Search results for: data mining technique
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 9743

Search results for: data mining technique

6653 A Decision Support Tool for Evaluating Mobility Projects

Authors: H. Omrani, P. Gerber

Abstract:

Success is a European project that will implement several clean transport offers in three European cities and evaluate the environmental impacts. The goal of these measures is to improve urban mobility or the displacement of residents inside cities. For e.g. park and ride, electric vehicles, hybrid bus and bike sharing etc. A list of 28 criteria and 60 measures has been established for evaluation of these transport projects. The evaluation criteria can be grouped into: Transport, environment, social, economic and fuel consumption. This article proposes a decision support system based that encapsulates a hybrid approach based on fuzzy logic, multicriteria analysis and belief theory for the evaluation of impacts of urban mobility solutions. A web-based tool called DeSSIA (Decision Support System for Impacts Assessment) has been developed that treats complex data. The tool has several functionalities starting from data integration (import of data), evaluation of projects and finishes by graphical display of results. The tool development is based on the concept of MVC (Model, View, and Controller). The MVC is a conception model adapted to the creation of software's which impose separation between data, their treatment and presentation. Effort is laid on the ergonomic aspects of the application. It has codes compatible with the latest norms (XHTML, CSS) and has been validated by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). The main ergonomic aspect focuses on the usability of the application, ease of learning and adoption. By the usage of technologies such as AJAX (XML and Java Script asynchrones), the application is more rapid and convivial. The positive points of our approach are that it treats heterogeneous data (qualitative, quantitative) from various information sources (human experts, survey, sensors, model etc.).

Keywords: Decision support tool, hybrid approach, urban mobility.

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6652 Application of Neural Network for Contingency Ranking Based on Combination of Severity Indices

Authors: S. Jadid, S. Jalilzadeh

Abstract:

In this paper, an improved technique for contingency ranking using artificial neural network (ANN) is presented. The proposed approach is based on multi-layer perceptrons trained by backpropagation to contingency analysis. Severity indices in dynamic stability assessment are presented. These indices are based on the concept of coherency and three dot products of the system variables. It is well known that some indices work better than others for a particular power system. This paper along with test results using several different systems, demonstrates that combination of indices with ANN provides better ranking than a single index. The presented results are obtained through the use of power system simulation (PSS/E) and MATLAB 6.5 software.

Keywords: composite indices, transient stability, neural network.

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6651 The Forensic Swing of Things: The Current Legal and Technical Challenges of IoT Forensics

Authors: Pantaleon Lutta, Mohamed Sedky, Mohamed Hassan

Abstract:

The inability of organizations to put in place management control measures for Internet of Things (IoT) complexities persists to be a risk concern. Policy makers have been left to scamper in finding measures to combat these security and privacy concerns. IoT forensics is a cumbersome process as there is no standardization of the IoT products, no or limited historical data are stored on the devices. This paper highlights why IoT forensics is a unique adventure and brought out the legal challenges encountered in the investigation process. A quadrant model is presented to study the conflicting aspects in IoT forensics. The model analyses the effectiveness of forensic investigation process versus the admissibility of the evidence integrity; taking into account the user privacy and the providers’ compliance with the laws and regulations. Our analysis concludes that a semi-automated forensic process using machine learning, could eliminate the human factor from the profiling and surveillance processes, and hence resolves the issues of data protection (privacy and confidentiality).

Keywords: Cloud forensics, data protection laws, GDPR, IoT forensics, machine learning.

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6650 Factors Affecting Media Literacy of Early Teenagers

Authors: Khajornjit Bunnag

Abstract:

The purposes of this research are: 1) to study the media literacy of early teenagers, and 2) to study the interaction between gender and timing of media exposure that affects the media literacy of teenagers. The sample of the study included 400 young people aged between 11 to 17 and who were living in Bangkok. The data was collected using questionnaires. Two-way ANOVA was used in analyzing the collected data. The result revealed that gender and timing of media exposure affected the media literacy of early teenagers with statistical significance at the level of 0.05.

Keywords: Gender, Media Literacy, Teenager, Timing of Media Exposure.

