Search results for: Health Condition Modeling Tool

Authors: Okolie Uchenna, Ehiemere Ijeoma, Ezenduka Pauline, Ogbu Sylvester

Abstract:

A cross sectional survey design was used to collect data from 370 diabetic patients. Two instruments were used in obtaining data; in-depth interview guide and researchers- developed questionnaire. Fisher's exact test was used to investigate association between the identified factors and nonadherence. Factors identified were: socio-demographic factors such as: gender, age, marital status, educational level and occupation; psychosocial obstacles such as: non-affordability of prescribed diet, frustration due to the restriction, limited spousal support, feelings of deprivation, feeling that temptation is inevitable, difficulty in adhering in social gatherings and difficulty in revealing to host that one is diabetic; health care providers obstacles were: poor attitude of health workers, irregular diabetes education in clinics , limited number of nutrition education sessions/ inability of the patients to estimate the desired quantity of food, no reminder post cards or phone calls about upcoming patient appointments and delayed start of appointment / time wasting in clinics.

Keywords: Behavior change, diabetes mellitus, dietarymanagement, diet adherence.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3420

Authors: F. Moghtaderi, M. Burke, J. Troelsen

Abstract:

There has been a significant decline in active travel and a massive increase in the use of car dependent travel in many countries during the past two decades. Evidential risks for people’s physical and mental health problems are correlated with this increased use of motorized travel. These health related problems range from overweight and obesity to increased air pollution. In response to these rising concerns health professionals, traffic planers, local authorities and others have introduced a variety of initiatives to counterbalance the dominance of cars for daily journeys. However, the nature of travel behavior change interventions, which aim to reduce car use, are very complex and challenging regarding their interactions with human behavior. To change travel behavior at least two aspects have to be taken into consideration. First, how to alter attitudes and perceptions toward the sustainable and healthy modes of travel, in competition with experiences of private car use. And second, how to make these behavior change processes irreversible and sustainable. There are no comprehensive models available to guide policy interventions to increase the level of success of travel behavior change interventions across both these dimensions. A comprehensive theoretical framework is required in the effort to optimize how to facilitate and guide the processes of data collection and analysis to achieve the best possible guidelines for policy makers. Regarding the gaps in the travel behavior change research literature, this paper attempted to identify and suggest a multidimensional framework in order to facilitate planning the implemented travel behavior change interventions. A structured mixed-method model is suggested to improve the analytic power of the results according to the complexity of human behavior. In order to recognize people’s attitudes towards a specific travel mode, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was operationalized. But in order to capture decision making processes the Transtheoretical model of Behavior Change (TTM) was also used. Consequently, the combination of these two theories (TTM and TPB) has resulted in a synthesis with appropriate concepts to identify and design an implemented travel behavior change interventions.

Keywords: Behavior change theories, Theoretical framework, Travel behavior change interventions.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2859

Authors: Tamanna Siddiqui, M. Afshar Alam

Abstract:

Automated discovery of Rule is, due to its applicability, one of the most fundamental and important method in KDD. It has been an active research area in the recent past. Hierarchical representation allows us to easily manage the complexity of knowledge, to view the knowledge at different levels of details, and to focus our attention on the interesting aspects only. One of such efficient and easy to understand systems is Hierarchical Production rule (HPRs) system. A HPR, a standard production rule augmented with generality and specificity information, is of the following form: Decision If < condition> Generality Specificity . HPRs systems are capable of handling taxonomical structures inherent in the knowledge about the real world. This paper focuses on the issue of mining Quantified rules with crisp hierarchical structure using Genetic Programming (GP) approach to knowledge discovery. The post-processing scheme presented in this work uses Quantified production rules as initial individuals of GP and discovers hierarchical structure. In proposed approach rules are quantified by using Dempster Shafer theory. Suitable genetic operators are proposed for the suggested encoding. Based on the Subsumption Matrix(SM), an appropriate fitness function is suggested. Finally, Quantified Hierarchical Production Rules (HPRs) are generated from the discovered hierarchy, using Dempster Shafer theory. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Knowledge discovery in database, quantification, dempster shafer theory, genetic programming, hierarchy, subsumption matrix.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1515

Authors: A. Soualem

Abstract:

Springback is a significant problem in the sheet metal forming process. When the tools are released after the stage of forming, the product springs out, because of the action of the internal stresses. In many cases the deviation of form is too large and the compensation of the springback is necessary. The precise prediction of the springback of product is increasingly significant for the design of the tools and for compensation because of the higher ratio of the yield stress to the elastic modulus. The main object in this paper was to study the effect of the anisotropy on the springback for three directions of rolling: 0°, 45° and 90°. At the same time, we highlighted the influence of three different metallic materials: Aluminum, Steel and Galvanized steel. The original of our purpose consist on tests which are ensured by adapting a U-type stretching-bending device on a tensile testing machine, where we studied and quantified the variation of the springback according to the direction of rolling. We also showed the role of lubrication in the reduction of the springback. Moreover, in this work, we have studied important characteristics in deep drawing process which is a springback. We have presented defaults that are showed in this process and many parameters influenced a springback. Finally, our results works lead us to understand the influence of grains orientation with different metallic materials on the springback and drawing some conclusions how to concept deep drawing tools. In addition, the conducted work represents a fundamental contribution in the discussion the industry application.

