Search results for: Mobile user.

Authors: Aqsa Ali, Aleem Mushtaq, Attaullah Memon, Monna

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In this paper, we present a low cost design for a smart glove that can perform sign language recognition to assist the speech impaired people. Specifically, we have designed and developed an Assistive Hand Gesture Interpreter that recognizes hand movements relevant to the American Sign Language (ASL) and translates them into text for display on a Thin-Film-Transistor Liquid Crystal Display (TFT LCD) screen as well as synthetic speech. Linear Bayes Classifiers and Multilayer Neural Networks have been used to classify 11 feature vectors obtained from the sensors on the glove into one of the 27 ASL alphabets and a predefined gesture for space. Three types of features are used; bending using six bend sensors, orientation in three dimensions using accelerometers and contacts at vital points using contact sensors. To gauge the performance of the presented design, the training database was prepared using five volunteers. The accuracy of the current version on the prepared dataset was found to be up to 99.3% for target user. The solution combines electronics, e-textile technology, sensor technology, embedded system and machine learning techniques to build a low cost wearable glove that is scrupulous, elegant and portable.

Keywords: American sign language, assistive hand gesture interpreter, human-machine interface, machine learning, sensing glove.

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Authors: R. Bremananth, A. Chitra

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Cryptography provides the secure manner of information transmission over the insecure channel. It authenticates messages based on the key but not on the user. It requires a lengthy key to encrypt and decrypt the sending and receiving the messages, respectively. But these keys can be guessed or cracked. Moreover, Maintaining and sharing lengthy, random keys in enciphering and deciphering process is the critical problem in the cryptography system. A new approach is described for generating a crypto key, which is acquired from a person-s iris pattern. In the biometric field, template created by the biometric algorithm can only be authenticated with the same person. Among the biometric templates, iris features can efficiently be distinguished with individuals and produces less false positives in the larger population. This type of iris code distribution provides merely less intra-class variability that aids the cryptosystem to confidently decrypt messages with an exact matching of iris pattern. In this proposed approach, the iris features are extracted using multi resolution wavelets. It produces 135-bit iris codes from each subject and is used for encrypting/decrypting the messages. The autocorrelators are used to recall original messages from the partially corrupted data produced by the decryption process. It intends to resolve the repudiation and key management problems. Results were analyzed in both conventional iris cryptography system (CIC) and non-repudiation iris cryptography system (NRIC). It shows that this new approach provides considerably high authentication in enciphering and deciphering processes.

Keywords: Autocorrelators, biometrics cryptography, irispatterns, wavelets.

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Authors: Bunakiye R. Japheth, Ogude U. Cyril

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Since the process of transforming user requirements to modeling constructs are not very well supported by domain-specific frameworks, it became necessary to integrate domain requirements with the specific architectures to achieve an integrated customizable solutions space via artifact orientation. Domain-specific modeling language specifications of model-driven engineering technologies focus more on requirements within a particular domain, which can be tailored to aid the domain expert in expressing domain concepts effectively. Modeling processes through domain-specific language formalisms are highly volatile due to dependencies on domain concepts or used process models. A capable solution is given by artifact orientation that stresses on the results rather than expressing a strict dependence on complicated platforms for model creation and development. Based on this premise, domain-specific methods for producing artifacts without having to take into account the complexity and variability of platforms for model definitions can be integrated to support customizable development. In this paper, we discuss methods for the integration capabilities and necessities within a common structure and semantics that contribute a metamodel for artifact-orientation, which leads to a reusable software layer with concrete syntax capable of determining design intents from domain expert. These concepts forming the language formalism are established from models explained within the oil and gas pipelines industry.

Keywords: Control process, metrics of engineering, structured abstraction, semantic model.

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Authors: Wernhuar Tarng, Yuan-Yuan Chen, Chien-Lung Li, Kun-Rong Hsie, Mingteh Chen

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An emotional speech recognition system for the applications on smart phones was proposed in this study to combine with 3G mobile communications and social networks to provide users and their groups with more interaction and care. This study developed a mechanism using the support vector machines (SVM) to recognize the emotions of speech such as happiness, anger, sadness and normal. The mechanism uses a hierarchical classifier to adjust the weights of acoustic features and divides various parameters into the categories of energy and frequency for training. In this study, 28 commonly used acoustic features including pitch and volume were proposed for training. In addition, a time-frequency parameter obtained by continuous wavelet transforms was also used to identify the accent and intonation in a sentence during the recognition process. The Berlin Database of Emotional Speech was used by dividing the speech into male and female data sets for training. According to the experimental results, the accuracies of male and female test sets were increased by 4.6% and 5.2% respectively after using the time-frequency parameter for classifying happy and angry emotions. For the classification of all emotions, the average accuracy, including male and female data, was 63.5% for the test set and 90.9% for the whole data set.

