Search results for: electronic monitoring

Authors: G. Battistoni, F. Collamati, E. De Lucia, R. Faccini, C. Mancini-Terracciano, M. Marafini, I. Mattei, S. Muraro, V. Patera, A. Sarti, A. Sciubba, E. Solfaroli Camillocci, M. Toppi, G. Traini, S. M. Valle, C. Voena

Abstract:

Accelerated charged particles, mainly protons and carbon ions, are presently used in Particle Therapy (PT) to treat solid tumors. The precision of PT exploiting the charged particle high localized dose deposition in tissues and biological effectiveness in killing cancer cells demands for an online dose monitoring technique, crucial to improve the quality assurance of treatments: possible patient mis-positionings and biological changes with respect to the CT scan could negatively affect the therapy outcome. In PT the beam range confined in the irradiated target can be monitored thanks to the secondary radiation produced by the interaction of the projectiles with the patient tissue. The Dose Profiler (DP) is a novel device designed to track charged secondary particles and reconstruct their longitudinal emission distribution, correlated to the Bragg peak position. The feasibility of this approach has been demonstrated by dedicated experimental measurements. The DP has been developed in the framework of the INSIDE project, MIUR, INFN and Centro Fermi, Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche 'E. Fermi', Roma, Italy and will be tested at the Proton Therapy center of Trento (Italy) within the end of 2017. The DP combines a tracker, made of six layers of two-view scintillating fibers with square cross section (0.5 x 0.5 mm2) with two layers of two-view scintillating bars (section 12.0 x 0.6 mm2). The electronic readout is performed by silicon photomultipliers. The sensitive area of the tracking planes is 20 x 20 cm2. To optimize the detector layout, a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation based on the FLUKA code has been developed. The complete DP geometry and the track reconstruction code have been fully implemented in the MC. In this contribution, the DP hardware will be described. The expected detector performance computed using a dedicated simulation of a 220 MeV/u carbon ion beam impinging on a PMMA target will be presented, and the result will be discussed in the standard clinical application framework. A possible procedure for real-time beam range monitoring is proposed, following the expectations in actual clinical operation.

Keywords: online range monitoring, particle therapy, quality assurance, tracking detector

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Authors: Carmen E. Zapata, José F. Jiménez, Mauricio Ramiréz, Natalia A. Cano

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The majority of the urban areas in Latin America face the challenges associated with city planning and development problems, attributed to human, technical, and economical factors; therefore, we cannot ignore the issues related to climate change because the city modifies the natural landscape in a significant way transforming the radiation balance and heat content in the urbanized areas. These modifications provoke changes in the temperature distribution known as “the heat island effect”. According to this phenomenon, we have the need to conceive the urban planning based on climatological patterns that will assure its sustainable functioning, including the particularities of the climate variability. In the present study, it is identified the Local Climate Zones (LCZ) in the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley (Colombia) with the objective of relocate the air quality monitoring stations as a partial solution to the problem of how to measure representative air quality levels in a city for a local scale, but with instruments that measure in the microscale.

Keywords: air quality, monitoring, local climatic zones, valley, monitoring stations

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Authors: Davit Mirzoyan, Ararat Khachatryan

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A process corner monitoring circuit (PCMC) is presented in this work. The circuit generates a signal, the logical value of which depends on the process corner only. The signal can be used in both digital and analog circuits for testing and compensation of process variations (PV). The presented circuit uses only metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistors, which allow increasing its detection accuracy, decrease power consumption and area. Due to its simplicity the presented circuit can be easily modified to monitor parametrical variations of only n-type and p-type MOS (NMOS and PMOS, respectively) transistors, resistors, as well as their combinations. Post-layout simulation results prove correct functionality of the proposed circuit, i.e. ability to monitor the process corner (equivalently die-to-die variations) even in the presence of within-die variations.

Keywords: detection, monitoring, process corner, process variation

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Authors: Ahcene Boucied

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In this paper, a case study is conducted to analyze the effectiveness of web pages designed in Barbados for the tourism and hospitality industry. The assessment is made from two perspectives: to understand how the Barbados’ tourism industry is using the web, and to identify the effect of information technology on economic issues. In return, this is used: (a) to provide interested parties with accurate information and marketing insight necessary for decision making for electronic commerce/e-commerce, and (b) to demonstrate pragmatic difficulties in searching and designing web pages.

