Search results for: Decision makingunit (DMU)

Authors: Neeraj Nehra, R. B. Patel, V. K. Bhat

Abstract:

Use of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web (WWW) has become widespread in recent years and mobile agent technology has proliferated at an equally rapid rate. In this scenario load balancing becomes important for P2P systems. Beside P2P systems can be highly heterogeneous, i.e., they may consists of peers that range from old desktops to powerful servers connected to internet through high-bandwidth lines. There are various loads balancing policies came into picture. Primitive one is Message Passing Interface (MPI). Its wide availability and portability make it an attractive choice; however the communication requirements are sometimes inefficient when implementing the primitives provided by MPI. In this scenario we use the concept of mobile agent because Mobile agent (MA) based approach have the merits of high flexibility, efficiency, low network traffic, less communication latency as well as highly asynchronous. In this study we present decentralized load balancing scheme using mobile agent technology in which when a node is overloaded, task migrates to less utilized nodes so as to share the workload. However, the decision of which nodes receive migrating task is made in real-time by defining certain load balancing policies. These policies are executed on PMADE (A Platform for Mobile Agent Distribution and Execution) in decentralized manner using JuxtaNet and various load balancing metrics are discussed.

Keywords: Mobile Agents, Agent host, Agent Submitter, PMADE.

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Authors: Kyoung-Jong Park, Woong-Gi Jeon, Hee-Cheol Kim, Dong-Eog Kim, Heung-Kook Choi

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The brain MR imaging-based clinical research and analysis system were specifically built and the development for a large-scale data was targeted. We used the general clinical data available for building large-scale data. Registration period for the selection of the lesion ROI and the region growing algorithm was used and the Mesh-warp algorithm for matching was implemented. The accuracy of the matching errors was modified individually. Also, the large ROI research data can accumulate by our developed compression method. In this way, the correctly decision criteria to the research result was suggested. The experimental groups were age, sex, MR type, patient ID and smoking which can easily be queries. The result data was visualized of the overlapped images by a color table. Its data was calculated by the statistical package. The evaluation for the utilization of this system in the chronic ischemic damage in the area has done from patients with the acute cerebral infarction. This is the cause of neurologic disability index location in the center portion of the lateral ventricle facing. The corona radiate was found in the position. Finally, the system reliability was measured both inter-user and intra-user registering correlation.

Keywords: Software tool design, Cerebral infarction, Brain MR image, Registration

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Authors: Joanna Stawska

Abstract:

The main objective of this article is to examine the impact of interest rates on investments in Poland in the context of financial crisis. The paper also investigates the dependence of bank loans to enterprises on interbank market rates. The article studies the impact of interbank market rate on the level of investments in Poland. Besides, this article focuses on the research of the correlation between the level of corporate loans and the amount of investments in Poland in order to determine the indirect impact of central bank interest rates through the transmission mechanism of monetary policy on the real economy. To achieve the objective we have used econometric and statistical research methods like: econometric model and Pearson correlation coefficient. This analysis suggests that the central bank reference rate inversely proportionally affects the level of investments in Poland and this dependence is moderate. This is also important issue because it is related to preparing of Poland to accession to euro area. The research is important from both theoretical and empirical points of view. The formulated conclusions and recommendations determine the practical significance of the paper which may be used in the decision making process of monetary and economic authorities of the country.

Keywords: Central bank, financial crisis, interest rate, investments.

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Authors: Rajendra Kumar Isaac, Monisha Isaac

Abstract:

Climate variability and changes are the emerging challenges for Indian agriculture with the growing population to ensure national food security. A study was conducted to assess the Climatic Change effects in medium to low altitude areas of the Himalayan region causing changes in land use and cereal crop productivity with the various climatic parameters. The rainfall and temperature changes from 1951 to 2013 were studied at four locations of varying altitudes, namely Hardwar, Rudra Prayag, Uttar Kashi and Tehri Garwal. It was observed that there is noticeable increment in temperature on all the four locations. It was surprisingly observed that the mean rainfall intensity of 30 minutes duration has increased at the rate of 0.1 mm/hours since 2000. The study shows that the combined effect of increasing temperature, rainfall, runoff and urbanization at the mid-Himalayan region is causing an increase in various climatic disasters and changes in agriculture patterns. A noticeable change in cropping patterns, crop productivity and land use change was observed. Appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies are necessary to ensure that sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture. Appropriate information is necessary for farmers, as well as planners and decision makers for developing, disseminating and adopting climate-smart technologies.

