Search results for: management of human resources

Authors: Qiuyu Dai, Haochong Zhang, Xiangrong Liu

Abstract:

Efficient matrix-vector multiplication with diagonal sparse matrices is pivotal in a multitude of computational domains, ranging from scientific simulations to machine learning workloads. When encoded in the conventional Diagonal (DIA) format, these matrices often induce computational overheads due to extensive zero-padding and non-linear memory accesses, which can hamper the computational throughput, and elevate the usage of precious compute and memory resources beyond necessity. The ’DIA-Adaptive’ approach, a methodological enhancement introduced in this paper, confronts these challenges head-on by leveraging the advanced parallel instruction sets embedded within Machine Learning Units (MLUs). This research presents a thorough analysis of the DIA-Adaptive scheme’s efficacy in optimizing Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication (SpMV) operations. The scope of the evaluation extends to a variety of hardware architectures, examining the repercussions of distinct thread allocation strategies and cluster configurations across multiple storage formats. A dedicated computational kernel, intrinsic to the DIA-Adaptive approach, has been meticulously developed to synchronize with the nuanced performance characteristics of MLUs. Empirical results, derived from rigorous experimentation, reveal that the DIA-Adaptive methodology not only diminishes the performance bottlenecks associated with the DIA format but also exhibits pronounced enhancements in execution speed and resource utilization. The analysis delineates a marked improvement in parallelism, showcasing the DIA-Adaptive scheme’s ability to adeptly manage the interplay between storage formats, hardware capabilities, and algorithmic design. The findings suggest that this approach could set a precedent for accelerating SpMV tasks, thereby contributing significantly to the broader domain of high-performance computing and data-intensive applications.

Keywords: Adaptive method, DIA, diagonal sparse matrices, MLU, sparse matrix-vector multiplication.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 175

Authors: Gianpaolo Ghiani, Emanuela Guerriero, Emanuele Manni, Alessandro Romano

Abstract:

In this article, we deal with a variant of the classical course timetabling problem that has a practical application in many areas of education. In particular, in this paper we are interested in high schools remedial courses. The purpose of such courses is to provide under-prepared students with the skills necessary to succeed in their studies. In particular, a student might be under prepared in an entire course, or only in a part of it. The limited availability of funds, as well as the limited amount of time and teachers at disposal, often requires schools to choose which courses and/or which teaching units to activate. Thus, schools need to model the training offer and the related timetabling, with the goal of ensuring the highest possible teaching quality, by meeting the above-mentioned financial, time and resources constraints. Moreover, there are some prerequisites between the teaching units that must be satisfied. We first present a Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) model to solve this problem to optimality. However, the presence of many peculiar constraints contributes inevitably in increasing the complexity of the mathematical model. Thus, solving it through a general-purpose solver may be performed for small instances only, while solving real-life-sized instances of such model requires specific techniques or heuristic approaches. For this purpose, we also propose a heuristic approach, in which we make use of a fast constructive procedure to obtain a feasible solution. To assess our exact and heuristic approaches we perform extensive computational results on both real-life instances (obtained from a high school in Lecce, Italy) and randomly generated instances. Our tests show that the MIP model is never solved to optimality, with an average optimality gap of 57%. On the other hand, the heuristic algorithm is much faster (in about the 50% of the considered instances it converges in approximately half of the time limit) and in many cases allows achieving an improvement on the objective function value obtained by the MIP model. Such an improvement ranges between 18% and 66%.

Keywords: Heuristic, MIP model, Remedial course, School, Timetabling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1611

Authors: Mardiana Ahamad Zabidi, Akmalluddin Md. Yunus

Abstract:

Soursop (Anona muricata) is one of the underutilized tropical fruits containing nutrients, particularly dietary fibre and antioxidant properties that are beneficial to human health. This objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of matured soursop pulp flour (SPF) to be substituted with high-protein wheat flour in bread. Bread formulation was substituted with different levels of SPF (0%, 5%, 10% and 15%). The effect on physicochemical properties and sensory attributes were evaluated. Higher substitution level of SPF resulted in significantly higher (p<0.05) fibre, protein and ash content, while fat and carbohydrate content reduced significantly (p<0.05). FESEM showed that the bread crumb surface of control and 5% SPF appeared to distribute evenly and coalesced by thin gluten film. However, higher SPF substitution level in bread formulation exhibited a deleterious effect by formation of discontinuous gluten network. For texture profile analysis, 5% SPF bread resulted in the lowest value of hardness. The score of sensory evaluation showed that 5% SPF bread received good acceptability and is comparable with control bread.

