Search results for: grammatical units

Authors: M. Yaqoob, C. S. O’Neill, S. Faraj, C. L. O’Neill

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This paper presents the preliminary findings from a study exploring nurse’s contributions to end of life decisions and to the care of dying patients in ICU units in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The process of dying is complex as medical clinicians are frequently unable to say with certainty when death will occur. It is generally accepted that end of life care begins when it is possible to know that death is imminent. Nurses do not make medical treatment decisions when caring for a dying patient. There are, however, many other types of decisions made when a patient is approaching the end of life and nurses are either formally or informally part of these decision making processes. This study explored nurses care practices at the end of life, in two ICU units in large hospitals in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The research design was a grounded theory approach. Ten nurses participated, six of whom were Bahraini nationals and four were Indian. A core category death avoidance talk was supported by three major subcategories, degrees of involvement in decision making; signalling and creating an awareness of death; care shifting from dying patients to family. Despite nurses asserting that they carried out the orders of doctors and had no role in decision making processes at end of life this study showed that there were degrees of nurse involvement. Doctors frequently discussed the patient’s clinical condition with nurses and also sought information regarding the family. Information about the family was of particular relevance if the doctor was considering a DNR order, which the nurses equated with dying. Families were not always informed when a DNR decision was made. When families were not informed the nurses engaged in sophisticated rituals signalling and creating awareness to family members that the death of their loved one was near. This process also involved a subtle shifting of care from the dying patient to the family. This seminar paper will focus particularly on how nurses signal and create an awareness of death in an ICU setting. The findings suggest that despite the avoidance of death talk in the ICU nurses indirectly convey and create an awareness that death is near to family members.

Keywords: decision making, dying patients, end of life, intensive care unit

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Authors: Hsin-Hsin Chang, Jann-Tay Wang, Wang-Huei Sheng

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Background: Hospital-associated infections (HAIs) have significant medical and social resource consumption. In view of medical technology change rapidly and the prolonged average life expectancy, the patients' chances of receiving invasive medical devices have also increased. As well as the potential disease of the patients, the aging, and immune dysfunction makes the disease more serious, raising the risk of HAIs. In our adult intensive care units, catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) have an average of 4.6% in 2014, which is much higher than that of the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). Therefore, we started the intervention of CAUTI bundle care. Methods: This 3-year intervention was conducted in adults’ intensive care units (ICUs) during January 2015 to December 2017. The implementation of CAUTI bundle care in order to reduce invasive catheter-associated infections were built on evidence-based infection control measures. Prospective surveillance was performed on all patients admitted to hospital. The four major directions are 'Leader Engagement', 'Educate Personnel', 'Executive Multidisciplinary Teamwork', 'Innovation and Improvement of Tools'. Results: During the intervention period, there were 167,024 patient-days with a total of 508 episodes of CAUTIs in the entire adult ICUs identified. The incidence of CAUTIs in adult ICU was significantly decreased in the intervention period (from 2015 to 2017), from 4.6 to 3.6 per 1000 catheter days (p=0.05). Conclusion: The necessity for the implementation of CAUTI bundle care in the health care system plays an important role in the quality and policy of infection control. Multidisciplinary teamwork, education, a comprehensive checklist and from time to time audit feedback to improve healthcare workers’ compliance are the keys to success.

Keywords: bundle care, hospital-associated infections, leader engagement, multidisciplinary team work

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Authors: Moatlhodi Wise Letshwenyo, Lesedi Lebogang

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Botswana is an arid country that needs to start reusing wastewater as part of its water security plan. Pilot scale slow sand filtration in combination with roughing filter was investigated for the treatment of effluent from Botswana International University of Science and Technology to meet Botswana irrigation standards. The system was operated at hydraulic loading rates of 0.04 m/hr and 0.12 m/hr. The results show that the system was able to reduce turbidity from 262 Nephelometric Turbidity Units to a range between 18 and 0 Nephelometric Turbidity Units which was below 30 Nephelometric Turbidity Units threshold limit. The overall efficacy ranged between 61% and 100%. Suspended solids, Biochemical Oxygen Demand, and Chemical Oxygen Demand removal efficiency averaged 42.6%, 45.5%, and 77% respectively and all within irrigation standards. Other physio-chemical parameters were within irrigation standards except for bicarbonate ion which averaged 297.7±44 mg L^-1 in the influent and 196.22±50 mg L^-1 in the effluent which was above the limit of 92 mg L^-1, therefore averaging a reduction of 34.1% by the system. Total coliforms, fecal coliforms, and Escherichia coli in the effluent were initially averaging 1.1 log counts, 0.5 log counts, and 1.3 log counts respectively compared to corresponding influent log counts of 3.4, 2.7 and 4.1, respectively. As time passed, it was observed that only roughing filter was able to reach reductions of 97.5%, 86% and 100% respectively for faecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, and total coliforms. These organism numbers were observed to have increased in slow sand filter effluent suggesting multiplication in the tank. Water quality index value of 22.79 for the physio-chemical parameters suggests that the effluent is of excellent quality and can be used for irrigation purposes. However, the water quality index value for the microbial parameters (1820) renders the quality unsuitable for irrigation. It is concluded that slow sand filtration in combination with roughing filter is a viable option for the treatment of secondary effluent for reuse purposes. However, further studies should be conducted especially for the removal of microbial parameters using the system.

