Search results for: Human hand

Authors: George Leventakis, George Kokkinis, Nikos Moustakidis, George Papalexandratos, Ioanna Vasiliadou

Abstract:

Enhancing the feeling of public safety and crime prevention are tasks customarily assigned to the Police. Police departments have, however, recognized that traditional ways of policing methods are becoming obsolete; Community Policing (CP) philosophy; however, when applied appropriately, leads to seamless collaboration between various stakeholders like the Police, NGOs and the general public and provides the opportunity to identify risks, assist in solving problems of crime, disorder, safety and crucially contribute to improving the quality of life for everyone in a community. Social Media, on the other hand, due to its high level of infiltration in modern life, constitutes a powerful mechanism which offers additional and direct communication channels to reach individuals or communities. These channels can be utilized to improve the citizens’ perception of the Police and to capture individual and community needs, when their feedback is taken into account by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in a structured and coordinated manner. This paper presents research conducted under INSPEC²T (Inspiring CitizeNS Participation for Enhanced Community PoliCing AcTions), a project funded by the European Commission’s research agenda to bridge the gap between CP as a philosophy and as an organizational strategy, capitalizing on the use of Social Media. The project aims to increase transparency, trust, police accountability, and the role of civil society. It aspires to build strong, trusting relationships between LEAs and the public, supporting two-way, contemporary communication while at the same time respecting anonymity of all affected parties. Results presented herein summarize the outcomes of four online multilingual surveys, focus group interviews, desktop research and interviews with experts in the field of CP practices. The above research activities were conducted in various EU countries aiming to capture requirements of end users from diverse backgrounds (social, cultural, legal and ethical) and determine public expectations regarding CP, community safety and crime prevention.

Keywords: Community partnerships, next generation community policing, public safety, social media.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1518

Authors: Karim Heidari

Abstract:

Semantic Web Technologies enable machines to interpret data published in a machine-interpretable form on the web. At the present time, only human beings are able to understand the product information published online. The emerging semantic Web technologies have the potential to deeply influence the further development of the Internet Economy. In this paper we propose a scenario based research approach to predict the effects of these new technologies on electronic markets and business models of traders and intermediaries and customers. Over 300 million searches are conducted everyday on the Internet by people trying to find what they need. A majority of these searches are in the domain of consumer ecommerce, where a web user is looking for something to buy. This represents a huge cost in terms of people hours and an enormous drain of resources. Agent enabled semantic search will have a dramatic impact on the precision of these searches. It will reduce and possibly eliminate information asymmetry where a better informed buyer gets the best value. By impacting this key determinant of market prices semantic web will foster the evolution of different business and economic models. We submit that there is a need for developing these futuristic models based on our current understanding of e-commerce models and nascent semantic web technologies. We believe these business models will encourage mainstream web developers and businesses to join the “semantic web revolution."

Keywords: E-Commerce, E-Business, Semantic Web, XML.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3443

Authors: David Dewar

Abstract:

The paper reviews the relationship between spatial and transportation planning in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region of Sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that most urbanisation in the region has largely occurred subsequent to the 1950s and, accordingly, urban development has been profoundly and negatively affected by the (misguided) spatial and institutional tenets of modernism. It demonstrates how a considerable amount of the poor performance of these settlements can be directly attributed to this. Two factors in particular about the planning systems are emphasized: the way in which programmatic land-use planning lies at the heart of both spatial and transportation planning; and the way on which transportation and spatial planning have been separated into independent processes. In the final section, the paper identifies ways of improving the planning system. Firstly, it identifies the performance qualities which Southern African settlements should be seeking to achieve. Secondly, it focuses on two necessary arenas of change: the need to replace programmatic land-use planning practices with structuralspatial approaches; and it makes a case for making urban corridors a spatial focus of integrated planning, as a way of beginning the restructuring and intensification of settlements which are currently characterised by sprawl, fragmentation and separation

Keywords: Corridors, modernism, programmatic planning, structural-spatial planning

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2344

Authors: Tamás Hartványi, Ferenc Tóth

Abstract:

European telecommunication distribution center performance is measured by service lead time and quality. Operation model is CTO (customized to order) namely, a high mix customization of telecommunication network equipment and parts. CTO operation contains material receiving, warehousing, network and server assembly to order and configure based on customer specifications. Variety of the product and orders does not support mass production structure. One of the success factors to satisfy customer is to have a proper aggregated planning method for the operation in order to have optimized human resources and highly efficient asset utilization. Research will investigate several methods and find proper way to have an order book simulation where practical optimization problem may contain thousands of variables and the simulation running times of developed algorithms were taken into account with high importance. There are two operation research models that were developed, customer demand is given in orders, no change over time, customer demands are given for product types, and changeover time is constant.

