Search results for: energy management

Authors: Amir Tosson, Mohammad Reza, Christian Gutt

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Metadata is one of the most important aspects for advancing data management practices within all research communities. Definitions and schemes of metadata are inter alia of particular significance in the domain of neutron and photon scattering experiments covering a broad area of different scientific disciplines. The demand of describing continuously evolving highly non-standardized experiments, including the resulting processed and published data, constitutes a considerable challenge for a static definition of metadata. Here, we present the concept of dynamic metadata for the neutron and photon scientific community, which enriches a static set of defined basic metadata. We explore the idea of dynamic metadata with the help of the use case of X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS), which is a synchrotron-based scattering technique that allows the investigation of nanoscale dynamic processes. It serves here as a demonstrator of how dynamic metadata can improve data acquisition, sharing, and analysis workflows. Our approach enables researchers to tailor metadata definitions dynamically and adapt them to the evolving demands of describing data and results from a diverse set of experiments. We demonstrate that dynamic metadata standards yield advantages that enhance data reproducibility, interoperability, and the dissemination of knowledge.

Keywords: Big data, metadata, schemas, XPCS, X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy.

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Authors: E. Ewemoje Oluseyi, T. A. Ewemoje, A. A. Adedeji

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Biodegradable solid waste disposal and management has been a major problem in Nigeria and indiscriminate dumping of this waste either into watercourses or drains has led to environmental hazards affecting public health. The study investigated the nutrients level of pit composting and vermicomposting. Wooden bins 60 cm × 30 cm × 30 cm³ in size were constructed and bedding materials (sawdust, egg shell, paper and grasses) and red worms (Eisenia fetida) introduced to facilitate the free movement and protection of the worms against harsh weather. A pit of 100 cm × 100 cm × 100 cm³ was dug and worms were introduced into the pit, which was turned every two weeks. Food waste was fed to the red worms in the bin and pit, respectively. The composts were harvested after 100 days and analysed. The analyses gave: nitrogen has average value 0.87 % and 1.29 %; phosphorus 0.66 % and 1.78 %; potassium 4.35 % and 6.27 % for the pit and vermicomposting, respectively. Higher nutrient status of vermicomposting over pit composting may be attributed to the secretions in the intestinal tracts of worms which are more readily available for plant growth. However, iron and aluminium were more in the pit compost than the vermin compost and this may be attributed to the iron and aluminium already present in the soil before the composting took place. Other nutrients in ppm concentrations were aluminium 4,999.50 and 3,989.33; iron 2,131.83 and 633.40 for the pit and vermicomposting, respectively. These nutrients are only needed by plants in small quantities. Hence, vermicomposting has the higher concentration of essential nutrients necessary for healthy plant growth.

Keywords: Food wastes, pit composting, plant nutrient status, tropical environment, vermicomposting.

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Authors: Stela Papa, Klementina Puto, Migena Pllaha

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HCV is a hepatotropic RNA virus, transmitted primarily via the blood route, which causes progressive disease such as chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, or hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV nowadays is a global healthcare problem. A variety of immunoassays including old and new technologies are being applied to detect HCV in our country. These methods include Immunochromatography assays (ICA), Fluorescence immunoassay (FIA), Enzyme linked fluorescent assay (ELFA), and Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect HCV antibodies in blood serum, which lately is being slowly replaced by more sensitive methods such as rapid automated analyzer chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA). The aim of this study is to estimate HCV infection in carriers and chronic acute patients and to evaluate the use of new diagnostic methods. This study was realized from September 2016 to May 2018. During this study period, 2913 patients were analyzed for the presence of HCV by taking samples from their blood serum. The immunoassays performed were ICA, FIA, ELFA, ELISA, and CLIA assays. Concluding, 82% of patients taken in this study, resulted infected with HCV. Diagnostic methods in clinical laboratories are crucial in the early stages of infection, in the management of chronic hepatitis and in the treatment of patients during their disease.

Keywords: CLIA, ELISA, hepatitis C virus, immunoassay.

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Authors: A. Bachrata, N. Marie, F. Bertrand, J. B. Droin

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The in-depth understanding of severe accident propagation in Generation IV of nuclear reactors is important so that appropriate risk management can be undertaken early in their design process. This paper is focused on model improvements in the SIMMER code in order to perform studies of severe accident mitigation of Sodium Fast Reactor. During the design process of the mitigation devices dedicated to extraction of molten fuel from the core region, the molten fuel propagation from the core up to the core catcher has to be studied. In this aim, analytical as well as the complex thermohydraulic simulations with SIMMER-III code are performed. The studies presented in this paper focus on physical phenomena and associated physical models that influence the corium relocation. Firstly, the molten pool heat exchange with surrounding structures is analyzed since it influences directly the instant of rupture of the dedicated tubes favoring the corium relocation for mitigation purpose. After the corium penetration into mitigation tubes, the fuel-coolant interactions result in formation of debris bed. Analyses of debris bed fluidization as well as sinking into a fluid are presented in this paper.

