Search results for: food service

Authors: Daniel Olshansky, Ramiro Rodrıguez Colmeiro

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Relay Mining presents a scalable solution employing probabilistic mechanisms and crypto-economic incentives to estimate RPC volume usage, facilitating decentralized multitenant rate limiting. Network traffic from individual applications can be concurrently serviced by multiple RPC service providers, with costs, rewards, and rate limiting governed by a native cryptocurrency on a distributed ledger. Building upon established research in token bucket algorithms and distributed rate-limiting penalty models, our approach harnesses a feedback loop control mechanism to adjust the difficulty of mining relay rewards, dynamically scaling with network usage growth. By leveraging crypto-economic incentives, we reduce coordination overhead costs and introduce a mechanism for providing RPC services that are both geopolitically and geographically distributed.

Keywords: remote procedure call, crypto-economic, commit-reveal, decentralization, scalability, blockchain, rate limiting, token bucket

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Authors: Brianna Douglas

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A literary Meta-Analysis was conducted in order to form a proactive solution to the systematic issue of international human trafficking stemming from the Asia-Pacific region. This approach seeks to resolve the low economic prospect for women in the region, along with other identified drivers, to mitigate human trafficking before it begins. Through the reallocation of aid in agriculture, implementation of an education-for-education model, and provision of access to market information to the women in rural regions, the retraction of both the supply and international demand curves of trafficked humans is possible; resulting in the shutdown of the market as a whole. This report provides a basic and adaptable proposal to mitigation the selling of Asia Pacific women within international trafficking schemes with byproduct effects of increasing food, sustainability and decreasing government spending.

Keywords: human trafficking, agricultural development, Asia Pacific, women's empowerment

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Authors: Kate Allman, Heather Maranges, Elise Dykhuis

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Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) is the belief that one has the capacity to become a more moral person, as opposed to a fixed conception of one’s moral ability and capacity (Han et al., 2018). Building from Dweck’s work in incremental implicit theories of intelligence (2008), Moral Growth Mindset (Han et al., 2020) extends growth mindsets into the moral dimension. The concept of MGM has the potential to help researchers understand how both mindsets and interventions can impact character development, and it has even been shown to have connections to voluntary service engagement (Han et al., 2018). Understanding the contexts in which MGM might be cultivated could help to promote the further cultivation of character, in addition to prosocial behaviors like service engagement, which may, in turn, promote larger scale engagement in social justice-oriented thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In particular, college may be a place to intentionally cultivate a growth mindset toward moral capacities, given the unique developmental and maturational components of the college experience, including contextual opportunity (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006) and independence requiring the constant consideration, revision, and internalization of personal values (Lapsley & Woodbury, 2016). In a semester-long, quasi-experimental study, we examined the impact of a pedagogical approach designed to cultivate college student character development on participants’ MGM. With an intervention (n=69) and a control group (n=97; Pre-course: 27% Men; 66% Women; 68% White; 18% Asian; 2% Black; <1% Hispanic/Latino), we investigated whether college courses that intentionally incorporate character education pedagogy (Lamb, Brant, Brooks, 2021) affect a variety of psychosocial variables associated with moral thoughts, feelings, identity, and behavior (e.g. moral growth mindset, honesty, compassion, etc.). The intervention group consisted of 69 undergraduate students (Pre-course: 40% Men; 52% Women; 68% White; 10.5% Black; 7.4% Asian; 4.2% Hispanic/Latino) that voluntarily enrolled in five undergraduate courses that encouraged students to engage with key concepts and methods of character development through the application of research-based strategies and personal reflection on goals and experiences. Moral Growth Mindset was measured using the four-item Moral Growth Mindset scale (Han et al., 2020), with items such as You can improve your basic morals and character considerably on a six-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Higher scores of MGM indicate a stronger belief that one can become a more moral person with personal effort. Reliability at Time 1 was Cronbach’s ɑ= .833, and at Time 2 Cronbach’s ɑ= .772. An Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to explore whether post-course MGM scores were different between the intervention and control when controlling for pre-course MGM scores. The ANCOVA indicated significant differences in MGM between groups post-course, F(1,163) = 8.073, p = .005, R² = .11, where descriptive statistics indicate that intervention scores were higher than the control group at post-course. Results indicate that intentional character development pedagogy can be leveraged to support the development of Moral Growth Mindset and related capacities in undergraduate settings.

Keywords: moral personality, character education, incremental theories of personality, growth mindset

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Authors: Carolina L. Cerdeira, Julia V. F. Cortes, Maria E. V. Amarante, Gersika B. Santos

