Search results for: Fuzzy expected value
693 Agent Decision using Granular Computing in Traffic System
Authors: Yasser F. Hassan, Marwa Abdeen, Mustafa Fahmy
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In recent years multi-agent systems have emerged as one of the interesting architectures facilitating distributed collaboration and distributed problem solving. Each node (agent) of the network might pursue its own agenda, exploit its environment, develop its own problem solving strategy and establish required communication strategies. Within each node of the network, one could encounter a diversity of problem-solving approaches. Quite commonly the agents can realize their processing at the level of information granules that is the most suitable from their local points of view. Information granules can come at various levels of granularity. Each agent could exploit a certain formalism of information granulation engaging a machinery of fuzzy sets, interval analysis, rough sets, just to name a few dominant technologies of granular computing. Having this in mind, arises a fundamental issue of forming effective interaction linkages between the agents so that they fully broadcast their findings and benefit from interacting with others.
Keywords: Granular computing, rough sets, agents, traffic system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1728692 Chemical Reaction Algorithm for Expectation Maximization Clustering
Authors: Li Ni, Pen ManMan, Li KenLi
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Clustering is an intensive research for some years because of its multifaceted applications, such as biology, information retrieval, medicine, business and so on. The expectation maximization (EM) is a kind of algorithm framework in clustering methods, one of the ten algorithms of machine learning. Traditionally, optimization of objective function has been the standard approach in EM. Hence, research has investigated the utility of evolutionary computing and related techniques in the regard. Chemical Reaction Optimization (CRO) is a recently established method. So the property embedded in CRO is used to solve optimization problems. This paper presents an algorithm framework (EM-CRO) with modified CRO operators based on EM cluster problems. The hybrid algorithm is mainly to solve the problem of initial value sensitivity of the objective function optimization clustering algorithm. Our experiments mainly take the EM classic algorithm:k-means and fuzzy k-means as an example, through the CRO algorithm to optimize its initial value, get K-means-CRO and FKM-CRO algorithm. The experimental results of them show that there is improved efficiency for solving objective function optimization clustering problems.Keywords: Chemical reaction optimization, expectation maximization, initial, objective function clustering.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1293691 People Participation as Social Capital Form for Realizing Sustainable Ecotourism
Authors: I Putu Eka N. Kencana, I Wayan Mertha
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As an entity of the tourism system, local communities were considered have better understanding of their region as well as influenced positively or negatively by the tourism activities in the region. This paper aimed to study role of community involvement in the development of ecotourism at Kintamani Bali from two perspectives of view, i.e. participation in the process of initiatives and participation in the utilizing the economic benefits of tourism. Thorough participation as an antecedent of social capital form, the sustainability of ecotourism at Kintamani could be expected.
Keywords: Community involvement, ecotourism, participation, social capital.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2385690 Study on Characterization of Tuncbilek Fly Ash
Authors: A.S. Kipcak, N. Baran Acarali, S. Kolemen, N. Tugrul, E. Moroydor Derun, S. Piskin
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Fly ash is one of the residues generated in combustion, and comprises the fine particles that rise with the flue gases. Ash which does not rise is termed bottom ash [1]. In our country, it is expected that will be occurred 50 million tons of waste ash per year until 2020. Released waste from the thermal power plants is caused very significant problems as known. The fly ashes can be evaluated by using as adsorbent material. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of use of Tuncbilek fly ash like low-cost adsorbents for heavy metal adsorption. First of all, Tuncbilek fly ash was characterized. For this purpose; analysis such as sieve analysis, XRD, XRF, SEM and FT-IR were performed.Keywords: Fly ash, heavy metal, sieve, adsorbent
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1853689 Formalizing a Procedure for Generating Uncertain Resource Availability Assumptions Based On Real Time Logistic Data Capturing with Auto-ID Systems for Reactive Scheduling
Authors: Lars Laußat, Manfred Helmus, Kamil Szczesny, Markus König
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As one result of the project “Reactive Construction Project Scheduling using Real Time Construction Logistic Data and Simulation”, a procedure for using data about uncertain resource availability assumptions in reactive scheduling processes has been developed. Prediction data about resource availability is generated in a formalized way using real-time monitoring data e.g. from auto-ID systems on the construction site and in the supply chains. The paper focusses on the formalization of the procedure for monitoring construction logistic processes, for the detection of disturbance and for generating of new and uncertain scheduling assumptions for the reactive resource constrained simulation procedure that is and will be further described in other papers.
