Search results for: Mobile tourism guide.
1038 Autonomic Management for Mobile Robot Battery Degradation
Authors: Martin Doran, Roy Sterritt, George Wilkie
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The majority of today’s mobile robots are very dependent on battery power. Mobile robots can operate untethered for a number of hours but eventually they will need to recharge their batteries in-order to continue to function. While computer processing and sensors have become cheaper and more powerful each year, battery development has progress very little. They are slow to re-charge, inefficient and lagging behind in the general progression of robotic development we see today. However, batteries are relatively cheap and when fully charged, can supply high power output necessary for operating heavy mobile robots. As there are no cheap alternatives to batteries, we need to find efficient ways to manage the power that batteries provide during their operational lifetime. This paper proposes the use of autonomic principles of self-adaption to address the behavioral changes a battery experiences as it gets older. In life, as we get older, we cannot perform tasks in the same way as we did in our youth; these tasks generally take longer to perform and require more of our energy to complete. Batteries also suffer from a form of degradation. As a battery gets older, it loses the ability to retain the same charge capacity it would have when brand new. This paper investigates how we can adapt the current state of a battery charge and cycle count, to the requirements of a mobile robot to perform its tasks.
Keywords: Autonomic, self-adaptive, self-optimizing, degradation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9061037 A Novel Approach for Tracking of a Mobile Node Based on Particle Filter and Trilateration
Authors: Muhammad Haroon Siddiqui, Muhammad Rehan Khalid
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This paper evaluates the performance of a novel algorithm for tracking of a mobile node, interms of execution time and root mean square error (RMSE). Particle Filter algorithm is used to track the mobile node, however a new technique in particle filter algorithm is also proposed to reduce the execution time. The stationary points were calculated through trilateration and finally by averaging the number of points collected for a specific time, whereas tracking is done through trilateration as well as particle filter algorithm. Wi-Fi signal is used to get initial guess of the position of mobile node in x-y coordinates system. Commercially available software “Wireless Mon" was used to read the WiFi signal strength from the WiFi card. Visual Cµ version 6 was used to interact with this software to read only the required data from the log-file generated by “Wireless Mon" software. Results are evaluated through mathematical modeling and MATLAB simulation.Keywords: Particle Filter, Tracking, Wireless Local Area Network, WiFi, Trilateration
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20671036 Design Guidelines for an Enhanced Interaction Experience in the Domain of Smartphone-Based Applications for Sport and Fitness
Authors: Paolo Pilloni, Fabrizio Mulas, Salvatore Carta
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Nowadays, several research studies point up that an active lifestyle is essential for physical and mental health benefits. Mobile phones have greatly influenced people’s habits and attitudes also in the way they exercise. Our research work is mainly focused on investigating how to exploit mobile technologies to favour people’s exertion experience. To this end, we developed an exertion framework users can exploit through a real world mobile application, called EverywhereSport Run (EWRun), designed to act as a virtual personal trainer to support runners during their trainings. In this work, inspired by both previous findings in the field of interaction design for people with visual impairments, feedback gathered from real users of our framework, and positive results obtained from two experimentations, we present some new interaction facilities we designed to enhance the interaction experience during a training. The positive obtained results helped us to derive some interaction design recommendations we believe will be a valid support for designers of future mobile systems conceived to be used in circumstances where there are limited possibilities of interaction.Keywords: Human Computer Interaction, Interaction Design Guidelines, Persuasive Mobile Technologies for Sport and Health.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19461035 Movies and Dynamic Mathematical Objects on Trigonometry for Mobile Phones
Authors: Kazuhisa Takagi
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This paper is about movies and dynamic objects for mobile phones. Dynamic objects are the software programmed by JavaScript. They consist of geometric figures and work on HTML5-compliant browsers. Mobile phones are very popular among teenagers. They like watching movies and playing games on them. So, mathematics movies and dynamic objects would enhance teaching and learning processes. In the movies, manga characters speak with artificially synchronized voices. They teach trigonometry together with dynamic mathematical objects. Many movies are created. They are Windows Media files or MP4 movies. These movies and dynamic objects are not only used in the classroom but also distributed to students. By watching movies, students can study trigonometry before or after class.
