Search results for: marketing constraints
333 A Review on Electrical Behavior of Different Substrates, Electrodes and Membranes in Microbial Fuel Cell
Authors: Bharat Mishra, Sanjay Kumar Awasthi, Raj Kumar Rajak
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The devices, which convert the energy in the form of electricity from organic matters, are called microbial fuel cell (MFC). Recently, MFCs have been given a lot of attention due to their mild operating conditions, and various types of biodegradable substrates have been used in the form of fuel. Traditional MFCs were included in anode and cathode chambers, but there are single chamber MFCs. Microorganisms actively catabolize substrate, and bioelectricities are produced. In the field of power generation from non-conventional sources, apart from the benefits of this technique, it is still facing practical constraints such as low potential and power. In this study, most suitable, natural, low cost MFCs components are electrodes (anode and cathode), organic substrates, membranes and its design is selected on the basis of maximum potential (voltage) as an electrical parameter, which indicates a vital role of affecting factor in MFC for sustainable power production.
Keywords: Substrates, electrodes, membranes, microbial fuel cells, voltage.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1420332 Soft Computing Based Cluster Head Selection in Wireless Sensor Network Using Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm
Authors: A. Rajagopal, S. Somasundaram, B. Sowmya, T. Suguna
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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) enable new applications and need non-conventional paradigms for the protocol because of energy and bandwidth constraints, In WSN, sensor node’s life is a critical parameter. Research on life extension is based on Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) scheme, which rotates Cluster Head (CH) among sensor nodes to distribute energy consumption over all network nodes. CH selection in WSN affects network energy efficiency greatly. This study proposes an improved CH selection for efficient data aggregation in sensor networks. This new algorithm is based on Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO) incorporated in LEACH.Keywords: Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO), Cluster Head (CH), Data-aggregation protocols, Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3471331 Design, Implementation and Testing of Mobile Agent Protection Mechanism for MANETS
Authors: Khaled E. A. Negm
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In the current research, we present an operation framework and protection mechanism to facilitate secure environment to protect mobile agents against tampering. The system depends on the presence of an authentication authority. The advantage of the proposed system is that security measures is an integral part of the design, thus common security retrofitting problems do not arise. This is due to the presence of AlGamal encryption mechanism to protect its confidential content and any collected data by the agent from the visited host . So that eavesdropping on information from the agent is no longer possible to reveal any confidential information. Also the inherent security constraints within the framework allow the system to operate as an intrusion detection system for any mobile agent environment. The mechanism is tested for most of the well known severe attacks against agents and networked systems. The scheme proved a promising performance that makes it very much recommended for the types of transactions that needs highly secure environments, e. g., business to business.
Keywords: Mobile agent security, mobile accesses, agent encryption.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2029330 Natural Language Database Interface for Selection of Data Using Grammar and Parsing
Authors: N. D. Karande, G. A. Patil
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Databases have become ubiquitous. Almost all IT applications are storing into and retrieving information from databases. Retrieving information from the database requires knowledge of technical languages such as Structured Query Language (SQL). However majority of the users who interact with the databases do not have a technical background and are intimidated by the idea of using languages such as SQL. This has led to the development of a few Natural Language Database Interfaces (NLDBIs). A NLDBI allows the user to query the database in a natural language. This paper highlights on architecture of new NLDBI system, its implementation and discusses on results obtained. In most of the typical NLDBI systems the natural language statement is converted into an internal representation based on the syntactic and semantic knowledge of the natural language. This representation is then converted into queries using a representation converter. A natural language query is translated to an equivalent SQL query after processing through various stages. The work has been experimented on primitive database queries with certain constraints.