Keywords: irrigation, slow sand filter, turbidity, wastewater reuse

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Authors: Jiayun Shen, Lorenz Wyss, Thierry Golliard, Matthias Finger

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Innovation is widely recognized as the key for private enterprises to win the market competition. The state-owned-enterprises need to be innovative to compete in the market after the privatization as well. However, it is a lack of research to study how state-owned-enterprises manage innovation to create new products and services. Swiss Post, a Swiss state-owned-enterprises, has established a department to transform the corporate culture and foster innovation to achieve digital transformation. This paper describes the innovation management process at the Swiss Post and analyzes the impacts of the instruments, the organizational structure, and explores the barriers of innovation. This study used qualitative methods based on a review of the literature on innovation management and semi-structured interviews. Being established for over five years, the Swiss Post’s innovation management department has established a software-assisted modularized platform with systematic instruments to help the internal employees with the different innovation processes. It guides the innovators from idea creation to piloting in markets and supports with a separate financing source, with knowledge inputs and coaching, as well as with connections to external partners through the open innovation and venturing team. The platform also adapts to different business units within the corporate with a customized tailor for the various operational business units. The separate financing instruments enabled the creation and further development of new ideas; the coaching services contribute greatly to the transformation of teams’ innovation culture by providing new knowledge, thinking methods, and use cases for inspiration. It also facilitates organizational learning to help the whole corporate with the digital transformation. However, it is also confronted with a big challenge in twofold. Internally, the disruptive projects often hardly overcome the obstacles of long-established operational processes in the traditional business units; externally, the expectations of the public and restrictions from the federal government have become high hurdles for the company to stay and compete in the innovation track.

Keywords: empirical case study, innovation management, state-owned-enterprise, Swiss Post

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Authors: Joshua Paul Steimel, Michael Pappas, Ethan Hall

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Particle-particle interactions are critical in determining the state of an active matter system. Unique and ubiquitous non-equilibrium behavior like swarming, vortexing, spiraling, and much more is governed by interactions between active units or particles. In hybrid active-passive matter systems, the attraction between spinning active units in a 2D monolayer of passive particles is controlled by the mechanical behavior of the passive monolayer. We demonstrate here that the range and dynamics of this attraction can be controlled by changing the composition of the passive monolayer by adding dopant passive particles. These dopant passive particles effectively pin the movement of dislocation motion in the passive media and reduce the probability of defect motion required to erode the bridge of passive particles between active spinners, thus reducing the range of attraction. Additionally, by adding an out of plane component to the magnetic moment and creating a top-like motion a short range repulsion emerges between the top-like particle. At inter-top distances less than four particle diameters apart, the tops repel but beyond that, distance attract up to 13 particle diameters apart. The tops were also able to locally and transiently anneal the passive monolayer. Thus we demonstrate that by tuning several parameters of the hybrid active matter system, one can observe very different emergent behavior.

Keywords: active matter, colloids, ferromagnetic, annealing

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Authors: M. Budakoglu, M. Karaman

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Lake Acıgöl is located in area with limited influences from urban and industrial pollution sources, there is nevertheless a need to understand all potential lithological and anthropogenic sources of priority contaminants in this closed basin. This study discusses vertical and horizontal distribution pattern of major, trace elements of recent lake sediments to better understand their current geochemical analog with lithological units in the Lake Acıgöl basin. This study also provides reliable background levels for the region by the detailed surfaced lithological units data. The detail results of surface, subsurface and shallow core sediments from these relatively unperturbed ecosystems, highlight its importance as conservation area, despite the high-scale industrial salt production activity. While P2O5/TiO2 versus MgO/CaO classification diagram indicate magmatic and sedimentary origin of lake sediment, Log(SiO2/Al2O3) versus Log(Na2O/K2O) classification diagrams express lithological assemblages of shale, iron-shale, vacke and arkose. The plot between TiO2 vs. SiO2 and P2O5/TiO2 vs. MgO/CaO also supports the origin of the primary magma source. The average compositions of the 20 different lithological units used as a proxy for geochemical background in the study area. As expected from weathered rock materials, there is a large variation in the major element content for all analyzed lake samples. The A-CN-K and A-CNK-FM ternary diagrams were used to deduce weathering trends. Surface and subsurface sediments display an intense weathering history according to these ternary diagrams. The most of the sediments samples plot around UCC and TTG, suggesting a low to moderate weathering history for the provenance. The sediments plot in a region clearly suggesting relative similar contents in Al2O3, CaO, Na2O, and K2O from those of lithological samples.

Keywords: Lake Acıgöl, recent lake sediment, geochemical speciation of major and trace elements, heavy metals, Denizli, Turkey

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Authors: Showkat Ahmad Lone, Ahmadur Rahman, Ariful Islam

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The major assumption in accelerated life tests (ALT) is that the mathematical model relating the lifetime of a test unit and the stress are known or can be assumed. In some cases, such life–stress relationships are not known and cannot be assumed, i.e. ALT data cannot be extrapolated to use condition. So, in such cases, partially accelerated life test (PALT) is a more suitable test to be performed for which tested units are subjected to both normal and accelerated conditions. This study deals with estimating information about failure times of items under step-stress partially accelerated life tests using progressive failure-censored hybrid data with random removals. The life data of the units under test is considered to follow exponential life distribution. The removals from the test are assumed to have binomial distributions. The point and interval maximum likelihood estimations are obtained for unknown distribution parameters and tampering coefficient. An optimum test plan is developed using the D-optimality criterion. The performances of the resulting estimators of the developed model parameters are evaluated and investigated by using a simulation algorithm.

