Search results for: local specific area
3243 Rapid Monitoring of Earthquake Damages Using Optical and SAR Data
Authors: Saeid Gharechelou, Ryutaro Tateishi
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Earthquake is an inevitable catastrophic natural disaster. The damages of buildings and man-made structures, where most of the human activities occur are the major cause of casualties from earthquakes. A comparison of optical and SAR data is presented in the case of Kathmandu valley which was hardly shaken by 2015-Nepal Earthquake. Though many existing researchers have conducted optical data based estimated or suggested combined use of optical and SAR data for improved accuracy, however finding cloud-free optical images when urgently needed are not assured. Therefore, this research is specializd in developing SAR based technique with the target of rapid and accurate geospatial reporting. Should considers that limited time available in post-disaster situation offering quick computation exclusively based on two pairs of pre-seismic and co-seismic single look complex (SLC) images. The InSAR coherence pre-seismic, co-seismic and post-seismic was used to detect the change in damaged area. In addition, the ground truth data from field applied to optical data by random forest classification for detection of damaged area. The ground truth data collected in the field were used to assess the accuracy of supervised classification approach. Though a higher accuracy obtained from the optical data then integration by optical-SAR data. Limitation of cloud-free images when urgently needed for earthquak evevent are and is not assured, thus further research on improving the SAR based damage detection is suggested. Availability of very accurate damage information is expected for channelling the rescue and emergency operations. It is expected that the quick reporting of the post-disaster damage situation quantified by the rapid earthquake assessment should assist in channeling the rescue and emergency operations, and in informing the public about the scale of damage.
Keywords: Sentinel-1A data, Landsat-8, earthquake damage, InSAR, rapid monitoring, 2015-Nepal earthquake.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10313242 Face Recognition Using Discrete Orthogonal Hahn Moments
Authors: Fatima Akhmedova, Simon Liao
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One of the most critical decision points in the design of a face recognition system is the choice of an appropriate face representation. Effective feature descriptors are expected to convey sufficient, invariant and non-redundant facial information. In this work we propose a set of Hahn moments as a new approach for feature description. Hahn moments have been widely used in image analysis due to their invariance, nonredundancy and the ability to extract features either globally and locally. To assess the applicability of Hahn moments to Face Recognition we conduct two experiments on the Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) database and University of Notre-Dame (UND) X1 biometric collection. Fusion of the global features along with the features from local facial regions are used as an input for the conventional k-NN classifier. The method reaches an accuracy of 93% of correctly recognized subjects for the ORL database and 94% for the UND database.Keywords: Face Recognition, Hahn moments, Recognition-by-parts, Time-lapse.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17613241 Comparative Parametric Analysis on the Dynamic Response of Fibre Composite Beams with Debonding
Authors: Indunil Jayatilake, Warna Karunasena
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Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites enjoy an array of applications ranging from aerospace, marine and military to automobile, recreational and civil industry due to their outstanding properties. A structural glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite sandwich panel made from E-glass fiber skin and a modified phenolic core has been manufactured in Australia for civil engineering applications. One of the major mechanisms of damage in FRP composites is skin-core debonding. The presence of debonding is of great concern not only because it severely affects the strength but also it modifies the dynamic characteristics of the structure, including natural frequency and vibration modes. This paper deals with the investigation of the dynamic characteristics of a GFRP beam with single and multiple debonding by finite element based numerical simulations and analyses using the STRAND7 finite element (FE) software package. Three-dimensional computer models have been developed and numerical simulations were done to assess the dynamic behavior. The FE model developed has been validated with published experimental, analytical and numerical results for fully bonded as well as debonded beams. A comparative analysis is carried out based on a comprehensive parametric investigation. It is observed that the reduction in natural frequency is more affected by single debonding than the equally sized multiple debonding regions located symmetrically to the single debonding position. Thus it is revealed that a large single debonding area leads to more damage in terms of natural frequency reduction than isolated small debonding zones of equivalent area, appearing in the GFRP beam. Furthermore, the extents of natural frequency shifts seem mode-dependent and do not seem to have a monotonous trend of increasing with the mode numbers.
