Search results for: mobile financial services

Authors: Cheng-Suan Lee, Khong Neng Choong, So Gean Koh, Chee Onn Chow, Mazlan Abbas

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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application or commonly known as softphone has been developing an increasingly large market in today-s telecommunication world and the trend is expected to continue with the enhancement of additional features. This includes leveraging on the existing presence services, location and contextual information to enable more ubiquitous and seamless communications. In this paper, we discuss the concept of seamless session transfer for real-time application such as VoIP and IPTV, and our prototype implementation of such concept on a selected open source VoIP application. The first part of this paper is about conducting performance evaluation and assessments across some commonly found open source VoIP applications that are Ekiga, Kphone, Linphone and Twinkle so as to identify one of them for implementing our design of seamless session transfer. Subjective testing has been carried out to evaluate the audio performance on these VoIP applications and rank them according to their Mean Opinion Score (MOS) results. The second part of this paper is to discuss on the performance evaluations of our prototype implementation of session transfer using Linphone.

Keywords: audio codec, softphone, session transfer.

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Authors: Chyi Jaw

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Prior literature on innovation diffusion or acceptance has almost exclusively concentrated on consumers’ positive attitudes and behaviors for new products/services. Consumers’ negative attitudes or behaviors to innovations have received relatively little marketing attention, but it happens frequently in practice. This study discusses consumer psychological factors when they try to learn or use new technologies. According to recent research, technological innovation acceptance has been considered as a dynamic or mediated process. This research argues that consumers can experience inertia and emotions in the initial use of new technologies. However, given such consumer psychology, the argument can be made as to whether the inclusion of consumer inertia (routine seeking and cognitive rigidity) and emotions increases the predictive power of new technology acceptance model. As data from the empirical study find, the process is potentially consumer emotion changing (independent of performance benefits) because of technology complexity and consumer inertia, and impact innovative technology use significantly. Finally, the study presents the superior predictability of the hypothesized model, which let managers can better predict and influence the successful diffusion of complex technological innovations.

Keywords: Cognitive rigidity, consumer emotions, new technology acceptance, routine seeking, technology complexity.

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Authors: Mohammad Namazi, Mohammad Sadeghzadeh Maharluie

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Predicting earnings management is vital for the capital market participants, financial analysts and managers. The aim of this research is attempting to respond to this query: Is there a significant difference between the regression model and neural networks’ models in predicting earnings management, and which one leads to a superior prediction of it? In approaching this question, a Linear Regression (LR) model was compared with two neural networks including Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), and Generalized Regression Neural Network (GRNN). The population of this study includes 94 listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) market from 2003 to 2011. After the results of all models were acquired, ANOVA was exerted to test the hypotheses. In general, the summary of statistical results showed that the precision of GRNN did not exhibit a significant difference in comparison with MLP. In addition, the mean square error of the MLP and GRNN showed a significant difference with the multi variable LR model. These findings support the notion of nonlinear behavior of the earnings management. Therefore, it is more appropriate for capital market participants to analyze earnings management based upon neural networks techniques, and not to adopt linear regression models.

Keywords: Earnings management, generalized regression neural networks, linear regression, multi-layer perceptron, Tehran stock exchange.

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Authors: Daniel F. Garcia, Julio Molleda, Francisco Gonzalez, Ruben Usamentiaga

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The development of many measurement and inspection systems of products based on real-time image processing can not be carried out totally in a laboratory due to the size or the temperature of the manufactured products. Those systems must be developed in successive phases. Firstly, the system is installed in the production line with only an operational service to acquire images of the products and other complementary signals. Next, a recording service of the image and signals must be developed and integrated in the system. Only after a large set of images of products is available, the development of the real-time image processing algorithms for measurement or inspection of the products can be accomplished under realistic conditions. Finally, the recording service is turned off or eliminated and the system operates only with the real-time services for the acquisition and processing of the images. This article presents a systematic performance evaluation of the image compression algorithms currently available to implement a real-time recording service. The results allow establishing a trade off between the reduction or compression of the image size and the CPU time required to get that compression level.

Keywords: Lossless image compression, codec performanceevaluation, grayscale codec comparison, real-time image recording.

