Search results for: Matter fields.

Authors: Yen-Yiu Liu, Richard J. Haynes

Abstract:

The effects of irrigation with dairy factory wastewater on soil properties were investigated at two sites that had received irrigation for > 60 years. Two adjoining paired sites that had never received DFE were also sampled as well as another seven fields from a wider area around the factory. In comparison with paired sites that had not received effluent, long-term wastewater irrigation resulted in an increase in pH, EC, extractable P, exchangeable Na and K and ESP. These changes were related to the use of phosphoric acid, NaOH and KOH as cleaning agents in the factory. Soil organic C content was unaffected by DFE irrigation but the size (microbial biomass C and N) and activity (basal respiration) of the soil microbial community were increased. These increases were attributed to regular inputs of soluble C (e.g. lactose) present as milk residues in the wastewater. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the soils data from all 11sites confirmed that the main effects of DFE irrigation were an increase in exchangeable Na, extractable P and microbial biomass C, an accumulation of soluble salts and a liming effect. PCA analysis of soil bacterial community structure, using PCR-DGGE of 16S rDNA fragments, generally separated individual sites from one another but did not group them according to irrigation history. Thus, whilst the size and activity of the soil microbial community were increased, the structure and diversity of the bacterial community remained unaffected.

Keywords: Dairy factory, wastewater; effluent, irrigation, soil quality.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1989

Authors: L. Plošek, F. Nsanganwimana, B. Pourrut, J. Elbl, J. Hynšt, A. Kintl, D. Kubná, J. Záhora

Abstract:

Land degradation is of concern in many countries. People more and more must address the problems associated with the degradation of soil properties due to man. Increasingly, organic soil amendments, such as compost are being examined for their potential use in soil restoration and for preventing soil erosion. In the Czech Republic, compost is the most used to improve soil structure and increase the content of soil organic matter. Land reclamation / restoration is one of the ways to evaluate industrially produced compost because Czech farmers are not willing to use compost as organic fertilizer. The most common use of reclamation substrates in the Czech Republic is for the rehabilitation of landfills and contaminated sites.

This paper deals with the influence of reclamation substrates (RS) with different proportions of compost and sand on selected soil properties–chemical characteristics, nitrogen bioavailability, leaching of mineral nitrogen, respiration activity and plant biomass production. Chemical properties vary proportionally with addition of compost and sand to the control variant (topsoil). The highest differences between the variants were recorded in leaching of mineral nitrogen (varies from 1.36mg dm^-3 in C to 9.09mg dm^-3). Addition of compost to soil improves conditions for plant growth in comparison with soil alone. However, too high addition of compost may have adverse effects on plant growth. In addition, high proportion of compost increases leaching of mineral N. Therefore, mixture of 70% of soil with 10% of compost and 20% of sand may be recommended as optimal composition of RS.

Keywords: Biomass, Compost, Reclamation, Respiration.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2275

Authors: Omar Boutkhoum, Mohamed Hanine, Abdessadek Bendarag

Abstract:

Sustainable economic growth is nowadays driving firms to extend toward the adoption of many green supply chain management (GSCM) solutions. However, the evaluation and selection of these solutions is a matter of concern that needs very serious decisions, involving complexity owing to the presence of various associated factors. To resolve this problem, a comparative analysis approach based on multi-criteria decision-making methods is proposed for adequate evaluation of sustainable supply chain management solutions. In the present paper, we propose an integrated decision-making model based on FAHP (Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process), TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organisation METHod for Enrichment Evaluations) to contribute to a better understanding and development of new sustainable strategies for industrial organizations. Due to the varied importance of the selected criteria, FAHP is used to identify the evaluation criteria and assign the importance weights for each criterion, while TOPSIS and PROMETHEE methods employ these weighted criteria as inputs to evaluate and rank the alternatives. The main objective is to provide a comparative analysis based on TOPSIS and PROMETHEE processes to help make sound and reasoned decisions related to the selection problem of GSCM solution.

Keywords: GSCM solutions, multi-criteria analysis, FAHP, TOPSIS, PROMETHEE, decision support system.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 888

Authors: A. Tellaeche, X. P. Burgos-Artizzu, G. Pajares, A. Ribeiro

Abstract:

One important objective in Precision Agriculture is to minimize the volume of herbicides that are applied to the fields through the use of site-specific weed management systems. In order to reach this goal, two major factors need to be considered: 1) the similar spectral signature, shape and texture between weeds and crops; 2) the irregular distribution of the weeds within the crop's field. This paper outlines an automatic computer vision system for the detection and differential spraying of Avena sterilis, a noxious weed growing in cereal crops. The proposed system involves two processes: image segmentation and decision making. Image segmentation combines basic suitable image processing techniques in order to extract cells from the image as the low level units. Each cell is described by two area-based attributes measuring the relations among the crops and the weeds. From these attributes, a hybrid decision making approach determines if a cell must be or not sprayed. The hybrid approach uses the Support Vector Machines and the Fuzzy k-Means methods, combined through the fuzzy aggregation theory. This makes the main finding of this paper. The method performance is compared against other available strategies.

