bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
(Inter-)Fonología del Español Contemporáneo (I)FEC: Methodology of a research program for corpus phonology
Authors: Pustka Elissa , Gabriel Christoph , Meisenburg Trudel , Burkard Monja , Dziallas Kristina
Published: June 2018

The present contribution describes and discusses the methodology of the corpus phonological research program (Inter-)Fonología del Español Contemporáneo —(I)FEC—, which aims to document both the phonic variation in the Spanish-speaking world and the pronunciation of Spanish as an L2 and a foreign language in different learner groups. Partly based on the methodology of the French research program (Inter)Phonologie du Français Contemporain —(I)PFC—, (I)FEC includes, in addition to a word list with several (potential) minimal pairs and a reading task, also a discourse completion task (DCT) aiming to collect data for the analysis of different intonational tunes. The paper offers a detailed description of the individual tasks of the protocol, before discussing practical aspects of the data collection.
Manoel Lopez Bichacho, a XVIth Century Leader of the Portuguese Nation in Antwerp and in Pesaro
Authors: Di Leone Leoni Aron
Published: June 2018

Según Samuel Usque en su Consolaçam as Tribulações de Israel, en 1551 Manuel Bichacho, judío de origen portugués que vivía en Pesaro, convenció al duque de Urbino para que aceptara en sus estados a un grupo de sus compatriotas que habían sido expulsados de Ferrara, acusados de propagar la peste. Sin embargo, el destierro de Ferrara tuvo lugar en el otoño de 1549 y no en 1551. Las investigaciones llevadas a cabo en archivos italianos y belgas nos han permitido identificar al judío portugués Manuel Bichacho, banquero de Pesaro, con Emanuel Lopes, rico mercader marrano de Amberes, que jugó un importante papel como uno de los líderes de la «nación portuguesa» en dicha ciudad y miembro del comité de rescate que organizó y financió la huida de marranos de Portugal a Flandes y desde allí hacia Ferrara y Levante.
El papel de Abraham ibn Ezrá en la divulgación de los «juicios» de la astrología en las lenguas hebrea y latina
Authors: Sela Shlomo
Published: June 2018

En este artículo se establece que Abraham Ibn Ezrá desempeñó un papel exclusivo en la creación del término hebreo mišpatim con acepción astrológica y que asimismo cumplió un papel central en la creación del equivalente latino iudicia. Se señala también que si el término mišpatim se consolidó en las obras de Ibn Ezrá, ello se debe a que los significados de la palabra reflejaban facetas fundamentales de su concepción del mundo. También se demuestra que la creación del nuevo vocablo no es un hecho aislado sino que representa más bien un caso particular de un fenómeno general que caracteriza su obra literaria: la creación de un léxico científico hebreo, basado explícita y conscientemente en el vocabulario bíblico. Se señala asimismo que los términos mišpatim y iudicia con acepción netamente astrológica se infiltraron en el hebreo y en el latín medieval gracias a la difusión de la obra literaria de Abraham Ibn Ezrá.
La Apología por la Noble nación de los judíos, de Eduardo Nicholas (1649)
Authors: Díaz Esteban Fernando
Published: June 2018

Eduardo Nicholas es el pseudónimo con que un autor judío publicó en 1648 una Apología por la Noble Nación de los Judios, en la que se aboga por la vuelta de estos a Inglaterra, de donde estaban expulsados desde 1290, por ser provechosos para la República, nobles y amados de Dios. En 1649 apareció en Amsterdam una versión española. El autor probablemente fue Menasseh Ben Israel. La hipótesis es que primero se escribio la versión española y luego la inglesa.
Documentos hebreos de Plasencia
Authors: Lacave José Luis
Published: June 2018

Publicación de dos documentos, uno en hebreo y el otro en aljamía hebraicocastellana, que se hallan cosidos a un documento de compraventa que se guarda en el Archivo Catedralicio de Plasencia; documento este último publicado en estas mismas páginas de Sefarad por Marciano de Hervás. El documento en hebreo, fechado en Plasencia el 26 de septiembre de 1461, es un poder que Yentó [Gento] Abenataf otorga a su madre, doña Vellida, para que disponga libremente de lo que le corresponda en la herencia de su fallecido padre, y en particular, de lo que le corresponda en la casa objeto de la compraventa. El documento aljamiado, fechado en Plasencia el 22 de septiembre de 1462, es un albalá de pago por el que doña Vellida admite haber cobrado el precio de la casa vendida.
Population Demographics of Sauger and Simulated Effects of Minimum Length Limits in the Kaskaskia and Ohio Rivers
Authors: Seibert Kasey L. , Whitledge Gregory W. , Rude Neil P. , Oliver Devon C. , Loubere Alex , Seibert Justin R.
Published: June 2018

