Search results for: integrated performance management system

Authors: Kenji Tanaka, Kazumi Sugita, Yuto Mizushima

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This paper introduces a noteworthy form of English communication training for the officers and operators of the Osaka-Bay Marine Traffic Information Service (Osaka MARTIS) of the Japan Coast Guard working in the congested area at the Akashi Strait in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. The authors of this paper, Marine Technical College’s (MTC) English language instructors, have been holding about forty lectures and exercises in basic and normal Maritime English (ME) for several groups of MARTIS personnel at Osaka MARTIS annually since they started the training in 2005. Trainees are expected to be qualified Maritime Third-Class Radio Operators who are responsible for providing safety information to a daily average of seven to eight hundred vessels that pass through the Akashi Strait, one of Japan’s narrowest channels. As of 2022, the instructors are conducting 55 remote lessons at MARTIS. One lesson is 90 minutes long. All 26 trainees are given oral and written assessments. The trainees need to pass the examination to become qualified operators every year, requiring them to train and maintain their linguistic levels even during the pandemic of Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19). The vessel traffic information provided by Osaka MARTIS in Maritime English language is essential to the work involving the use of very high frequency (VHF) communication between MARTIS and vessels in the area. ME is the common language mainly used on board merchant, fishing, and recreational vessels, normally at sea. ME was edited and recommended by the International Maritime Organization in the 1970s, was revised in 2002, and has undergone continual revision. The vessel’s circumstances are much more serious at the strait than those at the open sea, so these vessels need ME to receive guidance from the center when passing through the narrow strait. The imminent and challenging situations at the strait necessitate that textbooks’ contents include the basics of the phrase book for seafarers as well as specific and additional navigational information, pronunciation exercises, notes on keywords and phrases, explanations about collocations, sample sentences, and explanations about the differences between synonyms especially those focusing on terminologies necessary for passing through the strait. Additionally, short Japanese-English translation quizzes about these topics, as well as prescribed readings about the maritime sector, are include in the textbook. All of these exercises have been trained in the remote education system since the outbreak of COVID-19. According to the guidelines of ME edited in 2009, the lowest level necessary for seafarers is B1 (lower individual users) of The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR). Therefore, this vocational ME language training at Osaka MARTIS aims for its trainees to communicate at levels higher than B1. A noteworthy proof of improvement from this training is that most of the trainees have become qualified marine radio communication officers.

Keywords: akashi strait, B1 of CEFR, maritime english communication training, osaka martis

Procedia PDF Downloads 104

Authors: Simon Winberg

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The landscape of professional postgraduate education is changing: the focus of these programmes is moving from preparing candidates for a life in academia towards a focus of training in expert knowledge and skills to support industry. This is especially pronounced in engineering disciplines where increasingly more complex products are drawing on a depth of knowledge from multiple fields. This connects strongly with the broader notion of Industry 4.0 – where technology and society are being brought together to achieve more powerful and desirable products, but products whose inner workings also are more complex than before. The changes in what we do, and how we do it, has a profound impact on what industry would like universities to provide. One such change is the increased demand for taught doctoral and Masters programmes. These programmes aim to provide skills and training for professionals, to expand their knowledge of state-of-the-art tools and technologies. This paper investigates one such course, namely a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Master’s degree course. The teaching support for this course had to be drawn from an existing pool of academics, none of who were specialists in this field. The paper focuses on the kind of educator, a ‘hybrid academic’, assembled from available academic staff and bolstered by research. The conceptual framework for this paper combines Activity Theory and Genre Ecology. Activity Theory is used to reason about learning and interactions during the course, and Genre Ecology is used to model building and sharing of technical knowledge related to using tools and artifacts. Data were obtained from meetings with students and lecturers, logs, project reports, and course evaluations. The findings show how the course, which was initially academically-oriented, metamorphosed into a tool-dominant peer-learning structure, largely supported by the sharing of technical tool-based knowledge. While the academic staff could address gaps in the participants’ fundamental knowledge of radio systems, the participants brought with them extensive specialized knowledge and tool experience which they shared with the class. This created a complicated dynamic in the class, which centered largely on engagements with technology artifacts, such as simulators, from which knowledge was built. The course was characterized by a richness of ‘epistemic objects’, which is to say objects that had knowledge-generating qualities. A significant portion of the course curriculum had to be adapted, and the learning methods changed to accommodate the dynamic interactions that occurred during classes. This paper explains the SDR Masters course in terms of conflicts and innovations in its activity system, as well as the continually hybridizing genre ecology to show how the structuring and resource-dependence of the course transformed from its initial ‘traditional’ academic structure to a more entangled arrangement over time. It is hoped that insights from this paper would benefit other educators involved in the design and teaching of similar types of specialized professional postgraduate taught programmes.

Keywords: professional postgraduate education, taught masters, engineering education, software defined radio

Procedia PDF Downloads 68

Authors: Amenah Dhannoon, Ciaran Martin Hurley, Laura Wrafter, Podraic J. Regan

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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present unprecedented challenges for healthcare systems. This has resulted in the pragmatic shift in the practice of plastic surgery units worldwide. During this period, many units reported a significant fall in urgent melanoma referrals, leading to patients presenting with advanced disease requiring more extensive surgery and inferior outcomes. Our objective was to evaluate our unit's experience with both non-invasive and invasive melanoma during the COVID-19 pandemic and characterize our experience and contrast it to that experienced by our neighbors in the UK, mainland Europe and North America. Methods: a retrospective chart review was performed on all patients diagnosed with invasive and non-invasive cutaneous melanoma between March to December of 2019 (control) compared to 2020 (COVID-19 pandemic) in a single plastic surgery unit in Ireland. Patient demographics, referral source, surgical procedures, tumour characteristics, radiological findings, oncological therapies and follow-up were recorded. All data were anonymized and stored in Microsoft Excel. Results: A total of 589 patients were included in the study. Of these, 314 (53%) with invasive melanoma, compared to 275 (47%) with the non-invasive disease. Overall, more patients were diagnosed with both invasive and non-invasive melanoma in 2020 than in 2019 (p<0.05). However, significantly longer waiting times in 2020 (64 days) compared to 2019 (28 days) (p<0.05), with the majority of the referral being from GP in 2019 (83%) compared to 61% in 2020. Positive sentinel lymph node were higher in 2019 at 56% (n=28) compared to 24% (n=22) in 2020. There was no statistically significant difference in the tutor characteristics or metastasis status. Discussion: While other countries have noticed a fall in the melanoma diagnosis. Our units experienced a higher number of disease diagnoses. This can be due to multiple reasons. In Ireland, the government reached an early agreement with the private sector to continue elective surgery on an urgent basis in private hospitals. This allowed access to local anesthetic procedures and local skin cancer cases were triaged to non-COVID-19 provider centers. Our unit also adapted a fast, effective and minimal patient contact strategy for triaging skin cancer based on telemedicine. Thirdly, a skin cancer nurse specialist maintained patient follow-ups and triaging a dedicated email service. Finally, our plastic surgery service continued to maintain a virtual complex skin cancer multidisciplinary team meeting during the pandemic, ensuring local clinical governance has adhered to each clinical case. Conclusion: Our study highlights that with the prompt efficient restructuring of services, we could reserve successful management of skin cancer even in the most devastating times. It is important to reflect on the success during the pandemic and emphasize the importance of preparation for a potentially difficult future

Keywords: malignant melanoma, skin cancer, COVID-19, triage

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Edvard P. G. Bruun

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One of the best ways of improving our understanding of reinforced concrete is through large-scale experimental testing. The gathered information is critical in making inferences about structural mechanics and deriving the mathematical models that are the basis for finite element analysis programs and design codes. An effective way of measuring the strains across a region of a specimen is by using a system of surface mounted Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDTs). While a single LVDT can only measure the linear strain in one direction, by combining several measurements at known angles a Mohr’s circle of strain can be derived for the whole region under investigation. This paper presents a method that can be used by researchers, which improves the accuracy and removes experimental bias in the calculation of the Mohr’s circle, using four rather than three independent strain measurements. Obtaining high quality strain data is essential, since knowing the angular deviation (shear strain) and the angle of principal strain in the region are important properties in characterizing the governing structural mechanics. For example, the Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT) developed at the University of Toronto, is a rotating crack model that requires knowing the direction of the principal stress and strain, and then calculates the average secant stiffness in this direction. But since LVDTs can only measure average strains across a plane (i.e., between discrete points), localized cracking and spalling that typically occur in reinforced concrete, can lead to unrealistic results. To build in redundancy and improve the quality of the data gathered, the typical experimental setup for a large-scale shell specimen has four independent directions (X, Y, H, and V) that are instrumented. The question now becomes, which three should be used? The most common approach is to simply discard one of the measurements. The problem is that this can produce drastically different answers, depending on the three strain values that are chosen. To overcome this experimental bias, and to avoid simply discarding valuable data, a more rigorous approach would be to somehow make use of all four measurements. This paper presents the derivation of a method to draw what is effectively a Mohr’s circle of 'best-fit', which optimizes the circle by using all four independent strain values. The four-strain optimized Mohr’s circle approach has been utilized to process data from recent large-scale shell tests at the University of Toronto (Ruggiero, Proestos, and Bruun), where analysis of the test data has shown that the traditional three-strain method can lead to widely different results. This paper presents the derivation of the method and shows its application in the context of two reinforced concrete shells tested in pure torsion. In general, the constitutive models and relationships that characterize reinforced concrete are only as good as the experimental data that is gathered – ensuring that a rigorous and unbiased approach exists for calculating the Mohr’s circle of strain during an experiment, is of utmost importance to the structural research community.