Keywords: Climate variability, agriculture, land use, mitigation strategies.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, ParetoOptimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: N. S. Yen, T. H. Yang, W. H. Huang, Y. F. Fang, H. W. Cho

Abstract:

Ultimatum game is an experimental paradigm to study human decision making. There are two players, a proposer and a responder, to split a fixed amount of money. According to the traditional economic theory on ultimatum game, proposer should propose the selfish offers to responder as much as possible to maximize proposer’s own outcomes. However, most evidences had showed that people chose more fair offers, hence two hypotheses – fairness favoring and strategic concern were proposed. In current study, we induced the motivation in participants to be either selfish or altruistic, and manipulated the task variables, the stake sizes (NT$100, 1000, 10000) and the share sizes (the 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% of the sum as selfish offers, and the 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% of the sum as altruistic offers), to examine the two hypotheses. The results showed that most proposers chose more fair offers with longer reaction times (RTs) no matter in choosing between the fair and selfish offers, or between the fair and altruistic offers. However, the proposers received explicit self-interest instruction chose more selfish offers accompanied with longer RTs in choosing between the fair and selfish offers. Therefore, the results supported the strategic concern hypothesis that previous proposers choosing the fair offers might be resulted from the fear of rejection by responders. Proposers would become more self-interest if the fear of being rejected is eliminated.

Keywords: Ultimatum game, self-interest, altruistic, fear of rejection.

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Authors: G. Settanni, A. Panarese, R. Vaira, A. Galiano

Abstract:

Nowadays, artificial intelligence is used successfully in the field of e-commerce for its ability to learn from a large amount of data. In this research study, a prototype software platform was designed and implemented in order to suggest to users the most suitable products for their needs. The platform includes a recommender system based on artificial intelligence algorithms that provide suggestions and decision support to the customer. Specifically, support vector machine algorithms have been implemented combined with natural language processing techniques that allow the user to interact with the system, express their requests and receive suggestions. The interested user can access the web platform on the internet using a computer, tablet or mobile phone, register, provide the necessary information and view the products that the system deems them the most appropriate. The platform also integrates a dashboard that allows the use of the various functions, which the platform is equipped with, in an intuitive and simple way. Also, Long Short-Term Memory algorithms have been implemented and trained on historical data in order to predict customer scores of the different items. Items with the highest scores are recommended to customers.

Keywords: Deep Learning, Long Short-Term Memory, Machine Learning, Recommender Systems, Support Vector Machine.

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Authors: José Neves, M. Rosário Martins, Fátima Candeias, Diana Ferreira, Sílvia Arantes, Júlio Cruz-Morais, Guida Gomes, Joaquim Macedo, António Abelha, Henrique Vicente

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Some plants of genus Schinus have been used in the folk medicine as topical antiseptic, digestive, purgative, diuretic, analgesic or antidepressant, and also for respiratory and urinary infections. Chemical composition of essential oils of S. molle and S. terebinthifolius had been evaluated and presented high variability according with the part of the plant studied and with the geographic and climatic regions. The pharmacological properties, namely antimicrobial, anti-tumoural and anti-inflammatory activities are conditioned by chemical composition of essential oils. Taking into account the difficulty to infer the pharmacological properties of Schinus essential oils without hard experimental approach, this work will focus on the development of a decision support system, in terms of its knowledge representation and reasoning procedures, under a formal framework based on Logic Programming, complemented with an approach to computing centered on Artificial Neural Networks and the respective Degree-of-Confidence that one has on such an occurrence.