Sauger Sander canadensis are a popular sport fish native to large turbid midwestern rivers and are in decline across much of their range due to habitat loss and exploitation. Specifically, within the lower Kaskaskia and Ohio rivers, Sauger are managed under different harvest regulations and a knowledge gap exists regarding the current status of both populations as well as the effects of the harvest regulations on the size and age structures of both populations. We collected Sauger by nighttime boat electrofishing during early winter 2014–2016 and used otoliths to age all fish. Sauger stocks in both rivers exhibited fast growth rates and high annual mortality rates. Yield-per-recruit modeling indicated that the current 356-mm minimum size limit for Sauger in the Kaskaskia River is sufficient to prevent growth overfishing and likely explains the consistently larger size structure (greater proportion of fish ≥356-mm total length) of Sauger sampled from the Kaskaskia River compared with the Ohio River. Modeling suggested that growth and recruitment overfishing of Sauger are likely occurring in the Ohio River with no minimum length limit based on available exploitation estimates for Sauger in the lower Ohio River. Implementing a 356-mm minimum length limit for Sauger in the lower Ohio River is predicted to prevent growth and recruitment overfishing based on available exploitation rate estimates and would be consistent with the statewide minimum length limit for Sauger in Illinois and minimum length limits on two major tributaries (Tennessee and Cumberland rivers downstream of Kentucky and Barkley lakes, respectively).
Nutraceutical and Functional Foods in Cancer Management and Therapy
Authors: Bajaj Sakshi , Manchanda Satish
Published: June 2018

Cancer is an insidious disease affecting mankind in every country. The progression of cancer cells from one part of the body to another (metastasis) is one of the biggest problems in curing cancer. The present study brings new hope of future therapies to fight cancer. Designing an appropriate food to maintain proper health has become a necessity worldwide. Due to this, the food industries in many countries are modifying their products as a response to consumer demands. In recent years, many of the natural products are gaining popularity as nutraceuticals.
The Effect of Social Networks on Relationships Outside the Network
Authors: Seifert Tami , Miara Idit
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines the impact of three different aspects of romantic discourse on social networks: romance, identity, and privacy. Qualitative research focused on the influence of the social networks on the opinions and interpersonal behavior of 11 single academics, aged 30-45 years old, men and women who used Facebook as a means for meeting potential romantic partners. The research employed semi-structured in-depth interviews to elicit qualitative data. Results indicate that an intimate, romantic setting cannot exist on the social network. Most users enhanced their identity in order to appear more attractive online. Most of the interviewees clearly felt that they needed to control the exposure of their personal details, and there was a clear indication that privacy does not exist online: it seems to be impossible to limit exposure of the published contents to specific selected audiences. Online romantic relationships are a metonymy for rapidly changing values and social norms in a dynamic global reality.
Impact of Online Dating, Cyber Stalking, Cybersex, and Pornography on Mental Health
Authors: Gopalan Rejani Thudalikunnil
Published: June 2018

Online behavior varies according to the purpose and situations and many get involved in intimate relations, like in online dating, which have an impact on the person and his mental health. The chapter focused on the impact of online dating, cyber stalking, cybersex, and pornography on mental health. Though many studied the online dating among adolescents and adults, that of old age group is not yet fully explored especially about their sexual needs. It is worth exploring factors related to risky sexual behaviors among gay and bisexual individuals. Online dating for mentally ill people is an under-researched area. Cyberstalking is an important issue, especially among adolescents and young adults, and cybersex and cyber pornography threatens the safety and mental health in addition to the problems of addiction and child trafficking, and it is linked with high sexual risk behaviors and sex crimes. It is necessary to develop tailored psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions by taking into account the complexity and heterogeneity of the problems.
Verification of Multimodal Biometric
Authors: Shashidhara H. R.  , Siddesh G. K.
Published: June 2018

Authenticating the identity of an individual has become an important aspect of many organizations. The reasons being to secure authentication process, to perform automated attendance, or to provide bill payments. This need of providing automated authentication has led to concerns in the security and robustness of such biometric systems. Currently, many biometric systems that are organizations are unimodal, which means that use single physical trait to perform authentication. But, these unimodal systems suffer from many drawbacks. These drawbacks can be overcome by designing multimodal systems which use multiple physical traits to perform authentication. They increase reliability and robustness of the systems. In this chapter, analysis and comparison of multimodal biometric systems is proposed for three physical traits like iris, finger, and palm. All these traits are treated independently, and feature of these traits are extracted using two algorithms separately.
Storytelling
Authors: Ravindranath Sindhu , Menachery Thomas J.
Published: June 2018

