Search results for: monitoring tool

Authors: Hanna Faron, Wojciech Marcinkowski, Daniel Prusak

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The aim of this article is to familiarize with the activity of AGH Racing scientific circle, pertaining to the international project -Formula Student, giving the opportunity to young engineers from all around the world to validate their talent and knowledge in the real world conditions, under the pressure of time, and the design requirements. Every year, the team begins the process of building a race car from the formation of human resources. In case of the public sector, to which public universities can be included, the scientific circles represent the structure uniting students with the common interests and level of determination. Due to the scientific nature of the project which simulates the market conditions, they have a chance to verify previously acquired knowledge in practice. High level of the innovation and competitiveness of participating in the project Formula Student teams, requires an intelligent organizational system, which is characterized by a high dynamics. It is connected with the necessity of separation of duties, setting priorities, selecting optimal solutions which is often a compromise between the available technology and a limited budget. Proper selection of the adequate guidelines in the design phase allows an efficient transition to the implementation stage, which is process-oriented implementation of the project. Four dynamic and three static competitions are the main verification and evaluation of year-round work and effort put into the process of building a race car. Acquired feedback flowing during the race is a very important part while monitoring the effectiveness of AGH Racing scientific circle, as well as the main criterion while determining long-term goals and all the necessary improvements in the team.

Keywords: SAE, formula student, race car, public sector, automotive industry

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Authors: Deborah Asibu Abu

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Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. It is one of the most important ingredients in teaching and learning yet it does not come by chance; it involves necessary strategies appropriate to achieve a common goal. In learning, the psychological attention of the student is very important. This helps them to imagine whatever is being taught for a simple understanding, nonetheless, many students will be able to imagine how the environment is in social studies or how the bones or plant is, in integrated Science but will find it difficult to imagine what subject-verb agreement or phrases and clauses actually looks like until they are motivated or with the use of TLM’s to stir their interest to learn and forever remember. For students to be able to receive the motivation they need, there must be an effective relationship between the teacher and the student as well as the use of strategies for effectual execution of achievable goals. Every teacher must understand the importance of motivation by applying various kinds of teaching methodology, especially in the English Language as a subject. Hence this paper suggests some important factors necessary for student’s motivation in teaching and learning English Language, it handles what teaching method is, types of motivation, educational curriculum structure of many, what suitable teaching methods can achieve, appropriate teachers’ disposition, learning environment as tool for motivation and some other domestic factors that can also influence student motivation.

Keywords: english language, teacher-student relationship, curriculum structure, learning environment

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Authors: Gabriel Sunday Ayayia

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The paper argues that Ubuntu, as a philosophy that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all living things and importance of community and mutual support, can be used as a social framework to address the problems of climate change and promote environmental sustainability. The research demonstrate that Ubuntu is an ideological concept that encourages collective action on climate change, with the emphasis on individual and collective commitment to taking concrete action to address the problems of climate change. The paper shows that Ubuntu can be employed as a social tool that would enhance the cultivation of shared identity and promote the sense of shared response responsibility to develop the resilience to cope with climate change. Using qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the study establishes the imperativeness of mutual support and cooperation through the lens of Ubuntu as a human-centered scalable response to the debacle of climate change. It recommends that we can build a society that values the environment and promotes sustainable practices by encouraging community involvement in sustainable initiatives by integrating Ubuntu-based principles to our decision-making processes, collaboration, leadership, human agency and governance.

Keywords: ubuntu, climate change, humanity, collective actions, community-based

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Authors: Prakash Singh, Thembinkosi Twalo

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The sustainability of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM), in South Africa, is being threatened by the reported cases of poor administration, weak management of resources, inappropriate job performance, and inappropriate job behaviour of some of the workers. Since the structural-functionalists assume that formal education is a solution to societal challenges, it therefore means that the BCMM should not be experiencing this threat since many of its workers have various levels of formal education. Consequently, this study using the mixed method research approach, set out to investigate the paradoxical co-existence of inappropriate job behaviour and performance with formal education at the BCMM. Considering the impact of human factors in the labour process, this study draws attention to the divergent objectives of skill and skill bearer, with the application of knowledge subject to the knowledge bearer’s motives, will, attitudes, ethics and values. Consequently, inappropriate job behaviour and performance practices could be due to numerous factors such as lack of the necessary capabilities or refusal to apply what has been learnt due to racial or other prejudices. The role of the human factor in the labour process is a serious omission in human capital theory, which regards schooling as the only factor contributing to the ability to do a job. For this reason this study’s theoretical framework is an amalgamation of the four theories - human capital, social capital, cultural capital, and reputation capital – in an effort to obtain a broader view of the factors that shape job behaviour and performance. Since it has been established that human nature plays a crucial role in how workers undertake their responsibilities, it is important that this be taken into consideration in the BCMM’s monitoring and evaluation of the workers’ job performance practices. Hence, this exploratory study brings to the fore, the effects of poor job performance practices on the job satisfaction of workers.

