Search results for: adaptive local search.
1146 Active Segment Selection Method in EEG Classification Using Fractal Features
Authors: Samira Vafaye Eslahi
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BCI (Brain Computer Interface) is a communication machine that translates brain massages to computer commands. These machines with the help of computer programs can recognize the tasks that are imagined. Feature extraction is an important stage of the process in EEG classification that can effect in accuracy and the computation time of processing the signals. In this study we process the signal in three steps of active segment selection, fractal feature extraction, and classification. One of the great challenges in BCI applications is to improve classification accuracy and computation time together. In this paper, we have used student’s 2D sample t-statistics on continuous wavelet transforms for active segment selection to reduce the computation time. In the next level, the features are extracted from some famous fractal dimension estimation of the signal. These fractal features are Katz and Higuchi. In the classification stage we used ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System) classifier, FKNN (Fuzzy K-Nearest Neighbors), LDA (Linear Discriminate Analysis), and SVM (Support Vector Machines). We resulted that active segment selection method would reduce the computation time and Fractal dimension features with ANFIS analysis on selected active segments is the best among investigated methods in EEG classification.
Keywords: EEG, Student’s t- statistics, BCI, Fractal Features, ANFIS, FKNN.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21191145 UEFA Super Cup: Economic Effects on Georgian Economy
Authors: Giorgi Bregadze
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Tourism is the most viable and sustainable economic development option for Georgia and one of the main sources of foreign exchange earnings. Events are considered as one of the most effective ways to attract foreign visitors to the country, and, recently, the government of Georgia has begun investing in this sector very actively. This article stresses the necessity of research based economic policy in the tourism sector. In this regard, it is of paramount importance to measure the economic effects of the events which are subsidized by taxpayers’ money. The economic effect of events can be analyzed from two perspectives; financial perspective of the government and perspective of economic effects of the tourism administration. The article emphasizes more realistic and all-inclusive focus of the economic effect analysis of the tourism administration as it concentrates on the income of residents and local businesses, part of which generate tax revenues for the government. The public would like to know what the economic returns to investment are. In this article, the methodology used to describe the economic effects of UEFA Super Cup held in Tbilisi, will help to answer this question. Methodology is based on three main principles and covers three stages. Using the suggested methodology article estimates the direct economic effect of UEFA Super cup on Georgian economy. Although the attempt to make an economic effect analysis of the event was successful in Georgia, some obstacles and insufficiencies were identified during the survey. The article offers several recommendations that will help to refine methodology and improve the accuracy of the data. Furthermore, it is very important to receive the correct standard of measurement of events in Georgia. In this caseü non-ethical acts of measurement which are widely utilized by different research companies will not trigger others to show overestimated effects. It is worth mentioning that to author’s best knowledge, this is the first attempt to measure the economic effect of an event held in Georgia.
Keywords: Biased economic effect analysis, expenditure of local citizens, time switchers and casuals, UEFA super cup.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7001144 User Guidance for Effective Query Interpretation in Natural Language Interfaces to Ontologies
Authors: Aliyu Isah Agaie, Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad, Nurfadhlina Mohd Sharef, Aida Mustapha
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Natural Language Interfaces typically support a restricted language and also have scopes and limitations that naïve users are unaware of, resulting in errors when the users attempt to retrieve information from ontologies. To overcome this challenge, an auto-suggest feature is introduced into the querying process where users are guided through the querying process using interactive query construction system. Guiding users to formulate their queries, while providing them with an unconstrained (or almost unconstrained) way to query the ontology results in better interpretation of the query and ultimately lead to an effective search. The approach described in this paper is unobtrusive and subtly guides the users, so that they have a choice of either selecting from the suggestion list or typing in full. The user is not coerced into accepting system suggestions and can express himself using fragments or full sentences.
Keywords: Auto-suggest, expressiveness, habitability, natural language interface, query interpretation, user guidance.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14721143 Capacity Enhancement for Agricultural Workers in Mangosteen Product
Authors: Cholpassorn Sitthiwarongchai, Chutikarn Sriviboon
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The two primary objectives of this research were (1) to examine the current knowledge and actual circumstance of agricultural workers about mangosteen product processing; and (2) to analyze and evaluate ways to develop capacity of mangosteen product processing. The population of this study was 15,125 people who work in the agricultural sector, in this context, mangosteen production, in the eastern part of Thailand that included Chantaburi Province, Rayong Province, Trad Province and Pracheenburi Province. The sample size based on Yamane’s calculation with 95% reliability was therefore 392 samples. Mixed method was employed included questionnaire and focus group discussion with Connoisseurship Model used in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Key informants were used in the focus group including agricultural business owners, academic people in agro food processing, local academics, local community development staff, OTOP subcommittee, and representatives of agro processing industry professional organizations. The study found that the majority of the respondents agreed with a high level (in five- rating scale) towards most of variables of knowledge management in agro food processing. The result of the current knowledge and actual circumstance of agricultural human resource in an arena of mangosteen product processing revealed that mostly, the respondents agreed at a high level to establish 7 variables. The guideline to developing the body of knowledge in order to enhance the capacity of the agricultural workers in mangosteen product processing was delivered in the focus group discussion. The discussion finally contributed to an idea to produce manuals for mangosteen product processing methods, with 4 products chosen: (1) mangosteen soap; (2) mangosteen juice; (3) mangosteen toffee; and (4) mangosteen preserves or jam.
