Search results for: handle value

Authors: T. Obateru, Samuel Olaniran

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In an era when the new media is affording easy access to packaging and dissemination of information, the social media have become a popular avenue for sharing information for good or ill. It is evident that the traditional role of journalists as ‘news breakers’ is fast being eroded. People now share information on happenings via the social media like Facebook, Twitter and the rest, such that journalists themselves now get leads on happenings from such sources. Beyond the access to information provided by the new media is the erosion of the gatekeeping role of journalists who by their training and calling, are supposed to handle information with responsibility. Thus, sensitive information that journalists would normally filter is randomly shared by social media activists. This was the experience of journalists in Jos, Plateau State in January 2010 when another of the recurring ethnoreligious crisis that engulfed the state resulted in another widespread killing, vandalism, looting, and displacements. Considered as one of the high points of crises in the state, journalists who had the duty of covering the crisis also relied on some of these sources to get their bearing on the violence. This paper examined the role of Facebook in the work of journalists who covered the 2010 crisis. Taking the gatekeeping perspective, it interrogated the extent to which Facebook impacted their professional duty positively or negatively vis-à-vis the peace journalism model. It employed survey to elicit information from 50 journalists who covered the crisis using questionnaire as instrument. The paper revealed that the dissemination of hate information via mobile phones and social media, especially Facebook, aggravated the crisis situation. Journalists became news followers rather than news breakers because a lot of them were put on their toes by information (many of which were inaccurate or false) circulated on Facebook. It recommended that journalists must remain true to their calling by upholding their ‘gatekeeping’ role of disseminating only accurate and responsible information if they would remain the main source of credible information on which their audience rely.

Keywords: crisis, ethnoreligious, Facebook, journalists

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Authors: JinWoog Lee, SeongHyeok Lee, ChanYong Choi, Yujin Lim, Hojin Cho

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Primary function of the trackbed in a conventional railway track system is to decrease the stresses in the subgrade to be in an acceptable level. A properly designed trackbed layer performs this task adequately. Many design procedures have used assumed and/or are based on critical stiffness values of the layers obtained mostly in the field to calculate an appropriate thickness of the sublayers of the trackbed foundation. However, those stiffness values do not consider strain levels clearly and precisely in the layers. This study proposes a method of computation of stiffness that can handle with strain level in the layers of the trackbed foundation in order to provide properly selected design values of the stiffness of the layers. The shear modulus values are dependent on shear strain level so that the strain levels generated in the subgrade in the trackbed under wheel loading and below plate of Repeated Plate Bearing Test (RPBT) are investigated by finite element analysis program ABAQUS and PLAXIS programs. The strain levels generated in the subgrade from RPBT are compared to those values from RC (Resonant Column) test after some consideration of strain levels and stress consideration. For comparison of shear modulus G obtained from RC test and stiffness moduli Ev2 obtained from RPBT in the field, many numbers of mid-size RC tests in laboratory and RPBT in field were performed extensively. It was found in this study that there is a big difference in stiffness modulus when the converted Ev2 values were compared to those values of RC test. It is verified in this study that it is necessary to use precise and increased loading steps to construct nonlinear curves from RPBT in order to get correct Ev2 values in proper strain levels.

Keywords: modulus, plate load test, resonant column test, trackbed foundation

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Authors: Irene Yi

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Machine learning, natural language processing, and neural network models of language are becoming more and more prevalent in the fields of technology and linguistics today. Training data for machines are at best, large corpora of human literature and at worst, a reflection of the ugliness in society. Machines have been trained on millions of human books, only to find that in the course of human history, derogatory and sexist adjectives are used significantly more frequently when describing females in history and literature than when describing males. This is extremely problematic, both as training data, and as the outcome of natural language processing. As machines start to handle more responsibilities, it is crucial to ensure that they do not take with them historical sexist and misogynistic notions. This paper gathers data and algorithms from neural network models of language having to deal with syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, and text classification. Results are significant in showing the existing intentional and unintentional misogynistic notions used to train machines, as well as in developing better technologies that take into account the semantics and syntax of text to be more mindful and reflect gender equality. Further, this paper deals with the idea of non-binary gender pronouns and how machines can process these pronouns correctly, given its semantic and syntactic context. This paper also delves into the implications of gendered grammar and its effect, cross-linguistically, on natural language processing. Languages such as French or Spanish not only have rigid gendered grammar rules, but also historically patriarchal societies. The progression of society comes hand in hand with not only its language, but how machines process those natural languages. These ideas are all extremely vital to the development of natural language models in technology, and they must be taken into account immediately.

Keywords: gendered grammar, misogynistic language, natural language processing, neural networks

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Authors: Vincent Jones

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The North African country of Libya is in crisis and is currently a humanitarian disaster. The current American ‘hands off’ foreign policy appear to have contributed to this crisis. The research upon which this paper is based focused on a qualitative analysis of migration to Libya and its history with slavery, current conditions that have contributed to the re-emergence of slavery, an analysis of available resources in the effected region, and an analysis of legal remedies pursuant to international law. In addition, a qualitative analysis of American foreign policy from the Reagan Administration through the current Trump administration has been a focus of analysis. The major findings of this research are: (1) Since the removal of Muammar Gadhafi, a move that the United States played a major role in achieving, the nation of Libya has been in free fall and the rule of law has all but disappeared. As a major port stop for refugees and migrants fleeing atrocities in sub-Saharan African states, Libya has become the gate way to European ports of asylum. The problem is these migrant refugees are unwanted, caught between rival and often ineffective governments, profiteers, and inaction from the international community. (2) The outlook for these refugees is bleak: the ineffective government of Libya is ill-equipped to handle the large influx, European refugee destination states like Italy and Greece are already overburdened by the Syrian refugee crisis and are reluctant to accept more refugees, leaving the powerful and armed Libyan militia in control of a situation that is ripe for exploitation. (3) The combined intervention of the international community, led by a newly committed and engaged American foreign policy. In conclusion, a new American foreign policy approach along with the active engagement of the United Nations, EU, and the African Union can effectively resolve this humanitarian crisis.