Keywords: human capital, poor job performance practices, service delivery, workers’ job satisfaction

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Authors: Xiaodong Li, Peng Gao, Chao-Jung Huang, Shiying Hao, Xuefeng B. Ling, Yongxia Han, Yaqi Zhang, Le Zheng, Chengyin Ye, Modi Liu, Minjie Xia, Changlin Fu, Bo Jin, Karl G. Sylvester, Eric Widen

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Predicting the risk of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (PA) in advance can benefit the quality of care and potentially reduce population mortality and morbidity. The aim of this study was to develop and prospectively validate a risk prediction model to identify patients at risk of new incident PA as early as 3 months before the onset of PA in a statewide, general population in Maine. The PA prediction model was developed using Deep Neural Networks, a deep learning algorithm, with a 2-year electronic-health-record (EHR) cohort. Prospective results showed that our model identified 54.35% of all inpatient episodes of PA, and 91.20% of all PA that required subsequent chemoradiotherapy, with a lead-time of up to 3 months and a true alert of 67.62%. The risk assessment tool has attained an improved discriminative ability. It can be immediately deployed to the health system to provide automatic early warnings to adults at risk of PA. It has potential to identify personalized risk factors to facilitate customized PA interventions.

Keywords: cancer prediction, deep learning, electronic health records, pancreatic adenocarcinoma

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Authors: Robert L. Williamson

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A 'token economy' refers to a method of positive behaviour support whereby ‘tokens’ are delivered to students as a reward for exhibiting specific behaviours. Students later exchange tokens to ‘purchase’ items of interest. Unfortunately, implementation fidelity can be problematic as some find physical delivery of tokens while teaching difficult. This project developed and tested a prototype, iPad-based tool that enabled teachers to deliver and track tokens electronically. Using an alternating treatment design, any differences in on-task individual and/or group behaviours between the virtual versus physical token delivery systems were examined. Results indicated that while students and teachers preferred iPad-based implementation, no significant difference was found concerning on-task behaviours of students between the two methodologies. Perhaps more interesting was that the teacher found implementation of both methods problematic and suggested a second person was most effective in implementing a token economy method. This would represent a significant cost to the effective use of such a method. Further research should focus on the use of a lay volunteer regarding method implementation fidelity and associated outcomes of the method.

Keywords: positive behaviour support, inclusion, token economy, applied behaviour analysis

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Authors: Claudia Munoz, Henry Laniado

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In this research, the impact of outbound and return flight schedule preferences on airline choice for international trips is quantified. Several studies have used airline choice data to identify preferences and trade-offs of different air carrier service attributes, such as travel time, fare and frequencies. However, estimation of the effect return flight schedules have on airline choice for an international round-trip flight has not yet been studied in detail. The multinomial logit model found shows that airfare, travel time, arrival preference schedule in the outward journey, departure preference in the return journey and the schedule combination of round-trip flights are significantly affecting passenger choice behavior in international round-trip flights. it results indicated that return flight schedule preference plays a substantial role in air carrier choice and has a similar effect to outbound flight schedule preference. Thus, this study provides an analytical tool designed to provide a better understanding of international round-trip flight demand determinants and support carrier decisions.

Keywords: flight schedule, airline choice, return flight, passenger choice behavior

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Authors: Haikal Achmad Thaha, Pujo Laksono, Dhamma Nibbana Putra

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Customer service is one of the core interest in a service sector of a company, whether as the core business or as service part of the operation. Most of the time, the people and the previous research in service industry is focused on finding the best business model solution for the service sector, usually to decide between total in house customer service, outsourcing, or something in between. Conventionally, to take this decision is some important part of the management job, and this is a process that usually takes some time and staff effort, meanwhile market condition and overall company needs may change and cause loss of income and temporary disturbance in the companies operation . However, in this paper we have offer a new concept model to assist decision making process in service industry. This model will featured information platform as central tool to integrate service industry operation. The result is service information model which would ideally increase response time and effectivity of the decision making. it will also help service industry in switching the service solution system quickly through machine learning when the companies growth and the service solution needed are changing.

