Search results for: small businesses
464 Impact of Enhanced Business Models on Technology Companies in the Pandemic: A Case Study about the Revolutionary Change in Management Styles
Authors: Murat Colak, Berkay Cakir Saridogan
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Since the dawn of modern corporations, almost every single employee has been working in the same loop, which contains three basic steps: going to work, providing the needs for the work, and getting back home. Only a small amount of people was able to break that standard and live outside the box. As the 2019 pandemic hit the Earth and most companies shut down their physical offices, that loop had to change for everyone. This means that the old management styles had to be significantly re-arranged to the "work from home" type of business methods. The methods include online conferences and meetings, time and task tracking using algorithms, globalization of the work, and, most importantly, remote working. After the global epidemic started, even the tech giants were concerned. Now, it can be seen that those technology companies have an incredible step-up in their shares compared to the other companies because they know how to manage such situations even better than every other industry. This study aims to take the old traditional management styles in big companies and compare them with the post-Covid methods (2019-2022). As a result of this comparison made using the annual reports and shared statistics, this study aims to explain why the winners of this crisis are the technology companies.
Keywords: COVID-19, technology companies, business models, remote work.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 361463 A Framework for Teaching Distributed Requirements Engineering in Latin American Universities
Authors: G. Sevilla, S. Zapata, F. Giraldo, E. Torres, C. Collazos
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This work describes a framework for teaching of global software engineering (GSE) in university undergraduate programs. This framework proposes a method of teaching that incorporates adequate techniques of software requirements elicitation and validated tools of communication, critical aspects to global software development scenarios. The use of proposed framework allows teachers to simulate small software development companies formed by Latin American students, which build information systems. Students from three Latin American universities played the roles of engineers by applying an iterative development of a requirements specification in a global software project. The proposed framework involves the use of a specific purpose Wiki for asynchronous communication between the participants of the process. It is also a practice to improve the quality of software requirements that are formulated by the students. The additional motivation of students to participate in these practices, in conjunction with peers from other countries, is a significant additional factor that positively contributes to the learning process. The framework promotes skills for communication, negotiation, and other complementary competencies that are useful for working on GSE scenarios.Keywords: Requirements analysis, distributed requirements engineering, practical experiences, collaborative support.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 698462 Analysis of Residual Strain and Stress Distributions in High Speed Milled Specimens using an Indentation Method
Authors: Felipe V. Díaz, Claudio A. Mammana, Armando P. M. Guidobono, Raúl E. Bolmaro
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Through a proper analysis of residual strain and stress distributions obtained at the surface of high speed milled specimens of AA 6082–T6 aluminium alloy, the performance of an improved indentation method is evaluated. This method integrates a special device of indentation to a universal measuring machine. The mentioned device allows introducing elongated indents allowing to diminish the absolute error of measurement. It must be noted that the present method offers the great advantage of avoiding both the specific equipment and highly qualified personnel, and their inherent high costs. In this work, the cutting tool geometry and high speed parameters are selected to introduce reduced plastic damage. Through the variation of the depth of cut, the stability of the shapes adopted by the residual strain and stress distributions is evaluated. The results show that the strain and stress distributions remain unchanged, compressive and small. Moreover, these distributions reveal a similar asymmetry when the gradients corresponding to conventional and climb cutting zones are compared.Keywords: Residual strain, residual stress, high speed milling, indentation methods, aluminium alloys.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1611461 Truck Routing Problem Considering Platooning and Drivers’ Breaks
Authors: Xiaoyuan Yan, Min Xu
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Truck platooning refers to a convoy of digitally connected automated trucks traveling safely with a small inter-vehicle gap. It has been identified as one of the most promising and applicable technologies towards automated and sustainable freight transportation. Although truck platooning delivers significant energy-saving benefits, it cannot be realized without good coordination of drivers’ shifts to lead the platoons subject to their mandatory breaks. Therefore, this study aims to route a fleet of trucks to their destinations using the least amount of fuel by maximizing platoon opportunities under the regulations of drivers’ mandatory breaks. We formulate this platoon coordination problem as a mixed-integer linear programming problem and solve it by CPLEX. Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed model. In addition, we also explore the impacts of drivers’ compulsory breaks on the fuel-savings performance. The results show a slight increase in the total fuel costs in the presence of drivers’ compulsory breaks, thanks to driving-while-resting benefit provided for the trailing trucks. This study may serve as a guide for the operators of automated freight transportation.