Keywords: Capacity Enhancement, Agricultural Workers, Mangosteen Product Processing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19071142 The Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a Modern Structure for Medical Data
Authors: Gabriela Lindemann, Danilo Schmidt, Thomas Schrader, Dietmar Keune
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The amount and heterogeneity of data in biomedical research, notably in interdisciplinary fields, requires new methods for the collection, presentation and analysis of information. Important data from laboratory experiments as well as patient trials are available but come out of distributed resources. The Charité - University Hospital Berlin has established together with the German Research Foundation (DFG) a new information service centre for kidney diseases and transplantation (Open European Nephrology Science Centre - OpEN.SC). Beside a collaborative aspect to create new research groups every single partner or institution of this science information centre making his own data available is allowed to search the whole data pool of the various involved centres. A core task is the implementation of a non-restricting open data structure for the various different data sources. We decided to use a modern RDF model and in a first phase transformed original data coming from the web-based Electronic Patient Record database TBase©.
Keywords: Medical databases, Resource Description Framework (RDF), metadata repository.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20301141 Innovation Trends in Latin America Countries
Authors: José Carlos Rodríguez, Mario Gómez
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This paper analyzes innovation trends in Latin America countries by means of the number of patent applications filed by residents and non residents during the period 1965 to 2012. Making use of patent data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), we search for the presence of multiple structural changes in patent application series in Argentina, Brazil Chile, and Mexico. These changes may suggest that firms’ innovative activity has been modified as a result of implementing a particular science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Accordingly, the new regulations implemented in these countries during 1980s and 1990s have influenced their intellectual property regimes. The question conducting this research is thus how STI policies in these countries have affected their innovation activity? The results achieved in this research confirm the existence of multiple structural changes in the series of patent applications resulting from STI policies implemented in these countries.
Keywords: Econometric methods, innovation activity, Latin America countries, patents, science, technology and innovation (STI) policy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22131140 The Extent of Land Use Externalities in the Fringe of Jakarta Metropolitan: An Application of Spatial Panel Dynamic Land Value Model
Authors: Rahma Fitriani, Eni Sumarminingsih, Suci Astutik
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In a fast growing region, conversion of agricultural lands which are surrounded by some new development sites will occur sooner than expected. This phenomenon has been experienced by many regions in Indonesia, especially the fringe of Jakarta (BoDeTaBek). Being Indonesia’s capital city, rapid conversion of land in this area is an unavoidable process. The land conversion expands spatially into the fringe regions, which were initially dominated by agricultural land or conservation sites. Without proper control or growth management, this activity will invite greater costs than benefits. The current land use is the use which maximizes its value. In order to maintain land for agricultural activity or conservation, some efforts are needed to keep the land value of this activity as high as possible. In this case, the knowledge regarding the functional relationship between land value and its driving forces is necessary. In a fast growing region, development externalities are the assumed dominant driving force. Land value is the product of the past decision of its use leading to its value. It is also affected by the local characteristics and the observed surrounded land use (externalities) from the previous period. The effect of each factor on land value has dynamic and spatial virtues; an empirical spatial dynamic land value model will be more useful to capture them. The model will be useful to test and to estimate the extent of land use externalities on land value in the short run as well as in the long run. It serves as a basis to formulate an effective urban growth management’s policy. This study will apply the model to the case of land value in the fringe of Jakarta Metropolitan. The model will be used further to predict the effect of externalities on land value, in the form of prediction map. For the case of Jakarta’s fringe, there is some evidence about the significance of neighborhood urban activity – negative externalities, the previous land value and local accessibility on land value. The effects are accumulated dynamically over years, but they will fully affect the land value after six years.