Keywords: slavery, Libya, migrants, slave auction

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Authors: Chin-Hsien Yeh, Shao-Wen Chen, Wen-Shu Huang, Chun-Fu Huang, Jong-Rong Wang, Jung-Hua Yang, Yuh-Ming Ferng, Chunkuan Shih

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In this research, a Fukushima-like conditions is simulated with TRACE and RELAP5. Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) occurred the disaster which caused by the earthquake and tsunami. This disaster caused extended loss of all AC power (ELAP). Hence, loss of ultimate heat sink (LUHS) happened finally. In order to handle Fukushima-like conditions, Taiwan Atomic Energy Council (AEC) commanded that Taiwan Power Company should propose strategies to ensure the nuclear power plant safety. One of the diverse and flexible coping strategies (FLEX) is a different water injection strategy. It can execute core injection at 20 Kg/cm2 without depressurization. In this study, TRACE and RELAP5 were used to simulate Maanshan nuclear power plant, which is a three loops PWR in Taiwan, under Fukushima-like conditions and make sure the success criteria of FLEX. Reducing core cooling ability is due to failure of emergency core cooling system (ECCS) in extended loss of all AC power situation. The core water level continues to decline because of the seal leakage, and then FLEX is used to save the core water level and make fuel rods covered by water. The result shows that this mitigation strategy can cool the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) as soon as possible under Fukushima-like conditions, and keep the core water level higher than Top of Active Fuel (TAF). The FLEX can ensure the peak cladding temperature (PCT) below than the criteria 1088.7 K. Finally, the FLEX can provide protection for nuclear power plant and make plant safety.

Keywords: TRACE, RELAP5/MOD3.3, ELAP, FLEX

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Authors: Rakibul Islam Sagor, Sadia Ibnat Raisa

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Many nations across the globe, including Dhaka, are facing challenges in meeting the needs for a satisfactory quality of life due to the combination of a growing population and limited land resources. As a result, maximum spaces in modern cities are engulfed by concrete infrastructure, and there are hardly any open spaces in the urban neighborhoods. Although vertical movement has predominantly been employed for residential and commercial applications, the notion of vertical recreational and sports facilities remains unsettled. The primary objective of this study is to explore the feasibility of implementing vertical adaptations in urban recreational spaces, drawing upon the principles of high-rise theory. This article presents an analysis of the open spaces in Gulshan, Dhaka, focusing on the evaluation of the demand for open recreational and sports facilities that adequately cater to the existing population of the region. Initially, the study tried to identify and examine all potential open spaces within the designated area. Following that, an acceptable place is selected utilizing space syntax analysis, which takes into account the most conveniently accessible space for social interactions in the neighborhood. In addition, socioeconomic conditions of the area have been studied in order to determine the feasibility of the area. Finally, the study presented viable options for vertical urban sports facilities in the context of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Additionally, it seeks to develop strategies for maximizing the use of vertical expansions, thereby promoting a healthier and more active lifestyle among the city's residents. This approach aims to effectively handle the issue of limited land availability and enhance the efficiency of recreational areas around the globe.

Keywords: vertical sports, urban open spaces, social interaction, recreational activities

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Authors: Prashanth Pillai, Purnaprajna Mangsuli

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Oil exploration and production companies invest considerable time and efforts to extract essential well attributes (like well status, surface, and target coordinates, wellbore depths, event timelines, etc.) from unstructured data sources like technical reports, which are often non-standardized, multimodal, and highly domain-specific by nature. It is also important to consider the context when extracting attribute values from reports that contain information on multiple wells/wellbores. Moreover, semantically similar information may often be depicted in different data syntax representations across multiple pages and document sources. We propose a hierarchical multi-source fact extraction workflow based on a deep learning framework to extract essential well attributes at scale. An information retrieval module based on the transformer architecture was used to rank relevant pages in a document source utilizing the page image embeddings and semantic text embeddings. A question answering framework utilizingLayoutLM transformer was used to extract attribute-value pairs incorporating the text semantics and layout information from top relevant pages in a document. To better handle context while dealing with multi-well reports, we incorporate a dynamic query generation module to resolve ambiguities. The extracted attribute information from various pages and documents are standardized to a common representation using a parser module to facilitate information comparison and aggregation. Finally, we use a probabilistic approach to fuse information extracted from multiple sources into a coherent well record. The applicability of the proposed approach and related performance was studied on several real-life well technical reports.

Keywords: natural language processing, deep learning, transformers, information retrieval

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Authors: Yanling Li, Linying Ji, Zita Oravecz, Timothy R. Brick, Michael D. Hunter, Sy-Miin Chow

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Assessing several individuals intensively over time yields intensive longitudinal data (ILD). Even though ILD provide rich information, they also bring other data analytic challenges. One of these is the increased occurrence of missingness with increased study length, possibly under non-ignorable missingness scenarios. Multiple imputation (MI) handles missing data by creating several imputed data sets, and pooling the estimation results across imputed data sets to yield final estimates for inferential purposes. In this article, we introduce dynr.mi(), a function in the R package, Dynamic Modeling in R (dynr). The package dynr provides a suite of fast and accessible functions for estimating and visualizing the results from fitting linear and nonlinear dynamic systems models in discrete as well as continuous time. By integrating the estimation functions in dynr and the MI procedures available from the R package, Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations (MICE), the dynr.mi() routine is designed to handle possibly non-ignorable missingness in the dependent variables and/or covariates in a user-specified dynamic systems model via MI, with convergence diagnostic check. We utilized dynr.mi() to examine, in the context of a vector autoregressive model, the relationships among individuals’ ambulatory physiological measures, and self-report affect valence and arousal. The results from MI were compared to those from listwise deletion of entries with missingness in the covariates. When we determined the number of iterations based on the convergence diagnostics available from dynr.mi(), differences in the statistical significance of the covariate parameters were observed between the listwise deletion and MI approaches. These results underscore the importance of considering diagnostic information in the implementation of MI procedures.

