Search results for: decision support systems

Authors: M. Ramadan, B. Salah

Abstract:

This paper introduces a framework to digitalize lean manufacturing tools to enhance smart lean-based manufacturing environments or Lean 4.0 manufacturing systems. The paper discusses the integration between lean tools and the powerful features of recent real-time data capturing systems with the help of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to develop an intelligent real-time monitoring and controlling system of production operations concerning lean targets. This integration is represented in the Lean 4.0 system called Dynamic Value Stream Mapping (DVSM). Moreover, the paper introduces the practice of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and ICT to smartly support lean tools and practices during daily production runs to keep the lean system alive and effective. This work introduces a practical description of how the lean method tools 5S, standardized work, and poka-yoke can be digitalized and smartly monitored and controlled through DVSM. A framework of the three tools has been discussed and put into practice in a German switchgear manufacturer.

Keywords: Lean manufacturing, Industry 4.0, radio frequency identification, value stream mapping.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3107

Authors: Nazirah Zainul Abidin, Nurul Zahirah Mokhtar Azizi

Abstract:

Cost has always been the leading concern in green building development. The perception that construction cost for green building is higher than conventional buildings has only made the discussion of green building cost more difficult. Understanding the factors that will influence the cost of green construction is expected to shed light into what makes green construction more or at par with conventional projects, or perhaps, where cost can be optimised. This paper identifies the elements of cost before shifting the attention to the influencing factors. Findings from past studies uncovered various factors related to cost which are grouped into five focal themes i.e. awareness, knowledge, financial, technical, and government support. A conceptual framework is produced in a form of a flower diagram indicating the cost influencing factors of green building development. These factors were found to be both physical and non-physical aspects of a project. The framework provides ground for the next stage of research that is to further explore how these factors influence the project cost and decision making.

Keywords: Green project, factors influencing cost, hard cost, soft cost.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1508

Authors: E. Supriyanto, S. C. Seow

Abstract:

Early Intervention Program (EIP) is required to improve the overall development of children with Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). In order to help trainer and parent in the implementation of EIP, a support system has been developed. The support system is able to screen data automatically, store and analyze data, generate individual EIP (curriculum) with optimal training duration and to generate training automatically. The system consists of hardware and software where the software has been implemented using Java language and Linux Fedora. The software has been tested to ensure the functionality and reliability. The prototype has been also tested in Down syndrome centers. Test result shows that the system is reliable to be used for generation of an individual curriculum which includes the training program to improve the motor, cognitive, and combination abilities of Down syndrome children under 6 years.

Keywords: Early intervention program (curriculum), Trisomy21, support system, Java.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1455

Authors: Nhon Van Do

Abstract:

In the artificial intelligence field, knowledge representation and reasoning are important areas for intelligent systems, especially knowledge base systems and expert systems. Knowledge representation Methods has an important role in designing the systems. There have been many models for knowledge such as semantic networks, conceptual graphs, and neural networks. These models are useful tools to design intelligent systems. However, they are not suitable to represent knowledge in the domains of reality applications. In this paper, new models for knowledge representation called computational networks will be presented. They have been used in designing some knowledge base systems in education for solving problems such as the system that supports studying knowledge and solving analytic geometry problems, the program for studying and solving problems in Plane Geometry, the program for solving problems about alternating current in physics.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence and education, knowledge engineering, knowledge representation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2217

Authors: Ritsuko Kawasaki (Aiba), Takeshi Hiromatsu

Abstract:

Management is required to understand all information security risks within an organization, and to make decisions on which information security risks should be treated in what level by allocating how much amount of cost. However, such decision-making is not usually easy, because various measures for risk treatment must be selected with the suitable application levels. In addition, some measures may have objectives conflicting with each other. It also makes the selection difficult. Therefore, this paper provides a model which supports the selection of measures by applying multi-objective analysis to find an optimal solution. Additionally, a list of measures is also provided to make the selection easier and more effective without any leakage of measures.

Keywords: Information security risk treatment, Selection of risk measures, Risk acceptance and Multi-objective optimization.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2133

Authors: Monika Garg, Lillie Dewan

Abstract:

Three novel and significant contributions are made in this paper Firstly, non-recursive formulation of Haar connection coefficients, pioneered by the present authors is presented, which can be computed very efficiently and avoid stack and memory overflows. Secondly, the generalized approach for state analysis of singular bilinear time-invariant (TI) and time-varying (TV) systems is presented; vis-˜a-vis diversified and complex works reported by different authors. Thirdly, a generalized approach for parameter estimation of bilinear TI and TV systems is also proposed. The unified framework of the proposed method is very significant in that the digital hardware once-designed can be used to perform the complex tasks of state analysis and parameter estimation of different types of bilinear systems single-handedly. The simplicity, effectiveness and generalized nature of the proposed method is established by applying it to different types of bilinear systems for the two tasks.