Keywords: Deep-Drawing, Grains orientation, Laminate Tool, Springback.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2077

Authors: Isaac Mugume, Charles Basalirwa, Daniel Waiswa, Mary Nsabagwa, Triphonia Jacob Ngailo, Joachim Reuder, Sch¨attler Ulrich, Musa Semujju

Abstract:

The Numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are considered powerful tools for guiding quantitative rainfall prediction. A couple of NWP models exist and are used at many operational weather prediction centers. This study considers two models namely the Consortium for Small–scale Modeling (COSMO) model and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. It compares the models’ ability to predict rainfall over Uganda for the period 21st April 2013 to 10th May 2013 using the root mean square (RMSE) and the mean error (ME). In comparing the performance of the models, this study assesses their ability to predict light rainfall events and extreme rainfall events. All the experiments used the default parameterization configurations and with same horizontal resolution (7 Km). The results show that COSMO model had a tendency of largely predicting no rain which explained its under–prediction. The COSMO model (RMSE: 14.16; ME: -5.91) presented a significantly (p = 0.014) higher magnitude of error compared to the WRF model (RMSE: 11.86; ME: -1.09). However the COSMO model (RMSE: 3.85; ME: 1.39) performed significantly (p = 0.003) better than the WRF model (RMSE: 8.14; ME: 5.30) in simulating light rainfall events. All the models under–predicted extreme rainfall events with the COSMO model (RMSE: 43.63; ME: -39.58) presenting significantly higher error magnitudes than the WRF model (RMSE: 35.14; ME: -26.95). This study recommends additional diagnosis of the models’ treatment of deep convection over the tropics.

Keywords: Comparative performance, the COSMO model, the WRF model, light rainfall events, extreme rainfall events.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1512

Authors: Morten Willatzen, Mikhail Vladimirovich Deryabin

Abstract:

The governing two-dimensional equations of a heterogeneous material composed of a fluid (allowed to flow in the absence of acoustic excitations) and a crystalline piezoelectric cubic solid stacked one-dimensionally (along the z direction) are derived and special emphasis is given to the discussion of acoustic group velocity for the structure as a function of the wavenumber component perpendicular to the stacking direction (being the x axis). Variations in physical parameters with y are neglected assuming infinite material homogeneity along the y direction and the flow velocity is assumed to be directed along the x direction. In the first part of the paper, the governing set of differential equations are derived as well as the imposed boundary conditions. Solutions are provided using Hamilton-s equations for the wavenumber vs. frequency as a function of the number and thickness of solid layers and fluid layers in cases with and without flow (also the case of a position-dependent flow in the fluid layer is considered). In the first part of the paper, emphasis is given to the small-frequency case. Boundary conditions at the bottom and top parts of the full structure are left unspecified in the general solution but examples are provided for the case where these are subject to rigid-wall conditions (Neumann boundary conditions in the acoustic pressure). In the second part of the paper, emphasis is given to the general case of larger frequencies and wavenumber-frequency bandstructure formation. A wavenumber condition for an arbitrary set of consecutive solid and fluid layers, involving four propagating waves in each solid region, is obtained again using the monodromy matrix method. Case examples are finally discussed.

Keywords: Flow, acoustics, solid-fluid structures, periodicity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1578

Authors: S. Ramia, N. Melhem, K. Kreidieh

Abstract:

The world is facing an unprecedented displacement crisis. Recently, over 1.1 million asylum seekers have been granted protection status in the European Union (EU). The majority of these asylum seekers were from countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.This influx carries with it a potential introduction of infectious diseases that have been eliminated in the EU, which poses a challenge for EU health authorities. Compared to MENA region countries where Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) endemicity is high to intermediate, member states of the EU show very low (Western Europe) to low (Eastern Europe) levels of HAV endemicity. Because of this situation, there is an ongoing public health concern in high-income countries, like members of the EU, that many adults remain susceptible to HAV outbreaks. The overwhelming majority of the EU members’ states do not include HAV vaccine in their immunization calendars. Hence, this paper urgently calls for the implementation of new policies regarding HAV in EU members’ states.

