Search results for: volume rate.
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 32920

Search results for: volume rate.

5950 RTCoord: A Methodology to Design WSAN Applications

Authors: J. Barbarán, M. Díaz, I. Esteve, D. Garrido, L. Llopis, B. Rubio

Abstract:

Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs) constitute an emerging and pervasive technology that is attracting increasing interest in the research community for a wide range of applications. WSANs have two important requirements: coordination interactions and real-time communication to perform correct and timely actions. This paper introduces a methodology to facilitate the task of the application programmer focusing on the coordination and real-time requirements of WSANs. The methodology proposed in this model uses a real-time component model, UM-RTCOM, which will help us to achieve the design and implementation of applications in WSAN by using the component oriented paradigm. This will help us to develop software components which offer some very interesting features, such as reusability and adaptability which are very suitable for WSANs as they are very dynamic environments with rapidly changing conditions. In addition, a high-level coordination model based on tuple channels (TC-WSAN) is integrated into the methodology by providing a component-based specification of this model in UM-RTCOM; this will allow us to satisfy both sensor-actor and actor-actor coordination requirements in WSANs. Finally, we present in this paper the design and implementation of an application which will help us to show how the methodology can be easily used in order to achieve the development of WSANs applications.

Keywords: Sensor networks, real time and embedded systems.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1282
5949 Investigations of Flow Field with Different Turbulence Models on NREL Phase VI Blade

Authors: T. Y. Liu, C. H Lin., Y. M Ferng

Abstract:

Wind energy is one of the clean renewable energy. However, the low frequency (20-200HZ) noise generated from the wind turbine blades, which bothers the residents, becomes the major problem to be developed. It is useful for predicting the aerodynamic noise by flow field and pressure distribution analysis on the wind turbine blades. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to use different turbulence models to analyze the flow field and pressure distributions of the wing blades.

Three-dimensional Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of the flow field was used to calculate the flow phenomena for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Phase VI horizontal axis wind turbine rotor. Two different flow cases with different wind speeds were investigated: 7m/s with 72rpm and 15m/s with 72rpm.

Four kinds of RANS-based turbulence models, Standard k-ε, Realizable k-ε, SST k-ω, and v2f, were used to predict and analyze the results in the present work. The results show that the predictions on pressure distributions with SST k-ω and v2f turbulence models have good agreements with experimental data.

Keywords: Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine, turbulence model, noise.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2133
5948 Experiences and Impact of Attachment among Women with Insecure Attachment in Cohabitation: Implications for Therapeutic Practice

Authors: Ka Yan Chan

Abstract:

Cohabitation among couples has been increasingly common in recent decades. Nonetheless, insufficient attention was given to the impact of attachment on cohabitation. This study discussed the experience of cohabitation among women with insecure attachments by collecting qualitative data through semi-structured interviews. Through thematic analysis, the study explored the characteristics of the women, the formation of cohabitation, struggles, coping mechanisms, and the impacts of cohabitation on the women. Moreover, the influences of the family-of-origin on cohabitation and the needs of the women were explored. The findings indicated that insecure attachment and the family-of-origin had significant effects on cohabitation and the interaction among the cohabitating couples. Women with insecure attachments were more likely to enter cohabitation unconsciously and without discussing what cohabitation means for their relationship with their partners. The findings also suggested that committing to marriage was not the only method for the women to feel secure in the relationship. Instead, long-lasting love and care, as well as reliability from their partners, could satisfy their emotional needs. More importantly, the findings revealed that repairing attachment problems and dealing with challenges in life stage transition is associated with positive impacts on the cohabitation experience. Additionally, to meet the needs of diverse family structures and to provide all-rounded support for enhancing the wellbeing of individuals, cohabitants, and couples, a comprehensive intervention model of relationship enrichment was discussed. 

Keywords: cohabitation, family-of-origin, insecure attachment, relationship enrichment

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 288
5947 Quality of Life of the Beneficiaries of the Government’s Bolsa Família Program: A Case Study in Mateiros/TO/Brazil

Authors: Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino, Veruska C. Dutra, Carlos H. C. Tolentino

Abstract:

The quality of life index, despite elucidating many discussions, the conceptual subjectivity of the term does not show precision, and consequently, many researchers seek to develop methods aiming to measure this concept, bringing it to a more concrete approach. In this study, the quality of life index method was used to analyze the population of Mateiros, Tocantins, Brazil for quality of life. After data collection, it was compared the quality of life index between the population and the group of beneficiaries of the Brazilian government assistance program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Some of the people interviewed receive financial aid from the federal government program Bolsa Família (22%). Comparisons were made among the final score of the quality of life index of the Mateiros population and the following factors: Gender, age, education, those working or not with tourism and those who receive or do not receive the Bolsa Família. It was observed that only the factor, Bolsa Família (p-score 0.0138), shows an association with quality of life improvement, noticing that those who have financial aid had a higher quality of life improvement than the rest of the population. It was concluded that, government assistance has shown a decisive element on the enhancement of Mateiros population quality of life, indicating that similar actions should be maintained.

