Search results for: human structure interaction

Authors: Ola Hall, Ibrahim Wahab, Thorsteinn Rognvaldsson, Mattias Ohlsson

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The subfield of poverty and welfare estimation that applies machine learning tools and methods on satellite imagery is a nascent but rapidly growing one. This is in part driven by the sustainable development goal, whose overarching principle is that no region is left behind. Among other things, this requires that welfare levels can be accurately and rapidly estimated at different spatial scales and resolutions. Conventional tools of household surveys and interviews do not suffice in this regard. While they are useful for gaining a longitudinal understanding of the welfare levels of populations, they do not offer adequate spatial coverage for the accuracy that is needed, nor are their implementation sufficiently swift to gain an accurate insight into people and places. It is this void that satellite imagery fills. Previously, this was near-impossible to implement due to the sheer volume of data that needed processing. Recent advances in machine learning, especially the deep learning subtype, such as deep neural networks, have made this a rapidly growing area of scholarship. Despite their unprecedented levels of performance, such models lack transparency and explainability and thus have seen limited downstream applications as humans generally are apprehensive of techniques that are not inherently interpretable and trustworthy. While several studies have demonstrated the superhuman performance of AI models, none has directly compared the performance of such models and human readers in the domain of poverty studies. In the present study, we directly compare the performance of human readers and a DL model using different resolutions of satellite imagery to estimate the welfare levels of demographic and health survey clusters in Tanzania, using the wealth quintile ratings from the same survey as the ground truth data. The cluster-level imagery covers all 608 cluster locations, of which 428 were classified as rural. The imagery for the human readers was sourced from the Google Maps Platform at an ultra-high resolution of 0.6m per pixel at zoom level 18, while that of the machine learning model was sourced from the comparatively lower resolution Sentinel-2 10m per pixel data for the same cluster locations. Rank correlation coefficients of between 0.31 and 0.32 achieved by the human readers were much lower when compared to those attained by the machine learning model – 0.69-0.79. This superhuman performance by the model is even more significant given that it was trained on the relatively lower 10-meter resolution satellite data while the human readers estimated welfare levels from the higher 0.6m spatial resolution data from which key markers of poverty and slums – roofing and road quality – are discernible. It is important to note, however, that the human readers did not receive any training before ratings, and had this been done, their performance might have improved. The stellar performance of the model also comes with the inevitable shortfall relating to limited transparency and explainability. The findings have significant implications for attaining the objective of the current frontier of deep learning models in this domain of scholarship – eXplainable Artificial Intelligence through a collaborative rather than a comparative framework.

Keywords: poverty prediction, satellite imagery, human readers, machine learning, Tanzania

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Authors: H. M. Avanesyan

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Economists have been discussing the importance of intangible assets for the success of organization for many years. The term intellectual capital was popularized in the 1990s by Thomas Stewart. “Intellectual capital is the knowledge, applied experience, enterprise processes and technology customer relationship and professional skills which are valuable assets to an organization.” Human capital – includes employee brainpower, competence, skills, experience and knowledge. Customer capital – includes relations and networks with partners, suppliers, distributors, and customers. The objective of the article is to assess one of the key components of organizational culture – organizational values. The focus of the survey was on assessing how intellectual capital presented in these values of the organization. In the conclusion section the article refers to underestimation of intellectual capital by the organization management and the various possible negative effects of the latter.

Keywords: human capital, intellectual capital, organizational culture, management, social identity, organization

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Authors: Takhchi Jamal, Ouisse Morvan, Sadoulet-Reboul Emeline, Bouhaddi Noureddine, Gagliardini Laurent, Bornet Frederic, Lakrad Faouzi

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Structural intensity is a technique that can be used to indicate both the magnitude and direction of power flow through a structure from the excitation source to the dissipation sink. However, current analysis is limited to the low frequency range. At medium and high frequencies, a rotational component appear in the field, masking the energy flow and make its understanding difficult or impossible. The objective of this work is to implement a methodology to filter out the rotational components of the structural intensity field in order to fully understand the energy flow in complex structures. The approach is based on the Helmholtz decomposition. It allows to decompose the structural intensity field into rotational, irrotational, and harmonic components. Only the irrotational component is needed to describe the net power flow from a source to a dissipative zone in the structure. The methodology has been applied on academic structures, and it allows a good analysis of the energy transfer paths.

Keywords: structural intensity, power flow, helmholt decomposition, irrotational intensity

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Authors: Hamidreza Mehrabi, Mandana Rezayee

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The coated seed process is from amplifier ways that stick various materials on the outer surface of the seeds that minimize the negative environmental effects and increase the ability of Plant establishment. This study was done to assess the effects of coated seed on the germination speed of Astragalus adscendens in different conditions of drought stress and planting depth as it was conducted with a completely randomized factorial design with four replications. treatments of covering material was used in Four non coating levels (NC), mineral-based coating (CC), organic - based coating (OC) hydro gel-based coating (HC) ; treatment of moisture percent used in three levels of dried soil content, treatments of planting depth in two surfaces of planting and three times of the seed diameter was 9%, 14% and 21 % respectively. During the test, it was evaluated the germination speed attribute. The main results showed that moisture treatments and planting depth at a surface of 1% (P <0/01) was significant and has no significant effect of treatment materials. Also, In examining of the interaction between type of covering material and soil moisture were not observed significant differences for germination speed between covering treatments and controls covering, but there was a significant difference between treatments in 9% and 21%. Although in examining the triple interaction, increasing moisture and planting depth enhanced the speed of germination process, but it was not significant statistically, while it has made important differences in terms of description; because it had not growth in the moisture level of 9% and shallow cultivation (high stress). However, treatment of covered materials growth has developed significantly, so it can be useful in enhancing plant performance.

