Abstract: Farming households faces lots of disaster which contribute to endemic poverty. Anticipated increases in extreme weather events will exacerbate this. Primary data was administered to farming household using multi-stage random sampling technique. The result of the analysis shows that majority of the respondents (69.9%) are male, have mean household size, years of formal education and age of 5±1.14, 6±3.41, and 51.06±10.43 respectively. The major (48.9%) type of disaster experienced is flooding. Major coping mechanism adopted is sourcing for support from family and friends. Age, education, experience, access to extension agent, and mitigation control method contribute significantly to vulnerability to disaster. The major adaptation method (62.3%) is construction of drainage.
The study revealed that the coping mechanisms employed may become less effective as increasingly fragile livelihood systems struggle to withstand disaster shocks. Thus there is need for training of the farmers on measures to adapt to mitigate the shock from disasters
Abstract: Downlink/Uplink (DL/UL) time slot allocation (TSA) in time division duplex (TDD) systems is generally uniform for all the cells. This TSA however is not efficient in case of different traffic asymmetry ratios in different cells. We first propose a new 3-coordinate architecture to identify cells in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system where each cell is divided into three sectors. Then, this coordinate system is used to derive a TSA for symmetric traffic. Mathematical analysis and simulations are used to show that the proposed TSA outperforms the traditional all uniform type of TSA in terms of total intercellular interference, even under uniform symmetrical traffic. Two adaptation strategies are further proposed to adjust the proposed TSA to asymmetrical traffic with different DL/UL traffic ratios in different cells. Further simulation results show that the adaptation strategies also yield higher signal-to-interference ratio (SIR).
Abstract: Measuring the reusability of Object-Oriented (OO) program code is important to ensure a successful and timely adaptation and integration of the reused code in new software projects. It has become even more relevant with the availability of huge amounts of open-source projects. Reuse saves cost, increases the speed of development and improves software reliability. Measuring this reusability is not s straight forward process due to the variety of metrics and qualities linked to software reuse and the lack of comprehensive empirical studies to support the proposed metrics or models. In this paper, a conceptual model is proposed to measure the reusability of OO program code. A comprehensive set of metrics is used to compute the most significant factors of reusability and an empirical investigation is conducted to measure the reusability of the classes of randomly selected open-source Java projects. Additionally, the impact of using inner and anonymous classes on the reusability of their enclosing classes is assessed. The results obtained are thoroughly analyzed to identify the factors behind lack of reusability in open-source OO program code and the impact of nesting on it.
Abstract: Active Front Steering system (AFS) provides an electronically controlled superposition of an angle to the steering wheel angle. This additional degree of freedom enables a continuous and driving-situation dependent on adaptation of the steering characteristics. In an active steering system, there needs be no fixed relationship between the steering wheel and the angle of the road wheels. Not only can the effective steering ratio be varied with speed, for example, but also the road wheel angles can be controlled by a combination of driver and computer inputs. Features like steering comfort, effort and steering dynamics are optimized and stabilizing steering interventions can be performed. In contrast to the conventional stability control, the yaw rate was fed back to AFS controller and the stability performance was optimized with Sliding Mode control (SMC) method. In addition, tire uncertainties have been taken into account in SM controller to provide the control robustness. In this paper, 3-DOF nonlinear model is used to design the AFS controller and 8-DOF nonlinear model is used to model the controlled vehicle.
Abstract: Today is widely understood that global energy consumption patterns are directly related to the urban expansion and development process. This expansion is based on the natural growth of human activities and has left most urban areas totally dependent on fossil fuel derived external energy inputs. This status-quo of production, transportation, storage and consumption of energy has become inefficient and is set to become even more so when the continuous increases in energy demand are factored in. The territorial management of land use and related activities is a central component in the search for more efficient models of energy use, models that can meet current and future regional, national and European goals.
In this paper a methodology is developed and discussed with the aim of improving energy efficiency at the municipal level. The development of this methodology is based on the monitoring of energy consumption and its use patterns resulting from the natural dynamism of human activities in the territory and can be utilized to assess sustainability at the local scale. A set of parameters and indicators are defined with the objective of constructing a systemic model based on the optimization, adaptation and innovation of the current energy framework and the associated energy consumption patterns. The use of the model will enable local governments to strike the necessary balance between human activities and economic development and the local and global environment while safeguarding fairness in the energy sector.