Keywords: Quality of life index, government aid to families, sustainable tourism, Bolsa Familia.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1774
5946 A Development of Online Lessons to Strengthen the Learning Process of Master's Degree Students Majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University

Authors: Chaiwat Waree

Abstract:

The purposes of the research were to develop online lessons to strengthen the learning process of Master's degree students majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University; to achieve the efficiency criteria of 80/80; and to study the satisfaction of students who use online lessons to strengthen the learning process of Master’s degree students majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The sample consisted of 40 university students studying in semester 1, academic year 2012. The sample was determined by Purposive Sampling. Selected students were from the class which the researcher was the homeroom tutor. The tutor was responsible for the teaching of learning process. Tools used in the study were online lessons, 60-point performance test, and evaluation test of satisfaction of students on online lessons. Data analysis yielded the following results; 83.66/88.29 efficiency of online lessons measured against the criteria; the comparison of performance before and after taking online lessons using t-test yielded 29.67. The statistical significance was at 0.05; the average satisfaction level of forty students on online lessons was 4.46 with standard deviation of 0.68.

Keywords: Online Lessons, Curriculum and Instruction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1412
5945 Influence of Heterogeneous Traffic on the Roadside Fine (PM2.5 and PM1) and Coarse(PM10) Particulate Matter Concentrations in Chennai City, India

Authors: Srimuruganandam. B, S.M. Shiva Nagendra

Abstract:

In this paper the influence of heterogeneous traffic on the temporal variation of ambient PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 concentrations at a busy arterial route (Sardar Patel Road) in the Chennai city has been analyzed. The hourly PM concentration, traffic counts and average speed of the vehicles have been monitored at the study site for one week (19th-25th January 2009). Results indicated that the concentrations of coarse (PM10) and fine PM (PM2.5 and PM1) concentrations at SP road are having similar trend during peak and non-peak hours, irrespective of the days. The PM concentrations showed daily two peaks corresponding to morning (8 to 10 am) and evening (7 to 9 pm) peak hour traffic flow. The PM10 concentration is dominated by fine particles (53% of PM2.5 and 45% of PM1). The high PM2.5/PM10 ratio indicates that the majority of PM10 particles originate from re-suspension of road dust. The analysis of traffic flow at the study site showed that 2W, 3W and 4W are having similar diurnal trend as PM concentrations. This confirms that the 2W, 3W and 4W are the main emission source contributing to ambient PM concentration at SP road. The speed measurement at SP road showed that the average speed of 2W, 3W, 4W, LCV and HCV are 38, 40, 38, 40 and 38 km/hr and 43, 41, 42, 40 and 41 km/hr respectively for the weekdays and weekdays.

Keywords: particulate matter, heterogeneous traffic, fineparticles, coarse particles, vehicle speed, weekend and weekday.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1436
5944 Effects of Increased Green Surface on a Densely Built Urban Fabric: The Case of Budapest

Authors: Viktória Sugár, Orsolya Frick, Gabriella Horváth, A. Bendegúz Vöröss, Péter Leczovics, Géza Baráth

Abstract:

Urban greenery has multiple positive effects both on the city and its residents. Apart from the visual advantages, it changes the micro-climate by cooling and shading, also increasing vapor and oxygen, reducing dust and carbon-dioxide content at the same time. The above are all critical factors of livability of an urban fabric. Unfortunately, in a dense, historical district there are restricted possibilities to build green surfaces. The present study collects and systemizes the applicable green solutions in the case of a historical downtown district of Budapest. The study contains a GIS-based measurement of the eligible surfaces for greenery, and also calculates the potential of oxygen production, carbon-dioxide reduction and cooling effect of an increased green surface.  It can be concluded that increasing the green surface has measurable effects on a densely built urban fabric, including air quality, micro-climate and other environmental factors.

Keywords: Urban greenery, green roof, green wall, green surface potential, sustainable city, oxygen production, carbon-dioxide reduction, geographical information system, GIS.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 894
5943 Human Resources Recruitment Defining Peculiarities of Students as Job Seekers

Authors: O. Starineca

Abstract:

Some organizations as employers have difficulties to attract job seekers and retain their employees. Strategic planning of Human Resources (HR) presumes broad analysis of perspectives including analysis of potential job seekers in the field. Human Resources Recruitment (HRR) influences employer brand of an organization and peculiarities of both external organizational factors and stakeholders. Defining peculiarities of the future job seekers, who could potentially become the employees of the organization, could help to adjust HRR tools and methods adapt to the youngest generation employees’ preferences and be more successful in selecting the best candidates, who are likely to be loyal to the employer. The aim of the empirical study is definition of some students’ as job seekers peculiarities and their requirements to their potential employer. The survey in Latvia, Lithuania and Spain. Respondents were students from these countries’ tertiary education institutions Public Administration (PA) or relevant study programs. All three countries students’ peculiarities have just a slight difference. Overall, they all wish to work for a socially responsible employer that is able to provide positive working environment and possibilities for professional development and learning. However, respondents from each country have own peculiarities. The study might have a practical application. PA of the examined countries might use the results developing employer brand and creating job advertisements focusing on recent graduates’ recruitment.