Keywords: dynamic modeling, missing data, mobility, multiple imputation

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Authors: Affiah D. U., Katuri I. P., Emefiene M. E., Amienyo C. A.

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Broccoli (Brassica oleraceae L., var. italica) is one of the most important vegetables that is high in nutrients and bioactive compounds. It easily grown on a wide range of soil types and is adaptable to many different climatic conditions. This study was carried out within Jos North and environs in vitro to evaluate Neem (Azadirachta indica) leaves extract against Albugo candida, the causative agent of white blisters disease of broccoli. Through the survey, prevalence and incidence were accessed and a fluffy white growth symptom on the underside of leaves was also observed on the field. Infected leaves samples were collected from three different farms namely: Farin Gada, Naraguta, and Juth and the organism associated with the disease was isolated. Pathogenicity test carried out revealed the fungal isolate Albugo candida to be responsible for the disease. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed using agar well diffusion method to determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations of two extract of Azadirachta indica leaves against the organism. Ethanolic extract had the highest antifungal activities of 3.30±0.21 - 17.61± 0.11 while aqueous extract had the least antifungal activities of 0.00±0.00 - 13.23±0.12. The minimum inhibitory concentration of aqueous was 100 mg/ml while its minimum fungicidal concentration was at 200 mg/ml. For ethanol, the minimum inhibitory concentration was 50 mg/ml while its minimum fungicidal concentration was 100 mg/ml. Plants being less toxic in usage over synthetic or inorganic chemicals makes them easy to handle, easily accessible and renewable. Due to the biosafety of plant extracts and its availability since the plant-based extracts of the two different solvents were found to be effective against the test organism hence, it is recommended for in-depth research to make it readily available for control of other pathogens and pests.

Keywords: antifungal, biocontrol, broccoli, fungi

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Authors: Konrad Rejdak, Agnieszka Korchut, Sebastian Szklener, Urszula Skrobas, Justyna Gerlowska, Katarzyna Grabowska-Aleksandrowicz, Dorota Szczesniak-Stanczyk

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Introduction: Neurodegenerative diseases are frequently accompanied by loss and unwanted change in functional independence, social relationships, and economic circumstances. Currently, the achievements of social robots to date is being projected to improve multidimensional quality of life among people with cognitive impairment and others. Objectives: Identification of particular human needs in context of the changes occurring in course of neurodegenerative diseases. Methods: Based on the 110 surveys performed in Medical University of Lublin from medical staff, patients, and caregivers we made prioritization of the users' needs as: high, medium, and low. The issues included in the surveys concerned four aspects: user acceptance, functional requirements, design of the robotic assistant and preferred types of human-robot interaction. Results: We received completed questionnaires: 50 from medical staff, 30 from caregivers and 30 from potential users. Above 90% of the respondents from each of the three groups, accepted robotic assistant as a potential caregiver. High priority functional capability of assistive technology was to handle emergencies in a private home like recognizing life-threatening situations and reminding about medication intake. With reference to design of the robotic assistant, the majority of the respondent would like to have an anthropomorphic appearance with positive emotionally expressive face. The most important type of human-robot interaction was voice-operated system and by touchscreen. Conclusion: The results from our study might contribute to a better understanding of the system and users’ requirements for the development of a service robot intended to support patients with dementia.

Keywords: social robot, dementia, requirements, patients needs

Procedia PDF Downloads 245

Authors: Balázs Ádám, Randi Nørgaard Fløe Pedersen, Jørgen Riis Jepsen

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Volatile chemicals that accumulate and release from freight containers constitute significant health risks. Fumigation to prevent spread of pests and off-gassing of freight are sources of hazardous chemicals. The aim of our study was to investigate the regulation and practice of container handling with focus on preventive measures applied against chemical exposures in Denmark. A comprehensive systematic search of scientific literature and organizational domains of international and Danish regulatory bodies was performed to explore regulations related to safe work with transport containers. The practice of container work was investigated in a series of semi-structured interviews with managers and health and safety representatives of organizations that handle transport containers. Although there are several international and national regulations and local safety instructions that relate to container handling, the provided information is not specific or up-to-date enough to conduct safe practice in many aspects. The interviewees estimate high frequency of containers with chemical exposure and deem that they can potentially damage health, although recognizable health effects are rare. Knowledge is limited about the chemicals and most of them cannot be measured by available devices. Typical preventive measures are passive ventilation and personal protective equipment but their use is not consistent and may not provide adequate protection. Hazardous chemicals are frequently present in transport containers; however, managers, workers and even occupational health professionals have limited knowledge about the problem. Detailed risk assessment and specific instructions on risk management are needed to provide safe conditions for work with containers.

Keywords: chemical exposure, fumigation, occupational health and safety regulation, transport container

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Authors: Aymen Laadhari

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During the last decade, an increasing number of contributions have been made in the fields of scientific computing and numerical methodologies applied to the study of the hemodynamics in the heart. In contrast, the numerical aspects concerning the interaction of pulsatile blood flow with highly deformable thin leaflets have been much less explored. This coupled problem remains extremely challenging and numerical difficulties include e.g. the resolution of full Fluid-Structure Interaction problem with large deformations of extremely thin leaflets, substantial mesh deformations, high transvalvular pressure discontinuities, contact between leaflets. Although the Lagrangian description of the structural motion and strain measures is naturally used, many numerical complexities can arise when studying large deformations of thin structures. Eulerian approaches represent a promising alternative to readily model large deformations and handle contact issues. We present a fully Eulerian finite element methodology tailored for the simulation of pulsatile blood flow in the aorta and sinus of Valsalva interacting with highly deformable thin leaflets. Our method enables to use a fluid solver on a fixed mesh, whilst being able to easily model the mechanical properties of the valve. We introduce a semi-implicit time integration scheme based on a consistent NewtonRaphson linearization. A variant of the classical Newton method is introduced and guarantees a third-order convergence. High-fidelity computational geometries are built and simulations are performed under physiological conditions. We address in detail the main features of the proposed method, and we report several experiments with the aim of illustrating its accuracy and efficiency.

