Search results for: learning management systems
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 8077

Search results for: learning management systems

3667 Using the Keystrokes Dynamic for Systems of Personal Security

Authors: Gláucya C. Boechat, Jeneffer C. Ferreira, Edson C. B. Carvalho

Abstract:

This paper presents a boarding on biometric authentication through the Keystrokes Dynamics that it intends to identify a person from its habitual rhythm to type in conventional keyboard. Seven done experiments: verifying amount of prototypes, threshold, features and the variation of the choice of the times of the features vector. The results show that the use of the Keystroke Dynamics is simple and efficient for personal authentication, getting optimum resulted using 90% of the features with 4.44% FRR and 0% FAR.

Keywords: Biometrics techniques, Keystroke Dynamics, patternrecognition.

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3666 Speaker Recognition Using LIRA Neural Networks

Authors: Nestor A. Garcia Fragoso, Tetyana Baydyk, Ernst Kussul

Abstract:

This article contains information from our investigation in the field of voice recognition. For this purpose, we created a voice database that contains different phrases in two languages, English and Spanish, for men and women. As a classifier, the LIRA (Limited Receptive Area) grayscale neural classifier was selected. The LIRA grayscale neural classifier was developed for image recognition tasks and demonstrated good results. Therefore, we decided to develop a recognition system using this classifier for voice recognition. From a specific set of speakers, we can recognize the speaker’s voice. For this purpose, the system uses spectrograms of the voice signals as input to the system, extracts the characteristics and identifies the speaker. The results are described and analyzed in this article. The classifier can be used for speaker identification in security system or smart buildings for different types of intelligent devices.

Keywords: Extreme learning, LIRA neural classifier, speaker identification, voice recognition.

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3665 Hospital-Pharmacy Management System: A UAE Case Study

Authors: A. Khelifi, D. Ahmed, R. Salem, N. Ali

Abstract:

Large patients’ queues at pharmacies and hospitals are a problem that faces the supposedly smooth and healthy environment in United Arab Emirates. As this sometimes leads to dissatisfaction from visiting patients, we tried to solve this problem with additional beneficial functions by developing the Hospital-Pharmacy Management System. The primary purpose of this research is to develop a system that joins the databases of a hospital and a pharmacy together for a better integrated system that provides a better coherent working environment. Three methods are used to design the system. These methods are detailed literature review, an extensive feasibility study and surveys for doctors, hospital IT managers and End-users. Interviews and surveys with related stakeholders were done to depict system’s requirements; design and prototype. The prototype illustrates system’s features and its client and server architecture. The system has a mobile application for visiting patients to, mainly, keep track of their prescriptions and access to their personal information. The server side allows doctors to submit the prescriptions online to pharmacists who will process them. This system is expected to reduce the long waiting queues of patients and increase their satisfaction while also reducing doctors and pharmacists’ stress and facilitating their work. It will be deployed to users of Android devices only. This limitation will be resolved, as one of main future enhancements, once the system finds acceptance from hospitals and pharmacies in United Arab Emirates.

Keywords: Hospital, Information System, Integration, Pharmacy.

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3664 Interaction between Respiration and Low-Frequency Cardiovascular Rhythms

Authors: Vladimir I. Ponomarenko, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, Anatoly S. Karavaev

Abstract:

The interaction between respiration and low-frequency rhythms of the cardiovascular system is studied. The obtained results count in favor of the hypothesis that low-frequency rhythms in blood pressure and R-R intervals are generated in different central neural structures involved in the autonomic control of the cardiovascular systems.

Keywords: Cardiovascular system, R-R intervals, blood pressure, synchronization.

