Search results for: human genome project
1084 Usability Issues of Smart Phone Applications: For Visually Challenged People
Authors: Anam Ashraf, Arif Raza
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In this era of globalization, adoption of technology is quite difficult for people with physical disabilities compared to people with normal abilities. The advancement in mobile based accessible applications have opened up several different avenues for the visually challenged across the globe. Smartphones applications are not very common for blind people, but they access and use these applications in their daily lives to some extent. Several smartphone applications have a number of usability issues for the visually impaired. In this paper, we evaluate the usability of various android & iPhone applications for blind people through analysis and surveys. This paper aspires to provide guidance in order to increase smartphone application accessibility for the visually impaired. An abstract application design is also proposed to overcome usability issues in smartphone applications for visually challenged people.
Keywords: Eyes-free shell, human computer interaction, usability engineering, visually challenged.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 51921083 Improving the Dissolution Rate of Folic Acid via the Antisolvent Vapour Precipitation
Authors: J. Y. Tan, L. C. Lum, M. G. Lee, S. Mansouri, K. Hapgood, X. D. Chen, M. W. Woo
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Folic acid (FA) is known to be an important supplement to prevent neural tube defect (NTD) in pregnant women. Similar to some commercial formulations, sodium bicarbonate solution is used as a solvent for FA. This work uses the antisolvent vapour precipitation (AVP), incorporating ethanol vapour as the convective drying medium in place of air to produce branch-like micro-structure FA particles. Interestingly, the dissolution rate of the resultant particle is 2-3 times better than the particle produce from conventional air drying due to the higher surface area of particles produced. The higher dissolution rate could possibly improve the delivery and absorption of FA in human body. This application could potentially be extended to other commercial products, particularly in less soluble drugs to improve its solubility.
Keywords: Absorption, antisolvent vapour precipitation, dissolution rate, folic acid.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24751082 Rock Slope Stabilization and Protection for Roads and Multi-Storey Structures in Jabal Omar, Saudi Arabia
Authors: Ibrahim Abdel Gadir Malik, Dafalla Siddig Dafalla, Abdelazim Ibrahim
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Jabal Omar is located in the western side of Makkah city in Saudi Arabia. The proposed Jabal Omar Development project includes several multi-storey buildings, roads, bridges and below ground structures founded at various depths. In this study, geological mapping and site inspection which covered pre-selected areas were carried out within the easily accessed parts. Geological features; including rock types, structures, degree of weathering, and geotechnical hazards were observed and analyzed with specified software and also were documented in form of photographs. The presence of joints and fractures in the area made the rock blocks small and weak. The site is full of jointing; it was observed that, the northern side consists of 3 to 4 jointing systems with 2 random fractures associated with dykes. The southern part is affected by 2 to 3 jointing systems with minor fault and shear zones. From the field measurements and observations, it was concluded that, the Jabal Omar intruded by andesitic and basaltic dykes of different thickness and orientation. These dykes made the outcrop weak, highly deformed and made the rock masses sensitive to weathering.
Keywords: Rock, slope, stabilization, protection, Makkah.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14721081 Intrapreneurship Discovery: Standard Strategy to Boost Innovation inside Companies
Authors: Chiara Mansanta, Daniela Sani
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This paper studies the concept of intrapreneurship discovery for innovation and technology development related to the manufacturing industries set up in the center of Italy, in Marche Region. The study underlined the key drivers of the innovation process and the main factors that influence innovation. Starting from a literature study on open innovation, this paper examines the role of human capital to support company’s development. The empirical part of the study is based on a survey to 151 manufacturing companies that represent the 34% of that universe at the regional level. The survey underlined the main KPI’s that influence companies in their decision processes; then tools for these decision processes are presented.
