Search results for: Service oriented architecture.

Authors: Pucheng Zhou, Bingrong Hong

Abstract:

How to coordinate the behaviors of the agents through learning is a challenging problem within multi-agent domains. Because of its complexity, recent work has focused on how coordinated strategies can be learned. Here we are interested in using reinforcement learning techniques to learn the coordinated actions of a group of agents, without requiring explicit communication among them. However, traditional reinforcement learning methods are based on the assumption that the environment can be modeled as Markov Decision Process, which usually cannot be satisfied when multiple agents coexist in the same environment. Moreover, to effectively coordinate each agent-s behavior so as to achieve the goal, it-s necessary to augment the state of each agent with the information about other existing agents. Whereas, as the number of agents in a multiagent environment increases, the state space of each agent grows exponentially, which will cause the combinational explosion problem. Profit sharing is one of the reinforcement learning methods that allow agents to learn effective behaviors from their experiences even within non-Markovian environments. In this paper, to remedy the drawback of the original profit sharing approach that needs much memory to store each state-action pair during the learning process, we firstly address a kind of on-line rational profit sharing algorithm. Then, we integrate the advantages of modular learning architecture with on-line rational profit sharing algorithm, and propose a new modular reinforcement learning model. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated using the pursuit problem.

Keywords: Multi-agent learning; reinforcement learning; rationalprofit sharing; modular architecture.

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Authors: Gee-Cheol Kim, Joo-Won Kang

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A theoretical study of the rigidities of slabs with circular voids oriented in the longitudinal and in the transverse direction is discussed. Equations are presented for predicting the bending and torsional rigidities of the voided slabs. This paper summarizes the results of an extensive literature search and initial review of the current methods of analyzing voided slab. The various methods of calculating the equivalent plate parameters, which are necessary for two-dimensional analysis, are also reviewed. Static deflections on voided slabs are shown to be in good agreement with proposed equation.

Keywords: voided slab, bending rigidity, torsional rigidity, orthotropic plate

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Authors: Z. Asadi-Shekari, M. Moeinaddini, M. Zaly Shah, A. Hamzah

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Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS) is a measure for evaluating street conditions for cyclists. Currently, various methods are proposed for BLOS. These analytical methods however have some drawbacks: they usually assume cyclists as users that can share street facilities with motorized vehicles, it is not easy to link them to design process and they are not easy to follow. In addition, they only support a narrow range of cycling facilities and may not be applicable for all situations. Along this, the current paper introduces various effective design factors for bicycle-friendly streets. This study considers cyclists as users of streets who have special needs and facilities. Therefore, the key factors that influence BLOS based on different cycling facilities that are proposed by developed guidelines and literature are identified. The combination of these factors presents a complete set of effective design factors for bicycle-friendly streets. In addition, the weight of each factor in existing BLOS models is estimated and these effective factors are ranked based on these weights. These factors and their weights can be used in further studies to propose special bicycle-friendly street design model.

Keywords: Bicycle level of service, bicycle-friendly streets, cycling facilities, rating system, urban streets.

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Authors: Viraj Tyagi, Ajai Jain, P. K. Jain, Aarushi Jain

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This paper presents a genetic algorithm based loading methodology for a capacity constrained job-shop with the consideration of alternative process plans for each part to be produced. Performance analysis of the proposed methodology is carried out for two case studies by considering two different manufacturing scenarios. Results obtained indicate that the methodology is quite effective in improving the shop load balance, and hence, it can be included in the frameworks of manufacturing planning systems of job-shop oriented industries.

Keywords: Manufacturing planning, loading, genetic algorithm, Job-Shop

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Authors: Karanjeet Singh Kahlon, Gurvinder Singh, Arjan Singh

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In the past few years there is a change in the view of high performance applications and parallel computing. Initially such applications were targeted towards dedicated parallel machines. Recently trend is changing towards building meta-applications composed of several modules that exploit heterogeneous platforms and employ hybrid forms of parallelism. The aim of this paper is to propose a model of virtual parallel computing. Virtual parallel computing system provides a flexible object oriented software framework that makes it easy for programmers to write various parallel applications.

