Search results for: post processing kinematics

Authors: Anuruddha Jagoda, Samiddhi Samarakoon, Anil Jasinghe

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In an emergency department ‘where every second count for patient’s management’ timely availability of X- rays play a vital role in early diagnosis and management of patients. Trauma care centers rely heavily on timely radiologic imaging for patient care and radiology plays a crucial role in the emergency department (ED) operations. A research study was carried out to assess timeliness of availability of X-rays and total turnaround time at the Accident Service of National Hospital of Sri Lanka which is the premier trauma center in the country. Digital Radiology system was implemented as an intervention to improve the timeliness of availability of X-rays. Post-implementation assessment was carried out to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. Reduction in all three aspects of waiting times namely waiting for initial examination by doctors, waiting until X –ray is performed and waiting for image availability was observed after implementation of the intervention. However, the most significant improvement was seen in waiting time for image availability and reduction in time for image availability had indirect impact on reducing waiting time for initial examination by doctors and waiting until X –ray is performed. The most significant reduction in time for image availability was observed when performing 4-5 X rays with DR system. The least improvement in timeliness was seen in patients who are categorized as critical.

Keywords: emergency department, digital radilogy, timeliness, trauma care

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Authors: Mutavhatsindi Tshinakaho

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Invasive alien plants (IAP’s) are referred to as species that are non-native to the ecosystem under consideration. Whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic, ecological, or environmental harm. The integrated management of the invasive plant, Tithonia diversifolia, will be assessed through two herbicide trials (one on the seedlings and the other on matured plants) and a competitive trial between Tithonia and invasive grass species. The initial herbicide trial will be undertaken at the University of Venda Agricultural greenhouse facilities, where Tithonia will be planted in pot plants and watered every after two days until they reach at least 30 cm and will then be subjected to four different herbicide treatments (Metsulfuron methyl, Fluroxypyr, Picloram, Triclopyr), water will be utilised as a control. The percentage damage to foliar will be recorded. The second herbicide trial will be undertaken at Levubu road site, where matured Tithonia will be cut at at least 10cm above the ground and the subjected to herbicide treatments (Picloram, Fluroxypyr, Imazapyr, and Water as a control). The site will be visited post treatment for assessment. For the competition trial, tall grass species will be chosen as competitors (Panicum maximum and Eragrostis murvula), they will be grown at six densities per pot in the greenhouse facilities at the University of Venda, were they will be kept watered for the duration of the experiment. At the end of the experiment, plants will be removed from pots, and the above and below ground biomass will be weighed. The expected results are to know the effective integrated management strategy for T. diversifolia, the effective rehabilitation of T. diversifolia invaded habitats, and the effective chemical control of T. diversifolia

Keywords: foliar, biomass, competition, invasion

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Authors: Shu Yin, Zhiyang Ding, Jianzhong Huang, Xiaojun Ruan, Xiaomin Zhu, Xiao Qin

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Since large-scale and data-intensive applications have been widely deployed, there is a growing demand for high-performance storage systems to support data-intensive applications. Compared with traditional storage systems, next-generation systems will embrace dedicated processor to reduce computational load of host machines and will have hybrid combinations of different storage devices. The advent of flash- memory-based solid state disk has become a critical role in revolutionizing the storage world. However, instead of simply replacing the traditional magnetic hard disk with the solid state disk, it is believed that finding a complementary approach to corporate both of them is more challenging and attractive. This paper explores an idea of active storage, an emerging new storage configuration, in terms of the architecture and design, the parallel processing capability, the cooperation of other machines in cluster computing environment, and a disk configuration, the hybrid combination of different types of disk drives. Experimental results indicate that the proposed HcDD achieves better I/O performance and longer storage system lifespan.

Keywords: arallel storage system, hybrid storage system, data inten- sive, solid state disks, reliability

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Authors: Alexandra Aslanidou

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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), concerning the protection of natural persons within the European Union with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, became applicable in the European Union (EU) on 25 May 2018 and transformed the way personal data were being treated under the Data Protection Directive (DPD) regime, generating sweeping organizational changes to both public sector and business. A social practice that is considerably influenced in the way of its day-to-day operations is Human Resource (HR) management, for which the importance of GDPR cannot be underestimated. That is because HR processes personal data coming in all shapes and sizes from many different systems and sources. The significance of the proper functioning of an HR department, specifically in human-centered, service-oriented environments such as the education field, is decisive due to the fact that HR operations in schools, conducted effectively, determine the quality of the provided services and consequently have a considerable impact on the success of the educational system. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the decisive role that GDPR plays in HR departments that operate in schools and in order to practically evaluate the aftermath of the Regulation during the first months of its applicability; a comparative use cases analysis in five highly dynamic schools, across three EU Member States, was attempted.

