Search results for: small world
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 3075

Search results for: small world

555 Intelligent Video-Based Monitoring of Freeway Traffic

Authors: Saad M. Al-Garni, Adel A. Abdennour

Abstract:

Freeways are originally designed to provide high mobility to road users. However, the increase in population and vehicle numbers has led to increasing congestions around the world. Daily recurrent congestion substantially reduces the freeway capacity when it is most needed. Building new highways and expanding the existing ones is an expensive solution and impractical in many situations. Intelligent and vision-based techniques can, however, be efficient tools in monitoring highways and increasing the capacity of the existing infrastructures. The crucial step for highway monitoring is vehicle detection. In this paper, we propose one of such techniques. The approach is based on artificial neural networks (ANN) for vehicles detection and counting. The detection process uses the freeway video images and starts by automatically extracting the image background from the successive video frames. Once the background is identified, subsequent frames are used to detect moving objects through image subtraction. The result is segmented using Sobel operator for edge detection. The ANN is, then, used in the detection and counting phase. Applying this technique to the busiest freeway in Riyadh (King Fahd Road) achieved higher than 98% detection accuracy despite the light intensity changes, the occlusion situations, and shadows.

Keywords: Background Extraction, Neural Networks, VehicleDetection, Freeway Traffic.

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554 MGAUM—Towards a Mobile Government Adoption and Utilization Model: The Case of Saudi Arabia

Authors: Mohammed Alonazi, Natalia Beloff, Martin White

Abstract:

This paper presents a proposal for a mobile government adoption and utilization model (MGAUM), which is a framework designed to increase the adoption rate of m-government services in Saudi Arabia. Recent advances in mobile technologies such are Mobile compatibilities, The development of wireless communication, mobile applications and devices are enabling governments to deliver services in new ways to citizens more efficiently and economically. In the last decade, many governments around the globe are utilizing these advances effectively to develop their next generation of e-government services. However, a low adoption rate of m-government services by citizens is a common problem in Arabian countries, including Saudi Arabia. Yet, to our knowledge, very little research has been conducted focused on understanding the factors that influence citizen adoption of these m-government services in this part of the world. A set of social, cultural and technological factors have been identified in the literature, which has led to the formulation of associated research questions and hypotheses. These hypotheses will be tested on Saudi citizens using questionnaires and interview methods based around the technology acceptance model. A key objective of the MGAUM framework is to investigate and understand Saudi citizens perception towards adoption and utilization of m-government services.

Keywords: E-Government, M-Government, citizen services quality, technology acceptance model, Saudi Arabia, adoption framework.

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553 Analysis of Urban Population Using Twitter Distribution Data: Case Study of Makassar City, Indonesia

Authors: Yuyun Wabula, B. J. Dewancker

Abstract:

In the past decade, the social networking app has been growing very rapidly. Geolocation data is one of the important features of social media that can attach the user's location coordinate in the real world. This paper proposes the use of geolocation data from the Twitter social media application to gain knowledge about urban dynamics, especially on human mobility behavior. This paper aims to explore the relation between geolocation Twitter with the existence of people in the urban area. Firstly, the study will analyze the spread of people in the particular area, within the city using Twitter social media data. Secondly, we then match and categorize the existing place based on the same individuals visiting. Then, we combine the Twitter data from the tracking result and the questionnaire data to catch the Twitter user profile. To do that, we used the distribution frequency analysis to learn the visitors’ percentage. To validate the hypothesis, we compare it with the local population statistic data and land use mapping released by the city planning department of Makassar local government. The results show that there is the correlation between Twitter geolocation and questionnaire data. Thus, integration the Twitter data and survey data can reveal the profile of the social media users.

Keywords: Geolocation, Twitter, distribution analysis, human mobility.

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552 Understanding the Architecture of Hindu Temples: A Philosophical Interpretation

Authors: A. Bandyopadhyay

Abstract:

Vedic philosophy is one of the oldest existing philosophies of the world. Started around 6500 BC, in Western Indian subcontinent, the Indus valley Civilizations developed a theology which, gradually developed into a well-established philosophy of beliefs, popularly known as ‘Hindu religion’. In Vedic theology, the abstract concept of God was formulated mostly by close observation of the dynamicity and the recurrence of natural and universal phenomena. Through the ages, the philosophy of this theology went through various discursions, debates, and questionings and the abstract concept of God was, in time, formalized into more representational forms by the means of various signs and symbols. Often, these symbols were used in more subtle ways in the construction of “sacred” sculptures and structures. Apparently, two different philosophies were developed from the Vedic philosophy and these two philosophies are mostly seen in the northern part and southern part of the Indian subcontinent. This paper tries to summarize the complex philosophical treaties of Hinduism of northern and southern India and seeks to understand the meanings of the various signs and symbolisms that were incorporated in the architecture of Hindu temples, including the names given to various parts of the temples. The Hindu temples are not only places of worship or ‘houses of Gods’ like the Greek and Roman temples but are also structures that symbolize the dynamicity and also spiritual upliftment of human beings.

Keywords: Hindu, philosophy, temple, Vedic.