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Skin cancer is the most common cancer in several parts of the world; in a tropical country like Brazil, the situation isn’t different. The Brazilian population is exposed to high levels of solar radiation, increasing the risk of developing cutaneous carcinoma. Aimed at encouraging prevention measures and the early diagnosis of these tumors, a study was carried out that analyzed data on cutaneous melanomas, basal cell, and epidermoid carcinomas, using as primary data source the medical records of 161 patients registered in one pathology service, which performs skin biopsies in a city of Minas Gerais, Brazil. All patients diagnosed with skin cancer at this service from January 2015 to December 2019 were included. The incidence of skin carcinoma cases was correlated with the identification of histological type, sex, age group, and topographic location. Correlation between variables was verified by Fisher's exact test at a nominal significance level of 5%, with statistical analysis performed by R® software. A significant association was observed between age group and type of cancer (p=0.0085); age group and sex (0.0298); and type of cancer and body region affected (p < 0.01). Those 161 cases analyzed comprised 93 basal cell carcinomas, 66 epidermoid carcinomas, and only two cutaneous melanomas. In the group aged 19 to 30 years, the epidermoid form was most prevalent; from 31 to 45 and from 46 to 59 years, the basal cell prevailed; in 60-year-olds or over, both types had higher frequencies. Associating age group and sex, in groups aged 18 to 30 and 46 to 59 years, women were most affected. In the 31-to 45-year-old group, men predominated. There was a gender balance in the age group 60-year-olds or over. As for topography, there was a high prevalence in the head and neck, followed by upper limbs. Relating histological type and topography, there was a prevalence of basal cell and epidermoid carcinomas in the head and neck. In the chest, the basal cell form was most prevalent; in upper limbs, the epidermoid form prevailed. Cutaneous melanoma affected only the chest and upper limbs. About 82% of patients 60-year-olds or over had head and neck cancer; from 46 to 59 and 60-year-olds or over, the head and neck region and upper limbs were predominantly affected; the distribution was balanced in the 31-to 45-year-old group. In conclusion, basal cell carcinoma was predominant, whereas cutaneous melanoma was the rarest among the types analyzed. Patients 60-year-olds or over were most affected, showing gender balance. In young adults, there was a prevalence of the epidermoid form; in middle-aged patients, basal cell carcinoma was predominant; in the elderly, both forms presented with higher frequencies. There was a higher incidence of head and neck cancers, followed by malignancies affecting the upper limbs. The epidermoid type manifested significantly in the upper limbs. Body regions such as the thorax and lower limbs were less affected, which is justified by the lower exposure of these areas to incident solar radiation.

Keywords: basal cell carcinoma, cutaneous melanoma, skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, topographic location

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Authors: Anna Daskalaki, Andreas Ashikalis

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This is a conceptual project that suggests an alternative type of summer camp in the forest of Rouvas in the island of Crete. Taking into account some feasts that are organised by the locals or mountaineering clubs near the church of St. John, we created a network of lightweight timber structures that serve the needs of the visitor. These structures are transformable and satisfy the need for rest, food, and sleep – this means a seat, a table and a tent are embodied in each structure. These structures blend in with the environment as they are being installed according to the following parameters: (a) the local relief, (b) the clusters of trees, and (c) the existing paths. Each timber structure could be considered as a module that could be totally independent or part of a bigger construction. The design showcases the advantages of a timber structure as it can be quite adaptive to the needs of the project, but also it is a sustainable and environmentally friendly material that can be recycled. Finally, it is important to note that the basic goal of this project is the minimum alteration of the natural environment.

Keywords: lightweight structures, timber, transformable, tent

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Authors: Thanduxolo Elford Fana

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Rationale and Purpose: Performance management and development system are central to effective and efficient service delivery, especially in highly labour intensive sectors such as South African public health. Performance management and development systems seek to ensure that good employee performance is rewarded accordingly, while those who underperform are developed so that they can reach their full potential. An effective and efficiently implemented performance management system motivates and improves employee engagement. The purpose of this study is to examine the implementation of the performance management and development system and the challenges that are encountered during its implementation in the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Health. Methods: A qualitative research approach and a case study design was adopted in this study. The primary data were collected through observations, focus group discussions with employees, a group interview with shop stewards, and in-depth interviews with supervisors and managers, from April 2019 to September 2019. There were 45 study participants. In-depth interviews were held with 10 managers at facility level, which included chief executive officer, chief medical officer, assistant director’s in human resources management, patient admin, operations, finance, and two area manager and two operation managers nursing. A group interview was conducted with five shop stewards and an in-depth interview with one shop steward from the group. Five focus group discussions were conducted with clinical and non-clinical staff. The focus group discussions were supplemented with an in-depth interview with one person from each group in order to counter the group effect. Observations included moderation committee, contracting, and assessment meetings. Findings: The study shows that the performance management and development system was not properly implemented. There was non-compliance to performance management and development system policy guidelines in terms of time lines for contracting, evaluation, payment of incentives to good performers, and management of poor performance. The study revealed that the system is ineffective in raising the performance of employees and unable to assist employees to grow. The performance bonuses were no longer paid to qualifying employees. The study also revealed that lack of capacity and commitment, poor communication, constant policy changes, financial constraints, weak and highly bureaucratic management structures, union interference were challenges that were encountered during the implementation of the performance management and development system. Lastly, employees and supervisors were rating themselves three irrespective of how well or bad they performed. Conclusion: Performance management is regarded as vital to improved performance of the health workforce and healthcare service delivery among populations. Effective implementation of performance management and development system depends on well-capacitated and unbiased management at facility levels. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve communication, link performance management to rewards, and capacitate staff on performance management and development system, as it is key to improved public health sector outcomes or performance.

