VEHIOT: Design and Evaluation of an IoT Architecture Based on Low-Cost Devices to Be Embedded in Production Vehicles

Nowadays, the current vehicles are incorporating control systems in order to improve their stability and handling. These control systems need to know the vehicle dynamics through the variables (lateral acceleration, roll rate, roll angle, sideslip angle, etc.) that are obtained or estimated from sensors. For this goal, it is necessary to mount on vehicles not only low-cost sensors, but also low-cost embedded systems, which allow acquiring data from sensors and executing the developed algorithms to estimate and to control with novel higher speed computing. All these devices have to be integrated in an adequate architecture with enough performance in terms of accuracy, reliability and processing time. In this article, an architecture to carry out the estimation and control of vehicle dynamics has been developed. This architecture was designed considering the basic principles of IoT and integrates low-cost sensors and embedded hardware for orchestrating the experiments. A comparison of two different low-cost systems in terms of accuracy, acquisition time and reliability has been done. Both devices have been compared with the VBOX device from Racelogic, which has been used as the ground truth. The comparison has been made from tests carried out in a real vehicle. The lateral acceleration and roll rate have been analyzed in order to quantify the error of these devices.This work might not have been possible had it not been for the funds provided by the Spanish Government through the projects TRA2013-48030-C2-1-R and TRA2008-05373/AUT

Current Application Fields of ELECTRE and PROMETHEE: A Literature Review

Multi-criteria decision making techniques are widely used today. In this study, it was examined the current usage areas of ELECTRE and PROMETHEE, which are in the class of outranking-based multiple criteria decision techniques, in Turkey and the world. In this regard, the studies carried out in 2016 and the first four months of 2017 were scanned with the help of Google Scholar. Thus, it is aimed to put forward the latest state of development of ELECTRE and PROMETHEE, and to give an idea about their future application forms and fields. As a result, it was seen that application problems of ELECTRE and PROMETHEE in various fields was tried to remove, and designed appropriate methods for special cases in studies. Furthermore, evaluation according to scenario variations, solving complex decision problems with metaheuristics, common usage of hesitant fuzzy implementations, proliferation of group decision preference, increasing the number of applications of hybrid techniques, used softwares, sensitivity analyses, two linguistic approaches taking an important place in fuzzification have been identified as remarkable results

Self-Image as a Micro Reality: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Social Media Influencers and Adolescent Followers

This study aimed to investigate content depicted by social media influencers and examine how its engagement aligns with the theoretical components of social comparison theory, providing an understanding of how adolescents view self-image. The parasocial relationships between social media influencers and adolescent followers on Instagram were investigated by exploring how the relationship dynamic is challenged with paid endorsements, envy by followers, and strategic communication. Incorporating content analysis with thematic analysis from the most popular social media influencers on Instagram, findings revealed a relationship between hashtag usage and the adolescent creation of self-image micro realities. The analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between social media influencer-follower engagement, hashtag use, and self-image micro realities. Guided by the social comparison theory, it was hypothesized that content from social media influencers would depict themes that contain appearance-focused content, are congruent with an unrealistic self-image for adolescents, and use metadata tags or hashtags that directly correlate to adolescent followers and self-body images. The research found that adolescent followers create self-image micro realities because of engaging content on Instagram

Network intrusion detection with sensor fusion : performance bounds and benchmarks