The art of storytelling is an ancient method of conveying information to the masses with certain intent in mind (i.e., as in setting morals or cultural development). It starts from childhood, where children grow up with stories of great heroes and mystical happenings in an age where Gods and humans dwell together. As time went by the stories lost their sheen but they are making a comeback of a different kind – as a learning tool for individuals, whether employees or students. These stories are adapting to the modern world lifestyle, medium is now digital though. Therefore, this chapter explores this journey of stories and gives instances to showcase the effectiveness of storytelling as a tool for training employees.
Data Security Threats Sources
Authors: Talebi Nasim , Ayaburi Emmanuel , Chakravarty Suhail
Published: June 2018

Driven by the difficulty in achieving complete security with technical tools, business investigators are looking into organizational and behavioral issues that could help make systems more secure. This chapter looks at the security of systems from the organizational perspective. Specifically, this study attempts to identify if different organizations have different predisposition to particular type(s) of security threat sources. Using publicly available security breach data from a privacy rights clearinghouse to investigate which organizational characteristics predisposes an institution to an external or internal threat source, it was concluded that as size of organization and the number of its valuable documents increase by one unit, the organization's probability of suffering an internal attacks decrease. Furthermore, when executive members have a business degree rather than information-security-related degrees, the likelihood of suffering an internal attack increases. Also, the probability of an organization suffering an internal or external attack is not based on its industry type.
Mobile Cyber Information Leakage
Authors: Lv Hongbo , Zhou Zhiying
Published: June 2018

With the wide use of smartphones, mobile cyber has become an indispensable part of our lives. While smartphones are used almost every aspect of our lives, awareness of personal information protection is underdeveloped, and information leak has become one particular problem on mobile cyber. At the same time, personal information resources have become more valuable than ever. This chapter investigates users' attitudes toward cyber information leakage and methods to protect personal information. The software SPSS 19 was used to analysis the relationship among cyber environment, applicability and practicability of protection methods, economic cost, and overall evaluation (satisfaction). A suggestion that may promote personal information awareness and promote cyber security from technical, legal, and social aspects is also provided.
Information Systems Governance
Authors: de Oliveira Almiro , Anunciação Pedro Fernandes
Published: June 2018

The complexity of the environment and economical operation, tightly integrated with information and communication technologies, have challenged the management to adopt new paradigms and new approaches associated with new operating models. Internet of things, cloud computing, governance, and urbanism are some examples of new paradigms and new approaches in the area of information systems, which highlight the information as a basic resource for economic activity and justify the need to ensure appropriately the functions of production, storage, and distribution insofar as of its quality and availability depends on the effectiveness of corporate governance. This chapter, carried out by the European Club for Information Systems Governance in 2011 and 2012, provides evidence about the governance practices adopted in the area of information systems by large economic organizations in Portugal.
Positive Interdependence in Blended Learning Environments
Authors: Gutiérrez-Braojos Calixto , Montejo-Gámez Jesús , Jiménez Ana E. Marín , Martínez Martínez Asunción
Published: June 2018

Computer-supported collaborative learning is becoming one of the most impactful learning and teaching approaches in higher education. The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of different conditions of face-to-face learning (cooperative, inter-group competition, and inter-individual competition) on the participation and learning of students in the virtual community. This investigation takes into account three parameters according to a Latin squares design. In this study, designing learning environments in conditions of collaboration without competition in face-to-face environments facilitates the cognitive responsibility of the collective and better achievements in the community to a greater extent. The authors did not find any benefits of intergroup competition or individual competition over collaborative learning without competition.
Comparing the Effectiveness of Using Tablet Computers for Teaching Addition and Subtraction
Authors: Zaranis Nicholas
Published: June 2018

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate if tablet computers help improve primary school students' mathematical achievements regarding addition and subtraction. This research compares the level of mathematical competence of the students taught using tablet-computer-oriented learning method which specifically takes advantage of “realistic mathematics education” (RME) for the concept of addition and subtraction, as opposed to traditional teaching methodology. The designed software consisted of several activities with and without the use of computers for addition and subtraction. It was designed following the background of the RME theory. The present study was a pilot research of quasi-experimental design with one experimental and one control groups. The research results show that the students who were taught with the educational intervention based on tablet computers and RME had a significant improvement in their total mathematical achievement, addition, and subtraction in comparison to those taught using the traditional teaching method.
Gamification in Service Learning
Authors: Varela-Candamio Laura , Enríquez-Díaz Joaquín , Rouco-Couzo Marcos
Published: June 2018

This chapter aims to disseminate an educational innovation project using a game-based learning developed during the 2016/2017 academic year at the University of A Coruna (Spain) and conducted in several schools. The project is called “Economy With Science and Conscience: Toward an Emotionally Intelligent School.” It seeks to awaken the critical awareness of pre-college students in relation to economic issues as well as citizen participation in the university community. The formula of service learning used fit perfectly with this project for a better understanding of economic decision making based on social values. The main aim is to build bridges between the university and other educational levels to contribute to an educational process committed to society. Findings show good results achieved in engagement, motivation, and amusement of students to accelerate the development of knowledge and skills, and also to modify social patterns related to behavioral economics.
Mind the Gap
Authors: Huang Qing , Nathawitharana Nilupulee , Ong Kok-Leong , Keller Susan , Alahakoon Damminda
Published: June 2018

