Marketing is one of the important stages, the decisive factor affecting the success of production and business activities of every business. Therefore, marketing is considered to be the first and most important stage in the process of introducing, bringing products to market and branding of businesses, especially in the period when the disease situation is taking place very complicated worldwide. This study provides both qualitative and quantitative results for the following research objectives. Firstly, the study will assess the situation and analyze the appropriateness of marketing models in the current market situation trend. Secondly, the study proposes an approach in building a new type of marketing model, which is 3D web-based marketing applied in e-commerce to support the modeling of enterprise products in the form of Interactive 3D products are similar to real products. Thirdly, testing and evaluating 3D e-commerce web marketing model at Truong Hai Auto Showroom, Thai Nguyen City branch. This study also proposes a number of solutions for the research and deployment of 3D web marketing model application for businesses in the current market situation.

Nutritional limitations may shape populations and communities of organisms. This phenomenon is often studied by treating populations and communities as pools of homogenous individuals with average nutritional optima and experiencing average constraints and trade-offs that influence their fitness in a standardized way. However, populations and communities consist of individuals belonging to different sexes, each with specific nutritional demands and limitations. Taking this into account, we used the ecological stoichiometry framework to study sexual differences in the stoichiometric phenotypes, reflecting stoichiometric niches, of four spider taxa differing in hunting mode. The species and sexes differed fundamentally in their elemental phenotypes, including elements beyond those most commonly studied (C, N and P). Both species and sexes were distinguished by the C:N ratio and concentrations of Cu, K and Zn. Species additionally differed in concentrations of Na, Mg and Mn. Phosphorous was not involved in this differentiation. Sexual dimorphism in spiders’ elemental phenotypes, related to differences in their stoichiometric niches, suggests different nutritional optima and differences in nutritional limitation experienced by different sexes and species. This may influence the structure and functioning of spider populations and communities.

Molecular causal interactions are defined as regulatory connections between biological components. They are commonly retrieved from biological experiments, and can be used for connecting biological molecules into regulatory computational models that represent biological systems. However, including a molecular causal interaction into a model requires assessing its relevance to that model, based on detailed knowledge about the biomolecules, interaction type, and biological context. In order to standardize the representation of this knowledge in ‘causal statements’, we recently developed the MI2CAST guidelines. Here we introduce causalBuilder: an intuitive web-based curation interface for the annotation of molecular causal interactions that comply with the MI2CAST standard. The causalBuilder prototype essentially embeds the MI2CAST curation guidelines in its interface, and makes its rules easy to follow by a curator. In addition, causalBuilder serves as an original application of the VSM general-purpose curation technology, and provides both curators and tool developers with an interface that can be fully configured to allow focusing on selected MI2CAST concepts to annotate. After information is entered, the causalBuilder prototype produces genuine causal statements that can be exported in different formats.

Drug design is used for different applications of bioinformatics tools analyze DNA, genome, and sequence target region of a small organic molecule in order to understand the molecules of disease. Bioinformatics tools are identified a newly wide research field and minimize future risks through web servers and data mining. Clinical sample test performed with the bioinformatics tools as the biomedical detective. A particular structure and configuration of protein obliging in Drug design concluded Bioinformatics. This review bioinformatics tools and webserver will discuss functions of small organic molecules according to clinical pharmacology.

This article shows the numerical results and the analysis of households' degree of knowledge in an intermediary city such as Huelva (Andalusia, Spain) about the sustainable use of urban water. It analyzes the needs and values regarding water and the attitudes that households maintain regarding the acceptance of reclaimed water and the use of new technologies to achieve more efficient and sustainable consumption. These results are part of the stages of needfinding and synthesis of Design Thinking methodology, adopted as a framework to improve the efficiency and sustainability of urban water among households in this city. Different statistical analysis techniques of surveys sent to households and the use of clustering are the mathematical tools used to draw conclusions and recommendations that allow the design of a web-based prototype grounded on Product Service Systems methodology, as a tool to improve the engagement of households concerning water and align citizens with the sustainability of their city. Strategies of customization and technological facilitators will be the means to improve the hydrosocial contract among households in Huelva in future later stages of the project.