Keywords: Corium, mitigation tubes, SIMMER-III, sodium fast reactor (SFR).

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Authors: Zhiwen Pan, Jesus Pacheco, Salim Hariri, Yiqiang Chen, Bozhi Liu

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The Internet of Things (IoT) will lead to the development of advanced Smart Home services that are pervasive, cost-effective, and can be accessed by home occupants from anywhere and at any time. However, advanced smart home applications will introduce grand security challenges due to the increase in the attack surface. Current approaches do not handle cybersecurity from a holistic point of view; hence, a systematic cybersecurity mechanism needs to be adopted when designing smart home applications. In this paper, we present a generic intrusion detection methodology to detect and mitigate the anomaly behaviors happened in Smart Home Systems (SHS). By utilizing our Smart Home Context Data Structure, the heterogeneous information and services acquired from SHS are mapped in context attributes which can describe the context of smart home operation precisely and accurately. Runtime models for describing usage patterns of home assets are developed based on characterization functions. A threat-aware action management methodology, used to efficiently mitigate anomaly behaviors, is proposed at the end. Our preliminary experimental results show that our methodology can be used to detect and mitigate known and unknown threats, as well as to protect SHS premises and services.

Keywords: Internet of Things, network security, context awareness, intrusion detection

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

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

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

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

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

Keywords: Communal goat housing, milk production.

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

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

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

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Authors: Roberto Rosenhaim, Marcos Antonio Crus Moreira, Robson da Cunha, Gerson Gomes Cunha

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This work provides details on the wind speed behavior within cities of Arraial do Cabo and São Pedro da Aldeia located in the Lakes Region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This region has one of the best potentials for wind power generation. In interurban layer, wind conditions are very complex and depend on physical geography, size and orientation of buildings and constructions around, population density, and land use. In the same context, the fundamental surface parameter that governs the production of flow turbulence in urban canyons is the surface roughness. Such factors can influence the potential for power generation from the wind within the cities. Moreover, the use of wind on a small scale is not fully utilized due to complexity of wind flow measurement inside the cities. It is difficult to accurately predict this type of resource. This study demonstrates how fuzzy logic can facilitate the assessment of the complexity of the wind potential inside the cities. It presents a decision support tool and its ability to deal with inaccurate information using linguistic variables created by the heuristic method. It relies on the already published studies about the variables that influence the wind speed in the urban environment. These variables were turned into the verbal expressions that are used in computer system, which facilitated the establishment of rules for fuzzy inference and integration with an application for smartphones used in the research. In the first part of the study, challenges of the sustainable development which are described are followed by incentive policies to the use of renewable energy in Brazil. The next chapter follows the study area characteristics and the concepts of fuzzy logic. Data were collected in field experiment by using qualitative and quantitative methods for assessment. As a result, a map of the various points is presented within the cities studied with its wind viability evaluated by a system of decision support using the method multivariate classification based on fuzzy logic.

Keywords: Behavior of winds, wind power, fuzzy logic, sustainable development.

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Authors: Ronbanchob Apiratikul

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This research studied recycled wastes by Recyclable Material Bank project of 17 universities of Thailand for evaluation of reducing greenhouse gasses emission compared with landfilling activity during January 2011 to December 2011. The results showed that the projects collected total amount of recyclable wastes about 1,626.917 metric ton. The office paper has the largest amount among these recycled wastes (55.61 % of total recycled wastes). Groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low according to their amount as paper, plastic, glass, mixed recyclables and metal, respectively. The project reduced greenhouse gasses emission equivalent to about 5,263.481 metric ton of carbon dioxide. The most significant recycled waste that affects the reduction of greenhouse gasses emission is office paper which is 73.45% of total reduced greenhouse gasses emission. According to amount of reduced greenhouse gasses emission, groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low significances as paper, plastic, metal, mixed recyclables and glass, respectively.

