bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Supply Chain Performance Measurement and Organizational Alignment
Authors: Vishwasrao Rohan , Sabri Ehap
Published: January 2017

The authors describe how organizations can leverage a maturity model approach in conjunction with foundational concepts of perspective-based performance evaluation models like Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to define comprehensive performance measurement framework. Maturity models are essentially a reflection of theories about how the capabilities of an organization evolve. Therefore, by design, they provide a roadmap to the next level of performance. The authors propose using maturity models as a structured way of identifying current capability or maturity level of any supply chain. They then provide guidance on selecting the right “causal linkages” between supply chain objectives and performance measures and define a mechanism for specifying more granular definitions of measures linked to strategic objectives for progressive levels of maturity. The authors survey widely used business process maturity models, current practices for measuring operational metrics, and then present a tiered framework for operational metric alignment and KPI governance, based on perspective-based design principles.
Social Media and Big Data
Authors: Jha Meena , Jha Sanjay , O'Brien Liam
Published: January 2017

The introduction of new and the evolution of existing social media technologies have enabled efficient and broader communication through online social interaction. Today consumers' thinking has shifted towards their trusted network for guidance rather than simply accepting what organisations tell them. With the advent of social interaction, knowledge management paradigms are being stretched beyond their ability to deliver useful results, which is forcing change within organisations globally. Using only transactional and internal data will result in mistaken conclusions or missed opportunities. Social media helps organisations acquire and manage massive amounts of data to better understand their customers, products, competition, and markets and make better decisions using Big Data solutions. These solutions enable organisations to decide on the basis of evidence rather than intuition. This chapter introduces Big Data, Big Data technologies used for capturing knowledge from social media and discusses Big Data Solutions for organizations.
Introducing Healthcare System Change Strategies to Policy Makers in the Open Society and Digital Environment
Authors: Bourek Aleš
Published: January 2017

Information Society the authors are a part of is the environment requesting paradigm changes in many areas of their thinking and doing. Improvement of the functionality of healthcare systems and the success of implemented strategies is a function of the volatility of the environment where they are implemented and is extremely dependent on unexpected turning points. All healthcare projects always become a policy. The difference lies only in the size of the network that is affected and in the duration of the effect. The policy (learned and accepted code of attitudes, conduct and possibly of behavior) will initially affect only the population, which formed a part of the policy setting activity (project, training). Based on 22 policies oriented projects the author participated in years 1993-2013 and illustrated in three commented projects the acknowledgement and adoption of principles, processes and attitudes found beneficial for successful policy implementation in various healthcare environments is presented.
Exploring the Process of Adaption of Employee Creativity
Authors: Zhang Mengying , Wang John
Published: January 2017

NK model describes a system of N elements. The complexity of the system is modeled as the interdependency among its elements. Such interdependency is represented by parameter K, which denotes the number of elements that affect the function of a particular element. NK model can be used to simulate the adaptive behavior through the fitness landscape. The authors collected data from 217 employees in five organizations from different industries in China. They empirically examine the role of six factors, namely, proactive personality, creative process engagement, coworker support, supervisor support, freedom or autonomy and resource supply, in developing employee creativity. Based on empirical findings, the authors then use the NK model to simulate the process of adaption of employee creativity. Their simulation results show the different adaptive processes of employee creativity in the five organizations from different industries. The theoretical and practical implications of their study are discussed in the final part of this paper.
Analyzing the IS 2010 Model Curriculum for Evidence of the Systems Approach
Authors: Schell George , Mathieu Richard
Published: January 2017

The systems approach is frequently associated with solving large-scale, complex problems and is regarded as a foundation for systems engineering and decision-making. Components of the systems approach are too frequently missing from information systems programs in business schools. The purpose of this paper is to determine the degree to which the IS 2010: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs contains the systems approach in its learning objectives as well as specific course content. By examining the curriculum guidelines a preliminary judgment can be made concerning evidence of the systems approach having a broad implementation across information systems programs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the importance of the systems approach in the IS curriculum and establishing the systems approach as a theme in the curriculum of IS programs.
Emerging Market Sovereign Debts as a Means for Profit Maximization and Portfolio Diversification
Authors: Yesuf Abdurahman Jemal
Published: January 2017

The case for emerging markets debts (EMD) has convinced many investors. This is an asset class that has been experiencing an increase in inflows and is getting international investors attention. During the past two decades, cross-border inflows into ‘emerging market' debt instruments have rose rapidly. Over twelve trillion dollar is currently invested in ‘Emerging Markets' debt. This asset classes has delivered strong returns over time and deserves consideration. Therefore, this paper is intended to show how and why Emerging Market debts are vital instrument in portfolio diversification by using descriptive analysis. The performance assessment has made by noting the unique statistical attributes of ‘emerging market' bond returns, such as their correlation with other asset classes and also by taking their annualized volatility rate and Sharpe ratios. The assessment has done based on compiled data from known sources such as JP Morgan, Bloomberg and other well known secondary data sources.
A New Framework for Industrial Benchmarking
Authors: Ertek Gürdal , Sevinç Mete , Ulus Firdevs , Köse Özlem , Şahin Güvenç
Published: January 2017

