Search results for: whole-body vibration training

Authors: Aleksandra Majewska

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The article analyses the impact of Western sanctions on Russian rhythmic gymnastics since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The chronological presentation of events shows how international political tensions and economic sanctions have affected the organisation of competitions, training and the careers of athletes. The article outlines the key moments and decisions that have changed the landscape of Russian sport, including the decision to change the citizenship made by some gymnasts in order to continue competing in international competitions. Russia strongly opposes participation in competitions without its flag and anthem while maintaining the view that Russian gymnasts are crucial to the prestige of rhythmic gymnastics in the world. In response to the sanctions, Russia created its own rules for rhythmic gymnastics, according to which they now compete domestically. Furthermore, this sport in Russia is strongly linked to politics, which further emphasises its importance in the national and international context. The information collected derives from numerous interviews with Russian athletes, coaches and other people, which are available only in the Russian language. The findings highlight the significant difficulties Russian athletes have faced due to their isolation in the international arena and the adaptive strategies adopted by Russia in the face of these challenges. The article makes an important contribution to understanding the consequences of global politics on the world of sport and the fate of individual athletes.

Keywords: sport, gymnastics, war in Ukraine, sanctions

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Authors: Marco F. Benaglia, Mei H. Chen, Kune M. Tsai, Chia H. Hung

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As societal and family structures, consumer dietary habits, and awareness about food safety and quality continue to evolve in most developed countries, the demand for refrigerated and frozen foods has been growing, and the issues related to their preservation have gained increasing attention. A well-established cold chain logistics system is essential to avoid any temperature abuse; therefore, assessing potential disruptions in the operational processes of cold chain logistics centers becomes pivotal. This study preliminarily employs HACCP to find disruption factors in cold chain logistics centers that may cause temperature abuse. Then, concept mapping is applied: selected experts engage in brainstorming sessions to identify any further factors. The panel consists of ten experts, including four from logistics and home delivery, two from retail distribution, one from the food industry, two from low-temperature logistics centers, and one from the freight industry. Disruptions include equipment-related aspects, human factors, management aspects, and process-related considerations. The areas of observation encompass freezer rooms, refrigerated storage areas, loading docks, sorting areas, and vehicle parking zones. The experts also categorize the disruption factors based on perceived similarities and build a similarity matrix. Each factor is evaluated for its impact, frequency, and investment importance. Next, multiple scale analysis, cluster analysis, and other methods are used to analyze these factors. Simultaneously, key disruption factors are identified based on their impact and frequency, and, subsequently, the factors that companies prioritize and are willing to invest in are determined by assessing investors’ risk aversion behavior. Finally, Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) is applied to verify the risk patterns. 66 disruption factors are found and categorized into six clusters: (1) "Inappropriate Use and Maintenance of Hardware and Software Facilities", (2) "Inadequate Management and Operational Negligence", (3) "Product Characteristics Affecting Quality and Inappropriate Packaging", (4) "Poor Control of Operation Timing and Missing Distribution Processing", (5) "Inadequate Planning for Peak Periods and Poor Process Planning", and (6) "Insufficient Cold Chain Awareness and Inadequate Training of Personnel". This study also identifies five critical factors in the operational processes of cold chain logistics centers: "Lack of Personnel’s Awareness Regarding Cold Chain Quality", "Personnel Not Following Standard Operating Procedures", "Personnel’s Operational Negligence", "Management’s Inadequacy", and "Lack of Personnel’s Knowledge About Cold Chain". The findings show that cold chain operators prioritize prevention and improvement efforts in the "Inappropriate Use and Maintenance of Hardware and Software Facilities" cluster, particularly focusing on the factors of "Temperature Setting Errors" and "Management’s Inadequacy". However, through the application of CPT theory, this study reveals that companies are not usually willing to invest in the improvement of factors related to the "Inappropriate Use and Maintenance of Hardware and Software Facilities" cluster due to its low occurrence likelihood, but they acknowledge the severity of the consequences if it does occur. Hence, the main implication is that the key disruption factors in cold chain logistics centers’ processes are associated with personnel issues; therefore, comprehensive training, periodic audits, and the establishment of reasonable incentives and penalties for both new employees and managers may significantly reduce disruption issues.

Keywords: concept mapping, cold chain, HACCP, cumulative prospect theory

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Authors: Sihem Benmimoune, Abdelbaki Lemgharbi, Ahmed Ait Yahia, Abdelkrim Kameli

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Our study is based on chemical and phytochemical characterization of Artemisia absinthium L and in vitro tests to demonstrate the biological activities of essential oil and natural extract. A qualitative and quantitative comparison of the essential oil extracted by two extraction procedures was performed by analysis of CG/SM and the yield calculation. The method of hydrodistillation has a chemical composition and provides oil content than the best training water vapor. These oils are composed mainly of thujone followed chamazulene and ρ-cymene. The antimicrobial activity of wormwood oil was tested in vitro by two methods (agar diffusion and microdilution) on four plant pathogenic fungi (Aspergillus sp, Botrytis cinerea, Fusarium culmorum and Helminthosporium sp). The study of the antifungal effect showed that this oil has an inhibitory effect counterpart the microorganisms tested in particular the strain Botrytis cinerea. Otherwise, this activity depends on the nature of the oil and the germ itself. The antioxidant activity in vitro was studied with the DPPH method. The activity test shows that the oil and extract of Artemisia absinthium have a very low antioxidant capacity compared to the antioxidants used as a reference. The extract has a potentially high antiradical power not from its oil. The quantitative determinations of phenolic compounds by the Folin-Ciocalteu revealed that absinthe is low in total polyphenols and tannins.

