Search results for: number and space relations

Authors: Ritvik Chauhan, Vijay Kumar Baraik

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Crime is a rare event on earth surface. It is not simple but a complex event occurring in a spatio- temporal environment. Crime is one of the most serious security threats to human environments as it may result in harm to the individuals through the loss of property, physical and psychological injuries. The conventional studies done on different nature crime was mostly related to laws, psychological, social and political themes. The geographical areas are heterogeneous in their environmental conditions, associations between structural conditions, social organization which contributing specific crimes. The crime pattern analysis is made through theories in which criminal events occurs in persistent, identifiable patterns in a particular space and time. It will be the combined analysis of spatial factors and rational factors to the crime. In this study, we are analyzing the combined factors for the origin of crime against children. Children have always been vulnerable to victimization more because they are silent victims both physically and mentally to crimes and they even not realize what is happening with them. Their trusting nature and innocence always misused by criminals to perform crimes. The nature of crime against children is changed in past years like child rape, kidnapping &abduction, selling & buying of girls, foeticide, infanticide, prostitution, child marriage etc turned to more cruel and inhuman. This study will focus on understanding the space-time pattern of crime against children during the period 2001-2012. It also makes an attempt to explore and ascertain the association of crimes categorised against children, its rates with various geographical and socio-demographic factors through causal analysis using selected indicators (child sex-ratio, education, literacy rate, employment, income, etc.) obtained from the Census of India and other government sources. The outcome of study will help identifying the high crime regions with specified nature of crimes. It will also review the existing efforts and exploring the new plausible measure for tracking, monitoring and minimization of crime rate to meet the end goal of protecting the children from crimes committed against them.

Keywords: crime against children, geographic profiling, spatio-temporal analysis, hotspot

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Authors: Adam J. Bowen

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Abstract— Should robots have rights or legal protections. Often debates concerning whether robots and AI should be afforded rights focus on conditions of personhood and the possibility of future advanced forms of AI satisfying particular intrinsic cognitive and moral attributes of rights-holding persons. Such discussions raise compelling questions about machine consciousness, autonomy, and value alignment with human interests. Although these are important theoretical concerns, especially from a future design perspective, they provide limited guidance for addressing the moral and legal standing of current and near-term AI that operate well below the cognitive and moral agency of human persons. Robots and AI are already being pressed into service in a wide range of roles, especially in healthcare and biomedical contexts. The design and large-scale implementation of robots in the context of core societal institutions like healthcare systems continues to rapidly develop. For example, we bring them into our homes, hospitals, and other care facilities to assist in care for the sick, disabled, elderly, children, or otherwise vulnerable persons. We enlist surgical robotic systems in precision tasks, albeit still human-in-the-loop technology controlled by surgeons. We also entrust them with social roles involving companionship and even assisting in intimate caregiving tasks (e.g., bathing, feeding, turning, medicine administration, monitoring, transporting). There have been advances to enable severely disabled persons to use robots to feed themselves or pilot robot avatars to work in service industries. As the applications for near-term AI increase and the roles of robots in restructuring our biomedical practices expand, we face pressing questions about the normative implications of human-robot interactions and collaborations in our collective worldmaking, as well as the moral and legal status of robots. This paper argues that robots operating in public and private spaces be afforded some protections as either moral patients or legal agents to establish prohibitions on robot abuse, misuse, and mistreatment. We already implement robots and embed them in our practices and institutions, which generates a host of human-to-machine and machine-to-machine relationships. As we interact with machines, whether in service contexts, medical assistance, or home health companions, these robots are first encountered in relationship to us and our respective roles in the encounter (e.g., surgeon, physical or occupational therapist, recipient of care, patient’s family, healthcare professional, stakeholder). This proposal aims to outline a framework for establishing limiting factors and determining the extent of moral or legal protections for robots. In doing so, it advocates for a relational approach that emphasizes the priority of mapping the complex contextually sensitive roles played and the relations in which humans and robots stand to guide policy determinations by relevant institutions and authorities. The relational approach must also be technically informed by the intended uses of the biomedical technologies in question, Design History Files, extensive risk assessments and hazard analyses, as well as use case social impact assessments.

Keywords: biomedical robots, robot ethics, robot laws, human-robot interaction

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Authors: Mohammed Zaki, Hayder Rasheed

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This paper evaluates the flexural response of sand-lightweight Perlite concrete using full-scale reinforced concrete T beams strengthened and anchored with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials. Four specimens were prepared with the same geometry, steel reinforcements, concrete properties, and span lengths. The anchored beams had a similar number of CFRP sheets but were secured utilizing different arrangements of CFRP fiber anchors. That will allow for effective and easily making comparisons to examine the flexural strengthening behavior of sand-lightweight Perlite concrete beams with anchors. The experimental outcomes were also compared with the numerical study and the comparisons were discussed. The test results showed an improvement in flexural behavior due to the use of CFRP sheets and anchors. Interestingly, the anchored beams recorded similar ultimate strength regardless of the number of CFRP fiber anchors used due to the failure by excessive wide cracks in the concrete.

Keywords: perlite concrete, CFRP fiber anchors, lightweight concrete, full-scale T-beams

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Authors: Yasaswi Vengalasetti, Jacob Eisenach, Jay Bhattacharya

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Seroprevalence studies can provide an estimation of the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), the probability of death given infection. Measuring the seroprevalence and reported deaths of an area within a given time frame an IFR can be estimated. With this IFR calculation, we can then observe COVID-19 death figures in different countries around the world and estimate the number of cases since the onset of the pandemic. There is a large range for estimated COVID-19 infections across different countries. This ranged from 0.659 million infections in Hong Kong to 277 million infections in India. The largest estimated share of the population infected is 63% in Peru and the lowest is 3% in Norway. For younger populations, COVID-19 is most fatal in South America; for older populations, it is most fatal in North America. The Asian regions stand out with significantly lower IFRs in older populations: at 80 years old, COVID-19 is about three times as fatal than in South Asia and about twelve times as fatal than in East Asia. The weighted average for the share of the population infected, the sum of infections divided by the sum of populations across all countries, is 23%.

