Search results for: Business environment
1280 The World of Great Wines: The Douro Valley Experience
Authors: A. Oliveira-Brochado, R. Silva, C. Paulino
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The aim of this paper is to use an experiential view of wine tourism to develop a battery of items that can potentially capture the overall Douro Valley experience from the tourist’s perspective. The Douro Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage region located in Portugal, was the target of this study. The research took a mixed approach using both qualitative and quantitative designs. Firstly, we combine the literature review on service quality scales with a content analysis of five in-depth interviews with winery managers and a focus group with wine tourists to identify the main dimensions of the overall tourism experience and to develop a battery of items for each dimension. Eight dimensions of the overall wine tourism experience came out, as follows: winery service and staff, winery facilities, winery service, wine product, wine region environment, wine region accessibilities, wine region´s offerings, and the wine region and winery reputation.
Keywords: Wine tourism, Douro region, survey, wineries, experience.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24511279 Exploring SSD Suitable Allocation Schemes Incompliance with Workload Patterns
Authors: Jae Young Park, Hwansu Jung, Jong Tae Kim
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In the Solid-State-Drive (SSD) performance, whether the data has been well parallelized is an important factor. SSD parallelization is affected by allocation scheme and it is directly connected to SSD performance. There are dynamic allocation and static allocation in representative allocation schemes. Dynamic allocation is more adaptive in exploiting write operation parallelism, while static allocation is better in read operation parallelism. Therefore, it is hard to select the appropriate allocation scheme when the workload is mixed read and write operations. We simulated conditions on a few mixed data patterns and analyzed the results to help the right choice for better performance. As the results, if data arrival interval is long enough prior operations to be finished and continuous read intensive data environment static allocation is more suitable. Dynamic allocation performs the best on write performance and random data patterns.
Keywords: Dynamic allocation, NAND Flash based SSD, SSD parallelism, static allocation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19951278 Exploring the Importance of Different Product Cues on the Selection for Chocolate from the Consumer Perspective
Authors: Ezeni Brzovska, Durdana Ozretic-Dosen
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The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of the product cues that influence purchase decision for a specific product category – chocolate, and to identify demographic differences in the buying behavior. ANOVA was employed for analyzing the significance level for nine product cues, and the survey showed statistically significant differences among different age and gender groups, and between respondents with different levels of education. From the theoretical perspective, the study adds to the existing knowledge by contributing with the research results from the new environment (Southeast Europe, Macedonia), which has been neglected so far. Establishing the level of significance for the product cues that affect buying behavior in the chocolate consumption context might help managers to improve marketing decision-making, and better meet consumer needs through identifying opportunities for packaging innovations and/or personalization toward different target groups.
Keywords: Chocolate consumption context, chocolate selection, demographic characteristics, product cues.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12951277 Analysis of Tourism in Chitwan National Park, Determining Its Sustainability and Development towards an Eco-Tourism Destination
Authors: S. Basnet
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Tourism is one of the largest industries in Nepal and is one of the largest sources of foreign exchange and revenues. Tourism has both negative and positive effects, and Chitwan National Park (CNP) is no different. CNP is the first national park of Nepal where tourists can enjoy many mega faunas along with other natural amenities and the indigenous Tharu culture. This research is focused on analyzing sustainability of the national park and ways to develop it as an eco-tourism destination. The methodology used are literature review, questionnaire, focus group discussion, household survey and field observation. The research reveals that, although, tourist has increased the value and economic scale of the destination, there is huge influx of population from the nearby areas in search of opportunities, which has led to various problems such as, overuse and declining of resources, side-lining of the aboriginals’ groups, modernization and pollution. Hence, analysis of tourism in the area and determining its sustainability becomes vital for protecting it from further damage.
Keywords: Culture, economy, eco-tourism, effects of tourism, environment, national park and sustainability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 801276 Challenges of Sustainable Construction in Kuwait: Investigating level of Awareness of Kuwait Stakeholders
Authors: Shaikha AlSanad , Andrew Gale, Rodger Edwards
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Buildings and associated construction methods have a significant impact on the environment. As construction activity increases in Kuwait, there is a need to create design and construction strategies which will minimize the environmental impact of new buildings. Green construction is a design philosophy intended to improve the sustainability of construction by the minimization of resource depletion and CO2 emissions throughout the life cycle of buildings. This paper presents and discusses the results of a survey that was conducted in Kuwait, with the objective of investigating the awareness of developers and other stakeholders regarding their understanding and use of green construction strategies. The results of the survey demonstrate that whilst there seems to be a reasonable level of awareness amongst the stakeholders, this awareness is not currently well reflected in the design and construction practices actually being applied. It is therefore concluded is there is a pressing need for intervention from Government in order that the use of sustainable green design and construction strategies becomes the norm in Kuwait.
