Search results for: Human body communication

Authors: Michael Torggler

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Modern information and communication technologies offer a variety of support options for the efficient handling of customer relationships. CRM systems have been developed, which are designed to support the processes in the areas of marketing, sales and service. Along with technological progress, CRM systems are constantly changing, i.e. the systems are continually enhanced by new functions. However, not all functions are suitable for every company because of different frameworks and business processes. In this context the question arises whether or not CRM systems are widely used in Austrian companies and which business processes are most frequently supported by CRM systems. This paper aims to shed light on the popularity of CRM systems in Austrian companies in general and the use of different functions to support their daily business. First of all, the paper provides a theoretical overview of the structure of modern CRM systems and proposes a categorization of currently available software functionality for collaborative, operational and analytical CRM processes, which provides the theoretical background for the empirical study. Apart from these theoretical considerations, the paper presents the empirical results of a field survey on the use of CRM systems in Austrian companies and analyzes its findings.

Keywords: CRM systems, CRM system adoption, CRM system diffusion, CRM functionality, Market study.

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Authors: M. I. Abdelhamid, A. O. Ghallab, R. S. Ettouney, M. A. El-Rifai

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An optimization scheme based on COM server is suggested for communication between Genetic Algorithm (GA) toolbox of MATLAB and Aspen HYSYS. The structure and details of the proposed framework are discussed. The power of the developed scheme is illustrated by its application to the optimization of a recently developed natural gas liquefaction process in which Aspen HYSYS was used for minimization of the power consumption by optimizing the values of five operating variables. In this work, optimization by coupling between the GA in MATLAB and Aspen HYSYS model of the same process using the same five decision variables enabled improvements in power consumption by 3.3%, when 77% of the natural gas feed is liquefied. Also on inclusion of the flow rates of both nitrogen and carbon dioxide refrigerants as two additional decision variables, the power consumption decreased by 6.5% for a 78% liquefaction of the natural gas feed.

Keywords: Stranded gas liquefaction, genetic algorithm, COM server, single nitrogen expansion, carbon dioxide pre-cooling.

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Authors: Gábor Szűcs, Gábor Neszveda, Xin Fang

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In this paper the General Game problem is described. In this problem the competition or cooperation dilemma occurs as the two basic types of strategies. The strategy possibilities have been analyzed for finding winning strategy in uncertain situations (no information about the number of players and their strategy types). The winning strategy is missing, but a good solution can be found by simulation by varying the ratio of the two types of strategies. This new method has been used in a real contest with human players, where the created strategies by simulation have reached very good ranks. This construction can be applied in other real social games as well.

Keywords: competition, cooperation, finding good strategy, General Game

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Authors: Hongjoong Sin, Jangsoo Lee, Sungju Lee, Seunghwan Yoo, Sanghyuck Lee, Jaesik Lee, Yongjun Lee, Sungchun Kim

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Wireless sensor networks are consisted of hundreds or thousands of small sensors that have limited resources. Energy-efficient techniques are the main issue of wireless sensor networks. This paper proposes an energy efficient agent-based framework in wireless sensor networks. We adopt biologically inspired approaches for wireless sensor networks. Agent operates automatically with their behavior policies as a gene. Agent aggregates other agents to reduce communication and gives high priority to nodes that have enough energy to communicate. Agent behavior policies are optimized by genetic operation at the base station. Simulation results show that our proposed framework increases the lifetime of each node. Each agent selects a next-hop node with neighbor information and behavior policies. Our proposed framework provides self-healing, self-configuration, self-optimization properties to sensor nodes.

Keywords: Agent, Energy Efficiency, Genetic algorithm, Wireless Sensor Networks.