Keywords: Bread, Physicochemical properties, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Sensory attributes, Soursop pulp flour.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3126

Authors: Melis Inalpulat, Levent Genc, Unal Kizil, Tugce Civelek

Abstract:

Livestock production is one of the most important components of rural economy. Due to the urban expansion, rural areas close to expanding cities transform into urban districts during the time. However, the legislations have some restrictions related to livestock farming in such administrative units since they tend to create environmental concerns like odor problems resulted from excessive manure production. Therefore, the existing animal operations should be moved from the settlement areas. This paper was focused on determination of suitable lands for livestock production in Canakkale province of Turkey using remote sensing (RS) data and GIS techniques. To achieve the goal, Formosat 2 and Landsat 8 imageries, Aster DEM, and 1:25000 scaled soil maps, village boundaries, and village livestock inventory records were used. The study was conducted using suitability analysis which evaluates the land in terms of limitations and potentials, and suitability range was categorized as Suitable (S) and Non-Suitable (NS). Limitations included the distances from main and crossroads, water resources and settlements, while potentials were appropriate values for slope, land use capability and land use land cover status. Village-based S land distribution results were presented, and compared with livestock inventories. Results showed that approximately 44230 ha area is inappropriate because of the distance limitations for roads and etc. (NS). Moreover, according to LULC map, 71052 ha area consists of forests, olive and other orchards, and thus, may not be suitable for building such structures (NS). In comparison, it was found that there are a total of 1228 ha S lands within study area. The village-based findings indicated that, in some villages livestock production continues on NS areas. Finally, it was suggested that organized livestock zones may be constructed to serve in more than one village after the detailed analysis complemented considering also political decisions, opinion of the local people, etc.

Keywords: GIS, livestock, LULC, remote sensing, suitable lands.

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

Authors: S. P. Sharma, Monica Rani

Abstract:

In conventional reliability assessment, the reliability data of system components are treated as crisp values. The collected data have some uncertainties due to errors by human beings/machines or any other sources. These uncertainty factors will limit the understanding of system component failure due to the reason of incomplete data. In these situations, we need to generalize classical methods to fuzzy environment for studying and analyzing the systems of interest. Fuzzy set theory has been proposed to handle such vagueness by generalizing the notion of membership in a set. Essentially, in a Fuzzy Set (FS) each element is associated with a point-value selected from the unit interval [0, 1], which is termed as the grade of membership in the set. A Vague Set (VS), as well as an Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS), is a further generalization of an FS. Instead of using point-based membership as in FS, interval-based membership is used in VS. The interval-based membership in VS is more expressive in capturing vagueness of data. In the present paper, vague set theory coupled with conventional Lambda-Tau method is presented for reliability analysis of repairable systems. The methodology uses Petri nets (PN) to model the system instead of fault tree because it allows efficient simultaneous generation of minimal cuts and path sets. The presented method is illustrated with the press unit of the paper mill.

Keywords: Lambda -Tau methodology, Petri nets, repairable system, vague fuzzy set.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1511

Authors: Mohamed A. Mahfouz, M. A. Ismail

Abstract:

Biclustering is a very useful data mining technique for identifying patterns where different genes are co-related based on a subset of conditions in gene expression analysis. Association rules mining is an efficient approach to achieve biclustering as in BIMODULE algorithm but it is sensitive to the value given to its input parameters and the discretization procedure used in the preprocessing step, also when noise is present, classical association rules miners discover multiple small fragments of the true bicluster, but miss the true bicluster itself. This paper formally presents a generalized noise tolerant bicluster model, termed as μBicluster. An iterative algorithm termed as BIDENS based on the proposed model is introduced that can discover a set of k possibly overlapping biclusters simultaneously. Our model uses a more flexible method to partition the dimensions to preserve meaningful and significant biclusters. The proposed algorithm allows discovering biclusters that hard to be discovered by BIMODULE. Experimental study on yeast, human gene expression data and several artificial datasets shows that our algorithm offers substantial improvements over several previously proposed biclustering algorithms.