Keywords: Sustainability, Sustainable construction, Green Building, Environmental assessment
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31161275 Gauteng-s Waste Outlook: A Reflection
Authors: Edison Muzenda
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Gauteng, as the province with the greatest industrial and population density, the economic hub of South Africa also generates the greatest amount of waste, both general and hazardous. Therefore the province has a significant need to develop and apply appropriate integrated waste management policies that ensure that waste is recognised as a serious problem and is managed in an effective integrated manner to preserve both the present and future human health and environment. This paper reflects on Gauteng-s waste outlook in particular the province-s General Waste Minimisation Plan and its Integrated Waste Management Policy. The paper also looks at general waste generation, recyclable waste streams as well as recycling and separation at source initiatives in the province. Both the quantity and nature of solid waste differs considerably across the socio-economic spectrum. People in informal settlements generate an average of 0.16 kg per person per day whereas 2 kg per day is not unusual in affluent areas. For example the amount of waste generated in Johannesburg is approximately 1.2 kg per person per day.
Keywords: General waste, generation, integrated, minimisation, recycling, separation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14951274 Performance Analysis of MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT DOA Estimation Algorithm
Authors: N. P. Waweru, D. B. O. Konditi, P. K. Langat
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Direction of Arrival estimation refers to defining a mathematical function called a pseudospectrum that gives an indication of the angle a signal is impinging on the antenna array. This estimation is an efficient method of improving the quality of service in a communication system by focusing the reception and transmission only in the estimated direction thereby increasing fidelity with a provision to suppress interferers. This improvement is largely dependent on the performance of the algorithm employed in the estimation. Many DOA algorithms exists amongst which are MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT. In this paper, performance of these three algorithms is analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy as assessed and characterized by the CRLB and memory requirements in various environments and array sizes. It is found that the three algorithms are high resolution and dependent on the operating environment and the array size.
Keywords: Direction of Arrival, Autocorrelation matrix, Eigenvalue decomposition, MUSIC, ESPRIT, CRLB.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 87621273 Sustainable Construction in Malaysia – Developers- Awareness
Authors: Nazirah Zainul Abidin
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The creation of a sustainable future depends on the knowledge and involvement of the people, as well as an understanding of the consequences of individual actions. Construction industry has long been associated with the detrimental effects to our mother earth. In Malaysia, the government, professional bodies and private companies are beginning to take heed in the necessity to reduce this environmental problem without restraining the need for development. This paper focuses on the actions undertaken by the Malaysian government, non-government organizations and construction players in promoting sustainability in construction. To ensure that those concerted efforts are not only skin deep in its impact, a survey was conducted to investigate the awareness of the developers regarding this issue and whether those developers has absorb the concept of sustainable construction in their current practices. The survey revealed that although the developers are aware of the rising issues on sustainability, little efforts are generated from them in implementing it. More effort is necessary to boost this application and further stimulate actions and strategies towards a sustainable built environment.
Keywords: Environmental sustainability, Malaysian construction industry, Malaysian developers, Sustainable construction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 45941272 Creative Thinking Skill Approach Through Problem-Based Learning: Pedagogy and Practice in the Engineering Classroom
Authors: Halizah Awang, Ishak Ramly
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Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of the student centered approaches and has been considered by a number of higher educational institutions in many parts of the world as a method of delivery. This paper presents a creative thinking approach for implementing Problem-based Learning in Mechanics of Structure within a Malaysian Polytechnics environment. In the learning process, students learn how to analyze the problem given among the students and sharing classroom knowledge into practice. Further, through this course-s emphasis on problem-based learning, students acquire creative thinking skills and professional skills as they tackle complex, interdisciplinary and real-situation problems. Once the creative ideas are generated, there are useful additional techniques for tender ideas that will grow into a productive concept or solution. The combination of creative skills and technical abilities will enable the students to be ready to “hit-the-ground-running" and produce in industry when they graduate.Keywords: Creative Thinking Skills, Problem-based Learning, Problem Solving.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 73241271 From Micro to Nanosystems: An Exploratory Study of Influences on Innovation Teams
Authors: Norbert Burger, Thorsten Staake
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What influences microsystems (MEMS) and nanosystems (NEMS) innovation teams apart from technology complexity? Based on in-depth interviews with innovators, this research explores the key influences on innovation teams in the early phases of MEMS/NEMS. Projects are rare and may last from 5 to 10 years or more from idea to concept. As fundamental technology development in MEMS/NEMS is highly complex and interdisciplinary by involving expertise from different basic and engineering disciplines, R&D is rather a 'testing of ideas' with many uncertainties than a clearly structured process. The purpose of this study is to explore the innovation teams- environment and give specific insights for future management practices. The findings are grouped into three major areas: people, know-how and experience, and market. The results highlight the importance and differences of innovation teams- composition, transdisciplinary knowledge, project evaluation and management compared to the counterparts from new product development teams.
