Search results for: geometric imaging relationship

Authors: Conor Mccartney, Mark Lee

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Background: An essential component in ambulatory breast augmentation surgery is good analgesia. The demographic undergoing this operation is usually fit, low risk with few comorbidities. These patients do not require long-term hospitalization and do not want to spend excessive time in the hospital for financial reasons. Opiate analgesia can have significant side effects such as nausea, vomiting and sedation. Reducing volumes of postoperative opiates allows faster ambulation and discharge from day surgery. We have developed two targeted nerve blocks that can be applied by the operating surgeon in a matter of seconds under direct vision, not requiring imaging. Anecdotally we found that these targeted nerve blocks reduced opiate requirements and allowed accelerated discharge and faster return to normal activities. This was then tested in a prospective randomized, double-blind trial. Methods: 20 patients were randomized into saline (n = 10) or Ropivicaine adrenaline solution (n = 10). The operating surgeon and anesthetist were blinded to the solution. All patients were closely followed up and morphine equivalents were accurately recorded. Follow-up pain scores were recorded using the Overall Benefit of Analgesia pain questionnaire. Findings: The Ropivicaine nerve blocks significantly reduced opiate requirements postoperatively (p<0.05). Pain scores were significantly decreased in the study group (p<0.05). There were no side effects attributable to the nerve blocks. Conclusions: Intraoperative targeted nerve blocks significantly reduce postoperative opiate requirements in breast augmentation surgery. This results in faster recovery and higher patient satisfaction.

Keywords: breast augmentation, nerve block, postoperative recovery, opiate analgesia, inter pectoral block, sub serratus block

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Authors: Rui Xing, Xiaowen Zhao, Hao Huang, Chang Liu

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Creativity is regarded as vital for new ventures' development since the whole process of entrepreneurship is rooted in the creation and exploration of new ideas. The entrepreneurial leader is central to the entrepreneurial team, who plays an especially important role in this process. However, few scholars have studied the impact entrepreneurs' leadership styles on the creativity of entrepreneurial teams. In this study, we integrate the historically disjointed literatures of leadership style and team creativity under entrepreneurship circumstance to understand why and when entrepreneurs' different leadership style relates to team creativity. Focus on answering the following questions: Is humility leadership necessarily better than narcissism leadership at increasing the creativity of entrepreneurial teams? Moreover, in which situations humility leadership or narcissism leadership is more conducive to the entrepreneurial team's creativity? Based on the componential theory of creativity and entrepreneurial cognition theory, we explore the relationship between entrepreneurs' leadership style and team creativity, treating team cognitive diversity and environmental uncertainty as moderators and psychological empowerment as mediators. We tested our hypotheses using data gathered from 64 teams and 256 individual members from 53 new firms in China's first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. We found that there was a significant positive relation between entrepreneurs' humble leadership and psychological empowerment, and the more significant the positive correlation was when the environmental uncertainty was high. In addition, there was a significant negative relation between entrepreneurs' narcissistic leadership and psychological empowerment, and the negative relation was weaker in teams with a high team cognitive diversity value. Furthermore, both entrepreneurs' humble leadership and team psychological empowerment were significantly positively related to team creativity. While entrepreneurs' narcissistic leadership was negatively related to team creativity, and the negative relationship was weaker in teams with a high team cognitive diversity or a high environmental uncertainty value. This study has some implications for both scholars and entrepreneurs. Firstly, our study enriches the understanding of the role of leadership in entrepreneurial team creativity. Different from previous team creativity literatures, focusing on TMT and R&D team, this study is a significant attempt to demonstrate that entrepreneurial leadership style is particularly relevant to the core requirements of team creativity. Secondly, this study introduces two moderating variables, cognitive diversity and environmental uncertainty, to explore the different boundary conditions under which the two leadership styles play their roles, which is helpful for entrepreneurs to understand how to leverage leadership to improve entrepreneurial team creativity, how to recruit cognitively diverse employees to moderate the effects of inappropriate leadership to the team. Finally, our findings showed that entrepreneurs' humble leadership makes a unique contribution to explaining team creativity through team psychological empowerment.

Keywords: entrepreneurs’ leadership style, entrepreneurial team creativity, team psychological empowerment, team cognitive diversity, environmental uncertainty

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Authors: Jamel Boukhatem, Mouldi Djelassi

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Contrary to the existing literature generally focusing on the role played by Sukuk in enhancing investors' and shareholders' wealth, this paper sheds some light on the Sukuk wealth effect across all economic agents: households, government, and investors by implementing a two-period life-cycle model with overlapping generations to show whether Sukuk is net wealth. The main findings are threefold: i) the effect of a change in Sukuk issuances on the consumers’ utility level will be different from one generation to another, ii) an increase in taxes due to the increase in Sukuk and rents is covered by transfers made by the members of generation 1 in the form of inheritance, and iii) the existence of a positive relationship between the asset prices representative of Sukuk and the real activity.

