Search results for: healthcare knowledge management

Authors: Johann Barbier, Guillaume Sicot, Sebastien Houcke

Abstract:

In this paper we present a generic approach for the problem of the blind estimation of the parameters of linear and convolutional error correcting codes. In a non-cooperative context, an adversary has only access to the noised transmission he has intercepted. The intercepter has no knowledge about the parameters used by the legal users. So, before having acess to the information he has first to blindly estimate the parameters of the error correcting code of the communication. The presented approach has the main advantage that the problem of reconstruction of such codes can be expressed in a very simple way. This allows us to evaluate theorical bounds on the complexity of the reconstruction process but also bounds on the estimation rate. We show that some classical reconstruction techniques are optimal and also explain why some of them have theorical complexities greater than these experimentally observed.

Keywords: Blind estimation parameters, error correcting codes, non-cooperative context, reconstruction algorithm

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Authors: C. Asarkaya, S. Z. Siretioglu Girgin

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Turkish migrants constitute the largest group among people with migration background living in Germany. Turkish women’s labor market participation is of significant importance for their social and economic integration to the German society. This paper thus aims to investigate their labor market positions. Turkish migrant women participate less in the labor market compared to men, and are responsible for most of the housework, child care, and elderly care. This is due to their traditional roles in the family, educational level, insufficient knowledge of German language, and insufficient professional experience. We strongly recommend that wide-reaching integration policies for women are formulated, so as to encourage participation of not only migrant women but also their husbands, fathers and/or brothers, and natives.

Keywords: Empowerment, Germany, Labor Market, Migration, Turkish, Women.

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Authors: S. Anastasiou, C. Nathanailides

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The purpose of this study is to examine the possible link between employee and customer satisfaction. The service provided by employees, help to build a good relationship with customers and can help at increasing their loyalty. Published data for job satisfaction and indicators of customer services of banks were gathered from relevant published works which included data from five different countries. The scores of customers and employees satisfaction of the different published works were transformed and normalized to the scale of 1 to 100. The data were analyzed and a regression analysis of the two parameters was used to describe the link between employee’s satisfaction and customer’s satisfaction. Assuming that employee satisfaction has a significant influence on customer’s service and the resulting customer satisfaction, the reviewed data indicate that employee’s satisfaction contributes significantly on the level of customer satisfaction in the Banking sector. There was a significant correlation between the two parameters (Pearson correlation R2=0.52 P<0.05). The reviewed data indicate that published data support the hypothesis that practical evidence link these two parameters. During the recent global economic crisis, the financial services sector was affected severely and job security, remuneration and recruitment of personnel of banks was in many countries, including Greece, significantly reduced. Nevertheless, modern organizations should always consider their personnel as a capital, which is the driving force for success in the future. Appropriate human resource management policies can increase the level of job satisfaction of the personnel with positive consequences for the level of customer’s satisfaction.

Keywords: Job satisfaction, job performance, customer service, banks, human resources management.

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Authors: Amir Gholami Pastaki, Ali Reza Sahab, Seyed Mehdi Sadeghi

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LSP routing is among the prominent issues in MPLS networks traffic engineering. The objective of this routing is to increase number of the accepted requests while guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS). Requested bandwidth is the most important QoS criterion that is considered in literatures, and a various number of heuristic algorithms have been presented with that regards. Many of these algorithms prevent flows through bottlenecks of the network in order to perform load balancing, which impedes optimum operation of the network. Here, a modern routing algorithm is proposed as MIRAD: having a little information of the network topology, links residual bandwidth, and any knowledge of the prospective requests it provides every request with a maximum bandwidth as well as minimum end-to-end delay via uniform load distribution across the network. Simulation results of the proposed algorithm show a better efficiency in comparison with similar algorithms.