Keywords: Generation Y, human resources recruitment, public administration.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1177
5942 Modeling the Effects of Type and Intensity of Selective Logging on Forests of the Amazon

Authors: Theodore N.S. Karfakis, Anna Andrade, Carolina Volkmer-Castilho, Dennis R. Valle, Eric Arets, Paul van Gardingen

Abstract:

The aim of the work presented here was to either use existing forest dynamic simulation models or calibrate a new one both within the SYMFOR framework with the purpose of examining changes in stand level basal area and functional composition in response to selective logging considering trees > 10 cm d.b.h for two areas of undisturbed Amazonian non flooded tropical forest in Brazil and one in Peru. Model biological realism was evaluated for forest in the undisturbed and selectively logged state and it was concluded that forest dynamics were realistically represented. Results of the logging simulation experiments showed that in relation to undisturbed forest simulation subject to no form of harvesting intervention there was a significant amount of change over a 90 year simulation period that was positively proportional to the intensity of logging. Areas which had in the dynamic equilibrium of undisturbed forest a greater proportion of a specific ecological guild of trees known as the light hardwoods (LHW’s) seemed to respond more favorably in terms of less deviation but only within a specific range of baseline forest composition beyond which compositional diversity became more important. These finds are in line partially with practical management experience and partiality basic systematics theory respectively.

Keywords: Amazonbasin, ecological species guild, selective logging, simulation modeling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1648
5941 Robust Design and Optimization of Production Wastes: An Application for Industries

Authors: Christopher C. Ihueze, Charles C. Okpala, Christian E. Okafor, Peter O. Ogbobe

Abstract:

This paper focuses on robust design and optimization of industrial production wastes. Past literatures were reviewed to case study Clamason Industries Limited (CIL) - a leading ladder-tops manufacturer. A painstaking study of the firm-s practices at the shop floor revealed that Over-production, Waiting time, Excess inventory, and Defects are the major wastes that are impeding their progress and profitability. Design expert8 software was used to apply Taguchi robust design and response surface methodology in order to model, analyse and optimise the wastes cost in CIL. Waiting time and overproduction rank first and second in contributing to the costs of wastes in CIL. For minimal wastes cost the control factors of overproduction, waiting-time, defects and excess-inventory must be set at 0.30, 390.70, 4 and 55.70 respectively for CIL. The optimal value of cost of wastes for the months studied was 22.3679. Finally, a recommendation was made that for the company to enhance their profitability and customer satisfaction, they must adopt the Shingeo Shingo-s Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), which will immediately tackle the waste of waiting by drastically reducing their setup time.

Keywords: Excess-inventory, setup time, single minute exchange of dies, optimal value, over-production, robust design.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1695
5940 Improvement of Milk Production with Half Day Milking; a Case Study of Communal Goat Housing in Sukorejo, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Authors: Yuni Suranindyah, Kustantinah, E. R. Ôêàrskov

Abstract:

The case study was conducted to show the effect of  milking method in goat called half day milking on the milk production and the growth of kids. Data were collected by  interviewing farmers and investigating goat production in the  communal goat housing from June 2008 to May 2009. The interview  was conducted to collect data about goat management. The  observations were conducted on 10 goats, which were selected based  on the uniformity of age, number of kid born/goat and the milking method in practice. The samples were divided into two groups; those  were full 3 months nursing and half day milked goats (in this group the kids were separated from goat during the previous night milking  and then the kids were allowed to suck the goat during the day). The result showed that the communal goat housing had 138 goats and 25% of the farmers milked the goat. The implementation of half day milking increased the milk production significantly (P<0.05) and it did not affect the kids’ growth. It was concluded that half day milking was beneficial to increase milk production. In the communal goat housing was possible to implement the result of this innovation to all members of the farmer group as a method in increasing goat milk production.

Keywords: Communal goat housing, milk production.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1707
5939 Emotion Dampening Strategy and Internalizing Problem Behavior: Affect Intensity as Control Variables

Authors: Jia-Ru Li, Chia-Jung Li, Ching-Wen Lin

Abstract:

Contrary to negative emotion regulation, coping with positive moods have received less attention in adolescent adjustment. However, some research has found that everyone is different on dealing with their positive emotions, which affects their adaptation and well-being. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between positive emotions dampening and internalizing behavior problems of adolescent in Taiwan. A survey was conducted and 208 students (12 to14 years old) completed the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ), the Affect Intensity Measure, and the positive emotions dampening scale. Analysis methods such as descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson correlations and multiple regression were adapted. The results were as follows: Emotionality and internalizing problem behavior have significant gender differences. Compared to boys, girls have a higher score on negative emotionality and are at a higher risk for internalizing symptoms. However, there are no gender differences on positive emotion dampening. Additionally, in the circumstance that negative emotionality acted as the control variable, positive emotion dampening strategy was (positive) related to internalizing behavior problems. Given the results of this study, it is suggested that coaching deconstructive positive emotion strategies is to assist adolescents with internalizing behavior problems is encouraged.