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Authors: Sabina Jordan, Miha Tomšič, Friderik Knez, Marjana Šijanec Zavrl

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To determine the possibilities for the implementation of sustainable building indicators in Slovenia, testing of the first version of the indicators, developed in the CARE4CLIMATE project and based on the EU Level(s) framework, was carried out in 2022. Invited and interested stakeholders of the construction process were provided with video content and instructions on the Slovenian e-platform of sustainable building indicators. In addition, workshops and lectures with individual subjects were also performed. The final phase of the training and testing procedure included a questionnaire, which was used to obtain information about the participants' opinions regarding the indicators. The analysis of the results of the testing, which was focused on level 2, confirmed the key preliminary finding of the development group, namely that currently, due to the lack of certain knowledge, data, and tools, all indicators for this level are not yet feasible in practice. The research also highlighted the greater need for training and specialization of experts in this field. At the same time, it showed that the testing of the first version itself was a big challenge: only 30 experts fully participated and filled out the online questionnaire. This number seems alarmingly low at first glance, but compared to level(s) testing in the EU member states, it is much more than 50 times higher. However, for the further execution of the indicators in Slovenia, it will therefore be necessary to invest a lot of effort and engagement. It is likely that state support will also be needed, for example, in the form of financial mechanisms or incentives and/or legislative background.

Keywords: Sustainability, building indicator, project CARE4CLIMATE, alpha version SLO kTG, Level(s), sustainable construction stakeholders.

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Authors: Mohammad Soliman, Mohamed A. Abou-Shouk

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Knowledge management focuses on the development, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information and expertise. It has become an important tool to improve performance in tourism enterprises. This includes improving decision-making, developing customer services, and increasing sales and profits. Knowledge management adoption depends on human, organizational and technological factors. This study aims to explore the concept of knowledge management in travel agents in Egypt. It explores the requirements of adoption and its impact on performance in these agencies. The study targets Category A travel agents in Egypt. The population of the study encompasses Category A travel agents having online presence. An online questionnaire is used to collect data from managers of travel agents. This study is useful for travel agents who are in urgent need to restructure their intermediary role and support their survival in the global travel market. The study sheds light on the requirements of adoption and the expected impact on performance. This could help travel agents identify their situation and the determine the extent to which they are ready to adopt knowledge management. This study is contributing to knowledge by providing insights from the tourism sector in a developing country where the concept of knowledge management is still in its infancy stages.

Keywords: Benefits, determinants, Egypt, knowledge management, travel agents.

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Authors: Suresh Shirgave, Prakash Kulkarni, José Borges

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The continuous growth in the size of the World Wide Web has resulted in intricate Web sites, demanding enhanced user skills and more sophisticated tools to help the Web user to find the desired information. In order to make Web more user friendly, it is necessary to provide personalized services and recommendations to the Web user. For discovering interesting and frequent navigation patterns from Web server logs many Web usage mining techniques have been applied. The recommendation accuracy of usage based techniques can be improved by integrating Web site content and site structure in the personalization process.

Herein, we propose semantically enriched Web Usage Mining method for Personalization (SWUMP), an extension to solely usage based technique. This approach is a combination of the fields of Web Usage Mining and Semantic Web. In the proposed method, we envisage enriching the undirected graph derived from usage data with rich semantic information extracted from the Web pages and the Web site structure. The experimental results show that the SWUMP generates accurate recommendations and is able to achieve 10-20% better accuracy than the solely usage based model. The SWUMP addresses the new item problem inherent to solely usage based techniques.

Keywords: Prediction, Recommendation, Semantic Web Usage Mining, Web Usage Mining.

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Authors: Eakong Atiptamvaree, Twittie Senivongse

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Process-oriented software development is a new software development paradigm in which software design is modeled by a business process which is in turn translated into a process execution language for execution. The building blocks of this paradigm are software units that are composed together to work according to the flow of the business process. This new paradigm still exhibits the characteristic of the applications built with the traditional software component technology. This paper discusses an approach to apply a traditional technique for software component fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called process components. These process components result from decomposing a business process of a particular application domain into subprocesses, and these process components can be reused to design the business processes of other application domains. The decomposition considers five managerial goals, namely cost effectiveness, ease of assembly, customization, reusability, and maintainability. The paper presents how to design or decompose process components from a business process model and measure some technical features of the design that would affect the managerial goals. A comparison between the measurement values from different designs can tell which process component design is more appropriate for the managerial goals that have been set. The proposed approach can be applied in Web Services environment which accommodates process-oriented software development.

Keywords: Business Process Model, Managerial Goals, ProcessComponent.