Keywords: Auto-ID, Construction Logistic, Fuzzy, Monitoring, RFID, Scheduling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1777688 Attack Defense of DAD in MANET
Authors: Sehyun Cho, Heasook Park
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These days MANET is attracting much attention as they are expected to gratefully influence communication between wireless nodes. Along with this great strength, there is much more chance of leave and being attacked by a malicious node. Due to this reason much attention is given to the security and the private issue in MANET. A lot of research in MANET has been doing. In this paper we present the overview of MANET, the security issues of MANET, IP configuration in MANET, the solution to puzzle out the security issues and the simulation of the proposal idea. We add the method to figure out the malicious nodes so that we can prevent the attack from them. Nodes exchange the information about nodes to prevent DAD attack. We can get 30% better performance than the previous MANETConf.Keywords: MANETConf, DAD, Attacker, DDOS
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1670687 A Multi-Level WEB Based Parallel Processing System A Hierarchical Volunteer Computing Approach
Authors: Abdelrahman Ahmed Mohamed Osman
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Over the past few years, a number of efforts have been exerted to build parallel processing systems that utilize the idle power of LAN-s and PC-s available in many homes and corporations. The main advantage of these approaches is that they provide cheap parallel processing environments for those who cannot afford the expenses of supercomputers and parallel processing hardware. However, most of the solutions provided are not very flexible in the use of available resources and very difficult to install and setup. In this paper, a multi-level web-based parallel processing system (MWPS) is designed (appendix). MWPS is based on the idea of volunteer computing, very flexible, easy to setup and easy to use. MWPS allows three types of subscribers: simple volunteers (single computers), super volunteers (full networks) and end users. All of these entities are coordinated transparently through a secure web site. Volunteer nodes provide the required processing power needed by the system end users. There is no limit on the number of volunteer nodes, and accordingly the system can grow indefinitely. Both volunteer and system users must register and subscribe. Once, they subscribe, each entity is provided with the appropriate MWPS components. These components are very easy to install. Super volunteer nodes are provided with special components that make it possible to delegate some of the load to their inner nodes. These inner nodes may also delegate some of the load to some other lower level inner nodes .... and so on. It is the responsibility of the parent super nodes to coordinate the delegation process and deliver the results back to the user. MWPS uses a simple behavior-based scheduler that takes into consideration the current load and previous behavior of processing nodes. Nodes that fulfill their contracts within the expected time get a high degree of trust. Nodes that fail to satisfy their contract get a lower degree of trust. MWPS is based on the .NET framework and provides the minimal level of security expected in distributed processing environments. Users and processing nodes are fully authenticated. Communications and messages between nodes are very secure. The system has been implemented using C#. MWPS may be used by any group of people or companies to establish a parallel processing or grid environment.Keywords: Volunteer computing, Parallel Processing, XMLWebServices, .NET Remoting, Tuplespace.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1494686 A New Approach for Network Reconfiguration Problem in Order to Deviation Bus Voltage Minimization with Regard to Probabilistic Load Model and DGs
Authors: Mahmood Reza Shakarami, Reza Sedaghati
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Recently, distributed generation technologies have received much attention for the potential energy savings and reliability assurances that might be achieved as a result of their widespread adoption. The distribution feeder reconfiguration (DFR) is one of the most important control schemes in the distribution networks, which can be affected by DGs. This paper presents a new approach to DFR at the distribution networks considering wind turbines. The main objective of the DFR is to minimize the deviation of the bus voltage. Since the DFR is a nonlinear optimization problem, we apply the Adaptive Modified Firefly Optimization (AMFO) approach to solve it. As a result of the conflicting behavior of the single- objective function, a fuzzy based clustering technique is employed to reach the set of optimal solutions called Pareto solutions. The approach is tested on the IEEE 32-bus standard test system.
