Search results for: visual concepts

Authors: Beatriz Martinez-Pastor, Maria Nogal, Alan O'Connor

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During the last years, the number of extreme weather events has increased. A variety of extreme weather events, including river floods, rain-induced landslides, droughts, winter storms, wildfire, and hurricanes, have threatened and damaged many different regions worldwide. These events have a devastating impact on critical infrastructure systems resulting in high social, economical and environmental costs. These events have a huge impact in transport systems. Since, transport networks are completely exposed to every kind of climatological perturbations, and its performance is closely related with these events. When a traffic network is affected by a climatological hazard, the quality of its service is threatened, and the level of the traffic conditions usually decreases. With the aim of understanding this process, the concept of resilience has become most popular in the area of transport. Transport resilience analyses the behavior of a traffic network when a perturbation takes place. This holistic concept studies the complete process, from the beginning of the perturbation until the total recovery of the system, when the perturbation has finished. Many concepts are included in the definition of resilience, such as vulnerability, redundancy, adaptability, and safety. Once the resilience of a transport network can be evaluated, in this case, the methodology used is a dynamic equilibrium-restricted assignment model that allows the quantification of the concept, the next step is its improvement. Through the improvement of this concept, it will be possible to create transport networks that are able to withstand and have a better performance under the presence of climatological hazards. Analyzing the impact of a perturbation in a traffic network, it is observed that the response of the different links, which are part of the network, can be completely different from one to another. Consequently and due to this effect, many questions arise, as what makes a link more critical before an extreme weather event? or how is it possible to identify these critical links? With this aim, and knowing that most of the times the owners or managers of the transport systems have limited resources, the identification of the critical links of a transport network before extreme weather events, becomes a crucial objective. For that reason, using the available resources in the areas that will generate a higher improvement of the resilience, will contribute to the global development of the network. Therefore, this paper wants to analyze what kind of characteristic makes a link a critical one when an extreme weather event damages a transport network and finally identify them.

Keywords: critical links, extreme weather events, hazard, resilience, transport network

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Authors: Linda Dusman, Linda Baker

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The Bearman Study of Audience Engagement examined the potential for real-time music education during online symphony orchestra concerts. It follows on the promising results of a preliminary study of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education during live concerts, funded by the National Science Foundation with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. For the Bearman Study, audience groups were recruited to attend two previously recorded concerts of the National Orchestral Institute (NOI) in 2020 or the Utah Symphony in 2021. They used a smartphone app called EnCue to present real-time program notes about the music being performed. Short notes along with visual information (photos and score fragments) were designed to provide historical, cultural, biographical, and theoretical information at specific moments in the music where that information would be most pertinent, generally spaced 2-3 minutes apart to avoid distraction. The music performed included Dvorak Symphony No. 8 and Mahler Symphony No. 5 at NOI, and Mendelssohn Scottish Symphony and Richard Strauss Metamorphosen with the Utah Symphony, all standard repertoire for symphony orchestras. During each phase of the study (2020 and 2021), participants were randomly assigned to use the app to view program notes during the first concert or to use the app during the second concert. A total of 139 participants (67 in 2020 and 72 in 2021) completed three online questionnaires, one before attending the first concert, one immediately after the concert, and the third immediately after the second concert. Questionnaires assessed demographic background, expertise in music, engagement during the concert, learning of content about the composers and the symphonies, and interest in the future use of the app. In both phases of the study, participants demonstrated that they learned content presented on the app, evidenced by the fact that their multiple-choice test scores were significantly higher when they used the app than when they did not. In addition, most participants indicated that using the app enriched their experience of the concert. Overall, they were very positive about their experience using the app for real-time learning and they expressed interest in using it in the future at both live and streaming concerts. Results confirmed that informal real-time learning during concerts is possible and can generate enhanced engagement and interest in classical music.

Keywords: audience engagement, informal education, music technology, real-time learning

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Authors: Athanasios A. Gavrilidis, Mihai R. Nita, Larissa N. Stoia, Diana A. Onose

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Contemporary global environmental challenges must be primarily addressed at local levels. Cities are under continuous pressure as they must ensure high quality of life levels for their citizens and at the same time to adapt and address specific environmental issues. Innovative solutions using natural features or mimicking natural systems are endorsed by the scientific community as efficient approaches for both mitigating climate change effects and the decrease of environmental quality and for maintaining high standards of living for urban dwellers. The aim of this study was to assess whether Romanian cities’ authorities are considering nature-based innovation as solutions for their planning, management, and environmental issues. Data were gathered by applying 140 questionnaires to urban authorities throughout the country. The questionnaire was designed for assessinglocal policy makers’ perspective over the efficiency of nature-based innovations as a tool to address specific challenges. It also focused on extracting data about financing sources and challenges they must overcome for adopting nature-based approaches. The gather results from the municipalities participating in our study were statistically processed, and they revealed that Romanian city managers acknowledge the benefits of nature-based innovations, but investments in this sector are not on top of their priorities. More than 90% of the selected cities have agreed that in the last 10 years, their major concern was to expand the grey infrastructure (roads and public amenities) using traditional approaches. When asked how they would react if faced with different socio-economic and environmental challenges, local urban managers indicated investments nature-based solutions as a priority only in case of biodiversity loss and extreme weather, while for other 14 proposed scenarios, they would embrace the business-as-usual approach. Our study indicates that while new concepts of sustainable urban planning emerge within the scientific community, local authorities need more time to understand and implement them. Without the proper knowledge, personnel, policies, or dedicated budgets, local administrators will not embrace nature-based innovations as solutions for their challenges.

Keywords: nature based innovations, perception analysis, policy making, urban planning

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Authors: A. Atli, K. Candelier, J. Alteyrac

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Environmental and sustainability concerns push the industries to manufacture alternative materials having less environmental impact. The Wood Plastic Composites (WPCs) produced by blending the biopolymers and natural fillers permit not only to tailor the desired properties of materials but also are the solution to meet the environmental and sustainability requirements. This work presents the elaboration and characterization of the fully green WPCs prepared by blending a biopolymer, BIOPLAST® GS 2189 and spruce sawdust used as filler with different amounts. Since both components are bio-based, the resulting material is entirely environmentally friendly. The mechanical, thermal, structural properties of these WPCs were characterized by different analytical methods like tensile, flexural and impact tests, Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). Their water absorption properties and resistance to the termite and fungal attacks were determined in relation with different wood filler content. The tensile and flexural moduli of WPCs increased with increasing amount of wood fillers into the biopolymer, but WPCs became more brittle compared to the neat polymer. Incorporation of spruce sawdust modified the thermal properties of polymer: The degradation, cold crystallization, and melting temperatures shifted to higher temperatures when spruce sawdust was added into polymer. The termite, fungal and water absorption resistance of WPCs decreased with increasing wood amount in WPCs, but remained in durability class 1 (durable) concerning fungal resistance and quoted 1 (attempted attack) in visual rating regarding to the termites resistance except that the WPC with the highest wood content (30 wt%) rated 2 (slight attack) indicating a long term durability. All the results showed the possibility to elaborate the easy injectable composite materials with adjustable properties by incorporation of BIOPLAST® GS 2189 and spruce sawdust. Therefore, lightweight WPCs allow both to recycle wood industry byproducts and to produce a full ecologic material.

