Search results for: Activities of daily living

Authors: Negar Banan, Mohd Talib Latif, Liew Juneng

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Air quality studies were carried out in the towns of Putrajaya, Petaling Jaya and Nilai in the Malaysian Peninsular. In this study, the variations of Ozone (O3) concentrations over a four year period (2008-2011) were investigated using data obtained from the Malaysian Department of the Environment (DOE). This study aims to identify and describe the daily and monthly variations of O3 concentrations at the monitoring sites mentioned. The SPPS program (Statistical Package for the Social Science) was used to analyze this data in order to obtain the variations of O3 and also to clarify the relationship between the stations. The findings of the study revealed that the highest concentration of O3 occurred during the midday and afternoon (between 13:00-15:00 hrs). The comparison between stations also showed that highest O3 concentrations were recorded in Putrajaya. The comparisons of average and maximum concentrations of O3 for the three stations showed that the strongest significant correlation was recorded in the Petaling Jaya station with the value R2= 0.667. Results from this study indicate that in the urban areas of Peninsular Malaysia, the concentration of O3 depends on the concentration of NOx. Furthermore, HYSPLIT back trajectories (-72h) indicated that air-mass transport patterns can also influence the O3 concentration in the areas studied.

Keywords: Ozone, Precursors, Urban, HYSPLIT trajectory analysis.

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Authors: Nazym Shedenova, Aigul Beimisheva

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The market transformation in Kazakhstan during the last two decades has essentially strengthened a gap between development of urban and rural areas. Implementation of market institutes, transition from public financing to paid rendering of social services, change of forms of financing of social and economic infrastructure have led to strengthening of an economic inequality of social groups, including growth of stratification of the city and the village. Sociological survey of urban and rural households in Almaty city and villages of Almaty region has been carried out within the international research project “Livelihoods Strategies of Private Households in Central Asia: A Rural–Urban Comparison in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan" (Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan). The analysis of statistical data and results of sociological research of urban and rural households allows us to reveal issues of territorial development, to investigate an availability of medical, educational and other services in the city and the village, to reveal an evaluation urban and rural dwellers of living conditions, to compare economic strategies of households in the city and the village.

Keywords: Urban and rural households, social and economic infrastructure, territorial availability.

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Authors: Amina Abubakar

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English like any other language is rich by means of arbitrary, conventional, symbols which lend it to lot of inconsistencies in spelling, phonology, syntax, and morphology. The research examines the irregularities prevalent in the structure and meaning of some ‘er’ lexical items in English and its implication to vocabulary acquisition. It centers its investigation on the derivational suffix ‘er’, which changes the grammatical category of word. English language poses many challenges to Second Language Learners because of its irregularities, exceptions, and rules. One of the meaning of –er derivational suffix is someone or somebody who does something. This rule often confuses the learners when they meet with the exceptions in normal discourse. The need to investigate instances of such inconsistencies in the formation of –er words and the meanings given to such words by the students motivated this study. For this purpose, some senior secondary two (SS2) students in six randomly selected schools in the metropolis were provided a large number of alphabetically selected ‘er’ suffix ending words, The researcher opts for a test technique, which requires them to provide the meaning of the selected words with- er. The marking of the test was scored on the scale of 1-0, where correct formation of –er word and meaning is scored one while wrong formation and meaning is scored zero. The number of wrong and correct formations of –er words meaning were calculated using percentage. The result of this research shows that a large number of students made wrong generalization of the meaning of the selected -er ending words. This shows how enormous the inconsistencies are in English language and how are affect the learning of English. Findings from the study revealed that though students mastered the basic morphological rules but the errors are generally committed on those vocabulary items that are not frequently in use. The study arrives at this conclusion from the survey of their textbook and their spoken activities. Therefore, the researcher recommends that there should be effective reappraisal of language teaching through implementation of the designed curriculum to reflect on modern strategies of teaching language, identification, and incorporation of the exceptions in rigorous communicative activities in language teaching, language course books and tutorials, training and retraining of teachers on the strategies that conform to the new pedagogy.

Keywords: ESL, derivational morpheme, inflectional morpheme, suffixes.