Keywords: Machine learning, biclustering, bi-dimensional clustering, gene expression analysis, data mining.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1939

Authors: Ting-Yu Hsu, Shyu-Yu Wu, Shieh-Kung Huang, Hung-Wei Chiang, Kung-Chun Lu, Pei-Yang Lin, Kuo-Liang Wen

Abstract:

Regional earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are not suitable for Taiwan, as most destructive seismic hazards arise due to in-land earthquakes. These likely cause the lead-time provided by regional EEW systems before a destructive earthquake wave arrives to become null. On the other hand, an on-site EEW system can provide more lead-time at a region closer to an epicenter, since only seismic information of the target site is required. Instead of leveraging the information of several stations, the on-site system extracts some P-wave features from the first few seconds of vertical ground acceleration of a single station and performs a prediction of the oncoming earthquake intensity at the same station according to these features. Since seismometers could be triggered by non-earthquake events such as a passing of a truck or other human activities, to reduce the likelihood of false alarms, a seismometer was installed at three different locations on the same site and the performance of the EEW system for these three sensor locations were discussed. The results show that the location on the ground of the first floor of a school building maybe a good choice, since the false alarms could be reduced and the cost for installation and maintenance is the lowest.

Keywords: Earthquake early warning, Single station approach, Seismometer location.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1330

Authors: A. H. Tadevosyan, S. K. Mayrapetyan, N. B. Tavakalyan, K. I. Pyuskyulyan, A. H. Hovsepyan, S. N. Sergeeva

Abstract:

Soil contamination with radiocesium has a long-term radiological impact due to its long physical half-life (30.1 years for ¹³⁷Cs and 2 years for ¹³⁴Cs) and its high biological availability. ¹³⁷Cs causes the largest concerns because of its deleterious effect on agriculture and stock farming, and, thus, human life for decades. One of the important aspects of the problem of contaminated soils remediation is understand of protective actions aimed at the reduction of biological migration of radionuclides in soil-plant system. The most effective way to bind radionuclides is the use of selective sorbents. The proposed research mainly aims to achieve control on transfer of ¹³⁷Cs in a system growing media – plant due to counter ions variation in the polymeric sorbents. As research object Japanese basil - Perilla frutescens was chosen. Productivity of plants depending on the presence (control-without presence of polymer) and type of polymer material, as well as content of ¹³⁷Cs in plant material has been determined. The character of different polymers influences on the ¹³⁷Cs migration in growing media – plant system as well as accumulation in the plants has been cleared up.

Keywords: Radioceaseum, Japanese basil, polymer, soil-plant system.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1824

Authors: Omid Adibi, Nategheh Najafpour, Bijan Farhanieh, Hossein Afshin

Abstract:

Gas release from the pipelines is one of the main factors in the gas industry accidents. Released gas ejects from the pipeline as a free jet and in the growth process, the fuel gets mixed with the ambient air. Accordingly, an accidental spark will release the chemical energy of the mixture with an explosion. Gas explosion damages the equipment and endangers the life of staffs. So due to importance of safety in gas industries, prevision of accident can reduce the number of the casualties. In this paper, natural gas leakages from the low pressure pipelines are studied in two steps: 1) the simulation of mixing process and identification of flammable zones and 2) the simulation of wind effects on the mixing process. The numerical simulations were performed by using the finite volume method and the pressure-based algorithm. Also, for the grid generation the structured method was used. The results show that, in just 6.4 s after accident, released natural gas could penetrate to 40 m in vertical and 20 m in horizontal direction. Moreover, the results show that the wind speed is a key factor in dispersion process. In fact, the wind transports the flammable zones into the downstream. Hence, to improve the safety of the people and human property, it is preferable to construct gas facilities and buildings in the opposite side of prevailing wind direction.

Keywords: Flammable zones, gas pipelines, numerical simulation, wind effects.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1122

Authors: Violeta Damjanovic-Behrendt

Abstract:

This paper presents an approach for optimal cyber security decisions to protect instances of a federated Internet of Things (IoT) platform in the cloud. The presented solution implements the repeated Stackelberg Security Game (SSG) and a model called Stochastic Human behaviour model with AttRactiveness and Probability weighting (SHARP). SHARP employs the Subjective Utility Quantal Response (SUQR) for formulating a subjective utility function, which is based on the evaluations of alternative solutions during decision-making. We augment the repeated SSG (including SHARP and SUQR) with a reinforced learning algorithm called Naïve Q-Learning. Naïve Q-Learning belongs to the category of active and model-free Machine Learning (ML) techniques in which the agent (either the defender or the attacker) attempts to find an optimal security solution. In this way, we combine GT and ML algorithms for discovering optimal cyber security policies. The proposed security optimization components will be validated in a collaborative cloud platform that is based on the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) and its recently published security model.