Keywords: European Union, Hepatitis A, MENA Region Refugees, Vaccine preventable diseases.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 857

Authors: Oseni Taiwo Amoo, Bloodless Dzwairo

Abstract:

In this paper, we extend the versatility and usefulness of GIS as a methodology for any river basin hydrologic characteristics analysis (HCA). The Gurara River basin located in North-Central Nigeria is presented in this study. It is an on-going research using spatial Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and Arc-Hydro tools to take inventory of the basin characteristics in order to predict water abstraction quantification on streamflow regime. One of the main concerns of hydrological modelling is the quantification of runoff from rainstorm events. In practice, the soil conservation service curve (SCS) method and the Conventional procedure called rational technique are still generally used these traditional hydrological lumped models convert statistical properties of rainfall in river basin to observed runoff and hydrograph. However, the models give little or no information about spatially dispersed information on rainfall and basin physical characteristics. Therefore, this paper synthesizes morphometric parameters in generating runoff. The expected results of the basin characteristics such as size, area, shape, slope of the watershed and stream distribution network analysis could be useful in estimating streamflow discharge. Water resources managers and irrigation farmers could utilize the tool for determining net return from available scarce water resources, where past data records are sparse for the aspect of land and climate.

Keywords: Hydrological characteristic, land and climate, runoff discharge, streamflow.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1446

Authors: Chin-Pin, Chen, Shi-Chi, Shiao, Ting-Hao, Lin

Abstract:

Current industry is facing the rapid development of new technology in the world and fierce changes of economic environment in the society so that the industry development trend gradually does not focus on labor, but leads the industry and the academic circle with innovation and creativity. The development trend in machinery industry presents the same situation. Based on the aim of Creativity White Paper, Ministry of Education in Taiwan promotes and develops various creativity contests to cope with the industry trend. Domestic students and enterprises have good performance on domestic and international creativity contests in recent years. There must be important creative elements in such creative works to win the award among so many works. Literature review and in-depth interview with five creativity contest awarded instructors are first proceeded to conclude 15 machinery creative elements, which are further compared with the creative elements of machinery awarded creative works in past five years to understand the relationship between awarded works and creative elements. The statistical analysis results show that IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award) contains the most creative elements among four major international creativity contests. That is, most creativity review focuses on creative elements that are comparatively stricter. Concerning the groups participating in creativity contests, enterprises consider more creative elements of the creative works than other two elements for contests. From such contest works, creative elements of “replacement or improvement”, “convenience”, and “modeling” present higher significance. It is expected that the above findings could provide domestic colleges and universities with reference for participating in creativity related contests in the future.

Keywords: Machinery, creativity contest, creative elements, creativity works.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1441

Authors: Ayad A. Abdalla, Elhadi I. Elhadi, Hisham A. Elfergani

Abstract:

Developing mixed convection in circular and annular sector ducts is investigated numerically for steady laminar flow of an incompressible Newtonian fluid with Pr = 0.7 and a wide range of Grashof number (0 £ Gr £ 10⁷). Investigation is limited to the case of heating in circular and annular sector ducts with apex angle of 2ϕ = π/4 for the thermal boundary condition of uniform wall temperature axially and peripherally. A numerical, finite control volume approach based on the SIMPLER algorithm is employed to solve the 3D governing equations. Numerical analysis is conducted using marching technique in the axial direction with axial conduction, axial mass diffusion, and viscous dissipation within the fluid are assumed negligible. The results include developing secondary flow patterns, developing temperature and axial velocity fields, local Nusselt number, local friction factor, and local apparent friction factor. Comparisons are made with the literature and satisfactory agreement is obtained. It is found that free convection enhances the local heat transfer in some cases by up to 2.5 times from predictions which account for forced convection only and the enhancement increases as Grashof number increases. Duct geometry and Grashof number strongly influence the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics.

Keywords: Mixed convection, annular and circular sector ducts, heat transfer enhancement, pressure drop.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 533

Authors: Maziar Ahmad Sharbafi, Caro Lucas, Abolfazel Toroghi Haghighat, Omid AmirGhiasvand, Omid Aghazade

Abstract:

RoboCup Rescue simulation as a large-scale Multi agent system (MAS) is one of the challenging environments for keeping coordination between agents to achieve the objectives despite sensing and communication limitations. The dynamicity of the environment and intensive dependency between actions of different kinds of agents make the problem more complex. This point encouraged us to use learning-based methods to adapt our decision making to different situations. Our approach is utilizing reinforcement leaning. Using learning in rescue simulation is one of the current ways which has been the subject of several researches in recent years. In this paper we present an innovative learning method implemented for Police Force (PF) Agent. This method can cope with the main difficulties that exist in other learning approaches. Different methods used in the literature have been examined. Their drawbacks and possible improvements have led us to the method proposed in this paper which is fast and accurate. The Brain Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Controller (BELBIC) is our solution for learning in this environment. BELBIC is a physiologically motivated approach based on a computational model of amygdale and limbic system. The paper presents the results obtained by the proposed approach, showing the power of BELBIC as a decision making tool in complex and dynamic situation.