Keywords: eulerian, level set, newton, valve

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Authors: Abdallah Al-ZoubI, Mamoun Dmour

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The spectrum of IoT devices is becoming widely diversified, entering almost all possible fields and finding applications in industry, health, finance, logistics, education, to name a few. The IoT active endpoint sensors and devices exceeded the 12 billion mark in 2021 and are expected to reach 27 billion in 2025, with over $34 billion in total market value. This sheer rise in numbers and use of IoT devices bring with it considerable concerns regarding data storage, analysis, manipulation and protection. IoT Blockchain-based systems have recently been proposed as a decentralized solution for large-scale data storage and protection. COVID-19 has actually accelerated the desire to utilize IoT devices as it impacted both demand and supply and significantly affected several regions due to logistic reasons such as supply chain interruptions, shortage of shipping containers and port congestion. An IoT-blockchain system is proposed to handle big data generated by a distributed network of sensors and controllers in an interactive manner. The system is designed using the Ethereum platform, which utilizes smart contracts, programmed in solidity to execute and manage data generated by IoT sensors and devices. such as Raspberry Pi 4, Rasbpian, and add-on hardware security modules. The proposed system will run a number of applications hosted by a local machine used to validate transactions. It then sends data to the rest of the network through InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Ethereum Swarm, forming a closed IoT ecosystem run by blockchain where a number of distributed IoT devices can communicate and interact, thus forming a closed, controlled environment. A prototype has been deployed with three IoT handling units distributed over a wide geographical space in order to examine its feasibility, performance and costs. Initial results indicated that big IoT data retrieval and storage is feasible and interactivity is possible, provided that certain conditions of cost, speed and thorough put are met.

Keywords: IoT devices, blockchain, Ethereum, big data

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Authors: Abdul-Rahman Al-Ali

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As the number of mobile devices is growing exponentially, it is estimated to connect about 50 million devices to the Internet by the year 2020. At the end of this decade, it is expected that an average of eight connected devices per person worldwide. The 50 billion devices are not mobile phones and data browsing gadgets only, but machine-to-machine and man-to-machine devices. With such growing numbers of devices the Internet of Things (I.o.T) concept is one of the emerging technologies as of recently. Within the smart grid technologies, smart home appliances, Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED) and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) are major I.o.T objects that can be addressable using the IPV6. These objects are called the smart grid internet of things (SG-I.o.T). The SG-I.o.T generates big data that requires high-speed computing infrastructure, widespread computer networks, big data storage, software, and platforms services. A company’s utility control and data centers cannot handle such a large number of devices, high-speed processing, and massive data storage. Building large data center’s infrastructure takes a long time, it also requires widespread communication networks and huge capital investment. To maintain and upgrade control and data centers’ infrastructure and communication networks as well as updating and renewing software licenses which collectively, requires additional cost. This can be overcome by utilizing the emerging computing paradigms such as cloud computing. This can be used as a smart grid enabler to replace the legacy of utilities data centers. The talk will highlight the role of I.o.T, cloud computing services and their development models within the smart grid technologies.

Keywords: intelligent electronic devices (IED), distributed energy resources (DER), internet, smart home appliances

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Authors: Sotiria Tzivinikou, Dimitra Kagkara

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Teacher’s sense of self-efficacy can affect significantly both teacher’s and student’s performance. More specific, self-efficacy is associated with the learning outcomes as well as student’s motivation and self-efficacy. For example, teachers with high sense of self-efficacy are more open to innovations and invest more effort in teaching. In addition to this, effective inclusive education is associated with higher levels of teacher’s self-efficacy. Pre-service teachers with high levels of self-efficacy could handle student’s behavior better and more effectively assist students with special educational needs. Teacher preparation programs are also important, because teacher’s efficacy beliefs are shaped early in learning, as a result the quality of teacher’s education programs can affect the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service teachers. Usually, a number of pre-service teachers do not consider themselves well prepared to work with students with special educational needs and do not have the appropriate sense of self-efficacy. This study aims to investigate the factors that contribute to the improvement of the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service special educators by using an academic practicum training program. The sample of this study is 159 pre-service special educators, who also participated in the academic practicum training program. For the purpose of this study were used quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. Teacher’s self-efficacy was assessed by the teachers themselves with the completion of a questionnaire which was based on the scale of Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale. Pre and post measurements of teacher’s self-efficacy were taken. The results of the survey are consistent with those of the international literature. The results indicate that a significant number of pre-service special educators do not hold the appropriate sense of self-efficacy regarding teaching students with special educational needs. Moreover, a quality academic training program constitutes a crucial factor for the improvement of the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service special educators, as additional for the provision of high quality inclusive education.

