Search results for: sea level rise.

Authors: R. Damaševičius

Abstract:

System-level design based on high-level abstractions is becoming increasingly important in hardware and embedded system design. This paper analyzes meta-design techniques oriented at developing meta-programs and meta-models for well-understood domains. Meta-design techniques include meta-programming and meta-modeling. At the programming level of design process, metadesign means developing generic components that are usable in a wider context of application than original domain components. At the modeling level, meta-design means developing design patterns that describe general solutions to the common recurring design problems, and meta-models that describe the relationship between different types of design models and abstractions. The paper describes and evaluates the implementation of meta-design in hardware design domain using object-oriented and meta-programming techniques. The presented ideas are illustrated with a case study.

Keywords: Design patterns, meta-design, meta-modeling, metaprogramming.

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Authors: Chin-Yu Lee, Iau-Teh Wang

Abstract:

The mountain road slope failures triggered by earthquake activities and torrential rain namely to create the disaster. Province Road No. 24 is a main route to the Wutai Township. The area of the study is located at the mileages between 46K and 47K along the road. However, the road has been suffered frequent damages as a result of landslide and slope failures during typhoon seasons. An understanding of the sliding behaviors in the area appears to be necessary. Slope failures triggered by earthquake activities and heavy rainfalls occur frequently. The study is to understand the mechanism of slope failures and to look for the way to deal with the situation. In order to achieve these objectives, this paper is based on theoretical and structural geology data interpretation program to assess the potential slope sliding behavior. The study showed an intimate relationship between the landslide behavior of the slopes and the stratum materials, based on structural geology analysis method to analysis slope stability and finds the slope safety coefficient to predict the sites of destroyed layer. According to the case study and parameter analyses results, the slope mainly slips direction compared to the site located in the southeast area. Find rainfall to result in the rise of groundwater level is main reason of the landslide mechanism. Future need to set up effective horizontal drain at corrective location, that can effective restrain mountain road slope failures and increase stability of slope.

Keywords: slope stability analysis, Stereographic Projection, wedge Failure.

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Authors: Seongmin Yim

Abstract:

The Korean government has applied preliminary feasibility study for new and huge R&D programs since 2008.The study is carried out from the viewpoints of technology, policy, and Economics. Then integrate the separate analysis and finally arrive at a definite result; whether a program is feasible or unfeasible, This paper describes the concept and method of the feasibility analysis focused on technological viability assessment for technical analysis. It consists of technology trend assessment and technology level assessment. Through the analysis, we can determine the chance of schedule delay or cost overrun occurring in the proposed plan.

Keywords: Preliminary Feasibility Study, Technological viability, Technology Trend Assessment, Technology Level Assessment

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Authors: Ying-jie Zhang, Li-ling Ge

Abstract:

This paper presents an improved image segmentation model with edge preserving regularization based on the piecewise-smooth Mumford-Shah functional. A level set formulation is considered for the Mumford-Shah functional minimization in segmentation, and the corresponding partial difference equations are solved by the backward Euler discretization. Aiming at encouraging edge preserving regularization, a new edge indicator function is introduced at level set frame. In which all the grid points which is used to locate the level set curve are considered to avoid blurring the edges and a nonlinear smooth constraint function as regularization term is applied to smooth the image in the isophote direction instead of the gradient direction. In implementation, some strategies such as a new scheme for extension of u+ and u- computation of the grid points and speedup of the convergence are studied to improve the efficacy of the algorithm. The resulting algorithm has been implemented and compared with the previous methods, and has been proved efficiently by several cases.

Keywords: Energy minimization, image segmentation, level sets, edge regularization.

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Authors: Negar Riazifar, Nigel G. Stocks

Abstract:

This paper proposes strategies in level crossing (LC) sampling and reconstruction that provide alias-free high-fidelity signal reconstruction for speech signals without exponentially increasing sample number with increasing bit-depth. We introduce methods in LC sampling that reduce the sampling rate close to the Nyquist frequency even for large bit-depth. The results indicate that larger variation in the sampling intervals leads to alias-free sampling scheme; this is achieved by either reducing the bit-depth or adding a jitter to the system for high bit-depths. In conjunction with windowing, the signal is reconstructed from the LC samples using an efficient Toeplitz reconstruction algorithm.

