Search results for: Knowledge engineering framework

Authors: D. Sasikala, K. Premalatha

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The use of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in web, business and scientific databases lead to the development of methods, techniques and systems to manage and analyze XML data. Semi-structured documents suffer due to its heterogeneity and dimensionality. XML structure and content mining represent convergence for research in semi-structured data and text mining. As the information available on the internet grows drastically, extracting knowledge from XML documents becomes a harder task. Certainly, documents are often so large that the data set returned as answer to a query may also be very big to convey the required information. To improve the query answering, a Semantic Tree Based Association Rule (STAR) mining method is proposed. This method provides intentional information by considering the structure, content and the semantics of the content. The method is applied on Reuter’s dataset and the results show that the proposed method outperforms well.

Keywords: Semi--structured Document, Tree based Association Rule (TAR), Semantic Association Rule Mining.

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Authors: Yousif Naif Almutai, Yajue Wu

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In larger cities worldwide, mass transportation systems, including underground systems, have grown to account for the majority of travel in those settings. Underground networks are vulnerable to fires, however, endangering travellers’ safety, with various examples of fire outbreaks in this setting. This study aims to increase knowledge of the impacts of extreme climatic conditions on fires, including the role of the high ambient temperatures experienced in Middle Eastern countries and specifically in Saudi Arabia. This is an element that is not always included when assessments of fire safety are made (considering visibility, temperatures, and flows of smoke). This paper focuses on a tunnel within Riyadh’s underground system as a case study and includes simulations based on computational fluid dynamics using ANSYS Fluent, which investigates the impact of various ventilation systems while identifying smoke density, speed, pressure and temperatures within this tunnel.

Keywords: Fire, subway tunnel, CFD, ventilation, smoke concentration, harsh weather.

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Authors: Shannon M. Chance, Pamela L. Eddy, Gavin Duffy, Brian Bowe, Jen Harvey

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Educational institutions often implement policies with the intention of influencing how learning and teaching occur. Generally, such policies are not as effective as their makers would like; changing the behavior of third-level teachers proves difficult. Nevertheless, a policy instituted in 2006 at the Dublin Institute of Technology has met with success: each newly hired faculty member must have a post-graduate qualification in “Learning and Teaching" or successfully complete one within the first two years of employment. The intention is to build teachers- knowledge about student-centered pedagogies and their capacity to implement them. As a result of this policy (and associated programs that support it), positive outcomes are readily apparent. Individual teachers who have completed the programs have implemented significant change at the course and program levels. This paper introduces the policy, identifies outcomes in relation to existing theory, describes research underway, and pinpoints areas where organizational learning has occurred.

Keywords: Faculty Development, Institutional Policy, Learning and Teaching, Postgraduate Qualification, Professional Development.

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Authors: Nooshin Salari, Viliam Makis

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In this paper, we propose a condition-based maintenance policy for multi-unit systems considering the existence of economic dependency among units. We consider a system composed of N identical units, where each unit deteriorates independently. Deterioration process of each unit is modeled as a three-state continuous time homogeneous Markov chain with two working states and a failure state. The average production rate of units varies in different working states and demand rate of the system is constant. Units are inspected at equidistant time epochs, and decision regarding performing maintenance is determined by the number of units in the failure state. If the total number of units in the failure state exceeds a critical level, maintenance is initiated, where units in failed state are replaced correctively and deteriorated state units are maintained preventively. Our objective is to determine the optimal number of failed units to initiate maintenance minimizing the long run expected average cost per unit time. The problem is formulated and solved in the semi-Markov decision process (SMDP) framework. A numerical example is developed to demonstrate the proposed policy and the comparison with the corrective maintenance policy is presented.

Keywords: Reliability, production, maintenance optimization, Semi-Markov Decision Process.

