Search results for: Forensic anthropology population data

Authors: H. Al-Sholigom, Z. Al-Mostafa

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Many associations and experimental models have been developed to estimate solar radiation around the world. The duration of sunshine is the most commonly used parameter for estimating global solar radiation because it can be easily and reliably measured. To estimate the global monthly solar average on horizontal surfaces, we used 52 models with widely available data in Hutat Suder, Saudi Arabia. After testing the models, some were not suitable for use in this area, while others differed in performance. The best models have been identified.

Keywords: Earth, Global solar radiation, Hutat Suder, Saudi Arabia, sunshine, measured data.

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Authors: Daewook Kim, Gilwon Yoon

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Intrabody communication (IBC) is a new way of transferring data using human body as a medium. Minute current can travel though human body without any harm. IBC can remove electrical wires for human area network. IBC can be also a secure communication network system unlike wireless networks which can be accessed by anyone with bad intentions. One of the IBC systems is based on frequency shift keying modulation where individual data are transmitted to the external devices for the purpose of secure access such as digital door lock. It was found that the quality of IBC data transmission was heavily dependent on ground configurations of electronic circuits. Reliable IBC transmissions were not possible when both of the transmitter and receiver used batteries as circuit power source. Transmission was reliable when power supplies were used as power source for both transmitting and receiving sites because the common ground was established through the grounds of instruments such as power supply and oscilloscope. This was due to transmission dipole size and the ground effects of floor and AC power line. If one site used battery as power source and the other site used the AC power as circuit power source, transmission was possible.

Keywords: Frequency shift keying, Ground, Intrabody, Communication, door lock.

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Authors: Supattra Kanchanopast

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The purpose of this research was to identify factors that influenced the success of e-commerce implementation within SMEs businesses. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, the researcher collected data from random firms in Thailand, both the users and those who are not using the e-commerce. The data was comprised of the results of 310 questionnaires, as well as 10 interviews with owner/managers of businesses who are currently using e-commerce successfully. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, which included frequency, percentages, mean, and the standard deviation of pertinent factors. Independent t-test and one-way ANOVA test were also used. The findings of this research revealed that 50% of all the firms surveyed had e-commerce website, whereas, over 20% of all firms surveyed had developing an ecommerce strategy. The result findings also indicate that organizational factors, technological factors and environment factors as significant factors effecting success of e-commerce implementation in SMEs. From the hypotheses testing, the findings revealed that the different level of support use ecommerce by owner/manager had different success in e-commerce implementation. Moreover, the difference in e-commerce management approach affected the success in terms of higher total sales for the business or higher number of retained or returning customers.

Keywords: Electronic commerce, Implementation of ECommerce, small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs, Website, success factors.

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Authors: Xu Tao, Yilun Xu, Dingwei Xiang, Yaofei Sun

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The practice of urban planning and construction based on the concept of the “low carbon eco-city” has been universally accepted by the academic community in response to urban issues such as population, resources, environment, and social development. Based on this, the current article first analyzes the concepts of low carbon eco-city, then builds a complex adaptive system (CAS) theory based on Chinese traditional philosophical thinking, and analyzes the adaptive relationship between material and non-material elements. A three-dimensional evaluation model of natural ecology, economic low carbon, and social harmony was constructed. Finally, the construction of a low carbon eco-city index system in Hexi Newtown of Nanjing was used as an example to verify the effectiveness of the research results; this paradigm provides a new way to achieve a low carbon eco-city system.

Keywords: Complex adaptive system, low carbon ecology, index system, model.

