Search results for: spoken communication

Authors: B. Gültekin, T. Gültekin

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Peace diplomacy is the most important international tool to maintain peace all over the World. This study consists of three parts. In the first part, the leadership of Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, will be introduced as a tool of peace communication and peace management. Also, in this part, peace communication will be explained by the peace leadership traits of Devlet Bahçeli, who is one of the efficient political leaders representing the concepts of compromise and agreement on different sides of politics. In the second part of study, it is aimed to analyze Devlet Bahçeli’s leadership within the frame of peace communication and the final part of this study is about creating an original public communication model for public diplomacy based on Devlet Bahçeli as an example. As a result, the main purpose of this study is to develop an original peace communication model including peace modules, peace management projects, original dialogue procedures and protocols exhibited in the policies of Devlet Bahçeli. The political leadership represented by Devlet Bahçeli inspires political leaders to provide peace communication. In this study, principles and policies of peace leadership of Devlet Bahçeli will be explained as an original model on a peace communication platform.

Keywords: public diplomacy, dialogue management, peace leadership, peace diplomacy

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Authors: Véronique Georlette, Sebastien Bette, Sylvain Brohez, Nicolas Point, Veronique Moeyaert

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Visible light communication (VLC) is a communication technology that is part of the optical wireless communication (OWC) family. It uses the visible and infrared spectrums to send data. For now, this technology has widely been studied for indoor use-cases, but it is sufficiently mature nowadays to consider the outdoor environment potentials. The main outdoor challenges are the meteorological conditions and the presence of smoke due to fire or pollutants in urban areas. This paper proposes a methodology to assess the robustness of an outdoor VLC system given the outdoor conditions. This methodology is put into practice in two realistic scenarios, a VLC bus stop, and a VLC streetlight. The methodology consists of computing the power margin available in the system, given all the characteristics of the VLC system and its surroundings. This is done thanks to an outdoor VLC communication channel simulator developed in Python. This simulator is able to quantify the effects of fog and smoke thanks to models taken from environmental and fire engineering scientific literature as well as the optical power reaching the receiver. These two phenomena impact the communication by increasing the total attenuation of the medium. The main conclusion drawn in this paper is that the levels of attenuation due to fog and smoke are in the same order of magnitude. The attenuation of fog being the highest under the visibility of 1 km. This gives a promising prospect for the deployment of outdoor VLC uses-cases in the near future.

Keywords: channel modeling, fog modeling, meteorological conditions, optical wireless communication, smoke modeling, visible light communication

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Authors: Cristiane Hengler Corrêa Bernardo

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The communication is an essential part of the process that characterizes scientific research. It should be present in every stage of research in a systemic way. However, this process is not always efficient and effective. Reports of researchers focused on agribusiness point to difficulties in communicating with farmers that negatively impact on research results and may cause distortions and even quite significant inconsistencies. This research aims at identifying the main noise and barriers in communication between agribusiness researchers and farmers. It discusses the possibility of creating a specific strategy to correct or minimize such failures. The main research question: what features of the communication process will be decisive for the communication between agribusiness researcher and farmer occur with greater efficiency? It is expected that the research will result in processes that may correct or minimize such problems, promoting dialogues more efficient knowledge. The research will adopt a qualitative approach, using action research as a form of investigative action for social and educational nature, aiming at promoting understanding and interaction between researchers and members of the investigated situations. To collect and analyze data to document analysis will be used; questionnaires and interviews and content analysis.