Keywords: CTO, aggregated planning, demand simulation, changeover time.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 779

Authors: Xiao Yihong, Yu Kexin, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

Abstract:

With the accelerating process of urbanization, the problem of urban road congestion is becoming more and more serious. Intelligent transportation system combining distributed and artificial intelligence has become a research hotspot. As the core development direction of the intelligent transportation system, Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) integrates advanced information technology and communication methods and realizes the integration of human, vehicle, roadside infrastructure and other elements through the multi-agent distributed system. By analyzing the system architecture and technical characteristics of C-ITS, the paper proposes a distributed multi-agent C-ITS. The system consists of Roadside Subsystem, Vehicle Subsystem and Personal Subsystem. At the same time, we explore the scalability of the C-ITS and put forward incorporating local rewards in the centralized training decentralized execution paradigm, hoping to add a scalable value decomposition method. In addition, we also suggest introducing blockchain to improve the safety of the traffic information transmission process. The system is expected to improve vehicle capacity and traffic safety.

Keywords: Distributed system, artificial intelligence, multi-agent, Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 535

Authors: M. Trinidad Pérez-Palacios, Catarina Petisca, Olívia Pinho, Isabel M.P.L.V.O. Ferreira

Abstract:

This work evaluated the effect of temperature on headspace solid-phase microextraction of volatile and furanic compounds in coated fish sticks. The major goal was the analysis of the samples as consumed, to reproduce volatile compounds people feel when consuming those products. Extraction at 37 ºC (the human body temperature) throughout the HS-SPME analysis of volatile and furanic compounds in coated fish was compared with higher extraction temperatures, which are frequently used for this kind of determinations. The profile of volatile compounds found in deepfried (F) and non-fried (NF) coated fish at 37 and 50 ºC was different from that obtained at 80 ºC. Concerning furan and its derivatives, an extra formation of these compounds was observed at higher extraction temperatures. The analysis of volatile and furanic compounds in fish coated sticks simulating the cooking and eating conditions can be reliably carried out setting the headspace absorption temperature at 37 ºC.

Keywords: Analysis of samples as consumed, fish coated sticks, furans, headspace extraction temperature, volatiles.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2052

Authors: Lina Paola Orozco-Marín, Yuliet Montoya, John Bustamante

Abstract:

Ischemic events can culminate in acute myocardial infarction with irreversible cardiac lesions that cannot be restored due to the limited regenerative capacity of the heart. Tissue engineering proposes therapeutic alternatives by using biomaterials to resemble the native extracellular medium combined with healthy and functional cells. This research focused on developing a natural thermosensitive hydrogel, its physical-chemical characterization and in vitro biocompatibility determination. Hydrogels’ morphological characterization was carried out through scanning electron microscopy and its chemical characterization by employing Infrared Spectroscopy technic. In addition, the biocompatibility was determined using fetal human ventricular cardiomyocytes cell line RL-14 and the MTT cytotoxicity test according to the ISO 10993-5 standard. Four biocompatible and thermosensitive hydrogels were obtained with a three-dimensional internal structure and two gelation times. The results show the potential of the hydrogel to increase the cell survival rate to the cardiac cell therapies under investigation and lay the foundations to continue with its characterization and biological evaluation both in vitro and in vivo models.

Keywords: cardiac cell therapy, cardiac ischemia, natural polymers, thermosensitive hydrogel

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 712

Authors: Bobby Anak John, Zamri Noranai, Md. Norrizam Mohmad Jaat, Hamidon Salleh, Mohammad Zainal Md Yusof

Abstract:

Air conditioning is mainly use as human comfort cooling medium. It use more in high temperatures are country such as Malaysia. Proper estimation of cooling load will archive ideal temperature. Without proper estimation can lead to over estimation or under estimation. The ideal temperature should be comfort enough. This study is to develop a program to calculate an ideal cooling load demand, which is match with heat gain. Through this study, it is easy to calculate cooling load estimation. Objective of this study are to develop user-friendly and easy excess cooling load program. This is to insure the cooling load can be estimate by any of the individual rather than them using rule-of-thumb. Developed software is carryout by using Matlab-GUI. These developments are only valid for common building in Malaysia only. An office building was select as case study to verify the applicable and accuracy of develop software. In conclusion, the main objective has successfully where developed software is user friendly and easily to estimate cooling load demand.

