Search results for: learning activities

Authors: H. Benjamin Fredrick David, R. Balasubramanian, A. Anbarasa Pandian

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Image retrieval is the most interesting technique which is being used today in our digital world. CBIR, commonly expanded as Content Based Image Retrieval is an image processing technique which identifies the relevant images and retrieves them based on the patterns that are extracted from the digital images. In this paper, two research works have been presented using CBIR. The first work provides an automated and interactive approach to the analysis of CBIR techniques. CBIR works on the principle of supervised machine learning which involves feature selection followed by training and testing phase applied on a classifier in order to perform prediction. By using feature extraction, the image transforms such as Contourlet, Ridgelet and Shearlet could be utilized to retrieve the texture features from the images. The features extracted are used to train and build a classifier using the classification algorithms such as Naïve Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbour and Multi-class Support Vector Machine. Further the testing phase involves prediction which predicts the new input image using the trained classifier and label them from one of the four classes namely 1- Normal brain, 2- Benign tumour, 3- Malignant tumour and 4- Severe tumour. The second research work includes developing a tool which is used for tumour stage identification using the best feature extraction and classifier identified from the first work. Finally, the tool will be used to predict tumour stage and provide suggestions based on the stage of tumour identified by the system. This paper presents these two approaches which is a contribution to the medical field for giving better retrieval performance and for tumour stages identification.

Keywords: Brain tumour detection, content based image retrieval, classification of tumours, image retrieval.

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Authors: Mohsen Soori, Fooad Karimi Ghaleh Jough

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The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in the optimization of steel moment frame structures represents a transformative approach to enhance the design, analysis, and performance of these critical engineering systems. The review encompasses a wide spectrum of AI methods, including machine learning algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, and optimization techniques, applied to address various challenges in the field. The synthesis of research findings highlights the interdisciplinary nature of AI applications in structural engineering, emphasizing the synergy between domain expertise and advanced computational methodologies. This synthesis aims to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers seeking a comprehensive understanding of the state-of-the-art in AI-driven optimization for steel moment frame structures. The paper commences with an overview of the fundamental principles governing steel moment frame structures and identifies the key optimization objectives, such as efficiency of structures. Subsequently, it delves into the application of AI in the conceptual design phase, where algorithms aid in generating innovative structural configurations and optimizing material utilization. The review also explores the use of AI for real-time structural health monitoring and predictive maintenance, contributing to the long-term sustainability and reliability of steel moment frame structures. Furthermore, the paper investigates how AI-driven algorithms facilitate the calibration of structural models, enabling accurate prediction of dynamic responses and seismic performance. Thus, by reviewing and analyzing the recent achievements in applications artificial intelligent in optimization of steel moment frame structures, the process of designing, analysis, and performance of the structures can be analyzed and modified.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligent, optimization process, steel moment frame, structural engineering.

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Authors: Inês Boticas, Diana P. Ferreira, Ana Eusébio, Carlos Silva, Pedro Magalhães, Ricardo Silva, Raul Fangueiro

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Since the beginning of the 20^th century, sportswear has a major contribution to the impact of fashion on our lives. Nowadays, the embracing of sportswear fashion/looks is undoubtedly noticeable, as the modern consumer searches for high comfort and linear aesthetics for its clothes. This compromise lead to the arise of the athleisure trend. Athleisure surges as a new style area that combines both wearability and fashion sense, differentiated from the archetypal sportswear, usually associated to “gym clothes”. Additionally, the possibility to functionalize and implement new technologies have shifted and progressively empowers the connection between the concepts of physical activities practice and well-being, allowing clothing to be more interactive and responsive with its surroundings. In this study, a design inspired in retro and urban lifestyle was envisioned, engineering textile structures that can respond to external stimuli. These structures are enhanced to be responsive to heat, water vapor and humidity, integrating shape memory polymers (SMP) to improve the breathability and heat-responsive behavior of the textiles and zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) to heighten the surface hydrophobic properties. The best results for hydrophobic exhibited superhydrophobic behavior with water contact angle (WAC) of more than 150 degrees. For the breathability and heat-response properties, SMP-coated samples showed an increase in water vapour permeability values of about 50% when compared with non SMP-coated samples. These innovative technological approaches were endorsed to design innovative clothing, in line with circular economy and eco-design principles, by assigning a substantial degree of mutability and versatility to the clothing. The development of a coat and shirt, in which different parts can be purchased separately to create multiple products, aims to combine the technicality of both the fabrics used and the making of the garments. This concept translates itself into a real constructive mechanism through the symbiosis of high-tech functionalities and the timeless design that follows the athleisure aesthetics.

Keywords: Breathability, sportswear and casual clothing, sustainable design, superhydrophobicity.

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Authors: Javier Romera, Alberto Justo, Ignacio Fidalgo, Javier Araluce, Joshué Pérez

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Nowadays, individuals with mobility needs face a significant challenge when docking vehicles. In many cases, after parking, they encounter insufficient space to exit, leading to two undesired outcomes: either avoiding parking in that spot or settling for improperly placed vehicles. To address this issue, this paper presents a parking control system employing gestural teleoperation. The system comprises three main phases: capturing body markers, interpreting gestures, and transmitting orders to the vehicle. The initial phase is centered around the MediaPipe framework, a versatile tool optimized for real-time gesture recognition. MediaPipe excels at detecting and tracing body markers, with a special emphasis on hand gestures. Hands detection is done by generating 21 reference points for each hand. Subsequently, after data capture, the project employs the MultiPerceptron Layer (MPL) for in-depth gesture classification. This tandem of MediaPipe’s extraction prowess and MPL’s analytical capability ensures that human gestures are translated into actionable commands with high precision. Furthermore, the system has been trained and validated within a built-in dataset. To prove the domain adaptation, a framework based on the Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2), as a communication backbone, alongside CARLA Simulator, is used. Following successful simulations, the system is transitioned to a real-world platform, marking a significant milestone in the project. This real-vehicle implementation verifies the practicality and efficiency of the system beyond theoretical constructs.

