Search results for: Sustainable development in remote regions

Authors: Abdallah S. Abdallah, A. Lynn Abbott, Mohamad Abou El-Nasr

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This paper presents a new technique for detection of human faces within color images. The approach relies on image segmentation based on skin color, features extracted from the two-dimensional discrete cosine transform (DCT), and self-organizing maps (SOM). After candidate skin regions are extracted, feature vectors are constructed using DCT coefficients computed from those regions. A supervised SOM training session is used to cluster feature vectors into groups, and to assign “face" or “non-face" labels to those clusters. Evaluation was performed using a new image database of 286 images, containing 1027 faces. After training, our detection technique achieved a detection rate of 77.94% during subsequent tests, with a false positive rate of 5.14%. To our knowledge, the proposed technique is the first to combine DCT-based feature extraction with a SOM for detecting human faces within color images. It is also one of a few attempts to combine a feature-invariant approach, such as color-based skin segmentation, together with appearance-based face detection. The main advantage of the new technique is its low computational requirements, in terms of both processing speed and memory utilization.

Keywords: Face detection, skin color segmentation, self-organizingmap.

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Authors: M. Adamczak-Retecka, O. Hołub-Śniadach

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Dangerous of climate change is now global problem and as such has a strategic priority also for the European Union. Europe and European citizens try to do their best to cut greenhouse gas emissions, moreover they substantially encourage other nations and regions to follow the same way. The European Commission and a number of Member States have developed adaptation strategies in order to help strengthen EU's resilience to the inevitable impacts of climate change. The EU has long been a driving force in international negotiations on climate change and was instrumental in the development of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As the world's leading donor of development aid, the EU also provides substantial funding to help developing countries tackle climate change problem. Global warming influences human health, biodiversity, ecosystems but also many social and economic sectors. The aim of this paper is to focus on impact of claimant change on for food security. Food security challenges are directly related to globalization, climate change. It means that current and future food policy is exposed to all cross-cutting and that must be linked with environmental and climate targets, which supposed to be achieved. In the 7th EAP —The new general Union Environment Action Program to 2020, called “Living well, within the limits of our planet” EU has agreed to step up its efforts to protect natural capital, stimulate resource efficient, low carbon growth and innovation, and safeguard people’s health and wellbeing– while respecting the Earth’s natural limits.

Keywords: Climate change, EU law, food policy, food security.

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Authors: S. Pancucci

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Professional development is the focus of this study. It reports on questionnaire data that examined the perceived effectiveness of the Train the Trainer model of technology professional development for elementary teachers. Eighty-three selected teachers called Information Technology Coaches received four half-day and one after-school in-service sessions. Subsequently, coaches shared the information and skills acquired during training with colleagues. Results indicated that participants felt comfortable as Information Technology Coaches and felt well prepared because of their technological professional development. Overall, participants perceived the Train the Trainer model to be effective. The outcomes of this study suggest that the use of the Train the Trainer model, a known professional development model, can be an integral and interdependent component of the newer more comprehensive learning community professional development model.

Keywords: change, education, learning community, professional development, school improvement, technology coach, Train the Trainer.

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Authors: M. Michael Gromiha, A. Mary Thangakani, Sandeep Kumar, D. Velmurugan

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The main cause of several neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzhemier, Parkinson and spongiform encephalopathies is formation of amyloid fibrils and plaques in proteins. We have analyzed different sets of proteins and peptides to understand the influence of sequence based features on protein aggregation process. The comparison of 373 pairs of homologous mesophilic and thermophilic proteins showed that aggregation prone regions (APRs) are present in both. But, the thermophilic protein monomers show greater ability to ‘stow away’ the APRs in their hydrophobic cores and protect them from solvent exposure. The comparison of amyloid forming and amorphous b-aggregating hexapeptides suggested distinct preferences for specific residues at the six positions as well as all possible combinations of nine residue pairs. The compositions of residues at different positions and residue pairs have been converted into energy potentials and utilized for distinguishing between amyloid forming and amorphous b-aggregating peptides. Our method could correctly identify the amyloid forming peptides at an accuracy of 95-100% in different datasets of peptides.

Keywords: Aggregation prone regions, amyloids, thermophilic proteins, amino acid residues, machine learning.