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Authors: T. Penkova, A. Korobko, V. Nicheporchuk., L. Nozhenkova, A. Metus

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This paper presents an approach of on-line control of the state of technosphere and environment objects based on the integration of Data Warehouse, OLAP and Expert systems technologies. It looks at the structure and content of data warehouse that provides consolidation and storage of monitoring data. There is a description of OLAP-models that provide a multidimensional analysis of monitoring data and dynamic analysis of principal parameters of controlled objects. The authors suggest some criteria of emergency risk assessment using expert knowledge about danger levels. It is demonstrated now some of the proposed solutions could be adopted in territorial decision making support systems. Operational control allows authorities to detect threat, prevent natural and anthropogenic emergencies and ensure a comprehensive safety of territory.

Keywords: Decision making support systems, Emergency risk assessment, Natural and anthropogenic safety, On-line control, Territory.

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Authors: S. Barbaqadze, M. Goderdzishvili, E. Mosidze, L. Lomtadze, V. Mshvildadze, L. Bakuridze, D. Berashvili, A. Bakuridze

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This paper focuses on the formulation of phytobiotic designated for further implantation in poultry farming. Composition was meant to be water-soluble powder containing antibacterial essential oils. The development process involved Thyme, Monarda and Clary sage essential oils. The antimicrobial activity of essential oils composite was meant to be tested against gram-negative and gram-positive bacterial strains. The results are processed using the statistical program Sigma STAT. To make essential oils composition water soluble surfactants were added to them. At the first stage of the study, nine options for the optimal composition of essential oils and surfactants were developed. The effect of the amount of surfactants on the essential oils composition solubility in water has been investigated. On the basis of biopharmaceutical studies, the formulation of phytobiotic has been determined: Thyme, monarda and clary sage essential oils 2:1:1 - 100 parts; Licorice extract 5.25 parts and inhalation lactose 300 parts. A technology for the preparation of phytobiotic has been developed and a technological scheme for the preparation of phytobiotic has been made up. The research was performed within the framework of the grant project CARYS-19-363 funded be the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia.

Keywords: Clary, essential oils, monarda, phytobiotics, poultry, thyme.

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Authors: M. Cuevas-González, O. Monserrat, A. Barra, C. Reyes-Carmona, R. M. Mateos, J. P. Galve, R. Sarro, M. Cantalejo, E. Peña, M. Martínez-Corbella, J. A. Luque, J. M. Azañón, A. Millares, M. Béjar, J. A. Navarro, L. Solari

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Geohazard prone areas require continuous monitoring to detect risks, understand the phenomena occurring in those regions and prevent disasters. Satellite interferometry (InSAR) has come to be a trustworthy technique for ground movement detection and monitoring in the last few years. InSAR based techniques allow to process large areas providing high number of displacement measurements at low cost. However, the results provided by such techniques are usually not easy to interpret by non-experienced users hampering its use for decision makers. This work presents a set of tools developed in the framework of different projects (Momit, Safety, U-Geohaz, Riskcoast) and an example of their use in the Granada Coastal area (Spain) is shown. The ADA (Active Displacement Areas) tool has been developed with the aim of easing the management, use and interpretation of InSAR based results. It provides a semi-automatic extraction of the most significant ADAs through the application ADAFinder tool. This tool aims to support the exploitation of the European Ground Motion Service (EU-GMS), which will offer reliable and systematic information on natural and anthropogenic ground motion phenomena across Europe.

Keywords: Ground displacements, InSAR, natural hazards, satellite imagery.

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Authors: Lijiang Wang, Wei Wang, Yuhong Xu

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Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles which can convert near-infrared lights to visible lights have attracted growing interest because of their great potentials in fluorescence imaging. Upconversion fluorescence imaging technique with excitation in the near-infrared (NIR) region has been used for imaging of biological cells and tissues. However, improving the detection sensitivity and decreasing the absorption and scattering in biological tissues are as yet unresolved problems. In this present study, a novel NIR-reflected multispectral imaging system was developed for upconversion fluorescent imaging in small animals. Based on this system, we have obtained the high contrast images without the autofluorescence when biocompatible UCPs were injected near the body surface or deeply into the tissue. Furthermore, we have extracted respective spectra of the upconversion fluorescence and relatively quantify the fluorescence intensity with the multispectral analysis. To our knowledge, this is the first time to analyze and quantify the upconversion fluorescence in the small animal imaging.

