Search results for: Developing countries

Authors: J. Burlakovs, Y. Jani, L. Grinberga, M. Kriipsalu, O. Anne, I. Grinfelde, W. Hogland

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The worldwide future sustainable economies are oriented towards the sea: the maritime economy is becoming one of the strongest driving forces in many regions as population growth is the highest in coastal areas. For hundreds of years sea resources were depleted unsustainably by fishing, mining, transportation, tourism, and waste. European Sustainable Development Strategy is identifying and developing actions to enable the EU to achieve a continuous, long-term improvement of the quality of life through the creation of sustainable communities. The aim of this paper is to provide insight in Baltic Sea Region case studies on implemented actions on tourism industry waste and beach wrack management in coastal areas, hazardous contaminants and plastic flow treatment from waste, wastewaters and stormwaters. These projects mentioned in study promote successful prevention of contaminant flows to the sea environments and provide perspectives for creation of valuable new products from residuals for future circular economy are the step forward to green innovation winning streak.

Keywords: Resilience, hazardous waste, phytoremediation, water management, circular economy.

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Authors: G. Venkata Rao, P. Kalpana, R. Srinivasa Rao

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Adequate and reliable estimates of aquifer parameters are of utmost importance for proper management of vital groundwater resources. At present scenario, the ground water is polluted because of industrial waste disposed over the land and the contaminants are transported in the aquifer from one area to another area, which is depending on the characteristics of the aquifer and contaminants. To know the contaminant transport, the accurate estimation of aquifer properties is highly needed. Conventionally, these properties are estimated through pumping tests carried out on water wells. The occurrence and movement of ground water in the aquifer are characteristically defined by the aquifer parameters. The pumping (aquifer) test is the standard technique for estimating various hydraulic properties of aquifer systems, viz., transmissivity (T), hydraulic conductivity (K), storage coefficient (S) etc., for which the graphical method is widely used. The study area for conducting pumping test is Pydibheemavaram Industrial area near the coastal belt of Srikulam, AP, India. The main objective of the present work is to estimate the aquifer properties for developing contaminant transport model for the study area.

Keywords: Aquifer, contaminant transport, hydraulic conductivity, industrial waste, pumping test.

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Authors: Pierre Kancir, Jean-Philippe Diguet, Marc Sevaux

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One of the main difficulties in developing multi-robot systems (MRS) is related to the simulation and testing tools available. Indeed, if the differences between simulations and real robots are too significant, the transition from the simulation to the robot won’t be possible without another long development phase and won’t permit to validate the simulation. Moreover, the testing of different algorithmic solutions or modifications of robots requires a strong knowledge of current tools and a significant development time. Therefore, the availability of tools for MRS, mainly with flying drones, is crucial to enable the industrial emergence of these systems. This research aims to present the most commonly used tools for MRS simulations and their main shortcomings and presents complementary tools to improve the productivity of designers in the development of multi-vehicle solutions focused on a fast learning curve and rapid transition from simulations to real usage. The proposed contributions are based on existing open source tools as Gazebo simulator combined with ROS (Robot Operating System) and the open-source multi-platform autopilot ArduPilot to bring them to a broad audience.

Keywords: ROS, ArduPilot, MRS, simulation, drones, Gazebo.

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Authors: Daniella Kucsma

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The examination of the Public Service Organization’s performance evaluation includes several steps that help public organizations to develop a more efficient system. Public sector organizations have different characteristics than the competitive sector, so it can be stated that other/new elements become more important in their performance processes. The literature in this area is diverse, so highlighting an indicator system can be useful for introducing a system, but it is also worthwhile to measure the specific elements of the organization. In the case of a public service organization, due to the service obligation, it is usually possible to talk about a high number of users, so compliance is more difficult. For the organization, it is an important target to place great emphasis on the increase of service standards and the development of related processes. In this research, the health sector is given a prominent role, as it is a sensitive area where both organizational and individual performance is important for all participants. As a primary step, the content of the strategy is decisive, as this is important for the efficient structure of the process. When designing any system, it is important to review the expectations of the stakeholders, as this is primary when considering the design. The goal of this paper is to build the foundations of a performance management and indexing framework that can help a hospital to provide effective feedback and a direction that is important in assessing and developing a service and can become a management philosophy.