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6649 Tomographic Images Reconstruction Simulation for Defects Detection in Specimen

Authors: Kedit J.

Abstract:

This paper is the tomographic images reconstruction simulation for defects detection in specimen. The specimen is the thin cylindrical steel contained with low density materials. The defects in material are simulated in three shapes.The specimen image function will be transformed to projection data. Radon transform and its inverse provide the mathematical for reconstructing tomographic images from projection data. The result of the simulation show that the reconstruction images is complete for defect detection.

Keywords: Tomography, Tomography Reconstruction, Radon Transform

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6648 A Digital Twin Approach for Sustainable Territories Planning: A Case Study on District Heating

Authors: A. Amrani, O. Allali, A. Ben Hamida, F. Defrance, S. Morland, E. Pineau, T. Lacroix

Abstract:

The energy planning process is a very complex task that involves several stakeholders and requires the consideration of several local and global factors and constraints. In order to optimize and simplify this process, we propose a tool-based iterative approach applied to district heating planning. We build our tool with the collaboration of a French territory using actual district data and implementing the European incentives. We set up an iterative process including data visualization and analysis, identification and extraction of information related to the area concerned by the operation, design of sustainable planning scenarios leveraging local renewable and recoverable energy sources, and finally, the evaluation of scenarios. The last step is performed by a dynamic digital twin replica of the city. Territory’s energy experts confirm that the tool provides them with valuable support towards sustainable energy planning.

Keywords: Climate change, data management, decision support, digital twin, district heating, energy planning, renewables, smart city.

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6647 Stability Issues on an Implemented All-Pass Filter Circuitry

Authors: Ákos Pintér, István Dénes

Abstract:

The so-called all-pass filter circuits are commonly used in the field of signal processing, control and measurement. Being connected to capacitive loads, these circuits tend to loose their stability; therefore the elaborate analysis of their dynamic behavior is necessary. The compensation methods intending to increase the stability of such circuits are discussed in this paper, including the socalled lead-lag compensation technique being treated in detail. For the dynamic modeling, a two-port network model of the all-pass filter is being derived. The results of the model analysis show, that effective lead-lag compensation can be achieved, alone by the optimization of the circuit parameters; therefore the application of additional electric components are not needed to fulfill the stability requirement.

Keywords: all-pass filter, frequency compensation, stability, linear modeling

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6646 The Impact of Trade on Social Development

Authors: Umut Gunduz, Mehtap Hisarciklilar, Tolga Kaya

Abstract:

Studies revealing the positive relationship between trade and income are often criticized with the argument that “development should mean more than rising incomes". Taking this argument as a base and utilizing panel data, Davies and Quinlivan [1] have demonstrated that increases in trade are positively associated with future increases in social welfare as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). The purpose of this study is twofold: Firstly, utilizing an income based country classification; it is aimed to investigate whether the positive association between foreign trade and HDI is valid within all country groups. Secondly, keeping the same categorization as a base; it is aimed to reveal whether the positive link between trade and HDI still exists when the income components of the index are excluded. Employing a panel data framework of 106 countries, this study reveals that the positive link between trade and human development is valid only for high and medium income countries. Moreover, the positive link between trade and human development diminishes in lower-medium income countries when only non-income components of the index are taken into consideration.

Keywords: HDI, foreign trade, development, panel data.

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6645 Spatial Analysis and Statistics for Zoning of Urban Areas

Authors: Benedetto Manganelli, Beniamino Murgante

Abstract:

The use of statistical data and of the neural networks, capable of elaborate a series of data and territorial info, have allowed the making of a model useful in the subdivision of urban places into homogeneous zone under the profile of a social, real estate, environmental and urbanist background of a city. The development of homogeneous zone has fiscal and urbanist advantages. The tools in the model proposed, able to be adapted to the dynamic changes of the city, allow the application of the zoning fast and dynamic.

Keywords: Homogeneous Urban Areas, Multidimensional Scaling, Neural Network, Real Estate Market, Urban Planning.

