Evaluation of Wines Rating Based on Sensory Characteristics Using Neural Networks

Wine is an agricultural product with very high commerce price variation, which is highly affected by quality ratings. Therefore, quality rating is particularly important for both industry and consumers. However, absence of clear concepts on what constitutes wine quality makes the perception of quality highly subjective, and it is usual for tasters to disagree on the quality rating of a specific wine. For this purpose, a Feedforward Neural Network (FNN) could be trained in order to predict wine quality. In this study, a new FNN method was developed to predict the accurate wine quality based on major sensory characteristics as FNN inputs, and to improve the ability of a taster, groups of tasters, or consumers, to rate wine by taking into account previous decisions. Specifically, five principle sensory characteristics of wines were used as inputs (Aging in Barrel, Aroma Intensity, Body, Astringency, and Acidity) in a rating range 1-3. As outputs, the quality ratings of wines in a range 70-100 were considered. The FNN was created in MATLAB with 1 hidden layer, 5 neurons and 1 output layer. For ratings divided in 5 categories the accuracy was 53% with the use of the FNN, as opposed to the accuracy of 36% achieved by Multiple Linear Regression. For ratings divided in 9 categories the accuracy was 90%. This method may allow each individual or group of tasters to introduce their own data to produce a more objective rating by taking into account previous decisions (subjective) that have accumulated in the database

From Polis to Colonia:Death, Burial, and Society in Hellenistic and Roman Patras

This thesis studies the ways in which people dealt with their dead in ancient Patras, a small Greek polis turned Roman colonia that is situated in the Northwest Peloponnese. Mortuary practices are reconstructed from Late Classical to Early Christian times; the focus is on the Hellenistic and Roman period (ca. 300 BCE-300 CE). The goal of this reconstruction is to come closer to understanding how the changing political, economic, and social circumstances that characterized the period - imperialism and globalization in particular - affected the culture and identity of the local population

Cappadocian in the social media era

Until very recently, Cappadocian Greek seemed to have disappeared without a trace. Linguists and dialectologists even believed it had become extinct altogether. However, one Cappadocian variety, Mišótika, is still spoken in some villages and towns in the decentralized administrations of Macedonia and Thrace, Epirus and Western Macedonia, and Thessaly and Central Greece. The dialect is undergoing attrition under the growing pressure of Standard Modern Greek and its regional varieties and is actually being re-Hellenized. Even the oldest speakers make free use of Greek instead of Misiótika words and expressions and attrition is noticeable in at the phonological, morphological and syntactic levels. As a result, there are now many semi- or even would-be speakers whose speech is located somewhere on a continuum from Mišótika with Standard or Regional Modern Greek elements in it to Standard or Regional Modern Greek with Mišótika elements in it - in both cases mostly words and phrases. Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a growing interest in Mišótika as a marker of (Mišótika) Cappadocian identity. Speakers feel more confident to speak their language in public, for instance at the annual Gavoustima, where theatrical plays in Mišótika are now regularly performed by the syllogos of Néo Agionéri (to the amusement and also to bewilderment of the audience). Remarkably and very fortunately, Mišótika is now also used in the Social Media. I will concentrate here on Facebook, especially on the page called Έναρξη Διδασκαλίας Εκµάθησης Μυστιώτικου Ιδιώµατος ( group 470281169768316 on FB). The title is identical with the subtitle of Thomas Fates’ book Χ͜ιογός α ας χαρίσ̌’, which is some sort of “Teach Yourself Mišótika” and in which, interestingly, a special orthography for Mišótika has been developed. I will discuss the kind of information found on the FB page: questions, questionnaires, explanations of words and short phrases, folktales and other short stories, audio & video clips etc. Particular attention will be paid to the problems of using the Greek alphabet to write Mišótika in relation to the ongoing phonological attrition and also to the insecurity when it comes to interpretation linguistic phenomena in Mišótika

Online reservation systems in e-Business: Analyzing decision making in e-Tourism

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide and in general, the Internet continues to gain importance in the tourism sector. The study focuses on exploration of knowledge of online booking systems and on the views of local students-users concerning the booking rate based on these online systems. Another perspective of this project is to investigate the decision-making process (emotion-focused) that they follow in order to choose a tourist destination via online booking systems. For the purposes of this study, three scales were administered E-WOM and Accommodation Scale, Emotion-Based Decision-Making Scale and Trait Emotional Intelligence Scale. Then, survey data were collected, preprocessed and analyzed based on Data Mining techniques evaluating the results. More specifically, classification and association algorithms were utilized to manage to describe hidden patterns. E-Tourism will continue to be oriented towards the consumers and the technology that surrounds them, providing dynamic communication in electronic business

Online reservation systems in e-Business: analyzing decision making in e-Tourism

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide and in general, the Internet continues to gain importance in the tourism sector. The study focuses on exploration of knowledge of online booking systems and on the views of local students-users concerning the booking rate based on these online systems. Another perspective of this project is to investigate the decision-making process (emotion-focused) that they follow in order to choose a tourist destination via online booking systems. For the purposes of this study, three scales were administered E-WOM and Accommodation Scale, Emotion-Based Decision-Making Scale and Trait Emotional Intelligence Scale. Then, survey data were collected, preprocessed and analyzed based on Data Mining techniques evaluating the results. More specifically, classification and association algorithms were utilized to manage to describe hidden patterns. E-Tourism will continue to be oriented towards the consumers and the technology that surrounds them, providing dynamic communication in electronic business

The transformation of an agricultural economy : forms of rural settlement in Epirus from the second century BCE to the fourth century CE

This thesis investigates the transformation of the agricultural economy of Epirus in Roman times, approximately from its conquest in 168/7 BCE and its annexation in the province of Macedonia in 146 BCE, until the 4th century CE. It does so through study of diverse forms of rural settlement in the Epirote countryside, using untapped rescue archaeology to distinguish between different farms, to refine their chronologies, and to assess their agricultural productions. In so doing, the nature of the villa and its temporal spread in this area of Greece is also thoroughly examined and clarified. The development of Epirus has in the past often been closely linked to narratives painted by Roman authors of its allegedly devastating destruction and subsequent agricultural exploitation by members of the Roman aristocracy, who called themselves "Synepirotae". Many rural sites have been interpreted in this light and called "villas", leading scholars to postulate that the villa spread widely in Epirus during the early Roman period. In contrast to this theory, it is argued that, while a few exceptional villas were constructed early on, they did not become popular until the middle and later Imperial periods; instead, in early Roman times dispersed villages and fortified farms, many of which had been inhabited before the Roman period, were more numerous. Consequently, the villa was not always the typical way to manage agricultural resources of substantial scale in this part of the Roman world. The thesis also combines rural rescue archaeology with material culture from cities and with written evidence, to reconstruct a new view of societal and economic change in Epirus during the Roman period. It is shown how gradual changes in the agricultural economy reflected changes in local societies, which were also measured in pace, and it is highlighted that the individuals making up those societies played a more active role in the ways that Epirus became incorporated into the Roman Empire than has previously been thought