Search results for: follow up study

Authors: Yeon-Jong Jeong, Mok-Tan Ahn, Seok-Hyeon Park, Seong-Hun Ha, Joon-Hong Park, Jong-Bae Park

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Multi-stage drawing process is an important technique for forming a shape that cannot be molded in a single process. multi-stage drawing process in number of passes and the shape of the die are an important factors influencing the productivity and formability of the product. The number and shape of the multi-path in the mold of the drawing process is very influencing the productivity and formability of the product. Half angle of the die and mandrel affects the drawing force and it also affects the completion of the final shape. Thus reducing the number of pass and the die shape optimization are necessary to improve the formability of the billet. Analyzing the load on the die through the FEM analysis and in consideration of the formability of the material presents a die model.

Keywords: multi-pass shape drawing, equivalent stress, FEM, finite element method, optimum shape

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Authors: Azna Zuberi

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Biofilm is a sessile bacterial accretion in which bacteria adapts different physiological and morphological behavior from planktonic form. It is the root cause of about 80% microbial infections in human. Among them, E. coli biofilms are most prevalent in medical devices associated nosocomial infections. The objective of this study was to inhibit biofilm formation by targeting LuxS gene, involved in quorum sensing using CRISPRi. luxS is a synthase, involved in the synthesis of Autoinducer-2(AI-2), which in turn guides the initial stage of biofilm formation. To implement CRISPRi system, we have synthesized complementary sgRNA to target gene sequence and co-expressed with dCas9. Suppression of luxS was confirmed through qRT-PCR. The effect of luxS gene on biofilm inhibition was studied through crystal violet assay, XTT reduction assay and scanning electron microscopy. We conclude that CRISPRi system could be a potential strategy to inhibit bacterial biofilm through mechanism base approach.

Keywords: biofilm, CRISPRi, luxS, microbial

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Authors: Ismail Becenen

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Air pollution, a consequence of urbanization brought about by modern life, is as global as it is local and regional. Because of the adverse effects of air pollution on human health, air quality is given importance all over the world. According to the decision of the World Health Organization, clean air is the basic necessity for human health and well-being. It poses a very high risk especially for heart diseases and stroke cases. In this study, the positive effects of natural gas usage on air pollution in cities are explained by using literature scans and air pollution measurement values. Natural gas is cleaner than other types of fuel. It contains less sulfur and organic sulfur compounds. When natural gas burns, it does not leave ashes, it does not cause problems in the rubbish mountains. It's a clean fuel, it easily burns and shines. It is a burning gas that is easy and efficient. In addition, there is not a toxic effect for people in case of inhalation. As a result, the use of natural gas needs to be widespread to reduce air pollution around the world in order to provide a healthier life for people and the environment.

Keywords: natural gas, air pollution, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, energy

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Authors: Ju-Young Hwang, Hyo-Gyoung Kwak

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This paper introduces a numerical analysis method for reinforced-concrete (RC) structures exposed to fire and compares the result with experimental results. The proposed analysis method for RC structure under the high temperature consists of two procedures. First step is to decide the temperature distribution across the section through the heat transfer analysis by using the time-temperature curve. After determination of the temperature distribution, the nonlinear analysis is followed. By considering material and geometrical nonlinearity with the temperature distribution, nonlinear analysis predicts the behavior of RC structure under the fire by the exposed time. The proposed method is validated by the comparison with the experimental results. Finally, prediction model to describe the status of after-cooling concrete can also be introduced based on the results of additional experiment. The product of this study is expected to be embedded for smart structure monitoring system against fire in u-City.

Keywords: RC, high temperature, after-cooling analysis, nonlinear analysis

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Authors: Grace Omowunmi Soyebi

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A computerized medical record system is a collection of medical information about a person that is stored on a computer. One principal problem of most hospitals in rural areas is using the file management system for keeping records. A lot of time is wasted when a patient visits the hospital, probably in an emergency, and the nurse or attendant has to search through voluminous files before the patient's file can be retrieved, this may cause an unexpected to happen to the patient. This Data Mining application is to be designed using a Structured System Analysis and design method which will help in a well-articulated analysis of the existing file management system, feasibility study, and proper documentation of the Design and Implementation of a Computerized medical record system. This Computerized system will replace the file management system and help to quickly retrieve a patient's record with increased data security, access clinical records for decision-making, and reduce the time range at which a patient gets attended to.