Keywords: Natural language database interface, representation converter, syntactic and semantic knowledge
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2694329 Grocery Customer Behavior Analysis using RFID-based Shopping Paths Data
Authors: In-Chul Jung, Young S. Kwon
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Knowing about the customer behavior in a grocery has been a long-standing issue in the retailing industry. The advent of RFID has made it easier to collect moving data for an individual shopper's behavior. Most of the previous studies used the traditional statistical clustering technique to find the major characteristics of customer behavior, especially shopping path. However, in using the clustering technique, due to various spatial constraints in the store, standard clustering methods are not feasible because moving data such as the shopping path should be adjusted in advance of the analysis, which is time-consuming and causes data distortion. To alleviate this problem, we propose a new approach to spatial pattern clustering based on the longest common subsequence. Experimental results using real data obtained from a grocery confirm the good performance of the proposed method in finding the hot spot, dead spot and major path patterns of customer movements.Keywords: customer path, shopping behavior, exploratoryanalysis, LCS, RFID
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3134328 Wireless Sensor Networks for Long Distance Pipeline Monitoring
Authors: Augustine C. Azubogu, Victor E. Idigo, Schola U. Nnebe, Obinna S. Oguejiofor, Simon E.
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The main goal of this seminal paper is to introduce the application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in long distance infrastructure monitoring (in particular in pipeline infrastructure monitoring) – one of the on-going research projects by the Wireless Communication Research Group at the department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The current sensor network architectures for monitoring long distance pipeline infrastructures are previewed. These are wired sensor networks, RF wireless sensor networks, integrated wired and wireless sensor networks. The reliability of these architectures is discussed. Three reliability factors are used to compare the architectures in terms of network connectivity, continuity of power supply for the network, and the maintainability of the network. The constraints and challenges of wireless sensor networks for monitoring and protecting long distance pipeline infrastructure are discussed.Keywords: Connectivity, maintainability, reliability, wireless sensor networks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5125327 Model Transformation with a Visual Control Flow Language
Authors: László Lengyel, Tihamér Levendovszky, Gergely Mezei, Hassan Charaf
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Graph rewriting-based visual model processing is a widely used technique for model transformation. Visual model transformations often need to follow an algorithm that requires a strict control over the execution sequence of the transformation steps. Therefore, in Visual Model Processors (VMPs) the execution order of the transformation steps is crucial. This paper presents the visual control flow support of Visual Modeling and Transformation System (VMTS), which facilitates composing complex model transformations of simple transformation steps and executing them. The VMTS Visual Control Flow Language (VCFL) uses stereotyped activity diagrams to specify control flow structures and OCL constraints to choose between different control flow branches. This paper introduces VCFL, discusses its termination properties and provides an algorithm to support the termination analysis of VCFL transformations.Keywords: Control Flow, Metamodel-Based Visual ModelTransformation, OCL, Termination Properties, UML.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1684326 Analysis and Design Business Directory for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises using Google Maps API and Multimedia
Authors: Suselo Thomas, Suyoto, Dwiandiyanta B. Yudi
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This paper explain about analysis and design a business directory for micro-scale businesses, small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Business Directory, if implemented will facilitate and optimize the access of SMEs to ease suppliers access to marketing. Business Directory will be equipped with the power of geocoding, so each location can be easily viewed SMEs on the map. The map will be constructed by using the functionality of a webbased Google Maps API. The information presented in the form of multimedia that can be more interesting and interactive. The method used to achieve the goal are: observation; interviews; modeling and classifying business directory for SMEs.
Keywords: Business directories, SMEs, Google maps API, multimedia, geocoding ommas.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2112325 Dynamic Economic Dispatch Using Glowworm Swarm Optimization Technique
Authors: K. C. Meher, R. K. Swain, C. K. Chanda
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This paper gives an intuition regarding glowworm swarm optimization (GSO) technique to solve dynamic economic dispatch (DED) problems of thermal generating units. The objective of the problem is to schedule optimal power generation of dedicated thermal units over a specific time band. In this study, Glowworm swarm optimization technique enables a swarm of agents to split into subgroup, exhibit simultaneous taxis towards each other and rendezvous at multiple optima (not necessarily equal) of a given multimodal function. The feasibility of the GSO method has been tested on ten-unit-test systems where the power balance constraints, operating limits, valve point effects, and ramp rate limits are taken into account. The results obtained by the proposed technique are compared with other heuristic techniques. The results show that GSO technique is capable of producing better results.