Keywords: Gesture detection, MediaPipe, MultiLayer Perceptron Layer, Robot Operating System.

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Authors: Elia Favarelli, Enrico Testi, Andrea Giorgetti

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Autonomous structural health monitoring (SHM) of many structures and bridges became a topic of paramount importance for maintenance purposes and safety reasons. This paper proposes a set of machine learning (ML) tools to perform automatic feature selection and detection of anomalies in a bridge from vibrational data and compare different feature extraction schemes to increase the accuracy and reduce the amount of data collected. As a case study, the Z-24 bridge is considered because of the extensive database of accelerometric data in both standard and damaged conditions. The proposed framework starts from the first four fundamental frequencies extracted through operational modal analysis (OMA) and clustering, followed by time-domain filtering (tracking). The fundamental frequencies extracted are then fed to a dimensionality reduction block implemented through two different approaches: feature selection (intelligent multiplexer) that tries to estimate the most reliable frequencies based on the evaluation of some statistical features (i.e., entropy, variance, kurtosis), and feature extraction (auto-associative neural network (ANN)) that combine the fundamental frequencies to extract new damage sensitive features in a low dimensional feature space. Finally, one-class classification (OCC) algorithms perform anomaly detection, trained with standard condition points, and tested with normal and anomaly ones. In particular, principal component analysis (PCA), kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), and autoassociative neural network (ANN) are presented and their performance are compared. It is also shown that, by evaluating the correct features, the anomaly can be detected with accuracy and an F1 score greater than 95%.

Keywords: Anomaly detection, dimensionality reduction, frequencies selection, modal analysis, neural network, structural health monitoring, vibration measurement.

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Authors: M. C. Pardo-Ferreira, J. C. Rubio-Romero, M. Martínez-Rojas

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Resilience Engineering is a new paradigm of safety management that proposes to change the way of managing the safety to focus on the things that go well instead of the things that go wrong. Many complex and high-risk sectors such as air traffic control, health care, nuclear power plants, railways or emergencies, have applied this new vision of safety and have obtained very positive results. In the construction sector, safety management continues to be a problem as indicated by the statistics of occupational injuries worldwide. Therefore, it is important to improve safety management in this sector. For this reason, it is proposed to apply Resilience Engineering to the construction sector. The Construction Phase Health and Safety Plan emerges as a key element for the planning of safety management. One of the key tools of Resilience Engineering is the Resilience Assessment Grid that allows measuring the four essential abilities (respond, monitor, learn and anticipate) for resilient performance. The purpose of this paper is to develop a questionnaire based on the Resilience Assessment Grid, specifically on the ability to learn, to assess whether a Construction Phase Health and Safety Plans helps companies in a construction site to implement this ability. The research process was divided into four stages: (i) initial design of a questionnaire, (ii) validation of the content of the questionnaire, (iii) redesign of the questionnaire and (iii) application of the Delphi method. The questionnaire obtained could be used as a tool to help construction companies to evolve from Safety-I to Safety-II. In this way, companies could begin to develop the ability to learn, which will serve as a basis for the development of the other abilities necessary for resilient performance. The following steps in this research are intended to develop other questions that allow evaluating the rest of abilities for resilient performance such as monitoring, learning and anticipating.

Keywords: Resilience engineering, construction sector, resilience assessment grid, construction phase health and safety plan.

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Authors: G. Tamanza, A. Bossoni

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84 deaf students (from primary school to college) and their families participated in this inclusion project in cooperation with numerous institutions in northern Italy (Brescia-Lombardy). Participants were either congenitally deaf or their deafness was related to other pathologies. This research promoted the integration of deaf students as they pass from primary school to high school to college. Learning methods and processes were studied that focused on encour­aging individual autonomy and socialization. The research team and its collaborators included school teachers, speech ther­apists, psychologists and home tutors, as well as teaching assistants, child neuropsychiatrists and other external authorities involved with deaf persons social inclusion programs. Deaf children and their families were supported, in terms of inclusion, and were made aware of the research team that focused on the Bisogni Educativi Speciali (BES or Special Educational Needs) (L.170/2010 - DM 5669/2011). This project included a diagnostic and evaluative phase as well as an operational one. Results demonstrated that deaf children were highly satisfied and confident; academic performance improved and collaboration in school increased. Deaf children felt that they had access to high school and college. Empowerment for the families of deaf children in terms of networking among local services that deal with the deaf also improved while family satisfaction also improved. We found that teachers and those who gave support to deaf children increased their professional skills. Achieving autonomy, instrumental, communicative and relational abilities were also found to be crucial. Project success was determined by temporal continuity, clear theoretical methodology, strong alliance for the project direction and a resilient team response.

Keywords: Autonomy, inclusion, skills, well-being.

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Authors: Citlali Aguilera Lira, David Lynch Steinicke, Andrea León Garcia

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One of the challenges that higher education faces is to find how to approach the sustainability in an inclusive way to the student within all the different academic areas, how to move the sustainable development from the abstract field to the operational field. This research comes from the ecoliteracy and the pedagogical praxis as tools for rebuilding the teaching processes inside of universities. The purpose is to determine and describe which are the factors involved in the process of learning particularly in the Greenhouse-School Siembra UV. In the Greenhouse-School Siembra UV, of the University of Veracruz, are cultivated vegetables, medicinal plants and small cornfields under the usage of eco-technologies such as hydroponics, Wickingbed and Hugelkultur, which main purpose is the saving of space, labor and natural resources, as well as function as agricultural production alternatives in the urban and periurban zones. The sample was formed with students from different academic areas and who are actively involved in the greenhouse, as well as institutes from the University of Veracruz and governmental and nongovernmental departments. This project comes from a pedagogic praxis approach, from filling the needs that the different professional profiles of the university students have. All this with the purpose of generate a pragmatic dialogue with the sustainability. It also comes from the necessity to understand the factors that intervene in the students’ praxis. In this manner is how the students are the fundamental unit in the sphere of sustainability. As a result, it is observed that those University of Veracruz students who are involved in the Greenhouse-school, Siembra UV, have enriched in different levels the sense of urban and periurban agriculture because of the diverse academic approaches they have and the interaction between them. It is concluded that the ecotechnologies act as fundamental tools for ecoliteracy in society, where it is strengthen the nutritional and food security from a sustainable development approach.

