Engineering Commons^™

Effect Of Landfill Leachates On Some Water Quality Indicators Of Selected Surface Water And Groundwater At Ilokun, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria, Olorunwa Omofunmi, Adesola Satimehin, Abraham Oloye, Okwunna Umego

Makara Journal of Technology

This study was conducted to examine the impact of dumpsites on the quality of groundwater and surface water. The water samples and leachates were collected from dumpsites in respective zones. The physicochemical properties of the samples were examined and determined in accordance with the standards of the American Public Health Association. Results indicated that the groundwater and surface water that are close to the dumpsites have an electrical conductivity of 385 and 245 Sd/cm, total dissolved solids of 168 and 128 mg/L, a turbidity of 4.6 and 22 NTU, a total alkalinity of 103 and 50 mg/L, a total hardness …

Resource Discovery In A Changing Content World, Allen Jones, Cynthia R. Schwarz, Hannah Mckelvey, Rachelle Mclain, Christine Stohn

Charleston Library Conference

Discovery services have evolved to include not just books and articles, but databases, website content, research guides, digital and audiovisual collections, and unique local collections that are all important for their users to be able to find. Search and ranking remain at the core of discovery, but advanced tools such as recommendation, virtual browse, ‘look inside‘, and the use of artificial intelligence are also becoming more prevalent. This group of panelists discussed how content in their discovery systems can change based on the context of the user, using as examples Primo and Blacklight, and how content is populated, discovered and …

The Influence Of Information Technology Governance Audit Using Cobit 5 For The Development Public Library : (Case Study : Public Library In East Java ), Ilham M, Anis Eliyana, Indrianawati Usman

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study current technological developments have entered almost into the lines of people's lives. Currently, many public library have grown even bigger. And this development does not escape the good management of information technology governance. To maximize management to a better level, public library need information technology governance audits. The information technology audit used in this study uses the COBIT 5 framework which focuses on the APO04 and DSS01 domains. This study aims to improve the quality of services owned and to increase its competitiveness. The results of this study refer to the vision and mission of the public library …

Forecasting Vegetation Health In The Mena Region By Predicting Vegetation Indicators With Machine Learning Models, Sachi Perera, Wenzhao Li, Erik Linstead, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Machine learning (ML) techniques can be applied to predict and monitor drought conditions due to climate change. Predicting future vegetation health indicators (such as EVI, NDVI, and LAI) is one approach to forecast drought events for hotspots (e.g. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions). Recently, ML models were implemented to predict EVI values using parameters such as land types, time series, historical vegetation indices, land surface temperature, soil moisture, evapotranspiration etc. In this work, we collected the MODIS atmospherically corrected surface spectral reflectance imagery with multiple vegetation related indices for modeling and evaluation of drought conditions in the MENA …

Fixing Social Media: Toward A Democratic Digital Commons, Michael Kwet

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In the past few years, big Social Media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have received intense scrutiny from the intellectual classes. This article critiques the dominant strain of criticism, the neo-Brandeisian School of antitrust, for its narrow focus on “regulated competition” as an appropriate means to “fix social media”. This essay calls for a socialist alternative: a democratic social media commons based on free and open source technology, decentralization, and democratic socialist legal solutions. It reviews how existing solutions like the Fediverse and LibreSocial work, and how they may provide answers for a better way forward.

Proposed Framework For Smart Healthcare Services, Dalia K. A. A. Rizk, Hoda Hosny Prof. Dr., El-Sayed M. El-Horbaty Prof. Dr., Abdel-Badeeh M. Salem Prof. Dr.

