Search results for: pilot overhead

Authors: M. K. Benhaoua, A. K. Singh, A. E. Benyamina, P. Boulet

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Mapping parallelized tasks of applications onto these MPSoCs can be done either at design time (static) or at run-time (dynamic). Static mapping strategies find the best placement of tasks at design-time, and hence, these are not suitable for dynamic workload and seem incapable of runtime resource management. The number of tasks or applications executing in MPSoC platform can exceed the available resources, requiring efficient run-time mapping strategies to meet these constraints. This paper describes a new Spiral Dynamic Task Mapping heuristic for mapping applications onto NoC-based Heterogeneous MPSoC. This heuristic is based on packing strategy and routing Algorithm proposed also in this paper. Heuristic try to map the tasks of an application in a clustering region to reduce the communication overhead between the communicating tasks. The heuristic proposed in this paper attempts to map the tasks of an application that are most related to each other in a spiral manner and to find the best possible path load that minimizes the communication overhead. In this context, we have realized a simulation environment for experimental evaluations to map applications with varying number of tasks onto an 8x8 NoC-based Heterogeneous MPSoCs platform, we demonstrate that the new mapping heuristics with the new modified dijkstra routing algorithm proposed are capable of reducing the total execution time and energy consumption of applications when compared to state-of-the-art run-time mapping heuristics reported in the literature.

Keywords: multiprocessor system on chip, MPSoC, network on chip, NoC, heterogeneous architectures, run-time mapping heuristics, routing algorithm

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Authors: Nitish Sharma, G. G. Karady

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This paper presents a scheme for the protection of loop system from all type of faults using the direction of fault current. The presence of distributed generation in today’s system increases the complexity of fault detection as the power flow is bidirectional. Hence, protection scheme specific to this purpose needs to be developed. This paper shows a fast protection scheme using communication which can be fiber optic or wireless. In this paper, the possibility of wireless communication for protection is studied to exchange the information between the relays. The negative sequence and positive sequence directional elements are used to determine the direction of fault current. A PSCAD simulation is presented and validated using commercial SEL relays.

Keywords: smart grid protection, pilot protection, power system simulation, wireless communication

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Authors: M. Mohammed Raoof, A. Enkhtaivan, H. Aljuaid

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This study follows the design science research methodology to design and implement a smartphone application artifact. The developed artifact was evaluated through three phases. The System Usability Scale (SUS) metric was used for the evaluation. The designed artifact aims to spread awareness about reducing air pollution, decreasing lung cancer development, and checking the air quality status in Southern California Counties. Participants have been drawn for a pilot study to facilitate awareness of air pollution. The study found that smartphone applications have a beneficial effect on the study’s aims.

Keywords: air pollution, design science research, indoor air pollution, lung cancer, outdoor air pollution, smartphone application

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Authors: Evan Lowhorn, Rocio Alba-Flores

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Traditional classification Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) attempt to classify an image in its entirety. This becomes problematic when trying to perform classification with a drone’s camera in real-time due to unpredictable backgrounds. Object detectors with bounding boxes can be used to isolate individuals and other items, but the original backgrounds remain within these boxes. These basic detectors have been regularly used to determine what type of object an item is, such as “person” or “dog.” Recent advancement in computer vision, particularly with human imaging, is keypoint detection. Human keypoint detection goes beyond bounding boxes to fully isolate humans and plot points, or Regions of Interest (ROI), on their bodies within an image. ROIs can include shoulders, elbows, knees, heads, etc. These points can then be related to each other and used in deep learning methods such as pose estimation. For drone control based on human motions, poses, or signals using the onboard camera, it is important to have a simple method for pilot identification among multiple individuals while also giving the pilot fine control options for the drone. To achieve this, the OpenPose keypoint detection network was used with body and hand keypoint detection enabled. OpenPose supports the ability to combine multiple keypoint detection methods in real-time with a single network. Body keypoint detection allows simple poses to act as the pilot identifier. The hand keypoint detection with ROIs for each finger can then offer a greater variety of signal options for the pilot once identified. For this work, the individual must raise their non-control arm to be identified as the operator and send commands with the hand on their other arm. The drone ignores all other individuals in the onboard camera feed until the current operator lowers their non-control arm. When another individual wish to operate the drone, they simply raise their arm once the current operator relinquishes control, and then they can begin controlling the drone with their other hand. This is all performed mid-flight with no landing or script editing required. When using a desktop with a discrete NVIDIA GPU, the drone’s 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi connection combined with OpenPose restrictions to only body and hand allows this control method to perform as intended while maintaining the responsiveness required for practical use.

