Search results for: emergency power supply

Authors: Adewale Oladapo, Carolyn A. Afolami

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Agricultural production should be the major financial contributor to the Nigerian economy; however, the petroleum sector had taken the importance attached to this sector. The situation tends to be more worsening unless necessary attention is given to adequate credit supply among food crop farmers. This research analyses the effect of credit use on the technical efficiency of cassava farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected from two hundred randomly selected cassava farmers through a multistage sampling procedure in the study area. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Findings revealed that 95.0% of the farmers were male while 56.0% had no formal education and were married. The SFA showed that cassava farmer’s efficiency increased with farm size, herbicide and planting material at 5%,10% and 1% respectively but decreased with fertilizer application at 1% level while farmers’ age, education, household size, experience and access to credit increased technical inefficiency at 10%. The study concluded that cassava farmers are technically inefficient in the use of farm resources and recommended that adequate and workable agricultural policy measures that will ensure availability and efficient fertilizer distribution should be put in place to increase efficiency. Furthermore, the government should encourage youth participation in cassava production and ensure improvement in farmer’s access to credit to increase farmer’s technical efficiency.

Keywords: agriculture, access to credit, cassava farmers, technical efficiency

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Authors: Pablo Cid Galache, Laura Zamorano Bonilla

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Mauriac syndrome (MS) is a rare complication of type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1). It is rela-ted to low insulin concentrations. Therefore is a complication mainly found in developing countries. The main clinical features are hepatomegaly, edema, growth and puberty delay, and the presence of elevated transaminases and serum lipids. The MS incidence is de-creasing due to the new types of insulin and intensive glycemic control. Therefore is a rare diagnosis in Europe nowadays, being described mainly in developing countries or with so-cioeconomic limitations to guarantee an adequate management of diabetes. Edema secondary to fluid retention is a rare complication of insulin treatment, especially in young patients. Its severity is variable and is mainly related to the start of a proper treatment and the improvement in glycemic control after diagnosis or after periods of poor metabolic control. Edema resolves spontaneously without requiring treatment in most cases. The Pediatric Endocrinology Unit of Hospital Motril could diagnose a 14-year-old girl who presented very poor metabolic control during the last 3 years as a consequence of the socioeconomic conditions of the country of origin during the last years. Presents up to 4 admissions for ketoacidosis during the last 12 months. After the family moved to Spain our patient began to be followed up in our Hospital. Initially presented glycated hemoglobin figures of 11%. One week after the start of treatment, the patient was admitted in the emergency room due to the appearance of generalized edema and pain in the limbs. The main laboratory abnormalities include: blood glucose 225mg/dl; HbA1C 10.8% triglycerides 543 mg/dl, total cholesterol 339 mg/dl (LDL 225) GOT 124 U/l, GPT 89U/l. Abdominal ultrasound shows mild hepatomegaly and no signs of ascites were shown. The patient presented a progressive improvement with resolution of the edema and analitical abnormalities during the next two weeks. During admission, the family received diabetes education, achieving adequate glycemic control at discharge. Nowadays the patient has a good glycemic control having glycated hemoglobin levels around 7%.

Keywords: Mauriac, diabetes, complication, developing countries

Procedia PDF Downloads 49

Authors: I.J. Kim, B.C. Kim, J.H. Kim, C.-Y. Yi

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Heat transfer in a graphite calorimeter is analyzed by using the finite elements method. The calorimeter is modeled in 3D geometry. Quasi-adiabatic mode operation is realized in the simulation and the temperature rise by different sources of the ionizing radiation and electric heaters is compared, directly. The temperature distribution caused by the electric power was much different from that by the ionizing radiation because of its point-like localized heating. However, the temperature rise which was finally read by sensing thermistors agreed well to each other within 0.02 %.

Keywords: graphite calorimeter, finite element analysis, heat transfer, quasi-adiabatic mode

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Authors: Jaber Nikpouri, Arsalan Amralizadeh

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In robotics manipulators, the trajectory should be optimum, thus the torque of the robot can be minimized in order to save power. This paper includes an optimal path planning scheme for a robotic manipulator. Recently, techniques based on metaheuristics of natural computing, mainly evolutionary algorithms (EA), have been successfully applied to a large number of robotic applications. In this paper, the improved BBO algorithm is used to minimize the objective function in the presence of different obstacles. The simulation represents that the proposed optimal path planning method has satisfactory performance.