Abstract: Public health informatics (PHI) which has seen successful implementation in the developed world, become the buzzword in the developing countries in providing improved healthcare with enhanced access. In rural areas especially, where a huge gap exists between demand and supply of healthcare facilities, PHI is being seen as a major solution. There are factors such as growing network infrastructure and the technological adoption by the health fraternity which provide support to these claims. Public health informatics has opportunities in healthcare by providing opportunities to diagnose patients, provide intra-operative assistance and consultation from a remote site. It also has certain barriers in the awareness, adaptation, network infrastructure, funding and policy related areas. There are certain medico-legal aspects involving all the stakeholders which need to be standardized to enable a working system. This paper aims to analyze the potential and challenges of Public health informatics services in rural communities.
Abstract: We consider nonlinear uncertain systems such that a
priori information of the uncertainties is not available. For such
systems, we assume that the upper bound of the uncertainties is
represented as a Fredholm integral equation of the first kind and we
propose an adaptation law that is capable of estimating the upper
bound and design a continuous robust control which renders nonlinear
uncertain systems ultimately bounded.
Abstract: Precipitation forecast is important in avoid incident of natural disaster which can cause loss in involved area. This review paper involves three techniques from artificial intelligence namely logistic regression, decisions tree, and random forest which used in making precipitation forecast. These combination techniques through VAR model in finding advantages and strength for every technique in forecast process. Data contains variables from rain domain. Adaptation of artificial intelligence techniques involved on rain domain enables the process to be easier and systematic for precipitation forecast.
Abstract: Urban life is characterized by rapid changes and high influence of market institutions on livelihood strategies of households to get sustainability, especially in countries of former Soviet Union challenged transformation of economy to the market type. Moving from socialistic worldviews to capitalistic ones which as usual regulated by free markets has been enough big challenge for households in urban area, which have to face with adaptation to new systems. Influence of market institutions on everyday life and planning system of households can destroy traditional household dispositions of the sustainable managing of a family budget. New changes of economy system can lead to splitting up large social networks and appearing new risky livelihood strategies of households. Urban households from Astana that is the capital city of Kazakhstan were interviewed within international research project “Livelihoods Strategies of Private Households in Central Asia. A Rural-Urban Comparison in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan”, which enables to explore urgent issues of livelihood strategies of urban households in current Kazakhstan under influence of the spreading of market institutions from the micro level research focus of their everyday life.
Abstract: The electrical power systems of aircrafts have made
serious progress in recent years because the aircrafts depend more
and more on the electricity. There is a trend in the aircraft industry to
replace hydraulic and pneumatic systems with electrical systems,
achieving more comfort and monitoring features and enlarging the
energetic efficiency. Thus, was born the concept More Electric
Aircraft. In this paper is analyzed the integration of a fuel cell into
the existing electrical generation and distribution systems of an
aircraft. The dynamic characteristics of fuel cell systems necessitate
an adaptation of the electrical power system. The architecture studied
in this paper consists of a 50kW fuel cell, a dc to dc converter and
several loads. The dc to dc converter is used to step down the fuel
cell voltage from about 625Vdc to 28Vdc.
Abstract: Devices in a pervasive computing system (PCS) are characterized by their context-awareness. It permits them to provide proactively adapted services to the user and applications. To do so, context must be well understood and modeled in an appropriate form which enhance its sharing between devices and provide a high level of abstraction. The most interesting methods for modeling context are those based on ontology however the majority of the proposed methods fail in proposing a generic ontology for context which limit their usability and keep them specific to a particular domain. The adaptation task must be done automatically and without an explicit intervention of the user. Devices of a PCS must acquire some intelligence which permits them to sense the current context and trigger the appropriate service or provide a service in a better suitable form. In this paper we will propose a generic service ontology for context modeling and a context-aware service adaptation based on a service oriented definition of context.
Abstract: An adaptive Chinese hand-talking system is presented
in this paper. By analyzing the 3 data collecting strategies for new
users, the adaptation framework including supervised and unsupervised
adaptation methods is proposed. For supervised adaptation,
affinity propagation (AP) is used to extract exemplar subsets, and enhanced
maximum a posteriori / vector field smoothing (eMAP/VFS)
is proposed to pool the adaptation data among different models. For
unsupervised adaptation, polynomial segment models (PSMs) are
used to help hidden Markov models (HMMs) to accurately label
the unlabeled data, then the "labeled" data together with signerindependent
models are inputted to MAP algorithm to generate
signer-adapted models. Experimental results show that the proposed
framework can execute both supervised adaptation with small amount
of labeled data and unsupervised adaptation with large amount
of unlabeled data to tailor the original models, and both achieve
improvements on the performance of recognition rate.