Keywords: Security, internet of things, cloud computing, Stackelberg security game, machine learning, Naïve Q-learning.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1555

Authors: A. Bandyopadhyay

Abstract:

Vedic philosophy is one of the oldest existing philosophies of the world. Started around 6500 BC, in Western Indian subcontinent, the Indus valley Civilizations developed a theology which, gradually developed into a well-established philosophy of beliefs, popularly known as ‘Hindu religion’. In Vedic theology, the abstract concept of God was formulated mostly by close observation of the dynamicity and the recurrence of natural and universal phenomena. Through the ages, the philosophy of this theology went through various discursions, debates, and questionings and the abstract concept of God was, in time, formalized into more representational forms by the means of various signs and symbols. Often, these symbols were used in more subtle ways in the construction of “sacred” sculptures and structures. Apparently, two different philosophies were developed from the Vedic philosophy and these two philosophies are mostly seen in the northern part and southern part of the Indian subcontinent. This paper tries to summarize the complex philosophical treaties of Hinduism of northern and southern India and seeks to understand the meanings of the various signs and symbolisms that were incorporated in the architecture of Hindu temples, including the names given to various parts of the temples. The Hindu temples are not only places of worship or ‘houses of Gods’ like the Greek and Roman temples but are also structures that symbolize the dynamicity and also spiritual upliftment of human beings.

Keywords: Hindu, philosophy, temple, Vedic.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1417

Authors: Ririn Lestari Sri Rahayu, Mustofa Ahda

Abstract:

The use of synthetic antioxidants often causes a negative effect on health and increases the incidence of carcinogenesis. Development of the natural antioxidants should be investigated. However, natural antioxidants have a low toxicity and are safe for human consumption. Ethanol extract of mangosteen rind (Garcinia mangostana) contains natural antioxidant compounds that have various pharmacological activities. Antioxidants from the ethanol extract of mangosteen rind have free radicals scavenging activities. The scavenging activity of ethanol extract of mangosteen rind was determined by DPPH method. The phenolic compound from the ethanol extract of mangosteen rind is determined with Folin-Ciocalteu method. The results showed that the absolute ethanol extract of mangosteen rind has IC₅₀ of 40.072 ug/mL. The correlation of total phenols content with free radical scavenging activity has an equation y: 5.207x + 205.51 and determination value (R²) of 0.9329. Total phenols content from the ethanol extract of mangosteen rind has a good correlation with free radicals scavenging activity of DPPH.

Keywords: Antioxidant, Garcinia mangostana, inhibition concentration 50%, total phenolic compounds.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1276

Authors: Timothy Yoonsuk Lee, Jinhwan Yu, Somi Nah

Abstract:

Hollywood has produced various blockbusters on the subject of disasters. Entering the 2000s, disaster films began to be produced in the East Asian region as well, and as most of them were successful, disaster films have settled as a popular genre in the region. East Asian disaster films utilize a plot structure similar to Hollywood films but, at the same time, represent East Asian people-s unique value system. East Asian people-s social behavior pattern defined as collectivism is a characteristic that distinguishes this region from other cultural regions. In order to examine Confucian culture in disaster films on the premise of the difference, the author conducts this research as follows.This study first reviews the concepts disaster and disaster film, and understands the genre through analyzing the narrative structure and style. In addition, it discusses collectivism, a characteristic of the East Asian region distinguished from the West, and investigates Confucian culture in films and examines differences among Korean, Chinese and Japanese Confucianism. Films selected for this study are Tidal Wave (Korea, 2009), After Shock (China, 2006), and The Sinking of Japan (Japan, 2006). Using the characters in these films, we analyze how Confucian thought is described and reproduced.

