Search results for: science fiction as a remedy to contemporary climate problems

Authors: Yan Jia China

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The ruins is a kind of historical intention, which is also the current real existence of developing city. Zen culture of ancient China has a profound esthetic emotion, similarly, the west establish the concept of aesthetics of relic along with the Romanism’s (such as Rousseau etc.) sentiment to historical ruins at the end of 18th century. Nowadays, with the decline of traditional industrial society as well as the rise of post-industrial age, contemporary society must face the ruins and garbage problem which is left by industrial society. Commencing from the perspective of emotion and memory, this paper analyzes the importance for emotional needs as well as their existing status of several projects, such as the Capital Steelworks in Beijing (industrial devastation), the Shibati old section in Chongqing (urban slums) and the Old Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem (ruins of war). It emphasizes urban design which is started from emotion and the sustainable development of city memory through managing the urban ruins which is criticized by people with the perspective of ecology and art.

Keywords: cultural heritage, urban ruins, ecology, emotion, sustainable urban memory

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Authors: Sajed A. Habib

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Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy that originated in the medical field and has also been used extensively in other knowledge disciplines with recognized advantages and limitations. PBL has been used in various undergraduate engineering programs with mixed outcomes. The current fourth industrial revolution (digital era or Industry 4.0) has made it essential for many science and engineering students to receive effective training in advanced courses such as industrial automation and robotics. This paper presents a case study at Assumption University of Thailand, where a PBL-like approach was used to teach some aspects of automation and robotics to selected groups of undergraduate engineering students. These students were given some basic level training in automation prior to participating in a subsequent training session in order to solve technical problems with increased complexity. The participating students’ evaluation of the training sessions in terms of learning effectiveness, skills enhancement, and incremental knowledge following the problem-solving session was captured through a follow-up survey consisting of 14 questions and a 5-point scoring system. From the most recent training event, an overall 70% of the respondents indicated that their skill levels were enhanced to a much greater level than they had had before the training, whereas 60.4% of the respondents from the same event indicated that their incremental knowledge following the session was much greater than what they had prior to the training. The instructor-facilitator involved in the training events suggested that this method of learning was more suitable for senior/advanced level students than those at the freshmen level as certain skills to effectively participate in such problem-solving sessions are acquired over a period of time, and not instantly.

Keywords: automation, industry 4.0, model-based design training, problem-based learning

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Authors: Janaka B. Lewis

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“Narratives of Slavery and the Culture of Play” examines how play is discussed in early African American literature by both men and women to illustrate ways that they negotiated the hierarchy and oppression of enslavement. Reading narratives categorized as “slave narratives,” including those written by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Olaudah Equiano, through the lens of play theory offers an illuminated analysis of the significance of play culture in these texts. It then reads late nineteenth-century play culture (or absence thereof) portrayed in literature as a lens for more contemporary African American oral and literary culture. These discussions of social constructions through literature bridge analyses of African American-authored texts and create a larger conversation about print media as a tool of activism and resistance. This essay also contributes to a larger body of analysis of nineteenth-century African American culture through literature.

Keywords: childhood, slavery, consciousness of play, 19th century African American culture

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Authors: Quentin Lobbe, David Chavalarias, Alexandre Delanoe

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The ICT revolution has given birth to an unprecedented world of digital traces and has impacted a wide number of knowledge-driven domains such as science, education or policy making. Nowadays, we are daily fueled by unlimited flows of articles, blogs, messages, tweets, etc. The internet itself can thus be considered as an unsteady hyper-textual environment where websites emerge and expand every day. But there are structures inside knowledge. A given text can always be studied in relation to others or in light of a specific socio-cultural context. By way of their textual traces, human beings are calling each other out: hypertext citations, retweets, vocabulary similarity, etc. We are in fact the architects of a giant web of elements of knowledge whose structures and shapes convey their own information. The global shapes of these digital traces represent a source of collective knowledge and the question of their visualization remains an opened challenge. How can we explore, browse and interact with such shapes? In order to navigate across these growing constellations of words and texts, interdisciplinary innovations are emerging at the crossroad between fields of social and computational sciences. In particular, complex systems approaches make it now possible to reconstruct the hidden structures of textual knowledge by means of multi-scale objects of research such as semantic maps and phylomemies. The phylomemy reconstruction is a generic method related to the co-word analysis framework. Phylomemies aim to reveal the temporal dynamics of large corpora of textual contents by performing inter-temporal matching on extracted knowledge domains in order to identify their conceptual lineages. This study aims to address the question of visualizing the global shapes of online political discussions related to the French presidential and legislative elections of 2017. We aim to build phylomemies on top of a dedicated collection of thousands of French political tweets enriched with archived contemporary news web articles. Our goal is to reconstruct the temporal evolution of online debates fueled by each political community during the elections. To that end, we want to introduce an iterative data exploration methodology implemented and tested within the free software Gargantext. There we combine synchronic and diachronic axis of visualization to reveal the dynamics of our corpora of tweets and web pages as well as their inner syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships. In doing so, we aim to provide researchers with innovative methodological means to explore online semantic landscapes in a collaborative and reflective way.