Keywords: computer vision, drone control, keypoint detection, openpose

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Authors: Theng Theng Ong

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This pilot study adopts a corpus-based discourse analysis to explore the construction of Malaysia airline tragedy MH370 in the selected Malaysian and United Kingdom (UK) newspapers. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model is adopted in the study to support the corpus-based analysis. The analysis aims to determine the ways in which Malaysian Airline tragedy MH370 is linguistically defined and constructed in terms of keywords and collocation. The study also seeks to identify the types of discourse that are presented in the news articles. In addition, the differences or similarities in terms of keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media are examined.

Keywords: corpus, CDA, newspapers, airline tragedies

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Authors: B. Parchem, M. Watanabe, D. Modrakovic, L. Mathew, A. Franklin, M. Cao, R. E. Broudy

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Objective: Executive functioning (EF) deficits underlie several mental health diagnoses including ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Community mental health clinics face extensive waitlists for services with many referrals involving EF deficits. A pilot trial of a four-week group therapy was developed using key components from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and mindfulness with an aim to improve EF skills and offer low-fee services. Method: Eight adults (M = 34.5) waiting for services at a community clinic were enrolled in a four-week group therapy at an in-house training clinic for doctoral trainees. Baseline EF, pre-/post-intervention ADHD and distress symptoms, group satisfaction, and curriculum helpfulness were assessed. Results: Downward trends in ADHD and distress symptoms pre/post-intervention were not significant. Favorable responses on group satisfaction and helpfulness suggest clinical utility. Conclusion: Preliminary pilot data from a brief group therapy to improve EF may be an efficacious, acceptable, and feasible intervention for adults waiting for services at community mental health and training clinics where there are high demands and limits to services and staffs.

Keywords: executive functioning, cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness, adult group therapy

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Authors: Ching-Yu Lin

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The number of patients with aphasia has been gradually increasing; however, public awareness of aphasia is still limited. Moreover, surveys about public awareness of aphasia have been conducted in several countries, but there is no research about public awareness of aphasia in Taiwan so far. Therefore, this study aims at the investigation of public awareness of aphasia in Taiwan. In this pilot study, the original English-version questionnaire will be translated into Mandarin Chinese by a speech therapist (the author), and 100 Taiwanese over 18 years old will be recruited to finish the questionnaire. People with an occupation about health or medical will be excluded. In order to reach more people, the questionnaire will be an Internet survey by Google Forms, and the URL of the survey will be distributed by messaging, i.e. e-mail, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, or Line. Data will be analyzed via PASW Statistic 18. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize what proportion of the public have heard of aphasia and what proportion of the public have basic knowledge of aphasia in Taiwan. The sources of information about aphasia will also be investigated. Further, differences in awareness of aphasia due to age, gender, and education level will be discussed.

Keywords: aphasia, public awareness, public knowledge, taiwan

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Authors: A. Maftei, A. C. Holman

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The emergence of self-knowledge and personal representations of self in children has been subject to a variety of studies. The complex process of developing the moral self in childhood is one of the most interesting interplays of biological tendencies and socialization contexts. We were interested in exploring the potential interaction between children’s media skepticism, altruism, self and others' moral representations in a series of tasks related to potential prospective moral licensing mechanisms. In our pilot study, the answers of 67 children aged 8 to 10 years (50 % females) to a series of moral perspectives and altruism tasks were subject to mixed analysis (both qualitative and quantitative). Results suggested no significant association between the moral valence of media information and children’s altruism, self and others’ moral future perspective. Results are discussed within the Construal Level, Assimilation and Contrast theories, and moral licensing mechanisms.

Keywords: children, altruism, moral licensing, media skepticism, moral valence

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Authors: Sultan Alharby, Nick Harris, Alex Weddell, Jeff Reeve