Keywords: Artificial neuronal networks, essential oils, knowledge representation and reasoning, logic programming, Schinus molle L, Schinus terebinthifolius raddi.

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Authors: Aryanejad Mir Bahador Goli, Zahra Honarmand Shah Zileh

Abstract:

In most study fields, a phenomenon may not be studied directly but it will be examined indirectly by phenomenon model. Making an accurate model of system, there is attained new information from modeled phenomenon without any charge, danger, etc... there have been developed more solutions for describing and analyzing the recent complicated systems but few of them have analyzed the performance in the range of system description. Petri nets are of limited solutions which may make such union. Petri nets are being applied in problems related to modeling and designing the systems. Theory of Petri nets allow a system to model mathematically by a Petri net and analyzing the Petri net can then determine main information of modeled system-s structure and dynamic. This information can be used for assessing the performance of systems and suggesting corrections in the system. In this paper, beside the introduction of Petri nets, a real case study will be studied in order to show the application of generalized stochastic Petri nets in modeling a resource sharing production system and evaluating the efficiency of its machines and robots. The modeling tool used here is SHARP software which calculates specific indicators helping to make decision.

Keywords: Flexible manufacturing system, generalizedstochastic Petri nets, Markov chain, performance evaluation.

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Authors: Lamia Hammadi, Abdellah Ait Ouhman, Aomar Ibourk

Abstract:

It is widely assumed that the case of Customs Supply Chain is classified as a complex system, due to not only the variety and large number of actors, but also their complex structural links, and the interactions between these actors, that’s why this system is subject to various types of Risks. The economic, political and social impacts of those risks are highly detrimental to countries, businesses and the public, for this reason, Risk management in the customs supply chain is becoming a crucial issue to ensure the sustainability, security and safety. The main characteristic of customs risk management approach is determining which goods and means of transport should be examined? To what extend? And where future compliance resources should be directed? The purposes of this article are, firstly to deal with the concept of customs supply chain, secondly present our risk management approach based on Cross Activity Based Costing (ABC) Method as an interactive tool to support decision making in customs risk management. Finally, analysis of case study of Moroccan customs to putting theory into practice and will thus draw together the various elements of a structured and efficient risk management approach.

Keywords: Cross ABC Method, Customs Supply Chain, Risk, Risk Management.

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Authors: Mahtab Davari, Charles Edward Okon, Somayeh Aghanavesi

Abstract:

Every institute of learning is usually interested in the performance of enrolled students. The level of these performances determines the approach an institute of study may adopt in rendering academic services. The focus of this paper is to evaluate students' academic performance in given courses of study using machine learning methods. This study evaluated various supervised machine learning classification algorithms such as Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest, Decision Tree, K-Nearest Neighbors, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis, using selected features to predict study performance. The accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score obtained from a 5-Fold Cross-Validation were used to determine the best classification algorithm to predict students’ performances. SVM (using a linear kernel), LDA, and LR were identified as the best-performing machine learning methods. Also, using the LR model, this study identified students' educational habits such as reading and paying attention in class as strong determinants for a student to have an above-average performance. Other important features include the academic history of the student and work. Demographic factors such as age, gender, high school graduation, etc., had no significant effect on a student's performance.

Keywords: Student performance, supervised machine learning, prediction, classification, cross-validation.

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Authors: Rhoann Kerh, Chen-Fu Chien, Kuo-Yi Lin

Abstract:

In the era of rapidly increasing notebook market, consumer electronics manufacturers are facing a highly dynamic and competitive environment. In particular, the product appearance is the first part for user to distinguish the product from the product of other brands. Notebook product should differ in its appearance to engage users and contribute to the user experience (UX). The UX evaluates various product concepts to find the design for user needs; in addition, help the designer to further understand the product appearance preference of different market segment. However, few studies have been done for exploring the relationship between consumer background and the reaction of product appearance. This study aims to propose a data mining framework to capture the user’s information and the important relation between product appearance factors. The proposed framework consists of problem definition and structuring, data preparation, rules generation, and results evaluation and interpretation. An empirical study has been done in Taiwan that recruited 168 subjects from different background to experience the appearance performance of 11 different portable computers. The results assist the designers to develop product strategies based on the characteristics of consumers and the product concept that related to the UX, which help to launch the products to the right customers and increase the market shares. The results have shown the practical feasibility of the proposed framework.