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Authors: Mohd Fikri Azli bin Abdullah, Ali Fahmi Perwira Negara, Md. Shohel Sayeed, Deok-Jai Choi, Kalaiarasi Sonai Muthu

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Rapid advancement in computing technology brings computers and humans to be seamlessly integrated in future. The emergence of smartphone has driven computing era towards ubiquitous and pervasive computing. Recognizing human activity has garnered a lot of interest and has raised significant researches- concerns in identifying contextual information useful to human activity recognition. Not only unobtrusive to users in daily life, smartphone has embedded built-in sensors that capable to sense contextual information of its users supported with wide range capability of network connections. In this paper, we will discuss the classification algorithms used in smartphone-based human activity. Existing technologies pertaining to smartphone-based researches in human activity recognition will be highlighted and discussed. Our paper will also present our findings and opinions to formulate improvement ideas in current researches- trends. Understanding research trends will enable researchers to have clearer research direction and common vision on latest smartphone-based human activity recognition area.

Keywords: Classification algorithms, Human Activity Recognition (HAR), Smartphones

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Authors: Noraziah Ahmad, Roslina Mohd Sidek, Mohd Affendy Omardin

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E-Appointment Scheduling (EAS) has been developed to handle appointment for UMP students, lecturers in Faculty of Computer Systems & Software Engineering (FCSSE) and Student Medical Center. The schedules are based on the timetable and university activities. Constraints Logic Programming (CLP) has been implemented to solve the scheduling problems by giving recommendation to the users in part of determining any available slots from the lecturers and doctors- timetable. By using this system, we can avoid wasting time and cost because this application will set an appointment by auto-generated. In addition, this system can be an alternative to the lecturers and doctors to make decisions whether to approve or reject the appointments.

Keywords: EAS, Constraint Logic Programming, PHP, Apache.

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Authors: Mosaad Khadr, Gerd Morgenschweis, Andreas Schlenkhoff

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Drought is one of the most damaging climate-related hazards, it is generally considered as a prolonged absence of precipitation. This normal and recurring climate phenomenon had plagued civilization throughout history because of the negative impacts on economical, environmental and social sectors. Drought characteristics are thus recognized as important factors in water resources planning and management. The purpose of this study is to detect the changes in drought frequency, persistence and severity in the Ruhr river basin. The frequency of drought events was calculated using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). Used data are daily precipitation records from seven meteorological stations covering the period 1961-2007. The main benefit of the application of this index is its versatility, only rainfall data is required to deliver five major dimensions of a drought : duration, intensity, severity, magnitude, and frequency. Furthermore, drought can be calculated in different time steps. In this study SPI was calculated for 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24 months. Several drought events were detected in the covered period, these events contain mild, moderate and severe droughts. Also positive and negative trends in the SPI values were observed.

Keywords: Drought, Germany, Precipitation, Ruhr River, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Trend Test.

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Authors: Muhammad E. Rahman, Trevor Orr

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This paper presents the use of three-dimensional finite elements coupled with infinite elements to investigate the ground vibrations at the surface in terms of the peak particle velocity (PPV) due to construction of the first bore of the Dublin Port Tunnel. This situation is analysed using a commercially available general-purpose finite element package ABAQUS. A series of parametric studies is carried out to examine the sensitivity of the predicted vibrations to variations in the various input parameters required by finite element method, including the stiffness and the damping of ground. The results of this study show that stiffness has a more significant effect on the PPV rather than the damping of the ground.

Keywords: Finite Elements, PPV, Tunnelling, Vibration

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Authors: Fulya Zaralı, Harun Resit Yazgan

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Logistics centers represent areas that all national and international logistics and activities related to logistics can be implemented by the various businesses. Logistics centers have a key importance in joining the transport stream and the transport system operations. Therefore, it is important where these centers are positioned to be effective and efficient and to show the expected performance of the centers. In this study, the location selection problem to position the logistics center is discussed. Alternative centers are evaluated according certain criteria. The most appropriate center is identified using the axiomatic design method.

Keywords: Logistic center, axiomatic design, facility location, information systems.

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Authors: Tanhao Gao, Hongtao Zhou

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With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading worldwide, people are facing more significant mental pressure. The government and social groups are sparing no effort to find ways to heal people's emotions and return to normal life. Therefore, research on emotional healing has urgency and practical significance. From the perspective of urban planning, street furniture has the potential to become "emotional healing touchpoints." This study first analyzed the suitable places for adding emotional healing street furniture in the background of urban micro-renewal and combined the 15-minute living circle, the leftover space, and urban acupuncture theories, then used the 5W analysis method to show the main characteristics of emotionally healing street furniture. Finally, the research discovers four design strategies, which can be summarized as: A. Exploring the renewal potential of the leftover space; B. Integrating with local culture and the surrounding environment; C. Discovering quick and straightforward ways of interaction; D. Finding a delicate balance between artistry and functionality. Then, we take one emotional healing street furniture located on Chifeng Road as an example to show the design strategies vividly.