Keywords: recycling, garbage bank, waste management, recyclable wastes, greenhouse gasses

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Authors: Allaeddine Athmani, Abdelhacine Gouasmia, Tiago Ferreira, Romeu Vicente

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The seismic risk mitigation from the perspective of the old buildings stock is truly essential in Algerian urban areas, particularly those located in seismic prone regions, such as Annaba city, and which the old buildings present high levels of degradation associated with no seismic strengthening and/or rehabilitation concerns. In this sense, the present paper approaches the issue of the seismic vulnerability assessment of old masonry building stocks through the adaptation of a simplified methodology developed for a European context area similar to that of Annaba city, Algeria. Therefore, this method is used for the first level of seismic vulnerability assessment of the masonry buildings stock of the old city center of Annaba. This methodology is based on a vulnerability index that is suitable for the evaluation of damage and for the creation of large-scale loss scenarios. Over 380 buildings were evaluated in accordance with the referred methodology and the results obtained were then integrated into a Geographical Information System (GIS) tool. Such results can be used by the Annaba city council for supporting management decisions, based on a global view of the site under analysis, which led to more accurate and faster decisions for the risk mitigation strategies and rehabilitation plans.

Keywords: Damage scenarios, masonry buildings, old city center, seismic vulnerability, vulnerability index.

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Authors: Meng-Lung Lin, Chien-Min Chu, Chung-Hung Tsai, Chih-Cheng Chen, Chen-Yuan Chen

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The study of tourist activities and the mapping of their routes in space and time has become an important issue in tourism management. Here we represent space-time paths for the tourism industry by visualizing individual tourist activities and the paths followed using a 3D Geographic Information System (GIS). Considerable attention has been devoted to the measurement of accessibility to shopping, eating, walking and other services at the tourist destination. I turns out that GIS is a useful tool for studying the spatial behaviors of tourists in the area. The value of GIS is especially advantageous for space-time potential path area measures, especially for the accurate visualization of possible paths through existing city road networks. This study seeks to apply space-time concepts with a detailed street network map obtained from Google Maps to measure tourist paths both spatially and temporally. These paths are further determined based on data obtained from map questionnaires regarding the trip activities of 40 individuals. The analysis of the data makes it possible to determining the locations of the more popular paths. The results can be visualized using 3D GIS to show the areas and potential activity opportunities accessible to tourists during their travel time.

Keywords: Tourist activity analysis, space-time path, GIS, geovisualization, activity-travel pattern.

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Authors: Ercan Ceyhan, Ali Kahraman, Hasan Dalgıç

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This research was made during the 2011 and 2012 growing periods in the trial filed of "Research Station for Management of Soil Water and Desertification" according to “Randomized Blocks Design” with 3 replications. Research material was the following chickpea genotype; CA119, CA128, CA149, CA150, CA222, CA250, CA254 and other 2 commercial varieties named as Gökçe and Yaşa. Some agronomical characteristics such as plant height (cm), number of pod per plant, number of seed per pod, number of seed per plant, 1000 seed weight (g) and seed yield (kg ha^-1) were determined. Statistically significant variations were found amongst the genotypes for all variables except seeds per pod. Means of the two years showed the range for plant height was from 52.83cm (Gökçe) to 73.00cm (CA150), number of pod per plant was from 14.00 (CA149) to 26.83 (CA261), number of seed per pod was from 1.10 (Gökçe) to 1.19 (CA149 and CA250), number of seed per plant was from 16.28 (CA149) to 31.65 (CA261), 1000 seed weight was from 295.85g (CA149) to 437.80g (CA261) and seed yield was from 1342.73 kg ha^-1 (CA261) to 2161.50 kg ha^-1 (CA128). Results of the research implicated that the new developed lines were superior compared with the control (commercial) varieties by means of most of the characteristics.

Keywords: Agricultural characters, chickpea, seed yield.

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Authors: Lubis A., Setiawati L., Setyoningrum A. R., Suryawan A., Irwanto

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Asthma is a condition that causing chronic health problems in children. In addition to basic therapy against disease, we must try to reduce the impact of chronic health problems and also optimize their medical aspect of growth and development. A boy with mild asthma attack frequent episode did not showed any improvement with medical treatment and his asthma control test was 11. From radiologic examination he got hyperaerated lung and billateral sinusitis maxillaris; skin test results were house dust, food and pet allergy; an overweight body; bad school grades; psychological and environmental problem. We followed and evaluated this boy in 6 months, treated holistically. Even we could not do much on environmental but no more psychological and school problems, his on a good bodyweight and his asthma control test was 22. A case of a child with mild asthma attack frequent episode was reported. Asthma clinical course show no significant improvement when other predisposing factor is not well-controlled and a child’s growth and development may be affected. Improving condition of the patient can be created with the help of loving and caring way of nurturing from the parents and supportive peer group. Therefore, continuous and consistent monitoring is required because prognosis of asthma is generally good when regularly and properly controlled.

