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3142 The Influence of Architectural-Planning Structure of Cities on Their Sustainable Development
Authors: M. Kashiripoor
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Existing indicators for sustainable urban development do not identify the features of cities’ planning structures and their architecture. Iranian city has special relevance problem of assessing the conformity of their planning and development of the concept of sustainable development. Based on theoretical sources, the author concludes that, despite the existence of common indicators for sustainable development of settlements, specialized evaluation criteria city structure planning has not been developed. He is trying to fill this gap and put forward a system of indicators characterizing the level of development of the architectural-planning structure of the city. The proposed system of indicators is designed based on technical and economic urban standard indicators from different countries. Alternative designing systems and requirements of modern rating systems like LEED-ND comprise a criterion for evaluation of urban structures in accordance with principles of "Green" building and New Urbanism. Urban development trends are close in spirit of sustainable development and developed under its influence. The study allowed concluding that a system of indicators to identify the relevant architectural-planning structure of the city, requirements of sustainable development, should be adapted to the conditions of each country, particularly in Iran. The article attempts typology proposed indicators, which are presented in tabular form and are divided into two types: planning and spatial. This article discusses the known indicators of sustainable development and proposed specific system of indicators characterizing the level of development of architectural-planning structure of the city. This article examines indicators for evaluating level of city' planning structure development. The proposed system of indicators is derived from the urban planning standards and rating systems such as LEED-ND, BREEAM Community and CASBEE-UD.
Keywords: Architectural-planning structure of cities, urban planning indicators, urban space indicators.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10983141 The Effect of Physical Exercise to Level of Nuclear Factor Kappa B on Serum, Macrophages and Myocytes
Authors: Eryati Darwin, Eka Fithra Elfi, Indria Hafizah
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Background: Physical exercise induces a pattern of hormonal and immunological responses that prevent endothelial dysfunction by maintaining the availability of nitric oxide (NO). Regular and moderate exercise stimulates NO release, that can be considered as protective factor of cardiovascular diseases, while strenuous exercise induces increased levels in a number of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) triggers endothelial activation which results in an increased vascular permeability. Nuclear gene factor kappa B (NF-κB) activates biological effect of TNF-α. Aim of Study: To determine the effect of physical exercise on the endothelial and skeletal muscle, we measured the level of NF-κB on rats’ serum, macrophages, and myocytes after strenuous physical exercise. Methods: 30 male Rattus norvegicus in the age of eight weeks were randomly divided into five groups (each containing six), and there were treated groups (T) and control group (C). The treated groups obtain strenuous physical exercise by ran on treadmill at 32 m/minutes for 1 hour or until exhaustion. Blood samples, myocytes of gastrocnemius muscle, and intraperitoneal macrophages were collected sequentially. There were investigated immediately, 2 hours, 6 hours, and 24 hours (T1, T2, T3, and T4) after sacrifice. The levels of NF-κB were measured by ELISA methods. Results: From our study, we found that the levels of NF-κB on myocytes in treated group from which its specimen was taken immediately (T1), 2 hours after treadmill (T2), and 6 hours after treadmill (T3) were significantly higher than control group (p<0.05), while the group from which its specimen was taken 24 hours after treadmill, was no significantly different (p>0.05). Also on macrophages, NF-κB in treated groups T1, T2, and T3 was significantly higher than control group (p<0.05), but there was no difference between T4 and control group (p>0.05). The level of serum NF-κB was not significantly different between treatment group as well as compared to control group (p>0.05). Serum NF-κB was significantly higher than the level on macrophages and myocytes (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that strenuous physical exercise stimulates the activation of NF-κB that plays a role in vascular inflammation and muscular damage, and may be recovered after resting period.
