Search results for: marketing strategy
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1291

Search results for: marketing strategy

1051 Utilizing Analytic Hierarchy Process to Analyze Consumers- Purchase Evaluation Factors of Smartphones

Authors: Yi-Chung Hu, Yu-Lin Liao

Abstract:

Due to the fast development of technology, the competition of technological products is turbulent; therefore, it is important to understand the market trend, consumers- demand and preferences. As the smartphones are prevalent, the main purpose of this paper is to utilize Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze consumer-s purchase evaluation factors of smartphones. Through the AHP expert questionnaire, the smartphones- main functions are classified as “user interface", “mobile commerce functions", “hardware and software specifications", “entertainment functions" and “appearance and design", five aspects to analyze the weights. Then four evaluation criteria are evaluated under each aspect to rank the weights. Based on an analysis of data shows that consumers consider when purchase factors are “hardware and software specifications", “user interface", “appearance and design", “mobile commerce functions" and “entertainment functions" in sequence. The “hardware and software specifications" aspect obtains the weight of 33.18%; it is the most important factor that consumers are taken into account. In addition, the most important evaluation criteria are central processing unit, operating system, touch screen, and battery function in sequence. The results of the study can be adopted as reference data for mobile phone manufacturers in the future on the design and marketing strategy to satisfy the voice of customer.

Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), evaluation criteria, purchase evaluation factors, smartphone.

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1050 An Optimization Tool-Based Design Strategy Applied to Divide-by-2 Circuits with Unbalanced Loads

Authors: Agord M. Pinto Jr., Yuzo Iano, Leandro T. Manera, Raphael R. N. Souza

Abstract:

This paper describes an optimization tool-based design strategy for a Current Mode Logic CML divide-by-2 circuit. Representing a building block for output frequency generation in a RFID protocol based-frequency synthesizer, the circuit was designed to minimize the power consumption for driving of multiple loads with unbalancing (at transceiver level). Implemented with XFAB XC08 180 nm technology, the circuit was optimized through MunEDA WiCkeD tool at Cadence Virtuoso Analog Design Environment ADE.

Keywords: Divide-by-2 circuit, CMOS technology, PLL phase locked-loop, optimization tool, CML current mode logic, RF transceiver.

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1049 The Causal Relationships between Destination Image, Tourist Satisfaction and Revisit Intention: A Case of the United Arab Emirates

Authors: Abdul Raheem Jasim Mohammed, Mohd Salehuddin Mohd Zahari, Salim Abdul Talib, Mohd Zulhilmi Suhaimi

Abstract:

The connection between past travel experience and tourists’ revisit behavioral intentions has not been widely explored but the existing studies suggest a close relationship between them. Destination image can equally be construed as having effects on the attitudes of the tourists at the end of their actual visitation and the satisfaction of a tourist with his or her travel experiences contributes to a revisit intention towards a particular destination. With strong marketing efforts, UAE is not only considered to be successful in attracting foreign investors, but is becoming the most popular tourism destination in the Arab region. UAE is seriously developing its tourism image and taking serious initiatives to attract new or repeat visitations from the international tourists. This study empirically investigates the causal relationships between tourism destination image, tourist satisfaction and revisit intention using UAE as a contextual study setting. A very clear picture emerged which provides a host country with potential implications for its tourism industry practitioners, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing and the travel agencies who act as the intermediaries between the potential tourists and the hotel operators.

Keywords: Destination image, tourist satisfaction, revisit intention.