Keywords: Cooling Load, Heat Gain, Building and GUI.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2024

Authors: Najari Moghadam Sh., Qomi M., Raofie F., Khadiv J.

Abstract:

In this study, a liquid phase microextraction by hollow fiber (HF-LPME) combined with high performance liquid chromatography-UV detector was applied to preconcentrate and determine trace levels of Cyproheptadine in human urine and plasma samples. Cyproheptadine was extracted from 10 mL alkaline aqueous solution (pH: 9.81) into an organic solvent (n-octnol) which was immobilized in the wall pores of a hollow fiber. Then was back-extracted into an acidified aqueous solution (pH: 2.59) located inside the lumen of the hollow fiber. This method is simple, efficient and cost-effective. It is based on pH gradient and differences between two aqueous phases. In order to optimize the HF-LPME some affecting parameters including the pH of donor and acceptor phases, the type of organic solvent, ionic strength, stirring rate, extraction time and temperature were studied and optimized. Under optimal conditions enrichment factor, limit of detection (LOD) and relative standard deviation (RSD(%), n=3) were up to 112, 15 μg.L⁻¹ and 2.7, respectively.

Keywords: Biological samples, Cyproheptadine, hollow fiber, liquid phase microextraction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2221

Authors: Taisuke Sakaki, Toshihiko Shimokawa, Nobuhiro Ushimi, Koji Murakami, Yong-Kwun Lee, Kazuhiro Tsuruta, Kanta Aoki, Kaoru Fujiie, Ryuji Katamoto, Atsushi Sugyo

Abstract:

Recently attention has been focused on incomplete spinal cord injuries (SCI) to the central spine caused by pressure on parts of the white matter conduction pathway, such as the pyramidal tract. In this paper, we focus on a training robot designed to assist with primary walking-pattern training. The target patient for this training robot is relearning the basic functions of the usual walking pattern; it is meant especially for those with incomplete-type SCI to the central spine, who are capable of standing by themselves but not of performing walking motions. From the perspective of human engineering, we monitored the operator’s actions to the robot and investigated the movement of joints of the lower extremities, the circumference of the lower extremities, and exercise intensity with the machine. The concept of the device was to provide mild training without any sudden changes in heart rate or blood pressure, which will be particularly useful for the elderly and disabled. The mechanism of the robot is modified to be simple and lightweight with the expectation that it will be used at home.

Keywords: Training, rehabilitation, SCI patient, welfare, robot.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2022

Authors: Ilham S. M. Elsayed

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate Alahsa Governorate status and its vulnerability to generate urban heat islands. Alahsa Governorate is a famous oasis in the Arabic Peninsula including several oil centers. Extensive literature review was done to collect previous relative data on the urban heat island of Alahsa Governorate. Data used for the purpose of this research were collected from authorized bodies who control weather station networks over Alahsa Governorate, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. Although, the number of weather station networks within the region is very limited and the analysis using GIS software and its techniques is difficult and limited, the data analyzed confirm an increase in temperature for more than 2 °C from 2004 to 2014. Such increase is considerable whenever human health and comfort are the concern. The increase of temperature within one decade confirms the availability of urban heat islands. The study concludes that, Alahsa Governorate is vulnerable to create urban heat islands and more attention should be drawn to strategic planning of the governorate that is developing with a high pace and considerable increasing levels of urbanization.

Keywords: Urban heat island, Alahsa Governorate, weather station, population density.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1118

Authors: Ming-Ta Yang, Jyh-Cherng Gu, Chun-Wei Huang, Jin-Lung Guan

Abstract:

Time base maintenance (TBM) is conventionally applied by the power utilities to maintain circuit breakers (CBs), transformers, bus bars and cables, which may result in under maintenance or over maintenance. As information and communication technology (ICT) industry develops, the maintenance policies of many power utilities have gradually changed from TBM to condition base maintenance (CBM) to improve system operating efficiency, operation cost and power supply reliability. This paper discusses the feasibility of using intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) to construct a CB CBM management platform. CBs in power substations can be monitored using IEDs with additional logic configuration and wire connections. The CB monitoring data can be sent through intranet to a control center and be analyzed and integrated by the Elipse Power Studio software. Finally, a human-machine interface (HMI) of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system can be designed to construct a CBM management platform to provide maintenance decision information for the maintenance personnel, management personnel and CB manufacturers.