The issue of student attrition is a complex one and has been an area of research interest among education researchers. Recently, education researchers are proposing to tap into the large amount of student data that are housed within the institution's data warehouse. This big student data of demography, learning journey, and their interactions with the institution presents a rich source of insights that can be discovered using advanced analytics. Consequently, education researchers have put forward predictive models, suggest the use of data triggers and dashboards aimed at improving student retention. This however has been met with limited success to date. From experience, there remains a gap between the analytics and the operationalization of the analytics. Consequently, this gap needs to be addressed to achieve student retention. The authors propose a dual framework to close this gap. While this framework was developed in the context of creating a solution for student attrition, it is sufficiently generalizable to analytical solutions for problems around student learning.
Design Methods of Strategic Decision Support Solutions for B2C Business Managers
Authors: Khatun Madhury , Miah Shah J.
Published: June 2018

This chapter reviews methods to develop a decision support system (DSS) for small business managers. The primary objective is to support managers, making strategic decisions for achieving competitive advantages in the business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce environment. Many researchers in the DSS domain utilized various methods to design information systems (IS) solution, mostly intended for large businesses. None of the researchers have considered the business environment as a knowledge source for DSS development of small business strategic decision support needs. User-centered design (UCD) and design science research (DSR) method were adopted for DSS development. DSR was appropriate because it addresses the real-world application environment where research problem or opportunity are defined. Multiple case studies and web content analysis were carried out for understanding business problems, needs, and system requirements. This study used the qualitative and descriptive data analysis methods. The findings suggested developing a DSS solution to meet the small business strategic needs.
The Role of Locally Produced and Digitally Animated Cartoons in the Process of Acquisition of Social Values
Authors: Bilis Pınar Özgökbel , Bilis Ali Emre
Published: June 2018

Television channels for children contain many cartoons and programs. These productions reach the viewers via both the television and the channel's official website. TRT Çocuk, broadcasting for children as a government television channel, presents many locally produced animated cartoons to the viewers. A product of the modern and digital technology, these locally produced cartoons carry importance in terms of transfer of social values. This study focuses on locally produced animation cartoons that have an important potential especially in the transfer of national and moral values. Determination of values conveyed via cartoons that bear importance in the transformation of television into an educational tool allows the media and child relationships to become visible. This work aims to examine the relationship between media and values by defining the concept of “value.” After creating a corporate frame, the study brings to light the social values conveyed in locally produced cartoons aired on TRT Çocuk television channel via qualitative analysis method.
Advertising Appeals Used in Children's Television Networks
Authors: Esiyok Elif
Published: June 2018

Advertisement is a way of communication preferred by companies so as to communicate with their target audience. Nowadays, children account for a large number of consumers worldwide, having their own preferences in terms of fashion, toys, foods, and television channels. One of the most important aspects of advertisement is the appeal. This chapter deals with the appeals mostly used in children targeted advertisements and analysis their content. In total, 334 advertisements were analyzed through content analysis method. The findings of the study show that emotional appeals are far more commonly used than rational appeals. Specially in toy advertisements, the joy/happiness sub-appeal is preferred more than the other sub-appeals. As for the use of rational appeals analyzed, it appears that the price sub-appeal tops the list.
Cartoons Cast an Eternal Impact on Personalities
Authors: Kukreja Jyoti
Published: June 2018

Sustainable development is the key to build nations for future generations but this medium of learning makes the concepts facile and memorable. Unfortunately these do more harm than good. Children get addicted and stick to the materialistic world and become demanding. Though cartoons such as Popeye taught many a child to start having spinach as a matter of choice, but Power Puff Girls, Angels, and Dexter have made children more aggressive in their approach and choice pattern. This chapter explores and validates the effects both fatal and positive upon the viewers, especially children. The study is based on a survey on both parents and children. The respondents in the category of children were aged between 5-10 years. Several questions pertaining to the time and duration of watching cartoons were asked.
A Structural Approach to Management Teaching for Developing Learning SMEs
Authors: Vemić Milan Branko
Published: June 2018

The chapter proposes a new analytical approach in developing learning small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The specific context looks at various approaches and modeling innovatively structured management teaching and learning processes particularly for medium-sized enterprises which play a key role in economic development. Designed are phases of establishing learning SMEs in changing their complex organizational culture and strategy emphasizing employees, training and awareness, experimentation, making mistakes, innovation, and creativity. Main management teaching methods are revisited. The third section optimizes some variables of management teaching and erudition processes, particularly key methods, projects, seminars, literature, exams, and ranking knowledge. Methodology included SME teaching process modeling techniques, analysis, and comparison of SMEs with teaching programs, project technique of monitoring and evaluation. In addition, the author models specific student/teacher roles and provides recommendations for future research directions in development of medium-sized firms.
An Approach to License Plate Recognition System Using Neural Network
Authors: Sarfraz Muhammad , Ahmed Mohammed Jameel
Published: June 2018