Keywords: new generation networks, QoS, traffic engineering, MPLS, QoS based routing, LSP

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Authors: Z. Zaman Asam, M. Ajmal, R. Saeed, H. Miraj, M. Muhammad Ahtisham, B. Hameed, A. -Sattar Nizami

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In Pakistan, environmental degradation and consequent human health deterioration has rapidly accelerated in the past decade due to solid waste mismanagement. As the situation worsens with time, establishment of proper waste management practices is urgently needed especially in semi urban and rural areas of Pakistan. This study uses a concept of Waste Bank, which involves a transfer station for collection of sorted waste fractions and its delivery to the targeted market such as recycling industries, biogas plants, composting facilities etc. The management efficiency and effectiveness of Waste Bank depend strongly on the proficient sorting and collection of solid waste fractions at household level. However, the social attitude towards such a solution in semi urban/rural areas of Pakistan demands certain prerequisites to make it workable. Considering these factors the objectives of this study are to: [A] Obtain reliable data about quantity and characteristics of generated waste to define feasibility of business and design factors, such as required storage area, retention time, transportation frequency of the system etc. [B] Analyze the effects of various social factors on waste generation to foresee future projections. [C] Quantify the improvement in waste sorting efficiency after awareness campaign. We selected Gujrat city of Central Punjab province of Pakistan as it is semi urban adjoined by rural areas. A total of 60 houses (20 from each of the three selected colonies), belonging to different social status were selected. Awareness sessions about waste segregation were given through brochures and individual lectures in each selected household. Sampling of waste, that households had attempted to sort, was then carried out in the three colored bags that were provided as part of the awareness campaign. Finally, refined waste sorting, weighing of various fractions and measurement of dry mass was performed in environmental laboratory using standard methods. It was calculated that sorting efficiency of waste improved from 0 to 52% as a result of the awareness campaign. The generation of waste (dry mass basis) on average from one household was 460 kg/year whereas per capita generation was 68 kg/year. Extrapolating these values for Gujrat Tehsil, the total waste generation per year is calculated to be 101921 tons dry mass (DM). Characteristics found in waste were (i) organic decomposable (29.2%, 29710 tons/year DM), (ii) recyclables (37.0%, 37726 tons/year DM) that included plastic, paper, metal and glass, and (iii) trash (33.8%, 34485 tons/year DM) that mainly comprised of polythene bags, medicine packaging, pampers and wrappers. Waste generation was more in colonies with comparatively higher income and better living standards. In future, data collection for all four seasons and improvements due to expansion of awareness campaign to educational institutes will be quantified. This waste management system can potentially fulfill vital sustainable development goals (e.g. clean water and sanitation), reduce the need to harvest fresh resources from the ecosystem, create business and job opportunities and consequently solve one of the most pressing environmental issues of the country.

Keywords: Integrated solid waste management, waste segregation, waste bank, community development.

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Authors: W. Jay Gabbard, Saundra H. Starks, Jeremiah Jaggers, Amy C. Cappiccie

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An ethical mandate of the social work profession in the United States is that BSW and MSW graduates are sufficiently prepared to both understand diverse cultural values and beliefs and offer services that are culturally sensitive and relevant to clients. This skill set is particularly important for social workers in the 21st Century, given the increasing globalization of the U.S. and world. The purpose of this paper is to outline a pedagogical model for teaching cultural competency that resulted in a significant increase in cultural competency for MSW graduates at Western Kentucky University (WKU). More specifically, this model is predicated on five specific culturally sensitive principles and activities that were found to be highly effective in conveying culturally relevant knowledge and skills to MSW students at WKU. Future studies can assess the effectiveness of these principles in other MSW programs across the U.S. and abroad.

Keywords: Cultural Competence, Social Work, Teaching

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Authors: Erisasadat Sahebzamani, Núria Forcada, Francisco Lendinez

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Global climate change has become increasingly problematic over the past few decades. The construction industry has contributed to greenhouse gas emissions in recent decades. Considering these issues and the high demand for materials in the construction industry, Circular Economy (CE) is considered necessary to keep materials in the loop and extend their useful lives. By providing tangible benefits, Construction 4.0 facilitates the adoption of CE by reducing waste, updating standard work, sharing knowledge, and increasing transparency and stability. This study aims to present a framework for integrating CE and digital tools like Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) to examine the impact on the construction industry based on stakeholders' perspectives.