Keywords: Adaptive Modified Firefly Optimization (AMFO), Pareto solutions, feeder reconfiguration, wind turbines, bus voltage.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2017685 Two-Photon Fluorescence in N-Doped Graphene Quantum Dots
Authors: Chi Man Luk, Ming Kiu Tsang, Chi Fan Chan, Shu Ping Lau
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Nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQDs) were fabricated by microwave-assisted hydrothermal technique. The optical properties of the N-GQDs were studied. The luminescence of the N-GQDs can be tuned by varying the excitation wavelength. Furthermore, two-photon luminescence of the N-GQDs excited by near-infrared laser can be obtained. It is shown that N-doping play a key role on two-photon luminescence. The N-GQDs are expected to find application in biological applications including bioimaging and sensing.
Keywords: Graphene quantum dots, nitrogen doping, photoluminescence, two-photon fluorescence.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4025684 A Methodology for Data Migration between Different Database Management Systems
Authors: Bogdan Walek, Cyril Klimes
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In present days the area of data migration is very topical. Current tools for data migration in the area of relational database have several disadvantages that are presented in this paper. We propose a methodology for data migration of the database tables and their data between various types of relational database systems (RDBMS). The proposed methodology contains an expert system. The expert system contains a knowledge base that is composed of IFTHEN rules and based on the input data suggests appropriate data types of columns of database tables. The proposed tool, which contains an expert system, also includes the possibility of optimizing the data types in the target RDBMS database tables based on processed data of the source RDBMS database tables. The proposed expert system is shown on data migration of selected database of the source RDBMS to the target RDBMS.
Keywords: Expert system, fuzzy, data migration, database, relational database, data type, relational database management system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3492683 An MADM Framework toward Hierarchical Production Planning in Hybrid MTS/MTO Environments
Authors: H. Rafiei, M. Rabbani
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This paper proposes a new decision making structure to determine the appropriate product delivery strategy for different products in a manufacturing system among make-to-stock, make-toorder, and hybrid strategy. Given product delivery strategies for all products in the manufacturing system, the position of the Order Penetrating Point (OPP) can be located regarding the delivery strategies among which location of OPP in hybrid strategy is a cumbersome task. In this regard, we employ analytic network process, because there are varieties of interrelated driving factors involved in choosing the right location. Moreover, the proposed structure is augmented with fuzzy sets theory in order to cope with the uncertainty of judgments. Finally, applicability of the proposed structure is proven in practice through a real industrial case company. The numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed decision making structure in order partitioning and OPP location.Keywords: Hybrid make-to-stock/make-to-order, Multi-attribute decision making, Order partitioning, Order penetration point.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2223682 A Comparison and Analysis of Name Matching Algorithms
Authors: Chakkrit Snae
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Names are important in many societies, even in technologically oriented ones which use e.g. ID systems to identify individual people. Names such as surnames are the most important as they are used in many processes, such as identifying of people and genealogical research. On the other hand variation of names can be a major problem for the identification and search for people, e.g. web search or security reasons. Name matching presumes a-priori that the recorded name written in one alphabet reflects the phonetic identity of two samples or some transcription error in copying a previously recorded name. We add to this the lode that the two names imply the same person. This paper describes name variations and some basic description of various name matching algorithms developed to overcome name variation and to find reasonable variants of names which can be used to further increasing mismatches for record linkage and name search. The implementation contains algorithms for computing a range of fuzzy matching based on different types of algorithms, e.g. composite and hybrid methods and allowing us to test and measure algorithms for accuracy. NYSIIS, LIG2 and Phonex have been shown to perform well and provided sufficient flexibility to be included in the linkage/matching process for optimising name searching.Keywords: Data mining, name matching algorithm, nominaldata, searching system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11090681 Investigating Determinants of Medical User Expectations from Hospital Information System
Authors: G. Gürsel, K. H. Gülkesen, N. Zayim, A. Arifoğlu, O. Saka