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6644 A Dictionary Learning Method Based On EMD for Audio Sparse Representation

Authors: Yueming Wang, Zenghui Zhang, Rendong Ying, Peilin Liu

Abstract:

Sparse representation has long been studied and several dictionary learning methods have been proposed. The dictionary learning methods are widely used because they are adaptive. In this paper, a new dictionary learning method for audio is proposed. Signals are at first decomposed into different degrees of Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) using Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) technique. Then these IMFs form a learned dictionary. To reduce the size of the dictionary, the K-means method is applied to the dictionary to generate a K-EMD dictionary. Compared to K-SVD algorithm, the K-EMD dictionary decomposes audio signals into structured components, thus the sparsity of the representation is increased by 34.4% and the SNR of the recovered audio signals is increased by 20.9%.

Keywords: Dictionary Learning, EMD, K-means Method, Sparse Representation.

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6643 A Comparison of SVM-based Criteria in Evolutionary Method for Gene Selection and Classification of Microarray Data

Authors: Rameswar Debnath, Haruhisa Takahashi

Abstract:

An evolutionary method whose selection and recombination operations are based on generalization error-bounds of support vector machine (SVM) can select a subset of potentially informative genes for SVM classifier very efficiently [7]. In this paper, we will use the derivative of error-bound (first-order criteria) to select and recombine gene features in the evolutionary process, and compare the performance of the derivative of error-bound with the error-bound itself (zero-order) in the evolutionary process. We also investigate several error-bounds and their derivatives to compare the performance, and find the best criteria for gene selection and classification. We use 7 cancer-related human gene expression datasets to evaluate the performance of the zero-order and first-order criteria of error-bounds. Though both criteria have the same strategy in theoretically, experimental results demonstrate the best criterion for microarray gene expression data.

Keywords: support vector machine, generalization error-bound, feature selection, evolutionary algorithm, microarray data

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6642 A Grounded Theory on Marist Spirituality/Charism from the Perspective of the Lay Marists in the Philippines

Authors: Nino M. Pizarro

Abstract:

To the author’s knowledge, despite the written documents about Marist spirituality/charism, nothing has been done concerning a clear theoretical framework that highlights Marist spirituality/charism from the perspective or lived experience of the lay Marists of St. Marcellin Champagnat. The participants of the study are the lay Marist - educators who are from Marist Schools in the Philippines. Since the study would like to find out the respondents’ own concepts and meanings about Marist spirituality/charism, qualitative methodology is considered the approach to be used in the study. In particular, the study will use the qualitative methods of Barney Glaser. The theory will be generated systematically from data collection, coding and analyzing through memoing, theoretical sampling, sorting and writing and using the constant comparative method. The data collection method that will be employed in this grounded theory research is the in-depth interview that is semi-structured and participant driven. Data collection will be done through snowball sampling that is purposive. The study is considering to come up with a theoretical framework that will help the lay Marists to deepen their understanding of the Marist spirituality/charism and their vocation as lay partners of the Marist Brothers of the Schools.

Keywords: Grounded Theory, Lay Marists, Lived Experience, Marist Spirituality/Charism.

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6641 Information Delivery and Advanced Traffic Information Systems in Istanbul

Authors: Kevser Simsek, Rahime Gunay

Abstract:

In this paper, we focused primarily on Istanbul data that is gathered by using intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and considered the developments in traffic information delivery and future applications that are being planned for implementation. Since traffic congestion is increasing and travel times are becoming less consistent and less predictable, traffic information delivery has become a critical issue. Considering the fuel consumption and wasted time in traffic, advanced traffic information systems are becoming increasingly valuable which enables travelers to plan their trips more accurately and easily.

Keywords: Data Fusion, Istanbul, ITS, Real Time Information, Traffic Information, Travel Time, Urban Mobility

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6640 RAPD Analysis of Genetic Diversity of Castor Bean

Authors: M. Vivodík, Ž. Balážová, Z. Gálová

Abstract:

The aim of this work was to detect genetic variability among the set of 40 castor genotypes using 8 RAPD markers. Amplification of genomic DNA of 40 genotypes, using RAPD analysis, yielded in 66 fragments, with an average of 8.25 polymorphic fragments per primer. Number of amplified fragments ranged from 3 to 13, with the size of amplicons ranging from 100 to 1200 bp. Values of the polymorphic information content (PIC) value ranged from 0.556 to 0.895 with an average of 0.784 and diversity index (DI) value ranged from 0.621 to 0.896 with an average of 0.798. The dendrogram based on hierarchical cluster analysis using UPGMA algorithm was prepared and analyzed genotypes were grouped into two main clusters and only two genotypes could not be distinguished. Knowledge on the genetic diversity of castor can be used for future breeding programs for increased oil production for industrial uses.