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Authors: Norah Alshahrani, Abdulaziz Almaleh

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition related to issues with brain development that affects how a person recognises and communicates with others which results in difficulties with interaction and communication socially and it is constantly growing. Early recognition of ASD allows children to lead safe and healthy lives and helps doctors with accurate diagnoses and management of conditions. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a method that will achieve good results and with high accuracy for the measurement of ASD in children. In this paper, ASD datasets of toddlers and children have been analyzed. We employed the following machine learning techniques to attempt to explore ASD: Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Na¨ıve Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Then feature selection was used to provide fewer attributes from ASD datasets while preserving model performance. As a result, we found that the best result has been provided by SVM, achieving 0.98% in the toddler dataset and 0.99% in the children dataset.

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, Machine Learning, ML, Feature Selection, Support Vector Machine, SVM.

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Authors: Won-Pil Park, Qyoun-Jung Lee, Dae-Gon Woo, Chang-Yong Ko, Eun-Geun Kim, Dohyung Lim, Yong-Heum Lee, Tae-Min Shin, Han-Sung Kim

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The disaster from functional gastrointestinal disorders has detrimental impact on the quality of life of the effected population and imposes a tremendous social and economic burden. There are, however, rare diagnostic methods for the functional gastrointestinal disorders. Our research group identified recently that the gastrointestinal tract well in the patients with the functional gastrointestinal disorders becomes more rigid than healthy people when palpating the abdominal regions overlaying the gastrointestinal tract. Objective of current study is, therefore, identify feasibility of a diagnostic system for the functional gastrointestinal disorders based on ultrasound technique, which can quantify the characteristics above. Two-dimensional finite difference (FD) models (one normal and two rigid model) were developed to analyze the reflective characteristic (displacement) on each soft-tissue layer responded after application of ultrasound signals. The FD analysis was then based on elastic ultrasound theory. Validation of the model was performed via comparison of the characteristic of the ultrasonic responses predicted by FD analysis with that determined from the actual specimens for the normal and rigid conditions. Based on the results from FD analysis, ultrasound system for diagnosis of the functional gastrointestinal disorders was developed and clinically tested via application of it to 40 human subjects with/without functional gastrointestinal disorders who were assigned to Normal and Patient Groups. The FD models were favorably validated. The results from FD analysis showed that the maximum displacement amplitude in the rigid models (0.12 and 0.16) at the interface between the fat and muscle layers was explicitly less than that in the normal model (0.29). The results from actual specimens showed that the maximum amplitude of the ultrasonic reflective signal in the rigid models (0.2±0.1Vp-p) at the interface between the fat and muscle layers was explicitly higher than that in the normal model (0.1±0.2 Vp-p). Clinical tests using our customized ultrasound system showed that the maximum amplitudes of the ultrasonic reflective signals near to the gastrointestinal tract well for the patient group (2.6±0.3 Vp-p) were generally higher than those in normal group (0.1±0.2 Vp-p). Here, maximum reflective signals was appeared at 20mm depth approximately from abdominal skin for all human subjects, corresponding to the location of the boundary layer close to gastrointestinal tract well. These findings suggest that our customized ultrasound system using the ultrasonic reflective signal may be helpful to the diagnosis of the functional gastrointestinal disorders.

Keywords: Finite Difference (FD) Analysis, FunctionalGastrointestinal Disorders, Gastrointestinal Tract, UltrasonicResponses.

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Authors: N. Fhafhiem, P. Krachodnok, R. Wongsan

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This paper proposes the development and design of double layer metamaterials based on electromagnetic band gap (EBG) rods as a superstrate of a resonator antenna to enhance required antenna characteristics for the mobile base station. The metallic rod type metamaterial can partially reflect wave of a primary radiator. The antenna was designed and analyzed by a simulation result from CST Microwave Studio and designed technique could be confirmed by a measurement results from prototype antenna that agree with simulation results. The results indicate that the antenna can also generate a dual polarization by using a 45˚ oriented curved strip dipole located at the center of the reflector plane with double layer superstrate. It can be used to simplify the feed system of an antenna. The proposed antenna has a bandwidth covering the frequency range of 1920 – 2200 MHz, the gain of the antenna increases up to 14.06 dBi. In addition, an interesting sectoral 60˚ pattern is presented in horizontal plane.