Keywords: Dynamic mathematical object, JavaScript, Google drive, transfer jet.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10101034 Allocation of Mobile Units in an Urban Emergency Service System
Authors: Dimitra Alexiou
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In an urban area the location allocation of emergency services mobile units, such as ambulances, police patrol cars must be designed so as to achieve a prompt response to demand locations. In this paper the partition of a given urban network into distinct sub-networks is performed such that the vertices in each component are close and simultaneously the sums of the corresponding population in the sub-networks are almost uniform. The objective here is to position appropriately in each sub-network a mobile emergency unit in order to reduce the response time to the demands. A mathematical model in framework of graph theory is developed. In order to clarify the corresponding method a relevant numerical example is presented on a small network.
Keywords: Distances, Emergency Service, Graph Partition, location.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19411033 Design and Implementation a Fully Autonomous Soccer Player Robot
Authors: S. H. Mohades Kasaei, S. M. Mohades Kasaei, S. A. Mohades Kasaei, M. Taheri, M. Rahimi, H. Vahiddastgerdi, M. Saeidinezhad
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Omni directional mobile robots have been popularly employed in several applications especially in soccer player robots considered in Robocup competitions. However, Omni directional navigation system, Omni-vision system and solenoid kicking mechanism in such mobile robots have not ever been combined. This situation brings the idea of a robot with no head direction into existence, a comprehensive Omni directional mobile robot. Such a robot can respond more quickly and it would be capable for more sophisticated behaviors with multi-sensor data fusion algorithm for global localization base on the data fusion. This paper has tried to focus on the research improvements in the mechanical, electrical and software design of the robots of team ADRO Iran. The main improvements are the world model, the new strategy framework, mechanical structure, Omni-vision sensor for object detection, robot path planning, active ball handling mechanism and the new kicker design, , and other subjects related to mobile robotKeywords: Mobile robot, Machine vision, Omni directional movement, Autonomous Systems, Robot path planning, Object Localization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21531032 Creative Experience and Revisit Intention of Handmade Oriental Parasol Umbrella in Kaohsiung
Authors: Yi-Ju Lee
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This study identified the hypothesised relationship between creative experience, and revisit intention of handmade oriental parasol umbrella in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. A face-to-face questionnaire survey was administered in Meinong town, Kaohsiung. The components of creative experience were found as “sense of achievement”, “unique learning” and “interaction with instructors” in creative tourism. The result also revealed significant positive relationships between creative experience and revisit intention in handmade activities. This paper provides additional suggestions for enhancing revisit intention and guidance regarding creative tourism.Keywords: Creative tourism, Sense of achievement, Unique learning, Interaction with instructors, Folk art.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21051031 Innovative Entrepreneurship in Tourism Business: An International Comparative Study of Key Drivers
Authors: Mohammed Gamil Montasser, Angelo Battaglia
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Entrepreneurship is mostly related to the beginning of organization. In growing business organizations, entrepreneurship expands its conceptualization. It reveals itself through new business creation in the active organization, through renewal, change, innovation, creation and development of current organization, through breaking and changing of established rules inside or outside the organization and becomes more flexible, adaptive and competitive, also improving effectiveness of organization activity. Therefore, the topic of entrepreneurship, relates the creation of firms to personal / individual characteristics of the entrepreneurs and their social context. This paper is an empirical study, which aims to address these two gaps in the literature. For this endeavor, we use the latest available data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project. This data set is widely regarded as a unique source of information about entrepreneurial activity, as well as the aspirations and attitudes of individuals across a wide number of countries and territories worldwide. This paper tries to contribute to fill this gap, by exploring the key drivers of innovative entrepreneurship in the tourism sector. Our findings are consistent with the existing literature in terms of the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs, but quite surprisingly we find an inverted U-shape relation between human development and innovative entrepreneurship in tourism sector. It has been revealed that tourism entrepreneurs are less likely to have innovative products, compared with entrepreneurs in medium developed countries.
Keywords: GEM, human development, innovative entrepreneurship, occupational choice, tourism business, U-shape relation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16971030 Unknown Environment Representation for Mobile Robot Using Spiking Neural Networks
Authors: Amir Reza Saffari Azar Alamdari
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In this paper, a model of self-organizing spiking neural networks is introduced and applied to mobile robot environment representation and path planning problem. A network of spike-response-model neurons with a recurrent architecture is used to create robot-s internal representation from surrounding environment. The overall activity of network simulates a self-organizing system with unsupervised learning. A modified A* algorithm is used to find the best path using this internal representation between starting and goal points. This method can be used with good performance for both known and unknown environments.