Keywords: Fuzzy k-Means, Precision agriculture, SupportVectors Machines, Weed detection.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1731

Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Vanja I. Akova, Stefan V. Krustev, Krasimir I. Ivanov

Abstract:

A field study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of safflower plant for phytoremediation of contaminated soils. The experiment was performed on an agricultural fields contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Field experiments with randomized complete block design with five treatments (control, compost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa, and vermicompost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa) were carried out. The quality of safflower seeds and oil (heavy metals and fatty acid composition) were determined. Tested organic amendments significantly influenced the chemical composition of safflower seeds and oil. The compost and vermicompost treatments significantly reduced heavy metals concentration in safflower seeds and oils, but the effect differed among them. Addition of vermicompost and compost leads to an increase in the content of palmitic acid and linoleic acid, and a decrease in the stearic and oleic acids compared with the control. A significant increase in the quantity of saturated acids was observed in the variants with 20 t/daa of compost and 20 t/daa of vermicompost (9.1 and 8.9% relative to the control). Safflower is a plant which is tolerant to heavy metals and can be successfully used in the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils. The processing of seeds to oil and using the obtained oil for nutritional purposes will greatly reduce the cost of phytoremediation.

Keywords: Heavy metals, organic amendments, phytoremediation, safflower.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2755

Authors: Imelda Smit

Abstract:

Systems Analysis and Design is a key subject in Information Technology courses, but students do not find it easy to cope with, since it is not “precise" like programming and not exact like Mathematics. It is a subject working with many concepts, modeling ideas into visual representations and then translating the pictures into a real life system. To complicate matters users who are not necessarily familiar with computers need to give their inputs to ensure that they get the system the need. Systems Analysis and Design also covers two fields, namely Analysis, focusing on the analysis of the existing system and Design, focusing on the design of the new system. To be able to test the analysis and design of a system, it is necessary to develop a system or at least a prototype of the system to test the validity of the analysis and design. The skills necessary in each aspect differs vastly. Project Management Skills, Database Knowledge and Object Oriented Principles are all necessary. In the context of a developing country where students enter tertiary education underprepared and the digital divide is alive and well, students need to be motivated to learn the necessary skills, get an opportunity to test it in a “live" but protected environment – within the framework of a university. The purpose of this article is to improve the learning experience in Systems Analysis and Design through reviewing the underlying teaching principles used, the teaching tools implemented, the observations made and the reflections that will influence future developments in Systems Analysis and Design. Action research principles allows the focus to be on a few problematic aspects during a particular semester.

Keywords: Action Research, Project Development, Systems Analysis and Design, Technology in Teaching.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1411

Authors: Lida Haghnegahdar, Ezzatollah Asgharizadeh

Abstract:

Value engineering is an efficacious contraption for administrators to make up their minds. Value perusals proffer the gaffers a suitable instrument to decrease the expenditures of the life span, quality amelioration, structural improvement, curtailment of the construction schedule, longevity prolongation or a merging of the aforementioned cases. Subjecting organizers to pressures on one hand and their accountability towards their pertinent fields together with inherent risks and ambiguities of other options on the other hand set some comptrollers in a dilemma utilization of risk management and the value engineering in projects manipulation with regard to complexities of implementing projects can be wielded as a contraption to identify and efface each item which wreaks unnecessary expenses and time squandering sans inflicting any damages upon the essential project applications. Of course It should be noted that implementation of risk management and value engineering with regard to the betterment of efficiency and functions may lead to the project implementation timing elongation. Here time revamping does not refer to time diminishing in the whole cases. his article deals with risk and value engineering conceptualizations at first. The germane reverberations effectuated due to its execution in Iran Khodro Corporation are regarded together with the joint features and amalgamation of the aforesaid entia; hence the proposed blueprint is submitted to be taken advantage of in engineering and industrial projects including Iran Khodro Corporation.

Keywords: Management, risk engineering, value engineering, project manipulation, Iran Khodro.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2313

Authors: Abdoulaye Diop, Nahid Emad, Thierry Winter, Mohamed Hilia

Abstract:

Data assets protection is a crucial issue in the cybersecurity field. Companies use logical access control tools to vault their information assets and protect them against external threats, but they lack solutions to counter insider threats. Nowadays, insider threats are the most significant concern of security analysts. They are mainly individuals with legitimate access to companies information systems, which use their rights with malicious intents. In several fields, behavior anomaly detection is the method used by cyber specialists to counter the threats of user malicious activities effectively. In this paper, we present the step toward the construction of a user and entity behavior analysis framework by proposing a behavior anomaly detection model. This model combines machine learning classification techniques and graph-based methods, relying on linear algebra and parallel computing techniques. We show the utility of an ensemble learning approach in this context. We present some detection methods tests results on an representative access control dataset. The use of some explored classifiers gives results up to 99% of accuracy.

