Search results for: environmental data
7783 Extracting Terrain Points from Airborne Laser Scanning Data in Densely Forested Areas
Authors: Ziad Abdeldayem, Jakub Markiewicz, Kunal Kansara, Laura Edwards
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Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) is one of the main technologies for generating high-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs). DTMs are crucial to several applications, such as topographic mapping, flood zone delineation, geographic information systems (GIS), hydrological modelling, spatial analysis, etc. Laser scanning system generates irregularly spaced three-dimensional cloud of points. Raw ALS data are mainly ground points (that represent the bare earth) and non-ground points (that represent buildings, trees, cars, etc.). Removing all the non-ground points from the raw data is referred to as filtering. Filtering heavily forested areas is considered a difficult and challenging task as the canopy stops laser pulses from reaching the terrain surface. This research presents an approach for removing non-ground points from raw ALS data in densely forested areas. Smoothing splines are exploited to interpolate and fit the noisy ALS data. The presented filter utilizes a weight function to allocate weights for each point of the data. Furthermore, unlike most of the methods, the presented filtering algorithm is designed to be automatic. Three different forested areas in the United Kingdom are used to assess the performance of the algorithm. The results show that the generated DTMs from the filtered data are accurate (when compared against reference terrain data) and the performance of the method is stable for all the heavily forested data samples. The average root mean square error (RMSE) value is 0.35 m.
Keywords: Airborne laser scanning, digital terrain models, filtering, forested areas.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7187782 Soil-Cement Floor Produced with Alum Water Treatment Residues
Authors: Flavio Araujo, Paulo Scalize, Julio Lima, Natalia Vieira, Antonio Albuquerque, Isabela Santos
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From a concern regarding the environmental impacts caused by the disposal of residues generated in Water Treatment Plants (WTP's), alternatives ways have been studied to use these residues as raw material for manufacture of building materials, avoiding their discharge on water streams, disposal on sanitary landfills or incineration. This paper aims to present the results of a research work, which is using WTR for replacing the soil content in the manufacturing of soil-cement floor with proportions of 0, 5, 10 and 15%. The samples tests showed a reduction mechanical strength in so far as has increased the amount of waste. The water absorption was below the maximum of 6% required by the standard. The application of WTR contributes to the reduction of the environmental damage in the water treatment industry.Keywords: Residue, soil-cement floor, sustainable, WTP.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12507781 Blockchain for IoT Security and Privacy in Healthcare Sector
Authors: Umair Shafique, Hafiz Usman Zia, Fiaz Majeed, Samina Naz, Javeria Ahmed, Maleeha Zainab
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The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a hot topic for the last couple of years. This innovative technology has shown promising progress in various areas and the world has witnessed exponential growth in multiple application domains. Researchers are working to investigate its aptitudes to get the best from it by harnessing its true potential. But at the same time, IoT networks open up a new aspect of vulnerability and physical threats to data integrity, privacy, and confidentiality. It is due to centralized control, data silos approach for handling information, and a lack of standardization in the IoT networks. As we know, blockchain is a new technology that involves creating secure distributed ledgers to store and communicate data. Some of the benefits include resiliency, integrity, anonymity, decentralization, and autonomous control. The potential for blockchain technology to provide the key to managing and controlling IoT has created a new wave of excitement around the idea of putting that data back into the hands of the end-users. In this manuscript, we have proposed a model that combines blockchain and IoT networks to address potential security and privacy issues in the healthcare domain and how various stakeholders will interact with the system.
Keywords: Internet of Things, IoT, blockchain, data integrity, authentication, data privacy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4077780 Multidimensional Performance Management
Authors: David Wiese
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In order to maximize efficiency of an information management platform and to assist in decision making, the collection, storage and analysis of performance-relevant data has become of fundamental importance. This paper addresses the merits and drawbacks provided by the OLAP paradigm for efficiently navigating large volumes of performance measurement data hierarchically. The system managers or database administrators navigate through adequately (re)structured measurement data aiming to detect performance bottlenecks, identify causes for performance problems or assessing the impact of configuration changes on the system and its representative metrics. Of particular importance is finding the root cause of an imminent problem, threatening availability and performance of an information system. Leveraging OLAP techniques, in contrast to traditional static reporting, this is supposed to be accomplished within moderate amount of time and little processing complexity. It is shown how OLAP techniques can help improve understandability and manageability of measurement data and, hence, improve the whole Performance Analysis process.
