Search results for: Critical language awareness

Authors: J.C. Umavathi

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The linear stability of nanofluid convection in a horizontal porous layer is examined theoretically when the walls of the porous layer are subjected to time-periodic temperature modulation. The model used for the nanofluid incorporates the effects of Brownian motion and thermopherosis, while the Darcy model is used for the porous medium. The analysis revels that for a typical nanofluid (with large Lewis number) the prime effect of the nanofluids is via a buoyancy effect coupled with the conservation of nanoparticles. The contribution of nanoparticles to the thermal energy equation being a second-order effect. It is found that the critical thermal Rayleigh number can be found reduced or decreased by a substantial amount, depending on whether the basic nanoparticle distribution is top-heavy or bottom-heavy. Oscillatory instability is possible in the case of a bottom-heavy nanoparticle distribution, phase angle and frequency of modulation.

Keywords: Brownian motion and thermophoresis, Porous medium, Nanofluid, Natural convection, Thermal modulation.

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Authors: Naeem Ullah Khan, Kalsoom Khan

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No state can be progressive and prosperous in which a large number of people is deprived of their basic economic rights and freedoms. In the contemporary world of globalization, the right to development has gained a momentum force in the domain of International Development Law (IDL) and has integrated into the National Legal System (NLS) of the major developed states. The international experts on human rights argued that the right to development (RTD) is called a third-generation human right which tends to enhance the welfare and prosperity of individuals, and thus, it is a right to a process whose outcomes are human rights despite the controversy on the implications of RTD. In the Pakistan legal system, the RTD has not been expressly stated in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973. However, there are some implied constitutional provisions which reflect the concept of RTD. The jurisprudence on RTD is still an evolving paradigm in the contextual perspective of Pakistan, and the superior court of diverse jurisdiction acts as a catalyst regarding the protection and enforcement of RTD in the interest of the public at large. However, the case law explores the positive inclination of the courts in Pakistan on RTD be incorporated as an express provision in the chapters of fundamental rights; in this scenario, the high court’s of Pakistan under Article 199 and the supreme court of Pakistan under Article 184(3) have exercised jurisdiction on the enforcement of RTD. This paper inter-alia examines the national dimensions of RTD from the standpoint of state practice in Pakistan and it analyzes the experience of judiciary in the protection and enforcement of RTD. Moreover, the paper highlights the social and cultural challenges to Pakistan in the implementation of RTD and possible solution to improve the conditions of human rights in Pakistan. This paper will also highlight the steps taken by Pakistan regarding the awareness, incorporation, and propagation of RTD at the national level.

Keywords: Globalization, Pakistan, RTD, third-generation right.

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Authors: Moustapha Bande, Hakima Ould-Slimane, Hanifa Boucheneb

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Software development for complex systems requires efficient and automatic tools that can be used to verify the satisfiability of some critical properties such as security ones. With the emergence of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), considerable work has been done in order to better modularize the separation of concerns in the software design and implementation. The goal is to prevent the cross-cutting concerns to be scattered across the multiple modules of the program and tangled with other modules. One of the key challenges in the aspect-oriented programs is to be sure that all the pieces put together at the weaving time ensure the satisfiability of the overall system requirements. Our paper focuses on this problem and proposes a formal property verification approach for a given property from the woven program. The approach is based on the control flow graph (CFG) of the woven program, and the use of a satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) solver to check whether each property (represented par one aspect) is satisfied or not once the weaving is done.

Keywords: Aspect-oriented programming, control flow graph, satisfiability modulo theories, property verification.

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Authors: Cemil Turan, Mohammad Shukri Salman

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The convergence rate of the least-mean-square (LMS) algorithm deteriorates if the input signal to the filter is correlated. In a system identification problem, this convergence rate can be improved if the signal is white and/or if the system is sparse. We recently proposed a sparse transform domain LMS-type algorithm that uses a variable step-size for a sparse system identification. The proposed algorithm provided high performance even if the input signal is highly correlated. In this work, we investigate the performance of the proposed TD-LMS algorithm for a large number of filter tap which is also a critical issue for standard LMS algorithm. Additionally, the optimum value of the most important parameter is calculated for all experiments. Moreover, the convergence analysis of the proposed algorithm is provided. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been compared to different algorithms in a sparse system identification setting of different sparsity levels and different number of filter taps. Simulations have shown that the proposed algorithm has prominent performance compared to the other algorithms.