Keywords: Truck platooning, route optimization, compulsory breaks, energy saving.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 590460 Generational PipeLined Genetic Algorithm (PLGA)using Stochastic Selection
Authors: Malay K. Pakhira, Rajat K. De
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In this paper, a pipelined version of genetic algorithm, called PLGA, and a corresponding hardware platform are described. The basic operations of conventional GA (CGA) are made pipelined using an appropriate selection scheme. The selection operator, used here, is stochastic in nature and is called SA-selection. This helps maintaining the basic generational nature of the proposed pipelined GA (PLGA). A number of benchmark problems are used to compare the performances of conventional roulette-wheel selection and the SA-selection. These include unimodal and multimodal functions with dimensionality varying from very small to very large. It is seen that the SA-selection scheme is giving comparable performances with respect to the classical roulette-wheel selection scheme, for all the instances, when quality of solutions and rate of convergence are considered. The speedups obtained by PLGA for different benchmarks are found to be significant. It is shown that a complete hardware pipeline can be developed using the proposed scheme, if parallel evaluation of the fitness expression is possible. In this connection a low-cost but very fast hardware evaluation unit is described. Results of simulation experiments show that in a pipelined hardware environment, PLGA will be much faster than CGA. In terms of efficiency, PLGA is found to outperform parallel GA (PGA) also.Keywords: Hardware evaluation, Hardware pipeline, Optimization, Pipelined genetic algorithm, SA-selection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1433459 Performance Evaluation of Energy Efficient Communication Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Toshihiko Sasama, Kentaro Kishida, Kazunori Sugahara, Hiroshi Masuyama
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A mobile ad hoc network is a network of mobile nodes without any notion of centralized administration. In such a network, each mobile node behaves not only as a host which runs applications but also as a router to forward packets on behalf of others. Clustering has been applied to routing protocols to achieve efficient communications. A CH network expresses the connected relationship among cluster-heads. This paper discusses the methods for constructing a CH network, and produces the following results: (1) The required running costs of 3 traditional methods for constructing a CH network are not so different from each other in the static circumstance, or in the dynamic circumstance. Their running costs in the static circumstance do not differ from their costs in the dynamic circumstance. Meanwhile, although the routing costs required for the above 3 methods are not so different in the static circumstance, the costs are considerably different from each other in the dynamic circumstance. Their routing costs in the static circumstance are also very different from their costs in the dynamic circumstance, and the former is one tenths of the latter. The routing cost in the dynamic circumstance is mostly the cost for re-routing. (2) On the strength of the above results, we discuss new 2 methods regarding whether they are tolerable or not in the dynamic circumstance, that is, whether the times of re-routing are small or not. These new methods are revised methods that are based on the traditional methods. We recommended the method which produces the smallest routing cost in the dynamic circumstance, therefore producing the smallest total cost.Keywords: cluster, mobile ad hoc network, re-routing cost, simulation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1339458 An Efficient Burst Errors Combating for Image Transmission over Mobile WPANs
Authors: Mohsen A. M. El-Bendary, Mostafa A. R. El-Tokhy
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This paper presents an efficient burst error spreading tool. Also, it studies a vital issue in wireless communications, which is the transmission of images over wireless networks. IEEE ZigBee 802.15.4 is a short-range communication standard that could be used for small distance multimedia transmissions. In fact, the ZigBee network is a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN), which needs a strong interleaving mechanism for protection against error bursts. Also, it is low power technology and utilized in the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) implementation. This paper presents the chaotic interleaving scheme as a data randomization tool for this purpose. This scheme depends on the chaotic Baker map. The mobility effects on the image transmission are studied with different velocity through utilizing the Jakes’ model. A comparison study between the proposed chaotic interleaving scheme and the traditional block and convolutional interleaving schemes for image transmission over a correlated fading channel is presented. The simulation results show the superiority of the proposed chaotic interleaving scheme over the traditional schemes.
Keywords: WPANs, Burst Errors, Mobility, Interleaving Techniques, Fading channels.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2024457 Air Conditioning Energy Saving by Rooftop Greenery System in Subtropical Climate in Australia
Authors: M. Anwar, M. G. Rasul, M. M. K. Khan
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The benefits of rooftop greenery systems (such as energy savings, reduction of greenhouse gas emission for mitigating climate change and maintaining sustainable development, indoor temperature control etc.) in buildings are well recognized, however there remains very little research conducted for quantifying the benefits in subtropical climates such as in Australia. This study mainly focuses on measuring/determining temperature profile and air conditioning energy savings by implementing rooftop greenery systems in subtropical Central Queensland in Australia. An experimental set-up was installed at Rockhampton campus of Central Queensland University, where two standard shipping containers (6m x 2.4m x 2.4m) were converted into small offices, one with green roof and one without. These were used for temperature, humidity and energy consumption data collection. The study found that an energy savings of up to 11.70% and temperature difference of up to 4°C can be achieved in March in subtropical Central Queensland climate in Australia. It is expected that more energy can be saved in peak summer days (December/February) as temperature difference between green roof and non-green roof is higher in December- February.