Keywords: Circuit breaker, Condition base maintenance, Intelligent electronic device, Time base maintenance, SCADA.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2273

Authors: Peter Ndichu Muriuki

Abstract:

Assassination of politicians, school mass murders, purported suicides, aircraft crash, mass shootings by police, sinking of sea ferries, mysterious car accidents, mass fire deaths and horrificterror attacks are some of the cases that bring forth scientific and legal conflicts. Questions about truth, justice and human rights are raised by both victims and perpetrators/offenders as they seek to understand why and how it happened to them. This kind of questioning manifests itself in medical-criminological-legalpsychological and scientific realms. An agreement towards truthinvestigations for possible legal-political-psychological transitory issues such as prosecution, victim-offender mediation, healing, reconciliation, amnesty, reparation, restitution, and policy formulations is seen as one way of transforming these conflicts. Forensic scientists and pathologists in particular have formed professional groups where the complexities between legal truth and scientific truth are dramatized and elucidated within the anatomy of courtrooms. This paper focuses on how pathological truth and legal truth interact with each other in Kenya’s criminal justice system. 

Keywords: Forensic pathology, forensic science, pathological truth, truth investigations.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4871

Authors: Uma Batra, Seema Kapoor

Abstract:

Commercial hydroxyapatite (HA) was reinforced by adding 2, 5, and 10 wt % of 28.5%CaO-28.5%P2O5-38%Na2 O- 5%CaF2 based glass and then sintered. Although HA shows good biocompatibility with the human body, its applications are limited to non load-bearing areas and coatings due to its poor mechanical properties. These mechanical properties can be improved substantially with addition of glass ceramics by sintering. In this study, the effects of sintering hydroxyapatite with above specified phosphate glass additions are quantified. Each composition was sintered over a range of temperatures. Scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction were used to characterize the microstructure and phases of the composites. The density, microhardness, and compressive strength were measured using Archimedes Principle, Vickers Microhardness Tester (at 0.98 N), and Instron Universal Testing Machine (cross speed of 0.5 mm/min) respectively. These results were used to indicate which composition provided suitable material for use in hard tissue replacement. Composites containing 10 wt % glass additions formed dense HA/TCP (tricalcium phosphate) composite materials possessing good compressive strength and hardness than HA. In-vitro bioactivity was assessed by evaluating changes in pH and Ca2+ ion concentration of SBF-simulated body fluid on immersion of these composites in it for two weeks.

Keywords: Bioglass, Composite, Hydroxyapatite, Sintering.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1816

Authors: Huiman C. Alberto

Abstract:

The research cites the various hazardous waste generated in the textile industry. The method used is descriptive and comparative, the process consisted of the search and evaluation of information, both nationally and internationally. The results indicate: (1) Waste is generated from the alpaca fiber industry in the various stages of camelid rearing, they stand out for their dangerousness: excreta, residual fiber and yarn scraps. (2) The main hazardous waste generated by the tannery industry are grease, hides, hair, plastic containers with traces of toxic substances, chips and pieces of leather with chrome. (3) Three companies' Solid Waste Management Plans were analyzed, randomly selected, and none of them detail waste treatment processes and warn of the lack of supervision by the authorities. It is concluded that the hazardous waste generated can affect human and environmental health. There is the possibility of taking advantage of certain hazardous waste such as manure and alpaca fiber, after treatment; while non-hazardous waste from the tannery such as yarn, panel weaving, cloth, scraps, and thread, can be used to produce new products, generating a production chain in favor of the entrepreneur himself.

Keywords: Alpaca fiber, excreta, Haute couture, hazardous waste tannery, hazardous waste treatment, textile waste,

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 386

Authors: Adrian Samuel Limanto, Yunli Lee

Abstract:

Interactive public displays give access as an innovative media to promote enhanced communication between people and information. However, digital public displays are subject to a few constraints, such as content presentation. Content presentation needs to be developed to be more interesting to attract people’s attention and motivate people to interact with the display. In this paper, we proposed idea to implement contents with interaction elements for vision-based digital public display. Vision-based techniques are applied as a sensor to detect passers-by and theme contents are suggested to attract their attention for encouraging them to interact with the announcement content. Virtual object, gesture detection and projection installation are applied for attracting attention from passers-by. Preliminary study showed positive feedback of interactive content designing towards the public display. This new trend would be a valuable innovation as delivery of announcement content and information communication through this media is proven to be more engaging.