Keywords: Circular Economy, Building Information Modeling, Virtual Reality, stakeholder engagement.

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Authors: Amin Akhnoukh

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The National Bridge Inventory (NBI) includes more than 600,000 bridges within the United States of America. Prestressed concrete girder bridges represent one of the most widely used bridge systems. The majority of these girder bridges were constructed using 0.5 and 0.6 inch diameter strands. The main impediments to using larger strand diameters are: 1) lack of prestress bed capacities, 2) lack of structural knowledge regarding the transfer and development length of larger strands, and 3) the possibility of developing wider end zone cracks upon strand release. This paper presents a study about using 0.7 inch strands in girder fabrication. Transfer and development length were evaluated, and girders were fabricated using 0.7 inch strands at different spacings. Results showed that 0.7 inch strands can be used at 2.0 inch spacing without violating the AASHTO LRFD Specifications, while attaining superior performance in shear and flexure.

Keywords: 0.7 inch strands, prestress, I-girders, bridges

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Authors: Yani Rahmawati, Nadjadji Anwar, Christiono Utomo

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Development in construction industry is leading to involve complexities in engineering systems; whereas it also required to its sustainability towards social, environmental, and economical aspects. Experts with requisite background and expertise are involved in order to integrate knowledge in achieving whole criteria through design process. Collaborative design is needed in order to attain optimum design through shared solution and goal from experts. This study is conducted to explore issues and approaches development of collaborative design research in construction and its influence to sustainability of the development. Literature review method is used in order to conceptually figure future research direction of collaborative design research. This research is a part of beginning process in doctoral research program, and will be used to support dissertation’s conceptual definition.

Keywords: Collaborative design, multi-discipline design, design process, sustainability of project development.

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Authors: A. Khelifi, D. Ahmed, R. Salem, N. Ali

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Large patients’ queues at pharmacies and hospitals are a problem that faces the supposedly smooth and healthy environment in United Arab Emirates. As this sometimes leads to dissatisfaction from visiting patients, we tried to solve this problem with additional beneficial functions by developing the Hospital-Pharmacy Management System. The primary purpose of this research is to develop a system that joins the databases of a hospital and a pharmacy together for a better integrated system that provides a better coherent working environment. Three methods are used to design the system. These methods are detailed literature review, an extensive feasibility study and surveys for doctors, hospital IT managers and End-users. Interviews and surveys with related stakeholders were done to depict system’s requirements; design and prototype. The prototype illustrates system’s features and its client and server architecture. The system has a mobile application for visiting patients to, mainly, keep track of their prescriptions and access to their personal information. The server side allows doctors to submit the prescriptions online to pharmacists who will process them. This system is expected to reduce the long waiting queues of patients and increase their satisfaction while also reducing doctors and pharmacists’ stress and facilitating their work. It will be deployed to users of Android devices only. This limitation will be resolved, as one of main future enhancements, once the system finds acceptance from hospitals and pharmacies in United Arab Emirates.

Keywords: Hospital, Information System, Integration, Pharmacy.

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Authors: Mahmoud Shaker, Ala'a Imran

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Greenhouse is a building, which provides controlled climate conditions to the plants to keep them from external hard conditions. Greenhouse technology gives freedom to the farmer to select any crop type in any time during year. The quality and productivity of plants inside greenhouse is highly dependent on the management quality and a good management scheme is defined by the quality of the information collected from the greenhouse environment. Therefore, Continuous monitoring of environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, and soil moisture gives information to the grower to better understand, how each factor affects growth and how to manage maximal crop productiveness. In this piper, we designed and implemented climate monitoring with irrigation control system based on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology. The designed system is characterized with friendly to use, easy to install by any greenhouse user, multi-sensing nodes, multi-PAN ID, low cast, water irrigation control and low operation complexity. The system consists of two node types (sensing and control) with star topology on one PAN ID. Moreover, greenhouse manager can modifying system parameters such as (sensing node addresses, irrigation upper and lower control limits) by updating corresponding data in SDRAM memory. In addition, the designed system uses 2*16 characters. LCD to display the micro climate parameters values of each plants row inside the greenhouse.

