Search results for: World English.
1426 Development Tendency of Energy: A Short Review
Authors: Rehan Jamil, Irfan Jamil, Ming Li, Zhao Jinquan
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Energy is the important source for the development of the society and it‘s the basic support of national economy and the base for human living. As the development of economy, abrupt increase of population and continuous improvement of living standards, the demand of energy increases continuously, which caused the impetuous scramble of energy source in the world, and urged the attention of the countries for current status and development trends of energy.
Keywords: Energy, Energy Supply Situation, Energy Production & Consumption.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22681425 Valorization and Conservation of Rock Paintings and Engravings of Kabylia Region, Algeria
Authors: S. Ait Ali Yahia
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In Algeria, the most impressive and most known prehistoric art is the painted or engraved rock art which is present with abundance in several regions. The existence of rock art in Great Kabylia region has been known for over sixty years. The main purpose of this research is to show the dangers facing these rock paintings and engravings and what are the arrangements for their protection and recovery. As every vestige destroyed is a part of the world's memory which disappears, some steps have to be taken in order to protect these historical and archaeological heritages.
Keywords: Kabylia, preservation, rock paintings and engravings, valorization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13231424 The Contemporary Visual Spectacle — Critical Visual Literacy
Authors: Lai-Fen Yang
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In this increasingly visual world, how can we best decipher and understand the many ways that our everyday lives are organized around looking practices and the many images we encounter each day? Indeed, how we interact with and interpret visual images is a basic component of human life. Today, however, we are living in one of the most artificial visual and image-saturated cultures in human history, which makes understanding the complex construction and multiple social functions of visual imagery more important than ever before. Themes regarding our experience of a visually pervasive mediated culture, here, termed visual spectacle.
Keywords: Visual culture, contemporary, visual spectacle.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19661423 Organizational Decision Based on Business Intelligence
Authors: Pejman Hosseinioun, Rose Shayeghi, Ghasem Ghorbani Rostam
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Nowadays, obtaining traditional statistics and reports is not adequate for the needs of organizational managers. The managers need to analyze and to transform the raw data into knowledge in the world filled with information. Therefore in this regard various processes have been developed. In the meantime the artificial intelligence-based processes are used and the new topics such as business intelligence and knowledge discovery have emerged. In the current paper it is sought to study the business intelligence and its applications in the organizations.Keywords: Business intelligence, business intelligence infrastructures, business processes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20301422 Botswana and Nation-Building Theory
Authors: Rowland M. Brucken
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This paper argues nation-building theories that prioritize democratic governance best explain the successful postindependence development of Botswana. Three main competing schools of thought exist regarding the sequencing of policies that should occur to re-build weakened or failed states. The first posits that economic development should receive foremost attention, while democratization and a binding sense of nationalism can wait. A second group of experts identified constructing a sense of nationalism among a populace is necessary first, so that the state receives popular legitimacy and obedience that are prerequisites for development. Botswana, though, transitioned into a multi-party democracy and prosperous open economy due to the utilization of traditional democratic structures, enlightened and accountable leadership, and an educated technocratic civil service. With these political foundations already in place when the discovery of diamonds occurred, the resulting revenues were spent wisely on projects that grew the economy, improved basic living standards, and attracted foreign investment. Thus democratization preceded, and therefore provided an accountable basis for, economic development that might otherwise have been squandered by greedy and isolated elites to the detriment of the greater population. Botswana was one of the poorest nations in the world at the time of its independence in 1966, with little infrastructure, a dependence on apartheid South Africa for trade, and a largely subsistence economy. Over the next thirty years, though, its economy grew the fastest of any nation in the world. The transparent and judicious use of diamond returns is only a partial explanation, as the government also pursued economic diversification, mass education, and rural development in response to public needs. As nation-building has become a project undertaken by nations and multilateral agencies such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Botswana may provide best practices that others should follow in attempting to reconstruct economically and politically unstable states.
Keywords: Botswana, democratization, economic development, nation-building.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34351421 A Practical Approach for Testing the Process Quality
Authors: Mou-Yuan Liao, Chien-Wei Wu, Chien-Hua Lin
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Process capability index Cpk is the most widely used index in making managerial decisions since it provides bounds on the process yield for normally distributed processes. However, existent methods for assessing process performance which constructed by statistical inference may unfortunately lead to fine results, because uncertainties exist in most real-world applications. Thus, this study adopts fuzzy inference to deal with testing of Cpk . A brief score is obtained for assessing a supplier’s process instead of a severe evaluation.