Abstract: The use of neural networks for recognition application is generally constrained by their inherent parameters inflexibility after the training phase. This means no adaptation is accommodated for input variations that have any influence on the network parameters. Attempts were made in this work to design a neural network that includes an additional mechanism that adjusts the threshold values according to the input pattern variations. The new approach is based on splitting the whole network into two subnets; main traditional net and a supportive net. The first deals with the required output of trained patterns with predefined settings, while the second tolerates output generation dynamically with tuning capability for any newly applied input. This tuning comes in the form of an adjustment to the threshold values. Two levels of supportive net were studied; one implements an extended additional layer with adjustable neuronal threshold setting mechanism, while the second implements an auxiliary net with traditional architecture performs dynamic adjustment to the threshold value of the main net that is constructed in dual-layer architecture. Experiment results and analysis of the proposed designs have given quite satisfactory conducts. The supportive layer approach achieved over 90% recognition rate, while the multiple network technique shows more effective and acceptable level of recognition. However, this is achieved at the price of network complexity and computation time. Recognition generalization may be also improved by accommodating capabilities involving all the innate structures in conjugation with Intelligence abilities with the needs of further advanced learning phases.
Abstract: Keys to high-quality face-to-face education are ensuring flexibility in the way lectures are given, and providing care and responsiveness to learners. This paper describes a face-to-face education support system that is designed to raise the satisfaction of learners and reduce the workload on instructors. This system consists of a lecture adaptation assistance part, which assists instructors in adapting teaching content and strategy, and a Q&A assistance part, which provides learners with answers to their questions. The core component of the former part is a “learning achievement map", which is composed of a Bayesian network (BN). From learners- performance in exercises on relevant past lectures, the lecture adaptation assistance part obtains information required to adapt appropriately the presentation of the next lecture. The core component of the Q&A assistance part is a case base, which accumulates cases consisting of questions expected from learners and answers to them. The Q&A assistance part is a case-based search system equipped with a search index which performs probabilistic inference. A prototype face-to-face education support system has been built, which is intended for the teaching of Java programming, and this approach was evaluated using this system. The expected degree of understanding of each learner for a future lecture was derived from his or her performance in exercises on past lectures, and this expected degree of understanding was used to select one of three adaptation levels. A model for determining the adaptation level most suitable for the individual learner has been identified. An experimental case base was built to examine the search performance of the Q&A assistance part, and it was found that the rate of successfully finding an appropriate case was 56%.
Abstract: Measuring the effect of perinatal lead exposure on learning ability of offspring is considered as a sensitive and selective index for providing an early marker for central nervous system damage produced by this toxic metal. A total of 35 Sprague-Dawley adult rats were used to investigate the effect of lead acetate toxicity on behavioral patterns of adult female rats and learning ability of offspring. Rats were allotted into 4 groups, group one received 1g/l lead acetate (n=10), group two received 1.5g/l lead acetate (n=10), group three received 2g/l lead acetate in drinking water (n=10) and control group did not receive lead acetate (n=5) from 8th day of pregnancy till weaning of pups.
The obtained results revealed a dose dependent increase in the feeding time, drinking frequency, licking frequency, scratching frequency, licking litters, nest building and retrieving frequencies, while standing time increased significantly in rats treated with 1.5g/l lead acetate than other treated groups and control, on contrary lying time decreased gradually in a dose dependent manner. Moreover, movement activities were higher in rats treated with 1g/l lead acetate than other treated groups and control. Furthermore, time spent in closed arms was significantly lower in rats given 2g/l lead acetate than other treated groups, while, they spent significantly much time spent in open arms than other treated groups which could be attributed to occurrence of adaptation. Furthermore, number of entries in open arms was dose dependent. However, the ratio between open/closed arms revealed a significant decrease in rats treated with 2g/l lead acetate than control group.
Abstract: The article considers religious aspects of Kazakh
society pre-Soviet times. Studying the mental, political and spiritual
content of Islam, the reasons for its wide distribution among the ancestors of the Kazakhs is analyzed. Interested Russians since the
accession of the Kazakh Khanate to the Russian Empire more than
once pointed out that Islam is a synthesis of Islam and Shamanism.
But shamanism is a generalization of the name of religion, which
took place prior to Islam in the land of the Kazakh people. Here we can see the elements of Zoroastrianism, Tengrianism, etc. This shows
that the ancestors of the Kazakhs - Turkic people - not renounced the
ancient beliefs completely and leave some portion of these religions
as an integral part of the worldview of the people, by the device.
Therefore, the founder of the Turkic Sufi Yasaui still has a huge impact on the religiosity of the Kazakhs. He managed elements of the
ancient religion, which formed the basis of the Kazakhs world, interpreted in the Muslim perspective. The Russian authorities tried
to quell by Islamization Kazakh people. But it was Islam that has
revived the national consciousness of the Kazakh people.