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The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has received much attention over the last five years. It is predicted that the IoT will influence every aspect of our lifestyles in the near future. Wireless Sensor Networks are one of the key enablers of the operation of IoTs, allowing data to be collected from the surrounding environment. However, due to limited resources, nature of deployment and unattended operation, a WSN is vulnerable to various types of attack. Security is paramount for reliable and safe communication between IoT embedded devices, but it does, however, come at a cost to resources. Nodes are usually equipped with small batteries, which makes energy conservation crucial to IoT devices. Nevertheless, security cost in terms of energy consumption has not been studied sufficiently. Previous research has used a security specification of 802.15.4 for IoT applications, but the energy cost of each security level and the impact on quality of services (QoS) parameters remain unknown. This research focuses on the cost of security at the IoT media access control (MAC) layer. It begins by studying the energy consumption of IEEE 802.15.4 security levels, which is followed by an evaluation for the impact of security on data latency and throughput, and then presents the impact of transmission power on security overhead, and finally shows the effects of security on memory footprint. The results show that security overhead in terms of energy consumption with a payload of 24 bytes fluctuates between 31.5% at minimum level over non-secure packets and 60.4% at the top security level of 802.15.4 security specification. Also, it shows that security cost has less impact at longer packet lengths, and more with smaller packet size. In addition, the results depicts a significant impact on data latency and throughput. Overall, maximum authentication length decreases throughput by almost 53%, and encryption and authentication together by almost 62%.

Keywords: energy consumption, IEEE 802.15.4, IoT security, security cost evaluation

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Authors: Tan Swee Liang

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This paper estimates bank and stock market efficiency associations with real per capita GDP growth by examining panel-data across three different regions using Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) regression developed by Beck and Katz (1995). Data from five economies in ASEAN (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia), five economies in Asia (Japan, China, Hong Kong SAR, South Korea, and India) and seven economies in OECD (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom U.K., and United States U.S.), between 1990 and 2017 are used. Empirical findings suggest one, for Asia-5 high bank net interest margin means greater bank profitability, hence spurring economic growth. Two, for OECD-7 low bank overhead costs (as a share of total assets) may reflect weak competition and weak investment in providing superior banking services, hence dampening economic growth. Three, stock market turnover ratio has negative association with OECD-7 economic growth, but a positive association with Asia-5, which suggest the relationship between liquidity and growth is ambiguous. Lastly, for ASEAN-5 high bank overhead costs (as a share of total assets) may suggest expenses have not been channelled efficiently to income generating activities. One practical implication of the findings is that policy makers should take necessary measures toward financial liberalisation policies that boost growth through the efficiency channel, so that funds are efficiently allocated through the financial system between financial and real sectors.

Keywords: financial development, banking system, capital markets, economic growth

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Authors: Ana Fouto

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Background: Continuing Personal Development (CPD) enables professionals to keep up to date with the professional requirements, broadening their knowledge and expertise. However, much of the research explores the registered professionals’ experiences and the factors that influence their choice of engaging, despite the unregistered staff providing the majority of the direct patient care. Aim: To explore the Nursing/Midwifery Assistants’ (NAs) perception of the concept of CPD, as well as explore the factors that influence the NAs to engage (or not) with CPD experiences. Methodology: This pilot study used a qualitative approach through a case study, where a semi-structured interview was applied to three NAs to explore the factors that influence the decision-making of process of CPD engagement. Thematic analysis was used to analyse their answers and interpret patterns and associations. Findings: All the participants agreed that CPD is important and relevant to their practice and personal lives. Five main categories were identified: NAs’ scope of practice, the impact of CPD; decision-making process; challenges; changes required. Although similar findings to the registered nurses were identified, the lack of CPD regulation for NAs and the rapid evolution of their role make the CPD engagement more problematic. Conclusion: Engagement with CPD is influenced by a wide range of professional (organisational and national) and personal factors. NAs perceive lack of management support at different stages of the CPD activities as a main influence. Organisations should be more flexible in the recruitment, offer of CPD choices, content, delivery, and contractual arrangements of NAs, which may increase engagement.

Keywords: nursing assistants, engagement, factors, pilot, continuing professional development (CPD)

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Authors: D. Pinto, L. Castro, M. L. Cruzat, S. Barros, J. Gironás, C. Oberli, M. Torres, C. Escauriaza, A. Cipriano

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Flash floods, together with landslides, are a common natural threat for people living in mountainous regions and foothills. One way to deal with this constant menace is the use of Early Warning Systems, which have become a very important mitigation strategy for natural disasters. In this work, we present our proposal for a pilot Flash Flood Early Warning System for Santiago, Chile, the first stage of a more ambitious project that in a future stage shall also include early warning of landslides. To give a context for our approach, we first analyze three existing Flash Flood Early Warning Systems, focusing on their general architectures. We then present our proposed system, with main focus on the decision support system, a system that integrates empirical models and fuzzy expert systems to achieve reliable risk estimations.

