ≤ 0.001 and p ≤ 0.01. Thus the system making factor was determined – it’s a 'motivation to achieve success'; it formed a correlation galaxy with two other factors: 'general internality' and 'internality in the field of achievements', as well as with such psychological indicators as 'internality in the field of family relations', 'internality in the field of interpersonal relations 'and 'low self-control-high self-control' (the names of the scales used is the same as names in the analysis methods. In conclusion of the article, we present some proposals to take into account the psychological model of readiness of specialists-defectologists for their professional development, to stimulate the growth of their professional competence. The study has practical value for all providers of special education and organizations that have their own specialists-defectologists, teachers-defectologists, teachers for correctional and ergotherapeutic activities, specialists working in the field of correctional-pedagogical activity (speech therapists) to people with special needs who need true professional support.

Keywords: psychological readiness, defectologist, professional development, psychological factors, special education, professional competence, innovative educational environment

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Authors: Temesgen Geremew

Abstract:

The excessive emission of heavy metal ions from industrial processes poses a serious threat to both the environment and human health. This study presents a distinct approach utilizing (PTh-MnS/CoS NPs) for the highly selective and sensitive detection of Hg²⁺ ions in water. Such detection is crucial for safeguarding human health, protecting the environment, and accurately assessing toxicity. The fabrication method employs a simple and efficient chemical precipitation technique, harmoniously combining polythiophene, MnS, and CoS NPs to create highly active substrates for SERS. The MnS@Hg²⁺ exhibits a distinct Raman shift at 1666 cm⁻¹, enabling specific identification and demonstrating the highest responsiveness among the studied semiconductor substrates with a detection limit of only 1 nM. This investigation demonstrates reliable and practical SERS detection for Hg²⁺ ions. Relative standard deviation (RSD) ranged from 0.49% to 9.8%, and recovery rates varied from 96% to 102%, indicating selective adsorption of Hg²⁺ ions on the synthesized substrate. Furthermore, this research led to the development of a remarkable set of substrates, including (MnS, CoS, MnS/CoS, and PTh-MnS/CoS) nanoparticles were created right there on SiO₂/Si substrate, all exhibiting sensitive, robust, and selective SERS for Hg²⁺ ion detection. These platforms effectively monitor Hg²⁺ concentrations in real environmental samples.

Keywords: surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy (SERS), sensor, mercury ions, nanoparticles, and polythiophene.

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Authors: Nazia Shehzad

Abstract:

An icebreaker is a facilitation exercise intended to help a group to begin the process of forming themselves into a team. Icebreakers are commonly presented as a game to ‘warm up’ the group by helping the members to get to know each other. They often focus on sharing personal information such as names, hobbies, etc. Challenging icebreakers also have the ability to allow a group to be better prepared to complete its assigned tasks. For example, if the team's objective is to redesign a business process such as Accounts Payable, the icebreaker activity might take the team through a process analysis. The analysis could include the identification of failure points, challenging assumptions, and development of new solutions — all in a simpler and ‘safer’ setting where the team can practice the group dynamics which they will use to solve the assigned problem. Icebreakers help establish a positive environment and provide an opportunity for students to get to know one another and the instructor. Both are critical to the retention and success of students. There are a number of benefits of using ice-breakers activities in the classroom. It reduces both student and instructor anxiety prior to introducing the course, fosters in a powerful way both student-student and faculty-student interactions. It creates an environment where the learner is expected to participate and the instructor is willing to listen, actively engage students from the onset. It conveys the message that the instructor cares about getting to know the students and makes it easier for students to form relationships early in the semester so they can work together both in and out of class.

Keywords: actively engages students, facilitation exercise, faculty- student interactions, group dynamics, warm up

Procedia PDF Downloads 351