Keywords: ZigBee, WSN, Arduino platform, Greenhouse automation, micro climate monitoring, smart Irrigation control.

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Authors: Vasile Marinescu, Ionut Clementin Constantin, Alexandru Epureanu, Virgil Teodor

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The Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) plays a vital role in automation and process control. Grafcet is used for representing the control logic, and traditional programming languages are used for describing the pure algorithms. Grafcet is used for dividing the process to be automated in elementary sequences that can be easily implemented. Each sequence represent a step that has associated actions programmed using textual or graphical languages after case. The programming task is simplified by using a set of subroutines that are used in several steps. The paper presents an example of implementation for a punching machine for sheets and plates. The use the graphical languages the programming of a complex sequential process is a necessary solution. The state of Grafcet can be used for debugging and malfunction determination. The use of the method combined with a set of knowledge acquisition for process application reduces the downtime of the machine and improve the productivity.

Keywords: Grafcet, Petrinet, PLC, punching.

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Authors: F. Sarabchi, M. E. Kalantari

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In this paper, Optimum adaptive loading algorithms are applied to multicarrier system with Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) scheme associated with space-time processing based on singular-value decomposition (SVD) of the channel matrix over Rayleigh fading channels. SVD method has been employed in MIMO-OFDM system in order to overcome subchannel interference. Chaw-s and Compello-s algorithms have been implemented to obtain a bit and power allocation for each subcarrier assuming instantaneous channel knowledge. The adaptive loaded SVD-STBC scheme is capable of providing both full-rate and full-diversity for any number of transmit antennas. The effectiveness of these techniques has demonstrated through the simulation of an Adaptive loaded SVDSTBC system, and the comparison shown that the proposed algorithms ensure better performance in the case of MIMO.

Keywords: OFDM, MIMO, SVD, STBC, Adaptive Loading.

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Authors: L. Tao, T. J. Sun, Z. H. Li

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The knowledge base of welding defect recognition is essentially incomplete. This characteristic determines that the recognition results do not reflect the actual situation. It also has a further influence on the classification of welding quality. This paper is concerned with the study of a rough set based method to reduce the influence and improve the classification accuracy. At first, a rough set model of welding quality intelligent classification has been built. Both condition and decision attributes have been specified. Later on, groups of the representative multiple compound defects have been chosen from the defect library and then classified correctly to form the decision table. Finally, the redundant information of the decision table has been reducted and the optimal decision rules have been reached. By this method, we are able to reclassify the misclassified defects to the right quality level. Compared with the ordinary ones, this method has higher accuracy and better robustness.

Keywords: intelligent decision, rough set, welding defects, welding quality level

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Authors: Stéphanie Leheis

Abstract:

To fight against the economic crisis, French Government, like many others in Europe, has decided to give a boost to high-speed line projects. This paper explores the implementation and decision-making process in TGV projects, their evolutions, especially since the Mediterranean TGV-line. This project was probably the most controversial, but paradoxically represents today a huge success for all the actors involved. What kind of lessons we can learn from this experience? How to evaluate the impact of this project on TGV-line planning? How can we characterize this implementation and decision-making process regards to the sustainability challenges? The construction of Mediterranean TGV-line was the occasion to make several innovations: to introduce more dialog into the decisionmaking process, to take into account the environment, to introduce a new project management and technological innovations. That-s why this project appears today as an example in terms of integration of sustainable development. In this paper we examine the different kinds of innovations developed in this project, by using concepts from sociology of innovation to understand how these solutions emerged in a controversial situation. Then we analyze the lessons which were drawn from this decision-making process (in the immediacy and a posteriori) and the way in which procedures evolved: creation of new tools and devices (public consultation, project management...). Finally we try to highlight the impact of this evolution on TGV projects governance. In particular, new methods of implementation and financing involve a reconfiguration of the system of actors. The aim of this paper is to define the impact of this reconfiguration on negotiations between stakeholders.