Keywords: Endothelial function, inflammation, NF-κB, physical exercise.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11013140 A Proposed Technique for Software Development Risks Identification by using FTA Model
Authors: Hatem A. Khater, A. Baith Mohamed, Sara M. Kamel
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Software Development Risks Identification (SDRI), using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), is a proposed technique to identify not only the risk factors but also the causes of the appearance of the risk factors in software development life cycle. The method is based on analyzing the probable causes of software development failures before they become problems and adversely affect a project. It uses Fault tree analysis (FTA) to determine the probability of a particular system level failures that are defined by A Taxonomy for Sources of Software Development Risk to deduce failure analysis in which an undesired state of a system by using Boolean logic to combine a series of lower-level events. The major purpose of this paper is to use the probabilistic calculations of Fault Tree Analysis approach to determine all possible causes that lead to software development risk occurrenceKeywords: Software Development Risks Identification (SDRI), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Taxonomy for Software Development Risks (TSDR), Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22203139 Efficient and Extensible Data Processing Framework in Ubiquitious Sensor Networks
Authors: Junghoon Lee, Gyung-Leen Park, Ho-Young Kwak, Cheol Min Kim
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This paper presents the design and implements the prototype of an intelligent data processing framework in ubiquitous sensor networks. Much focus is put on how to handle the sensor data stream as well as the interoperability between the low-level sensor data and application clients. Our framework first addresses systematic middleware which mitigates the interaction between the application layer and low-level sensors, for the sake of analyzing a great volume of sensor data by filtering and integrating to create value-added context information. Then, an agent-based architecture is proposed for real-time data distribution to efficiently forward a specific event to the appropriate application registered in the directory service via the open interface. The prototype implementation demonstrates that our framework can host a sophisticated application on the ubiquitous sensor network and it can autonomously evolve to new middleware, taking advantages of promising technologies such as software agents, XML, cloud computing, and the like.
Keywords: sensor network, intelligent farm, middleware, event detection
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13633138 Model of Community Management for Sustainable Utilization
Authors: Luedech Girdwichai, Witthaya Mekhum
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This research intended to develop the model of community management for sustainable utilization by investigating on 2 groups of population, the family heads and the community management team. The population of the former group consisted of family heads from 511 families in 12 areas to complete the questionnaires which were returned at 479 sets. The latter group consisted of the community management team of 12 areas with 1 representative from each area to give the interview. The questionnaires for the family heads consisted of 2 main parts; general information such as occupations, etc. in the form of checklist. The second part dealt with the data on self reliance community development based on 4P Framework, i.e., People (human resource) development, Place (area) development, Product (economic and income source) development, and Plan (community plan) development in the form of rating scales. Data in the 1st part were calculated to find frequency and percentage while those in the 2nd part were analyzed to find arithmetic mean and SD. Data from the 2nd group of population or the community management team were derived from focus group to find factors influencing successful management together with the in depth interview which were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results showed that 479 family heads reported that the aspect on the implementation of community plan to self reliance community activities based on Sufficient Economy Philosophy and the 4P was at the average of 3.28 or moderate level. When considering in details, it was found that the 1st aspect was on the area development with the mean of 3.71 or high level followed by human resource development with the mean of 3.44 or moderate level, then, economic and source of income development with the mean of 3.09 or moderate level. The last aspect was community plan development with the mean of 2.89. The results from the small group discussion revealed some factors and guidelines for successful community management as follows: 1) on the People (human resource) development aspect, there was a project to support and develop community leaders. 2) On the aspect of Place (area) development, there was a development on conservative tourism areas. 3) On the aspect of Product (economic and source of income) development, the community leaders promoted the setting of occupational group, saving group, and product processing group. 4) On the aspect of Plan (community plan) development, there was a prioritization through public hearing.
Keywords: Model of community management, sustainable utilization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15083137 Role of Pro-Inflammatory and Regulatory Cytokines in Pathogenesis of Graves’ Disease in Association with Autoantibody Thyroid and Regulatory FoxP3 T-Cells
Authors: Dwitya Elvira, Eryati Darwin
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Background: Graves’ disease (GD) is an autoimmune thyroid disease. Imbalance of Th1/Th2 cells and T-regulatory (Treg)/Th17 cells was thought to play pivotal role in the pathogenesis of GD. Treg FoxP3 produced TGF-β to maintain regulatory function, and Th17 cells produced IL-17 as cytokines that were thought in mediating several autoimmune diseases. The aim of this study is to assess the role of IL-17 and TGF-β in the pathogenesis of GD and to investigate its correlation with Thyroid Stimulating Hormone Receptor Antibody (TRAb) and Treg FoxP3 expression. Method: 30 GD patients and 27 age and sex-matched controls were enrolled in this study. Diagnosis of GD was based on clinical and biochemical of GD. Serum IL-17, TGF-β, TRAb, and FoxP3 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Data were analyzed by using SPSS 21.0 (SPSS Inc.). Spearman rank correlation test was used for assessment of correlation. The statistical significance was accepted as P<0.05. Result: There was no significant correlation between IL-17 and TGF-β serum with expression of FoxP3 level in GD, but there was significant correlation between TGF-β and TRAb serum level (P<0.05). Serum levels of IL-17 and TGF-β were found to be elevated in patient group compared to control, where mean values of IL-17 were 14.43±2.15 pg/mL and TGF-β were 10.44±3.19 pg/mL in patients group; and in control group, level of IL-17 were 7.1±1.45 pg/mL and TGF-β were 4.95±1.35 pg/mL. Conclusion: Serum Il-17 and TGF-β were elevated in GD patients that reflect the role of inflammatory and regulatory cytokines activation in pathogenesis of GD. There was significant correlation between TGF-β and TRAb, revealing that Treg cytokines may play a role in pathogenesis of GD.