Keywords: Sukuk, households, investors, overlapping generations model, wealth, modeling

Procedia PDF Downloads 88

Authors: Kuan-Wu Lin, Tsu-Wu Hu

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In recent years, product design has already begun to comfort and humanize, and for different user needs to design products, In particular, closer relationship with the people of the products, Such as headphones and other consumer electronics products. In this study, will for general comfort design principles and field survey results through the use of a headset, including adolescents, young and middle-aged groups such as three users, Further identify the general design principles belong to the headset comfortable design. The study results will include the significance of headphones design and differences between product design principles, Provide the basis for future product design.

Keywords: wearing type headphones , comfort degree design, general design principles, product design

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Authors: L. Matlawe, E. S. Idemudia

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The stability is an important topic to plan and manage the energy in the microgrids as the same as the conventional power systems. The voltage and frequency stability is one of the most important issues recently studied in microgrids. The objectives of this paper are the modeling and designing of the components and optimal controllers for the voltage and frequency control of the AC/DC hybrid microgrid under the different disturbances. Since the PI controllers have the advantages of simple structure and easy implementation, so they were designed and modeled in this paper. The harmony search (HS) algorithm is used to optimize the controllers’ parameters. According to the achieved results, the PI controllers have a good performance in voltage and frequency control of the microgrid.

Keywords: emotional abuse, employees, mental health, self-concept

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Authors: Evangelos G. Ilias, Panagiotis G. Ilias, Vasileios T. Popotas

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The United Kingdom has one of the oldest railway networks in the world dating back to 1825 when the world’s first passenger railway was opened. The network has some 40,000 bridges of various construction types using a wide range of materials including masonry, steel, cast iron, wrought iron, concrete and timber. It is commonly accepted that the successful operation of the network is vital for the economy of the United Kingdom, consequently the cost effective maintenance of the existing infrastructure is a high priority to maintain the operability of the network, prevent deterioration and to extend the life of the assets. Every bridge on the railway network is required to be assessed every eighteen years and a structured approach to assessments is adopted with three main types of progressively more detailed assessments used. These assessment types include Level 0 (standardized spreadsheet assessment tools), Level 1 (analytical hand calculations) and Level 2 (generally finite element analyses). There is a degree of conservatism in the first two types of assessment dictated to some extent by the relevant standards which can lead to some structures not achieving the required load rating. In these situations, a Level 2 Assessment is often carried out using finite element analysis to uncover ‘latent strength’ and improve the load rating. If successful, the more sophisticated analysis can save on costly strengthening or replacement works and avoid disruption to the operational railway. This paper presents the ‘strengthening by assessment’ achieved by Level 2 analyses. The use of more accurate analysis assumptions and the implementation of non-linear modelling and functions (material, geometric and support) to better understand buckling modes and the structural behaviour of historic construction details that are not specifically covered by assessment codes are outlined. Metallic bridges which are susceptible to loss of section size through corrosion have largest scope for improvement by the Level 2 Assessment methodology. Three case studies are presented, demonstrating the effectiveness of the sophisticated Level 2 Assessment methodology using finite element analysis against the conservative approaches employed for Level 0 and Level 1 Assessments. One rail overbridge and two rail underbridges that did not achieve the required load rating by means of a Level 1 Assessment due to the inadequate restraint provided by U-Frame action are examined and the increase in assessed capacity given by the Level 2 Assessment is outlined.

Keywords: assessment, bridges, buckling, finite element analysis, non-linear modelling, strengthening

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Authors: Chi Zhang, Jun Jiang

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Constitutive equations are very important in finite element (FE) modeling, and the accuracy of the material constants in the equations have significant effects on the accuracy of the FE models. A wide range of constitutive equations are available; however, fitting the material constants in the constitutive equations could be complex and time-consuming due to the strong non-linearity and relationship between the constants. This work will focus on the development of a set of unified MATLAB programs for fitting the material constants in the constitutive equations efficiently. Users will only need to supply experimental data in the required format and run the program without modifying functions or precisely guessing the initial values, or finding the parameters in previous works and will be able to fit the material constants efficiently.