Keywords: Mobile Robot, Path Planning, Self-organization, Spiking Neural Networks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14921029 Biologically Inspired Controller for the Autonomous Navigation of a Mobile Robot in an Evasion Task
Authors: Dejanira Araiza-Illan, Tony J. Dodd
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A novel biologically inspired controller for the autonomous navigation of a mobile robot in an evasion task is proposed. The controller takes advantage of the environment by calculating a measure of danger and subsequently choosing the parameters of a reinforcement learning based decision process. Two different reinforcement learning algorithms were used: Qlearning and Sarsa (λ). Simulations show that selecting dynamic parameters reduce the time while executing the decision making process, so the robot can obtain a policy to succeed in an escaping task in a realistic time.Keywords: Autonomous navigation, mobile robots, reinforcement learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14801028 Development and Usability Evaluation of Platform Independent Mobile Learning Tool(M-LT)
Authors: Sahilu Wendeson Sahilu, Wan Fatimah Wan Ahmad, Nazleeni Samiha Haron
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Mobile learning (M-learning) integrates mobile devices and wireless computing technology to enhance the current conventional learning system. However, there are constraints which are affecting the implementation of platform and device independent M-learning. The main aim of this research is to fulfill the following main objectives: to develop platform independent mobile learning tool (M-LT) for structured programming course, and evaluate its effectiveness and usability using ADDIE instructional design model (ISD) as M-LT life cycle. J2ME (Java 2 micro edition) and XML (Extensible Markup Language) were used to develop platform independent M-LT. It has two modules lecture materials and quizzes. This study used Quasi experimental design to measure effectiveness of the tool. Meanwhile, questionnaire is used to evaluate the usability of the tool. Finally, the results show that the system was effective and also usability evaluation was positive.Keywords: ADDIE, Conventional learning, ISD, J2ME, Mlearning, Quasi Experiment, Wireless Technology, XML
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17191027 REDD: Reliable Energy-Efficient Data Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks with Multiple Mobile Sinks
Authors: K. Singh, T. P. Sharma
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In wireless sensor network (WSN) the use of mobile sink has been attracting more attention in recent times. Mobile sinks are more effective means of balancing load, reducing hotspot problem and elongating network lifetime. The sensor nodes in WSN have limited power supply, computational capability and storage and therefore for continuous data delivery reliability becomes high priority in these networks. In this paper, we propose a Reliable Energy-efficient Data Dissemination (REDD) scheme for WSNs with multiple mobile sinks. In this strategy, sink first determines the location of source and then directly communicates with the source using geographical forwarding. Every forwarding node (FN) creates a local zone comprising some sensor nodes that can act as representative of FN when it fails. Analytical and simulation study reveals significant improvement in energy conservation and reliable data delivery in comparison to existing schemes.Keywords: Energy Efficient, REED, Sink Mobility, WSN.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19391026 MGAUM—Towards a Mobile Government Adoption and Utilization Model: The Case of Saudi Arabia
Authors: Mohammed Alonazi, Natalia Beloff, Martin White
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This paper presents a proposal for a mobile government adoption and utilization model (MGAUM), which is a framework designed to increase the adoption rate of m-government services in Saudi Arabia. Recent advances in mobile technologies such are Mobile compatibilities, The development of wireless communication, mobile applications and devices are enabling governments to deliver services in new ways to citizens more efficiently and economically. In the last decade, many governments around the globe are utilizing these advances effectively to develop their next generation of e-government services. However, a low adoption rate of m-government services by citizens is a common problem in Arabian countries, including Saudi Arabia. Yet, to our knowledge, very little research has been conducted focused on understanding the factors that influence citizen adoption of these m-government services in this part of the world. A set of social, cultural and technological factors have been identified in the literature, which has led to the formulation of associated research questions and hypotheses. These hypotheses will be tested on Saudi citizens using questionnaires and interview methods based around the technology acceptance model. A key objective of the MGAUM framework is to investigate and understand Saudi citizens perception towards adoption and utilization of m-government services.Keywords: E-Government, M-Government, citizen services quality, technology acceptance model, Saudi Arabia, adoption framework.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16441025 Ecotourism, Expansion, alongside with Dominant Function of Khark (kharg) and Kharko Islands
