Search results for: gender specific data

Authors: Gali Pesin, Yuliya Lipshits-Braziler, Sima Amram-Vaknin, Moshe Tatar

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The present study introduces four different patterns of seeking and providing help online among adolescents: (I) ‘Transceivers’ - adolescents who both seek as well as provide help online; (II) ‘Receivers’ - adolescents who seek help online, yet don’t provide it; (III) ‘Transmitters’ - adolescents who provide help online, yet don’t seek it; and (IV) ‘Idles’ - adolescents who refrain from seeking and providing help online. The study examined differences in seeking and providing help online between possible combinations of the four patterns, as well as gender differences within each pattern. Data was collected from 528 adolescents in Israel (59% were girls). Findings revealed that Transceivers are the largest group (45%) in this study, with higher representation of girls (65%). These adolescents seek help mainly around social difficulties, and they turn to peers who are both known and unknown to them. In addition, their preferred way to seek and provide help is through social network sites. Moreover, they often accept and give others emotional support. Receivers are the smallest group (5%) in this study. They turn to both known and unknown professionals more often than to friends and family. In addition, they seek help mostly around health and nutrition issues, and they usually receive instrumental support. For Receivers, the most important factor for seeking help online is anonymity, and the least important factor is familiarity with the help giver. Transmitters represent 16% of the adolescents in this study, with a greater representation of boys (52%). Their main reason to refrain from seeking help online is self-reliance. Nevertheless, these adolescents provide help to others online, mainly to those known to them through posting or responding to posts on social network sites. Idles represent 34% of the adolescents in this study. They refrain from seeking help online mainly due to their preference to seek help face to face, and due to their lack of trust in the internet or those using it. Idles and Transmitters are willing to seek help online mostly from friends and family. In addition, they are willing seek help online mainly regarding questions concerning military or civil service. They consider the most important facilitators for seeking help online as confidentiality and reliability. The present study’s main contribution is exploring the role of providing online help in understanding the adolescent behavior of seeking help online. In addition, the results of the present study have practical implications for the work of mental health providers, such as counseling psychologists and online mental health support.

Keywords: adolescents, counseling, online help-seeking, online help-providing

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Authors: Luís Pina

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The conservation of marine biodiversity keeps ecosystems in balance and ensures the sustainable use of resources. In this context, technological resources have been used for monitoring marine species to allow biologists to obtain data in real-time. There are different mobile applications developed for data collection for monitoring purposes, but these systems are designed to be utilized only on third-generation (3G) phones or smartphones with Internet access and in rural parts of the developing countries, Internet services and smartphones are scarce. Thus, the objective of this work is to develop a system to monitor marine turtles using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which users can access through basic mobile phones. The system aims to improve the data collection mechanism and enhance the effectiveness of current systems in monitoring sea turtles using any type of mobile device without Internet access. The system will be able to report information related to the biological activities of marine turtles. Also, it will be used as a platform to assist marine conservation entities to receive reports of illegal sales of sea turtles. The system can also be utilized as an educational tool for communities, providing knowledge and allowing the inclusion of communities in the process of monitoring marine turtles. Therefore, this work may contribute with information to decision-making and implementation of contingency plans for marine conservation programs.

Keywords: GSM, marine biology, marine turtles, unstructured supplementary service data (USSD)

Procedia PDF Downloads 208

Authors: Tracie Catlett

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Students enrolled in high-achieving schools are under tremendous pressure to perform at high levels inside and outside the classroom. Achievement pressure is a prevalent source of stress for students enrolled in high-achieving schools, and female students, in particular, experience a higher frequency and higher levels of stress compared to their male peers. The practice of mindfulness in a school setting is one tool that has been linked to improved self-regulation of emotions, increased positive emotions, and stress reduction. A mixed methods randomized pretest-posttest no-treatment control trial evaluated the effects of a six-session mindfulness intervention taught during a regularly scheduled life skills period in an independent day school, one type of high-achieving school. Twenty-nine students in Grades 10 and 11 were randomized by class, where Grade 11 students were in the intervention group (n = 14) and Grade 10 students were in the control group (n = 15). Findings from the study produced mixed results. There was no evidence that the mindfulness program reduced participants’ stress levels and negative emotions. In fact, contrary to what was expected, students enrolled in the intervention group experienced higher levels of stress and increased negative emotions at posttreatment when compared to pretreatment. Neither the within-group nor the between-groups changes in stress level were statistically significant, p > .05, and the between-groups effect size was small, d = .2. The study found evidence that the mindfulness program may have had a positive impact on students’ ability to regulate their emotions. The within-group comparison and the between-groups comparison at posttreatment found that students in the mindfulness course experienced statistically significant improvement in the in their ability to regulate their emotions at posttreatment, p = .009 < .05 and p =. 034 < .05, respectively. The between-groups effect size was medium, d =.7, suggesting that the positive differences in emotion regulation difficulties were substantial and have practical implications. The analysis of gender differences, as they relate to stress and emotions, revealed that female students perceive higher levels of stress and report experiencing stress more often than males. There were no gender differences when analyzing sources of stress experienced by the student participants. Both females and males experience regular achievement pressures related to their school performance and worry about their future, college acceptance, grades, and parental expectations. Females reported an increased awareness of their stress and actively engaged in practicing mindfulness to manage their stress. Students in the treatment group expressed that the practice of mindfulness resulted in feelings of relaxation and calmness.