Keywords: constitutive equations, FE modelling, MATLAB program, non-linear curve fitting

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Authors: Khattab Al Qaisi, Nicholas Bowring

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This paper presents the simulation results of the effects of sampling frequency on the total harmonic distortion (THD) of three-phase inverters using the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) and space vector control (SVC) algorithms. The relationship between the variables was studied using curve fitting techniques, and it has been shown that, for 50 Hz inverters, there is an exponential relation between the sampling frequency and THD up to around 8500 Hz, beyond which the performance of the model becomes irregular, and there is an negative exponential relation between the sampling frequency and the marginal improvement to the THD. It has also been found that the performance of SVPWM is better than that of SVC with the same sampling frequency in most frequency range, including the range where the performance of the former is irregular.

Keywords: DSI, SVPWM, THD, DC-AC converter, sampling frequency, performance

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Authors: Woraprat Chaomuang, Sirikorn Sringern, Pawanrat Chamnanwongsritorn, Kridsada Luangthongkham

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In this study, we have applied a digital scale to demonstrate the electricity concept of changing the capacity (C), due to the weight of an object, as a function of the distance between the conductor plates and the pressing down. By calibrating on standard scales with the Visual Basic program and the Arduino Uno microcontroller board, we can obtain the weight of the object from the frequency (ƒ) that is measured from the electronic circuit (Astable Multivibrator). Our results support the concept, showing a linear correlation between the frequency and weight with an equation y = –0.0112x + 379.78 and the R2 value of 0.95. In addition, the effects of silicone rods shrinkage, permittivity and temperature were also examined and have found to affect various graph patterns observed.

Keywords: Arduino Uno board, frequency, microcontroller board, parallel plate conductor

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Authors: Li-Ting Huang, Yu-Hsiang Shen, Cing-Ciao Ke, Sheng-Pin Tseng, Fan-Pin Tseng, Yu-Ching Ni, Chia-Yu Lin

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Chest radiography is the most common technique for the diagnosis and follow-up of pulmonary diseases. However, the lesions superimposed with normal structures are difficult to be detected in chest radiography. Chest tomosynthesis is a relatively new technique to obtain 3D section images from a set of low-dose projections acquired over a limited angular range. However, there are some limitations with chest tomosynthesis. Patients undergoing tomosynthesis have to be able to hold their breath firmly for 10 seconds. A digital tomosynthesis system with advanced reconstruction algorithm and high-stability motion mechanism was developed by our research group. The potential for the system to perform a bidirectional chest scan within 10 seconds is expected. The purpose of this study is to realize the influences of the scan speed on the image quality for our digital tomosynthesis system. The major factors that lead image blurring are the motion of the X-ray source and the patient. For the fore one, an experiment of imaging a chest phantom with three different scan speeds, which are 6 cm/s, 8 cm/s, and 15 cm/s, was proceeded to understand the scan speed influences on the image quality. For the rear factor, a normal SD (Sprague-Dawley) rat was imaged with it alive and sacrificed to assess the impact on the image quality due to breath motion. In both experiments, the profile of the ROIs (region of interest) and the CNRs (contrast-to-noise ratio) of the ROIs to the normal tissue of the reconstructed images was examined to realize the degradations of the qualities of the images. The preliminary results show that no obvious degradation of the image quality was observed with increasing scan speed, possibly due to the advanced designs for the hardware and software of the system. It implies that higher speed (15 cm/s) than that of the commercialized tomosynthesis system (12 cm/s) for the proposed system is achieved, and therefore a complete chest scan within 10 seconds is expected.

Keywords: chest radiography, digital tomosynthesis, image quality, scan speed

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Authors: Martin Popescu D. Dana Maria

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The aims of this research are to broaden the study on the relationship between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). The study sample consisted in 441 Romanian employees from companies all over the country. Data has been collected through web surveys and processed with SPSS. The results indicated an average correlation between the two constructs and their sub variables, employees with a high level of emotional intelligence tend to be less aggressive. In addition, labeling was considered an individual difference which has the power to influence the level of employee aggression. A regression model was used to underline the importance of emotional intelligence together with labeling as predictors of CWB. Results have shown that this regression model enforces the assumption that labeling and emotional intelligence, taken together, predict CWB. Employees, who label themselves as victims and have a low degree of emotional intelligence, have a higher level of CWB.

Keywords: aggression, CWB, emotional intelligence, labeling

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Authors: Michael Stokes

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Using a disability studies approach, this paper analyzes the American science fiction novel Ballroom of the Skies as way to address and access narratives of American exceptionalism in relation to global struggle. Combined with a critical race studies analysis of identity and cultural practice, this essay seeks to find parallels between the treatment of disability and the treatment of the racialized body in literature to forcibly reread potential for multiple assemblages of identity in the speculated futures of science fiction. Thinking through this relationship, the essay constructs a thematic understanding of social eugenics as practiced in American culture.