Authors: Maral Mohamadi Zanjani
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In recent decade's tourism industry is one of main reasons of the social and economical development for many countries; so these countries try to gain more portion of it for themselves. The excessive natural and cultural touristy potentialities in Iran made this country to be one of the most attractive sightseeing areas, although; Iran has got the lowest rate of tourists. Khark Island is about 32 km. It is a beautiful coral reef coast; about 98% of oil export has been done through this place. The ecotourism potentialities of Khark and Kharko Islands (about 3.7km far from Khark) are the reason to consider ecotourism and the main activity in these islands which is exporting oil at the same time. This article refers to way of measuring the geographical coordination of the place, and the potentialities, ecotourism attraction of the islands and introduces some ideas in order to expand tourism in the islands.Keywords: Ecotourism, expansion, tourism, attraction, dominant function, Khark and Kharko Islands
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17421024 The Touristic Development of the Archaeological and Heritage Areas in Alexandria City, Egypt
Authors: Salma I. Dwidar, Amal A. Abdelsattar
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Alexandria city is one of the greatest cities in the world. It confronted different civilizations throughout the ages due to its special geographical location and climate which left many archaeological areas of great heritage (Ptolemaic, Greek, Romanian, especially sunken monuments, Coptic, Islamic, and finally, the Modern). Also, Alexandria city contains areas with different patterns of urban planning, both Hellenistic and compacted planning which merited the diversity in planning. Despite the magnitude of this city, which contains all the elements of tourism, the city was not included in the tourism map of Egypt properly comparing with similar cities in Egypt. This paper discusses the importance of heritage areas in Alexandria and the relationship between heritage areas and modern buildings. It highlights the absence of a methodology to deal with heritage areas as touristic areas. Also, the paper aims to develop multiple touristic routes to visit archaeological areas and other sights of significance in Alexandria. The research methodology is divided into two main frameworks. The first framework is a historical study of the urban development of Alexandria and the most important remaining monuments throughout the ages, as well as an analytical study of sunken monuments and their importance in increasing the rate of tourism. Moreover, it covers a study of the importance of the Library of Alexandria and its effect on the international focus of the city. The second framework focuses on the proposal of some tourism routes to visit the heritage areas, archaeological monuments, sunken monuments and the sights of Alexandria. The study concludes with the proposal of three tourism routes. The first route, which is the longest one, passes by all the famous monuments of the city as well as its modern sights. The second route passes through the heritage areas, sunken monuments, and Library of Alexandria. The third route includes the sunken monuments and Library of Alexandria. These three tourism routes will ensures the touristic development of the city which leads to the economic growth of the city and the country.
Keywords: Archeological buildings, heritage buildings, heritage tourism, planning of Islamic cities.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12661023 A Fuzzy Logic Based Navigation of a Mobile Robot
Authors: Anis Fatmi, Amur Al Yahmadi, Lazhar Khriji, Nouri Masmoudi
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One of the long standing challenging aspect in mobile robotics is the ability to navigate autonomously, avoiding modeled and unmodeled obstacles especially in crowded and unpredictably changing environment. A successful way of structuring the navigation task in order to deal with the problem is within behavior based navigation approaches. In this study, Issues of individual behavior design and action coordination of the behaviors will be addressed using fuzzy logic. A layered approach is employed in this work in which a supervision layer based on the context makes a decision as to which behavior(s) to process (activate) rather than processing all behavior(s) and then blending the appropriate ones, as a result time and computational resources are saved.
Keywords: Behavior based navigation, context based coordination, fuzzy logic, mobile robots.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18641022 Blue-Collar Workers’ Accidents and Close Call Situations Connected to the Use of Cell Phones among Finns Aged 18–65
Authors: L. Korpinen, R. Pääkkönen, F. Gobba
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There has been discussion if the use of mobile phones causes accidents. We studied workers’ accidents and near accidents related to the use of phones. This study is part of a large cross-sectional study that was carried out on 15,000 working-age Finns. We noticed that there were 4–5 times more close call situations than accidents connected to mobile phones and also work related accidents were fewer than leisure related. There are confusing parameters like the use of mobile phones at work, differences in work content between women and men.