Keywords: Emotional healing, street furniture, urban micro-renewal, urban acupuncture.

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Authors: Johnson Adafin, James O. B. Rotimi, Suzanne Wilkinson, Abimbola O. Windapo

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An aspect of client expenditure management that requires attention is the level of accuracy achievable in design-stage elemental cost planning. This has been a major concern for construction clients and practitioners in New Zealand (NZ). Pre-tender estimating inaccuracies are significantly influenced by the level of risk information available to estimators. Proper cost planning activities should ensure the production of a project’s likely construction costs (initial and final), and subsequent cost control activities should prevent unpleasant consequences of cost overruns, disputes and project abandonment. If risks were properly identified and priced at the design stage, observed variance between design-stage elemental cost plans (ECPs) and final tender sums (FTS) (initial contract sums) could be reduced. This study investigates the variations between design-stage ECPs and FTS of construction projects, with a view to identifying risk factors that are responsible for the observed variance. Data were sourced through interviews, and risk factors were identified by using thematic analysis. Access was obtained to project files from the records of study participants (consultant quantity surveyors), and document analysis was employed in complementing the responses from the interviews. Study findings revealed the discrepancies between ECPs and FTS in the region of -14% and +16%. It is opined in this study that the identified risk factors were responsible for the variability observed. The values obtained from the analysis would enable greater accuracy in the forecast of FTS by Quantity Surveyors. Further, whilst inherent risks in construction project developments are observed globally, these findings have important ramifications for construction projects by expanding existing knowledge on what is needed for reasonable budgetary performance and successful delivery of construction projects. The findings contribute significantly to the study by providing quantitative confirmation to justify the theoretical conclusions generated in the literature from around the world. This therefore adds to and consolidates existing knowledge.

Keywords: Accuracy, design-stage, elemental cost plan, final tender sum, New Zealand.

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Authors: Derya Eren Akyol, Gonca Tuncel, G. Mirac Bayhan

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Activity-Based Costing (ABC) which has become an important aspect of manufacturing/service organizations can be defined as a methodology that measures the cost and performance of activities, resources and cost objects. It can be considered as an alternative paradigm to traditional cost-based accounting systems. The objective of this paper is to illustrate an application of ABC method and to compare the results of ABC with traditional costing methods. The results of the application highlight the weak points of traditional costing methods and an S-Curve obtained is used to identify the undercosted and overcosted products of the firm.

Keywords: Activity-based costing, cost drivers, overheads, traditional costing.

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Authors: Rinkaj Goyal, Pravin Chandra, Yogesh Singh

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In this paper we describe our efforts to design and implement an agent development framework that has the potential to scale to the size of any underlying network suitable for various ECommerce activities. The main novelty in our framework is it-s capability to allow the development of sophisticated, secured agents which are simple enough to be practical. We have adopted FIPA agent platform reference Model as backbone for implementation along with XML for agent Communication and Java Cryptographic Extension and architecture to realize the security of communication information between agents. The advantage of our architecture is its support of agents development in different languages and Communicating with each other using a more open standard i.e. XML

Keywords: Agent, Agent Development Framework, Agent Coordination, Security

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Authors: Anouch Mkhitarian

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The article examines an opportunity of corruption restriction exercised by international business community in Russia. Integration of Russian economy into the international business does not reduce corruption inside the country. Foreign actors investing in Russia under the condition of obtaining their required rates of returns will be reluctant to harm their investments by involving into anticorruption activities. Furthermore, many Russian firms- competitive advantage could be directly related to their corruption connections. In this case, foreign investments would only accentuate corrupt companies- success by supporting them financially

Keywords: Corrution, FDI, Russian Federation

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Authors: S. Sharafi, G. Bassak Harouni, S. Torfi, H. Makenalizadeh, A. Sayahi