Keywords: binomial distribution, d-optimality, multiple censoring, optimal design, partially accelerated life testing, simulation study

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Authors: Manana Kvetenadze, Dali Nikolaishvili

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The study revealed the territorial changes of Georgia before the Soviet and Post-Soviet periods. This includes the estimation of the country's borders, its administrative-territorial arrangement change as well as the establishment of territorial losses. Georgia’s old and new borders marked on the map are of great interest. The new boundary shows the condition of 1922 year, following the Soviet period. Neither on this map nor in other works Ivane Javakhishvili talks about what he implies in the old borders, though it is evident that this is the Pre-Soviet boundary until 1921 – i.e., before the period when historical Tao, Zaqatala, Lore, Karaia represented the parts of Georgia. According to cartometric-geographical terms, the work presents detailed analysis of Georgia’s borders, along with this the comparison of research results has been carried out: 1) At the boundary line on Soviet topographic maps, the maps of 100,000; 50,000 and 25,000 scales are used; 2) According to Ivane Javakhishvili’s work ('The borders of Georgia in terms of historical and contemporary issues'). During that research, we used multi-disciplined methodology and software. We used Arc GIS for Georeferencing maps, and after that, we compare all post-Soviet Union maps, in order to determine how the borders have changed. During this work, we also use many historical data. The features of the spatial distribution of the territorial administrative units of Georgia, as well as the distribution of administrative-territorial units of the objects depicted on the map, have been established. The results obtained are presented in the forms of thematic maps and diagrams.

Keywords: border, GIS, georgia, historical cartography, old maps

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Authors: Marwa Fady Abozed, Hemat Abd El Latif, Fathy Serry, Lotfi El Sayed

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of intravenous nutrient(soluvit, vitalipid, aminoven infant, lipovenos) and bisolvon commonly used in neonatal intensive care units against biofilm cells of staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Pseudomonas aerguinosa and klebseilla pneumonia as they are the most commonly isolated organisms and are biofilm producers. Also, the synergetic acticity of soluvit, heparin, bisolvon with antibiotics and its effect on minimum biofilm eradication concentration(MBEC) was tested. Intravenous nutrient and bromohexine are widely used in newborns. Numbers of viable cell count released from biofilm after treatment with intravenous nutrient and bromohexine were counted to compare the efficacy. The percentage of reduction in biofilm regrowth in case of using soluvit was 43-51% and 36-42 % for Gram positive and Gram negative respectively, on adding the vitalipid the percentage was 45-50 %and 37-41% for Gram positive and Gram negative respectively. While, in case of using bisolvon the percentage was 46-52% and 47-48% for Gram positive and Gram negative respectively. Adding lipovenos had a reduction percentage of 48-52% and 48-49% for Gram positive and Gram negative respectively. While, adding aminoven infant the percentage was 10-15% and 9-11% for Gram positive and Gram negative respectively. Adding soluvit, heparin and bisolvon to antibiotics had synergic effect. soluvit with ciprofloxacin has 8-16 times decrease than minimum biofilm eradication concentration (MBEC) for ciprofloxacin alone. While, by adding soluvit to vancomycin the MBEC reduced by 16 times than MBEC of vancomycin alone. In case of combination soluvit with cefotaxime, amikacin and gentamycin the reduction in MBEC was 16, 8 and 6-32 times respectively. The synergetic effect of adding heparin to ciprofloxacin, vancomycin, cefotaxime, amikacin and gentamicin was 2 times reduction with all except in case of gram negative the range of reduction was 0-2 with both gentamycin and ciprofloxacin. Bisolvon exihited synergetic effect with ciprofloxacin, vancomycin, cefotaxime, amikacin and gentamicin by 16, 32, 32, 8, 32-64 and 32 times decrease in MBEC respectively.

Keywords: biofilm, neonatal intensive care units, antibiofilm agents, intravenous nutrient

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Authors: Rowan P. Martnishn

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During the execution of a National Endowment of the Arts grant, approximately 55 interviews were collected from professionals across various fields. These interviews were used to create deliverables – historical connections for creations that began as art and evolved entirely into computing technology. With dozens of hours’ worth of transcripts to be analyzed by qualitative coders, a quantitative methodology was created to sift through the documents. The initial step was to both clean and format all the data. First, a basic spelling and grammar check was applied, as well as a Python script for normalized formatting which used an open-source grammatical formatter to make the data as coherent as possible. 10 documents were randomly selected to manually review, where words often incorrectly translated during the transcription were recorded and replaced throughout all other documents. Then, to remove all banter and side comments, the transcripts were spliced into paragraphs (separated by change in speaker) and all paragraphs with less than 300 characters were removed. Secondly, a keyword extractor, a form of natural language processing where significant words in a document are selected, was run on each paragraph for all interviews. Every proper noun was put into a data structure corresponding to that respective interview. From there, a Bidirectional and Auto-Regressive Transformer (B.A.R.T.) summary model was then applied to each paragraph that included any of the proper nouns selected from the interview. At this stage the information to review had been sent from about 60 hours’ worth of data to 20. The data was further processed through light, manual observation – any summaries which proved to fit the criteria of the proposed deliverable were selected, as well their locations within the document. This narrowed that data down to about 5 hours’ worth of processing. The qualitative researchers were then able to find 8 more connections in addition to our previous 4, exceeding our minimum quota of 3 to satisfy the grant. Major findings of the study and subsequent curation of this methodology raised a conceptual finding crucial to working with qualitative data of this magnitude. In the use of artificial intelligence there is a general trade off in a model between breadth of knowledge and specificity. If the model has too much knowledge, the user risks leaving out important data (too general). If the tool is too specific, it has not seen enough data to be useful. Thus, this methodology proposes a solution to this tradeoff. The data is never altered outside of grammatical and spelling checks. Instead, the important information is marked, creating an indicator of where the significant data is without compromising the purity of it. Secondly, the data is chunked into smaller paragraphs, giving specificity, and then cross-referenced with the keywords (allowing generalization over the whole document). This way, no data is harmed, and qualitative experts can go over the raw data instead of using highly manipulated results. Given the success in deliverable creation as well as the circumvention of this tradeoff, this methodology should stand as a model for synthesizing qualitative data while maintaining its original form.