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Authors: Ayed Salman, Fawaz Al-Anzi, Aseel Al-Minayes

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Heuristics-based search methodologies normally work on searching a problem space of possible solutions toward finding a “satisfactory" solution based on “hints" estimated from the problem-specific knowledge. Research communities use different types of methodologies. Unfortunately, most of the times, these hints are immature and can lead toward hindering these methodologies by a premature convergence. This is due to a decrease of diversity in search space that leads to a total implosion and ultimately fitness stagnation of the population. In this paper, a novel Decision Maturity framework (DMF) is introduced as a solution to this problem. The framework simply improves the decision on the direction of the search by materializing hints enough before using them. Ideas from this framework are injected into the particle swarm optimization methodology. Results were obtained under both static and dynamic environment. The results show that decision maturity prevents premature converges to a high degree.

Keywords: Heuristic Search, hints, Particle Swarm Optimization, Decision Maturity Framework.

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Authors: Sheng-Min Cheng

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between parent involvement and preschool disabled children’s development. Parents of 3 year old disabled children (N=440) and 5 year old disabled children (N=937) participating in the Special Needs Education Longitudinal Study were interviewed or answered the web design questionnaire about their actions in parenting their disabled children. These children’s developments were also evaluated by their teachers. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Results were showed by tables and figures. Based on the results, the researcher made some suggestions for future studies.

Keywords: Child development, longitudinal data analysis, parent involvement, preschool disabled children.

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Authors: Alexander Y. Vaninsky

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This paper presents a simplified version of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) - a conventional approach to evaluating the performance and ranking of competitive objects characterized by two groups of factors acting in opposite directions: inputs and outputs. DEA with a Perfect Object (DEA PO) augments the group of actual objects with a virtual Perfect Object - the one having greatest outputs and smallest inputs. It allows for obtaining an explicit analytical solution and making a step to an absolute efficiency. This paper develops this approach further and introduces a DEA model with Partially Perfect Objects. DEA PPO consecutively eliminates the smallest relative inputs or greatest relative outputs, and applies DEA PO to the reduced collections of indicators. The partial efficiency scores are combined to get the weighted efficiency score. The computational scheme remains simple, like that of DEA PO, but the advantage of the DEA PPO is taking into account all of the inputs and outputs for each actual object. Firm evaluation is considered as an example.

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis, Perfect object, Partially perfect object, Partial efficiency, Explicit solution, Simplified algorithm.

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Authors: Jiashang Jiang, Yongxin Yuan

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In this paper we develop an efficient numerical method for the finite-element model updating of damped gyroscopic systems based on incomplete complex modal measured data. It is assumed that the analytical mass and stiffness matrices are correct and only the damping and gyroscopic matrices need to be updated. By solving a constrained optimization problem, the optimal corrected symmetric damping matrix and skew-symmetric gyroscopic matrix complied with the required eigenvalue equation are found under a weighted Frobenius norm sense.

Keywords: Model updating, damped gyroscopic system, partially prescribed spectral information.

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Authors: R. Malisa, E. Schwella, K. I. Theletsane

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Due to climate change, population growth and rapid urbanization, the demand for water in South Africa is inevitably surpassing supply. To address similar challenges globally, there has been a paradigm shift from conventional urban waste water management “government” to a “governance” paradigm. From the governance paradigm, Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) principle emerged. This principle emphasizes efficient urban waste water treatment and production of high-quality recyclable effluent. In so doing mimicking natural water systems, in their processes of recycling water efficiently, and averting depletion of natural water resources.  The objective of this study was to investigate drivers of shifting the current urban waste water management approach from a “government” paradigm towards “governance”. The study was conducted through Interactive Management soft systems research methodology which follows a qualitative research design. A case study methodology was employed, guided by realism research philosophy. Qualitative data gathered were analyzed through interpretative structural modelling using Concept Star for Professionals Decision-Making tools (CSPDM) version 3.64.  The constructed model deduced that the main drivers in shifting the Stellenbosch municipal urban waste water management towards IUWM “governance” principles are mainly social elements characterized by overambitious expectations of the public on municipal water service delivery, mis-interpretation of the constitution on access to adequate clean water and sanitation as a human right and perceptions on recycling water by different communities. Inadequate public participation also emerged as a strong driver. However, disruptive events such as draught may play a positive role in raising an awareness on the value of water, resulting in a shift on the perceptions on recycled water. Once the social elements are addressed, the alignment of governance and administration elements towards IUWM are achievable. Hence, the point of departure for the desired paradigm shift is the change of water service authorities and serviced communities’ perceptions and behaviors towards shifting urban waste water management approaches from “government” to “governance” paradigm.