Keywords: Process capability analysis, quality control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14271420 A Paradigm Shift towards Personalized and Scalable Product Development and Lifecycle Management Systems in the Aerospace Industry
Authors: David E. Culler, Noah D. Anderson
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Integrated systems for product design, manufacturing, and lifecycle management are difficult to implement and customize. Commercial software vendors, including CAD/CAM and third party PDM/PLM developers, create user interfaces and functionality that allow their products to be applied across many industries. The result is that systems become overloaded with functionality, difficult to navigate, and use terminology that is unfamiliar to engineers and production personnel. For example, manufacturers of automotive, aeronautical, electronics, and household products use similar but distinct methods and processes. Furthermore, each company tends to have their own preferred tools and programs for controlling work and information flow and that connect design, planning, and manufacturing processes to business applications. This paper presents a methodology and a case study that addresses these issues and suggests that in the future more companies will develop personalized applications that fit to the natural way that their business operates. A functioning system has been implemented at a highly competitive U.S. aerospace tooling and component supplier that works with many prominent airline manufacturers around the world including The Boeing Company, Airbus, Embraer, and Bombardier Aerospace. During the last three years, the program has produced significant benefits such as the automatic creation and management of component and assembly designs (parametric models and drawings), the extensive use of lightweight 3D data, and changes to the way projects are executed from beginning to end. CATIA (CAD/CAE/CAM) and a variety of programs developed in C#, VB.Net, HTML, and SQL make up the current system. The web-based platform is facilitating collaborative work across multiple sites around the world and improving communications with customers and suppliers. This work demonstrates that the creative use of Application Programming Interface (API) utilities, libraries, and methods is a key to automating many time-consuming tasks and linking applications together.
Keywords: CAD/CAM, CAPP, PDM, PLM, Scalable Systems.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16521419 A Supply Chain Perspective of RFID Systems
Authors: A. N. Nambiar
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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) initially introduced during WW-II, has revolutionized the world with its numerous benefits and plethora of implementations in diverse areas ranging from manufacturing to agriculture to healthcare to hotel management. This work reviews the current research in this area with emphasis on applications for supply chain management and to develop a taxonomic framework to classify literature which will enable swift and easy content analysis and also help identify areas for future research.Keywords: RFID, supply chain, applications, classification framework.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23051418 Improving Security by Using Secure Servers Communicating via Internet with Standalone Secure Software
Authors: Carlos Gonzalez
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This paper describes the use of the Internet as a feature to enhance the security of our software that is going to be distributed/sold to users potentially all over the world. By placing in a secure server some of the features of the secure software, we increase the security of such software. The communication between the protected software and the secure server is done by a double lock algorithm. This paper also includes an analysis of intruders and describes possible responses to detect threats.Keywords: Internet, secure software, threats, cryptography process.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10451417 Optimal Energy Management System for Electrical Vehicles to Further Extend the Range
Authors: M. R. Rouhi, S. Shafiei, A. Taghavipour, H. Adibi-Asl, A. Doosthoseini
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This research targets at alleviating the problem of range anxiety associated with the battery electric vehicles (BEVs) by considering mechanical and control aspects of the powertrain. In this way, all the energy consuming components and their effect on reducing the range of the BEV and battery life index are identified. On the other hand, an appropriate control strategy is designed to guarantee the performance of the BEV and the extended electric range which is evaluated by an extensive simulation procedure and a real-world driving schedule.Keywords: Battery, electric vehicles EV, ultra-capacitor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11181416 A Study on the Waiting Time for the First Employment of Arts Graduates in Sri Lanka
Authors: Imali T. Jayamanne, K. P. Asoka Ramanayake
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Transition from tertiary level education to employment is one of the challenges that many fresh university graduates face after graduation. The transition period or the waiting time to obtain the first employment varies with the socio-economic factors and the general characteristics of a graduate. Compared to other fields of study, Arts graduates in Sri Lanka, have to wait a long time to find their first employment. The objective of this study is to identify the determinants of the transition from higher education to employment of these graduates using survival models. The study is based on a survey that was conducted in the year 2016 on a stratified random sample of Arts graduates from Sri Lankan universities who had graduated in 2012. Among the 469 responses, 36 (8%) waiting times were interval censored and 13 (3%) were right censored. Waiting time for the first employment varied between zero to 51 months. Initially, the log-rank and the Gehan-Wilcoxon tests were performed to identify the significant factors. Gender, ethnicity, GCE Advanced level English grade, civil status, university, class received, degree type, sector of first employment, type of first employment and the educational qualifications required for the first employment were significant at 10%. The Cox proportional hazards model was fitted to model the waiting time for first employment with these significant factors. All factors, except ethnicity and type of employment were significant at 5%. However, since the proportional hazard assumption was violated, the lognormal Accelerated failure time (AFT) model was fitted to model the waiting time for the first employment. The same factors were significant in the AFT model as in Cox proportional model.