Keywords: B.A.R.T.model, keyword extractor, natural language processing, qualitative coding

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Authors: Ganesh Meshram, Gloria Biswal

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In this study, we present the numerical investigation of surface wettability on triangular micropillar surfaces by using a two-dimensional (2D) pseudo-potential multiphase lattice Boltzmann method with a D2Q9 model for various interaction parameters of the range varies from -1.40 to -2.50. Initially, simulation of the equilibrium state of a water droplet on a flat surface is considered for various interaction parameters to examine the accuracy of the present numerical model. We then imposed the microscale pillars on the bottom wall of the surface with different heights of the pillars to form the hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces which enable the higher contact angle. The wettability of surfaces is simulated with water droplets of radius 100 lattice units in the domain of 800x800 lattice units. The present study shows that increasing the interaction parameter of the pillared hydrophobic surfaces dramatically reduces the contact area between water droplets and solid walls due to the momentum redirection phenomenon. Contact angles for different values of interaction strength have been validated qualitatively with the analytical results.

Keywords: contact angle, lattice boltzmann method, d2q9 model, pseudo-potential multiphase method, hydrophobic surfaces, wenzel state, cassie-baxter state, wettability

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Authors: Gürcan D. Baysal, Ali Tanış

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In this study, samples of plant types including rose hip (Rosa canina L.), jujube (Ziziphus jujube), sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), elderberry (Sambucus nigra), apricot (Prunus armeniaca), scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) were grown using plant supporting units called Ekobox and drip irrigation systems in the Karapınar, Konya region of Turkey to reveal the efficiency of Ekobox and drip irrigation compared against a control with no irrigation. The plant diameter, height, and survival rates were determined, compared with each other, and statistically analyzed. According to the statistical analysis of the results, Ekobox applications resulted in the highest values for survival rate, diameter, and height measurements whereas the lowest values were determined in the control groups. These results indicate that the cultivation of plants with Ekobox may help protect against the loss of fertile soils as an effective mechanism for combating erosion and desertification. These advantages may also lead to a lasting economic effect on the cultivation of plants by locals of the Karapınar, Konya province who suffer from an ever-decreasing underground water level as a result of agricultural consumption.

Keywords: drip irrigation, ekobox, plant diameter, plant height, plant survival rate

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Authors: Linet Melisa Daubanes, Nhleko Monique Chiloane

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The shovel-truck system is the most prevalent material handling system used in surface mining operations. Material handling entails the loading and hauling of material from production areas to dumping areas. The material handling process has operational delays that have a negative impact on the productivity of the load and haul fleet. Factors that may contribute to operational delays include shovel-truck mismatch, haul routes, machine breakdowns, extreme weather conditions, etc. The aim of this paper is to investigate factors that contribute to operational delays affecting the productivity of the load and haul fleet at the mine. Productivity is the measure of the effectiveness of producing products from a given quantity of units, the ratio of output to inputs. Productivity can be improved by producing more outputs with the same or fewer units and/or introducing better working methods etc. Several key performance indicators (KPI) for the evaluation of productivity will be discussed in this study. These KPIs include but are not limited to hauling conditions, bucket fill factor, cycle time, and utilization. The research methodology of this study is a combination of on-site time studies and observations. Productivity can be optimized by managing the factors that affect the operational performance of the haulage fleet.

Keywords: cycle time, fleet performance, load and haul, surface mining

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Authors: Anuta Mukherjee, Saswati Mukherjee

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Data is growing everyday. Social networking sites such as Twitter are becoming an integral part of our daily lives, contributing a large increase in the growth of data. It is a rich source especially for sentiment detection or mining since people often express honest opinion through tweets. However, although sentiment analysis is a well-researched topic in text, this analysis using Twitter data poses additional challenges since these are unstructured data with abbreviations and without a strict grammatical correctness. We have employed collision theory to achieve sentiment analysis in Twitter data. We have also incorporated discourse analysis in the collision theory based model to detect accurate sentiment from tweets. We have also used the retweet field to assign weights to certain tweets and obtained the overall weightage of a topic provided in the form of a query. Hadoop has been exploited for speed. Our experiments show effective results.

Keywords: sentiment analysis, twitter, collision theory, discourse analysis

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Authors: Cher Leng Lee

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The existence of multiple first-person pronouns (1PPs) in classical Chinese is an issue that has not been resolved despite linguists using the grammatical perspective. This paper proposes pragmatics as a viable solution. There is also a lack of research exploring the evolving usage patterns of 1PPs within the historical context of Chinese language use. Such research can help us comprehend the changes and developments of these linguistic elements. To fill these research gaps, we use the diachronic pragmatics approach to contrast the functions of Chinese 1PPs in three representative texts from three different historical periods: The Analects (The Spring and Autumn Period), The Grand Scribe’s Records (Grand Records) (Qin and Han Period), and A New Account of Tales of the World (New Account) (The Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Period). The 1PPs of these texts are manually identified and classified according to the pragmatic functions in the given contexts to observe their historical changes, understand the factors that contribute to these changes, and provide possible answers to the development of how wo became the only 1PP in today’s spoken Mandarin.