Keywords: Data Warehousing, OLAP, Multidimensional Navigation, Performance Diagnosis, Performance Management, Performance Tuning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21347779 A New Algorithm for Enhanced Robustness of Copyright Mark
Authors: Harsh Vikram Singh, S. P. Singh, Anand Mohan
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This paper discusses a new heavy tailed distribution based data hiding into discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients of image, which provides statistical security as well as robustness against steganalysis attacks. Unlike other data hiding algorithms, the proposed technique does not introduce much effect in the stegoimage-s DCT coefficient probability plots, thus making the presence of hidden data statistically undetectable. In addition the proposed method does not compromise on hiding capacity. When compared to the generic block DCT based data-hiding scheme, our method found more robust against a variety of image manipulating attacks such as filtering, blurring, JPEG compression etc.
Keywords: Information Security, Robust Steganography, Steganalysis, Pareto Probability Distribution function.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17967778 Liveability of Kuala Lumpur City Centre: An Evaluation of the Happiness Level of the Streets- Activities
Authors: Shuhana Shamsuddin, Nur Rasyiqah Abu Hassan, Ahmad Bashri Sulaiman
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Liveable city is referred to as the quality of life in an area that contributes towards a safe, healthy and enjoyable place. This paper discusses the role of the streets- activities in making Kuala Lumpur a liveable city and the happiness level of the residents towards the city-s street activities. The study was conducted using the residents of Kuala Lumpur. A mixed method technique is used with the quantitative data as a main data and supported by the qualitative data. Data were collected using questionnaires, observation and also an interview session with a sample of residents of Kuala Lumpur. The sampling technique is based on multistage cluster data sampling. The findings revealed that, there is still no significant relationship between the length of stay of the resident in Kuala Lumpur with the happiness level towards the street activities that occurred in the city.Keywords: Liveable city, activities, urban design quality, quality of life, happiness level.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 28897777 Lean Thinking Process in the Determination of Design Suggestions to Optimize Treatment of WEEE
Authors: Anastasia Katsamaki, Nikolaos Bilalis, Vassilis Dedoussis
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This work proposes a set of actions to assist redesign procedure in existing products of Electric and Electronic Equipment (EEE). The aim is to improve their environmental behavior after their withdrawal in the End-of-Life (EOL) phase. In the beginning data collection takes place. Then follows selection and implementation of the optimal EOL Treatment Strategy (EOL_TS) and its results- evaluation concerning the environment. In parallel, product design characteristics that can be altered are selected based on their significance for the environment in the EOL stage. All results from the previous stages are combined and possible redesign actions are formulated for further examination and afterwards configuration in the design stage. The applied method to perform these tasks is Lean Thinking (LT). At the end, results concerning the application of the proposed method on a distribution transformer are presented.Keywords: End-of-life treatment, Lean thinking, WEEE
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14557776 Cloud Computing Support for Diagnosing Researches
Authors: A. Amirov, O. Gerget, V. Kochegurov
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One of the main biomedical problem lies in detecting dependencies in semi structured data. Solution includes biomedical portal and algorithms (integral rating health criteria, multidimensional data visualization methods). Biomedical portal allows to process diagnostic and research data in parallel mode using Microsoft System Center 2012, Windows HPC Server cloud technologies. Service does not allow user to see internal calculations instead it provides practical interface. When data is sent for processing user may track status of task and will achieve results as soon as computation is completed. Service includes own algorithms and allows diagnosing and predicating medical cases. Approved methods are based on complex system entropy methods, algorithms for determining the energy patterns of development and trajectory models of biological systems and logical–probabilistic approach with the blurring of images.