Keywords: Dynamic economic dispatch, Glowworm swarm optimization, Luciferin, Valve–point loading effect, Ramp rate limits.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1307324 An Evaluation of Neural Network Efficacies for Image Recognition on Edge-AI Computer Vision Platform
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Image recognition enables machine-like robotics to understand a scene and plays an important role in computer vision applications. Computer vision platforms as physical infrastructure, supporting Neural Networks for image recognition, are deterministic to leverage the performance of different Neural Networks. In this paper, three different computer vision platforms – edge AI (Jetson Nano, with 4GB), a standalone laptop (with RTX 3000s, using CUDA), and a web-based device (Google Colab, using GPU) are investigated. In the case study, four prominent neural network architectures (including AlexNet, VGG16, GoogleNet, and ResNet (34/50)), are deployed. By using public ImageNets (Cifar-10), our findings provide a nuanced perspective on optimizing image recognition tasks across Edge-AI platforms, offering guidance on selecting appropriate neural network structures to maximize performance under hardware constraints.
Keywords: AlexNet, VGG, GoogleNet, ResNet, ImageNet, Cifar-10, Edge AI, Jetson Nano, CUDA, GPU.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 178323 Evaluating the Effect of Farmers’ Training on Rice Production in Sierra Leone: A Case Study of Rice Cultivation in Lowland Ecology
Authors: Alhaji M. H. Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, M. E. S. Mvodo
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This study endeavors to evaluate the effects of farmers’ training program on the adoption of improved farming practices, the output of rice farming, and the income as well as the profit from rice farming by employing an ex-post non-experimental data in Sierra Leone. It was established that participating in farmers’ training program increased the possibility of adoption of the improved farming activities that were implemented in the study area. Through the training program also, the proceeds from rice production was also established to have increased considerably. These results were in line with the assumption that one of the main constraints on the growth in agricultural output particularly rice cultivation in most African states is the lack of efficient extension programs.
Keywords: Dissemination of information, improved farming practices, rice ecologies, Sierra Leone.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2465322 Use of Ecommerce Websites in Developing Countries
Authors: Vera Pujani
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The purpose of this study is to investiagte the use of the ecommerce website in Indonesia as a developing country. The ecommerce website has been identified having the significant impact on business activities in particular solving the geographical problem for islanded countries likes Indonesia. Again, website is identified as a crucial marketing tool. This study presents the effect of quality and features on the use and user satisfaction employing ecommerce websites. Survey method for 115 undergraduate students of Management Department in Andalas University who are attending Management Information Systems (SIM) class have been undertaken. The data obtained is analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using SmartPLS program. This result found that quality of system and information, feature as well satisfaction influencing the use ecommerce website in Indonesia contexts.Keywords: Use, Developing Country, Satisfaction, Website
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1900321 Structural Cost of Optimized Reinforced Concrete Isolated Footing
Authors: Mohammed S. Al-Ansari
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This paper presents an analytical model to estimate the cost of an optimized design of reinforced concrete isolated footing base on structural safety. Flexural and optimized formulas for square and rectangular footingare derived base on ACI building code of design, material cost and optimization. The optimization constraints consist of upper and lower limits of depth and area of steel. Footing depth and area of reinforcing steel are to be minimized to yield the optimal footing dimensions. Optimized footing materials cost of concrete, reinforcing steel and formwork of the designed sections are computed. Total cost factor TCF and other cost factors are developed to generalize and simplify the calculations of footing material cost. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the model capability of estimating the material cost of the footing for a desired axial load.Keywords: Footing, Depth, Concrete, Steel, Formwork, Optimization, Material cost, Cost Factors.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4700320 Hull Separation Optimization of Catamaran Unmanned Surface Vehicle Powered with Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Authors: Seok-In Sohn, Dae-Hwan Park, Yeon-Seung Lee, Il-Kwon Oh