Keywords: service industry, customer service, machine learning, decision making, information platform

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Authors: M. Doumi, A. Miloudi, A.G. Aissaoui, K. Tahir, C. Belfedal, S. Tahir

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The studies on the photovoltaic system are extensively increasing because of a large, secure, essentially exhaustible and broadly available resource as a future energy supply. However, the output power induced in the photovoltaic modules is influenced by an intensity of solar cell radiation, temperature of the solar cells and so on. Therefore, to maximize the efficiency of the photovoltaic system, it is necessary to track the maximum power point of the PV array, for this Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique is used. These algorithms are based on the Perturb-Observe, Conductance-Increment and the Fuzzy Logic methods. These techniques vary in many aspects as: simplicity, convergence speed, digital or analogical implementation, sensors required, cost, range of effectiveness, and in other aspects. This paper presents a comparative study of three widely-adopted MPPT algorithms; their performance is evaluated on the energy point of view, by using the simulation tool Simulink®, considering different solar irradiance variations. MPPT using fuzzy logic shows superior performance and more reliable control to the other methods for this application.

Keywords: photovoltaic system, MPPT, perturb and observe (P&O), incremental conductance (INC), Fuzzy Logic (FLC)

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Authors: Pei-Jun Xue, Ming-Yu Hsiao

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Language is the emblem of a culture, representing the extension of cultural life. In addition, it is also an important tool for communication and message transmission. It carries not only information but also covers the self-conscious of the information constructor as well as the situational experiences of users from different backgrounds. Moreover, design can be regarded as a language, a dynamic process of coding and decoding. With the designers’ experiences in everyday life, they bring them into the products’ experiences. Considered from the aspects of atmosphere and the five senses, a designer should consider and reconsider how to communicate the messages effectively to suit the users’ needs. In the process of language learning, we should understand the construction behind it and the rules of the compositions of language codes. Regarding the understanding of the design of works or the form of product construction, it is necessary for us to understand the coding system during the process of product construction. The form (signifiers) and meanings (signified) of Chinese characters are closely related. At the same time, it is also a process of simplifying the complicated to the simple. This study discusses the chinese characters that used in the cultural symbols construction, and analysis of existing products by Peirce's semiotic triangles. Through people's cognition of Chinese characters and constitute method, help to understand the way of construction product symbol.

Keywords: cultural-creative product design, cultural product, cultural symbols, linguistic symbols

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Authors: Muhadam Labolo, Afdal R. Anwar, Sucia Miranti Sipisang

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Electronic Local Finance Management Information System (ELFMIS) is integrated application that was used as a tool for local governments to improve the effectiveness of the implementation of the various areas of financial management regulations. Appropriate With Exceptions Opinion (WDP) of Indonesia Audit Agency (BPK) for local governments Mempawah is a financial management problem that must be improved to avoid mistakes in decision-making. The use of Electronic Local Finance Management Information System (ELFMIS) by Mempawah authority has not yet performed maximally. These problems became the basis for research in measuring the effectiveness LFMIS in Mempawah regency. This research uses an indicator variable for measuring information systems effectiveness proposed by Bodnar. This research made use descriptive with inductive approach. Data collection techniques were mixed from qualitative and quantitative techniques, used questionnaires, interviews and documentation. The obstacles in Local Finance Board (LFB) for the application of ELFMIS such as connection, the quality and quantity of human resources, realization of financial resources, absence of maintenance and another facilities of ELFMIS and verification for financial information.

Keywords: effectiveness, E-LFMIS, finance, local government, system

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Authors: Farnoosh Faal

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The rapid growth of social media has brought significant changes to the field of urban e-planning. This study aims to review the existing literature on the impact of social media on urban e-planning processes. The study begins with a discussion of the evolution of social media and its role in urban e-planning. The review covers research on the use of social media for public engagement, citizen participation, stakeholder communication, decision-making, and monitoring and evaluation of urban e-planning initiatives. The findings suggest that social media has the potential to enhance public participation and improve decision-making in urban e-planning processes. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can provide a platform for citizens to engage with planners and policymakers, express their opinions, and provide feedback on planning proposals. Social media can also facilitate the collection and analysis of data, including real-time data, to inform urban e-planning decision-making. However, the literature also highlights some challenges associated with the use of social media in urban e-planning. These challenges include issues related to the representativeness of social media users, the quality of information obtained from social media, the potential for bias and manipulation of social media content, and the need for effective data management and analysis. The study concludes with recommendations for future research on the use of social media in urban e-planning. The recommendations include the need for further research on the impact of social media on equity and social justice in planning processes, the need for more research on effective strategies for engaging underrepresented groups, and the development of guidelines for the use of social media in urban e-planning processes. Overall, the study suggests that social media has the potential to transform urban e-planning processes but that careful consideration of the opportunities and challenges associated with its use is essential for effective and ethical planning practice.