Keywords: achievement pressure, adolescents, emotion regulation, emotions, high-achieving schools, independent schools, mindfulness, negative affect, positive affect, stress

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Authors: Medan Isaeva, Anna Degtyareva

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Context: Biliary atresia is a common reason for liver transplants in children, and the Kasai procedure can potentially be successful in avoiding the need for transplantation. However, it is important to identify factors that influence surgical outcomes in order to optimize treatment and improve patient outcomes. Research aim: The aim of this study was to develop prognostic models to assess the outcomes of the Kasai procedure in children with biliary atresia. Methodology: This retrospective study analyzed data from 166 children with biliary atresia who underwent the Kasai procedure between 2002 and 2021. The effectiveness of the operation was assessed based on specific criteria, including post-operative stool color, jaundice reduction, and bilirubin levels. The study involved a comparative analysis of various parameters, such as gestational age, birth weight, age at operation, physical development, liver and spleen sizes, and laboratory values including bilirubin, ALT, AST, and others, measured pre- and post-operation. Ultrasonographic evaluations were also conducted pre-operation, assessing the hepatobiliary system and related quantitative parameters. The study was carried out by two experienced specialists in pediatric hepatology. Comparative analysis and multifactorial logistic regression were used as the primary statistical methods. Findings: The study identified several statistically significant predictors of a successful Kasai procedure, including the presence of the gallbladder and levels of cholesterol and direct bilirubin post-operation. A detectable gallbladder was associated with a higher probability of surgical success, while elevated post-operative cholesterol and direct bilirubin levels were indicative of a reduced chance of positive outcomes. Theoretical importance: The findings of this study contribute to the optimization of treatment strategies for children with biliary atresia undergoing the Kasai procedure. By identifying early predictive signs of success, clinicians can modify treatment plans and manage patient care more effectively and proactively. Data collection and analysis procedures: Data for this analysis were obtained from the health records of patients who received the Kasai procedure. Comparative analysis and multifactorial logistic regression were employed to analyze the data and identify significant predictors. Question addressed: The study addressed the question of identifying predictive factors for the success of the Kasai procedure in children with biliary atresia. Conclusion: The developed prognostic models serve as valuable tools for early detection of patients who are less likely to benefit from the Kasai procedure. This enables clinicians to modify treatment plans and manage patient care more effectively and proactively. Potential limitations of the study: The study has several limitations. Its retrospective nature may introduce biases and inconsistencies in data collection. Being single centered, the results might not be generalizable to wider populations due to variations in surgical and postoperative practices. Also, other potential influencing factors beyond the clinical, laboratory, and ultrasonographic parameters considered in this study were not explored, which could affect the outcomes of the Kasai operation. Future studies could benefit from including a broader range of factors.

Keywords: biliary atresia, kasai operation, prognostic model, native liver survival

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Authors: Oussama Hafferssas, Hiba Benyahia, Amina Madani, Nassima Zeriri

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Although data nowadays has multiple forms; from text to images, and from audio to videos, yet text is still the most used one at a public level. At an academical and research level, and unlike other forms, text can be considered as the easiest form to process. Therefore, a brunch of Data Mining researches has been always under its shadow, called "Text Mining". Its concept is just like data mining’s, finding valuable patterns in data, from large collections and tremendous volumes of data, in this case: Text. Named entity recognition (NER) is one of Text Mining’s disciplines, it aims to extract and classify references such as proper names, locations, expressions of time and dates, organizations and more in a given text. Our approach "Octopub" does not aim to find new ways to improve named entity recognition process, rather than that it’s about finding a new, and yet smart way, to use NER in a way that we can extract sentiments of millions of people using Social Networks as a limitless information source, and Marketing for product promotion as the main domain of application.

Keywords: textmining, named entity recognition(NER), sentiment analysis, social media networks (SN, SMN), business intelligence(BI), marketing

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Authors: Echo Wang, Andrew Li

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Transparency could be defined as the voluntary release of information by institutions that is relevant to their own evaluation. Transparency based on information disclosure is recognised to be vital for the Third Sector, as civil society organisations are under pressure to become more transparent to answer the call for accountability. The growing importance of social enterprises as hybrid organisations emerging from the nexus of the public, the private and the Third Sector makes their transparency a topic worth exploring. However, transparency for social enterprises has not yet been studied: as a new form of organisation that combines non-profit missions with commercial means, it is unclear to both the practical and the academic world if the shift in operational logics from non-profit motives to for-profit pursuits has significantly altered their transparency. This is especially so in China, where informational governance and practices of information disclosure by local governments, industries and civil society are notably different from other countries. This study investigates the transparency-seeking behaviour of social enterprises in Greater China to understand what factors at the organisational level may affect their transparency, measured by their willingness to disclose financial information. We make use of the Survey on the Models and Development Status of Social Enterprises in the Greater China Region (MDSSGCR) conducted in 2015-2016. The sample consists of more than 300 social enterprises from the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. While most respondents have provided complete answers to most of the questions, there is tremendous variation in the respondents’ demonstrated level of transparency in answering those questions related to the financial aspects of their organisations, such as total revenue, net profit, source of revenue and expense. This has led to a lot of missing data on such variables. In this study, we take missing data as data. Specifically, we use missing values as a proxy for an organisation’s level of transparency. Our dependent variables are constructed from missing data on total revenue, net profit, source of revenue and cost breakdown. In addition, we also take into consideration the quality of answers in coding the dependent variables. For example, to be coded as being transparent, an organization must report the sources of at least 50% of its revenue. We have four groups of predictors of transparency, namely nature of organization, decision making body, funding channel and field of concentration. Furthermore, we control for an organisation’s stage of development, self-identity and region. The results show that social enterprises that are at their later stages of organisational development and are funded by financial means are significantly more transparent than others. There is also some evidence that social enterprises located in the Northeast region in China are less transparent than those located in other regions probably because of local political economy features. On the other hand, the nature of the organisation, the decision-making body and field of concentration do not systematically affect the level of transparency. This study provides in-depth empirical insights into the information disclosure behaviour of social enterprises under specific social context. It does not only reveal important characteristics of Third Sector development in China, but also contributes to the general understanding of hybrid institutions.