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Authors: Dominik Krimpmann

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Cloud computing has provided the impetus for change in the demand, sourcing, and consumption of IT-enabled services. The technology developed from an emerging trend towards a ‘musthave’. Many organizations harnessed on the quick-wins of cloud computing within the last five years but nowadays reach a plateau when it comes to sustainable savings and performance. This study aims to investigate what is needed from an organizational perspective to make cloud computing a sustainable success. The study was carried out in Germany among senior IT professionals, both in management and delivery positions. Our research shows that IT executives must be prepared to realign their IT workforce to sustain the advantage of cloud computing for today and the near future. While new roles will undoubtedly emerge, roles alone cannot ensure the success of cloud deployments. What is needed is a change in the IT workforce’s business behaviour, or put more simply, the ways in which the IT personnel works. It gives clear guidance on which dimensions of an employees’ working behaviour need to be adapted. The practical implications are drawn from a series of semi-structured interviews, resulting in a high-level workforce enablement plan. Lastly, it elaborates on tools and gives clear guidance on which pitfalls might arise along the proposed workforce enablement process.

Keywords: Cloud Computing, Organization Design, Organizational Change, Workforce Enablement.

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Authors: Omar Al Denali, Abdelaziz Badi

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The ASTM A516 Grade 70 steel is a suitable material used for the fabrication of boiler pressure vessels working in moderate and lower temperature services, and it has good weldability and excellent notch toughness. The post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) or stress-relieving heat treatment has significant effects on avoiding the martensite transformation and resulting in high hardness, which can lead to cracking in the heat-affected zone (HAZ). An adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) was implemented to predict the material tensile strength of PWHT experiments. The ANFIS models presented excellent predictions, and the comparison was carried out based on the mean absolute percentage error between the predicted values and the experimental values. The ANFIS model gave a Mean Absolute Percentage Error of 0.556%, which confirms the high accuracy of the model.

Keywords: Prediction, post-weld heat treatment, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system, ANFIS, mean absolute percentage error.

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Authors: B. Marasović, S. Pivac, S. V. Vukasović

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Constructing a portfolio of investments is one of the most significant financial decisions facing individuals and institutions. In accordance with the modern portfolio theory maximization of return at minimal risk should be the investment goal of any successful investor. In addition, the costs incurred when setting up a new portfolio or rebalancing an existing portfolio must be included in any realistic analysis. In this paper rebalancing an investment portfolio in the presence of transaction costs on the Croatian capital market is analyzed. The model applied in the paper is an extension of the standard portfolio mean-variance optimization model in which transaction costs are incurred to rebalance an investment portfolio. This model allows different costs for different securities, and different costs for buying and selling. In order to find efficient portfolio, using this model, first, the solution of quadratic programming problem of similar size to the Markowitz model, and then the solution of a linear programming problem have to be found. Furthermore, in the paper the impact of transaction costs on the efficient frontier is investigated. Moreover, it is shown that global minimum variance portfolio on the efficient frontier always has the same level of the risk regardless of the amount of transaction costs. Although efficient frontier position depends of both transaction costs amount and initial portfolio it can be concluded that extreme right portfolio on the efficient frontier always contains only one stock with the highest expected return and the highest risk.

Keywords: Croatian capital market, Fractional quadratic programming, Markowitz model, Portfolio optimization, Transaction costs.

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Authors: Ali Salehipour

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Studying literature theme in the fields of tourism and sustainable development and its importance in today world and their criteria in architecture, here in this article we will also study the area where the selected site is located; beside the Aab-Ask Village located in Larijan region in Mazandaran province on the way to Haraz – one of the tourism routes of Iran. After these studies by analyzing the site, its strong potentials – such as mineral water springs (hot springs), geothermal, landscapes and ideal climate - as a tourist attraction spot in the region, and considering sustainable development criteria – with regard to limits and available facilities – a plan was offered that could change the region to provide the needs of local people and in addition change it to a place where tourism services is offered to the visitors and make it an acceptable sample of stable building in Iran. Finally the reason to make design for this complex is recovery of natural and historical values of Aab-Ask area regarding development and sustainable architecture criteria in the form of a functional sample which can be a suitable place to fulfill this goal for having lots of strong points in attracting cultural and sustainable tourist.

Keywords: Sustainable Architecture, Tourist Complex, Development, Landscape Preservation, Culture

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Authors: Hamed Zolfaghari, Mojtaba Kord

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Project planners and controllers are frequently faced with the challenge of inadequate software for the preparation of automatic project progress reports based on actual project information updates. They usually make dashboards in Microsoft Excel, which is local and not applicable online. Another shortcoming is that Microsoft project does not store the data in database, so the data cannot automatically be imported from Microsoft Project into Microsoft Excel. This study aimed to propose a model for the preparation of reports on automatic online project progress based on actual project information updates by the integration of Primavera P6, SQL database, and Power BI (Business Intelligence) for a construction project. The designed model could be applicable to project planners and controller agents by enabling them to prepare project reports automatically and immediately after updating the project schedule using actual information. To develop the model, the data were entered into P6, and the information was stored on the SQL database. The proposed model could prepare a wide range of reports, such as earned value management, Human Resource (HR) reports, and financial, physical, and risk reports automatically on the Power BI application. Furthermore, the reports could be published and shared online.