Keywords: Alias-free, level crossing sampling, spectrum, trigonometric polynomial.

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Authors: Iyad F. Jafar, Sandra J. Alrawashdeh, Ban K. Alhamayel

Abstract:

High level synthesis (HLS) is a process which generates register-transfer level design for digital systems from behavioral description. There are many HLS algorithms and commercial tools. However, most of these algorithms consider a behavioral description for the system when a single token is presented to the system. This approach does not exploit extra hardware efficiently, especially in the design of digital filters where common operations may exist between successive tokens. In this paper, we modify the behavioral description to process multiple tokens in parallel. However, this approach is unlike the full processing that requires full hardware replication. It exploits the presence of common operations between successive tokens. The performance of the proposed approach is better than sequential processing and approaches that of full parallel processing as the hardware resources are increased.

Keywords: Digital filters, High level synthesis, Sub-token forwarding

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Authors: Yogi Satrya Aryadinata, Anne Laurent, Michel Sala

Abstract:

Gradual patterns have been studied for many years as they contain precious information. They have been integrated in many expert systems and rule-based systems, for instance to reason on knowledge such as “the greater the number of turns, the greater the number of car crashes”. In many cases, this knowledge has been considered as a rule “the greater the number of turns → the greater the number of car crashes” Historically, works have thus been focused on the representation of such rules, studying how implication could be defined, especially fuzzy implication. These rules were defined by experts who were in charge to describe the systems they were working on in order to turn them to operate automatically. More recently, approaches have been proposed in order to mine databases for automatically discovering such knowledge. Several approaches have been studied, the main scientific topics being: how to determine what is an relevant gradual pattern, and how to discover them as efficiently as possible (in terms of both memory and CPU usage). However, in some cases, end-users are not interested in raw level knowledge, and are rather interested in trends. Moreover, it may be the case that no relevant pattern can be discovered at a low level of granularity (e.g. city), whereas some can be discovered at a higher level (e.g. county). In this paper, we thus extend gradual pattern approaches in order to consider multiple level gradual patterns. For this purpose, we consider two aggregation policies, namely horizontal and vertical.

Keywords: Gradual Pattern.

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Authors: Herbert Ugrinowitsch, Suziane Peixoto dos Santos-Naves, Michele Viviene Carbinatto, Rodolfo NovellinoBenda, Go Tani

Abstract:

An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of the level of performance stabilization on the human adaptability to perceptual-motor perturbation in a complex coincident timing task. Three levels of performance stabilization were established operationally: pre-stabilization, stabilization, and super-stabilization groups. Each group practiced the task until reached its level of stabilization in a constant sequence of movements and under a constant time constraint before exposure to perturbation. The results clearly showed that performance stabilization is a pre-condition for adaptation. Moreover, variability before reaching stabilization is harmful to adaptation and persistent variability after stabilization is beneficial. Moreover, the behavior of variability is specific to each measure.

Keywords: Adaptation, motor skill, perturbation, stabilization.

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Authors: L.C. Ciobotaru

Abstract:

In electronegative-electropositive gas mixtures plasma, at a total pressure varying in the range of ten to hundred Torr, the appearance of a quasi-mochromatization effect of the emitted radiation was reported. This radiation could be the result of the generating mechanisms at molecular level, which is the case of the excimer radiation but also at atomic level. Thus, in the last case, in (Ne+1%Ar/Xe+H2) gas mixtures plasma in a dielectric barrier discharge, this effect, called M-effect, consists in the reduction of the discharge emission spectrum practice at one single, strong spectral line with λ = 585.3 nm. The present paper is concerned with the characteristics comparative investigation of the principal reaction mechanisms involved in the quasi-monochromatization effect existence in the case of the excimer radiation, respectively of the Meffect. Also, the paper points out the role of the metastable electronegative atoms in the appearance of the monochromatization – effect at atomic level.

Keywords: Colombian forces, Direct Harpoon reaction, Monochromatization – effect, Resonant polar three-body reaction.

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Authors: M. Jagabar Sathik, K. Ramani

Abstract:

In this paper family of multilevel inverter topology with reduced number of power switches is presented. The proposed inverter can generate both even and odd level. The proposed topology is suitable for symmetric structure. The proposed symmetric inverter results in reduction of power switches, power diode and gate driver circuits and also it may further minimize the installation area and cost. To prove the superiority of proposed topology is compared with conventional topologies. The performance of this symmetric multilevel inverter has been tested by computer based simulation and prototype based experimental setup for nine-level inverter is developed and results are verified.