As the amount of sensor data made available online increases, it becomes more difficult for users to identify useful datasets. Semantic web technologies improve discovery with meaningful ontologies, but the decision of suitability remains with the users. The GEO label provides a visual summary of the standardised metadata to aid users in this process. This work presents novel rules for deriving the information for the GEO label's multiple facets, such as user feedback or quality information, based on the Semantic Sensor Network Ontology and related ontologies. It enhances an existing implementation of the GEO label API to generate labels for resources of the Semantic Sensor Web. The prototype is deployed to serverless cloud infrastructures. We find that serverless GEO label generation is capable of handling two evaluation scenarios for concurrent users and burst generation. More real-world semantic sensor descriptions and an integration into large scale discovery platforms are needed to develop the presented solutions further.

Summary CoV-GLUE is an online web application for the interpretation and analysis of SARS-CoV-2 virus genome sequences, with a focus on amino acid sequence variation. It is based on the GLUE data-centric bioinformatics environment and provides a browsable database of amino acid replacements and coding region indels that have been observed in sequences from the pandemic. Users may also analyse their own SARS-CoV-2 sequences by submitting them to the web application to receive an interactive report containing visualisations of phylogenetic classification and highlighting genomic variation of potentially high impact, for example linked to primer mismatches.Availability and implementation Available at http://cov-glue.cvr.gla.ac.uk. Implemented using GLUE, an open source framework for the development of virus sequence data resources. Contact josh.singer@glasgow.ac.uk

Active participation of students is paramount not only for their learning experiences but also for their academic performance. Therefore, various methods have been developed and proven to help students achieve active learning. However, several shortcomings in these methods have been indicated as increasing students’ sense of burden and discomfort, eventually preventing them from benefiting sufficiently. This study aimed to determine the efficiency of a low-load web-based review quiz built by the researchers on Google Forms to enhance students’ reviewing habits and active class participation. Participants in this study were 53 first-year dental hygiene students in a 10-class microbiology course. After each class, all students were given the web-based quiz to prepare for a paper-based review test, which assessed the learning of the content covered in the previous classes. We analyzed the correlations between frequency of participation in the web-based quiz and the average scores of the weekly review tests or the final examination scores. Consequently, voluntary participation in the web-based quiz positively correlated with both short-term and long-term students’ learning outcomes. Through this web-based quiz during the first year of the dental hygiene program, students can develop the “self-learning attitude” needed to pass the national examination.

At least 15% of the population in the world has some type of disability. Unfortunately, this population has the problem of facing various accessibility barriers, to which technological barriers are also added. One of the most relevant obstacles is the one that arises as a result of the development of the technology itself when using the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Therefore, the objective of this article is to review the main uses of the Semantic Web tools and to group them together in order to be able to propose the design and construction of more personalized and flexible systems, which allows to help people with disabilities to perform some type of activity using ICT, in this way, knowledge can be modeled in different domains related to people who have some type of disability, using ontologies, and some ontological models can be reused for various types of disability depending on the case study. The usefulness of this study is to reveal that with the models presented, it is possible to construct a Meta ontology that includes some or all areas of disability.

The continuous increase in tuition fees in university education in many countries requires justification by the university authorities through improved learning resources that can guarantee employment opportunities for the students through hands-on industry training. This paper describes the design of curriculum of cloud computing module in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Academy to include industry-based practical hands-on labs in the curriculum to improve the employability of Internet of Things (IoT) engineering students. This study introduces industry best practices and hands-on labs in cloud computing and discovered that students’ understanding and learning experience in the subject increase when exposed to real-life applications. The study blends academic theories in cloud computing with their applications as obtained in industry to enable students to have both the theoretical and practical skills that will prepare them for careers in cloud computing. To achieve this, cloud computing lecturers were trained by AWS Academy as a prerequisite to ensure that the tutors themselves acquire hands-on proficiency in cloud computing technologies. The study finds that students tend to be more engaged and learn better when academic theories and concepts are combined with real-world applications as obtained in the industry.