Keywords: Blue-collar workers, accident, cell phone, close call situation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14371021 Distributed Denial of Service Attacks in Mobile Adhoc Networks
Authors: Gurjinder Kaur, Yogesh Chaba, V. K. Jain
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The aim of this paper is to explore the security issues that significantly affect the performance of Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANET)and limit the services provided to their intended users. The MANETs are more vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS) because of their properties like shared medium, dynamic topologies etc. A DDoS attack is a coordinated attempt made by malicious users to flood the victim network with the large amount of data such that the resources of the victim network are exhausted resulting in the deterioration of the network performance. This paper highlights the effects of different types of DDoS attacks in MANETs and categorizes them according to their behavior.Keywords: Distributed Denial, Mobile Adhoc Networks
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24351020 Overhead Estimation over Capacity of Mobile WiMAX
Authors: Saeed AL-Rashdy, Qing Guo
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The IEEE802.16 standard which has emerged as Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technology, promises to deliver high data rate over large areas to a large number of subscribers in the near future. This paper analyze the effect of overheads over capacity of downlink (DL) of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)–based on the IEEE802.16e mobile WiMAX system with and without overheads. The analysis focuses in particular on the impact of Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) as well as deriving an algorithm to determine the maximum numbers of subscribers that each specific WiMAX sector may support. An analytical study of the WiMAX propagation channel by using Cost- 231 Hata Model is presented. Numerical results and discussion estimated by using Matlab to simulate the algorithm for different multi-users parameters.Keywords: BWA, mobile WiMAX, capacity, AMC , overheads.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20821019 Development of Mobile Application Social Guidance and Counseling for Junior High School
Authors: Suyoto, Tri Prasetyaningrum
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At this paper, we will present the development of mobile application Social Guidance and Counseling (GC) that called “m-NingBK: Social GC”. The application is used for GC services that run on mobile devices. The application is designed specifically for Junior High School student. The methods are a combination of interactive multimedia approaches and educational psychology. Therefore, the design process is carried out three processes, which are digitizing of material social GC services, visualizing wisely and making interactive. This method is intended to make students not only hear and see but also "do" the virtual. There are five components used in multimedia applications "m-NingBK: Social GC" i.e. text, images / graphics, audio / sound, animation and video. Four menus provided by this application is the potential self, social, Expert System and about. The application is built using the Java programming language. This application was tested using a Smartphone with Android Operating System. Based on the test, people give rating: 16.7% excellent, 61.1% good, 19.4% adequate, and 2.8% poor.
Keywords: Expert Systems, Guidance and Counseling, mobile application, multimedia.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29191018 Design and Simulation of Portable Telemedicine System for High Risk Cardiac Patients
Authors: V. Thulasi Bai, Srivatsa S. K.
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Deaths from cardiovascular diseases have decreased substantially over the past two decades, largely as a result of advances in acute care and cardiac surgery. These developments have produced a growing population of patients who have survived a myocardial infarction. These patients need to be continuously monitored so that the initiation of treatment can be given within the crucial golden hour. The available conventional methods of monitoring mostly perform offline analysis and restrict the mobility of these patients within a hospital or room. Hence the aim of this paper is to design a Portable Cardiac Telemedicine System to aid the patients to regain their independence and return to an active work schedule, there by improving the psychological well being. The portable telemedicine system consists of a Wearable ECG Transmitter (WET) and a slightly modified mobile phone, which has an inbuilt ECG analyzer. The WET is placed on the body of the patient that continuously acquires the ECG signals from the high-risk cardiac patients who can move around anywhere. This WET transmits the ECG to the patient-s Bluetooth enabled mobile phone using blue tooth technology. The ECG analyzer inbuilt in the mobile phone continuously analyzes the heartbeats derived from the received ECG signals. In case of any panic condition, the mobile phone alerts the patients care taker by an SMS and initiates the transmission of a sample ECG signal to the doctor, via the mobile network.