Keywords: Adaptive filtering, sparse system identification, VSSLMS algorithm, TD-LMS algorithm.

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Authors: Penn P. Wu

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Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) technologies have made it possible for students to experience a virtual on-the-scene or virtual in-person observation of an educational event. In an experimental class, the author uses VR, particularly 360° videos, to virtually engage students in an event, through a wide spectrum of educational resources, such s a virtual “bystander.” Students were able to observe the event as if they were physically on site, although they could not intervene with the scene. The author will describe the adopted equipment, specification, and cost of building them as well as the quality of VR. The author will discuss (a) feasibility, effectiveness, and efficiency of using VR as a supplemental technology to teach college students and criteria and methodologies used by the authors to evaluate them; (b) barriers and issues of technological implementation; and (c) pedagogical practices learned through this experiment. The author also attempts to explore (a) how VR could provide an interactive virtual in-person learning experience; (b) how VR can possibly change traditional college education and online education; (c) how educators and balance six critical factors: cost, time, technology, quality, result, and content.

Keywords: Learning with VR, virtual experience of learning, virtual in-person learning, virtual reality for education.

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Authors: Michalis D. Galanis, Gregory Dimitroulakos, Costas E. Goutis

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Speedups from mapping four real-life DSP applications on an embedded system-on-chip that couples coarsegrained reconfigurable logic with an instruction-set processor are presented. The reconfigurable logic is realized by a 2-Dimensional Array of Processing Elements. A design flow for improving application-s performance is proposed. Critical software parts, called kernels, are accelerated on the Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Array. The kernels are detected by profiling the source code. For mapping the detected kernels on the reconfigurable logic a prioritybased mapping algorithm has been developed. Two 4x4 array architectures, which differ in their interconnection structure among the Processing Elements, are considered. The experiments for eight different instances of a generic system show that important overall application speedups have been reported for the four applications. The performance improvements range from 1.86 to 3.67, with an average value of 2.53, compared with an all-software execution. These speedups are quite close to the maximum theoretical speedups imposed by Amdahl-s law.

Keywords: Reconfigurable computing, Coarse-grained reconfigurable array, Embedded systems, DSP, Performance

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Authors: Abu Bakar Sedek Abdul Jamak, Saridan Abu Bakar, Zulkipli Ghazali, Roselind Wan

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The majority of micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia operate very small-scaled business activities such as food stalls, burger stalls, night market hawkers, grocery stores, constructions, rubber and oil palm small holders, and other agro-based services and activities. Why are they venturing into entrepreneurship - is it for survival, out of interest or due to encouragement and assistance from the local government? And why is it that some micro-entrepreneurs are lagging behind in entrepreneurship, and what do they need to rectify this situation so that they are able to progress further? Furthermore, what are the skills that the micro entrepreneurs should developed to transform them into successful micro-enterprises and become small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)? This paper proposes a 7-Step approach that can serve as a basis for identification of critical entrepreneurial success factors that enable policy makers, practitioners, consultants, training managers and other agencies in developing tools to assist micro business owners. This paper also highlights the experience of one of the successful companies in Malaysia that has transformed from micro-enterprise to become a large organization in less than 10 years.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Micro-entrepreneurs, Transformation, Customers

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Authors: Omid A. Zargar

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In this paper, some common gearboxes vibration analysis methods and condition monitoring systems are explained. In addition, an experimental gearbox vibration analysis is discussed through a critical case history for a mixer gearbox related to Iran oil industry. The case history also consists of gear manufacturing (machining) recommendations, lubrication condition of gearbox and machinery maintenance activities that caused reduction in noise and vibration of the gearbox. Besides some of the recent patents and innovations in gearboxes, lubrication and vibration monitoring systems explained. Finally micro pitting and surface fatigue in pinion and bevel of mentioned horizontal to vertical gearbox discussed in details.

Keywords: Gear box, condition monitoring, time wave form (TWF), fast Fourier transform (FFT), gear mesh frequency (GMF), Shock Pulse measurement (SPM), bearing condition unit (BCU), pinion, bevel gear, micro pitting, surface fatigue.