Keywords: reinforced concrete, shell tests, Mohr’s circle, experimental research

Procedia PDF Downloads 203

Authors: Saltanat Zhilkibayeva, Muratulla Utenov, Nurzhan Utenov

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The distributed inertia forces of complex nature appear in links of rod mechanisms within the motion process. Such loads raise a number of problems, as the problems of destruction caused by a large force of inertia; elastic deformation of the mechanism can be considerable, that can bring the mechanism out of action. In this work, a new analytical approach for the definition of internal forces in links of robotic systems and mechanisms with statically indeterminate and determinate structures taking into account the distributed inertial and concentrated forces is proposed. The relations between the intensity of distributed inertia forces and link weight with geometrical, physical and kinematic characteristics are determined in this work. The distribution laws of inertia forces and dead weight make it possible at each position of links to deduce the laws of distribution of internal forces along the axis of the link, in which loads are found at any point of the link. The approximation matrixes of forces of an element under the action of distributed inertia loads with the trapezoidal intensity are defined. The obtained approximation matrixes establish the dependence between the force vector in any cross-section of the element and the force vector in calculated cross-sections, as well as allow defining the physical characteristics of the element, i.e., compliance matrix of discrete elements. Hence, the compliance matrixes of an element under the action of distributed inertial loads of trapezoidal shape along the axis of the element are determined. The internal loads of each continual link are unambiguously determined by a set of internal loads in its separate cross-sections and by the approximation matrixes. Therefore, the task is reduced to the calculation of internal forces in a final number of cross-sections of elements. Consequently, it leads to a discrete model of elastic calculation of links of rod mechanisms. The discrete model of the elements of mechanisms and robotic systems and their discrete model as a whole are constructed. The dynamic equilibrium equations for the discrete model of the elements are also received in this work as well as the equilibrium equations of the pin and rigid joints expressed through required parameters of internal forces. Obtained systems of dynamic equilibrium equations are sufficient for the definition of internal forces in links of mechanisms, which structure is statically definable. For determination of internal forces of statically indeterminate mechanisms (in the way of determination of internal forces), it is necessary to build a compliance matrix for the entire discrete model of the rod mechanism, that is reached in this work. As a result by means of developed technique the programs in the MAPLE18 system are made and animations of the motion of the fourth class mechanisms of statically determinate and statically indeterminate structures with construction on links the intensity of cross and axial distributed inertial loads, the bending moments, cross and axial forces, depending on kinematic characteristics of links are obtained.

Keywords: distributed inertial forces, internal forces, statically determinate mechanisms, statically indeterminate mechanisms

Procedia PDF Downloads 202

Authors: Vitor M. Vilas Boas, Cleison D. Silva, Gustavo S. Mafra, Alexandre Trofino Neto

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Motor imagery (MI) based brain-computer interfaces (BCI) uses event-related (de)synchronization (ERS/ ERD), typically recorded using electroencephalography (EEG), to translate brain electrical activity into control commands. To mitigate undesirable artifacts and noise measurements on EEG signals, methods based on band-pass filters defined by a specific frequency band (i.e., 8 – 30Hz), such as the Infinity Impulse Response (IIR) filters, are typically used. Spatial techniques, such as Common Spatial Patterns (CSP), are also used to estimate the variations of the filtered signal and extract features that define the imagined motion. The CSP effectiveness depends on the subject's discriminative frequency, and approaches based on the decomposition of the band of interest into sub-bands with smaller frequency ranges (SBCSP) have been suggested to EEG signals classification. However, despite providing good results, the SBCSP approach generally increases the computational cost of the filtering step in IM-based BCI systems. This paper proposes the use of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm in the IM-based BCI filtering stage that implements SBCSP. The goal is to apply the FFT algorithm to reduce the computational cost of the processing step of these systems and to make them more efficient without compromising classification accuracy. The proposal is based on the representation of EEG signals in a matrix of coefficients resulting from the frequency decomposition performed by the FFT, which is then submitted to the SBCSP process. The structure of the SBCSP contemplates dividing the band of interest, initially defined between 0 and 40Hz, into a set of 33 sub-bands spanning specific frequency bands which are processed in parallel each by a CSP filter and an LDA classifier. A Bayesian meta-classifier is then used to represent the LDA outputs of each sub-band as scores and organize them into a single vector, and then used as a training vector of an SVM global classifier. Initially, the public EEG data set IIa of the BCI Competition IV is used to validate the approach. The first contribution of the proposed method is that, in addition to being more compact, because it has a 68% smaller dimension than the original signal, the resulting FFT matrix maintains the signal information relevant to class discrimination. In addition, the results showed an average reduction of 31.6% in the computational cost in relation to the application of filtering methods based on IIR filters, suggesting FFT efficiency when applied in the filtering step. Finally, the frequency decomposition approach improves the overall system classification rate significantly compared to the commonly used filtering, going from 73.7% using IIR to 84.2% using FFT. The accuracy improvement above 10% and the computational cost reduction denote the potential of FFT in EEG signal filtering applied to the context of IM-based BCI implementing SBCSP. Tests with other data sets are currently being performed to reinforce such conclusions.

Keywords: brain-computer interfaces, fast Fourier transform algorithm, motor imagery, sub-band common spatial patterns

Procedia PDF Downloads 103

Authors: Serhat Tüzün, Tufan Demirel

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Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been investigated by researchers and technologists for more than 35 years. This paper analyses the developments in the architecture and software of these systems, provides a systematic analysis for different Web-based DSS approaches and Intelligent Decision-making Technologies (IDT), with the suggestion for future studies. Decision Support Systems literature begins with building model-oriented DSS in the late 1960s, theory developments in the 1970s, and the implementation of financial planning systems and Group DSS in the early and mid-80s. Then it documents the origins of Executive Information Systems, online analytic processing (OLAP) and Business Intelligence. The implementation of Web-based DSS occurred in the mid-1990s. With the beginning of the new millennia, intelligence is the main focus on DSS studies. Web-based technologies are having a major impact on design, development and implementation processes for all types of DSS. Web technologies are being utilized for the development of DSS tools by leading developers of decision support technologies. Major companies are encouraging its customers to port their DSS applications, such as data mining, customer relationship management (CRM) and OLAP systems, to a web-based environment. Similarly, real-time data fed from manufacturing plants are now helping floor managers make decisions regarding production adjustment to ensure that high-quality products are produced and delivered. Web-based DSS are being employed by organizations as decision aids for employees as well as customers. A common usage of Web-based DSS has been to assist customers configure product and service according to their needs. These systems allow individual customers to design their own products by choosing from a menu of attributes, components, prices and delivery options. The Intelligent Decision-making Technologies (IDT) domain is a fast growing area of research that integrates various aspects of computer science and information systems. This includes intelligent systems, intelligent technology, intelligent agents, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, neural networks, machine learning, knowledge discovery, computational intelligence, data science, big data analytics, inference engines, recommender systems or engines, and a variety of related disciplines. Innovative applications that emerge using IDT often have a significant impact on decision-making processes in government, industry, business, and academia in general. This is particularly pronounced in finance, accounting, healthcare, computer networks, real-time safety monitoring and crisis response systems. Similarly, IDT is commonly used in military decision-making systems, security, marketing, stock market prediction, and robotics. Even though lots of research studies have been conducted on Decision Support Systems, a systematic analysis on the subject is still missing. Because of this necessity, this paper has been prepared to search recent articles about the DSS. The literature has been deeply reviewed and by classifying previous studies according to their preferences, taxonomy for DSS has been prepared. With the aid of the taxonomic review and the recent developments over the subject, this study aims to analyze the future trends in decision support systems.

Keywords: decision support systems, intelligent decision-making, systematic analysis, taxonomic review

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Shewit Kidane, Abebe Getahun, Wassie Anteneh, Admassu Demeke, Peter Goethals

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We have reviewed major findings of scientific studies on Lake Tana fish resources and their threats. The aim was to provide summarized information for all concerned bodies and international readers to get full and comprehensive picture about the lake’s fish resource and conservation problems. The Lake Tana watershed comprise 28 fish species, of which 21 are endemic. Moreover, Lake Tana is the one among the top 250 lake regions of global importance for biodiversity and it is world recognized migratory birds wintering site. Lake Tana together with its adjacent wetlands provide directly and indirectly a livelihood for more than 500,000 people. However, owing to anthropogenic activities, the lake ecosystem as well as fish and attributes of the fisheries sector are severely degraded. Fish species in Lake Tana are suffering due to illegal fishing, damming, habitat/breeding ground degradation, wastewater disposal, introduction of exotic species, and lack of implementing fisheries regulations. Currently, more than 98% of fishers in Lake Tana are using the most destructive monofilament. Indeed, dams, irrigation schemes and hydropower are constructed in response to the emerging development need only. Mitigation techniques such as construction of fish ladders for the migratory fishes are the most forgotten. In addition, water resource developers are likely unaware of both the importance of the fisheries and the impact of dam construction on fish. As a result, the biodiversity issue is often missed. Besides, Lake Tana wetlands, which play vital role to sustain biodiversity, are not wisely utilised in the sense of the Ramsar Convention’s definition. Wetlands are considered as unhealthy and hence wetland conversion for the purpose of recession agriculture is still seen as advanced mode of development. As a result, many wetlands in the lake watershed are shrinking drastically over time and Cyprus papyrus, one of the characteristic features of Lake Tana, has dramatically declined in its distribution with some local extinction. Furthermore, the recently introduced water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is creating immense problems on the lake ecosystem. Moreover, currently, 1.56 million tons of sediment have deposited into the lake each year and wastes from the industries and residents are directly discharged into the lake without treatment. Recently, sign of eutrophication is revealed in Lake Tana and most coarsely, the incidence of cyanobacteria genus Microcystis was reported from the Bahir Dar Gulf of Lake Tana. Thus, the direct dependency of the communities on the lake water for drinking as well as to wash their body and clothes and its fisheries make the problem worst. Indeed, since it is home to many endemic migratory fish, such kind of unregulated developmental activities could be detrimental to their stocks. This can be best illustrated by the drastic stock reduction (>75% in biomass) of the world unique Labeobarbus species. So, unless proper management is put in place, the anthropogenic impacts can jeopardize the aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, in order to sustainably use the aquatic resources and fulfil the needs of the local people, every developmental activity and resource utilization should be carried out adhering to the available policies.