Keywords: Integrated urban water management, urban water system, waste water governance, waste water treatment works.

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Authors: Arvind Srivastav, Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya

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The north-eastern, Himalayan, and Eastern Ghats Belt of India comprise of earthquake-prone, remote, and hilly terrains. Earthquakes have caused enormous damages in these regions in the past. A wireless sensor network based earthquake early warning system (EEWS) is being developed to mitigate the damages caused by earthquakes. It consists of sensor nodes, distributed over the region, that perform majority voting of the output of the seismic sensors in the vicinity, and relay a message to a base station to alert the residents when an earthquake is detected. At the heart of the EEWS is a low-power two-stage seismic sensor that continuously tracks seismic events from incoming three-axis accelerometer signal at the first-stage, and, in the presence of a seismic event, triggers the second-stage P-wave detector that detects the onset of P-wave in an earthquake event. The parameters of the P-wave detector have been optimized for minimizing detection time and maximizing the accuracy of detection.Working of the sensor scheme has been verified with seven earthquakes data retrieved from IRIS. In all test cases, the scheme detected the onset of P-wave accurately. Also, it has been established that the P-wave onset detection time reduces linearly with the sampling rate. It has been verified with test data; the detection time for data sampled at 10Hz was around 2 seconds which reduced to 0.3 second for the data sampled at 100Hz.

Keywords: Earthquake early warning system, EEWS, STA/LTA, polarization, wavelet, event detector, P-wave detector.

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Authors: Tinuade Jolaade Afolabi, Theresa Ibibia Edewor

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Experimental liquid-liquid equilibra of butan-2-ol - ethanol -water; pentan-1-ol - ethanol - water and toluene - acetone - water ternary systems were investigated at (25oC). The reliability of the experimental tie-line data was ascertained by using Othmer-Tobias and Hand plots. The distribution coefficients (D) and separation factors (S) of the immiscibility region were evaluated for the three systems.

Keywords: Distribution coefficient, Liquid-liquid equilibrium, separation factors, thermodynamic models

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Authors: A. K. Pathak, K. Ojha

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Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas (GHG) after carbon dioxide. Amount of methane emission from energy sector is increasing day by day with various activities. In present work, various sources of methane emission from upstream, middle stream and downstream of oil & gas sectors are identified and categorised as per IPCC-2006 guidelines. Data were collected from various oil & gas sector like (i) exploration & production of oil & gas (ii) supply through pipelines (iii) refinery throughput & production (iv) storage & transportation (v) usage. Methane emission factors for various categories were determined applying Tier-II and Tier-I approach using the collected data. Total methane emission from Indian Oil & Gas sectors was thus estimated for the year 1990 to 2007.

Keywords: Carbon credit, Climate change, Methane emission, Oil & Gas production

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Authors: S. Chuenchooklin, S. Taweepong, U. Pangnakorn