Future Computing and Informatics Journal

Smart healthcare is of great interest to researchers and governments due to the increasing development of new smart cities. However, there is no current standard practice to format the cloud computing infrastructure and to assist the healthcare system architect in designing a comprehensive solution for the basic services that are required by the healthcare users while taking into consideration a balanced approach towards their specific functional and non-functional needs such as openness, scalability, concurrency, interoperability and security factors. The integration of smart healthcare services with cloud computing needs a concrete framework. The main objective of this paper is to analyze …

Low-Latency Networked Music Collaborations: Does “Good Enough” Do Enough Good?, Gareth Dylan Smith, Zack Moir, Paul Ferguson, Gill Davies

Journal of Network Music and Arts

LoLa is a cutting-edge technology that enables low latency, real-time collaborations across vast distances using high-bandwidth, low-jitter networks. It has the capacity to transform how music is made and experienced. It has been utilized on a relatively small scale to date, primarily for teaching and performances associated with music colleges and concert halls. In this article we discuss various ways in which LoLa technology is “good enough” by describing examples of recent networked music performances “anchored” at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland. We discuss the ways in which processes and outcomes were “good enough” for the sound engineer, participating musicians, and …

Neural Network Model Of Information Fusion For Coal Storage And Kinetic Energy Of Ball Mill, Bai Yan, He Fang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: A dynamic mathematical model of coal pulverizing system was analyzed. Simulation experiments on mill operation process were conducted by PFC3D software platform based on discrete element method. The associated data between different coal quality, coal storage and balls' motion were obtained under certain quantitative optimized operating parameters configuration. Neural network model of information fusion for coal storage and kinetic energy of ball mill was established by using an adaptive combination learning algorithm. Coal storage in mill cylinder was predicted from the energy point of view. The results indicate that there is a close relationship between coal storage, pulverizing efficiency …

Automatic Pipelining Mechanism Design For Maize Ear Analysis, Boxiang Xiao, Chuanyu Wang, Xinyu Guo, Wu Sheng, Jianjun Du

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Aiming at automatic character information acquisition for maize ear analysis, a pipelining mechanism was designed including two main modules: weight measurement and images collection. The system supported automatic collection of weight data and images in batches. And then, the system was analyzed in mechanical properties by kinematic parameters. A three-dimensional simulation system was developed by use of computer graphics technologies to evaluate the performance of the presented pipelining mechanism. The feasibility of the design for maize ear analysis was discussed, which can support high precise and efficient maize ear analysis as a practical tool and technical references.

Decision Agriculture, Abdul Salam, Usman Raza

Computer Information Technology Faculty Publications

In this chapter, the latest developments in the field of decision agriculture are discussed. The practice of management zones in digital agriculture is described for efficient and smart faming. Accordingly, the methodology for delineating management zones is presented. Modeling of decision support systems is explained along with discussion of the issues and challenges in this area. Moreover, the precision agriculture technology is also considered. Moreover, the chapter surveys the state of the decision agriculture technologies in the countries such as Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Israel, Malaysia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Sweden. Finally, different field factors such as GPS accuracy and …

Variable Rate Applications In Decision Agriculture, Abdul Salam, Usman Raza

Computer Information Technology Faculty Publications

In this chapter, the variable rate applications (VRA) are presented for the field of decision agriculture. The characteristics of VRA control systems are described along with control hardware. Different types of VRA systems are discussed (e.g., liquid VRA systems and dry VRA systems). A case study is also explored in this regard. Moreover, recent advances and future trends are also outlined. Accordingly, a sustainable variable-rate irrigation scheduling is studied where different hardware and software component of the cyber-physical system are considered. Finally, chapter is concluded with a novel sensor deployment methodology.

Blockchain And Its Transformational Impact To Global Business, Mohammed Qaudeer

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

The advent of internet to the public back in 1994 resulted in the 4th industrial revolution disrupting and transforming business and communication models. As much as the transformation changed our lives and experiences, it has resulted in centralized models like Amazon and Facebook. It also resulted in exponential growth of Fraud, Identity theft, and lack of trust. Blockchain is considered an emerging technology of this era, which will trigger the 5th industrial revolution enabling another massive storm of disruptive transformation completely changing the current business models based on trust, security, collaboration and crypto currency. As the evolution of blockchain technology …

Estimation Of Contamination Source By Using Qpso With Perturbation Operator, Tian Na, Zhicheng Ji

