Search results for: Database business
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1725

Search results for: Database business

585 Designing an Agent-Based Model of SMEs to Assess Flood Response Strategies and Resilience

Authors: C. Li, G. Coates, N. Johnson, M. McGuinness

Abstract:

In the UK, flooding is responsible for significant losses to the economy due to the impact on businesses, the vast majority of which are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Businesses of this nature tend to lack formal plans to aid their response to and recovery from disruptive events such as flooding. This paper reports on work on how an agent-based model (ABM) is being developed based on interview data gathered from SMEs at-risk of flooding and/or have direct experience of flooding. The ABM will enable simulations to be performed allowing investigations of different response strategies which SMEs may employ to lessen the impact of flooding, thus strengthening their resilience.

Keywords: ABM, Flood response, SMEs, Business continuity.

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584 Diagnosis of the Heart Rhythm Disorders by Using Hybrid Classifiers

Authors: Sule Yucelbas, Gulay Tezel, Cuneyt Yucelbas, Seral Ozsen

Abstract:

In this study, it was tried to identify some heart rhythm disorders by electrocardiography (ECG) data that is taken from MIT-BIH arrhythmia database by subtracting the required features, presenting to artificial neural networks (ANN), artificial immune systems (AIS), artificial neural network based on artificial immune system (AIS-ANN) and particle swarm optimization based artificial neural network (PSO-NN) classifier systems. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of hybrid AIS-ANN and PSO-ANN classifiers with regard to the ANN and AIS. For this purpose, the normal sinus rhythm (NSR), atrial premature contraction (APC), sinus arrhythmia (SA), ventricular trigeminy (VTI), ventricular tachycardia (VTK) and atrial fibrillation (AF) data for each of the RR intervals were found. Then these data in the form of pairs (NSR-APC, NSR-SA, NSR-VTI, NSR-VTK and NSR-AF) is created by combining discrete wavelet transform which is applied to each of these two groups of data and two different data sets with 9 and 27 features were obtained from each of them after data reduction. Afterwards, the data randomly was firstly mixed within themselves, and then 4-fold cross validation method was applied to create the training and testing data. The training and testing accuracy rates and training time are compared with each other.

As a result, performances of the hybrid classification systems, AIS-ANN and PSO-ANN were seen to be close to the performance of the ANN system. Also, the results of the hybrid systems were much better than AIS, too. However, ANN had much shorter period of training time than other systems. In terms of training times, ANN was followed by PSO-ANN, AIS-ANN and AIS systems respectively. Also, the features that extracted from the data affected the classification results significantly.

Keywords: AIS, ANN, ECG, hybrid classifiers, PSO.

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583 Human Digital Twin for Personal Conversation Automation Using Supervised Machine Learning Approaches

Authors: Aya Salama

Abstract:

Digital Twin has emerged as a compelling research area, capturing the attention of scholars over the past decade. It finds applications across diverse fields, including smart manufacturing and healthcare, offering significant time and cost savings. Notably, it often intersects with other cutting-edge technologies such as Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. However, the concept of a Human Digital Twin (HDT) is still in its infancy and requires further demonstration of its practicality. HDT takes the notion of Digital Twin a step further by extending it to living entities, notably humans, who are vastly different from inanimate physical objects. The primary objective of this research was to create an HDT capable of automating real-time human responses by simulating human behavior. To achieve this, the study delved into various areas, including clustering, supervised classification, topic extraction, and sentiment analysis. The paper successfully demonstrated the feasibility of HDT for generating personalized responses in social messaging applications. Notably, the proposed approach achieved an overall accuracy of 63%, a highly promising result that could pave the way for further exploration of the HDT concept. The methodology employed Random Forest for clustering the question database and matching new questions, while K-nearest neighbor was utilized for sentiment analysis.

Keywords: Human Digital twin, sentiment analysis, topic extraction, supervised machine learning, unsupervised machine learning, classification and clustering.

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582 Developing a Structured and Strategically Focused Performance Assessment System

Authors: Isabel Duarte de Almeida, João Vilas-Boas, Ana Abrantes Cabral

Abstract:

The number and adequacy of Performance-Indicators (PIs) for organisational purposes are core to the success of organisations and a major concern to the sponsor of this research. This assignment developed a procedure to improve a firm’s performance assessment system, by identifying two key-PIs out of 28 initial ones, and by setting criteria and their relative importance to validate and rank the adequacy and the right number of operational metrics. The Analytical-Hierarchy-Process was used with a synthesismethod to treat data coming from the management inquiries. Although organisational alignment has been achieved, business processes should also be targeted and PIs continuously revised.

