Search results for: traditional culture

Authors: Akshay Paranjape, Nils Plettenberg, Robert Schmitt

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Traditional optimization methods like evolutionary algorithms are widely used in production processes to find an optimal or near-optimal solution of control parameters based on the simulated environment space of a process. These algorithms are computationally intensive and therefore do not provide the opportunity for real-time optimization. This paper utilizes the Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) framework to find an optimal or near-optimal solution for control parameters. A model based on maximum a posteriori policy optimization (Hybrid-MPO) that can handle both numerical and categorical parameters is used as a benchmark for comparison. A comparative study shows that DRL can find optimal solutions of similar quality as compared to evolutionary algorithms while requiring significantly less time making them preferable for real-time optimization. The results are confirmed in a large-scale validation study on datasets from production and other fields. A trained XGBoost model is used as a surrogate for process simulation. Finally, multiple ways to improve the model are discussed.

Keywords: reinforcement learning, evolutionary algorithms, production process optimization, real-time optimization, hybrid-MPO

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Authors: Ondrej Lufinka, Jan Kaderabek, Juraj Prstek, Jiri Skala, Kamil Kosturik

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This paper deals with the problem of using Autonomous Robotic Platforms (ARP) for the ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) testing in automotive. There are different possibilities of the testing already in development, and lately, the autonomous robotic platforms are beginning to be used more and more widely. Autonomous Robotic Platform discussed in this paper explores the hardware and software design possibilities related to the field of embedded systems. The paper focuses on its chapters on the introduction of the problem in general; then, it describes the proposed prototype concept and its principles from the embedded HW and SW point of view. It talks about the key features that can be used for the innovation of these platforms (e.g., modularity, omnidirectional movement, common and non-traditional sensors used for localization, synchronization of more platforms and cars together, or safety mechanisms). In the end, the future possible development of the project is discussed as well.

Keywords: advanced driver assistance systems, ADAS, autonomous robotic platform, embedded systems, hardware, localization, modularity, multiple robots synchronization, omnidirectional movement, safety mechanisms, software

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Authors: Elizelle Juanee Cilliers

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Recent planning thinking has laid the foundations for a general sense of best practice that aims to enhance the quality of life, suggesting an open and participatory process. It is accepted that integration of top-down and bottom-up approaches may lead to efficient action in environments and sustainable planning and development, although it is also accepted that such an integrated approach has various challenges of implementation. A flexible framework in which the strengths of both the top-down and bottom-up approaches were explored in this research, based on the EU Interreg VALUE Added project and five case studies where student education and student involvement played a crucial role within the participation process of the redesign of the urban environment. It was found that international student workshops were an effective tool to integrate bottom-up and top-down structures, as it acted as catalyst for communication, interaction, creative design, quick transformation from planning to implementation, building social cohesion, finding mutual ground between stakeholders and thus enhancing overall quality of life and quality of environments. It offered a good alternative to traditional participation modes and created a platform for an integrative planning approach. The role and importance of education and integration within the urban environment were emphasized.

Keywords: top-down, bottom-up, flexible, student involvement

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Authors: Deniz Alca

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This research aims to study the themes of autonomy, democracy and the legitimacy of power under the headline of Arab Spring. After the first wave of Arab Spring, among the frequently mentioned ideals of self-recognition, awakening, democracy, autonomy, freedom etc. main concern of the border neighbors and the western governments was to see a “legitimate power.” Although the metaphor of spring was still pointing at emancipation, the principal focus was mostly not on the people but on the governments. So the question of what makes a government legitimate has come to the forefront. However, democracy and freedom, seems to be the main subject matters of the discussions, this rush about establishment of “legitimate governments” lead other countries, to indulge or worse endorse armed oppositionists. So essence of “power” changed from legitimate to rulership. It seems that the civil initiative or autonomy and clearly democracy are still far away from us. The need to a savior is overpowering. This cultural and traditional and almost hereditary miss orientation of the people, both the ones who are playing the role of god and the ones who believed the inevitable need to be freed by someone else, seems to be leading the Arabs to a new autocracy or worse. Middle East is waiting for the ex machina to operate. But what it gets is a spreading warfare. This darkness falling down on Middle East under the concept of spring may be explained by the confrontation of the concepts of emancipation and liberation. So the question is, if the era of emancipation really over or is there still a chance for autonomy and grassroots democracy operating as constituent power?