Keywords: inclusive education, pre-service, self-efficacy, training program

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Authors: Sara Vora (Hoxha)

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Defamation, invasion of privacy, and cyberbullying have all increased in tandem with the growth of the internet. European international private law may struggle to deal with such transgressions if they occur in many jurisdictions. The current study examines how effectively the legal system of European international private law addresses abuses of personality rights in cyberspace. The study starts by discussing how established legal frameworks are being threatened by online personality rights abuses. The article then looks into the rules and regulations of European international private law that are in place to handle overseas lawsuits. This article examines the different elements that courts evaluate when deciding which law to use in a particular case, focusing on the concepts of jurisdiction, choice of law, and recognition and execution of foreign judgements. Next, the research analyses the function of the European Union in preventing and punishing online personality rights abuses. Key pieces of law that control the collecting and processing of personal data on the Internet, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the e-Commerce Directive, are discussed. In addition, this article investigates how the ECtHR handles cases involving the infringement of personal freedoms, including privacy and speech. The article finishes with an assessment of how well the legal framework of European international private law protects individuals' right to privacy online. It draws attention to problems with the present legal structure, such as the inability to enforce international judgements, the inconsistency between national laws, and the necessity for stronger measures to safeguard people' rights online. This paper concludes that while European international private law provides a useful framework for dealing with violations of personality rights online, further harmonisation and stronger enforcement mechanisms are necessary to effectively protect individuals' rights in the digital age.

Keywords: European international private law, personality rights, internet, jurisdiction, cross-border disputes, data protection

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Authors: Alexander Kospach, Fabian Benezeder, Jürgen Abraham

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E-mobility poses new challenges for inverters (e.g., higher switching frequencies) in terms of thermal behavior and thermal management. Due to even higher switching frequencies, thermal losses become greater, and the cooling of critical components (like insulated gate bipolar transistor and diodes) comes into focus. New manufacturing methods, such as 3D printing, enable completely new pin-fin structures that can handle higher waste heat to meet the new thermal requirements. Based on the geometrical specifications of the industrial partner regarding the manufacturing possibilities for 3D printing, different and completely new pin-fin structures were numerically investigated for their hydraulic and thermal behavior in fundamental studies assuming an indirect liquid cooling. For the 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) thermal simulations OpenFOAM was used, which has as numerical method the finite volume method for solving the conjugate heat transfer problem. A steady-state solver for turbulent fluid flow and solid heat conduction with conjugate heat transfer between solid and fluid regions was used for the simulations. In total, up to fifty pinfin structures and arrangements, some of them completely new, were numerically investigated. On the basis of the results of the principal investigations, the best two pin-fin structures and arrangements for the complete module cooling of an automotive inverter were numerically investigated and compared. There are clear differences in the maximum temperatures for the critical components, such as IGTBs and diodes. In summary, it was shown that 3D pin fin structures can significantly contribute to the improvement of heat transfer and cooling of an automotive inverter. This enables in the future smaller cooling designs and a better lifetime of automotive inverter modules. The new pin fin structures and arrangements can also be applied to other cooling applications where 3D printing can be used.

Keywords: pin fin heat sink optimization, 3D printed pin fins, CFD simulation, power electronic cooling, thermal management

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Authors: Mahmoud Abdel Hameed Shahin

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Job demands that are incompatible with an employee's skills, resources, or needs cause unpleasant emotional and physical reactions known as job stress. Nurses offer care in hospital emergency rooms all around the world, and since they operate in such a dynamic and unpredictable setting, they are constantly under pressure. It has been discovered that job stress has harmful impacts on nurses' health as well as their capacity to handle the demands of their jobs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of job stress experienced by the emergency department nurses at King Fahad Specialist Hospital in Buraidah City, Saudi Arabia. In October 2021, a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. 80 nurses were conveniently selected for the study, the bulk of them worked at King Fahad Specialist Hospital's emergency department. An electronic questionnaire with a sociodemographic data sheet and a job stress scale was given to the participating nurses after ethical approval was received from the Ministry of Health's representative bodies. Using SPSS Version 26, both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze and tabulate the acquired data. According to the findings, the factors that contributed to the most job stress in the clinical setting were having an excessive amount of work to do and working under arbitrary deadlines, whereas the factors that contributed to the least stress were receiving the proper recognition or rewards for good work. In the emergency room of King Fahad Specialist Hospital, nurses had a moderate level of stress (M=3.32 ± 0.567/5). Based on their experience, emergency nurses' levels of job stress varied greatly, with nurses with less than a year of experience notably experiencing the lowest levels of job stress. The amount of job stress did not differ significantly based on the emergency nurses' age, nationality, gender, marital status, position, or level of education. The causes and impact of stress on emergency nurses should be identified and alleviated by hospitals through the implementation of interventional programs.

Keywords: emergency nurses, job pressure, Qassim, Saudi Arabia, job stress

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Authors: S. Lemoussu, J. C. Chaudemar, R. A. Vingerhoeds

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The aeronautics sector is currently living an unprecedented growth largely due to innovative projects. In several cases, such innovative developments are being carried out by Small and Medium sized-Enterprises (SMEs). For instance, in Europe, a handful of SMEs are leading projects like airships, large civil drones, or flying cars. These SMEs have all limited resources, must make strategic decisions, take considerable financial risks and in the same time must take into account the constraints of safety, cost, time and performance as any commercial organization in this industry. Moreover, today, no international regulations fully exist for the development and certification of this kind of projects. The absence of such a precise and sufficiently detailed regulatory framework requires a very close contact with regulatory instances. But, SMEs do not always have sufficient resources and internal knowledge to handle this complexity and to discuss these issues. This poses additional challenges for those SMEs that have system integration responsibilities and that must provide all the necessary means of compliance to demonstrate their ability to design, produce, and operate airships with the expected level of safety and reliability. The final objective of our research is thus to provide a methodological framework supporting SMEs in their development taking into account recent innovation and institutional rules of the sector. We aim to provide a contribution to the problematic by developing a specific Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach. Airspace regulation, aeronautics standards and international norms on systems engineering are taken on board to be formalized in a set of models. This paper presents the on-going research project combining Systems Engineering and Project Management process modeling and taking into account the metamodeling problematic.