Keywords: Growth management, land use externalities, land value, spatial panel dynamic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10001139 Valorization of Waste Dates in South Algeria: Biofuel Production
Authors: Insaf Mehani, Bachir Bouchekima
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In Algeria, the conditioning units of dates, generate significant quantities of waste arising from sorting deviations. This biomass, until then considered as a waste with high impact on the environment can be transformed into high value added product. It is possible to develop common dates of low commercial value, and put on the local and international market a new generation of products with high added values such as bio ethanol. Besides its use in chemical synthesis, bio ethanol can be blended with gasoline to produce a clean fuel while improving the octane.Keywords: Bioenergy, dates, bioethanol, valorisation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14621138 Analysis of Hard Turning Process of AISI D3-Thermal Aspects
Authors: B. Varaprasad, C. Srinivasa Rao
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In the manufacturing sector, hard turning has emerged as vital machining process for cutting hardened steels. Besides many advantages of hard turning operation, one has to implement to achieve close tolerances in terms of surface finish, high product quality, reduced machining time, low operating cost and environmentally friendly characteristics. In the present study, three-dimensional CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) based simulation of hard turning by using commercial software DEFORM 3D has been compared to experimental results of stresses, temperatures and tool forces in machining of AISI D3 steel using mixed Ceramic inserts (CC6050). In the present analysis, orthogonal cutting models are proposed, considering several processing parameters such as cutting speed, feed, and depth of cut. An exhaustive friction modeling at the tool-work interfaces is carried out. Work material flow around the cutting edge is carefully modeled with adaptive re-meshing simulation capability. In process simulations, feed rate and cutting speed are constant (i.e.,. 0.075 mm/rev and 155 m/min), and analysis is focused on stresses, forces, and temperatures during machining. Close agreement is observed between CAE simulation and experimental values.Keywords: Hard-turning, computer-aided engineering, computational machining, finite element method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13521137 Determination of Water Pollution and Water Quality with Decision Trees
Authors: Çiğdem Bakır, Mecit Yüzkat
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With the increasing emphasis on water quality worldwide, the search for and expanding the market for new and intelligent monitoring systems has increased. The current method is the laboratory process, where samples are taken from bodies of water, and tests are carried out in laboratories. This method is time-consuming, a waste of manpower and uneconomical. To solve this problem, we used machine learning methods to detect water pollution in our study. We created decision trees with the Orange3 software used in the study and tried to determine all the factors that cause water pollution. An automatic prediction model based on water quality was developed by taking many model inputs such as water temperature, pH, transparency, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and ammonia nitrogen with machine learning methods. The proposed approach consists of three stages: Preprocessing of the data used, feature detection and classification. We tried to determine the success of our study with different accuracy metrics and the results were presented comparatively. In addition, we achieved approximately 98% success with the decision tree.
Keywords: Decision tree, water quality, water pollution, machine learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2581136 Computational Analysis of Potential Inhibitors Selected Based On Structural Similarity for the Src SH2 Domain
Authors: W. P. Hu, J. V. Kumar, Jeffrey J. P. Tsai
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The inhibition of SH2 domain regulated protein-protein interactions is an attractive target for developing an effective chemotherapeutic approach in the treatment of disease. Molecular simulation is a useful tool for developing new drugs and for studying molecular recognition. In this study, we searched potential drug compounds for the inhibition of SH2 domain by performing structural similarity search in PubChem Compound Database. A total of 37 compounds were screened from the database, and then we used the LibDock docking program to evaluate the inhibition effect. The best three compounds (AP22408, CID 71463546 and CID 9917321) were chosen for MD simulations after the LibDock docking. Our results show that the compound CID 9917321 can produce a more stable protein-ligand complex compared to other two currently known inhibitors of Src SH2 domain. The compound CID 9917321 may be useful for the inhibition of SH2 domain based on these computational results. Subsequently experiments are needed to verify the effect of compound CID 9917321 on the SH2 domain in the future studies.
Keywords: Nonpeptide inhibitor, Src SH2 domain, LibDock, molecular dynamics simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20771135 A Low-Cost Vision-Based Unmanned Aerial System for Extremely Low-Light GPS-Denied Navigation and Thermal Imaging
Authors: Chang Liu, John Nash, Stephen D. Prior
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This paper presents the design and implementation details of a complete unmanned aerial system (UAS) based on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, focusing on safety, security, search and rescue scenarios in GPS-denied environments. In particular, The aerial platform is capable of semi-autonomously navigating through extremely low-light, GPS-denied indoor environments based on onboard sensors only, including a downward-facing optical flow camera. Besides, an additional low-cost payload camera system is developed to stream both infra-red video and visible light video to a ground station in real-time, for the purpose of detecting sign of life and hidden humans. The total cost of the complete system is estimated to be $1150, and the effectiveness of the system has been tested and validated in practical scenarios.Keywords: Unmanned aerial system, commercial-off-the-shelf, extremely low-light, GPS-denied, optical flow, infrared video.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19451134 Gene Network Analysis of PPAR-γ: A Bioinformatics Approach Using STRING
Authors: S. Bag, S. Ramaiah, P. Anitha, K. M. Kumar, P. Lavanya, V. Sivasakhthi, A. Anbarasu
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Gene networks present a graphical view at the level of gene activities and genetic functions and help us to understand complex interactions in a meaningful manner. In the present study, we have analyzed the gene interaction of PPAR-γ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma) by search tool for retrieval of interacting genes. We find PPAR-γ is highly networked by genetic interactions with 10 genes: RXRA (retinoid X receptor, alpha), PPARGC1A (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, coactivator 1 alpha), NCOA1 (nuclear receptor coactivator 1), NR0B2 (nuclear receptor subfamily 0, group B, member 2), HDAC3 (histone deacetylase 3), MED1 (mediator complex subunit 1), INS (insulin), NCOR2 (nuclear receptor co-repressor 2), PAX8 (paired box 8), ADIPOQ (adiponectin) and it augurs well for the fact that obesity and several other metabolic disorders are inter related.