Keywords: Extensive green roof, Rooftop greenery system, Subtropical climate, Shipping container.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2034456 Optimizing Usability Testing with Collaborative Method in an E-Commerce Ecosystem
Authors: Markandeya Kunchi
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Usability testing (UT) is one of the vital steps in the User-centred design (UCD) process when designing a product. In an e-commerce ecosystem, UT becomes primary as new products, features, and services are launched very frequently. And, there are losses attached to the company if an unusable and inefficient product is put out to market and is rejected by customers. This paper tries to answer why UT is important in the product life-cycle of an E-commerce ecosystem. Secondary user research was conducted to find out work patterns, development methods, type of stakeholders, and technology constraints, etc. of a typical E-commerce company. Qualitative user interviews were conducted with product managers and designers to find out the structure, project planning, product management method and role of the design team in a mid-level company. The paper tries to address the usual apprehensions of the company to inculcate UT within the team. As well, it stresses upon factors like monetary resources, lack of usability expert, narrow timelines, and lack of understanding of higher management as some primary reasons. Outsourcing UT to vendors is also very prevalent with mid-level e-commerce companies, but it has its own severe repercussions like very little team involvement, huge cost, misinterpretation of the findings, elongated timelines, and lack of empathy towards the customer, etc. The shortfalls of the unavailability of a UT process in place within the team and conducting UT through vendors are bad user experiences for customers while interacting with the product, badly designed products which are neither useful and nor utilitarian. As a result, companies see dipping conversions rates in apps and websites, huge bounce rates and increased uninstall rates. Thus, there was a need for a more lean UT system in place which could solve all these issues for the company. This paper highlights on optimizing the UT process with a collaborative method. The degree of optimization and structure of collaborative method is the highlight of this paper. Collaborative method of UT is one in which the centralised design team of the company takes for conducting and analysing the UT. The UT is usually a formative kind where designers take findings into account and uses in the ideation process. The success of collaborative method of UT is due to its ability to sync with the product management method employed by the company or team. The collaborative methods focus on engaging various teams (design, marketing, product, administration, IT, etc.) each with its own defined roles and responsibility in conducting a smooth UT with users In-house. The paper finally highlights the positive results of collaborative UT method after conducting more than 100 In-lab interviews with users across the different lines of businesses. Some of which are the improvement of interaction between stakeholders and the design team, empathy towards users, improved design iteration, better sanity check of design solutions, optimization of time and money, effective and efficient design solution. The future scope of collaborative UT is to make this method leaner, by reducing the number of days to complete the entire project starting from planning between teams to publishing the UT report.
Keywords: Usability testing, collaborative method, e-commerce, product management method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 656455 Character Segmentation Method for a License Plate with Topological Transform
Authors: Jaedo Kim, Youngjoon Han, Hernsoo Hahn
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This paper propose the robust character segmentation method for license plate with topological transform such as twist,rotation. The first step of the proposed method is to find a candidate region for character and license plate. The character or license plate must be appeared as closed loop in the edge image. In the case of detecting candidate for character region, the evaluation of detected region is using topological relationship between each character. When this method decides license plate candidate region, character features in the region with binarization are used. After binarization for the detected candidate region, each character region is decided again. In this step, each character region is fitted more than previous step. In the next step, the method checks other character regions with different scale near the detected character regions, because most license plates have license numbers with some meaningful characters around them. The method uses perspective projection for geometrical normalization. If there is topological distortion in the character region, the method projects the region on a template which is defined as standard license plate using perspective projection. In this step, the method is able to separate each number region and small meaningful characters. The evaluation results are tested with a number of test images.Keywords: License Plate Detection, Character Segmentation, Perspective Projection, Topological Transform.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1924454 CoSP2P: A Component-Based Service Model for Peer-to-Peer Systems
Authors: Candido Alcaide, Manuel Dıaz, Luis Llopis, Antonio Marquez, Bartolome Rubio, Enrique Soler
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The increasing complexity of software development based on peer to peer networks makes necessary the creation of new frameworks in order to simplify the developer-s task. Additionally, some applications, e.g. fire detection or security alarms may require real-time constraints and the high level definition of these features eases the application development. In this paper, a service model based on a component model with real-time features is proposed. The high-level model will abstract developers from implementation tasks, such as discovery, communication, security or real-time requirements. The model is oriented to deploy services on small mobile devices, such as sensors, mobile phones and PDAs, where the computation is light-weight. Services can be composed among them by means of the port concept to form complex ad-hoc systems and their implementation is carried out using a component language called UM-RTCOM. In order to apply our proposals a fire detection application is described.