The authors present a benchmarking study on the companies in the Turkish food industry based on their financial data. The aim is to develop a comprehensive benchmarking framework using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and information visualization. Besides DEA, a traditional tool for financial benchmarking based on financial ratios is also incorporated. The consistency/inconsistency between the two methodologies is investigated using information visualization tools. In addition, k-means clustering, a fundamental method from machine learning, is applied. Finally, other relevant data, apart from the financial data, is introduced to the analysis through information visualization to discover new insights into DEA results. The results show that the framework developed is a comprehensive and effective strategy for benchmarking; it can be applied in other industries as well. The study contributes to the literature with a novel methodology that integrates the various benchmarking methods from the fields of operations research, machine learning, and financial analysis.
Managing Information, Communication and Technologies in Schools
Authors: Ahmed S. T.
Published: January 2017

One of the most crucial areas in which information and technologies need to be managed in our information-rich society is in schools. Whilst information overload is often associated with organisations or social communication, schools represent the intersection of several stakeholders for whom information and communication must be managed effectively. Using a case study of a school in a Gulf State, this chapter analyses how mismanagement and miscommunication relating to the use of ICT is hindering the educational progress of children by examining school/teacher-pupil interaction; home-school communication, and; the application of ICT in the curriculum. It presents a professional and parental perspective on how the use and management of information technologies and effective communication are critical in maintaining acceptable levels of educational achievement. It draws on the experiences of both pupils and parents and uses a framework of participant observation to illustrate the problems of information overload as mismanagement and miscommunication.
Perpetual Mobile Availability as a Reason for Communication Overload
Authors: Kneidinger-Müller Bernadette
Published: January 2017

Mobile communication media such as smartphones have dramatically increased the social availability of users. The perpetual contact is experienced quite ambivalently, not only as a big advantage of technological development but also as a new reason for increasing communication overload. This chapter details how people evaluate mobile availability in their everyday lives and how they cope with experiences of overload and stress. Using the transactional theory of stress and coping (Lazarus & Cohen, 1977), data from a diary study and qualitative interviews with German smartphone users are analyzed. The findings emphasize the high level of subjectivity that influences how everyday experiences of smartphone usage and mobile availability are evaluated.
The Fishtank Paradigm of Experience
Authors: Torsi Silvia
Published: January 2017

Time management as an important source of wellbeing is here described along with the opportunities to link this activity to physical space, contacts and mobile personal cloud. The user-centered design of a novel agenda is the theme of this chapter. Some user studies were carried on, concept design and rough evaluations followed. The fishtank paradigm of interaction is here presented. It overcomes the linear perception of time and provides a gradient of devices for attention starting from peripheral awareness to proper notification according to the urgency of the tasks to execute. The final aim of the project is to support prospective as like as autobiographical memory in order to live the present time at its' fullest.
Developing Healthy Habits in Media Consumption
Authors: Serrano-Puche Javier
Published: January 2017

In the contemporary media ecosystem, online consumption is framed and characterized by a number of general elements. These key factors are: a) the overabundance of information available to users (information overload); b) the speed of online interaction; c) the emergence of attention as currency; d) the multiplicity of different screens; and e) the socialization of consumption. This chapter, grounded on a comprehensive literature review, first provides a description of these elements. A digital diet is then proposed based on the development of three areas: knowing how to use the technological tools and applications to deal with information overload; learning how to manage attention and cognitive overload; and, finally, establishing regular periods of digital disconnection. The conclusion is that practicing these healthy habits leads to more useful and effective media consumption.
Scientific Insights Into Modified and Non-Modified Biomaterials for Sorption of Heavy Metals From Water
Authors: Saleh Tawfik A. , Adio Salawu Omobayo , Parthasarathy Prakash , Danmaliki Gaddafi I.
Published: January 2017

Adsorption techniques are widely used for the removal of various classes of pollutants from water due to their mild and facile operating conditions. The operations involved in the adsorption techniques are environmentally friendly, economical, highly selective on pollutants, highly efficient and easily operative. However, the adsorption of heavy metals from water using biomaterials (biosorption) is a relatively new and interesting technique which holds a great potential. Its effectiveness in lowering the heavy metals concentration to sub-ppb levels is appealing and has attracted increasing attention. The technique is believed to replace the existing technologies in the near future. This chapter discusses the prospects of biomaterials in the removal of heavy metals from waste water, the modification techniques that can enhance biosorption efficiency, and the factors influencing the biosorption processes.
Advanced Nanomaterials for Water Engineering and Treatment
Authors: Nazir Rabia
Published: January 2017

