Search results for: Multidimensional spaces
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 384

Search results for: Multidimensional spaces

114 An Investigation on the Role of Iwan as a Sustainable Element in the Traditional Houses of Different Climatic Regions of Iran

Authors: H. Nejadriahi

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the performance of Iwan as one of the significant spaces in the traditional architecture of Iran. The aim of this study is to investigate on the role of Iwan in sustainability enhancement of traditional houses of different climatic regions of Iran. Iwan is considered as a semi-open space, which its form and location in the building highly depends to the climatic situation of that region. For that reason, Iwan is recognized as one of the sustainable elements in the traditional houses of Iran, which can provide more comfort with less use of energy. In this study, the history and emergence of Iwan in the traditional architecture of Iran as well as the concept of sustainability in architecture are explained briefly. Then, the change of performance or form of Iwan is analysed in different climatic regions of Iran in accordance to the sustainability concepts. The methods used in this study are descriptive and analytic. Results of this paper verify that studying the sustainability solutions in the traditional architecture of Iran, would be a valuable source of inspiration for the current designers to create an environmental and sustainable architecture for the future.

Keywords: Climatic regions of Iran, Iwan, sustainability, traditional houses.

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113 Dynamic Time Warping in Gait Classificationof Motion Capture Data

Authors: Adam Świtoński, Agnieszka Michalczuk, Henryk Josiński, Andrzej Polański, KonradWojciechowski

Abstract:

The method of gait identification based on the nearest neighbor classification technique with motion similarity assessment by the dynamic time warping is proposed. The model based kinematic motion data, represented by the joints rotations coded by Euler angles and unit quaternions is used. The different pose distance functions in Euler angles and quaternion spaces are considered. To evaluate individual features of the subsequent joints movements during gait cycle, joint selection is carried out. To examine proposed approach database containing 353 gaits of 25 humans collected in motion capture laboratory is used. The obtained results are promising. The classifications, which takes into consideration all joints has accuracy over 91%. Only analysis of movements of hip joints allows to correctly identify gaits with almost 80% precision.

Keywords: Biometrics, dynamic time warping, gait identification, motion capture, time series classification, quaternion distance functions, attribute ranking.

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112 Basic Research for Distinguishing Small Retinal Hemorrhages from Dust Artifact by using Hue, Lightness, and Saturation Color Space

Authors: Naoto Suzuki

Abstract:

To distinguish small retinal hemorrhages in early diabetic retinopathy from dust artifacts, we analyzed hue, lightness, and saturation (HLS) color spaces. The fundus of 5 patients with diabetic retinopathy was photographed. For the initial experiment, we placed 4 different colored papers on the ceiling of a darkroom. Using each color, 10 fragments of house dust particles on a magnifier were photographed. The colored papers were removed, and 3 different colored light bulbs were suspended from the ceiling. Ten fragments of house dust particles on the camera-s object lens were photographed. We then constructed an experimental device that can photograph artificial eyes. Five fragments of house dust particles under the ocher fundus of the artificial eye were photographed. On analyzing HLS color space of the dust artifact, lightness and saturation were found to be highly sensitive. However, hue was not highly sensitive.

Keywords: Dust artifact, HLS color space, Retinal hemorrhage, and Diabetic retinopathy

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111 Towards Integrating Statistical Color Features for Human Skin Detection

Authors: Mohd Zamri Osman, Mohd Aizaini Maarof, Mohd Foad Rohani

Abstract:

Human skin detection recognized as the primary step in most of the applications such as face detection, illicit image filtering, hand recognition and video surveillance. The performance of any skin detection applications greatly relies on the two components: feature extraction and classification method. Skin color is the most vital information used for skin detection purpose. However, color feature alone sometimes could not handle images with having same color distribution with skin color. A color feature of pixel-based does not eliminate the skin-like color due to the intensity of skin and skin-like color fall under the same distribution. Hence, the statistical color analysis will be exploited such mean and standard deviation as an additional feature to increase the reliability of skin detector. In this paper, we studied the effectiveness of statistical color feature for human skin detection. Furthermore, the paper analyzed the integrated color and texture using eight classifiers with three color spaces of RGB, YCbCr, and HSV. The experimental results show that the integrating statistical feature using Random Forest classifier achieved a significant performance with an F1-score 0.969.

Keywords: Color space, neural network, random forest, skin detection, statistical feature.