Keywords: Farming eco-technologies, food security, multidisciplinary, pedagogical praxis.

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Authors: Raghavi Janaswamy, Saraswathi K. Vasudev

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Music is ubiquitous in human lives. Ever since the foetus hears the sound inside the mother’s womb and later upon birth the baby experiences alluring sounds, the curiosity of learning emanates and evokes exploration. Music is an education than a mere entertainment. The intricate balance between music, education and entertainment has well been recognized by the scientific community and is being explored as a viable tool to understand and improve the human cognition. There are seven basic swaras (notes) Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da and Ni in the Carnatic music system that are analogous to C, D, E, F, G, A and B of the western system. The Carnatic music builds on the conscious use of microtones, gamakams (oscillation) and rendering styles that evolved over centuries and established its stance. The complex but erudite raga system has been designed with elaborate experiments on srutis (musical sounds) and human perception abilities. In parallel, ‘rasa’- the emotions evoked by certain srutis and hence the ragas been solidified along with the power of language in combination with the musical sounds. The Carnatic music branches out as Kalpita sangeetam (pre-composed music) and Manodharma sangeetam (improvised music). This article explores the Manodharma sangeetam and its subdivisions such as raga alapana, swara kalpana, neraval and ragam-tanam-pallavi (RTP). The intrinsic mathematical strategies in its practice methods toward improvising the music have been discussed in detail with concert examples. The techniques on swara weaving for swara kalpana rendering and methods on the alapana development are also discussed at length with an emphasis on the impact on the human cognitive abilities. The articulation of the outlined conscious practice methods not only helps to leave a long-lasting melodic impression on the listeners but also onsets cognitive developments.

Keywords: Carnatic, Manodharmam, music cognition, Alapana.

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Authors: Saeid Haghjoo, Ebrahim Reyhani, Fahimeh Kolahdouz

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The present study aimed to evaluate the understanding of the students in Tehran universities (Iran) about the numerical representation of the average rate of change based on the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO). In the present descriptive-survey research, the statistical population included undergraduate students (basic sciences and engineering) in the universities of Tehran. The samples were 604 students selected by random multi-stage clustering. The measurement tool was a task whose face and content validity was confirmed by math and mathematics education professors. Using Cronbach's Alpha criterion, the reliability coefficient of the task was obtained 0.95, which verified its reliability. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi-squared and independent t-tests) under SPSS-24 software. According to the SOLO model in the prestructural, unistructural, and multistructural levels, basic science students had a higher percentage of understanding than that of engineering students, although the outcome was inverse at the relational level. However, there was no significant difference in the average understanding of both groups. The results indicated that students failed to have a proper understanding of the numerical representation of the average rate of change, in addition to missconceptions when using physics formulas in solving the problem. In addition, multiple solutions were derived along with their dominant methods during the qualitative analysis. The current research proposed to focus on the context problems with approximate calculations and numerical representation, using software and connection common relations between math and physics in the teaching process of teachers and professors.

Keywords: Average rate of change, context problems, derivative, numerical representation, SOLO taxonomy.

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Authors: Kasra Majbouri Yazdi, Adel Majbouri Yazdi, Saeid Khodayi, Jingyu Hou, Wanlei Zhou, Saeed Saedy

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Fake news and false information are big challenges of all types of media, especially social media. There is a lot of false information, fake likes, views and duplicated accounts as big social networks such as Facebook and Twitter admitted. Most information appearing on social media is doubtful and in some cases misleading. They need to be detected as soon as possible to avoid a negative impact on society. The dimensions of the fake news datasets are growing rapidly, so to obtain a better result of detecting false information with less computation time and complexity, the dimensions need to be reduced. One of the best techniques of reducing data size is using feature selection method. The aim of this technique is to choose a feature subset from the original set to improve the classification performance. In this paper, a feature selection method is proposed with the integration of K-means clustering and Support Vector Machine (SVM) approaches which work in four steps. First, the similarities between all features are calculated. Then, features are divided into several clusters. Next, the final feature set is selected from all clusters, and finally, fake news is classified based on the final feature subset using the SVM method. The proposed method was evaluated by comparing its performance with other state-of-the-art methods on several specific benchmark datasets and the outcome showed a better classification of false information for our work. The detection performance was improved in two aspects. On the one hand, the detection runtime process decreased, and on the other hand, the classification accuracy increased because of the elimination of redundant features and the reduction of datasets dimensions.

Keywords: Fake news detection, feature selection, support vector machine, K-means clustering, machine learning, social media.

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Authors: Israa A. Qari

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Learning to request in a foreign language is a key ability within pragmatics language teaching. This paper examines how requests are taught in English Unlimited Book 3 (Cambridge University Press), an EFL textbook series employed by King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to teach advanced foundation year students English. The focus of analysis is the evaluation of the request linguistic strategies present in the textbook, frequency of the use of these strategies, and the contextual information provided on the use of these linguistic forms. The researcher collected all the linguistic forms which consisted of the request speech act and divided them into levels employing the CCSARP request coding manual. Findings demonstrated that simple and commonly employed request strategies are introduced. Looking closely at the exercises throughout the chapters, it was noticeable that the book exclusively employed the most direct form of requesting (the imperative) when giving learners instructions: e.g. listen, write, ask, answer, read, look, complete, choose, talk, think, etc. The book also made use of some other request strategies such as ‘hedged performatives’ and ‘query preparatory’. However, it was also found that many strategies were not dealt with in the book, specifically strategies with combined functions (e.g. possibility, ability). On a sociopragmatic level, a strong focus was found to exist on standard situations in which relations between the requester and requestee are clear. In general, contextual information was communicated implicitly only. The textbook did not seem to differentiate between formal and informal request contexts (register) which might consequently impel students to overgeneralize. The paper closes with some recommendations for textbook and curriculum designers. Findings are also contrasted with previous results from similar body of research on EFL requests.