Keywords: Smart phones, emotional speech recognition, socialnetworks, support vector machines, time-frequency parameter, Mel-scale frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC).

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Authors: Hui-Min Lai, Chin-Pin Chen, Yung-Fu Chang

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The expectation-confirmation model (ECM) is one of the most widely used models for evaluating information system continuance, and this model has been extended to other study backgrounds, or expanded with other theoretical perspectives. However, combining ECM with other theories or investigating the background problem may produce some disparities, thus generating inaccurate conclusions. Habit is considered to be an important factor that influences the user’s continuance behavior. This paper thus critically examines seven pairs of relationships from the original ECM and the habit variable. A meta-analysis was used to tackle the development of ECM research over the last 10 years from a range of journals and conference papers published in 2005–2014. Forty-six journal articles and 19 conference papers were selected for analysis. The results confirm our prediction that a high effect size for the seven pairs of relationships was obtained (ranging from r=0.386 to r=0.588). Furthermore, a meta-analytic structural equation modeling was performed to simultaneously test all relationships. The results show that habit had a significant positive effect on continuance intention at p<=0.05 and that the six other pairs of relationships were significant at p<0.10. Based on the findings, we refined our original research model and an alternative model was proposed for understanding and predicting information system continuance. Some theoretical implications are also discussed.

Keywords: Expectation-confirmation theory, expectation- confirmation model, meta-analysis, meta-analytic structural equation modeling.

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Authors: Saeid Eshghi, Neeraj Saxena, Abdulmajeed Alsultan

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Carbon dioxide (CO₂) alongside other gas emissions in the atmosphere cause a greenhouse effect, resulting in an increase of the average temperature of the planet. Transportation vehicles are among the main contributors of CO₂ emission. Stationary vehicles with initiated motors produce more emissions than mobile ones. Intersections with traffic lights that force the vehicles to become stationary for a period of time produce more CO₂ pollution than other parts of the road. This paper focuses on analyzing the CO₂ produced by the traffic flow at Anzac Parade Road - Barker Street intersection in Sydney, Australia, before and after the implementation of Light rail transport (LRT). The data are gathered during the construction phase of the LRT by collecting the number of vehicles on each path of the intersection for 15 minutes during the evening rush hour of 1 week (6-7 pm, July 04-31, 2018) and then multiplied by 4 to calculate the flow of vehicles in 1 hour. For analyzing the data, the microscopic simulation software “VISSIM” has been used. Through the analysis, the traffic flow was processed in three stages: before and after implementation of light rail train, and one during the construction phase. Finally, the traffic results were input into another software called “EnViVer”, to calculate the amount of CO₂ during 1 h. The results showed that after the implementation of the light rail, CO₂ will drop by a minimum of 13%. This finding provides an evidence that light rail is a sustainable mode of transport.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide, emission modeling, light rail, microscopic model, traffic flow.

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Authors: Asad Ullah Madni, Mahmood Ahmad, Naveed Akhtar, Muhammad Usman

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A new and cost effective RP-HPLC method was developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of non steroidal anti inflammatory dugs Diclofenac sodium (DFS), Flurbiprofen (FLP) and an opioid analgesic Tramadol (TMD) in advanced drug delivery systems (Liposome and Microcapsules), marketed brands and human plasma. Isocratic system was employed for the flow of mobile phase consisting of 10 mM sodium dihydrogen phosphate buffer and acetonitrile in molar ratio of 67: 33 with adjusted pH of 3.2. The stationary phase was hypersil ODS column (C18, 250×4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm) with controlled temperature of 30 C°. DFS in liposomes, microcapsules and marketed drug products was determined in range of 99.76-99.84%. FLP and TMD in microcapsules and brands formulation were 99.78 - 99.94 % and 99.80 - 99.82 %, respectively. Single step liquid-liquid extraction procedure using combination of acetonitrile and trichloroacetic acid (TCA) as protein precipitating agent was employed. The detection limits (at S/N ratio 3) of quality control solutions and plasma samples were 10, 20, and 20 ng/ml for DFS, FLP and TMD, respectively. The Assay was acceptable in linear dynamic range. All other validation parameters were found in limits of FDA and ICH method validation guidelines. The proposed method is sensitive, accurate and precise and could be applicable for routine analysis in pharmaceutical industry as well as in human plasma samples for bioequivalence and pharmacokinetics studies.