Keywords: epidemiology, seroprevalence, covid-19, infection fatality rate

Procedia PDF Downloads 123

Authors: Jefunnie Matahum, Yu-Chi Kuo, Chao-Ming Su, Tzong-Rong Ger

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Magnetic cell labeling is of great importance in various applications in biomedical fields such as cell separation and cell sorting. Since analytical methods for quantification of cell uptake of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are already well established, image analysis on single cell level still needs more characterization. This study reports an alternative non-destructive quantification methods of single-cell uptake of positively charged MNPs. Magnetophoresis experiments were performed to calculate the number of MNPs in a single cell. Mobility of magnetic cells and the area of intracellular MNP stained by Prussian blue were quantified by image processing software. ICP-MS experiments were also performed to confirm the internalization of MNPs to cells. Initial results showed that the magnetic cells incubated at 100 µg and 50 µg MNPs/mL concentration move at 18.3 and 16.7 µm/sec, respectively. There is also an increasing trend in the number and area of intracellular MNP with increasing concentration. These results could be useful in assessing the nanoparticle uptake in a single cell level.

Keywords: magnetic nanoparticles, single cell, magnetophoresis, image analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 333

Authors: S. M. Mahdi Niktabara, K. Seshagiri Raob, Amit Kumar Shrivastavac, Jiří Ščučkaa

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The presence of the discontinuity in the form of joints is one of the most significant factors causing instability in the rock mass. On the other hand, dynamic loads, including earthquake and blasting induce cyclic shear loads along the joints in rock masses; therefore, failure of rock mass exacerbates along the joints due to changing shear resistance. Joints are under constant normal load (CNL) and constant normal stiffness (CNS) conditions. Normal stiffness increases on the joints with increasing depth, and it can affect shear resistance. For correct assessment of joint shear resistance under varying normal stiffness and number of cycles, advanced laboratory shear machine is essential for the shear test. Conventional direct shear equipment has limitations such as boundary conditions, working under monotonic movements only, or cyclic shear loads with constant frequency and amplitude of shear loads. Hence, a large-scale servo-controlled direct shear testing machine was designed and fabricated to perform shear test under the both CNL and CNS conditions with varying normal stiffness at different frequencies and amplitudes of shear loads. In this study, laboratory cyclic shear tests were conducted on non-planar joints under varying normal stiffness. In addition, the effects of different frequencies and amplitudes of shear loads were investigated. The test results indicate that shear resistance increases with increasing normal stiffness at the first cycle, but the influence of normal stiffness significantly decreases with an increase in the number of shear cycles. The frequency of shear load influences on shear resistance, i.e. shear resistance increases with increasing frequency. However, at low shear amplitude the number of cycles does not affect shear resistance on the joints, but it decreases with higher amplitude.

Keywords: cyclic shear load, frequency of load, amplitude of displacement, normal stiffness

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Authors: Usama Bin Zubair, Syed Azhar Ali

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Introduction: Depression is emerging as a major public health problem in all parts of the world. Developing countries have a unique socioeconomic structure that affects the lives of its inhabitants in several ways. Going abroad for employment is one of the common social problems which have been faced by young males in developing countries. This included both highly qualified individuals as well as the labor class. Objective: To determine the difference in the presence of depressive symptoms among pregnant women with husbands living abroad and those with husbands living with them in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Methods: The sample population comprised of pregnant women reporting for an antenatal checkup at Amna hospital Rawalakot. Cases constituted the pregnant women with husbands living abroad while controls were the pregnant women with husbands living with them. Patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) was used to record the presence and severity of depressive symptoms. Age, gestation, parity, rural or urban origin, education, level of family income, daily contact hours on the telephone or what’s app, previous pregnancy loss or complications, number of years abroad and visits to home per year were associated with the presence of depressive symptoms. Findings: The mean age of the study participants was 29.73 ±5.395 years. Sixty-six had significant depression in the case group, while 14 had in the control group (p-value<0.001). Education and rural background had a significant difference between the case and the control group. Less number of visits per year of the husband was strongly linked with the presence of depressive symptoms among the cases. Conclusion: Pregnant women with husbands abroad were found more prone to develop depressive symptoms as compared to those with husbands living with them. Special attention should be paid to the women whose husband had a lesser number of visits to the country.

Keywords: depression, pregnancy, lack of support, war zone

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Authors: Bo Hyun Kim, Sarng Woo Karng

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In constructing a hydrogen refueling station, minimizing the volume and reducing the number of banks enable lessening the construction cost. This study aims at performing the dynamic simulation on 250 kg/day of a refueling station for light-duty vehicles. The primary compressor boosts hydrogen from a tube trailer of 250 to 480 bar and stores it in a medium-pressure bank. Then, additional compression of hydrogen from 480 to 900 bar is carried out and stored in a high-pressure bank. Economic analysis was conducted considering the amount of electricity consumed by compression corresponding to the volume and the number of banks (cascade system) in charging mode. NIST REFPROP was selected as the equation of state on the ASPEN HYSYS for thermodynamic analysis of the tube-trailer, the compressors, the chillers, and the banks. Compared to a single high-pressure bank system of 3000 L, the volume of the cascade high-pressure banks (bank1: 250 L and bank 2: 1850 L) was reduced by 30%, and the power consumption of the chiller for precooling was also decreased by 16%.