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User satisfaction is one of the most used success indicators in the research of information system (IS). Literature shows user expectations have great influence on user satisfaction. Both expectation and satisfaction of users are important for Hospital Information Systems (HIS). Education, IS experience, age, attitude towards change, business title, sex and working unit of the hospital, are examined as the potential determinant of the medical users’ expectations. Data about medical user expectations are collected by the “Expectation Questionnaire” developed for this study. Expectation data are used for calculating the Expectation Meeting Ratio (EMR) with the evaluation framework also developed for this study. The internal consistencies of the answers to the questionnaire are measured by Cronbach´s Alpha coefficient. The multivariate analysis of medical user’s EMRs of HIS is performed by forward stepwise binary logistic regression analysis. Education and business title is appeared to be the determinants of expectations from HIS.Keywords: Evaluation, Fuzzy Logic, Hospital Information System, User Expectation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1946680 Design and Motion Control of a Two-Wheel Inverted Pendulum Robot
Authors: Shiuh-Jer Huang, Su-Shean Chen, Sheam-Chyun Lin
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Two-wheel inverted pendulum robot (TWIPR) is designed with two-hub DC motors for human riding and motion control evaluation. In order to measure the tilt angle and angular velocity of the inverted pendulum robot, accelerometer and gyroscope sensors are chosen. The mobile robot’s moving position and velocity were estimated based on DC motor built in hall sensors. The control kernel of this electric mobile robot is designed with embedded Arduino Nano microprocessor. A handle bar was designed to work as steering mechanism. The intelligent model-free fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC) was employed as the main control algorithm for this mobile robot motion monitoring with different control purpose adjustment. The intelligent controllers were designed for balance control, and moving speed control purposes of this robot under different operation conditions and the control performance were evaluated based on experimental results.
Keywords: Balance control, speed control, intelligent controller and two wheel inverted pendulum.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1175679 Experimental Tests of a Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine with Twisted Blades
Authors: Gabriele Bedon, Marco Raciti Castelli, Ernesto Benini
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An experimental campaign of measurements for a Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) is presented for open field conditions. The turbine is characterized by a twisted bladed design, each blade being placed at a fixed distance from the rotational shaft. The experimental setup to perform the acquisitions is described. The results are lower than expected, due to the high influence of the wind shear.Keywords: Vertical-axis wind turbine, Darrieus wind turbine, twisted blades, experimental measurements, wind shear.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2613678 Catalytic Decomposition of Potassium Monopersulfate. Influence of Variables
Authors: Javier Rivas, Olga Gimeno, Maria Carbajo, Teresa Borralho
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Potassium monopersulfate has been decomposed in aqueous solution in the presence of Co(II). The effect of the main operating variables has been assessed. Minimum variations in pH exert a considerable influence on the process kinetics. Thus, when no pH adjustment is considered, the actual effect of variables like initial monopersulfate and/or catalyst concentration may be hindered. As expected, temperature enhances the monopersulfate decomposition rate by following the Arrhenius law. The activation energy in the proximity of 85 kJ/mol has been obtained. Amongst the different solids tested in the monopersulfate decomposition, only the perovskite LaTi0.15Cu0.85O3 has shown a significant catalytic activity.Keywords: Monopersulfate, Oxone®, Sulfate radicals, Watertreatment.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1770677 The Appraisal of Construction Sites Productivity: In Kendall’s Concordance
Authors: Abdulkadir Abu Lawal
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For the dearth of reliable cardinal numerical data, the linked phenomena in productivity indices such as operational costs and company turnovers, etc. could not be investigated. This would not give us insight to the root of productivity problems at unique sites. So, ordinal ranking by professionals who were most directly involved with construction sites was applied for Kendall’s concordance. Responses gathered from independent architects, builders/engineers, and quantity surveyors were herein analyzed. They were responses based on factors that affect sites productivity, and these factors were categorized as head office factors, resource management effectiveness factors, motivational factors, and training/skill development factors. It was found that productivity is low and has to be improved in order to facilitate Nigerian efforts in bridging its infrastructure deficit. The significance of this work is underlined with the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance of 0.78, while remedial measures must be emphasized to stimulate better productivity. Further detailed study can be undertaken by using Fuzzy logic analysis on wider Delphi survey.