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551 Effect of Tethers Tension Force in the Behavior of a Tension Leg Platform Subjected to Hydrodynamic Force

Authors: Amr R. El-Gamal, Ashraf Essa, Ayman Ismail

Abstract:

The tension leg platform (TLP) is one of the compliant structures which are generally used for deep water oil exploration. With respect to the horizontal degrees of freedom, it behaves like a floating structure moored by vertical tethers which are pretension due to the excess buoyancy of the platform, whereas with respect to the vertical degrees of freedom, it is stiff and resembles a fixed structure and is not allowed to float freely. In the current study, a numerical study for square TLP using modified Morison equation was carried out in the time domain with water particle kinematics using Airy’s linear wave theory to investigate the effect of changing the tether tension force on the stiffness matrix of TLP's, the dynamic behavior of TLP's; and on the fatigue stresses in the cables. The effect was investigated for different parameters of the hydrodynamic forces such as wave periods, and wave heights. The numerical study takes into consideration the effect of coupling between various degrees of freedom. The stiffness of the TLP was derived from a combination of hydrostatic restoring forces and restoring forces due to cables. Nonlinear equation was solved using Newmark’s beta integration method. Only uni-directional waves in the surge direction was considered in the analysis. It was found that for short wave periods (i.e. 10 sec.), the surge response consisted of small amplitude oscillations about a displaced position that is significantly dependent on tether tension force, wave height; whereas for longer wave periods, the surge response showed high amplitude oscillations that is significantly dependent on wave height, and that special attention should be given to tethers fatigue because of their high tensile static and dynamic stress.

Keywords: Tethers tension, tension leg platforms, hydrodynamic wave forces, wave characteristic.

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550 Speaker Independent Quranic Recognizer Basedon Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression

Authors: Ehab Mourtaga, Ahmad Sharieh, Mousa Abdallah

Abstract:

An automatic speech recognition system for the formal Arabic language is needed. The Quran is the most formal spoken book in Arabic, it is spoken all over the world. In this research, an automatic speech recognizer for Quranic based speakerindependent was developed and tested. The system was developed based on the tri-phone Hidden Markov Model and Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression (MLLR). The MLLR computes a set of transformations which reduces the mismatch between an initial model set and the adaptation data. It uses the regression class tree, as well as, estimates a set of linear transformations for the mean and variance parameters of a Gaussian mixture HMM system. The 30th Chapter of the Quran, with five of the most famous readers of the Quran, was used for the training and testing of the data. The chapter includes about 2000 distinct words. The advantages of using the Quranic verses as the database in this developed recognizer are the uniqueness of the words and the high level of orderliness between verses. The level of accuracy from the tested data ranged 68 to 85%.

Keywords: Hidden Markov Model (HMM), MaximumLikelihood Linear Regression (MLLR), Quran, Regression ClassTree, Speech Recognition, Speaker-independent.

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549 Exploring the Narrative Communication: Representing Visual Information from Digital Travel Stories

Authors: Rocío Abascal-Mena, Erick López-Ornelas

Abstract:

We present the results of a case study aiming to assess the reflection of the tourism community in the Web and its usability to propose new ways to communicate visually. The wealth of information contained in the Web and the clear facilities to communicate personals points of view makes of the social web a new space of exploration. In this way, social web allow the sharing of information between communities with similar interests. However, the tourism community remains unexplored as is the case of the information covered in travel stories. Along the Web, we find multiples sites allowing the users to communicate their experiences and personal points of view of a particular place of the world. This cultural heritage is found in multiple documents, usually very little supplemented with photos, so they are difficult to explore due to the lack of visual information. This paper explores the possibility of analyzing travel stories to display them visually on maps and generate new knowledge such as patterns of travel routes. This way, travel narratives published in electronic formats can be very important especially to the tourism community because of the great amount of knowledge that can be extracted. Our approach is based on the use of a Geoparsing Web Service to extract geographic coordinates from travel narratives in order to draw the geo-positions and link the documents into a map image.

Keywords: Social web, tourism community, visual communication, travel stories, geo references.

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548 Providing a Secure, Reliable and Decentralized Document Management Solution Using Blockchain by a Virtual Identity Card

Authors: Meet Shah, Ankita Aditya, Dhruv Bindra, V. S. Omkar, Aashruti Seervi

Abstract:

In today's world, we need documents everywhere for a smooth workflow in the identification process or any other security aspects. The current system and techniques which are used for identification need one thing, that is ‘proof of existence’, which involves valid documents, for example, educational, financial, etc. The main issue with the current identity access management system and digital identification process is that the system is centralized in their network, which makes it inefficient. The paper presents the system which resolves all these cited issues. It is based on ‘blockchain’ technology, which is a 'decentralized system'. It allows transactions in a decentralized and immutable manner. The primary notion of the model is to ‘have everything with nothing’. It involves inter-linking required documents of a person with a single identity card so that a person can go anywhere without having the required documents with him/her. The person just needs to be physically present at a place wherein documents are necessary, and using a fingerprint impression and an iris scan print, the rest of the verification will progress. Furthermore, some technical overheads and advancements are listed. This paper also aims to layout its far-vision scenario of blockchain and its impact on future trends.