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This research was conducted in the Mae Sot Watershed where located in the Moei River Basin at the Upper Salween River Basin in Tak Province, Thailand. The Mae Sot Municipality is the largest urban area in Tak Province and situated in the midstream of the Mae Sot Watershed. It usually faces flash flood problem after heavy rain due to poor flood management has been reported since economic rapidly bloom up in recent years. Its catchment can be classified as ungauged basin with lack of rainfall data and no any stream gaging station was reported. It was attached by most severely flood events in 2013 as the worst studied case for all those communities in this municipality. Moreover, other problems are also faced in this watershed, such shortage water supply for domestic consumption and agriculture utilizations including a deterioration of water quality and landslide as well. The research aimed to increase capability building and strengthening the participation of those local community leaders and related agencies to conduct better water management in urban area was started by mean of the data collection and illustration of the appropriated application of some short period rainfall forecasting model as they aim for better flood relief plan and management through the hydrologic model system and river analysis system programs. The authors intended to apply the global rainfall data via the integrated data viewer (IDV) program from the Unidata with the aim for rainfall forecasting in a short period of 7-10 days in advance during rainy season instead of real time record. The IDV product can be present in an advance period of rainfall with time step of 3-6 hours was introduced to the communities. The result can be used as input data to the hydrologic modeling system model (HEC-HMS) for synthesizing flood hydrographs and use for flood forecasting as well. The authors applied the river analysis system model (HEC-RAS) to present flood flow behaviors in the reach of the Mae Sot stream via the downtown of the Mae Sot City as flood extents as the water surface level at every cross-sectional profiles of the stream. Both models of HMS and RAS were tested in 2013 with observed rainfall and inflow-outflow data from the Mae Sot Dam. The result of HMS showed fit to the observed data at the dam and applied at upstream boundary discharge to RAS in order to simulate flood extents and tested in the field, and the result found satisfying. The product of rainfall from IDV was fair while compared with observed data. However, it is an appropriate tool to use in the ungauged catchment to use with flood hydrograph and river analysis models for future efficient flood relief plan and management.

Keywords: Global rainfall, flood forecasting, hydrologic modeling system, river analysis system.

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Authors: Sheng-Hong Pong, Herng-Yu Huang, Yi-Ju Lee, Shih-Hsuan Chiu

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In this paper, a neural network technique is applied to real-time classifying media while a projectile is penetrating through them. A laboratory-scaled penetrating setup was built for the experiment. Features used as the network inputs were extracted from the acceleration of penetrator. 6000 set of features from a single penetration with known media and status were used to train the neural network. The trained system was tested on 30 different penetration experiments. The system produced an accuracy of 100% on the training data set. And, their precision could be 99% for the test data from 30 tests.

Keywords: back-propagation, identification, neural network, penetration.

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Authors: Masoud Afrand, Amin Behzadmehr, Arash Karimipour

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The world demand for potable water is increasing every day with growing population. Desalination using solar energy is suitable for potable water production from brackish and seawater. In this paper, we present a theoretical study of solar distillation in a single basin under the open environmental conditions of Chabahar-Iran. The still has a base area of 2000mm×500mm with a glass cover inclined at 25° in order to obtain extra solar energy. We model the still and conduct its energy balance equations under minor assumptions. We computed the temperatures of glass cover, seawater interface, moist air and bottom using numerical method. The investigation addressed the following: The still productivity, distilled water salinity and still performance in terms of the still efficiency. Calculated still productivity in July was higher than December. So in this paper, we show that still productivity is directly functioning of solar radiation.

Keywords: Inclined Solar still, Solar energy, Solar desalination, Numerical Simulation.

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Authors: Elnura Assyltayeva, Zhanar Aldubasheva, Zhengisbek Tolen

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An attempt has been made several times to identify and discuss the U.S. experience on the formation of political nation in political science. The purpose of this research paper is to identify the main aspects of the formation of civic identity in the United States and Kazakhstan, through the identification of similarities and differences that can get practical application in making decisions of national policy issues in the context of globalization, as well as to answer the questions “What should unite the citizens of Kazakhstan to the nation?" and “What should be the dominant identity: civil or ethnic (national) one?" Can Kazakhstan being multiethnic country like America, adopt its experience in the formation of a civic nation? Since it is believed that the “multi-ethnic state of the population is a characteristic feature of most modern countries in the world," it states that “inter-ethnic integration is one of the most important aspects of the problem of forming a new social community (metaetnic - Kazakh people, Kazakh nation" [1].