Keywords: Emotional learning, rescue, simulation environment, RoboCup, multi-agent system.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1605

Authors: T. Yamaguchi, Y. Kurosawa, S. Maruyama, K. Tobita, Y. Hirano, K. Yokouchi, K. Kihara, T. Sunaga

Abstract:

This paper describes dynamic analysis using proposed fast finite element method for a shock absorbing structure including a sponge. The structure is supported by nonlinear concentrated springs. The restoring force of the spring has cubic nonlinearity and linear hysteresis damping. To calculate damping properties for the structures including elastic body and porous body, displacement vectors as common unknown variable are solved under coupled condition. Under small amplitude, we apply asymptotic method to complex eigenvalue problem of this system to obtain modal parameters. And then expressions of modal loss factor are derived approximately. This approach was proposed by one of the authors previously. We call this method as Modal Strain and Kinetic Energy Method (MSKE method). Further, using the modal loss factors, the discretized equations in physical coordinate are transformed into the nonlinear ordinary coupled equations using normal coordinate corresponding to linear natural modes. This transformation yields computation efficiency. As a numerical example of a shock absorbing structures, we adopt double skins with a sponge. The double skins are supported by nonlinear concentrated springs. We clarify influences of amplitude of the input force on nonlinear and chaotic responses.

Keywords: Dynamic response, Nonlinear and chaotic motions, Finite Element analysis, Numerical analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1960

Authors: V. Sulakatko, F. U. Vogdt, I. Lill

Abstract:

Construction technology and on-site construction activities have a direct influence on the life cycle costs of energy efficiently renovated apartment buildings. The systematic inadequacies of the External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS) which occur during the construction phase increase the risk for all stakeholders, reduce mechanical durability and increase the life cycle costs of the building. The economic effect of these shortcomings can be minimised if the risk of the most significant on-site activities is recognised. The objective of the presented ETICS economic assessment concept is to evaluate the economic influence of on-site shortcomings and reveal their significance to the foreseeable future repair costs. The model assembles repair techniques, discusses their direct cost calculation methods, argues over the proper usage of net present value over the life cycle of the building, and proposes a simulation tool to evaluate the risk of on-site activities. As the technique is dependent on the selected real interest rate, a sensitivity analysis is anticipated to determine the validity of the recommendations. After the verification of the model on the sample buildings by the industry, it is expected to increase economic rationality of resource allocation and reduce high-risk systematic shortcomings during the construction process of ETICS.

Keywords: Activity-based cost estimating, Cost estimation, ETICS, Life cycle costing.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 814

Authors: Diah Tri Widayati

Abstract:

Various assisted reproductive techniques have been developed and refined to obtain a large number of offspring from genetically superior animals or obtain offspring from infertile (or subfertile) animals. The embryo transfer is one assisted reproductive technique developed well, aimed at increased productivity of selected females, disease control, importation and exportation of livestock, rapid screening of AI sires for genetically recessive characteristics, treatment or circumvention of certain types of infertility. Embryo transfer also is a useful research tool for evaluating fetal and maternal interactions. This technique has been applied to nearly every species of domestic animal and many species of wildlife and exotic animals, including humans and non-human primates. The successful of embryo transfers have been limited to within-animal, homologous replacement of the embryos. There are several examples of interspecific and intergeneric embryo transfers in which embryos implanted but did not develop to term: sheep and goat, mouse and rat. An immunological rejections and placental incompatibility between the embryo and the surrogate mother appear to restrict interspecific embryo transfer/interspecific pregnancy. Recently, preimplantation embryo manipulation procedures have been applied, such as technique of inner cell mass transfer. This technique will possible to overcome the reproductive barrier interspecific embryo transfer/interspecific pregnancy, if there is a protective mechanism which prevents recognition of the foreign fetus by the mother of the other species

Keywords: Embryo Transfer, Assisted Reproductive Techology, Intraspesific-Interspesific Pregnancy, Inner cell mass.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4710

Authors: Hynek Chlup, Lukas Horny, Rudolf Zitny, Svatava Konvickova, Tomas Adamek

Abstract:

Coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG) are widely studied with respect to hemodynamic conditions which play important role in presence of a restenosis. However, papers which concern with constitutive modeling of CABG are lacking in the literature. The purpose of this study is to find a constitutive model for CABG tissue. A sample of the CABG obtained within an autopsy underwent an inflation–extension test. Displacements were recoredered by CCD cameras and subsequently evaluated by digital image correlation. Pressure – radius and axial force – elongation data were used to fit material model. The tissue was modeled as onelayered composite reinforced by two families of helical fibers. The material is assumed to be locally orthotropic, nonlinear, incompressible and hyperelastic. Material parameters are estimated for two strain energy functions (SEF). The first is classical exponential. The second SEF is logarithmic which allows interpretation by means of limiting (finite) strain extensibility. Presented material parameters are estimated by optimization based on radial and axial equilibrium equation in a thick-walled tube. Both material models fit experimental data successfully. The exponential model fits significantly better relationship between axial force and axial strain than logarithmic one.