Keywords: China, information transparency, organisational behaviour, social enterprise

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Authors: Mohammadreza Ashouri, Majid Bayatian

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Analysis of fire data is a way for the implementation of any plan to improve the level of safety in cities. Such an analysis is able to reveal signs of changes in a given period and can be used as a measure of safety. The information of about 66,341 fires (from 2002 to 2012) released by Tehran Safety Services and Fire-Fighting Organization and data on the population and the number of households provided by Tehran Municipality and the Statistical Yearbook of Iran were extracted. Using the data, the fire changes, the rate of injuries, and mortality rate were determined and analyzed. The rate of injuries and mortality rate of fires per one million population of Tehran were 59.58% and 86.12%, respectively. During the study period, the number of fires and fire stations increased by 104.38% and 102.63%, respectively. Most fires (9.21%) happened in the 4th District of Tehran. The results showed that the recorded fire data have not been systematically planned for fire prevention since one of the ways to reduce injuries caused by fires is to develop a systematic plan for necessary actions in emergency situations. To determine a reliable source for fire prevention, the stages, definitions of working processes and the cause and effect chains should be considered. Therefore, a comprehensive statistical system should be developed for reported and recorded fire data.

Keywords: fire statistics, fire analysis, accident prevention, Tehran

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Authors: Nam Don Kim, Jungho Moon, Tae Yun Chung

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This paper proposes an Internet of Things (IoT) based virtualization platform for providing smart tourism services. The virtualization platform provides a consistent access interface to various types of data by naming IoT devices and legacy information systems as pathnames in a virtual file system. In the other words, the IoT virtualization platform functions as a middleware which uses the metadata for underlying collected data. The proposed platform makes it easy to provide customized tourism information by using tourist locations collected by IoT devices and additionally enables to create new interactive smart tourism services focused on the tourist locations. The proposed platform is very efficient so that the provided tourism services are isolated from changes in raw data and the services can be modified or expanded without changing the underlying data structure.

Keywords: internet of things (IoT), IoT platform, serviceplatform, virtual file system (VSF)

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Authors: C. Greenstone, R. Hansmann, K. Lawrence

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Portulacaria afra, commonly known as Spekboom is an indigenous South African plant. Spekboom is recognized for its medicinal, nutrient rich, easy to grow, drought tolerant and have climate change combating benefits. Durban’s air quality currently falls below the acceptable level. Urban greening absorbs air pollutants which can improve human health; however, urban planning often neglects the aspect of air quality on human health. It is therefore imperative that there is an investigation generating some quantification of the Spekboom plant on air quality. Though there are numerous advantages that Spekboom brings to ecosystems, the effect of Spekboom on air quality in context specific locales remains under researched. This study seeks to address this gap and bring forward the effect of Spekboom on air quality and improving human health overall using locations with specific characteristics ranging from industrial, commercial and residential. The study adopted a field sampling and spatial analysis approach through the collection of cuttings of Spekboom from various locations to measure the amount of toxins absorbed by the plant and thereafter using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to spatially map the location of each sample. Through the results found, the implementation of Spekboom as an air purifier in areas that have poor air quality can be carried out. Spekboom could even be cultivated around cities forming a green belt to improve air quality on a much larger scale. Due to Spekboom's low maintenance characteristics, it makes the entire implementation process quite simple. Proposed Future research will be to collect yearly cuttings from the same plant in order to get a longitudinal, long-term assessment of air quality improvements in areas where Spekboom is implemented.

Keywords: air quality, human health, portulacaria afra, spekboom

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Authors: Slim Namouchi, Bruno Vallet, Imed Riadh Farah

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3D urban models provide powerful tools for decision making, urban planning, and smart city services. The accuracy of this 3D based systems is directly related to the quality of these models. Since manual large-scale modeling, such as cities or countries is highly time intensive and very expensive process, a fully automatic 3D building generation is needed. However, 3D modeling process result depends on the input data, the proprieties of the captured objects, and the required characteristics of the reconstructed 3D model. Nowadays, producing 3D real-world model is no longer a problem. Remotely sensed data had experienced a remarkable increase in the recent years, especially data acquired using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). While the scanning techniques are developing, the captured data amount and the resolution are getting bigger and more precise. This paper presents a literature review, which aims to identify different methods of automatic 3D buildings extractions either from LiDAR or the combination of LiDAR and satellite or aerial images. Then, we present open source technologies, and data models (e.g., CityGML, PostGIS, Cesiumjs) used to integrate these models in geospatial base layers for smart city services.