Keywords: social media, Urban e-planning, public participation, citizen engagement

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Authors: Akber Oumer Abdurezak

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Road traffic accident is a major problem in Ethiopia, resulting in the deaths of many people and potential injuries and crash every year and loss of properties. According to the Federal Transport Authority, one of the main causes of traffic accident and crash in Ethiopia is over speeding. Implementation of different technologies is used to monitor the speed of vehicles in order to minimize accidents and crashes. This research aimed at designing a speed monitoring system to monitor the speed of travelling vehicles and movements, reporting illegal speeds or overspeeding vehicles to the concerned bodies. The implementation of the system is through a wireless sensor network. The proposed system can sense and detect the movement of vehicles, process, and analysis the data obtained from the sensor and the cloud system. The data is sent to the central controlling server. The system contains accelerometer and gyroscope sensors to sense and collect the data of the vehicle. Arduino to process the data and Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) module for communication purposes to send the data to the concerned body. When the speed of the vehicle exceeds the allowable speed limit, the system sends a message to database as “over speeding”. Both accelerometer and gyroscope sensors are used to collect acceleration data. The acceleration data then convert to speed, and the corresponding speed is checked with the speed limit, and those above the speed limit are reported to the concerned authorities to avoid frequent accidents. The proposed system decreases the occurrence of accidents and crashes due to overspeeding and can be used as an eye opener for the implementation of other intelligent transport system technologies. This system can also integrate with other technologies like GPS and Google Maps to obtain better output.

Keywords: accelerometer, IOT, GSM, gyroscope

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Authors: Mário Ernesto Sitoe, Orlando Zacarias

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University education is influenced by several factors that range from the adoption of strategies to strengthen the whole process to the academic performance improvement of the students themselves. This work uses data mining techniques to develop a predictive model to identify students with a tendency to evasion and retention. To this end, a database of real students’ data from the Department of University Admission (DAU) and the Department of Mathematics and Informatics (DMI) was used. The data comprised 388 undergraduate students admitted in the years 2009 to 2014. The Weka tool was used for model building, using three different techniques, namely: K-nearest neighbor, random forest, and logistic regression. To allow for training on multiple train-test splits, a cross-validation approach was employed with a varying number of folds. To reduce bias variance and improve the performance of the models, ensemble methods of Bagging and Stacking were used. After comparing the results obtained by the three classifiers, Logistic Regression using Bagging with seven folds obtained the best performance, showing results above 90% in all evaluated metrics: accuracy, rate of true positives, and precision. Retention is the most common tendency.

Keywords: evasion and retention, cross-validation, bagging, stacking

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Authors: M. D. Asemoloye, S. G. Jonathan, A. Rafiq, O. J. Olawuyi, D. O. Adejoye

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Calmodulin is one of the intracellular calcium proteins that regulates large spectrum of enzymes and cellular functions including metabolism of cyclic nucleotides and glycogen. The potentials of calmodulin gene in fungi necessitates their genetic response and their strong cassette of enzyme secretions for pesticide degradation. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the ‘Transcriptomic’ response of calmodulin encoding genes in Talaromyces fungi in response to 2, 2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate (DDVP or Dichlorvos) an organophosphate pesticide and γ-Hexachlorocyclohexane (Lindane) an organochlorine pesticide. Fungi strains isolated from rhizosphere from grasses rhizosphere in pesticide polluted sites were subjected to percentage incidence test. Two most frequent fungi were further characterized using ITS gene amplification (ITS1 and ITS4 combinations), they were thereafter subjected to In-vitro DDVP and lindane tolerance tests at different concentrations. They were also screened for presence and expression of calmodulin gene (caM) using RT-PCR technique. The two Talaromyces strains had the highest incidence of 50-72% in pesticide polluted site, they were both identified as Talaromyces astroroseus asemoG and Talaromyces purpurogenum asemoN submitted in NCBI gene-bank with accession numbers KY488464 and KY488468 respectively. T. astroroseus KY488464 tolerated DDVP (1.23±0.023 cm) and lindane (1.11±0.018 cm) at 25 % concentration while T. purpurogenum KY488468 tolerated DDVP (1.33±0.061 cm) and lindane (1.54±0.077 cm) at this concentration. Calmodulin gene was detected in both strains, but RT-PCR expression of caM gene revealed at 900-1000 bp showed an under-expression of caM in T. astrorosues KY488464 but overexpressed in T. purpurogenum KY488464. Thus, the calmodulin gene response of these fungal strains to both pesticides could be considered in monitoring the potentials of fungal strains to pesticide tolerance and bioremediation of pesticide in polluted soil.