Keywords: general data protection regulation, human resource management, educational system

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Authors: Chayanika Hazarika Bordoloi

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This paper is an attempt to work on a highly inflectional language called Assamese. This is also one of the national languages of India and very little has been achieved in terms of computational research. Building a language processing tool for a natural language is not very smooth as the standard and language representation change at various levels. This paper presents inflectional suffixes of Assamese verbs and how the statistical tools, along with linguistic features, can improve the tagging accuracy. Conditional random fields (CRF tool) was used to automatically tag and train the text data; however, accuracy was improved after linguistic featured were fed into the training data. Assamese is a highly inflectional language; hence, it is challenging to standardizing its morphology. Inflectional suffixes are used as a feature of the text data. In order to analyze the inflections of Assamese word forms, a list of suffixes is prepared. This list comprises suffixes, comprising of all possible suffixes that various categories can take is prepared. Assamese words can be classified into inflected classes (noun, pronoun, adjective and verb) and un-inflected classes (adverb and particle). The corpus used for this morphological analysis has huge tokens. The corpus is a mixed corpus and it has given satisfactory accuracy. The accuracy rate of the tagger has gradually improved with the modified training data.

Keywords: CRF, morphology, tagging, tagset

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Authors: Jugal Bhandari, K. Hari Priya

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The ECG signal provides important clinical information which could be used to pretend the diseases related to heart. Accordingly, delineation of ECG signal is an important task. Whereas delineation of P and T waves is a complex task. This paper deals with the Study of ECG signal and analysis of signal by means of Verilog Design of efficient filters and MATLAB tool effectively. It includes generation and simulation of ECG signal, by means of real time ECG data, ECG signal filtering and processing by analysis of different algorithms and techniques. In this paper, we design a basic particle filter which generates a dynamic model depending on the present and past input samples and then produces the desired output. Afterwards, the output will be processed by MATLAB to get the actual shape and accurate values of the ranges of P-wave and T-wave of ECG signal. In this paper, Questasim is a tool of mentor graphics which is being used for simulation and functional verification. The same design is again verified using Xilinx ISE which will be also used for synthesis, mapping and bit file generation. Xilinx FPGA board will be used for implementation of system. The final results of FPGA shall be verified with ChipScope Pro where the output data can be observed.

Keywords: ECG, MATLAB, Bayesian filtering, particle filter, Verilog hardware descriptive language

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Authors: Mei-Ying Liao

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The main purpose of this study was to examine the requirements of a successful concert for young children in preschool in Taiwan. This study reports a case study of a preschool’s experience which undertook ten concerts for young children. The main audiences were young children who were two to six years of age. The performers, including children’s family, amateurs and professional performers, were invited to perform music instruments or singing twice a week. The performers participated in these concerts separately, as a solo or ensemble performance. There were totally ten concerts. The structure of concert included the performance, musical activities, questions and answers, song requests, and exploration of instruments. Data collection included interviews with children, teachers and performers, concert observations, and footnotes. Results showed that the requirements of a successful and meaningful concert for young children were suggested to include concert preparation, concert, and post activities. The concert organizer, host and classroom teachers played vital roles for a successful concert. The organizer had to organize the programs and prepared for the concerts based on the needs and interests of their audience of young children, engage their attention and offer the potential to expand their musical worlds. The hosts had to build a bridge between performers and young children who had to know how they could delight and educate children. Concerts combined games, storytelling, instrument exploration and great music had great effects. Finally, the classroom teachers had to do the extension activities after the concerts so that the children will involve more and get more enthusiasm in concerts.

Keywords: case study, concert, music education, performance

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Authors: Shamm Kidane, Ibrahim Abdella, Fitsum Gaim, Simon Mulugeta, Sirak Asmerom, Natnael Ambasager, Yoel Ghebrihiwot

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The call for natural language processing (NLP) systems for low-resource languages has become more apparent than ever in the past few years, with the arduous challenges still present in preparing such systems. This paper presents an improved dataset version of the Nagaoka Tigrinya Corpus for Parts-of-Speech (POS) classification system in the Tigrinya language. The size of the initial Nagaoka dataset was incremented, totaling the new tagged corpus to 118K tokens, which comprised the 12 basic POS annotations used previously. The additional content was also annotated manually in a stringent manner, followed similar rules to the former dataset and was formatted in CONLL format. The system made use of the novel approach in NLP tasks and use of the monolingually pre-trained TiELECTRA, TiBERT and TiRoBERTa transformer models. The highest achieved score is an impressive weighted F1-score of 94.2%, which surpassed the previous systems by a significant measure. The system will prove useful in the progress of NLP-related tasks for Tigrinya and similarly related low-resource languages with room for cross-referencing higher-resource languages.