Keywords: Metamaterial, electromagnetic band gap, dual polarization, resonator antenna.

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Authors: Myoung Ro Kim, Gilwon Yoon

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A game using electro-oculography (EOG) as control signal was introduced in this study. Various EOG signals are generated by eye movements. Even though EOG is a quite complex type of signal, distinct and separable EOG signals could be classified from horizontal and vertical, left and right eye movements. Proper signal processing was incorporated since EOG signal has very small amplitude in the order of micro volts and contains noises influenced by external conditions. Locations of the electrodes were set to be above and below as well as left and right positions of the eyes. Four control signals of up, down, left and right were generated. A microcontroller processed signals in order to simulate a DDR game. A LCD display showed arrows falling down with four different head directions. This game may be used as eye exercise for visual concentration and acuity. Our proposed EOG control signal can be utilized in many other applications of human machine interfaces such as wheelchair, computer keyboard and home automation.

Keywords: DDR game, EOG, eye movement.

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Authors: J. Kala, V. Salajka, P. Hradil

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The main focus of this paper is on the human induced forces. Almost all existing force models for this type of load (defined either in the time or frequency domain) are developed from the assumption of perfect periodicity of the force and are based on force measurements conducted on rigid (i.e. high frequency) surfaces. To verify the different authors conclusions the vertical pressure measurements invoked during the walking was performed, using pressure gauges in various configurations. The obtained forces are analyzed using Fourier transformation. This load is often decisive in the design of footbridges. Design criteria and load models proposed by widely used standards and other researchers were introduced and a comparison was made.

Keywords: Pedestrian action, Experimental analysis, Fourier series, serviceability, cycle loading.

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Authors: Mohamed Adel Sennouni, Jamal Zbitou, Benaissa Abboud, Abdelwahed Tribak, Hamid Bennis, Mohamed Latrach

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A compact UWB planar antenna fed with a microstrip-line is proposed. The new design consist of a rectangular patch with symmetric l-shaped slots and fed by 50 Ω microstrip transmission line and a reduced ground-plane which have a periodic slots with an overall size of 47 mm x 20 mm. It is intended to be used in wireless applications that cover the ultra-wideband (UWB) frequency band. A wider impedance bandwidth of around 116.5% (1.875 – 7.115 GHz) with stable radiation pattern is achieved. The proposed antenna has excellent characteristics, low profile and costeffective compared to existing UWB antennas. The UWB antenna is designed and analyzed using CST Microwave Studio in transient mode to verify antenna parameters improvements.

Keywords: UWB Planar Antenna, L-shaped Slots, Wireless Applications, impedance band-width, radiation pattern, CST Microwave Studio.

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Authors: A. H. Azni, Madihah Mohd Saudi, Azreen Azman, Ariff Syah Johari

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Sensor Network are emerging as a new tool for important application in diverse fields like military surveillance, habitat monitoring, weather, home electrical appliances and others. Technically, sensor network nodes are limited in respect to energy supply, computational capacity and communication bandwidth. In order to prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes, designing efficient routing protocol is very critical. In this paper, we illustrate the existing routing protocol for wireless sensor network using data centric approach and present performance analysis of these protocols. The paper focuses in the performance analysis of specific protocol namely Directed Diffusion and SPIN. This analysis reveals that the energy usage is important features which need to be taken into consideration while designing routing protocol for wireless sensor network.

Keywords: Data Centric Approach, Directed Diffusion, SPIN WSN Routing Protocol.

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Authors: Yi-Chun Chang, Ching-Ting Hsu, Wei-Hua Ho, Yueh-Tung Kuo

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Children with hearing impairment have deficits of balance and motors. Although most of parents teach deaf children communication skills in early life, but rarely teach the deficits of balance. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether static balance improved after table tennis training. Table tennis training was provided four times a week for eight weeks to two 12-year-old deaf children. The table tennis training included crossover footwork, sideway attack, backhand block-sideways-flutter forehand attack, and one-on-one tight training. Data were gathered weekly and statistical comparisons were made with a paired t-test. We observed that the dominant leg is better than the non-dominant leg in static balance and girl balance ability is better than boy. The final result shows that table tennis training significantly improves the deaf children’s static balance performance. It indicates that table tennis training on deaf children helps the static balance ability.