Keywords: agribusiness farmers, researchers, science communication, analysis

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Authors: Victorine Mbong Shu

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Very little research exists on family sex and sexuality communication and identity formation and how communication is helping adolescents in forming their sexual identities in South Africa. This study is designed to explore the impact of sexual communication in African families and the dynamics that influence the openness or closedness of adolescent sexual identities. The primary objectives of this study are threefold; to understand how sexuality communication in African families impacts the closedness and/or openness of adolescent African identities; to explore the nature of African children's sexuality given the status of their families’ communications on sex; to describe how parental or adult sexual knowledge, attitudes, values of sex, etc. are translated to children in African families, if at all. This study seeks answers to challenges faced by African parents and caregivers of adolescent children in South Africa regarding sex-sexuality communication and their shifting identities in different spaces. Its outcome seeks to empower these families on how to continue to effectively communicate sex and sexuality at different stages and circumstances. Two sets of people are interviewed separately in order to explore issues of familial communication and how to understand how together with religion and culture, adolescents are socialised to form the social and gender identities that they take to adulthood. They were parents of adolescents and young adult children who spoke in retrospect on when they were adolescents. The results of this study will fill knowledge gaps considering the chosen theory of communication that gives clarity to the topic of sex and sexuality communication in African families in South Africa and the dynamics of privacy that influence identity formation. A subset of the 40 conversations, 5 female parents, 5 male parents, 5 young female adults, and 5 male young adults, was used for this analysis. The preliminary results revealed five emergent themes informed by research questions and the theoretical framework of this study: Open communication, Discomfort discussing sex and sexuality, The importance of sex communication to African parents, Factors influencing African families’ communication about sex and sexuality and Privacy and boundaries.

Keywords: sex, sexuality, communication, African families, adolescents

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Authors: Bola M. Tunde-Awe

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The study investigated the influence of teacher’s non-verbal communication on secondary school students’ learning outcomes in English language. The study was a survey research. Participants were three hundred Senior Secondary School II students randomly selected from ten schools in Akoko South West Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire containing twenty items on a four-point Likert scale which measured teacher’s use of three types of non-verbal communication modes: body movement, eye contact and spatial distance. The data collected was analysed using simple percentage. Findings revealed that teacher’s use of these non-verbal communication modes enhanced learners’ learning outcomes in English language: a total of 271 (90.33%) participants affirmed that teacher’s body language influenced their learning of English; 224 (74.66%) maintained the same stand for eye contact; while 202 (67.33%) affirmed that teacher’s spatial distance had positive influence. Consequent upon these findings, it was recommended that teachers of English language should constantly utilize non-verbal communication in their instructional delivery. Also, non-verbal communication modes should be included in teacher education programme to equip prospective pre-service teachers with the art of non-verbal communication.

Keywords: non-verbal communication, body language, eye contact, spatial distance, learning outcomes

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Authors: Jae-Hyun Ro, Yong-Jun Kim, Eui-Hak Lee, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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Mobile communication has been developing very rapidly since it appeared. However, although mobile communication market has been rapidly developing, many mobile users are not offered good quality of service (QoS) due to increment of the amount of data traffic. Recently, femtocell is very hot issue in mobile communication because femtocell can solve the problems of data traffic and offer better QoS to mobile users. However, the deployment of femtocell in existing macrocell coverage area is not so simple due to the influence of inter-cell-interference (ICI) with existing macrocell. Thus, this paper proposes femtocell scheme which is able to reduce the influence of ICI to deploy femtocell easily.

Keywords: CDD, femtocell, interference, macrocell, OFDM

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Authors: Cecilia Teljas

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Many government agencies use social media to supplement their traditional communication channels. Government agencies are typically risk-averse, which makes social media practices problematic. However, this case study of the social media use of the Swedish social insurance agency shows considerable bi-directional communication between the agency and the public. On one hand, the agency’s aims, strategies, ways of working and experiences related to its social media communication practice are analyzed. On the other hand, the communication by both the agency and the public is studied on one of the agency’s Facebook pages. The results showed that it is possible for an agency to provide relevant and accurate information in real-time in social media if identifying and addressing different segments separately. Furthermore, as a result of context adaption this communication was rather informal and the practice can be considered to manifest positive democratic effects due to the increased availability and inclusion.