Keywords: CityGML, LiDAR, remote sensing, SIG, Smart City, 3D urban modeling

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Authors: Juhi Sah

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Habitat is characterized by the inter-dependency of environmental elements. Anthropocentric development approach is increasing our vulnerability towards natural hazards. Hence, manmade interventions should have a higher level of sensitivity towards the natural settings. Sensitivity towards the environment can be assessed by the behavior of the stakeholders involved. This led to the establishment of a hypothesis: there exists a legitimate relationship between the behavioral sciences, land use evolution and environment conservation, in the planning process. An attempt has been made to establish this relationship by reviewing the existing set of knowledge and case examples pertaining to the three disciplines under inquiry. Understanding the scarce & deteriorating nature of fresh-water reserves of earth and experimenting the above concept, a case study of a growing urban center's river flood plain is selected, in a developing economy, India. Cases of urban flooding in Chennai, Delhi and other mega cities of India, imposes a high risk on the unauthorized settlement, on the floodplains of the rivers. The issue addressed here is the encroachment of floodplains, through psychological enlightenment and modification through knowledge building. The reaction of an individual or society can be compared to a cognitive process. This study documents all the stakeholders' behavior and perception for their immediate natural environment (water body), and produce various land uses suitable along a river in an urban settlement as per different stakeholder's perceptions. To assess and induce morally responsible behavior in a community (small scale or large scale), tools of psychological inquiry is used for qualitative analysis. The analysis will deal with varied data sets from two sectors namely: River and its geology, Land use planning and regulation. Identification of a distinctive pattern in the built up growth, river ecology degradation, and human behavior, by handling large quantum of data from the diverse sector and comments on the availability of relevant data and its implications, has been done. Along the whole river stretch, condition and usage of its bank vary, hence stakeholder specific survey questionnaires have been prepared to accurately map the responses and habits of the rational inhabitants. A conceptual framework has been designed to move forward with the empirical analysis. The classical principle of virtues says "virtue of a human depends on its character" but another concept defines that the behavior or response is a derivative of situations and to bring about a behavioral change one needs to introduce a disruption in the situation/environment. Owing to the present trends, blindly following the results of data analytics and using it to construct policy, is not proving to be in favor of planned development and natural resource conservation. Thus behavioral assessment of the rational inhabitants of the planet is also required, as their activities and interests have a large impact on the earth's pre-set systems and its sustenance.

Keywords: behavioral assessment, flood plain encroachment, land use planning, river sustenance

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Authors: Ahmed Noor Al-qayyim, Barlas Özden Çağlayan

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Structural failure is caused mainly by damage that often occurs on structures. Many researchers focus on obtaining very efficient tools to detect the damage in structures in the early state. In the past decades, a subject that has received considerable attention in literature is the damage detection as determined by variations in the dynamic characteristics or response of structures. This study presents a new damage identification technique. The technique detects the damage location for the incomplete structure system using output data only. The method indicates the damage based on the free vibration test data by using “Two Points - Condensation (TPC) technique”. This method creates a set of matrices by reducing the structural system to two degrees of freedom systems. The current stiffness matrices are obtained from optimization of the equation of motion using the measured test data. The current stiffness matrices are compared with original (undamaged) stiffness matrices. High percentage changes in matrices’ coefficients lead to the location of the damage. TPC technique is applied to the experimental data of a simply supported steel beam model structure after inducing thickness change in one element. Where two cases are considered, the method detects the damage and determines its location accurately in both cases. In addition, the results illustrate that these changes in stiffness matrix can be a useful tool for continuous monitoring of structural safety using ambient vibration data. Furthermore, its efficiency proves that this technique can also be used for big structures.

Keywords: damage detection, optimization, signals processing, structural health monitoring, two points–condensation

Procedia PDF Downloads 367

Authors: P. Senthil Kumari

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Main concerns in data mining investigation are social controls of data mining for handling ambiguity, noise, or incompleteness on text data. We describe an innovative approach for unplanned text data detection of community networks achieved by classification mechanism. In a tangible domain claim with humble secrecy backgrounds provided by community network for evading annoying content is presented on consumer message partition. To avoid this, mining methodology provides the capability to unswervingly switch the messages and similarly recover the superiority of ordering. Here we designated learning-centered mining approaches with pre-processing technique to complete this effort. Our involvement of work compact with rule-based personalization for automatic text categorization which was appropriate in many dissimilar frameworks and offers tolerance value for permits the background of comments conferring to a variety of conditions associated with the policy or rule arrangements processed by learning algorithm. Remarkably, we find that the choice of classifier has predicted the class labels for control of the inadequate documents on community network with great value of effect.

Keywords: text mining, data classification, community network, learning algorithm

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Authors: Rick Evans

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Despite over 40 years of research into why women choose not to enroll or leave undergraduate engineering programs, along with the subsequent and serious efforts to attract more women, women receiving bachelor's degrees in engineering in the US have remained disappointingly low. We know that even despite their struggles to become more welcoming and inclusive, engineering programs remain gendered, raced and classed. However, our research team has found that women who participate and indeed thrive in undergraduate engineering project teams do so in numbers that far exceed their participation in undergraduate programs. We believe part of the answer lies in the ways that project teams facilitate experiential learning, specifically providing opportunities for members to play, practice and perform. We employ a multi-case study method and assume a feminist, activist and interpretive perspective. We seek to generate concrete and context-dependent knowledge in order to explore potentially new variables and hypotheses. Our focus is to learn from those select women who are thriving. For this oral or e-poster presentation, we will focus on the results of the second of our semi-structured interviews – the learning journey interview. During this interview, we ask participants to tell us the story/ies of their participation in project teams. Our results suggest these women find joy in their experience of developing and applying engineering expertise. They experience this joy and develop their expertise in the highly patterned progression of play, practice and performance. Play is a purposeful activity in which someone enters an imaginary world, a world not yet real to them. However, this imaginary world is still very much connected to the real world, in this case, a particular kind of engineering, in that the ways of engaging are already established, codified and rule-governed. As such, these women are novices motivated to join a community of actors. Practice, better understood as practices, a count noun, is an embodied, materially interconnected collection of actions organized around the shared understandings of that community of actors. Those shared understandings reveal a social order – a particular field of engineering. No longer novices, these women begin to develop and display their emergent identities as engineers. Perform is activity meant either to demonstrate competence and/or to enable, even teach play and practice to others. As performers, these women participants become models for others. They direct play and practice, contextualizing both within a field of engineering and the specific aims of the project team community. By playing, practicing and performing engineering, women claim their identities as engineers and, equally important, have those identities acknowledged by team members. If we hope to transform our gendered, raced, classed institutions, we need to learn more about women who thrive within those institutions. We need to learn more about their processes of becoming and belonging as engineers. Our research presentation begins with a description of project teams and our multi-case study method. We then offer detailed descriptions of play, practice, and performance using the voices of women in project teams.