Keywords: Constitutive model, coronary artery bypass graft, digital image correlation, fiber reinforced composite, inflation test, saphenous vein.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1631

Authors: Aliakbar Golshani, Seyyed Mehdi Poorhashemi, Mahsa Gharizadeh

Abstract:

The under passing tunnels are strongly influenced by the soils around. There are some complexities in the specification of real soil behavior, owing to the fact that lots of uncertainties exist in soil properties, and additionally, inappropriate soil constitutive models. Such mentioned factors may cause incompatible settlements in numerical analysis with the obtained values in actual construction. This paper aims to report a case study on a specific tunnel constructed by NATM. The tunnel has a depth of 11.4 m, height of 12.2 m, and width of 14.4 m with 2.5 lanes. The numerical modeling was based on a 2D finite element program. The soil material behavior was modeled by hardening soil model. According to the field observations, the numerical estimated settlement at the ground surface was approximately four times more than the measured one, after the entire installation of the initial lining, indicating that some unknown factors affect the values. Consequently, the geotechnical parameters are accurately revised by a numerical back-analysis using laboratory and field test data and based on the obtained monitoring data. The obtained result confirms that typically, the soil parameters are conservatively low-estimated. And additionally, the constitutive models cannot be applied properly for all soil conditions.

Keywords: NATM tunnel, initial lining, field test data, laboratory test data, monitoring data, numerical back-analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 716

Authors: Abigail Qian Zhou

Abstract:

Since China has entered an era of mass tourism, there has been a fundamental change in the way Chinese people approach and perceive the image of other countries. With the advent of the new media era, social networking sites such as Sina Weibo have become a tool for many foreign governmental organizations to spread and promote their national image. Among them, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) was one of the first foreign official tourism agencies to register with Sina Weibo and actively implement communication activities. Due to historical and political reasons, cognition of Japan's national image by the Chinese has always been complicated and contradictory. However, since 2015, China has become the largest source of tourists visiting Japan. This clearly indicates that the broadening of Japan's national image in China has been effective and has value worthy of reference in promoting a positive Chinese perception of Japan and encouraging Japanese tourism. Within this context and using the method of content analysis in media studies through content mining software, this study analyzed how JNTO’s Sina Weibo accounts have constructed and spread Japan's national image. This study also summarized the characteristics of its content and form, and finally revealed the strategy of JNTO in building its international image. The findings of this study not only add a tourism-based perspective to traditional national image communications research, but also provide some reference for the effective international dissemination of national image in the future.

Keywords: National image, tourism, international communication, Japan, China.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 961

Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Gautam Sanyal

Abstract:

In recent years, everything is trending toward digitalization and with the rapid development of the Internet technologies, digital media needs to be transmitted conveniently over the network. Attacks, misuse or unauthorized access of information is of great concern today which makes the protection of documents through digital media a priority problem. This urges us to devise new data hiding techniques to protect and secure the data of vital significance. In this respect, steganography often comes to the fore as a tool for hiding information. Steganography is a process that involves hiding a message in an appropriate carrier like image or audio. It is of Greek origin and means "covered or hidden writing". The goal of steganography is covert communication. Here the carrier can be sent to a receiver without any one except the authenticated receiver only knows existence of the information. Considerable amount of work has been carried out by different researchers on steganography. In this work the authors propose a novel Steganographic method for hiding information within the spatial domain of the gray scale image. The proposed approach works by selecting the embedding pixels using some mathematical function and then finds the 8 neighborhood of the each selected pixel and map each bit of the secret message in each of the neighbor pixel coordinate position in a specified manner. Before embedding a checking has been done to find out whether the selected pixel or its neighbor lies at the boundary of the image or not. This solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and produces a stego image with minimum degradation.

Keywords: Cover Image, LSB, Pixel Coordinate Position (PCP), Stego Image.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1811

Authors: Farhad Asadi, S. Hossein Sadati

Abstract:

Bayesian approach can be used for parameter identification and extraction in state space models and its ability for analyzing sequence of data in dynamical system is proved in different literatures. In this paper, adaptive Kalman filter with Bayesian approach for identification of variances in measurement parameter noise is developed. Next, it is applied for estimation of the dynamical state and measurement data in discrete linear dynamical system. This algorithm at each step time estimates noise variance in measurement noise and state of system with Kalman filter. Next, approximation is designed at each step separately and consequently sufficient statistics of the state and noise variances are computed with a fixed-point iteration of an adaptive Kalman filter. Different simulations are applied for showing the influence of noise variance in measurement data on algorithm. Firstly, the effect of noise variance and its distribution on detection and identification performance is simulated in Kalman filter without Bayesian formulation. Then, simulation is applied to adaptive Kalman filter with the ability of noise variance tracking in measurement data. In these simulations, the influence of noise distribution of measurement data in each step is estimated, and true variance of data is obtained by algorithm and is compared in different scenarios. Afterwards, one typical modeling of nonlinear state space model with inducing noise measurement is simulated by this approach. Finally, the performance and the important limitations of this algorithm in these simulations are explained. 