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3663 Greenhouse Micro Climate Monitoring Based On WSN with Smart Irrigation Technique

Authors: Mahmoud Shaker, Ala'a Imran

Abstract:

Greenhouse is a building, which provides controlled climate conditions to the plants to keep them from external hard conditions. Greenhouse technology gives freedom to the farmer to select any crop type in any time during year. The quality and productivity of plants inside greenhouse is highly dependent on the management quality and a good management scheme is defined by the quality of the information collected from the greenhouse environment. Therefore, Continuous monitoring of environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, and soil moisture gives information to the grower to better understand, how each factor affects growth and how to manage maximal crop productiveness. In this piper, we designed and implemented climate monitoring with irrigation control system based on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology. The designed system is characterized with friendly to use, easy to install by any greenhouse user, multi-sensing nodes, multi-PAN ID, low cast, water irrigation control and low operation complexity. The system consists of two node types (sensing and control) with star topology on one PAN ID. Moreover, greenhouse manager can modifying system parameters such as (sensing node addresses, irrigation upper and lower control limits) by updating corresponding data in SDRAM memory. In addition, the designed system uses 2*16 characters. LCD to display the micro climate parameters values of each plants row inside the greenhouse.

Keywords: ZigBee, WSN, Arduino platform, Greenhouse automation, micro climate monitoring, smart Irrigation control.

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3662 Synthesis of Logic Circuits Using Fractional-Order Dynamic Fitness Functions

Authors: Cecília Reis, J. A. Tenreiro Machado, J. Boaventura Cunha

Abstract:

This paper analyses the performance of a genetic algorithm using a new concept, namely a fractional-order dynamic fitness function, for the synthesis of combinational logic circuits. The experiments reveal superior results in terms of speed and convergence to achieve a solution.

Keywords: Circuit design, fractional-order systems, genetic algorithms, logic circuits

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3661 The Current State of Human Gait Simulator Development

Authors: V. Musalimov, I. Stepanov, Y. Monahov, A. Safonov

Abstract:

This report examines the current state of human gait simulator development based on the human hip joint model. This unit will create a database of human gait types, useful for setting up and calibrating Mechano devices, as well as the creation of new systems of rehabilitation, exoskeletons and walking robots. The system has many opportunities to configure the dimensions and stiffness, while maintaining relative simplicity.

Keywords: Hip joint, human gait, physiotherapy, simulation.

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3660 Changeability of Business Organizations

Authors: J. Luebkemann, P. Nyhuis

Abstract:

Nowadays companies are facing an increasing turbulent environment. It is more and more important to react fast on changes to stay competitive. But not only the technology has to be adaptable; also the frame conditions for the production have to adapt as fast as the other elements of a manufacturing company. Therefore, the Institute of Production Systems and Logistics of the Leibniz University of Hanover has implemented a research project to describe and develop changeable organizational structures. The results of the analysis, which design principles can be used to evolve an organizational structure of a factory regarding their changeability will be presented in this paper.

Keywords: Changeability, factory, organization.

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3659 High-Speed Train Planning in France, Lessons from Mediterranean TGV-Line

Authors: Stéphanie Leheis

Abstract:

To fight against the economic crisis, French Government, like many others in Europe, has decided to give a boost to high-speed line projects. This paper explores the implementation and decision-making process in TGV projects, their evolutions, especially since the Mediterranean TGV-line. This project was probably the most controversial, but paradoxically represents today a huge success for all the actors involved. What kind of lessons we can learn from this experience? How to evaluate the impact of this project on TGV-line planning? How can we characterize this implementation and decision-making process regards to the sustainability challenges? The construction of Mediterranean TGV-line was the occasion to make several innovations: to introduce more dialog into the decisionmaking process, to take into account the environment, to introduce a new project management and technological innovations. That-s why this project appears today as an example in terms of integration of sustainable development. In this paper we examine the different kinds of innovations developed in this project, by using concepts from sociology of innovation to understand how these solutions emerged in a controversial situation. Then we analyze the lessons which were drawn from this decision-making process (in the immediacy and a posteriori) and the way in which procedures evolved: creation of new tools and devices (public consultation, project management...). Finally we try to highlight the impact of this evolution on TGV projects governance. In particular, new methods of implementation and financing involve a reconfiguration of the system of actors. The aim of this paper is to define the impact of this reconfiguration on negotiations between stakeholders.

Keywords: High-speed train, innovation, governance, sustainability.

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3658 Educational Mobility as a Factor of Tourism Development in the Regional University

Authors: K. Lisinchuk

Abstract:

An effective approach to the management of international educational mobility in regional universities with the purpose of increasing tourist activity in the region is considered.

