Search results for: missing data

Authors: Alexander Y. Vaninsky

Abstract:

It is suggested to evaluate environmental performance of energy sector using Data Envelopment Analysis with nondiscretionary factors (DEA-ND) with relative indicators as inputs and outputs. The latter allows for comparison of the objects essentially different in size. Inclusion of non-discretionary factors serves separation of the indicators that are beyond the control of the objects. A virtual perfect object comprised of maximal outputs and minimal inputs was added to the group of actual ones. In this setting, explicit solution of the DEA-ND problem was obtained. Energy sector of the United States was analyzed using suggested approach for the period of 1980 – 2006 with expected values of economic indicators for 2030 used for forming the perfect object. It was obtained that environmental performance has been increasing steadily for the period from 7.7% through 50.0% but still remains well below the prospected level

Keywords: DEA with Non Discretionary Factors, Environmental Performance, Energy Sector, Explicit Solution, Perfect Object.

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Authors: S. Jain, Y. Deshpande

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The fluid mechanics principle is used extensively in designing axial flow fans and their associated equipment. This paper presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of air flow distribution from a radiator axial flow fan used in an acid pump truck Tier4 (APT T4) Repower. This axial flow fan augments the transfer of heat from the engine mounted on the APT T4. CFD analysis was performed for an area weighted average static pressure difference at the inlet and outlet of the fan. Pressure contours, velocity vectors, and path lines were plotted for detailing the flow characteristics for different orientations of the fan blade. The results were then compared and verified against known theoretical observations and actual experimental data. This study shows that a CFD simulation can be very useful for predicting and understanding the flow distribution from a radiator fan for further research work.

Keywords: Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), acid pump truck (APT) Tier4 Repower, axial flow fan, area weighted average static pressure difference, and contour plots.

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Authors: Barau Daniel, Bashayi Obadiah

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A spatial analysis of a large 20th century urban settlement (town/city) easily presents the celebrated central Business District (CBD). Theories of Urban Land Economics have easily justified and attempted to explain the existence of such a district activity area within the cityscape. This work examines the gradual emergence and development of the CBD in Lafia Town, Nigeria over 20 years and the attended urban problems caused by its emergence. Personal knowledge and observation of land use change are the main sources of data for the work, with unstructured interview with residents. The result are that the absence of a co-ordinate land use plan for the town, multi-nuclei nature, and regional location of surrounding towns have affected the growth pattern, hence the CBD. Traffic congestion, dispersed CBD land uses are some of the urban planning problems. The work concludes by advocating for integrating CBD uses.

Keywords: Urban planning, Central Business District (CBD), downtown.

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Authors: Norsiah Abdul Hamid, Halimah Badioze Zaman

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This paper outlines the research conducted to propose na framework of 'Knowledge Society' (KS) in the Malaysian context. It is important to highlight that the emergence of KS is a result of the rapid growth in knowledge and information. However, the discussion of KS should not only be limited to the importance of knowledge, but a holistic KS is also determined by other imperative dimensions. This article discusses the results of a study conducted previously in Malaysia in order to identify the essential dimensions of KS, and consequently propose a KS framework in the Malaysian context. Two methods were employed, namely the Delphi technique and semi-structured interviews. The modified Delphi involved five rounds with ten experts, while the interviews were conducted with two prominent figures in Malaysia. The results support the proposed framework which contains seven major dimensions in order for Malaysia to become a KS in the future. The dimensions which are crucial for a holistic Malaysian KS are human capital, spirituality, economy, social, institutional, sustainability, and driven by the ICT.

Keywords: Malaysia, Knowledge Society, Framework, Delphi Technique, Interview.

