Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
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Using Social Norms to Change Behavior and Increase Sustainability in the Real World: a Systematic Review of the Literature
No full textBehavioral change interventions based on social norms have proven to be a popular and cost-effective way in which both researchers and practitioners attempt to transform behavior in order to increase environmental and social sustainability in real-world contexts. In this paper, we present a systematic review of over 90 empirical studies that have applied behavioral change interventions based on social norms in field settings. Building on previous research about the sources of information that people use to understand social norms and other local determinants of behavior, we propose a framework organized along two axes that describe intervention context (situated interventions applied in the same context where the target behavior happens versus remote interventions that are applied away from that context) and type of normative information leveraged (interventions that provide summary information about a group versus interventions that expose participants to the opinions and behaviors of others). We also illustrate successful applications for each dimension, as well as the social, psychological and physical determinants of behavior that were leveraged to support change. Finally, based on our results, we discuss some of the elements and practical mechanisms that can be used by both researchers and practitioners to design more integral, effective and sustainable social norm intervention in the real world.This research project is possible thanks to the generous support of the International Labour Organization (Geneva Headquarters) as part of the “Practical Methods to Change Social Norms in Domestic Work” report by Paulius Yamin and Claire Hobden
Demographic Forecasts Using the Game Theory
No full textThis paper offers certain predictions concerning the demographic population of the cities Vilnius and Olsztyn. The authors used a method of analyzing and synthesizing data sources, and comparing the actual data with the forecast between the years 1997–2014. Each prediction was prepared in connection with its use in various areas of life, particularly for all studies involving spatial planning. The data collected on the basis of the forecasts were used by spatial planners to devise strategies for local development at the city, municipality, and provincial levels. In this sense, they created basic documents for the sustainable planning of space. The process of forecasting is a difficult and complex issue, and its accuracy determines both the choice of methods and the quality of the output. Our study sets out predictions concerning the demographic processes over the coming years in the two cities mentioned. Given that all long-range forecasts are characterized by high risk, especially taking into account the unstable political situation in Europe, the steadily deteriorating situation in the labor market and rising social discontent are of relevance, as they are causing the ongoing dynamics of the population to change, making statistical errors more likely and more serious. This has meant that organizations like Poland’s Central Statistical Office, Eurostat, and the United Nations have to adjust their demographic projections at least every two years, and the methods for making demographic forecasts which are used by governmental institutions have proven to be less than satisfactory. The main purpose of the article, therefore, is to present the authors’ method of making demographic projections by using elements of game theory. The results obtained in this method were compared with the results of the forecasting methods currently used by the governments of Poland and Lithuania. The developed method, based on the same input data and analogous coefficients, brings more probable results.This article belongs to the Special Issue Strategic Management toward a Sustainable Urbanization by Balancing the Utilization of Land and/or Water Resource
Implementation of convolutional neural networks in accelerating units for real-time image analysis
Get PDFMatomojo šviesos spektro vaizdų analizė įgalina intelektualiąsias sistemas gauti informaciją taip, kaip žmogus rega. Daugelyje sričių taikoma sąsūkos dirbtinių neuronų tinklais (SDNT) grįsta vaizdų analizė. Tačiau dėl didelės skaičiavimų apimties kyla sunkumų įgyvendinant įterptinėse sistemose lokaliai vykdomus SDNT grįstus algoritmus vaizdų analizei realiuoju laiku. Šiuo metu vaizdų analizei įterptinėse sistemose galima taikyti spartinančiuosius įrenginius, tačiau trūksta suderinamų SDNT elementų sąrašų ir SDNT pritaikymo spartinantiesiems įrenginiams įterptinėse sistemose metodikos.
Darbo tyrimų objektas – sąsūkos dirbtinių neuronų tinklai vaizdams analizuoti realiuoju laiku. Disertacijoje tiriami šie, su tiriamuoju objektų susiję dalykai: įgyvendinimas spartinančiuosiuose įrenginiuose ir projektavimo metodika.
Disertacijoje pateikiami vaizdams apdoroti skirtų SDNT įgyvendinimo tyrimai, kuriais remiantis sudarytas SDNT elementų sąrašas ir metodika, skirta SDNT pritaikymui įgyvendinti spartinančiuosiuose įrenginiuose pasirinktiems vaizdų analizės uždaviniams spręsti. Taip pat pateikiami dviejų taikymo sričių vaizdų analizės algoritmų, sukurtų taikant pasiūlytą elementų sąrašą ir metodiką, aprašymai. Viena iš sričių – žmogaus akies tinklainės vaizdų požymių aprašymas. Kita sritis – kelio dangos tipo ir būklės įvertinimas, analizuojant vaizdus iš automobilio priekyje sumontuotos vaizdo kameros.