Keywords: light-duty vehicles, economic analysis, cascade system, hydrogen refueling station

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Authors: Sihana Ahmeti Lika, Merita Dauti, Ledjan Malaj

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The objective of this study is to analyze the prophylactic usage of low molecular weight heparine (LMWH) along pregnancy and the correlation between their usage and month/week of pregnancy, in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, at Clinical Hospital in Tetovo. A retrospective study was undertaken during 01 January–31 December 2012. Over of one year, the total number of patients was 4636. Among the 1447 (32.21%) pregnant women, 298 (20.59%) of them were prescribed LMWH. The majority of patients given LMWH, 119 (39.93%) were diagnosed hypercoagulable. The age group with the highest attendance was 25-35, 141 patients (47.32%). For 195 (65.44%) patients, this was their first pregnancy. Earliest stage of using LMWH was the second month of pregnancy 4 (1.34%) cases. The most common patients, were 70 women along the seventh month (23.49%), followed by 68 in the ninth month of pregnancy (22.81%). Women in the 28th gestational week, were found to be the most affected, a total of 55 (78.57%) were in that week. Clexane 2000 and Fraxiparine 0.3 were the most common for which low molecular weight heparine was prescribed. The number of patients which received Clexane 2000 was 84 (28.19%), followed by those with Fraxiparine 0.3 81 (27.18%). The administration of LMWH is associated with long hospitalization (median 14,6 days).

Keywords: hypercoagulable state, low moleculare weight heparine, month of pregnancy, pregnant women

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Authors: M.A.Bakry1, *, Aryn T. Shafeek1, +

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In this article, absolute Parallelism geometry is used to study the torsional gravitational field. And discovered the tetrad fields, torsion vector, and torsion scalar of Schwarzschild space. The new solution of the torsional gravitational field is a generalization of Schwarzschild in the context of general relativity. The results are applied to the planetary orbits.

Keywords: absolute parallelism geometry, tetrad fields, torsion vectors, torsion scalar

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Authors: Xin Shi, Wei Tan, Guorui Zhu

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The contraction-expansion array (CEA) microfluidic device is widely used for particle focusing and particle separation. Without the introduction of external fields, it can manipulate particles using hydrodynamic forces, including inertial lift forces and Dean drag forces. The focusing pattern of the particles in a CEA channel can be affected by the structural parameter, block ratio, and flow streamlines. Here, two typical focusing patterns with five different structural parameters were investigated, and the force mechanism was analyzed. We present nine CEA channels with different aspect ratios based on the process of changing the particle equilibrium positions. The results show that 10-15 μm particles have the potential to generate a side focusing line as the structural parameter (¬R𝓌) increases. For a determined channel structure and target particles, when the Reynolds number (Rₑ) exceeds the critical value, the focusing pattern will transform from a single pattern to a double pattern. The parameter α/R𝓌 can be used to calculate the critical Reynolds number for the focusing pattern transformation. The results can provide guidance for microchannel design and biomedical analysis.

Keywords: microfluidic, inertial focusing, particle separation, Dean flow

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Authors: C. Yin, B. Zhang, Y. Liu, J. Cai

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Airborne EM (AEM) is an effective geophysical exploration tool, especially suitable for ridged mountain areas. In these areas, topography will have serious effects on AEM system responses. However, until now little study has been reported on topographic effect on airborne EM systems. In this paper, an edge-based unstructured finite-element (FE) method is developed for 3D topographic modeling for both frequency and time-domain airborne EM systems. Starting from the frequency-domain Maxwell equations, a vector Helmholtz equation is derived to obtain a stable and accurate solution. Considering that the AEM transmitter and receiver are both located in the air, the scattered field method is used in our modeling. The Galerkin method is applied to discretize the Helmholtz equation for the final FE equations. Solving the FE equations, the frequency-domain AEM responses are obtained. To accelerate the calculation speed, the response of source in free-space is used as the primary field and the PARDISO direct solver is used to deal with the problem with multiple transmitting sources. After calculating the frequency-domain AEM responses, a Hankel’s transform is applied to obtain the time-domain AEM responses. To check the accuracy of present algorithm and to analyze the characteristic of topographic effect on airborne EM systems, both the frequency- and time-domain AEM responses for 3 model groups are simulated: 1) a flat half-space model that has a semi-analytical solution of EM response; 2) a valley or hill earth model; 3) a valley or hill earth with an abnormal body embedded. Numerical experiments show that close to the node points of the topography, AEM responses demonstrate sharp changes. Special attentions need to be paid to the topographic effects when interpreting AEM survey data over rugged topographic areas. Besides, the profile of the AEM responses presents a mirror relation with the topographic earth surface. In comparison to the topographic effect that mainly occurs at the high-frequency end and early time channels, the EM responses of underground conductors mainly occur at low frequencies and later time channels. For the signal of the same time channel, the dB/dt field reflects the change of conductivity better than the B-field. The research of this paper will serve airborne EM in the identification and correction of the topographic effects.