Keywords: biodegradability, color measurements, durability, mechanical properties, melt flow index, MFI, structural properties, thermal properties, wood-plastic composites, WPCs

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Authors: Roberto Rosenhaim, Marcos Antonio Crus Moreira, Robson da Cunha, Gerson Gomes Cunha

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This work provides details on the wind speed behavior within cities of Arraial do Cabo and São Pedro da Aldeia located in the Lakes Region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This region has one of the best potentials for wind power generation. In interurban layer, wind conditions are very complex and depend on physical geography, size and orientation of buildings and constructions around, population density, and land use. In the same context, the fundamental surface parameter that governs the production of flow turbulence in urban canyons is the surface roughness. Such factors can influence the potential for power generation from the wind within the cities. Moreover, the use of wind on a small scale is not fully utilized due to complexity of wind flow measurement inside the cities. It is difficult to accurately predict this type of resource. This study demonstrates how fuzzy logic can facilitate the assessment of the complexity of the wind potential inside the cities. It presents a decision support tool and its ability to deal with inaccurate information using linguistic variables created by the heuristic method. It relies on the already published studies about the variables that influence the wind speed in the urban environment. These variables were turned into the verbal expressions that are used in computer system, which facilitated the establishment of rules for fuzzy inference and integration with an application for smartphones used in the research. In the first part of the study, challenges of the sustainable development which are described are followed by incentive policies to the use of renewable energy in Brazil. The next chapter follows the study area characteristics and the concepts of fuzzy logic. Data were collected in field experiment by using qualitative and quantitative methods for assessment. As a result, a map of the various points is presented within the cities studied with its wind viability evaluated by a system of decision support using the method multivariate classification based on fuzzy logic.

Keywords: behavior of winds, wind power, fuzzy logic, sustainable development

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Authors: Alice V. Brown, Patrick Egan, Dorothy Bagshaw, Jackie Oakley, Emma Vieira, Louise Southalan, Duc Dau, Lucy Spanswick, Lindey Andrews, Mandy Wilson, Jocelyn Jones

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Western Australia has recently adopted a 10-year plan to end homelessness across its State, with sections of the plan focused particularly on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. In 2022, we engaged with 70-90 Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness in Perth, Western Australia, through qualitative interviews and creative methods, listening to their experiences of homelessness and their views on how services, State plans, and policies could better support them. This research was driven by the Aboriginal community through a Community Ownership Group of 16 Aboriginal Elders, elected by Elders’ groups, from across the Perth metropolitan area. The Community Ownership Group met every six weeks across the 15-month project timeline to guide the research team, endorse methods chosen, and provide richer context to research findings to ensure they adequately represent the experiences of Aboriginal people. These meetings were audio-recorded when possible and documented through meeting notes, verbal and visual minutes, and film, providing insights into homelessness from the perspective of Aboriginal Elders. In this paper, we compare the views of those experiencing homelessness with the views of the Aboriginal Elders -many of whom have experienced homelessness firsthand- and literature regarding how those experiencing homelessness can be better supported. We detail the ‘survival-directed thinking’ of those we engaged with who was in the throes of homelessness, leading them to focus more on immediate solutions such as food and housing. We then compare these narratives to Elders’ views that have been more regularly focused on connection to culture and long-term plans for healing homelessness, alongside immediate outreach -views also reflected in the literature. Through these comparisons, we highlight the importance of engaging both with those currently experiencing homelessness as well as with Aboriginal Elders as important cultural caretakers and authorities. We demonstrate how these varied voices uncover both long and short-term perspectives on how homelessness can be better managed in policy and service provision. We also highlight the potential role Aboriginal Elders can play in supporting the Aboriginal homeless community and their transition into housing.

Keywords: Aboriginal and Torres strait islander peoples, aboriginal elders, homelessness, community-led research

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Authors: Ivanna Shubina

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Background/Objectives and Goals: Recent interest in positive psychology is reflected in a plenty of studies conducted on its basic constructs (e.g. self-esteem and happiness) in interrelation with personality features, social rules, business and technology development. The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of self-esteem, exploring the relationships between self-esteem and happiness, self-esteem and locus of control (LOC). It hypothesizes that self-esteem may be interpreted as a predictor of happiness and mediator in the locus of control establishment. A plenty of various empirical studies results have been analyzed in order to collect data for this theoretical study, and some of the analysed results can be considered as arguable or incoherent. However, the majority of results indicate a strong relationship between three considered concepts: self-esteem, happiness, the locus of control. Methods: In particular, this study addresses the following broad research questions: i) Is self-esteem just an index of global happiness? ii) May happiness be possible or realizable without a healthy self-confidence and self-acceptance? iii) To what extent does self-esteem influence on the level of happiness? iv) Is high self-esteem a sufficient condition for happiness? v) Is self-esteem is a strong predictor of internal locus of control maintenance? vi) Is high self-esteem related to internal LOC, while low self-esteem to external LOC? In order to find the answers for listed questions, 60 reliable sources have been analyzed, results of what are discussed more detailed below. Expected Results/Conclusion/Contribution:It is recognized that the relationship between self-esteem, happiness, locus of control is complex: internal LOC is contributing to happiness, but it is not directly related to it; self-esteem is a powerful and important psychological factor in mental health and well-being; the feelings of being worthy and empowered are associated with significant achievements and high self-esteem; strong and appropriate self-esteem (when the discrepancy between “ideal” and “real” self is balanced) is correlated with more internal LOC (when the individual tends to believe that personal achievements depend on possessed features, vigor, and persistence). Despite the special attention paid to happiness, the locus of control and self-esteem, independently, theoretical and empirical equivocations within each literature foreclose many obvious predictions about the nature of their empirical distinction. In terms of theoretical framework, no model has achieved consensus as an ultimate theoretical background for any of the mentioned constructs. To be able to clarify the relationship between self-esteem, happiness, and locus of control more interdisciplinary studies have to take place in order to get data on heterogeneous samples, provided from various countries, cultures, and social groups.

Keywords: happiness, locus of control, self-esteem, mediation

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Authors: Radwa Mabrook

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Virtual Reality (VR) content creation is a complex and an expensive process, which requires multi-disciplinary teams of content creators. Grant schemes from technology companies help media organisations to explore the VR potential in journalism and factual storytelling. Media organisations try to do as much as they can in-house, but they may outsource due to time constraints and skill availability. Journalists, game developers, sound designers and creative artists work together and bring in new cultures of work. This study explores the collaborative experimental nature of VR content creation, through tracing every actor involved in the process and examining their perceptions of the VR work. The study builds on Actor Network Theory (ANT), which decomposes phenomena into their basic elements and traces the interrelations among them. Therefore, the researcher conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with VR content creators between November 2017 and April 2018. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques allowed the researcher to recruit fact-based VR content creators from production studios and media organisations, as well as freelancers. Interviews lasted up to three hours, and they were a mix of Skype calls and in-person interviews. Participants consented for their interviews to be recorded, and for their names to be revealed in the study. The researcher coded interviews’ transcripts in Nvivo software, looking for key themes that correspond with the research questions. The study revealed that VR content creators must be adaptive to change, open to learn and comfortable with mistakes. The VR content creation process is very iterative because VR has no established work flow or visual grammar. Multi-disciplinary VR team members often speak different languages making it hard to communicate. However, adaptive content creators perceive VR work as a fun experience and an opportunity to learn. The traditional sense of competition and the strive for information exclusivity are now replaced by a strong drive for knowledge sharing. VR content creators are open to share their methods of work and their experiences. They target to build a collaborative network that aims to harness VR technology for journalism and factual storytelling. Indeed, VR is instilling collaborative and experimental cultures in journalism.