Keywords: autonomy, awakening, civil initiative, democracy, emancipation, legitimacy, liberation

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Authors: Tien Wei Daniel Hwang

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The computer program inventors, particularly in Fintech, are unwilling to apply for patents in Taiwan after 2014. Passing the ‘statutory subject matter eligibility’ test and becoming the system patent are not the only cause to the reduction in the number of application. Taiwanese court needs to resolve whether the defendants had ‘used’ that software patent in patent direct infringement suit. Both 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) and article 58 paragraph 2 of Taiwan Patent Law don’t define the meaning of ‘use’ in the statutes. Centillion Data Sys., LLC v. Qwest Commc’ns Int’l, Inc. reconsidered the meaning of ‘use’ in system patent infringement, and held that ‘a party must put the invention into service, i.e., control the system as a whole and obtain benefit from it.’ In Taiwan, Intellectual Property Office, Ministry of Economic Affairs, has explained that ‘using’ the patent is ‘achieving the technical effect of the patent.’ Nonetheless, this definition is too broad to apply to not only the software patent but also the traditional patent. To supply the friendly environment for Fintech corporations, this article aims to let Taiwanese court realize why and how United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division and United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit defined the meaning of ‘use’ in 35 U.S.C. § 271(a). However, this definition is so lax and confuses many defendants in United States. Accordingly, this article indicates the elements in Taiwan Patent Law are different with 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), so Taiwanese court can follow the interpretation of ‘use’ in Centillion Data case without the same obstacle.

Keywords: direct infringement, FinTech, software patent, use

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Authors: Rebecca Oakes

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In the New Zealand public health system, work has been taking place to use electronic systems to convey data from the ‘floor to the board’ that makes patient needs, and therefore nursing work, visible. For nurses, these developments in health information technology puts us in a very new and exciting position of being able to articulate the work of nursing through a language understood at all levels of an organisation, the language of acuity. Nurses increasingly have a considerable stake-hold in patient acuity data. Patient acuity systems, when used well, can assist greatly in demonstrating how much work is required, the type of work, and when it will be required. The New Zealand Safe Staffing Unit is supporting New Zealand nurses to create a culture of shared governance, where nursing data is informing policies, staffing methodologies and forecasting within their organisations. Assisting organisations to understand their acuity data, strengthening user confidence in using electronic patient acuity systems, and ensuring nursing and midwifery workload is accurately reflected is critical to the success of the safe staffing programme. Nurses and midwives have the capacity via an acuity tool to become key informers of organisational planning. Quality patient care, best use of health resources and a quality work environment are essential components of a safe, resilient and well resourced organisation. Nurses are the key informers of this information. In New Zealand a national level approach is paving the way for significant changes to the understanding and use of patient acuity and nursing workload information.

Keywords: nursing workload, patient acuity, safe staffing, New Zealand

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Authors: Wesam El Bana

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The current research aimed at designing a training program for improving specific muscular strength through using the especial strength and identifying its effects on the performance level skills of hockey players. The researcher used the quasi-experimental approach (two – group design) with pre- and post-measurements. Sample: (n= 35) was purposefully chosen from sharkia sports club. Five hockey player were excluded due to their non-punctuality. The rest were divided into two equal groups (experimental and control). The researcher concluded the following: The traditional training program had a positive effect on improving the physical variables under investigation as it led to increasing the improvement percentages of the physical variables and the performance level skills of the control group between the pre- and post-measurement. The recommended training program had a positive effect on improving the physical variables under investigation as it led to increasing the improvement percentages of the physical variable and the performance level skills of the experimental group between the pre- and post-measurements. Exercises using the especial strength training had a positive effect on the post-measurement of the experimental group.

Keywords: hockey, especial strength, performance skills

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Authors: N. Varsamis, M. Gerasimou, P. Christodoulou, S. Mantzoukis, G. Kolliopoulou, N. Zotos

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Purpose: Body fluids (pleural, peritoneal, synovial, pericardial, cerebrospinal) are an important element in the detection of microorganisms. For this reason, it is important to examine them in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients. Material and Method: Body fluids are transported through sterile containers and enriched as soon as possible with Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB). After one day of incubation, the broth is poured into selective media: Blood, Mac Conkey No. 2, Chocolate, Mueller Hinton, Chapman and Saboureaud agar. The above selective media are incubated directly for 2 days. After this period, if any number of microbial colonies are detected, gram staining is performed. After that, the isolated organisms are identified by biochemical techniques in the automated Microscan system (Siemens) and followed by a sensitivity test on the same system using the minimum inhibitory concentration MIC technique. The sensitivity test is verified by Kirby Bauer-based plate test. Results: In 2017 the Laboratory of Microbiology received 60 samples of body fluids from the ICU. More specifically the Microbiology Department received 6 peritoneal fluid specimens, 18 pleural fluid specimens and 36 cerebrospinal fluid specimens. 36 positive cultures were tested. S. epidermidis was identified in 18 specimens, S. haemolyticus in 6, and E. faecium in 12. Conclusions: The results show low detection of microorganisms in body fluid cultures.

