Search results for: integrated models of reading comprehension

Authors: Wei-Chieh Yeh, Yung-Tang Shen

Abstract:

The concept of community building started in 1994 in Taiwan. After years of development, it fostered the notion of active local resident participation in community issues as co-operators, instead of minions. Participatory design gives participants more control in the decision-making process, helps to reduce the friction caused by arguments and assists in bringing different parties to consensus. This results in an increase in the efficiency of projects run in the community. Therefore, the participation of local residents is key to the success of community building. This study applied participatory design to develop plans for the reuse of deserted spaces in the community from the first stage of brainstorming for design ideas, making creative models to be employed later, through to the final stage of construction. After conducting a series of participatory designed activities, it aimed to integrate the different opinions of residents, develop a sense of belonging and reach a consensus. Besides this, it also aimed at building the residents’ awareness of their responsibilities for the environment and related issues of sustainable development. By reviewing relevant literature and understanding the history of related studies, the study formulated a theory. It took the “2012-2014 Changhua County Community Planner Counseling Program” as a case study to investigate the implementation process of participatory design. Research data are collected by document analysis, participants’ observation and in-depth interviews. After examining the three elements of “Design Participation”, “Construction Participation”, and” Follow–up Maintenance Participation” in the case, the study emerged with a promising conclusion: Maintenance works were carried out better compared to common public works. Besides this, maintenance costs were lower. Moreover, the works that residents were involved in were more creative. Most importantly, the community characteristics could be easy be recognized.

Keywords: Participatory design, Deserted spaces, Community building, Reuse.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1299

Authors: Daniel Heibert, Brian Lithgow, Kerry Hourigan

Abstract:

This paper attempts to explain response components of Electrovestibulography (EVestG) using a computer simulation of a three-canal model of the vestibular system. EVestG is a potentially new diagnostic method for Meniere's disease. EVestG is a variant of Electrocochleography (ECOG), which has been used as a standard method for diagnosing Meniere's disease - it can be used to measure the SP/AP ratio, where an SP/AP ratio greater than 0.4-0.5 is indicative of Meniere-s Disease. In EVestG, an applied head tilt replaces the acoustic stimulus of ECOG. The EVestG output is also an SP/AP type plot, where SP is the summing potential, and AP is the action potential amplitude. AP is thought of as being proportional to the size of a population of afferents in an excitatory neural firing state. A simulation of the fluid volume displacement in the vestibular labyrinth in response to various types of head tilts (ipsilateral, backwards and horizontal rotation) was performed, and a simple neural model based on these simulations developed. The simple neural model shows that the change in firing rate of the utricle is much larger in magnitude than the change in firing rates of all three semi-circular canals following a head tilt (except in a horizontal rotation). The data suggests that the change in utricular firing rate is a minimum 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than changes in firing rates of the canals during ipsilateral/backward tilts. Based on these results, the neural response recorded by the electrode in our EVestG recordings is expected to be dominated by the utricle in ipsilateral/backward tilts (It is important to note that the effect of the saccule and efferent signals were not taken into account in this model). If the utricle response dominates the EVestG recordings as the modeling results suggest, then EVestG has the potential to diagnose utricular hair cell damage due to a viral infection (which has been cited as one possible cause of Meniere's Disease).

Keywords: Diagnostic, endolymph hydrops, Meniere's disease, modeling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1517

Authors: Younis Jabarzadeh, Rahim Sarvari, Negar Ahmadi Alghalandis

Abstract:

Entrepreneurship at both individual and organizational level is one of the most driving forces in economic development and leads to growth and competition, job generation and social development. Especially in developing countries, the role of entrepreneurship in economic and social prosperity is more emphasized. But the effect of global economic development on the environment is undeniable, especially in negative ways, and there is a need to rethink current business models and the way entrepreneurs act to introduce new businesses to address and embed environmental issues in order to achieve sustainable development. In this paper, green or sustainable entrepreneurship is addressed in Iran to identify challenges and barriers entrepreneurs in the economic and social sectors face in developing green business solutions. Sustainable or green entrepreneurship has been gaining interest among scholars in recent years and addressing its challenges and barriers need much more attention to fill the gap in the literature and facilitate the way those entrepreneurs are pursuing. This research comprised of two main phases: qualitative and quantitative. At qualitative phase, after a thorough literature review, fuzzy Delphi method is utilized to verify those challenges and barriers by gathering a panel of experts and surveying them. In this phase, several other contextually related factors were added to the list of identified barriers and challenges mentioned in the literature. Then, at the quantitative phase, Interpretive Structural Modeling is applied to construct a network of interactions among those barriers identified at the previous phase. Again, a panel of subject matter experts comprised of academic and industry experts was surveyed. The results of this study can be used by policymakers in both the public and industry sector, to introduce more systematic solutions to eliminate those barriers and help entrepreneurs overcome challenges of sustainable entrepreneurship. It also contributes to the literature as the first research in this type which deals with the barriers of sustainable entrepreneurship and explores their interaction.

Keywords: Green entrepreneurship, barriers, Fuzzy Delphi Method, interpretive structural modeling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1408

Authors: N. Ismail, O. Thammajinda, U. Thongpanya

Abstract:

Games-based learning (GBL) has become increasingly important in teaching and learning. This paper explains the first two phases (analysis and design) of a GBL development project, ending up with a prototype design based on students’ and teachers’ perceptions. The two phases are part of a full cycle GBL project aiming to help secondary school students in Thailand in their study of Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE). In the course of the study, we invited 1,152 students to complete questionnaires and interviewed 12 secondary school teachers in focus groups. This paper found that GBL can serve students in their learning about CSE, enabling them to gain understanding of their sexuality, develop skills, including critical thinking skills and interact with others (peers, teachers, etc.) in a safe environment. The objectives of this paper are to outline the development of GBL variables from the research question(s) into the developers’ flow chart, to be responsive to the GBL beneficiaries’ preferences and expectations, and to help in answering the research questions. This paper details the steps applied to generate GBL variables that can feed into a game flow chart to develop a GBL prototype. In our approach, we detailed two models: (1) Game Elements Model (GEM) and (2) Game Object Model (GOM). There are three outcomes of this research – first, to achieve the objectives and benefits of GBL in learning, game design has to start with the research question(s) and the challenges to be resolved as research outcomes. Second, aligning the educational aims with engaging GBL end users (students) within the data collection phase to inform the game prototype with the game variables is essential to address the answer/solution to the research question(s). Third, for efficient GBL to bridge the gap between pedagogy and technology and in order to answer the research questions via technology (i.e. GBL) and to minimise the isolation between the pedagogists “P” and technologist “T”, several meetings and discussions need to take place within the team.