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The primary purpose of this article is an attempt to find the implication of globalization on education. Globalization has an important role as a process in the economical, political, cultural and technological dimensions in the life of the contemporary human being and has been affected by it. Education has its effects in this procedure and while influencing it through educating global citizens having universal human features and characteristics, has been influenced by this phenomenon too. Nowadays, the role of education is not just to develop in the students the knowledge and skills necessary for the new kinds of jobs. If education wants to help students be prepared of the new global society, it has to make them engaged productive and critical citizens for the global era, so that they can reflect about their roles as key actors in a dynamic often uneven, matrix of economic and cultural exchanges. If education wants to reinforce and raise the national identity, the value system and the children and teenagers, it should make them ready for living in the global era of this century. The used method in this research is documentary and analyzing the documents. Studies in this field show globalization has influences on the processes of the production, distribution and consuming of knowledge. The happening of this event in the information era has not only provide the necessary opportunities for the exchanges of education worldwide but also has privileges for the developing countries which enables them to strengthen educational bases of their society and have an important step toward their future.

Keywords: Globalization, Education, global erea

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Authors: Jiri Barta

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This paper deals with a simulation programs and technologies using in the educational process for members of the crisis management. Risk analysis, simulation, preparation and planning are among the main activities of workers of crisis management. Made correctly simulation of emergency defines the extent of the danger. On this basis, it is possible to effectively prepare and plan measures to minimize damage. The paper is focused on simulation programs that are trained at the University of Defence. Implementation of the outputs from simulation programs in decision-making processes of crisis staffs is one of the main tasks of the research project.

Keywords: Crisis Management, Continuity, Critical Infrastructure, Dangerous substance, Education, Flood, Simulation Programs.

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Authors: Nadira Kaimova

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In this paper it was examined the influence of margin regulation on stock market volatility in EU 1993 – 2014. Regulating margin requirements or haircuts for securities financing transactions has for a long time been considered as a potential tool to limit the build-up of leverage and dampen volatility in financial markets. The margin requirement dictates how much investors can borrow against these securities. Margin can be an important part of investment. Using daily and monthly stock returns and there is no convincing evidence that EU Regulation margin requirements have served to dampen stock market volatility. In this paper was detected the expected negative relation between margin requirements and the amount of margin credit outstanding. Also, it confirmed that changes in margin requirements by the EU regulation have tended to follow than lead changes in market volatility. For the analysis have been used the modified Levene statistics to test whether the standard deviation of stock returns in the 25, 50 and 100 days preceding margin changes is the same as that in the succeeding 25, 50 and 100 days. The analysis started in May 1993 when it was first empowered to set the initial margin requirement and the last sample was in May 2014. To test whether margin requirements influence stock market volatility over the long term, the sample of stock returns was divided into 14 periods, according to the 14 changes in margin requirements.

Keywords: Levene statistic, Margin Regulation, Stock Market, Volatility.

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Authors: B. Kettana

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Nowadays, financial and economic crises are growing more and reach more countries and sectors. These events have, as a result, a considerable impact on the activities of the firms which think unstable and in danger. But besides this heavy uncertainty which weighs on the different firms, the family firm, object of our research, is not only confronted with these external difficulties but also with an internal challenge and of size: that of transmission. Indeed, the transmission of an organization from one generation to another can succeed as it can fail; leaving considerable damage. Our research registers as part of these problems since we tried to understand relation between the behavior of two main actors of the process of succession, predecessor and successor; and the success of transmission.

Keywords: Family business, transmission, success, predecessor, successor.

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Authors: Said Hadjerrouit

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Wikis are considered to be part of Web 2.0 technologies that potentially support collaborative learning and writing. Wikis provide opportunities for multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously. Most wikis have also a page for written group discussion. Nevertheless, wikis may be used in different ways depending on the pedagogy being used, and the constraints imposed by the course design. This work explores students- uses of wiki in teacher education. The analysis is based on a taxonomy for classifying students- activities and actions carried out on the wiki. The article also discusses the implications for using wikis as collaborative writing tools in teacher education.

Keywords: Behaviorism, collaborative writing, socioconstructivism, taxonomy, web 2.0 technology, wiki

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Authors: M. Ahmad, M. Gourgand, C. Caux

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The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) is concerned with single-item or small batch production where limited resources have to be allocated to dependent activities over time. Over the past few decades, a lot of work has been made with the use of optimal solution procedures for this basic problem type and its extensions. Brucker and Knust[1] discuss, how timetabling problems can be modeled as a RCPSP. Authors discuss high school timetabling and university course timetabling problem as an example. We have formulated two mathematical formulations of course timetabling problem in a new way which are the prototype of single-mode RCPSP. Our focus is to show, how course timetabling problem can be transformed into RCPSP. We solve this transformation model with genetic algorithm.

