scholarly journals Adaptability of Buildings: A Critical Review on the Concept Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 4483
Author(s):  
Rand Askar ◽  
Luís Bragança ◽  
Helena Gervásio
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Actual State ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Concept Evolution ◽  
Work Health ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The One

Our ever-evolving built environment is continuously facing emerging needs for housing, work, health, and mobility, among others. Yet, buildings are usually designed and set up as finished permanent objects, reflecting the one constant scenario in mind of defined form, function, and performance. Since change is increasingly inevitable in our life, enlarging buildings’ adaptive capacities in response to arising variables and changing conditions over their lifecycle becomes a necessity in seeking global sustainability demands. The concept of building adaptability has been a notable subject in this respect, increasingly stimulating and proposing regenerative alternatives to today’s often obsolete buildings. This paper critically reviews the existing body of knowledge on the concept of adaptability in building research. The main focus is made on the evolution of the concept interpretations and related paradigms, and on the development of its applications and strategies in the light of promoting models and trends. Drawing on the literature as a source of evidence, the paper analyzes and classifies the content of existing studies published in scientific journals and gray literature, focusing on a timeframe from 2015 up-to-date. Moreover, the paper aims to build a constructive discussion to identify potential gaps between the actual state of the art and emerging needs, which should be addressed by further research.

Fast and Robust Dictionary-based Classification for Image Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Shaoning Zeng ◽  
Bob Zhang ◽  
Jianping Gou ◽  
Yong Xu ◽  
Wei Huang
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Image Data ◽  
Robust Classification ◽  
Theoretical System ◽  
Learned Dictionary ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The One ◽  
New Formulation ◽  
Two Stages

Dictionary-based classification has been promising in knowledge discovery from image data, due to its good performance and interpretable theoretical system. Dictionary learning effectively supports both small- and large-scale datasets, while its robustness and performance depends on the atoms of the dictionary most of the time. Empirically, using a large number of atoms is helpful to obtain a robust classification, while robustness cannot be ensured when setting a small number of atoms. However, learning a huge dictionary dramatically slows down the speed of classification, which is especially worse on the large-scale datasets. To address the problem, we propose a Fast and Robust Dictionary-based Classification (FRDC) framework, which fully utilizes the learned dictionary for classification by staging - and -norms to obtain a robust sparse representation. The new objective function, on the one hand, introduces an additional -norm term upon the conventional -norm optimization, which generates a more robust classification. On the other hand, the optimization based on both - and -norms is solved in two stages, which is much easier and faster than current solutions. In this way, even when using a limited size of dictionary, which makes sure the classification runs very fast, it still can gain higher robustness for multiple types of image data. The optimization is then theoretically analyzed in a new formulation, close but distinct to elastic-net, to prove it is crucial to improve the performance under the premise of robustness. According to our extensive experiments conducted on four image datasets for face and object classification, FRDC keeps generating a robust classification no matter whether using a small or large number of atoms. This guarantees a fast and robust dictionary-based image classification. Furthermore, when simply using deep features extracted via some popular pre-trained neural networks, it outperforms many state-of-the-art methods on the specific datasets.

Analyzing the financial sustainability of priority development systems set up in the Far Eastern regions of Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 838-875
Author(s):  
V.A. Yakimova ◽  
A.V. Brizitskaya
Keyword(s):  
Economic Security ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Financial Sustainability ◽  
Investment Projects ◽  
Correlation And Regression Analysis ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The One ◽  
Far Eastern ◽  
Regions Of Russia

Subject. The article examines economic systems of priority development that are established in the Far Eastern regions of Russia. Objectives. The study is to analyze key financial and economic indicators of the financial sustainability of residents and priority development areas (PDA), where they operate, to forecast and determine the future development, enhance the competitiveness, lucrativeness for investors and performance. Methods. Research is based on methods of correlation and regression analysis, grouping, systematization, comparison and analysis, ratios. Results. We analyzed financial sustainability indicators of PDA by group of residents, which were sorted by scope of their operations, lifecycle phase of projects and type of activity. The article indicates key sources of funds and a lack of additional investment. Conclusions and Relevance. Analyzing the financial sustainability of PDA, we point out that most residents have sufficient capital invested, which is needed to implement investment projects, and operate in the favorable financial environment. However, financial resources can be multiplied mainly with funds raised, which can possibly put the financial security at stake. We point out noticeable unprofitability, on the one hand, which is typical of average indicators of the region. However, on the other hand, it results from the investment phase of some projects. Investors may refer to the analysis of the financial sustainability of residents and PDA to ensure the development and have the stable return on investment, protect their investment resources. The findings can be also interesting for creditors to have a comprehensive view of the borrower's solvency and creditworthiness of counterparts, while authorities and managing companies can rely on it to monitor the development of the economic system, outline economic security actions for the Far Eastern regions of Russia.

