Search results for: cross correlation coefficient (CCF)

Authors: Seung Hun Lee, Sang Yeoup Lee

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Objectives: To investigate associations between degrees of obesity using correlations between obesity indices and cardiometabolic risk factors. Methods: BMI, waist circumference (WC), fasting insulin, fasting glucose, lipids, and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) area using computed tomographic images were measured in 113 obese female without cardiovascular disease (CVD). Correlations between obesity indices and cardiometabolic risk factors were analyzed in obese subgroups defined using sequential obesity indices. Results: Mean BMI and WC were 29.6 kg/m2 and 92.8 cm. BMI showed significant correlations with all five cardiometabolic risk factors until the BMI cut-off point reached 27 kg/m2, but when it exceeded 30 kg/m2, correlations no longer existed. WC was significantly correlated with all five cardiometabolic risk factors up to a value of 85 cm, but when WC exceeded 90 cm, correlations no longer existed. Conclusions: Our data suggest that moderate weight-loss goals may not be enough to ameliorate cardiometabolic markers in severely obese patients. Therefore, individualized weight-loss goals should be recommended to such patients to improve health benefits.

Keywords: correlation, cardiovascular disease, risk factors, obesity

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: H. Ozbasaran

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Lateral torsional buckling is a global stability loss which should be considered in the design of slender structural members under flexure about their strong axis. It is possible to compute the load which causes lateral torsional buckling of a beam by finite element analysis, however, closed form equations are needed in engineering practice. Such equations can be obtained by using energy method. Unfortunately, this method has a vital drawback. In lateral torsional buckling applications of energy method, a proper function for the critical lateral torsional buckling mode should be chosen which can be thought as the variation of twisting angle along the buckled beam. The accuracy of the results depends on how close is the chosen function to the exact mode. Since critical lateral torsional buckling mode of the cantilever I-beams varies due to material properties, section properties, and loading case, the hardest step is to determine a proper mode function. This paper presents an approximate function for critical lateral torsional buckling mode of doubly symmetric cantilever I-beams. Coefficient matrices are calculated for the concentrated load at the free end, uniformly distributed load and constant moment along the beam cases. Critical lateral torsional buckling modes obtained by presented function and exact solutions are compared. It is found that the modes obtained by presented function coincide with differential equation solutions for considered loading cases.

Keywords: buckling mode, cantilever, lateral-torsional buckling, I-beam

Procedia PDF Downloads 368

Authors: Seok-Hyeon Park, Joon-Hong Park, Mok-Tan-Ahn, Seong-Hun Ha

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Clad Pipe is made of a different kind of material, which is different from the internal and external materials, for the corrosive crude oil transportation tube. Most of the clad pipes are produced by hot rolling. However, problems arise due to high product prices and excessive process numbers. Therefore, in this study, the hot drawing process with excellent product cost, process number and productivity is applied. Due to the nature of the drawing process, the shape of the mold greatly influences the formability of the material and the bonding pressure of the two materials because it is a process of drawing the material to the die and reducing the cross-sectional area. Also, in case of hot drawing, if the mold shape is not suitable due to the increased fluidity of the material, it may cause problems such as tearing and stretching. Therefore, in this study, we try to find the shape of the mold which suppresses the occurrence of defects in the hot drawing process and maximizes the bonding pressure between the two materials through the mold shape optimization design by FEM analysis.

Keywords: clad pipe, hot drawing, bonding pressure, mold shape

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Authors: Luma Hameed Abd, Ammar Hamza Hadi, Amjed Abid Ali Mahdi

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Context: The study focused on treating high blood cholesterol in individuals aged 30-40 years using rehabilitation and nutrition programs compared to medical drugs. Research aim: To compare the effectiveness of exercise rehabilitation and nutrition programs with medical drugs in reducing high blood cholesterol levels. Methodology: An experimental method with equal groups was utilized, involving 160 patients from Najaf Hospital. SPSS was used for data analysis. Findings: The study showed that both the exercise and nutrition program, as well as medical drugs, contributed to lowering cholesterol levels, with the first group showing better results. Theoretical importance: The research highlights the significance of a holistic approach combining exercise, nutrition, and medical treatment in managing high cholesterol. Data collection: Blood cholesterol tests were conducted before and after the programs to assess improvements. Analysis procedures: Statistical methods such as arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Torsion coefficient, and T-test for correlated samples were employed to analyze the results. Questions addressed: The study addressed the effectiveness of rehabilitation and nutrition programs compared to medical drugs in treating high blood cholesterol. Conclusion: The research concluded that the combination of exercise rehabilitation and nutrition programs was more effective in reducing blood cholesterol levels compared to medical drugs.