Keywords: segmentation, tourism stakeholders, destination marketing, case study

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Authors: Chao-Linag Hsieh, Zheng-Wei Ye, Chen-Kang Huang, Yeun-Chung Lee, Chih-Hong Sun, Tzai-Hung Wen, Jehn-Yih Juang, Joe-Air Jiang

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Air pollution and climate warming become more and more intensified in many areas, especially in urban areas. Environmental parameters are critical information to air pollution and weather monitoring. Thus, it is necessary to develop a suitable air pollution and weather monitoring system for urban areas. In this study, a vehicle monitoring system (VMS) based on the IoT technique is developed. Cars are selected as the research tool because it can reach a greater number of streets to collect data. The VMS can monitor different environmental parameters, including ambient temperature and humidity, and air quality parameters, including PM2.5, NO₂, CO, and O₃. The VMS can provide other information, including GPS signals and the vibration information through driving a car on the street. Different sensor modules are used to measure the parameters and collect the measured data and transmit them to a cloud server through the LoRa protocol. A user interface is used to show the sensing data storing at the cloud server. To examine the performance of the system, a researcher drove a Nissan x-trail 1998 to the area close to the Da’an District office in Taipei to collect monitoring data. The collected data are instantly shown on the user interface. The four kinds of information are provided by the interface: GPS positions, weather parameters, vehicle information, and air quality information. With the VMS, users can obtain the information regarding air quality and weather conditions when they drive their car to an urban area. Also, government agencies can make decisions on traffic planning based on the information provided by the proposed VMS.

Keywords: LoRa, monitoring system, smart city, vehicle

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Authors: Jonah Kenei, Elisha Opiyo

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Electronic health records, as a repository of patient information, is nowadays the most commonly used technology to record, store and review patient clinical records and perform other clinical tasks. However, the accurate identification and retrieval of relevant information from clinical records is a difficult task due to the unstructured nature of clinical documents, characterized in particular by a lack of clear structure. Therefore, medical practice is facing a challenge thanks to the rapid growth of health information in electronic health records (EHRs), mostly in narrative text form. As a result, it's becoming important to effectively manage the growing amount of data for a single patient. As a result, there is currently a requirement to visualize electronic health records (EHRs) in a way that aids physicians in clinical tasks and medical decision-making. Leveraging text visualization techniques to unstructured clinical narrative texts is a new area of research that aims to provide better information extraction and retrieval to support clinical decision support in scenarios where data generated continues to grow. Clinical datasets in electronic health records (EHR) offer a lot of potential for training accurate statistical models to classify facets of information which can then be used to improve patient care and outcomes. However, in many clinical note datasets, the unstructured nature of clinical texts is a common problem. This paper examines the very issue of getting raw clinical texts and mapping them into meaningful structures that can support healthcare professionals utilizing narrative texts. Our work is the result of a collaborative design process that was aided by empirical data collected through formal usability testing.

Keywords: classification, electronic health records, narrative texts, visualization

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Authors: Amin Hamrahi

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Near Field Communication (NFC) is one of the latest wireless communication technologies. NFC enables electronic devices to communicate in short range using the radio waves. NFC offers safe yet simple communication between electronic devices. This technology provides the fastest way to communicate two device with in a fraction of second. With NFC technology, communication occurs when an NFC-compatible device is brought within a few centimeters of another NFC device. NFC is an open-platform technology that is being standardized in the NFC Forum. NFC is based on and extends on RFID. It operates on 13.56 MHz frequency.

Keywords: near field communication, NFC technology, wireless communication technologies, NFC-compatible device, NFC, communication

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Authors: L. Foudia, K. Haddadi, M. Reffas

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First principles study of structural, elastic, electronic and optical properties of the monoclinic perovskite type ScRhO₃ has been reported using the pseudo-potential plane wave method within the local density approximation. The calculated lattice parameters, including the lattice constants and angle β are in excellent agreement with the available experimental data, which proving the reliability of the chosen theoretical approach. Pressure dependence up to 20 GPa of the single crystal and polycrystalline elastic constants has been investigated in details using the strain-stress approach. The mechanical stability, ductility, average elastic wave velocity, Debye temperature and elastic anisotropy were also assessed. Electronic band structure and density of states (DOS) demonstrated its semiconducting nature showing a direct band gap of 1.38 eV. Furthermore, several optical properties, such as absorption coefficient, reflectivity, refractive index, dielectric function, optical conductivity and electron energy loss function have been calculated for radiation up to 40 eV.