Keywords: Emotion dampening strategies, internalizing problem behaviors, affect intensity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1999
5938 Fragility Assessment for Vertically Irregular Buildings with Soft Storey

Authors: N. Akhavan, Sh. Tavousi Tafreshi, A. Ghasemi

Abstract:

Seismic behavior of irregular structures through the past decades indicate that the stated buildings do not have appropriate performance. Among these subjects, the current paper has investigated the behavior of special steel moment frame with different configuration of soft storey vertically. The analyzing procedure has been evaluated with respect to incremental dynamic analysis (IDA), and numeric process was carried out by OpenSees finite element analysis package. To this end, nine 2D steel frames, with different numbers of stories and irregularity positions, which were subjected to seven pairs of ground motion records orthogonally with respect to Ibarra-Krawinkler deterioration model, have been investigated. This paper aims at evaluating the response of two-dimensional buildings incorporating soft storey which subjected to bi-directional seismic excitation. The IDAs were implemented for different stages of PGA with various ground motion records, in order to determine maximum inter-storey drift ratio. According to statistical elements and fracture range (standard deviation), the vulnerability or exceedance from above-mentioned cases has been examined. For this reason, fragility curves for different placement of soft storey in the first, middle and the last floor for 4, 8, and 16 storey buildings have been generated and compared properly.

Keywords: Special steel moment frame, soft storey, incremental dynamic analysis, fragility curve.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1447
5937 Comparison among Various Question Generations for Decision Tree Based State Tying in Persian Language

Authors: Nasibeh Nasiri, Dawood Talebi Khanmiri

Abstract:

Performance of any continuous speech recognition system is highly dependent on performance of the acoustic models. Generally, development of the robust spoken language technology relies on the availability of large amounts of data. Common way to cope with little data for training each state of Markov models is treebased state tying. This tying method applies contextual questions to tie states. Manual procedure for question generation suffers from human errors and is time consuming. Various automatically generated questions are used to construct decision tree. There are three approaches to generate questions to construct HMMs based on decision tree. One approach is based on misrecognized phonemes, another approach basically uses feature table and the other is based on state distributions corresponding to context-independent subword units. In this paper, all these methods of automatic question generation are applied to the decision tree on FARSDAT corpus in Persian language and their results are compared with those of manually generated questions. The results show that automatically generated questions yield much better results and can replace manually generated questions in Persian language.

Keywords: Decision Tree, Markov Models, Speech Recognition, State Tying.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1706
5936 In vitro Susceptibility of Madurella mycetomatis to the Extracts of Anogeissus leiocarpus Leaves

Authors: Ikram Mohamed Eltayeb Elsiddig, Abdel Khalig Muddather, Hiba Abdel Rahman Ali, Saad Mohamed Hussein Ayoub

Abstract:

Anogeissus leiocarpus (Combretaceae) is well known for its medicinal uses in African traditional medicine, for treating many human diseases mainly skin diseases and infections. Mycetoma disease is a fungal and/ or bacterial skininfection, mainly cause by Madurella mycetomatis fungus. This study was carried out in vitro to investigate the antifungal activity of Anogeissus leiocarpus leaf extracts against the isolated pathogenic Madurella mycetomatis, by using the NCCLS modified method compared to Ketoconazole standard drug, and MTT assay. The bioactive fraction was subjected to chemical analysis implementing different chromatographic analytical methods (TLC, HPLC, and LC-MS/MS). The results showed significance antifungal activity of A. leiocarpus leaf extracts against the isolated pathogenic M. mycetomatis, compared to negative and positive controls. The chloroform fraction showed the highest antifungal activity. The chromatographic analysis of the chloroform fraction with the highest activity showed the presence of important bioactive compounds such as ellagic and flavellagic acids derivatives, flavonoids and stilbenoid, which are well known for their antifungal activity.