Keywords: Debonding, dynamic response, finite element modelling, FRP beams.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4973240 Adaptive PID Control of Wind Energy Conversion Systems Using RASP1 Mother Wavelet Basis Function Networks
Authors: M. Sedighizadeh, A. Rezazadeh
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In this paper a PID control strategy using neural network adaptive RASP1 wavelet for WECS-s control is proposed. It is based on single layer feedforward neural networks with hidden nodes of adaptive RASP1 wavelet functions controller and an infinite impulse response (IIR) recurrent structure. The IIR is combined by cascading to the network to provide double local structure resulting in improving speed of learning. This particular neuro PID controller assumes a certain model structure to approximately identify the system dynamics of the unknown plant (WECS-s) and generate the control signal. The results are applied to a typical turbine/generator pair, showing the feasibility of the proposed solution.Keywords: Adaptive PID Control, RASP1 Wavelets, WindEnergy Conversion Systems.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19793239 Assessing the Impact of Quinoa Cultivation Adopted to Produce a Secure Food Crop and Poverty Reduction by Farmers in Rural Pakistan
Authors: Ejaz Ashraf, Raheel Babar, Muhammad Yaseen, Hafiz Khurram Shurjeel, Nosheen Fatima
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Main purpose of this study was to assess adoption level of farmers for quinoa cultivation after they had been taught through training and visit extension approach. At this time of the 21st century, population structure, climate change, food requirements and eating habits of people are changing rapidly. In this scenario, farmers must play their key role in sustainable crop development and production through adoption of new crops that may also be helpful to overcome the issue of food insecurity as well as reducing poverty in rural areas. Its cultivation in Pakistan is at the early stages and there is a need to raise awareness among farmers to grow quinoa crops. In the middle of the 2015, a training and visit extension approach was used to raise awareness and convince farmers to grow quinoa in the area. During training and visit extension program, 80 farmers were randomly selected for the training of quinoa cultivation. Later on, these farmers trained 60 more farmers living into their neighborhood. After six months, a survey was conducted with all 140 farmers to assess the impact of the training and visit program on adoption level of respondents for the quinoa crop. The survey instrument was developed with the help of literature review and other experts of the crop. Validity and reliability of the instrument were checked before complete data collection. The data were analyzed by using SPSS. Multiple regression analysis was used for interpretation of the results from the survey, which indicated that factors like information/ training, change in agronomic and plant protection practices play a key role in the adoption of quinoa cultivation by respondents. In addition, the model explains more than 50% of variation in the adoption level of respondents. It is concluded that farmers need timely information for improved knowledge of agronomic and plant protection practices to adopt cultivation of the quinoa crop in the area.
Keywords: Farmers, quinoa, adoption, contact, training and visit.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8973238 Mitigation of Radiation Levels for Base Transceiver Stations based on ITU-T Recommendation K.70
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This essay presents applicative methods to reduce human exposure levels in the area around base transceiver stations in a environment with multiple sources based on ITU-T recommendation K.70. An example is presented to understand the mitigation techniques and their results and also to learn how they can be applied, especially in developing countries where there is not much research on non-ionizing radiations.
Keywords: Electromagnetic fields (EMF), human exposure limits, intentional radiator, cumulative exposure ratio, base transceiver station (BTS), radiation levels.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26723237 Cross-Cultural Strategies for Web Design
Authors: Armando Calabrese, Guendalina Capece, Michele Corbò, Nathan Levialdi Ghiron, Matteo M. Marucchi
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People from different cultures favor web pages characterized by the values of their culture and, therefore, tend to prefer different characteristics of a website according to their cultural values in terms of navigation, security, product information, customer service, shopping and design tools. For a company aiming to globalize its market it is useful to implement country specific cultural interfaces and different web sites for countries with different cultures. This paper, following the conclusions proposed by two models of Hall and Hofstede, and the studies of Marcus and Gould, defines, through an empirical analysis, the guidelines of web design for both the Scandinavian countries and Malaysia.Keywords: Cultural dimensions, cultural markers, Hofstede, web design, web marketing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34603236 Thermodynamic Study for Aggregation Behavior of Hydrotropic Solution
Authors: Meghal Desai, Jigisha Parikh
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Aggregation behavior of sodium salicylate and sodium cumene sulfonate was studied in aqueous solution at different temperature. Specific conductivity and relative viscosity were measured at different temperature to find minimum hydrotropic concentration. The thermodynamic parameters (free energy, enthalpy and entropy) were evaluated in the temperature range of 30°C-70°C. The free energy decreased with increase in temperature. The aggregation was found to be exothermic in nature and favored by positive value of entropy.