Keywords: Cybersecurity, data protection, access control, insider threat, user behavior analysis, ensemble learning, high performance computing.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1085

Authors: Kyung Jin Ryu, MakhsudaJuraeva, Sang-Hyun Jeongand Dong Joo Song

Abstract:

Clean air in subway station is important to passengers. The Platform Screen Doors (PSDs) can improve indoor air quality in the subway station; however the air quality in the subway tunnel is degraded. The subway tunnel has high CO2 concentration and indoor particulate matter (PM) value. The Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) level in subway environment degrades by increasing the frequency of the train operation and the number of the train. The ventilation systems of the subway tunnel need improvements to have better air-quality. Numerical analyses might be effective tools to analyze the performance of subway twin-track tunnel ventilation systems. An existing subway twin-track tunnel in the metropolitan Seoul subway system is chosen for the numerical simulations. The ANSYS CFX software is used for unsteady computations of the airflow inside the twin-track tunnel when the train moves. The airflow inside the tunnel is simulated when one train runs and two trains run at the same time in the tunnel. The piston-effect inside the tunnel is analyzed when all shafts function as the natural ventilation shaft. The supplied air through the shafts is mixed with the pollutant air in the tunnel. The pollutant air is exhausted by the mechanical ventilation shafts. The supplied and discharged airs are balanced when only one train runs in the twin-track tunnel. The pollutant air in the tunnel is high when two trains run simultaneously in opposite direction and all shafts functioned as the natural shaft cases when there are no electrical power supplies in the shafts. The remained pollutant air inside the tunnel enters into the station platform when the doors are opened.

Keywords: indoor air quality, subway twin-track tunnel, train-induced wind

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4293

Authors: A. Irudaya Veni Mary, M. Victor Louis Anthuvan, P. Christie, A. Indira

Abstract:

In India, social enterprises are working to create social value in various fields including education; health; women and child development; environment protection and community development. Although social enterprises have brought about tremendous changes in the lives of beneficiaries, the importance of their works is not understood thoroughly. One of the ways to prove themselves is to measure the impact, which in recent times has received much attention. This paper focuses on the study of social value created by the social enterprises in the field of community development. It also aims to put forth a research tool for measuring the social value created by the social enterprises in the field of community development. A close-ended interview schedule was prepared to measure the social value creation and it was administered among 60 beneficiaries of two social enterprises who work in the field of community development. The study results show that the social enterprises have brought four types of impact in the life of their beneficiaries; economic impact, social impact, political impact and cultural impact. This study is limited to the social enterprises those who work towards community development. This empirical finding will enable the reader to understand various types of social value created by the social enterprises working in the field of community development. This study will also serve as guide for social enterprises in community development activities to measure their impact and thereby improve their operation towards the betterment of the society. This paper is derived from an empirical research carried out to describe the different types of social value created by the social enterprises in India.

Keywords: Social enterprise, social entrepreneurs, social impact, social value, tool for social impact measurement.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1863

Authors: Worachat Wannawong, Usa W. Humphries, Prungchan Wongwises, Suphat Vongvisessomjai

Abstract:

The three steps of the standard one-way nested grid for a regional scale of the third generation WAve Model Cycle 4 (WAMC4) is scrutinized. The model application is enabled to solve the energy balance equation on a coarse resolution grid in order to produce boundary conditions for a smaller area by the nested grid technique. In the present study, the model takes a full advantage of the fine resolution of wind fields in space and time produced by the available U.S. Navy Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) model with 1 degree resolution. The nested grid application of the model is developed in order to gradually increase the resolution from the open ocean towards the South China Sea (SCS) and the Gulf of Thailand (GoT) respectively. The model results were compared with buoy observations at Ko Chang, Rayong and Huahin locations which were obtained from the Seawatch project. In addition, the results were also compared with Satun based weather station which was provided from Department of Meteorology, Thailand. The data collected from this station presented the significant wave height (Hs) reached 12.85 m. The results indicated that the tendency of the Hs from the model in the spherical coordinate propagation with deep water condition in the fine grid domain agreed well with the Hs from the observations.

Keywords: energy balance equation, Gulf of Thailand, nested gridapplication, South China Sea, wave model.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1554

Authors: B. Thiagarajan, R. Bremananth

Abstract:

Tumor is an uncontrolled growth of tissues in any part of the body. Tumors are of different types and they have different characteristics and treatments. Brain tumor is inherently serious and life-threatening because of its character in the limited space of the intracranial cavity (space formed inside the skull). Locating the tumor within MR (magnetic resonance) image of brain is integral part of the treatment of brain tumor. This segmentation task requires classification of each voxel as either tumor or non-tumor, based on the description of the voxel under consideration. Many studies are going on in the medical field using Markov Random Fields (MRF) in segmentation of MR images. Even though the segmentation process is better, computing the probability and estimation of parameters is difficult. In order to overcome the aforementioned issues, Conditional Random Field (CRF) is used in this paper for segmentation, along with the modified artificial bee colony optimization and modified fuzzy possibility c-means (MFPCM) algorithm. This work is mainly focused to reduce the computational complexities, which are found in existing methods and aimed at getting higher accuracy. The efficiency of this work is evaluated using the parameters such as region non-uniformity, correlation and computation time. The experimental results are compared with the existing methods such as MRF with improved Genetic Algorithm (GA) and MRF-Artificial Bee Colony (MRF-ABC) algorithm.