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Authors: R. Altamimi, G. Skinner, K. Nesbitt

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Encouraging physical activity amongst children and adolescents is becoming an increasingly relevant issue in modern society. Studies have shown that involving children and adolescents in physical activity is essential for their physical, mental and social development. However, with technology playing an increasingly important role in reducing physical work it is becoming more critical to incorporate adequate physical activities into our lives. One way to overcome this problem is to harness technology so that it promotes physical activities, for example, by motivating children and adolescents to exercise more. This paper describes a promising solution to the question of how to increase levels of physical activity in children and adolescents by combining gaming technologies with exercise tracking goals. This research describes a framework called FITTER (Framework for Integrating activity Tracking Technologies for Electronic Recreation) that combines video game play with more traditional, non-computer physical activities.

Keywords: Exergames, Home-based eHealth, Human-computer Interaction, Natural User Interfaces, Wearable Health Informatics.

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Authors: Shih-Wen Hsiao, Chu-Hsuan Lee, Rong-Qi Chen

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When it comes to last, it is regarded as the critical foundation of shoe design and development. Not only the last relates to the comfort of shoes wearing but also it aids the production of shoe styling and manufacturing. In order to enhance the efficiency and application of last development, a computer aided methodology for customized last form designs is proposed in this study. The reverse engineering is mainly applied to the process of scanning for the last form. Then the minimum energy is used for the revision of surface continuity, the surface of the last is reconstructed with the feature curves of the scanned last. When the surface of a last is reconstructed, based on the foundation of the proposed last form reconstruction module, the weighted arithmetic mean method is applied to the calculation on the shape morphing which differs from the grading for the control mesh of last, and the algorithm of subdivision is used to create the surface of last mesh, thus the feet-fitting 3D last form of different sizes is generated from its original form feature with functions remained. Finally, the practicability of the proposed methodology is verified through later case studies.

Keywords: 3D last design, Customization, Reverse engineering, Weighted morphing, Shape blending.

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Authors: Suyoto, Tri Prasetyaningrum

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At this paper, we will present the development of mobile application Social Guidance and Counseling (GC) that called “m-NingBK: Social GC”. The application is used for GC services that run on mobile devices. The application is designed specifically for Junior High School student. The methods are a combination of interactive multimedia approaches and educational psychology. Therefore, the design process is carried out three processes, which are digitizing of material social GC services, visualizing wisely and making interactive. This method is intended to make students not only hear and see but also "do" the virtual. There are five components used in multimedia applications "m-NingBK: Social GC" i.e. text, images / graphics, audio / sound, animation and video. Four menus provided by this application is the potential self, social, Expert System and about. The application is built using the Java programming language. This application was tested using a Smartphone with Android Operating System. Based on the test, people give rating: 16.7% excellent, 61.1% good, 19.4% adequate, and 2.8% poor.

Keywords: Expert Systems, Guidance and Counseling, mobile application, multimedia.

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Authors: Eva Nedeliakova, Juraj Camaj, Jaroslav Masek

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This contribution is focused on the methodology for identifying levels of quality and improving quality through new logistics model in railway transport. It is oriented on the application of dynamic quality models, which represent an innovative method of evaluation quality services. Through this conception, time factor, expected, and perceived quality in each moment of the transportation process within logistics chain can be taken into account. Various models describe the improvement of the quality which emphases the time factor throughout the whole transportation logistics chain. Quality of services in railway transport can be determined by the existing level of service quality, by detecting the causes of dissatisfaction employees but also customers, to uncover strengths and weaknesses. This new logistics model is able to recognize critical processes in logistic chain. It includes service quality rating that must respect its specific properties, which are unrepeatability, impalpability, their use right at the time they are provided and particularly changeability, which is significant factor in the conditions of rail transport as well. These peculiarities influence the quality of service regarding the constantly increasing requirements and that result in new ways of finding progressive attitudes towards the service quality rating.

Keywords: Logistics model, quality, railway transport.

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Authors: Vincent King Soon Wong, Hong Seng Ng, Florinna Sim

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Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) is one of the critical degradation mechanisms in semiconductor device reliability that causes shift in the threshold voltage (Vth). However, thorough understanding of this reliability failure mechanism is still unachievable due to a recovery characteristic known as NBTI recovery. This paper will demonstrate the severity of NBTI recovery as well as one of the effective methods used to mitigate, which is the minimization of measurement system delays. Comparison was done in between two measurement systems that have significant differences in measurement delays to show how NBTI recovery causes result deviations and how fast measurement systems can mitigate NBTI recovery. Another method to minimize NBTI recovery without the influence of measurement system known as Fast Wafer Level Reliability (FWLR) NBTI was also done to be used as reference.