Keywords: Dendrogram, polymorphism, RAPD technique, Ricinus communis L.

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6639 MLOps Scaling Machine Learning Lifecycle in an Industrial Setting

Authors: Yizhen Zhao, Adam S. Z. Belloum, Gonc¸alo Maia da Costa, Zhiming Zhao

Abstract:

Machine learning has evolved from an area of academic research to a real-world applied field. This change comes with challenges, gaps and differences exist between common practices in academic environments and the ones in production environments. Following continuous integration, development and delivery practices in software engineering, similar trends have happened in machine learning (ML) systems, called MLOps. In this paper we propose a framework that helps to streamline and introduce best practices that facilitate the ML lifecycle in an industrial setting. This framework can be used as a template that can be customized to implement various machine learning experiments. The proposed framework is modular and can be recomposed to be adapted to various use cases (e.g. data versioning, remote training on Cloud). The framework inherits practices from DevOps and introduces other practices that are unique to the machine learning system (e.g.data versioning). Our MLOps practices automate the entire machine learning lifecycle, bridge the gap between development and operation.

Keywords: Cloud computing, continuous development, data versioning, DevOps, industrial setting, MLOps, machine learning.

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6638 Dynamic Bayesian Networks Modeling for Inferring Genetic Regulatory Networks by Search Strategy: Comparison between Greedy Hill Climbing and MCMC Methods

Authors: Huihai Wu, Xiaohui Liu

Abstract:

Using Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBN) to model genetic regulatory networks from gene expression data is one of the major paradigms for inferring the interactions among genes. Averaging a collection of models for predicting network is desired, rather than relying on a single high scoring model. In this paper, two kinds of model searching approaches are compared, which are Greedy hill-climbing Search with Restarts (GSR) and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. The GSR is preferred in many papers, but there is no such comparison study about which one is better for DBN models. Different types of experiments have been carried out to try to give a benchmark test to these approaches. Our experimental results demonstrated that on average the MCMC methods outperform the GSR in accuracy of predicted network, and having the comparable performance in time efficiency. By proposing the different variations of MCMC and employing simulated annealing strategy, the MCMC methods become more efficient and stable. Apart from comparisons between these approaches, another objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using DBN modeling approaches for inferring gene networks from few snapshots of high dimensional gene profiles. Through synthetic data experiments as well as systematic data experiments, the experimental results revealed how the performances of these approaches can be influenced as the target gene network varies in the network size, data size, as well as system complexity.

Keywords: Genetic regulatory network, Dynamic Bayesian network, GSR, MCMC.

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6637 Determining Optimal Demand Rate and Production Decisions: A Geometric Programming Approach

Authors: Farnaz G. Nezami, Mir B. Aryanezhad, Seyed J. Sadjadi

Abstract:

In this paper a nonlinear model is presented to demonstrate the relation between production and marketing departments. By introducing some functions such as pricing cost and market share loss functions it will be tried to show some aspects of market modelling which has not been regarded before. The proposed model will be a constrained signomial geometric programming model. For model solving, after variables- modifications an iterative technique based on the concept of geometric mean will be introduced to solve the resulting non-standard posynomial model which can be applied to a wide variety of models in non-standard posynomial geometric programming form. At the end a numerical analysis will be presented to accredit the validity of the mentioned model.

Keywords: Geometric programming, marketing, nonlinear optimization, production.

