Search results for: Youth friendly health services
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 2500

Search results for: Youth friendly health services

1510 Post Occupancy Life Cycle Analysis of a Green Building Energy Consumption at the University of Western Ontario in London - Canada

Authors: M. Bittencourt, E. K. Yanful, D. Velasquez, A. E. Jungles

Abstract:

The CMLP building was developed to be a model for sustainability with strategies to reduce water, energy and pollution, and to provide a healthy environment for the building occupants. The aim of this paper is to investigate the environmental effects of energy used by this building. A LCA (life cycle analysis) was led to measure the real environmental effects produced by the use of energy. The impact categories most affected by the energy use were found to be the human health effects, as well as ecotoxicity. Natural gas extraction, uranium milling for nuclear energy production, and the blasting for mining and infrastructure construction are the processes contributing the most to emissions in the human health effect. Data comparing LCA results of CMLP building with a conventional building results showed that energy used by the CMLP building has less damage for the environment and human health than a conventional building.

Keywords: Environmental Impacts, Green buildings, Life CycleAnalysis, Sustainability

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1768
1509 A Design for Application of Mobile Agent Technology to MicroService Architecture

Authors: Masayuki Higashino, Toshiya Kawato, Takao Kawamura

Abstract:

A monolithic service is based on the N-tier architecture in many cases. In order to divide a monolithic service into microservices, it is necessary to redefine a model as a new microservice by extracting and merging existing models across layers. Refactoring a monolithic service into microservices requires advanced technical capabilities, and it is a difficult way. This paper proposes a design and concept to ease the migration of a monolithic service to microservices using the mobile agent technology. Our proposed approach, mobile agents-based design and concept, enables to ease dividing and merging services.

Keywords: Mobile agent, microservice, web service, distributed system.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1073
1508 A Long Tail Study of eWOM Communities

Authors: M. Olmedilla, M. R. Martinez-Torres, S. L. Toral

Abstract:

Electronic Word-Of-Mouth (eWOM) communities represent today an important source of information in which more and more customers base their purchasing decisions. They include thousands of reviews concerning very different products and services posted by many individuals geographically distributed all over the world. Due to their massive audience, eWOM communities can help users to find the product they are looking for even if they are less popular or rare. This is known as the long tail effect, which leads to a larger number of lower-selling niche products. This paper analyzes the long tail effect in a well-known eWOM community and defines a tool for finding niche products unavailable through conventional channels.

Keywords: eWOM, Online user reviews, Long tail theory, Product categorization, Social Network Analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2341
1507 Reduction of Chloride Dioxide in Paper Bleaching using Peroxide Activation

Authors: Ayo Afolabi, Rudzani Sigwadi, Ambali Abdulkareem

Abstract:

All around the world pulp and paper industries are the biggest plant production with the environmental pollution as the biggest challenge facing the pulp manufacturing operations. The concern among these industries is to produce a high volume of papers with the high quality standard and of low cost without affecting the environment. This result obtained from this bleaching study show that the activation of peroxide was an effective method of reducing the total applied charge of chlorine dioxide which is harmful to our environment and also show that softwood and hardwood Kraft pulps responded linearly to the peroxide treatments. During the bleaching process the production plant produce chlorines. Under the trial stages chloride dioxide has been reduced by 3 kg/ton to reduce the brightness from 65% ISO to 60% ISO of pulp and the dosing point returned to the E stage charges by pre-treating Kraft pulps with hydrogen peroxide. The pulp and paper industry has developed elemental chlorine free (ECF) and totally chlorine free (TCF) bleaching, in their quest for being environmental friendly, they have been looking at ways to turn their ECF process into a TCF process while still being competitive. This prompted the research to investigate the capability of the hydrogen peroxide as catalyst to reduce chloride dioxide.