Keywords: Cascaded H- Bridge (CHB), Multilevel Inverter (MLI), Nearest Level Modulation (NLM), Total Harmonic Distortion (THD).

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Authors: B. Bagheri Nakhjavanlo, T. J. Ellis, P. Raoofi, J. Dehmeshki

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This paper presents a customized deformable model for the segmentation of abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysms in CTA datasets. An important challenge in reliably detecting aortic aneurysm is the need to overcome problems associated with intensity inhomogeneities and image noise. Level sets are part of an important class of methods that utilize partial differential equations (PDEs) and have been extensively applied in image segmentation. A Gaussian kernel function in the level set formulation, which extracts the local intensity information, aids the suppression of noise in the extracted regions of interest and then guides the motion of the evolving contour for the detection of weak boundaries. The speed of curve evolution has been significantly improved with a resulting decrease in segmentation time compared with previous implementations of level sets. The results indicate the method is more effective than other approaches in coping with intensity inhomogeneities.

Keywords: Abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysms, intensityinhomogeneity, level sets, local fitting binary.

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Authors: Intan Maisarah Abd Rahim, Herlina Abdul Rahim, Rashidah Ghazali

Abstract:

Diabetes is a medical condition that can lead to various diseases such as stroke, heart disease, blindness and obesity. In clinical practice, the concern of the diabetic patients towards the blood glucose examination is rather alarming as some of the individual describing it as something painful with pinprick and pinch. As for some patient with high level of glucose level, pricking the fingers multiple times a day with the conventional glucose meter for close monitoring can be tiresome, time consuming and painful. With these concerns, several non-invasive techniques were used by researchers in measuring the glucose level in blood, including ultrasonic sensor implementation, multisensory systems, absorbance of transmittance, bio-impedance, voltage intensity, and thermography. This paper is discussing the application of the near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a non-invasive method in measuring the glucose level and the implementation of the linear system identification model in predicting the output data for the NIR measurement. In this study, the wavelengths considered are at the 1450 nm and 1950 nm. Both of these wavelengths showed the most reliable information on the glucose presence in blood. Then, the linear Autoregressive Moving Average Exogenous model (ARMAX) model with both un-regularized and regularized methods was implemented in predicting the output result for the NIR measurement in order to investigate the practicality of the linear system in this study. However, the result showed only 50.11% accuracy obtained from the system which is far from the satisfying results that should be obtained.

Keywords: Diabetes, glucose level, linear, near-infrared (NIR), non-invasive, prediction system.

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Authors: T.C. Manjunath, B. Bandyopadhyay

Abstract:

This paper features the proposed modeling and design of a Robust Decentralized Periodic Output Feedback (RDPOF) control technique for the active vibration control of smart flexible multimodel Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beams for a multivariable (MIMO) case by retaining the first 6 vibratory modes. The beam structure is modeled in state space form using the concept of piezoelectric theory, the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the Finite Element Method (FEM) technique by dividing the beam into 4 finite elements and placing the piezoelectric sensor / actuator at two finite element locations (positions 2 and 4) as collocated pairs, i.e., as surface mounted sensor / actuator, thus giving rise to a multivariable model of the smart structure plant with two inputs and two outputs. Five such multivariable models are obtained by varying the dimensions (aspect ratios) of the aluminum beam, thus giving rise to a multimodel of the smart structure system. Using model order reduction technique, the reduced order model of the higher order system is obtained based on dominant eigen value retention and the method of Davison. RDPOF controllers are designed for the above 5 multivariable-multimodel plant. The closed loop responses with the RDPOF feedback gain and the magnitudes of the control input are observed and the performance of the proposed multimodel smart structure system with the controller is evaluated for vibration control.