Keywords: online political debate, French election, hyper-text, phylomemy

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Authors: T. A. Ajiboye

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This study examines the effects of health education programme on knowledge and prevention of cerebrovascular disease among hypertensive patients in University College Hospital, Ibadan. A quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study. 100 hypertensive patients were conveniently selected from general outpatient department in UCH. Data generated were analyzed using ANOVA at 0.05 alpha levels. The findings of the study revealed that health education programme significantly influenced both the knowledge of hypertensive patients (F=22.70; DF=1/99; p < .05) and their attitude (F=10.377; DF=1/99; p < .05) on cerebrovascular disease. Findings also discovered that health education programme significantly reduce the complication of hypertension to cerebrovascular disease (F= 16.41; DF=7/286; p < 0.05) among the hypertensive patients at UCH. Based on the findings, it is recommended that hypertensive patients should relieve themselves from stress, engage themselves on regular exercises, compliance with drug and diet regimes coupled with keeping up of regular appointment. Government should design health information that will center on hypertension and cerebrovascular disease so as to keep health and community development problems to the barest minimum. Finally, there should be provision of social amenities and recreational centers, as this will prevents hypertension problems.

Keywords: cerebrovascular disease, effectiveness, health education, hypertension, knowledge, prevention

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Authors: Zsuzsanna Fejes

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The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the legal history of constitutionalism in Hungary, in focus of the democratic transitions in 1989-1990, describing the historical and political background of the changes and presenting the main and most important features of the new democracy, and institutional and legal orders. In Hungary the evolved political, economic and moral crisis prior to the constitutional years 2010-11 had been such a constitutional moment, which led to an opportune and unavoidable change at the same time. The Hungarian constitutional power intended to adopt a new constitution, which was competent to create a common constitutional identity and to express a national unity. The Hungarian Parliament on 18th April 2011 passed the New Fundamental Law. The new Fundamental Law rich in national values meant a new challenge for the academics, lawyers, and political scientists. Not only the classical political science, but also the constitutional law and theory have to struggle with the interpretation of the new declarations about national constitutional values in the Fundamental Law. The main features and structure of the new Fundamental Law will be analysed, and given a detailed interpretation of the Preamble as a declaration of constitutional values. During the examination of the Preamble shall be cleared up the components of Hungarian statehood and national unity, individual and common human rights, the practical and theoretical demand on national sovereignty, and the content and possibilities for the interpretation of the achievements of the historical Constitution. These scopes of problems will be presented during the examination of the text of National Avowal, as a preamble of the Fundamental Law. It is examined whether the Fundamental Law itself could be suitable and sufficient means to citizens of Hungary to express the ideas therein as their own, it will be analysed how could the national and European common traditions, values and principles stated in the Fundamental Law mean maintenance in Hungary’s participation in the European integration.

Keywords: common constitutional values, constitutionalism, national identity, national sovereignty, national unity, statehood

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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: Saeed Sayyad Hagh Shomar

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Traffic congestion pricing – as a strategy in travel demand management in urban areas to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and noise pollution – has drawn many attentions towards itself. Unlike the satisfying findings in this method, there are still problems in determining the best functional congestion pricing scheme with regard to the situation. The so-called problems in this process will result in further complications and even the scheme failure. That is why having proper knowledge of the significance of congestion pricing schemes and the effective factors in choosing them can lead to the success of this strategy. In this study, first, a variety of traffic congestion pricing schemes and their components are introduced; then, their functional usage is discussed. Next, by analyzing and comparing the barriers, limitations and advantages, the selection criteria of pricing schemes are described. The results, accordingly, show that the selection of the best scheme depends on various parameters. Finally, based on examining the effective parameters, it is concluded that the implementation of area-based schemes (cordon and zonal) has been more successful in non-diversion of traffic. That is considering the topology of the cities and the fact that traffic congestion is often created in the city centers, area-based schemes would be notably functional and appropriate.