Keywords: Asthma, chronic health problems, growth and development.

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Authors: Eulalia Torras, Andreu Bellot

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To know whether students’ achievements are the result of online interaction and not just a consequence of individual differences themselves, it seems essential to link the teaching presence and social presence to the types of knowledge built. The research aim is to analyze the social presence in relation to two types of knowledge, declarative and procedural. Qualitative methodology has been used. The analysis of the contents was based on an observation protocol that included community of enquiry indicators and procedural and declarative knowledge indicators. The research has been conducted in three phases that focused on an observational protocol and indicators, results and conclusions. Results show that the teaching-learning processes have been characterized by the patterns of presence and types of knowledge. Results also show the importance of social presence support provided by the teacher and the students, not only in regard to the nature of the instructional support but also concerning how it is presented to the student and the importance that is attributed to it in the teaching-learning process, that is, what it is that assistance is offered on. In this study, we find that the presence based on procedural guidelines and declarative reflection, the management of shared meaning on the basis of the skills and the evidence of these skills entail patterns of learning. Nevertheless, the importance that the teacher attributes to each support aspect has a bearing on the extent to which the students reflect more on the given task.

Keywords: Education, online, teaching and learning processes, knowledge.

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Authors: M. Moslehpour, S. Khorsandi

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Due to shortage in IPv4 addresses, transition to IPv6 has gained significant momentum in recent years. Like Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) in IPv4, Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) provides some functions like address resolution in IPv6. Besides functionality of NDP, it is vulnerable to some attacks. To mitigate these attacks, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) was introduced, but it was not efficient due to its limitation. Therefore, SEND protocol is proposed to automatic protection of auto-configuration process. It is secure neighbor discovery and address resolution process. To defend against threats on NDP’s integrity and identity, Cryptographically Generated Address (CGA) and asymmetric cryptography are used by SEND. Besides advantages of SEND, its disadvantages like the computation process of CGA algorithm and sequentially of CGA generation algorithm are considerable. In this paper, we parallel this process between network resources in order to improve it. In addition, we compare the CGA generation time in self-computing and distributed-computing process. We focus on the impact of the malicious nodes on the CGA generation time in the network. According to the result, although malicious nodes participate in the generation process, CGA generation time is less than when it is computed in a one-way. By Trust Management System, detecting and insulating malicious nodes is easier.

Keywords: NDP, IPsec, SEND, CGA, Modifier, Malicious node, Self-Computing, Distributed-Computing.

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Authors: Esam Jassim

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Industries using conventional fossil fuels have an  interest in better understanding the mechanism of particulate  formation during combustion since such is responsible for emission  of undesired inorganic elements that directly impact the atmospheric  pollution level. Fine and ultrafine particulates have tendency to  escape the flue gas cleaning devices to the atmosphere. They also  preferentially collect on surfaces in power systems resulting in  ascending in corrosion inclination, descending in the heat transfer  thermal unit, and severe impact on human health. This adverseness  manifests particularly in the regions of world where coal is the  dominated source of energy for consumption.  This study highlights the behavior of calcium transformation as  mineral grains verses organically associated inorganic components  during pulverized coal combustion. The influence of existing type of  calcium on the coarse, fine and ultrafine mode formation mechanisms  is also presented. The impact of two sub-bituminous coals on particle  size and calcium composition evolution during combustion is to be  assessed. Three mixed blends named Blends 1, 2, and 3 are selected  according to the ration of coal A to coal B by weight. Calcium  percentage in original coal increases as going from Blend 1 to 3.  A mathematical model and a new approach of describing  constituent distribution are proposed. Analysis of experiments of  calcium distribution in ash is also modeled using Poisson distribution.  A novel parameter, called elemental index λ, is introduced as a  measuring factor of element distribution.  Results show that calcium in ash that originally in coal as mineral  grains has index of 17, whereas organically associated calcium  transformed to fly ash shown to be best described when elemental  index λ is 7.  As an alkaline-earth element, calcium is considered the  fundamental element responsible for boiler deficiency since it is the  major player in the mechanism of ash slagging process. The  mechanism of particle size distribution and mineral species of ash  particles are presented using CCSEM and size-segregated ash  characteristics. Conclusions are drawn from the analysis of  pulverized coal ash generated from a utility-scale boiler.