Loading of water with multifarious pollutants has dwindled the availability of quality fresh water and put questions on reliability and efficacy of conventional water treatment technologies. Also the quest for developing robust and cost-effective methods with minimum impact on environment had driven the focus of researchers and technologists on new technological developments. Nanotechnology – better referred as Aqua-nanotechnology in this regard provides scientists a new dimension to deal this big problem with small particles having application in 1) water treatment, 2) remediation, and 3) pollution prevention. This chapter will focus on fabrication and use of advance nanomaterials categorized as nanoadsorbents and nanoatalysts for these three main areas. A range of materials exploited in this regard are single and mixed metal oxides and their composites with polymer, clay, carbon based materials etc. while keeping focus on technological developments taken place over the period in regard with treating water and waste water.
Characteristics of Chitosan Nanoparticles for Water and Wastewater Treatment
Authors: Cook Cayla , Gude Veera Gnaneswar
Published: January 2017

Chitosan is a naturally occurring biopolymer originating from several microbial species as well as crustacean species, such as shrimp and lobster. Chitosan has excellent physical and chemical properties that allow its use in various environmental applications especially in water treatment. It is a biodegradable polymer, and it is inexpensive providing an environmentally friendly and economic option for water and wastewater treatment. Chitosan offers a myriad of applications through chemical coagulation and flocculation, antimicrobial properties, adsorption capabilities, and nanofiltration and can provide a sustainable route for water and wastewater treatment. This book chapter elaborates the recent developments in chitosan applications in water and wastewater treatment.
Performance of Chitosan Micro/Nanoparticles to Remove Hexavalent Chromium From Residual Water
Authors: Dima Jimena Bernadette , Zaritzky Noemí
Published: January 2017

Hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) is toxic to living systems and must be removed from wastewater. Chitosan is a cationic, biocompatible, biodegradable, biopolymer obtained from marine wastes. The performance of chitosan particles (CH) and chitosan nanoparticles (CHN) to remove Cr(VI) from aqueous solutions is discussed in the present chapter. CHN were obtained by reticulation with tripolyphosphate (TPP), and physico-chemically characterized. The performance of CHN decreased at higher pH due to the cross-linking process with TPP. Langmuir isotherm described the equilibrium adsorption values and pseudo-second order rate provided the best fitting to the kinetic data. Chemical analysis to determine the oxidation state of the adsorbed Cr, showed that Cr(VI) was adsorbed on CH particles without further reduction; in contrast Cr(VI) removed from the solution was reduced and bound to the CHN as Cr(III). Chitosan crosslinking was essential to adsorb Cr(VI) at pH<3 due to the dissolution of CH in acid media.
Project Selection Frameworks and Methodologies for Reducing Risks in Project Portfolio Management
Authors: Nonino Fabio
Published: January 2017

Extracting and consolidating knowledge from past projects can help managers in selecting projects with the correct level of riskiness, while market analysis gives directions for reaching the objective of a balanced project portfolio. To this extent, the chapter discusses strategic importance of project selection and the role of risks and uncertainties in project portfolio management and presents some fundamental and innovative frameworks and project selection methodologies for balancing risks. Finally, the chapter proposes a model containing an innovative methodology, based on artificial neural networks, to help managers in balancing project portfolio and assessing projects during the selection phase on the basis of risks, uncertainties and critical success factors.
Project Portfolio Management Growth and Operation
Authors: Parth Frank R.
Published: January 2017

Developing a portfolio management system that can effectively and efficiently select and prioritize the projects that best support strategic goals, this is only the start of portfolio management. To ensure that the enterprise portfolio management system (EPMS) can continue to operate and grow as the organizational environment changes and the strategic goals change, the EPMS must be implemented within the organizational structure that ensures it will remain relevant in the future. We discuss two architectures to the administrative housing of the EPMS, within a PMO or as a separate stand-alone organization. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. In either case, once the EPMS is implemented it must be controlled and managed as any other group within the larger organization. This requires a structure, roles and responsibilities, personnel and IT resources, an annual budget, and all the other administrative functions required to manage a department. As the maturity level of the EPMS evolves the growth must be managed to continue to support the organization.
Program and Portfolio Management Relationship and Support
Authors: Levin Ginger , Pitotti Nicole
Published: January 2017