Keywords: nation, civic identity, nation building, globalization, interethnic relations, patriotism

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Authors: Sumathi Poobal, G. Ravindran

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Medical imaging uses the advantage of digital technology in imaging and teleradiology. In teleradiology systems large amount of data is acquired, stored and transmitted. A major technology that may help to solve the problems associated with the massive data storage and data transfer capacity is data compression and decompression. There are many methods of image compression available. They are classified as lossless and lossy compression methods. In lossy compression method the decompressed image contains some distortion. Fractal image compression (FIC) is a lossy compression method. In fractal image compression an image is coded as a set of contractive transformations in a complete metric space. The set of contractive transformations is guaranteed to produce an approximation to the original image. In this paper FIC is achieved by PIFS using quadtree partitioning. PIFS is applied on different images like , Ultrasound, CT Scan, Angiogram, X-ray, Mammograms. In each modality approximately twenty images are considered and the average values of compression ratio and PSNR values are arrived. In this method of fractal encoding, the parameter, tolerance factor Tmax, is varied from 1 to 10, keeping the other standard parameters constant. For all modalities of images the compression ratio and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) are computed and studied. The quality of the decompressed image is arrived by PSNR values. From the results it is observed that the compression ratio increases with the tolerance factor and mammogram has the highest compression ratio. The quality of the image is not degraded upto an optimum value of tolerance factor, Tmax, equal to 8, because of the properties of fractal compression.

Keywords: Fractal image compression, IFS, PIFS, PSNR, Quadtree partitioning.

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Authors: Nader A. Al Theeb, Zaid Abu Manneh, Ibrahim Al-Qadi

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Traveling salesman problem (TSP) is a combinatorial integer optimization problem that asks "What is the optimal route for a vehicle to traverse in order to deliver requests to a given set of customers?”. It is widely used by the package carrier companies’ distribution centers. The main goal of applying the TSP in courier organizations is to minimize the time that it takes for the courier in each trip to deliver or pick up the shipments during a day. In this article, an optimization model is constructed to create a new TSP variant to optimize the routing in a courier organization with a consideration of congestion in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Real data were collected by different methods and analyzed. Then, concert technology - CPLEX was used to solve the proposed model for some random generated data instances and for the real collected data. At the end, results have shown a great improvement in time compared with the current trip times, and an economic study was conducted afterwards to figure out the impact of using such models.

Keywords: Travel salesman problem, congestions, pick-up, integer programming, package carriers, service engineering.

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Authors: Boncho G. Bonev, Kliment N. Angelov, Emil S. Altimirski

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In this paper, the link quality in SHF and EHF ranges are studied. In order to achieve high data rate higher frequencies must be used – centimeter waves (SHF), millimeter waves (EHF) or optical range. However, there are significant problem when a radio link work in that diapason – rain attenuation and attenuation in earth-s atmosphere. Based on statistical rain rates data for Bulgaria, the link availability can be determined, depending on the working frequency, the path length and the Power Budget of the link. For the calculations of rain attenuation and atmosphere-s attenuation the ITU recommendations are used.

Keywords: rain attenuation, atmospheric gaseous attenuation, link availability, link breaking probability

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Authors: H. Alaleh, N. Hedayat, A. Alaleh, H. Ayazi, A. Ruhani

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Run-offs are considered as important hydrological factors in feasibility studies of river engineering and irrigation-related projects under arid and semi-arid condition. Flood control is one of the crucial factor, the management of which while mitigates its destructive consequences, abstracts considerable volume of renewable water resources. The methodology applied here was based on Mizumura, which applied a mathematical model for simple tank to simulate the rainfall-run-off process in a particular water basin using the data from the observational hydrograph. The model was applied in the Dez River water basin adjacent to Greater Dezful region, Iran in order to simulate and estimate the floods. Results indicated that the calculated hydrographs using the simple tank method, SCS-CN model and the observation hydrographs had a close proximity. It was also found that on average the flood time and discharge peaks in the simple tank were closer to the observational data than the CN method. On the other hand, the calculated flood volume in the CN model was significantly closer to the observational data than the simple tank model.