Keywords: biogeography-based optimization, path planning, obstacle detection, robotic manipulator

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Authors: Fatemeh Karampour

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In the hot climate countries, especially those countries with great desert area, such as Iran, a considerable part of the energy is consumed due to cooling and air conditioning system in a hot season. So it is important to find a renewable energy supply for cooling systems. Although, there are few consistent researches in this field of renewable energy in compare with other fields. This research is presenting a study on performance of a night cooling radiator and working fluid storage for night time operation and day time resting periods. In these experiments, we didn’t expose any heating load but focused only on the possibility of system combination and its potential cooling effect. A very simple radiator has been designed in south of Iran, Shiraz, in order to perform this study. The radiator has been insulated with polystyrene foam and bubbled plastic sheets have been used as top cover. Using a single bubbled plastic sheet, the radiator temperature reached 0°C which is 20°C lower than minimum ambient temperature. Putting a small storage tank in the line increased the radiator’s minimum temperature at night; however, provided some cool fluid source for hot days of Shiraz that easily reaches 40°C. The results have shown very good cooling potential without heating load and acceptable temperature increasing during hot day with a small, short term storage tank. Future studies can make the system more effective and applicable.

Keywords: night cooling, experimental set up, cooling radiator, chill storage

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Authors: Lamiaa Shehata

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The current (COVID-19) pandemic is one of the international crises, and a lot of efforts have been directed toward the improvement of efficient vaccines, however vaccine hesitancy is one of the universal menaces that make the fulfillment of society immunity very hard. The World Health Organization acknowledges vaccine hesitancy as the society’s maximum risk to people's health protection, especially in little and moderate-revenue nations. Social media is strong in observing audience behaviors and evaluating the circulation, which would supply useful data for strategy makers. It has a significant function in spreading facts during the pandemic, it could assist to boost protective manners. The objective of this study is to determine the effects of social media exposure on vaccine hesitancy. Data were collected using a survey in a form of a structured questionnaire conducted during December 2021- January 2022 using convenient sampling techniques (680) in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between the high exposure to social media and the refusal of the Covid19 vaccine also, the percentage of the refusal of the vaccine is higher in Egypt, however, UAE forced people to take the vaccine. Furthermore, public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination vary from gender and region. In conclusion, policymakers must adjust their policies through the use of social media to immediate actions to vaccine-related news to support vaccination approval.

Keywords: COVID-19, hesitancy, social media, vaccine

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Authors: Mohammad A. N. M. Shafiqul Karim

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As a developing country, Bangladesh has to face numerous challenges. Self Independence in electricity, contributing to climate change by reducing carbon emission and bringing the backward population of society to the mainstream is more challenging for them. Therefore, it is essential to ensure recycled use of local products to the maximum level in every sector. Some private organizations have already worked alongside government to bring the backward population to the mainstream by developing their financial capacities. As rice husk is the largest single category of the total energy supply in Bangladesh. As part of this strategy, rice husk can play a great as a promising renewable energy source, which is readily available, has considerable environmental benefits and can produce electricity and ensure multiple uses of byproducts in construction technology. For the first time in Bangladesh, an experimental multidimensional project depending on Rice Husk Electricity and Rice Husk Ash (RHA) concrete brick/block under Green Eco-Tech Limited has already been started. Project analysis, opportunity, sustainability, the high monitoring component, limitations and finally evaluated data reflecting the viability of establishing more projects using rice husk are discussed in this paper. The by-product of rice husk from the production of green electricity, RHA, can be used for making, in particular, RHA concrete brick/block in Bangladeshi aspects is also discussed here.

Keywords: project analysis, rice husk, rice husk ash concrete brick/block, compressive strength of rice husk ash concrete brick/block

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Authors: Janusz Bobulski, Kamila Pasternak

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Despite many years of effort and research, the problem of waste management is still current. So far, no fully effective waste management system has been developed. Many programs and projects improve statistics on the percentage of waste recycled every year. In these efforts, it is worth using modern Computer Vision techniques supported by artificial intelligence. In the article, we present a method of identifying plastic waste based on the asymmetry analysis of the histogram of the image containing the waste. The method is simple but effective (94%), which allows it to be implemented on devices with low computing power, in particular on microcomputers. Such de-vices will be used both at home and in waste sorting plants.

Keywords: waste management, environmental protection, image processing, computer vision

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Authors: Kanwal Javid, Shazia Pervaiz, Maria Mumtaz, Muhammad Ameer Nawaz Akram

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Forests and grasslands ecosystems play an important role in the global carbon cycle. Land management activities influence both ecosystems and enable them to absorb and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). Similarly, in Pakistan, these terrestrial ecosystems are well known to mitigate carbon emissions and have a great source to supply a variety of services such as clean air and water, biodiversity, wood products, wildlife habitat, food, recreation and carbon sequestration. Carbon sequestration is the main agenda of developed and developing nations to reduce the impacts of global warming. But the amount of carbon storage within these ecosystems can be affected by many factors related to air quality such as land management, land-use change, deforestation, over grazing and natural calamities. Moreover, the long-term capacity of forests and grasslands to absorb and sequester CO2 depends on their health, productivity, resilience and ability to adapt to changing conditions. Thus, the main rationale of this study is to monitor the difference in carbon amount of forests and grasslands of Northern Pakistan using MODIS data sets and map results using Geographic Information System. Results of the study conclude that forests ecosystems are more effective in reducing the CO2 level and play a key role in improving the quality of air.