Keywords: decision support systems, early warning systems, flash flood, natural hazard

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Authors: Javier Barraycoa, Olga Lasaga

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Work experience placements are one of the main routes to employment and acquiring professional experience for recent graduates. The effectiveness of these work experience placements is conditioned to the training in skills, especially teaching skills, of company tutors. For this reason, a manual specifically designed for training company tutors in these skills has been developed. Similarly, a pilot semi-attendance course to provide the resources that enable tutors to improve their role as instructors was carried out. The course was quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated with the aim of assessing its effectiveness, detecting shortcomings and areas to be improved, and revising the manual contents. One of the biggest achievements was the raising of awareness in the participating tutors of the importance of their work and of the need to develop teaching skills. As a result of this project, we have detected a need to design specific training supplements according to knowledge areas and sectors, to collate good practices and to create easily accessible audiovisual materials.

Keywords: company tutors, employability, teaching skills, work experience

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Authors: Amanda Coleman, Estefanía Gonzalez

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Empathy is considered an essential skill for engaging with social work clients. Drawing from developments in medical education, researchers will conduct and evaluate a three-part pilot theatre workshop with master level social work students (n ≈ 30) to evaluate the workshop's ability to enhance empathy among participants. Outcomes will be measured using semi-structured post-intervention interviews with a subset of participants (n ≈ 10) as well post-intervention written reflections and pre-and-post intervention quantitative evaluation of empathy using King and Holosko’s 2011 Empathy Scale for Social Workers. The content of the workshop will differ from traditional role plays, which are common in social work education, in that it will draw from role theory and research on creative empathy to emphasize role reversal with clients. Workshops will be held February and March of 2017 with preliminary findings available by April.

Keywords: education, empathy, social work, theatre

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Authors: Luke Sniewski, Pante Farvid, Phil Carter, Rita Csako

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Background and Aims: Self-Perceived Problematic Porn Use (SPPPU) refers to individuals who identify as or perceive themselves to be addicted to porn. These individuals feel they are unable to regulate their porn consumption and experience adverse consequences as a result of their use in everyday life. To the author’s best knowledge, this research represents the first study to intervene with pornography use with mindfulness meditation, and aims to investigate the experiences and challenges of men with SPPPU as they engage in a mindfulness meditation intervention. As meditation is commonly characterized by sitting and observing one’s internal experience with non-reaction and acceptance, the study’s principal hypothesis was that consistent practice of meditation would develop the participant’s capacity to respond to cravings, urges, and unwanted thoughts in less reactive, more productive ways. Method: This 12-mixed method research utilised Single Case Experimental Design (SCED) methodology, with a standard AB design. Each participant was randomly assigned to an initial baseline time period between 2 to 5 weeks before learning the meditation technique and practicing it for the remainder of the 12-week study. The pilot study included 3 participants, while the intervention study included 12. The meditation technique used for the study involved a 15-minute guided breathing exercise in the morning, along with a 15-minute guided concentration meditation in the evening. Results: At the time of submission, only pilot study results were available. Results from the pilot study indicate an improved capacity for self-awareness of the uncomfortable mental and emotional states that drove their participants’ pornography use. Statistically significant reductions were also observed in daily porn use, total weekly time spent viewing porn, as well as lowered Pornography Craving Questionnaire (PCQ) and Problematic Pornography Use Scale (PPUS) scores. Conclusion: Pilot study results suggest that meditation could serve as a complementary tool for health professionals to provide clients in conjunction with therapeutic interventions. Study limitations, directions for future research, and clinical implications to be discussed as well.

Keywords: meditation, behavioural change, pornography, mindfulness

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Authors: Deanne McArthur, Melinda Wall, Claire Hanlon, Dana Agnolin, Krista Davis, Melanie Dennis, Elizabeth Glidden, Anne Marie Smith, Claudette Thomson