Keywords: congestion pricing, demand management, flat toll, variable toll

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Authors: Vivian A. Panes, Raymond John S. Rebong, Miel Q. Diaz

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Moringa oleifera Lam. is known mainly for its high nutritional value and medicinal properties contributing to its popular reputation as a 'miracle plant' in the tropical climates where it usually grows. The main objective of this study is to discover the genes and gene products involved in abiotic stress-induced activity that may impact the M. oleifera Lam. mature seeds as well as their corresponding functions. In this study, RNA-sequencing and de novo transcriptome assembly were performed using two assemblers, Trinity and Oases, which produced 177,417 and 120,818 contigs respectively. These transcripts were then subjected to various bioinformatics tools such as Blast2GO, UniProt, KEGG, and COG for gene annotation and the analysis of relevant metabolic pathways. Furthermore, FPKM analysis was performed to identify gene expression levels. The sequences were filtered according to the 'response to stress' GO term since this study dealt with stress response. Clustered Orthologous Groups (COG) showed that the highest frequencies of stress response gene functions were those of cytoskeleton which make up approximately 14% and 23% of stress-related sequences under Trinity and Oases respectively, recombination, repair and replication at 11% and 14% respectively, carbohydrate transport and metabolism at 23% and 9% respectively and defense mechanisms 16% and 12% respectively. KEGG pathway analysis determined the most abundant stress-response genes in the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis at counts of 187 and 166 pathways for Oases and Trinity respectively, purine metabolism at 123 and 230 pathways, and biosynthesis of antibiotics at 105 and 102. Unique and cumulative GO term counts revealed that majority of the stress response genes belonged to the category of cellular response to stress at cumulative counts of 1,487 to 2,187 for Oases and Trinity respectively, defense response at 754 and 1,255, and response to heat at 213 and 208, response to water deprivation at 229 and 228, and oxidative stress at 508 and 488. Lastly, FPKM was used to determine the levels of expression of each stress response gene. The most upregulated gene encodes for thiamine thiazole synthase chloroplastic-like enzyme which plays a significant role in DNA damage tolerance. Data analysis implies that M. oleifera stress response genes are directed towards the effects of climate change more than other stresses indicating the potential of M. oleifera for cultivation in harsh environments because it is resistant to climate change, pathogens, and foreign invaders.

Keywords: stress response, genes, Moringa oleifera, transcriptomics

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Authors: Francesco Arese Visconti

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The purpose of this paper is to question the methodological challenges that practice-based research on recent Italian migrants in Switzerland can pose. The entire development of the work has moved from the theorization to the production and back in a continuous exchange which is at the base of failures and successful results. The theoretical background leads to reflect on practical solutions to produce photographic portraits in the attempt to depict the cultural identity of a specific population. Thus, a series of key points of this challenging, visual, and intimate journey are discussed and developed. While analyzing, in the first stance, the psychological challenges resulting from the encounter of the photographer, the sitter, and the spectator, the challenges of the representation of a group of people with individual photographic portraits will secondly be highlighted. The paper underlines how previous work can be precursory of subsequent research and why the inclusion of the landscape versus maintaining a neutral background has links with paintings from the Italian Renaissance.

Keywords: photography, migration, Italians, Switzerland

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Authors: Pekka Makkonen, Georgios Lampropoulos, Kerstin Siakas

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This paper examines the impact of social media on knowledge work. It discloses and highlights which specific aspects, areas and tasks of knowledge work can be improved by the use of social media. Moreover, the study includes a survey about higher education students’ viewpoints in regard to the use of social media as a means to enhance knowledge work and knowledge sharing. The analysis has been conducted based both on empirical data and on discussions about the sources dealing with knowledge work and how it can be enhanced by using social media. The results show that social media can improve knowledge work, knowledge building and maintenance tasks in which communication, information sharing and collaboration play a vital role. Additionally, by using social media, personal, collaborative and supplementary work activities can be enhanced. Based on the results of the study, we suggest how knowledge work can be enhanced when using the contemporary information and communications technologies (ICTs) of the 21^st century and recommend future directions towards improving knowledge work.

Keywords: knowledge work, social media, social media services, improving work performance

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Authors: Galit Harel

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This article describes the long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a young woman who had experienced trauma during her childhood. The details of the trauma were unknown, as all memory of the trauma had been repressed. Past trauma is analyzable through a prism of transference, dreaming and dreams, mental states, and thinking processes that offer an opportunity to explore and analyze the influence of both reality and fantasy on the patient. The presented case describes a therapeutic process that strives to discover hidden meanings through the unconscious system and illustrates the movement from unconscious to conscious during exploration of the patient’s personal trauma in treatment. The author discusses the importance of classical and contemporary psychoanalytic models of childhood sexual trauma through the discovery of manifest and latent content, unconscious fantasies, and actual events of trauma. It is suggested that the complexity of trauma is clarified by the tension between these models and by the inclusion of aspects of both of them for a complete understanding.