Keywords: programming, computing, data, innovation

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Authors: Liam Fassam, Pouria Liravi, Jacquie Bridgman

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Introduction: The way we travel is rapidly changing, car ownership and use are declining among young people and those residents in urban areas. Also, the increasing role and popularity of sharing economy companies like Uber highlight a movement towards consuming transportation solutions as a service [Mobility of a Service]. This research looks to bridge the knowledge gap that exists between city mobility, smart cities, sharing economy and social entrepreneurship business models. Understanding of this subject is crucial for smart city design, as access to affordable transport has been identified as a contributing factor to social isolation leading to issues around health and wellbeing. Methodology: To explore the current fit vis-a-vis transportation business models and social impact this research undertook a comparative analysis between a systematic literature review and a Delphi study. The systematic literature review was undertaken to gain an appreciation of the current academic thinking on ‘social entrepreneurship and smart city mobility’. The second phase of the research initiated a Delphi study across a group of 22 participants to review future opinion on ‘how social entrepreneurship can assist city mobility sharing models?’. The Delphi delivered an initial 220 results, which once cross-checked for duplication resulted in 130. These 130 answers were sent back to participants to score importance against a 5-point LIKERT scale, enabling a top 10 listing of areas for shared user transports in society to be gleaned. One further round (4) identified no change in the coefficient of variant thus no further rounds were required. Findings: Initial results of the literature review returned 1,021 journals using the search criteria ‘social entrepreneurship and smart city mobility’. Filtering allied to ‘peer review’, ‘date’, ‘region’ and ‘Chartered associated of business school’ ranking proffered a resultant journal list of 75. Of these, 58 focused on smart city design, 9 on social enterprise in cityscapes, 6 relating to smart city network design and 3 on social impact, with no journals purporting the need for social entrepreneurship to be allied to city mobility. The future inclusion factors from the Delphi expert panel indicated that smart cities needed to include shared economy models in their strategies. Furthermore, social isolation born by costs of infrastructure needed addressing through holistic A-political social enterprise models, and a better understanding of social benefit measurement is needed. Conclusion: In investigating the collaboration between key public transportation stakeholders, a theoretical model of social enterprise transportation models that positively impact upon the smart city needs of reduced transport poverty and social isolation was formed. As such, the research has identified how a revised business model of Mobility of a Service allied to a social entrepreneurship can deliver impactful measured social benefits associated to smart city design existent research.

Keywords: social enterprise, collaborative transportation, new models of ownership, transport social impact

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Authors: Yingxin Hui

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Understanding seismic response feature of the bridges crossing fault is the basis of the seismic fortification. Taking a multi-span bridge crossing active fault under construction as an example, the seismic ground motions at bridge site were generated following hybrid simulation methodology. Multi-support excitations displacement input models and nonlinear time history analysis was used to calculate seismic response of structures, and the results were compared with bridge in the near-fault region. The results showed that the seismic response features of bridges crossing fault were different from the bridges in the near-fault region. The design according to the bridge in near-fault region would cause the calculation results with insecurity and non-reasonable if the effect of cross the fault was ignored. The design of seismic fortification should be based on seismic response feature, which could reduce the adverse effect caused by the structure damage.

Keywords: bridge engineering, seismic response feature, across faults, rupture directivity effect, fling step

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Authors: Esther T. Akinlabi, Stephen A. Akinlabi

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This paper reports on the effects of heat treatment on 3CR12 and AISI 316 stainless steel grades. Heat treatment was conducted on the steel grades and cooled using two different media; air and water in order to study the effect of each medium on the evolving properties of the samples. The heat treated samples were characterized through the evolving microstructure and hardness. It was found that there was a significant grain size reduction in both the heat treated stainless steel specimens compared to the parent materials. The finer grain sizes were achieved as a result of impediment to growth of one phase by the other. The Vickers micro-hardness values of the heat treated samples were higher compared to the parent materials due to the fact that each of the steel grades had a proportion of martensitic structures in their microstructures.