Keywords: Biomedical portal, cloud computing, diagnostic and prognostic research, mathematical data analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16437775 Knowledge Management Applied to Forensic Sciences
Authors: Norma Rodrigues Gomes
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This paper presents initiatives of Knowledge Management (KM) applied to Forensic Sciences field, especially developed at the Forensic Science Institute of the Brazilian Federal Police. Successful projects, related to knowledge sharing, drugs analysis and environmental crimes, are reported in the KM perspective. The described results are related to: a) the importance of having an information repository, like a digital library, in such a multidisciplinary organization; b) the fight against drug dealing and environmental crimes, enabling the possibility to map the evolution of crimes, drug trafficking flows, and the advance of deforestation in Amazon rain forest. Perspectives of new KM projects under development and studies are also presented, tracing an evolution line of the KM view at the Forensic Science Institute.Keywords: Business Intelligence, Digital Library, Forensic Science, Knowledge Management
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24947774 Non-Invasive Data Extraction from Machine Display Units Using Video Analytics
Authors: Ravneet Kaur, Joydeep Acharya, Sudhanshu Gaur
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform manufacturing by improving shop floor processes such as production, maintenance and quality. However, industrial datasets are notoriously difficult to extract in a real-time, streaming fashion thus, negating potential AI benefits. The main example is some specialized industrial controllers that are operated by custom software which complicates the process of connecting them to an Information Technology (IT) based data acquisition network. Security concerns may also limit direct physical access to these controllers for data acquisition. To connect the Operational Technology (OT) data stored in these controllers to an AI application in a secure, reliable and available way, we propose a novel Industrial IoT (IIoT) solution in this paper. In this solution, we demonstrate how video cameras can be installed in a factory shop floor to continuously obtain images of the controller HMIs. We propose image pre-processing to segment the HMI into regions of streaming data and regions of fixed meta-data. We then evaluate the performance of multiple Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies such as Tesseract and Google vision to recognize the streaming data and test it for typical factory HMIs and realistic lighting conditions. Finally, we use the meta-data to match the OCR output with the temporal, domain-dependent context of the data to improve the accuracy of the output. Our IIoT solution enables reliable and efficient data extraction which will improve the performance of subsequent AI applications.Keywords: Human machine interface, industrial internet of things, internet of things, optical character recognition, video analytic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7387773 Estimating the Flow Velocity Using Flow Generated Sound
Authors: Saeed Hosseini, Ali Reza Tahavvor
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Sound processing is one the subjects that newly attracts a lot of researchers. It is efficient and usually less expensive than other methods. In this paper the flow generated sound is used to estimate the flow speed of free flows. Many sound samples are gathered. After analyzing the data, a parameter named wave power is chosen. For all samples the wave power is calculated and averaged for each flow speed. A curve is fitted to the averaged data and a correlation between the wave power and flow speed is found. Test data are used to validate the method and errors for all test data were under 10 percent. The speed of the flow can be estimated by calculating the wave power of the flow generated sound and using the proposed correlation.Keywords: Flow generated sound, sound processing, speed, wave power.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23677772 Exponential Particle Swarm Optimization Approach for Improving Data Clustering
Authors: Neveen I. Ghali, Nahed El-Dessouki, Mervat A. N., Lamiaa Bakrawi
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In this paper we use exponential particle swarm optimization (EPSO) to cluster data. Then we compare between (EPSO) clustering algorithm which depends on exponential variation for the inertia weight and particle swarm optimization (PSO) clustering algorithm which depends on linear inertia weight. This comparison is evaluated on five data sets. The experimental results show that EPSO clustering algorithm increases the possibility to find the optimal positions as it decrease the number of failure. Also show that (EPSO) clustering algorithm has a smaller quantization error than (PSO) clustering algorithm, i.e. (EPSO) clustering algorithm more accurate than (PSO) clustering algorithm.Keywords: Particle swarm optimization, data clustering, exponential PSO.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16897771 Biosignal Measurement using Personal Area Network based on Human Body Communication
Authors: Yong-Gyu Lee, Jin-Hee Park, Gilwon Yoon
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In this study, we introduced a communication system where human body was used as medium through which data were transferred. Multiple biosignal sensing units were attached to a subject and wireless personal area network was formed. Data of the sensing units were shared among them. We used wideband pulse communication that was simple, low-power consuming and high data rated. Each unit functioned as independent communication device or node. A method of channel search and communication among the modes was developed. A protocol of carrier sense multiple access/collision detect was implemented in order to avoid data collision or interferences. Biosignal sensing units should be located at different locations due to the nature of biosignal origin. Our research provided a flexibility of collecting data without using electrical wires. More non-constrained measurement was accomplished which was more suitable for u-Health monitoring.Keywords: Human body communication, wideband pulse communication, personal area network, biosignal.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21767770 Development and Evaluation of a Portable Ammonia Gas Detector
Authors: Jaheon Gu, Wooyong Chung, Mijung Koo, Seonbok Lee, Gyoutae Park, Sangguk Ahn, Hiesik Kim, Jungil Park
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In this paper, we present a portable ammonia gas detector for performing the gas safety management efficiently. The display of the detector is separated from its body. The display module is received the data measured from the detector using ZigBee. The detector has a rechargeable li-ion battery which can be use for 11~12 hours, and a Bluetooth module for sending the data to the PC or the smart devices. The data are sent to the server and can access using the web browser or mobile application. The range of the detection concentration is 0~100ppm.