Keywords: High-speed train, innovation, governance, sustainability.

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Authors: K. Lisinchuk

Abstract:

An effective approach to the management of international educational mobility in regional universities with the purpose of increasing tourist activity in the region is considered.

Keywords: Export and import of tourist and educational services, international academic mobility, regional tourist activities.

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Authors: Zarabizan Zakaria, Syuhaida Ismail, Aminah Md Yusof

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Project management process starts from the planning stage up to the stage of completion (handover of buildings, preparation of the final accounts and the closing balance). Seeing as this process is not easy to be implemented efficiently and effectively, the issue of unsuccessful delivery as per contract in construction has become a major problem for construction projects. These issues have been blamed mainly on inefficient traditional construction practices that continue to dominate the current industry. This is due to several factors, such as environments of construction technology, sophisticated design and customer demand, that are constantly changing and influencing, either directly or indirectly, to the practice of management. Among the identified influences are physical environment, social environment, information environment, political and moral atmosphere. Therefore, this paper is emerged to determine the fundamental variables in the final account closing success in construction project. This aim can be achieved via its objectives of identifying the key constraints to the closing of final accounts in construction projects in Malaysia, investigating solutions to the identified constraints and analysing the relative levels of impact of the identified constraints. It is expected that this paper provides effective measures to avoid or at least reduce the problems in final account closing to the optimum level. It is also anticipated that the finding or outcome reported in this paper could address the unsuccessful contributors in final account closing and define tools for their mitigation for the better development of construction project.

Keywords: Fundamental variables, closing of final account, construction project, Malaysia.

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Authors: Mehdi Basikhasteh, Mohamad A. Movafaghpour

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This paper explores university course timetabling problem. There are several characteristics that make scheduling and timetabling problems particularly difficult to solve: they have huge search spaces, they are often highly constrained, they require sophisticated solution representation schemes, and they usually require very time-consuming fitness evaluation routines. Thus standard evolutionary algorithms lack of efficiency to deal with them. In this paper we have proposed a memetic algorithm that incorporates the problem specific knowledge such that most of chromosomes generated are decoded into feasible solutions. Generating vast amount of feasible chromosomes makes the progress of search process possible in a time efficient manner. Experimental results exhibit the advantages of the developed Hybrid Genetic Algorithm than the standard Genetic Algorithm.

Keywords: University Course Timetabling, Memetic Algorithm, Biased Chance Assignment, Optimization.

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Authors: S. Aghainajafi Zadeh, M.R. Hemami., F. Heydari

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Knowledge of food resource of the houbara which an endangered species would be a important step toward the preservation of this bird. Adequate study has not been done in this field and therefore the food sources of the houbara during the brooding season was studied in the central steppe of Iran. In order to determine the density of insect in plant communities the pitfall trap was used , positioned in five linear transects divided between plant communities and in two repetitions. The results showed that the among communities there was a significant difference in term of the number beetles and ants ( p= 0.01, F2, 29= 4.66) collectively. Also bush steppe habitat had a higher arthropoda density in comparison with the shrub steppe habitat. Considering that most houbara nests were found in the bush steppe habitat .It seems this habitat provides the most available food supply for the houbara chicks.