Keywords: Simple tank, Dez River, run-off, lag time, excess rainfall.

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Authors: P. Pongsumpun, I. M. Tang

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Malaria is a serious, acute and chronic relapsing infection to humans. It is characterized by periodic attacks of chills, fever, nausea, vomiting, back pain, increased sweating anemia, splenomegaly (enlargement of the spleen) and often-fatal complications.The malaria disease is caused by the multiplication of protozoa parasite of the genus Plasmodium. Malaria in humans is due to 4 types of malaria parasites such that Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium ovale. P.vivax malaria differs from P. falciparum malaria in that a person suffering from P. vivax malaria can experience relapses of the disease. Between the relapses, the malaria parasite will remain dormant in the liver of the patient, leading to the patient being classified as being in the dormant class. A mathematical model for the transmission of P. vivax is developed in which the human population is divided into four classes, the susceptible, the infected, the dormant and the recovered. In this paper, we formulate the dynamical model of P. vivax malaria to see the distribution of this disease at the district level.

Keywords: Dynamical model, household, local level, Plasmodium Vivax Malaria.

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Authors: Suman Kumar Saha, Rajib Kar, Durbadal Mandal, S. P. Ghoshal

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This paper demonstrates the application of craziness based particle swarm optimization (CRPSO) technique for designing the 8th order low pass Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter. CRPSO, the much improved version of PSO, is a population based global heuristic search algorithm which finds near optimal solution in terms of a set of filter coefficients. Effectiveness of this algorithm is justified with a comparative study of some well established algorithms, namely, real coded genetic algorithm (RGA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Simulation results affirm that the proposed algorithm CRPSO, outperforms over its counterparts not only in terms of quality output i.e. sharpness at cut-off, pass band ripple, stop band ripple, and stop band attenuation but also in convergence speed with assured stability.

Keywords: IIR Filter, RGA, PSO, CRPSO, Evolutionary Optimization Techniques, Low Pass (LP) Filter, Magnitude Response, Pole-Zero Plot, Stability.

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Authors: Yananda Siraphatthada

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This policy participation action research explores the roles of Thai government units during its 2010 fiscal year on how to create value added to recycling business in the central part of Thailand. The research aims to a) study how the government plays a role to support the business, and its problems and obstacles on supporting the business, b) to design a strategic action – short, medium, and long term plans -- to create value added to the recycling business, particularly in local full-loop companies/organizations licensed by Wongpanit Waste Separation Plant as well as those licensed by the Department of Provincial Administration. Mixed method research design, i.e., a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is utilized in the present study in both data collection and analysis procedures. Quantitative data was analyzed by frequency, percent value, mean scores, and standard deviation, and aimed to note trend and generalizations. Qualitative data was collected via semi-structured interviews/focus group interviews to explore in-depth views of the operators. The sampling included 1,079 operators in eight provinces in the central part of Thailand.

Keywords: Management, Recycling Business, Value Added.

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Authors: Victoria L. Nkosi, Parvaneh Farhangpour

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Often a Grade 12 certificate is perceived as a passport to tertiary education and the minimum requirement to enter the world of work. In spite of its importance, many students do not make this milestone in South Africa. It is important to find out why so many students still fail in spite of transformation in the education system in the post-apartheid era. Given the complexity of education and its context, this study adopted a case study design to examine one historically underperforming high school in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa in 2013. The aim was to gain a understanding of the inner and outer school contextual factors associated with the high failure rate among Grade 12 students.  Government documents and reports were consulted to identify factors in the district and the village surrounding the school and a student survey was conducted to identify school, home and student factors. The randomly-sampled half of the population of Grade 12 students (53) participated in the survey and quantitative data are analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. The findings showed that a host of factors is at play. The school is located in a village within a municipality which has been one of the poorest three municipalities in South Africa and the lowest Grade 12 pass rate in the Mpumalanga province.   Moreover, over half of the families of the students are single parents, 43% are unemployed and the majority has a low level of education. In addition, most families (83%) do not have basic study materials such as a dictionary, books, tables, and chairs. A significant number of students (70%) are over-aged (+19 years old); close to half of them (49%) are grade repeaters. The school itself lacks essential resources, namely computers, science laboratories, library, and enough furniture and textbooks. Moreover, teaching and learning are negatively affected by the teachers’ occasional absenteeism, inadequate lesson preparation, and poor communication skills. Overall, the continuous low performance of students in this school mirrors the vicious circle of multiple negative conditions present within and outside of the school. The complexity of factors associated with the underperformance of Grade 12 students in this school calls for a multi-dimensional intervention from government and stakeholders. One important intervention should be the placement of over-aged students and grade-repeaters in suitable educational institutions for the benefit of other students.