Interactive Planning Support Systems (PSS) implemented on a maptable are deemed suitable to support participatory planning processes. Through their interactive nature and user-friendly interface they are supposed to facilitate exchange of knowledge between stakeholders, consensus building among them, group learning processes, and thereby strengthen participation. We analyze in this systematic review, based on 16 case studies using interactive PSS, how such PSS have contributed to the goal of strengthening stakeholder participation. Results show that tools and applications have become more sophisticated in recent years and the goals of the studies changed from collaboratively designing interventions to observing and understanding how the application of such tools contributes to improved plan outcomes and group based learning. However, many case studies lack a proper framework and operationalization for investigating the impacts of the tools and applications on participation. Consequently, impacts on participation are assessed rather incidentally based on implicit assumptions and often no distinction is made between the different aspects of participation. In conclusion, further theoretical studies conceptualizing impacts of interactive PSS on participation are needed as well as empirical studies testing these impacts in real world case contexts with various groups of stakeholders.

Visualization is an essential tool for analysis of data and communication of findings in the sciences, and the Earth System Science (ESS) are no exception. However, within ESS specialized visualization requirements and data models --- particularly for those data arising from numerical models --- often make general-purpose visualization packages difficult, if not impossible, to effectively use. This paper presents VAPOR: a domain-specific visualization package that targets the specialized needs of ESS modelers, particularly those working in research settings where highly interactive exploratory visualization is beneficial. We specifically describe VAPOR’s ability to handle ESS simulation data from a wide variety of numerical models, as well as a multi-resolution representation that enables interactive visualization on very large data while using only commodity computing resources. We also describe VAPOR’s visualization capabilities, paying particular attention to features for geo-referenced data and advanced rendering algorithms suitable for time-varying, 3D data. Finally, we illustrate VAPOR's utility in the study of a numerically simulated tornado. Our results demonstrate both ease-of-use and the rich capabilities of VAPOR in such a use case.

Resource Description Framework(RDF) is a data representation format of the Semantic Web, and its data volume is growing rapidly. Cloud-based systems provide a rich platform for managing RDF data. However, the distributed environment has performance challenges when it is processing with RDF queries that contain multiple join operations, such as network reshuffle, memory overhead. To get over these challenges, this paper proposed a spark-based RDF query architecture, which is based on Semantic Connection Set (SCS). First of all, this spark-based query architecture adopts the mechanism of re-partitioning class data based on vertical partitioning, which can reduce memory overhead and fast index data. Secondly, a method for generating query plans based on semantic connection sets is proposed in this paper. In addition, statistics and broadcast variable optimization strategies are used to reduce shuffling and data communication costs. The experiment of this paper is based on the latest SPARQLGX on the spark platform RDF system, two synthetic benchmarks are used to evaluate the query. The experiment result illustrates that the proposed approach in this paper is more efficient in data search than SPARQLGX.

1) Background: The use of linked data in Semantic Web are promising approaches to add value to nutrition research. An ontology, which defines the logical relationships between well-defined taxonomic terms, enables linking and harmonizing research output. To enable the description of domain-specific output in nutritional epidemiology, we propose the Ontology for Nutritional Epidemiology (ONE) according to authoritative guidance for nutritional epidemiologic research; 2) Methods: First, a scoping review was conducted to identify existing ontology terms for reuse in ONE. Second, existing data standards and manuscript reporting guidelines for nutritional epidemiology were converted into ontology, and the terms used in the standards were summarized and listed separately in a taxonomic hierarchy. Third, the ontologies of the nutritional epidemiologic standards, reporting guidelines and the core concepts were gathered in ONE. Three case studies were illustrated for its potential applications. (i) annotation of existing manuscripts and data, (ii) ontology-based inference, and (iii) estimation of reporting completeness in a sample of nine manuscripts; 3) Results: Ontologies for “food and nutrition” (n=33), “disease and special population” (n=86), “data description” (n=21), “research description” (n=32) and “supplementary (meta) data description” (n=44) were reviewed and listed. ONE consists of 339 classes (79 new classes to describe nutrition data and 24 new classes to describe the content of nutrition manuscripts). The case studies demonstrated the application of ONE. 4) Conclusion: ONE is a resource to automate data integration, searching and browsing, and can be used to assess reporting completeness in nutritional epidemiology.