 

Keywords: Calcium transformation, Coal Combustion, Inorganic Element, Poisson distribution.

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Authors: G. T. Balakayeva, K. K. Nurlybayeva, M. B. Zhanuzakov

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In the proposed work, we have developed software and designed a software architecture for the implementation of enterprise business processes. The proposed software has a multi-level architecture using a domain-specific tool. The developed architecture is a guarantor of the availability, reliability and security of the system and the implementation of business processes, which are the basis for effective enterprise management. Automating business processes, automating the algorithmic stages of an enterprise, developing optimal algorithms for managing activities, controlling and monitoring, reducing risks and improving results help organizations achieve strategic goals quickly and efficiently. The software described in this article can connect to the corporate information system via two methods: a desktop client and a web client. With an appeal to the application server, the desktop client program connects to the information system on the company's work PCs over a local network. Outside the organization, the user can interact with the information system via a web browser, which acts as a web client and connects to a web server. The developed software consists of several integrated modules that share resources and interact with each other through an API. The following technology stack was used during development: Node js, React js, MongoDB, Ngnix, Cloud Technologies, Python.

Keywords: Algorithms, document processing, automation, integrated modules, software architecture, software design, information system.

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Authors: Ingrid Ruzbarska, Martin Zvonar, Piotr Oleśniewicz, Julita Markiewicz-Patkowska, Krzysztof Widawski, Daniel Puciato

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Obese children will probably become obese adults, consequently exposed to an increased risk of comorbidity and premature mortality. Body weight may be indirectly determined by continuous development of coordination and motor skills. The level of motor skills and abilities is an important factor that promotes physical activity since early childhood. The aim of the study is to thoroughly understand the internal relations between motor coordination abilities and the somatic development of prepubertal children and to determine the effect of excess body weight on motor coordination by comparing the motor ability levels of children with different body mass index (BMI) values. The data were collected from 436 children aged 7–10 years, without health limitations, fully participating in school physical education classes. Body height was measured with portable stadiometers (Harpenden, Holtain Ltd.), and body mass—with a digital scale (HN-286, Omron). Motor coordination was evaluated with the Kiphard-Schilling body coordination test, Körperkoordinationstest für Kinder. The normality test by Shapiro-Wilk was used to verify the data distribution. The correlation analysis revealed a statistically significant negative association between the dynamic balance and BMI, as well as between the motor quotient and BMI (p<0.01) for both boys and girls. The results showed no effect of gender on the difference in the observed trends. The analysis of variance proved statistically significant differences between normal weight children and their overweight or obese counterparts. Coordination abilities probably play an important role in preventing or moderating the negative trajectory leading to childhood overweight and obesity. At this age, the development of coordination abilities should become a key strategy, targeted at long-term prevention of obesity and the promotion of an active lifestyle in adulthood. Motor performance is essential for implementing a healthy lifestyle in childhood already. Physical inactivity apparently results in motor deficits and a sedentary lifestyle in children, which may be accompanied by excess energy intake and overweight.

Keywords: Childhood, KTK test, Physical education, Psychomotor competence.

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Authors: L. P. K. Liyanage, N. R. P. Withana, A. L. Sandika

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The purpose of this study was to determine tourist and community perception-based sustainable tourism indicators as well as Human Pressure Index (HPI) and Tourist Activity Index (TAI). Study was carried out in Sinharaja forest which is considered as one of the major eco-tourism destination in Sri Lanka. Data were gathered using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire as well as records from Forest department. Convenient sampling technique was applied. For the majority of issues, the responses were obtained on multi-point Likert-type scales. Visual portrayal was used for display analyzed data. The study revealed that the host community of the Kudawa gets many benefits from tourism. Also, tourism has caused negative impacts upon the environment and community. The study further revealed the need of proper waste management and involvement of local cultural events for the tourism business in the Kudawa conservation center. The TAI, which accounted to be 1.27 and monthly evolution of HPI revealed that congestion can be occurred in the Sinharaja rainforest during peak season. The results provide useful information to any party involved with tourism planning anywhere, since such attempts would be more effective once the people’s perceptions on these aspects are taken into account.

Keywords: Kudawa conservation center, Sinharaja world heritage rainforest, sustainability indicators.