Keywords: Business model, decision making, intrapreneurship discovery, open innovation, standard methodology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9561080 Using a Trust-Based Environment Key for Mobile Agent Code Protection
Authors: Salima Hacini, Zahia Guessoum, Zizette Boufaïda
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Human activities are increasingly based on the use of remote resources and services, and on the interaction between remotely located parties that may know little about each other. Mobile agents must be prepared to execute on different hosts with various environmental security conditions. The aim of this paper is to propose a trust based mechanism to improve the security of mobile agents and allow their execution in various environments. Thus, an adaptive trust mechanism is proposed. It is based on the dynamic interaction between the agent and the environment. Information collected during the interaction enables generation of an environment key. This key informs on the host-s trust degree and permits the mobile agent to adapt its execution. Trust estimation is based on concrete parameters values. Thus, in case of distrust, the source of problem can be located and a mobile agent appropriate behavior can be selected.Keywords: Internet security, malicious host, mobile agent security, trust management
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14161079 Critical Analysis of the Hong Kong International Convention on Ship Recycling
Authors: K. P. Jain, J. F. J. Pruyn, J. J. Hopman
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In May 2009, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships to address the growing concerns about the environmental, occupational health and safety risks related to ship recycling. The aim of the Hong Kong Convention is to provide a legally binding instrument which ensures that the process of ship recycling does not pose risks to human health, safety and to the environment. In this paper, critical analysis of the Hong Kong Convention has been carried out in order to study the effectiveness of the Convention to meet its objectives. The Convention has been studied in detail including its background, main features, major stakeholders, strengths and weaknesses. The Convention, though having several deficiencies, is a major breakthrough in not only recognizing but also dealing with the ill-practices associated with ship recycling.
Keywords: Hong Kong Convention, IMO, Ship breaking, Ship recycling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 54571078 Mathematical Study for Traffic Flow and Traffic Density in Kigali Roads
Authors: Kayijuka Idrissa
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This work investigates a mathematical study for traffic flow and traffic density in Kigali city roads and the data collected from the national police of Rwanda in 2012. While working on this topic, some mathematical models were used in order to analyze and compare traffic variables. This work has been carried out on Kigali roads specifically at roundabouts from Kigali Business Center (KBC) to Prince House as our study sites. In this project, we used some mathematical tools to analyze the data collected and to understand the relationship between traffic variables. We applied the Poisson distribution method to analyze and to know the number of accidents occurred in this section of the road which is from KBC to Prince House. The results show that the accidents that occurred in 2012 were at very high rates due to the fact that this section has a very narrow single lane on each side which leads to high congestion of vehicles, and consequently, accidents occur very frequently. Using the data of speeds and densities collected from this section of road, we found that the increment of the density results in a decrement of the speed of the vehicle. At the point where the density is equal to the jam density the speed becomes zero. The approach is promising in capturing sudden changes on flow patterns and is open to be utilized in a series of intelligent management strategies and especially in noncurrent congestion effect detection and control.
Keywords: Statistical methods, Poisson distribution, car moving techniques, traffic flow.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18251077 Support Vector Machine for Persian Font Recognition
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In this paper we examine the use of global texture analysis based approaches for the purpose of Persian font recognition in machine-printed document images. Most existing methods for font recognition make use of local typographical features and connected component analysis. However derivation of such features is not an easy task. Gabor filters are appropriate tools for texture analysis and are motivated by human visual system. Here we consider document images as textures and use Gabor filter responses for identifying the fonts. The method is content independent and involves no local feature analysis. Two different classifiers Weighted Euclidean Distance and SVM are used for the purpose of classification. Experiments on seven different type faces and four font styles show average accuracy of 85% with WED and 82% with SVM classifier over typefacesKeywords: Persian font recognition, support vector machine, gabor filter.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17151076 Unnoticeable Mumps Infection in India: Does MMR Vaccine Protect against Circulating Mumps Virus Genotype C?