Keywords: austenite, ferrite, grain size, hardness, martensite, microstructure and stainless steel

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Authors: Seyyed Abdollah Hojjati

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Review in the areas of secondary education; it is a kind of comparative requires very careful scrutiny in educational structure of different countries,In upcoming review of the basic structure of our educational system in Islamic republic of Iran with somedeveloped countries in the world, Analyzing of strengthsand weaknesses in main areas, A simple review of the above methods do not consider this particular community, Modifythe desired result can be expressed in the secondary school curriculum and academic guidance of under graduate students in a skill-driven and creativity growth, It not just improves the health and dynamism of this period and increases the secondary teachers' authority and the relationship between teacher and student in this course will be meaningful and attractive, But with reduced of false prosperity and guaranteed institutes and quizzes, areas will be provided for students to enjoy the feeling ofthe psychological comfort and to have the highest growth of creativity .

Keywords: comparative, curriculum of secondary education, curriculum, Iran, developed countries

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Authors: Yuvraj Singh Dangi, Brajesh Kumar Tiwari, Ashok Kumar Jain, Kamta Prasad Namdeo

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The potential use of liposomes as drug carriers by i.v. injection is limited by their low stability in blood stream. Firstly, phospholipid exchange and transfer to lipoproteins, mainly HDL destabilizes and disintegrates liposomes with subsequent loss of content. To avoid the pain associated with injection and to obtain better patient compliance studies concerning various dosage forms, have been developed. Conventional liposomes (unilamellar and multilamellar) have certain drawbacks like low entrapment efficiency, stability and release of drug after single breach in external membrane, have led to the new type of liposomal systems. The challenge has been successfully met in the form of Double Liposomes (DL). DL is a recently developed type of liposome, consisting of smaller liposomes enveloped in lipid bilayers. The outer lipid layer of DL can protect inner liposomes against various enzymes, therefore DL was thought to be more effective than ordinary liposomes. This concept was also supported by in vitro release characteristics i.e. DL formation inhibited the release of drugs encapsulated in inner liposomes. DL consists of several small liposomes encapsulated in large liposomes, i.e., multivesicular vesicles (MVV), therefore, DL should be discriminated from ordinary classification of multilamellar vesicles (MLV), large unilamellar vesicles (LUV), small unilamellar vesicles (SUV). However, for these liposomes, the volume of inner phase is small and loading volume of water-soluble drugs is low. In the present study, the potential of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) lipid anchored double liposomes (DL) to incorporate two drugs in a single system is exploited as a tool to augment the H. pylori eradication rate. Preparation of DL involves two steps, first formation of primary (inner) liposomes by thin film hydration method containing one drug, then addition of suspension of inner liposomes on thin film of lipid containing the other drug. The success of formation of DL was characterized by optical and transmission electron microscopy. Quantitation of DL-bacterial interaction was evaluated in terms of percent growth inhibition (%GI) on reference strain of H. pylori ATCC 26695. To confirm specific binding efficacy of DL to H. pylori PE surface receptor we performed an agglutination assay. Agglutination in DL treated H. pylori suspension suggested selectivity of DL towards the PE surface receptor of H. pylori. Monotherapy is generally not recommended for treatment of a H. pylori infection due to the danger of development of resistance and unacceptably low eradication rates. Therefore, combination therapy with amoxicillin trihydrate (AMOX) as anti-H. pylori agent and ranitidine bismuth citrate (RBC) as antisecretory agent were selected for the study with an expectation that this dual-drug delivery approach will exert acceptable anti-H. pylori activity.

Keywords: Helicobacter pylorI, amoxicillin trihydrate, Ranitidine Bismuth citrate, phosphatidylethanolamine, multi vesicular systems

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Authors: Hyeon-Kyo Lim, Sang-Hun Byun

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Risk assessment is carried out in most industrial plants for accident prevention, but there exists insufficient data for statistical decision making. It is commonly said that risk can be expressed as a product of consequence and likelihood of a corresponding hazard factor. Eventually, therefore, risk assessment involves human decision making which cannot be objective per se. This study was carried out to comprehend perceptive characteristics of human beings in industrial plants. Subjects were shown a set of illustrations describing scenes of industrial plants, and were asked to assess the risk of each scene with not only linguistic variables but also numeric scores in the aspect of consequence and likelihood. After that, their responses were formulated as fuzzy membership functions, and compared with those of university students who had no experience of industrial works. The results showed that risk level of industrial workers were lower than those of any other groups, which implied that the workers might generally have a tendency to neglect more hazard factors in their work fields.