Keywords: Diclofenac Sodium, Flurbiprofen, Tramadol, HPLCUV detection, Validation.

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Authors: Ju Young Lee, Jung-Seok Yang, Jaeyoung Choi

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The purpose of this paper primarily intends to develop GIS interface for estimating sequences of stream-flows at ungauged stations based on known flows at gauged stations. The integrated GIS interface is composed of three major steps. The first, precipitation characteristics using statistical analysis is the procedure for making multiple linear regression equation to get the long term mean daily flow at ungauged stations. The independent variables in regression equation are mean daily flow and drainage area. Traditionally, mean flow data are generated by using Thissen polygon method. However, method for obtaining mean flow data can be selected by user such as Kriging, IDW (Inverse Distance Weighted), Spline methods as well as other traditional methods. At the second, flow duration curve (FDC) is computing at unguaged station by FDCs in gauged stations. Finally, the mean annual daily flow is computed by spatial interpolation algorithm. The third step is to obtain watershed/topographic characteristics. They are the most important factors which govern stream-flows. In summary, the simulated daily flow time series are compared with observed times series. The results using integrated GIS interface are closely similar and are well fitted each other. Also, the relationship between the topographic/watershed characteristics and stream flow time series is highly correlated.

Keywords: Integrated GIS interface, spatial interpolation algorithm, FDC.

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Authors: P. Kaladevi, N. Giridharan

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The system for analyzing and eliciting public grievances serves its main purpose to receive and process all sorts of complaints from the public and respond to users. Due to the more number of complaint data becomes big data which is difficult to store and process. The proposed system uses HDFS to store the big data and uses MapReduce to process the big data. The concept of cache was applied in the system to provide immediate response and timely action using big data analytics. Cache enabled big data increases the response time of the system. The unstructured data provided by the users are efficiently handled through map reduce algorithm. The processing of complaints takes place in the order of the hierarchy of the authority. The drawbacks of the traditional database system used in the existing system are set forth by our system by using Cache enabled Hadoop Distributed File System. MapReduce framework codes have the possible to leak the sensitive data through computation process. We propose a system that add noise to the output of the reduce phase to avoid signaling the presence of sensitive data. If the complaints are not processed in the ample time, then automatically it is forwarded to the higher authority. Hence it ensures assurance in processing. A copy of the filed complaint is sent as a digitally signed PDF document to the user mail id which serves as a proof. The system report serves to be an essential data while making important decisions based on legislation.

Keywords: Big Data, Hadoop, HDFS, Caching, MapReduce, web personalization, e-governance.

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Authors: Nevena Stolba, A Min Tjoa

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Evidence-based medicine is a new direction in modern healthcare. Its task is to prevent, diagnose and medicate diseases using medical evidence. Medical data about a large patient population is analyzed to perform healthcare management and medical research. In order to obtain the best evidence for a given disease, external clinical expertise as well as internal clinical experience must be available to the healthcare practitioners at right time and in the right manner. External evidence-based knowledge can not be applied directly to the patient without adjusting it to the patient-s health condition. We propose a data warehouse based approach as a suitable solution for the integration of external evidence-based data sources into the existing clinical information system and data mining techniques for finding appropriate therapy for a given patient and a given disease. Through integration of data warehousing, OLAP and data mining techniques in the healthcare area, an easy to use decision support platform, which supports decision making process of care givers and clinical managers, is built. We present three case studies, which show, that a clinical data warehouse that facilitates evidence-based medicine is a reliable, powerful and user-friendly platform for strategic decision making, which has a great relevance for the practice and acceptance of evidence-based medicine.

Keywords: data mining, data warehousing, decision-support systems, evidence-based medicine.

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Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Li Zhang, Naveed Nawaz

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Small cell deployment in 5G networks is a promising technology to enhance the capacity and coverage. However, unplanned deployment may cause high interference levels and high number of unnecessary handovers, which in turn result in an increase in the signalling overhead. To guarantee service continuity, minimize unnecessary handovers and reduce signalling overhead in heterogeneous networks, it is essential to properly model the handover decision problem. In this paper, we model the handover decision problem using Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) method, specifically Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and propose a hybrid TOPSIS method to control the handover in heterogeneous network. The proposed method adopts a hybrid weighting policy, which is a combination of entropy and standard deviation. A hybrid weighting control parameter is introduced to balance the impact of the standard deviation and entropy weighting on the network selection process and the overall performance. Our proposed method show better performance, in terms of the number of frequent handovers and the mean user throughput, compared to the existing methods.

