Abstract: Information on weed distribution within the field is
necessary to implement spatially variable herbicide application.
Since hand labor is costly, an automated weed control system could be
feasible. This paper deals with the development of an algorithm for
real time specific weed recognition system based on Histogram
Analysis of an image that is used for the weed classification. This
algorithm is specifically developed to classify images into broad and
narrow class for real-time selective herbicide application. The
developed system has been tested on weeds in the lab, which have
shown that the system to be very effectiveness in weed identification.
Further the results show a very reliable performance on images of
weeds taken under varying field conditions. The analysis of the results
shows over 95 percent classification accuracy over 140 sample images
(broad and narrow) with 70 samples from each category of weeds.
Abstract: Current air conditioning system is using refrigerant as
the cooling medium. The main purpose of this study is to develop an
air conditioning system using chill water as the cooling medium. In
this system, chill water used to replace refrigerant as the cooling
medium. This study is focus on the split type unit air conditioning
system only. It will be involving some renovation on the indoor unit
and freezer. The cooling capability of this system was validate by few
series of testing, which conducted at standard 36m3 office room.
Result of the testing found that 0.1 m3 of chill water is able to
maintain the room temperature within standard up to 4 ~ 8 hours. It
expected able to maintain room temperature up to 10 hour with some
improvement.
Abstract: There is a growing interest in the food industry and in preventive health care for the development and evaluation of natural antioxidants from medicinal plant materials. In the present work, extracts of three medicinal plants (Tilia argentea, Crataegi folium leaves and Polygonum bistorta roots) used in Turkish phytotheraphy were screened for their phenolic profiles and antioxidant properties. Crude extracts were obtained from different parts of plants, by solidliquid extraction with pure water, 70% acetone and 70% methanol aqueous solvents. The antioxidant activity of the extracts was determined by ABTS.+ radical cation scavenging activity. The Folin Ciocalteu procedure was used to assess the total phenolic concentrations of the extracts as gallic acid equivalents. A modified liquid chromatography-electro spray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) was used to obtain chromatographic profiles of the phenolic compounds in the medicinal plants. The predominant phenolic compounds detected in different extracts of the plants were catechin, protocatechuic and chlorogenic acids. The highest phenolic contents were obtained by using 70% acetone as aqueous solvent, whereas the lowest phenolic contents were obtained by water extraction due to Folin Ciocalteu results. The results indicate that acetone extracts of Tilia argentea had the highest antioxidant capacity as free ABTS radical scavengers. The lowest phenolic contents and antioxidant capacities were obtained from Polygonum bistorta root extracts.
Abstract: More and more natural disasters are happening every
year: floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. In order to reduce
the risk of possible damages, governments all around the world are
investing into development of Early Warning Systems (EWS) for
environmental applications. The most important task of the EWS is
identification of the onset of critical situations affecting environment
and population, early enough to inform the authorities and general
public. This paper describes an approach for monitoring of flood
protections systems based on machine learning methods. An
Artificial Intelligence (AI) component has been developed for
detection of abnormal dike behaviour. The AI module has been
integrated into an EWS platform of the UrbanFlood project (EU
Seventh Framework Programme) and validated on real-time
measurements from the sensors installed in a dike.
Abstract: Software Architecture plays a key role in software development but absence of formal description of Software Architecture causes different impede in software development. To cope with these difficulties, ontology has been used as artifact. This paper proposes ontology for Software Architectural design based on IEEE model for architecture description and Kruchten 4+1 model for viewpoints classification. For categorization of style and views, ISO/IEC 42010 has been used. Corpus method has been used to evaluate ontology. The main aim of the proposed ontology is to classify and locate Software Architectural design information.
Abstract: Performance management seems to be essential in
business area and is also an exciting topic. Despite significant and
myriads of research efforts, performance management guide today as a
rigorous approach is still in an immature state and metrics are often
selected based on intuitive and heuristic approach. In R&D side, the
difficulty to guide the proper performance management is even more
increasing due to the natural characteristics of R&D such as unique or
domain-specific problems. In our approach, we present R&D
performance management guide considering various characteristics of
R&D side: performance evaluation objectives, dimensions, metrics,
and uncertainties of R&D sector.
Abstract: As the latest advancement and trend in IT field, Green
& Smart IT has attracted more and more attentions from researchers.
This study focuses on the development of assessing tools which can be
used for evaluating Green & Smart IT level within an organization. In
order to achieve meaningful results, a comprehensive review of
relevant literature was performed in advance, then, Delphi survey and
other processes were also employed to develop the assessment tools
for Green & Smart IT level. Two rounds of Delphi questionnaire
survey were conducted with 20 IT experts in public sector. The results
reveal that the top five weighted KPIs to evaluate maturity of Green &
Smart IT were: (1) electronic execution of business process; (2)
shutdown of unused IT devices; (3) virtualization of severs; (4)
automation of constant temperature and humidity; and (5) introduction
of smart-work system. Finally, these tools were applied to case study
of a public research institute in Korea. The findings presented in this
study provide organizations with useful implications for the
introduction and promotion of Green & Smart IT in the future
Abstract: Feed is one of the factors which play an important role in determining a successful development of an aquaculture industry. It is always critical to produce the best aquaculture diet at a minimum cost in order to trim down the operational cost and gain more profit. However, the feed mix problem becomes increasingly difficult since many issues need to be considered simultaneously. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to review the current techniques used by nutritionist and researchers to tackle the issues. Additionally, this paper introduce an enhance algorithm which is deemed suitable to deal with all the issues arise. The proposed technique refers to Hybrid Genetic Algorithm which is expected to obtain the minimum cost diet for farmed animal, while satisfying nutritional requirements. Hybrid GA technique with artificial bee algorithm is expected to reduce the penalty function and provide a better solution for the feed mix problem.