Keywords: Multispectral imaging, near-infrared, upconversion fluorescence imaging, upconversion nanoparticles.

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Authors: Somayeh Sadeghi, Hamid A. Jalab, Sajjad Dadkhah

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Due to availability of powerful image processing software and improvement of human computer knowledge, it becomes easy to tamper images. Manipulation of digital images in different fields like court of law and medical imaging create a serious problem nowadays. Copy-move forgery is one of the most common types of forgery which copies some part of the image and pastes it to another part of the same image to cover an important scene. In this paper, a copy-move forgery detection method proposed based on Fourier transform to detect forgeries. Firstly, image is divided to same size blocks and Fourier transform is performed on each block. Similarity in the Fourier transform between different blocks provides an indication of the copy-move operation. The experimental results prove that the proposed method works on reasonable time and works well for gray scale and colour images. Computational complexity reduced by using Fourier transform in this method.

Keywords: Copy-Move forgery, Digital Forensics, Image Forgery.

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Authors: Mugabe Nzarama Gabriel

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In Rwanda, many healthcare organizations are still using a paper based patients’ data record system although it still present weaknesses to share health patients’ information across different services when necessary. In developed countries, the EHR has been put in place to revolutionize the paper based record system but still the EHR has some challenges related to privacy, security, or interoperability. The purpose of this research was to assess the existing patients’ data record system in healthcare sector in Rwanda, see what an EHR can improve to the system in place and assess the acceptance of EHR as system which is interoperable, very secure and interoperable and see whether stakeholders are ready to adopt the system. The case based methodology was used and TAM theoretical framework to design the questionnaire for the survey. A judgmental sample across two cases, CHUB and Hopital de Nemba, has been selected and SPSS has been used for descriptive statistics. After a qualitative analysis, the findings showed that the paper based record is useful, gives complete information about the patient, protects the privacy of patients but it is still less secure and less interoperable. The respondents shown that they are ready to use the proposed EHR System and want it secure, capable of enforcing the privacy but still they are not all ready for the interoperability. A conclusion has been formulated; recommendations and further research have been proposed.

Keywords: EHR system, healthcare service, TAM, privacy, interoperability.

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Authors: Qiang Yang, Ping-An Du

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Group decision making with multiple attribute has attracted intensive concern in the decision analysis area. This paper assumes that the contributions of all the decision makers (DMs) are not equal to the decision process based on different knowledge and experience in group setting. The aim of this paper is to develop a novel approach to determine weights of DMs in the group decision making problems. In this paper, the weights of DMs are determined in the group decision environment via angle cosine and projection method. First of all, the average decision of all individual decisions is defined as the ideal decision. After that, we define the weight of each decision maker (DM) by aggregating the angle cosine and projection between individual decision and ideal decision with associated direction indicator μ. By using the weights of DMs, all individual decisions are aggregated into a collective decision. Further, the preference order of alternatives is ranked in accordance with the overall row value of collective decision. Finally, an example in a chemical company is provided to illustrate the developed approach.

Keywords: Angel cosine, ideal decision, projection method, weights of decision makers.

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Authors: Ali Akbar

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The main purpose of this essay is to examine whether or not the earthly punishments in regards to apostates that are often found in classical Islamic sources are applicable in the present context. The paper indeed addresses how Muslims should understand the question of apostasy in the contemporary context. To do so, the paper first argues that an accurate understanding of the way the Quranic verses and prophetic hadiths deal with the concept of apostasy could help us rethink and re-examine the classical Islamic laws on apostasy in the present context. In addition, building on Abdolkarim Soroush’s theory of contraction and expansion of religious knowledge, this article argues that approaches to apostasy in the present context can move away from what prescribed by classical Islamic laws. Finally, it argues that instances of persecution of apostates in the early days of Islam during the Medinan period of Muhammad’s prophetic mission should be interpreted in their own socio-historical context. Rereading these reports within our modern context supports the mutability of the traditional corporal punishments of apostasy.