Keywords: 3D, Airborne EM, forward modeling, topographic effect

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Authors: Nicola Menga, Giuseppe Carbone

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Although contact mechanics has been widely focused on the study of contacts between half-space, it has been recently pointed out that in presence of finite thickness elastic layers the results of the contact problem show significant difference in terms of the main contact quantities (e.g. contact area, penetration, mean pressure, etc.). Actually, there exist a wide range of industrial application demanding for this kind of studies, such as seals leakage prediction or pressure-sensitive coatings for electrical applications. In this work, we focus on the contact between a rigid profile and an elastic layer of thickness h confined under two different configurations: rigid constrain and applied uniform pressure. The elastic problem at hand has been formalized following Green’s function method and then numerically solved by means of a matrix inversion. We study different contact conditions, both considering and neglecting adhesive interactions at the interface. This leads to different solution techniques: Adhesive contacts equilibrium solution is found, in term of contact area for given penetration, making stationary the total free energy of the system; whereas, adhesiveless contacts are addressed defining an equilibrium criterion, again on the contact area, relying on the fracture mechanics stress intensity factor KI. In particular, we make the KI vanish at the edges of the contact area, as peculiar for adhesiveless elastic contacts. The results are obtained in terms of contact area, penetration, and mean pressure for both adhesive and adhesiveless contact conditions. As expected, in the case of a uniform applied pressure the slab turns out much more compliant than the rigidly constrained one. Indeed, we have observed that the peak value of the contact pressure, for both the adhesive and adhesiveless condition, is much higher for the rigidly constrained configuration than in the case of applied uniform pressure. Furthermore, we observed that, for little contact area, both systems behave the same and the pull-off occurs at approximately the same contact area and mean contact pressure. This is an expected result since in this condition the ratio between the layers thickness and the contact area is very high and both layer configurations recover the half-space behavior where the pull-off occurrence is mainly controlled by the adhesive interactions, which are kept constant among the cases.

Keywords: contact mechanics, adhesion, friction, thick layer

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Authors: Sabina Garayeva

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To determine the significant risk factors for intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), we carried out a thorough study of the social status of the parents of children with IUGR. We observed 315 mothers who gave birth to children with (IUGR), of which 172 mothers with asymmetric type and 143 mothers with symmetric type of IUGR. Through a detailed survey was gathered detailed information about education of parents. The results show that the majority of mothers with IUGR had secondary education (44,8 ± 2,8%), and fathers - higher education (35,2 ± 2,7%). Whereas in the control group, the largest number of parents had higher education (mother 35,3 ± 4,4%, fathers 42,9 ± 4,5%). Number of mothers with secondary education with IUGR was significantly (p1 <0,01; χ2 = 22,67) differs from the number of mothers with physiological pregnancy with the same level of education. Meanwhile, in the group with a symmetrical embodiment of IUGR mothers with secondary formation of significantly greater 53,1 ± 4,2%, than the asymmetric embodiment IUGR 37,8 ± 3,7% (p2 <0,05; χ2 = 8 06). Among fathers with secondary education significant difference was noted in the symmetric version of IUGR 37,8 ± 4,1% more than in the control group (p1 <0,05), and among parents of children with asymmetric IUGR option prevailed fathers with higher education - 37 2 ± 3,7%. Thus, our results revealed a low educational level of the mother as a risk factor for IUGR, which further help to develop preventive and therapeutic measures to eliminate the severity of its consequences. As seen from the data presented, mothers of children with asymmetric IUGR had a school education and fathers - higher education, while in the symmetric type of both parents had secondary education. It is found that frequency of children, born with IUGR, of mothers - housewives and fathers, engage in physical labor, was high. Thus, the analysis conducted by the social status of the parents with IUGR revealed a low level of education and unemployed mothers as risk factors for this disease, which in the future will help to develop preventive and therapeutic measures to eliminate the severity of its.

Keywords: intrauterine growth restriction, education of mothers, education influence, IUGR

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Authors: Joanna Cydejko, Paulina Mika

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Hypersensitivity reactions are side effects of medications that resemble an allergic reaction. Anaphylaxis is a generalized, severe allergic reaction of the body caused by exposure to a specific agent at a dose tolerated by a healthy body. The most common causes of anaphylaxis are food (about 70%), Hymenoptera venoms (22%), and medications (7%), despite detailed diagnostics in 1% of people, the cause of the anaphylactic reaction was not indicated. Contrast media are anaphylactic agents of unknown mechanism. Hypersensitivity reactions can occur with both immunological and non-immunological mechanisms. Symptoms of anaphylaxis occur within a few seconds to several minutes after exposure to the allergen. Contrast agents are chemical compounds that make it possible to visualize or improve the visibility of anatomical structures. In the diagnosis of computed tomography, the preparations currently used are derivatives of the triiodide benzene ring. Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties, i.e., their osmolality, viscosity, low chemotoxicity and high hydrophilicity, have an impact on better tolerance of the substance by the patient's body. In MRI diagnostics, macrocyclic gadolinium contrast agents are administered during examinations. The aim of this study is to present the results of the number and severity of anaphylactic reactions that occurred in patients in all age groups undergoing diagnostic imaging with intravenous administration of contrast agents. In non-ionic iodine CT and in macrocyclic gadolinium MRI. A retrospective assessment of the number of adverse reactions after contrast administration was carried out on the basis of data from the Department of Radiology of the University Clinical Center in Gdańsk, and it was assessed whether their different physicochemical properties had an impact on the incidence of acute complications. Adverse reactions are divided according to the severity of the patient's condition and the diagnostic method used in a given patient. Complications following the administration of a contrast medium in the form of acute anaphylaxis accounted for less than 0.5% of all diagnostic procedures performed with the use of a contrast agent. In the analysis period from January to December 2022, 34,053 CT scans and 15,279 MRI examinations with the use of contrast medium were performed. The total number of acute complications was 21, of which 17 were complications of iodine-based contrast agents and 5 of gadolinium preparations. The introduction of state-of-the-art contrast formulations was an important step toward improving the safety and tolerability of contrast agents used in imaging. Currently, contrast agents administered to patients are considered to be one of the best-tolerated preparations used in medicine. However, like any drug, they can be responsible for the occurrence of adverse reactions resulting from their toxic effects. The increase in the number of imaging tests performed with the use of contrast agents has a direct impact on the number of adverse events associated with their administration. However, despite the low risk of anaphylaxis, this risk should not be marginalized. The growing threat associated with the mass performance of radiological procedures with the use of contrast agents forces the knowledge of the rules of conduct in the event of symptoms of hypersensitivity to these preparations.