Keywords: IL-17, TGF-β, FoxP3, Graves’ disease.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10663136 The use of a Bespoke Computer Game For Teaching Analogue Electronics
Authors: Olaf Hallan Graven, Dag Andreas Hals Samuelsen
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An implementation of a design for a game based virtual learning environment is described. The game is developed for a course in analogue electronics, and the topic is the design of a power supply. This task can be solved in a number of different ways, with certain constraints, giving the students a certain amount of freedom, although the game is designed not to facilitate trial-and error approach. The use of storytelling and a virtual gaming environment provides the student with the learning material in a MMORPG environment. The game is tested on a group of second year electrical engineering students with good results.Keywords: analogue electronics, e-learning, computer games for learning, virtual reality
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15373135 Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pregnant Women toward Antenatal Care at Public Hospitals in Sana'a City-Yemen
Authors: Abdulfatah Al-Jaradi, Marzoq Ali Odhah, Abdulnasser A. Haza’a
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Background: Antenatal care can be defined as the care provided by skilled healthcare professionals to pregnant women and adolescent girls to ensure the best health conditions for both mother and baby during pregnancy. The components of Antenatal Care (ANC) include risk identification; prevention and management of pregnancy-related or concurrent diseases; and health education and health promotion. The aim of this study: to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant women regarding ANC. Methodology: A descriptive knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) study was conducted in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. The study population included all pregnant women that intended to the prenatal department and clinical outpatient department; the final sample size was 371 pregnant women. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data, statistical package for social sciences SPSS was used to data analysis. The results: Most (79%) of pregnant women had correct answers in total knowledge regarding ANC, and about two-thirds (67%) of pregnant women had performance practice regarding ANC and two-third (68%) of pregnant women had a positive attitude. Conclusions: More than three quarter of pregnant women had good knowledge level, most of pregnant women had moderate practice level, and more than two-thirds of pregnant women had a positive attitude regarding antenatal care. There was a statistically significant association between overall knowledge and practice level toward ANC and demographic characteristics of pregnant women, at P-value ≤ 0.05. Recommendations: we recommended more education and training courses, lecturers, and education sessions in clinical facilitators focused on ANC, which relies on evidence-based interventions provided to women during pregnancy by skilled healthcare providers such as midwives, doctors, and nurses.
Keywords: Antenatal care, knowledge, practice, attitude, pregnant women.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7153134 The Effects of Production, Transportation and Storage Conditions on Mold Growth in Compound Feeds
Authors: N. Cetinkaya
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The objective of the present study is to determine the critical control points during the production, transportation and storage conditions of compound feeds to be used in the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) feed safety management system. A total of 40 feed samples were taken after 20 and 40 days of storage periods from the 10 dairy and 10 beef cattle farms following the transportation of the compound feeds from the factory. In addition, before transporting the feeds from factory immediately after production of dairy and beef cattle compound feeds, 10 from each total 20 samples were taken as 0 day. In all feed samples, chemical composition and total aflatoxin levels were determined. The aflatoxin levels in all feed samples with the exception of 2 dairy cattle feeds were below the maximum acceptable level. With the increase in storage period in dairy feeds, the aflatoxin levels were increased to 4.96 ppb only in a BS8 dairy farm. This value is below the maximum permissible level (10 ppb) in beef cattle feed. The aflatoxin levels of dairy feed samples taken after production varied between 0.44 and 2.01 ppb. Aflatoxin levels were found to be between 0.89 and 3.01 ppb in dairy cattle feeds taken on the 20th day of storage at 10 dairy cattle farm. On the 40th day, feed aflatoxin levels in the same dairy cattle farm were found between 1.12 and 7.83 ppb. The aflatoxin levels were increased to 7.83 and 6.31 ppb in 2 dairy farms, after a storage period of 40 days. These obtained aflatoxin values are above the maximum permissible level in dairy cattle feeds. The 40 days storage in pellet form in the HACCP feed safety management system can be considered as a critical control point.