Keywords: carbon sequestration, grasslands, global warming, climate change.

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Authors: Palash Soni, Vivek Kumar Gaba, Shubhankar Bhowmick, Bidyut Mazumdar

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Refrigeration technology is a fast developing field at the present era since it has very wide application in both domestic and industrial areas. It started from the usage of simple ice coolers to store food stuffs to the present sophisticated cold storages along with other air conditioning system. A variety of techniques are used to bring down the temperature below the ambient. Adsorption refrigeration technology is a novel, advanced and promising technique developed in the past few decades. It gained attention due to its attractive property of exploiting unlimited natural sources like solar energy, geothermal energy or even waste heat recovery from plants or from the exhaust of locomotives to fulfill its energy need. This will reduce the exploitation of non-renewable resources and hence reduce pollution too. This work is aimed to develop a model for a solar adsorption refrigeration system and to simulate the same for different operating conditions. In this system, the mechanical compressor is replaced by a thermal compressor. The thermal compressor uses renewable energy such as solar energy and geothermal energy which makes it useful for those areas where electricity is not available. Refrigerants normally in use like chlorofluorocarbon/perfluorocarbon have harmful effects like ozone depletion and greenhouse warming. It is another advantage of adsorption systems that it can replace these refrigerants with less harmful natural refrigerants like water, methanol, ammonia, etc. Thus the double benefit of reduction in energy consumption and pollution can be achieved. A thermodynamic model was developed for the proposed adsorber, and a universal MATLAB code was used to simulate the model. Simulations were carried out for a different operating condition for the silicagel-methanol working pair. Various graphs are plotted between regeneration temperature, adsorption capacities, the coefficient of performance, desorption rate, specific cooling power, adsorption/desorption times and mass. The results proved that adsorption system could be installed successfully for refrigeration purpose as it has saving in terms of power and reduction in carbon emission even though the efficiency is comparatively less as compared to conventional systems. The model was tested for its compliance in a cold storage refrigeration with a cooling load of 12 TR.

Keywords: adsorption, refrigeration, renewable energy, silicagel-methanol

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Authors: N. S. S. Rao, Tapan Kumar Das, Latiful Pasha

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Tata Projects Limited (TPL) located in Hyderabad, India has taken up the challenging venture of executing the entire civil works for India’s largest Blast Furnace with a capacity of 4554 cum at Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), Angul, Odisha, India. The following write-up briefly elaborates the various steps and methodologies involved in the construction of the foundation for this India’s largest blast furnace.

Keywords: blast furnace, construction, qualitative, approach

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Authors: Agoubi Belgacem, Adel Kharroubi

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Geothermal groundwater is the main water source to supply various sectors in El Hamma city, southeastern Tunisia. This region was long the destination of thousands of people from Tunisia and neighboring countries for care and bathing. The main objective of this study is to understand the groundwater mineralization origins and factors that control. The second goal is the appraisal of radon in geothermal groundwater in the study area. For this aim, geothermal groundwater was sampled and collected from different locations (thermal baths and deep wells). Physical parameters were measured and major ions were analyzed. Results reveal three water types. The water first type has Na-Mg-Ca-SO4-Cl facies and T>55°C. The second water type dominated by Na-Ca-Cl-SO4 facies with a temperature < 45 °C. However the third water type is dominated by Ca-SO4-Na-Cl-Mg. The three water types may be controlled by depth and geology. The first represent groundwater from deep aquifer (lower cretaceous), the second type was the shallow aquifer and the first is mixed water from deep and shallow water with a temperature ranging from 45 to 55°C. Measured Radon shows that shallow aquifer has a higher 222Rn concentration (677 to 2903 Bq.m-3) than deep water (203 to 1100 Bq.m-3). R-222 in El Hamma thermal aquifer was controlled by structures, porosity and permeability of aquifers. Geostatistical analyses of hydrogeological data and radon activities confirm the vertical flow and communication between deep and shallow aquifers through vertical faults system.