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This paper presents an optimization of the hull separation, i.e. transverse clearance. The main objective is to identify the feasible speed ranges and find the optimum transverse clearance considering the minimum wave-making resistance. The dimensions and the weight of hardware systems installed in the catamaran structured fuel cell powered USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) were considered as constraints. As the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) platform FRIENDSHIP-Framework was used. The hull surface modeling, DoE (Design of Experiment), Tangent search optimization, tool integration and the process automation were performed by FRIENDSHIP-Framework. The hydrodynamic result was evaluated by XPAN the potential solver of SHIPFLOW.Keywords: Full parametric modeling, Hull Separation, Wave-making resistance, Design Of Experiment, Tangent search method
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2945319 Optimum Shape and Design of Cooling Towers
Authors: A. M. El Ansary, A. A. El Damatty, A. O. Nassef
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The aim of the current study is to develop a numerical tool that is capable of achieving an optimum shape and design of hyperbolic cooling towers based on coupling a non-linear finite element model developed in-house and a genetic algorithm optimization technique. The objective function is set to be the minimum weight of the tower. The geometric modeling of the tower is represented by means of B-spline curves. The finite element method is applied to model the elastic buckling behaviour of a tower subjected to wind pressure and dead load. The study is divided into two main parts. The first part investigates the optimum shape of the tower corresponding to minimum weight assuming constant thickness. The study is extended in the second part by introducing the shell thickness as one of the design variables in order to achieve an optimum shape and design. Design, functionality and practicality constraints are applied.Keywords: B-splines, Cooling towers, Finite element, Genetic algorithm, Optimization
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3243318 Groundwater Management–A Policy Perspective
Authors: M. Annie Jenifer, Carolin Arul
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Groundwater has become the most dependable source of fresh water for agriculture, domestic and industrial uses in the past few decades. This wide use of groundwater if left uncontrolled and unseen will lead to overexploitation causing sea water intrusion in the coastal areas and illegal water marketing. Several Policies and Acts have been enacted to regulate and manage the use of this valuable resource. In spite of this the over extraction of groundwater beyond the recharging capacity of aquifers and depletion in the quality of groundwater is continuing. The current study aims at reviewing the Acts and Policies existing in the State of Tamil Nadu and in the National level regarding groundwater regulation and management. Further an analysis is made on the rights associated with the usage of groundwater resources and the gaps in these policies have been analyzed. Some suggestions are made to reform the existing groundwater policies for better management and regulation of the resource.Keywords: Act, groundwater, policy, reform
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2163317 Hybrid Control of Networked Multi-Vehicle System Considering Limitation of Communication Range
Authors: Toru Murayama, Akinori Nagano, Zhi-Wei Luo
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In this research, we study a control method of a multivehicle system while considering the limitation of communication range for each vehicles. When we control networked vehicles with limitation of communication range, it is important to control the communication network structure of a multi-vehicle system in order to keep the network-s connectivity. From this, we especially aim to control the network structure to the target structure. We formulate the networked multi-vehicle system with some disturbance and the communication constraints as a hybrid dynamical system, and then we study the optimal control problems of the system. It is shown that the system converge to the objective network structure in finite time when the system is controlled by the receding horizon method. Additionally, the optimal control probrems are convertible into the mixed integer problems and these problems are solvable by some branch and bound algorithm.Keywords: Hybrid system, multi-vehicle system, receding horizon control, topology control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1398316 Experiments on Element and Document Statistics for XML Retrieval
Authors: Mohamed Ben Aouicha, Mohamed Tmar, Mohand Boughanem, Mohamed Abid
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This paper presents an information retrieval model on XML documents based on tree matching. Queries and documents are represented by extended trees. An extended tree is built starting from the original tree, with additional weighted virtual links between each node and its indirect descendants allowing to directly reach each descendant. Therefore only one level separates between each node and its indirect descendants. This allows to compare the user query and the document with flexibility and with respect to the structural constraints of the query. The content of each node is very important to decide weither a document element is relevant or not, thus the content should be taken into account in the retrieval process. We separate between the structure-based and the content-based retrieval processes. The content-based score of each node is commonly based on the well-known Tf × Idf criteria. In this paper, we compare between this criteria and another one we call Tf × Ief. The comparison is based on some experiments into a dataset provided by INEX1 to show the effectiveness of our approach on one hand and those of both weighting functions on the other.Keywords: XML retrieval, INEX, Tf × Idf, Tf × Ief