Keywords: ab-initio, perovskite, DFT, band gap.

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Authors: Mst. Tuhin Akter, Sharun Akter Khushbu, S. M. Shaqib

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A real-time system architecture is highly effective for monitoring and detecting various damaged products or fruits that may deteriorate over time or become infected with diseases. Deep learning models have proven to be effective in building such architectures. However, building a deep learning model from scratch is a time-consuming and costly process. A more efficient solution is to utilize deep neural network (DNN) based transfer learning models in the real-time monitoring architecture. This study focuses on using a novel strawberry dataset to develop effective transfer learning models for the proposed real-time monitoring system architecture, specifically for evaluating and detecting strawberry freshness. Several state-of-the-art transfer learning models were employed, and the best performing model was found to be Xception, demonstrating higher performance across evaluation metrics such as accuracy, recall, precision, and F1-score.

Keywords: strawberry freshness evaluation, deep neural network, transfer learning, image augmentation

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Authors: Jiwuer Jilili, Fabrizio Cossu, Udo Schwingenschlogl

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By first-principles calculations we investigate the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of the (LaMnO3)2/(SrTiO3)2 superlattice. We find that a monoclinic C2h symmetry is energetically favorable and that the spins order ferromagnetically. Under both compressive and tensile uniaxial strain the electronic structure of the superlattice shows a half-metallic character. In particular, a fully spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas, which traces back to the Ti 3dxy orbitals, is achieved under compressive uniaxial strain.

Keywords: manganite, strain, 2DEG, superlattice

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Authors: Hassam Ahmed, Yuanzhi Liu, Yassine Selami, Wei Tao, Hui Zhao

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The purpose of this research is to develop a real time axial force measurement system for a smart bearing through the use of strain-gauges, whereby the data acquisition is performed by an Arduino microcontroller due to its easy manipulation and low-cost. The measured signal is acquired and then discretized using a Wheatstone Bridge and an Analog-Digital Converter (ADC) respectively. For bearing monitoring, a real time monitoring system based on Internet of things (IoT) and Bluetooth were developed. Experimental tests were performed on a bearing within a force range up to 600 kN. The experimental results show that there is a proportional linear relationship between the applied force and the output voltage, and the error R squared is within 0.9878 based on the regression analysis.

Keywords: bearing, force measurement, IoT, strain gauge

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Authors: Sakkarin Chingulpitak, Somchai Wongwises

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Over the past several decades, the development of electronic devices has led to higher performance. Therefore, an electronic cooling system is important for the electronic device. A heat sink which is a part of the electronic cooling system is continuously studied in the research field to enhance the heat transfer. To author’s best knowledge, there have been only a few articles which reported the thermal performance of plate-fin heat sink with perforation. This research aims to study on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the solid-fin heat sink (SFHS) and laterally perforated plate-fin heat sink (LAP-PFHS). The SFHS and LAP-PFHSs are investigated on the same fin dimensions. The LAP-PFHSs are performed with a 27 perforation number and two different diameters of circular perforation (3 mm and 5 mm). The experimental study is conducted under various Reynolds numbers from 900 to 2,000 and the heat input of 50W. The experimental results show that the LAP-PFHS with perforation diameter of 5 mm gives the minimum thermal resistance about 25% lower than SFHS. The thermal performance factor which takes into account the ratio of the Nusselt number and ratio of friction factor is used to find the suitable design parameters. The experimental results show that the LAP-PFHS with the perforation diameter of 3 mm provides the thermal performance of 15% greater than SFHS. In addition, the simulation study is presented to investigate the effect of the air flow behavior inside the perforation on the thermal performance of LAP-PFHS.