Keywords: Conditional random field, Magnetic resonance, Markov random field, Modified artificial bee colony.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2904

Authors: K. F. Khan, Samsuddin Khan

Abstract:

The Paleoproterozoic phosphorite deposit of Sallopat block of Banswara district of Rajasthan belongs to kalinjara formation of lunavada group of Aravalli Super Group. The phosphorites are found to occur as massive, brecciated, laminated and stromatolitic associated with calcareous quartzite, interbedded dolomite and multi coloured chert. The phosphorites are showing alternate brown and grey coloured concentric rims which are composed of phosphate, calcite and quartz minerals. Petro-mineralogical studies of phosphorite samples using petrological microscope, XRD, FEG- SEM and EDX reveal that apatite-(CaF) and apatite-(CaOH) are phosphate minerals which are intermixed with minor amount of carbonate materials. Sporadic findings of the uniform tiny granules of partially anisotropic apatite-(CaF) along with dolomite, calcite, quartz, muscovite, zeolite and other gangue minerals have been observed with the replacement of phosphate material by quartz and carbonate. The presence of microbial filaments of organic matter and alternate concentric rims of stromatolitic structure may suggest that the deposition of the phosphate took place in shallow marine oxidizing environmental conditions leading to the formation of phosphorite layers as primary biogenic precipitates by bacterial or algal activities. Different forms and texture of phosphate minerals may be due to environmental vicissitudes at the time of deposition followed by some replacement processes and biogenic activities.

Keywords: Petro-mineralogy, phosphorites, sallopat, apatite.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1603

Authors: Laura X. Martinez, Andrés F. Rodríguez, Ruth A. Catacoli

Abstract:

One of the most important factors for air pollution is that the concentrations of PM₁₀ maintain a constant trend, with the exception of some places where that frequently surpasses the allowed ranges established by Colombian legislation. The community that surrounds the Universidad Libre Bogotá is inhabited by a considerable number of students and workers, all of whom are possibly being exposed to PM₁₀ for long periods of time while on campus. Thus, the chemical characterization of PM₁₀ found in the ambient air at the Universidad Libre Bogotá was identified as a problem. A Hi-Vol sampler and EPA Test Method 5 were used to determine if the quality of air is adequate for the human respiratory system. Additionally, quartz fiber filters were utilized during sampling. Samples were taken three days a week during a dry period throughout the months of November and December 2015. The gravimetric analysis method was used to determine PM₁₀ concentrations. The chemical characterization includes non-conventional carcinogenic pollutants. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) was used for the determination of metals and VOCs were analyzed using the FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) method. In this way, concentrations of PM₁₀, ranging from values of 13 µg/m³ to 66 µg/m³, were obtained; these values were below standard conditions. This evidence concludes that the PM₁₀ concentrations during an exposure period of 24 hours are lower than the values established by Colombian law, Resolution 610 of 2010; however, when comparing these with the limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO), these concentrations could possibly exceed permissible levels.

Keywords: Air quality, atomic absorption spectrophotometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, particulate matter.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 875

Authors: Abimbola M. Enitan, Josiah Adeyemo, Sheena Kumari, Feroz M. Swalaha, Faizal Bux

Abstract:

Industries produce millions of cubic meters of effluent every year and the wastewater produced may be released into the surrounding water bodies, treated on-site or at municipal treatment plants. The determination of organic matter in the wastewater generated is very important to avoid any negative effect on the aquatic ecosystem. The scope of the present work is to assess the physicochemical composition of the wastewater produced from one of the brewery industry in South Africa. This is to estimate the environmental impact of its discharge into the receiving water bodies or the municipal treatment plant. The parameters monitored for the quantitative analysis of brewery wastewater include biological oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids, volatile suspended solids, ammonia, total oxidized nitrogen, nitrate, nitrite, phosphorus and alkalinity content. In average, the COD concentration of the brewery effluent was 5340.97 mg/l with average pH values of 4.0 to 6.7. The BOD5 and the solids content of the wastewater from the brewery industry were high. This means that the effluent is very rich in organic content and its discharge into the water bodies or the municipal treatment plant could cause environmental pollution or damage the treatment plant. In addition, there were variations in the wastewater composition throughout the monitoring period. This might be as a result of different activities that take place during the production process, as well as the effects of peak period of beer production on the water usage.