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Authors: Jonghyun Park, Toan Nguyen Dinh, Gueesang Lee

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In this paper, we present a novel approach to accurately detect text regions including shop name in signboard images with complex background for mobile system applications. The proposed method is based on the combination of text detection using edge profile and region segmentation using fuzzy c-means method. In the first step, we perform an elaborate canny edge operator to extract all possible object edges. Then, edge profile analysis with vertical and horizontal direction is performed on these edge pixels to detect potential text region existing shop name in a signboard. The edge profile and geometrical characteristics of each object contour are carefully examined to construct candidate text regions and classify the main text region from background. Finally, the fuzzy c-means algorithm is performed to segment and detected binarize text region. Experimental results show that our proposed method is robust in text detection with respect to different character size and color and can provide reliable text binarization result.

Keywords: Text detection, edge profile, signboard image, fuzzy clustering.

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Authors: Dwi Puspita Sari, Gulnur Baltabayeva, Nadia Salman, Maxut Toleuov, Vijay Kanabar

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Technology era drives people to use mobile phone to support their daily life activities. Technology development has a rapid phase which pushes the IT company to adjust any technology changes in order to fulfill customer’s satisfaction. As a result of that, many companies in the USA emerged from systematics software development approach to agile software development approach in developing systems and applications to develop many mobile phone applications in a short phase to fulfill user’s needs. As a systematic approach is considered as time consuming, costly, and too risky, agile software development has become a more popular approach to use for developing software including mobile applications. This paper reflects a short-term project to develop a diet tracker mobile application using agile software development that focused on applying scrum framework in the development process.

Keywords: Agile software development, scrum, diet tracker, mobile application.

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Authors: Nasser Mozayani, Maryam Barzegar, Hoda Madani

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Vehicular communications play a substantial role in providing safety in transportation by means of safety message exchange. Researchers have proposed several solutions for securing safety messages. Protocols based on a fixed key infrastructure are more efficient in implementation and maintain stronger security in comparison with dynamic structures. These protocols utilize zone partitioning to establish distinct key infrastructure under Certificate Authority (CA) supervision in different regions. Secure anonymous broadcasting (SAB) is one of these protocols that preserves most of security aspects but it has some deficiencies in practice. A very important issue is region change of a vehicle for its mobility. Changing regions leads to change of CA and necessity of having new key set to resume communication. In this paper, we propose solutions for informing vehicles about region change to obtain new key set before entering next region. This hinders attackers- intrusion, packet loss and lessons time delay. We also make key request messages secure by confirming old CA-s public key to the message, hence stronger security for safety message broadcasting is attained.

Keywords: Secure broadcasting, Certificate authority (CA), Key exchange, Vehicular network.

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Authors: Amit Bhattacharyya

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The economic scenario of any region does not show the real picture for the measurement of overall development. Therefore, economic development must be accompanied by social development to be able to make an assessment to measure the level of development. The spatial variation with respect to social development has been discussed taking into account the quality of functioning of a social system in a specific area. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the spatial distribution of social infrastructural facilities and analyze the magnitude of regional disparities at inter- block level in Barddhman district. It starts with the detailed account of the selection process of social infrastructure indicators and describes the methodology employed in the empirical analysis. Analyzing the block level data, this paper tries to identify the disparity among the blocks in the levels of social development. The results have been subsequently explained using both statistical analysis and geo spatial technique. The paper reveals that the social development is not going on at the same rate in every part of the district. Health facilities and educational facilities are concentrated at some selected point. So overall development activities come to be concentrated in a few centres and the disparity is seen over the blocks.

Keywords: Disparity, inter-block, social development, spatial variation.

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Authors: Mijoh A. Gbededo, Kapila Liyanage, Ilias Oraifige

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Decision making for sustainable manufacturing design and management requires critical considerations due to the complexity and partly conflicting issues of economic, social and environmental factors. Although there are tools capable of assessing the combination of one or two of the sustainability factors, the frameworks have not adequately integrated all the three factors. Case study and review of existing simulation applications also shows the approach lacks integration of the sustainability factors. In this paper we discussed the development of a simulation based framework for support of a holistic assessment of sustainable manufacturing design and management. To achieve this, a strategic approach is introduced to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing decision supporting tools. Investigation reveals that Discrete Event Simulation (DES) can serve as a rock base for other Life Cycle Analysis frameworks. Simio-DES application optimizes systems for both economic and competitive advantage, Granta CES EduPack and SimaPro collate data for Material Flow Analysis and environmental Life Cycle Assessment, while social and stakeholders’ analysis is supported by Analytical Hierarchy Process, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis method. Such a common and integrated framework creates a platform for companies to build a computer simulation model of a real system and assess the impact of alternative solutions before implementing a chosen solution.