Keywords: Games-based learning, design, engagement, pedagogy, preferences, prototype, variables.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 737

Authors: Vishal Raj, Noorhan Abbas

Abstract:

Ambiguity in NLP (Natural Language Processing) refers to the ability of a word, phrase, sentence, or text to have multiple meanings. This results in various kinds of ambiguities such as lexical, syntactic, semantic, anaphoric and referential. This study is focused mainly on solving the issue of Lexical ambiguity. Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is an NLP technique that aims to resolve lexical ambiguity by determining the correct meaning of a word within a given context. Most WSD solutions rely on words for training and testing, but we have used lemma and Part of Speech (POS) tokens of words for training and testing. Lemma adds generality and POS adds properties of word into token. We have designed a method to create an affinity matrix to calculate the affinity between any pair of lemma_POS (a token where lemma and POS of word are joined by underscore) of given training set. Additionally, we have devised an algorithm to create the sense clusters of tokens using affinity matrix under hierarchy of POS of lemma. Furthermore, three different mechanisms to predict the sense of target word using the affinity/similarity value are devised. Each contextual token contributes to the sense of target word with some value and whichever sense gets higher value becomes the sense of target word. So, contextual tokens play a key role in creating sense clusters and predicting the sense of target word, hence, the model is named Contextual SenSe Model (CSM). CSM exhibits a noteworthy simplicity and explication lucidity in contrast to contemporary deep learning models characterized by intricacy, time-intensive processes, and challenging explication. CSM is trained on SemCor training data and evaluated on SemEval test dataset. The results indicate that despite the naivety of the method, it achieves promising results when compared to the Most Frequent Sense (MFS) model.

Keywords: Word Sense Disambiguation, WSD, Contextual SenSe Model, Most Frequent Sense, part of speech, POS, Natural Language Processing, NLP, OOV, out of vocabulary, ELMo, Embeddings from Language Model, BERT, Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, Word2Vec, lemma_POS, Algorithm.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 383

Authors: Rawan A. Abdelrazeq, Ahmed M. Khalafallah, Nabil A. Kartam

Abstract:

Selection of competent contractors for construction projects is usually accomplished through competitive bidding or negotiated contracting in which the contract bid price is the basic criterion for selection. The evaluation of contractor’s safety performance is still not a typical criterion in the selection process, despite the existence of various safety prequalification procedures. There is a critical need for practical and automated systems that enable owners and decision makers to evaluate contractor safety performance, among other important contractor selection criteria. These systems should ultimately favor safety-conscious contractors to be selected by the virtue of their past good safety records and current safety programs. This paper presents an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to develop a framework for an automated decision support system that evaluates contractor safety performance based on a multitude of indicators and metrics that have been identified through a comprehensive review of construction safety research, and a survey distributed to domain experts. The framework is developed in three phases: (1) determining the indicators that depict contractor current and past safety performance; (2) soliciting input from construction safety experts regarding the identified indicators, their metrics, and relative significance; and (3) designing a decision support system using relational database models to integrate the identified indicators and metrics into a system that assesses and rates the safety performance of contractors. The proposed automated system is expected to hold several advantages including: (1) reducing the likelihood of selecting contractors with poor safety records; (2) enhancing the odds of completing the project safely; and (3) encouraging contractors to exert more efforts to improve their safety performance and practices in order to increase their bid winning opportunities which can lead to significant safety improvements in the construction industry. This should prove useful to decision makers and researchers, alike, and should help improve the safety record of the construction industry.

Keywords: Construction safety, contractor selection, decision support system, relational database.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1584

Authors: Sujing Wang, Song Wang, Jian Zhang, Qiang Xu

Abstract:

Flaring emissions during abnormal operating conditions such as plant start-ups, shut-downs, and upsets in chemical process industries (CPI) are usually significant. Flare minimization can help to save raw material and energy for CPI plants, and to improve local environmental sustainability. In this paper, a systematic methodology based on plant-wide dynamic simulation is presented for CPI plant flare minimizations under abnormal operating conditions. Since off-specification emission sources are inevitable during abnormal operating conditions, to significantly reduce flaring emission in a CPI plant, they must be either recycled to the upstream process for online reuse, or stored somewhere temporarily for future reprocessing, when the CPI plant manufacturing returns to stable operation. Thus, the off-spec products could be reused instead of being flared. This can be achieved through the identification of viable design and operational strategies during normal and abnormal operations through plant-wide dynamic scheduling, simulation, and optimization. The proposed study includes three stages of simulation works: (i) developing and validating a steady-state model of a CPI plant; (ii) transiting the obtained steady-state plant model to the dynamic modeling environment; and refining and validating the plant dynamic model; and (iii) developing flare minimization strategies for abnormal operating conditions of a CPI plant via a validated plant-wide dynamic model. This cost-effective methodology has two main merits: (i) employing large-scale dynamic modeling and simulations for industrial flare minimization, which involves various unit models for modeling hundreds of CPI plant facilities; (ii) dealing with critical abnormal operating conditions of CPI plants such as plant start-up and shut-down. Two virtual case studies on flare minimizations for start-up operation (over 50% of emission savings) and shut-down operation (over 70% of emission savings) of an ethylene plant have been employed to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed study.

Keywords: Flare minimization, large-scale modeling and simulation, plant shut-down, plant start-up.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1736

Authors: Umberto Di Staso, Marco Soave, Alessio Giori, Federico Prandi, Raffaele De Amicis

Abstract:

The increasing availability of information about earth surface elevation (Digital Elevation Models DEM) generated from different sources (remote sensing, Aerial Images, Lidar) poses the question about how to integrate and make available to the most than possible audience this huge amount of data. In order to exploit the potential of 3D elevation representation the quality of data management plays a fundamental role. Due to the high acquisition costs and the huge amount of generated data, highresolution terrain surveys tend to be small or medium sized and available on limited portion of earth. Here comes the need to merge large-scale height maps that typically are made available for free at worldwide level, with very specific high resolute datasets. One the other hand, the third dimension increases the user experience and the data representation quality, unlocking new possibilities in data analysis for civil protection, real estate, urban planning, environment monitoring, etc. The open-source 3D virtual globes, which are trending topics in Geovisual Analytics, aim at improving the visualization of geographical data provided by standard web services or with proprietary formats. Typically, 3D Virtual globes like do not offer an open-source tool that allows the generation of a terrain elevation data structure starting from heterogeneous-resolution terrain datasets. This paper describes a technological solution aimed to set up a so-called “Terrain Builder”. This tool is able to merge heterogeneous-resolution datasets, and to provide a multi-resolution worldwide terrain services fully compatible with CesiumJS and therefore accessible via web using traditional browser without any additional plug-in.