Keywords: health sector, public sector, performance management, strategy

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Authors: K. Shiba, T. Kaburagi, Y. Kurihara

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With global aging, people who require care, such as people with dementia (PwD), are increasing within many developed countries. And PwDs may wander and unconsciously set foot outdoors, it may lead serious accidents, such as, traffic accidents. Here, round-the-clock monitoring by caregivers is necessary, which can be a burden for the caregivers. Therefore, an automatic wandering detection system is required when an elderly person wanders outdoors, in which case the detection system transmits a ‘moving’ followed by an ‘absence’ state. In this paper, we focus on the transition from the ‘resting’ to the ‘absence’ state, via the ‘moving’ state as one of the wandering transitions. To capture the transition of the three states, our method based on the hidden Markov model (HMM) is built. Using our method, the restraint where the ‘resting’ state and ‘absence’ state cannot be transmitted to each other is applied. To validate our method, we conducted the experiment with 10 subjects. Our results show that the method can classify three states with 0.92 accuracy.

Keywords: Wander, microwave Doppler sensor, respiratory frequency band, the state transition, hidden Markov model.

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Authors: K. Westmoreland Bowers, Matthew W. Ragas, Jeffrey C. Neely

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The purpose of this study was to assess the value of Second Life among post-secondary instructors with experience using Second Life as an educational tool. Using Everett Rogers-s diffusion of innovations theory, survey respondents (N = 162), were divided into three adopter categories: innovators, early adopters and the early majority. Respondents were from 15 countries and 25 academic disciplines, indicating the considerable potential this innovation has to be adopted across many different borders and in many areas of academe. Nearly 94% of respondents said they plan to use Second Life again as an educational tool. However, no significant differences were found in instructors- levels of satisfaction with Second Life as an educational tool or their perceived effect on student learning across adopter categories. On the other hand, instructors who conducted class fully in Second Life were significantly more satisfied than those who used Second Life as only a small supplement to a real-world class. Overall, personal interest factors, rather than interpersonal communication factors, most influenced respondents- decision to adopt Second Life as an educational tool. In light of these findings, theoretical implications are discussed and practical suggestions are provided.

Keywords: Second Life, Virtual Worlds, Educational Technology, Diffusion of Innovations

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Authors: Anita Kéri

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Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in teaching methodologies and practices. Gamification is fast becoming a key instrument in the education of new generations and besides other methods, serious games have become the center of attention. Ready-built serious games are available for most higher education institutions to buy and implement. However, monetary restraints and the unalterable nature of the games might deter most higher education institutions from the application of these serious games. Therefore, there is a continuously growing need for a customizable serious game that has been developed based on a concrete need analysis and experts’ opinion. There has been little evidence so far of serious games that have been created based on relevant and current need analysis from higher education institution teachers, professional practitioners and students themselves. Therefore, the aim of this current paper is to analyze the needs of higher education institution educators with special emphasis on their needs, the applicability of serious games in their classrooms, and exploring options for the development of a customizable serious game framework. The paper undertakes to analyze workshop discussions on implementing serious games in education and propose a customizable serious game framework applicable in the education of the new generation. Research results show that the most important feature of a serious game is its customizability. The fact that practitioners are able to manage different scenarios and upload their own content to a game seems to be a key to the increasingly widespread application of serious games in the classroom.

Keywords: Education, gamification, game-based learning, serious games.

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Authors: S. Grishin

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This article is dedicated to development of mathematical models for determining the dynamics of concentration of hazardous substances in urban turbulent atmosphere. Development of the mathematical models implied taking into account the time-space variability of the fields of meteorological items and such turbulent atmosphere data as vortex nature, nonlinear nature, dissipativity and diffusivity. Knowing the turbulent airflow velocity is not assumed when developing the model. However, a simplified model implies that the turbulent and molecular diffusion ratio is a piecewise constant function that changes depending on vertical distance from the earth surface. Thereby an important assumption of vertical stratification of urban air due to atmospheric accumulation of hazardous substances emitted by motor vehicles is introduced into the mathematical model. The suggested simplified non-linear mathematical model of determining the sought exhaust concentration at a priori unknown turbulent flow velocity through non-degenerate transformation is reduced to the model which is subsequently solved analytically.