Keywords: Asiatic houbara bustard, Brooding season, Food resource

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Authors: Abeer Samy, Oliver C. Saavedra Valeriano, Abdelazim Negm

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The Blue Nile Basin is the most important tributary of the Nile River. Egypt and Sudan are almost dependent on water originated from the Blue Nile. This multi-dependency creates conflicts among the three countries Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia making the management of these conflicts as an international issue. Good assessment of the water resources of the Blue Nile is an important to help in managing such conflicts. Hydrological models are good tool for such assessment. This paper presents a critical review of the nature and variability of the climate and hydrology of the Blue Nile Basin as a first step of using hydrological modeling to assess the water resources of the Blue Nile. Many several attempts are done to develop basin-scale hydrological modeling on the Blue Nile. Lumped and semi distributed models used averages of meteorological inputs and watershed characteristics in hydrological simulation, to analyze runoff for flood control and water resource management. Distributed models include the temporal and spatial variability of catchment conditions and meteorological inputs to allow better representation of the hydrological process. The main challenge of all used models was to assess the water resources of the basin is the shortage of the data needed for models calibration and validation. It is recommended to use distributed model for their higher accuracy to cope with the great variability and complexity of the Blue Nile basin and to collect sufficient data to have more sophisticated and accurate hydrological modeling.

Keywords: Blue Nile Basin, Climate Change, Hydrological Modeling, Watershed.

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Authors: A. Elbyed

Abstract:

Nowadays, ontologies are used for achieving a common understanding within a user community and for sharing domain knowledge. However, the de-centralized nature of the web makes indeed inevitable that small communities will use their own ontologies to describe their data and to index their own resources. Certainly, accessing to resources from various ontologies created independently is an important challenge for answering end user queries. Ontology mapping is thus required for combining ontologies. However, mapping complete ontologies at run time is a computationally expensive task. This paper proposes a system in which mappings between concepts may be generated dynamically as the concepts are encountered during user queries. In this way, the interaction itself defines the context in which small and relevant portions of ontologies are mapped. We illustrate application of the proposed system in the context of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) where learners need to access to learning resources covering specific concepts.

Keywords: Resources query, ontologies, ontology mapping, similarity measures, semantic web, e-learning.

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Authors: Rutanachai Thaipratum

Abstract:

The mechanism of abiotic stress tolerance is crucial for plants to survive in harsh condition and the knowledge of this mechanism can be use to solve the problem of declining productivity of plants or crops around the world. However in-depth description is still unclear and it is argued, in particular that there is a relationship between high salinity tolerance and the ability to tolerate high light condition. In this study, Dunaliella salina, which can withstand high salt was used as a model. Chlorophyll fluorometer for nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) measurement and high-performance liquid chromatography for pigment determination was used. The results show that NPQ value and the amount of pigment were increased along with the levels of salinity. However, it establish a clear relationship between high salt and high light but the further study to optimized the solutions mentioned above is still required.

Keywords: Abiotic stress tolerance, Dunaliella salina, Nonphotochemical quenching, Zeaxanthin.

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Authors: Davoud Beheshtizadeh, Davood Jafari

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Concrete, with its unique properties and advantages, has gained widespread and increasing use in the construction industry, particularly in a country's infrastructure. However, concrete exhibits certain defects, most notably the presence of micro-cracks that occur after the setting process, leading to increased costs for infrastructure repair and maintenance. As a result, self-healing concretes have garnered attention in various countries in recent years. These concretes employ different mechanisms for repair, including physical, chemical, biological, and combined approaches, each with its own subsets and implementation methods. Certain mechanisms hold significant importance, leading to specialized production methods. Given the novelty of this subject in Iran, there is limited knowledge or, in some cases, a complete lack of understanding. This paper presents various self-healing concrete mechanisms and the advantages, disadvantages, and application scope of each method.

Keywords: Micro-cracks, self-healing concrete, microcapsules, concrete, cement, self-sensitive.

