Photography, as the most powerful means of tourist propaganda and one of the strongest stimulants for travelling, has been developing almost parallel with tourist movements, continually interlacing over the time. The rapid development of photographic and marketing technology has led to the fact that today an image of every tourist destination is easily accessible for everyone. Therefore, in modern means of communication there are a number of different visual depictions of each single photographed space. Majority of those images represent ?photogenic? and groomed spaces, while undesirable sights are missing, for the sake of commercial tourist market demand.In a form of an experimental research, photos containing slum images and other realistic representations of popular tourist destinations were selected and displayed to respondents, followed by questions related to their subjective opinions, emotions and intentions to visit or know more about. The aim of this paper is to contribute to tourism and anthropological research by pointing out that representing a destination as a commodity may harm the overall tourist impressions, unless we consider a non-commercial photography as a potential medium to promote a tourist destination in a more realistic way, and thus inspire the desire for traveling in order to meet local culture and experience a real ?spirit? of a destination.

Vulnerabilidades podem comprometer as propriedades de segurança de um sistema quando adequadamente exploradas por um atacante. Uma alternativa para mitigar este risco é a implementação de sistemas tolerantes a intrusões. Uma abordagem muito utilizada para estas implementações é a replicação Máquina de Estados (RME). Porém, as soluções existentes não suportam diversidade na implementação das réplicas, de forma que um mesmo ataque pode comprometer todo o sistema. Neste sentido, este trabalho propõe uma arquitetura para fornecer suporte à diversidade de implementação em RMEs e mostra como a mesma foi integrada no BFT-SMART. Um conjunto de experimentos mostra o comportamento prático das soluções propostas.

Common reference values of arterial stiffness indices could be effective screening tool in detecting vascular phenotypes at risk. However, populations of the same ethnicity may differ in vascular phenotype due to different environmental pressure. We examined applicability of normative equations for central augmentation index (cAIx) derived from Danish population with low cardiovascular risk on the corresponding Croatian population from the Mediterranean area. Disagreement between measured and predicted cAIx was assessed by Bland-Altman analysis. Both, cAIx-age distribution and normative equation fitted on Croatian data were highly comparable to Danish low-risk sample. Contrarily, Bland-Altman analysis of cAIx disagreement revealed a curvilinear deviation from the line of full agreement indicating that the equations were not equally applicable across age ranges. Stratification of individual data into age decades eliminated curvilinearity in all but the 30–39 (men) and 40–49 (women) decades. In other decades, linear disagreement independent of age persisted indicating that cAIx determinants other than age were not envisaged/compensated for by proposed equations. Therefore, established normative equations are equally applicable to both Nordic and Mediterranean populations but are of limited use. If designed for narrower age ranges, the equations’ sensitivity in detecting vascular phenotypes at risk and applicability to different populations could be improved.

Laboratory-acquired infections due to a variety of bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi have been described over the last century, and laboratory workers are at risk of exposure to these infectious agents. However, reporting laboratory-associated infections has been largely voluntary, and there is no way to determine the real number of people involved or to know the precise risks for workers. In this study, an international survey based on volunteering was conducted in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories to determine the number of laboratory-acquired infections and the possible underlying causes of these contaminations. The analysis of the survey reveals that laboratory-acquired infections have been infrequent and even rare in recent years, and human errors represent a very high percentage of the cases. Today, most risks from biological hazards can be reduced through the use of appropriate procedures and techniques, containment devices and facilities, and the training of personnel.

In this paper, we propose a solution to an AC state estimation problem in electric power systems using a fully distributed Gauss-Newton method. The proposed method is placed within the context of factor graphs and belief propagation algorithms and closed-form expressions for belief propagation messages exchanged along the factor graph are derived. The obtained algorithm provides the same solution as the conventional weighted least-squares state estimation. Using a simple example, we provide a step-by-step presentation of the proposed algorithm. Finally, we discuss the convergence behaviour using the IEEE 14 bus test case.