Keywords: Radon-222, geothermal, water, environment, Tunisia

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Authors: U. Schmidt, D. Dannehl, I. Schuch, J. Suhl, T. Rocksch, R. Salazar-Moreno, E. Fitz-Rodrigues, A. Rojano Aquilar, I. Lopez Cruz, G. Navas Gomez, R. A. Abraham, L. C. Irineo, N. G. Gilberto

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The integration of agricultural production systems into urban areas is a challenge for the coming decades. Because of increasing greenhouse gas emission and rising resource consumption as well as costs in animal husbandry, the dietary habits of people in the 21st century have to focus on herbal foods. Intensive plant cultivation systems in large cities and megacities require a smart coupling of information, material and energy flow with the urban infrastructure in terms of Horticulture 4.0. In recent years, many puzzle pieces have been developed for these closed processes at the Humboldt University. To compile these for an urban plant production, it has to be optimized and networked with urban infrastructure systems. In the field of heat energy production, it was shown that with closed greenhouse technology and patented heat exchange and storage technology energy can be provided for heating and domestic hot water supply in the city. Closed water circuits can be drastically reducing the water requirements of plant production in urban areas. Ion sensitive sensors and new disinfection methods can help keep circulating nutrient solutions in the system for a longer time in urban plant production greenhouses.

Keywords: semi closed, greenhouses, urban farming, solar heat collector, closed water cycles, aquaponics

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Authors: Sangita Bharati

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Violence against women is now well recognised as a public health problem and human rights violation of worldwide significance. It is an important risk factor for women's ill health, with far reaching consequences for both their physical and mental health. Gender based violence takes many forms and results in physical, sexual and psychological harm to the women throughout their lives. Gender based violence often manifests unequal power relation between men and women in society and the secondary status of the women because of which women have to suffer a range of health problems in silence. This paper will aim at describing a few problems related to women’s health which are directly linked to their experience as victims of gender based violence.

Keywords: violence, health, women, society

Procedia PDF Downloads 476

Authors: Arowosafe Folusade Catherine, Arowosafe Olubunmi, Aina Samson

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In many countries, tourism has been portrayed as a contributor to small-scale enterprises, contributing to improved standards of living, a catalyst for community development, and poverty alleviation. This study assessed the willingness of the host communities to provide homestay accommodation and also identified the homestay facilities available to host visitors to the community. A random sampling method was used to administer 150 copies of the questionnaire to the residents in Idanre. Data collected were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, and results were presented using frequency and percentage tables. Results: Findings revealed that the majority of the residents were above 60 years (47.3%), with 33% of them aware of the concept of homestay accommodation, and 32% had primary education. The majority were self-employed (43.3%), earning less than ₦30,000 per month; it also revealed that 80.7% of the residents owned at least one house and had adequate water supply facility (100%) and electricity (99.3%). Some constraints observed revealed that safety for the host family (mean 4.81) was ranked high as a possible deterrent to providing homestay accommodation to strangers. Results revealed a correlation between the resident’s awareness and willingness to provide homestay accommodation services (r.0.05, p<0.05). This study recommends that sensitization programs to create awareness of the potential benefits of homestay accommodation in the host communities of Idanre Hills should be carried out by the relevant stakeholders.

Keywords: accommodation, benefits, homestay, Idanre Hills

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Authors: Nemanja Kajtez, Yue Zhan, Basel Halak

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The significant rise in the cost of manufacturing of nanoscale integrated circuits (IC) has led the majority of IC design companies to outsource the fabrication of their products to other companies, often located in different countries. This multinational nature of the hardware supply chain has led to a host of security threats, including IP piracy, IC overproduction, and Trojan insertion. To combat that, researchers have proposed logic locking techniques to protect the intellectual properties of the design and increase the difficulty of malicious modification of its functionality. However, the adoption of logic locking approaches is rather slow due to the lack of the integration with IC production process and the lack of efficacy of existing algorithms. This work automates the logic locking process by developing software using Python that performs the locking on a gate-level netlist and can be integrated with the existing digital synthesis tools. Analysis of the latest logic locking algorithms has demonstrated that the SFLL-HD algorithm is one of the most secure and versatile in trading-off levels of protection against different types of attacks and was thus selected for implementation. The presented tool can also be expanded to incorporate the latest locking mechanisms to keep up with the fast-paced development in this field. The paper also presents a case study to demonstrate the functionality of the tool and how it could be used to explore the design space and compare different locking solutions. The source code of this tool is available freely from (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353195333_Source_Code_for_The_Lockit_Tool).

Keywords: design automation, hardware security, IP piracy, logic locking

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Authors: Aïssa Rezzoug

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This paper is aimed to bring new elements that demonstrate the tide caused the groundwater to rise in the shoreline band, on which the urban areas occurs, especially in the western coastal cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia like Jeddah. The reason for the last events of Jeddah inundation was the groundwater rise in the city coupled at the same time to a strong precipitation event. This paper will illustrate the tide participation in increasing the groundwater level significantly. It shows that the reason for internal groundwater recharge within the urban area is not only the excess of the water supply coming from surrounding areas, due to the human activity, with lack of sufficient and efficient sewage system, but also due to tide effect. The research study follows a quantitative method to assess groundwater level rise risks through many in-situ measurements and mathematical modelling. The proposed approach highlights groundwater level, in the urban areas of the city on the shoreline band, reaching the high tide level without considering any input from precipitation. Despite the small tide in the Red Sea compared to other oceanic coasts, the groundwater level is considerably enhanced by the tide from the seaside and by the freshwater table from the landside of the city. In these conditions, the groundwater level becomes high in the city and prevents the soil to evacuate quickly enough the surface flow caused by the storm event, as it was observed in the last historical flood catastrophe of Jeddah in 2009.