Present study offers mathematical calculations of the roll-coating procedure lubricated with upper Convected Maxwell Fluid. An incompressible isothermal viscoelastic fluid is considered with roll and the porous web having uniform velocities. By employing Lubrication Approximation Theory, the desired equations of motion for the fluid concerned over porous web are modelled and analyzed. The suction rate on the web and injection rate at the roll surface are anticipated proportionate. Results for velocity profile and pressure gradient are obtained analytically. Fluid parameters of industrial significance i.e. detachment point, pressure, sheet /roll separating force, power contribution and coating thickness are also calculated numerically. Substantial and monotonic increase is witnessed in these quantities with the increase of flow parameters.

If students do not fully apply themselves, then they may be considered responsible for the result of being inadequately prepared. +- Nevertheless, student outcomes are more likely to reflect a combination of both effort and systematic problems with overall course architecture. Deficiencies in course design result in inadequate preparation that adversely and directly impacts students’ productivity upon entering the workforce. Such an impact negatively influences students' ability to maintain gainful employment and provide for their families, which inevitably contributes to the development of issues concerning their psychological well-being. It is well-documented that incorporating active learning strategies in course design and delivery can enhance student learning outcomes. Despite the benefit of implementing active learning techniques, rarely in the real world will it be possible for techniques to be used in isolation of one another. Therefore, the purpose of this proposed study is to determine the interactive effects of two active learning strategies because, at a minimum, technique-pairs more accurately represent the application of active learning in the natural educational setting. There is a paucity of evidence in the literature directed toward investigating the interactive effects of multiple active learning techniques that this study is aimed at filling. The significance of this research is that, by determining the interactive effects of paired active learning strategies, other research studies on the beneficial effects of using particular active learning technique-pairs will be documented contributing to the literature so that ultimately classroom instruction may be customized according to the determination of optimal sequencing of strategy-pairs for particular courses, subjects, and desired outcomes that maximize student learning.

As education becomes more and more important in creating improved societies, many people who do not have access to it are falling behind. To help them catch up, many people, especially those in rural areas and developing countries, are turning to different methods of self-learning, especially those that utilize cheap technology and use interactive methods to teach. Our empirical study tests the effectiveness of an e-learning system that utilizes newer, less tested forms of interactivity and could potentially be used in these areas as a self-learning system and compares it to non-interactive video and textbook self-learning in two different topics. The results of the experiment showed that the increased interactivity provided by the e-learning system achieved significantly better learning performance over both non-interactive video and textbook self-learning. It was also found that students who learned through non-interactive video performed significantly better than those who used textbooks for self-learning.

In recent years, Web APIs have become a de facto standard for exchanging machine-readable data on the Web. Despite this success though, they often fail in making resource descriptions interoperable due to the fact that they rely on proprietary vocabularies that lack formal semantics. The Linked Data principles similarly seek the massive publication of data on the Web, yet with the specific goal of ensuring semantic interoperability. Given their complementary goals, it is commonly admitted that cross-fertilization could stem from the automatic combination of Linked Data and Web APIs. Towards this goal, in this paper we leverage the micro-service architectural principles to define a SPARQL Micro-Service architecture, aimed at querying Web APIs using SPARQL. A SPARQL micro-service is a lightweight SPARQL endpoint that provides access to a small, resource-centric, virtual graph. In this context, we argue that full SPARQL Query expressiveness can be supported efficiently without jeopardizing servers availability. Furthermore, we demonstrate how this architecture can be used to dynamically assign dereferenceable URIs to Web API resources that do not have URIs beforehand, thus literally ``bringing'' Web APIs into the Web of Data. We believe that the emergence of an ecosystem of SPARQL micro-services published by independent providers would enable Linked Data-based applications to easily glean pieces of data from a wealth of distributed, scalable and reliable services. We describe a working prototype implementation and we finally illustrate the use of SPARQL micro-services in the context of two real-life use cases related to the biodiversity domain, developed in collaboration with the French National Museum of Natural History.