Keywords: Export and import of tourist and educational services, international academic mobility, regional tourist activities.

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3657 Fundamental Variables of Final Account Closing Success in Construction Projects in Malaysia

Authors: Zarabizan Zakaria, Syuhaida Ismail, Aminah Md Yusof

Abstract:

Project management process starts from the planning stage up to the stage of completion (handover of buildings, preparation of the final accounts and the closing balance). Seeing as this process is not easy to be implemented efficiently and effectively, the issue of unsuccessful delivery as per contract in construction has become a major problem for construction projects. These issues have been blamed mainly on inefficient traditional construction practices that continue to dominate the current industry. This is due to several factors, such as environments of construction technology, sophisticated design and customer demand, that are constantly changing and influencing, either directly or indirectly, to the practice of management. Among the identified influences are physical environment, social environment, information environment, political and moral atmosphere. Therefore, this paper is emerged to determine the fundamental variables in the final account closing success in construction project. This aim can be achieved via its objectives of identifying the key constraints to the closing of final accounts in construction projects in Malaysia, investigating solutions to the identified constraints and analysing the relative levels of impact of the identified constraints. It is expected that this paper provides effective measures to avoid or at least reduce the problems in final account closing to the optimum level. It is also anticipated that the finding or outcome reported in this paper could address the unsuccessful contributors in final account closing and define tools for their mitigation for the better development of construction project.

Keywords: Fundamental variables, closing of final account, construction project, Malaysia.

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3656 Ethnic Andean Concepts of Health and Illness in the Post-Colombian World and Its Relevance Today

Authors: Elizabeth J. Currie, Fernando Ortega Perez

Abstract:

—‘MEDICINE’ is a new project funded under the EC Horizon 2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions, to determine concepts of health and healing from a culturally specific indigenous context, using a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The study will generate new theoretical and methodological approaches to model how peoples survive and adapt their traditional belief systems in a context of alien cultural impacts. In the immediate wake of the conquest of Peru by invading Spanish armies and ideology, native Andeans responded by forming the Taki Onkoy millenarian movement, which rejected European philosophical and ontological teachings, claiming “you make us sick”. The study explores how people’s experience of their world and their health beliefs within it, is fundamentally shaped by their inherent beliefs about the nature of being and identity in relation to the wider cosmos. Cultural and health belief systems and related rituals or behaviors sustain a people’s sense of identity, wellbeing and integrity. In the event of dislocation and persecution these may change into devolved forms, which eventually inter-relate with ‘modern’ biomedical systems of health in as yet unidentified ways. The development of new conceptual frameworks that model this process will greatly expand our understanding of how people survive and adapt in response to cultural trauma. It will also demonstrate the continuing role, relevance and use of TM in present-day indigenous communities. Studies will first be made of relevant pre-Colombian material culture, and then of early colonial period ethnohistorical texts which document the health beliefs and ritual practices still employed by indigenous Andean societies at the advent of the 17th century Jesuit campaigns of persecution - ‘Extirpación de las Idolatrías’. Core beliefs drawn from these baseline studies will then be used to construct a questionnaire about current health beliefs and practices to be taken into the study population of indigenous Quechua peoples in the northern Andean region of Ecuador. Their current systems of knowledge and medicine have evolved within complex historical contexts of both the conquest by invading Inca armies in the late 15th century, followed a generation later by Spain, into new forms. A new model will be developed of contemporary  Andean concepts of health, illness and healing demonstrating  the way these have changed through time. With this, a ‘policy tool’ will be constructed as a bridhging facility into contemporary global scenarios relevant to other Indigenous, First Nations, and migrant peoples to provide a means through which their traditional health beliefs and current needs may be more appropriately understood and met. This paper presents findings from the first analytical phases of the work based upon the study of the literature and the archaeological records. The study offers a novel perspective and methods in the development policies sensitive to indigenous and minority people’s health needs.

Keywords: Andean ethnomedicine, andean health beliefs, health beliefs models, traditional medicine.