Keywords: Consumers Decision Making, Product Design, Rough Set Theory, User Experience.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, Pareto Optimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: Heeyeul Kwon, Yongtae Park

Abstract:

Despite the highly touted benefits, emerging technologies have unleashed pervasive concerns regarding unintended and unforeseen social impacts. Thus, those wishing to create safe and socially acceptable products need to identify such side effects and mitigate them prior to the market proliferation. Various methodologies in the field of technology assessment (TA), namely Delphi, impact assessment, and scenario planning, have been widely incorporated in such a circumstance. However, literatures face a major limitation in terms of sole reliance on participatory workshop activities. They unfortunately missed out the availability of a massive untapped data source of futuristic information flooding through the Internet. This research thus seeks to gain insights into utilization of futuristic data, future-oriented documents from the Internet, as a supplementary method to generate social impact scenarios whilst capturing perspectives of experts from a wide variety of disciplines. To this end, network analysis is conducted based on the social keywords extracted from the futuristic documents by text mining, which is then used as a guide to produce a comprehensive set of detailed scenarios. Our proposed approach facilitates harmonized depictions of possible hazardous consequences of emerging technologies and thereby makes decision makers more aware of, and responsive to, broad qualitative uncertainties.

Keywords: Emerging technologies, futuristic data, scenario, text mining.

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Authors: Francisco José Plácido da Cunha, Tassio Ferenzini Martins Sirqueira, Marx Leles Viana, Carlos José Pereira de Lucena

Abstract:

Open Multiagent Systems (MASs) are societies in which heterogeneous and independently designed entities (agents) work towards similar, or different ends. Software agents are autonomous and the diversity of interests among different members living in the same society is a fact. In order to deal with this autonomy, these open systems use mechanisms of social control (norms) to ensure a desirable social order. This paper considers the following types of norms: (i) obligation — agents must accomplish a specific outcome; (ii) permission — agents may act in a particular way, and (iii) prohibition — agents must not act in a specific way. All of these characteristics mean to encourage the fulfillment of norms through rewards and to discourage norm violation by pointing out the punishments. Once the software agent decides that its priority is the satisfaction of its own desires and goals, each agent must evaluate the effects associated to the fulfillment of one or more norms before choosing which one should be fulfilled. The same applies when agents decide to violate a norm. This paper also introduces a framework for the development of MASs that provide support mechanisms to the agent’s decision-making, using norm-based reasoning. The applicability and validation of this approach is demonstrated applying a traffic intersection scenario.

Keywords: BDI aAgent, BDI4JADE framework, multiagent system, normative agents.

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Authors: Ivan C. Mustakerov, Daniela I. Borissova

Abstract:

The increasing competitiveness in manufacturing industry is forcing manufacturers to seek effective processing schedules. The paper presents an optimization manufacture scheduling approach for dependent details processing with given processing sequences and times on multiple machines. By defining decision variables as start and end moments of details processing it is possible to use straightforward variables restrictions to satisfy different technological requirements and to formulate easy to understand and solve optimization tasks for multiple numbers of details and machines. A case study example is solved for seven base moldings for CNC metalworking machines processed on five different machines with given processing order among details and machines and known processing time-s duration. As a result of linear optimization task solution the optimal manufacturing schedule minimizing the overall processing time is obtained. The manufacturing schedule defines the moments of moldings delivery thus minimizing storage costs and provides mounting due-time satisfaction. The proposed optimization approach is based on real manufacturing plant problem. Different processing schedules variants for different technological restrictions were defined and implemented in the practice of Bulgarian company RAIS Ltd. The proposed approach could be generalized for other job shop scheduling problems for different applications.