Supermedia streams transfer video, audio, haptic and other sensory data. Real -time transfering of supermedia streams over the Internet is quite challenging. This paper outlines the proposed protocols for transferring supermedia streams over the Internet. Moreover, it describes the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for supermedia applications that a network has to fulfill. Extensive simulations and experiments for the performance evaluation of transport protocols for real time transferring HEVC streams with supermedia data are carried out. Complements, differences and relevancies between simulation and real world experiments are discussed. The metrics that are measured for the performance evaluation are delay, jitter, throughput, efficiency, packet loss and one proposed by the authors, packet arrival deviation. The simulation tests reveal which protocols could be used for the transfer of real-time supermedia data with a HEVC video stream.

We present a methodology to enable users to interact with statistical information owned by an institution and stored in a cloud infrastructure. Mainly based on R, this approach was developed following the open-data philosophy. Also, since we use R, the implementation is mainly based on open-source software. R gives several advantages from the point of view of data management and acquisition, as it becomes a common framework that can be used to structure the processes involved in any statistical operation. This simplifies the access to the data and enable to use all the power of R in the cloud information. This methodology was applied successfully to develop a tool to manage the data of the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió, but it can be applied to other institutions to enable open access to its data. The infrastructure also was deployed to a cloud infrastructure, to assure the scalability and a 24/7 access.

The nature of contemporary Spatial Data Infrastructures lies in the provision of geospatial information in an on-demand fashion. Though recent applications identified the need to react to real-time information in a time-critical way. In particular, research efforts in the field of geospatial Internet of Things have identified substantial gaps in this context, ranging from a lack of standardization for event-based architectures to the meaningful handling of real-time information as ''events''. This manuscript presents work in the field of Event-driven Spatial Data Infrastructures with a particular focus on sensor networks and the devices capturing in-situ measurements. The current landscape of Spatial Data Infrastructures is outlined and used as the basis for identifying existing gaps that retain certain geospatial applications from using real-time information. We present a selection of approaches - developed in different research projects - to overcome these gaps. Being designed for specific application domains, these approaches share commonalities as well as orthogonal solutions and can build the foundation of an overall Event-driven Spatial Data Infrastructure.

Wikipedia, as "social machine", is a privileged place to observe the collective construction of concepts without central control. Based on Dahlberg's theory of concept, and anchored in the pragmatism of Hjørland - in which the concepts are socially negotiated meanings - the evolution of the concept of Semantic Web (SW) was analyzed in the English version of Wikipedia. An exploratory, descriptive and qualitative study was designed and we identified 26 different definitions (between 7-12-2001 and 12/31/2017) of which 8 are of particular relevance for their duration, with the latter being the two recorded at the end of the analyzed period. According to them, SW: "is a extension of the web"and "is a Web of Data"; the latter, used as a complementary definition, links to Berners-Lee's publications. In Wikipedia, the evolution of the SW concept appears to be based on the search for the use of non-technical vocabulary and the control of authority carried out by the debate. As a space for collective bargaining of meanings, the Wikipedia study may bring relevant contributions to a community's understanding of a particular concept and how it evolves over time.