Keywords: anthropogenic impacts, dams, endemic fish, wetland degradation

Procedia PDF Downloads 218

Authors: Ngoc Thao Linh Dang

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Urban waterfront redevelopment is a global phenomenon, and thousands of schemes are being carried out in large metropoles, medium-sized cities, and even small towns all over the world. This opportunity brings the city back to the river and rediscovers waterfront revitalization as a unique opportunity for cities to reconnect with their unique historical and cultural image. The redevelopment can encourage economic investments, serve as a social platform for public interactions, and allow dwellers to express their rights to the city. Many coastal cities have effectively transformed the perception of their waterfront area through years of redevelopment initiatives, having been neglected for over a century. However, this process has never been easy due to the particular complexity of the space: local culture, history, and market-led development. Moreover, municipal governments work out the balance of diverse stakeholder interests, especially when repurposing high-profile and redundant spaces that form the core of urban economic investment while also accommodating the present and future generations in sustainable environments. Urban critics consistently grapple with the effectiveness of the planning process on the new waterfront, where public spaces are criticized for presenting a lack of opportunities for actual public participation due to privatization and authoritarian governance while no longer doing what they are ‘meant to’: all arise in reaction to the perceived failure of these places to meet expectations. The planning culture and the decision-making context determine the level of public involvement in the planning process; however, in the context of competing market forces and commercial interests dominating cities’ planning agendas, planning for public space in urban waterfronts tends to be for economic gain rather than supporting residents' social needs. These newly pleasing settings satisfied the cluster of middle-class individuals, new communities living along the waterfront, and tourists. A trend of public participatory exclusion is primarily determined by the nature of the planning being undertaken and the decision-making context in which it is embedded. Starting from this context, the research investigates the influence of planning on waterfront regeneration and the role of participation in this process. The research aims to look specifically at the characteristics of the planning process of the waterfront in Da Nang and its impact on the regeneration of the place to regain the city’s historical value and enhance local cultural identity and images. Vietnam runs a top-down planning system where municipal governments have control or power over what happens in their city following the approved planning from the national government. The community has never been excluded from development; however, their participation is still marginalized. In order to ensure social equality, a proposed approach called "bottom-up" should be considered and implemented alongside the traditional "top-down" process and provide a balance of perspectives, as it allows for the voices of the most underprivileged social group involved in a planning project to be heard, rather than ignored. The research provides new insights into the influence of the planning process on the waterfront regeneration in the context of Da Nang.

Keywords: planning process, public participation, top-down planning, waterfront regeneration

Procedia PDF Downloads 44

Authors: Tatiana G. Smirnova, Stan G. Benjamin

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Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) land surface model (LSM) was a land-surface component in several generations of operational weather prediction models at the National Center for Environment Prediction (NCEP) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was designed for short-range weather predictions with an emphasis on severe weather and originally was intentionally simple to avoid uncertainties from poorly known parameters. Nevertheless, the RUC LSM, when coupled with the hourly-assimilating atmospheric model, can produce a realistic evolution of time-varying soil moisture and temperature, as well as the evolution of snow cover on the ground surface. This result is possible only if the soil/vegetation/snow component of the coupled weather prediction model has sufficient skill to avoid long-term drift. RUC LSM was first implemented in the operational NCEP Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) weather model in 1998 and later in the Weather Research Forecasting Model (WRF)-based Rapid Refresh (RAP) and High-resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR). Being available to the international WRF community, it was implemented in operational weather models in Austria, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Based on the feedback from the US weather service offices and the international WRF community and also based on our own validation, RUC LSM has matured over the years. Also, a sea-ice module was added to RUC LSM for surface predictions over the Arctic sea-ice. Other modifications include refinements to the snow model and a more accurate specification of albedo, roughness length, and other surface properties. At present, RUC LSM is being tested in the regional application of the Unified Forecast System (UFS). The next generation UFS-based regional Rapid Refresh FV3 Standalone (RRFS) model will replace operational RAP and HRRR at NCEP. Over time, RUC LSM participated in several international model intercomparison projects to verify its skill using observed atmospheric forcing. The ESM-SnowMIP was the last of these experiments focused on the verification of snow models for open and forested regions. The simulations were performed for ten sites located in different climatic zones of the world forced with observed atmospheric conditions. While most of the 26 participating models have more sophisticated snow parameterizations than in RUC, RUC LSM got a high ranking in simulations of both snow water equivalent and surface temperature. However, ESM-SnowMIP experiment also revealed some issues in the RUC snow model, which will be addressed in this paper. One of them is the treatment of grid cells partially covered with snow. RUC snow module computes energy and moisture budgets of snow-covered and snow-free areas separately by aggregating the solutions at the end of each time step. Such treatment elevates the importance of computing in the model snow cover fraction. Improvements to the original simplistic threshold-based approach have been implemented and tested both offline and in the coupled weather model. The detailed description of changes to the snow cover fraction and other modifications to RUC soil and snow parameterizations will be described in this paper.

Keywords: land-surface models, weather prediction, hydrology, boundary-layer processes

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Authors: Eman AbdelSabour

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Sustainability is increasingly being considered as a critical aspect in shaping the urban environment. It works as an invention development basis for global urban growth. Currently, different models and structures impact the means of interpreting the criteria that would be included in defining a sustainable city. There is a collective need to improve the growth path to an extremely durable path by presenting different suggestions regarding multi-scale initiatives. The global rise in urbanization has led to increased demand and pressure for better urban planning choice and scenarios for a better sustainable urban alternative. The need for an assessment tool at the urban scale was prompted due to the trend of developing increasingly sustainable urban development (SUD). The neighborhood scale is being managed by a growing research committee since it seems to be a pertinent scale through which economic, environmental, and social impacts could be addressed. Although neighborhood design is a comparatively old practice, it is in the initial years of the 21st century when environmentalists and planners started developing sustainable assessment at the neighborhood level. Through this, urban reality can be considered at a larger scale whereby themes which are beyond the size of a single building can be addressed, while it still stays small enough that concrete measures could be analyzed. The neighborhood assessment tool has a crucial role in helping neighborhood sustainability to perform approach and fulfill objectives through a set of themes and criteria. These devices are also known as neighborhood assessment tool, district assessment tool, and sustainable community rating tool. The primary focus of research has been on sustainability from the economic and environmental aspect, whereas the social, cultural issue is rarely focused. Therefore, this research is based on Doha, Qatar, the current urban conditions of the neighborhoods is discussed in this study. The research problem focuses on the spatial features in relation to the socio-cultural aspects. This study is outlined in three parts; the first section comprises of review of the latest use of wellbeing assessment methods to enhance decision process of retrofitting physical features of the neighborhood. The second section discusses the urban settlement development, regulations and the process of decision-making rule. An analysis of urban development policy with reference to neighborhood development is also discussed in this section. Moreover, it includes a historical review of the urban growth of the neighborhoods as an atom of the city system present in Doha. Last part involves developing quantified indicators regarding subjective well-being through a participatory approach. Additionally, applying GIS will be utilized as a visualizing tool for the apparent Quality of Life (QoL) that need to develop in the neighborhood area as an assessment approach. Envisaging the present QoL situation in Doha neighborhoods is a process to improve current condition neighborhood function involves many days to day activities of the residents, due to which areas are considered dynamic.