Keywords: adaptive filtering, Bayesian approach Kalman filtering approach, variance tracking

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 602

Authors: Haniyeh Okhovat, Mahmood Hosseini, Omid Kaveh Ahangari, Mona Zaryoun

Abstract:

Shavadoon is a type of underground living space, formerly used in urban residences of Dezful and Shooshtar cities in southwestern Iran. In spite of their high efficiency in creating cool spaces for hot summers of that area, Shavadoons were abandoned, like many other components of vernacular architecture, as a result of the modernism movement. However, Shavadoons were used by the local people as shelters during the 8-year Iran-Iraq war, and although several cases of bombardment happened during those years, no case of damage was reported in those two cities. On this basis, and regarding the high seismicity of Iran, the use of Shavadoons as post-disasters shelters can be considered as a good issue for research. This paper presents the results of a thorough study conducted on these spaces and their seismic behavior. First, the architectural aspects of Shavadoon and their construction technique are presented. Then, the results of seismic evaluation of a sample Shavadoon, conducted by a series of time history analyses, using Plaxis software and a set of selected earthquakes, are briefly explained. These results show that Shavadoons have good stability against seismic excitations. This stability is mainly because of the high strength of conglomerate materials inside which the Shavadoons have been excavated. On this basis, and considering other merits of this components of vernacular architecture in southwest of Iran, it is recommended that the revival of these components is seriously reconsidered by both architects and civil engineers.

Keywords: Shavadoon, Iran high seismicity, Conglomerate, Modeling in Plaxis, vernacular sustainable architecture.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1046

Authors: M. Peña Aguilar Juan, Ríos Hernández Ezequiel, R. Valencia Luis

Abstract:

For certification, certain goods of public interest, such as medicines and food, it is required the preparation and delivery of a dossier. For its elaboration, legal and administrative knowledge must be taken, as well as organization of the documents of the process, and an order that allows the file verification. Therefore, a virtual platform was developed to support the process of management and elaboration of the dossier, providing accessibility to the information and interfaces that allow the user to know the status of projects. The development of dossier system on the cloud allows the inclusion of the technical requirements for the software management, including the validation and the manufacturing in the field industry. The platform guides and facilitates the dossier elaboration (report, file or history), considering Mexican legislation and regulations, it also has auxiliary tools for its management. This technological alternative provides organization support for documents and accessibility to the information required to specify the successful development of a dossier. The platform divides into the following modules: System control, catalog, dossier and enterprise management. The modules are designed per the structure required in a dossier in those areas. However, the structure allows for flexibility, as its goal is to become a tool that facilitates and does not obstruct processes. The architecture and development of the software allows flexibility for future work expansion to other fields, this would imply feeding the system with new regulations.

Keywords: Electronic dossier, technologies for management, web software, dossier elaboration, pharmaceutical industry.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1190

Authors: Xiaodong Zhou, Nan Zhang

Abstract:

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is the coherent oscillation of conductive electrons confined in noble metallic nanoparticles excited by electromagnetic radiation, and nanosphere lithography (NSL) is one of the cost-effective methods to fabricate metal nanostructures for LSPR. NSL can be categorized into two major groups: dispersed NSL and closely pack NSL. In recent years, gold nanocrescents and gold nanoholes with vertical sidewalls fabricated by dispersed NSL, and silver nanotriangles and gold nanocaps on silica nanospheres fabricated by closely pack NSL, have been reported for LSPR biosensing. This paper introduces several novel gold nanostructures fabricated by NSL in LSPR applications, including 3D nanostructures obtained by evaporating gold obliquely on dispersed nanospheres, nanoholes with slant sidewalls, and patchy nanoparticles on closely packed nanospheres, all of which render satisfactory sensitivity for LSPR sensing. Since the LSPR spectrum is very sensitive to the shape of the metal nanostructures, formulas are derived and software is developed for calculating the profiles of the obtainable metal nanostructures by NSL, for different nanosphere masks with different fabrication conditions. The simulated profiles coincide well with the profiles of the fabricated gold nanostructures observed under scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM), which proves that the software is a useful tool for the process design of different LSPR nanostructures.