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3655 Computer Based Medicine: I - The Future

Authors: Essam Abd-Elrazek

Abstract:

With the rapid growth in business size, today-s businesses orient Throughout thirty years local, national and international experience in medicine as a medical student, junior doctor and eventually Consultant and Professor in Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Management, I note significant generalised dissatisfaction among medical students and doctors regarding their medical education and practice. We repeatedly hear complaints from patients about the dysfunctional health care system they are dealing with and subsequently the poor medical service that they are receiving. Medical students are bombarded with lectures, tutorials, clinical rounds and various exams. Clinicians are weighed down with a never-ending array of competing duties. Patients are extremely unhappy about the long waiting lists, loss of their records and the continuous deterioration of the health care service. This problem has been reported in different countries by several authors [1,2,3]. In a trial to solve this dilemma, a genuine idea has been suggested implementing computer technology in medicine [2,3]. Computers in medicine are a medium of international communication of the revolutionary advances being made in the application of the computer to the fields of bioscience and medicine [4,5]. The awareness about using computers in medicine has recently increased all over the world. In Misr University for Science & Technology (MUST), Egypt, medical students are now given hand-held computers (Laptop) with Internet facility making their medical education accessible, convenient and up to date. However, this trial still needs to be validated. Helping the readers to catch up with the on going fast development in this interesting field, the author has decided to continue reviewing the literature, exploring the state-of-art in computer based medicine and up dating the medical professionals especially the local trainee Doctors in Egypt. In part I of this review article we will give a general background discussing the potential use of computer technology in the various aspects of the medical field including education, research, clinical practice and the health care service given to patients. Hope this will help starting changing the culture, promoting the awareness about the importance of implementing information technology (IT) in medicine, which is a field in which such help is needed. An international collaboration is recommended supporting the emerging countries achieving this target.

Keywords: Medical Informatics, telemedicine, e-health systems.

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3654 Parameter Sensitivity Analysis of Artificial Neural Network for Predicting Water Turbidity

Authors: Chia-Ling Chang, Chung-Sheng Liao

Abstract:

The present study focuses on the discussion over the parameter of Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Sensitivity analysis is applied to assess the effect of the parameters of ANN on the prediction of turbidity of raw water in the water treatment plant. The result shows that transfer function of hidden layer is a critical parameter of ANN. When the transfer function changes, the reliability of prediction of water turbidity is greatly different. Moreover, the estimated water turbidity is less sensitive to training times and learning velocity than the number of neurons in the hidden layer. Therefore, it is important to select an appropriate transfer function and suitable number of neurons in the hidden layer in the process of parameter training and validation.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network (ANN), sensitivity analysis, turbidity.

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3653 Performance Analysis of Artificial Neural Network with Decision Tree in Prediction of Diabetes Mellitus

Authors: J. K. Alhassan, B. Attah, S. Misra

Abstract:

Human beings have the ability to make logical decisions. Although human decision - making is often optimal, it is insufficient when huge amount of data is to be classified. Medical dataset is a vital ingredient used in predicting patient’s health condition. In other to have the best prediction, there calls for most suitable machine learning algorithms. This work compared the performance of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Decision Tree Algorithms (DTA) as regards to some performance metrics using diabetes data. WEKA software was used for the implementation of the algorithms. Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Radial Basis Function (RBF) were the two algorithms used for ANN, while RegTree and LADTree algorithms were the DTA models used. From the results obtained, DTA performed better than ANN. The Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of MLP is 0.3913 that of RBF is 0.3625, that of RepTree is 0.3174 and that of LADTree is 0.3206 respectively.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, classification, decision tree, diabetes mellitus.

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3652 Evaluation of Coupling Factor in RF Inductively Coupled Systems

Authors: Rômulo Volpato, Filipe Ramos, Paulo Crepaldi, Michel Santana, Tales C Pimenta

Abstract:

This work presents an approach for the measurement of mutual inductance on near field inductive coupling. The mutual inductance between inductive circuits allows the simulation of energy transfer from reader to tag, that can be used in RFID and powerless implantable devices. It also allows one to predict the maximum voltage in the tag of the radio-frequency system.