Keywords: bleaching, chloride dioxide, elemental chlorine free (ECF), hydrogen peroxide, totally chlorine free (TCF).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2820
1506 The Overall Aspects of E-Leaning Issues, Developments, Opportunities and Challenges

Authors: Bala Dhandayuthapani Veerasamy

Abstract:

Rapid steps made in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has facilitated the development of teaching and learning methods and prepared them to serve the needs of an assorted educational institution. In other words, the information age has redefined the fundamentals and transformed the institutions and method of services delivery forever. The vision is the articulation of a desire to transform the method of teaching and learning could proceed through e-learning. E-learning is commonly deliberated to use of networked information and communications technology in teaching and learning practice. This paper deals the general aspects of the e-leaning with its issues, developments, opportunities and challenges, which can the higher institutions own.

Keywords: 2D & 3D Animations, challenges, E-learning, Flash, HTML, issues, Multimedia, opportunities, VRML

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2074
1505 Allocation of Mobile Units in an Urban Emergency Service System

Authors: Dimitra Alexiou

Abstract:

In an urban area the location allocation of emergency services mobile units, such as ambulances, police patrol cars must be designed so as to achieve a prompt response to demand locations. In this paper the partition of a given urban network into distinct sub-networks is performed such that the vertices in each component are close and simultaneously the sums of the corresponding population in the sub-networks are almost uniform. The objective here is to position appropriately in each sub-network a mobile emergency unit in order to reduce the response time to the demands. A mathematical model in framework of graph theory is developed. In order to clarify the corresponding method a relevant numerical example is presented on a small network.

Keywords: Distances, Emergency Service, Graph Partition, location.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1936
1504 An Innovation of Travel Information Gathering Framework

Authors: Pairaya J., Buddhagarn R., Sukree S., Punthumadee K.

Abstract:

Application of Information Technology (IT) has revolutionized the functioning of business all over the world. Its impact has been felt mostly among the information of dependent industries. Tourism is one of such industry. The conceptual framework in this study represents an innovation of travel information searching system on mobile devices which is used as tools to deliver travel information (such as hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and souvenir shops) for each user by travelers segmentation based on data mining technique to segment the tourists- behavior patterns then match them with tourism products and services. This system innovation is designed to be a knowledge incremental learning. It is a marketing strategy to support business to respond traveler-s demand effectively.

Keywords: Tourism, Innovation, Information Searching, Data Mining.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1862
1503 Performance Assessment of Computational Gridon Weather Indices from HOAPS Data

Authors: Madhuri Bhavsar, Anupam K Singh, Shrikant Pradhan

Abstract:

Long term rainfall analysis and prediction is a challenging task especially in the modern world where the impact of global warming is creating complications in environmental issues. These factors which are data intensive require high performance computational modeling for accurate prediction. This research paper describes a prototype which is designed and developed on grid environment using a number of coupled software infrastructural building blocks. This grid enabled system provides the demanding computational power, efficiency, resources, user-friendly interface, secured job submission and high throughput. The results obtained using sequential execution and grid enabled execution shows that computational performance has enhanced among 36% to 75%, for decade of climate parameters. Large variation in performance can be attributed to varying degree of computational resources available for job execution. Grid Computing enables the dynamic runtime selection, sharing and aggregation of distributed and autonomous resources which plays an important role not only in business, but also in scientific implications and social surroundings. This research paper attempts to explore the grid enabled computing capabilities on weather indices from HOAPS data for climate impact modeling and change detection.

Keywords: Climate model, Computational Grid, GridApplication, Heterogeneous Grid

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1435
1502 Customer Satisfaction on Reliability Dimension of Service Quality in Indian Higher Education

Authors: Rajasekhar Mamilla, Janardhana G., Anjan Babu G.

Abstract:

The present research study analyses the students’ satisfaction with university performance regarding the reliability dimension, ability of professors and staff to perform the promised services with quality to students in the post-graduate courses offered by Sri Venkateswara University in India. The research is done with the notion that the student compares the perceived performance with prior expectations. Customer satisfaction is seen as the outcome of this comparison. The sample respondents were administered with schedule based on stratified random technique for this study. Statistical techniques such as factor analysis, t-test and correlation analysis were used to accomplish the respective objectives of the study.