Keywords: Hydrotropes, Enthalpy, Entropy, Free Energy, Minimum Hydrotropic Concentration.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19833235 A Robust Implementation of a Building Resources Access Rights Management System
Authors: E. Neagoe, V. Balanica
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A Smart Building Controller (SBC) is a server software that offers secured access to a pool of building specific resources, executes monitoring tasks and performs automatic administration of a building, thus optimizing the exploitation cost and maximizing comfort. This paper brings to discussion the issues that arise with the secure exploitation of the SBC administered resources and proposes a technical solution to implement a robust secure access system based on roles, individual rights and privileges (special rights).
Keywords: Access authorization, smart building controller, software security, access rights.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18863234 Analysis of Heart Beat Dynamics through Singularity Spectrum
Authors: Harish Kumar, Hussein Yahia, Oriol Pont, Michel Haissaguerre, Nicolas Derval, Meleze Hocini
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The analysis to detect arrhythmias and life-threatening conditions are highly essential in today world and this analysis can be accomplished by advanced non-linear processing methods for accurate analysis of the complex signals of heartbeat dynamics. In this perspective, recent developments in the field of multiscale information content have lead to the Microcanonical Multiscale Formalism (MMF). We show that such framework provides several signal analysis techniques that are especially adapted to the study of heartbeat dynamics. In this paper, we just show first hand results of whether the considered heartbeat dynamics signals have the multiscale properties by computing local preticability exponents (LPEs) and the Unpredictable Points Manifold (UPM), and thereby computing the singularity spectrum.Keywords: Microcanonical Multiscale Formalism (MMF), UnpredictablePoints Manifold (UPM), Heartbeat Dynamics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15023233 eTax Filing and Service Quality: The Case of the Revenue Online Service
Authors: Regina Connolly, Frank Bannister
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This paper describes an ongoing study into the quality of service provided by the Irish Revenue Commisioners- online tax filing and collection system. The Irish Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) site has won several awards. In this study, a version of the widely use SERVQUAL measuring instrument, adapted for use with online services, has been modified for the specific case of ROS. In this paper, the theory behind this instrument is set out, the particular problems of evaluating revenue collecting online are examined and the rationale for this approach is explained.
Keywords: E-service quality, revenue online system, online tax filing system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25303232 Development and Validation of an Instrument Measuring the Coping Strategies in Situations of Stress
Authors: Lucie Côté, Martin Lauzier, Guy Beauchamp, France Guertin
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Stress causes deleterious effects to the physical, psychological and organizational levels, which highlight the need to use effective coping strategies to deal with it. Several coping models exist, but they don’t integrate the different strategies in a coherent way nor do they take into account the new research on the emotional coping and acceptance of the stressful situation. To fill these gaps, an integrative model incorporating the main coping strategies was developed. This model arises from the review of the scientific literature on coping and from a qualitative study carried out among workers with low or high levels of stress, as well as from an analysis of clinical cases. The model allows one to understand under what circumstances the strategies are effective or ineffective and to learn how one might use them more wisely. It includes Specific Strategies in controllable situations (the Modification of the Situation and the Resignation-Disempowerment), Specific Strategies in non-controllable situations (Acceptance and Stubborn Relentlessness) as well as so-called General Strategies (Wellbeing and Avoidance). This study is intended to undertake and present the process of development and validation of an instrument to measure coping strategies based on this model. An initial pool of items has been generated from the conceptual definitions and three expert judges have validated the content. Of these, 18 items have been selected for a short form questionnaire. A sample of 300 students and employees from a Quebec university was used for the validation of the questionnaire. Concerning the reliability of the instrument, the indices observed following the inter-rater agreement (Krippendorff’s alpha) and the calculation of the coefficients for internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) are satisfactory. To evaluate the construct validity, a confirmatory factor analysis using MPlus supports the existence of a model with six factors. The results of this analysis suggest also that this configuration is superior to other alternative models. The correlations show that the factors are only loosely related to each other. Overall, the analyses carried out suggest that the instrument has good psychometric qualities and demonstrates the relevance of further work to establish predictive validity and reconfirm its structure. This instrument will help researchers and clinicians better understand and assess coping strategies to cope with stress and thus prevent mental health issues.