Keywords: e-government, social media, case study, discourse analysis

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Authors: Naila Tallas Mahajna, Jamal Al Khateeb

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This study examined the level of social communication problems, social anxiety, and mood problems among children with ASD (age 6-13 years) enrolled in special classes (n=46) and regular classes (n=36) from teachers' perspective in the schools of a part of Palestine. Teachers responded to three questionnaires - social communication problems, social anxiety and mood problems- that were used to answer the research questions. Results: social communication problems, social anxiety and mood problems were of medium rates for students with ASD enrolled in reguler and special classes. No significant differences in the level of social communication problems could be attributed to class type (Regular, Special) or the grade level-(1st – 3rd, 4th - 6th). There were significant differences in social anxiety levels that could be attributed to grade level in favor of the 4th - 6th grades but there were no significant differences according to class type (Regular, Special). There were statistically significant differences in mood problems levels that could be attributed to the class type in favor of special classes, but no differences were found according to grade level. There was a direct significant relationship between communication problems, social anxiety, and mood problems. Conclusion: social communication problems may be an important risk factor for the development of social anxiety and mood problems among students with ASD.

Keywords: social communication problems, social anxiety, mood problems, autism spectrum disorders

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Authors: M. J. Park, S. H. Lee, C. H. Lee, O. M. Kwon

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This paper studies a secondary voltage control framework of the microgrids based on the consensus for a communication network of multiagent. The proposed control is designed by the communication network with one-way links. The communication network is modeled by a directed graph. At this time, the concept of sampling is considered as the communication constraint among each distributed generator in the microgrids. To analyze the sampling effects on the secondary voltage control of the microgrids, by using Lyapunov theory and some mathematical techniques, the sufficient condition for such problem will be established regarding linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, some simulation results are given to illustrate the necessity of the consideration of the sampling effects on the secondary voltage control of the microgrids.

Keywords: microgrids, secondary control, multiagent, sampling, LMI

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Authors: Noor Attar

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This paper provides an overview of the current situation of HIV/AIDS patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and a literature review of the concepts of stigma communication, communication of social support. These concepts provide the basis for the proposed methods, which will include conducting a textual analysis of materials that are currently distributed to family members of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV/A) in KSA and creating an educational brochure. The brochure will aim to help families of PLWHIV/A in KSA (1) understand how stigma shapes the experience of PLWHIV/A, (2) realize the role of positive communication as a helpful social support, and (3) develop the ability to provide positive social support for their loved ones.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Saudi Arabia, social support, stigma communication

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Authors: Nada Poropat Jeletic, Gordana Hrzica

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Bilingual conversational corpora represent a meaningful and the most comprehensive data source for investigating the genuine contact phenomena in non-monitored bi-lingual speech productions. They can be particularly useful for bilingual research since some features of bilingual interaction can hardly be accessed with more traditional methodologies (e.g., elicitation tasks). The method of language sampling provides the resources for describing language interaction in a bilingual community and/or in bilingual situations (e.g. code-switching, amount of languages used, number of languages used, etc.). To capture these phenomena in genuine communication situations, such sampling should be as close as possible to spontaneous communication. Bilingual spoken corpus design is methodologically demanding. Therefore this paper aims at describing the methodological challenges that apply to the corpus design of the conversational corpus design of the Istrian Istrovenetian-Croatian Bilingual Corpus. Croatian is the first official language of the Croatian-Italian officially bilingual Istria County, while Istrovenetian is a diatopic subvariety of Venetian, a longlasting lingua franca in the Istrian peninsula, the mother tongue of the members of the Italian National Community in Istria and the primary code of informal everyday communication among the Istrian Italophone population. Within the CLARIN infrastructure, TalkBank is being used, as it provides relevant procedures for designing and analyzing bilingual corpora. Furthermore, it allows public availability allows for easy replication of studies and cumulative progress as a research community builds up around the corpus, while the tools developed within the field of corpus linguistics enable easy retrieval and analysis of information. The method of language sampling employed is kept at the level of spontaneous communication, in order to maximise the naturalness of the collected conversational data. All speakers have provided written informed consent in which they agree to be recorded at a random point within the period of one month after signing the consent. Participants are administered a background questionnaire providing information about the socioeconomic status and the exposure and language usage in the participants social networks. Recording data are being transcribed, phonologically adapted within a standard-sized orthographic form, coded and segmented (speech streams are being segmented into communication units based on syntactic criteria) and are being marked following the CHAT transcription system and its associated CLAN suite of programmes within the TalkBank toolkit. The corpus consists of transcribed sound recordings of 36 bilingual speakers, while the target is to publish the whole corpus by the end of 2020, by sampling spontaneous conversations among approximately 100 speakers from all the bilingual areas of Istria for ensuring representativeness (the participants are being recruited across three generations of native bilingual speakers in all the bilingual areas of the peninsula). Conversational corpora are still rare in TalkBank, so the Corpus will contribute to BilingBank as a highly relevant and scientifically reliable resource for an internationally established and active research community. The impact of the research of communities with societal bilingualism will contribute to the growing body of research on bilingualism and multilingualism, especially regarding topics of language dominance, language attrition and loss, interference and code-switching etc.