Keywords: Bilinear Systems, Haar Wavelet, Haar ConnectionCoefficients, Parameter Estimation, Singular Bilinear Systems, StateAnalysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1576

Authors: U. Sakthi, R. Hemalatha, R. S. Bhuvaneswaran

Abstract:

In Virtual organization, Knowledge Discovery (KD) service contains distributed data resources and computing grid nodes. Computational grid is integrated with data grid to form Knowledge Grid, which implements Apriori algorithm for mining association rule on grid network. This paper describes development of parallel and distributed version of Apriori algorithm on Globus Toolkit using Message Passing Interface extended with Grid Services (MPICHG2). The creation of Knowledge Grid on top of data and computational grid is to support decision making in real time applications. In this paper, the case study describes design and implementation of local and global mining of frequent item sets. The experiments were conducted on different configurations of grid network and computation time was recorded for each operation. We analyzed our result with various grid configurations and it shows speedup of computation time is almost superlinear.

Keywords: Association rule, Grid computing, Knowledge grid, Mobility prediction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2180

Authors: Andreas Theissler, Ian Dear

Abstract:

The one-class support vector machine “support vector data description” (SVDD) is an ideal approach for anomaly or outlier detection. However, for the applicability of SVDD in real-world applications, the ease of use is crucial. The results of SVDD are massively determined by the choice of the regularisation parameter C and the kernel parameter  of the widely used RBF kernel. While for two-class SVMs the parameters can be tuned using cross-validation based on the confusion matrix, for a one-class SVM this is not possible, because only true positives and false negatives can occur during training. This paper proposes an approach to find the optimal set of parameters for SVDD solely based on a training set from one class and without any user parameterisation. Results on artificial and real data sets are presented, underpinning the usefulness of the approach.

Keywords: Support vector data description, anomaly detection, one-class classification, parameter tuning.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2934

Authors: Tetsuro Saeki, Yuichi Kato, Shoutarou Mizuno

Abstract:

STRIM (Statistical Test Rule Induction Method) has been proposed as a method to effectively induct if-then rules from the decision table which is considered as a sample set obtained from the population of interest. Its usefulness has been confirmed by simulation experiments specifying rules in advance, and by comparison with conventional methods. However, scope for future development remains before STRIM can be applied to the analysis of real-world data sets. The first requirement is to determine the size of the dataset needed for inducting true rules, since finding statistically significant rules is the core of the method. The second is to examine the capacity of rule induction from datasets with contaminated attribute values created by missing data and noise, since real-world datasets usually contain such contaminated data. This paper examines the first problem theoretically, in connection with the rule length. The second problem is then examined in a simulation experiment, utilizing the critical size of dataset derived from the first step. The experimental results show that STRIM is highly robust in the analysis of datasets with contaminated attribute values, and hence is applicable to real-world data

Keywords: Rule induction, decision table, missing data, noise.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1462

Authors: V. Vassiliou, M. Menicou, M. Charalambides, J. DeCew, I. Tsukrov

Abstract:

Cyprus- offshore aquaculture industry has promising prospects taking into account that Cyprus is an island. Its production trend is increasing overtaking bigger countries such Greece and Italy. However, current mooring systems seem to be under-performing acting as obstacles for its future development. Furthermore, shallow coastal waters scarcity due to competing industries dictates future development to come by moving further from shore exposing fish farms and subsequently mooring systems to harsher environmental loadings. It is, therefore, of paramount importance to design mooring systems based on engineering and scientific principles and leave behind the present “trial and error" methods. This paper presents the current state of Cyprus- offshore aquaculture industry and focuses of its mooring designs by proposing a new methodology for designing more reliable systems, hence ensuring its future.