Keywords: disability studies, science fiction, eugenics, cultural studies

Procedia PDF Downloads 254

Authors: Mahdieh Farzin Asanjan, Erkan Unal Mumcuoglu

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Mitochondria are cytoplasmic organelles of the cell, which have a significant role in the variety of cellular metabolic functions. Mitochondria act as the power plants of the cell and are surrounded by two membranes. Significant morphological alterations are often due to changes in mitochondrial functions. A powerful technique in order to study the three-dimensional (3D) structure of mitochondria and its alterations in disease states is Electron microscope tomography. Detection of mitochondria in electron microscopy images due to the presence of various subcellular structures and imaging artifacts is a challenging problem. Another challenge is that each image typically contains more than one mitochondrion. Hand segmentation of mitochondria is tedious and time-consuming and also special knowledge about the mitochondria is needed. Fully automatic segmentation methods lead to over-segmentation and mitochondria are not segmented properly. Therefore, semi-automatic segmentation methods with minimum manual effort are required to edit the results of fully automatic segmentation methods. Here two editing tools were implemented by applying spline surface dragging and interactive live-wire segmentation tools. These editing tools were applied separately to the results of fully automatic segmentation. 3D extension of these tools was also studied and tested. Dice coefficients of 2D and 3D for surface dragging using splines were 0.93 and 0.92. This metric for 2D and 3D for live-wire method were 0.94 and 0.91 respectively. The root mean square symmetric surface distance values of 2D and 3D for surface dragging was measured as 0.69, 0.93. The same metrics for live-wire tool were 0.60 and 2.11. Comparing the results of these editing tools with the results of automatic segmentation method, it shows that these editing tools, led to better results and these results were more similar to ground truth image but the required time was higher than hand-segmentation time

Keywords: medical image segmentation, semi-automatic methods, transmission electron microscopy, surface dragging using splines, live-wire

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Authors: Yongquan Zhao, Bo Huang

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Spatial, Temporal, and Spectral Resolution (STSR) are three key characteristics of Earth observation satellite sensors; however, any single satellite sensor cannot provide Earth observations with high STSR simultaneously because of the hardware technology limitations of satellite sensors. On the other hand, a conflicting circumstance is that the demand for high STSR has been growing with the remote sensing application development. Although image fusion technology provides a feasible means to overcome the limitations of the current Earth observation data, the current fusion technologies cannot enhance all STSR simultaneously and provide high enough resolution improvement level. This study proposes a Hybrid Spatial-Temporal-Spectral image Fusion Model (HSTSFM) to generate synthetic satellite data with high STSR simultaneously, which blends the high spatial resolution from the panchromatic image of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the high temporal resolution from the multi-spectral image of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the high spectral resolution from the hyper-spectral image of Hyperion to produce high STSR images. The proposed HSTSFM contains three fusion modules: (1) spatial-spectral image fusion; (2) spatial-temporal image fusion; (3) temporal-spectral image fusion. A set of test data with both phenological and land cover type changes in Beijing suburb area, China is adopted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that HSTSFM can produce fused image that has good spatial and spectral fidelity to the reference image, which means it has the potential to generate synthetic data to support the studies that require high STSR satellite imagery.

Keywords: hybrid spatial-temporal-spectral fusion, high resolution synthetic imagery, least square regression, sparse representation, spectral transformation

Procedia PDF Downloads 239

Authors: Hamida Memon, Muhammad Sanan

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A 34-year-old male with no prior health issues presented with a wound in his left leg exhibiting active pus discharge, intense inflammation, pain radiating from the buttocks to the knee, foot drop, and skin darkening. Four years prior, he sustained an untreated dislocation of the hip joint and acetabulum from a road traffic accident. Initial nerve conduction studies (NCS) and electromyography (EMG) revealed severe axonotomesis of the left sciatic nerve and reduced compound muscle action potential in the left common peroneal nerve. Despite normal venous flow, edema and cellulitis were noted. Follow-up NCS/EMG in 2022 showed improvement, but in 2023, the patient experienced recurrent infection and underwent surgical intervention with tissue culture. Postoperative care included antibiotics and pain management. NCS/EMG in 2024 indicated decreased nerve amplitudes and conduction velocities, consistent with moderate axonotmesis and ongoing recovery, alongside incidental right S1 radiculopathy. General lab tests and abdominal imaging were normal. The patient was treated with Pregabalin and Neurobion for neuropathic pain and nerve support and is currently under observation by a tertiary sector hospital for treatment. This case underscores the critical importance of prompt treatment for hip dislocations to prevent long-term complications such as neuropathy and avascular necrosis. Delays in treatment significantly increase the risk of severe outcomes, highlighting the need for timely intervention. Overall, the case illustrates the challenges of managing complex nerve injuries and the importance of comprehensive care for optimal recovery.