Keywords: body fluids, culture, intensive care unit, microorganisms

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Authors: Trevor Kroeger, Hayden Williams, Edward Holzinger, David Coleman, Brian Haberman

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The network connectivity of medical devices is increasing at a rapid rate. Many medical devices, such as vital sign monitors, share information via wireless or wired connections. However, these connectivity options suffer from a variety of well-known limitations. Wireless connectivity, especially in the unlicensed radio frequency bands, can be disrupted. Such disruption could be due to benign reasons, such as a crowded spectrum, or to malicious intent. While wired connections are less susceptible to interference, they inhibit the mobility of the medical devices, which could be critical in a variety of scenarios. This work explores the application of Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) communication to enhance the security, performance, and mobility of medical devices in connected healthcare scenarios. A simple bridge for connected devices serves as an avenue to connect traditional medical devices to the Li-Fi network. This bridge was utilized to conduct bandwidth tests on a small Li-Fi network installed into a Mock-ICU setting with a backend enterprise network similar to that of a hospital. Mobile and stationary tests were conducted to replicate various different situations that might occur within a hospital setting. Results show that in room Li-Fi connectivity provides reasonable bandwidth and latency within a hospital like setting.

Keywords: hospital, light fidelity, Li-Fi, medical devices, security

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Authors: Elvan Ender Altay, Zeynep Pirselimoglu Batman, Murat Zencirkiran

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Ancient cities are, according to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), landscape areas designed and created by people, at the same time naturally developing and constantly changing sustainable cultural landscapes. Ancient cities are the urban settlements where we can see the reflection of public lifestyle existed thousands of years ago. The conceptual and spatial traces in ancient cities, are crucial for examining the city history and its preservation. This study is intended to demonstrate the impacts of human life and physical environment on the cultural landscape. This research aims to protect and maintain cultural continuity of the ancient cities in Bursa which contain archeological and historical elements and could not majorly reach to the day because of not being protected and to show importance of landscape architecture to ensure this protection. In this context, ancient cities in Bursa were researched and a total of 7 ancient cities were identified. These ancient cities are; Apollonia, Lopadion, Nicaea, Myrleia, Cius, Daskyleion and Basilinopolis. In the next stage, the spatial performances of ancient cities were assessed by weighted criteria method. The highest score is the Nicaea Ancient City. Considering current situation of the ancient cities in Bursa, it is seen that most of them could not survive until our day due to lack of interest in these areas. As a result, according to the findings, it is a priority to create a protective band with green areas around the archaeological sites, thus adapting to nearby areas and emphasizing culture. In addition, proposals have been made to provide a transportation network that does not harm the ancient cities and the cultural landscape.

Keywords: ancient cities, Bursa, landscape, spatial performance

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Authors: Sara Rankohi, Lloyd Waugh

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Construction sites are information saturated. Digitalization is hitting construction sites to meet the incredible demand of knowledge sharing and information documentations. From flying drones, 3D Lasers scanners, pocket mobile applications, to augmented reality glasses and smart helmet, visualization technologies help real-time information imposed straight onto construction professional’s field of vision. Although these technologies are very applicable and can have the direct impact on project cost and productivity, experience shows that only a minority of construction professionals quickly adapt themselves to benefit from them in practice. The majority of construction managers still tend to apply traditional construction management methods. This paper investigates a) current applications of visualization technologies in construction projects management, b) the direct effect of these technologies on productivity improvement and cost saving of a multi-residential building project via a case study on Mac Taggart Senior Care project located in Edmonton, Alberta. The research shows the imaged based technologies have a direct impact on improving project productivity and cost savings.

Keywords: image-based technologies, project management, cost, productivity improvement

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Authors: Melody Mandevere, Roselyn Cheruiyot

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Through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), organizations contribute to a stable environment that leads to a predictable climate for investment and trade. Organizations are now deviating from traditional CSR, where it was believed that the only responsibility of an organization is to meet its shareholder's needs. Organizations and society now believe that an organization has many stakeholders that it must satisfy for it to be viable. The function of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is not profit making but providing service and accomplishing public policy objectives. SOEs demand consideration in the current economic climate because they represent an important part of the economies of many countries. Given the importance and complex relationship of the stakeholders in SOE, the paper seeks to examine how full name first Zimra is implementing its CSR activities. SOE managers are responsible for CSR implementation and stakeholder engagement. ZIMRA is one of the parastatals that plays a crucial role in the Zimbabwean economy. It is, therefore, important to understand how Zimra is implementing CSR. Qualitative research was used for the research. Interviews were contacted with Zimra managers to understand how they are implementing CSR. Although Zimra managers understand the CSR concept, the organization does not have a CSR strategy that includes their stakeholders, which may have a negative impact on stakeholder perception and the organization's reputation. The funding of the CSR strategy is also not sustainable.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, managers, stakeholders, state-owned enterprises