Keywords: challenges, implementation, performance management and development system, public hospital

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Authors: Aman Patidar, Dipankar Sarkar, Manish Pal

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Due to rapid development, increase in the traffic load, higher traffic volume and seasonal variation in temperature, asphalt pavement shows distresses like rutting, fatigue and thermal cracking etc. because of this pavement fails during service life so that bitumen needs to be modified with some additive. In this study VG30 grade bitumen modify with addition of nanosilica with 1% to 5% (increment of 1%) by weight of bitumen. Hot mix asphalt (HMA) have higher mixing, laying and rolling temperatures which leads to higher consumption of fuel. To address this issue, a nano material named ZycoTherm which is chemical warm mix asphalt (WMA) additive is added to bitumen. Nanosilica modification (NSMB) results in the increase in stability compared to unmodified bitumen (UMB). WMA modified mix shows slightly higher stability than UMB and NSMB in a lower bitumen content. The Retained stability and tensile strength ratio (TSR) is more than 75% and 80% respectively for both mixes. Nanosilica with WMA has more resistant to temperature susceptibility, moisture susceptibility and short term aging than NSMB.

Keywords: HMA, nanosilica, NSMB, temperature, TSR, UMB, WMA

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Authors: Joo Min Kim, Dongyoun Shin

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The project Future Station (FS) seek for a deeper understanding of metro station. The main idea of the project is enhancing the underground environment by combining new architectural design with IoT technology. This research shows the understanding of the metro environment giving references regarding traditional design approaches and IoT combined space design. Based on the analysis, this research presents design alternatives in two metro stations those are chosen for a testbed. It also presents how the FS platform giving a response to travelers and deliver the benefit to metro operators. In conclusion, the project describes methods to build future metro service and platform that understand traveler’s intentions and giving appropriate services back for enhancing travel experience. It basically used contemporary technology such as smart sensing grid, big data analysis, smart building, and machine learning technology.

Keywords: future station, digital lifestyle experience, sustainable metro, smart metro, smart city

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Authors: Anand R. Nair, Markus Trenker

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Lifting body concepts were conceived as early as 1917 and patented by Roy Scroggs. It was an idea of using the fuselage as a lift producing body with no or small wings. Many of these designs were developed and even flight tested between 1920’s to 1970’s, but it was not pursued further for commercial flight as at lower airspeeds, such a configuration was incapable to produce sufficient lift for the entire aircraft. The concept presented in this contribution is combining the lifting body design along with a fixed wing to maximise the lift produced by the aircraft. Conventional aircraft fuselages are designed to be aerodynamically efficient, which is to minimise the drag; however, these fuselages produce very minimal or negligible lift. For the design of an unmanned fixed wing transport aircraft, many of the restrictions which are present for commercial aircraft in terms of fuselage design can be excluded, such as windows for the passengers/pilots, cabin-environment systems, emergency exits, and pressurization systems. This gives new flexibility to design fuselages which are unconventionally shaped to contribute to the lift of the aircraft. The two lifting body concepts presented in this contribution are targeting different applications: For a fast cargo delivery drone, the fuselage is based on a scaled airfoil shape with a cargo capacity of 500 kg for euro pallets. The aircraft has a span of 14 m and reaches 1500 km at a cruising speed of 90 m/s. The aircraft could also easily be adapted to accommodate pilot and passengers with modifications to the internal structures, but pressurization is not included as the service ceiling envisioned for this type of aircraft is limited to 10,000 ft. The next concept to be investigated is called a multi-purpose drone, which incorporates a different type of lifting body and is a much more versatile aircraft as it will have a VTOL capability. The aircraft will have a wingspan of approximately 6 m and flight speeds of 60 m/s within the same service ceiling as the fast cargo delivery drone. The multi-purpose drone can be easily adapted for various applications such as firefighting, agricultural purposes, surveillance, and even passenger transport. Lifting body designs are not a new concept, but their effectiveness in terms of cargo transportation has not been widely investigated. Due to their enhanced lift producing capability, lifting body designs enable the reduction of the wing area and the overall weight of the aircraft. This will, in turn, reduce the thrust requirement and ultimately the fuel consumption. The various designs proposed in this contribution will be based on the general aviation category of aircrafts and will be focussed on unmanned methods of operation. These unmanned fixed-wing transport drones will feature appropriate cargo loading/unloading concepts which can accommodate large size cargo for efficient time management and ease of operation. The various designs will be compared in performance to their conventional counterpart to understand their benefits/shortcomings in terms of design, performance, complexity, and ease of operation. The majority of the performance analysis will be carried out using industry relevant standards in computational fluid dynamics software packages.

Keywords: lifting body concept, computational fluid dynamics, unmanned fixed-wing aircraft, cargo drone

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Authors: M. Yusuf

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The recent discovery of the phenomenon of RNA interference has led to its application in various aspects of plant improvement. Crops can be modified by engineering novel RNA interference pathways that create small RNA molecules to alter gene expression in crops or plant pests. RNA interference can generate new crop quality traits or provide protection against insects, nematodes and pathogens without introducing new proteins into food and feed products. This is an advantage in contrast with conventional procedures of gene transfer. RNA interference has been used to develop crop varieties resistant to diseases, pathogens and insects. Male sterility has been engineered in plants using RNA interference. Better quality crops have been developed through the application of RNA interference etc. The objective of this paper is to highlight the application of RNA interference in crop improvement and to project its potential future use to solve problems of agricultural production in relation to plant breeding.