Keywords: seed coating, soil moisture, sowing depth, germination percentage

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Authors: Chandrabati Chakraborty

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The progressive emergence, in the course of the evolution of life, mind and personality, requires us to assume a creative Principle operating timeless Reality in the temporal. The difference between Western philosophy and that of India, concerns the origin and the purpose of the philosophical enquiry. While the former wonders at the external world, the latter is awareness of perennial suffering associated with human existence. The present world suffers from a basic form of rootlessness,reflecting many psychological, philosophical studies. Alienation,a major theme of human condition in the contemporary epoch has emerged as natural consequences of existential predicament. As Edmund Fuller also observes that individuals suffer not only from famine, ruin or even war but also from devastating inner problems, which are that of estrangement, hopelessness and utter despair. This existentialism is thus considered by Jean Wahl as the “Philosophies of existence”.The post world war scenario well analyses the chaos,annihilation,frustration and anguished estrangement. In such conditions when the West cries out , “What is there?I know first of all that I am.But who am I?.....I am sepeated.What I am seperated from I cannot name it. But I am seperated.”(Dostoevsky:The Confession), Vedantic philosophy looks upon the Pilgrim’s Progress of Humanity as being essentially one,operationg squarely within the bounds of reality, reflecting a basic human experience, outbraving indecorous dictims that have failed to give due honour to human beings,echoing for centuries the Sanskrit slokas with ultimate certitude: II Esa Atma samaha plusina samo masakena samo nagena sama ebhis tribhir lokaih.....sama nena sarvena II (The Atman (Divine Soul) is the same in the ant, the same in the gnat, the same in the elephant, the same in these three worlds....the same in the whole Universe). The present paper aims at a comparative study of cultural and philosophical expression taking into view extensive illustrations from Western Philosophers and The Vedantic,Upanishadic lores of Indian philosophy.

Keywords: existentialism, Vedanta, philosophy, absurdism

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Authors: Mohammad Hassan Ramezan zadeh 1 , Majid Seifi 2 , Hoda Hekmat ara 2 1Biomedical Engineering Department, Near East University, Nicosia, Cyprus 2Physics Department, Guilan University , P.O. Box 41335-1914, Rasht, Iran.

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Magnetic nano particles of ferric chloride were synthesised using a co-precipitation technique. For the optimal results, ferric chloride at room temperature was added to different surfactant with different ratio of metal ions/surfactant. The samples were characterised using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectrum to show the presence of nanoparticles, structure and morphology. Magnetic measurements were also carried out on samples using a Vibrating Sample Magnetometer. To show the effect of surfactant on size distribution and crystalline structure of produced nanoparticles, surfactants with various charge such as anionic cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), cationic sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and neutral TritonX-100 was employed. By changing the surfactant and ratio of metal ions/surfactant the size and crystalline structure of these nanoparticles were controlled. We also show that using anionic stabilizer leads to smallest size and narrowest size distribution and the most crystalline (polycrystalline) structure. In developing our production technique, many parameters were varied. Efforts at reproducing good yields indicated which of the experimental parameters were the most critical and how carefully they had to be controlled. The conditions reported here were the best that we encountered but the range of possible parameter choice is so large that these probably only represent a local optimum. The samples for our chemical process were prepared by adding 0.675 gr ferric chloride (FeCl3, 6H2O) to three different surfactant in water solution. The solution was sonicated for about 30 min until a transparent solution was achieved. Then 0.5 gr sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as a reduction agent was poured to the reaction drop by drop which resulted to participate reddish brown Fe2O3 nanoparticles. After washing with ethanol the obtained powder was calcinated in 600°C for 2h. Here, the sample 1 contained CTAB as a surfactant with ratio of metal ions/surfactant 1/2, sample 2 with CTAB and ratio 1/1, sample 3 with SDS and ratio 1/2, sample 4 SDS 1/1, sample 5 is triton-X-100 with 1/2 and sample 6 triton-X-100 with 1/1.

Keywords: iron oxide nanoparticles, stabilizer, co-precipitation, surfactant

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Authors: M. F. Amado, A. Amado, F. Poggi, J. Correia de Freitas

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Today it is widely understood that global energy consumption patterns are directly related to the ongoing urban expansion and development process. This expansion is based on the natural growth of human activities and has left most urban areas totally dependent on fossil fuel derived external energy inputs. This status-quo of production, transportation, storage and consumption of energy has become inefficient and is set to become even more so when the continuous increases in energy demand are factored in. The territorial management of land use and related activities is a central component in the search for more efficient models of energy use, models that can meet current and future regional, national and European goals. In this paper, a methodology is developed and discussed with the aim of improving energy efficiency at the municipal level. The development of this methodology is based on the monitoring of energy consumption and its use patterns resulting from the natural dynamism of human activities in the territory and can be utilized to assess sustainability at the local scale. A set of parameters and indicators are defined with the objective of constructing a systemic model based on the optimization, adaptation and innovation of the current energy framework and the associated energy consumption patterns. The use of the model will enable local governments to strike the necessary balance between human activities, economic development, and the local and global environment while safeguarding fairness in the energy sector.