Keywords: Ammonia, detector, gas safety, portable.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15377769 LAYMOD; A Layered and Modular Platform for CAx Collaboration Management and Supporting Product data Integration based on STEP Standard
Authors: Omid F. Valilai, Mahmoud Houshmand
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Nowadays companies strive to survive in a competitive global environment. To speed up product development/modifications, it is suggested to adopt a collaborative product development approach. However, despite the advantages of new IT improvements still many CAx systems work separately and locally. Collaborative design and manufacture requires a product information model that supports related CAx product data models. To solve this problem many solutions are proposed, which the most successful one is adopting the STEP standard as a product data model to develop a collaborative CAx platform. However, the improvement of the STEP-s Application Protocols (APs) over the time, huge number of STEP AP-s and cc-s, the high costs of implementation, costly process for conversion of older CAx software files to the STEP neutral file format; and lack of STEP knowledge, that usually slows down the implementation of the STEP standard in collaborative data exchange, management and integration should be considered. In this paper the requirements for a successful collaborative CAx system is discussed. The STEP standard capability for product data integration and its shortcomings as well as the dominant platforms for supporting CAx collaboration management and product data integration are reviewed. Finally a platform named LAYMOD to fulfil the requirements of CAx collaborative environment and integrating the product data is proposed. The platform is a layered platform to enable global collaboration among different CAx software packages/developers. It also adopts the STEP modular architecture and the XML data structures to enable collaboration between CAx software packages as well as overcoming the STEP standard limitations. The architecture and procedures of LAYMOD platform to manage collaboration and avoid contradicts in product data integration are introduced.Keywords: CAx, Collaboration management, STEP applicationmodules, STEP standard, XML data structures
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22187768 Grocery Customer Behavior Analysis using RFID-based Shopping Paths Data
Authors: In-Chul Jung, Young S. Kwon
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Knowing about the customer behavior in a grocery has been a long-standing issue in the retailing industry. The advent of RFID has made it easier to collect moving data for an individual shopper's behavior. Most of the previous studies used the traditional statistical clustering technique to find the major characteristics of customer behavior, especially shopping path. However, in using the clustering technique, due to various spatial constraints in the store, standard clustering methods are not feasible because moving data such as the shopping path should be adjusted in advance of the analysis, which is time-consuming and causes data distortion. To alleviate this problem, we propose a new approach to spatial pattern clustering based on the longest common subsequence. Experimental results using real data obtained from a grocery confirm the good performance of the proposed method in finding the hot spot, dead spot and major path patterns of customer movements.Keywords: customer path, shopping behavior, exploratoryanalysis, LCS, RFID
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31467767 Soft-Sensor for Estimation of Gasoline Octane Number in Platforming Processes with Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems (ANFIS)
Authors: Hamed.Vezvaei, Sepideh.Ordibeheshti, Mehdi.Ardjmand
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Gasoline Octane Number is the standard measure of the anti-knock properties of a motor in platforming processes, that is one of the important unit operations for oil refineries and can be determined with online measurement or use CFR (Cooperative Fuel Research) engines. Online measurements of the Octane number can be done using direct octane number analyzers, that it is too expensive, so we have to find feasible analyzer, like ANFIS estimators. ANFIS is the systems that neural network incorporated in fuzzy systems, using data automatically by learning algorithms of NNs. ANFIS constructs an input-output mapping based both on human knowledge and on generated input-output data pairs. In this research, 31 industrial data sets are used (21 data for training and the rest of the data used for generalization). Results show that, according to this simulation, hybrid method training algorithm in ANFIS has good agreements between industrial data and simulated results.Keywords: Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems, GasolineOctane Number, Soft-sensor, Catalytic Naphtha Reforming
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21927766 Tool for Metadata Extraction and Content Packaging as Endorsed in OAIS Framework
Authors: Payal Abichandani, Rishi Prakash, Paras Nath Barwal, B. K. Murthy
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Information generated from various computerization processes is a potential rich source of knowledge for its designated community. To pass this information from generation to generation without modifying the meaning is a challenging activity. To preserve and archive the data for future generations it’s very essential to prove the authenticity of the data. It can be achieved by extracting the metadata from the data which can prove the authenticity and create trust on the archived data. Subsequent challenge is the technology obsolescence. Metadata extraction and standardization can be effectively used to resolve and tackle this problem. Metadata can be categorized at two levels i.e. Technical and Domain level broadly. Technical metadata will provide the information that can be used to understand and interpret the data record, but only this level of metadata isn’t sufficient to create trustworthiness. We have developed a tool which will extract and standardize the technical as well as domain level metadata. This paper is about the different features of the tool and how we have developed this.
