Search results for: Sarah Taheri
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 64

Search results for: Sarah Taheri

34 Organic Contribution on Particles Formed on Pacific Ocean: From Phytoplankton Blooms to Climate

Authors: Petri Vaattovaara, Luke Cravigan, Zoran Ristovski, Marc Mallet, Ari Laaksonen, Sarah Lawson, Nick Talbot, Gustavo Olivares, Mike Harvey, Cliff Law

Abstract:

These SOAP project Pacific Ocean measurements reveal that phytoplankton blooms with sunny conditions make possible secondary organic contribution to ultrafine particles size and composition, and thus on cloud formation ability, and finally on climate. This is in agreement with other biologically active region observations about the presence of secondary organics even the exact fraction is also depending on the local marine life (e.g. plankton blooms, seaweeds, corals). An organic contribution is clearly needed to add to CLAW hypothesis.

Keywords: Climate, marine aerosols, phytoplankton, secondary organics, CLAW hypothesis.

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33 Directional Drilling Optimization by Non-Rotating Stabilizer

Authors: Eisa Noveiri, Adel Taheri Nia

Abstract:

The Non-Rotating Adjustable Stabilizer / Directional Solution (NAS/DS) is the imitation of a mechanical process or an object by a directional drilling operation that causes a respond mathematically and graphically to data and decision to choose the best conditions compared to the previous mode. The NAS/DS Auto Guide rotary steerable tool is undergoing final field trials. The point-the-bit tool can use any bit, work at any rotating speed, work with any MWD/LWD system, and there is no pressure drop through the tool. It is a fully closed-loop system that automatically maintains a specified curvature rate. The Non–Rotating Adjustable stabilizer (NAS) can be controls curvature rate by exactly positioning and run with the optimum bit, use the most effective weight (WOB) and rotary speed (RPM) and apply all of the available hydraulic energy to the bit. The directional simulator allowed to specify the size of the curvature rate performance errors of the NAS tool and the magnitude of the random errors in the survey measurements called the Directional Solution (DS). The combination of these technologies (NAS/DS) will provide smoother bore holes, reduced drilling time, reduced drilling cost and incredible targeting precision. This simulator controls curvature rate by precisely adjusting the radial extension of stabilizer blades on a near bit Non-Rotating Stabilizer and control process corrects for the secondary effects caused by formation characteristics, bit and tool wear, and manufacturing tolerances.

Keywords: non-rotating, Adjustable stabilizer, simulator, Directional Drilling, optimization, Oil Well Drilling

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32 Comparison of Finite Difference Schemes for Water Flow in Unsaturated Soils

Authors: H. Taheri Shahraiyni, B. Ataie Ashtiani

Abstract:

Flow movement in unsaturated soil can be expressed by a partial differential equation, named Richards equation. The objective of this study is the finding of an appropriate implicit numerical solution for head based Richards equation. Some of the well known finite difference schemes (fully implicit, Crank Nicolson and Runge-Kutta) have been utilized in this study. In addition, the effects of different approximations of moisture capacity function, convergence criteria and time stepping methods were evaluated. Two different infiltration problems were solved to investigate the performance of different schemes. These problems include of vertical water flow in a wet and very dry soils. The numerical solutions of two problems were compared using four evaluation criteria and the results of comparisons showed that fully implicit scheme is better than the other schemes. In addition, utilizing of standard chord slope method for approximation of moisture capacity function, automatic time stepping method and difference between two successive iterations as convergence criterion in the fully implicit scheme can lead to better and more reliable results for simulation of fluid movement in different unsaturated soils.

Keywords: Finite Difference methods, Richards equation, fullyimplicit, Crank-Nicolson, Runge-Kutta.

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31 Survey on Arabic Sentiment Analysis in Twitter

Authors: Sarah O. Alhumoud, Mawaheb I. Altuwaijri, Tarfa M. Albuhairi, Wejdan M. Alohaideb

Abstract:

Large-scale data stream analysis has become one of the important business and research priorities lately. Social networks like Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms hold an enormous amount of data that is large in volume, velocity and variety. Extracting valuable information and trends out of these data would aid in a better understanding and decision-making. Multiple analysis techniques are deployed for English content. Moreover, one of the languages that produce a large amount of data over social networks and is least analyzed is the Arabic language. The proposed paper is a survey on the research efforts to analyze the Arabic content in Twitter focusing on the tools and methods used to extract the sentiments for the Arabic content on Twitter.

Keywords: Big Data, Social Networks, Sentiment Analysis.