The main restriction of the Semantic Web is the difficult of the SPARQL language, that is necessary to extract information from the Knowledge Representation also known as ontology. Making the Semantic Web accessible for people who do not know SPARQL, is essential the use of friendlier interfaces and a good alternative is Natural Language. This paper shows the implementation of a friendly prototype interface to query and retrieve, by voice, information from website building with the Semantic Web tools. In that way, the end users avoid the complicated SPARQL language. To achieve this, the interface recognizes a speech query and converts it into text, it processes the text through a java program and identifies keywords, generates a SPARQL query, extracts the information from the website and read it in voice, for the user. In our work Google Cloud Speech API makes Speech-to-Text conversions and Text-to Speech conversions are made with SVOX Pico. As results, we have measured three variables: The success rate in queries, the response time of query and a usability survey. The values of the variables allows the evaluation of our prototype. Finally the interface proposed provides us a new approach in the problem, using the Cloud like a Service, reducing barriers of access to the Semantic Web for people without technical knowledge of Semantic Web technologies.

This paper presents a method for a decentralised peer-to-peer software license validation system using cryptocurrency blockchain technology to ameliorate software piracy, and to provide a mechanism for software developers to protect copyrighted works. Protecting software copyright has been an issue since the late 1970's and software license validation has been a primary method employed in an attempt to minimise software piracy and protect software copyright. The method described creates an ecosystem in which the rights and privileges of participants are observed.

Semantic Web technologies are being increasingly adopted by the geospatial community during last decade through the utilization of open standards for expressing and serving geospatial data. This was also dramatically assisted by an ever increasing access and usage of geographic mapping and location-based services via smart devices in people’s daily activities. In this paper we explore the developmental framework of a pure Javascript client-side GIS platform exclusively based on invocable geospatial Web services. We also extend Javascript utilization on the server side by deploying a node server acting as a bridge between open source WPS libraries and popular geoprocessing engines. The vehicle for such an exploration is a cross platform Web browser capable of interpreting Javascript commands to achieve interaction with geospatial providers. The tool is a generic Web interface providing capabilities of acquiring spatial datasets, composing layouts and applying geospatial processes. In an ideal form the end-user will have to identify those services, which satisfy a geo-related need and put them in the appropriate row. The final output may act as a potential collector of freely available geospatial web services. Its server-side components may exploit geospatial processing suppliers composing that way a light-weight fully transparent open Web GIS platform.

The mental workload induced by a Web page is essential for improving the user’s browsing experience. However, continuously assessing the mental workload during a browsing task is challenging. In order to face this issue, this paper leverages the correlation between stimuli and physiological responses, which are measured with high-frequency, non-invasive psychophysiological sensors during very short span windows. An experiment was conducted to identify levels of mental workload through the analysis of pupil dilation measured by an eye-tracking sensor. In addition, a method was developed to classify real-time mental workload by appropriately combining different signals (electrodermal activity (EDA), electrocardiogram, photoplethysmography (PPG), electroencephalogram (EEG), temperature and eye gaze) obtained with non-invasive psychophysiological sensors. The results show that the Web browsing task involves on average four levels of mental workload. Also, by combining EEG with the PPG and EDA, the accuracy of the classification reaches 95.73 %.

Spatio-temporal aspects of data lead to critical information. Sensors capture data at all scales continually so it is imperative that useful information be extracted ubiquitously and regularly. Location plays a vital part by helping understand relations between datasets. It is crucial to link developmental works with spatial attributes and current challenge is to create an open platform that manages real-time sensor data and provides critical spatial analytics atop expert domain knowledge provided in the system. That is a two-faced problem where the solution tackles not only data from multiple sources but also runs data management platform, a spatial data infrastructure(SDI) as backbone framework able to harness sensor web(SW). The paper proposes development of such a globally shared open spatial expert system(ES), SmaCiSENS, a first of a kind geo-enabled knowledge based(KB) ES for multiple fields, smarter cities to climate modeling. SmaCiSENS is integration of SW and SDI with domain KB on data and problems, ready to infer solutions. The paper describes an architecture for semantic enablement for SW, SDI; connect interfaces, functions of SDI and SW, and sensor data application program interfaces (APIs) to better manage climate modeling, geohazard, global changes, and other vital areas of attention and action.

