Search results for: demographic variables

Authors: Heeae Ko, Jongkeun Kim, Kunjung Sim, Kunho Sim, Yonghwan Lim

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As mobile service's subscriber is increasing; mobile contents services are getting more and more variables. So, mobile contents development needs not only contents design but also guideline for just mobile. And when mobile contents are developed, it is important to pass the limit and restriction of the mobile. The restrictions of mobile are small browser and screen size, limited download size and uncomfortable navigation. So each contents of mobile guideline will be presented for user's usability, easy of development and consistency of rule. This paper will be proposed methodology which is each contents of mobile guideline. Mobile web will be developed by mobile guideline which I proposed.

Keywords: Guideline, interface, mobile, mobile computing, userexperience.

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

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

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

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Authors: D. Dib, W. Guebabi, M. B. Guesmi

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The objective of this paper is a contribution to a study of power supply by solar energy system called a common Ferkène north of Algerian desert in the semi-arid area. The optimal exploitation of the system, goes through stages of study and essential design, the choice of the model of the photovoltaic panel, the study of behavior with all the parameters involved in simulation before fixing the trajectory tracking the maximum point the power to extract (MPPT), form the essential platform to shape the design of the solar system set up to supply the town Ferkène without considering the grid. The identification of the common Ferkène by the collection of geographical, meteorological, demographic and electrical provides a basis uniform and important data. The results reflect a valid fictive model for any attempt to study and design a solar system to supply an arid or semi-arid zone by electrical energy from photovoltaic panels.

Keywords: Solar power, photovoltaic panel, Boost converter, supply, design, electric power, Ferkène, Algeria.

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Authors: Salfarina A.G., Nor Malina M., Azrina H.

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The right to housing is a basic need while good quality and affordable housing is a reflection of a high quality of life. However, housing remains a major problem for most, especially for the bottom billions. Satisfaction on housing and neighbourhood conditions are one of the important indicators that reflect quality of life. These indicators are also important in the process of evaluating housing policy with the objective to increase the quality of housing and neighbourhood. The research method is purely based on a quantitative method, using a survey. The findings show that housing purchasing trend in urban Malaysia is determined by demographic profiles, mainly by education level, age, gender and income. The period of housing ownership also influenced the socio-cultural interactions and satisfaction of house owners with their neighbourhoods. The findings also show that the main concerns for house buyers in urban areas are price and location of the house. Respondents feel that houses in urban Malaysia is too expensive and beyond their affordability. Location of houses and distance from work place are also regarded as the main concern. However, respondents are fairly satisfied with religious and socio-cultural facilities in the housing areas and most importantly not many regard ethnicity as an issue in their decision-making, when buying a house.

Keywords: Housing, Urban Housing, Malaysia

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Authors: Mohd Faridz Ahmad, Amirul Hakim Hasbullah

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Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) has been introduced and globally gained increasing attention on its usefulness. Continuous application of EMS may lead to the increment of muscle mass and indirectly will increase the strength. This study can be used as an alternative to help people especially those living a sedentary lifestyle to improve their muscle activity without having to go through a heavy workout session. Therefore, this study intended to investigate the effectiveness of EMS training program in 5 weeks interventions towards male body composition. It was a quasiexperimental design, held at the Impulse Studio Bangsar, which examined the effects of EMS training towards skeletal muscle mass among the subjects. Fifteen subjects (n = 15) were selected to assist in this study. The demographic data showed that, the average age of the subjects was 43.07 years old ± 9.90, height (173.4 cm ± 9.09) and weight was (85.79 kg ± 18.07). Results showed that there was a significant difference on the skeletal muscle mass (p = 0.01 < 0.05), upper body (p = 0.01 < 0.05) and lower body (p = 0.00 < 0.05). Therefore, the null hypothesis has been rejected in this study. As a conclusion, the application of EMS towards body composition can increase the muscle size and strength. This method has been proven to be able to improve athlete strength and thus, may be implemented in the sports science area of knowledge.

Keywords: Body composition, EMS, skeletal muscle mass, strength.