Keywords: Anogeissus leiocarpus, crude extracts and fractions of Anogeissus leiocarpus, in vitro susceptibility of Madurella mycetomatis, Madurella mycetomatis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2287
5935 The Tyrosinase and Cyclooxygenase Inhibitory Activities and Cytotoxicity Screening of Tamarindus indica Seeds

Authors: P. Thongmuang, Y. Sudjaroen

Abstract:

The methanolic extracts from seeds of tamarind (Tamarindus indica) was prepared by Soxhlet apparatus extraction and evaluated for total phenolic content by Folin-Ciocalteu method. Then, methanolic extract was screened biological activities (In vitro) for anti-melanogenic activity by tyrosinase inhibition test, antiinflammation activity by cyclooxygenase 1 (COX-1) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) inhibition test, and cytotoxic screening test with Vero cells. The results showed that total phenolic content, which contained in extract, was contained 27.72 mg of gallic acid equivalent per g of dry weight. The ability to inhibit tyrosinase enzyme, which exerted by Tamarind seed extracts (1 mg/ml) was 52.13 ± 0.42 %. The extract was not possessed inhibitory effect to COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes and cytotoxic effect to Vero cells. The finding is concludes that tested seed extract was possessed antimelanogenic activity with non-toxic effects. However, there was not exhibited anti-inflammatory activity. Further studies include the use of advance biological models to confirm this biological activity, as well as, the isolation and characterization of the purified compounds that it was contained.

Keywords: Tamarindus indica, anti-melanogenic, antiinflammatotion, cytotoxicity, seed, phenolic compounds.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2918
5934 Half Model Testing for Canard of a Hybrid Buoyant Aircraft

Authors: A. U. Haque, W. Asrar, A. A. Omar, E. Sulaeman, J. S. Mohamed Ali

Abstract:

Due to the interference effects, the intrinsic aerodynamic parameters obtained from the individual component testing are always fundamentally different than those obtained for complete model testing. Consideration and limitation for such testing need to be taken into account in any design work related to the component buildup method. In this paper, the scaled model of a straight rectangular canard of a hybrid buoyant aircraft is tested at 50 m/s in IIUM-LSWT (Low Speed Wind Tunnel). Model and its attachment with the balance are kept rigid to have results free from the aeroelastic distortion. Based on the velocity profile of the test section’s floor; the height of the model is kept equal to the corresponding boundary layer displacement. Balance measurements provide valuable but limited information of overall aerodynamic behavior of the model. Zero lift coefficient is obtained at -2.2o and the corresponding drag coefficient was found to be less than that at zero angle of attack. As a part of the validation of low fidelity tool, plot of lift coefficient plot was verified by the experimental data and except the value of zero lift coefficients, the overall trend has under predicted the lift coefficient. Based on this comparative study, a correction factor of 1.36 is proposed for lift curve slope obtained from the panel method.

Keywords: Wind tunnel testing, boundary layer displacement, lift curve slope, canard, aerodynamics.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2598
5933 Use of Caffeine and Human Pharmaceutical Compounds to Identify Sewage Contamination

Authors: Jingming Wu, Junqi Yue, Ruikang Hu, Zhaoguang Yang, Lifeng Zhang

Abstract:

Fecal coliform bacteria are widely used as indicators of sewage contamination in surface water. However, there are some disadvantages in these microbial techniques including time consuming (18-48h) and inability in discriminating between human and animal fecal material sources. Therefore, it is necessary to seek a more specific indicator of human sanitary waste. In this study, the feasibility was investigated to apply caffeine and human pharmaceutical compounds to identify the human-source contamination. The correlation between caffeine and fecal coliform was also explored. Surface water samples were collected from upstream, middle-stream and downstream points respectively, along Rochor Canal, as well as 8 locations of Marina Bay. Results indicate that caffeine is a suitable chemical tracer in Singapore because of its easy detection (in the range of 0.30-2.0 ng/mL), compared with other chemicals monitored. Relative low concentrations of human pharmaceutical compounds (< 0.07 ng/mL) in Rochor Canal and Marina Bay water samples make them hard to be detected and difficult to be chemical tracer. However, their existence can help to validate sewage contamination. In addition, it was discovered the high correlation exists between caffeine concentration and fecal coliform density in the Rochor Canal water samples, demonstrating that caffeine is highly related to the human-source contamination.

Keywords: Caffeine, Human Pharmaceutical Compounds, Chemical Tracer, Sewage Contamination.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2495
5932 A Method of Representing Knowledge of Toolkits in a Pervasive Toolroom Maintenance System

Authors: A. Mohamed Mydeen, Pallapa Venkataram

Abstract:

The learning process needs to be so pervasive to impart the quality in acquiring the knowledge about a subject by making use of the advancement in the field of information and communication systems. However, pervasive learning paradigms designed so far are system automation types and they lack in factual pervasive realm. Providing factual pervasive realm requires subtle ways of teaching and learning with system intelligence. Augmentation of intelligence with pervasive learning necessitates the most efficient way of representing knowledge for the system in order to give the right learning material to the learner. This paper presents a method of representing knowledge for Pervasive Toolroom Maintenance System (PTMS) in which a learner acquires sublime knowledge about the various kinds of tools kept in the toolroom and also helps for effective maintenance of the toolroom. First, we explicate the generic model of knowledge representation for PTMS. Second, we expound the knowledge representation for specific cases of toolkits in PTMS. We have also presented the conceptual view of knowledge representation using ontology for both generic and specific cases. Third, we have devised the relations for pervasive knowledge in PTMS. Finally, events are identified in PTMS which are then linked with pervasive data of toolkits based on relation formulated. The experimental environment and case studies show the accuracy and efficient knowledge representation of toolkits in PTMS.