Keywords: Acceptance, coping strategies, measurement instrument, questionnaire, stress, validation process.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8983231 Experimental Observation on Air-Conditioning Using Radiant Chilled Ceiling in Hot Humid Climate
Authors: Ashmin Aryal, Pipat Chaiwiwatworakul, Surapong Chirarattananon
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Radiant chilled ceiling (RCC) has been perceived to save more energy and provide better thermal comfort than the traditional air conditioning system. However, its application has been rather limited by some reasons e.g., the scarce information about the thermal characteristic in the radiant room and the local climate influence on the system performance, etc. To bridge such gap, an office-like experiment room with a RCC was constructed in the hot and humid climate of Thailand. This paper presents exemplarily results from the RCC experiments to give an insight into the thermal environment in a radiant room and the cooling load associated to maintain the room's comfort condition. It gave a demonstration of the RCC system operation for its application to achieve thermal comfort in offices in a hot humid climate, as well.
Keywords: Radiant chilled ceiling, thermal comfort, cooling load, outdoor air unit.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4743230 Economic Impact of Rana Plaza Collapse
Authors: Md. Omar Bin Harun Khan
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The collapse of the infamous Rana Plaza, a multi-storeyed commercial building in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh has brought with it a plethora of positive and negative consequences. Bangladesh being a key player in the export of clothing, found itself amidst a wave of economic upheaval following this tragic incident that resulted in numerous Bangladeshis, most of whom were factory workers. This paper compares the consequences that the country’s Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector is facing now, two years into the incident. The paper presents a comparison of statistical data from study reports and brings forward perspectives from all dimensions of Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations in Bangladesh following the event. The paper brings across the viewpoint of donor organizations and donor countries, the impacts of several initiatives taken by foreign organizations like the International Labour Organization, and local entities like the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) in order to reinforce compliance and stabilize the shaky foundation that the RMG sector had found itself following the collapse. Focus of the paper remains on the stance taken by the suppliers in Bangladesh, with inputs from buying houses and factories, and also on the reaction of foreign brands. The paper also focuses on the horrific physical, mental and financial implications sustained by the victims and their families, and the consequent uproar from workers in general regarding compliance with work safety and workers’ welfare conditions. The purpose is to get across both sides of the scenario: the economic impact that suppliers / factories/ sellers/ buying houses/exporters have faced in Bangladesh as a result of complete loss of reliability on them regarding working standards; and also to cover the aftershock felt on the other end of the spectrum by the importers/ buyers, particularly the foreign entities, in terms of the sudden accountability of being affiliated with non- compliant factories. The collapse of Rana Plaza has received vast international attention and strong criticism. Nevertheless, the almost immediate strengthening of labourrights and the wholesale reform undertaken on all sides of the supply chain, evidence a move of all local and foreign stakeholders towards greater compliance and taking of precautionary steps for prevention of further disasters. The tragedy that Rana Plaza embodies served as a much-needed epiphany for the soaring RMG Sector of Bangladesh. Prompt co-operation on the part of all stakeholders and regulatory bodies now show a move towards sustainable development, which further ensures safeguarding against any future irregularities and pave the way for steady economic growth.