Keywords: Satisfaction, Reliability, Service Quality.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4719
1501 Security of Internet of Things: Challenges, Requirements and Future Directions

Authors: Amjad F. Alharbi, Bashayer A. Alotaibi, Fahd S. Alotaibi

Abstract:

The emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) technology provides capabilities for a huge number of smart devices, services and people to be communicate with each other for exchanging data and information over existing network. While as IoT is progressing, it provides many opportunities for new ways of communications as well it introduces many security and privacy threats and challenges which need to be considered for the future of IoT development. In this survey paper, an IoT security issues as threats and current challenges are summarized. The security architecture for IoT are presented from four main layers. Based on these layers, the IoT security requirements are presented to insure security in the whole system. Furthermore, some researches initiatives related to IoT security are discussed as well as the future direction for IoT security are highlighted.

Keywords: Internet of Things, IoT, IoT security challenges, IoT security requirements, IoT security architecture.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1189
1500 Modeling Jordan University of Science and Technology Parking Using Arena Program

Authors: T. Qasim, M. Alqawasmi, M. Hawash, M. Betar, W. Qasim

Abstract:

Over the last decade, the over population that has happened in urban areas has been reflecting on the services that various local institutions provide to car users in the form of car parks, which is becoming a daily necessity in our lives. This study focuses on car parks at Jordan University of Science and Technology, in Irbid, Jordan, to understand the university parking needs. Data regarding arrival and departure times of cars and the parking utilization were collected, to find various options that the university can implement to solve and develop an efficient car parking system. Arena software was used to simulate a parking model. This model allows measuring the different solutions that solve the parking problem at Jordan University of Science and Technology.

Keywords: Car park, modeling, service time, simulation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 818
1499 Design of Cloud Service Brokerage System Intermediating Integrated Services in Multiple Cloud Environment

Authors: Dongjae Kang, Sokho Son, Jinmee Kim

Abstract:

Cloud service brokering is a new service paradigm that provides interoperability and portability of application across multiple Cloud providers. In this paper, we designed Cloud service brokerage system, anyBroker, supporting integrated service provisioning and SLA based service lifecycle management. For the system design, we introduce the system concept and whole architecture, details of main components and use cases of primary operations in the system. These features ease the Cloud service provider and customer’s concern and support new Cloud service open market to increase Cloud service profit and prompt Cloud service echo system in Cloud computing related area.

Keywords: Cloud service brokerage, multiple Clouds, Integrated service provisioning, SLA, network service.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2633
1498 Fe, Pb, Mn, and Cd Concentrations in Edible Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) Grown in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Authors: N. O. Omaka, I. F. Offor, R.C. Ehiri

Abstract:

The health and environmental risk of eating mushrooms grown in Abakaliki were evaluated in terms of heavy metals accumulation. Mushroom samples were collected from four different farms located at Izzi, Amajim, Amana and Amudo and analyzed for (iron, lead, manganese and cadmium) using Bulk Scientific Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer 205. Results indicates mean range of concentrations of the trace metals in the mushrooms were Fe (0.22-152. 03), Mn (0.74-9.76), Pb (0.01.0.80), Cd (0.61-0.82) mg/L respectively. Accumulation of Cd on the four locations under investigation was higher than the UK Government Food Science Surveillance and World Health Organization maximum recommended levels in mushroom for human consumption. The Fe and Mn contaminants of Amudo were significant and show the impact of anthropogenic/atmospheric pollution. The potential sources of the heavy metals in the mushrooms were from urban waste, dust from mining and quarrying activities, natural geochemistry of the area, and use of inorganic fertilizers

Keywords: Agaricus campestris, edible, health implication heavy metal, mushroom.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2559
1497 Innovative Methods of Improving Train Formation in Freight Transport

Authors: Jaroslav Masek, Juraj Camaj, Eva Nedeliakova

Abstract:

The paper is focused on the operational model for transport the single wagon consignments on railway network by using two different models of train formation. The paper gives an overview of possibilities of improving the quality of transport services. Paper deals with two models used in problematic of train formatting - time continuously and time discrete. By applying these models in practice, the transport company can guarantee a higher quality of service and expect increasing of transport performance. The models are also applicable into others transport networks. The models supplement a theoretical problem of train formation by new ways of looking to affecting the organization of wagon flows.

