Abstract: The paper focuses on Heidegger’s 1919-1920 early research in order to point out his hermeneutical phenomenology of the life-world, arguing that the concept of world (Welt) is the main philosophical trigger for the phenomenology of factical life. Accordingly, the argument of the paper is twofold: First, the phenomenological hermeneutics of facticity is preceded both chronologically and philosophically by an original phenomenological investigation of life-world, in which the world is construed as the context of the givenness of life. Second, the phenomenology of life-world anticipates the question of being (Seinsfrage), but it also follows it, once this latter is shattered, the question of world as event remaining at the very core of Heidegger’s last meditations on the dominion of technology and the post-metaphysical abode of human beings on earth.
Abstract: Agile Software development approaches and techniques are being considered as efficient, effective, and popular methods to the development of software. Agile software developments are useful for developing high-quality software that completes client requirements with zero defects, and in short delivery period. In agile software development methodology, quality is related to coding, which means quality, is managed through the use of approaches like refactoring, pair programming, test-driven development, behavior-driven development, acceptance test-driven development, and demand-driven development. The quality of software is measured using metrics like the number of defects during the development and improvement of the software. Usage of the above-mentioned methods or approaches reduces the possibilities of defects in developed software, and hence improves quality. This paper focuses on the study of agile-based quality methods or approaches for software development that ensures improved quality of software as well as reduced cost, and customer satisfaction.
Abstract: This paper considers the advent of 5G and the use of it in a Based Control System (BCS), posing as a basic concept the question of what the real differences and practical improvements are compared to 4G. To this purpose, a testbed hardware simulator has been designed and built where identical machines with the same sensors and management systems will communicate with different radio access network connections. This allows an objective statistical comparison of performance on the real functioning and improvement of the infrastructure with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) connected to it.
Abstract: With the rapid development of industrialization, countries in different stages of development in the world have gradually begun to pay attention to the impact of air pollution on health and the environment. Air control in developed countries is an effective reference for air control in developing countries. Artificial intelligence and other technologies also play a positive role in the prediction of air pollution. By comparing the annual changes of pollution in London and Beijing, this paper concludes that the pollution in developed cities is relatively low and stable, while the pollution in Beijing is relatively heavy and unstable, but is clearly improving. In addition, by analyzing the changes of major pollutants in Beijing in the past eight years, it is concluded that all pollutants except O3 show a significant downward trend. In addition, all pollutants except O3 have certain correlation. For example, PM10 and PM2.5 have the greatest influence on air quality index (AQI). Python, which is commonly used by artificial intelligence, is used as the main software to establish two models, support vector machine (SVM) and linear regression. By comparing the two models under the same conditions, it is concluded that SVM has higher accuracy in pollution prediction. The results of this study provide valuable reference for pollution control and prediction in developing countries.
Abstract: Telehealth is an advanced technology using digital information and telecommunication facilities that provide access to health services from a distance. It slows the transmission factor of COVID-19, especially for elderly patients and patients with chronic diseases during the pandemic. Therefore, understanding patient perspectives on telehealth services and the factors impacting their option of telehealth service will shed light on the measures that healthcare providers can take to improve the quality of telehealth services. This study aimed to evaluate perceptions of telehealth services among different patient groups and explore various aspects of telehealth utilization in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey distributed via social media platforms was used to collect research data. In addition to the descriptive statistics, both correlation and regression analyses were conducted to test research hypotheses. The empirical results highlighted that the factors such as accessibility to telehealth services and the type of specialty clinics that the patients required play important roles in the effectiveness of telehealth services they received. However, the results found that patients’ waiting time to receive telehealth services and their annual income did not significantly influence their desire to select receiving healthcare services via telehealth. The limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.