Keywords: Apostasy, Islam, Quran, hadith, Abdolkarim Soroush, contextualization.

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Authors: E. Muzenda

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Group contribution methods such as the UNIFAC are of major interest to researchers and engineers involved synthesis, feasibility studies, design and optimization of separation processes as well as other applications of industrial use. Reliable knowledge of the phase equilibrium behavior is crucial for the prediction of the fate of the chemical in the environment and other applications. The objective of this study was to predict the solubility of selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in glycol polymers and biodiesel. Measurements can be expensive and time consuming, hence the need for thermodynamic models. The results obtained in this study for the infinite dilution activity coefficients compare very well those published in literature obtained through measurements. It is suggested that in preliminary design or feasibility studies of absorption systems for the abatement of volatile organic compounds, prediction procedures should be implemented while accurate fluid phase equilibrium data should be obtained from experiment.

Keywords: Volatile organic compounds, Prediction, Phaseequilibrium, Environmental, Infinite dilution.

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Authors: Yuhong Lu

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Graves’ Disease (GD), an autoimmune health condition caused by the over reactiveness of the thyroid, affects about 1 in 200 people worldwide. GD is not caused by one specific single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) or gene mutation, but rather determined by multiple factors, each differing from each other. Malfunction of the genes in Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) family tend to play a major role in autoimmune diseases, but other genes, such as LOC101929163, have functions that still remain ambiguous. Currently, little studies were done to study GD, resulting in inconclusive results. This study serves not only to introduce background knowledge about GD, but also to organize and pinpoint the major SNPs and genes that are potentially related to the occurrence of GD in humans. Collected from multiple sources from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) Central, the potential SNPs related to the causes of GD are included in this study. This study has located the genes that are related to those SNPs and closely examines a selected sample. Using the data from this study, scientists will then be able to focus on the most expressed genes in GD patients and develop a treatment for GD.

Keywords: CTLA4, Graves’ Disease, HLA, single nucleotide polymorphism, SNP.

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Authors: A. Peniak, J. Makarovič, P. Rafajdus, P. Dúbravka

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The purpose of this work is to optimize a Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) for an automotive application, specifically for a fully electric car. A new optimization approach is proposed. This unique approach transforms automotive customer requirements into an optimization problem, based on sound knowledge of a SRM theory. The approach combines an analytical and a finite element analysis of the motor to quantify static nonlinear and dynamic performance parameters, as phase currents and motor torque maps, an output power and power losses in order to find the optimal motor as close to the reality as possible, within reasonable time. The new approach yields the optimal motor which is competitive with other types of already proposed motors for automotive applications. This distinctive approach can also be used to optimize other types of electrical motors, when parts specifically related to the SRM are adjusted accordingly.

Keywords: Automotive, drive system, electric car, finite element method, hybrid car, optimization, switched reluctance motor.

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Authors: Thassanant Unnanantn, Suttipong Boonphadung

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This research study aimed to survey and analyze the attitudes of pre-service teachers’ the analytical thinking development based on Miller’s Model. The informants of this study were 22 third year teacher students majoring in Thai. The course where the instruction was conducted was English for Academic Purposes in Thai Language 2. The instrument of this research was an open-ended questionnaire with two dimensions of questions: academic and satisfaction dimensions. The investigation revealed the positive attitudes. In the academic dimension, the majority of 12 (54.54%), the highest percentage, reflected that the method of teaching analytical thinking and language simultaneously was their new knowledge and the similar percentage also belonged to text cohesion in writing. For the satisfaction, the highest frequency count was from 17 of them (77.27%) and this majority favored the openness or friendliness of the teacher.

Keywords: Analytical thinking development, Attitudes, Miller’s Model, Pre-service teachers.

