Search results for: digital rights management

Authors: Elham Ahmadi, Roshaali Khaturia, Pardis Sahraei, Mohammad Niyayesh, Omid Fatahi Valilai

Abstract:

Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) is changing the way traditional enterprise management concepts work. One of the most dominant IT achievements is the Blockchain Technology. This technology enables the distributed collaboration of stakeholders for their interactions while fulfilling the security and consensus rules among them. This paper has focused on the application of Blockchain technology to enhance one of traditional inventory management models. The Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) has been considered one of the most efficient mechanisms for vendor inventory planning by the suppliers. While VMI has brought competitive advantages for many industries, however its centralized mechanism limits the collaboration of a pool of suppliers and vendors simultaneously. This paper has studied the recent research for VMI application in industries and also has investigated the applications of Blockchain technology for decentralized collaboration of stakeholders. Focusing on sustainability issue for total supply chain consisting suppliers and vendors, it has proposed a Blockchain based VMI conceptual model. The different capabilities of this model for enabling the collaboration of stakeholders while maintaining the competitive advantages and sustainability issues have been discussed.

Keywords: Vendor Managed Inventory, Blockchain Technology, supply chain planning, sustainability.

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Authors: Chiharu Okuma, Jun Murakami, Naoki Yamamoto

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In digital signal processing it is important to approximate multi-dimensional data by the method called rank reduction, in which we reduce the rank of multi-dimensional data from higher to lower. For 2-dimennsional data, singular value decomposition (SVD) is one of the most known rank reduction techniques. Additional, outer product expansion expanded from SVD was proposed and implemented for multi-dimensional data, which has been widely applied to image processing and pattern recognition. However, the multi-dimensional outer product expansion has behavior of great computation complex and has not orthogonally between the expansion terms. Therefore we have proposed an alterative method, Third-order Orthogonal Tensor Product Expansion short for 3-OTPE. 3-OTPE uses the power method instead of nonlinear optimization method for decreasing at computing time. At the same time the group of B. D. Lathauwer proposed Higher-Order SVD (HOSVD) that is also developed with SVD extensions for multi-dimensional data. 3-OTPE and HOSVD are similarly on the rank reduction of multi-dimensional data. Using these two methods we can obtain computation results respectively, some ones are the same while some ones are slight different. In this paper, we compare 3-OTPE to HOSVD in accuracy of calculation and computing time of resolution, and clarify the difference between these two methods.

Keywords: Singular value decomposition (SVD), higher-order SVD (HOSVD), higher-order tensor, outer product expansion, power method.

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Authors: Catherine Portelli

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Felines, such as Panthera tigris, Panthera leo and Puma concolor, have become common residents in animal parks and zoos. They often sustain injuries from other felines within the same, or adjacent enclosures and from playing with items of enrichment and structures of the enclosure itself. These open wounds, and their treatments, are often challenging in veterinary practice, where feline-specific studies are lacking. This study is based on the author’s clinical experience gained while working at local animal parks in the past five years, and current evidence of hydrocolloid dressing applied to other species. Hydrocolloid dressing is used for secondary healing of chronic and acute wounds, where there is a considerable amount of tissue loss. The patients included in this study were sedated using medetomidine and ketamine every three to four days, for wound treatment and bandage change. Comparative studies of different techniques of open wound management will improve the healing process of exotic felines in the future by decreasing the time of recovery and incidence of other complications. Such studies will also aid with treatment of injuries sustained in wild felines, such as foot hold trap and bite wounds, found in natural conservation areas and wild animal sanctuaries.

Keywords: Felines, hydrocolloid dressing, open wound, secondary healing.

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Authors: Debasis Sarkar

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Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a holistic documentation process for operational visualization, design coordination, estimation and project scheduling. BIM software defines objects parametrically and it is a tool for virtual reality. Primary advantage of implementing BIM is the visual coordination of the building structure and systems such as Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) and it also identifies the possible conflicts between the building systems. This paper is an attempt to develop a risk based BIM model which would highlight the primary advantages of application of BIM pertaining to urban infrastructure transportation project. It has been observed that about 40% of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) companies use BIM but primarily for their outsourced projects. Also, 65% of the respondents agree that BIM would be used quiet strongly for future construction projects in India. The 3D models developed with Revit 2015 software would reduce co-ordination problems amongst the architects, structural engineers, contractors and building service providers (MEP). Integration of risk management along with BIM would provide enhanced co-ordination, collaboration and high probability of successful completion of the complex infrastructure transportation project within stipulated time and cost frame.

Keywords: Building information modeling (BIM), infrastructure transportation, project risk management, underground metro rail.

