Abstract: It has been shown that in most accidents the driver is responsible due to being distracted or misjudging the situation. In order to solve such problems research has been dedicated to developing driver assistance systems that are able to monitor the traffic situation around the vehicle. This paper presents methods for recognizing several circumstances on a road. The methods use both the in-vehicle warning systems and the roadside infrastructure. Preliminary evaluation results for fog and ice-on-road detection are presented. The ice detection results are based on data recorded in a test track dedicated to tyre friction testing. The achieved results anticipate that ice detection could work at a performance of 70% detection with the right setup, which is a good foundation for implementation. However, the full benefit of the presented cooperative system is achieved by fusing the outputs of multiple data sources, which is the key point of discussion behind this publication.
Abstract: This paper presents the investigation results of UV
measurement at different level of altitudes and the development of a
new portable instrument for measuring UV. The rapid growth of
industrial sectors in developing countries including Malaysia, brings
not only income to the nation, but also causes pollution in various
forms. Air pollution is one of the significant contributors to global
warming by depleting the Ozone layer, which would reduce the
filtration of UV rays. Long duration of exposure to high to UV rays
has many devastating health effects to mankind directly or indirectly
through destruction of the natural resources. This study aimed to
show correlation between UV and altitudes which indirectly can help
predict Ozone depletion. An instrument had been designed to
measure and monitors the level of UV. The instrument comprises of
two main blocks namely data logger and Graphic User Interface
(GUI). Three sensors were used in the data logger to detect changes
in the temperature, humidity and ultraviolet. The system has
undergone experimental measurement to capture data at two different
conditions; industrial area and high attitude area. The performance of
the instrument showed consistency in the data captured and the
results of the experiment drew a significantly high reading of UV at
high altitudes.
Abstract: In online context, the design and implementation of
effective remote laboratories environment is highly challenging on
account of hardware and software needs. This paper presents the
remote laboratory software framework modified from ilab shared
architecture (ISA). The ISA is a framework which enables students to
remotely acccess and control experimental hardware using internet
infrastructure. The need for remote laboratories came after
experiencing problems imposed by traditional laboratories. Among
them are: the high cost of laboratory equipment, scarcity of space,
scarcity of technical personnel along with the restricted university
budget creates a significant bottleneck on building required
laboratory experiments. The solution to these problems is to build
web-accessible laboratories. Remote laboratories allow students and
educators to interact with real laboratory equipment located
anywhere in the world at anytime. Recently, many universities and
other educational institutions especially in third world countries rely
on simulations because they do not afford the experimental
equipment they require to their students. Remote laboratories enable
users to get real data from real-time hand-on experiments. To
implement many remote laboratories, the system architecture should
be flexible, understandable and easy to implement, so that different
laboratories with different hardware can be deployed easily. The
modifications were made to enable developers to add more
equipment in ISA framework and to attract the new developers to
develop many online laboratories.
Abstract: As the information age matures, major social
infrastructures such as communication, finance, military and energy,
have become ever more dependent on information communication
systems. And since these infrastructures are connected to the Internet,
electronic intrusions such as hacking and viruses have become a new
security threat. Especially, disturbance or neutralization of a major
social infrastructure can result in extensive material damage and social
disorder. To address this issue, many nations around the world are
researching and developing various techniques and information
security policies as a government-wide effort to protect their
infrastructures from newly emerging threats. This paper proposes an
evaluation method for information security levels of CIIP (Critical
Information Infrastructure Protection), which can enhance the security
level of critical information infrastructure by checking the current
security status and establish security measures accordingly to protect
infrastructures effectively.