Ideally, the portfolio is at the highest level of an organization as it shows the organization's truest intent, direction, and priorities. But, portfolios can exist at various levels such as business units, departments, divisions, and even at the program level. At the program level, the program manager can be considered a mini portfolio manager. The objective is at any time to ensure the portfolio represents a view of its selected components and reflects the organizational strategy and objectives regardless if the programs or projects have interdependencies, as the portfolio represents all the work under way in the organization. This means portfolio management includes all the activities to identify and align organizational priorities, determine governance and performance frameworks, measure the value/benefit of what is being done, make investment decisions, foster communication, and manage resource allocation. This chapter illustrates the various interrelations between program and portfolio management to show how programs can support portfolio in delivering business value.
Managing Change
Authors: Gumz Joy
Published: January 2017

The falling price of crude oil has caused the price of diesel and gasoline to drop, workers to be laid off, and competitors to consider merging. It has also provided a real-world view of companies applying project portfolio management as projects have been delayed, put on hold indefinitely, or closed down completely. Energy companies have shelved $400bn of spending on new oil and gas projects since the price collapse, delaying millions of barrels a day in future output from the Gulf of Mexico, Africa, Kazakhstan, and other areas (Adams, 2016). The price of crude oil, which traded above $100 since 2011 has dropped over 50% since September 2014 due to a lack of global demand plus continued production by Saudi Arabia and others. This chapter will look at strategies and tactics used by companies including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total SA in reviewing and rebalancing their project portfolios. These approaches have application to other industry sectors.
The Second Victim Phenomenon
Authors: Skourti Paraskevi K. , Pavlakis Andreas
Published: January 2017

Medical error happens when an action within the medical field is not fulfilled as planned, or the plan is performed incorrectly. Patient and family are the first victim of an adverse event. The damage in a patient's health, leads in a distressing situation not only for the patient, but also for the clinician who is responsible for this outcome. The term “second victim” refers to the trauma that a health professional sustains due to a serious adverse event in the healthcare system. After a medical error the caregivers are experiencing the aftermath in their personal and professional life. They feel isolated and abandoned, and some of them are coming up against the law with penal and disciplinary ramifications as a consequence of the blame culture in the health care system. Some health professionals experienced the consequences of an unfortunate incident even if it did not lead in harm to the patient's health.
Neural Network (NN) Based Route Weight Computation for Bi-Directional Traffic Management System
Authors: Akhter Shamim , Rahman Rahatur , Islam Ashfaqul
Published: January 2017

Low-cost, flexible, easily maintainable and secure traffic management support systems are in demand. Internet-based real time bi-directional communication provides significant benefits to monitor road traffic conditions. Dynamic route computation is a vital requirement to make the traffic management system more realistic and reliable. Therefore, an integrated approach with multiple data feeds and Backpropagation (BP) Neural Network (NN) with Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) optimization is applied to predict the road weights. The results indicate that the proposed traffic system/tool with NN based dynamic weights computation is much more effective to find the optimal routes. The BP NN with LM optimization achieves 96.67% accuracy.
Efficiency Evaluation of Low-Cost Long-Haul Carriers in the Trans-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific Markets
Authors: Hunt Jennifer N. , Petitt Karlene , Truong Dothang
Published: January 2017

There has been a resurgence of interest in low-cost long-haul (LCLH) operations as airlines seek new growth opportunities. However, researchers have yet to evaluate and compare the relative efficiency of LCLH carriers in this competitive business environment. The purpose of this paper was to determine the relative efficiency of LCLH carriers in the Trans-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific markets. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models were developed to compare the efficiency of five low-cost carriers: AirAsia X, Cebu Pacific, Norwegian Air, WestJet, current LCLH carriers, and JetBlue, a prospective LCLH carrier. The key findings from this DEA were that AirAsia X, Norwegian Air, and JetBlue were relatively efficient for all four quarters, whereas, Cebu Pacific was relatively efficient for three out of four quarters, while WestJet was relatively inefficient. Recommendations include suggestions for WestJet to lower its cost structure, and increase load factor, revenue passenger miles, and total revenue to achieve success with LCLH operations.
A Semantic Meta-Modelling Approach for Smart Government
Authors: Lamharhar Hind , Zaoui Imane , Kabbaj Adil , Chiadmi Dalila
Published: January 2017

The main objective of many e-government solutions is establishing smart government through developing user oriented, integrated and interoperable services. However, the heterogeneous and distributed nature of public administrations and the limit of traditional service discovery approaches does not enable achieving efficiently this objective. Rather achieving semantic interoperability through the development of shared e-government knowledge can be the key to smart government. As its main contribution, this paper presents a semantic modelling approach of data and public services, and a service discovery approach for building smart government applications. Our approach uses both semantic web services and conceptual structures technologies. Applying these technologies was shown to have an extremely high potential impact in smart government development. They enabled the improvement of the data and services description, of multiple resources, with additional semantic information, which allowed an automatic processing of information and services.
Strategies for Successful Implementation of Innovation
Authors: Baporikar Neeta
Published: January 2017