Keywords: anaphylactic, contrast medium, diagnostic, medical imagine

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Authors: Gayathri Pramod, Sheeja K. P.

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Urban flooding has been seen rising in cities for the past few years. This rise in urban flooding is the result of increasing urbanization and increasing climate change. A resilient city design focuses on 'living with water'. This means that the city is capable of accommodating the floodwaters without having to risk any loss of lives or properties. The resilient city design incorporates green infrastructure, river edge treatment, open space design, etc. to form a city that functions as a whole for resilience. Sponge urbanism is a recent method for building resilient cities and is founded by China in 2014. Sponge urbanism is the apt method for resilience building for a tropical town like Aluva of Kerala. Aluva is a tropical town that experiences rainfall of about 783 mm per month during the rainy season. Aluva is an urbanized town which faces the risk of urban flooding and riverine every year due to the presence of Periyar River in the town. Impervious surfaces and hard construction and developments contribute towards flood risk by posing as interference for a natural flow and natural filtration of water into the ground. This type of development is seen in Aluva also. Aluva is designed in this research as a town that have resilient strategies of sponge city and which focusses on natural methods of construction. The flood susceptibility of Aluva is taken into account to design the spaces for sponge urbanism and in turn, reduce the flood susceptibility for the town. Aluva is analyzed, and high-risk zones for development are identified through studies. These zones are designed to withstand the risk of flooding. Various catchment areas are identified according to the natural flow of water, and then these catchment areas are designed to act as a public open space and as detention ponds in case of heavy rainfall. Various development guidelines, according to land use, is also prescribed, which help in increasing the green cover of the town. Aluva is then designed to be a completely flood-adapted city or sponge city according to the guidelines and interventions.

Keywords: climate change, flooding, resilient city, sponge city, sponge urbanism, urbanization

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Authors: Jose Ramon Sanabria Navarro, Yahilina Silveira Perez

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The Pan American Games are one of the best regional sports integration events for the Americas, thousands of athletes from different countries are integrated based on obtaining satisfactory sports results and bringing the glory of the national identity of the sport to their country. There are countries that despite the small number of inhabitants have obtained very satisfactory results such as Cuba. Objective: To analyze the impact of Cuba's sports results in the Pan American Games. The methodology was based on the postulates of the materialist dialectic since the investigated reality was studied from historicity, systematicity and in its systemic character. The population and sample consisted of 41 countries of the American continent, and the 15 events carried out to date were analyzed. The impact of Cuba is very relevant because it is the country that has the second place by country in terms of number of medals, is among the first in terms of medals per inhabitants and in general sense of all the indicators treated assumes the fourth place integral. What is the current status of Cuba's sports results in Pan American Games? Having as a general objective, analyze the impact of Cuba's sports results in the Pan American Games. The hypotheses that will lead this research have the following methodological and interaction order: H1: Cuba's performance in Pan American Sports Games positively impacts the amount of medals obtained. H2: The amount of medals from Cuba in Pan American Sports Games positively impacts the general podium for countries of these regional events. H3: The amount of medals obtained by Cuba in Pan American Sports Games positively impacts the number of inhabitants. H4: The amount of medals obtained by Cuba positively impacts the overall result of the countries. H5: Cuba's performance in the Panamerican Sports Games positively impacts the overall results of these regional events. In general, it is possible to demonstrate the impact of Cuba's sports performance in Pan American Games and the organizational sports structure that has allowed the country to obtain them is evidenced.

Keywords: Cuba, history of sport, sports games, regional events, sport

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Authors: Dave Kenneth Tayao Cayado, Carlo P. Magno

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The most common source of bias detected are those of gender and socioeconomic status. The present study investigated the Differential Item Functioning (DIF) or item bias between public and private school students in a vocabulary test. Studies on DIF were expanded by using the type of school as a source of bias. There were 200 participants in this study. 100 came from a public secondary school and 100 came from a private secondary school. The vocabulary skills of students were measured using a standardized vocabulary test for grade 7 students. Using DIF, specifically the Rasch-Welch approach, it was found that out of 24 items, 12 were biased for a specific group. The vocabulary skills on the use of slang, idiomatic expression, personification, collocations, and partitive relations were biased for private schools while the use of slang and homonymous words were biased for public school students. The analysis debunked the trend that private school students are outperforming public school students in terms of academic achievement. It was revealed that there are some competencies that private school students are having difficulty and vice versa.

Keywords: differential item functioning, item bias, public school students, private school students, vocabulary

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Authors: Hamid Reza Nejati, Amin Nazerigivi, Ahmad Reza Sayadi

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Failure mechanism of rocks is one of the fundamental aspects to study rock engineering stability. Rock is a material that contains flaws, initial damage, micro-cracks, etc. Failure of rock structure is largely due to tensile stress and was influenced by various parameters. In the present study, the effect of brittleness and loading rate on the physical and mechanical phenomena produced in rock during loading sequences is considered. For this purpose, Acoustic Emission (AE) technique is used to monitor fracturing process of three rock types (onyx marble, sandstone and soft limestone) with different brittleness and sandstone samples under different loading rate. The results of experimental tests revealed that brittleness and loading rate have a significant effect on the mode and number of induced fracture in rocks. An increase in rock brittleness increases the frequency of induced cracks, and the number of tensile fracture decreases when loading rate increases.