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Authors: V. I. Thajudin Ahamed, P. Dhanasekaran, A. Naseem, N. G. Karthick, T. K. Abdul Jaleel, Paul K.Joseph

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It is established that the instantaneous heart rate (HR) of healthy humans keeps on changing. Analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) has become a popular non invasive tool for assessing the activities of autonomic nervous system. Depressed HRV has been found in several disorders, like diabetes mellitus (DM) and coronary artery disease, characterised by autonomic nervous dysfunction. A new technique, which searches for pattern repeatability in a time series, is proposed specifically for the analysis of heart rate data. These set of indices, which are termed as pattern repeatability measure and pattern repeatability ratio are compared with approximate entropy and sample entropy. In our analysis, based on the method developed, it is observed that heart rate variability is significantly different for DM patients, particularly for patients with diabetic foot ulcer.

Keywords: Autonomic nervous system, diabetes mellitus, heart rate variability, pattern identification, sample entropy

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Authors: Shen Weishou, Ji Di, Zhang Hui, Yan Shouguang, Li Haidong, Lin Naifeng

Abstract:

Based on a long-term vegetation index dataset of NDVI and meteorological data from 68 meteorological stations in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and their relations with major climate factors were analyzed. The results show the following: 1) The linear trends of temperature in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau indicate that the temperature in the plateau generally increased, but it rose faster in the last 20 years. 2) The most significant NDVI increase occurred in the eastern and southern plateau. However, the western and northern plateau demonstrate a decreasing trend. 3) There is a significant positive linear correlation between NDVI and temperature and a negative correlation between NDVI and mean wind speed. However, no significant statistical relationship was found between NDVI and relative humidity, precipitation or sunshine duration.4) The changes in NDVI for the plateau are driven by temperature-precipitation, but for the desert and forest areas, the relation changes to precipitation-temperature-wind velocity and wind velocity-temperature-precipitation.

Keywords: Qinghai-Tibet plateau, NDVI, climate warming.

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Authors: J. Nesleha, H. Florianova

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The goal of the study is to provide results of a conducted study devoted to financial literacy in the Czech Republic and to introduce a project related to financial education in the Czech Republic. Financial education has become an important part of education in the country, yet it is still neglected on the lowest level of formal education–primary schools. The project is based on investigation of financial literacy on primary schools in the Czech Republic. Consequently, the authors aim to formulate possible amendments related to this type of education. The gained dataset is intended to be used for analysis concerning financial education in the Czech Republic. With regard to used methods, the most important one is regression analysis for disclosure of predictors causing different levels of financial literacy. Furthermore, comparison of different groups is planned, for which t-tests are intended to be used. The study also employs descriptive statistics to introduce basic relationship in the data file.

Keywords: Czech Republic, financial education, financial literacy, primary school, regression analysis.

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Authors: Vishwambhar Prasad Sati

Abstract:

This article examines cloudburst-triggered natural hazards mainly flashfloods and landslides in the Uttarakhand Himalaya. It further describes mechanism and implications of natural hazards and illustrates the preventive and mitigation measures. We conducted this study through collection of archival data, case study of cloudburst hit areas, and rapid field visit of the affected regions. In the second week of August 2017, about 50 people died and huge losses to property were noticed due to cloudburst-triggered flashfloods. Our study shows that although cloudburst triggered hazards in the Uttarakhand Himalaya are natural phenomena and unavoidable yet, disasters can be minimized if preventive measures are taken up appropriately. We suggested that construction of human settlements, institutions and infrastructural facilities along the seasonal streams and the perennial rivers should be avoided to prevent disasters. Further, large-scale tree plantation on the degraded land will reduce the magnitude of hazards.

Keywords: Cloudburst, flashfloods, landslides, fragile landscape, Uttarakhand Himalaya.

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Authors: Ching-Huei Lin, Yao-Pang Hsu, M. Z. Dosaev, Yu. D. Selyutskii, L. A. Klimina

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Hysteresis phenomenon has been observed in the operations of both horizontal-axis and vertical-axis wind turbines (HAWTs and VAWTs). In this study, wind tunnel experiments were applied to investigate the characters of hysteresis phenomena between the angular speed and the external resistance of electrical loading during the operation of a Darrieus type VAWT. Data of output voltage, output current, angular speed of wind turbine under different wind speeds are measured and analyzed. Results show that the range of external resistance changes with the wind speed. The range decreases as the wind speed increases following an exponential decay form. Experiments also indicate that the maximum output power of wind turbines is always inside the range where hysteresis happened. These results provide an important reference to the design of output control system of wind turbines.