Keywords: neighborhood, subjective wellbeing, decision support tools, Doha, retrofiring

Procedia PDF Downloads 120

Authors: Pi Hsia Liang

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The rise of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks significantly changes in interconnections between people, enhancing the process of information dissemination and amplify the influence of that information. Therefore, to develop informational efficiency or signaling equilibrium type of information environment among social networks, without adverse selection effects, becomes an important issue. Thus, someone may post a piece of intentional information in relation to personal interest for trying to create marginal influence. Therefore, economists are seeking to establish theories of informational efficiency under social network environment in order to resolve adverse selection issues. Reputation could be one of the important factors in the process of creating informational efficiency. Additionally, investors how to process green information, or information of corporate social responsibility is a very important study. This study essentially employs experimental study for examining how investors use stock relevant green information in Facebook and various Taiwan local networks. Facebook, and blogs of Money DJ, Technews and cnYES, respectively, are the primary sites for this examination that also allow to differentiate effects between Facebook and other local social networks. Questionnaire is developed for such an experimental testing. Note that questionnaire allows this study to group, for example, decision frequency and length of time duration focusing on social networks that are used for discriminating investor type and competence of informed investor. This study selects 500 investors that can be separated into two respective 250 samples as the control group and 250 samples in such an experimental. The quantity of sample investor sufficiently results in statistic significance of this experimental study. The empirical results of this study can be used for explaining how financial information in relation to corporate social responsibility would be disseminated in social websites. Therefore, we can lead to better interpretation of price/earnings relationship type of study and empirical studies of green information usefulness or informational efficiency Note that the above mentioned empirical studies did not exist any social network and annual report of corporate social responsibility. This study expects to find the results that both network degree and network cluster significantly affected green information dissemination frequency. In other words, investors with more connections and with high clustered connections might exert a greater influence on their green information dissemination process. The preferred users of financial social networks could make better stock decision that could amplify effects of green information. In addition, Facebook would be more influential than other local Taiwan financial social networks, although Facebook is not a specialized financial social network. In other words, the popularity and reputation effects of Facebook significantly contribute to usefulness of green information and influence of green information. Third, it has a better chance to find rumor or cheating information in local Taiwan financial social networks than Facebook. In other words, Facebook possesses reputation effect, or a better informational efficiency. Or, even though Taiwan local financial social networks have marginal informational effects on stock price, because of shortage of informational efficiency or monitoring system, information could be a tool for those whom owning superior information.

Keywords: network effect on financial services, informational efficiency theory, social networks, social websites

Procedia PDF Downloads 219

Authors: Luis Castiella, Mariano Rueda, Catalina Palacio

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The world’s rapid urbanisation represents an excellent opportunity to implement initiatives that are oriented towards a country’s general development. However, this phenomenon has created considerable pressure on current urban models, pushing them nearer to a crisis. As a result, several factors usually associated with underdevelopment have been steadily rising. Moreover, actions taken by public authorities have not been able to keep up with the speed of urbanisation, which has impeded them from meeting the demands of society, responding with reactionary policies instead of with coordinated, organised efforts. In contrast, the concept of a Smart City which emerged around two decades ago, in principle, represents a city that utilises innovative technologies to remedy the everyday issues of the citizen, empowering them with the newest available technology and information. This concept has come to adopt a wider meaning, including human and social capital, as well as productivity, economic growth, quality of life, environment and participative governance. These developments have also disrupted the management of institutions such as academia, which have become key in generating scientific advancements that can solve pressing problems, and in forming a specialised class that is able to follow up on these breakthroughs. In this light, the Ministry of Modernisation of the Argentinian Nation has created a model that is rooted in the concept of a ‘Smart City’. This effort considered all the dimensions that are at play in an urban environment, with careful monitoring of each sub-dimensions in order to establish the government’s priorities and improving the effectiveness of its operations. In an attempt to ameliorate the overall efficiency of the country’s economic and social development, these focused initiatives have also encouraged citizen participation and the cooperation of the private sector: replacing short-sighted policies with some that are coherent and organised. This process was developed gradually. The first stage consisted in building the model’s structure; the second, at applying the method created on specific case studies and verifying that the mechanisms used respected the desired technical and social aspects. Finally, the third stage consists in the repetition and subsequent comparison of this experiment in order to measure the effects on the ‘treatment group’ over time. The first trial was conducted on 717 municipalities and evaluated the dimension of Governance. Results showed that levels of governmental maturity varied sharply with relation to size: cities with less than 150.000 people had a strikingly lower level of governmental maturity than cities with more than 150.000 people. With the help of this analysis, some important trends and target population were made apparent, which enabled the public administration to focus its efforts and increase its probability of being successful. It also permitted to cut costs, time, and create a dynamic framework in tune with the population’s demands, improving quality of life with sustained efforts to develop social and economic conditions within the territorial structure.

Keywords: composite index, comprehensive model, smart cities, strategic framework

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Authors: Ágnes Győri, Éva Perpék, Zsófia Bauer, Zsuzsanna Elek

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The aim of the research (funded by Hungarian national grant, NFKI- FK 138315) is to examine the professional mobility, mental health and work environment of social workers with a complex approach. Previous international and Hungarian research has pointed out that those working in the helping professions are strongly exposed to the risk of emotional-mental-physical exhaustion due to stress. Mental and physical strain, as well as lack of coping (can) cause health problems, but its role in career change and high labor turnover has also been proven. Even though satisfaction with working conditions of those employed in the human service sector in the context of the stress burden has been researched extensively, there is a lack of large-sample international and Hungarian domestic studies exploring the effects of profession-specific conditions. Nor has it been examined how the specific features of the social profession and mental health affect the career mobility of the professionals concerned. In our research, these factors and their correlations are analyzed by means of mixed methodology, utilizing the benefits of netnographic big data analysis and a sector-specific quantitative survey. The netnographic analysis of open web content generated inside and outside the social profession offers a holistic overview of the influencing factors related to mental health and the work environment of social workers. On the one hand, the topics and topoi emerging in the external discourse concerning the sector are examined, and on the other hand, focus on mentions and streams of comments regarding the profession, burnout, stress, coping, as well as labor turnover and career changes among social professionals. The analysis focuses on new trends and changes in discourse that have emerged during and after the pandemic. In addition to the online conversation analysis, a survey of social professionals with a specific focus has been conducted. The questionnaire is based on input from the first two research phases. The applied approach underlines that the mobility paths of social professionals can only be understood if, apart from the general working conditions, the specific features of social work and the effects of certain aspects of mental health (emotional-mental-physical strain, resilience) are taken into account as well. In this paper, the preliminary results from this innovative methodological mix are presented, with the aim of highlighting new opportunities and dimensions in the research on social work. A gap in existing research is aimed to be filled both on a methodological and empirical level, and the Hungarian domestic findings can create a feasible and relevant framework for a further international investigation and cross-cultural comparative analysis. Said results can contribute to the foundation of organizational and policy-level interventions, targeted programs whereby the risk of burnout and the rate of career abandonment can be reduced. Exploring different aspects of resilience and mapping personality strengths can be a starting point for stress-management, motivation-building, and personality-development training for social professionals.

Keywords: burnout, mixed methods, netnography, professional mobility, social work

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Authors: Gelareh Ghaderi

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the overall objective of this study is to develop two alternative plans of spatial and infrastructural development for the Netwerkstad Twente (Twente region) until 2040 and to assess the impacts of those two alternative plans. This region is located on the eastern border of the Netherlands, and it comprises of five municipalities. Based on the strengths and opportunities of the five municipalities of the Netwerkstad Twente, and in order develop the region internationally, strengthen the job market and retain skilled and knowledgeable young population, two alternative visions have been developed; environmental oriented vision, and economical oriented vision. Environmental oriented vision is based mostly on preserving beautiful landscapes. Twente would be recognized as an educational center, driven by green technologies and environment-friendly economy. Market-oriented vision is based on attracting and developing different economic activities in the region based on visions of the five cities of Netwerkstad Twente, in order to improve the competitiveness of the region in national and international scale. On the basis of the two developed visions and strategies for achieving the visions, land use and infrastructural development are modeled and assessed. Based on the SWOT analysis, criteria were formulated and employed in modeling the two contrasting land use visions by the year 2040. Land use modeling consists of determination of future land use demand, assessment of suitability land (Suitability analysis), and allocation of land uses on suitable land. Suitability analysis aims to determine the available supply of land for future development as well as assessing their suitability for specific type of land uses on the basis of the formulated set of criteria. Suitability analysis was operated using CommunityViz, a Planning Support System application for spatially explicit land suitability and allocation. Netwerkstad Twente has highly developed transportation infrastructure, consists of highways network, national road network, regional road network, street network, local road network, railway network and bike-path network. Based on the assumptions of speed limitations on different types of roads provided, infrastructure accessibility level of predicted land use parcels by four different transport modes is investigated. For evaluation of the two development scenarios, the Multi-criteria Evaluation (MCE) method is used. The first step was to determine criteria used for evaluation of each vision. All factors were categorized as economical, ecological and social. Results of Multi-criteria Evaluation show that Environmental oriented cities scenario has higher overall score. Environment-oriented scenario has impressive scores in relation to economical and ecological factors. This is due to the fact that a large percentage of housing tends towards compact housing. Twente region has immense potential, and the success of this project will define the Eastern part of The Netherlands and create a real competitive local economy with innovations and attractive environment as its backbone.

