Search results for: William Huang
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 763

Search results for: William Huang

403 Extraction of Road Edge Lines from High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images Based on Energy Function and Snake Model

Authors: Zuoji Huang, Haiming Qian, Chunlin Wang, Jinyan Sun, Nan Xu

Abstract:

In this paper, the strategy to extract double road edge lines from acquired road stripe image was explored. The workflow is as follows: the road stripes are acquired by probabilistic boosting tree algorithm and morphological algorithm immediately, and road centerlines are detected by thinning algorithm, so the initial road edge lines can be acquired along the road centerlines. Then we refine the results with big variation of local curvature of centerlines. Specifically, the energy function of edge line is constructed by gradient feature and spectral information, and Dijkstra algorithm is used to optimize the initial road edge lines. The Snake model is constructed to solve the fracture problem of intersection, and the discrete dynamic programming algorithm is used to solve the model. After that, we could get the final road network. Experiment results show that the strategy proposed in this paper can be used to extract the continuous and smooth road edge lines from high-resolution remote sensing images with an accuracy of 88% in our study area.

Keywords: road edge lines extraction, energy function, intersection fracture, Snake model

Procedia PDF Downloads 318
402 Sea-Land Segmentation Method Based on the Transformer with Enhanced Edge Supervision

Authors: Lianzhong Zhang, Chao Huang

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Sea-land segmentation is a basic step in many tasks such as sea surface monitoring and ship detection. The existing sea-land segmentation algorithms have poor segmentation accuracy, and the parameter adjustments are cumbersome and difficult to meet actual needs. Also, the current sea-land segmentation adopts traditional deep learning models that use Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). At present, the transformer architecture has achieved great success in the field of natural images, but its application in the field of radar images is less studied. Therefore, this paper proposes a sea-land segmentation method based on the transformer architecture to strengthen edge supervision. It uses a self-attention mechanism with a gating strategy to better learn relative position bias. Meanwhile, an additional edge supervision branch is introduced. The decoder stage allows the feature information of the two branches to interact, thereby improving the edge precision of the sea-land segmentation. Based on the Gaofen-3 satellite image dataset, the experimental results show that the method proposed in this paper can effectively improve the accuracy of sea-land segmentation, especially the accuracy of sea-land edges. The mean IoU (Intersection over Union), edge precision, overall precision, and F1 scores respectively reach 96.36%, 84.54%, 99.74%, and 98.05%, which are superior to those of the mainstream segmentation models and have high practical application values.

Keywords: SAR, sea-land segmentation, deep learning, transformer

Procedia PDF Downloads 140
401 Evaluation of Ecological Resilience in Mountain-plain Transition Zones: A Case Study of Dujiangyan City, Chengdu

Authors: Zhu Zhizheng, Huang Yong, Li Tong

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In the context of land and space development and resource environmental protection. Due to its special geographical location, mountain-plain transition zones are limited by many factors such as topography, mountain forest protection, etc., and their ecology is also more sensitive, with the characteristics of disaster susceptibility and resource gradient. Taking Dujiangyan City, Chengdu as an example, this paper establishes resilience evaluation indicators on the basis of ecological suitability evaluation through the analysis of current situation data and relevant policies: water conservation evaluation, soil and water conservation evaluation, biodiversity evaluation, soil erosion sensitivity evaluation, etc. Based on GIS spatial analysis, the ecological suitability and resilience evaluation results of Dujiangyan city were obtained by disjunction operation. The ecological resilience level of Dujiangyan city was divided into three categories: high, medium and low, with an area ratio of 50.81%, 16.4% and 32.79%, respectively. This paper can provide ideas for solving the contradiction between man and land in the mountain-plain transition zones, and also provide a certain basis for the construction of regional ecological protection and the delineation of three zones and three lines.

Keywords: urban and rural planning, ecological resilience, dujiangyan city, mountain-plain transition zones

Procedia PDF Downloads 88
400 A Robust and Adaptive Unscented Kalman Filter for the Air Fine Alignment of the Strapdown Inertial Navigation System/GPS

Authors: Jian Shi, Baoguo Yu, Haonan Jia, Meng Liu, Ping Huang

Abstract:

Adapting to the flexibility of war, a large number of guided weapons launch from aircraft. Therefore, the inertial navigation system loaded in the weapon needs to undergo an alignment process in the air. This article proposes the following methods to the problem of inaccurate modeling of the system under large misalignment angles, the accuracy reduction of filtering caused by outliers, and the noise changes in GPS signals: first, considering the large misalignment errors of Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS)/GPS, a more accurate model is made rather than to make a small-angle approximation, and the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) algorithms are used to estimate the state; then, taking into account the impact of GPS noise changes on the fine alignment algorithm, the innovation adaptive filtering algorithm is introduced to estimate the GPS’s noise in real-time; at the same time, in order to improve the anti-interference ability of the air fine alignment algorithm, a robust filtering algorithm based on outlier detection is combined with the air fine alignment algorithm to improve the robustness of the algorithm. The algorithm can improve the alignment accuracy and robustness under interference conditions, which is verified by simulation.