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Authors: Bernhard Widhalm, Cornelia Rieder-Gradinger, Ewald Srebotnik

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Pine wood (Pinus sylvestris L.) is the basic raw material for the production of Oriented Strand Boards (OSB) and the major source of volatile organic compounds, especially terpenes (like α- and β-pinene). To lower the total emission level of OSB, terpene metabolising microorganisms were therefore applied onto pine wood strands for the production of emission-reduced boards. Suitable microorganisms were identified during preliminary tests under laboratory conditions. At first, their terpene degrading potential was investigated in liquid culture, followed by laboratory tests using unsterile pine wood particles and strands. The main focus was laid on an adoptable terpene reduction in a short incubation time. An optimised bacterial mixture of Pseudomonas putida and Pseudomonas fluorescens showed the best results and was therefore used for further experiments on a larger scale. In an industry-compatible testing procedure, pine wood strands were incubated with the bacterial mixture for a period of 2 to 4 days. Incubation time was stopped by drying the strands. OSB were then manufactured from the pre-treated strands and emissions were measured by means of SPME/GC-MS analysis. Bacterial pre-treatment of strands resulted in a reduction of α-pinene- and β-pinene-emissions from OSB by 40% and 70%, respectively, even after only 2 days of incubation. The results of the investigation provide a basis for the application of microbial treatment within the industrial OSB production line, where shortest possible incubation times are required. For this purpose, the performance of the bacterial mixture will have to be further optimised.

Keywords: GC-MS, OSB, Pseudomonas sp., terpene degradation

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Authors: Abdullahi Ibrahim

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The culture of Clarias gariepinus for fish production is becoming increasingly essential as the fish is contributing to the food abundance and nutritional benefit to family health, income generation, and employment opportunities. The effect of feeding frequency was investigated over a period of ten (10) weeks; the experiment was conducted to monitor survival rates, growth performance, and feeding behavior of juvenile catfish. The experimental fish were randomly assigned to five treatment groups; (i.e., with different feeding frequency intervals) of 100 fish each. Each treatment was replicated twice with 50 fish per replicate. All the groups were fed with floating fish feed (blue crown®). The five treatments (feeding frequency) were T1- once a day feeding of night hours only, T2- twice a day feeding time of morning and night hours, T3- trice a day feeding time of morning, evening and night hours, T-4 four times a day feeding of morning, afternoon, evening, and night hours, T-5 five times a day feeding at four hours interval. There were significant differences (p > 0.05) among treatments. Feed intake and weight gain improved significantly (p < 0.05) in T-4 and T-3. The best of the feeding time on weight gain, survival rate, and feed conversion ratio were obtained at three times a day feeding (T-3) compared to other treatments, especially those fed once and five times feeding a regiment. This might be attributed to the high level of dissolve oxygen and less stress. Feeding fish three times a day is therefore recommended for efficient catfish production to maximize profits as the feed represents more than 50% of aquaculture inputs, particularly in intensive farming systems.

Keywords: catfish, floating fish feed, dissolve oxygen, juvenile

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Authors: Aniket Ganvir, Ritarani Sahu, Suchismita Chinara

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The rapid digitization of various aspects of life is leading to the creation of smart IoT ecosystems, where interconnected devices generate significant amounts of valuable data. However, these IoT devices face constraints such as limited computational resources and bandwidth. Cloud computing emerges as a solution by offering ample resources for offloading tasks efficiently despite introducing latency issues, especially for time-sensitive applications like fog computing. Fog computing (FC) addresses latency concerns by bringing computation and storage closer to the network edge, minimizing data travel distance, and enhancing efficiency. Offloading tasks to fog nodes or the cloud can conserve energy and extend IoT device lifespan. The offloading process is intricate, with tasks categorized as full or partial, and its optimization presents an NP-hard problem. Traditional greedy search methods struggle to address the complexity of task offloading efficiently. To overcome this, the efficient crow search algorithm (ECSA) has been proposed as a meta-heuristic optimization algorithm. ECSA aims to effectively optimize computation offloading, providing solutions to this challenging problem.

Keywords: IoT, fog computing, task offloading, efficient crow search algorithm

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Authors: Guo Yan

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Clothing recycling bin is a traditional way to collect textile waste in many areas. In the clothing recycling business, the transportation cost normally takes over 50% of total costs. This case gives a good way to reduce transportation cost by reverse logistics system. In this reverse logistics system, there are offline strategic alliance partners, such as transport firms, convenience stores, laundries, and post office which are integrated onto the mobile APP. Offline strategic alliance partners provide the service of textile waste collection, and transportation by their vacant vehicles return journey from convenience stores, laundries and post offices to sorting centers. The results of the case study provide the strategic alliance with a valuable and light - asset business model by using the logistics of offline memberships. The company in this case just focuses on textile waste sorting, reuse, recycling etc. The research method of this paper is a case study of a clothing recycling company in Chengdu by field research and interview; the analysis is based on the theory of the reverse logistics system.