Keywords: Strategic performance assessment systems, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).

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581 Component Based Framework for Authoring and Multimedia Training in Mathematics

Authors: Ion Smeureanu, Marian Dardala, Adriana Reveiu

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The new programming technologies allow for the creation of components which can be automatically or manually assembled to reach a new experience in knowledge understanding and mastering or in getting skills for a specific knowledge area. The project proposes an interactive framework that permits the creation, combination and utilization of components that are specific to mathematical training in high schools. The main framework-s objectives are: • authoring lessons by the teacher or the students; all they need are simple operating skills for Equation Editor (or something similar, or Latex); the rest are just drag & drop operations, inserting data into a grid, or navigating through menus • allowing sonorous presentations of mathematical texts and solving hints (easier understood by the students) • offering graphical representations of a mathematical function edited in Equation • storing of learning objects in a database • storing of predefined lessons (efficient for expressions and commands, the rest being calculations; allows a high compression) • viewing and/or modifying predefined lessons, according to the curricula The whole thing is focused on a mathematical expressions minicompiler, storing the code that will be later used for different purposes (tables, graphics, and optimisations). Programming technologies used. A Visual C# .NET implementation is proposed. New and innovative digital learning objects for mathematics will be developed; they are capable to interpret, contextualize and react depending on the architecture where they are assembled.

Keywords: Adaptor, automatic assembly learning component and user control.

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580 Improving the Decision-Making Process and Transparency of Corporate Governance Using XBRL

Authors: Claudiu Brandas

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Several recent studies have shown that the transparency of financial reporting have a significant influence on investor-s decisions. Thus, regulation authorities and professional organizations (IFAC) have emphasized the role of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) and interactive data as a means of promoting transparency and monitoring corporate reporting. In this context, this paper has as objective the analysis of interactive reporting through XBRL and its use as a support in the process of taking decisions in corporate governance, namely the potential of interactive reports in XBRL to increase the transparency and monitoring process of corporate governance.

Keywords: Corporate Governance, decision, financial reporting, transparency, XBRL.

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579 Low Resolution Face Recognition Using Mixture of Experts

Authors: Fatemeh Behjati Ardakani, Fatemeh Khademian, Abbas Nowzari Dalini, Reza Ebrahimpour

Abstract:

Human activity is a major concern in a wide variety of applications, such as video surveillance, human computer interface and face image database management. Detecting and recognizing faces is a crucial step in these applications. Furthermore, major advancements and initiatives in security applications in the past years have propelled face recognition technology into the spotlight. The performance of existing face recognition systems declines significantly if the resolution of the face image falls below a certain level. This is especially critical in surveillance imagery where often, due to many reasons, only low-resolution video of faces is available. If these low-resolution images are passed to a face recognition system, the performance is usually unacceptable. Hence, resolution plays a key role in face recognition systems. In this paper we introduce a new low resolution face recognition system based on mixture of expert neural networks. In order to produce the low resolution input images we down-sampled the 48 × 48 ORL images to 12 × 12 ones using the nearest neighbor interpolation method and after that applying the bicubic interpolation method yields enhanced images which is given to the Principal Component Analysis feature extractor system. Comparison with some of the most related methods indicates that the proposed novel model yields excellent recognition rate in low resolution face recognition that is the recognition rate of 100% for the training set and 96.5% for the test set.

Keywords: Low resolution face recognition, Multilayered neuralnetwork, Mixture of experts neural network, Principal componentanalysis, Bicubic interpolation, Nearest neighbor interpolation.

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578 Optimized Brain Computer Interface System for Unspoken Speech Recognition: Role of Wernicke Area