Keywords: Digital announcement, digital public display, human-information interaction, interactive media.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1722

Authors: Meriem Benzarti, Mohamed Ben Tkaya, Cyril Pailler Mattei, Hassan Zahouani

Abstract:

Hair is a non homogenous complex material which can be associated with a polymer. It is made up 95% of Keratin. Hair has a great social significance for human beings. In the High Middle Ages, for example, long hairs have been reserved for kings and nobles. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial which can vary depending on ethnic origin or on age, hair colour for example can be a sign of ethnic ancestry or age (dark hair for Asiatic, blond hair for Caucasian and white hair for old people in general). In this context, different approaches have been conducted to determine the differences in mechanical properties and characterize the fracture topography at the surface of hair depending on its type and its age. A tensile testing machine was especially designed to achieve tensile tests on hair. This device is composed of a microdisplacement system and a force sensor whose peak load is limited to 3N. The curves and the values extracted from each experiment, allow us to compare the evolution of the mechanical properties from one hair to another. Observations with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and with an interferometer were made on different hairs. Thus, it is possible to access the cuticle state and the fracture topography for each category.

Keywords: Hair, relaxation test, SEM, interferometer, mechanical properties.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2451

Authors: Sajad Farokhi, Siti Mariyam Shamsuddin, Jan Flusser, Usman Ullah Sheikh

Abstract:

Although face recognition seems as an easy task for human, automatic face recognition is a much more challenging task due to variations in time, illumination and pose. In this paper, the influence of time-lapse on visible and thermal images is examined. Orthogonal moment invariants are used as a feature extractor to analyze the effect of time-lapse on thermal and visible images and the results are compared with conventional Principal Component Analysis (PCA). A new triangle square ratio criterion is employed instead of Euclidean distance to enhance the performance of nearest neighbor classifier. The results of this study indicate that the ideal feature vectors can be represented with high discrimination power due to the global characteristic of orthogonal moment invariants. Moreover, the effect of time-lapse has been decreasing and enhancing the accuracy of face recognition considerably in comparison with PCA. Furthermore, our experimental results based on moment invariant and triangle square ratio criterion show that the proposed approach achieves on average 13.6% higher in recognition rate than PCA.

Keywords: Infrared Face recognition, Time-lapse, Zernike moment invariants

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1774

Authors: Juhi Kaushik, Abhishek Agarwal, Manoj Sarda, Vatsal Sanjay, Arup Kumar Das

Abstract:

Fire accidents in trains bring huge disaster to human life and property. Evacuation becomes a major challenge in such incidents owing to confined spaces, large passenger density and trains moving at high speeds. The pantry car in Indian Railways trains carry inflammable materials like cooking fuel and LPG and electrical fittings. The pantry car is therefore highly susceptible to fire accidents. Numerical simulations have been done in a pantry car of Indian locomotive train using computational fluid dynamics based software. Different scenarios of a fire outbreak have been explored by varying Heat Release Rate per Unit Area (HRRPUA) of the fire source, introduction of exhaust in the cooking area, and taking a case of an air conditioned pantry car. Temporal statures of flame and soot have been obtained for each scenario and differences have been studied and reported. Inputs from this study can be used to assess casualties in fire accidents in locomotive trains and development of smoke control/detection systems in Indian trains.

Keywords: Fire propagation, flame contour, pantry fire, soot flow.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1800

Authors: Kripesh Adhikari, Hamid Bouchachia, Hammadi Nait-Charif

Abstract:

Falls are one of the major causes of injury and death among elderly people aged 65 and above. A support system to identify such kind of abnormal activities have become extremely important with the increase in ageing population. Pose estimation is a challenging task and to add more to this, it is even more challenging when pose estimations are performed on challenging poses that may occur during fall. Location of the body provides a clue where the person is at the time of fall. This paper presents a vision-based tracking strategy where available joints are grouped into three different feature points depending upon the section they are located in the body. The three feature points derived from different joints combinations represents the upper region or head region, mid-region or torso and lower region or leg region. Tracking is always challenging when a motion is involved. Hence the idea is to locate the regions in the body in every frame and consider it as the tracking strategy. Grouping these joints can be beneficial to achieve a stable region for tracking. The location of the body parts provides a crucial information to distinguish normal activities from falls.