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110 A Previously Underappreciated Impact on Global Warming caused by the Geometrical and Physical Properties of desert sand

Authors: Y. F. Yang, B. T. Wang, J. J. Fan, J. Yin

Abstract:

The previous researches focused on the influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases exerting global warming, but not consider whether desert sand may warm the planet, this could be improved by accounting for sand's physical and geometric properties. Here we show, sand particles (because of their geometry) at the desert surface form an extended surface of up to 1 + π/4 times the planar area of the desert that can contact sunlight, and at shallow depths of the desert form another extended surface of at least 1 + π times the planar area that can contact air. Based on this feature, an enhanced heat exchange system between sunlight, desert sand, and air in the spaces between sand particles could be built up automatically, which can increase capture of solar energy, leading to rapid heating of the sand particles, and then the heating of sand particles will dramatically heat the air between sand particles. The thermodynamics of deserts may thus have contributed to global warming, especially significant to future global warming if the current desertification continues to expand.

Keywords: global warming, desert sand, extended surface, heat exchange, thermodynamics

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109 Spatial Clustering Model of Vessel Trajectory to Extract Sailing Routes Based on AIS Data

Authors: Lubna Eljabu, Mohammad Etemad, Stan Matwin

Abstract:

The automatic extraction of shipping routes is advantageous for intelligent traffic management systems to identify events and support decision-making in maritime surveillance. At present, there is a high demand for the extraction of maritime traffic networks that resemble the real traffic of vessels accurately, which is valuable for further analytical processing tasks for vessels trajectories (e.g., naval routing and voyage planning, anomaly detection, destination prediction, time of arrival estimation). With the help of big data and processing huge amounts of vessels’ trajectory data, it is possible to learn these shipping routes from the navigation history of past behaviour of other, similar ships that were travelling in a given area. In this paper, we propose a spatial clustering model of vessels’ trajectories (SPTCLUST) to extract spatial representations of sailing routes from historical Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. The whole model consists of three main parts: data preprocessing, path finding, and route extraction, which consists of clustering and representative trajectory extraction. The proposed clustering method provides techniques to overcome the problems of: (i) optimal input parameters selection; (ii) the high complexity of processing a huge volume of multidimensional data; (iii) and the spatial representation of complete representative trajectory detection in the context of trajectory clustering algorithms. The experimental evaluation showed the effectiveness of the proposed model by using a real-world AIS dataset from the Port of Halifax. The results contribute to further understanding of shipping route patterns. This could aid surveillance authorities in stable and sustainable vessel traffic management.

Keywords: Vessel trajectory clustering, trajectory mining, Spatial Clustering, marine intelligent navigation, maritime traffic network extraction, sdailing routes extraction.

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108 Robust Design of Power System Stabilizers Using Adaptive Genetic Algorithms

Authors: H. Alkhatib, J. Duveau

Abstract:

Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been widely used for global optimization problems. The GA performance depends highly on the choice of the search space for each parameter to be optimized. Often, this choice is a problem-based experience. The search space being a set of potential solutions may contain the global optimum and/or other local optimums. A bad choice of this search space results in poor solutions. In this paper, our approach consists in extending the search space boundaries during the GA optimization, only when it is required. This leads to more diversification of GA population by new solutions that were not available with fixed search space boundaries. So, these dynamic search spaces can improve the GA optimization performances. The proposed approach is applied to power system stabilizer optimization for multimachine power system (16-generator and 68-bus). The obtained results are evaluated and compared with those obtained by ordinary GAs. Eigenvalue analysis and nonlinear system simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach to damp out the electromechanical oscillation and enhance the global system stability.

Keywords: Genetic Algorithms, Multiobjective Optimization, Power System Stabilizer, Small Signal Stability.

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107 Influence of Urban Fabric on Child’s Upbringing: A Comparative Analysis between Modern and Traditional City

Authors: Mohamed A. Tantawy, Nourelhoda A. Hussein, Moataz A. Mahrous

Abstract:

New planning and city design theories are continuously debated and optimized for seeking efficiency and adequacy in economic and life quality aspects. Here, we examine the children-city relationship, to reflect on how modern and traditional cities affect the social climate. We adopt children as a proper caliber for urbanism, as for their very young age, they are independent and attached to family. Their fragility offers a chance to gauge how various urban settings directly affect their feeling of safety, containment, and their perception of belonging for home territory. The importance of street play for the child development process is discussed thoroughly. The authority they have on their play (when and what to play) pushes us to our conclusion. A mediocre built environment characterized by spontaneity and human-scale semi-private urban spaces, is irreplaceable by a perfectly designed far away playgrounds. Street play has a huge role in empowering children for a gradual engagement with grown-ups’ urban flow.