Keywords: sciatic nerve neuropathy, hip dislocation, acetabular fracture, radiculopathy

Procedia PDF Downloads 27

Authors: Fatema-Tuz-Zohra Khanam, Ali Al-Naji, Asanka G. Perera, Kim Gibson, Javaan Chahl

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Conventional contact-based vital signs monitoring sensors such as pulse oximeters or electrocardiogram (ECG) may cause discomfort, skin damage, and infections, particularly in neonates with fragile, sensitive skin. Therefore, remote monitoring of the vital sign is desired in both clinical and non-clinical settings to overcome these issues. Camera-based vital signs monitoring is a recent technology for these applications with many positive attributes. However, there are still limited camera-based studies on neonates in a clinical setting. In this study, the heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (RR) of eight infants at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Flinders Medical Centre were remotely monitored using a digital camera applying color and motion-based computational methods. The region-of-interest (ROI) was efficiently selected by incorporating an image decomposition method. Furthermore, spatial averaging, spectral analysis, band-pass filtering, and peak detection were also used to extract both HR and RR. The experimental results were validated with the ground truth data obtained from an ECG monitor and showed a strong correlation using the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) 0.9794 and 0.9412 for HR and RR, respectively. The RMSE between camera-based data and ECG data for HR and RR were 2.84 beats/min and 2.91 breaths/min, respectively. A Bland Altman analysis of the data also showed a close correlation between both data sets with a mean bias of 0.60 beats/min and 1 breath/min, and the lower and upper limit of agreement -4.9 to + 6.1 beats/min and -4.4 to +6.4 breaths/min for both HR and RR, respectively. Therefore, video camera imaging may replace conventional contact-based monitoring in NICU and has potential applications in other contexts such as home health monitoring.

Keywords: neonates, NICU, digital camera, heart rate, respiratory rate, image decomposition

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Authors: F. Amin, S. Feizi

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Big data has the potential to improve the quality of services; enable infrastructure that businesses depend on to adapt continually and efficiently; improve the performance of employees; help organizations better understand customers; and reduce liability risks. Analytics and marketing models of fixed and mobile operators are falling short in combating churn and declining revenue per user. Big Data presents new method to reverse the way and improve profitability. The benefits of Big Data and next-generation network, however, are more exorbitant than improved customer relationship management. Next generation of networks are in a prime position to monetize rich supplies of customer information—while being mindful of legal and privacy issues. As data assets are transformed into new revenue streams will become integral to high performance.

Keywords: big data, next generation networks, network transformation, strategy

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Authors: Sneha Kumari, Ravi Krishnan Elangovan

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This abstract describes the development of a high-speed tracking method by modification in motor components for nanoparticle attachment. Myosin motors are nano-sized protein machines powering movement that defines life. These miniature molecular devices serve as engines utilizing chemical energy stored in ATP to produce useful mechanical energy in the form of a few nanometre displacement events leading to force generation that is required for cargo transport, cell division, cell locomotion, translated to macroscopic movements like running etc. With the advent of in vitro motility assay (IVMA), detailed functional studies of the actomyosin system could be performed. The major challenge with the currently available IVMA for tracking actin filaments is a resolution limitation of ± 50nm. To overcome this, we are trying to develop Single Molecule IVMA in which nanoparticle (GNP/QD) will be attached along or on the barbed end of actin filaments using CapZ protein and visualization by a compact TIRF module called ‘cTIRF’. The waveguide-based illumination by cTIRF offers a unique separation of excitation and collection optics, enabling imaging by scattering without emission filters. So, this technology is well equipped to perform tracking with high precision in temporal resolution of 2ms with significantly improved SNR by 100-fold as compared to conventional TIRF. Also, the nanoparticles (QD/GNP) attached to actin filament act as a point source of light coffering ease in filament tracking compared to conventional manual tracking. Moreover, the attachment of cargo (QD/GNP) to the thin filament paves the way for various nano-technological applications through their transportation to different predetermined locations on the chip

Keywords: actin, cargo, IVMA, myosin motors and single-molecule system

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Authors: Eliza Torrigue, Efrelyn Iellamo