Keywords: Innovation teams, early phases, Microsystems, Nanosystems, technology developments.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16401270 Phenolic Compounds in Red Fruits Produced in Organic Farming at Maturation Stage
Authors: Susana M. A. Soutinho, Raquel P. F. Guiné, António M. Jordão, Fernando J. Gonçalves
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The agricultural organic farming is different from conventional farming in a way that is aimed at providing a balanced and constructive action in agricultural systems. With the increase in intensive agriculture, undesirable changes were being observed in ecosystems with irreparable damage being caused to the natural equilibrium. This is the reason for the increasing interest in organic farming as an environment friendly agricultural production method. In the present work three red fruits produced in organic farming were analyzed, namely raspberry, gooseberry and blueberry. The samples were harvested in a local farm when at plain maturation. The results obtained allowed to conclude that the blueberry contained higher amounts of phenolic compounds, total tannins and total anthocyanins than raspberry and gooseberry. Furthermore, the HPLC analysis allowed to identify monomeric anthocyanins and phenolic acids in the three fruits studied.
Keywords: Blackberry, gooseberry, organic farming, phenolic compounds, raspberry.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20451269 Digital Marketing Maturity Models: Overview and Comparison
Authors: Elina Bakhtieva
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The variety of available digital tools, strategies and activities might confuse and disorient even an experienced marketer. This applies in particular to B2B companies, which are usually less flexible in uptaking of digital technology than B2C companies. B2B companies are lacking a framework that corresponds to the specifics of the B2B business, and which helps to evaluate a company’s capabilities and to choose an appropriate path. A B2B digital marketing maturity model helps to fill this gap. However, modern marketing offers no widely approved digital marketing maturity model, and thus, some marketing institutions provide their own tools. The purpose of this paper is building an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model based on a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of existing models. The current study provides an analytical review of the existing digital marketing maturity models with open access. The results of the research are twofold. First, the provided SWOT analysis outlines the main advantages and disadvantages of existing models. Secondly, the strengths of existing digital marketing maturity models, helps to identify the main characteristics and the structure of an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model. The research findings indicate that only one out of three analyzed models could be used as a separate tool. This study is among the first examining the use of maturity models in digital marketing. It helps businesses to choose between the existing digital marketing models, the most effective one. Moreover, it creates a base for future research on digital marketing maturity models. This study contributes to the emerging B2B digital marketing literature by providing a SWOT analysis of the existing digital marketing maturity models and suggesting a structure and main characteristics of an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model.
Keywords: B2B digital marketing strategy, digital marketing, digital marketing maturity model, SWOT analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 33201268 Assessing the Effect of the Shift of Rural Labor towards Non-Agricultural Sectors on Rice Cultivation in the African Environment: Evidence from Sierra Leone
Authors: Alhaji M. H Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, Alfred V Gborie
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The crop rice is the staple food of most Sierra Leone with no close substitute. However, its cultivation has been on its last legs over the years. The decline in the domestic rice cultivation has had vicious socio-economic implications such as hiking consumer prices, balance of payment dilemmas with debt burden. The objective of this study is thus, to assess the effect of the shift of rural labour towards non-agricultural sectors on rice cultivation. The tools utilized for analyzing the problem under consideration involved a thorough descriptive statistics and generalized linear model using OLS technique. Increased rural population was established positive and significant in affecting rice cultivation. Fertilizer utilization was insignificant in rice cultivation. For reducing the shift of rural labor force towards nonagricultural sectors, the government should make the agricultural sector very lucrative.
