Abstract: Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook
attracts over 500 million users across the world, for those users, their
social life, even their practical life, has become interrelated. Their
interaction with social networking has affected their life forever.
Accordingly, social networking sites have become among the main
channels that are responsible for vast dissemination of different kinds
of information during real time events. This popularity in Social
networking has led to different problems including the possibility of
exposing incorrect information to their users through fake accounts
which results to the spread of malicious content during life events.
This situation can result to a huge damage in the real world to the
society in general including citizens, business entities, and others. In this paper, we present a classification method for detecting the
fake accounts on Twitter. The study determines the minimized set of
the main factors that influence the detection of the fake accounts on
Twitter, and then the determined factors are applied using different
classification techniques. A comparison of the results of these
techniques has been performed and the most accurate algorithm is
selected according to the accuracy of the results. The study has been
compared with different recent researches in the same area; this
comparison has proved the accuracy of the proposed study. We claim
that this study can be continuously applied on Twitter social network
to automatically detect the fake accounts; moreover, the study can be
applied on different social network sites such as Facebook with minor
changes according to the nature of the social network which are
discussed in this paper.
Abstract: Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease endemic in
many countries in the tropics and sub-tropics. The state of Punjab in
India shows cyclical and seasonal variation in dengue cases. The
Case Fatality Rate of Dengue has ranged from 0.6 to 1.0 in the past
years. The department has initiated review of the cases that have died
due to dengue in order to know the exact cause of the death in a case
of dengue. The study has been undertaken to know the other
associated co-morbidities and factors causing death in a case of
dengue. The study used the predesigned proforma on which the
records (medical and Lab) were recorded and reviewed by the expert
committee of the doctors. This study has revealed that cases of
dengue having co-morbidities have longer stay in hospital. Fluid
overload and co-morbidities have been found as major factors leading
to death, however, in a confirmed case of dengue hepatorenal
shutdown was found to be major cause of mortality. The data
obtained will help in sensitizing the treating physicians in order to
decrease the mortality due to dengue in future.
Abstract: This paper presents the effect of the orbit inclination
on the pointing error of the satellite antenna and consequently on its
footprint on earth for a typical Ku- band payload system. The performance assessment is examined using both analytical
simulations and practical measurements, taking into account all the
additional sources of the pointing errors, such as East-West station
keeping, orbit eccentricity, and actual attitude control performance. An implementation and computation of the sinusoidal biases in
satellite roll and pitch used to compensate the pointing error of the
satellite antenna coverage is studied and evaluated before and after
the pointing corrections performed. A method for evaluation of the performance of the implemented
biases has been introduced through measuring satellite received level
from a mono-pulse tracking 11.1m transmitting antenna before and
after the implementation of the pointing corrections.
Abstract: A myriad of environmental issues face the Nigerian
industrial region, resulting from; oil and gas production, mining,
manufacturing and domestic wastes. Amidst these, much effort has
been directed by stakeholders in the Nigerian oil producing regions,
because of the impacts of the region on the wider Nigerian economy.