Keywords: Applet, Efficiency, Java, LAN

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Authors: Yao-Tien Wang, Hsiang-Fu Yu, Dung Chen Chiou

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In wireless and mobile communications, this progress provides opportunities for introducing new standards and improving existing services. Supporting multimedia traffic with wireless networks quality of service (QoS). In this paper, a grey-fuzzy controller for radio resource management (GF-RRM) is presented to maximize the number of the served calls and QoS provision in wireless networks. In a wireless network, the call arrival rate, the call duration and the communication overhead between the base stations and the control center are vague and uncertain. In this paper, we develop a method to predict the cell load and to solve the RRM problem based on the GF-RRM, and support the present facility has been built on the application-level of the wireless networks. The GF-RRM exhibits the better adaptability, fault-tolerant capability and performance than other algorithms. Through simulations, we evaluate the blocking rate, update overhead, and channel acquisition delay time of the proposed method. The results demonstrate our algorithm has the lower blocking rate, less updated overhead, and shorter channel acquisition delay.

Keywords: radio resource management, grey prediction, fuzzylogic control, wireless networks, quality of service.

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Authors: Cosmin Rablou

Abstract:

In this paper we present a way of controlling the concurrent access to data in a distributed application using the Pessimistic Offline Lock design pattern. In our case, the application processes a complex entity, which contains in a hierarchical structure different other entities (objects). It will be shown how the complex entity and the contained entities must be locked in order to control the concurrent access to data.

Keywords: Object-oriented programming, Pessimistic Lock, Design pattern, Concurrent access to data, Processing complex entities

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Authors: Yuji Waizumi, Tohru Sato, Yoshiaki Nemoto

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Recently, Denial of Service(DoS) attacks and Distributed DoS(DDoS) attacks which are stronger form of DoS attacks from plural hosts have become security threats on the Internet. It is important to identify the attack source and to block attack traffic as one of the measures against these attacks. In general, it is difficult to identify them because information about the attack source is falsified. Therefore a method of identifying the attack source by tracing the route of the attack traffic is necessary. A traceback method which uses traffic patterns, using changes in the number of packets over time as criteria for the attack traceback has been proposed. The traceback method using the traffic patterns can trace the attack by matching the shapes of input traffic patterns and the shape of output traffic pattern observed at a network branch point such as a router. The traffic pattern is a shapes of traffic and unfalsifiable information. The proposed trace methods proposed till date cannot obtain enough tracing accuracy, because they directly use traffic patterns which are influenced by non-attack traffics. In this paper, a new traffic pattern matching method using Independent Component Analysis(ICA) is proposed.

Keywords: Distributed Denial of Service, Independent Component Analysis, Traffic pattern

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Authors: Kenza Aida Amara, Bachir Djebbar

Abstract:

We treat the two-dimensional bin packing problem which involves packing a given set of rectangles into a minimum number of larger identical rectangles called bins. This combinatorial problem is NP-hard. We propose a pretreatment for the oriented version of the problem that allows the valorization of the lost areas in the bins and the reduction of the size problem. A heuristic method based on the strategy first-fit adapted to this problem is presented. We present an approach of resolution by bee colony optimization. Computational results express a comparison of the number of bins used with and without pretreatment.

Keywords: Bee colony optimization, bin packing, heuristic algorithm, pretreatment.

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Authors: Levan Sabauri

Abstract:

Audit is an independent inspection of the financial statement of the audited person and expresses the opinion of an auditor on the reliability of this statement. The auditor’s activity (auditor’s service) is realized by auditing organizations, individual auditors in connection to conduction of an audit and rendering of audit accompanying services. The profession of auditor means a high level of responsibility for rendered service. Results of decisions made by information users depend on the quality of the auditor’s conclusion. Owners, investors, creditors, and society rely on the opinion of the auditor under the condition that inspection was conducted with good quality. Therefore, the existence of the well-functioning audit quality control system for the administering of the audit is an important issue. An efficient audit quality control system is a substantial challenge that many countries face worldwide, especially those states where these systems are being formed within the respective reform program. The presented article reflects on the best practices of the leading countries, the assumptions and recommendations for the financial accounting, reporting and audit; current reforms in Georgia are made based on this comparative analysis.

Keywords: Audit quality control, audit program, financial statement, perspective analysis.