Keywords: Aflatoxin, beef cattle feed, compound feed, dairy cattle feed, HACCP.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8543133 The Impact of Revenue Gap on Economic Growth: A Case Study of Pakistan
Authors: M. Ilyas, M. W. Siddiqi
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This study employs auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds approach to cointegration for long run and errorcorrection modeling (ECM) for short run analysis to examine the relationship between revenue gap and economic growth for Pakistan using annual time series data over the period 1980 to 2008. The short and long run results indicate that revenue gap is statistical significant and negatively effect economic growth. The significant and negative coefficient of error correction term in ECM indicates that after a shock, the long rum equilibrium will again converge towards equilibrium about 10.406 percent within a year.
Keywords: ARDL cointegration, Economic Growth, RevenueGap, Pakistan.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25743132 Neuro-Fuzzy Based Model for Phrase Level Emotion Understanding
Authors: Vadivel Ayyasamy
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The present approach deals with the identification of Emotions and classification of Emotional patterns at Phrase-level with respect to Positive and Negative Orientation. The proposed approach considers emotion triggered terms, its co-occurrence terms and also associated sentences for recognizing emotions. The proposed approach uses Part of Speech Tagging and Emotion Actifiers for classification. Here sentence patterns are broken into phrases and Neuro-Fuzzy model is used to classify which results in 16 patterns of emotional phrases. Suitable intensities are assigned for capturing the degree of emotion contents that exist in semantics of patterns. These emotional phrases are assigned weights which supports in deciding the Positive and Negative Orientation of emotions. The approach uses web documents for experimental purpose and the proposed classification approach performs well and achieves good F-Scores.
Keywords: Emotions, sentences, phrases, classification, patterns, fuzzy, positive orientation, negative orientation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10823131 Attitude Stabilization of Satellites Using Random Dither Quantization
Authors: Attitude Stabilization of Satellites Using Random Dither Quantization
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Recently, the effectiveness of random dither quantization method for linear feedback control systems has been shown in several papers. However, the random dither quantization method has not yet been applied to nonlinear feedback control systems. The objective of this paper is to verify the effectiveness of random dither quantization method for nonlinear feedback control systems. For this purpose, we consider the attitude stabilization problem of satellites using discrete-level actuators. Namely, this paper provides a control method based on the random dither quantization method for stabilizing the attitude of satellites using discrete-level actuators.Keywords: Quantized control, nonlinear systems, random dither quantization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9633130 Rainfall Seasonality Changes over India Based on Changes in the Climate
Authors: Randhir Singh Baghel, Govind Prasad Sahu
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An individual seasonality index is used to study the seasonality of rainfall over India. The seasonality indicator is examined for two time periods: early (1901-1970) and recent (1971-2015). In some regions of India throughout the recent time (1971-2015), trend analysis using linear regression during these two periods reveals a downward trend in the seasonality index (i.e., decreasing values of the index), which implies shorter dry spells resulting in more consistent rainfall throughout the year.
Keywords: Individual seasonality index, rainfall distribution, seasonality index, climate.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1903129 A Set Theory Based Factoring Technique and Its Use for Low Power Logic Design
Authors: Padmanabhan Balasubramanian, Ryuta Arisaka
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Factoring Boolean functions is one of the basic operations in algorithmic logic synthesis. A novel algebraic factorization heuristic for single-output combinatorial logic functions is presented in this paper and is developed based on the set theory paradigm. The impact of factoring is analyzed mainly from a low power design perspective for standard cell based digital designs in this paper. The physical implementation of a number of MCNC/IWLS combinational benchmark functions and sub-functions are compared before and after factoring, based on a simple technology mapping procedure utilizing only standard gate primitives (readily available as standard cells in a technology library) and not cells corresponding to optimized complex logic. The power results were obtained at the gate-level by means of an industry-standard power analysis tool from Synopsys, targeting a 130nm (0.13μm) UMC CMOS library, for the typical case. The wire-loads were inserted automatically and the simulations were performed with maximum input activity. The gate-level simulations demonstrate the advantage of the proposed factoring technique in comparison with other existing methods from a low power perspective, for arbitrary examples. Though the benchmarks experimentation reports mixed results, the mean savings in total power and dynamic power for the factored solution over a non-factored solution were 6.11% and 5.85% respectively. In terms of leakage power, the average savings for the factored forms was significant to the tune of 23.48%. The factored solution is expected to better its non-factored counterpart in terms of the power-delay product as it is well-known that factoring, in general, yields a delay-efficient multi-level solution.