Keywords: Terrain builder, WebGL, virtual globe, CesiumJS, tiled map service, TMS, height-map, regular grid, Geovisual analytics, DTM.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2398

Authors: Barbara Vojvodikova, Katerina Jupova, Iva Ticha

Abstract:

Cities in their historical evolution have always adapted their internal structure to the needs of society (for example protective city walls during classicism era lost their defense function, became unnecessary, were demolished and gave space for new features such as roads, museums or parks). Today it is necessary to modify the internal structure of the city in order to minimize the impact of climate changes on the environment of the population. This article discusses the results of the Urban Climate model owned by VITO, which was carried out as part of a project from the European Union's Horizon grant agreement No 730004 Pan-European Urban Climate Services Climate-Fit city. The use of the model was aimed at changes in land use and land cover in cities related to urban heat islands (UHI). The task of the application was to evaluate possible land use change scenarios in connection with city requirements and ideas. Two pilot areas in the Czech Republic were selected. One is Ostrava and the other Hodonín. The paper provides a demonstration of the application of the model for various possible future development scenarios. It contains an assessment of the suitability or inappropriateness of scenarios of future development depending on the temperature increase. Cities that are preparing to reconstruct the public space are interested in eliminating proposals that would lead to an increase in temperature stress as early as in the assignment phase. If they have evaluation on the unsuitability of some type of design, they can limit it into the proposal phases. Therefore, especially in the application of models on Local level - in 1 m spatial resolution, it was necessary to show which type of proposals would create a significant temperature island in its implementation. Such a type of proposal is considered unsuitable. The model shows that the building itself can create a shady place and thus contribute to the reduction of the UHI. If it sensitively approaches the protection of existing greenery, this new construction may not pose a significant problem. More massive interventions leading to the reduction of existing greenery create a new heat island space.

Keywords: Heat islands, land use, urban climate model.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 839

Authors: Swathi Ganesan, Nalinda Somasiri, Rebecca Jeyavadhanam, Gayathri Karthick

Abstract:

The COVID-19 crisis presents a substantial and critical hazard to worldwide health. Since the occurrence of the disease in late January 2020 in the UK, the number of infected people confirmed to acquire the illness has increased tremendously across the country, and the number of individuals affected is undoubtedly considerably high. The purpose of this research is to figure out a predictive machine learning (ML) archetypal that could forecast the COVID-19 cases within the UK. This study concentrates on the statistical data collected from 31st January 2020 to 31st March 2021 in the United Kingdom. Information on total COVID-19 cases registered, new cases encountered on a daily basis, total death registered, and patients’ death per day due to Coronavirus is collected from World Health Organization (WHO). Data preprocessing is carried out to identify any missing values, outliers, or anomalies in the dataset. The data are split into 8:2 ratio for training and testing purposes to forecast future new COVID-19 cases. Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and linear regression (LR) algorithms are chosen to study the model performance in the prediction of new COVID-19 cases. From the evaluation metrics such as r-squared value and mean squared error, the statistical performance of the model in predicting the new COVID-19 cases is evaluated. RF outperformed the other two ML algorithms with a training accuracy of 99.47% and testing accuracy of 98.26% when n = 30. The mean square error obtained for RF is 4.05e11, which is lesser compared to the other predictive models used for this study. From the experimental analysis, RF algorithm can perform more effectively and efficiently in predicting the new COVID-19 cases, which could help the health sector to take relevant control measures for the spread of the virus.

Keywords: COVID-19, machine learning, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, linear regression, support vector machine, random forest.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 172

Authors: C. Virgilio, J. Carlier, P. Campistron, M. Toubal, P. Garnier, L. Broussous, V. Thomy, B. Nongaillard

Abstract:

Wetting efficiency of microstructures or nanostructures patterned on Si wafers is a real challenge in integrated circuits manufacturing. In fact, bad or non-uniform wetting during wet processes limits chemical reactions and can lead to non-complete etching or cleaning inside the patterns and device defectivity. This issue is more and more important with the transistors size shrinkage and concerns mainly high aspect ratio structures. Deep Trench Isolation (DTI) structures enabling pixels’ isolation in imaging devices are subject to this phenomenon. While low-frequency acoustic reflectometry principle is a well-known method for Non Destructive Test applications, we have recently shown that it is also well suited for nanostructures wetting characterization in a higher frequency range. In this paper, we present a high-frequency acoustic reflectometry characterization of DTI wetting through a confrontation of both experimental and modeling results. The acoustic method proposed is based on the evaluation of the reflection of a longitudinal acoustic wave generated by a 100 µm diameter ZnO piezoelectric transducer sputtered on the silicon wafer backside using MEMS technologies. The transducers have been fabricated to work at 5 GHz corresponding to a wavelength of 1.7 µm in silicon. The DTI studied structures, manufactured on the wafer frontside, are crossing trenches of 200 nm wide and 4 µm deep (aspect ratio of 20) etched into a Si wafer frontside. In that case, the acoustic signal reflection occurs at the bottom and at the top of the DTI enabling its characterization by monitoring the electrical reflection coefficient of the transducer. A Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) model has been developed to predict the behavior of the emitted wave. The model shows that the separation of the reflected echoes (top and bottom of the DTI) from different acoustic modes is possible at 5 Ghz. A good correspondence between experimental and theoretical signals is observed. The model enables the identification of the different acoustic modes. The evaluation of DTI wetting is then performed by focusing on the first reflected echo obtained through the reflection at Si bottom interface, where wetting efficiency is crucial. The reflection coefficient is measured with different water / ethanol mixtures (tunable surface tension) deposited on the wafer frontside. Two cases are studied: with and without PFTS hydrophobic treatment. In the untreated surface case, acoustic reflection coefficient values with water show that liquid imbibition is partial. In the treated surface case, the acoustic reflection is total with water (no liquid in DTI). The impalement of the liquid occurs for a specific surface tension but it is still partial for pure ethanol. DTI bottom shape and local pattern collapse of the trenches can explain these incomplete wetting phenomena. This high-frequency acoustic method sensitivity coupled with a FDTD propagative model thus enables the local determination of the wetting state of a liquid on real structures. Partial wetting states for non-hydrophobic surfaces or low surface tension liquids are then detectable with this method.

Keywords: Wetting, acoustic reflectometry, gigahertz, semiconductor.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1301

Authors: Corrado Grassi, Achim Schröter, Yves Gloy, Thomas Gries

Abstract:

Air jet weaving is the most productive, but also the most energy consuming weaving method. Increasing energy costs and environmental impact are constantly a challenge for the manufacturers of weaving machines. Current technological developments concern with low energy costs, low environmental impact, high productivity, and constant product quality. The high degree of energy consumption of the method can be ascribed to the high need of compressed air. An energy efficiency method is applied to the air jet weaving technology. Such method identifies and classifies the main relevant energy consumers and processes from the exergy point of view and it leads to the identification of energy efficiency potentials during the weft insertion process. Starting from the design phase, energy efficiency is considered as the central requirement to be satisfied. The initial phase of the method consists of an analysis of the state of the art of the main weft insertion components in order to point out a prioritization of the high demanding energy components and processes. The identified major components are investigated to reduce the high demand of energy of the weft insertion process. During the interaction of the flow field coming from the relay nozzles within the profiled reed, only a minor part of the stream is really accelerating the weft yarn, hence resulting in large energy inefficiency. Different tools such as FEM analysis, CFD simulation models and experimental analysis are used in order to design a more energy efficient design of the involved components in the filling insertion. A different concept for the metal strip of the profiled reed is developed. The developed metal strip allows a reduction of the machine energy consumption. Based on a parametric and aerodynamic study, the designed reed transmits higher values of the flow power to the filling yarn. The innovative reed fulfills both the requirement of raising energy efficiency and the compliance with the weaving constraints.