Keywords: Handover, HetNets, interference, MADM, small cells, TOPSIS, weight.

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Authors: Rafal Michalski, Jakub Zygadlo

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We present the concept and scientific methods and algorithms of our computation system called ATOMIC MATTERS. This is the first presentation of the new computer package, that allows its user to describe physical properties of atomic localized electron systems subject to electromagnetic interactions. Our solution applies to situations where an unclosed electron 2p/3p/3d/4d/5d/4f/5f subshell interacts with an electrostatic potential of definable symmetry and external magnetic field. Our methods are based on Crystal Electric Field (CEF) approach, which takes into consideration the electrostatic ligands field as well as the magnetic Zeeman effect. The application allowed us to predict macroscopic properties of materials such as: Magnetic, spectral and calorimetric as a result of physical properties of their fine electronic structure. We emphasize the importance of symmetry of charge surroundings of atom/ion, spin-orbit interactions (spin-orbit coupling) and the use of complex number matrices in the definition of the Hamiltonian. Calculation methods, algorithms and convention recalculation tools collected in ATOMIC MATTERS were chosen to permit the prediction of magnetic and spectral properties of materials in isostructural series.

Keywords: Atomic matters, crystal electric field, spin-orbit coupling, localized states, electron subshell, fine electronic structure.

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Authors: Mejía M. Paula, Ramírez L. Leonardo, Puerta A. Gabriel

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In telemedicine, the image repository service is important to increase the accuracy of diagnostic support of medical personnel. This study makes comparison between two routing algorithms regarding the quality of service (QoS), to be able to analyze the optimal performance at the time of loading and/or downloading of medical images. This study focused on comparing the performance of Tabu Search with other heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms that improve QoS in telemedicine services in Colombia. For this, Tabu Search and Simulated Annealing heuristic algorithms are chosen for their high usability in this type of applications; the QoS is measured taking into account the following metrics: Delay, Throughput, Jitter and Latency. In addition, routing tests were carried out on ten images in digital image and communication in medicine (DICOM) format of 40 MB. These tests were carried out for ten minutes with different traffic conditions, reaching a total of 25 tests, from a server of Universidad Militar Nueva Granada (UMNG) in Bogotá-Colombia to a remote user in Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH) - Chile. The results show that Tabu search presents a better QoS performance compared to Simulated Annealing, managing to optimize the routing of medical images, a basic requirement to offer diagnostic images services in telemedicine.

Keywords: Medical image, QoS, simulated annealing, Tabu search, telemedicine.

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Authors: Qais M. Yousef, Yasmeen A. Alshaer

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Over the last few years, the amount of data available on the globe has been increased rapidly. This came up with the emergence of recent concepts, such as the big data and the Internet of Things, which have furnished a suitable solution for the availability of data all over the world. However, managing this massive amount of data remains a challenge due to their large verity of types and distribution. Therefore, locating the required file particularly from the first trial turned to be a not easy task, due to the large similarities of names for different files distributed on the web. Consequently, the accuracy and speed of search have been negatively affected. This work presents a method using Electroencephalography signals to locate the files based on their contents. Giving the concept of natural mind waves processing, this work analyses the mind wave signals of different people, analyzing them and extracting their most appropriate features using multi-objective metaheuristic algorithm, and then classifying them using artificial neural network to distinguish among files with similar names. The aim of this work is to provide the ability to find the files based on their contents using human thoughts only. Implementing this approach and testing it on real people proved its ability to find the desired files accurately within noticeably shorter time and retrieve them as a first choice for the user.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, data contents search, human active memory, mind wave, multi-objective optimization.

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Authors: Titus Amodu Umoru

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Global economy today is full of sophistication. All over the world, business and marketing practices are undergoing unprecedented transformation. In realization of this fact, the federal government of Nigeria has put in place a robust transformation agenda in order to put Nigeria in a better position to be a competitive player and in the process transform all sectors of its economy. New technologies, especially the Internet, are the driving force behind this transformation. However, technology has inadvertently affected the way businesses are done thus necessitating the acquisition of new skills. In developing countries like Nigeria, citizens are still battling with effective application of those technologies. Obviously, students of business education need to acquire relevant business knowledge to be able to transit into the world of work on graduation from school and compete favorably in the labor market. Therefore, effective utilization of social media by both teachers and students can help extensively in empowering students with the needed skills. Social media which is a group of Internet-based applications built on the ideological foundations of Web 2.0, that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content, and if incorporated into the classroom experience may be the needed answer to unemployment and poverty in Nigeria as beneficiaries can easily connect with existing and potential enterprises and customers, engage with them and reinforce mutual business benefits. Challenges and benefits of social media use in education in Nigeria universities were revealed in this study.