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Authors: Yanting Cao, Kazumitsu Nawata

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As smartphones are continually upgrading, their software and hardware are getting smarter, so the smartphone-based human activity recognition will be described more refined, complex and detailed. In this context, we analyzed a set of experimental data, obtained by observing and measuring 30 volunteers with six activities of daily living (ADL). Due to the large sample size, especially a 561-feature vector with time and frequency domain variables, cleaning these intractable features and training a proper model become extremely challenging. After a series of feature selection and parameters adjustments, a well-performed SVM classifier has been trained. 

Keywords: smart sensors, human activity recognition, artificial intelligence, SVM

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Authors: Payman Davoodi-Nasab, Ahmad Rahbar-Kelishami, Jaber Safdari, Hossein Abolghasemi

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The high purity rare earth elements (REEs) have been vastly used in the field of chemical engineering, metallurgy, nuclear energy, optical, magnetic, luminescence and laser materials, superconductors, ceramics, alloys, catalysts, and etc. Neodymium is one of the most abundant rare earths. By development of a neodymium–iron–boron (Nd–Fe–B) permanent magnet, the importance of neodymium has dramatically increased. Solvent extraction processes have many operational limitations such as large inventory of extractants, loss of solvent due to the organic solubility in aqueous solutions, volatilization of diluents, etc. One of the promising methods of liquid membrane processes is emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) which offers an alternative method to the solvent extraction processes. In this work, a study on Nd extraction through multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) assisted ELM using response surface methodology (RSM) has been performed. The ELM composed of diisooctylphosphinic acid (CYANEX 272) as carrier, MWCNTs as nanoparticles, Span-85 (sorbitan triooleate) as surfactant, kerosene as organic diluent and nitric acid as internal phase. The effects of important operating variables namely, surfactant concentration, MWCNTs concentration, and treatment ratio were investigated. Results were optimized using a central composite design (CCD) and a regression model for extraction percentage was developed. The 3D response surfaces of Nd(III) extraction efficiency were achieved and significance of three important variables and their interactions on the Nd extraction efficiency were found out. Results indicated that introducing the MWCNTs to the ELM process led to increasing the Nd extraction due to higher stability of membrane and mass transfer enhancement. MWCNTs concentration of 407 ppm, Span-85 concentration of 2.1 (%v/v) and treatment ratio of 10 were achieved as the optimum conditions. At the optimum condition, the extraction of Nd(III) reached the maximum of 99.03%.

Keywords: Emulsion liquid membrane, extraction of neodymium, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, response surface method.

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Authors: Dimas T. Anantyo, Zsa-Zsa A. Laksmi, Adhie N. Radityo, Arsita E. Rini, Gatot I. Sarosa

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A six-point-two-magnitude earthquake rocked Mamuju District, West Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, on 15 January 2021, causing significant health issues for the affected community, particularly among vulnerable populations such as neonates and children. The aim of this study is to examine and describe the diseases diagnosed in the pediatric population in Mamuju 14 days after the earthquake. This study uses a prospective observational study of the pediatric population presenting at West Sulawesi Regional Hospital, Mamuju Regional Public Hospital, and Bhayangkara Hospital for the period of 14 days after the earthquake. Demographic and clinical information was recorded. 153 children were admitted to the health center. Children younger than six years old were the highest proportion (78%). Out of 153 children, 82 of them were male (54%). The most frequently diagnosed disease during the first and second weeks after the earthquake was respiratory problems, followed by gastrointestinal problems that showed an increase in incidence in the second week. This study found that age has a correlation with common disease in children after an earthquake. Respiratory and gastrointestinal problems were found to be the most common diseases among the pediatric population in Mamuju after the earthquake.

Keywords: Health outcomes, pediatric population, earthquake, Mamuju.

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Authors: Zhe JIN, Motomichi TOYAMA

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PPX(Pretty Printer for XML) is a query language that offers a concise description method of formatting the XML data into HTML. In this paper, we propose a simple specification of formatting method that is a combination description of automatic layout operators and variables in the layout expression of the GENERATE clause of PPX. This method can automatically format irregular XML data included in a part of XML with layout decision rule that is referred to DTD. In the experiment, a quick comparison shows that PPX requires far less description compared to XSLT or XQuery programs doing same tasks.