Keywords: Air jet weaving, aerodynamic simulation, energy efficiency, experimental measurements, power costs, weft insertion.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1507

Authors: R. Sekula

Abstract:

Epoxy composites are broadly used as an electrical insulation for the high voltage applications since only such materials can fulfill particular mechanical, thermal, and dielectric requirements. However, properties of the final product are strongly dependent on proper manufacturing process with minimized material failures, as too large shrinkage, voids and cracks. Therefore, application of proper materials (epoxy, hardener, and filler) and process parameters (mold temperature, filling time, filling velocity, initial temperature of internal parts, gelation time), as well as design and geometric parameters are essential features for final quality of the produced components. In this paper, an approach for three-dimensional modeling of all molding stages, namely filling, curing and post-curing is presented. The reactive molding simulation tool is based on a commercial CFD package, and include dedicated models describing viscosity and reaction kinetics that have been successfully implemented to simulate the reactive nature of the system with exothermic effect. Also a dedicated simulation procedure for stress and shrinkage calculations, as well as simulation results are presented in the paper. Second part of the paper is dedicated to recent developments on formulations of functional composites for electrical insulation applications, focusing on thermally conductive materials. Concepts based on filler modifications for epoxy electrical composites have been presented, including the results of the obtained properties. Finally, having in mind tough environmental regulations, in addition to current process and design aspects, an approach for product re-design has been presented focusing on replacement of epoxy material with the thermoplastic one. Such “design-for-recycling” method is one of new directions associated with development of new material and processing concepts of electrical products and brings a lot of additional research challenges. For that, one of the successful products has been presented to illustrate the presented methodology.

Keywords: Curing, epoxy insulation, numerical simulations, recycling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1636

Authors: Dejana Bouillet, Vlatka Domović

Abstract:

Both policymakers and researchers recognize that participating in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is useful for all children, especially for those who are exposed to the high risk of social exclusion. Social exclusion of children is understood as a multidimensional construct including economic, social, cultural, health, and other aspects of disadvantage and deprivation, which individually or combined can have an unfavorable effect on the current life and development of a child, as well as on the child’s development and on disadvantaged life chances in adult life. ECEC institutions should be able to promote educational approaches that portray developmental, cultural, language, and other diversity amongst children. However, little is known about the ways in which Croatian ECEC institutions recognize and respect the diversity of children and their families and how they respond to their educational needs. That is why this paper is dedicated to the analysis of the capacities of ECEC professionals to respond to the demands of educational needs of this very diverse group of children and their families. The results obtained in the frame of the project “Models of response to educational needs of children at risk of social exclusion in ECEC institutions,” funded by the Croatian Science Foundation, will be presented. The research methodology arises from explanations of educational processes and risks of social exclusion as a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon. The preliminary results of the qualitative data analysis of educational practices regarding capacities to identify and appropriately respond to the requirements of children at risk of social exclusion will be presented. The data have been collected by interviewing educational staff in 10 Croatian ECEC institutions (n = 10). The questions in the interviews were related to various aspects of inclusive institutional policy, culture, and practices. According to the analysis, it is possible to conclude that Croatian ECEC professionals are still faced with great challenges in the process of implementation of inclusive policies, culture, and practices. There are several baselines of this conclusion. The interviewed educational professionals are not familiar enough with the whole complexity and diversity of needs of children at risk of social exclusion, and the ECEC institutions do not have enough resources to provide all interventions that these children and their families need.

Keywords: children at risk of social exclusion, ECEC professionals, inclusive policies, culture and practices, interpretative phenomenological analysis

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 626

Authors: Antonios Paraskevas, Michael Madas

Abstract:

For a university to maintain its international competitiveness in education, it is essential to recruit qualitative academic staff as it constitutes its most valuable asset. This selection demonstrates a significant role in achieving strategic objectives, particularly by emphasizing a firm commitment to exceptional student experience and innovative teaching and learning practices of high quality. In this vein, the appropriate selection of academic staff establishes a very important factor of competitiveness, efficiency and reputation of an academic institute. Within this framework, our work demonstrates a comprehensive methodological concept that emphasizes on the multi-criteria nature of the problem and on how decision makers could utilize our approach in order to proceed to the appropriate judgment. The conceptual framework introduced in this paper is built upon a hybrid neutrosophic method based on the Neutrosophic Analytical Hierarchy Process (N-AHP), which uses the theory of neutrosophy sets and is considered suitable in terms of significant degree of ambiguity and indeterminacy observed in decision-making process. To this end, our framework extends the N-AHP by incorporating the Neutrosophic Delphi Method (N-DM). By applying the N-DM, we can take into consideration the importance of each decision-maker and their preferences per evaluation criterion. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed model stands out within the realm of related literature as one of the few studies to employ N-DM in the context of academic staff selection. As a case study, it was decided to use our method to a real problem of academic personnel selection, having as main goal to enhance the algorithm proposed in previous scholars’ work, and thus taking care of the inherit ineffectiveness which becomes apparent in traditional multi-criteria decision-making methods when dealing with situations alike. As a further result, we prove that our method demonstrates greater applicability and reliability when compared to other decision models.

Keywords: Analytical Hierarchy Process, Delphi Method, Multi-criteria decision making methods, neutrosophic set theory, personnel recruitment.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 38

Authors: Harshit Vallecha, Prabha Bhola

Abstract:

‘Energy for all’, is a global issue of concern for the past many years. Despite the number of technological advancements and innovations, significant numbers of people are living without access to electricity around the world. India, an emerging economy, tops the list of nations having the maximum number of residents living off the grid, thus raising global attention in past few years to provide clean and sustainable energy access solutions to all of its residents. It is evident from developed economies that centralized planning and electrification alone is not sufficient for meeting energy security. Implementation of off-grid and consumer-driven energy models like Decentralized Renewable Energy (DRE) systems have played a significant role in meeting the national energy demand in developed nations. Cases of DRE systems have been reported in developing countries like India for the past few years. This paper attempts to profile the status of DRE projects in the Indian context with their scope and relevance to ensure universal electrification. Diversified cases of DRE projects, particularly solar, biomass and micro hydro are identified in different Indian states. Critical factors affecting the sustainability of DRE projects are extracted with their interlinkages in the context of developers, beneficiaries and promoters involved in such projects. Socio-techno-economic indicators are identified through similar cases in the context of DRE projects. Exploratory factor analysis is performed to evaluate the critical sustainability factors followed by regression analysis to establish the relationship between the dependent and independent factors. The generated EFA-Regression model provides a basis to develop the sustainability and replicability framework for broader coverage of DRE projects in developing nations in order to attain the goal of universal electrification with least carbon emissions.