Keywords: Urban ecology, time-dependent mathematical model, exhaust concentration, turbulent and molecular diffusion, airflow velocity.

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Authors: I. Mahmood

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This survey was conducted to explore the hypothesis that excessive screen exposure combined with a subsequent decrease in parent-child interaction during infancy might be associated with autism. The main questions being asked are: Were children with autism exposed to long hours of screen time during the first 2 years of life? And what was the reason(s) for exposure at such an early age? Other variables were also addressed in this survey. An Arabic questionnaire was administered online (June 2019) via a Facebook page, relatively well-known in Arab countries. 1725 parents of children diagnosed with autism participated in this survey. Results show that 80.9% of children surveyed who were diagnosed with autism had been exposed to screens for long periods of time during the first 2 years of life. It can be inferred from the results of this survey that over-exposure to screens disrupt the parent-child interaction which is shown to be associated with ASD. The results of this survey highlight the harmful effects of screen exposure during infancy and the importance of parent-child interaction during the critical period of brain development. This paper attempts to further explore the connection between parent-child interaction and ASD, as well as serve as a call for further research and investigation of the relation between screens and parent-child interactions during infancy and Autism.

Keywords: Attachment disorder, autism, screen exposure, virtual autism.

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Authors: Wooyoung Jung, Ghang Lee

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This paper reports the worldwide status of building information modeling (BIM) adoption from the perspectives of the engagement level, the Hype Cycle model, the technology diffusion model, and BIM services. An online survey was distributed, and 156 experts from six continents responded. Overall, North America was the most advanced continent, followed by Oceania and Europe. Countries in Asia perceived their phase mainly as slope of enlightenment (mature) in the Hype Cycle model. In the technology diffusion model, the main BIM-users worldwide were “early majority” (third phase), but those in the Middle East/Africa and South America were “early adopters” (second phase). In addition, the more advanced the country, the more number of BIM services employed in general. In summary, North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia were advancing rapidly toward the mature stage of BIM, whereas the Middle East/Africa and South America were still in the early phase. The simple indexes used in this study may be used to track the worldwide status of BIM adoption in long-term surveys.

Keywords: BIM adoption, BIM services, Hype Cycle model, Technology diffusion model.

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Authors: Cheng Li, Jie Shen, Yutian Tang

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Embracing the upcoming era of urbanization with the challenges of limitation of resources, disappearing cultural identities and conflicts among different groups of stakeholders, new integrated approaches are offered in our urban practice to help decision-makers and stakeholders frame and develop well-conceived, practical strategies for urban developing trajectories to approach urban-level sustainability in multiple social, cultural, ecological dimensions. Through bottom-up participation, we take advantage of tourism and leisure industries as driving forces for urbanization in China to promote integrated sustainable systems, with the hope of approaching both historical and ecological aspects of urban sustainability; and also thanks to top-down participation, we have codes, standards and rules established by the governments to strengthen the implementation of ecological urban sustainability. The results are monitored and evaluated experimentally and multidimensionally and the sustainable systems we constructed with local stakeholder groups turned out to be effective. The presentation of our selected projects would indicate our different focuses on urban sustainability.

Keywords: Urban sustainability, integrated urban strategy, tourism and leisure industries, history, modern technology.

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Authors: Mohamed Haffar, Lombe Ngome Enongene, Mohammed Hamdan, Gbolahan Gbadamosi

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Despite the considerable body of literature investigating the influence of National Culture (NC) dimensions on consumer behaviour, there is a lack of studies comparing the influence of NC in Africa with Western European countries. This study is intended to fill the vacuum in knowledge by exploring how NC affects consumer buyer behavior in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. The primary data were collected through in depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with three groups of individuals: British students, Nigerian students in the United Kingdom, and Nigerian-based students. This approach and new frontier to analyze culture and consumer behaviour could help understand residual cultural threads of people (that are ingrained in their being) irrespective of exposure to other cultures. The findings of this study show that Nigerian and British consumers differ remarkably in cultural orientations such as symbols, values and psychological standpoints. This ultimately affects the choices made at every stage of the decision building process, and proves beneficial for international retail marketing.

Keywords: National culture, consumer behaviour, international business, Nigeria, UK.