Keywords: air alignment, fine alignment, inertial navigation system, integrated navigation system, UKF

Procedia PDF Downloads 130
399 Water Droplet Impact on Vibrating Rigid Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Authors: Jingcheng Ma, Patricia B. Weisensee, Young H. Shin, Yujin Chang, Junjiao Tian, William P. King, Nenad Miljkovic

Abstract:

Water droplet impact on surfaces is a ubiquitous phenomenon in both nature and industry. The transfer of mass, momentum and energy can be influenced by the time of contact between droplet and surface. In order to reduce the contact time, we study the influence of substrate motion prior to impact on the dynamics of droplet recoil. Using optical high speed imaging, we investigated the impact dynamics of macroscopic water droplets (~ 2mm) on rigid nanostructured superhydrophobic surfaces vibrating at 60 – 300 Hz and amplitudes of 0 – 3 mm. In addition, we studied the influence of the phase of the substrate at the moment of impact on total contact time. We demonstrate that substrate vibration can alter droplet dynamics, and decrease total contact time by as much as 50% compared to impact on stationary rigid superhydrophobic surfaces. Impact analysis revealed that the vibration frequency mainly affected the maximum contact time, while the amplitude of vibration had little direct effect on the contact time. Through mathematical modeling, we show that the oscillation amplitude influences the possibility density function of droplet impact at a given phase, and thus indirectly influences the average contact time. We also observed more vigorous droplet splashing and breakup during impact at larger amplitudes. Through semi-empirical mathematical modeling, we describe the relationship between contact time and vibration frequency, phase, and amplitude of the substrate. We also show that the maximum acceleration during the impact process is better suited as a threshold parameter for the onset of splashing than a Weber-number criterion. This study not only provides new insights into droplet impact physics on vibrating surfaces, but develops guidelines for the rational design of surfaces to achieve controllable droplet wetting in applications utilizing vibration.

Keywords: contact time, impact dynamics, oscillation, pear-shape droplet

Procedia PDF Downloads 434
398 Study on Security and Privacy Issues of Mobile Operating Systems Based on Malware Attacks

Authors: Huang Dennis, Aurelio Aziel, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

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Nowadays, smartphones and mobile operating systems have been popularly widespread in our daily lives. As people use smartphones, they tend to store more private and essential data on their devices, because of this it is very important to develop more secure mobile operating systems and cloud storage to secure the data. However, several factors can cause security risks in mobile operating systems such as malware, malicious app, phishing attacks, ransomware, and more, all of which can cause a big problem for users as they can access the user's private data. Those problems can cause data loss, financial loss, identity theft, and other serious consequences. Other than that, during the pandemic, people will use their mobile devices more and do all sorts of transactions online, which may lead to more victims of online scams and inexperienced users being the target. With the increase in attacks, researchers have been actively working to develop several countermeasures to enhance the security of operating systems. This study aims to provide an overview of the security and privacy issues in mobile operating systems, identifying the potential risk of operating systems, and the possible solutions. By examining these issues, we want to provide an easy understanding to users and researchers to improve knowledge and develop more secure mobile operating systems.

Keywords: mobile operating system, security, privacy, Malware

Procedia PDF Downloads 52
397 Performance of On-site Earthquake Early Warning Systems for Different Sensor Locations

Authors: Ting-Yu Hsu, Shyu-Yu Wu, Shieh-Kung Huang, Hung-Wei Chiang, Kung-Chun Lu, Pei-Yang Lin, Kuo-Liang Wen

Abstract:

Regional earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are not suitable for Taiwan, as most destructive seismic hazards arise due to in-land earthquakes. These likely cause the lead-time provided by regional EEW systems before a destructive earthquake wave arrives to become null. On the other hand, an on-site EEW system can provide more lead-time at a region closer to an epicenter, since only seismic information of the target site is required. Instead of leveraging the information of several stations, the on-site system extracts some P-wave features from the first few seconds of vertical ground acceleration of a single station and performs a prediction of the oncoming earthquake intensity at the same station according to these features. Since seismometers could be triggered by non-earthquake events such as a passing of a truck or other human activities, to reduce the likelihood of false alarms, a seismometer was installed at three different locations on the same site and the performance of the EEW system for these three sensor locations were discussed. The results show that the location on the ground of the first floor of a school building maybe a good choice, since the false alarms could be reduced and the cost for installation and maintenance is the lowest.

Keywords: earthquake early warning, on-site, seismometer location, support vector machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 220
396 A Study on the Stabilization of the Swell Behavior of Basic Oxygen Furnace Slag by Using Geopolymer Technology

Authors: K. Y. Lin, W. H. Lee, T. W. Cheng, S. W. Huang

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Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) Slag is a by-product of iron making. It has great engineering properties, such as, high hardness and density, high compressive strength, low abrasion ratio, and can replace natural aggregate for building materials. However, the main problem for BOF slag is expansion, due to it contains free lime or free magnesium. The purpose of this study was to stabilize the BOF slag by using geopolymeric technology, hoping can prevent BOF slag expansion. Geopolymer processes contain a large amount of free silicon. These free silicon can react with free-lime or free magnesium oxide in BOF slag, and thus to form stable compound, therefore inhibit the expansion of the BOF slag. In this study for the successful preparation of geopolymer mortar with BOF slag, and their main properties are analyzed with regard to their use as building materials. Autoclave is used to study the volume stability of these geopolymer mortar. Finally, the compressive strength of geopolymer mortar with BOF slag can be reached 33MPa in 28 days. After autoclave testing, the volume expansion does not exceed 0.2%. Even after the autoclave test, the compressive strength can increase to 35MPa. According to the research results can be proved that using geopolymer technology for stabilizing BOF slag is very effective.