Keywords: heat sink, parallel flow, circular perforation, non-bypass flow

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Authors: M. Khalfa, H. Khachai, F. Chiker, K. Bougherara, R. Khenata, G. Murtaza, M. Harmel

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A theoretical study of structural, elastic, electronic and thermodynamic properties of Fe2VX, (with X = Al and Ga), were studied by means of the full-relativistic version of the full-potential augmented plane wave plus local orbitals method. For exchange and correlation potential we used both generalized-gradient approximation (GGA) and local-density approximation (LDA). Our calculated ground state properties like as lattice constants, bulk modulus and elastic constants appear more accurate when we employed the GGA rather than the LDA approximation, and these results agree very well with the available experimental and theoretical data. Further, prediction of the thermal effects on some macroscopic properties of Fe2VAl and Fe2VGa are given in this paper using the quasi-harmonic Debye model in which the lattice vibrations are taken into account. We have obtained successfully the variations of the primitive cell volume, volume expansion coefficient, heat capacities and Debye temperature with pressure and temperature in the ranges of 0–40 GPa and 0–1500 K.

Keywords: full Heusler, FP-LAPW, electronic properties, thermal properties

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Authors: Sijuade A. A., Oguntoye J. P., Awodoye O. O., Adedapo O. A., Wahab W. B., Okediran O. O., Omidiora E. O., Olabiyisi S. O.

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Electronic voting systems have been introduced to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of the election process in many countries around the world, including Nigeria. However, concerns have been raised about the security and integrity of these systems. One way to address these concerns is through the implementation of electronic forensic election audit systems. This study aims to evaluate voters' intention to the adoption of electronic forensic election audit systems using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. In the study, the UTAUT model which is a widely used model in the field of information systems to explain the factors that influence individuals' intention to use a technology by integrating performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, cost factor and privacy factor to voters’ behavioural intention was proposed. A total of 294 sample data were collected from a selected population of electorates who had at one time or the other participated in at least an electioneering process in Nigeria. The data was then analyzed statistically using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results obtained show that all variables have a significant effect on the electorates’ behavioral intention to adopt the development and implementation of an electronic forensic election audit system in Nigeria.

Keywords: election Audi, voters, UTAUT, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating condition social influence, facilitating conditions, cost factor, privacy factor, behavioural intention

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Authors: Rosa S. Wong, Keith T.S. Tung, Winnie W. Y. Tso, King-Wa Fu, Nirmala Rao, Patrick Ip

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Electronic devices have become an essential part of our lives. Various reports have highlighted the alarming usage of electronic devices at early ages and its long-term developmental consequences. More sedentary screen time was associated with increased adiposity, worse cognitive and motor development, and psychosocial health. Apart from the problems caused by children’s own screen time, parents today are often paying less attention to their children due to hand-held device. Some anecdotes suggest that distracted parenting has negative impact on parent-child relationship. This study examined whether distracted parenting detrimentally affected parent-child activities which may, in turn, impair children’s psychosocial health. In 2018/19, we recruited a cohort of preschoolers from 32 local kindergartens in Tin Shui Wai and Sham Shui Po for a 5-year programme aiming to build stronger foundations for children from disadvantaged backgrounds through an integrated support model involving medical, education and social service sectors. A comprehensive set of questionnaires were used to survey parents on their frequency of being distracted while parenting and their frequency of learning and recreational activities with children. Furthermore, they were asked to report children’s screen time amount and their psychosocial problems. Mediation analyses were performed to test the direct and indirect effects of electronic device-distracted parenting on children’s psychosocial problems. This study recruited 873 children (448 females and 425 males, average age: 3.42±0.35). Longer screen time was associated with more psychosocial difficulties (Adjusted B=0.37, 95%CI: 0.12 to 0.62, p=0.004). Children’s screen time positively correlated with electronic device-distracted parenting (r=0.369, p < 01). We also found that electronic device-distracted parenting was associated with more hyperactive/inattentive problems (Adjusted B=0.66, p < 0.01), fewer prosocial behavior (Adjusted B=-0.74, p < 0.01), and more emotional symptoms (Adjusted B=0.61, p < 0.001) in children. Further analyses showed that electronic device-distracted parenting exerted influences both directly and indirectly through parent-child interactions but to different extent depending upon the outcome under investigation (38.8% for hyperactivity/inattention, 31.3% for prosocial behavior, and 15.6% for emotional symptoms). We found that parents’ use of devices and children’s own screen time both have negative effects on children’s psychosocial health. It is important for parents to set “device-free times” each day so as to ensure enough relaxed downtime for connecting with children and responding to their needs.