Keywords: RNA interference, application, crop Improvement, agricultural production

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Authors: A. Eštoková, M. Kovalčíková, A. Luptáková, A. Sičáková, M. Ondová

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Concrete durability as an important engineering property of concrete, determining the service life of concrete structures very significantly, can be threatened and even lost due to the interactions of concrete with external environment. Bio-corrosion process caused by presence and activities of microorganisms producing sulphuric acid is a special type of sulphate deterioration of concrete materials. The effects of sulphur-oxidizing bacteria Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans on various concrete samples, based on silica fume and zeolite, were investigated in laboratory during 180 days. A laboratory study was conducted to compare the performance of concrete samples in terms of the concrete deterioration influenced by the leaching of calcium and silicon compounds from the cement matrix. The changes in the elemental concentrations of calcium and silicon in both solid samples and liquid leachates were measured by using X – ray fluorescence method. Experimental studies confirmed the silica fume based concrete samples were found out to have the best performance in terms of both silicon and calcium ions leaching.

Keywords: biocorrosion, concrete, leaching, bacteria

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Authors: Victor Radich, Tania Basso, Regina Moraes

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Lead qualification is one of the main procedures in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) projects. Its main goal is to identify potential consumers who have the ideal characteristics to establish a profitable and long-term relationship with a certain organization. Social networks can be an important source of data for identifying and qualifying leads since interest in specific products or services can be identified from the users’ expressed feelings of (dis)satisfaction. In this context, this work proposes the use of machine learning techniques and sentiment analysis as an extra step in the lead qualification process in order to improve it. In addition to machine learning models, sentiment analysis or opinion mining can be used to understand the evaluation that the user makes of a particular service, product, or brand. The results obtained so far have shown that it is possible to extract data from social networks and combine the techniques for a more complete classification.

Keywords: lead qualification, sentiment analysis, opinion mining, machine learning, CRM, lead scoring

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Authors: Joanna Drzeżdżon, Marzena Białek

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Polyolefins are a group of materials used today in all areas of life. They are used in the food, domestic and other industries. In particular, polyethylene and polypropylene have found application in the production of packaging materials, pipes, containers, car parts as well as elements of medical equipment, e.g. syringes. Optimization of the polymerization and oligomerization processes of selected olefins is a very important stage before the technological implementation of polyolefin production. The purpose of the studies is to determine the conditions for ethylene polymerization as well as 3-buten-2-ol and 2-chloro-2-propen-1-ol oligomerization with the use of oxovanadium(IV) dipicolinate complexes with N-heterocyclic ligands. Additionally, the studies aims to determine the catalytic activities of the dipicolinate oxovanadium(IV) complexes with N-heterocyclic ligands in the studied polymerization and oligomerization processes.

Keywords: buten-2-ol, dipicolinate, ethylene, polymerization, oligomerization, vanadium

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Authors: Azza Taha Zaki

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Technology-enhanced teaching has been in the limelight since the 90s when educators started investigating and experimenting with using computers in the classroom as a means of building 21^st. century skills and motivating students. The concept of technology-enhanced strategies in education is kaleidoscopic! It has meant different things to different educators. For the purpose of this paper, however, it will be used to refer to the diverse technology-based strategies used to support and enrich the flipped learning process, in the classroom and outside. The paper will investigate how technology is put in the service of teaching and learning to improve the students’ learning experience as manifested in students’ attendance and engagement, achievement rates and finally, students’ projects at the end of the semester. The results will be supported by a student survey about relevant specific aspects of their learning experience in the modules in the study.

Keywords: attendance, British University, Egypt, flipped, student achievement, student-centred, student engagement, students’ projects

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Authors: Leonardo Alfredo Mendoza, Cristian Munoz, Marco Aurelio Pacheco, Manoela Kohler, Evelyn Batista, Rodrigo Moura

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques are increasingly more powerful to be able to interpret the feelings and reactions of a person to a product or service. Sentiment analysis has become a fundamental tool for this interpretation but has few applications in languages other than English. This paper presents a classification of sentiment analysis in Portuguese with a base of comments from social networks in Portuguese. A word embedding's representation was used with a 50-Dimension GloVe pre-trained model, generated through a corpus completely in Portuguese. To generate this classification, the bidirectional long short-term memory and bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) models are used, reaching results of 99.1%.