Keywords: Calmodulin gene, pesticide, RT-PCR, talaromyces, tolerance

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Authors: Khalil Aryanfar, Pariya Gholipor, Elmira Hafez

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This study examines the proportionality between the needs of industry and technical and vocational training of male and female vocational schools. The research method was descriptive that was conducted in two parts: documentary analysis and needs assessment and Delphi method was used in the need assessment. The statistical population of the study included 312 individuals from the industry sector employers and 52 of them were selected through stratified random sampling. Methods of data collection in this study, upstream documents include: document of the development of technical and vocational training, Statistical Yearbook 1393 in Tehran, the available documents in Isfahan Planning Department, the findings indicate that there is an almost proportionality between the needs of industry and Vocational training of male and female vocational schools in fields of welding, industrial electronics, electro technique, industrial drawing, auto mechanics, design, packaging, machine tool, metalworking, construction, accounting, computer graphics and the Administrative Affairs. The findings indicate that there is no proportionality between the needs of industry and Vocational training of male and female vocational schools in fields of Thermal - cooling systems, building electricity, building drawing, interior architecture, car electricity and motor repair.

Keywords: needs assessment, technical and vocational training, industry

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Authors: Darius Danesh, Michael J. Ryan, Alireza Abbasi

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Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is an essential component of an organisation’s strategic procedures, which requires attention of several factors to envisage a range of long-term outcomes to support strategic project portfolio decisions. To evaluate overall efficiency at the portfolio level, it is essential to identify the functionality of specific projects as well as to aggregate those findings in a mathematically meaningful manner that indicates the strategic significance of the associated projects at a number of levels of abstraction. PPM success is directly associated with the quality of decisions made and poor judgment increases portfolio costs. Hence, various Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques have been designed and employed to support the decision-making functions. This paper reviews possible option to improve the decision-making outcomes in the organisational portfolio management processes using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) both from academic and practical perspectives and will examine the usability, certainty and quality of the technique. The results of the study will also provide insight into the technical risk associated with current decision-making model to underpin initiative tracking and strategic portfolio management.

Keywords: analytic hierarchy process, decision support systems, multi-criteria decision making, project portfolio management

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Authors: Ching Kin Keong, Koh Tieng Wei, Abdul Azim Abd. Ghani, Khaironi Yatim Sharif

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Maintaining factory default battery endurance rate over time in supporting huge amount of running applications on energy-restricted mobile devices has created a new challenge for mobile applications developer. While delivering customers’ unlimited expectations, developers are barely aware of efficient use of energy from the application itself. Thus developers need a set of valid energy consumption indicators in assisting them to develop energy saving applications. In this paper, we present a few software product metrics that can be used as an indicator to measure energy consumption of Android-based mobile applications in the early of design stage. In particular, Trepn Profiler (Power profiling tool for Qualcomm processor) has used to collect the data of mobile application power consumption, and then analyzed for the 23 software metrics in this preliminary study. The results show that McCabe cyclomatic complexity, number of parameters, nested block depth, number of methods, weighted methods per class, number of classes, total lines of code and method lines have direct relationship with power consumption of mobile application.

Keywords: battery endurance, software metrics, mobile application, power consumption

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Authors: Eko Budi Santoso, Kazia Laturette, Stanislaus Adnanto Mastan

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This study aims to examine the association between disclosure of social responsibility and tax aggressiveness in developing countries, namely Thailand. This is due to the increasing trend of disclosure of social responsibility in developing countries, even though this disclosure of information is still voluntary. On the other hand, developing countries have low taxation rate and investor protection infrastructures that allow the disclosure of social responsibility to be used opportunistically as a tool to fool the attainment of interests. This study also examines the role of assurance on the association between corporate social responsibility disclosure and tax aggressiveness. The assurance aims to provide confidence that the disclosure of social responsibility by the company is valid. This research builds an index to measure the disclosure of social responsibility based on the rules issued by the innovative Global Reporting. The results of the study are based on a sample of publicly traded companies in Thailand, which showed a positive association between disclosure of corporate social responsibility and tax aggressiveness, but it was further discovered that these results were mitigated by the existence of assurance against disclosure of corporate social responsibility. The results of this study indicate that the disclosure of corporate social responsibility can show that the company cares about the issue of social responsibility but does not automatically make the company as one that holds ethical values ​​in its business practices.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility disclosure, tax aggressiveness, sustainability assurance, business ethics