Keywords: fuzzy, hazard, linguistic variable, risk assessment

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Authors: Csilla Paksi-Petró

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The Hungarian national public administration training system providing continuous, lifelong further training to some ten thousand executives in public administration was launched in 2014, adding skills and competency development to the previous training solutions, which had a mainly legal and professional approach. The executive training system is being continuously developed since tackling the existing qualitative, and quantitative challenges calls for the introduction of novel, innovative solutions. With a gap-filling character, this study presents, in brief, the last eight years of system of executive training in public administration, supported by the outcomes of the author's empirical research, makes suggestions for the possible directions of its further development. Through this article, the reader may obtain an overview of the current Hungarian civil service further training system, its institution system, the method of its application, its target groups, its results, and its development prospects. By reading the article, the reader will get acquainted with the good practices of the Hungarian civil service further training system.

Keywords: coaching, e-learning, executive development, further-training

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Authors: Imessaoudene Y., Mouhouche B., Sengouga A., Kadir M.

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The objective of this work is to determine the virtual water of main crops grown in the province of Djelfa and water use efficiency (W.U.E.), Which is essential to approach the application and better integration with the offer in the region. In the case of agricultural production, virtual water is the volume of water evapo-transpired by crops. It depends on particular on the expertise of its producers and its global production area, warm and dry climates induce higher consumption. At the scale of the province, the determination of the quantities of virtual water is done by calculating the unit water requirements related to water irrigated hectare and total rainfall over the crop using the Cropwat 8.0 F.A.O. software. Quantifying the volume of agricultural virtual water of crops practiced in the study area demonstrates the quantitative importance of these volumes of water in terms of available water resources in the province, so the advantages which can be the concept of virtual water as an analysis tool and decision support for the management and distribution of water in scarcity situation.

Keywords: virtual water, water use efficiency, water requirements, Djelfa

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Authors: Imelda Atengco Milan

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This research is aimed to assess the effectiveness and status of Islamic branding amongst hypermarkets from respondents perspective in the Kingdom of Bahrain such as Lulu, Geant and Carrefour and It was identified in terms of pure advertisement, religious norms and culture, certified halal product/ brand, consumption barriers and attitude towards other products/ brand. Included here are also the essentials in modern marketing including problems encountered and recommendations which will be revealed through the findings of the study. The methods used are descriptive and quantitative with sample analysis through quite a number of populations. Formulation of Sample questionnaire is done according to the variables and items used to measure reliability of statistics. The measurement of validity on the conduct of the surveys has been done according to Chronbach’s value (greater than 0.7). Pearson correlation was used as part of statistical analysis as well. It must show continuously that the model used is aligned towards factors indicated.

Keywords: pure advertisement, religious norms & culture, certified halal product, attitude towards other brand and consumption barriers

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Authors: O. Ahmed Apampa, Yinusa, A. Jimoh

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The aim of this study was to develop an appropriate model for predicting the compaction behavior of lateritic soils and corn cob ash (CCA) stabilized lateritic soils. This was done by first adopting an equation earlier developed for fine-grained soils and subsequent adaptation by others and extending it to modified lateritic soil through the introduction of alpha and beta parameters which are polynomial functions of the CCA binder input. The polynomial equations were determined with MATLAB R2011 curve fitting tool, while the alpha and beta parameters were determined by standard linear programming techniques using the Solver function of Microsoft Excel 2010. The model so developed was a good fit with a correlation coefficient R2 value of 0.86. The paper concludes that it is possible to determine the optimum moisture content and the maximum dry density of CCA stabilized soils from the compaction test of the unmodified soil, and recommends that this procedure is extended to other binder stabilized lateritic soils to facilitate quick decision making in roadworks.