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Authors: O. S. Ebrahim, K. O. Shawky, M. A. Badr, P. K. Jain

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This paper proposes an intelligent, supervisory, hysteresis liquid-level control with three-state energy saving mode (ESM) for induction motor (IM) in fluid transportation system (FTS) including storage tank. The IM pump drive comprises a modified star/delta switch and hydromantic coupler. Three-state ESM is defined, along with the normal running, and named analog to the computer’s ESMs as follows: Sleeping mode in which the motor runs at no load with delta stator connection, hibernate mode in which the motor runs at no load with a star connection, and motor shutdown is the third energy saver mode. Considering the motor’s thermal capacity used (TCU) and grid-compatible tariff structure, a logic flow-chart is synthesized to select the motor state at no-load for best energetic cost reduction. Fuzzy-logic (FL) based availability assessment is designed and deployed on cloud, in order to provide mobilized service for the star/delta switch and highly reliable contactors. Moreover, an artificial neural network (ANN) state estimator, based on the recurrent architecture, is constructed and learned in order to provide fault-tolerant capability for the supervisory controller. Sequential test of Wald is used for sensor fault detection. Theoretical analysis, preliminary experimental testing and computer simulations are performed to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed control system in terms of reliability, power quality and operational cost reduction with a motivation of power factor correction.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, ANN, Contactor Health Assessment, Energy Saving Mode, Induction Machine, IM, Supervisory Control, Fluid Transportation, Fuzzy Logic, FL, cloud computing, pumped storage.

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Authors: Irtaza M. Syed, Kaamran Raahemifar

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This paper presents comparative analysis of photovoltaic systems (PVS) and propose practical techniques to improve operational efficiency of the PVS. The best engineering and construction practices for PVS are identified and field oriented recommendation are made. Comparative analysis of central and string inverter based, as well as 600 and 1000VDC PVS are performed. In addition, direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) photovoltaic (PV) module based systems are compared. Comparison shows that 1000V DC String Inverters based PVS is the best choice.

Keywords: Photovoltaic module, photovoltaic systems, operational efficiency improvement, comparative analysis.

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Authors: Mohsen Shirani, Micaela Demichela

Abstract:

Food supply chain is one of the most complex supply chain networks due to its perishable nature and customer oriented products, and food safety is the major concern for this industry. IT system could help to minimize the production and consumption of unsafe food by controlling and monitoring the entire system. However, there have been many issues in adoption of IT system in this industry specifically within SMEs sector. With this regard, this study presents a novel approach to use IT and tractability systems in the food supply chain, using application of RFID and central database.

Keywords: Food Supply Chain, IT System, Food Safety, SME.

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Authors: Sultan Alotaibi, Dmitri Roussinov

Abstract:

Many governments recently started to change the ways of providing their services by allowing their citizens to access services from anywhere without the need of visiting the location of the service provider. Mobile government (M-government) is one of the techniques that fulfill that goal. It has been adopted by many governments. M-government can be defined as an implementation of Electronic Government (E-Government) by using mobile technology with the aim of improving service delivery to citizens, businesses and all government agencies. There have been several research projects developing models to understand the behavior of individuals towards the adoption of m-government. This paper proposes a model for adoption of m-government services in Saudi Arabia by extending Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by introducing external factors. This paper also reports on the development of a survey instrument designed to measure user perception of mobile government acceptance. A survey instrument has been developed by using existing scales from prior instruments and a pilot study has been conducted by distributing the survey to 33 participants. As a result, a survey instrument has been refined to retain 43 items. The results also showed that the reliabilities of all the scales in the survey instrument are above the levels acceptable in current academic research, thus the instruments developed by us are capable of analyzing the factors in M-government adoption.

Keywords: TAM, m-government, e-government, model, acceptance.

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Authors: Mariam Vardiashvili

Abstract:

The economic value of the asset impairment process is quite large. Impairment reflects the reduction of future economic benefits or service potentials itemized in the asset. The assets owned by public sector entities bring economic benefits or are used for delivery of the free-of-charge services. Consequently, they are classified as cash-generating and non-cash-generating assets. IPSAS 21 - Impairment of non-cash-generating assets, and IPSAS 26 - Impairment of cash-generating assets, have been designed considering this specificity.  When measuring impairment of assets, it is important to select the relevant methods. For measurement of the impaired Non-Cash-Generating Assets, IPSAS 21 recommends three methods: Depreciated Replacement Cost Approach, Restoration Cost Approach, and  Service Units Approach. Impairment of Value in Use of Cash-Generating Assets (according to IPSAS 26) is measured by discounted value of the money sources to be received in future. Value in use of the cash-generating asserts (as per IPSAS 26) is measured by the discounted value of the money sources to be received in the future. The article provides classification of the assets in the public sector  as non-cash-generating assets and cash-generating assets and, deals also with the factors which should be considered when evaluating  impairment of assets. An essence of impairment of the non-financial assets and the methods of measurement thereof evaluation are formulated according to IPSAS 21 and IPSAS 26. The main emphasis is put on different methods of measurement of the value in use of the impaired Cash-Generating Assets and Non-Cash-Generation Assets and the methods of their selection. The traditional and the expected cash flow approaches for calculation of the discounted value are reviewed. The article also discusses the issues of recognition of impairment loss and its reflection in the financial reporting. The article concludes that despite a functional purpose of the impaired asset, whichever method is used for measuring the asset, presentation of realistic information regarding the value of the assets should be ensured in the financial reporting. In the theoretical development of the issue, the methods of scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis were used. The research was carried out with a systemic approach. The research process uses international standards of accounting, theoretical researches and publications of Georgian and foreign scientists.

Keywords: Non-cash-generating assets, cash-generating assets, recoverable value, recoverable service amount, value in use.

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Authors: Kwa-Sur Tam

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This paper reviews various approaches that have been used for the modeling and simulation of large-scale engineering systems and determines their appropriateness in the development of a RICS modeling and simulation tool. Bond graphs, linear graphs, block diagrams, differential and difference equations, modeling languages, cellular automata and agents are reviewed. This tool should be based on linear graph representation and supports symbolic programming, functional programming, the development of noncausal models and the incorporation of decentralized approaches.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary, dynamic, functional programming, object-oriented.

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Authors: I.V. Matyushkin

Abstract:

The new architecture for quantum cellular automata is offered. A QCA cell includes two layers nc-Si, divided by a dielectric. Among themselves cells are connected by the bridge from a conductive material. The comparison is made between this and QCA, offered earlier by C. Lent's group.

Keywords: quantum cellular automata (QCA), nc-Si, Si/SiO2 superlattices, parallel computing

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Authors: Kuo-Yang Cheng, Yi-Lun Pan, Chang-Hsing Wu, His-En Yu, Hui-Shan Chen, Weicheng Huang

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The main mission of Ezilla is to provide a friendly interface to access the virtual machine and quickly deploy the high performance computing environment. Ezilla has been developed by Pervasive Computing Team at National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC). Ezilla integrates the Cloud middleware, virtualization technology, and Web-based Operating System (WebOS) to form a virtual computer in distributed computing environment. In order to upgrade the dataset and speedup, we proposed the sensor observation system to deal with a huge amount of data in the Cassandra database. The sensor observation system is based on the Ezilla to store sensor raw data into distributed database. We adopt the Ezilla Cloud service to create virtual machines and login into virtual machine to deploy the sensor observation system. Integrating the sensor observation system with Ezilla is to quickly deploy experiment environment and access a huge amount of data with distributed database that support the replication mechanism to protect the data security.

Keywords: Cloud, Virtualization, Cassandra, WebOS

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Authors: Kumar Padmanabh, Rajarshi Roy

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In this paper a special kind of buffer management policy is studied where the packet are preempted even when sufficient space is available in the buffer for incoming packets. This is done to congestion for future incoming packets to improve QoS for certain type of packets. This type of study has been done in past for ATM type of scenario. We extend the same for heterogeneous traffic where data rate and size of the packets are very versatile in nature. Typical example of this scenario is the buffer management in Differentiated Service Router. There are two aspects that are of interest. First is the packet size: whether all packets have same or different sizes. Second aspect is the value or space priority of the packets, do all packets have the same space priority or different packets have different space priorities. We present two types of policies to achieve QoS goals for packets with different priorities: the push out scheme and the expelling scheme. For this work the scenario of packets of variable length is considered with two space priorities and main goal is to minimize the total weighted packet loss. Simulation and analytical studies show that, expelling policies can outperform the push out policies when it comes to offering variable QoS for packets of two different priorities and expelling policies also help improve the amount of admissible load. Some other comparisons of push out and expelling policies are also presented using simulations.