Keywords: WET, ECG analyzer, Bluetooth, mobilecellular network, high risk cardiac patients.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21011017 Early Registration : Criterion to Improve Communication-Inter Agents in Mobile-IP Protocol
Authors: Hossam el-ddin Mostafa, Pavel Čičak
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In IETF RFC 2002, Mobile-IP was developed to enable Laptobs to maintain Internet connectivity while moving between subnets. However, the packet loss that comes from switching subnets arises because network connectivity is lost while the mobile host registers with the foreign agent and this encounters large end-to-end packet delays. The criterion to initiate a simple and fast full-duplex connection between the home agent and foreign agent, to reduce the roaming duration, is a very important issue to be considered by a work in this paper. State-transition Petri-Nets of the modeling scenario-based CIA: communication inter-agents procedure as an extension to the basic Mobile-IP registration process was designed and manipulated to describe the system in discrete events. The heuristic of configuration file during practical Setup session for registration parameters, on Cisco platform Router-1760 using IOS 12.3 (15)T and TFTP server S/W is created. Finally, stand-alone performance simulations from Simulink Matlab, within each subnet and also between subnets, are illustrated for reporting better end-toend packet delays. Results verified the effectiveness of our Mathcad analytical manipulation and experimental implementation. It showed lower values of end-to-end packet delay for Mobile-IP using CIA procedure-based early registration. Furthermore, it reported packets flow between subnets to improve losses between subnets.Keywords: Cisco configuration, handoff, Mobile-IP, packetdelay, Petri-Nets, registration process, Simulink
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13911016 Exploring the Destination Image of Mainland China Tourists to Taiwan by Word-of-Mouth on Web
Authors: Y. R. Li, Y. Y. Wang
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After allowing direct flights from Mainland China to Taiwan, Chinese tourists increased according to Tourism Bureaustatistics. There are from 0.19 to 2 million tourists from 2008 to 2011. Mainland China has become the main source of Taiwan developing tourism industry. Taiwanese government should know more about comments from Chinese tourists to Taiwan in order toproperly market Taiwan tourism and enhance the overall quality of tourism. In order to understand Chinese visitors’ comments, this study adopts content analysis to analyze electronic word-of-mouth on Web. This study collects 375 blog articles of Chinese tourists from Ctrip.com as a database during 2009 to 2011. Through the qualitative data analysis the traveling destination imagesis divided into seven dimensions, such as senic spots, shopping, food and beverages, accommodations, transportation, festivals and recreation activities. Finally, this study proposes some practical managerial implication to know both positive and negative images of the seven dimensions from Chinese tourists, providing marketing strategies and suggestions to traveling agency industry.
Keywords: Destination Image, Content Analysis, Electronic Word-of-Mouth.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25401015 Studying the Effect of Climate Change on the Conditions of Isfahan-s Province Tourism
Authors: A.Gandomkar, F. Khorasanizadeh
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Tourism is a phenomenon respected by the human communities since a long time ago. It has been evoloving continually based on a variety of social and economic needs and with respect to increasingly development of communication and considerable increase of tourist-s number and resulted exchange income has attained much out come such as employment for the communities. or the purpose of tourism development in this zone suitable times and locations need to be specified in the zone for the tourist-s attendance. One of the most important needs of the tourists is the knowledge of climate conditions and suitable times for sightseeing. In this survey, the climate trend condition has been identified for attending the tourists in Isfahan province using the modified tourism climate index (TCI) as well as SPSS, GIS, excel, surfer softwares. This index evoluates systematically the climate conditions for tourism affairs and activities using the monthly maximum mean parameters of daily temperature, daily mean temperature, minimum relative humidity, daily mean relative humidity, precipitation (mm), total sunny hours, wind speed and dust. The results obtaind using kendal-s correlation test show that the months January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December are significant and have an increasing trend that indicates the best condition for attending the tourists. S, P, T mean , T max and dust are estimated from 1976-2005 and do kendal-s correlation test again to see which parameter has been effective. Based on the test, we also observed on the effective parameters that the rate of dust in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, October and November is decreasing and precipitation in September and January is increasing and also the radiation rate in May and August is increasing that indicate a better condition of convenience. Maximum temperature in June is also decreasing. Isfahan province has two spring and fall peaks and the best places for tourism are in the north and western areas.