Authors: Nassib Abdallah, Pierre Chauvet, Abd El Salam Hajjar, Bassam Daya

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose an optimized brain computer interface (BCI) system for unspoken speech recognition, based on the fact that the constructions of unspoken words rely strongly on the Wernicke area, situated in the temporal lobe. Our BCI system has four modules: (i) the EEG Acquisition module based on a non-invasive headset with 14 electrodes; (ii) the Preprocessing module to remove noise and artifacts, using the Common Average Reference method; (iii) the Features Extraction module, using Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT); (iv) the Classification module based on a one-hidden layer artificial neural network. The present study consists of comparing the recognition accuracy of 5 Arabic words, when using all the headset electrodes or only the 4 electrodes situated near the Wernicke area, as well as the selection effect of the subbands produced by the WPT module. After applying the articial neural network on the produced database, we obtain, on the test dataset, an accuracy of 83.4% with all the electrodes and all the subbands of 8 levels of the WPT decomposition. However, by using only the 4 electrodes near Wernicke Area and the 6 middle subbands of the WPT, we obtain a high reduction of the dataset size, equal to approximately 19% of the total dataset, with 67.5% of accuracy rate. This reduction appears particularly important to improve the design of a low cost and simple to use BCI, trained for several words.

Keywords: Brain-computer interface, speech recognition, electroencephalography EEG, Wernicke area, artificial neural network.

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577 Rapid Finite-Element Based Airport Pavement Moduli Solutions using Neural Networks

Authors: Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan, Marshall R. Thompson, Anshu Manik

Abstract:

This paper describes the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) for predicting non-linear layer moduli of flexible airfield pavements subjected to new generation aircraft (NGA) loading, based on the deflection profiles obtained from Heavy Weight Deflectometer (HWD) test data. The HWD test is one of the most widely used tests for routinely assessing the structural integrity of airport pavements in a non-destructive manner. The elastic moduli of the individual pavement layers backcalculated from the HWD deflection profiles are effective indicators of layer condition and are used for estimating the pavement remaining life. HWD tests were periodically conducted at the Federal Aviation Administration-s (FAA-s) National Airport Pavement Test Facility (NAPTF) to monitor the effect of Boeing 777 (B777) and Beoing 747 (B747) test gear trafficking on the structural condition of flexible pavement sections. In this study, a multi-layer, feed-forward network which uses an error-backpropagation algorithm was trained to approximate the HWD backcalculation function. The synthetic database generated using an advanced non-linear pavement finite-element program was used to train the ANN to overcome the limitations associated with conventional pavement moduli backcalculation. The changes in ANN-based backcalculated pavement moduli with trafficking were used to compare the relative severity effects of the aircraft landing gears on the NAPTF test pavements.

Keywords: Airfield pavements, ANN, backcalculation, newgeneration aircraft

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576 Urban Growth Analysis Using Multi-Temporal Satellite Images, Non-stationary Decomposition Methods and Stochastic Modeling

Authors: Ali Ben Abbes, ImedRiadh Farah, Vincent Barra

Abstract:

Remotely sensed data are a significant source for monitoring and updating databases for land use/cover. Nowadays, changes detection of urban area has been a subject of intensive researches. Timely and accurate data on spatio-temporal changes of urban areas are therefore required. The data extracted from multi-temporal satellite images are usually non-stationary. In fact, the changes evolve in time and space. This paper is an attempt to propose a methodology for changes detection in urban area by combining a non-stationary decomposition method and stochastic modeling. We consider as input of our methodology a sequence of satellite images I1, I2, … In at different periods (t = 1, 2, ..., n). Firstly, a preprocessing of multi-temporal satellite images is applied. (e.g. radiometric, atmospheric and geometric). The systematic study of global urban expansion in our methodology can be approached in two ways: The first considers the urban area as one same object as opposed to non-urban areas (e.g. vegetation, bare soil and water). The objective is to extract the urban mask. The second one aims to obtain a more knowledge of urban area, distinguishing different types of tissue within the urban area. In order to validate our approach, we used a database of Tres Cantos-Madrid in Spain, which is derived from Landsat for a period (from January 2004 to July 2013) by collecting two frames per year at a spatial resolution of 25 meters. The obtained results show the effectiveness of our method.

Keywords: Multi-temporal satellite image, urban growth, Non-stationarity, stochastic modeling.

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575 Improvements in Material Handling: A Case Study of Cement Manufacturing Plant

Authors: A. Pancharya

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The globalization of the Indian economy has thrown a great challenge to the Indian industries in respect of productivity, quality, cost, delivery etc. Achieving success• the global market has required fundamental shift in the way business is conducted and has dramatically affected virtually every aspect of process industry. The internal manufacturing process and supporting infrastructure should be such that it can compete successfully in global markets with better flexibility and delivery. The paper deals with a case study of a reputed process industry, some changes in the process has been suggested, which leads to reduction in labor cost and production cost.

Keywords: Indian cement industry, material handling, plant layout.