Keywords: EFL, Requests, Saudi, speech acts, textbook evaluation.

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Authors: Gaurav Bhanjana, Ganga Ram Chaudhary, Sandeep Kumar, Neeraj Dilbaghi

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Main sources of endocrine disrupting compounds in the ecosystem are hormones, pesticides, phthalates, flame retardants, dioxins, personal-care products, coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), bisphenol A, and parabens. These endocrine disrupting compounds are responsible for learning disabilities, brain development problems, deformations of the body, cancer, reproductive abnormalities in females and decreased sperm count in human males. Although discharge of these chemical compounds into the environment cannot be stopped, yet their amount can be retarded through proper evaluation and detection techniques. The available techniques for determination of these endocrine disrupting compounds mainly include high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectroscopy (MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). These techniques are accurate and reliable but have certain limitations like need of skilled personnel, time consuming, interference and requirement of pretreatment steps. Moreover, these techniques are laboratory bound and sample is required in large amount for analysis. In view of above facts, new methods for detection of endocrine disrupting compounds should be devised that promise high specificity, ultra sensitivity, cost effective, efficient and easy-to-operate procedure. Nowadays, electrochemical sensors/biosensors modified with nanomaterials are gaining high attention among researchers. Bioelement present in this system makes the developed sensors selective towards analyte of interest. Nanomaterials provide large surface area, high electron communication feature, enhanced catalytic activity and possibilities of chemical modifications. In most of the cases, nanomaterials also serve as an electron mediator or electrocatalyst for some analytes.

Keywords: Sensors, endocrine disruptors, nanoparticles, electrochemical, microscopy.

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Authors: Ke Wang, Zhu Wang

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Coordinating and promoting urban and rural development has been a new round of institutional change in Zhejiang province since 2004. And this plan was fully implemented, which showed that the isolation between the urban and rural areas had gradually diminished. Little by little, an infiltration interface that is dynamic, flexible and interactive is formed, and this morphological structure starts to appear on the landscape form in the surrounding villages. In order to study the specific function and formation of the structure in the context of industrial revolution, Bimen village located on the interface between Anji Township, Huzhou and Yuhang District, Hangzhou is taken as the case. Anji township is in the cross area between Yangtze River delta economic circle and innovation center in Hangzhou. Awarded with ‘Chinese beautiful village’, Bimen has witnessed the growing process of infiltration in ecology, economy, technology and culture on the interface. Within the opportunity, Bimen village presents internal reformation to adapt to the energy exchange with urban areas. In the research, the reformation is to adjust the industrial structure, to upgrade the local special bamboo crafts, to release space for activities, and to establish infrastructures on the interface. The characteristic of an interface is elasticity achieved by introducing an Internet platform using ‘O2O’ agriculture method to connect cities and farmlands. There is a platform of this kind in Bimen named ‘Xiao Mei’. ‘Xiao’ in Chinese means small, ‘Mei’ means beautiful, which indicates the method to refine the landscape form. It turns out that the new agriculture mode will strengthen the interface by orienting the Third Party Platform upon the old dynamic basis and will bring new vitality for economy development in Bimen village. The research concludes opportunities and challenges generated by the evolution of the infiltration interface. It also proposes strategies for how to organically adapt to the urbanization process. Finally it demonstrates what will happen by increasing flexibility in the landscape forms of suburbs in the Bimen village.

Keywords: Bimen Village, infiltration interface, flexibility, suburban landscape form.

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Authors: Hammad T. Janjuhah, Josep Sanjuan, Mohamed K. Salah

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Biological and chemical activities in carbonates are responsible for the complexity of the pore system. Primary porosity is generally of natural origin while secondary porosity is subject to chemical reactivity through diagenetic processes. To understand the integrated part of hydrocarbon exploration, it is necessary to understand the carbonate pore system. However, the current porosity classification scheme is limited to adequately predict the petrophysical properties of different reservoirs having various origins and depositional environments. Rock classification provides a descriptive method for explaining the lithofacies but makes no significant contribution to the application of porosity and permeability (poro-perm) correlation. The Central Luconia carbonate system (Malaysia) represents a good example of pore complexity (in terms of nature and origin) mainly related to diagenetic processes which have altered the original reservoir. For quantitative analysis, 32 high-resolution images of each thin section were taken using transmitted light microscopy. The quantification of grains, matrix, cement, and macroporosity (pore types) was achieved using a petrographic analysis of thin sections and FESEM images. The point counting technique was used to estimate the amount of macroporosity from thin section, which was then subtracted from the total porosity to derive the microporosity. The quantitative observation of thin sections revealed that the mouldic porosity (macroporosity) is the dominant porosity type present, whereas the microporosity seems to correspond to a sum of 40 to 50% of the total porosity. It has been proven that these Miocene carbonates contain a significant amount of microporosity, which significantly complicates the estimation and production of hydrocarbons. Neglecting its impact can increase uncertainty about estimating hydrocarbon reserves. Due to the diversity of geological parameters, the application of existing porosity classifications does not allow a better understanding of the poro-perm relationship. However, the classification can be improved by including the pore types and pore structures where they can be divided into macro- and microporosity. Such studies of microporosity identification/classification represent now a major concern in limestone reservoirs around the world.

Keywords: Carbonate reservoirs, microporosity, overview of porosity classification, reservoir characterization.