Keywords: collaborative culture, content creation, experimental culture, virtual reality

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Authors: Wan-Ting Liao, Angela K. Tzeng

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Empathy has been an important issue in psychology, education, as well as cognitive neuroscience. Empathy has two major components: cognitive and emotional. Cognitive component refers to the ability to understand others’ perspectives, thoughts, and actions, whereas emotional component refers to understand how others feel. Empathy can be induced, attitude can then be changed, and with enough attitude change, helping behavior can occur. This finding leads us to two questions: is attitude change really necessary for prosocial behavior? And, what roles cognitive and affective empathy play? For the second question, participants with different psychopathic personality (PP) traits are critical because high PP people were found to suffer only affective empathy deficit. Their cognitive empathy shows no significant difference from the control group. 132 college students voluntarily participated in the current three-stage study. Stage 1 was to collect basic information including Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R), Attitude Scale, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), and demographic data. Stage two was for empathy induction with three controversial scenarios, namely domestic violence, depression with a suicide attempt, and an ex-offender. Participants read all three stories and then rewrite the stories by one of two perspectives (empathetic vs. objective). They would then complete the VAS and Attitude Scale one more time for their post-attitude and emotional status. Three IVs were introduced for data analysis: PP (High vs. Low), Responsibility (whether or not the character is responsible for what happened), and Perspective-taking (Empathic vs. Objective). Stage 3 was for the action. Participants were instructed to freely use the 17 tokens they received as donations. They were debriefed and interviewed at the end of the experiment. The major findings were people with higher empathy tend to take more action in helping. Attitude change is not necessary for prosocial behavior. The controversy of the scenarios and how familiar participants are towards target groups play very important roles. Finally, people with high PP tend to show more public prosocial behavior due to their affective empathy deficit. Pre-existing value and belief as well as recent dramatic social events seem to have a big impact and possibly reduce the effect of the independent variables (IV) in our paradigm.

Keywords: empathy, cognitive, emotional, psychopathy

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Authors: Kseniia Zviagintseva, Brett Buttliere

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Science is fundamentally a problem-solving enterprise, and scientists pay more attention to the negative things, that cause them dissonance and negative affective state of uncertainty or contradiction. While this is agreed upon by philosophers of science, there are few empirical demonstrations. Here we examine the keywords from those papers published by PLoS in 2014 and show with several sentiment analyzers that negative keywords are studied more than positive keywords. Our dataset is the 927,406 keywords of 32,870 scientific articles in all fields published in 2014 by the journal PLOS ONE (collected from Altmetric.com). Counting how often the 47,415 unique keywords are used, we can examine whether those negative topics are studied more than positive. In order to find the sentiment of the keywords, we utilized two sentiment analysis tools, Hu and Liu (2004) and SentiStrength (2014). The results below are for Hu and Liu as these are the less convincing results. The average keyword was utilized 19.56 times, with half of the keywords being utilized only 1 time and the maximum number of uses being 18,589 times. The keywords identified as negative were utilized 37.39 times, on average, with the positive keywords being utilized 14.72 times and the neutral keywords - 19.29, on average. This difference is only marginally significant, with an F value of 2.82, with a p of .05, but one must keep in mind that more than half of the keywords are utilized only 1 time, artificially increasing the variance and driving the effect size down. To examine more closely, we looked at those top 25 most utilized keywords that have a sentiment. Among the top 25, there are only two positive words, ‘care’ and ‘dynamics’, in position numbers 5 and 13 respectively, with all the rest being identified as negative. ‘Diseases’ is the most studied keyword with 8,790 uses, with ‘cancer’ and ‘infectious’ being the second and fourth most utilized sentiment-laden keywords. The sentiment analysis is not perfect though, as the words ‘diseases’ and ‘disease’ are split by taking 1st and 3rd positions. Combining them, they remain as the most common sentiment-laden keyword, being utilized 13,236 times. More than just splitting the words, the sentiment analyzer logs ‘regression’ and ‘rat’ as negative, and these should probably be considered false positives. Despite these potential problems, the effect is apparent, as even the positive keywords like ‘care’ could or should be considered negative, since this word is most commonly utilized as a part of ‘health care’, ‘critical care’ or ‘quality of care’ and generally associated with how to improve it. All in all, the results suggest that negative concepts are studied more, also providing support for the notion that science is most generally a problem-solving enterprise. The results also provide evidence that negativity and contradiction are related to greater productivity and positive outcomes.

Keywords: bibliometrics, keywords analysis, negativity bias, positive and negative words, scientific papers, scientometrics

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Authors: Amina Omer, Ikram Elsiddig

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Arctostaphylos uvaursi is a plant of the family Ericaceae, it’s used in skin care products mostly for its depigmenting action, due to the presence of hydroquinones that are well known inhibitors of tyrosinase, an enzyme involved in melanin biosynthesis in humans. The main hydroquinone found within the A. uvaursi is arbutin, which is found with varying percentage within the plant depending on the season, and area from which the plant is harvested. An in vitro experiment has shown that the arbutin found within the bearberry leaf extract inhibited the biosynthesis of melanin in human melanoma cells and in three-dimensional human skin model. Madurella mycetomatis is filamentous fungus that causes the fungal form of mycetoma known as eumycetoma, with existing anti-fungals and surgery, only 35% of people living eumycetoma are treated, M. mycetomatis has been found to shield itself against the antifungal therapy through the production of melanin decreasing the effectiveness of the therapy, therefore there is a need for a new and more effective therapy. The aim of the study was to investigate and compare the effect of arbutin powder and aqueous extract of A. uvaursi containing arbutin on the biosynthesis of melanin by M. mycetomatis. The experiment was carried out by culturing M. mycetomatis on minimal media composed of 2% agar, 15 mM glucose, 10 mM MgSO4, 29.4 mM KH2PO4, 13 mM glycin and 80mg/l gentamicin, the media was supplied with different concentration of arbutin solution (5, 25 50,and 75mg) and aqueous extract of A. uvaursi to contain arbutin with concentrations (5, 25 50,and 75mg), the plates were incubated for two month and the result was observed by the naked eye. The results revealed that the arbutin powder had an inhibitory effect on melanin synthesis by M. mycetomatis that correlated with its established inhibitory effect on melanin synthesis in humans. The inhibitory effect of arbutin on melanin synthesis by M. mycetomatis was found to be dose dependent. A. uvaursi aqueous leaf extract containing arbutin was also found to decrease melanin production by M. mycetomatis, however plates containing high concentrations of aqueous extract couldn’t be assessed for its melanin inhibitory effect due to the high content of carbohydrates in the extract that promoted the growth of fungi Asperigullus niger rendering the plates unsuitable for visual inspection. In conclusion inhibition of melanin synthesis was observed on the arbutin powder as well as the aqueous extract containing arbutin. A. uvaursi is known to exhibit anti-inflammatory activity, which can aid in wound healing that is beneficial in the chronic inflammation caused by M. mycetomatis.