Keywords: Factors, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, magnitude of agreement, percentage magnitude of dichotomy, ranking variables.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 974676 Discrimination of Alcoholic Subjects using Second Order Autoregressive Modelling of Brain Signals Evoked during Visual Stimulus Perception
Authors: Ramaswamy Palaniappan
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In this paper, a second order autoregressive (AR) model is proposed to discriminate alcoholics using single trial gamma band Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) signals using 3 different classifiers: Simplified Fuzzy ARTMAP (SFA) neural network (NN), Multilayer-perceptron-backpropagation (MLP-BP) NN and Linear Discriminant (LD). Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded from alcoholic and control subjects during the presentation of visuals from Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set. Single trial VEP signals were extracted from EEG signals using Elliptic filtering in the gamma band spectral range. A second order AR model was used as gamma band VEP exhibits pseudo-periodic behaviour and second order AR is optimal to represent this behaviour. This circumvents the requirement of having to use some criteria to choose the correct order. The averaged discrimination errors of 2.6%, 2.8% and 11.9% were given by LD, MLP-BP and SFA classifiers. The high LD discrimination results show the validity of the proposed method to discriminate between alcoholic subjects.Keywords: Linear Discriminant, Neural Network, VisualEvoked Potential.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1612675 Research on the Teaching Quality Evaluation of China’s Network Music Education APP
Authors: Guangzhuang Yu, Chun-Chu Liu
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With the advent of the Internet era in recent years, social music education has gradually shifted from the original entity education mode to the mode of entity plus network teaching. No matter for school music education, professional music education or social music education, the teaching quality is the most important evaluation index. Regarding the research on teaching quality evaluation, scholars at home and abroad have contributed a lot of research results on the basis of multiple methods and evaluation subjects. However, to our best knowledge the complete evaluation model for the virtual teaching interaction mode of the emerging network music education Application (APP) has not been established. This research firstly found out the basic dimensions that accord with the teaching quality required by the three parties, constructing the quality evaluation index system; and then, on the basis of expounding the connotation of each index, it determined the weight of each index by using method of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, providing ideas and methods for scientific, objective and comprehensive evaluation of the teaching quality of network education APP.