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Authors: Mathias Rossi, Silna Borter, Marie Sansonnens

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Entrepreneurs are important for national labour markets and economies in that they contribute significantly to economic growth as well as provide the majority of jobs and create new ones. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s “Report on Women and Entrepreneurship”, investment in women’s entrepreneurship is an important way to exponentially increase the impact of new venture creation finding ways to empower women’s participation and success in entrepreneurship are critical for more sustainable and successful economic development. Our results confirm that they are still differences between men and women entrepreneurs The reasons seems to be the lack of specific business skills, the less extensive social network, and the lack of identification patterns among women. Those differences can be explained by the fact that women still have fewer opportunities to make a career. If this is correct, we can predict an increasing proportion of women among entrepreneurs in the next years. Concerning the development of a favorable environment for developing and enhancing women entrepreneurship activities, our results show the insertion in a network and the role of a model doubtless represent elements determining in the choice to launch an entrepreneurship activity, as well as a precious resource for the success of her company.

Keywords: Women entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship motivation, entrepreneurial behavior.

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Authors: Sunday E. Ogundipe, Rafiu O. Salawu, Lawrencia O. Ogundipe

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The study examines the determinants of corporate cash holding of non-financial quoted firms in Nigeria using a sample of fifty four non-financial quoted firms listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange for the period 1995-2009. Data were sourced from the Annual reports of the sampled firms and analyzed using Generalized Method of Moments(GMM). The study finds evidence supportive of a target adjustment model and that firms can not instantaneously adjust towards the target cash level owing to the fact that adjustment cost being costly,. Also, the result shows significant negative relationship between cash holdings and firm size, net working capital, return on asset and bank relationship and positive relationship with growth opportunities, leverage, inventories, account receivables and financial distress. Furthermore, there is no significant relationship between cash holdings and cash flow. In Nigerian setting, most of the variables that are relevant for explaining cash holdings in the Developed countries are found by this study to be relevant also in Nigeria.

Keywords: Adjustment Model , Cash holding, Determinant, Generalized Method of Moments(GMM)

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Authors: Hong-Ren Chen, Fang-Yu Yeh

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In the past, there were more researches of recommendation system in applied electronic commerce. However, because all circles promote information technology integrative instruction actively, the quantity of instruction resources website is more and more increasing on the Internet. But there are less website including recommendation service, especially for teachers. This study established an instruction resource recommendation website that analyzed teaching style of teachers, then provided appropriate instruction resources for teachers immediately. We used the questionnaire survey to realize teacher-s suggestions and satisfactions with the instruction resource contents and recommendation results. The study shows: (1)The website used “Transactional Ability Inventory" that realized teacher-s style and provided appropriate instruction resources for teachers in a short time, it reduced the step of data filter. (2)According to the content satisfaction of questionnaire survey, four styles teachers were almost satisfied with the contents of the instruction resources that the website recommended, thus, the conception of developing instruction resources with different teaching style is accepted. (3) According to the recommendation satisfaction of questionnaire survey, four styles teachers were almost satisfied with the recommendation service of the website, thus, the recommendation strategy that provide different results for teachers in different teaching styles is accepted.

Keywords: Instruction resource, recommendation service, teaching style.

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Authors: Baghdasaryan Marinka

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The operation modes of the synchronous motors used in the production processes are greatly conditioned by the accidentally changing technological and power indices.  As a result, the electrical drive synchronous motor may appear in irregular operation regimes. Although there are numerous works devoted to the development of the regulator for the synchronous motor operation modes, their application for the motors working in the irregular modes is not expedient. In this work, to estimate the issues concerning the stability of the synchronous electrical drive system, the transfer functions of the electrical drive synchronous motors operating in the synchronous and induction modes have been obtained.  For that purpose, a model for investigating the frequency characteristics has been developed in the LabView environment. Frequency characteristics for assessing the transient process of the electrical drive system, operating in the synchronous and induction modes have been obtained, and based on their assessment, a regulator for improving the operation modes of the motor has been proposed. The proposed regulator can be successfully used to prevent the irregular modes of the electrical drive synchronous motor, as well as to estimate the operation state of the drive motor of the mechanism with a changing load.

Keywords: Electrical drive system, synchronous motor, regulator, stability, transition process.