Keywords: aeronautics, certification, process modeling, project management, SME, systems engineering

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Authors: Prashant Verma, Prafulla K. Swain, K. K. Singh, Mukti Khetan

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Objective: In India, around 20,000 women die every year due to abortion-related complications. In the modelling of count variables, there is sometimes a preponderance of zero counts. This article concerns the estimation of various count regression models to predict the average number of spontaneous abortion among women in the Punjab state of India. It also assesses the factors associated with the number of spontaneous abortions. Materials and methods: The study included 27,173 married women of Punjab obtained from the DLHS-4 survey (2012-13). Poisson regression (PR), Negative binomial (NB) regression, zero hurdle negative binomial (ZHNB), and zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) models were employed to predict the average number of spontaneous abortions and to identify the determinants affecting the number of spontaneous abortions. Results: Statistical comparisons among four estimation methods revealed that the ZINB model provides the best prediction for the number of spontaneous abortions. Antenatal care (ANC) place, place of residence, total children born to a woman, woman's education and economic status were found to be the most significant factors affecting the occurrence of spontaneous abortion. Conclusions: The study offers a practical demonstration of techniques designed to handle count variables. Statistical comparisons among four estimation models revealed that the ZINB model provided the best prediction for the number of spontaneous abortions and is recommended to be used to predict the number of spontaneous abortions. The study suggests that women receive institutional Antenatal care to attain limited parity. It also advocates promoting higher education among women in Punjab, India.

Keywords: count data, spontaneous abortion, Poisson model, negative binomial model, zero hurdle negative binomial, zero-inflated negative binomial, regression

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Authors: Laura Hervai

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One of the most significant phenomena of the 2000s was the emergence of social media sites and web 2.0 that revolutionized communication processes. Social networking platforms have fundamentally changed social and political participation of the public, which require organisations in the public and non-profit sector not only to adapt to these new trends but also to actively engage their audiences. Opportunity for interaction, freer expression of opinion and the proliferation of user generated content are major changes brought by web 2.0 technologies. Furthermore, due to the wide penetration of mobile technologies, social media sites are capable of connecting underdeveloped regions to the global flow of information. Taking advantage of these characteristics, organisations have the opportunity to engage much wider audiences, exploit new ways to raise awareness or reach out to regions that are difficult to access. The early adopters of these new communication tools soon recognized the need of developing social media guidelines for their organisations as well as the increased workload that they require. While ten years ago communication officers could handle their organisation’s social media presence, today it is a separate profession. International organisations face several challenges related to their social media presence. Early adopters have contributed to the development of best practices among which the ethics of social media usage still remained problematic. Another challenge for international organisations is to adapt to country-specific social media trends while they have to comply with the requirements of their parent organisation as well. However in the 21st century social media presence can be crucial to the successful operation of international organisations, their importance is still not taken seriously enough. The measurement of the effects and influence of social networking on the organisations’ productivity is an unsolved problem thus further research should focus on this matter. Research methods included primary research of major IGOs’ and NGOs’ social media presence and guidelines along with secondary research of social media statistics and scientific articles in the topic.

Keywords: international organisations, non-profit sector, NGO, social media, social network

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Authors: Borhan Marzougui

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Road and Transport Authority (RTA) is moving ahead with the implementation of the leader’s vision in exploring all avenues that may bring better security and safety services to the community. Smart transport means using smart technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things). This technology continues to affirm its important role in the context of Information and Transportation Systems. In fact, IoT is a network of Internet-connected objects able to collect and exchange different data using embedded sensors. With the growth of IoT, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is also growing exponentially. DDoS attacks are the major and a real threat to various transportation services. Currently, the defense mechanisms are mainly passive in nature, and there is a need to develop a smart technique to handle them. In fact, new IoT devices are being used into a botnet for DDoS attackers to accumulate for attacker purposes. The aim of this paper is to provide a relevant understanding of dangerous types of DDoS attack related to IoT and to provide valuable guidance for the future IoT security method. Our methodology is based on development of the distributed algorithm. This algorithm manipulates dedicated intelligent and cooperative agents to prevent and to mitigate DDOS attacks. The proposed technique ensure a preventive action when a malicious packets start to be distributed through the connected node (Network of IoT devices). In addition, the devices such as camera and radio frequency identification (RFID) are connected within the secured network, and the data generated by it are analyzed in real time by intelligent and cooperative agents. The proposed security system is based on a multi-agent system. The obtained result has shown a significant reduction of a number of infected devices and enhanced the capabilities of different security dispositives.

Keywords: IoT, DDoS, attacks, botnet, security, agents

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Authors: Vladimir Klepikov

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To develop the programs to supply crude oil to North European refineries, it is necessary to take into account the refineries’ location, crude refining capacity, and the transport infrastructure capacity. Among the countries of the region, we include those having a marine boundary along the Northern Sea and the Baltic Sea (from France in the west to Finland in the east). The paper envisages the geographic allocation of the refineries and contains the evaluation of the refineries’ capacities for the region under review. The sustainable operations of refineries in the region are determined by the transportation system capacity to supply crude oil to them. The assessment of capacity of crude oil transportation to the refineries is conducted. The research is performed for the period of 2005/2015, using the quantitative analysis method. The countries are classified by the refineries’ aggregate capacities and the crude oil output on their territory. The crude oil output capacities in the region in the period under review are determined. The capacities of the region’s transportation system to supply crude oil produced in the region to the refineries are revealed. The analysis suggested that imported raw materials are the main source of oil for the refineries in the region. The main sources of crude oil supplies to North European refineries are reviewed. The change in the refineries’ capacities in the group of countries and each particular country, as well as the utilization of the refineries' capacities in the region in the period under review, was studied. The input suggests that the bulk of crude oil is supplied by marine and pipeline transport. The paper contains the assessment of the crude oil transportation by pipeline transport in the overall crude oil cargo flow. The refineries’ production rate for the groups of countries under the review and for each particular country was the subject of study. Our study yielded the trend towards the increase in the crude oil refining at the refineries of the region and reduction in the crude oil output. If this trend persists in the near future, the cargo flow of imported crude oil and the utilization of the North European logistics infrastructure may increase. According to the study, the existing transport infrastructure in the region is able to handle the increasing imported crude oil flow.