Keywords: conversational corpora, bilingual corpora, code-switching, language sampling, corpus design methodology

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Authors: Rashi Bhalla, Russel Pears, M. Asif Naeem

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In this 'Information Explosion Era' analyzing data 'a critical commodity' and mining knowledge from vertically distributed data stream incurs huge communication cost. However, an effort to decrease the communication in the distributed environment has an adverse influence on the classification accuracy; therefore, a research challenge lies in maintaining a balance between transmission cost and accuracy. This paper proposes a method based on Bayesian inference to reduce the communication volume in a heterogeneous distributed environment while retaining prediction accuracy. Our experimental evaluation reveals that a significant reduction in communication can be achieved across a diverse range of dataset types.

Keywords: big data, bayesian inference, distributed data stream mining, heterogeneous-distributed data

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Authors: Meng-Chyi Wu, Bonn Lin, Jyun-Hao Liao, Chein-Ju Chen, Yu-Cheng Jhuang, Mau-Phon Houng, Fang-Hsing Wang, Min-Chu Liu, Cheng-Fu Yang, Cheng-Shong Hong

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Since the use of wireless communications has become critical nowadays, the available RF spectrum has become limited. Ultraviolet (UV) communication system can alleviate the spectrum constraint making UV communication system a potential alternative to future communication demands. Also, UV links can provide faster communication rate and can be used in combination with existing RF communication links, providing new communications diversity with higher user capacity. The UV region of electromagnetic spectrum has been of interest to detector, imaging and communication technologies because the stratospheric ozone layer effectively absorbs some solar UV radiation from reaching the earth surface. The wavebands where most of UV radiation is absorbed by the ozone are commonly known as the solar blind region. By operating in UV-C band (200-280 nm) the communication system can minimize the transmission power consumption since it will have less radiation noise. UV communication uses the UV ray as the medium. Electric signal is carried on this band after being modulated and then be transmitted within the atmosphere as channel. Though the background noise of UV-C communication is very low owing to the solar-blind feature, it leads to a large propagation loss. The 370 nm UV provides a much lower propagation loss than that the UV-C does and the recent device technology for UV source on this band is more mature. The fabricated 370 nm AlGaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with an aperture size of 45 m exhibit a modulation bandwidth of 165 MHz at 30 mA and a high power of 7 W/cm2 at 230 A/cm2. In order to solve the problem of low power in single UV LED, a UV LED array is presented in.

Keywords: ultraviolet (UV) communication, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), modulation bandwidth, LED array, 370 nm

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Authors: Divya Sisodiya, Deepika Sipal

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Optical wireless communication (OWC) is a relatively new technology in optical communication systems that allows for high-speed wireless optical communication. This research focuses on developing a cost-effective OWC system using a hybrid configuration of optical amplifiers. In addition to using EDFA amplifiers, a comparison study was conducted to determine which modulation technique is more effective for communication. This research examines the performance of an OWC system based on ASK and PSK modulation techniques by varying OWC parameters under various atmospheric conditions such as rain, mist, haze, and snow. Finally, the simulation results are discussed and analyzed.