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Authors: Fateme Ashari-Ghomi, Najme Khorasani, Abbas Nowzari-Dalini

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In this paper, we present two new ranking and unranking algorithms for k-ary trees represented by x-sequences in Gray code order. These algorithms are based on a gray code generation algorithm developed by Ahrabian et al.. In mentioned paper, a recursive backtracking generation algorithm for x-sequences corresponding to k-ary trees in Gray code was presented. This generation algorithm is based on Vajnovszki-s algorithm for generating binary trees in Gray code ordering. Up to our knowledge no ranking and unranking algorithms were given for x-sequences in this ordering. we present ranking and unranking algorithms with O(kn2) time complexity for x-sequences in this Gray code ordering

Keywords: k-ary Tree Generation, Ranking, Unranking, Gray Code.

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Authors: Mario Kubek, Herwig Unger

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Due to the large amount of information in the World Wide Web (WWW, web) and the lengthy and usually linearly ordered result lists of web search engines that do not indicate semantic relationships between their entries, the search for topically similar and related documents can become a tedious task. Especially, the process of formulating queries with proper terms representing specific information needs requires much effort from the user. This problem gets even bigger when the user's knowledge on a subject and its technical terms is not sufficient enough to do so. This article presents the new and interactive search application DocAnalyser that addresses this problem by enabling users to find similar and related web documents based on automatic query formulation and state-ofthe- art search word extraction. Additionally, this tool can be used to track topics across semantically connected web documents.

Keywords: DocAnalyser, interactive web search, search word extraction, query formulation, source topic detection, topic tracking.

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Authors: Mohammad Ali Abdi, Sima Mehdizadegan Namin

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Sustainable development is a concept which was originated in Burtland commission in 1978. Although this concept was born with environmental aspects, it is penetrated in all areas rapidly, turning into a dominate view of planning. Concentrating on future generation issue, especially when talking about heritage has a long story. Each approach with all of its characteristics illustrates differences in planning, hence planning always reflects the dominate idea of its age. This paper studies sustainable development in planning for historical cities with the aim of finding ways to deal with heritage in planning for historical cities in Iran. Through this, it will be illustrated how challenges between sustainable concept and heritage could be concluded in planning. Consequently, the paper will emphasize on: Sustainable development in city planning Trends regarding heritage Challenges due to planning for historical cities in Iran For the first two issues, documentary method regarding the sustainable development and heritage literature is considered. As the next step focusing on Iranian historical cities require considering the urban planning and management structure and identifying the main challenges related to heritage, so analyzing challenges regarding heritage is considered. As the result it would be illustrated that key issue in such planning is active conservation to improve and use the potential of heritage while it's continues conservation is guaranteed. By emphasizing on the planning system in Iran it will be obvious that some reforms are needed in this system and its way of relating with heritage. The main weakness in planning for historical cities in Iran is the lack of independent city management. Without this factor achieving active conservation as the main factor of sustainable development would not be possible.

Keywords: Active conservation, city planning, heritage, sustainable development.

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Authors: Aissam Belghiat, Mustapha Bourahla

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Models are placed by modeling paradigm at the center of development process. These models are represented by languages, like UML the language standardized by the OMG which became necessary for development. Moreover the ontology engineering paradigm places ontologies at the center of development process; in this paradigm we find OWL the principal language for knowledge representation. Building ontologies from scratch is generally a difficult task. The bridging between UML and OWL appeared on several regards such as the classes and associations. In this paper, we have to profit from convergence between UML and OWL to propose an approach based on Meta-Modelling and Graph Grammars and registered in the MDA architecture for the automatic generation of OWL ontologies from UML class diagrams. The transformation is based on transformation rules; the level of abstraction in these rules is close to the application in order to have usable ontologies. We illustrate this approach by an example.

Keywords: ATOM3, MDA, Ontology, OWL, UML

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Authors: A. Sivakumar, S. S. Darun Prakash, P. Navaneethakrishnan

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In and around Erode District, it is estimated that more than 1250 chemical and allied textile processing fabric industries are affected, partially closed and shut off for various reasons such as poor management, poor supplier performance, lack of planning for productivity, fluctuation of output, poor investment, waste analysis, labor problems, capital/labor ratio, accumulation of stocks, poor maintenance of resources, deficiencies in the quality of fabric, low capacity utilization, age of plant and equipment, high investment and input but low throughput, poor research and development, lack of energy, workers’ fear of loss of jobs, work force mix and work ethic. The main objective of this work is to analyze the existing conditions in textile fabric sector, validate the break even of Total Productivity (TP), analyze, design and implement fuzzy sets and mathematical programming for improvement of productivity and quality dimensions in the fabric processing industry. It needs to be compatible with the reality of textile and fabric processing industries. The highly risk events from productivity and quality dimension were found by fuzzy systems and results are wrapped up among the textile fabric processing industry.