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Authors: S. Hasan, I. Beshara

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Infrastructure maintenance is a great challenge facing sustainable development of infrastructure assets due to the high cost of passive implementation of a sustainable maintenance plan. An assessment model of sustainable maintenance for highway infrastructure projects in Egypt is developed in this paper. It helps in improving the implementation of sustainable maintenance criteria. Thus, this paper has applied the analytical hierarchy processes (AHP) to rank and explore the weight of 26 assessment indicators using three hierarchy levels containing the main sustainable categories and subcategories with related indicators. Overall combined weight of each indicator for sustainable maintenance evaluation has been calculated to sum up to a sustainable maintenance performance index (SMI). The results show that the factor "Preventive maintenance cost" has the highest relative contribution factor among others (13.5%), while two factors of environmental performance have the least weights (0.7%). The developed model aims to provide decision makers with information about current maintenance performance and support them in the decision-making process regarding future directions of maintenance activities. It can be used as an assessment performance tool during the operation and maintenance stage. The developed indicators can be considered during designing the maintenance plan. Practices for successful implementation of the model are also presented.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process, assessment performance Model, KPIs for sustainable maintenance, sustainable maintenance index

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Authors: Teja Koduru

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Untreated Lyme disease can lead to neurological, cardiac, and dermatological complications. Rapid diagnosis of the erythema migrans (EM) rash, a characteristic symptom of Lyme disease is therefore crucial to early diagnosis and treatment. In this study, we aim to utilize deep learning frameworks including Tensorflow and Keras to create deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) to detect images of acute Lyme Disease from images of erythema migrans. This study uses a custom database of erythema migrans images of varying quality to train a DCNN capable of classifying images of EM rashes vs. non-EM rashes. Images from publicly available sources were mined to create an initial database. Machine-based removal of duplicate images was then performed, followed by a thorough examination of all images by a clinician. The resulting database was combined with images of confounding rashes and regular skin, resulting in a total of 683 images. This database was then used to create a DCNN with an accuracy of 93% when classifying images of rashes as EM vs. non EM. Finally, this model was converted into a web and mobile application to allow for rapid diagnosis of EM rashes by both patients and clinicians. This tool could be used for patient prescreening prior to treatment and lead to a lower mortality rate from Lyme disease.

Keywords: Lyme, untreated Lyme, erythema migrans rash, EM rash

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Authors: Chieh-Chun Chang, Cheng-Ting Shih, Yan-Lin Liu, Shu-Jun Chang, Jay Wu

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With the widespread use of digital mammography (DM), radiation dose evaluation of breasts has become important. X-ray spectra are one of the key factors that influence the absorbed dose of glandular tissue. In this study, we estimated the X-ray spectrum of DM using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm with the transmission measurement data. The interpolating polynomial model proposed by Boone was applied to generate the initial guess of the DM spectrum with the target/filter combination of Mo/Mo and the tube voltage of 26 kVp. The Monte Carlo N-particle code (MCNP5) was used to tally the transmission data through aluminum sheets of 0.2 to 3 mm. The X-ray spectrum was reconstructed by using the EM algorithm iteratively. The influence of the initial guess for EM reconstruction was evaluated. The percentage error of the average energy between the reference spectrum inputted for Monte Carlo simulation and the spectrum estimated by the EM algorithm was -0.14%. The normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) and the normalized root max square error (NRMaSE) between both spectra were 0.6% and 2.3%, respectively. We conclude that the EM algorithm with transmission measurement data is a convenient and useful tool for estimating x-ray spectra for DM in clinical practice.