Keywords: Course Timetabling, Integer programming, Combinatorial optimizations

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Authors: Sharul S. Dol, U. Azimov, Robert J. Martinuzzi

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Turbulence studies were made in the wake of a rotating circular cylinder in a uniform free stream. The interest was to examine the turbulence properties at the suppression of periodicity in vortex formation process. An experimental study of the turbulent near wake of a rotating circular cylinder was made at a Reynolds number of 9000 for velocity ratios, λ between 0 and 2.7. Hot-wire anemometry and particle image velocimetry results indicate that the rotation of the cylinder causes significant changes in the vortical activities. The turbulence quantities are getting smaller as λ increases due to suppression of coherent vortex structures.

Keywords: Rotating circular cylinder, Reynolds stress, vortex.

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Authors: Marjan Mansourvar, Norizan Mohd Yasin

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The development of Web has affected different aspects of our lives, such as communication, sharing knowledge, searching for jobs, social activities, etc. The web portal as a gateway in the World Wide Web is a starting point for people who are connecting to the Internet. The web portal as the type of knowledge management system provides a rich space to share and search information as well as communication services like free email or content provision for the users. This research aims to discover the university needs to the web portal as a necessary tool for students in the universities to help them in getting the required information. A survey was conducted to gather students' requirements which can be incorporated in to portal to be developed.

Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge management system, Knowledge sharing, web portal.

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Authors: Seyoung Kim, Jeongmin Kim, Kwang Ryel Ryu

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A database that records average traffic speeds measured at five-minute intervals for all the links in the traffic network of a metropolitan city. While learning from this data the models that can predict future traffic speed would be beneficial for the applications such as the car navigation system, building predictive models for every link becomes a nontrivial job if the number of links in a given network is huge. An advantage of adopting k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) as predictive models is that it does not require any explicit model building. Instead, k-NN takes a long time to make a prediction because it needs to search for the k-nearest neighbors in the database at prediction time. In this paper, we investigate how much we can speed up k-NN in making traffic speed predictions by reducing the amount of data to be searched for without a significant sacrifice of prediction accuracy. The rationale behind this is that we had a better look at only the recent data because the traffic patterns not only repeat daily or weekly but also change over time. In our experiments, we build several different k-NN models employing different sets of features which are the current and past traffic speeds of the target link and the neighbor links in its up/down-stream. The performances of these models are compared by measuring the average prediction accuracy and the average time taken to make a prediction using various amounts of data.

Keywords: Big data, k-NN, machine learning, traffic speed prediction.

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Authors: Ting-Ting Hsieh, Che-Ming Chiang, Ming-Chin Ho, Kwang-Pang Lai

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The globe Sustainability has become the subject of international attention, the key reason is that global climate change. Climate and disasters around the abnormal frequency multiplier, the global temperature of the catastrophe and disaster continue to occur throughout the world, as well as countries around the world. Currently there are many important international conferences and policy, it is a "global environmental sustainability " and "living human health " as the goal of development, including the APEC 2007 meeting to "climate Clean Energy" as the theme Sydney Declaration, 2008 World Economic Forum's "Carbon - promote Cool Earth energy efficiency improvement project", the EU proposed "Green Idea" program, the Japanese annual policy, "low-carbon society, sustainable eco-city environment (Eco City) "And from 2009 to 2010 to promote the "Eco-Point" to promote green energy and carbon reduction products .And the 2010 World Climate Change Conference (COP16 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen), the world has been the subject of Negative conservative "Environmental Protection ", "save energy consumption, " into a positive response to the "Sustainable " and" LOHAS", while Taiwan has actively put forward eco-cities, green building, green building materials and other related environmental response Measures, especially green building construction environment that is the basis of factors, the most widely used application level, and direct contact with human health and the key to sustainable planet. "Sustainable development "is a necessary condition for continuation of the Earth, "healthy and comfortable" is a necessary condition for the continuation of life, and improve the "quality" is a necessary condition for economic development, balance between the three is "to enhance the efficiency of ", According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for the "environmental efficiency "(Eco-Efficiency) proposed: " the achievement of environmental efficiency, the price to be competitive in the provision of goods or services to meet people's needs, improve living Quality at the same time, the goods or services throughout the life cycle. Its impact on the environment and natural resource utilization and gradually reduced to the extent the Earth can load. "whichever is the economy "Economic" and " Ecologic". The research into the methodology to obtain the Taiwan Green Building Material Labeling product as the scope of the study, by investigating and weight analysis to explore green building environmental load (Ln) factor and the Green Building Quality (Qn) factor to Establish green building environmental efficiency assessment model (GBM Eco-Efficiency). And building materials for healthy green label products for priority assessment object, the object is set in the material evidence for the direct response to the environmental load from the floor class-based, explicit feedback correction to the Green Building environmental efficiency assessment model, "efficiency " as a starting point to achieve balance between human "health "and Earth "sustainable development of win-win strategy. The study is expected to reach 1.To establish green building materials and the quality of environmental impact assessment system, 2. To establish value of GBM Eco-Efficiency model, 3. To establish the GBM Eco-Efficiency model for application of green building material feedback mechanisms.