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Authors: Ebtehal Alawi Alsaggaf, Shehab A. Gamalel-Din

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Exploring an autistic child in Elementary school is a difficult task that must be fully thought out and the teachers should be aware of the many challenges they face raising their child especially the behavioral problems of autistic children. Hence there arises a need for developing Artificial intelligence (AI) Contemporary Techniques to help diagnosis to discover autistic people. In this research, we suggest designing architecture of expert system that combine Cognitive Maps (CM) with Case Based Reasoning technique (CBR) in order to reduce time and costs of traditional diagnosis process for the early detection to discover autistic children. The teacher is supposed to enter child's information for analyzing by CM module. Then, the reasoning processor would translate the output into a case to be solved a current problem by CBR module. We will implement a prototype for the model as a proof of concept using java and MYSQL. This will be provided a new hybrid approach that will achieve new synergies and improve problem solving capabilities in AI. And we will predict that will reduce time, costs, the number of human errors and make expertise available to more people who want who want to serve autistic children and their families.

Keywords: Autism, Cognitive Maps (CM), Case Based Reasoning technique (CBR).

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Authors: Yessengeldy Kuanyshpayev

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Now in some countries of the world the cellular market is on the point of saturation, in others - positive dynamics of development kept on. The reasons for it are also different, but there are united by their general susceptibility to innovation changes, if they are really innovative. If to take as an example the cellular market of Kazakhstan it is defined by the low percent of smart phones at consumers, the low population density, undercapacity of the 3G channel, and absence of universal access to the LTE technology that limits dynamical growth of this branch. These moments are aggravated by failures of starting commercial projects by private companies which prevent to be implemented and widely adopted to a new product among consumers. The object of the research is possible integration of wireless and program technologies at which introduction the idea can regenerate in an innovation. The analysis of existing projects in the market and the possible union of the technologies through a prism of theoretical bases of innovative activity shows that efficiency of the company by development and introduction of innovations is possible only thanks to strict observance of all terms and conditions of the innovative process which main term is profit. Despite that fact that on a global scale the innovativeness issue of companies is very popular, there are no researches about possibility of innovative breaks in the field of wireless access to the Internet in the cellular market of Kazakhstan.

Keywords: Cellular market, commercialization, innovation, the effectiveness of company.

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Authors: F. Felipe

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Air Defense Systems contain high-value assets that are expected to fulfill their mission for several years - in many cases, even decades - while operating in a fast-changing, technology-driven environment. Thus, it is paramount that decision-makers can assess how effective an Air Defense System is in the face of new developing threats, as well as to identify the bottlenecks that could jeopardize the security of the airspace of a country. Given the broad extent of activities and the great variety of assets necessary to achieve the strategic objectives, a systems approach was taken in order to delineate the core requirements and the physical architecture of an Air Defense System. Then, value-focused thinking helped in the definition of the measures of effectiveness. Furthermore, analytical methods were applied to create a formal structure that preliminarily assesses such measures. To validate the proposed methodology, a powerful simulation was also used to determine the measures of effectiveness, now in more complex environments that incorporate both uncertainty and multiple interactions of the entities. The results regarding the validity of this methodology suggest that the approach can support decisions aimed at enhancing the capabilities of Air Defense Systems. In conclusion, this paper sheds some light on how consolidated approaches of Systems Engineering and Operations Research can be used as valid techniques for solving problems regarding a complex and yet vital matter.

Keywords: Air defense, effectiveness, system, simulation, decision-support.

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Authors: K. Indra Gandhi

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have always been characterized for application-specific sensing, relaying and collection of information for further analysis. However, software development was not considered as a separate entity in this process of data collection which has posed severe limitations on the software development for WSN. Software development for WSN is a complex process since the components involved are data-driven, network-driven and application-driven in nature. This implies that there is a tremendous need for the separation of concern from the software development perspective. A layered approach for developing data acquisition design based on Model Driven Development (MDD) has been proposed as the sensed data collection process itself varies depending upon the application taken into consideration. This work focuses on the layered view of the data acquisition process so as to ease the software point of development. A metamodel has been proposed that enables reusability and realization of the software development as an adaptable component for WSN systems. Further, observing users perception indicates that proposed model helps in improving the programmer's productivity by realizing the collaborative system involved.

Keywords: Model-driven development, wireless sensor networks, data acquisition, separation of concern, layered design.