Keywords: compaction, corn cob ash, lateritic soil, stabilization

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Authors: Khosru M. Salim, Md. Jasim Uddin, Mohammad Rejwan Uddin

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Developing countries like Bangladesh has huge population lives in the rural areas out of electricity. They are using manually operated tube well for collecting underground water to meet their daily demand. A human labour is required to lift water from tube well. Sometimes, it is impossible for a elementary school going child to operate a tube well in the school. Solar powered water pump could be a sustainable water pumping solution in the rural area of Bangladesh. To minimize the cost, a 0.5 horse power solar water pump is designed considering the requirement of water for a typical house hold in this research. A prototype of the 0.5 hp capacity system is implemented and tested in the rooftop of the university lab to validate the performances. Based on the experimental data, the performance of the system is analyzed and presented in this paper.

Keywords: water pump, solar photovoltaic module, performance analysis, feasibility study

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Authors: Alfi Y. Zakiyyah, Hanni Garminia, M. Salman, A. N. Irawati

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In the terminology of the hypergraph, there is a relation with the terminology graph. In the theory of graph, the edges connected two vertices. In otherwise, in hypergraph, the edges can connect more than two vertices. There is representation matrix of a graph such as adjacency matrix, Laplacian matrix, and incidence matrix. The adjacency matrix is symmetry matrix so that all eigenvalues is real. This matrix is a nonnegative matrix. The all diagonal entry from adjacency matrix is zero so that the trace is zero. Another representation matrix of the graph is the Laplacian matrix. Laplacian matrix is symmetry matrix and semidefinite positive so that all eigenvalues are real and non-negative. According to the spectral study in the graph, some that result is generalized to hypergraph. A hypergraph can be represented by a matrix such as adjacency, incidence, and Laplacian matrix. Throughout for this term, we use Laplacian matrix to represent a complete tripartite hypergraph. The aim from this research is to determine second smallest eigenvalues from this matrix and find a relation this eigenvalue with the connectivity of that hypergraph.

Keywords: connectivity, graph, hypergraph, Laplacian matrix

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Authors: Edlira Donefski, Tina Donefski, Lorenc Ekonomi

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Edgeworth Approximation, Bootstrap, and Monte Carlo Simulations have considerable impacts on achieving certain results related to different problems taken into study. In our paper, we have treated a financial case related to the effect that has the components of a cash-flow of one of the most successful businesses in the world, as the financial activity, operational activity, and investment activity to the cash and cash equivalents at the end of the three-months period. To have a better view of this case, we have created a vector autoregression model, and after that, we have generated the impulse responses in the terms of asymptotic analysis (Edgeworth Approximation), Monte Carlo Simulations, and residual bootstrap based on the standard errors of every series created. The generated results consisted of the common tendencies for the three methods applied that consequently verified the advantage of the three methods in the optimization of the model that contains many variants.

Keywords: autoregression, bootstrap, edgeworth expansion, Monte Carlo method

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Authors: Eduardo Antonio Lozano Hernandez, Nancy Ramirez Alvarez, Lorena Margarita Rios Mendoza, Jose Vinicio Macias Zamora, Felix Augusto Hernandez Guzman, Jose Luis Sanchez Osorio

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Microplastics (MPs) are one of the most numerous reported wastes found in the marine ecosystem, representing one of the greatest risks for organisms that inhabit that environment due to their bioavailability. Such is the case of bivalve mollusks, since they are capable of filtering large volumes of water, which increases the risk of contamination by microplastics through the continuous exposure to these materials. This study aims to determine, quantify and characterize microplastics found in the cultured oyster Crassostrea gigas. We also analyzed if there are spatio-temporal differences in the microplastic concentration of organisms grown in two bays having quite different human population. In addition, we wanted to have an idea of the possible impact on humans via consumption of these organisms. Commercial size organisms (>6cm length; n = 15) were collected by triplicate from eight oyster farming sites in Baja California, Mexico during winter and summer. Two sites are located in Todos Santos Bay (TSB), while the other six are located in San Quintin Bay (SQB). Site selection was based on commercial concessions for oyster farming in each bay. The organisms were chemically digested with 30% KOH (w/v) and 30% H₂O₂ (v/v) to remove the organic matter and subsequently filtered using a GF/D filter. All particles considered as possible MPs were quantified according to their physical characteristics using a stereoscopic microscope. The type of synthetic polymer was determined using a FTIR-ATR microscope and using a user as well as a commercial reference library (Nicolet iN10 Thermo Scientific, Inc.) of IR spectra of plastic polymers (with a certainty ≥70% for polymers pure; ≥50% for composite polymers). Plastic microfibers were found in all the samples analyzed. However, a low incidence of MP fragments was observed in our study (approximately 9%). The synthetic polymers identified were mainly polyester and polyacrylonitrile. In addition, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, nylon, and T. elastomer. On average, the content of microplastics in organisms were higher in TSB (0.05 ± 0.01 plastic particles (pp)/g of wet weight) than found in SQB (0.02 ± 0.004 pp/g of wet weight) in the winter period. The highest concentration of MPs found in TSB coincides with the rainy season in the region, which increases the runoff from streams and wastewater discharges to the bay, as well as the larger population pressure (> 500,000 inhabitants). Otherwise, SQB is a mainly rural location, where surface runoff from streams is minimal and in addition, does not have a wastewater discharge into the bay. During the summer, no significant differences (Manne-Whitney U test; P=0.484) were observed in the concentration of MPs found in the cultured oysters of TSB and SQB, (average: 0.01 ± 0.003 pp/g and 0.01 ± 0.002 pp/g, respectively). Finally, we concluded that the consumption of oyster does not represent a risk for humans due to the low concentrations of MPs found. The concentration of MPs is influenced by the variables such as temporality, circulations dynamics of the bay and existing demographic pressure.