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Authors: Jucelia Appio, Danielle Deimling De Carli, Bruno Henrique Rocha Fernandes, Nelson Natalino Frizon

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there are positive and significant correlations between the dimensions of Person-Environment Fit (Person-Job, Person-Organization, Person-Group and Person-Supervisor) at the “Best Companies to Work for” in Brazil in 2017. For that, a quantitative approach was used with a descriptive method being defined as a research sample the "150 Best Companies to Work for", according to data base collected in 2017 and provided by Fundação Instituto of Administração (FIA) of the University of São Paulo (USP). About the data analysis procedures, asymmetry and kurtosis, factorial analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) tests, Bartlett sphericity and Cronbach's alpha were used for the 69 research variables, and as a statistical technique for the purpose of analyzing the hypothesis, Pearson's correlation analysis was performed. As a main result, we highlight that there was a positive and significant correlation between the dimensions of Person-Environment Fit, corroborating the H1 hypothesis that there is a positive and significant correlation between Person-Job Fit, Person-Organization Fit, Person-Group Fit and Person-Supervisor Fit.

Keywords: Human resource management, person-environment fit, strategic people management, best companies to work for.

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Authors: Hazem M. El-Bakry

Abstract:

In this paper a new fast simplification method is presented. Such method realizes Karnough map with large number of variables. In order to accelerate the operation of the proposed method, a new approach for fast detection of group of ones is presented. Such approach implemented in the frequency domain. The search operation relies on performing cross correlation in the frequency domain rather than time one. It is proved mathematically and practically that the number of computation steps required for the presented method is less than that needed by conventional cross correlation. Simulation results using MATLAB confirm the theoretical computations. Furthermore, a powerful solution for realization of complex functions is given. The simplified functions are implemented by using a new desigen for neural networks. Neural networks are used because they are fault tolerance and as a result they can recognize signals even with noise or distortion. This is very useful for logic functions used in data and computer communications. Moreover, the implemented functions are realized with minimum amount of components. This is done by using modular neural nets (MNNs) that divide the input space into several homogenous regions. Such approach is applied to implement XOR function, 16 logic functions on one bit level, and 2-bit digital multiplier. Compared to previous non- modular designs, a clear reduction in the order of computations and hardware requirements is achieved.

Keywords: Boolean Functions, Simplification, KarnoughMap, Implementation of Logic Functions, Modular NeuralNetworks.

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Authors: Emanuele Stomeo, Tatiana Kalganova, Cyrille Lambert

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Evolvable hardware (EHW) is a developing field that applies evolutionary algorithm (EA) to automatically design circuits, antennas, robot controllers etc. A lot of research has been done in this area and several different EAs have been introduced to tackle numerous problems, as scalability, evolvability etc. However every time a specific EA is chosen for solving a particular task, all its components, such as population size, initialization, selection mechanism, mutation rate, and genetic operators, should be selected in order to achieve the best results. In the last three decade the selection of the right parameters for the EA-s components for solving different “test-problems" has been investigated. In this paper the behaviour of mutation rate for designing logic circuits, which has not been done before, has been deeply analyzed. The mutation rate for an EHW system modifies the number of inputs of each logic gates, the functionality (for example from AND to NOR) and the connectivity between logic gates. The behaviour of the mutation has been analyzed based on the number of generations, genotype redundancy and number of logic gates for the evolved circuits. The experimental results found provide the behaviour of the mutation rate during evolution for the design and optimization of simple logic circuits. The experimental results propose the best mutation rate to be used for designing combinational logic circuits. The research presented is particular important for those who would like to implement a dynamic mutation rate inside the evolutionary algorithm for evolving digital circuits. The researches on the mutation rate during the last 40 years are also summarized.

Keywords: Design of logic circuit, evolutionary computation, evolvable hardware, mutation rate.

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Authors: Loai AbdAllah, Mahmoud Kaiyal

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Missing values in real-world datasets are a common problem. Many algorithms were developed to deal with this problem, most of them replace the missing values with a fixed value that was computed based on the observed values. In our work, we used a distance function based on Bhattacharyya distance to measure the distance between objects with missing values. Bhattacharyya distance, which measures the similarity of two probability distributions. The proposed distance distinguishes between known and unknown values. Where the distance between two known values is the Mahalanobis distance. When, on the other hand, one of them is missing the distance is computed based on the distribution of the known values, for the coordinate that contains the missing value. This method was integrated with Wikaya, a digital health company developing a platform that helps to improve prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer. In order for Wikaya’s recommendation system to work distance between users need to be measured. Since there are missing values in the collected data, there is a need to develop a distance function distances between incomplete users profiles. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed distance function in reflecting the actual similarity between different objects, when some of them contain missing values, we integrated it within the framework of k nearest neighbors (kNN) classifier, since its computation is based only on the similarity between objects. To validate this, we ran the algorithm over diabetes and breast cancer datasets, standard benchmark datasets from the UCI repository. Our experiments show that kNN classifier using our proposed distance function outperforms the kNN using other existing methods.