Keywords: Fall detection, machine learning, deep learning, pose estimation, tracking.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2106

Authors: M. F. Miah, H. Ali, E. Zannath, T. M. Shuvra, M. N. Naser, M. K. Ahmed

Abstract:

In this study, breeding biology and induced breeding of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was observed during the experimental period from February to June, 2013. Breeding biology of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was considered in terms of gonadosomatic index, length-weight relationship of gonad, ova diameter and fecundity. The ova diameter was recorded from 0.3 mm to 4.30 mm and the individual fecundity was recorded from 155 to 1495 while relative fecundity was found from 2.64 to 12.45. The fecundity related to body weight and length of fish was also discussed. A peak of GSI was observed 2.14±0.2 in male and 5.1 ±1.09 in female. Induced breeding of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was also practiced with different doses of different inducing agents like pituitary gland (PG), human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) and Ovuline-a synthetic hormone in different environmental conditions. However, it was observed that the artificial breeding of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was not yet succeeded through inducing agents in captive conditions, rather the inducing agent showed negative impacts on fecundity and ovarian tissues. It was seen that mature eggs in the oviduct were reduced, absorbed and some eggs were found in spoiled condition.

Keywords: Breeding biology, induced breeding, Monopterus cuchia.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3441

Authors: Oqba Basal, András Szabó

Abstract:

Legume crops are able to fix atmospheric nitrogen by the symbiotic relation with specific bacteria, which allows the use of the mineral nitrogen-fertilizer to be reduced, or even excluded, resulting in more profit for the farmers and less pollution for the environment. Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) is one of the most important legumes with its high content of both protein and oil. However, it is recommended to combine the two nitrogen sources under stress conditions in order to overcome its negative effects. Drought stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses that increasingly limits soybean yields. A precise rate of mineral nitrogen under drought conditions is not confirmed, as it depends on many factors; soybean yield-potential and soil-nitrogen content to name a few. An experiment was conducted during 2017 growing season in Debrecen, Hungary to investigate the effects of nitrogen source on the physiology and the yield of the soybean cultivar 'Boglár'. Three N-fertilizer rates including no N-fertilizer (0 N), 35 kg ha^-1 of N-fertilizer (35 N) and 105 kg ha^-1 of N-fertilizer (105 N) were applied under three different irrigation regimes; severe drought stress (SD), moderate drought stress (MD) and control with no drought stress (ND). Half of the seeds in each treatment were pre-inoculated with Bradyrhizobium japonicum inoculant. The overall results showed significant differences associated with fertilization and irrigation, but not with inoculation. Increasing N rate was mostly accompanied with increased chlorophyll content and leaf area index, whereas it positively affected the plant height only when the drought was waived off. Plant height was the lowest under severe drought, regardless of inoculation and N-fertilizer application and rate. Inoculation increased the yield when there was no drought, and a low rate of N-fertilizer increased the yield furthermore; however, the high rate of N-fertilizer decreased the yield to a level even less than the inoculated control. On the other hand, the yield of non-inoculated plants increased as the N-fertilizer rate increased. Under drought conditions, adding N-fertilizer increased the yield of the non-inoculated plants compared to their inoculated counterparts; moreover, the high rate of N-fertilizer resulted in the best yield. Regardless of inoculation, the mean yield of the three fertilization rates was better when the water amount increased. It was concluded that applying N-fertilizer to provide the nitrogen needed by soybean plants, with the absence of N₂-fixation process, is very important. Moreover, adding relatively high rate of N-fertilizer is very important under severe drought stress to alleviate the drought negative effects. Further research to recommend the best N-fertilizer rate to inoculated soybean under drought stress conditions should be executed.

Keywords: Drought stress, inoculation, N-fertilizer, soybean physiology, yield.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 794

Authors: Trien V. Do, Jong-Weon Lee

Abstract:

This paper describes a 3D modeling system in Augmented Reality environment, named 3DARModeler. It can be considered a simple version of 3D Studio Max with necessary functions for a modeling system such as creating objects, applying texture, adding animation, estimating real light sources and casting shadows. The 3DARModeler introduces convenient, and effective human-computer interaction to build 3D models by combining both the traditional input method (mouse/keyboard) and the tangible input method (markers). It has the ability to align a new virtual object with the existing parts of a model. The 3DARModeler targets nontechnical users. As such, they do not need much knowledge of computer graphics and modeling techniques. All they have to do is select basic objects, customize their attributes, and put them together to build a 3D model in a simple and intuitive way as if they were doing in the real world. Using the hierarchical modeling technique, the users are able to group several basic objects to manage them as a unified, complex object. The system can also connect with other 3D systems by importing and exporting VRML/3Ds Max files. A module of speech recognition is included in the system to provide flexible user interfaces.