Keywords: Deaf children, static balance, table tennis, vestibular structure.

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Authors: Dike H. Ogbuagu, Etsede J. Oritsematosan

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This work investigated possible inductions of CaC₂, often misused by fruit vendors to stimulate artificial ripening, on mammalian sperm morphology and viability. Thirty isogenic strains of male albino mice, Mus musculus (age≈ 8weeks; weight= 32.52.0g) were acclimatized (ambient temperature 28.0±1.0°C) for 2 weeks and fed standard growers mash and water ad libutum. They were later exposed to graded toxicant concentrations (w/w) of 2.5000, 1.2500, 0.6250, and 0.3125% in 4 cages. A control cage was also established. After 5 weeks, 3 animals from each cage were sacrificed by cervical dislocation and the cauda epididymis excised. Sperm morphology and viability were determined by microscopic procedures. The ANOVA, means plots, Student’s t-test and variation plots were used to analyze data. The common abnormalities observed included Double Head, Pin Head, Knobbed Head, No Tail and With Hook. The higher toxicant concentrations induced significantly lower body weights [F_(829.899) ˃ F_crit(4.19)] and more abnormalities [F_(26.52) ˃ F_crit(4.00)] at P˂0.05. Sperm cells in the control setup were significantly more viable than those in the 0.625% (t=0.005) and 2.500% toxicant doses (t=0.018) at the 95% confidence limit. CaC₂ appeared to induced morphological abnormalities and reduced viability in sperm cells of M. musculus.

Keywords: Artificial ripening, Calcium carbide, fruit vendors, sperm morphology, sperm viability.

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Authors: M. Matash Borujerdi, S.M. Mirzababaei

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As computer network technology becomes increasingly complex, it becomes necessary to place greater requirements on the validity of developing standards and the resulting technology. Communication networks are based on large amounts of protocols. The validity of these protocols have to be proved either individually or in an integral fashion. One strategy for achieving this is to apply the growing field of formal methods. Formal methods research defines systems in high order logic so that automated reasoning can be applied for verification. In this research we represent and implement a formerly announced multicast protocol in Prolog language so that certain properties of the protocol can be verified. It is shown that by using this approach some minor faults in the protocol were found and repaired. Describing the protocol as facts and rules also have other benefits i.e. leads to a process-able knowledge. This knowledge can be transferred as ontology between systems in KQML format. Since the Prolog language can increase its knowledge base every time, this method can also be used to learn an intelligent network.

Keywords: Formal methods, MobiCast, Mobile Network, Multicast.

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Authors: Yesuselvi Manickam, Tan Soon Chin

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Internship is a supervised and structured learning experience related to one’s field of study or career goal. Internship allows students to obtain work experience and the opportunity to apply skills learned during university. Internship is a valuable learning experience for students; however, literature on employer assessment is scarce on Malaysian student’s internship experience. This study focuses on employer’s perspective on student’s performances during their three months of internship. The results are based on the descriptive analysis of 45 sets of question gathered from the on-site supervisors of the interns. The survey of 45 on-site supervisor’s feedback was collected through postal mail. It was found that, interns have not met their on-site supervisor’s expectations in many areas. The significance of this study is employer’s assessment on the internship shall be used as feedback to improve on ways how to prepare students for their internship and employments in future.

Keywords: Employers perspective, internship, structured learning, student’s performances.