Keywords: arbutin, arctostaphylos, Madurella, melanin

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Authors: Armen Grigoryan, Milena Arakelyan

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The idea of smart logistics is still quite a complicated one. It can be used to market products to a large number of customers or to acquire raw materials of the highest quality at the lowest cost in geographically dispersed areas. The use of smart contracts in logistics and supply chain management has the potential to revolutionize the way that goods are tracked, transported, and managed. Smart contracts are simply computer programs written in one of the blockchain programming languages (Solidity, Rust, Vyper), which are capable of self-execution once the predetermined conditions are met. They can be used to automate and streamline many of the traditional manual processes that are currently used in logistics and supply chain management, including the tracking and movement of goods, the management of inventory, and the facilitation of payments and settlements between different parties in the supply chain. Currently, logistics is a core area for companies which is concerned with transporting products between parties. Still, the problem of this sector is that its scale may lead to detainments and defaults in the delivery of goods, as well as other issues. Moreover, large distributors require a large number of workers to meet all the needs of their stores. All this may contribute to big detainments in order processing and increases the potentiality of losing orders. In an attempt to break this problem, companies have automated all their procedures, contributing to a significant augmentation in the number of businesses and distributors in the logistics sector. Hence, blockchain technology and smart contracted legal agreements seem to be suitable concepts to redesign and optimize collaborative business processes and supply chains. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the scope of blockchain technology and smart contracts in the field of logistics and supply chain management. This study discusses the research question of how and to which extent smart contracts and blockchain technology can facilitate and improve the implementation of collaborative business structures for sustainable entrepreneurial activities in smart supply chains. The intention is to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing research on the use of smart contracts in logistics and supply chain management and to identify any gaps or limitations in the current knowledge on this topic. This review aims to provide a summary and evaluation of the key findings and themes that emerge from the research, as well as to suggest potential directions for future research on the use of smart contracts in logistics and supply chain management.

Keywords: smart contracts, smart logistics, smart supply chain management, blockchain and smart contracts in logistics, smart contracts for controlling supply chain management

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Authors: S. R. Santhanam

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A gifted child is one who gives evidence of creativity, good memory, rapid learning. In mathematics, a teacher often comes across some gifted children and they exhibit the following characteristics: unusual alertness, enjoying solving problems, getting bored on repetitions, self-taught, going beyond what teacher taught, ask probing questions, connecting unconnected concepts, vivid imagination, readiness for research work, perseverance of a topic. There are two main areas of research carried out on them: 1)identifying gifted children, 2) interacting and channelizing them. A lack of appropriate recognition will lead the gifted child demotivated. One of the main findings is if proper attention and nourishment are not given then it leads a gifted child to become depressed, underachieving, fail to reach their full potential and sometimes develop negative attitude towards school and study. After identifying them, a mathematics teacher has to develop them into a fall fledged achiever. The responsibility of the teacher is enormous. The teacher has to be resourceful and patient. But interacting with them one finds a lot of surprises and awesomeness. The elementary algebraic identities like (a+b)(a-b)=a²-b², expansion of like (a+b)²(a-b)² and others are taught to students, of age group 13-15 in India. An average child will be satisfied with a single proof and immediate application of these identities. But a gifted child expects more from the teacher and at one stage after a little training will surpass the teacher also. In this short paper, the author shares his experience regarding teaching algebraic identities to gifted children. The following problem was given to a set of 10 gifted children of the specified age group: If a natural number ‘n’ to expressed as the sum of the two squares, will 2n also be expressed as the sum of two squares? An investigation has been done on what multiples of n satisfying the criterion. The attempts of the gifted children were consolidated and conclusion was drawn. A second problem was given to them as: can two natural numbers be found such that the difference of their square is 3? After a successful solution, more situations were analysed. As a third question, the finding of the sign of an algebraic expression in three variables was analysed. As an example: if a,b,c are real and unequal what will be sign of a²+4b²+9c²-4ab-12bc-6ca? Apart from an expression as a perfect square what other methods can be employed to prove an algebraic expression as positive negative or non negative has been analysed. Expressions like 4x²+2y²+13y²-2xy-4yz-6zx were given, and the children were asked to find the sign of the expression for all real values of x,y and z. In all investigations, only basic algebraic identities were used. As a next probe, a divisibility problem was initiated. When a,b,c are natural numbers such that a+b+c is at least 6, and if a+b+c is divisible by 6 then will 6 divide a³+b³+c³. The gifted children solved it in two different ways.

Keywords: algebraic identities, gifted children, Indian scenario, research

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Authors: Caroline Selai, Sushrut Jadhav

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Background: University College London (UCL), the first secular university in England to admit students regardless of their religion and gender, has nearly 29,000 students of which approximately 30% are international students. The UCL Cultural Consultation Service (CCS) for staff and students is a unique service that provides assistance to staff and students experiencing challenges in their teaching, enabling, support work or studies which they believe may have a cultural component. The service provides one-to-one and group consultations, lectures, seminars, ‘grand rounds’, interactive workshops and bespoke interventions. Data: This paper presents a content analysis of CCS referrals over the last 36 months. We focus on the experience of international students, many of whom experience not only a challenge to their academic identity but also a profound challenge to their personal cultural identity. We also present 3 vignettes to illustrate how students interpret, accept, contest and resist changes in their cultural and academic identity. Discussion: This paper highlights (i) how students from collectivist cultures attempt to assimilate within an individualistic, highly competitive western university that is bound by its own institutional norms; (ii) problems in negotiating challenges at the interface of culture and gender (iii) the impact of culturally different hierarchies of power, discrimination and authority and (iv) the significance of earlier traumatic and kinship conflicts. Many international students’ social identities are shaped by their cultural and family scripts. A large number have been taught that their teachers are to be revered and their teachings unchallenged. This is at odds with quintessential goal of the western university to encourage healthy scepticism and hone students’ critical thinking skills. Conclusions: Pupil-teacher ‘cultural transference’ and shifts in cultural academic identities of students underscore critical aspects of developmental and learning challenges for students. Staff-student cultural conflict requires a broader, systemic analysis of students, staff and the wider organisation. Our findings challenge Eurocentric psychodynamic concepts such as the nature of parent-child relationship in Western Europe. We argue for a broader, more inclusive approach to develop both effective pedagogic skills in euro-american academic institutions and culturally- appropriate psychodynamic theory to underpin counselling international students.

Keywords: academic identity, cultural transference, cultural consultation in higher education, cultural formulation, cultural identity.

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Authors: Cláudia Moço, Maria Santos, Carlos Arsénio, Débora Mendes, Miguel Oliveira. José Paulo Da Silva

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Construction industry generates large amounts of waste all over the world. About 450 million tons of construction and demolition wastes (C&DW) are produced annually in the European Union. C&DW are highly heterogeneous materials in size and composition, which imposes strong difficulties on their management. Directive n.º 2008/98/CE, of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 November establishes that 70 % of the C&DW have to be recycled by 2020. To evaluate possible applications of these materials, a detailed physical, chemical and environmental characterization is necessary. Multi Triagem, Lda. is a company located in Algarve (Portugal) and was supported by the European Regional Development Fund (grant QREN 30307 Multivalor) to quantify and characterize the received C&DW, in order to evaluate their possible applications. This evaluation, performed in collaboration with the University of Algarve, involves a physical, chemical and environmental detailed characterization of the received C&DW. In this work we report on the amounts, trial procedures and properties of the C&DW received over a period of fifteen month. In this period the company received C&DW coming from 393 different origins. The total amount was 32.458 tons, mostly mixtures containing concrete, masonry/mortar and soil/rock. Most of C&DW came from demodulation constructions and diggings. The organic/inert component, namely metal, glass, wood and plastics, were screened first and account for about 3 % of the received materials. The remaining materials were screened and grouped according to their origin and contents, the latter evaluated by visual inspection. Twenty five samples were prepared and submitted to a detailed physical, chemical and environmental analysis. The C&DW aggregates show lower quality properties than natural aggregates for concrete preparation and unbound layers of road pavements. However, chemical analyzes indicated that most samples are environmentally safe. A continuous monitoring of the presence of heavy metals and organic compounds is needed in order to perform a proper screening of the C&DW. C&DW aggregates provide a good alternative to natural aggregates.