Keywords: artemisia absinthium, biological activities, essential oil, extraction processes

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Authors: Mian Huang, Chi Ma, Junyu Lin, William Lu

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Introduction: Bone health attracts more attention recently and an intelligent question and answer (QA) chatbot for osteoporosis is helpful for science popularization. With Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) technology developing, we build an osteoporosis corpus dataset and then fine-tune LLaMA, a famous open-source GPT foundation large language model(LLM), on our self-constructed osteoporosis corpus. Evaluated by clinical orthopedic experts, our fine-tuned model outperforms vanilla LLaMA on osteoporosis QA task in Chinese. Three-dimensional quantitative computed tomography (QCT) measured bone mineral density (BMD) is considered as more accurate than DXA for BMD measurement in recent years. We develop an automatic Phantom-less QCT(PL-QCT) that is more efficient for BMD measurement since no need of an external phantom for calibration. Combined with LLM on osteoporosis, our PL-QCT provides efficient and accurate BMD measurement for our chatbot users. Material and Methods: We build an osteoporosis corpus containing about 30,000 Chinese literatures whose titles are related to osteoporosis. The whole process is done automatically, including crawling literatures in .pdf format, localizing text/figure/table region by layout segmentation algorithm and recognizing text by OCR algorithm. We train our model by continuous pre-training with Low-rank Adaptation (LoRA, rank=10) technology to adapt LLaMA-7B model to osteoporosis domain, whose basic principle is to mask the next word in the text and make the model predict that word. The loss function is defined as cross-entropy between the predicted and ground-truth word. Experiment is implemented on single NVIDIA A800 GPU for 15 days. Our automatic PL-QCT BMD measurement adopt AI-associated region-of-interest (ROI) generation algorithm for localizing vertebrae-parallel cylinder in cancellous bone. Due to no phantom for BMD calibration, we calculate ROI BMD by CT-BMD of personal muscle and fat. Results & Discussion: Clinical orthopaedic experts are invited to design 5 osteoporosis questions in Chinese, evaluating performance of vanilla LLaMA and our fine-tuned model. Our model outperforms LLaMA on over 80% of these questions, understanding ‘Expert Consensus on Osteoporosis’, ‘QCT for osteoporosis diagnosis’ and ‘Effect of age on osteoporosis’. Detailed results are shown in appendix. Future work may be done by training a larger LLM on the whole orthopaedics with more high-quality domain data, or a multi-modal GPT combining and understanding X-ray and medical text for orthopaedic computer-aided-diagnosis. However, GPT model gives unexpected outputs sometimes, such as repetitive text or seemingly normal but wrong answer (called ‘hallucination’). Even though GPT give correct answers, it cannot be considered as valid clinical diagnoses instead of clinical doctors. The PL-QCT BMD system provided by Bone’s QCT(Bone’s Technology(Shenzhen) Limited) achieves 0.1448mg/cm2(spine) and 0.0002 mg/cm2(hip) mean absolute error(MAE) and linear correlation coefficient R2=0.9970(spine) and R2=0.9991(hip)(compared to QCT-Pro(Mindways)) on 155 patients in three-center clinical trial in Guangzhou, China. Conclusion: This study builds a Chinese osteoporosis corpus and develops a fine-tuned and domain-adapted LLM as well as a PL-QCT BMD measurement system. Our fine-tuned GPT model shows better capability than LLaMA model on most testing questions on osteoporosis. Combined with our PL-QCT BMD system, we are looking forward to providing science popularization and early morning screening for potential osteoporotic patients.

Keywords: GPT, phantom-less QCT, large language model, osteoporosis

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Authors: Ruchika Malhotra, Megha Khanna

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The development of change prediction models can help the software practitioners in planning testing and inspection resources at early phases of software development. However, a major challenge faced during the training process of any classification model is the imbalanced nature of the software quality data. A data with very few minority outcome categories leads to inefficient learning process and a classification model developed from the imbalanced data generally does not predict these minority categories correctly. Thus, for a given dataset, a minority of classes may be change prone whereas a majority of classes may be non-change prone. This study explores various alternatives for adeptly handling the imbalanced software quality data using different sampling methods and effective MetaCost learners. The study also analyzes and justifies the use of different performance metrics while dealing with the imbalanced data. In order to empirically validate different alternatives, the study uses change data from three application packages of open-source Android data set and evaluates the performance of six different machine learning techniques. The results of the study indicate extensive improvement in the performance of the classification models when using resampling method and robust performance measures.

Keywords: change proneness, empirical validation, imbalanced learning, machine learning techniques, object-oriented metrics

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Authors: Nizar Ahmad

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Peace without community participation will remain a vision, so, this study presents the contribution and efforts made by community base organization in views of local conflict affect population in Pakhtun society. A four conflict affected villages of Malakad Division were selected and a sample size of 278 household respondents were determined through online survey system software out of total 982 households. A Chi-square test was applied to ascertain association between various communication base organizations factors with state of peace in the area. It was found that provision of humanitarian aid, rehabilitation of displaced population, rebuilding of trust in government and peace festivals by communication organization had significant association with state of peace in the area. In contrast provision of training, peace education monitoring and reporting of human rights violation in war zone by local organization was non-significantly related to the state of peace in the area. Community base organization play an active role in building peace in the area but lack capacity, linkages with external actors and outside support. National and international organization actors working in the area of peace and conflict resolution need to focus on the capacity, networking and peace initiatives of local organizations working in fragile context.