Keywords: Digital Preservation, Metadata, OAIS, PDI, XML.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18237765 Pedestrian Areas and Sustainable Development
Authors: Khashayar Kashani Jou
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Transportation is one of the most fundamental challenges of urban development in contemporary world. On the other hand, sustainable urban development has received tremendous public attention in the last few years. This trend in addition to other factors such as energy cost, environmental concerns, traffic congestion and the feeling of lack of belonging have contributed to the development of pedestrian areas. The purpose of this paper is to study the role of walkable streets in sustainable development of cities. Accordingly, a documentary research through valid sources has been utilized to substantiate this study. The findings demonstrate that walking can lead to sustainable urban development from physical, social, environmental, cultural, economic and political aspects. Also, pedestrian areas –which are the main context of walking- act as focal points of development in cities and have a great effect on modifying and stimulating of their adjacent urban spaces.Keywords: Pedestrian area, Sustainable urban development, Walking, Woonerf
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 37797764 Application of a New Hybrid Optimization Algorithm on Cluster Analysis
Authors: T. Niknam, M. Nayeripour, B.Bahmani Firouzi
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Clustering techniques have received attention in many areas including engineering, medicine, biology and data mining. The purpose of clustering is to group together data points, which are close to one another. The K-means algorithm is one of the most widely used techniques for clustering. However, K-means has two shortcomings: dependency on the initial state and convergence to local optima and global solutions of large problems cannot found with reasonable amount of computation effort. In order to overcome local optima problem lots of studies done in clustering. This paper is presented an efficient hybrid evolutionary optimization algorithm based on combining Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), called PSO-ACO, for optimally clustering N object into K clusters. The new PSO-ACO algorithm is tested on several data sets, and its performance is compared with those of ACO, PSO and K-means clustering. The simulation results show that the proposed evolutionary optimization algorithm is robust and suitable for handing data clustering.
Keywords: Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Data clustering, Hybrid evolutionary optimization algorithm, K-means clustering, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21977763 Analysis of DNA Microarray Data using Association Rules: A Selective Study
Authors: M. Anandhavalli Gauthaman
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DNA microarrays allow the measurement of expression levels for a large number of genes, perhaps all genes of an organism, within a number of different experimental samples. It is very much important to extract biologically meaningful information from this huge amount of expression data to know the current state of the cell because most cellular processes are regulated by changes in gene expression. Association rule mining techniques are helpful to find association relationship between genes. Numerous association rule mining algorithms have been developed to analyze and associate this huge amount of gene expression data. This paper focuses on some of the popular association rule mining algorithms developed to analyze gene expression data.
Keywords: DNA microarray, gene expression, association rule mining.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21447762 Prospects, Problems of Marketing Research and Data Mining in Turkey
Authors: Sema Kurtuluş, Kemal Kurtuluş
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The objective of this paper is to review and assess the methodological issues and problems in marketing research, data and knowledge mining in Turkey. As a summary, academic marketing research publications in Turkey have significant problems. The most vital problem seems to be related with modeling. Most of the publications had major weaknesses in modeling. There were also, serious problems regarding measurement and scaling, sampling and analyses. Analyses myopia seems to be the most important problem for young academia in Turkey. Another very important finding is the lack of publications on data and knowledge mining in the academic world.Keywords: Marketing research, data mining, knowledge mining, research modeling, analyses.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19667761 Analysis and Comparison of Image Encryption Algorithms
Authors: İsmet Öztürk, İbrahim Soğukpınar
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With the fast progression of data exchange in electronic way, information security is becoming more important in data storage and transmission. Because of widely using images in industrial process, it is important to protect the confidential image data from unauthorized access. In this paper, we analyzed current image encryption algorithms and compression is added for two of them (Mirror-like image encryption and Visual Cryptography). Implementations of these two algorithms have been realized for experimental purposes. The results of analysis are given in this paper.
