Application of Geographic Information Systems

The importance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can hardly be overemphasized in today’s academic and professional arena. More professionals and academics have been using GIS than ever – urban & regional planners, civil engineers, geographers, spatial economists, sociologists, environmental scientists, criminal justice professionals, political scientists, and alike. As such, it is extremely important to understand the theories and applications of GIS in our teaching, professional work, and research. “The Application of Geographic Information Systems” presents research findings that explain GIS’s applications in different subfields of social sciences. With several case studies conducted in different parts of the world, the book blends together the theories of GIS and their practical implementations in different conditions. It deals with GIS’s application in the broad spectrum of geospatial analysis and modeling, water resources analysis, land use analysis, infrastructure network analysis like transportation and water distribution network, and such. The book is expected to be a useful source of knowledge to the users of GIS who envision its applications in their teaching and research. This easy-to-understand book is surely not the end in itself but a little contribution to toward our understanding of the rich and wonderful subject of GIS

Defuzzification of groups of fuzzy numbers using data envelopment analysis

Defuzzification is a critical process in the implementation of fuzzy systems that converts fuzzy numbers to crisp representations. Few researchers have focused on cases where the crisp outputs must satisfy a set of relationships dictated in the original crisp data. This phenomenon indicates that these crisp outputs are mathematically dependent on one another. Furthermore, these fuzzy numbers may exist as a group of fuzzy numbers. Therefore, the primary aim of this thesis is to develop a method to defuzzify groups of fuzzy numbers based on Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (CCR)-Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model by modifying the Center of Gravity (COG) method as the objective function. The constraints represent the relationships and some additional restrictions on the allowable crisp outputs with their dependency property. This leads to the creation of crisp values with preserved relationships and/or properties as in the original crisp data. Comparing with Linear Programming (LP) based model, the proposed CCR-DEA model is more efficient, and also able to defuzzify non-linear fuzzy numbers with accurate solutions. Moreover, the crisp outputs obtained by the proposed method are the nearest points to the fuzzy numbers in case of crisp independent outputs, and best nearest points to the fuzzy numbers in case of dependent crisp outputs. As a conclusion, the proposed CCR-DEA defuzzification method can create either dependent crisp outputs with preserved relationship or independent crisp outputs without any relationship. Besides, the proposed method is a general method to defuzzify groups or individuals fuzzy numbers under the assumption of convexity with linear and non-linear membership functions or relationships

Contemporary Affirmation of Machine Learning Models for Sensor Validation and Recommendations for Future research Directions

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are important and needed systems for the future as the notion "Internet of Things" has emerged lately. They're used for observation, tracking, or controlling of several uses in sector, health care, home, and military. Yet, the quality of info collected by sensor nodes is changed by anomalies that happen because of various grounds, including node failures, reading errors, unusual events, and malicious assaults. Thus, fault detection is a necessary procedure before it's used in making selections to make sure the quality of sensor information. A multitude of methods can be called multiple-changeable systems/agents. For example methods such as for example creating heating system, ventilation and air conditioner(HVAC) methods are changeable methods / agents . Multiple-changeable methods /agents such as for instance these commonly don't meet performance expectations imagined at design time. Such failings can be a result of a number of factors, for example difficulties due to improper installment, substandard maintenance, or products failure. These issues, or "faults," can comprise mechanical disappointments, management difficulties, design mistakes, and improper operator treatment

NASA Space Human Factors Program

This booklet briefly and succinctly treats 23 topics of particular interest to the NASA Space Human Factors Program. Most articles are by different authors who are mainly NASA Johnson or NASA Ames personnel. Representative topics covered include mental workload and performance in space, light effects on Circadian rhythms, human sleep, human reasoning, microgravity effects and automation and crew performance

Management of Technological Innovation in Developing and Developed Countries

It is widely accepted that technology is one of the forces driving economic growth. Although more and more new technologies have emerged, various evidence shows that their performances were not as high as expected. In both academia and practice, there are still many questions about what technologies to adopt and how to manage these technologies. The 15 articles in this book aim to look into these questions. There are quite many features in this book. Firstly, the articles are from both developed countries and developing countries in Asia, Africa and South and Middle America. Secondly, the articles cover a wide range of industries including telecommunication, sanitation, healthcare, entertainment, education, manufacturing, and financial. Thirdly, the analytical approaches are multi-disciplinary, ranging from mathematical, economic, analytical, empirical and strategic. Finally, the articles study both public and private organizations, including the service industry, manufacturing industry, and governmental organizations. Given its wide coverage and multi-disciplines, the book may be useful for both academic research and practical management

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

JSC research and technology

The primary roles and missions of JSC incorporate all aspects of human presence in space. Therefore, the Center is involved in the development of technology that will allow humans to stay longer in Earth orbit, allow safe flight in space, and provide capabilities to explore the Moon and Mars. The Center's technology emphasis areas include human spacecraft development, human support systems and infrastructure, and human spacecraft operations. Safety and reliability are critical requirements for the technologies that JSC pursues for long-duration use in space. One of the objectives of technology development at the Center is to give employees the opportunity to enhance their technological expertise and project management skills by defining, designing, and developing projects that are vital to the Center's strategy for the future. This report is intended to communicate within and outside the Agency our research and technology (R&T) accomplishments, as well as inform Headquarters program managers and their constituents of the significant accomplishments that have promise for future Agency programs. While not inclusive of all R&T efforts, the report presents a comprehensive summary of JSC projects in which substantial progress was made in the 1992 fiscal year. At the beginning of each project description, names of the Principal Investigator (PI) and the Technical Monitor (TM) are given, followed by their JSC mail codes or their company or university affiliations. The funding sources and technology focal points are identified in the index