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1322315 Optimization of Transmission Lines Loading in TNEP Using Decimal Codification Based GA
Authors: H. Shayeghi, M. Mahdavi
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Transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) is a basic part of power system planning that determines where, when and how many new transmission lines should be added to the network. Up till now, various methods have been presented to solve the static transmission network expansion planning (STNEP) problem. But in all of these methods, lines adequacy rate has not been considered at the end of planning horizon, i.e., expanded network misses adequacy after some times and needs to be expanded again. In this paper, expansion planning has been implemented by merging lines loading parameter in the STNEP and inserting investment cost into the fitness function constraints using genetic algorithm. Expanded network will possess a maximum adequacy to provide load demand and also the transmission lines overloaded later. Finally, adequacy index could be defined and used to compare some designs that have different investment costs and adequacy rates. In this paper, the proposed idea has been tested on the Garvers network. The results show that the network will possess maximum efficiency economically.
Keywords: Adequacy Optimization, Transmission Expansion Planning, DCGA.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1801314 Composite Distributed Generation and Transmission Expansion Planning Considering Security
Authors: Amir Lotfi, Seyed Hamid Hosseini
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During the recent past, due to the increase of electrical energy demand and governmental resources constraints in creating additional capacity in the generation, transmission, and distribution, privatization, and restructuring in electrical industry have been considered. So, in most of the countries, different parts of electrical industry like generation, transmission, and distribution have been separated in order to create competition. Considering these changes, environmental issues, energy growth, investment of private equity in energy generation units and difficulties of transmission lines expansion, distributed generation (DG) units have been used in power systems. Moreover, reduction in the need for transmission and distribution, the increase of reliability, improvement of power quality, and reduction of power loss have caused DG to be placed in power systems. On the other hand, considering low liquidity need, private investors tend to spend their money for DGs. In this project, the main goal is to offer an algorithm for planning and placing DGs in order to reduce the need for transmission and distribution network.Keywords: Planning, transmission, distributed generation, power security, power systems.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1119313 Difference in the Color Preference by a Geographical Factor
Authors: Kazuko Sakamoto
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Recently, the design is becoming important in product development. The technology which is a strong point of Japan is immediately caught up by the foreign countries, and the price competition begins. Therefore companies tend to plan differentiation of products by the design or a color. The purpose of my work was to consider the optimal color for using by product development. We needed to clarify the thing leading to color preference for this purpose. Two kinds of investigations were made. By the first investigation, we found out that a geographical factor difference existed in color preference. Then, investigation which regarded the difference as latitude was conducted. However, the result expected from the difference in latitude was not obtained. It seems that it is necessary to set up difference of latitude a little more greatly, or to reexamine by other geographical factors.
Keywords: Color preference, product color, difference of latitude, design marketing, international comparison.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3347312 Visual Identity Components of Tourist Destination
Authors: Petra Barisic, Zrinka Blazevic
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In the world of modern communications, visual identity has predominant influence on the overall success of tourist destinations, but despite of these, the problem of designing thriving tourist destination visual identity and their components are hardly addressed. This study highlights the importance of building and managing the visual identity of tourist destination, and based on the empirical study of well-known Mediterranean destination of Croatia analyses three main components of tourist destination visual identity; name, slogan, and logo. Moreover, the paper shows how respondents perceive each component of Croatia’s visual identity. According to study, logo is the most important, followed by the name and slogan. Research also reveals that Croatian economy lags behind developed countries in understanding the importance of visual identity, and its influence on marketing goal achievements.