Keywords: Challenges, opportunities, utilization, social media, business education.

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

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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.

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Authors: Shiuh-Jer Huang, Chen-Zon Yan, C. K. Huang, Chun-Chien Ting

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Since the vision system application in industrial environment for autonomous purposes is required intensely, the image recognition technique becomes an important research topic. Here, deep learning algorithm is employed in image system to recognize the industrial object and integrate with a 7A6 Series Manipulator for object automatic gripping task. PC and Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) are chosen to construct the 3D Vision Recognition System. Depth Camera (Intel RealSense SR300) is employed to extract the image for object recognition and coordinate derivation. The YOLOv2 scheme is adopted in Convolution neural network (CNN) structure for object classification and center point prediction. Additionally, image processing strategy is used to find the object contour for calculating the object orientation angle. Then, the specified object location and orientation information are sent to robotic controller. Finally, a six-axis manipulator can grasp the specific object in a random environment based on the user command and the extracted image information. The experimental results show that YOLOv2 has been successfully employed to detect the object location and category with confidence near 0.9 and 3D position error less than 0.4 mm. It is useful for future intelligent robotic application in industrial 4.0 environment.

Keywords: Deep learning, image processing, convolution neural network, YOLOv2, 7A6 series manipulator.

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Authors: Hassan Yousif Ahmed, Ibrahima Faye, N.M.Saad, S.A. Aljined

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Multi-user interference (MUI) is the main reason of system deterioration in the Spectral Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access (SAC-OCDMA) system. MUI increases with the number of simultaneous users, resulting into higher probability bit rate and limits the maximum number of simultaneous users. On the other hand, Phase induced intensity noise (PIIN) problem which is originated from spontaneous emission of broad band source from MUI severely limits the system performance should be addressed as well. Since the MUI is caused by the interference of simultaneous users, reducing the MUI value as small as possible is desirable. In this paper, an extensive study for the system performance specified by MUI and PIIN reducing is examined. Vectors Combinatorial (VC) codes families are adopted as a signature sequence for the performance analysis and a comparison with reported codes is performed. The results show that, when the received power increases, the PIIN noise for all the codes increases linearly. The results also show that the effect of PIIN can be minimized by increasing the code weight leads to preserve adequate signal to noise ratio over bit error probability. A comparison study between the proposed code and the existing codes such as Modified frequency hopping (MFH), Modified Quadratic- Congruence (MQC) has been carried out.

Keywords: FBG, MUI, PIIN, SAC-OCDMA, VCC.

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Authors: Almutasim Billa A. Alanazi, Hal S. Tharp

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Safe performance and efficient energy consumption are essential factors for designing a control system. This paper presents a reinforcement learning (RL) model that can be applied to control applications to improve safety and reduce energy consumption. As hardware constraints and environmental disturbances are imprecise and unpredictable, conventional control methods may not always be effective in optimizing control designs. However, RL has demonstrated its value in several artificial intelligence (AI) applications, especially in the field of control systems. The proposed model intelligently monitors a system's success by observing the rewards from the environment, with positive rewards counting as a success when the controlled reference is within the desired operating zone. Thus, the model can determine whether the system is safe to continue operating based on the designer/user specifications, which can be adjusted as needed. Additionally, the controller keeps track of energy consumption to improve energy efficiency by enabling the idle mode when the controlled reference is within the desired operating zone, thus reducing the system energy consumption during the controlling operation. Water temperature control for a hydroponic system is taken as a case study for the RL model, adjusting the variance of disturbances to show the model’s robustness and efficiency. On average, the model showed safety improvement by up to 15% and energy efficiency improvements by 35%-40% compared to a traditional RL model.

Keywords: Control system, hydroponics, machine learning, reinforcement learning.

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Authors: Martin Leroux, Sylvain Brisebois

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Eating a meal is among the Activities of Daily Living, but it takes a lot of time and effort for people with physical or functional limitations. Dedicated technologies are cumbersome and not portable, while general-purpose assistive robots such as wheelchair-based manipulators are too hard to control for elaborate continuous motion like eating. Eating with such devices has not previously been automated, since there existed no description of a feeding motion for uncontrolled environments. In this paper, we introduce a feeding mode for assistive manipulators, including a mathematical description of trajectories for motions that are difficult to perform manually such as gathering and scooping food at a defined/desired pace. We implement these trajectories in a sequence of movements for a semi-automated feeding mode which can be controlled with a very simple 3-button interface, allowing the user to have control over the feeding pace. Finally, we demonstrate the feeding mode with a JACO robotic arm and compare the eating speed, measured in bites per minute of three eating methods: a healthy person eating unaided, a person with upper limb limitations or disability using JACO with manual control, and a person with limitations using JACO with the feeding mode. We found that the feeding mode allows eating about 5 bites per minute, which should be sufficient to eat a meal under 30min.