Keywords: construction and demolition wastes, waste classification, waste composition, waste screening

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Authors: A. De Serres-Lafontaine, S. Porlier, K. Poitras

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Introduction: Placement is, without doubt, a challenging experience for both foster children and biological parents who witness their child being removed from their care. Yet, few studies have examined parenting in such a context through critical parental skills such as parental sensitivity and commitment. Sensitivity is described as the capacity of parents to respond accurately to their child’s needs in a warm, predictable and consistent way, whereas commitment is the ability of the parent to get involved physically and emotionally in an enduring relationship with his child. The research confirms the important role of parental sensitivity and parental commitment on child development following placement in foster care. Nevertheless, these studies were mainly conducted with foster parents, and few studies have examined these components of parenthood with biological parents. Method: This study evolves in two times. At first, 17 parents participated throughout a 90-minutes interview. It allowed to collect information regarding the sociodemographic situation, contacts, placement trajectory. Parental sensitivity is observed during a supervised parent-child contact. The second time occurred one to two years later and implied an at-home 90-minutes interview where we updated the information from the first interview and were able to assess the level of parental commitment. In this ongoing part of the study, five parents have already participated in implying the rest of them remain to be interviewed in the coming months - from October through December 2018. Results: Descriptive analysis from the first part of the study suggests the examination of two groups: 11 children have been reunified whereas six are still in foster care. Qualitative analysis allows to compare themes of sensitivity and commitment regarding if the reunification project occurs or not. Preliminary analysis about thematic content shows key components of parental commitment through parent’s reveal of the way they nurture a relationship with their child. Furthermore, preliminary analysis suggests that parental sensitivity is not associated with family reunification (r = 0,11, p = 0,74). Further analysis will be assessed with the date from the second part of the study to examine the potential association between commitment and reunification. Discussion: Parental sensitivity and commitment are fundamental to the well-being of the child in a placement trajectory. They need to be understood better as two different complex concepts and as two parenting skills that might have a way of echoing to one another when engaged in a specific context. Above all, a more accurate comprehension of parenting in a placement trajectory allows to sustain adequate intervention practices for birth parents and could change the way parental adequacy is assessed when reaching for reunification.

Keywords: child welfare, foster care, intervention practices, parenthood

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Authors: Carine Muster, Prina Howald Erika

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Today's ice rinks are important energy consumers for the production and maintenance of ice. At the same time, users demand that the other rooms should be tempered or heated. The building complex must equally provide cooled and heated zones, which does not translate as carbon-zero ice rinks. The study provides an analysis of how the civil engineering sector can significantly impact minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and optimizing synergies across an entire ice rink complex. The analysis focused on three distinct aspects: the layout, including the volumetric layout of the premises present in an ice rink; the materials chosen that can potentially use the most ecological structural approach; and the construction methods based on innovative solutions to reduce carbon footprint. The first aspect shows that the organization of the interior volumes and defining the shape of the rink play a significant role. Its layout makes the use and operation of the premises as efficient as possible, thanks to the differentiation between heated and cooled volumes while optimising heat loss between the different rooms. The sprayed concrete method, which is still little known, proves that it is possible to achieve the strength of traditional concrete for the structural aspect of the load-bearing and non-load-bearing walls of the ice rink by using materials excavated from the construction site and providing a more ecological and sustainable solution. The installation of an empty sanitary space underneath the ice floor, making it independent of the rest of the structure, provides a natural insulating layer, preventing the transfer of cold to the rest of the structure and reducing energy losses. The addition of active pipes as part of the foundation of the ice floor, coupled with a suitable system, gives warmth in the winter and storage in the summer; this is all possible thanks to the natural heat in the ground. In conclusion, this study provides construction recommendations for future ice rinks with a significantly reduced energy demand, using some simple preliminary design concepts. By optimizing the layout, materials, and construction methods of ice rinks, the civil engineering sector can play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting sustainability.

Keywords: climate change, energy optimization, green building, sustainability

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Authors: Heping Dang, Raymond Yu Wang

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The Langcang-Mekong River is the most important international watercourse in mainland Southeast Asia. In recent years, the six riparian states, China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, have confronted increasing disputes over the use of the trans-boundary water. To settle these disputes and protect the fundamental right to water, quite a few inter-state mechanisms have been established, such as the Mekong River Commission, the economic cooperation program of the Greater Mekong Subregion, the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and the ‘Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism’ and the ‘Lower Mekong Initiative’. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have also been an important and constructive institutional entrepreneur in trans-boundary water governance. Although the status and extent of the right to water are yet to be clearly defined, this paper aims to 1) unpack how the right to water is interpreted and exercised in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin Dispute; and 2) to evaluate the roles of the right to water in settling international water disputes. To achieve these objectives, Secondary data such as archival documents of international law and relevant stakeholders will be compiled for analysis. First-hand information about the organizational structure, accountability, values and strategies of the international mechanisms and NGOs in question will also be collected through fieldwork in the Mekong river basin. Semi-structural interviews, group discussions and participatory observation will be conducted to collect data. The authors have access to the fieldwork because they have abundant experience of collaborating with Mekong-based international NGOs in previous research projects. This research will display how the concepts and principles of international law and the UN guidelines are interpreted in practice. These principles include the definition and extent of the right to water, the practical use of ‘vital human need’, the indicators of ‘adequacy of water’ including ‘availability, quality and accessibility’, and how the right to water is related to the progressive realization of the right to life. This down-to earth research will enrich the theoretical discussion of international law, particularly international human rights law, within the UN framework. Moreover, the outcomes of this research will provide new insights into the roles that the right to water might play in consensus-building and dispute settlement in a rapidly changing context, where water is pivotal for poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods.

Keywords: international water dispute, Lancang-Mekong River, right to water, state and non-state actors

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Authors: Kelly Jo Hollingsworth

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Conversational Solfege, a research-based, 12-step music literacy instructional method using the sound-before-sight approach, was used to teach rhythm-reading to 128-second grade students at a public school in the southeastern United States. For each step, multiple scripted techniques are supplied to teach each skill. Unit one was the focus of this study, which is quarter note and barred eighth note rhythms. During regular weekly music instruction, students completed method steps one through five, which includes aural discrimination, decoding familiar and unfamiliar rhythm patterns, and improvising rhythmic phrases using quarter notes and barred eighth notes. Intact classes were randomly assigned to two treatment groups for teaching steps six through eight, which was the visual presentation and identification of quarter notes and barred eighth notes, visually presenting and decoding familiar patterns, and visually presenting and decoding unfamiliar patterns using said notation. For three weeks, students practiced steps six through eight during regular weekly music class. One group spent five-minutes of class time on steps six through eight technique work, while the other group spends ten-minutes of class time practicing the same techniques. A pretest and posttest were administered, and ANOVA results reveal both the five-minute (p < .001) and ten-minute group (p < .001) reached statistical significance suggesting Conversational Solfege is an efficient, effective approach to teach rhythm-reading to second grade students. After two weeks of no instruction, students were retested to measure retention. Using a repeated-measures ANOVA, both groups reached statistical significance (p < .001) on the second posttest, suggesting both the five-minute and ten-minute group retained rhythm-reading skill after two weeks of no instruction. Statistical significance was not reached between groups (p=.252), suggesting five-minutes is equally as effective as ten-minutes of rhythm-reading practice using Conversational Solfege techniques. Future research includes replicating the study with other grades and units in the text.