Keywords: Primavera P6, SQL, Power BI, Earned Value Management, Integration Management.

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Authors: Ting-Ting Hsieh, Che-Ming Chiang, Ming-Chin Ho, Kwang-Pang Lai

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The globe Sustainability has become the subject of international attention, the key reason is that global climate change. Climate and disasters around the abnormal frequency multiplier, the global temperature of the catastrophe and disaster continue to occur throughout the world, as well as countries around the world. Currently there are many important international conferences and policy, it is a "global environmental sustainability " and "living human health " as the goal of development, including the APEC 2007 meeting to "climate Clean Energy" as the theme Sydney Declaration, 2008 World Economic Forum's "Carbon - promote Cool Earth energy efficiency improvement project", the EU proposed "Green Idea" program, the Japanese annual policy, "low-carbon society, sustainable eco-city environment (Eco City) "And from 2009 to 2010 to promote the "Eco-Point" to promote green energy and carbon reduction products .And the 2010 World Climate Change Conference (COP16 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen), the world has been the subject of Negative conservative "Environmental Protection ", "save energy consumption, " into a positive response to the "Sustainable " and" LOHAS", while Taiwan has actively put forward eco-cities, green building, green building materials and other related environmental response Measures, especially green building construction environment that is the basis of factors, the most widely used application level, and direct contact with human health and the key to sustainable planet. "Sustainable development "is a necessary condition for continuation of the Earth, "healthy and comfortable" is a necessary condition for the continuation of life, and improve the "quality" is a necessary condition for economic development, balance between the three is "to enhance the efficiency of ", According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for the "environmental efficiency "(Eco-Efficiency) proposed: " the achievement of environmental efficiency, the price to be competitive in the provision of goods or services to meet people's needs, improve living Quality at the same time, the goods or services throughout the life cycle. Its impact on the environment and natural resource utilization and gradually reduced to the extent the Earth can load. "whichever is the economy "Economic" and " Ecologic". The research into the methodology to obtain the Taiwan Green Building Material Labeling product as the scope of the study, by investigating and weight analysis to explore green building environmental load (Ln) factor and the Green Building Quality (Qn) factor to Establish green building environmental efficiency assessment model (GBM Eco-Efficiency). And building materials for healthy green label products for priority assessment object, the object is set in the material evidence for the direct response to the environmental load from the floor class-based, explicit feedback correction to the Green Building environmental efficiency assessment model, "efficiency " as a starting point to achieve balance between human "health "and Earth "sustainable development of win-win strategy. The study is expected to reach 1.To establish green building materials and the quality of environmental impact assessment system, 2. To establish value of GBM Eco-Efficiency model, 3. To establish the GBM Eco-Efficiency model for application of green building material feedback mechanisms.

Keywords: Climate Change, Green Building Material (GBM), Eco-Efficiency, Life Cycle Assessment, Performance Evaluation

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Authors: Vichada Chokesikarin

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The study aims to determine which factors account for customer satisfaction and to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business success, in particular, context of the information understanding of hostel business in Pranakorn district, Bangkok and the significant element of entrepreneurship in tourism industry. This study covers 352 hostels customers and 61 hostel owners/managers nearby Khao San road. Data collection methods were used by survey questionnaire and a series of hypotheses were developed from services marketing literature. The findings suggest the customer satisfaction most influenced by image, service quality, room quality and price accordingly. Furthermore the findings revealed that significant relationships exist between entrepreneurial orientation and business success; while competitive aggressiveness was found unrelated. The ECSI model’s generic measuring customer satisfaction was found partially mediate the business success. A reconsideration of other variables applicable should be supported with the model of hostel business. The study provides context and overall view of hostel business while discussing from the entrepreneurial orientation to customer satisfaction, thereby reducing decision risk on hostel investment.

Keywords: Customer satisfaction, ECSI Model, entrepreneurial orientation, small hotels, hostel, business performance.