Keywords: OWC, bit error rate, amplitude shift keying, phase shift keying, attenuation, amplifiers

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Authors: Wincharles Coker

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This study troubles the role the state as the chief sponsor of higher education plays in shaping communication training in Ghana. Using a public university as a case study, it explores how the government of Ghana, through its regimes of control, exercises its authority over the means of production in the academy. Based on Wenger’s community of practice theory and critical theory, the research analyzes the political economy within which higher education in the country operates, focusing on the mandates of two of its bodies: the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the National Accreditation Board (NAB). Results show that communication training in Ghana is shaped by three basic strategies of control: developmentalism, bureaucratization, and corporatization. This governmentality, the research reveals nonetheless, largely constrains the agency and practices of the community of communication faculty and administrators, and thus presents a major challenge to the exercise of intellectual freedom, and the self-critical nature of the academy. The study bears implications for further research in the political economy of communication studies, the administration of higher education, and critical/cultural studies in education.

Keywords: communication, developmentalism, educattion, governmentality

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Authors: Legkikh Victoria

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The purpose of keeping bi/multilingualism is usually a way to let the child speak two/three languages at the same level. The main problem which normally appears is a mixed language or a domination of one language. The same level of two or more languages would be ideal but practically not easily reachable. So it was made an experiment with a girl with a natural multilingualism as an attempt to avoid a dominant language in the preschool age. The girl lives in Germany and the main languages for her are Italian, Russian and German but she also hears every day English. ‘One parent – one language’ strategy was used since the beginning so Italian and Russian were spoken to her since her birth, English was spoken between the parents and when she was 1,5 it was added German as a language of a nursery. In order to avoid a dominant language, she was always put in international groups with activity in different languages. Even if it was not possible to avoid an interference of languages in this case we can talk not only about natural multilingualism but also about balanced bilingualism in preschool time. The languages have been developing in parallel with different accents in a different period. Now at the age of 6 we can see natural horizontal multilingualism Russian/Italian/German/English. At the moment, her Russian/Italian bilingualism is balanced. German vocabulary is less but the language is active and English is receptive. We can also see a reciprocal interference of all the three languages (English is receptive so the simple phrases are normally said correctly but they are not enough to judge the level of language interference and it is not noticed any ‘English’ mistakes in other languages). After analysis of the state of every language, we can see as a positive and negative result of the experiment. As a positive result we can see that in the age of 6 the girl does not refuse any language, three languages are active, she differentiate languages and even if she says a word from another language she notifies that it is not a correct word, and the most important are the fact, that she does not have a preferred language. As a prove of the last statement it is to be noticed not only her self-identification as ‘half Russian and half Italian’ but also an answer to the question about her ‘mother tongue’: ‘I do not know, probably, when I have my own children I will speak one day Russian and one day Italian and sometimes German’. As a negative result, we can notice that not only a development of all the three languages are a little bit slower than it is supposed for her age but since she does not have a dominating language she also does not have a ‘perfect’ language and the interference is reciprocal. In any case, the experiment shows that it is possible to keep at least two languages without a preference in a pre-school multilingual space.

Keywords: balanced bilingualism, language interference, natural multilingualism, preschool multilingual education

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Authors: Jin Gang Lee, Hyun-Soo Lee, Moonseo Park

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The utilization of BIM and IFC allows project participants to collaborate across different areas by consistently sharing interoperable product information represented in a model. Comments or markups generated during the coordination process can be categorized as communication information, which can be shared in less standardized manner. It can be difficult to manage and reuse such information compared to the product information in a model. The present study proposes an interoperable coordination method using BCF (the BIM Collaboration Format) for managing and sharing the communication information during BIM based coordination process. A management function for coordination in the BIM collaboration system is developed to assess its ability to share the communication information in BIM collaboration projects. This approach systematically links communication information during the coordination process to the building model and serves as a type of storage system for retrieving knowledge created during BIM collaboration projects.