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: An improved quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) with perturbation operator was proposed and applied to solve the convection-diffusion inverse problem of estimating time-varying contamination source. Because the contamination source is time-dependent, the inverse problems are classified into function estimation problem. To transform the inverse problem to optimization problem, the nonlinear least square method was used. Meanwhile, Tikhonov regularization was used to stablize the solution with noisy measured data. And the regularization parameter was chosen by L-curve method. The simulation results tell that QPSO with perturbation operator outperforms QPSO and PSO. Moreover, tests over different views (regularization terms, noise level, …

Improved Quantum-Behaved Particle Swarm Optimization For Solving Multi-Objective Flexible Job-Shop Scheduling Problems, Tian Na, Zhicheng Ji

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Due to the complexity of flexible job-shop scheduling problem (FJSP), it is still the hot topic for research. FJSP was given deep insight into with three objectives to be minimized simultaneously: makespan, maximal machine workload and total workload. Quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) with different coefficient selection methods was compared. The benchmark function tests show that QPSO with adaptive coefficient outperforms other selection methods in unimodal functions, while QPSO with cosine coefficient performs better in multi-modal functions. Therefore, QPSO with cosine decreasing coefficient is adopted to solve the multi-objective FJSP, which is a complex multi-modal optimization problem. Simulation results …

Artificial Intelligence Towards Future Industrial Opportunities And Challenges, Gizealew Dagnaw

African Conference on Information Systems and Technology

The industry 4.0 will bring reflective changes to our society, including an important digital shift in the manufacturing sector. At present, several manufacturing firms are trying to adopt the practices of industry 4.0 throughout their supply chain. The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the artificial intelligence at its core are fundamentally changing the way we live, work and interact as citizens. The complexity of this transformation may look overwhelming and to many threatening. Recently, the dramatic growth of new generation information technologies has prompted several countries to seek new strategies for industrial revolution. The globalization and the competitiveness are forcing companies …

Evolutionary Game-Based Spectrum Sharing Scheme In Cognitive Radio Network, Huanhuan He, Xingwei Wang, Huang Min

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: In order to solve the waste of resources caused by the static spectrum allocation policy, cognitive radio technology can be used to dynamically and efficiently manage spectrum, and spectrum sharing becomes the key issue. To make secondary users to share spectrum fairly, an evolutionary game-based spectrum sharing scheme in cognitive radio network was proposed. Because cognitive radio network was dynamic and heterogeneous, the wireless channel was unreliable and affected by environment easily, the knowledge of fuzzy mathematics was introduced to characterize the parameters related to the secondary user satisfaction degree, and the Gas Brownian Motion Optimization algorithm was …

Flood Prediction Using Artificial Neural Networks: Empirical Evidence From Mauritius As A Case Study, A. Z. Dhunny, Reena H. Seebocus, Z. Allam, Mohammad Yasser Chuttur

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) has been well studied for flood prediction. However, there is not enough empirical evidence to generalize ANN applicability to small countries with microclimates prevailing in a small geographical space. In this paper, we focus on the climatic conditions of Mauritius for which we seek to investigate the accuracy of using ANN to predict flooding using locally collected data from 11 meteorological stations spread across the country. The ANN model for flood prediction presented in this work is trained using 20,000 climate data records, collected over a period of two years for Mauritius. Our input climate features …

Opinion Analysis For Emotional Classification On Emoji Tweets Using The Naïve Bayes Algorithm, Siti Sendari, Ilham Ari Elbaith Zaeni, Dian Candra Lestari, Hanny Prasetya Hariyadi

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Opinion Analysis is a research study needed to social media, since the content could become a trending topic and has a significant impact on social life. One of the social media that have a big contribution to cyberspace and information development is Twitter. In the Twitter application, users can insert images that represent emotions, facial expressions, or icons. Emoji is a graphic symbol in the form of an image to express a thing, with the Emoji, a text can be read and understood according to its meaning because the image represents it. Of the several things that have been mentioned …