Keywords: BOF slag, autoclave test, geopolymer, swell behavior

Procedia PDF Downloads 109
395 The Influence of C Element on the Phase Transformation in Weldment of Complex Stainless Steels 2507/316/316L

Authors: Lin Dong-Yih, Yang S. M., Huang B. W., Lian J. A.

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Super duplex stainless steel has excellent mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. It becomes important structural material as its application has been extended to the fields such as renewable energy and the chemical industry because of its excellent properties. As examples are offshore wind power, solar cell machinery, and pipes in the chemical industry. The mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of super duplex stainless steel can be eliminated by welding due to the precipitation of the hard and brittle σ phase, which is rich of chromium, and molybdenum elements. This paper studies the influence of carbon element on the phase transformation of -ferrite and σ phase in 2507 super duplex stainless steel. The 2507 will be under argon gas protection welded with 316 and 316L extra low carbon stainless steel separately. The microstructural phases of stainless steels before and after welding, in fusion, heat affected zones, and base material will be studied via X-ray, OM, SEM, EPMA i.e. their quantity, size, distribution, and morphology. The influences of diffusion by carbon element will be compared according to the microstructures, hardness, and corrosion tests.

Keywords: complex stainless steel, welding, phase formation, carbon element, sigma phase, delta ferrite

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394 Identification of the Microalgae Species in a Wild Mix Culture Acclimated to Landfill Leachate and Ammonia Removal Performances in a Microbubble Assisted Photobioreactor

Authors: Neslihan Ozman Say, Jim Gilmour, Pratik Desai, William Zimmerman

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Landfill leachate treatment has been attracting researchers recently for various environmental and economical reasons. Leachate discharge to receiving waterbodies without treatment causes serious detrimental effects including partial oxygen depletion due to high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentrations besides toxicity of heavy metals it contains and high ammonia concentrations. In this study, it is aimed to show microalgal ammonia removal performances of a wild microalgae consortia as an alternative treatment method and determine the dominant leachate tolerant species for this consortia. For the microalgae species identification experiments a microalgal consortium which has been isolated from a local pond in Sheffield inoculated in %5 diluted raw landfill leachate and acclimated to the leachate by batch feeding for a month. In order to determine the most tolerant microalgal consortium, four different untreated landfill leachate samples have been used as diluted in four different ratios as 5%, 10%, 20%, and 40%. Microalgae cell samples have been collected from all experiment sets and have been examined by using 18S rDNA sequencing and specialised gel electrophoresis which are adapted molecular biodiversity methods. The best leachate tolerant algal consortium is being used in order to determine ammonia removal performances of the culture in a microbubble assisted photobioreactor (PBR). A porous microbubble diffuser which is supported by a fluidic oscillator is being used for dosing CO₂ and air mixture in the PBR. It is known that high mass transfer performance of microbubble technology provides a better removal efficiency and a better mixing in the photobioreactor. Ammonia concentrations and microalgal growth are being monitored for PBR currently. It is aimed to present all the results of the study in final paper submission.

Keywords: ammonia removal from leachate, landfill leachate treatment, microalgae species identification, microbubble assisted photobioreactors

Procedia PDF Downloads 130
393 Application of a Generalized Additive Model to Reveal the Relations between the Density of Zooplankton with Other Variables in the West Daya Bay, China

Authors: Weiwen Li, Hao Huang, Chengmao You, Jianji Liao, Lei Wang, Lina An

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Zooplankton are a central issue in the ecology which makes a great contribution to maintaining the balance of an ecosystem. It is critical in promoting the material cycle and energy flow within the ecosystems. A generalized additive model (GAM) was applied to analyze the relationships between the density (individuals per m³) of zooplankton and other variables in West Daya Bay. All data used in this analysis (the survey month, survey station (longitude and latitude), the depth of the water column, the superficial concentration of chlorophyll a, the benthonic concentration of chlorophyll a, the number of zooplankton species and the number of zooplankton species) were collected through monthly scientific surveys during January to December 2016. GLM model (generalized linear model) was used to choose the significant variables’ impact on the density of zooplankton, and the GAM was employed to analyze the relationship between the density of zooplankton and the significant variables. The results showed that the density of zooplankton increased with an increase of the benthonic concentration of chlorophyll a, but decreased with a decrease in the depth of the water column. Both high numbers of zooplankton species and the overall total number of zooplankton individuals led to a higher density of zooplankton.

Keywords: density, generalized linear model, generalized additive model, the West Daya Bay, zooplankton

Procedia PDF Downloads 117
392 Stack Overflow Detection and Prevention on Operating Systems Using Machine Learning and Control-Flow Enforcement Technology

Authors: Cao Jiayu, Lan Ximing, Huang Jingjia, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

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The first virus to attack personal computers was born in early 1986, called C-Brain, written by a pair of Pakistani brothers. In those days, people still used dos systems, manipulating computers with the most basic command lines. In the 21st century today, computer performance has grown geometrically. But computer viruses are also evolving and escalating. We never stop fighting against security problems. Stack overflow is one of the most common security vulnerabilities in operating systems. It may result in serious security issues for an operating system if a program in it has a vulnerability with administrator privileges. Certain viruses change the value of specific memory through a stack overflow, allowing computers to run harmful programs. This study developed a mechanism to detect and respond to time whenever a stack overflow occurs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of standard machine learning algorithms and control flow enforcement techniques in predicting computer OS security using generating suspicious vulnerability functions (SVFS) and associated suspect areas (SAS). The method can minimize the possibility of stack overflow attacks occurring.