Keywords: design coordination, building information model, BIM collaboration format, industry foundation classes

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Authors: Tonoyan Lusine

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The Communicative Grammar (CG) of a language deals with semantics and pragmatics in the first place as communication is a process of generating speech. As it is well known people can communicate with the help of limited word expressions and grammatical means. As to non-verbal communication, both vocabulary and grammar are not essential at all. However, the development of the communicative competence lies in verbal, non-verbal, grammatical, socio-cultural and intercultural awareness. There are several important issues and environment management strategies related to effective communication that one might need to consider for a positive learning experience. International students bring a broad range of cultural perspectives to the learning environment, and this diversity has the capacity to improve interaction and to enrich the teaching/learning process. Intercultural setting implies creative and thought-provoking work with different cultural worldviews and international perspectives. It is worth mentioning that the use of Communicative Grammar models creates a profound background for the effective intercultural communication.

Keywords: CG, cross-cultural communication, intercultural awareness, non-verbal behavior

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Authors: M. Hemnath, S. Kannan, R. Kiran, K. Thanigaivelu

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This paper is based on exploring the possible opportunities and applications using Power Line Communication (PLC) for security and surveillance operations. Various research works are done for introducing PLC into onboard vehicle communication and networking (CAN, LIN etc.) and various international standards have been developed. Wireless power transfer (WPT) is also an emerging technology which is studied and tested for recharging purposes. In this work we present a system which embeds the detection and the response into one which eliminates the need for dedicated network for data transmission. Also we check the feasibility for integrating wireless power transfer system into this proposed security system for transmission of power to detection unit wirelessly from the response unit.

Keywords: power line communication, wireless power transfer, surveillance

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Authors: C. Temaneh-Nyah, F. A. Phiri, D. Karegeya

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This paper presents an algorithm for obtaining the map of subscriber’s density distribution for a mobile wireless communication network based on the actual subscriber's traffic data obtained from the base station. This is useful in statistical characterization of the mobile wireless network.

Keywords: electromagnetic compatibility, statistical analysis, simulation of communication network, subscriber density

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Authors: Myoung-Jin Kim, Chang-Bin Ha, Yeong-Seop Ahn, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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This paper proposes a cooperative communication scheme for improve wireless communication performance. When the receiver is located in the edge of coverage, the signal from the transmitter is distorted for various reasons such as inter-cell interference (ICI), power reduction, incorrect channel estimation. In order to improve communication performance, the proposed scheme adds the relay. By the relay, the receiver has diversity gain. In this paper, two base stations, one relay and one destination are considered. The two base stations transmit same time to relay and destination. The relay forwarding to destination and the destination detects signals.

Keywords: cooperative communication, diversity gain, OFDM, MMSE

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Authors: Michal Kopcek, Tomas Skulavik, Michal Kebisek, Gabriela Krizanova

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The operation of nuclear power plants involves continuous monitoring of the environment in their area. This monitoring is performed using a complex data acquisition system, which collects status information about the system itself and values of many important physical variables e.g. temperature, humidity, dose rate etc. This paper describes a proposal and optimization of communication that takes place in teledosimetric system between the central control server responsible for the data processing and storing and the decentralized measuring stations, which are measuring the physical variables. Analyzes of ongoing communication were performed and consequently the optimization of the system architecture and communication was done.

Keywords: communication protocol, transmission optimization, data acquisition, system architecture

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Authors: Lessly Borja, Anthony Gualli, Kelly Baño, Fabricio Santacruz

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In this article, a prototype of underwater communication using a long-range laser (50mW) has been carried out in two aquatic scenarios (fish tank and swimming pool) with the aim of recreating Aqua-Fi technology (the future of underwater communications) using a Bluetooth connection to the transmitter to send data in ASCII code by means of light. Initially, the transmitter and receiver circuits were programmed in Arduino so that the data would travel by light pulses in the aforementioned code. To obtain the results of the underwater communication, two scenarios were chosen (fish tank and swimming pool), where the power value of the received signal was calculated from its peak-to-peak voltage using the Oscilloscope equipment (ESPOCH). Finally, it was concluded that the maximum communication range of this prototype is 12m underwater, and it was observed that the power decreases as the distance increases. However, this prototype still needs to improve communication so that the information is not distorted or lost when there is movement and dispersion of the water. It is hoped that it will form the basis for future research.