Keywords: FTIR-ATR, Human risk, Microplastic, Oyster

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Authors: Aleksandra Gajda

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Among students between 12 and 13, the probability of activating the stereotype threat increases noticeably. Girls consider themselves weaker in science, while boys consider themselves weaker in the field of language skills. This phenomenon is disturbing because it may result in wrong choices of the further path of education, not consistent with the actual competences of the students. Meanwhile, negative effects of the stereotype threat, observable in the loss of focus on the task and transferring it to dealing with fear of failure, can be reduced by various factors. The study examined the impact of creativity on eliminating the stereotype threat. The experiment in the form of a 2 (gender: male vs. female) x 3 (traditional gender roles: neutral version vs. nontraditional gender roles) x 2 (creativity: low vs. high) factorial design was conducted. The results showed that a high level of creative abilities may reduce the negative effects of stereotype threat in educational setting.

Keywords: creativity, education, language skills, mathematical skills, stereotype threat

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Authors: Ch. Sridevi, S. P. Shailender Kumar, B. Gurudayal, A. Chalapathi Rao, K. Koteswara Rao, P. Srinivasulu

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System reliability and system availability evaluation plays a crucial role in ensuring the seamless operation of complex satellite data reception system with consistent performance for longer periods. This paper presents a novel approach for the same using a case study on one of the antenna systems at satellite data reception ground station in India. The methodology involves analyzing system's components, their failure rates, system's architecture, generation of logical reliability block diagram model and estimating the reliability of the system using the component level mean time between failures considering exponential distribution to derive a baseline estimate of the system's reliability. The model is then validated with collected system level field failure data from the operational satellite data reception systems that includes failure occurred, failure time, criticality of the failure and repair times by using statistical techniques like median rank, regression and Weibull analysis to extract meaningful insights regarding failure patterns and practical reliability of the system and to assess the accuracy of the developed reliability model. The study mainly focused on identification of critical units within the system, which are prone to failures and have a significant impact on overall performance and brought out a reliability model of the identified critical unit. This model takes into account the interdependencies among system components and their impact on overall system reliability and provides valuable insights into the performance of the system to understand the Improvement or degradation of the system over a period of time and will be the vital input to arrive at the optimized design for future development. It also provides a plug and play framework to understand the effect on performance of the system in case of any up gradations or new designs of the unit. It helps in effective planning and formulating contingency plans to address potential system failures, ensuring the continuity of operations. Furthermore, to instill confidence in system users, the duration for which the system can operate continuously with the desired level of 3 sigma reliability was estimated that turned out to be a vital input to maintenance plan. System availability and station availability was also assessed by considering scenarios of clash and non-clash to determine the overall system performance and potential bottlenecks. Overall, this paper establishes a comprehensive methodology for reliability and availability analysis of complex satellite data reception systems. The results derived from this approach facilitate effective planning contingency measures, and provide users with confidence in system performance and enables decision-makers to make informed choices about system maintenance, upgrades and replacements. It also aids in identifying critical units and assessing system availability in various scenarios and helps in minimizing downtime and optimizing resource allocation.

