Abstract: There are increasingly plagiarism offences for
students in higher education in the digital educational world. On the
other hand, various and competitive online assessment and
plagiarism detection tools are available in the market. Taking the
University of Glamorgan as a case study, this paper describes and
introduces an institutional journey on electronic plagiarism detection
to inform the initial experience of an innovative tool and method
which could be further explored in the future research. The
comparative study and system workflow for e-plagiarism detection
tool are discussed. Benefits for both academics and students are also
presented. Electronic plagiarism detection tools brought great
benefits to both academics and students in Glamorgan. On the other
hand, the debates raised in such initial experience are discussed.
Abstract: The goal of this research is discovering the
determinants of the success or failure of external cooperation in small
and medium enterprises (SMEs). For this, a survey was given to 190
SMEs that experienced external cooperation within the last 3 years. A
logistic regression model was used to derive organizational or strategic
characteristics that significantly influence whether external
collaboration of domestic SMEs is successful or not. Results suggest
that research and development (R&D) features in general
characteristics (both idea creation and discovering market
opportunities) that focused on and emphasized indirected-market
stakeholders (such as complementary companies and affiliates) and
strategies in innovative strategic characteristics raise the probability of
successful external cooperation. This can be used meaningfully to
build a policy or strategy for inducing successful external cooperation
or to understand the innovation of SMEs.
Abstract: In this study, a fuzzy-logic based control system was
designed to ensure that time and energy is saved during the operation
of load elevators which are used during the construction of tall
buildings. In the control system that was devised, for the load
elevators to work more efficiently, the energy interval where the
motor worked was taken as the output variable whereas the amount
of load and the building height were taken as input variables. The
most appropriate working intervals depending on the characteristics
of these variables were defined by the help of an expert. Fuzzy expert
system software was formed using Delphi programming language. In
this design, mamdani max-min inference mechanism was used and
the centroid method was employed in the clarification procedure. In
conclusion, it is observed that the system that was designed is
feasible and this is supported by statistical analyses..
Abstract: Salinity level may affect early development of
biofuel feedstock crops. The biofuel feedstock crops canola
(Brassica napus L.), sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench], and
sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.); and the potential feedstock crop
sweet corn (Zea mays L.) were planted in media in pots and treated
with aqueous solutions of 0, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 M NaCl once at: 1)
planting; 2) 7-10 days after planting or 3) first true leaf expansion.
An additional treatment (4) comprised of one-half strength of the 0.1,
0.5 and 1.0 M (concentrations 0.05, 0.25, 0.5 M at each application)
was applied at first true leaf expansion and four days later. Survival
of most crops decreased below 90% above 0.5 M; survival of canola
decreased above 0.1 M. Application timing had little effect on crop
survival. For canola root fresh and dry weights improved when
application was at plant emergence; for sorghum top and root fresh
weights improved when the split application was used. When
application was at planting root dry weight was improved over most
other applications. Sunflower top fresh weight was among the
highest when saline solutions were split and top dry weight was
among the highest when application was at plant emergence. Sweet
corn root fresh weight was improved when the split application was
used or application was at planting. Sweet corn root dry weight was
highest when application was at planting or plant emergence. Even at
high salinity rates survival rates greater than what might be expected
occurred. Plants that survived appear to be able to adjust to saline
during the early stages of development.
Abstract: Modern information and communication technologies
offer a variety of support options for the efficient handling of
customer relationships. CRM systems have been developed, which
are designed to support the processes in the areas of marketing, sales
and service. Along with technological progress, CRM systems are
constantly changing, i.e. the systems are continually enhanced by
new functions. However, not all functions are suitable for every
company because of different frameworks and business processes. In
this context the question arises whether or not CRM systems are
widely used in Austrian companies and which business processes are
most frequently supported by CRM systems. This paper aims to shed
light on the popularity of CRM systems in Austrian companies in
general and the use of different functions to support their daily
business. First of all, the paper provides a theoretical overview of the
structure of modern CRM systems and proposes a categorization of
currently available software functionality for collaborative,
operational and analytical CRM processes, which provides the
theoretical background for the empirical study. Apart from these
theoretical considerations, the paper presents the empirical results of
a field survey on the use of CRM systems in Austrian companies and
analyzes its findings.