Keywords: nutrition, rehabilitation, programs, high blood cholesterol

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Authors: Jarek Krajewski, David Daxberger

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We propose a stress detection method based on an RGB camera using heart rate detection, also known as Photoplethysmography Imaging (PPGI). This technique focuses on the measurement of the small changes in skin colour caused by blood perfusion. A stationary lab setting with simulated video conferences is chosen using constant light conditions and a sampling rate of 30 fps. The ground truth measurement of heart rate is conducted with a common PPG system. The proposed approach for pulse peak detection is based on a machine learning-based approach, applying brute force feature extraction for the prediction of heart rate pulses. The statistical analysis showed good agreement (correlation r = .79, p<0.05) between the reference heart rate system and the proposed method. Based on these findings, the proposed method could provide a reliable, low-cost, and contactless way of measuring HR parameters in daily-life environments.

Keywords: heart rate, PPGI, machine learning, brute force feature extraction

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: K. Boonlertnirun, C. Rawdsiri, R. Suvannasara, S. Boonlertnirun

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Thein corn variety well adapted to several planting conditions is usually accepted by most farmers. The objectives of this work were to evaluate yield potential of Thein corn inbred line grown in various nitrogen rates and plant conditions for selecting good inbred lines to be germ plasm for further breeding program. Split plot design with three replications was utilized as experimental design, three planting conditions: normal (control), low nitrogen, and high plant density condition, and sixteen inbred lines of Thein corn were used as main and subplot respectively. The results showed that no interaction between inbred line and planting condition in terms of yield. Correlation between planting conditions based on yield of inbred line was positive at medium level. Thein corn inbreds, namely L7, L5, L16, and L14 lines were tolerant to low nitrogen condition because they could produce high yield under all planting conditions and they were selected to be germ plasm for further breeding program.

Keywords: inbred line, planting condition, Thein corn, planting conditions

Procedia PDF Downloads 373

Authors: S. Ilahi, S. Almosni, F. Chouchene, M. Perrin, K. Zelazna, N. Yacoubi, R. Kudraweic, P. Rale, L. Lombez, J. F. Guillemoles, O. Durand, C. Cornet

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Great efforts have been dedicated to obtain high quality of GaAsPN. The properties of GaAsPN have played a great part on the development of solar cells devices based in Si substrate. The incorporation of N in GaAsPN that having a band gap around of 1.7 eV is of special interest in view of growing in Si substrate. In fact, post-growth and rapid thermal annealing (RTA) could be an effective way to improve the quality of the layer. Then, the influence of growth conditions and post-growth annealing on optical and thermal parameters is considered. We have used Photothermal deflection spectroscopy PDS to investigate the impact of rapid thermal annealing on thermal and optical properties of GaAsPN. In fact, the principle of the PDS consists to illuminate the sample by a modulated monochromatic light beam. Then, the absorbed energy is converted into heat through the nonradiative recombination process. The generated thermal wave propagates into the sample and surrounding media creating a refractive-index gradient giving rise to the deflection of a laser probe beam skimming the sample surface. The incident light is assumed to be uniform, and only the sample absorbs the light. In conclusion, the results are promising revealing an improvement in absorption coefficient and thermal conductivity.

Keywords: GaAsPN absorber, photothermal defelction technique PDS, photonics on silicon, thermal conductivity

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Authors: Kamran Rashid, Tashfeen M. Azhar, Asad-ur-Rahman Wahla

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Current research aims to understand the role of successful buyer-supplier relationship in achieving supply chain competitiveness in a developing country perspective. Five hypotheses are developed to test structural model. Survey data is collected from the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. Analysis is conducted using Partial Least Squares (PLS) Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through Smart PLS version 2.0 M3. Results demonstrate positive impact of effective supplier selection, buyer-supplier engagement, and information sharing capability on success of buyer supplier relationship. This successful buyer supplier relationship drives the supply chain firm financial and market performance. Additional analyses with large sample sizes are required in other developing countries to cross validate the results. Current study provides empirical evidence of the role of successful buyer supplier relationship in achieving supply chain competitiveness.