Keywords: exponential distribution, reliability modeling, reliability block diagram, satellite data reception system, system availability, weibull analysis

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Authors: Won Kyung Ham, Kang Hoon Cho, Sang C. Park

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Presented in this paper is a framework of a software ‘WEMax’. The WEMax is invented for analysis and simulation for manned assembly lines to sustain and improve performance of manufacturing systems. In a manufacturing system, performance, such as productivity, is a key of competitiveness for output products. However, the manned assembly lines are difficult to forecast performance, because human labors are not expectable factors by computer simulation models or mathematical models. Existing approaches to performance forecasting of the manned assembly lines are limited to matters of the human itself, such as ergonomic and workload design, and non-human-factor-relevant simulation. Consequently, an approach for the forecasting and improvement of manned assembly line performance is needed to research. As a solution of the current problem, this study proposes a framework that is for generation and simulation of virtual manned assembly lines, and the framework has been implemented as a software.

Keywords: performance forecasting, simulation, virtual manned assembly line, WEMax

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Authors: G. Lingam, N. Lingam, K. Raghuwaiya

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In Fiji, notable among the recent spate of educational reforms has been the Ministry of Education’s (MoEs) requirement that all schools undertake a process of school strategic planning. This preliminary study explores perceptions of a sample of Fijian teachers on the way this exercise has been conducted in their schools. The analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data indicates that school leaders’ lack of knowledge and skills in school strategic planning is a major limitation. As an unsurprising consequence, the process(es) schools adopted did not conform to what the literature suggests as best planning practices. School leaders need more training to ensure they are better prepared to carry out this strategic planning effectively, especially in widening the opportunities for all who have a stake in education to contribute to the process. Implications of the findings are likely to be pertinent to other developing contexts within and beyond the Pacific region for the training of school leaders to ensure they are better equipped to orchestrate and benefit from educational reforms thrust upon them.

Keywords: school strategic planning, educational reforms, Fijian schools, Ministry of Education

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Authors: Jiangbo Pu, Hanhui Xu, Yazhou Wang, Hongyan Cui, Yong Hu

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Spinal cord injury (SCI) brings great negative influence to the patients and society. Neurological loss in human after SCI is a major challenge in clinical. Instead, neural regeneration could have been seen in animals after SCI, and such regeneration could be retarded by blocking neural plasticity pathways, showing the importance of neural plasticity in functional recovery. Here we used sample entropy as an indicator of nonlinear dynamical in the brain to quantify plasticity changes in spontaneous EEG recordings of rats before and after SCI. The results showed that the entropy values were increased after the injury during the recovery in one week. The increasing tendency of sample entropy values is consistent with that of behavioral evaluation scores. It is indicated the potential application of sample entropy analysis for the evaluation of neural plasticity in spinal cord injury rat model.

Keywords: spinal cord injury (SCI), sample entropy, nonlinear, complex system, firing pattern, EEG, spontaneous activity, Basso Beattie Bresnahan (BBB) score

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Authors: G. R. Kavitha, T. S. Indumathi

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With the constantly rising demands of the multimedia services, the requirements of long haul transport network are constantly changing in the area of optical network. Maximum data transmission using optimization of the communication channel poses the biggest challenge. Although there has been a constant focus on this area from the past decade, there was no evidence of a significant result that has been accomplished. Hence, after reviewing some potential design of optical network from literatures, it was understood that optical signal to noise ratio was one of the elementary attributes that can define the performance of the optical network. In this paper, we propose a framework termed as ECON (Enhanced Constraint-based Optical Network) that primarily optimize the optical signal to noise ratio using ROADM. The simulation is performed in Matlab and optical signal to noise ratio is extracted considering the system matrix. The outcome of the proposed study shows that optimized OSNR as compared to the existing studies.