Keywords: historical, Chinese, pronouns, pragmatics

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Authors: Lukas J. Evans, Danilo D. Fernando

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Shrub willows (Salix spp.) have many characteristics which make them suitable for a variety of applications such as riparian zone buffers, environmental contaminant sequestration, living snow fences, and biofuel production. In some cases, these functions are limited due to physical or financial obstacles associated with the number of individuals needed to reasonably satisfy that purpose. One way to increase the efficiency of willows is to bioengineer them with the genetic improvements suitable for the desired use. To accomplish this goal, an optimized in vitro transformation protocol via Agrobacterium tumefaciens is necessary to reliably express genes of interest. Therefore, the aim of this study is to observe the influence of tissue culture with different willow cultivars, hormones, and explants on the percentage of calli expressing reporter gene green florescent protein (GFP) to find ideal transformation conditions. Each callus was produced from 1 month old open-pollinated seedlings of three Salix miyabeana cultivars (‘SX61’, ‘WT1’, and ‘WT2’) from three different explants (lamina, petiole, and internodes). Explants were cultured for 1 month on an MS media with different concentrations of 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) (No hormones, 1 mg⁻¹L BAP only, 3 mg⁻¹L NAA only, 1 mg⁻¹L BAP and 3 mg⁻¹L NAA, and 3 mg⁻¹L BAP and 1 mg⁻¹L NAA) to produce a callus. Samples were then treated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens at an OD600 of 0.6-0.8 to insert the transgene GFP for 30 minutes, co-cultivated for 72 hours, and selected on the same media type they were cultured on with added 7.5 mg⁻¹L of Hygromycin for 1 week before GFP visualization under a UV dissecting scope. Percentage of GFP expressing calli as well as the average number of fluorescing GFP units per callus were recorded and results were evaluated through an ANOVA test (α = 0.05). The WT1 internode-derived calli on media with 3 mg-1L NAA+1 mg⁻¹L BAP and mg⁻¹L BAP alone produced a significantly higher percentage of GFP expressing calli than each other group (19.1% and 19.4%, respectively). Additionally, The WT1 internode group cultured with 3 mg⁻¹L NAA+1 mg⁻¹L BAP produced an average of 2.89 GFP units per callus while the group cultivated with 1 mg⁻¹L BAP produced an average of 0.84 GFP units per callus. In conclusion, genotype, explant choice, and hormones all play a significant role in increasing successful transformation in willows. Future studies to produce whole callus GFP expression and subsequent plantlet regeneration are necessary for a complete willow transformation protocol.

Keywords: agrobacterium, callus, Salix, tissue culture

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Authors: Fina O. Faithpraise, Effiong O. Obisung, Azele E. Peter, Chris R. Chatwin

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This study investigates and identifies consumer attitude as a major influence that results in non-technical losses in the Nigerian electricity supply sector. This discovery is revealed by the combination of quantitative and qualitative research to complete a survey. The dataset employed is a simple random sampling of households using electricity (public power supply), and the number of units chosen is based on statistical power analysis. The units were subdivided into two categories (household with and without electrical meters). The hypothesis formulated was tested and analyzed using a chi-square statistical method. The results obtained shows that the critical value for the household with electrical prepared meter (EPM) was (9.488 < 427.4) and those without electrical prepared meter (EPMn) was (9.488 < 436.1) with a p-value of 0.01%. The analysis demonstrated so far established the real-time position, which shows that the wrong attitude towards handling the electricity supplied (not turning off light bulbs and electrical appliances when not in use within the rooms and outdoors within 12 hours of the day) characterized the non-technical losses in the power sector. Therefore the adoption of efficient lighting attitudes in individual households as recommended by the researcher is greatly encouraged. The results from this study should serve as a model for energy efficiency and use for the improvement of electricity consumption as well as a stable economy.

Keywords: attitudinal change, household, non-technical losses, prepared meter

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Authors: P. K. Singhal, R. Naresh, V. Sharma

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This paper presents the three optimization models, namely New Binary Artificial Bee Colony (NBABC) algorithm, NBABC with Local Search (NBABC-LS), and NBABC with Genetic Crossover (NBABC-GC) for solving the Wind-Thermal Unit Commitment (WTUC) problem. The uncertain nature of the wind power is incorporated using the Weibull probability density function, which is used to calculate the overestimation and underestimation costs associated with the wind power fluctuation. The NBABC algorithm utilizes a mechanism based on the dissimilarity measure between binary strings for generating the binary solutions in WTUC problem. In NBABC algorithm, an intelligent scout bee phase is proposed that replaces the abandoned solution with the global best solution. The local search operator exploits the neighboring region of the current solutions, whereas the integration of genetic crossover with the NBABC algorithm increases the diversity in the search space and thus avoids the problem of local trappings encountered with the NBABC algorithm. These models are then used to decide the units on/off status, whereas the lambda iteration method is used to dispatch the hourly load demand among the committed units. The effectiveness of the proposed models is validated on an IEEE 10-unit thermal system combined with a wind farm over the planning period of 24 hours.

Keywords: artificial bee colony algorithm, economic dispatch, unit commitment, wind power

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Authors: V. Morenov, E. Leusheva

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Power supplying of well drilling on oil and gas fields at ambient air low temperatures is characterized by increased requirements of electric and heat energy. Power costs for heating of production facilities, technological and living objects may several times exceed drilling equipment electric power consumption. Power supplying of prospecting and exploitation drilling objects is usually done by means of local electric power structures based on diesel power stations. In the meantime, exploitation of oil fields is accompanied by vast quantities of extracted associated petroleum gas, and while developing gas fields there are considerable amounts of natural gas and gas condensate. In this regard implementation of gas-powered self-sufficient power units functioning on produced crude products for power supplying is seen as most potential. For these purposes gas turbines (GT) or gas reciprocating engines (GRE) may be used. In addition gas-powered units are most efficiently used in cogeneration mode - combined heat and power production. Conducted research revealed that GT generate more heat than GRE while producing electricity. One of the latest GT design are microturbines (MT) - devices that may be efficiently exploited in combined heat and power mode. In conditions of ambient air low temperatures and high velocity wind sufficient heat supplying is required for both technological process, specifically for drilling mud heating, and for maintaining comfortable working conditions at the rig. One of the main heat regime parameters are the heat losses. Due to structural peculiarities of the rig most of the heat losses occur at cold air infiltration through the technological apertures and hatchways and heat transition of isolation constructions. Also significant amount of heat is required for working temperature sustaining of the drilling mud. Violation of circulation thermal regime may lead to ice build-up on well surfaces and ice blockages in armature elements. That is why it is important to ensure heating of the drilling mud chamber according to ambient air temperature. Needed heat power will be defined by heat losses of the chamber. Noting heat power required for drilling structure functioning, it is possible to create combined heat and power complex based on MT for satisfying consumer power needs and at the same time lowering power generation costs. As a result, combined power supplying scheme for multiple well drilling utilizing heat of MT flue gases was developed.

