Abstract: This paper discusses the reaction of investors in the Taiwan stock market to the most probable unknown earnings-related information and the most probable known earnings-related information. As compared with the previous literature regarding the effect of an official announcement of earnings forecast revision, this paper further analyzes investors’ cognitive bias toward the unknown and known earnings-related information, and the role of media during the investors' reactions to the foresaid information shocks. The empirical results show that both the unknown and known earnings-related information provides useful information content for a stock market. In addition, cognitive bias and disposition effect are the behavioral pitfalls that commonly occur in the process of the investors' reactions to the earnings-related information. Finally, media coverage has a remarkable influence upon the investors' trading decisions.
Abstract: On-board available parking space detecting system, parking trajectory planning and tracking control mechanism are the key components of vehicle backward auto-parking system. Firstly, pair of ultrasonic sensors is installed on each side of vehicle body surface to detect the relative distance between ego-car and surrounding obstacle. The dimension of a found empty space can be calculated based on vehicle speed and the time history of ultrasonic sensor detecting information. This result can be used for constructing the 2D vehicle environmental map and available parking type judgment. Finally, the auto-parking controller executes the on-line optimal parking trajectory planning based on this 2D environmental map, and monitors the real-time vehicle parking trajectory tracking control. This low cost auto-parking system was tested on a model car.
Abstract: Rapid growth of world population and widespread urbanization has remarkably increased the development of the construction industry which caused a huge demand for sand and gravels. Environmental problems occur when the rate of extraction of sand, gravels, and other materials exceeds the rate of generation of natural resources; therefore, an alternative source is essential to replace the materials used in concrete. Now-a-days, electronic products have become an integral part of daily life which provides more comfort, security, and ease of exchange of information. These electronic waste (E-Waste) materials have serious human health concerns and require extreme care in its disposal to avoid any adverse impacts. Disposal or dumping of these E-Wastes also causes major issues because it is highly complex to handle and often contains highly toxic chemicals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, beryllium, brominates flame retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and phosphorus compounds. Hence, E-Waste can be incorporated in concrete to make a sustainable environment. This paper deals with the composition, preparation, properties, classification of E-Waste. All these processes avoid dumping to landfills whilst conserving natural aggregate resources, and providing a better environmental option. This paper also provides a detailed literature review on the behaviour of concrete with incorporation of E-Wastes. Many research shows the strong possibility of using E-Waste as a substitute of aggregates eventually it reduces the use of natural aggregates in concrete.
Abstract: Situation Awareness can offer the potential for conscious dynamic reflection. In an era of online health data sharing, it is becoming increasingly important that users of health social networks (HSNs) have the information necessary to make informed decisions as part of the registration process and in the provision of eConsent. This research aims to leverage an adapted Situation Awareness (SA) model to explore users’ decision making processes in the provision of eConsent. A HSN platform was used to investigate these behaviours. A mixed methods approach was taken. This involved the observation of registration behaviours followed by a questionnaire and focus group/s. Early results suggest that users are apt to automatically accept eConsent, and only later consider the long-term implications of sharing their personal health information. Further steps are required to continue developing knowledge and understanding of this important eConsent process. The next step in this research will be to develop a set of guidelines for the improved presentation of eConsent on the HSN platform.
Abstract: Spatial, Temporal, and Spectral Resolution (STSR) are three key characteristics of Earth observation satellite sensors; however, any single satellite sensor cannot provide Earth observations with high STSR simultaneously because of the hardware technology limitations of satellite sensors. On the other hand, a conflicting circumstance is that the demand for high STSR has been growing with the remote sensing application development. Although image fusion technology provides a feasible means to overcome the limitations of the current Earth observation data, the current fusion technologies cannot enhance all STSR simultaneously and provide high enough resolution improvement level. This study proposes a Hybrid Spatial-Temporal-Spectral image Fusion Model (HSTSFM) to generate synthetic satellite data with high STSR simultaneously, which blends the high spatial resolution from the panchromatic image of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the high temporal resolution from the multi-spectral image of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the high spectral resolution from the hyper-spectral image of Hyperion to produce high STSR images. The proposed HSTSFM contains three fusion modules: (1) spatial-spectral image fusion; (2) spatial-temporal image fusion; (3) temporal-spectral image fusion. A set of test data with both phenological and land cover type changes in Beijing suburb area, China is adopted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that HSTSFM can produce fused image that has good spatial and spectral fidelity to the reference image, which means it has the potential to generate synthetic data to support the studies that require high STSR satellite imagery.
