2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)最新文献

{"title":"Gateways to high-perfomance and distributed computing resources for global health challenges","authors":"S. Gesing, J. Nabrzyski, S. Jha","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147530","url":null,"abstract":"Computational simulations for disease modeling and efficient analysis tools using large data collections have become invaluable tools for Global Health programs fighting infectious diseases. Simulations are used in many ways e.g., from predicting the effectiveness of interventions for certain diseases through Bayesian-based data-model assimilation to genomic analysis of diverse vector species in their different growth states. Even though the approaches and technologies vary, they have several common requirements on the underlying infrastructure. Simulations for infectious diseases, for example, rely on environmental data like weather, geospatial data, biodiversity and transmission complexity. Data-intensive applications need efficient distributed data management capabilities facilitating replication services or Software-as-a-Service solutions. Such solutions might follow the paradigm to transfer applications to the data instead of transferring data to where the applications are deployed. In this paper we present our work towards providing a common extensible platform to build the computational investigation environment. This platform will provide an API for developers of science gateways, which can be adapted for specific simulations, various distributed data management technologies and diverse data structures. Furthermore, it will include metadata to increase the quality and the information about the data, its provenance and its context. Such an API will ease the development of new science gateways and the core technologies for both modeling and running the models. Developers can focus on the targeted domain and are relieved from re-developing core features for the underlying infrastructure. These gateways also enable the stakeholders (scientists, policy makers, etc.) in using the sophisticated tools and/or offer a single point of entry to large data collections and data analytics tools.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126471770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Consumer Bill of Rights for Energy Conservation","authors":"S. Makonin, L. Flores, Robyn Gill, R. A. Clapp, L. Bartram, Bob Gill","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147535","url":null,"abstract":"Sustainable energy supply and demand can partially be solved by the conservation of energy, which is a personal and self-driven action. However, energy conservation currently requires the purchase of third-party products. The upfront cost of purchasing these products to monitor energy consumption in a home is a barrier that further cements the divide of those that have and those that have not. Detailed appliance power consumption reporting should be made available for free as part of the home's smart meter. Governments and power utilities must improve and expand policies that promote a socio-economic balance allowing everyone to participate in energy conservation regardless of their economic situation in a sustained way. We critically look at what economics and government polices exist and need to exist. We also demonstrate the computational means to achieve this - nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) - and discuss how manufacturing and standards organizations need to work together to provide the essential information that describes how appliances consume energy. This paper proposes a Consumer Bill of Rights for Energy Conservation.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129635274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Affordable erehabilitation monitoring platform","authors":"Majid Janidarmian, Atena Roshan Fekr, K. Radecka, Z. Zilic","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147537","url":null,"abstract":"People who have suffered a motor function disability need to practice appropriate rehabilitation treatments. Motion sensors such as accelerometer and gyroscope in fact are increasingly being embedded in wearable computing devices and can provide a quantitative measure of the human movement for assessment. In this paper, we present a low-cost eRehabilitation platform employing efficient algorithms to provide high accuracy feedback. The provided online rehabilitation service is removing the traditional face-to-face services by using cutting-edge mobile and sensors technologies. It allows doctors to give the patients qualitative feedback and track their progress over time. This system considers the variability in movement speed and accurate angle measurements. To this end, the golden standard pattern collected under physiotherapist supervision is compared with the patient's exercises based on Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm. The experiments were conducted in a laboratory with different subjects, and results confirm that low-cost MEMS technology achieves an acceptable accuracy level in real-time rehabilitation monitoring. We also address different encountered issues and discuss how to efficiently tackle with them.