Keywords: early childhood, electronic device, psychosocial wellbeing, parenting

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Authors: Rui Liu, Pengyu Cui, Nan Jiang

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At present, there is much research on the application of centralized management and cross-integration application of basic geographic information. However, the idea of information integration and sharing between land, sea, and air navigation targets is not deeply applied into the research of navigation information service, especially in the information expression. Targeting at this problem, the paper carries out works about the expression pattern of navigation electronic map for ground vehicles under air and land united navigation mechanism. At first, with the support from multi-source information fusion of GIS vector data, RS data, GPS data, etc., an air and land united information expression pattern is designed aiming at specific navigation task of emergency rescue in the earthquake. And then, the characteristics and specifications of the united expression of air and land navigation information under the constraints of map load are summarized and transferred into expression rules in the rule bank. At last, the related navigation experiment is implemented to evaluate the effect of the expression pattern. The experiment selects evaluation factors of the navigation task accomplishment time and the navigation error rate as the main index, and make comparisons with the traditional single information expression pattern. To sum up, the research improved the theory of navigation electronic map and laid a certain foundation for the design and realization of united navigation system in the aspect of real-time navigation information delivery.

Keywords: navigation electronic map, united navigation, multi-element expression pattern, multi-source information fusion

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Authors: Kaiyi Zhang, Wenlong Li, Haicheng Li, Yifei Luo, Zheng Li, Xiaoshi Wang, Xiaodong Chen

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Plant wearable sensors facilitate the real-time monitoring of plant physiological status. In situ monitoring of the plant chlorophyll content over days could provide valuable information on the photosynthetic capacity, nitrogen content, and general plant health. However, it cannot be achieved by current chlorophyll measuring methods. Here, a miniaturized and plant-wearable chlorophyll meter was developed for rapid, non-destructive, in situ, and long-term chlorophyll monitoring. This reflectance-based chlorophyll sensor with 1.5 mm thickness and 0.2 g weight (1000 times lighter than the commercial chlorophyll meter), includes a light emitting diode (LED) and two symmetric photodetectors (PDs) on a flexible substrate and is patched onto the leaf upper epidermis with a conformal light guiding layer. A chlorophyll content index (CCI) calculated based on this sensor shows a better linear relationship with the leaf chlorophyll content (r² > 0.9) than the traditional chlorophyll meter. This meter can wirelessly communicate with a smartphone to monitor the leaf chlorophyll change under various stresses and indicate the unhealthy status of plants for long-term application of plants under various stresses earlier than chlorophyll meter and naked-eye observation. This wearable chlorophyll sensing patch is promising in smart and precision agriculture.

Keywords: plant wearable sensors, reflectance-based measurements, chlorophyll content monitoring, smart agriculture

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Authors: Nayla El-Kork, Farah Korjieh, Ahmed Bentiba, Mahmoud Korek

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Ab-initio calculations have been performed to investigate the spectroscopic constants for the diatomic compound BeF. Values of the internuclear distance Re, the harmonic frequency ωe, the rotational constants Be, the electronic transition energy with respect to the ground state Te, the eignvalues Ev, the abscissas of the turning points Rmin, Rmax, the rotational constants Bv and the centrifugal distortion constants Dv have been calculated for the molecule’s ground and excited electronic states. Results are in agreement with experimental data.

Keywords: spectroscopic constant, potential energy curve, diatomic molecule, spectral analysis

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Authors: Junwon Seo, Bipin Adhikari, Euiseok Jeong

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This paper is intended to evaluate the structural performance of welded electronic road signs under various damage scenarios (DSs) using a finite element (FE) model calibrated with full-scale ultimate load testing results. The tested electronic road sign specimen was built with a back skin made of 5052 aluminum and two channels and a frame made of 6061 aluminum, where the back skin was connected to the frame by welding. The size of the tested specimen was 1.52 m long, 1.43 m wide, and 0.28 m deep. An actuator applied vertical loads at the center of the back skin of the specimen, resulting in a displacement of 158.7 mm and an ultimate load of 153.46 kN. Using these testing data, generation and calibration of a FE model of the tested specimen were executed in ABAQUS, indicating that the difference in the ultimate load between the calibrated model simulation and full-scale testing was only 3.32%. Then, six different DSs were simulated where the areas of the welded connection in the calibrated model were diminished for the DSs. It was found that the corners at the back skin-frame joint were prone to connection failure for all the DSs, and failure of the back skin-frame connection occurred remarkably from the distant edges.