Keywords: operating system, security, stack overflow, buffer overflow, machine learning, control-flow enforcement technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 92
391 A Building Structure Health Monitoring DeviceBased on Cost Effective 1-Axis Accelerometers

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

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

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

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390 Public Health Infrastructure Resilience in the Face of Natural Disasters in Rwanda

Authors: Jessy Rugeyo, William Donner

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This research delves into the resilience of Rwanda's public health infrastructure amidst natural disasters, a critical issue given that the Northern Province alone has witnessed no fewer than 1500 cases of disaster ranging from floods and landslides in the last five years, with more than 200 people killed and thousands of homes destroyed, according to MINEMA. In an era where climate change escalates the frequency and intensity of such disasters, fortifying the resilience of public health systems is paramount. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of the existing state of Rwanda's public health infrastructure and its ability to manage such crises. Employing a mix of literature review, case studies, and policy analysis, the study discerns key vulnerabilities and brings to light the intricacies of disaster management in Rwanda. Case studies centered around past natural disasters in Rwanda provide critical insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the existing disaster response mechanisms. A thorough critique of related disaster management and public health infrastructure policies reveals areas of commendable practice, along with gaps calling for policy enhancements. Findings guide the proposition of targeted strategies to bolster the resilience of Rwanda's public health infrastructure. This research serves as a significant contribution to the domains of disaster studies and public health, offering valuable insights for policymakers, public health and disaster management professionals in Rwanda and similar contexts. It presents actionable recommendations for improvement, underscoring the potential for enhancing Rwanda's disaster management capacity. By advocating for the strengthening of public health infrastructure resilience, the research highlights the potential for improved public health outcomes following natural disasters, thereby showcasing significant implications for public health and disaster management in the country, particularly in the face of a changing climate.

Keywords: public health infrastructure, disaster resilience, natural disaster, disaster management, emergency preparedness, health policy

Procedia PDF Downloads 56
389 The Influence of Attachment Style on Sexual Health Beliefs and Risk of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) In Chinese Women

Authors: Luo Lan, Huang Jingjing, Li Huafang

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Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) was common in China, and Chinese women's sexual health-seeking behaviors were found to be mainly impeded by their psychological barriers. However, underlying mechanisms for such unhealthy sexual health attitudes and symptoms of HSDD were unknown. Many studies suggested the correlation between women's psychological barriers, HSDD and attachment style but had limitations, so this study further explored their relationship. Chinese women of childbearing age were recruited from May 2020 to December 2022 in Shanghai, China. The Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS), the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), the Female Sexual Distress Scale-Desire/Arousal/Orgasm (FSDS-DAO), a sexual health attitude questionnaire, and a psychiatric interview were administered. The analytic sample contained 279 women, of which 107 women were HSDD patients. Women with a fearful attachment style were found to be more likely to be unwilling to communicate sexual health (aOR 2.55, 95%CI 1.05-6.28) and feel ashamed of sexual health-related disorders (aOR 2.66, 95%CI 1.14-6.13). They are also linked with a higher risk of HSDD (aOR 3.25, 95%CI 1.35-8.12). Therefore, fearful attachment style should be given enough attention in the whole process of the diagnosis and treatment of HSDD and should be one of the focuses that guide sexual education.

Keywords: attachment style, hypoactive sexual desire disorder, attitude to health, sexual desire, sexual distress

Procedia PDF Downloads 136
388 Analyzing Doctors’ Knowledge of the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officer's Guidelines for Physical Activity: Survey of Secondary Care Doctors in a District General Hospital

Authors: Alexandra Von Guionneau, William Sloper, Charlotte Burford

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The benefits of exercise for the prevention and management of chronic disease are well established and the importance of primary care practitioners in promoting exercise is becoming increasingly recognized. However, those with severe manifestations of the chronic disease are managed in a secondary care setting. Secondary care practitioners, therefore, have a role to play in promoting physical activity. Methods: In order to assess secondary care doctors’ knowledge of the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for physical activity, a 12-question survey was administered to staff working in a district general hospital in South England during team and unit meetings. Questions related to knowledge of the current guidelines for both 19 - 64 year olds and older adults (65 years and above), barriers to exercise discussion or prescription and doctors’ own exercise habits. Responses were collected anonymously and analyzed using SPSS Version 24.0. Results: 96 responses were collected. Doctors taking part in the survey ranged from foundation years (26%) to consultants (40%). 17.7% of participants knew the guidelines for moderate intensity activity for 19 - 64 year olds. Only one participant knew all of the guidance for both 19 - 64 year olds and older adults. While 71.6% of doctors felt they were adequately informed about how to exercise, only 45.6% met the minimum recommended guidance for moderate intensity activity. Conclusion: More work is needed to promote the physical activity guidelines and exercise prescription to doctors working within a secondary care setting. In addition, doctors require more support to personally meet the recommended minimum level of physical activity.