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1048 A Settlement Strategy for Health Facilities in Emerging Countries: A Case Study in Brazil

Authors: Domenico Chizzoniti, Monica Moscatelli, Letizia Cattani, Piero Favino, Luca Preis

Abstract:

A settlement strategy is to anticipate and respond the needs of existing and future communities through the provision of primary health care facilities in marginalized areas. Access to a health care network is important to improving healthcare coverage, often lacking, in developing countries. The study explores that a good sanitary system strategy of rural contexts brings advantages to an existing settlement: improving transport, communication, water and social facilities. The objective of this paper is to define a possible methodology to implement primary health care facilities in disadvantaged areas of emerging countries. In this research, we analyze the case study of Lauro de Freitas, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Bahia, part of the Metropolitan Region of Salvador, with an area of 57,662 km² and 194.641 inhabitants. The health localization system in Lauro de Freitas is an integrated process that involves not only geographical aspects, but also a set of factors: population density, epidemiological data, allocation of services, road networks, and more. Data were collected also using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to the local population. Synthesized data suggest that moving away from the coast where there is the greatest concentration of population and services, a network of primary health care facilities is able to improve the living conditions of small-dispersed communities. Based on the health service needs of populations, we have developed a methodological approach that is particularly useful in rural and remote contexts in emerging countries.

Keywords: Primary health care, developing countries, policy health planning, settlement strategy.

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1047 The Development of Positive Emotion Regulation Strategies Scale for Children and Adolescents

Authors: Jia-Ru Li, Ching-Wen Lin

Abstract:

The study was designed to develop a measurement of the positive emotion regulation questionnaire (PERQ) that assesses positive emotion regulation strategies through self-report. The 14 items developed for the surveying instrument of the study were based upon literatures regarding elements of positive regulation strategies. 319 elementary students (age ranging from 12 to14) were recruited among three public elementary schools to survey on their use of positive emotion regulation strategies. Of 319 subjects, 20 invalid questionnaire s yielded a response rate of 92%. The data collected wasanalyzed through methods such as item analysis, factor analysis, and structural equation models. In reference to the results from item analysis, the formal survey instrument was reduced to 11 items. A principal axis factor analysis with varimax was performed on responses, resulting in a 2-factor equation (savoring strategy and neutralizing strategy), which accounted for 55.5% of the total variance. Then, the two-factor structure of scale was also identified by structural equation models. Finally, the reliability coefficients of the two factors were Cronbach-s α .92 and .74. Gender difference was only found in savoring strategy. In conclusion, the positive emotion regulation strategies questionnaire offers a brief, internally consistent, and valid self-report measure for understanding the emotional regulation strategies of children that may be useful to researchers and applied professionals.

Keywords: Emotional regulation, emotional regulation strategies, scale, SEM.

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1046 Determinants of Students- Intentions to Use a Mobile Messaging Service in Educational Institutions: a Theoretical Model

Authors: Boonlert Watjatrakul

Abstract:

Mobile marketing through mobile messaging service has highly impressive growth as it enables e-business firms to communicate with their customers effectively. Educational institutions hence start using this service to enhance communication with their students. Previous studies, however, have limited understanding of applying mobile messaging service in education. This study proposes a theoretical model to understand the drivers of students- intentions to use the university-s mobile messaging service. The model indicates that social influence, perceived control and attitudes affect students- intention to use the university-s mobile messaging service. It also provides five antecedents of students- attitudes–perceived utility (information utility, entertainment utility, and social utility), innovativeness, information seeking, transaction specificity (content specificity, sender specificity, and time specificity) and privacy concern. The proposed model enables universities to understand what students concern about the use of a mobile messaging service in universities and handle the service more effectively. The paper discusses the model development and concludes with limitations and implications of the proposed model.

Keywords: education, intention, mobile marketing, mobile messaging.

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1045 River Stage-Discharge Forecasting Based on Multiple-Gauge Strategy Using EEMD-DWT-LSSVM Approach

Authors: Farhad Alizadeh, Alireza Faregh Gharamaleki, Mojtaba Jalilzadeh, Houshang Gholami, Ali Akhoundzadeh

Abstract:

This study presented hybrid pre-processing approach along with a conceptual model to enhance the accuracy of river discharge prediction. In order to achieve this goal, Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithm (EEMD), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Mutual Information (MI) were employed as a hybrid pre-processing approach conjugated to Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM). A conceptual strategy namely multi-station model was developed to forecast the Souris River discharge more accurately. The strategy used herein was capable of covering uncertainties and complexities of river discharge modeling. DWT and EEMD was coupled, and the feature selection was performed for decomposed sub-series using MI to be employed in multi-station model. In the proposed feature selection method, some useless sub-series were omitted to achieve better performance. Results approved efficiency of the proposed DWT-EEMD-MI approach to improve accuracy of multi-station modeling strategies.