Keywords: Inner context, outer context, over-aged students, vicious circle.

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Authors: K. Tunde Olagunju, C. Scott Allen, F.D. (Freek) van der Meer

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Identification of hydrocarbon oil in remote sensing images is often the first step in monitoring oil during spill events. Most remote sensing methods adopt techniques for hydrocarbon identification to achieve detection in order to model an appropriate cleanup program. Identification on optical sensors does not only allow for detection but also for characterization and quantification. Until recently, in optical remote sensing, quantification and characterization were only potentially possible using high-resolution laboratory and airborne imaging spectrometers (hyperspectral data). Unlike multispectral, hyperspectral data are not freely available, as this data category is mainly obtained via airborne survey at present. In this research, two operational high-resolution multispectral satellites (WorldView-3 and Sentinel-2) are theoretically assessed for their suitability for hydrocarbon characterization, using the Hydrocarbon Spectra Slope model (HYSS). This method utilized the two most persistent hydrocarbon diagnostic/absorption features at 1.73 µm and 2.30 µm for hydrocarbon mapping on multispectral data. In this research, spectra measurement of seven different hydrocarbon oils (crude and refined oil) taken on 10 different substrates with the use of laboratory ASD Fieldspec were convolved to Sentinel-2 and WorldView-3 resolution, using their full width half maximum (FWHM) parameter. The resulting hydrocarbon slope values obtained from the studied samples enable clear qualitative discrimination of most hydrocarbons, despite the presence of different background substrates, particularly on WorldView-3. Due to close conformity of central wavelengths and narrow bandwidths to key hydrocarbon bands used in HYSS, the statistical significance for qualitative analysis on WorldView-3 sensors for all studied hydrocarbon oil returned with 95% confidence level (P-value ˂ 0.01), except for Diesel. Using multifactor analysis of variance (MANOVA), the discriminating power of HYSS is statistically significant for most hydrocarbon-substrate combinations on Sentinel-2 and WorldView-3 FWHM, revealing the potential of these two operational multispectral sensors as rapid response tools for hydrocarbon mapping. One notable exception is highly transmissive hydrocarbons on Sentinel-2 data due to the non-conformity of spectral bands with key hydrocarbon absorptions and the relatively coarse bandwidth (> 100 nm).

Keywords: hydrocarbon, oil spill, remote sensing, hyperspectral, multispectral, hydrocarbon – substrate combination, Sentinel-2, WorldView-3

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Authors: Mike Sewell, Jagath Samarabandu, Ranga Rodrigo, Kenneth McIsaac

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A novel method of individual level adaptive mutation rate control called the rank-scaled mutation rate for genetic algorithms is introduced. The rank-scaled mutation rate controlled genetic algorithm varies the mutation parameters based on the rank of each individual within the population. Thereby the distribution of the fitness of the papulation is taken into consideration in forming the new mutation rates. The best fit mutate at the lowest rate and the least fit mutate at the highest rate. The complexity of the algorithm is of the order of an individual adaptation scheme and is lower than that of a self-adaptation scheme. The proposed algorithm is tested on two common problems, namely, numerical optimization of a function and the traveling salesman problem. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms both the fixed and deterministic mutation rate schemes. It is best suited for problems with several local optimum solutions without a high demand for excessive mutation rates.