Keywords: Network music education APP, teaching quality evaluation, index, connotation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 845674 Error Propagation in the RK5GL3 Method
Authors: J.S.C. Prentice
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The RK5GL3 method is a numerical method for solving initial value problems in ordinary differential equations, and is based on a combination of a fifth-order Runge-Kutta method and 3-point Gauss-Legendre quadrature. In this paper we describe the propagation of local errors in this method, and show that the global order of RK5GL3 is expected to be six, one better than the underlying Runge- Kutta method.Keywords: RK5GL3, RKrGLm, Runge-Kutta, Gauss-Legendre, initial value problem, order, local error, global error.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1211673 Educating the Educators: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Enhance Science Teaching
Authors: Denise Levy, Anna Lucia C. H. Villavicencio
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In a rapid-changing world, science teachers face considerable challenges. In addition to the basic curriculum, there must be included several transversal themes, which demand creative and innovative strategies to be arranged and integrated to traditional disciplines. In Brazil, nuclear science is still a controversial theme, and teachers themselves seem to be unaware of the issue, most often perpetuating prejudice, errors and misconceptions. This article presents the authors’ experience in the development of an interdisciplinary pedagogical proposal to include nuclear science in the basic curriculum, in a transversal and integrating way. The methodology applied was based on the analysis of several normative documents that define the requirements of essential learning, competences and skills of basic education for all schools in Brazil. The didactic materials and resources were developed according to the best practices to improve learning processes privileging constructivist educational techniques, with emphasis on active learning process, collaborative learning and learning through research. The material consists of an illustrated book for students, a book for teachers and a manual with activities that can articulate nuclear science to different disciplines: Portuguese, mathematics, science, art, English, history and geography. The content counts on high scientific rigor and articulate nuclear technology with topics of interest to society in the most diverse spheres, such as food supply, public health, food safety and foreign trade. Moreover, this pedagogical proposal takes advantage of the potential value of digital technologies, implementing QR codes that excite and challenge students of all ages, improving interaction and engagement. The expected results include the education of the educators for nuclear science communication in a transversal and integrating way, demystifying nuclear technology in a contextualized and significant approach. It is expected that the interdisciplinary pedagogical proposal contributes to improving attitudes towards knowledge construction, privileging reconstructive questioning, fostering a culture of systematic curiosity and encouraging critical thinking skills.
Keywords: Science education, interdisciplinary learning, nuclear science; scientific literacy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 819672 An Approaching Index to Evaluate a forward Collision Probability
Authors: Yuan-Lin Chen
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This paper presents an approaching forward collision probability index (AFCPI) for alerting and assisting driver in keeping safety distance to avoid the forward collision accident in highway driving. The time to collision (TTC) and time headway (TH) are used to evaluate the TTC forward collision probability index (TFCPI) and the TH forward collision probability index (HFCPI), respectively. The Mamdani fuzzy inference algorithm is presented combining TFCPI and HFCPI to calculate the approaching collision probability index of the vehicle. The AFCPI is easier to understand for the driver who did not even have any professional knowledge in vehicle professional field. At the same time, the driver’s behavior is taken into account for suiting each driver. For the approaching index, the value 0 is indicating the 0% probability of forward collision, and the values 0.5 and 1 are indicating the 50% and 100% probabilities of forward collision, respectively. The AFCPI is useful and easy-to-understand for alerting driver to avoid the forward collision accidents when driving in highway.
Keywords: Approaching index, forward collision probability, time to collision, time headway.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1160671 Enhancing Critical Reflective Practice in Fieldwork Education: An Exploratory Study of the Role of Social Work Agencies in the Welfare Context of Hong Kong
Authors: Yee-May Chan
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In recent decades, it is observed that social work agencies have participated actively, and thus, have gradually been more influential in social work education in Hong Kong. The neo-liberal welfare ideologies and changing funding mode have transformed the landscape in social work practice and have also had a major influence on the fieldwork environment in Hong Kong. The aim of this research is to explore the educational role of social work agencies and examine in particular whether they are able to enhance or hinder critical reflective learning in fieldwork. In-depth interviews with 15 frontline social workers and managers in different social work agencies were conducted to collect their views and experience in helping social work students in fieldwork. The overall findings revealed that under the current social welfare context most social workers consider that the most important role of social work agencies in fieldwork is to help students prepare to fit-in the practice requirements and work within agencies’ boundary. The fit-for-purpose and down-to-earth view of fieldwork practice is seen as prevalent among most social workers. This narrow perception of agency’s role seems to be more favourable to competence-based approaches. In contrast, though critical reflection has been seen as important in addressing the changing needs of service users, the role of enhancing critical reflective learning has not been clearly expected or understood by most agency workers. The notion of critical reflection, if considered, has been narrowly perceived in fieldwork learning. The findings suggest that the importance of critical reflection is found to be subordinate to that of practice competence. The lack of critical reflection in the field is somehow embedded in the competence-based social work practice. In general, social work students’ critical reflection has not been adequately supported or enhanced in fieldwork agencies, nor critical reflective practice has been encouraged in fieldwork process. To address this situation, the role of social work agencies in fieldwork should be re-examined. To maximise critical reflective learning in the field, critical reflection as an avowed objective in fieldwork learning should be clearly stated. Concrete suggestions are made to help fieldwork agencies become more prepared to critical reflective learning. It is expected that the research can help social work communities to reflect upon the current realities of fieldwork context and to identify ways to strengthen agencies’ capacities to enhance critical reflective learning and practice of social work students.