Keywords: exercise is medicine, exercise prescription, physical activity guidelines, exercise habits

Procedia PDF Downloads 225
387 Applying Cognitive Psychology to Education: Translational Educational Science

Authors: Hammache Nadir

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The scientific study of human learning and memory is now more than 125 years old. Psychologists have conducted thousands of experiments, correlational analyses, and field studies during this time, in addition to other research conducted by those from neighboring fields. A huge knowledge base has been carefully built up over the decades. Given this backdrop, we may ask ourselves: What great changes in education have resulted from this huge research base? How has the scientific study of learning and memory changed practices in education from those of, say, a century ago? Have we succeeded in building a translational educational science to rival medical science (in which biological knowledge is translated into medical practice) or types of engineering (in which, e.g., basic knowledge in chemistry is translated into products through chemical engineering)? The answer, I am afraid, is rather mixed. Psychologists and psychological research have influenced educational practice, but in fits and starts. After all, some of the great founders of American psychology—William James, Edward L. Thorndike, John Dewey, and others—are also revered as important figures in the history of education. And some psychological research and ideas have made their way into education—for instance, computer-based cognitive tutors for some specific topics have been developed in recent years—and in years past, such practices as teaching machines, programmed learning, and, in higher education, the Keller Plan were all important. These older practices have not been sustained. Was that because they failed or because of a lack of systematic research showing they were effective? At any rate, in 2012, we cannot point to a well-developed translational educational science in which research about learning and memory, thinking and reasoning, and related topics is moved from the lab into controlled field trials (like clinical trials in medicine) and the tested techniques, if they succeed, are introduced into broad educational practice. We are just not there yet, and one question that arises is how we could achieve a translational educational science.

Keywords: affective, education, cognition, pshychology

Procedia PDF Downloads 322
386 Allostatic Load as a Predictor of Adolescents’ Executive Function: A Longitudinal Network Analysis

Authors: Sipu Guo, Silin Huang

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Background: Most studies investigate the link between executive function and allostatic load (AL) among adults aged 18 years and older. Studies differed regarding the specific biological indicators studied and executive functions accounted for. Specific executive functions may be differentially related to allostatic load. We investigated the comorbidities of executive functions and allostatic load via network analysis. Methods: We included 603 adolescents (49.84% girls; Mean age = 12.38, SD age = 1.79) from junior high school in rural China. Eight biological markers at T1 and four executive function tasks at T2 were used to evaluate networks. Network analysis was used to determine the network structure, core symptoms, and bridge symptoms in the AL-executive function network among rural adolescents. Results: The executive functions were related to 6 AL biological markers, not to cortisol and epinephrine. The most influential symptoms were inhibition control, cognitive flexibility, processing speed, and systolic blood pressure (SBP). SBP, dehydroepiandrosterone, and processing speed were the bridges through which AL was related to executive functions. dehydroepiandrosterone strongly predicted processing speed. The SBP was the biggest influencer in the entire network. Conclusions: We found evidence for differential relations between markers and executive functions. SBP was a driver in the network; dehydroepiandrosterone showed strong relations with executive function.

Keywords: allostatic load, executive function, network analysis, rural adolescent

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385 Multidisciplinary Training of Social Work and Applied Drama: From the Perspective of the Third Space

Authors: Yen Yi Huang

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This paper aims to explore the application of strategies in applied drama to the social work education arena in order to enhance students' creativity, curiosity, and aesthetic sensitivity. Also, applied drama is used as a means to facilitate students' reflection-in-action and improve their understanding of issues on creative aging, gender equality, human rights, bullying, and prejudice. This paper mainly uses the perspective of Homi K. Bhabha's third space to explore the impact of applied drama and social work training on students. First, it focuses on how students create new understandings and insights in the third space of multidisciplinary training studies. Second, it analyzes how the hybridity and negotiation of ideas between applied drama and social work were created. Finally, it discusses the follow-up effects of the training and the factors that promote or hinder the hybridity and generation of the third space. This paper uses students' reflection papers for analysis. It is not focused on a discussion of the effectiveness of the teaching but attempts to bring new insights into the applications of applied drama to the social work education arena. The hybridity and generation of the third space require handling power strategically and looking after the emotional space of the students. Taking part in the training allows students in the third space of multidisciplinary training to reexamine the traditional framework of social work knowledge to create new ideas and possibilities.

Keywords: multidisciplinary, applied drama, social work education, third space

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384 An Analytical Study on the Politics of Defection in India