Keywords: Optimal manufacturing scheduling, linear programming, metalworking machines production, dependant details processing.

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Authors: Mingwei Yi, Liujie Guo, Zongjun Pan, Xiang Lin, Xiaoming Yi

Abstract:

With the rapid expansion of road construction mileage in China, the scale of road maintenance needs has concurrently escalated. As the service life of roads extends, the design of pavement repair and maintenance emerges as a crucial component in preserving the excellent performance of the pavement. The remaining service life of asphalt pavement structure is a vital parameter in the lifecycle maintenance design of asphalt pavements. Based on an analysis of pavement structural integrity, this study presents a characterization and assessment of the remaining life of existing asphalt pavement structures. It proposes indicators such as the transverse crack spacing and the length of longitudinal cracks. The transverse crack spacing decreases with an increase in maintenance intervals and with the extended use of semi-rigid base layer structures, although this trend becomes less pronounced after maintenance intervals exceed 4 years. The length of longitudinal cracks increases with longer maintenance intervals, but this trend weakens after five years. This system can support the enhancement of standardization and scientific design in highway maintenance decision-making processes.

Keywords: Structural integrity, highways, pavement evaluation, asphalt concrete pavement.

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Authors: Fernando Alonso, Rafael Fernandez, Sonia Frutos, Javier Soriano

Abstract:

CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management information developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified as a CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset of DLs capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The paper shows how the proposed mapping can be used for automatic reasoning about the management information models, as a design aid, by means of new-generation CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art automatic reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use algorithms that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Such a CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and its architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized by the DMTF.

Keywords: CIM, Knowledge-based Information Models, Ontology Languages, OWL, Description Logics, Integrated Network Management, Intelligent Agents, Automatic Reasoning Techniques.

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Authors: Abdallah Al-Shammari

Abstract:

This study discusses the effect of uncertainty on production levels of a petrochemical complex. Uncertainly or variations in some model parameters, such as prices, supply and demand of materials, can affect the optimality or the efficiency of any chemical process. For any petrochemical complex with many plants, there are many sources of uncertainty and frequent variations which require more attention. Many optimization approaches are proposed in the literature to incorporate uncertainty within the model in order to obtain a robust solution. In this work, a stability analysis approach is applied to a deterministic LP model of a petrochemical complex consists of ten plants to investigate the effect of such variations on the obtained optimal production levels. The proposed approach can determinate the allowable variation ranges of some parameters, mainly objective or RHS coefficients, before the system lose its optimality. Parameters with relatively narrow range of variations, i.e. stability limits, are classified as sensitive parameters or constraints that need accurate estimate or intensive monitoring. These stability limits offer easy-to-use information to the decision maker and help in understanding the interaction between some model parameters and deciding when the system need to be re-optimize. The study shows that maximum production of ethylene and the prices of intermediate products are the most sensitive factors that affect the stability of the optimum solution

Keywords: Linear programming, Petrochemicals, stability analysis, uncertainty

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Authors: Luís Pina

Abstract:

The conservation of marine biodiversity keeps ecosystems in balance and ensures the sustainable use of resources. In this context, technological resources have been used for monitoring marine species to allow biologists to obtain data in real-time. There are different mobile applications developed for data collection for monitoring purposes, but these systems are designed to be utilized only on third-generation (3G) phones or smartphones with Internet access and in rural parts of the developing countries, Internet services and smartphones are scarce. Thus, the objective of this work is to develop a system to monitor marine turtles using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which users can access through basic mobile phones. The system aims to improve the data collection mechanism and enhance the effectiveness of current systems in monitoring sea turtles using any type of mobile device without Internet access. The system will be able to report information related to the biological activities of marine turtles. Also, it will be used as a platform to assist marine conservation entities to receive reports of illegal sales of sea turtles. The system can also be utilized as an educational tool for communities, providing knowledge and allowing the inclusion of communities in the process of monitoring marine turtles. Therefore, this work may contribute with information to decision-making and implementation of contingency plans for marine conservation programs.