Keywords: RFID, Inductive Coupling, Energy Transfer, Implantable Device

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3651 Variability of Hydrological Modeling of the Blue Nile

Authors: Abeer Samy, Oliver C. Saavedra Valeriano, Abdelazim Negm

Abstract:

The Blue Nile Basin is the most important tributary of the Nile River. Egypt and Sudan are almost dependent on water originated from the Blue Nile. This multi-dependency creates conflicts among the three countries Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia making the management of these conflicts as an international issue. Good assessment of the water resources of the Blue Nile is an important to help in managing such conflicts. Hydrological models are good tool for such assessment. This paper presents a critical review of the nature and variability of the climate and hydrology of the Blue Nile Basin as a first step of using hydrological modeling to assess the water resources of the Blue Nile. Many several attempts are done to develop basin-scale hydrological modeling on the Blue Nile. Lumped and semi distributed models used averages of meteorological inputs and watershed characteristics in hydrological simulation, to analyze runoff for flood control and water resource management. Distributed models include the temporal and spatial variability of catchment conditions and meteorological inputs to allow better representation of the hydrological process. The main challenge of all used models was to assess the water resources of the basin is the shortage of the data needed for models calibration and validation. It is recommended to use distributed model for their higher accuracy to cope with the great variability and complexity of the Blue Nile basin and to collect sufficient data to have more sophisticated and accurate hydrological modeling.

Keywords: Blue Nile Basin, Climate Change, Hydrological Modeling, Watershed.

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3650 Creating a Virtual Perception for Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Authors: Nina Robson, Kenneth John Faller II, Vishalkumar Ahir, Arthur Ricardo Deps Miguel Ferreira, John Buchanan, Amarnath Banerjee

Abstract:

This paper describes the development of a virtual-reality system ARWED, which will be used in physical rehabilitation of patients with reduced upper extremity mobility to increase limb Active Range of Motion (AROM). The ARWED system performs a symmetric reflection and real-time mapping of the patient’s healthy limb on to their most affected limb, tapping into the mirror neuron system and facilitating the initial learning phase. Using the ARWED, future experiments will test the extension of the action-observation priming effect linked to the mirror-neuron system on healthy subjects and then stroke patients.

Keywords: Physical rehabilitation, mirror neuron, virtual reality, stroke therapy.

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3649 Automatic Classification of Initial Categories of Alzheimer's Disease from Structural MRI Phase Images: A Comparison of PSVM, KNN and ANN Methods

Authors: Ahsan Bin Tufail, Ali Abidi, Adil Masood Siddiqui, Muhammad Shahzad Younis

Abstract:

An early and accurate detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an important stage in the treatment of individuals suffering from AD. We present an approach based on the use of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) phase images to distinguish between normal controls (NC), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD patients with clinical dementia rating (CDR) of 1. Independent component analysis (ICA) technique is used for extracting useful features which form the inputs to the support vector machines (SVM), K nearest neighbour (kNN) and multilayer artificial neural network (ANN) classifiers to discriminate between the three classes. The obtained results are encouraging in terms of classification accuracy and effectively ascertain the usefulness of phase images for the classification of different stages of Alzheimer-s disease.

Keywords: Biomedical image processing, classification algorithms, feature extraction, statistical learning.

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3648 Numerical Investigation of Multiphase Flow in Pipelines

Authors: Gozel Judakova, Markus Bause

Abstract:

We present and analyze reliable numerical techniques for simulating complex flow and transport phenomena related to natural gas transportation in pipelines. Such kind of problems are of high interest in the field of petroleum and environmental engineering. Modeling and understanding natural gas flow and transformation processes during transportation is important for the sake of physical realism and the design and operation of pipeline systems. In our approach a two fluid flow model based on a system of coupled hyperbolic conservation laws is considered for describing natural gas flow undergoing hydratization. The accurate numerical approximation of two-phase gas flow remains subject of strong interest in the scientific community. Such hyperbolic problems are characterized by solutions with steep gradients or discontinuities, and their approximation by standard finite element techniques typically gives rise to spurious oscillations and numerical artefacts. Recently, stabilized and discontinuous Galerkin finite element techniques have attracted researchers’ interest. They are highly adapted to the hyperbolic nature of our two-phase flow model. In the presentation a streamline upwind Petrov-Galerkin approach and a discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for the numerical approximation of our flow model of two coupled systems of Euler equations are presented. Then the efficiency and reliability of stabilized continuous and discontinous finite element methods for the approximation is carefully analyzed and the potential of the either classes of numerical schemes is investigated. In particular, standard benchmark problems of two-phase flow like the shock tube problem are used for the comparative numerical study.

