Search results for: user defined HEMS

Authors: Walaa Obaidallah Alqarafi, Wafaa Mohammed Fakieh, Alaa Abdallah Altassan

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Algebraic graph theory is defined as a bridge between algebraic structures and graphs. It has several uses in many fields, including chemistry, physics, and computer science. The prime graph is a type of graph associated with a ring R, where the vertex set is the whole ring R, and two vertices x and y are adjacent if either xRy=0 or yRx=0. However, the investigation of the prime graph over rings remains relatively limited. The behavior of this graph in extended rings, like R[x] and R[[x]], where R is a non-commutative ring, deserves more attention because of the wider applicability in algebra and other mathematical fields. To study the prime graphs over polynomials and power series rings, we used a combination of ring-theoretic and graph-theoretic techniques. This paper focuses on two invariants: the diameter and the girth of these graphs. Furthermore, the work discusses how the graph structures change when passing from R to R[x] and R[[x]]. In our study, we found that the set of strong zero-divisors of ring R represents the set of vertices in prime graphs. Based on this discovery, we redefined the vertices of prime graphs using the definition of strong zero divisors. Additionally, our results show that although the prime graphs of R[x] and R[[x]] are comparable to the graph of R, they have different combinatorial characteristics since these extensions contain new strong zero-divisors. In particular, we find conditions in which the diameter and girth of the graphs, as they expand from R to R[x] and R[[x]], do not change or do change. In conclusion, this study shows how extending a non-commutative ring R to R[x] and R[[x]] affects the structure of their prime graphs, particularly in terms of diameter and girth. These findings enhance the understanding of the relationship between ring extensions and graph properties.

Keywords: prime graph, diameter, girth, polynomial ring, power series ring

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Authors: Mohammad Rostami Mehr, Seyed Arya Mir Rashed, Arndt Lueder, Magdalena Missler-Behr

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This paper represents the conception that complex problems do not necessarily need a similar complex solution in order to cope with the complexity. Furthermore, a simple solution based on established methods can provide a sufficient way to deal with the complexity. To verify this conception, the presented paper focuses on the field of change management as a part of the new product development process in the automotive sector. In this field, dealing with increasing complexity is essential, while only non-flexible rigid processes that are not designed to handle complexity are available. The basic methodology of this paper can be divided into four main sections: 1) analyzing the complexity of the change management, 2) literature review in order to identify potential solutions and methods, 3) capturing and implementing expertise of experts from the change management field of an automobile manufacturing company and 4) systematical comparison of the identified methods from literature and connecting these with defined requirements of the complexity of the change management in order to develop a solution. As a practical outcome, this paper provides a method to capture the complexity of engineering changes (EC) and includes it within the EC evaluation process, following case-related process guidance to cope with the complexity. Furthermore, this approach supports the conception that dealing with complexity is possible while utilizing rather simple and established methods by combining them into a powerful tool.

Keywords: complexity management, new product development, engineering change management, flexibility

Procedia PDF Downloads 197

Authors: Mohamed Amine Adaour, Mohamed Sadek Bachene, Mosaab Fortassi, Wafaa Siouda

Abstract:

— Foot infections are responsible for a significant number of hospitalizations and amputations in diabetic patients. The objective of our study is to analyze and evaluate the management of diabetic foot in a surgical setting. A retrospective study was conducted based on a selected case of suspected diabetic foot infections of osteitis treated at the Mohamed Boudiaf hospital in Medea.The case was reiterated as a therapeutic charge, consisting of treating first the infection of the soft tissues, then the osteitis: biopsy after at least 15 days of cessation of antibiotic therapy. Successful treatment of osteitis was defined at the end of a follow-up period of complete wound healing, lack of bone resection/amputation surgery at the initial bone site during follow-up , Instead, biopsies are prescribed in the treatment of soft tissue infection. The mean duration of treatment for soft tissue infection was 2-3 weeks, the duration of the antibiotic-free window of therapy prior to bone biopsy was 2-4 weeks. This patient received medical management without surgical resection. The success rate for treating osteitis at one year was 73%, and healing at one year was 88%.It is often limited to a sausage of the foot at the cost of repeated amputations. The best management remains prevention, which necessarily involves setting up a specialized and adapted centre.