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574 A method for Music Classification Based On Perceived Mood Detection for Indian Bollywood Music

Authors: Vallabha Hampiholi

Abstract:

A lot of research has been done in the past decade in the field of audio content analysis for extracting various information from audio signal. One such significant information is the "perceived mood" or the "emotions" related to a music or audio clip. This information is extremely useful in applications like creating or adapting the play-list based on the mood of the listener. This information could also be helpful in better classification of the music database. In this paper we have presented a method to classify music not just based on the meta-data of the audio clip but also include the "mood" factor to help improve the music classification. We propose an automated and efficient way of classifying music samples based on the mood detection from the audio data. We in particular try to classify the music based on mood for Indian bollywood music. The proposed method tries to address the following problem statement: Genre information (usually part of the audio meta-data) alone does not help in better music classification. For example the acoustic version of the song "nothing else matters by Metallica" can be classified as melody music and thereby a person in relaxing or chill out mood might want to listen to this track. But more often than not this track is associated with metal / heavy rock genre and if a listener classified his play-list based on the genre information alone for his current mood, the user shall miss out on listening to this track. Currently methods exist to detect mood in western or similar kind of music. Our paper tries to solve the issue for Indian bollywood music from an Indian cultural context

Keywords: Mood, music classification, music genre, rhythm, music analysis.

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573 Relationships between Social Entrepreneurship, CSR and Social Innovation: In Theory and Practice

Authors: Krisztina Szegedi, Gyula Fülöp, Ádám Bereczk

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The shared goal of social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility and social innovation is the advancement of society. The business model of social enterprises is characterized by unique strategies based on the competencies of the entrepreneurs, and is not aimed primarily at the maximization of profits, but rather at carrying out goals for the benefit of society. Corporate social responsibility refers to the active behavior of a company, by which it can create new solutions to meet the needs of society, either on its own or in cooperation with other social stakeholders. The objectives of this article are to define concepts, describe and integrate relevant theoretical models, develop a model and introduce some examples of international practice that can inspire initiatives for social development.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, CSR, social innovation, social entrepreneurship.

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572 Components of Emotional Intelligence in Iranian Entrepreneurs

Authors: Farzaneh Noori

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Entrepreneurs face different sort of difficulties especially with customers, organizations and employees. Emotional intelligence which is the ability to understand and control the emotions is an important factor to help entrepreneurs end up challenges to the result they prefer. So it is assumed that entrepreneurs especially those who have passed the first challenging years of starting a new business, have high emotional intelligence. In this study the Iranian established entrepreneurs have been surveyed. According to Iran Gem 2014 report the percentage of established entrepreneur in Iran is 10.92%. So by using Cochran sample formula (1%) 96 Iranian established entrepreneurs have been selected and Emotional intelligence appraisal questionnaire distributed to them. The SPSS19 result shows high emotional intelligence in Iranian established entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, Emotional intelligence appraisal questionnaire, Entrepreneurs, Iran.

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571 Enhanced Planar Pattern Tracking for an Outdoor Augmented Reality System

Authors: L. Yu, W. K. Li, S. K. Ong, A. Y. C. Nee

Abstract:

In this paper, a scalable augmented reality framework for handheld devices is presented. The presented framework is enabled by using a server-client data communication structure, in which the search for tracking targets among a database of images is performed on the server-side while pixel-wise 3D tracking is performed on the client-side, which, in this case, is a handheld mobile device. Image search on the server-side adopts a residual-enhanced image descriptors representation that gives the framework a scalability property. The tracking algorithm on the client-side is based on a gravity-aligned feature descriptor which takes the advantage of a sensor-equipped mobile device and an optimized intensity-based image alignment approach that ensures the accuracy of 3D tracking. Automatic content streaming is achieved by using a key-frame selection algorithm, client working phase monitoring and standardized rules for content communication between the server and client. The recognition accuracy test performed on a standard dataset shows that the method adopted in the presented framework outperforms the Bag-of-Words (BoW) method that has been used in some of the previous systems. Experimental test conducted on a set of video sequences indicated the real-time performance of the tracking system with a frame rate at 15-30 frames per second. The presented framework is exposed to be functional in practical situations with a demonstration application on a campus walk-around.

Keywords: Augmented reality framework, server-client model, vision-based tracking, image search.