Although collaborative environmental management has been noted as
an effective approach in managing environmental issues, little
attention has been given to the roles and practices of stakeholders in
effecting a collaborative environmental management framework for
the Nigerian oil-producing region. This paper produces a framework
to expand and deepen knowledge relating to stakeholders aspects of
collaborative roles in managing environmental issues in the Nigeria
oil-producing region. The knowledge is derived from analysis of
stakeholders’ practices – studied through multiple case studies using
document analysis. Selected documents of key stakeholders –
Nigerian government agencies, multi-national oil companies and host
communities, were analyzed. Open and selective coding was
employed manually during document analysis of data collected from
the offices and websites of the stakeholders. The findings showed
that the stakeholders have a range of roles, practices, interests, drivers
and barriers regarding their collaborative roles in managing
environmental issues. While they have interests for efficient resource
use, compliance to standards, sharing of responsibilities, generating
of new solutions, and shared objectives; there is evidence of major
barriers and these include resource allocation, disjointed policy,
ineffective monitoring, diverse socio- economic interests, lack of
stakeholders’ commitment and limited knowledge sharing. However,
host communities hold deep concerns over the collaborative roles of
stakeholders for economic interests, particularly, where government
agencies and multi-national oil companies are involved. With these
barriers and concerns, a genuine stakeholders’ collaboration is found
to be limited, and as a result, optimal environmental management
practices and policies have not been successfully implemented in the
Nigeria oil-producing region. A framework is produced that describes
practices that characterize collaborative environmental management
might be employed to satisfy the stakeholders’ interests. The
framework recommends critical factors, based on the findings, which
may guide a collaborative environmental management in the oil
producing regions. The recommendations are designed to re-define
the practices of stakeholders in managing environmental issues in the
oil producing regions, not as something wholly new, but as an
approach essential for implementing a sustainable environmental
policy. This research outcome may clarify areas for future research as
well as to contribute to industry guidance in the area of collaborative
environmental management.
Abstract: This study investigated the effects of thermal
treatment on Tualang honey sample in terms of honey colour and
heat-induced small metabolites. The heating process was carried out
in a temperature controlled water batch at 90oC for 4 hours. The
honey samples were put in cylinder tubes with the dimension of 1 cm
diameter and 10 cm length for homogenous heat transfer. The results
found that the thermal treatment produced not only
hydroxylmethylfurfural, but also other harmful substances such as
phthalic anhydride and radiolytic byproducts. The degradation of
honey protein was due to the detection of free amino acids such as
cysteine and phenylalanine in heat-treated honey samples. Sugar
dehydration was also occurred because fragmented di-galactose was
identified based on the presence of characteristic ions in the mass
fragmentation pattern. The honey colour was found getting darker as
the heating duration was increased up to 4 hours. Approximately, 60
mm PFund of increment was noticed for the honey colour with the
colour change rate of 14.8 mm PFund per hour. Based on the
principal component analysis, the score plot clearly shows that the
chemical profile of Tualang honey was significantly altered after 2
hours of heating at 90oC.
Abstract: This paper deals with using of prevailing operation
system MS Office (SmartArt...) for mathematical models, using
DYVELOP (Dynamic Vector Logistics of Processes) method. It
serves for crisis situations investigation and modelling within the
organizations of critical infrastructure. In first part of paper, it will be
introduced entities, operators, and actors of DYVELOP method. It
uses just three operators of Boolean algebra and four types of the
entities: the Environments, the Process Systems, the Cases, and the
Controlling. The Process Systems (PrS) have five “brothers”:
Management PrS, Transformation PrS, Logistic PrS, Event PrS and
Operation PrS. The Cases have three “sisters”: Process Cell Case,
Use Case, and Activity Case. They all need for the controlling of
their functions special Ctrl actors, except ENV – it can do without
Ctrl. Model´s maps are named the Blazons and they are able
mathematically - graphically express the relationships among entities,
actors and processes. In second part of this paper, the rich blazons of
DYVELOP method will be used for the discovering and modelling of
the cycling cases and their phases. The blazons need live PowerPoint
presentation for better comprehension of this paper mission. The
crisis management of energetic crisis infrastructure organization is
obliged to use the cycles for successful coping of crisis situations.
Several times cycling of these cases is necessary condition for the
encompassment for both emergency events and the mitigation of
organization´s damages. Uninterrupted and continuous cycling
process brings for crisis management fruitfulness and it is good
indicator and controlling actor of organizational continuity and its
sustainable development advanced possibilities. The research reliable
rules are derived for the safety and reliable continuity of energetic
critical infrastructure organization in the crisis situation.