Keywords: Buffer Management Policy, Diffserv, ATM, Pushout Policy, Expeling Policy.

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Authors: Xin Cheng, Benny Thörnberg, Abdul Waheed Malik, Najeem Lawal

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We present a hardware oriented method for real-time measurements of object-s position in video. The targeted application area is light spots used as references for robotic navigation. Different algorithms for dynamic thresholding are explored in combination with component labeling and Center Of Gravity (COG) for highest possible precision versus Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). This method was developed with a low hardware cost in focus having only one convolution operation required for preprocessing of data.

Keywords: Dynamic thresholding, segmentation, position measurement, sub-pixel precision, center of gravity.

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Authors: Md. Mosabbir Pasha, Ijaj Mahmud Chowdhury, M. A. Afrahim Bhuiyan

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With the increasing population and intensive land use, huge traffic demand is generating worldwide both in developing and developed countries. As a developing country, Bangladesh is also facing the same problem in recent years by producing huge numbers of daily trips. As a matter of fact, extensive traffic demand is increasing day by day. Also, transport system in Dhaka is heterogeneous, reflecting the heterogeneity in the socio-economic and land use patterns. Trips produced here are for different purposes such as work, business, educational etc. Due to the significant concentration of educational institutions a large share of the trips are generated by educational purpose. And one of the major percentages of educational trips is produced by university going students and most of them are travelled by car, bus, train, taxi, rickshaw etc. The aim of the study was to find out the university students’ perception on public transit ridership. A survey was conducted among 330 students from eight different universities. It was found out that 26% of the trips produced by university going students are travelled by public bus service and only 5% are by train. Percentage of car share is 16% and 12% of the trips are travelled by private taxi. It has been observed from the study, students those who prefer bus instead of other options, 42 percent of their family resides outside Dhaka. And those who prefer walking, of them, over 40 percent students’ family reside outside of Dhaka and of them over 85 percent students have a tendency to live in a mess. On the contrary, students travelling by car represents, most of their family reside in Dhaka. The study also revealed that the most important reason that restricts students not to use public transit is poor service. Negative attitudes such as discomfort, uneasiness in using public transit also reduces the usage of public transit. The poor waiting area is another major cause of not using public transit. Insufficient security also plays a significant role in not using public transit. On the contrary, the fare is not a problem for students those who use public transit as a mode of transportation. Students also think stations are not far away from their home or institution and they do not need to wait long for the buses or trains. It was also found accessibility to public transit is moderate.

Keywords: Traffic demand, fare, poor service, public transit ridership.

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Authors: Ewa Dostatni, Jacek Diakun, Damian Grajewski, Radosław Wichniarek, Anna Karwasz

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In the paper the method of product analysis from recycling point of view has been described. The analysis bases on set of measures that assess a product from the point of view of final stages of its lifecycle. It was assumed that such analysis will be performed at the design phase – in order to conduct such analysis the computer system that aids the designer during the design process has been developed. The structure of the computer tool, based on agent technology, and example results has been also included in the paper.

Keywords: Agent technology, PLM, design for environment, ecodesign.

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Authors: Hamza A. Ali, Waleed A. J. Rasheed

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The use of neural networks for recognition application is generally constrained by their inherent parameters inflexibility after the training phase. This means no adaptation is accommodated for input variations that have any influence on the network parameters. Attempts were made in this work to design a neural network that includes an additional mechanism that adjusts the threshold values according to the input pattern variations. The new approach is based on splitting the whole network into two subnets; main traditional net and a supportive net. The first deals with the required output of trained patterns with predefined settings, while the second tolerates output generation dynamically with tuning capability for any newly applied input. This tuning comes in the form of an adjustment to the threshold values. Two levels of supportive net were studied; one implements an extended additional layer with adjustable neuronal threshold setting mechanism, while the second implements an auxiliary net with traditional architecture performs dynamic adjustment to the threshold value of the main net that is constructed in dual-layer architecture. Experiment results and analysis of the proposed designs have given quite satisfactory conducts. The supportive layer approach achieved over 90% recognition rate, while the multiple network technique shows more effective and acceptable level of recognition. However, this is achieved at the price of network complexity and computation time. Recognition generalization may be also improved by accommodating capabilities involving all the innate structures in conjugation with Intelligence abilities with the needs of further advanced learning phases.