Abstract: Fisheries management all around the world is
hampered by the lack, or poor quality, of critical data on fish
resources and fishing operations. The main reasons for the chronic
inability to collect good quality data during fishing operations is the
culture of secrecy common among fishers and the lack of modern
data gathering technology onboard most fishing vessels. In response,
OLRAC-SPS, a South African company, developed fisheries datalogging
software (eLog in short) and named it Olrac. The Olrac eLog
solution is capable of collecting, analysing, plotting, mapping,
reporting, tracing and transmitting all data related to fishing
operations. Olrac can be used by skippers, fleet/company managers,
offshore mariculture farmers, scientists, observers, compliance
inspectors and fisheries management authorities. The authors believe
that using eLog onboard fishing vessels has the potential to
revolutionise the entire process of data collection and reporting
during fishing operations and, if properly deployed and utilised,
could transform the entire commercial fleet to a provider of good
quality data and forever change the way fish resources are managed.
In addition it will make it possible to trace catches back to the actual
individual fishing operation, to improve fishing efficiency and to
dramatically improve control of fishing operations and enforcement
of fishing regulations.
Abstract: Partial discharge (PD) detection is an important
method to evaluate the insulation condition of metal-clad apparatus.
Non-intrusive sensors which are easy to install and have no
interruptions on operation are preferred in onsite PD detection.
However, it often lacks of accuracy due to the interferences in PD
signals. In this paper a novel PD extraction method that uses frequency
analysis and entropy based time-frequency (TF) analysis is introduced.
The repetitive pulses from convertor are first removed via frequency
analysis. Then, the relative entropy and relative peak-frequency of
each pulse (i.e. time-indexed vector TF spectrum) are calculated and
all pulses with similar parameters are grouped. According to the
characteristics of non-intrusive sensor and the frequency distribution
of PDs, the pulses of PD and interferences are separated. Finally the
PD signal and interferences are recovered via inverse TF transform.
The de-noised result of noisy PD data demonstrates that the
combination of frequency and time-frequency techniques can
discriminate PDs from interferences with various frequency
distributions.
Abstract: When cars are released from the factory, strut noises are very small and therefore it is difficult to perceive them. As the use time and travel distance increase, however, strut noises get larger so as to cause users much uneasiness. The noises generated at the field include engine noises and flow noises and therefore it is difficult to clearly discern the noises generated from struts. This study developed a test method which can reproduce field strut noises in the lab. Using the newly developed noise evaluation test, this study analyzed the effects that insulator performance degradation and failure can have on car noises. The study also confirmed that the insulator durability test by the simple back-and-forth motion cannot completely reflect the state of the parts failure in the field. Based on this, the study also confirmed that field noises can be reproduced through a durability test that considers heat aging.
Abstract: A new digital watermarking technique for images that
are sensitive to blocking artifacts is presented. Experimental results
show that the proposed MDCT based approach produces highly
imperceptible watermarked images and is robust to attacks such as
compression, noise, filtering and geometric transformations. The
proposed MDCT watermarking technique is applied to fingerprints
for ensuring security. The face image and demographic text data of
an individual are used as multiple watermarks. An AFIS system was
used to quantitatively evaluate the matching performance of the
MDCT-based watermarked fingerprint. The high fingerprint
matching scores show that the MDCT approach is resilient to
blocking artifacts. The quality of the extracted face and extracted text
images was computed using two human visual system metrics and
the results show that the image quality was high.
Abstract: As the Internet continues to grow at a rapid pace as
the primary medium for communications and commerce and as
telecommunication networks and systems continue to expand their
global reach, digital information has become the most popular and
important information resource and our dependence upon the
underlying cyber infrastructure has been increasing significantly.