Keywords: Peer-to-peer, mobile systems, real-time, service-oriented architecture.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1668453 Numerical Simulations of Electronic Cooling with In-Line and Staggered Pin Fin Heat Sinks
Authors: Yue-Tzu Yang, Hsiang-Wen Tang, Jian-Zhang Yin, Chao-Han Wu
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Three-dimensional incompressible turbulent fluid flow and heat transfer of pin fin heat sinks using air as a cooling fluid are numerically studied in this study. Two different kinds of pin fins are compared in the thermal performance, including circular and square cross sections, both are in-line and staggered arrangements. The turbulent governing equations are solved using a control-volume- based finite-difference method. Subsequently, numerical computations are performed with the realizable k - ԑ turbulence for the parameters studied, the fin height H, fin diameter D, and Reynolds number (Re) in the range of 7 ≤ H ≤ 10, 0.75 ≤ D ≤ 2, 2000 ≤ Re ≤ 126000 respectively. The numerical results are validated with available experimental data in the literature and good agreement has been found. It indicates that circular pin fins are streamlined in comparing with the square pin fins, the pressure drop is small than that of square pin fins, and heat transfer is not as good as the square pin fins. The thermal performance of the staggered pin fins is better than that of in-line pin fins because the staggered arrangements produce large disturbance. Both in-line and staggered arrangements show the same behavior for thermal resistance, pressure drop, and the entropy generation.
Keywords: Pin-fin, heat sinks, simulations, turbulent flow.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1256452 Computational Model for Predicting Effective siRNA Sequences Using Whole Stacking Energy (% G) for Gene Silencing
Authors: Reena Murali, David Peter S.
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The small interfering RNA (siRNA) alters the regulatory role of mRNA during gene expression by translational inhibition. Recent studies show that upregulation of mRNA because serious diseases like cancer. So designing effective siRNA with good knockdown effects plays an important role in gene silencing. Various siRNA design tools had been developed earlier. In this work, we are trying to analyze the existing good scoring second generation siRNA predicting tools and to optimize the efficiency of siRNA prediction by designing a computational model using Artificial Neural Network and whole stacking energy (%G), which may help in gene silencing and drug design in cancer therapy. Our model is trained and tested against a large data set of siRNA sequences. Validation of our results is done by finding correlation coefficient of experimental versus observed inhibition efficacy of siRNA. We achieved a correlation coefficient of 0.727 in our previous computational model and we could improve the correlation coefficient up to 0.753 when the threshold of whole tacking energy is greater than or equal to -32.5 kcal/mol.
Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Double Stranded RNA, RNA Interference, Short Interfering RNA.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2653451 Bubble Point Pressures of CO2+Ethyl Palmitate by a Cubic Equation of State and the Wong-Sandler Mixing Rule
Authors: M. A. Sedghamiz, S. Raeissi
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This study presents three different approaches to estimate bubble point pressures for the binary system of CO2 and ethyl palmitate fatty acid ethyl ester. The first method involves the Peng-Robinson (PR) Equation of State (EoS) with the conventional mixing rule of Van der Waals. The second approach involves the PR EOS together with the Wong Sandler (WS) mixing rule, coupled with the UNIQUAC GE model. In order to model the bubble point pressures with this approach, the volume and area parameter for ethyl palmitate were estimated by the Hansen group contribution method. The last method involved the Peng-Robinson, combined with the Wong-Sandler method, but using NRTL as the GE model. Results using the Van der Waals mixing rule clearly indicated that this method has the largest errors among all three methods, with errors in the range of 3.96-6.22%. The PR-WS-UNIQUAC method exhibited small errors, with average absolute deviations between 0.95 to 1.97 percent. The PR-WS-NRTL method led to the least errors, where average absolute deviations ranged between 0.65-1.7%.
Keywords: Bubble pressure, Gibbs excess energy model, mixing rule, CO2 solubility, ethyl palmitate.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1843450 Biomass Gasification and Microcogeneration Unit – EZOB Technology
Authors: Martin Lisý, Marek Baláš, Michal Špiláček, Zdeněk Skála
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This paper deals with the issue of biomass and sorted municipal waste gasification and cogeneration using hot-air turbo-set. It brings description of designed pilot plant with electrical output 80 kWe. The generated gas is burned in secondary combustion chamber located beyond the gas generator. Flue gas flows through the heat exchanger where the compressed air is heated and consequently brought to a micro turbine. Except description, this paper brings our basic experiences from operating of pilot plant (operating parameters, contributions, problems during operating, etc.). The principal advantage of the given cycle is the fact that there is no contact between the generated gas and the turbine. So there is no need for costly and complicated gas cleaning which is the main source of operating problems in direct use in combustion engines because the content of impurities in the gas causes operation problems to the units due to clogging and tarring of working surfaces of engines and turbines, which may lead as far as serious damage to the equipment under operation. Another merit is the compact container package making installation of the facility easier or making it relatively more mobile. We imagine, this solution of cogeneration from biomass or waste can be suitable for small industrial or communal applications, for low output cogeneration.