Innovations are vital to most organizations especially in this competitive and globalized scenario. Nevertheless, the results of innovations are in many cases far from satisfactory. Several studies have shown that an organization's failure to benefit from an adopted innovation can often be attributed to a deficient implementation process rather than to the innovation itself. Thus, the implementation process is a critical interface between the decision to adopt and the routine usage of an innovation. Ways and methods to implement innovation effectively have been under scholarship for some time now. Despite the number of studies which identify multiple causes of unsuccessful implementation processes, literature is lacking regarding the crucial aspects of innovation implementation. Building on the derived knowledge of the underlying dynamics of innovation processes, through grounded theory and in-depth literature review, the present study aims to contribute to existing implementation literature by examining the strategic facets of innovation implementation.
Impact of Innovation on the Entrepreneurial Success in Selected Business Enterprises in South-West Nigeria
Authors: Ojo Olu
Published: January 2017

This study examined the impact of innovation on the entrepreneurial success in selected business enterprises in SOUTH-WEST Nigeria. The paper dwelt on the extent to which the selected enterprises innovation effort affects the quality of their product as well as the company image. Five manufacturing companies in the Food and Beverages line were selected using purposive sampling method because of their contributions to economic development of Nigeria while the respondents were selected through stratified random sampling technique. Survey research design was used in carrying out the study. Both primary and secondary data were used in the study. Primary data were collected through the administration of questionnaire while secondary data were garnered from Annual Report and Accounts of the companies. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significant levels with the aid of parametric student t-test. The results revealed that there is a positive relationship between innovation and product quality as well as a positive relationship between innovation and good corporate image and that both of them significantly affect entrepreneurial success. The study recommends that business enterprises should engage more on innovation of their production process to improve their product quality and even enhances good corporate image. This will help them to sustain their position in the face of stiff competition.
Decision Support based on Bio-PEPA Modeling and Decision Tree Induction
Authors: Hamami Dalila , Baghdad Atmani , Shankland Carron
Published: January 2017

The problem of selecting determinant features generating appropriate model structure is a challenge in epidemiological modelling. Disease spread is highly complex, and experts develop their understanding of its dynamic over years. There is an increasing variety and volume of epidemiological data which adds to the potential confusion. The authors propose here to make use of that data to better understand disease systems. Decision tree techniques have been extensively used to extract pertinent information and improve decision making. In this paper, the authors propose an innovative structured approach combining decision tree induction with Bio-PEPA computational modelling, and illustrate the approach through application to tuberculosis. By using decision tree induction, the enhanced Bio-PEPA model shows considerable improvement over the initial model with regard to the simulated results matching observed data. The key finding is that the developer expresses a realistic predictive model using relevant features, thus considering this approach as decision support, empowers the epidemiologist in his policy decision making.
Efficient Imbalanced Multimedia Concept Retrieval by Deep Learning on Spark Clusters
Authors: Yan Yilin , Chen Min , Sadiq Saad , Shyu Mei-Ling
Published: January 2017

The classification of imbalanced datasets has recently attracted significant attention due to its implications in several real-world use cases. The classifiers developed on datasets with skewed distributions tend to favor the majority classes and are biased against the minority class. Despite extensive research interests, imbalanced data classification remains a challenge in data mining research, especially for multimedia data. Our attempt to overcome this hurdle is to develop a convolutional neural network (CNN) based deep learning solution integrated with a bootstrapping technique. Considering that convolutional neural networks are very computationally expensive coupled with big training datasets, we propose to extract features from pre-trained convolutional neural network models and feed those features to another full connected neutral network. Spark implementation shows promising performance of our model in handling big datasets with respect to feasibility and scalability.
Picking the People up from Poverty
Authors: Sowad Abu Saleh Mohammad
Published: January 2017

Being a multidimensional phenomenon, it is hard to confine poverty within any definitive parameters and even harder to send the word poverty back to dictionary. Poverty eradication needs both short and long term strategic interventions; policies regarding employment opportunities should also be planned in such way. As an economic strategy, deregulation targets to eliminate the regulating authorities of labour market and decrease the interference of legal aspects within the relationship between companies and individuals to a minimum level with a great decline in the cases of collective bargaining. Labour market deregulation creates ample employment opportunities for poor people especially women. This paper looks for an effective and efficient way to alleviate poverty between Urban Labour Market Deregulation and the development of micro-enterprises with a sketch of possibilities and vulnerabilities of both approaches and a comparative approach to find the best possible way within these two to remove poverty's shadow from humankind.
Remittances and Economic Growth
Authors: Pllana Mustafe , Tmava Aida
Published: January 2017