Keywords: Regression Model, Rice Cultivation, Rural Migration, Sierra Leone.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17941267 Intelligent Swarm-Finding in Formation Control of Multi-Robots to Track a Moving Target
Authors: Anh Duc Dang, Joachim Horn
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This paper presents a new approach to control robots, which can quickly find their swarm while tracking a moving target through the obstacles of the environment. In this approach, an artificial potential field is generated between each free-robot and the virtual attractive point of the swarm. This artificial potential field will lead free-robots to their swarm. The swarm-finding of these free-robots dose not influence the general motion of their swarm and nor other robots. When one singular robot approaches the swarm then its swarm-search will finish, and it will further participate with its swarm to reach the position of the target. The connections between member-robots with their neighbors are controlled by the artificial attractive/repulsive force field between them to avoid collisions and keep the constant distances between them in ordered formation. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been verified in simulations.
Keywords: Formation control, potential field method, obstacle avoidance, swarm intelligence, multi-agent systems.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21871266 An Efficient Key Management Scheme for Secure SCADA Communication
Authors: Sungjin Lee, Donghyun Choi, Choonsik Park, Seungjoo Kim
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A SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system is an industrial control and monitoring system for national infrastructures. The SCADA systems were used in a closed environment without considering about security functionality in the past. As communication technology develops, they try to connect the SCADA systems to an open network. Therefore, the security of the SCADA systems has been an issue. The study of key management for SCADA system also has been performed. However, existing key management schemes for SCADA system such as SKE(Key establishment for SCADA systems) and SKMA(Key management scheme for SCADA systems) cannot support broadcasting communication. To solve this problem, an Advanced Key Management Architecture for Secure SCADA Communication has been proposed by Choi et al.. Choi et al.-s scheme also has a problem that it requires lots of computational cost for multicasting communication. In this paper, we propose an enhanced scheme which improving computational cost for multicasting communication with considering the number of keys to be stored in a low power communication device (RTU).Keywords: SCADA system, SCADA communication, Key management, Distributed networks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22881265 A Study on Energy-efficient Temperature Control
Authors: Mitsuyuki Kawakami, Kimihiro Yamanaka
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The top-heavy demographic of low birth-rate and longer lifespan is a growing social problem, and one of its expected effects will be a shortage of young workers and a growing reliance on a workforce of middle-aged and older people. However, the environment of today's industrial workplace is not particularly suited to middle-aged and older workers, one notable problem being temperature control. Higher temperatures can cause health problems such as heat stroke, and the number of cases increases sharply in people over 65. Moreover, in conditions above 33°C, older people can develop circulatory system disorders, and also have a higher chance of suffering a fatal heart attack. We therefore propose a new method for controlling temperature in the indoor workplace. In this study two different verification experiments were conducted, with the proposed temperature control method being tested in cargo containers and conventional houses. The method's effectiveness was apparent in measurements of temperature and electricity consumption
Keywords: CO2 reduction, Energy saving, Temperature control
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14061264 The Innovative Information System for Systemic Approach of the Sustainability in the Enterprise
Authors: M. Izvercianu, L. Ivascu
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This paper presents an innovative computer system that contributes to sustainable development of the enterprise. The research refers to a rethinking of traditional systems of collaboration and risk assessment, present in any organization, leading to a sustainable enterprise. This concept integrates emerging tools that allow the implementation and exploitation of the collective intelligence of the enterprise, allowing the exchange of contextual, agile and simplified information, and collaboration with networks of customers and partners in an environment where risks are controlled. Risk assessment is done in a systemic way: the enterprise as the system compared to the contained departments and the enterprise as a subsystem compared to: families of international standards and sustainability-s responsibilities. The enterprise, in this systemic vision, responds to the requirements that any existing system to operate continuously in an indefinite future without reaching key resource depletion. The research is done by integrating collaborative science, engineering, management, psychology, obtaining thus a cornerstone of sustainable development of the enterprise.Keywords: Enterprise 2.0, ISO, Risk management, Sustainable development
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16991263 Trust Managementfor Pervasive Computing Environments
Authors: Denis Trcek