Keywords: River stage-discharge process, LSSVM, discrete wavelet transform (DWT), ensemble empirical decomposition mode (EEMD), multi-station modeling.

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1044 Design and Trajectory Planning of Bipedal Walking Robot with Minimum Sufficient Actuation System

Authors: H. Siswoyo Jo, N. Mir-Nasiri, E. Jayamani

Abstract:

This paper presents a new type of mechanism and trajectory planning strategy for bipedal walking robot. The newly designed mechanism is able to improve the performance of bipedal walking robot in terms of energy efficiency and weight reduction by utilizing minimum number of actuators. The usage of parallelogram mechanism eliminates the needs of having an extra actuator at the knee joint. This mechanism works together with the joint space trajectory planning in order to realize straight legged walking which cannot be achieved by conventional inverse kinematics trajectory planning due to the singularity. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is confirmed by computer simulation results.

Keywords: Bipedal robot, Energy efficiency, Straight legged walking, Trajectory planning.

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1043 Morphemic Analysis Awareness: A Boon or Bane on ESL Students’ Vocabulary Learning Strategy

Authors: Chandrakala Varatharajoo, Adelina Binti Asmawi, Nabeel Abdallah Mohammad Abedalaziz

Abstract:

This study investigated the impact of inflectional and derivational morphemic analysis awareness on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary learning strategy. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 106 low proficiency secondary school students in two experimental groups (inflectional and derivational) and one control group. The students’ vocabulary acquisition was assessed through two measures: Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary- Morphemic Test in the pretest and posttest before and after an intervention programme. Results of ANCOVA revealed that both the experimental groups achieved a significant score in Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary-Morphemic Test. However, the inflectional group obtained a fairly higher score than the derivational group. Thus, the results indicated that ESL low proficiency secondary school students performed better on inflectional morphemic awareness as compared to derivatives. The results also showed that the awareness of inflectional morphology contributed more on the vocabulary acquisition. Importantly, learning inflectional morphology can help ESL low proficiency secondary school students to develop both morphemic awareness and vocabulary gain. Theoretically, these findings show that not all morphemes are equally useful to students for their language development. Practically, these findings indicate that morphological instruction should at least be included in remediation and instructional efforts with struggling learners across all grade levels, allowing them to focus on meaning within the word before they attempt the text in large for better comprehension. Also, by methodologically, by conducting individualized intervention and assessment this study provided fresh empirical evidence to support the existing literature on morphemic analysis awareness and vocabulary learning strategy. Thus, a major pedagogical implication of the study is that morphemic analysis awareness strategy is a definite boon for ESL secondary school students in learning English vocabulary.

Keywords: ESL, instruction, morphemic analysis, vocabulary.

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1042 Fundamental Problems in the Operation of the Automotive Parts Industry Small and Medium Businesses in Bangkok and Surrounding Provinces

Authors: P. Thepnarintra

Abstract:

The purposes of this study were to: 1) investigate operation conditions of SME automotive part industry in Bangkok and vicinity and 2) to compare operation problem levels of SME automotive part industry in Bangkok and vicinity according to the sizes of the enterprises. Samples in this study included 196 entrepreneurs of SME automotive part industry in Bangkok and vicinity derived from simple random sampling and calculation from R. V. Krejcie and D. W. Morgan’s tables. Research statistics included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and T-test. The results revealed that in general the problem levels of SME automotive part industry in Bangkok and vicinity were high. When considering in details, it was found that the problem levels were high at every aspect, i.e. personal, production, export, finance, and marketing respectively. The comparison of the problem levels according to the sizes of the enterprises revealed statistically significant differences at .05. When considering on each aspect, it was found that the aspect with the statistical difference at .05 included 5 aspects, i.e. production, marketing, finance, personal, and export. The findings also showed that small enterprises faced more severe problems than those of medium enterprises.