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Authors: Nurul Nadhirah Anuar, Muhammad Fauzi Abdul Ghani

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Scheduled waste management is very important in environmental and health aspects. In delivering services, highway industry has been indirectly involved in producing scheduled wastes. This paper aims to define the scheduled waste, to provide a conceptual framework of the scheduled waste management in highway industry, to highlight the effect of improper management of scheduled waste and to encourage future researchers to identify and share the present practice of scheduled waste management in their country. The understanding on effective management of scheduled waste will help the operators of highway industry, the academicians, future researchers, and encourage a friendly environment around the world. The study on scheduled waste management in highway industry is very crucial as highway transverse and run along kilometers crossing the various type of environment, residential and schools. Using Environmental Quality (Scheduled Waste) Regulations 2005 as a guide, this conceptual paper highlight several scheduled wastes produced by highway industry in Malaysia and provide a conceptual framework of scheduled waste management that focused on the highway industry. Understanding on scheduled waste management is vital in order to preserve the environment. Besides that, the waste substances are hazardous to human being. Many diseases have been associated with the improper management of schedule waste such as cancer, throat irritation and respiration problem.

Keywords: Asia Region, Environment, Highway Industry, Scheduled Waste.

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Authors: Marios Poulos, George Bokos

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This paper makes an attempt to solve the problem of searching and retrieving of similar MRI photos via Internet services using morphological features which are sourced via the original image. This study is aiming to be considered as an additional tool of searching and retrieve methods. Until now the main way of the searching mechanism is based on the syntactic way using keywords. The technique it proposes aims to serve the new requirements of libraries. One of these is the development of computational tools for the control and preservation of the intellectual property of digital objects, and especially of digital images. For this purpose, this paper proposes the use of a serial number extracted by using a previously tested semantic properties method. This method, with its center being the multi-layers of a set of arithmetic points, assures the following two properties: the uniqueness of the final extracted number and the semantic dependence of this number on the image used as the method-s input. The major advantage of this method is that it can control the authentication of a published image or its partial modification to a reliable degree. Also, it acquires the better of the known Hash functions that the digital signature schemes use and produces alphanumeric strings for cases of authentication checking, and the degree of similarity between an unknown image and an original image.

Keywords: Computational Geometry, MRI photos, Image processing, pattern Recognition.

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Authors: S. Arrizabalaga, A. Salterain, M. Domínguez, I. Alvaro

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Traditionally, Internet has provided best-effort service to every user regardless of its requirements. However, as Internet becomes universally available, users demand more bandwidth and applications require more and more resources, and interest has developed in having the Internet provide some degree of Quality of Service. Although QoS is an important issue, the question of how it will be brought into the Internet has not been solved yet. Researches, due to the rapid advances in technology are proposing new and more desirable capabilities for the next generation of IP infrastructures. But neither all applications demand the same amount of resources, nor all users are service providers. In this way, this paper is the first of a series of papers that presents an architecture as a first step to the optimization of QoS in the Internet environment as a solution to a SMSE's problem whose objective is to provide public service to internet with certain Quality of Service expectations. The service provides new business opportunities, but also presents new challenges. We have designed and implemented a scalable service framework that supports adaptive bandwidth based on user demands, and the billing based on usage and on QoS. The developed application has been evaluated and the results show that traffic limiting works at optimum and so it does exceeding bandwidth distribution. However, some considerations are done and currently research is under way in two basic areas: (i) development and testing new transfer protocols, and (ii) developing new strategies for traffic improvements based on service differentiation.

Keywords: Differentiated Services, Linux, Quality of Service, queueing disciplines, web application.

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Authors: L. Piñeiro, N. Cobas, L. Gómez-Limia, S. Martínez, I. Franco

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The swordfish (Xiphias gladius) is a large oceanic fish of high commercial value, which is widely distributed in waters of the world’s oceans. They are considered to be an important source of high quality proteins, vitamins and essential fatty acids, although only half of the population follows the recommendation of nutritionists to consume fish at least twice a week. Swordfish is consumed worldwide because of its low fat content and high protein content. It is generally sold as fresh, frozen, and as pieces or slices. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of salting and frying on the composition of the water-soluble vitamins (B₂, B₃, B₉ and B₁₂) and fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, and E) of swordfish. Three loins of swordfish from Pacific Ocean were analyzed. All the fishes had a weight between 50 and 70 kg and were transported to the laboratory frozen (-18 ºC). Before the processing, they were defrosted at 4 ºC. Each loin was sliced and salted in brine. After cleaning the slices, they were divided into portions (10×2 cm) and fried in olive oil. The identification and quantification of vitamins were carried out by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), using methanol and 0.010% trifluoroacetic acid as mobile phases at a flow-rate of 0.7 mL min^-1. The UV-Vis detector was used for the detection of the water- and fat-soluble vitamins (A and D), as well as the fluorescence detector for the detection of the vitamin E. During salting, water and fat-soluble vitamin contents remained constant, observing an evident decrease in the values of vitamin B₂. The diffusion of salt into the interior of the pieces and the loss of constitution water that occur during this stage would be related to this significant decrease. In general, after frying water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins showed a great thermolability with high percentages of retention with values among 50–100%. Vitamin B₃ is the one that exhibited higher percentages of retention with values close to 100%. However, vitamin B₉ presented the highest losses with a percentage of retention of less than 20%.