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Authors: M.N. Khan, T. Rehman, Z Iqbal, M.S Sajid, M Ahmad, M Riaz

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A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence, species characterization and associated risk factors with Eimeria (E.) in sheep of district Toba Tek Singh from April, 2009 to March, 2010. Of the total 486 faecal samples examined for Eimeria, 209 (43%) were found infected with five species of Eimeria. Amongst the identified species of Eimeria, E. ovinoidalis was the commonest one (48.32%), followed in order by E. ahsata, E. intricata, E. parva and E. faurei with prevalence of 45.45, 28.71, 24.40 and 19.14 percent respectively. Peak prevalence was observed in August. Wet season (rainy and post-rainy) was found to be favourable for Eimeria infection. Lambs had significantly higher prevalence (P < 0.05) of Eimeria than adults. Similarly higher prevalence of Eimeria was observed in female as compared to male. Among management and husbandry practices; watering system, housing system, floor type and herd size strongly influenced the prevalence of Eimeria. Coccidiosis was more prevalent in closed housing system, non-cemented floor type, pond watered animals and larger herds (P < 0.05) as compared to open housing system, partially cemented floor type, tap watered animals and smaller herds respectively. Feeding system, breed and body condition of animals were not found as risk factors (P>0.05) influencing prevalence of Eimeria.

Keywords: Eimeria, Pakistan prevalence, sheep.

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Authors: Shaukat Wasi, Zubair A. Shaikh, Sajid Qasmi, Hussain Sachwani, Rehman Lalani, Aamir Chagani

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Automatic Extraction of Event information from social text stream (emails, social network sites, blogs etc) is a vital requirement for many applications like Event Planning and Management systems and security applications. The key information components needed from Event related text are Event title, location, participants, date and time. Emails have very unique distinctions over other social text streams from the perspective of layout and format and conversation style and are the most commonly used communication channel for broadcasting and planning events. Therefore we have chosen emails as our dataset. In our work, we have employed two statistical NLP methods, named as Finite State Machines (FSM) and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) for the extraction of event related contextual information. An application has been developed providing a comparison among the two methods over the event extraction task. It comprises of two modules, one for each method, and works for both bulk as well as direct user input. The results are evaluated using Precision, Recall and F-Score. Experiments show that both methods produce high performance and accuracy, however HMM was good enough over Title extraction and FSM proved to be better for Venue, Date, and time.

Keywords: Emails, Event Extraction, Event Detection, Finite state machines, Hidden Markov Model.

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Authors: Gupta Amit, Kumar Ramesh, Tewari P. C.

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Globalization is putting enormous pressure on the business organizations specially manufacturing one to rethink the supply chain in innovative manners. Inventory consumes major portion of total sale revenue. Effective and efficient inventory management plays a vital role for the successful functioning of any organization. Selection of inventory policy is one of the important purchasing activities. This paper focuses on selection and ranking of alternative inventory policies. A deterministic quantitative model based on Distance Based Approach (DBA) method has been developed for evaluation and ranking of inventory policies. We have employed this concept first time for this type of the selection problem. Four inventory policies economic order quantity (EOQ), just in time (JIT), vendor managed inventory (VMI) and monthly policy are considered. Improper selection could affect a company’s competitiveness in terms of the productivity of its facilities and quality of its products. The ranking of inventory policies is a multi-criteria problem. There is a need to first identify the selection criteria and then processes the information with reference to relative importance of attributes for comparison. Criteria values for each inventory policy can be obtained either analytically or by using a simulation technique or they are linguistic subjective judgments defined by fuzzy sets, like, for example, the values of criteria. A methodology is developed and applied to rank the inventory policies.

Keywords: Inventory Policy, Ranking, DBA, Selection criteria.

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Authors: Diptoshi Roy, G. Sreevidya Varma, S. Asokan, Chandasree Das

Abstract:

Germanium Telluride based quaternary thin film switching devices with composition Ge₁₅In₅Te₅₆Ag_24, have been deposited in sandwich geometry on glass substrate with aluminum as top and bottom electrodes. The bulk glassy form of the said composition is prepared by melt quenching technique. In this technique, appropriate quantity of elements with high purity are taken in a quartz ampoule and sealed under a vacuum of 10^-5 mbar. Then, it is allowed to rotate in a horizontal rotary furnace for 36 hours to ensure homogeneity of the melt. After that, the ampoule is quenched into a mixture of ice - water and NaOH to get the bulk ingot of the sample. The sample is then coated on a glass substrate using flash evaporation technique at a vacuum level of 10^-6 mbar. The XRD report reveals the amorphous nature of the thin film sample and Energy - Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX) confirms that the film retains the same chemical composition as that of the base sample. Electrical switching behavior of the device is studied with the help of Keithley (2410^c) source-measure unit interfaced with Lab VIEW 7 (National Instruments). Switching studies, mainly SET (changing the state of the material from amorphous to crystalline) operation is conducted on the thin film form of the sample. This device is found to manifest memory switching as the device remains 'ON' even after the removal of the electric field. Also it is found that amorphous Ge₁₅In₅Te₅₆Ag₂₄ thin film unveils clean memory type of electrical switching behavior which can be justified by the absence of fluctuation in the I-V characteristics. The I-V characteristic also reveals that the switching is faster in this sample as no data points could be seen in the negative resistance region during the transition to on state and this leads to the conclusion of fast phase change during SET process. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) studies are performed on the chosen sample to study the structural changes at the time of switching. SEM studies on the switched Ge₁₅In₅Te₅₆Ag₂₄ sample has shown some morphological changes at the place of switching wherein it can be explained that a conducting crystalline channel is formed in the device when the device switches from high resistance to low resistance state. From these studies it can be concluded that the material may find its application in fast switching Non-Volatile Phase Change Memory (PCM) Devices.