In this paper, we model an extended DC state estimation (SE) in an electric power system as a factor graph (FG) and solve it using belief propagation (BP) algorithm. The DC model comprises bus voltage angles as state variables, while the extended DC model includes bus voltage angles and bus voltage magnitudes as state variables. By applying BP to solve the SE problem in the extended DC model, we obtain a Gaussian BP scenario for which we derive closed-form expressions for BP messages exchanged along the FG. The performance of the BP algorithm is demonstrated for the IEEE 14 bus test case. Finally, the application of BP algorithm on the extended DC scenario provides significant insights into a fundamental structure of BP equations in more complex models such as the AC model - the topic we will investigate in our follow up work. As a side-goal of this paper, we aim at thorough and detailed presentation on applying BP on the SE problem in order to make the powerful BP algorithm more accessible and applicable within the power-engineering community.

The proven safe operation and the high availability of aerial ropeways is mainly thanks to their design. This is based on the manufacturer’s extensive experience as well as the strict application of the relevant rules and norms. In that regard, this paper describes an analysis of the haulage ropes on ropeways in case of accidental loads. In solving this problem, analyzed ropeway system with sufficient accuracy was modeled as a system with three degrees of freedom. For solving differential equations we have used the software “Wolfram Mathematica”. At the end of the paper, we discuss the results of the dynamic forces in the haulage ropes in a certain time interval, and the results of the safety factors which in this case are sufficient to ensure reliable operation of the system.

Marketing of fuel wood is an important source of livelihood for most parts of Nigeria. The study examined the economics of marketing of wood fuel in south western Nigeria with a view to determine the socio-economic characteristics of the marketers, the profitability of marketing wood fuel, the market structure and constraints to profitability. Data for the study were obtained from a total sample of 100 randomly selected wood fuel marketers through interviews schedules and application of structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the marketers. Cash analysis was used to determine the profitability of the enterprise while Gini-coefficient was used to examine the markets’ concentration. The result showed that majority of the marketers was in their active years as 51% were between 21-40 years of age. 71% were female while 56% of them were married. Most of the marketers (76%) had formal education and were well experienced in the business. Cash analysis revealed that marketing of wood fuel is profitable with an average Gross margin of 21,190.65 naira per month. The marketing efficiency was found to be 128% and the rate of return on investment was 28% which indicates that for every 100 naira investment in the business, the marketers will enjoy a return of 28 naira. The value of Gini-Coefficient (0.393) indicates high level of market concentration and inefficiency in the market structure. Transportation was the greatest constraint to the business profitability followed by season of the year and government policy.

Intelligent Transportation Systems rely on understanding, predicting and affecting the interactions between vehicles. The goal of this paper is to choose a small subset from the larger set so that the resulting regression model is simple, yet have good predictive ability for Vehicle agent speed relative to Vehicle intruder. The method of ANFIS (adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system) was applied to the data resulting from these measurements. The ANFIS process for variable selection was implemented in order to detect the predominant variables affecting the prediction of agent speed relative to intruder. This process includes several ways to discover a subset of the total set of recorded parameters, showing good predictive capability. The ANFIS network was used to perform a variable search. Then, it was used to determine how 9 parameters (Intruder Front sensors active (boolean), Intruder Rear sensors active (boolean), Agent Front sensors active (boolean), Agent Rear sensors active (boolean), RSSI signal intensity/strength (integer), Elapsed time (in seconds), Distance between Agent and Intruder (m), Angle of Agent relative to Intruder (angle between vehicles °), Altitude difference between Agent and Intruder (m)) influence prediction of agent speed relative to intruder. The results indicated that distance between Vehicle agent and Vehicle intruder (m) and angle of Vehicle agent relative to Vehicle Intruder (angle between vehicles °) is the most influential parameters to Vehicle agent speed relative to Vehicle intruder.