Keywords: Tigrinya POS corpus, TiBERT, TiRoBERTa, conditional random fields

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Authors: Yuhong Li, Luyu Mao

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Globalization has led to an increasingly interconnected international community and transmitted risks to every corner of the world through the chain of globalization. Security risks arising from international conflicts seem inescapable. Some countries have begun to build their capacity to deal with the globalization of security risks. They establish disembedding security mechanisms that transcend spatial or temporal boundaries and promote security cooperation with countries or regions that are not geographically close. This paper proposes four hypotheses of the phenomenon of "risks and security disembedding" in the post-Cold War international society and uses them to explain The United Kingdom’s behavior in the Bosnian War and the Russo-Ukrainian War. In the Bosnian War, confident in its own security and focused on maintaining European stability, The UK has therefore chosen to be cautious in its use of force in international frameworks such as the EU and to maintain a very limited intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina's affairs. In contrast, the failure of the EU and NATO’s security mechanism in the Russo-Ukrainian war heightened Britain's anxiety, and the volatile international situation led it to show a strong tendency towards security disembedding, choosing to conclude security communities with extra-territorial states. Analysis suggests that security mechanisms are also the starting point of conflict and that countries will rely more on disembedding mechanisms to counteract the global security risks. The current mechanism of security disembedding occurs as a result of the global proliferation of security perceptions as a symbolic token and the recognition of an expert system of security mechanisms formed by states with similar security perceptions.

Keywords: disembedding mechanism, bosnia war, the russian-ukrainian war, british security strategy

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Authors: Poglajen Andrej, Malečihar Špela

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Social work in rehabilitation needs constant development and embetterment of its practitioners. This became even more evident during the covid pandemic at times when outside sources of help, care and support were non-existent, or the access to such sources was severely limited. Social workers are, at our core, researchers of the rehabilitated world – from a personal and intrapersonal to a systematic perspective. This is also why a method of research was used in order to see if clinical social work practice can be further improved. The first stage of research showcased how action research and social work practice share many of the core values, whereas the Implementation of the new behaviour principle was severely lacking and thus became the main focus of the follow-up research. Twenty randomly selected case files of clinical social work practice in rehabilitation were qualitatively analyzed and potential benefits of action research on practice were assessed in the process of intervention while also getting feedback of the usefulness by the patients themselves using pre and post evaluation forms where a mixed-method approach was used. Implementation of new behaviour principle was recognized as a potential, improving factor of clinical social work practice in most analyzed cases, while it wasn’t deemed necessary in all of them. Potential improvements of newly implemented behaviour span across different areas of life and were also noted in the feedback from the rehabilitates. Despite the benefits of practice embetterment, the inclusion and focus on Implementation of new behaviour principle also caused additional workload, lack of time and stressful situations for the practitioners, which showcased the need to address certain systemic obstacles in the context of social work in healthcare in Slovenia.

Keywords: action research, practice, rehabilitation, social work

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Authors: Esther Eduzor, Charles A. Negbenebor, Helen O. Agu

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Smoking of meat enhances the taste and look of meat, it also increases its longevity, and helps preserve the meat by slowing down the spoilage of fat and growth of bacteria. The Lean meat from the forequarter of beef carcass was obtained from the Maiduguri abattoir. The meat was cut into four portions with weight ranging from 525-545 g. The meat was cut into bits measuring about 8 cm in length, 3.5 cm in thickness and weighed 64.5 g. Meat samples were washed, cured with various concentration of sodium chloride, sodium nitrate, citric acid and clove for 30 min, drained and smoked in a smoking kiln at a temperature range of 55-600°C, for 8 hr a day for 3 days. The products were stored at ambient temperature and evaluated microbiologically and organoleptically. In terms of processing and storage there were increases in pH, free fatty acid content, a decrease in water holding capacity and microbial count of the cured smoked meat. The panelists rated control samples significantly (p < 0.05) higher in terms of colour, texture, taste and overall acceptability. The following organisms were isolated and identified during storage: Bacillus specie, Bacillus subtilis, streptococcus, Pseudomonas, Aspergillus niger, Candida and Penicillium specie. The study forms a basis for new product development for meat industry.