This chapter presents an approach for automatic recognition of license plates. The system basically consists of four modules: image acquisition, license plate extraction, segmentation, and recognition. It starts by capturing images of the vehicle using a digital camera. An algorithm for the extraction of license plate has been designed and an algorithm for segmentation of characters is proposed. Recognition is done using neural approach. The performance of the system has been investigated on real images of about 610 Saudi Arabian vehicles captured under various conditions. Recognition of about 90% shows that the system is efficient.
Intuitionistic Fuzzy Time Series Forecasting Based on Dual Hesitant Fuzzy Set for Stock Market
Authors: Kumar Sanjay , Bisht Kamlesh , Gupta Krishna Kumar
Published: June 2018

In this chapter, an application of dual hesitant fuzzy set (DHFS) in intuitionistic fuzzy time series forecasting is proposed to handle fuzziness and non-determinism that occurs due to multiple valid fuzzification method for time series data. Advantages of the proposed DHFS-based time series forecasting method are that it includes characteristics of both intuitionistic and hesitant fuzzy sets to handle the non-determinism and hesitancy corresponding to single membership grade multiple membership grades of an element. In the present study, universe of discourse is partitioned and fuzzified the time series data by two different fuzzification methods (triangular and Gaussian) to construct DHFS. Further, elements of DHFS are aggregated to construct the intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Proposed method is implemented over the share market prizes of SBI at BSE, India and SENSEX of BSE to confirm its out performance over existing time series forecasting methods using RMSE and AFER.
Nature-Inspired Algorithms for Bi-Criteria Parallel Machine Scheduling
Authors: Jeet Kawal
Published: June 2018

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for human beings. Nature-inspired search-based algorithms have an enormous computational intelligence and capabilities and are observing diverse applications in engineering and manufacturing problems. In this chapter, six nature-inspired algorithms, namely artificial bee colony, bat, black hole, cuckoo search, flower pollination, and grey wolf optimizer algorithms, have been investigated for scheduling of multiple jobs on multiple potential parallel machines. Weighted flow time and tardiness have been used as optimization criteria. These algorithms are very efficient in identifying optimal solutions, but as the size of the problem increases, these algorithms tend to get stuck at local optima. In order to extract these algorithms from local optima, genetic algorithm has been used. Flower pollination algorithm, when appended with GA, is observed to perform better than other counterpart nature-inspired algorithms as well as existing heuristics and meta-heuristics based on MOGA and NSGA-II algorithms.
Wireless Robotics Networks for Search and Rescue in Underground Mines
Authors: Ranjan Alok , Sahu H. B. , Misra Prasant
Published: June 2018

To ensure the safety of miners, reliable and continuous monitoring of underground mine environment plays a significant role. Moreover, such a reliable communication network is essential to provide speedy rescue and recovery operations in case of an emergency situation in a mine. However, due to the hostile nature and unique characteristics of underground mine workings, emergency response communication and disaster management are very challenging tasks. This chapter presents an overview of evolving technology wireless robotics networks (WRN) which may be a promising alternative to support search and rescue (SAR) operation in underground mine emergencies. The chapter first outlines the introduction followed by a detailed discussion on the current state of the art on WRNs and their development in the context of underground mines. Finally, this chapter provides some insights on open research areas targeting the current wireless research design community and those interested in pursuing such challenging problems in this field.
Sustain City
Authors: Tang Ying , Franzwa Christopher , Bielefeldt Talbot , Jahan Kauser , Saeedi-Hosseiny Marzieh S. , Lamb Nathan , Sun Shengtao
Published: June 2018

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in interactive narrative-based serious games for education and training. A key challenge posed by educational serious games is the balance of fun and learning, so that players are motivated enough to unfold the narrative stories on their own pace while getting sufficient learning materials across. In this chapter, various design strategies that aim to tackle this challenge are presented through the development of Sustain City, an educational serious game system that engages students, particularly prospective and beginning science and engineering students, in a series of engineering design. Besides narrative-learning synthesis, supplementing the player's actions with feedback, and the development of a sufficient guidance system, the chapter also discusses the integration of rigorous assessment and personalized scaffolding. The evaluation of Sustain City deployment confirms the values of the serious games in promoting students' interests and learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Effect of Holocaust Consciousness in General and the Journey to Poland in Particular on the Fighting Spirit in the IDF
Authors: Davidovitch Nitza
Published: June 2018