Keywords: supply chain management, successful buyer-supplier relationship, supply chain competitiveness, developing country

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Authors: Misrak Assefa

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The Amharic language is the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world. There are several new overloaded on the web. Searching some useful documents from the web on a specific topic, which is written in the Amharic language, is a challenging task. Hence, document categorization is required for managing and filtering important information. In the classification of Amharic text news, there is still a gap in the domain of information that needs to be launch. This study attempts to design an automatic Amharic news classification using a supervised learning mechanism on four un-touch classes. To achieve this research, 4,182 news articles were used. Naive Bayes (NB) and Decision tree (j48) algorithms were used to classify the given Amharic dataset. In this paper, k-fold cross-validation is used to estimate the accuracy of the classifier. As a result, it shows those algorithms can be applicable in Amharic news categorization. The best average accuracy result is achieved by j48 decision tree and naïve Bayes is 95.2345 %, and 94.6245 % respectively using three categories. This research indicated that a typical decision tree algorithm is more applicable to Amharic news categorization.

Keywords: text categorization, supervised machine learning, naive Bayes, decision tree

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Authors: Chad Goldsworthy, B. Rajeswari Matam

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The use of deep learning for species identification in camera trap images has revolutionised our ability to study, conserve and monitor species in a highly efficient and unobtrusive manner, with state-of-the-art models achieving accuracies surpassing the accuracy of manual human classification. The high imbalance of camera trap datasets, however, results in poor accuracies for minority (rare or endangered) species due to their relative insignificance to the overall model accuracy. This paper investigates the use of Focal Loss, in comparison to the traditional Cross Entropy Loss function, to improve the identification of minority species in the “255 Bird Species” dataset from Kaggle. The results show that, although Focal Loss slightly decreased the accuracy of the majority species, it was able to increase the F1-score by 0.06 and improve the identification of the bottom two, five and ten (minority) species by 37.5%, 15.7% and 10.8%, respectively, as well as resulting in an improved overall accuracy of 2.96%.

Keywords: convolutional neural networks, data imbalance, deep learning, focal loss, species classification, wildlife conservation

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Supanun Kangrang, Kraipat Cheenkachorn, Kittiphong Rattanaporn, Malinee Sriariyanun

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Rice straw is lignocellulosic biomass which can be utilized as substrate for the biogas production. However, due to the property and composition of rice straw, it is difficult to be degraded by hydrolysis enzymes. One of the pretreatment method that modifies such properties of lignocellulosic biomass is the application of lignocellulose-degrading microbial consortia. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of microbial consortia to enhance biogas production. To select the high efficient consortium, cellulase enzymes were extracted and their activities were analyzed. The results suggested that microbial consortium culture obtained from cattle manure is the best candidate compared to decomposed wood and horse manure. A microbial consortium isolated from cattle manure was then mixed with anaerobic sludge and used as inoculum for biogas production. The optimal conditions for biogas production were investigated using response surface methodology (RSM). The tested parameters were the ratio of amount of microbial consortium isolated and amount of anaerobic sludge (MI:AS), substrate to inoculum ratio (S:I) and temperature. Here, the value of the regression coefficient R2 = 0.7661 could be explained by the model which is high to advocate the significance of the model. The highest cumulative biogas yield was 104.6 ml/g-rice straw at optimum ratio of MI:AS, ratio of S:I, and temperature of 2.5:1, 15:1 and 44°C respectively.

Keywords: lignocellulolytic biomass, microbial consortium, cellulase, biogas, Response Surface Methodology (RSM)

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Authors: G. Sarojamma, K. Vendabai

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An analysis is carried out to investigate the effect of magnetic field and heat source on the steady boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a Casson nanofluid over a vertical cylinder stretching exponentially along its radial direction. Using a similarity transformation, the governing mathematical equations, with the boundary conditions are reduced to a system of coupled, non –linear ordinary differential equations. The resulting system is solved numerically by the fourth order Runge – Kutta scheme with shooting technique. The influence of various physical parameters such as Reynolds number, Prandtl number, magnetic field, Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter, Lewis number and the natural convection parameter are presented graphically and discussed for non – dimensional velocity, temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction. Numerical data for the skin – friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and the local Sherwood number have been tabulated for various parametric conditions. It is found that the local Nusselt number is a decreasing function of Brownian motion parameter Nb and the thermophoresis parameter Nt.