Keywords: Biomass, combustion, gasification, microcogeneration.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1872449 A Novel Computer Vision Method for Evaluating Deformations of Fibers Cross Section in False Twist Textured Yarns
Authors: Dariush Semnani, Mehdi Ahangareianabhari, Hossein Ghayoor
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In recent five decades, textured yarns of polyester fiber produced by false twist method are the most important and mass-produced manmade fibers. There are many parameters of cross section which affect the physical and mechanical properties of textured yarns. These parameters are surface area, perimeter, equivalent diameter, large diameter, small diameter, convexity, stiffness, eccentricity, and hydraulic diameter. These parameters were evaluated by digital image processing techniques. To find trends between production criteria and evaluated parameters of cross section, three criteria of production line have been adjusted and different types of yarns were produced. These criteria are temperature, drafting ratio, and D/Y ratio. Finally the relations between production criteria and cross section parameters were considered. The results showed that the presented technique can recognize and measure the parameters of fiber cross section in acceptable accuracy. Also, the optimum condition of adjustments has been estimated from results of image analysis evaluation.Keywords: Computer Vision, Cross Section Analysis, Fibers Deformation, Textured Yarn
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1639448 Fast Adjustable Threshold for Uniform Neural Network Quantization
Authors: Alexander Goncharenko, Andrey Denisov, Sergey Alyamkin, Evgeny Terentev
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The neural network quantization is highly desired procedure to perform before running neural networks on mobile devices. Quantization without fine-tuning leads to accuracy drop of the model, whereas commonly used training with quantization is done on the full set of the labeled data and therefore is both time- and resource-consuming. Real life applications require simplification and acceleration of quantization procedure that will maintain accuracy of full-precision neural network, especially for modern mobile neural network architectures like Mobilenet-v1, MobileNet-v2 and MNAS. Here we present a method to significantly optimize training with quantization procedure by introducing the trained scale factors for discretization thresholds that are separate for each filter. Using the proposed technique, we quantize the modern mobile architectures of neural networks with the set of train data of only ∼ 10% of the total ImageNet 2012 sample. Such reduction of train dataset size and small number of trainable parameters allow to fine-tune the network for several hours while maintaining the high accuracy of quantized model (accuracy drop was less than 0.5%). Ready-for-use models and code are available in the GitHub repository.Keywords: Distillation, machine learning, neural networks, quantization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 721447 A Multi-Feature Deep Learning Algorithm for Urban Traffic Classification with Limited Labeled Data
Authors: Rohan Putatunda, Aryya Gangopadhyay
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Acoustic sensors, if embedded in smart street lights, can help in capturing the activities (car honking, sirens, events, traffic, etc.) in cities. Needless to say, the acoustic data from such scenarios are complex due to multiple audio streams originating from different events, and when decomposed to independent signals, the amount of retrieved data volume is small in quantity which is inadequate to train deep neural networks. So, in this paper, we address the two challenges: a) separating the mixed signals, and b) developing an efficient acoustic classifier under data paucity. So, to address these challenges, we propose an architecture with supervised deep learning, where the initial captured mixed acoustics data are analyzed with Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), followed by filtering the noise from the signal, and then decomposed to independent signals by fast independent component analysis (Fast ICA). To address the challenge of data paucity, we propose a multi feature-based deep neural network with high performance that is reflected in our experiments when compared to the conventional convolutional neural network (CNN) and multi-layer perceptron (MLP).
Keywords: FFT, ICA, vehicle classification, multi-feature DNN, CNN, MLP.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 411446 Evaluating the Effect of Domestic Price on Rice Production in an African Setting: A Typical Evidence of the Sierra Leone Case
Authors: Alhaji M. H. Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, Alfred V Gborie
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Rice, which is the staple food in Sierra Leone, is consumed on a daily basis. It is the most imperative food crop extensively grown by farmers across all ecologies in the country. Though much attention is now given to rice grain production through the small holder commercialization programme (SHCP), however, no attention has been given in investigating the limitations faced by rice producers. This paper will contribute to attempts to overcome the development challenges caused by food insecurity. The objective of this paper is thus, to analysis the relationship between rice production and the domestic retail price of rice. The study employed a log linear model in which, the quantity of rice produced is the dependent variable, quantity of rice imported, price of imported rice and price of domestic rice as explanatory variables. Findings showed that, locally produced rice is even more expensive than the imported rice per ton, and almost all the inhabitants in the capital city which hosts about 65% of the entire population of the country favor imported rice, as it is free from stones with other impurities. On the other hand, to control price and simultaneously increase rice production, the government should purchase the rice from the farmers and then sell to private retailers.