This chapter discusses the effect of Holocaust consciousness in general and of the journey to Poland in particular on the fighting spirit in the IDF. With the purpose of exploring to what extent Holocaust consciousness in general and the journey to Poland in particular influence the fighting spirit of former soldiers and career soldiers in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the authors examined two major relationships between variables, on the ethical, emotional, and cognitive level: (1) the association between the soldiers' fighting spirit and their Holocaust consciousness; (2) the association between participating in the journey to Poland and the perceived fighting spirit in the IDF. They conclude that Holocaust consciousness was found to have an effect on the fighting spirit. The journey itself, however, was found to have no effect on the fighting spirit. These research findings may illuminate one of the important projects of the IDF, “Witnesses in Uniform,” with regard to its purposes and efficacy.
Supporting Decision for Environment-Friendly Practices in the Agri-Food Sector
Authors: Thomopoulos Rallou , Moulin Bernard , Bedoussac Laurent
Published: June 2018

High-level decision-making, such as policy making, needs to take into account the often-conflicting interests of different stakeholders with the goal of finding solutions to provide trade-offs and build consensus towards the adoption of so-called win-win solutions. In this article, the authors suggest that using a modeling and simulation approach would greatly enrich the deliberation process. The authors propose a systematic method to assess possible options, based on the complementarity of argumentation modeling and system dynamics (SD) simulation, in conjunction with field experimentation. As a practical application, the authors assess various options available to agri-food chain stakeholders when considering the adoption of cereal-legume intercrops as an alternative to sole crops. Taking advantage of the argument analysis, SD simulations are used to: 1) compare different cultural strategies available to farmers in current operating, market and regulatory conditions; 2) propose plausible what-if scenarios anticipating technological progress, and exploring the impact of adopting potential incentives and dissuasive regulatory measures.
Computational System to Support Bovine Nutritional Behavior
Authors: Luiz Olavo J. , Weber Vanessa Aparecida de Moraes , Cagnin Maria Istela , Raposo de Medeiros Sérgio , Gomes Rodrigo da Costa , Cristine de Souza Leiliane , Paiva Débora Maria Barroso
Published: June 2018

Computational methodologies and techniques are increasingly being used for agricultural purposes in recent years. This article presents a computational system composed of hardware and software elements that can be used in the Precision Livestock area. The objective is to support the management of the operation of providing nutritional supplements: a hardware module identifies the visits of the animals to the troughs and transmits the data to a software module, which processes them and generates reports to support decision-making. A case study indicated the viability of the solution and advantages of the system: portability and flexibility in the expansion of the functionalities through modularization, for less than one tenth of the cost of the current solutions available.
Fault Tolerant and Optimal Task Clustering for Scientific Workflow in Cloud
Authors: Dharwadkar Nagaraj V. , Poojara Shivananda R. , Kadam Priyanka M.
Published: June 2018

Scientific workflows are very complex, large-scale applications and require more computational power for data transmission and execution. In this article, the authors address the problem of scheduling scientific workflow on a number of virtual machines (VM) with the objective of reducing the total makespan of workflow and failure. This article implements checkpoints and replication strategies with the parallel task execution (PTE) algorithm to schedule scientific workflow for minimum time and cost. In order to reduce execution overhead and improve performance of the scientific application, the task uses clustering methods. Specifically, Horizontal Reclustering (HR) method were implemented to reduce failure and scheduling overhead. The authors have combined checkpoint, replication and PTE algorithms together and applied it to the HR method. Results show that the proposed strategies and method works efficiently in terms of reducing failure, makespan and execution cost compared to existing methods.
Efficient Fault Tolerance on Cloud Environments
Authors: Goundar Sam , Bhardwaj Akashdeep
Published: June 2018

With mission critical web applications and resources being hosted on cloud environments, and cloud services growing fast, the need for having greater level of service assurance regarding fault tolerance for availability and reliability has increased. The high priority now is ensuring a fault tolerant environment that can keep the systems up and running. To minimize the impact of downtime or accessibility failure due to systems, network devices or hardware, the expectations are that such failures need to be anticipated and handled proactively in fast, intelligent way. This article discusses the fault tolerance system for cloud computing environments, analyzes whether this is effective for Cloud environments.
Cost Effective Approaches for Content Placement in Cloud CDN Using Dynamic Content Delivery Model
Authors: Banu S. Sajitha , Balasundaram S.R.
Published: June 2018