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In Canada, as prevalence rates and severity of illness have increased among patients suffering from eating disorders, wait times have grown substantially. Patients in Canada often face wait times in excess of 12 months. It is known that delaying treatment for eating disorders contributes to poor patient outcomes and higher rates of symptom relapse. Improving interim services for adult patients awaiting outpatient treatment is a priority for an outpatient eating disorders clinic in Ontario, Canada. The clinical setting currently provides care for adults diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. At present, the only support provided while patients are on the waitlist consists of communication with primary care providers regarding parameters for medical monitoring. The significance of this study will be to test the feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of an intervention to support adult patients awaiting outpatient eating disorder treatment for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Methods: An intervention including psychoeducation, supportive resources, self-monitoring, and auxiliary referral will be pilot-tested with a group of patients in the summer of 2022 and detailed using a prospective cohort case study research design. The team will host patient focus groups in May 2022 to gather input informing the content of the intervention. The intervention will be pilot tested with newly-referred patients in June and July 2022. Patients who participate in the intervention will be asked to complete a survey evaluating the utility of the intervention and for suggestions, they may have for improvement. Preliminary findings describing the existing literature pertaining to waitlist interventions for patients with eating disorders, data gathered from the focus groups and early pilot testing results will be presented. Data analysis will continue throughout 2022 and early 2023 for follow-up publication and presentation in the summer of 2023. The aim of this study is to contribute to the body of knowledge pertaining to providing interim support to those patients waiting for treatment for eating disorders and, by extension, to improve outcomes for this population.

Keywords: eating disorders, waitlist management, intervention study, pilot test

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Authors: Camille Rault, Mark Bahr

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The aim of the present study was to develop a contemporaneous instrument measuring adolescent’s subjective well-being (SWB). The instrument development underwent a three-phase pilot study. Phase one (N = 31) used a qualitative approach to generate domains of SWB relevant to adolescents. During the second phase (N = 22), items were tested targeting these domains. Finally, the third phase (N = 22) assisted in addition, deletion and refinement according to the first two phases of the pilot. A total of 49 items were retained for the final version of the instrument. The Contemporary Adolescent Well-Being Scale (CAWBS) was administered to 1071 school children (599 girls) aged between ten to 18 years old (M = 14,70; SD = 1.45) from Queensland, Australia. Results confirmed the seven-factor construct hypothesized and explained 45% of the variance. The questionnaire pertained to seven domains of adolescent’s SWB, namely; Overall life satisfaction; Bullying; Body image; Social connectedness; Activities; Control appraisal; and Negative feelings. Reliability was shown to be acceptable with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .58 to .89. Future research should refine the CAWBS and investigate the psychometric properties of this instrument.

Keywords: adolescence, construct validity, instrument, subjective well-being

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Authors: Maxim S. Botalov, Svetlana М. Titova, Denis V. Smyshlyaev, Grigory M. Bunkov, Evgeny V. Kirillov, Sergey V. Kirillov, Maxim A. Mashkovtsev, Vladimir N. Rychkov

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In uranium production, in-situ leaching (ISL) with its relatively low cost has become an important technology. As the orebody containing uranium most often contains a considerable value of other metals, particularly rare earth metals it has rendered feasible to recover the REM from the barren ISL solutions, from which the major uranium content has been removed. Ural Federal University (UrFU, Ekaterinburg, Russia) have performed joint research on the development of industrial technologies for the extraction of REM and Scandium compounds from Uranium ISL solutions. Leaching experiments at UrFU have been supported with multicomponent solution model. The experimental work combines solvent extraction with advanced ion exchange methodology in a pilot facility capable of treating 500 kg/hr of solids. The pilot allows for the recovery of a 99% concentrate of scandium oxide and collective concentrate with over 50 % REM content, with further recovery of heavy and light REM concentrates (99%).

Keywords: extraction, ion exchange, rare earth elements, scandium

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Authors: Sang Heon Han, Daejun Chang, Won Yang

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NOx reduction characteristics of syngas fuel were numerically investigated for the 2MW pilot scale heavy oil furnace of KITECH (Korea Institute of Industrial Technology). The secondary fuel and syngas was fed into the furnace with two purposes- partial replacement of main fuel and reburning of NOx. Some portion of syngas was fed into the flame zone to partially replace the heavy oil, while the other portion was fed into the furnace downstream to reduce NOx generation. The numerical prediction was verified by comparing it with the experimental results. Syngas of KITECH’s experiment, assumed to be produced from biomass, had very low calorific value and contained 3% hydrocarbon. This study investigated the precise behavior of NOx generation and NOx reduction as well as thermo-fluidic characteristics inside the furnace, which was unavailable with experiment. In addition to 3% hydrocarbon syngas, 5%, and 7% hydrocarbon syngas were numerically tested as reburning fuels to analyze the effect of hydrocarbon proportion to NOx reduction. The prediction showed that the 3% hydrocarbon syngas is as much effective as 7% hydrocarbon syngas in reducing NOx.