Keywords: solar urban planning, solar smart city, urban development, energy efficiency

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Authors: Chibuzor Dalmeida

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This paper shall discuss the factors affecting English Language Acquisition and Learning for Primary School in Nigeria. Learning English language is a difficult task mostly those at the primary school level. Pupils find it more difficult on vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure, idioms, pronunciation etc. Researchers have discovered the reasons behind these discrepancies and have formulated theories that could be of utmost assistance to English language teachers and students. This paper further looked at the following factors that include Learner Characteristics and Personal Traits, Situational and Environmental Factors, Prior Language Development and Competence and Age and Brain Development. It further recommended that pupils must learn new vocabulary, rules for grammar and sentence structure, idioms, pronunciation. Pupils whose families and communities set high standards for language acquisition learn more quickly than those who do not. Exposure to high-quality programs also essential. Pupils do best when they are allowed to speak their native language.

Keywords: acquisition, affecting, factors, learning

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Authors: Faiqa Jalal

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The purpose of the following research paper is to discuss the differentiating meanings of culture and how popular culture has maintained a great impact on intercultural and international behavior. The following discussion leads to the notion of communicating cultural impact on behavior through advertising and sub-cultural theory in advertising. Although towards the end of the research, the complexities that develop through the above discussion, lead to the solution that ‘advertising gives meaning to the otherwise meaningless and identical objects through linking them to our basic needs’. In today’s fast paced digital world, it is difficult to define culture, literally, since its meaning tends to shift through series of different perceptions such as ‘how’ and ‘why’ it should be used. This notion can be taken towards another notion of popular culture. It is dependent on ‘attitudes, ideas, images, perspectives and other phenomena within the mainstream of a given culture’. Since popular culture is influenced by mass media, it has a way of influencing an individual’s attitude towards certain topics. For example, tattoos are a form of human decorations, that have historic significance, and a huge spectrum of meanings. Advertising is one aspect of marketing that has evolved from the time when it was ‘production oriented’, up till the time it started using different mediums to make its impact more effective. However, this impact has confused us between our needs and desires. The focus in this paper is ‘we consume to acquire a sense of social identity and status, not just for the sake of consumption’. Every culture owns different expressions, which are then used by advertisers to create its impact on the behavior of people sub-culturally and globally, as culture grows through social interaction. Advertisers furthermore play a smart role in highlighting quality of life ranging from ‘survival to well-being’. Hence, this research paper concludes by highlighting that culture is considered as a ‘basic root’ of any community that also provides solution to certain problems; however, advertisers play their part in manipulating society’s literacy and beliefs by rationalizing how relevant certain products/brands are to their beliefs.

Keywords: mass media, popular culture, production oriented, sub-culture

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Authors: N. A. Parvin, E. B. Ferranti, L. A. Chapman, C. A. Pfrang

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This study intends to investigate the effects of the Urban Heat Island on public health in Birmingham. Birmingham is located at the center of the West Midlands and its weather is Highly variable due to geographical factors. Residential developments, road networks and infrastructure often replace open spaces and vegetation. This transformation causes the temperature of urban areas to increase and creates an "island" of higher temperatures in the urban landscape. Extreme heat in the urban area is influencing public health in the UK as well as in the world. Birmingham is a densely built-up area with skyscrapers and congested buildings in the city center, which is a barrier to air circulation. We will investigate the city regarding heat and cold-related human mortality and other impacts. We are using primary and secondary datasets to examine the effect of population shift and land-use change on the UHI in Birmingham. We will also use freely available weather data from the Birmingham Urban Observatory and will incorporate satellite data to determine urban spatial expansion and its effect on the UHI. We have produced a temperature map based on summer datasets of 2020, which has covered 25 weather stations in Birmingham to show the differences between diurnal and nocturnal summer and annual temperature trends. Some impacts of the UHI may be beneficial, such as the lengthening of the plant growing season, but most of them are highly negative. We are looking for various effects of urban heat which is impacting human health and investigating mitigation options.

Keywords: urban heat, public health, climate change

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Authors: Mohamed Habila, Ahmed Mohamed El-Toni, Mohamed Sheikh Moshab, Abdulrhman Al-Awadi, Zeid AL Othman

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Water pollution with dyes is a critical environmental issue because off the huge amount of dyes disbarred annually, which cause severe damage for the ecosystem and human life. The main raison for this severs pollution is the rapid industrial development which led to more production of harmful pollutants. on the other hand, the core shell based magnetic materials have showed amazing character for controlling the material synthesis with the targeted structure to enhance the adsorptive removal of pollutants. Herein, the Fe3O4core-meso SiO2/TiO2 double shell have been prepared for methylene blue dye adsorption. the preparation procedure is controlled to prepare the magnetic core with further coating layers from silica and titania. The prepared Fe3O4core-meso SiO2/TiO2 double shell showed adsorption capacity for methylene blue removal about 50 mg/g at pH 6 after 80 min contact time form 50 ppm methylene blue solution. The adsorption process of methylene blue onto Fe3O4core-meso SiO2/TiO2 double shell was well fitted with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and freundlish isotherm, indicating a quick and multilayer adsorption mechanism.