Keywords: diabetic foot, bone biopsy, osteitis, algeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 104

Authors: Elena Carcano, James Ball

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

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

Procedia PDF Downloads 160

Authors: Sheilla Atieno Odhiambo, Simona Vasile, Alexandra De Raeve, Ann Schwarz

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Strain sensing seams have been developed by integrating conductive sewing threads in different types of seams design on a fabric typical for sports clothing using sewing technology. The aim is to have a simple integrated textile strain sensor that can be applied to sports clothing to monitor the movements of the upper body parts of the user during sports. Different types of commercially available sewing threads were used as the bobbin thread in the production of different architectural seam sensors. These conductive sewing threads have been integrated into seams in particular designs using specific seam types. Some of the threads are delicate and needed to be laid into the seam with as little friction as possible and less tension; thus, they could only be sewn in as the bobbin thread and not the needle thread. Stitch type 304; 406; 506; 601;602; 605. were produced. The seams were made on a fabric of 80% polyamide 6.6 and 20% elastane. The seams were cycled(stretch-release-stretch) for five cycles and up to 44 cycles following EN ISO 14704-1: 2005 (modified), using a tensile instrument and the changes in the resistance of the seams with time were recorded using Agilent meter U1273A. Both experiments were conducted simultaneously on the same seam sample. Sensing functionality, among which is sensor gauge and reliability, were evaluated on the promising sensor seams. The results show that the sensor seams made from HC Madeira 40 conductive yarns performed better inseam stitch 304 and 602 compared to the other combination of stitch type and conductive sewing threads. These sensing seams 304, 406 and 602 will further be interconnected to our developed processing and communicating unit and further integrated into a sports clothing prototype that can track body posture. This research is done within the framework of the project SmartSeam.

Keywords: conductive sewing thread, sensing seams, smart seam, sewing technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 190

Authors: Hui Shi

Abstract:

This article examines the online popularity of Chinese neologism simida, which is a loanword derived from Korean declarative sentence-final suffix seumnida. Facilitated by corpus data obtained from Weibo, the Chinese counterpart of Twitter, this study analyzes the morphological and syntactical processes behind simida’s coinage, as well as the causes of its prevalence on Chinese social media. The findings show that simida is used by Weibo bloggers in two manners: (1) as an alternative word of 'Korea' and 'Korean'; (2) as a redundant sentence-final particle which adds a Korean-like speech style to a statement. Additionally, Weibo user profile analysis further reveals demographical distribution patterns concerning this neologism and highlights young Weibo users in the third-tier cities as the leading adopters of simida. These results are accounted for under the theoretical framework of social indexicality, especially how variations generate style in the indexical field. This article argues that the creation of such an ethnically-targeted neologism is a linguistic demonstration of Chinese netizen’s two-sided attitudes toward the previously heated Korean-wave. The exotic suffix seumnida is borrowed to Chinese as simida due to its high-frequency in Korean cultural exports. Therefore, it gradually becomes a replacement of Korea-related lexical items due to markedness, regardless of semantic prosody. Its innovative implantation to Chinese syntax, on the other hand, reflects Chinese netizens’ active manipulation of language for their online identity building. This study has implications for research on the linguistic construction of identity and style and lays the groundwork for linguistic creativity in the Chinese new media.

Keywords: Chinese neologism, loanword, humor, new media

Procedia PDF Downloads 174

Authors: Muhammad Umair, Tanveer Hussain, Khubab Shaker, Yasir Nawab, Muhammad Maqsood, Madeha Jabbar

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The term comfort is defined as 'the absence of unpleasantness or discomfort' or 'a neutral state compared to the more active state'. Comfort mainly is of three types: sensorial (tactile) comfort, psychological comfort and thermo-physiological comfort. Thermophysiological comfort is determined by the air permeability and moisture management properties of the garment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of weave structure and picking sequence on the comfort properties of woven fabrics. Six woven fabrics with two different weave structures i.e. 1/1 plain and 3/1 twill and three different picking sequences: (SPI, DPI, 3PI) were taken as input variables whereas air permeability, wetting time, wicking behavior and overall moisture management capability (OMMC) of fabrics were taken as response variables and a comparison is made of the effect of weave structure and picking sequence on the response variables. It was found that fabrics woven in twill weave design and with simultaneous triple pick insertion (3PI) give significantly better air permeability, shorter wetting time and better water spreading rate, as compared to plain woven fabrics and those with double pick insertion (DPI) or single pick insertion (SPI). It could be concluded that the thermophysiological comfort of woven fabrics may be significantly improved simply by selecting a suitable weave design and picking sequence.

Keywords: air permeability, picking sequence, thermophysiological comfort, weave design

Procedia PDF Downloads 419

Authors: VojtěCh Gybas, Libor Klubal, KateřIna KostoláNyová

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Individualized teaching process for pupils with moderate mental disabilities with the help of using mobile touch devices may be one of the forms of teaching to achieve better development of these students during the teaching process. Didactics of information and communication technology (ICT) for special primary schools, where within the Czech Republic pupils with moderate mental retardation are educated, is not precisely and clearly defined. Still, general educational program for elementary school contains a special educational area of information and communication technology, in which the work and content area are focused on work with the classic desktop, and it is not always acceptable in the case of students with moderate mental disabilities. Individualization of their schooling requires a fully elaborate content of teaching material corresponding with intellectual abilities and individuality of each pupil. After three years of daily use of mobile touch devices iPad and participant observation of 7 pupils in a class from special elementary school, we can say that these technologies can be a very useful tool, and in many ways, they even exceed, compensate and replace freely available printed educational material that is rather outdated. By working with mobile touch technology, a pupil gains responsibility, trains his will, learns to rely on himself. The first results obtained from the case studies suggest that this form of teaching may also be beneficial for pupils with moderate mental disabilities.