Keywords: Economy, employment standards, Ranaplaza, RMG.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 45023229 A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization-Nelder- Mead Algorithm (PSO-NM) for Nelson-Siegel- Svensson Calibration
Authors: Sofia Ayouche, Rachid Ellaia, Rajae Aboulaich
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Today, insurers may use the yield curve as an indicator evaluation of the profit or the performance of their portfolios; therefore, they modeled it by one class of model that has the ability to fit and forecast the future term structure of interest rates. This class of model is the Nelson-Siegel-Svensson model. Unfortunately, many authors have reported a lot of difficulties when they want to calibrate the model because the optimization problem is not convex and has multiple local optima. In this context, we implement a hybrid Particle Swarm optimization and Nelder Mead algorithm in order to minimize by least squares method, the difference between the zero-coupon curve and the NSS curve.Keywords: Optimization, zero-coupon curve, Nelson-Siegel- Svensson, Particle Swarm Optimization, Nelder-Mead Algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14693228 EnArgus: A Knowledge-Based Search Application for Energy Research Projects
Authors: Frederike Ohrem, Lukas Sikorski, Bastian Haarmann
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Often the users of a semantic search application are facing the problem that they do not find appropriate terms for their search. This holds especially if the data to be searched is from a technical field in which the user does not have expertise. In order to support the user finding the results he seeks, we developed a domain-specific ontology and implemented it into a search application. The ontology serves as a knowledge base, suggesting technical terms to the user which he can add to his query. In this paper, we present the search application and the underlying ontology as well as the project EnArgus in which the application was developed.
Keywords: Information system, knowledge representation, ontology, semantic search.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17123227 Burden Sharing in Combating Terrorist Financing
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This paper contributes to the literature concerning burden sharing. We provide a quantitative expression of the burden sharing behaviour of 174 states in the case of combating terrorist financing and address specific burden sharing issues in this context (i.e., weakest link; no substitutability). We conclude that advanced states have shown more effort to control terrorist financing than developing states. In this particular case, there is an incentive for advanced states to support developing states. Failing to do so will make the total financial system worse off.
Keywords: Burden sharing, combating terrorist financing, weakest link.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18453226 Simulating Pathogen Transport with in a Naturally Ventilated Hospital Ward
Authors: C. A. Gilkeson, C. J. Noakes, P. A. Sleigh, M. A. I. Khan, M. A. Camargo-Valero
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Understanding how airborne pathogens are transported through hospital wards is essential for determining the infection risk to patients and healthcare workers. This study utilizes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations to explore possible pathogen transport within a six-bed partitioned Nightingalestyle hospital ward. Grid independence of a ward model was addressed using the Grid Convergence Index (GCI) from solutions obtained using three fullystructured grids. Pathogens were simulated using source terms in conjunction with a scalar transport equation and a RANS turbulence model. Errors were found to be less than 4% in the calculation of air velocities but an average of 13% was seen in the scalar field. A parametric study of variations in the pathogen release point illustrated that its distribution is strongly influenced by the local velocity field and the degree of air mixing present.Keywords: Natural, Ventilation, Pathogen, Transport
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14743225 Interactive Fuzzy Multi-objective Programming in Land Re-organisational Planning for Sustainable Rural Development
Authors: Bijaya Krushna Mangaraj, Deepak Kumar Das
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Sustainability in rural production system can only be achieved if it can suitably satisfy the local requirement as well as the outside demand with the changing time. With the increased pressure from the food sector in a globalised world, the agrarian economy needs to re-organise its cultivable land system to be compatible with new management practices as well as the multiple needs of various stakeholders and the changing resource scenario. An attempt has been made to transform this problem into a multi-objective decisionmaking problem considering various objectives, resource constraints and conditional constraints. An interactive fuzzy multi-objective programming approach has been used for such a purpose taking a case study in Indian context to demonstrate the validity of the method.Keywords: Land re-organisation, Crop planning, Multiobjective Decision-Making, Fuzzy Goal Programming.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14393224 Nascent Federalism in Nepal: An Observational Review in Its Evolution
Authors: Shekhar Parajulee