Keywords: Generic knowledge representation, toolkit, toolroom, pervasive computing.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2010
5931 Bit Model Based Key Management Scheme for Secure Group Communication

Authors: R. Varalakshmi

Abstract:

For the last decade, researchers have started to focus their interest on Multicast Group Key Management Framework. The central research challenge is secure and efficient group key distribution. The present paper is based on the Bit model based Secure Multicast Group key distribution scheme using the most popular absolute encoder output type code named Gray Code. The focus is of two folds. The first fold deals with the reduction of computation complexity which is achieved in our scheme by performing fewer multiplication operations during the key updating process. To optimize the number of multiplication operations, an O(1) time algorithm to multiply two N-bit binary numbers which could be used in an N x N bit-model of reconfigurable mesh is used in this proposed work. The second fold aims at reducing the amount of information stored in the Group Center and group members while performing the update operation in the key content. Comparative analysis to illustrate the performance of various key distribution schemes is shown in this paper and it has been observed that this proposed algorithm reduces the computation and storage complexity significantly. Our proposed algorithm is suitable for high performance computing environment.

Keywords: Multicast Group key distribution, Bit model, Integer Multiplications, reconfigurable mesh, optimal algorithm, Gray Code, Computation Complexity, Storage Complexity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1956
5930 Determination of an Efficient Differentiation Pathway of Stem Cells Employing Predictory Neural Network Model

Authors: Mughal Yar M, Israr Ul Haq, Bushra Noman

Abstract:

The stem cells have ability to differentiated themselves through mitotic cell division and various range of specialized cell types. Cellular differentiation is a way by which few specialized cell develops into more specialized.This paper studies the fundamental problem of computational schema for an artificial neural network based on chemical, physical and biological variables of state. By doing this type of study system could be model for a viable propagation of various economically important stem cells differentiation. This paper proposes various differentiation outcomes of artificial neural network into variety of potential specialized cells on implementing MATLAB version 2009. A feed-forward back propagation kind of network was created to input vector (five input elements) with single hidden layer and one output unit in output layer. The efficiency of neural network was done by the assessment of results achieved from this study with that of experimental data input and chosen target data. The propose solution for the efficiency of artificial neural network assessed by the comparatative analysis of “Mean Square Error" at zero epochs. There are different variables of data in order to test the targeted results.

Keywords: Computational shcmin, meiosis, mitosis, neuralnetwork, Stem cell SOM;

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1486
5929 Building a Personalized Multidimensional Intelligent Learning System

Authors: Lun-Ping Hung, Nan-Chen Hsieh, Chia-Ling Ho, Chien-Liang Chen

Abstract:

Currently, most of distance learning courses can only deliver standard material to students. Students receive course content passively which leads to the neglect of the goal of education – “to suit the teaching to the ability of students". Providing appropriate course content according to students- ability is the main goal of this paper. Except offering a series of conventional learning services, abundant information available, and instant message delivery, a complete online learning environment should be able to distinguish between students- ability and provide learning courses that best suit their ability. However, if a distance learning site contains well-designed course content and design but fails to provide adaptive courses, students will gradually loss their interests and confidence in learning and result in ineffective learning or discontinued learning. In this paper, an intelligent tutoring system is proposed and it consists of several modules working cooperatively in order to build an adaptive learning environment for distance education. The operation of the system is based on the result of Self-Organizing Map (SOM) to divide students into different groups according to their learning ability and learning interests and then provide them with suitable course content. Accordingly, the problem of information overload and internet traffic problem can be solved because the amount of traffic accessing the same content is reduced.

Keywords: Distance Learning, Intelligent Tutoring System(ITS), Self-Organizing Map (SOM)

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1844
5928 The Effects of Soil Chemical Characteristics on Accumulation of Native Selenium by Zea mays Grains in Maize Belt in Kenya

Authors: S. B. Otieno, T. S. Jayne, M. Muyanga

Abstract:

Selenium is an-antioxidant which is important for human health enters food chain through crops. In Kenya Zea mays is consumed by 96% of population hence is a cheap and convenient method to provide selenium to large number of population. Several soil factors are known to have antagonistic effects on selenium speciation hence the uptake by Zea mays. There are no studies in Kenya that has been done to determine the effects of soil characteristics (pH, Tcarbon, CEC, Eh) affect accumulation of selenium in Zea mays grains in Maize Belt in Kenya. About 100 Zea mays grain samples together with 100 soil samples were collected from the study site put in separate labeled Ziplocs and were transported to laboratories at room temperature for analysis. Maize grains were analyzed for selenium while soil samples were analyzed for pH, Cat Ion Exchange Capacity, total carbon, and electrical conductivity. The mean selenium in Zea mays grains varied from 1.82 ± 0.76 mg/Kg to 11±0.86 mg/Kg. There was no significant difference between selenium levels between different grain batches {χ (Df =76) = 26.04 P= 1.00} The pH levels varied from 5.43± 0.58 to 5.85± 0.32. No significant correlations between selenium in grains and soil pH (Pearson’s correlations = - 0.143), and between selenium levels in grains and the four (pH, Tcarbon, CEC, Eh) soil chemical characteristics {F (4,91) = 0.721 p = 0.579} was observed. It can be concluded that the soil chemical characteristics in the study site did not significantly affect the accumulation of native selenium in Zea mays grains.