Keywords: Climate Change, Green Building Material (GBM), Eco-Efficiency, Life Cycle Assessment, Performance Evaluation

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Authors: Ludovic Favre, Thibaut M. Schafer, Jean-Luc Robyr, Elena-Lavinia Niederhäuser

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This paper presents an optimization method based on genetic algorithm for the energy management inside buildings developed in the frame of the project Smart Living Lab (SLL) in Fribourg (Switzerland). This algorithm optimizes the interaction between renewable energy production, storage systems and energy consumers. In comparison with standard algorithms, the innovative aspect of this project is the extension of the smart regulation over three simultaneous criteria: the energy self-consumption, the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions and operating costs. The genetic algorithm approach was chosen due to the large quantity of optimization variables and the non-linearity of the optimization function. The optimization process includes also real time data of the building as well as weather forecast and users habits. This information is used by a physical model of the building energy resources to predict the future energy production and needs, to select the best energetic strategy, to combine production or storage of energy in order to guarantee the demand of electrical and thermal energy. The principle of operation of the algorithm as well as typical output example of the algorithm is presented.

Keywords: Building’s energy, control system, energy management, modelling, genetic optimization algorithm, renewable energy, greenhouse gases, energy storage.

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Authors: Abegunde Linda, Adedeji Oluwatola

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

Keywords: Landuse, LST, Remote sensing, UHI.

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Authors: K. Shiba, T. Kobayashi, T. Kaburagi, Y. Kurihara

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Elderly population in the world is increasing, and consequently, their nursing burden is also increasing. In such situations, monitoring and evaluating their daily action facilitates efficient nursing care. Especially, we focus on an unconscious activity during sleep, i.e. turnover. Monitoring turnover during sleep is essential to evaluate various conditions related to sleep. Bedsores are considered as one of the monitoring conditions. Changing patient’s posture every two hours is required for caregivers to prevent bedsore. Herein, we attempt to develop an unconstrained nocturnal monitoring system using a sensing device based on piezoelectric ceramics that can detect the vibrations owing to human body movement on the bed. In the proposed method, in order to construct a multi-points sensing, we placed two sensing devices under the right and left legs at the head-side of an ordinary bed. Using this equipment, when a subject lies on the bed, feature is calculated from the output voltages of the sensing devices. In order to evaluate our proposed method, we conducted an experiment with six healthy male subjects. Consequently, the period during which turnover occurs can be correctly classified as the turnover period with 100% accuracy.

Keywords: Turnover, piezoelectric ceramics, multi-points sensing, unconstrained monitoring system.

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Authors: Y. Lu, X. S. Qin

Abstract:

Extensive rainfall disaggregation approaches have been developed and applied in climate change impact studies such as flood risk assessment and urban storm water management.In this study, five rainfall models that were capable ofdisaggregating daily rainfall data into hourly one were investigated for the rainfall record in theChangi Airport, Singapore. The objectives of this study were (i) to study the temporal characteristics of hourly rainfall in Singapore, and (ii) to evaluate the performance of variousdisaggregation models. The used models included: (i) Rectangular pulse Poisson model (RPPM), (ii) Bartlett-Lewis Rectangular pulse model (BLRPM), (iii) Bartlett-Lewis model with 2 cell types (BL2C), (iv) Bartlett-Lewis Rectangular with cell depth distribution dependent on duration (BLRD), and (v) Neyman-Scott Rectangular pulse model (NSRPM). All of these models werefitted using hourly rainfall data ranging from 1980 to 2005 (which was obtained from Changimeteorological station).The study results indicated that the weight scheme of inversely proportional variance could deliver more accurateoutputs for fitting rainfall patterns in tropical areas, and BLRPM performedrelatively better than other disaggregation models.