Keywords: Brewery wastewater, environmental pollution, industrial effluents, physicochemical composition.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10274

Authors: Smah Doeban Almotiri

Abstract:

One of the most common fields of natural language processing (NLP) is sentimental analysis. The inferred feeling in the text can be successfully mined for various events using sentiment analysis. Twitter is viewed as a reliable data point for sentimental analytics studies since people are using social media to receive and exchange different types of data on a broad scale during the COVID-19 epidemic. The processing of such data may aid in making critical decisions on how to keep the situation under control. The aim of this research is to look at how sentimental states differed in a single geographic region during the lockdown at two different times.1162 tweets were analyzed related to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown using keywords hashtags (lockdown, COVID-19) for the first sample tweets were from March 23, 2020, until April 23, 2020, and the second sample for the following year was from March 1, 2021, until April 4, 2021. Natural language processing (NLP), which is a form of Artificial intelligent was used for this research to calculate the sentiment value of all of the tweets by using AFINN Lexicon sentiment analysis method. The findings revealed that the sentimental condition in both different times during the region's lockdown was positive in the samples of this study, which are unique to the specific geographical area of New Zealand. This research suggests applied machine learning sentimental method such as Crystal Feel and extended the size of the sample tweet by using multiple tweets over a longer period of time.

Keywords: sentiment analysis, Twitter analysis, lockdown, Covid-19, AFINN, NodeJS

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 485

Authors: Siqing Chen

Abstract:

The vast rural landscape in the southern United States is conspicuously characterized by the hedgerow trees or groves. The patchwork landscape of fields surrounded by high hedgerows is a traditional and familiar feature of the American countryside. Hedgerows are in effect linear strips of trees, groves, or woodlands, which are often critical habitats for wildlife and important for the visual quality of the landscape. As landscape interfaces, hedgerows define the spaces in the landscape, give the landscape life and meaning, and enrich ecologies and cultural heritages of the American countryside. Although hedgerows were originally intended as fences and to mark property and townland boundaries, they are not merely the natural or man-made additions to the landscape--they have gradually become “naturalized" into the landscape, deeply rooted in the rural culture, and now formed an important component of the southern American rural environment. However, due to the ever expanding real estate industry and high demand for new residential development, substantial areas of authentic hedgerow landscape in the southern United States are being urbanized. Using Hudson Farm as an example, this study illustrated guidelines of how hedgerows can be integrated into town planning as green infrastructure and landscape interface to innovate and direct sustainable land use, and suggest ways in which such vernacular landscapes can be preserved and integrated into new development without losing their contextual inspiration.

Keywords: Hedgerow, Town planning, Sustainable design, Ecological infrastructure

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1638

Authors: Wafa Ghonaim

Abstract:

Though quite fast on growth, Islamic financing at large, and its diverse instruments, is a controversial matter among scholars. This is evident from the ongoing debates on its Shariah compliance. Arguments, however, are inciting doubts and concerns among clients about its credibility, which is harming this lucrative sector. The work here investigates, particularly, some issues related to the Tawarruq instrument. The work examines the issues of linking Murabaha and Wakala contracts, the reselling of commodities to same traders, and the transfer of ownerships. The work affirms that a multi-agent smart electronic market design would facilitate Shariah compliance. The smart market exploits the rational decision-making capabilities of autonomous proxy agents that enable the clients, traders, brokers, and the bank buy and sell commodities, and manage transactions and cash flow. The smart electronic market design delivers desirable qualities that terminate the need for Wakala contracts and the reselling of commodities to the same traders. It also resolves the ownership transfer issues by allowing stakeholders to trade independently. The bank administers the smart electronic market and assures reliability of trades, transactions and cash flow. A multi-agent simulation is presented to validate the concept and processes. We anticipate that the multi-agent smart electronic market design would deliver Shariah compliance of personal financing to the aspiration of scholars, banks, traders and potential clients.

Keywords: Islamic finance, Shariah compliance, smart electronic markets design, multi-agent systems.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 953

Authors: Kgomotso Matobole, Pascal Mwenge, Tumisang Seodigeng

Abstract:

The global urbanisation and worldwide economic growth have caused a high rate of food waste generation, resulting in environmental pollution. Food waste disposed on landfills decomposes to produce methane (CH₄), a greenhouse gas. Inadequate waste management practices contribute to food waste polluting the environment. Thus effective organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) management and treatment are attracting widespread attention in many countries. This problem can be minimised by the employment of anaerobic digestion process, since food waste is rich in organic matter and highly biodegradable, resulting in energy generation and waste volume reduction. The current study investigated the Biomethane Potential (BMP) of the Vaal University of Technology canteen food waste using anaerobic digestion. Tests were performed on canteen food waste, as a substrate, with total solids (TS) of 22%, volatile solids (VS) of 21% and moisture content of 78%. The tests were performed in batch reactors, at a mesophilic temperature of 37 °C, with two different types of inoculum, primary and digested sludge. The resulting CH₄ yields for both food waste with digested sludge and primary sludge were equal, being 357 Nml/g VS. This indicated that food waste form this canteen is rich in organic and highly biodegradable. Hence it can be used as a substrate for the anaerobic digestion process. The food waste with digested sludge and primary sludge both fitted the first order kinetic model with k for primary sludge inoculated food waste being 0.278 day^-1 with R² of 0.98, whereas k for digested sludge inoculated food waste being 0.034 day^-1, with R² of 0.847.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion, biogas, biomethane potential, food waste.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 876