Keywords: casson nanofluid, boundary layer flow, internal heat generation/absorption, exponentially stretching cylinder, heat transfer, brownian motion, thermophoresis

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Authors: Y. Rathiranee, D. M. Semasinghe

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This study attempts to identify the factors influencing on women empowerment of rural area in Sri Lanka through micro finance services. Data were collected from one hundred (100) rural women involving self employment activities through a questionnaire using direct personal interviews. Judgment and Convenience Random sampling technique was used to select the sample size from three Divisional Secretariat divisions of Kandawalai, Poonakari and Karachchi in Kilinochchi District. The factor analysis was performed on fourteen (14) variables for screening and reducing the variables to identify the influencing factors on empowerment. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the relationship between the three empowerment factors and the impact of micro-finance on overall empowerment of rural women. The result of this study summarized the variables into three factors namely decision making, freedom to mobility and family support and which are positively associated with empowerment. In addition to this the value of adjusted R2 is 0.248 indicates that all the variables extracted can be explained 24.8% of the variation in the women empowerment through microfinance. Independent variables of these three factors have a positive correlation with women empowerment as well as significant values at 5 percent level.

Keywords: influencing factors, micro finance, rural women, women empowerment

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Authors: Jane E. Mullen, Kevin Kelloway, Ann Rhéaume-Brüning

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The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of perceived leader word-action alignment on subordinate extra-role safety behavior. Using survey data gathered from a sample of nurses employed in health care facilities located in Eastern Canada (n = 192), the effects of perceived word-action alignment (measured as the cross product of leaders speaking positively about safety and acting safely) on nurse safety participation was examined. Moderated regression analysis resulted in the significant (p < .01) prediction of nurse safety participation by the interaction term. Analysis of the simple slopes comprising the interaction term suggests that positively speaking about safety only predicted safety participation when leaders were also perceived by subordinates as acting safely. The results provide empirical support for the importance of the perceived alignment between leaders’ words, or espoused safety values and priorities, and their actions. Practical implications for safety leadership training are discussed.

Keywords: leadership, safety participation, safety performance, safety training

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Authors: Borys Stegniy, Anton Gerilovych, Oleksii Solodiankin, Vitaliy Bolotin, Anton Stegniy, Denys Muzyka, Claudio Afonso

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New APMV was isolated from white fronted goose in Ukraine. This isolate was tested serologically using monoclonal antibodies in haemagglutination-inhibition tests against APMV1-9. As the results obtained isolate showed cross reactions with APMV7. Following investigations were provided for the full genome sequencing using random primers and cloning into pCRII-TOPO. Analysis of 100 transformed colonies of E.coli using traditional sequencing gave us possibilities to find only 3 regions, which could identify by BLAST. The first region with the length of 367 bp had 70 % nucleotide sequence identity to the APMV 12 isolate Wigeon/Italy/3920_1/2005 at genome position 2419-2784. Next region (344 bp) had 66 % identity to the same APMV 12 isolate at position 4760-5103. The last region (365 bp) showed 71 % identity to Newcastle disease virus strain M4 at position 12569-12928.

Keywords: APMV, Newcastle disease virus, Ukraine, full genome sequencing

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Authors: D. M. Tshwane, R. R. Maphanga, P. E. Ngoepe

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Nanostructured materials are attractive candidates for efficient electrochemical energy storage devices because of their unique physicochemical properties. Nanotubes have drawn a continuous attention because of their unique electrical, optical and magnetic properties contrast to that of bulk system. They have potential application in the field of optical, electronics and energy storage device. Introducing nanotubes structures as electrode materials; represents one of the most attractive strategies that could dramatically enhance the battery performance. Spinel LiMn2O4 is the most promising cathode material for Li-ion batteries. In this work, computer simulation methods are used to generate and investigate properties of spinel LiMn2O4 nanotubes. Molecular dynamic simulation is used to probe the local structure of LiMn2O4 nanotubes and the effect of temperature on these systems. It is found that diameter, Miller indices and size have a direct control on nanotubes morphology. Furthermore, it is noted that stability depends on surface and wrapping of the nanotube. The nanotube structures are described using the radial distribution function and XRD patterns. There is a correlation between calculated XRD and experimentally reported results.