Keywords: brittleness, loading rate, acoustic emission, tensile fracture, shear fracture

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Authors: Su Chul Han, Seungwoo Park

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As the increasing incidence of cancer, the technology and modality of radiotherapy have advanced and the importance of preclinical model is increasing in the cancer research. Furthermore, the small animal dosimetry is an essential part of the evaluation of the relationship between the absorbed dose in preclinical small animal and biological effect in preclinical study. In this study, we carried out realistic modeling of the preclinical small animal phantom possible to verify irradiated dose using commercial software. The small animal phantom was modeling from 4D Digital Mouse whole body phantom. To manipulate Moby phantom in commercial software (Mimics, Materialise, Leuven, Belgium), we converted Moby phantom to DICOM image file of CT by Matlab and two- dimensional of CT images were converted to the three-dimensional image and it is possible to segment and crop CT image in Sagittal, Coronal and axial view). The CT images of small animals were modeling following process. Based on the profile line value, the thresholding was carried out to make a mask that was connection of all the regions of the equal threshold range. Using thresholding method, we segmented into three part (bone, body (tissue). lung), to separate neighboring pixels between lung and body (tissue), we used region growing function of Mimics software. We acquired 3D object by 3D calculation in the segmented images. The generated 3D object was smoothing by remeshing operation and smoothing operation factor was 0.4, iteration value was 5. The edge mode was selected to perform triangle reduction. The parameters were that tolerance (0.1mm), edge angle (15 degrees) and the number of iteration (5). The image processing 3D object file was converted to an STL file to output with 3D printer. We modified 3D small animal file using 3- Matic research (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) to make space for radiation dosimetry chips. We acquired 3D object of realistic small animal phantom. The width of small animal phantom was 2.631 cm, thickness was 2.361 cm, and length was 10.817. Mimics software supported efficiency about 3D object generation and usability of conversion to STL file for user. The development of small preclinical animal phantom would increase reliability of verification of absorbed dose in small animal for preclinical study.

Keywords: mimics, preclinical small animal, segmentation, 3D printer

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Authors: K. Ghosh, S. N. Tripathi, Manish Joshi, Y. S. Mayya, Arshad Khan, B. K. Sapra

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We have developed a CFD coupled aerosol microphysics model in the context of aerosol generation from a glowing wire. The governing equations can be solved implicitly for mass, momentum, energy transfer along with aerosol dynamics. The computationally efficient framework can simulate temporal behavior of total number concentration and number size distribution. This formulation uniquely couples standard K-Epsilon scheme with boundary layer model with detailed aerosol dynamics through residence time. This model uses measured temperatures (wire surface and axial/radial surroundings) and wire compositional data apart from other usual inputs for simulations. The model predictions show that bulk fluid motion and local heat distribution can significantly affect the aerosol behavior when the buoyancy effect in momentum transfer is considered. Buoyancy generated turbulence was found to be affecting parameters related to aerosol dynamics and transport as well. The model was validated by comparing simulated predictions with results obtained from six controlled experiments performed with a laboratory-made hot wire nanoparticle generator. Condensation particle counter (CPC) and scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) were used for measurement of total number concentration and number size distribution at the outlet of reactor cell during these experiments. Our model-predicted results were found to be in reasonable agreement with observed values. The developed model is fast (fully implicit) and numerically stable. It can be used specifically for applications in the context of the behavior of aerosol particles generated from glowing wire technique and in general for other similar large scale domains. Incorporation of CFD in aerosol microphysics framework provides a realistic platform to study natural convection driven systems/ applications. Aerosol dynamics sub-modules (nucleation, coagulation, wall deposition) have been coupled with Navier Stokes equations modified to include buoyancy coupled K-Epsilon turbulence model. Coupled flow-aerosol dynamics equation was solved numerically and in the implicit scheme. Wire composition and temperature (wire surface and cell domain) were obtained/measured, to be used as input for the model simulations. Model simulations showed a significant effect of fluid properties on the dynamics of aerosol particles. The role of buoyancy was highlighted by observation and interpretation of nucleation zones in the planes above the wire axis. The model was validated against measured temporal evolution, total number concentration and size distribution at the outlet of hot wire generator cell. Experimentally averaged and simulated total number concentrations were found to match closely, barring values at initial times. Steady-state number size distribution matched very well for sub 10 nm particle diameters while reasonable differences were noticed for higher size ranges. Although tuned specifically for the present context (i.e., aerosol generation from hotwire generator), the model can also be used for diverse applications, e.g., emission of particles from hot zones (chimneys, exhaust), fires and atmospheric cloud dynamics.

Keywords: nanoparticles, k-epsilon model, buoyancy, CFD, hot wire generator, aerosol dynamics

Procedia PDF Downloads 143

Authors: Zaheer A. Ali, George Szabo

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SCRUM has roots in software and web development and works very well on that in that space. However, any technical person who has watched a typical waterfall managed project spiral out of control or into an abyss, has thought: "there must be a better way". I will discuss how that thought leads naturally to adopting Agile principles and SCRUM, as well as how Agile and SCRUM can be implemented in large institutions with long histories via a method I developed: Bubble Scrum. We will also see how SCRUM can be implemented in interesting places outside of the technical sphere and also discuss where and how to subtly bring Agility and SCRUM into large, rigid, institutions.