Keywords: Discrete event simulation, life cycle sustainability analysis, manufacturing, sustainability.

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Authors: Hui Tag, Jambey Tsering, Pallabi Kalita Hui, Baikuntha Jyoti Gogoi, Vijay Veer

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The food security issues and its relevance in High Mountain regions of the world have been often neglected. Wild edible plants have been playing a major role in livelihood security among the tribal Communities of East Himalayan Region of the world since time immemorial. The Eastern Himalayan Region of India is one of the mega diverse regions of world and rated as top 12th Global Biodiversity Hotspots by IUCN and recognized as one of the 200 significant eco-regions of the Globe. The region supports one of the world’s richest alpine floras and about one-third of them are endemic to the region. There are at least 7,500 flowering plants, 700 orchids, 58 bamboo species, 64 citrus species, 28 conifers, 500 mosses, 700 ferns and 728 lichens. The region is the home of more than three hundred different ethnic communities having diverse knowledge on traditional uses of flora and fauna as food, medicine and beverages. Monpa, Memba and Khamba are among the local communities residing in high altitude region of Eastern Himalaya with rich traditional knowledge related to utilization of wild edible plants. The Monpas, Memba and Khamba are the followers Mahayana sect of Himalayan Buddhism and they are mostly agrarian by primary occupation and also heavily relaying on wild edible plants for their livelihood security during famine since millennia. In the present study, we have reported traditional uses of 40 wild edible plant species and out of which 6 species were analyzed at biochemical level for nutrients contents and free radical scavenging activities. The results have shown significant free radical scavenging (antioxidant) activity and nutritional potential of the selected 6 wild edible plants used by the local communities of Eastern Himalayan Region of India.

Keywords: East Himalaya, Local community, Wild edible plants, Nutrition, Food security.

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Authors: K. Praraththajariya

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The main purpose of this research was to study how to communicate the identity of the Amphawa district, Samut Songkram province for sustainable tourism. The qualitative data was collected through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows: 1. The identity of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province is the area controlled by Amphawa sub district (submunicipality). The working unit which runs and looks after Amphawa sub district administration is known as the Amphawa mayor. This establishment was built to be a resort for normal people and tourists visiting the Amphawa district near the Maekong River consisting of rest accommodations. Along the river there is a restaurant where food and drinks are served, rich mangrove forests, a learning center, fireflies and cork trees. The Amphawa district was built to honor and commemorate King Rama II and is where the greatest number of fireflies and cork trees can be seen in Thailand from May to October each year. 2. The communication of the identity of Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province which the researcher could find and design to present in English materials can be summed up in 5 items: 1) The history of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province 2) The history of King Rama II Memorial Park 3) The identity of Amphawa Floating Market 4) The Learning center of Ecosystem: Fireflies and Cork Trees 5) How to keep Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province for sustainable tourism.

Keywords: Foreigner tourists, signified, semiotics, sustainable tourism.

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Authors: Subramaniam Chandran

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This paper explains how mobile learning assures sustainable e-education for multicultural group of students. This paper reports the impact of mobile learning on distance education in multicultural environment. The emergence of learning technologies through CD, internet, and mobile is increasingly adopted by distance institutes for quick delivery and cost-effective purposes. Their sustainability is conditioned by the structure of learners as well as the teaching community. The experimental study was conducted among the distant learners of Vinayaka Missions University located at Salem in India. Students were drawn from multicultural environment based on different languages, religions, class and communities. During the mobile learning sessions, the students, who are divided on language, religion, class and community, were dominated by play impulse rather than study anxiety or cultural inhibitions. This study confirmed that mobile learning improved the performance of the students despite their division based on region, language or culture. In other words, technology was able to transcend the relative deprivation in the multicultural groups. It also confirms sustainable e-education through mobile learning and cost-effective system of instruction. Mobile learning appropriates the self-motivation and play impulse of the young learners in providing sustainable e-education to multicultural social groups of students.

Keywords: E-Education, mobile learning, multiculturalism.