Keywords: individualized teaching, mobile touch technology, iPad, moderate mental disability, special education needs

Procedia PDF Downloads 328

Authors: Mohamed Amine Adaour, Mohamed Sadek Bachene, Mosaab Fortassi, Wafaa Siouda

Abstract:

Foot infections are responsible for a significant number of hospitalizations and amputations in diabetic patients. The objective of our study is to analyze and evaluate the management of diabetic foot in a surgical setting. A retrospective study was conducted based on a selected case of suspected diabetic foot infections of osteitis treated at the Mohamed Boudiaf hospital in Medea. The case was reiterated as a therapeutic charge, consisting of treating first the infection of the soft tissues, then the osteitis: biopsy after at least 15 days of cessation of antibiotic therapy. Successful treatment of osteitis was defined at the end of a follow-up period of complete wound healing, lack of bone resection/amputation surgery at the initial bone site during follow-up , Instead, biopsies are prescribed in the treatment of soft tissue infection. The mean duration of treatment for soft tissue infection was 2-3 weeks, the duration of the antibiotic-free window of therapy prior to bone biopsy was 2-4 weeks. This patient received medical management without surgical resection. The success rate for treating osteitis at one year was 73%, and healing at one year was 88%.It is often limited to a sausage of the foot at the cost of repeated amputations. The best management remains prevention, which necessarily involves setting up a specialized and adapted centre.

Keywords: osteitis, antibiotic therapy, bone biopsy, diabetic foot

Procedia PDF Downloads 82

Authors: D. S. Mohale, A. V. Chandewar

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Anxiety is defined as an exaggerated feeling of apprehension, uncertainty and fear. Nerium indicum is a well-known ornamental and medicinal plant belonging to the family Apocynaceae. A wide spectrum of biological activities has been reported with various constituents isolated from different parts of the plant. This study was conducted to investigate antianxiety activity of flower extract. Flowers were collected and dried in shade and coarsely powdered. Powdered mixture was extracted with ethyl acetate by maceration process. Extract of flowers obtained was subsequently dried in oven at 40-50 °C. This extract is then tested for antianxiety activity at low and high dose using Elevated Plus Maze and Light & dark Model. Rats shown increased open arm entries and time spent in open arm in elevated Plus maze with treatment low and high dose of extract of Nerium indicum flower as compared to their respective control groups. In Light & dark Model, light box entries and time spent in light box increased with treatment low and high dose of extract of Nerium indicum flower as compared to their respective control groups. From result it is concluded that Ethyl acetate extract of flower of Nerium indicum possess antianxiety activity at low and high dose.

Keywords: anxiety, anxieolytic, social isolation, nerium indicum, kaner

Procedia PDF Downloads 309

Authors: Siriwan Nantaphol, Robert B. Channon, Takeshi Kondo, Weena Siangproh, Orawon Chailapakul, Charles S. Henry

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In this work, we demonstrate a novel electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ERGO) modified boron-doped diamond paste (BDDP) electrode on paper-based analytical devices (PADs) for simultaneous determination of norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT). The BDD paste electrode was easily constructed by filling BDD paste in small channels, which made in transparency film sheets using a CO₂ laser etching 
system. The counter and reference electrodes were fabricated on paper by in-house screen-printing and then combined with BDD paste microelectrode. The electrochemical characterization of the device was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV). Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) was employed for the simultaneous determination of NE and 5-HT. The ERGO-modified BDDP electrode displayed excellent electrocatalytic activities toward the oxidation of NE and 5-HT and strong function for resolving the overlapping voltammetric responses of NE and 5-HT into two well-defined voltammetric peaks. This device was capable of simultaneously detecting NE and 5-HT in wide concentration ranges and with a low limit of detections. In addition, it has the advantages in terms of ease of use, low cost, and disposability.

Keywords: boron-doped diamond paste electrode, electrochemically reduced graphene oxide, norepinephrine, paper-based analytical device, serotonin