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129911261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Providing access to education in Sub-Saharan countries through Content-Oriented technology","authors":"Angelica W Kiboro, Sheena Bailey, Mrinay Nair, Tomisin Salam, Alex Dwhytie","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147542","url":null,"abstract":"Access to education has been a growing concern for children in developing economies, namely lack of access to quality customized online content in the classroom and at home; lack of tools that make learning fun and effective in key subject areas; and lack of state resources to meet educational demands. The Rumie Initiative was founded to tackle these concerns. It is a non-profit organization bringing educational content to the world's underprivileged children through low-cost technology. The Rumie Initiative's vision is to redefine the way education is provided, and through this, significantly reduce poverty and drive economic development. The primary advantage of The Rumie Initiative over all other educational technology solutions is that its content is specifically tailored to meet the local educational needs and curriculum standards. Utilizing the vast reserves of free online updated educational content available today; these android driven tablets are an affordable and intuitive way to deliver pre-loaded content without the requirement of internet access. Through mass global volunteerism, The Rumie Initiative collaborates with educators in choosing appropriate educational content and distributes content-loaded tablets through local Non-Governmental Organizations, communities and government entities. The Rumie Initiative has started a program of trials around the world and recently received a positive response at a Computer - Based Math Education Summit in New York hosted by UNICEF from November 21st to 22nd 2013. The initiative was first launched in Haiti on 25th October 2013 and has since, been gaining momentum, currently exploring opportunities in Sub-Saharan countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa and Nigeria. This paper focuses on The Rumie Initiative's unique business model to reach the masses, emphasizing issues relating to the power of volunteer ism, the forging of strategic development partners, and content-oriented technologies in increasing access to education.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134570628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A general perspective on software-hardware defined cognitive radio based on emergency ad-hoc network topology","authors":"A. Salam, S. Al-Araji, Q. Nasir, K. Mezher, R. Sheriff","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147521","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a different perspective on the collective concept of software-hardware defined radio (SHDR) in cognitive radio (CR) networks. The SHDR is proposed considering the multiple hardware functionalities conceived by software defined radio, which generally reflects on the adaptable recognition of network services and operational conditions. An ad-hoc network scheme is envisaged as an alternative to a conventional cellular network to accommodate for emergency situations. The connection to such emergency backup network could be established on CR engines built in normal or dedicated smart phone handsets.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"144 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116400892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An experimental investigation of the Distributed Electronic Load Controller: A new concept for voltage regulation in microhydro systems with transfer of excess power to household water heaters","authors":"B. N. Roodsari, E. Nowicki, P. Freere","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147548","url":null,"abstract":"Constant voltage and frequency can be generated by a stand-alone Self-Excited Induction Generator (SEIG) driven with a fixed-speed low-head hydro-turbine when the electrical load is maintained constant by an Electronic Load Controller (ELC). However for a Conventional-ELC (C-ELC) most of the generated electrical energy can be dissipated in the dump load if the village load is low. So, the objective of this research is designing a simplified ELC for each household to transfer the excess power for domestic consumption in addition to providing voltage regulation for the generator. A regular ELC, possibly of reduced rated power, should still be installed at the generator site. At the same time, a simplified and inexpensive ELC is installed at each household. The proposed controller, installed in each household, is referred to as the Distributed Electronic Load Controller (DELC). MATLAB simulation results verify the feasibility of the proposed approach. Experimental results using the MSP-430 LaunchPad microcontroller are also presented to verify the validity of the proposed DELC approach.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"138 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122135731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effect of ageing on perception of quality of IP-based personal communication applications","authors":"Sunisa Sathapornvajana, B. Papasratorn","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147517","url":null,"abstract":"IP-based personal communication applications are popular around the world, especially, in developing countries. User perception of quality of service is one key concern for making a decision to adopt an IP application as a personal communication tool. However, user perception of quality is different among various groups even with the same intrinsic technical quality. Perception changes with many factors which include ageing. In this study we investigated the effect of ageing on user perception of quality of service of IP-based personal communications. We selected 5 related characteristics on IT usage to study their effect on user perception: IT knowledge, IT experience, physical expectancy, coping with unexpected events and ability to notice. The study randomly selected 101 subjects from population of different ages which include the Baby Boom Generation, Generation X, and Generation Y. The results confirm that the selected factors can differentiate users and reveal that there are 4 significant differences among groups of users which are based on Ward's method, minimizing Sum of Square Errors (SSE) and analysis of variance. The four resulting groups are advanced users, moderate users, slow users, and practitioners. The study also finds that perception of quality of IP-based personal communication is similar for 3 of the user groups, only the practitioner group has different perception. We found in this study that it is possible to develop IP-based personal communication applications that will be well adopted by the majority of users.