Keywords: Factorization, Set theory, Logic function, Standardcell based design, Low power.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17953128 Study on Disaster Prevention Plan for an Electronic Industry in Thailand
Authors: S. Pullteap, M. Pathomsuriyaporn
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In this article, a study of employee’s opinion to the factors that affect to the flood preventive and the corrective action plan in an electronic industry at the Sharp Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd. has been investigated. The surveys data of 175 workers and supervisors have, however, been selected for data analysis. The results is shown that the employees emphasize about the needs in a subsidy at the time of disaster at high levels of 77.8%, as the plan focusing on flood prevention of the rehabilitation equipment is valued at the intermediate level, which is 79.8%. Demonstration of the hypothesis has found that the different education levels has thus been affected to the needs factor at the flood disaster time. Moreover, most respondents give priority to flood disaster risk management factor. Consequently, we found that the flood prevention plan is valued at high level, especially on information monitoring, which is 93.4% for the supervisor item. The respondents largely assume that the flood will have impacts on the industry, up to 80%, thus to focus on flood management plans is enormous.
Keywords: Flood prevention plan, flood event, electronic industrial plant, disaster, risk management.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18513127 Reading Strategy Awareness of English Major Students
Authors: Hsin-Yi Lien
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The study explored the role of metacognition in foreign language anxiety on a sample of 411 Taiwanese students of English as a Foreign Language. The reading strategy inventory was employed to evaluate the tertiary learners’ level of metacognitive awareness and a semi-structured background questionnaire was also used to examine the learners’ perceptions of their English proficiency and satisfaction of their current English learning. In addition, gender and academic level differences in employment of reading strategies were investigated. The results showed the frequency of reading strategy use increase slightly along with academic years and males and females actually employ different reading strategies. The EFL tertiary learners in the present study utilized cognitive strategies more frequently than metacognitive strategies or support strategies. Male students use metacognitive strategy more often while female students use cognitive and support strategy more frequently.
Keywords: Cognitive strategy, gender differences, metacognitive strategy, support strategy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34333126 Analysis of Lightweight Register Hardware Threat
Authors: Yang Luo, Beibei Wang
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In this paper, we present a design methodology of lightweight register transfer level (RTL) hardware threat implemented based on a MAX II FPGA platform. The dynamic power consumed by the toggling of the various bit of registers as well as the dynamic power consumed per unit of logic circuits were analyzed. The hardware threat was designed taking advantage of the differences in dynamic power consumed per unit of logic circuits to hide the transfer information. The experiment result shows that the register hardware threat was successfully implemented by using different dynamic power consumed per unit of logic circuits to hide the key information of DES encryption module. It needs more than 100000 sample curves to reduce the background noise by comparing the sample space when it completely meets the time alignment requirement. In additional, an external trigger signal is playing a very important role to detect the hardware threat in this experiment.
Keywords: Side-channel analysis, hardware threat, register transfer level, dynamic power.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9963125 A Robust Method for Finding Nearest-Neighbor using Hexagon Cells
Authors: Ahmad Attiq Al-Ogaibi, Ahmad Sharieh, Moh’d Belal Al-Zoubi, R. Bremananth
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In pattern clustering, nearest neighborhood point computation is a challenging issue for many applications in the area of research such as Remote Sensing, Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Statistical Imaging. Nearest neighborhood computation is an essential computation for providing sufficient classification among the volume of pixels (voxels) in order to localize the active-region-of-interests (AROI). Furthermore, it is needed to compute spatial metric relationships of diverse area of imaging based on the applications of pattern recognition. In this paper, we propose a new methodology for finding the nearest neighbor point, depending on making a virtually grid of a hexagon cells, then locate every point beneath them. An algorithm is suggested for minimizing the computation and increasing the turnaround time of the process. The nearest neighbor query points Φ are fetched by seeking fashion of hexagon holistic. Seeking will be repeated until an AROI Φ is to be expected. If any point Υ is located then searching starts in the nearest hexagons in a circular way. The First hexagon is considered be level 0 (L0) and the surrounded hexagons is level 1 (L1). If Υ is located in L1, then search starts in the next level (L2) to ensure that Υ is the nearest neighbor for Φ. Based on the result and experimental results, we found that the proposed method has an advantage over the traditional methods in terms of minimizing the time complexity required for searching the neighbors, in turn, efficiency of classification will be improved sufficiently.