Keywords: Child's psychology, social activity, street play, urban fabric.

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106 A Car Parking Monitoring System Using a Line-Topology Wireless Sensor Network

Authors: Dae Il Kim, Jungho Moon, Tae Yun Chung

Abstract:

This paper presents a car parking monitoring system using a wireless sensor network. The presented sensor network has a line-shaped topology and adopts a TDMA-based protocol for allowing multi-hop communications. Sensor nodes are deployed in the ground of an outdoor parking lot in such a way that a sensor node monitors a parking space. Each sensor node detects the availability of the associated parking space and transmits the detection result to a sink node via intermediate sensor nodes existing between the source sensor node and the sink node. We evaluate the feasibility of the presented sensor network and the TDMA-based communication protocol through experiments using 11 sensor nodes deployed in a real parking lot. The result shows that the presented car parking monitoring system is robust to changes in the communication environments and efficient for monitoring parking spaces of outdoor parking lots.

Keywords: Multi-hop communication, parking monitoring system, TDMA, wireless sensor network.

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105 Journey on Image Clustering Based on Color Composition

Authors: Achmad Nizar Hidayanto, Elisabeth Martha Koeanan

Abstract:

Image clustering is a process of grouping images based on their similarity. The image clustering usually uses the color component, texture, edge, shape, or mixture of two components, etc. This research aims to explore image clustering using color composition. In order to complete this image clustering, three main components should be considered, which are color space, image representation (feature extraction), and clustering method itself. We aim to explore which composition of these factors will produce the best clustering results by combining various techniques from the three components. The color spaces use RGB, HSV, and L*a*b* method. The image representations use Histogram and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), whereas the clustering methods use KMeans and Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering algorithm. The results of the experiment show that GMM representation is better combined with RGB and L*a*b* color space, whereas Histogram is better combined with HSV. The experiments also show that K-Means is better than Agglomerative Hierarchical for images clustering.

Keywords: Image clustering, feature extraction, RGB, HSV, L*a*b*, Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), histogram, Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC), K-Means, Expectation-Maximization (EM).

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104 Application of Remote Sensing in Development of Green Space

Authors: Mehdi Saati, Mohammad Bagheri, Fatemeh Zamanian

Abstract:

One of the most important parameters to develop and manage urban areas is appropriate selection of land surface to develop green spaces in these areas. In this study, in order to identify the most appropriate sites and areas cultivated for ornamental species in Jiroft, Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images due to extract the most important effective climatic and adaphic parameters for growth ornamental species were used. After geometric and atmospheric corrections applied, to enhance accuracy of multi spectral (XS) bands, the fusion of Landsat XS bands by IRS-1D panchromatic band (PAN) was performed. After field sampling to evaluate the correlation between different factors in surface soil sampling location and different bands digital number (DN) of ETM+ sensor on the same points, correlation tables formed using the best computational model and the map of physical and chemical parameters of soil was produced. Then the accuracy of them was investigated by using kappa coefficient. Finally, according to produced maps, the best areas for cultivation of recommended species were introduced.

Keywords: Locate ornamental species, Remote Sensing, Adaphic parameters, ETM+, Jiroft

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103 Application of a Theoretical Framework as a Context for a Travel Behavior Change Policy Intervention

Authors: F. Moghtaderi, M. Burke, J. Troelsen

Abstract:

There has been a significant decline in active travel and a massive increase in the use of car dependent travel in many countries during the past two decades. Evidential risks for people’s physical and mental health problems are correlated with this increased use of motorized travel. These health related problems range from overweight and obesity to increased air pollution. In response to these rising concerns health professionals, traffic planers, local authorities and others have introduced a variety of initiatives to counterbalance the dominance of cars for daily journeys. However, the nature of travel behavior change interventions, which aim to reduce car use, are very complex and challenging regarding their interactions with human behavior. To change travel behavior at least two aspects have to be taken into consideration. First, how to alter attitudes and perceptions toward the sustainable and healthy modes of travel, in competition with experiences of private car use. And second, how to make these behavior change processes irreversible and sustainable. There are no comprehensive models available to guide policy interventions to increase the level of success of travel behavior change interventions across both these dimensions. A comprehensive theoretical framework is required in the effort to optimize how to facilitate and guide the processes of data collection and analysis to achieve the best possible guidelines for policy makers. Regarding the gaps in the travel behavior change research literature, this paper attempted to identify and suggest a multidimensional framework in order to facilitate planning the implemented travel behavior change interventions. A structured mixed-method model is suggested to improve the analytic power of the results according to the complexity of human behavior. In order to recognize people’s attitudes towards a specific travel mode, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was operationalized. But in order to capture decision making processes the Transtheoretical model of Behavior Change (TTM) was also used. Consequently, the combination of these two theories (TTM and TPB) has resulted in a synthesis with appropriate concepts to identify and design an implemented travel behavior change interventions.