Keywords: Gene networks, NCOA1, PPARγ, PPARGC1A, RXRA.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 45431133 User Intention Generation with Large Language Models Using Chain-of-Thought Prompting
Authors: Gangmin Li, Fan Yang
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Personalized recommendation is crucial for any recommendation system. One of the techniques for personalized recommendation is to identify the intention. Traditional user intention identification uses the user’s selection when facing multiple items. This modeling relies primarily on historical behavior data resulting in challenges such as the cold start, unintended choice, and failure to capture intention when items are new. Motivated by recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, we present an approach for user intention identification by embracing LLMs with Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting. We use the initial user profile as input to LLMs and design a collection of prompts to align the LLM's response through various recommendation tasks encompassing rating prediction, search and browse history, user clarification, etc. Our tests on real-world datasets demonstrate the improvements in recommendation by explicit user intention identification and, with that intention, merged into a user model.
Keywords: Personalized recommendation, generative user modeling, user intention identification, large language models, chain-of-thought prompting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 841132 Automatic Detection of Proliferative Cells in Immunohistochemically Images of Meningioma Using Fuzzy C-Means Clustering and HSV Color Space
Authors: Vahid Anari, Mina Bakhshi
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Visual search and identification of immunohistochemically stained tissue of meningioma was performed manually in pathologic laboratories to detect and diagnose the cancers type of meningioma. This task is very tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, because of cell's complex nature, it still remains a challenging task to segment cells from its background and analyze them automatically. In this paper, we develop and test a computerized scheme that can automatically identify cells in microscopic images of meningioma and classify them into positive (proliferative) and negative (normal) cells. Dataset including 150 images are used to test the scheme. The scheme uses Fuzzy C-means algorithm as a color clustering method based on perceptually uniform hue, saturation, value (HSV) color space. Since the cells are distinguishable by the human eye, the accuracy and stability of the algorithm are quantitatively compared through application to a wide variety of real images.
Keywords: Positive cell, color segmentation, HSV color space, immunohistochemistry, meningioma, thresholding, fuzzy c-means.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6911131 Machine Learning in Production Systems Design Using Genetic Algorithms
Authors: Abu Qudeiri Jaber, Yamamoto Hidehiko Rizauddin Ramli
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To create a solution for a specific problem in machine learning, the solution is constructed from the data or by use a search method. Genetic algorithms are a model of machine learning that can be used to find nearest optimal solution. While the great advantage of genetic algorithms is the fact that they find a solution through evolution, this is also the biggest disadvantage. Evolution is inductive, in nature life does not evolve towards a good solution but it evolves away from bad circumstances. This can cause a species to evolve into an evolutionary dead end. In order to reduce the effect of this disadvantage we propose a new a learning tool (criteria) which can be included into the genetic algorithms generations to compare the previous population and the current population and then decide whether is effective to continue with the previous population or the current population, the proposed learning tool is called as Keeping Efficient Population (KEP). We applied a GA based on KEP to the production line layout problem, as a result KEP keep the evaluation direction increases and stops any deviation in the evaluation.Keywords: Genetic algorithms, Layout problem, Machinelearning, Production system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16271130 Robust Power System Stabilizer Design Using Particle Swarm Optimization Technique
Authors: Sidhartha Panda, N. P. Padhy
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Power system stabilizers (PSS) are now routinely used in the industry to damp out power system oscillations. In this paper, particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique is applied to design a robust power system stabilizer (PSS). The design problem of the proposed controller is formulated as an optimization problem and PSO is employed to search for optimal controller parameters. By minimizing the time-domain based objective function, in which the deviation in the oscillatory rotor speed of the generator is involved; stability performance of the system is improved. The non-linear simulation results are presented under wide range of operating conditions; disturbances at different locations as well as for various fault clearing sequences to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed controller and their ability to provide efficient damping of low frequency oscillations. Further, all the simulations results are compared with a conventionally designed power system stabilizer to show the superiority of the proposed design approach.