Keywords: Hexagon cells, k-nearest neighbors, Nearest Neighbor, Pattern recognition, Query pattern, Virtually grid
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 28083124 Analysis and Protection of Soil in Controlled Regime Using Techniques Adapted to the Specifics of Precision Agriculture
Authors: Voicu Petre, Oaida Mircea, Surugiu Petru
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It is now unanimously accepted that conventional agriculture has led to the emergence and intensification of some forms of soil and environmental degradation, some of which are due to poorly applied or insufficiently substantiated technological measures. For this reason, the elaboration of any agricultural technology requires a deep knowledge of all the factors involved as well as of the interaction relations between them. This is also the way in which the research will be approached in this paper. Despite the fact that at European level the implementation of precision agriculture has a low level compared to some countries located on the American continent, it is emerging not only as an alternative to conventional agriculture but, as a viable way to preserve the quality of the environment in general, and the edaphic environment in particular. This gives an increased importance to the research in this paper through physical, chemical, biological, mineralogical and micromorphological analytical determinations, processing of analytical results, identification of processes, causes, factors, establishment of soil quality indicators and the perspective of measurements from distance by satellite techniques of some of these soil properties (humidity, temperature, pH, N, P, K and so on).
Keywords: Conventional agriculture, environmental degradation, precision agriculture, soil.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8753123 Query Optimization Techniques for XML Databases
Authors: Su Cheng Haw, G. S. V. Radha Krishna Rao
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Over the past few years, XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) has emerged as the standard for information representation and data exchange over the Internet. This paper provides a kick-start for new researches venturing in XML databases field. We survey the storage representation for XML document, review the XML query processing and optimization techniques with respect to the particular storage instance. Various optimization technologies have been developed to solve the query retrieval and updating problems. Towards the later year, most researchers proposed hybrid optimization techniques. Hybrid system opens the possibility of covering each technology-s weakness by its strengths. This paper reviews the advantages and limitations of optimization techniques.Keywords: indexing, labeling scheme, query optimization, XML storage.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20453122 Female Executive Career Success and Satisfaction in Bangkok, Thailand
Authors: Nipon Sasithornsaowapa
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The objective of this research was to study the career success and the satisfaction of female executives working for schools in Bangkok, Thailand. This paper drew upon the survey data collected from 68 female executives. The survey conducted in on Bangkok schools. The statistics utilized in this paper included percentage, mean, standard deviation as well as t-test. The findings revealed that the majority of samples had more than 30 years of experience, held a master degree, and had an average income of less than 40,000 baht. The majority of respondents worked not more than 50 hours per week. In addition, the mean score revealed career development was ranked as their number one career satisfaction and having a job related to education was ranked as their number one job satisfaction. Also, the mean score of all categories of satisfaction was 4.61 with standard deviation of 1.677 which indicated that female executive level of satisfaction was high. In terms of the subjectivity career success, the hypothesis testing’s result disclosed that female executives with different married status had a difference in their job satisfaction which was significant at the 0.05 confidence level.
Keywords: Female executives, Career Success, Satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15793121 Transportation Mode Choice Analysis for Accessibility of the Mehrabad International Airport by Statistical Models
Authors: N. Mirzaei Varzeghani, M. Saffarzadeh, A. Naderan, A. Taheri
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Countries are progressing, and the world's busiest airports see year-on-year increases in travel demand. Passenger acceptability of an airport depends on the airport's appeals, which may include one of these routes between the city and the airport, as well as the facilities to reach them. One of the critical roles of transportation planners is to predict future transportation demand so that an integrated, multi-purpose system can be provided and diverse modes of transportation (rail, air, and land) can be delivered to a destination like an airport. In this study, 356 questionnaires were filled out in person over six days. First, the attraction of business and non-business trips was studied using data and a linear regression model. Lower travel costs, more passengers aged 55 and older using this airport, and other factors are essential for business trips. Non-business travelers, on the other hand, have prioritized using personal vehicles to get to the airport and ensuring convenient access to the airport. Business travelers are also less price-sensitive than non-business travelers regarding airport travel. Furthermore, carrying additional luggage (for example, more than one suitcase per person) undoubtedly decreases the attractiveness of public transit. Afterward, based on the manner and purpose of the trip, the locations with the highest trip generation to the airport were identified. The most famous district in Tehran was District 2, with 23 visits, while the most popular mode of transportation was an online taxi, with 12 trips from that location. Then, significant variables in separation and behavior of travel methods to access the airport were investigated for all systems. In this scenario, the most crucial factor is the time it takes to get to the airport, followed by the method's user-friendliness as a component of passenger preference. It has also been demonstrated that enhancing public transportation trip times reduces private transportation's market share, including taxicabs. Based on the responses of personal and semi-public vehicles, the desire of passengers to approach the airport via public transportation systems was explored to enhance present techniques and develop new strategies for providing the most efficient modes of transportation. Using the binary model, it was clear that business travelers and people who had already driven to the airport were the least likely to change.