Keywords: Smart structure, Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, Periodic output feedback control, Finite Element Method, State space model, SISO, Embedded sensors and actuators, Vibration control, Reduced order model

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Authors: Amro Issam Hamed Attia Ramadan, Marco Zappatore, Pasquale Balena, Antonella Longo

Abstract:

Considering the energy crisis that is hitting Europe, it becomes increasingly necessary to change energy policies to depend less on fossil fuels and replace them with energy from renewable sources. This has triggered the urge to use clean energy, not only to satisfy energy needs and fulfill the required consumption, but also to decrease the danger of climatic changes due to harmful emissions. Many countries have already started creating energy communities based on renewable energy sources. The first step to understanding energy needs in any place is to perfectly know the consumption. In this work, we aim to estimate electricity consumption for a municipality that makes up part of a rural area located in southern Italy using forecast models that allow for the estimation of electricity consumption for the next 10 years, and we then apply the same model to the province where the municipality is located and estimate the future consumption for the same period to examine whether it is possible to start from the municipality level to reach the province level when creating energy communities.

Keywords: ARIMA, electricity consumption, forecasting models, time series.

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Authors: Taiyo Matsumura, Kuninori Takahashi, Takashi Ono

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The purpose of this research is to improve the convenience of waiting for trains at level crossings and stations and to prevent accidents resulting from forcible entry into level crossings, by providing level crossing users and passengers with information that tells them when the next train will pass through or arrive. For this paper, we proposed methods for estimating operation by means of an average value method, variable response smoothing method, and exponential smoothing method, on the basis of open data, which has low accuracy, but for which performance schedules are distributed in real time. We then examined the accuracy of the estimations. The results showed that the application of an exponential smoothing method is valid.

Keywords: Exponential smoothing method, open data, operation estimation, train schedule.

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Authors: Nabhan Hamadneh, Michael Dixon, Peter Cole, David Murray

Abstract:

This work presents the Risk Threshold RED (RTRED) congestion control strategy for TCP networks. In addition to the maximum and minimum thresholds in existing RED-based strategies, we add a third dropping level. This new dropping level is the risk threshold which works with the actual and average queue sizes to detect the immediate congestion in gateways. Congestion reaction by RTRED is on time. The reaction to congestion is neither too early, to avoid unfair packet losses, nor too late to avoid packet dropping from time-outs. We compared our novel strategy with RED and ARED strategies for TCP congestion handling using a NS-2 simulation script. We found that the RTRED strategy outperformed RED and ARED.

Keywords: AQM, congestion control, RED, TCP.

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Authors: Juan David Arango, Alejandro Restrepo-Martinez

Abstract:

The Rolling Element Bearing (REB) vibration diagnosis is worth of special interest by the variety of REB and the wide necessity of those elements in industrial applications. The presence of a localized fault in a REB gives rise to a vibrational response, characterized by the modulation of a carrier signal. Frequency content of carrier signal (Spectral Frequency –f) is mainly related to resonance frequencies of the REB. This carrier signal is modulated by another signal, governed by the periodicity of the fault impact (Cyclic Frequency –α). In this sense, REB fault vibration response gives rise to a second-order cyclostationary signal. Second order cyclostationary signals could be represented in a bi-spectral map, where Spectral Coherence –SCoh are plotted against f and α. The Improved Envelope Spectrum –IES, is a useful approach to execute REB fault diagnosis. IES could be applied by the integration of SCoh over a predefined bandwidth on the f axis. Approaches to select f-bandwidth have been recently exposed by the definition of a metric which intends to evaluate the magnitude of the IES at the fault characteristics frequencies. This metric is represented in a 1/3-binary tree as a function of the frequency bandwidth and centre. Based on this binary tree the optimal frequency band is selected. However, some advantages have been seen if the metric is changed, which in fact tends to dictate different optimal f-bandwidth and so improve the IES representation. This paper evaluates the behaviour of the IES from a different metric optimization. This metric is based on the sample correlation coefficient, detecting high peaks in the selected frequencies while penalizing high peaks in the neighbours of the selected frequencies. Prior results indicate an improvement on the signal-noise ratio (SNR) on around 86% of samples analysed, which belong to IMS database.

Keywords: Sample Correlation IESFOgram, cyclostationary analysis, improved envelope spectrum, IES, rolling element bearing diagnosis, spectral coherence.

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Authors: Mihai Gheorghe

Abstract:

Freelancing in IT has seen an increased popularity during the last years mainly because of the fast Internet adoption in the countries with emerging economies, correlated with the continuous seek for reduced development costs as well with the rise of online platforms which address planning, coordination and various development tasks. This paper conducts an overview of the most relevant Freelance Marketplaces available and studies the market structure, distribution of the workforce and trends in IT freelancing.