Keywords: flood, groundwater rise, Jeddah, tide

Procedia PDF Downloads 110

Authors: Adi Levy

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Military and security personnel defections during nonviolent resistance (NVR) campaigns are recognized as an effective way of undermining the regime’s power, but they also may generate moral dilemmas that contradict the moral standing of NVR tactics. NVR campaigns have been primarily praised for their adherence to moral and legal norms, yet some of NVR tactics raise serious ethical concerns. This paper focuses on NVR tactics that seek to promote defections and disobedience within military and security personnel to sustain their campaign. Academic literature regarding NVR tactics indicates that compared to violent forms of resistance, defections are more likely to occur when security forces confront nonviolent activists. Indeed, defections play a strategically fundamental role in nonviolent campaigns, particularly against authoritarian regimes, as it enables activists to undermine the regime’s central pillars of support. This study examines the events of the Arab Spring and discusses the ethical problems that arise in nonviolent activists’ promotion of defections and disobedience. The cases of Syria and Egypt suggest that the strategic promotion of defections and disobedience was significantly effective in sustaining the campaign. Yet, while such defections enhance nonviolent activists’ resilience, how they are promoted can be morally contentious and the consequences can be dire. Defections are encouraged by social, moral and emotional appeals that use the power disparities between unarmed civilians and powerful regimes to affect soldiers and security personnel’s process of decision-making. In what is commonly referred to as dilemma action, nonviolent activists deliberately entangle security forces in a moral dilemma that compels them to follow a moral code to protect unarmed civilians. In this way, activists sustain their struggle and even gain protection. Nonviolent activists are likely to be completely defeated when confronted with armed forces. Therefore they rely on the military and security personnel’s moral conscious of convincing them to refrain from using force against them. While this is effective, it also leaves soldiers and security forces exposed to the implications and punishments that might follow their disobedience or defection. As long as they remain nonviolent, activists enjoy civilian immunity despite using morally contentious tactics. But the severe implications brought upon defectors. As a result, demand a deep examination of this tactic’s moral permissibility and a discussion that assesses culpability for the moral implications of its application.

Keywords: culpability, defections, nonviolence, permissibility

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Authors: Minaj Ranjita Singh, Meghna Mukherjee, Abhijeet Jadhav

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This is an exploratory qualitative study with an objective to understand the bathing practices followed by rural women and its consequences. Access to safe bathing spaces in rural India is a neglected issue due to which women are affected in various ways. Today, government policies are largely focused towards the building of toilets, but no importance has been given to the construction of bathrooms. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected using in-depth interviews and focused group discussions with rural women in six villages of Odisha, India. The study was approved by an Institutional Research and Ethics Committee, and informed consent was taken from participants. For most of the participants, the access to water, bathing space and toilet was compromised posing various challenges in their daily lives. Women's daily schedule, hygiene practices, dignity, and health are greatly affected due to this lack. Since bathing in the open has been an ancient practice, the community's perception is benign towards the hardship of women. Lack of exposure to concealed bathing, necessary funds, and competing priorities are some of the household level factors which never let them think about having bathrooms and the lack of water supply, proper drainage system, subsidy or financial support are the governance and policy related factors which prevent their access to secured bathing spaces.

Keywords: bathrooms, dignity, exploratory, rural, qualitative, women's health, women

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Authors: E. Montesinos-Pedro, L. G. Toscano-Flores, N. Domínguez-Ramírez

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Water scarcity is a worldwide issue, coupled with climate change is a relevant problem, that affect not only large cities, but also rural areas. The Municipality of Santiago Tilantongo belongs to the district of Nochixtlán Oaxaca, it’s built up from 14 communities, one of them San Martin de las Palmas. This community was founded in 1900, at that time the inhabitants were supplied with water through rivers of the region which were abundant (they used containers filled in the river for that purpose); However, over the years the level of the rivers began to drop and in 1994 specific wells were located to store water and at the same time make it drinkable, this whit support of the state of Oaxaca and the program Procampo. By the year 2000 the shortage of water in the supply sources was notorious, the community requested support from the Oaxaca State government to solve the problem. The government’s response consisted in the implementation of ferro-cement tanks (2005) and water wells (2010), both for rainwater collection, Hower, it was not enough. Now days the community has a population of 60 inhabitants who have resisted and adapted to water scarcity, not only with the programs implemented by the government, but they also have implemented important structural analysis strategies. The objective of this research is to know the adaptation strategies used by the community to analyze them and propose improvements for water conservation and mitigation of this scarcity.