Keywords: Fast vs slow BTI, Fast wafer level reliability, Negative bias temperature instability, NBTI measurement system, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, MOSFET, NBTI recovery, reliability.

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Authors: Ezad Hafidz Hafidzuddin, Roslinda Nazar, Norihan M. Arifin, Ioan Pop

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In this paper, the problem of steady laminar boundary layer flow and heat transfer over a permeable exponentially stretching/shrinking sheet with generalized slip velocity is considered. The similarity transformations are used to transform the governing nonlinear partial differential equations to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The transformed equations are then solved numerically using the bvp4c function in MATLAB. Dual solutions are found for a certain range of the suction and stretching/shrinking parameters. The effects of the suction parameter, stretching/shrinking parameter, velocity slip parameter, critical shear rate and Prandtl number on the skin friction and heat transfer coefficients as well as the velocity and temperature profiles are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Boundary Layer, Exponentially Stretching/Shrinking Sheet, Generalized Slip, Heat Transfer, Numerical Solutions.

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Authors: Seyyed Yasser Hashemi

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Skew detection and correction (SDC) has a direct effect in efficiency and exactitude of documents’ segmentation and analysis and thus is considered as a very important step in documents’ analysis field. Skew is a major problem in documents’ analysis for every language. For Arabic/Persian document scripts this problem is more severe because of special features of these languages. In this paper an efficient and fast algorithm for Document Skew Detection (DSD) based on the concept of segmentation and Center of Gravity (COG) is proposed. This algorithm is examined for 150 Arabic/Persian and English documents and SDC process are done successfully for 93 percent of documents with error rate of less than 1°. This algorithm shows better results for English documents compared to Arabic/Persian documents. The proposed method is also represents favorable results for handwritten, printed and also complicated documents such as newspapers and journals even with very low quality and resolution.

Keywords: Arabic/Persian document, Baseline, Centre of gravity, Document segmentation, Skew detection and correction.

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Authors: V.R Gannapathy, S.K Subramaniam, A.B Mohamad Diah, M.K Suaidi, A.H Hamidon

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The picture of a perfect road construction site is the one that utilizes conventional vertical road signs and a flagman to optimize the traffic flow with minimum hazel to the public. Former research has been carried out by Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) and Ministry of Works to further enhance smoothness in traffic operations and particularly in safety issues within work zones. This paper highlights on hazardous zones in a certain road construction or road maintenance site. Most cases show that the flagman falls into high risk of fatal accidents within work zone. Various measures have been taken by both the authorities and contractors to overcome such miseries, yet it-s impossible to eliminate the usage of a flagman since it is considered the best practice. With the implementation of new technologies in automating the traffic flow in road construction site, it is possible to eliminate the usage of a flagman. The intelligent traffic light system is designed to solve problems which contribute hazardous at road construction site and to be inline with the road safety regulation which is taken into granted.

Keywords: Intelligent Traffic Light, Critical Zones, Safety Regulation, Flagman

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Authors: Hsiang-Wen Hsieh, Chin-Chia Wu, Hung-Hsiu Yu, Shu-Fan Liu

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Localization is one of the critical issues in the field of robot navigation. With an accurate estimate of the robot pose, robots will be capable of navigating in the environment autonomously and efficiently. In this paper, a hybrid Distributed Vision System (DVS) for robot localization is presented. The presented approach integrates odometry data from robot and images captured from overhead cameras installed in the environment to help reduce possibilities of fail localization due to effects of illumination, encoder accumulated errors, and low quality range data. An odometry-based motion model is applied to predict robot poses, and robot images captured by overhead cameras are then used to update pose estimates with HSV histogram-based measurement model. Experiment results show the presented approach could localize robots in a global world coordinate system with localization errors within 100mm.

Keywords: Distributed Vision System, Localization, Measurement model, Motion model

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Authors: Abhay Tawalare, Rajesh Lalwani

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An attempt in this paper proposes a re-modification to the minimum moment approach of resource leveling which is a modified minimum moment approach to the traditional method by Harris. The method is based on critical path method. The new approach suggests the difference between the methods in the selection criteria of activity which needs to be shifted for leveling resource histogram. In traditional method, the improvement factor found first to select the activity for each possible day of shifting. In modified method maximum value of the product of Resources Rate and Free Float was found first and improvement factor is then calculated for that activity which needs to be shifted. In the proposed method the activity to be selected first for shifting is based on the largest value of resource rate. The process is repeated for all the remaining activities for possible shifting to get updated histogram. The proposed method significantly reduces the number of iterations and is easier for manual computations.