Keywords: Discontinuous Galerkin method, Euler system, inviscid two-fluid model, streamline upwind Petrov-Galerkin method, two-phase flow.

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3647 The Impact of the Number of Neurons in the Hidden Layer on the Performance of MLP Neural Network: Application to the Fast Identification of Toxic Gases

Authors: Slimane Ouhmad, Abdellah Halimi

Abstract:

In this work, neural networks methods MLP type were applied to a database from an array of six sensors for the detection of three toxic gases. The choice of the number of hidden layers and the weight values are influential on the convergence of the learning algorithm. We proposed, in this article, a mathematical formula to determine the optimal number of hidden layers and good weight values based on the method of back propagation of errors. The results of this modeling have improved discrimination of these gases and optimized the computation time. The model presented here has proven to be an effective application for the fast identification of toxic gases.

Keywords: Back-propagation, Computing time, Fast identification, MLP neural network, Number of neurons in the hidden layer.

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3646 Cross-Cultural Cooperation and Innovation: An Exploration of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Europe

Authors: Yongsheng Guo, Shuchao Li

Abstract:

This study explores Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Europe and the cross-cultural cooperation between Chinese and European managers. The aim of this research is to shed light on the phenomenon of investments in developed countries from an emerging market and to gain insights into the cooperation process. A grounded theory approach is adopted, and 46 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 case companies in Germany and 13 case companies in the UK. Grounded theory models are developed from primary data and interview quotes are used to support the themes. The interviewees perceived differences between the two parties in cultural traits, management concepts, knowledge structure and resource endowment between the two parties. Chinese and European partners can take advantage of different resources and cooperate in innovative ways to improve corporate performance. Moreover, both parties appreciate different ethical and cultural characteristics and complement each other to develop a combined organizational culture. This study proposes an ethical and cultural diversity theory in international management arguing that a team with diversified values and behaviours may be more excited and motivated. This study suggests that “resource complement” and “cross-cultural cooperation” might be an advantage for international investment. Firms are encouraged to open their minds and cooperate with partners with different resources and cultures. The authorities may review the FDI policies to reduce social and political barriers.

Keywords: Cross-culture, FDI, China, Europe.

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3645 Discovery of Fuzzy Censored Production Rules from Large Set of Discovered Fuzzy if then Rules

Authors: Tamanna Siddiqui, M. Afshar Alam

Abstract:

Censored Production Rule is an extension of standard production rule, which is concerned with problems of reasoning with incomplete information, subject to resource constraints and problem of reasoning efficiently with exceptions. A CPR has a form: IF A (Condition) THEN B (Action) UNLESS C (Censor), Where C is the exception condition. Fuzzy CPR are obtained by augmenting ordinary fuzzy production rule “If X is A then Y is B with an exception condition and are written in the form “If X is A then Y is B Unless Z is C. Such rules are employed in situation in which the fuzzy conditional statement “If X is A then Y is B" holds frequently and the exception condition “Z is C" holds rarely. Thus “If X is A then Y is B" part of the fuzzy CPR express important information while the unless part acts only as a switch that changes the polarity of “Y is B" to “Y is not B" when the assertion “Z is C" holds. The proposed approach is an attempt to discover fuzzy censored production rules from set of discovered fuzzy if then rules in the form: A(X) ÔçÆ B(Y) || C(Z).

Keywords: Uncertainty Quantification, Fuzzy if then rules, Fuzzy Censored Production Rules, Learning algorithm.