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570 An Approach to Improvement of Information Integrity in Key Areas of Portfolio Management

Authors: Victoria A. Bakhtina

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At a time of growing market turbulence and a strong shifts towards increasingly complex risk models and more stringent audit requirements, it is more critical than ever to maintain the highest quality of financial and credit information. IFC implemented an approach that helps increase data integrity and quality significantly. This approach is called “Screening". Screening is based on linking information from different sources to identify potential inconsistencies in key financial and credit data. That, in turn, can help to ease the trials of portfolio supervision, and improve overall company global reporting and assessment systems. IFC experience showed that when used regularly, Screening led to improved information.

Keywords: Information Integrity, Information Quality, Business Rules, Portfolio Management

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569 Analysis on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Potential by Deploying the Green Cars in Korean Road Transport Sector

Authors: Sungjun Hong, Yanghon Chung, Nyunbae Park, Sangyong Park

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South Korea, as the 7th largest greenhouse gas emitting country in 2011, announced that the national reduction target of greenhouse gas emissions was 30% based on BAU (Business As Usual) by 2020. And the reduction rate of the transport sector is 34.3% which is the highest figure among all sectors. This paper attempts to analyze the environmental effect on deploying the green cars in Korean road transport sector. In order to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions, the LEAP model is applied in this study.

Keywords: Green car, greenhouse gas, LEAP model, road transport sector.

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568 Variational EM Inference Algorithm for Gaussian Process Classification Model with Multiclass and Its Application to Human Action Classification

Authors: Wanhyun Cho, Soonja Kang, Sangkyoon Kim, Soonyoung Park

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose the variational EM inference algorithm for the multi-class Gaussian process classification model that can be used in the field of human behavior recognition. This algorithm can drive simultaneously both a posterior distribution of a latent function and estimators of hyper-parameters in a Gaussian process classification model with multiclass. Our algorithm is based on the Laplace approximation (LA) technique and variational EM framework. This is performed in two steps: called expectation and maximization steps. First, in the expectation step, using the Bayesian formula and LA technique, we derive approximately the posterior distribution of the latent function indicating the possibility that each observation belongs to a certain class in the Gaussian process classification model. Second, in the maximization step, using a derived posterior distribution of latent function, we compute the maximum likelihood estimator for hyper-parameters of a covariance matrix necessary to define prior distribution for latent function. These two steps iteratively repeat until a convergence condition satisfies. Moreover, we apply the proposed algorithm with human action classification problem using a public database, namely, the KTH human action data set. Experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm shows good performance on this data set.

Keywords: Bayesian rule, Gaussian process classification model with multiclass, Gaussian process prior, human action classification, laplace approximation, variational EM algorithm.

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567 Bacteriological Screening and Antibiotic – Heavy Metal Resistance Profile of the Bacteria Isolated from Some Amphibian and Reptile Species of the Biga Stream in Turkey

Authors: Nurcihan Hacioglu, Cigdem Gul, Murat Tosunoglu

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In this article, the antibiogram and heavy metal resistance profile of the bacteria isolated from total 34 studied animals (Pelophylax ridibundus = 12; Mauremys rivulata = 14; Natrix natrix = 8) captured around the Biga Stream, are described. There was no database information on antibiogram and heavy metal resistance profile of bacteria from these area’s amphibians and reptiles. A total of 200 bacteria were successfully isolated from cloaca and oral samples of the aquatic amphibians and reptiles as well as from the water sample. According to Jaccard’s similarity index, the degree of similarity in the bacterial flora was quite high among the amphibian and reptile species under examination, whereas it was different from the bacterial diversity in the water sample. The most frequent isolates were A. hydrophila (31.5%), B. pseudomallei (8.5%), and C. freundii (7%). The total numbers of bacteria obtained were as follows: 45 in P. ridibundus, 45 in N. natrix 30 in M. rivulata, and 80 in the water sample. The result showed that cefmetazole was the most effective antibiotic to control the bacteria isolated in this study and that approximately 93.33% of the bacterial isolates were sensitive to this antibiotic. The multiple antibiotic resistances (MAR) index indicated that P. ridibundus (0.95) > N. natrix (0.89) > M. rivulata (0.39). Furthermore, all the tested heavy metals (Pb+2, Cu+2, Cr+3, and Mn+2) inhibit the growth of the bacterial isolates at different rates. Therefore, it indicated that the water source of the animals was contaminated with both antibiotic residues and heavy metals.