Authors: Lai Yi-Hsiu

Abstract:

The present study addressed the nature of bilingual semantic processing in Mandarin Chinese and Southern Min and examined category effects and age effects. Nineteen bilingual adults of Mandarin Chinese and Southern Min, nine monolingual seniors of Mandarin Chinese, and ten monolingual seniors of Southern Min in Taiwan individually completed two semantic tasks: Picture naming and category fluency tasks. The instruments for the naming task were sixty black-and-white pictures, including thirty-five object pictures and twenty-five action pictures. The category fluency task also consisted of two semantic categories – objects (or nouns) and actions (or verbs). The reaction time for each picture/question was additionally calculated and analyzed. Oral productions in Mandarin Chinese and in Southern Min were compared and discussed to examine the category effects and age effects. The results of the category fluency task indicated that the content of information of these seniors was comparatively deteriorated, and thus they produced a smaller number of semantic-lexical items. Significant group differences were also found in the reaction time results. Category effects were significant for both adults and seniors in the semantic fluency task. The findings of the present study will help characterize the nature of the bilingual semantic processing of adults and seniors, and contribute to the fields of contrastive and corpus linguistics.

Keywords: Bilingual semantic processing, aging, Mandarin Chinese, Southern Min.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1259

Authors: Sadaf Khalid, Fahim Arif

Abstract:

Wide applicability of concurrent programming practices in developing various software applications leads to different concurrency errors amongst which data race is the most important. Java provides greatest support for concurrent programming by introducing various concurrency packages. Aspect oriented programming (AOP) is modern programming paradigm facilitating the runtime interception of events of interest and can be effectively used to handle the concurrency problems. AspectJ being an aspect oriented extension to java facilitates the application of concepts of AOP for data race detection. Volatile variables are usually considered thread safe, but they can become the possible candidates of data races if non-atomic operations are performed concurrently upon them. Various data race detection algorithms have been proposed in the past but this issue of volatility and atomicity is still unaddressed. The aim of this research is to propose some suggestions for incorporating certain conditions for data race detection in java programs at the volatile fields by taking into account support for atomicity in java concurrency packages and making use of pointcuts. Two simple test programs will demonstrate the results of research. The results are verified on two different Java Development Kits (JDKs) for the purpose of comparison.

Keywords: Aspect Bench Compiler (abc), Aspect OrientedProgramming (AOP), AspectJ, Aspects, Concurrency packages, Concurrent programming, Cross-cutting Concerns, Data race, Eclipse, Java, Java Development Kits (JDKs), Pointcuts

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1888

Authors: Tasneem Halawani, Yamen Khateeb

Abstract:

With customers’ ever-increasing expectations for fast services provisioning for all their business needs, information technology (IT) organizations, as business partners, have to cope with this demanding environment and deliver their services in the most effective and efficient way. The purpose of this paper is to identify optimization and automation opportunities for the top requested IT services in a heterogenic digital environment and widely spread customer base. In collaboration with systems, processes, and subject matter experts (SMEs), the processes in scope were approached by analyzing four-year related historical data, identifying and surveying stakeholders, modeling the as-is processes, and studying systems integration/automation capabilities. This effort resulted in identifying several pain areas, including standardization, unnecessary customer and IT involvement, manual steps, systems integration, and performance measurement. These pain areas were addressed by standardizing the top five requested IT services, eliminating/automating 43 steps, and utilizing a single platform for end-to-end process execution. In conclusion, the optimization of IT service request processes in a heterogenic digital environment and widely spread customer base is challenging, yet achievable without compromising the service quality and customers’ added value. Further studies can focus on measuring the value of the eliminated/automated process steps to quantify the enhancement impact. Moreover, a similar approach can be utilized to optimize other IT service requests, with a focus on business criticality.

Keywords: Automation, customer value, heterogenic, integration, IT services, optimization, processes.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 609

Authors: Liga Priecina, Daina Karklina

Abstract:

Antioxidants are became the most analyzed substances in last decades. Antioxidants act as in activator for free radicals. Spices and vegetables are one of major antioxidant sources. Most common antioxidants in vegetables and spices are vitamin C, E, phenolic compounds, carotenoids. Therefore, it is important to get some view about antioxidant changes in spices and vegetables during processing. In this article was analyzed nine fresh and dried spices and vegetables- celery (Apium graveolens), parsley (Petroselinum crispum), dill (Anethum graveolens), leek (Allium ampeloprasum L.), garlic (Allium sativum L.), onion (Allium cepa), celery root (Apium graveolens var. rapaceum), pumpkin (Curcubica maxima), carrot (Daucus carota)- grown in Latvia 2013. Total carotenoids and phenolic compounds and their antiradical scavenging activity were determined for all samples. Dry matter content was calculated from moisture content. After drying process carotenoid content significantly decreases in all analyzed samples, except one -carotenoid content increases in parsley. Phenolic composition was different and depends on sample – fresh or dried. Total phenolic, flavonoid and phenolic acid content increases in dried spices. Flavan-3-ol content is not detected in fresh spice samples. For dried vegetables- phenolic acid content decreases significantly, but increases flavan-3-ols content. The higher antiradical scavenging activity was observed in samples with higher flavonoid and phenolic acid content.