Keywords: Missing values, distance metric, Bhattacharyya distance.

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Authors: Hazem M. El-Bakry

Abstract:

In this paper a new fast simplification method is presented. Such method realizes Karnough map with large number of variables. In order to accelerate the operation of the proposed method, a new approach for fast detection of group of ones is presented. Such approach implemented in the frequency domain. The search operation relies on performing cross correlation in the frequency domain rather than time one. It is proved mathematically and practically that the number of computation steps required for the presented method is less than that needed by conventional cross correlation. Simulation results using MATLAB confirm the theoretical computations. Furthermore, a powerful solution for realization of complex functions is given. The simplified functions are implemented by using a new desigen for neural networks. Neural networks are used because they are fault tolerance and as a result they can recognize signals even with noise or distortion. This is very useful for logic functions used in data and computer communications. Moreover, the implemented functions are realized with minimum amount of components. This is done by using modular neural nets (MNNs) that divide the input space into several homogenous regions. Such approach is applied to implement XOR function, 16 logic functions on one bit level, and 2-bit digital multiplier. Compared to previous non- modular designs, a clear reduction in the order of computations and hardware requirements is achieved.

Keywords: Boolean functions, simplification, Karnough map, implementation of logic functions, modular neural networks.

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Authors: Shimal Das, Dibyendu Ghoshal

Abstract:

Fractal based digital image compression is a specific technique in the field of color image. The method is best suited for irregular shape of image like snow bobs, clouds, flame of fire; tree leaves images, depending on the fact that parts of an image often resemble with other parts of the same image. This technique has drawn much attention in recent years because of very high compression ratio that can be achieved. Hybrid scheme incorporating fractal compression and speedup techniques have achieved high compression ratio compared to pure fractal compression. Fractal image compression is a lossy compression method in which selfsimilarity nature of an image is used. This technique provides high compression ratio, less encoding time and fart decoding process. In this paper, fractal compression with quad tree and DCT is proposed to compress the color image. The proposed hybrid schemes require four phases to compress the color image. First: the image is segmented and Discrete Cosine Transform is applied to each block of the segmented image. Second: the block values are scanned in a zigzag manner to prevent zero co-efficient. Third: the resulting image is partitioned as fractals by quadtree approach. Fourth: the image is compressed using Run length encoding technique.

Keywords: Fractal coding, Discrete Cosine Transform, Iterated Function System (IFS), Affine Transformation, Run length encoding.

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Authors: Vladimir Simovic, Matija Varga, Tonco Marusic

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This research paper shows matrix technology models and examples of information systems in education (in the Republic of Croatia and in the Germany) in support of business, education (when learning and teaching) and e-learning. Here we researched and described the aims and objectives of the main process in education and technology, with main matrix classes of data. In this paper, we have example of matrix technology with detailed description of processes related to specific data classes in the processes of education and an example module that is support for the process: ‘Filling in the directory and the diary of work’ and ‘evaluation’. Also, on the lower level of the processes, we researched and described all activities which take place within the lower process in education. We researched and described the characteristics and functioning of modules: ‘Fill the directory and the diary of work’ and ‘evaluation’. For the analysis of the affinity between the aforementioned processes and/or sub-process we used our application model created in Visual Basic, which was based on the algorithm for analyzing the affinity between the observed processes and/or sub-processes.

Keywords: Designing, education management, information systems, matrix technology, process affinity.

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Authors: Guyue Zhu, Liangping Hong

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Chinese overall urban design faces a large number of problems such as the neglect of urban characteristics, generalization of content, and difficulty in implementation. Focusing on these issues, this paper proposes the main points of shaping urban characteristics in overall urban design: focuses on core problems in city function and scale, landscape pattern, historical culture, social resources and modern city style and digs the urban characteristic genes. Then, we put forward “core problem location and characteristic gene enhancement” as a kind of overall urban design technical method. Firstly, based on the main problems in urban space as a whole, for the operability goal, the method extracts the key genes and integrates into the multi-dimension system in a targeted manner. Secondly, hierarchical management and guidance system is established which may be in line with administrative management. Finally, by converting the results, action plan is drawn up that can be dynamically implemented. Based on the above idea and method, a practical exploration has been performed in the case of Xiangyang central city.