Keywords: Assistive robotics, Automated feeding, Elderly care, Trajectory design, Human-Robot Interaction.

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Authors: Abraham Undu, Stephen Akuma

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Websites are becoming a major component of an organization’s success in our ever globalizing competitive world. The website symbolizes an organization, interacting or projecting an organization’s principles, culture, values, vision, and perspectives. It is an interface connecting organizations and their clients. The university, as an academic institution, makes use of a website to communicate and offer computing services to its stakeholders (students, staff, host community, university management etc). Unfortunately, website designers often give more consideration to the technology, organizational structure and business objectives of the university than to the usability of the site. Website designers end up designing university websites which do not meet the needs of the primary users. This empirical study investigated the Benue State University website from the point view of students. This research was realized by using a standardized website usability questionnaire based on the five factors of usability defined by WAMMI (Website Analysis and Measurement Inventory): attractiveness, controllability, efficiency, learnability and helpfulness. The result of the investigation showed that the university website (https://portal.bsum.edu.ng/) has neutral usability level because of the usability issues associated with the website. The research recommended feasible solutions to improve the usability of the website from the users’ perspective and also provided a modified usability model that will be used for better evaluation of the Benue State University website.

Keywords: Usability, usability factors, university websites, user’s perspective, WAMMI, modified usability model, Benue State University.

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Authors: Tang Mui Joo, Chan Eang Teng

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The use of social media has become more defined. It has been widely used for the purpose of business. More marketers are now using social media as tools to enhance their businesses. Whereas on the other hand, there are more and more people spending their time through mobile apps to be engaged in the social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others. Social media has even become common in Public Relations (PR). It has become number one platform for creating and sharing content. In view to this, social media has changed the rules in PR where it brings new challenges and opportunities to the profession. Although corporate websites, chat-rooms, email customer response facilities and electronic news release distribution are now viewed as standard aspects of PR practice, many PR practitioners are still struggling with the impact of new media though the implementation of social media is potentially reducing the cost of communication. It is to the point that PR practitioners are not fully embracing new media, they are ill-equipped to do so and they have a fear of the technology. Somehow that social media has become a new style of communication that is characterized by conversation and community. It has become a platform that allows individuals to interact with one another and build relationship among each other. Therefore, in the use of business world, consumers are able to interact with those companies that have joined any social media. Based on their experiences with social networking site interactions, they are also exposed to personal interaction while communicating. This paper is to study the impact of social media to PR. This paper discovers the potential changes of PR practices in a developing country like Malaysia. Eventually the study reflects on how PR practitioners are actually using social media in the country. This paper is based on two theories in its development of this research foundation. Media Ecology Theory is to support the impact and changes to PR. Social Penetration Theory is to reflect on how the use of social media is among PRs. This research is using survey with PR practitioners in its data collection. The results have shown that PR professionals value social media more than they actually use it and the way of organizations communicate had been changed due to the transformation of social media.

Keywords: New media, social media, PR.

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Authors: Nerguè Kassahan Kone, Souleymane Oumtanaga

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The third generation (3G) of cellular system adopted the spread spectrum as solution for the transmission of the data in the physical layer. Contrary to systems IS-95 or CDMAOne (systems with spread spectrum of the preceding generation), the new standard, called Universal Mobil Telecommunications System (UMTS), uses long codes in the down link. The system is conceived for the vocal communication and the transmission of the data. In particular, the down link is very important, because of the asymmetrical request of the data, i.e., more remote loading towards the mobiles than towards the basic station. Moreover, the UMTS uses for the down link an orthogonal spreading out with a variable factor of spreading out (OVSF for Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor). This characteristic makes it possible to increase the flow of data of one or more users by reducing their factor of spreading out without changing the factor of spreading out of other users. In the current standard of the UMTS, two techniques to increase the performances of the down link were proposed, the diversity of sending antenna and the codes space-time. These two techniques fight only fainding. The receiver proposed for the mobil station is the RAKE, but one can imagine a receiver more sophisticated, able to reduce the interference between users and the impact of the coloured noise and interferences to narrow band. In this context, where the users have long codes synchronized with variable factor of spreading out and ignorance by the mobile of the other active codes/users, the use of the sequences of code pseudo-noises different lengths is presented in the form of one of the most appropriate solutions.