Keywords: AFT model, first employment, proportional hazard, survey design, waiting time.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11201415 Sustainable Water Utilization in Arid Region of Iran by Qanats
Authors: F. Boustani
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To make use of the limited amounts of water in arid region, the Iranians developed man-made underground water channels called qanats (kanats) .In fact, qanats may be considered as the first long-distance water transfer system. Qanats are an ancient water transfer system found in arid regions wherein groundwater from mountainous areas, aquifers and sometimes from rivers, was brought to points of re-emergence such as an oasis, through one or more underground tunnels. The tunnels, many of which were kilometers in length, had designed for slopes to provide gravitational flow. The tunnels allowed water to drain out to the surface by gravity to supply water to lower and flatter agricultural land. Qanats have been an ancient, sustainable system facilitating the harvesting of water for centuries in Iran, and more than 35 additional countries of the world such as India, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, Spain and even to New world. There are about 22000 qanats in Iran with 274000 kilometers of underground conduits all built by manual labor. The amount of water of the usable qanats of Iran produce is altogether 750 to 1000 cubic meter per second. The longest chain of qanat is situated in Gonabad region in Khorasan province. It is 70 kilometers long. Qanats are renewable water supply systems that have sustained agricultural settlement on the Iranian plateau for millennia. The great advantages of Qanats are no evaporation during transit, little seepage , no raising of the water- table and no pollution in the area surrounding the conduits. Qanat systems have a profound influence on the lives of the water users in Iran, and conform to Iran-s climate. Qanat allows those living in a desert environment adjacent to a mountain watershed to create a large oasis in an otherwise stark environment. This paper explains qanats structure designs, their history, objectives causing their creation, construction materials, locations and their importance in different times, as well as their present sustainable role in Iran.Keywords: Iran, qanat, Sustainable water utilization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25611414 Towards a Framework for Evaluating Scientific Efficiency of World-Class Universities
Authors: Veljko Jeremic, Milica Kostic-Stankovic, Aleksandar Markovic, Milan Martic
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Evaluating the efficiency of decision making units has been frequently elaborated on in numerous publications. In this paper, the theoretical framework for a novel method of Distance Based Analysis (DBA) is presented. In addition, the method is performed on a sample of the ARWU’s top 54 Universities of the United States; the findings of which clearly demonstrate that the best ranked Universities are far from also being the most efficient.
Keywords: Evaluating Efficiency, Distance Based Analysis, Ranking of Universities, ARWU.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15661413 Transforming Health Information from Manual to Digital (Electronic) World–Reference and Guide
Authors: S. Karthikeyan, Naveen Bindra
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Introduction: To update ourselves and understand the concept of latest electronic formats available for Health care providers and how it could be used and developed as per standards. The idea is to correlate between the patients Manual Medical Records keeping and maintaining patients Electronic Information in a Health care setup in this world. Furthermore, this stands with adapting to the right technology depending upon the organization and improve our quality and quantity of Healthcare providing skills. Objective: The concept and theory is to explain the terms of Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health Record (PHR) and selecting the best technical among the available Electronic sources and software before implementing. It is to guide and make sure the technology used by the end users without any doubts and difficulties. The idea is to evaluate is to admire the uses and barriers of EMR-EHR-PHR. Aim and Scope: The target is to achieve the health care providers like Physicians, Nurses, Therapists, Medical Bill reimbursements, Insurances and Government to assess the patient’s information on easy and systematic manner without diluting the confidentiality of patient’s information. Method: Health Information Technology can be implemented with the help of Organisations providing with legal guidelines and help to stand by the health care provider. The main objective is to select the correct embedded and affordable database management software and generating large-scale data. The parallel need is to know how the latest software available in the market. Conclusion: The question lies here is implementing the Electronic information system with healthcare providers and organization. The clinicians are the main users of the technology and manage us to “go paperless”. The fact is that day today changing technologically is very sound and up to date. Basically, the idea is to tell how to store the data electronically safe and secure. All three exemplifies the fact that an electronic format has its own benefit as well as barriers.