Keywords: community base peacebuilding, conflict resolution, terrorism, violence

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Authors: S. Bagur, S. Verger, B. Mut

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Early childhood intervention (ECI) is understood as the set of interventions aimed at the child population with developmental disorders or disabilities from 0 to 6 years of age, the family, and the environment. Under the principles of family-centred practices, the members of the family nucleus are direct agents of intervention. Thus, the multidisciplinary team of professionals should work to improve family empowerment and the level of parenting skills. The aim of the present study is to analyse descriptively and differentially the level of parenting skills and family empowerment of parents using ECI services during the foster care phase. There were 135 families participating in the study. Three questionnaires were completed. The results show that the employment situation, the age of the child receiving an intervention, and the number of children in the family nucleus or the professional carrying out the intervention are variables that have a differential impact on different items of empowerment and parenting skills. The results are discussed and future lines of research are proposed, with the understanding that the initial analysis of the variables of empowerment and parenting skills may be predictors for the improvement of child development and family well-being. In addition, it is proposed to identify and analyse professional training in order to be able to adapt early care practices without depending on the discipline of the professional of reference.

Keywords: developmental disabilities, early childhood intervention, family empowerment, parenting skills

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Authors: Liu Yi Hui, Lin Yu Fang, Chiu Fan Yun

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In preparation for the coming super-aged society in Taiwan, the Ministry of Labor announced the Middle-aged and Elderly Employment Promotion Act in 2019, dedicating a chapter to expressly prohibiting age discrimination. This study aimed to enhance understanding of workplace ageism by collecting data through in-depth interviews. The findings can be summarized as follows: 1. Elderly employment in Taiwan and its three underlying motivations: Mainly in economic, social, and psychological needs. Economically, elders opt to continue working beyond the traditional retirement age because of financial shocks, a lack of financial planning, and being the breadwinner of the family. Socially and psychologically, they continue working to have a more diversified retirement life and find a new purpose in life. 2. Ageism on the re-employment of elders: On the ground, senior workers may face the age-based stereotype that their work performance is inferior and a broader social environment that is ostensibly friendly but essentially hostile. 3. Possible ways to facilitate elderly employment in terms of empowerment: By developing and empowering seniors with new skills or abilities for re-employment and strengthening their problem-solving skills in the face of new things through training programs, we can not only build the confidence and substantial abilities of senior workers in the workplace but also flip the social stereotype about age.

Keywords: senior-friendly workplaces, elderly employment, empowerment, ageism

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Authors: Hagar Elsayed

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This case study examines the framing of the diverse populations of Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants and their descendants in local communities by both federal and local law enforcement agencies. It explores how urban spaces and policing are constructed as necessary components of national security in the context of the war on terror by focusing on practices employed in local spaces such as Dearborn, Michigan and training methods adopted on a national level. The proliferation of American Arabs as ‘terrorist’ works to legitimize not only increasing state surveillance, but also military strategies which infringe on ‘inside’ spaces. Sustaining these progressively militarized civil policing operations, which demand intense mobilization of state power, requires that whole neighborhoods and districts are reimagined to portray these geographies in a certain light. This case study is central in understanding how Arab, South Asian, and Muslim civilians’ transformation into a “national security” issue have created militarized police enforcement agencies that employ military tactics to map the terrain of Otherness. This study looks at how race factors into key recent incidents, and asks whether this militarization builds from past forms of racist policing, and whether these specific incidents are reflective of larger patterns or whether they are just isolated incidents.

Keywords: American-Muslims, Arabs, militarization, policing

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Authors: Tso-Yen Mao, De-Yen Liu, Chun-Feng Huang

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Purpose: This research intends to investigate the reliability and validity of ventilatory threshold (VT) and respiratory compensation point (RCP) determined by skeletal muscle hemodynamic status. Methods: One hundred healthy male (age: 22±3 yrs; height: 173.1±6.0 cm; weight: 67.1±10.5 kg) performed graded cycling exercise test which ventilatory and skeletal muscle hemodynamic data were collected simultaneously. VT and RCP were determined by combined V-slope (VE vs. VCO2) and ventilatory efficiency (VE/VO2 vs. VE/VCO2) methods. Pearson correlation, paired t-test, and Bland-Altman plots were used to analyze reliability, validity, and similarities. Statistical significance was set at α =. 05. Results: There are high test-retest correlations of VT and RCP in ventilatory or near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) methods (VT vs. VTNIRS: 0.95 vs. 0.94; RCP vs. RCPNIRS: 0.93 vs. 0.93, p<. 05). There are high coefficient of determination at the first timing point of O2Hb decreased (R2 = 0.88, p<. 05) with VT, and high coefficient of determination at the second timing point of O2Hb declined (R2 = 0.89, p< .05) with RCP. VO2 of VT and RCP are not significantly different between ventilatory and NIRS methods (p>. 05). Conclusion: Using NIRS method to determine VT and RCP is reliable and valid in male individuals during graded exercise. Non-invasive skeletal muscle hemodynamics monitor also can be used for controlling training intensity in the future.