Keywords: LiMn2O4, li-ion batteries, nanotubes, nanostructures

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Authors: Abdullahi Jibrin, Aishetu Abdulkadir

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The development of allometric models is crucial to accurate forest biomass/carbon stock assessment. The aim of this study was to develop a set of biomass prediction models that will enable the determination of total tree aboveground biomass for savannah woodland area in Niger State, Nigeria. Based on the data collected through biometric measurements of 1816 trees and destructive sampling of 36 trees, five species specific and one site specific models were developed. The sample size was distributed equally between the five most dominant species in the study site (Vitellaria paradoxa, Irvingia gabonensis, Parkia biglobosa, Anogeissus leiocarpus, Pterocarpus erinaceous). Firstly, the equations were developed for five individual species. Secondly these five species were mixed and were used to develop an allometric equation of mixed species. Overall, there was a strong positive relationship between total tree biomass and the stem diameter. The coefficient of determination (R2 values) ranging from 0.93 to 0.99 P < 0.001 were realised for the models; with considerable low standard error of the estimates (SEE) which confirms that the total tree above ground biomass has a significant relationship with the dbh. The F-test value for the biomass prediction models were also significant at p < 0.001 which indicates that the biomass prediction models are valid. This study recommends that for improved biomass estimates in the study site, the site specific biomass models should preferably be used instead of using generic models.

Keywords: allometriy, biomass, carbon stock , model, regression equation, woodland, inventory

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Authors: Subal Kar, Madhuja Ghosh, Amitesh Kumar, Arijit Majumder

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Complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR) loaded microstrip square patch antenna has been optimally designed with the help of high frequency structure simulator (HFSS). The antenna has been fabricated on the basis of the simulation design data and experimentally tested in anechoic chamber to evaluate its gain, bandwidth, efficiency and polarization characteristics. The CSRR loaded microstrip patch antenna has been found to realize significant size miniaturization (to the extent of 24%) compared to the conventional-type microstrip patch antenna both operating at the same frequency (5.2 GHz). The fabricated antenna could realize a maximum gain of 4.17 dB, 10 dB impedance bandwidth of 34 MHz, efficiency 50.73% and with maximum cross-pol of 10.56 dB down at the operating frequency. This practically designed antenna with its miniaturized size is expected to be useful for airborne and space borne applications at microwave frequency.

Keywords: split ring resonator, metamaterial, CSRR loaded patch antenna, microstrip patch antenna, LC resonator

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Authors: Wenwen Lei, David R. Mckenzie

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Recent findings of anomalously high gas flow rates in carbon nanotubes show smooth hydrophobic walls can increase specular reflection of molecules and reduce the tangential momentum accommodation coefficient (TMAC). Here we report the first measurements of water vapor flows in microtubes over a wide humidity range and show that for hydrophobic silica there is a range of humidity over which an adsorbed water layer reduces TMAC and accelerates flow. Our results show that this association between hydrophobicity and accelerated moisture flow occurs in readily available materials. We develop a hierarchical theory that unifies Maxwell’s ideas on TMAC with Langmuir’s ideas on adsorption. We fit the TMAC data as a function of humidity with the hierarchical theory based on two stages of Langmuir adsorption and derive total adsorption isotherms for water on hydrophobic silica that agree with direct observations. We propose structures for each stage of the water adsorption, the first reducing TMAC by a passivation of adsorptive patches and a smoothing of the surface, the second resembling bulk water with large TMAC. We find that leak testing of moisture barriers with an ideal gas such as helium may not be accurate enough for critical applications and that direct measurements of the water leak rate should be made.