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Authors: Paulo R. M. de Andrade, Adriano B. Albuquerque, Otávio F. Frota, Robson V. Silveira, Fátima A. da Silva

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Information technology has been gaining more and more space whether in industry, commerce or even for personal use, but the misuse of it brings harm to the environment and human health as a result. Contribute to the sustainability of the planet is to compensate the environment, all or part of what withdraws it. The green computing also came to propose practical for use in IT in an environmentally correct way in aid of strategic management and communication. This work focuses on showing how a mobile application can help businesses reduce costs and reduced environmental impacts caused by its processes, through a case study of a public company in Brazil.

Keywords: E-government, green computing, information technology, mobile computing, sustainable development.

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Authors: Jaedo Kim, Youngjoon Han, Hernsoo Hahn

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This paper propose the robust character segmentation method for license plate with topological transform such as twist,rotation. The first step of the proposed method is to find a candidate region for character and license plate. The character or license plate must be appeared as closed loop in the edge image. In the case of detecting candidate for character region, the evaluation of detected region is using topological relationship between each character. When this method decides license plate candidate region, character features in the region with binarization are used. After binarization for the detected candidate region, each character region is decided again. In this step, each character region is fitted more than previous step. In the next step, the method checks other character regions with different scale near the detected character regions, because most license plates have license numbers with some meaningful characters around them. The method uses perspective projection for geometrical normalization. If there is topological distortion in the character region, the method projects the region on a template which is defined as standard license plate using perspective projection. In this step, the method is able to separate each number region and small meaningful characters. The evaluation results are tested with a number of test images.

Keywords: License Plate Detection, Character Segmentation, Perspective Projection, Topological Transform.

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Authors: Z. Abdollahnejad, M. Mastali, F. Pacheco-Torgal

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Waste reuse is crucial in a context of circular economy and zero waste sustainable needs. Some wastes deserve further studies by the scientific community not only because they are generated in high amount but also because they have a low reuse rate. This paper reports results of 32 hybrid cement mortars based on fly ash and waste glass. They allow to explore the influence of mix design on the cost and on the embodied carbon of the hybrid cement mortars. The embodied carbon data for all constituents were taken from the database Ecoinvent. This study led to the development of a mixture with just 70 kg CO2e.

Keywords: Waste reuse, fly ash, waste glass, hybrid cements, cost, embodied carbon.

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Authors: Manat Srivanit, Hokao Kazunori

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Facing the concern of the population to its environment and to climatic change, city planners are now considering the urban climate in their choices of planning. The urban climate, representing different urban morphologies across central Bangkok metropolitan area (BMA), are used to investigates the effects of both the composition and configuration of variables of urban morphology indicators on the summer diurnal range of urban climate, using correlation analyses and multiple linear regressions. Results show first indicate that approximately 92.6% of the variation in the average maximum daytime near-surface air temperature (Ta) was explained jointly by the two composition variables of urban morphology indicators including open space ratio (OSR) and floor area ratio (FAR). It has been possible to determine the membership of sample areas to the local climate zones (LCZs) using these urban morphology descriptors automatically computed with GIS and remote sensed data. Finally result found the temperature differences among zones of large separation, such as the city center could be respectively from 35.48±1.04ºC (Mean±S.D.) warmer than the outskirt of Bangkok on average for maximum daytime near surface temperature to 28.27±0.21ºC for extreme event and, can exceed as 8ºC. A spatially disaggregation of urban thermal responsiveness map would be helpful for several reasons. First, it would localize urban areas concerned by different climate behavior over summer daytime and be a good indicator of urban climate variability. Second, when overlaid with a land cover map, this map may contribute to identify possible urban management strategies to reduce heat wave effects in BMA.

Keywords: Urban climate, Urban morphology, Local climate zone, Urban planning, GIS and remote sensing

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Authors: Susanna Vanhamäki, Gabor Schneider, Kati Manskinen

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‘Bioeconomy’ is a complex concept that cuts across many sectors and covers several policy areas. To achieve an overall understanding and support a successful bioeconomy, a cross-sectorial approach is necessary. In practice, due to the concept’s wide scope and varying international approaches, fully understanding bioeconomy is challenging on policy level. This paper provides a background of the topic through an analysis of bioeconomy strategies in the Baltic Sea region. Expert interviews and a small survey were conducted to discover the current and intended focuses of these countries’ bioeconomy sectors. The research shows that supporting sustainability is one of the keys in developing the future bioeconomy. The results highlighted that the bioeconomy has to be sustainable and based on circular economy principles. Currently, traditional bioeconomy sectors like food, wood, fish & waters as well as fuel & energy, which are in the core of national bioeconomy strategies, are best known and are considered more relevant than other bioeconomy industries. However, there is increasing potential for novel sectors, such as textiles and pharmaceuticals. The present research indicates that the opportunities presented by these bioeconomy sectors should be recognised and promoted. Education, research and innovation can play key roles in developing transformative and sustainable improvements in primary production and renewable resources. Furthermore, cooperation between businesses and educators is important.