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30 Optimum Design of Photovoltaic Water Pumping System Application

Authors: Sarah Abdourraziq, Rachid El Bachtiri

Abstract:

The solar power source for pumping water is one of the most promising areas in photovoltaic applications. The implementation of these systems allows to protect the environment and reduce the CO2 gas emission compared to systems trained by diesel generators. This paper presents a comparative study between the photovoltaic pumping system driven by DC motor, and AC motor to define the optimum design of this application. The studied system consists of PV array, DC-DC Boost Converter, inverter, motor-pump set and storage tank. The comparison was carried out to define the characteristics and the performance of each system. Each subsystem is modeled in order to simulate the whole system in MATLAB/ Simulink. The results show the efficiency of the proposed technique.

Keywords: Photovoltaic water pumping system, DC motor-pump, AC motor-pump, DC-DC boost converter.

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29 Lagrangian Flow Skeletons Captured in the Wake of a Swimming Nematode C. elegans Using an Immersed Boundary Fluid-Structure Interaction Approach

Authors: Arash Taheri

Abstract:

In this paper, Lagrangian coherent structure (LCS) concept is applied to wake flows generated in the up/down-stream of a swimming nematode C. elegans in an intermediate Re number range, i.e., 250-1200. It materializes Lagrangian hidden structures depicting flow transport barriers. To pursue the goals, nematode swimming in a quiescent fluid flow environment is numerically simulated by a two-way fluid-structure interaction (FSI) approach with the aid of immersed boundary method (IBM). In this regard, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, fully-coupled with Lagrangian deformation equations for the immersed body, are solved using IB2d code. For all simulations, nematode’s body is modeled with a parametrized spring-fiber built-in case available in the computational code. Reverse von-Kármán vortex street formation and vortex shedding characteristics are studied and discussed in details via LCS approach, including grid resolution, integration time and Reynolds number effects. Results unveil presence of different flow regions with distinct fluid particle fates in the swimming animal’s wake and formation of so-called ‘mushroom-shaped’ structures in attracting LCS identities.

Keywords: Lagrangian coherent structure, nematode swimming, fluid-structure interaction, immersed boundary method, bionics.

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28 Identifying Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Optimization-Based Clustering

Authors: Sharifah Mousli, Sona Taheri, Jiayuan He

Abstract:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental condition involving persistent difficulties with social communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behavior. The challenges associated with ASD can interfere with an affected individual’s ability to function in social, academic, and employment settings. Although there is no effective medication known to treat ASD, to our best knowledge, early intervention can significantly improve an affected individual’s overall development. Hence, an accurate diagnosis of ASD at an early phase is essential. The use of machine learning approaches improves and speeds up the diagnosis of ASD. In this paper, we focus on the application of unsupervised clustering methods in ASD, as a large volume of ASD data generated through hospitals, therapy centers, and mobile applications has no pre-existing labels. We conduct a comparative analysis using seven clustering approaches, such as K-means, agglomerative hierarchical, model-based, fuzzy-C-means, affinity propagation, self organizing maps, linear vector quantisation – as well as the recently developed optimization-based clustering (COMSEP-Clust) approach. We evaluate the performances of the clustering methods extensively on real-world ASD datasets encompassing different age groups: toddlers, children, adolescents, and adults. Our experimental results suggest that the COMSEP-Clust approach outperforms the other seven methods in recognizing ASD with well-separated clusters.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, clustering, optimization, unsupervised machine learning.

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27 Resource Efficiency within Current Production

Authors: Sarah Majid Ansari, Serjosha Wulf, Matthias Görke

Abstract:

In times of global warming and the increasing shortage of resources, sustainable production is becoming more and more inevitable. Companies cannot only heighten their competitiveness but also contribute positively to environmental protection through efficient energy and resource consumption. Regarding this, technical solutions are often preferred during production, although organizational and process-related approaches also offer great potential. This project focuses on reducing resource usage, with a special emphasis on the human factor. It is the aspiration to develop a methodology that systematically implements and embeds suitable and individual measures and methods regarding resource efficiency throughout the entire production. The measures and methods established help employees handle resources and energy more sensitively. With this in mind, this paper also deals with the difficulties that can occur during the sensitization of employees and the implementation of these measures and methods. In addition, recommendations are given on how to avoid such difficulties.

Keywords: Implementation, human factor, production plant, resource efficiency.

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26 Transform to Succeed: An Empirical Analysis of Digital Transformation in Firms

Authors: Sarah E. Stief, Anne Theresa Eidhoff, Markus Voeth

Abstract:

Despite all progress firms are facing the increasing need to adapt and assimilate digital technologies to transform their business activities in order to pursue business development. By using new digital technologies, firms can implement major business improvements in order to stay competitive and foster new growth potentials. The corresponding phenomenon of digital transformation has received some attention in previous literature in respect to industries such as media and publishing. Nevertheless, there is a lack of understanding of the concept and its organization within firms. With the help of twenty-three in-depth field interviews with German experts responsible for their company’s digital transformation, we examined what digital transformation encompasses, how it is organized and which opportunities and challenges arise within firms. Our results indicate that digital transformation is an inevitable task for all firms, as it bears the potential to comprehensively optimize and reshape established business activities and can thus be seen as a strategy of business development.