Abstract: Obfuscation is one of the most useful tools to prevent network compromise. Previous research focused on the obfuscation of the network communications between external-facing edge devices. This work proposes the use of two edge devices, external and internal facing, which communicates via private IPv4 addresses in a software-defined pseudo-random IP hopping. This methodology does not require additional IP addresses and/or resources to implement. Statistical analyses demonstrate that the hopping surface must be at least 1e3 IP addresses in size with a broad standard deviation to minimize the possibility of coincidence of monitored and communication IPs. The probability of breaking the hopping algorithm requires a collection of at least 1e6 samples, which for large hopping surfaces will take years to collect. The probability of dropped packets is controlled via memory buffers and the frequency of hops and can be reduced to levels acceptable for video streaming. This methodology provides an impenetrable layer of security ideal for information and supervisory control and data acquisition systems.
Abstract: Analyzing the old and bringing in the new is an ever-ongoing process in driving innovations in architecture. This paper looks at the excessive use of stone in apartment buildings in Amman and speculates on the existing possibilities of changing the cladding material. By looking at architectural exceptions present in Amman, the paper seeks to make the exception the rule, by adding new materials to the architectural library of Amman and in turn, project a series of possible new identities to the existing stone scape. Through distributing a survey, conducting a photographic study on exceptional buildings and shedding light on the historical narrative of stone, the paper highlights the ways in which new finishing materials such as plaster, paint and stone variations could be introduced in an attempt to project a new architectural identity to Amman.
Abstract: With the growing trend of adoption of advanced technologies like, building information modeling, artificial intelligence, wireless network, the collaboration and integration of these technologies into digital twin become more prominent in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry in view of the nature and scale of AEC industry which efficiently adopted the digital twin. Digital twin is provided to be effective for AEC professions for design and project management. The digital concept is continuously developing and it is vital for AEC professionals and other stakeholders to understand the digital twin concept and the adoption of various advanced building technologies related to the AEC industry. This paper is to review the application of digital twins application in project management in AEC industry and highlight the challenge of AEC partitioners faced by the revolution of technologies including digital twins and building information modelling (BIM) for further research and future study.
Abstract: Maturity sensors are used to determine concrete strength by the non-destructive method. The method of placement of the maturity sensors determines their number required for a certain frame of a monolithic building. This paper proposes a cheap prototype of an embedded wireless sensor for monitoring concrete structures, as well as an alternative strategy for placing sensors based on the transitional boundaries of the temperature distribution of concrete curing, which were determined by building a heat map of the temperature distribution, where unknown values are calculated by the method of inverse distance weighing. The developed prototype can simultaneously measure temperature and relative humidity over a smartphone-controlled time interval. It implements a maturity method to assess the in-situ strength of concrete, which is considered an alternative to the traditional shock impulse and compression testing method used in Kazakhstan. The prototype was tested in laboratory and field conditions. The tests were aimed at studying the effect of internal and external temperature and relative humidity on concrete's strength gain. Based on an experimentally poured concrete slab with randomly integrated maturity sensors, it the transition boundaries form elliptical forms were determined. Temperature distribution over the largest diameter of the ellipses was plotted, resulting in correct and inverted parabolas. As a result, the distance between the closest opposite crossing points of the parabolas is accepted as the maximum permissible step for setting the maturity sensors. The proposed placement strategy can be applied to sensors that measure various continuous phenomena such as relative humidity. Prototype testing has also revealed Bluetooth inconvenience due to weak signal and inability to access multiple prototypes simultaneously. For this reason, further prototype upgrades are planned in the future work.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present fuzzy TOPSIS in an entropic fuzzy environment. Due to the ambiguous concepts often represented in decision data, exact values are insufficient to model real-life situations. In this paper, the rating of each alternative is defined in fuzzy linguistic terms, which can be expressed with triangular fuzzy numbers. The weight of each criterion is then derived from the decision matrix using the entropy weighting method. Next, a vertex method is proposed to calculate the distance between two triangular fuzzy numbers. According to the TOPSIS concept, a closeness coefficient is defined to determine the ranking order of all alternatives by simultaneously calculating the distances to both the fuzzy positive-ideal solution (FPIS) and the fuzzy negative-ideal solution (FNIS). Finally, an illustrative example of selecting stealth fighter aircraft is shown at the end of this article to highlight the procedure of the proposed method. Correlation analysis and validation analysis using TOPSIS, WSM, and WPM methods were performed to compare the ranking order of the alternatives.