Keywords: anaerobic threshold, exercise intensity, hemodynamic, NIRS

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Authors: Farnaz Farzin, Julie C. Thomson, Rob Dekkers, Geoff Whittam

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Research has shown that techno-entrepreneurship is economically significant. Therefore, it is suggested that teaching techno-entrepreneurship may be important because such programmes would prepare current and future generations of learners to recognize and act on high-technology opportunities. Education in techno-entrepreneurship may increase the knowledge of how to start one’s own enterprise and recognize the technological opportunities for commercialisation to improve decision-making about starting a new venture; also it influence decisions about capturing the business opportunities and turning them into successful ventures. Universities can play a main role in connecting and networking techno-entrepreneurship students towards a cooperative attitude with real business practice and industry knowledge. To investigate and answer whether education for techno-entrepreneurs really helps, this paper chooses a comparison of literature reviews as its method of research. Then, 6 different studies were selected. These particular papers were selected based on a keywords search and as their aim, objectives, and gaps were close to the current research. In addition, they were all based on the influence of techno-entrepreneurship education in self-employment and intention of students to start new ventures. The findings showed that teaching techno-entrepreneurship education may have an influence on students’ intention and their future self-employment, but which courses should be covered and the duration of programmes needs further investigation.

Keywords: techno entrepreneurship education, training, higher education, intention, self-employment

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Authors: Farah Nameni, Hamidreza Poursadra, Maasumeh Nurani Pilehrud

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Exercise training induced Inflammation and stress. Antioxidant, for example L- Carnitine has beneficial effects in immune system and increased antioxidant enzymes activity. L- Carnitine protects the tissue against the oxidative side effect and helps the body to protect against stress during and after acute exercise. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of L-Carnitine on the blood enzymes: GPX SOD, CAT and GR response. In this study, 20 basketball players girls participated. Subjects were randomly assigned into two groups; placebo and supplementation. Antioxidadision enzymes (Superoxide Dismutase, Catalase, Glutathione Reductase, Glutathione Peroxidase) evaluated. L-Carnitine supplement group orally daily received 3000 mg powder for 14 dys. Then all participates trained basketball exercise acute. Blood samples were drawn vein before and immediately after exercise. Superoxide Dismutase, Catalase, Glutathione Reductase, Glutathione Peroxidase were measured, and data was analyzed using repeated measure ANOVA, Bonferroni and t-test. Our results showed: SOD, GPX and GPX (P < 0.05) have a significant increase. These results suggest L-Carnitine supplementation may increase GPX SOD, CAT, and basal anti oxidative capacity. L-Carnitine can modulate the alterations of exercise oxidative damage in girl basketball players.

Keywords: l-carnitine, GPX, SOD, CAT, exercise, GR, anti-oxidant

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Authors: Khalida Douibi, Rodrigo Balp, Solène Le Bars

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In the medical field, applications related to human experiments are frequently linked to reduced samples size, which makes the training of machine learning models quite sensitive and therefore not very robust nor generalizable. This is notably the case in Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) studies, where the sample size rarely exceeds 20 subjects or a few number of trials. To address this problem, several resampling approaches are often used during the data preparation phase, which is an overly critical step in a data science analysis process. One of the naive approaches that is usually applied by data scientists consists in the transformation of the entire database before the resampling phase. However, this can cause model’ s performance to be incorrectly estimated when making predictions on unseen data. In this paper, we explored the effect of data leakage observed during our BCI experiments for device control through the real-time classification of SSVEPs (Steady State Visually Evoked Potentials). We also studied potential ways to ensure optimal validation of the classifiers during the calibration phase to avoid overfitting. The results show that the scaling step is crucial for some algorithms, and it should be applied after the resampling phase to avoid data leackage and improve results.

Keywords: data leackage, data science, machine learning, SSVEP, BCI, overfitting

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Authors: Hirreche Baghdad Mohamed

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Our research is linked to cultural policies because the initiation to taste and beauty is a matter for all cultural and educational institutions. It's done by a downstream process (programs, actions, lessons, etc.) that begins at a young age in order to inscribe aesthetic values in memories, imaginations, and practices. Preparing future art lovers probably takes a lot of time. Upstream, continuity is ensured by the "cultural industries" which make cultural products available to actors in the "art market" through professional training, production, dissemination, and sales processes. It turns out that the cultural industries borrow from the "classical" industries the same processes and logic: product, production, marketing, diffusion, profit and profits, supply and demand, the market, the creation of wealth, the entrepreneurship. Today, culture has become a product almost like the others. In the cultural industries system, we protect the rights of authors (owners) and the rights of intermediaries (entrepreneurs of culture), and we provide consumers with an accessible product that meets their needs and expectations. We aim to present an inventory and to reveal, through the speeches of the actors themselves, the processes and modes of operation and deployment of the plastic arts market by showing how it is perceived, imagined, and lived in the city of 'Oran from the 2000s to the present day. However, it is possible to clarify this field of research by looking at previous periods; and even to make comparisons with other regions in Algeria in order to give meaning to practices in various contexts.

Keywords: Oran, Algeria, fine art, art market

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Authors: Michael Ayodeji Boyede

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Studies have shown that workers’ job performance is very low in Nigeria, especially in the food and beverage industry. This trend had been partially attributed to low workers’ self-efficacy, poor self-knowledge, lack of empathy and poor psychological well-being. The descriptive survey design was adopted. Four factories were purposively selected from three states in Southwestern, Nigeria (Lagos, Ogun and Oyo States). Proportionate random sampling techniques were used in selecting 1,820 junior and supervisory cadre workers in Nestle Plc (369), Coca-Cola Plc (392), Cadbury Plc (443) and Nigeria Breweries (616). The five research instruments used were: Workers’ self-efficacy (r=0.81), Workers’ self-knowledge (r=0.78), Workers’ empathy (r=0.74), Workers’ psychological well-being (r=0.70) and Workers’ performance rating (r=0.72) scales. Quantitative data were analysed using Pearson product moment correlation, Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance. Findings show that there were significant relationships between Workers’ job performance and self-efficacy (r=.56), self-knowledge (r=.54), Empathy (r=.55) and Psychological Well-being (r=.69) respectively. Self-efficacy, self-knowledge, empathy and psychological well-being jointly predict workers’ job performance (F (4,1815) = 491.05) accounting for 52.0% of its variance. Psychological well-being (B=.52). Self-efficacy (B=.10), self-knowledge (B=.11), empathy (B=. 09) had predictive relative weights on workers’ job performance. Inadequate knowledge and training of the supervisors led to a mismatch of workers thereby reducing workers’ job performance. High self-efficacy, empathy, psychological well-being and good self-knowledge influence workers job performance in the food and beverage industry. Based on the finding employers of labour should provide work environment that would enhance and promote the development of these factors among the workers.