Keywords: Behavior change theories, Theoretical framework, Travel behavior change interventions.

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102 Sustainable Urban Development of Slum Prone Area of Dhaka City

Authors: S. Ahmed Sinthia

Abstract:

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is one of the densely populated cities in the world. Due to rapid urbanization 60% of its population lives in slum and squatter settlements. The reason behind this poverty is low economic growth, inequitable distribution of income, unequal distribution of productive assets, unemployment and underemployment, high rate of population growth, low level of human resource development, natural disasters, and limited access to public services. Along with poverty, creating pressure on urban land, shelter, plots, open spaces this creates environmental and ecological degradation. These constraints are mostly resulted from the failures of the government policies and measures and only Government can solve this problem. This is now prime time to establish planning and environmental management policy and sustainable urban development for the city and for the urban slum dwellers which are free from eviction, criminals, rent seekers and other miscreants.

Keywords: Economic and resource constraints, environmental degradation and management, government policy, land management and policy, sustainable development.

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101 Influence of Parameters of Modeling and Data Distribution for Optimal Condition on Locally Weighted Projection Regression Method

Authors: Farhad Asadi, Mohammad Javad Mollakazemi, Aref Ghafouri

Abstract:

Recent research in neural networks science and neuroscience for modeling complex time series data and statistical learning has focused mostly on learning from high input space and signals. Local linear models are a strong choice for modeling local nonlinearity in data series. Locally weighted projection regression is a flexible and powerful algorithm for nonlinear approximation in high dimensional signal spaces. In this paper, different learning scenario of one and two dimensional data series with different distributions are investigated for simulation and further noise is inputted to data distribution for making different disordered distribution in time series data and for evaluation of algorithm in locality prediction of nonlinearity. Then, the performance of this algorithm is simulated and also when the distribution of data is high or when the number of data is less the sensitivity of this approach to data distribution and influence of important parameter of local validity in this algorithm with different data distribution is explained.

Keywords: Local nonlinear estimation, LWPR algorithm, Online training method.

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100 Optimization Approaches for a Complex Dairy Farm Simulation Model

Authors: Jagannath Aryal, Don Kulasiri, Dishi Liu

Abstract:

This paper describes the optimization of a complex dairy farm simulation model using two quite different methods of optimization, the Genetic algorithm (GA) and the Lipschitz Branch-and-Bound (LBB) algorithm. These techniques have been used to improve an agricultural system model developed by Dexcel Limited, New Zealand, which describes a detailed representation of pastoral dairying scenarios and contains an 8-dimensional parameter space. The model incorporates the sub-models of pasture growth and animal metabolism, which are themselves complex in many cases. Each evaluation of the objective function, a composite 'Farm Performance Index (FPI)', requires simulation of at least a one-year period of farm operation with a daily time-step, and is therefore computationally expensive. The problem of visualization of the objective function (response surface) in high-dimensional spaces is also considered in the context of the farm optimization problem. Adaptations of the sammon mapping and parallel coordinates visualization are described which help visualize some important properties of the model-s output topography. From this study, it is found that GA requires fewer function evaluations in optimization than the LBB algorithm.

Keywords: Genetic Algorithm, Linux Cluster, LipschitzBranch-and-Bound, Optimization

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99 Theoretical Study of Flexible Edge Seals for Vacuum Glazing

Authors: Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde

Abstract:

The development of vacuum glazing represents a significant advancement in the area of low heat loss glazing systems with the potential to substantially reduce building heating and cooling loads. Vacuum glazing consists of two or more glass panes hermetically sealed together around the edge with a vacuum gap between the panes. To avoid the glass panes from collapsing and touching each other under the influence of atmospheric pressure an array of support pillars is provided between the glass panes. A high level of thermal insulation is achieved by evacuating the spaces between the glass panes to a very low pressure which greatly reduces conduction and convection within the space; therefore heat transfer through this kind of glazing is significantly lower when compared with conventional insulating glazing. However, vacuum glazing is subject to inherent stresses due to atmospheric pressure and temperature differentials which can lead to fracture of the glass panes and failure of the edge seal. A flexible edge seal has been proposed to minimise the impact of these issues. In this paper, vacuum glazing system with rigid and flexible edge seals is theoretically studied and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.