Cloud providers give storage access and efficient content placement and delivery services to content providers by optimizing cloud-based content delivery. The cost-efficient model should not only consider the content delivery cost but also the storage cost associated with the cloud network. In this article, a novel cloud-based content delivery model is proposed that uses shared storage models for cost optimization in content delivery. Shared storages are placed in different areas of the content delivery network and an efficient replica placement strategy is employed using optimization techniques. Different content delivery schemes are used in proposed model for different situations and overall content delivery cost is optimized. Experimental results show better performance and lesser cost in terms of storage, traffic and latency and also satisfy Quality-of-Service (QoS) and Quality-of-Experience (QoE) in content delivery using PSO when compared to ACO and GA.
Concept and Application of Entrepreneurship Business Canvas Abstract
Authors: Almeida Fernando
Published: June 2018

The executive summary is a fundamental element of a business plan, being essential to present it in a concise, practical and objective manner. This article presents an innovative approach of building an executive summary that facilitates its creation and maintenance process. For this purpose, a canvas model framework consisting of five building blocks is proposed, respectively: product presentation, value proposition, marketing analysis, strategic positioning, and financial analysis. This framework was adopted and validated in the context of an entrepreneurship classroom. The findings indicate that three benefits stand out, namely the offer of a more focus tool, clear and concise and fast to build. The perception of these benefits is greater for students with previous experience as entrepreneurs, being independent to the origin course of students and their professional experience.
Towards a Grid for Characterizing and Evaluating Crisis Management Serious Games
Authors: Daoudi Ibtissem , Chebil Raoudha , Tranvouez Erwan , Chaari Wided Lejouad , Espinasse Bernard
Published: June 2018

Over the last few decades, interest has grown in the use of serious games (SG) and their assessment in almost every sector. A privileged application domain of SG is crisis management (CM) in which these tools improve crisis behavior and/or management in a safe environment while reducing training costs. However, it is difficult to characterize and evaluate such specific SG. This article proposes a comprehensive grid defining features for description, analysis and evaluation of Crisis Management Serious Games (CMSG). First of all, the authors introduce SG, CM as well as evaluation and assessment concepts, and discuss their particular challenges by highlighting the need of using assessment and evaluation techniques to support learning and/or training. Then, the authors present, classify and compare the most relevant techniques dedicated to address this need by encompassing the state of the art of learners' assessment and evaluation approaches used in CMSG. Finally, this article presents in detail the proposed grid and discusses the major findings and contributions.
A Knowledge-Based Machine Translation Using AI Technique
Authors: El-Rahman Sahar A. , El-Shishtawy Tarek A. , El-Kammar Raafat A.
Published: June 2018

This article presents a realistic technique for the machine aided translation system. In this technique, the system dictionary is partitioned into a multi-module structure for fast retrieval of Arabic features of English words. Each module is accessed through an interface that includes the necessary morphological rules, which directs the search toward the proper sub-dictionary. Another factor that aids fast retrieval of Arabic features of words is the prediction of the word category, and accesses its sub-dictionary to retrieve the corresponding attributes. The system consists of three main parts, which are the source language analysis, the transfer rules between source language (English) and target language (Arabic), and the generation of the target language. The proposed system is able to translate, some negative forms, demonstrations, and conjunctions, and also adjust nouns, verbs, and adjectives according their attributes. Then, it adds the symptom of Arabic words to generate a correct sentence.
Application of Structural Properties of Seismic Data to Prediction of Hydrocarbon Distribution
Authors: Wei Zhou , Haimin Guo , Lin Yaoting
Published: June 2018

This article describes how under the influence of traps and trap ranges in size, final moisture content in oil production and changes in the reservoir is very large. Due to this, thin and dispersed oil concentration, facies changes and oil complexes, and strong segmentation, results in poor comparability between wells and conventional methods of seismic reservoir prediction has been more difficult to meet the development needs of the block. Therefore, the introduction of methods of seismic data structure characteristics, with a method based on sequence structure of underground rock formations, rock and petroleum allows the prediction for oil and gas purposes. Through the application of seismic structural properties, the result has been verified in practice and achieved a good application effect.
Changes in African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) faecal steroid concentrations post-defaecation
Authors: Webber Judith T. , Henley Michelle D. , Pretorius Yolanda , Somers Michael J. , Ganswindt Andre
Published: June 2018