Keywords: magnetic core, silica shell, titania shell, water treatment, methylene blue, solvo-thermal process, adsorption

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Authors: Zainab S. Ahmed, Mohammed S. Ali, Nadia A. Elshiekh, Sami Adam Ibrahim, Ghada M. El-Tayeb, Ahmed H. Elsadig, Rihab A. Omer, Sofia B. Mohamed

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Maple syrup urine (MSUD) is an autosomal recessive disease that causes a deficiency in the enzyme branched-chain alpha-keto acid (BCKA) dehydrogenase. The development of disease has been associated with SNPs in the DBT gene. Despite that, the computational analysis of SNPs in coding and noncoding and their functional impacts on protein level still remains unknown. Hence, in this study, we carried out a comprehensive in silico analysis of missense that was predicted to have a harmful influence on DBT structure and function. In this study, eight different in silico prediction algorithms; SIFT, PROVEAN, MutPred, SNP&GO, PhD-SNP, PANTHER, I-Mutant 2.0 and MUpo were used for screening nsSNPs in DBT including. Additionally, to understand the effect of mutations in the strength of the interactions that bind protein together the ELASPIC servers were used. Finally, the 3D structure of DBT was formed using Mutation3D and Chimera servers respectively. Our result showed that a total of 15 nsSNPs confirmed by 4 software (R301C, R376H, W84R, S268F, W84C, F276C, H452R, R178H, I355T, V191G, M444T, T174A, I200T, R113H, and R178C) were found damaging and can lead to a shift in DBT gene structure. Moreover, we found 7 nsSNPs located on the 2-oxoacid_dh catalytic domain, 5 nsSNPs on the E_3 binding domain and 3 nsSNPs on the Biotin Domain. So these nsSNPs may alter the putative structure of DBT’s domain. Furthermore, we detected all these nsSNPs are on the core residues of the protein and have the ability to change the stability of the protein. Additionally, we found W84R, S268F, and M444T have high significance, and they affected Leucine, Isoleucine, and Valine, which reduces or disrupt the function of BCKD complex, E2-subunit which the DBT gene encodes. In conclusion, based on our extensive in-silico analysis, we report 15 nsSNPs that have possible association with protein deteriorating and disease-causing abilities. These candidate SNPs can aid in future studies on Maple Syrup Urine Disease type II base in the genetic level.

Keywords: DBT gene, ELASPIC, in silico analysis, UCSF chimer

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Authors: Asifa Amara, Prachi Singh, Kanishka, Debargho Pathak, Akshat Kumar, Jayakumar Eravelly

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Today's generation is totally dependent on technology that uses data as its fuel. The present study is all about innovations and developments in data science and gives an idea about how efficiently to use the data provided. This study will help to understand the core concepts of data science. The concept of artificial intelligence was introduced by Alan Turing in which the main principle was to create an artificial system that can run independently of human-given programs and can function with the help of analyzing data to understand the requirements of the users. Data science comprises business understanding, analyzing data, ethical concerns, understanding programming languages, various fields and sources of data, skills, etc. The usage of data science has evolved over the years. In this review article, we have covered a part of data science, i.e., machine learning. Machine learning uses data science for its work. Machines learn through their experience, which helps them to do any work more efficiently. This article includes a comparative study image between human understanding and machine understanding, advantages, applications, and real-time examples of machine learning. Data science is an important game changer in the life of human beings. Since the advent of data science, we have found its benefits and how it leads to a better understanding of people, and how it cherishes individual needs. It has improved business strategies, services provided by them, forecasting, the ability to attend sustainable developments, etc. This study also focuses on a better understanding of data science which will help us to create a better world.

Keywords: data science, machine learning, data analytics, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Rhea Kapoor

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Fractal dimension provides a way to characterize non-geometric shapes like those found in nature. The purpose of this research is to estimate Minkowski fractal dimension of human lung images for early detection of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among all types of cancer and an early histopathological analysis will help reduce deaths primarily due to late diagnosis. A Python application program, PathoPy2.0, was developed for analyzing medical images in pixelated format and estimating Minkowski fractal dimension using a new box-counting algorithm that allows windowing of images for more accurate calculation in the suspected areas of cancerous growth. Benchmark geometric fractals were used to validate the accuracy of the program and changes in fractal dimension of lung images to indicate the presence of issues in the lung. The accuracy of the program for the benchmark examples was between 93-99% of known values of the fractal dimensions. Fractal dimension values were then calculated for lung images, from National Cancer Institute, taken over time to correctly detect the presence of cancerous growth. For example, as the fractal dimension for a given lung increased from 1.19 to 1.27 due to cancerous growth, it represents a significant change in fractal dimension which lies between 1 and 2 for 2-D images. Based on the results obtained on many lung test cases, it was concluded that fractal dimension of human lungs can be used to diagnose lung cancer early. The ideas behind PathoPy2.0 can also be applied to study patterns in the electrical activity of the human brain and DNA matching.

Keywords: fractals, histopathological analysis, image processing, lung cancer, Minkowski dimension

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Authors: Rojith K. Balakrishnan

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Plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL) is an uncommon, recently described B-cell derived lymphoma that is most commonly seen in patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Here we report a case of PBL in a 35 year old man with HIV who presented with multiple subcutaneous swellings all over the body and oral mucosal lesions.The biopsy report was suggestive of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma. Immunohistochemistry was done which showed, lymphoma cells, positive for MUM1, CD 138, and VS 38. The proliferation index (MIB) was 95%. Final report was consistent with the diagnosis of Plasmablastic Lymphoma. The lesion completely regressed after treatment with systemic chemotherapy. Up to date, only a few cases of plasmablastic lymphoma have been reported from India. Increased frequency of this lymphoma in HIV patients and rarity of the tumour, along with rapid response of the same to chemotherapy, make this case a unique one. Hence the knowledge about this new entity is important for clinicians who deal with HIV patients.