Keywords: computational analysis, damage scenarios, electronic road signs, finite element, welded connections

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Authors: Saurabh Shukla, G. N. Pandey

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In recent times, oil exploration and monitoring in on-shore areas have gained much importance considering the fact that in India the oil import is 62 percent of the total imports. Thus, architectural model like wireless sensor network to monitor on-shore deep sea oil well is being developed to get better estimate of the oil prospects. The problem we are facing nowadays that we have very few restricted areas of oil left today. Countries like India don’t have much large areas and resources for oil and this problem with most of the countries that’s why it has become a major problem when we are talking about oil exploration in on-shore areas also the increase of oil prices has further ignited the problem. For this the use of wireless network system having relative simplicity, smallness in size and affordable cost of wireless sensor nodes permit heavy deployment in on-shore places for monitoring oil wells. Deployment of wireless sensor network in large areas will surely reduce the cost it will be very much cost effective. The objective of this system is to send real time information of oil monitoring to the regulatory and welfare authorities so that suitable action could be taken. This system architecture is composed of sensor network, processing/transmission unit and a server. This wireless sensor network system could remotely monitor the real time data of oil exploration and monitoring condition in the identified areas. For wireless sensor networks, the systems are wireless, have scarce power, are real-time, utilize sensors and actuators as interfaces, have dynamically changing sets of resources, aggregate behaviour is important and location is critical. In this system a communication is done between the server and remotely placed sensors. The server gives the real time oil exploration and monitoring conditions to the welfare authorities.

Keywords: sensor, wireless sensor network, oil, sensor, on-shore level

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Authors: Jung-Ho Moon, Myung-Gon Yoon, Tae Kwon Ha

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This paper presents a wireless sensor network protocol for a car parking monitoring system. A wireless sensor network for the purpose is composed of multiple sensor nodes, a sink node, a gateway, and a server. Each of the sensor nodes is equipped with a 3-axis AMR sensor and deployed in the center of a parking space. The sensor node reads its sensor values periodically and transmits the data to the sink node if the current and immediate past sensor values show a difference exceeding a threshold value. The operations of the sink and sensor nodes are described in detail along with flow diagrams. The protocol allows a low-duty cycle operation of the sensor nodes and a flexible adjustment of the threshold value used by the sensor nodes.

Keywords: car parking monitoring, sensor node, wireless sensor network, network protocol

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Authors: D. K. Maurya, S. M. Saini

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We investigate theoretically the electronic and optical properties of YNi₄Si-type HoNi₄Si compound from first principle calculations. Calculations are performed using full-potential augmented plane wave (FPLAPW) method in the frame work of density functional theory (DFT). The Coulomb corrected local-spin density approximation (LSDA+U) in the self-interaction correction (SIC) has been used for exchange-correlation potential. Analysis of the calculated band structure of HoNi₄Si compound demonstrates their metallic character. We found Ni-3d states mainly contribute to density of states from -5.0 eV to the Fermi level while the Ho-f states peak stands tall in comparison to the small contributions made by the Ni-d and Ho-d states above Fermi level, which is consistent with experiment, in HoNi4Si compound. Our calculated optical conductivity compares well with the experimental data and the results are analyzed in the light of band to band transitions.