Keywords: citric acid, cloves, smoked meat, bioengineering

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Authors: Vighnesh Daas, David B. Tann, Mahmood Datoo

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The incorporation of recycled plastic fibres in concrete as reinforcement is a potential sustainable alternative for replacement of ordinary steel bars. It provides a scope for waste reduction and re-use of plastics in the construction industry on a large scale. Structural use of fibre reinforced concrete is limited to short span members and low reliability classes. In this study, recycled carpet fibres made of 95% polypropylene with length of 45mm were used for experimental investigations. The performance of recycled polypropylene fibres under structural loading has been compared with commercially available virgin fibres at low volume fractions of less than 1%. A series of 100 mm cubes and 125x200x2000 mm beams were used to conduct strength tests in bending and compression to measure the influence of type and volume of fibres on the structural behaviour of fibre reinforced concrete beams. The workability of the concrete mix decreased as a function of fibre content and resulted in a modification of the mix design. The beams failed in a pseudo-ductile manner with an enhanced bending capacity. The specimens showed significant improvement in the post-cracking behaviour and load carrying ability as compared to conventional reinforced concrete members. This was associated to the binding properties of the fibres in the concrete matrix. With the inclusion of fibres at low volumes of 0-0.5%, there was reduction in crack sizes and deflection. This study indicates that the inclusion of recycled polypropylene fibres at low volumes augments the structural behaviour of concrete as compared to conventional reinforced concrete as well as virgin fibre reinforced concrete.

Keywords: fibre reinforced concrete, polypropylene, recycled, strength

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Authors: Laila Al-Balushi, Suad Al-Kharosui

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Due to the increasing number of breast cancer cases in Oman and the impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 on bed situation in the hospital, a policy of early discharge (ED) with drain after breast cancer surgery was initiated at one of the tertiary hospitals in Oman. The uniqueness of this policy is no home visit follow-up, conducted after discharge and the main mode of communication was Instagram media. This policy then was evaluated by conducting a quasi-experimental study using a questionnaire with ten open and closed-ended questions, five questions to explore patient experience using a five-point Likert scale. A total of 41 female patients responded to the questionnaire. Almost 96% of the participants stated being well informed about drain care pre- and post-surgery at home. 9% of the participants developed early sign of infection and was managed at out-patient clinics. Participants with bilateral drains expressed more pain than those with single drain. 90% stated satisfied being discharged with breast drain whereas 10% preferred to stay in the hospital until the drains were removed. This study found that the policy of ED with a drain after BC surgery is practical and well-accepted by most patients. The role of breast nurse and presence of family and institutional support enhanced the success of the policy implementation. To optimize patient care, conducting a training program by breast nurse for nurses at local health centres about care management of patients with drain could improve care and enhance patient satisfaction.

Keywords: breast cancer, surgery, early discharge, surgical drain

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Authors: Shinhao Yang, Hsiao-Chien Huang, Chin-Hsiang Luo

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The leakage of protective clothing is an important issue in the occupational health field. There is no quantitative method for measuring the leakage of personal protective equipment. This work aims to measure the quantitative leakage of the personal protective equipment by using the fluorochrome aerosol tracer. The fluorescent aerosols were employed as airborne particulates in a controlled chamber with ultraviolet (UV) light-detectable stickers. After an exposure-and-leakage test, the protective equipment was removed and photographed with UV-scanning to evaluate areas, color depth ratio, and aerosol deposition and shielding effects of the areas where fluorescent aerosols had adhered to the body through the protective equipment. Thus, this work built a calculation software for quantitative leakage ratio of protective clothing based on fluorescent illumination depth/aerosol concentration ratio, illumination/Fa ratio, aerosol deposition and shielding effects, and the leakage area ratio on the segmentation. The results indicated that the two-repetition total leakage rate of the X, Y, and Z type protective clothing for subject T were about 3.05, 4.21, and 3.52 (mg/m2). For five-repetition, the leakage rate of T were about 4.12, 4.52, and 5.11 (mg/m2).

Keywords: fluorochrome, deposition, shielding effects, digital image processing, leakage ratio, personal protective equipment

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Authors: Ioana Dallinger, Vincent P. Magnini

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Due to the many moving parts and high human component, mistakes and failures sometimes occur during transactions in service environments. Because a certain portion of such failures is unavoidable, many service providers constantly look for guidance regarding optimal ways by which they should manage failures and recoveries. Through the use of a scenario-based experiment, the findings of this study run counter to the empowerment approach (i.e. that frontline employees should be empowered to resolve failure situations on their own doing). Specifically, this study finds that customers’ perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice are significantly higher [p-values < .05] when a manager delivers an apology as opposed to the frontline provider. Moreover, customers’ satisfaction with the recovery and commitment to the firm are also significantly stronger [p-values < .05] when a manager apologizes. Interestingly, this study also empirically tests the effects of combined apologies of both the manager and employee and finds that the combined approach yields better results for customers’ interactional justice perceptions and for their satisfaction with recovery, but not for their distributive or procedural justice perceptions or consequent commitment to the firm. This study can serve a springboard for further research. For example, perceptions and attitudes regarding employee empowerment vary based upon country culture. Furthermore, there are likely a number of factors that can moderate the cause and effect relationship between a failure recovery and customers’ post-recovery perceptions [e.g. the severity of the failure].