Keywords: 3D Modeling, Augmented Reality, GeometricModeling, Virtual Reality

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2632

Authors: Carlos David Carrillo Trujillo, Rebelín Echeverría Echeverría, Nancy Evia Alamilla, Rocío Quintal López

Abstract:

Gender as a social construct is a term now widely studied. Within the social sciences it has become very important. In this sense, psychology tries to make some contributions from your area. The intention is to promote equal opportunities for men and women. Social, employment and educational inequities perpetuate sexism, violence and other important social problems in Mexico. The gender perspective is conceptualized as a tool to promote laws, policies, plans, programs and procedures where women are made ​​visible and empowered. The aim of this is the pursuit of equality. Thus, gender mainstreaming is one of the main challenges of education in Mexico. Only a few universities have programs, research or subjects related to the topic. Human resources, and time allocated to teachers are identified as obstacles to the institutionalization of gender. The objective was to make a diagnosis on course offerings and policies on gender. A documentary study and interviews with managers of at least 20 higher education institutions (IES's) were performed. The results indicate the need for greater gender courses, research projects and intervention. The need to promote policies that seek equal opportunities between men and women is also noted.

Keywords: Gender mainstreaming, institutionalization, universities.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1115

Authors: Muhammad Fiaz, Naqvi Najam Abbas, Baseerat Rizwan, Yang Naiding

Abstract:

This research contribution propels the idea of collaborating environment for the execution of student satellite projects in the backdrop of project management principles. The recent past has witnessed a technological shift in the aerospace industry from the big satellite projects to the small spacecrafts especially for the earth observation and communication purposes. This vibrant shift has vitalized the academia and industry to share their resources and to create a win-win paradigm of mutual success and technological development along with the human resource development in the field of aerospace. Small student satellites are the latest jargon of academia and more than 100 CUBESAT projects have been executed successfully all over the globe and many new student satellite projects are in the development phase. The small satellite project management requires the application of specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to achieve the defined mission requirements. The Authors have presented the detailed outline for the project management of student satellites and presented the role of industry to collaborate with the academia to get the optimized results in academic environment.

Keywords: Project Management, Academia-Industry Collaboration, Satellite, Aerospace

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2600

Authors: Kazunori Nomura, Hiromichi Ogi, Masaumi Nakahara, Sou Watanabe, Atsuhiro Shibata

Abstract:

Chemical Processing Facility of Japan Atomic Energy Agency is a basic research field for advanced back-end technology developments with using actual high-level radioactive materials such as irradiated fuels from the fast reactor, high-level liquid waste from reprocessing plant. In the nature of a research facility, various kinds of chemical reagents have been offered for fundamental tests. Most of them were treated properly and stored in the liquid waste vessel equipped in the facility, but some were not treated and remained at the experimental space as a kind of legacy waste. It is required to treat the waste in safety. On the other hand, we formulated the Medium- and Long-Term Management Plan of Japan Atomic Energy Agency Facilities. This comprehensive plan considers Chemical Processing Facility as one of the facilities to be decommissioned. Even if the plan is executed, treatment of the “legacy” waste beforehand must be a necessary step for decommissioning operation. Under this circumstance, we launched a collaborative research project called the STRAD project, which stands for Systematic Treatment of Radioactive liquid waste for Decommissioning, in order to develop the treatment processes for wastes of the nuclear research facility. In this project, decomposition methods of chemicals causing a troublesome phenomenon such as corrosion and explosion have been developed and there is a prospect of their decomposition in the facility by simple method. And solidification of aqueous or organic liquid wastes after the decomposition has been studied by adding cement or coagulants. Furthermore, we treated experimental tools of various materials with making an effort to stabilize and to compact them before the package into the waste container. It is expected to decrease the number of transportation of the solid waste and widen the operation space. Some achievements of these studies will be shown in this paper. The project is expected to contribute beneficial waste management outcome that can be shared world widely.