Abstract: Over communication networks, images can be easily copied and distributed in an illegal way. The copyright protection for authors and owners is necessary. Therefore, the digital watermarking techniques play an important role as a valid solution for authority problems. Digital image watermarking techniques are used to hide watermarks into images to achieve copyright protection and prevent its illegal copy. Watermarks need to be robust to attacks and maintain data quality. Therefore, we discussed in this paper two approaches for image watermarking, first is based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the second approach is based on Genetic Algorithm (GA). Discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) is used with the two approaches separately for embedding process to cover image transformation. Each of PSO and GA is based on co-relation coefficient to detect the high energy coefficient watermark bit in the original image and then hide the watermark in original image. Many experiments were conducted for the two approaches with different values of PSO and GA parameters. From experiments, PSO approach got better results with PSNR equal 53, MSE equal 0.0039. Whereas GA approach got PSNR equal 50.5 and MSE equal 0.0048 when using population size equal to 100, number of iterations equal to 150 and 3×3 block. According to the results, we can note that small block size can affect the quality of image watermarking based PSO/GA because small block size can increase the search area of the watermarking image. Better PSO results were obtained when using swarm size equal to 100.
Abstract: One of the key problems facing in the analysis of Computed Tomography (CT) images is the poor contrast of the images. Image enhancement can be used to improve the visual clarity and quality of the images or to provide a better transformation representation for further processing. Contrast enhancement of images is one of the acceptable methods used for image enhancement in various applications in the medical field. This will be helpful to visualize and extract details of brain infarctions, tumors, and cancers from the CT image. This paper presents a comparison study of five contrast enhancement techniques suitable for the contrast enhancement of CT images. The types of techniques include Power Law Transformation, Logarithmic Transformation, Histogram Equalization, Contrast Stretching, and Laplacian Transformation. All these techniques are compared with each other to find out which enhancement provides better contrast of CT image. For the comparison of the techniques, the parameters Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Mean Square Error (MSE) are used. Logarithmic Transformation provided the clearer and best quality image compared to all other techniques studied and has got the highest value of PSNR. Comparison concludes with better approach for its future research especially for mapping abnormalities from CT images resulting from Brain Injuries.
Abstract: The demands of smart visual thing recognition in various devices have been increased rapidly for daily smart production, living and learning systems in recent years. This paper proposed a visual thing recognition system, which combines binary scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), bag of words model (BoW), and support vector machine (SVM) by using color information. Since the traditional SIFT features and SVM classifiers only use the gray information, color information is still an important feature for visual thing recognition. With color-based SIFT features and SVM, we can discard unreliable matching pairs and increase the robustness of matching tasks. The experimental results show that the proposed object recognition system with color-assistant SIFT SVM classifier achieves higher recognition rate than that with the traditional gray SIFT and SVM classification in various situations.
Abstract: This paper presents a numerical study for investigating the effectiveness of geocell reinforcement in reducing pressure and settlement over EPS geofoam blocks in road embankments. A 3-D FEM model of soil and geofoam was created in ABAQUS, and geocell was also modeled realistically using membrane elements. The accuracy of the model was tested by comparing its results with previous works. Sensitivity analyses showed that reinforcing the soil cover with geocell has a significant influence on the reduction of imposed stresses over geofoam and consequently decreasing its deformation.