Keywords: component, optical network, reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer, optical signal-to-noise ratio

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Authors: Shunichiro Morishita

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This study examines the factors for attracting foreign guests in the Japanese lodging industry and discusses some measures taken for accepting foreign guests. It reviews three different accommodation providers acclaimed highly by foreign guests, Yamashiroya, Sawanoya and Fuji-Hakone Guest House, and identifies their characteristics. The common points for attracting foreign guests were: 1) making the best use of the old facilities, 2) multilingual signs, guidance and websites, 3) necessary and sufficient communication in English, 4) events and opportunities to experience Japanese culture, 5) omotenashi, warm and homely Japanese hospitality. These findings indicate that foreign guests’ dissatisfaction level can be decreased through internationalization utilizing ICT and by offering multilingual support. On the other hand, their satisfaction level can be increased by encouraging interaction with other guests and local Japanese people, providing events and opportunities to experience Japanese culture and omotenashi, home-style Japanese hospitality.

Keywords: hospitality management, foreign guests, Japanese lodging industry, Omotenashi

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Authors: Asaad Y. Shamseldin

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Analytical probabilistic approach is an innovative approach for urban stormwater modeling. It can provide information about the long-term performance of a stormwater management facility without being computationally very demanding. This paper explores the application of the analytical probabilistic approach in New Zealand. The paper presents the results of a case study aimed at development of an objective way of identifying what constitutes a rainfall storm event and the estimation of the corresponding statistical properties of storms using two selected automatic rainfall stations located in the Auckland region in New Zealand. The storm identification and the estimation of the storm statistical properties are regarded as the first step in the development of the analytical probabilistic models. The paper provides a recommendation about the definition of the storm inter-event time to be used in conjunction with the analytical probabilistic approach.

Keywords: hydrology, rainfall storm, storm inter-event time, New Zealand, stormwater management

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Authors: Basil Manos, Parthena Chatzinikolaou, Fedra Kiomourtzi

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This paper presents a mathematical model for the sustainable management of agricultural resources in irrigated agriculture. This is a multicriteria mathematical programming model and used as a tool for the planning, analysis and simulation of farm plans in rural irrigated areas, as well as for the study of impacts of the various policies in irrigated agriculture. The model can achieve the optimum farm plan of an agricultural region taking in account different conflicting criteria as the maximization of gross margin and the minimization of fertilizers used, under a set of constraints for land, labor, available capital, common agricultural policy etc. The proposed model was applied to four prefectures in central Greece. The results show that in all prefectures, the optimum farm plans achieve greater income and less environmental impacts (less irrigated water use and less fertilizers use) than the existent plans.

Keywords: sustainable use of agricultural resources, irrigated agriculture, multicriteria analysis, optimum income

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Authors: M. E. Abou-Hashem El Dib, M. K. Swailem, M. M. Metwally, A. I. El Awady

Abstract:

This paper presents the effect of stiffeners on the behavior of slender steel I-beams. Nonlinear three dimensional finite element models are developed to represent the stiffened steel I-beams. The well established finite element (ANSYS 13.0) program is used to simulate the geometric and material nonlinear nature of the problem. Verification is achieved by comparing the obtained numerical results with the results of previous published experimental work. The parameters considered in the analysis are the horizontal stiffener's position and the horizontal stiffener's dimensions as well as the number of vertical stiffeners. The studied dimensions of the horizontal stiffeners include the stiffener width, the stiffener thickness and the stiffener length. The results of the achieved numerical parametric study for slender steel I-beams show the significant effect of stiffeners on the beam behavior and its failure load.

Keywords: beams, local buckling, slender, stiffener, thin walled section

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Authors: Mohammad Anwar, Hamid Ullah Khan, Shah Waliullah

Abstract:

Recently, environmental education is an essential element in avoiding environmental degradation around the globe that needs new articles and policymakers’ emphasis. Hence, the present article examines the impact of environmental education on environmental knowledge, environmental behavior, and environmental attitudes in Indonesia. The present research also investigated the moderating role of government support in environmental education, environmental knowledge, environmental behavior, and environmental attitude in Indonesia. A questionnaire was used as the primary data collection method. The smart PLS was utilized to test the association among variables and the hypotheses of the study. The results revealed that environmental education had a significant and positive linkage with environmental knowledge, environmental behavior, and environmental attitude in Indonesia. The findings also exposed that government support significantly moderated environmental education, environmental knowledge, and environmental behavior in Indonesia. The findings of this research would provide help to the policymakers in establishing the policies related to environmental education and reducing environmental degradation.

Keywords: environmental education, environmental knowledge, environmental behavior, environmental attitude, government support

Procedia PDF Downloads 74