Keywords: Climate, Tourism, Correlation Test, Tourism Climate Index, Isfahan Province
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17001014 Mobile App versus Website: A Comparative Eye-Tracking Case Study of Topshop
Authors: Zofija Tupikovskaja-Omovie, David Tyler, Sam Dhanapala, Steve Hayes
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The UK is leading in online retail and mobile adoption. However, there is a dearth of information relating to mobile apparel retail, and developing an understanding about consumer browsing and purchase behaviour in m-retail channel would provide apparel marketers, mobile website and app developers with the necessary understanding of consumers’ needs. Despite the rapid growth of mobile retail businesses, no published study has examined shopping behaviour on fashion mobile apps and websites. A mixed method approach helped to understand why fashion consumers prefer websites on smartphones, when diverse mobile apps are also available. The following research methods were employed: survey, eye-tracking experiments, observation, and interview with retrospective think aloud. The mobile gaze tracking device by SensoMotoric Instruments was used to understand frustrations in navigation and other issues facing consumers in mobile channel. This method helped to validate and compliment other traditional user-testing approaches in order to optimize user experience and enhance the development of mobile retail channel. The study involved eight participants - females aged 18 to 35 years old, who are existing mobile shoppers. The participants used the Topshop mobile app and website on a smart phone to complete a task according to a specified scenario leading to a purchase. The comparative study was based on: duration and time spent at different stages of the shopping journey, number of steps involved and product pages visited, search approaches used, layout and visual clues, as well as consumer perceptions and expectations. The results from the data analysis show significant differences in consumer behaviour when using a mobile app or website on a smart phone. Moreover, two types of problems were identified, namely technical issues and human errors. Having a mobile app does not guarantee success in satisfying mobile fashion consumers. The differences in the layout and visual clues seem to influence the overall shopping experience on a smart phone. The layout of search results on the website was different from the mobile app. Therefore, participants, in most cases, behaved differently on different platforms. The number of product pages visited on the mobile app was triple the number visited on the website due to a limited visibility of products in the search results. Although, the data on traffic trends held by retailers to date, including retail sector breakdowns for visits and views, data on device splits and duration, might seem a valuable source of information, it cannot explain why consumers visit many product pages, stay longer on the website or mobile app, or abandon the basket. A comprehensive list of pros and cons was developed by highlighting issues for website and mobile app, and recommendations provided. The findings suggest that fashion retailers need to be aware of actual consumers’ behaviour on the mobile channel and their expectations in order to offer a seamless shopping experience. Added to which is the challenge of retaining existing and acquiring new customers. There seem to be differences in the way fashion consumers search and shop on mobile, which need to be explored in further studies.Keywords: Consumer behaviour, eye-tracking technology, fashion retail, mobile app, m-retail, smart phones, Topshop, user experience, website.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23641013 Media Facades Utilization for Sustainable Tourism Promotion in Historic Places: Case Study of the Walled City of Famagusta, North Cyprus
Authors: Nikou Javadi, Uğur Dağlı
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The importance of culture and tourism in the attractiveness and competitiveness of the countries is central, and many regions are evidencing their cultural assets, tangible and intangible, as a means to create comparative advantages in tourism and produce a distinctive place in response to the pressures of globalization. Culture and tourism are interlinked because of their obvious combination and growth potential. Cultural tourism is a crucial global tourism market with fast growing. Regions can develop significant relations between culture and tourism to increase their attractiveness as places to visit, live and invest, increasing their competitiveness. Accordingly, having new and creative approach to historical areas as cultural value-based destinations can improve their conditions to promote tourism. Furthermore, in 21st century, media become the most important factor affecting the development of urban cities, including public places. As a result of the digital revolution, re-imaging and re-linkage public places by media are essential to create more interactions between public spaces and users, interaction media display, and urban screens, one of the most important defined media. This interaction can transform the urban space from being neglected to be more interactive space with users, especially the pedestrians. The paper focuses on The Walled City of Famagusta. As many other historic quarters elsewhere in the world, is in a process, of decay and deterioration, and its functionally distinctive areas are severely threatened by physical, functional, locational, and image obsolescence at varying degrees. So the focus on the future development of this area through tourism promotion can be an appropriate decision for the monument enhancement of the spatial quality in Walled City of Famagusta. In this paper, it is aimed to identify the effects of these new digital factors to transform public spaces especially in historic urban areas to promote creative tourism. Accordingly, two different analysis methods are used as well as a theoretical review. The first is case study on site and the second is Close ended questionnaire, test many concepts raised in this paper. The physical analysis on site carried out in order to evaluate the walled city restoration for touristic purpose. Besides, theoretical review is done in order to provide background to the subject and cleared Factors to attract tourists.