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Authors: Nooshin Salari, Viliam Makis, Jane Doe

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This paper presents a maintenance policy for a system consisting of two units. Unit 1 is gradually deteriorating and is subject to soft failure. Unit 2 has a general lifetime distribution and is subject to hard failure. Condition of unit 1 of the system is monitored periodically and it is considered as failed when its deterioration level reaches or exceeds a critical level N. At the failure time of unit 2 system is considered as failed, and unit 2 will be correctively replaced by the next inspection epoch. Unit 1 or 2 are preventively replaced when deterioration level of unit 1 or age of unit 2 exceeds the related preventive maintenance (PM) levels. At the time of corrective or preventive replacement of unit 2, there is an opportunity to replace unit 1 if its deterioration level reaches the opportunistic maintenance (OM) level. If unit 2 fails in an inspection interval, system stops operating although unit 1 has not failed. A mathematical model is derived to find the preventive and opportunistic replacement levels for unit 1 and preventive replacement age for unit 2, that minimize the long run expected average cost per unit time. The problem is formulated and solved in the semi-Markov decision process (SMDP) framework. Numerical example is provided to illustrate the performance of the proposed model and the comparison of the proposed model with an optimal policy without opportunistic maintenance level for unit 1 is carried out.

Keywords: Condition-based maintenance, opportunistic maintenance, preventive maintenance, two-unit system.

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Authors: Harriet Koshie Lamptey, Richard Boateng

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Mobile learning (m-learning) is a novel approach to knowledge acquisition and dissemination and is gaining global attention. Steady progress in wireless technologies and the portability of communication devices continue to broaden the scope and use of mobiles. With the convergence of Web functionality onto mobile platforms and the affordability and availability of mobile technology, m-learning has the potential of being the next prevalent channel of education in both formal and informal settings. There is substantive literature on developed countries but the state in developing countries (DCs) however appears vague. This paper is a synthesis of extant literature on mobile learning in DCs. The research interest is based on the fact that in DCs, mobile communication and internet connectivity are popular. However, its use in education is under explored. There are some reviews on the state, conceptualizations, trends and teacher education, but to the authors’ knowledge, no study has focused on mobile learning adoption and integration issues. This study examines issues and gaps associated with its adoption and integration in DCs higher education institutions. A qualitative build-up of literature was conducted using articles pooled from electronic databases (Google Scholar and ERIC). To enable criteria for inclusion and incorporate diverse study perspectives, search terms used were m-learning, DCs, higher education institutions, challenges, benefits, impact, gaps and issues. The synthesis revealed that though mobile technology has diffused globally, its pedagogical pursuit in DCs remains quite low. The absence of a mobile Web and the difficulty of resource conversion into mobile format due to lack of funding and technical competence is a stumbling block. Again, the lack of established design and implementation rules to guide the development of m-learning platforms in DCs is a hindrance. The absence of access restrictions on devices poses security threats to institutional systems. Negative perceptions that devices are taking over faculty roles lead to resistance in some situations. Resistance to change can be a hindrance to the acceptance and success of new systems. Lack of interest for m-learning is also attributed to lower technological literacy levels of the underprivileged masses. Scholarly works on m-learning in DCs is yet to mature. Most technological innovations are handed down from developed countries, and this constantly creates a lag for DCs. Lack of theoretical grounding was also identified which reduces the objectivity of study reports. The socio-cultural terrain of DCs results in societies with different views and needs that have been identified as a hindrance to research. Institutional commitment decisions, adequate funding for the necessary infrastructural development as well as multiple stakeholder participation is important for project success. Evidence suggests that while adoption decisions are readily made, successful integration of the concept for its full benefits to be realized is often neglected. Recommendations to findings were made to provide possible remedies to identified issues.

Keywords: Developing countries, higher education institutions, mobile learning, literature review.