Keywords: Blockchain, decentralized system, fingerprint impression, identity management, iris scan.

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547 Radio and Television Supreme Council as a Regulatory Board

Authors: Sevil Yildiz

Abstract:

In parallel, broadcasting has changed rapidly with the changing of the world at the same area. Broadcasting is also influenced and reshaped in terms of the emergence of new communication technologies. These developments have resulted a lot of economic and social consequences. The most important consequences of these results are those of the powers of the governments to control over the means of communication and control mechanisms related to the descriptions of the new issues. For this purpose, autonomous and independent regulatory bodies have been established by the state. One of these regulatory bodies is the Radio and Television Supreme Council, which to be established in 1994, with the Code no 3984. Today’s Radio and Television Supreme Council which is responsible for the regulation of the radio and television broadcasts all across Turkey has an important and effective position as autonomous and independent regulatory body. The Radio and Television Supreme Council acts as being a remarkable organizer for a sensitive area of radio and television broadcasting on one hand, and the area of democratic, liberal and keep in mind the concept of the public interest by putting certain principles for the functioning of the Board control, in the context of media policy as one of the central organs, on the other hand. In this study, the role of the Radio and Television Supreme Council is examined in accordance with the Code no 3894 in order to control over the communication and control mechanisms as well as the examination of the changes in the duties of the Code No. 6112, dated 2011.

Keywords: Regulatory Boards, Radio and Television Supreme Council.

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546 Gradations in Concentration of Heavy and Mineral Elements with Distance and Depth of Soil in the Vicinity of Auto Mechanic Workshops in Sabon Gari, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Authors: E. D. Paul, H. Otanwa, O. F. Paul, A. J. Salifu, J. E. Toryila, C. E. Gimba

Abstract:

The concentration levels of six heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn) and two mineral elements (Ca and Mg) were determined in soil samples collected from the vicinity of two auto mechanic workshops in Sabon-Gari, Kaduna state, Nigeria, using Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS), in order to compare the gradation of their concentrations with distance and depth of soil from the workshop sites. At site 1, concentrations of Lead, Chromium, Iron and Zinc were generally found to be above the World Health Organization limits, while those of Nickel and Cadmium fell within the limits. Iron had the highest concentration with a range of 176.274 ppm to 489.127 ppm at depths of 5 cm to 15 cm and a distance range of 5 m to 15 m, while the concentration of cadmium was least with a range of 0.001 ppm to 0.008 ppm at similar depth and distance ranges. In addition, there was more of calcium (11.521 ppm to 121.709 ppm), in all the samples, than magnesium (11.293 ppm to 21.635 ppm). Similar results were obtained for site II. The concentrations of all the metals analyzed showed a downward gradient with increase in depth and distance from both workshop sites except for iron and zinc at site 2. The immediate and remote implications of these findings on the biota are discussed.

Keywords: AAS, Heavy Metals, Mechanic Workshops, Soils.

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545 The Effects of Physical Activity and Serotonin on Depression, Anxiety, Body Image and Mental Health

Authors: Sh. Khoshemehry, M. E. Bahram, M. J. Pourvaghar

Abstract:

Sport has found a special place as an effective phenomenon in all societies of the contemporary world. The relationship between physical activity and exercise with different sciences has provided new fields for human study. The range of issues related to exercise and physical education is such that it requires specialized sciences and special studies. In this article, the psychological and social sections of exercise have been investigated for children and adults. It can be used for anyone in different age groups. Exercise and regular physical movements have a great impact on the mental and social health of the individual in addition to body health. It affects the individual's adaptability in society and his/her personality. Exercise affects the treatment of diseases such as depression, anxiety, stress, body image, and memory. Exercise is a safe haven for young people to achieve the optimum human development in its shelter. The effects of sensorimotor skills on mental actions and mental development are such a way that many psychologists and sports science experts believe these activities should be included in training programs in the first place. Familiarity of students and scholars with different programs and methods of sensorimotor activities not only causes their mental actions; but also increases mental health and vitality, enhances self-confidence and, therefore, mental health.

Keywords: Anxiety, mental health, physical activity, serotonin.

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544 Load Balancing in Heterogeneous P2P Systems using Mobile Agents

Authors: Neeraj Nehra, R. B. Patel, V. K. Bhat

Abstract:

Use of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web (WWW) has become widespread in recent years and mobile agent technology has proliferated at an equally rapid rate. In this scenario load balancing becomes important for P2P systems. Beside P2P systems can be highly heterogeneous, i.e., they may consists of peers that range from old desktops to powerful servers connected to internet through high-bandwidth lines. There are various loads balancing policies came into picture. Primitive one is Message Passing Interface (MPI). Its wide availability and portability make it an attractive choice; however the communication requirements are sometimes inefficient when implementing the primitives provided by MPI. In this scenario we use the concept of mobile agent because Mobile agent (MA) based approach have the merits of high flexibility, efficiency, low network traffic, less communication latency as well as highly asynchronous. In this study we present decentralized load balancing scheme using mobile agent technology in which when a node is overloaded, task migrates to less utilized nodes so as to share the workload. However, the decision of which nodes receive migrating task is made in real-time by defining certain load balancing policies. These policies are executed on PMADE (A Platform for Mobile Agent Distribution and Execution) in decentralized manner using JuxtaNet and various load balancing metrics are discussed.