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3644 Some Issues with Extension of an HPC Cluster

Authors: Pil Seong Park

Abstract:

Homemade HPC clusters are widely used in many small labs, because they are easy to build and cost-effective. Even though incremental growth is an advantage of clusters, it results in heterogeneous systems anyhow. Instead of adding new nodes to the cluster, we can extend clusters to include some other Internet servers working independently on the same LAN, so that we can make use of their idle times, especially during the night. However extension across a firewall raises some security problems with NFS. In this paper, we propose a method to solve such a problem using SSH tunneling, and suggest a modified structure of the cluster that implements it.

Keywords: Extension of HPC clusters, Security, NFS, SSH tunneling.

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3643 Modeling and Simulation of Position Estimation of Switched Reluctance Motor with Artificial Neural Networks

Authors: Oguz Ustun, Erdal Bekiroglu

Abstract:

In the present study, position estimation of switched reluctance motor (SRM) has been achieved on the basis of the artificial neural networks (ANNs). The ANNs can estimate the rotor position without using an extra rotor position sensor by measuring the phase flux linkages and phase currents. Flux linkage-phase current-rotor position data set and supervised backpropagation learning algorithm are used in training of the ANN based position estimator. A 4-phase SRM have been used to verify the accuracy and feasibility of the proposed position estimator. Simulation results show that the proposed position estimator gives precise and accurate position estimations for both under the low and high level reference speeds of the SRM

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, modeling andsimulation, position observer, switched reluctance motor.

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3642 Spatial Planning as an Approach to Achieve Sustainable Development in Historic Cities

Authors: Mohammad Ali Abdi, Sima Mehdizadegan Namin

Abstract:

Sustainable development is a concept which was originated in Burtland commission in 1978. Although this concept was born with environmental aspects, it is penetrated in all areas rapidly, turning into a dominate view of planning. Concentrating on future generation issue, especially when talking about heritage has a long story. Each approach with all of its characteristics illustrates differences in planning, hence planning always reflects the dominate idea of its age. This paper studies sustainable development in planning for historical cities with the aim of finding ways to deal with heritage in planning for historical cities in Iran. Through this, it will be illustrated how challenges between sustainable concept and heritage could be concluded in planning. Consequently, the paper will emphasize on: Sustainable development in city planning Trends regarding heritage Challenges due to planning for historical cities in Iran For the first two issues, documentary method regarding the sustainable development and heritage literature is considered. As the next step focusing on Iranian historical cities require considering the urban planning and management structure and identifying the main challenges related to heritage, so analyzing challenges regarding heritage is considered. As the result it would be illustrated that key issue in such planning is active conservation to improve and use the potential of heritage while it's continues conservation is guaranteed. By emphasizing on the planning system in Iran it will be obvious that some reforms are needed in this system and its way of relating with heritage. The main weakness in planning for historical cities in Iran is the lack of independent city management. Without this factor achieving active conservation as the main factor of sustainable development would not be possible.

Keywords: Active conservation, city planning, heritage, sustainable development.

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3641 Optimizing Usability Testing with Collaborative Method in an E-Commerce Ecosystem

Authors: Markandeya Kunchi

Abstract:

Usability testing (UT) is one of the vital steps in the User-centred design (UCD) process when designing a product. In an e-commerce ecosystem, UT becomes primary as new products, features, and services are launched very frequently. And, there are losses attached to the company if an unusable and inefficient product is put out to market and is rejected by customers. This paper tries to answer why UT is important in the product life-cycle of an E-commerce ecosystem. Secondary user research was conducted to find out work patterns, development methods, type of stakeholders, and technology constraints, etc. of a typical E-commerce company. Qualitative user interviews were conducted with product managers and designers to find out the structure, project planning, product management method and role of the design team in a mid-level company. The paper tries to address the usual apprehensions of the company to inculcate UT within the team. As well, it stresses upon factors like monetary resources, lack of usability expert, narrow timelines, and lack of understanding of higher management as some primary reasons. Outsourcing UT to vendors is also very prevalent with mid-level e-commerce companies, but it has its own severe repercussions like very little team involvement, huge cost, misinterpretation of the findings, elongated timelines, and lack of empathy towards the customer, etc. The shortfalls of the unavailability of a UT process in place within the team and conducting UT through vendors are bad user experiences for customers while interacting with the product, badly designed products which are neither useful and nor utilitarian. As a result, companies see dipping conversions rates in apps and websites, huge bounce rates and increased uninstall rates. Thus, there was a need for a more lean UT system in place which could solve all these issues for the company. This paper highlights on optimizing the UT process with a collaborative method. The degree of optimization and structure of collaborative method is the highlight of this paper. Collaborative method of UT is one in which the centralised design team of the company takes for conducting and analysing the UT. The UT is usually a formative kind where designers take findings into account and uses in the ideation process. The success of collaborative method of UT is due to its ability to sync with the product management method employed by the company or team. The collaborative methods focus on engaging various teams (design, marketing, product, administration, IT, etc.) each with its own defined roles and responsibility in conducting a smooth UT with users In-house. The paper finally highlights the positive results of collaborative UT method after conducting more than 100 In-lab interviews with users across the different lines of businesses. Some of which are the improvement of interaction between stakeholders and the design team, empathy towards users, improved design iteration, better sanity check of design solutions, optimization of time and money, effective and efficient design solution. The future scope of collaborative UT is to make this method leaner, by reducing the number of days to complete the entire project starting from planning between teams to publishing the UT report.