Keywords: economical oriented vision, environmental oriented vision, infrastructure, land use, multi criteria assesment, vision

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Authors: Karimova Sitora Yuldashevna

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The August 2021 resurgence of Taliban as a ruling force in Afghanistan once again challenged the global community into dealing with an unprecedentedly unlike-minded government. To express their disapproval of the new regime, Western governments and intergovernmental institutions have suspended their infrastructural projects and other forms of support. Moreover, the Afghan offshore reserves were frozen, and Afghanistan was disconnected from the international financial system, which impeded even independent aid agencies’ work. The already poor provision of aid was then further complicated with political conditionality. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficacy of conditional aid policy in the Afghan peacebuilding under Taliban rule and provide recommendations to international donors on further course of action. Arguing that conditionality of aid is a counterproductive factor in the peacebuilding process, this paper employs scholarly literature on peacebuilding alongside reports from International non-governmental organizations INGOs who operate directly in Afghanistan. The existing debate on peacebuilding in Afghanistan revolves around aid as a means of building democratic foundation for achieving peace on communal and national levels and why the previous attempts to do so were unsuccessful. This paper focuses on how to recalibrate the approach to aid provision and peacebuilding in the new reality. In the early 2000s, amid the weak Post-Cold War international will for a profound engagement in the conflict, humanitarian and development aid became the new means of achieving peace. Aid agencies provided resources directly to communities, minimizing the risk of local disputes. Through subsidizing education, governance reforms, and infrastructural projects, international aid accelerated school enrollment, introduced peace education, funded provincial council and parliamentary elections, and helped rebuild a conflict-torn country.When the Taliban seized power, the international community called on them to build an inclusive government based on respect for human rights, particularly girls’ and women’s schooling and work, as a condition to retain the aid flow. As the Taliban clearly failed to meet the demands, development aid was withdrawn. Some key United Nation agencies also refrained from collaborating with the de-facto authorities. However, contrary to the intended change in Talibs’ behavior, such a move has only led to further deprivation of those whom the donors strived to protect. This is because concern for civilians has always been the second priority for the warring parties. This paper consists of four parts. First, it describes the scope of the humanitarian crisis that began in Afghanistan in 2001. Second, it examines the previous peacebuilding attempts undertaken by the international community and the contribution that the international aid had in the peacebuilding process. Third, the paper describes the current regime and its relationships with the international donors. Finally, the paper concludes with recommendations for donors who would have to be more realistic and reconsider their priorities. While it is certainly not suggested that the Taliban regime is legitimized internationally, the crisis calls upon donors to be more flexible in collaborating with the de-facto authorities for the sake of the civilians.

Keywords: Afghanistan, international aid, donors, peacebuilding

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Authors: Sana Fatima, Paul Sadler, Jon Cooper, David Mendel, Ayesha Jameel

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Background: Neurodiversity refers to intrinsic differences between human minds and encompasses dyspraxia, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyscalculia, autism spectrum disorder, and Tourette syndrome. There is increasing recognition of neurodiversity in relation to disability/diversity in medical education and the associated impact on training, career progression, and personal and professional wellbeing. In addition, documented and anecdotal evidence suggests that medical educators and training providers in all four nations (UK) are increasingly concerned about understanding neurodiversity and identifying and providing support for neurodivergent trainees. Summary of Work: A national Neurodiversity Task and Finish group were established to survey Health Education England local office Professional Support teams about insights into infrastructure, training for educators, triggers for assessment, resources, and intervention protocols. This group drew from educational leadership, professional and personal neurodiverse expertise, occupational medicine, employer human resource, and trainees. An online, exploratory survey was conducted to gather insights from supervisors and trainers across England using the Professional Support Units' platform. Summary of Results: This survey highlighted marked heterogeneity in the identification, assessment, and approaches to support and management of neurodivergent trainees and highlighted a 'deficit' approach to neurodiversity. It also demonstrated a paucity of educational and protocol resources for educators and supervisors in supporting neurodivergent trainees. Discussions and Conclusions: In phase one, we focused on faculty development. An educational repository for all supervising trainees using a thematic approach was formalised. This was guided by our survey findings specific for neurodiversity and took a triple 'A' approach: awareness, assessment, and action. This is further supported by video material incorporating stories in training as well as mobile workshops for trainers for more immersive learning. The subtle theme from both the survey and Task and finish group suggested a move away from deficit-focused methods toward a positive holistic, interdisciplinary approach within a biopsychosocial framework. Contributions: 1. Faculty Knowledge and basic understanding of neurodiversity are key to supporting trainees with known or underlying Neurodiverse conditions. This is further complicated by challenges around non-disclosure, varied presentations, stigma, and intersectionality. 2. There is national (and international) inconsistency in the approach to how trainees are managed once a neurodiverse condition is suspected or diagnosed. 3. A carefully constituted and focussed Task and Finish group can rapidly identify national inconsistencies in neurodiversity and implement rapid educational interventions. 4. Nuanced findings from surveys and discussion can reframe the approach to neurodiversity; from a medical model to a more comprehensive, asset-based, biopsychosocial model of support, fostering a cultural shift, accepting 'diversity' in all its manifestations, visible and hidden.

Keywords: neurodiversity, professional support, human considerations, workplace wellbeing

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Authors: Kavitha Puthanveedu, Kasi Sekar, Preeti Jacob, Kavita Jangam

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In India, The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, the law related to children alleged and found to be in conflict with law, proposes to address to the rehabilitation of children in conflict with law by catering to the basic rights by providing care and protection, development, treatment, and social re-integration. A major concern in addressing the issues of children in conflict with law in Kerala the southernmost state in India identified were: 1. Lack of psychological assessment for children in conflict with law, 2. Poor psychosocial intervention for children in conflict with law on bail, 3. Lack of psychosocial intervention or proper care and protection of CCL residing at observation and special home, 4. Lack convergence with systems related with mental health care. Aim: To develop individual care plan for children in conflict with law. Methodology: NIMHANS a premier Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, collaborated with Social Justice Department, Govt. of Kerala to address this issue by developing a participatory methodology to implement psychosocial care in the existing services by integrating the activities through multidisciplinary and multisectoral approach as per the Sec. 18 of JJAct 2015. Developing individual care plan: Key informant interviews, focus group discussion with multiple stakeholders consisting of legal officers, police, child protection officials, counselors, and home staff were conducted. Case studies were conducted among children in conflict with law. A checklist on 80 psychosocial problems among children in conflict with law was prepared with eight major issues identified through the quantitative process such as family and parental characteristic, family interactions and relationships, stressful life event, social and environmental factors, child’s individual characteristics, education, child labour and high-risk behavior. Standardised scales were used to identify the anxiety, caseness, suicidality and substance use among the children. This provided a background data understand the psychosocial problems experienced by children in conflict with law. In the second stage, a detailed plan of action was developed involving multiple stakeholders that include Special juvenile police unit, DCPO, JJB, and NGOs. The individual care plan was reviewed by a panel of 4 experts working in the area of children, followed by the review by multiple stakeholders in juvenile justice system such as Magistrates, JJB members, legal cum probation officers, district child protection officers, social workers and counselors. Necessary changes were made in the individual care plan in each stage which was pilot tested with 45 children for a period of one month and standardized for administering among children in conflict with law. Result: The individual care plan developed through scientific process was standardized and currently administered among children in conflict with law in the state of Kerala in the 3 districts that will be further implemented in other 14 districts. The program was successful in developing a systematic approach for the psychosocial intervention of children in conflict with law that can be a forerunner for other states in India.

Keywords: psychosocial care, individual care plan, multidisciplinary, multisectoral

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Authors: Suneet Jagdev, Hrishabh Amrodia, Siddharth Menon, Abhishek Singh, Mansi Shivhare

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Delhi, the National Capital, has undergone a surge in development rate, consequently engendering an unprecedented increase in population. Over the years the city has transformed into a car-centric infrastructure with high-speed corridors, flyovers and fast lanes. A considerable section of the population is hankering to rehabilitate to the good old cycling days, in order to contribute towards a green environment as well as to maintain their physical well-being. Furthermore, an extant section of Delhi’s population relies on cycles as their primary means of commuting in the city. Delhi has the highest number of cyclists and second highest number of pedestrians in the country. However, the tumultuous problems of unregulated traffic, inadequate space on roads, adverse weather conditions stifle them to opt for cycling. Lately, the city has been facing a conglomeration of problems such as haphazard traffic movement, clogged roads, congestion, pollution, accidents, safety issues, etc. In 1957, Delhi’s cyclists accounted for 36 per cent of trips which dropped down to a mere 4 per cent in 2008. The declining rate is due to unsafe roads and lack of proper cycle lanes. Now as the 10 percent of the city has cycle tracks. There is also a lack of public recreational activities in the city. These conundrums incite the need of a covered elevated cycling bridge track to facilitate the safe and smooth cycle commutation in the city which would also serve the purpose of an alternate urban public space over the cycle bridge reducing the cost as well as the space requirement for the same, developing a user–friendly transportation and public interaction system for urban areas in the city. Based on the archival research methodologies, the following research draws information and extracts records from the data accounts of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. as well as the Centre for Science and Environment, India. This research will predominantly focus on developing a prototype design for high speed elevated bicycle lanes based on different road typologies, which can be replicated with minor variations in similar situations, all across the major cities of our country including the proposed smart cities. Furthermore, how these cycling lanes could be utilized for the place making process accommodating cycle parking and renting spaces, public recreational spaces, food courts as well as convenient shopping facilities with appropriate optimization. How to preserve and increase the share of smooth and safe cycling commute cycling for the routine transportation of the urban community of the polluted capital which has been on a steady decline over the past few decades.