Keywords: dreams, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, thinking processes, transference, trauma

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Authors: Mohammed Alkiyumi

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Educational systems are currently paying special attention to developing learners' higher thinking skills to develop the capabilities of human resources to deal with contemporary challenges. Although psychologists disagree about the concept of higher-order thinking skills and the skills they include, there is unlimited effort in designing them and building strategies for their implementation. The most important factor helping to develop these skills is their classification according to specific criteria, and the most important of these classifications is Bloom's classification, which is dominant in most educational systems at all levels. Previous classifications have many limitations, including the comprehensiveness of the skills they contain, the logical structure of their hierarchy, and classification criteria. Therefore, this article puts another step in this area by providing a new classification of higher-order thinking skills that includes five categories: the first response stage, transformative stage, application, reasoning stage, and the production stage with a logical justification for this classification, with some techniques to developing it among learners.

Keywords: high-order thinking skills, classification, teaching, education

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Authors: Long Kun

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The educated youth(also known as sent-down youth or rusticated youth)novels came into being with China’s movement of the educated youth “going up to the mountains and down to the countryside”(上山下乡运动, also known as the Rustication Movement)during the cultural revolution.1 Since the 1980s, educated youth novels have been gradually translated into the English-speaking world and attracted great attention. As an important part of contemporary Chinese literature, the English translation of educated youth novels provides a platform for English-speaking readers to understand China in the Cultural Revolution, which reflects the social changes of more than 70 years since the founding of New China. At present, there is a lack of systematic research on the translation of educated youth novels in the English-speaking world. This article sorts out and analyzes the dissemination and reception of educated youth novels in the English-speaking world in different periods, providing a further reference for Chinese literature ‘going out’.

Keywords: educated youth novels, english translation, english-speaking world, dissemination, reception

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Authors: Zeliha Ustun, Mustafa Ersoz

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In the study, a traditional herbal supplement black cumin seed (Nigella sativa) oil properties has been studied to protect the main quality parameters by a new supplement application. Black cumin seed and its oil is used as a dietary supplement and preferred traditional remedy in Africa, Asia and Middle East for centuries. Now it has been consuming by millions of people in America and Europe as natural supplements and/or phytotherapeutic agents to support immune system, asthma, allergic rinnitis etc. by the scientists’ advices. With the study, it is aimed to prove that soft gelatin capsules are a new and more practical way of usage for Nigella sativa oil that has a longer stability. With the study soft gelatin capsules formulation has been developed to protect cold pressed black cumin seed oil physicochemical properties for a longer period. The product design has been developed in laboratory and implemented in pilot scale soft gelatin capsule manufacturing. Physicochemical properties (peroxide value, free fatty acids, fatty acid composition, refractive index, iodine value, saponification value, unsaponifiable matters) of Nigella sativa oil soft gelatin capsules and Nigella sativa oil in liquid form in amber glass bottles have been compared and followed for 8 months. The main parameters for capsules and liquid form found that for free fatty acids 2.29±0.03, 3.92±0.11 % oleic acid, peroxide 23.11±1.18, 27.85±2.50 meqO2/kg, refractive index at 20 0C 1.4738±0.00, 1.4737±0.00, soap 0 ppm, moisture and volatility 0.32±0.01, 0.36±0.01 %, iodine value 123.00±0.00, 122.00±0.00 wijs, saponification value 196.25±0.46, 194.13±0.35 mg KOH/g and unsaponifiable matter 7.72±0.13, 6.88±0.36 g/kg respectively. The main fatty acids are found that linoleic acid 56.17%, oleic acid 24.64%, palmitic acid 11,94 %. As a result, it is found that cold pressed Nigella sativa oil soft gelatin capsules physicochemical properties are more stable than the Nigella sativa oil stored in glass bottles.

Keywords: black cumin seed (Nigella sativa) oil, cold press, nutritional supplements, soft gelatin capsule

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Authors: N. Webb, A. Buchanan

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Digital and virtual heritage is often associated with the recreation of lost artefacts and architecture; however, we can also investigate works that were not completed, using digital tools and techniques. Here we explore physical evidence of a fourteenth-century Gothic vault located in the north transept of St Mary’s church in Nantwich, Cheshire, using existing springer stones that are built into the walls as a starting point. Digital surveying tools are used to document the architecture, followed by an analysis process to hypothesise and simulate possible design solutions, had the vault been completed. A number of options, both two-dimensionally and three-dimensionally, are discussed based on comparison with examples of other contemporary vaults, thus adding another specimen to the corpus of vault designs. Dissemination methods such as digital models and 3D prints are also explored as possible resources for demonstrating what the finished vault might have looked like for heritage interpretation and other purposes.