Keywords: Mobile Agents, Agent host, Agent Submitter, PMADE.

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543 Text Mining Technique for Data Mining Application

Authors: M. Govindarajan

Abstract:

Text Mining is around applying knowledge discovery techniques to unstructured text is termed knowledge discovery in text (KDT), or Text data mining or Text Mining. In decision tree approach is most useful in classification problem. With this technique, tree is constructed to model the classification process. There are two basic steps in the technique: building the tree and applying the tree to the database. This paper describes a proposed C5.0 classifier that performs rulesets, cross validation and boosting for original C5.0 in order to reduce the optimization of error ratio. The feasibility and the benefits of the proposed approach are demonstrated by means of medial data set like hypothyroid. It is shown that, the performance of a classifier on the training cases from which it was constructed gives a poor estimate by sampling or using a separate test file, either way, the classifier is evaluated on cases that were not used to build and evaluate the classifier are both are large. If the cases in hypothyroid.data and hypothyroid.test were to be shuffled and divided into a new 2772 case training set and a 1000 case test set, C5.0 might construct a different classifier with a lower or higher error rate on the test cases. An important feature of see5 is its ability to classifiers called rulesets. The ruleset has an error rate 0.5 % on the test cases. The standard errors of the means provide an estimate of the variability of results. One way to get a more reliable estimate of predictive is by f-fold –cross- validation. The error rate of a classifier produced from all the cases is estimated as the ratio of the total number of errors on the hold-out cases to the total number of cases. The Boost option with x trials instructs See5 to construct up to x classifiers in this manner. Trials over numerous datasets, large and small, show that on average 10-classifier boosting reduces the error rate for test cases by about 25%.

Keywords: C5.0, Error Ratio, text mining, training data, test data.

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542 The Effects of Cow Manure Treated by Fruit Beetle Larvae, Waxworms and Tiger Worms on Plant Growth in Relation to Its Use as Potting Compost

Authors: Waleed S. Alwaneen

Abstract:

Dairy industry is flourishing in world to provide milk and milk products to local population. Besides milk products, dairy industries also generate a substantial amount of cow manure that significantly affects the environment. Moreover, heat produced during the decomposition of the cow manure adversely affects the crop germination. Different companies are producing vermicompost using different species of worms/larvae to overcome the harmful effects using fresh manure. Tiger worm treatment enhanced plant growth, especially in the compost-manure ratio (75% compost, 25% cow manure), followed by a ratio of 50% compost, 50% cow manure.  Results also indicated that plant growth in Waxworm treated manure was weak as compared to plant growth in compost treated with Fruit Beetle (FB), Waxworms (WW), and Control (C) especially in the compost (25% compost, 75% cow manure) and 100% cow manure where there was no growth at all. Freshplant weight, fresh leaf weight and fresh root weight were significantly higher in the compost treated with Tiger worms in (75% compost, 25% cow manure); no evidence was seen for any significant differences in the dry root weight measurement between FB, Tiger worms (TW), WW, Control (C) in all composts. TW produced the best product, especially at the compost ratio of 75% compost, 25% cow manure followed by 50% compost, 50% cow manure.

Keywords: Fruit beetle, tiger worms, waxworms, control.

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541 Systems Engineering and Project Management Process Modeling in the Aeronautics Context: Case Study of SMEs

Authors: S. Lemoussu, J. C. Chaudemar, R. A. Vingerhoeds

Abstract:

The aeronautics sector is currently living an unprecedented growth largely due to innovative projects. In several cases, such innovative developments are being carried out by Small and Medium sized-Enterprises (SMEs). For instance, in Europe, a handful of SMEs are leading projects like airships, large civil drones, or flying cars. These SMEs have all limited resources, must make strategic decisions, take considerable financial risks and in the same time must take into account the constraints of safety, cost, time and performance as any commercial organization in this industry. Moreover, today, no international regulations fully exist for the development and certification of this kind of projects. The absence of such a precise and sufficiently detailed regulatory framework requires a very close contact with regulatory instances. But, SMEs do not always have sufficient resources and internal knowledge to handle this complexity and to discuss these issues. This poses additional challenges for those SMEs that have system integration responsibilities and that must provide all the necessary means of compliance to demonstrate their ability to design, produce, and operate airships with the expected level of safety and reliability. The final objective of our research is thus to provide a methodological framework supporting SMEs in their development taking into account recent innovation and institutional rules of the sector. We aim to provide a contribution to the problematic by developing a specific Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach. Airspace regulation, aeronautics standards and international norms on systems engineering are taken on board to be formalized in a set of models. This paper presents the on-going research project combining Systems Engineering and Project Management process modeling and taking into account the metamodeling problematic.