Keywords: electronic properties, density of states, optical properties, LSDA+U approximation, YNi₄Si-type HoNi4Si compound

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Authors: A. Drelick, T. Sondergeld, M. Decarlo-Tecce, K. McGinley

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In 1975, a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) was granted for all students in the United States regardless of their disabilities. As a result, the special education landscape has been reshaped through new policies and legislation. Progress monitoring, a specific component of an Individual Education Program (IEP) calls, for the use of data collection to determine the appropriateness of services provided to students with disabilities. The recent US Supreme Court ruling in Endrew F. v. Douglas County warrants giving increased attention to student progress, specifically pertaining to improving functional, or non-academic, skills that are addressed outside the general education curriculum. While using technology to enhance data collection has become a common practice for measuring academic growth, its application for non-academic IEP goals is uncertain. A mixed-methods study examined current practices and rationales for implementing technology-based progress monitoring focused on non-academic IEP goals. Fifty-seven participants responded to an online survey regarding their progress monitoring programs for non-academic goals. After isolated analysis and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative results, data were synthesized to produce meta-inferences that drew broader conclusions on the topic. For the purpose of this paper, specific focus will be placed on the perceived barriers and benefits of implementing technology-based progress monitoring protocols for non-academic IEP goals. The findings of this study highlight facts impacting the use of technology-based progress monitoring. Perceived barriers to implementation include: (1) lack of training, (2) access to technology, (3) outdated or inoperable technology, (4) reluctance to change, (5) cost, (6) lack of individualization within technology-based programs, and (7) legal issues in special education; while perceived benefits include: (1) overall ease of use, (2) accessibility, (3) organization, (4) potential for improved presentation of data, (5) streamlining the progress-monitoring process, and (6) legal issues in special education. Based on these conclusions, recommendations are made to IEP teams, school districts, and software developers to improve the progress-monitoring process for functional skills.

Keywords: special education, progress monitoring, functional skills, technology

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Authors: Julio Kauss, Miguel Cadillo, David Mauricio

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E-commerce is a business model that allows companies to optimize the processes of buying, selling, transferring goods and exchanging services through computer networks or the Internet. In Peru, the electronic commerce is used infrequently. This situation is due, in part to the fact that there is no model that allows companies to implement an e-commerce solution, which means that most SMEs do not have adequate knowledge to adapt to electronic commerce. In this work, a reference model is proposed for the implementation of an e-commerce solution in Peruvian SMEs in the retail sector. It consists of five phases: Business Analysis, Business Modeling, Implementation, Post Implementation and Results. The present model was validated in a SME of the Peruvian retail sector through the implementation of an electronic commerce platform, through which the company increased its sales through the delivery channel by 10% in the first month of deployment. This result showed that the model is easy to implement, is economical and agile. In addition, it allowed the company to increase its business offer, adapt to e-commerce and improve customer loyalty.

Keywords: e-commerce, retail, SMEs, reference model

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Authors: Lazlo Fauth, Andreas Ligocki

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For cost-effective use of harvesters, expensive repairs and unplanned downtimes must be reduced as far as possible. The predictive detection of failing systems and the calculation of intelligent service intervals, necessary to avoid these factors, require in-depth knowledge of the machines' behavior. Such know-how needs permanent monitoring of the machine state from different technical perspectives. In this paper, three approaches will be presented as they are currently pursued in the publicly funded project PreForst at Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences. These include the intelligent linking of workshop and service data, sensors on the harvester, and a special online hydraulic oil condition monitoring system. Furthermore the paper shows potentials as well as challenges for the use of these data in the conception of a predictive maintenance system.

Keywords: predictive maintenance, condition monitoring, forest harvesting, forest engineering, oil data, hydraulic data

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Authors: Azzi Mohammed Amin

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In the last decade Algeria has investigated in a scale of economic reforms including different areas, among these; reforms in the banking system. This was mainly through the implementation of some regulations that facilitate the shift to market economy and guarantee integration into global economy. The most important new ideas that have emerged in this area are perhaps to find a possibility of integrating the so called e-banking. Based on what has already been stated, we will try in this study to highlight the significant role of electronic banking services as novel trends in the modernization and development of Algerian banks.

Keywords: banking technology, Internet banks, modernization of banks, virtual banks

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Authors: Mojtaba Valinejadshoubi, Ashutosh Bagchi, Osama Moselhi

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Structures such as buildings, bridges, dams, wind turbines etc. need to be maintained against various factors such as deterioration, excessive loads, environment, temperature, etc. Choosing an appropriate monitoring system is important for determining any critical damage to a structure and address that to avoid any adverse consequence. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has emerged as an effective technique to monitor the health of the structures. SHM refers to an ongoing structural performance assessment using different kinds of sensors attached to or embedded in the structures to evaluate their integrity and safety to help engineers decide on rehabilitation measures. Ability of SHM in identifying the location and severity of structural damages by considering any changes in characteristics of the structures such as their frequency, stiffness and mode shapes helps engineers to monitor the structures and take the most effective corrective actions to maintain their safety and extend their service life. The main objective of this study is to review the overall SHM process specifically determining the natural frequency of an instrumented simply-supported concrete beam using modal testing and finite element model updating.