Procedia PDF Downloads 259

Authors: Shih-Chieh Liao, Jen-Ying Ma

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Dual protagonists game always bring a unique experience compared to the other games. This research wants to discuss whether the dual protagonists have the moving ability and special ability or not; it will affect the preference of the players. This research will focus on the single-player dual protagonists game. After the observation, we found that when players control the dual protagonists, the moving ability and special ability are a great point defining the preference of players. When players control the character, which is lack of moving ability, they often feel impatient with the inconvenient mechanism and then reduce the will to play with the character or even the game. Furthermore, the special ability is also important in the situation that there is another character to compare with. When the character is too powerful, players tend not to use the weaker one. In addition, gender is a big deal in the games. It surprisingly controls the will of play occasionally. In view of these, this research makes a single-player dual protagonists game and the dual protagonists are limited to male and female. The experiment content detected with Electrodermal Activity (EDA) includes seven different situations. (1) male and females both have the moving ability and special ability. (2) male and female both have a special ability, but female does not have the moving ability. (3) male and females both have a special ability, but the male does not have the moving ability. (4) male and female both have the moving ability, but the male does not have special ability (5) male and female both have the moving ability, but female does not have a special ability (6) male-only has the moving ability and female-only has a special ability (7) male-only has a special ability and female only has the moving ability. The experiment will evaluate the emotional changes of the subjects in those situations. The result sorted by the significance of player preference is (6)>(4)>(1)>(2)>(5)>(3)>(7). The result demonstrates that players prefer females with special abilities or males with moving abilities. The game developer could design the ability of dual protagonists based on this research. Therefore, players may have a better experience.

Keywords: biofeedback, dual protagonists, emotional responses, psychology, user experience

Procedia PDF Downloads 189

Authors: M. Iommi, G. Losco

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Current building sector is focused on reduction of energy requirements, on renewable energy generation and on regeneration of existing urban areas. These targets need to be solved with a systemic approach, considering several aspects simultaneously such as climate conditions, lighting conditions, solar radiation, PV potential, etc. The solar access analysis is an already known method to analyze the solar potentials, but in current years, simulation tools have provided more effective opportunities to perform this type of analysis, in particular in the early design stage. Nowadays, the study of the solar access is related to the easiness of the use of simulation tools, in rapid and easy way, during the design process. This study presents a comparison of three simulation tools, from the point of view of the user, with the aim to highlight differences in the easy-to-use of these tools. Using a real urban context as case study, three tools; Ecotect, Townscope and Heliodon, are tested, performing models and simulations and examining the capabilities and output results of solar access analysis. The evaluation of the ease-to-use of these tools is based on some detected parameters and features, such as the types of simulation, requirements of input data, types of results, etc. As a result, a framework is provided in which features and capabilities of each tool are shown. This framework shows the differences among these tools about functions, features and capabilities. The aim of this study is to support users and to improve the integration of simulation tools for solar access with the design process.

Keywords: energy building design tools, solar access analysis, solar potential, urban planning

Procedia PDF Downloads 340

Authors: Ouahiba Taamallah, Tarek Litim

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The study deals with the burnishing effect of AISI 52100 steel and parameters influence (Py, i and f on surface integrity. The results show that the optimal effects are closely related to the treatment parameters. With a 92% improvement in roughness, SB can be defined as a finishing operation within the machining range. Due to 85% gain in consolidation rate, this treatment constitutes an efficient process for work-hardening of material. In addition, a statistical study based on regression and Taguchi's design has made it possible to develop mathematical models to predict output responses according to the studied burnishing parameters. Response Surface Methodology RSM showed a simultaneous influence of the burnishing parameters and to observe the optimal parameters of the treatment. ANOVA Analysis of results led to validate the prediction model with a determination coefficient R2=94.60% and R2=93.41% for surface roughness and micro-hardness, respectively. Furthermore, a multi-objective optimization allowed to identify a regime characterized by P=20 Kgf, i=5 passes and f=0.08 mm.rev-1, which favors minimum surface roughness and a maximum of micro-hardness. The result was validated by a composite desirability D_i=1 for both surface roughness and microhardness, respectively. Applying optimal parameters, burnishing showed its beneficial effects in fatigue resistance, especially for imposed loading in the low cycle fatigue of the material where the lifespan increased by 90%.

Keywords: AISI 52100 steel, burnishing, Taguchi, fatigue

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: Aline Giardin

Abstract:

Introduction: This review addresses the relationship between physical education and mental health and its main objective is to discuss the meanings that circulate in Psychiatric Hospitalization Units and Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS) about the presence of physical education teachers and the practices developed by Them within these services. Material and methods: It is based on the theoretical contribution of the Psychiatric Reform and is methodologically inspired by the Bibliographic Review. Objectives: The objective of this review was to identify the main scientific evidence on the effects of physical activity on the main psychological aspects associated with mental health during the hospitalization process. Results: It was observed that physical activity has beneficial effects in the psychological, social and cognitive aspects, being thus a fundamental aspect of the lifestyle in promoting a healthy and successful treatment. In studies evaluating the effects of physical activity on mental health, the most frequently evaluated outcomes include anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life (eg, self-esteem and self-efficacy). Evidence from epistemological studies indicates that the level of physical activity is positively associated with good mental health, when mental health is defined as good mood, general well-being and decreased symptoms. Conclusion: It is necessary to intervene and a greater interest of the professionals of physical education in the treatment with the people with mental disorders so that the negative symptoms are modified, through the aid of the physical activity, by better quality of life, physical condition, nutritional state and A healthy emotional appearance.