Keywords: PPX, Irregular XML data, Layout decision rule, HTML.

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Authors: Somtop Keawchuer

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This research aims to study (1) the relationship between competency-based learning and learning efficiency of new media communication students at Suan Sunandha University (2) the demographic factor effect on learning efficiency of students at Suan Sunandha University. This research method will use quantitative research; data was collected by questionnaires distributed to students from new media communication in management science faculty of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University for 1340 sample by purposive sampling method. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistic including percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistic including T-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation for hypothesis testing. The results showed that the competency-based learning in term of ability to communicate, ability to think and solve the problem, life skills and ability to use technology has a significant relationship with learning efficiency in term of the cognitive domain, psychomotor domain and affective domain at the 0.05 level and which is in harmony with the research hypotheses.

Keywords: Competency-based learning, learning efficiency, new media communication students, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University.

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Authors: A. Hadi-Vencheh, N. Shayesteh Moghadam

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Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has gained great popularity in environmental performance measurement because it can provide a synthetic standardized environmental performance index when pollutants are suitably incorporated into the traditional DEA framework. Since some of the environmental performance indicators cannot be controlled by companies managers, it is necessary to develop the model in a way that it could be applied when discretionary and/or non-discretionary factors were involved. In this paper, we present a semi-radial DEA approach to measuring environmental performance, which consists of non-discretionary factors. The model, then, has been applied on a real case.

Keywords: Environmental performance, efficiency, non-discretionary variables, data envelopment analysis.

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Authors: Reginald D. Smith

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The dynamics of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) traffic over Ethernet between two computers are analyzed using nonlinear dynamics which shows that there are two clear regimes in the data flow: free flow and saturated. The two most important variables affecting this are the packet size and packet flow rate. However, this transition is due to a transcritical bifurcation rather than phase transition in models such as in vehicle traffic or theorized large-scale computer network congestion. It is hoped this model will help lay the groundwork for further research on the dynamics of networks, especially computer networks.

Keywords: congestion, packet flow, Internet, traffic dynamics, transcritical bifurcation

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Authors: Mehmet Altinoz

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Enterprises need a strategic plan to retain their skillful employees and provide their career management, sustain their existence, to have growth and leadership qualities, to reach the objectives to increase the value of the enterprise and to not to be affected from changing demographic structure. In the cases when the long term career expectations of skillful employees are in integrity with the enterprise’s interests, skill management process is directly related to the career management. With a long term plan, the enterprises should cover the labor force need that may arise in the future by using systematic career development programs and be prepared against developments for all times. Skill management is considered as a practice with which career mobility is planned for the skillful employee to be prepared for high level positions. Career planning is the planning of an employee’s progress or promotion within an organization for which he works by developing his knowledge, skills, abilities and motives. Career planning is considered as an individual’s planning his future and the position which he wants to have, the area which he want to work in, the objectives which he want to reach. With the aim of contributing the abovementioned discussion process, career management concept and its perception manner are examined in this study in a comparative manner.

Keywords: Skill management, career management, skill, back up, human resources management.

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Authors: C. Recommandé, J.C. Blind, A. Clavel, R. Gourichon, V. Le Gal

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Simulations are developed in this paper with usual DSGE model equations. The model is based on simplified version of Smets-Wouters equations in use at European Central Bank which implies 10 macro-economic variables: consumption, investment, wages, inflation, capital stock, interest rates, production, capital accumulation, labour and credit rate, and allows take into consideration the banking system. Throughout the simulations, this model will be used to evaluate the impact of rate shocks recounting the actions of the European Central Bank during 2008.

Keywords: CC-LM, Central Bank, DSGE, Liquidity Shock, Non-standard Intervention.