Keywords: Flexible edge seal, stress, support pillar, vacuum glazing.

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98 Web Pages Aesthetic Evaluation Using Low-Level Visual Features

Authors: Maryam Mirdehghani, S. Amirhassan Monadjemi

Abstract:

Web sites are rapidly becoming the preferred media choice for our daily works such as information search, company presentation, shopping, and so on. At the same time, we live in a period where visual appearances play an increasingly important role in our daily life. In spite of designers- effort to develop a web site which be both user-friendly and attractive, it would be difficult to ensure the outcome-s aesthetic quality, since the visual appearance is a matter of an individual self perception and opinion. In this study, it is attempted to develop an automatic system for web pages aesthetic evaluation which are the building blocks of web sites. Based on the image processing techniques and artificial neural networks, the proposed method would be able to categorize the input web page according to its visual appearance and aesthetic quality. The employed features are multiscale/multidirectional textural and perceptual color properties of the web pages, fed to perceptron ANN which has been trained as the evaluator. The method is tested using university web sites and the results suggested that it would perform well in the web page aesthetic evaluation tasks with around 90% correct categorization.

Keywords: Web Page Design, Web Page Aesthetic, Color Spaces, Texture, Neural Networks

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97 Mapping the Digital Landscape: An Analysis of Party Differences between Conventional and Digital Policy Positions

Authors: Daniel Schwarz, Jan Fivaz, Alessia Neuroni

Abstract:

Although digitization is a buzzword in almost every election campaign, the political parties leave voters largely in the dark about their specific positions on digital issues. In the run-up to the 2019 elections in Switzerland, the ‘Digitization Monitor’ project (DMP) was launched in order to change this situation. Within the framework of the DMP, all 4,736 candidates were surveyed about their digital policy positions and values. The DMP is designed as a digital policy supplement to the existing ‘smartvote’ voting advice application. This enabled a direct comparison of the digital policy attitudes according to the DMP with the topics of the ‘smartvote’ questionnaire which are comprehensive in content but mainly related to conventional policy areas. This paper’s main research goal is to analyze and visualize possible differences between conventional and digital policy areas in terms of response patterns between and within political parties. The analysis is based on dimensionality reduction methods (multidimensional scaling and principal component analysis) for the visualization of inter-party differences, and on standard deviation as a measure of variation for the evaluation of intra-party unity. The results reveal that digital issues show a lower degree of inter-party polarization compared to conventional policy areas. Thus, the parties have more common ground in issues on digitization than in conventional policy areas. In contrast, the study reveals a mixed picture regarding intra-party unity. Homogeneous parties show a lower degree of unity in digitization issues whereas parties with heterogeneous positions in conventional areas have more united positions in digital areas. All things considered, the findings are encouraging as less polarized conditions apply to the debate on digital development compared to conventional politics. For the future, it would be desirable if in further countries similar projects to the DMP could emerge to broaden the basis for conclusions.

Keywords: Comparison of political issue dimensions, digital awareness of candidates, digital policy space, party positions on digital issues.

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96 DAMQ-Based Approach for Efficiently Using the Buffer Spaces of a NoC Router

Authors: Mohammad Ali Jabraeil Jamali, Ahmad khademzadeh

Abstract:

In this paper we present high performance dynamically allocated multi-queue (DAMQ) buffer schemes for fault tolerance systems on chip applications that require an interconnection network. Two virtual channels shared the same buffer space. Fault tolerant mechanisms for interconnection networks are becoming a critical design issue for large massively parallel computers. It is also important to high performance SoCs as the system complexity keeps increasing rapidly. On the message switching layer, we make improvement to boost system performance when there are faults involved in the components communication. The proposed scheme is when a node or a physical channel is deemed as faulty, the previous hop node will terminate the buffer occupancy of messages destined to the failed link. The buffer usage decisions are made at switching layer without interactions with higher abstract layer, thus buffer space will be released to messages destined to other healthy nodes quickly. Therefore, the buffer space will be efficiently used in case fault occurs at some nodes.