Keywords: Classification, Recognition, Neural Networks, Pattern Recognition, Generalization.

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Authors: Jun-Ho Park, Kwang-Woo Nam, Seung-Mo Hong, Tae-Heon Moon, Sang-Ho Lee, Youn-Taik Leem

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The aim of this study was to build ‘Ubi-Net’, a decision-making support system for systematic establishment in U-City planning. We have experienced various urban problems caused by high-density development and population concentrations in established urban areas. To address these problems, a U-Service contributes to the alleviation of urban problems by providing real-time information to citizens through network connections and related information. However, technology, devices, and information for consumers are required for systematic U-Service planning in towns and cities where there are many difficulties in this regard, and a lack of reference systems. Thus, this study suggests methods to support the establishment of sustainable planning by providing comprehensive information including IT technology, devices, news, and social networking services (SNS) to U-City planners through intelligent searches. In this study, we targeted Smart U-Parking Planning to solve parking problems in an ‘old’ city. Through this study, we sought to contribute to supporting advances in U-Space and the alleviation of urban problems.

Keywords: Design and decision support system, smart U-parking planning, social network analysis.

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Authors: G. Feletti, D. Tedesco, P. Trucco

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The present study aims to develop a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to enhance information and predictive capabilities in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems, supporting both operational and strategic decisions of different actors. The employed research methodology consists of a first phase of revision of the technical-scientific literature concerning the indicators currently in use for the performance measurement of EMS. It emerges that current studies focus on two distinct areas and independent objectives: the ambulance service, a fundamental component of pre-hospital health treatment, and the patient care in the Emergency Department (ED). Conversely, the perspective proposed by this study is to consider an integrated view of the ambulance service process and the ED process, both essential to ensure high quality of care and patient safety. Thus, the proposal covers the end-to-end healthcare service process and, as such, allows considering the interconnection between the two EMS processes, the pre-hospital and hospital ones, connected by the assignment of the patient to a specific ED. In this way, it is possible to optimize the entire patient management. Therefore, attention is paid even to EMS aspects that in current literature tend to be neglected or underestimated. In particular, the integration of the two processes enables to evaluate the advantage of an ED selection decision having visibility on EDs’ saturation status and therefore considering, besides the distance, the available resources and the expected waiting times. Starting from a critical review of the KPIs proposed in extant literature, the design of the dashboard was carried out: the high number of analyzed KPIs was reduced by eliminating firstly the ones not in line with the aim of the study and then the ones supporting a similar functionality. The KPIs finally selected were tested on a realistic dataset, which draw us to exclude additional indicators due to unavailability of data required for their computation. The final dashboard, that was discussed and validated by experts in the field, includes a variety of KPIs able to support operational and planning decisions, early warning, and citizens’ awareness on EDs accessibility in real time. The association of each KPI to the EMS phase it refers to enabled the design of a well-balanced dashboard, covering both efficiency and effectiveness performance objectives of the entire EMS process. Indeed, just the initial phases related to the interconnection between ambulance service and patient care are covered by traditional KPIs. Future developments could be directed to building a hierarchical dashboard, composed by a high-level minimal set of KPIs for measuring the basic performance of the EMS system, at an aggregate level, and lower levels of KPIs that bring additional and more detailed information on specific performance dimensions or EMS phases.

Keywords: Emergency Medical Services, Key Performance Indicators, Dashboard, Decision Support.

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Authors: Akram Hosseinian, Hourieh Rezaei, Ali Reza Mahjoub

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Nanostructured Iron Oxide with different morphologies of rod-like and granular have been suc-cessfully prepared via a solid-state reaction in the presence of NaCl, NaBr, NaI and NaN3, respectively. The added salts not only prevent a drastic increase in the size of the products but also provide suitable conditions for the oriented growth of primary nanoparticles. The formation mechanisms of these materials by solid-state reaction at ambient temperature are proposed. The photocatalytic experiments for congo red (CR) have demonstrated that the mixture of α-Fe2O3 and Fe3O4 nanostructures were more efficient than α-Fe2O3 nanostructures.