Keywords: European region, infrastructure, oil terminal capacity, pipeline capacity, tanker draft

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Authors: Kwan-Ho Kim, Jin-Hong Park

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The multi-valued logic (MVL) circuits, which can handle more than two logic states, are one of the promising solutions to overcome the bit density limitations of conventional binary logic systems. Recently, tunneling devices such as Esaki diode and resonant tunneling diode (RTD) have been extensively explored to construct the MVL circuits. These tunneling devices present a negative differential resistance (NDR) phenomenon in which a current decreases as a voltage increases in a specific applied voltage region. Due to this non-monotonic current behavior, the tunneling devices have more than two threshold voltages, consequently enabling construction of MVL circuits. Recently, the emergence of two dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) crystals has opened up the possibility to fabricate such tunneling devices easily. Owing to the defect-free surface of the 2D crystals, a very abrupt junction interface could be formed through a simple stacking process, which subsequently allowed the implementation of a high-performance tunneling device. Here, we report a vdW heterostructure based tunneling device with multiple threshold voltages, which was fabricated with black phosphorus (BP) and hafnium diselenide (HfSe₂). First, we exfoliated BP on the SiO₂ substrate and then transferred HfSe₂ on BP using dry transfer method. The BP and HfSe₂ form type-Ⅲ heterojunction so that the highly doped n+/p+ interface can be easily implemented without additional electrical or chemical doping process. Owing to high natural doping at the junction, record high peak to valley ratio (PVCR) of 16 was observed to the best our knowledge in 2D materials based NDR device. Furthermore, based on this, we first demonstrate the feasibility of the ternary latch by connecting two multi-threshold voltage devices in series.

Keywords: two dimensional van der Waals crystal, multi-valued logic, negative differential resistnace, tunneling device

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Authors: Cody Stolle, Mojdeh Asadollahipajouh, Khaleb Pafford, Jada Iwuoha, Samantha White, Becky Mueller

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Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are growing in sales and popularity in the United States as an alternative to traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). BEVs are generally heavier than corresponding models of ICEVs, with large battery packs located beneath the vehicle floorpan, a “skateboard” chassis, and have front and rear crush space available in the trunk and “frunk” or front trunk. The geometrical and frame differences between the vehicles may lead to incompatibilities with gasoline vehicles during vehicle-to-vehicle crashes as well as run-off-road crashes with roadside barriers, which were designed to handle lighter ICEVs with higher centers-of-mass and with dedicated structural chasses. Crash data were collected from 10 states spanning a five-year period between 2017 and 2021. Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) codes were processed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) VIN decoder to extract BEV models from ICEV models. Crashes were filtered to isolate only vehicles produced between 2010 and 2021, and the crash circumstances (weather, time of day, maximum injury) were compared between BEVs and ICEVs. In Washington, 436,613 crashes were identified, which satisfied the selection criteria, and 3,371 of these crashes (0.77%) involved a BEV. The number of crashes which noted a fire were comparable between BEVs and ICEVs of similar model years (0.3% and 0.33%, respectively), and no differences were discernable for the time of day, weather conditions, road geometry, or other prevailing factors (e.g., run-off-road). However, crashes involving BEVs rose rapidly; 31% of all BEV crashes occurred in just 2021. Results indicate that BEVs are performing comparably to ICEVs, and events surrounding BEV crashes are statistically indistinguishable from ICEV crashes.

Keywords: battery-electric vehicles, transportation safety, infrastructure crashworthiness, run-off-road crashes, ev crash data analysis

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Authors: Richard O’Riordan, Saritha Unnikrishnan

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Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are incorporating an increasing number of ADAS features, including automated lane-keeping systems. In recent years, many research papers into lane detection algorithms have been published, varying from computer vision techniques to deep learning methods. The transition from lower levels of autonomy defined in the SAE framework and the progression to higher autonomy levels requires increasingly complex models and algorithms that must be highly reliable in their operation and functionality capacities. Furthermore, these algorithms have no room for error when operating at high levels of autonomy. Although the current research details existing computer vision and deep learning algorithms and their methodologies and individual results, the research also details challenges faced by the algorithms and the resources needed to operate, along with shortcomings experienced during their detection of lanes in certain weather and lighting conditions. This paper will explore these shortcomings and attempt to implement a lane detection algorithm that could be used to achieve improvements in AV lane detection systems. This paper uses a pre-trained LaneNet model to detect lane or non-lane pixels using binary segmentation as the base detection method using an existing dataset BDD100k followed by a custom dataset generated locally. The selected roads will be modern well-laid roads with up-to-date infrastructure and lane markings, while the second road network will be an older road with infrastructure and lane markings reflecting the road network's age. The performance of the proposed method will be evaluated on the custom dataset to compare its performance to the BDD100k dataset. In summary, this paper will use Transfer Learning to provide a fast and robust lane detection algorithm that can handle various road conditions and provide accurate lane detection.

Keywords: ADAS, autonomous vehicles, deep learning, LaneNet, lane detection

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Authors: Ebenezer O. Ige, Funmilayo H. Oyelami, Joshua Olutayo-Irheren, Joseph T. Okunlola

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Hyperthermia therapy is an adjuvant procedure during which perfused body tissues is subjected to elevated range of temperature in bid to achieve improved drug potency and efficacy of cancer treatment. While a selected class of hyperthermia techniques is shouldered on the thermal radiations derived from single-sourced electro-radiation measures, there are deliberations on conjugating dual radiation field sources in an attempt to improve the delivery of therapy procedure. This paper numerically explores the thermal effectiveness of combined infrared hyperemia having nanoparticle recirculation in the vicinity of imposed magnetic field on subcutaneous strata of a model lesion as ablation scheme. An elaborate Spectral relaxation method (SRM) was formulated to handle equation of coupled momentum and thermal equilibrium in the blood-perfused tissue domain of a spongy fibrous tissue. Thermal diffusion regimes in the presence of external magnetic field imposition were described leveraging on the renowned Roseland diffusion approximation to delineate the impact of radiative flux within the computational domain. The contribution of tissue sponginess was examined using mechanics of pore-scale porosity over a selected of clinical informed scenarios. Our observations showed for a substantial depth of spongy lesion, magnetic field architecture constitute the control regimes of hemodynamics in the blood-tissue interface while facilitating thermal transport across the depth of the model lesion. This parameter-indicator could be utilized to control the dispensing of hyperthermia treatment in intravenous perfused tissue.