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Nepal practiced a centralized unitary governing system for long and has gone through the federal system after the promulgation of the new constitution on 20 September 2015. There is a big paradigm shift in terms of governance after it. Now, there are three levels of governments, one federal government in the center, seven provincial governments and 753 local governments. Federalism refers to a political governing system with multiple tiers of government working together with coordination. It is preferred for self and shared rule. Though it has opened the door for rights of the people, political stability, state restructuring, and sustainable peace and development, there are many prospects and challenges for its proper implementation. This research analyzes the discourses of federalism implementation in Nepal with special reference to one of seven provinces, Gandaki. Federalism is a new phenomenon in Nepali politics and informed debates on it are required for its right evolution. This research will add value in this regard. Moreover, tracking its evolution and the exploration of the attitudes and behaviors of key actors and stakeholders in a new experiment of a new governing system is also important. The administrative and political system of Gandaki province in terms of service delivery and development will critically be examined. Besides demonstrating the performances of the provincial government and assembly, it will analyze the inter-governmental relation of Gandaki with the other two tiers of government. For this research, people from provincial and local governments (elected representatives and government employees), provincial assembly members, academicians, civil society leaders and journalists are being interviewed. The interview findings will be analyzed by supplementing with published documents. Just going into the federal structure is not the solution. As in the case of other provincial governments, Gandaki also had to start from scratch. It gradually took a shape of government and has been functioning sluggishly. The provincial government has many challenges ahead, which has badly hindered its plans and actions. Additionally, fundamental laws, infrastructures and human resources are found to be insufficient at the sub-national level. Lack of clarity in the jurisdiction is another main challenge. The Nepali Constitution assumes cooperation, coexistence and coordination as the fundamental principles of federalism which, unfortunately, appear to be lacking among the three tiers of government despite their efforts. Though the devolution of power to sub-national governments is essential for the successful implementation of federalism, it has apparently been delayed due to the centralized mentality of bureaucracy as well as a political leader. This research will highlight the reasons for the delay in the implementation of federalism. There might be multiple underlying reasons for the slow pace of implementation of federalism and identifying them is very tough. Moreover, the federal spirit is found to be absent in the main players of today's political system, which is a big irony. So, there are some doubts about whether the federal system in Nepal is just a keepsake or a substantive achievement.
Keywords: federalism, inter-governmental relations, Nepal, provincial government
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7223223 The Impact of Selected Economic Indicators for the Development of Zlin Region in the Czech Republic
Authors: D. Charvatova, Z. Charvat
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This article considers with the influence of selected economic indicators for the development of the Zlin region. Development of the region is mainly influenced by business entities which are located in the region, as well as investors who contribute to the development of regions. For the development of the region it is necessary for skilled workers remain in the region and not to leave these skilled workers. The above-mentioned and other factors are affecting the development of each region.
Keywords: Macroeconomic indicators, population, the overallincrease in population, location and area, territory, Zlin Region.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11383222 Walkability as a Strategy towards Inclusive Communities: Case of a Portuguese Small Town
Authors: Miguel Amado, João Freitas, Eveline Rodrigues, Rosario Ribeiro
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The United Nations has defined the inclusive community as “…promoting growth with equity, a place where everyone, regardless of their economic means, gender, race, ethnicity or religion, is enabled and empowered to fully participate in the social, economic and political opportunities that cities have to offer”. In this paper, the concept of walkability is viewed as an important tool towards the planning and future development of more inclusive communities. Walking is the cheapest and cleanest mode of travel available to all providing large benefits to both health and local economic development. To demonstrate the validity of this strategy a set of parameters, selected from existing research, were measure, compared and discussed in the existing and proposed scenarios of a Portuguese small town using GIS software.
Keywords: GIS, Inclusiveness, Planning, Sustainability, Walkability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18483221 The Influence of the Commons Structure Modification on the Allocation
Authors: Oana Pop, Constantin Barbulescu, Mircea Nemes, Stefan Kilyeni
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The tracing methods determine the contribution the power system sources have in their supplying. The methods can be used to assess the transmission prices, but also to recover the transmission fixed cost. In this paper is presented the influence of the modification of commons structure has on the specific price of transfer. The operator must make use of a few basic principles about allocation. Most tracing methods are based on the proportional sharing principle. In this paper Kirschen method is used. In order to illustrate this method, the 25- bus test system is used, elaborated within the Electrical Power Engineering Department, from Timisoara, Romania.Keywords: Power systems, P-U bus, P-Q bus, tracing methods.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12913220 Surgery Scheduling Using Simulation with Arena
Authors: J. A. López, C.I. López, J.E. Olguín, C. Camargo, J. M. López
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The institutions seek to improve their performance and quality of service, so that their patients are satisfied. This research project aims, conduct a time study program in the area of gynecological surgery, to determine the current level of capacity and optimize the programming time in order to adequately respond to demand. The system is analyzed by waiting lines and uses the simulation using ARENA to evaluate proposals for improvement and optimization programming time each of the surgeries.