Keywords: self-efficacy, self-knowledge, empathy, psychological well-being, job performance

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Authors: Zabeehullah, Fahim Arif, Yawar Abbas

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Software Defined Network (SDN) is a next genera-tion networking model which simplifies the traditional network complexities and improve the utilization of constrained resources. Currently, most of the SDN based Internet of Things(IoT) environments use traditional network routing strategies which work on the basis of max or min metric value. However, IoT network heterogeneity, dynamic traffic flow and complexity demands intelligent and self-adaptive routing algorithms because traditional routing algorithms lack the self-adaptions, intelligence and efficient utilization of resources. To some extent, SDN, due its flexibility, and centralized control has managed the IoT complexity and heterogeneity but still Software Defined IoT (SDIoT) lacks intelligence. To address this challenge, we proposed a model called Deep Routing Strategy (DRS) which uses Deep Learning algorithm to perform routing in SDIoT intelligently and efficiently. Our model uses real-time traffic for training and learning. Results demonstrate that proposed model has achieved high accuracy and low packet loss rate during path selection. Proposed model has also outperformed benchmark routing algorithm (OSPF). Moreover, proposed model provided encouraging results during high dynamic traffic flow.

Keywords: SDN, IoT, DL, ML, DRS

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Authors: Sultan Aldaihani, Eiman Al-Fadhli

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Internet of Things (IoTs) expected to change the future of academic libraries operations. It enables academic libraries to be smart libraries through, for example, the connection of the physical objects with the Internet. The implementation of IoTs will improve library resources and services. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the applications of Internet of Things (IoTs) for information resources and services. Understanding perceptions of academic librarians toward IoTs before adopting of such applications will assist decision-makers in academic libraries in their strategic planning. An online questionnaire was administered to academic librarians at Kuwait University. The findings of this study showed that academic librarians have awareness for the IoTs. They have strongly believed that the IoTs contributes to the development of information resources, services, and understanding of the user's information behavior. Identifying new applications of the IoTs in libraries was the highest possible reason for future adoption. Academic librarians indicated that lack of privacy and data penetration were the greatest problem in their future adoption of IoTs. Academic libraries need to implement the IoTs for enhancing their information resources and services. One important step in the success of future adoption is to conduct awareness and training programs for academic librarians. They also need to maintain higher security and privacy measurements in their implementation for the IoTs. This study will assist academic libraries in accommodating this technology.

Keywords: academic libraries, internet of things, information resources, information services

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Authors: S. Wietrzychowski

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The following review has identified specific programs, as well as the elements of these programs, that have been shown to be most effective in preventing suicide in schools. Suicide is an issue that affects many students each year. Although this is a prominent issue, there are few prevention programs used within schools. The primary objective of most prevention programs is to reduce risk factors such as depression and hopelessness, and increase protective factors like support systems and help-seeking behaviors. Most programs include a gatekeeper training model, education component, peer support group, and/or counseling/treatment. Research shows that some of these programs, like the Signs of Suicide and Youth Aware of Mental Health Programme, are effective in reducing suicide behaviors and increasing protective factors. These programs have been implemented in many countries across the world and have shown promising results. Since schools can provide easy access to adolescents, implement education programs, and train staff members and students how to identify and to report suicide behaviors, school-based programs seem to be the best way to prevent suicide among adolescents. Early intervention may be an effective way to prevent suicide. Although, since early intervention is not always an option, school-based programs in high schools have also been shown to decrease suicide attempts by up to 50%. As a result of this presentation, participants will be able to 1.) list at least 2 evidence-based suicide prevention programs, 2.) identify at least 3 factors which protect against suicide, and 3.) describe at least 3 risk factors for suicide.

Keywords: school, suicide, prevention, programs

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Authors: Zhanna Dedovets

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Fostering a mathematical style of thinking is crucial for cultivating intellectual personalities capable of thriving in modern society. Intuitive thinking stands as a cornerstone among the components of mathematical cognition, playing a pivotal role in grasping mathematical truths across various disciplines. This article delves into the exploration of leveraging search activities rooted in students' intuitive thinking, particularly when tackling geometric problems. Emphasizing both student engagement with the task and their active involvement in the search process, the study underscores the importance of heuristic procedures and the freedom for students to chart their own problem-solving paths. Spanning several years (2019-2023) at the Physics and Mathematics Lyceum of Dushanbe, the research engaged 17 teachers and 78 high school students. After assessing the initial levels of intuitive thinking in both control and experimental groups, the experimental group underwent training following the authors' methodology. Subsequent analysis revealed a significant advancement in thinking levels among the experimental group students. The methodological approaches and teaching materials developed through this process offer valuable resources for mathematics educators seeking to enhance their students' learning experiences effectively.

Keywords: teaching of mathematics, intuitive thinking, heuristic procedures, geometric problem, students.