Abstract: Based on different experiences in the historic centers
of Spain, we propose an global strategy for the regeneration of the
pre-tertiary fabrics and its application to the specific case of San
Mateo neighborhood, in Jerez de la Frontera (Andalusia), through a
diagnosis that focus particularly on the punishments the last-decade
economic situation (building boom and crisis) and shows the tragic
transition from economic center to an imminent disappearance with
an image similar to the ruins of war, due to the loss of their
traditional roles. From it we will learn their historically-tested
mechanisms of environment adaptation, which distill the vernacular
architecture essence and that we will apply to our strategy of action
based on a dotacional-and-free-space rhizome which rediscovers its
hidden character. The architectural fact will be crystallized in one of
the example-pieces proposed: The Artistic Revitalization Center.
Abstract: International trade involves both large and small firms
engaged in business overseas. Possible drivers that force companies
to enter international markets include increasing competition at the
domestic market, maturing domestic markets, and limited domestic
market opportunities. Technology is an important driving factor in
shaping international marketing strategy as well as in driving force
towards a more global marketplace, especially technology in
communication. It includes telephones, the internet, computer
systems and e-mail. There are three main marketing strategy choices,
namely standardization approach, adaptation approach and middleof-
the-road approach that companies implement to overseas markets.
The decision depends on situations and factors facing the companies
in the international markets. In this paper, the contingency concept is
considered that no single strategy can be effective in all contexts.
The effect of strategy on performance depends on specific situational
variables. Strategic fit is employed to investigate export marketing
strategy adaptation under certain environmental conditions, which in
turn can lead to superior performance.
Abstract: Climate change causes severe effects on natural
habitats, especially wetlands. These challenges require the adaptation
of their management to probable effects of climate change. A
compilation of necessary changes in land management was collected
in a Hungarian area being both national park and Natura 2000 SAC
and SCI site in favor of increasing the resilience and reducing
vulnerability. Several factors, such as ecological aspects, nature
conservation and climatic adaptation should be combined with social
and economic factors during the process of developing climate
change adapted management on vulnerable wetlands. Planning
adaptive management should be determined by a priority order of
conservation aims and evaluation of factors at the determined
planning unit. Mowing techniques, frequency and exact date should
be observed as well as grazing species and their breed, due to
different grazing, group forming and trampling habits. Integrating
landscape history and historical land development into the planning
process is essential.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with raw or heat-treated sunflower oil seed with two levels of 7.5% or 15% on unsaturated fatty acids in milk fat and performances of high-yielding lactating cows. Twenty early lactating Holstein cows were used in a complete randomized design. Treatments included: 1) CON, control (without sunflower oil seed). 2) LS-UT, 7.5% raw sunflower oil seed. 3) LS-HT, 7.5% heat-treated sunflower oil seed. 4) HS-UT, 15% raw sunflower oil seed. 5) HS-HT, 15% heat-treated sunflower oil seed. Experimental period lasted for 4 wk, with first 2 wk used for adaptation to the diets. Supplementation with 7.5% raw sunflower seed (LS-UT) tended to decrease milk yield, with 28.37 kg/d compared with the control (34.75 kg/d). Milk fat percentage was increased with the HS-UT treatment that obtained 3.71% compared with CON that was 3.39% and without significant different. Milk protein percent was decreased high level sunflower oil seed treatments (15%) with 3.18% whereas CON treatment is caused 3.40% protein. The cows fed added low sunflower heat-treated (LS-HT) produced milk with the highest content of total unsaturated fatty acid with 32.59 g/100g of milk fat compared with the HS-UT with 23.59 g/100g of milk fat. Content of C18 unsaturated fatty acids in milk fat increased from 21.68 g/100g of fat in the HS-UT to 22.50, 23.98, 27.39 and 30.30 g/100g of fat from the cow fed HS-HT, CON, LS-UT and LS-HT treatments, respectively. C18:2 isomers of fatty acid in milk were greater by LSHT supplementation with significant effect (P < 0.05). Total of C18 unsaturated fatty acids content was significantly higher in milk of animal fed added low heat-treated sunflower (7.5%) than those fed with high sunflower. In all, results of this study showed that diet cow's supplementation with sunflower oil seed tended to reduce milk production of lactating cows but can improve C18 UFA (Unsaturated Fatty Acid) content in milk fat. 7.5% level of sunflower oil seed that heated seemed to be the optimal source to increase UFA production.