Keywords: Confucianism, Disaster Film, East Asian Films, Three Basic Principles and Five Moral Disciplines in Human Relations

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2031

Authors: Chimaobi Valentine Okolo, Chizoba Obidigbo

Abstract:

As a basic physiology need, threat to sufficient food production is threat to human survival. Food security has been an issue that has gained global concern. This paper looks at the food security in Nigeria by assessing the availability of food and accessibility of the available food. The paper employed multiple linear regression technique and graphic trends of growth rates of relevant variables to show the situation of food security in Nigeria. Results of the tests revealed that population growth rate was higher than the growth rate of food availability in Nigeria for the earlier period of the study. Commercial bank credit to agricultural sector, foreign exchange utilization for food and the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) contributed significantly to food availability in Nigeria. Food prices grew at a faster rate than the average income level, making it difficult to access sufficient food. It implies that prior to the year 2012; there was insufficient food to feed the Nigerian populace. However, continued credit to the food and agricultural sector will ensure sustained and sufficient production of food in Nigeria. Microfinance banks should make sufficient credit available to smallholder farmer. Government should further control and subsidize the rising price of food to make it more accessible by the people.

Keywords: Food security, food availability and food accessibility.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6110

Authors: Tero Halme, Juho Kanniainen, Markus Nordberg

Abstract:

According to the existing literature, companies manage analysts’ expectations of their future earnings by issuing pessimistic earnings guidance to meet the expectations. Consequently, one could expect that markets price this pessimistic bias in advance and penalize companies more for lowering the guidance than reward for beating the guidance. In this paper we confirm this empirically. In addition we show that although guidance revisions have a statistically significant relation to stock returns, that is not the case with the actual earnings surprise. Reason for this could be that, after the annual earnings report also information on future earnings power is given at the same time.

Keywords: Management guidance, earnings guidance, pessimistic bias

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2988

Authors: Jingming Wu, Ruikang Hu, Junqi Yue, Zhaoguang Yang, Lifeng Zhang

Abstract:

Fecal sterol has been proposed as a chemical indicator of human fecal pollution even when fecal coliform populations have diminished due to water chlorination or toxic effects of industrial effluents. This paper describes an improved derivatization procedure for simultaneous determination of four fecal sterols including coprostanol, epicholestanol, cholesterol and cholestanol using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), via optimization study on silylation procedures using N-O-bis (trimethylsilyl)-trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA), and N-(tert-butyldimethylsilyl)-N-methyltrifluoroacetamide (MTBSTFA), which lead to the formation of trimethylsilyl (TMS) and tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBS) derivatives, respectively. Two derivatization processes of injection-port derivatization and water bath derivatization (60 oC, 1h) were inspected and compared. Furthermore, the methylation procedure at 25 oC for 2h with trimethylsilydiazomethane (TMSD) for fecal sterols analysis was also studied. It was found that most of TMS derivatives demonstrated the highest sensitivities, followed by methylated derivatives. For BSTFA or MTBSTFA derivatization processes, the simple injection-port derivatization process could achieve the same efficiency as that in the tedious water bath derivatization procedure.

Keywords: Fecal Sterols, Methylation, Silylation, BSTFA, MTBSTFA, TMSD, GC-MS.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2236

Authors: Fuyang Peng, Bo Deng, Chao Qi

Abstract:

This paper presents the design and implementation of CASTE, a Cloud-based automatic software test environment. We first present the architecture of CASTE, then the main packages and classes of it are described in detail. CASTE is built upon a private Infrastructure as a Service platform. Through concentrated resource management of virtualized testing environment and automatic execution control of test scripts, we get a better solution to the testing resource utilization and test automation problem. Experiments on CASTE give very appealing results.

Keywords: Software testing, test environment, test script, cloud computing, IaaS, test automation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2144

Authors: Jingming Wu, Ruikang Hu, Junqi Yue, Zhaoguang Yang, Lifeng Zhang

Abstract:

Fecal sterol has been proposed as a chemical indicator of human fecal pollution even when fecal coliform populations have diminished due to water chlorination or toxic effects of industrial effluents. This paper describes an improved derivatization procedure for simultaneous determination of four fecal sterols including coprostanol, epicholestanol, cholesterol and cholestanol using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), via optimization study on silylation procedures using N-O-bis (trimethylsilyl)-trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA), and N-(tert-butyldimethylsilyl)-N-methyltrifluoroacetamide (MTBSTFA), which lead to the formation of trimethylsilyl (TMS) and tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBS) derivatives, respectively. Two derivatization processes of injection-port derivatization and water bath derivatization (60 oC, 1h) were inspected and compared. Furthermore, the methylation procedure at 25 oC for 2h with trimethylsilydiazomethane (TMSD) for fecal sterols analysis was also studied. It was found that most of TMS derivatives demonstrated the highest sensitivities, followed by methylated derivatives. For BSTFA or MTBSTFA derivatization processes, the simple injection-port derivatization process could achieve the same efficiency as that in the tedious water bath derivatization procedure.