Keywords: prototype, underwater, communication, power, voltage, distance

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Authors: L. Cruz-Lopes, M. Sell, P. Escudeiro, B. Esteves

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It might be difficult for deaf people to communicate since spoken and written languages are different from sign language. When it comes to getting information, going to places of cultural heritage, or using services and infrastructure, there is a clear lack of inclusiveness. By creating assistive technology that enables deaf individuals to get around communication hurdles and encourage inclusive tourism, the ICHT- Inclusive Cultural Heritage Tourism initiative hopes to increase knowledge of sign language. The purpose of the Inclusive Cultural Heritage Tourism (ICHT) project is to develop online and on-site sign language tools and material for usage at popular tourist destinations in the northern region of Portugal, including Torre dos Clérigos, the Lello bookstore, Maia Zoo, Porto wine cellars, and São Pedro do Sul (Viseu) thermae. The ICHT system consists of an application using holography, a mobile game, an online platform for collaboration with deaf and hearing users, and a collection of International Sign training courses. The project also offers a prospect for a more inclusive society by introducing a method of teaching sign languages to tourism industry professionals. As a result, the teaching and learning of sign language along with the assistive technology tools created by the project sets up an inclusive environment for the deaf community, producing results in the area of automatic sign language translation and aiding in the global recognition of the Portuguese tourism industry.

Keywords: inclusive tourism, games, international sign training, deaf community

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Authors: M. Srilatha, R. Hemalatha, T. Sri Aditya

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Communication of today world is dominated by wireless technology. This is mainly due to the revolutionary development of new wireless communication system generations. The evolving new generations of wireless systems are accommodating the demand through better resource management including improved transmission technologies with optimized communication devices. To keep up with the evolution of technologies, the communication systems must be designed to optimize transparent insertion of newly evolved technologies virtually at all stages of their life cycle. After the insertion of new technologies, the upgraded devices should continue the communication without squalor in quality. The concern of improving spectrum access and spectrum efficiency combined with both the introduction of Software Defined Radios (SDR) and the possibility of the software application to radios has led to an evolution of wireless radio research. The software defined radio term was coined in the 1970s to overcome the problems in the application of software to wireless radios which eliminates the requirement of hardware changes. SDR has become the prime theme of research since it eliminates the drawbacks associated with conventional wireless communication systems implementation. This paper identifies and discusses key enabling technologies and possibility of research and development in SDRs. In addition transmitter and receiver architectures of SDR are also discussed along with their feasibility for reconfigurable radio application.

Keywords: software defined radios, wireless communication, reconfigurable, reconfigurable transmitter, reconfigurable receivers, FPGA, DSP

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Authors: Peter Mayeso Jiyajiya

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This paper discusses how the teaching of English as a foreign language in Malawi can enhance intercultural communication competence in a multicultural society. It argues that incorporation of intercultural communication in the teaching of English as a foreign language would improve cultural awareness in communication in the multicultural Malawi. The teaching of English in Malawi is geared towards producing students who would communicate in the global world. This entails the use of proper pedagogical approaches and instructional materials that prepare the students toward intercultural awareness. In view of this, the language teachers were interviewed in order to determine their instructional approaches to intercultural communication. Instructional materials were further evaluated to assess how interculturality is incorporated. The study found out that teachers face perceptual and technical challenges that hinder them from exercising creativity to incorporate interculturality in their lessons. This is also compounded by lack of clear direction in the teaching materials on cultural elements. The paper, therefore, suggests a holistic approach to the teaching of English language in Malawian school in which the diversity of culture in classrooms must be considered an opportunity for addressing students’ cultural needs that may be lacking in the instructional materials.