Keywords: conversational solfege, length of instructional time, rhythm-reading, rhythm instruction

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Authors: Mohamed Moustafa, Medhat Abdallah, Ramy Magdy, Ahmed Abdrabou, Mohamed Badr

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The scribe box under study dates back to the old kingdom. It was excavated by the Italian expedition in Qena (1935-1937). The box consists of 2pieces, the lid and the body. The inner side of the lid is decorated with ancient Egyptian inscriptions written with a black pigment. The box was made using several panels assembled together by wooden dowels and secured with plant ropes. The entire box is covered with a red pigment. This study aims to use analytical techniques in order to identify and have deep understanding for the box components. Moreover, the authors were significantly interested in using infrared reflectance transmission imaging (RTI-IR) to improve the hidden inscriptions on the lid. The identification of wood species included in this study. The visual observation and assessment were done to understand the condition of this box. 3Ddimensions and 2D programs were used to illustrate wood joints techniques. Optical microscopy (OM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence portable (XRF) and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used in this study in order to identify wood species, remains of insects bodies, red pigment, fibers plant and previous conservation adhesives, also RTI-IR technique was very effective to improve hidden inscriptions. The analysis results proved that wooden panels and dowels were identified as Acacia nilotica, wooden rail was Salix sp. the insects were identified as Lasioderma serricorne and Gibbium psylloids, the red pigment was Hematite, while the fiber plants were linen, previous adhesive was identified as cellulose nitrates. The historical study for the inscriptions proved that it’s a Hieratic writings of a funerary Text. After its transportation from the Egyptian museum storage to the wood conservation laboratory of the Grand Egyptian museum –conservation center (GEM-CC), conservation techniques were applied with high accuracy in order to restore the object including cleaning , consolidating of friable pigments and writings, removal of previous adhesive and reassembly, finally the conservation process that were applied were extremely effective for this box which became ready for display or storage in the grand Egyptian museum.

Keywords: scribe box, hieratic, 3D program, Acacia nilotica, XRD, cellulose nitrate, conservation

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Authors: Jihane Mossalim

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This study proposes a methodological framework that combines Participatory Action Research (PAR) with Arts-Based Research (ABR) to explore the potential of generative AI in elementary art education. By integrating PAR, this framework emphasizes elementary school students’ active participation as co-researchers, engaging with AI technologies and reflecting on their creative journeys. PAR’s iterative cycles of planning, action, observation, and reflection provide a solid structure for involving children in the research process, ensuring that the study is inclusive and reflective of the children’s perspectives. Arts-Based Research, on the other hand, allows for the exploration of AI not just as a tool but as a medium of creative expression. ABR’s emphasis on visual, performative, and creative outputs complements PAR’s inclusive approach, offering a dynamic and flexible way of studying the intersection of technology and art in educational contexts. This combination is particularly valuable as it encourages students to express their ideas and emotions through art, making the learning process more engaging and personally meaningful. Despite the recognized benefits of both PAR and ABR, there remains a notable gap in research that applies these methodologies in combination with elementary school students, particularly in the context of emerging technologies like generative AI. Addressing this gap is crucial, as integrating these approaches can lead to more inclusive and innovative educational practices that cater to the diverse needs of young learners. This chapter seeks to demonstrate how integrating PAR and ABR can empower young learners, giving them a voice in the research process while enriching their creative and critical thinking skills. This chapter will develop a methodology that integrates both theoretical and practical aspects of PAR and ABR, highlighting the challenges and opportunities that emerge when these approaches are integrated. It will also discuss how to adapt these methods for research in the elementary art education, providing a foundation for future inquiry. Further, the chapter will focus on situating these methodological developments in relation to a study that seeks to understand the potential of generative AI in fostering creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking among young learners. Ultimately, this work aims to provide a pioneering example that inspires further exploration and development of educational practices in the digital age.

Keywords: participatory action research, arts-based research, generative AI, elementary art education

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Authors: Rodrique Watong Tchounkeu

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This paper investigated the implementation and impact of inclusive education practices in early childhood settings (ages 3-6) with the overarching aim of fostering a diverse learning environment. The primary objectives were to assess the then-current state of inclusive practices, identify effective methodologies for accommodating diverse learning needs, and evaluate the outcomes of implementing inclusive education in early childhood settings. To achieve these objectives, a mixed-methods approach was employed, combining qualitative interviews with early childhood educators and parents, along with quantitative surveys distributed to a diverse sample of participants. The qualitative phase involved semi-structured interviews with 30 educators and 50 parents, selected through purposive sampling. The interviews aimed to gather insights into the challenges faced in implementing inclusive education, the strategies employed, and the perceived benefits and drawbacks. The quantitative phase included surveys administered to 300 early childhood educators across various settings, measuring their familiarity with inclusive practices, their perceived efficacy, and their willingness to adapt teaching methods. The results revealed a significant gap between the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of inclusive education in early childhood settings. While educators demonstrated a high level of theoretical knowledge, they faced challenges in effectively translating these concepts into practice. Parental perspectives highlighted the importance of collaboration between educators and parents in supporting inclusive education. The surveys indicated a positive correlation between educators' familiarity with inclusive practices and their willingness to adapt teaching methods, emphasizing the need for targeted professional development. The implications of this study suggested the necessity for comprehensive training programs for early childhood educators focused on the practical implementation of inclusive education strategies. Additionally, fostering stronger partnerships between educators and parents was crucial for creating a supportive learning environment for all children. By addressing these findings, this research contributed to the advancement of inclusive education practices in early childhood settings, ultimately leading to more inclusive and effective learning environments for diverse groups of young learners.

Keywords: inclusive education, early childhood settings, diverse learning, young learners, practical implementation, parental collaboration

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Authors: Charisse H. Tay

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Background: Schizophrenia is a severe chronic mental disorder that can result in hallucinations, delusions, reduced social engagement, and lack of motivation. While antipsychotic medications often provide the basis for treatment, psychosocial strategies complement the benefit of medications and can result in meaningful improvements in symptoms and functioning. The aim of the study was to investigate psychosocial strategies used by internet self-help forum participants to effectively manage symptoms caused by schizophrenia. Internet self-help forums are a resource for medical and psychological problems and are commonly used to share information about experiences with symptom management. Method: Three international self-help internet forums on schizophrenia were identified using a search engine. 1,181 threads regarding non-pharmacological, psychosocial self-management of schizophrenia symptoms underwent screening, resulting in the final identification and coding of 91 threads and 191 posts from 134 unique forum users that contained details on psychosocial strategies endorsed personally by users that allowed them to effectively manage symptoms of schizophrenia, including positive symptoms (e.g., auditory/visual/tactile hallucinations, delusions, paranoia), negative symptoms (e.g.., avolition, apathy, anhedonia), symptoms of distress, and cognitive symptoms (e.g., memory loss). Results: Effective symptom management strategies personally endorsed by online forum users were psychological skills (e.g., re-focusing, mindfulness/meditation, reality checking; n = 94), engaging in activities (e.g., exercise, working/volunteering, hobbies; n = 84), social/familial support (n = 48), psychotherapy (n = 33), diet (n = 18), and religion/spirituality (n = 14). 44.4% of users reported using more than one strategy to manage their symptoms. The most common symptoms targeted and effectively managed, as specified by users, were positive symptoms (n = 113), negative symptoms (n = 17), distress (n = 8), and memory loss (n = 6). 10.5% of users reported more than one symptom effectively targeted. 70.2% of users with positive symptoms reported that psychological skills were effective for symptom relief. 88% of users with negative symptoms and 75% with distress symptoms reported that engaging in activities was effective. Discussion: Individuals with schizophrenia rely on a variety of different psychosocial methods to manage their symptoms. Different symptomology appears to be more effectively targeted by different types of psychosocial strategies. This may help to inform treatment strategy and tailored for individuals with schizophrenia.