Keywords: digital simulation, heritage interpretation, medieval vaults, virtual heritage, 3d scanning

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Authors: Arafan Traore, Teiji Watanabe

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Conakry, the capital city of the Republic of Guinea, has experienced a rapid urban expansion and population increased in the last two decades, which has resulted in remarkable local weather and climate change, raise energy demand and pollution and treating social, economic and environmental development. In this study, the spatiotemporal variation of the land surface temperature (LST) is retrieved to characterize the effect of urban growth on the thermal environment and quantify its relationship with biophysical indices, a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and a normalized difference built up Index (NDBI). Landsat data TM and OLI/TIRS acquired respectively in 1986, 2000 and 2016 were used for LST retrieval and Land use/cover change analysis. A quantitative analysis based on the integration of a remote sensing and a geography information system (GIS) has revealed an important increased in the LST pattern in the average from 25.21°C in 1986 to 27.06°C in 2000 and 29.34°C in 2016, which was quite eminent with an average gain in surface temperature of 4.13°C over 30 years study period. Additionally, an analysis using a Pearson correlation (r) between (LST) and the biophysical indices, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and a normalized difference built-up Index (NDBI) has revealed a negative relationship between LST and NDVI and a strong positive relationship between LST and NDBI. Which implies that an increase in the NDVI value can reduce the LST intensity; conversely increase in NDBI value may strengthen LST intensity in the study area. Although Landsat data were found efficient in assessing the thermal environment in Conakry, however, the method needs to be refined with in situ measurements of LST in the future studies. The results of this study may assist urban planners, scientists and policies makers concerned about climate variability to make decisions that will enhance sustainable environmental practices in Conakry.

Keywords: Conakry, land surface temperature, urban heat island, geography information system, remote sensing, land use/cover change

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Authors: Muhamad Azani Yahya, Vikneswaran Munikanan, Mohammed Alias Yusof

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There is the need to take the holistic approach in achieving sustainable construction for a contemporary practice. Sustainable construction is the practice that involved method of human preservation of the environment, whether economically or socially through responsibility, management of resources and maintenance utilizing support. This paper shows the correlation of achieving rapid construction with sustainable concepts using lean principles. Lean principles being used widely in the manufacturing industry, but this research will demonstrate the principles into building construction. Lean principle offers the benefits of stabilizing work flow and elimination of unnecessary work. Therefore, this principle contributes to time and waste reduction. The correlation shows that pulling factor provides the improvement of progress curve and stabilizing the time-quality relation. The finding shows the lean principles offer the elements of rapid construction synchronized with the elements of sustainability.

Keywords: sustainable construction, rapid construction, time reduction, lean construction

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Authors: Xinrong Li, Jiawei Dai

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Food production, food safety, and the food supply chain are causing a great challenge to human health and the environment. Different kinds of food have different environmental costs. Therefore, a healthy diet can alleviate this problem to a certain extent. In this project, an online questionnaire was conducted to understand the purchase behaviour of consumers and their attitudes towards basic food information. However, the data shows that the public's current consumption habits and ideology do not meet the long-term development of sustainable social needs. In order to solve the environmental problems caused by the unbalanced diet of the public and the social problems of unequal food distribution, the purpose of this paper is to explore how to use the emerging media of VR to visualize food supply chain information so as to attract users' attention to the environmental cost of food. In this project, the food supply chain of imported and local cheese was compared side-by-side in the virtual reality environment, including the origin, transportation, sales, and other processes, which can effectively help users understand the difference between the two processes and environmental costs. Besides, the experimental data demonstrated that the participant would like to choose low environmental cost food after experiencing the whole process.

Keywords: virtual reality, information design, food supply chain, environmental cost

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Authors: R. N. Astya, E. S. Nugraha, S. P. Nurheni, Hoerudin

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Vitamin A deficiency remains to be among the major malnutrition problems in Indonesia. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin which renders it difficult to be fortified in water-based foods and beverages. Furthermore, its low solubility and stability in aqueous system may limit its bioaccessibility in the gastrointestinal tract. Nanoemulsification of vitamin A may solve these problems. The objective of this study was to investigate bioaccessibility of vitamin A (retinyl palmitate/RP) nanoemulsion as influenced by two types of carrier oil (Virgin Coconut Oil/VCO and corn oil/CO) and surfactant concentrations (polysorbate 20/Tween 20 3% and 6%). Oil in water (o/w) nanoemulsions of vitamin A was produced through a combination of high shear-high pressure homogenization technique. The results showed that RP-VCO nanoemulsions were 121.62 nm (3%) and 115.40 (6%) nm in particle size, whereas RP-CO nanoemulsions were 154.72 nm (3%) and 134.00 nm (6%) in particle size. As for VCO nanoemulsions, the bioaccessibility of vitamin A was shown to be 89.84% and 55.32%, respectively. On the other hand, CO nanoemulsions produced vitamin A bioaccessibility of 53.66% and 44.85%, respectively. In general, VCO nanoemulsions showed better bioaccessibility of vitamin A than CO nanoemulsions. In this study, RP-VCO nanoemulsion with 3% Tween 20 had the highest ζ-potential value (-26.5 mV) and produced the highest bioaccessibility of vitamin A (89.84%, P<0.05). Additionally, the vitamin A nanoemulsion was stable even for after a week of freeze and thaw treatment. Following the freeze and thaw treatment, the vitamin A nanoemulsion showed good stability without aggregation and separation. These results would be useful for designing effective vitamin A delivery systems for food and beverage applications.