Keywords: Automotive part industry, operation problems, SME, perimeter.

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1041 Upgraded Cuckoo Search Algorithm to Solve Optimisation Problems Using Gaussian Selection Operator and Neighbour Strategy Approach

Authors: Mukesh Kumar Shah, Tushar Gupta

Abstract:

An Upgraded Cuckoo Search Algorithm is proposed here to solve optimization problems based on the improvements made in the earlier versions of Cuckoo Search Algorithm. Short comings of the earlier versions like slow convergence, trap in local optima improved in the proposed version by random initialization of solution by suggesting an Improved Lambda Iteration Relaxation method, Random Gaussian Distribution Walk to improve local search and further proposing Greedy Selection to accelerate to optimized solution quickly and by “Study Nearby Strategy” to improve global search performance by avoiding trapping to local optima. It is further proposed to generate better solution by Crossover Operation. The proposed strategy used in algorithm shows superiority in terms of high convergence speed over several classical algorithms. Three standard algorithms were tested on a 6-generator standard test system and the results are presented which clearly demonstrate its superiority over other established algorithms. The algorithm is also capable of handling higher unit systems.

Keywords: Economic dispatch, Gaussian selection operator, prohibited operating zones, ramp rate limits, upgraded cuckoo search.

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1040 Exploring the Determinants for Successful Collaboration of SMEs

Authors: Heeyong Noh, Sungjoo Lee

Abstract:

The goal of this research is discovering the determinants of the success or failure of external cooperation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). For this, a survey was given to 190 SMEs that experienced external cooperation within the last 3 years. A logistic regression model was used to derive organizational or strategic characteristics that significantly influence whether external collaboration of domestic SMEs is successful or not. Results suggest that research and development (R&D) features in general characteristics (both idea creation and discovering market opportunities) that focused on and emphasized indirected-market stakeholders (such as complementary companies and affiliates) and strategies in innovative strategic characteristics raise the probability of successful external cooperation. This can be used meaningfully to build a policy or strategy for inducing successful external cooperation or to understand the innovation of SMEs.

Keywords: External collaboration, Innovation strategy, Logisticregression, SMEs.

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1039 Face Tracking using a Polling Strategy

Authors: Rodrigo Montufar-Chaveznava

Abstract:

The colors of the human skin represent a special category of colors, because they are distinctive from the colors of other natural objects. This category is found as a cluster in color spaces, and the skin color variations between people are mostly due to differences in the intensity. Besides, the face detection based on skin color detection is a faster method as compared to other techniques. In this work, we present a system to track faces by carrying out skin color detection in four different color spaces: HSI, YCbCr, YES and RGB. Once some skin color regions have been detected for each color space, we label each and get some characteristics such as size and position. We are supposing that a face is located in one the detected regions. Next, we compare and employ a polling strategy between labeled regions to determine the final region where the face effectively has been detected and located.

Keywords: Tracking, face detection, image processing, colorspaces.

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1038 Characteristics of Football Spectators Using Second Screen

Authors: Florian Pfeffel, Christoph A. Kexel, Peter Kexel, Maria Ratz

Abstract:

The parallel usage of different media channels has increased recently owing to technological advances. Second Screen describes the use of a second device by television viewers to consume further content which is related to the program they are watching. This study analysed the characteristics of football spectators regarding their media consumption in relation to Second Screen usage while watching a football match on TV. The existing literature on Second Screen usage is still very limited, especially in the context of particular broadcasting settings such as sport or even more specific such as football matches. Therefore, the primary research objective was to reveal first insights into the user behaviour of football spectators regarding Second Screen services. The survey, which was conducted among German football supporters in 2015, revealed some characteristics such as the identification and involvement into the sports which are related to an increased use of Second Screen services. One important finding for football supporters was that at the time of a match they have a lower parallel media usage compared to other TV broadcastings. Nevertheless, if supporters used a second device while watching a match on TV, then they were using specific Second Screen services. This means they searched for more content related information. The findings on the habits and characteristics of people who are using Second Screen services are relevant for future developments in that area as well as for marketing decisions.