Keywords: combined heat, combined power, drilling, electric supply, gas-powered units, heat supply

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Authors: Leman Korkmaz, Bahar Bahtiyar-Saygan

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Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting the whole world since the beginning of 2020. In addition to health-related and financial effects, there seem to be significant psychological effects as well, among them those related to people’s views and representations of marriage and divorce. Background: Although various impacts of COVID-19 have been investigated since the beginning of the pandemic, there is a limited number of studies on its effects concerning relationships. This research aims to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the views on and representations of marriage and divorce by conducting two studies. Method: In the first study, one-to-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 participants (20 single and 11 married individuals) to investigate their evaluations regarding the effect of COVID-19 on people’s views of marriage in general and their own views of marriage in particular. In the second study, 298 entries on the most frequently used online social platform in Turkey (EkşiSözlük) under two separate headings for COVID-19 impact on marriage and divorce were analyzed, and meaningful thematic units were formed. Results: The findings of the thematic analysis indicated that participants mostly mentioned both the positive and negative effects of COVID-19 on the views and representations of marriage. There were both common (e.g., loneliness, violence, etc.) and distinct (e.g., sexuality, positive and negative effects on attitudes towards marriage, etc.) thematic units between the results of the two studies. Implications: There are considerable implications discussed in light of the literature on Terror Management Theory, Attachment Theory, stress research, and growth perspective.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, divorce, marriage, relationships, representations, views

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Authors: Karen C. Olufokunbi, Odetunji A. Odejobi

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The discourse of this paper is the examination of the generation, accumulation and growth of e-waste in a developing country. Images and other data about computer e-waste were collected using a digital camera, 290 copies of questionnaire and three structured interviews using Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria environment as a case study. The numerical data were analysed using R data analysis and process tool. Automata-based techniques and Petri net modeling tool were used to design and simulate a computational model for the recovery of saleable materials from e-waste. The R analysis showed that at a 95 percent confidence level, the computer equipment that will be disposed by 2020 will be 417 units. Compared to the 800 units in circulation in 2014, 50 percent of personal computer components will become e-waste. This indicates that personal computer components were in high demand due to their low costs and will be disposed more rapidly when replaced by new computer equipment Also, 57 percent of the respondents discarded their computer e-waste by throwing it into the garbage bin or by dumping it. The simulated model using Coloured Petri net modelling tool for the process showed that the e-waste dynamics is a forward sequential process in the form of a pipeline meaning that an e-waste recovery of saleable materials process occurs in identifiable discrete stages indicating that e-waste will continue to accumulate and grow in volume with time.

Keywords: Coloured Petri net, computational modelling, electronic waste, electronic waste process dynamics

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Authors: Amrisha Pandey

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Indian constitution has distributed the powers to govern and legislate between the centre and the state governments based on the list of subject-matter provided in the seventh schedule. By that schedule, the states are authorized to regulate the water resource within their territory. However, the centre/union government is authorized to regulate the inter-state water disputes. The powers entrusted to the union government mainly deals with the sharing of river water which flows through the territory of two or more states. For that purpose, a provision enumerated in Article 262 of the Constitution of India which empowers the parliament to resolve any such inter-state river water dispute. Therefore, the parliament has enacted the - ‘Inter-State River Water Dispute Tribunal, Act’, which allows the central/union government to constitute the tribunal for the adjudication of the disputes and expressly bars the jurisdiction of the judiciary in the concerned matter. This arrangement was intended to resolve the dispute using political or diplomatic means, without deliberately interfering with the sovereign power of the states to govern the water resource. The situation in present context is complicated and sensitive. Due to the change in climatic conditions; increasing demand for the limited resource; and the advanced understanding of the freshwater cycle, which is missing from the existing legal regime. The obsolete legal and political tools, the existing legislative mechanism and the institutional units do not seem to accommodate the rising challenge to regulate the resource. Therefore, resulting in the rise of the politicization of the inter-state water disputes. Against this background, this paper will investigate the inter-state river water dispute in India and will critically analyze the ability of the existing constitutional, and institutional units involved in the task. Moreover, the competence of the tribunal as the adjudicating body in present context will be analyzed using the long ongoing inter-state water dispute in India – The Cauvery Water Dispute, as the case study. To conduct the task undertaken in this paper the doctrinal methodology of the research is adopted. The disputes will also be investigated through the lens of sovereignty, which is accorded to the states using the theory of ‘separation of power’ and the ‘grant of internal sovereignty’, to its federal units of governance. The issue of sovereignty in this paper is discussed in two ways: 1) as the responsibility of the state - to govern the resource; and 2) as the obligation of the state - to govern the resource, arising from the sovereign power of the state. Furthermore, the duality of the sovereign power coexists in this analysis; the overall sovereign authority of the nation-state, and the internal sovereignty of the states as its federal units of governance. As a result, this investigation will propose institutional, legislative and judicial reforms. Additionally, it will suggest certain amendments to the existing constitutional provisions in order to avoid the contradictions in their scope and meaning in the light of the advanced hydrological understanding.