Keywords: health mental, physical activity, benefits, treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 347

Authors: Mohamed Amine Adaour, Mohamed Sadek Bachene, Mosaab Fortassi, Wafaa Siouda

Abstract:

Foot infections are responsible for a significant number of hospitalizations and amputations in diabetic patients. The objective of our study is to analyze and evaluate the management of diabetic foot in a surgical setting. A retrospective study was conducted based on a selected case of suspected diabetic foot infections of osteitis treated at the Mohamed Boudiaf hospital in Medea.The case was reiterated as a therapeutic charge, consisting of treating first the infection of the soft tissues, then the osteitis: biopsy after at least 15 days of cessation of antibiotic therapy. Successful treatment of osteitis was defined at the end of a follow-up period of complete wound healing, lack of bone resection/amputation surgery at the initial bone site during follow-up , Instead, biopsies are prescribed in the treatment of soft tissue infection. The mean duration of treatment for soft tissue infection was 2-3 weeks, the duration of the antibiotic-free window of therapy prior to bone biopsy was 2-4 weeks. This patient received medical management without surgical resection. The success rate for treating osteitis at one year was 73%, and healing at one year was 88%.It is often limited to a sausage of the foot at the cost of repeated amputations. The best management remains prevention, which necessarily involves setting up a specialized and adapted centre.

Keywords: osteitis, antibiotic, biopsy, diabetic foot

Procedia PDF Downloads 99

Authors: Gopinath Ganapathy, Chellammal Surianarayanan

Abstract:

Services are growing rapidly and generally they are aggregated into a composite service to accomplish complex business processes. There may be several services that offer the same required function of a particular task in a composite service. Hence a choice has to be made for selecting suitable services from alternative functionally similar services. Quality of Service (QoS)plays as a discriminating factor in selecting which component services should be selected to satisfy the quality requirements of a user during service composition. There are two categories of approaches for QoS based service selection, namely global and local approaches. Global approaches are known to be Non-Polynomial (NP) hard in time and offer poor scalability in large scale composition. As an alternative to global methods, local selection methods which reduce the search space by breaking up the large/complex problem of selecting services for the workflow into independent sub problems of selecting services for individual tasks are coming up. In this paper, distributed architecture for selecting services based on QoS using local selection is presented with an overview of local selection methodology. The architecture describes the core components, namely, selection manager and QoS manager needed to implement the local approach and their functions. Selection manager consists of two components namely constraint decomposer which decomposes the given global or workflow level constraints in local or task level constraints and service selector which selects appropriate service for each task with maximum utility, satisfying the corresponding local constraints. QoS manager manages the QoS information at two levels namely, service class level and individual service level. The architecture serves as an implementation model for local selection.

Keywords: architecture of service selection, local method for service selection, QoS based service selection, approaches for QoS based service selection

Procedia PDF Downloads 426

Authors: M. F. Amado, A. Amado, F. Poggi, J. Correia de Freitas

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Today it is widely understood that global energy consumption patterns are directly related to the ongoing urban expansion and development process. This expansion is based on the natural growth of human activities and has left most urban areas totally dependent on fossil fuel derived external energy inputs. This status-quo of production, transportation, storage and consumption of energy has become inefficient and is set to become even more so when the continuous increases in energy demand are factored in. The territorial management of land use and related activities is a central component in the search for more efficient models of energy use, models that can meet current and future regional, national and European goals. In this paper, a methodology is developed and discussed with the aim of improving energy efficiency at the municipal level. The development of this methodology is based on the monitoring of energy consumption and its use patterns resulting from the natural dynamism of human activities in the territory and can be utilized to assess sustainability at the local scale. A set of parameters and indicators are defined with the objective of constructing a systemic model based on the optimization, adaptation and innovation of the current energy framework and the associated energy consumption patterns. The use of the model will enable local governments to strike the necessary balance between human activities, economic development, and the local and global environment while safeguarding fairness in the energy sector.

Keywords: solar urban planning, solar smart city, urban development, energy efficiency

Procedia PDF Downloads 328

Authors: Boitumelo Ditshwane, Zelda Janse van Rensburg, Wanda Jacobs,

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Health literacy is defined as competencies and skills that individuals need to find, comprehend, evaluate, and use to make knowledgeable choices to improve their health and well-being. Low health literacy has been found to affect people’s ability to take care of their own health. Incomprehension of health education and health care instructions due to low health literacy is often due to information given at a level that is above the patient’s level of understanding. The study aimed to test the health literacy levels of South African PHC patients using a previously developed health literacy assessment tool. Determining health literacy levels may assist PHC nurses in providing health education and health care instructions to the patient on the patient’s level of understanding and, therefore, ensuring positive health outcomes for the patient. A health literacy assessment tool, translated into ten official South African languages, was used to quantitatively determine the health literacy levels of 400 PHC patients in five clinics in Gauteng, South Africa. Patients’ health literacy levels were tested in English, and nine other official languages spoken in South Africa and were compared. The results revealed that patients understand information better when given in their preferred language. Giving health education in a language and level that is better understood by the patient may lead to better health outcomes and prevent adverse health. Patients may better understand instructions provided, be more likely to follow the correct route of medication, honor appointments, comply with medication, and thus have better treatment outcomes.