Abstract: In industry, on of the most important subjects is die
and it's characteristics in which for cutting and forming different
mechanical pieces, various punch and matrix metal die are used.
whereas the common parts which form the main frame die are not
often proportion with pieces and dies therefore using a part as socalled
common part for frames in specified dimension ranges can
decrease the time of designing, occupied space of warehouse and
manufacturing costs. Parts in dies with getting uniform in their shape
and dimension make common parts of dies. Common parts of punch
and matrix metal die are as bolster, guide bush, guide pillar and
shank. In this paper the common parts and effective parameters in
selecting each of them as the primary information are studied,
afterward for selection and design of mechanical parts an
introduction and investigation based on the Mech. Desk. software is
done hence with developing this software can standardize the metal
common parts of punch and matrix. These studies will be so useful
for designer in their designing and also using it has with very much
advantage for manufactures of products in decreasing occupied
spaces by dies.
Abstract: The software industry has been considered a critical
infrastructure for any nation. Several studies have indicated that
national competitiveness increasingly depends upon Information and
Communication Technology (ICT), and software is one of the major
components of ICT, important for both large and small enterprises.
Even though there has been strong growth in the software industry in
Thailand, the industry has faced many challenges and problems that
need to be resolved. For example, the amount of pirated software has
been rising, and Thailand still has a large gap in the digital divide.
Additionally, the adoption among SMEs has been slow. This paper
investigates various issues in the software industry in Thailand, using
information acquired through analysis of secondary sources,
observation, and focus groups. The results of this study can be used
as “lessons learned" for the development of the software industry in
any developing country.
Abstract: Brain Computer Interface (BCI) has been recently
increased in research. Functional Near Infrared Spectroscope (fNIRs)
is one the latest technologies which utilize light in the near-infrared
range to determine brain activities. Because near infrared technology
allows design of safe, portable, wearable, non-invasive and wireless
qualities monitoring systems, fNIRs monitoring of brain
hemodynamics can be value in helping to understand brain tasks. In
this paper, we present results of fNIRs signal analysis indicating that
there exist distinct patterns of hemodynamic responses which
recognize brain tasks toward developing a BCI. We applied two
different mathematics tools separately, Wavelets analysis for
preprocessing as signal filters and feature extractions and Neural
networks for cognition brain tasks as a classification module. We
also discuss and compare with other methods while our proposals
perform better with an average accuracy of 99.9% for classification.
Abstract: The seemingly ambiguous title of this paper – use of the terms maturity and innovation in concord – signifies the imperative of every organisation within the competitive domain. Where organisational maturity and innovativeness were traditionally considered antonymous, the assimilation of these two seemingly contradictory notions is fundamental to the assurance of long-term organisational prosperity. Organisations are required, now more than ever, to grow and mature their innovation capability – rending consistent innovative outputs. This paper describes research conducted to consolidate the principles of innovation and identify the fundamental components that constitute organisational innovation capability. The process of developing an Innovation Capability Maturity Model is presented. A brief description is provided of the basic components of the model, followed by a description of the case studies that were conducted to evaluate the model. The paper concludes with a summary of the findings and potential future research.
Abstract: Emerging Adulthood, the period during ages 18 to 25,
is a new conceptualitation proposed by Arnett which is especially
prevalent in the industrialized countries. Turkey is basically a
developing country having a young population structure.
Investigating the presence of such a life period in such a culture
might be helpful in understanding educational and psychological
needs of people who are in their twenties. With the aim of
investigating Emerging Adulthood in Turkey, a well-known
instrument (IDEA, 2003) was adapted to Turkish language and
Turkish culture. The scale was administered to 296 participants
between 15 and 34 ages and validity and reliability were conducted.
Exploratory factor analysis revealed three subscales. Reliability
coefficients of the scale (Cronbach a) was found as .69. Test-retest
reliability coefficients was found for the scale as .81. Finally, “The
IDEA" with 20 items was obtained to be used in the Turkish
population. The instrument is ready to be administered among
Turkish young people for the investigation of transition to adulthood,
and whether such a emerging adulthood period really existed.
Abstract: Intelligent schools are those which use IT devices and
technologies as media software, hardware and networks to improve
learning process. On the other hand Strategic management is a field
that deals with the major intended and emergent initiatives taken by
general managers on behalf of owners, involving utilization of resources, to enhance the performance of firms in their external environments. Here, we present a model Strategic Management System that has been applied on some schools and have made strict
improvement.