Keywords: closed-loop recycles system, clothing recycling, end-of-life clothing, sharing economy, strategic alliance, reverse logistics.

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Authors: Tong He, Long Chen, Irag Mantegh, Wen-Fang Xie

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This paper proposes an image-based obstacle avoidance and tracking target identification strategy in GPS-degraded or GPS-denied environment for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The traditional force algorithm for obstacle avoidance could produce local minima area, in which UAV cannot get away obstacle effectively. In order to eliminate it, an artificial potential approach based on harmonic potential is proposed to guide the UAV to avoid the obstacle by using the vision system. And image-based visual servoing scheme (IBVS) has been adopted to implement the proposed obstacle avoidance approach. In IBVS, the pixel accuracy is a key factor to realize the obstacle avoidance. In this paper, the deep reinforcement learning framework has been applied by reducing pixel errors through constant interaction between the environment and the agent. In addition, the combination of OpenTLD and Tensorflow based on neural network is used to identify the type of tracking target. Numerical simulation in Matlab and ROS GAZEBO show the satisfactory result in target identification and obstacle avoidance.

Keywords: image-based visual servoing, obstacle avoidance, tracking target identification, deep reinforcement learning, artificial potential approach, neural network

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Authors: Isabel Cristina Ortiz Trujillo, Lina Maria Martinez Sanchez, Felipe Hernández Restrepo, Daniel Gallego Gonzalez, Natalia Vargas Grisales, Camilo Andrés Agudelo Vélez

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Chorioamnionitis, is a pregnancy infection, causes different fetal and maternal symptoms. Streptococcus agalactiae present in the normal vaginal microflora of some women, favouring its abnormal multiplication during pregnancy, causing perinatal morbidity and mortality. Objective. Describe the clinical and epidemiological profile of the patients with diagnosis of clinical chorioanmionitis. Methodology. Descriptive, cross-sectional study. The population was patients with diagnosis of clinical chorioanmionitis. The information was taken from the medical records. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee. We used the program SPSS ® version 17.0 (SPSS Inc; Chicago, Illinois, USA) for the information analysis, descriptive statistics were used. Results. 78 patients in total with clinical chorioamnionitis, with a mean age of 26.3 ±5, 8 years old, the 69.2% primigravid women. 2.6% of women had positive culture for Streptococcus agalactiae in urine sample during current pregnancy and 30.7% had received some kind of antibiotics during current pregnancy. The 57.7% had 37 to 40 weeks of gestation in the current pregnancy it was calculated more frequently by ultrasound (66.7% in first quarter, 11.5% in the second and 1.9% in the third). In a 60.3% way of termination of pregnancy was vaginal and a 35.9 percent were caesarean section. Among the women in the study, a 30.8% had premature rupture of membranes. Conclusion. The chorioamnionitis continues to be an important cause of antibiotic use during pregnancy or labour and the decision to do a caesarean, with highest percentage in pregnancies-preterm and preterm premature rupture of membranes.

Keywords: chorioamnionitis, Streptococcus agalactiae, pregnancy complications, infectious

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Authors: Fatima U. Maigari, Musa Halilu, M. Maryam Umar, Rabiu Zainab

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Plants as therapeutic agents are used as drug in many parts of the world. Medicinal plants are mostly used in developing countries due to culture acceptability, belief or due to lack of easy access to primary health care services. Jatropha curcas is a plant from the Euphorbiaceae family which is widely used in Northern Nigeria as an anti-diarrheal agent. This study was conducted to determine the anti-diarrheal effect of the leaf extract on castor oil induced diarrhea in albino rats. The leaves of J. curcas were collected from Balanga Local government in Gombe State, north-eastern Nigeria; due to its bioavailability. The leaves were air-dried at room temperature and ground to powder. Phytochemical screening was done and different concentrations of the extract was prepared and administered to the different categories of experimental animals. From the results, aqueous leaf extract of Jatropha curcas at doses of 200mg/Kg and 400mg/Kg was found to reduce the mean stool score as compared to control rats, however, maximum reduction was achieved with the standard drug of Loperamide (5mg/Kg). Treatment of diarrhea with 200mg/Kg of the extract did not produce any significant decrease in stool fluid content but was found to be significant in those rats that were treated with 400mg/Kg of the extract at 2hours (0.05±0.02) and 4hours (0.01±0.01). A significant reduction of diarrhea in the experimental animals signifies it to possess some anti-diarrheal activity.