Authors: Diya Sarkar, Prafulla C. Mishra

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In a parliamentary system, party discipline is the impulse; when it falls short, the government usually falls. Conceivably, the platform of Indian politics suffers with innumerous practical disorders. The politics of defection is one such specie entailing gross miscarriage of fair conduct turning politics into a game of thrones (powers). This practice of political nomaditude can trace its seed in the womb of British House of Commons. Therein, if a legislator was found to cross the floor, the party considered him disloyal. In other words, the legislator lost his allegiance to his former party by joining another party. This very phenomenon, in practice has a two way traffic i.e. ruling party to the opposition party or vice versa. The democracies like USA, Australia and Canada were also aware of this fashion of swapping loyalties. There have been several instances of great politicians changing party allegiance, for example Winston Churchill, Ramsay McDonald, William Gladstone etc. Nevertheless, it is interesting to cite that irrespective of such practice of changing party allegiance, none of the democracies in the west ever desired or felt the need to legislatively ban defections. But, exceptionally India can be traced to have passed anti-defection laws. The politics of defection had been a unique popular phenomenon on the floor of Indian Parliamentary system gradually gulping the democratic essence and synchronization of the Federation. This study is both analytical and doctrinal, which tries to examine whether representative democracy has lost its essence due to political nomadism. The present study also analyzes the classical as well as contemporary pulse of floor crossing amidst dynastic politics in a representative democracy. It will briefly discuss the panorama of defections under the Indian federal structure in the light of the anti-defection law and an attempt has been made to add valuable suggestions to streamline remedy for the still prevalent political defections.

Keywords: constitutional law, defection, democracy, polarization, political anti-trust

Procedia PDF Downloads 351
383 Optimization of Double-Layered Microchannel Heat Sinks

Authors: Tu-Chieh Hung, Wei-Mon Yan, Xiao-Dong Wang, Yu-Xian Huang

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This work employs a combined optimization procedure including a simplified conjugate-gradient method and a three-dimensional fluid flow and heat transfer model to study the optimal geometric parameter design of double-layered microchannel heat sinks. The overall thermal resistance RT is the objective function to be minimized with number of channels, N, the channel width ratio, β, the bottom channel aspect ratio, αb, and upper channel aspect ratio, αu, as the search variables. It is shown that, for the given bottom area (10 mm×10 mm) and heat flux (100 W cm-2), the optimal (minimum) thermal resistance of double-layered microchannel heat sinks is about RT=0.12 ℃/m2W with the corresponding optimal geometric parameters N=73, β=0.50, αb=3.52, and, αu= 7.21 under a constant pumping power of 0.05 W. The optimization process produces a maximum reduction by 52.8% in the overall thermal resistance compared with an initial guess (N=112, β=0.37, αb=10.32 and, αu=10.93). The results also show that the optimal thermal resistance decreases rapidly with the pumping power and tends to be a saturated value afterward. The corresponding optimal values of parameters N, αb, and αu increase while that of β decrease as the pumping power increases. However, further increasing pumping power is not always cost-effective for the application of heat sink designs.

Keywords: optimization, double-layered microchannel heat sink, simplified conjugate-gradient method, thermal resistance

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382 The Intention to Use Telecare in People of Fall Experience: Application of Fuzzy Neural Network

Authors: Jui-Chen Huang, Shou-Hsiung Cheng

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This study examined their willingness to use telecare for people who have had experience falling in the last three months in Taiwan. This study adopted convenience sampling and a structural questionnaire to collect data. It was based on the definition and the constructs related to the Health Belief Model (HBM). HBM is comprised of seven constructs: perceived benefits (PBs), perceived disease threat (PDT), perceived barriers of taking action (PBTA), external cues to action (ECUE), internal cues to action (ICUE), attitude toward using (ATT), and behavioral intention to use (BI). This study adopted Fuzzy Neural Network (FNN) to put forward an effective method. It shows the dependence of ATT on PB, PDT, PBTA, ECUE, and ICUE. The training and testing data RMSE (root mean square error) are 0.028 and 0.166 in the FNN, respectively. The training and testing data RMSE are 0.828 and 0.578 in the regression model, respectively. On the other hand, as to the dependence of ATT on BI, as presented in the FNN, the training and testing data RMSE are 0.050 and 0.109, respectively. The training and testing data RMSE are 0.529 and 0.571 in the regression model, respectively. The results show that the FNN method is better than the regression analysis. It is an effective and viable good way.

Keywords: fall, fuzzy neural network, health belief model, telecare, willingness

Procedia PDF Downloads 160
381 Male Versatile Sexual Offenders in Taiwan

Authors: Huang Yueh Chen, Sheng Ang Shen

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Purpose: Sexual assault has always been a highly anticipated crime in Taiwan. People assume that the career of sexual offenders tends to be highly specialized. This study hopes to analyze the crime career and risk factors of offenders by means of another classification. Methods: A total of 145 sexual offenders were sentenced on the parole or expiration date from 2009 to 2011, through analysis of official existing documents such as ‘Re-infringement risk assessment report’ and ‘case assessment report’. Results: The section ‘Various Types of Crimes ‘ of criminal career is analyzed. The highest number of ‘ versatile sexual offender’ followed by ‘adult sexual offender’ is about 2.5, representing more than 1.5 kinds of non-sex crimes besides sexual crimes. Different specialized sexual offenders have had extensive experience in the ‘Sexual Assault Experiences in Children and School’, ‘Static 99 Levels’, ‘Pre-Commuted Substance Use’, ‘Excited Deviant Sexual Behavior’, ‘Various Types of Crimes,’ and ‘Sexual Crime in Forerunner’ , ‘Type of Index Crime’ and other projects to achieve significant differences. Conclusions: Resources continue to be devoted to specialized offenders, the character of first-time sexual offender depends on further research and makes the public aware of the different assumptions of diversified offenders from traditional professional offenses that reduce unnecessary panic in society.