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Authors: Yoshitaka Fujiwara, Jun-ichirou Fukushima, Yasunari Maeda

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Keys to high-quality face-to-face education are ensuring flexibility in the way lectures are given, and providing care and responsiveness to learners. This paper describes a face-to-face education support system that is designed to raise the satisfaction of learners and reduce the workload on instructors. This system consists of a lecture adaptation assistance part, which assists instructors in adapting teaching content and strategy, and a Q&A assistance part, which provides learners with answers to their questions. The core component of the former part is a “learning achievement map", which is composed of a Bayesian network (BN). From learners- performance in exercises on relevant past lectures, the lecture adaptation assistance part obtains information required to adapt appropriately the presentation of the next lecture. The core component of the Q&A assistance part is a case base, which accumulates cases consisting of questions expected from learners and answers to them. The Q&A assistance part is a case-based search system equipped with a search index which performs probabilistic inference. A prototype face-to-face education support system has been built, which is intended for the teaching of Java programming, and this approach was evaluated using this system. The expected degree of understanding of each learner for a future lecture was derived from his or her performance in exercises on past lectures, and this expected degree of understanding was used to select one of three adaptation levels. A model for determining the adaptation level most suitable for the individual learner has been identified. An experimental case base was built to examine the search performance of the Q&A assistance part, and it was found that the rate of successfully finding an appropriate case was 56%.

Keywords: Bayesian network, face-to-face education, lecture adaptation, Q&A assistance.

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Authors: Kazuki Kamada, Haruka Yamashita

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In Japan, taxi is one of the popular transportations and taxi industry is one of the big businesses. However, in recent years, there has been a difficult problem of reducing the number of taxi drivers. In the taxi business, mainly three passenger catching methods are applied. One style is "cruising" that drivers catches passengers while driving on a road. Second is "waiting" that waits passengers near by the places with many requirements for taxies such as entrances of hospitals, train stations. The third one is "dispatching" that is allocated based on the contact from the taxi company. Above all, the cruising taxi drivers need the experience and intuition for finding passengers, and it is difficult to decide "the destination for cruising". The strong recommendation system for the cruising taxies supports the new drivers to find passengers, and it can be the solution for the decreasing the number of drivers in the taxi industry. In this research, we propose a method of recommending a destination for cruising taxi drivers. On the other hand, as a machine learning technique, the embedding models that embed the high dimensional data to a low dimensional space is widely used for the data analysis, in order to represent the relationship of the meaning between the data clearly. Taxi drivers have their favorite courses based on their experiences, and the courses are different for each driver. We assume that the course of cruising taxies has meaning such as the course for finding business man passengers (go around the business area of the city of go to main stations) and course for finding traveler passengers (go around the sightseeing places or big hotels), and extract the meaning of their destinations. We analyze the cruising history data of taxis based on the embedding model and propose the recommendation system for passengers. Finally, we demonstrate the recommendation of destinations for cruising taxi drivers based on the real-world data analysis using proposing method.

Keywords: Taxi industry, decision making, recommendation system, embedding model.

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Authors: Reza Ziaie Moayed, Saeideh Mohammadi

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Soft soil is used in many of civil engineering projects like coastal, marine and road projects. Because of low shear strength and stiffness of soft soils, large settlement and low bearing capacity will occur under superstructure loads. This will make the civil engineering activities more difficult and costlier. In the case of soft soils, improvement is a suitable method to increase the shear strength and stiffness for engineering purposes. In recent years, the artificial cementation of soil by cement and lime has been extensively used for soft soil improvement. Cement stabilization is a well-established technique for improving soft soils. Artificial cementation increases the shear strength and hardness of the natural soils. On the other hand, in soft soils, the use of piles to transfer loads to the depths of ground is usual. By using cement treated soil around the piles, high bearing capacity and low settlement in piles can be achieved. In the present study, lateral bearing capacity of short piles in cemented soils is investigated by numerical approach. For this purpose, three dimensional (3D) finite difference software, FLAC 3D is used. Cement treated soil has a strain hardening-softening behavior, because of breaking of bonds between cement agent and soil particle. To simulate such behavior, strain hardening-softening soil constitutive model is used for cement treated soft soil. Additionally, conventional elastic-plastic Mohr Coulomb constitutive model and linear elastic model are used for stress-strain behavior of natural soils and pile. To determine the parameters of constitutive models and also for verification of numerical model, the results of available triaxial laboratory tests on and insitu loading of piles in cement treated soft soil are used. Different parameters are considered in parametric study to determine the effective parameters on the bearing of the piles on cemented treated soils. In the present paper, the effect of various length and height of the artificial cemented area, different diameter and length of the pile and the properties of the materials are studied. Also, the effect of choosing a constitutive model for cemented treated soils in the bearing capacity of the pile is investigated.

Keywords: Cement-treated soils, pile, lateral capacity, FLAC 3D.

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Authors: Mitansha, Suzanne Wilkinson, Regan Potangaroa

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The built environment is designed, maintained, operated, and decommissioned by construction organisations, which play a significant role in providing physical resources and rebuilding infrastructures during major crises and disasters. It is evident that enhancing the resilience of construction organisations allows better responding ability and speedy recovery from disasters and acts as a boon for the nation in the face of significant disruptions. As individuals are the integral component of any organisation, hence, individual resilience is considered a critical aspect, which may boost organisational resilience of construction sector. It has been observed that individual resilience is indirectly supported by organisation’s citizenship behaviour, job performance, and career success. Not only this, it also tends to hold a directly proportional relation with job satisfaction, physical and emotional well-being affected by organisation’s work culture, whereas the resilience of organisation increases as a result of positive adaption, growth and collective learning of the employees as an entity. Moreover, indicators like situation awareness in staff and crisis related issues, effective vulnerability management, organisational leadership and culture ensured by approachable, encouraging and people-oriented leaders, are prominent for achieving organisational resilience. It, thus, becomes perceptible that both, organisational and individual resiliencies, have the potential to influence each other. Consequently, it arises a major question that how these characteristics are associated and tend to behave with respect to each other. The study, thus, aims to explore the overlapping dimensions of organisational and individual resilience to determine the impact boundaries. The research methodology of the paper would be based on systematic literature review specifically focused on the resilience of construction industry. This would provide a direct comparison of characteristics influencing individual and organisational resilience and will present the most significant indicators of individual resilience that can eventually help to enhance the resilience of construction organisations amidst any disaster or crisis.