Managing Off-Grid Power Use For Solar Fueled Residences With Smart Appliances, Prices-To-Devices And Iot, Donnelle L. January

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electricity availability has a profound impact in day to day life. Activities such as lighting homes, charging cellphones, and running appliances all depend on electricity use. Around 1 billion people around the world do not have access to electricity, and the majority of these people hail from developing countries in remote areas. Moreover, many of these remote areas lack utility grid access due to the infeasible cost of extending the grid to remote communities. To combat this, various projects on microgrids have been implemented in order to distribute power to these off-grid areas. Nanogrids are defined as “a single domain …

A Framework For Safer Driving In Mauritius, V Bassoo, V Hurbungs, V. Ramnarain Seetohul, T.P Fowdur, Y Beeharry

Future Computing and Informatics Journal

According to the National Transport Authority (NTA), there were 493,081 registered vehicles in Mauritius in April 2016, which represents a 1.4% annual increase compared to 2015. Despite the sensitization campaigns and the series of measures setup by the Minister of Public Infrastructure and Land Transport, the number of road accidents continues to rise. The three main elements that contribute to accidents are: road infrastructure, vehicle and driver. The driver has the highest contribution in collisions. If the driver is given the right information (e.g. driving behaviour, accident-prone areas and vehicle status) at the right time, he/she can make better driving …

Benefits And Challenges Of Cloud Erp Systems – A Systematic Literature Review, Mohamed Abd Elmonem, Eman Nasr, Mervat Geith

Future Computing and Informatics Journal

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems provide extensive benefits and facilities to the whole enterprise. ERP systems help the enterprise to share and transfer data and information across all functions units inside and outside the enterprise. Sharing data and information between enterprise departments helps in many aspects and aims to achieve different objectives. Cloud computing is a computing model which takes place over the internet and provides scalability, reliability, availability and low cost of computer reassures. Implementing and running ERP systems over the cloud offers great advantages and benefits, in spite of its many difficulties and challenges. In this paper, we …

Youlearn: Offline Media Streaming Application For Rural Uganda, Emma Allegrucci, Jiabei Luo, Brianna Mcgovern

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The country of Uganda has implemented universal primary and secondary education. But still, some families cannot afford to send their children to school. When young people drop out of school, they often must resort to working illegal, unsafe, and low-paying jobs. Job prospects are even worse for disabled children. The objective of this project is to bring digital educational resources into rural villages in a low-cost manner.

YouLearn is an educational system that allows for o✏ine media streaming. Our system includes a Raspberry Pi to store the media locally and allows for streaming without WiFi being necessary. Our system supports …

Drive Health: Road Condition Detection, Peter Ferguson, Brian Walker

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Roadways play an essential role in toady’s society by contributing to economic growth and development, providing social benefits and fast routes to travel around efficiently. With more and more cars on roads, the quality of the streets is deteriorating faster than before. This decrease in road health contributes to hazards such as potholes and can cause significant damage to vehicles on the road. Currently, the process of improving and monitoring roads’ health is done infrequently and is time-consuming for the government. Therefore, many road quality issues are manually reported by the people who drive on them. This requires filling out …

Research On Adaptive Analysis For Battlefield Environment Voxel Model And Classification Method Of Volume Elements, Bingchuan Jiang, Wan Gang, Chengxiao Fan, Xia Qing

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: For the lack of battlefield environment modeling based on surface model, the whole elements and details of the battle-field environment were described. The fundamental conception and feature of the voxel and voxel model were discussed. The battle-field environment modeling and visualization like battle-filed terrestrial environment, weather environment, electromagnetic environment and ocean environment were analyzed and researched using the voxel model. The adaptability of each battlefield environment elements modeling was discussed using the Voxel model, and the elements were classified which were suitable with the voxel model. It is the basis for modeling and visualizing the battlefield environment elements using …