Keywords: Climate change, decentralized generation, electricity access, renewable energy.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1004

Authors: P. V. Pramila, V. Mahesh

Abstract:

Pulmonary Function Tests are important non-invasive diagnostic tests to assess respiratory impairments and provides quantifiable measures of lung function. Spirometry is the most frequently used measure of lung function and plays an essential role in the diagnosis and management of pulmonary diseases. However, the test requires considerable patient effort and cooperation, markedly related to the age of patients resulting in incomplete data sets. This paper presents, a nonlinear model built using Multivariate adaptive regression splines and Random forest regression model to predict the missing spirometric features. Random forest based feature selection is used to enhance both the generalization capability and the model interpretability. In the present study, flow-volume data are recorded for N= 198 subjects. The ranked order of feature importance index calculated by the random forests model shows that the spirometric features FVC, FEF25, PEF, FEF25-75, FEF50 and the demographic parameter height are the important descriptors. A comparison of performance assessment of both models prove that, the prediction ability of MARS with the `top two ranked features namely the FVC and FEF25 is higher, yielding a model fit of R2= 0.96 and R2= 0.99 for normal and abnormal subjects. The Root Mean Square Error analysis of the RF model and the MARS model also shows that the latter is capable of predicting the missing values of FEV1 with a notably lower error value of 0.0191 (normal subjects) and 0.0106 (abnormal subjects) with the aforementioned input features. It is concluded that combining feature selection with a prediction model provides a minimum subset of predominant features to train the model, as well as yielding better prediction performance. This analysis can assist clinicians with a intelligence support system in the medical diagnosis and improvement of clinical care.

Keywords: FEV1, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines Pulmonary Function Test, Random Forest.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3737

Authors: Kung-Jen Tu, Danny Vernatha

Abstract:

To assist individual departments within universities in their energy management tasks, this study explores the application of Building Information Modeling in establishing the ‘BIM based Energy Management Support System’ (BIM-EMSS). The BIM-EMSS consists of six components: (1) sensors installed for each occupant and each equipment, (2) electricity sub-meters (constantly logging lighting, HVAC, and socket electricity consumptions of each room), (3) BIM models of all rooms within individual departments’ facilities, (4) data warehouse (for storing occupancy status and logged electricity consumption data), (5) building energy management system that provides energy managers with various energy management functions, and (6) energy simulation tool (such as eQuest) that generates real time 'standard energy consumptions' data against which 'actual energy consumptions' data are compared and energy efficiency evaluated. Through the building energy management system, the energy manager is able to (a) have 3D visualization (BIM model) of each room, in which the occupancy and equipment status detected by the sensors and the electricity consumptions data logged are displayed constantly; (b) perform real time energy consumption analysis to compare the actual and standard energy consumption profiles of a space; (c) obtain energy consumption anomaly detection warnings on certain rooms so that energy management corrective actions can be further taken (data mining technique is employed to analyze the relation between space occupancy pattern with current space equipment setting to indicate an anomaly, such as when appliances turn on without occupancy); and (d) perform historical energy consumption analysis to review monthly and annually energy consumption profiles and compare them against historical energy profiles. The BIM-EMSS was further implemented in a research lab in the Department of Architecture of NTUST in Taiwan and implementation results presented to illustrate how it can be used to assist individual departments within universities in their energy management tasks.

Keywords: Sensor, electricity sub-meters, database, energy anomaly detection.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2284

Authors: Ioannis I. Αngeli

Abstract:

Worldwide and mainly in the European Union, many standards, regulations, models and systems exists for the evaluation and identification of stakeholders’ requirements of individual universities and higher education (HE) in general. All systems are targeting to measure or evaluate the Universities’ Quality Assurance Systems and the services offered to the recipients of HE, mainly the students. Numerous surveys were conducted in the past either by each university or by organized bodies to identify the students’ satisfaction or to evaluate to what extent these requirements are fulfilled. In this paper, the main results of an ongoing 6-year joint research will be presented very briefly. This research deals with an in depth investigation of student’s satisfaction, students personal requirements, a cup analysis among these two parameters and compares different universities. Through this research an attempt will be made to address four very important questions in higher education establishments (HEE): (1) Are there any common requirements, parameters, good practices or questions that apply to a large number of universities that will assure that students’ requirements are fulfilled? (2) Up to what extent the individual programs of HEE fulfil the requirements of the stakeholders? (3) Are there any similarities on specific programs among European HEE? (4) To what extent the knowledge acquired in a specific course program is utilized or used in a specific country? For the execution of the research an internationally accepted questionnaire(s) was used to evaluate up to what extent the students’ requirements and satisfaction were fulfilled in 2012 and five years later (2017). Samples of students and or universities were taken from many European Universities. The questionnaires used, the sampling method and methodology adopted, as well as the comparison tables and results will be very valuable to any university that is willing to follow the same route and methodology or compare the results with their own HHE. Apart from the unique methodology, valuable results are demonstrated from the four case studies. There is a great difference between the student’s expectations or importance from what they are getting from their universities (in all parameters they are getting less). When there is a crisis or budget cut in HEE there is a direct impact to students. There are many differences on subjects taught in European universities.

Keywords: Quality in higher education, students’ requirements, education standards, student’s survey, stakeholder’s requirements, Mechanical Engineering courses.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 782

Authors: Supriya Gupta, Paresh Chokshi

Abstract:

Polymer-particle interactions can be effectively utilized to produce composites that possess physicochemical properties superior to that of neat polymer. The incorporation of fillers with dimensions comparable to polymer chain size produces composites with extra-ordinary properties owing to very high surface to volume ratio. The dispersion of nanoparticles is achieved by inducing steric repulsion realized by grafting particles with polymeric chains. A comprehensive understanding of the interparticle interaction between these functionalized nanoparticles plays an important role in the synthesis of a stable polymer nanocomposite. With the focus on incorporation of clay sheets in a polymer matrix, we theoretically construct the polymer mediated interparticle potential for two nanosheets grafted with polymeric chains. The self-consistent field theory (SCFT) is employed to obtain the inhomogeneous composition field under equilibrium. Unlike the continuum models, SCFT is built from the microscopic description taking in to account the molecular interactions contributed by both intra- and inter-chain potentials. We present the results of SCFT calculations of the interaction potential curve for two grafted nanosheets immersed in the matrix of polymeric chains of dissimilar chemistry to that of the grafted chains. The interaction potential is repulsive at short separation and shows depletion attraction for moderate separations induced by high grafting density. It is found that the strength of attraction well can be tuned by altering the compatibility between the grafted and the mobile chains. Further, we construct the interaction potential between two nanosheets grafted with diblock copolymers with one of the blocks being chemically identical to the free polymeric chains. The interplay between the enthalpic interaction between the dissimilar species and the entropy of the free chains gives rise to a rich behavior in interaction potential curve obtained for two separate cases of free chains being chemically similar to either the grafted block or the free block of the grafted diblock chains.