Keywords: image encryption, image cryptosystem, security, transmission
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 49567760 Investigating the Potential for Introduction of Warm Mix Asphalt in Kuwait Using the Volcanic Ash
Authors: H. Al-Baghli, F. Al-Asfour
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The current applied asphalt technology for Kuwait roads pavement infrastructure is the hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement, including both pen grade and polymer modified bitumen (PMBs), that is produced and compacted at high temperature levels ranging from 150 to 180 °C. There are no current specifications for warm and cold mix asphalts in Kuwait’s Ministry of Public Works (MPW) asphalt standard and specifications. The process of the conventional HMA is energy intensive and directly responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases and other environmental hazards into the atmosphere leading to significant environmental impacts and raising health risk to labors at site. Warm mix asphalt (WMA) technology, a sustainable alternative preferred in multiple countries, has many environmental advantages because it requires lower production temperatures than HMA by 20 to 40 °C. The reduction of temperatures achieved by WMA originates from multiple technologies including foaming and chemical or organic additives that aim to reduce bitumen and improve mix workability. This paper presents a literature review of WMA technologies and techniques followed by an experimental study aiming to compare the results of produced WMA samples, using a water containing additive (foaming process), at different compaction temperatures with the HMA control volumetric properties mix designed in accordance to the new MPW’s specifications and guidelines.
Keywords: Warm-mix asphalt, water-bearing additives, foaming-based process, chemical additives, organic additives.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4977759 Risk Classification of SMEs by Early Warning Model Based on Data Mining
Authors: Nermin Ozgulbas, Ali Serhan Koyuncugil
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One of the biggest problems of SMEs is their tendencies to financial distress because of insufficient finance background. In this study, an Early Warning System (EWS) model based on data mining for financial risk detection is presented. CHAID algorithm has been used for development of the EWS. Developed EWS can be served like a tailor made financial advisor in decision making process of the firms with its automated nature to the ones who have inadequate financial background. Besides, an application of the model implemented which covered 7,853 SMEs based on Turkish Central Bank (TCB) 2007 data. By using EWS model, 31 risk profiles, 15 risk indicators, 2 early warning signals, and 4 financial road maps has been determined for financial risk mitigation.
Keywords: Early Warning Systems, Data Mining, Financial Risk, SMEs.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 33867758 Using Data from Foursquare Web Service to Represent the Commercial Activity of a City
Authors: Taras Agryzkov, Almudena Nolasco-Cirugeda, Jos´e L. Oliver, Leticia Serrano-Estrada, Leandro Tortosa, Jos´e F. Vicent
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This paper aims to represent the commercial activity of a city taking as source data the social network Foursquare. The city of Murcia is selected as case study, and the location-based social network Foursquare is the main source of information. After carrying out a reorganisation of the user-generated data extracted from Foursquare, it is possible to graphically display on a map the various city spaces and venues especially those related to commercial, food and entertainment sector businesses. The obtained visualisation provides information about activity patterns in the city of Murcia according to the people‘s interests and preferences and, moreover, interesting facts about certain characteristics of the town itself.