Keywords: DAMQ, NoC, fault tolerant, odd-even routingalgorithm, buffer space.

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95 Current Developments in Flat-Plate Vacuum Solar Thermal Collectors

Authors: Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde, Paul Henshall, Phillip Eames, Roger Moss, Stan Shire

Abstract:

Vacuum flat plate solar thermal collectors offer several advantages over other collectors namely the excellent optical and thermal characteristics they exhibit due to a combination of their wide surface area and high vacuum thermal insulation. These characteristics can offer a variety of applications for industrial process heat as well as for building integration as they are much thinner than conventional collectors making installation possible in limited spaces. However, many technical challenges which need to be addressed to enable wide scale adoption of the technology still remain. This paper will discuss the challenges, expectations and requirements for the flat-plate vacuum solar collector development. In addition, it will provide an overview of work undertaken in Ulster University, Loughborough University, and the University of Warwick on flat-plate vacuum solar thermal collectors. Finally, this paper will present a detailed experimental investigation on the development of a vacuum panel with a novel sealing method which will be used to accommodate a novel slim hydroformed solar absorber.

Keywords: Hot box calorimeter, infrared thermography, solar thermal collector, vacuum insulation.

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94 Optimal Design of Airfoil Platform Shapes with High Aspect Ratio Using Genetic Algorithm

Authors: Kyoungwoo Park, Byeong-Sam Kim

Abstract:

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) performing their operations for a long time have been attracting much attention in military and civil aviation industries for the past decade. The applicable field of UAV is changing from the military purpose only to the civil one. Because of their low operation cost, high reliability and the necessity of various application areas, numerous development programs have been initiated around the world. To obtain the optimal solutions of the design variable (i.e., sectional airfoil profile, wing taper ratio and sweep) for high performance of UAVs, both the lift and lift-to-drag ratio are maximized whereas the pitching moment should be minimized, simultaneously. It is found that the lift force and lift-to-drag ratio are linearly dependent and a unique and dominant solution are existed. However, a trade-off phenomenon is observed between the lift-to-drag ratio and pitching moment. As the result of optimization, sixty-five (65) non-dominated Pareto individuals at the cutting edge of design spaces that are decided by airfoil shapes can be obtained.

Keywords: Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Airfoil, CFD, Shape optimization, Genetic Algorithm.

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93 Investigation of Spatial Changes in the Context of Cultural Sustainability

Authors: Aslı Taş, Şebnem Ertaş

Abstract:

Culture consists of material and spiritual values adopted by the emerging societies during the historical and social processes and continues to exist from past to present by being transferred through generations. Culture and cultural sustainability are interdependent concepts. Cultural sustainability exists when the requirements established cultural expression are added to the social life as lifestyle and habits. However, sustainability renders change inevitable. Changes that take place in the culture of a society also shows the impact in the daily life places. Functional changes occur in the spaces in order to adapt particularly to cultural change that appear in the aftermath of the user change, to modern technology and living standards. In this context, in this study, it was aimed to investigate the effect of the time-dependent functional changes that took place in the housing where non-Muslim population who was subject to population exchange and Muslim population lived after the population exchange in the vacated housing in Sille. Therefore, the changed and newly added venues in the house belonging to Ali Oğuz in Hacı Ali Ağa Street were investigated over the generated graphic in order to clearly perceive the cultural exchange on the housing and settlement and the functional changes were demonstrated.

Keywords: Culture, house, spatial changes, sustainability.

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92 Dimensionality Reduction of PSSM Matrix and its Influence on Secondary Structure and Relative Solvent Accessibility Predictions

Authors: Rafał Adamczak

Abstract:

State-of-the-art methods for secondary structure (Porter, Psi-PRED, SAM-T99sec, Sable) and solvent accessibility (Sable, ACCpro) predictions use evolutionary profiles represented by the position specific scoring matrix (PSSM). It has been demonstrated that evolutionary profiles are the most important features in the feature space for these predictions. Unfortunately applying PSSM matrix leads to high dimensional feature spaces that may create problems with parameter optimization and generalization. Several recently published suggested that applying feature extraction for the PSSM matrix may result in improvements in secondary structure predictions. However, none of the top performing methods considered here utilizes dimensionality reduction to improve generalization. In the present study, we used simple and fast methods for features selection (t-statistics, information gain) that allow us to decrease the dimensionality of PSSM matrix by 75% and improve generalization in the case of secondary structure prediction compared to the Sable server.