Abstract: The automatic discrimination of seismic signals is an important practical goal for earth-science observatories due to the large amount of information that they receive continuously. An essential discrimination task is to allocate the incoming signal to a group associated with the kind of physical phenomena producing it. In this paper, two classes of seismic signals recorded routinely in geophysical laboratory of the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research in Morocco are considered. They correspond to signals associated to local earthquakes and chemical explosions. The approach adopted for the development of an automatic discrimination system is a modular system composed by three blocs: 1) Representation, 2) Dimensionality reduction and 3) Classification. The originality of our work consists in the use of a new wavelet called "modified Mexican hat wavelet" in the representation stage. For the dimensionality reduction, we propose a new algorithm based on the random projection and the principal component analysis.
Abstract: This research presents the development of simulation
modeling for WIP management in semiconductor fabrication.
Manufacturing simulation modeling is needed for productivity
optimization analysis due to the complex process flows involved
more than 35 percent re-entrance processing steps more than 15 times
at same equipment. Furthermore, semiconductor fabrication required
to produce high product mixed with total processing steps varies from
300 to 800 steps and cycle time between 30 to 70 days. Besides the
complexity, expansive wafer cost that potentially impact the
company profits margin once miss due date is another motivation to
explore options to experiment any analysis using simulation
modeling. In this paper, the simulation model is developed using
existing commercial software platform AutoSched AP, with
customized integration with Manufacturing Execution Systems
(MES) and Advanced Productivity Family (APF) for data collections
used to configure the model parameters and data source. Model
parameters such as processing steps cycle time, equipment
performance, handling time, efficiency of operator are collected
through this customization. Once the parameters are validated, few
customizations are made to ensure the prior model is executed. The
accuracy for the simulation model is validated with the actual output
per day for all equipments. The comparison analysis from result of
the simulation model compared to actual for achieved 95 percent
accuracy for 30 days. This model later was used to perform various
what if analysis to understand impacts on cycle time and overall
output. By using this simulation model, complex manufacturing
environment like semiconductor fabrication (fab) now have
alternative source of validation for any new requirements impact
analysis.
Abstract: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) viewpoint have challenged the traditional perception to understand corporations position. Production- and managerial-centred views are expanding towards reference group-centred policies. Consequently, the significance of new kind of knowledge has emerged. In addition to management of the organisation, the idea of CSR emphasises the importance to recognise the value-expectations of operational environment. It is know that management is often well-aware of corporate social responsibilities, but it is less clear how well these high level goals are understood in practical product design and development work. In this study, the apprehension above proved to be real to some degree. While management was very aware of CSR it was less familiar to designers. The outcome shows that it is essential to raise ethical values and issues higher in corporate communication, if it is wished that they materialize also in products.
Abstract: In this contribution an innovative platform is being
presented that integrates intelligent agents and evolutionary
computation techniques in legacy e-learning environments. It
introduces the design and development of a scalable and
interoperable integration platform supporting:
I) various assessment agents for e-learning environments,
II) a specific resource retrieval agent for the provision of
additional information from Internet sources matching the
needs and profile of the specific user and
III) a genetic algorithm designed to extract efficient information
(classifying rules) based on the students- answering input
data.
The agents are implemented in order to provide intelligent
assessment services based on computational intelligence techniques
such as Bayesian Networks and Genetic Algorithms.
The proposed Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used in order to extract
efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students-
answering input data. The idea of using a GA in order to fulfil this
difficult task came from the fact that GAs have been widely used in
applications including classification of unknown data.
The utilization of new and emerging technologies like web
services allows integrating the provided services to any web based
legacy e-learning environment.
Abstract: The Master-s of Public Health (MPH) degree is
growing in popularity among a number of higher education
institutions throughout the world as a distance education graduate
program. This paper offers an overview of program design and
development strategies that promote successful distance delivery of
MPH programs. Design and development challenges are discussed in
terms of type of distance delivery, accreditation, student demand,
faculty development, user needs, course content, and marketing
strategies. The ongoing development of a distance education MPH
program at Utah State University will be used to highlight and
consider various aspects of this important but challenging process.
Abstract: Transport and logistics are the lifeblood of societies.