Keywords: Bioeconomy, circular economy, policy, strategy.

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Authors: C. S. Paglia

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The deformation and the crystallization in a 7075-T651 friction stir weld, in particular for regions directly in contact with the mechanical action of the rotating probe, have been investigated by means of optical microscopy. The investigation enabled to identify regions of the weld differently affected by the deformation caused by the welding process. The highly deformed grains in the horizontal direction close to the plate margin were indicative of shear movements along the horizontal plane, while highly deformed grains along the plate margin in the vertical direction were indicative of vertical shear movements of opposite directions, which superimposed the shear movement along the horizontal plane. The vertical shear movements were not homogeneous through the plate thickness. The microstructure indicated that after the probe passes, the grain growth may take place under static conditions. The small grains microstructure of the nugget region, formed after the main dynamic recrystallization process, develops to an equiaxed microstructure. A material transport influenced by the rotating shoulder was also observed from the trailing to the advancing side of the weld.

Keywords: AA7075-T651, friction stir welding, deformation, crystallization.

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Authors: Marilena Ianculescu, Adriana Alexandru

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Internet of Health Things (IoHT) has already proved to be a persuasive means to support a proper assessment of the living conditions by collecting a huge variety of data. For a customized health management of a senior patient, IoHT provides the capacity to build a dynamic solution for sustaining the shift inside the patient-physician relationship by allowing a real-time and continuous remote monitoring of the health status, well-being, safety and activities of the senior, especially in a non-clinical environment. Thus, is created a win-win solution in which both the patient and the physician enhance their involvement and shared decision-making, with significant outcomes. Health monitoring systems in smart environments are becoming a viable alternative to traditional healthcare solutions. The ongoing “Non-invasive monitoring and health assessment of the elderly in a smart environment (RO-SmartAgeing)” project aims to demonstrate that the existence of complete and accurate information is critical for assessing the health condition of the seniors, improving wellbeing and quality of life in relation to health. The researches performed inside the project aim to highlight how the management of IoHT devices connected to the RO-SmartAgeing platform in a secure way by using a role-based access control system, can allow the physicians to provide health services at a high level of efficiency and accessibility, which were previously only available in hospitals. The project aims to identify deficient aspects in the provision of health services tailored to a senior patient’s specificity and to offer a more comprehensive perspective of proactive and preventive medical acts.

Keywords: Health management, Internet of Health Things, remote monitoring, senior patient.

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Authors: Nima Farkhondeh Jahromi, George Papaefthymiou, Lou van der Sluis

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The incorporation of renewable energy sources for the sustainable electricity production is undertaking a more prominent role in electric power systems. Thus, it will be an indispensable incident that the characteristics of future power networks, their prospective stability for instance, get influenced by the imposed features of sustainable energy sources. One of the distinctive attributes of the sustainable energy sources is exhibiting the stochastic behavior. This paper investigates the impacts of this stochastic behavior on the small disturbance rotor angle stability in the upcoming electric power networks. Considering the various types of renewable energy sources and the vast variety of system configurations, the sensitivity analysis can be an efficient breakthrough towards generalizing the effects of new energy sources on the concept of stability. In this paper, the definition of small disturbance angle stability for future power systems and the iterative-stochastic way of its analysis are presented. Also, the effects of system parameters on this type of stability are described by performing a sensitivity analysis for an electric power test system.

Keywords: Power systems stability, Renewable energy sources, Stochastic behavior, Small disturbance rotor angle stability.

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Authors: Steven R. Hawks

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The Master-s of Public Health (MPH) degree is growing in popularity among a number of higher education institutions throughout the world as a distance education graduate program. This paper offers an overview of program design and development strategies that promote successful distance delivery of MPH programs. Design and development challenges are discussed in terms of type of distance delivery, accreditation, student demand, faculty development, user needs, course content, and marketing strategies. The ongoing development of a distance education MPH program at Utah State University will be used to highlight and consider various aspects of this important but challenging process.

Keywords: Public health, course content, distance education, higher education, graduate students.