Unfortunately, as our dependency has grown, so has the threat to the
cyber infrastructure from spammers, attackers and criminal
enterprises. In this paper, we propose a new machine learning based
network intrusion detection framework for cyber security. The
detection process of the framework consists of two stages: model
construction and intrusion detection. In the model construction stage,
a semi-supervised machine learning algorithm is applied to a
collected set of network audit data to generate a profile of normal
network behavior and in the intrusion detection stage, input network
events are analyzed and compared with the patterns gathered in the
profile, and some of them are then flagged as anomalies should these
events are sufficiently far from the expected normal behavior. The
proposed framework is particularly applicable to the situations where
there is only a small amount of labeled network training data
available, which is very typical in real world network environments.
Abstract: With the enormous growth on the web, users get easily
lost in the rich hyper structure. Thus developing user friendly and
automated tools for providing relevant information without any
redundant links to the users to cater to their needs is the primary task
for the website owners. Most of the existing web mining algorithms
have concentrated on finding frequent patterns while neglecting the
less frequent one that are likely to contain the outlying data such as
noise, irrelevant and redundant data. This paper proposes new
algorithm for mining the web content by detecting the redundant
links from the web documents using set theoretical(classical
mathematics) such as subset, union, intersection etc,. Then the
redundant links is removed from the original web content to get the
required information by the user..
Abstract: Convergence of power series solutions for a class of
non-linear Abel type equations, including an equation that arises
in nonlinear cooling of semi-infinite rods, is very slow inside their
small radius of convergence. Beyond that the corresponding power
series are wildly divergent. Implementation of nonlinear sequence
transformation allow effortless evaluation of these power series on
very large intervals..
Abstract: Prestressing in structure increases ratio of load-bearing capacity to weight. Suspendomes are single-layer braced domes reinforced with cable and strut. Prestressing of cables alter value and distribution of stress in structure. In this study two configuration, diamatic and lamella domes is selected. Investigated domes have span of 100m with rise-to-span ratios of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3. Single layer domes loaded under service load combinations according to ISO code. After geometric nonlinear analysis, models are designed with tubular and I-shaped sections then reinforced with cable and strut and converted to suspendomes. Displacements and stresses of some groups of nodes and elements in all of single-layer domes and suspendomes for three load combinations, symmetric snow, asymmetric snow and wind are compared. Variation due to suspending system is investigated. Suspendomes are redesigned and minimum possible weight after addition of cable and strut is obtained.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to disentangle and
validate the underlying factorial-structure of Ecotourism Experiential
Value (EEV) measurement scale and subsequently investigate its
psychometric properties. The analysis was based on a sample of 225
eco-tourists, collected at the vicinity of Taman Negara National Park
(TNNP) via interviewer-administered questionnaire. Exploratory
factor analysis (EFA) was performed to determine the factorial
structure of EEV. Subsequently, to confirm and validate the factorial
structure and assess the psychometric properties of EEV,
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was executed. In addition, to
establish the nomological validity of EEV a structural model was
developed to examine the effect of EEV on Total Eco-tourist
Experience Quality (TEEQ). It is unveiled that EEV is a secondorder
six-factorial structure construct and it scale has adequately met
the psychometric criteria, thus could permit interpretation of results
confidently. The findings have important implications for future
research directions and management of ecotourism destination.
Abstract: Arguments on a popular microblogging site were analysed by means of a methodological approach to business rhetoric focusing on the logos communication technique. The focus of the analysis was the 100 day countdown to the 2011 Rugby World Cup as advanced by the organisers. Big sporting events provide an attractive medium for sport event marketers in that they have become important strategic communication tools directed at sport consumers. Sport event marketing is understood in the sense of using a microblogging site as a communication tool whose purpose it is to disseminate a company-s marketing messages by involving the target audience in experiential activities. Sport creates a universal language in that it excites and increases the spread of information by word of mouth and other means. The findings highlight the limitations of a microblogging site in terms of marketing messages which can assist in better practices. This study can also serve as a heuristic tool for other researchers analysing sports marketing messages in social network environments.