The experiences gathered during the past 30 years support the operational use of irrigation scheduling based on frequent multi-spectral image data. Currently, the operational use of dense time series of multispectral imagery at high spatial resolution makes monitoring of crop biophysical parameters feasible, capturing crop water use across the growing season, with suitable temporal and spatial resolutions. These achievements, and the availability of accurate forecasting of meteorological data, allow for precise predictions of crop water requirements with unprecedented spatial resolution. This information is greatly appreciated by the end users, i.e. professional farmers or decision-makers, and can be provided in an easy-to-use manner and in near-real-time by using the improvements achieved in web-GIS methodologies. This paper reviews the most operational and explored methods based on optical remote sensing for the assessment of crop water requirements, identifying strengths and weaknesses and proposing alternatives to advance towards full operational application of this methodology. In addition, we provide a general overview of the tools which facilitates co-creation and collaboration with stakeholders, paying special attention to these approaches based on web-GIS tools.

With the proliferation of locating devices, more and more raw spatial trajectories are formed, and many works enrich these raw trajectories with semantics, and mine patterns from both raw and semantic trajectories, but access control of spatial trajectories is not considered yet. We present a multi-policy secure model for semantic spatial trajectories. In our model, Mandatory Access Control, Role Based Access Control and Discretionary Access control are all enforced, separately and combined, and we represent the model semi-formally in Ontology Web Language.

Web-Based GIS is a platform that deals with the representation, management and storage of locational information for real-time online retrieval, viewing and manipulations. Web-based GIS incorporate all the functions of information systems: gathering, storing, retrieving, visualizing and dissemination of spatial information on the Internet. In modern-day GIS serve as vital means to not only geo-referenced locational information that are been retrieved but also the development in web-based technologies as well as there involvements in decision making processes. In recent time the increased used of GIS on the Internet have totally transformed and made three distinct changes across our GIS environment. These are: (i) how are GIS data being accessed (ii) what are modes of its transmission and (iii) what available GIS functionalities are within the environment for analysis. This paper examines the applications and technologies associated with web-based GIS architectures with an emphasis on the internet GIS based structure and case studies of GIS Web-based applications in MapInfo, Microsoft Silverlight Technology and the ArcGIS Server using ArcGIS JavaScript API.

Crash prediction of the sharp horizontal curve segment (SHCS) of a freeway is an important tool in analyzing safety of SHCSs and in building a crash prediction model (CPM). The design and crash report data of 88 SHCSs from different institutions were surveyed and three negative binomial (NB) regression models and three generalized negative binomial (GNB) regression models were built to prove that the interactive influence of explanatory variables plays an important role in fitting goodness. The study demonstrates the effective use of the GNB model in analyzing the interactive influence of explanatory variables and in predicting freeway basic segments. Traffic volume, highway horizontal radius, and curve length have been formulated as explanatory variables. Subsequently, we performed statistical analysis to determine the model parameters and conducted sensitivity analysis. Among the six models, the result of model 6, which considered interactive influence, is much better than those of the other models by fitting rules. We also compared the actual results from crashes of 88 SHCSs with those predicted by models 1, 3, and 6. Results demonstrate that model 6 is much more reasonable than models 1 and 3.

Prestressed concrete sleepers (or railroad ties) are principally designed in order to carry wheel loads from the rails to the ground of railway tracks. Their design takes into account static and dynamic loading conditions. In spite of the most common use of the prestressed concrete crossties in railway tracks, there have always been many demands from rail engineers to improve serviceability and functionality of concrete crossties. For example, signaling, fiber optic, equipment cables are often damaged either by ballast corners or by tamping machine. There has been a need to re-design concrete crosstie to cater cables internally so that they would not experience detrimental or harsh environments. Also, many concrete crossties need a retrofit for automatic train control device and similar signaling equipment. In contrast, the effects of holes and web openings on structural capacity of concrete crossties have not been thoroughly investigated. This paper accordingly highlights the effect of holes and web openings on the toughness and ductility of concrete crossties. The outcome of this research enables better decision making process for retrofiting prestressed concrete crossties with holes and web opening in practice.