Keywords: spectra relaxation scheme, thermal equilibrium, Roseland diffusion approximation, hyperthermia therapy

Procedia PDF Downloads 89

Authors: Vladimir Klepikov

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Countries of Central and Southern Europe have a typical feature: oil consumption in the region exceeds own commodity production capacity by far. So crude oil import prevails in the region’s crude oil consumption structure. Transportation using marine and pipeline transport is a common method of the imported oil delivery in the region. For certain refineries, in addition to possible transportation by oil pipelines from seaports, oil is delivered from Russian oil fields. With the view to these specific features and geographic location of the region’s refineries, three ways of imported oil delivery can be singled out: oil delivery by tankers to the port and subsequent transportation by pipeline transport of the port and the refinery; oil delivery by tanker fleet to the port and subsequent transportation by oil trunk pipeline transport; oil delivery from the fields by oil trunk pipelines to refineries. Oil is also delivered by road, internal water, and rail transport. However, the volumes transported this way are negligible in comparison to the three above transportation means. Multimodal oil transportation to refineries using the pipeline and marine transport is one of the biggest cargo flows worldwide. However, in scientific publications this problem is considered mainly for certain modes of transport. Therefore, this study is topical. To elaborate an efficient transportation policy of crude oil supply to Central and Southern Europe, in this paper the geographic concentration of oil refineries was determined and the capacities of the region’s refineries were assessed. The quantitative analysis method is used as a tool. The port infrastructure and the oil trunk pipeline system capacity were assessed in terms of delivery of raw materials to the refineries. The main groups of oil consuming countries were determined. The trends of crude oil production in the region were reviewed. The changes in production capacities and volumes at refineries in the last decade were shown. Based on the revealed refining trends, the scope of possible crude oil supplies to the refineries of the region under review was forecast. The existing transport infrastructure is able to handle the increased oil flow.

Keywords: European region, infrastructure, oil terminal capacity, pipeline capacity, refinery capacity, tanker draft

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Authors: Emmanuel Chinaguh, Kehinde Adeosun

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Nigerians die untimely, with 55.75 years of life expectancy, which is 17.45 below the world average of 73.2 (Worldometer, 2020). This is due, among other factors, to the country's limited access to high-quality healthcare. To increase access to good and affordable healthcare services, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Bill 2022 – which repealed the National Health Insurance Scheme Act 2004 – was passed into law. Applying Jacob Mey’s (2001) pragmatics act (pract) theory, this study explores how NHIA seeks to actualise these healthcare goals by characterising the general situational prototype or pragmemes and pragmatic acts in institutional communications. Data was sourced from the NHIA operational guidelines, which has 147 pages and four sections, and shared posters on NHIA Nigeria Twitter Handle with 14,200 followers. Digital humanities tools, like AntConc and Voyant, were engaged in the data analysis for text encoding and data visualisation. This study identifies these discourse tokens in the data: advertisement and programmes, standards and accreditation, records and information, and offences and penalties. Advertisement and programmes pract facilitating, propagating, prospecting, advising and informing; standards and accreditation, and records and information pract stating, informing and instructing; and offences and penalties pract stating and sanctioning. These practs combined to advance the goals of affordable care and universal accessibility to quality healthcare services. The pragmatic acts were marked by these pragmatic tools: shared situational knowledge (SSK), relevance (REL), reference (REF) and inference (INF). This paper adds to the understanding of health insurance discourse in Nigeria as a mediated social practice that promotes the health of Nigerians.

Keywords: affordable care, NHIA, Nigeria’s health insurance discourse, pragmatic acts.

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Authors: El Harraj Abdeslam, Raissouni Naoufal

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The detection of moving objects from a video image sequences is very important for object tracking, activity recognition, and behavior understanding in video surveillance. The most used approach for moving objects detection / tracking is background subtraction algorithms. Many approaches have been suggested for background subtraction. But, these are illumination change sensitive and the solutions proposed to bypass this problem are time consuming. In this paper, we propose a robust yet computationally efficient background subtraction approach and, mainly, focus on the ability to detect moving objects on dynamic scenes, for possible applications in complex and restricted access areas monitoring, where moving and motionless persons must be reliably detected. It consists of three main phases, establishing illumination changes in variance, background/foreground modeling and morphological analysis for noise removing. We handle illumination changes using Contrast Limited Histogram Equalization (CLAHE), which limits the intensity of each pixel to user determined maximum. Thus, it mitigates the degradation due to scene illumination changes and improves the visibility of the video signal. Initially, the background and foreground images are extracted from the video sequence. Then, the background and foreground images are separately enhanced by applying CLAHE. In order to form multi-modal backgrounds we model each channel of a pixel as a mixture of K Gaussians (K=5) using Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Finally, we post process the resulting binary foreground mask using morphological erosion and dilation transformations to remove possible noise. For experimental test, we used a standard dataset to challenge the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method on a diverse set of dynamic scenes.

Keywords: video surveillance, background subtraction, contrast limited histogram equalization, illumination invariance, object tracking, object detection, behavior understanding, dynamic scenes

Procedia PDF Downloads 237