scholarly journals Applicability of Reliability Model for Improving the Performance of Islamic Financial Institutions in Financing Decision by Mousharakah and Moudarabah Contracts

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. p12
Author(s):  
Abdelkader Derbali
Keyword(s):  
Venture Capital ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Reliability Model ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
The Future ◽  
Islamic Financial Institutions ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The One

To offer alternatives to improve the performance of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs), we try in this paper to examine the applicability of the reliability model, as a tool to help decision. We opted for the investment by Mousharakah contracts and Moudarabah contracts because of their resemblance to venture capital, where the reliability model was mentioned. To do this, we developed a documentary research which allowed us, on the one hand, to dissect the notions of decision and performance and to confirm a possible nexus among the two, and on the other hand, to justify the use of this model. Then, we set up the theoretical framework of the model for a potential application to our case study. Then, and after confirming this relationship, we were interested in the case of investment by the Mousharakah and Moudarabah contracts, given their similarity to other financing methods, namely venture capital, where the reliability model was mentioned as a decision support tool. All in all, we can find that this approach will probably create an investigative implement to aid investment choice and decision for IFIs in the future. The developed model constitutes an analytical decision-making aid tool for Islamic financial institutions in the future for Traders and investors.

Sea Urchins and Circuses: The Modernist Natural Histories of Jean Painlevé and Alexander Calder

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211
Author(s):  
Patricia E. Chu
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Sea Urchins ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Machine Age ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The One ◽  
Natural Historian

The Paris avant-garde milieu from which both Cirque Calder/Calder's Circus and Painlevé’s early films emerged was a cultural intersection of art and the twentieth-century life sciences. In turning to the style of current scientific journals, the Paris surrealists can be understood as engaging the (life) sciences not simply as a provider of normative categories of materiality to be dismissed, but as a companion in apprehending the “reality” of a world beneath the surface just as real as the one visible to the naked eye. I will focus in this essay on two modernist practices in new media in the context of the history of the life sciences: Jean Painlevé’s (1902–1989) science films and Alexander Calder's (1898–1976) work in three-dimensional moving art and performance—the Circus. In analyzing Painlevé’s work, I discuss it as exemplary of a moment when life sciences and avant-garde technical methods and philosophies created each other rather than being classified as separate categories of epistemological work. In moving from Painlevé’s films to Alexander Calder's Circus, Painlevé’s cinematography remains at the forefront; I use his film of one of Calder's performances of the Circus, a collaboration the men had taken two decades to complete. Painlevé’s depiction allows us to see the elements of Calder's work that mark it as akin to Painlevé’s own interest in a modern experimental organicism as central to the so-called machine-age. Calder's work can be understood as similarly developing an avant-garde practice along the line between the bestiary of the natural historian and the bestiary of the modern life scientist.

Operational Aspects of National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) in Depository System

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 249
Author(s):  
Rajnikant Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Capital Markets ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Stock Exchanges ◽  
Saving Account ◽  
Business Partners ◽  
Paper Work ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Buy Back ◽  
Operational Aspects

NSDL was registered by the SEBI on June 7, 1996 as India’s first depository to facilitate trading and settlement of securities in the dematerialized form. NSDL has been set up to cater to the demanding needs of the Indian capital markets. NSDL commenced operations on November 08, 1996. NSDL has been promoted by a number of companies, the prominent of them being IDBI, UTI, NSE, SBI, HDFC Bank Ltd., etc. The initial paid up capital of NSDL was Rs. 105 crore which was reduced to Rs. 80 crore. During 2000-2001 through buy-back programme by buying back 2.5 crore shares @ 12 Rs./share. It was done to bring the size of its capital in better alignment with its financial operations and to provide same return to shareholders by gainfully deploying the excess cash available with NSDL. NSDL carries out its activities through service providers such as depository participants (DPs), issuing companies and their registrars and share transfer agents and clearing corporations/ clearing houses of stock exchanges. These entities are NSDL's business partners and are integrated in to the NSDL depository system to provide various services to investors and clearing members. The investor can get depository services through NSDL's depository participants. An investor needs to open a depository account with a depository participant to avail of depository facilities. Depository system essentially aims at eliminating the voluminous and cumbersome paper work involved in the scrip-based system and offers scope for ‘paperless’ trading through state-of-the-art technology. A depository can be compared to a bank. A depository holds securities of investors in the form of electronic accounts, in the same way as bank holds money in a saving account. Besides, holding securities, a depository also provides services related to transactions in securities.