Keywords: bicycle track, prototype, road safety, urban spaces

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Authors: Jyoti Sahu, Vinay A. Juvekar

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Electrolytes are often used to bring about salting-in and salting-out of organic molecules and polymers (e.g. polyethylene glycols/proteins) from the aqueous solutions. For quantification of these phenomena, a thermodynamic model which can accurately predict activity coefficient of electrolyte as a function of temperature is needed. The thermodynamics models available in the literature contain a large number of empirical parameters. These parameters are estimated using lower/upper critical solution temperature of the solution in the electrolyte/organic molecule at different temperatures. Since the number of parameters is large, inaccuracy can bethe creep in during their estimation, which can affect the reliability of prediction beyond the range in which these parameters are estimated. Cloud point of solution is related to its free energy through temperature and composition derivative. Hence, the Cloud point measurement can be used for accurate estimation of the temperature and composition dependence of parameters in the model for free energy. Hence, if we use a two pronged procedure in which we first use cloud point of solution to estimate some of the parameters of the thermodynamic model and determine the rest using osmotic coefficient data, we gain on two counts. First, since the parameters, estimated in each of the two steps, are fewer, we achieve higher accuracy of estimation. The second and more important gain is that the resulting model parameters are more sensitive to temperature. This is crucial when we wish to use the model outside temperatures window within which the parameter estimation is sought. The focus of the present work is to prove this proposition. We have used electrolyte (NaCl/Na2CO3)-water-organic molecule (Iso-propanol/ethanol) as the model system. The model of Robinson-Stokes-Glukauf is modified by incorporating the temperature dependent Flory-Huggins interaction parameters. The Helmholtz free energy expression contains, in addition to electrostatic and translational entropic contributions, three Flory-Huggins pairwise interaction contributions viz., and (w-water, p-polymer, s-salt). These parameters depend both on temperature and concentrations. The concentration dependence is expressed in the form of a quadratic expression involving the volume fractions of the interacting species. The temperature dependence is expressed in the form .To obtain the temperature-dependent interaction parameters for organic molecule-water and electrolyte-water systems, Critical solution temperature of electrolyte -water-organic molecules is measured using cloud point measuring apparatus The temperature and composition dependent interaction parameters for electrolyte-water-organic molecule are estimated through measurement of cloud point of solution. The model is used to estimate critical solution temperature (CST) of electrolyte water-organic molecules solution. We have experimentally determined the critical solution temperature of different compositions of electrolyte-water-organic molecule solution and compared the results with the estimates based on our model. The two sets of values show good agreement. On the other hand when only osmotic coefficients are used for estimation of the free energy model, CST predicted using the resulting model show poor agreement with the experiments. Thus, the importance of the CST data in the estimation of parameters of the thermodynamic model is confirmed through this work.

Keywords: concentrated electrolytes, Debye-Hückel theory, interaction parameters, Robinson-Stokes-Glueckauf model, Flory-Huggins model, critical solution temperature

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Authors: Ashish Thakur

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This technical paper was written in view of focusing the biomaterials and its various applications in modern industries. Author tires to elaborate not only the medical, infect plenty of application in other industries. The scope of the research area covers the wide range of physical, biological and chemical sciences that underpin the design of biomaterials and the clinical disciplines in which they are used. A biomaterial is now defined as a substance that has been engineered to take a form which, alone or as part of a complex system, is used to direct, by control of interactions with components of living systems, the course of any therapeutic or diagnostic procedure. Biomaterials are invariably in contact with living tissues. Thus, interactions between the surface of a synthetic material and biological environment must be well understood. This paper reviews the benefits and challenges associated with surface modification of the metals in biomedical applications. The paper also elaborates how the surface characteristics of metallic biomaterials, such as surface chemistry, topography, surface charge, and wettability, influence the protein adsorption and subsequent cell behavior in terms of adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation at the biomaterial–tissue interface. The chapter also highlights various techniques required for surface modification and coating of metallic biomaterials, including physicochemical and biochemical surface treatments and calcium phosphate and oxide coatings. In this review, the attention is focused on the biomaterial-associated infections, from which the need for anti-infective biomaterials originates. Biomaterial-associated infections differ markedly for epidemiology, aetiology and severity, depending mainly on the anatomic site, on the time of biomaterial application, and on the depth of the tissues harbouring the prosthesis. Here, the diversity and complexity of the different scenarios where medical devices are currently utilised are explored, providing an overview of the emblematic applicative fields and of the requirements for anti-infective biomaterials. In addition to this, chapter introduces nanomedicine and the use of both natural and synthetic polymeric biomaterials, focuses on specific current polymeric nanomedicine applications and research, and concludes with the challenges of nanomedicine research. Infection is currently regarded as the most severe and devastating complication associated to the use of biomaterials. Osteoporosis is a worldwide disease with a very high prevalence in humans older than 50. The main clinical consequences are bone fractures, which often lead to patient disability or even death. A number of commercial biomaterials are currently used to treat osteoporotic bone fractures, but most of these have not been specifically designed for that purpose. Many drug- or cell-loaded biomaterials have been proposed in research laboratories, but very few have received approval for commercial use. Polymeric nanomaterial-based therapeutics plays a key role in the field of medicine in treatment areas such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases. Advantages in the use of polymers over other materials for nanomedicine include increased functionality, design flexibility, improved processability, and, in some cases, biocompatibility.

Keywords: nanomedicine, tissue, infections, biomaterials

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Authors: Deepak Loura

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Production and productivity of several crops in the country continue to be adversely affected by biotic (e.g., Insect-pests and diseases) and abiotic (e.g., water temperature and salinity) stresses. Over-dependence on pesticides and other chemicals is economically non-viable for the resource-poor farmers of our country. Further, pesticides can potentially affect human and environmental safety. While traditional breeding techniques and proper- management strategies continue to play a vital role in crop improvement, we need to judiciously use biotechnology approaches for the development of genetically modified crops addressing critical problems in the improvement of crop plants for sustainable agriculture. Modern biotechnology can help to increase crop production, reduce farming costs, and improve food quality and the safety of the environment. Genetic engineering is a new technology which allows plant breeders to produce plants with new gene combinations by genetic transformation of crop plants for improvement of agronomic traits. Advances in recombinant DNA technology have made it possible to have genes between widely divergent species to develop genetically modified or genetically engineered plants. Plant genetic engineering provides the strength to harness useful genes and alleles from indigenous microorganisms to enrich the gene pool for developing genetically modified (GM) crops that will have inbuilt (inherent) resistance to insect pests, diseases, and abiotic stresses. Plant biotechnology has made significant contributions in the past 20 years in the development of genetically engineered or genetically modified crops with multiple benefits. A variety of traits have been introduced in genetically engineered crops which include (i) herbicide resistance. (ii) pest resistance, (iii) viral resistance, (iv) slow ripening of fruits and vegetables, (v) fungal and bacterial resistance, (vi) abiotic stress tolerance (drought, salinity, temperature, flooding, etc.). (vii) quality improvement (starch, protein, and oil), (viii) value addition (vitamins, micro, and macro elements), (ix) pharmaceutical and therapeutic proteins, and (x) edible vaccines, etc. Multiple genes in transgenic crops can be useful in developing durable disease resistance and a broad insect-control spectrum and could lead to potential cost-saving advantages for farmers. The development of transgenic to produce high-value pharmaceuticals and the edible vaccine is also under progress, which requires much more research and development work before commercially viable products will be available. In addition, molecular-aided selection (MAS) is now routinely used to enhance the speed and precision of plant breeding. Newer technologies need to be developed and deployed for enhancing and sustaining agricultural productivity. There is a need to optimize the use of biotechnology in conjunction with conventional technologies to achieve higher productivity with fewer resources. Therefore, genetic modification/ engineering of crop plants assumes greater importance, which demands the development and adoption of newer technology for the genetic improvement of crops for increasing crop productivity.

Keywords: biotechnology, plant genetic engineering, genetically modified, biotic, abiotic, disease resistance

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Authors: Md. Nurul Alom Siddikqe

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The purpose of this intervention was to describe how the marginalized people protect their rights and increase their self-dignity and self-esteem among brothel-based sex workers in 6 cities which are the victim of trafficked who came from different periphery areas Bangladesh. Eventually the sex workers are tortured by the pimp, clients, Msahi (so called guardian of bonded sex workers), Babu (So called husband) highly discriminated, vulnerable and stigmatized due to their occupation, movement, behavior and activities, which has got social disapproval. However, stigma, discrimination and violation of human rights not only bar them to access legal services, education of their kids, health, movement of outside of brothel, deprived of funeral after death, but also make them inaccessible due to their invisibility. Conducted an assessment among brothel-based sex workers setup to know their knowledge on human rights and find out their harassment and violence in their community. Inspired them to think about to be united and also assisted them to formation of self help group (SHG). Developed capacity of the SHG and developed leadership of its members through different trainings like administrative, financial management, public speaking and resource mobilization. Developed strategy to enhance the capacity of SHG so that they can collectively claim their rights and develop strategic partnership and network with the relevant service provider’s for restoring all sorts of rights. Conducted meeting with stakeholder including duty bearers, civil society organizations, media people and local government initiatives. Developed Networking with human rights commission, local elite, religious leaders and form human right watch committees at community level. Organized rally and observed national and international days along with government counterparts. By utilizing the project resources the members of SHG became capable to raise their collective voices against violence, discrimination and stigma as well as protected them from insecurity. The members of SHG have been participating in social program/event the SHG got membership of district level NGO coordination meeting through invitation from Deputy Commissioner, Civil Surgeon and Social welfare office of Government of Bangladesh. The Law Enforcement Agency is ensuring safety and security and the education department of government enrolled their children in primary level education. The Government provided land for grave yard after death for the Muslim sex workers and same for the other religious group. The SHGs are registered with government respective authorities. The SHGs are working with support from different development partners and implementing different projects sometime as consortium leaders. Opportunity created to take the vocational training from the government reputed department. The harassment by the clients reduced remarkably, babu, Mashi and other counterparts recognized the sex workers rights and ensure security with government counterpart access increased in legal, health and education. Indications are that the brothel based sex workers understood about their rights and became capable of ensuring their security through working under the self-help groups meaningfully.