Keywords: Genetic algorithms, mutation rate control, adaptive mutation.

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Authors: Bruno Félix, André Vasconcelos, José Tribolet

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Nowadays increasingly the population makes use of Information Technology (IT). As such, in recent year the Portuguese government increased its focus on using the IT for improving people-s life and began to develop a set of measures to enable the modernization of the Public Administration, and so reducing the gap between Public Administration and citizens.Thus the Portuguese Government launched the Simplex Program. However these SIMPLEX eGov measures, which have been implemented over the years, present a serious challenge: how to forecast its impact on existing Information Systems Architecture (ISA). Thus, this research is focus in addressing the problem of automating the evaluation of the actual impact of implementation an eGovSimplification and Modernization measures in the Information Systems Architecture. To realize the evaluation we proposes a Framework, which is supported by some key concepts as: Quality Factors, ISA modeling, Multicriteria Approach, Polarity Profile and Quality Metrics

Keywords: Information System Architecture, Evaluation, eGov Simplification measure, Multicriteria Evaluation

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Authors: Nerguè Kassahan Kone, Souleymane Oumtanaga

Abstract:

The third generation (3G) of cellular system adopted the spread spectrum as solution for the transmission of the data in the physical layer. Contrary to systems IS-95 or CDMAOne (systems with spread spectrum of the preceding generation), the new standard, called Universal Mobil Telecommunications System (UMTS), uses long codes in the down link. The system is conceived for the vocal communication and the transmission of the data. In particular, the down link is very important, because of the asymmetrical request of the data, i.e., more remote loading towards the mobiles than towards the basic station. Moreover, the UMTS uses for the down link an orthogonal spreading out with a variable factor of spreading out (OVSF for Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor). This characteristic makes it possible to increase the flow of data of one or more users by reducing their factor of spreading out without changing the factor of spreading out of other users. In the current standard of the UMTS, two techniques to increase the performances of the down link were proposed, the diversity of sending antenna and the codes space-time. These two techniques fight only fainding. The receiver proposed for the mobil station is the RAKE, but one can imagine a receiver more sophisticated, able to reduce the interference between users and the impact of the coloured noise and interferences to narrow band. In this context, where the users have long codes synchronized with variable factor of spreading out and ignorance by the mobile of the other active codes/users, the use of the sequences of code pseudo-noises different lengths is presented in the form of one of the most appropriate solutions.

Keywords: DS-CDMA, multiple access interference, ratio Signal / interference + Noise.

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Authors: E. Arsuaga Uriarte, F. Díaz Martín

Abstract:

The SOM has several beneficial features which make it a useful method for data mining. One of the most important features is the ability to preserve the topology in the projection. There are several measures that can be used to quantify the goodness of the map in order to obtain the optimal projection, including the average quantization error and many topological errors. Many researches have studied how the topology preservation should be measured. One option consists of using the topographic error which considers the ratio of data vectors for which the first and second best BMUs are not adjacent. In this work we present a study of the behaviour of the topographic error in different kinds of maps. We have found that this error devaluates the rectangular maps and we have studied the reasons why this happens. Finally, we suggest a new topological error to improve the deficiency of the topographic error.

Keywords: Map lattice, Self-Organizing Map, topographic error, topology preservation.

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Authors: Mira Trebar

Abstract:

Logistics processes of perishable food in the supply chain include the distribution activities and the real time temperature monitoring to fulfil the cold chain requirements. The paper presents the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology as an identification tool of receiving and shipping activities in the cold store. At the same time, the use of RFID data loggers with temperature sensors is presented to observe and store the temperatures for the purpose of analyzing the processes and having the history data available for traceability purposes and efficient recall management.

Keywords: Logistics, warehouse, RFID device, cold chain.

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