Keywords: Environmental loadings, mooring systems design, numerical modeling, offshore aquaculture

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3560

Authors: Ntantos P.N, Karpouzos D.K

Abstract:

In this paper, a benchmarking framework is presented for the performance assessment of irrigations systems. Firstly, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to measure the technical efficiency of irrigation systems. This method, based on linear programming, aims to determine a consistent efficiency ranking of irrigation systems in which known inputs, such as water volume supplied and total irrigated area, and a given output corresponding to the total value of irrigation production are taken into account simultaneously. Secondly, in order to examine the irrigation efficiency in more detail, a cross – system comparison is elaborated using a performance indicators set selected by IWMI. The above methodologies were applied in Thessaloniki plain, located in Northern Greece while the results of the application are presented and discussed. The conjunctive use of DEA and performance indicators seems to be a very useful tool for efficiency assessment and identification of best practices in irrigation systems management.

Keywords: Benchmarking, D.E.A, Performance Indicators, Irrigation systems.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2096

Authors: A. Greco, N. Mammone, F.C. Morabito, M.Versaci

Abstract:

This paper is mainly concerned with the application of a novel technique of data interpretation for classifying measurements of plasma columns in Tokamak reactors for nuclear fusion applications. The proposed method exploits several concepts derived from soft computing theory. In particular, Artificial Neural Networks and Multi-Class Support Vector Machines have been exploited to classify magnetic variables useful to determine shape and position of the plasma with a reduced computational complexity. The proposed technique is used to analyze simulated databases of plasma equilibria based on ITER geometry configuration. As well as demonstrating the successful recovery of scalar equilibrium parameters, we show that the technique can yield practical advantages compared with earlier methods.

Keywords: Tokamak, Classification, Artificial Neural Network, Support Vector Machines.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1277

Authors: Jorge Estudillo Ramirez, Saul E. Pomares Hernandez

Abstract:

Multimedia distributed systems deal with heterogeneous data, such as texts, images, graphics, video and audio. The specification of temporal relations among different data types and distributed sources is an open research area. This paper proposes a fully distributed synchronization model to be used in multimedia systems. One original aspect of the model is that it avoids the use of a common reference (e.g. wall clock and shared memory). To achieve this, all possible multimedia temporal relations are specified according to their causal dependencies.

Keywords: Multimedia, Distributed Systems, Partial Ordering, Temporal Synchronization

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1355

Authors: Hakan Gürkan, Ahmet Denker

Abstract:

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) spends hundreds of millions of dollars on software to support its infrastructure, operate its weapons and provide command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) functions. These and other all new advanced systems have a common critical component is information technology. Defense and Aerospace environment is continuously striving to keep up with increasingly sophisticated Information Technology (IT) in order to remain effective in today-s dynamic and unpredictable threat environment. This makes it one of the largest and fastest growing expenses of Defense. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent a year on IT projects. But, too many of those millions are wasted on costly mistakes. Systems that do not work properly, new components that are not compatible with old once, trendily new applications that do not really satisfy defense needs or lost though poorly managed contracts. This paper investigates and compiles the effective strategies that aim to end exasperation with low returns and high cost of Information Technology Acquisition for defense; it tries to show how to maximize value while reducing time and expenditure.

Keywords: Iterative Process, Acquisition Management, Project management, Software Economics, Requirement analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1242

Authors: Mosseri Avraham

Abstract:

Teaching structures and structural design in architectural studies is considered a difficult mission due to complex reasons and circumstances. This article proposes a new conceptual model (HDH) for teaching structures and structural design in architectural studies. Because of its systems-thinking orientation it is also relevant and applicable to other fields and systems. The HDH model was developed in order to encourage the integration of science and art, especially in relation to structures, in architectural studies.

Keywords: Structural Thinking, Conceptual Design, Teaching Structures, Systems Thinking.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1414

Authors: Glenda Minguito, Jenith Banluta

Abstract:

One of the critical aspects of humanitarian operations is the distribution of relief goods to an affected community. The common assumption is that relief goods are prepositioned during disasters which are not applicable in developing countries like the Philippines. During disasters, the on-the-ground government agencies and responders have to procure, sort, weigh and pack the relief goods. There is a need to review the relief goods preparation as it seriously affects the delivery of necessary aid for human survival. This study also identifies the ideal location of the assembly hub to minimize the distance to the affected community. This paper reveals that location and resources are dependent on the type of disasters encountered at the local level. The Center-of-Gravity method and Multiple Activity Chart were applied in the analysis.