Keywords: Frying, HPLC, salting, swordfish, vitamins.

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Authors: James Moir

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Citizens are increasingly are provided with choice and customization in public services and this has now also become a key feature of higher education in terms of policy roll-outs on personal development planning (PDP) and more generally as part of the employability agenda. The goal here is to transform people, in this case graduates, into active, responsible citizen-workers. A key part of this rhetoric and logic is the inculcation of graduate attributes within students. However, there has also been a concern with the issue of student lack of engagement and perseverance with their studies. This paper sets out to explore some of these conceptions that link graduate attributes with citizenship as well as the notion of how identity is forged through the higher education process. Examples are drawn from a quality enhancement project that is being operated within the context of the Scottish higher education system. This is further framed within the wider context of competing and conflicting demands on higher education, exacerbated by the current worldwide economic climate. There are now pressures on students to develop their employability skills as well as their capacity to engage with global issues such as behavioural change in the light of environmental concerns. It is argued that these pressures, in effect, lead to a form of personalization that is concerned with how graduates develop their sense of identity as something that is engineered and re-engineered to meet these demands.

Keywords: students, higher education, employability, knowledge, personal development

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Authors: Chu-Chu, Liao

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The main purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship of leisure agriculture park visitors on tourist destination image, environmental perception, travel experiences and revisiting willingness. This study used questionnaires to Xinshe leisure agriculture park visitors- targeted convenience sampling manner total of 636 valid questionnaires. Valid questionnaires by descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis, the study found that: 1. The agricultural park visitors- correlations exist between the destination image, perception of the environment, tourism experience and revisiting willingness. 2."Excellent facilities and services", "space atmosphere comfortable" and "the spacious paternity outdoor space" imagery, of visitors- "revisiting willingness predict. 3. Visitors- in leisure agriculture park "environmental perception" and "travel experience, future revisiting willingness predict. According to the analysis of the results, the study not only operate on the recommendations of the leisure farm owners also provide follow-up study direction for future researchers.

Keywords: Leisure farms, image, travel experience, revisiting willingness, environmental perception.

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Authors: Rungpansa Noichan, Bart Julien Dewancker

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Access to the mass transit system, including rapid elevated and underground transport has become an outstanding issue for many cities. The mass transit access development should focus on behavioral responses of the different passenger groups. Moreover, it should consider about the appearance of intent-oriented action related accessibility that was explored from user’s satisfaction and attitudes related to services quality. This study aims to evaluate mass transit accessibility from passenger’s satisfaction, therefore, understanding the passenger’s attitudes about mass transit accessibility. The study area of this research is Bangkok Mass Transit system (BTS Skytrain) at Saphan Taksin station. 200 passengers at Saphan Taksin station were asked to rate the questionnaires survey that considers accessibility aspects of convenience, safety, feeder connectivity, and other dimensions. The survey was to find out the passenger attitudes and satisfaction for access to the BTS station, and the result shows several factors that influence the passenger choice of using the BTS as a public transportation mode and passenger’s opinion that needs to concern for the development mass transit system and accessibility performance.

Keywords: Urban transportation, user satisfaction, accessibility, Bangkok mass transit.

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Authors: Yoji Yamato

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In this paper, we propose an automatic verification technology of software patches for user virtual environments on IaaS Cloud to decrease verification costs of patches. In these days, IaaS services have been spread and many users can customize virtual machines on IaaS Cloud like their own private servers. Regarding to software patches of OS or middleware installed on virtual machines, users need to adopt and verify these patches by themselves. This task increases operation costs of users. Our proposed method replicates user virtual environments, extracts verification test cases for user virtual environments from test case DB, distributes patches to virtual machines on replicated environments and conducts those test cases automatically on replicated environments. We have implemented the proposed method on OpenStack using Jenkins and confirmed the feasibility. Using the implementation, we confirmed the effectiveness of test case creation efforts by our proposed idea of 2-tier abstraction of software functions and test cases. We also evaluated the automatic verification performance of environment replications, test cases extractions and test cases conductions.