Economic growth has become an important study growth matter. By economists economic growth is defined as capital stock growth, rising per capita GDP, increased access for manufactured goods and services for consumption and so on. In economic growth affect several factors and policies. Corruption, lack of investment, inappropriate institutions, inappropriate education etc. are some of obstacles to economic development. Consumption and investment are important components of aggregate demand with multiplicative effect in development. Remittances of migrants are significant potential financial capital used for investments, reflected in economic development and social prosperity. Remittances in Kosovo since 1960 have always been increasing. Participation of remittances to GDP in Kosovo in 2010 is about 12%. Remittances are the highest contributor to the Kosovo trade deficit coverage and are higher than foreign direct investments. Remittances unfortunately for various reasons are not exploited and are not sufficiently exploited for economic development.
Probabilistic Background Model by Density Forests for Tracking
Authors: Oiwa Daimu , Fukui Shinji , Iwahori Yuji , Nakamura Tsuyoshi , Kijsirikul Boonserm , Bhuyan M. K.
Published: January 2017

This paper proposes an approach for a robust tracking method to the objects intersection with appearances similar to a target object. The target is image sequences taken by a moving camera in this paper. Tracking methods using color information tend to track mistakenly a background region or an object with color similar to the target object since the proposed method is based on the particle filter. The method constructs the probabilistic background model by the histogram of the optical flow and defines the likelihood function so that the likelihood in the region of the target object may become large. This leads to increasing the accuracy of tracking. The probabilistic background model is made by the density forests. It can infer a probabilistic density fast. The proposed method can process faster than the authors' previous approach by introducing the density forests. Results are demonstrated by experiments using the real videos of outdoor scenes.
Collective Relocation for Associative Distributed Collections of Objects
Authors: Fujishima Daisuke , Kamada Tomio
Published: January 2017

The field of parallel computing has experienced an increase in the number of computing nodes, allowing broader applications, including computations that have irregular features. Some parallel programming languages handle object data structures and offer marshaling/unmarshaling mechanisms to transpose them. To manage data elements across computing nodes, some research on distributed collections has been conducted. This study proposes a distributed collection library that can handle multiple collections of object elements and change their distributions while maintaining associativity between their elements. This library is implemented on an object-oriented parallel programming language, X10. The authors assume pairs of associative collections such as vehicles and streets in a traffic simulation. When many vehicles are concentrated on streets assigned to certain computing nodes, some of these streets should be moved to other nodes. The authors' library assists the programmer in easily distributing the associative collections over the computing nodes and collectively relocating elements while maintaining the data sharing relationship among associative elements. The programmer can describe the associativity between objects by using both declarative and procedural methods. They show a preliminary performance evaluation of their library on a Linux cluster and the K computer.
Automatic Recognition of Traffic Signs with 3D Distance Estimation for Intelligent Vehicles
Authors: Ben Romdhane Nadra , Mliki Hazar , Hammami Mohamed
Published: January 2017

Traffic sign recognition (TSR) systems within the Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) has attract many researchers as it plays a vital role to ensure road and transportation safety. In this paper, the authors introduce a new method for the automatic recognition and distance estimation of traffic signs using hybrid 2D-3D approach. The proposed method performs on two steps: Traffic signs recognition and distance estimation. The traffic signs recognition step aims to detect, classify and track traffic signs. Regarding the distance estimation step, it seeks to compute the depth distance of the traffic sign so as to estimate the distance between the recognized traffic sign and the vehicle carrying the camera. Many series of experiments were carried out on GTSBD and KITTI Stereo 2015 databases to evaluate the performance of the authors' method. The obtained results have shown that the proposed method achieves good performance in challenging scenarios.
Reliable and Energy Efficient Routing Protocol for Under Water Sensor Networks
Authors: Al-Shihri Fatima , Arafah Mohammed
Published: January 2017

The authors proposed a Reliable and energy efficient Routing Protocol (RRP) for underwater sensor network, integrating the desired features of the Directional Flooding based Routing (DFR) and Vector Based Void Avoidance (VBVA) protocols. The new algorithm considers reliability and takes into consideration the residual energy for each node before choosing the forwarding node. RRP relies on a packet flooding technique to increase reliability. However, to prevent a packet from flooding to the whole network, they control the number of nodes forwarding a packet by measuring a link quality between nodes in a hop by hop. To mitigate the effect of the inherent void problem, the authors consider residual energy, link quality, and distance from destination node to choose a reliable path to forward packet to destination. The authors observe that RRP protocol has better performance in terms of the packet delivery ratio than the DFR protocol due to the void avoidance technique.
Transaction Dependency Based Approach for Database Damage Assessment Using a Matrix
Authors: Haraty Ramzi Ahmed , Kaddoura Sanaa , Zekri Ahmed
Published: January 2017