Abstract: Bezier curves have useful properties for path
generation problem, for instance, it can generate the reference
trajectory for vehicles to satisfy the path constraints. Both algorithms
join cubic Bezier curve segment smoothly to generate the path. Some
of the useful properties of Bezier are curvature. In mathematics,
curvature is the amount by which a geometric object deviates from
being flat, or straight in the case of a line. Another extrinsic example
of curvature is a circle, where the curvature is equal to the reciprocal
of its radius at any point on the circle. The smaller the radius, the
higher the curvature thus the vehicle needs to bend sharply. In this
study, we use Bezier curve to fit highway-like curve. We use
different approach to find the best approximation for the curve so that
it will resembles highway-like curve. We compute curvature value by
analytical differentiation of the Bezier Curve. We will then compute
the maximum speed for driving using the curvature information
obtained. Our research works on some assumptions; first, the Bezier
curve estimates the real shape of the curve which can be verified
visually. Even though, fitting process of Bezier curve does not
interpolate exactly on the curve of interest, we believe that the
estimation of speed are acceptable. We verified our result with the
manual calculation of the curvature from the map.
Abstract: This paper presents numerical analysis in terms of
buckling resistance of GFRP sandwich infill panels system under the
influence of increased temperature on the foam core. Failure mode
under in-plane compression is studied by means of numerical analysis
with ABAQUS platform. Parameters considered in this study are
contact length and both the type of foam for core and the variation of
its module elastic under the thermal influence. Increment of
temperature is considered in static cases and only applied to core.
Indeed, it is proven that the effect of temperature alters the mechanical
properties of the entire panel system. Moreover, the rises of
temperature result in a decrease in strength of the panel. This is due to
the polymeric nature of this material. Additionally, the contact length
also displays the effect on performance of infill panel. Their
significance factors are based on type of polymer for core. Therefore,
by comparing difference type of core material, the variation can be
reducing.
Abstract: In this paper, von Mises and Drucker-Prager yield criteria, as typical ones that consider the effect of intermediate principal stress σ2, have been selected and employed for investigating the influence of σ2 on the solution of a typical stability problem. The bearing capacity factors have been calculated under plane strain condition (strip footing) and axisymmetric condition (circular footing) using the method of stress characteristics together with the criteria mentioned. Different levels of σ2 relative to the other two principal stresses have been considered. While a higher σ2 entry in yield criterion gives a higher bearing capacity; its entry in equilibrium equations (axisymmetric) causes substantial reduction.
Abstract: In this paper, a learning algorithm using neuronal networks to improve the roll stability and prevent the rollover in a single unit heavy vehicle is proposed. First, LQR control to keep balanced normalized rollovers, between front and rear axles, below the unity, then a data collected from this controller is used as a training basis of a neuronal regulator. The ANN controller is thereafter applied for the nonlinear side force model, and gives satisfactory results than the LQR one.
Abstract: During the last decades, a number of food crises such
as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), Mad-Cow disease,
Dioxin in chicken food, Food-and-Mouth Disease (FMD), have
certainly inflected the reliability of the food industry. Consequently,
the trend in applying different scientific methods of risk assessment
in food safety has obtained more attentions in the academic and
practice. However, lack of practical approach considering entire food
supply chain is tangible in the academic literature. In this regard, this
paper aims to apply risk assessment tool (FMEA) with integration of
Human Factor along the entire supply chain of food production and
test the method in a case study of Diary production, and analyze its
results.
Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to assess the
sediment quality and potential ecological risk in marine sediments in
Gymea Bay located in south Sydney, Australia. A total of 32 surface
sediment samples were collected from the bay. Current track
trajectories and velocities have also been measured in the bay. The
resultant trace elements were compared with the adverse biological
effect values Effect Range Low (ERL) and Effect Range Median
(ERM) classifications. The results indicate that the average values of
chromium, arsenic, copper, zinc, and lead in surface sediments all
reveal low pollution levels and are below ERL and ERM values. The
highest concentrations of trace elements were found close to
discharge points and in the inner bay, and were linked with high
percentages of clay minerals, pyrite and organic matter, which can
play a significant role in trapping and accumulating these elements.