Background: Faecal hormone metabolite measurement is a widely used tool for monitoring reproductive function and response to stressors in wildlife. Despite many advantages of this technique, the delay between defaecation, sample collection and processing may influence steroid concentrations, as faecal bacterial enzymes can alter steroid composition post-defaecation.Objectives: This study investigated changes in faecal glucocorticoid (fGCM), androgen (fAM) and progestagen (fPM) metabolite concentrations in faeces of a male and female African elephant (Loxodonta africana) post-defaecation and the influence of different faeces-drying regimes.Method: Subsamples of fresh faeces were frozen after being dried in direct sun or shade for 6, 20, 24, 48 and 72 h and 7 and 34 days. A subset of samples for each sex was immediately frozen as controls. Faecal hormone metabolite concentrations were determined using enzyme immunoassays established for fGCM, fAM and fPM monitoring in male and female African elephants.Results: Hormone metabolite concentrations of all three steroid classes were stable at first, but changed distinctively after 20 h post-defaecation, with fGCM concentrations decreasing over time and fPM and fAM concentrations steadily increasing. In freeze-dried faeces fGCM concentrations were significantly higher than respective concentrations in sun-dried material, which were in turn significantly higher than fGCM concentrations in shade-dried material. In contrast, fAM concentrations were significantly higher in sun- and shade-dried faeces compared to freeze-dried faeces. Higher fPM concentrations were also found in air-dried samples compared to lyophilised faeces, but the effect was only significant for sun-dried material.Conclusion: The revealed time restriction for collecting faecal material for hormone monitoring from elephants in the wild should be taken into account to assure reliable and comparable results. However, if logistics allow a timely collection, non-invasive hormone measurement remains a powerful and reliable approach to provide information about an elephant’s endocrine status.
Acceptability and Feasibility of Sharing a Soapy Water System for Handwashing in a Low-Income Urban Community in Dhaka, Bangladesh: A Qualitative Study
Authors: Sultana Farhana , Unicomb Leanne E. , Nizame Fosiul A. , Dutta Notan Chandra , Ram Pavani K. , Luby Stephen P. , Winch Peter J.
Published: June 2018

Handwashing with soap at key times is an effective means of reducing pathogen transmission. In a low-income community in urban Dhaka, we piloted and evaluated the acceptability and feasibility of a shared handwashing intervention. This included promotion by community health promoters of a homemade solution of detergent powder mixed with water and stored in a 1.5-L reclaimed mineral water bottle. Community health promoters encouraged sharing of the recurrent detergent cost among compound members. Of 152 participating compounds, fieldworkers randomly selected 60 for qualitative assessment. Fieldworkers conducted 30 in-depth interviews and five focus group discussions among purposively selected compound members. The reclaimed bottles served as an easily accessible dispenser for the soapy water, which could feasibly be retained next to the toilet and kitchen areas for communal use. Bottles functioned as a positive reminder for handwashing at recommended key times. Most compounds (45/60, 75%) shared a common soapy water system and its associated costs. There was reluctance to prepare soapy water for shared use in the remaining 25%. Soapy water was an acceptable hand cleaning agent, with the bottle as a feasible dispenser. It was simple in design, cost-effective, replicable, popular with intervention recipient, and neighboring nonrecipients, and commonly shared among nonrelated households. The need to share expenses and product preparation served as a barrier. Developing a sustainable maintenance system, therefore, is critical to ensuring the public health benefits of handwashing with soap.
Verwarring over het midden
Authors: van daalen rineke
Published: June 2018

In 2017, the WRR (The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy) published the report De val van de middenklasse? Het stabiele en kwetsbare midden (The fall of the middle class? The stable and vulnerable middle), edited by Godfried Engbersen, Erik Snel en Monique Kremer. The report investigates changes in the social position of ‘the middle classes’ in the Netherlands between 1980 and 2010. The report gives a broad and dynamic portrait of ‘the middle classes’, using different perspectives.In this essay, the author reflects on some of its key findings. A remaining issue is: who belongs to the middle classes? Seen from the perspective of income, occupation and education, the composition of the middle classes appears to change, while people participating in focus groups all define themselves as belonging to the middle classes. One would expect that the authors give much attention to the difficulties of defining the ‘middle classes’, but that is not the case. What does that say about the social stratification in the Netherlands in the 21st century?Furthermore, the report demonstrates that Dutch society has become a middle-class society, which in the 21st century has to deal with growing insecurity on the labor market and an increasingly restrictive welfare state. In her essay, the author asks why a report on the position of the middle class does not consider the international context, given that social changes and the position of the middle class are the result of increasing interdependencies on a global scale.
Voorbij de politieke crisis. Over de steeds terugkerende angst voor een democratische legitimiteitscrisis
Authors: van der Meer Tom
Published: June 2018

The fear for a widespread political trust crisis has become a fixture in modern debates on the state of democracy. Its most recent appearance is democratic deconsolidation, a supposed value change among younger generations who no longer consider democracy essential. I show that the claim of democratic deconsolidation does not find empirical support. Rather than declining, support for democratic values has been stable across generations, and satisfaction with democracy has even risen over the last few decades.I offer three reasons for the fixture of the political trust crisis in democracies. First, democracy is inherently imperfect as different democratic values cannot always be aligned. Second, there is a pessimistic bias in the public mood towards the functioning of democracy. And third, over the last decades political distrust has become a strong mobilizing factor at election time. While these developments do not signal a political trust crisis, they provide fertile ground for the crisis narrative.The dominant thesis of the political trust crisis has led to a stagnant literature. Instead, I propose three new research questions that scholars ought to focus on to push our understanding of the sources and the relevance of political support.