Keywords: brothel, discrimination, harassment, stigma

Procedia PDF Downloads 335

Authors: Aymen Arfaoui, Abdelkader Soumaya, Noureddine Ben Ayed

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The study region is located in the Tunisian Dorsal Backland (Central Mediterranean), which is the easternmost part of the Saharan Atlas mountain range, trending southwest-northeast. Based on our fieldwork, seismic tomography images, seismicity, and previous studies, we propose an interpretation of the relationship between the surface deformation and fault kinematics in the study area and the internal dynamic processes acting in the Central Mediterranean from the Cenozoic to the present. The subduction and dynamics of internal forces beneath the complicated Maghrebides mobile belt have an impact on the Tertiary and Quaternary tectonic regimes in the Pelagian and Atlassic foreland that is part of our study region. The left lateral reactivation of the major "Tunisian N-S Axis fault" and the development of a compressional relay between the Hammamet Korbous and Messella-Ressas faults are possibly a result of tectonic stresses due to the slab roll-back following the Africa/Eurasia convergence. After the slab segmentation and its eastward migration (5–4 Ma) and the formation of the Strait of Sicily "rift zone" further east, a transtensional tectonic regime has been installed in this area. According to seismic tomography images, the STEP fault of the "North-South Axis" at Hammamet-Korbous coincides with the western edge of the "Slab windows" of the Sicilian Channel and the eastern boundary of the positive anomalies attributed to the residual Slab of Tunisia. On the other hand, significant E-W Plio-Quaternary tectonic activity may be observed along the eastern portion of this STEP fault system in the Grombalia zone as a result of recent vertical lithospheric motion in response to the lateral slab migration eastward to Sicily Channel. According to SKS fast splitting directions, the upper mantle flow pattern beneath Tunisian Dorsal is parallel to the NE-SW to E-W orientation of the Shmin identified in the study area, similar to the Plio-Quaternary extensional orientation in the Central Mediterranean. Additionally, the removal of the lithosphere and the subsequent uplift of the sub-lithospheric mantle beneath the topographic highs of the Dorsal and its surroundings may be the cause of the dominant extensional to transtensional Quaternary regime. The occurrence of strike-slip and extensional seismic events in the Pelagian block reveals that the regional transtensional tectonic regime persists today. Finally, we believe that the geodynamic history of the study area since the Cenozoic is primarily influenced by the preexisting weak zones, the African slab detachment, and the upper mantle flow pattern in the central Mediterranean.

Keywords: Tunisia, lithospheric discontinuity (STEP fault), geodynamic evolution, Tunisian dorsal backland, strike-slip fault, seismic tomography, seismicity, central Mediterranean

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Authors: Sumeet Rai, Anuj Tyagi, B. T. Naveen Kumar, Shubhkaramjeet Kaur, Niraj K. Singh

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Since their discovery, indiscriminate use of antibiotics in human, veterinary and aquaculture systems has resulted in global emergence/spread of multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens. Thus, the need for alternative approaches to control bacterial infections has become utmost important. High selectivity/specificity of bacteriophages (phages) permits the targeting of specific bacteria without affecting the desirable flora. In this study, a lytic phage (Ahp1) specific to Aeromonas hydrophila subsp. hydrophila was isolated from finfish aquaculture pond. The host range of Ahp1 range was tested against 10 isolates of A. hydrophila, 7 isolates of A. veronii, 25 Vibrio cholerae isolates, 4 V. parahaemolyticus isolates and one isolate each of V. harveyi and Salmonella enterica collected previously. Except the host A. hydrophila subsp. hydrophila strain, no lytic activity against any other bacterial was detected. During the adsorption rate and one-step growth curve analysis, 69.7% of phage particles were able to get adsorbed on host cell followed by the release of 93 ± 6 phage progenies per host cell after a latent period of ~30 min. Phage nucleic acid was extracted by column purification methods. After determining the nature of phage nucleic acid as dsDNA, phage genome was subjected to next-generation sequencing by generating paired-end (PE, 2 x 300bp) reads on Illumina MiSeq system. De novo assembly of sequencing reads generated circular phage genome of 42,439 bp with G+C content of 58.95%. During open read frame (ORF) prediction and annotation, 22 ORFs (out of 49 total predicted ORFs) were functionally annotated and rest encoded for hypothetical proteins. Proteins involved in major functions such as phage structure formation and packaging, DNA replication and repair, DNA transcription and host cell lysis were encoded by the phage genome. The complete genome sequence of Ahp1 along with gene annotation was submitted to NCBI GenBank (accession number MF683623). Stability of Ahp1 preparations at storage temperatures of 4 °C, 30 °C, and 40 °C was studied over a period of 9 months. At 40 °C storage, phage counts declined by 4 log units within one month; with a total loss of viability after 2 months. At 30 °C temperature, phage preparation was stable for < 5 months. On the other hand, phage counts decreased by only 2 log units over a period of 9 during storage at 4 °C. As some of the phages have also been reported as glycerol sensitive, the stability of Ahp1 preparations in (0%, 15%, 30% and 45%) glycerol stocks were also studied during storage at -80 °C over a period of 9 months. The phage counts decreased only by 2 log units during storage, and no significant difference in phage counts was observed at different concentrations of glycerol. The Ahp1 phage discovered in our study had a very narrow host range and it may be useful for phage typing applications. Moreover, the endolysin and holin genes in Ahp1 genome could be ideal candidates for recombinant cloning and expression of antimicrobial proteins.

Keywords: Aeromonas hydrophila, endolysin, phage, narrow host range

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Authors: Ripon Sarkar, Kabita Chaterjee, Ananya Barui

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Smoking is one of the leading causes of oral cancer. Cigarette smoke affects various cellular parameters and alters molecular metabolism of cells. Epithelial cells losses their cytoskeleton structure, membrane integrity, cellular polarity that subsequently initiates the process of epithelial cells to mesenchymal transition due to long exposure of cigarette smoking. It changes the normal cellular metabolic activity which induces oxidative stress and enhances the reactive oxygen spices (ROS) formation. Excessive ROS and associated oxidative stress are considered to be a driving force in alteration in cellular phenotypes, polarity distribution and mitochondrial metabolism. Noninvasive assessment of such parameters plays essential role in development of routine screening system for early diagnosis of oral cancer. Electrical cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) is one of such method applied for detection of cellular membrane impedance which can be correlated to cell membrane integrity. Present study intends to explore the alteration in cellular impedance along with the expression of cellular polarity molecules and cytoskeleton distributions in oral epithelial cells of habitual smokers and to correlate the outcome to that of clinically diagnosed oral leukoplakia and oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. Total 80 subjects were categorized into four study groups: nonsmoker (NS), cigarette smoker (CS), oral leukoplakia (OLPK) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Cytoskeleton distribution was analyzed by staining of actin filament and generation of ROS was measured using assay kit using standard protocol. Cell impedance was measured through ECIS method at different frequencies. Expression of E-cadherin and protease-activated receptor (PAR) proteins were observed through immune-fluorescence method. Distribution of actin filament is well organized in NS group however; distribution pattern was grossly varied in CS, OLPK and OSCC. Generation of ROS was low in NS which subsequently increased towards OSCC. Expressions of E-cadherin and change in cellular electrical impedance in different study groups indicated the hallmark of cancer progression from NS to OSCC. Expressions of E-cadherin, PAR protein, and cell impedance were decreased from NS to CS and farther OSCC. Generally, the oral epithelial cells exhibit apico-basal polarity however with cancer progression these cells lose their characteristic polarity distribution. In this study expression of polarity molecule and ECIS observation indicates such altered pattern of polarity among smoker group. Overall the present study monitored the alterations in intracellular ROS generation and cell metabolic function, membrane integrity in oral epithelial cells in cigarette smokers. Present study thus has clinical significance, and it may help in developing a noninvasive technique for early diagnosis of oral cancer amongst susceptible individuals.

Keywords: cigarette smoking, early oral cancer detection, electric cell-substrate impedance sensing, noninvasive screening

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Authors: C. Bateira, J. Fernandes, A. Costa

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The Douro Demarked Region (DDR) is a production Porto wine region. On the NE of Portugal, the strong incision of the Douro valley developed very steep slopes, organized with agriculture terraces, have experienced an intense and deep transformation in order to implement the mechanization of the work. The old terrace system, based on stone vertical wall support structure, replaced by terraces with earth embankments experienced a huge terrace instability. This terrace instability has important economic and financial consequences on the agriculture enterprises. This paper presents and develops cartographic tools to access the embankment instability and identify the area prone to instability. The priority on this evaluation is related to the use of physically based mathematical models and develop a validation process based on an inventory of the past embankment instability. We used the shallow landslide stability model (SHALSTAB) based on physical parameters such us cohesion (c’), friction angle(ф), hydraulic conductivity, soil depth, soil specific weight (ϱ), slope angle (α) and contributing areas by Multiple Flow Direction Method (MFD). A terraced area can be analysed by this models unless we have very detailed information representative of the terrain morphology. The slope angle and the contributing areas depend on that. We can achieve that propose using digital elevation models (DEM) with great resolution (pixel with 40cm side), resulting from a set of photographs taken by a flight at 100m high with pixel resolution of 12cm. The slope angle results from this DEM. In the other hand, the MFD contributing area models the internal flow and is an important element to define the spatial variation of the soil saturation. That internal flow is based on the DEM. That is supported by the statement that the interflow, although not coincident with the superficial flow, have important similitude with it. Electrical resistivity monitoring values which related with the MFD contributing areas build from a DEM of 1m resolution and revealed a consistent correlation. That analysis, performed on the area, showed a good correlation with R2 of 0,72 and 0,76 at 1,5m and 2m depth, respectively. Considering that, a DEM with 1m resolution was the base to model the real internal flow. Thus, we assumed that the contributing area of 1m resolution modelled by MFD is representative of the internal flow of the area. In order to solve this problem we used a set of generalized DEMs to build the contributing areas used in the SHALSTAB. Those DEMs, with several resolutions (1m and 5m), were built from a set of photographs with 50cm resolution taken by a flight with 5km high. Using this maps combination, we modelled several final maps of terrace instability and performed a validation process with the contingency matrix. The best final instability map resembles the slope map from a DEM of 40cm resolution and a MFD map from a DEM of 1m resolution with a True Positive Rate (TPR) of 0,97, a False Positive Rate of 0,47, Accuracy (ACC) of 0,53, Precision (PVC) of 0,0004 and a TPR/FPR ratio of 2,06.