Keywords: Chemical Processing Facility, medium- and long-term management plan of JAEA Facilities, STRAD project, treatment of radioactive waste.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 850

Authors: Shanxiong Chen, Xu Han, Xiaolong Wang, Hui Ma

Abstract:

Yi is an ethnic group mainly living in mainland China, with its own spoken and written language systems, after development of thousands of years. Ancient Yi is one of the six ancient languages in the world, which keeps a record of the history of the Yi people and offers documents valuable for research into human civilization. Recognition of the characters in ancient Yi helps to transform the documents into an electronic form, making their storage and spreading convenient. Due to historical and regional limitations, research on recognition of ancient characters is still inadequate. Thus, deep learning technology was applied to the recognition of such characters. Five models were developed on the basis of the four-layer convolutional neural network (CNN). Alpha-Beta divergence was taken as a penalty term to re-encode output neurons of the five models. Two fully connected layers fulfilled the compression of the features. Finally, at the softmax layer, the orthographic features of ancient Yi characters were re-evaluated, their probability distributions were obtained, and characters with features of the highest probability were recognized. Tests conducted show that the method has achieved higher precision compared with the traditional CNN model for handwriting recognition of the ancient Yi.

Keywords: Recognition, CNN, convolutional neural network, Yi character, divergence.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 723

Authors: Luo Jin, Jin Fang

Abstract:

Countryside has been generally recognized and regarded as a characteristic symbol which presents in human memory for a long time. As a result of the change of times, because of it is failure to meet the growing needs of the growing life and mental decline, the vast rural area began to decline. But their history feature image which accumulated by the ancient tradition provides people with the origins of existence on the spiritual level, such as "identity" and "belonging", makes people closer to the others in the spiritual and psychological aspects of a common experience about the past, thus the sense of a lack of culture caused by the losing of memory symbols is weakened. So, in the modernization process, how to repair its vitality and transform and planning it in a sustainable way has become a hot topics in architectural and urban planning. This paper aims to break the constraints of disciplines, from the perspective of interdiscipline, using the research methods of systems science to analyze and discuss the theories and methods of rural form factors, which based on the viewpoint of memory in psychology. So we can find a right way to transform the Rural to give full play to the role of the countryside in the actual use and the shape of history spirits.

Keywords: The rural, sustainable renovation, restoration, psychology, memory.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1464

Authors: Panikos Heracleous

Abstract:

In this study, the use of silicon NAM (Non-Audible Murmur) microphone in automatic speech recognition is presented. NAM microphones are special acoustic sensors, which are attached behind the talker-s ear and can capture not only normal (audible) speech, but also very quietly uttered speech (non-audible murmur). As a result, NAM microphones can be applied in automatic speech recognition systems when privacy is desired in human-machine communication. Moreover, NAM microphones show robustness against noise and they might be used in special systems (speech recognition, speech conversion etc.) for sound-impaired people. Using a small amount of training data and adaptation approaches, 93.9% word accuracy was achieved for a 20k Japanese vocabulary dictation task. Non-audible murmur recognition in noisy environments is also investigated. In this study, further analysis of the NAM speech has been made using distance measures between hidden Markov model (HMM) pairs. It has been shown the reduced spectral space of NAM speech using a metric distance, however the location of the different phonemes of NAM are similar to the location of the phonemes of normal speech, and the NAM sounds are well discriminated. Promising results in using nonlinear features are also introduced, especially under noisy conditions.

Keywords: Speech recognition, unvoiced speech, nonlinear features, HMM distance measures

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1635

Authors: Muhammad Rehan Usman, Muhammad Arslan Usman, Soo Young Shin

Abstract:

The new era of digital communication has brought up many challenges that network operators need to overcome. The high demand of mobile data rates require improved networks, which is a challenge for the operators in terms of maintaining the quality of experience (QoE) for their consumers. In live video transmission, there is a sheer need for live surveillance of the videos in order to maintain the quality of the network. For this purpose objective algorithms are employed to monitor the quality of the videos that are transmitted over a network. In order to test these objective algorithms, subjective quality assessment of the streamed videos is required, as the human eye is the best source of perceptual assessment. In this paper we have conducted subjective evaluation of videos with varying spatial and temporal impairments. These videos were impaired with frame freezing distortions so that the impact of frame freezing on the quality of experience could be studied. We present subjective Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for these videos that can be used for fine tuning the objective algorithms for video quality assessment.

Keywords: Frame freezing, mean opinion score, objective assessment, subjective evaluation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1776