One of the critical concerns in the current era is information security. Companies are sharing vast online critical data, which exposes their databases to malicious attacks. When protection techniques fail to prevent an attack, recovery is needed. Database recovery is not a straightforward procedure, since the transactions are highly interconnected. Traditional recovery techniques do not consider the interconnection between transactions because this information is not saved anywhere in the log file. Thus, they rollback all the transactions starting from the detected malicious transaction to the end of the log file. Hence, both affected and benign transactions will be rolled back, which is a waste of time. This paper presents an algorithm that works efficiently to assess the damage caused in the database by malicious transaction and recovers it. The proposed algorithm keeps track of the transactions that read from one another and store this information in a single matrix. The experimental results prove that the algorithm is faster than any other existing algorithm in this domain.
Should I stay or should I go? The diurnal behaviour of plant-attached zooplankton in lakes with different water transparency
Authors: Estlander Satu , Horppila Jukka , Olin Mikko , Nurminen Leena
Published: January 2017

The role of transparency on the diurnal distribution of plant-attached cladocerans was studied in two similar-sized lakes with contrasting water colour. The diurnal attachment behaviour of Sida crystallina (O.F. Müller, 1776) was more pronounced in the less humic lake where the animals remained fixed on plants, indicating that staying attached was a more profitable option. In the highly humic lake, the pattern was opposite, and regardless of time the highest density observed was in the free-swimming individuals, with only few animals attached to the floating-leaves for refuge, indicating that low transparency provided sufficient protection against predation. The attached S. crystallina were larger compared to free-swimming individuals in the more transparent lake, suggesting greater vulnerability of large-sized individuals to predation. The results indicate that increasing concentrations of humic substances affecting the light environment may alter the diurnal behaviour and habitat use of plant-attached zooplankton. 
Palynologic analyses of Upper Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks of the Grand Banks, Atlantic continental margin
Authors: Williams G L , Brideaux W W
Published: January 2017

Rocks ranging in age from Late Albian to Pleistocene were penetrated in a series of shallow coreholes drilled in 1965 on the Grand Banks, Atlantic Continental Margin. Palynologic analyses of 104 samples from eight of these coreholes permit the recognition of
diagnostic biostratigraphic divisions. These "divisions" are defined on their spore, pollen and/or dinoflagellate and acritarch assemblages. Informal taxonomic units are utilized for many of the pollen and spore species and for some of the dinoflagellate and acritarch species. The geologic history
and paleoecology can be deduced, in part, from the palynomorph assemblages. The Late Albian was a time of terrestrial deposition. The Cenomanian-Turonian marked the onset of marine deposition which was relatively continuous throughout the Late Cretaceous and Tertiary. A climatic cooling first
recognized in the Early Miocene extended into the Pleistocene.
The correlation of the main seam in the Tantalus Butte Coal Mine at Carmacks, Yukon Territory
Authors: Hacquebard P A
Published: January 2017

Petrographic profiles of three column samples, taken from areas separated by faulting in the Tantalus Butte Mine, show that they can be correlated and that only one coal seam is present. This seam varies in thickness from 10-14 feet because in the thicker
sections additional layers of coal occur in the top and bottom parts. From the correlation it is concluded that a graben structure is present in the mine and that the vertical displacement along the faults is of the order of 40 feet.
Typical of the Main Seam is the presence of 13 "tonstein" horizons, which occur in conjunction with much durite, and which have a good lateral persistence between the column samples. A brief literature review about the occurrence, origin and correlative value of tonstein is included in the
report.
Macular thicknesses and their associations with ocular and demographic variables in black South Africans
Authors: Mashige Khathutshelo P. , Oduntan Olalekan A.
Published: January 2017