Keywords: anti-diarrhea, diarrhea, Jatropha curcas, loperamide

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Authors: Junjie Zhong, Kai Hong, Lei Wang

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Passage Retrieval (PR) plays an important role in many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. Traditional efficient retrieval models relying on exact term-matching, such as TF-IDF or BM25, have nowadays been exceeded by pre-trained language models which match by semantics. Though they gain effectiveness, deep language models often require large memory as well as time cost. To tackle the trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness in PR, this paper proposes Graph Passage Retriever (GraphPR), a graph-based model inspired by the development of graph learning techniques. Different from existing works, GraphPR is end-to-end and integrates both term-matching information and semantics. GraphPR constructs a passage-level graph from BM25 retrieval results and trains a GCN-like model on the graph with graph-based objectives. Passages were regarded as nodes in the constructed graph and were embedded in dense vectors. PR can then be implemented using embeddings and a fast vector-similarity search. Experiments on a variety of real-world retrieval datasets show that the proposed model outperforms related models in several evaluation metrics (e.g., mean reciprocal rank, accuracy, F1-scores) while maintaining a relatively low query latency and memory usage.

Keywords: efficiency, effectiveness, graph learning, language model, passage retrieval, term-matching model

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Authors: Lavina N. Bhaskar, Ashima Tiwari

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In the endeavour of connecting culture to stories, textile to narratives and people to material, authors analyse the impact of narratives in two popular Indian textiles namely - Mata Ni Pachedi and Pabuji Ki Phad. These textiles narrate people’s tale or Folk tale. Each textile has a style or format in which the story is told (and it is visual). Mata Ni Pachedi, when translated into the English language literally means behind the mother goddess. Mata Ni Pachedi is an Indian textile from the province of Gujarat which constitutes an entire temple of the goddess, with the idol herself in it. On the other hand, Pabuji ki Phad is scroll painting of folk deities of Rajasthan, narrated by Bhopas (the Priest singers of Rajasthan). These textiles narrate stories of ordinary people with extraordinary courage, of social reform, and people’s belief in the divine. Authors take to task their years of craft-cluster study conducted in the past and use existing literature to map their journey in the preliminary phase of research. And then carried out an ethnographic study by visiting the origins of these textiles in Rajasthan and Gujrat (in India), met artisans and their families who are still practicing these dying art form, in order to understand the format and impact of textile story-telling. This research paper talks about the narrative in Indian textiles; the stories in them, artisans and their life as metaphorical representations of the People in Mata Ni Pachedi and Pabuji Ki Phad.

Keywords: cultural derivatives, folk-tale, Indo-Narratives, Indology

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Authors: Han Longxiang

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In the process of treating industrial oily wastewater with complex components, the traditional treatment methods (flotation, coagulation, microwave heating, etc.) often produce high operating costs, secondary pollution, and other problems. In order to solve these problems, the materials with high flux and stability applied to surfactant-stabilized emulsions separation have gained huge attention in the treatment of oily wastewater. Nevertheless, four stable oil-in-water emulsions can be formed due to different surfactants (surfactant-free, anionic surfactant, cationic surfactant, and non-ionic surfactant), and the previous advanced materials can only separate one or several of them, cannot effectively separate in one step. Herein, a facile synthesis method of graphene-based multilevel filter materials (GMFM) which can efficiently separate the oil-in-water emulsions stabilized with different surfactants only through its gravity. The prepared materials with high stability of 20 cycles show a high flux of ~ 5000 L m-2 h-1 with a high separation efficiency of > 99.9 %. GMFM can effectively separate the emulsion stabilized by mixed surfactants and oily wastewater from factories. The results indicate that the GMFM have a wide range of applications in oil-in-water emulsions separation in industry and environmental science.

Keywords: emulsion, filtration, graphene, one-step

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Authors: Nermin A. Morsy, Amany N. Beshay

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The tourism industry has seen considerable transformations due to the emergency of e-commerce. For instance, airlines are increasingly dependent on achieving online sales instead of their traditional platform. Online travel agencies’ (OTAs) websites have been able to reach a broader range of customers and generate more revenue. Therefore, website quality plays an important role in attaining website effectiveness. It is now considered as a critical factor in attracting customers' attention and build loyalty. Customers are more likely to visit and purchase at websites that exhibit highly desirable qualities. A user-friendly website can help tourists find their target information easily and make decisions quickly. This research focuses on analyzing the impact of airline and OTAs’ websites quality on the actual customer usage and purchase intentions. An online survey was distributed among internet users to assess the various dimensions of website quality in the context of online booking and their effect on customer’s usage and purchase intentions. The data from the survey was analyzed statistically using correlation, t-tests and other statistical tests. Results revealed the direct impact of website quality on customer usage and purchase intentions.