Keywords: City characteristics, overall urban design, planning implementation, Xiangyang central city.

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Authors: B. O. Diyaolu

Abstract:

The opportunity provided by advances in technology as regard to sports betting is so numerous. Nigerian youth are not left out especially with the use of phones and visit to sports betting outlets. Today, it is more difficult to differentiate a true fan as there are quite a number of them that became fans as a result of betting on live games. This study investigated the influence of online sports events on betting among Nigerian youth. A descriptive survey research design was used and the population consists of all Nigerian youth that engages in betting and lives within the southwest zone of Nigeria. A simple random sampling technique was used to pick three states from the southwest zone of Nigeria. 2500 respondents comprising of males and females were sampled from the three states. A structured questionnaire on Online Sports Event Contribution to Sports Betting (OSECSB) was used. The instrument consists of three sections. Section A seeks information on the demographic data of the respondents. Section B seeks information on online sports events while section C was used to extract information on sports betting. The modified instrument which consists of 14 items has a reliability coefficient of 0.74. The hypothesis was tested at 0.05 significance level. The completed questionnaire was collated, coded, and analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentage and pie chart, and inferential statistics of multiple regressions. The findings of this study revealed that online sports betting is a significant predictor of an increase in sports betting among Nigerian youth. The media and television, as well as globalization and the internet, coupled with social media and various online platforms, have all contributed to the immense increase in sports betting. The increase in the advertisement of the betting platform during live matches, especially football, is becoming more alarming. In most organized international events, the media attention, as well as sponsorship rights, are now been given to one or two betting platforms. There is a need for all stakeholders to put in place school-based intervention programs to reorientate our youth about the consequences of addiction to betting. Such programs must include meta-analyses and emotional control towards sports betting.

Keywords: Betting platform, Nigerian fans, Nigerian youth, sports betting.

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Authors: Oseni Taiwo Amoo, Bloodless Dzwairo

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In this paper, we extend the versatility and usefulness of GIS as a methodology for any river basin hydrologic characteristics analysis (HCA). The Gurara River basin located in North-Central Nigeria is presented in this study. It is an on-going research using spatial Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and Arc-Hydro tools to take inventory of the basin characteristics in order to predict water abstraction quantification on streamflow regime. One of the main concerns of hydrological modelling is the quantification of runoff from rainstorm events. In practice, the soil conservation service curve (SCS) method and the Conventional procedure called rational technique are still generally used these traditional hydrological lumped models convert statistical properties of rainfall in river basin to observed runoff and hydrograph. However, the models give little or no information about spatially dispersed information on rainfall and basin physical characteristics. Therefore, this paper synthesizes morphometric parameters in generating runoff. The expected results of the basin characteristics such as size, area, shape, slope of the watershed and stream distribution network analysis could be useful in estimating streamflow discharge. Water resources managers and irrigation farmers could utilize the tool for determining net return from available scarce water resources, where past data records are sparse for the aspect of land and climate.

Keywords: Hydrological characteristic, land and climate, runoff discharge, streamflow.

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Authors: Po-Hsiang Chiu, Torre Wenaus

Abstract:

In the current Grid environment, efficient workload management presents a significant challenge, for which there are exorbitant de facto standards encompassing resource discovery, brokerage, and data transfer, among others. In addition, the real-time resource status, essential for an optimal resource allocation strategy, is often not readily accessible. To address these issues and provide a cleaner abstraction of the Grid with the potential of generalizing into arbitrary resource-sharing environment, this paper proposes a new Condor-based pilot mechanism applied in the PanDA architecture, PanDA-PF WMS, with the goal of providing a more generic yet efficient resource allocating strategy. In this architecture, the PanDA server primarily acts as a repository of user jobs, responding to pilot requests from distributed, remote resources. Scheduling decisions are subsequently made according to the real-time resource information reported by pilots. Pilot Factory is a Condor-inspired solution for a scalable pilot dissemination and effectively functions as a resource provisioning mechanism through which the user-job server, PanDA, reaches out to the candidate resources only on demand.

Keywords: Condor, glidein, PanDA, Pilot, Pilot Factory.