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Authors: Gracia V. Navarro, María C. González, María G. González, María V. González

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In Chile, since 2002, there are extracurricular enrichment programs complementary to regular education for students with high intellectual capacity. This paper describes a model for the educational inclusion of students, with special educational needs associated with high intellectual capacity, developed at the University of Concepción and its effects on its students, academics and undergraduate students that collaborate with the program. The Talentos UdeC Program was created in 2003 and is intended for 240 children and youth from 11 to 18 years old, from 15 communes of the Biobio region. The case Talentos UdeC is analyzed from a mixed qualitative study in which those participating in the educational model are considered. The sample was composed of 30 students, 30 academics, and 30 undergraduate students. In the case of students, pre and post program measurements were made to analyze their socio-emotional adaptation, academic motivation and socially responsible behavior. The mentioned variables are measured through questionnaires designed and validated by the University of Concepcion that included: The Socially Responsible Behavior Questionnaire (CCSR); the Academic Motivation Questionnaire (CMA) and the Socio-Emotional Adaptation Questionnaire (CASE). The information obtained by these questionnaires was analyzed through a quantitative analysis. Academics and undergraduate students were interviewed to learn their perception of the effects of the program on themselves, on students and on society. The information obtained is analyzed using qualitative analysis based on the identification of common themes and descriptors for the construction of conceptual categories of answers. Quantitative results show differences in the first three variables analyzed in the students, after their participation for two years in Talentos UdeC. Qualitative results demonstrate perception of effects in the vision of world, project of life and in other areas of the students’ development; perception of effects in a personal, professional and organizational plane by academics and a perception of effects in their personal-social development and training in generic competencies by undergraduates students.

Keywords: Educational model, high intellectual capacity, inclusion, special educational needs.

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Authors: Simon B. N. Thompson

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Cortisol is essential to the regulation of the immune system and yawning is a pathological symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS). Electromyography activity (EMG) in the jaw muscles typically rises when the muscles are moved and with yawning is highly correlated with cortisol levels in healthy people. Saliva samples from 59 participants were collected at the start and after yawning, or at the end of the presentation of yawning-provoking stimuli, in the absence of a yawn, together with EMG data and questionnaire data: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Yawning Susceptibility Scale, General Health Questionnaire, demographic, health details. Exclusion criteria: chronic fatigue, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heart condition, high blood pressure, hormone replacement therapy, multiple sclerosis, stroke. Significant differences were found between the saliva cortisol samples for the yawners, t (23) = -4.263, p = 0.000, as compared with the non-yawners between rest and post-stimuli, which was nonsignificant. Significant evidence was found to support the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis suggesting that rises in cortisol levels are associated with yawning. Further research is exploring the use of cortisol as an early diagnostic tool for MS. Ethics approval granted and professional code of conduct, confidentiality, and safety issues are approved therein.

Keywords: Cortisol, Multiple Sclerosis, Yawning, Thompson’s Cortisol Hypothesis.

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Authors: Waratta Authayarat, Hiroyuki Umemuro

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This study aims to explore the differences and similarities in perceptions of affective climate antecedents at the workplace (intimacy, flexibility, employment stability, and team) among Japanese and Thai Generations X and Y. The samples in this study were Thai and Japanese workers who completed a work environment questionnaire and provided demographic information. Generational differences in perceptions (beliefs) of what factors contribute to affective climate were investigated using t-test analysis. Mean scores for each antecedent were ranked to determine how each generation in each group prioritized the importance of all affective climate antecedents. Japanese Generation Y perceived the importance of employment stability for affective climate of their workplaces to be significantly higher than did Japanese Generation X. Thai Generation Y considered flexibility with a higher priority than did Thai Generation X. Intimacy was perceived as highly important across generations and countries in regard to affective climate. Results suggest that managers should design workplaces for a mixture of diverse generations, resulting in a better affective climate. Differences in the importance of antecedents for affective climate among Generations X and Y in two countries were clarified. In addition, different preferences regarding work environment across Japanese Generations X and Y and Thai Generations X and Y were discussed.

Keywords: Affective Climate, Employee, Generational Differences, Workplace

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Authors: Renata Carneiro, Jody Russon, Allena Moncrief, Erica Wilkins

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Views on therapists- attraction have influenced the ethical and professional development of the mental health fields. Because the majority of therapist attraction literature (63.6%) has been conducted from a psychoanalytic standpoint, approaches to attraction from feminist perspectives have not been adequately developed. Considering the lack of a feminist voice regarding attraction, this article attempts to offer a feminist perspective on this issue. The purpose of this article is to offer a feminist perspective on the phenomenon of attraction in order to raise awareness about the importance of power inequalities, intersectionalities, contextual variables and the need for action in the field.