Keywords: adaptation, climate change, mitigation, resiliencia

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Authors: Akhil Raj Pushparajan, Ranjit Ramachandran, Jijimole Gopi Reji, Ajay Kumar Ramakrishnan

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Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is one of the leading causes of death by an infectious disease. In spite of the availability of effective drugs and a vaccine, TB is a major health concern and was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). The success of intracellular pathogens like Mtb depends on its ability to overcome the challenging environment in the host. Gene regulation controlled by transcriptional regulators (TRs) plays a crucial role for the bacteria to adapt to the host environment. In vitro studies on gene regulatory mechanisms during dormancy and reactivation have provided insights into the adaptations employed by Mtb to survive in the host. Here we present our efforts to functionally characterize Rv1019, a putative TR of Mtb H37Rv which was found to be present at significantly varying levels during dormancy and reactivation in vitro. The expression of this protein in the dormancy-reactivation model was validated by qRT-PCR and western blot. By DNA- protein interaction studies and reporter assays we found that under normal laboratory conditions of growth this protein behaves as an auto-repressor and tetracycline was found to abrogate this repression by interfering with its ability to bind DNA. Further, by cDNA analysis, we found that this TR is co-transcribed with its downstream genes Rv1020 (mfd) and Rv1021 (mazG) which are involved in DNA damage response in Mtb. Constitutive expression of this regulator in the surrogate host M. smegmatis showed downregulation of the orthologues of downstream genes suggested that Rv1019 could negatively regulate these genes. Our finds also show that M. smegmatis expressing Rv1019 is sensitive to DNA damage suggests the role of this protein in regulating DNA damage response induced by oxidative stress. Because of its role in regulating DNA damage response which may help in the persistence of Mtb, Rv1019 could be used as a prospective target for therapeutic intervention to fight TB.

Keywords: auto-repressor, DNA repair, mycobacterium smegmatis, mycobacterium tuberculosis, tuberculosis

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Authors: Mirjana Dragas, Marli Gonan Bozac, Morena Paulisic

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a balance between strategic and financial goals of companies, as well as social needs. The integration of competitive strategy and CSR in food and beverage industry has allowed companies to find new sources of competitive advantage. The paper discusses the fact that socially responsible companies encourage co-operation with socially responsible suppliers in order to strengthen market competitiveness. In addition to the descriptive interpretation of the results obtained by a questionnaire, factor analysis was used, while principal components analysis was applied as a factor extraction method. The research results based on two multiple regression analyses show that: (1) selecting the CSR supplier explains a statistically significant part of the variance of the results on the scale of financial aspects of competitiveness (as much as 44.7% of the explained variance); and (2) selecting the CSR supplier is a significant predictor of non-financial aspects of competitiveness (explains 43.9% of the variance of the results on the scale of non-financial aspects of competitiveness). A successful competitive strategy must ultimately support the growth strategy. This implies an analytical approach to finding factors that influence competitiveness through socially sustainable solutions and satisfactory top management decisions.

Keywords: competitiveness, corporate social responsibility, food and beverage industry, supply chain decision making

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Authors: Elizabeth Spink

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Providing safe and affordable drinking water to low-income households in developing countries remains a challenge. Policy goals of increasing household piped-water access and cost recovery for utility providers are often at odds. Nonpayment of utility bills is frequently cited as a constraint to improving the quality of utility service. However, nonpayment is widely tolerated, and households often accumulate significant debt to the utility provider. This study examines the effect of enforcement of water bill payment through supply disconnections in Livingstone, Zambia. This research uses a dynamic model of household monthly payments and accumulation of arrears, which determine the probability of disconnection, and simulates the effect of exogenous changes in enforcement levels. This model is empirically tested using an event-study framework of exogenous increases in enforcement capacity that occur during administrative rezoning events, which reduce the number of households that one enforcement agent is responsible for. The results show that households are five percentage points more likely to make a payment in the months following a rezoning event, but disconnections for low-income households increase as well, resulting in little change in revenue collected by the water utility. The results suggest that high enforcement of water bill payments toward credit-constrained households may be ineffective and lead to reduced piped-water access.