Keywords: Re-Modified, Resource Leveling, Resources Rate, Free Float, Resource Histogram

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Authors: Md. Ashikur Rahman Khan, M. M. Rahman

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In electrical discharge machining (EDM), a complete and clear theory has not yet been established. The developed theory (physical models) yields results far from reality due to the complexity of the physics. It is difficult to select proper parameter settings in order to achieve better EDM performance. However, modelling can solve this critical problem concerning the parameter settings. Therefore, the purpose of the present work is to develop mathematical model to predict performance characteristics of EDM on Ti-5Al-2.5Sn titanium alloy. Response surface method (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN) are employed to develop the mathematical models. The developed models are verified through analysis of variance (ANOVA). The ANN models are trained, tested, and validated utilizing a set of data. It is found that the developed ANN and mathematical model can predict performance of EDM effectively. Thus, the model has found a precise tool that turns EDM process cost-effective and more efficient.

Keywords: Analysis of variance, artificial neural network, material removal rate, modelling, response surface method, surface finish.

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Authors: A. H. M. Faisal Anwar

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In this study, the effect of greywater irrigation on airwater interfacial area is investigated. Several soil column experiments were conducted for different greywater irrigation to develop the pressure-saturation curves. Surface tension was measured for different greywater concentration and fitted for Gibbs adsorption equation. Pressure-saturation curves show that the reduction of capillary rise stops when it reaches its critical micelle concentration (CMC). A simple theory is derived from pressure-saturation curves for calculating air-water interfacial area in porous medium during greywater irrigation by introducing a term 'hydraulic radius' for the pores. This term diminishes any effect of pore shapes on the air-water interfacial area. The air-water interfacial area was calculated using the pressure-saturation curves and found that it decreases with increasing moisture content. But no significant effect was observed on air-water interfacial area for different greywater irrigation. A maximum of 10% variation in interfacial area was observed at the residual saturation zone.

Keywords: Greywater, Irrigation, Interfacial area, Surface tension, Porous medium.

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Authors: Oliver Ohneiser, Francesca De Crescenzio, Gianluca Di Flumeri, Jan Kraemer, Bruno Berberian, Sara Bagassi, Nicolina Sciaraffa, Pietro Aricò, Gianluca Borghini, Fabio Babiloni

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An increasing degree of automation in air traffic will also change the role of the air traffic controller (ATCO). ATCOs will fulfill significantly more monitoring tasks compared to today. However, this rather passive role may lead to Out-Of-The-Loop (OOTL) effects comprising vigilance decrement and less situation awareness. The project MINIMA (Mitigating Negative Impacts of Monitoring high levels of Automation) has conceived a system to control and mitigate such OOTL phenomena. In order to demonstrate the MINIMA concept, an experimental simulation set-up has been designed. This set-up consists of two parts: 1) a Task Environment (TE) comprising a Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) simulator as well as 2) a Vigilance and Attention Controller (VAC) based on neurophysiological data recording such as electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking devices. The current vigilance level and the attention focus of the controller are measured during the ATCO’s active work in front of the human machine interface (HMI). The derived vigilance level and attention trigger adaptive automation functionalities in the TE to avoid OOTL effects. This paper describes the full-scale experimental set-up and the component development work towards it. Hence, it encompasses a pre-test whose results influenced the development of the VAC as well as the functionalities of the final TE and the two VAC’s sub-components.

Keywords: Automation, human factors, air traffic controller, MINIMA, OOTL, Out-Of-The-Loop, EEG, electroencephalography, HMI, human machine interface.

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Authors: Amer M. Momani, Abdulaziz A. Ahmed

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The many feasible alternatives and conflicting objectives make equipment selection in materials handling a complicated task. This paper presents utilizing Monte Carlo (MC) simulation combined with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate and select the most appropriate Material Handling Equipment (MHE). The proposed hybrid model was built on the base of material handling equation to identify main and sub criteria critical to MHE selection. The criteria illustrate the properties of the material to be moved, characteristics of the move, and the means by which the materials will be moved. The use of MC simulation beside the AHP is very powerful where it allows the decision maker to represent his/her possible preference judgments as random variables. This will reduce the uncertainty of single point judgment at conventional AHP, and provide more confidence in the decision problem results. A small business pharmaceutical company is used as an example to illustrate the development and application of the proposed model.

Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Materialhandling equipment selection, Monte Carlo simulation, Multi-criteriadecision making

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Authors: Dolores Hidalgo, Jesús M. Martín-Marroquín, Francisco Corona

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Municipal waste consist of a variety of items that are everyday discarded by the population. They are usually collected by municipalities and include waste generated by households, commercial activities (local shops) and public buildings. The composition of municipal waste varies greatly from place to place, being mostly related to levels and patterns of consumption, rates of urbanization, lifestyles, and local or national waste management practices. Each year, a huge amount of resources is consumed in the EU, and according to that, also a huge amount of waste is produced. The environmental problems derived from the management and processing of these waste streams are well known, and include impacts on land, water and air. The situation in remote areas is even worst. Difficult access when climatic conditions are adverse, remoteness of centralized municipal treatment systems or dispersion of the population, are all factors that make remote areas a real municipal waste treatment challenge. Furthermore, the scope of the problem increases significantly because the total lack of awareness of the existing risks in this area together with the poor implementation of advanced culture on waste minimization and recycling responsibly. The aim of this work is to analyze the existing situation in remote areas in reference to the production of municipal waste and evaluate the efficiency of different management alternatives. Ideas for improving waste management in remote areas include, for example: the implementation of self-management systems for the organic fraction; establish door-to-door collection models; promote small-scale treatment facilities or adjust the rates of waste generation thereof.

Keywords: Door to door collection, islands, isolated areas, municipal waste, remote areas, rural communities.

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Authors: Jun Sung Go, Jong Kang Park, Jong Tae Kim

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As semi-conductor manufacturing technology evolves; the single event transient problem becomes more significant issue. Single event transient has a critical impact on both combinational and sequential logic circuits, so it is important to evaluate the soft error tolerance of the circuits at the design stage. In this paper, we present a soft error detecting simulation using scan chain. The simulation model generates a single event transient randomly in the circuit, and detects the soft error during the execution of the test patterns. We verified this model by inserting a scan chain in an 8051 microprocessor using 65 nm CMOS technology. While the test patterns generated by ATPG program are passing through the scan chain, we insert a single event transient and detect the number of soft errors per sub-module. The experiments show that the soft error rates per cell area of the SFR module is 277% larger than other modules.

Keywords: Scan chain, single event transient, soft error, 8051 processor.

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Authors: S. Huber, B. Schnalzer, B. Alcalde, S. Hanke, L. Mpaltadoros, T. G. Stavropoulos, S. Nikolopoulos, I. Kompatsiaris, L. Pérez-Breva, V. Rodrigo-Casares, J. Fons-Martínez, J. de Bruin

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Developing new medicine and health solutions and improving patient health currently rely on the successful execution of clinical trials, which generate relevant safety and efficacy data. For their success, recruitment and retention of participants are some of the most challenging aspects of protocol adherence. Main barriers include: i) lack of awareness of clinical trials; ii) long distance from the clinical site; iii) the burden on participants, including the duration and number of clinical visits, and iv) high dropout rate. Most of these aspects could be addressed with a new paradigm, namely the Remote Decentralized Clinical Trials (RDCTs). Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted additional advantages and challenges for RDCTs in practice, allowing participants to join trials from home and not depending on site visits, etc. Nevertheless, RDCTs should follow the process and the quality assurance of conventional clinical trials, which involve several processes. For each part of the trial, the Building Blocks, existing software and technologies were assessed through a systematic search. The technology needed to perform RDCTs is widely available and validated but is yet segmented and developed in silos, as different software solutions address different parts of the trial and at various levels. The current paper is analyzing the availability of technology to perform RDCTs, identifying gaps and providing an overview of Basic Building Blocks and functionalities that need to be covered to support the described processes.

Keywords: architectures and frameworks for health informatics systems, clinical trials, information and communications technology, remote decentralized clinical trials, technology availability

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Authors: Abbas Al-Refaie

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This paper aims at improving the performance of the tableting process using statistical quality control and fuzzy goal programming. The tableting process was studied. Statistical control tools were used to characterize the existing process for three critical responses including the averages of a tablet’s weight, hardness, and thickness. At initial process factor settings, the estimated process capability index values for the tablet’s averages of weight, hardness, and thickness were 0.58, 3.36, and 0.88, respectively. The L₉ array was utilized to provide experimentation design. Fuzzy goal programming was then employed to find the combination of optimal factor settings. Optimization results showed that the process capability index values for a tablet’s averages of weight, hardness, and thickness were improved to 1.03, 4.42, and 1.42, respectively. Such improvements resulted in significant savings in quality and production costs.