Keywords: psychosocial treatment, qualitative methods, schizophrenia, symptom management

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Authors: Shamie Kumar

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Background: Radiologists and radiographers (RR) need to educate themselves and their colleagues to ensure that AI is integrated safely, useful, and in a meaningful way with the direction it always benefits the patients. AI education and training are fundamental to the way RR work and interact with it, such that they feel confident using it as part of their clinical practice in a way they understand it. Methodology: This exploratory research will outline the current educational and training gaps for radiographers and radiologists in AI radiology diagnostics. It will review the status, skills, challenges of educating and teaching. Understanding the use of artificial intelligence within daily clinical practice, why it is fundamental, and justification on why learning about AI is essential for wider adoption. Results: The current knowledge among RR is very sparse, country dependent, and with radiologists being the majority of the end-users for AI, their targeted training and learning AI opportunities surpass the ones available to radiographers. There are many papers that suggest there is a lack of knowledge, understanding, and training of AI in radiology amongst RR, and because of this, they are unable to comprehend exactly how AI works, integrates, benefits of using it, and its limitations. There is an indication they wish to receive specific training; however, both professions need to actively engage in learning about it and develop the skills that enable them to effectively use it. There is expected variability amongst the profession on their degree of commitment to AI as most don’t understand its value; this only adds to the need to train and educate RR. Currently, there is little AI teaching in either undergraduate or postgraduate study programs, and it is not readily available. In addition to this, there are other training programs, courses, workshops, and seminars available; most of these are short and one session rather than a continuation of learning which cover a basic understanding of AI and peripheral topics such as ethics, legal, and potential of AI. There appears to be an obvious gap between the content of what the training program offers and what the RR needs and wants to learn. Due to this, there is a risk of ineffective learning outcomes and attendees feeling a lack of clarity and depth of understanding of the practicality of using AI in a clinical environment. Conclusion: Education, training, and courses need to have defined learning outcomes with relevant concepts, ensuring theory and practice are taught as a continuation of the learning process based on use cases specific to a clinical working environment. Undergraduate and postgraduate courses should be developed robustly, ensuring the delivery of it is with expertise within that field; in addition, training and other programs should be delivered as a way of continued professional development and aligned with accredited institutions for a degree of quality assurance.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, training, radiology, education, learning

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Authors: Govind Kumar

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The concept of ‘e-governance’ that was brought about by the new wave of reforms, namely ‘LPG’ in the early 1990s, has been enabling governments across the globe to digitally transform themselves. Digital transformation is leading the governments with qualitative decisions, optimization in rational use of resources, facilitation of cost-benefit analyses, and elimination of redundancy and corruption with the help of ICT-based applications interface. ICT-based applications/technologies have enormous potential for impacting positive change in the social lives of the global citizenry. Supercomputers test and analyze millions of drug molecules for developing candidate vaccines to combat the global pandemic. Further, e-commerce portals help distribute and supply household items and medicines, while videoconferencing tools provide a visual interface between the clients and hosts. Besides, crop yields are being maximized with the help of drones and machine learning, whereas satellite data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing help governments with the detection of illegal mining, tackling deforestation, and managing freshwater resources. Such e-applications have the potential to take governance an extra mile by achieving 5 Es (effective, efficient, easy, empower, and equity) of e-governance and six Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, redesign and remanufacture) of sustainable development. If such digital transformation gains traction within the government framework, it will replace the traditional administration with the digitalization of public administration. On the other hand, it has brought in a new set of challenges, like the digital divide, e-illiteracy, technological divide, etc., and problems like handling e-waste, technological obsolescence, cyber terrorism, e-fraud, hacking, phishing, etc. before the governments. Therefore, it would be essential to bring in a rightful mixture of technological and humanistic interventions for addressing the above issues. This is on account of the reason that technology lacks an emotional quotient, and the administration does not work like technology. Both are self-effacing unless a blend of technology and a humane face are brought in into the administration. The paper will empirically analyze the significance of the technological framework of digital transformation within the government set up for the digitalization of public administration on the basis of the synthesis of two case studies undertaken from two diverse fields of administration and present a future framework of the study.

Keywords: digital transformation, electronic governance, public administration, knowledge framework

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Authors: Matthew Baucum

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With the increasing popularity of fMRI as an experimental method, psychology and neuroscience can greatly benefit from advanced techniques for summarizing and synthesizing large amounts of data from brain imaging studies. One promising avenue is automated meta-analyses, in which natural language processing methods are used to identify the brain regions consistently associated with certain semantic concepts (e.g. “social”, “reward’) across large corpora of studies. This study builds on this approach by demonstrating how, in fMRI meta-analyses, individual voxels can be treated as vectors in a semantic space and evaluated for their “proximity” to terms of interest. In this technique, a low-dimensional semantic space is built from brain imaging study texts, allowing words in each text to be represented as vectors (where words that frequently appear together are near each other in the semantic space). Consequently, each voxel in a brain mask can be represented as a normalized vector sum of all of the words in the studies that showed activation in that voxel. The entire brain mask can then be visualized in terms of each voxel’s proximity to a given term of interest (e.g., “vision”, “decision making”) or collection of terms (e.g., “theory of mind”, “social”, “agent”), as measured by the cosine similarity between the voxel’s vector and the term vector (or the average of multiple term vectors). Analysis can also proceed in the opposite direction, allowing word cloud visualizations of the nearest semantic neighbors for a given brain region. This approach allows for continuous, fine-grained metrics of voxel-term associations, and relies on state-of-the-art “open vocabulary” methods that go beyond mere word-counts. An analysis of over 11,000 neuroimaging studies from an existing meta-analytic fMRI database demonstrates that this technique can be used to recover known neural bases for multiple psychological functions, suggesting this method’s utility for efficient, high-level meta-analyses of localized brain function. While automated text analytic methods are no replacement for deliberate, manual meta-analyses, they seem to show promise for the efficient aggregation of large bodies of scientific knowledge, at least on a relatively general level.