Keywords: Amphibian, Bacteriological Quality, Reptile, Antibiotic & Heavy Metal Resistance.

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566 Power of Involvement over Rewards for Retention Likelihood in IT Professionals

Authors: Humayun Rashid, Lin Zhao

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Retention in the IT profession is critical for organizations to stay competitive and operate reliably in the dynamic business environment. Most organizations rely on compensation and rewards as primary tools to enhance retention of employees. In this quantitative survey-based study conducted at a large global bank, we analyze the perceptions of 575 information technology (IT) software professionals in India and Malaysia and find that fairness of rewards has very little impact on retention likelihood. It is far more important to actively involve employees in organizational activities. In addition, our findings indicate that involvement is far more important than information flow: the typical organizational communication to keep employees informed.

Keywords: fairness of rewards, information flow, informationinvolvement, retention

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565 Microbial Contaminants in Drinking Water Collected from Different Regions of Kuwait

Authors: Abu Salim Mustafa

Abstract:

Water plays a major role in maintaining life on earth, but it can also serve as a matrix for pathogenic organisms, posing substantial health threats to humans. Although, outbreaks of diseases attributable to drinking water may not be common in industrialized countries, they still occur and can lead to serious acute, chronic, or sometimes fatal health consequences. The analysis of drinking water samples from different regions of Kuwait was performed in this study for bacterial and viral contaminations. Drinking tap water samples were collected from 15 different locations of the six Kuwait governorates. All samples were analyzed by confocal microscopy for the presence of bacteria. The samples were cultured in vitro to detect cultivable organisms. DNA was isolated from the cultured organisms and the identity of the bacteria was determined by sequencing the bacterial 16S rRNA genes, followed by BLAST analysis in the database of NCBI, USA. RNA was extracted from water samples and analyzed by real-time PCR for the detection of viruses with potential health risks, i.e. Astrovirus, Enterovirus, Norovirus, Rotavirus, and Hepatitis A. Confocal microscopy showed the presence of bacteria in some water samples. The 16S rRNA gene sequencing of culture grown organisms, followed by BLAST analysis, identified the presence of several non-pathogenic bacterial species. However, one sample had Acinetobacter baumannii, which often causes opportunistic infections in immunocompromised people, but none of the studied viruses could be detected in the drinking water samples analyzed. The results indicate that drinking water samples analyzed from various locations in Kuwait are relatively safe for drinking and do not contain many harmful pathogens.

Keywords: Drinking water, 16S rRNA, microbial diversity, viruses, Kuwait.

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564 Multi-Temporal Mapping of Built-up Areas Using Daytime and Nighttime Satellite Images Based on Google Earth Engine Platform

Authors: S. Hutasavi, D. Chen

Abstract:

The built-up area is a significant proxy to measure regional economic growth and reflects the Gross Provincial Product (GPP). However, an up-to-date and reliable database of built-up areas is not always available, especially in developing countries. The cloud-based geospatial analysis platform such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) provides an opportunity with accessibility and computational power for those countries to generate the built-up data. Therefore, this study aims to extract the built-up areas in Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), Thailand using day and nighttime satellite imagery based on GEE facilities. The normalized indices were generated from Landsat 8 surface reflectance dataset, including Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), Built-up Index (BUI), and Modified Built-up Index (MBUI). These indices were applied to identify built-up areas in EEC. The result shows that MBUI performs better than BUI and NDBI, with the highest accuracy of 0.85 and Kappa of 0.82. Moreover, the overall accuracy of classification was improved from 79% to 90%, and error of total built-up area was decreased from 29% to 0.7%, after night-time light data from the Visible and Infrared Imaging Suite (VIIRS) Day Night Band (DNB). The results suggest that MBUI with night-time light imagery is appropriate for built-up area extraction and be utilize for further study of socioeconomic impacts of regional development policy over the EEC region.

Keywords: Built-up area extraction, Google earth engine, adaptive thresholding method, rapid mapping.