Keywords: Clay nanosheets, polymer brush, polymer nanocomposites, self-consistent field theory.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1469

Authors: Yiorgos Hadjichristou

Abstract:

The paper will focus on the strategic development deriving from the evolution of the traditional courtyard spatial organization towards a new, contemporary sustainable way of living. New sustainable approaches that engulf the social issues, the notion of place, the understanding of weather architecture blended together with the bioclimatic behavior will be seen through a series of experimental case studies in the island of Cyprus, inspired and originated from its traditional wisdom, ranging from small scale of living to urban interventions. Weather and nature will be seen as co-architectural authors with architects. Furthermore, the building will be seen not as an object but rather as a vessel of human activities. This will further enhance the notion of merging the material and immaterial, the built and unbuilt, subject-human, and the object-building. This eventually will enable to generate the discussion of the understanding of the building in relation to the place and its inhabitants, where the human topography is more important than the material topography. The specificities of the divided island and the dealing with sites that are in vicinity with the diving Green Line will further trigger explorations dealing with the regeneration issues and the social sustainability offering unprecedented opportunities for innovative sustainable ways of living. Opening up a discourse with premises of weather-nature, materialimmaterial, human-material topographies in relation to the contested sites of the borders will lead us to develop innovative strategies for a profound, both technical and social sustainability, which fruitfully yields to innovative living built environments, responding to the ever changing environmental and social needs. As a starting point, a case study in Kaimakli in Nicosia, a refurbishment with an extension of a traditional house, already engulfs all the traditional/ vernacular wisdom of the bioclimatic architecture. The project focusses on the direct and quite obvious bioclimatic features such as south orientation and cross ventilation. Furthermore, it tries to reinvent the adaptation of these parameters in order to turn the whole house to a contemporary living environment. In order to succeed this, evolutions of traditional architectural elements and spatial conditions are integrated in a way that does not only respond to some certain weather conditions, but they integrate and blend the weather within the built environment. A series of innovations aiming at maximum flexibility is proposed. The house can finally be transformed into a winter enclosure, while for the most part of the year it turns into a ‘camping’ living environment. Parallel to experimental interventions in existing traditional units, we will proceed examining the implementation of the same developed methodology in designing living units and complexes. Malleable courtyard organizations that attempt to blend the traditional wisdom with the contemporary needs for living, the weather and nature with the built environment will be seen tested in both horizontal and vertical developments. Social activities are seen as directly affected and forged by the weather conditions thus generating a new social identity of people where people are directly involved and interacting with the weather. The human actions and interaction with the built, material environment in order to respond to weather will be seen as the result of balancing the social with the technological sustainability, the immaterial, and the material aspects of the living environment.

Keywords: Building as a verb, contemporary living, traditional bioclimatic wisdom, weather architecture.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2073

Authors: Kari Björn

Abstract:

Introduction of games has expanded the application area of computer-aided learning tools to wide variety of age groups of learners. Serious games engage the learners into a real-world -type of simulation and potentially enrich the learning experience. Institutional background of a Bachelor’s level engineering program in Information and Communication Technology is introduced, with detailed focus on one of its majors, Health Technology. As part of a Customer Oriented Software Application thematic semester, one particular course of “eHealth Business and Solutions” is described and reflected in a gamified framework. Learning a consistent view into vast literature of business management, strategies, marketing and finance in a very limited time enforces selection of topics relevant to the industry. Health Technology is a novel and growing industry with a growing sector in consumer wearable devices and homecare applications. The business sector is attracting new entrepreneurs and impatient investor funds. From engineering education point of view the sector is driven by miniaturizing electronics, sensors and wireless applications. However, the market is highly consumer-driven and usability, safety and data integrity requirements are extremely high. When the same technology is used in analysis or treatment of patients, very strict regulatory measures are enforced. The paper introduces a course structure using gamification as a tool to learn the most essential in a new market: customer value proposition design, followed by a market entry game. Students analyze the existing market size and pricing structure of eHealth web-service market and enter the market as a steering group of their company, competing against the legacy players and with each other. The market is growing but has its rules of demand and supply balance. New products can be developed with an R&D-investment, and targeted to market with unique quality- and price-combinations. Product cost structure can be improved by investing to enhanced production capacity. Investments can be funded optionally by foreign capital. Students make management decisions and face the dynamics of the market competition in form of income statement and balance sheet after each decision cycle. The focus of the learning outcome is to understand customer value creation to be the source of cash flow. The benefit of gamification is to enrich the learning experience on structure and meaning of financial statements. The paper describes the gamification approach and discusses outcomes after two course implementations. Along the case description of learning challenges, some unexpected misconceptions are noted. Improvements of the game or the semi-gamified teaching pedagogy are discussed. The case description serves as an additional support to new game coordinator, as well as helps to improve the method. Overall, the gamified approach has helped to engage engineering student to business studies in an energizing way.

Keywords: Engineering education, integrated curriculum, learning experience, learning outcomes.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 957

Authors: Yi Yang, Jiasong Sun

Abstract:

Almost every aspect of our daily lives is now intertwined with some degree of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). HCI courses draw on knowledge from disciplines as diverse as computer science, psychology, design principles, anthropology and more. The HCI courses in the Department of Electronics at Tsinghua University, known as the Media and Cognition course, is constantly updated to reflect the most advanced technological advances, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence-based interaction. For more than a decade, this course has used an interest-based approach to teaching, in which students proactively propose some research-based questions and collaborate with teachers, using course knowledge to explore potential solutions. Semantic communication plays a key role in facilitating understanding and interaction between users and computer systems, ultimately enhancing system usability and user experience. The advancements in AI-generated technology, which has gained significant attention from both academia and industry in recent years, are exemplified by language models like GPT-3 that generate human-like dialogues from given prompts. The latest version of the HCI course practices a semantic communication platform based on AI-generated techniques. We explored a student-centered model and proposed an interest-based teaching method. Students are no longer just recipients of knowledge, but become active participants in the learning process driven by personal interests, thereby encouraging students to take responsibility for their own education. One of the latest results of this teaching approach in the course "Media and Cognition" is a student proposal to develop a semantic communication platform rooted in artificial intelligence generative technologies. The platform solves a key challenge in communications technology: the ability to preserve visual signals. The interest-based approach emphasizes personal curiosity and active participation, and the proposal of an artificial intelligence-generated semantic communication platform is an example and successful result of how students can exert greater creativity when they have the power to control their own learning.