Authors: Jeevan Malayan, Aparna Warrier, Padmasani Venkat Ramanan, Sanjeeva Reddy N, Elanchezhiyan Manickan
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MMR vaccine failure had been reported globally and here we report that it occurs now in India. Samples were collected from clinically suspected mumps cases were subjected for anti mumps antibodies, virus isolation, RT-PCR, sequencing and phylogenetic tree analysis. 56 samples collected from men and women belonging to various age groups. 30 had been vaccinated and the status of 26 patients was unknown. 28 out of 30 samples were found to be symptomatic and positive for Mumps IgM, indicating active mumps infection in 93.4% of the vaccinated population. A phylogenetic tree comparison of the clinical isolate is shown to be genotype C which is distinct from vaccine strain. Our study clearly sending warning signs that MMR vaccine is a failure and it needs to be revamped for the human use by increasing its efficacy and efficiency.Keywords: Genotype C, Mumps virus, MMR vaccine, Sero types.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24631075 A CBR System to New Product Development: An Application for Hearing Devices Design
Authors: J.L. Castro, K. Benghazi, M.V. Hurtado, M. Navarro, J.M. Zurita
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Nowadays, quick technological changes force companies to develop innovative products in an increasingly competitive environment. Therefore, how to enhance the time of new product development is very important. This design problem often lacks the exact formula for getting it, and highly depends upon human designers- past experiences. For these reasons, in this work, a Casebased reasoning (CBR) system to assist in new product development is proposed. When a case is recovered from the case base, the system will take into account not only the attribute-s specific value and how important it is. It will also take into account if the attribute has a positive influence over the product development. Hence the manufacturing time will be improved. This information will be introduced as a new concept called “adaptability". An application to this method for hearing instrument new design illustrates the proposed approach.Keywords: Case based reasoning, Fuzzy logic, New product development, Retrieval stage, Similarity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14811074 Ethical Finance and Islamic Finance: Particularities, Possible Convergence and Potential Development
Authors: Safa Ougoujil, Sidi Mohamed Rigar
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Economics is not an exact science. It cannot be from the moment it is a social science that concerns society organization, a human science that depends on the behavior of the men and women who make a part of this society. Therefore, it cannot ignore morality, the instinctive sense of good and evil, the natural order which place us between certain values, and which religion often sheds light on. In terms of finance, the reference to ethics is becoming more popular than ever. This is naturally due to the growing financial crises. Finance is less and less ethical, but some financial practices have continued to do so. This is the case of ethical finance and Islamic finance. After attempting to define the concepts of ethical finance and Islamic finance, in a period when financial innovation seeks to encourage differentiation in order to create more profit margins, this article attempts to expose the particularities, the convergences and the potentialities of development of these two sensibilities.
Keywords: Convergences, ethical finance, Islamic finance, potential development.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11241073 Exploiting Kinetic and Kinematic Data to Plot Cyclograms for Managing the Rehabilitation Process of BKAs by Applying Neural Networks
Authors: L. Parisi
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Kinematic data wisely correlate vector quantities in space to scalar parameters in time to assess the degree of symmetry between the intact limb and the amputated limb with respect to a normal model derived from the gait of control group participants. Furthermore, these particular data allow a doctor to preliminarily evaluate the usefulness of a certain rehabilitation therapy. Kinetic curves allow the analysis of ground reaction forces (GRFs) to assess the appropriateness of human motion. Electromyography (EMG) allows the analysis of the fundamental lower limb force contributions to quantify the level of gait asymmetry. However, the use of this technological tool is expensive and requires patient’s hospitalization. This research work suggests overcoming the above limitations by applying artificial neural networks.
Keywords: Kinetics, kinematics, cyclograms, neural networks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20911072 Modeling Engagement with Multimodal Multisensor Data: The Continuous Performance Test as an Objective Tool to Track Flow
Authors: Mohammad H. Taheri, David J. Brown, Nasser Sherkat
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Engagement is one of the most important factors in determining successful outcomes and deep learning in students. Existing approaches to detect student engagement involve periodic human observations that are subject to inter-rater reliability. Our solution uses real-time multimodal multisensor data labeled by objective performance outcomes to infer the engagement of students. The study involves four students with a combined diagnosis of cerebral palsy and a learning disability who took part in a 3-month trial over 59 sessions. Multimodal multisensor data were collected while they participated in a continuous performance test. Eye gaze, electroencephalogram, body pose, and interaction data were used to create a model of student engagement through objective labeling from the continuous performance test outcomes. In order to achieve this, a type of continuous performance test is introduced, the Seek-X type. Nine features were extracted including high-level handpicked compound features. Using leave-one-out cross-validation, a series of different machine learning approaches were evaluated. Overall, the random forest classification approach achieved the best classification results. Using random forest, 93.3% classification for engagement and 42.9% accuracy for disengagement were achieved. We compared these results to outcomes from different models: AdaBoost, decision tree, k-Nearest Neighbor, naïve Bayes, neural network, and support vector machine. We showed that using a multisensor approach achieved higher accuracy than using features from any reduced set of sensors. We found that using high-level handpicked features can improve the classification accuracy in every sensor mode. Our approach is robust to both sensor fallout and occlusions. The single most important sensor feature to the classification of engagement and distraction was shown to be eye gaze. It has been shown that we can accurately predict the level of engagement of students with learning disabilities in a real-time approach that is not subject to inter-rater reliability, human observation or reliant on a single mode of sensor input. This will help teachers design interventions for a heterogeneous group of students, where teachers cannot possibly attend to each of their individual needs. Our approach can be used to identify those with the greatest learning challenges so that all students are supported to reach their full potential.