Keywords: Hysteresis phenomenon, Angular speed, Range ofexternal resistance

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Authors: M. Mohagheghian, A. M. Ghaedi, A. Vafaei

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An artificial neural network (ANN) model is presented for the prediction of kinematic viscosity of binary mixtures of poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) in water as a function of temperature, number-average molecular weight and mass fraction. Kinematic viscosities data of aqueous solutions for PEG (0.55419×10-6 – 9.875×10-6 m2/s) were obtained from the literature for a wide range of temperatures (277.15 - 338.15 K), number-average molecular weight (200 -10000), and mass fraction (0.0 – 1.0). A three layer feed-forward artificial neural network was employed. This model predicts the kinematic viscosity with a mean square error (MSE) of 0.281 and the coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.983. The results show that the kinematic viscosity of binary mixture of PEG in water could be successfully predicted using an artificial neural network model.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, kinematic viscosity, poly ethylene glycol (PEG)

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Authors: Ghassan A. Abed, Mahamod Ismail, Samir I. Badrawi, Bayan M. Sabbar

Abstract:

Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-Advanced) LTE-Advanced is not new as a radio access technology, but it is an evolution of LTE to enhance the performance. This generation is the continuation of 3GPP-LTE (3GPP: 3rd Generation Partnership Project) and it is targeted for advanced development of the requirements of LTE in terms of throughput and coverage. The performance evaluation process of any network should be based on many models and simulations to investigate the network layers and functions and monitor the employment of the new technologies especially when this network includes large-bandwidth and low-latency links such as LTE and LTE-Advanced networks. Therefore, it’s necessary to enhance the proposed models of high-speed and high-congested link networks to make these links and traffics fulfill the needs of the huge data which transferred over the congested links. This article offered an innovative model of the most correlated links of LTE-Advanced system using the Network Simulator 2 (NS-2) with investigation of the link parameters.

Keywords: 3GPP, LTE, LTE-Advanced, NS-2.

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Authors: Qiuyi Lyu, Bin Gong

Abstract:

Breadth-First Search (BFS) is a core graph algorithm that is widely used for graph analysis. As it is frequently used in many graph applications, improving the BFS performance is essential. In this paper, we present a graph ordering method that could reorder the graph nodes to achieve better data locality, thus, improving the BFS performance. Our method is based on an observation that the sibling relationships will dominate the cache access pattern during the BFS traversal. Therefore, we propose a frequency-based model to construct the graph order. First, we optimize the graph order according to the nodes’ visit frequency. Nodes with high visit frequency will be processed in priority. Second, we try to maximize the child nodes’ overlap layer by layer. As it is proved to be NP-hard, we propose a heuristic method that could greatly reduce the preprocessing overheads.We conduct extensive experiments on 16 real-world datasets. The result shows that our method could achieve comparable performance with the state-of-the-art methods while the graph ordering overheads are only about 1/15.

Keywords: Breadth-first search, BFS, graph ordering, graph algorithm.

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Authors: Lovorka Galetić, Maja Klindžić, Ivana Načinović Braje

Abstract:

Generation Y individuals or Millennials are known for their unique views, work values and motivational needs which implies that, in order to attract and retain those individuals, activities in the area of career management should be given special attention by HRM managers. After a theoretical background on Millennials’ life and work attitudes, an empirical research on career preferences of Millennials in Croatia was described. Empirical research was conducted among 249 members of generation Y. The data analysis revealed that respondents generally perceive promotion opportunities as the most important career aspect; however, job security and work-life balance are almost as important. Furthermore, it was shown that Generation Y is not necessarily a homogenous group. More precisely, women assign greater importance than men to work-life balance and job security. Therefore, HRM managers should adapt career planning activities not only with respect to generational preferences, but individual characteristics as well.