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Trust is essential for further and wider acceptance of contemporary e-services. It was first addressed almost thirty years ago in Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria standard by the US DoD. But this and other proposed approaches of that period were actually solving security. Roughly some ten years ago, methodologies followed that addressed trust phenomenon at its core, and they were based on Bayesian statistics and its derivatives, while some approaches were based on game theory. However, trust is a manifestation of judgment and reasoning processes. It has to be dealt with in accordance with this fact and adequately supported in cyber environment. On the basis of the results in the field of psychology and our own findings, a methodology called qualitative algebra has been developed, which deals with so far overlooked elements of trust phenomenon. It complements existing methodologies and provides a basis for a practical technical solution that supports management of trust in contemporary computing environments. Such solution is also presented at the end of this paper.Keywords: internet security, trust management, multi-agent systems, reasoning and judgment, modeling and simulation, qualitativealgebra
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15821262 An Efficient Framework to Build Up Malware Dataset
Authors: Madihah Mohd Saudi, Zul Hilmi Abdullah
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This research paper presents a framework on how to build up malware dataset.Many researchers took longer time to clean the dataset from any noise or to transform the dataset into a format that can be used straight away for testing. Therefore, this research is proposing a framework to help researchers to speed up the malware dataset cleaningprocesses which later can be used for testing. It is believed, an efficient malware dataset cleaning processes, can improved the quality of the data, thus help to improve the accuracy and the efficiency of the subsequent analysis. Apart from that, an in-depth understanding of the malware taxonomy is also important prior and during the dataset cleaning processes. A new Trojan classification has been proposed to complement this framework.This experiment has been conducted in a controlled lab environment and using the dataset from VxHeavens dataset. This framework is built based on the integration of static and dynamic analyses, incident response method and knowledge database discovery (KDD) processes.This framework can be used as the basis guideline for malware researchers in building malware dataset.
Keywords: Dataset, knowledge database discovery (KDD), malware, static and dynamic analyses.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34721261 Polymorphic Marker Designed from Bioinformatics Sequences Related to Cell Wall Strength for Discrimination of Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.) Clones Resistant to Gamboge Disorder
Authors: E. Mansyah, Sobir, E. Santosa, A. Sisharmini, Sulassih
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Gamboge disorder (GD) or fruit damage by the yellow sap is a major problem in mangosteen. Mangosteen plants varied in the level of GD, from very low or non GD to low, moderate and high GD. However it was difficult to differentiate between GD and non GD plants because evaluation of the disorder is strongly influenced by environment. In this study we investigated the usefulness of primer designed from bioinformatics related to cell wall strength, termed as MCWS, to predict GD. Plant materials used were 28 mangosteen plants selected based on percentage of GD categorized as high, moderate, low and very low or non GD. The result showed that the specific DNA fragments were absent in the high GD accessions. The MCWS marker suggests as a novel polymorphic marker for GD in mangosteen as well as a marker for detect variability in mangosteen as apomictic plant.
Keywords: Bioinformatics, cell wall strength, gamboge disorder, mangosteen, polymorphic marker.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24251260 Migration from Commercial to in-House Developed Learning Management Systems
Authors: Lejla A. Bexheti, Visar S. Shehu, Adrian A. Besimi
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The Learning Management Systems present learning environment which offers a collection of e-learning tools in a package that allows a common interface and information sharing among the tools. South East European University initial experience in LMS was with the usage of the commercial LMS-ANGEL. After a three year experience on ANGEL usage because of expenses that were very high it was decided to develop our own software. As part of the research project team for the in-house design and development of the new LMS, we primarily had to select the features that would cover our needs and also comply with the actual trends in the area of software development, and then design and develop the system. In this paper we present the process of LMS in-house development for South East European University, its architecture, conception and strengths with a special accent on the process of migration and integration with other enterprise applications.Keywords: e-learning tools, LMS, migration, user feedback.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16401259 Heavy Metals and Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in Green Turtles are Indicators of Environmental Pollution
Authors: S. K. Al-Musharafi, I. Y. Mahmoud, S. N. Al-Bahry
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Freshly laid eggs from green turtles, Chelonia mydas, were randomly collected from Ras Al-Hadd Reserve, Oman. Eggshells taken from eggs and sand collected from the body chamber were analyzed for eight heavy metals (Al, Br, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, S, and Zn) using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP). Heavy metal concentrations varied significantly (P<0.05) between nest sand and eggshells. Zn values were significantly higher than the other heavy metals. A total of 60 heterotrophic bacteria belong to eight genera were isolated from fresh egg contents (albumen and yolk). Resistance of the isolates to Ak = amikacin, Ak = amikacin, Amp= ampicillin, Gm= gentamycin, Cn = chloramphenicol, Min = minocycline, N = Neomycin, S= streptomycin, Smx = sulphamethoxazole, Tmp = trimethoprim, Tob = tobramycin was tested. More than 40% of the isolates were multiple resistant to 2-10 antibiotics. Most of the resistant strains were also resistant to Zn. The value of these findings may indicate that the origin of pollution is of human contaminated effluents.