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"137 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127377134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Breaking into social nervous system","authors":"D. Vashisth","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147561","url":null,"abstract":"Gathering and analyzing of real time communicational traces in a society empowers us to formulate behavioral structure of its members. Reality Mining the core concept to support this enables us to collect digital breadcrumbs left by people while they perform their daily activities. Collection of these signals through sociometric badges and then formulating them for a visual view is shown in the further section of this paper. The model proposed in this paper is based on multi-level information gathering and filtration system. In this model society is divided in groups on the basis of their intra-group and inter-group interactions. It determines the sequestered groups and the quickest information distributing group. This filtration is processed on the server and all the data transactions are accomplished with secure protocols. For collection of communicational traces we argue use of mobile devices as sensors, which process data to further server. Further incorporation of influential model and centrality approaches enable us to detect most influential person in the sub-group. Implementation of web based multi-level architecture allows easy extension, wider area coverage, storing and processing large log records and easy integration with preexisting communication network.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128061655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"SmartSlate: Rethinking tactile interfaces for the Blind","authors":"H. RaghavendraS., Sreecharan Sankaranarayanan","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147560","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147560","url":null,"abstract":"In today's elementary education landscape for the blind, there exists little support for effectively visualizing concepts like figures, graphs, maps, terrains, shapes and the like. Moreover, pedagogy for the blind relies excessively on trained teachers. Current interfaces involve conversion of text to Braille (Tactile Feedback). Only text being translated however, is insufficient for a comprehensive learning experience. This paper describes a solution for this issue by introducing a redesigned low-cost tactile interface called the SmartSlate that will complement classroom education and serve as a partial substitute. The SmartSlate will support terrain and geographic projections, reiterative learning processes and educational games to enforce effective learning. As a proof of concept, an application that teaches coordinate geometry has been developed to work with the SmartSlate. This idea was well received at the Roman & Catherine Lobo School for the Blind, Kadri, Mangalore, India where our experiments will be conducted.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124319164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Community engagement for the development of a micro-hydroelectric site in Ifugao, Philippines","authors":"Mahmoud Kabalan, D. Tamir, Pritpal Singh","doi":"10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/IHTC.2014.7147556","url":null,"abstract":"Micro hydroelectric systems have been implemented in Ifugao, Philippines over the past few years. These approaches adopted a top-down approach where the local government or NGO implements a system within a rural community without proper community engagement. The authors of this paper believe that community engagement is paramount for the success of any rural development project. It gives the community a sense of ownership and empowerment during the implementation and usage of any project. The authors adopted a bottom-up approach for a planned micro-hydroelectric system in the village of Duli, Ifugao Philippines. The community was selected after multiple trips to various communities across the region. Duli was selected because the community members showed enthusiasm and exhibited the ability to present income generating activities for electric energy such as a welding shop, tailoring facility and bakery. The authors then worked with the community to develop a business plan for the construction, implementation and maintenance of the system. Multiple meetings were held with community members to present ideas and obtain feedback to develop the business plan as the community sees fit. Community surveys were held to get a better understanding of the local community population and layout. Moreover, a socio-economic and socio-cultural analysis was completed in order to guide the business plan development. A terrain and household mapping survey was completed to guide the engineering design work that served as a basis to estimate the system cost. The paper provides the steps carried out by the authors to complete the work and presents the lessons learned from the experience.","PeriodicalId":341818,"journal":{"name":"2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference - (IHTC)","volume":"90 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124023524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}