Keywords: Particle swarm optimization, power system stabilizer, low frequency oscillations, power system stability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23571129 Towards an Integrated Proposal for Performance Measurement Indicators (Financial and Operational) in Advanced Production Practices
Authors: José A. D. Machuca, Bernabé Escobar-Pérez, Pedro Garrido Vega, Darkys E. Lujan García
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Starting with an analysis of the financial and operational indicators that can be found in the specialised literature, this study aims to contribute to improvements in the performance measurement systems used when the unit of analysis is the manufacturing plant. For this a search was done in the highest impact Journals of Production and Operations Management and Management Accounting , with the aim of determining the financial and operational indicators used to evaluate performance when Advanced Production Practices have been implemented, more specifically when the practices implemented are Total Quality Management, JIT/Lean Manufacturing and Total Productive Maintenance. This has enabled us to obtain a classification of the two types of indicators based on how much each is used. For the financial indicators we have also prepared a proposal that can be adapted to manufacturing plants- accounting features. In the near future we will propose a model that links practices implementation with financial and operational indicators and these two last with each other. We aim to will test this model empirically with the data obtained in the High Performance Manufacturing Project.Keywords: Advanced Production Practices, Financial Indicators, Non-Financial Indicators
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15051128 A Web Oriented Spread Spectrum Watermarking Procedure for MPEG-2 Videos
Authors: Franco Frattolillo
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In the last decade digital watermarking procedures have become increasingly applied to implement the copyright protection of multimedia digital contents distributed on the Internet. To this end, it is worth noting that a lot of watermarking procedures for images and videos proposed in literature are based on spread spectrum techniques. However, some scepticism about the robustness and security of such watermarking procedures has arisen because of some documented attacks which claim to render the inserted watermarks undetectable. On the other hand, web content providers wish to exploit watermarking procedures characterized by flexible and efficient implementations and which can be easily integrated in their existing web services frameworks or platforms. This paper presents how a simple spread spectrum watermarking procedure for MPEG-2 videos can be modified to be exploited in web contexts. To this end, the proposed procedure has been made secure and robust against some well-known and dangerous attacks. Furthermore, its basic scheme has been optimized by making the insertion procedure adaptive with respect to the terminals used to open the videos and the network transactions carried out to deliver them to buyers. Finally, two different implementations of the procedure have been developed: the former is a high performance parallel implementation, whereas the latter is a portable Java and XML based implementation. Thus, the paper demonstrates that a simple spread spectrum watermarking procedure, with limited and appropriate modifications to the embedding scheme, can still represent a valid alternative to many other well-known and more recent watermarking procedures proposed in literature.Keywords: Copyright protection, digital watermarking, intellectual property protection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15081127 Examining the Usefulness of an ESP Textbook for Information Technology: Learner Perspectives
Authors: Yun-Husan Huang
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Many English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbooks are distributed globally as the content development is often obliged to compromises between commercial and pedagogical demands. Therefore, the issue of regional application and usefulness of globally published ESP textbooks has received much debate. For ESP instructors, textbook selection is definitely a priority consideration for curriculum design. An appropriate ESP textbook can facilitate teaching and learning, while an inappropriate one may cause a disaster for both teachers and students. This study aims to investigate the regional application and usefulness of an ESP textbook for information technology (IT). Participants were 51 sophomores majoring in Applied Informatics and Multimedia at a university in Taiwan. As they were non-English majors, their English proficiency was mostly at elementary and elementary-to-intermediate levels. This course was offered for two semesters. The textbook selected was Oxford English for Information Technology. At class end, the students were required to complete a survey comprising five choices of Very Easy, Easy, Neutral, Difficult, and Very Difficult for each item. Based on the content design of the textbook, the survey investigated how the students viewed the difficulty of grammar, listening, speaking, reading, and writing materials of the textbook. In terms of difficulty, results reveal that only 22% of them found the grammar section difficult and very difficult. For listening, 71% responded difficult and very difficult. For general reading, 55% responded difficult and very difficult. For speaking, 56% responded difficult and very difficult. For writing, 78% responded difficult and very difficult. For advanced reading, 90% reported difficult and very difficult. These results indicate that, except the grammar section, more than half of the students found the textbook contents difficult in terms of listening, speaking, reading, and writing materials. Such contradictory results between the easy grammar section and the difficult four language skills sections imply that the textbook designers do not well understand the English learning background of regional ESP learners. For the participants, the learning contents of the grammar section were the general grammar level of junior high school, while the learning contents of the four language skills sections were more of the levels of college English majors. Implications from the findings are obtained for instructors and textbook designers. First of all, existing ESP textbooks for IT are few and thus textbook selections for instructors are insufficient. Second, existing globally published textbooks for IT cannot be applied to learners of all English proficiency levels, especially the low level. With limited textbook selections, third, instructors should modify the selected textbook contents or supplement extra ESP materials to meet the proficiency level of target learners. Fourth, local ESP publishers should collaborate with local ESP instructors who understand best the learning background of their students in order to develop appropriate ESP textbooks for local learners. Even though the instructor reduced learning contents and simplified tests in curriculum design, in conclusion, the students still found difficult. This implies that in addition to the instructor’s professional experience, there is a need to understand the usefulness of the textbook from learner perspectives.Keywords: ESP textbooks, ESP materials, ESP textbook design, learner perspectives on ESP textbooks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18971126 Evaluating per-user Fairness of Goal-Oriented Parallel Computer Job Scheduling Policies