Keywords: attraction, feminism, power inequality, silence

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Authors: B. Farahani, R. Fadil, A. Aboonabi, B. Hoffmann, J. Loscheider, K. Tavakolian, S. Arzanpour

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Wheelchair users spend long hours in a sitting position, and selecting the right cushion is highly critical in preventing pressure ulcers in that demographic. Pressure Mapping Systems (PMS) are typically used in clinical settings by therapists to identify the sitting profile and pressure points in the sitting area to select the cushion that fits the best for the users. A PMS is a flexible mat composed of arrays of distributed networks of pressure sensors. The output of the PMS systems is a color-coded image that shows the intensity of the pressure concentration. Therapists use the PMS images to compare different cushions fit for each user. This process is highly subjective and requires good visual memory for the best outcome. This paper aims to develop an image processing technique to analyze the images of PMS and provide an objective measure to assess the cushions based on their pressure distribution mappings. In this paper, we first reviewed the skeletal anatomy of the human sitting area and its relation to the PMS image. This knowledge is then used to identify the important features that must be considered in image processing. We then developed an algorithm based on those features to analyze the images and rank them according to their fit to the user's needs. 

Keywords: cushion, image processing, pressure mapping system, wheelchair

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Authors: Sami W. Tabsh

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The strength of reinforced concrete depends on the member dimensions and material properties. The properties of concrete and steel materials are not constant but random variables. The variability of concrete strength is due to batching errors, variations in mixing, cement quality uncertainties, differences in the degree of compaction and disparity in curing. Similarly, the variability of steel strength is attributed to the manufacturing process, rolling conditions, characteristics of base material, uncertainties in chemical composition, and the microstructure-property relationships. To account for such uncertainties, codes of practice for reinforced concrete design impose resistance factors to ensure structural reliability over the useful life of the structure. In this investigation, the effects of reductions in concrete and reinforcing steel strengths from the nominal values, beyond those accounted for in the structural design codes, on the structural reliability are assessed. The considered limit states are flexure, shear and axial compression based on the ACI 318-11 structural concrete building code. Structural safety is measured in terms of a reliability index. Probabilistic resistance and load models are compiled from the available literature. The study showed that there is a wide variation in the reliability index for reinforced concrete members designed for flexure, shear or axial compression, especially when the live-to-dead load ratio is low. Furthermore, variations in concrete strength have minor effect on the reliability of beams in flexure, moderate effect on the reliability of beams in shear, and sever effect on the reliability of columns in axial compression. On the other hand, changes in steel yield strength have great effect on the reliability of beams in flexure, moderate effect on the reliability of beams in shear, and mild effect on the reliability of columns in axial compression. Based on the outcome, it can be concluded that the reliability of beams is sensitive to changes in the yield strength of the steel reinforcement, whereas the reliability of columns is sensitive to variations in the concrete strength. Since the embedded target reliability in structural design codes results in lower structural safety in beams than in columns, large reductions in material strengths compromise the structural safety of beams much more than they affect columns.

Keywords: Code, flexure, limit states, random variables, reinforced concrete, reliability, reliability index, shear, structural safety.

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Authors: Camelia Petrescu, Lavinia Ferariu

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The paper presents an optimization study based on genetic algorithms (GA-s) for a radio-frequency applicator used in heating dielectric band products. The weakly coupled electro-thermal problem is analyzed using 2D-FEM. The design variables in the optimization process are: the voltage of a supplementary “guard" electrode and six geometric parameters of the applicator. Two objective functions are used: temperature uniformity and total active power absorbed by the dielectric. Both mono-objective and multiobjective formulations are implemented in GA optimization.

Keywords: Dielectric heating, genetic algorithms, optimization, RF applicators.