Keywords: Career, individual differences, millennials, work values.

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Authors: Hiba Basim Alwan, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud

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A direction for ACO is to optimize continuous and mixed (discrete and continuous) variables in solving problems with various types of data. Support Vector Machine (SVM), which originates from the statistical approach, is a present day classification technique. The main problems of SVM are selecting feature subset and tuning the parameters. Discretizing the continuous value of the parameters is the most common approach in tuning SVM parameters. This process will result in loss of information which affects the classification accuracy. This paper presents two algorithms that can simultaneously tune SVM parameters and select the feature subset. The first algorithm, ACO_R-SVM, will tune SVM parameters, while the second IACO_MV-R-SVM algorithm will simultaneously tune SVM parameters and select the feature subset. Three benchmark UCI datasets were used in the experiments to validate the performance of the proposed algorithms. The results show that the proposed algorithms have good performances as compared to other approaches.

Keywords: Continuous ant colony optimization, incremental continuous ant colony, simultaneous optimization, support vector machine.

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Authors: Haider A Ramadhan, Khalil Shihab

Abstract:

Clustering techniques have been used by many intelligent software agents to group similar access patterns of the Web users into high level themes which express users intentions and interests. However, such techniques have been mostly focusing on one salient feature of the Web document visited by the user, namely the extracted keywords. The major aim of these techniques is to come up with an optimal threshold for the number of keywords needed to produce more focused themes. In this paper we focus on both keyword and similarity thresholds to generate themes with concentrated themes, and hence build a more sound model of the user behavior. The purpose of this paper is two fold: use distance based clustering methods to recognize overall themes from the Proxy log file, and suggest an efficient cut off levels for the keyword and similarity thresholds which tend to produce more optimal clusters with better focus and efficient size.

Keywords: Data mining, knowledge discovery, clustering, dataanalysis, Web log analysis, theme based searching.

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Authors: Roselyn A. Maaño

Abstract:

Eyes are an essential and conspicuous organ of the human body. Human eyes are outward and inward portals of the body that allows to see the outside world and provides glimpses into ones inner thoughts and feelings. Inevitable blindness and visual impairments may results from eye-related disease, trauma, or congenital or degenerative conditions that cannot be corrected by conventional means. The study emphasizes innovative tools that will serve as an aid to the blind and visually impaired (VI) individuals. The researchers fabricated a prototype that utilizes the Microsoft Kinect for Windows and Arduino microcontroller board. The prototype facilitates advanced gesture recognition, voice recognition, obstacle detection and indoor environment navigation. Open Computer Vision (OpenCV) performs image analysis, and gesture tracking to transform Kinect data to the desired output. A computer vision technology device provides greater accessibility for those with vision impairments.

Keywords: Algorithms, Blind, Computer Vision, Embedded Systems, Image Analysis.

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Authors: Supanyika Sengsai, Aree Thongpukdee, Chalermchai Kanchanakachen

Abstract:

The study aimed to collect morphological data of secretory structures that contribute to taxonomy of Indigofera. Detail features of trichomes occurrence in vegetative and reproductive organs of Indigofera wightii Grah. ex Wigh & Arn., a species traditionally used as source of indigo to dye “Thaisongdam” clothing were investigated. Examination through light microscopy and scanning electrom microscopy were done. Non secretory, T-shaped trichomes appeared throughout surfaces of stems, leaves, flowers and fruits. Secretory or glandular trichomes occurred in two types; one has big cylindrical head and short peduncle, distributed on adaxial surface of sepals and around the pedicel, whereas another possesses smaller cylindrical head but long peduncle. The latter was found on apical surface of immature pods. No phenolic and lipophilic compounds were detected from these glands.

Keywords: Indigofera, Thailand, Thaisongdam, trichome.