Keywords: Humanitarian supply chain, location decision, resource allocation, local level.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 454

Authors: Ghada Abdelmouez M., Fathy S. Helail, Abdellatif A. Elkouny

Abstract:

It is known that symmetric encryption algorithms are fast and easy to implement in hardware. Also elliptic curves have proved to be a good choice for building encryption system. Although most of the symmetric systems have been broken, we can create a hybrid system that has the same properties of the symmetric encryption systems and in the same time, it has the strength of elliptic curves in encryption. As DES algorithm is considered the core of all successive symmetric encryption systems, we modified DES using elliptic curves and built a new DES algorithm that is hard to be broken and will be the core for all other symmetric systems.

Keywords: DES, Elliptic Curves, hybrid system, symmetricencryption.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1735

Authors: Sohrab Khanmohammadi, Raana Soltani Zarrin

Abstract:

In this paper, a heuristic method for simultaneous rescue robot path-planning and mission scheduling is introduced based on project management techniques, multi criteria decision making and artificial potential fields path-planning. Groups of injured people are trapped in a disastrous situation. These people are categorized into several groups based on the severity of their situation. A rescue robot, whose ultimate objective is reaching injured groups and providing preliminary aid for them through a path with minimum risk, has to perform certain tasks on its way towards targets before the arrival of rescue team. A decision value is assigned to each target based on the whole degree of satisfaction of the criteria and duties of the robot toward the target and the importance of rescuing each target based on their category and the number of injured people. The resulted decision value defines the strength of the attractive potential field of each target. Dangerous environmental parameters are defined as obstacles whose risk determines the strength of the repulsive potential field of each obstacle. Moreover, negative and positive energies are assigned to the targets and obstacles, which are variable with respects to the factors involved. The simulation results show that the generated path for two cases studies with certain differences in environmental conditions and other risk factors differ considerably.

Keywords: Artificial potential field, GERT, path planning

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1842

Authors: Rizik Al-Sayyed, Colin Pattinson, Tony Dacre

Abstract:

This paper presents the findings of two experiments that were performed on the Redundancy in Wireless Connection Model (RiWC) using the 802.11b standard. The experiments were simulated using OPNET 11.5 Modeler software. The first was aimed at finding the maximum number of simultaneous Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) users the model would support under the G.711 and G.729 codec standards when the packetization interval was 10 milliseconds (ms). The second experiment examined the model?s VoIP user capacity using the G.729 codec standard along with background traffic using the same packetization interval as in the first experiment. To determine the capacity of the model under various experiments, we checked three metrics: jitter, delay and data loss. When background traffic was added, we checked the response time in addition to the previous three metrics. The findings of the first experiment indicated that the maximum number of simultaneous VoIP users the model was able to support was 5, which is consistent with recent research findings. When using the G.729 codec, the model was able to support up to 16 VoIP users; similar experiments in current literature have indicated a maximum of 7 users. The finding of the second experiment demonstrated that the maximum number of VoIP users the model was able to support was 12, with the existence of background traffic.

Keywords: WLAN, IEEE 802.11b, Codec, VoIP, OPNET, Background traffic, and QoS.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1689

Authors: Hsiu-Fen Chen, Fang-Liu Su, Ya-Wen Chang

Abstract:

purpose of this study was to investigate the current status of support services for students with special education needs (SEN) at colleges and universities in Taiwan. Seventy-two college and universities received a questionnaire on its resource room operation process and four resource room staffs each from different areas were interviewed through semi- structured interview forms. The main findings were (1) most colleges and universities did offer sufficient administrative resources; (2) more efforts on preventions for SEN students and establishment of disability awareness should be made for all campus faculties ; (3) more comprehensive services were required to help students to have better transition into post-school life; (4) most schools provided basic administrative resource requirements but qualities of the resource room programs needed to be enhanced; and (5) most resource room staffs lacked of professional knowledge in counseling the SEN students which needed to be strengthened in the future.

Keywords: support services, students with special education needs, higher education, resource room program

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1483

Authors: Maninder Jeet Kaur, Moin Uddin, Harsh K. Verma

Abstract:

The efficient use of available licensed spectrum is becoming more and more critical with increasing demand and usage of the radio spectrum. This paper shows how the use of spectrum as well as dynamic spectrum management can be effectively managed and spectrum allocation schemes in the wireless communication systems be implemented and used, in future. This paper would be an attempt towards better utilization of the spectrum. This research will focus on the decision-making process mainly, with an assumption that the radio environment has already been sensed and the QoS requirements for the application have been specified either by the sensed radio environment or by the secondary user itself. We identify and study the characteristic parameters of Cognitive Radio and use Genetic Algorithm for spectrum allocation. Performance evaluation is done using MATLAB toolboxes.