Keywords: constitution of India, federalism, inter-state river water dispute tribunal of India, sovereignty

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Authors: Dennis Infante, Leonora Yambao

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The Philippines is a multilingual community. A Filipino learns at least three languages throughout his lifespan. Since languages are learned and picked up simultaneously in the environment, a student naturally develops a language system that combines features of at least three languages: the local language, English and Filipino. This study seeks to investigate this particular phenomenon and aspires to propose a theoretical framework of unique language acquisition in the elementary, high school and college in the three languages spoken and used in media, community, business and school: Kapampangan, the local language; Filipino, the national language; and English. The study randomly selects five students from three participating schools in order to acquire language samples. The samples were analyzed in the subsentential, sentential and suprasentential levels using grammatical theories. The data are classified to map out the pattern of substitution or shifting from one language to another.

Keywords: language acquisition, mother tongue, multiculturalism, multilingual education

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Authors: Zhengrong Wu, Haibo Yang

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In the context of escalating global climate change and environmental degradation, the complexity and frequency of natural disasters are continually increasing. Confronted with an abundance of information regarding natural disasters, traditional knowledge graph construction methods, which heavily rely on grammatical rules and prior knowledge, demonstrate suboptimal performance in processing complex, multi-source disaster information. This study, drawing upon past natural disaster reports, disaster-related literature in both English and Chinese, and data from various disaster monitoring stations, constructs question-answer templates based on large language models. Utilizing the P-Tune method, the ChatGLM2-6B model is fine-tuned, leading to the development of a disaster knowledge graph based on large language models. This serves as a knowledge database support for disaster emergency response.

Keywords: large language model, knowledge graph, disaster, deep learning

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Authors: S. Mantzoukis, M. Gerasimou, P. Christodoulou, N. Varsamis, G. Kolliopoulou, N. Zotos

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Purpose: Patients in Intensive Care Units (ICU) are exposed to a different spectrum of microorganisms relative to the hospital. Due to the fact that the majority of these patients are intubated, bronchial secretions should be examined. Material and Method: Bronchial secretions should be taken with care so as not to be mixed with sputum or saliva. The bronchial secretions are placed in a sterile container and then inoculated into blood, Mac Conkey No2, Chocolate, Mueller Hinton, Chapman and Saboureaud agar. After this period, if any number of microbial colonies are detected, gram staining is performed and then the isolated organisms are identified by biochemical techniques in the automated Microscan system (Siemens) followed by a sensitivity test in the same system using the minimum inhibitory concentration MIC technique. The sensitivity test is verified by a Kirby Bauer test. Results: In 2017 the Laboratory of Microbiology received 365 samples of bronchial secretions from the Intensive Care Unit. 237 were found positive. S. epidermidis was identified in 1 specimen, A. baumannii in 60, K. pneumoniae in 42, P. aeruginosa in 50, C. albicans in 40, P. mirabilis in 4, E. coli in 4, S. maltophilia in 6, S. marcescens in 6, S. aureus in 12, S. pneumoniae in 1, S. haemolyticus in 4, P. fluorescens in 1, E. aerogenes in 1, E. cloacae in 5. Conclusions: The majority of ICU patients appear to be a fertile ground for the development of infections. The nature of the findings suggests that a significant part of the bacteria found comes from the unit (nosocomial infection).

Keywords: bronchial secretions, cultures, infections, intensive care units

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Authors: Anjali G. Pillai, S. Chadrakaran

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The extensive amount of sludge generated throughout the world, as a part of water treatment works, have caused various social and economic issues, such as a demand on landfill spaces, increase in environmental pollution and raising the waste management cost. With growing social awareness about toxic incinerator emissions and the increasing concern over the disposal of sludge on the agricultural land, the recovery of sewage sludge as a building and construction raw material can be considered as an innovative approach to tackle the sludge disposal problem. The proposed work aims at studying the recycling ability of the sludge, generated from the water treatment process, by incorporating it into the fired clay brick units. The work involves initial study of the geotechnical characteristics of the brick-clay and the sludge. Chemical compatibility of both the materials will be analyzed by X-ray fluorescence technique. The variation in the strength aspects with varying proportions of sludge i.e. 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% in the sludge-clay mix will also be determined by the proctor density test. Based on the optimum moisture content, the sludge-clay bricks will be manufactured in a brick manufacturing plant and the modified brick units will be tested to determine the variation in compressive strength, bulk density, firing shrinkage, shrinkage loss and initial water absorption rate with respect to the conventional clay bricks. The results will be compared with the specifications given in Indian Standards to arrive at the potential use of the new bricks. The durability aspect will be studied by conducting the leachate analysis test using atomic adsorption spectrometry. The lightweight characteristics of the sludge modified bricks will be ascertained with the scanning electron microscope technique which will be indicative of the variation in pore structure with the increase in sludge content within the bricks. The work will determine the suitable proportion of the sludge – clay mix in the brick which can then be effectively implemented. The feasibility aspect of the work will be determined for commercial production of the units. The work involves providing a strategy for conversion of waste to resource. Moreover, it provides an alternative solution to the problem of growing scarcity of brick-clay for the manufacturing of fired clay bricks.