Abstract: Cellular networks provide voice and data services to the users with mobility. To deliver services to the mobile users, the cellular network is capable of tracking the locations of the users, and allowing user movement during the conversations. These capabilities are achieved by the location management. Location management in mobile communication systems is concerned with those network functions necessary to allow the users to be reached wherever they are in the network coverage area. In a cellular network, a service coverage area is divided into smaller areas of hexagonal shape, referred to as cells. The cellular concept was introduced to reuse the radio frequency. Continued expansion of cellular networks, coupled with an increasingly restricted mobile spectrum, has established the reduction of communication overhead as a highly important issue. Much of this traffic is used in determining the precise location of individual users when relaying calls, with the field of location management aiming to reduce this overhead through prediction of user location. This paper describes and compares various location management schemes in the cellular networks.
Abstract: In unsupervised segmentation context, we propose a bi-dimensional hidden Markov chain model (X,Y) that we adapt to the image segmentation problem. The bi-dimensional observed process Y = (Y 1, Y 2) is such that Y 1 represents the noisy image and Y 2 represents a noisy supplementary information on the image, for example a noisy proportion of pixels of the same type in a neighborhood of the current pixel. The proposed model can be seen as a competitive alternative to the Hilbert-Peano scan. We propose a bayesian algorithm to estimate parameters of the considered model. The performance of this algorithm is globally favorable, compared to the bi-dimensional EM algorithm through numerical and visual data.
Abstract: Aerial and satellite images are information rich. They are also complex to analyze. For GIS systems, many features require fast and reliable extraction of roads and intersections. In this paper, we study efficient and reliable automatic extraction algorithms to address some difficult issues that are commonly seen in high resolution aerial and satellite images, nonetheless not well addressed in existing solutions, such as blurring, broken or missing road boundaries, lack of road profiles, heavy shadows, and interfering surrounding objects. The new scheme is based on a new method, namely reference circle, to properly identify the pixels that belong to the same road and use this information to recover the whole road network. This feature is invariable to the shape and direction of roads and tolerates heavy noise and disturbances. Road extraction based on reference circles is much more noise tolerant and flexible than the previous edge-detection based algorithms. The scheme is able to extract roads reliably from images with complex contents and heavy obstructions, such as the high resolution aerial/satellite images available from Google maps.
Abstract: Compliance requires an effective communication
within an enterprise as well as towards a company-s external
environment. This requirement commences with the
implementation of compliance within large scale compliance
projects and still persists in the compliance reporting within
standard operations. On the one hand the understanding of
compliance necessities within the organization is promoted.
On the other hand reduction of asymmetric information with
compliance stakeholders is achieved. To reach this goal, a
central reporting must provide a consolidated view of different
compliance efforts- statuses. A concept which could be
adapted for this purpose is the balanced scorecard by Kaplan /
Norton. This concept has not been analyzed in detail
concerning its adequacy for a holistic compliance reporting
starting in compliance projects until later usage in regularly
compliance operations.
At first, this paper evaluates if a holistic compliance
reporting can be designed by using the balanced scorecard
concept. The current status of compliance reporting clearly
shows that scorecards are generally accepted as a compliance
reporting tool and are already used for corporate governance
reporting. Additional specialized compliance IT - solutions
exist in the market. After the scorecard-s adequacy is
thoroughly examined and proofed, an example strategy map as
the basis to derive a compliance balanced scorecard is defined.
This definition answers the question on proceeding in
designing a compliance reporting tool.
Abstract: This paper proposes a synchronized random switching frequency pulse width modulation (SRSFPWM). In this technique, the clock signal is used to control the random noise frequency which is produced by the feedback voltage of a hysteresis circuit. These make the triangular carrier frequency equaling to the random noise frequency in each switching period with the symmetrical positive and negative slopes of triangular carrier. Therefore, there is no error voltage in PWM signal. The PSpice simulated results shown the proposed technique improved the performance in case of low frequency harmonics of PWM signal comparing with conventional random switching frequency PWM.