Keywords: Nanosphere lithography, localized surface plasmonresonance, biosensor, simulation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1877

Authors: Mi Sook Lee

Abstract:

The number of the companies accepting RFID in Korea has been increased continuously due to the domestic development of information technology. The acceptance of RFID by companies in Korea enabled them to do business with many global enterprises in a much more efficient and effective way. According to a survey[33, p76], many companies in Korea have used RFID for inventory or distribution manages. But, the use of RFID in the companies in Korea is in the early stages and its potential value hasn-t fully been realized yet. At this time, it would be very important to investigate the factors that affect RFID acceptance. For this study, many previous studies were referenced and some RFID experts were interviewed. Through the pilot test, four factors were selected - Security Trust, Employee Knowledge, Partner Influence, Service Provider Trust - affecting RFID acceptance and an extended technology acceptance model(e-TAM) was presented with those factors. The proposed model was empirically tested using data collected from employees in companies or public enterprises. In order to analyze some relationships between exogenous variables and four variables in TAM, structural equation modeling(SEM) was developed and SPSS12.0 and AMOS 7.0 were used for analyses. The results are summarized as follows: 1) security trust perceived by employees positively influences on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use; 2) employee-s knowledge on RFID positively influences on only perceived ease of use; 3) a partner-s influence for RFID acceptance positively influences on only perceived usefulness; 4) service provider trust very positively influences on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use 5) the relationships between TAM variables are the same as the previous studies.

Keywords: RFID, TAM, Security Trust, Employee Knowledge, Partner Influence, Service Provider Trust.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1792

Authors: Marijana M. Ačanski, Kristian A. Pastor, Djura N. Vujić

Abstract:

The identification of lipid and soluble sugar components in flour samples of different cultivars belonging to common oat species (Avena sativa L.) was performed: spring oat, winter oat and hulless oat. Fatty acids were extracted from flour samples with n-hexane, and derivatized into volatile methyl esters, using TMSH (trimethylsulfonium hydroxide in methanol). Soluble sugars were then extracted from defatted and dried samples of oat flour with 96% ethanol, and further derivatized into corresponding TMS-oximes, using hydroxylamine hydrochloride solution and BSTFA (N,O-bis-(trimethylsilyl)-trifluoroacetamide). The hexane and ethanol extracts of each oat cultivar were analyzed using GC-MS system. Lipid and simple sugar compositions are very similar in all samples of investigated cultivars. Chemometric tool was applied to numeric values of automatically integrated surface areas of detected lipid and simple sugar components in their corresponding derivatized forms. Hierarchical cluster analysis shows a very high similarity between the investigated flour samples of oat cultivars, according to the fatty acid content (0.9955). Moderate similarity was observed according to the content of soluble sugars (0.50). These preliminary results support the idea of establishing methods for oat flour authentication, and provide the means for distinguishing oat flour samples, regardless of the variety, from flour samples made of other cereal species, just by lipid and simple sugar profile analysis.

Keywords: Authentication, chemometrics, GC-MS, lipid and soluble sugar composition, oat cultivars.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1361

Authors: Moustafa Osman Mohammed

Abstract:

This paper will explore formation of HCl aerosol at atmospheric boundary layers and encourages the uptake of environmental modeling systems (EMSs) as a practice evaluation of gaseous emissions (“framework measures”) from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The conceptual model predicts greenhouse gas emissions to ecological points beyond landfill site operations. It focuses on incorporation traditional knowledge into baseline information for both measurement data and the mathematical results, regarding parameters influence model variable inputs. The paper has simplified parameters of aerosol processes based on the more complex aerosol process computations. The simple model can be implemented to both Gaussian and Eulerian rural dispersion models. Aerosol processes considered in this study were (i) the coagulation of particles, (ii) the condensation and evaporation of organic vapors, and (iii) dry deposition. The chemical transformation of gas-phase compounds is taken into account photochemical formulation with exposure effects according to HCl concentrations as starting point of risk assessment. The discussion set out distinctly aspect of sustainability in reflection inputs, outputs, and modes of impact on the environment. Thereby, models incorporate abiotic and biotic species to broaden the scope of integration for both quantification impact and assessment risks. The later environmental obligations suggest either a recommendation or a decision of what is a legislative should be achieved for mitigation measures of landfill gas (LFG) ultimately.

Keywords: Air dispersion model, landfill management, spatial analysis, environmental impact and risk assessment.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1544

Authors: Wanda Luen-Wun Siu, Xiaowen Zhang

Abstract:

This paper adopted a retrospective review of China’s assistance to Latin America from the 1950s to 2020. Findings suggested that China’s assistance to Latin America can be roughly divided into five stages: The 1950s to 1960s was the initial stage of China’s assistance to Latin America, mainly focusing on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and other Latin American countries. The strategy has a strong ideological basis. The 1980s were the stage of development of China's aid to Latin America, which was characterized by consolidating and expanding diplomatic space, emphasizing the spirit of cooperation of equality, mutual benefit, and common development. The 1990s to 2000s marked the further development of diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, plus domestic market-oriented reforms, emphasizing the importance of economic considerations, and less ideological orientation; and this period also witnessed more Chinese state-owned enterprises going out to invest in Latin America. 2010-2019 marked the further development of Latin American relations. This paper contributes to the literature of diplomacy and health assistance to Latin America and highlights the importance of foreign aid and health assistance in sealing bilateral diplomatic relations.