Keywords: Multimodal transportation, travel behavior, demand modeling, statistical models.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5503120 Operating Model of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients in North Karelia Central Hospital
Authors: L. Korpinen, T. Kava, I. Salmi
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This study aimed to describe the operating model of obstructive sleep apnea. Due to the large number of patients, the role of nurses in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea was important. Pulmonary physicians met only a minority of the patients. The sleep apnea study in 2018 included about 800 patients, of which about 28% were normal and 180 patients were classified as severe (apnea-hypopnea index [AHI] over 30). The operating model has proven to be workable and appropriate. The patients understand well that they may not be referred to a pulmonary doctor. However, specialized medical follow-up on professional drivers continues every year.
Keywords: Sleep, apnea patient, operating model, hospital.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6673119 A Ground Observation Based Climatology of Winter Fog: Study over the Indo-Gangetic Plains, India
Authors: Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, Anu Rani Sharma, Kamna Sachdeva
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Every year, fog formation over the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGPs) of Indian region during the winter months of December and January is believed to create numerous hazards, inconvenience, and economic loss to the inhabitants of this densely populated region of Indian subcontinent. The aim of the paper is to analyze the spatial and temporal variability of winter fog over IGPs. Long term ground observations of visibility and other meteorological parameters (1971-2010) have been analyzed to understand the formation of fog phenomena and its relevance during the peak winter months of January and December over IGP of India. In order to examine the temporal variability, time series and trend analysis were carried out by using the Mann-Kendall Statistical test. Trend analysis performed by using the Mann-Kendall test, accepts the alternate hypothesis with 95% confidence level indicating that there exists a trend. Kendall tau’s statistics showed that there exists a positive correlation between time series and fog frequency. Further, the Theil and Sen’s median slope estimate showed that the magnitude of trend is positive. Magnitude is higher during January compared to December for the entire IGP except in December when it is high over the western IGP. Decade wise time series analysis revealed that there has been continuous increase in fog days. The net overall increase of 99 % was observed over IGP in last four decades. Diurnal variability and average daily persistence were computed by using descriptive statistical techniques. Geo-statistical analysis of fog was carried out to understand the spatial variability of fog. Geo-statistical analysis of fog revealed that IGP is a high fog prone zone with fog occurrence frequency of more than 66% days during the study period. Diurnal variability indicates the peak occurrence of fog is between 06:00 and 10:00 local time and average daily fog persistence extends to 5 to 7 hours during the peak winter season. The results would offer a new perspective to take proactive measures in reducing the irreparable damage that could be caused due to changing trends of fog.
Keywords: Fog, climatology, Mann-Kendall test, trend analysis, spatial variability, temporal variability, visibility.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17613118 Adaptive Score Normalization: A Novel Approach for Multimodal Biometric Systems
Authors: Anouar Ben Khalifa, Sami Gazzah, Najoua Essoukri BenAmara
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Multimodal biometric systems integrate the data presented by multiple biometric sources, hence offering a better performance than the systems based on a single biometric modality. Although the coupling of biometric systems can be done at different levels, the fusion at the scores level is the most common since it has been proven effective than the rest of the fusion levels. However, the scores from different modalities are generally heterogeneous. A step of normalizing the scores is needed to transform these scores into a common domain before combining them. In this paper, we study the performance of several normalization techniques with various fusion methods in a context relating to the merger of three unimodal systems based on the face, the palmprint and the fingerprint. We also propose a new adaptive normalization method that takes into account the distribution of client scores and impostor scores. Experiments conducted on a database of 100 people show that the performances of a multimodal system depend on the choice of the normalization method and the fusion technique. The proposed normalization method has given the best results.