Keywords: Business development, digitalization, digital strategies, digital transformation.

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25 EEG-Based Screening Tool for School Student’s Brain Disorders Using Machine Learning Algorithms

Authors: Abdelrahman A. Ramzy, Bassel S. Abdallah, Mohamed E. Bahgat, Sarah M. Abdelkader, Sherif H. ElGohary

Abstract:

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), epilepsy, and autism affect millions of children worldwide, many of which are undiagnosed despite the fact that all of these disorders are detectable in early childhood. Late diagnosis can cause severe problems due to the late treatment and to the misconceptions and lack of awareness as a whole towards these disorders. Moreover, electroencephalography (EEG) has played a vital role in the assessment of neural function in children. Therefore, quantitative EEG measurement will be utilized as a tool for use in the evaluation of patients who may have ADHD, epilepsy, and autism. We propose a screening tool that uses EEG signals and machine learning algorithms to detect these disorders at an early age in an automated manner. The proposed classifiers used with epilepsy as a step taken for the work done so far, provided an accuracy of approximately 97% using SVM, Naïve Bayes and Decision tree, while 98% using KNN, which gives hope for the work yet to be conducted.

Keywords: ADHD, autism, epilepsy, EEG, SVM.

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24 A Numerical Strategy to Design Maneuverable Micro-Biomedical Swimming Robots Based on Biomimetic Flagellar Propulsion

Authors: Arash Taheri, Meysam Mohammadi-Amin, Seyed Hossein Moosavy

Abstract:

Medical applications are among the most impactful areas of microrobotics. The ultimate goal of medical microrobots is to reach currently inaccessible areas of the human body and carry out a host of complex operations such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS), highly localized drug delivery, and screening for diseases at their very early stages. Miniature, safe and efficient propulsion systems hold the key to maturing this technology but they pose significant challenges. A new type of propulsion developed recently, uses multi-flagella architecture inspired by the motility mechanism of prokaryotic microorganisms. There is a lack of efficient methods for designing this type of propulsion system. The goal of this paper is to overcome the lack and this way, a numerical strategy is proposed to design multi-flagella propulsion systems. The strategy is based on the implementation of the regularized stokeslet and rotlet theory, RFT theory and new approach of “local corrected velocity". The effects of shape parameters and angular velocities of each flagellum on overall flow field and on the robot net forces and moments are considered. Then a multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network is designed and employed to adjust the angular velocities of the motors for propulsion control. The proposed method applied successfully on a sample configuration and useful demonstrative results is obtained.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Biomimetic Microrobots, Flagellar Propulsion, Swimming Robots.

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23 Social Space or the Art of Belonging: The Socio-Spatial Approach in the Field of Residential Facilities for Persons with Disabilities

Authors: Sarah Reker

Abstract:

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides the basis of this study. For all countries which have ratified the convention since its entry into force in 2007, the effective implementation of the requirements often leads to considerable challenges. Furthermore, missing indicators make it difficult to measure progress. Therefore, the aim of the research project is to contribute to analyze the consequences of the implementation process on the inclusion and exclusion conditions for people with disabilities in Germany. Disabled People’s Organisations and other associations consider the social space to be relevant for the successful implementation of the CRPD. Against this background, the research project wants to focus on the relationship between a barrier-free access to the social space and the “full and effective participation and inclusion” (Art. 3) of persons with disabilities. The theoretical basis of the study is the sociological theory of social space (“Sozialraumtheorie”).

Keywords: Decentralisation, qualitative research, residential facilities, social space.

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22 Improvement of Antibacterial Activity for Ceftazidime by Partially Purified Tannase from Penicillium expansum

Authors: Sahira N. Muslim, Alaa N. Mohammed, Saba Saadoon Khazaal, Batool Kadham Salman, Israa M. S. AL-Kadmy, Sraa N. Muslim, Ahmed S. Dwaish, Sawsan Mohammed Kareem, Sarah N. Aziz, Ruaa A. Jasim

Abstract:

Tannase has wide applications in food, beverage, brewing, cosmetics and chemical industries and one of the major applications of tannase is the production of gallic acid. Gallic acid is used for manufacturing of trimethoprim. In the present study, a local fungal strain of Penicillium expansum A4 isolated from spoilt apple samples gave the highest production level of tannase. Tannase was partially purified with a recovery yield of 92.52% and 6.32 fold of purification by precipitation using ammonium sulfate at 50% saturation. Tannase led to increased antimicrobial activity of ceftazidime against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and S. aureus and had a synergism effect at low concentrations of ceftazidime, and thus, tannase may be a useful adjuvant agent for the treatment of many bacterial infections in combination with ceftazidime.