The lowest concentrations of trace elements were found to be on the
shoreline of the bay, which contained high percentages of sand
fractions. It is postulated that the fine particles and trace elements are
disturbed by currents and tides, then transported and deposited in
deeper areas. The current track velocities recorded in Gymea Bay had
the capability to transport fine particles and trace element pollution
within the bay. As a result, hydrodynamic measurements were able to
provide useful information and to help explain the distribution of
sedimentary particles and geochemical properties. This may lead to
knowledge transfer to other bay systems, including those in remote
areas. These activities can be conducted at a low cost, and are
therefore also transferrable to developing countries. The advent of
portable instruments to measure trace elements in the field has also
contributed to the development of these lower cost and easily applied
methodologies available for use in remote locations and low-cost
economies.
Abstract: In the past years electric mobility became part of a
public discussion. The trend to fully electrified vehicles instead of
vehicles fueled with fossil energy has notably gained momentum.
Today nearly every big car manufacturer produces and sells fully
electrified vehicles, but electrified vehicles are still not as competitive
as conventional powered vehicles. As the traction battery states the
largest cost driver, lowering its price is a crucial objective. In
addition to improvements in product and production processes a nonnegligible,
but widely underestimated cost driver of production can
be found in logistics, since the production technology is not
continuous yet and neither are the logistics systems. This paper presents an approach to evaluate cost factors on
different designs of load carrier systems. Due to numerous
interdependencies, the combination of costs factors for a particular
scenario is not transparent. This is effecting actions for cost reduction
negatively, but still cost reduction is one of the major goals for
simultaneous engineering processes. Therefore a concurrent and
phase appropriate cost valuation method is necessary to serve cost
transparency. In this paper the four phases of this cost valuation
method are defined and explained, which based upon a new approach
integrating the logistics development process in to the integrated
product and process development.
Abstract: Response Surface Methods (RSM) provide
statistically validated predictive models that can then be manipulated
for finding optimal process configurations. Variation transmitted to
responses from poorly controlled process factors can be accounted
for by the mathematical technique of propagation of error (POE),
which facilitates ‘finding the flats’ on the surfaces generated by
RSM. The dual response approach to RSM captures the standard
deviation of the output as well as the average. It accounts for
unknown sources of variation. Dual response plus propagation of
error (POE) provides a more useful model of overall response
variation. In our case, we implemented this technique in predicting
compressive strength of concrete of 28 days in age. Since 28 days is
quite time consuming, while it is important to ensure the quality
control process. This paper investigates the potential of using design
of experiments (DOE-RSM) to predict the compressive strength of
concrete at 28th day. Data used for this study was carried out from
experiment schemes at university of Benghazi, civil engineering
department. A total of 114 sets of data were implemented. ACI mix
design method was utilized for the mix design. No admixtures were
used, only the main concrete mix constituents such as cement, coarseaggregate,
fine aggregate and water were utilized in all mixes.
Different mix proportions of the ingredients and different water
cement ratio were used. The proposed mathematical models are
capable of predicting the required concrete compressive strength of
concrete from early ages.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to propose a general
framework for storing, analyzing, and extracting knowledge from
two-dimensional echocardiographic images, color Doppler images,
non-medical images, and general data sets. A number of high
performance data mining algorithms have been used to carry out this
task. Our framework encompasses four layers namely physical
storage, object identification, knowledge discovery, user level.
Techniques such as active contour model to identify the cardiac
chambers, pixel classification to segment the color Doppler echo
image, universal model for image retrieval, Bayesian method for
classification, parallel algorithms for image segmentation, etc., were
employed. Using the feature vector database that have been
efficiently constructed, one can perform various data mining tasks
like clustering, classification, etc. with efficient algorithms along
with image mining given a query image. All these facilities are
included in the framework that is supported by state-of-the-art user
interface (UI). The algorithms were tested with actual patient data
and Coral image database and the results show that their performance
is better than the results reported already.
Abstract: With the introduction of cash-less society policy by
the Central Bank of Nigeria, the concept of e-banking services have
over the years’ experience a significant improvement. Today quite a
number of people are embracing e-banking activities especially
ATM, thereby moving away from the conventional banking system.