Keywords: apology, empowerment, service failure recovery, service recovery

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Authors: Rahul Srivastava, Priti Pundir, Y. R. Sood, Rajnish Shrivastava

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For the interpretation of the signatures of sweep frequency response analysis(SFRA) of transformer different types of statistical techniques serves as an effective tool for doing either phase to phase comparison or sister unit comparison. In this paper with the discussion on SFRA several statistics techniques like cross correlation coefficient (CCF), root square error (RSQ), comparative standard deviation (CSD), Absolute difference, mean square error(MSE),Min-Max ratio(MM) are presented through several case studies. These methods require sample data size and spot frequencies of SFRA signatures that are being compared. The techniques used are based on power signal processing tools that can simplify result and limits can be created for the severity of the fault occurring in the transformer due to several short circuit forces or due to ageing. The advantages of using statistics techniques for analyzing of SFRA result are being indicated through several case studies and hence the results are obtained which determines the state of the transformer.

Keywords: absolute difference (DABS), cross correlation coefficient (CCF), mean square error (MSE), min-max ratio (MM-ratio), root square error (RSQ), standard deviation (CSD), sweep frequency response analysis (SFRA)

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Authors: Rania Mousa, Peterson Ozili

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A key agenda of policymakers in developed and developing countries is to increase the level of financial inclusion. Microlending institutions have been recognized as important agents of financial inclusion, which have the potential to achieve this objective and help move toward a more accessible, inclusive, and equitable path to financial sustainability. In that respect, this case study attempts to identify and assess the key initiatives undertaken by Grameen America as it responded to the COVID-19 pandemic within the framework of selected United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (UN’s SD Goals). This study goes beyond the stated objective by using the vulnerable group theory and special agent theory of financial inclusion to support the analysis of financial and non-financial information collected from Grameen America’s Annual Reports and audited financial statements. The study follows a qualitative content analysis method to precisely gauge the shift in Grameen’s strategy and focus, as well as to assess the impact of its initiatives on the small business community before and after the pandemic. The findings showcase that Grameen’s longstanding mission to alleviate poverty is in line with the UN’s Sustainability Development Goal 1. Furthermore, Grameen’s commitment to creating partnerships with external organizations to offer credit and non-credit services and support is consistent with UN’s Sustainability Development Goal 17. The study suggests that policymakers should foster the creation of more member-based financial and non-financial institutions which are ethically and morally responsible to their members in both good and bad times.

Keywords: COVID-19, financial inclusion, microfinance, sustainable development, microlending

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Authors: Stefan Wagenpfeil, Felix Engel, Paul McKevitt, Matthias Hemmje

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Multimedia Indexing and Retrieval is generally designed and implemented by employing feature graphs. These graphs typically contain a significant number of nodes and edges to reflect the level of detail in feature detection. A higher level of detail increases the effectiveness of the results but also leads to more complex graph structures. However, graph-traversal-based algorithms for similarity are quite inefficient and computation intensive, especially for large data structures. To deliver fast and effective retrieval, an efficient similarity algorithm, particularly for large graphs, is mandatory. Hence, in this paper, we define a graph-projection into a 2D space (Graph Code) as well as the corresponding algorithms for indexing and retrieval. We show that calculations in this space can be performed more efficiently than graph-traversals due to a simpler processing model and a high level of parallelization. In consequence, we prove that the effectiveness of retrieval also increases substantially, as Graph Codes facilitate more levels of detail in feature fusion. Thus, Graph Codes provide a significant increase in efficiency and effectiveness (especially for Multimedia indexing and retrieval) and can be applied to images, videos, audio, and text information.

Keywords: indexing, retrieval, multimedia, graph algorithm, graph code

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Authors: C. Benhamideche

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Fluoroaluminate glasses have been reported as the earliest heavy metal fluoride glasses. By comparison with flurozirconate glasses, they offer a set of similar optical features, but also some differences in their elastic and chemical properties. In practice they have been less developed because their stability against devitrification is smaller than that of the most stable fluoroziconates. The purpose of this study was to investigate glass formation in systems AlF3-YF3-PbF2-MgF2-MF2 (M= Li, Na, K). Synthesis was implemented at room atmosphere using the ammonium fluoride processing. After fining, the liquid was into a preheated brass mold, then annealed below the glass transition temperature for several hours. The samples were polished for optical measurements. Glass formation has been investigated in a systematic way, using pseudo ternary systems in order to allow parameters to vary at the same time. We have chosen the most stable glass compositions for the determination of the physical properties. These properties including characteristic temperatures, density and proprieties elastic. Glass stability increases in multicomponent glasses. Bulk samples have been prepared for physical characterization. These glasses have a potential interest for passive optical fibers because they are less sensitive to water attack than ZBLAN glass, mechanically stronger. It is expected they could have a larger damage threshold for laser power transmission.