Keywords: Train formation, wagon flows, marshalling yard, railway technology.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2009
1496 Sustained Competitive Advantage: Strategic HRM Initiatives and Consequences in Indian Context

Authors: S. Velmurugan, K. B. Akhilesh

Abstract:

In the past few decades, researchers have witnessed a paradigm shift in Human Resource Management-from individual performance to organizational outcomes with the role of Human resource (HR) managers becoming increasingly significant to the organization. In such a context, it is important to examine HR practices from a strategic perspective on the sustained competitive advantage (SCA) of the organizations. The present study explores how Indian organisations look at their human resources strategically when faced with competitive environment. Also, it explores strategic initiatives being taken to manage human resources within the organisations and how these initiatives promote SCA in terms of enhancing the overall customer-centric delivery of goods and services.

Keywords: Strategic HRM, Strategic HRM Initiatives, Consequences, and Sustained Competitive Advantage.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4614
1495 A Multiple-Objective Environmental Rationalization and Optimization for Material Substitution in the Production of Stone-Washed Jeans- Garments

Authors: Nabil A. Ibrahim, Nabil M. Abdel Moneim, Mohamed A. Ramadan, Marwa M. Hosni

Abstract:

As the Textile Industry is the second largest industry in Egypt and as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up a great portion of this industry therein it is essential to apply the concept of Cleaner Production for the purpose of reducing pollution. In order to achieve this goal, a case study concerned with ecofriendly stone-washing of jeans-garments was investigated. A raw material-substitution option was adopted whereby the toxic potassium permanganate and sodium sulfide were replaced by the environmentally compatible hydrogen peroxide and glucose respectively where the concentrations of both replaced chemicals together with the operating time were optimized. In addition, a process-rationalization option involving four additional processes was investigated. By means of criteria such as product quality, effluent analysis, mass and heat balance; and cost analysis with the aid of a statistical model, a process optimization treatment revealed that the superior process optima were 50%, 0.15% and 50min for H2O2 concentration, glucose concentration and time, respectively. With these values the superior process ought to reduce the annual cost by about EGP 105 relative to the currently used conventional method.

Keywords: Cleaner Production, Eco-friendly of jeans garments, Stone washing, Textile Industry, Textile Wet Processing.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2067
1494 Knowledge and Attitude among Women and Men in Decision Making on Pap Smear Screening in Kelantan, Malaysia

Authors: Siti Waringin Oon, Rashidah Shuib, Siti Hawa Ali, Nik Hazlina Nik Hussain, Juwita Shaaban, Harmy Mohd Yusoff

Abstract:

This paper explores the knowledge and attitude of women and men in decision making on pap smear screening. This qualitative study recruited 52 respondents with 44 women and 8 men, using the purposive sampling with snowballing technique through indepth interviews. This study demonstrates several key findings: Female respondents have better knowledge compared to male. Most of the women perceived that pap smear screening is beneficial and important, but to proceed with the test is still doubtful. Male respondents were supportive in terms of sending their spouses to the health facilities or give more freedom to their wives to choose and making decision on their own health due to prominent reason that women know best on their own health. It is expected that the results from this study will provide useful guideline for healthcare providers to prepare any action/intervention to provide an extensive education to improve people-s knowledge and attitude towards pap smear.

Keywords: Attitude, decision making, knowledge, pap smearscreening..

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2569
1493 A Fuzzy MCDM Approach for Health-Care Waste Management

Authors: Mehtap Dursun, E. Ertugrul Karsak, Melis Almula Karadayi

Abstract:

The management of the health-care wastes is one of the most important problems in Istanbul, a city with more than 12 million inhabitants, as it is in most of the developing countries. Negligence in appropriate treatment and final disposal of the healthcare wastes can lead to adverse impacts to public health and to the environment. This paper employs a fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making approach, which is based on the principles of fusion of fuzzy information, 2-tuple linguistic representation model, and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), to evaluate health-care waste (HCW) treatment alternatives for Istanbul. The evaluation criteria are determined employing nominal group technique (NGT), which is a method of systematically developing a consensus of group opinion. The employed method is apt to manage information assessed using multigranularity linguistic information in a decision making problem with multiple information sources. The decision making framework employs ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator that encompasses several operators as the aggregation operator since it can implement different aggregation rules by changing the order weights. The aggregation process is based on the unification of information by means of fuzzy sets on a basic linguistic term set (BLTS). Then, the unified information is transformed into linguistic 2-tuples in a way to rectify the problem of loss information of other fuzzy linguistic approaches.