Keywords: Ceftazidime, Penicillium expansum, tannase, antimicrobial activity.

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21 Water Reallocation Policies – The Importance of Rural and Urban Differences in Alberta, Canada

Authors: Henning Bjornlund, Alec Zuo, Sarah Wheeler, Rob de Loë

Abstract:

There is currently intensive debate in Alberta, Canada, regarding rural to urban water reallocation. This paper explores the demographic and attitudinal influences that are associated with the acceptance of water reallocation policies and whether such acceptance differs between urban and rural residents. We investigate three policy orientations in regards to water policies: i) government intervention; ii) environmental protection; and iii) protecting irrigators- water rights. We find that urban dwellers are more likely to favour government intervention while rural dwellers are more likely to support policies that aim at protecting irrigators- water rights. While urban dwellers are also more likely to favour environmental protection, the difference is not statistically significant. We also find that other factors have a significant impact on policy choice irrespective of residence such as demographic and socioeconomic factors as well as the values people hold toward water and the environment.

Keywords: Canada, rural, urban, water transfers.

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20 A Bayesian Hierarchical 13COBT to Correct Estimates Associated with a Delayed Gastric Emptying

Authors: Leslie J.C.Bluck, Sarah J.Jackson, Georgios Vlasakakis, Adrian Mander

Abstract:

The use of a Bayesian Hierarchical Model (BHM) to interpret breath measurements obtained during a 13C Octanoic Breath Test (13COBT) is demonstrated. The statistical analysis was implemented using WinBUGS, a commercially available computer package for Bayesian inference. A hierarchical setting was adopted where poorly defined parameters associated with a delayed Gastric Emptying (GE) were able to "borrow" strength from global distributions. This is proved to be a sufficient tool to correct model's failures and data inconsistencies apparent in conventional analyses employing a Non-linear least squares technique (NLS). Direct comparison of two parameters describing gastric emptying ng ( tlag -lag phase, t1/ 2 -half emptying time) revealed a strong correlation between the two methods. Despite our large dataset ( n = 164 ), Bayesian modeling was fast and provided a successful fitting for all subjects. On the contrary, NLS failed to return acceptable estimates in cases where GE was delayed.

Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical analysis, 13COBT, Gastricemptying, WinBUGS.

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19 The Use of Mobile Phones by Refugees to Create Social Connectedness: A Literature Review

Authors: Sarah Vuningoma, Maria Rosa Lorini, Wallace Chigona

Abstract:

Mobile phones are one of the main tools for promoting the wellbeing of people and supporting the integration of communities on the margins such as refugees. Information and Communication Technology has the potential to contribute towards reducing isolation, loneliness, and to assist in improving interpersonal relations and fostering acculturation processes. Therefore, the use of mobile phones by refugees might contribute to their social connectedness. This paper aims to demonstrate how existing literature has shown how the use of mobile phones by refugees should engender social connectedness amongst the refugees. Data for the study are drawn from existing literature; we searched a number of electronic databases for papers published between 2010 and 2019. The main findings of the study relate to the use of mobile phones by refugees to (i) create a sense of belonging, (ii) maintain relationships, and (iii) advance the acculturation process. The analysis highlighted a gap in the research over refugees and social connectedness. In particular, further studies should consider evaluating the differences between those who have a refugee permit, those who are waiting for the refugee permit, and those whose request was denied.

Keywords: Belonging, mobile phones, refugees, social connectedness.

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18 Viscosity Reduction and Upgrading of Athabasca Oilsands Bitumen by Natural Zeolite Cracking

Authors: Abu S.M. Junaid, Wei Wang, Christopher Street, Moshfiqur Rahman, Matt Gersbach, Sarah Zhou, William McCaffrey, Steven M. Kuznicki

Abstract:

Oilsands bitumen is an extremely important source of energy for North America. However, due to the presence of large molecules such as asphaltenes, the density and viscosity of the bitumen recovered from these sands are much higher than those of conventional crude oil. As a result the extracted bitumen has to be diluted with expensive solvents, or thermochemically upgraded in large, capital-intensive conventional upgrading facilities prior to pipeline transport. This study demonstrates that globally abundant natural zeolites such as clinoptilolite from Saint Clouds, New Mexico and Ca-chabazite from Bowie, Arizona can be used as very effective reagents for cracking and visbreaking of oilsands bitumen. Natural zeolite cracked oilsands bitumen products are highly recoverable (up to ~ 83%) using light hydrocarbons such as pentane, which indicates substantial conversion of heavier fractions to lighter components. The resultant liquid products are much less viscous, and have lighter product distribution compared to those produced from pure thermal treatment. These natural minerals impart similar effect on industrially extracted Athabasca bitumen.

Keywords: Natural Zeolites, Oilsands Bitumen, Cracking, Viscosity Reduction, Upgrading.