Keywords: Fecal Sterols, Methylation, Silylation, BSTFA, MTBSTFA, TMSD, GC-MS.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3178

Authors: Robert A. Sowah, Stephen K. Armoo, Koudjo M. Koumadi, Rockson Agyeman, Seth Y. Fiawoo

Abstract:

The development of the agricultural sector in Ghana has been reliant on the use of irrigation systems to ensure food security. However, the manual operation of these systems has not facilitated their maximum efficiency due to human limitations. This paper seeks to address this problem by designing and implementing an efficient, cost effective automated system which monitors and controls the water flow of irrigation through communication with an authorized operator via text messages. The automatic control component of the system is timer based with an Atmega32 microcontroller and a real time clock from the SM5100B cellular module. For monitoring purposes, the system sends periodic notification of the system on the performance of duty via SMS to the authorized person(s). Moreover, the GSM based Irrigation Monitoring and Control System saves time and labour and reduces cost of operating irrigation systems by saving electricity usage and conserving water. Field tests conducted have proven its operational efficiency and ease of assessment of farm irrigation equipment due to its costeffectiveness and data logging capabilities.

Keywords: Agriculture, control system, data logging, food security, irrigation system, microcontroller.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5183

Authors: G. Reinhart, J. Pohl

Abstract:

Manufacturing companies are facing a broad variety of challenges caused by a dynamic production environment. To succeed in such an environment, it is crucial to minimize the loss of time required to trigger the adaptation process of a company-s production structures. This paper presents an approach for the continuous monitoring of production structures by neurologic principles. It enhances classical monitoring concepts, which are principally focused on reactive strategies, and enables companies to act proactively. Thereby, strategic aspects regarding the harmonization of certain life cycles are integrated into the decision making process for triggering the reconfiguration process of the production structure.

Keywords: Continuous Factory Planning, Production Structure, Production Management.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1430

Authors: Kazunari Meguro, Daisuke Yamamoto, Shinichi Motomura, Toshihiko Sasama, Takao Kawamura, Kazunori Sugahara

Abstract:

We have developed a distributed asynchronous Web based training system. In order to improve the scalability and robustness of this system, all contents and functions are realized on mobile agents. These agents are distributed to computers, and they can use a Peer to Peer network that modified Content-Addressable Network. In the proposed system, only text data can be included in a exercise. To make our proposed system more useful, the mechanism that it not only adapts to multimedia data but also it doesn-t influence the user-s learning even if the size of exercise becomes large is necessary.

Keywords: e-Learning, multimedia, Mobile Agent.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1472

Authors: Vita Strazdina, Aleksandrs Jemeljanovs, Vita Sterna

Abstract:

A game animals – elk (Alces alces), deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) or wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) - every autumn and winter period provide an excellent investment, diversification of many consumer meals. In last years consumption and assortiment of game meat products significantly increase. Investigations about biochemical composition of game meat are not very much. The meat of wild animals is more favourable for human health because it has lower saturated fatty acids content, but higher content of protein. Therefore the aim of investigations was to compare biochemical composition of ungulates obtained in Latvia.Investigations were carried out in wild animals different regions of Latvia. In the studied samples protein, intramuscular fat, fatty acids and cholesterol were determined. The biochemical analysis of 54 samples were done. Results of analysis showed that protein content 22.36 – 22.92% of all types of meat samples is not different statistically, significantly lower fat content 1.33 ± 0.88% had elk meat samples and 1.59 ± 0.59% roe deer samples. Content of cholesterol was various 64.41 – 95.07% in the ruminant meat samples of different species. From the dietetic point of view the best composition of fatty acids has meat samples of roe deer.