Keywords: Aeronautics, certification, process modeling, project management, SME, systems engineering.

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540 Gaits Stability Analysis for a Pneumatic Quadruped Robot Using Reinforcement Learning

Authors: Soofiyan Atar, Adil Shaikh, Sahil Rajpurkar, Pragnesh Bhalala, Aniket Desai, Irfan Siddavatam

Abstract:

Deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) algorithms leverage the symbolic power of complex controllers by automating it by mapping sensory inputs to low-level actions. Deep RL eliminates the complex robot dynamics with minimal engineering. Deep RL provides high-risk involvement by directly implementing it in real-world scenarios and also high sensitivity towards hyperparameters. Tuning of hyperparameters on a pneumatic quadruped robot becomes very expensive through trial-and-error learning. This paper presents an automated learning control for a pneumatic quadruped robot using sample efficient deep Q learning, enabling minimal tuning and very few trials to learn the neural network. Long training hours may degrade the pneumatic cylinder due to jerk actions originated through stochastic weights. We applied this method to the pneumatic quadruped robot, which resulted in a hopping gait. In our process, we eliminated the use of a simulator and acquired a stable gait. This approach evolves so that the resultant gait matures more sturdy towards any stochastic changes in the environment. We further show that our algorithm performed very well as compared to programmed gait using robot dynamics.

Keywords: model-based reinforcement learning, gait stability, supervised learning, pneumatic quadruped

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539 A Study on the Pressure Void Ratio Relationship for Rock Powder Blends with Brick Dust

Authors: Aktan Ozsoy, Ali Fırat Cabalar, Eyyub Karakan

Abstract:

Climate change is one of the biggest issues facing communities. Increasing population, growing economies, rapid industrialization are the main factors triggering it. On the other hand, the millions of tons of waste have generated by the period of rapid global growth not only harm to the environment but also lead to the use of valuable lands around the world as landfill sites. Moreover, it is rapidly consuming our resources and this forces the human population and wildlife to share increasingly shrinking space. In this direction, it is vital to reuse waste materials with a sustainability philosophy. This study was carried out to contribute to the combat against climate change, conserve our natural resources and the environment. An oedometer (consolidation) test was performed on two waste materials combined in certain proportions to evaluate their sustainable usage. Crushed brick dust (BD) was mixed with rock powder (RP) in 0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% (dry weight of soil). The results obtained revealed the importance of the gradation of the material used in the consolidation test. It was found that there was a negligible difference between the initial and final void ratio of mixtures with BD added.

Keywords: Waste material, oedometer test, environmental geotechnics, sustainability, crushed brick dust, rock powder.

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538 Response of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes to Drought Stress at Different Growth Stages

Authors: Ali. Marjani, M. Farsi, M. Rahimizadeh

Abstract:

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the important grain legume crops in the world. However, drought stress is a serious threat to chickpea production, and development of drought-resistant varieties is a necessity. Field experiments were conducted to evaluate the response of 8 chickpea genotypes (MCC* 696, 537, 80, 283, 392, 361, 252, 397) and drought stress (S1: non-stress, S2: stress at vegetative growth stage, S3: stress at early bloom, S4: stress at early pod visible) at different growth stages. Experiment was arranged in split plot design with four replications. Difference among the drought stress time was found to be significant for investigated traits except biological yield. Differences were observed for genotypes in flowering time, pod information time, physiological maturation time and yield. Plant height reduced due to drought stress in vegetative growth stage. Stem dry weight reduced due to drought stress in pod visibly. Flowering time, maturation time, pod number, number of seed per plant and yield cause of drought stress in flowering was also reduced. The correlation between yield and number of seed per plant and biological yield was positive. The MCC283 and MCC696 were the high-tolerance genotypes. These results demonstrated that drought stress delayed phonological growth in chickpea and that flowering stage is sensitive.

Keywords: Chickpea, drought stress, growth stage, tolerance.

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537 Interdisciplinarity: A Pedagogical Practice in the Classrooms

Authors: C. Cruz, A. Breda

Abstract:

The world is changing and, consequently, the young people need to acquire more sophisticated tools and skills to lead with the new societies’ challenges. In the curriculum of the Portuguese education system, in the profile of students leaving compulsory education, the critical thinking and creative thinking are pointed out as skills to be developed, as well as the capacity of interconnect different knowledge and applicate them in different contexts and learning areas. Unlike primary school teachers, teachers specialized in a specific area sometimes reveal more difficulties in developing interdisciplinary approaches in the classrooms and, despite the effort, the interdisciplinarity is not a common practice in schools. Statements like "Mathematics is everywhere" are unquestionable, however, some math teachers continue to develop an abstract teaching of mathematics devoid of any connection with reality. Good mathematical problems in real contexts are promising in the development of interdisciplinary pedagogical practices. However, these problems are often addressed by teachers in multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary contexts or are not addressed at all due several reasons, which range from insecurity in working on disciplinary domains with which they are not comfortable to a lack of pedagogical resources. In this study this issue is approached through a case study involving Mathematics teachers, which, in their professional development scope, attended a training aimed at stimulating interdisciplinary practices in real contexts, namely related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Interdisciplinarity, Mathematics, professional development, teacher training.