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17 The Islamic Hadiths on Female Circumcision and the Symbolism of Solomon’s Temple

Authors: Richard L. Worthington

Abstract:

Female ‘circumcision’ (FGC/FGM) in Islam is based primarily upon the ‘hadiths,’ which are the sayings of Muhammad. While it is usual to attack such hadiths in order to stop female ‘circumcision,’ yet those practicing female ‘circumcision’ merely react against such an attack. However, there is a new approach, called ‘Temple Theology,’ which reads religious stories in the light of how the rituals and politics of Solomon’s temple were encoded in those stories. For example, one hadith tells us not to cut severely in circumcising a woman. However, the Menorah lampstand was symbolized as a woman, and so ‘circumcising’ a woman could be re-interpreted as merely referring to trimming the wicks of the lamps. Similarly, another hadith mentions that when a man is within the four parts of a woman (her arms and legs) that the couple should bathe because their circumcised parts have met (implying that the woman was circumcised). However, the bronze ‘Sea’ basin of Solomon’s temple, used for immersion (‘bathing’), had four sides, implying that the circumcised parts relate to temple symbolism. The hadiths relating to the fitra – Islamic practices which include circumcision – and to Hagar being circumcised by Sarah are likewise interpreted. This approach implies that the hadiths can be respected without giving them a literal interpretation. In this way, it is hoped that those devout Muslims who defend female ‘circumcision’ can re-evaluate their position in a positive way from within their own tradition, as opposed to being seemingly hounded by non-Muslims.

Keywords: Female circumcision, Fitra, Hadith, Temple theology.

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16 An Analysis of Digital Forensic Laboratory Development among Malaysia’s Law Enforcement Agencies

Authors: Sarah K. Taylor, Miratun M. Saharuddin, Zabri A. Talib

Abstract:

Cybercrime is on the rise, and yet many Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in Malaysia have no Digital Forensics Laboratory (DFL) to assist them in the attrition and analysis of digital evidence. From the estimated number of 30 LEAs in Malaysia, sadly, only eight of them owned a DFL. All of the DFLs are concentrated in the capital of Malaysia and none at the state level. LEAs are still depending on the national DFL (CyberSecurity Malaysia) even for simple and straightforward cases. A survey was conducted among LEAs in Malaysia owning a DFL to understand their history of establishing the DFL, the challenges that they faced and the significance of the DFL to their case investigation. The results showed that the while some LEAs faced no challenge in establishing a DFL, some of them took seven to 10 years to do so. The reason was due to the difficulty in convincing their management because of the high costs involved. The results also revealed that with the establishment of a DFL, LEAs were better able to get faster forensic result and to meet agency’s timeline expectation. It is also found that LEAs were also able to get more meaningful forensic results on cases that require niche expertise, compared to sending off cases to the national DFL. Other than that, cases are getting more complex, and hence, a continuous stream of budget for equipment and training is inevitable. The result derived from the study is hoped to be used by other LEAs in justifying to their management the benefits of establishing an in-house DFL.

Keywords: Digital forensics, digital forensics laboratory, digital evidence, law enforcement agency.

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15 Comparison of Machine Learning Techniques for Single Imputation on Audiograms

Authors: Sarah Beaver, Renee Bryce

Abstract:

Audiograms detect hearing impairment, but missing values pose problems. This work explores imputations in an attempt to improve accuracy. This work implements Linear Regression, Lasso, Linear Support Vector Regression, Bayesian Ridge, K Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Random Forest machine learning techniques to impute audiogram frequencies ranging from 125 Hz to 8000 Hz. The data contain patients who had or were candidates for cochlear implants. Accuracy is compared across two different Nested Cross-Validation k values. Over 4000 audiograms were used from 800 unique patients. Additionally, training on data combines and compares left and right ear audiograms versus single ear side audiograms. The accuracy achieved using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values for the best models for Random Forest ranges from 4.74 to 6.37. The R2 values for the best models for Random Forest ranges from .91 to .96. The accuracy achieved using RMSE values for the best models for KNN ranges from 5.00 to 7.72. The R2 values for the best models for KNN ranges from .89 to .95. The best imputation models received R2 between .89 to .96 and RMSE values less than 8dB. We also show that the accuracy of classification predictive models performed better with our imputation models versus constant imputations by a two percent increase.

Keywords: Machine Learning, audiograms, data imputations, single imputations.