There is a strong correlation between overall growth in economic
activity and growth of transport. The movement of people and goods
has the potential for creating wealth and prosperity, therefore the
state of transportation infrastructure and especially the condition of
road networks is often a governmental priority. The design, building
and maintenance of national roads constitute a substantial share of
government budgets. Taking into account the magnitude and
importance of these investments, the expedience, efficiency and
sustainability of these projects are of great public interest. This paper
provides an overview of supply chain management principles applied
to road construction. In addition, road construction performance
measurement systems and ICT solutions are discussed. Road
construction in Estonia is analyzed. The authors propose the
development of a national performance measurement system for road
construction.
Abstract: Although automotive industry has brought different beneficiaries to human life, it is being pointed out as one of the major cause of global air pollution which resulted in climate change, smog, green house gases (GHGs), and human diseases by many reasons. Since auto industry is one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels, the realization of green innovations is becoming a crucial choice to meet the challenges towards sustainable development. Recently, many auto manufacturers have embarked on green technology initiatives to gain a competitive advantage in the global market; however, innovative manufacturing systems and technologies can enhance operational performance only if the human resource management is in place to elicit the motivation of the employees and develop their organizational expertise. No organization can perform at peak levels unless each employee is committed to the company goals and works as an effective team member. Strategic human resource practices are the primary means by which firms can shape the skills, attitudes, and behavior of individuals to align with the business strategic objectives. This study investigates on the comprehensive approach of multiple advanced technology innovations and human resource management at Toyota Motor Corporation as the market leader of full hybrid technology in the automotive industry. Then, HRM framework of the company is described and three sets of human resource practices that support the innovation-oriented HR system, presented. Finally, a conceptual framework for innovativeness in green technology in automotive industry by applying a deliberate strategic HR management system and knowledge management with the intervening factors of organizational culture, knowledge application and knowledge sharing is proposed.
Abstract: Safety Critical hard Real-Time Systems are ever
present in the avionics industry. The Model Driven Architecture
(MDA) offers different levels of model abstraction and generation.
This paper discusses our concerns relating to model development and
generation when using the MDA approach in the avionics industry.
These concerns are based on our experience when looking into
adopting the MDA as part of avionics systems development. We
place emphasis on transformations between model types and discuss
possible benefits of adopting an MDA approach as part of the
software development life cycle.
Abstract: With the development of ubiquitous computing,
current user interaction approaches with keyboard, mouse and pen
are not sufficient. Due to the limitation of these devices the useable
command set is also limited. Direct use of hands as an input device is
an attractive method for providing natural Human Computer
Interaction which has evolved from text-based interfaces through 2D
graphical-based interfaces, multimedia-supported interfaces, to fully
fledged multi-participant Virtual Environment (VE) systems.
Imagine the human-computer interaction of the future: A 3Dapplication
where you can move and rotate objects simply by moving
and rotating your hand - all without touching any input device. In this
paper a review of vision based hand gesture recognition is presented.
The existing approaches are categorized into 3D model based
approaches and appearance based approaches, highlighting their
advantages and shortcomings and identifying the open issues.
Abstract: Nowadays, new home appliances and office appliances
have been developed that communicate with users through the
Internet, for remote monitor and remote control. However, developments
and sales of these new appliances are just started, then,
many products in our houses and offices do not have these useful
functions. In few years, we add these new functions to the outlet,
it means multifunctional electrical power socket plug adapter. The
outlet measure power consumption of connecting appliances, and it
can switch power supply to connecting appliances, too. Using this
outlet, power supply of old appliances can be control and monitor.
And we developed the interface system using web browser to operate
it from users[1]. But, this system need to set up LAN cables between
outlets and so on. It is not convenience that cables around rooms. In
this paper, we develop the system that use wireless mobile ad hoc
network instead of wired LAN to communicate with the outlets.
Abstract: The main objective of the paper has been represented
by the identification of the changes that occurred in the competitive
environment and their impact on the strategic marketing management
of companies in B2B market. At Romania-s level there has not yet
been done a similar research that studies change management in
crises on business to business field. In order to answer to the paper-s
objectives, a qualitative marketing research (in-depth structured
interview) was conducted, within the top management of 27
companies in Romanian business to business field. The main results
of the research highlight the necessity of a management of change, as
a result of the crises, as follows: changes in the corporate objectives
(from development objectives to maintaining objectives), changes
market segmentation and in competitive advantages, changes at the
level of market strategies and of the marketing mix.
Abstract: Pressures for urban redevelopment are intensifying in
all large cities. A new logic for urban development is required –
green urbanism – that provides a spatial framework for directing
population and investment inwards to brownfields and greyfields
precincts, rather than outwards to the greenfields. This represents
both a major opportunity and a major challenge for city planners in
pluralist liberal democracies. However, plans for more compact
forms of urban redevelopment are stalling in the face of community
resistance. A new paradigm and spatial planning platform is required
that will support timely multi-level and multi-actor stakeholder
engagement, resulting in the emergence of consensus plans for
precinct-level urban regeneration capable of more rapid
implementation. Using Melbourne, Australia as a case study, this
paper addresses two of the urban intervention challenges – where and
how – via the application of a 21st century planning tool ENVISION
created for this purpose.