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Authors: Tristan O’Neill, Trina Myers, Jarrod Trevathan

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The Tropical Data Hub (TDH) is a virtual research environment that provides researchers with an e-research infrastructure to congregate significant tropical data sets for data reuse, integration, searching, and correlation. However, researchers often require data and metadata synthesis across disciplines for cross-domain analyses and knowledge discovery. A triplestore offers a semantic layer to achieve a more intelligent method of search to support the synthesis requirements by automating latent linkages in the data and metadata. Presently, the benchmarks to aid the decision of which triplestore is best suited for use in an application environment like the TDH are limited to performance. This paper describes a new evaluation tool developed to analyze both features and performance. The tool comprises a weighted decision matrix to evaluate the interoperability, functionality, performance, and support availability of a range of integrated and native triplestores to rank them according to requirements of the TDH.

Keywords: Virtual research environment, Semantic Web, performance analysis, tropical data hub.

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Authors: R.M.Rani

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Chess is one of the indoor games, which improves the level of human confidence, concentration, planning skills and knowledge. The main objective of this paper is to help the chess players to improve their chess openings using data mining techniques. Budding Chess Players usually do practices by analyzing various existing openings. When they analyze and correlate thousands of openings it becomes tedious and complex for them. The work done in this paper is to analyze the best lines of Blackmar- Diemer Gambit(BDG) which opens with White D4... using data mining analysis. It is carried out on the collection of winning games by applying association rules. The first step of this analysis is assigning variables to each different sequence moves. In the second step, the sequence association rules were generated to calculate support and confidence factor which help us to find the best subsequence chess moves that may lead to winning position.

Keywords: Blackmar-Diemer Gambit(BDG), Confidence, sequence Association Rules, Support.

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Authors: Haydar Teymourlouei

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It is important to take security measures to protect your computer information, reduce identify theft, and prevent from malicious cyber-attacks. With cyber-attacks on the continuous rise, people need to understand and learn ways to prevent from these attacks. Cyber-attack is an important factor to be considered if one is to be able to protect oneself from malicious attacks. Without proper security measures, most computer technology would hinder home users more than such technologies would help. Knowledge of how cyber-attacks operate and protective steps that can be taken to reduce chances of its occurrence are key to increasing these security measures. The purpose of this paper is to inform home users on the importance of identifying and taking preventive steps to avoid cyberattacks. Throughout this paper, many aspects of cyber-attacks will be discuss: what a cyber-attack is, the affects of cyber-attack for home users, different types of cyber-attacks, methodology to prevent such attacks; home users can take to fortify security of their computer.

Keywords: Cyber-attacks, home user, prevention, security, technology.

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Authors: Aiyeloja A.A, Ogunjinmi A.A

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The recurring decimal of rural and urban poverty in Nigeria, resulting from lack of sustainable livelihood activities by the people due to non-diversification of the economy, necessitated this study. One hundred snail farmers were randomly selected in Akure North and Akure South Local Government areas of Ondo State, Southwest Nigeria where snail farming is widely practised. Data collection was through questionnaires administration and onsite observation of farms. Data obtained were subjected to descriptive statistics, Student-s t-test and regression analysis. Cost benefit ratio (CBR) and rate of return on investment (RORI) were calculated in order to determine the poverty alleviation potentials of snail farming in the study areas. Although snail farming was profitable and viable, it was below poverty line. With time and more knowledge in its farming activities, and with more people taking to snail production, its poverty alleviation and reduction potentials will increase.

Keywords: Alleviation, farming, Nigeria, potential, poverty, snail.

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Authors: J. Arneric, A. Rozga

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In this paper usefulness of quasi-Newton iteration procedure in parameters estimation of the conditional variance equation within BHHH algorithm is presented. Analytical solution of maximization of the likelihood function using first and second derivatives is too complex when the variance is time-varying. The advantage of BHHH algorithm in comparison to the other optimization algorithms is that requires no third derivatives with assured convergence. To simplify optimization procedure BHHH algorithm uses the approximation of the matrix of second derivatives according to information identity. However, parameters estimation in a/symmetric GARCH(1,1) model assuming normal distribution of returns is not that simple, i.e. it is difficult to solve it analytically. Maximum of the likelihood function can be founded by iteration procedure until no further increase can be found. Because the solutions of the numerical optimization are very sensitive to the initial values, GARCH(1,1) model starting parameters are defined. The number of iterations can be reduced using starting values close to the global maximum. Optimization procedure will be illustrated in framework of modeling volatility on daily basis of the most liquid stocks on Croatian capital market: Podravka stocks (food industry), Petrokemija stocks (fertilizer industry) and Ericsson Nikola Tesla stocks (information-s-communications industry).