Keywords: Affective computing in education, affect detection, continuous performance test, engagement, flow, HCI, interaction, learning disabilities, machine learning, multimodal, multisensor, physiological sensors, Signal Detection Theory, student engagement.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12711071 The Application of Real Options to Capital Budgeting
Authors: George Yungchih Wang
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Real options theory suggests that managerial flexibility embedded within irreversible investments can account for a significant value in project valuation. Although the argument has become the dominant focus of capital investment theory over decades, yet recent survey literature in capital budgeting indicates that corporate practitioners still do not explicitly apply real options in investment decisions. In this paper, we explore how real options decision criteria can be transformed into equivalent capital budgeting criteria under the consideration of uncertainty, assuming that underlying stochastic process follows a geometric Brownian motion (GBM), a mixed diffusion-jump (MX), or a mean-reverting process (MR). These equivalent valuation techniques can be readily decomposed into conventional investment rules and “option impacts", the latter of which describe the impacts on optimal investment rules with the option value considered. Based on numerical analysis and Monte Carlo simulation, three major findings are derived. First, it is shown that real options could be successfully integrated into the mindset of conventional capital budgeting. Second, the inclusion of option impacts tends to delay investment. It is indicated that the delay effect is the most significant under a GBM process and the least significant under a MR process. Third, it is optimal to adopt the new capital budgeting criteria in investment decision-making and adopting a suboptimal investment rule without considering real options could lead to a substantial loss in value.
Keywords: real options, capital budgeting, geometric Brownianmotion, mixed diffusion-jump, mean-reverting process
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27761070 Poli4SDG: An Application for Environmental Crises Management and Gender Support
Authors: Angelica S. Valeriani, Lorenzo Biasiolo
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In recent years, the scale of the impact of climate change and its related side effects has become ever more massive and devastating. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), promoted by United Nations, aim to front issues related to climate change, among others. In particular, the project CROWD4SDG focuses on a bunch of SDGs, since it promotes environmental activities and climate-related issues. In this context, we developed a prototype of an application, under advanced development considering web design, that focuses on SDG 13 (SDG on climate action) by providing users with useful instruments to face environmental crises and climate-related disasters. Our prototype is thought and structured for both web and mobile development. The main goal of the application, POLI4SDG, is to help users to get through emergency services. To this extent, an organized overview and classification prove to be very effective and helpful to people in need. A careful analysis of data related to environmental crises prompted us to integrate the user contribution, i.e. exploiting a core principle of Citizen Science, into the realization of a public catalog, available for consulting and organized according to typology and specific features. In addition, gender equality and opportunity features are considered in the prototype, in order to allow women, often the most vulnerable category, to have direct support. The overall description of the application functionalities is detailed. Moreover, implementation features and properties of the prototype are discussed.
Keywords: Crowdsourcing, social media, SDG, climate change, natural disasters, gender equality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7121069 Efficient Sensors Selection Algorithm in Cyber Physical System
Authors: Ma-Wubin, Deng-Su, Huang Hongbin, Chen-Jian, Wu-Yahun, Li-zhuo
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Cyber physical system (CPS) for target tracking, military surveillance, human health monitoring, and vehicle detection all require maximizing the utility and saving the energy. Sensor selection is one of the most important parts of CPS. Sensor selection problem (SSP) is concentrating to balance the tradeoff between the number of sensors which we used and the utility which we will get. In this paper, we propose a performance constrained slide windows (PCSW) based algorithm for SSP in CPS. we present results of extensive simulations that we have carried out to test and validate the PCSW algorithms when we track a target, Experiment shows that the PCSW based algorithm improved the performance including selecting time and communication times for selecting.