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Authors: Federica Cornali

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Does education matter to the quality of our life? The results of extensive studies offer an affirmative answer to this question: high education levels are positively associated with higher income, with more highly qualified professions, with lower risk of unemployment, with better physical health and also, it is said, with more happiness. However, exploring these relationships is far from straightforward. Aside from educational credentials, what properties distinguish functionally literate individuals? How can their personal level of satisfaction be measured? What are the social mechanisms whereby education affects well-being?Using a literacy index and several measures for well-being developed by secondary analysis of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey database, this investigation examined the relationship between literacy skills and subjective wellbeing in several OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Special attention was been addressed to Italy, and in particular to two regions representing territorial differences in this country: Piedmont and Campania.

Keywords: Cultural Divide, Literacy Index, Life Satisfaction, Subjective Well-being Index

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Authors: Malinda G. Sirisena

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The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of software quality assurance approaches of Sri Lankan offshore software development organizations, and to propose a framework which could be used across all offshore software development organizations.

An empirical study was conducted using derived framework from popular software quality evaluation models. The research instrument employed was a questionnaire survey among thirty seven Sri Lankan registered offshore software development organizations.

The findings demonstrate a positive view of Effectiveness of Software Quality Assurance – the stronger predictors of Stability, Installability, Correctness, Testability and Changeability. The present study’s recommendations indicate a need for much emphasis on software quality assurance for the Sri Lankan offshore software development organizations.

Keywords: Software Quality Assurance (SQA), Offshore Software Development, Quality Assurance Evaluation Models, Effectiveness of Quality Assurance.

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Authors: K. Indra Gandhi

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have always been characterized for application-specific sensing, relaying and collection of information for further analysis. However, software development was not considered as a separate entity in this process of data collection which has posed severe limitations on the software development for WSN. Software development for WSN is a complex process since the components involved are data-driven, network-driven and application-driven in nature. This implies that there is a tremendous need for the separation of concern from the software development perspective. A layered approach for developing data acquisition design based on Model Driven Development (MDD) has been proposed as the sensed data collection process itself varies depending upon the application taken into consideration. This work focuses on the layered view of the data acquisition process so as to ease the software point of development. A metamodel has been proposed that enables reusability and realization of the software development as an adaptable component for WSN systems. Further, observing users perception indicates that proposed model helps in improving the programmer's productivity by realizing the collaborative system involved.

Keywords: Model-driven development, wireless sensor networks, data acquisition, separation of concern, layered design.

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Authors: B. A. Mir, Asim Malik

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Bottom ash is a by-product of the combustion process of coal in furnaces in the production of electricity in thermal power plants. In India, about 75% of total power is produced by using pulverized coal. The coal of India has a high ash content which leads to the generation of a huge quantity of bottom ash per year posing the dual problem of environmental pollution and difficulty in disposal. This calls for establishing strategies to use this industry by-product effectively and efficiently. However, its large-scale utilization is possible only in geotechnical applications, either alone or with soil. In the present investigation, bottom ash was collected from National Capital Power Station Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, India. Test samples of bottom ash admixed with 20% clayey soil were prepared and treated with different cement content by weight and subjected to various laboratory tests for assessing its suitability as an engineered construction material. This study has shown that use of 10% cement content is a viable chemical additive to enhance the mechanical properties of bottom ash, which can be used effectively as an engineered construction material in various geotechnical applications. More importantly, it offers an interesting potential for making use of an industrial waste to overcome challenges posed by bottom ash for a sustainable environment.

Keywords: Bottom ash, environmental pollution, solid waste, sustainable environment, waste utilization.

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Authors: Ghada A. El Khayat

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This paper argues that a product development exercise involves in addition to the conventional stages, several decisions regarding other aspects. These aspects should be addressed simultaneously in order to develop a product that responds to the customer needs and that helps realize objectives of the stakeholders in terms of profitability, market share and the like. We present a framework that encompasses these different development dimensions. The framework shows that a product development methodology such as the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is the basic tool which allows definition of the target specifications of a new product. Creativity is the first dimension that enables the development exercise to live and end successfully. A number of group processes need to be followed by the development team in order to ensure enough creativity and innovation. Secondly, packaging is considered to be an important extension of the product. Branding strategies, quality and standardization requirements, identification technologies, design technologies, production technologies and costing and pricing are also integral parts to the development exercise. These dimensions constitute the proposed framework. The paper also presents a mathematical model used to calculate the design targets based on the target costing principle. The framework is used to study a case of a new product development in the telecommunications services sector.