Keywords: Group decision making, health care waste management, multi-criteria decision making, OWA, TOPSIS, 2-tuple linguistic representation

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2396
1492 Improving the Quality of Transport Management Services with Fuzzy Signatures

Authors: Csaba I. Hencz, István Á. Harmati

Abstract:

Nowadays the significance of road transport is gradually increasing. All transport companies are working in the same external environment where the speed of transport is defined by traffic rules. The main objective is to accelerate the speed of service and it is only dependent on the individual abilities of the managing members. These operational control units make decisions quickly (in a typically experiential and/or intuitive way). For this reason, support for these decisions is an important task. Our goal is to create a decision support model based on fuzzy signatures that can assist the work of operational management automatically. If the model sets parameters properly, the management of transport could be more economical and efficient.

Keywords: Freight transport, decision support, information handling, fuzzy methods.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 810
1491 Evaluating the Durability and Safety of Lithium-Ion Batteries in High-Temperature Desert Climates

Authors: Kenza Maher, Yahya Zakaria, Noora S. Al-Jaidah

Abstract:

Temperature is a critical parameter for lithium-ion battery performance, life, and safety. In this study, four commercially available 18650 lithium-ion cells from four different manufacturers are subjected to accelerated cycle aging for up to 500 cycles at two different temperatures (25 °C and 45 °C). The cells are also calendar-aged at the same temperatures in both charged and discharged states for six months to investigate the effect of aging and temperature on capacity fade and state of health. The results showed that all battery cells demonstrated good cyclability and had a good state of health at both temperatures. However, the capacity loss and state of health of these cells are found to be dependent on the cell chemistry and aging conditions, including temperature. Specifically, the capacity loss is found to be higher at the higher aging temperature, indicating the significant impact of temperature on the aging of lithium-ion batteries.

Keywords: Lithium-ion battery, aging mechanisms, cycle aging, calendar aging.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 190
1490 The Economic Cost of Health and Safety in Work Places: An Approach on the Costs Calculating Model

Authors: Efat Lali Dastjerdi, Hassan Sadeghi Naeini, Hadi Sanjari

Abstract:

One of the important steps in a safety and risk management system is the economical evaluation of occupational accident and diseases costs in order to decrease accidents from reoccurring in the workplace. This study proposed a plausible method for calculating occupational accident costs and illnesses in work place. This method design for cost estimation takes into account both the personnel, organizational level as well as the community level especially intended for an Iranian work place. The research indicates that a using systematic method for calculating costs which also provides risk evaluation can help managers to plan correctly the investment in health and safety measures. Using this method is that not only is it comprehensive, easy and practical and could be applied in practice by a manager within a short period of time but it also shows the importance of accident costs as well as calculates the real cost of an accident and illnesses.

Keywords: ost calculating model, Economics of health and Safety.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2225
1489 An Investigation to Study the Moisture Dependency of Ground Enhancement Compound

Authors: Arunima Shukla, Vikas Almadi, Devesh Jaiswal, Sunil Saini, Bhusan S. Patil

Abstract:

Lightning protection consists of three main parts; mainly air termination system, down conductor, and earth termination system. Earth termination system is the most important part as earth is the sink and source of charges. Therefore, even when the charges are captured and delivered to the ground, and an easy path is not provided to the charges, earth termination system would lead to problems. Soil has significantly different resistivities ranging from 10 Ωm for wet organic soil to 10000 Ωm for bedrock. Different methods have been discussed and used conventionally such as deep-ground-well method and altering the length of the rod. Those methods are not considered economical. Therefore, it was a general practice to use charcoal along with salt to reduce the soil resistivity. Bentonite is worldwide acceptable material, that had led our interest towards study of bentonite at first. It was concluded that bentonite is a clay which is non-corrosive, environment friendly. Whereas bentonite is suitable only when there is moisture present in the soil, as in the absence of moisture, cracks will appear on the surface which will provide an open passage to the air, resulting into increase in the resistivity. Furthermore, bentonite without moisture does not have enough bonding property, moisture retention, conductivity, and non-leachability. Therefore, bentonite was used along with the other backfill material to overcome the dependency of bentonite on moisture. Different experiments were performed to get the best ratio of bentonite and carbon backfill. It was concluded that properties will highly depend on the quantity of bentonite and carbon-based backfill material.