Keywords: agile, enterprise-agile, agile at scale, agile transition, project management, scrum

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: Tahra AlMahmoud, Sameeha Mohamed Al Hadhrami, Mohamed Elhanan, Hanan Naser Alshamsi, Fikri Abu-Zidan

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Background: To the best of the author(s)’ knowledge there are no epidemiological studies for traumatic eye injuries in UAE, neither data on groups at risk or mechanisms for ocular trauma. Purpose: To report the epidemiology of eye injuries that required hospital admission and surgery at a referral center at the eastern part of Abu Dhabi. Method: Retrospective charts review of all patients who had suffered an eye injury that required surgical intervention between 2012 and 2017 at Al Ain Hospital. Demographic data, place of occurrence, the cause of injury, visual acuity (VA) before and after treatment, number of admission days and follow up were extracted. Data were tabulated and presented as number (%), mean (SD), or median (range) as appropriate. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used for VA outcome. Results: One hundred forty-one patients were identified, 96 eyes with open-globe and 48 other types of injuries. The mean age of the patients was 26±15.5 years, and 89% were male. Majority of injuries occurred at the workplace (50.4%) followed by home (31.2%). Trauma with a sharp object (24.1%), blunt object (16.3%), nail (11.3%), and hammer on metal (7.8%) were the most common etiologies of injury. Corneas injuries (48.2%) was the most frequent cause for visual acuity limitation followed by lens/cataract (23.4%). Among the traumatized eyes, 30 eyes (21.3%) retained intraocular foreign body, Mean admission days was 3.16± 2.81days (1-16) and a number of follow up visit was 3.17± 4.11times (0-26). Conclusion: Ocular trauma requiring surgical intervention is an area of concern in particular for occupations involving work with metals. This work may give insight into the value and necessity of implementing preventive measures.

Keywords: epidemiology, Middle Eastern area, occupational injury, ocular traumas

Procedia PDF Downloads 132

Authors: Adi A. Maaita, Hamza A. A. Al Sewadi

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One of the crucial parameters of digital cryptographic systems is the selection of the keys used and their distribution. The randomness of the keys has a strong impact on the system’s security strength being difficult to be predicted, guessed, reproduced or discovered by a cryptanalyst. Therefore, adequate key randomness generation is still sought for the benefit of stronger cryptosystems. This paper suggests an algorithm designed to generate and test pseudo random number sequences intended for cryptographic applications. This algorithm is based on mathematically manipulating a publically agreed upon information between sender and receiver over a public channel. This information is used as a seed for performing some mathematical functions in order to generate a sequence of pseudorandom numbers that will be used for encryption/decryption purposes. This manipulation involves permutations and substitutions that fulfills Shannon’s principle of “confusion and diffusion”. ASCII code characters wereutilized in the generation process instead of using bit strings initially, which adds more flexibility in testing different seed values. Finally, the obtained results would indicate sound difficulty of guessing keys by attackers.

Keywords: cryptosystems, information security agreement, key distribution, random numbers

Procedia PDF Downloads 268

Authors: Sharon Jackson White

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Purpose: Nurse practitioners (NPs) practicing within hospital medicine play a significant role in caring for patients who might benefit from palliative care (PC) services. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among facilitators to referral, barriers to referral, self-efficacy with end-of-life discussions, history of referral, and referring to PC among NPs in hospital medicine. Hypotheses: 1) Perceived facilitators to referral will be associated with a higher history of referral and a higher number of referrals to PC. 2) Perceived barriers to referral will be associated with a lower history of referral and a lower number of referrals to PC. 3) Increased self-efficacy with end-of-life discussions will be associated with a higher history of referral and a higher number of referrals to PC. 4) Perceived facilitators to referral, perceived barriers to referral, and self–efficacy with end-of-life discussions will contribute to a significant variance in the history of referral to PC. 5) Perceived facilitators to referral, perceived barriers to referral, and self–efficacy with end-of-life discussions will contribute to a significant variance in the number of referrals to PC. Significance: Previous studies of referring patients to PC within the hospital setting care have focused on physician practices. Identifying factors that influence NPs referring hospitalized patients to PC is essential to ensure that patients have access to these important services. This study incorporates the SNRS mission of advancing nursing research through the dissemination of research findings and the promotion of nursing science. Methods: A cross-sectional, predictive correlational study was conducted. History of referral to PC, facilitators to referring to PC, barriers to referring to PC, self-efficacy in end-of-life discussions, and referral to PC were measured using the PC referral case study survey, facilitators and barriers to PC referral survey, and self-assessment with end-of-life discussions survey. Data were analyzed descriptively and with Pearson’s Correlation, Spearman’s Rho, point-biserial correlation, multiple regression, logistic regression, Chi-Square test, and the Mann-Whitney U test. Results: Only one facilitator (PC team being helpful with establishing goals of care) was significantly associated with referral to PC. Three variables were statistically significant in relation to the history of referring to PC: “Inclined to refer: PC can help decrease the length of stay in hospital”, “Most inclined to refer: Patients with serious illnesses and/or poor prognoses”, and “Giving bad news to a patient or family member”. No predictor variables contributed a significant variance in the number of referrals to PC for all three case studies. There were no statistically significant results showing a relationship between the history of referral and referral to PC. All five hypotheses were partially supported. Discussion: Findings from this study emphasize the need for further research on NPs who work in hospital settings and what factors influence their behaviors of referring to PC. Since there is an increase in NPs practicing within hospital settings, future studies should use a larger sample size and incorporate hospital medicine NPs and other types of NPs that work in hospitals.