Keywords: Media consumption, second screen, sport marketing, user behaviour.

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1037 Estimating Frequency, Amplitude and Phase of Two Sinusoids with Very Close Frequencies

Authors: Jayme G. A. Barbedo, Amauri Lopes

Abstract:

This paper presents an algorithm to estimate the parameters of two closely spaced sinusoids, providing a frequency resolution that is more than 800 times greater than that obtained by using the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). The strategy uses a highly optimized grid search approach to accurately estimate frequency, amplitude and phase of both sinusoids, keeping at the same time the computational effort at reasonable levels. The proposed method has three main characteristics: 1) a high frequency resolution; 2) frequency, amplitude and phase are all estimated at once using one single package; 3) it does not rely on any statistical assumption or constraint. Potential applications to this strategy include the difficult task of resolving coincident partials of instruments in musical signals.

Keywords: Closely spaced sinusoids, high-resolution parameter estimation, optimized grid search.

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1036 Fifth Order Variable Step Block Backward Differentiation Formulae for Solving Stiff ODEs

Authors: S.A.M. Yatim, Z.B. Ibrahim, K.I. Othman, F. Ismail

Abstract:

The implicit block methods based on the backward differentiation formulae (BDF) for the solution of stiff initial value problems (IVPs) using variable step size is derived. We construct a variable step size block methods which will store all the coefficients of the method with a simplified strategy in controlling the step size with the intention of optimizing the performance in terms of precision and computation time. The strategy involves constant, halving or increasing the step size by 1.9 times the previous step size. Decision of changing the step size is determined by the local truncation error (LTE). Numerical results are provided to support the enhancement of method applied.

Keywords: Backward differentiation formulae, block backwarddifferentiation formulae, stiff ordinary differential equation, variablestep size.

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1035 Neural Network Motion Control of VTAV by NARMA-L2 Controller for Enhanced Situational Awareness

Authors: Igor Astrov, Natalya Berezovski

Abstract:

This paper focuses on a critical component of the situational awareness (SA), the control of autonomous vertical flight for vectored thrust aerial vehicle (VTAV). With the SA strategy, we proposed a neural network motion control procedure to address the dynamics variation and performance requirement difference of flight trajectory for a VTAV. This control strategy with using of NARMAL2 neurocontroller for chosen model of VTAV has been verified by simulation of take-off and forward maneuvers using software package Simulink and demonstrated good performance for fast stabilization of motors, consequently, fast SA with economy in energy can be asserted during search-and-rescue operations.

Keywords: NARMA-L2 neurocontroller, situational awareness, vectored thrust aerial vehicle.

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1034 Optimization of Quantization in Higher Order Modulations for LDPC-Coded Systems

Authors: M.Sushanth Babu, P.Krishna, U.Venu, M.Ranjith

Abstract:

In this paper, we evaluate the choice of suitable quantization characteristics for both the decoder messages and the received samples in Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) coded systems using M-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) schemes. The analysis involves the demapper block that provides initial likelihood values for the decoder, by relating its quantization strategy of the decoder. A mapping strategy refers to the grouping of bits within a codeword, where each m-bit group is used to select a 2m-ary signal in accordance with the signal labels. Further we evaluate the system with mapping strategies like Consecutive-Bit (CB) and Bit-Reliability (BR). A new demapper version, based on approximate expressions, is also presented to yield a low complexity hardware implementation.

Keywords: Low Density parity Check, Mapping, Demapping, Quantization, Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

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1033 Optimal Generation Expansion Planning Strategy with Carbon Trading

Authors: Tung-Sheng Zhan, Chih-Cheng Kao, Chin-Der Yang, Jong-Ian Tsai

Abstract:

Fossil fuel-firing power plants dominate electric power generation in Taiwan, which are also the major contributor to Green House gases (GHG). CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas that cause global warming. This paper penetrates the relationship between carbon trading for GHG reduction and power generation expansion planning (GEP) problem for the electrical utility. The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) Algorithm is presented to deal with the generation expansion planning strategy of the utility with independent power providers (IPPs). The utility has to take both the IPPs- participation and environment impact into account when a new generation unit is considering expanded from view of supply side.