Keywords: DS-CDMA, multiple access interference, ratio Signal / interference + Noise.

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Authors: D. B. L. Bong, K.C. Lai, A. Joseph

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The uses of road map in daily activities are numerous but it is a hassle to construct and update a road map whenever there are changes. In Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, research on Automatic Road Extraction (ARE) was explored to solve the difficulties in updating road map. The research started with using Satellite Image (SI), or in short, the ARE-SI project. A Hybrid Simple Colour Space Segmentation & Edge Detection (Hybrid SCSS-EDGE) algorithm was developed to extract roads automatically from satellite-taken images. In order to extract the road network accurately, the satellite image must be analyzed prior to the extraction process. The characteristics of these elements are analyzed and consequently the relationships among them are determined. In this study, the road regions are extracted based on colour space elements and edge details of roads. Besides, edge detection method is applied to further filter out the non-road regions. The extracted road regions are validated by using a segmentation method. These results are valuable for building road map and detecting the changes of the existing road database. The proposed Hybrid Simple Colour Space Segmentation and Edge Detection (Hybrid SCSS-EDGE) algorithm can perform the tasks fully automatic, where the user only needs to input a high-resolution satellite image and wait for the result. Moreover, this system can work on complex road network and generate the extraction result in seconds.

Keywords: Road Network Recognition, Colour Space, Edge Detection, Urban Planning.

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Authors: Zuhaib Ashfaq Khan, Imran Khan, Nandana Rajatheva

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In this paper, hybrid FDMA-TDMA access technique in a cooperative distributive fashion introducing and implementing a modified protocol introduced in [1] is analyzed termed as Power and Cooperation Diversity Gain Protocol (PCDGP). A wireless network consists of two users terminal , two relays and a destination terminal equipped with two antennas. The relays are operating in amplify-and-forward (AF) mode with a fixed gain. Two operating modes: cooperation-gain mode and powergain mode are exploited from source terminals to relays, as it is working in a best channel selection scheme. Vertical BLAST (Bell Laboratories Layered Space Time) or V-BLAST with minimum mean square error (MMSE) nulling is used at the relays to perfectly detect the joint signals from multiple source terminals. The performance is analyzed using binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation scheme and investigated over independent and identical (i.i.d) Rayleigh, Ricean-K and Nakagami-m fading environments. Subsequently, simulation results show that the proposed scheme can provide better signal quality of uplink users in a cooperative communication system using hybrid FDMATDMA technique.

Keywords: Cooperation Diversity, Best Channel Selectionscheme, MIMO relay networks, V-BLAST, QRdecomposition, and MMSE.

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Authors: Elena Krelja Kurelović, Jasminka Tomljanović, Vlatka Davidović

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The development of web technologies and mobile devices makes creating, accessing, using and sharing information or communicating with each other simpler every day. However, while the amount of information constantly increasing it is becoming harder to effectively organize and find quality information despite the availability of web search engines, filtering and indexing tools. Although digital technologies have overall positive impact on students’ lives, frequent use of these technologies and digital media enriched with dynamic hypertext and hypermedia content, as well as multitasking, distractions caused by notifications, calls or messages; can decrease the attention span, make thinking, memorizing and learning more difficult, which can lead to stress and mental exhaustion. This is referred to as “information overload”, “information glut” or “information anxiety”. Objective of this study is to determine whether students show signs of information overload and to identify the possible predictors. Research was conducted using a questionnaire developed for the purpose of this study. The results show that students frequently use technology (computers, gadgets and digital media), while they show moderate level of information literacy. They have sometimes experienced symptoms of information overload. According to the statistical analysis, higher frequency of technology use and lower level of information literacy are correlated with larger information overload. The multiple regression analysis has confirmed that the combination of these two independent variables has statistically significant predictive capacity for information overload. Therefore, the information science teachers should pay attention to improving the level of students’ information literacy and educate them about the risks of excessive technology use.

Keywords: Information overload, technology use, digital media, information literacy, students.