Keywords: dietic product, game meat, intramuscular fat

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3042

Authors: Chimaobi V. Okolo, Afamefuna J. Ani, Ebere U. Okolo

Abstract:

This paper seeks to assess the implications of insurance to foreign direct investment inflow in Nigeria. Multiple linear regression technique and correlation matrix test were employed to measure the extent to which foreign direct investment was influenced. The result showed that insurance premium (IP), asset size of insurance industry (AS), and total investment of the industry (TI) impacted significantly and positively on foreign direct investment inflow in Nigeria. There should be effective risk transfer mechanism and financial intermediation, which gives the investor confidence in the risk management strength of the host country.

Keywords: Foreign direct investment, insurance.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3019

Authors: Noda L. M., Salvador I. C, C. M. L. G. Parada, Fonseca C. R. B.

Abstract:

In Brazil, neonatal mortality rate is considered incompatible with the country development conditions, and has been a Public Health concern. Reduction in infant mortality rates has also been part of the Millennium Development Goals, a commitment made by countries, members of the Organization of United Nations (OUN), including Brazil. Fetal mortality rate is considered a highly sensitive indicator of health care quality. Suitable actions, such as good quality and access to health services may contribute positively towards reduction in these fetal and neonatal rates. With appropriate antenatal follow-up and health care during gestation and delivery, some death causes could be reduced or even prevented by means of early diagnosis and intervention, as well as changes in risk factors and interventions. Objectives: To study the quality of maternal and infant health care based on fetal and neonatal mortality, as well as the possible actions to prevent those deaths in Botucatu (Brazil). Methods: Classification of prevention according to the International Classification of Diseases and the modified Wigglesworth´s classification. In order to evaluate adequacy, indicators of quality of antenatal and delivery care were established by the authors. Results: Considering fetal deaths, 56.7% of them occurred before delivery, which reveals possible shortcomings in antenatal care, and 38.2% of them were a result of intra- labor changes, which could be prevented or reduced by adequate obstetric management. These findings were different from those in the group of early neonatal deaths which were also studied. Adequacy of health services showed that antenatal and childbirth care was appropriate for 24% and 33.3% of pregnant women, respectively, which corroborates the results of prevention. These results revealed that shortcomings in obstetric and antenatal care could be the causes of deaths in the study. Early and late neonatal deaths have similar characteristics: 76% could be prevented or reduced mainly by adequate newborn care (52.9%) and adequate health care for gestational women (11.7%). When adequacy of care was evaluated, childbirth and newborn care was adequate in 25.8% and antenatal care was adequate in 16.1%. In conclusion, direct relationship was found between adequacy and quality of care rendered to pregnant women and newborns, and fetal and infant mortality. Moreover, our findings highlight that deaths could be prevented by an adequate obstetric and neonatal management.

Keywords: Fetal Mortality, Infant Mortality, Maternal-Child Health Services, Program Evaluation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5051

Authors: M. Ndaw, G. Mendy, S. Ouya

Abstract:

Risk management in banking sector is a key issue linked to financial system stability and its importance has been elevated by technological developments and emergence of new financial instruments. In this paper, we improve the model previously defined for quantifying internal control impact on banking risks by automatizing the residual criticality estimation step of FMECA. For this, we defined three equations and a maturity coefficient to obtain a mathematical model which is tested on all banking processes and type of risks. The new model allows an optimal assessment of residual criticality and improves the correlation rate that has become 98%.

Keywords: Risk, Control, Banking, FMECA.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1500

Authors: T. Aldeeb, M. Abduelmula

Abstract:

This study examines the fatigue life of S275 mild steel at room temperature. Mechanical components can fail under cyclic loading during period of time, known as the fatigue phenomenon. In order to prevent fatigue induced failures, material behavior should be investigated to determine the endurance limit of the material for safe design and infinite life, thus leading to reducing the economic cost and loss in human lives. The fatigue behavior of S275 mild steel was studied and investigated. Specimens were prepared in accordance with ASTM E3-11, and fatigue tests of the specimen were conducted in accordance with ASTM E466-07 on a smooth plate, with a continuous radius between ends (hourglass-shaped plate). The method of fatigue testing was applied with constant load amplitude and constant frequency of 4 Hz with load ratio (Fully Reversal R= -1). Surface fractures of specimens were investigated using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The experimental results were compared with the results of a Finite Element Analysis (FEA), using simulation software. The experiment results indicated that the endurance fatigue limit of S275 mild steel was 195.47 MPa.

