61,475 research outputs found

    A hyprid technique for human footprint recognition

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    Biometrics has concerned a great care recently due to its important in the life that starts from civil applications to security and recently terrorism. A Footprint recognition is one of the personal identifications based on biometric measurements.  The aim of this research is to design a proper and reliable biometric system for human footprint recognition named (FRBS) that stands for Footprint Recognition Biometric System. In addition, to construct a human footprint database which it is very helpful for various use in scientific application e.g. for authentication. There exist many biometrics databases for other identity but very rare for footprint. As well as the existing one are very limited. This paper presents a robust hyprid techniques which merges between Image Processing with Artificial Intelligent technique via Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to recognize human footprint.  (ACO) plays the essential role that rise the performance and the quality of the results in the biometric system via feature selection. The set of the selected features was treated as exploratory information, and selects the optimum feature set in standings of feature set size. Life RGB footprint images from nine persons with ten images per person constructed from life visual dataset. At first, the visual dataset was pre-processed operations. Each resultant image detects footprint that is cropped to portions represented by three blocks. The first block is for fingers, the second block refers to the center of the foot and the last one determines the heel. Then features were extracted from each image and stored in Excel file to be entered to Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm. The experimental outcomes of the system show that the proposed algorithm evaluates optimal results with smaller feature set comparing with other algorithms. Experimental outcomes show that our algorithm obtains an efficient and accurate result about 100% accuracy in comparison with other researches on the same field

    Refocusing sustainability education: using students’ reflections on their carbon footprint to reinforce the importance of considering CO2 production in the construction industry

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    The construction industry is the most significant contributor to the UK’s CO2 emissions. It is responsible for an annual output of approximately 45% of the total. This figure highlights the role the industry must play in helping to achieve the UK Government’s CO2 reduction target. It is ergo incumbent on construction-related educators to emphasise this issue and explore ways in which it can be achieved. Unintentional desensitisation has resulted in the term ‘sustainability’, particularly CO2 production, being seen by students as just another concept to be studied from a theoretical perspective. Many students fail to grasp its broader implications and how it should affect strategic environmental decisions about construction processes, technologies, and products. In an attempt to address this problem, an innovative learning, teaching, and assessment strategy was used with final year undergraduate construction students to improve their level of sustainability literacy. The theory of threshold concepts in the context of transformative learning was used as the baseline philosophy to the study. The approach involved asking students to calculate their carbon footprint and to reflect upon and extrapolate their findings to the construction industry and its practice. Content analysis was performed on the reflective commentaries acquired from student portfolios collected over four academic years. The results showed how the students’ reflections on their carbon footprints proved to be an enlightening experience. Terms such as ‘shocked by my footprint’, ‘surprised at the findings’, and ‘change in attitude’ were among the contemplative comments. When students linked their findings to the construction industry, phrases such as ‘waste generation’, ‘technologies’, and ‘materials’ were some of the concepts considered. By using their personal experiences as a benchmark, students were able to gain a deeper level of understanding of the causes and consequences of CO2 production. They also found it more straightforward to relate these issues to the construction industry and its practice. Several novel recommendations are made to raise the level of sustainability literacy in the construction industry thereby facilitating a potential reduction in worldwide CO2 production

    Certified Organic Forests & Timber: the Hippocratic Opportunity

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    Organic farming was proposed in 1940 by Lord Northbourne as a response to chemical agriculture. Since then, organic agriculture has developed into an international A$50 billion industry with annual growth reported up to 30%. Currently it is one of the fastest growing food sectors with demand exceeding supply in many markets, and price premiums averaging 80% in Australia. With economic, and now environmental, incentives for planting trees, there is the opportunity, and even imperative, for a new silviculture category that embraces the precepts of organic agriculture. There are environmental, economic and ethical issues with carbon offset programmes that seek to reduce, or erase, the carbon footprint of an activity, while collaterally increasing the pesticide footprint; this may be a Faustian bargain. Certified Organic Forestry standards have made a tentative start with a modest uptake. Organic forestry offers a clean green, rather than a dirty green, option for carbon offsets, and can appeal to those inclined to a precautionary principle rather than a postcautionary principle approach. As consumers who are already familiar with the premises and promises of organic food and agriculture are attracted to carbon offsetting, this customer group has the potential to drive demand for Certified Organic Forestry. Moving beyond the current chemical forestry and silviculture standards to an organic silviculture presents a matrix of new opportunities, implications, impediments and even stakeholders

    Applying consumer responsibility principle in evaluating environmental load of carbon emissions

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    There is a need for a proper indicator in order to assess the environmental impact of international trade, therefore using the carbon footprint as an indicator can be relevant and useful. The aim of this study is to show from a methodological perspective how the carbon footprint, combined with input- output models can be used for analysing the impacts of international trade on the sustainable use of national resources in a country. The use of the input-output approach has the essential advantage of being able to track the transformation of goods through the economy. The study examines the environmental impact of consumption related to international trade, using the consumer responsibility principle. In this study the use of the carbon footprint and input-output methodology is shown on the example of the Hungarian consumption and the impact of international trade. Moving from a production- based approach in climate policy to a consumption-perspective principle and allocation, would also help to increase the efficiency of emission reduction targets and the evaluation of the ecological impacts of international trade
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