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Authors: Houda Najeh, Mahendra Pratap Singh, Stéphane Ploix, Antoine Caucheteux, Karim Chabir, Mohamed Naceur Abdelkrim

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Building system is highly vulnerable to different kinds of faults and human misbehaviors. Energy efficiency and user comfort are directly targeted due to abnormalities in building operation. The available fault diagnosis tools and methodologies particularly rely on rules or pure model-based approaches. It is assumed that model or rule-based test could be applied to any situation without taking into account actual testing contexts. Contextual tests with validity domain could reduce a lot of the design of detection tests. The main objective of this paper is to consider fault validity when validate the test model considering the non-modeled events such as occupancy, weather conditions, door and window openings and the integration of the knowledge of the expert on the state of the system. The concept of heterogeneous tests is combined with test validity to generate fault diagnoses. A combination of rules, range and model-based tests known as heterogeneous tests are proposed to reduce the modeling complexity. Calculation of logical diagnoses coming from artificial intelligence provides a global explanation consistent with the test result. An application example shows the efficiency of the proposed technique: an office setting at Grenoble Institute of Technology.

Keywords: Heterogeneous tests, validity, building system, sensor grids, sensor fault, diagnosis, fault detection and isolation.

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Authors: Mahmoud Shaker, Ala'a Imran

Abstract:

Greenhouse is a building, which provides controlled climate conditions to the plants to keep them from external hard conditions. Greenhouse technology gives freedom to the farmer to select any crop type in any time during year. The quality and productivity of plants inside greenhouse is highly dependent on the management quality and a good management scheme is defined by the quality of the information collected from the greenhouse environment. Therefore, Continuous monitoring of environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, and soil moisture gives information to the grower to better understand, how each factor affects growth and how to manage maximal crop productiveness. In this piper, we designed and implemented climate monitoring with irrigation control system based on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology. The designed system is characterized with friendly to use, easy to install by any greenhouse user, multi-sensing nodes, multi-PAN ID, low cast, water irrigation control and low operation complexity. The system consists of two node types (sensing and control) with star topology on one PAN ID. Moreover, greenhouse manager can modifying system parameters such as (sensing node addresses, irrigation upper and lower control limits) by updating corresponding data in SDRAM memory. In addition, the designed system uses 2*16 characters. LCD to display the micro climate parameters values of each plants row inside the greenhouse.

Keywords: ZigBee, WSN, Arduino platform, Greenhouse automation, micro climate monitoring, smart Irrigation control.

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Authors: C. W. Hsu, C. N. Liang, L. Y. Ke, F. Y. Huang

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Many accidents were happened because of fast driving, habitual working overtime or tired spirit. This paper presents a solution of remote warning for vehicles collision avoidance using vehicular communication. The development system integrates dedicated short range communication (DSRC) and global position system (GPS) with embedded system into a powerful remote warning system. To transmit the vehicular information and broadcast vehicle position; DSRC communication technology is adopt as the bridge. The proposed system is divided into two parts of the positioning andvehicular units in a vehicle. The positioning unit is used to provide the position and heading information from GPS module, and furthermore the vehicular unit is used to receive the break, throttle, and othersignals via controller area network (CAN) interface connected to each mechanism. The mobile hardware are built with an embedded system using X86 processor in Linux system. A vehicle is communicated with other vehicles via DSRC in non-addressed protocol with wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE) short message protocol. From the position data and vehicular information, this paper provided a conflict detection algorithm to do time separation and remote warning with error bubble consideration. And the warning information is on-line displayed in the screen. This system is able to enhance driver assistance service and realize critical safety by using vehicular information from the neighbor vehicles.KeywordsDedicated short range communication, GPS, Control area network, Collision avoidance warning system.

Keywords: Dedicated short range communication, GPS, Control area network, Collision avoidance warning system.

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Authors: Konstantinos C. Giotopoulos, Christos E. Alexakos, Grigorios N. Beligiannis, Spiridon D.Likothanassis

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In this contribution an innovative platform is being presented that integrates intelligent agents and evolutionary computation techniques in legacy e-learning environments. It introduces the design and development of a scalable and interoperable integration platform supporting: I) various assessment agents for e-learning environments, II) a specific resource retrieval agent for the provision of additional information from Internet sources matching the needs and profile of the specific user and III) a genetic algorithm designed to extract efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students- answering input data. The agents are implemented in order to provide intelligent assessment services based on computational intelligence techniques such as Bayesian Networks and Genetic Algorithms. The proposed Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used in order to extract efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students- answering input data. The idea of using a GA in order to fulfil this difficult task came from the fact that GAs have been widely used in applications including classification of unknown data. The utilization of new and emerging technologies like web services allows integrating the provided services to any web based legacy e-learning environment.

Keywords: Bayesian Networks, Computational Intelligencetechniques, E-learning legacy systems, Service Oriented Integration, Intelligent Agents, Genetic Algorithms.

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