Keywords: Components of visual identity, Croatia, tourist destination, visual identity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3474311 Genetic Algorithms for Feature Generation in the Context of Audio Classification
Authors: José A. Menezes, Giordano Cabral, Bruno T. Gomes
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Choosing good features is an essential part of machine learning. Recent techniques aim to automate this process. For instance, feature learning intends to learn the transformation of raw data into a useful representation to machine learning tasks. In automatic audio classification tasks, this is interesting since the audio, usually complex information, needs to be transformed into a computationally convenient input to process. Another technique tries to generate features by searching a feature space. Genetic algorithms, for instance, have being used to generate audio features by combining or modifying them. We find this approach particularly interesting and, despite the undeniable advances of feature learning approaches, we wanted to take a step forward in the use of genetic algorithms to find audio features, combining them with more conventional methods, like PCA, and inserting search control mechanisms, such as constraints over a confusion matrix. This work presents the results obtained on particular audio classification problems.
Keywords: Feature generation, feature learning, genetic algorithm, music information retrieval.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1065310 Grounded Theory of Consumer Loyalty, a Perspective through Video Game Addiction
Authors: Bassam Shaikh, R. S. A. Jumain
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Game addiction has become an extremely important topic in psychology researchers, particularly in understanding and explaining why individuals become addicted (to video games). In previous studies, effect of online game addiction on social responsibilities, health problems, government action, and the behaviors of individuals to purchase and the causes of making individuals addicted on the video games has been discussed. Extending these concepts in marketing, it could be argued than the phenomenon could enlighten and extending our understanding on consumer loyalty. This study took the Grounded Theory approach, and found that motivation, satisfaction, fulfillments, exploration and achievements to be part of the important elements that builds consumer loyalty.
Keywords: Consumer Loyalty, Video Games Addiction, Video Games, Grounded Theory.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2679309 Automated Buffer Box Assembly Cell Concept for the Canadian Used Fuel Packing Plant
Authors: Dimitrie Marinceu, Alan Murchison
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The Canadian Used Fuel Container (UFC) is a mid-size hemispherical headed copper coated steel container measuring 2.5 meters in length and 0.5 meters in diameter containing 48 used fuel bundles. The contained used fuel produces significant gamma radiation requiring automated assembly processes to complete the assembly. The design throughput of 2,500 UFCs per year places constraints on equipment and hot cell design for repeatability, speed of processing, robustness and recovery from upset conditions. After UFC assembly, the UFC is inserted into a Buffer Box (BB). The BB is made from adequately pre-shaped blocks (lower and upper block) and Highly Compacted Bentonite (HCB) material. The blocks are practically ‘sandwiching’ the UFC between them after assembly. This paper identifies one possible approach for the BB automatic assembly cell and processes. Automation of the BB assembly will have a significant positive impact on nuclear safety, quality, productivity, and reliability.
Keywords: Used fuel packing plant, automatic assembly cell, used fuel container, buffer box, deep geological repository.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1048308 Optimal Distributed Generator Sizing and Placement by Analytical Method and PSO Algorithm Considering Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch
Authors: Kyaw Myo Lin, Pyone Lai Swe, Khine Zin Oo
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In this paper, an approach combining analytical method for the distributed generator (DG) sizing and meta-heuristic search for the optimal location of DG has been presented. The optimal size of DG on each bus is estimated by the loss sensitivity factor method while the optimal sites are determined by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based optimal reactive power dispatch for minimizing active power loss. To confirm the proposed approach, it has been tested on IEEE-30 bus test system. The adjustments of operating constraints and voltage profile improvements have also been observed. The obtained results show that the allocation of DGs results in a significant loss reduction with good voltage profiles and the combined approach is competent in keeping the system voltages within the acceptable limits.