Keywords: fluoride glass, aluminium fluoride, thermal properties, density, proprieties elastic

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Authors: Isaac Alonge Olusola

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One of the major peculiarities of man is the ability to communicate and interact with language. The original Yoruba society, before the advent of the Europeans, was purely oral. That is the major means of inter- personal communication was through speaking. The abolition of slave trade by Britain marked the beginning of development of Yoruba alphabet and introduction of writing around 1800. However, most of the writing was Christian religion-focused. Later, the introduction of British colonial rule led to the introduction of writing that dwelt on political and economic emancipation. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria was granted independence by the British colonial masters and self-rule started in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the military and civilian administrations brought about political and economic oppression instead of comfort. The discomfort brought about by Nigerian political and military rulers turned the Yoruba poets to activists, reactionaries and critics. This paper will give a brief preamble on the history of Nigeria and how she got her political independence from the British in 1960. It will thereafter go further to mention some political and economic hardship brought about by Nigerian leaders. Using literary theories called semiotics and structuralism, the reactions and criticisms of some Yoruba poets will be mentioned and analyzed vis-à-vis the counter reactions of the governments in power. Moreover, the paper will bring about a conclusion on how to create a conducive atmosphere for the Yoruba poets to operate in Nigeria. Finally, suggestions will be offered on how the Nigerian government and Yoruba poets can co-exist positively to bring about a better standard of living to Nigerians and also promote good governance

Keywords: Yoruba, Yoruba language, Yoruba poets, political leaders

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Authors: Aelina Franz

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In recent years, the scientific community has witnessed a paradigm shift in the exploration of unconventional levitation methods, particularly in the domain of spherical combat platforms. This paper explores aerodynamics and levitational dynamics inherent in these spheres by examining interactions at the quantum level. Our research unravels the nuanced aerodynamic phenomena governing the levitation of spherical combat platforms. Through an analysis of the quantum fluid dynamics surrounding these spheres, we reveal the crucial interactions between air resistance, surface irregularities, and the quantum fluctuations that influence their levitational behavior. Our findings challenge conventional understanding, providing a perspective on the aerodynamic forces at play during the levitation of spherical combat platforms. Furthermore, we propose design modifications and control strategies informed by both classical aerodynamics and quantum information processing principles. These advancements not only enhance the stability and maneuverability of the combat platforms but also open new avenues for exploration in the interdisciplinary realm of engineering and quantum information sciences. This paper aims to contribute to levitation technologies and their applications in the field of spherical combat platforms. We anticipate that our work will stimulate further research to create a deeper understanding of aerodynamics and quantum phenomena in unconventional levitation systems.

Keywords: spherical combat platforms, levitation technologies, aerodynamics, maneuverable platforms

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Authors: Raymond Li

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In this project a web-based classroom response system (CRS) was used in the teaching an intermediate level economics course. This system allows the instructor to post a question on the screen and students to answer questions using their own electronic mobile devices. The questions and the results summarizing student responses can be shown to students simultaneously and the instructor can make timely feedback to students in class. CRS gives students a chance to respond to the instructor’s question privately, encouraging students who might not typically speak up in class to express their thoughts and opinions. There is a vast literature on the advantages and challenges of using CRS. However, empirical evidence on the student attributes that increase the effectiveness of CRS in improving student learning outcomes is sparse. The purpose of this project is to (1) find out if the use of CRS is beneficial to students taking economics, and (2) discover key student attributes that will likely make CRS more effective. Students’ performance in examinations and an end-of-semester questionnaire were used to assess the effectiveness of CRS in this project. Comparing the examination scores of the CRS treatment group and control group, the treatment group performed considerably better and statistically significant differences were found basing on paired t-tests on the differences. According to the questionnaire results, around 75% of the students in the treatment group generally agreed that CRS allowed them to express their views more freely. We also observed that students who prefer to use instant messaging rather than making conversations are generally more positive towards CRS. The use of CRS also benefits the instructor – students’ rating of the instructor in the teaching evaluation was significantly higher for the CRS treatment group.