Keywords: Rainfall disaggregation, statistical properties, poisson processed, Bartlett-Lewis model, Neyman-Scott model.

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Authors: Alhaji M. H. Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, Alfred V Gborie

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Rice, which is the staple food in Sierra Leone, is consumed on a daily basis. It is the most imperative food crop extensively grown by farmers across all ecologies in the country. Though much attention is now given to rice grain production through the small holder commercialization programme (SHCP), however, no attention has been given in investigating the limitations faced by rice producers. This paper will contribute to attempts to overcome the development challenges caused by food insecurity. The objective of this paper is thus, to analysis the relationship between rice production and the domestic retail price of rice. The study employed a log linear model in which, the quantity of rice produced is the dependent variable, quantity of rice imported, price of imported rice and price of domestic rice as explanatory variables. Findings showed that, locally produced rice is even more expensive than the imported rice per ton, and almost all the inhabitants in the capital city which hosts about 65% of the entire population of the country favor imported rice, as it is free from stones with other impurities. On the other hand, to control price and simultaneously increase rice production, the government should purchase the rice from the farmers and then sell to private retailers.

Keywords: Domestic price of rice, Econometric model, Rice production, Sierra Leone.

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Authors: Naira Sahakyan, Margarit Petrosyan, Armen Trchounian

Abstract:

One of the tasks in contemporary biotechnology, pharmacology and other fields of human activities is to obtain biologically active substances from plants. They are very essential in the treatment of many diseases due to their actually high therapeutic value without visible side effects. However, sometimes the possibility of obtaining the metabolites is limited due to the reduction of wild-growing plants. That is why the plant cell cultures are of great interest as alternative sources of biologically active substances. Besides, during the monitored cultivation, it is possible to obtain substances that are not synthesized by plants in nature. Isolated culture of Ajuga genevensis with high growth activity and ability of regeneration was obtained using MS nutrient medium. The agar-diffusion method showed that aqueous extracts of callus culture revealed high antimicrobial activity towards various gram-positive (Bacillus subtilis A1WT; B. mesentericus WDCM 1873; Staphylococcus aureus WDCM 5233; Staph. citreus WT) and gram-negative (Escherichia coli WKPM M-17; Salmonella typhimurium TA 100) microorganisms. The broth dilution method revealed that the minimal and half maximal inhibitory concentration values against E. coli corresponded to the 70 μg/mL and 140 μg/mL concentration of the extract respectively. According to the photochemiluminescent analysis, callus tissue extracts of leaf and root origin showed higher antioxidant activity than the same quantity of A. genevensis intact plant extract. A. genevensis intact plant and callus culture extracts showed no cytotoxic effect on K-562 suspension cell line of human chronic myeloid leukemia. The GC-MS analysis showed deep differences between the qualitative and quantitative composition of callus culture and intact plant extracts. Hexacosane (11.17%); n-hexadecanoic acid (9.33%); and 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (4.28%) were the main components of intact plant extracts. 10-Methylnonadecane (57.0%); methoxyacetic acid, 2-tetradecyl ester (17.75%) and 1-Bromopentadecane (14.55%) were the main components of A. genevensis callus culture extracts. Obtained data indicate that callus culture of A. genevensis can be used as an alternative source of biologically active substances.

Keywords: Ajuga genevensis, antibacterial activity, antioxidant activity, callus cultures.

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Authors: H. Dornhackl, K. Kadletz, R. Luh, P. Tavolato

Abstract:

In this paper, we describe the use of formal methods to model malware behaviour. The modelling of harmful behaviour rests upon syntactic structures that represent malicious procedures inside malware. The malicious activities are modelled by a formal grammar, where API calls’ components are the terminals and the set of API calls used in combination to achieve a goal are designated non-terminals. The combination of different non-terminals in various ways and tiers make up the attack vectors that are used by harmful software. Based on these syntactic structures a parser can be generated which takes execution traces as input for pattern recognition.

Keywords: Malware behaviour, modelling, parsing, search, pattern matching.

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