Abstract: This work provides a practical method for the
development of rural road networks in rural areas of developing
countries. The proposed methodology enables to determine
obligatory points in the rural road network maximizing the number of
settlements that have access to basic services within a given
maximum distance. The proposed methodology is simple and
practical, hence, highly applicable to real-world scenarios, as
demonstrated in the definition of the road network for the rural areas
of Nepal.
Abstract: During last decades, developing multi-objective
evolutionary algorithms for optimization problems has found
considerable attention. Flexible job shop scheduling problem, as an
important scheduling optimization problem, has found this attention
too. However, most of the multi-objective algorithms that are
developed for this problem use nonprofessional approaches. In
another words, most of them combine their objectives and then solve
multi-objective problem through single objective approaches. Of
course, except some scarce researches that uses Pareto-based
algorithms. Therefore, in this paper, a new Pareto-based algorithm
called controlled elitism non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm
(CENSGA) is proposed for the multi-objective FJSP (MOFJSP). Our
considered objectives are makespan, critical machine work load, and
total work load of machines. The proposed algorithm is also
compared with one the best Pareto-based algorithms of the literature
on some multi-objective criteria, statistically.
Abstract: A local municipality has decided to build a sewage pit
to receive residential sewage waste arriving by tank trucks. Daily
accumulated waste are to be pumped to a nearby waste water
treatment facility to be re-consumed for agricultural and construction
projects. A discrete-event simulation model using Arena Software
was constructed to assist in defining the capacity of the system in
cubic meters, number of tank trucks to use the system, number of
unload docks required, number of standby areas needed and
manpower required for data collection at entrance checkpoint and
truck tank load toxicity testing. The results of the model are
statistically validated. Simulation turned out to be an excellent tool
in the facility planning effort for the pit project, as it insured smooth
flow lines of tank trucks load discharge and best utilization of
facilities on site.
Abstract: E-Learning systems are used by many learners and
teachers. The developer is developing the e-Learning system. However,
the developer cannot do system construction to satisfy all of
users- demands. We discuss a method of constructing e-Learning
systems where learners and teachers can design, try to use, and share
extending system functions that they want to use; which may be nally
added to the system by system managers.
Abstract: The emergence of the Internet has brewed the
revolution of information storage and retrieval. As most of the
data in the web is unstructured, and contains a mix of text,
video, audio etc, there is a need to mine information to cater to
the specific needs of the users without loss of important
hidden information. Thus developing user friendly and
automated tools for providing relevant information quickly
becomes a major challenge in web mining research. Most of
the existing web mining algorithms have concentrated on
finding frequent patterns while neglecting the less frequent
ones that are likely to contain outlying data such as noise,
irrelevant and redundant data. This paper mainly focuses on
Signed approach and full word matching on the organized
domain dictionary for mining web content outliers. This
Signed approach gives the relevant web documents as well as
outlying web documents. As the dictionary is organized based
on the number of characters in a word, searching and retrieval
of documents takes less time and less space.
Abstract: The proliferation of user-generated content (UGC) results in huge opportunities to explore event patterns. However, existing event recommendation systems primarily focus on advanced information technology users. Little work has been done to address novice and low-literacy users. The next billion users providing and consuming UGC are likely to include communities from developing countries who are ready to use affordable technologies for subsistence goals. Therefore, we propose a design framework for providing event recommendations to address the needs of such users. Grounded in information integration theory (IIT), our framework advocates that effective event recommendation is supported by systems capable of (1) reliable information gathering through structured user input, (2) accurate sense making through spatial-temporal analytics, and (3) intuitive information dissemination through interactive visualization techniques. A mobile pest management application is developed as an instantiation of the design framework. Our preliminary study suggests a set of design principles for novice and low-literacy users.