Keywords: Time study, waiting lines, reducing time, simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27333219 Penetration Analysis for Composites Applicable to Military Vehicle Armors, Aircraft Engines and Nuclear Power Plant Structures
Authors: Dong Wook Lee
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This paper describes a method for analyzing penetration for composite material using an explicit nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This method may be used in the early stage of design for the protection of military vehicles, aircraft engines and nuclear power plant structures made of composite materials. This paper deals with simple ballistic penetration tests for composite materials and the FEA modeling method and results. The FEA was performed to interpret the ballistic field test phenomenon regarding the damage propagation in the structure subjected to local foreign object impact.
Keywords: Computer Aided Engineering, CAE, Finite Element Analysis, FEA, impact analysis, penetration analysis, composite material.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5873218 Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Reputation: A Bibliometric Analysis
Authors: Songdi Li, Louise Spry, Tony Woodall
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Nowadays, Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a buzz word, and more and more academics are putting efforts on CSR studies. It is believed that CSR could influence Corporate Reputation (CR), and they hold a favourable view that CSR leads to a positive CR. To be specific, the CSR related activities in the reputational context have been regarded as ways that associate to excellent financial performance, value creation, etc. Also, it is argued that CSR and CR are two sides of one coin; hence, to some extent, doing CSR is equal to establishing a good reputation. Still, there is no consensus of the CSR-CR relationship in the literature; thus, a systematic literature review is highly in need. This research conducts a systematic literature review with both bibliometric and content analysis. Data are selected from English language sources, and academic journal articles only, then, keyword combinations are applied to identify relevant sources. Data from Scopus and WoS are gathered for bibliometric analysis. Scopus search results were saved in RIS and CSV formats, and Web of Science (WoS) data were saved in TXT format and CSV formats in order to process data in the Bibexcel software for further analysis which later will be visualised by the software VOSviewer. Also, content analysis was applied to analyse the data clusters and the key articles. In terms of the topic of CSR-CR, this literature review with bibliometric analysis has made four achievements. First, this paper has developed a systematic study which quantitatively depicts the knowledge structure of CSR and CR by identifying terms closely related to CSR-CR (such as ‘corporate governance’) and clustering subtopics emerged in co-citation analysis. Second, content analysis is performed to acquire insight on the findings of bibliometric analysis in the discussion section. And it highlights some insightful implications for the future research agenda, for example, a psychological link between CSR-CR is identified from the result; also, emerging economies and qualitative research methods are new elements emerged in the CSR-CR big picture. Third, a multidisciplinary perspective presents through the whole bibliometric analysis mapping and co-word and co-citation analysis; hence, this work builds a structure of interdisciplinary perspective which potentially leads to an integrated conceptual framework in the future. Finally, Scopus and WoS are compared and contrasted in this paper; as a result, Scopus which has more depth and comprehensive data is suggested as a tool for future bibliometric analysis studies. Overall, this paper has fulfilled its initial purposes and contributed to the literature. To the author’s best knowledge, this paper conducted the first literature review of CSR-CR researches that applied both bibliometric analysis and content analysis; therefore, this paper achieves its methodological originality. And this dual approach brings advantages of carrying out a comprehensive and semantic exploration in the area of CSR-CR in a scientific and realistic method. Admittedly, its work might exist subjective bias in terms of search terms selection and paper selection; hence triangulation could reduce the subjective bias to some degree.
Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, corporate reputation, bibliometric analysis, software data analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8993217 A Comparative Analysis of the Perceived Bureaucracy in a Turkish State University
Authors: Ahmet C. Kutlu, Seçkin Polat
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Organizational structure of the Turkish state universities is a form of bureaucracy, a high efficient system in rational and formal control. According to the dimensional approach bureaucracy can occur in an organization in a degree, as some bureaucracy characteristics can be stronger than others. In addition, the units of an organization due to their different specific characteristic properties can perceive the bureaucracy differently. In the study, Hall-s Organizational Inventory, which was developed for evaluating the degree of bureaucratization from the dimensional perspective, is used to find out if there is a difference in the perception of the bureaucracy between the academicians working in three different departments and two faculties in the same university.Keywords: Degree of bureaucratization, Hall's Organizational Inventory, perceived bureaucracy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12523216 Simulation of Concrete Wall Subjected to Airblast by Developing an Elastoplastic Spring Model in Modelica Modelling Language
Authors: Leo Laine, Morgan Johansson
Abstract:
To meet the civilizations future needs for safe living and low environmental footprint, the engineers designing the complex systems of tomorrow will need efficient ways to model and optimize these systems for their intended purpose. For example, a civil defence shelter and its subsystem components needs to withstand, e.g. airblast and ground shock from decided design level explosion which detonates with a certain distance from the structure. In addition, the complex civil defence shelter needs to have functioning air filter systems to protect from toxic gases and provide clean air, clean water, heat, and electricity needs to also be available through shock and vibration safe fixtures and connections. Similar complex building systems can be found in any concentrated living or office area. In this paper, the authors use a multidomain modelling language called Modelica to model a concrete wall as a single degree of freedom (SDOF) system with elastoplastic properties with the implemented option of plastic hardening. The elastoplastic model was developed and implemented in the open source tool OpenModelica. The simulation model was tested on the case with a transient equivalent reflected pressure time history representing an airblast from 100 kg TNT detonating 15 meters from the wall. The concrete wall is approximately regarded as a concrete strip of 1.0 m width. This load represents a realistic threat on any building in a city like area. The OpenModelica model results were compared with an Excel implementation of a SDOF model with an elastic-plastic spring using simple fixed timestep central difference solver. The structural displacement results agreed very well with each other when it comes to plastic displacement magnitude, elastic oscillation displacement, and response times.
Keywords: Airblast from explosives, elastoplastic spring model, Modelica modelling language, SDOF, structural response of concrete structure.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8753215 Hidden State Probabilistic Modeling for Complex Wavelet Based Image Registration
Authors: F. C. Calnegru
Abstract:
This article presents a computationally tractable probabilistic model for the relation between the complex wavelet coefficients of two images of the same scene. The two images are acquisitioned at distinct moments of times, or from distinct viewpoints, or by distinct sensors. By means of the introduced probabilistic model, we argue that the similarity between the two images is controlled not by the values of the wavelet coefficients, which can be altered by many factors, but by the nature of the wavelet coefficients, that we model with the help of hidden state variables. We integrate this probabilistic framework in the construction of a new image registration algorithm. This algorithm has sub-pixel accuracy and is robust to noise and to other variations like local illumination changes. We present the performance of our algorithm on various image types.
Keywords: Complex wavelet transform, image registration, modeling using hidden state variables, probabilistic similaritymeasure.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13633214 Designing of Virtual Laboratories Based on Extended Event Driving Simulation Method
Abstract:
Here are many methods for designing and implementation of virtual laboratories, because of their special features. The most famous architectural designs are based on the events. This model of architecting is so efficient for virtual laboratories implemented on a local network. Later, serviceoriented architecture, gave the remote access ability to them and Peer-To-Peer architecture, hired to exchanging data with higher quality and more speed. Other methods, such as Agent- Based architecting, are trying to solve the problems of distributed processing in a complicated laboratory system. This study, at first, reviews the general principles of designing a virtual laboratory, and then compares the different methods based on EDA, SOA and Agent-Based architecting to present weaknesses and strengths of each method. At the end, we make the best choice for design, based on existing conditions and requirements.Keywords: Virtual Laboratory, Software Engineering, Simulation, EDA, SOA, Agent-Based Architecting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1585