Keywords: Secondary structure prediction, feature selection, position specific scoring matrix.

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91 Parameter Tuning of Complex Systems Modeled in Agent Based Modeling and Simulation

Authors: Rabia Korkmaz Tan, Şebnem Bora

Abstract:

The major problem encountered when modeling complex systems with agent-based modeling and simulation techniques is the existence of large parameter spaces. A complex system model cannot be expected to reflect the whole of the real system, but by specifying the most appropriate parameters, the actual system can be represented by the model under certain conditions. When the studies conducted in recent years were reviewed, it has been observed that there are few studies for parameter tuning problem in agent based simulations, and these studies have focused on tuning parameters of a single model. In this study, an approach of parameter tuning is proposed by using metaheuristic algorithms such as Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Artificial Bee Colonies (ABC), Firefly (FA) algorithms. With this hybrid structured study, the parameter tuning problems of the models in the different fields were solved. The new approach offered was tested in two different models, and its achievements in different problems were compared. The simulations and the results reveal that this proposed study is better than the existing parameter tuning studies.

Keywords: Parameter tuning, agent based modeling and simulation, metaheuristic algorithms, complex systems.

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90 Automatic Reusability Appraisal of Software Components using Neuro-fuzzy Approach

Authors: Parvinder S. Sandhu, Hardeep Singh

Abstract:

Automatic reusability appraisal could be helpful in evaluating the quality of developed or developing reusable software components and in identification of reusable components from existing legacy systems; that can save cost of developing the software from scratch. But the issue of how to identify reusable components from existing systems has remained relatively unexplored. In this paper, we have mentioned two-tier approach by studying the structural attributes as well as usability or relevancy of the component to a particular domain. Latent semantic analysis is used for the feature vector representation of various software domains. It exploits the fact that FeatureVector codes can be seen as documents containing terms -the idenifiers present in the components- and so text modeling methods that capture co-occurrence information in low-dimensional spaces can be used. Further, we devised Neuro- Fuzzy hybrid Inference System, which takes structural metric values as input and calculates the reusability of the software component. Decision tree algorithm is used to decide initial set of fuzzy rules for the Neuro-fuzzy system. The results obtained are convincing enough to propose the system for economical identification and retrieval of reusable software components.

Keywords: Clustering, ID3, LSA, Neuro-fuzzy System, SVD

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89 Study of Fire Propagation and Soot Flow in a Pantry Car of Railway Locomotive

Authors: Juhi Kaushik, Abhishek Agarwal, Manoj Sarda, Vatsal Sanjay, Arup Kumar Das

Abstract:

Fire accidents in trains bring huge disaster to human life and property. Evacuation becomes a major challenge in such incidents owing to confined spaces, large passenger density and trains moving at high speeds. The pantry car in Indian Railways trains carry inflammable materials like cooking fuel and LPG and electrical fittings. The pantry car is therefore highly susceptible to fire accidents. Numerical simulations have been done in a pantry car of Indian locomotive train using computational fluid dynamics based software. Different scenarios of a fire outbreak have been explored by varying Heat Release Rate per Unit Area (HRRPUA) of the fire source, introduction of exhaust in the cooking area, and taking a case of an air conditioned pantry car. Temporal statures of flame and soot have been obtained for each scenario and differences have been studied and reported. Inputs from this study can be used to assess casualties in fire accidents in locomotive trains and development of smoke control/detection systems in Indian trains.

Keywords: Fire propagation, flame contour, pantry fire, soot flow.

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88 Developing New Academics: So What Difference Does It Make?

Authors: N. Chitanand

Abstract:

Given the dynamic nature of the higher education landscape, induction programmes for new academics has become the norm nowadays to support academics negotiate these rough terrain. This study investigates an induction programme for new academics in a higher education institution to establish what difference it has made to participants. The findings revealed that the benefits ranged from creating safe spaces for collaboration and networking to fostering reflective practice and contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning. The study also revealed that some of the intentions of the programme may not have been achieved, for example transformative learning. This led to questioning whether this intention is an appropriate one given the short duration of the programme and the long, drawn out process of transformation. It may be concluded that the academic induction programme in this study serves to sow the seeds for transformative learning through fostering critically reflective practice. Recommendations for further study could include long term impact of the programme on student learning and success, these being the core business of higher education. It is also recommended that in addition to an induction programme, the university invests in a mentoring programme for new staff and extend the support for academics in order to sustain critical reflection and which may contribute to transformative educational practice.