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563 Wireless Sensor Networks for Swiftlet Farms Monitoring

Authors: Al-Khalid Othman, Wan A. Wan Zainal Abidin, Kee M. Lee, Hushairi Zen, Tengku. M. A. Zulcaffle, Kuryati Kipli

Abstract:

This paper provides an in-depth study of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) application to monitor and control the swiftlet habitat. A set of system design is designed and developed that includes the hardware design of the nodes, Graphical User Interface (GUI) software, sensor network, and interconnectivity for remote data access and management. System architecture is proposed to address the requirements for habitat monitoring. Such applicationdriven design provides and identify important areas of further work in data sampling, communications and networking. For this monitoring system, a sensor node (MTS400), IRIS and Micaz radio transceivers, and a USB interfaced gateway base station of Crossbow (Xbow) Technology WSN are employed. The GUI of this monitoring system is written using a Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) along with Xbow Technology drivers provided by National Instrument. As a result, this monitoring system is capable of collecting data and presents it in both tables and waveform charts for further analysis. This system is also able to send notification message by email provided Internet connectivity is available whenever changes on habitat at remote sites (swiftlet farms) occur. Other functions that have been implemented in this system are the database system for record and management purposes; remote access through the internet using LogMeIn software. Finally, this research draws a conclusion that a WSN for monitoring swiftlet habitat can be effectively used to monitor and manage swiftlet farming industry in Sarawak.

Keywords: Swiftlet, WSN, Habitat Monitoring, Networking.

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562 Indian License Plate Detection and Recognition Using Morphological Operation and Template Matching

Authors: W. Devapriya, C. Nelson Kennedy Babu, T. Srihari

Abstract:

Automatic License plate recognition (ALPR) is a technology which recognizes the registration plate or number plate or License plate of a vehicle. In this paper, an Indian vehicle number plate is mined and the characters are predicted in efficient manner. ALPR involves four major technique i) Pre-processing ii) License Plate Location Identification iii) Individual Character Segmentation iv) Character Recognition. The opening phase, named pre-processing helps to remove noises and enhances the quality of the image using the conception of Morphological Operation and Image subtraction. The second phase, the most puzzling stage ascertain the location of license plate using the protocol Canny Edge detection, dilation and erosion. In the third phase, each characters characterized by Connected Component Approach (CCA) and in the ending phase, each segmented characters are conceptualized using cross correlation template matching- a scheme specifically appropriate for fixed format. Major application of ALPR is Tolling collection, Border Control, Parking, Stolen cars, Enforcement, Access Control, Traffic control. The database consists of 500 car images taken under dissimilar lighting condition is used. The efficiency of the system is 97%. Our future focus is Indian Vehicle License Plate Validation (Whether License plate of a vehicle is as per Road transport and highway standard).

Keywords: Automatic License plate recognition, Character recognition, Number plate Recognition, Template matching, morphological operation, canny edge detection.

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561 The Fit Effect Model among Facilitating Factors on Service Innovation Performance

Authors: Yue-Yang Chen, Hui-Ling Huang, Wan-Yu Yu, Chung-Lun Wei

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In recent years, though, the concept of fit has been now in widespread used in strategic management research, it is in its infancy for applying fit concept to service innovation issue. Therefore, drawing on the concept of fit, this present research proposed an innovation service fit model within service innovation, market orientation, marketing strategy, and IT adoption are coexisted. The perspective of fit as covariation will be employed to test the hypothesis and identify the effects of fit. We contend that the fit among these four factors will contribution to business performance. Finally, according to the empirical data collected from manufacturing, service, and financial industry in Taiwan, meaningful findings and conclusions will be proposed and discussed.

Keywords: Service innovation, market orientation, IT adoption, marketing strategy, fit

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560 Employing Operations Research at Universities to Build Management Systems

Authors: Abdallah A. Hlayel

Abstract:

Operations research science (OR) deals with good success in developing and applying scientific methods for problem solving and decision-making. However, by using OR techniques, we can enhance the use of computer decision support systems to achieve optimal management for institutions. OR applies comprehensive analysis including all factors that effect on it and builds mathematical modeling to solve business or organizational problems. In addition, it improves decision-making and uses available resources efficiently. The adoption of OR by universities would definitely contributes to the development and enhancement of the performance of OR techniques. This paper provides an understanding of the structures, approaches and models of OR in problem solving and decisionmaking.

Keywords: Best candidates' method, decision making, decision support system, operations research.

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559 Innovating and Disrupting Higher Education: The Evolution of Massive Open Online Courses

Authors: Nabil Sultan

Abstract:

A great deal has been written on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) since 2012 (considered by some as the year of the MOOCs). The emergence of MOOCs caused a great deal of interest amongst academics and technology experts as well as ordinary people. Some of the authors who wrote on MOOCs perceived it as the next big thing that will disrupt education. Other authors saw it as another fad that will go away once it ran its course (as most fads often do). But MOOCs did not turn out to be a fad and it is still around. Most importantly, they evolved into something that is beginning to look like a viable business model. This paper explores this phenomenon within the theoretical frameworks of disruptive innovations and jobs to be done as developed by Clayton Christensen and his colleagues and its implications for the future of higher education (HE).