Keywords: bioaccessibility, carrier oil, surfactant, vitamin A nanoemulsion

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Authors: Hassam Hassan Elborombaly

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The pollution generated from transportation modes, congestion and traffic heritage has led to the deterioration of historic buildings and the urban heritage in historic cities. Accordingly, this paper attempts to diagnose the transport and traffic problems in historic cities. In general and in Heritage Cities, and to investigate methods for conserving the urban heritage from negative effects of traffic congestion and of the traditional red modes of transportation. It also attempts to explore possible areas for intervention to mitigate transportation and traffic problems in the light of the principles of the sustainable transportation framework. It aims to draw conclusion and propose recommendation that would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of transportation plans in historic Cairo and consequently achieve sustainable transportation. Problems In historic cities public paths compose an irregular network enclosing large residential plots (defined as super blocks quarters or hettas). The blocks represent the basic morphology units in historic Cities. Each super block incorporates several uses (i.e. residential, non-residential, service uses and others). Local paths reach the interior of the super blocks in an organized inter core, which deals mainly with residential functions mixed with handicraft activities and is composed of several local path units; (b) the other core, which is bound by the public paths and contains a combination of residential, commercial and social activities. Objectives: 1- To provide amenity convenience and comfort for visitors and people who live and work in the area. Pedestrianizing, accessibility and safety are to be reinforced while respecting the organic urban pattern. 2- To enhance street life, vitality and activity, in order to attract people and increase economic prosperity. Research Contents • Relation between residential areas and transportation in the inner core • Analytical studies for historic areas in heritage cities • Sustainable transportation planning in heritage cities • Dynamic and flexible methodology for achieving sustainable transportation network for the Heritage Cities • Result and Recommendation

Keywords: irregular network, public paths, sustainable transportation, urban heritage

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Authors: Natalia Podkhodova, Olga Sheremeteva, Mariia Soldaeva

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Creating favorable conditions for students’ comprehension of mathematical content is one of the primary problems in teaching mathematics in secondary school. Psychology research has demonstrated that positive comprehension becomes possible when new information becomes part of student’s subjective experience and when linkages between the attributes of notions and various ways of their presentations can be established. The fact of comprehension includes the ability to build a working situational model and thus becomes an important means of solving mathematical problems. The article describes the implementation of a holistic approach to teaching mathematics designed to address the primary challenges of such teaching, specifically, the challenge of students’ comprehension. This approach consists of (1) establishing links between the attributes of a notion: the sense, the meaning, and the term; (2) taking into account the components of student’s subjective experience -emotional and value, contextual, procedural, communicative- during the educational process; (3) links between different ways to present mathematical information; (4) identifying and leveraging the relationships between real, perceptual and conceptual (scientific) mathematical spaces by applying real-life situational modeling. The article describes approaches to the practical use of these foundational concepts. Identifying how proposed methods and technology influence understanding of material used in teaching mathematics was the research’s primary goal. The research included an experiment in which 256 secondary school students took part: 142 in the experimental group and 114 in the control group. All students in these groups had similar levels of achievement in math and studied math under the same curriculum. In the course of the experiment, comprehension of two topics -'Derivative' and 'Trigonometric functions'- was evaluated. Control group participants were taught using traditional methods. Students in the experimental group were taught using the holistic method: under the teacher’s guidance, they carried out problems designed to establish linkages between notion’s characteristics, to convert information from one mode of presentation to another, as well as problems that required the ability to operate with all modes of presentation. The use of the technology that forms inter-subject notions based on linkages between perceptional, real, and conceptual mathematical spaces proved to be of special interest to the students. Results of the experiment were analyzed by presenting students in each of the groups with a final test in each of the studied topics. The test included problems that required building real situational models. Statistical analysis was used to aggregate test results. Pierson criterion was used to reveal the statistical significance of results (pass-fail the modeling test). A significant difference in results was revealed (p < 0.001), which allowed the authors to conclude that students in the study group showed better comprehension of mathematical information than those in the control group. Also, it was revealed (used Student’s t-test) that the students of the experimental group performed reliably (p = 0.0001) more problems in comparison with those in the control group. The results obtained allow us to conclude that increasing comprehension and assimilation of study material took place as a result of applying implemented methods and techniques.

Keywords: comprehension of mathematical content, holistic approach to teaching mathematics in secondary school, subjective experience, technology of the formation of inter-subject notions

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Authors: Nora Arbaoui, Rachid Tadili

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The experiment adopted a natural technique of heating and cooling an agricultural greenhouse to reduce the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions based on the heating of a transfer fluid that circulates inside the greenhouse through a solar copper coil positioned at the roof of the greenhouse. This experimental study is devoted to the performance evaluation of a solar heating system to improve the microclimate of a greenhouse during the cold period, especially in the Mediterranean climate. This integrated solar system for heating has a positive impact on the quality and quantity of the products under the study greenhouse.