Keywords: OpenStack, Cloud Computing, Automatic verification, Jenkins.

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Authors: C. Valderrama-Ulloa, C. Schmitt, J.-P. Marchetti, V. Bucarey

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Access to adequate housing is a fundamental human right and a crucial factor for health. Housing should be inclusive, accessible, and able to meet the needs of all its inhabitants at every stage of their lives without hindering their health, autonomy, or independence. This article addresses the importance of designing housing for people with disabilities, which varies depending on individual abilities, preferences, and cultural considerations. Based on the components of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, wheelchair users, little people (achondroplasia), children with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome were characterized, and six domains of activities related to daily life inside homes were defined. The article describes the main barriers homes present for this group of people. It proposes a list of architectural and design aspects to reduce barriers to housing use. The aspects are divided into three main groups: space management, building services, and supporting facilities. The article emphasizes the importance of consulting professionals and users with experience designing for diverse needs to create inclusive, safe, and supportive housing for people with disabilities.

Keywords: Achondroplasia, autism spectrum disorder, disability, down syndrome, wheelchair user.

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Authors: Susan.Bandias

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This paper examines the role of telecommunications in sustainable development of urban, rural and remote communities in the Northern Territory of Australia through the theoretical lens of Social Capital. Social Capital is a relatively new construct and is rapidly gaining interest among policy makers, politicians and researchers as a means to both describe and understand social and economic development. Increasingly, the concept of Social Capital, as opposed to the traditional economic indicators, is seen as a more accurate measure of well-being. Whilst the essence of Social Capital is quality social relations, the concept intersects with telecommunications and Information Communications Technology (ICT) in a number of ways. The potential of ICT to disseminate information quickly, to reach vast numbers of people simultaneously and to include the previously excluded, is immense. However, the exact nature of the relationship is not clearly defined. This paper examines the nexus between social relations of mutual benefit, telecommunications access and sustainable development. A mixed methodological approach was used to test the hypothesis that No relationship exists between Social Capital and access to telecommunications services and facilities. Four communities, which included two urban, a rural and a remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory of Australia are the focus of this research paper.

Keywords: Indigenous disadvantage, Social Capital, sustainable development, telecommunications.

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Authors: Dimitrios J. Dimitriou, Maria F. Sartzetaki

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Transport infrastructure assets are key components of the national asset portfolio. The decision to invest in a new infrastructure in transports could take from a few years to some decades. This is mainly because of the need to reserve and spent many capitals, the long payback period, the number of the stakeholders involved in decision process and –many times- the investment and business risks are high. Therefore, the decision assessment framework is an essential challenge linked with the key decision factors meet the stakeholder expectations highlighting project trade-offs, financial risks, business uncertainties and market limitations. This paper examines the decision process for new transport infrastructure projects in cross border regions, where a wide range of stakeholders with different expectation is involved. According to a consequences analysis systemic approach, the relationship of transport infrastructure development, economic system development and stakeholder expectation is analyzed. Adopting the on system of system methodological approach, the decision making framework, variables, inputs and outputs are defined, highlighting the key shareholder’s role and expectations. The application provides the methodology outputs presenting the proposed decision framework for a strategic railway project in north Greece deals with the upgrade of the existing railway corridor connecting Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Keywords: System of system approach, decision making, cross-border, infrastructure project.

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Authors: Faisal Alazzaz, Andrew Whyte

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Off-site construction methods have played an important role in the construction sector in the past few decades. It is increasingly becoming a major alternative technique and strategic direction compared to traditional in-situ method. It produces a significant amount of value for the construction industry and the economy more generally. To date, an impressive number of studies have been lunched on the perceived perception of off-site construction. However, it seems that a quantifying benefit on the offsite construction area is lacking. Therefore, this paper examines the recent research literature on the benefits of off- site construction and provides future direction. In the beginning, this paper provides a brief history and current value of the off-site construction followed by a detailed discussion on the benefit of off-site construction. These benefits include but not limited to time saving, quality improvement, relieving skills shortages, cost reduction and productivity improvement. Toward this end, off-site construction should learn from other productive industry similar to services or manufacturing industry by applying operational management tools and techniques with extensive focus on employee empowerment will shed the light on future uptake of Off-site construction. This study is of value in providing scholars have a clear picture of perceived benefit of off-site construction research and give an opportunities for future uptake of off-site method.