Keywords: health literacy, primary health care, South Africa, patients

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Authors: Faiza Babur Khan, Sohail Asghar

Abstract:

With an emergence of distributed environment, cloud computing is proving to be the most stimulating computing paradigm shift in computer technology, resulting in spectacular expansion in IT industry. Many companies have augmented their technical infrastructure by adopting cloud resource sharing architecture. Cloud computing has opened doors to unlimited opportunities from application to platform availability, expandable storage and provision of computing environment. However, from a security viewpoint, an added risk level is introduced from clouds, weakening the protection mechanisms, and hardening the availability of privacy, data security and on demand service. Issues of trust, confidentiality, and integrity are elevated due to multitenant resource sharing architecture of cloud. Trust or reliability of cloud refers to its capability of providing the needed services precisely and unfailingly. Confidentiality is the ability of the architecture to ensure authorization of the relevant party to access its private data. It also guarantees integrity to protect the data from being fabricated by an unauthorized user. So in order to assure provision of secured cloud, a roadmap or model is obligatory to analyze a security problem, design mitigation strategies, and evaluate solutions. The aim of the paper is twofold; first to enlighten the factors which make cloud security critical along with alleviation strategies and secondly to propose an intrusion detection model that identifies the attackers in a preventive way using machine learning Random Forest classifier with an accuracy of 99.8%. This model uses less number of features. A comparison with other classifiers is also presented.

Keywords: cloud security, threats, machine learning, random forest, classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 320

Authors: Qian Zhao

Abstract:

With global increasing demand for phosphorus and intensively depleting reserves, it is urgent need to explore innovative approaches towards capturing phosphate from sewage, which is also an effective way to reduce phosphate contamination and avoid eutrophication of water bodies. In the present article, the superparamagnetic nano-sorbents containing Fe₃O₄ core and hafnium-modified MgAl/MgFe layered double hydroxides shell (abbreviated as MgAlHf-NP and MgFeHf-NP) was developed using a simple and low-cost synthesis protocol. The obtained Hf-coated nano-materials showed well-defined crystal structure and sufficient saturation magnetization and exhibited higher adsorption capacity for phosphate. Meanwhile, high selectivity was also confirmed since coexisting foreign anions and biomacromolecules showed little competitive effect on phosphate adsorption. The enhancement via doping with Hf should be explained by the stronger ligand complexation built by the pair of hard acid Hf ion and hard base phosphate that matched up the bonding preferences. Sufficient OH⁻ concentration and clear pH shift during the desorption/regeneration allowed for regeneration rate of higher than 90% after 5 cycles of adsorption desorption. This article attempts to provide a competitive candidate for phosphate-capture, which is highly effective, easily separable and repeatedly usable.

Keywords: phosphate recovery, nanoparticles, superparamagnetic, adsorption, reusability

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: Yen-Sheng Ho

Abstract:

It is important to actively adjust the legal system of land use in archaeological sites and the reward system to meet the needs of modern society and to solve the dilemma of government management. Under the principle of administration according to law and the principle of the clarity of law, human rights, legal orders and legitimate expectation shall be regulated. The Cultural Heritage Preservation Act has many norms related to archaeological sites in Taiwan. However, in practice, the preservation of archaeological sites still encounters many challenges. For instance, some archaeological sites have ‘management and maintenance plans’. The restrictions of land uses are not clearly defined making it difficult to determine how planting types and cultivation methods will impact the underground relics. In addition, there are questions as follows. How to coordinate the ‘site preservation plan’ with the Regional Planning Act and the Urban Planning Act? How to define preservation of land, preservation area and other uses of land or area? How to define land use in practice? How to control land use? After selecting three sites for the case investigation, this study will analyze the site’s land use status and propose the direction of land use and control methods. This study suggests that the prerequisite to limit the use of land is to determine the public interest in the preservation of the site. Another prerequisite is to establish a mechanism for permitting the use of the site and for setting the site preservation and zoning maintenance practices according to the Regional Planning Act, Urban Planning Act and other relevant rules, such as, land use zoning, land use control, land management, land maintenance, regional development and management and etc.