Keywords: Fatigue life, fatigue strength, finite element analysis, S275 mild steel, scanning electron microscope.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2408

Authors: Loke Mun Sei

Abstract:

Software testing has become a mandatory process in assuring the software product quality. Hence, test management is needed in order to manage the test activities conducted in the software test life cycle. This paper discusses on the challenges faced in the software test life cycle, and how the test processes and test activities, mainly on test cases creation, test execution, and test reporting is being managed and automated using several test automation tools, i.e. Jira, Robot Framework, and Jenkins.

Keywords: Test automation tools, test case, test execution, test reporting.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3077

Authors: Abhijit Mitra, C. Ardil

Abstract:

We investigate sonic cues for binaural sound localization within classrooms and present a structural model for the same. Two of the primary cues for localization, interaural time difference (ITD) and interaural level difference (ILD) created between the two ears by sounds from a particular point in space, are used. Although these cues do not lend any information about the elevation of a sound source, the torso, head, and outer ear carry out elevation dependent spectral filtering of sounds before they reach the inner ear. This effect is commonly captured in head related transfer function (HRTF) which aids in resolving the ambiguity from the ITDs and ILDs alone and helps localize sounds in free space. The proposed structural model of HRTF produces well controlled horizontal as well as vertical effects. The implemented HRTF is a signal processing model which tries to mimic the physical effects of the sounds interacting with different parts of the body. The effectiveness of the method is tested by synthesizing spatial audio, in MATLAB, for use in listening tests with human subjects and is found to yield satisfactory results in comparison with existing models.

Keywords: Auditory localization, Binaural sound, Head related impulse response, Head related transfer function, Interaural level difference, Interaural time difference, Localization cues.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1701

Authors: Myagmarsuren Soronzonjav, N. Togtokhbayar, L. Davaahuu, B. Minjigdorj, Seong Gu Hwang

Abstract:

The number of natural or organic product consumers is increased in recent years and this healthy demand pushes to increase usage of healthy meat. At the same time, consumers pay more attention on the healthy fat, especially on unsaturated fatty acids. These long chain carbohydrates reduce heart diseases, improve memory and eye sight and activate the immune system. One of the important issues to be solved for our Mongolia’s food security is to provide healthy, fresh, widely available and cheap meat for the population. Thus, an importance of the Selenge breed meat production is increasing in order to supply the quality meat food security since the Selenge breed cattle are rapidly multiplied, beneficial in term of income, the same quality as Mongolian breed, and well digested for human body. We researched the lipid, unsaturated and saturated fatty acid contents of meat of Selenge breed younger cattle by their muscle types. Result of our research reveals that 11 saturated fatty acids are detected. For the content of palmitic acid among saturated fatty acids, 23.61% was in the sirloin meat, 24.01% was in the round and chuck meat, and 24.83% was in the short loin meat.

Keywords: Chromatogram, gas chromatography, organic resolving, saturated and unsaturated fatty acids.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1042

Authors: Tae Hyun Ahn, Gyo Woo Lee, Man Young Kim

Abstract:

Because of high thermal efficiency and low CO2 emission, diesel engines are being used widely in many industrial fields although it makes many PM and NOx which give both human health and environment a negative effect. NOx regulations for diesel engines, however, are being strengthened and it is impossible to meet the emission standard without NOx reduction devices such as SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction), LNC (Lean NOx Catalyst), and LNT (Lean NOx Trap). Among the NOx reduction devices, urea-SCR system is known as the most stable and efficient method to solve the problem of NOx emission. But this device has some issues associated with the ammonia slip phenomenon which is occurred by shortage of evaporation and thermolysis time, and that makes it difficult to achieve uniform distribution of the injected urea in front of monolith. Therefore, this study has focused on the mixing enhancement between urea and exhaust gases to enhance the efficiency of the SCR catalyst equipped in catalytic muffler by changing inlet gas temperature and spray conditions to improve the spray uniformity of the urea water solution. Finally, it can be found that various parameters such as inlet gas temperature and injector and injection angles significantly affect the evaporation and mixing of the urea water solution with exhaust gases, and therefore, optimization of these parameters are required.

Keywords: Evaporation, Injection, Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), Thermolysis, UWS (Urea-Water-Solution).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2874