Keywords: Human-computer interaction, media and cognition course, semantic communication, retain ability, prompts.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 164

Authors: Wajiha Javed, Arsalan Jabbar, Nelofer Mehboob, Muhammad Tafseer, Zahid Memon

Abstract:

Introduction: Researchers globally have strived to explore diverse factors that augment the continuation and uptake of family planning methods. Clients’ satisfaction is one of the core determinants facilitating continuation of family planning methods. There is a major debate yet scanty evidence to contrast public and private sectors with respect to client satisfaction. The objective of this study is to compare quality-of-care provided by public and private sectors of Pakistan through a client satisfaction lens. Methods: We used Pakistan Demographic Heath Survey 2012-13 dataset on 3133 women. Ten different multivariate models were made. to explore the relationship between client satisfaction and dependent outcome after adjusting for all known confounding factors and results are presented as OR and AOR (95% CI). Results: Multivariate analyses showed that clients were less satisfied in contraceptive provision from private sector as compared to public sector (AOR 0.92, 95% CI 0.63-1.68) even though the result was not statistically significant. Clients were more satisfied from private sector as compared to the public sector with respect to other determinants of quality-of-care follow-up care (AOR 3.29, 95% CI 1.95-5.55), infection prevention (AOR 2.41, 95% CI 1.60-3.62), counseling services (AOR 2.01, 95% CI 1.27-3.18, timely treatment (AOR 3.37, 95% CI 2.20-5.15), attitude of staff (AOR 2.23, 95% CI 1.50-3.33), punctuality of staff (AOR 2.28, 95% CI 1.92-4.13), timely referring (AOR 2.34, 95% CI 1.63-3.35), staff cooperation (AOR 1.75, 95% CI 1.22-2.51) and complications handling (AOR 2.27, 95% CI 1.56-3.29). Discussion: Public sector has successfully attained substantial satisfaction levels with respect to provision of contraceptives, but it contrasts previous literature from a multi country studies. Our study though in is concordance with a study from Tanzania where public sector was more likely to offer family planning services to clients as compared to private facilities. Conclusion: In majority of the developing countries, public sector is more involved in FP service provision; however, in Pakistan clients’ satisfaction in private sector is more, which opens doors for public-private partnerships and collaboration in the near future. 

Keywords: Client satisfaction, Family Planning, Public private partnership, Quality of care

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2026

Authors: Alexandru Epureanu, Virgil Teodor

Abstract:

One of the main research directions in CAD/CAM machining area is the reducing of machining time. The feedrate scheduling is one of the advanced techniques that allows keeping constant the uncut chip area and as sequel to keep constant the main cutting force. They are two main ways for feedrate optimization. The first consists in the cutting force monitoring, which presumes to use complex equipment for the force measurement and after this, to set the feedrate regarding the cutting force variation. The second way is to optimize the feedrate by keeping constant the material removal rate regarding the cutting conditions. In this paper there is proposed a new approach using an extended database that replaces the system model. The feedrate scheduling is determined based on the identification of the reconfigurable machine tool, and the feed value determination regarding the uncut chip section area, the contact length between tool and blank and also regarding the geometrical roughness. The first stage consists in the blank and tool monitoring for the determination of actual profiles. The next stage is the determination of programmed tool path that allows obtaining the piece target profile. The graphic representation environment models the tool and blank regions and, after this, the tool model is positioned regarding the blank model according to the programmed tool path. For each of these positions the geometrical roughness value, the uncut chip area and the contact length between tool and blank are calculated. Each of these parameters are compared with the admissible values and according to the result the feed value is established. We can consider that this approach has the following advantages: in case of complex cutting processes the prediction of cutting force is possible; there is considered the real cutting profile which has deviations from the theoretical profile; the blank-tool contact length limitation is possible; it is possible to correct the programmed tool path so that the target profile can be obtained. Applying this method, there are obtained data sets which allow the feedrate scheduling so that the uncut chip area is constant and, as a result, the cutting force is constant, which allows to use more efficiently the machine tool and to obtain the reduction of machining time.

Keywords: Reconfigurable machine tool, system identification, uncut chip area, cutting conditions scheduling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1449

Authors: Qurbanov Huseyn Nuraddin

Abstract:

Reliable food supply of the population of a country is one of the main directions of the state's economic policy. Grain growing, which is the basis of agriculture, is important in this area. In the cultivation of cereals on slopes, the application of equal amounts of mineral fertilizers to under the soil before sowing is a very important technological process. The low level of technical equipment in this area prevents producers from providing the country with the necessary quality cereals. Experience in the operation of modern technical means has shown that at present, there is a need to provide an equal amount of fertilizer to under the soil on slopes, fully meeting the agro-technical requirements. No fundamental changes have been made to the industrial machines that fertilize under the soil, and unequal application of fertilizers to under the soil on slopes has been applied. This technological process leads to the destruction of new seedlings and reduced productivity due to intolerance to frost during the winter for the plant planted in the fall. In special climatic conditions, there is an optimal fertilization rate for each agricultural product. The application of fertilizers to the soil is one of the conditions that increase their efficiency in the field. As can be seen, the development of a new technical proposal for fertilizing and plowing the slopes in equal amounts on the slopes, improving the technological and design parameters, taking into account the physical and mechanical properties of fertilizers, is very important. Taking into account the above-mentioned issues, a combined plough was developed in our laboratory. Combined plough carries out pre-sowing technological operation in the cultivation of cereals, providing a smooth equal amount of mineral fertilizers to under the soil on the slopes. Mathematical models of a smooth spreader that evenly distributes fertilizers in the field have been developed. Thus, diagrams and graphs obtained without distribution on the eight partitions of the smooth spreader are constructed under the inclined angles of the slopes. Percentage and productivity of equal distribution in the field were noted by practical and theoretical analysis.

Keywords: Combined plough, mineral fertilizer, equal sowing, fertilizer norm, grain-crops, sowing fertilizer.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 389

Authors: Paola Lecca, Lorenzo Dematte

Abstract:

Reactiondiffusion systems are mathematical models that describe how the concentration of one or more substances distributed in space changes under the influence of local chemical reactions in which the substances are converted into each other, and diffusion which causes the substances to spread out in space. The classical representation of a reaction-diffusion system is given by semi-linear parabolic partial differential equations, whose general form is ÔêétX(x, t) = DΔX(x, t), where X(x, t) is the state vector, D is the matrix of the diffusion coefficients and Δ is the Laplace operator. If the solute move in an homogeneous system in thermal equilibrium, the diffusion coefficients are constants that do not depend on the local concentration of solvent and of solutes and on local temperature of the medium. In this paper a new stochastic reaction-diffusion model in which the diffusion coefficients are function of the local concentration, viscosity and frictional forces of solvent and solute is presented. Such a model provides a more realistic description of the molecular kinetics in non-homogenoeus and highly structured media as the intra- and inter-cellular spaces. The movement of a molecule A from a region i to a region j of the space is described as a first order reaction Ai k- → Aj , where the rate constant k depends on the diffusion coefficient. Representing the diffusional motion as a chemical reaction allows to assimilate a reaction-diffusion system to a pure reaction system and to simulate it with Gillespie-inspired stochastic simulation algorithms. The stochastic time evolution of the system is given by the occurrence of diffusion events and chemical reaction events. At each time step an event (reaction or diffusion) is selected from a probability distribution of waiting times determined by the specific speed of reaction and diffusion events. Redi is the software tool, developed to implement the model of reaction-diffusion kinetics and dynamics. It is a free software, that can be downloaded from http://www.cosbi.eu. To demonstrate the validity of the new reaction-diffusion model, the simulation results of the chaperone-assisted protein folding in cytoplasm obtained with Redi are reported. This case study is redrawing the attention of the scientific community due to current interests on protein aggregation as a potential cause for neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: Reaction-diffusion systems, Fick's law, stochastic simulation algorithm.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1737