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536 Biodiesel Production from Broiler Chicken Waste

Authors: John Abraham, Ramesh Saravana Kumar, Francis Xavier, Deepak Mathew

Abstract:

Broiler slaughter waste has become a major source of pollution throughout the world. Utilization of broiler slaughter waste by dry rendering process produced Rendered Chicken Oil (RCO), a cheap raw material for biodiesel production and Carcass Meal a feed ingredient for pets and fishes. Conversion of RCO into biodiesel may open new vistas for generating wealth from waste besides controlling the major havoc of environmental pollution. A two-step process to convert RCO to good quality Biodiesel was invented. Acid catalysed esterification of FFA followed by base catalysed transesterification of triglycerides was carried out after meticulously standardizing the methanol molar ratio, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, and reaction time to obtain the maximum biodiesel yield of 97.62% and lowest glycerol yield of 6.96%. RCO biodiesel blend was tested in a CRDI diesel engine. The results revealed that the blending of commercial diesel with 20% RCO biodiesel (B20) lead to less engine wear, a quieter engine and better fuel economy. The better lubricating qualities of RCO B20 prevented over heating of engine, which prolongs the engine life. RCO B20 can reduce the import of crude oil and substantially reduce the engine emissions as proved by significantly lower smoke levels, thus mitigating climatic changes.

Keywords: Biodiesel, Broiler Waste, Engine Testing, Rendered Chicken Oil.

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535 Using Scrum in an Online Smart Classroom Environment: A Case Study

Authors: Ye Wei, Sitalakshmi Venkatraman, Fahri Benli, Fiona Wahr

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The present digital world poses many challenges to various stakeholders in the education sector. In particular, lecturers of higher education (HE) are faced with the problem of ensuring that students are able to achieve the required learning outcomes despite rapid changes taking place worldwide. Different strategies are adopted to retain student engagement and commitment in classrooms to address the differences in learning habits, preferences and styles of the digital generation of students recently. Further, with the onset of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, online classroom has become the most suitable alternate mode of teaching environment to cope with lockdown restrictions. These changes have compounded the problems in the learning engagement and short attention span of HE students. New Agile methodologies that have been successfully employed to manage projects in different fields are gaining prominence in the education domain. In this paper, we present the application of Scrum as an agile methodology to enhance student learning and engagement in an online smart classroom environment. We demonstrate the use of our proposed approach using a case study to teach key topics in information technology that require students to gain technical and business-related data analytics skills.

Keywords: Agile methodology, Scrum, online learning, smart classroom environment, student engagement, active learning.

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534 Applicability of Linearized Model of Synchronous Generator for Power System Stability Analysis

Authors: J. Ritonja, B. Grcar

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For the synchronous generator simulation and analysis and for the power system stabilizer design and synthesis a mathematical model of synchronous generator is needed. The model has to accurately describe dynamics of oscillations, while at the same time has to be transparent enough for an analysis and sufficiently simplified for design of control system. To study the oscillations of the synchronous generator against to the rest of the power system, the model of the synchronous machine connected to an infinite bus through a transmission line having resistance and inductance is needed. In this paper, the linearized reduced order dynamic model of the synchronous generator connected to the infinite bus is presented and analysed in details. This model accurately describes dynamics of the synchronous generator only in a small vicinity of an equilibrium state. With the digression from the selected equilibrium point the accuracy of this model is decreasing considerably. In this paper, the equations’ descriptions and the parameters’ determinations for the linearized reduced order mathematical model of the synchronous generator are explained and summarized and represent the useful origin for works in the areas of synchronous generators’ dynamic behaviour analysis and synchronous generator’s control systems design and synthesis. The main contribution of this paper represents the detailed analysis of the accuracy of the linearized reduced order dynamic model in the entire synchronous generator’s operating range. Borders of the areas where the linearized reduced order mathematical model represents accurate description of the synchronous generator’s dynamics are determined with the systemic numerical analysis. The thorough eigenvalue analysis of the linearized models in the entire operating range is performed. In the paper, the parameters of the linearized reduced order dynamic model of the laboratory salient poles synchronous generator were determined and used for the analysis. The theoretical conclusions were confirmed with the agreement of experimental and simulation results.

Keywords: Eigenvalue analysis, mathematical model, power system stability, synchronous generator.