Keywords: Backfill material, bentonite, conducting soil, grounding material, low resistivity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 432
1488 Physico-Mechanical Properties of Jute-Coir Fiber Reinforced Hybrid Polypropylene Composites

Authors: Salma Siddika, Fayeka Mansura, Mahbub Hasan

Abstract:

The term hybrid composite refers to the composite containing more than one type of fiber material as reinforcing fillers. It has become attractive structural material due to the ability of providing better combination of properties with respect to single fiber containing composite. The eco-friendly nature as well as processing advantage, light weight and low cost have enhanced the attraction and interest of natural fiber reinforced composite. The objective of present research is to study the mechanical properties of jute-coir fiber reinforced hybrid polypropylene (PP) composite according to filler loading variation. In the present work composites were manufactured by using hot press machine at four levels of fiber loading (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt %). Jute and coir fibers were utilized at a ratio of (1:1) during composite manufacturing. Tensile, flexural, impact and hardness tests were conducted for mechanical characterization. Tensile test of composite showed a decreasing trend of tensile strength and increasing trend of the Young-s modulus with increasing fiber content. During flexural, impact and hardness tests, the flexural strength, flexural modulus, impact strength and hardness were found to be increased with increasing fiber loading. Based on the fiber loading used in this study, 20% fiber reinforced composite resulted the best set of mechanical properties.

Keywords: Mechanical Properties; Coir, Jute, Polypropylene, Hybrid Composite.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3694
1487 Outsourcing Opportunities for Internet Banking Solutions

Authors: Ondruska Marek, Matustik Ondrej

Abstract:

The main goal of the article is to present new model of application architecture of banking IT solution providing the Internet Banking services that is particularly outsourced. At first, we propose business rationale and a SWOT analysis to explain the reasons for the model in the article. The most important factor for our model is nowadays- big boom around smart phones and tablet devices. As next, we focus on IT architecture viewpoint where we design application, integration and security model. Finally, we propose a generic governance model that serves as a basis for the specialized governance model. The specialized instance of governance model is designed to ensure that the development and the maintenance of different parts of the IT solution are well governed in time.

Keywords: governance model, front-end application, Internet Banking, smart phones

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1743
1486 Use of Carica papaya as a Bio-Sorbent for Removal of Heavy Metals in Wastewater

Authors: W. E. Igwegbe, B. C. Okoro, J. C. Osuagwu

Abstract:

The study assessed the effectiveness of Pawpaw (Carica papaya) wood in reducing the concentrations of heavy metals in wastewater acting as a bio-sorbent. The following heavy metals were considered; Zinc, Cadmium, Lead, Copper, Iron, Selenium, Nickel and Manganese. The physiochemical properties of Carica papaya stem were studied. The experimental sample was sourced from the trunk of a felled matured pawpaw tree. Wastewater for experimental use was prepared by dissolving soil samples collected from a dump site at Owerri, Imo state of Nigeria in water. The concentration of each metal remaining in solution as residual metal after bio-sorption was determined using Atomic absorption Spectrometer. The effects of pH and initial heavy metal concentration were studied in a batch reactor. The results of Spectrometer test showed that there were different functional groups detected in the Carica papaya stem biomass. There was increase in metal removal as the pH increased for all the metals considered except for Nickel and Manganese. Optimum bio-sorption occurred at pH 5.9 with 5g/100ml solution of bio-sorbent. The results of the study showed that the treated wastewater is fit for irrigation purpose based on Canada wastewater quality guideline for the protection of Agricultural standard. This approach thus provides a cost effective and environmentally friendly option for treating wastewater.