Keywords: enforcement, nonpayment, piped-water access, water utilities

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Authors: Ruilin Zhu, Katarzyna Olcoń, Rose M. Pulliam, Dorie J. Gilbert

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Cultural humility is increasingly important in social work literature, given its emphasis on mitigating power imbalances in helping relationships, particularly across cultural differences. Consequently, there is a need to understand whether and how cultural humility can be taught in social work education. Relying on ethnographic observations and reflective journals from a cultural immersion program, this study identified the learning process required to develop cultural humility: confusion and discomfort, re-moulding, and humility in action.

Keywords: social work education, cultural humility, transformative learning theory, study abroad, ethnographic observations

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Hayder H. Kareem, Ayad K. Hussein, Aseel A. Alkatib

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Groundwater accumulated at geological formations constitutes a worldwide vital water resource component which can be used to supply agriculture, industry, and domestic uses. The subsurface environment is affected by human activities; consequently, planning and sustainable management of aquifers require serious attention, especially as the world is exposed to the problem of global warming. Establishing accurate and efficient groundwater models will provide confident results for the behavior of the aquifer's system. The new approach, 'Distributed Value Property Zones,' available in Visual MODFLOW, is used to reconstruct the subsurface zones of the Al-Najaf region aquifer, and then its effect is compared with those manual and automated (PEST) approaches. Results show that the model has become more accurate with the use of the new approach, as the calibration and results analyses revealed. The assessment of the Al-Najaf region groundwater aquifer has revealed a degree of insufficiency of the required pumping demand, which reflects dry areas in both of the aquifer's layers. In addition, with pumping, the Euphrates River loses water of 7458 m³/day to the aquifer, while without pumping, it gains 28837 m³/day from the rainfall's recharge. The distributed value property zones approach achieves a precise groundwater model to assess the state of the Al-Najaf region aquifer.

Keywords: Al-Najaf region, distributed value property zones approach, hydraulic conductivity, groundwater modelling using visual MODFLOW

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Authors: Olufunmilola A. Abiodun, Adegbola O. Dauda, Ayobami Ojo, Samson A. Oyeyinka

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Blighia sapida (Ackee) seed is a neglected and under-utilised crop. The fruit is cultivated for the aril which is used as meat substitute in soup while the seed is discarded. The seed is toxic due to the presence of hypoglycin which causes vomiting and death. The seed is shining black and bigger than the legume seeds. The seed contains high starch content which could serve as a cheap source of starch hereby reducing wastage of the crop during its season. Native starch had limitation in their use; therefore, modification of starch had been reported to improve the functional properties of starches. Therefore, this work determined the effect of modification on the properties of Blighia sapida seed starch. Blighia sapida seed was dehulled manually, milled and the starch extracted using standard method. The starch was subjected to modification using four methods (acid, alkaline, oxidized and acetylated methods). The morphological structure, form factor, granule size, amylose, swelling power, hypoglycin and pasting properties of the starches were determined. The structure of Blighia sapida using light microscope showed that the seed starch demonstrated an oval, round, elliptical, dome-shaped and also irregular shape. The form factors of the starch ranged from 0.32-0.64. Blighia sapida seed starches were smaller in granule sizes ranging from 2-6 µm. Acid modified starch had the highest amylose content (24.83%) and was significantly different ( < 0.05) from other starches. Blighia sapida seed starches showed a progressive increase in swelling power as temperature increased in native, acidified, alkalized, oxidized and acetylated starches but reduced with increasing temperature in pregelatinized starch. Hypoglycin A ranged from 3.89 to 5.74 mg/100 g with pregelatinized starch having the lowest value and alkalized starch having the highest value. Hypoglycin B ranged from 7.17 to 8.47 mg/100 g. Alkali-treated starch had higher peak viscosity (3973 cP) which was not significantly different (p > 0.05) from the native starch. Alkali-treated starch also was significantly different (p > 0.05) from other starches in holding strength value while acetylated starch had higher breakdown viscosity (1161.50 cP). Native starch was significantly different (p > 0.05) from other starches in final and setback viscosities. Properties of Blighia sapida modified starches showed that it could be used as a source of starch in food and other non-food industries and the toxic compound found in the starch was very low when compared to lethal dosage.

Keywords: Blighia sapida seed, modification, starch, hypoglycin

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Authors: Fatma Al Abdullah, Shahad Al Ameer, Ritaj Jaragh, Fatimah Khajah, Rawan Qambar, Amr Nounou

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Kuwait currently manufactures its tankers in foreign countries. Oil tankers play a role in the supply chain of the oil industry. Therefore, with Kuwait’s sufficient financial resources, the country should secure itself strategically in order to protect its oil industry to sustain economic development. The purpose of this report is designing an oil tankers’ shipyard facility. Basing the shipyard facility in Kuwait will have great economic rewards. The shipbuilding industry directly enhances the industrial chain in terms of new job and business opportunities as well as educational fields. Heavy Engineering Industries & Shipbuilding Co. K.S.C. (HEISCO) was chosen as a host due to benefits that will result from HEISCO’s existing infrastructure and expertise to reduce cost. The Facility Design methodology chosen has been used because it covers all aspects needed for the report. The oil tanker market is witnessing a shift from crude tankers to product tankers. Therefore the Panamax tanker (product tanker) was selected to be manufactured in the facility. The different departments needed in shipyards were identified based on studying different global shipyards. Technologies needed to build ships helped in the process design. It was noticed that ships are engineer to order. The new layout development of the proposed shipyard is currently in progress. A feasibility study will be conducted to ensure the success of the facility after developing the shipyard’s layout.