Keywords: versatile sexual offender, specialized sexual offender, criminal career, risk factor

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380 The Modulation of Self-interest Instruction on the Fair-Proposing Behavior in Ultimatum Game

Authors: N. S. Yen, T. H. Yang, W. H. Huang, Y. F. Fang, H. W. Cho

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Ultimatum game is an experimental paradigm to study human decision making. There are two players, a proposer and a responder, to split a fixed amount of money. According to the traditional economic theory on ultimatum game, proposer should propose the selfish offers to responder as much as possible to maximize proposer’s own outcomes. However, most evidences had showed that people chose more fair offers, hence two hypotheses – fairness favoring and strategic concern were proposed. In current study, we induced the motivation in participants to be either selfish or altruistic, and manipulated the task variables, the stake sizes (NT$100, 1000, 10000) and the share sizes (the 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% of the sum as selfish offers, and the 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% of the sum as altruistic offers), to examine the two hypotheses. The results showed that most proposers chose more fair offers with longer reaction times (RTs) no matter in choosing between the fair and selfish offers, or between the fair and altruistic offers. However, the proposers received explicit self-interest instruction chose more selfish offers accompanied with longer RTs in choosing between the fair and selfish offers. Therefore, the results supported the strategic concern hypothesis that previous proposers choosing the fair offers might be resulted from the fear of rejection by responders. Proposers would become more self-interest if the fear of being rejected is eliminated.

Keywords: ultimatum game, proposer, self-interest, fear of rejection

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379 Ecocriticism and Sustainable Development: A Study of Kamila Shamsie's a God in Every Stone

Authors: Shaista Maseeh

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English Literature from the beginning itself has had psychological, social and environment concerns. Virgil, Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth to the most current Robert Hass have shown and proved their environmental and ecological interests as well as distress related to its loss. Pastoral literature is also one such genre that links literature with environment. Thanks to the contemporary literary theories that they successfully are relating Literature formally to the subjects other than written text. One of such literary theory is 'Ecocriticism.' It stands under the umbrella of the Economics term, Sustainable Development,' or it can also be understood as an ecological extension of it. Ecocriticism helps the reader to study the dynamic relation between literature and our degrading environment. It draws attention towards the ravaged condition of nature and animals, that how nature is exploited by human beings for their own benefit leaving nature at a repairable loss. For instance, deforestation is reducing the size of forest every year, injuring permanently flora, fauna and also the habitat of animals. This paper will study the ecological and environmental concerns in the latest novel by Pakistani British writer Kamila Shamsie, A God in every Stone (2014). The book is not only a literary masterpiece in elegant prose, but also a novel posing a lot of questions about 'nature and environment' in general and 'animals' in particular. It gives the glimpses of the interesting history of Temple of Zeus in Greece and Ancient Caria, and covers many episodes of history the Indian freedom struggle. In course of novel's narrative Kamila Shamsie poses disturbing question about environmental abuse, about how human beings are more 'beasts' than so call beasts, poor animals. She also glorifies the simplicity of past. The novel has enough instances to prove Shamsie's positive stand on saving the earth that is being more abused than used by human beings. This paper will provide an ecocritical approach to study A God in Every Stone (2014).

Keywords: animals, ecocriticism, environment, nature

Procedia PDF Downloads 385
378 A Leader-Follower Kinematic-Based Control System for a Cable-Driven Hyper-Redundant Manipulator

Authors: Abolfazl Zaraki, Yoshikatsu Hayashi, Harry Thorpe, Vincent Strong, Gisle-Andre Larsen, William Holderbaum

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Thanks to the high maneuverability of the cable-driven hyper-redundant manipulators (HRMs), this class of robots has shown a superior capability in highly confined and unstructured space applications. Although the large number of degrees of freedom (DOF) of HRMs enhances the motion flexibility and the robot’s reachability range, it highly increases the complexity of the kinematic configuration which makes the kinematic control problem very challenging or even impossible to solve. This paper presents our current progress achieved on the development of a kinematic-based leader-follower control system which is designed to control not only the robot’s body posture but also to control the trajectory of the robot’s movement in a semi-autonomous manner (the human operator is retained in the robot’s control loop). To obtain the forward kinematic model, the coordinate frames are established by the classical Denavit–Hartenburg (D-H) convention for a hyper-redundant serial manipulator which has a controlled cables-driven mechanism. To solve the inverse kinematics of the robot, unlike the conventional methods, a leader-follower mechanism, based on the sequential inverse kinematic, is followed. Using this mechanism, the inverse kinematic problem is solved for all sequential joints starting from the head joint to the base joint of the robot. To verify the kinematic design and simulate the robot motion, the MATLAB robotic toolbox is used. The simulation result demonstrated the promising capability of the proposed leader-follower control system in controlling the robot motion and trajectory in our confined space application.