Keywords: Biomass, bio-sorption, Carica papaya, heavy metal, wastewater.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2812
1485 An Approach for Vocal Register Recognition Based on Spectral Analysis of Singing

Authors: Aleksandra Zysk, Pawel Badura

Abstract:

Recognizing and controlling vocal registers during singing is a difficult task for beginner vocalist. It requires among others identifying which part of natural resonators is being used when a sound propagates through the body. Thus, an application has been designed allowing for sound recording, automatic vocal register recognition (VRR), and a graphical user interface providing real-time visualization of the signal and recognition results. Six spectral features are determined for each time frame and passed to the support vector machine classifier yielding a binary decision on the head or chest register assignment of the segment. The classification training and testing data have been recorded by ten professional female singers (soprano, aged 19-29) performing sounds for both chest and head register. The classification accuracy exceeded 93% in each of various validation schemes. Apart from a hard two-class clustering, the support vector classifier returns also information on the distance between particular feature vector and the discrimination hyperplane in a feature space. Such an information reflects the level of certainty of the vocal register classification in a fuzzy way. Thus, the designed recognition and training application is able to assess and visualize the continuous trend in singing in a user-friendly graphical mode providing an easy way to control the vocal emission.

Keywords: Classification, singing, spectral analysis, vocal emission, vocal register.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1306
1484 The Link between Ergonomics and Occupational Diseases

Authors: Kateřina Sekulová, Michal Šimon

Abstract:

Ergonomics is a useful tool for creating a healthy and safe workplace. The long-term action of harmful conditions on the health of workers is the emergence of occupational disease, and the firm-s increased compensation costs associated with these diseases, but is also the loss of time needed for educating and including new workers in the work process. The article deals with the link of ergonomics to occupational diseases, factors which influence these diseases. In the conclusion, a model is described to help reduce the risk of selected occupational diseases using ergonomic principles and knowledge.

Keywords: ergonomics, occupational diseases, optimization, workplace health

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1990
1483 Integrating Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques in E-learning Environments

Authors: Konstantinos C. Giotopoulos, Christos E. Alexakos, Grigorios N. Beligiannis, Spiridon D.Likothanassis

Abstract:

In this contribution a newly developed elearning environment is presented, which incorporates Intelligent Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques. The new e-learning environment is constituted by three parts, the E-learning platform Front-End, the Student Questioner Reasoning and the Student Model Agent. These parts are distributed geographically in dispersed computer servers, with main focus on the design and development of these subsystems through the use of new and emerging technologies. These parts are interconnected in an interoperable way, using web services for the integration of the subsystems, in order to enhance the user modelling procedure and achieve the goals of the learning process.

Keywords: E-learning environments, intelligent agents, user modeling, Bayesian Networks, computational intelligence.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1868
1482 Project Management and Software Development Processes: Integrating PMBOK and OPEN

Authors: Maurício Covolan Rosito, Daniel Antonio Callegari, Ricardo Melo Bastos

Abstract:

Software organizations are constantly looking for better solutions when designing and using well-defined software processes for the development of their products and services. However, while the technical aspects are virtually easier to arrange, many software development processes lack more support on project management issues. When adopting such processes, an organization needs to apply good project management skills along with technical views provided by those models. This research proposes the definition of a new model that integrates the concepts of PMBOK and those available on the OPEN metamodel, helping not only process integration but also building the steps towards a more comprehensive and automatable model.

Keywords: OPEN metamodel, PMBOK metamodel, Project Management, Software Process

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3196
1481 A Preemptive Link State Spanning Tree Source Routing Scheme for Opportunistic Data Forwarding in MANET

Authors: R. Poonkuzhali, M. Y. Sanavullah, A. Sabari

Abstract:

Opportunistic Data Forwarding (ODF) has drawn much attention in mobile adhoc networking research in recent years. The effectiveness of ODF in MANET depends on a suitable routing protocol which provides a powerful source routing services. PLSR is featured by source routing, loop free and small routing overhead. The update messages in PLSR are integrated into a tree structure and no need to time stamp routing updates which reduces the routing overhead.

Keywords: Mobile ad hoc network (MANET), Opportunistic data forwarding (ODF), Preemptive link state spanning tree routing (PLSR), Depth First Search (DFS).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1928