Keywords: Cyber physical system, sensor selection problem, PCSW based algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14541068 Design and Economical Performance of Gray Water Treatment Plant in Rural Region
Authors: Bhausaheb L. Pangarkar, Saroj B. Parjane, M.G. Sane
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In India, the quarrel between the budding human populace and the planet-s unchanging supply of freshwater and falling water tables has strained attention the reuse of gray water as an alternative water resource in rural development. This paper present the finest design of laboratory scale gray water treatment plant, which is a combination of natural and physical operations such as primary settling with cascaded water flow, aeration, agitation and filtration, hence called as hybrid treatment process. The economical performance of the plant for treatment of bathrooms, basins and laundries gray water showed in terms of deduction competency of water pollutants such as COD (83%), TDS (70%), TSS (83%), total hardness (50%), oil and grease (97%), anions (46%) and cations (49%). Hence, this technology could be a good alternative to treat gray water in residential rural area.Keywords: Gray water treatment plant, gray water, naturaltechnology, pollutant.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 41491067 Design Exploration on Mixed-Use Development of Island House: Take the Southeast Coastal Area of Chinese as an Example
Authors: Fu Jiayan, Wang Zhu, Sun Jiaojiao
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Mixed-use development is one of the most important trends in new island house transformation along southeast coastal area in China. Unique island geographical environment and profound fishing village culture coexist for a long time in this. With artistic creation for the purpose of the "live-work" houses are in a large number of emergence, however, still lack of systematic strategy. Based on space effect from marine resources to regional human settlements, this article teases out the evolution regularity of island settlement context and architectural form, then, puts forward the formation mechanism and construction model of art island houses. Thereby, to further explore space design method and site creation strategy of mixed-use development.Keywords: Mixed-use, Island House, Art Creation, Southeast Coastal Area of Chinese.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14941066 The Effects of Different Amounts of Additional Moisture on the Physical Properties of Cow Pea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) Extrudates
Authors: L. Strauta, S. Muižniece-Brasava
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Even though legumes possess high nutritional value and have a rather high protein content for plant origin products, they are underutilized mostly due to their lengthy cooking time. To increase the presence of legume-based products in human diet, new extruded products were made of cow peas (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.). But as it is known, adding different moisture content to flour before extrusion can change the physical properties of the extruded product. Experiments were carried out to estimate the optimal moisture content for cow pea extrusion. After extrusion, the pH level had dropped from 6.7 to 6.5 and the lowest hardness rate was observed in the samples with additional 9 g 100g-1 of moisture - 28±4N, but the volume mass of the samples with additional 9 g100g-1 of water was 263±3 g L-1; all samples were approximately 7±1mm long.
Keywords: Cow pea, extrusion-cooking, moisture, size.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9111065 Research on Strategy for Automated Scaleless-Map Compilation
Authors: Yin Jie, Qin Qiming, Yin Yong
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As a tool for human spatial cognition and thinking, the map has been playing an important role. Maps are perhaps as fundamental to society as language and the written word. Economic and social development requires extensive and in-depth understanding of their own living environment, from the scope of the overall global to urban housing. This has brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges for traditional cartography . This paper first proposed the concept of scaleless-map and its basic characteristics, through the analysis of the existing multi-scale representation techniques. Then some strategies are presented for automated mapping compilation. Taking into account the demand of automated map compilation, detailed proposed the software - WJ workstation must have four technical features, which are generalization operators, symbol primitives, dynamically annotation and mapping process template. This paper provides a more systematic new idea and solution to improve the intelligence and automation of the scaleless cartography.
Keywords: scaleless-map, strategy, map generalization, automated compilation, WJ workstation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14341064 Academic Mobbing in Turkey
Authors: E. Yelgecen Tigrel, O. Kokalan
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People at workplace always face with stress and feel it in their lives. There are many factors that create stress and mobbing is one of them. Mobbing is a psychological terror, conducted systematically toward an individual by others at the same workplace. Mobbing started to become a famous subject last years in U.S and Europe. In Turkey, it is a new concept not because it does not occur, because of human nature that does not allow confessing it. Mobbing is being ignored by people, organizations and also government in our country. The focus of this study will be mobbing in Turkey by examining the workplace mobbing among Turkish academicians. There are other studies about mobbing in Turkey but none of them studied academy. Because mobbing methods change according to sectors and occupations, it is important to analyze each sector to understand the methods used in mobbing and the reactions of victims to these actions. The concept is analyzed in detail before focusing on mobbing at universities. This paper will be unique because there is no information about this specific subject in Turkish literature. In this paper, both qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to describe the mobbing at Turkish academic environment.Keywords: Mobbing, Turkish academic environment, workplace problems
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 37671063 Solving an Extended Resource Leveling Problem with Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms
Authors: Javier Roca, Etienne Pugnaghi, Gaëtan Libert
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We introduce an extended resource leveling model that abstracts real life projects that consider specific work ranges for each resource. Contrary to traditional resource leveling problems this model considers scarce resources and multiple objectives: the minimization of the project makespan and the leveling of each resource usage over time. We formulate this model as a multiobjective optimization problem and we propose a multiobjective genetic algorithm-based solver to optimize it. This solver consists in a two-stage process: a main stage where we obtain non-dominated solutions for all the objectives, and a postprocessing stage where we seek to specifically improve the resource leveling of these solutions. We propose an intelligent encoding for the solver that allows including domain specific knowledge in the solving mechanism. The chosen encoding proves to be effective to solve leveling problems with scarce resources and multiple objectives. The outcome of the proposed solvers represent optimized trade-offs (alternatives) that can be later evaluated by a decision maker, this multi-solution approach represents an advantage over the traditional single solution approach. We compare the proposed solver with state-of-art resource leveling methods and we report competitive and performing results.