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6636 Design and Implementation of Secure Electronic Payment System (Client)

Authors: Pyae Pyae Hun

Abstract:

Secure electronic payment system is presented in this paper. This electronic payment system is to be secure for clients such as customers and shop owners. The security architecture of the system is designed by RC5 encryption / decryption algorithm. This eliminates the fraud that occurs today with stolen credit card numbers. The symmetric key cryptosystem RC5 can protect conventional transaction data such as account numbers, amount and other information. This process can be done electronically using RC5 encryption / decryption program written by Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0. There is no danger of any data sent within the system being intercepted, and replaced. The alternative is to use the existing network, and to encrypt all data transmissions. The system with encryption is acceptably secure, but that the level of encryption has to be stepped up, as computing power increases. Results In order to be secure the system the communication between modules is encrypted using symmetric key cryptosystem RC5. The system will use simple user name, password, user ID, user type and cipher authentication mechanism for identification, when the user first enters the system. It is the most common method of authentication in most computer system.

Keywords: A 128-bit block cipher, Microsoft visual basic 6.0, RC5 encryption /decryption algorithm and TCP/IP protocol.

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6635 Close Loop Controlled Current Nerve Locator

Authors: H. A. Alzomor, B. K. Ouda, A. M. Eldeib

Abstract:

Successful regional anesthesia depends upon precise location of the peripheral nerve or nerve plexus. Locating peripheral nerves is preferred to be done using nerve stimulation. In order to generate a nerve impulse by electrical means, a minimum threshold stimulus of current “rheobase” must be applied to the nerve. The technique depends on stimulating muscular twitching at a close distance to the nerve without actually touching it. Success rate of this operation depends on the accuracy of current intensity pulses used for stimulation .In this paper, we will discuss a circuit and algorithm for closed loop control for the current, theoretical analysis and test results is discussed and results is compared to previous techniques.

Keywords: Close Loop Control, Constant Current, Nerve Locator.

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6634 Bootstrap Confidence Intervals and Parameter Estimation for Zero Inflated Strict Arcsine Model

Authors: Y. N. Phang, E. F. Loh

Abstract:

Zero inflated Strict Arcsine model is a newly developed model which is found to be appropriate in modeling overdispersed count data. In this study, maximum likelihood estimation method is used in estimating the parameters for zero inflated strict arcsine model. Bootstrapping is then employed to compute the confidence intervals for the estimated parameters.

Keywords: overdispersed count data, maximum likelihood estimation, simulated annealing, BCa confidence intervals.

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6633 Financial Burden of Family for the Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Authors: M. R. Bhuiyan, S. M. M. Hossain, M. Z. Islam

Abstract:

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the fastest growing serious developmental disorder characterized by social deficits, communicative difficulties, and repetitive behaviors. ASD is an emerging public health issue globally which is associated with huge financial burden to the family, community and the nation. The aim of this study was to assess the financial burden of family for the children with Autism spectrum Disorder. This cross-sectional study was carried out from July 2015 to June 2016 among 154 children with ASD to assess the financial burden of family. Data were collected by face-to-face interview with semi-structured questionnaire following systematic random sampling technique. Majority (73.4%) children were male and mean (±SD) age was 6.66 ± 2.97 years. Most (88.8%) of the children were from urban areas with average monthly family income Tk. 41785.71±23936.45. Average monthly direct cost of the children was Tk.17656.49 ± 9984.35, while indirect cost was Tk. 13462.90 ± 9713.54 and total treatment cost was Tk. 23076.62 ± 15341.09. Special education cost (Tk. 4871.00), cost of therapy (Tk. 4124.07) and travel cost (Tk. 3988.31) were the major types of direct cost, while loss of income (Tk.14570.18) was the chief indirect cost incurred by the families. The study found that majority (59.8%) of the children attended special schools were incurred Tk.20001-78700 as total treatment cost, which were statistically significant (p<0.001). Again, families with higher monthly family income incurred higher treatment cost (r=0.526, p<0.05). Difference between mean direct and indirect cost was found significant (t=4.190, df=61, p<0.001). According to the analysis of variance, mean difference of father’s educational status among direct cost (F=10.337, p<0.001) and total treatment cost (F=7.841, p<0.001), which were statistically significant. The study revealed that maximum children with ASD were under five years, three-fourth were male. According to monthly family income, maximum family were in middle class. The study recommends cost effective interventions and financial safety-net measures to reduce the financial burden of families for the children with ASD.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, financial burden, direct cost, indirect cost, Special education.