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14 Understanding the Experience of the Visually Impaired towards a Multi-Sensorial Architectural Design

Authors: Sarah M. Oteifa, Lobna A. Sherif, Yasser M. Mostafa

Abstract:

Visually impaired people, in their daily lives, face struggles and spatial barriers because the built environment is often designed with an extreme focus on the visual element, causing what is called architectural visual bias or ocularcentrism. The aim of the study is to holistically understand the world of the visually impaired as an attempt to extract the qualities of space that accommodate their needs, and to show the importance of multi-sensory, holistic designs for the blind. Within the framework of existential phenomenology, common themes are reached through "intersubjectivity": experience descriptions by blind people and blind architects, observation of how blind children learn to perceive their surrounding environment, and a personal lived blind-folded experience are analyzed. The extracted themes show how visually impaired people filter out and prioritize tactile (active, passive and dynamic touch), acoustic and olfactory spatial qualities respectively, and how this happened during the personal lived blind folded experience. The themes clarify that haptic and aural inclusive designs are essential to create environments suitable for the visually impaired to empower them towards an independent, safe and efficient life.

Keywords: Visually impaired, architecture, multi-sensory design, architectural ocularcentrism.

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13 Application of the Total Least Squares Estimation Method for an Aircraft Aerodynamic Model Identification

Authors: Zaouche Mohamed, Amini Mohamed, Foughali Khaled, Aitkaid Souhila, Bouchiha Nihad Sarah

Abstract:

The aerodynamic coefficients are important in the evaluation of an aircraft performance and stability-control characteristics. These coefficients also can be used in the automatic flight control systems and mathematical model of flight simulator. The study of the aerodynamic aspect of flying systems is a reserved domain and inaccessible for the developers. Doing tests in a wind tunnel to extract aerodynamic forces and moments requires a specific and expensive means. Besides, the glaring lack of published documentation in this field of study makes the aerodynamic coefficients determination complicated. This work is devoted to the identification of an aerodynamic model, by using an aircraft in virtual simulated environment. We deal with the identification of the system, we present an environment framework based on Software In the Loop (SIL) methodology and we use MicrosoftTM Flight Simulator (FS-2004) as the environment for plane simulation. We propose The Total Least Squares Estimation technique (TLSE) to identify the aerodynamic parameters, which are unknown, variable, classified and used in the expression of the piloting law. In this paper, we define each aerodynamic coefficient as the mean of its numerical values. All other variations are considered as modeling uncertainties that will be compensated by the robustness of the piloting control.

Keywords: Aircraft aerodynamic model, Microsoft flight simulator, MQ-1 Predator, total least squares estimation, piloting the aircraft.

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12 The Effects of Mobile Phones in Mitigating Cultural Shock Amongst Refugees: Case of South Africa

Authors: Sarah Vuningoma, Maria Rosa Lorini, Wallace Chigona

Abstract:

The potential of mobile phones is evident in their ability to address isolation and loneliness, support the improvement of interpersonal relations, and contribute to the facilitation of assimilation processes. Mobile phones can play a role in facilitating the integration of refugees into a new environment. This study aims to evaluate the impact of mobile phone use on helping refugees navigate the challenges posed by cultural differences in the host country. Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data for the study, involving a sample size of 27 participants. Participants in the study were refugees based in South Africa, and thematic analysis was the chosen method for data analysis. The research highlights the numerous challenges faced by refugees in their host nation, including a lack of local cultural skills, the separation of family and friends from their countries of origin, hurdles in acquiring legal documentation, and the complexities of assimilating into the unfamiliar community. The use of mobile phones by refugees comes with several advantages, such as the advancement of language and cultural understanding, seamless integration into the host country, streamlined communication, and the exploration of diverse opportunities. Concurrently, mobile phones allow refugees in South Africa to manage the impact of culture shock.

Keywords: Mobile phones, culture shock, refugees, South Africa.

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11 Mobile Assembly of Electric Vehicles: Decentralized, Low-Invest and Flexible

Authors: Achim Kampker, Kai Kreiskoether, Johannes Wagner, Sarah Fluchs

Abstract:

The growing speed of innovation in related industries requires the automotive industry to adapt and increase release frequencies of new vehicle derivatives which implies a significant reduction of investments per vehicle and ramp-up times. Emerging markets in various parts of the world augment the currently dominating established main automotive markets. Local content requirements such as import tariffs on final products impede the accessibility of these micro markets, which is why in the future market exploitation will not be driven by pure sales activities anymore but rather by setting up local assembly units. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the concept of decentralized assembly and to discuss and critically assess some currently researched and crucial approaches in production technology. In order to determine the scope in which complementary mobile assembly can be profitable for manufacturers, a general cost model is set up and each cost driver is assessed with respect to varying levels of decentralization. One main result of the paper is that the presented approaches offer huge cost-saving potentials and are thus critical for future production strategies. Nevertheless, they still need to be further exploited in order for decentralized assembly to be profitable for companies. The optimal level of decentralization must, however, be specifically determined in each case and cannot be defined in general.

Keywords: Automotive assembly, e-mobility, production technology, small series assembly.