Abstract: The achievable performances of intrusion detection systems are unknown beforehand. Currently, intrusion detection researchers implement these systems before they can determine what the performances of their systems will be or compare the performance of their systems to existing systems in order to evaluate the performances of their systems . Another challenge of network researchers is the unavailability of real world traffic traces of network activities due to privacy and legal restrictions. This Thesis contributes to the literature by 1. presenting the achievable performances of the existing anomaly and learning based network intrusion detection systems (NIDSs) in detecting the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) synchronised (SYN) flooding attacks. Two anomaly based algorithms, adaptive threshold and cumulative sum based algorithms were considered in building the anomaly based NIDSs. The logic OR operator was used to combine the outcomes of the two anomaly based algorithms to enhance their performance. The three algorithms were used to detect TCP SYN flooding attacks that were synthetically generated according to a Poisson process and constant interarrival times. The logic OR operator performed better than the two algorithms. The three algorithms detected the Poisson process attacks better than the constant interarrival times attacks. For the learning based NIDSs, the decision tree and a novel fuzzy logic based NIDSs were used to detect Neptune, which is a type of a TCP SYN flooding attack. The decision tree outperformed the fuzzy logic system. 2. providing the achievable upper bounds on the accuracies of two ensembles of classifiers based NIDSs. The first NIDS is an AdaBoost based ensemble that uses decision stamp as a base learner. The second NIDS is a Bagging based ensemble that uses a decision tree as a base learner. The obtained bounds will enable researchers to estimate the performance of their ensemble based NIDSs before they implement them and determine how well their ensemble based NIDSs are performing relative to these bounds. From the empirical studies, it was deduced that if the dataset entropy with respect to the features falls between 0.9578 to 0.9586 and the average information gain amongst the features used in the ensemble falls between 0.045615 and 0.25615 then the accuracy of the first NIDS will be at most 0.9065 and the accuracy of the second NIDS will be at best 0.9193. These obtained ensemble accuracy upper bounds hold irrespective of the attack or dataset provided that the features used in the ensemble (AdaBoosted decision stump ensemble or Bagged decision tree ensemble) have the same characteristics as the features used in this Thesis and the features are discretised in the same way as in this work...D.Phil

THE MEASUREMENT OF POLITICAL INSTABILITY AND ITS LINK WITH MACROECONOMIC PERFORMANCE, FOOD SECURITY AND INCOME INEQUALITY