This paper presents a review of the underlying Architectural Layout
of Intra-Bank and Inter-Bank ATM connectivity in Nigeria. The
paper further investigates and discusses factors affecting the Intra-
Bank and Inter-Bank ATM connectivity in Nigeria. In addition, as
well possible solutions to these factors affecting ATM Connectivity
and Operations are proposed.
Abstract: In 2009, the new HRM policy was implemented in
Qatar for public sector organisations. The purpose of this research is
to examine how Qatar’s 2009 HRM policy was significant in
influencing employee retention in public organisations. The
conducted study utilised quantitative methodology to analyse the data
on employees’ perceptions of such HRM practices as Performance
Management, Rewards and Promotion, Training and Development
associated with the HRM policy in public organisations in
comparison to semi-private organisations. Employees of seven public
and semi-private organisations filled in the questionnaire based on
the 5-point Likert scale to present quantitative results. The data was
analysed with the correlation and multiple regression statistical
analyses. It was found that Performance Management had the
relationship with Employee Retention, and Rewards and Promotion
influenced Job Satisfaction in public organisations. Relationship
between Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention was also observed.
However, no significant differences were observed in the role of
HRM practices in public and semi-private organisations.
Abstract: Prosecution of sexual violence in international
criminal law requires not only an understanding of the mechanisms
employed to prosecute sexual violence but also a critical analysis of
the factors facilitating perpetuation of such crimes in armed conflicts.
The extrapolations laid out in this essay delve into the jurisprudence
of international criminal law pertaining to sexual and gender based
violence followed by the core question of this essay – has the
entrenchment of sexual violence as international crimes in the Rome
Statute been successful to address such violence in armed conflicts?
Abstract: The purposes of this research are to make comparisons in
respect of the behaviors on the use of the services of metered taxi
classified by the demographic factor and to study the influence of the
recognition on service quality having the effect on usage behaviors of
metered taxi services of consumers in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas. The
samples used in this research were 400 metered taxi service users in
Bangkok Metropolitan Areas and questionnaire was used as the tool for
collecting the data. Analysis statistics are mean and multiple regression
analysis. Results of the research revealed that the consumers recognize the
overall quality of services in each aspect include tangible aspects of the
service, responses to customers, assurance on the confidence,
understanding and knowing of customers which is rated at the moderate
level except the aspect of the assurance on the confidence and
trustworthiness which are rated at a high level. For the result of
hypothetical test, it is found that the quality in providing the services on
the aspect of the assurance given to the customers has the effect on the
usage behaviors of metered taxi services and the aspect of the frequency
on the use of the services per month which in this connection. Such
variable can forecast at one point nine percent (1.9%). In addition, quality
in providing the services and the aspect of the responses to customers
have the effect on the behaviors on the use of metered taxi services on the
aspect of the expenses on the use of services per month which in this
connection, such variable can forecast at two point one percent (2.1%).
Abstract: Frozen shrimp industry plays an important role in the
development of production industry of the country. There has been a
continuing development to response the increasing demand; however,
there have been some problems in running the enterprises. The
purposes of this study are to: 1) investigate problems related to basic
factors in operating frozen shrimp industry based on the
entrepreneurs’ points of view. The enterprises involved in this study
were small and medium industry receiving Thai Frozen Foods
Association. 2) Compare the problems of the frozen shrimp industry
according to their sizes of operation in 3 provinces of the central
region Thailand. Population in this study consisted of 148 managers
from 148 frozen shrimp enterprises Thai Frozen Foods Association
which 77 were small size and 71 were medium size. The data were
analyzed to find percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and
independent sample T-test with the significant hypothesis at .05. The
results revealed that the problems of the frozen shrimp industries of
both size were in high level. The needs for government supporting
were in high level. The comparison of the problems and the basic
factors between the small and medium size enterprises showed no
statistically significant level. The problems that they mentioned
included raw materials, labors, production, marketing, and the need
for academic supporting from the government sector.