Keywords: archaeological site, land use and site preservation plan, regional planning, urban planning

Procedia PDF Downloads 274

Authors: Francesca Carta, Giovanna Linfante, Laura Agneni, Debora Radicchia, Camilla Micheletta, Angelo Del Cimmuto

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Overtaking competence mismatches and fostering career pathways congruent with the individual skills profile would significantly contribute to fighting unemployment. The aim of this paper is to examine the usefulness and efficiency of qualitative tools in supporting and improving the quality of caseworkers’ activities during the jobseekers’ profile analysis and career guidance process. The selected target groups are long-term and middle term unemployed, job seekers, young people at the end of the vocational training pathway and unemployed woman with social disadvantages. The experimentation is conducted in Italy at public employment services in 2017. In the framework of Italian labour market reform, the experimentation represents the first step to develop a customized qualitative model profiling; the final general object is to improve the public employment services quality. The experimentation tests the transferability of an OECD self-assessment competences tool in the Italian public employment services. On one hand, the first analysis results will indicate the user’s perception concerning the tool’s application and their different competence levels (literacy, numeracy, problem solving, career interest, subjective well-being and health, behavioural competencies) with reference to the specific target. On the other hand, the experimentation outcomes will show caseworkers understanding regarding the tool’s usability and efficiency for career guidance and reskilling and upskilling programs.

Keywords: career guidance, evaluation competences, reskilling pathway, unemployment

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Authors: Rongbo Shen, Jianhua Yao, Kezhou Yan, Kuan Tian, Cheng Jiang, Ke Zhou

Abstract:

This study proposes a generative adversarial networks (GAN) framework to perform synthetic sampling in feature space, i.e., feature augmentation, to address the class imbalance problem in medical image analysis. A feature extraction network is first trained to convert images into feature space. Then the GAN framework incorporates adversarial learning to train a feature generator for the minority class through playing a minimax game with a discriminator. The feature generator then generates features for minority class from arbitrary latent distributions to balance the data between the majority class and the minority class. Additionally, a data cleaning technique, i.e., Tomek link, is employed to clean up undesirable conflicting features introduced from the feature augmentation and thus establish well-defined class clusters for the training. The experiment section evaluates the proposed method on two medical image analysis tasks, i.e., mass classification on mammogram and cancer metastasis classification on histopathological images. Experimental results suggest that the proposed method obtains superior or comparable performance over the state-of-the-art counterparts. Compared to all counterparts, our proposed method improves more than 1.5 percentage of accuracy.

Keywords: class imbalance, synthetic sampling, feature augmentation, generative adversarial networks, data cleaning

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Authors: M. Touhidul Islam Sarker, Mohammod Abul Kashem

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to improve the e-learning system and digitize the learning method in the educational sector. The learner will login into e-learning platform and easily access the digital content, the content can be downloaded and take an assessment for evaluation. Learner can get access to these digital resources by using tablet, computer, and smart phone also. E-learning system can be defined as teaching and learning with the help of multimedia technologies and the internet by access to digital content. E-learning replacing the traditional education system through information and communication technology-based learning. This paper has designed and implemented integrated e-learning system architecture with University Management System. Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is the best e-learning system, but the problem of Moodle has no school or university management system. In this research, we have not considered the school’s student because they are out of internet facilities. That’s why we considered the university students because they have the internet access and used technologies. The University Management System has different types of activities such as student registration, account management, teacher information, semester registration, staff information, etc. If we integrated these types of activity or module with Moodle, then we can overcome the problem of Moodle, and it will enhance the e-learning system architecture which makes effective use of technology. This architecture will give the learner to easily access the resources of e-learning platform anytime or anywhere which digitizes the learning method.

Keywords: database, e-learning, LMS, Moodle

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Authors: Radovan Cobanovic, Milica Rankov Sicar

Abstract:

Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil - or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl (methyl, ethyl, or propyl) esters. It is derived by alcoholysis of triacylglycerols (triglycerides) from various lipid based materials that can be traditionally categorized into the following main groups: vegetable oils, animal fats, waste and algal oils. The goal of this study was to evaluate microbiological stability of biodiesel samples since it has been made from vegetable oil or animal fat which was stored on room temperature. For the purposes of this study, analyzes were conducted on six samples of biodiesel first at zero sample at the reception day than fifth, thirtieth, sixtieth, ninetieth and one hundred twentieth day from the day of reception. During this period, biodiesel samples were subjected to microbiological analyses (Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Enterobacteriaceae and total plate count). All analyses were tested according to ISO methodology: Salmonella spp ISO 6579, Listeria monocytogenes ISO 11290-2, Enterobacteriaceae ISO 21528-1, total plate count ISO 4833-1. The results obtained after the analyses which were done according to the plan during the 120 days indicate that are no changes of products concerning microbiological analyses. Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Enterobacteriaceae were not detected and results for total plate count showed values < 10 cfu/g for all six samples. On the basis of this monitoring under defined storage conditions at room temperatures, the results showed that biodiesel is very stable as far as microbiological analysis were concerned.