Authors: Payam Mousavi, Andrew L. Stewart, Huiwen You, Aryeh F. G. Fayerman

Abstract:

We present a decision-support tool to assist an operator in the detection and tracking of a suspect vehicle traveling to an unknown target destination. Multiple data sources, such as traffic cameras, traffic information, weather, etc., are integrated and processed in real-time to infer a suspect’s intended destination chosen from a list of pre-determined high-value targets. Previously, we presented our work in the detection and tracking of vehicles using traffic and airborne cameras. Here, we focus on the fusion and processing of that information to predict a suspect’s behavior. The network of cameras is represented by a directional graph, where the edges correspond to direct road connections between the nodes and the edge weights are proportional to the average time it takes to travel from one node to another. For our experiments, we construct our graph based on the greater Los Angeles subset of the Caltrans’s “Performance Measurement System” (PeMS) dataset. We propose a Bayesian approach where a posterior probability for each target is continuously updated based on detections of the suspect in the live video feeds. Additionally, we introduce the concept of ‘soft interventions’, inspired by the field of Causal Inference. Soft interventions are herein defined as interventions that do not immediately interfere with the suspect’s movements; rather, a soft intervention may induce the suspect into making a new decision, ultimately making their intent more transparent. For example, a soft intervention could be temporarily closing a road a few blocks from the suspect’s current location, which may require the suspect to change their current course. The objective of these interventions is to gain the maximum amount of information about the suspect’s intent in the shortest possible time. Our system currently operates in a human-on-the-loop mode where at each step, a set of recommendations are presented to the operator to aid in decision-making. In principle, the system could operate autonomously, only prompting the operator for critical decisions, allowing the system to significantly scale up to larger areas and multiple suspects. Once the intended target is identified with sufficient confidence, the vehicle is reported to the authorities to take further action. Other recommendations include a selection of road closures, i.e., soft interventions, or to continue monitoring. We evaluate the performance of the proposed system using simulated scenarios where the suspect, starting at random locations, takes a noisy shortest path to their intended target. In all scenarios, the suspect’s intended target is unknown to our system. The decision thresholds are selected to maximize the chances of determining the suspect’s intended target in the minimum amount of time and with the smallest number of interventions. We conclude by discussing the limitations of our current approach to motivate a machine learning approach, based on reinforcement learning in order to relax some of the current limiting assumptions.

Keywords: Autonomous surveillance, Bayesian reasoning, decision-support, interventions, patterns-of-life, predictive analytics, predictive insights.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 540

Authors: Diego Giuseppe Romano, Gianvito Apuleo, Jiri Duda

Abstract:

Mobility is one of the most important societal needs for amusement, business activities and health. Thus, transport needs are continuously increasing, with the consequent traffic congestion and pollution increase. Aeronautic effort aims at smarter infrastructures use and in introducing greener concepts. A possible solution to address the abovementioned topics is the development of Small Air Transport (SAT) system, able to guarantee operability from today underused airfields in an affordable and green way, helping meanwhile travel time reduction, too. In the framework of Horizon2020, EU (European Union) has funded the Clean Sky 2 SAT TA (Transverse Activity) initiative to address market innovations able to reduce SAT operational cost and environmental impact, ensuring good levels of operational safety. Nowadays, most of the key technologies to improve passenger comfort and to reduce community noise, DOC (Direct Operating Costs) and pilot workload for SAT have reached an intermediate level of maturity TRL (Technology Readiness Level) 3/4. Thus, the key technologies must be developed, validated and integrated on dedicated ground and flying aircraft demonstrators to reach higher TRL levels (5/6). Particularly, SAT TA focuses on the integration at aircraft level of the following technologies [1]: 1)    Low-cost composite wing box and engine nacelle using OoA (Out of Autoclave) technology, LRI (Liquid Resin Infusion) and advance automation process. 2) Innovative high lift devices, allowing aircraft operations from short airfields (< 800 m). 3) Affordable small aircraft manufacturing of metallic fuselage using FSW (Friction Stir Welding) and LMD (Laser Metal Deposition). 4)       Affordable fly-by-wire architecture for small aircraft (CS23 certification rules). 5) More electric systems replacing pneumatic and hydraulic systems (high voltage EPGDS -Electrical Power Generation and Distribution System-, hybrid de-ice system, landing gear and brakes). 6) Advanced avionics for small aircraft, reducing pilot workload. 7) Advanced cabin comfort with new interiors materials and more comfortable seats. 8) New generation of turboprop engine with reduced fuel consumption, emissions, noise and maintenance costs for 19 seats aircraft. (9) Alternative diesel engine for 9 seats commuter aircraft. To address abovementioned market innovations, two different platforms have been designed: Reference and Green aircraft. Reference aircraft is a virtual aircraft designed considering 2014 technologies with an existing engine assuring requested take-off power; Green aircraft is designed integrating the technologies addressed in Clean Sky 2. Preliminary integration of the proposed technologies shows an encouraging reduction of emissions and operational costs of small: about 20% CO₂ reduction, about 24% NO_x reduction, about 10 db (A) noise reduction at measurement point and about 25% DOC reduction. Detailed description of the performed studies, analyses and validations for each technology as well as the expected benefit at aircraft level are reported in the present paper.

Keywords: Affordable, European, green, mobility, technologies development, travel time reduction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 537

Authors: S. Apprich, F. Wulle, A. Lechler, A. Pott, A. Verl

Abstract:

Large-scale machine tools for the manufacturing of large work pieces, e.g. blades, casings or gears for wind turbines, feature pose-dependent dynamic behavior. Small structural damping coefficients lead to long decay times for structural vibrations that have negative impacts on the production process. Typically, these vibrations are handled by increasing the stiffness of the structure by adding mass. This is counterproductive to the needs of sustainable manufacturing as it leads to higher resource consumption both in material and in energy. Recent research activities have led to higher resource efficiency by radical mass reduction that is based on controlintegrated active vibration avoidance and damping methods. These control methods depend on information describing the dynamic behavior of the controlled machine tools in order to tune the avoidance or reduction method parameters according to the current state of the machine. This paper presents the appearance, consequences and challenges of the pose-dependent dynamic behavior of lightweight large-scale machine tool structures in production. It starts with the theoretical introduction of the challenges of lightweight machine tool structures resulting from reduced stiffness. The statement of the pose-dependent dynamic behavior is corroborated by the results of the experimental modal analysis of a lightweight test structure. Afterwards, the consequences of the pose-dependent dynamic behavior of lightweight machine tool structures for the use of active control and vibration reduction methods are explained. Based on the state of the art of pose-dependent dynamic machine tool models and the modal investigation of an FE-model of the lightweight test structure, the criteria for a pose-dependent model for use in vibration reduction are derived. The description of the approach for a general posedependent model of the dynamic behavior of large lightweight machine tools that provides the necessary input to the aforementioned vibration avoidance and reduction methods to properly tackle machine vibrations is the outlook of the paper.

Keywords: Dynamic behavior, lightweight, machine tool, pose-dependency.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2844