Keywords: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), oral cavity lesion, plasmablastic lymphoma, subcutaneous swelling

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Authors: Scott Andersen

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Perhaps simply and rather unadornedly, consciousness is having multiple goals for action and the continuously adjudication of such goals to implement action, referred to as the Maps of Meaning (MoM) Consciousness Theory. The MoM theory triangulates through three parallel corollaries, action (behavior), mechanism (morphology/pathophysiology), and goals (teleology). (1) An organism’s consciousness contains a fluid, nested goals. These goals are not intentionality, but intersectionality, embodiment meeting the world. i.e., Darwinian inclusive fitness or randomization, then survival of the fittest. These goals form via gradual descent under inclusive fitness, the goals being the abstraction of a ‘match’ between the evolutionary environment and organism. Human consciousness implements the brain efficiency hypothesis, genetics, epigenetics, and experience crystallize efficiencies, not necessitating best or objective but fitness, i.e., perceived efficiency based on one’s adaptive environment. These efficiencies are objectively arbitrary, but determine the operation and level of one’s consciousness, termed extreme thrownness. Since inclusive fitness drives efficiencies in physiologic mechanism, morphology and behavior (action) and originates one’s goals, embodiment is necessarily entangled to human consciousness as its the intersection of mechanism or action (both necessitating embodiment) occurring in the world that determines fitness. Perception is the operant process of consciousness and is the consciousness’ de facto goal adjudication process. Goal operationalization is fundamentally efficiency-based via one’s unique neuronal mapping as a byproduct of genetics, epigenetics, and experience. Perception involves information intake and information discrimination, equally underpinned by efficiencies of inclusive fitness via extreme thrownness. Perception isn’t a ‘frame rate,’ but Bayesian priors of efficiency based on one’s extreme thrownness. Consciousness and human consciousness is a modular (i.e., a scalar level of richness, which builds up like building blocks) and dimensionalized (i.e., cognitive abilities become possibilities as emergent phenomena at various modularities, like stratified factors in factor analysis). The meta dimensions of human consciousness seemingly include intelligence quotient, personality (five-factor model), richness of perception intake, and richness of perception discrimination, among other potentialities. Future consciousness research should utilize factor analysis to parse modularities and dimensions of human consciousness and animal models.

Keywords: consciousness, perception, prospection, embodiment

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Authors: Sami Iqbal, Azam Hussain, Weiping Wu, Guo Xinli, Tong Zhang

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A novel octagonal upright micro-pyramid structure was generated by wet chemical anisotropic etching on a monocrystalline silicon wafer (100). The primary objectives are to reduce front surface reflectance of silicon wafers, improve wettability, enhance surface morphology, and maximize the area coverage by generated octagonal pyramids. Under rigorous control and observation, the etching process' response time was maintained precisely. The experimental outcomes show a significant decrease in the optical surface reflectance of silicon wafers, with the lowest reflectance of 8.98%, as well as enhanced surface structure, periodicity, and surface area coverage of more than 85%. The octagonal silicon pyramid was formed with a high etch rate of 0.41 um/min and a much shorter reaction time with the addition of hydrofluoric acid coupled with magnetic stirring (mechanical agitation) at 300 rpm.

Keywords: octagonal pyramids, rapid etching, solar cells, surface engineering, surface reflectance

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Authors: Hooman Mehdizadeh Rad, Jai Singh

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Organic solar cells (OSCs) have been actively investigated in the last two decades due to their several merits such as simple fabrication process, low-cost manufacturing, and lightweight. In this paper, using the optical transfer matrix method (OTMM) and solving the drift-diffusion equations processes of recombination are studied in inverted and conventional bulk heterojunction (BHJ) OSCs. Two types of recombination processes are investigated: 1) recombination of free charge carriers using the Langevin theory and 2) of trapped charge carriers in the tail states with exponential energy distribution. These recombination processes are incorporated in simulating the current- voltage characteristics of both conventional and inverted BHJ OSCs. The results of this simulation produces a higher power conversion efficiency in the inverted structure in comparison with conventional structure, which agrees well with the experimental results.

Keywords: conventional organic solar cells, exponential tail state recombination, inverted organic solar cells, Langevin recombination

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Authors: Anthony Nyamekeh-Armah Adjei, Toshiaki Aoki

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The unreliable and poor efficiency of electricity distribution leading to frequent power outages and high losses are the major challenge facing the power distribution sector in Ghana. Distribution system routes electricity from the power generating station at a higher voltage through the transmission grid and steps it down through the low voltage lines to end users. Approximately all electricity problems and disturbances that have increased the call for renewable and sustainable energy in recent years have their roots in the distribution system. Therefore, sustaining electricity distribution efficiency can potentially contribute to the reserve of natural energy resources use in power generation, reducing greenhouse gas emission (GHG), decreasing tariffs for consumers and effective human security. Human Security is a people-centered approach where individual human being is the principal object of concern, focuses on protecting the vital core of all human lives in ways for meeting basic needs that enhance the safety and protection of individuals and communities. The vulnerability is the diminished capacity of an individual or group to anticipate, resist and recover from the effect of natural, human-induced disaster. The research objectives are to explore the causes of frequent power outages to consumers, high losses in the distribution network and the effect of poor electricity distribution efficiency on the vulnerable (poor and ordinary) people that mostly depend on electricity for their daily activities or life to survive. The importance of the study is that in a developing country like Ghana where raising a capital for new infrastructure project is difficult, it would be beneficial to enhance the efficiency that will significantly minimize the high energy losses, reduce power outage, to ensure safe and reliable delivery of electric power to consumers to secure the security of people’s livelihood. The methodology used in this study is both interview and questionnaire survey to analyze the response from the respondents on causes of power outages and high losses facing the electricity company of Ghana (ECG) and its effect on the livelihood on the vulnerable people. Among the outcome of both administered questionnaire and the interview survey from the field were; poor maintenance of existing sub-stations, use of aging equipment, use of poor distribution infrastructure and poor metering and billing system. The main observation of this paper is that the poor network efficiency (high losses and power outages) affects the livelihood of the vulnerable people. Therefore, the paper recommends that policymakers should insist on all regulation guiding electricity distribution to improve system efficiency. In conclusion, there should be decentralization of off-grid solar PV technologies to provide a sustainable and cost-effective, which can increase daily productivity and improve the quality of life of the vulnerable people in the rural communities.