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Authors: Kadio Valere R. Angaman, Birahim Bouna Niang

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Land degradation is a serious problem in developing countries including Cote d’Ivoire, which has its economy focused on agriculture. It occurs in all kinds of ecosystems over the world. However, the drivers of land degradation vary from one region to another, and from one ecosystem to another. Thus, identifying these drivers is an essential prerequisite to develop and implement appropriate policies to reverse the trend of land degradation in the country, especially in the trays ecosystem. Using the binary logistic model with primary data obtained through 780 farmers surveyed, we analyze and identify the drivers of land degradation in the trays ecosystem. The descriptive statistics show that 52% of farmers interviewed have stated facing land degradation in their farmland. This high rate shows the extent of land degradation in this ecosystem. Also, the results obtained from the binary logit regression reveal that land degradation is significantly influenced by a set of variables such as sex, education, slope, erosion, pesticide, agricultural activity, deforestation, and temperature. The drivers identified are mostly local, as a result, the government must implement some policies and strategies that facilitate and incentive the adoption of sustainable land management practices by farmers to reverse the negative trend of land degradation.

Keywords: Drivers, land degradation, trays ecosystem, sustainable land management.

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Authors: Mejía M. Paula, Ramírez L. Leonardo, Puerta A. Gabriel

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In telemedicine, the image repository service is important to increase the accuracy of diagnostic support of medical personnel. This study makes comparison between two routing algorithms regarding the quality of service (QoS), to be able to analyze the optimal performance at the time of loading and/or downloading of medical images. This study focused on comparing the performance of Tabu Search with other heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms that improve QoS in telemedicine services in Colombia. For this, Tabu Search and Simulated Annealing heuristic algorithms are chosen for their high usability in this type of applications; the QoS is measured taking into account the following metrics: Delay, Throughput, Jitter and Latency. In addition, routing tests were carried out on ten images in digital image and communication in medicine (DICOM) format of 40 MB. These tests were carried out for ten minutes with different traffic conditions, reaching a total of 25 tests, from a server of Universidad Militar Nueva Granada (UMNG) in Bogotá-Colombia to a remote user in Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH) - Chile. The results show that Tabu search presents a better QoS performance compared to Simulated Annealing, managing to optimize the routing of medical images, a basic requirement to offer diagnostic images services in telemedicine.

Keywords: Medical image, QoS, simulated annealing, Tabu search, telemedicine.

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Authors: M. Okeke, A. Blyth

Abstract:

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) such as Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) can be seen in many different critical infrastructures, from nuclear management to utility, medical equipment, power, waste and engine management on ships and planes. The role SCADA plays in critical infrastructure has resulted in a call to secure them. Many lives depend on it for daily activities and the attack vectors are becoming more sophisticated. Hence, the security of ICS is vital as malfunction of it might result in huge risk. This paper describes how the application of Prey Predator (PP) approach in flocks of birds could enhance the detection of malicious activities on ICS. The PP approach explains how these animals in groups or flocks detect predators by following some simple rules. They are not necessarily very intelligent animals but their approach in solving complex issues such as detection through corporation, coordination and communication worth emulating. This paper will emulate flocking behavior seen in birds in detecting predators. The PP approach will adopt six nearest bird approach in detecting any predator. Their local and global bests are based on the individual detection as well as group detection. The PP algorithm was designed following MapReduce methodology that follows a Split Detection Convergence (SDC) approach.

Keywords: Industrial control systems, prey predator, SCADA, SDC.

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Authors: Popoola M. O., Abiola S. O., Adeniji W. A.

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This study investigates the causes, effects and remedies of traffic congestion which has become a common sight in most highways in Nigeria; Mowe/Ibafo section of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway was used as the case-study. 300 Structured questionnaires were distributed among the road users comprising drivers (Private and Commercial), passengers, pedestrians, traffic officers, church congregations, community leaders, Mowe/Ibafo residents, and other users of the road.

300 questionnaires were given out; the average of 276 well completed returned questionnaires formed the basis of the study and was analyzed by the Relative Importance Index (R.I.I.). The result from the study showed the causes of traffic congestion as inadequate road capacity, poor road pavement, poor traffic management, poor drainage system poor driving habit, poor parking habit, poor design junctions/round-about, presence of heavy trucks, lack of pedestrian facilities, lack of road furniture, lack of parking facilities and others. Effects of road congestion from the study are waste of time, delay movement, stress, accident, inability to forecast travel of time, fuel consumption, road rage, relocation, night driving, and environmental pollution. To drastically reduce these negative effects; there must be provision for adequate parking space, construction of proper drainage, enlarging the width of the road, rehabilitate all roads needing attention, public enlightenment, traffic education, hack down all illegal buildings/shops built on the right of way (ROW), create a separate/alternative root for trucks and heavy vehicles, provision of pedestrian facilities, In-depth training of transport/traffic personnel, ban all form of road trading/hawking, and reduce the number of bus-stop where necessary. It is hoped that this study will become the foundation of further research in the area of improve road traffic management on our major highway.