Keywords: solar system, agricultural greenhouse, heating, storage

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Authors: H. E. Amolo

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The concepts of pollution or contamination and purification or ritual cleansing are very important concepts among traditional Africans. This is because in relation to human behaviors and attitudes, they constitute on the one hand what could be referred to as moral demands and on the other, what results in the default of such demands. The many taboos which a man has to observe are not to be regarded as things mechanical which do not touch the heart, but that the avoidance is a sacred law respected by the community. In breaking it, you offend the divine power’. Researches have shown that, Africans tenaciously hold the belief that, moral values are based upon the recognition of the divine will and that sin in the community must be expelled if perfect peace is to be enjoyed. Sadly enough, these moral values are gradually eroding in contemporary times. Thus, this study proposal calls for a survey of the passage from an African cultural context; how it can enhance the understanding of the text, as well as how it can complement its scholarly interpretation with the view of institutionalizing the concept of holiness as a means of bringing the people closer to God, and also instilling ethical purity and righteousness.

Keywords: cultural practices, Igbo ideology, purification, rituals

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Authors: Khalil Bachiri, Ali Yahyaouy, Nicoleta Rogovschi

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Improved user experience is a goal of contemporary recommender systems. Recommender systems are starting to incorporate reinforcement learning since it easily satisfies this goal of increasing a user’s reward every session. In this paper, we examine the most effective Reinforcement Learning agent tactics on the Movielens (1M) dataset, balancing precision and a variety of recommendations. The absence of variability in final predictions makes simplistic techniques, although able to optimize ranking quality criteria, worthless for consumers of the recommendation system. Utilizing the stochasticity of Leonard-Ornstein processes, our suggested strategy encourages the agent to investigate its surroundings. Research demonstrates that raising the NDCG (Discounted Cumulative Gain) and HR (HitRate) criterion without lowering the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process drift coefficient enhances the diversity of suggestions.

Keywords: recommender systems, reinforcement learning, deep learning, DDPG, Leonard-Ornstein process

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Authors: Bahman Ghorashi

Abstract:

The immense awareness of the global climate change has compelled traditional fossil fuel companies to develop strategies to reduce their carbon footprint and simultaneously consider the production of various sources of clean energy in order to mitigate the environmental impact of their operations. Similarly, supply chain issues, the scarcity of certain raw materials, energy costs as well as market needs, and changing consumer expectations have forced the traditional chemical industry to reexamine their time-honored modes of operation. This study examines how such transformative change might occur through the applications of agile principles as well as industry 4.0 technologies. Clearly, such a transformation is complex, costly, and requires a total commitment on the part of the top leadership and the entire management structure. Factors that need to be considered include organizational speed of change, a restructuring that would lend itself toward collaboration and the selling of solutions to customers’ problems, rather than just products, integrating ‘along’ as well as ‘across’ value chains, mastering change and uncertainty as well as a recognition of the importance of concept-to-cash time, i.e., the velocity of introducing new products to market, and the leveraging of people and information. At the same time, parallel to implementing such major shifts in the ethos, and the fabric of the organization, the change leaders should remain mindful of the companies’ DNA while incorporating the necessary DNA defying shifts. Furthermore, such strategic maneuvers should inevitably incorporate the managing of the upstream and downstream operations, harnessing future opportunities, preparing and training the workforce, implementing faster decision making and quick adaptation to change, managing accelerated response times, as well as forming autonomous and cross-functional teams. Moreover, the leaders should establish the balance between high-value solutions versus high-margin products, fully implement digitization of operations and, when appropriate, incorporate the latest relevant technologies, such as: AI, IIoT, ML, and immersive technologies. This study presents a summary of the agile principles and the relevant technologies and draws lessons from some of the best practices that are already implemented within the chemical industry in order to establish a roadmap to agility. Finally, the critical role of educational institutions in preparing the future workforce for Industry 4.0 is addressed.

Keywords: agile principles, immersive technologies, industry 4.0, workforce preparation

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Authors: Salma Akter, Mohammad M. Haque, Lawrence Akwetey

Abstract:

An empirical research design will analyze different factors/predictors children use to influence their parents in the family buying decision process in the unexplored area of British Bangladeshi children in the United Kingdom. The proposed conceptual model of factors- buying decision making process will be tested by the Structure Equation Model. A structured Questionnaire and secondary sources will employ to collect data and analyse and measure the validity by Statistical tools (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel. The Contemporary research aims to use the deductive approach developing the research questions and testing the hypothesis to identify the impact of different strategies British Bangladeshi children used to influence their parents in the family buying decision which was overlooked in the previous research.