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Maternal death is one of the rising health issues in the Philippines. It is alarming to know that in every hour of each day, a mother gives birth to a child who may not live to see the next day. Statistics shows that intrapartum period and third stage of labor are the very crucial periods for the expectant mother, as well as the first six hours of life for the newborn. To address the issue, The Essential Intrapartum Newborn Care (EINC) was developed. Through this, Obstetric Delivery Room (OB-DR) Nurses shall be updated with the evidence-based maternal and newborn care to ensure patient safety, thus, reducing maternal and child mortality. This study aims to describe the compliance of hospitals, especially of OB-DR nurses, to the EINC Protocols. The researcher aims to link the profile variables of the respondents in terms of age, length of service and formal training to their compliance on the EINC Protocols. The outcome of the study is geared towards the development of appropriate training program for OB-DR Nurses assigned in the delivery room of the hospitals based on the study’s results to sustain the EINC standards. A descriptive correlational method was used. The sample consists of 75 Obstetric Delivery Room (OB-DR) Nurses from three government hospitals in the City of Manila namely, Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center, Tondo Medical Center, and Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center. Data were collected using an evaluative checklist. Ranking, weighted mean, Chi-square and Pearson’s R were used to analyze data. The level of compliance to the EINC Protocols by the respondents was evaluated with an overall mean score of 4.768 implying that OB-DR Nurses have a high regard in complying with the step by step procedure of the EINC. Furthermore, data shows that formal training on EINC have a significant relationship with OB-DR Nurses’ level of compliance during cord care, AMTSL, and immediate newborn care until the first ninety minutes to six hours of life. However, the respondents’ age and length of service do not have a significant relationship with the compliance of OB-DR Nurses on EINC Protocols. In the pursuit of decreasing the maternal mortality in the Philippines, EINC Protocols have been widely implemented in the country especially in the government hospitals where most of the deliveries happen. In this study, it was found out that OB-DR Nurses adhere and are highly compliant to the standards in order to assure that optimum level of care is delivered to the mother and newborn. Formal training on EINC, on the other hand, create the most impact on the compliance of nurses. It is therefore recommended that there must be a structured enhancement training program to plan, implement and evaluate the EINC protocols in these government hospitals.

Keywords: compliance, intrapartum, newborn care, nurses

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Authors: P. Paengkoum, S. C. Chen, S. Paengkoum

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Six male growing Thai-indigenous beef cattle with body weight (BW) of 154±13.2 kg were randomly assigned in replicated 3×3 Latin square design, and fed with different levels of crude protein (CP) in total mixed ration (TMR) diets. CP levels in diets were 4.3%, 7.3% and 10.3% base on dry matter (DM). Ruminal ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) concentrations increased (P<0.01) with increasing CP levels. Moreover, there is a positive relationship between BUN and ruminal NH3-N. Rumen pH, total volatile fatty acid (VFA), molar proportions of acetate, propionate and butyrate were not affected by CP levels (P>0.05).

Keywords: Thai-indigenous beef cattle, crude protein, volatile fatty acid (VFA), total mixed ration (TMR) diets

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Authors: Hatim Elhag

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Banking and Financial Service Institutions are possibly the most advanced in terms of technology adoption and use it as a key differentiator. With high levels of business process automation, maturity in the functional portfolio, straight through processing and proven technology outsourcing benefits, Banking sector stand to benefit significantly from Cloud computing capabilities. Additionally, with complex Compliance and Regulatory policies, combined with expansive products and geography coverage, the business impact is even greater. While the benefits are exponential, there are also significant challenges in adopting this model– including Legal, Security, Performance, Reliability, Transformation complexity, Operating control and Governance and most importantly proof for the promised cost benefits. However, new architecture designed should be implemented to align this approach.

Keywords: security, cloud, banking sector, cloud computing

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Authors: Triana Fitriastuti, Pipiet Larasatie, Alex Vanderstraten

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Many scholars have demonstrated the negative impacts of the perception of organizational politics on organizational outcomes. The model proposed in this study analyzes the impact of the perception of organizational politics on job satisfaction. In the same way, ingratiation as a moderator variable is tested. We applied regression analysis to test the hypothesis. The findings of the current research, which was conducted with 240 employees in the public sector in Indonesia, show that the perception of organizational politics has a negative effect on job satisfaction. In contrast, ingratiation plays a role that fully moderates the relationship between organizational politics and organizational outcomes and changes the correlation between the perception of organizational politics on job satisfaction. Employees who use ingratiation as a coping mechanism tend to do so when they perceive a high degree of organizational politics.

Keywords: ingratiation, impression management, job satisfaction, perception of organizational politics

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Authors: Kanak Parmanandani

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The present study aims to explore the impact of perceived parenthood styles in early nonage on attachment styles, and how it affects the emotional capacity of youthful grown-ups. Current studies suggest that there are 4 attachment styles. An existent gets attached to their significant other and important people, and understanding attachment styles helps to dissect a person’s nonage and duly understand an existent. Parenthood styles play a major part in children’s early development, and how they see the world and the people around them. A parent plays a huge part in the emotional development of a child. Both parents must be present to give their children a healthy terrain to grow up.