Keywords: Highways, Congestion, Traffic, Traffic congestion, traffic management, Nigeria.

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Authors: S. Joseph Antony, Z. K. Jahanger

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Soils are subjected to cyclic loading in situ in situations such as during earthquakes and in the compaction of pavements. Investigations on the local scale measurement of the displacements of the grain and failure patterns within the soil bed under the cyclic loading conditions are rather limited. In this paper, using the digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV), local scale displacement fields of a dense sand medium interacting with a rigid footing are measured under the plane-strain condition for two commonly used types of cyclic loading, and the quasi-static loading condition for the purposes of comparison. From the displacement measurements of the grains, the failure envelopes of the sand media are also presented. The results show that, the ultimate cyclic bearing capacity (qultcyc) occurred corresponding to a relatively higher settlement value when compared with that of under the quasi-static loading. For the sand media under the cyclic loading conditions considered here, the displacement fields in the soil media occurred more widely in the horizontal direction and less deeper along the vertical direction when compared with that of under the quasi-static loading. The 'dead zone' in the sand grains beneath the footing is identified for all types of the loading conditions studied here. These grain-scale characteristics have implications on the resulting bulk bearing capacity of the sand media in footing-sand interaction problems.

Keywords: Cyclic loading, DPIV, settlement, soil-structure interactions, strip footing.

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Authors: AlMatrouk H. S., Juszczak M. D.

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Research and development R&D work involves enormous amount of work that has to do with data measurement and collection. This process evolves as new information is fed, new technologies are utilized, and eventually new knowledge is created by the stakeholders i.e., researchers, clients, and end-users. When new knowledge is created, procedures of R&D work should evolve and produce better results within improved research skills and improved methods of data measurements and collection. This measurement improvement should then be benchmarked against a metric that should be developed at the organization. In this paper, we are suggesting a conceptual metric for R&D work performance improvement (PI) at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR). This PI is to be measured against a set of variables in the suggested metric, which are more closely correlated to organizational output, as opposed to organizational norms. The paper also mentions and discusses knowledge creation and management as an addedvalue to R&D work and measurement improvement. The research methodology followed in this work is qualitative in nature, based on a survey that was distributed to researchers and interviews held with senior researchers at KISR. Research and analyses in this paper also include looking at and analyzing KISR-s literature.

Keywords: Knowledge Creation, Performance Improvement (PI), Conceptual Metric, Knowledge Management (KM) addedvalue.

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Authors: Farideh Sharififar, Zahra Jamalian, Reza Nikbakhsh, Zahra Nobakht Ramezani

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In sport, human resources management gives special attention to method of applying volunteers, their maintenance, and participation of volunteers with each other and management approaches for better operation of events celebrants. The recognition of volunteers- characteristics and motives is important to notice, because it makes the basis of their participation and commitment at sport environment. The motivation and commitment of 281 volunteers were assessed using the organizational commitment scale, motivation scale and personal characteristics questionnaire.The descriptive results showed that; 64% of volunteers were women with age average 21/24 years old. They were physical education student, single (71/9%), without occupation (53%) and with average of 5 years sport experience. Their most important motivation was career factor and the most important commitment factor was normative factor. The results of examining the hypothesized showed that; age, sport experience and education are effective in the amount of volunteers- commitment. And the motive factors such as career, material, purposive and protective factors also have the power to predict the amount of sports volunteers- commitment value. Therefore it is recommended to provide possible opportunities for volunteers and carrying out appropriate instructional courses by events executive managers.

Keywords: Sport Volunteers, Motivation, Organizational Commitment, Sport Event

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Authors: Awais Adnan, Muhammad Nawaz, Sajid Anwar, Tamleek Ali, Muhammad Ali

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Needs of an efficient information retrieval in recent years in increased more then ever because of the frequent use of digital information in our life. We see a lot of work in the area of textual information but in multimedia information, we cannot find much progress. In text based information, new technology of data mining and data marts are now in working that were started from the basic concept of database some where in 1960. In image search and especially in image identification, computerized system at very initial stages. Even in the area of image search we cannot see much progress as in the case of text based search techniques. One main reason for this is the wide spread roots of image search where many area like artificial intelligence, statistics, image processing, pattern recognition play their role. Even human psychology and perception and cultural diversity also have their share for the design of a good and efficient image recognition and retrieval system. A new object based search technique is presented in this paper where object in the image are identified on the basis of their geometrical shapes and other features like color and texture where object-co-relation augments this search process. To be more focused on objects identification, simple images are selected for the work to reduce the role of segmentation in overall process however same technique can also be applied for other images.

Keywords: Object correlation, Geometrical shape, Color, texture, features, contents.