Keywords: Historical areas, Media Facade, Sustainable tourism, Walled city of Famagusta.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22531012 A New Reliability Based Channel Allocation Model in Mobile Networks
Authors: Anujendra, Parag Kumar Guha Thakurta
Abstract:
The data transmission between mobile hosts and base stations (BSs) in Mobile networks are often vulnerable to failure. So, efficient link connectivity, in terms of the services of both base stations and communication channels of the network, is required in wireless mobile networks to achieve highly reliable data transmission. In addition, it is observed that the number of blocked hosts is increased due to insufficient number of channels during heavy load in the network. Under such scenario, the channels are allocated accordingly to offer a reliable communication at any given time. Therefore, a reliability-based channel allocation model with acceptable system performance is proposed as a MOO problem in this paper. Two conflicting parameters known as Resource Reuse factor (RRF) and the number of blocked calls are optimized under reliability constraint in this problem. The solution to such MOO problem is obtained through NSGA-II (Non dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm). The effectiveness of the proposed model in this work is shown with a set of experimental results.
Keywords: Base station, channel, GA, Pareto-optimal, reliability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19111011 Detection of Oxidative Stress Induced by Mobile Phone Radiation in Tissues of Mice using 8-Oxo-7, 8-Dihydro-2'-Deoxyguanosine as a Biomarker
Authors: Ahmad M. Khalil, Ahmad M. Alshamali, Marwan H. Gagaa
Abstract:
We investigated oxidative DNA damage caused by radio frequency radiation using 8-oxo-7, 8-dihydro-2'- deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) generated in mice tissues after exposure to 900 MHz mobile phone radio frequency in three independent experiments. The RF was generated by a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) signal generator. The radio frequency field was adjusted to 25 V/m. The whole body specific absorption rate (SAR) was 1.0 W/kg. Animals were exposed to this field for 30 min daily for 30 days. 24 h post-exposure, blood serum, brain and spleen were removed and DNA was isolated. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure 8-oxodG concentration. All animals survived the whole experimental period. The body weight of animals did not change significantly at the end of the experiment. No statistically significant differences observed in the levels of oxidative stress. Our results are not in favor of the hypothesis that 900 MHz RF induces oxidative damage.Keywords: Mice, Mobile phone radiation, oxidative stress, 8-oxo-7, 8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20511010 An Evaluation Framework of Transportation Responsiveness: Case of Pattaya City
Authors: Wuttigrai Ngamsirijit, Yodmanee Tepanon
Abstract:
Transportation is one of the main activities related to creating value for the tourists. Transport management in tourism mainly focuses on managing transfer points and vehicle capacity. However, transport service level must also be ensured as it now relates to tourist-s experiences. This paper emphasizes on the responsiveness as one of key service performance measures. An evaluation framework is developed and illustarted by using the case of small bus service in Pattaya city. It can be seen as a great potential for the city to utilize the small bus transportation in order to meet the needs of more diverse group of passengers and to support the expansion of tourist areas. The framework integrates with service operations management, logistics, and tourism behavior perspectives. The findings from the investigation of existing small bus service are presented and preliminarily validate the usability of the framework.Keywords: Responsiveness, Demand responsive transportation, Tourism, Logistics
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19161009 Design Process of the Fixing Pipes in the Guide Pipe Anchor System for Cable-Stayed Bridges
Authors: Jinwoong Choi, Sun-Kyu Park, Sungnam Hong
Abstract:
For the efficient and safe use of the cable-stayed bridge, a design based on the detailed local analysis of the cable anchor system is required. Also, a theoretical design process for the anchor system should be prepared and reviewed. Generally, the size of the fixing pipe in the anchor system is decided according to the specifications prepared by cable-manufacturing companies, and accordingly, there is difficulty determining the initial inner diameters of the fixing pipes. As such, there is no choice but to use the products with the existing sizes. In this study, the existing design process of the fixing pipe, is a type of guide pipe anchor in the cable anchor system, is reviewed, a formula determining the thickness of the fixing pipe is proposed, and the convenience and validity of the suggested equation is compared with the results of the existing designs to verify its convenience and validity.Keywords: Cable-stayed bridge; Guide pipe anchor system; Fixing pipe; Theoretical design process.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3309