Keywords: structural health monitoring, natural frequency, modal analysis, finite element model updating

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Authors: Ali Mamizadeh, Ires Iskender, Saeid Aghaei

Abstract:

Energy is one of the important issues with high priority property in the world. Energy demand is rapidly increasing depending on the growing population and industry. The useable energy sources in the world will be insufficient to meet the need for energy. Therefore, the efficient and economical usage of energy sources is getting more importance. In a survey conducted among electric consuming machines, the electrical machines are consuming about 40% of the total electrical energy consumed by electrical devices and 96% of this consumption belongs to induction motors. Induction motors are the workhorses of industry and have very large application areas in industry and urban systems like water pumping and distribution systems, steel and paper industries and etc. Monitoring and the control of the motors have an important effect on the operating performance of the motor, driver selection and replacement strategy management of electrical machines. The sensorless monitoring system for monitoring and calculating efficiency of induction motors are studied in this study. The equivalent circuit of IEEE is used in the design of this study. The terminal current and voltage of induction motor are used in this motor to measure the efficiency of induction motor. The motor nameplate information and the measured current and voltage are used in this system to calculate accurately the losses of induction motor to calculate its input and output power. The efficiency of the induction motor is monitored online in the proposed method without disconnecting the motor from the driver and without adding any additional connection at the motor terminal box. The proposed monitoring system measure accurately the efficiency by including all losses without using torque meter and speed sensor. The monitoring system uses embedded architecture and does not need to connect to a computer to measure and log measured data. The conclusion regarding the efficiency, the accuracy and technical and economical benefits of the proposed method are presented. The experimental verification has been obtained on a 3 phase 1.1 kW, 2-pole induction motor. The proposed method can be used for optimal control of induction motors, efficiency monitoring and motor replacement strategy.

Keywords: induction motor, efficiency, power losses, monitoring, embedded design

Procedia PDF Downloads 322

Authors: W. Ait Ahmed, M. Aggour, M. Naciri

Abstract:

Extracting energy from biomass is an important alternative to produce different types of energy (heat, electricity, or both) assuring low pollution and better efficiency. It is a new yet reliable approach to reduce green gas emission by extracting methane from industry effluents and use it to power machinery. We focused in our project on using paper and mill effluents, treated in a UASB reactor. The methane produced is used in the factory’s power supply. The aim of this work is to develop an electronic system using Arduino platform connected to a gas sensor, to measure and display the curve of daily methane production on processing. The sensor will send the gas values in ppm to the Arduino board so that the later sends the RS232 hardware protocol. The code developed with processing will transform the values into a curve and display it on the computer screen.

Keywords: biogas, Arduino, processing, code, methane, gas sensor, program

Procedia PDF Downloads 283

Authors: Hatim Laalej, Jon Stammers

Abstract:

In machining, monitoring of tool wear is essential for achieving the desired dimensional accuracy and surface finish of a machined workpiece. Currently, the task of monitoring the wear on the cutting tool is carried out by the operator who performs manual inspections of the cutting tool, causing undesirable stoppages of machine tools and consequently resulting in costs incurred from loss of productivity. The cutting tool consumable costs may also be higher than necessary when tools are changed before the end of their useful life. Furthermore, damage can be caused to the workpiece when tools are not changed soon enough leading to a significant increase in the costs of manufacturing. The present study is concerned with the development of break sensor printed on the flank surface of poly-crystalline diamond (PCD) cutting to perform on-line condition monitoring of the cutting tool used to machine Titanium Ti-6al-4v bar. The results clearly show that there is a strong correlation between the break sensor measurements and the amount of wear in the cutting tool. These findings are significant in that they help the user/operator of the machine tool to determine the condition of the cutting tool without the need of performing manual inspection, thereby reducing the manufacturing costs such as the machine down time.

Keywords: machining, manufacturing, tool wear, signal processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 205