Keywords: electricity efficiency, high losses, human security, power outage

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Authors: Desta Gebretekle Shiferaw, Balakrishna Kalluraya

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Pyrazole is an aromatic five-membered heterocycle with two nitrogen and three carbon atoms in its ring structure. According to the literature, pyrazoline, pyrazole, and thiazole-containing moieties are found in various drug structures and are responsible for nearly all pharmacological effects. The pyrazoline linked to pyrazole moiety carbothioamides was synthesized via the reaction of pyrazole-bearing chalcones (3-(5-chloro-3-methyl-¹-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)-¹-(substituted aryl) prop-2-ene-¹-one derivatives) with a nucleophile thiosemicarbohyrazide by heating in ethanol using fused sodium acetate as a catalyst. Then the carbothioamide derivatives were converted into the pyrazoline hybrid to pyrazole and thiazole derivatives by condensing with substituted phenacyl bromide in alcohol in a basic medium. Next, the chemical structure of the newly synthesized molecules was confirmed by IR, 1H-NMR, and mass spectral data. Further, they were screened for their in vitro antioxidant activity. Compared to butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA)., the antioxidant data showed that the synthesized compounds had good to moderate activity.

Keywords: pyrazoline-pyrazole carbothioamide derivatives, pyrazoline-pyrazole-thiazole derivatives, spectral studies, antioxidant activity

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Authors: Anitha Kandasamy, Thirumurugan Ramaiah

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Interestingly, organic materials exhibit large optical nonlinearity with quick responses and having the flexibility of molecular tailoring using computational modelling and favourable synthetic methodologies. Pyridine based organic compounds and carboxylic acid contained aromatic compounds play a crucial role in crystal engineering of NCS complexes that displays admirable optical nonlinearity with fast response and favourable physicochemical properties such as low dielectric constant, wide optical transparency and large laser damage threshold value requires for optoelectronics device applications. Based on these facts, it was projected to form an acentric molecule of π-conjugated system interaction with appropriately replaced electron donor and acceptor groups for achieving higher SHG activity in which quinoline-2-carboyxlic acid is chosen as an electron acceptor and capable of acting as an acid as well as a base molecule, while 2-amino-4-methylpyridine is used as an electron donor and previously employed in numerous proton transfer complexes for synthesis of NLO materials for optoelectronic applications. 2-amino-4-mehtylpyridinium quinoline-2-carboxylate molecular complex (2AQ) is having π-donor-acceptor groups in which 2-amino-4-methylpyridine donates one of its electron to quinoline -2-carboxylic acid thereby forming a protonated 2-amino-4-methyl pyridinium moiety and mono ionized quinoline-2-carboxylate moiety which are connected via N-H…O intermolecular interactions with non-centrosymmetric crystal packing arrangement at microscopic scale is accountable to the enhancement of macroscopic second order NLO activity. The 2AQ crystal was successfully grown by a slow evaporation solution growth technique and its structure was determined in orthorhombic crystal system with acentric, P212121, space group. Hirshfeld surface analysis reveals that O…H intermolecular interactions primarily contributed with 31.0 % to the structural stabilization of 2AQ. The molecular structure of title compound has been confirmed by 1H and 13C NMR spectral studies. The vibrational modes of functional groups present in 2AQ have been assigned by using FTIR and FT-Raman spectroscopy. The grown 2AQ crystal exhibits high optical transparency with lower cut-off wavelength (275 nm) within the region of 275-1500 nm. The laser study confirmed that 2AQ exhibits high SHG efficiency of 12.6 times greater than that of KDP. TGA-DTA analysis revealed that 2AQ crystal had a thermal stability of 223 °C. The low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss at higher frequencies confirmed good crystalline nature with fewer defects of grown 2AQ crystal. The grown crystal exhibits soft material and positive photoconduction behaviour. Mulliken atomic distribution and FMOs analysis suggested that the strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding which lead to the enhancement of NLO activity. These properties suggest that 2AQ crystal is a suitable material for optoelectronic and laser frequency conversion applications.

Keywords: crystal growth, NLO activity, proton transfer complex, quantum chemical investigation

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Authors: Menouni Aziza, Chbihi Kaoutar, El Jaafari Samir

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There is strong evidence connecting epidemics with the disruption of the human-animal-environment interaction. Despite the fact that several cases of emerging and endemic zoonotic diseases indifferent parts of Africa have been documented, there is limited data regarding which specific interventions are effective in preventing and managing the associated risks using a One Health approach. The aim of this study is to better understand perceptions and ongoing research related to interventions in Africa through the implementation of suitable projects and policies. A bibliometric review of the scientific literature on one health studies with a focus on African countries was conducted, followed by a qualitative survey among stakeholders involved in fields related to One Health research or management in the Africa, including veterinary experts, public health professionals, environmentalists and policy makers, to learn about determinants of their perceptions, as well as barriers to and promoters of successful interventions and governance. The project was concluded with an international workshop in March 2023, where a broad range of topics relevant to One Health were discussed. 94% of the respondents were aware of the importance of the One Health approach and strongly endorse it within their respective countries. The top reported barriers to One Health development in Africa included paucity of data, weak linkages and institutional communication between the different departments and the lack of funding. Key areas of improvement identified were the impact evaluation of current initiatives, awareness raising campaigns among citizens targeted at behavioral changes, capacity building of relevant professionals and stakeholders, as well as the implementation of adequate policies and enforcement of national and continental regulations, allowing for better coordination on the African level. All One Health sectors in Africa require strong governance and leadership, as well as inter-ministerial, inter-sectoral, and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Keywords: one health, perceptions, governance, Africa