Keywords: Freelancing in IT, Freelance Marketplaces, Freelance Market Structure, Globalization, Online Staffing, Trends in Freelancing.

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Authors: Kahil Amar, Meziani Faroudja, Khelil Nacim

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The principal objective of this study is the evaluation of the seismic performance of reinforced concrete frame structures, taking into account of the behavior laws, reflecting the real behavior of materials, using CASTEM2000 software. A finite element model used is based in modified Takeda model with Timoshenko elements for columns and beams. This model is validated on a Vecchio experimental reinforced concrete (RC) frame model. Then, a study focused on the behavior of a RC frame with three-level and three-story in order to visualize the positioning the plastic hinge (plastic rotation), determined from the curvature distribution along the elements. The results obtained show that the beams of the 1^st and 2^nd level developed a very large plastic rotations, or these rotations exceed the values corresponding to CP (Collapse prevention with cp q_CP = 0.02 rad), against those developed at the 3^rd level, are between IO and LS (Immediate occupancy and life Safety with q_IO = 0.005 rad and rad q_LS = 0.01 respectively), so the beams of first and second levels submit a very significant damage.

Keywords: Seismic performance, performance level, pushover analysis, plastic rotation, plastic hinge.

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Authors: Pushp Lata Rajpoot, Pushpa Vaishnav

Abstract:

Anxiety is a common psychological problem and also implicated as a contributor to many chronic diseases which decreased quality of life even with pharmacological treatment. At the present time several yogic practices- meditation, pranayama, and mantra, etcetera are playing important role in treating physiological and psychological problems. Hence, the present investigation is aimed to see the effect of Trataka on the level of anxiety among adolescents. For the present study, a sample of 30 adolescents belonging to the age range 20-30 years was selected from Devsanskriti Vishwa Vidyalaya Haridwar through random sampling. In this investigation, Sinha’s Comprehensive anxiety test has been used to measure the level of anxiety. Statistical analysis has been done by using t-test. Findings of this study reveal that Trataka significantly decreases the level of anxiety among adolescents.

Keywords: Adolescents, Anxiety, Trataka.

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Authors: Aryana Collins Jackson, Elisabetta Bevacqua, Pierre De Loor, Ronan Querrec

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This paper presents a taxonomy of non-technical skills, communicative intentions, and behavior for an individual acting as a medical coordinator. In medical emergency situations, a leader among the group is imperative to both patient health and team emotional and mental health. Situational Leadership is used to make clear and easy-to-follow guidelines for behavior depending on circumstantial factors. Low-level leadership behaviors belonging to two different styles, directive and supporting, are identified from literature and are included in the proposed taxonomy. The high-level information in the taxonomy consists of the necessary non-technical skills belonging to a medical coordinator: situation awareness, decision making, task management, and teamwork. Finally, communicative intentions, dimensions, and functions are included. Thus this work brings high-level and low-level information - medical non-technical skills, communication capabilities, and leadership behavior - into a single versatile taxonomy of behavior.

Keywords: Medical, leadership styles, taxonomy, human behavior.

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Authors: Muhammad Aqil, Ichiro Kita, Akira Yano, Nishiyama Soichi

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This paper presents an alternate approach that uses artificial neural network to simulate the flood level dynamics in a river basin. The algorithm was developed in a decision support system environment in order to enable users to process the data. The decision support system is found to be useful due to its interactive nature, flexibility in approach and evolving graphical feature and can be adopted for any similar situation to predict the flood level. The main data processing includes the gauging station selection, input generation, lead-time selection/generation, and length of prediction. This program enables users to process the flood level data, to train/test the model using various inputs and to visualize results. The program code consists of a set of files, which can as well be modified to match other purposes. This program may also serve as a tool for real-time flood monitoring and process control. The running results indicate that the decision support system applied to the flood level seems to have reached encouraging results for the river basin under examination. The comparison of the model predictions with the observed data was satisfactory, where the model is able to forecast the flood level up to 5 hours in advance with reasonable prediction accuracy. Finally, this program may also serve as a tool for real-time flood monitoring and process control.