Keywords: water vapor flows, silica microtubes, TMAC, enhanced flow rates

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Authors: Ming-Yang Guo, Cheng-Xian Wu, Wei-Xiang Chen, Chun-Yuan Lin, Yen-Jen Lin, Ann-Shyn Chiang

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With more and more Drosophila Driver and Neuron images, it is an important work to find the similarity relationships among them as the functional inference. There is a general problem that how to find a Drosophila Driver image, which can cover a set of Drosophila Driver/Neuron images. In order to solve this problem, the intersection/union region for a set of images should be computed at first, then a comparison work is used to calculate the similarities between the region and other images. In this paper, three encoding schemes, namely Integer, Boolean, Decimal, are proposed to encode each image as a one-dimensional structure. Then, the intersection/union region from these images can be computed by using the compare operations, Boolean operators and lookup table method. Finally, the comparison work is done as the union region computation, and the similarity score can be calculated by the definition of Tanimoto coefficient. The above methods for the region computation are also implemented in the multi-core CPUs environment with the OpenMP. From the experimental results, in the encoding phase, the performance by the Boolean scheme is the best than that by others; in the region computation phase, the performance by Decimal is the best when the number of images is large. The speedup ratio can achieve 12 based on 16 CPUs. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology under the grant MOST 106-2221-E-182-070.

Keywords: Drosophila driver image, Drosophila neuron images, intersection/union computation, parallel processing, OpenMP

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Authors: Chaitanya R. Mali, V. Vinod, Ashwin W. Patwardhan

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Design of long vertical steam generator (SG) tubes in nuclear power plant involves an understanding of different aspects of flow boiling phenomenon such as flow instabilities, flow regimes, dry out, critical heat flux, pressure drop, etc. The knowledge of the prediction of local thermal hydraulic characteristics is necessary to understand these aspects. For this purpose, the methodology has been developed which covers all the flow boiling regimes to model full range flow boiling phenomenon. In this methodology, the vertical tube is divided into four sections based on vapor fraction value at the end of each section. Different modeling strategies have been applied to the different sections of the vertical tube. Computational fluid dynamics simulations have been performed on a vertical SG tube of 0.0126 m inner diameter and 23 m length. The thermal hydraulic parameters such as vapor fraction, liquid temperature, heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, heat flux distribution have been analyzed for different designed heat duties (1.1 MW (20%) to 3.3 MW (60%)) and flow conditions (10 % to 80 %). The sensitivity of different boiling parameters such as bubble departure diameter, nucleation site density, bubble departure frequency on the thermal hydraulic parameters was also studied. Flow instability has been observed at 20 % designed heat duty and 20 % flow conditions.

Keywords: thermal hydraulics, boiling, vapor fraction, sensitivity

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Authors: Adesina Nathaniel Olanrewaju

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The motivation behind this study is the need to see strategic leadership as one of the key driving forces for improving corporate performance. Strategic leadership is seen as a potent source of management development and sustained competitive advantage for both employee and organizational performance. There is currently a charge on leaders as a major cause of organizational failure. Stakeholders give what they can afford, not necessarily what the organization needs and impose operational and financial decisions on the leaders, 200 respondents were fit for the analysis from the six geo-political regions in Nigeria. The selection was done equally among various parastatals through random sampling technique from the south-south, south-east, south-west, north-east, north-west and north-central. A descriptive research of the survey was employed. The data were subjected to t-test analysis and correlation and regression were used for the analysis. The findings revealed that there is a strong relationship and impact between a strategic leader and corporate performance. Recommendations were made based on the findings that strategic leaders should be given the blueprint, company’s policy and the stakeholders’ expectation within a time frame the work is to be carried out.

Keywords: time, strategic, organization, stakeholder, leader, performance

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Authors: Melissa Beck Wells

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This study examines the complex factors affecting teacher retention across states, focusing on the roles of salaries, educational policies, and professional development. Despite efforts to reduce teacher turnover, it remains a significant challenge, impacting the quality of education and student outcomes. Analysis of data from the National Education Association, the ‘Raise the Bar’ initiative, and the Education Commission of the States reveals a minimal negative correlation between teacher salaries and retention, indicating that salary alone does not determine retention. Additionally, thematic analysis of educational policies and development programs highlights effective strategies for addressing retention challenges. The research emphasizes the need for holistic support systems, including mentorship and professional growth opportunities, to improve retention. These findings urge policymakers and educational leaders to develop comprehensive strategies to maintain a qualified teaching workforce and enhance educational quality and equity nationwide.