Keywords: Carbon Trading, CO2 Emission, GenerationExpansion Planning (GEP), Green House gases (GHG), ParticleSwarm Optimization (PSO).

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1032 Augmented Reality for Maintenance Operator for Problem Inspections

Authors: Chong-Yang Qiao, Teeravarunyou Sakol

Abstract:

Current production-oriented factories need maintenance operators to work in shifts monitoring and inspecting complex systems and different equipment in the situation of mechanical breakdown. Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology that embeds data into the environment for situation awareness to help maintenance operators make decisions and solve problems. An application was designed to identify the problem of steam generators and inspection centrifugal pumps. The objective of this research was to find the best medium of AR and type of problem solving strategies among analogy, focal object method and mean-ends analysis. Two scenarios of inspecting leakage were temperature and vibration. Two experiments were used in usability evaluation and future innovation, which included decision-making process and problem-solving strategy. This study found that maintenance operators prefer build-in magnifier to zoom the components (55.6%), 3D exploded view to track the problem parts (50%), and line chart to find the alter data or information (61.1%). There is a significant difference in the use of analogy (44.4%), focal objects (38.9%) and mean-ends strategy (16.7%). The marked differences between maintainers and operators are of the application of a problem solving strategy. However, future work should explore multimedia information retrieval which supports maintenance operators for decision-making.

Keywords: Augmented reality, situation awareness, decision-making, problem-solving.

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1031 Japan’s Challenges in Managing Resources and Implementing Strategies toward Sustainability

Authors: Dana Aljadaa, Hasim Altan

Abstract:

Japan’s strategy is based on improving the current resources and productivity by identifying the environmental challenges to progress further in many areas. For example, it will help in understanding the competitive challenges in the industry, emerging innovation, and other progresses. The present study seeks to examine the characteristics of sustainable practices using materials that will last longer and following environmental policies. There has been a major emphasis since 1990s and onwards about recycling and preserving the environment. Furthermore, the present paper analyses and argues how national interest in policy increases resource productivity. It is a universal law, but these actions may be different based on the unique situation of the country. In addition, the present study explains some of the strategies developed by the Environmental Agency of Japan in the last few years. There are a few resources reviewed involving ‘Strategy for an Environmental Nation in the 21st Century’ from 2001, ‘Clean Asia Initiative’ from 2008, and ‘New Growth Strategy’ from 2010. The present paper also highlights the emphasis on increasing efficiency, as it is an important part of sustainability. We finally conclude by providing reasoning on the impact and positivity of reducing production and consumption on the environment, resulting in a productive and progressive Japan for the near and long term future.

Keywords: Green innovation, sustainable development, resource productivity, sound material-cycle society, waste management.

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1030 ParkedGuard: An Efficient and Accurate Parked Domain Detection System Using Graphical Locality Analysis and Coarse-To-Fine Strategy

Authors: Chia-Min Lai, Wan-Ching Lin, Hahn-Ming Lee, Ching-Hao Mao

Abstract:

As world wild internet has non-stop developments, making profit by lending registered domain names emerges as a new business in recent years. Unfortunately, the larger the market scale of domain lending service becomes, the riskier that there exist malicious behaviors or malwares hiding behind parked domains will be. Also, previous work for differentiating parked domain suffers two main defects: 1) too much data-collecting effort and CPU latency needed for features engineering and 2) ineffectiveness when detecting parked domains containing external links that are usually abused by hackers, e.g., drive-by download attack. Aiming for alleviating above defects without sacrificing practical usability, this paper proposes ParkedGuard as an efficient and accurate parked domain detector. Several scripting behavioral features were analyzed, while those with special statistical significance are adopted in ParkedGuard to make feature engineering much more cost-efficient. On the other hand, finding memberships between external links and parked domains was modeled as a graph mining problem, and a coarse-to-fine strategy was elaborately designed by leverage the graphical locality such that ParkedGuard outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of both recall and precision rates.