Keywords: parent styles, attachment styles, early development, parenting styles

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Authors: Wei Bin Shen

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Lou Gang world irrigation project heritage in Taihu Lake is a systematic irrigation project integrating water conservancy, ecology and culture. Through the methods of historical documents and field investigation, this paper deeply analyzes the formation history, connotation and value of Lou Gang polder system: Lou Gang heritage, describes in detail the relationship between Lou Gang polder system in Taihu Lake and the development and evolution of Huzhou City, and initially explores the protection and Utilization Strategies of Lou Gang water conservancy cultural heritage resources in Taihu Lake from the current situation.

Keywords: Lou Gang, protection strategy, urban evolution, waterconservancyculturalheritage

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Authors: N. S. Ajisha

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In today’s competitive world the quality of the service you deliver is one of the important factor that determine customer satisfaction. Service quality is considered to be one important determinant to evaluate customer satisfaction and the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction is considered as the foundation in researches on customer satisfaction. This research examines to do a gap analysis between the perception and expectation of the services delivered and find relation between the service quality and customer satisfaction. Service quality is found out here using the SERVQUAL model. And it finds out the dimension of service quality which is more important to measure customer satisfaction. The dimensions which we measure using SERVQUAL include the tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. This study involves primary data collection like market survey.

Keywords: customer satisfaction, service quality, retail service quality, Kochi

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Authors: Silke Bustamante, Andrea Pelzeter, Andreas Deckmann, Rudi Ehlscheidt, Franziska Freudenberger

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Many companies increasingly seek to enhance their attractiveness as an employer to bind their employees. At the same time, corporate responsibility for social and ecological issues seems to become a more important part of an attractive employer brand. It enables the company to match the values and expectations of its members, to signal fairness towards them and to increase its brand potential for positive psychological identification on the employees’ side. In the last decade, several empirical studies have focused this relationship, confirming a positive effect of employees’ CSR perception and their affective organizational commitment. The current paper aims to take a slightly different view by analyzing the impact of another factor on commitment: the weighted employee’s satisfaction with the employer CSR. For that purpose, it is assumed that commitment levels are rather a result of the fulfillment or disappointment of expectations. Hence, instead of merely asking how CSR perception affects commitment, a more complex independent variable is taken into account: a weighted satisfaction construct that summarizes two different factors. Therefore, the individual level of commitment contingent on CSR is conceptualized as a function of two psychological processes: (1) the individual significance that an employee ascribes to specific employer attributes and (2) the individual satisfaction based on the fulfillment of expectation that rely on preceding perceptions of employer attributes. The results presented are based on a quantitative survey that was undertaken among employees of the German service sector. Conceptually a five-dimensional CSR construct (ecology, employees, marketplace, society and corporate governance) and a two-dimensional non-CSR construct (company and workplace) were applied to differentiate employer characteristics. (1) Respondents were asked to indicate the importance of different facets of CSR-related and non-CSR-related employer attributes. By means of a conjoint analysis, the relative importance of each employer attribute was calculated from the data. (2) In addition to this, participants stated their level of satisfaction with specific employer attributes. Both indications were merged to individually weighted satisfaction indexes on the seven-dimensional levels of employer characteristics. The affective organizational commitment of employees (dependent variable) was gathered by applying the established 15-items Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). The findings related to the relationship between satisfaction and commitment will be presented. Furthermore, the question will be addressed, how important satisfaction with CSR is in relation to the satisfaction with other attributes of the company in the creation of commitment. Practical as well as scientific implications will be discussed especially with reference to previous results that focused on CSR perception as a commitment driver.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, organizational commitment, employee attitudes/satisfaction, employee expectations, employer brand

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Authors: Erine van Niekerk, Jason Holland

Abstract:

In Māori culture water is considered to be the foundation of all life and has its own mana (spiritual power) and mauri (life force). Water classification for cultural values therefore includes categories like waitapu (sacred water), waimanawa-whenua (water from under the land), waipuna (freshwater springs), the relationship between water quantity and quality and the relationship between surface and groundwater. Particular rivers and lakes have special significance to iwi and hapu for their rohe (tribal areas). The Mararoa River, including its freshwater springs and wetlands, is an example of such an area. There is currently little information available about the sources, characteristics and behavior of these important water resources and this study on the water quality of the Mararoa River and adjacent freshwater springs will provide valuable information to be used in informed decisions about water management. The regional council of Southland, Environment Southland, is required to make changes under their water quality policy in order to comply with the requirements for the New National Standards for Freshwater to consult with Maori to determine strategies for decision making. This requires an approach that includes traditional knowledge combined with scientific knowledge in the decision-making process. This study provided the scientific data that can be used in future for decision making on fresh water springs combined with traditional values for this particular area. Several parameters have been tested in situ as well as in a laboratory. Parameters such as temperature, salinity, electrical conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids, Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen, Total Phosphorus, Total Suspended Solids, and Escherichia coli among others show that recorded values of all test parameters fall within recommended ANZECC guidelines and Environment Southland standards and do not raise any concerns for the water quality of the springs and the river at the moment. However, the destruction of natural areas, particularly due to changes in farming practices, and the changes to water quality by the introduction of Didymosphenia geminate (Didymo) means Māori have already lost many of their traditional mahinga kai (food sources). There is a major change from land use such as sheep farming to dairying in Southland which puts freshwater resources under pressure. It is, therefore, important to draw on traditional knowledge and spirituality alongside scientific knowledge to protect the waters of the Mararoa River and waipuna. This study hopes to contribute to scientific knowledge to preserve the cultural values of these significant waters.