Abstract: In Thailand, both the 1997 and the current 2007 Thai Constitutions have mentioned the establishment of independent organizations as a new mechanism to play a key role in proposing policy recommendations to national decision-makers in the interest of collective consumers. Over the last ten years, no independent organizations have yet been set up. Evidently, nobody could point out who should be key players in establishing provincial independent consumer bodies. The purpose of this study was to find definitive stakeholders in establishing and developing independent consumer bodies in a Thai context. This was a cross-sectional study between August and September 2007, using a postal questionnaire with telephone follow-up. The questionnaire was designed and used to obtain multiple stakeholder assessment of three key attributes (power, interest and influence). Study population was 153 stakeholders associated with policy decision-making, formulation and implementation processes of civil-based consumer protection in pilot provinces. The population covered key representatives from five sectors (academics, government officers, business traders, mass media and consumer networks) who participated in the deliberative forums at 10 provinces. A 49.7% response rate was achieved. Data were analyzed, comparing means of three stakeholder attributes and classification of stakeholder typology. The results showed that the provincial health officers were the definitive stakeholders as they had legal power, influence and interest in establishing and sustaining the independent consumer bodies. However, only a few key representatives of the provincial health officers expressed their own paradigm on the civil-based consumer protection. Most provincial health officers put their own standpoint of building civic participation at only a plan-implementation level. For effective policy implementation by the independent consumer bodies, the Thai government should provide budgetary support for the operation of the provincial health officers with their paradigm shift as well as their own clarified standpoint on corporate governance.
Abstract: This article is dedicated to development of
mathematical models for determining the dynamics of
concentration of hazardous substances in urban turbulent
atmosphere. Development of the mathematical models implied
taking into account the time-space variability of the fields of
meteorological items and such turbulent atmosphere data as vortex
nature, nonlinear nature, dissipativity and diffusivity. Knowing the
turbulent airflow velocity is not assumed when developing the
model. However, a simplified model implies that the turbulent and
molecular diffusion ratio is a piecewise constant function that
changes depending on vertical distance from the earth surface.
Thereby an important assumption of vertical stratification of urban
air due to atmospheric accumulation of hazardous substances
emitted by motor vehicles is introduced into the mathematical
model. The suggested simplified non-linear mathematical model of
determining the sought exhaust concentration at a priori unknown
turbulent flow velocity through non-degenerate transformation is
reduced to the model which is subsequently solved analytically.
Abstract: Current technological advances pale in comparison to the changes in social behaviors and 'sense of place' that is being empowered since the Internet made it on the scene. Today-s students view the Internet as both a source of entertainment and an educational tool. The development of virtual environments is a conceptual framework that needs to be addressed by educators and it is important that they become familiar with who these virtual learners are and how they are motivated to learn. Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs), if well designed, could become the vehicle of choice to deliver learning content. We suggest that these games, in order to accomplish these goals, must begin with well-established instructional design principles that are co-aligned with established principles of video game design. And have the opportunity to provide an instructional model of significant prescriptive power. The authors believe that game designers need to take advantage of the natural motivation player-learners have for playing games by developing them in such a way so as to promote, intrinsic motivation, content learning, transfer of knowledge, and naturalization.
Abstract: This paper presents the development of a Bayesian
belief network classifier for prediction of graft status and survival
period in renal transplantation using the patient profile information
prior to the transplantation. The objective was to explore feasibility
of developing a decision making tool for identifying the most suitable
recipient among the candidate pool members. The dataset was
compiled from the University of Toledo Medical Center Hospital
patients as reported to the United Network Organ Sharing, and had
1228 patient records for the period covering 1987 through 2009. The
Bayes net classifiers were developed using the Weka machine
learning software workbench. Two separate classifiers were induced
from the data set, one to predict the status of the graft as either failed
or living, and a second classifier to predict the graft survival period.
The classifier for graft status prediction performed very well with a
prediction accuracy of 97.8% and true positive values of 0.967 and
0.988 for the living and failed classes, respectively. The second
classifier to predict the graft survival period yielded a prediction
accuracy of 68.2% and a true positive rate of 0.85 for the class
representing those instances with kidneys failing during the first year
following transplantation. Simulation results indicated that it is
feasible to develop a successful Bayesian belief network classifier for
prediction of graft status, but not the graft survival period, using the
information in UNOS database.