Keywords: Coarse-to-fine strategy, domain parking service, graphical locality analysis, parked domain.

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1029 The Strategy of Creating a Virtual Interactive Platform for the Low-Carbon Open Innovations Relay

Authors: Mykola S. Shestavin

Abstract:

A strategy for the creation of a Virtual Interactive Platform (or Networking Platform) to combine the four web-baseness of expert systems on the transfer and diffusion of low-carbon technologies. It used the concept of “Open Innovation” and “Triple Helix” with regard to theories of “Green Growth” and “Carbon Footprint”. Interpreters expert systems operate on the basis of models of the “Predator-Prey” for the process of transfer and diffusion of technologies, taking into account the features caused by the need to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Keywords: Climate Change, Expert Systems, Low-Carbon Technology, Open Innovation, Virtual Interactive Platform.

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1028 An Elin Load Tap Changer Diagnosis by DGA

Authors: Hoda Molavi, Alireza Zahiri, Katayoon Anvarizadeh

Abstract:

Dissolved gas analysis has been accepted as a sensitive, informative and reliable technique for incipient faults detection in power transformers and is widely used. In the last few years this method, which has been recommended by IEEE Power & Energy society, has been applied for fault detection in load tap changers. Regarding the critical role of load tap changers in electrical network and essential of catastrophic failures prevention, it is necessary to choose "condition based preventative maintenance strategy" which leads to reduction in costs, the number of unnecessary visits as well as the probability of interruptions and also increment in equipment reliability. In current work, considering the condition based preventative maintenance strategy, condition assessment of an Elin tap changer was carried out using dissolved gas analysis.

Keywords: Condition Assessment, Dissolved Gas Analysis, Load Tap Changer

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1027 Walkability as a Strategy towards Inclusive Communities: Case of a Portuguese Small Town

Authors: Miguel Amado, João Freitas, Eveline Rodrigues, Rosario Ribeiro

Abstract:

The United Nations has defined the inclusive community as “…promoting growth with equity, a place where everyone, regardless of their economic means, gender, race, ethnicity or religion, is enabled and empowered to fully participate in the social, economic and political opportunities that cities have to offer”. In this paper, the concept of walkability is viewed as an important tool towards the planning and future development of more inclusive communities. Walking is the cheapest and cleanest mode of travel available to all providing large benefits to both health and local economic development. To demonstrate the validity of this strategy a set of parameters, selected from existing research, were measure, compared and discussed in the existing and proposed scenarios of a Portuguese small town using GIS software.

Keywords: GIS, Inclusiveness, Planning, Sustainability, Walkability.

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1026 Distributed Coordination of Connected and Automated Vehicles at Multiple Interconnected Intersections

Authors: Zhiyuan Du, Baisravan Hom Chaudhuri, Pierluigi Pisu

Abstract:

In connected vehicle systems where wireless communication is available among the involved vehicles and intersection controllers, it is possible to design an intersection coordination strategy that leads the connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) travel through the road intersections without the conventional traffic light control. In this paper, we present a distributed coordination strategy for the CAVs at multiple interconnected intersections that aims at improving system fuel efficiency and system mobility. We present a distributed control solution where in the higher level, the intersection controllers calculate the road desired average velocity and optimally assign reference velocities of each vehicle. In the lower level, every vehicle is considered to use model predictive control (MPC) to track their reference velocity obtained from the higher level controller. The proposed method has been implemented on a simulation-based case with two-interconnected intersection network. Additionally, the effects of mixed vehicle types on the coordination strategy has been explored. Simulation results indicate the improvement on vehicle fuel efficiency and traffic mobility of the proposed method.

Keywords: Connected vehicles, automated vehicles, intersection coordination systems, multiple interconnected intersections, model predictive control.