Abstract: Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is one of the additive manufacturing techniques that has become highly attractive in the industrial and academic sectors. However, parts fabricated through FDM are highly susceptible to geometrical defects such as warpage, shrinkage, and delamination that can severely affect their function. Among the thermoplastic polymer feedstock for FDM, semi-crystalline polymers are highly prone to part distortion due to polymer crystallization. In this study, the influence of FDM processing conditions such as chamber temperature and print bed temperature on the induced thermal residual stress and resulting warpage are investigated using 3D transient thermal model for a semi-crystalline polymer. The thermo-mechanical properties and the viscoelasticity of the polymer, as well as the crystallization physics which considers the crystallinity of the polymer, are coupled with the evolving temperature gradient of the print model. From the results it was observed that increasing the chamber temperature from 25 °C to 75 °C leads to a decrease of 3.3% residual stress and increase of 0.4% warpage, while decreasing bed temperature from 100 °C to 60 °C resulted in 27% increase in residual stress and a significant rise of 137% in warpage. The simulated warpage data are validated by comparing it with the measured warpage values of the samples using 3D scanning.
Abstract: Various organisations often need to understand discussions on social media, such as what trending topics are and characteristics of the people engaged in the discussion. A number of approaches have been proposed to extract attributes that would characterise a discussion group. However, these approaches are largely based on supervised learning, and as such they require a large amount of labelled data. We propose an approach in this paper that does not require labelled data, but rely on lexical sources to detect meaningful attributes for online discussion groups. Our findings show an acceptable level of accuracy in detecting attributes for Twitter discussion groups.
Abstract: This article argues an urgent need to better understand the personal experiences of Chinese top-up students studying in the UK since the number of Chinese students taking year-long top-up programmes in the UK has risen rapidly in recent years. This lack of knowledge could potentially have implications for the reputation of some UK institutions and also the attractiveness of the UK higher education sector to future international students. This longitudinal study explored the academic and social experiences of 12 Chinese top-up students in a UK institution in-depth and revealed that the students felt their experiences were influenced significantly by their surrounding contexts at the macro and meso levels, which, however, have been largely overlooked in existing research. This article suggests the importance of improving the communications between the partner institutions in China and the UK, and also providing sufficient pre-departure and after arrival support to Chinese top-up students at the institutional level.
Abstract: This paper presents CommonSense, a platform that provides researchers with the infrastructure and tools that enable the efficient and smooth creation, execution and processing of multiple participant experiments taking place outside the laboratory environment. The platform provides the infrastructure and tools to accompany the researchers throughout the life cycle of an experiment – from its inception, through its execution, to its processing and termination. The approach of our platform is based on providing a comprehensive solution, which puts emphasis on the support for the entire life-cycle of an experiment, starting from its definition, the setting up and the configuration of the platform, through the management of the experiment itself and its post processing. Some of the components that support those processes are constructed and configured automatically from the experiment definition.
Abstract: This study aims to provide sub-hourly streamflow predictions and associated rating curves for small catchments of intermittent and torrential flow regime characterized by flash floods occurring especially during April and November. The methodology entails two lumped conceptual hydrological models which work in series. The total model is based upon eleven parameters and shows good flexibility in handling different input sets. Runoff Coefficient has contributed to improving the model’s performances and has been treated as an additional parameter; while Sensitivity Analysis has highlighted how slight changes in the model’s input can lead to changes in model’s output. The adopted procedure is steady and useful to give very practical engineering information at the expense of a parsimonious request both in input data and in the number of adopted parameters. According to the obtained results, the authors encourage the test of this combined procedure on different hydrological scenarios in order to provide information for poorly monitored catchments and not updated sites.