Keywords: Fuzzy goal programming, control charts, process capability, tablet optimization.

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Authors: B. Safsaf, M. Tlidjane, B. Mamache, M. A. Dehimi, H. Boukrous, Aly A. Hassan

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The aim of this study is to determine the effect of age and physiological status on progesterone and energy metabolism of Ouled Djellal (O.D) breed ewes. 40 healthy ewes were divided into two groups, primiparous and multiparous, with 20 ewes in each group. The body weights (BW) (Kg) were 46.6 ± 4.20 and 59.2 ± 3.02, and consuming less 25 to 30% of their basal energetic requirements. The values of serum glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol were lower in pregnant than in non-pregnant ewes. The high to very high significant differences were found during the 15th week of pregnancy for glycaemia and triglyceridemia respectively. Concerning serum progesterone, a very highly significant difference (p<0.001) was noted in the pregnant group, and the values were higher in MP than in PP. After lambing, the triglyceridemia values were slightly lower in primiparous than in multiparous pregnant ewes. In order to prevent imbalance during critical periods of reproduction, we can use the serum metabolic profile.

Keywords: Age, Energy metabolites, Ouled Djellal breed ewes, Physiologic status, Progesterone.

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Authors: C. Kwan, X. Li, D. Lao, Y. Deng, Z. Ren, B. Raj, R. Singh, R. Stern

Abstract:

Automated operations based on voice commands will become more and more important in many applications, including robotics, maintenance operations, etc. However, voice command recognition rates drop quite a lot under non-stationary and chaotic noise environments. In this paper, we tried to significantly improve the speech recognition rates under non-stationary noise environments. First, 298 Navy acronyms have been selected for automatic speech recognition. Data sets were collected under 4 types of noisy environments: factory, buccaneer jet, babble noise in a canteen, and destroyer. Within each noisy environment, 4 levels (5 dB, 15 dB, 25 dB, and clean) of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) were introduced to corrupt the speech. Second, a new algorithm to estimate speech or no speech regions has been developed, implemented, and evaluated. Third, extensive simulations were carried out. It was found that the combination of the new algorithm, the proper selection of language model and a customized training of the speech recognizer based on clean speech yielded very high recognition rates, which are between 80% and 90% for the four different noisy conditions. Fourth, extensive comparative studies have also been carried out.

Keywords: Non-stationary, speech recognition, voice commands.

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Authors: Mohamed Amine Ouddan, Hassane Essafi

Abstract:

Source code retrieval is of immense importance in the software engineering field. The complex tasks of retrieving and extracting information from source code documents is vital in the development cycle of the large software systems. The two main subtasks which result from these activities are code duplication prevention and plagiarism detection. In this paper, we propose a Mohamed Amine Ouddan, and Hassane Essafi source code retrieval system based on two-level fingerprint representation, respectively the structural and the semantic information within a source code. A sequence alignment technique is applied on these fingerprints in order to quantify the similarity between source code portions. The specific purpose of the system is to detect plagiarism and duplicated code between programs written in different programming languages belonging to the same class, such as C, Cµ, Java and CSharp. These four languages are supported by the actual version of the system which is designed such that it may be easily adapted for any programming language.

Keywords: Source code retrieval, plagiarism detection, clonedetection, sequence alignment.

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Authors: R. Govender, D. Naidoo, E. M. Buys

Abstract:

The importance of ensuring safe meat handling and processing practices has been demonstrated in global reports on food safety scares and related illness and deaths. This necessitated stricter meat safety control strategies. Today, many countries have regulated towards preventative and systematic control over safe meat processing at abattoirs utilizing the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles. HACCP systems have been reported as effective in managing food safety risks, if correctly implemented. South Africa has regulated the Hygiene Management System (HMS) based on HACCP principles applicable to abattoirs. Regulators utilise the Hygiene Assessment System (HAS) to audit compliance at abattoirs. These systems were benchmarked from the United Kingdom (UK). Little research has been done them since inception as of 2004. This paper presents a review of the two systems, its implementation and comparison with HACCP. Recommendations are made for future research to demonstrate the utility of the HMS and HAS in assuring safe meat to consumers.

Keywords: Abattoir, co-regulation, food safety, HACCP, meat hygiene.

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