Keywords: digital mammography, expectation maximization algorithm, X-Ray spectrum, X-Ray

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Authors: Beena Sethi

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This work involves the degradation of plastic waste in the presence of three different nanocatalysts. A thin film of LLDPE was formed with all three nanocatalysts separately in the solvent. Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetric (DSC) analysis of polymers suggest that the presence of these catalysts lowers the degradation temperature and the change mechanism of degradation. Gas chromatographic analysis was carried out for two films. In gas chromatography (GC) analysis, it was found that degradation of pure polymer produces only 32% C3/C4 hydrocarbons and 67.6% C5/C9 hydrocarbons. In the presence of these catalysts, more than 80% of polymer by weight was converted into either liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons. Change in the mechanism of degradation of polymer was observed therefore more C3/C4 hydrocarbons along with valuable feedstock are produced. Adjustment of dose of nanocatalyst, use of nano-admixtures and recycling of catalyst can make this catalytic feedstock recycling method a good tool to get sustainable environment. The obtained products can be utilized as fuel or can be transformed into other useful products. In accordance with the principles of sustainable development, chemical recycling i.e. tertiary recycling of polymers along with the reuse (zero order recycling) of plastics can be the most appropriate and promising method in this direction. The tertiary recycling is attracting much attention from the viewpoint of the energy resource.

Keywords: degradation, differential scanning calorimetry, feedstock recycling, gas chromatography, thermogravimetric analysis

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Authors: Nizar Ghali, Bernard Fortin, Guy Lacroix

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In Quebec, colonoscopies volumes have continued to rise in recent years in the absence of effective monitoring mechanism for the appropriateness and the quality of these exams. In 2010, November, Quebec Government introduced the colorectal cancer-screening program in the objective to control for volume and cost imperfection. This program is based on clinical standards and was initiated for first group of institutions. One year later, Government adds financial incentives for participants institutions. In this analysis, we want to assess for the causal effect of the two components of this program: clinical pathways and financial incentives. Especially we assess for the reform effect on healthcare quality and population health in the context that medical remuneration is not directly dependent on this additional funding offered by the program. We have data on admissions episodes and deaths for 8 years. We use multistate model analog to difference in difference approach to estimate reform effect on the transition probability between different states for each patient. Our results show that the reform reduced length of stay without deterioration in hospital mortality or readmission rate. In the other hand, the program contributed to decrease the hospitalization rate and a less invasive treatment approach for colorectal surgeries. This is a sign of healthcare quality and population health improvement. We demonstrate in this analysis that physicians’ behavior can be affected by both clinical standards and financial incentives even if offered to facilities.

Keywords: multi-state and multi-episode transition model, healthcare quality, length of stay, transition probability, difference in difference

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Authors: Alireza Changizi, Arash Rezaei, Jamal Muhammad, Jyrki Latokartano, Minna Lanz

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Offline programming (OLP) is a new method in robot programming which is used widely in the industry nowadays which is a simulation base method that can produce the robot codes for motion according to virtual world in the simulation software. In this project Delmia v5 is used as simulation software. First the work cell component was modelled by Catia v5 and all of them was imported to a process file in Delmia and placed roughly to form the virtual work cell. Then robot was added to the work cell from the Delmia library. Work cell was calibrated corresponding to real world work cell to have accurate code. Tool calibration is the first step of calibration scheme and then work cell equipment can be calibrated using 6 point calibration method. Finally generated code needs to be reformed to match related controller code instruction. At the last stage IO were set to accomplish robots cooperation and make their motion synchronized. The pros and cons also will be discussed to clarify the presented results show the feasibility of the method and its effect on production line efficiency. Finally the positive and negative points of the implementation will be discussed.

Keywords: robotic, automated, production, offline programming, CAD

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Authors: Mumtaz Ali Baloch

Abstract:

This article aims at to review the policies and gaps including the socioeconomic and institutional factors that affected the enrollment of disabled children and caused drop-outs. It provides insights to scrutinize the gaps in policies, socioeconomic, and institutional factors with the specific concern in enrollment and drop out of disabled children in Pakistan, and Balochistan in particular. The findings of this study revealed that the old-age centralized policies and a number of socio-economic and institutional factors seemed to have significantly affected the enrollment and quality education in the case of physically disabled children. There were only a few schools functional in entire Balochistan. For example, an entire province (Balochistan) there are only two schools for disabled children, established in Quetta city. In the other 31 districts, an estimated population of 300,000 people of each district there were no schools for the disabled children. The findings of this study revealed that there is a great distinction between the policy and practice in the case of physically disabled children in Quetta, Balochistan. Consequently, such children seemed to have been out of schools. Dropout after the class eighth grade is almost 100%, as there are no high schools available for physically/disabled children, in Balochistan. The concerned organizations and authorities need to develop and ratify specific policies, provide required) facilities to the schools including sufficient budget, streamline the academic planning, and an effective monitoring and evaluation system. Only awareness and motivation could not help in improving the enrollment rate and decreasing the dropout in the case of physically disabled children. There is an urgent need to provide the required facilities to the schools. Almost all students needed assistive equipment, effective physical therapy as well as regular medical facilities. Such measures can improve the enrolment and rehabilitation of children.