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Authors: Mohammad Derakhshani, Saeed Reza Allahkaram, Michael Isakani-Zakaria, Masoud Samadian, Hojat Sharifi Rasaey

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Dynamic stray currents tend to change their magnitude and polarity with time at their source which will create anodic and cathodic spots on a nearby interfered structure. To date, one of the biggest known dynamic stray current sources are DC traction systems. Laboratory simulation is a suitable method to apply theoretical principles in order to identify effective parameters in dynamic stray current influenced corrosion. Simulation techniques can be utilized for various mitigation methods applied in a small scales for selection of the most efficient method with regards to field applications. In this research, laboratory simulation of potential fluctuations caused by dynamic stray current on a cathodically protected structure was investigated. A lab model capable of generating DC static and dynamic stray currents and simulating its effects on cathodically protected samples were developed based on stray current induced (contact-less) polarization technique. Stray current pick-up and discharge spots on an influenced structure were simulated by inducing fluctuations in the sample’s stationary potential. Two mitigation methods for dynamic stray current interference on buried structures namely application of sacrificial anodes as preferred discharge point for the stray current and potentially controlled cathodic protection was investigated. Results showed that the application of sacrificial anodes can be effective in reducing interference only in discharge spot. But cathodic protection through potential controlling is more suitable for mitigating dynamic stray current effects.

Keywords: simulation, dynamic stray current, fluctuating potentials, sacrificial anode

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Authors: Ali Taheri Mirghaed, Sara Ahani, Ashkan Zargar, Seyyed Morteza Hoseini

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Diseases are the major challenges in intensive aquaculture that cause significant annual losses. Antibiotic-therapy is a common way to control bacterial disease in fish, and oxytetracycline (OTC) is the only oral antibiotic in aquaculture approved FDA. OTC has been found to have negative effects on fish, such as oxidative stress and immune-suppression, thus, it is necessary to mitigate such effects. Medicinal herbs have various benefits on fish, including antioxidant, immunostimulant, and anti-microbial effects. Therefore, we hypothesized if dietary ginger meal (GM) interacts with dietary OTC by monitoring plasma protein fractions in rainbow trout. The study was conducted as a 2 × 2 factorial design, including diets containing 0 and 1% GM and 0 and 1.66 % OTC (corresponding to 100 mg/kg fish biomass per day). After ten days treating the fish (60 g individual weight) with these feeds, blood samples were taken from al treatments (n =3). Plasma was separated by centrifugation, and protein fractions were determined by electrophoresis. The results showed that OTC and GM had interaction effects on total protein (P<0.001), albumin (P<0.001), alpha-1 fraction (P=0.010), alpha-2 fraction (P=0.001), beta-2 fraction (P=0.014), and gamma fraction (P<0.001). Beta-1 fraction was significantly (P=0.030) affected by dietary GM. GM decreased plasma total protein, albumin, and beta-2 but increased beta-1 fraction. OTC significantly decreased total protein (P<0.001), albumin (P=0.001), alpha-2 fraction (P<0.001), beta-2 fraction (P=0.004), and gamma fraction (P<0.001) but had no significant effects on alpha-1 and beta-1 fractions. Dietary GM inhibited/suppressed the effects of dietary OTC on the plasma total protein and protein fractions. In conclusion, adding 1% GM to diet can mitigate the negative effects of dietary OTC on plasma proteins. Thus, GM may boost health of rainbow trout during the period of medication with OTC.

Keywords: ginger, plasma protein electrophoresis, dietary additive, rainbow trout

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Authors: Ke Wang, Zhu Wang

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Coordinating and promoting urban and rural development has been a new round of institutional change in Zhejiang province since 2004. And this plan was fully implemented, which showed that the isolation between the urban and rural areas had gradually diminished. Little by little, an infiltration interface that is dynamic, flexible and interactive is formed, and this morphological structure starts to appear on the landscape form in the surrounding villages. In order to study the specific function and formation of the structure in the context of industrial revolution, Bimen village located on the interface between Anji Township, Huzhou and Yuhang District, Hangzhou is taken as the case. Anji township is in the cross area between Yangtze River delta economic circle and innovation center in Hangzhou. Awarded with ‘Chinese beautiful village’, Bimen has witnessed the growing process of infiltration in ecology, economy, technology and culture on the interface. Within the opportunity, Bimen village presents internal reformation to adapt to the energy exchange with urban areas. In the research, the reformation is to adjust the industrial structure, to upgrade the local special bamboo crafts, to release space for activities, and to establish infrastructures on the interface. The characteristic of an interface is elasticity achieved by introducing an Internet platform using ‘O2O’ agriculture method to connect cities and farmlands. There is a platform of this kind in Bimen named ‘Xiao Mei’. ‘Xiao’ in Chinese means small, ‘Mei’ means beautiful, which indicates the method to refine the landscape form. It turns out that the new agriculture mode will strengthen the interface by orienting the Third Party Platform upon the old dynamic basis and will bring new vitality for economy development in Bimen village. The research concludes opportunities and challenges generated by the evolution of the infiltration interface. It also proposes strategies for how to organically adapt to the urbanization process. Finally it demonstrates what will happen by increasing flexibility in the landscape forms of suburbs in the Bimen village.