Keywords: Intelligent problem encoding, multiobjective decision making, evolutionary computing, RCPSP, resource leveling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 41981062 Value for Money in Investment Projects
Authors: Jan Ceselsky
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Construction and reconstruction of settlements and individual municipalities, environmental management and the creation, deployment of the forces of production and building transport and technical equipment requires a large expenditure of material and human resources. That is why the economic aspects of the majority decision in these planes built in the foreground and are often decisive. Thereby but more serious is that the economic aspects of the settlement, the creation and function remain in their whole, unprocessed, and cannot speak of a set of individual techniques and methods traditional indicators and experiments with new approaches. This is true both at the level of the national economy, and in their own urban designs. Still a few remain identified specific economic shaping patterns of settlement and the less it is possible to speak of their control. Also practical assessing economics of specific solutions are often used non-apt indicators in addition to economics usually identifies with the lowest acquisition cost or high-intensity land use with little regard for functional efficiency and little studied much higher operating and maintenance costs".Keywords: Investment, municipal engineering, value for money.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17231061 The Relationship between Land Use Change and Runoff
Authors: Thanutch Sukwimolseree, Preeyaphorn Kosa
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Many problems are occurred in watershed due to human activity and economic development. The purpose is to determine the effects of the land use change on surface runoff using land use map on 1980, 2001 and 2008 and daily weather data during January 1, 1979 to September 30, 2010 applied to SWAT. The results can be presented that the polynomial equation is suitable to display that relationship. These equations for land use in 1980, 2001 and 2008 are consisted of y = -0.0076x5 + 0.1914x4–1.6386x3 + 6.6324x2–8.736x + 7.8023(R2 = 0.9255), y = -0.0298x5 + 0.8794x4 - 9.8056x3 + 51.99x2 - 117.04x + 96.797; (R2 = 0.9186) and y = -0.0277x5 + 0.8132x4 - 8.9598x3 + 46.498x2–101.83x +81.108 (R2 = 0.9006), respectively. Moreover, if the agricultural area is the largest area, it is a sensitive parameter to concern surface runoff.
Keywords: Land use, Runoff, SWAT, Upper Mun River Basin.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23691060 Scintigraphic Image Coding of Region of Interest Based On SPIHT Algorithm Using Global Thresholding and Huffman Coding
Authors: A. Seddiki, M. Djebbouri, D. Guerchi
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Medical imaging produces human body pictures in digital form. Since these imaging techniques produce prohibitive amounts of data, compression is necessary for storage and communication purposes. Many current compression schemes provide a very high compression rate but with considerable loss of quality. On the other hand, in some areas in medicine, it may be sufficient to maintain high image quality only in region of interest (ROI). This paper discusses a contribution to the lossless compression in the region of interest of Scintigraphic images based on SPIHT algorithm and global transform thresholding using Huffman coding.