Keywords: GSM, marine biology, marine turtles, USSD.

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Authors: Nkechi Neboh, Josiah Adeyemo, Abimbola Enitan, Oludayo Olugbara

Abstract:

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have been used widely through evolution theory to discover acceptable solutions that corresponds to challenges such as natural resources management. EAs are also used to solve varied problems in the real world. EAs have been rapidly identified for its ease in handling multiple objective problems. Reservoir operations is a vital and researchable area which has been studied in the last few decades due to the limited nature of water resources that is found mostly in the semi-arid regions of the world. The state of some developing economy that depends on electricity for overall development through hydropower production, a renewable form of energy, is appalling due to water scarcity. This paper presents a review of the applications of evolutionary algorithms to reservoir operation for hydropower production. This review includes the discussion on areas such as genetic algorithm, differential evolution, and reservoir operation. It also identified the research gaps discovered in these areas. The results of this study will be an eye opener for researchers and decision makers to think deeply of the adverse effect of water scarcity and drought towards economic development of a nation. Hence, it becomes imperative to identify evolutionary algorithms that can address this issue which can hamper effective hydropower generation.

Keywords: Evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithm, hydropower, multi-objective, reservoir operations.

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Authors: L. Grinis

Abstract:

Turbulent flow in complex geometries receives considerable attention due to its importance in many engineering applications. It has been the subject of interest for many researchers. Some of these interests include the design of storm water channels. The design of these channels requires testing through physical models. The main practical limitation of physical models is the so called “scale effect”, that is, the fact that in many cases only primary physical mechanisms can be correctly represented, while secondary mechanisms are often distorted. These observations form the basis of our study, which centered on problems associated with the design of storm water channels near the Dead Sea, in Israel. To help reach a final design decision we used different physical models. Our research showed good coincidence with the results of laboratory tests and theoretical calculations, and allowed us to study different effects of fluid flow in an open channel. We determined that problems of this nature cannot be solved only by means of theoretical calculation and computer simulation. This study demonstrates the use of physical models to help resolve very complicated problems of fluid flow through baffles and similar structures. The study applies these models and observations to different construction and multiphase water flows, among them, those that include sand and stone particles, a significant attempt to bring to the testing laboratory a closer association with reality.

Keywords: Baffles, open channel, physical modeling.

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Authors: Edward Pol

Abstract:

All companies are confronted with the need to innovate in order to meet market demands. In so doing they are challenged with the dilemma of whether to aim to be first into the market with a new innovative product, or to deliberately wait and learn from a pioneers’ mistakes; potentially avoiding higher risks. It is therefore important to critically understand from a first mover advantage and disadvantage perspective the decision-making implications of defence industry transformation onset by an innovative paradigm shift. This paper will argue that the type of industry characteristics matter, especially when considering what role the clients play in the innovation process and what their level of influence is. Through investigation of qualitative case study research, this inquiry will focus on first mover advantages and first mover disadvantages with a view to establish practical and value-added academic findings by focusing on specific industries where the clients play an active role in cooperation with the supplier innovation. The resulting findings will help managers to mitigate risk in innovative technology introduction. A selection from several defence industry innovations is specifically chosen because of the client–supplier relationship that typically differs from traditional first mover research. In this instance, case studies will be used referencing vertical-take-off-and-landing defence equipment innovations. 

Keywords: innovation, pioneer, first mover advantage, first mover disadvantage, risk

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Authors: Mohd Nuri Al-Amin Endut, Wan Suhaimi Wan Abdullah, Zulqarnain Abu Bakar

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The element of justice or al-‘adl in the context of Islamic critical thinking deals with the notion of justice in a thinking process which critically rationalizes the truth in a fair and objective manner with no irrelevant interference that can jeopardize a sound judgment. This Islamic axiological element is vital in technological decision making as it addresses the issues of religious values and ethics that are primarily set to fulfill the purpose of human life on earth. The main objective of this study was to examine and analyze the perception of Muslim engineering students in Malaysian higher education institutions towards the concept of al-‘adl as an essential element of Islamic critical thinking. The study employed mixed methods approach that comprises data collection from the questionnaire survey and the interview responses. A total of 557 Muslim engineering undergraduates from six Malaysian universities participated in the study. The study generally indicated that Muslim engineering undergraduates in the higher institutions have rather good comprehension and consciousness for al-‘adl with a slight awareness on the importance of objective thinking. Nonetheless there were a few items on the concept that have implied a comparatively low perception on the rational justice in Islam as the means to grasp the ultimate truth.