Keywords: Domestic price of rice, Econometric model, Rice production, Sierra Leone.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2468445 Deformation and Crystallization in a 7075-T651 Friction Stir Weld
Authors: C. S. Paglia
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The deformation and the crystallization in a 7075-T651 friction stir weld, in particular for regions directly in contact with the mechanical action of the rotating probe, have been investigated by means of optical microscopy. The investigation enabled to identify regions of the weld differently affected by the deformation caused by the welding process. The highly deformed grains in the horizontal direction close to the plate margin were indicative of shear movements along the horizontal plane, while highly deformed grains along the plate margin in the vertical direction were indicative of vertical shear movements of opposite directions, which superimposed the shear movement along the horizontal plane. The vertical shear movements were not homogeneous through the plate thickness. The microstructure indicated that after the probe passes, the grain growth may take place under static conditions. The small grains microstructure of the nugget region, formed after the main dynamic recrystallization process, develops to an equiaxed microstructure. A material transport influenced by the rotating shoulder was also observed from the trailing to the advancing side of the weld.
Keywords: AA7075-T651, friction stir welding, deformation, crystallization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 683444 Spike Sorting Method Using Exponential Autoregressive Modeling of Action Potentials
Authors: Sajjad Farashi
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Neurons in the nervous system communicate with each other by producing electrical signals called spikes. To investigate the physiological function of nervous system it is essential to study the activity of neurons by detecting and sorting spikes in the recorded signal. In this paper a method is proposed for considering the spike sorting problem which is based on the nonlinear modeling of spikes using exponential autoregressive model. The genetic algorithm is utilized for model parameter estimation. In this regard some selected model coefficients are used as features for sorting purposes. For optimal selection of model coefficients, self-organizing feature map is used. The results show that modeling of spikes with nonlinear autoregressive model outperforms its linear counterpart. Also the extracted features based on the coefficients of exponential autoregressive model are better than wavelet based extracted features and get more compact and well-separated clusters. In the case of spikes different in small-scale structures where principal component analysis fails to get separated clouds in the feature space, the proposed method can obtain well-separated cluster which removes the necessity of applying complex classifiers.
Keywords: Exponential autoregressive model, Neural data, spike sorting, time series modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1760443 Rotor Concepts for the Counter Flow Heat Recovery Fan
Authors: Christoph Speer
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Decentralized ventilation systems should combine a small and economical design with high aerodynamic and thermal efficiency. The Counter Flow Heat Recovery Fan (CHRF) provides the ability to meet these requirements by using only one cross flow fan with a large number of blades to generate both airflows and which simultaneously acts as a regenerative counter flow heat exchanger. The successful development of the first laboratory prototype has shown the potential of this ventilation system. Occurring condensate on the surfaces of the fan blades during the cold and dry season can be recovered through the characteristic mode of operation. Hence the CHRF provides the possibility to avoid the need for frost protection and condensate drain. Through the implementation of system-specific solutions for flow balancing and summer bypass the required functionality is assured. The scalability of the CHRF concept allows the use in renovation as well as in new buildings from single-room devices through to systems for office buildings. High aerodynamic and thermal efficiency and the lower number of required mechatronic components should enable a reduction in investment as well as operating costs. The rotor is the key component of the system, the requirements and possible implementation variants are presented.