Keywords: MOOCs, disruptive innovations, higher education, jobs theory.

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558 Multilevel Classifiers in Recognition of Handwritten Kannada Numerals

Authors: Dinesh Acharya U., N. V. Subba Reddy, Krishnamoorthi Makkithaya

Abstract:

The recognition of handwritten numeral is an important area of research for its applications in post office, banks and other organizations. This paper presents automatic recognition of handwritten Kannada numerals based on structural features. Five different types of features, namely, profile based 10-segment string, water reservoir; vertical and horizontal strokes, end points and average boundary length from the minimal bounding box are used in the recognition of numeral. The effect of each feature and their combination in the numeral classification is analyzed using nearest neighbor classifiers. It is common to combine multiple categories of features into a single feature vector for the classification. Instead, separate classifiers can be used to classify based on each visual feature individually and the final classification can be obtained based on the combination of separate base classification results. One popular approach is to combine the classifier results into a feature vector and leaving the decision to next level classifier. This method is extended to extract a better information, possibility distribution, from the base classifiers in resolving the conflicts among the classification results. Here, we use fuzzy k Nearest Neighbor (fuzzy k-NN) as base classifier for individual feature sets, the results of which together forms the feature vector for the final k Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) classifier. Testing is done, using different features, individually and in combination, on a database containing 1600 samples of different numerals and the results are compared with the results of different existing methods.

Keywords: Fuzzy k Nearest Neighbor, Multiple Classifiers, Numeral Recognition, Structural features.

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557 Statistical Feature Extraction Method for Wood Species Recognition System

Authors: Mohd Iz'aan Paiz Bin Zamri, Anis Salwa Mohd Khairuddin, Norrima Mokhtar, Rubiyah Yusof

Abstract:

Effective statistical feature extraction and classification are important in image-based automatic inspection and analysis. An automatic wood species recognition system is designed to perform wood inspection at custom checkpoints to avoid mislabeling of timber which will results to loss of income to the timber industry. The system focuses on analyzing the statistical pores properties of the wood images. This paper proposed a fuzzy-based feature extractor which mimics the experts’ knowledge on wood texture to extract the properties of pores distribution from the wood surface texture. The proposed feature extractor consists of two steps namely pores extraction and fuzzy pores management. The total number of statistical features extracted from each wood image is 38 features. Then, a backpropagation neural network is used to classify the wood species based on the statistical features. A comprehensive set of experiments on a database composed of 5200 macroscopic images from 52 tropical wood species was used to evaluate the performance of the proposed feature extractor. The advantage of the proposed feature extraction technique is that it mimics the experts’ interpretation on wood texture which allows human involvement when analyzing the wood texture. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed method.

Keywords: Classification, fuzzy, inspection system, image analysis.

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556 Applications of Support Vector Machines on Smart Phone Systems for Emotional Speech Recognition

Authors: Wernhuar Tarng, Yuan-Yuan Chen, Chien-Lung Li, Kun-Rong Hsie, Mingteh Chen

Abstract:

An emotional speech recognition system for the applications on smart phones was proposed in this study to combine with 3G mobile communications and social networks to provide users and their groups with more interaction and care. This study developed a mechanism using the support vector machines (SVM) to recognize the emotions of speech such as happiness, anger, sadness and normal. The mechanism uses a hierarchical classifier to adjust the weights of acoustic features and divides various parameters into the categories of energy and frequency for training. In this study, 28 commonly used acoustic features including pitch and volume were proposed for training. In addition, a time-frequency parameter obtained by continuous wavelet transforms was also used to identify the accent and intonation in a sentence during the recognition process. The Berlin Database of Emotional Speech was used by dividing the speech into male and female data sets for training. According to the experimental results, the accuracies of male and female test sets were increased by 4.6% and 5.2% respectively after using the time-frequency parameter for classifying happy and angry emotions. For the classification of all emotions, the average accuracy, including male and female data, was 63.5% for the test set and 90.9% for the whole data set.

Keywords: Smart phones, emotional speech recognition, socialnetworks, support vector machines, time-frequency parameter, Mel-scale frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC).

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