Abstract: A series of tests on cold-formed steel foamed concrete (CSFC) composite walls subjected to axial load were proposed. The primary purpose of the experiments was to study the mechanical behavior and identify the failure modes of CSFC composite walls. Two main factors were considered in this study: 1) specimen with pouring foamed concrete or without and 2) different foamed concrete density ranks (corresponding to different foamed concrete strength). The interior space between two pieces of straw board of the specimen W-2 and W-3 were poured foamed concrete, and the specimen W-1 does not have foamed concrete core. The foamed concrete density rank of the specimen W-2 was A05 grade, and that of the specimen W-3 was A07 grade. Results showed that the failure mode of CSFC composite wall without foamed concrete was distortional buckling of cold-formed steel (CFS) column, and that poured foamed concrete includes the local crushing of foamed concrete and local buckling of CFS column, but the former prior to the later. Compared with CSFC composite wall without foamed concrete, the ultimate bearing capacity of spec imens poured A05 grade and A07 grade foamed concrete increased 1.6 times and 2.2 times respectively, and specimen poured foamed concrete had a low vertical deformation. According to these results, the simplified calculation formula for the CSFC wall subjected to axial load was proposed, and the calculated results from this formula are in very good agreement with the test results.
Abstract: When communicating using private and secure keys, there is always the doubt as to the identity of the message creator. We introduce an algorithm that uses the personal typing rhythm (keystroke dynamics) of the message originator to increase the trust of the authenticity of the message originator by the message recipient. The methodology proposes the use of a Rhythm Certificate Authority (RCA) to validate rhythm information. An illustrative example of the communication between Bob and Alice and the RCA is included. An algorithm of how to communicate with the RCA is presented. This RCA can be an independent authority or an enhanced Certificate Authority like the one used in public key infrastructure (PKI).
Abstract: This paper presents the impact of persuasive communication implemented by fertility clinics websites, and how this information influences women at their decision-making for undertaking this procedure. The influential factors for women decisions to do social egg freezing (SEF) are analyzed from a framing theory perspective, with a specific focus on the impact of persuasive information on women’s decision making. This study follows a quantitative approach. A two-phase survey has been conducted to examine the interest rate to undertake SEF. In the first phase, a questionnaire was available during a month (May 2015) to women to answer whether or not they knew enough information of this process, with a total of 230 answers. The second phase took place in the two last weeks of July 2015. All the respondents were invited to a seminars called ‘All about egg freezing’ and afretwards they were requested to answer the second questionnaire. After the seminar, in which they were given an extensive amount of information about egg freezing, a total of 115 women replied the questionnaire. The collected data during this process were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Most of the respondents changed their opinion in the second questionaire which was after receiving information. Although in the first questionnaire their self-evaluation of having knowledge about this process and the implemented technologies was very high, they realized that they still need to access more information from different sources in order to be able to make a decision. The study reached the conclusion that persuasive and framed information by clinics would affect the decisions of these women. Despite the reasons women have to do egg freezing and their motivations behind it, providing people necessary information and unprejudiced data about this process (such as its positive and negative aspects, requirements, suppositions, possibilities and consequences) would help them to make a more precise and reasonable decision about what they are buying.
Abstract: Within architectural education, students arrive fore-armed with; their life-experience; knowledge gained from subject-based learning; their brains and more specifically their imaginations. The learning-by-doing that they embark on in studio-based/project-based learning calls for supervision that allows the student to proactively undertake research and experimentation with design solution possibilities. The degree to which this supervision includes direction is subject to debate and differing opinion. It can be argued that if the student is to learn-by-doing, then design decision making within the design process needs to be instigated and owned by the student so that they have the ability to personally reflect on and evaluate those decisions. Within this premise lies the problem that the student's endeavours can become unstructured and unfocused as they work their way into a new and complex activity. A resultant weakness can be that the design activity is compartmented and not holistic or comprehensive, and therefore, the student's reflections are consequently impoverished in terms of providing a positive, informative feedback loop. The construct proffered in this paper is that a supportive 'armature' or 'Heuristic-Framework' can be developed that facilitates a holistic approach and reflective learning. The normal explorations of architectural design comprise: Analysing the site and context, reviewing building precedents, assimilating the briefing information. However, the student can still be compromised by 'not knowing what they need to know'. The long-serving triad 'Firmness, Commodity and Delight' provides a broad-brush framework of considerations to explore and integrate into good design. If this were further atomised in subdivision formed from the disparate aspects of architectural design that need to be considered within the design process, then the student could sieve through the facts more methodically and reflectively in terms of considering their interrelationship conflict and alliances. The words facts and sieve hold the acronym of the aspects that form the Heuristic-Framework: Function, Aesthetics, Context, Tectonics, Spatial, Servicing, Infrastructure, Environmental, Value and Ecological issues. The Heuristic could be used as a Hermeneutic Model with each aspect of design being focused on and considered in abstraction and then considered in its relation to other aspect and the design proposal as a whole. Importantly, the heuristic could be used as a method for gathering information and enhancing the design brief. The more poetic, mysterious, intuitive, unconscious processes should still be able to occur for the student. The Heuristic-Framework should not be seen as comprehensive prescriptive formulaic or inhibiting to the wide exploration of possibilities and solutions within the architectural design process.