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Authors: Lee Bih Ni, Emily Doreen Lee, Wee Hui Yean

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This paper was prepared to see the perceptions of online lectures regarding collaborative learning, in terms of how lecturers view online collaborative learning in the higher learning institution. The purpose of this study was conducted to determine the perceptions of online lectures about collaborative learning, especially how lecturers see online collaborative learning in the university. Adult learning education enhance collaborative learning culture with the target of involving learners in the learning process to make teaching and learning more effective and open at the university. This will finally make students learning that will assist each other. It is also to cut down the pressure of loneliness and isolation might felt among adult learners. Their ways in collaborative online was also determined. In this paper, researchers collect data using questionnaires instruments. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted. By analyzing the data, researchers report the results according the proof taken from the respondents. Results from the study, it is not only dependent on the lecturer but also a student to shape a good collaborative learning practice. Rational concepts and pattern to achieve these targets be clear right from the beginning and may be good seen by a number of proposals submitted and include how the higher learning institution has trained with ongoing lectures online. Advantages of online collaborative learning show that lecturers should be trained effectively. Studies have seen that the lecturer aware of online collaborative learning. This positive attitude will encourage the higher learning institution to continue to give the knowledge and skills required.

Keywords: collaborative online learning, lecturers’ training, learning, online

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Authors: Adam Majczak, Michał Bialy, Zbigniew Czyż, Zdzislaw Kaminski

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Increasingly stringent emission standards for passenger cars require us to find alternative drives. The share of electric vehicles in the sale of new cars increases every year. However, their performance and, above all, range cannot be today successfully compared to those of cars with a traditional internal combustion engine. Battery recharging lasts hours, which can be hardly accepted due to the time needed to refill a fuel tank. Therefore, the ways to reduce the adverse features of cars equipped with electric motors only are searched for. One of the methods is a combination of an electric engine as a main source of power and a small internal combustion engine as an electricity generator. This type of drive enables an electric vehicle to achieve a radically increased range and low emissions of toxic substances. For several years, the leading automotive manufacturers like the Mazda and the Audi together with the best companies in the automotive industry, e.g., AVL have developed some electric drive systems capable of recharging themselves while driving, known as a range extender. An electricity generator is powered by a Wankel engine that has seemed to pass into history. This low weight and small engine with a rotating piston and a very low vibration level turned out to be an excellent source in such applications. Its operation as an energy source for a generator almost entirely eliminates its disadvantages like high fuel consumption, high emission of toxic substances, or short lifetime typical of its traditional application. The operation of the engine at a constant rotational speed enables a significant increase in its lifetime, and its small external dimensions enable us to make compact modules to drive even small urban cars like the Audi A1 or the Mazda 2. The algorithm to maintain a constant speed was investigated on the engine dynamometer with an eddy current brake and the necessary measuring apparatus. The research object was the Aixro XR50 rotary engine with the electronic power supply developed at the Lublin University of Technology. The load torque of the engine was altered during the research by means of the eddy current brake capable of giving any number of load cycles. The parameters recorded included speed and torque as well as a position of a throttle in an inlet system. Increasing and decreasing load did not significantly change engine speed, which means that control algorithm parameters are correctly selected. This work has been financed by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Keywords: electric vehicle, power generator, range extender, Wankel engine

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Authors: Norma Kok, Diemo Masuko, Thandokazi Dlongwana, Komala Pillay

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CONTEXT: While many school principals have been outstanding teachers and have inherent leadership potential, many have not had access to the quality of leadership development or support that empowers them to produce high-quality education outcomes in extremely challenging circumstances. Further, school leaders in under-served communities face formidable challenges arising from insufficient infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, socio-economic challenges within the community, and insufficient parental involvement, all of which put a strain on principals’ ability to lead their schools effectively. In addition few school leaders have access to other supportive networks, and many do not know how to build and leverage social capital to create opportunities for their schools and learners. Moreover, we know that fostering parental involvement in their children’s learning improves a child’s morale, attitude, and academic achievement across all subject areas, and promotes better behaviour and social adjustment. Citizen Leader Lab facilitates the Partners for Possibility (PfP) programme to provide leadership development and support to school leaders serving under-resourced communities in South Africa to create effective environments of learning. This is done by creating partnerships between school leaders and private-sector business leaders over a 12-month period. (185) OBJECTIVES: To explore school leaders’ perceptions of their leadership capacities and changes at their schools after being exposed to a year-long leadership development training programme. METHODS: School leaders gained new leadership capacities e.g. resilience, improved confidence, communication and conflict resolution skills - catalysing into improved cultures of collaborative decision-making and environments for enhanced teaching and learningprogramme based on the 70:20:10 model whereby: 10% of learning comes from workshops, 20% of learning takes place through peer learning and 70% of learning occurs through experiential learning as partnerships work together to identify and tackle challenges in targeted schools. Participants completed a post-programme questionnaire consisting of structured and unstructured questions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them and their business leader. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and thematic content analysis was undertaken. The analysis was inductive and emerging themes were identified. A code list was generated after coding was undertaken using computer software (Dedoose). Quantitative data gathered from surveys was aggregated and analysed. RESULTS: School leadership found the programme interesting and rewarding. They gained new leadership capacities such as resilience, improved confidence, communication and conflict resolution skills - catalyzing into improved cultures of collaborative decision-making and environments for enhanced teaching and learning. New networks resulted in tangible outcomes such as upgrades to school infrastructure, water and sanitation, vegetable gardens at schools resulting in nutrition for learners and/or intangible outcomes such as skills for members of school management teams (SMTs). Collaborative leadership led to SMTs being more aligned, efficient, and cohesive; and teachers being more engaged and motivated. Notable positive changes at the school inspired parents and community members to become more actively involved in the school and in their children’s education. CONCLUSION: The PfP programme leads to improved leadership capacities and improved school culture which leads to improved teaching and learning and new resources for schools.