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Authors: Ludovic Favre, Thibaut M. Schafer, Jean-Luc Robyr, Elena-Lavinia Niederhäuser

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This paper presents an optimization method based on genetic algorithm for the energy management inside buildings developed in the frame of the project Smart Living Lab (SLL) in Fribourg (Switzerland). This algorithm optimizes the interaction between renewable energy production, storage systems and energy consumers. In comparison with standard algorithms, the innovative aspect of this project is the extension of the smart regulation over three simultaneous criteria: the energy self-consumption, the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions and operating costs. The genetic algorithm approach was chosen due to the large quantity of optimization variables and the non-linearity of the optimization function. The optimization process includes also real time data of the building as well as weather forecast and users habits. This information is used by a physical model of the building energy resources to predict the future energy production and needs, to select the best energetic strategy, to combine production or storage of energy in order to guarantee the demand of electrical and thermal energy. The principle of operation of the algorithm as well as typical output example of the algorithm is presented.

Keywords: Building’s energy, control system, energy management, modelling, genetic optimization algorithm, renewable energy, greenhouse gases, energy storage.

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Authors: Nan-Ying Yu, Shao-Hsia Chang

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This study explores the clinical features of neurodegenerative disease patients with tremor. We study the motor impairments in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET). Since uncertainty exists on whether Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET) patients have similar degree of impairment during motor tasks, this study based on the self-developed computerized handwriting movement analysis to characterize motor functions of these two impairments. The recruited subjects were diagnosed and confirmed one of neurodegenerative diseases. They were undergone general clinical evaluations by physicians in the first year. We recruited 8 participants with PD and 10 with ET. Additional 12 participants without any neuromuscular dysfunction were recruited as control group. This study used fine motor control of penmanship on digital tablet for sensorimotor function tests. The movement speed in PD/ET group is found significant slower than subjects in normal control group. In movement intensity and speed, the result found subject with ET has similar clinical feature with PD subjects. The ET group shows smaller and slower movements than control group but not to the same extent as PD group. The results of this study contribute to the early screening and detection of diseases and the evaluation of disease progression.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, motor function, fine motor movement, computerized handwriting evaluation.

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Authors: C. A. Roberts, J. G. Andrae, S. R. Smith, M. H. Poore, C. A. Young, D. W. Hancock, G. J. Pent

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To the author’s best knowledge, there are no published reports of effective methods for teaching fescue toxicosis and grass endophyte technology in the USA. To address this need, a group of university scientists, industry representatives, government agents, and livestock producers formed an organization called the Alliance for Grassland Renewal. One goal of the Alliance was to develop a teaching method that could be employed across all regions in the USA and all sectors of the agricultural community. The first step in developing this method was identification of experts who were familiar with the science and management of fescue toxicosis. The second step was curriculum development. Experts wrote a curriculum that addressed all aspects of toxicosis and management, including toxicology, animal nutrition, pasture management, economics, and mycology. The curriculum was created for presentation in lectures, laboratories, and in the field. The curriculum was in that it could be delivered across state lines, regardless of peculiar, in-state recommendations. The curriculum was also unique as it was unanimously supported by private companies otherwise in competition with each other. The final step in developing this teaching method was formulating a delivery plan. All experts, including university, industry, government, and production, volunteered to travel from any state in the USA, converge in one location, teach a 1-day workshop, then travel to the next location. The results of this teaching method indicate widespread success. Since 2012, experts across the entire USA have converged to teach Alliance workshops in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, with ongoing workshops in Arkansas and Tennessee. Data from post-workshop surveys indicate that instruction has been effective, as at least 50% of the participants stated their intention to adopt the endophyte technology presented in these workshops. The teaching method developed by the Alliance for Grassland Renewal has proved to be effective, and the Alliance continues to expand across the USA.

Keywords: Endophyte, Epichloë coenophiala, ergot alkaloids, fescue toxicosis, tall fescue.

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Authors: H. B. Kekre, Kavita Patil

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This paper describes a novel and effective approach to content-based image retrieval (CBIR) that represents each image in the database by a vector of feature values called “Standard deviation of mean vectors of color distribution of rows and columns of images for CBIR". In many areas of commerce, government, academia, and hospitals, large collections of digital images are being created. This paper describes the approach that uses contents as feature vector for retrieval of similar images. There are several classes of features that are used to specify queries: colour, texture, shape, spatial layout. Colour features are often easily obtained directly from the pixel intensities. In this paper feature extraction is done for the texture descriptor that is 'variance' and 'Variance of Variances'. First standard deviation of each row and column mean is calculated for R, G, and B planes. These six values are obtained for one image which acts as a feature vector. Secondly we calculate variance of the row and column of R, G and B planes of an image. Then six standard deviations of these variance sequences are calculated to form a feature vector of dimension six. We applied our approach to a database of 300 BMP images. We have determined the capability of automatic indexing by analyzing image content: color and texture as features and by applying a similarity measure Euclidean distance.