Pagrindiniai disertacijos rezultatai yra paskelbti septyniuose moksliniuose straipsniuose recenzuojamuose mokslo leidiniuose: vienas straipsnis mokslo žurnale, referuojamame Clarivate Analytics Web of Science duomenų bazėje, turintis citavimo indeksą 1,524, vienas straipsnis mokslo žurnale, referuojamame Clarivate Analytics Web of Science duomenų bazėje, vienas straipsnis mokslo žurnale, referuojamame Index Copernicus duomenų bazėje, trys straipsniai tarptautinių konferencijų medžiagose, referuojamose Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Proceedings duomenų bazėje, vienas straipsnis konferencijos medžiagoje, referuojamoje kitose duomenų bazėse. Disertacijoje atliktų tyrimų rezultatai buvo pristatyti devyniose mokslinėse konferencijose Lietuvoje ir užsienyje.
Disertaciją sudaro įžanga, trys skyriai, bendrosios išvados, literatūros šaltinių sąrašas ir trys priedai.Disertacij
Metabolinės P sistemos įgyvendinimo lauku programuojamomis loginėmis matricomis tyrimas
Get PDFThe advancement in the fields of electronics and nature inspired computing, including metabolic P (MP) systems, presents new possible solutions to existing problems,however there are still no implementations of MP systems in field programmable gate arrays (FPGA). Therefore, in this work the problem of lack of knowledge about the quality of MP systems implementation in FPGA together with absence of implementation technique for multiple and effective MP systems is solved. The object of the research is specialized MP system implementations in FPGA that operate in real-time.
The main aspects of the research object investigated in the thesis are: implementation
quality and techniques.
The aim of the thesis is to offer original FPGA based MP system solutions by creating and investigating real-time metabolic process electronic system used for imitation and testing. In order to solve the stated problem and reach the aim of the thesis the following objectives are formulated: using theoretical results of MP systems and other best practices, offer original solutions for MP system transformation to FPGA structural elements and signal processing schemes; reveal quality characteristics of the transformation based on throughput, complexity and power consumption; create real-time metabolic process imitation and testing electronic system and perform its evaluation experiments.
The dissertation consists of an introduction, four chapters and general conclusions.The first chapter reveals the fundamental knowledge on nature inspired computing,MP system definition and application, and FPGA implementation quality estimation.In the second chapter the quality criteria of calculation accuracy, throughput,resource usage, power consumption and interface complexity are selected for the evaluation of MP system FPGA implementation. New combined MP system quality metric ant its visualisation is also proposed. In the third chapter the common FPGA implementation techniques are adapted for MP systems and new unified technique is proposed. The evaluation of the developed MP system implementations in FPGA is presented in the fourth chapter. The experiments consist of a single MP system implementation using three different techniques and a multiple MP system implementation using two new developed unified implementation techniques.
The main results of the thesis were published in 5 scientific publications: three of them were printed in peer-reviewed scientific journals, one of them in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science database, two articles – in conference proceedings. The research results were presented in 6 scientific conferences
A Systematic Literature Review on Image Captioning
Get PDFNatural language problems have already been investigated for around five years. Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has greatly improved the performance of models. However, the results are still not sufficiently satisfying. Machines cannot imitate human brains and the way they communicate, so it remains an ongoing task. Due to the increasing amount of information on this topic, it is very difficult to keep on track with the newest researches and results achieved in the image captioning field. In this study a comprehensive Systematic Literature Review (SLR) provides a brief overview of improvements in image captioning over the last four years. The main focus of the paper is to explain the most common techniques and the biggest challenges in image captioning and to summarize the results from the newest papers. Inconsistent comparison of results achieved in image captioning was noticed during this study and hence the awareness of incomplete data collection is raised in this paper. Therefore, it is very important to compare results of a newly created model produced with the newest information and not only with the state of the art methods. This SLR is a source of such information for researchers in order for them to be precisely correct on result comparison before publishing new achievements in the image caption generation field.This article belongs to the Section Computing and Artificial Intelligenc
Internet GIS-Based Multimodal Public Transport Trip Planning Information System for Travelers in Lithuania