Keywords: Competence-based social work, fieldwork, neo-liberal welfare, critical reflective learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1009670 Preparation and Characterization of M. × Piperita L. Oil Based Gel Formulation
Authors: Peeyush Kumar, Sapna Mishra, Anushree Malik, Santosh Satya
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The essential oil of M. × piperita L. was formulated into a topical gel. The prepared gel was characterized for its pH, viscosity, spreadiblity, consistency and extrudiblity, while its stability was evaluated under different temperature conditions. The prepared M. × piperita oil gel was clear and transparent. The pH value of developed gel was 6.6, while its viscosity was 1200 cP. Spreadability and consistency of the M. × piperita oil gel was 10.7 g.cm/sec and 7 mm, respectively. The prepared gel showed good extrudiblity. During the stability studies, no significant change in pH and viscosity as a function of time for gel was observed, indicating stability of prepared formulation. The gel developed in this study is expected to forward the usage of M. × piperita essential towards commercial application.Keywords: M. × piperita L., formulation, gel, characterization, stability
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3127669 Waste Management in a Hot Laboratory of Japan Atomic Energy Agency – 1: Overview and Activities in Chemical Processing Facility
Authors: Kazunori Nomura, Hiromichi Ogi, Masaumi Nakahara, Sou Watanabe, Atsuhiro Shibata
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Chemical Processing Facility of Japan Atomic Energy Agency is a basic research field for advanced back-end technology developments with using actual high-level radioactive materials such as irradiated fuels from the fast reactor, high-level liquid waste from reprocessing plant. In the nature of a research facility, various kinds of chemical reagents have been offered for fundamental tests. Most of them were treated properly and stored in the liquid waste vessel equipped in the facility, but some were not treated and remained at the experimental space as a kind of legacy waste. It is required to treat the waste in safety. On the other hand, we formulated the Medium- and Long-Term Management Plan of Japan Atomic Energy Agency Facilities. This comprehensive plan considers Chemical Processing Facility as one of the facilities to be decommissioned. Even if the plan is executed, treatment of the “legacy” waste beforehand must be a necessary step for decommissioning operation. Under this circumstance, we launched a collaborative research project called the STRAD project, which stands for Systematic Treatment of Radioactive liquid waste for Decommissioning, in order to develop the treatment processes for wastes of the nuclear research facility. In this project, decomposition methods of chemicals causing a troublesome phenomenon such as corrosion and explosion have been developed and there is a prospect of their decomposition in the facility by simple method. And solidification of aqueous or organic liquid wastes after the decomposition has been studied by adding cement or coagulants. Furthermore, we treated experimental tools of various materials with making an effort to stabilize and to compact them before the package into the waste container. It is expected to decrease the number of transportation of the solid waste and widen the operation space. Some achievements of these studies will be shown in this paper. The project is expected to contribute beneficial waste management outcome that can be shared world widely.