Abstract: Marketing research is starting to focus on authenticity to position an offer, especially terroir products. However, with internet its usage remains more problematic. This paper investigates how digitalization impacts the satisfaction of the quest for authenticity. On the theoretical level, it explains authenticity in the online and offline context in the postmodernism era. Then, an exploratory qualitative study tries to understand the contribution of the digitization to the satisfaction of the search of authenticity. Therefore, cooperatives selling terroir product on the internet are advised to keep also direct contact which tends to show traditional manner of production, in order to enhance customers’ perception of terroir product authenticity.
Abstract: The adoption of Blockchain technology introduces the possibility to decentralize cold chain systems. This adaptation enhances them to be more efficient, accessible, verifiable, and data security. Additionally, the Internet of Things (IoT) concept is considered as an added-value to various application domains. Cargo tracking and cold chain are a few to name. However, the security of the IoT transactions and integrated devices remains one of the key challenges to the IoT application’s success. Consequently, Blockchain technology and its consensus protocols have been used to solve many information security problems. In this paper, we discuss the advantages of integrating Blockchain technology into IoT platform to improve security and provide an overview of existing literature on integrating Blockchain and IoT platforms. Then, we present the immunization cold chain solution as a use-case that could be applied to any critical goods based on integrating Hyperledger fabric platform and IoT platform.
Abstract: This paper presents the Language Learning as a Means of Drive Engagement (LLMDE) theory, derived from a grounded theory analysis of interviews with Japanese university students. According to LLMDE theory, language learning can be understood as a means of engaging one or more of four self-fulfillment drives: the drive to expand one’s horizons (perspective drive); the drive to make a success of oneself (status drive); the drive to engage in interaction with others (communication drive); and the drive to obtain intellectual and affective stimulation (entertainment drive). While many theories of learner psychology focus on conscious agency, LLMDE theory addresses the role of the unconscious. In addition, supplementary thematic analysis of the data revealed the role of context in mediating drive engagement. Unexpected memorable events, for example, play a key role in instigating and, indirectly, in regulating learning, as do institutional and cultural contexts. Given the apparent importance of such factors beyond the immediate control of the learner, and given the pervasive role of habit and drives, it is argued that the concept of motivation merits theoretical reappraisal. Rather than an underlying force determining language learning success or failure, it can be understood to emerge sporadically in consciousness to promote behavioral change, or to protect habitual behavior from disruption.
Abstract: It is desirable that most human food is warm when eaten, including when food is obtained by taking it away from the point of sale in disposable food packaging. However, such packaging does not retain heat for a long time, which is necessary to ensure the food remains warm when eaten. The study looked for single-use food packaging that could retain the heat of the food for a long time. The methodology for obtaining such packaging is either by modifying available packages on the market or by making new ones with materials that are easily obtained locally, then testing by loading the local food and measuring its temperature and the length of time until it reaches the lowest acceptable temperature for hot food (56°C). Packages made of plastic boxes lined with thin aluminum foil on the inside are the best way to keep food warm for up to 44 minutes from the time it is put in the package to the time the required temperature is reached. Moreover, packaging made of local common food paper, where the food was put in a transparent plastic bag inside the package, was found to be the simplest package that could retain heat for 82.31% as long as the best packaging could, in this study. Plastic boxes with thin aluminum foil inside were the best single-use food packaging in this study that served to keep hot food warm and fit for consumption.
Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of automatic parameter estimation in conceptual rainfall-runoff (CRR) models. Due to threshold structures commonly occurring in CRR models, the associated mathematical optimization problems have the significant characteristic of being strongly non-differentiable. In order to face this enormous task, the resolution method proposed adopts a smoothing strategy using a special C∞ differentiable class function. The final estimation solution is obtained by solving a sequence of differentiable subproblems which gradually approach the original conceptual problem. The use of this technique, called Hyperbolic Smoothing Method (HSM), makes possible the application of the most powerful minimization algorithms, and also allows for the main difficulties presented by the original CRR problem to be overcome. A set of computational experiments is presented for the purpose of illustrating both the reliability and the efficiency of the proposed approach.