Keywords: Global Thresholding Transform, Huffman Coding, Region of Interest, SPIHT Coding, Scintigraphic images.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19841059 Assessment of Maternal and Embryo-Fetal Toxicity of Copper Oxide Fungicide
Authors: André M. Ornelas, Lise P. Labéjof, Ligia V. Lage dos Santos, Jackson A. Santos
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The excessive use of agricultural pesticides and the resulting contamination of food and beds of rivers have been a recurring problem nowadays. Some of these substances can cause changes in endocrine balance and impair reproductive function of human and animal population. In the present study, we evaluated the possible effects of the fungicide cuprous copper oxide Sandoz® on pregnant Wistar rats. They received a daily oral administration of 103 or 3.103 mg/kg of the fungicide from the 6th to the 15th day of gestation. On day 21 of gestation, the maternal and fetal toxicity parameters and indices were determined. The administration of cuprous oxide (Copper Sandoz) in Wistar rats, the period of organogenesis, revealed no evidence of maternal toxicity or embryo at the studied doses.Keywords: Reproductive toxicity, endocrine disrupter, cupper Sandoz®, rodent
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18271058 Review of Surface Electromyogram Signals: Its Analysis and Applications
Authors: Anjana Goen, D. C. Tiwari
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Electromyography (EMG) is the study of muscles function through analysis of electrical activity produced from muscles. This electrical activity which is displayed in the form of signal is the result of neuromuscular activation associated with muscle contraction. The most common techniques of EMG signal recording are by using surface and needle/wire electrode where the latter is usually used for interest in deep muscle. This paper will focus on surface electromyogram (SEMG) signal. During SEMG recording, several problems had to been countered such as noise, motion artifact and signal instability. Thus, various signal processing techniques had been implemented to produce a reliable signal for analysis. SEMG signal finds broad application particularly in biomedical field. It had been analyzed and studied for various interests such as neuromuscular disease, enhancement of muscular function and human-computer interface.
Keywords: Evolvable hardware (EHW), Functional Electrical Simulation (FES), Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Hjorth Time Domain (HTD).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35191057 Oracle JDE Enterprise One ERP Implementation: A Case Study
Authors: Abhimanyu Pati, Krishna Kumar Veluri
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The paper intends to bring out a real life experience encountered during actual implementation of a large scale Tier-1 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in a multi-location, discrete manufacturing organization in India, involved in manufacturing of auto components and aggregates. The business complexities, prior to the implementation of ERP, include multi-product with hierarchical product structures, geographically distributed multiple plant locations with disparate business practices, lack of inter-plant broadband connectivity, existence of disparate legacy applications for different business functions, and non-standardized codifications of products, machines, employees, and accounts apart from others. On the other hand, the manufacturing environment consisted of processes like Assemble-to-Order (ATO), Make-to-Stock (MTS), and Engineer-to-Order (ETO) with a mix of discrete and process operations. The paper has highlighted various business plan areas and concerns, prior to the implementation, with specific focus on strategic issues and objectives. Subsequently, it has dealt with the complete process of ERP implementation, starting from strategic planning, project planning, resource mobilization, and finally, the program execution. The step-by-step process provides a very good learning opportunity about the implementation methodology. At the end, various organizational challenges and lessons emerged, which will act as guidelines and checklist for organizations to successfully align and implement ERP and achieve their business objectives.
Keywords: ERP, ATO, MTS, ETO, discrete manufacturing, strategic planning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18091056 An Algorithm of Regulation of Glucose-Insulin Concentration in the Blood
Authors: B. Selma, S. Chouraqui
Abstract:
The pancreas is an elongated organ that extends across the abdomen, below the stomach. In addition, it secretes certain enzymes that aid in food digestion. The pancreas also manufactures hormones responsible for regulating blood glucose levels. In the present paper, we propose a mathematical model to study the homeostasis of glucose and insulin in healthy human, and a simulation of this model, which depicts the physiological events after a meal, will be represented in ordinary humans. The aim of this paper is to design an algorithm which regulates the level of glucose in the blood. The algorithm applied the concept of expert system for performing an algorithm control in the form of an "active" used to prescribe the rate of insulin infusion. By decomposing the system into subsystems, we have developed parametric models of each subsystem by using a forcing function strategy. The results showed a performance of the control system.
Keywords: Modeling, algorithm, regulation, glucose-insulin, blood, control system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11881055 Migration of the Relational Data Base (RDB) to the Object Relational Data Base (ORDB)
Authors: Alae El Alami, Mohamed Bahaj
Abstract:
This paper proposes an approach for translating an existing relational database (RDB) schema into ORDB. The transition is done with methods that can extract various functions from a RDB which is based on aggregations, associations between the various tables, and the reflexive relationships. These methods can extract even the inheritance knowing that no process of reverse engineering can know that it is an Inheritance; therefore, our approach exceeded all of the previous studies made for the transition from RDB to ORDB. In summation, the creation of the New Data Model (NDM) that stocks the RDB in a form of a structured table, and from the NDM we create our navigational model in order to simplify the implementation object from which we develop our different types. Through these types we precede to the last step, the creation of tables.
The step mentioned above does not require any human interference. All this is done automatically, and a prototype has already been created which proves the effectiveness of this approach.
Keywords: Relational databases, Object-relational databases, Semantic enrichment.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1956