Keywords: Induction programme, reflective practice, scholarship of teaching, transformative learning.

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87 Capacities of Early Childhood Education Professionals for the Prevention of Social Exclusion of Children

Authors: Dejana Bouillet, Vlatka Domović

Abstract:

Both policymakers and researchers recognize that participating in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is useful for all children, especially for those who are exposed to the high risk of social exclusion. Social exclusion of children is understood as a multidimensional construct including economic, social, cultural, health, and other aspects of disadvantage and deprivation, which individually or combined can have an unfavorable effect on the current life and development of a child, as well as on the child’s development and on disadvantaged life chances in adult life. ECEC institutions should be able to promote educational approaches that portray developmental, cultural, language, and other diversity amongst children. However, little is known about the ways in which Croatian ECEC institutions recognize and respect the diversity of children and their families and how they respond to their educational needs. That is why this paper is dedicated to the analysis of the capacities of ECEC professionals to respond to the demands of educational needs of this very diverse group of children and their families. The results obtained in the frame of the project “Models of response to educational needs of children at risk of social exclusion in ECEC institutions,” funded by the Croatian Science Foundation, will be presented. The research methodology arises from explanations of educational processes and risks of social exclusion as a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon. The preliminary results of the qualitative data analysis of educational practices regarding capacities to identify and appropriately respond to the requirements of children at risk of social exclusion will be presented. The data have been collected by interviewing educational staff in 10 Croatian ECEC institutions (n = 10). The questions in the interviews were related to various aspects of inclusive institutional policy, culture, and practices. According to the analysis, it is possible to conclude that Croatian ECEC professionals are still faced with great challenges in the process of implementation of inclusive policies, culture, and practices. There are several baselines of this conclusion. The interviewed educational professionals are not familiar enough with the whole complexity and diversity of needs of children at risk of social exclusion, and the ECEC institutions do not have enough resources to provide all interventions that these children and their families need.

Keywords: children at risk of social exclusion, ECEC professionals, inclusive policies, culture and practices, interpretative phenomenological analysis

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86 Multimodal Reasoning in a Knowledge Engineering Framework for Product Support

Authors: Rossitza M. Setchi, Nikolaos Lagos

Abstract:

Problem solving has traditionally been one of the principal research areas for artificial intelligence. Yet, although artificial intelligence reasoning techniques have been employed in several product support systems, the benefit of integrating product support, knowledge engineering, and problem solving, is still unclear. This paper studies the synergy of these areas and proposes a knowledge engineering framework that integrates product support systems and artificial intelligence techniques. The framework includes four spaces; the data, problem, hypothesis, and solution ones. The data space incorporates the knowledge needed for structured reasoning to take place, the problem space contains representations of problems, and the hypothesis space utilizes a multimodal reasoning approach to produce appropriate solutions in the form of virtual documents. The solution space is used as the gateway between the system and the user. The proposed framework enables the development of product support systems in terms of smaller, more manageable steps while the combination of different reasoning techniques provides a way to overcome the lack of documentation resources.

Keywords: Knowledge engineering framework, product support, case-based reasoning, model-based reasoning, multimodal reasoning.

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85 From “Discipline and Punish” to the Necessity for the Establishment of Greek Theatre: A Political Study of the Formation of Theatre Spaces in Ancient Greece Based on Michel Foucault’s Ideas

Authors: Payam Foroutan Yekta

Abstract:

The formation of theatre in ancient Greece and the different reasons and arguments about it are still left as an interesting case of discussion, and the origin of the Greek drama is usually sought in the Dionysus Festival. One fundamental element for the transformation of ritual into theatre was the establishment of theatre or places specifically used for performing Greek drama. Despite the theories of social Darwinists in the field of theatre historiography, the present study takes as its point of departure the hypothesis that the procedure of the transformation of Dionysus rituals to theatre has not been an evolutionary one. Our arguments will be based on Michel Foucault’s theory in his seminal book Discipline and Punish, where he holds “power” to be always aiming at the regulation of formless and unpredictable masses in order to predict their movements and behaviours. Thus, it could be argued that by founding theatra, in less than two centuries, Athens’s political system has transformed the primitive, violent and chaotic Dionysus rituals, turning them into theatre in order to control the society as much as possible.

Keywords: Dionysus Rituals, Greek Drama, Theatron, Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Political System.

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