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10 Transportation Mode Choice Analysis for Accessibility of the Mehrabad International Airport by Statistical Models

Authors: N. Mirzaei Varzeghani, M. Saffarzadeh, A. Naderan, A. Taheri

Abstract:

Countries are progressing, and the world's busiest airports see year-on-year increases in travel demand. Passenger acceptability of an airport depends on the airport's appeals, which may include one of these routes between the city and the airport, as well as the facilities to reach them. One of the critical roles of transportation planners is to predict future transportation demand so that an integrated, multi-purpose system can be provided and diverse modes of transportation (rail, air, and land) can be delivered to a destination like an airport. In this study, 356 questionnaires were filled out in person over six days. First, the attraction of business and non-business trips was studied using data and a linear regression model. Lower travel costs, more passengers aged 55 and older using this airport, and other factors are essential for business trips. Non-business travelers, on the other hand, have prioritized using personal vehicles to get to the airport and ensuring convenient access to the airport. Business travelers are also less price-sensitive than non-business travelers regarding airport travel. Furthermore, carrying additional luggage (for example, more than one suitcase per person) undoubtedly decreases the attractiveness of public transit. Afterward, based on the manner and purpose of the trip, the locations with the highest trip generation to the airport were identified. The most famous district in Tehran was District 2, with 23 visits, while the most popular mode of transportation was an online taxi, with 12 trips from that location. Then, significant variables in separation and behavior of travel methods to access the airport were investigated for all systems. In this scenario, the most crucial factor is the time it takes to get to the airport, followed by the method's user-friendliness as a component of passenger preference. It has also been demonstrated that enhancing public transportation trip times reduces private transportation's market share, including taxicabs. Based on the responses of personal and semi-public vehicles, the desire of passengers to approach the airport via public transportation systems was explored to enhance present techniques and develop new strategies for providing the most efficient modes of transportation. Using the binary model, it was clear that business travelers and people who had already driven to the airport were the least likely to change.

Keywords: Multimodal transportation, travel behavior, demand modeling, statistical models.

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9 Understanding Europe’s Role in the Area of Liberty, Security and Justice as an International Actor

Authors: Sarah Barrere

Abstract:

The area of liberty, security and justice within the European Union is still a work in progress. No one can deny that the EU struggles between a monistic and a dualist approach. The aim of our essay is to first review how the European law is perceived by the rest of the international scene. It will then discuss two main mechanisms at play: the interpretation of larger international treaties and the penal mechanisms of European law. Finally, it will help us understand the role of a penal Europe on the international scene with concrete examples. Special attention will be paid to cases that deal with fundamental rights as they represent an interesting case study in Europe and in the rest of the World. It could illustrate the aforementioned duality currently present in the Union’s interpretation of international public law. On the other hand, it will explore some specific European penal mechanism through mutual recognition and the European arrest warrant in the transnational criminality frame. Concerning the interpretation of the treaties, it will first, underline the ambiguity and the general nature of some treaties that leave the EU exposed to tension and misunderstanding then it will review the validity of an EU act (whether or not it is compatible with the rules of International law). Finally, it will focus on the most complete manifestation of liberty, security and justice through the principle of mutual recognition. Used initially in commercial matters, it has become “the cornerstone” of European construction. It will see how it is applied in judicial decisions (its main event and achieving success is via the European arrest warrant) and how European member states have managed to develop this cooperation.

Keywords: European penal law, International scene, Liberty security and justice area, mutual recognition.

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8 A Hybrid Ontology Based Approach for Ranking Documents

Authors: Sarah Motiee, Azadeh Nematzadeh, Mehrnoush Shamsfard

Abstract:

Increasing growth of information volume in the internet causes an increasing need to develop new (semi)automatic methods for retrieval of documents and ranking them according to their relevance to the user query. In this paper, after a brief review on ranking models, a new ontology based approach for ranking HTML documents is proposed and evaluated in various circumstances. Our approach is a combination of conceptual, statistical and linguistic methods. This combination reserves the precision of ranking without loosing the speed. Our approach exploits natural language processing techniques to extract phrases from documents and the query and doing stemming on words. Then an ontology based conceptual method will be used to annotate documents and expand the query. To expand a query the spread activation algorithm is improved so that the expansion can be done flexible and in various aspects. The annotated documents and the expanded query will be processed to compute the relevance degree exploiting statistical methods. The outstanding features of our approach are (1) combining conceptual, statistical and linguistic features of documents, (2) expanding the query with its related concepts before comparing to documents, (3) extracting and using both words and phrases to compute relevance degree, (4) improving the spread activation algorithm to do the expansion based on weighted combination of different conceptual relationships and (5) allowing variable document vector dimensions. A ranking system called ORank is developed to implement and test the proposed model. The test results will be included at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Document ranking, Ontology, Spread activation algorithm, Annotation.