Keywords: Break Even Point, Fuzzy Crisp Data, Fuzzy Sets, Productivity, Productivity Cycle, Total Productive Maintenance.

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Authors: Markandeya Kunchi

Abstract:

Usability testing (UT) is one of the vital steps in the User-centred design (UCD) process when designing a product. In an e-commerce ecosystem, UT becomes primary as new products, features, and services are launched very frequently. And, there are losses attached to the company if an unusable and inefficient product is put out to market and is rejected by customers. This paper tries to answer why UT is important in the product life-cycle of an E-commerce ecosystem. Secondary user research was conducted to find out work patterns, development methods, type of stakeholders, and technology constraints, etc. of a typical E-commerce company. Qualitative user interviews were conducted with product managers and designers to find out the structure, project planning, product management method and role of the design team in a mid-level company. The paper tries to address the usual apprehensions of the company to inculcate UT within the team. As well, it stresses upon factors like monetary resources, lack of usability expert, narrow timelines, and lack of understanding of higher management as some primary reasons. Outsourcing UT to vendors is also very prevalent with mid-level e-commerce companies, but it has its own severe repercussions like very little team involvement, huge cost, misinterpretation of the findings, elongated timelines, and lack of empathy towards the customer, etc. The shortfalls of the unavailability of a UT process in place within the team and conducting UT through vendors are bad user experiences for customers while interacting with the product, badly designed products which are neither useful and nor utilitarian. As a result, companies see dipping conversions rates in apps and websites, huge bounce rates and increased uninstall rates. Thus, there was a need for a more lean UT system in place which could solve all these issues for the company. This paper highlights on optimizing the UT process with a collaborative method. The degree of optimization and structure of collaborative method is the highlight of this paper. Collaborative method of UT is one in which the centralised design team of the company takes for conducting and analysing the UT. The UT is usually a formative kind where designers take findings into account and uses in the ideation process. The success of collaborative method of UT is due to its ability to sync with the product management method employed by the company or team. The collaborative methods focus on engaging various teams (design, marketing, product, administration, IT, etc.) each with its own defined roles and responsibility in conducting a smooth UT with users In-house. The paper finally highlights the positive results of collaborative UT method after conducting more than 100 In-lab interviews with users across the different lines of businesses. Some of which are the improvement of interaction between stakeholders and the design team, empathy towards users, improved design iteration, better sanity check of design solutions, optimization of time and money, effective and efficient design solution. The future scope of collaborative UT is to make this method leaner, by reducing the number of days to complete the entire project starting from planning between teams to publishing the UT report.

Keywords: Usability testing, collaborative method, e-commerce, product management method.

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Authors: M. V. Sudhamani, C. R. Venugopal

Abstract:

This paper deals with the application for contentbased image retrieval to extract color feature from natural images stored in the image database by segmenting the image through clustering. We employ a class of nonparametric techniques in which the data points are regarded as samples from an unknown probability density. Explicit computation of the density is avoided by using the mean shift procedure, a robust clustering technique, which does not require prior knowledge of the number of clusters, and does not constrain the shape of the clusters. A non-parametric technique for the recovery of significant image features is presented and segmentation module is developed using the mean shift algorithm to segment each image. In these algorithms, the only user set parameter is the resolution of the analysis and either gray level or color images are accepted as inputs. Extensive experimental results illustrate excellent performance.

Keywords: Segmentation, Clustering, Image Retrieval, Features.

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