Keywords: teacher retention, salary levels, educational policies, professional development, teacher turnover

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Authors: Mohamad Javad Shakouri, Behshad Riahipour

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Today, the use of medicinal herbs in architecture and green space has a significant effect on the process of calming human and increases the reliability coefficient of design and design flexibility. The current research was conducted with the aim to design green roof and investigate the effect of medicinal herbs such as cress, leek, fenugreek, beet, sweet fennel, green basil, purple basil, and purslane on reducing the number of environmental pollutants (copper, zinc, and cadmium). Finally, the weight of the dry plant and the concentration of elements zinc, lead, and cadmium in the herbs was measured. According to the results, the maximum dry weight (88.10 and 73.79 g) was obtained in beet and purslane respectively and the minimum dry weight (24.12 and 25.21) was obtained in purple basil, and green basil respectively. The maximum amount of element zinc (235 and 213 mg/kg) and the maximum amount of lead (143 mg/kg) were seen in sweet fennel and purple basil. In addition, the maximum amount of cadmium (13 mg/kg) was seen in sweet fennel and purple basil and the minimum amount of lead and cadmium (78 and 7 mg/kg) was seen in green basil, and the minimum amount of zinc (110 mg/kg) was seen in leek. On the other hand, the absorption amount of element lead in the herbs beet and purslane was the same and both absorbed 123 mg/kg lead. Environmentally, if green roofs are implemented extensively and in wide dimensions in urban spaces, they will purify and reduce pollution significantly by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.

Keywords: medicinal herbs, green space, green roof, heavy metals, lead, green basil

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Authors: Yosra Ben Mhamed

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Most previous research that investigates the importance of earnings volatility for a firm’s value has focused on the effects of earnings volatility on the cost of capital. Many study illustrate that earnings volatility can reduce the firm’s value by enhancing the cost of capital. However, a few recent studies directly examine the relation between earnings volatility and subsequent earnings levels. In our study, we further explore the role of volatility in forecasting. Our study makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, taking into account the level of current firm’s performance, we provide causal theory to the link between volatility and earnings predictability. Nevertheless, previous studies testing the linearity of this relationship have not mentioned any underlying theory. Secondly, our study contributes to the vast body of fundamental analysis research that identifies a set of variables that improve valuation, by showing that earnings volatility affects the estimation of future earnings. Projections of earnings are used by valuation research and practice to derive estimates of firm value. Since we want to examine the impact of volatility on earnings predictability, we sort the sample into three portfolios according to the level of their earnings volatility in ascending order. For each quintile, we present the predictability coefficient. In a second test, each of these portfolios is, then, sorted into three further quintiles based on their level of current earnings. These yield nine quintiles. So we can observe whether volatility strongly predicts decreases on earnings predictability only for highest quintile of earnings. In general, we find that earnings volatility has an inverse relationship with earnings predictability. Our results also show that the sensibility of earnings predictability to ex-ante volatility is more pronounced among profitability firms. The findings are most consistent with overinvestment and persistence explanations.

Keywords: earnings volatility, earnings predictability, earnings persistence, current profitability

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Authors: Zorana Sokol Gojnik, Igor Gojnik, Marina Simunic Bursic

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The light is one of the major themes of theology of sacred space. Christian theology, but also architecture in its complexity, is permeated by the symbolism of light from its beginning. The aim of this paper is to deeply analyse the symbolism of light in every single element of contemporary Christian sacred space such as altar, ambo, baptistery, tabernacle, confessionals, stations of the cross, etc. The research will be carried out using the methodology of research of literature and comparatively observation of contemporary examples of sacred architecture. The research will use the insights of analyzed literature and examples of sacred architecture in order to describe the background of the problem as well as to complement the received results with the reliable scientific findings. The paper will highlight the importance of symbolic and theological points of view in contemporary church design using the light as a building part of every single part of sacred architecture as there is an insight that, in contemporary sacred architecture, there is a lack of understanding of symbolic and theological aspect of light while designing new sacred spaces.