Keywords: Medical records, digital records, health information, electronic record system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13611412 Estimating the Absorbed Dose to THYROID during Chest wall Radiotherapy
Authors: Seid Ali Asghar Terohid, Vahid Fayaz
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Thyroid cancer-s overall contribution to the worldwide cancer burden is relatively small, but incidence rates have increased over the last three decades throughout the world. This trend has been hypothesised to reflect a combination of technological advances enabling increased detection, but also changes in environmental factors, including population exposure to ionising radiation from fallout, diagnostic tests and treatment for benign and malignant conditions. The Thyroid dose received apparently shielded by cerrobend blocks was about 8cGy in 100cGy ExposeKeywords: Absorbed Dose, Thyroid, Radiotherapy
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17021411 The Highest Art Tasks of the World and Humans Transforming
Authors: K. Khalykov, G. Begalinova
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In the given article the creative arts is being investigated in the modern era and from the aspect of the artistic interrelationship, having created by the character of his personality and as the viewer. A study in the identity formation terms, the definition of its being unique, unity and similarity as a global issue of the XXI century has been conducted by the analyzing the definitions which characterize the human nature in the arts. Spiritual universality and human existence have been considered in the art system as a human who is a creator, as the man hero and as the character who is the recipient as well as the analyses which have been conducted along with the worldwide cultural and historical processes.Keywords: author, being, creative function of art, recipient and cultural contexts.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14111410 Information Filtering using Index Word Selection based on the Topics
Authors: Takeru YOKOI, Hidekazu YANAGIMOTO, Sigeru OMATU
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We have proposed an information filtering system using index word selection from a document set based on the topics included in a set of documents. This method narrows down the particularly characteristic words in a document set and the topics are obtained by Sparse Non-negative Matrix Factorization. In information filtering, a document is often represented with the vector in which the elements correspond to the weight of the index words, and the dimension of the vector becomes larger as the number of documents is increased. Therefore, it is possible that useless words as index words for the information filtering are included. In order to address the problem, the dimension needs to be reduced. Our proposal reduces the dimension by selecting index words based on the topics included in a document set. We have applied the Sparse Non-negative Matrix Factorization to the document set to obtain these topics. The filtering is carried out based on a centroid of the learning document set. The centroid is regarded as the user-s interest. In addition, the centroid is represented with a document vector whose elements consist of the weight of the selected index words. Using the English test collection MEDLINE, thus, we confirm the effectiveness of our proposal. Hence, our proposed selection can confirm the improvement of the recommendation accuracy from the other previous methods when selecting the appropriate number of index words. In addition, we discussed the selected index words by our proposal and we found our proposal was able to select the index words covered some minor topics included in the document set.Keywords: Information Filtering, Sparse NMF, Index wordSelection, User Profile, Chi-squared Measure
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14561409 Stages of Changes for Physical Activity among Iranian Adolescent Girls
Authors: Ashraf Pirasteh, Alireza Hidarnia, Ali Asghari, Soghrate Faghihzadeh, Fazlollah Ghofranipour
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Background: Regular physical activity contributes positively to physical and psychological health. In the present study, the stages of change of physical activity and the total physical Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the proportion of adolescent girls in each stages of change and the causative factors associated with physical activity such as the related social support and self efficacy in a sample of the high school students. Methods: In this study, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and the Transtheorical Model (TTM) guided instrument development. The data regarding the demographics, psychosocial determinants of physical activity, stage of change and physical activity was gathered by questionnaires. Several measures of psychosocial determinants of physical activity were translated from English into Persian using the back-translation technique. These translated measures were administered to 512 ninth and tenth-grade Iranian high school students for factor analysis. Results: The distribution of the stage of change for physical activity was as follow: 18/5% in precontemplation, 23.4% in contemplation, 38.2% in preparation, 4.6% in action and 15.3% in maintenance. They were in 80.1% pre-adoption stages (precontemplation stage, contemplation stage and preparation stage) and 19.9% post-adoption stages (action stage and maintenance stage) of physical activity. There was a significant relate between age and physical activity in adolescent girls (age-related decline of physical activity) p<0001. Conclusion: The findings of the present study can contribute to improve health behaviors and for administration of health promotion programs in the adolescent populations.Keywords: Adolescent, Iranian girls, Physical activity, Stages of change
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19781408 Lyric Poetry and the Motives in the Works of Poets of Syr Darya River Vicinity
Authors: Nuraddin Sadykov, Saule Erzhanova, Akmaral Dalelbekkyzy, Mukhit Tolegenov
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This article provides a comparative analysis of poetries of diverse nations around the world while largely focusing on Kazakh lyric poetry (Kazakh zhyraulyq oneri). Alongside, it sheds the light to the historical development and contemporary progress path of foremost poetry school located along the Syr Darya coast. Hereby, it-s content and central motives are examined.