Keywords: Analytical approach, distributed generations, optimal size, optimal location, optimal reactive power dispatch, particle swarm optimization algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1162307 Pineapple Maturity Recognition Using RGB Extraction
Authors: J. I. Asnor, S. Rosnah, Z. W. H. Wan, H. A. B. Badrul
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Pineapples can be classified using an index with seven levels of maturity based on the green and yellow color of the skin. As the pineapple ripens, the skin will change from pale green to a golden or yellowish color. The issues that occur in agriculture nowadays are to do with farmers being unable to distinguish between the indexes of pineapple maturity correctly and effectively. There are several reasons for why farmers cannot properly follow the guideline provide by Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (FAMA) and one of reason is that due to manual inspection done by experts, there are no specific and universal guidelines to be adopted by farmers due to the different points of view of the experts when sorting the pineapples based on their knowledge and experience. Therefore, an automatic system will help farmers to identify pineapple maturity effectively and will become a universal indicator to farmers.Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Image Processing, Index of Maturity, Pineapple
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3433306 Development and Usability Evaluation of Platform Independent Mobile Learning Tool(M-LT)
Authors: Sahilu Wendeson Sahilu, Wan Fatimah Wan Ahmad, Nazleeni Samiha Haron
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Mobile learning (M-learning) integrates mobile devices and wireless computing technology to enhance the current conventional learning system. However, there are constraints which are affecting the implementation of platform and device independent M-learning. The main aim of this research is to fulfill the following main objectives: to develop platform independent mobile learning tool (M-LT) for structured programming course, and evaluate its effectiveness and usability using ADDIE instructional design model (ISD) as M-LT life cycle. J2ME (Java 2 micro edition) and XML (Extensible Markup Language) were used to develop platform independent M-LT. It has two modules lecture materials and quizzes. This study used Quasi experimental design to measure effectiveness of the tool. Meanwhile, questionnaire is used to evaluate the usability of the tool. Finally, the results show that the system was effective and also usability evaluation was positive.Keywords: ADDIE, Conventional learning, ISD, J2ME, Mlearning, Quasi Experiment, Wireless Technology, XML
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1704305 Solution Economic Power Dispatch Problems by an Ant Colony Optimization Approach
Authors: Navid Mehdizadeh Afroozi, Khodakhast Isapour, Mojtaba Hakimzadeh, Abdolmohammad Davodi
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The objective of the Economic Dispatch(ED) Problems of electric power generation is to schedule the committed generating units outputs so as to meet the required load demand at minimum operating cost while satisfying all units and system equality and inequality constraints. This paper presents a new method of ED problems utilizing the Max-Min Ant System Optimization. Historically, traditional optimizations techniques have been used, such as linear and non-linear programming, but within the past decade the focus has shifted on the utilization of Evolutionary Algorithms, as an example Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing and recently Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). In this paper we introduce the Max-Min Ant System based version of the Ant System. This algorithm encourages local searching around the best solution found in each iteration. To show its efficiency and effectiveness, the proposed Max-Min Ant System is applied to sample ED problems composed of 4 generators. Comparison to conventional genetic algorithms is presented.
Keywords: Economic Dispatch (ED), Ant Colony Optimization, Fuel Cost, Algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2575304 Entrepreneurship and the Discovery and Exploitation of Business Opportunities: Empirical Evidence from the Malawian Tourism Sector
Authors: Aravind Mohan Krishnan
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This paper identifies a research gap in the literature on tourism entrepreneurship in Malawi, Africa, and investigates how entrepreneurs from the Malawian tourism sector discover and exploit business opportunities. In particular, the importance of prior experience and business networks in the opportunity development process is debated. Another area of empirical research examined here is the opportunity recognition-venture creation sequence. While Malawi presents fruitful business opportunities, exploiting these opportunities into fully realized business ideas is a real challenge due to the country’s difficult business environment and poor promotional and marketing efforts. The study concludes by calling for further research in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to develop our understanding of entrepreneurship in this (African) context.
Keywords: Tourism, entrepreneurship, Malawi, business opportunities.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2333