Purpose: To determine normal macular thicknesses and their associations with demographic and ocular variables in healthy eyes of black South Africans.Methods: Six hundred healthy subjects (N = 600) underwent height and weight measurements followed by a complete ophthalmic examination, which included auto-refraction, subjective refraction, slit-lamp biomicroscopy, ocular biometric measurements and tonometry. Intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured with the Nidek NT530P (Tonopachy™) and the axial length (AL) thickness with the Nidek Echoscan. The central corneal thickness (CCT) and macular thickness were measured using iVue-100 spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Optovue, Inc.). The macular thickness map protocol that divides the macular area into nine regions of the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) fields was used. Variations in macular thickness measurements with body mass index (BMI), age, gender, refraction, AL, CCT and IOP were determined with partial correlation analysis.Results: The 600 subjects had a mean age of 28.15 ± 13.09 years (range = 10–66 years), with 305 (50.83%) being males and 295 (49.17%) females. The thickness values of the central, inner and outer maculae were normally distributed, with means of 235.89 µm ± 20.04 µm, 303.56 µm ± 18.68 µm and 287.81 µm ± 14.61 µm, respectively. Mean total macular thickness for all subjects was 268.72 ± 15.04 µm. The temporal quadrant was markedly thinner than all other quadrants for both inner and outer macular regions. Macular thicknesses were greater in men than in women (p < 0.05). The thickness of mean central, mean inner and mean outer maculae increased significantly with increasing BMI (p < 0.001). Central, inner and outer maculae were significantly associated (p < 0.001) with a high hyperopic spherical equivalent refraction. AL was associated with a thin inner macula (p < 0.05) and an outer macula (p < 0.001), but not with a thinner central macula (p > 0.05). Age, CCT and IOP were not associated with macular thickness values in any quadrant (p > 0.05).Conclusion: The macular values were thinner in women than in men and were related to BMI, gender, hyperopic spherical refraction and AL with regional variations. These differences should be considered when interpreting optical coherence tomography results for accurately diagnosing and managing retinal abnormalities.
Tsetse flies should remain in protected areas in KwaZulu-Natal
Authors: Armstrong Adrian J. , Blackmore Andy
Published: January 2017

The proposal to eradicate tsetse flies from South Africa, including its protected areas, via the sequential aerosol technique combined with the sterile insect technique to reduce trypanosomiasis in cattle did not present an appropriate analysis of the impacts that implementation of the proposal would have on biodiversity. Not only would the implementation of the proposal be contrary to South African laws protecting and conserving biodiversity, but it would also have negative consequences for the conservation of biodiversity. Some of the negative consequences are reviewed, including extirpations and negative impacts on ecological and ecosystem processes and services. Alternative strategies to control trypanosomiasis in cattle effectively in a more environment-friendly manner are presently available and others will almost certainly become available in the not-too-distant future.Conservation implications: Environmental protection, promotion of conservation and sustainable use of the environment are all deeply seated in South Africa’s law. Rural livestock husbandry considerations and biodiversity conservation are not mutually exclusive and the importance of one cannot supersede the other. The eradication proposal is seen to be environmentally damaging and therefore it is concluded that the purpose of this proposed eradication exercise is unconstitutional, contrary to various multilateral agreements South Africa has entered into and contrary to good environmental governance.
Parasites of domestic and wild animals in South Africa. XLIX. Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) infesting white and black rhinoceroses in southern Africa
Authors: Horak Ivan G. , Boshoff Christiaan R. , Cooper David V. , Foggin Christoper M. , Govender Danny , Harrison Alan , Hausler Guy , Hofmeyr Markus , Kilian J. Werner , MacFadyen Duncan N. , Nel Pierre J. , Peinke Dean , Squarre David , Zimmermann David
Published: January 2017

The objectives of the study were to determine the species composition of ticks infesting white and black rhinoceroses in southern Africa as well as the conservation status of those tick species that prefer rhinos as hosts. Ticks were collected opportunistically from rhinos that had been immobilised for management purposes, and 447 white rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum) and 164 black rhinoceroses (Diceros bicornis) were sampled in South Africa, 61 black rhinos in Namibia, 18 white and 12 black rhinos in Zimbabwe, and 24 black rhinos in Zambia. Nineteen tick species were recovered, of which two species, Amblyomma rhinocerotis and Dermacentor rhinocerinus, prefer rhinos as hosts. A. rhinocerotis was collected only in the northeastern KwaZulu-Natal reserves of South Africa and is endangered, while D. rhinocerinus is present in these reserves as well as in the Kruger National Park and surrounding conservancies. Eight of the tick species collected from the rhinos are ornate, and seven species are regularly collected from cattle. The species present on rhinos in the eastern, moister reserves of South Africa were amongst others Amblyomma hebraeum, A. rhinocerotis, D. rhinocerinus, Rhipicephalus maculatus, Rhipicephalus simus and Rhipicephalus zumpti, while those on rhinos in the Karoo and the drier western regions, including Namibia, were the drought-tolerant species, Hyalomma glabrum, Hyalomma rufipes, Hyalomma truncatum and Rhipicephalus gertrudae. The species composition of ticks on rhinoceroses in Zambia differed markedly from those of the other southern African countries in that Amblyomma sparsum, Amblyomma tholloni and Amblyomma variegatum accounted for the majority of infestations.
Modified laceback for canine retraction
Authors: Chain Stephen , Shinghal Monisha , Tan Kenneth , Chabbra Mohini
Published: January 2017

This is a modified lace back to distalize canine. This modification overcomes the previous problems associated with the design.