No full textThe main purpose of this research is to present the developed VINTRA system, a comprehensive solution to a fully developed public transit system in Lithuania, and it is very important in encouraging travelers to use public transport. VINTRA is not simply a trip planner; it is capable of planning multimodal public transport trips, using different parameters in public transport trip planning. This system has the functionality to create and edit public transport route trajectories and to edit and calculate timetables according to the distance between stops. This research presents the public transport trip planning parameters procedure of the calculated walking route directions, integrated with the calculation results of public transit routes, as well as combining visualization in digital maps. This paper also discusses how route-planning systems could perform data exchange based on General Transit Feed Specification and how assessment of the public transport trip planning results, compared to the VINTRA system created with Google, was performed
Optical Dispersions of Bloch Surface Waves and Surface Plasmon Polaritons: Towards Advanced Biosensors
No full textThe total internal reflection ellipsometry (TIRE) method was used for the excitation and study of the sensitivity features of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) and Bloch surface waves (BSWs) resonances. For the BSWs generation distributed Bragg gratings were formed on the tops of the substrates (BK7 glass substrate), which had six bilayers of ~120 nm SiO2 and ~40 nm TiO2 and 40 nm of TiO2 on the top. The SPP sample consisted of the BK7 glass prism and a gold layer (45 nm). Numerical calculations of the optical dispersions and the experimental TIRE data have shown that SPP resonance overtake the BSWs in wavelength scanning by a factor of about 17. However, for the ellipsometric parameters Ψ and Δ in the vicinity of excitations, the BSW sensitivity is comparable with SPP. The obtained resolutions were ΔSPP=7.14×10−6RIU , ΨSPP=1.7×10−5RIU for the SPP and ΔBSW=8.7×10−6RIU , ΨBSW=2.7×10−5RIU for the BSW. The capabilities of both surface excitations are discussed from the sensitivity point of view in the design of these advanced biosensors.This article belongs to the Special Issue Multifunctional Nanostructured Silicon Composite
A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model to Choose the Best Option for Sustainable Construction Management
No full textThe article briefly discusses the content and terms of construction project management. It identifies the main problems of construction management and discusses ways to solve those using multi-criteria methods. Well-performed management is one of the critical factors which leads to the success of any significant sustainable project. Construction project management consists of setting goals and defining user requirements, project constraints, and resources needed. This paper aims to create a practically useful model. The paper presents a comprehensive set of criteria, which led to the creation of a decision-making model for construction management, which was applied to a Turkish case study. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and the Expert Choice computer program were used for calculations.This article belongs to the Special Issue Multi-Objective and Multi-Attribute Optimisation for Sustainable Development Decision Aidin
Research on Fuel Efficiency and Emissions of Converted Diesel Engine with Conventional Fuel Injection System for Operation on Natural Gas
No full textThis paper presents a study on the energy efficiency and emissions of a converted high-revolution bore 79.5 mm/stroke 95 mm engine with a conventional fuel injection system for operation with dual fuel feed: diesel (D) and natural gas (NG). The part of NG energy increase in the dual fuel is related to a significant deterioration in energy efficiency (ηi) , particularly when engine operation is in low load modes and was determined to be below 40% of maximum continuous rating. The effectiveness of the D injection timing optimisation was established in high engine load modes within the range of a co-combustion ratio of NG ≤ 0.4: with an increase in ηi , compared to D, the emissions of NOx+ HC decreased by 15% to 25%, while those of CO2 decreased by 8% to16%; the six-fold CO emission increase, up to 6 g/kWh, was unregulated. By referencing the indicated process characteristics of the established NG phase elongation in the expansion stroke, the combustion time increase as well as the associated decrease in the cylinder excess air ratio (α) are possible reasons for the increase in the incomplete combustion product emission.This article belongs to the Section Energy and Environmen
Research of the Energy Losses of Photovoltaic (PV) Modules after Hail Simulation Using a Newly-Created Testbed
No full textThe impact of hail ice cubes on composite structures (such as solar cells) causes actual defects. This article presents a series of tests, in which solar cell modules were exposed to hail simulation testbed balls, allowing to assess the following: the impact energy, which causes the major defects in solar cells; the formed micro-cracks in the structure of solar cells, resulting in the loss of power generated by a solar cell; and the solar cell parameters necessary for modelling. In addition, this article presents a digital analysis of hail simulation. Information received from the digital analysis was used to optimize the structure of solar cells in order to improve its resistance properties. The aim of this study was to present a simple method for experimental hail simulation. The proposed hail impact estimation method can be successfully applied to study the influence of the mechanical–dynamic impact of photovoltaic (PV) modules of different structures on the technical characteristics of these modules (structural stability, power generation, etc.). The study showed that PV modules are subjected to an irreversible effect of the excitation force (i.e., micro-cracking) and it can reduce the generated power by 2.33% to 4.83%.This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Solar Collecto