Keywords: Chemical Processing Facility, medium- and long-term management plan of JAEA Facilities, STRAD project, treatment of radioactive waste.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 874668 Passenger Seat Vibration Comparison Using ANFIS Control in Active Quarter Car Model
Authors: Devdutt
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In this paper, vibration control response of passenger seat in quarter car model having three degrees of freedom is studied. Three different control strategies are taken into account using Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) controller. In first case, ANFIS controller is applied in main suspension of active quarter car model. In second case, passenger seat suspension is assembled with ANFIS controller. Finally, both main and passenger seat suspensions are integrated with ANFIS controller. Simulation work under random road excitations is performed using passive and controlled quarter car models for performance comparison of passenger ride comfort. Ride comfort analysis is also compared as per ISO 2631-1 criterion. The obtained simulation responses are compared taking passenger seat acceleration and displacement response in time and frequency domain for the selection of best control strategy in designed quarter car model.
Keywords: Active suspension system, ANFIS controller, passenger ride comfort, quarter car model.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 837667 Aircraft Selection Problem Using Decision Uncertainty Distance in Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Decision Making Analysis
Authors: C. Ardil
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Aircraft have different capabilities and specifications according to the required strategic goals and objectives in operations. With various types on the market with different aircraft characteristics, it becomes difficult to select a suitable aircraft for certain operations and requirements. The entropy weighting method (EWM) is a useful, highly consistent, and reliable method for obtaining the weights of the criteria and is worth integrating with the decision uncertainty distance (DUD) method, which is more applicable and requires less computation than other methods. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the validity and usability of the proposed methodology. Comparing the ranking results matches the distance-based approach, which is the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method, which shows the robustness of the entropy DUD hybrid method. Validity analysis shows that the proposed hybrid multiple criteria decision-making analysis (MCDMA) methodology is quantitatively stable and reliable.
Keywords: aircraft selection, decision uncertainty distance (DUD), multiple criteria decision making analysis, MCDMA, TOPSIS
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 542666 Social Structure, Involuntary Relations, and Urban Poverty
Authors: Mahmood Niroobakhsh
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This article deals with special structuralism approaches to explain a certain kind of social problem. Widespread presence of poverty is a reminder of deep-rooted unresolved problems of social relations. The expected role from an individual for the social system recognizes poverty derived from an interrelated social structure. By the time, enabled to act on his role in the course of social interaction, reintegration of the poor in society may take place. Poverty and housing type are reflections of the underlying social structure, primarily structure’s elements, systemic interrelations, and the overall strength or weakness of that structure. Poverty varies based on social structure in that the stronger structures are less likely to produce poverty.Keywords: Absolute poverty, relative poverty, social structure, urban poverty.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1685665 Comparing Arabic and Latin Handwritten Digits Recognition Problems
Authors: Sherif Abdelazeem
Abstract:
A comparison between the performance of Latin and Arabic handwritten digits recognition problems is presented. The performance of ten different classifiers is tested on two similar Arabic and Latin handwritten digits databases. The analysis shows that Arabic handwritten digits recognition problem is easier than that of Latin digits. This is because the interclass difference in case of Latin digits is smaller than in Arabic digits and variances in writing Latin digits are larger. Consequently, weaker yet fast classifiers are expected to play more prominent role in Arabic handwritten digits recognition.Keywords: Handwritten recognition, Arabic recognition, Digits recognition, Document recognition
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1986664 Modeling the Symptom-Disease Relationship by Using Rough Set Theory and Formal Concept Analysis
Authors: Mert Bal, Hayri Sever, Oya Kalıpsız
Abstract:
Medical Decision Support Systems (MDSSs) are sophisticated, intelligent systems that can provide inference due to lack of information and uncertainty. In such systems, to model the uncertainty various soft computing methods such as Bayesian networks, rough sets, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, inductive logic programming and genetic algorithms and hybrid methods that formed from the combination of the few mentioned methods are used. In this study, symptom-disease relationships are presented by a framework which is modeled with a formal concept analysis and theory, as diseases, objects and attributes of symptoms. After a concept lattice is formed, Bayes theorem can be used to determine the relationships between attributes and objects. A discernibility relation that forms the base of the rough sets can be applied to attribute data sets in order to reduce attributes and decrease the complexity of computation.
Keywords: Formal Concept Analysis, Rough Set Theory, Granular Computing, Medical Decision Support System.
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