Keywords: Construction industry, individual resilience, organisational resilience, overlapping dimension.

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Authors: Pooja Jain

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Art education is often ignored in syllabus of developing countries like India and in educational planning for development but now days Indian Art with a global recognition is becoming an integral part of the education at all levels. The term art, widely used in all parts of the modern world, carried varied significance in India as its meaning was continuously being extended, covering the many varieties of creative expression such as painting, sculpture, commercial art, design, poetry, music, dance, and architecture. Over the last 100 years Indian artists of all forms have evolved a wide variety of expressive styles. With the recommendations and initiatives by Government of India, Art Education has subsequently gained pace at the school level as a mandatory subject for all making a path way for students with a creative bend of mind. This paper investigates curriculum in various schools of the country at secondary and senior secondary levels along with some eminent institutions running the program. Findings depicted the role of art education and justified its importance primarily with commercial art being perceived to be essential for students learning skills for economic gain in their career ahead. With so many art colleges spread across India, emerging artists and designers are being trained and are creating art of infinite variety and style and have opened up many career avenues. Commercial Art being a plethora of artistic expressions has confidently come of age wherein a creative perception is mixed with an introspective imagination to bring out multi faceted career options with a significant future enveloped in art. Visual arts in education thus is an expanding field of result assured research.

Keywords: Modern art, commercial art, introspective imagination, career.

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Authors: H. Omrani, P. Gerber

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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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Authors: Maumita Bhattacharya

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Evolutionary Algorithms are population-based, stochastic search techniques, widely used as efficient global optimizers. However, many real life optimization problems often require finding optimal solution to complex high dimensional, multimodal problems involving computationally very expensive fitness function evaluations. Use of evolutionary algorithms in such problem domains is thus practically prohibitive. An attractive alternative is to build meta models or use an approximation of the actual fitness functions to be evaluated. These meta models are order of magnitude cheaper to evaluate compared to the actual function evaluation. Many regression and interpolation tools are available to build such meta models. This paper briefly discusses the architectures and use of such meta-modeling tools in an evolutionary optimization context. We further present two evolutionary algorithm frameworks which involve use of meta models for fitness function evaluation. The first framework, namely the Dynamic Approximate Fitness based Hybrid EA (DAFHEA) model [14] reduces computation time by controlled use of meta-models (in this case approximate model generated by Support Vector Machine regression) to partially replace the actual function evaluation by approximate function evaluation. However, the underlying assumption in DAFHEA is that the training samples for the metamodel are generated from a single uniform model. This does not take into account uncertain scenarios involving noisy fitness functions. The second model, DAFHEA-II, an enhanced version of the original DAFHEA framework, incorporates a multiple-model based learning approach for the support vector machine approximator to handle noisy functions [15]. Empirical results obtained by evaluating the frameworks using several benchmark functions demonstrate their efficiency

Keywords: Meta model, Evolutionary algorithm, Stochastictechnique, Fitness function, Optimization, Support vector machine.

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Authors: Taiwo Olusoji Lawrence, Peace Mawo Aaron

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Seismic analysis of bedforms has proven to be one of the best ways to study deepwater sedimentary features. Canyons are known to be sediment transportation conduit. Sediment wave are large-scale depositional bedforms in various parts of the world's oceans formed predominantly by suspended load transport. These undulating objects usually have tens of meters to a few kilometers in wavelength and a height of several meters. Cyclic steps have long long-wave upstream-migrating bedforms confined by internal hydraulic jumps. They usually occur in regions with high gradients and slope breaks. Cyclic steps and migrating sediment waves are the most common bedform on the seafloor. Cyclic steps and related sediment wave bedforms are significant to the morpho-dynamic evolution of deep-water depositional systems architectural elements, especially those located along tectonically active margins with high gradients and slope breaks that can promote internal hydraulic jumps in turbidity currents. This report examined sedimentary activities and sediment transportation in submarine canyons and provided distinctive insight into factors that created a complex seabed canyon system in the Ceara Fortaleza basin Brazilian Equatorial Margin (BEM). The growing importance of cyclic steps made it imperative to understand the parameters leading to their formation, migration, and architecture as well as their controls on sediment transport in canyon thalweg. We extracted the parameters of the observed bedforms and evaluated the aspect ratio and asymmetricity. We developed a relationship between the hydraulic jump magnitude, depth of the hydraulic fall and the length of the cyclic step therein. It was understood that an increase in the height of the cyclic step increases the magnitude of the hydraulic jump and thereby increases the rate of deposition on the preceding stoss side. An increase in the length of the cyclic steps reduces the magnitude of the hydraulic jump and reduces the rate of deposition at the stoss side. Therefore, flat stoss side was noticed at most preceding cyclic step and sediment wave.

Keywords: Ceara Fortaleza, sediment wave, cyclic steps, submarine canyons.

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Authors: A. Giani

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The current pedagogical culture recognizes an educational scope within the sports practices. It is widely accepted, in the pedagogical culture, that thanks to the acquisition and development of motor skills, it is also possible to exercise abilities that concern the way of facing and managing the difficulties of everyday life. Sport is a peculiar educational environment: the children have the opportunity to discover the possibilities of their body, to correlate with their peers, and to learn how to manage the rules and the relationship with authorities, such as coaches. Educational aspects of the sport concern both non-formal and formal educational environments. Coaches play a critical role in an agonistic sphere: exactly like the competencies developed by the children, coaches have to work on their skills to properly set up the educational scene. Facing these new educational tasks - which are not new per se, but new because they are brought back to awareness - a few questions arise: does the coach have adequate preparation? Is the training of the coach in this specific area appropriate? This contribution aims to explore the issue in depth by focusing on the reality of the Football School. Starting from a possible sense of pedagogical inadequacy detected during a series of meetings with several football clubs in Piedmont (Italy), there have been highlighted some important educational needs within the professional training of sports coaches. It is indeed necessary for the coach to know the processes underlying the educational relationship in order to better understand the centrality of the assessment during the educational intervention and to be able to manage the asymmetry in the coach-athlete relationship. In order to provide a response to these pedagogical needs, a formative plan has been designed to allow both an in-depth study of educational issues and a correct self-evaluation of certain pedagogical skills’ control levels, led by the coach. This plan has been based on particular practices, the Educational Practices of Pre-test (EPP), a specific version of community practices designed for the extracurricular activities. The above-mentioned practices realized through the use of texts meant as pre-tests, promoted a reflection within the group of coaches: they set up real and plausible sports experiences - in particular football, triggering a reflection about the relationship’s object, spaces, and methods. The characteristic aspect of pre-tests is that it is impossible to anticipate the reflection as it is necessarily connected to the personal experience and sensitivity, requiring a strong interest and involvement by participants: situations must be considered by the coaches as possible settings in which they could be found on the field.