Keywords: Product Development Framework, Quality FunctionDeployment, Mathematical Models, Telecommunications.

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Authors: Abegunde Linda, Adedeji Oluwatola

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It has become an increasing evident that large development influences the climate. There are concerns that rising temperature over developed areas could have negative impact and increase living discomfort within city boundaries. Temperature trends in Ibadan city have received little attention, yet the area has experienced heavy urban expansion between 1972 and 2014. This research aims at examining the impact of landuse change on surface temperature knowing that the built-up environment absorb and store solar energy, resulting into the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The Landsat imagery was used to examine the landuse change for a period of 42 years (1972-2014). Land Surface Temperature (LST) was obtained by converting the thermal band to a surface temperature map and zonal statistic analyses was used to examine the relationship between landuse and temperature emission. The results showed that the settlement area increased to a large extent while the area covered by vegetation reduced during the study period. The spatial and temporal trends of surface temperature are related to the gradual change in urban landuse/landcover and the settlement area has the highest emission. This research provides useful insight into the temporal behavior of the Ibadan city.

Keywords: Landuse, LST, Remote sensing, UHI.

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Authors: N.A. Aldabek, M.B. Assyl, D.B. Dauyen, A.E. Serikkaliyeva

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The aim of this paper is to investigate a process of modernization of the People-s Republic of China. The theme of scientific research is interesting, first, because the Chinese model of development is recognized as successful and most dynamically developing. They are obliged by these successes of the modernization spent in the country. Economy modernization as the basic motive power of progress of the country is a priority direction of development in the Republic of Kazakhstan. So the example of successful development modernization processes in China can be rather useful to use in working out of the Kazakhstan national reforms.

Keywords: Modernization, the People's Republic of China, social and economic development.

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Authors: Muhammd Usman Sardar, Mazhar Hussain Baloch, Muhammad Shahbaz Ahmad, Zahir Javed Paracha

Abstract:

Shortfall of electrical energy in Pakistan is a challenge adversely affecting its industrial output and social growth. As elsewhere, Pakistan derives its electrical energy from a number of conventional sources. The exhaustion of petroleum and conventional resources, the rising costs coupled with extremely adverse climatic effects are taking its toll especially on the under-developed countries like Pakistan. As alternate, renewable energy sources like hydropower, solar, wind, even bio-energy and a mix of some or all of them could provide a credible alternative to the conventional energy resources that would not only be cleaner but sustainable as well. As a model, solar energy-based power grid for the near future has been attempted to offset the energy shortfalls as a mix with our existing sustainable natural energy resources. An assessment of solar energy potential for electricity generation is being presented for fulfilling the energy demands with higher level of reliability and sustainability. This model is based on the premise that solar energy potential of Pakistan is not only reliable but also sustainable. This research estimates the present & future approaching renewable energy resource specially the impact of solar energy based power grid for mitigating energy shortage in Pakistan.

Keywords: Powergrid network, solar photovoltaic (SPV) setups, solar power generation, solar energy technology (SET).

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Authors: Saba Gachpaz, Hamid Reza Heidari

Abstract:

The sharp increase in population growth leads to more pressure on agricultural areas to satisfy the food supply. This necessitates increased resource consumption and underscores the importance of addressing sustainable agriculture development along with other environmental considerations. Land-use management is a crucial factor in obtaining optimum productivity. Machine learning is a widely used technique in the agricultural sector, from yield prediction to customer behavior. This method focuses on learning and provides patterns and correlations from our data set. In this study, nine physical control factors, namely, soil classification, electrical conductivity, normalized difference water index (NDWI), groundwater level, elevation, annual precipitation, pH of water, annual mean temperature, and slope in the alluvial plain in Khuzestan (an agricultural hotspot in Iran) are used to decide the best agricultural land use for both rainfed and irrigated agriculture for 10 different crops. For this purpose, each variable was imported into Arc GIS, and a raster layer was obtained. In the next level, by using training samples, all layers were imported into the python environment. A random forest model was applied, and the weight of each variable was specified. In the final step, results were visualized using a digital elevation model, and the importance of all factors for each one of the crops was obtained. Our results show that despite 62% of the study area being allocated to agricultural purposes, only 42.9% of these areas can be defined as a suitable class for cultivation purposes.

Keywords: Land suitability, machine learning, random forest, sustainable agriculture.

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