Keywords: Nano, Iron Oxide, Solid-State, Halide salts, Congored

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Authors: Roelien Goede

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Data Structures and Algorithms is a module in most Computer Science or Information Technology curricula. It is one of the modules most students identify as being difficult. This paper demonstrates how programming a solution for Sudoku can make abstract concepts more concrete. The paper relates concepts of a typical Data Structures and Algorithms module to a step by step solution for Sudoku in a human type as opposed to a computer oriented solution.

Keywords: Data Structures, Algorithms, Sudoku, ObjectOriented Programming, Programming Teaching, Education.

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Authors: M. Stoklasa, H. Starzyczna, K. Matusinska

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This article deals with the perceived quality of regional products in the Moravian-Silesian region in the Czech Republic. Research was focused on finding out what do consumers perceive as a quality product and what characteristics make a quality product. The data were obtained by questionnaire survey andanalysed by IBM SPSS. From the thousands of respondents the representative sample of 719 for MS region was created based on demographic factors of gender, age, education and income. The research analysis disclosed that consumers in MS region are still price oriented and that the preference of quality over price does not depend on regional brand knowledge.

Keywords: Regional brands, quality products, characteristics of quality, quality over price.

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Authors: Mpofu Vongai, Vhurumuku Elaosi

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Many African countries, such as Zimbabwe and South Africa, have curricula reform agendas that include incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge and Nature of Science (NOS) into school Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. It is argued that at high school level, STEM learning, which incorporates understandings of indigenization science and NOS, has the potential to provide a strong foundation for a culturally embedded scientific knowledge essential for their advancement in Science and Technology. Globally, investment in STEM education is recognized as essential for economic development. For this reason, developing countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa have been investing into training specialized teachers in natural sciences and technology. However, in many cases this training has been detached from the cultural realities and contexts of indigenous learners. For this reason, the STEM curricula reform has provided implementation challenges to teachers. An issue of major concern is the teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is essential for effective implementation of these STEM curricula. Well-developed Teacher PCK include an understanding of both the nature of indigenous knowledge (NOIK) and of NOS. This paper reports the results of a study that investigated the development of 3 South African and 3 Zimbabwean in-service teachers’ abilities to integrate NOS and NOIK as part of their PCK. A participatory action research design was utilized. The main focus was on capturing, determining and developing teachers STEM knowledge for integrating NOIK and NOS in science classrooms. Their use of indigenous games was used to determine how their subject knowledge for STEM and pedagogical abilities could be developed. Qualitative data were gathered through the use dialogues between the researchers and the in-service teachers, as well as interviewing the participating teachers. Analysis of the data provides a methodological window through which in-service teachers’ PCK can be STEMITIZED and their abilities to integrate NOS and NOIK developed. Implications are raised for developing teachers’ STEM education in universities and teacher training colleges.

Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, nature of science, pedagogical content knowledge, STEM education.

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Authors: Shiji Hu, Lei Li, Wanting Zhou, Daohong Yang

Abstract:

The data encryption is the foundation of today’s communication. On this basis, to improve the speed of data encryption and decryption is always an important goal for high-speed applications. This paper proposed an elliptic curve crypto processor architecture based on SM2 prime field. Regarding hardware implementation, we optimized the algorithms in different stages of the structure. For modulo operation on finite field, we proposed an optimized improvement of the Karatsuba-Ofman multiplication algorithm and shortened the critical path through the pipeline structure in the algorithm implementation. Based on SM2 recommended prime field, a fast modular reduction algorithm is used to reduce 512-bit data obtained from the multiplication unit. The radix-4 extended Euclidean algorithm was used to realize the conversion between the affine coordinate system and the Jacobi projective coordinate system. In the parallel scheduling point operations on elliptic curves, we proposed a three-level parallel structure of point addition and point double based on the Jacobian projective coordinate system. Combined with the scalar multiplication algorithm, we added mutual pre-operation to the point addition and double point operation to improve the efficiency of the scalar point multiplication. The proposed ECC hardware architecture was verified and implemented on Xilinx Virtex-7 and ZYNQ-7 platforms, and each 256-bit scalar multiplication operation took 0.275ms. The performance for handling scalar multiplication is 32 times that of CPU (dual-core ARM Cortex-A9).

Keywords: Elliptic curve cryptosystems, SM2, modular multiplication, point multiplication.

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