Keywords: Cognitive Radio, Fitness Functions, Fuzzy Logic, Quality of Service (QoS)

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2413

Authors: N. Mantalay, N. Chakpitak, W. Janchai, P. Sureepong

Abstract:

Work-life balance has been acknowledged and promoted for the sake of employee retention. It is essential for a manager to realize the human resources situation within a company to help employees work happily and perform at their best. This paper suggests knowledge management and critical thinking are useful to motivate employees to think about their work-life balance. A qualitative case study is presented, which aimed to discover the meaning of work-life balance-s meaning from the perspective of Thai knowledge workers and how it affects their decision-making towards work resignation. Results found three types of work-life balance dimensions; a work- life balance including a workplace and a private life setting, an organizational working life balance only, and a worklife balance only in a private life setting. These aspects all influenced the decision-making of the employees. Factors within a theme of an organizational work-life balance were involved with systematic administration, fair treatment, employee recognition, challenging assignments to gain working experience, assignment engagement, teamwork, relationship with superiors, and working environment, while factors concerning private life settings were about personal demands such as an increasing their salary or starting their own business.

Keywords: knowledge management, work-life balance, knowledge workers, decision-making, critical thinking, diverse workforce

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2071

Authors: Ioannis Neokosmidis, Nikos Gkekas, Thomas Kamalakis, Thomas Sphicopoulos

Abstract:

In high powered dense wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) systems with low chromatic dispersion, four-wave mixing (FWM) can prove to be a major source of noise. The MultiCanonical Monte Carlo Method (MCMC) and the Split Step Fourier Method (SSFM) are combined to accurately evaluate the probability density function of the decision variable of a receiver, limited by FWM. The combination of the two methods leads to more accurate results, and offers the possibility of adding other optical noises such as the Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) noise.

Keywords: Monte Carlo, Nonlinear optics, optical crosstalk, Wavelength-division Multiplexing (WDM).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1691

Authors: Munehiro Iwami

Abstract:

A property is persistent if for any many-sorted term rewriting system , has the property if and only if term rewriting system , which results from by omitting its sort information, has the property. Zantema showed that termination is persistent for term rewriting systems without collapsing or duplicating rules. In this paper, we show that the Zantema's result can be extended to term rewriting systems on ordered sorts, i.e., termination is persistent for term rewriting systems on ordered sorts without collapsing, decreasing or duplicating rules. Furthermore we give the example as application of this result. Also we obtain that completeness is persistent for this class of term rewriting systems.

Keywords: Theory of computing, Model-based reasoning, term rewriting system, termination

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1388

Authors: Minwoo Son, Seung-Hun Lee, Dongkyoo Shin, Dongil Shin

Abstract:

The next stage of the home networking environment is supposed to be ubiquitous, where each piece of material is equipped with an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag. To fully support the ubiquitous environment, home networking middleware should be able to recommend home services based on a user-s interests and efficiently manage information on service usage profiles for the users. Therefore, USN (Ubiquitous Sensor Network) technology, which recognizes and manages a appliance-s state-information (location, capabilities, and so on) by connecting RFID tags is considered. The Intelligent Multi-Agent Middleware (IMAM) architecture was proposed to intelligently manage the mobile RFID-based home networking and to automatically supply information about home services that match a user-s interests. Evaluation results for personalization services for IMAM using Bayesian-Net and Decision Trees are presented.

Keywords: Intelligent Agents, Home Network, Mobile RFID, Intelligent Middleware.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1441

Authors: G. Büyüközkan , O. Feyzioglu, Z. Vardaloglu

Abstract:

Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) coordinates the various supply chain management activities including production and purchase planning, demand forecasting and inventory replenishment between supply chain trading partners. This study proposes a systematic way of analyzing CPFR supporting factors using fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) approach. FCMs have proven particularly useful for solving problems in which a number of decision variables and uncontrollable variables are causally interrelated. Hence the FCMs of CPFR are created to show the relationships between the factors that influence on effective implementation of CPFR in the supply chain.