Keywords: syngas, reburning, heavy oil, furnace

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Authors: Hongbo Zhang, Xinlu Tang, Jiangwei Li, Chi Yan

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Home zone parking pilot (HPP) is a fast-growing segment in low-speed autonomous driving applications. It requires the car automatically cruise around a parking lot and park itself in a range of up to 100 meters inside a recurrent home/office parking lot, which requires precise parking lot mapping and localization solution. Although Lidar is ideal for SLAM, the car OEMs favor a low-cost fish-eye camera based visual SLAM approach. Recent approaches have employed segmentation models to extract semantic features and improve mapping accuracy, but these AI models are memory unfriendly and computationally expensive, making deploying on embedded ADAS systems difficult. To address this issue, we proposed a new method that utilizes object detection models to extract robust and accurate parking lot features. The proposed method could reduce computational costs while maintaining high accuracy. Once combined with vehicles’ wheel-pulse information, the system could construct maps and locate the vehicle in real-time. This article will discuss in detail (1) the fish-eye based Around View Monitoring (AVM) with transparent chassis images as the inputs, (2) an Object Detection (OD) based feature point extraction algorithm to generate point cloud, (3) a low computational parking lot mapping algorithm and (4) the real-time localization algorithm. At last, we will demonstrate the experiment results with an embedded ADAS system installed on a real car in the underground parking lot.

Keywords: ADAS, home zone parking pilot, object detection, visual SLAM

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Authors: Rosana Choy, Fabiola Henostroza

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Actual theory suggests social-ecological factors as the main framework of bullying. Most previous research in this phenomenon is focused on the identification of bullying attitudes and conducts in puberty and adolescence periods. For this reason, this study is considered as a contribution to the existing knowledge in measuring matters, because of its non-traditional way of evaluation (graphic items), and because of its approach to a distinctive age group, children from 7 to 9 years-old, not regularly examined in current studies in this field. The research used a transversal descriptive investigation design for the development of a graphic test for bullying predisposition. The process began with the operationalization of the variable bullying predisposition, the structuring of the factors and variable indicators of a pilot instrument, evaluation by experts of the items representation, and finally it continued with the test application to children of two types of regular school population in Lima-Peru: private and public schools. The reliability level was 0.85 and the validity of the test corroborated the three-factor structure proposed by the researchers.

Keywords: bullying, graphic test, reliability, validity

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Authors: Farahnaz Karami

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Routing is an important, challenging task in mobile ad hoc networks due to node mobility, lack of central control, unstable links, and limited resources. An ant colony has been found to be an attractive technique for routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). However, existing swarm intelligence based routing protocols find an optimal path by considering only one or two route selection metrics without considering correlations among such parameters making them unsuitable lonely for routing real time applications. Fuzzy logic combines multiple route selection parameters containing uncertain information or imprecise data in nature, but does not have multipath routing property naturally in order to provide load balancing. The objective of this paper is to design a routing algorithm using fuzzy logic and ant colony that can solve some of routing problems in mobile ad hoc networks, such as nodes energy consumption optimization to increase network lifetime, link failures rate reduction to increase packet delivery reliability and providing load balancing to optimize available bandwidth. In proposed algorithm, the path information will be given to fuzzy inference system by ants. Based on the available path information and considering the parameters required for quality of service (QoS), the fuzzy cost of each path is calculated and the optimal paths will be selected. NS2.35 simulation tools are used for simulation and the results are compared and evaluated with the newest QoS based algorithms in MANETs according to packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and routing overhead ratio criterions. The simulation results show significant improvement in the performance of these networks in terms of decreasing end-to-end delay, and routing overhead ratio, and also increasing packet delivery ratio.

Keywords: mobile ad hoc networks, routing, quality of service, ant colony, fuzzy logic

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Authors: Collins Ekpiwre Augustine

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Taking into account the impact of teacher training on primary and secondary teachers’ classroom competencies and practices, as revealed by many empirical studies, this study investigated the impact of teacher qualifications on the pedagogical competencies of university teachers in Northwest Nigeria.Four research questions were answered while four hypotheses were tested. Both descriptive statistic of frequencies/arithmetic mean and inferential statistic oft-test were used to analyze the data collected. In order to provide a focus to the study,an observational rating scale titled “University Teachers’ Pedagogical Competency Observation Rating Scale” (UTPCORS) was used to collect data for the study. The population for the study comprised all the university teachers in the three Federal Universities in Northwest Nigeria totaling about 3,401. However, this pilot study was administered on 8 teachers - with 4 participants in each comparison group in Bayero University, Kano.The findings of the study revealed that there was no significant difference in the four hypotheses postulated for the study.