Keywords: FMRI, machine learning, meta-analysis, text analysis

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Authors: Wipakon Sonsnam, Kanya Napapongsa

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The quantitative aim of the study; 1) health conditions, to examine the state of health of the aging, 2) perceived of self-efficacy, self-care of aging ,3) perceived of social support of the aging, 4) to examine factors associated with self-efficacy in enhancing the health and self-care when illness. 100 samples selected from communities in Dusit, Bangkok, 2014 by random sampling. The questionnaires were used to collect data have 5-point rating scale, consisting of strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree; approved content valid by 3 experts, reliability coefficients alpha was .784 for perceived of self-efficacy, self-care of aging and .827 for perceived of social support of the aging. ST-5, 2Q used for collect mental health. The ability to engage in a daily routine was collected by Barthel ADL index. Founding, the sample group were female (68%). (33%) of them were in the age of 60-65. Most of them were married and still live with their spouse (55%) and do not work (38%). The average annual income was less than 10,000 baht supported by child. Most people think that income was adequate (49.0%) and Satisfaction (61.0%). Most of aging caring them-self, followed by them spouse (26%). Welfare of the public had supported, living for the aging (100%), followed by Join and health volunteers in communities (23%). In terms of health, (53%) of the sample group feels health was fair, hypertension was the most common health condition among sample group (68%), following by diabetes (55%). About eyesight, (42%) have visual acuity. (59.0%) do not need hearing aids. 84% have more than 20 teeth remaining, and have no problem with chewing (61%). In terms of Ability to engage in a daily routine, most of people (84%) in sample group are in type 1. (91%) of the participants don’t have bladder incontinence. For mental condition, (82%) do not have insomnia. (87%) do not have anxiety. (96%) do not have depression. However, (77%) of the sample group is facing stress. In terms of environment in home, bathroom in the home (90.0%) and floor of bathroom was slippery (91.0%). (48%) of the sample group has the skills of how to look after themselves while being sick, and how to keep up healthy lifestyle. Besides, some other factors, such as gender, age and educational background are related to the health perception. The statistical significance was <0.05. Suggestion: The instruments available to national standards such as ST-5, 2Q and Barthel ADL index. Reliability coefficients alpha was .784 for perceived of self-efficacy, self-care of aging and .827 for perceived of social support of the aging. The instrument used to collect perceived of social support must be further developed to study level of influence of social support that affect the health of elderly.

Keywords: ้health status, perception of aging, self-efficacy, social support

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Authors: Taku Numao, Kazu Amimoto, Tomoko Shimada, Kyohei Ichikawa

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Background: Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is a common syndrome following damage to one hemisphere of the brain (usually the right side), in which a patient fails to report or respond to stimulation from the contralesional side. These symptoms are not due to primary sensory or motor deficits, but instead, reflect an inability to process input from that side of their environment. Prism adaptation (PA) is a therapeutic treatment for USN, wherein a patient’s visual field is artificially shifted laterally, resulting in a sensory-motor adaptation. However, patients with USN also tend to perceive a left-leaning subjective vertical in the frontal plane. The traditional PA cannot be used to correct a tilt in the subjective vertical, because a prism can only polarize, not twist, the surroundings. However, this can be accomplished using a head mounted display (HMD) and a web-camera. Therefore, this study investigated whether an HMD system could be used to correct the spatial perception of USN patients in the frontal as well as the horizontal plane. We recruited healthy subjects in order to collect data for the refinement of USN patient therapy. Methods: Eight healthy subjects sat on a chair wearing a HMD (Oculus rift DK2), with a web-camera (Ovrvision) displaying a 10 degree leftward rotation and a 10 degree counter-clockwise rotation along the frontal plane. Subjects attempted to point a finger at one of four targets, assigned randomly, a total of 48 times. Before and after the intervention, each subject’s body-centre judgment (BCJ) was tested by asking them to point a finger at a touch panel straight in front of their xiphisternum, 10 times sight unseen. Results: Intervention caused the location pointed to during the BCJ to shift 35 ± 17 mm (Ave ± SD) leftward in the horizontal plane, and 46 ± 29 mm downward in the frontal plane. The results in both planes were significant by paired-t-test (p<.01). Conclusions: The results in the horizontal plane are consistent with those observed following PA. Furthermore, the HMD and web-camera were able to elicit 3D effects, including in both the horizontal and frontal planes. Future work will focus on applying this method to patients with and without USN, and investigating whether subject posture is also affected by the HMD system.

Keywords: head mounted display, posture, prism adaptation, unilateral spatial neglect

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Authors: Pankaj Kumar Jha, Mahendra Singh Hada, Brijendra Singh, Sandeep Yadav

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Protective relays are commonly connected to the secondary windings of instrument transformers, i.e., current transformers (CTs) and/or capacitive voltage transformers (CVTs). The purpose of CT and CVT is to provide galvanic isolation from high voltages and reduce primary currents and voltages to a nominal quantity recognized by the protective relays. Selecting the correct instrument transformers for an application is imperative: failing to do so may compromise the relay’s performance, as the output of the instrument transformer may no longer be an accurately scaled representation of the primary quantity. Having an accurately rated instrument transformer is of no use if these devices are not properly connected. The performance of the protective relay is reliant on its programmed settings and on the current and voltage inputs from the instrument transformers secondary. This paper will help in understanding the fundamental concepts of the connections of Instrument Transformers to the protection relays and the effect of incorrect connection on the performance of protective relays. Multiple case studies of protection system mal-operations due to incorrect connections of instrument transformers will be discussed in detail in this paper. Apart from the connection issue of instrument transformers to protective relays, this paper will also discuss the effect of multiple earthing of CTs and CVTs secondary on the performance of the protection system. Case studies presented in this paper will help the readers to analyse the problem through real-world challenges in complex power system networks. This paper will also help the protection engineer in better analysis of disturbance records. CT and CVT connection errors can lead to undesired operations of protection systems. However, many of these operations can be avoided by adhering to industry standards and implementing tried-and-true field testing and commissioning practices. Understanding the effect of missing neutral of CVT, multiple earthing of CVT secondary, and multiple grounding of CT star points on the performance of the protection system through real-world case studies will help the protection engineer in better commissioning the protection system and maintenance of the protection system.

Keywords: bus reactor, current transformer, capacitive voltage transformer, distance protection, differential protection, directional earth fault, disturbance report, instrument transformer, ICT, REF protection, shunt reactor, voltage selection relay, VT fuse failure

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Authors: Denise Bianco

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Several studies on innovation and creativity in organisations emphasise the need to expand horizons and take on alternative and unexpected views to produce something new. This paper theorises the potential impact artists can have as creative catalysts, working embedded in non-artistic organisations. It begins from an understanding that in today's ever-changing scenario, organisations are increasingly seeking to open up new creative thinking through deviant behaviours to produce innovation and that art residencies need to be critically revised in this specific context in light of their disruptive potential. On the one hand, this paper builds upon recent contributions made on workplace creativity and related concepts of deviance and disruption. Research suggests that creativity is likely to be lower in work contexts where utter conformity is a cardinal value and higher in work contexts that show some tolerance for uncertainty and deviance. On the other hand, this paper draws attention to Artist-in-Residence as a vehicle for epistemic friction between divergent and convergent thinking, which allows the creation of unparalleled ways of knowing in the dailiness of situated and contextualised social processes. In order to do so, this contribution brings together insights from the most relevant theories on organisational creativity and unconventional agile methods such as Art Thinking and direct insights from ethnographic fieldwork in the context of embedded art residencies within work organisations to propose a redefinition of Artist-in-Residence and their potential impact on organisational creativity. The result is a re-definition of embedded Artist-in-Residence in organisational settings from a more comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, and relational perspective that builds on three focal points. First the notion that organisational creativity is a dynamic and synergistic process throughout which an idea is framed by recurrent activities subjected to multiple influences. Second, the definition of embedded Artist-in-Residence as an assemblage of dynamic, productive relations and unexpected possibilities for new networks of relationality that encourage the recombination of knowledge. Third, and most importantly, the acknowledgment that embedded residencies are, at the very essence, bi-cultural knowledge contexts where creativity flourishes as the result of open-to-change processes that are highly relational, constantly negotiated, and contextualised in time and space.

Keywords: artist-in-residence, convergent and divergent thinking, creativity, creative friction, deviance and creativity

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