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6632 A Proposal for a Secure and Interoperable Data Framework for Energy Digitalization

Authors: Hebberly Ahatlan

Abstract:

The process of digitizing energy systems involves transforming traditional energy infrastructure into interconnected, data-driven systems that enhance efficiency, sustainability, and responsiveness. As smart grids become increasingly integral to the efficient distribution and management of electricity from both fossil and renewable energy sources, the energy industry faces strategic challenges associated with digitalization and interoperability — particularly in the context of modern energy business models, such as virtual power plants (VPPs). The critical challenge in modern smart grids is to seamlessly integrate diverse technologies and systems, including virtualization, grid computing and service-oriented architecture (SOA), across the entire energy ecosystem. Achieving this requires addressing issues like semantic interoperability, Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) convergence, and digital asset scalability, all while ensuring security and risk management. This paper proposes a four-layer digitalization framework to tackle these challenges, encompassing persistent data protection, trusted key management, secure messaging, and authentication of IoT resources. Data assets generated through this framework enable AI systems to derive insights for improving smart grid operations, security, and revenue generation. Furthermore, this paper also proposes a Trusted Energy Interoperability Alliance as a universal guiding standard in the development of this digitalization framework to support more dynamic and interoperable energy markets.

Keywords: Digitalization, IT/OT convergence, semantic interoperability, TEIA alliance, VPP.

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6631 Needs of Omani Children in First Grade during Their Transition from Kindergarten to Primary School: An Ethnographic Study

Authors: Zainab Algharibi, Julie McAdam, Catherine Fagan

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how Omani children in the first grade experience their needs during their transition to primary school. Theoretically, the paper was built on two perspectives: Dewey's concept of continuity of experience and the boundary objects introduced by Vygotsky (CHAT). The methodology of the study is based on the crucial role of children’s agency which is a very important activity as an educational tool to enhance the child’s participation in the learning process and develop their ability to face various issues in their life. Thus, the data were obtained from 45 children in grade one from four different primary schools using drawing and visual narrative activities, in addition to researcher observations during the start of the first weeks of the academic year for the first grade. As the study dealt with children, all of the necessary ethical laws were followed. This paper is considered original since it seeks to deal with the issue of children's transition from kindergarten to primary school not only in Oman, but in the Arab region. Therefore, it is expected to fill an important gap in this field and present a proposal that will be a door for researchers to enter this research field later. The analysis of drawing and visual narrative was performed according to the social semiotics approach in two phases. The first is to read out the surface message “denotation,” while the second is to go in-depth via the symbolism obtained from children while they talked and drew letters and signs. This stage is known as “signified”; a video was recorded of each child talking about their drawing and expressing themself. Then, the data were organised and classified according to a cross-data network. Regarding the researcher observation analyses, the collected data were analysed according to the "grounded theory". It is based on comparing the recent data collected from observations with data previously encoded by other methods in which children were drawing alongside the visual narrative in the current study, in order to identify the similarities and differences, and also to clarify the meaning of the accessed categories and to identify sub-categories of them with a description of possible links between them. This is a kind of triangulation in data collection. The study came up with a set of findings, the most vital being that the children's greatest interest goes to their social and psychological needs, such as friends, their teacher, and playing. Also, their biggest fears are a new place, a new teacher, and not having friends, while they showed less concern for their need for educational knowledge and skills.

Keywords: Children’s academic needs, children’s social needs, children transition, primary school.

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6630 Location Based Clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks

Authors: Ashok Kumar, Narottam Chand, Vinod Kumar

Abstract:

Due to the limited energy resources, energy efficient operation of sensor node is a key issue in wireless sensor networks. Clustering is an effective method to prolong the lifetime of energy constrained wireless sensor network. However, clustering in wireless sensor network faces several challenges such as selection of an optimal group of sensor nodes as cluster, optimum selection of cluster head, energy balanced optimal strategy for rotating the role of cluster head in a cluster, maintaining intra and inter cluster connectivity and optimal data routing in the network. In this paper, we propose a protocol supporting an energy efficient clustering, cluster head selection/rotation and data routing method to prolong the lifetime of sensor network. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol prolongs network lifetime due to the use of efficient clustering, cluster head selection/rotation and data routing.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, clustering, energy efficient, localization.