Authors: Sangsuree Vasupongayya
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Fair share objective has been included into the goaloriented parallel computer job scheduling policy recently. However, the previous work only presented the overall scheduling performance. Thus, the per-user performance of the policy is still lacking. In this work, the details of per-user fair share performance under the Tradeoff-fs(Tx:avgX) policy will be further evaluated. A basic fair share priority backfill policy namely RelShare(1d) is also studied. The performance of all policies is collected using an event-driven simulator with three real job traces as input. The experimental results show that the high demand users are usually benefited under most policies because their jobs are large or they have a lot of jobs. In the large job case, one job executed may result in over-share during that period. In the other case, the jobs may be backfilled for performances. However, the users with a mixture of jobs may suffer because if the smaller jobs are executing the priority of the remaining jobs from the same user will be lower. Further analysis does not show any significant impact of users with a lot of jobs or users with a large runtime approximation error.Keywords: deviation, fair share, discrepancy search, priority scheduling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13511125 Agents Network on a Grid: An Approach with the Set of Circulant Operators
Authors: Babiga Birregah, Prosper K. Doh, Kondo H. Adjallah
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In this work we present some matrix operators named circulant operators and their action on square matrices. This study on square matrices provides new insights into the structure of the space of square matrices. Moreover it can be useful in various fields as in agents networking on Grid or large-scale distributed self-organizing grid systems.Keywords: Pascal matrices, Binomial Recursion, Circulant Operators, Square Matrix Bipartition, Local Network, Parallel networks of agents.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11021124 Forms of Social Quality Mobilization in Suburban Communities of a Changing World
Authors: Supannee Chaiumporn
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This article is to introduce the meaning and form of social quality moving process as indicated by members of two suburb communities with different social and cultural contexts. The form of social quality moving process is very significant for the community and social development, because it will make the people living together with sustainable happiness. This is a qualitative study involving 30 key-informants from two suburb communities. Data were collected though key-informant interviews, and analyzed using logical content description and descriptive statistics. This research found that on the social quality component, the people in both communities stressed the procedure for social qualitymaking. This includes the generousness, sharing and assisting among people in the communities. These practices helped making people to live together with sustainable happiness. Living as a family or appear to be a family is the major social characteristic of these two communities. This research also found that form of social quality’s moving process of both communities stress relation of human and nature; “nature overpower humans” paradigm and influence of religious doctrine that emphasizes relations among humans. Both criteria make the form of social’s moving process simple, adaptive to nature and caring for opinion sharing and understanding among each other before action. This form of social quality’s moving process is composed of 4 steps; (1) awareness building, (2) motivation to change, (3) participation from every party which is concerned (4) self-reliance.Keywords: Social quality, form of social quality moving process, happiness, different social and cultural context.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15881123 Touristification of Industrial Waterfronts: The Rocks and Darling Harbour
Authors: Ece Kaya
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Industrial heritage reflects the traces of an industrial past that have contributed to the economic development of a country. This heritage should be included within the scope of preservation to remind of and to connect the city and its inhabitants to the past. Through adaptive conservation, industrial heritage can be reintroduced into contemporary urban life, with suitable functions and unique identities sustained. The conservation of industrial heritage should protect the material fabric of such heritage and maintain its cultural significance. Emphasising the historical and cultural significance of industrial areas, this research argues that industrial heritage is primarily impacted by political and economic thinking rather than by informed heritage and conservation issues. Waterfront redevelopment projects create similar landscapes around the world, transforming industrial identities and cultural significances. In the case of The Rocks and Darling Harbour, the goal of redevelopment was the creation of employment opportunities, and the provision of places to work, live and shop, through tourism promoted by the NSW State Government. The two case study areas were pivotal to the European industrial development of Sydney. Sydney Cove was one of the largest commercial wharves used to handle cargo in Australia. This paper argues, together with many historians, planners and heritage experts, that these areas have not received the due diligence deserved in regards to their significance to the industrial history of Sydney and modern Australia.