Keywords: CHRF, counter flow heat recovery fan, decentralized ventilation system, renovation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 878442 Examining Corporate Tax Evaders: Evidence from the Finalized Audit Cases
Authors: Ming Ling Lai, Zalilawati Yaacob, Normah Omar, Norashikin Abdul Aziz, Bee Wah Yap
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This paper aims to (1) analyze the profiles of transgressors (detected evaders); (2) examine reason(s) that triggered a tax audit, causes of tax evasion, audit timeframe and tax penalty charged; and (3) to assess if tax auditors followed the guidelines as stated in the 'Tax Audit Framework' when conducting tax audits. In 2011, the Inland Revenue Board Malaysia (IRBM) had audited and finalized 557 company cases. With official permission, data of all the 557 cases were obtained from the IRBM. Of these, a total of 421 cases with complete information were analyzed. About 58.1% was small and medium corporations and from the construction industry (32.8%). The selection for tax audit was based on risk analysis (66.8%), information from third party (11.1%), and firm with low profitability or fluctuating profit pattern (7.8%). The three persistent causes of tax evasion by firms were over claimed expenses (46.8%), fraudulent reporting of income (38.5%) and overstating purchases (10.5%). These findings are consistent with past literature. Results showed that tax auditors took six to 18 months to close audit cases. More than half of tax evaders were fined 45% on additional tax raised during audit for the first offence. The study found tax auditors did follow the guidelines in the 'Tax Audit Framework' in audit selection, settlement and penalty imposition.Keywords: Corporate tax fraud, tax non-compliance, tax evasion, tax audit, fraudulent reporting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3418441 Evaluation of Fitts’ Law Index of Difficulty Formulation for Screen Size Variations
Authors: Hidehiko Okada, Takayuki Akiba
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It is well-known as Fitts’ law that the time for a user to point a target on a GUI screen can be modeled as a linear function of “index of difficulty (ID).” In this paper, the authors investigate whether the traditional ID formulation is appropriate independently of device screen sizes. Result of our experiment reveals that the ID formulation may not consistently capture actual difficulty: users’ pointing performances are not consistent among pointing target variations of which index of difficulty are consistent. The term A/W may not be appropriate because the term causes the observed inconsistency. Based on this finding, the authors then evaluate the applicability of possible models other than Fitts’ one. Multiple regression models are found to be able to appropriately represent the effects of target design variations. The authors next make an attempt to improve the definition of ID in Fitts’ model. Our idea is to raise the size or the distance values depending on the screen size. The modified model is found to fit well to the users’ pointing data, which supports the idea.
Keywords: Fitts’ law, pointing device, small screen, touch user interface, usability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1620440 When Construction Material Traders Goes Electronic: Analysis of SMEs in Malaysian Construction Industry
Authors: Dzul Fahmi Nordin, Rosmini Omar
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This paper analyzed the perception of e-commerce application services by construction material traders in Malaysia. Five attributes were tested: usability, reputation, trust, privacy and familiarity. Study methodology consists of survey questionnaire and statistical analysis that includes reliability analysis, factor analysis, ANOVA and regression analysis. The respondents were construction material traders, including hardware stores in Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur. Findings support that usability and familiarity with e-commerce services in Malaysia have insignificant influence on the acceptance of e-commerce application. However, reputation, trust and privacy attributes have significant influence on the choice of e-commerce acceptance by construction material traders. E-commerce applications studied included customer database, e-selling, emarketing, e-payment, e-buying and online advertising. Assumptions are made that traders have basic knowledge and exposure to ICT services. i.e. internet service and computers. Study concludes that reputation, privacy and trust are the three website attributes that influence the acceptance of e-commerce by construction material traders.Keywords: Electronic Commerce (e-Commerce), Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Small Medium Enterprise (SME)
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1831439 Influence of Maturation Degree of Arbutus (Arbutus unedo L.) Fruits in Spirit Composition and Quality
Authors: Goreti Botelho, Filomena Gomes, Fernanda M. Ferreira, Ilda Caldeira
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The strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo L.) is a small tree or shrub from botanical Ericaceae family that grows spontaneously nearby the Mediterranean basin and produce edible red fruits. A traditional processed fruit application, in Mediterranean countries, is the production of a spirit (known as aguardente de medronho, in Portugal) obtained from the fermented fruit. The main objective of our study was to contribute to the knowledge about the influence of the degree of maturation of fruits in the volatile composition and quality of arbutus spirit. The major volatiles in the three distillates fractions (head, heart and tail) obtained from fermentation of two different fruit maturation levels were quantified by GC-FID analysis and ANOVA one-way was performed. Additionally, the total antioxidant capacity and total phenolic compounds of both arbutus fruit spirits were determined, by ABTS and Folin-Ciocalteau method, respectively. The methanol concentration is higher (1022.39 g/hL a.a.) in the spirit made from fruits with highest total soluble solids, which is a value above the legal limit (1000 g/hL a.a.). Overall, our study emphasizes, for the first time, the influence of maturation degree of arbutus fruits in the spirit volatile composition and quality.Keywords: Arbutus fruit, maturation, quality, spirit.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2297438 Genetic Algorithm Based Design of Fuzzy Logic Power System Stabilizers in Multimachine Power System