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1025 A Decision Support Model for Bank Branch Location Selection

Authors: Nihan Cinar

Abstract:

Location selection is one of the most important decision making process which requires to consider several criteria based on the mission and the strategy. This study-s object is to provide a decision support model in order to help the bank selecting the most appropriate location for a bank-s branch considering a case study in Turkey. The object of the bank is to select the most appropriate city for opening a branch among six alternatives in the South-Eastern of Turkey. The model in this study was consisted of five main criteria which are Demographic, Socio-Economic, Sectoral Employment, Banking and Trade Potential and twenty one subcriteria which represent the bank-s mission and strategy. Because of the multi-criteria structure of the problem and the fuzziness in the comparisons of the criteria, fuzzy AHP is used and for the ranking of the alternatives, TOPSIS method is used.

Keywords: MCDM, bank branch location, fuzzy AHP, TOPSIS.

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1024 Satisfaction of Distance Education University Students with the Use of Audio Media as a Medium of Instruction: The Case of Mountains of the Moon University in Uganda

Authors: Mark Kaahwa, Chang Zhu, Moses Muhumuza

Abstract:

This study investigates the satisfaction of distance education university students (DEUS) with the use of audio media as a medium of instruction. Studying students’ satisfaction is vital because it shows whether learners are comfortable with a certain instructional strategy or not. Although previous studies have investigated the use of audio media, the satisfaction of students with an instructional strategy that combines radio teaching and podcasts as an independent teaching strategy has not been fully investigated. In this study, all lectures were delivered through the radio and students had no direct contact with their instructors. No modules or any other material in form of text were given to the students. They instead, revised the taught content by listening to podcasts saved on their mobile electronic gadgets. Prior to data collection, DEUS received orientation through workshops on how to use audio media in distance education. To achieve objectives of the study, a survey, naturalistic observations and face-to-face interviews were used to collect data from a sample of 211 undergraduate and graduate students. Findings indicate that there was no statistically significant difference in the levels of satisfaction between male and female students. The results from post hoc analysis show that there is a statistically significant difference in the levels of satisfaction regarding the use of audio media between diploma and graduate students. Diploma students are more satisfied compared to their graduate counterparts. T-test results reveal that there was no statistically significant difference in the general satisfaction with audio media between rural and urban-based students. And ANOVA results indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in the levels of satisfaction with the use of audio media across age groups. Furthermore, results from observations and interviews reveal that DEUS found learning using audio media a pleasurable medium of instruction. This is an indication that audio media can be considered as an instructional strategy on its own merit.

Keywords: Audio media, distance education, distance education university students, medium of instruction, satisfaction.

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1023 Power Control of DFIG in WECS Using Backstipping and Sliding Mode Controller

Authors: A. Boualouch, A. Essadki, T. Nasser, A. Boukhriss, A. Frigui

Abstract:

This paper presents a power control for a Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) using in Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS) connected to the grid. The proposed control strategy employs two nonlinear controllers, Backstipping (BSC) and slidingmode controller (SMC) scheme to directly calculate the required rotor control voltage so as to eliminate the instantaneous errors of active and reactive powers. In this paper the advantages of BSC and SMC are presented, the performance and robustness of this two controller’s strategy are compared between them. First, we present a model of wind turbine and DFIG machine, then a synthesis of the controllers and their application in the DFIG power control. Simulation results on a 1.5MW grid-connected DFIG system are provided by MATLAB/Simulink.

Keywords: Backstipping, DFIG, power control, sliding-mode, WESC.

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1022 Improving Co-integration Trading Rule Profitability with Forecasts from an Artificial Neural Network

Authors: Paul Lajbcygier, Seng Lee

Abstract:

Co-integration models the long-term, equilibrium relationship of two or more related financial variables. Even if cointegration is found, in the short run, there may be deviations from the long run equilibrium relationship. The aim of this work is to forecast these deviations using neural networks and create a trading strategy based on them. A case study is used: co-integration residuals from Australian Bank Bill futures are forecast and traded using various exogenous input variables combined with neural networks. The choice of the optimal exogenous input variables chosen for each neural network, undertaken in previous work [1], is validated by comparing the forecasts and corresponding profitability of each, using a trading strategy.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, co-integration, forecasting, trading rule.

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