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Authors: A. Todorut, T. Heput

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In technological processes, in addition to the main product, result a large amount of materials, called wastes, but due to the possibilities of recovery, by means of recycling and reusing it can fit in the category of by-products. These large amounts of dust from the steel industry are a major problem in terms of environmental and human health, landscape, etc. Solving these problems, the impressive amounts of waste can be done through their proper management and recovery for every type of waste. In this article it was watched the capitalizing through pelleting and briquetting of small and powdery waste aiming to obtain the sponge iron as raw material, used in blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces. The data have been processed in the Excel spreadsheet program, being presented in the form of diagrams.

Keywords: Agglomeration, industry, iron, pellets, wastes.

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Authors: Walid Aydi, Nouri Masmoudi, Lotfi Kamoun

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Images of human iris contain specular highlights due to the reflective properties of the cornea. This corneal reflection causes many errors not only in iris and pupil center estimation but also to locate iris and pupil boundaries especially for methods that use active contour. Each iris recognition system has four steps: Segmentation, Normalization, Encoding and Matching. In order to address the corneal reflection, a novel reflection removal method is proposed in this paper. Comparative experiments of two existing methods for reflection removal method are evaluated on CASIA iris image databases V3. The experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm provides higher performance in reflection removal.

Keywords: iris, pupil, specular highlights, reflection removal

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Authors: Lorena Antonovici, Maria Nicoleta Turliuc

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The process of becoming a vegetarian involves changes in several life aspects, including health. Despite its relevance, however, little research has been carried out to analyze vegetarians' self-perceived health, and even less empirical attention has received in the Romanian population. This study aimed to assess health-related beliefs and practices among vegetarian adults in a Romanian sample. We have undertaken 20 semi-structured interviews (10 males, 10 females) based on a snowball sample with a mean age of 31 years. The interview guide was divided into three sections: causes of adopting the diet, general aspects (beliefs, practices, tensions, and conflicts) and consequences of adopting the diet (significant changes, positive aspects, and difficulties, physical and mental health). Additional anamnestic data were reported by means of a questionnaire. Data analyses were performed using Tropes text analysis software (v. 8.2) and SPSS software (v. 24.0.) Findings showed that most of the participants considered a vegetarian diet as a natural and healthy choice as opposed to meat-eating, which is not healthy, and its consumption should be moderated among omnivores. A higher proportion of participants (65%) had an average body mass index (BMI), and several women even assumed having certain affections that no longer occur after following a vegetarian diet. Moreover, participants admitted having better moods and mental health status, given their self-contentment with the dietary choice. Relatives were perceived as more skeptical about their practices than others, and especially women had this view. This study provides a valuable insight into health-related beliefs and practices and how a vegetarian diet might interact.

Keywords: Health-related beliefs, health, practices, vegetarians.

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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: Samaila Balarabe

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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has opened up new and robust ways of sending and receiving information at global level. Any type of information including voice and video is sent to the diverse publics, who equally have variety of choices. Thus, the development of any nation is tied to efficient information dissemination. In Nigeria, television broadcasting started in 1959 with the establishment of the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) by the opposition leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Later on, the government took over the station and fully controlled it. Subsequently, regional stations were opened to propagate government policies and programs. The television industry in Nigeria continued to grow in terms of viewership and number with over fifty national television stations and twenty five private ones. Thus, existing documents on digitization of television broadcasting industry and related literature were used as the main source of information. Therefore, this paper analyses the efforts being made by the Nigerian government through its ICT policy towards digitization of its television broadcasting in order to cope with the global trend. Recommendations are proffered with a view to achieving the target goal.

Keywords: Broadcasting, Digitization, Information, Television.