Keywords: Maize, native, soil, selenium.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2010
5927 The Principle of the Protection of Legitimate Expectation: Analysis the Adjudications of Thailand Court

Authors: Paiboon Chuwatthanakij

Abstract:

In reference to the legal state in the Thai legal system, most people understand the minor principles of the legal state form, which are the principles that can be explained and understood easily and the results can be seen clearly, especially in the legitimacy of administrative acts. Therefore, there is no awareness of justice, which is the fundamental value of Thai law. The legitimacy of administrative acts requires the administration to adhere to the constitution and legislative laws in enforcement of the laws. If it appears that the administrative acts are illegitimate, the administrative court, as the court of justice, will revoke those acts as if they had never been set in the legal system, this will affect people’s trust as they are unaware as to whether the administrative acts that appoint their lives are legitimate or not. Regarding the revocation of administrative orders by the administrative court as if those orders had never existed, the common individual surely cannot be expected to comprehend the security of their juristic position. Therefore, the legal state does not require a revocation of the government’s acts to terminate its legal results merely because those acts are illegitimate, but there should be considerations and realizations regarding the “The Principle of the Protection of Legitimate Expectation,” which is a minor principle in the legal state’s content that focuses on supporting and protecting legitimate expectations of the juristic position of an individual and maintaining justice, which is the fundamental value of Thai law.

Keywords: Legal state, Rule of law, Protection of legitimate.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2344
5926 Educational Experiences in Engineering in the COVID-19 Era and Their Comparative Analysis: Spain, March-June 2020

Authors: Borja Bordel, Ramón Alcarria, Marina Pérez

Abstract:

In March 2020, in Spain, a sanitary and unexpected crisis caused by COVID-19 was declared. All of a sudden, all degrees, classes and evaluation tests and projects had to be transformed into online activities. However, the chaotic situation generated by a complex operation like that, executed without any well-established procedure, led to very different experiences and, finally, results. In this paper, we are describing three experiences in two different Universities in Madrid. On the one hand, the Technical University of Madrid, a public university with little experience in online education was considered. On the other hand, Alfonso X el Sabio University, a private university with more than five years of experience in online teaching was involved. All analyzed subjects were related to computer engineering. Professors and students answered a survey and personal interviews were also carried out. Besides, the professors’ workload and the students’ academic results were also compared. From the comparative analysis of all these experiences, we are extracting the most successful strategies, methodologies, and activities. The recommendations in this paper will be useful for courses during the next months when the sanitary situation is still affecting an educational organization. While, at the same time, they will be considered as input for the upcoming digitalization process of higher education.

Keywords: educational experience, online education, higher education digitalization, COVID, Spain

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 425
5925 Learning to Order Terms: Supervised Interestingness Measures in Terminology Extraction

Authors: Jérôme Azé, Mathieu Roche, Yves Kodratoff, Michèle Sebag

Abstract:

Term Extraction, a key data preparation step in Text Mining, extracts the terms, i.e. relevant collocation of words, attached to specific concepts (e.g. genetic-algorithms and decisiontrees are terms associated to the concept “Machine Learning" ). In this paper, the task of extracting interesting collocations is achieved through a supervised learning algorithm, exploiting a few collocations manually labelled as interesting/not interesting. From these examples, the ROGER algorithm learns a numerical function, inducing some ranking on the collocations. This ranking is optimized using genetic algorithms, maximizing the trade-off between the false positive and true positive rates (Area Under the ROC curve). This approach uses a particular representation for the word collocations, namely the vector of values corresponding to the standard statistical interestingness measures attached to this collocation. As this representation is general (over corpora and natural languages), generality tests were performed by experimenting the ranking function learned from an English corpus in Biology, onto a French corpus of Curriculum Vitae, and vice versa, showing a good robustness of the approaches compared to the state-of-the-art Support Vector Machine (SVM).