Keywords: Antibiotic resistance, bacteria, environment, heavy metals, sea turtles.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25351258 Diagnosis on Environmental Impacts of Tourism at Caju Beach in Palmas, Tocantins, Brazil
Authors: Mary L. G. S. Senna, Veruska, C. Dutra, Jr., Keity L. F. Oliveira, Patrícia A. Santos, Alana C. M. Santana
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Environmental impacts are the changes in the physical, chemical or biological properties of natural areas that are most often caused by human actions on the environment and which have consequences for human health, society and the elements of nature. The identification of the environmental impacts is important so that they are mitigated, and above all that the mitigating measures are applied in the area. This work aims to identify the environmental impacts generated in the Praia do Caju area in the city of Palmas/Brazil and show that the lack of structure on the beach intensifies the environmental impacts. The present work was carried out having as parameter, the typologies of exploratory and descriptive and quantitative research through a matrix of environmental impacts through direct observation and registration. The study took place during the holidays from August to December 2016 and photographic record of impacts. From the collected data it was possible to verify that Caju beach suffers constant degradation due to irregular deposition.
Keywords: Leisure, tourism, environmental impacts, Brazil.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7351257 A Study of DSRC Radio Testbed under Heavy Channel Load
Authors: Chih-Neng Liang, Bo-Chiuan Chen, C. W. Hsu
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Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) is a key enabling technology for the next generation of communication-based safety applications. One of the important problems for DSRC deployment is maintaining high performance under heavy channel load. Many studies focus on congestion control mechanisms for simulating hundreds of physical radios deployed on vehicles. The U.S. department of transportation-s (DOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) division has a plan to chosen prototype on-board devices capable of transmitting basic “Here I am" safety messages to other vehicles. The devices will be used in an IntelliDrive safety pilot deployment of up to 3,000 vehicles. It is hard to log the information of 3,000 vehicles. In this paper we present the designs and issues related to the DSRC Radio Testbed under heavy channel load. The details not only include the architecture of DSRC Radio Testbed, but also describe how the Radio Interfere System is used to help for emulating the congestion radio environment.Keywords: DSRC, UDP, WAVE, Radio Testbed
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18011256 Towards an E-Learning Platform Multi-Agent Based On the E-Tutoring for Collaborative Work
Authors: Badr Hssina, Belaid Bouikhalene, Abdelkrim Merbouha
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This article presents our prototype MASET (Multi Agents System for E-Tutoring Learners engaged in online collaborative work). MASET that we propose is a system which basically aims to help tutors in monitoring the collaborative work of students and their various interactions. The evaluation of such interactions by the tutor is based on the results provided by the automatic analysis of the interaction indicators. This system is predicated upon the middleware JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) and e-learning Moodle platform. The MASET environment is modeled by AUML which allows structuring the different interactions between agents for the fulfillment and performance of online collaborative work. This multi-agent system has been the subject of a practical experimentation based on the interactions data between Master Computer Engineering and System students.Keywords: AUML, Collaborative work, E-learning, E-tutoring, JADE, Moodle, SMA, Web Agent.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18311255 An Efficient Hardware Implementation of Extended and Fast Physical Addressing in Microprocessor-Based Systems Using Programmable Logic
Authors: Mountassar Maamoun, Abdelhamid Meraghni, Abdelhalim Benbelkacem, Daoud Berkani
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This paper describes an efficient hardware implementation of a new technique for interfacing the data exchange between the microprocessor-based systems and the external devices. This technique, based on the use of software/hardware system and a reduced physical address, enlarges the interfacing capacity of the microprocessor-based systems, uses the Direct Memory Access (DMA) to increases the frequency of the new bus, and improves the speed of data exchange. While using this architecture in microprocessor-based system or in computer, the input of the hardware part of our system will be connected to the bus system, and the output, which is a new bus, will be connected to an external device. The new bus is composed of a data bus, a control bus and an address bus. A Xilinx Integrated Software Environment (ISE) 7.1i has been used for the programmable logic implementation.