Keywords: Heteroscedasticity, Log-likelihood Maximization, Quasi-Newton iteration procedure, Volatility.

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Authors: Svetlana Perovic

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This paper examines the role and the place of transdisciplinarity in the urbanism of the 21st century, with the emphasis on Montenegro urbanism. Global processes require a systematic strategy and systemic synergistic engagement in the development of cities in 21st centuries. Urbanism as a profession and a discipline should be developed parallel and in correlation, based on the principles of integrality and communication skills, in order to enable development of the sustainable urban system. The importance of integrated urbanism and other disciplines are also emphasized as well as their synergies activities. The paper also presents the positive examples of urban theory and practice in the world, which influenced the direction of development of the modern urbanism. Transdisciplinarity is a priority methodology for sustainable urban development, which is insufficiently developed in Montenegro, but there is a basis for its development. It is necessary to unite different social sensibilities, academic and non-academic knowledge, as well as the public and private sectors in order to develop holistic, inclusive and sustainable urban spaces of the 21st centuries.

Keywords: Montenegro urbanism, sustainability, the 21st century, transdisciplinarity.

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Authors: Maria C. Proença, Marco Aniceto, Pedro N. Santos, José C. Freitas

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A methodology based on wavelets is proposed for the automatic location and delimitation of defects in limestone plates. Natural defects include dark colored spots, crystal zones trapped in the stone, areas of abnormal contrast colors, cracks or fracture lines, and fossil patterns. Although some of these may or may not be considered as defects according to the intended use of the plate, the goal is to pair each stone with a map of defects that can be overlaid on a computer display. These layers of defects constitute a database that will allow the preliminary selection of matching tiles of a particular variety, with specific dimensions, for a requirement of N square meters, to be done on a desktop computer rather than by a two-hour search in the storage park, with human operators manipulating stone plates as large as 3 m x 2 m, weighing about one ton. Accident risks and work times are reduced, with a consequent increase in productivity. The base for the algorithm is wavelet decomposition executed in two instances of the original image, to detect both hypotheses – dark and clear defects. The existence and/or size of these defects are the gauge to classify the quality grade of the stone products. The tuning of parameters that are possible in the framework of the wavelets corresponds to different levels of accuracy in the drawing of the contours and selection of the defects size, which allows for the use of the map of defects to cut a selected stone into tiles with minimum waste, according the dimension of defects allowed.

Keywords: Automatic detection, wavelets, defects, fracture lines.

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Authors: Quratulain N. Rajput, Sajjad Haider

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This paper applies Bayesian Networks to support information extraction from unstructured, ungrammatical, and incoherent data sources for semantic annotation. A tool has been developed that combines ontologies, machine learning, and information extraction and probabilistic reasoning techniques to support the extraction process. Data acquisition is performed with the aid of knowledge specified in the form of ontology. Due to the variable size of information available on different data sources, it is often the case that the extracted data contains missing values for certain variables of interest. It is desirable in such situations to predict the missing values. The methodology, presented in this paper, first learns a Bayesian network from the training data and then uses it to predict missing data and to resolve conflicts. Experiments have been conducted to analyze the performance of the presented methodology. The results look promising as the methodology achieves high degree of precision and recall for information extraction and reasonably good accuracy for predicting missing values.

Keywords: Information Extraction, Bayesian Network, ontology, Machine Learning

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Authors: Ball J., Capanni N., Watt S.