Keywords: Lyric poetry (zhyraulyq oner), poet-musician (zhyrshy), Sufi tradition (sopylyq dastur), hermeneutics (germenevtica).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17461407 The Genesis of the Art of the Kazakh Sals, Seris and Paluans in Characteristic Comparison to European Histriones and Russian Skomorkhs
Authors: D. Dosbatyrov
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This article is a piece of the doctoral thesis "Syncretism of traditional Kazakh culture in the light of the innovation direction of circus and choreographic art of Kazakhstan and its integration into the world civilization", and reveals the features of the creative personalities of the traditional culture of shamans, sals, seris, paluans in the comparative characteristic of the European histriones and Russian skomorokhs.Keywords: circus, histriones, shamans, skomorkhs
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16111406 Performance Evaluation of Bluetooth Links in the Presence of Specific Types of Interference
Authors: Radosveta Sokullu, Engin Karatepe
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In the last couple of years Bluetooth has gained a large share in the market of home and personal appliances. It is now a well established technology a short range supplement to the wireless world of 802.11. The two main trends of research that have sprung from these developments are directed towards the coexistence and performance issues of Bluetooth and 802.11 as well as the co-existence in the very short range of multiple Bluetooth devices. Our work aims at thoroughly investigating different aspects of co-channel interference and effects of transmission power, distance and 802.11 interference on Bluetooth connections.
Keywords: Bluetooth, co-channel interference, 802.11, performance analysis
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17531405 A Case Study on Vocational Teachers’ Perceptions on Their Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Teaching
Authors: Kirsi Korkealehto
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In Finland the transformation from homogenous culture into multicultural one as a result of heavy immigration has been rapid in the recent decades. As multilingualism and multiculturalism are growing features in our society, teachers in all educational levels need to be competent for encounters with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Consequently, also the number of multicultural and multilingual vocational school students has increased which has not been taken into consideration in teacher education enough. To bridge this gap between teachers’ competences and the requirements of the contemporary school world, Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education established the DivEd-project. The aim of the project is to prepare all teachers to work in the linguistically and culturally diverse world they live in, to develop and increase culturally sustaining and linguistically responsive pedagogy in Finland, increase awareness among Teacher Educators working with preservice teachers and to increase awareness and provide specific strategies to in-service teachers. The partners in the nationwide project are 6 universities and 2 universities of applied sciences. In this research, the linguistically and culturally sustainable teaching practices developed within the DivEd-project are tested in practice. This research aims to explore vocational teachers’ perceptions of these multilingualism and multilingual educational practices. The participants of this study are vocational teachers in of different fields. The data were collected by individual, face-to-face interviews. The data analysis was conducted through content analysis. The findings indicate that the vocational teachers experience that they lack knowledge on linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy. Moreover, they regard themselves in some extent incompetent in incorporating multilingually and multiculturally sustainable pedagogy in everyday teaching work. Therefore, they feel they need more training pertaining multicultural and multilingual knowledge, competences and suitable pedagogical methods for teaching students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.Keywords: Multicultural, multilingual, teacher competences, vocational school.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5101404 The Challenge of Large-Scale IT Projects
Authors: Ahmet Denker
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The trend in the world of Information Technology (IT) is getting increasingly large and difficult projects rather than smaller and easier. However, the data on large-scale IT project success rates provide cause for concern. This paper seeks to answer why large-scale IT projects are different from and more difficult than other typical engineering projects. Drawing on the industrial experience, a compilation of the conditions that influence failure is presented. With a view to improve success rates solutions are suggested.Keywords: Software engineering, software economics, project management, large-scale projects.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16771403 Toward An Agreement on Semantic Web Architecture
Authors: Haytham Al-Feel, M.A.Koutb, Hoda Suoror