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533 A Semantic Registry to Support Brazilian Aeronautical Web Services Operations

Authors: Luís Antonio de Almeida Rodriguez, José Maria Parente de Oliveira, Ednelson Oliveira

Abstract:

In the last two decades, the world’s aviation authorities have made several attempts to create consensus about a global and accepted approach for applying semantics to web services registry descriptions. This problem has led communities to face a fat and disorganized infrastructure to describe aeronautical web services. It is usual for developers to implement ad-hoc connections among consumers and providers and manually create non-standardized service compositions, which need some particular approach to compose and semantically discover a desired web service. Current practices are not precise and tend to focus on lightweight specifications of some parts of the OWL-S and embed them into syntactic descriptions (SOAP artifacts and OWL language). It is necessary to have the ability to manage the use of both technologies. This paper presents an implementation of the ontology OWL-S that describes a Brazilian Aeronautical Web Service Registry, which makes it able to publish, advertise, make multi-criteria semantic discovery aligned with the ideas of the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Program, and invoke web services within the Air Traffic Management context. The proposal’s best finding is a generic approach to describe semantic web services. The paper also presents a set of functional requirements to guide the ontology development and to compare them to the results to validate the implementation of the OWL-S Ontology.

Keywords: Aeronautical Web Services, OWL-S, Semantic Web Services Discovery, Ontologies.

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532 Characterization of Organic Matter in Spodosol Amazonian by Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Authors: Amanda M. Tadini, Houssam Hajjoul, Gustavo Nicolodelli, Stéphane Mounier, Célia R. Montes, Débora M. B. P. Milori

Abstract:

Soil organic matter (SOM) plays an important role in maintaining soil productivity and accounting for the promotion of biological diversity. The main components of the SOM are the humic substances which can be fractionated according to its solubility in humic acid (HA), fulvic acids (FA) and humin (HU). The determination of the chemical properties of organic matter as well as its interaction with metallic species is an important tool for understanding the structure of the humic fractions. Fluorescence spectroscopy has been studied as a source of information about what is happening at the molecular level in these compounds. Specially, soils of Amazon region are an important ecosystem of the planet. The aim of this study is to understand the molecular and structural composition of HA samples from Spodosol of Amazonia using the fluorescence Emission-Excitation Matrix (EEM) and Time Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy (TRFS). The results showed that the samples of HA showed two fluorescent components; one has a more complex structure and the other one has a simpler structure, which was also seen in TRFS through the evaluation of each sample lifetime. Thus, studies of this nature become important because it aims to evaluate the molecular and structural characteristics of the humic fractions in the region that is considered as one of the most important regions in the world, the Amazon.

Keywords: Amazonian soil, characterization, fluorescence, humic acid, lifetime.

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531 Performance Evaluation of Distributed Deep Learning Frameworks in Cloud Environment

Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Fang-An Kuo, Chau-Yi Chou, Yu-Bin Fang

Abstract:

2016 has become the year of the Artificial Intelligence explosion. AI technologies are getting more and more matured that most world well-known tech giants are making large investment to increase the capabilities in AI. Machine learning is the science of getting computers to act without being explicitly programmed, and deep learning is a subset of machine learning that uses deep neural network to train a machine to learn  features directly from data. Deep learning realizes many machine learning applications which expand the field of AI. At the present time, deep learning frameworks have been widely deployed on servers for deep learning applications in both academia and industry. In training deep neural networks, there are many standard processes or algorithms, but the performance of different frameworks might be different. In this paper we evaluate the running performance of two state-of-the-art distributed deep learning frameworks that are running training calculation in parallel over multi GPU and multi nodes in our cloud environment. We evaluate the training performance of the frameworks with ResNet-50 convolutional neural network, and we analyze what factors that result in the performance among both distributed frameworks as well. Through the experimental analysis, we identify the overheads which could be further optimized. The main contribution is that the evaluation results provide further optimization directions in both performance tuning and algorithmic design.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, convolutional neural networks.

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530 Application of a Similarity Measure for Graphs to Web-based Document Structures

Authors: Matthias Dehmer, Frank Emmert Streib, Alexander Mehler, Jürgen Kilian, Max Mühlhauser

Abstract:

Due to the tremendous amount of information provided by the World Wide Web (WWW) developing methods for mining the structure of web-based documents is of considerable interest. In this paper we present a similarity measure for graphs representing web-based hypertext structures. Our similarity measure is mainly based on a novel representation of a graph as linear integer strings, whose components represent structural properties of the graph. The similarity of two graphs is then defined as the optimal alignment of the underlying property strings. In this paper we apply the well known technique of sequence alignments for solving a novel and challenging problem: Measuring the structural similarity of generalized trees. In other words: We first transform our graphs considered as high dimensional objects in linear structures. Then we derive similarity values from the alignments of the property strings in order to measure the structural similarity of generalized trees. Hence, we transform a graph similarity problem to a string similarity problem for developing a efficient graph similarity measure. We demonstrate that our similarity measure captures important structural information by applying it to two different test sets consisting of graphs representing web-based document structures.

Keywords: Graph similarity, hierarchical and directed graphs, hypertext, generalized trees, web structure mining.