Keywords: Text-mining, Terminology Extraction, Evolutionary algorithm, ROC Curve.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1643
5924 Data-driven Multiscale Tsallis Complexity: Application to EEG Analysis

Authors: Young-Seok Choi

Abstract:

This work proposes a data-driven multiscale based quantitative measures to reveal the underlying complexity of electroencephalogram (EEG), applying to a rodent model of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury and recovery. Motivated by that real EEG recording is nonlinear and non-stationary over different frequencies or scales, there is a need of more suitable approach over the conventional single scale based tools for analyzing the EEG data. Here, we present a new framework of complexity measures considering changing dynamics over multiple oscillatory scales. The proposed multiscale complexity is obtained by calculating entropies of the probability distributions of the intrinsic mode functions extracted by the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) of EEG. To quantify EEG recording of a rat model of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury following cardiac arrest, the multiscale version of Tsallis entropy is examined. To validate the proposed complexity measure, actual EEG recordings from rats (n=9) experiencing 7 min cardiac arrest followed by resuscitation were analyzed. Experimental results demonstrate that the use of the multiscale Tsallis entropy leads to better discrimination of the injury levels and improved correlations with the neurological deficit evaluation after 72 hours after cardiac arrest, thus suggesting an effective metric as a prognostic tool.

Keywords: Electroencephalogram (EEG), multiscale complexity, empirical mode decomposition, Tsallis entropy.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2041
5923 Exploring the Physical Environment and Building Features in Earthquake Disaster Areas

Authors: Chang Hsueh-Sheng, Chen Tzu-Ling

Abstract:

Earthquake is an unpredictable natural disaster and intensive earthquakes have caused serious impacts on social-economic system, environmental and social resilience. Conventional ways to mitigate earthquake disaster are to enhance building codes and advance structural engineering measures. However, earthquake-induced ground damage such as liquefaction, land subsidence, landslide happen on places nearby earthquake prone or poor soil condition areas. Therefore, this study uses spatial statistical analysis to explore the spatial pattern of damaged buildings. Afterwards, principle components analysis (PCA) is applied to categorize the similar features in different kinds of clustered patterns. The results show that serious landslide prone area, close to fault, vegetated ground surface and mudslide prone area are common in those highly damaged buildings. In addition, the oldest building might not be directly referred to the most vulnerable one. In fact, it seems that buildings built between 1974 and 1989 become more fragile during the earthquake. The incorporation of both spatial statistical analyses and PCA can provide more accurate information to subsidize retrofit programs to enhance earthquake resistance in particular areas.

Keywords: Earthquake disaster, spatial statistical analysis, principle components analysis, clustered patterns.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1355
5922 Skin Lesion Segmentation Using Color Channel Optimization and Clustering-based Histogram Thresholding

Authors: Rahil Garnavi, Mohammad Aldeen, M. Emre Celebi, Alauddin Bhuiyan, Constantinos Dolianitis, George Varigos

Abstract:

Automatic segmentation of skin lesions is the first step towards the automated analysis of malignant melanoma. Although numerous segmentation methods have been developed, few studies have focused on determining the most effective color space for melanoma application. This paper proposes an automatic segmentation algorithm based on color space analysis and clustering-based histogram thresholding, a process which is able to determine the optimal color channel for detecting the borders in dermoscopy images. The algorithm is tested on a set of 30 high resolution dermoscopy images. A comprehensive evaluation of the results is provided, where borders manually drawn by four dermatologists, are compared to automated borders detected by the proposed algorithm, applying three previously used metrics of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity and a new metric of similarity. By performing ROC analysis and ranking the metrics, it is demonstrated that the best results are obtained with the X and XoYoR color channels, resulting in an accuracy of approximately 97%. The proposed method is also compared with two state-of-theart skin lesion segmentation methods.

Keywords: Border detection, Color space analysis, Dermoscopy, Histogram thresholding, Melanoma, Segmentation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2226
5921 The Moderation Effect of Smart Phone Addiction in Relationship between Self-Leadership and Innovative Behavior

Authors: Gi-Ryun Park, Gye-Wan Moon, Dong-Hoon Yang

Abstract:

This study aims to explore the positive effects of self-leadership and innovative behavior that'd been proven in the existing researches proactively and understand the regulation effects of smartphone addiction which has recently become an issue in Korea. This study conducted a convenient sampling of college students attending the four colleges located at Daegu. A total of 210 questionnaires in 5-point Likert scale were distributed to college students. Among which, a total of 200 questionnaires were collected for our final analysis data. Both correlation analysis and regression analysis were carried out to verify those questionnaires through SPSS 20.0. As a result, college students' self-leadership had a significantly positive impact on innovative behavior (B= .210, P= .003). In addition, it is found that the relationship between self-leadership and innovative behavior can be adjusted depending on the degree of smartphone addiction in college students (B= .264, P= .000). This study could first understand the negative effects of smartphone addiction and find that if students' self-leadership is improved in terms of self-management and unnecessary use of smartphone is controlled properly, innovative behavior can be improved. In addition, this study is significant in that it attempts to identify a new impact of smartphone addiction with the recent environmental changes, unlike the existing researches that'd been carried out from the perspective of organizational behavior theory.

Keywords: Innovative Behavior, Revolutionary Behavior, Self-leadership, Smartphone Addiction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3044