Keywords: engineering education, gender, identity, project teams

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Authors: Bouharati Lokman, Bouharati Imen, Bouharati Khaoula, Bouharati Oussama, Bouharati Saddek

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Ionizing radiation exposure is an established cancer risk factor. Compared to other common environmental carcinogens, it is relatively easy to determine organ-specific radiation dose and, as a result, radiation dose-response relationships tend to be highly quantified. Nevertheless, there can be considerable uncertainty about questions of radiation-related cancer risk as they apply to risk protection and public policy, and the interpretations of interested parties can differ from one person to another. Examples of tools used in the analysis of the risk of developing cancer due to radiation are characterized by uncertainty. These uncertainties are related to the history of exposure and different assumptions involved in the calculation. We believe that the results of statistical calculations are characterized by uncertainty and imprecision. Having regard to the physiological variation from one person to another. In this study, we develop a tool based on fuzzy logic inference. As fuzzy logic deals with imprecise and uncertain, its application in this area is adequate. We propose a fuzzy system with three input variables (age, sex and body attainable cancer). The output variable expresses the risk of infringement rate of each organ. A base rule is established from recorded actual data. After successful simulation, this will instantly predict the risk of infringement rate of each body following chronic exposure to 0.1 Gy.

Keywords: radiation exposure, cancer, modeling, fuzzy logic

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Authors: Sofia Cramerotti, Angela Cattoni, Laura Biancato, Dario Ianes

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The recognition of specific standards for new professionals, within the teaching profile, is a necessary process in order to foster an innovative school vision in accordance with the change that school is experiencing. In line with the reform of the national education and training system and with the National Training Plan for teachers, our Research and Development department developed a training project based on a framework (Syllabus) of skills that each 'Expert Teacher' should master in order to fulfill what the different specific profiles request. The syllabus is a fundamental tool for a training process consistent with the teaching profiles, both to guide the to-become teachers entering in service and to provide the in-service teachers with a system of evaluation and improvement of their skills. According to the national and international literature about professional standards for teachers, we aggregated the skills of the syllabus in three macro areas: (1) Area of professional skills related to the teacher profile and their continuous training; (2) area of teaching skills related to the school innovation; (3) area of organizing skills related to school participation for its improvement. The syllabus is a framework that identifies and describes the skills of the expert teacher in all of their roles. However, the various skills take on different importance in the different profiles involved in the school; some of those skills are determining a role, others could be secondary. Therefore, the characterization of the different profiles is represented by suitably weighted skills sets. In this way, the same skill could differently characterize each profile. In the future, we hope that the skills development and training for the teacher could evolve in a skills development and training for the whole school staff ('Expert Team'). In this perspective, the school will, therefore, benefit from a solid team, in which the skills of the various profiles are all properly developed and well represented.

Keywords: framework, skills, teachers, training

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Authors: Sdiqeh Jalali, M. R. Khazdair

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Liver X receptors (LXR) have an essential role in the regulation of cholesterol metabolism, and their activation increase ABCG5 and ABCG8 genes expression for the improvement of cholesterol excretion from the body during reverse cholesterol transport (RCT). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of high-intensity interval (HIT) and low intensity continuous (LIT) trainings on gene expression of these substances after a high-fat diet in Wistar rats. Materials and Methods: Fifteen male Wistar rats were divided into 3 groups: control group (n = 5), HIT exercise group (n = 5) and LIT exercise group (n = 5). All groups used a high-fat diet for 13 weeks, and the HIT and LIT groups performed the specific training program. The expression of LXRβ, ABCG5, and ABCG8 genes was measured after the training period. Findings: Data analysis showed significantly higher levels of LXRβ, ABCG5, and ABCG8 gene expression in HIT and LIT groups compared to the control group (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: HIT and LIT trainings after a high-fat diet have beneficial effects on RCT that prevent heart attack. Also, HIT training may have a greater effect on cholesterol excretion during the reverse cholesterol transport mechanism than LIT.

Keywords: liver X receptor, atherosclerosis, interval training, endurance training

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Authors: Congrui Chen

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The European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ECtHR) delivered its judgment of just satisfaction on the case of Cyprus v. Turkey, ordering a lump sum of 9,000,000 euros as the just compensation. It is the first time that the ECtHR applied the Article 41 of just compensation in an inter-state case, and it stands as the highest amount of just compensation awarded in the history of the ECtHR. The Cyprus v. Turkey case, which represents the most crucial contribution to European peace in the history of the court. This thesis uses the methodologies of textual research, comparison analysis, and case law study to go further on the following two questions specifically:(i) whether the just compensation is applicable in an inter-state case; (ii) whether such just compensation is of punitive nature. From the point of view of general international law, the essence of the case is the state's responsibility for the violation of individual rights. In other words, the state takes a similar diplomatic protection approach to seek relief. In the course of the development of international law today, especially with the development of international human rights law, States that have a duty to protect human rights should bear corresponding responsibilities for their violations of international human rights law. Under the specific system of the European Court of Human Rights, the just compensation for article 41 is one of the specific ways of assuming responsibility. At the regulatory level, the European Court of Human Rights makes it clear that the just satisfaction of article 41 of the Convention does not include punitive damages, as it relates to the issue of national sovereignty. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the relief to the victim and the punishment to the responsible State are two closely integrated aspects of responsibility. In other words, compensatory compensation has inherent "punitive".