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This paper argues that fostering mutual understanding in landscape planning is as much about the planners educating stakeholder groups as the stakeholders educating the planners. In other words it is an epistemological agreement as to the meaning and nature of place, especially where an effort is made to go beyond the quantitative aspects, which can be achieved by the phenomenological experience of the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. This education needs to be a bi-directional process in which distance can be both temporal as well as spatial separation of participants, that there needs to be a common framework of understanding in which neither 'side' is disadvantaged during the process of information exchange and it follows that a medium such as VR offers an effective way of overcoming some of the shortcomings of traditional media by taking advantage of continuing technological advances in Information, Technology and Communications (ITC). In this paper we make particular reference to this as an extension to Geographical Information Systems (GIS). VR as a two-way communication tool offers considerable potential particularly in the area of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). Information rich virtual environments that can operate over broadband networks are now possible and thus allow for the representation of large amounts of qualitative and quantitative information 'side-by-side'. Therefore, with broadband access becoming standard for households and enterprises alike, distributed virtual reality environments have great potential to contribute to enabling stakeholder participation and mutual learning within the planning context.

Keywords: 3D, communication, geographical information systems, planning, public participation, virtual reality, visualisation.

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Authors: Maha Idrissi Aouad, Rene Schott, Olivier Zendra

Abstract:

Reducing energy consumption of embedded systems requires careful memory management. It has been shown that Scratch- Pad Memories (SPMs) are low size, low cost, efficient (i.e. energy saving) data structures directly managed at the software level. In this paper, the focus is on heuristic methods for SPMs management. A method is efficient if the number of accesses to SPM is as large as possible and if all available space (i.e. bits) is used. A Tabu Search (TS) approach for memory management is proposed which is, to the best of our knowledge, a new original alternative to the best known existing heuristic (BEH). In fact, experimentations performed on benchmarks show that the Tabu Search method is as efficient as BEH (in terms of energy consumption) but BEH requires a sorting which can be computationally expensive for a large amount of data. TS is easy to implement and since no sorting is necessary, unlike BEH, the corresponding sorting time is saved. In addition to that, in a dynamic perspective where the maximum capacity of the SPM is not known in advance, the TS heuristic will perform better than BEH.

Keywords: Energy consumption, memory allocation management, optimization, tabu search heuristic.

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Authors: Magdalena Jabłońska-Czapla

Abstract:

The work allowed gaining knowledge about redox and speciation changes of As, Cr and Sb ionic forms in Klodnica River water. This kind of studies never has been conducted in this region of Poland. In study optimized and validated previously HPLC-ICP-MS methods for determination of As, Sb and Cr was used. Separation step was done using high-performance liquid chromatograph equipped with ion-exchange column followed by ICP-MS spectrometer detector. Preliminary studies included determination of the total concentration of As, Sb and Cr, pH, Eh, temperature and conductivity of the water samples. The study was conducted monthly from March to August 2014, at six points on the Klodnica River. The results indicate that exceeded at acceptable concentration of total Cr and Sb was observed in Klodnica River and we should qualify Klodnica River waters below the second purity class. In Klodnica River waters dominates oxidized antimony and arsenic forms, as well as the two forms of chromium Cr(VI) and Cr(III). Studies have also shown the methyl derivative of arsenic's presence.

Keywords: Antimony, arsenic, chromium, HPLC-ICP-MS, river water, speciation.

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Authors: H. Ahmad, S. Kermanshahani, A. Simonet, M. Simonet

Abstract:

The data exchanged on the Web are of different nature from those treated by the classical database management systems; these data are called semi-structured data since they do not have a regular and static structure like data found in a relational database; their schema is dynamic and may contain missing data or types. Therefore, the needs for developing further techniques and algorithms to exploit and integrate such data, and extract relevant information for the user have been raised. In this paper we present the system OSIX (Osiris based System for Integration of XML Sources). This system has a Data Warehouse model designed for the integration of semi-structured data and more precisely for the integration of XML documents. The architecture of OSIX relies on the Osiris system, a DL-based model designed for the representation and management of databases and knowledge bases. Osiris is a viewbased data model whose indexing system supports semantic query optimization. We show that the problem of query processing on a XML source is optimized by the indexing approach proposed by Osiris.

Keywords: Data integration, semi-structured data, views, XML.

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