Keywords: hyper-redundant robots, kinematic analysis, semi-autonomous control, serial manipulators

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377 Reliability and Validity of Determining Ventilatory Threshold and Respiratory Compensation Point by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Authors: Tso-Yen Mao, De-Yen Liu, Chun-Feng Huang

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Purpose: This research intends to investigate the reliability and validity of ventilatory threshold (VT) and respiratory compensation point (RCP) determined by skeletal muscle hemodynamic status. Methods: One hundred healthy male (age: 22±3 yrs; height: 173.1±6.0 cm; weight: 67.1±10.5 kg) performed graded cycling exercise test which ventilatory and skeletal muscle hemodynamic data were collected simultaneously. VT and RCP were determined by combined V-slope (VE vs. VCO2) and ventilatory efficiency (VE/VO2 vs. VE/VCO2) methods. Pearson correlation, paired t-test, and Bland-Altman plots were used to analyze reliability, validity, and similarities. Statistical significance was set at α =. 05. Results: There are high test-retest correlations of VT and RCP in ventilatory or near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) methods (VT vs. VTNIRS: 0.95 vs. 0.94; RCP vs. RCPNIRS: 0.93 vs. 0.93, p<. 05). There are high coefficient of determination at the first timing point of O2Hb decreased (R2 = 0.88, p<. 05) with VT, and high coefficient of determination at the second timing point of O2Hb declined (R2 = 0.89, p< .05) with RCP. VO2 of VT and RCP are not significantly different between ventilatory and NIRS methods (p>. 05). Conclusion: Using NIRS method to determine VT and RCP is reliable and valid in male individuals during graded exercise. Non-invasive skeletal muscle hemodynamics monitor also can be used for controlling training intensity in the future.

Keywords: anaerobic threshold, exercise intensity, hemodynamic, NIRS

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376 The Fishery and Electricity Symbiosis Environment and Social Inspection in Taiwan: The Kaohsiung City Example

Authors: Bing-Shun Huang, Hung-Ju Chiu, Wen-Kai Hsieh, Hsiu-Chuan Lin, Ming-Lung Hung

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Taiwan's solar photovoltaic target in 2025 is 20 GW, of which the fish-electricity symbiosis target is 4 GW. In the future, many solar photovoltaic installations may cause local environmental or social impacts. Therefore, the Taiwan government inspects the fish-electricity symbiosis to reduce the impact of solar photovoltaics on the local environment or society. This stuy takes the symbiosis of fishery and electricity in Kaohsiung City as an example to explore Taiwan's environmental and social inspection practices. It mainly analyzes the two aspects of environmental ecology and social economy. The results show that the environmental inspection is mainly through site surveys, ecological information mapping, on-site interviews, and public consultation meetings. Social inspection mainly includes document analysis, on-site interviews, site surveys, expert discussions, and public consultations to identify possible local problems. Although the government had recognized the local issues, the future status may also change. It is recommended that future photoelectric companies should reconfirm the current situation of development sites when applying for the installation and propose countermeasures to solve the problem.

Keywords: taiwan, fish-electricity symbiosis, environment, society, inspection

Procedia PDF Downloads 171
375 Field-Programmable Gate Arrays Based High-Efficiency Oriented Fast and Rotated Binary Robust Independent Elementary Feature Extraction Method Using Feature Zone Strategy

Authors: Huang Bai-Cheng

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When deploying the Oriented Fast and Rotated Binary Robust Independent Elementary Feature (BRIEF) (ORB) extraction algorithm on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), the access of global storage for 31×31 pixel patches of the features has become the bottleneck of the system efficiency. Therefore, a feature zone strategy has been proposed. Zones are searched as features are detected. Pixels around the feature zones are extracted from global memory and distributed into patches corresponding to feature coordinates. The proposed FPGA structure is targeted on a Xilinx FPGA development board of Zynq UltraScale+ series, and multiple datasets are tested. Compared with the streaming pixel patch extraction method, the proposed architecture obtains at least two times acceleration consuming extra 3.82% Flip-Flops (FFs) and 7.78% Look-Up Tables (LUTs). Compared with the non-streaming one, the proposed architecture saves 22.3% LUT and 1.82% FF, causing a latency of only 0.2ms and a drop in frame rate for 1. Compared with the related works, the proposed strategy and hardware architecture have the superiority of keeping a balance between FPGA resources and performance.

Keywords: feature extraction, real-time, ORB, FPGA implementation

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374 Design and Optimization for a Compliant Gripper with Force Regulation Mechanism

Authors: Nhat Linh Ho, Thanh-Phong Dao, Shyh-Chour Huang, Hieu Giang Le

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This paper presents a design and optimization for a compliant gripper. The gripper is constructed based on the concept of compliant mechanism with flexure hinge. A passive force regulation mechanism is presented to control the grasping force a micro-sized object instead of using a sensor force. The force regulation mechanism is designed using the planar springs. The gripper is expected to obtain a large range of displacement to handle various sized objects. First of all, the statics and dynamics of the gripper are investigated by using the finite element analysis in ANSYS software. And then, the design parameters of the gripper are optimized via Taguchi method. An orthogonal array L9 is used to establish an experimental matrix. Subsequently, the signal to noise ratio is analyzed to find the optimal solution. Finally, the response surface methodology is employed to model the relationship between the design parameters and the output displacement of the gripper. The design of experiment method is then used to analyze the sensitivity so as to determine the effect of each parameter on the displacement. The results showed that the compliant gripper can move with a large displacement of 213.51 mm and the force regulation mechanism is expected to be used for high precision positioning systems.

Keywords: flexure hinge, compliant mechanism, compliant gripper, force regulation mechanism, Taguchi method, response surface methodology, design of experiment

Procedia PDF Downloads 307