Keywords: education technology, classroom response system, student attributes, economics education

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Authors: Saba Atefyekta

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Aim: Control of bacterial bioburden in wounds is an important step for minimizing the risk of wound infection. An antimicrobial hydrogel wound dressing is developed out of soft polymeric hydrogels that contain antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Such wound dressings can bind and kill all types of bacteria, even the resistance types at the wound site. Methods: AMPs are permanently bonded onto a soft nanostructured polymer via covalent attachment and physical entanglement. This improves stability, rapid antibacterial activity, and, most importantly, prevents the leaching of AMPs. Major Findings: Antimicrobial analysis of antimicrobial hydrogels using in-vitro wound models confirmed >99% killing efficiency against multiple bacterial trains, including MRSA, MDR, E. Coli. Furthermore, the hydrogel retained its antibacterial activity for up to 4 days when exposed to human serum. Tests confirmed no release of AMPs, and it was proven non-toxic to mammalian cells. An in-vivo study on human intact skin showed a significant reduction of bacteria for part of the subject’s skin treated with antibacterial hydrogels. A similar result was detected through a qualitative study in veterinary trials on different types of surgery wounds in cats, dogs, and horses. Conclusions: Antimicrobial hydrogels wound dressings developed by permanent attachment of AMPs can effectively and rapidly kill bacteria in contact. Such antibacterial hydrogel wound dressings are non-toxic and do not release any substances into the wound.

Keywords: antibacterial wound dressing, antimicrobial peptides, post-surgical wounds, infection

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Authors: Shi-Yu Xu

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The top three risk factors that have contributed to building collapses during past earthquake events in Taiwan are: "irregular floor plans or elevations," "insufficient columns in single-bay buildings," and the "weak-story problem." Fortunately, these unsound structural characteristics can be directly identified from the floor plans. However, due to the vast number of old buildings, conducting manual inspections to identify these compromised structural features in all existing structures would be time-consuming and prone to human errors. This study aims to develop an algorithm that utilizes artificial intelligence techniques to automatically pinpoint the structural components within a building's floor plans. The obtained spatial information will be utilized to construct a digital structural model of the building. This information, particularly regarding the distribution of columns in the floor plan, can then be used to conduct preliminary seismic assessments of the building. The study employs various image processing and pattern recognition techniques to enhance detection efficiency and accuracy. The study enables a large-scale evaluation of structural vulnerability for numerous old buildings, providing ample time to arrange for structural retrofitting in those buildings that are at risk of significant damage or collapse during earthquakes.

Keywords: structural vulnerability detection, object recognition, seismic capacity assessment, old buildings, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Eileen K. Africa, Karel J. van Deventer

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Neuro-typical children develop the motor skills necessary to play, do schoolwork and interact with others. However, this is not observed in children who have learning or behavioural problems. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often referred to as clumsy because their body parts do not work well together in a sequence. Physical Activity (PA) has shown to be beneficial to the general population, therefore, providing children with ASD opportunities to take part in PA programmes, could prove to be beneficial in many ways and should be investigated. The purpose of this study was to design a specialised group intervention programme, to attempt to improve gross motor skills of selected children diagnosed with ASD between the ages of eight and 13 years. A government school for ASD learners was recruited to take part in this study, and a sample of convenience (N=7) was selected. Children in the experimental group (n=4) participated in a 12-week group intervention programme twice per week, while the control group continued with their normal daily routine. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children-Second Edition (MABC-2), was administered pre- and post-test to determine the children’s gross motor proficiency and to determine if the group intervention programme had an effect on the gross motor skills of the experimental group. Statistically significant improvements were observed in total motor skill proficiency (p < 0.05), of the experimental group. These results demonstrate the importance of gross motor skills interventions for children diagnosed with ASD. Future research should include more participants to ensure that the results can be generalised.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, children, gross motor skills, group intervention programme

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Authors: Hema Bhardwaj, D. Srinivasa Rao

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Technology for analysing, processing, and extracting meaningful data from enormous and complicated datasets can be termed as "big data." The technique of big data mining and big data analysis is extremely helpful for business movements such as making decisions, building organisational plans, researching the market efficiently, improving sales, etc., because typical management tools cannot handle such complicated datasets. Special computational and statistical issues, such as measurement errors, noise accumulation, spurious correlation, and storage and scalability limitations, are brought on by big data. These unique problems call for new computational and statistical paradigms. This research paper offers an overview of the literature on big data mining, its process, along with problems and difficulties, with a focus on the unique characteristics of big data. Organizations have several difficulties when undertaking data mining, which has an impact on their decision-making. Every day, terabytes of data are produced, yet only around 1% of that data is really analyzed. The idea of the mining and analysis of data and knowledge discovery techniques that have recently been created with practical application systems is presented in this study. This article's conclusion also includes a list of issues and difficulties for further research in the area. The report discusses the management's main big data and data mining challenges.