Keywords: airlines, OTAs, purchasing intention, website quality

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Authors: Alireza Taghdiri, Sara Ghanbarzade Ghomi

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With the gravity load reduction in the structural and non-structural components, the lightweight construction will be achieved as well as the improvement of efficiency and functional specifications. The advantages of lightweight construction can be examined in two levels. The first is the mass reduction of load bearing structure which results in increasing internal useful space and the other one is the mass reduction of building which decreases the effects of seismic load as a result. In order to achieve this goal, the essential building materials specifications and also optimum load bearing geometry of structural systems and elements have to be considered, so lightweight materials selection particularly with lightweight aggregate for building components will be the first step of lightweight construction. In the next step, in addition to selecting the prominent samples of Iran's traditional architecture, the process of these works improvement is analyzed through the viewpoints of structural efficiency and lightweighting and also the practical methods of lightweight construction have been extracted. The optimum design of load bearing geometry of structural system has to be considered not only in the structural system elements, but also in their composition and the selection of dimensions, proportions, forms and optimum orientations, can lead to get a maximum materials efficiency for loads and stresses bearing.

Keywords: gravity load, light-weighting structural system, load bearing geometry, seismic behavior

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Authors: Menelaos N. Katsantonis, Athanasios Manikas, Alexandros Chatzis, Stavros Doropoulos, Anastasios Avramis, Ioannis Mavridis

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Museums enhance their potential by adopting new technologies and techniques to appeal to more visitors and engage them in creative and joyful activities. In this study, the Haptic Cycle is presented, a cycle of museum activities proposed for the development of museum learning approaches with optimized effectiveness and engagement. Haptic Cycle envisages the improvement of the museum’s services by offering a wide range of activities. Haptic Cycle activities make the museum’s exhibitions more approachable by bringing them closer to the visitors. Visitors can interact with the museum’s artifacts and explore them haptically and sonically. Haptic Cycle proposes constructivist learning activities in which visitors actively construct their knowledge by exploring the artifacts, experimenting with them and realizing their importance. Based on the Haptic Cycle, we developed the HapticSOUND system, an innovative virtual reality system that includes an advanced user interface that employs gesture-based technology. HapticSOUND’s interface utilizes the leap motion gesture recognition controller and a 3D-printed traditional Cretan lute, utilized by visitors to perform various activities such as exploring the lute and playing notes and songs.

Keywords: haptic cycle, HapticSOUND, museum learning, gesture-based, leap motion

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Authors: A. Ashraff

Abstract:

The increasing importance of the web as a medium for electronic and business transactions has served as a catalyst or rather a driving force for the introduction and implementation of recommender systems. Recommender Systems play a major role in processing and analyzing thousands of data rows or reviews and help humans make a purchase decision of a product or service. It also has the ability to predict whether a particular user would rate a product or service based on the user’s profile behavioral pattern. At present, Recommender Systems are being used extensively in every domain known to us. They are said to be ubiquitous. However, in the field of recruitment, it’s not being utilized exclusively. Recent statistics show an increase in staff turnover, which has negatively impacted the organization as well as the employee. The reasons being company culture, working flexibility (work from home opportunity), no learning advancements, and pay scale. Further investigations revealed that there are lacking guidance or support, which helps a job seeker find the company that will suit him best, and though there’s information available about companies, job seekers can’t read all the reviews by themselves and get an analytical decision. In this paper, we propose an approach to study the available review data on IT companies (score their reviews based on user review sentiments) and gather information on job seekers, which includes their Psychometric evaluations. Then presents the job seeker with useful information or rather outputs on which company is most suitable for the job seeker. The theoretical approach, Algorithmic approach and the importance of such a system will be discussed in this paper.

Keywords: psychometric tests, recommender systems, sentiment analysis, hybrid recommender systems

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Authors: Mohammed Muzafar, Darshan Ruikar

Abstract:

BIM, an acronym for Building Information Modelling relates to the practice of creating a computer generated model which is capable of displaying the planning, design, construction and operation of a structure. The resulting simulation is a data-rich, object-oriented, intelligent and parametric digital representation of the facility, from which views and data, appropriate to various users needs can be extracted and analysed to generate information that can be used to make decisions and to improve the process of delivering the facility. BIM also refers to a shift in culture that will influence the way the built environment and infrastructure operates and how it is delivered. One of the main issues of concern in the construction industry at present in the UK is its record on Health & Safety (H&S). It is, therefore, important that new technologies such as BIM are developed to help improve the quality of health and safety. Historically the H&S record of the construction industry in the UK is relatively poor as compared to the manufacturing industries. BIM and the digital environment it operates within now allow us to use design and construction data in a more intelligent way. It allows data generated by the design process to be re-purposed and contribute to improving efficiencies in other areas of a project. This evolutionary step in design is not only creating exciting opportunities for the designers themselves but it is also creating opportunity for every stakeholder in any given project. From designers, engineers, contractors through to H&S managers, BIM is accelerating a cultural change. The paper introduces the concept behind a research project that mitigates the H&S risks associated with the construction, operation and maintenance of assets through the adoption of BIM.