Keywords: palliative care, nurse practitioners, hospital medicine, referral

Procedia PDF Downloads 73

Authors: Marina Franulovic, Robert Basan, Bozidar Krizan

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Constitutive modelling of material behaviour is becoming increasingly important in prediction of possible failures in highly loaded engineering components, and consequently, optimization of their design. In order to account for large number of phenomena that occur in the material during operation, such as kinematic hardening effect in low cycle fatigue behaviour of steels, complex nonlinear material models are used ever more frequently, despite of the complexity of determination of their parameters. As a method for the determination of these parameters, genetic algorithm is good choice because of its capability to provide very good approximation of the solution in systems with large number of unknown variables. For the application of genetic algorithm to parameter identification, inverse analysis must be primarily defined. It is used as a tool to fine-tune calculated stress-strain values with experimental ones. In order to choose proper objective function for inverse analysis among already existent and newly developed functions, the research is performed to investigate its influence on material behaviour modelling.

Keywords: genetic algorithm, kinematic hardening, material model, objective function

Procedia PDF Downloads 333

Authors: Firas A. Al Laban, Mohamed Chabi, Sammani Danwawu Abdullahi

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There are a real needs to integrate types of Open Educational Resources (OER) with an intelligent system to extract information and knowledge in the semantic searching level. Those needs raised because most of current learning standard adopted web based learning and the e-learning systems does not always serve all educational goals. Semantic Web systems provide educators, students, and researchers with intelligent queries based on a semantic knowledge management learning system. An ontology-based learning system is an advanced system, where ontology plays the core of the semantic web in a smart learning environment. The objective of this paper is to discuss the potentials of ontologies and mapping different kinds of ontologies; heterogeneous or homogenous to manage and control different types of Open Educational Resources. The important contribution of this research is to approach a methodology uses logical rules and conceptual relations to map between ontologies of different educational resources. We expect from this methodology to establish for an intelligent educational system supporting student tutoring, self and lifelong learning system.

Keywords: knowledge management systems, ontologies, semantic web, open educational resources

Procedia PDF Downloads 498

Authors: Ezman Fitriansyah, Lestari Diah Restu, Wawan

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Adaro coal mine in South Kalimantan-Indonesia maintains catchment area of approximately 15,000 Ha for its mine operation. As an open pit surface coal mine with high erosion rate, the mine water in Adaro coal mine contains high TSS that needs to be treated before being released to rivers. For the treatment process, Adaro operates 21 Settling Ponds equipped with combination of physical and chemical system to separate solids and water to ensure the discharged water complied with regional environmental quality standards. However, the sludge created from the sedimentation process reduces the settling ponds capacity gradually. Therefore regular maintenance activities are required to recover and maintain the ponds' capacity. Trucking system and direct dredging had been the most common method to handle sludge in Adaro. But the main problem in applying these two methods is excessive area required for drying pond construction. To solve this problem, Adaro implements an alternative method called Geotube®. The principle of Geotube® method is the sludge contained in the Settling Ponds is pumped into Geotube® containers which have been designed to release water and retain mud flocks. During the pumping process, an amount of flocculants chemicals are injected into the sludge to form bigger mud flocks. Due to the difference in particle size, the mud flocks are settled in the container whilst the water continues to flow out through the container’s pores. Compared to the trucking system and direct dredging method, this method provides three advantages: space required to operate, increasing of overburden waste dump volume, and increasing of water treatment process speed and quality. Based on the evaluation result, Geotube® method only needs 1:8 of space required by the other methods. From the geotechnical assessment result conducted by Adaro, the potential loss of waste dump volume capacity prior to implementation of the Geotube® method was 26.7%. The water treatment process of TSS in well maintained ponds is 16% more optimum.

Keywords: geotube, mine water, settling pond, sludge handling, wastewater treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 200

Authors: Abdullah Özköse, Ahmet Tamkoç

Abstract:

The present study was conducted to determine the yield and yield components of smooth bromegrass lines under the environmental conditions of the Konya region during the growing seasons between 2011 and 2013. The experiment was performed in the randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. It was found that the selected lines had a statistically significant effect on all the investigated traits, except for the main stem length and the number of nodes in the main stem. According to the two-year average calculated for various parameters checked in the smooth bromegrass lines, the main stem length ranged from 71.6 cm to 79.1 cm, the main stem diameter from 2.12 mm from 2.70 mm, the number of nodes in the main stem from 3.2 to 3.7, the internode length from 11.6 cm to 18.9 cm, flag leaf length from 9.7 cm to 12.7 cm, flag leaf width from 3.58 cm to 6.04 mm, herbage yield from 221.3 kg da^–1 to 354.7 kg da^–1 and hay yield from 100.4 kg da^–1 to 190.1 kg da^–1. The study concluded that the smooth bromegrass lines differ in terms of yield and yield components. Therefore, it is very crucial to select suitable varieties of smooth bromegrass to obtain optimum yield.

Keywords: semiarid region, smooth bromegrass, yield, yield components

Procedia PDF Downloads 275

Authors: Khaleel Sami Hamdan, Dong-Eok Kim, Sang-Ki Moon

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An appropriate model to predict the size of the droplets resulting from the break-up with the structures will help in a better understanding and modeling of the two-phase flow calculations in the simulation of a reactor core loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). A droplet behavior impacting on a hot surface above the Leidenfrost temperature was investigated. Droplets of known size and velocity were impacted to an inclined plate of hot temperature, and the behavior of the droplets was observed by a high-speed camera. It was found that for droplets of Weber number higher than a certain value, the higher the Weber number of the droplet the smaller the secondary droplets. The COBRA-TF model over-predicted the measured secondary droplet sizes obtained by the present experiment. A simple model for the secondary droplet size was proposed using the mass conservation equation. The maximum spreading diameter of the droplets was also compared to previous correlations and a fairly good agreement was found. A better prediction of the heat transfer in the case of LOCA can be obtained with the presented model.

Keywords: break-up, droplet, impact, inclined hot plate, Leidenfrost temperature, LOCA

Procedia PDF Downloads 399