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There are many problems associated with the World Wide Web: getting lost in the hyperspace; the web content is still accessible only to humans and difficulties of web administration. The solution to these problems is the Semantic Web which is considered to be the extension for the current web presents information in both human readable and machine processable form. The aim of this study is to reach new generic foundation architecture for the Semantic Web because there is no clear architecture for it, there are four versions, but still up to now there is no agreement for one of these versions nor is there a clear picture for the relation between different layers and technologies inside this architecture. This can be done depending on the idea of previous versions as well as Gerber-s evaluation method as a step toward an agreement for one Semantic Web architecture.Keywords: Semantic Web Architecture, XML, RDF and Ontology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17021402 Embedding the Dimensions of Sustainability into City Information Modelling
Authors: Ali M. Al-Shaery
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The purpose of this paper is to address the functions of sustainability dimensions in city information modelling and to present the required sustainability criteria that support establishing a sustainable planning framework for enhancing existing cities and developing future smart cities. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section is based on the examination of a wide and extensive array of cross-disciplinary literature in the last decade and a half to conceptualize the terms ‘sustainable’ and ‘smart city’, and map their associated criteria to city information modelling. The second section is based on analyzing two approaches relating to city information modelling, namely statistical and dynamic approaches, and their suitability in the development of cities’ action plans. The paper argues that the use of statistical approaches to embed sustainability dimensions in city information modelling have limited value. Despite the popularity of such approaches in addressing other dimensions like utility and service management in development and action plans of the world cities, these approaches are unable to address the dynamics across various city sectors with regards to economic, environmental and social criteria. The paper suggests an integrative dynamic and cross-disciplinary planning approach to embedding sustainability dimensions in city information modelling frameworks. Such an approach will pave the way towards optimal planning and implementation of priority actions of projects and investments. The approach can be used to achieve three main goals: (1) better development and action plans for world cities (2) serve the development of an integrative dynamic and cross-disciplinary framework that incorporates economic, environmental and social sustainability criteria and (3) address areas that require further attention in the development of future sustainable and smart cities. The paper presents an innovative approach for city information modelling and a well-argued, balanced hierarchy of sustainability criteria that can contribute to an area of research which is still in its infancy in terms of development and management.
Keywords: Information modelling, smart city, sustainable city, sustainability dimensions, sustainability criteria, city development planning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11761401 Decoding the Construction of Identity and Struggle for Self-Assertion in Toni Morrison and Selected Indian Authors
Authors: Madhuri Goswami
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The matrix of power establishes the hegemonic dominance and supremacy of one group through exercising repression and relegation upon the other. However, the injustice done to any race, ethnicity or caste has instigated the protest and resistance through various modes- social campaigns, political movements, literary expression and so on. Consequently, the search for identity, the means of claiming it and strive for recognition have evolved as the persistent phenomena all through the world. In the discourse of protest and minority literature, these two discourses- African American and Indian Dalit- surprisingly, share wrath and anger, hope and aspiration, and quest for identity and struggle for self-assertion. African American and Indian Dalit are two geographically and culturally apart communities that stand together on a single platform. This paper has sought to comprehend the form and investigate the formation of identity in general and in the literary work of Toni Morrison and Indian Dalit writing, particularly i.e. Black identity and Dalit identity. The study has speculated two types of identity namely, individual or self and social or collective identity in the literary province of this marginalized literature. Morrison’s work outsources that self-identity is not merely a reflection of an inner essence; it is constructed through social circumstances and relations. Likewise, Dalit writings too have a fair record of the discovery of self-hood and formation of identity which connects to the realization of self-assertion and worthiness of their culture among Dalit writers. Bama, Pawar, Limbale, Pawde, and Kamble investigate their true self concealed amid societal alienation. The study has found that the struggle for recognition is, in fact, the striving to become the definer, instead of just being defined; and, this striving eventually, leads to the introspection among them. To conclude, Morrison as well as Indian marginalized authors, despite being set quite distant, communicate the relation between individual and community in the context of self-consciousness, self-identification, and (self) introspection. This research opens a scope for further research to find out similar phenomena and trace an analogy in other world literature.