Keywords: Standard deviation Image retrieval, color distribution, Variance, Variance of Variance, Euclidean distance.

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Authors: Gbenga F. Akomolafe, Joseph Omojola, Ezekiel S. Joshua, Seyi C. Adediwura, Elijah T. Adesuji, Michael O. Odey, Oyinade A. Dedeke, Ayo H. Labulo

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Microgravity is known to be a major abiotic stress in space which affects plants depending on the duration of exposure. In this work, tomatoes seeds were exposed to long hours of simulated microgravity condition using a one-axis clinostat. The seeds were sown on a 1.5% combination of plant nutrient and agar-agar solidified medium in three Petri dishes. One of the Petri dishes was mounted on the clinostat and allowed to rotate at the speed of 20 rpm for 72 hours, while the others were subjected to the normal gravity vector. The anatomical sections of both clinorotated and normal gravity plants were made after 72 hours and observed using a Phase-contrast digital microscope. The percentage germination, as well as the growth rate of the normal gravity seeds, was higher than the clinorotated ones. The germinated clinorotated roots followed different directions unlike the normal gravity ones which grew towards the direction of gravity vector. The clinostat was able to switch off gravistimulation. Distinct cellular arrangement was observed for tomatoes under normal gravity condition, unlike those of clinorotated ones. The root epidermis and cortex of normal gravity are thicker than the clinorotated ones. This implied that under long-term microgravity influence, plants do alter their anatomical features as a way of adapting to the stress condition.

Keywords: Anatomy, Clinostat, Germination, Microgravity, Lycopersicon esculentum.

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Authors: Hanaa T. El-Madany, Faten H. Fahmy, Ninet M. A. El-Rahman, Hassen T. Dorrah

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Designing and implementing intelligent systems has become a crucial factor for the innovation and development of better products of space technologies. A neural network is a parallel system, capable of resolving paradigms that linear computing cannot. Field programmable gate array (FPGA) is a digital device that owns reprogrammable properties and robust flexibility. For the neural network based instrument prototype in real time application, conventional specific VLSI neural chip design suffers the limitation in time and cost. With low precision artificial neural network design, FPGAs have higher speed and smaller size for real time application than the VLSI and DSP chips. So, many researchers have made great efforts on the realization of neural network (NN) using FPGA technique. In this paper, an introduction of ANN and FPGA technique are briefly shown. Also, Hardware Description Language (VHDL) code has been proposed to implement ANNs as well as to present simulation results with floating point arithmetic. Synthesis results for ANN controller are developed using Precision RTL. Proposed VHDL implementation creates a flexible, fast method and high degree of parallelism for implementing ANN. The implementation of multi-layer NN using lookup table LUT reduces the resource utilization for implementation and time for execution.

Keywords: Spacecraft, neural network, FPGA, VHDL.

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Authors: Marcus C. Garcia, Giselle C. Guimarães, Luciana H. Yamane, Renato R. Siman

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The environmental indicators and the classification of beach waste are essential tools to diagnose the current situation and to indicate ways to improve the quality of this environment. The purpose of this paper was to perform a quali-quantitative analysis of the beach waste on the Curva da Jurema Beach (Espírito Santo - Brazil). Three transects were used with equidistant positioning over the total length of the beach for the solid waste collection. Solid wastes were later classified according to their use and primary raw material from the low and high summer season. During the low season, average values of 7.10 items.m^-1, 18.22 g.m^-1 and 0.91 g.m^-2 were found for the whole beach, and transect 3 contributed the most waste, with the total sum of items equal to 999 (49%), a total mass of 5.62 kg and a total volume of 21.31 L. During the high summer season, average values of 8.22 items.m^-1, 54.40 g.m^-1 and 2.72 g.m^-2 were found, with transect 2 contributing the most to the total sum with 1,212 items (53%), a total mass of 10.76 kg and a total volume of 51.99 L. Of the total collected, plastic materials represented 51.4% of the total number of items, 35.9% of the total mass and 68% of the total volume. The implementation of reactive and proactive measures is necessary so that the management of the solid wastes on Curva da Jurema Beach is in accordance with principles of sustainability.

Keywords: Beach solid waste, environmental indicators, quali-quantitative analysis, waste management.

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