Keywords: Engineering education, Islamic critical thinking, rational justice, perception, tertiary education.

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Authors: Talal Alshammari, Nasser Alshammari, Mohamed Sedky, Chris Howard

Abstract:

With the widespread adoption of the Internet-connected devices, and with the prevalence of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications, there is an increased interest in machine learning techniques that can provide useful and interesting services in the smart home domain. The areas that machine learning techniques can help advance are varied and ever-evolving. Classifying smart home inhabitants’ Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), is one prominent example. The ability of machine learning technique to find meaningful spatio-temporal relations of high-dimensional data is an important requirement as well. This paper presents a comparative evaluation of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to classify ADLs in the smart home domain. Forty-two synthetic datasets and two real-world datasets with multiple inhabitants are used to evaluate and compare the performance of the identified machine learning techniques. Our results show significant performance differences between the evaluated techniques. Such as AdaBoost, Cortical Learning Algorithm (CLA), Decision Trees, Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP), Structured Perceptron and Support Vector Machines (SVM). Overall, neural network based techniques have shown superiority over the other tested techniques.

Keywords: Activities of daily living, classification, internet of things, machine learning, smart home.

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Authors: Klio Monokrousou, Maria Giannopoulou

Abstract:

Urban areas, as they have been developed and operate today, are areas of accumulation of a significant amount of people and a large number of activities that generate desires and reasons for traveling. The territorial expansion of the cities as well as the need to preserve the importance of the central city areas lead to the continuous increase of transportation needs which in the limited urban space results in creating serious traffic and operational problems. The modern perception of urban planning is directed towards more holistic approaches and integrated policies that make it economically competitive, socially just and more environmentally friendly. Over the last 25 years, the goal of sustainable transport development has been central to the agenda of any plan or policy for the city. The modern planning of urban space takes into account the economic and social aspects of the city and the importance of the environment to sustainable urban development. In this context, the European Union promotes direct or indirect related interventions according to the cohesion and environmental policies; many countries even had the chance to actually test them. This paper explores the methods and processes that have been developed towards this direction and presents a review and systematic presentation of this work. The ultimate purpose of this research is to effectively use this review to create a decision making methodological framework which can be the basis of a useful operational tool for sustainable urban planning.

Keywords: Sustainable urban development, urban mobility, urban regeneration methods.

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Authors: B. T. Sayed, Nafaâ Jabeur, M. Aref

Abstract:

Creation and maintenance of knowledge management systems has been recognized as an important research area. Consecutively lack of accurate results from knowledge management systems limits the organization to apply their knowledge management processes. This leads to a failure in getting the right information to the right people at the right time thus followed by a deficiency in decision making processes. An Intranet offers a powerful tool for communication and collaboration, presenting data and information, and the means that creates and shares knowledge, all in one easily accessible place. This paper proposes an archetype describing how a knowledge management system, with the support of intranet capabilities, could very much increase the accuracy of capturing, storing and retrieving knowledge based processes thereby increasing the efficiency of the system. This system will expect a critical mass of usage, by the users, for intranet to function as knowledge management systems. This prototype would lead to a design of an application that would impose creation and maintenance of an effective knowledge management system through intranet. The aim of this paper is to introduce an effective system to handle capture, store and distribute knowledge management in a form that may not lead to any failure which exists in most of the systems. The methodology used in the system would require all the employees, in the organization, to contribute the maximum to deliver the system to a successful arena. The system is still in its initial mode and thereby the authors are under the process to practically implement the ideas, as mentioned in the system, to produce satisfactory results.