Keywords: natural processing language, sentiment analysis, bidirectional long short-term memory, BI-LSTM, gated recurrent unit, GRU

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Authors: M. Kamimukai, M. Bhattarai, B. B. Rana, K. Maeda, H. B. Kc, T. Kawano, M. Murai

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Most of the aged people older than 70 have difficulty in chewing and swallowing more or less. According to magnitude of this difficulty, gruel, “nanhan” (semi-soft rice) and ordinary cooked rice are served in general, particularly in sanatoriums and homes for old people in Japan. Nanhan is the name of a cooked rice used in Japan, having softness intermediate between gruel and ordinary cooked rice, which is boiled with intermediate amount of water between those of the latter two kinds of cooked rice. In the present study, nanhan was made in the rate of 240g of water to 100g of milled rice with an electric rice cooker. Murai developed a high amylose-content and high-yielding elite line ‘Murai 79’. Sensory eating-quality test was performed for nanhan and ordinary cooked rice of Murai 79 and the standard variety ‘Hinohikari’ which is a high eating-quality variety representative in southern Japan. Panelists (6 to 14 persons) scored each cooked rice in six items viz. taste, stickiness, hardness, flavor, external appearance and overall evaluation. Grading (-3 ~ +3) in each trait was performed, regarding the value of the standard variety Hinohikari as 0. Paddy rice produced in a farmer’s field in 2013 and 2014 and in an experimental field of Kochi University in 2015 and 2016 were used for the sensory test. According to results of the sensory eating-quality test for nanhan, Murai 79 is higher in overall evaluation than Hinohikari in the four years. The former was less sticky than the latter in the four years, but the former was statistically significantly harder than the latter throughout the four years. In external appearance, the former was significantly higher than the latter in the four years. In the taste, the former was significantly higher than the latter in 2014, but significant difference was not noticed between them in the other three years. There were no significant differences throughout the four years in flavor. Regarding amylose content, Murai 79 is higher by 3.7 and 5.7% than Hinohikari in 2015 and 2016, respectively. As for protein content, Murai 79 was higher than Hinohikari in 2015, but the former was lower than the latter in 2016. Consequently, the nanhan of Murai 79 was harder and less sticky, keeping the shape of grains as compared with that of Hinohikari, which may be due to its higher amylose content. Hence, the nanhan of Murai 79 may be recognized as grains more easily in a human mouth, which could make easier the continuous performance of mastication and deglutition particularly in aged persons. Regarding ordinary cooked rice, Murai 79 was similar to or higher in both overall evaluation and external appearance as compared with Hinohikari, despite its higher hardness and lower stickiness. Additionally, Murai 79 had brown-rice yield of 1.55 times as compared with Hinohikari, suggesting that it would enable to supply inexpensive rice for making nanhan with high quality particularly for aged people in Japan.

Keywords: high-amylose content, high-yielding rice line, nanhan, nursing care food, sensory eating quality test

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Authors: W. Srinuttrakul, V. Permnamtip

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Toxic elements in rice samples are great concern in Thailand because rice (Oryza sativa) is a staple food for Thai people. Furthermore, rice is an economic crop of Thailand for export. In this study, the concentrations of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in rice samples collected from the paddy fields in the northern, northeastern and southern regions of Thailand were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The mean concentrations of As, Cd and Pb in 55 rice samples were 0.112±0.056, 0.029±0.037 and 0.031±0.033 mg kg^-1, respectively. All rice samples showed As, Cd and Pb lower than the limit data of Codex. The estimated daily intakes (EDIs) of As, Cd, and Pb from rice consumption were 0.026±0.013, 0.007±0.009 and 0.007±0.008 mg day^-1, respectively. The percentage contribution to Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake (PTWI) values of As, Cd and Pb for Thai male (body weight of 69 kg) was 17.6%, 9.7%, and 2.9%, respectively, and for Thai female (body weight of 57 kg) was 21.3%, 11.7% and 3.5%, respectively. The findings indicated that all studied rice samples are safe for consumption.

Keywords: arsenic, cadmium, ICP-MS, lead, rice

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Authors: Ehsan Daryadel, Hamid Shakeri

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Good governance is considered as one of the necessary prerequisites for promotion of sustainable development programs in countries. Theoretical model of good governance is going to form the best methods for administration and management of subject country. The importance of maintaining the balance between the needs of present and future generation through sustainable development caused a change in method of management and providing service for citizens that is addressed as the most efficient and effective way of administration of countries. This method is based on democratic and equal-seeking sustainable development which is trying to affect all actors in this area and also be accountable to all citizens’ needs. Meanwhile, it should be noted that good governance is a prerequisite for sustainable development. In fact, good governance means impact of all actors on administration and management of the country for fulfilling public services, general needs of citizens and establishing a balance and harmony between needs of present and future generation. In the present study, efforts have been made to present concepts, definitions, purposes and indices of good governance with a descriptive-analytical method.

Keywords: accountability, efficiency and effectiveness, good governance, rule of law, transparency

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Authors: Mina Fawzy Ishak Gad Elsaid

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There is a strong link between technology and development. Architecture as a profession is a call to service and society. Maybe next to soldiers, engineers and patriots. However, unlike soldiers, they always remain employees of society under all circumstances. Despite the construction profession's role in society, there appears to be a lack of respect as some projects fail. This paper focuses on the need to improve development engineering performance in developing countries, using engineering education in Nigerian universities as a tool for discussion. A purposeful survey, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted on one hundred and twenty (120) prominent companies in Nigeria. The subject is approached through a large number of projects that companies have been involved in from the planning stage, some of which have been completed and even reached the maintenance and monitoring stage. It has been found that certain factors beyond the control of engineers are hindering the full development and success of the construction sector in developing countries. The main culprit is corruption and its eradication will put the country on a stable path to develop construction and combat poverty.