Keywords: Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment, fuzzy cognitive map, information sharing, decision synchronization, incentive alignment.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1531

Authors: Mevlüt Gül, Hilal Yılmaz, M. Göksel Akpınar, Ayse Karadağ Gürsoy, Özge Bayındır

Abstract:

Milk is a very important nutrient. Low productivity is a problem of Turkish dairy farming. During recent years, Turkish government has supported cooperatives that assist milk producers and encouraged farmers to become cooperative members. Turkish government established several ways to support specially smallholders. For example Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) provided two to four cows to villagers on a grant or loan basis with a long repayment period at low interest rates by cooperatives. Social Support Project in Rural Areas (SSPRA) is another support program targeting only disadvantaged people, especially poor villager. Both programs have a very strong social support component and similar objectives. But there are minor differences between them in terms of target people, terms and conditions of the credit supplied Isparta province in Mediterranean region of Turkey is one of the supported regions. MARA distributed dairy cows to 1072 farmers through 16 agricultural cooperatives in Isparta province in the context of SSPRA. In this study, economic-social impacts on dairy cattle project implemented through cooperatives were examined in Isparta. Primary data were collected from 12 cooperatives- president. The data were obtained by personal interview through a questionnaire and to cooperatives and given to farms benefiting from the project in order to reveal the economic and social developments. Finding of the study revealed that project provided new job opportunities and improved quality of livestock. It was found that producers who benefited from the project were more willing to participate in cooperative or other producer organizations.

Keywords: ooperative, Dairy Cattle, Economic Impact, Livestock Support Project, Social Impact.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1863

Authors: Shin-Jer Yang, Kai-Tai Yang

Abstract:

In response to a changing world and the fast growth of the Internet, more and more enterprises are replacing web-based services with cloud-based ones. Multi-tenancy technology is becoming more important especially with Software as a Service (SaaS). This in turn leads to a greater focus on the application of Identity and Access Management (IAM). Conventional Near-Field Communication (NFC) based verification relies on a computer browser and a card reader to access an NFC tag. This type of verification does not support mobile device login and user-based access management functions. This study designs an NFC-based third-party cloud identity and access management scheme (NFC-IAM) addressing this shortcoming. Data from simulation tests analyzed with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) suggest that the NFC-IAM not only takes less time in identity identification but also cuts time by 80% in terms of two-factor authentication and improves verification accuracy to 99.9% or better. In functional performance analyses, NFC-IAM performed better in salability and portability. The NFC-IAM App (Application Software) and back-end system to be developed and deployed in mobile device are to support IAM features and also offers users a more user-friendly experience and stronger security protection. In the future, our NFC-IAM can be employed to different environments including identification for mobile payment systems, permission management for remote equipment monitoring, among other applications.

Keywords: Cloud service, multi-tenancy, NFC, IAM, mobile device.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1117

Authors: Sivamurugan Pandian

Abstract:

In the 13th Malaysia’s General Elections held in 2013, it was observed that large numbers of urban constituencies saw strongly decisive young voters (between 21-39 age group) determine the outcome in their favour. Also, the Elections Commission had approximated that 70% of some 4.2 million unregistered voters at the time were citizens aged between 21 and 40 years old. If they are not already considered an important form of political leverage, 450,000 young Malaysians turn 21 years old each year. Further compounding this fact were the 2.4 million new voters registered in 2012, which at the time constituted almost 30% of the entire voting population. This article discusses the importance of issues for the youth, with reference to the university students in Malaysia in their decision making on polling day.

Keywords: Malaysia, Youth, Issues, Voting Patterns, Elections.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3543

Authors: A. Elyousfi, A. Tamtaoui, E. Bouyakhf

Abstract:

The H.264/AVC video coding standard contains a number of advanced features. Ones of the new features introduced in this standard is the multiple intramode prediction. Its function exploits directional spatial correlation with adjacent block for intra prediction. With this new features, intra coding of H.264/AVC offers a considerably higher improvement in coding efficiency compared to other compression standard, but computational complexity is increased significantly when brut force rate distortion optimization (RDO) algorithm is used. In this paper, we propose a new fast intra prediction mode decision method for the complexity reduction of H.264 video coding. for luma intra prediction, the proposed method consists of two step: in the first step, we make the RDO for four mode of intra 4x4 block, based the distribution of RDO cost of those modes and the idea that the fort correlation with adjacent mode, we select the best mode of intra 4x4 block. In the second step, we based the fact that the dominating direction of a smaller block is similar to that of bigger block, the candidate modes of 8x8 blocks and 16x16 macroblocks are determined. So, in case of chroma intra prediction, the variance of the chroma pixel values is much smaller than that of luma ones, since our proposed uses only the mode DC. Experimental results show that the new fast intra mode decision algorithm increases the speed of intra coding significantly with negligible loss of PSNR.

Keywords: Intra prediction, H264/AVC, video coding, encodercomplexity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2504