Keywords: Antiradical scavenging activity, carotenoids, phenolic compounds, spices, vegetables.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3602

Authors: Stephanie Fabris Russo, Daiane Costa Guimarães, Jonas Pedro Fabris, Maria Emilia Camargo, Suzana Leitão Russo, José Augusto Andrade Filho

Abstract:

Among renewable energy sources, solar energy is the one that has stood out. Solar radiation can be used as a thermal energy source and can also be converted into electricity by means of effects on certain materials, such as thermoelectric and photovoltaic panels. These panels are often used to generate energy in homes, buildings, arenas, etc., and have low pollution emissions. Thus, a technological prospecting was performed to find patents related to the use of photovoltaic plates in urban residences. The patent search was based on ESPACENET, associating the keywords photovoltaic and home, where we found 136 patent documents in the period of 1994-2015 in the fields title and abstract. Note that the years 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 had the highest number of applicants, with respectively, 11, 13, 23, 29, 15 and 21. Regarding the country that deposited about this technology, it is clear that China leads with 67 patent deposits, followed by Japan with 38 patents applications. It is important to note that most depositors, 50% are companies, 44% are individual inventors and only 6% are universities. On the International Patent classification (IPC) codes, we noted that the most present classification in results was H02J3/38, which represents provisions in parallel to feed a single network by two or more generators, converters or transformers. Among all categories, there is the H session, which means Electricity, with 70% of the patents.

Keywords: Prospecting, technology forecasting, photovoltaic, urban residences.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1098

Authors: M. Peña Aguilar Juan, Ríos Hernández Ezequiel, R. Valencia Luis

Abstract:

For certification, certain goods of public interest, such as medicines and food, it is required the preparation and delivery of a dossier. For its elaboration, legal and administrative knowledge must be taken, as well as organization of the documents of the process, and an order that allows the file verification. Therefore, a virtual platform was developed to support the process of management and elaboration of the dossier, providing accessibility to the information and interfaces that allow the user to know the status of projects. The development of dossier system on the cloud allows the inclusion of the technical requirements for the software management, including the validation and the manufacturing in the field industry. The platform guides and facilitates the dossier elaboration (report, file or history), considering Mexican legislation and regulations, it also has auxiliary tools for its management. This technological alternative provides organization support for documents and accessibility to the information required to specify the successful development of a dossier. The platform divides into the following modules: System control, catalog, dossier and enterprise management. The modules are designed per the structure required in a dossier in those areas. However, the structure allows for flexibility, as its goal is to become a tool that facilitates and does not obstruct processes. The architecture and development of the software allows flexibility for future work expansion to other fields, this would imply feeding the system with new regulations.

Keywords: Electronic dossier, technologies for management, web software, dossier elaboration, pharmaceutical industry.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1162

Authors: Leonor Varandas, Pedro D. Gaspar, Martim L. Aguiar

Abstract:

One of the biggest concerns in the field of agriculture is around the energy efficiency of robots that will perform agriculture’s activity and their charging methods. In this paper, two different charging methods for agricultural standalone docking stations are shown that will take into account various variants as field size and its irregularities, work’s nature to which the robot will perform, deadlines that have to be respected, among others. Its features also are dependent on the orchard, season, battery type and its technical specifications and cost. First charging base method focuses on wireless charging, presenting more benefits for small field. The second charging base method relies on battery replacement being more suitable for large fields, thus avoiding the robot stop for recharge. Existing many methods to charge a battery, the CC CV was considered the most appropriate for either simplicity or effectiveness. The choice of the battery for agricultural purposes is if most importance. While the most common battery used is Li-ion battery, this study also discusses the use of graphene-based new type of batteries with 45% over capacity to the Li-ion one. A Battery Management Systems (BMS) is applied for battery balancing. All these approaches combined showed to be a promising method to improve a lot of technical agricultural work, not just in terms of plantation and harvesting but also about every technique to prevent harmful events like plagues and weeds or even to reduce crop time and cost.