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Authors: Hanieh Tarbiat Khosrowshahi, Mojtaba Shakeri

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of a set of sensor nodes with limited capability. WSNs may suffer from multiple node failures when they are exposed to harsh environments such as military zones or disaster locations and lose connectivity by getting partitioned into disjoint segments. Relay nodes (RNs) are alternatively introduced to restore connectivity. They cost more than sensors as they benefit from mobility, more power and more transmission range, enforcing a minimum number of them to be used. This paper addresses the problem of RN placement in a multiple disjoint network by developing a genetic algorithm (GA). The problem is reintroduced as the Steiner tree problem (which is known to be an NP-hard problem) by the aim of finding the minimum number of Steiner points where RNs are to be placed for restoring connectivity. An upper bound to the number of RNs is first computed to set up the length of initial chromosomes. The GA algorithm then iteratively reduces the number of RNs and determines their location at the same time. Experimental results indicate that the proposed GA is capable of establishing network connectivity using a reasonable number of RNs compared to the best existing work.

Keywords: Connectivity restoration, genetic algorithms, multiple-node failure, relay nodes, wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: Parviz Alinezhad, Ali Sanati, Koorosh Naser Momtahen

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Square pipes (pipes with square cross sections) are being used for various industrial objectives, such as machine structure components and housing/building elements. The utilization of them is extending rapidly and widely. Hence, the out-put of those pipes is increasing and new application fields are continually developing. Due to various demands in recent time, the products have to satisfy difficult specifications with high accuracy in dimensions. The reshaping process design of pipes with square cross sections; however, is performed by trial and error and based on expert-s experience. In this paper, a computer-aided simulation is developed based on the 2-D elastic-plastic method with consideration of the shear deformation to analyze the reshaping process. Effect of various parameters such as diameter of the circular pipe and mechanical properties of metal on product dimension and quality can be evaluated by using this simulation. Moreover, design of reshaping process include determination of shrinkage of cross section, necessary number of stands, radius of rolls and height of pipe at each stand, are investigated. Further, it is shown that there are good agreements between the results of the design method and the experimental results.

Keywords: Circular Pipes, Square Pipes, Shear Deformation, Reshaping Process, Numerical Simulation.

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Authors: Wong Poh Lee, Mohd. Azam Osman, Abdullah Zawawi Talib, Ahmad Izani Md. Ismail

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Traffic congestion has become a major problem in many countries. One of the main causes of traffic congestion is due to road merges. Vehicles tend to move slower when they reach the merging point. In this paper, an enhanced algorithm for traffic simulation based on the fluid-dynamic algorithm and kinematic wave theory is proposed. The enhanced algorithm is used to study traffic congestion at a road merge. This paper also describes the development of a dynamic traffic simulation tool which is used as a scenario planning and to forecast traffic congestion level in a certain time based on defined parameter values. The tool incorporates the enhanced algorithm as well as the two original algorithms. Output from the three above mentioned algorithms are measured in terms of traffic queue length, travel time and the total number of vehicles passing through the merging point. This paper also suggests an efficient way of reducing traffic congestion at a road merge by analyzing the traffic queue length and travel time.

Keywords: Dynamic, fluid-dynamic, kinematic wave theory, simulation, traffic congestion.

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Authors: Jiří Barta

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At the present time, awareness, education, computer simulation and information systems protection are very serious and relevant topics. The article deals with perspectives and possibilities of implementation of emergence or natural hazard threats into the system which is developed for communication among members of crisis management staffs. The Czech Hydro-Meteorological Institute with its System of Integrated Warning Service resents the largest usable base of information. National information systems are connected to foreign systems, especially to flooding emergency systems of neighboring countries, systems of European Union and international organizations where the Czech Republic is a member. Use of outputs of particular information systems and computer simulations on a single communication interface of information system for communication among members of crisis management staff and setting the site interoperability in the net will lead to time savings in decision-making processes in solving extraordinary events and crisis situations. Faster managing of an extraordinary event or a crisis situation will bring positive effects and minimize the impact of negative effects on the environment.

Keywords: Computer simulation, communication, continuity, critical infrastructure, information systems, safety.

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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.