Keywords: cultural values, freshwater springs, Maori, water quality

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Authors: Rashmi Uchil, A. H. Sequeira

Abstract:

Post-liberalization era in India has seen an unprecedented growth of mergers, both domestic as well as cross-border deals. Indian organizations have slowly begun appreciating this inorganic method of growth. However, all is not well as is evidenced in the lowering value creation of organizations after mergers. Several studies have identified that organizational culture is one of the key factors that affects the success of mergers. But very few studies have been attempted in this realm in India. The current study attempts to identify the factors in the organizational culture variable that may be unique to India. It also focuses on the difference in the impact of organizational culture on merger of organizations in the manufacturing and service sectors in India. The study uses a mixed research approach. An exploratory research approach is adopted to identify the variables that constitute organizational culture specifically in the Indian scenario. A few hypotheses were developed from the identified variables and tested to arrive at the Grounded Theory. The Grounded Theory approach used in the study, attempts to integrate the variables related to organizational culture. Descriptive approach is used to validate the developed grounded theory with a new empirical data set and thus test the relationship between the organizational culture variables and the success of mergers. Empirical data is captured from merged organizations situated in major cities of India. These organizations represent significant proportions of the total number of organizations which have adopted mergers. The mix of industries included software, banking, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and financial services. Mixed sampling approach was adopted for this study. The first phase of sampling was conducted using the probability method of stratified random sampling. The study further used the non-probability method of judgmental sampling. Adequate sample size was identified for the study which represents the top, middle and junior management levels of the organizations that had adopted mergers. Validity and reliability of the research instrument was ensured with appropriate tests. Statistical tools like regression analysis, correlation analysis and factor analysis were used for data analysis. The results of the study revealed a strong relationship between organizational culture and its impact on the success of mergers. The study also revealed that the results were unique to the extent that they highlighted a marked difference in the manner of internalization of change of organizational culture after merger by the organizations in the manufacturing sector. Further, the study reveals that the organizations in the service sector internalized the changes at a slower rate. The study also portrays the industries in the manufacturing sector as more proactive and can contribute to a change in the perception of the said organizations.

Keywords: manufacturing industries, mergers, organizational culture, service industries

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Authors: Basma Khelfa, Antoine Tordeux, Ibrahima Ba

Abstract:

We present a descriptive analysis data of lane-changing events in multi-lane roads. The data are provided from The Highway Drone Dataset (HighD), which are microscopic trajectories in highway. This paper describes and analyses the role of the different parameters and their significance. Thanks to HighD data, we aim to find the most frequent reasons that motivate drivers to change lanes. We used the programming language R for the processing of these data. We analyze the involvement and relationship of different variables of each parameter of the ego vehicle and the four vehicles surrounding it, i.e., distance, speed difference, time gap, and acceleration. This was studied according to the class of the vehicle (car or truck), and according to the maneuver it undertook (overtaking or falling back).

Keywords: autonomous driving, physical traffic model, prediction model, statistical learning process

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Authors: F. Pari, E. Fathiazar, T. Hashemi, M. Pari

Abstract:

The present study aimed to examine the role of self-efficacy and school belonging in the academic achievement of Tabriz high school students in grade 11. Therefore, using a random cluster method, 377 subjects were selected from the whole students of Tabriz high schools. They filled in the School Belonging Questionnaire (SBQ) and General Self-Efficacy Scale. Data were analyzed using correlational as well as multiple regression methods. Findings demonstrate self-efficacy and school belonging have significant roles in the prediction of academic achievement. On the other hand, the results suggest that considering the gender variable there is no significant difference between self-efficacy and school belonging. On the whole, cognitive approaches could be effective in the explanation of academic achievement.

Keywords: school belonging, self-efficacy, academic achievement, high school

Procedia PDF Downloads 303