Keywords: decision analysis, industrial engineering, direct vs. indirect values, engineering management

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Authors: Haneen Joseph Habib Yeldoka

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There is a strong link between technology and development. Architecture as a profession is a call to service and society. Maybe next to soldiers, engineers and patriots. However, unlike soldiers, they always remain employees of society under all circumstances. Despite the construction profession's role in society, there appears to be a lack of respect as some projects fail. This paper focuses on the need to improve development engineering performance in developing countries, using engineering education in Nigerian universities as a tool for discussion. A purposeful survey, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted on one hundred and twenty (120) prominent companies in Nigeria. The subject is approached through a large number of projects that companies have been involved in from the planning stage, some of which have been completed and even reached the maintenance and monitoring stage. It has been found that certain factors beyond the control of engineers are hindering the full development and success of the construction sector in developing countries. The main culprit is corruption and its eradication will put the country on a stable path to develop construction and combat poverty.

Keywords: decision analysis, industrial engineering, direct vs. indirect values, engineering management

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Authors: Sneha Leslie

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The current situation in the cyber world is that crimes performed by Botnets are increasing and the masterminds (botmaster) are not detectable easily. The botmaster in the botnet compromises the legitimate host machines in the network and make them bots or zombies to initiate the cyber-attacks. This paper will focus on the live detection of the botmaster in the network by using the strong framework 'metasploit', when distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack is performed by the botnet. The affected victim machine will be continuously monitoring its incoming packets. Once the victim machine gets to know about the excessive count of packets from any IP, that particular IP is noted and details of the noted systems are gathered. Using the vulnerabilities present in the zombie machines (already compromised by botmaster), the victim machine will compromise them. By gaining access to the compromised systems, applications are run remotely. By analyzing the incoming packets of the zombies, the victim comes to know the address of the botmaster. This is an effective and a simple system where no specific features of communication protocol are considered.

Keywords: bonet, DDoS attack, network security, detection system, metasploit framework

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Authors: A. Karasek

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Rapid growth of Information Technologies (IT) has had huge influence on enterprises, and it has contributed to its promotion and increasingly extensive use in enterprises. Information Technologies have to a large extent determined the processes taking place in a enterprise; what is more, IT development has brought the need to adopt a brand new approach to human resources management in an enterprise. The use of IT in Human Resource Management (HRM) is of high importance due to the growing role of information and information technologies. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the use of information technologies in human resources management in enterprises. These practices will be presented in the following areas: Recruitment and selection, development and training, employee assessment, motivation, talent management, personnel service. Results of conducted survey show diversity of solutions applied in particular areas of human resource management. In the future, further development in this area should be expected, as well as integration of individual HRM areas, growing mobile-enabled HR processes and their transfer into the cloud. Presented IT solutions applied in HRM are highly innovative, which is of great significance due to their possible implementation in other enterprises.

Keywords: e-HR, human resources management, HRM practices, HRMS, information technologies

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Authors: Matsobane Mosetja, Nehemiah Mavetera, Ernest Mnkandla

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Local governments in South Africa are responsible for the provision of basic services. There are countless benefits that come with e-Government platforms if they are properly implemented to help local governments deliver these basic services to citizens. This study investigates factors influencing the adoption and use of e-Government platforms by citizens in the North West Province, South. The study is set against a background of significant change in South Africa where government services are electronically delivered. The outcome of the study revealed that: 1) decisions on the development of e-Government platforms are made based on a series of consultative forums; 2) the municipalities are open to constructive criticism on their online platform; 3) the municipalities have room for dialogue on how best to improve service delivery; 4) the municipalities are accessible to the citizens all the time; 5) the municipalities are making means and ways to empower them to be part of the collective and lastly e-Government provides room for online discussion.

Keywords: e-government, e-government platforms, user acceptance, local government

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Authors: Gül Çevik

Abstract:

This paper summarizes the work conducted to assess the root cause of the failure of a medium commercial vehicle leaf spring failed in service. Macro- and micro-fractographic analyses by scanning electron microscope as well as material verification tests were conducted in order to understand the failure mechanisms and root cause of the failure. Findings from the fractographic analyses indicated that failure mechanism is fatigue. Crack initiation was identified to have occurred from a point on the top surface near to the front face and to the left side. Two other crack initiation points were also observed, however, these cracks did not propagate. The propagation mode of the fatigue crack revealed that the cyclic loads resulting in crack initiation and propagation were unidirectional bending. Fractographic analyses have also showed that the root cause of the fatigue crack initiation and propagation was loading the part above design stress. Material properties of the part were also verified by chemical composition analysis, microstructural analysis by optical microscopy and hardness tests.