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Authors: Kunyanuth Kularbphettong, Cholticha Tongsiri

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The purpose of this research aims to discover the knowledge for analysis student motivation behavior on e-Learning based on Data Mining Techniques, in case of the Information Technology for Communication and Learning Course at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The data mining techniques was applied in this research including association rules, classification techniques. The results showed that using data mining technique can indicate the important variables that influence the student motivation behavior on e-Learning.

Keywords: association rule mining, classification techniques, e- Learning, Moodle log Motivation Behavior

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Authors: Emily Kislik, Gabriel Mantilla Saltos, Gladys Torres, Mercy Borbor-Córdova

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The Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR) is an internationally-recognized region of consistent upwelling events, high productivity, and rich biodiversity. Despite its high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll condition, the archipelago has experienced phytoplankton blooms, especially in the western section between Isabela and Fernandina Islands. However, little is known about how climate variability will affect future phytoplankton standing stock in the Galápagos, and no consistent protocols currently exist to quantify phytoplankton biomass, identify species, or monitor for potential harmful algal blooms (HABs) within the archipelago. This analysis investigates physical, chemical, and biological oceanic variables that contribute to algal blooms within the GMR, using 4 km Aqua MODIS satellite imagery and 0.125-degree wind stress data from January 2003 to December 2016. Furthermore, this study analyzes chlorophyll-a concentrations at varying spatial scales— within the greater archipelago, as well as within five smaller bioregions based on species biodiversity in the GMR. Seasonal and interannual trend analyses, correlations, and hotspot identification were performed. Results demonstrate that chlorophyll-a is expressed in two seasons throughout the year in the GMR, most frequently in September and March, with a notable hotspot in the Elizabeth Bay bioregion. Interannual chlorophyll-a trend analyses revealed highest peaks in 2003, 2007, 2013, and 2016, and variables that correlate highly with chlorophyll-a include surface temperature and particulate organic carbon. This study recommends future in situ sampling locations for phytoplankton monitoring, including the Elizabeth Bay bioregion. Conclusions from this study contribute to the knowledge of oceanic drivers that catalyze primary productivity and consequently affect species biodiversity within the GMR. Additionally, this research can inform policy and decision-making strategies for species conservation and management within bioregions of the Galápagos.

Keywords: Bioregions, ecological monitoring, phytoplankton, remote sensing.

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Authors: R. Hosseingholizadeh

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This article presents a method for elections between the members of a group that is founded by fuzzy logic. Linguistic variables are objects for decision on election cards and deduction is based on t-norms and s-norms. In this election-s method election cards are questionnaire. The questionnaires are comprised of some questions with some choices. The choices are words from natural language. Presented method is accompanied by center of gravity (COG) defuzzification added up to a computer program by MATLAB. Finally the method is illustrated by solving two examples; choose a head for a research group-s members and a representative for students.

Keywords: fuzzy election, fuzzy electoral card, fuzzy inference, questionnaire.

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Authors: Luis Fonseca, Filipe Cabral Pinto, Susana Sargento

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The increase of the world population, especially in large urban centers, has resulted in new challenges particularly with the control and optimization of public safety. Thus, in the present work, a solution is proposed for the prediction of criminal occurrences in a city based on historical data of incidents and demographic information. The entire research and implementation will be presented start with the data collection from its original source, the treatment and transformations applied to them, choice and the evaluation and implementation of the Machine Learning model up to the application layer. Classification models will be implemented to predict criminal risk for a given time interval and location. Machine Learning algorithms such as Random Forest, Neural Networks, K-Nearest Neighbors and Logistic Regression will be used to predict occurrences, and their performance will be compared according to the data processing and transformation used. The results show that the use of Machine Learning techniques helps to anticipate criminal occurrences, which contributed to the reinforcement of public security. Finally, the models were implemented on a platform that will provide an API to enable other entities to make requests for predictions in real-time. An application will also be presented where it is possible to show criminal predictions visually.

Keywords: Crime prediction, machine learning, public safety, smart city.