Keywords: collaborative decision-making, collaborative leadership, community involvement, confidence

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Authors: Rosemary I. Eneji, Stephen Adi Odey, Edem Carole, Eucharia Nwagbara

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Sexual and reproductive health behaviors are the main causes of death, disability, and disease among adolescents in Nigeria. In this study, we determined the accessibility of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services to secondary school adolescents in southern Cross River state, Nigeria. Nineteen randomly selected public secondary schools across the seven local government areas in the zone were used. The respondents were four hundred senior secondary (classes SSI - SS3) students aged 15-19 years, comprising 63.7% females and 36.3% males. A 50-item structured questionnaire was used for the study. There was a strong influence of age and sex of adolescents, income and occupation of parents, knowledge and awareness of adolescents, and tradition on the accessibility and use of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services (YFSRHS) to the adolescents. The attitude of health workers towards accessibility was of little effect. Overall, youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services were not easily accessible to adolescents in the study area. Thus, there is need to enforce adolescent reproductive health policies in the area. Training and use of trained caregivers and peer educators to attend to adolescents and the inclusion of adolescent reproductive health as a subject in the curriculum are strongly recommended.

Keywords: youth, reproductive health, cross river state, secondary schools, Nigeria

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Authors: Tessa Verhallen, Mama Africa

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By co-constructing personal narratives of sex workers in Namibia this paper represents how sex workers experience their violation of rights in Namibia. It is written from an emic (as an advisor for a sex worker-led organization named Rights not Rescue Trust) and an etic (as an ethnographer) point of view, in collaboration with the staff of the organization Rights not Rescue Trust. This organization represents circa 3000 members. The paper describes the current deplorable situation of sex workers in Namibia, encompassing the stigma and discrimination they face, their struggle to have their work decriminalized and their urge to advocate for human rights and the end of violations. Based on a triangular research design (ethnography, narratives, literature study, human rights’ training and counseling sessions) the authors show that sex workers, particularly LGBTI sex workers, are extremely vulnerable to emotional, physical, and sexual violence in Namibia. The main perpetrators of violence turn out to be not only clients and intimate partners but also law enforcement officers and health care workers who are supposed to protect and support sex workers. The sex workers’ narratives voice their disgraceful circumstances regarding how their rights are violated. It also highlights their importance to fight for their rights and access to health care, legal services and education in order to improve the sexual reproductive health of sex workers.

Keywords: HIV/aids, LGBTI, methodological innovative, sex work

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Authors: Olha Yarova

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This study is a collaborative project between the American University of Central Asia and parent association of children with Down syndrome ‘Sunterra’ that took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The purpose of the study was to explore whether principles and techniques of applied behavior analysis (ABA) could be used to teach children with Down syndrome socially significant behaviors. ABA is considered to be one of the most effective treatment for children with autism, but little research is done on the particularity of using ABA to children with Down syndrome. The data for the study was received during clinical observations; work with children with Down syndrome and interviews with their mothers. The results show that many ABA principles make the work with children with Down syndrome more effective. Although such children very rarely demonstrate aggressive behavior, they show a lot of escape-driven and attention seeking behaviors that are reinforced by their parents and educators. Thus functional assessment can be done to assess the function of problem behavior and to determine appropriate treatment. Prompting and prompting fading should be used to develop receptive and expressive language skills, and enhance motor development. Even though many children with Down syndrome work for praise, it is still relevant to use tangible reinforcement and to know how to remove them. Based on the results of the study, the training for parents of children with Down syndrome will be developed in Kyrgyzstan, country, where children with Down syndrome are not accepted to regular kindergartens and where doctors in maternity hospitals tell parents that their child will never talk, walk and recognize them

Keywords: down syndrome, applied behavior analysis, functional assessment, problem behavior, reinforcement

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Authors: S. M. Giripunje, Mohit Kumar

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Acoustic energy that exists in our everyday life and environment have been overlooked as a green energy that can be extracted, generated, and consumed without any significant negative impact to the environment. The harvested energy can be used to enable new technology like wireless sensor networks. Technological developments in the realization of truly autonomous MEMS devices and energy storage systems have made acoustic energy harvesting (AEH) an increasingly viable technology. AEH is the process of converting high and continuous acoustic waves from the environment into electrical energy by using an acoustic transducer or resonator. AEH is not popular as other types of energy harvesting methods since sound waves have lower energy density and such energy can only be harvested in very noisy environment. However, the energy requirements for certain applications are also correspondingly low and also there is a necessity to observe the noise to reduce noise pollution. So the ability to reclaim acoustic energy and store it in a usable electrical form enables a novel means of supplying power to relatively low power devices. A quarter-wavelength straight-tube acoustic resonator as an acoustic energy harvester is introduced with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and PVDF doped with ZnO nanoparticles, piezoelectric cantilever beams placed inside the resonator. When the resonator is excited by an incident acoustic wave at its first acoustic eigen frequency, an amplified acoustic resonant standing wave is developed inside the resonator. The acoustic pressure gradient of the amplified standing wave then drives the vibration motion of the PVDF piezoelectric beams, generating electricity due to the direct piezoelectric effect. In order to maximize the amount of the harvested energy, each PVDF and PVDF-ZnO piezoelectric beam has been designed to have the same structural eigen frequency as the acoustic eigen frequency of the resonator. With a single PVDF beam placed inside the resonator, the harvested voltage and power become the maximum near the resonator tube open inlet where the largest acoustic pressure gradient vibrates the PVDF beam. As the beam is moved to the resonator tube closed end, the voltage and power gradually decrease due to the decreased acoustic pressure gradient. Multiple piezoelectric beams PVDF and PVDF-ZnO have been placed inside the resonator with two different configurations: the aligned and zigzag configurations. With the zigzag configuration which has the more open path for acoustic air particle motions, the significant increases in the harvested voltage and power have been observed. Due to the interruption of acoustic air particle motion caused by the beams, it is found that placing PVDF beams near the closed tube end is not beneficial. The total output voltage of the piezoelectric beams increases linearly as the incident sound pressure increases. This study therefore reveals that the proposed technique used to harvest sound wave energy has great potential of converting free energy into useful energy.