Keywords: impact, university teachers, teachers' qualifications, competencies

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Authors: H. Zormati, J. Chebil, J. Bel Hadj Taher

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The goal of this paper is to present an addressing scheme that allows for assigning a unique IPv6 address to each node in the Internet of Things (IoT) network. This scheme guarantees uniqueness by extracting the clock skew of each communication device and converting it into an IPv6 address. Simulation analysis confirms that the presented scheme provides reductions in terms of energy consumption, communication overhead and response time as compared to four studied addressing schemes Strong DAD, LEADS, SIPA and CLOSA.

Keywords: addressing, IoT, IPv6, network, nodes

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Authors: Felermino D. M. A. Ali, S. C. Ng

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E-learning is an evolutionary form of distance learning and has become better over time as new technologies emerged. Today, efforts are still being made to embrace E-learning systems with emerging technologies in order to make them better. Among these advancements, Educational Data Mining (EDM) is one that is gaining a huge and increasing popularity due to its wide application for improving the teaching-learning process in online practices. However, even though EDM promises to bring many benefits to educational industry in general and E-learning environments in particular, its principal drawback is the lack of easy to use tools. The current EDM tools usually require users to have some additional technical expertise to effectively perform EDM tasks. Thus, in response to these limitations, this study intends to design and implement an EDM application framework which aims at automating and simplify the development of EDM in E-learning environment. The application framework introduces a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that hides the complexity of technical details and enables users to perform EDM in an automated fashion. The framework was designed based on abstraction, extensibility, and interoperability principles. The framework implementation was made up of three major modules. The first module provides an abstraction for data gathering, which was done by extending Moodle LMS (Learning Management System) source code. The second module provides data mining methods and techniques as services; it was done by converting Weka API into a set of Web services. The third module acts as an intermediary between the first two modules, it contains a user-friendly interface that allows dynamically locating data provider services, and running knowledge discovery tasks on data mining services. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the overhead of the proposed framework through a combination of simulation and implementation. The experiments have shown that the overhead introduced by the SOA mechanism is relatively small, therefore, it has been concluded that a service-oriented architecture can be effectively used to facilitate educational data mining in E-learning environments.

Keywords: educational data mining, e-learning, distributed data mining, moodle, service-oriented architecture, Weka

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Authors: Fatemeh Yousefi, Narges Fallah, Mohsen Kian, Mehrzad Pakzadeh

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The petrochemical complex releases wastewater, which is rich in organic pollutants and could not be treated easily. Treatment of the wastewater from a petrochemical industry has been investigated using a submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR). For this purpose, a pilot-scale submerged MBR with a flat-sheet ultrafiltration membrane was used for treatment of petrochemical wastewater according to Bandar Imam Petrochemical complex (BIPC) Aromatic plant. The testing system ran continuously (24-h) over 6 months. Trials on different membrane fluxes and hydraulic retention time (HRT) were conducted and the performance evaluation of the system was done. During the 167 days operation of the MBR at hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 18, 12, 6, and 3 and at an infinite sludge retention time (SRT), the MBR effluent quality consistently met the requirement for discharge to the environment. A fluxes of 6.51 and 13.02 L m-2 h-1 (LMH) was sustainable and HRT of 6 and 12 h corresponding to these fluxes were applicable. Membrane permeability could be fully recovered after cleaning. In addition, there was no foaming issue in the process. It was concluded that it was feasible to treat the wastewater using submersed MBR technology.

Keywords: membrane bioreactor (MBR), petrochemical wastewater, COD removal, biological treatment

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Authors: Zbigniew Wochynski, Justyna Skrzynska, Robert Jedrys, Zdzislaw Kobos

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The aim of the study is to determine the types of motor skills and their impact on achieving results while undergoing Aviation Synthetic Efficiency Test (ASET). The study involved 59 cadets, 21 years-old on average, who are studying on first year for a pilot. The average weight of the respondents is 73.8 kg. The subjects were divided into two groups by weight: up to 73.8 kg -group A (n-30) and above 73,8kg -group B (n-29). All subjects underwent the following tests: running at 40m, 100m, 1000m, 2000m, pull-ups, ASET. In both groups, the cadets were divided into two motor skills types taking into advance 40 m running, pull-ups, 2000 meters running and then subjected to do ASET. There has been shown statistically significant increase in group B in body height, weight and BMI with p <0.0003, p <0.0001, p <0.0001 compared to group A. The results indicate that the dominant motor type in all subjects is the endurance-strength model, which reached the speed V = 1,42m/s in overcoming ASET. This is confirmed by the correlation between 2000m and pull-ups r = 0.37 (p <0.05). In group A, the results indicate that the dominant type of motor is a high-speed-endurance model (26.6%), which reached speed V = 1,42m/s in overcoming ASET. In Group B, there was type of motor speed-strength (20.6%), which reached speed of V = 1.45m/s in overcoming ASET. This confirms the correlation between ASET and pull-ups r = 0.56 (p <0.005). Examined cadets who were having one dominant characteristic achieved worse results is ASET. The best results from all examined cadets in overcoming ASET had the type of motor endurance-strength, in group A endurance-speed model and in group B type of speed-strength