Keywords: leaf spring, failure analysis, fatigue, fractography

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Authors: Misook Ahn

Abstract:

This study examines the Institutional Curriculum Repository (ICR) developed with MS SharePoint. The purpose of using MS SharePoint is to organize, share, and manage the curriculum data. The ICR aims to build a centralized curriculum infrastructure, preserve all curriculum materials, and provide academic service to users (faculty, students, or other agencies). The ICR collection includes core language curriculum materials developed by each language school—foreign language textbooks, language survival kits, and audio files currently in or not in use at the schools. All core curriculum materials with audio and video files have been coded, collected, and preserved at the ICR. All metadata for the collected curriculum materials have been input by language, code, year, book type, level, user, version, and current status (in use/not in use). The qualitative content analysis, including the survey data, is used to evaluate the effectiveness of using MS SharePoint for the repository system. This study explains how to manage and preserve curriculum materials with MS SharePoint, along with challenges and suggestions for further research. This study will be beneficial to other universities or organizations considering archiving or preserving educational materials.

Keywords: digital preservation, ms sharepoint, repository, curriculum materials

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Authors: James Kaweesa

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The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a critical component of modern technology, enabling the connection of numerous devices to the internet. The interconnected nature of IoT devices, along with their heterogeneous and resource-constrained nature, makes them vulnerable to various types of attacks, such as malware, denial-of-service attacks, and network scanning. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) are a key mechanism for protecting IoT networks and from attacks by identifying and alerting administrators to suspicious activities. In this review, the paper will discuss the different types of IDSs available for IoT systems and evaluate their effectiveness in detecting and preventing attacks. Also, examine the various evaluation methods used to assess the performance of IDSs and the challenges associated with evaluating them in IoT environments. The review will highlight the need for effective and efficient IDSs that can cope with the unique characteristics of IoT networks, including their heterogeneity, dynamic topology, and resource constraints. The paper will conclude by indicating where further research is needed to develop IDSs that can address these challenges and effectively protect IoT systems from cyber threats.

Keywords: cyber-threats, iot, intrusion detection system, networks

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Authors: Vivek Rangarajan, Kim G. Klarke

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With overpopulation threatening the world’s ability to feed itself, food production and protection has become a major issue, especially in developing countries. Almost one-third of the food produced for human consumption, around 1.3 billion tonnes, is either wasted or lost annually. Postharvest decay in particular constitutes a major cause of crop loss with about 20% of fruits and vegetables produced lost during postharvest storage, mainly due to fungal disease. Some of the major phytopathogenic fungi affecting postharvest fruit crops in South Africa include Aspergillus, Botrytis, Penicillium, Alternaria and Sclerotinia spp. To date control of fungal phytopathogens has primarily been dependent on synthetic chemical fungicides, but these chemicals pose a significant threat to the environment, mainly due to their xenobiotic properties and tendency to generate resistance in the phytopathogens. Here, an environmentally benign alternative approach to control postharvest fungal phytopathogens in perishable fruit crops has been presented, namely the application of a bio-fungicide in the form of lipopeptide molecules. Lipopeptides are biosurfactants produced by Bacillus spp. which have been established as green, nontoxic and biodegradable molecules with antimicrobial properties. However, since the Bacillus are capable of producing a large number of lipopeptide homologues with differing efficacies against distinct target organisms, the lipopeptide production conditions and strategy are critical to produce the maximum lipopeptide concentration with homologue ratios to specification for optimum bio-fungicide efficacy. Process conditions, and their impact on Bacillus lipopeptide production, were evaluated in fully instrumented laboratory scale bioreactors under well-regulated controlled and defined environments. Factors such as the oxygen availability and trace element and nitrate concentrations had profound influences on lipopeptide yield, productivity and selectivity. Lipopeptide yield and homologue selectivity were enhanced in cultures where the oxygen in the sparge gas was increased from 21 to 30 mole%. The addition of trace elements, particularly Fe2+, increased the total concentration of lipopeptides and a nitrate concentration equivalent to 8 g/L ammonium nitrate resulted in optimum lipopeptide yield and homologue selectivity. Efficacy studies of the culture supernatant containing the crude lipopeptide mixture were conducted using phytopathogens isolated from fruit in the field, identified using genetic sequencing. The supernatant exhibited antifungal activity against all the test-isolates, namely Lewia, Botrytis, Penicillium, Alternaria and Sclerotinia spp., even in this crude form. Thus the lipopeptide product efficacy has been confirmed to control the main diseases, even in the basic crude form. Future studies will be directed towards purification of the lipopeptide product and enhancement of efficacy.

Keywords: antifungal efficacy, biocontrol, lipopeptide production, perishable crops

Procedia PDF Downloads 392

Authors: Danny Alexander R. Moreno, Gustavo L. Sartorello, Yuli Andrea P. Bermudez, Richard R. Lobo, Ives Claudio S. Bueno, Augusto H. Gameiro