Keywords: Chalcogenides, vapor deposition, electrical switching, PCM.

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Authors: M. Eisakhani, A. Pauzi, O. Karim, A. Malakahmad, S.R. Mohamed Kutty, M. H. Isa

Abstract:

Cameron Highlands is a mountainous area subjected to torrential tropical showers. It extracts 5.8 million liters of water per day for drinking supply from its rivers at several intake points. The water quality of rivers in Cameron Highlands, however, has deteriorated significantly due to land clearing for agriculture, excessive usage of pesticides and fertilizers as well as construction activities in rapidly developing urban areas. On the other hand, these pollution sources known as non-point pollution sources are diverse and hard to identify and therefore they are difficult to estimate. Hence, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was used to provide an extensive approach to evaluate landuse and other mapping characteristics to explain the spatial distribution of non-point sources of contamination in Cameron Highlands. The method to assess pollution sources has been developed by using Cameron Highlands Master Plan (2006-2010) for integrating GIS, databases, as well as pollution loads in the area of study. The results show highest annual runoff is created by forest, 3.56 × 108 m3/yr followed by urban development, 1.46 × 108 m3/yr. Furthermore, urban development causes highest BOD load (1.31 × 106 kgBOD/yr) while agricultural activities and forest contribute the highest annual loads for phosphorus (6.91 × 104 kgP/yr) and nitrogen (2.50 × 105 kgN/yr), respectively. Therefore, best management practices (BMPs) are suggested to be applied to reduce pollution level in the area.

Keywords: Cameron Highlands, Land use, Non-point Sources of Pollution

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Authors: Norazah Mohd Suki, Norbayah Mohd Suki

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This study proposes a conceptual model and empirically tests the relationships between customers and librarians (i.e. tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, reliability and empathy) with a dependent variable (customer satisfaction) regarding library services. The SERVQUAL instrument was administered to 100 respondents which comprises of staff and students at a public higher learning institution in the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia. They were public university library users. Results revealed that all service quality dimensions tested were significant and influenced customer satisfaction of visitors to a public university library. Assurance is the most important factor that influences customer satisfaction with the services rendered by the librarian. It is imperative for the library management to take note that the top five service attributes that gained greatest attention from library visitors- perspective includes employee willingness to help customers, availability of customer representatives online for response to queries, library staff actively and promptly provide services, signs in the building are clear and library staff are friendly and courteous. This study provides valuable results concerning the determinants of the service quality and customer satisfaction of public university library services from the users' perspective.

Keywords: Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, SERVQUAL Model, Multiple Regression Analysis

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Authors: Ke Wang, Zhu Wang

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Coordinating and promoting urban and rural development has been a new round of institutional change in Zhejiang province since 2004. And this plan was fully implemented, which showed that the isolation between the urban and rural areas had gradually diminished. Little by little, an infiltration interface that is dynamic, flexible and interactive is formed, and this morphological structure starts to appear on the landscape form in the surrounding villages. In order to study the specific function and formation of the structure in the context of industrial revolution, Bimen village located on the interface between Anji Township, Huzhou and Yuhang District, Hangzhou is taken as the case. Anji township is in the cross area between Yangtze River delta economic circle and innovation center in Hangzhou. Awarded with ‘Chinese beautiful village’, Bimen has witnessed the growing process of infiltration in ecology, economy, technology and culture on the interface. Within the opportunity, Bimen village presents internal reformation to adapt to the energy exchange with urban areas. In the research, the reformation is to adjust the industrial structure, to upgrade the local special bamboo crafts, to release space for activities, and to establish infrastructures on the interface. The characteristic of an interface is elasticity achieved by introducing an Internet platform using ‘O2O’ agriculture method to connect cities and farmlands. There is a platform of this kind in Bimen named ‘Xiao Mei’. ‘Xiao’ in Chinese means small, ‘Mei’ means beautiful, which indicates the method to refine the landscape form. It turns out that the new agriculture mode will strengthen the interface by orienting the Third Party Platform upon the old dynamic basis and will bring new vitality for economy development in Bimen village. The research concludes opportunities and challenges generated by the evolution of the infiltration interface. It also proposes strategies for how to organically adapt to the urbanization process. Finally it demonstrates what will happen by increasing flexibility in the landscape forms of suburbs in the Bimen village.