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529 Development of Map of Gridded Basin Flash Flood Potential Index: GBFFPI Map of QuangNam, QuangNgai, DaNang, Hue Provinces

Authors: Le Xuan Cau

Abstract:

Flash flood is occurred in short time rainfall interval: from 1 hour to 12 hours in small and medium basins. Flash floods typically have two characteristics: large water flow and big flow velocity. Flash flood is occurred at hill valley site (strip of lowland of terrain) in a catchment with large enough distribution area, steep basin slope, and heavy rainfall. The risk of flash floods is determined through Gridded Basin Flash Flood Potential Index (GBFFPI). Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI) is determined through terrain slope flash flood index, soil erosion flash flood index, land cover flash floods index, land use flash flood index, rainfall flash flood index. Determining GBFFPI, each cell in a map can be considered as outlet of a water accumulation basin. GBFFPI of the cell is determined as basin average value of FFPI of the corresponding water accumulation basin. Based on GIS, a tool is developed to compute GBFFPI using ArcObjects SDK for .NET. The maps of GBFFPI are built in two types: GBFFPI including rainfall flash flood index (real time flash flood warning) or GBFFPI excluding rainfall flash flood index. GBFFPI Tool can be used to determine a high flash flood potential site in a large region as quick as possible. The GBFFPI is improved from conventional FFPI. The advantage of GBFFPI is that GBFFPI is taking into account the basin response (interaction of cells) and determines more true flash flood site (strip of lowland of terrain) while conventional FFPI is taking into account single cell and does not consider the interaction between cells. The GBFFPI Map of QuangNam, QuangNgai, DaNang, Hue is built and exported to Google Earth. The obtained map proves scientific basis of GBFFPI.

Keywords: ArcObjects SDK for .NET, Basin average value of FFPI, Gridded basin flash flood potential index, GBFFPI map.

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528 Implementing ALD in Product Development: The Effect of Geometrical Dimensions on Tubular Member Deformation

Authors: Shigeyuki Haruyama, Aidil Khaidir Bin Muhamad, Tadayuki Kyoutani, Dai-Heng Chen, Ken Kaminishi

Abstract:

The product development process has undergone many changes concomitant with world progress in order to produce products that meet customer needs quickly and inexpensively. Analysis-Led Design (ALD) is one of the latest methods in the product development process. It focuses more on up-front engineering, a product quality optimization process that starts early in the conceptual design stage. Product development and manufacturing through ALD utilizes digital tools extensively for design, analysis and product optimization. This study uses computer-aided design (CAD) and finite element method (FEM) simulation to examine the modes of deformation of tubular members under axial loading. A multiple-combination impact absorption tubular member, referred to as a compress–expand member, is proposed as a substitute for the conventional thin-walled cylindrical tube to be used as a vehicle’s crash box. The study of deformation modes is crucial for evaluating the geometrical dimension limits by which a member can absorb energy efficiently.

Keywords: Analysis-led design, axial collapse, tubular member, finite element method, thin-walled cylindrical tube, compress-expand member, deformation modes.

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527 Landscape Assessment of the Dam and Motorway Networks that Provide Visual and Recreational Opportunities: Case Study of Artvin, Turkey

Authors: Banu Karaşah, Derya Sarı

Abstract:

Nature constantly changes as a result of human necessities. This change mostly feels in natural water sources which are reconstructed with an effect of dams and motorways. In other respects, visual quality of the landscape gets a new and different character during and after the construction of dams and motorways. Changing and specialization new landscapes will be very important to protection-usage balance to explore sustainable usage facilities. The main cause of the selection of Artvin city is that it has very important geographical location and one of the most attraction points in the World with its biodiversity, conservation areas and natural landscape characteristics. Many hydroelectric station and 7 dams are situated, 3 of them have already been built on the Çoruh River in the province of Artvin. As a result of dams, motorways route were reshaped and the ways which have already changed because of elevation is directly affected several of natural destruction. In contrast, many different reservoirs in Coruh Basin provide new vista point that has high visual quality. In this study, we would like to evaluate with sustainable landscape design in 76 km river corridor, which is mainly based on Deriner, Borçka and Muratlı Dams and determination of their basin-lakes recreational potential and opportunities. Lastly, we are going to give some suggestion about the potential of the corridor.

Keywords: Artvin, dam reservoirs, landscape assessment, river corridor, visual quality.

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526 Study on the Effect of Road Infrastructure, Socio-Economic and Demographic Features on Road Crashes in Bangladesh

Authors: Shakil M. Rifaat, Md. H. Rahman, Mohammed, Mosabbir Pasha

Abstract:

Road crashes not only claim lives and inflict injuries but also create economic burden to the society due to loss of productivity. The problem of deaths and injuries as a result of road traffic crashes is now acknowledged to be a global phenomenon with authorities in virtually all countries of the world concerned about the growth in the number of people killed and seriously injured on their roads. However, the road crash scenario of a developing country like Bangladesh is much worse comparing with this of developed countries. For developing proper countermeasures it is necessary to identify the factors affecting crash occurrences. The objectives of the study is to examine the effect of district wise road infrastructure, socioeconomic and demographic features on crash occurrence .The unit of analysis will be taken as individual district which has not been explored much in the past. Reported crash data obtained from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) from the year 2004 to 2010 are utilized to develop negative binomial model. The model result will reveal the effect of road length (both paved and unpaved), road infrastructure and several socio economic characteristics on district level crash frequency in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Demographic, Negative Binomial Model, Road Infrastructure, Socio-economic, Traffic Safety.

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