Keywords: building information modeling, BIM levels, health, safety, integration

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Authors: Osama Elgadi, Martin Birkett, Wai Ming Cheung

Abstract:

This paper investigates the barriers behind the underutilisation of six sigma in Libyan manufacturing companies (LMCs). A mixed-method methodology is proposed, starting by conducting interviews to collect qualitative data followed by the development of a questionnaire to obtain quantitative data. The focus of this paper is on discussing the findings of the interview stage and how these can be used to further develop the questionnaire stage. The interview results showed that only four key barriers were highlighted as being encountered by LMCs. With a difference in terms of their significance, these factors were identified, and placed in descending order according to their importance, namely: “Lack of top management commitment”, “Lack of training”, “Lack of knowledge about six sigma”, and “Culture effect”. The findings also showed that some barriers which, were found in previous studies of six sigma implementation were not considered as barriers to LMCs but can, in fact, be considered as success factors or enablers for six sigma adoption. These factors were identified as: “sufficiency of time and financial resources”; “customers unsatisfied”; “good communication between all departments in the company”; “we are certain about its results and benefits to our company and unhappy with the current quality system”. These results suggest that LMCs face fewer barriers to adopting six sigma than many well-established global companies operating in other countries and could take advantage of these successful factors by developing and implementing a six sigma framework to improve their product quality and competitiveness.

Keywords: six sigma, barriers, Libyan manufacturing companies, interview

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Authors: Harsimran Kaur Chadha, Preeti Onkar

Abstract:

Tourism has grown into one of the world’s largest industries in the last two decades all over the world. It is an important sector of Indian economy as it contributes substantially to the foreign exchange earnings of the country. The tourism policies of India aim to position tourism as a major engine of economic growth. These policies work towards utilizing tourism’s direct and multiplier effect on employment and poverty eradication in a sustainable manner. India is blessed with a great ancient and living civilization that gave rise to four of the world’s great religions and philosophies. Diverse religions, castes, languages, culture of India build a tremendous potential for religious tourism in India. Religious Tourism facilitates development of basic infrastructural facilities, generates income for the local community as well as the government, balances regional development, and fosters peace and socio-cultural harmony. However, tourism development needs to be regulated to prevent the negative impacts. The main challenge towards Sustainable Tourism development is to balance limits and usage of natural resources. The uncontrollable growth of tourism should not lead to resource degradation. Since tourism growth is inevitable, the challenge is to manage it sustainably within environmental, social and economic constraints. This paper tries to explore both the benefits and costs of Religious Tourism Development, using the example of Simhasth Kumbh Mahaparv at Ujjain. Finally it concludes by putting forth the notion that heavy investments for temporary infrastructure development incurred during these large spiritual gatherings need to be sustainable in the long run.

Keywords: challenges, religious, sustainable, tourism

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Authors: Ali Misaghi, Afshin Akhondzadeh Basti, Ehsan Sadeghi

Abstract:

Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogen of major concern for clinical infection and food borne illness. Humans and most domesticated animals harbor S. aureus, and so we may expect staphylococci to be present in food products of animal origin or in those handled directly by humans, unless heat processing is applied to destroy them. Cuminum cyminum L. has been allocated the topic of some recent studies in addition to its well-documented traditional usage for treatment of toothache, dyspepsia, diarrhea, epilepsy and jaundice. The air-dried seed of the plant was completely immersed in water and subjected to hydro distillation for 3 h, using a clevenger-type apparatus. In this study, the effect of Cuminum cyminum L. essential oil (EO) on growth of Staphylococcus aureus in white brined cheese was evaluated. The experiment included different levels of EO (0, 7.5, 15 and 30 mL/ 100 mL milk) to assess their effects on S. aureus count during the manufacture, ripening and storage of Iranian white brined cheese for up to 75 days. The significant (P < 0.05) inhibitory effects of EO (even at its lowest concentration) on this organism were observed. The significant (P < 0.05) inhibitory effect of the EO on S. aureus shown in this study may improve the scope of the EO function in the food industry.

Keywords: cuminum cyminum L. essential oil, staphylococcus aureus, white brined cheese

Procedia PDF Downloads 391