Keywords: Usability testing, collaborative method, e-commerce, product management method.

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3640 Development of Effective Cooling Schemes of Gas Turbine Blades Based on Computer Simulation

Authors: Pasayev, A., C. Askerov, R. Sadiqov, C. Ardil

Abstract:

In contrast to existing of calculation of temperature field of a profile part a blade with convective cooling which are not taking into account multi connective in a broad sense of this term, we develop mathematical models and highly effective combination (BIEM AND FDM) numerical methods from the point of view of a realization on the PC. The theoretical substantiation of these methods is proved by the appropriate theorems.

Keywords: multi coherent systems, method of the boundary integrated equations, singular operators, gas turbines

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3639 Modeling and Analysis of Adaptive Buffer Sharing Scheme for Consecutive Packet Loss Reduction in Broadband Networks

Authors: Sakshi Kausha, R.K Sharma

Abstract:

High speed networks provide realtime variable bit rate service with diversified traffic flow characteristics and quality requirements. The variable bit rate traffic has stringent delay and packet loss requirements. The burstiness of the correlated traffic makes dynamic buffer management highly desirable to satisfy the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper presents an algorithm for optimization of adaptive buffer allocation scheme for traffic based on loss of consecutive packets in data-stream and buffer occupancy level. Buffer is designed to allow the input traffic to be partitioned into different priority classes and based on the input traffic behavior it controls the threshold dynamically. This algorithm allows input packets to enter into buffer if its occupancy level is less than the threshold value for priority of that packet. The threshold is dynamically varied in runtime based on packet loss behavior. The simulation is run for two priority classes of the input traffic – realtime and non-realtime classes. The simulation results show that Adaptive Partial Buffer Sharing (ADPBS) has better performance than Static Partial Buffer Sharing (SPBS) and First In First Out (FIFO) queue under the same traffic conditions.

Keywords: Buffer Management, Consecutive packet loss, Quality-of-Service, Priority based packet discarding, partial buffersharing.

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3638 Teaching Light Polarization by Putting Art and Physics Together

Authors: Fabrizio Logiurato

Abstract:

Light Polarization has many technological applications, and its discovery was crucial to reveal the transverse nature of the electromagnetic waves. However, despite its fundamental and practical importance, in high school, this property of light is often neglected. This is a pity not only for its conceptual relevance, but also because polarization gives the possibility to perform many brilliant experiments with low cost materials. Moreover, the treatment of this matter lends very well to an interdisciplinary approach between art, biology and technology, which usually makes things more interesting to students. For these reasons, we have developed, and in this work, we introduce a laboratory on light polarization for high school and undergraduate students. They can see beautiful pictures when birefringent materials are set between two crossed polarizing filters. Pupils are very fascinated and drawn into by what they observe. The colourful images remind them of those ones of abstract painting or alien landscapes. With this multidisciplinary teaching method, students are more engaged and participative, and also, the learning process of the respective physics concepts is more effective.

Keywords: Light polarization, optical activity, multidisciplinary education, science and art.

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