1noopenPolitical instability has long been at the centre of international debates in terms of its dimensions, reasons, and consequences. The issue of an unstable political environment is highly important due to its link with socio-economic problems that political instability brings to the people of a country. But before these connections are observed, the measurement of political instability should be correctly defined. Therefore, the first step of studies dealing with political instability should include a comprehensive explanation of what is meant by “political instability”, considering the possibility that different dimensions of political instability may have different consequences. In this context, this thesis claims that political instability cannot be fitted into a single mould and it has more than one dimension. When the crucial issue of how to measure political instability is settled, this thesis empirically investigates both the connections between political instability and macroeconomic performance and the nexus between political instability, food security and income inequality. The thesis starts with the Introduction part, which introduces the aim of the study and data and quantitative methods that will be exploited in the next chapters. In addition, this part also displays the general findings, main contribution to existence literature, constraints and future research. Chapter I, in which the dimensions of political instability is determined, is the cornerstone of the thesis, since the next two chapters employ these identifications of political instability. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which is a dimensionality reduction method, is used as a tool to identify the measurement of political instability by using 11 political risk variables taken from the International Country Risk Guide dataset (The PRS Group 2014) observed on 117 countries. The results suggest that the first two principal components are selected and named as Structural Defect and Disorder of Polity Quality, respectively. Furthermore, Chapter I also shows how these two aspects of political instability are characterized by the following three government forms: Parliamentary System, Presidential System, Semi-Presidential System. In addition, Hierarchical Clustering by using Ward’s linkage algorithm is performed to divide countries into smaller clusters based on their similarities in terms of Structural Defect and Disorder of Polity Quality. Chapter II and Chapter III use panel Vector Autoregression Analysis (panel VAR) in generalized methods of moment (GMM) over the period of 2008-2017. While Chapter II analyzes the link between political instability and macroeconomic performance in the set of considered countries, Chapter III deals with the nexus between political instability, food security and income inequality. In both chapters, the results suggest that the direction and significance of these links sometimes change according to two different dimensions of political instability. That means that different aspects of political instability produce different results. Additionally, there is always an adverse relationship between two different aspects of political instability and other variables in the analysis. Furthermore, both Chapter II and Chapter III analyze the impulse response functions (IRFs) to better understand the reaction of variables to each other (aftershocks). Finally, these chapters further examine the forecast-error variance decompositions (FEVDs) to show the proportion of movements in the dependent variables that are due to their own shocks versus shocks to the other variables.L’instabilità politica é stata a lungo al centro dei dibattiti internazionali in termini di dimensioni,ragioni e conseguenze. La questione di un ambiente politico instabile riveste molta importanza per il suo legame con i problemi socio-economici che l'instabilità politica arreca alle persone di un paese. Ma prima che queste connessioni siano osservate, la misura dell'instabilità politica dovrebbe essere definita correttamente. Pertanto, la prima fase degli studi che si occupano di instabilità politica dovrebbe includere una spiegazione esauriente di cosa si intende per "instabilità politica", considerando la possibilità che diverse dimensioni dell'instabilità politica possano avere conseguenze diverse. In questo contesto, questa tesi si propone di approfondire il tema dell'instabilità politica partendo dall’idea che si tratti di un concetto complesso e multidimensionale. La tesi si propone, in primo luogo, di riuscire a misurare tale concetto individuandone le necessarie dimensioni ed indicatori che la caratterizzano. Dopo aver risolto la questione cruciale della misurazione dell'instabilità politica, la tesi propone un’analisi delle connessioni tra l’instabilità politica e la performance macroeconomica ma anche tra instabilità politica, sicurezza alimentare e disuguaglianza di reddito. La tesi inizia con la parte introduttiva, che introduce l'obiettivo dello studio e dati e metodi quantitativi che verranno utilizzati nei capitoli successivi. Inoltre, questa parte mostra anche i risultati generali, il contributo principale alla letteratura, i vincoli e la ricerca futura. Il Capitolo I, in cui si determinano le dimensioni dell'instabilità politica, è la pietra angolare della tesi, in quanto i due capitoli successivi impiegano i risultati ottenuti in tale capitolo. L’analisi delle Componenti Principali (ACP), che è un metodo di riduzione della dimensionalità, viene utilizzato come strumento per misurare l'instabilità politica utilizando 11 variabili di rischio politico tratte dal dataset della International Country Risk Guide (The PRS Group 2014) osservato in 117 paesi. I risultati suggeriscono che le l’instabilità politica debba essere declinata in due componenti, denominate rispettivamente come Il Difetto Strutturale e Il Disordine della Qualità Politica. Inoltre, il Capitolo I mostra anche come questi due aspetti dell'instabilità politica siano caratterizzati dalle seguenti tre forme di governo: Sistema Parlamentare, Sistema Presidenziale, Sistema Semi-Presidenziale. Inoltre, il Clustering Gerarchico, utilizzando l’algoritmo di collegamento di Ward, viene eseguito per dividere i paesi in gruppi omogenei rispetto alle componenti dell’instabilità precedentemente indivduate, Il Difetto Strutturale e Il Disordine della Qualità Politica. Il Capitolo II e il Capitolo III utilizzano la panel Vector Autoregression Analysis (panel VAR) nei generalized methods of moment (GMM) nel periodo 2008-2017. Mentre il Capitolo II analizza il legame tra instabilità politica e performance macroeconomica dei paesi considerati, il Capitolo III si occupa del nesso tra instabilità politica, sicurezza alimentare e disuguaglianza di reddito. In entrambi i capitoli, i risultati suggeriscono che la direzione e il significato di questi legami a volte cambiano in base alle due diverse dimensioni dell'instabilità politica. Questo significa che diversi aspetti dell'instabilità politica producono risultati diversi. Per di più, c'è sempre una relazione avversa tra i due diversi aspetti dell'instabilità politica e altre variabili nell'analisi. Inoltre, sia il Capitolo II che il Capitolo III analizzano la Funzione di Risposta Impulsiva (IRFs) per comprendere meglio la reazione delle variabili tra loro (scosse di assestamento). Infine, questi capitoli esaminano ulteriormente la Scomposizione della Varianza dell'errore di Previsione (FEVDs) per mostrare la proporzione dei movimenti nelle variabili dipendenti che sono dovuti ai propri shock rispetto agli shock delle altre variabili.openBEYHAN ZEYNEPBeyhan, Zeyne

Design and Management of Manufacturing Systems

Although the design and management of manufacturing systems have been explored in the literature for many years now, they still remain topical problems in the current scientific research. The changing market trends, globalization, the constant pressure to reduce production costs, and technical and technological progress make it necessary to search for new manufacturing methods and ways of organizing them, and to modify manufacturing system design paradigms. This book presents current research in different areas connected with the design and management of manufacturing systems and covers such subject areas as: methods supporting the design of manufacturing systems, methods of improving maintenance processes in companies, the design and improvement of manufacturing processes, the control of production processes in modern manufacturing systems production methods and techniques used in modern manufacturing systems and environmental aspects of production and their impact on the design and management of manufacturing systems. The wide range of research findings reported in this book confirms that the design of manufacturing systems is a complex problem and that the achievement of goals set for modern manufacturing systems requires interdisciplinary knowledge and the simultaneous design of the product, process and system, as well as the knowledge of modern manufacturing and organizational methods and techniques