Keywords: education policy, practices, physically disabled children, challenges, Balochistan, Pakistan

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Authors: Nureni Asafe Yekini, Olawale Nasiru Lawal, Bola Dada, Gabriel Adeyemi Okunlola

Abstract:

This study is focused on the strengths and challenges associated with using the online social network as a rapidly evolving medium in marketing tourism services and businesses among the youths in Nigeria. The paper examines the Nigerian tourists’ attitude, mainly towards three aspects: application of Internet for travel and tourism; usage of online social networks in sharing travel and tourism experiences; and trust in electronic-media for marketing tourism businesses and services. The aim of this research is to determine the level of application of internet tools in marketing tourism businesses and services in Nigeria. This study reports an empirical analysis based on data obtained from a survey among 1004 Nigerian tourists. The outcome confirms the research hypothesis and points to crucial importance of introducing online social network site for marketing tourism businesses and services in Nigeria, and increasing the awareness for Nigeria as a tourist destination. Moreover, the paper strongly recommends the use of online social network as a tool for marketing tourism businesses and services, and the need for identifying effective framework for application of ICT tools in marketing tourism businesses and services in Nigeria at large.

Keywords: tourism business, internet, online social networks, tourism services, ICT

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Authors: Kathy Mwende Kiema, Remember Samu, Murat Fahrioglu

Abstract:

Despite the implementation of a Feed in Tariff (FiT) for solar power plants in Kenya, the uptake and subsequent development of utility scale power plants has been slow. This paper, therefore, proposes a Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant configuration that can supply both power to the grid and operate a sea water desalination plant, thus providing an economically viable alternative to Independent Power Producers (IPPs). The largest city on the coast, Mombasa, has a chronic water shortage and authorities are looking to employ desalination plants to supply a deficit of up to 100 million cubic meters of fresh water per day. In this study the desalination plant technology was selected based on an analysis of operational costs in $/m3 of plants that are already running. The output of the proposed CSP plant, Net Present Value (NPV), plant capacity factor, thermal efficiency and quantity of CO2 emission avoided were simulated using Greenius software (Green energy system analysis tool) developed by the institute of solar research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Data on solar irradiance were derived from the Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) for Kenya.

Keywords: desalination, feed in tariff, independent power producer, solar CSP

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Authors: Tomasz L. Nawrocki, Danuta Szwajca

Abstract:

The growing importance of reputation in building enterprise value and achieving long-term competitive advantage creates the need for its measurement and evaluation for the management purposes (effective reputation and its risk management). The paper presents practical application of self-developed corporate reputation assessment model from the viewpoint of stock market investors. The model has a pioneer character and example analysis performed for selected industry is a form of specific test for this tool. In the proposed solution, three aspects - informational, financial and development, as well as social ones - were considered. It was also assumed that the individual sub-criteria will be based on public sources of information, and as the calculation apparatus, capable of obtaining synthetic final assessment, fuzzy logic will be used. The main reason for developing this model was to fulfill the gap in the scope of synthetic measure of corporate reputation that would provide higher degree of objectivity by relying on "hard" (not from surveys) and publicly available data. It should be also noted that results obtained on the basis of proposed corporate reputation assessment method give possibilities of various internal as well as inter-branch comparisons and analysis of corporate reputation impact.

Keywords: corporate reputation, fuzzy logic, fuzzy model, stock market investors

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Authors: M. Sneha, N. Meenakshi Sundaram

Abstract:

In recent times, magnetic hyperthermia is used for cancer treatment as a tool for active targeting of delivering drugs to the targeted site. It has a potential advantage over other heat treatment because there is no systemic buildup in organs and large doses are possible. The aim of this study is to develop a suitable magnetic biomaterial that can destroy the cancer cells as well as induce bone regeneration. In this work, the composite material was synthesized in two-steps. First, porous iron oxide nano needles were synthesized by hydrothermal process. Second, the hydroxyapatite, were synthesized from natural calcium (i.e., egg shell) and inorganic phosphorous source using wet chemical method. The crystalline nature is confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). Thermal analysis and the surface area of the material is studied by Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Brunauer-Emmett and Teller (BET) technique. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images show that the particles have nanoneedle-like morphology. The magnetic property is studied by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) technique which confirms the superparamagnetic behavior. This paper presents a simple and easy method for synthesis of magnetite/hydroxyapatite composites materials.

Keywords: iron oxide nano needles, hydroxyapatite, superparamagnetic, hyperthermia

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