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Authors: Guang-Ho Cha

Abstract:

This paper presents a context-sensitive media similarity search algorithm. One of the central problems regarding media search is the semantic gap between the low-level features computed automatically from media data and the human interpretation of them. This is because the notion of similarity is usually based on high-level abstraction but the low-level features do not sometimes reflect the human perception. Many media search algorithms have used the Minkowski metric to measure similarity between image pairs. However those functions cannot adequately capture the aspects of the characteristics of the human visual system as well as the nonlinear relationships in contextual information given by images in a collection. Our search algorithm tackles this problem by employing a similarity measure and a ranking strategy that reflect the nonlinearity of human perception and contextual information in a dataset. Similarity search in an image database based on this contextual information shows encouraging experimental results.

Keywords: Context-sensitive search, image search, media search, similarity ranking, similarity search.

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Authors: Ishtiaq A. Chaudhry, Zia R Tahir, F. A. Siddiqui, F. Noor, M. J. Rashid

Abstract:

It has experimentally been proved that the performance of compression ignition (C.I.) engine is spray characteristics related. In modern diesel engine the spray formation and the eventual combustion process are the vital processes that offer more challenges towards enhancing the engine performance. In the present work the numerical simulation has been carried out for evaporating diesel sprays using Fluent software. For computational fluid dynamics simulation “Meshing” is done using Gambit software before transmitting it into Fluent. The simulation is carried out using hot bomb conditions under varying chamber conditions such as gas pressure, nozzle diameter and fuel injection pressure. For comparison purpose, the numerical simulations the chamber conditions were kept the same as that of the experimental data. At varying chamber conditions the spray penetration rates are compared with the existing experimental results.

Keywords: Evaporating diesel sprays, Penetration rates, Hot bomb conditions.

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Authors: Muhammad Wajid Tahir, Rubina Kauser, Majid Ali Tahir

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Pakistani doctors (MBBS) are emigrating towards developed countries for professional adjustments. This study aims to highlight causes and consequences of doctors- brain drain from Pakistan. Primary data was collected from Mayo Hospital, Lahore by interviewing doctors (n=100) through systematic random sampling technique. It found that various socio-economic and political conditions are working as push and pull factors for brain drain of doctors in Pakistan. Majority of doctors (83%) declared poor remunerations and professional infrastructure of health department as push factor of doctors- brain drain. 81% claimed that continuous instability in political situation and threats of terrorism are responsible for emigration of doctors. 84% respondents considered fewer opportunities of further studies responsible for their emigration. Brain drain of doctors is affecting health sector-s policies / programs, standard doctor-patient ratios and quality of health services badly.

Keywords: Brain Drain, Emigration, Remuneration, Politicalinstability, MBBS doctors

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Authors: Dler Abdullah Ahmed, Zozan Ahmed Mohammed

Abstract:

This study looked into contact surface temperature during a pin-on-disk test. Friction and wear between sliding surfaces raised the temperature differential between contact surface and ambient temperatures Tdiff. Tdiff was significantly influenced by wear test variables. Tdiff rose with the increase of sliding speed and applied load, while dropped with the increase in ambient temperature. The highest Tdiff was 289 °C during the tests at room temperature and 2.5 m/s sliding speed, while the minimum was only 24 °C during the tests at 400 °C and 0.5 m/s. However, the maximum contact temperature Tmax was found during tests conducted at high ambient temperatures. The Tmax was estimated based on the theoretical equation. The comparison of experimental and theoretical Tmax data was revealed good agreement.

Keywords: Pin-on-disk test, contact temperature, wear, sliding surface, friction, ambient temperature.