Keywords: architecture, liturgy, sacred architecture, theology of space

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Hajar Aman Key Yekani, Yusra Mushtaq, Behnaz Farahani, Hamed Abdi

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This study explores associations between parental restriction and children's appetitive traits, putting to test the hypothesis that parental 'restriction' is associated with having a child with stronger food approach tendencies (food enjoyment (FE) and food over-responsiveness (FR)). The participants, from 55 nationalities, targeting 1081 parents of 5- to 11-year-old children from 7 private schools in Dubai, UAE, who completed self-reported questionnaires over the 2011-2012 school year. The questionnaire has been a tailored amalgamation of CEBQ and CFQ in order to measure the children’s appetitive traits and parental restriction, respectively. The findings of this quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional analysis confirmed the hypothesis in that 'parental restriction' was positively associated with child food responsiveness (r, 0.183), food enjoyment (r, 0.102). To conclude, as far as the figures depict, the parents controlling their children’s food intake would seemingly a reverse impact on their eating behaviour in the short term.

Keywords: parental restriction, children, eating behaviour, schools in Dubai

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Authors: David Chapola Nggada

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This is a survey designed to find out the impact of the ongoing insurgency in north eastern Nigeria on educational attainment. It is a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative research work on a sample size of 71 secondary school students currently displaced from Baga Biu and Monguno areas of Borno State, now residing as internally displaced persons(IDPs) in Gombe and Yola IDP camps. This was done through both semi structured interview and questionnaire administration. Statistical methods used include percentage and cross tables to gain specific insight into different dimensions of what this implies. Two major aspects of the impact covered were impact on individual student and impact on societal development. These two dimensions were measured against national development variables and analyzed against reviewed literature and findings across the globe. A combination of theories from different fields led to a deeper and better insight. The results confirm a significant relationship between educational attainment and the development of the north east region and Nigeria as a whole. Recommendations were made on ways of reintegrating this group back to the educational system.

Keywords: education, insurgency, national development, threat

Procedia PDF Downloads 245

Authors: Sham Kidane, Fitsum Gaim, Ibrahim Abdella, Sirak Asmerom, Yoel Ghebrihiwot, Simon Mulugeta, Natnael Ambassager

Abstract:

The lack of annotated datasets is a bottleneck to the progress of NLP in low-resourced languages. The work presented here consists of large-scale annotated datasets and models for the named entity recognition (NER) system for the Tigrinya language. Our manually constructed corpus comprises over 340K words tagged for NER, with over 118K of the tokens also having parts-of-speech (POS) tags, annotated with 12 distinct classes of entities, represented using several types of tagging schemes. We conducted extensive experiments covering convolutional neural networks and transformer models; the highest performance achieved is 88.8% weighted F1-score. These results are especially noteworthy given the unique challenges posed by Tigrinya’s distinct grammatical structure and complex word morphologies. The system can be an essential building block for the advancement of NLP systems in Tigrinya and other related low-resourced languages and serve as a bridge for cross-referencing against higher-resourced languages.

Keywords: Tigrinya NER corpus, TiBERT, TiRoBERTa, BiLSTM-CRF

Procedia PDF Downloads 131

Authors: Ghandehari Motlagh, Mohammad

Abstract:

Purpose: We tried to find the most common etiologies for anisometropia in pre-op cataract cases: axial or refractive. Methods: In this cross-sectional study ,41 pre-op cataract eyes with more than 0.33 difference between axial lengths of 2 eyes were enrolled.Considered for each 1mm difference between axial lengths in long eyes( AXL more than 25):1.75-2.00 D of anisometropia, for normal eyes(AXL: 22- 25):2.50D and for short eyes (AXL less than 22):3.50-3.75 D as axial anisometropia. If there are more or lesser anisometropia, we recorded as refractive anisometropia. Results: Average of anisometropia :4.24 D, prevalence of PK or LK :1 (2.38%), kc:1(2.38%), glaucoma surgery: 1(2.38%), and pseudophakic status of the opposite eye 8(19.04%). Prevalence of axial anisometropia:21 (52.4%) and refractive anisometropia 20(47.6%).Then on basis of this study we can rely on the patient’s refraction exactly before phaco for evaluation of axial length differences between the 2 eyes, because most of the anisometropias are axial. Conclusion: In most cases, cataract does not induce significant change in refractive error (secondary myopia) and AXL difference between the 2 eyes are correlated with anisometropia.so it can be used for cataract patient’s ocular biometry evaluation. Pre-cataract refraction is a valuable variable should be measured and recorded in routin eye examination.

Keywords: ocular axial length, anisometropia, cataract, ophthalmology and optometry

Procedia PDF Downloads 381