Keywords: Identity, introspection, self-access, struggle for recognition
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5121400 Mechanisms of Internet Security Attacks
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Internet security attack could endanger the privacy of World Wide Web users and the integrity of their data. The attack can be carried out on today's most secure systems- browsers, including Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. There are too many types, methods and mechanisms of attack where new attack techniques and exploits are constantly being developed and discovered. In this paper, various types of internet security attack mechanisms are explored and it is pointed out that when different types of attacks are combined together, network security can suffer disastrous consequences.Keywords: DoS, internet attacks, router attack, security, trojan, virus, worm, XSS.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21091399 The Need to Enhance Online Consumer Protection in KSA
Authors: Abdulrahman Aloufi
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E-commerce has evolved to become a functional and mainstream tool of global trading, including in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Consequently, online consumers need protection just as much as consumers in the offline world. In 2019, the Ministry of Commerce in Saudi Arabia established a so-called ‘e-commerce law’; however, this law does not cover the court enforcement of contracts entered into by international vendors, so it is not applicable in cross-border situations. The purpose of this paper is to identify the gaps present in this new e-commerce law in Saudi Arabia.
Keywords: Consumer protection, e-commerce law, Saudi consumer, international vendor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7471398 Formant Tracking Linear Prediction Model using HMMs for Noisy Speech Processing
Authors: Zaineb Ben Messaoud, Dorra Gargouri, Saida Zribi, Ahmed Ben Hamida
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This paper presents a formant-tracking linear prediction (FTLP) model for speech processing in noise. The main focus of this work is the detection of formant trajectory based on Hidden Markov Models (HMM), for improved formant estimation in noise. The approach proposed in this paper provides a systematic framework for modelling and utilization of a time- sequence of peaks which satisfies continuity constraints on parameter; the within peaks are modelled by the LP parameters. The formant tracking LP model estimation is composed of three stages: (1) a pre-cleaning multi-band spectral subtraction stage to reduce the effect of residue noise on formants (2) estimation stage where an initial estimate of the LP model of speech for each frame is obtained (3) a formant classification using probability models of formants and Viterbi-decoders. The evaluation results for the estimation of the formant tracking LP model tested in Gaussian white noise background, demonstrate that the proposed combination of the initial noise reduction stage with formant tracking and LPC variable order analysis, results in a significant reduction in errors and distortions. The performance was evaluated with noisy natual vowels extracted from international french and English vocabulary speech signals at SNR value of 10dB. In each case, the estimated formants are compared to reference formants.Keywords: Formants Estimation, HMM, Multi Band Spectral Subtraction, Variable order LPC coding, White Gauusien Noise.
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Authors: Pedro M. Abreu, Bruno R. Mendes
Abstract:
The management of pharmacotherapy and the process of dispensing medicines is becoming critical in clinical pharmacy due to the increase of incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases, the complexity and customization of therapeutic regimens, the introduction of innovative and more expensive medicines, the unbalanced relation between expenditure and revenue as well as due to the lack of rationalization associated with medication use. For these reasons, co-payments emerged in Europe in the 70s and have been applied over the past few years in healthcare. Co-payments lead to a rationing and rationalization of user’s access under healthcare services and products, and simultaneously, to a qualification and improvement of the services and products for the end-user. This analysis, under hospital practices particularly and co-payment strategies in general, was carried out on all the European regions and identified four reference countries, that apply repeatedly this tool and with different approaches. The structure, content and adaptation of European co-payments were analyzed through 7 qualitative attributes and 19 performance indicators, and the results expressed in a scorecard, allowing to conclude that the German models (total score of 68,2% and 63,6% in both elected co-payments) can collect more compliance and effectiveness, the English models (total score of 50%) can be more accessible, and the French models (total score of 50%) can be more adequate to the socio-economic and legal framework. Other European models did not show the same quality and/or performance, so were not taken as a standard in the future design of co-payments strategies. In this sense, we can see in the co-payments a strategy not only to moderate the consumption of healthcare products and services, but especially to improve them, as well as a strategy to increment the value that the end-user assigns to these services and products, such as medicines.
Keywords: Clinical pharmacy, co-payments, healthcare, medicines.
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