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6629 Feasibility Study of Mine Tailing’s Treatment by Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans DSM 26636

Authors: M. Gómez-Ramírez, A. Rivas-Castillo, I. Rodríguez-Pozos, R. A. Avalos-Zuñiga, N. G. Rojas-Avelizapa

Abstract:

Among the diverse types of pollutants produced by anthropogenic activities, metals represent a serious threat, due to their accumulation in ecosystems and their elevated toxicity. The mine tailings of abandoned mines contain high levels of metals such as arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and lead (Pb), which do not suffer any degradation process, they are accumulated in environment. Abandoned mine tailings potentially could contaminate rivers and aquifers representing a risk for human health due to their high metal content. In an attempt to remove the metals and thereby mitigate the environmental pollution, an environmentally friendly and economical method of bioremediation has been introduced. Bioleaching has been actively studied over the last several years, and it is one of the bioremediation solutions used to treat heavy metals contained in sewage sludge, sediment and contaminated soil. Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, an extremely acidophilic, chemolithoautotrophic, gram-negative, rod shaped microorganism, which is typically related to Cu mining operations (bioleaching), has been well studied for industrial applications. The sulfuric acid produced plays a major role in bioleaching. Specifically, Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans strain DSM 26636 has been able to leach Al, Ni, V, Fe, Mg, Si, and Ni contained in slags from coal combustion wastes. The present study reports the ability of A. thiooxidans DSM 26636 for the bioleaching of metals contained in two different mine tailing samples (MT1 and MT2). It was observed that Al, Fe, and Mn were removed in 36.3±1.7, 191.2±1.6, and 4.5±0.2 mg/kg for MT1, and in 74.5±0.3, 208.3±0.5, and 20.9±0.1 for MT2. Besides, < 1.5 mg/kg of Au and Ru were also bioleached from MT1; in MT2, bioleaching of Zn was observed at 55.7±1.3 mg/kg, besides removal of < 1.5 mg/kg was observed for As, Ir, Li, and 0.6 for Os in this residue. These results show the potential of strain DSM 26636 for the bioleaching of metals that came from different mine tailings.

Keywords: A. thiooxidans, bioleaching, metals, mine tailings.

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6628 Probability Distribution of Rainfall Depth at Hourly Time-Scale

Authors: S. Dan'azumi, S. Shamsudin, A. A. Rahman

Abstract:

Rainfall data at fine resolution and knowledge of its characteristics plays a major role in the efficient design and operation of agricultural, telecommunication, runoff and erosion control as well as water quality control systems. The paper is aimed to study the statistical distribution of hourly rainfall depth for 12 representative stations spread across Peninsular Malaysia. Hourly rainfall data of 10 to 22 years period were collected and its statistical characteristics were estimated. Three probability distributions namely, Generalized Pareto, Exponential and Gamma distributions were proposed to model the hourly rainfall depth, and three goodness-of-fit tests, namely, Kolmogorov-Sminov, Anderson-Darling and Chi-Squared tests were used to evaluate their fitness. Result indicates that the east cost of the Peninsular receives higher depth of rainfall as compared to west coast. However, the rainfall frequency is found to be irregular. Also result from the goodness-of-fit tests show that all the three models fit the rainfall data at 1% level of significance. However, Generalized Pareto fits better than Exponential and Gamma distributions and is therefore recommended as the best fit.

Keywords: Goodness-of-fit test, Hourly rainfall, Malaysia, Probability distribution.

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6627 Classifying and Predicting Efficiencies Using Interval DEA Grid Setting

Authors: Yiannis G. Smirlis

Abstract:

The classification and the prediction of efficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is an important issue, especially in large scale problems or when new units frequently enter the under-assessment set. In this paper, we contribute to the subject by proposing a grid structure based on interval segmentations of the range of values for the inputs and outputs. Such intervals combined, define hyper-rectangles that partition the space of the problem. This structure, exploited by Interval DEA models and a dominance relation, acts as a DEA pre-processor, enabling the classification and prediction of efficiency scores, without applying any DEA models.