Keywords: Agricultural mobile robot, charging base methods, battery replacement method, wireless charging method.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 787

Authors: Cristiano R. Cervi, Renata Galante, José Palazzo M. de Oliveira

Abstract:

In this paper, we address the problem of identifying academic reputation of researchers using scientific metrics in different research areas. Due to the characteristics of each area, researchers can present different behaviors. In previous work, we define Rep-Index that makes use of a profile template to individually identify the reputation of researchers. The Rep-Index is comprehensive and adaptive because involves hole trajectory of the researcher built throughout his career and can be used in different areas and in different contexts. Now, we compare our metric (Rep-Index) with the h-index and the g-index through experiments with researchers in the fields of Economics, Dentistry and Computer Science. We analyze the trajectory of 830 Brazilian researchers from the National Council of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq), which receive grants research productivity. The grants are aimed at productivity researchers that stand out among their peers, enhancing their scientific normative criteria established by CNPq. Of the 830 researchers, 210 are in the area of Economics, 216 of Dentistry e 404 of Computer Science. The experiments show that our metric is strongly correlated with h-index, g-index and CNPq ranking. We also show good results for our hypothesis that our metric can be used to evaluate research in several areas. We apply our metric (Rep-Index) to compare the behavior of researchers in relation to their h-index and g-index through extensive experiments. The experiments showed that our metric is strongly correlated with h-index, g-index and CNPq ranking.

Keywords: Researcher reputation, profile model, scientific metrics.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1957

Authors: Mazziotti Gomez de Teran C., Fiore D., Cola B., Fardelli A.

Abstract:

The present paper summarizes the analysis of the request for consultation of information and data on industrial emissions made publicly available on the web site of the Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea on integrated pollution prevention and control from large industrial installations, the so called “AIA Portal”. As a matter of fact, a huge amount of information on national industrial plants is already available on internet, although it is usually proposed as textual documentation or images. Thus, it is not possible to access all the relevant information through interoperability systems and also to retrieval relevant information for decision making purposes as well as rising of awareness on environmental issue. Moreover, since in Italy the number of institutional and private subjects involved in the management of the public information on industrial emissions is substantial, the access to the information is provided on internet web sites according to different criteria; thus, at present it is not structurally homogeneous and comparable. To overcome the mentioned difficulties in the case of the Coordinating Committee for the implementation of the Agreement for the industrial area in Taranto and Statte, operating before the IPPC permit granting procedures of the relevant installation located in the area, a big effort was devoted to elaborate and to validate data and information on characterization of soil, ground water aquifer and coastal sea at disposal of different subjects to derive a global perspective for decision making purposes. Thus, the present paper also focuses on main outcomes matured during such experience.

Keywords: Public information, emissions into atmosphere, IPPC permits, territorial information systems.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2021

Authors: Jakub Elbl, Lukas Plošek, Antonín Kintl, Jaroslav Záhora, Jitka Přichystalová, Jaroslav Hynšt

Abstract:

Application of compost in agriculture is very desirable worldwide. In the Czech Republic, compost is the most often used to improve soil structure and increase the content of soil organic matter, but the effects of compost addition on the fate of mineral nitrogen are only scarcely described. This paper deals with possibility of using combined application of compost, mineral and organic fertilizers to reduce the leaching of mineral nitrogen from arable land. To demonstrate the effect of compost addition on leaching of mineral nitrogen, we performed the pot experiment. As a model crop, Lactuca sativa L. was used and cultivated for 35 days in climate chamber in thoroughly homogenized arable soil. Ten variants of the experiment were prepared; two control variants (pure arable soil and arable soil with added compost), four variants with different doses of mineral and organic fertilizers and four variants of the same doses of mineral and organic fertilizers with the addition of compos. The highest decrease of mineral nitrogen leaching was observed by the simultaneous applications of soluble humic substances and compost to soil samples, about 417% in comparison with the control variant. Application of these organic compounds also supported microbial activity and nitrogen immobilization documented by the highest soil respiration and by the highest value of the index of nitrogen availability. The production of plant biomass after this application was not the highest due to microbial competition for the nutrients in soil, but was 24% higher in comparison with the control variant. To support these promising results the experiment should be repeated in field conditions.

Keywords: Nitrogen, Compost, Salad, Arable land.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2026

Authors: F. Laaouad, M. Bouguerra, A. Hafaifa, A. Iratni

Abstract:

In this work, we treat the problems related to chemical and petrochemical plants of a certain complex process taking the centrifugal compressor as an example, a system being very complex by its physical structure as well as its behaviour (surge phenomenon). We propose to study the application possibilities of the recent control approaches to the compressor behaviour, and consequently evaluate their contribution in the practical and theoretical fields. Facing the studied industrial process complexity, we choose to make recourse to fuzzy logic for analysis and treatment of its control problem owing to the fact that these techniques constitute the only framework in which the types of imperfect knowledge can jointly be treated (uncertainties, inaccuracies, etc..) offering suitable tools to characterise them. In the particular case of the centrifugal compressor, these imperfections are interpreted by modelling errors, the neglected dynamics, no modelisable dynamics and the parametric variations. The purpose of this paper is to produce a total robust nonlinear controller design method to stabilize the compression process at its optimum steady state by manipulating the gas rate flow. In order to cope with both the parameter uncertainty and the structured non linearity of the plant, the proposed method consists of a linear steady state regulation that ensures robust optimal control and of a nonlinear compensation that achieves the exact input/output linearization.

Keywords: Compressor, Fuzzy logic, Surge control, Bilinearcontroller, Stability analysis, Nonlinear plant.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2101