Keywords: big data, data mining, data analysis, knowledge discovery techniques, data mining challenges

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Authors: Carlos Vera, Tetyana Baydyk, Ernst Kussul, Graciela Velasco, Miguel Aparicio

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This article describes the Random Subspace Neural Classifier (RSC) for the recognition of meteors in the night sky. We used images of meteors entering the atmosphere at night between 8:00 p.m.-5: 00 a.m. The objective of this project is to classify meteor and star images (with stars as the image background). The monitoring of the sky and the classification of meteors are made for future applications by scientists. The image database was collected from different websites. We worked with RGB-type images with dimensions of 220x220 pixels stored in the BitMap Protocol (BMP) format. Subsequent window scanning and processing were carried out for each image. The scan window where the characteristics were extracted had the size of 20x20 pixels with a scanning step size of 10 pixels. Brightness, contrast and contour orientation histograms were used as inputs for the RSC. The RSC worked with two classes and classified into: 1) with meteors and 2) without meteors. Different tests were carried out by varying the number of training cycles and the number of images for training and recognition. The percentage error for the neural classifier was calculated. The results show a good RSC classifier response with 89% correct recognition. The results of these experiments are presented and discussed.

Keywords: contour orientation histogram, meteors, night sky, RSC neural classifier, stars

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Authors: Halil Ibrahim Demir, Caner Erden, Abdullah Hulusi Kokcam, Mumtaz Ipek

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Process planning, scheduling, and due date assignment are three important manufacturing functions which are studied independently in literature. There are hundreds of works on IPPS and SWDDA problems but a few works on IPPSDDA problem. Integrating these three functions is very crucial due to the high relationship between them. Since the scheduling problem is in the NP-Hard problem class without any integration, an integrated problem is even harder to solve. This study focuses on the integration of these functions. Sum of weighted tardiness, earliness, and due date related costs are used as a penalty function. Random search and hybrid metaheuristics are used to solve the integrated problem. Marginal improvement in random search is very high in the early iterations and reduces enormously in later iterations. At that point directed search contribute to marginal improvement more than random search. In this study, random and genetic search methods are combined to find better solutions. Results show that overall performance becomes better as the integration level increases.

Keywords: process planning, genetic algorithm, hybrid search, random search, weighted due-date assignment, weighted scheduling

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Authors: Dessie Tibebe, Muluken Asmare, Marye Mulugeta, Yezbie Kassa, Zerubabel Moges, Dereje Yenealem, Tarekegn Fentie, Agmas Amare

Abstract:

The performance of electrocoagulation (EC) using Aluminium electrodes for the treatment of effluent-containing chromium metal using a fixed bed electrochemical batch reactor was studied. In the present work, the efficiency evaluation of EC in removing physicochemical and heavy metals from real industrial tannery wastewater in the Amhara region, collected from Bahirdar, Debre Brihan, and Haik, was investigated. The treated and untreated samples were determined by AAS and ICP OES spectrophotometers. The results indicated that selected heavy metals were removed in all experiments with high removal percentages. The optimal results were obtained regarding both cost and electrocoagulation efficiency with initial pH = 3, initial concentration = 40 mg/L, electrolysis time = 30 min, current density = 40 mA/cm2, and temperature = 25oC favored metal removal. The maximum removal percentages of selected metals obtained were 84.42% for Haik, 92.64% for Bahir Dar and 94.90% for Debre Brihan. The sacrificial electrode and sludge were characterized by FT-IR, SEM and XRD. After treatment, some metals like chromium will be used again as a tanning agent in leather processing to promote a circular economy.

Keywords: electrochemical, treatment, aluminum, tannery effluent

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Authors: Mehrnoosh Ghadimi, Golnoush Ghadimi

Abstract:

Precise monitoring of glacier velocity is critical in determining glacier-related hazards. Zardkooh Mountain was studied in terms of glacial activity rate in Zagros Mountainous region in Iran. In this study, we assessed the ability of optical and radar imagery to derive glacier-surface velocities in mountainous terrain. We processed Landsat 8 for optical data and Sentinel-1a for radar data. We used methods that are commonly used to measure glacier surface movements, such as cross correlation of optical and radar satellite images, SAR tracking techniques, and multiple aperture InSAR (MAI). We also assessed time series glacier surface displacement using our modified method, Enhanced Small Baseline Subset (ESBAS). The ESBAS has been implemented in StaMPS software, with several aspects of the processing chain modified, including filtering prior to phase unwrapping, topographic correction within three-dimensional phase unwrapping, reducing atmospheric noise, and removing the ramp caused by ionosphere turbulence and/or orbit errors. Our findings indicate an average surface velocity rate of 32 mm/yr in the Zardkooh mountainous areas.

Keywords: active rock glaciers, landsat 8, sentinel-1a, zagros mountainous region

Procedia PDF Downloads 72