Keywords: Bimen village, infiltration interface, flexibility, suburban landscape form

Procedia PDF Downloads 359

Authors: Kars Beek, Remco Groeneveld, Sjaak Brinkkemper

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Although there is much literature available on requirement documentation in traditional software development, few studies have been conducted about this topic in open source software development. While open-source software development is becoming more important, the software development processes are often not as structured as corporate software development processes. Papers show that communities, creating open-source software, often lack structure and documentation. However, most recent studies about this topic are often ten or more years old. Therefore, this research has been conducted to determine if the lack of structure and documentation in requirement engineering is currently still the situation in these communities. Three open-source products have been chosen as subjects for conducting this research. The data for this research was gathered based on interviews, observations, and analyses of feature proposals and issue tracking tools. In this paper, we present a comparison and an analysis of the different methods used for requirements documentation to understand the current practices of requirements documentation in open source software development.

Keywords: case study, open source software, open source software development, requirement elicitation, requirement engineering

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Authors: Asim Cengiz, Dede Basturk, Hakan Ozalp

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Practicing recurring resistance workout such as may cause changes in human muscle. These changes may be because combination if several factors determining physical fitness. Thus, it is important to identify these changes. Several studies were reviewed to investigate these changes. As a result, the changes included positive modifications in amplified citrate synthase (CS) maximal activity, increased capacity for pyruvate oxidation, improvement on molecular signaling on human performance, amplified resting muscle glycogen and whole GLUT4 protein content, better health outcomes such as enhancement in cardiorespiratory fitness. Sprint training also have numerous long long-term changes inhuman body such as better enzyme action, changes in muscle fiber and oxidative ability. This is important because SV is the critical factor influencing maximal cardiac output and therefore oxygen delivery and maximal aerobic power.

Keywords: sprint, training, performance, exercise

Procedia PDF Downloads 289

Authors: Waqqas-ur-Rehman Butt, Martin Servin, Marion Pause

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In recent years, object detection has gained much attention and very encouraging research area in the field of computer vision. The robust object boundaries detection in an image is demanded in numerous applications of human computer interaction and automated surveillance systems. Many methods and approaches have been developed for automatic object detection in various fields, such as automotive, quality control management and environmental services. Inappropriately, to the best of our knowledge, object detection under illumination with shadow consideration has not been well solved yet. Furthermore, this problem is also one of the major hurdles to keeping an object detection method from the practical applications. This paper presents an approach to automatic object detection in images under non-standardized environmental conditions. A key challenge is how to detect the object, particularly under uneven illumination conditions. Image capturing conditions the algorithms need to consider a variety of possible environmental factors as the colour information, lightening and shadows varies from image to image. Existing methods mostly failed to produce the appropriate result due to variation in colour information, lightening effects, threshold specifications, histogram dependencies and colour ranges. To overcome these limitations we propose an object detection algorithm, with pre-processing methods, to reduce the interference caused by shadow and illumination effects without fixed parameters. We use the Y CrCb colour model without any specific colour ranges and predefined threshold values. The segmented object regions are further classified using morphological operations (Erosion and Dilation) and contours. Proposed approach applied on a large image data set acquired under various environmental conditions for wood stack detection. Experiments show the promising result of the proposed approach in comparison with existing methods.

Keywords: image processing, illumination equalization, shadow filtering, object detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 203

Authors: Xiaoying Guo, Xiangyun Wang, Chunhua Jia

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Web page has been one of the most important way of knowing the world. Humans catch a lot of information from it everyday. Thus, understanding where human looks when they surfing the web pages is rather important. In normal scenes, the down-top features and top-down tasks significantly affect humans’ eye movement. In this paper, we investigated if the conventional visual salience algorithm can properly predict humans’ visual attractive region when they viewing the web pages. First, we obtained the eye movement data when the participants viewing the web pages using an eye tracker. By the analysis of eye movement data, we studied the influence of visual saliency and thinking way on eye-movement pattern. The analysis result showed that thinking way affect human’ eye-movement pattern much more than visual saliency. Second, we compared the results of web page visual salience region extracted by Itti model and Spectral Residual (SR) model. The results showed that Spectral Residual (SR) model performs superior than Itti model by comparison with the heat map from eye movements. Considering the influence of mind habit on humans’ visual region of interest, we introduced one of the most important cue in mind habit-fixation position to improved the SR model. The result showed that the improved SR model can better predict the human visual region of interest in web pages.

Keywords: web page salience region, eye-tracker, spectral residual, visual salience

Procedia PDF Downloads 264

Authors: Alieu B. Sanneh

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In a country where there are minimal economic opportunities, with a declining living condition of the people, do electorates in Africa’s newest democracy reevaluate their support for a candidate based on issues or ethnicity. In the 2016 presidential election in The Gambia, the opposition coalition party had successfully managed to overthrow an authoritarian government, which has ruled the country for 22 years. The results of the election are not only surprising but also presented an interesting theoretical puzzle that raises important this paper is going to address. An important fact is that dictator had organized an election which he lost, and this paper will assess the voting decisions of Gambian electorates to determine whether they were more concerned with issues such as status of the economy, human rights abuses by the Jammeh administration or the ethnicities of the contestants who took part in the election. This study uses field survey data, conducted six months after this historic vote, to evaluate the opinion of the electorates. Contrary to the notion of the prevalence of ethnic voting in African elections, an argument made by many scholars, this study concluded that Gambian voters were more concerned with issues such as the economy and human rights under the Jammeh administration than they were for the ethnicities of the candidates. The election was issue-based, and that Jammeh lost the polls due to the concern the electorate had on human rights abuses by his government.

Keywords: election, issue, ethnicity, regime change

Procedia PDF Downloads 98