Keywords: oil tankers, shipbuilding, shipyard, facility design, Kuwait

Procedia PDF Downloads 460

Authors: Rickard Grassman

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In this paper, Lacanian theory will be used to illustrate the way discourses interact with the material by way of reifying antagonisms to shape our sense of identities in and around organizations. The ability to ‘sustain the loss’ is, in this view, the common structure here discerned in the very texture of a discourse, which reifies ‘lack’ as an ontological condition into something contingently absent (loss) that the subject hopes to overcome (desire). These fundamental human tendencies of identification are illustrated in the paper by examples drawn from history, cinema, and literature. Turning to a select sample of empirical accounts from a management consultancy firm, it is argued that this ‘sustaining the loss’ operates in discourse to enact identification in an organizational context.

Keywords: Lacan, identification, discourse, desire, loss

Procedia PDF Downloads 90

Authors: Aleksandra Tomic

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According to reliable sources, 4% of all websites is devoted to pornographic material, yet these estimates are often reported to be much higher. The largest internet pornography streaming website reports 21.2 billion visits in 2015 only. Considering the ubiquity of online pornography and the frequency of use, it is necessary to examine its potential influence on the construal of the sexual act and the roles of participants. Apart from the verbal and physical interactions in the pornographic movies themselves, the language in the titles of movies has the power to frame the sexual intercourse. In this study, Critical Discourse Analysis and corpus linguistics approaches will be used to examine the way the sexual intercourse and the roles of the participants are ideologically construed and perpetuated in the Internet pornography discourse. To this end, the study will explore the association between the specific morphosyntactic aspects of the references to performers of both genders, the person and the thematic role, and the gender of referred performer in the corpus of online pornographic movie titles. Distinctive collexeme analysis will be conducted to uncover possible associations between for gender of the performer denoted by the linguistic expression, and the person and thematic role assigned to it in the titles of online pornography movies. Initial results of the chi-square procedure performed on a sample of 295 online pornography movie titles on the largest pornography streaming website ‘Pornhub’ yielded significant results. The use of the three person categories was not equally distributed between genders, X2 (2, N = 106) = 32.52, p < 0.001, with female performers being referred to in the third person in 71.7% of the instances, and speaking in the first person 20.8% of the time, whereas male performers spoke in the first person 68% of the time, and were referred to in the third person in 17% of the instances. Moreover, there was a gender disparity in the assignment of thematic roles, with linguistic expressions for women being assigned the Patient role and men the Agent role in 58.8% of the cases, whereas the roles were reversed in 41.2% of the instances, X2 (1, N = 262) = 8.07633, p < 0.005. The results are discussed in terms of the ideologies surrounding female and male sexuality in the pornography discourse. Potential patterns of power imbalance, objectification, and discrimination are highlighted. Finally, the evidence from psycholinguistic studies on the influence of the language structure on event construal is related to the results of the study.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, gender studies, pornography, thematic roles

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Authors: Sareh Rajabi, Salwa Bheiry

Abstract:

In general, Covid-19 created many financial and non-financial damages to the economy and community. Level and severity of covid-19 as pandemic case varies over the region and due to different types of the projects. Covid-19 virus emerged as one of the most imperative risk management factors word-wide recently. Therefore, as part of portfolio management assessment, it is essential to evaluate severity of such risk on the project and program in portfolio management level to avoid any risky portfolio. Covid-19 appeared very effectively in South America, part of Europe and Middle East. Such pandemic infection affected the whole universe, due to lock down, interruption in supply chain management, health and safety requirements, transportations and commercial impacts. Therefore, this research proposes Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze and assess such pandemic case like Covid-19 and its impacts on the construction projects. The AHP technique uses four sub-criteria: Health and safety, commercial risk, completion risk and contractual risk to evaluate the project and program. The result will provide the decision makers with information which project has higher or lower risk in case of Covid-19 and pandemic scenario. Therefore, the decision makers can have most feasible solution based on effective weighted criteria for project selection within their portfolio to match with the organization’s strategies.

Keywords: portfolio management, risk management, COVID-19, analytical hierarchy process technique

Procedia PDF Downloads 106