High-Fidelity Simulation Of Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery Lobectomy, Peng Liu, Weixin Si, Zheng Rui, Xiangyun Liao, Dongliang Xu, Ping'an Wang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: The virtual reality simulator of the video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) surgery lobectomy is of great value to the surgeon's surgical training and planning. In order to simulate the high-fidelity video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy, a VATS lobectomy simulator to realistically and efficiently simulate the different surgical operations during the VATS lobectomy procedure is developed. Based on the Position-Based Dynamics framework, the deformation induced by tool-tissue and tissue-tissue interactions, soft tissue cuts as well as subsequent surgical suture operations is simulated. The Marching Cubes algorithm is employed to achieve the surface rendering, especially for the cutting process. The GPU parallel computing technique is …

Using Robotics And Engineering Design Inquiries To Optimize Learning For Middle Level Teachers: A Case Study, Iman Chafik Chahine, Norman Robinson Iii, Kimbeni Mansion

Publications & Research

This exploratory case study reports findings on 20 middle-level science and mathematics teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of a one-year project in which teachers engaged in using robotics and engineering design inquiries in their classrooms. Principled by Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) and using mixed methods approaches, the study measured teachers' efficacy through the Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (MTEBI) and observation logs before and after the program. The results of this study showed statistically significant differences between PRE MTEBI and POST MTEBI scores. Furthermore, five themes emerged that illuminated potential affordances and constraints that teachers perceive as opportunities and …

On The Characterization Of Natural Language Structure And Literary Stylometry - A Network Science Approach, Younis Anas Younis Al Rozz

Theses and Dissertations

Natural language processing (NLP) techniques have been through many advancements in recent years, linguistics and scientist utilized these techniques to solve many challenges related to written language and literary. Problems such as finding the genetic relationships among languages, attributing author of a text and categorizing text by genre have been treated throughout the years using conventional statistical methods, for instance, bag of words (BoW), N-gram, the frequency of words and the lexical distance between words. By considering written language as a complex system, network science tools and techniques can be used to address those problems. A unified methodology is proposed …

An Algorithm For Building Language Superfamilies Using Swadesh Lists, Bill Mutabazi

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The main contributions of this thesis are the following: i. Developing an algorithm to generate language families and superfamilies given for each input language a Swadesh list represented using the international phonetic alphabet (IPA) notation. ii. The algorithm is novel in using the Levenshtein distance metric on the IPA representation and in the way it measures overall distance between pairs of Swadesh lists. iii. Building a Swadesh list for the author's native Kinyarwanda language because a Swadesh list could not be found even after an extensive search for it.

Advisor: Peter Z. Revesz

On-Site And External Energy Harvesting In Underground Wireless, Usman Raza, Abdul Salam

Computer Information Technology Faculty Publications

Energy efficiency is vital for uninterrupted long-term operation of wireless underground communication nodes in the field of decision agriculture. In this paper, energy harvesting and wireless power transfer techniques are discussed with applications in underground wireless communications (UWC). Various external wireless power transfer techniques are explored. Moreover, key energy harvesting technologies are presented that utilize available energy sources in the field such as vibration, solar, and wind. In this regard, the Electromagnetic(EM)- and Magnetic Induction(MI)-based approaches are explained. Furthermore, the vibration-based energy harvesting models are reviewed as well. These energy harvesting approaches lead to design of an efficient wireless underground …

A New Ectotherm 3d Tracking And Behavior Analytics System Using A Depth-Based Approach With Color Validation, With Preliminary Data On Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophrynoides Asperginis) Activity, Philip Bal, Damian Lyons, Avishai Shuter

Faculty Publications

The Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis), classified as Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN, is being bred at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo as part of an effort to successfully reintroduce the species into the wild. Thousands of toads live at the Bronx Zoo presenting an opportunity to learn more about their behaviors for the first time, at scale. It is impractical to perform manual observations for long periods of time. This paper reports on the development of a RGB-D tracking and analytics approach that allows researchers to accurately and efficiently gather information about the toads’ behavior. …