Keywords: Industrial heritage, post-industrial city, transformation of waterfronts, tourism, consumption.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13401122 Multivariable Control of Smart Timoshenko Beam Structures Using POF Technique
Authors: T.C. Manjunath, B. Bandyopadhyay
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Active Vibration Control (AVC) is an important problem in structures. One of the ways to tackle this problem is to make the structure smart, adaptive and self-controlling. The objective of active vibration control is to reduce the vibration of a system by automatic modification of the system-s structural response. This paper features the modeling and design of a Periodic Output Feedback (POF) control technique for the active vibration control of a flexible Timoshenko cantilever beam for a multivariable case with 2 inputs and 2 outputs by retaining the first 2 dominant vibratory modes using the smart structure concept. The entire structure is modeled in state space form using the concept of piezoelectric theory, Timoshenko beam theory, Finite Element Method (FEM) and the state space techniques. Simulations are performed in MATLAB. The effect of placing the sensor / actuator at 2 finite element locations along the length of the beam is observed. The open loop responses, closed loop responses and the tip displacements with and without the controller are obtained and the performance of the smart system is evaluated for active vibration control.Keywords: Smart structure, Timoshenko theory, Euler-Bernoulli theory, Periodic output feedback control, Finite Element Method, State space model, Vibration control, Multivariable system, Linear Matrix Inequality
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23181121 Search Engine Module in Voice Recognition Browser to Facilitate the Visually Impaired in Virtual Learning (MGSYS VISI-VL)
Authors: Nurulisma Ismail, Halimah Badioze Zaman
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Nowadays, web-based technologies influence in people-s daily life such as in education, business and others. Therefore, many web developers are too eager to develop their web applications with fully animation graphics and forgetting its accessibility to its users. Their purpose is to make their web applications look impressive. Thus, this paper would highlight on the usability and accessibility of a voice recognition browser as a tool to facilitate the visually impaired and blind learners in accessing virtual learning environment. More specifically, the objectives of the study are (i) to explore the challenges faced by the visually impaired learners in accessing virtual learning environment (ii) to determine the suitable guidelines for developing a voice recognition browser that is accessible to the visually impaired. Furthermore, this study was prepared based on an observation conducted with the Malaysian visually impaired learners. Finally, the result of this study would underline on the development of an accessible voice recognition browser for the visually impaired.Keywords: Accessibility, Usability, Virtual Learning, Visually Impaired, Voice Recognition.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20391120 Low Resolution Single Neural Network Based Face Recognition
Authors: Jahan Zeb, Muhammad Younus Javed, Usman Qayyum
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This research paper deals with the implementation of face recognition using neural network (recognition classifier) on low-resolution images. The proposed system contains two parts, preprocessing and face classification. The preprocessing part converts original images into blurry image using average filter and equalizes the histogram of those image (lighting normalization). The bi-cubic interpolation function is applied onto equalized image to get resized image. The resized image is actually low-resolution image providing faster processing for training and testing. The preprocessed image becomes the input to neural network classifier, which uses back-propagation algorithm to recognize the familiar faces. The crux of proposed algorithm is its beauty to use single neural network as classifier, which produces straightforward approach towards face recognition. The single neural network consists of three layers with Log sigmoid, Hyperbolic tangent sigmoid and Linear transfer function respectively. The training function, which is incorporated in our work, is Gradient descent with momentum (adaptive learning rate) back propagation. The proposed algorithm was trained on ORL (Olivetti Research Laboratory) database with 5 training images. The empirical results provide the accuracy of 94.50%, 93.00% and 90.25% for 20, 30 and 40 subjects respectively, with time delay of 0.0934 sec per image.Keywords: Average filtering, Bicubic Interpolation, Neurons, vectorization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17491119 The Wavelet-Based DFT: A New Interpretation, Extensions and Applications
Authors: Abdulnasir Hossen, Ulrich Heute
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In 1990 [1] the subband-DFT (SB-DFT) technique was proposed. This technique used the Hadamard filters in the decomposition step to split the input sequence into low- and highpass sequences. In the next step, either two DFTs are needed on both bands to compute the full-band DFT or one DFT on one of the two bands to compute an approximate DFT. A combination network with correction factors was to be applied after the DFTs. Another approach was proposed in 1997 [2] for using a special discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to compute the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). In the first step of the algorithm, the input sequence is decomposed in a similar manner to the SB-DFT into two sequences using wavelet decomposition with Haar filters. The second step is to perform DFTs on both bands to obtain the full-band DFT or to obtain a fast approximate DFT by implementing pruning at both input and output sides. In this paper, the wavelet-based DFT (W-DFT) with Haar filters is interpreted as SB-DFT with Hadamard filters. The only difference is in a constant factor in the combination network. This result is very important to complete the analysis of the W-DFT, since all the results concerning the accuracy and approximation errors in the SB-DFT are applicable. An application example in spectral analysis is given for both SB-DFT and W-DFT (with different filters). The adaptive capability of the SB-DFT is included in the W-DFT algorithm to select the band of most energy as the band to be computed. Finally, the W-DFT is extended to the two-dimensional case. An application in image transformation is given using two different types of wavelet filters.