Keywords: European Court of Human Right, inter-state cases, just satisfaction, punitive damages

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Authors: Kristof Grätz

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Background: Coping with crisis situations (e.g., the identity crisis in adolescence) is omnipresent in today's socialization and should be encouraged as a child. For this reason, students should be given the opportunity to create, endure and manage these crisis situations in a sporting context within the project “Herausforderung.” They should prove themselves by working on a self-assigned task, accompanied by ‚coaches’ in a place outside of their hometown. The aim of the project is to observe this process from a resource-oriented perspective. Health promotion, as called for by the WHO in the Ottawa Charter since 1986, includes strengthening psychosocial resources. These include cognitive, emotional, and social potentials that contribute to improving the quality of life, provide favourable conditions for coping with health burdens and enable people to influence their physical performance and well-being self-confidently and actively. A systematic strengthening of psychosocial resources leads to an improvement in mental health and contributes decisively to the regular implementation and long-term maintenance of this health behavior. Previous studies have already shown significant increases in self-concept following experiential educational measures [Fengler, 2007; Eberle & Fengler, 2018] and positive effects of experience-based school trips on the social competence of students [Reuker, 2009]. Method: The research project examines the influence of the project “Herausforderung” on psychosocial resources such as self-efficacy, self-concept, social support, and group cohesion. The students participating in the project will be tested in a pre-post design in the context of the challenge. This test includes specific questions to capture the different psychosocial resources. For the measurement, modifications of existing scales with good item selectivity and reliability are used to a large extent, so that acceptable item and scale values can be expected. If necessary, the scales were adapted or shortened to the specific context in order to ensure a balanced relationship between reliability and test economy. Specifically, these are already tested scales such as FRKJ 8-16, FSKN, GEQ, and F-SozU. The aim is to achieve a sample size of n ≥ 100. Conclusion: The project will be reviewed with regard to its effectiveness, and implications for a resource-enhancing application in sports settings will be given. Conclusions are drawn as to which extent to specific experiential educational content in physical education can have a health-promoting effect on the participants.

Keywords: children, education, health promotion, psychosocial resources

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Authors: Shahzamani Kiana, Esmaeil Lashgarian Hamed, Merat Shahin

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HCV and GBV-C belong to the Flaviviridae family of viruses and GBV-C is the closest virus to HCV genetically. Accumulative research is in progress all over the world to clarify clinical aspects of GBV-C. Possibility of interaction between HCV and GBV-C and also its consequence with other liver diseases are the most important clinical aspects which encourage researchers to develop a technique for simultaneous detection of these viruses. In this study a SYBR Green multiplex real time RT-PCR technique as a new economical and sensitive method was optimized for simultaneous detection of HCV/GBV-C in HCV positive plasma samples. After designing and selection of two pairs of specific primers for HCV and GBV-C, SYBR Green Real time RT-PCR technique optimization was performed separately for each virus. Establishment of multiplex PCR was the next step. Finally our technique was performed on positive and negative plasma samples. 89 cirrhotic HCV positive plasma samples (29 of genotype 3 a and 27 of genotype 1a) were collected from patients before receiving treatment. 14% of genotype 3a and 17.1% of genotype 1a showed HCV/GBV-C co-infection. As a result, 13.48% of 89 samples had HCV/GBV-C co-infection that was compatible with other results from all over the world. Data showed no apparent influence of HGV co-infection on the either clinical or virological aspect of HCV infection. Furthermore, with application of multiplex Real time RT-PCR technique, more time and cost could be saved in clinical-research settings.

Keywords: HCV, GBV-C, cirrhotic patients, multiplex real time RT- PCR

Procedia PDF Downloads 297

Authors: Ivan Balachin, Geanette Polanco, Jiang Xingliang, Hu Qin

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The problem of global warming raised up interest towards renewable energy sources. To reduce cost of wind energy is a challenge. Before building of wind park conditions such as: average wind speed, direction, time for each wind, probability of icing, must be considered in the design phase. Operation values used on the setting of control systems also will depend on mentioned variables. Here it is proposed a procedure to be include in the evaluation of the performance of a wind turbine, based on the amplitude of wind changes, the number of changes and their duration. A generic study case based on actual data is presented. Data analysing techniques were applied to model the power required for yaw system based on amplitude and data amount of wind changes. A theoretical model between time, amplitude of wind changes and angular speed of nacelle rotation was identified.

Keywords: field data processing, regression determination, wind turbine performance, wind turbine placing, yaw system losses

Procedia PDF Downloads 393

Authors: Masoud Charkhabi

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We examine trade theory with this motivation. The full set of World Trade Organization data are organized into country-year pairs, each treated as a different entity. Topological Data Analysis reveals that among the 16 region and 240 region-year pairs there exists in fact a distinguishable group of region-period pairs. The generally accepted periods of shifts from dissimilar-dissimilar to similar-similar trade in goods among regions are examined from this new perspective. The period breaks are treated as cumulative and are flexible. This type of all-subsets analysis is motivated from computer science and is made possible with Lossy Compression and Graph Theory. The results question many patterns in similar-similar to dissimilar-dissimilar trade. They also show indications of economic shifts that only later become evident in other economic metrics.