Keywords: eco-bricks, green construction material, sludge amended bricks, sludge disposal, waste management

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Authors: Muna Mitchell, Akshay Parchure, Krishna Singaraju

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There is an increasing need for medium- to long-span steel bridges with complex geometry due to site restrictions in developed areas. One of the solutions to grade separations in congested areas is to use longer spans on skewed supports that avoid at-grade obstructions limiting impacts to the foundation. Where vertical clearances are also a constraint, continuous steel girders can be used to reduce superstructure depths. Combining continuous long steel spans on severe skews can resolve the constraints at a cost. The behavior of skewed girders is challenging to analyze and design with subsequent complexity during fabrication and construction. As a part of a corridor improvement project, Walter P Moore designed two 1700-foot side-by-side bridges carrying four lanes of traffic in each direction over a railroad track. The bridges consist of prestressed concrete girder approach spans and three-span continuous steel plate girder units. The roadway design added complex geometry to the bridge with horizontal and vertical curves combined with superelevation transitions within the plate girder units. The substructure at the steel units was skewed approximately 56 degrees to satisfy the existing railroad right-of-way requirements. A horizontal point of curvature (PC) near the end of the steel units required the use flared girders and chorded slab edges. Due to the flared girder geometry, the cross-frame spacing in each bay is unique. Staggered cross frames were provided based on AASHTO LRFD and NCHRP guidelines for high skew steel bridges. Skewed steel bridges develop significant forces in the cross frames and rotation in the girder websdue to differential displacements along the girders under dead and live loads. In addition, under thermal loads, skewed steel bridges expand and contract not along the alignment parallel to the girders but along the diagonal connecting the acute corners, resulting in horizontal displacement both along and perpendicular to the girders. AASHTO LRFD recommends a 95 degree Fahrenheit temperature differential for the design of joints and bearings. The live load and the thermal loads resulted in significant horizontal forces and rotations in the bearings that necessitated the use of HLMR bearings. A unique bearing layout was selected to minimize the effect of thermal forces. The span length, width, skew, and roadway geometry at the bridges also required modular bridge joint systems (MBJS) with inverted-T bent caps to accommodate movement in the steel units. 2D and 3D finite element analysis models were developed to accurately determine the forces and rotations in the girders, cross frames, and bearings and to estimate thermal displacements at the joints. This paper covers the decision-making process for developing the framing plan, bearing configurations, joint type, and analysis models involved in the design of the high-skew three-span continuous steel plate girder bridges.

Keywords: complex geometry, continuous steel plate girders, finite element structural analysis, high skew, HLMR bearings, modular joint

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Authors: Sk Ajim Ali

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The present study is an attempt to overview on the major environmental and health impacts due to hazardous waste generation and poor management. In present scenario, not only hazardous waste, but as a common term ‘Waste’ is one of the acceptable and thinkable environmental issues. With excessive increasing population, industrialization and standardization of human’s life style heap in extra waste generation which is directly or indirectly related with hazardous waste generation. Urbanization and population growth are solely responsible for establishing industrial sector and generating various Hazardous Waste (HW) and concomitantly poor management practice arising adverse effect on environment and human health. As compare to other Indian state, West Bengal is not too much former in HW generation. West Bengal makes a rank of 7th in HW generation followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, U.P, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. During the last 30 years, the industrial sectors in W.B have quadrupled in size, during 1995 there were only 440 HW generating Units in West Bengal which produced 129826 MTA hazardous waste but in 2011, it rose up into 609 units and it produced about 259777 MTA hazardous waste. So, the notable thing is that during a 15 year interval there increased 169 waste generating units but it produced about 129951 MTA of hazardous waste. Major chemical industries are the main sources of HW and causes of adverse effect on the environment and human health. HW from industrial sectors contains heavy metals, cyanides, pesticides, complex aromatic compounds (i.e. PCB) and other chemical which are toxic, flammable, reactive, and corrosive and have explosive properties which highly affect the surrounding environment and human health in and around he disposal sites. The main objective of present study is to highlight on the sources and components of hazardous waste in West Bengal and impacts of improper HW management on health and environment. This study is carried out based on a secondary source of data and qualitative method of research. The secondary data has been collected annual report of WBPCB, WHO’s report, research paper, article, books and so on. It has been found that excessive HW generation from various sources and communities has serious health hazards that lead to the spreading of infectious disease and environmental change.

Keywords: environmental impacts, existing HW generation and management practice, hazardous waste (HW), health impacts, recommendation and planning

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Authors: Laura Naka

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The invention of computer writing programs has changed the way of teaching second language writing. This artificial intelligence engine can provide students with feedback on their essays, on their grammatical and spelling errors, convenient writing and editing tools to facilitate student’s writing process. However, it is not yet proved if this technology is helping students to improve their writing skills. There are several programs that are of great assistance for students concerning their writing skills. New technology provides students with different software programs which enable them to be more creative, to express their opinions and ideas in words, pictures and sounds, but at the end main and most correct feedback should be given by their teachers. No matter how new technology affects in writing skills, always comes from their teachers. This research will try to present some of the advantages and disadvantages that new technology has in writing process for students. The research takes place in the University of Gjakova ‘’Fehmi Agani’’ Faculty of Education-Preschool Program. The research aims to provide random sample response by using questionnaires and observation.

Keywords: English language learning, technology, academic writing, teaching L2.

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Authors: Sheryl Bernardo-Hinesley

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Heritage language learners are students who have been raised in a home where a minority language is spoken, who speaks or merely understand the minority heritage language, but to some degree are bilingual in the majority and the heritage language. In view of the rising university enrollment by Hispanics in the United States who have chosen to study Spanish, university language programs are currently faced with challenges of accommodating the language needs of heritage language learners of Spanish. The present study investigates the heritage language perception and language attitudes by heritage language learners of Spanish, as well as their classroom language learning experiences and needs. In order to carry out the study, a qualitative survey was used to gather data from university students. Analysis of students' responses indicates that heritage learners are motivated to learn the heritage language. In relation to the aspects of focus of a language course for heritage learners, results show that the aspects of interest are accent marks and spelling, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary, writing, reading, and culture.

Keywords: heritage language learners, language acquisition, linguistic attitudes, Spanish in the US

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