An Optimized Approach for Breast Cancer Classification for Histopathological Images Based on Hybrid Feature Set

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inzamam Mashood Nasir ◽  
Muhammad Rashid ◽  
Jamal Hussain Shah ◽  
Muhammad Sharif ◽  
Muhammad Yahiya Haider Awan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cancer Detection ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Classification Performance ◽  
Diagnose Breast Cancer ◽  
Histopathological Images ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Learned Features ◽  
Intelligent Healthcare

Background: Breast cancer is considered as the most perilous sickness among females worldwide and the ratio of new cases is expanding yearly. Many researchers have proposed efficient algorithms to diagnose breast cancer at early stages, which have increased the efficiency and performance by utilizing the learned features of gold standard histopathological images. Objective: Most of these systems have either used traditional handcrafted features or deep features which had a lot of noise and redundancy, which ultimately decrease the performance of the system. Methods: A hybrid approach is proposed by fusing and optimizing the properties of handcrafted and deep features to classify the breast cancer images. HOG and LBP features are serially fused with pretrained models VGG19 and InceptionV3. PCR and ICR are used to evaluate the classification performance of proposed method. Results: The method concentrates on histopathological images to classify the breast cancer. The performance is compared with state-of-the-art techniques, where an overall patient-level accuracy of 97.2% and image-level accuracy of 96.7% is recorded. Conclusion: The proposed hybrid method achieves the best performance as compared to previous methods and it can be used for the intelligent healthcare systems and early breast cancer detection.

The Taubman/Golandsky Approach to the Violin

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Sophie Till
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Technical Approach ◽  
Piano Technique ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

Three years ago Sophie Till started working with pianist Edna Golandsky, the leading exponent of the Taubman Piano Technique, an internationally acclaimed approach that is well known to pianists, on the one hand, for allowing pianists to attain a phenomenal level of virtuosity and on the other, for solving very serious piano-related injuries. Till, a violinist, quickly realized that here was a unique technical approach that could not only identify and itemize the minute movements that underlie a virtuoso technique but could show how these movements interact and go into music making at the highest level. Furthermore, through the work of the Golandsky Institute, she saw a pedagogical approach that had been developed to a remarkable depth and level of clarity. It was an approach that had the power to communicate in a way she had never seen before, despite her own first class violin training from the earliest age. While the geography and “look” on the violin are different from the piano, the laws governing coordinate motion specifically in playing the instrument are the same for pianists and violinists. As a result of Till’s work translating the technique for violin, a new pedagogical approach for violinists of all ages is emerging; the Taubman/Golandsky Approach to the Violin. In reflecting on these new developments, Edna Golandsky wrote, “I have been working with the Taubman Approach for more than 30 years and have worked regularly with other instrumentalists. However, Sophie Till was the first violinist who asked me to teach her with the same depth that I do with pianists. With her conceptual and intellectual agility as well as complete dedication to helping others, she has been the perfect partner to translate this body of knowledge for violinists. Through this collaboration, Sophie is helping develop a new ‘language’ for violinist that will prevent future problems, solve present ones and start beginners on the right road to becoming the best they can be. The implications of this new work for violinists are enormous.”

An Efficient, Secure, and Queryable Encryption for NoSQL-Based Databases Hosted on Untrusted Cloud Environments

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Mamdouh Alenezi ◽  
Muhammad Usama ◽  
Khaled Almustafa ◽  
Waheed Iqbal ◽  
Muhammad Ali Raza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Query Processing ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Data Communication ◽  
Nosql Databases ◽  
High Concern ◽  
Cloud Environments ◽  
High Scalability ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Secure Query Processing ◽  
Security Concern

NoSQL-based databases are attractive to store and manage big data mainly due to high scalability and data modeling flexibility. However, security in NoSQL-based databases is weak which raises concerns for users. Specifically, security of data at rest is a high concern for the users deployed their NoSQL-based solutions on the cloud because unauthorized access to the servers will expose the data easily. There have been some efforts to enable encryption for data at rest for NoSQL databases. However, existing solutions do not support secure query processing, and data communication over the Internet and performance of the proposed solutions are also not good. In this article, the authors address NoSQL data at rest security concern by introducing a system which is capable to dynamically encrypt/decrypt data, support secure query processing, and seamlessly integrate with any NoSQL- based database. The proposed solution is based on a combination of chaotic encryption and Order Preserving Encryption (OPE). The experimental evaluation showed excellent results when integrated the solution with MongoDB and compared with the state-of-the-art existing work.

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