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Authors: Mohammad Lemar Zalmai, Mustafa Nabi Kocakaya, Cemil Akcay, Ekrem Manisali

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In recent years, the Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach has been developed expeditiously. As people see the benefits of this approach, it has begun to be used widely in construction projects and some countries made it mandatory to get more benefits from it. To promote the implementation of BIM in construction projects, it will be helpful to get some relevant information from surveys and interviews. The purpose of this study is to research the current adoption and implementation of BIM in public projects in Turkey. This study specified the challenges of BIM implementation in Turkey and proposed some solutions to overcome them. In this context, the challenges for BIM implementation and the factors that affect the BIM usage are determined based on previous academic researches and expert opinions by conducting interviews and questionnaire surveys. Several methods are used to process information in order to obtain weights of different factors to make BIM widespread in Turkey. This study concluded interviews' and questionnaire surveys' outcomes and proposed some suggestions to promote the implementation of BIM in Turkey. We believe research findings will be a good reference for boosting BIM implementation in Turkey.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling, BIM, BIM implementations, Turkish construction industry, Turkish government sector projects.

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Authors: Suttipong Boonphadung, Thassanant Unnanantn

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This research focused on comparing the critical thinking of the teacher students before and after using Miller’s Model learning activities and investigating their opinions. The sampling groups were (1) fourth year 33 student teachers majoring in Early Childhood Education and enrolling in semester 1 of academic year 2013 (2) third year 28 student teachers majoring in English and enrolling in semester 2 of academic year 2013 and (3) third year 22 student teachers majoring in Thai and enrolling in semester 2 of academic year 2013. The research instruments were (1) lesson plans where the learning activities were settled based on Miller’s Model (2) critical thinking assessment criteria and (3) a questionnaire on opinions towards Miller’s Model based learning activities. The statistical treatment was mean, deviation, different scores and T-test. The result unfolded that (1) the critical thinking of the students after the assigned activities was better than before and (2) the students’ opinions towards the critical thinking improvement activities based on Miller’s Model ranged from the level of high to highest.

Keywords: Critical thinking, Miller’s model, Opinions.

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Authors: G. Sevilla, S. Zapata, F. Giraldo, E. Torres, C. Collazos

Abstract:

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.

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Authors: Abdul Raheem Jasim Mohammed, Mohd Salehuddin Mohd Zahari, Salim Abdul Talib, Mohd Zulhilmi Suhaimi

Abstract:

The connection between past travel experience and tourists’ revisit behavioral intentions has not been widely explored but the existing studies suggest a close relationship between them. Destination image can equally be construed as having effects on the attitudes of the tourists at the end of their actual visitation and the satisfaction of a tourist with his or her travel experiences contributes to a revisit intention towards a particular destination. With strong marketing efforts, UAE is not only considered to be successful in attracting foreign investors, but is becoming the most popular tourism destination in the Arab region. UAE is seriously developing its tourism image and taking serious initiatives to attract new or repeat visitations from the international tourists. This study empirically investigates the causal relationships between tourism destination image, tourist satisfaction and revisit intention using UAE as a contextual study setting. A very clear picture emerged which provides a host country with potential implications for its tourism industry practitioners, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing and the travel agencies who act as the intermediaries between the potential tourists and the hotel operators.

Keywords: Destination image, tourist satisfaction, revisit intention.

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Authors: Cheng-Suan Lee, Khong Neng Choong, So Gean Koh, Chee Onn Chow, Mazlan Abbas

Abstract:

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application or commonly known as softphone has been developing an increasingly large market in today-s telecommunication world and the trend is expected to continue with the enhancement of additional features. This includes leveraging on the existing presence services, location and contextual information to enable more ubiquitous and seamless communications. In this paper, we discuss the concept of seamless session transfer for real-time application such as VoIP and IPTV, and our prototype implementation of such concept on a selected open source VoIP application. The first part of this paper is about conducting performance evaluation and assessments across some commonly found open source VoIP applications that are Ekiga, Kphone, Linphone and Twinkle so as to identify one of them for implementing our design of seamless session transfer. Subjective testing has been carried out to evaluate the audio performance on these VoIP applications and rank them according to their Mean Opinion Score (MOS) results. The second part of this paper is to discuss on the performance evaluations of our prototype implementation of session transfer using Linphone.

Keywords: audio codec, softphone, session transfer.

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