Authors: Manisha Dubey, Aalok Dubey
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This paper presents an approach for the design of fuzzy logic power system stabilizers using genetic algorithms. In the proposed fuzzy expert system, speed deviation and its derivative have been selected as fuzzy inputs. In this approach the parameters of the fuzzy logic controllers have been tuned using genetic algorithm. Incorporation of GA in the design of fuzzy logic power system stabilizer will add an intelligent dimension to the stabilizer and significantly reduces computational time in the design process. It is shown in this paper that the system dynamic performance can be improved significantly by incorporating a genetic-based searching mechanism. To demonstrate the robustness of the genetic based fuzzy logic power system stabilizer (GFLPSS), simulation studies on multimachine system subjected to small perturbation and three-phase fault have been carried out. Simulation results show the superiority and robustness of GA based power system stabilizer as compare to conventionally tuned controller to enhance system dynamic performance over a wide range of operating conditions.Keywords: Dynamic stability, Fuzzy logic power systemstabilizer, Genetic Algorithms, Genetic based power systemstabilizer
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2725437 Simulation with Uncertainties of Active Controlled Vibration Isolation System for Astronaut’s Exercise Platform
Authors: Shield B. Lin, Ziraguen O. Williams
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In a task to assist NASA in analyzing the dynamic forces caused by operational countermeasures of an astronaut’s exercise platform impacting the spacecraft, an active proportional-integral-derivative controller commanding a linear actuator is proposed in a vibration isolation system to regulate the movement of the exercise platform. Computer simulation shows promising results that most exciter forces can be reduced or even eliminated. This paper emphasizes on parameter uncertainties, variations and exciter force variations. Drift and variations of system parameters in the vibration isolation system for astronaut’s exercise platform are analyzed. An active controlled scheme is applied with the goals to reduce the platform displacement and to minimize the force being transmitted to the spacecraft structure. The controller must be robust enough to accommodate the wide variations of system parameters and exciter forces. Computer simulation for the vibration isolation system was performed via MATLAB/Simulink and Trick. The simulation results demonstrate the achievement of force reduction with small platform displacement under wide ranges of variations in system parameters.
Keywords: control, counterweight, isolation, vibration
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 426436 Development of Cooling Load Demand Program for Building in Malaysia
Authors: Zamri Noranai, Dayang Siti Zainab Abang Bujang, Rosli Asmawi, Hamidon Salleh, Mohammad Zainal Md Yusof
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Air conditioning is mainly to be used as human comfort medium. It has been use more often in country in which the daily temperatures are high. In scientific, air conditioning is defined as a process of controlling the moisture, cooling, heating and cleaning air. Without proper estimation of cooling load, big amount of waste energy been used because of unsuitable of air conditioning system are not considering to overcoming heat gains from surrounding. This is due to the size of the room is too big and the air conditioning has to use more energy to cool the room and the air conditioning is too small for the room. The studies are basically to develop a program to calculate cooling load. Through this study it is easy to calculate cooling load estimation. Furthermore it-s help to compare the cooling load estimation by hourly and yearly. Base on the last study that been done, the developed software are not user-friendly. For individual without proper knowledge of calculating cooling load estimation might be problem. Easy excess and user-friendly should be the main objective to design something. This program will allow cooling load able be estimate by any users rather than estimation by using rule of thumb. Several of limitation of case study is judged to sure it-s meeting to Malaysia building specification. Finally validation is done by comparison manual calculation and by developed program.Keywords: Building, Energy and Coaling Load
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2937435 TiO2/Clay Minerals (Palygorskite/Halloysite) Nanocomposite Coatings for Water Disinfection
Authors: Dionisios Panagiotaras, Dimitrios Papoulis, Elias Stathatos
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Microfibrous palygorskite and tubular halloysite clay mineral combined with nanocrystalline TiO2 are incorporating in the preparation of nanocomposite films on glass substrates via sol-gel route at 450oC. The synthesis is employing nonionic surfactant molecule as pore directing agent along with acetic acid-based sol-gel route without addition of water molecules. Drying and thermal treatment of composite films ensure elimination of organic material lead to the formation of TiO2 nanoparticles homogeneously distributed on the palygorskite or halloysite surfaces. Nanocomposite films without cracks of active anatase crystal phase on palygorskite and halloysite surfaces are characterized by microscopy techniques, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and porosimetry methods in order to examine their structural properties.
The composite palygorskite-TiO2 and halloysite-TiO2 films with variable quantities of palygorskite and halloysite were tested as photocatalysts in the photo-oxidation of Basic Blue 41 azo dye in water. These nanocomposite films proved to be most promising photocatalysts and highly effective to dye’s decoloration in spite of small amount of palygorskite-TiO2 or halloysite-TiO2 catalyst immobilized onto glass substrates mainly due to the high surface area and uniform distribution of TiO2 on clay minerals avoiding aggregation.
Keywords: Halloysite, Palygorskite, Photocatalysis, Titanium Dioxide.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3586