Keywords: Image Transform, Spectral Analysis, Sub-Band DFT, Wavelet DFT.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16681118 Enhanced Coagulation of Disinfection By-Products Precursors in Porsuk Water Resource, Eskisehir
Authors: Zehra Yigit, Hatice Inan, Guven Seydioglu, Vedat Uyak
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Natural organic matter (NOM) is heterogeneous mixture of organic compounds that enter the water media from animal and plant remains, domestic and industrial wastes. Researches showed that NOM is likely precursor material for disinfection by products (DBPs). Chlorine very commenly used for disinfection purposes and NOM and chlorine reacts then Trihalomethane (THM) and Haloacetic acids (HAAs) which are cancerogenics for human health are produced. The aim of the study is to search NOM removal by enhanced coagulation from drinking water source of Eskisehir which is supplied from Porsuk Dam. Recently, Porsuk dam water is getting highly polluted and therefore NOM concentration is increasing. Enhanced coagulation studies were evaluated by measurement of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), UV absorbance at 254 nm (UV254), and different trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) tests. Results of jar test experiments showed that NOM can be removed from water about 40-50 % of efficiency by enhanced coagulation. Optimum coagulant type and coagulant dosages were determined using FeCl3 and Alum.Keywords: Chlorination, Disinfection by-products, DOC, Enhanced Coagulation, NOM, Porsuk, UV254.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22171117 A Quasi-Systematic Review on Effectiveness of Social and Cultural Sustainability Practices in Built Environment
Authors: Asif Ali, Daud Salim Faruquie
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With the advancement of knowledge about the utility and impact of sustainability, its feasibility has been explored into different walks of life. Scientists, however; have established their knowledge in four areas viz environmental, economic, social and cultural, popularly termed as four pillars of sustainability. Aspects of environmental and economic sustainability have been rigorously researched and practiced and huge volume of strong evidence of effectiveness has been founded for these two sub-areas. For the social and cultural aspects of sustainability, dependable evidence of effectiveness is still to be instituted as the researchers and practitioners are developing and experimenting methods across the globe. Therefore, the present research aimed to identify globally used practices of social and cultural sustainability and through evidence synthesis assess their outcomes to determine the effectiveness of those practices. A PICO format steered the methodology which included all populations, popular sustainability practices including walkability/cycle tracks, social/recreational spaces, privacy, health & human services and barrier free built environment, comparators included ‘Before’ and ‘After’, ‘With’ and ‘Without’, ‘More’ and ‘Less’ and outcomes included Social well-being, cultural coexistence, quality of life, ethics and morality, social capital, sense of place, education, health, recreation and leisure, and holistic development. Search of literature included major electronic databases, search websites, organizational resources, directory of open access journals and subscribed journals. Grey literature, however, was not included. Inclusion criteria filtered studies on the basis of research designs such as total randomization, quasirandomization, cluster randomization, observational or single studies and certain types of analysis. Studies with combined outcomes were considered but studies focusing only on environmental and/or economic outcomes were rejected. Data extraction, critical appraisal and evidence synthesis was carried out using customized tabulation, reference manager and CASP tool. Partial meta-analysis was carried out and calculation of pooled effects and forest plotting were done. As many as 13 studies finally included for final synthesis explained the impact of targeted practices on health, behavioural and social dimensions. Objectivity in the measurement of health outcomes facilitated quantitative synthesis of studies which highlighted the impact of sustainability methods on physical activity, Body Mass Index, perinatal outcomes and child health. Studies synthesized qualitatively (and also quantitatively) showed outcomes such as routines, family relations, citizenship, trust in relationships, social inclusion, neighbourhood social capital, wellbeing, habitability and family’s social processes. The synthesized evidence indicates slight effectiveness and efficacy of social and cultural sustainability on the targeted outcomes. Further synthesis revealed that such results of this study are due weak research designs and disintegrated implementations. If architects and other practitioners deliver their interventions in collaboration with research bodies and policy makers, a stronger evidence-base in this area could be generated.Keywords: Built environment, cultural sustainability, social sustainability, sustainable architecture.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2490