Abstract: This paper examines vulnerability assessment of water resources in a semi-arid basin using the 4-step approach. The vulnerability assessment framework is developed to study the water resources vulnerability which includes the creation of GIS-based vulnerability maps. These maps represent the spatial variability of the vulnerability index. This paper introduces the 4-step approach to assess vulnerability that incorporates a new set of indicators. The approach is demonstrated using a framework composed of a precipitation data for (1975–2010) period, temperature data for (1965–2010) period, hydrological model outputs and the water resources GIS data base. The vulnerability assessment is a function of three components such as exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The current water resources vulnerability is assessed using GIS based spatio-temporal information. Rainfall Coefficient of Variation, monsoon onset and end date, rainy days, seasonality indices, temperature are selected for the criterion ‘exposure’. Water yield, ground water recharge, evapotranspiration (ET) are selected for the criterion ‘sensitivity’. Type of irrigation and storage structures are selected for the criterion ‘Adaptive capacity’. These indicators were mapped and integrated in GIS environment using overlay analysis. The five sub-basins, namely Arjunanadhi, Kousiganadhi, Sindapalli-Uppodai and Vallampatti Odai, fall under medium vulnerability profile, which indicates that the basin is under moderate stress of water resources. The paper also explores prioritization of sub-basinwise adaptation strategies to climate change based on the vulnerability indices.
Abstract: The growing awareness of global warming potential has internationally aroused interest and demand in reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity. Much national energy in the UK had been consumed in the residential sector mainly for space heating and domestic hot water production. Currently, gas boilers are mostly applied in the domestic water heating which contribute significantly to excessive CO2 emissions and consumption of primary energy resources. The issues can be solved by popularizing heat pump systems that are attributable to higher performance efficiency than those of traditional gas boilers. Even so, the heat pump system performance can be further enhanced if the dissolved gases in its hot water circuit can be efficiently discharged. To achieve this target, the bubble behaviors in the heat pump water heating system need to be extensively investigated. In this paper, by varying different experimental conditions, the effects of various heat pump hot water side parameters on gas microbubble diameters were measured and analyzed. Correspondingly, the effect of each parameter has been investigated. These include varied system pressures, water flow rates, saturation ratios and heat outputs. The results measurement showed that the water flow rate is the most significant parameter to influence on gas microbubble productions. The research outcomes can significantly contribute to the understanding of gas bubble behaviors at domestic heat pump water heating systems and thus the efficient way for the discharging of the associated dissolved gases.
Abstract: Digital systems are in the Cognitive wave of the eTransformations and are now extensively aimed at meeting the individuals’ demands, both those of customers requiring services and those of service providers. It is also apparent that successful future systems will not just simply open doors to the traditional owners/users to offer and receive services such as Uber, for example, does today, but will in the future require more customized and cognitively enabled infrastructures that will be responsive to the system user’s needs. To be able to identify what is required for such systems this research reviews the historical and the current effects of the eTransformation process by studying: 1. eTransitions of company websites and mobile applications, 2. Emergence of new shared economy business models such as Uber, and 3. New requirements for demand driven, cognitive systems capable of learning and just-in-time decision-making. Based on the analysis, this study proposes a Cognitive eTransformation Framework capable of guiding implementations of new responsive and user aware systems.