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Authors: Jing Jia, Shanqing Huang, Fang Liu, Qiang Ren, Gui Li, Mengyun Cheng, Chufeng Jin, Yican Wu

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Medical image registration is the key technology in image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) systems. On the basis of the previous work on our IGRT prototype with a biorthogonal x-ray imaging system, we described a method focused on the 2D/2D rigid-body registration using multiresolution pyramid based mutual information in this paper. Three key steps were involved in the method ： firstly, four 2D images were obtained including two x-ray projection images and two digital reconstructed radiographies（DRRs ） as the input for the registration ； Secondly, each pair of the corresponding x-ray image and DRR image were matched using multiresolution pyramid based mutual information under the ITK registration framework ； Thirdly, we got the final couch offset through a coordinate transformation by calculating the translations acquired from the two pairs of the images. A simulation example of a parotid gland tumor case and a clinical example of an anthropomorphic head phantom were employed in the verification tests. In addition, the influence of different CT slice thickness were tested. The simulation results showed that the positioning errors were 0.068±0.070, 0.072±0.098, 0.154±0.176mm along three axes which were lateral, longitudinal and vertical. The clinical test indicated that the positioning errors of the planned isocenter were 0.066, 0.07, 2.06mm on average with a CT slice thickness of 2.5mm. It can be concluded that our method with its verified accuracy and robustness can be effectively used in IGRT systems for patient setup.

Keywords: 2D/2D registration, image guided radiation therapy, multi resolution pyramid, mutual information.

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Authors: Prakash G L, Thejaswini M, S H Manjula, K R Venugopal, L M Patnaik

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Wireless sensor network can be applied to both abominable and military environments. A primary goal in the design of wireless sensor networks is lifetime maximization, constrained by the energy capacity of batteries. One well-known method to reduce energy consumption in such networks is data aggregation. Providing efcient data aggregation while preserving data privacy is a challenging problem in wireless sensor networks research. In this paper, we present privacy-preserving data aggregation scheme for additive aggregation functions. The Cluster-based Private Data Aggregation (CPDA)leverages clustering protocol and algebraic properties of polynomials. It has the advantage of incurring less communication overhead. The goal of our work is to bridge the gap between collaborative data collection by wireless sensor networks and data privacy. We present simulation results of our schemes and compare their performance to a typical data aggregation scheme TAG, where no data privacy protection is provided. Results show the efficacy and efficiency of our schemes.

Keywords: Aggregation, Clustering, Query Processing.

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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: Hachmia Faqihi, Maarouf Saad, Khalid Benjelloun, Mohammed Benbrahim, M. Nabil Kabbaj

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This paper investigates and presents a cable-driven robot to lower limb rehabilitation use in sagittal plane. The presented rehabilitation robot is used for a trajectory tracking in joint space. The paper covers kinematic and dynamic analysis, which reveals the tensionability of the used cables as being the actuating source to provide a rehabilitation exercises of the human leg. The desired trajectory is generated to be used in the control system design in joint space. The obtained simulation results is showed to be efficient in this kind of application.

Keywords: Cable-driven multibody system, computed-torque controller, lower limb rehabilitation, tracking trajectory.

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Authors: Shireen Simon

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Cyberbullying among schoolchildren and teenagers became a hot issue discussed by Malaysian society. Cyberbullying is a new age of bullying because it uses the modern digital technology intentionally to hurt and degrade someone in the cyber world. Cyberbullying is a problem affecting many teenagers as they embrace online communication and interaction whereby virtual world with no borders. By adopting a qualitative approach, this study has captured 8 cyberbullied victims’ school experience. Even years after leaving school, these 8 cyberbullied victims remember how it feels to be bullied in the cyber world. The principal investigator also tries to identify the possibility factors that contribute to cyberbullying among these 8 victims. The result shows that these victims were bullied differently in cyber world. This study not just primarily focuses on cyberbullying issues among schoolchildren and teenagers; it also addresses the motives and causes of cyberbullying. Lastly, this article will be served as guidance for school teachers, parents and teenagers to prepare to tackle cyberbullying together. Cyberbullying is no laughing matter in our community, and it is time to spread the seeds of peace inspires others to do the same.

Keywords: Cyberbullying, cyber victimization, internet, school experience, teenagers.