Keywords: Social networks, Foursquare, spatial analysis, data visualization, geocomputation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26757757 Long-Range Dependence of Financial Time Series Data
Authors: Chatchai Pesee
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This paper examines long-range dependence or longmemory of financial time series on the exchange rate data by the fractional Brownian motion (fBm). The principle of spectral density function in Section 2 is used to find the range of Hurst parameter (H) of the fBm. If 0< H <1/2, then it has a short-range dependence (SRD). It simulates long-memory or long-range dependence (LRD) if 1/2< H <1. The curve of exchange rate data is fBm because of the specific appearance of the Hurst parameter (H). Furthermore, some of the definitions of the fBm, long-range dependence and selfsimilarity are reviewed in Section II as well. Our results indicate that there exists a long-memory or a long-range dependence (LRD) for the exchange rate data in section III. Long-range dependence of the exchange rate data and estimation of the Hurst parameter (H) are discussed in Section IV, while a conclusion is discussed in Section V.Keywords: Fractional Brownian motion, long-rangedependence, memory, short-range dependence.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18837756 Sustainable Energy Production with Closed-Loop Methods: Evaluating the Influence of Power Plant Age on Production Efficiency and Environmental Impact
Authors: Bujar Ismaili, Bahti Ismajli, Venhar Ismaili, Skender Ramadani
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In Kosovo, the problem with the electricity supply is huge and it does not meet the demands of consumers. Older thermal power plants, which are regarded as big environmental polluters, produce most of the energy. Our experiment is based on the production of electricity using the closed method that does not affect environmental pollution by using waste as fuel that is considered to pollute the environment. The experiment was carried out in the village of Godanc, municipality of Shtime, Kosovo. In the experiment, a production line based on the production of electricity and central heating was designed at the same time. The results are the benefits of electricity as well as the release of temperature for heating with minimal expenses and with the release of 0% gases into the atmosphere. During this experiment, coal, plastic, waste from wood processing, and agricultural wastes were used as raw materials. The method utilized in the experiment allows for the release of gas through pipes and filters during the top-to-bottom combustion of the raw material in the boiler, followed by the method of gas filtration from waste wood processing (sawdust). During this process, the final product, gas, is obtained. This gas passes through the carburetor, enabling the combustion process to put the internal combustion machine and the generator into operation and produce electricity that does not release gases into the atmosphere. The results show that the system provides energy stability without environmental pollution from toxic substances and waste, as well as with low production costs. From the final results, it follows that, in the case of using coal fuel, we have benefited from more electricity and higher temperature release, followed by plastic waste, which also gave good results. The results obtained during these experiments prove that the current problems of lack of electricity and heating can be met at a lower cost and have a clean environment and waste management.
Keywords: Energy, heating, atmosphere, waste management, gasification.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2237755 Meta Random Forests
Authors: Praveen Boinee, Alessandro De Angelis, Gian Luca Foresti
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Leo Breimans Random Forests (RF) is a recent development in tree based classifiers and quickly proven to be one of the most important algorithms in the machine learning literature. It has shown robust and improved results of classifications on standard data sets. Ensemble learning algorithms such as AdaBoost and Bagging have been in active research and shown improvements in classification results for several benchmarking data sets with mainly decision trees as their base classifiers. In this paper we experiment to apply these Meta learning techniques to the random forests. We experiment the working of the ensembles of random forests on the standard data sets available in UCI data sets. We compare the original random forest algorithm with their ensemble counterparts and discuss the results.Keywords: Random Forests [RF], ensembles, UCI.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27087754 Mapping of Solar Radiation Anomalies Based on Climate Change
Authors: Elison Eduardo Jardim Bierhals, Claudineia Brazil, Francisco Pereira, Elton Rossini
Abstract:
The use of alternative energy sources to meet energy demand reduces environmental damage. To diversify an energy matrix and to minimize global warming, a solar energy is gaining space, being an important source of renewable energy, and its potential depends on the climatic conditions of the region. Brazil presents a great solar potential for a generation of electric energy, so the knowledge of solar radiation and its characteristics are fundamental for the study of energy use. Due to the above reasons, this article aims to verify the climatic variability corresponding to the variations in solar radiation anomalies, in the face of climate change scenarios. The data used in this research are part of the Intercomparison of Interconnected Models, Phase 5 (CMIP5), which contributed to the preparation of the fifth IPCC-AR5 report. The solar radiation data were extracted from The Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) model using the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios that represent an intermediate structure and a pessimistic framework, the latter being the most worrisome in all cases. In order to allow the use of solar radiation as a source of energy in a given location and/or region, it is important, first, to determine its availability, thus justifying the importance of the study. The results pointed out, for the 75-year period (2026-2100), based on a pessimistic scenario, indicate a drop in solar radiation of the approximately 12% in the eastern region of Rio Grande do Sul. Factors that influence the pessimistic prospects of this scenario should be better observed by the responsible authorities, since they can affect the possibility to produce electricity from solar radiation.
Keywords: Climate change, solar radiation, energy utilization.
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