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Authors: Ferenc Peter Pach, Janos Abonyi

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This paper focuses on the data-driven generation of fuzzy IF...THEN rules. The resulted fuzzy rule base can be applied to build a classifier, a model used for prediction, or it can be applied to form a decision support system. Among the wide range of possible approaches, the decision tree and the association rule based algorithms are overviewed, and two new approaches are presented based on the a priori fuzzy clustering based partitioning of the continuous input variables. An application study is also presented, where the developed methods are tested on the well known Wisconsin Breast Cancer classification problem.

Keywords:

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Authors: Bharat B. Gulyani, Anuj Jain, Shalendra Kumar

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Customarily, the LMTD correction factor, FT, is used to screen alternative designs for a heat exchanger. Designs with unacceptably low FT values are discarded. In this paper, authors have proposed a more fundamental criterion, based on feasibility of a multipass exchanger as the only criteria, followed by economic optimization. This criterion, coupled with asymptotic energy targets, provide the complete optimization space in a heat exchanger network (HEN), where cost-optimization of HEN can be performed with only Heat Recovery Approach temperature (HRAT) and number-of-shells as variables.

Keywords: heat exchanger, heat exchanger networks, LMTD correction factor, shell targeting.

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Authors: Bo Bae Song, Byung Seok Lee, Hyun Young Kim, Chung Kwang Lee, Yong Seo Koo

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This paper proposed a silicon controller rectifier (SCR) based ESD protection device to protect low voltage ESD for integrated circuit. The proposed ESD protection device has low trigger voltage and high holding voltage compared with conventional SCR-based ESD protection devices. The proposed ESD protection circuit is verified and compared by TCAD simulation. This paper verified effective low voltage ESD characteristics with low trigger voltage of 5.79V and high holding voltage of 3.5V through optimization depending on design variables (D1, D2, D3 and D4).

Keywords: ESD, SCR, Holding voltage, Latch-up.

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Authors: Malek Makki

Abstract:

The main purpose of this research study is to assist non-profit organizations (NPOs) to better segment a group of least developing countries and to optimally target the most needier areas, so that the provided aids make positive and lasting differences. We applied international marketing and strategy approaches to segment a sub-group of candidates among a group of 151 countries identified by the UN-G77 list, and furthermore, we point out the areas of priorities. We use reliable and well known criteria on the basis of economics, geography, demography and behavioral. These criteria can be objectively estimated and updated so that a follow-up can be performed to measure the outcomes of any program. We selected 12 socio-economic criteria that complement each other: GDP per capita, GDP growth, industry value added, export per capita, fragile state index, corruption perceived index, environment protection index, ease of doing business index, global competitiveness index, Internet use, public spending on education, and employment rate. A weight was attributed to each variable to highlight the relative importance of each criterion within the country. Care was taken to collect the most recent available data from trusted well-known international organizations (IMF, WB, WEF, and WTO). Construct of equivalence was carried out to compare the same variables across countries. The combination of all these weighted estimated criteria provides us with a global index that represents the level of development per country. An absolute index that combines wars and risks was introduced to exclude or include a country on the basis of conflicts and a collapsing state. The final step applied to the included countries consists of a benchmarking method to select the segment of countries and the percentile of each criterion. The results of this study allowed us to exclude 16 countries for risks and security. We also excluded four countries because they lack reliable and complete data. The other countries were classified per percentile thru their global index, and we identified the needier and the areas where aids are highly required to help any NPO to prioritize the area of implementation. This new concept is based on defined, actionable, accessible and accurate variables by which NPO can implement their program and it can be extended to profit companies to perform their corporate social responsibility acts.

Keywords: Developing countries, International marketing, non-profit organization, segmentation.

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Authors: Janis Šliseris, Karlis Rocens

Abstract:

Optimization of rational geometrical and mechanical parameters of panel with curved plywood ribs is considered in this paper. The panel consists of cylindrical plywood ribs manufactured from Finish plywood, upper and bottom plywood flange, stiffness diaphragms. Panel is filled with foam. Minimal ratio of structure self weight and load that could be applied to structure is considered as rationality criteria. Optimization is done, by using classical beam theory without nonlinearities. Optimization of discreet design variables is done by Genetic algorithm.

Keywords: Curved plywood ribs, genetic algorithm, rationalparameters of ribbed panel, structure optimization.

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