Keywords: Relational needs, responsibility, self-evaluation, values.

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Authors: Lindiwe O. K. Mabuza, Alan C. Brent, Maxwell Mapako

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Technology transfer of renewable energy technologies is very often unsuccessful in the developing world. Aside from challenges that have social, economic, financial, institutional and environmental dimensions, technology transfer has generally been misunderstood, and largely seen as mere delivery of high tech equipment from developed to developing countries or within the developing world from R&D institutions to society. Technology transfer entails much more, including, but not limited to: entire systems and their component parts, know-how, goods and services, equipment, and organisational and managerial procedures. Means to facilitate the successful transfer of energy technologies, including the sharing of lessons are subsequently extremely important for developing countries as they grapple with increasing energy needs to sustain adequate economic growth and development. Improving the success of technology transfer is an ongoing process as more projects are implemented, new problems are encountered and new lessons are learnt. Renewable energy is also critical to improve the quality of lives of the majority of people in developing countries. In rural areas energy is primarily traditional biomass. The consumption activities typically occur in an inefficient manner, thus working against the notion of sustainable development. This paper explores the implementation of technology transfer in the developing world (sub-Saharan Africa). The focus is necessarily on RETs since most rural energy initiatives are RETs-based. Additionally, it aims to highlight some lessons drawn from the cited RE projects and identifies notable differences where energy technology transfer was judged to be successful. This is done through a literature review based on a selection of documented case studies which are judged against the definition provided for technology transfer. This paper also puts forth research recommendations that might contribute to improved technology transfer in the developing world. Key findings of this paper include: Technology transfer cannot be complete without satisfying pre-conditions such as: affordability, maintenance (and associated plans), knowledge and skills transfer, appropriate know how, ownership and commitment, ability to adapt technology, sound business principles such as financial viability and sustainability, project management, relevance and many others. It is also shown that lessons are learnt in both successful and unsuccessful projects.

Keywords: Technology transfer, technology management, renewable energy, sustainable development.

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Authors: Siti Aisya Gany, Swee Ching Tan, Sook Yee Gan

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Diminished antioxidant defense or increased production of reactive oxygen species in the biological system can result in oxidative stress which may lead to various neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Microglial activation also contributes to the progression of AD by producing several proinflammatory cytokines, nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). Oxidative stress and inflammation have been reported to be possible pathophysiological mechanisms underlying AD. In addition, the cholinergic hypothesis postulates that memory impairment in patient with AD is also associated with the deficit of cholinergic function in the brain. Although a number of drugs have been approved for the treatment of AD, most of these synthetic drugs have diverse side effects and yield relatively modest benefits. Marine algae have great potential in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications as they are valuable sources of bioactive properties such as anticoagulation, antimicrobial, antioxidative, anticancer and anti-inflammatory. Hence, this study aimed to provide an overview of the properties of Malaysian seaweeds (Padina australis, Sargassum polycystum and Caulerpa racemosa) in inhibiting oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and cholinesterase enzymes. These seaweeds significantly exhibited potent DPPH and moderate superoxide anion radical scavenging ability (P<0.05). Hexane and methanol extracts of S. polycystum exhibited the most potent radical scavenging ability with IC50 values of 0.157±0.004mg/ml and 0.849±0.02mg/ml for DPPH and ABTS assays, respectively. Hexane extract of C. racemosa gave the strongest superoxide radical inhibitory effect (IC50 of 0.386±0.01mg/ml). Most seaweed extracts significantly inhibited the production of cytokine (IL-6, IL-1 β, TNFα) and NO in a concentration-dependent manner without causing significant cytotoxicity to the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated microglia cells (P<0.05). All extracts suppressed cytokine and NO level by more than 50% at the concentration of 0.4mg/ml. In addition, C. racemosa and S. polycystum also showed anti-acetylcholinesterase activities with the IC50 values ranging from 0.086-0.115 mg/ml. Moreover, C. racemosa and P. australis were also found to be active against butyrylcholinesterase with IC50 values ranging from 0.118- 0.287 mg/ml.

Keywords: Anticholinesterase, antioxidative, neuroinflammation, seaweeds.

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Authors: John Lamb, Robert Epstein, Vasundhara L. Bhupathi, Sanjeev Kumar Marimekala

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As we enter the new era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, we mostly rely on the machine and natural language processing capabilities of AI, and energy efficient hardware and software devices in almost every industry sector. In these industry sectors, much emphasis is on developing new and innovative methods for producing and conserving energy and to sustain the depletion of natural resources. The core pillars of sustainability are Economic, Environmental, and Social, which are also informally referred to as 3 P's (People, Planet and Profits). The 3 P's play a vital role in creating a core sustainability model in the enterprise. Natural resources are continually being depleted, so there is more focus and growing demand for renewable energy. With this growing demand there is also a growing concern in many industries on how to reduce carbon emission and conserve natural resources while adopting sustainability in the corporate business models and policies. In our paper, we would like to discuss the driving forces such as climate changes, natural disasters, pandemic, disruptive technologies, corporate policies, scaled business models and emerging social media and AI platforms that influence the 3 main pillars of sustainability (3P’s). Through this paper, we would like to bring an overall perspective on enterprise strategies and the primary focus on bringing cultural shifts in adapting energy efficient operational models. Overall, many industries across the globe are incorporating core sustainability principles such as reducing energy costs, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reducing waste and increase recycling, adopting advanced monitoring and metering infrastructure, reducing server footprint and compute resources (shared IT services, cloud computing and application modernization) with the vision for a sustainable environment.