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Meat production is a significant sector for Brazil's economy; however, the agricultural segment has suffered censure regarding the negative impacts on the environment, which consequently results in climate change. Therefore, it is essential the implementation of nutritional strategies that can improve the environmental performance of livestock. This research aimed to estimate the environmental impact and profitability of the use of yerba mate extract (Ilex paraguariensis) as an additive in the feeding of feedlot lamb. Thirty-six castrated male lambs (average weight of 23.90 ± 3.67 kg and average age of 75 days) were randomly assigned to four experimental diets with different levels of inclusion of yerba mate extract (0, 1, 2, and 4 %) based on dry matter. The animals were confined for fifty-three days and fed with 60:40 corn silage to concentrate ratio. As an indicator of environmental impact, the carbon footprint (CF) was measured as kg of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂-eq) per kg of body weight produced (BWP). The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as methane (CH₄) generated from enteric fermentation, were calculated using the sulfur hexafluoride gas tracer (SF₆) technique; while the CH₄, nitrous oxide (N₂O - emissions generated by feces and urine), and carbon dioxide (CO₂ - emissions generated by concentrate and silage processing) were estimated using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology. To estimate profitability, the gross margin was used, which is the total revenue minus the total cost; the latter is composed of the purchase of animals and food. The boundaries of this study considered only the lamb fattening system. The enteric CH₄ emission from the lamb was the largest source of on-farm GHG emissions (47%-50%), followed by CH₄ and N₂O emissions from manure (10%-20%) and CO₂ emission from the concentrate, silage, and fossil energy (17%-5%). The treatment that generated the least environmental impact was the group with 4% of yerba mate extract (YME), which showed a 3% reduction in total GHG emissions in relation to the control (1462.5 and 1505.5 kg CO₂-eq, respectively). However, the scenario with 1% YME showed an increase in emissions of 7% compared to the control group. In relation to CF, the treatment with 4% YME had the lowest value (4.1 kg CO₂-eq/kg LW) compared with the other groups. Nevertheless, although the 4% YME inclusion scenario showed the lowest CF, the gross margin decreased by 36% compared to the control group (0% YME), due to the cost of YME as a food additive. The results showed that the extract has the potential for use in reducing GHG. However, the cost of implementing this input as a mitigation strategy increased the production cost. Therefore, it is important to develop political strategies that help reduce the acquisition costs of input that contribute to the search for the environmental and economic benefit of the livestock sector.

Keywords: meat production, natural additives, profitability, sheep

Procedia PDF Downloads 122

Authors: Taksina Bunbut, Kevin Wongleedee

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The purposes of this research were to study factors influencing the decision of international tourists to revisit Bangkok, Thailand. A random 200 samples was collected. Half the sample group was male and the other half was female. A questionnaire was used to collect data and small in-depth interviews were also used to get their opinions about importance of tourist decision making factors. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents rated these factors at medium level of importance. The ranking showed that the first three important factors were a safe place to stay, friendly people, and clean food. The three least important factors were a convenience transportation, clean country, and child friendly. In addition there was no significance difference between male and female in their ratings of the factors of influencing the decision of international tourists to revisit Bangkok, Thailand.

Keywords: factors, international tourists, revisit, Thailand

Procedia PDF Downloads 311

Authors: Esther Gumboh

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The police play a critical role in society and are an integral aspect of the rule of law. Equally, respect for human rights is an integral part of professional policing. In view of the vast powers that the police enjoy and the attendant risk of abuse and resulting human rights violations, the need for police accountability and civilian police oversight is internationally and regionally recognised. Policing oversight springs from the duty to investigate human rights violations. Those implicated in perpetrating or covering up violations must be disciplined or prosecuted to ensure effective accountability. Police accountability is particularly important in Malawi given the dark history of policing in the country during the 30-year dictatorial era under President Kamuzu Banda. Described as one of the most repressive regimes in Africa, the Banda administration was characterised by gross state-sponsored violence, repressive policing and human rights violations. Indeed, the police were involved in various forms of human rights abuse including arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions, torture, and excessive use of force in conducting arrests and public order policing. This situation flourished within a culture of police impunity bolstered in part by the absence of clear oversight mechanisms for police accountability. In turn, there was immense public mistrust of the police. Unsurprisingly, the criminal justice system was one of the priority areas for reform when Malawi adopted its first democratic Constitution in 1994. Section 153 of the Constitution envisions a police service that is, for all intents and purposes, there to provide for the protection of public safety and the rights of persons in Malawi according to the prescriptions of the Constitution and any other law. This position reflects the view that the duty to protect and promote human rights is not incompatible with effective policing. Despite this, the police continue to engage in questionable behaviour in public order policing, excessive use of force, deaths in police custody, ill-treatment, torture and other forms of abuse including sexual abuse. Perpetrators of abuses are occasionally punished, but investigations are often delayed, abandoned, or remain inconclusive. Police accountability remains largely elusive. Commendably, the law does subject the police to significant oversight both internally and externally. However, until 2010, Malawi lacked a wholly independent civilian oversight mechanism specifically mandated to monitor the activities of the Malawi Police Service and held it accountable. This void has since been filled by the Independent Complaints Commission established under the Police Act. This is a positive development that reiterates Malawi’s commitment to the investigation of human rights violations by the police and to ending police impunity. This contribution examines the legal framework for this Commission to project the effectiveness of the Commission. While the framework looks promising on various fronts, there are potential challenges that lie ahead. Malawi must pre-emptively deal with these challenges carefully if the Commission is to have any practical significance in transforming police accountability in the country. Drawing on lessons from other jurisdictions like South Africa, the paper makes recommendations for legislative reform to strengthen the Commission’s framework.

Keywords: civilian policing oversight, Malawi, police, police accountability, policing, policing oversight

Procedia PDF Downloads 214