Keywords: cultural awareness, grammar, foreign language, intercultural communication, language teaching

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Authors: Jonghoon Kim, Gilwon Yoon

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A wrist-band type biosignal measurement system and its data transfer through human body communication (HBC) were investigated. An HBC method based on pulses of ultra-wide band instead of using frequency or amplitude modulations was studied and implemented since the system became very compact and it was more suited for personal or mobile health monitoring. Our system measured photo-plethysmogram (PPG) and measured PPG signals were transmitted through a finger to a monitoring PC system. The device was compact and low-power consuming. HBC communication has very strong security measures since it does not use wireless network. Furthermore, biosignal monitoring system becomes handy because it does not need to have wire connections.

Keywords: biosignal, human body communication, mobile health, PPG, ultrawide band

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Authors: Patrick David Chirilele

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There are growing interests in improving service delivery in the healthcare sector through the adoption of emerging digital technologies, including the Vocera B3000n communication system badge. As a result, understanding the factors that impact the adoption of such digital technologies is becoming important. This study investigates the determinants of task-technology fit through the adoption of Vocera B3000n communication system badge in healthcare sector in South Africa. Statistical analyses are performed on the data collected from 143 healthcare workers including registered nurses and personal care workers at three hospitals in South Africa through survey to test the relationship between task characteristics, technology characteristics and user characteristics for better understanding the task-technology fit and the adoption of Vocera communication systems in South African hospitals. The result reveals that all three factors have a significant impact on task-technology fit through the adoption of Vocera B3000n communication system badge. Such findings are useful for healthcare sector in their adoption of digital technologies for improving service delivery through effective communication in their workplace.

Keywords: adoption, communication systems, task-technology fit, user characteristics, Vocera

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Authors: B. S. Bamoallem, A. J. Wodehouse, G. M. Mair

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Communication takes place not only through speech, but also by means of gestures such as facial expressions, gaze, head movements, hand movements and body posture, and though there has been rapid development, communication platforms still lack this type of behavior. We believe communication platforms need to fully achieve this verbal and non-verbal behavior in order to make interactions more engaging and more efficient. In this study we decided to focus our research on the head rather than any other body part as it is a rich source of information for speech-related movement Thus we aim to investigate the value of incorporating head movements into the use of telepresence robots as communication platforms; this will be done by investigating a system that reproduces head movement manually as closely as possible.

Keywords: engagement, nonverbal behaviours, head movements, face-to-face interaction, telepresence robot

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Authors: Aristi Alopoudi, Sofia Beloka, Vassiliki Pliogou

Abstract:

Autism is a complex neuro-developmental disorder with a variety of difficulties in many aspects such as social interaction, communication skills and verbal communication (speech). The aim of this study was to examine the impact of therapeutic horseback riding in improving the verbal and communication skills of children diagnosed with autism during 16 sessions. The researcher examined whether the expression of speech, the use of vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, echolalia and communication skills were influenced by the therapeutic horseback riding when we increase the frequency of the sessions. The researcher observed two subjects of primary-school aged, in a two case observation design, with autism during 16 therapeutic horseback riding sessions (one riding session per week). Compared to baseline, at the end of the 16th therapeutic session, therapeutic horseback riding increased both verbal skills such as vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, formation of sentences and communication skills such as eye contact, greeting, participation in dialogue and spontaneous speech. It was noticeable that echolalia remained stable. Increased frequency of therapeutic horseback riding was beneficial for significant improvement in verbal and communication skills. More specifically, from the first to the last riding session there was a great increase of vocabulary, semantics, and formation of sentences. Pragmatics reached a lower level than semantics but the same as the right usage of the first person (for example, I make a hug) and echolalia used for that. A great increase of spontaneous speech was noticed. The eye contact was presented in a lower level, and there was a slow but important raise at the greeting as well as the participation in dialogue. Last but not least; this is a first study conducted in therapeutic horseback riding studying the verbal communication and communication skills in autistic children. According to the references, therapeutic horseback riding is a therapy with a variety of benefits, thus; this research made clear that in the benefits of this therapy there should be included the improvement of verbal speech and communication.

Keywords: Autism, communication skills, speech, therapeutic horseback riding

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