Keywords: Bimen Village, infiltration interface, flexibility, suburban landscape form.

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Authors: L. A. Muhammad, M. S. Argungu

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Educational data mining (EDM) has recorded substantial considerations. Techniques of data mining in one way or the other have been proposed to dig out out-of-sight knowledge in educational data. The result of the study got assists academic institutions in further enhancing their process of learning and methods of passing knowledge to students. Consequently, the performance of students boasts and the educational products are by no doubt enhanced. This study adopted a student performance prediction model premised on techniques of data mining with Students' Essential Features (SEF). SEF are linked to the learner's interactivity with the e-learning management system. The performance of the student's predictive model is assessed by a set of classifiers, viz. Bayes Network, Logistic Regression, and Reduce Error Pruning Tree (REP). Consequently, ensemble methods of Bagging, Boosting, and Random Forest (RF) are applied to improve the performance of these single classifiers. The study reveals that the result shows a robust affinity between learners' behaviors and their academic attainment. Result from the study shows that the REP Tree and its ensemble record the highest accuracy of 83.33% using SEF. Hence, in terms of the Receiver Operating Curve (ROC), boosting method of REP Tree records 0.903, which is the best. This result further demonstrates the dependability of the proposed model.

Keywords: Ensemble, bagging, Random Forest, boosting, data mining, classifiers, machine learning.

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Authors: Jamileh Vasheghani Farahani

Abstract:

The main purpose of this research is to show the current active faults and active tectonic of the area by three seismic networks in Tehran region: 1-Tehran Disaster Mitigation and Management Organization (TDMMO), 2-Broadband Iranian National Seismic Network Center (BIN), 3-Iranian Seismological Center (IRSC). In this study, we analyzed microearthquakes happened in Tehran city and its surroundings using the Tehran networks from 1996 to 2015. We found some active faults and trends in the region. There is a 200-year history of historical earthquakes in Tehran. Historical and instrumental seismicity show that the east of Tehran is more active than the west. The Mosha fault in the North of Tehran is one of the active faults of the central Alborz. Moreover, other major faults in the region are Kahrizak, Eyvanakey, Parchin and North Tehran faults. An important seismicity region is an intersection of the Mosha and North Tehran fault systems (Kalan village in Lavasan). This region shows a cluster of microearthquakes. According to the historical and microseismic events analyzed in this research, there is a seismic gap in SE of Tehran. The empirical relationship is used to assess the Mmax based on the rupture length. There is a probability of occurrence of a strong motion of 7.0 to 7.5 magnitudes in the region (based on the assessed capability of the major faults such as Parchin and Eyvanekey faults and historical earthquakes).

Keywords: Iran, major faults, microseismicity, Tehran.

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Authors: Htay Htay Yi, Zin May Aye

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Network security is role of the ICT environment because malicious users are continually growing that realm of education, business, and then related with ICT. The network security contravention is typically described and examined centrally based on a security event management system. The firewalls, Intrusion Detection System (IDS), and Intrusion Prevention System are becoming essential to monitor or prevent of potential violations, incidents attack, and imminent threats. In this system, the firewall rules are set only for where the system policies are needed. Dataset deployed in this system are derived from the testbed environment. The traffic as in DoS and PortScan traffics are applied in the testbed with firewall and IDS implementation. The network traffics are classified as normal or attacks in the existing testbed environment based on six machine learning classification methods applied in the system. It is required to be tested to get datasets and applied for DoS and PortScan. The dataset is based on CICIDS2017 and some features have been added. This system tested 26 features from the applied dataset. The system is to reduce false positive rates and to improve accuracy in the implemented testbed design. The system also proves good performance by selecting important features and comparing existing a dataset by machine learning classifiers.

Keywords: False negative rate, intrusion detection system, machine learning methods, performance.

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