Keywords: AI, cloud computing, machine learning, social media platform.

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Authors: Lena Shulyakovskaya

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Every year, schools aim to develop and adopt new technology and pedagogy as a way to equip today's students with the needed 21st Century skills. However, the field of primary and secondary education may not be as open to embracing change in reality. Despite the drive to reform and innovation, the field of education in Canada is still very much steeped in tradition and uses many of the practices that came into effect over 50 years ago. Among those are employment and retention practices. Millennials are the youngest generation of professionals entering the workplace at this time and the ones leaving their jobs within just a few years. Almost half of new teachers leave Canadian schools within their first five years on the job. This paper discusses one of the contributing factors that lead Canadian millennial teachers to either leave or stay in the profession - standardized education system. Using an exploratory case study approach, in-depth interviews with former and current millennial teachers were conducted to learn about their experiences within the K-12 system. Among the findings were the young teachers' concerns about the constant changes to teaching practices and technological implementations that claimed to advance teaching and learning, and yet in reality only disguised and reiterated the same traditional, outdated, and standardized practices that already existed. Furthermore, while many millennial teachers aspired to be innovative with their curriculum and teaching practices, they felt trapped and helpless in the hands of school leaders who were very reluctant to change. While many new program ideas and technological advancements are being made openly available to teachers on a regular basis, it is important to consider the education field as a whole and how it plays into the teachers' ability to realistically implement changes. By the year 2025, millennials will make up approximately 75% of the North American workforce. It is important to examine generational differences among teachers and understand how millennial teachers may be shaping the future of primary and secondary schools, either by staying or leaving the profession.

Keywords: 21st century skills, millennials, teacher attrition, tradition.

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Authors: Krzysztof J. Czarnocki, F. Silveira, E. Czarnocka, K. Szaniawska

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Research background: Problems related to the occupational health and decreasing level of safety occur commonly in the construction industry. Important factor in the occupational safety in construction industry is scaffold use. All scaffolds used in construction, renovation, and demolition shall be erected, dismantled and maintained in accordance with safety procedure. Increasing demand for new construction projects unfortunately still is linked to high level of occupational accidents. Therefore, it is crucial to implement concrete actions while dealing with scaffolds and risk assessment in construction industry, the way on doing assessment and liability of assessment is critical for both construction workers and regulatory framework. Unfortunately, professionals, who tend to rely heavily on their own experience and knowledge when taking decisions regarding risk assessment, may show lack of reliability in checking the results of decisions taken. Purpose of the article: The aim was to indicate crucial parameters that could be modeling with Risk Assessment Model (RAM) use for improving both building enterprise productivity and/or developing potential and safety climate. The developed RAM could be a benefit for predicting high-risk construction activities and thus preventing accidents occurred based on a set of historical accident data. Methodology/Methods: A RAM has been developed for assessing risk levels as various construction process stages with various work trades impacting different spheres of enterprise activity. This project includes research carried out by teams of researchers on over 60 construction sites in Poland and Portugal, under which over 450 individual research cycles were carried out. The conducted research trials included variable conditions of employee exposure to harmful physical and chemical factors, variable levels of stress of employees and differences in behaviors and habits of staff. Genetic modeling tool has been used for developing the RAM. Findings and value added: Common types of trades, accidents, and accident causes have been explored, in addition to suitable risk assessment methods and criteria. We have found that the initial worker stress level is more direct predictor for developing the unsafe chain leading to the accident rather than the workload, or concentration of harmful factors at the workplace or even training frequency and management involvement.

Keywords: Civil engineering, occupational health, productivity, safety climate.

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Authors: Chlopicka Joanna, Barton Henryk, Kryczyk Jadwiga, Francik Renata

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Recent studies demonstrated that high-fat diet increases oxidative stress in plasma and in a variety of tissues. Many researchers have been looking for natural products, which can reverse the effect of high fat diet. Recently, buckwheat is becoming common ingredient in functional food because of it properties. In study on buckwheat, it is known that, this plant plays roles as anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-hypertensive. Nevertheless still little is known about buckwheat groats. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of addition of buckwheat groats to the fat diet (30% lard), on some antioxidant and oxidant stress parameters in plasma and selected tissues in Wistar rats. The experiment was carried out with three months old male Wistar rats ca. 250g of body weight fed for 5 weeks with either a high-fat (30% of lard) diet or control diet, with or without addition of buckwheat groats. In plasma biochemistry and the activities of the antioxidant enzymes were measured selected tissues: glutathione peroxidase (GPX), catalase (CAT) and the levels of total and reduced glutathione (GSH), free thiol groups (pSH), antioxidant potential of plasma (FRAP) and oxidant stress indices - proteins carbonyl groups (CO) and malonyldialdehyde concentration (MDA). Activity of catalase (CAT) in plasma of rats was significantly increased in buckwheat groats groups and activity of GPx3 in plasma of rats was decreased in buckwheat groups as compared to control group. The reduced glutathione (GSH) in plasma of rats was significantly increased and protein CO was significantly decreased in buckwheat groups as compared to controls. The lowered concentration of GSH was found in serum of rats fed buckwheat groats addition but it accompanied in 7-fold increase in reduced-to-oxidized glutatione ratio, significant increase in HDL and decrease in nonHDL concentration. Conclusions: Buckwheat groats indicate a beneficial effect in inhibiting protein and lipid peroxidation in rats and improved lipid profile. These results suggest that buckwheat groats exert a significant antioxidant potential and may be used as normal food constituent to ameliorate the oxidant-induced damage in organism. 

Keywords: Antioxidant, buckwheat, high-fat diet, rats.

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