Keywords: Broad Spectrum Assistance, China, Latin America, bilateral relations.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 302

Authors: Tasneem Halawani, Yamen Khateeb

Abstract:

With customers’ ever-increasing expectations for fast services provisioning for all their business needs, information technology (IT) organizations, as business partners, have to cope with this demanding environment and deliver their services in the most effective and efficient way. The purpose of this paper is to identify optimization and automation opportunities for the top requested IT services in a heterogenic digital environment and widely spread customer base. In collaboration with systems, processes, and subject matter experts (SMEs), the processes in scope were approached by analyzing four-year related historical data, identifying and surveying stakeholders, modeling the as-is processes, and studying systems integration/automation capabilities. This effort resulted in identifying several pain areas, including standardization, unnecessary customer and IT involvement, manual steps, systems integration, and performance measurement. These pain areas were addressed by standardizing the top five requested IT services, eliminating/automating 43 steps, and utilizing a single platform for end-to-end process execution. In conclusion, the optimization of IT service request processes in a heterogenic digital environment and widely spread customer base is challenging, yet achievable without compromising the service quality and customers’ added value. Further studies can focus on measuring the value of the eliminated/automated process steps to quantify the enhancement impact. Moreover, a similar approach can be utilized to optimize other IT service requests, with a focus on business criticality.

Keywords: Automation, customer value, heterogenic, integration, IT services, optimization, processes.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 652

Authors: Gaetano Zazzaro, Angelo Martone, Roberto V. Montaquila, Luigi Pavone

Abstract:

Seizure is the main factor that affects the quality of life of epileptic patients. The diagnosis of epilepsy, and hence the identification of epileptogenic zone, is commonly made by using continuous Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal monitoring. Seizure identification on EEG signals is made manually by epileptologists and this process is usually very long and error prone. The aim of this paper is to describe an automated method able to detect seizures in EEG signals, using knowledge discovery in database process and data mining methods and algorithms, which can support physicians during the seizure detection process. Our detection method is based on Artificial Neural Network classifier, trained by applying the multilayer perceptron algorithm, and by using a software application, called Training Builder that has been developed for the massive extraction of features from EEG signals. This tool is able to cover all the data preparation steps ranging from signal processing to data analysis techniques, including the sliding window paradigm, the dimensionality reduction algorithms, information theory, and feature selection measures. The final model shows excellent performances, reaching an accuracy of over 99% during tests on data of a single patient retrieved from a publicly available EEG dataset.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Data Mining, Electroencephalogram, Epilepsy, Feature Extraction, Seizure Detection, Signal Processing.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1297

Authors: Kyoung-jae Kim

Abstract:

Recommender systems are usually regarded as an important marketing tool in the e-commerce. They use important information about users to facilitate accurate recommendation. The information includes user context such as location, time and interest for personalization of mobile users. We can easily collect information about location and time because mobile devices communicate with the base station of the service provider. However, information about user interest can-t be easily collected because user interest can not be captured automatically without user-s approval process. User interest usually represented as a need. In this study, we classify needs into two types according to prior research. This study investigates the usefulness of data mining techniques for classifying user need type for recommendation systems. We employ several data mining techniques including artificial neural networks, decision trees, case-based reasoning, and multivariate discriminant analysis. Experimental results show that CHAID algorithm outperforms other models for classifying user need type. This study performs McNemar test to examine the statistical significance of the differences of classification results. The results of McNemar test also show that CHAID performs better than the other models with statistical significance.

Keywords: Customer need type, Data mining techniques, Recommender system, Personalization, Mobile user.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2136

Authors: Eun Mi Ryu, Ah Young An, Ji Yeon Kang, Yeong Soo Shin, Hee Sun Kim

Abstract:

When high strength reinforced concrete is exposed to high temperature due to a fire, deteriorations occur such as loss in strength and elastic modulus, cracking and spalling of the concrete. Therefore, it is important to understand risk of structural safety in building structures by studying structural behaviors and rehabilitation of fire damaged high strength concrete structures. This paper aims at investigating rehabilitation effect on fire damaged high strength concrete beams using experimental and analytical methods. In the experiments, flexural specimens with high strength concrete are exposed to high temperatures according to ISO 834 standard time temperature curve. From four-point loading test, results show that maximum loads of the rehabilitated beams are similar to or higher than those of the non-fire damaged RC beam. In addition, structural analyses are performed using ABAQUS 6.10-3 with same conditions as experiments to provide accurate predictions on structural and mechanical behaviors of rehabilitated RC beams. The parameters are the fire cover thickness and strengths of repairing mortar. Analytical results show good rehabilitation effects, when the results predicted from the rehabilitated models are compared to structural behaviors of the non-damaged RC beams. In this study, fire damaged high strength concrete beams are rehabilitated using polymeric cement mortar. The predictions from the finite element (FE) models show good agreements with the experimental results and the modeling approaches can be used to investigate applicability of various rehabilitation methods for further study.

Keywords: Fire, High strength concrete, Rehabilitation, Reinforced concrete beam.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2363