Keywords: econometrics, globalization, network science, topological data, analysis, trade theory, visualization, world trade

Procedia PDF Downloads 378

Authors: Thalía Moreno-García Malo, Santiago Torres-Ríos, María G. González-Cruz, María M. Hernández-Arroyo, Sergio R. Trejo-Estrada

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Agave atrovirens is the main source of agave sap, the raw material for the production of pulque, an artisanal fermented beverage, traditional since prehispanic times in the highlands of central Mexico. Agave sap is rich in glucose, sucrose and fructooligosaccharides, and strongly differs from agave syrup from A. tequilana, which is mostly a high molecular weight fructan. Agave sap is converted into pulque by a highly diverse microbial community which includes bacteria, yeast and even filamentous fungi. The bacterial diversity has been recently studied. But the composition of consortia derived from directed enrichments differs sharply from the whole fermentative consortium. Using classical microbiology methods, and selective liquid and solid media formulations, either bacterial or fungal consortia were developed and analyzed. Bacterial consortia able to catabolize specific prebiotic saccharides were selected and preserved for future developments. Different media formulations, selective for bacterial genera such as Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Lactococcus and Enterococcus were also used. For yeast, specific media, osmotic pressure and unique carbon sources were used as selective agents. Results show that most groups are represented in the enrichment cultures; although very few are recoverable from the whole consortium in artisanal pulque. Diversity and abundance vary among consortia. Potential bacterial probiotics obtained from agave sap and agave juices show tolerance to hydrochloric acid, as well as strong antimicrobial activity.

Keywords: Agave, pulque, microbial consortia, prebiotic activity

Procedia PDF Downloads 400

Authors: H. Aldewachi, M. Hines, M. McCulloch, N. Woodroofe, P. Gardiner

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DPP-IV is an enzyme whose expression is affected in a variety of diseases, therefore, has been identified as possible diagnostic or prognostic marker for various tumours, immunological, inflammatory, neuroendocrine, and viral diseases. Recently, DPP-IV enzyme has been identified as a novel target for type II diabetes treatment where the enzyme is involved. There is, therefore, a need to develop sensitive and specific methods that can be easily deployed for the screening of the enzyme either as a tool for drug screening or disease marker in biological samples. A variety of assays have been introduced for the determination of DPP-IV enzyme activity using chromogenic and fluorogenic substrates, nevertheless these assays either lack the required sensitivity especially in inhibited enzyme samples or displays low water solubility implying difficulty for use in vivo samples in addition to labour and time-consuming sample preparation. In this study, novel strategies based on exploiting the high extinction coefficient of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are investigated in order to develop fast, specific and reliable enzymatic assay by investigating synthetic peptide sequences containing a DPP IV cleavage site and coupling them to GNPs. The DPP IV could be detected by colorimetric response of peptide capped GNPs (P-GNPS) that could be monitored by a UV-visible spectrophotometer or even naked eyes, and the detection limit could reach 0.01 unit/ml. The P-GNPs, when subjected to DPP IV, showed excellent selectivity compared to other proteins (thrombin and human serum albumin) , which led to prominent colour change. This provided a simple and effective colorimetric sensor for on-site and real-time detection of DPP IV.

Keywords: gold nanoparticles, synthetic peptides, colorimetric detection, DPP-IV enzyme

Procedia PDF Downloads 308

Authors: Muhammad Awais Shafique, Eiji Hato, Hideki Yaginuma

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Recently GPS data is used in a lot of studies to automatically reconstruct travel patterns for trip survey. The aim is to minimize the use of questionnaire surveys and travel diaries so as to reduce their negative effects. In this paper data acquired from GPS and accelerometer embedded in smart phones is utilized to predict the mode of transportation used by the phone carrier. For prediction, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) are employed. Moreover a unique method to improve the prediction results from these algorithms is also proposed. Results suggest that the prediction accuracy of AdaBoost after improvement is relatively better than the rest.

Keywords: accelerometer, AdaBoost, GPS, mode prediction, support vector machine

Procedia PDF Downloads 363

Authors: Ashish Kumar Pathak, Ritika Sharma, Vishal Nath, Sudhir Pratap Singh, Rakesh Tuli

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Litchi is a sub-tropical fruit crop with genotypes bearing delicious juicy fruits with variable seed size (bold to rudimentary size). Small seed size is a desirable trait in litchi, as it increases consumer acceptance and fruit processing. The biochemical activities in mid- stage ovules (e.g. 16, 20, 24 and 28 days after anthesis) determine the fate of seed and fruit development in litchi. Comprehensive ovule-specific transcriptome analysis was performed in two litchi genotypes with contrasting seed size to gain molecular insight on determinants of seed fates in litchi fruits. The transcriptomic data was de-novo assembled in 1,39,608 trinity transcripts, out of which 6,325 trinity transcripts were differentially expressed between the two contrasting genotypes. Differential transcriptional pattern was found among ovule development stages in contrasting litchi genotypes. The putative genes for salicylic acid, jasmonic acid and brassinosteroid pathway were down-regulated in ovules of small-seeded litchi. Embryogenesis, cell expansion, seed size and stress related trinity transcripts exhibited altered expression in small-seeded genotype. The putative regulators of seed maturation and seed storage were down-regulated in small-seed genotype.