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Authors: Oliver Mărunţălu, Gheorghe Lăzăroiu, Elena Elisabeta Manea, Dana Andreya Bondrea, Lăcrămioara Diana Robescu

Abstract:

This paper presents the results obtained by numerical simulation using the software ANSYS CFX-CFD for the air pollutants dispersion in the atmosphere coming from the evacuation of combustion gases resulting from the fuel combustion in an electric thermal power plant. The model uses the Navier-Stokes equation to simulate the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. It is considered as important factors in elaboration of simulation the atmospheric conditions (pressure, temperature, wind speed, wind direction), the exhaust velocity of the combustion gases, chimney height and the obstacles (buildings). Using the air quality monitoring stations it is measured the concentrations of main pollutants (SO2, NOx and PM). The pollutants were monitored over a period of 3 months, after that the average concentration are calculated, which is used by the software. The concentrations are: 8.915 μg/m3 (NOx), 9.587 μg/m3 (SO2) and 42 μg/m3 (PM). A comparison of test data with simulation results demonstrated that CFX was able to describe the dispersion of the pollutant as well the concentration of this pollutants in the atmosphere.

Keywords: Air pollutants, computational fluid dynamics, dispersion, simulation.

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Authors: Khalid Ghoulam, Belaid Bouikhalene, Zakaria Harmouch, Hicham Mouncif

Abstract:

One of the essential topics in the information systems is the registration management. The objective of this project is to create a web portal designed to help new students on the first access to the Sultan Moulay Slimane University SMSU (Practical Information, Pre-Registration, Placement Test, Terms of use ... etc.) while creating a secure space protecting both data from the institutions of the University and student information. This portal is accessible from any computer connected to the Internet inside and outside the campus. In this work, we present a platform on the first access to the SMSU which is essential for authentication in the digital work space of the university. This platform allows university to make better decisions for students clustering, to avoid traditional manual method, and to reduce the cost in human and material resources.

Keywords: Registration, SMSU, Security, FAUSMS, digital work space, Placement test.

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Authors: Gholamreza Ghodrati Amiri, Mojtaba Jafarian Abyaneh, Ali Zare Hosseinzadeh

Abstract:

This paper presents an effective model updating strategy for damage localization and quantification in frames by defining damage detection problem as an optimization issue. A generalized version of the Modal Residual Force (MRF) is employed for presenting a new damage-sensitive cost function. Then, Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm is utilized for solving suggested inverse problem and the global extremums are reported as damage detection results. The applicability of the presented method is investigated by studying different damage patterns on the benchmark problem of the IASC-ASCE, as well as a planar shear frame structure. The obtained results emphasize good performance of the method not only in free-noise cases, but also when the input data are contaminated with different levels of noises.

Keywords: Frame, grey wolf optimization algorithm, modal residual force, structural damage detection.

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Authors: Razak Rahmat, Azizah Ahmad, Rafidah Razak, Roshidi Din, Azizi Abas

Abstract:

Telecenter is a place where communities can access computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies to enable them to gather information, create, learn, and communicate with others. However, previous studies found that sustainability issues related to economic, political and institutional, social and technology is one of the major problem faced by the telecenter. Based on that problem this research is planning to design a possible solution on rural telecenters sustainability with the support of business intelligence (BI). The empirical study will be conducted through qualitative and quantitative method including interviews and observations with a range of stakeholders including ministry officers, telecenters managers and operators. Result from the data collection will be analyzed using causal modeling approach of SEM SmartPLS for the validity. The expected finding from this research is the Business Intelligent Requirement Model as a guild for sustainability of the rural telecenters.

Keywords: Rural ICT Telecenter (RICTT), Business Intelligence, Sustainability, Requirement Analysis Modal.

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Authors: Susan J. Simmons, Fang Fang, Qijun Fang, Karl Ricanek

Abstract:

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) experiments have yielded important biological and biochemical information necessary for understanding the relationship between genetic markers and quantitative traits. For many years, most QTL algorithms only allowed one observation per genotype. Recently, there has been an increasing demand for QTL algorithms that can accommodate more than one observation per genotypic distribution. The Bayesian hierarchical model is very flexible and can easily incorporate this information into the model. Herein a methodology is presented that uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to capture the complexity of the data. Furthermore, the Markov chain Monte Carlo model composition (MC3) algorithm is used to search and identify important markers. An extensive simulation study illustrates that the method captures the true QTL, even under nonnormal noise and up to 6 QTL.

Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical model, Markov chain MonteCarlo model composition, quantitative trait loci.

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Authors: Marut Pichetvit

Abstract:

The research objective aims to search information about storytelling and fable associated with fireflies in Amphawa community, in order to design and create a story book which is appropriate for the interests of children in early childhood. This book should help building the development of learning about the natural environment, imagination, and creativity among children, which then, brings about the promotion of the development, conservation and dissemination of cultural values and uniqueness of the Amphawa community. The population used in this study were 30 students in early childhood aged between 6-8 years-old, grade 1-3 from the Demonstration School of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The method used for this study was purposive sampling and the research conducted by the query and analysis of data from both the document and the narrative field tales and fable associated with the fireflies of Amphawa community. Then, using the results to synthesize and create a conceptual design in a form of 8 visual images which were later applied to 1 illustrated children’s book and presented to the experts to evaluate and test this media.

Keywords: Children’s illustrated book, Fireflies, Amphawa.

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Authors: D. I. De Souza, G. P. Azevedo, D. R. Fonseca

Abstract:

In this paper we will develop further the sequential life test approach presented in a previous article by [1] using an underlying two parameter Inverse Weibull sampling distribution. The location parameter or minimum life will be considered equal to zero. Once again we will provide rules for making one of the three possible decisions as each observation becomes available; that is: accept the null hypothesis H0; reject the null hypothesis H0; or obtain additional information by making another observation. The product being analyzed is a new electronic component. There is little information available about the possible values the parameters of the corresponding Inverse Weibull underlying sampling distribution could have.To estimate the shape and the scale parameters of the underlying Inverse Weibull model we will use a maximum likelihood approach for censored failure data. A new example will further develop the proposed sequential life testing approach.

Keywords: Sequential Life Testing, Inverse Weibull Model, Maximum Likelihood Approach, Hypothesis Testing.

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Authors: Zeyneb Kurt, Oguzhan Yavuz

Abstract:

The feature of HIV genome is in a wide range because of it is highly heterogeneous. Hence, the infection ability of the virus changes related with different chemokine receptors. From this point, R5 and X4 HIV viruses use CCR5 and CXCR5 coreceptors respectively while R5X4 viruses can utilize both coreceptors. Recently, in Bioinformatics, R5X4 viruses have been studied to classify by using the coreceptors of HIV genome. The aim of this study is to develop the optimal Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) for high classification accuracy of HIV sub-type viruses. To accomplish this purpose, the unit number in hidden layer was incremented one by one, from one to a particular number. The statistical data of R5X4, R5 and X4 viruses was preprocessed by the signal processing methods. Accessible residues of these virus sequences were extracted and modeled by Auto-Regressive Model (AR) due to the dimension of residues is large and different from each other. Finally the pre-processed dataset was used to evolve MLP with various number of hidden units to determine R5X4 viruses. Furthermore, ROC analysis was used to figure out the optimal MLP structure.

Keywords: Multilayer Perceptron, Auto-Regressive Model, HIV, ROC Analysis

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Authors: T. Motsima

Abstract:

The under-5 mortality rate is high in sub-Saharan Africa with Lesotho being amongst the highest under-5 mortality rates in the world. The objective of the study is to determine the factors associated with under-5 mortality in Lesotho. The data used for this analysis come from the nationally representative household survey called the 2009 Lesotho Demographic and Health Survey. Odds ratios produced by the logistic regression models were used to measure the effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable. Female children were significantly 38% less likely to die than male children. Children who were breastfed for 13 to 18 months and those who were breastfed for more than 19 months were significantly less likely to die than those who were breastfed for 12 months or less. Furthermore, children of mothers who stayed in Quthing, Qacha’s Nek and Thaba Tseka ran the greatest risk of dying. The results suggested that: sex of child, type of birth, breastfeeding duration, district, source of energy and marital status were significant predictors of under-5 mortality, after correcting for all variables.

Keywords: Under-5 mortality, risk factors, millennium development goals, breastfeeding, logistic regression.

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