Keywords: ASET, Aviation Synthetic Efficiency Test, motor skills, physical tests, pilot-cadets

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Authors: Stephanos Vassilopoulos

Abstract:

Positive psychology interventions (PPIs) targeting optimism and hope in young children are scarce. This pilot study explored the feasibility and promise of the “Feel Good - Think Positive” intervention, a brief, manualized, multicomponent group PPI for young children. The intervention aimed to enhance participants’ optimism, hope, and self-esteem while reducing their anxiety levels. Forty-one students (Mage = 9.68, SD = 1.64) participated in the intervention and provided data on optimism, hope, self-esteem, and anxiety at baseline and after the intervention was concluded. Analyses showed a significant increase in optimism and self-esteem and a significant decrease in anxiety. However, no change was observed in hope levels. The results complement previous studies of school-based PPIs and hint at the promise of designing feasible interventions that can be easily incorporated into school curriculum and produce both a promoting and a remedial effect in young children.

Keywords: positive psychology intervention, positive education, hope, children

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Authors: Emma E. Hellawell, Susan J. Hughes

Abstract:

BBrownfield sites are currently being redeveloped for residential use. Information on soil contamination on these former industrial sites is collected as part of the planning process by the local government. This research project analyses this untapped resource of environmental data, using site investigation data submitted to a local Borough Council, in Surrey, UK. Over 150 site investigation reports were collected and interrogated to extract relevant information. This study involved three phases. Phase 1 was the development of a database for soil contamination information from local government reports. This database contained information on the source, history, and quality of the data together with the chemical information on the soil that was sampled. Phase 2 involved obtaining site investigation reports for development within the study area and extracting the required information for the database. Phase 3 was the data analysis and interpretation of key contaminants to evaluate typical levels of contaminants, their distribution within the study area, and relating these results to current guideline levels of risk for future site users. Preliminary results for a pilot study using a sample of the dataset have been obtained. This pilot study showed there is some inconsistency in the quality of the reports and measured data, and careful interpretation of the data is required. Analysis of the information has found high levels of lead in shallow soil samples, with mean and median levels exceeding the current guidance for residential use. The data also showed elevated (but below guidance) levels of potentially carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Of particular concern from the data was the high detection rate for asbestos fibers. These were found at low concentrations in 25% of the soil samples tested (however, the sample set was small). Contamination levels of the remaining chemicals tested were all below the guidance level for residential site use. These preliminary pilot study results will be expanded, and results for the whole local government area will be presented at the conference. The pilot study has demonstrated the potential for this extensive dataset to provide greater information on local contamination levels. This can help inform regulators and developers and lead to more targeted site investigations, improving risk assessments, and brownfield development.

Keywords: Brownfield development, contaminated land, local government planning data, site investigation

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Authors: Iva Košek Bartošová, Andrea Jokešová, Eva Kozlová, Helena Matějová

Abstract:

The paper presents results of a research team from Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic. It introduces with the most reading methods used in the 1^st classes of a primary school and presents results of a pilot research focused on mastering reading techniques and the quality of reading comprehension of pupils in the first half of a school year during training in teaching reading by an analytic-synthetic method and by a genetic method. These methods of practicing reading skills are the most used ones in the Czech Republic. During the school year 2015/16 there has been a measurement made of two groups of pupils of the 1^st year and monitoring of quantitative and qualitative parameters of reading pupils’ outputs by several methods. Both of these methods are based on different theoretical basis and each of them has a specific educational and methodical procedure. This contribution represents results during a piloting project and draws pilot conclusions which will be verified in the subsequent broader research at the end of the school year of the first class of primary school.

Keywords: analytic-synthetic method of reading, genetic method of reading, reading comprehension, reading literacy, reading methods, reading speed

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