Keywords: biodiesel, microbiology, room temperature, stability

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Authors: Zekang Lan, Yan Xu, Yingkun Huang, Dian Huang, Shengzhong Feng

Abstract:

Jobs on high-performance computing (HPC) clusters can suffer significant performance degradation due to inter-job network interference. Topology-aware job allocation problem (TJAP) is such a problem that decides how to dedicate nodes to specific applications to mitigate inter-job network interference. In this paper, we study the window-based TJAP on a fat-tree network aiming at minimizing the cost of communication hop, a defined inter-job interference metric. The window-based approach for scheduling repeats periodically, taking the jobs in the queue and solving an assignment problem that maps jobs to the available nodes. Two special allocation strategies are considered, i.e., static continuity assignment strategy (SCAS) and dynamic continuity assignment strategy (DCAS). For the SCAS, a 0-1 integer programming is developed. For the DCAS, an approach called neural simulated algorithm (NSA), which is an extension to simulated algorithm (SA) that learns a repair operator and employs them in a guided heuristic search, is proposed. The efficacy of NSA is demonstrated with a computational study against SA and SCIP. The results of numerical experiments indicate that both the model and algorithm proposed in this paper are effective.

Keywords: high-performance computing, job allocation, neural simulated annealing, topology-aware

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Authors: K. Doi, T. Nishimura, H. Fujimoto, Y. Hoshikawa, T. Wada

Abstract:

Japanese industrial standard (JIS) association established one JIS (JIS S 0021) regarding packaging accessible design for people with visual impairments and elderly people in 2000. Recently, tactile symbol on shampoo bottle has been known as one of package accessible design and more effectively used. However, it has been said that people with visual impairment have been not been in trouble with difficulty of identifying body soap bottle between three bottles such as body soap bottle, shampoo bottle, and conditioner bottle. Japanese low vision association asked JIS association to solve this problem. JIS association and Japan cosmetic industry association constituted one review team for solving the problem. The review team asked our research team to make a proposal regarding new tactile symbol on body soap bottle. We conducted user survey and maker survey regarding tactile symbol on body soap bottle with easily identification. Seven test tactile symbol marks were elected in our proposed tactile symbols. In this study, we evaluate easily identification of tactile symbol on body soap bottle. Six visual impaired subjects were participated in our experiment. These subjects were asked to identify body soap bottle between three bottles such as body soap bottle, shampoo bottle, and conditioner bottle. The test tactile symbol on body soap were presented in random order. The test tactile symbols were produced by use of our originally developed 3D raised equipment. From our study, test tactile symbol marks with easily identification were made a short list of our proposed tactile symbols. This knowledge will be helpful in revision of ISO 11156.

Keywords: tactile symbol, easily identification, body soap, people with visual impairments

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Authors: Tyrus C. Torres, Michael Harris

Abstract:

In a coastal town of Ecuador, the role of women is commonly defined as an ama de casa, a woman who works in the house, raises children, and contributes to the community. This project, under the guidance of Dr. Michael Harris from the Florida Atlantic University, seeks to understand how the role of an ama de casa provides a secure environment for men and women, coexists with economic and environmental constraints that explain the origins of how this environment has been formed. The coastal community aspects of familia (family), trabajo (work), relación (relationships), machismo (masculinity), feminista (femininity), and the culture of Ecuador define the ways of life in a coastal setting. This ethnographic research project included the following methodologies: environment mapping, conducting interviews, surveys, participant observation, direct and indirect observations, and integration into daily life. Immersion into the daily life and building relationships with the local people allowed the documentation of intricacies of both the cultural and social spheres. The findings of this research offer insight on how culture, economics, and environment can form female and male agency. Our investigation shows that occupations such as fishermen, laborers, ama de casas, and even students utilize occupational routes to create social agency in the face of economic and environmental constraints in Ecuador.

Keywords: Ecuador, ethnography, gender division of labor, gender roles

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Authors: Jianwei Ma, Diriba Gemechu

Abstract:

In seismic data processing, attenuation of random noise is the basic step to improve quality of data for further application of seismic data in exploration and development in different gas and oil industries. The signal-to-noise ratio of the data also highly determines quality of seismic data. This factor affects the reliability as well as the accuracy of seismic signal during interpretation for different purposes in different companies. To use seismic data for further application and interpretation, we need to improve the signal-to-noise ration while attenuating random noise effectively. To improve the signal-to-noise ration and attenuating seismic random noise by preserving important features and information about seismic signals, we introduce the concept of anisotropic total fractional order denoising algorithm. The anisotropic total fractional order variation model defined in fractional order bounded variation is proposed as a regularization in seismic denoising. The split Bregman algorithm is employed to solve the minimization problem of the anisotropic total fractional order variation model and the corresponding denoising algorithm for the proposed method is derived. We test the effectiveness of theproposed method for synthetic and real seismic data sets and the denoised result is compared with F-X deconvolution and non-local means denoising algorithm.

Keywords: anisotropic total fractional order variation, fractional order bounded variation, seismic random noise attenuation, split Bregman algorithm

Procedia PDF Downloads 207