Keywords: Building projects, Employer empowerment, Off-site construction benefits, Productivity.

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Authors: Daliyah S. Aljutaili, Redna A. Almutlaq, Suha A. Alharbi, Dina M. Ibrahim

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All currencies around the world look very different from each other. For instance, the size, color, and pattern of the paper are different. With the development of modern banking services, automatic methods for paper currency recognition become important in many applications like vending machines. One of the currency recognition architecture’s phases is Feature detection and description. There are many algorithms that are used for this phase, but they still have some disadvantages. This paper proposes a feature detection algorithm, which merges the advantages given in the current SIFT and SURF algorithms, which we call, Speeded up Robust Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SR-SIFT) algorithm. Our proposed SR-SIFT algorithm overcomes the problems of both the SIFT and SURF algorithms. The proposed algorithm aims to speed up the SIFT feature detection algorithm and keep it robust. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed SR-SIFT algorithm decreases the average response time, especially in small and minimum number of best key points, increases the distribution of the number of best key points on the surface of the currency. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm increases the accuracy of the true best point distribution inside the currency edge than the other two algorithms.

Keywords: Currency recognition, feature detection and description, SIFT algorithm, SURF algorithm, speeded up and robust features.

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Authors: Lo Kar Yin, Law Ka Mei

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Architectural, engineering, construction and operations (AECO) industry practitioners have been well adapting to the dynamic construction market from the fundamental training of its disciplines. As further triggered by the pandemic since 2019, great steps are taken in virtual environment and the best collaboration is strived with project teams without boundaries. With adoption of Building Information Modeling-based approach and qualitative analysis, this paper is to review quantity take-off (QTO) and cost estimation process through modeling techniques in liaison with suppliers, fabricators, subcontractors, contractors, designers, consultants and services providers in the construction industry value chain for automatic project cost budgeting, project cost control and cost evaluation on design options of in-situ reinforced-concrete construction and Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) at design stage, variation of works and cash flow/spending analysis at construction stage as far as practicable, with a view to sharing the findings for enhancing mutual trust and co-operation among AECO industry practitioners. It is to foster development through a common prototype of design and build project delivery method in NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) Options A and C.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling, cost estimation, quantity take-off, modeling techniques.

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Authors: A. O. Oluwajobi, O. A. Falusi, N. A. Zubbair, T. Owoeye, F. Ladejobi, M. C. Dangana, A. Abubakar

Abstract:

The technology of mobile telephony has positively enhanced human life and reports on the bio safety of the radiation from their antennae have been contradictory, leading to serious litigations and violent protests by residents in several parts of the world. The crave for more information, as requested by WHO in order to resolve this issue, formed the basis for this study on the effect of the radiation from 900 MHz GSM antenna on the DNA of Hibiscus sabdariffa. Seeds of H. sabdariffa were raised in pots placed in three replicates at 100, 200, 300 and 400 metres from the GSM antennae in three selected test locations and a control where there was no GSM signal. Temperature (˚C) and the relative humidity (%) of study sites were measured for the period of study (24 weeks). Fresh young leaves were harvested from each plant at two, eight and twenty-four weeks after sowing and the DNA extracts were subjected to RAPD-PCR analyses. There were no significant differences between the weather conditions (temperature and relative humidity) in all the study locations. However, significant differences were observed in the intensities of radiations between the control (less than 0.02 V/m) and the test (0.40-1.01 V/m) locations. Data obtained showed that DNA of samples exposed to rays from GSM antenna had various levels of distortions, estimated at 91.67%. Distortions occurred in 58.33% of the samples between 2-8 weeks of exposure while 33.33% of the samples were distorted between 8-24 weeks exposure. Approximately 8.33% of the samples did not show distortions in DNA while 33.33% of the samples had their DNA damaged twice, both at 8 and at 24 weeks of exposure. The study showed that radiation from the 900 MHz GSM antenna is potent enough to cause distortions to DNA of H. sabdariffa even within 2-8 weeks of exposure. DNA damage was also independent of the distance from the antenna. These observations would qualify emissions from GSM mast as environmental hazard to the existence of plant biodiversities and all life forms in general. These results will trigger efforts to prevent further erosion of plant genetic resources which have been threatening food security and also the risks posed to living organisms, thereby making our environment very safe for our existence while we still continue to enjoy the benefits of the GSM technology.

Keywords: Damage, DNA, GSM antenna, radiation.

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