Keywords: acoustic energy, acoustic resonator, energy harvester, eigenfrequency, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)

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Authors: Jessica Lopez Espejel, Mahaman Sanoussi Yahaya Alassan, Walid Dahhane, El Hassane Ettifouri

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Pretrained transformer-based models have shown high performance in natural language generation tasks. However, a new wave of interest has surged: automatic programming language code generation. This task consists of translating natural language instructions to a source code. Despite the fact that well-known pre-trained models on language generation have achieved good performance in learning programming languages, effort is still needed in automatic code generation. In this paper, we introduce JaCoText, a model based on Transformer neural network. It aims to generate java source code from natural language text. JaCoText leverages the advantages of both natural language and code generation models. More specifically, we study some findings from state of the art and use them to (1) initialize our model from powerful pre-trained models, (2) explore additional pretraining on our java dataset, (3) lead experiments combining the unimodal and bimodal data in training, and (4) scale the input and output length during the fine-tuning of the model. Conducted experiments on CONCODE dataset show that JaCoText achieves new state-of-the-art results.

Keywords: java code generation, natural language processing, sequence-to-sequence models, transformer neural networks

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Authors: Eyad Almaita

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In this paper, a novel adaptive Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNN) algorithm is used to forecast the hour by hour electrical load demand in Jordan. A small and effective RBFNN model is used to forecast the hourly total load demand based on a small number of features. These features are; the load in the previous day, the load in the same day in the previous week, the temperature in the same hour, the hour number, the day number, and the day type. The proposed adaptive RBFNN model can enhance the reliability of the conventional RBFNN after embedding the network in the system. This is achieved by introducing an adaptive algorithm that allows the change of the weights of the RBFNN after the training process is completed, which will eliminates the need to retrain the RBFNN model again. The data used in this paper is real data measured by National Electrical Power co. (Jordan). The data for the period Jan./2012-April/2013 is used train the RBFNN models and the data for the period May/2013- Sep. /2013 is used to validate the models effectiveness.

Keywords: load forecasting, adaptive neural network, radial basis function, short-term, electricity consumption

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Authors: Luedech Girdwichai, Witthaya Mekhum

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This research analyses the factors affecting the success and develops a guideline for self- reliance planning of the entrepreneurs for effective implementation. Samples in this study included 42 awarded winners from the 2nd Sufficiency Economics Philosophy (SEP) National Contest arranged by Office of the Royal Development Projects Board. The results revealed 4 main factors affecting the success as follows: 1) there is a need to encourage unity and cooperation in the enterprise in conducting development plan. 2) The entrepreneur must be a knowledge seeker and lead by example on SEP life. 3) The entrepreneur must be able to apply traditional local wisdom with his present experience and knowledge in defining product identity. 4) The entrepreneur should provide career training for the staffs to develop their competencies. The guideline for self-reliance planning consisted of 4 aspects: 1) Human resource development: the enterprise should develop its staffs especially on integrity, honesty, and public minded. 2) Local community development: there should be a clear target for the local community development. 3) Local community economic development: by encouraging additional incomes through experience sharing. 4) Enterprise development planning: by arranging monthly meeting to conduct the development plan including analysing problems and synthesizing data.

Keywords: potential development, SME entrepreneurs, sufficiency economics philosophy, finance, management

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Authors: Nuran Nur Aypar, Merlinda Alus Tokat

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The aim of the study is to determine the knowledge level of pregnant women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) about the disease and affecting factors. The data of this descriptive study were collected from 184 pregnant women who were followed up in Dokuz Eylul University Hospital (n=34), Izmir Ege Maternity Hospital, Gynecology Training and Research Hospital (n=133), and Egepol Private Hospital (n=17). Data collection forms were prepared by the researcher according to the literature. ANOVA test, Kruskal Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U test, Student’s t-test, and Pearson correlation test were used for statistical analyses. Average GDM knowledge score of pregnant women was 40.10±19.56. The GDM knowledge scores were affected by factors such as age, educational level, working status, income status, educational level of the spouse, and the GDM background. It has been shown in our study that the GDM knowledge scores were negatively affected by factors such as young age, low educational level, low-income level, unemployment, having a spouse with low educational level, the absence of the GDM story. It has been identified that 86.4% of the pregnant women were trained about GDM. The education provided in the antenatal period significantly increased GDM knowledge scores of pregnant women (p=0.000, U=515.0). It has been determined that GDM knowledge of the pregnant women with GDM is affected by various factors. These factors must be considered in order to determine new strategies.

Keywords: affecting factors, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), knowledge level, nursing, pregnancy

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