Keywords: Interfacing, Software/hardware System, CPLD, programmable logic, DMA.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13851254 The Role of Multinational Enterprises' Investments in Emerging Country's Economic Development, Case of Georgia
Authors: V. Charaia
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From the strategic point of view, not all Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) are always positively benefiting the host economy, i.e. not all Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) are promoting local/host economies. FDI could have different impact on different sectors of the economy, based not only on annual investment amount, but MNE motivations and peculiarities of the host economy in particular. FDI analysis based only on its amount can lead to incorrect decisions, it is much more important to understand the essence of investment. Consequently, our research is oriented on MNE’s motivations, answering which sectors are most popular among international investors and why, what motivated them to invest into one or another business. Georgian economy for the last period of time is attracting more and more efficiency seeking investments, which could be translated as - concentrating production in a limited number of locations to supply various markets, while benefiting local economy with: new technologies, employment, exports diversification, increased income for the local economy and so on. Foreign investors and MNEs in particular are no longer and not so much interested in the resource seeking investments, which was the case for Georgia in the last decade of XX century. Despite the fact of huge progress for the Georgian economy, still there is a room for foreign investors to make a local market oriented investments. The local market is still rich in imported products, which should be replaced by local ones. And the last but not the least important issue is that approximately 30% of all FDIs in Georgia according to this research are “efficiency seeking” investments, which is an enormous progress and a hope for future Georgian success.
Keywords: Investments, MNE, FDI motivations, Georgian economy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10901253 Fabrication of Autonomous Wheeled Mobile Robot for Industrial Applications Using Appropriate Technology
Authors: M. M. Islam, Rajib K. Saha, Abdullah A. Amin, M. Z. Haq
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The autonomous mobile robot was designed and implemented which was capable of navigating in the industrial environments and did a job of picking objects from variable height and delivering it to another location following a predefined trajectory. In developing country like Bangladesh industrial robotics is not very prevalent yet, due to the high installation cost. The objective of this project was to develop an autonomous mobile robot for industrial application using the available resources in the local market at lower manufacturing cost. The mechanical system of the robot was comprised of locomotion, gripping and elevation system. Grippers were designed to grip objects of a predefined shape. Cartesian elevation system was designed for vertical movement of the gripper. PIC18F452 microcontroller was the brain of the control system. The prototype autonomous robot was fabricated for relatively lower load than the industry and the performance was tested in a virtual industrial environment created within the laboratory to realize the effectiveness.
Keywords: Industrial application, autonomous mobile robot, appropriate technology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25111252 Struggles for Integration of the Technologies into Learning Environment in Turkey
Authors: Hasan Karal, Yasemin Aydin, Ömer Faruk Ursavas
Abstract:
Primary studies are being carried out in Turkey for expanding information and communication technologies (ICT) aided instruction activities. Subject of the present study is to identify whether those studies achieved their goals in the application. Information technologies (IT) formative teachers in the primary schools, and academicians in the faculties of education were interviewed to investigate the process and results of implementing computer-aided instruction methods whose basis is strengthened in theory. Analysis of the results gained from two separate surveys demonstrated that capability of the teachers in elementary education institutions for carrying into effect computer-aided instruction and technical infrastructure has not been established for computer-aided instruction practices yet. Prospective teachers must be well-equipped in ICT to duly fulfill requirements of modern education and also must be self-confident. Finally, scope and intensity of the courses given in connection with teaching of the ICT in faculties of education needs to be revised.Keywords: Information and Communication Technologies, Teacher, Education
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16391251 Virtual Environments...Vehicle for Pedagogical Advancement
Authors: Elizabeth M. Hodge, Sharon K. Collins, Eric Kisling
Abstract:
Virtual environments are a hot topic in academia and more importantly in courses offered via distance education. Today-s gaming generation view virtual worlds as strong social and interactive mediums for communicating and socializing. And while institutions of higher education are challenged with increasing enrollment while balancing budget cuts, offering effective courses via distance education become a valid option. Educators can utilize virtual worlds to offer students an enhanced learning environment which has the power to alleviate feelings of isolation through the promotion of communication, interaction, collaboration, teamwork, feedback, engagement and constructivists learning activities. This paper focuses on the use of virtual environments to facilitate interaction in distance education courses so as to produce positive learning outcomes for students. Furthermore, the instructional strategies were reviewed and discussed for use in virtual worlds to enhance learning within a social context.
Keywords: Virtual Environments, Second Life, Instructional Strategies and Technology
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