Keywords: agricultural terraces, cartography, landslides, SHALSTAB, vineyards

Procedia PDF Downloads 157

Authors: Anja I. Petrov, Milica B. Veljković, Marija M. Ćorović, Ana D. Milivojević, Milica B. Simović, Katarina M. Banjanac, Dejan I. Bezbradica

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One of the fundamental requirements for overall human well-being is a stable and balanced microbiome. Aside from the microorganisms that reside within the body, a large number of microorganisms, especially bacteria, swarming the human skin is in homeostasis with the host and represents a skin microbiota. Even though the immune system of the skin is capable of distinguishing between commensal and potentially harmful transient bacteria, the cutaneous microbial balance can be disrupted under certain circumstances. In that case, a reduction in the skin microbiota diversity, as well as changes in metabolic activity, results in dermal infections and inflammation. Probiotics and prebiotics have the potential to play a significant role in the treatment of these skin disorders. The most common resident bacteria found on the skin, Staphylococcus epidermidis, can act as a potential skin probiotic, contributing to the protection of healthy skin from pathogen colonization, such as Staphylococcus aureus, which is related to atopic dermatitis exacerbation. However, as it is difficult to meet regulations in cosmetic products, another therapy approach could be topical prebiotic supplementation of the skin microbiota. In recent research, polyphenols are attracting scientists' interest as biomolecules with possible prebiotic effects on the skin microbiota. This research aimed to determine how herbal extracts rich in different polyphenolic compounds (lemon balm, St. John's wort, coltsfoot, pine needle, and yarrow) affected the growth of S. epidermidis and S. aureus. The first part of the study involved screening plants to determine if they could be regarded as probable candidates to be skin prebiotics. The effect of each plant on bacterial growth was examined by supplementing the nutrient medium with their extracts and comparing it with control samples (without extract). The results obtained after 24 h of incubation showed that all tested extracts influenced the growth of the examined bacteria to some extent. Since lemon balm and St. John's wort extracts displayed bactericidal activity against S. epidermidis, whereas coltsfoot inhibited both bacteria equally, they were not explored further. On the other hand, pine needles and yarrow extract led to an increase in S. epidermidis/S. aureus ratio, making them prospective candidates to be used as skin prebiotics. By examining the prebiotic effect of two extracts at different concentrations, it was revealed that, in the case of yarrow, 0.1% of extract dry matter in the fermentation medium was optimal, while for the pine needle extract, a concentration of 0.05% was preferred, since it selectively stimulated S. epidermidis growth and inhibited S. aureus proliferation. Additionally, the total polyphenols and flavonoid content of the two extracts were determined, revealing different concentrations and polyphenol profiles. Since yarrow and pine extracts affected the growth of skin bacteria in a dose-dependent manner, by carefully selecting the quantities of these extracts, and thus polyphenols content, it is possible to achieve desirable alterations of skin microbiota composition, which may be suitable for the treatment of atopic dermatitis.

Keywords: herbal extracts, polyphenols, skin microbiota, skin prebiotics

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Authors: Akintade O. Adeboyejo, Edwin O. Clarke, Oluwatoyin Aderinola

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The present study is on the sub-lethal toxicity of industrial effluents (IE) from the environment of Ologe Lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria on the African catfish fingerlings Clarias gariepinus. The fish were cultured in varying concentrations of industrial effluents: 0% (control), 5%, 15%, 25%, and 35%. Trials were carried out in triplicates for twelve (12) weeks. The culture system was a static renewable bioassay and was carried out in the fisheries laboratory of the Lagos State University, Ojo-Lagos. Weekly physico-chemical parameters: Temperature (0C), pH, Conductivity (ppm) and Dissolved Oxygen (DO in mg/l) were measured in each treatment tank. Length (cm) and weight (g) data were obtained weekly and used to calculate various growth parameters: mean weight gain (MWG), percentage weight gain (PWG), daily weight gain (DWG), specific growth rate (SGR) and survival. Haematological (Packed Cell Volume (PCV), Red blood cells (RBC), White Blood Cell (WBC), Neutrophil and Lymphocytes etc) and histological alterations were measured after 12 weeks. The physico-chemical parameters showed that the pH ranged from 7.82±0.25–8.07±0.02. DO range from 1.92±0.66-4.43±1.24 mg/l. The conductivity values increased with increase in concentration of I.E. While the temperature remained stable with mean value range between 26.08±2.14–26.38±2.28. The DO showed significant differences at P<0.05. There was progressive increase in length and weight of fish during the culture period. The fish placed in the control had highest increase in both weight and length while fish in 35% had the least. MWG ranged from 16.59–35.96, DWG is from 0.3–0.48, SGR varied from 1.0–1.86 and survival was 100%. Haematological results showed that C. gariepinus had PCV ranging from 13.0±1.7-27.7±0.6, RBC ranged from 4.7±0.6–9.1±0.1, and Neutrophil ranged from 26.7±4.6–61.0±1.0 amongst others. The highest values of these parameters were obtained in the control and lowest at 35%. While the reverse effects were observed for WBC and lymphocytes. This study has shown that effluents may affect the health status of the test organism and impair vital processes if exposure continues for a long period of time. The histological examination revealed several lesions as expressed by the gills and livers. The histopathology of the gills in the control tanks had normal tissues with no visible lesion, but at higher concentrations, there were: lifting of epithelium, swollen lamellae and gill arch infiltration, necrosis and gill arch destruction. While in the liver: control (0%) show normal liver cells, at higher toxic level, there were: vacoulation, destruction of the hepatic parenchyma, tissue becoming eosinophilic (i.e. tending towards Carcinogenicity) and severe disruption of the hepatic cord architecture. The study has shown that industrial effluents from the study area may affect fish health status and impair vital processes if exposure continues for a long period of time even at lower concentrations (Sublethal).

Keywords: sublethal toxicity, industrial effluents, clarias gariepinus, ologe lagoon

Procedia PDF Downloads 584

Authors: Andrey Cherdantsev, Mikhail Cherdantsev, Sergey Isaenkov, Dmitriy Markovich

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In annular gas-liquid flow, liquid flows as a film along pipe walls sheared by high-velocity gas stream. Film surface is covered by large-scale disturbance waves which affect pressure drop and heat transfer in the system and are necessary for entrainment of liquid droplets from film surface into the core of gas stream. Disturbance waves are a highly complex and their properties are affected by numerous parameters. One of such aspects is flow development, i.e., change of flow properties with the distance from the inlet. In the present work, this question is studied using brightness-based laser-induced fluorescence (BBLIF) technique. This method enables one to perform simultaneous measurements of local film thickness in large number of points with high sampling frequency. In the present experiments first 50 cm of upward and downward annular flow in a vertical pipe of 11.7 mm i.d. is studied with temporal resolution of 10 kHz and spatial resolution of 0.5 mm. Thus, spatiotemporal evolution of film surface can be investigated, including scenarios of formation, acceleration and coalescence of disturbance waves. The behaviour of disturbance waves' velocity depending on phases flow rates and downstream distance was investigated. Besides measuring the waves properties, the goal of the work was to investigate the interrelation between disturbance waves properties and integral characteristics of the flow such as interfacial shear stress and flow rate of dispersed phase. In particular, it was shown that the initial acceleration of disturbance waves, defined by the value of shear stress, linearly decays with downstream distance. This lack of acceleration which may even lead to deceleration is related to liquid entrainment. Flow rate of disperse phase linearly grows with downstream distance. During entrainment events, liquid is extracted directly from disturbance waves, reducing their mass, area of interaction to the gas shear and, hence, velocity. Passing frequency of disturbance waves at each downstream position was measured automatically with a new algorithm of identification of characteristic lines of individual disturbance waves. Scenarios of coalescence of individual disturbance waves were identified. Transition from initial high-frequency Kelvin-Helmholtz waves appearing at the inlet to highly nonlinear disturbance waves with lower frequency was studied near the inlet using 3D realisation of BBLIF method in the same cylindrical channel and in a rectangular duct with cross-section of 5 mm by 50 mm. It was shown that the initial waves are generally two-dimensional but are promptly broken into localised three-dimensional wavelets. Coalescence of these wavelets leads to formation of quasi two-dimensional disturbance waves. Using cross-correlation analysis, loss and restoration of two-dimensionality of film surface with downstream distance were studied quantitatively. It was shown that all the processes occur closer to the inlet at higher gas velocities.

Keywords: annular flow, disturbance waves, entrainment, flow development

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