Keywords: Data envelopment analysis, interval DEA, efficiency classification, efficiency prediction.

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6626 Application of Gamma Frailty Model in Survival of Liver Cirrhosis Patients

Authors: Elnaz Saeedi, Jamileh Abolaghasemi, Mohsen Nasiri Tousi, Saeedeh Khosravi

Abstract:

Goals and Objectives: A typical analysis of survival data involves the modeling of time-to-event data, such as the time till death. A frailty model is a random effect model for time-to-event data, where the random effect has a multiplicative influence on the baseline hazard function. This article aims to investigate the use of gamma frailty model with concomitant variable in order to individualize the prognostic factors that influence the liver cirrhosis patients’ survival times. Methods: During the one-year study period (May 2008-May 2009), data have been used from the recorded information of patients with liver cirrhosis who were scheduled for liver transplantation and were followed up for at least seven years in Imam Khomeini Hospital in Iran. In order to determine the effective factors for cirrhotic patients’ survival in the presence of latent variables, the gamma frailty distribution has been applied. In this article, it was considering the parametric model, such as Exponential and Weibull distributions for survival time. Data analysis is performed using R software, and the error level of 0.05 was considered for all tests. Results: 305 patients with liver cirrhosis including 180 (59%) men and 125 (41%) women were studied. The age average of patients was 39.8 years. At the end of the study, 82 (26%) patients died, among them 48 (58%) were men and 34 (42%) women. The main cause of liver cirrhosis was found hepatitis 'B' with 23%, followed by cryptogenic with 22.6% were identified as the second factor. Generally, 7-year’s survival was 28.44 months, for dead patients and for censoring was 19.33 and 31.79 months, respectively. Using multi-parametric survival models of progressive and regressive, Exponential and Weibull models with regard to the gamma frailty distribution were fitted to the cirrhosis data. In both models, factors including, age, bilirubin serum, albumin serum, and encephalopathy had a significant effect on survival time of cirrhotic patients. Conclusion: To investigate the effective factors for the time of patients’ death with liver cirrhosis in the presence of latent variables, gamma frailty model with parametric distributions seems desirable.

Keywords: Frailty model, latent variables, liver cirrhosis, parametric distribution.

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6625 Accelerated Aging of Photopolymeric Material Used in Flexography

Authors: S. Mahovic Poljacek, T. Tomasegovic, T. Cigula, D. Donevski, R. Szentgyörgyvölgyi, S. Jakovljevic

Abstract:

In this paper, a degradation of the photopolymeric material (PhPM), used as printing plate in the flexography reproduction technique, caused by accelerated aging has been observed. Since the basis process for production of printing plates from the PhPM is a radical cross-linking process caused by exposing to UV wavelengths, the assumption was that improper storage or irregular handling of the PhPM plate can change the surface and structure characteristics of the plates. Results have shown that the aging process causes degradation in the structure and changes in the surface of the PhPM printing plate.

Keywords: Aging process, accelerated treatment, flexography, photopolymeric material (PhPM).

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6624 Operational Risk – Scenario Analysis

Authors: Milan Rippel, Petr Teply

Abstract:

This paper focuses on operational risk measurement techniques and on economic capital estimation methods. A data sample of operational losses provided by an anonymous Central European bank is analyzed using several approaches. Loss Distribution Approach and scenario analysis method are considered. Custom plausible loss events defined in a particular scenario are merged with the original data sample and their impact on capital estimates and on the financial institution is evaluated. Two main questions are assessed – What is the most appropriate statistical method to measure and model operational loss data distribution? and What is the impact of hypothetical plausible events on the financial institution? The g&h distribution was evaluated to be the most suitable one for operational risk modeling. The method based on the combination of historical loss events modeling and scenario analysis provides reasonable capital estimates and allows for the measurement of the impact of extreme events on banking operations.

Keywords: operational risk, scenario analysis, economic capital, loss distribution approach, extreme value theory, stress testing

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