Keywords: Decision Support System, Neural Network, Flood Level

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Authors: Martin Popescu D. Dana Maria

Abstract:

The aims of this research are to broaden the study on the relationship between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). The study sample consisted in 441 Romanian employees from companies all over the country. Data has been collected through web surveys and processed with SPSS. The results indicated an average correlation between the two constructs and their sub variables, employees with a high level of emotional intelligence tend to be less aggressive. In addition, labeling was considered an individual difference which has the power to influence the level of employee aggression. A regression model was used to underline the importance of emotional intelligence together with labeling as predictors of CWB. Results have shown that this regression model enforces the assumption that labeling and emotional intelligence, taken together, predict CWB. Employees, who label themselves as victims and have a low degree of emotional intelligence, have a higher level of CWB.

Keywords: Aggression, CWB, emotional intelligence, labeling.

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Authors: B. Frączek

Abstract:

The paper analyses the usage of the Internet by university students in Visegrad Countries (4V Countries) who study economic fields in their formal and informal financial education and captures the areas of untapped potential of Internet in educational processes. Higher education and training, technological readiness, and the financial market development are in the group of pillars, that are key for efficiency driven economies. These three pillars have become an inspiration to the research on using the Internet in the financial education among economic university students as the group of the best educated people in finance. The financial education is a process that allows for improving the level of financial literacy. In turn, the financial literacy it is the set of financial knowledge, skills, awareness and patterns influencing the financial decisions. The level of financial literacy influences the level of financial well-being of individuals, determines the scale of saving of households and at the same time gives the greater chance for sustainable and more predictable development of the financial market with the positive impact on economy. The financial literacy is necessary for each group of society but its appropriate level is desirable especially in respect of economics students as future participants of financial markets as well as the experts and advisors in financial decision making. The low level of financial literacy is the great problem of many target groups in both developing and developed countries and the financial education is seen as the best way of improving this situation. Also the financial inclusion plays the special role in enhancing the level of financial literacy in the aspect of education by practice as well as due to interrelation between level of financial literacy and degree of financial inclusion. Despite many initiatives under financial education, the level of financial literacy is still very low. Scientists still search for new ways of solving this problem. One of the proposal is more effective usage of the new technology in financial education, especially the Internet, because of the growing popularity of e-learning and the increasing number of Internet users, especially among young people who are called the Generation Net. Due to special role of the university students studying the economics fields for the future financial markets, students of four universities from Visegrad Countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) were invited to participate in the survey. The aim of the article is to present the level and ways of using the Internet technology in financial education and indicating the so far unused or underused opportunities.

Keywords: Financial education, financial inclusion, financial literacy, usage of Internet in education.

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Authors: Zi-Ang Li, Mu-Xuan Tao

Abstract:

During the process of the industrialization of steel structure housing, a composite structural system with separated gravity and lateral resistant systems has been applied in engineering practices, which consists of composite frame with hinged beam-column joints, steel brace and RC shear wall. As an attempt in steel structural system area, seismic performance evaluation of the separated composite structure is important for further application in steel housing. This paper focuses on the seismic performance comparison of the separated composite structural system and traditional steel frame-shear wall system under the same inter-story drift ratio (IDR) provision limit. The same architectural layout of a high-rise building is designed as two different structural systems at the same IDR level, and finite element analysis using pushover method is carried out. Static pushover analysis implies that the separated structural system exhibits different lateral deformation mode and failure mechanism with traditional steel frame-shear wall system. Different indexes are adopted and discussed in seismic performance evaluation, including IDR, safe factor (SF), shear wall damage, etc. The performance under maximum considered earthquake (MCE) demand spectrum shows that the shear wall damage of two structural systems are similar; the separated composite structural system exhibits less plastic hinges; and the SF index value of the separated composite structural system is higher than the steel frame shear wall structural system.

Keywords: Finite element analysis, seismic performance evaluation, separated composite structural system, static pushover analysis.

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Authors: Adamu Mudi, Fawole Wahab Ibrahim, Abubakar Abba Kolo

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In this paper, we present a microcontroller-based liquid level controller which identifies the various levels of a liquid, carries out certain actions and is capable of communicating with the human being and other devices through the GSM network. This project is useful in ensuring that a liquid is not wasted. It also contributes to the internet of things paradigm, which is the future of the internet. The method used in this work includes designing the circuit and simulating it. The circuit is then implemented on a solderless breadboard after which it is implemented on a strip board. A C++ computer program is developed and uploaded into the microcontroller. This program instructs the microcontroller on how to carry out its actions. In other to determine levels of the liquid, an ultrasonic wave is sent to the surface of the liquid similar to radar or the method for detecting the level of sea bed. Message is sent to the phone of the user similar to the way computers send messages to phones of GSM users. It is concluded that the routine of observing the levels of a liquid in a tank, refilling the tank when the liquid level is too low can be entirely handled by a programmable device without wastage of the liquid or bothering a human being with such tasks.