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7 ORank: An Ontology Based System for Ranking Documents

Authors: Mehrnoush Shamsfard, Azadeh Nematzadeh, Sarah Motiee

Abstract:

Increasing growth of information volume in the internet causes an increasing need to develop new (semi)automatic methods for retrieval of documents and ranking them according to their relevance to the user query. In this paper, after a brief review on ranking models, a new ontology based approach for ranking HTML documents is proposed and evaluated in various circumstances. Our approach is a combination of conceptual, statistical and linguistic methods. This combination reserves the precision of ranking without loosing the speed. Our approach exploits natural language processing techniques for extracting phrases and stemming words. Then an ontology based conceptual method will be used to annotate documents and expand the query. To expand a query the spread activation algorithm is improved so that the expansion can be done in various aspects. The annotated documents and the expanded query will be processed to compute the relevance degree exploiting statistical methods. The outstanding features of our approach are (1) combining conceptual, statistical and linguistic features of documents, (2) expanding the query with its related concepts before comparing to documents, (3) extracting and using both words and phrases to compute relevance degree, (4) improving the spread activation algorithm to do the expansion based on weighted combination of different conceptual relationships and (5) allowing variable document vector dimensions. A ranking system called ORank is developed to implement and test the proposed model. The test results will be included at the end of the paper.

Keywords: Document ranking, Ontology, Spread activation algorithm, Annotation.

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6 Modeling of Surface Roughness for Flow over a Complex Vegetated Surface

Authors: Wichai Pattanapol, Sarah J. Wakes, Michael J. Hilton, Katharine J.M. Dickinson

Abstract:

Turbulence modeling of large-scale flow over a vegetated surface is complex. Such problems involve large scale computational domains, while the characteristics of flow near the surface are also involved. In modeling large scale flow, surface roughness including vegetation is generally taken into account by mean of roughness parameters in the modified law of the wall. However, the turbulence structure within the canopy region cannot be captured with this method, another method which applies source/sink terms to model plant drag can be used. These models have been developed and tested intensively but with a simple surface geometry. This paper aims to compare the use of roughness parameter, and additional source/sink terms in modeling the effect of plant drag on wind flow over a complex vegetated surface. The RNG k-ε turbulence model with the non-equilibrium wall function was tested with both cases. In addition, the k-ω turbulence model, which is claimed to be computationally stable, was also investigated with the source/sink terms. All numerical results were compared to the experimental results obtained at the study site Mason Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand. In the near-surface region, it is found that the results obtained by using the source/sink term are more accurate than those using roughness parameters. The k-ω turbulence model with source/sink term is more appropriate as it is more accurate and more computationally stable than the RNG k-ε turbulence model. At higher region, there is no significant difference amongst the results obtained from all simulations.

Keywords: CFD, canopy flow, surface roughness, turbulence models.

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5 Modeling Engagement with Multimodal Multisensor Data: The Continuous Performance Test as an Objective Tool to Track Flow

Authors: Mohammad H. Taheri, David J. Brown, Nasser Sherkat

Abstract:

Engagement is one of the most important factors in determining successful outcomes and deep learning in students. Existing approaches to detect student engagement involve periodic human observations that are subject to inter-rater reliability. Our solution uses real-time multimodal multisensor data labeled by objective performance outcomes to infer the engagement of students. The study involves four students with a combined diagnosis of cerebral palsy and a learning disability who took part in a 3-month trial over 59 sessions. Multimodal multisensor data were collected while they participated in a continuous performance test. Eye gaze, electroencephalogram, body pose, and interaction data were used to create a model of student engagement through objective labeling from the continuous performance test outcomes. In order to achieve this, a type of continuous performance test is introduced, the Seek-X type. Nine features were extracted including high-level handpicked compound features. Using leave-one-out cross-validation, a series of different machine learning approaches were evaluated. Overall, the random forest classification approach achieved the best classification results. Using random forest, 93.3% classification for engagement and 42.9% accuracy for disengagement were achieved. We compared these results to outcomes from different models: AdaBoost, decision tree, k-Nearest Neighbor, naïve Bayes, neural network, and support vector machine. We showed that using a multisensor approach achieved higher accuracy than using features from any reduced set of sensors. We found that using high-level handpicked features can improve the classification accuracy in every sensor mode. Our approach is robust to both sensor fallout and occlusions. The single most important sensor feature to the classification of engagement and distraction was shown to be eye gaze. It has been shown that we can accurately predict the level of engagement of students with learning disabilities in a real-time approach that is not subject to inter-rater reliability, human observation or reliant on a single mode of sensor input. This will help teachers design interventions for a heterogeneous group of students, where teachers cannot possibly attend to each of their individual needs. Our approach can be used to identify those with the greatest learning challenges so that all students are supported to reach their full potential.

Keywords: Affective computing in education, affect detection, continuous performance test, engagement, flow, HCI, interaction, learning disabilities, machine learning, multimodal, multisensor, physiological sensors, Signal Detection Theory, student engagement.

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