Keywords: Knowledge Management Systems, Intranet, Methodology.

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Authors: Salama Meghriche, Amer Draa, Mohammed Boulemden

Abstract:

Heart failure is the most common reason of death nowadays, but if the medical help is given directly, the patient-s life may be saved in many cases. Numerous heart diseases can be detected by means of analyzing electrocardiograms (ECG). Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are computer-based expert systems that have proved to be useful in pattern recognition tasks. ANN can be used in different phases of the decision-making process, from classification to diagnostic procedures. This work concentrates on a review followed by a novel method. The purpose of the review is to assess the evidence of healthcare benefits involving the application of artificial neural networks to the clinical functions of diagnosis, prognosis and survival analysis, in ECG signals. The developed method is based on a compound neural network (CNN), to classify ECGs as normal or carrying an AtrioVentricular heart Block (AVB). This method uses three different feed forward multilayer neural networks. A single output unit encodes the probability of AVB occurrences. A value between 0 and 0.1 is the desired output for a normal ECG; a value between 0.1 and 1 would infer an occurrence of an AVB. The results show that this compound network has a good performance in detecting AVBs, with a sensitivity of 90.7% and a specificity of 86.05%. The accuracy value is 87.9%.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Electrocardiogram(ECG), Feed forward multilayer neural network, Medical diagnosis, Pattern recognitionm, Signal processing.

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Authors: Vasiliki Vlachou, Christos Kontzinos, Ourania Markaki, Panagiotis Kokkinakos, Vagelis Karakolis, John Psarras

Abstract:

Higher Education is resisting the pull of technology, especially as this concerns the issuance and verification of degrees and certificates. It is widely known that education certificates are largely produced in paper form making them vulnerable to damage while holders of such certificates are dependent on the universities and other issuing organisations. QualiChain is an EU Horizon 2020 (H2020) research project aiming to transform and revolutionise the domain of public education and its ties with the job market by leveraging blockchain, analytics and decision support to develop a platform for the verification and sharing of education certificates. Blockchain plays an integral part in the QualiChain solution in providing a trustworthy environment to store, share and manage such accreditations. Under the context of this paper, three prominent blockchain platforms (Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Iroha) were considered as a means of experimentation for creating a system with the basic functionalities that will be needed for trustworthy degree verification. The methodology and respective system developed and presented in this paper used Hyperledger Iroha and proved that this specific platform can be used to easily develop decentralize applications. Future papers will attempt to further experiment with other blockchain platforms and assess which has the best potential.

Keywords: Blockchain, degree verification, higher education certificates, Hyperledger Iroha.

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Authors: M. Cuevas-González, O. Monserrat, A. Barra, C. Reyes-Carmona, R. M. Mateos, J. P. Galve, R. Sarro, M. Cantalejo, E. Peña, M. Martínez-Corbella, J. A. Luque, J. M. Azañón, A. Millares, M. Béjar, J. A. Navarro, L. Solari

Abstract:

Geohazard prone areas require continuous monitoring to detect risks, understand the phenomena occurring in those regions and prevent disasters. Satellite interferometry (InSAR) has come to be a trustworthy technique for ground movement detection and monitoring in the last few years. InSAR based techniques allow to process large areas providing high number of displacement measurements at low cost. However, the results provided by such techniques are usually not easy to interpret by non-experienced users hampering its use for decision makers. This work presents a set of tools developed in the framework of different projects (Momit, Safety, U-Geohaz, Riskcoast) and an example of their use in the Granada Coastal area (Spain) is shown. The ADA (Active Displacement Areas) tool has been developed with the aim of easing the management, use and interpretation of InSAR based results. It provides a semi-automatic extraction of the most significant ADAs through the application ADAFinder tool. This tool aims to support the exploitation of the European Ground Motion Service (EU-GMS), which will offer reliable and systematic information on natural and anthropogenic ground motion phenomena across Europe.

Keywords: Ground displacements, InSAR, natural hazards, satellite imagery.

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