Keywords: Arduino Uno, HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, Internet of Things, IoT, SIM900 GSM Module.

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Authors: K. Idir, H. Merouani, Y. Tlili.

Abstract:

An effective method for the early detection of breast cancer is the mammographic screening. One of the most important signs of early breast cancer is the presence of microcalcifications. For the detection of microcalcification in a mammography image, we propose to conceive a multiagent system based on a dual irregular pyramid. An initial segmentation is obtained by an incremental approach; the result represents level zero of the pyramid. The edge information obtained by application of the Canny filter is taken into account to affine the segmentation. The edge-agents and region-agents cooper level by level of the pyramid by exploiting its various characteristics to provide the segmentation process convergence.

Keywords: Dual Pyramid, Image Segmentation, Multi-agent System, Region/Edge Cooperation.

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Authors: Zuzana Poborilova, Anna B. Ohlsson, Torkel Berglund, Anna Vildova, Petr Babula

Abstract:

Lawsone is a pigment that occurs naturally in plants. It has been used as a skin and hair dye for a long time. Moreover, its different biological activities have been reported. The present study focused on the effect of lawsone on a plant cell model represented by tobacco BY-2 cell suspension culture, which is used as a model comparable with the HeLa cells. It has been shown that lawsone inhibits the cell growth in the concentration-dependent manner. In addition, changes in DNA methylation level have been determined. We observed decreasing level of DNA methylation in the presence of increasing concentrations of lawsone. These results were accompanied with overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Since epigenetic modifications can be caused by different stress factors, there could be a connection between the changes in the level of DNA methylation and ROS production caused by lawsone.

Keywords: DNA methylation, Lawsone, Naphthoquinone, Reactive Oxygen Species.

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Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan, Md. Refat Sarder

Abstract:

If a person can monitor his/her oxygen saturation level intermittently then he/she can identify his/her condition early and thus he/she can seek a doctor’s help. This paper reports the design, simulation, and implementation of a low-cost pulse oxygen saturation measurement device based on a reflective photoplethysmography (PPG) system using an integrated circuit sensor as the fundamental component of this health status checking device. The measurement of the physiological parameter is the blood oxygen saturation level (SpO₂) in the peripheral capillary. This work has been implemented using an Arduino Uno R3 microcontroller along with this sensor integrated circuit (IC). The system is designed in the Proteus environment and then simulated to check its performance. After that, the hardware implementation is performed. We used a clipping type optical sensor to sense the arterial oxygen saturation level of blood signal from the fingertips of an individual and then transformed it into the digital data in the microcontroller through its programming its instruction. The designed system was tested by measuring the SpO₂ level for several people of different ages, from 12 to 57 years of age. Besides, the same people were tested using a standard machine purchased from the market. Test results were found very satisfactory as the average percentage of error was very low, 1.59% only.

Keywords: Digital pulse oxygen saturation level, oximeter, measurement, design, simulation, implementation, proteus, Arduino Uno microcontroller.

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Authors: L. Al-Mulla, N. R. Bhat, M. Khalil

Abstract:

A study was conducted in greenhouse environment to determine the response of five tissue-cultured date palm cultivars, Al- Ahamad, Nabusaif, Barhee, Khalas, and Kasab to irrigation water salinity of 1.6, 5, 10, or 20 dS/ m. The salinity level of 1.6dS/m, was used as a control. The effects of high salinity on plant survival were manifested at 360 days after planting (DAP) onwards. Three cultivars, Khalas, Kasab and Barhee were able to tolerate 10 dS/m salinity level at 24 months after the start of study. Khalas tolerated the highest salinity level of 20 dS/ m and 'Nabusaif' was found to be the least tolerant cv. The average heights of palms and the number of fronds were decreased with increasing salinity levels as time progressed.

Keywords: Acclimatization, Irrigation water salinity, Kuwait, Land degradation.

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