Keywords: British Bangladeshi children, buying decision process, children influence, influential factors

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Authors: H. B. Grobler, K. Du Plooy, P. Kruger, S. Ellis

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Objectives: The primary objective of the study was to determine the common mental disorders (CMD) identified by professional South African rugby players and its correlation with their mental toughness, as a first step towards developing such a programme within a larger research project. Design: Survey research, within the theoretical perspective of field theory, was conducted, utilising an adaptation of an already existing mental health questionnaire. The aim was to obtain feedback from as many possible professional South African rugby players in order to make certain generalizations and come to conclusions with regard to the current mental health experiences of these rugby players. Methods: Non-randomized sampling was done, linking it with internet research in the form of the online completion of a questionnaire. A sample of 215 rugby players participated and completed the online questionnaire. Permission was obtained to make use of an existing questionnaire, previously used by the specific authors with retired professional rugby players. A section on mental toughness was added. Data were descriptively analysed by means of the SPSS software platform. Results: Results indicated that the most significant problem that the players are experiencing, is a problem with alcohol (47.9%). Other problems that featured are distress (16.3%), sleep disturbances (7%), as well as anxiety and depression (4.2%). 4.7% of the players indicated that they smoke. 3.3% of the players experience themselves as not being mentally tough. A positive correlation between mental toughness and sound sleep (0.262) was found while a negative correlation was found between mental toughness and the following: anxiety/depression (-0.401), anxiety/depression positive (-0.423), distress (-0.259) and common mental disorder problems in general (-0.220). Conclusions: Although the presence of CMD at first glance do not seem significantly high amongst all the players, it must be considered that if one player in a team experiences the presence of CMD, it will have an impact on his mental toughness and most likely on his performance, as well as on the performance of the whole team. It is therefore important to ensure mental health in the whole team, by addressing individual CMD problems. A mental health support programme is therefore needed to be implemented to the benefit of these players within the South African context.

Keywords: common mental disorders, mental toughness, professional athletes, rugby players

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Authors: Yin-Yann Chen, Jia-Ying Li

Abstract:

Assembly line balancing problems can be categorized into one-sided, two-sided, and multi-manned ones by using the number of operators deployed at workstations. This study explores the balancing problem of a resource-constrained assembly line with multi-manned workstations. Resources include machines or tools in assembly lines such as jigs, fixtures, and hand tools. A mathematical programming model was developed to carry out decision-making and planning in order to minimize the numbers of workstations, resources, and operators for achieving optimal production efficiency. To improve the solution-finding efficiency, a genetic algorithm (GA) and a simulated annealing algorithm (SA) were designed and developed in this study to be combined with a practical case in car making. Results of the GA/SA and mathematics programming were compared to verify their validity. Finally, analysis and comparison were conducted in terms of the target values, production efficiency, and deployment combinations provided by the algorithms in order for the results of this study to provide references for decision-making on production deployment.

Keywords: heuristic algorithms, line balancing, multi-manned workstation, resource-constrained

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Authors: Manvelidze irakli, Iashvili Genadi

Abstract:

Research has shown that public institutions in Autonomous Republic of Ajara try their best to make their official electronic data (web-pages, social websites) more informative and improve them. Part of public institutions offer interesting electronic services and initiatives to the public although they are seldom used in communication process. The statistical analysis of the use of web-pages and social websites of public institutions for example their facebook page show lack of activity. The reason could be the fact that public institutions give people less possibility of interaction in official web-pages. Second reason could be the fact that these web-pages are less known to the public and the third reason could be the fact that heads of these institutions lack awareness about the necessity of strengthening citizens’ involvement. In order to increase people’s involvement in this process it is necessary to have at least 23 e-services in one web-page. The research has shown that 11 of the 16 public institutions have only 5 services which are contact, social networks and hotline. Besides introducing innovative services government institutions should evaluate them and make them popular and easily accessible for the public. It would be easy to solve this problem if public institutions had concrete strategic plan of public relations which involved matters connected with maximum usage of electronic services while interaction with citizens. For this moment only one governmental body has a functioning action plan of public relations. As a result of the research organizational, social, methodological and technical problems have been revealed. It should be considered that there are many feedback possibilities like forum, RSS, blogs, wiki, twitter, social networks, etc. usage of only one or three of such instruments indicate that there is no strategy of regional electronic governance. It is necessary to develop more mechanisms of feedback which will increase electronic interaction, discussions and it is necessary to introduce the service of online petitions. It is important to reduce the so-called “digital inequality” and increase internet access for the public. State actions should decrease such problems. In the end if such shortcomings will be improved the role of electronic interactions in democratic processes will increase.

Keywords: e-Government, electronic services, information technology, regional government, regional government

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