Keywords: Multibiometrics, Fusion, Score level, Score normalization, Adaptive normalization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35603117 The Impact of Governance on Happiness: Evidence from Quantile Regressions
Authors: Chiung-Ju Huang
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This study utilizes the quantile regression analysis to examine the impact of governance (including democratic quality and technical quality) on happiness in 101 countries worldwide, classified as “developed countries” and “developing countries”. The empirical results show that the impact of democratic quality and technical quality on happiness is significantly positive for “developed countries”, while is insignificant for “developing countries”. The results suggest that the authorities in developed countries can enhance the level of individual happiness by means of improving the democracy quality and technical quality. However, for developing countries, promoting the quality of governance in order to enhance the level of happiness may not be effective. Policy makers in developed countries may pay more attention on increasing real GDP per capita instead of promoting the quality of governance to enhance individual happiness.
Keywords: Governance, happiness, multiple regression, quantile regression.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17073116 How Do You Blow off Steam - The Impact of Therapeutic Catharsis Seeking, Self-Construal, and Social Capital in Gaming Context
Authors: Hye Rim Lee, Eui Jun Jeong, Joo Woo Kim
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This study will examine how the therapeutic factors (therapeutic catharsis-seeking and game-efficacy of the game player) and self-construal factors (independent and interdependent self-construal of the game player) as well as social capital factors (bonding and bridging social capital of the game player) affect aggression in the game. Results show that both therapeutic catharsis-seeking and game self-efficacy are particularly important to the players since they cause the game players’ aggressive tendencies to be greatly diminished. Independent self-construal reduces the level of the players’ aggression. Interestingly enough, the bonding social capital enhances the level of the players’ aggression, while individuals with bridging social capital did not show any significant effects. The results and implications will be discussed herein.Keywords: Aggression catharsis, therapeutic catharsis seeking, game self-efficacy, self-construal, social capital.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25183115 Unreliable Production Lines with Simultaneously Unbalanced Operation Time Means, Breakdown, and Repair Rates
Authors: S. Shaaban, T. McNamara, S. Hudson
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This paper investigates the benefits of deliberately unbalancing both operation time means (MTs) and unreliability (failure and repair rates) for non-automated production lines. The lines were simulated with various line lengths, buffer capacities, degrees of imbalance and patterns of MT and unreliability imbalance. Data on two performance measures, namely throughput (TR) and average buffer level (ABL) were gathered, analyzed and compared to a balanced line counterpart. A number of conclusions were made with respect to the ranking of configurations, as well as to the relationships among the independent design parameters and the dependent variables. It was found that the best configurations are a balanced line arrangement and a monotone decreasing MT order, coupled with either a decreasing or a bowl unreliability configuration, with the first generally resulting in a reduced TR and the second leading to a lower ABL than those of a balanced line.Keywords: Average buffer level, throughput, unbalanced failure and repair rates, unequal mean operation times, unreliable production lines.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22463114 Classic and Heuristic Approaches in Robot Motion Planning A Chronological Review
Authors: Ellips Masehian, Davoud Sedighizadeh
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This paper reviews the major contributions to the Motion Planning (MP) field throughout a 35-year period, from classic approaches to heuristic algorithms. Due to the NP-Hardness of the MP problem, heuristic methods have outperformed the classic approaches and have gained wide popularity. After surveying around 1400 papers in the field, the amount of existing works for each method is identified and classified. Especially, the history and applications of numerous heuristic methods in MP is investigated. The paper concludes with comparative tables and graphs demonstrating the frequency of each MP method's application, and so can be used as a guideline for MP researchers.Keywords: Robot motion planning, Heuristic algorithms.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 51963113 Extreme Temperature Forecast in Mbonge, Cameroon through Return Level Analysis of the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) Distribution
Authors: Nkongho Ayuketang Arreyndip, Ebobenow Joseph
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In this paper, temperature extremes are forecast by employing the block maxima method of the Generalized extreme value(GEV) distribution to analyse temperature data from the Cameroon Development Corporation (C.D.C). By considering two sets of data (Raw data and simulated data) and two (stationary and non-stationary) models of the GEV distribution, return levels analysis is carried out and it was found that in the stationary model, the return values are constant over time with the raw data while in the simulated data, the return values show an increasing trend but with an upper bound. In the non-stationary model, the return levels of both the raw data and simulated data show an increasing trend but with an upper bound. This clearly shows that temperatures in the tropics even-though show a sign of increasing in the future, there is a maximum temperature at which there is no exceedence. The results of this paper are very vital in Agricultural and Environmental research.Keywords: Return level, Generalized extreme value (GEV), Meteorology, Forecasting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2116