Abstract: Healthcare is a human right. The sensitivity of health issues has necessitated the introduction of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) at district hospitals in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The objective is understanding clinicians’ perception of ECM at their workplace. It is a descriptive case study design of constructivist paradigm. It employed a phenomenological data analysis method using a pattern matching deductive based analytical procedure. Purposive and s4nowball sampling techniques were applied in selecting participants. Clinicians expressed concerns and frustrations using ECM such as, non-integration with other hospital systems. Inadequate access points to ECM. Incorrect labelling of notes and bar-coding causes more time wasted in finding information. System features and/or functions (such as search and edit) are not possible. Hospital management and clinicians are not constantly interacting and discussing. Information turnaround time is unacceptably lengthy. Resolving these problems would involve a positive working relationship between hospital management and clinicians. In addition, prioritising the problems faced by clinicians in relation to relevance can ensure problem-solving in order to meet clinicians’ expectations and hospitals’ objective. Clinicians’ perception should invoke attention from hospital management with regards technology use. The study’s results can be generalised across clinician groupings exposed to ECM at various district hospitals because of professional and hospital homogeneity.
Abstract: Kopet-Dagh Mountain Range is located in the north and northeast of Iran. Mozduran Formation in the east of Kopet-Dagh is mainly composed of limestone, dolomite, with shale and sandstone interbedded. Mozduran Formation is reservoir rock of the Khangiran gas field. The location of the study was east Kopet-Dagh basin (Northeast Iran) where the deliberate thickness of formation is 418 meters. In the present study, a total of 57 samples were gathered. Moreover, 100 thin sections were made out of 52 samples. According to the findings of the thin section study, 18 genera and nine species of foraminifera and algae were identified. Based on the index fossils, the age of the Mozduran Formation was identified as Upper Jurassic (Kimmerdgian-Tithonian) in the east of Kopet-Dagh basin. According to the magnetite data (total intensity and RTP map), there is a disconformity (low intensity) between the Kashaf-Rood Formation and Mozduran Formation. At the top, where among Mozduran Formation and Shurijeh Formation, is high intensity and a widespread disconformity (high intensity).
Abstract: Collection of information on incidents is regularly done through pre-printed incident report forms. These tend to be incomplete and frequently lack essential information. ne consequence is that reports with inadequate information, that do not fulfil analysts’ requirements, are transferred into the analysis process. To improve an incident reporting form, theory in design science, witness psychology and interview and questionnaire research has been used. Previously three experiments have been conducted to evaluate the form and shown significant improved results. The form has proved to capture knowledge, regardless of the incidents’ character or context. The aim in this paper is to describe how design science, in more detail a design hierarchy can be used to construct a collection form for improvements in safety science.
Abstract: India is known as a country of diversity regarding the social, cultural and wide geographical variations. In the north and north-west part of the country, the strong patriarchal norms and the male dominance based social structure are the important constructs. Patriarchal social setup adversely affects the women’s social and economic wellbeing and hence in that social structure women are considered as second level citizen. Work participation rate of women has directly linked to the development of society or household. Haryana is one of the developed states of India, still being ahead in economic prosperity, much lagged behind in gender-based equality and male dominance in all dimensions of life. The position of women in the Haryana is no better than the other states of India. Haryana state has the great difference among the male-female sex ratio which is a serious concern for social science research as a demographic problem for the state. Now women are requiring for their holistic empowerment and that will take care of them for an enabling process that must lead to their economic as well as social transformation. Hence, the objective of the paper is to address the role of sex ratio, women literacy and her work participation in the process of their empowerment with special attention to the gender perspective. The study used the data from Census of India from 1991 to 2011. This paper will examine the regional disparity of sex ratio, literacy rate and female work participation and the improvement of empowerment of women in the state of Haryana. This paper will suggest the idea for focusing much intensively on the issues of women empowerment through enhancement of her education, workforce participation and social participation with people participation and holistic approach.