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Authors: Nazmona Mat Ali, Kecheng Liu

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Knowledge is a key asset for any organisation to sustain competitive advantages, but it is difficult to identify and represent knowledge which is needed to perform activities in business processes. The effective knowledge management and support for relevant business activities definitely gives a huge impact to the performance of the organisation as a whole. This is because that knowledge have the functions of directing, coordinating and controlling actions within business processes. The study has introduced organisational morphology, a norm-based approach by applying semiotic theories which emphasise on the representation of knowledge in norms. This approach is concerned with the identification of activities into three categories: substantive, communication and control activities. All activities are directed by norms; hence three types of norms exist; each is associated to a category of activities. The paper describes the approach briefly and illustrates the application of this approach through a case study of academic activities in higher education institutions. The result of the study shows that the approach provides an effective way to profile business knowledge and the profile enables the understanding and specification of business requirements of an organisation.

Keywords: Business knowledge, Business process, Norms, Semiotics, Organisational morphology

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Authors: Kati Manskinen, Risto Pöykiö, Hannu Nurmesniemi

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In an assessment of the extractability of metals in green liquor dregs from the chemical recovery circuit of semichemical pulp mill, extractable concentrations of heavy metals in artificial gastric fluid were between 10 (Ni) and 717 (Zn) times higher than those in artificial sweat fluid. Only Al (6.7 mg/kg; d.w.), Ni (1.2 mg/kg; d.w.) and Zn (1.8 mg/kg; d.w.) showed extractability in the artificial sweat fluid, whereas Al (730 mg/kg; d.w.), Ba (770 mg/kg; d.w.) and Zn (1290 mg/kg; d.w.) showed clear extractability in the artificial gastric fluid. As certain heavy metals were clearly soluble in the artificial gastric fluid, the careful handling of this residue is recommended in order to prevent the penetration of green liquor dregs across the human gastrointestinal tract.

Keywords: Dregs, non-process elements, pulping, waste.

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Authors: Sunita Verma , Divya Tiwari, Ajay Verma

Abstract:

Water samples were collected from river Pandu at six stations where human and animal activities were high. Composite samples were analyzed for dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) , pH values during dry and wet seasons as well as the harmattan period. The total data points were used to establish relationships between the parameters and data were also subjected to statistical analysis and expressed as mean ± standard error of mean (SEM) at a level of significance of p<0.05. Regression analysis was carried out to establish relationships if any between studied parameters and relationships in form of scatter plots were obtained between DO/BOD, COD/DO, BOD/COD, COD/pH, BOD/pH and DO/pH. The high to moderate correlation coefficient observed, R2 ranged from 0.68 to 0.15 between these parameters.

Keywords: BOD, DO, COD, pH, Regression analysis.

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Authors: S. Areerachakul

Abstract:

Nowadays, the increase of human population every year results in increasing of water usage and demand. Saen Saep canal is important canal in Bangkok. The main objective of this study is using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model to estimate the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) on data from 11 sampling sites. The data is obtained from the Department of Drainage and Sewerage, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, during 2007-2011. The twelve parameters of water quality are used as the input of the models. These water quality indices affect the COD. The experimental results indicate that the ANN model provides a high correlation coefficient (R=0.89).

Keywords: Artificial neural network, chemical oxygen demand, estimate, surface water.

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Authors: Yasser F. Hassan, Marwa Abdeen, Mustafa Fahmy

Abstract:

In recent years multi-agent systems have emerged as one of the interesting architectures facilitating distributed collaboration and distributed problem solving. Each node (agent) of the network might pursue its own agenda, exploit its environment, develop its own problem solving strategy and establish required communication strategies. Within each node of the network, one could encounter a diversity of problem-solving approaches. Quite commonly the agents can realize their processing at the level of information granules that is the most suitable from their local points of view. Information granules can come at various levels of granularity. Each agent could exploit a certain formalism of information granulation engaging a machinery of fuzzy sets, interval analysis, rough sets, just to name a few dominant technologies of granular computing. Having this in mind, arises a fundamental issue of forming effective interaction linkages between the agents so that they fully broadcast their findings and benefit from interacting with others.

Keywords: Granular computing, rough sets, agents, traffic system.

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