Keywords: Litchi, seed, transcriptome, defence

Procedia PDF Downloads 248

Authors: Haya Salah, Srinivas Sharan

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Healthcare facilities use appointment systems to schedule their appointments and to manage access to their medical services. With the growing demand for outpatient care, it is now imperative to manage physician's time effectively. However, high variation in consultation duration affects the clinical scheduler's ability to estimate the appointment duration and allocate provider time appropriately. Underestimating consultation times can lead to physician's burnout, misdiagnosis, and patient dissatisfaction. On the other hand, appointment durations that are longer than required lead to doctor idle time and fewer patient visits. Therefore, a good estimation of consultation duration has the potential to improve timely access to care, resource utilization, quality of care, and patient satisfaction. Although the literature on factors influencing consultation length abound, little work has done to predict it using based data-driven approaches. Therefore, this study aims to predict consultation duration using supervised machine learning algorithms (ML), which predicts an outcome variable (e.g., consultation) based on potential features that influence the outcome. In particular, ML algorithms learn from a historical dataset without explicitly being programmed and uncover the relationship between the features and outcome variable. A subset of the data used in this study has been obtained from the electronic medical records (EMR) of four different outpatient clinics located in central Pennsylvania, USA. Also, publicly available information on doctor's characteristics such as gender and experience has been extracted from online sources. This research develops three popular ML algorithms (deep learning, random forest, gradient boosting machine) to predict the treatment time required for a patient and conducts a comparative analysis of these algorithms with respect to predictive performance. The findings of this study indicate that ML algorithms have the potential to predict the provider service time with superior accuracy. While the current approach of experience-based appointment duration estimation adopted by the clinic resulted in a mean absolute percentage error of 25.8%, the Deep learning algorithm developed in this study yielded the best performance with a MAPE of 12.24%, followed by gradient boosting machine (13.26%) and random forests (14.71%). Besides, this research also identified the critical variables affecting consultation duration to be patient type (new vs. established), doctor's experience, zip code, appointment day, and doctor's specialty. Moreover, several practical insights are obtained based on the comparative analysis of the ML algorithms. The machine learning approach presented in this study can serve as a decision support tool and could be integrated into the appointment system for effectively managing patient scheduling.

Keywords: clinical decision support system, machine learning algorithms, patient scheduling, prediction models, provider service time

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Mehdi Khaki, Ehsan Forootan, Joseph Awange, Michael Kuhn

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Terrestrial water storage, as a source of freshwater, plays an important role in human lives. Hydrological models offer important tools for simulating and predicting water storages at global and regional scales. However, their comparisons with 'reality' are imperfect mainly due to a high level of uncertainty in input data and limitations in accounting for all complex water cycle processes, uncertainties of (unknown) empirical model parameters, as well as the absence of high resolution (both spatially and temporally) data. Data assimilation can mitigate this drawback by incorporating new sets of observations into models. In this effort, we use multi-mission satellite-derived remotely sensed observations to improve the performance of World-Wide Water Resources Assessment system (W3RA) hydrological model for estimating terrestrial water storages. For this purpose, we assimilate total water storage (TWS) data from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) and surface soil moisture data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) into W3RA. This is done to (i) improve model estimations of water stored in ground and soil moisture, and (ii) assess the impacts of each satellite of data (from GRACE and AMSR-E) and their combination on the final terrestrial water storage estimations. These data are assimilated into W3RA using the Ensemble Square-Root Filter (EnSRF) filtering technique over Mississippi Basin (the United States) and Murray-Darling Basin (Australia) between 2002 and 2013. In order to evaluate the results, independent ground-based groundwater and soil moisture measurements within each basin are used.

Keywords: data assimilation, GRACE, AMSR-E, hydrological model, EnSRF

Procedia PDF Downloads 291

Authors: Azad A. Meerkhan, Alaa Hani Razak, Bayan M. S. Younis

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The efficiency of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in sheep infected with Fasciola hepatica was studied. 232 jaundiced sheep among 5208 sheep slaughter in the Duhok abattoir (regardless of the age and gender) between the period of May. 2012 to Oct. 2012 were examined by direct examination (Searching of adult flukes in the bile duct) and by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect the prevalence of fascioliasis in the studied population which showed a high observed infection ratio in Sep. 2012 (12.2%) with the high (ELISA) result of infection in May. 2012 (25.36%). Significant differences were found between the two ways in all of the months with the highest difference in May. 2012 and the net deference between the both ways was 6.91%.

Keywords: fascioliasis, Fasciola hepatica, layers, liver fluk, ELISA, direct examination

Procedia PDF Downloads 326

Authors: Baharak Mousapour

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Creating public spaces which are tailored for the specific demands of the individuals is one of the challenges for the contemporary interior designers. Improving the general knowledge as well as providing a forum for all walks of life to exploit is one of the objectives of a public library. In this regard, interior design in consistent with the demands of the individuals is of paramount importance. Seemingly, study spaces, in particular, those in close relation to the personalized sector, have proven to be challenging, according to the literature. To address this challenge, attributes of individuals, namely, perception of people from public spaces and their interactions with the so-called spaces, should be analyzed to provide interior designers with something to work on. This paper follows the analytic-descriptive research methodology by outlining case study libraries which have personalized public libraries with the investigation of the type of personalization as its primary objective and (I) recognition of physical schedule and the know-how of the spatial connection in indoor design of a library and (II) analysis of each personalized space in relation to other spaces of the library as its secondary objectives. The significance of the current research lies in the concept of personalization as one of the most recent methods of attracting people to libraries. Previous research exists in this regard, but the lack of data concerning personalization makes this topic worth investigating. Hence, this study aims to put forward approaches through real-case studies for the designers to deal with this concept.

Keywords: interior design, library, library design, personalization

Procedia PDF Downloads 153